EP02: 8 Steps to Mastering the Fundamentals of Your Online Marketing

Dive into the second episode of "The Meaningful Marketing Podcast" with your host, Chantal Gerardy, as she unveils the eight fundamental steps every entrepreneur must master before launching their online presence. This episode is a goldmine for those just starting out or feeling stuck in their digital marketing journey.

 

Chantal breaks down her personal experiences transitioning from a challenging start in Australia to establishing a successful six-figure business without spending on ads. With no initial marketing or tech experience, she transformed her approach by investing in herself and refining her strategies, which she now shares to help you reduce time online while maximizing impact and profit.

 

This guide goes beyond general advice, offering actionable insights to solidify your marketing foundation. From defining your personal brand to understanding your ideal client and learning to manoeuvre through competitive landscapes, each of the eight steps are crafted to ensure you build a robust online persona that attracts and retains customers.

 

Whether you’re struggling with shiny object syndrome, inconsistency, or just don't know where to start, Chantal provides the clarity and direction needed to navigate the overwhelming world of online marketing. Get ready to take notes and implement at least one of these essential strategies right away!

 

Tune in and transform your approach to online marketing by subscribing to "The Meaningful Marketing Podcast" at onlinebusinessmarketing.com.au. Join Chantal as she guides you through making your marketing meaningful and your business more profitable. 

What is The Meaningful Marketing Podcast with Chantal Gerardy?

What sets this podcast apart? We believe in the power of meaningful marketing—a holistic approach that prioritises authenticity, connection, and purpose, whilst still turning a profit.

Chantal Gerardy is an International Award Winning Marketing Strategist who empowers purpose-led businesses to revolutionise their online marketing approach and create a brand that resonates deeply with their online audience. If you're tired of cookie-cutter marketing advice, and seek strategies that truly make a difference, this podcast is for you.

If you are a business owner feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or struggling to cut through the noise online? We've got your back!

Our podcast is tailored for entrepreneurs hungry for clarity, confidence, and tangible results in their online marketing. Our podcast isn't just about boosting sales; it's about creating an efficient marketing machine that reflects your values, passion and purpose. Whether you're stuck or looking to maximise your marketing, we're here to guide you every step of the way.

Our episodes dive deep into practical skills, customer-generating strategies, and streamlined systems to help you thrive without relying on paid ads. From mastering social media, creating content that converts, ranking on google, getting your website to work, lead list building and email marketing, each episode is packed with tips and techniques to help you thrive online.

Join me each week as we explore management and monetisation online marketing strategies designed to reduce your time online while increasing your impact. With our guidance, you'll align your business and marketing team more closely, ensuring every effort moves you towards growth. From overcoming challenges to seizing opportunities, each episode is packed with actionable advice to help you thrive in the world of online marketing and effective management.

Are you ready to transform your online marketing, build a business that you enjoy, and leave a lasting impression?

Tune in to the Meaningful Marketing Podcast and unlock the secret sauce to marketing success.

This podcast is brought to you by Podpro Australia. If you have no idea where to start with your online marketing, then this episode is for you.

Social media, Google, email marketing systems, website traffic, and the endless content creation that comes with marketing. It's overwhelming, right? Say goodbye to endless stress and hello to clarity. with the Meaningful Marketing Podcast. In this podcast, I will share with you fast and free practical methods to help you manage, monetize, and market your business, all infused with a healthy dose of motivation.

Let's do this.

Welcome to the second episode of the Meaningful Marketing Podcast. I'm Chantal Gerardy from Online Business Marketing. I hope that you've had a chance to listen to episode one where I took you through my story and how little old me with no marketing experience, no tech experience at all, without paying for any advertising was able to grow a six figure business using the marketing strategies that I now teach.

When I first started and I moved from South Africa to Australia and I was so incredibly stressed and overwhelmed from being in a new country and having to start a business. And I really needed that business to work. I needed it to be profitable. I couldn't afford to be online every day and not have it work at that stage.

My husband at the time had been made redundant twice in the first couple of years, which meant it was incredibly stressful as we were still paying our way into the country and we had no financial support and no welfare. It was then that I realized that I had to invest in my ability to be able to do better.

Regardless of me not enjoying being online. I knew that in order to be able to make money, I had to change my mindset and I had to invest in myself to be able to do better. I read books. I listened to podcasts. And one thing that I learned was that there is a lot of information out there. And for me, I just wanted the recipe.

These podcasts that I'm producing. I'm are all around the simple things that I have found over my years of creating successful businesses in how you can manage your own marketing, spend less time online and have your marketing be meaningful so that it fulfills your purpose as a human, but it also helps it to be meaningful so that it is profitable as well.

There is nothing worse than waking up every day, having to manage your marketing and having to worry about generating clients online and having what you do not work. The other problem that comes with that is because you get so incredibly overwhelmed, you actually avoid doing anything or you procrastinate.

And then of course there's shiny light syndrome. We all know about that, right? So I created these eight fundamentals which I'm going to be sharing with you today in this episode and I'd love it if you could comment in the comment below which of these eight that you're going to action because education without action is nothing.

There is no power in consuming large amounts of education if you're not going to take action on anything. So I encourage you to listen to The Eight, go grab a pen and paper, if you can. We'll come back to these later, we'll check out the show notes. And at least take action on one of them. The reason I created these eight fundamentals is so many people were saying, what do I do online?

What do I do online? What do I do online to get a result? And what I discovered in the years of me working with business owners is that there are eight fundamental things that they need to get right before they even think about getting online. And these are the eight that I still go through with all my clients now, ensuring that they have these fundamental foundations set up.

We all know the story of the three little pigs. And if you don't get the foundations right to your house, the house will just be blown over. And these are the eight that I truly believe that will make a difference and everyone should do before they even think about getting online. So number one is you need to know who you are and how you want to be seen online.

So that's your personal brand. Now, some of you may say, Oh, well, you know, I'm not the personal brand. I'm the business. I don't need to, you know, have a personal brand. But at the end of the day, social media is social. And whether or not you want to be public or private, you need to make that decision so that you know how you're going to represent it.

There is a strategy for everyone, whether or not you want to be private or whether or not you want to have a personal brand and be public, there is a strategy for you, but you do need to make that decision so that you can at least be consistent when you are online. with your personal brand and with your social media accounts, because most of the social media accounts are all attached to your personal profile, which means people can stalk you and they can see whether or not you're credible and that will affect their know, like, and trust.

So in order to have consistency across your social media and across your online marketing, you need to just decide how you want to be seen online. Many of you, if you follow me on social media on Facebook's my platform of choice, you'll see my dog Ziggy, who is part of my personal brand. There are many people that I work with who don't want to have a personal brand or they want to keep their profiles private and that's okay.

You need to understand how to use your settings to go in to be able to make sure that you're very familiar with what you're sharing is private or public. So number two is you need to know who your ideal client is and you need to know them intimately. You need to know their likes, their needs, their wants, their frustrations, their aspirations.

And this is so that you know how to talk to them through your content and so that you know how to solve their problem and you know how to make them happy and you know how to connect with them. Not everyone is your ideal client. Your ideal client is someone who will happily pay you money for what it is that you have.

And in future episodes, I will go over how you can further nut out who they are. And what your offer can be. But for now, just think about who that person is. And a good way to do that is to think about who do you currently work with that happily paid you and loves what you do, and then stalk them. Have a look at everything that they say about you.

Have a look at how they work with you, how they communicate with you and consider what their problems are and how you solve them. This will help you then be able to create content that connects with them. So number three is probably one of the most underutilized strategies that most online marketing business owners do not do.

And I cannot recommend this one enough. So if you're not sure which of the eight you are going to action straight away, I would say number three, this is the one to do. This is stalking your competitors. Now this isn't so that you can copy them. This is so that you can recognize your point of difference from them so that you can stand out from them and better communicate what it is that you do differently to them so that you become the go to person for that.

Have a look at their website, their funnels, their lead generation strategies, read their reviews, have a look at their contents and then determine what is it that you can do better. Number four is your branding. And when it comes to branding, this is something that so many people spend way too much time on.

Many people know that I'm like a logo hater because I believe a logo kind of pulls you into this. commitment to a certain thing and I don't believe that it has the relevance that we actually need. When it comes to branding, it's more around the graphic, graphics that you're going to use, it's around the tone that you're going to have, it's around your key messaging, your mission statements.

It's not just about your fonts and your colors, but it's around the mission statements and key messages that you're going to continue to say on an ongoing basis that makes you memorable. Number five is something that I'm going to bring up quite often. And I honestly believe that this is the one that made me money and made my business successful.

This is the reason why I was successful in online marketing. I was successful in online marketing based on this one thing. And that is the S word, having a strategy. Too many people wake up every day and wing their marketing. They just spit out content and hope that something's going to stick. A strategy is about looking at what your overall intention is going to be.

What is the overall intention that I want for my social media? Besides no luck and trust, it is also about getting inquiries and getting sales. And it's super, super important that you have a look that whatever the outcome is that you're wanting to get, that when you work backwards. Your social media and your content is part of the process to get people to say yes.

Number six is a whole bunch of R's. So R and R and R and R and R's, and it is not rest and relaxation. It's about reviewing what is working and not working. It is about responding to comments and inquiries. It is about knowing how to get recommendations and give recommendations online. It is about building genuine relationships.

It's about being able to give referrals. And it's also about being able to maintain a good reputation online. So number seven is a biggie for me as well. And in fact, you'll often hear me talk about my biggest regret in all my businesses that I've owned. And this one is one of the biggest things that made the difference between me making money or not making money.

And that is having a way to get them the hell off social media. Very quickly, the longer you leave them there and continue to talk to them online, the less likely they are to engage your services. And the more likely they are to go and stalk and look at your competitors. So it's around building that connection and then having a clear working call to action, which is the next step that it is you want them to take.

So getting them off social media and getting them onto your email list is a fundamental part of online marketing. And you do not need paid ads for this. If your content is right, and you've communicated and connected with them, and then you simply give them the next step, they will then make that inquiry.

And it needs to be a one step process that's super easy. Whether or not it is a book a call, whether or not it is learn more, if it's jump on the website, download a resource. Our goal is to be able to get them to the website or get them onto an email list so that we can then continue our relationship of communication with them and nurture those relationships so that they buy.

The reality is, is that people generally do not buy off one post they see. At the moment, I think it's something around eight touch points. Before someone makes a purchase. And what that means is, is that we need to be able to touch them in their special place. And for me, those special places is their connection points.

And that's why number two was so important about knowing your ideal client. So number eight, our final one for today is having a professional profile. So many business owners set up their personal profiles and business pages. And whilst they go through the process of setting them up, they get to where it is.

Add a description or add your social links or add an image and in a hurry, everyone goes, Oh, I'll do that next time. And you will not believe how many accounts I've had a look at. And three years later, they still haven't gone in and updated their description. Or set up their profiles correctly. At the end of the day, our social media platforms our YouTube channels, our LinkedIn's, our Google, my businesses, these are all our marketing vehicles.

And it is paramount that our marketing vehicles effectively communicate what we do for who. So if you have not gone and updated your description, or if it's not effectively communicating to a stranger, what you do and how and for who. Then you are missing out on a great opportunity. The other thing you're missing out on is being able to have the algorithm be able to connect you.

In future episodes, I'll explain how the algorithm works. It's important to note that when these platforms ask you for information, it is so they can then use the algorithm to better connect you with your ideal customers organically online. So if you haven't done that already, maybe number eight is the one for you.

It has been absolutely amazing to bring this episode to you and I implore you to have a look or re look at those eight steps and have a look at which ones you're going to action immediately. If you can, put in the comment below and if you haven't already, subscribe to this channel. I look forward to bringing you more meaningful marketing methods with a hint of motivation.

This is Chantal Gerardy from Online Business Marketing. You can connect with me on onlinebusinessmarketing. com. au. There's a bundle of free resources that you can download. And if you'd like to connect with me personally, you can connect with me on Facebook, Chantal Gerardy. Thanks for listening in.

Meaningful marketing is all about you making your marketing meaningful. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please hit that subscribe button. But subscribing means that you won't miss out on future episodes all about marketing and motivation. Stay inspired, stay focused and make your marketing meaningful.