Episode 31 | Masterclass Where Should You Promote Your Offer with Sophia Noreen and Laura

Laura Hargrave: 0:00

Welcome everyone here at Boss It. We would love to hear from you. Join us in our Boss It community by heading over to our website, bossitclub.com and join our mailing list. As we grow, we will be launching our community of fellow Boss It BFFs, and we want you to be a part of it. Okay, Sophia Noreen, let's dig into this. I can't wait to tell them all about how we got here.

Sophia Noreen: 0:25

Welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I took an Etsy startup, and launched it in big box retailers within 12 months. As a creative with an entrepreneurial drive, I left my full time career in healthcare to find better harmony between career, family and self care. We believe you can have it all. Yes, you can launch and run a successful scalable business while maintaining harmony in all aspects of your life. We believe we can learn from each other and draw on many experiences to create the best life possible. During each episode, we will share proven life hacks that will keep you on top and striving every day. There should be no hesitation. Make a plan. Take action. We are here for you. Hello everyone, welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen, and I am going to be one of your hosts for today. The episode today is a Masterclass, which we offered to our students in our community, the Boston community. and It's me and Laura hosting this Masterclass, and it's all about where you should do your promotions. Now the reason we decided to do this particular masterclass was because we had many students ask us on where do we promote? We know we have to promote, but where are we going to promote? So what I want you guys to do is if you are not driving or not doing something else while listening to this episode, go ahead and click the link in the show notes and it's going to offer you an opportunity to download the workbook that's associated with this podcast recording. What you can do is you can make notes and strategically plan out where you're going to do your promotion for any of your offers, service or product based. We specifically touched on the ideal customer, the location where you should be promoting, and then also giving you a few pro tips and strategies that you can use when you are applying your promotions. N ow remember, use real life examples from my business and from Laura's business, and we want you to take these strategies and apply them to your own business. So again, we do have a link for you in the show notes that will take you to the workbook. You can download the workbook and then you can make your own strategy and plan while you are listening to podcasts, or listen to the podcast now and then later on you have the opportunity if you wish to download that workbook. Again, if you guys have any questions, let me know. You can always send us an email at [email protected]. Today, we're going to be discussing again, who is your ideal customer? And I know this is a trend that continues to come up again and again, but there's a reason for it. Every business can't serve every client or customer, and the example we gave last time was the grocery store. There are many grocery stores for a reason. We're going to speak specifically about where promotion locations are, where are you going to start, and then we're going to offer you a few pro strategies that you can use when you are starting your promotion and executing your promotion. Where do they absorb content? So when you are thinking about your ideal customer, I want you to think about where they are going on the internet, because that's where most people are spending their time and absorbing their content. Where are they going? So we are going to give some examples, but I want you to really engage with your customer and understand who they are and why are they going to a certain location, is it because they like to mingle? When I say location, not a physical location, it's somewhere usually on the web. We're talking about social media, are they a YouTube person? Are they an Instagram person? Do they go on Facebook? Are they Tiktok? Are they scrolling the web and they use Google? These are things that you need to think about when you are considering your promotion and where to promote. You can't go everywhere, and I don't know if Laura's eye to this. I know her ideal customer is different from my ideal customer, and we don't promote in the same place.

Laura Hargrave: 4:06

Exactly. We're just nice because we learn a bit from each other. I think that just stepping it back to the previous week too, and we just released a podcast episode of think about your end as well, and all ties into everything is tracking where your clients are coming from and who's seeing you so that you know where to focus your efforts. Track where those clients are finding you so that you know where to focus on specific areas and like Noreen said, not everywhere.

Sophia Noreen: 4:33

So one analogy that I heard of is, think of a watering hole with a bunch of animals. This is a really funny analogy, but if you think about it physically, it can help you understand how important it is to go and promote where your audience is or where your customer lives. You're not going to go to an empty pond or empty watering hole and say: Hey, free pizza, because no one is there to listen to you. So you want to go to a watering hole where everyone is already gathered. If everyone is on Instagram and that's where your audience lives, and they're your ideal customer, you're going to spend your time promoting on Instagram. If you are on facebook, if your ideal audience is on Facebook, they're going to go and spend your time on Facebook. Those are a few things to keep in mind that you always need to start with your customer in mind and where are they spending their time? There used to be only a few options: traditional newspaper, TV, and radio, and this is an old conversation but I'm just bringing it to the forefront that we have so many options for promotion now. I think we actually have too many options for promotion and that's what leads to the confusion. People don't know where to turn to or where to look, or where to start, or what do you have to say about this one?

Laura Hargrave: 5:41

Yes I agree. It is. It's overwhelming. There are a lot of avenues to go.

Sophia Noreen: 5:45

Yes. We'll talk about a few, but again, the exercise for you today is to really go ahead and consider who your ideal customer is, and then really nail down one location to start, because it's really hard to be everywhere at once. You really shouldn't be everywhere at once. It can become very daunting, very confusing and very overwhelming, but social media seems to be all the rage and it is, because it's really leveled the playing field. You don't need to spend a ton of money. Obviously all of these accounts can be free and you just have to put in some sweat equity to make your posts and consistently deliver the posts. Now that's where it gets difficult, and I know individuals say: Oh my gosh, I'm on this constant treadmill. I can't get off Instagram posting, Facebook posting, Tiktok making or YouTube making and there's just so many other things. There's Snapchat as well, there's Twitter as well. So again, knowing who your audience is, knowing where they spend their time, I would choose one and start building a strategy. What do you think, Laura?

Laura Hargrave: 6:44

Yes, I totally agree. I think too, just be careful as well. Instagram's fairly easy to post to, and continue on with. And then you can automatically put your posts into Facebook from Instagram, which is great, but just make sure that you tailor your audience and remember who your viewers are on each platform. So for instance, I know on Instagram, generally my younger couples, a younger audience, more couples instead of families on Instagram for me. And so I don't always duplicate my post right over to Facebook, because on Facebook a lot of my family lived there and some of my friends. It just depends on the age and where you're going, so I don't always automatically post on both. I try to tailor a little bit to each audience because I know who lives on which platform. There's just so many little things that you need to watch when going between those platforms: instagram hashtags and tags don't always work on Facebook, so don't get sloppy. Make sure you're putting your best foot forward and really thinking about which audience is where, and how you are addressing them because it can certainly differ.

Sophia Noreen: 7:52

Yes, definitely. I liked how you said that, you basically said the content is being matched to the audience and the platform is being matched to the audience. Everything is coinciding, that's where you've decided to post. Think about your own business and for anybody who's just joined, there's a link that Laura has put in the chat, just scroll up and grab it. There's a workbook associated with this presentation, and the goal here is free so you just really nail down where you want to promote and give you different strategies of promotion. There's another option here, and I think a lot of people forget about Google business accounts. You can go and if you have a domain, you can basically make a business Google account. And if you're a local business, then you can definitely go and reserve that. Apparently your SEO goes up based on your location. I think Laura you've..

Laura Hargrave: 8:35

Yes, this is my area. Definitely set up a Google business account. It's all linked to Gmail and everything I find is super easy and user-friendly. I love everything Google. All you need to do is verify your address and get yourself in there. It'll help for sure. For SEO, you can also get testimonials, reviews on there, you can take pictures of your product or your service and stick them in your Google business account. You tell them who you are and what you're doing, and you know we all Google, that is how we find services a lot of the time, especially if you're looking for something specific in a specific area. Definitely focused on this and put some energy and time into it because it pays off.

Sophia Noreen: 9:18

Yes, tenfold for sure. Okay, so there are some paid options and I know some individuals see: It's so easy. Facebook always sends that boost button to you, and if you're a new marketer or if you're new in business, it's very easy to just say: Okay, I'm going to just hit promote. But I really do feel that you need to have an audience first before you start paying for ads. You need to have that organic audience because then you at least know who's going to gravitate your ads naturally, otherwise you're just spending money. You just don't know, and I don't want to discourage people from trying and from being experimental because that's how business is, you experiment, you try. But if you're on a tight budget, you may want to be weary of how you look at Facebook ads and in turn Google ads, and I know Laura has some reservations about Google ads that she'll bring up. My number one advice is for Facebook ads to start growing organically first, and then when you know who your ideal audience is, we can go into a whole other presentation we won't today, but we can go into a whole other presentation about your Facebook pixel on your website and having that communicate back with Facebook. There are some changes now with Facebook iOS 14. For anyone who's an Apple device user, we can link you up with more information on that. If you are already using Facebook ads just to be weary of those changes, but my take home message here for anyone who's just starting is build your organic audience and know who they are before you invest money. And be reluctant on lending that money when you're hitting promote, because you've not defined your audience when you have done that. Instagram and Facebook can do that for you, but it's better if you have a bit of a handle on that before you spend the money.

Laura Hargrave: 10:55

Yes, for sure. I think we had a great conversation the other week about this too. There's so many ways to go out there and network, connect, check out local groups. If you're making a product and you're a local, there's tons of homemade, handmade types groups on Facebook, get involved with those and get people seeing you through those different avenues first. Noreen said, it's so easy to just click boost or promote and don't do it. Don't spend the money on uninformed decisions. I think it's like catch 22. We were talking previously about how print advertising isn't the thing anymore. You used to have to pay $1,200 for half a page ad, whereas with Google, you can say: Oops seven bucks, let's just give it a try. But I think it's just really important to be intentional a bit in how you go about it. Go out there, explore, get your core start to who your audience is and then play around with that.

Sophia Noreen: 11:47

And again, I don't want to say ads are bad. Ads do work. We were successful at using Facebook ads last year, but that was because the Facebook pixel had figured out who our audience was, we narrowed it down. It worked well. We had a return of every dollar we spent, we got $3 back and that's what you want. So knowing your metrics, and we're going to talk about that next week, so stay tuned. If that's something that you're interested in, we always say, every time you do something, you need to measure it and see if it's actually working. Google ads?

Laura Hargrave: 12:16

My hesitation with Google ads is, I don't know. It really depends. I hesitate just because when you're paying money for it, it's not free. If you're scrolling like me personally, when I'm scrolling through Google, I don't generally click on the paid ads because they show up as paid ads. They're not organic. So for me, I hesitate with Google ads, instead I choose to focus on SEO, and that's free for me to do. It doesn't cost me any money. It has to have a website and a host in that, but that's something I need anyway. I think that there's other ways to achieve it. Now, if you have a specific, very time sensitive promotion and it's something related to an event or whatever in that sort of Avenue, I think that could be useful. If you're trying to draw attention for a specific time frame, but overall I personally just don't do them, but that's my take on it.

Sophia Noreen: 13:10

I think Google ads are good in conjunction with Facebook ads if you have a broad service or an audience. It's everywhere now because I guess they target it that I went on the web page through a Facebook ad and now they've cookied me so now every time I'm on Google, the side banner has this pan. The pan is stalking me on the internet, which is interesting, because that's what the marketers want you to do. They're setting up to 12 times, you need to see an ad before you'll click it. And so their strategy strategy is: Okay, if we have you on Facebook, if you're on Instagram, you have your own YouTube, and then we have your own Google, we're going to attack you from all sides. So I think having a Google ad strategy is more of an advanced strategy because you should do it in play with everything else. I also think that it's better if it's for a broader audience. So that pan, they've cast that to a pretty wide net and everyone can use a pan. Just consider what your service or what your product is. If it's socks, maybe the sock, but for photography and a local, I don't know if that'd be..

Laura Hargrave: 14:10

Services. I think just in general, it seems a little dicey to click on a paid ad, I don't know why.

Sophia Noreen: 14:16

I think for services, you want to build that rapport and connection with the individual offering the service, or essentially being the head of the service because if you delegate it out to others. I just feel like this is an interesting topic that we can't ignore, especially if you're going into business, you should be aware that YouTube ads also exist. That's also another one but we didn't put it down here, I wrapped it in with the Google ads strategy. If you guys have questions, you can definitely put in the chat. We'll try to watch for them. Yes, I'm checking in. The take home message is starts with one and tests it. We talked about placing your free posts on a free platform, that's you promoting and you need to test, you got to see what's the reaction from your community, what works, what doesn't work and some of our protips when they come up, you're going to do the same thing. I say, test it and automate it. We're so fast to give up on things. We're so fast to say that it's not working and just try it for 30 days and be done with it. I personally think you need to try it for at least 90 days to see if you get the right traction.

Laura Hargrave: 15:18

For sure, and just in the same vein is make sure you're recording the information so track the data, and then you can see over time.

Sophia Noreen: 15:27

That's right. So if you have started a new process, the best thing to do is for example, if your strategy is I'm going to post every day on one of the social media sites, and my end goal is to see three new customers a week or a month, just start tracking. What's your input, so I'm going to do this and what's your output, what is the result and we'll talk about that in two weeks time, we'll jump onto that topic. I can see a question here from Tasmeea, from Ramadan. When is the best time to start Facebook ads? That's a good one. Last year, we started in the heat of it. We did it in the last two weeks before Eve, but I noticed me as a product and her product is a book product that needs to be pre-ordered. Tasmeea, you may want to start it earlier because you need to have a lead time to get your product out there. It depends on your lead time, but if you're doing a lot of promotion right now, you may want to consider doing a little bit of spend now. If it's in your budget, if you budgeted for it and then the question is, do you need to stop it mid- Ramadan? Because you realized that you won't be able to get the orders by Eid. So those are questions you have to look at your lead time for your product order, but I find that you have a little flame going and the ad spend is the gasoline that you're pouring on top of the flame. Oh, they weren't effective. Okay. So Tasmeea, if they're not effective my suggestion is to look at the content. There's a call to action to it. Did you stick a promotion with it? We're going to actually go through some pro tips that might help you as we scroll through that you could try to redo the content, and then you have to go and make sure that it's targeted appropriately and that's getting a bit more finite. So there are Facebook concierge services available right now. I don't know if it's your strategy or if it's the fact that you needed to just hammer down into your, so she's saying she might need a different strategy. I think sometimes with Facebook ads, you do have to play around with it. They actually say you should have three pieces of Facebook ad content, and you should try each one of them to see which converts: a still image, a video and maybe another video or a still image. They say you can't just do one content. Sometimes the content is not sending the right message, or the call to action is not clear. Last year we repurposed the influencer campaign, we've compared content and we made it into ads, and one of them was converting really well so we left it running. But we also put a call to action and we put a sale on top of that. It really hit home that there was a sale, the person in the picture identified with them. So look at your content, and then there is a concierge service Facebook has right now to help you ensure that you've hit your target audience.

Laura Hargrave: 18:04

Yes, there's so much. Facebook is a little bit of a beast, so definitely spend some time looking into it. Testing is great, but also spend some time looking into it because again, you want to make sure you're grabbing people in the best way possible.

Sophia Noreen: 18:18

Okay, so we're going to go into some pro tips. Posting and just posting, sometimes you have to do a little bit more than just posting or content building. You have to do a little strategy on the backend. So let's go through some of those. Siman, I see your question. I'll do some of the pro tips and we'll jump back to that question. I think Laura can open that up. All right, so this one works well, VIP and exclusive offers. If you have an audience on Instagram or Facebook, that's not your audience, that's Facebook and Instagram's audience. You need to move them over to your mailing list. One of the great ways of doing this is to say: Jump on my mailing list and my mailing list's exclusive offers a VIP or exclusive offer off for the mailing list only. We did this strategy recently and it worked. We had over a hundred subscribers and I hardly promoted, and it was for our Ramadan chocolate advent calendars, and we're more than 50% sold out, and I haven't listed it publicly on the website yet.

Laura Hargrave: 19:17

I think the greatest asset of using an email list is that you basically have your captive audience right at your fingertips. So many times we talk about the Instagram algorithm and Facebook algorithm, and whether people are seeing us and not seeing us, those are always the disadvantages of social media. You don't know who is seeing you and what's coming up, and so you might be missing people who want to see your products. If you have a warm lead, if there's people interested in your Facebook and they have your page or on Instagram, if they're following you, getting them to convert through email is the greatest asset you can have because you now have direct access to them.

Sophia Noreen: 19:59

I hundred percent agree. And once they're on your mailing list and you email them, you will see an increase in sales. I guarantee you because it's landing in their inbox, as long as it's landing in their inbox and not the junk folder, you may want to say to make sure you check your junk. Beause the most of the time your emails are ending up in junk or promotion, so that's something to be aware of. If you can counsel your email subscribers that if you really want our exclusive sale offers in VIP, you need to ensure you look for them.

Laura Hargrave: 20:27

And using something like MailChimp, it'll show you the open rate as well, so you can also get a feel for who's actually seeing it. Like what you said before, tracking your metrics makes it so easy to track when you have a service like that. Yes, so we'll

Sophia Noreen: 20:41

talk about that next week, but even open rate and changing the title and all of that, there's so many metrics in business. I tell you. So think about this and see how you can include that in one of your strategies. Free resources. Laura loves this one. Go ahead, Laura.

Laura Hargrave: 20:55

Canva. I know you have the pro account. I have just the basic account and I get by just fine. I've tried the pro one and there's really cool features that I sometimes wish I had, but anyway if you're not using Canva, it's basically the easiest way to Photoshop your ads and your branding and your content. It's so user friendly, it's so intuitive and it's free. So definitely take advantage of that.

Sophia Noreen: 21:22

This entire presentation is on Canva. I'm not doing a promotion for Canva, but Canva has one of the many free options out there for creating your post content. There was a PicMonkey for a while, I used it. I didn't like it very much, but if you're doing more photography, you want to, Laura can speak more to that. I don't know if you've ever used PicMonkey before.

Laura Hargrave: 21:43

No, I haven't. As photographers, we used to use a lot of Photoshop and do that, and now it's Canva. It's so easy, I'm going that route. Yes.

Sophia Noreen: 21:52

I can't think of any more free resources that I think would work as much as Canva, but if anybody else has any other options, throw them in the chat. But my go-to is Canva, obviously it's not free for me. I do have a pro account and the reason I'm a pro is because we have members from the team that have access and Laura, if you need access, just let me know, I'll hook you up.

Laura Hargrave: 22:11

I'll hook you, girl up.

Sophia Noreen: 22:12

You're part of the team. I didn't realize that you needed access. Having a pro account is great because you can essentially switch over your initial design with different sizes, so I resize our presentations into a workbook without having to redo the workbook. It's just a time-saver, but anyways you start spree. Everything from Instagram, all the socials are free too so look for free before you go to pay, especially if you're starting out. A special offer. So what I mean by a special offer is a discount code. You'll see, pop-ups on your website. Those things really push your sale. So Tasmeea was saying that her strategy might not be working with Facebook ads. You may want to stick a special offer to attract your ideal customer, to actually click and then you may want to put a timestamp on that. I know people hate that, but unfortunately, us as humans, we procrastinate. If you don't give your customer a deadline, we won't ever get it done. I know for me that, even though I plan ahead, I'm still very last minute on a few things. So giving a special offer, like a discount code: buy one, get one free, any type of promotion. We all live in this world so we all know the promotions, marketing promotions out there, and then giving a timestamp and then adding that to your promotion, wherever you're promoting will be very helpful for your customers.

Laura Hargrave: 23:30

I love these. For service-based businesses, they're gold. It also helps to gain similar audiences to what you have because how they say that you tend to hang out with people who are like you. Your group of friends is generally most like you. And so if I'm now in a giveaway and I'm tagging all my friends in the giveaway, it's automatically having them now see your page, hear your brand, see your product, whatever it is, and so it's the best way to organically grow. Now, it may feel it doesn't cost you anything but remember that it does because at some point you have to mail the product, or you have to go and do the free session, whatever it is that you're doing. So while it may seem free in your mind, do remember that your time has to be considered in it. But it's a great way to grow. It's a great way to get your name out there, and they said, it's spreading it to people who generally are similar to your target audience or someone who's already interested. So it's basically word of mouth through social media. It's great.

Sophia Noreen: 24:34

Yes, I agree. Last year we did so many giveaways. That's how we got our name out there. Again, it's a return on investment. You may not see the return immediately, but if you have the right audience coming and checking you out, and they're lurking in the background, we talked about this recently as well, but you may have an audience member that's just there for years and years, and then eventually they will buy from you. So don't be afraid of hosting a giveaway. Laura said, be mindful that your time is important, so that is actually an investment and whatever you're sending in the giveaway is also an investment. When you're doing your budgeting and you say: I want to do four giveaways for this campaign, make sure that you've actually accounted for the material that you're giving away. That's really well said. All right, email your subscribers, we spoke about this just with the VIP offer. But sending regular emails to your subscribers, and you don't always need to sell to them, you can offer them free information. I know with Tasmeea's product, I'm using her as an example, we spoke and I said to her: You don't need to always sell. You can actually go ahead and email activities for your kids. Customers really appreciate that information as well, because you're almost giving free content, and when you go and offer a sale, they'll open up your email because they found it very useful in the past. They'll also hopefully consider buying the product after that. I know we get a ton of emails. I'm one of those that don't check my emails all the time and they linger and linger, but I would say most people do check their emails. Most people do open up their email and clean up their inbox, and if it's something that they want, then you're doing them a favor by reminding them that: Hey, I have a service or I have a product that you're going to like. I've done you an extra by sending it right to your inbox. Now you don't go and look. It might seem too promotional by sending emails, but I've and I've said: No, I'm actually helping my customer out because they're a busy mom or they're a busy dad, and they don't have time to search the web for this particular product. I know they want it. Sometimes customers don't know what they want, so then by seeing the product then they'll know: Oh yes, I need to make cookies for my kids for Ramadan. They would love that. And I've done them an extra service by sending them an email to their inbox.

Laura Hargrave: 26:43

And I think also it's a great place to have a value add in there like you touched on. If it's around an event or if there's anything you can add that doesn't feel super salesy. Like. sy like or me, maybe it's directing them to the blog on wedding day tips. Even though I want them to hire me, maybe it's more of an informal: Hey, here's some great things that will help you out before I actually go for the sale, or hey, here's the blog I just did on a day with my family or something. So it's people getting to know you and trust you and like you. There's so much you can do with email, but I think there is a fine line to walk there. You can't be in their face too much, it turns people off. You can't be too sale-sy, it can turn people off. But they're essentially there because they want to see your product, so definitely show it to them. Just there's a tactful way of balancing that.

Sophia Noreen: 27:33

Yes, I love that. That was really well said. You don't want to come off too salesy, come off with service and don't email too much. Release a blog, Laura. You were into blogging for a bit there.

Laura Hargrave: 27:44

I think blogging is a huge standard in any service-based industry. It just gives us an Avenue, like I said, in the previous slide, a way to get people to know who you are, what you value, what your brand's about and do it without being too salesy. It's just a great kind of value added, a great branding alternative. You can use it to also run promotions and that sort of thing. So if you're directing people from Instagram to your blog, a: it helps your SEO to have people coming to your website. And also it's a great way, I think, especially with Instagram, because you can't post a ton of information. That's the one thing I find on Instagram versus Facebook. I find it more difficult to get a lot of information out on Instagram, so if you can post the link to a blog page which has all the details it's definitely super helpful for people.

Sophia Noreen: 28:34

SEO, search engine optimization for anybody who missed our previous sessions. And By having those keywords in your blog and on your website, you'll help when people search on Google. That's what Laura meant by that. I think also, if you're not in the middle of selling season, you have more of a seasonal product, if you're not a service. Even if you're a service, then your customer doesn't forget about you. If you're releasing blogs, send it out to your email list as well.

Laura Hargrave: 28:58

And it's another great avenue to have testimonials for your product or service. testimonial or experience with your product or with your service, and what it's done for them and highlighting that in a blog is a pretty great way also to show who you are and what you're doing.

Sophia Noreen: 29:14

I never thought about that. Actually guys, that's a really good tip. really good pro tip from Laura. If you have a testimonial as a service provider, or even as a product based business, I think you should definitely highlight that in the blog and say maybe even have an emotional feel to it, like I felt so great that I was able to do this for this family, or for this individual. That's a fantastic pro tip. I think, write that down in the workbook. I'm going to write that down. Hosting event, a virtual event these days. This is an event in my eyes. Me and Laura are doing a live on Facebook, and it will also be recorded and put on our podcast so our podcast listeners can also enjoy this episode. But this is an event and it's a free event. We paid no money, it was a little bit of our time, but we're enjoying every minute of it. So I think considering doing an IG TV, an Instagram live, a Facebook live. What else, Laura, what other opportunities could they put into their promotion?

Laura Hargrave: 30:04

w got clubhouse coming in a little bit now, too. Right.

Sophia Noreen: 30:08

Join the club, the Boss It Clubhouse.

Laura Hargrave: 30:11

We're slowly getting there on Club House. cause it's nerve wracking for a lot of people. Putting yourself out there, especially in a live format there's no do over, so it is nerve-wracking. I totally get that. It's not for everyone, but the best thing to tell yourself is: You're no worse off than you were, if you didn't do it. So what if just your mom and your sister show up and watch, whatever, it's fine, but at least you did it and you tried, and the more you do it, the easier it gets and it'll feel a bit more natural. So yeah, I think hosting an event is a great way to get yourself out there. And again, you can use that in alignment with some other things. Emailing people: Hey, check us out on our live event in your email list, and also running a promotion is the same time as the live event. All of those things, you can combine it. That's great.

Sophia Noreen: 30:58

I completely agree. So this is one of many tips, but remember if you're hosting an event, emailing your list, calling them over or putting it in a post, I'm doing a live. I love how you said that, it is nerve-wracking but it gets easier. So the more you do it, the easier it gets. And you said: So what, who cares who's showing up. There's always recording, people can grab later, and the people who do show up are just as important. saying. Somebody was always looking to the back of the room. When they were doing a live talk, they weren't looking at the people who are directly in front of them who've given their time and energy to attend. So sometimes we get too fixated on the volume of people who are there. But I would say don't focus on that. Focus on the people who are actually in attendance and serve them a hundred percent, and you will see a snowball effect because they will say great things about you, I'm sure.

Laura Hargrave: 31:43

Two, I think algorithm wise, live events get boosted. I see them all the time and my instagram and Facebook. I really think it's a great way to get out there and see. Ye

Sophia Noreen: 31:53

Complimentary upgrades for services. This is a harder thing for businesses to do, but complimentary upgrades. Laura, have you done this before?

Laura Hargrave: 32:02

yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that it's pretty standard that you say: Hey, this week we're doing a promotion. If you buy this package, you automatically get a free engagement session or something like that. I think that's a normal thing in services. I'm trying to think what else? Yeah. Think of like the shopping channel: Hey, you buy this Ninja, now you get the processor and then the apron and this not all for free. product based

Sophia Noreen: 32:28

businesses.

32:29

Yes.

Laura Hargrave: 32:30

I think it's out there for sure. It's definitely a strategy.

Sophia Noreen: 32:33

And if you have room in your budget, then you can definitely consider this. And I know people do like

32:38

free st ly one

Sophia Noreen: 32:40

of our members, we have an accountability group and he was like:

32:44

I signed up

Sophia Noreen: 32:45

for

32:45

her course, she was selling

Sophia Noreen: 32:47

an online course. I signed up for her course because she was giving out a free mug. That's all it took was a free mug, and you signed up for

32:53

a $500 course. That is a $500 mug.

Sophia Noreen: 32:55

So you'd be surprised when people do. I thought it was extremely hilarious. I actually envisioned more rolling her eyes because Laura hates stuff.

Laura Hargrave: 33:01

We talked

33:02

about the purchase.

Laura Hargrave: 33:03

Here you go. thought it

Sophia Noreen: 33:04

was a great idea. Actually I was like: Really? People like mugs that much. Anyways. I regressed. Social proof with customer reviews. Laura, you spoke about this so eloquently with the testimonials put in the blogs. I love that.

Laura Hargrave: 33:16

Yeah. Yeah, you can do it there. You can do it on Google, on your business profile we mentioned earlier. Do a post about it, use it for

33:23

content.

Laura Hargrave: 33:25

Put it on your website. There's so many great avenues because

33:28

when we're

Laura Hargrave: 33:29

buying products, that's what we're looking for is social proof. Did this fit what I want it to do? And whether I'm buying home decor or Amazon shopping, I'm definitely a review looker. So it's just another awesome way to reinforce to your potential customers: Hey, I've done this. I can do it,

33:48

this product

Sophia Noreen: 33:49

Yeah, this is very important these days. So if you have an ability to add a rating on your website. So I

33:56

use Shopify and I use Loox,

Sophia Noreen: 33:58

it automatically will send a request for testimonial after a product has been delivered, I think about two or three weeks after.

34:05

We have been

Sophia Noreen: 34:06

able to collect photos using that app, customer reviews. Don't discount this, I think this sometimes falls out of our radar because we're just so busy with everything else. If you can go back to your previous customer and get reviews, and keep putting the social proof up, even having a campaign of social proof, I think is wonderful. It's free. You just have to put this by equity and

34:26

again. Yes, just ask.

Laura Hargrave: 34:28

I think it's just about asking. We forget that so often it's free, but just ask if

34:32

people loved your product,

Laura Hargrave: 34:34

they will happily

34:35

shatter out to the

Laura Hargrave: 34:36

world. And if you're starting out and you find it a little bit difficult to get that base, to ask from, add an incentive like: Hey, 10% off on your next order, or whatever it is that you need to get that initial base of testimonials and then you're good from there.

34:51

That was the

Sophia Noreen: 34:51

last one, that was our last pro tip. Okay, fantastic. So

34:56

I don't, Laura, if

Sophia Noreen: 34:56

you can

34:57

help me with reading out, I don't want

Sophia Noreen: 34:59

to mess anything up, question if you want to read it.

Laura Hargrave: 35:02

Yeah. So it's, if you're struggling to juggle volume promo in tech, what's the best place to find the student VA to just start to help with organization initially?

Sophia Noreen: 35:13

Student VA's. I actually don't know about student VA's. I haven't even come across that

35:19

Sheraton college

Sophia Noreen: 35:22

has local colleges. They do have student placements. Laura,

35:25

you've spoke

Laura Hargrave: 35:27

I mean there's co-op programs in high schools. But there's a little bit more, I think, commitment to that than just the odd person. I think that you can find VA's all over the world and hire them for a job that is fairly cost-effective too. So they're out there, I don't have a specific and with anybody, I don't know.

Sophia Noreen: 35:48

So there is VA's all around the world. I think if you have a budget and you

35:52

can pay $8 to $10

Sophia Noreen: 35:54

American, you can find a VA on Upworthy, Fiverr. I do have an agency that I'm checking out right now, that's helping with the Philippines.

Laura Hargrave: 36:04

I think that something that don't underestimate it, is family members and friends. You been able to utilize in your business,

36:12

a lot of contacts. Younger teenagers

Laura Hargrave: 36:16

just needed a couple extra hours or they were super tech savvy with Instagram, that sort of thing who sort of helped you out or post on

36:23

Facebook like: Hey friends,

Laura Hargrave: 36:24

I'm looking for a high school student who's really great at social media. Who would be interested in working five hours for the next four weeks. I think

36:33

use your networking

Laura Hargrave: 36:36

to go

36:36

out there if

Laura Hargrave: 36:38

you

36:38

don't have a VA right away, or if you want

Laura Hargrave: 36:41

it to be cost-effective do that.

Sophia Noreen: 36:44

So when I did the Indigo event, I needed manpower and what I actually did is I asked the community in a WhatsApp group that I was part of. So we have a WhatsApp group for just our neighborhood, and I ask them, do they have any grade nine students entering grade nine that would be willing to work at the Indigo event. And I got 20 students almost, I interviewed them, and they

37:05

joined us. That's a little

Sophia Noreen: 37:07

bit of a different situation because it depends on the VA work that you're looking for. If it's a skill set, I don't always recommend that unless it's something that maybe you take a more mature student, a co-op student or a volunteer and start that way. I do feel though, if you want it to be sustainable, you may want to do more of a paid opportunity and there's options locally, and there's options also overseas. You really have to go dig and I do highly suggest if it's getting overwhelming, and you want to continue to sustain, try to delegate off either tasks in your business or in your personal life so you don't

37:38

burn out. That's really

Sophia Noreen: 37:40

the name of the game for

37:41

the Boss It Club,

Sophia Noreen: 37:41

we want to make sure you can continue to sustain without burning out because me and Laura both have

37:45

experienced that, and

Sophia Noreen: 37:46

it's not that fun. Okay, great.

37:48

I hope that

Sophia Noreen: 37:49

answered your question. So you don't know where

37:51

to look. I would start

Sophia Noreen: 37:52

with

37:52

Fiverr or Upworthy, either websites. It's Upwork.

Sophia Noreen: 37:57

Upworthy is a blog. Nevermind. Upwork. Yes, that's Upwork. And if you want, you can message privately and I can connect you with a few people as well.

Laura Hargrave: 38:07

Awesome.

Sophia Noreen: 38:08

Okay. There's one more question.

38:10

We don't want

Sophia Noreen: 38:11

you to be at the burnout stage. We need you to be going and going, so we need to get some help for you for sure.

38:16

So campaigns

Sophia Noreen: 38:17

are social proof. That's a great idea. Yep.

38:19

Perfect. And are there any

Sophia Noreen: 38:20

other questions, Laura?

Laura Hargrave: 38:22

Nope. That's it, I think.

Sophia Noreen: 38:23

Great!

Laura Hargrave: 38:24

Thank you everybody for joining today. That was fun.

Sophia Noreen: 38:27

It was fun. I liked this conversation. Now, remember that there's a workbook with this. So if you want to watch

38:34

the replay,

Sophia Noreen: 38:36

really strategize a good promotion plan using the tips for today. I would suggest to do that because then you can really make this a tangible workshop or tangible masterclass

38:46

for you. You actually

Sophia Noreen: 38:47

got not just the knowledge, but you're actually making the plan and taking action, is what we always say. One more question came in. What is the minimum amount for a giveaway? Oh, maximum. Maximum?

Laura Hargrave: 38:58

I think that That's not an answer that we can give you. You need

39:02

to go back, visit our

Laura Hargrave: 39:05

first masterclass and check it in the budgeting

39:08

worksheet, and that will

Laura Hargrave: 39:10

give you a sense of what you want to spend on your marketing and what your budget is for your marketing, and then that will help you to understand what you're willing to spend on your giveaway.

Sophia Noreen: 39:20

Laura says go do your budgeting and see what's your max that you can

39:24

afford at this time.

Sophia Noreen: 39:26

Try to think of the customer too, and I think what would be enough for them to actually take this action. So again, it becomes, we work down again to the customer level. We go: Okay, what is going to motivate my customer to do that, so think about your customer and then yes, look at your budget and then think about that in tandem.

Laura Hargrave: 39:43

There is no right or wrong answer for that. It's just looking at your budget and deciding that.

39:47

out a bit.

Laura Hargrave: 39:49

I wouldn't go all in with everything right away.

39:51

Test it a bit. Exactly.

Sophia Noreen: 39:54

If you have questions that you think of afterwards, you can

39:57

always email us at [email protected].

Sophia Noreen: 40:00

And again, me and Laura will be back in two weeks, and we're going to talk about metrics. So every time we do something, we want to measure it and make sure that it's working. Otherwise we are just doing things haphazardly and Laura does not like that. Okay. All right, guys. Thanks again. And we will talk to you guys in today two weeks.

Laura Hargrave: 40:19

Bye guys.

Sophia Noreen: 40:20

Wasn't that such a great episode? I am so glad you guys took the opportunity to learn the different places where you can promote your business.

40:29

Remember that those pro tips actually

Sophia Noreen: 40:31

work. We gave real life examples of where it worked in my business and where it worked in Laura's business, so make sure that when you're planning your promotion, you are not forgetting

40:40

those pro

Sophia Noreen: 40:40

Again, guys, like I said, if you have any questions at all or you need to reach out and get support, you can

40:46

always email us at [email protected], and we are

Sophia Noreen: 40:50

there to help and guide you so you can get your brand name and your business out to your customers. I'll talk to you later and remember: Make a plan and take action, and yes, you can have it all. So my fellow bosses, did you enjoy that episode? Now is time for you to make a solid plan and take action. But first, remember to subscribe and follow the Boss It Podcast so you receive a notification whenever we drop an episode. Remember to leave us a review on iTunes. Take a screenshot of your review and share it on Instagram as a post or a story and tag us @BossItclub. If Instagram is not your thing, no worries. Email your screenshot to [email protected]. As a massive thank you, we will be sending you our Top 50 Tips for Starting and Scaling a Business. This list is exclusively for podcast reviewers. So don't miss out. Now remember bosses: make a plan and take action in all aspects of your life. Yes you can have it all.