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We’re Jason and Caroline Zook, a husband and wife team running two businesses together and trying to live out our version of a good life in the process. In this business podcast, we share with you our lessons learned about how to run a calm, sustainable business—one that is predictable, profitable AND peaceful. Join us every Thursday if you’re an online creator who wants to reach your goals without sacrificing your well-being in the process.
[00:00:00] Caroline: Welcome to Growing Steady, the show where we help online creators like you build a calm business, one that's predictable, profitable, and peaceful. We're your hosts, Jason and Caroline Zook, and we run Wandering Aimfully, an un boring business coaching program, and Teachery, an online course platform for designers. Join us each week as we help you reach your business goals without sacrificing your wellbeing in the process. Slow and steady is the way we do things around here, baby.
[00:00:29] Jason: Alright cinnamon rollers. That's you... Let's get into the show.
[00:00:37] Caroline: You like podca... what is it?
[00:00:39] Jason: Okay, good try. Let's try one more time.
[00:00:41] Caroline: We... What is it?
[00:00:41] Jason: Nope. Here, try again.
[00:00:42] Caroline: Podcast dot dot dot. What is it?
[00:00:43] Jason: Nope. Try again. One more time.
[00:00:45] Caroline: You've heard of podcast before.
[00:00:47] Jason: Nope. Here we go.
[00:00:47] Caroline: You everyone...
[00:00:47] Jason: Nope. You start with podcast.
[00:00:47] Caroline: Podcasts are cool. Dot, dot, dot.
[00:00:55] Jason: Yes they are.
[00:00:55] Caroline: That's the intro.
[00:00:56] Jason: Nailed the intro for this show. Only a 195 episodes in and you are great at this. Welcome to our podcast. Hello, how are you? In five episodes we're going to hit 200.
[00:01:08] Caroline: What are we going to do for 200?
[00:01:10] Jason: We're going to do something.
[00:01:10] Caroline: Okay.
[00:01:10] Jason: I don't know what.
[00:01:10] Caroline: But what are we going to do?
[00:01:10] Jason: No, but we're going to do something. Remember we were talking about Stan Stans last week? You are going to like it.
[00:01:10] Caroline: Yeah.
[00:01:10] Jason: I just need everyone to know and my co host, we are gonna do something at episode 200.
[00:01:11] Caroline: Okay, we gotta think about it.
[00:01:11] Jason: Something crazy. Something wild. I don't know if it's actually gonna be crazy, but we're gonna do something.
[00:01:21] Caroline: It would be fun. I'm gonna just off the cuff.
[00:01:33] Jason: Sure.
[00:01:33] Caroline: Now that we have our new little audio recording feature.
[00:01:36] Jason: Our audio recording feature?
[00:01:38] Caroline: No, like our call in feature on our podcast page.
[00:01:39] Jason: Oh, yes, yes, yes. Our audio recording feature is what you said.
[00:01:43] Caroline: Well, words are hard.
[00:01:45] Jason: Where listeners, our, 33 listeners can send us voicemails?
[00:01:48] Caroline: Exactly. I think it'd be cool on our 200th episode to play a few voice memo's from people.
[00:01:53] Jason: Do you want us to start collecting those?
[00:01:55] Caroline: If they just want to say a few, you know, a few sentences, nothing wild.
[00:01:58] Jason: How about this? I have the idea. It's the Zooks React. You send in your hot business takes.
[00:02:06] Caroline: No, wait, can you let me finish? Cause now you just changed it.
[00:02:09] Jason: And then we react and we say, is this hot? You won't believe what this person said. And the person, no, but wait, but then the person's like, I've been listening to this show for like three years and these are my two favorite Zooks. And then we're like, wow, can you believe someone would say that about these people? They are so weird.
[00:02:23] Caroline: Okay. Great idea.
[00:02:24] Jason: Okay, we're workshopping. We're back and forth here.
[00:02:27] Caroline: For another episode.
[00:02:28] Jason: Mm-Hmm. .
[00:02:28] Caroline: What I was going to say before your really good idea interrupted me.
[00:02:32] Jason: I'd say great idea. Great idea. Yeah.
[00:02:34] Caroline: Was, I think it'd be cool to send in just a couple voice memos about like, I love, you know, people who like the show.
[00:02:40] Jason: Okay.
[00:02:40] Caroline: For our 200th episode.
[00:02:42] Jason: Great. So...
[00:02:42] Caroline: Like, I've been listening since. Blank. Fill the blank..
[00:02:44] Jason: Yeah. Here's, here's...
[00:02:45] Caroline: ...yesterday.
[00:02:45] Jason: Here's the call to action. Head to podcast.wanderingaimfully.com. Send us a little voice note. It's a little microphone icon in the bottom right. When did you start listening? Maybe what's like your favorite episode of that you can remember? And then just like something that you want to share and try and keep it to a minute if you can in the recording so that we can then. Have a hot takes reaction to it.
[00:03:07] Caroline: Exactly.
[00:03:08] Jason: All right.
[00:03:08] Caroline: I think that'd be fun. And then..
[00:03:09] Jason: We are, we, we are going to play those in the 200th episode. So start sending those through now, please. You're kicking my cords, please stop moving. And, so start sending those as soon as possible, but then we are going to do something else in the 200th episode.
[00:03:20] Caroline: And we are going to like it.
[00:03:23] Jason: Exactly.
[00:03:23] Caroline: Yeah, okay.
[00:03:24] Jason: Let's get into these, quick tips. You got something you want to bring up?
[00:03:30] Caroline: Well, I wanted to talk about my business renaissance.
[00:03:32] Jason: Fantastic. Let's do that too.
[00:03:34] Caroline: Literally before we hit record.
[00:03:35] Jason: I know, but you went off the cuff. What'd you do? What'd you do? Did you go off the cuff?
How does it feel? How does it feel?
[00:03:43] Caroline: It was an add on. It wasn't a tangent. It was like an additional. Okay. I wanted to talk about my business renaissance.
[00:03:51] Jason: Fantastic. Do I need to play some, some bard? Some Bardcore real quick.
[00:03:57] Caroline: Actually, that would be great. Producer.
[00:03:59] Jason: Let me get your Business Renaissance here.
[00:04:01] Caroline: Please.
[00:04:04] Jason: Here we go.
[00:04:08] Caroline: Yeah, that's my theme song right now. And if you're like, wait a second, that sounds a little bit like Candy Shop in the style of Renaissance. You'd be correct.
[00:04:17] Jason: It is. That's Beetle the Bardcore if you've never heard it. I think we've talked about it before. It is absolutely fantastic on Spotify.
[00:04:22] Caroline: Beetle the Excuse me. Beetle the Bardcore is pretty big in this house. And okay, my business renaissance, the thing I wanted to share is, I think we came on here like maybe two episodes ago, three episodes ago. Hard to know in the time continuum of podcast recording. And we were talking about how we were in a little bit of like a slump because it's just we, you know, I was talking about my pace. Like I have to make peace with the fact that we aren't going as fast. And we were, you know, we had a friend in town, then we got sick, then it was Valentine's Day, yada, yada, right? And it's wild because in the span of like two weeks since recording that. I feel like I'm in a whole different place Because right after we recorded that episode if you recall we had a meeting. That meeting led to an idea. You had another left field idea. I had another right field idea.
[00:05:11] Jason: We were all over the field.
[00:05:12] Caroline: We were all over the field.
[00:05:12] Jason: What sport are we playing?
[00:05:15] Caroline: Baseball.
[00:05:17] Jason: Ew.
[00:05:17] Caroline: Field Hockey?
[00:05:18] Jason: Okay, better.
[00:05:19] Caroline: Rugby. None of us know any of the rules.
[00:05:21] Jason: Well none of the two of us. People listening to this do watch and know the rules of rugby, We do not. No one knows the rules of rugby,
[00:05:29] Caroline: So we're playing rugby, Okay, So new ideas were, And then all of a sudden, I just for the past two weeks. I've been working on things that I am just so excited about and ideas are just flying and everything feels like possibility. And none of it has come to life yet. Which is why I think it's so energizing because that's not true. Some of it has come to life yet. But I just wanted to share that things can change in a matter of weeks, and if you're in a place right now where you're discouraged about your business, or maybe you feel lost, or you just feel like you have no momentum. It can all change so quickly. And so I just want to give a little bit of encouragement that, you know, keep, keep holding out.
[00:06:08] Jason: I would even say, as a point of just a lesson for us for the 15 years we've been working on our own businesses. This, this rollercoaster of like, I have no motivation. I have some motivation. I have no, like, this is normal forever. Like, you're never going to get off this rollercoaster ride. It will always be an up and a down and up and a down. And I just, I was listening to a podcast episode last night of Thomas Frank talking about his notion channel. And it was our, a WAIMer Jay Klaus, who has a great podcast called creator science and he they were both talking about you know, Jay was saying he really likes Thomas Frank's Notion YouTube channel business and like all that. But then Thomas was saying he really loves Justin Welsh's like solo per and Thomas was like, this is the thing, all of us are always going to find grasses greener with someone else's business. And so I think the, the point that I'm bringing up there is like every single person that you listen to, or that you look up to think someone else's business is better than theirs. So you feeling that way, maybe about your business and like the things that you work on, it's just normal.
[00:07:12] Caroline: It's so true.
[00:07:13] Jason: Every single person feels this way. And like, and I'm sure Justin Welsh at the end of that line, feels it about somebody else's business.
[00:07:20] Caroline: Exactly. Oh, I know he does. Yeah, everyone does.
[00:07:22] Jason: Do you know him personally?
[00:07:23] Caroline: I do.
[00:07:24] Jason: You have calls?
[00:07:24] Caroline: I have direct line.
[00:07:25] Jason: Oh, nice.
[00:07:25] Caroline: It's just me and him.
[00:07:27] Jason: What's the line?
[00:07:27] Caroline: Me and Justin.
[00:07:27] Jason: What is the line?
[00:07:29] Caroline: Well, I can't tell you that. It's a private line.
[00:07:30] Jason: Okay, fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Are you ready to get into these wins? No! You're still renaissancing.
[00:07:35] Caroline: Because now you're talking about something that is unrelated to my business renaissance. And you've ruined it.
[00:07:41] Jason: What do you mean I ruined it? I brought something to it.
[00:07:45] Caroline: Okay. But what you just brought. Why are you laughing?
[00:07:50] Jason: Just your reaction's great. You're like a little kid who like, had the ball taken away for two minutes and you still wanted to play.
[00:07:57] Caroline: You keep taking my ball away!
[00:07:57] Jason: I just gave it back. Play.
[00:07:58] Caroline: No, no, I don't want to play.
[00:08:02] Jason: And welcome to the marriage podcast. We have now changed over from business to marriage, and this is what you're getting into with us.
[00:08:10] Caroline: My point was, I wanted to..
[00:08:11] Jason: Oh, you want your ball back. I'm just trying to be clear on where we are.
[00:08:17] Caroline: Hey, can you do me a favor? Can you stop talking?
[00:08:20] Jason: Sure. Is this a solo podcast?
[00:08:22] Caroline: Hey, shush your mouth.
[00:08:22] Jason: Okay, great.
[00:08:23] Caroline: Here we go. Okay. Now. It's just us. I asked Jason to politely leave the room. I'm in a business..
[00:08:35] Jason: Great job, babe. Way to hit him with it. You really brought it back around. This is the best three minutes of this show.
[00:08:43] Caroline: I'm really like my business right now. That's all I wanted to share.
[00:08:47] Jason: So when you said that, I said, do you want to move on?
[00:08:50] Caroline: Tears are just streaming down my face.
[00:08:51] Jason: When I said, do you want to move on to the tips? And you said no. And you got mad. The, the thing you wanted to bring back, the most important part that you were rushing about.
[00:09:00] Caroline: No, I just, you keep trying to move me along and I need you to not. I don't want to be moved along.
[00:09:04] Jason: Wonderful. Okay.
[00:09:06] Caroline: Again, just to wrap up.
[00:09:09] Jason: Go ahead. Tell them the wrap up.
[00:09:13] Caroline: Just to wrap up this section, I, Caroline, am very excited about business right now and I needed you to know that. I've said it 12 times, but I would like to say it unencumbered without anyone moving me along to another podcast section, period, space. Now let's get into the tips.
[00:09:32] Jason: Wow, I really feel like no one can get those now four minutes back in their life, and This is it. This is what you're here for.
[00:09:42] Caroline: I'm so hot, like I'm sweating.
[00:09:43] Jason: Yeah, and we are growing steady right now.
[00:09:46] Caroline: We are. Yeah.
[00:09:47] Jason: Fantastically.
[00:09:48] Caroline: Yeah. Well, here's an interesting
[00:09:50] Jason: thought. I thought we were getting to the tips.
[00:09:52] Caroline: No. I was just thinking, going back to your point about the emotional roller coaster. I think that's an important distinction to make is, the whole growing steady part of it, it doesn't mean that there aren't fluctuations, like I think the emotional fluctuations are totally normal, it's just what we're trying to solve for here on this podcast is not the kind of wild fluctuations of like, extreme motivation and then extreme burnout, right? Like we're trying to smooth out those curves a little bit. That doesn't mean that the emotional landscape can't be all over the map because I think it always will be, but you listening to this are probably trying to solve for it in your own business. Just avoiding those low low dips of discouragement and burnout that we're trying to avoid. So let's get into the tips for this episode. The title of this episode is "14 Quick wins for business growth this week". And we thought it'd be fun. I don't think we've ever done an episode kind of like this, but..
[00:10:50] Jason: I mean, and I think just to preface this, like, I want to set the tone here. None of this is going to be groundbreaking for you. These 14 things are things you have probably heard and read and seen, whatever, but our goal in this episode is like, yeah, but like, could you do all of these this week and you've now set yourself, your future self up and your business for success, that these are things that maybe you just have kind of not done for a long time and you just couldn't literally knock them all out in one week. And I think that's the whole point of this episode. So. If it feels like maybe we're not spending a lot of time talking about some of these, it's because I think they're more well known. We just want them to be a reminder to you and they will be listed in the show notes so that you can quickly go back to them as well and see them in like very short form. But the idea is here just to give you these 14 things that you can make changes. They're quick wins. They're not going to take too long. And if you did them all this week, it would definitely make improvements in your business.
[00:11:40] Caroline: We normally have. A lot of conceptual topics on this podcast. We talk about frameworks. We talk about like big ways that we organize thoughts in our business. And this was a little bit of a departure in that they're just little quick actions that you need the reminder for. So let's get into it. We've separated them by section. So this first section are just some quick ones for your website.
[00:12:01] Jason: Yeah.
[00:12:02] Caroline: So kick us off.
[00:12:02] Jason: Yeah. So we're going to start with basically just like three simple things here for your, website itself. And the first two are really for the homepage, actually kind of all three of these can be from the homepage. But the first one is rewrite your homepage so that it speaks to a problem you solve for a specific person. So instead of having a homepage that says like, we're un boring coaches, we're Jason Zook and Caroline Zook, we love building businesses and doing things. That's not speaking to a customer's problem. Instead, we want to say like, we're helping online creators avoid burnout by building predictable, profitable, and peaceful businesses. So you come to our website and you go, Oh, that's what I want in my life. I am an online creator. I want to avoid burnout. I want more predictability, profitability, and peacefulness. That resonates. What doesn't resonate is when someone comes to your website and the first thing is just the thing about you, they don't know who you are most likely. And even if they have some small bit of context, you should hit them immediately with a thing that says, Oh yeah, this is a problem I have. I want to learn more.
[00:12:58] Caroline: Yeah. And I think a Especially, this is only going to get more and more necessary as attention gets more and more fragmented because everyone's brains are constantly scanning for like, does this relate to me? Does this relate to me? Does this relate to me? As they bop around the internet and so if you don't in those first couple of seconds kind of give someone a hook to you. Answer that question, this relates to me, they're going to move on.
[00:13:22] Jason: And I would say, this is a perfect example of using AI, like a chat GPT. If you're not good at thinking this way, because I don't think I'm good at thinking this way is to take what you do as a job. Like if you're just take what we do, like I'm a business coach who helps people avoid burnout. Let's just say it like that. Go to chat GPT and say, Hey, can you reframe this sentence as a problem I'm solving for someone? Give them that, him, her, they, however you want to talk about chat GPT. Give them that line and then let them write back a bunch of problem statements and then find which one you like the best and then take that and run with it. So I just think like, these are where some of these AI tools are actually really helpful if you get stuck, not doing some of these things, because yeah, I get it. Rewriting your homepage feels like a huge task. Make it easier. Just change a headline, like literally the, what they call the H1 of your homepage, just change that.
[00:14:13] Caroline: So..
[00:14:16] Jason: You're real frisky today.
[00:14:17] Caroline: What is happening?
[00:14:18] Jason: It's okay.
[00:14:19] Caroline: Quick win number two. Make your homepage lead magnet obvious and enticing. So, there's kind of a two parter here. Step one, make sure that you have a main lead magnet on your homepage.
[00:14:32] Jason: Yeah.
[00:14:32] Caroline: Because what you really want is for someone, a new visitor of your website, to become a subscriber. Right? That's the optimal path that you're trying to get someone to, is they land on my website, and they get to sign up to my email newsletter, whatever that nurture channel is for you. So, step number one is just make sure you have a lead magnet on your homepage. Step number two is make sure that it is obvious and enticing. Really, that should be, I mean, if you're building a digital products business, that should be the main call to action on your homepage. And we'll get into some more lead magnet specific quick ones, but just make sure it's got a different background color or the copy is obvious and big.
[00:15:09] Jason: Move it up on the page if it's further down the page.
[00:15:11] Caroline: I'm telling you, if you have one of those email signups that's in your footer of your homepage right now. Mm, we're moving it up.
[00:15:16] Jason: Well, you can leave it there.
[00:15:17] Caroline: You, yeah. Leave it there.
[00:15:18] Jason: But you need a lead magnet higher up on the page.
[00:15:20] Caroline: Correct.
[00:15:20] Jason: Alright, let's get to number three. And this is one that I just, I really want everyone to like scooch their chairs in and like put their ears close to the speakers. I need you to hear me remove all the cluttery crap from your website, the popups, the top countdown bar, the 27 calls to action, all the little sidebar widgets that you added. It's just time to streamline, like no one has the patience anymore to look through all these things. You don't need all those things. Clear, concise, simple is the way to go. And also I truly believe that websites are getting dinged for having too much of this stuff because people are leaving and it's telling Google and other web, you know, sources that like, Oh, this person came to the site, something popped up, they left, I shouldn't show this site to someone else. So just make it simpler, remove all that clutter, especially. 100 percent especially if you look into the analytics of those things and they're not actually doing anything for your business.
[00:16:13] Caroline: Those are your website tips. Three things that you can do basically on your homepage today.
[00:16:17] Jason: Yeah.
[00:16:18] Caroline: That'll make a big impact.
[00:16:18] Jason: Wonderful.
[00:16:19] Caroline: All right. Let's move on to, since we were talking about lead magnets, let's move on to three things that we can do to your lead magnets in order to. Improve them, really.
[00:16:29] Jason: The first one, we want you to make your lead magnet useful, specific, efficient, and related to your paid offer. So what is a problem you can solve for someone in 30 minutes or less?
[00:16:38] Caroline: I think this is two things. I think coming up with compelling lead magnets is both.
[00:16:43] Jason: Are you having trouble saying magnets?
[00:16:45] Caroline: Magnets? Lead magnets.
[00:16:46] Jason: You're throwing an N in there at the end. I think.
[00:16:48] Caroline: Magnets?
[00:16:49] Jason: Nope. You're still throwing an N towards the end.
[00:16:51] Caroline: How do you say magnets?
[00:16:54] Jason: How about magnet?
[00:16:55] Caroline: Magnet.
[00:16:56] Jason: Yeah.
[00:16:56] Caroline: This feels aggressive on the T.
[00:16:58] Jason: Well, it's how it's supposed to be pronounced. Magnet. They're not magnets.
[00:17:02] Caroline: Well, I'm just sort of softening it.
[00:17:03] Jason: I know you are.
[00:17:04] Caroline: Magnet. Oh my god. Oh my god.
[00:17:09] Jason: In your business, Renaissance?
[00:17:10] Caroline: I don't.. I'm in my business, Renaissance. And therefore, in the Renaissance, we discuss them as lead magnets.
[00:17:17] Jason: Okay, fantastic. Great. Now that I know, the stage is set for me.
[00:17:20] Caroline: Oh my god. I didn't know I can't say magnet. It's so hard.
[00:17:24] Jason: This is such an interesting episode.
[00:17:26] Caroline: Stan?
[00:17:27] Jason: Stan?
[00:17:27] Caroline: Stan.
[00:17:28] Jason: You want me to stand.
[00:17:29] Caroline: It's stan.
[00:17:31] Jason: Okay. Okay. Fantastic. What were you saying about creating lead magnets?
[00:17:34] Caroline: Oh no, I have to say this word so much. One of the, I think it's both a very hard thing to do to think of a compelling lead magnet.
[00:17:41] Jason: Yeah.
[00:17:43] Caroline: But it's also such an over, that's why I think it's so overlooked. But if you just take a little bit of time to think of something that's more compelling than just like, download my checklist and listen, we've got checklists. Don't worry about it. Like it's, sometimes it can work, but I really think it's worth sitting down for 15 minutes to go. What is something, and these are kind of like our four, qualifiers of, for an effective lead magnet is something that is useful. So like, think about the problem that your ideal audience has. What is something that is going to be useful to them? Not just like something that you thought of, like, Oh, I Oh, here's like, okay, someone who is building their website. You know, font pairings might be useful to them, right? Because they're, they're having a hard time selecting between them, but not like a list of every Google font that ever existed, that's not useful. It's not, it doesn't have a purpose. Make it specific. So again, related to a specific problem for a specific audience, make it efficient. This is one that I feel like people miss the biggest, which is people are not looking for an ebook that's going to take them 12 hours to read. It needs to be something that can get them a quick action. And finally. The last piece is make sure that it's related to your paid offer in some way. Like the last thing you want is to, you know, use this lead magnet to attract traffic that's one audience and then that person does not have the same problem that your paid offer is trying to solve, which means they're never going to convert to your paid offer.
[00:19:11] Jason: Fantastic. All right. If you want to move on, we'll move on to the next one here. Rewriting your opt in copy. This is kind of similar, but this is really about like how you're positioning the lead magnet. So instead of saying download my checklist or take my quiz or whatever it is, you want to have the headline be something around the mini problem. So, for like our example here, find out what's holding you back from a calm business is our problem statement as opposed to take our quiz. So you're telling someone like, Hey. Do you not have a call in business? Do you want to find out what's holding you back now? You know what to do to, to answer that question. And I think this is just a very simple thing that so many lead magnets around the internet do, and you've probably done this in your website because we also did it too, but You want to put big and bold free checklists. So someone sees that. But I think we've seen that this is part of what all these tips are. We've all seen all of these things so much that we have to go one step further to make them stand out or make them compelling or make them interesting.
[00:20:05] Caroline: Definitely.
[00:20:05] Jason: Okay.
[00:20:06] Caroline: By the way, that doesn't mean you can't say. Say, like, take my quiz on your button or in your sub headline or something like that. It just means that don't make that the main headline. Make the problem the main headline. Just want to be clear about that. Number six, quick win number six is to try out a welcome mat on your Articles or slash blog posts.
[00:20:25] Jason: Yeah. I think this is just like a, almost a must do for anybody who has any traffic coming to their website, especially articles consistently. You need to have a little welcome mat. If you don't know what it is, it's think of like a welcome mat at your front door. It's just a little thing where people scuff their feet up a little bit before they come into your house to take their shoesies off and then they come in. This gives them an action to take at the very beginning. It shouldn't distract them too much. It should be a quick win. They can just enter their email to get a thing literally based on the point that we just said, like, Oh yeah, I do want to find out how to make my business more calm. Like what is holding me back? I can just do this thing and then I can get into the article.
[00:20:57] Caroline: And listen, all of these things, especially different, you know, lead magnet methods, form methods, whether it's a welcome mat or a exit intent pop up or a pre, you know, right when you get there, a pre All of these have risks and benefits, right, because like for us, our welcome mat, I'm sure there are some people who they land on the welcome mat, and they go, I was coming here looking for an article, and they're annoyed they didn't get there, and they leave. That's okay. We're willing to lose a few people if it means that our conversion, our visitor to subscriber conversion, is much higher, and I can tell you across the board, our welcome mat is the number one converter of visitors to our website to email subscribers and our business runs on email.
[00:21:39] Jason: All right, let's move into the next section, which is your content. So talking a little bit about your discovery channels and some tweaks that we can make here. One quick win, we did this just a couple of years ago. So we, our website had been going for quite a while. And what we did is we looked at our top three trafficked Articles that we had. So if, if you don't have articles, let's say maybe you have podcast episodes that are getting consistent downloads, specific episodes, YouTube videos, whatever the thing is, Instagram posts, anything that's getting consistent traffic over time, add a contextual lead magnet to this. So the goal is to identify, Hey, this thing is getting attention. It's continued attention. I should put something on here to get more people from this. Let me do a contextual lead magnet. So if this article is about, you know, how to actually create 20 Instagram reels without losing your sanity in the next 10 days, great. What is the lead magnet specific for that, that can help someone solve that?
[00:22:34] Caroline: Download my storyboard templates for your 10 Instagram reels, right? So it's like, what is the smaller. Action that someone's going to take from that blog post. For example, what is a lead magnet that is highly specific to that one thing?
[00:22:48] Jason: Cool. All right. This next one is actually how you found our Portuguese, teacher that we have used for the past year now.
[00:22:54] Caroline: So again, we're, this is all about content and kind of becoming more discoverable. So the quick one here is to put search keywords in your Instagram name. If you haven't seen people do this before, I'm telling you, it is. The easiest thing that you can do with the biggest impact. For example, I found our Portuguese teacher by typing into Instagram search, Portuguese teacher. And because she had Portuguese teacher in her name field, her account popped up.
[00:23:20] Jason: Her name was first, then she had Portuguese teacher.
[00:23:22] Caroline: So it would be like Caroline Zook, you know, and then you could put a little symbol or a space or something, you know, European Portuguese, teacher or whatever fits in that field.
[00:23:31] Jason: Do you plan on teaching people Portuguese once you're fluent?
[00:23:33] Caroline: Si. Okay. Claro. Okay. So, that is an easy way. Again, more and more people are using, you know, Instagram search, TikTok search. Like they're using social as like a search engine and anything that you can do to be discoverable in those search results is going to help new people who are looking for what you provide find you.
[00:23:57] Jason: Fantastic. All right. Our last thing on content is adding what we call guide posts to every piece of your content. And I think you could do this. Both in your previous library of content, especially if you identify some of the more impactful pieces, but also in every piece of content you make moving forward. So what is the action you want someone next to take after consuming that piece of content? Where can you lead them?
[00:24:17] Caroline: Exactly. So is it, if you're making a YouTube video, think to yourself, what is a compelling reason for someone to go sign up for my newsletter and make sure you have calls to action throughout your video and in your description to do that. If you have an Instagram post, where do you want someone to find you? You know, check out the blog post or do you want them to go sign up for your email newsletter? Like always thinking to yourself. The last thing you want is someone to consume a piece of your content and then kind of like hit a dead end. You always want to give them an invitation to the next action that you want them to take. That doesn't mean every person is going to 100 percent of the time go to that next action. It's going to be a small percentage, but you lose, you lose everyone if you don't give them the opportunity to go to that next guide post. So this is really how you're going to create this. You know, flywheel of your marketing so that people are moving through the steps and finding all of your different channels and they're all kind of communicating together in a way that you can get more email subscribers and get more audience members.
[00:25:14] Jason: I think the tip within a tip here is every single one of those guideposts, especially like, let's just say you're giving a call out to your email newsletter, let's say you made a YouTube video on how to use Canva's new video AI tool, your call to action would be want to learn more about how to use Canva to make videos. Get on my email newsletter. So it's, it's contextual to the thing that they just watched. So you posted an Instagram carousel. That's like 10 tips to having a more concise and exciting brand. Great. Do you want more branding tips that can help you stand out from the rest of your competition? Join my email newsletter. So it's always every single piece of content you're creating. Just think about the contextual way to lead someone to your email newsletter. That's not just, Hey, I also have a weekly newsletter. It's needs to be contextual to what they just watched or consumed. All right, moving into speaking of newsletter, which we've talked about a bunch, we want to talk about your email newsletter and a couple of tips here. So this one is very new to us and I think it's one thing that was kind of like a, we had heard this was happening with other, you know, email list, email newsletter owners who are running that on ConvertKit specifically was this creator network and like kind of recommendation network that they've built where when someone signs up now for like our email list on our website, you can actually see this if you go to wanderingaimfully.com/newsletter. If you have not signed up. It's a good plug to go sign up. It's a good plug to sign up. If you want, you know, more quick tips on how to grow your scalable business, you know, in a calm and peaceful way, but go to wanderingaimfully.com/newsletter, sign up. And you can see there's like a little pop up that happens. This is done by ConvertKit, the email platform that we use, and it has recommendations of other people that we've chosen, so they don't choose these. We actually pick these people.
[00:26:56] Caroline: As long as they're also on ConvertKit and signed up as a creator.
[00:26:59] Jason: But the point I wanted to share is we have added. 75 subscribers in our first month of using ConvertKit from the Creator Network. That's almost a thousand subscribers this year. We will get. For doing pretty much absolutely nothing, just adding other people and then having them see us and then them adding us as well. And so I think there's more you could do with this. Like you could really identify some top creators in the network. You could go and search through, you can search your industry, you could reach out, you could do collaborations. Those are longer wins, but the quick win is, especially if you use ConvertKit, lean into the creator network, set up your creator profile, get recommendations going, and it's just a really easy win. Also just a little shout out. If you're thinking about switching in ConvertKit. We had a really great experience. ConvertKit.com/Jasonisouraffiliate URL. If you want to sign up, we get a little kickback. If you want to switch over.
[00:27:48] Caroline: Cool. So quick win number 11 or 12?
[00:27:52] Jason: Oh, this says, this says, yeah, I think the numbers got a little messed up here. I think we have three left. So. Whatever we're at. 11. 11.
[00:28:01] Caroline: So, include a ways to work with me section at the bottom of your newsletter. So, this is, again, it's kind of that idea of a guidepost. Even on your newsletter, most of you listening to this, the reason you have a newsletter is you want to nurture people so that at some point they work with you if you have services or buy from you, if you have products and not enough, people are being clear about the ways that people can pay them.
[00:28:28] Jason: And we were the same way. Like there, there was nothing at the bottom of our email in every single newsletter that we sent out that was like, Hey, we have a coaching program. You can join, you know, people would only really find out about it. If we linked to it, if we talked about it, if we did an enrollment. And so I think this is definitely a trend that we have seen in the past year or two in newsletters. It's like. Almost commonplace. So part of that is to think about yes, add it in, but also make sure that it stands out in a certain way or that it's framed in a certain way. But yeah, definitely a good, easy win is just to add a ways to work with me section at the bottom of newsletter. And it's, it's kind of silly. You might think like, why would I put like a lead magnet in there? Like people are probably already on my email list. They might be, but they may have never seen that lead magnet. So we can deepen the connection you have with them. Like our quiz is in the bottom of our thing. We see people sign up for that quiz from our newsletter who are already on our newsletter, but it is deepening that connection with them. And then it's also there. If someone forwards that email to a friend, they can find that at the bottom. All right. So the next thing is branding your newsletter. We have so much experience with our Wandering Aimfully members seeing this. All the time. I typically do once a year, a call in our Slack to, Hey, what's your email newsletter? Share a link. Tell us what, what it does. What's your one sentence kind of like tagline and everyone can kind of subscribe to everyone's newsletters. I would say 50 percent of those newsletters, people don't have a name for it.
[00:29:46] Caroline: Right.
[00:29:46] Jason: And it is just an easy way to give someone a more memorable name to your newsletter that they can always remember that it exists and why, maybe what problem it solves for them.
[00:29:54] Caroline: Definitely. I think we rec Recorded an episode earlier this year about why we rebranded our newsletter this year to growing study.
[00:30:02] Jason: Mm-Hmm. .
[00:30:03] Caroline: That was before we also rebranded the podcast to growing study.
[00:30:06] Jason: Big rebrand year.
[00:30:07] Caroline: Big rebrand year for us.
[00:30:08] Jason: Branding brand real rebrand Renaissance earlier this year.
[00:30:11] Caroline: It's a business renaissance and a rebrand renaissance.
[00:30:14] Jason: Wow. So many Renaissance.
[00:30:15] Caroline: Brand Renaissance.
[00:30:16] Jason: Do I need some more Bard or are we good?
[00:30:17] Caroline: I think we're good. Okay. But just listen, you know, like imagine in your head. But, yeah, this is, I think, such a low hanging fruit in terms of, like, impact, because it just, it gives your newsletter, it almost like, room as like a product in someone's head. It shows intention, that you put intention behind it, that there's a reason behind it. Bonus points if you can name it something that is related to the benefit of what it provides. So that was part of the reason for us naming the newsletter, Growing Steady, because that is the benefit, right? We're giving you tips to grow your business steadily. And yeah, so I think that is something that also deserves a little bit of time and thought.
[00:30:55] Jason: All right. We have two tips left, one more newsletter, and then one kind of bonus, related to podcasting. So the last newsletter one is, and we just did this with our newsletter. Even if you do a long form newsletter, which we typically do is longer form. We just kind of believe that. We're all seeing the attention spans of people, Wayne, and that everyone's subscribed to more things these days. So your newsletter has to be scannable. So this is having bigger headings, maybe having images that kind of break up content, I think gone are the days. And I know there are a lot of you who still do this and we still love these newsletters too, that are long form, thoughtful content, sharing stories. That stuff's great, but I think even for those, you need to have scannable content with some callouts, with some headings, things that break it up so that someone can quickly look and see like, okay, do I want to read this part? Do I want to stick around on this email? Great, there's something for me here that grabs my attention.
[00:31:46] Caroline: Exactly. That's not a hard and fast rule. Like, obviously, if your business is all about writing, and it's about long form writing, You're, you're going to be going against the grain by doing these like short scannable things. So just use your own discernment when taking that advice. But most often, if you are sharing educational content, I'll say giving sections and headings and dividers and images is a great way to have people engage with your content more.
[00:32:12] Jason: Yeah. And if you haven't done it yet, another tip within a tip, make a template for yourself that already has things, these headings set up, write your newsletter in another app and then copy and paste. And then just like. Again, you could, this is where you could use AI, put your newsletter in like a chat GPT and say, Hey, can you give me a heading for this section? That's like an enticing eye grabbing as someone was scanning. ChatGPT will give you a bunch of options. Probably we'll have colons in them because really loves to give colons in titles, but you can clean that out. All right. The last tip here, this is actually a brand new one for us. And some of you have may have noticed this. If you have gone back to previous episodes of our podcast, like. You know, beyond the last couple episodes, if you've gone 10 or 20 back, if you're in the one seventies or the one sixties or one fifties, you may have heard that we're talking about our upcoming spring enrollment of WAIM Unlimited. And the reason is because we switched podcast providers, which we'll talk about in another episode, I believe, to Transistor, but less about them and more about, they have a feature called dynamic ad insertion, which is a really cool feature that essentially we can say, take this little pre roll ad that we record.
And insert it across our entire library. So if you have a podcast that has many episodes, you know, 50 plus, a hundred plus, a couple hundred, this is such a great way to grab attention from your entire library and point it towards something else. So you're going to hear this, if you go back to any of our episodes and it's going to change. So we recorded four of these, so they are dynamically set up. It literally took me half a day. We recorded it in one session for like 20 minutes. Then I edited them. Then I created these little campaigns. I scheduled the time of them ahead of time. And that's it. I'm done. And now they all will start doing it by themselves. And also it's really cool. It injects a text at the top or the bottom of your show notes. So you can add a link and then it'll just remove it automatically. So this is such a cool, quick win, especially if you have a podcast and kind of, we put it towards the end because not everybody has a podcast. Podcast with a larger library. It might not be using a podcast provider that has this feature, but I really think this feature is awesome. And I think when we do our launch recap for the spring recap, it'll be very interesting to see if our podcast percentage and our welcome survey kind of ticks up a little. And that will be proof of this, that it actually did something. So those are our tips.
[00:34:26] Caroline: That's 14 quick wins, just small ideas, things that you've probably heard before, maybe a few that you haven't, but good reminders that. These are actions. Most of these you can accomplish in less than a half hour and all of them you could accomplish in a week's time. And I think they would all add up to quite a lift in your marketing. If you were able to execute on all of them.
[00:34:48] Jason: Yeah. And again, we'll have a short bulleted list in the show notes that just kind of recaps these. So it's not going to have a lot of context or anything else, but it's just kind of a reminder of hearing through all of these so you can get a quick glance at them and we hope they are helpful and that you do some of them. And if you do. Feel free to send us an email, hello@wanderingaimfully.com, letting us know which ones really helped you or which ones you were like, Oh, you know, I, I could have done 10 of these and I went ahead and did them in one week. And then remember to head to podcast.wanderingaimfully.Com and leave us a voicemail so that we can play those on our 200th episode and just share some of the hot. takes from our listeners.
[00:35:24] Caroline: And then of course, if you are listening to this between March 11th and March 26th, remember that our spring enrollment for our program, WAIM Unlimited is open. So you can head to wanderingaimfully.com/join to check out all the details.