For Corissa Saint Laurent, building relationships, understanding your audience, and leveraging email marketing are key ingredients for success.
And when it comes to growing along with your business, it’s all about focusing on activities that align with your skills and passions while delegating tasks that fall outside your expertise.
"The goal should be to get to a place where you use your time doing the things you should be doing. Avoid the things that aren't in your skillset or that you're not passionate about," says Corissa.
On this episode, Corissa and host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, delve into the art of building relationships, understanding your audience, and the significance of marketing in connecting with customers.
Meet Today’s Guest: Corissa Saint Laurent, speaker, podcaster, and retreat leader
🎧 What she does: Corissa is a professional speaker, podcaster, and retreat leader. She not only helps businesses grow, but she also helps its people grow along with it. As host of The Everyday Mystic, she delivers practical spiritual guidance for a life of greater meaning, higher purpose, and true joy.
💡 Key quote: “The more you can provide value to your customers, build those relationships, and ultimately build loyalty. Those people become promotional agents for you. They're talking about you to others.”
If you love this show, please leave a review. Go to ratethispodcast.com/bam and follow the simple instructions.
Chapters
For Corissa Saint Laurent, building relationships, understanding your audience, and leveraging email marketing are key ingredients for success.
And when it comes to growing along with your business, it’s all about focusing on activities that align with your skills and passions while delegating tasks that fall outside your expertise.
"The goal should be to get to a place where you use your time doing the things you should be doing. Avoid the things that aren't in your skillset or that you're not passionate about," says Corissa.
On this episode, Corissa and host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, delve into the art of building relationships, understanding your audience, and the significance of marketing in connecting with customers.
Meet Today’s Guest: Corissa Saint Laurent, speaker, podcaster, and retreat leader
🎧 What she does: Corissa is a professional speaker, podcaster, and retreat leader. She not only helps businesses grow, but she also helps its people grow along with it. As host of The Everyday Mystic, she delivers practical spiritual guidance for a life of greater meaning, higher purpose, and true joy.
💡 Key quote: “The more you can provide value to your customers, build those relationships, and ultimately build loyalty. Those people become promotional agents for you. They're talking about you to others.”
If you love this show, please leave a review. Go to ratethispodcast.com/bam and follow the simple instructions.
What is Be a Marketer with Dave Charest?
As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the Be a Marketer podcast! New episodes every Thursday!
Dave Charest:
Today on episode 52 of the Be A Marketer podcast, you'll hear from a founder that helps other business leaders get out of their own way. And I'm sharing why in marketing, sometimes you just need to follow your instincts or not. This is the Be A Marketer podcast.
Intro Voice:
Be a marketer.
Dave Charest:
I'm your host, Dave Charest, director of small business success at Constant Contact, and I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore how to find the time to be a marketer. Remember friend, you can be a marketer. And at Constant Contact, we're here to help. Well, hello, friend, and thanks for joining me for another episode of the VM Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:
You know, if you're like me, you have, some fond memories of the classic episode of Seinfeld titled The Opposite. You'll remember this one in it. Jerry's friend, George, he's fed up with his life's failure. So he decides to change his luck by doing the opposite of his natural instincts. Right?
Dave Charest:
And so the decision really leads to a series of these unexpected successes for George. So he moves out of his parents' house. He lands a job with the New York Yankees by telling off the hiring manager. And he even starts dating a woman by being completely honest about his situation. And so why am I bringing this up?
Dave Charest:
Well, a couple of reasons. 1, I've often said that for every marketing best practice, you can find some other business that's, well, doing the opposite and still finding success. So for example, some people swear by beautifully designed email templates. Others prefer sending emails with only text. Some people send an email every day while others are sending once a month, and they think that's way too much.
Dave Charest:
Now the reality is that there's no one size fits all solution to any of this. It's all about finding the things that work for you and the audience that you serve. And, you know, those things can be different from one business to another. And while that brings me to my second reason for bringing this up, you know, I'd say that this also applies to finding the people that are right for you, people that share your values and can guide you in your business in the way that you need to be guided. I'm excited for you to hear from today's guest because she's got a style that may be exactly what you're looking for or not.
Dave Charest:
It's all part of the journey, my friend, and you'll just have to follow your instincts or not. Well friend, today's guest is Corissa Saint Laurent, a professional speaker, podcaster, and retreat leader. She not only helps businesses grow, but she also helps its people grow along with it. Now this is a special episode to me because not only is it filled with great marketing advice, but it was also a chance for me to connect with a past colleague that I have the utmost respect for. Carissa and I first met when she was a speaker for Constant Contact, And I've learned a lot from her over the years just watching her as a speaker.
Dave Charest:
And so I was excited to learn more about her story and how she relies heavily on her intuition in her own business. Now she's found success working with the people behind the business. Right? Addressing any personal blocks or limitations that may hinder their success. Now look, she acknowledges that not everyone is open to exploring their inner wounds and personal growth, but I think we can all agree that the energy you bring into a room can really impact those around you.
Dave Charest:
Now Corissa and I talk more about this. So, well, let's pick up the conversation there.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
I think most of us, even if you're not a woo woo person, you can feel other people's energy. If, like, someone's having a shit day, they come into a meeting, most of us are aware enough to feel that, especially if it's a leader, especially if it's the person running the meeting, and they come in and they're carrying a negative energy for whatever reason. Maybe their last meeting sucked or maybe they're just having a really hard time in their life or something is going on. We all can feel it.
Dave Charest:
Yeah.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So it's just a matter of, okay, there's an elephant in the room. We all feel energy, but not everybody wants to talk about energy because it sounds a little, for some people, woo woo. It's like, oh, we can't prove it's there, so I don't even wanna talk about it.
Dave Charest:
Yeah.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
But we all feel it. It's just it's like intuition. We all have these gut instincts and we all have in get in these intuitive hits where we're like, oh, I should do this. I don't know why I'm feeling this way, and you do and then something amazing comes out of it. Or you get a feeling to not do something and then you you end up dodging a bullet.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So these are all things that I just like to get people to own. We're all aware of it. It's just like own it. Own it as part of life. And as oh, once we do start to own it as part of life, we actually can live a a more enhanced, richer, better experience from it.
Dave Charest:
Well, I mean, I think that's the point. Like, it gets us to this place, and I think it speaks directly to that idea of, you know, when we say, like, work life balance. Right? Like, I don't know if that's necessarily a thing, but as much as it is more about this idea of just being a whole person. Right?
Dave Charest:
At the end of the day, we're people trying to make our way through this crazy thing called life and whatever path that we're on, and we have to take all of that into account. So I'm curious as to what led you down this path? Why is this where you are?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
I started my first business when, you know, I went to after college, I was always interested in healing. So I actually started university. I went to UC Irvine, and I was a premed student thinking I wanted to be a pediatrician and realized, like, freshman year, I don't wanna be a doctor. I don't want that life. I don't even adhere to western unconscious story of, oh, I'm going to become a doctor.
Dave Charest:
Of the things we think we should do. Right? Like
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I had a propensity for the sciences and I loved the idea, of course, of helping people heal. There was a lot that lined up there, but Western medicine for me was a complete, like, misalignment. And so I ended up veering off that path and and going in a different direction.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
But after school, I was still really interested in healing, so I went to an alternative healing school and spent that time actually learning some things that I I believed in. Right? And these were the the ways that I wanted to heal. These were the ways that I wanted to help people. These were the ways that I felt were really helping people come into their own balance and wholeness rather than like, oh, here's a Band Aid.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Slap that on. Here's a pill. Just take this thing and, you know, forget about it. So I went to school, but also with this I already knew in my heart, oh, I'm not gonna just do this work. I'm going to create a business out of this work.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So I just I don't know how I knew this. I just knew that I wouldn't be just a technician and have a business like that. I would create something bigger out of it. I'm not sure what drove me to that, honestly. But I do know what really sealed the deal with that because I read the E Myth at some point in my journey.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And the E Myth, for anybody is unaware of it. The e stands for entrepreneur. And and the myth there is that the entrepreneur is a technician versus what an entrepreneur really is, which is the person who runs the business that is separate from them. And that's what really finally kicked me into that full mindset. Like, oh, I am not my business.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
My business is this entity that I get to take care of and I get to feed and nurture, and then it will give back to me by doing that. So I worked therefore on that mindset shift. I'm no longer working in my business. I'm working on my business. But again, the business thing, it just really came out of having bigger dreams.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So I don't just wanna do this kind of one on one work. I wanna create something bigger out of it. So I ended up moving to Los Angeles, and I had private clients. I worked through a spa in Beverly Hills and but then I was building this business on the side, and that became my first foray as an entrepreneur, and that was a traveling spa and wellness retreat business. And this was 2000, 2001 when wellness was not a thing.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
It wasn't in LA, certainly more so, but even there, it was very new. It was something that people still saw a certain way that in very narrow lenses, it wasn't this holistic well-being. It was, yeah, there's massage. Right? And then there's Chinese medicine over here, and there's this thing over there.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And I work to help bring that all together. The consultancy that I created outside of the actual traveling spa and wellness retreat business was to consult clients on their options to let them know it's not just one way that you can heal, one way to come into balance. There's a myriad. There's almost like endless ways too. I would work with them, we'd talk about their constitution, what their goals were, where they were currently at.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Then it's also about getting into somebody's belief system. Because if you don't believe it, I have to work through those blocks too. So when the belief is there, it's just an easier I would say quick it works faster. So I would work with clients in that manner and then I had this business that I was growing, and it was it was awesome because there in LA at the time, there was a lot of people that were curious. You know?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
People in LA are just, you know, much more into this. So I had clients, corporate clients where I would create this wellness spa within their office. This one client, it's the Scripps network who they used to own Food Network, Travel Channel, HDTV. They got bought by Discovery, but them when they were the sole entity. So they had forward vision.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
They saw what this could how this could benefit their employees. And so we would set up a spa in a wellness spa within their office. And all day, people would just be coming through coming through. So it's clients like that and then it was Hollywood. So Hollywood loves to do, like, fun, cool, interesting things, and so I would do in green rooms and in backstages at award shows, I would set up this kind of wellness spa, and people would come through and get these mini treatments and then learn about the different modalities and the different types of practitioners that they could work with.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And and then I had a vast network of referrals or a referral network that I could send people to. Say, okay. Great. Here's this Chinese medical doctor, acupuncturist. He's amazing.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
He does this. You can connect to him here, and that felt right to me. It felt like because I'm a natural connector, it felt like a really amazing way to use my skill set and do something I was also passionate about, and I learned business. I have a funny story about this because this is early 2000. I didn't go to business school.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
I didn't know a lick about running a business. And I had this but this this idea for this business came completely downloaded. It it came through and I was like, oh, the name. I saw my business cards. I knew exactly what I was gonna do and everything went, like, super seamlessly.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Everybody said yes to what I wanted to do. They're all like, yeah. Yeah. Great. Let's do it.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So it was just very seamless, but at an early stage in the business, I had, of course, doubts just like everybody does. And I was sitting there in traffic in LA having one of those moments where I'm just like, what am I doing? I don't know how to run a business. I don't know how to, like, hire people. I don't know anything about this.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Like, what am I gonna do? And then I just look up and there's a billboard, and it said something like need help with your business, and it was a number for score. And I didn't know what score was at the time. It was just a phone number, and I was like, oh, I'm sitting in traffic, so I had plenty of time to take out, you know, and write it down. Oh, yeah.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And so I wrote this number down. I called them, and they were integral in helping me actually implement my business and think both like a business owner entrepreneur and think like a marketer, which I just really learned how to do and and fell in love with through needing to, you know, and being in the trenches with that business.
Dave Charest:
I love to hear you say that. I mean, I've actually been talking about this a lot recently through a couple of ways. Just having these conversations with other entrepreneurs and and how they got started and how they started to learn how to do their homework, but we've also been talking about that just news related items, talking to different programs just about, like, the business boom that's happening now. And and I think this is, again, for anybody out there listening, like, take advantage of those local resources in particular, the score with what you're talking about. Like, I think it's so easy to feel all alone as an entrepreneur, particularly if you were your circle of friends aren't entrepreneurs.
Dave Charest:
They just don't get it. I remember one of the first conversations I had when I started podcasting for Constant Contact way back when, and the business owner had said, you know, it's so easy to feel all alone, and nobody understands what you're going through. And it's just such a true statement that know that there are these resources available, and I think it's amazing that that's what you said. Like, it's score. Again, how the universe kinda brings all these things to get, like, that that's what I've been talking about recently, and then this is your story too.
Dave Charest:
And so just a reminder to people out there, take advantage of the resources that are out there. You know, whether that score in your local communities, I always mention Constant Contact. Right? Like, all of these things that we have available to help you with the marketing pieces. Right?
Dave Charest:
This podcast, all of this stuff is just it's available. You just have to be open to knowing it's there and not feeling like you don't be a martyr. Right? Like like, there's people that will help you.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Exactly. Yes. And then we live in this age now too where there's so many free resources online because of the World Wide Web. Right? The fact that we can pretty much watch a video or listen to go even take a a mini course.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So low to no cost entry to learning what you need to to run a business, to be a marketer, to do all of the things that you need to. So it's really on you. At this point. It's, you know, if you don't do it, then it's it is shame on you because it's you've got more resources than you could ever even get through at your fingertips, and it's it's a different world we're living in now. And and then you've got the OGs like SCORE, and I highly, highly recommend contacting people like that, SCORE or the SBDC, because then you get to actually work with real people, a mentor, somebody who has been through it.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
If it's a great score office or SBDC, they'll connect you to somebody, oh, who's had a business like that or maybe You're moving from one stage to another and they'll connect you to a person who has gone through those stages and they understand what you're going through. And so it's all whether it's online help or real, you know, in person help. The help is absolutely there, and there's no excuses. Right? And I think that's just what you were saying about martyr dom is usually that's victimhood where someone's not ready.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
They're really not ready to step into their full power, and so it's easier to blame, you know, oh, well, I didn't have you know, I didn't go to business school or I don't have you know, no one was there to help me. It's like, well, just open your heart to the help because it is there, and so many people wanna give it.
Dave Charest:
Yeah. So there's a lot of things going through my mind right here just in terms of, like, where where I wanna go. So one of the things that you mentioned, I guess we can go there now. Right? But, like, you just talked about this idea of of a network and getting in with people, and I think this is one of the simple ideas that I've been trying to get people to understand because I think when you say marketing, there's often, like, a disconnect with people or a I don't know.
Dave Charest:
It just changes your demeanor a little bit. Right? Where it's like, ugh, marketing. Right? But when you think of particularly when you start thinking about the pieces that you can do online, one of the things I think business owners really do understand, particularly those that have had some success, is that they understand that it is about relationships.
Dave Charest:
It's about the people that you meet, the connections that you make, and how you I don't wanna say work because that's not what I mean, but, like, you maintain and build those relationships, and those are the things that are the driving force. And I and I think we would agree, having met through constant contact, which I also wanna get to, which is where my the other part of my brain is going, but it is just an extension of that. Like, how do you increase those relationships that you have the opportunities to make? And so I guess I wanna talk a little bit about, I guess, your early days and then moving into how do you start to translate those things you've learned into today in building those relationships and using these new tools that we have available to us? Does that make sense?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Yeah. I think as far as how I started to apply what was very natural for me to build relationships you know, I'm natural connector, a natural networker. I love connecting other people together and being like, oh, you need to talk to that person, and, oh, this person has something that it would really benefit you. And I I've never had a problem with putting myself out there where I think is challenge number 1 for a lot of entrepreneurs, especially solopreneurs where you are your business. And I know I earlier I said, don't be your business.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Like, you you want to still treat even as a solopreneur, you still wanna treat the business as a separate entity. Even if you were the face of your business, it's still a separate entity. You're still in service to that even as the face, even as the solo operator of that business.
Dave Charest:
Well, I think that ends up being the trick. Even if you are that main person, how do you set up the systems and processes and so that it really becomes a business that can survive without you in many ways. Right?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Exactly. And it should, like, automate the heck out of it. You don't need to always be there for everything, and that's where these all these amazing tools start to come into play. How can you and that would be, like, probably number one thing, automate everything you possibly can. Even scheduling of emails that you can do through constant contact is a form of that automation as well as, of course, the drip campaigns and doing more of those email series.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
The automation is going to save so much time and energy and effort so that you can do other things, so that you can actually do everything else that is needed for a business. I think when business owners get into it and really start to pull back the curtain of their business, they're like, oh, I actually have to run this machine, oil this machine, fix this machine, be the voice of this machine like you're doing it all. And I think it's important to do it all for a portion. At least understand and learn how to do it all.
Dave Charest:
Well, I think that's the big piece. Know how it works so you're you can have conversations with people that actually know how to do it well.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Yes.
Dave Charest:
But, like, if you don't know, you end up finding people that maybe don't know how to do it well, and you just don't know any better. Right? And I 100%. A big thing that I'm like, yeah. You need to understand how it works so that you can get the right people to do it for you.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Exactly. Yeah. So at least learn about all elements of your business and then delegate, then hire, then find the contractor to do it for you better than you can or do it for you because you're gonna devote your time and energy to the thing that really lights you up.
Dave Charest:
To doing something that you are really good at. Yeah.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And the things that you're best at because otherwise, it's like, oh, that thing that takes that person 10 minutes to do might take you 10 hours to do. Well, that's just stupid when it comes to, you know, right? You know, because time is money. So let's use our time and everybody's time that works for you or with you as best as as possible. So finding those gifts and those people that have the right gifts so that you can create a a beautiful engine, a beautiful machine that is working in harmony rather than you, you know, trying to do things that, you know, aren't are just not in your skill set or just within your own passion set.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So that was a a big early lesson for me is that I didn't want to be the technician in my business. I wanted to run the company. I wanted to build the relationships. I wanted to land the deals. I wanted to do that.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And I wanted other people to do the actual technical side of the work. To answer your question from earlier, that's really why I started a business because I didn't want to just be the person doing the hands on work. And I was driven to do something bigger than that. Not that that is less big, so I guess I wanna make the distinction that there's nothing heroic about creating a big company with tons of employees and a ton of overhead and lots of capital and, you know, expenditures. And there's nothing heroic about that.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
If you absolutely love being the technician, if you're just like, I just love whittling the wood, and I love fixing the cars, Do that. Like, do that thing and just love it, and don't worry about what the other stuff. Now, obviously, you still need to run the other aspects of the business, you know, getting the clients, getting the customers, and know that, alright. I'm gonna be over here doing the wood whittling, and now I need to hire the people that are gonna do the accounting and the marketing and understand what that is. But if you you personally just wanna do that, go for it.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Like, that's what you'll be most happy in. I didn't wanna be that. I wanted to be the CEO and running that aspect of a company.
Dave Charest:
Yeah. I mean, I think at the end of the day, to what your point is here, is that it's really about finding what is the life that you want to have and how do you do the things that afford you that life. Not the things that we are seeing in the news and making the headlines and, you know, that people that are paying attention to because they're big. That's one path. That's not everybody's path.
Dave Charest:
And I think at the end of the day, if, you know, I've talked to so many people that it's like, you've created a life where you've supported yourself. You've supported your family. You've sent kids to school. Like, it's not about anything more than that and being comfortable doing it, and I think that's the heroic effort to be able to really take the chance because you're betting on yourself to be able to do that, which so many people don't do. And I think that's interesting.
Dave Charest:
So tell me a bit about you know, you mentioned automation. So I wanna I wanna talk a little bit of just marketing and even maybe today, but, like, what would you say is your, I guess, approach to marketing? How do you consider it, and then what are some of the things that you do specifically?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Well, going back to relationships, that's the absolute foundation of how I both think of marketing and and we'll just say do marketing. It's about building the right relationships at the right time with the right people. And that is both end customers as well as partners as well as vendors. Right? So that's another thing to be aware of as a business owner that you're not just thinking about the people that are giving you the money, the customer.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Like, most of us, if we're focused on anybody, it's the customer. And that's an amazing group of people to be focused on. Like, they're giving you the money. Amazing. But you are also in relationship with and therefore have the opportunity to do what we'll call marketing, but it really is relationship maintenance and communication of your value to partners.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And even if you don't have a partner channel, you still have other strategic partners that I believe you should be building within your business. And then you've got vendors. You've got all sorts of other relationships to nurture and take care of. And but let's talk about the customer relationship because that's, of course, the core of who we're building for. We're building our products and services hopefully with an end customer in mind and we know exactly who they are.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So that's the first step in really building a solid relationship is understanding the person. So it's not that different. It just really isn't any different than if you were to meet someone you were becoming friends with or that you're courting. This is the person I wanna marry, and oh my god. They're incredible.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Like, you're not just gonna, like, talk all about yourself and not listen to what they have to say. You're gonna ask them questions, get to know them, figure out what makes them tick. You're gonna get them the gifts that they you know that they're gonna love because you want to show them how much you care about them, that you're thinking about them, that you want to have a relationship with them. So we do these things in real life, at least in some degree. Not everybody's great at relationships, but, you know, we do these things in person to person relationships, and I like to think about your business in the same way that your business is building relationships from business to person in this exact same way.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And so just like when getting just to know someone at the beginning, we're not gonna overwhelm them with too many questions. We're not gonna overwhelm them with too many asks. We're not gonna overwhelm them with huge gifts because then they're gonna be like, oh, stalker. Creepy. Like, I
Dave Charest:
Too much too soon.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Yeah. Exactly. So it's about really tuning in to them to figure out, well, what's something that would be helpful and delightful for them right now? At the stage of our relationship now, it's this stage is just getting to know each other. They just, you know, became aware of my business.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Now what would be something that would be delightful for them? If we could maybe it's a little welcome video where you're like, hi. I'm the founder of this company. I'm so excited for you to be connected to us. We have a journey ahead of us where we're gonna be talking about x, y, and z, and you're just kinda giving them, you're welcoming them just like you might introduce yourself at a networking event.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And then from there, you know, you're giving them more value over time, more value over time, and always weighing out that out value that we are providing to them for their attention because attention as we know and it and it just keeps getting more and more dispersed is hard to get because people have so much that they could just be beep beep beep. Just paying attention to shiny object everywhere. To pick up their phone is like a gazillion shiny objects that they can just lose themselves in. So how do we earn their attention? And earning their attention means that we are really tuned in who they are and understand that customer to their core.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So for those who wanna really understand marketing, they have to understand your your customer. And it's not just who you want to sell to, but it is who they are and everything about them. So a lot of people talk about demographics and it's like, oh, yeah. They're I sell to women who are 25 to 40 who are college educated and divorced. That's demographics.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
But then you've got the whole area of psychographics and that's how these people think, their interests. What makes them tick? What affiliations do they have outside of that? And so there's other categories of which we can use to get to know our customer and then create those really powerful personas. When people are thinking of their target customer.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
This is interesting to me, and I I won't say that I wasn't here before. I was here probably at some point a long time ago, but it's it was always fascinating to me in all of the the seminars and the talks that I've done over time that there's always this, like, befuddled set of people that are like, well, how do I know who my target audience is? I don't know who's buying from me. How am I gonna figure that out? I don't have these fancy analytics to figure out who they are.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And I would stop them in their tracks and say, no. You get to choose who your target audience is. That's the beauty of building a business. You get to choose who that you can say, I wanna serve women who are 25 to 30 who do Pilates and have been in a relationship for, you know, a steady relationship but unmarried who are people that are plant based that live in Wisconsin. You know?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And you can create your target audience however the way you want. And that's usually a light bulb moment for people. They're like, oh, I get to choose that? Like, yes. You get to choose that.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And then I recommend people analyze their audience over time because then there will be people that are attracted to your business that you were outside of your target. And you'll go, oh, okay. That's interesting. I'm attracting a lot of dudes who are in their sixties and like former military. Like, what?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
You know? Like, how did that come about? But we learn from the business as we work within it. It is teaching us every day. And if we're not there listening and analyzing, then we're also missing out on tons of information.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
If we're just, like, barreling through with what we wanna do, This is who I wanna serve. This is what I wanna do. Sometimes I can miss the mark and sometimes you're then missing out on this whole audience of people who actually do want your services, but you'd never even thought of them. So understanding what we'll call your larger target market and then for each product, each service, if even for each campaign, you can create more narrower target audiences for each of those things and really truly understand that. Get to know who they are, what makes them tick, and what stage of the relationship you're in with them.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And that brings the whole customer journey into focus here.
Dave Charest:
Yeah. I think, you know, something important to mention here too is that oftentimes, this can feel really abstract to people when we talk about this idea of, like, target audience or target market and and doing those things. And I think one important thing to recognize here is, again, as we're talking about relationships, as as we build those face to face with people, Don't discount the importance of just having conversations with the people who are your customers or the people that you think would be your customer so you can better understand how to serve them and communicate with them and understand what their needs and wants are. Right? And I think oftentimes, we can abstract that a little bit and and kind of I don't know.
Dave Charest:
Just just forget that there's people on the other end of particularly when we start thinking about, like, online and and these types of things, it's like there's people on the other end of that device holding that device. Right? Like, there's people opening up the email. There's people doing those things. And I think if we can always hold that at the core, we're gonna stand a better chance of the things that we're doing, the things that we're creating.
Dave Charest:
All of these things stand a better chance of success because they're geared towards the people at the end of the day. Tell me a little bit about, I guess, how do you execute on some of this stuff? Like, so when you think about, like, you you know, you're using Constant Contact today. You're I think if I'm not wrong, you're you're sending a monthly newsletter. You've got some automation set up for particular things.
Dave Charest:
Talk me through, like, kind of what your approach is for how you're trying to kind of take somebody on that customer journey that you mentioned.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Yeah. So email, of course, is vital to the whole picture. When I, you know, I started at Constant Contact in 2009, And so this is before the rise of social media, and I was there through the whole, as you were too, through the whole email's dead scare.
Dave Charest:
The phrase that drives me mad that still rears its head every once in a while. It's like, oh, I gotta shut up.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Yeah. You're like, in a Yeah.
Dave Charest:
This is the best you got right now.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So, you know, it was always so so funny because, of course, all of the social communications and, you know, you've got a new follower or here, this group is communicating with you. It all comes through your email inbox still. Right? So they still haven't quite figured that out of, like, how do we remove email from our spirit? They're in a beautiful marriage together.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Right? They're they're not competing. They are one with one another, and you can use them both very equally and successfully and just really understand the how they operate. So, obviously, the world of social media has changed dramatically from the early stages of doing social media marketing. I mean, you never used to sell through social media.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Like, a complete no no. Like, it was unheard of to sell. And now it's just like, oh, bing. People buying right from one Instagram post, and people are throwing money at that company. Times have changed.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
The world certainly has changed in that respect, but they all have their place. Right? Every channel has their place. Again, it's going back to like, who's your audience? Where are they spending time?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Where am I going to best reach them with the message that I have that's going to be the best message for them at this stage of the customer journey? So we have to look at all those factors. That's a lot of different factors. It's the who the customer is, what stage or phase of the customer journey are they in, and then where are they tuning in to, what channel are they listening to, and then what because it's the kind of content gonna be that's going to be most grab their attention the most in that place at that stage for that person. Right?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So there's all those factors to think about. But once you know those factors, then it's easy to just chart it out and look at okay. I'm at personally, I'll just give you, you know, a personal anecdote. I just started working with one of our past colleagues actually at from Constant Contact who has always had a nonprofit doing service trips to a country in the Caribbean. And now we're going to to start doing trips to other countries and work together to lead these service trips.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So this is a whole new thing. You know? I'm I'm kinda throwing this at my audience like, hey. I'm now doing this and Mhmm. You know, what do you think?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So at this point, I'm looking at it and how do I message what this is in a way for my audience that makes sense to them. My audience is going to be more tied to well-being, wellness, spirituality. So what are we doing? The reason I'm being asked to be part of this trip is because of what I'm bringing forth to the trip in regards to well-being, wellness, and transformation. So that's what I'm gonna talk about with them.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And it's not that I don't talk about the service aspect. Absolutely, that's there. That's a huge part of what these trips are about, but I'm going to highlight focus on the things that I know my audience would be more interested in. I mean, it's pretty simple. Right?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
It's like, why would I give them information that they're not interested in just to sell the thing? And and most of us, a lot of people just starting out marketing do think that way. I am going to get them to buy based on benefits and features. Right? And most of them will just do features.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
They're not even talking benefits. So when you do that kind of marketing and it's not the right time, the right stage
Dave Charest:
Yeah.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
It just will fall flat. So for me, it's about really understanding where where people are at and using the those right channels. So I currently use Instagram and LinkedIn for social media, and I am starting to look into LinkedIn ads. I do Instagram sponsored posts, and that will be, again, for a specific I'm not going to do a paid ad for just the business itself, for, like, the hanging of the shingle. Like, hey.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
This is the company. You know, brand awareness is all organic. It is, like, let's get people interested seeing this. We can use maybe affiliates and partners and people. But at that point and this is just early stages of the business, not later stages when you already built a brand and you've got lots of working capital.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
You are well, I'm talking about the early stages because when you talk about the customer journey, it's never ending. It's cyclical, but it has to start somewhere. And when you're at the very beginning of, you know, opening up your doors for the first time, you are at brand awareness for everybody. You are at the very early stages. People don't know about you.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
How do we get them to know about you? So you're not selling them at that point. You're just creating awareness. This is who we are. This is what we do.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And ads don't typically work that well at that stage or the return on investment isn't great. But once you have something actually to sell them and they're ready for that sale, then ads are great. And you've got this product and the service and you've hit them at the right stage of the journey and that's further on. After you've built up the interest and desire in this customer, they've signed up for your email list. You know, they've done this little micro conversion with you because that takes action.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
That is a big action to sign up for the email list. It's like, okay. I care enough about this information and this brand to give them my email address, which is a coveted piece of information. Right? Because we don't want spam.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
We don't want our inboxes filled with a bunch of crap we don't want. So if someone's taking that action to give you their email address, they wanna hear from you. So now we consider that an actual micro conversion. They've converted. They may haven't bought anything yet, but they have absolutely converted from somebody who is just interested to somebody who is open, primed, right, for some conversion activity.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And then we can start to hit them up with content that is more sales oriented and would hopefully, you know, move the needle for conversion. And then the final stage, which I was thankful to get to a place with my first two numb I'm in the earlier stages with my current coaching slash retreat leadership business. But with the agency I had before I was with Constant Contact and then that company that I would mention at the beginning in in Los in Los Angeles, you know, I was I got to the stage where I was in that final stage of the customer journey with certain customers, and that is building loyalty. And this is a stage that so many business owners, entrepreneurs often forget about or just don't pay any attention to. And I am on I learned this so deeply at Constant Contact that your next best customer is going to come from your current customers.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So your customers are the people that you again, the ones that are at that stage that you can market to to build loyalty and then they become a promotional agent for you. They're talking about you to others. You are giving them both the inspiration to do that and even then maybe some incentive as well, maybe some rewards, maybe some other things. So marketing at every stage of the of these journeys looks different. It looks different in all these places and knowing where they are.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So with the current iteration of my business or businesses and the the work that I'm doing, not quite there yet. But in these other places, it's really, you know, just leaning still on that email list for sharing. You know? And these are people who are in that interest desire phase. They've stayed on my list for some reason.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Whether it's they like me or they like what I offer and what I do, what I share, the content that you share, we can obviously get extremely, let's say, multifaceted. I'm not the best example of this, but I can certainly speak to it that when you get big enough and your audience, your list is big enough and you've been in business long enough, you can begin to segment that list deeply to what it is that people we know the stages that they're in and what they would wanna hear about from you. And that can happen through so many different ways. It can happen through just by asking them, what do you wanna hear about from us? It can go through analytics, seeing who's purchased from you, who hasn't, who hasn't opened up emails, who has, who's highly engaged, who's not.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
You know, all of these things are things to look at to then determine, well, what what will be my best communication? And I think most marketers will fall into 1 of 2 camps. It's like they love data or they hate data. Yeah. Yeah.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Yeah. You know, it's like, and I'm someone who doesn't love to look at data. I don't love the analytics side of marketing, to be honest, but I know how highly valuable it is. If I'm not the one looking at it, then I'm going to get somebody else to look at it for me and then tell me what to do or do it for me. Yeah.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
Because it's so valuable in the in the fact that we've got these tools now that are collecting this information. Don't just let it sit there and do nothing.
Dave Charest:
Well, I think that's the interesting thing. I think to your point, like, I'm not necessarily a huge data person. I want it to prove things and show me things and, like, help point me in direction. But to your point about, like, you're not necessarily the person doing that. I think, you know, as we get into the world of AI and what's possible with that and the way that that can process huge amounts of data in ways that humanly we can't and even help us make predictions or give us that feedback of, like, hey.
Dave Charest:
Did you think about doing this? Here's what I'm seeing. Have you thought about that? That's really interesting, particularly for business owners like yourself who are not necessarily doing that work. Well, here's what I'd love to know then.
Dave Charest:
So you've talked about a lot of things. You're, like, automating everything you can. Of course, these the importance of these customer relationships being I loved what you said about what's helpful and delightful. Right? How you can think about what you can offer people to kind of keep them engaged and interested.
Dave Charest:
Thinking about demographics and psychographics, which is the one I don't think we talk enough about. And then what does that customer journey look like? And so, you know, a lot of really great things here and interesting things. If I were to say to you, what are the top three things? Or is there something that we've missed that people, particularly businesses that maybe you work with on a regular basis that care about kind of, like, the wholeness of the relationship between themselves and the business and the people that they serve?
Dave Charest:
What are the things that they should really be focused on as we look at the marketing landscape today?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
I think you said it earlier, and I wanna reiterate it that to not think of it like marketing, which then gets lumped in with sales and everyone's got their feelings about, like, oh, I don't wanna be that person. You are simply sharing the value of what you have with somebody who would be interested in learning about that. And you're giving them the information to learn about it, you, the industry. And that's a huge part of just engagement marketing in general that we didn't really touch on is that, again, marketing oftentimes is looked at it as literally, I'm going to share the features of the product and the service with them, and then they will buy it. Right?
Corissa Saint Laurent:
And I'll just keep putting that in front of them like, here's the features. Here's the features. No. We've got to build the relationship in order to get to that, which is way down the road, to be able to put the features in front of them. Or we don't even have to put them in front of them.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
They're gonna go seek the features themselves because we've done such an amazing job up to now of sharing before features the benefits. But even before that, they're just like, hey. We are experts in this area, and we've got this information and here you go. It's gonna come in the form of free webinars. It's coming in the form of email newsletters.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
It's coming in the form of our social posts every day. It's coming in the form of a podcast that we do. It's whatever channels you wanna use to reach that audience. You're giving them this high touch value that is going to build the relationship for you. And so that they then see you as experts.
Corissa Saint Laurent:
So it's the difference between saying, hey, we're the experts, and then proving to them, oh, we're the experts because we have shared and given you all of this value over time.
Dave Charest:
Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number 1, build the right relationships at the right time with the right people. Here's a common theme coming out of so many of the be a marketer conversations we've been having. These relationships you build across your business from end customers to partners to vendors to community members, they're all gonna play a role in your success. Those businesses that create systems and processes that allow them to keep in touch with the people that matter are going to be more successful than those that don't.
Dave Charest:
So be a business that does. Number 2, learn about all the elements of your business then delegate. Look. It's important to know how all the aspects that make up your business work, but you don't have to do it all. The goal should be to get to a place where you use your time doing the things you should be doing.
Dave Charest:
Avoid the things that aren't in your skill set or that you're not passionate about. That way, you can bring better energy to what you're trying to accomplish. And number 3, focus on your current customers to get your next best customers. The more you can provide value to your customers, build those relationships and ultimately build loyalty, those people become promotional agents for you. They're talking about you to others.
Dave Charest:
It's this word-of-mouth that allows you to flourish. So ask yourself, how can I be helpful and delightful to my customers right now? Here's your action item for today. If you do not currently have an email calendar in place to regularly communicate with your customers, now is the time to start. I'm gonna include some resources for you in the show notes.
Dave Charest:
I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. If you have questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me directly at dave.charest@constantcontact.com. If you did enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show.
Dave Charest:
Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.