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As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business goโbut 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 2x Webby Award Honoree Be A Marketer podcast! New episodes coming in July!
On today's episode, you'll hear from a professional athlete whose entrepreneurial spirit thrives just as powerfully off the field as it does on. This is the be a marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:My name is Dave Sherest, director of small business success at Contact, and I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore what it really takes to market your business, even if marketing's not your thing. No jargon, no hype, just real stories to inspire you and practical advice you can act on. So remember, friend, you can be a marketer. And at Constant Contact, we're here to help.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, thanks for joining us for another episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. Guess what? Today's episode gets even better because that's right. Kelsey Carter is here. Hi, Kelsi.
Kelsi Carter:Hi, Dave.
Dave Charest:Kelsi, always good to see you. We've had a bit of an eventful week here just before we get into recording here, but I've got a question for you. Can you think of a time when things just didn't go your way? And this could be something big, something small. And I wanna talk a little bit about this and and how maybe looking back, how, like, kind of bouncing back from that experience really changed how you do some things now.
Dave Charest:Anything you anything come to mind?
Kelsi Carter:I would say immediately, because this is just something that, like, I was very sad about for a little bit was I applied to Ohio State University originally.
Dave Charest:Okay.
Kelsi Carter:And that was like my dream school. Like, I visited the campus, everything like that. So I kind of did the stupid thing of being like, this is the school, this is for me without, like, getting in first.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Yeah.
Kelsi Carter:Bought, like, a bunch of clothes, everything like that. Well, it turns out I did not get in. So I had to start looking elsewhere, but all of that, I think, led to me going back to Boston, going back to film production, and everything like that. So I'm grateful it happened. And also, I just feel like I would have been very overwhelmed with that campus because it's huge.
Kelsi Carter:So I think everything worked out the way that it was supposed to.
Dave Charest:So what's something that maybe you take from that experience?
Kelsi Carter:If things don't go the way that you were originally thinking, that's okay. Better things can come out of that. Just because your original plan wasn't executed, You can come up with a backup plan, come up with an alternative, and that doesn't make it bad. It can lead to something better. So also just don't put your eggs in all in one basket either.
Kelsi Carter:Don't get your hopes up.
Dave Charest:Right? Well, I think it's okay to get your hopes up, but also be realistic about those things. And I think even just listening to some of the things that you're saying here are a lot of things that really translate into the business world. And when you think about just being an entrepreneur, you really learn so much because so much is thrown at you. Marketing, of course, being one of those things.
Dave Charest:And, you know, I think we've seen time and time again, resilience really comes into play here. Right? So you have to kind of push through these challenges, you have to learn from the mistakes, and you have to adapt to things that are setbacks. And this is really at the heart of that entrepreneurial journey or even just life journey. Right?
Dave Charest:Just hearing what you're going through. And I and I think it's really no different from our guest today who has learned, I would say, both through his professional athletic career and his philanthropic and entrepreneurial endeavors, he's learned this as well. Right? So, Kelsi, I'm gonna go to you. Why don't you tell us a little bit about our guest today?
Kelsi Carter:Of course. So today's guest is Austin Eckler. I'm sure many people know him as the current running back for the Washington Commanders, but he's also an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a Constant Contact customer. Through the Austin Eckler Foundation, he renovates weight rooms in the high schools nationwide, and he's also the founder of Xperience, which is a content management platform for athletes and organizations.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Really fun conversation that we had with Austin here. And Austin's stories really consistently highlight something that is obviously very common, again, amongst small business owner. It's really this ability to persevere, pivot, and just really, you know, as we've been talking at the top here, really just grow stronger through every obstacle kind of encountered. And in our conversation today, you're gonna hear how Austin's early ranch life and manual labor shaped his disciplined approach to entrepreneurship, the surprising lessons Austin learned from transitioning from professional athlete popularity to really authentic business marketing, and how automated marketing and segmenting his audience allowed Austin to build stronger personalized connections.
Dave Charest:So let's go to Austin as he shares a bit about his background and his first true passion.
Austin Ekeler:Yeah. A little story background from my perspective growing up. I didn't really have a place in my mind that I was really trying to go to the NFL. It was more so go get into college, use my brain to get an education, and then, you know, get an opportunity in the business world. And I grew up around a lot of oil and gas, and so I saw that as an opportunity to get into the business world, and I actually was looking to get into real estate early on and start building a portfolio in the real estate sector out in Colorado.
Austin Ekeler:So originally from Colorado, went to Western Colorado University, wasn't heavily recruited out of out of college, ended up getting my business degree there. And I was actually the first the first player to come out of Western Colorado to be to play in the NFL. So going into that, knowing that never no one's ever gone in the NFL from the school, it wasn't like that was kind of what I was aspiring to do. It would have been cool. It was kind of my thought at the time, but was really heavily focused on my business career.
Austin Ekeler:And I actually had a job offer from an oil and gas company, and then actually took the NFL route when that opportunity presented itself. And it's kind of how I've gotten to this point of still doing business, even though I'm still in the NFL, but still have that background that I was really passionate about first.
Dave Charest:Yeah. So what started that passion? Is there a particular was it something that ran in the family or like what got you going on on that path?
Austin Ekeler:It's kind of stems back to my background. I'm from, again, from Colorado. I grew up on a ranch, so I grew up in the cowboy life. I grew up like riding horses, raising cattle, chickens, goats, like all of it. So I had a lot of responsibility at a young age and my mom's husband at the time, no longer anyway, ex husband now, had a fencing company.
Austin Ekeler:And so building barbed wire fence for railroad jobs, for highway jobs, so I'm talking six, seven, up to 25 miles of barbed wire fence. So I had grown up around this guy who had his own company. He was always gone during because he was just always on job site. We had a camper. He would live on the site, work.
Austin Ekeler:So during the summers, what we were doing, we're building barbed wire fence, you know, during it's not summertime, playing sports. So I grew up around this, the kind of environment where there's a lot of hard work, a lot of responsibility put on me because I was the oldest back home taking care of all the animals. I think it helped me kind of build this mind of, okay, kind of use a little to build up. One thing you learn about being on on a ranch is you learn to do a lot with a little. Very little resources, not a lot of people around, like our closest neighbor was like a mile away.
Austin Ekeler:So you're kind of in this little little place in your little, you know, cubbyhole. And I grew up around business, up around, you know, the fencing business. I'd never want to do manual labor ever again, but I knew that, you know, my my roots were in building things.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Except you're just a professional athlete, so you're putting that tax on your body another way. Right?
Austin Ekeler:Yes. Yes. No. Sorry. Let me put and construction.
Austin Ekeler:Okay. There we go. Construction labor. Yes. Yes.
Dave Charest:Well, tell me a little bit about then. What do you got going on now? You you've got your the Austin Ekeler Foundation. You've got the experience. Tell me a little bit about those projects.
Austin Ekeler:Yeah. So I have a few projects. So real estate was the first one I ever got into, if we wanna touch on that as well. But, yeah, I have two main ones going on right now. So my foundation, which is called the ECWA Foundation, I think after my third year in the NFL, I really found myself in a place where I was like, okay, how can I give back to the things that really helped me kind of push through my kind of high school career, that kind of developmental age, you know, middle school, high school?
Austin Ekeler:And so what I really resonated with growing up was the weight room. Like I lived in the weight room, I didn't want to go home a lot of times because I'd be in the weight room, which my home was like 25 miles outside of town. So that was terrible driving home every single day. So after practice, I go hang out in the weight room for a little bit, lift some weights before I'd go home. And that was really a sanctuary where I felt like I learned a lot of mental toughness.
Austin Ekeler:I learned how to push myself, be around myself. I learned fitness obviously, learned how to be social, work with other people in the gym, people that are older than me, I was at, it's called Snap Fitness, it was a random hole in the wall gym that I kind of got my workout start. And so I wanted to make sure that there was communities out there that had that resource for people because I know how therapeutic it was for me at a young age and helped me get through some tough, tough childhood years. So that's what we do with my foundation is go renovate weight rooms in high schools all across the nation. And then transitioning into kind of one of my other endeavors experience, really, as I continued to build some popularity in the NFL, I had a community that was being built around me and I wanted to have an opportunity to give more access to them that was time efficient for me.
Austin Ekeler:And so what we've built is a content creation content platform. So basically, the gist of it is you have a community of of fans. You can actually go out there and request content from them or give them things to post. So things like that. It's a content management system for really like colleges and things like that where if I'm a host and I have a bunch of college athletes and want them to post out different things to their fans to tell them about, you know, charities, tell them about different things.
Austin Ekeler:Or if I need content to have the athletes go and promote the new upcoming game against, you know, arrival, I can go and I can do that, and I can manage that from a back end. So it's a content management tool for big organizations.
Dave Charest:Very cool. Well, talk to me a little bit, though. You had mentioned, of course, you know, kind of taking your popularity as a as a professional athlete and kind of moving that is. How would you say that has helped you in business as you're as you're doing these endeavors? Oh, I would say it's helped and hurt.
Dave Charest:But the thing
Austin Ekeler:is the hurt also helps.
Dave Charest:Well, talk me through that because my next question was how has it hindered you? Right? Because it sure has. So, yeah, let's go.
Austin Ekeler:No. Wait. Let's take it in order as you gave it to me. Yeah. It helps because it opens the door to opportunities because people love to be around sports.
Austin Ekeler:And typically, you know, if you're doing well in sports, you have some notoriety, you have, right, some resources around you. People either are interested in you because maybe they root for you on their team, maybe they put bets on you over the years, maybe they're looking for investment, and they see you as someone who has capital. So those are positives. Sure. But also can be negatives, and I've learned that as well.
Austin Ekeler:So I would say those are the positives. Yeah. Is that, hey, having the network grants you access to places that maybe you typically wouldn't have been able to get into because people know who you are.
Dave Charest:When people know who you
Austin Ekeler:are, it's easier to get in contact with people in real estate, people in whatever conference, you know, speaking engagements, things like that. Now, on the other side, the flip side, the hindrance side. So now because you are well known, you also have this kind of attractiveness that might not necessarily be in the best interest of you, of me, myself. For some people that are like, yes, we want to be associated with Austin because he's kind of in the limelight right now. He's shiny, he's he's it.
Austin Ekeler:And so they come in with their own selfish intention, which is like, hey, I can benefit from this. They might not even intentionally be doing it, but what I've seen through my experience is people will gravitate towards me or to some of my other colleagues, and they think it's awesome and they wanna help, but they wanna help in the way that they wanna help.
Dave Charest:Sure.
Austin Ekeler:Yeah. Not necessarily in the way that that person needs help. You have to kind of if someone needs help, you have to meet them where they're at. Because you can only help someone who has the capability to receive your help. So what I see is a lot of times people come to me and be like, this is what you need to do, this is you need to do.
Austin Ekeler:And I don't understand it. And so it actually doesn't help me because we're not speaking the same language because my capabilities are not where yours are or my perspective is not coming from your perspective. It's led me down some paths where, okay, you put some trust into people and it actually backfires and you spend a lot of money on, like, consultants or a business partner that seem to be in good interest, but they were more so excited about the opportunity to be able to work with me and it just kinda crumbles.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Well, so interesting things here, I think. You know? So a couple of things. One, we'll talk about this a little bit later, but, I mean, there's a marketing lesson in there too.
Dave Charest:Right? Because ultimately, it's about speaking the same language as the people that you're trying to reach and influence, right, and being able to have those conversations with them.
Austin Ekeler:100%.
Dave Charest:But then I guess, secondarily, as a business owner, you have to learn how to say no. Right? Like, what are the things that you say no to? So do you have any systems in place that allows you to identify those things that may be like, you know, alright, no, this isn't gonna be the right opportunity?
Austin Ekeler:Unfortunately, I do. And that's from touching the stove and learning the hard way, you know? And so here's another here's another actually thing that I I was starting to be able to articulate over the past couple even months that, you know, when you're in a position like this where you have some some popularity, it's interesting, but also harmful because you have people that do gravitate towards you. But in my position, I haven't learned all of the basis of entrepreneurship that maybe some people have grinded through to get themselves there. Yeah.
Austin Ekeler:Because people see, oh, Austin, you have money, you have popularity, you can sell anything. Well, no, I don't know the basis of selling stuff because I didn't have to grind through trying to find product market fit. I didn't have to grind through going through and making sure I have the right partners, which vehicles do we use because I can just do a post on Instagram and people will look at it because they follow me and they're interested in the things that I'm interested in. And so that is actually detrimental, especially to people in my position, young entrepreneurs that are also in the athlete world because you kind of miss some of these steps and have to learn them along the way. And so some of the valuable lessons transitioning to, you know, come at some of the lessons that I've had in the marketing, is that I haven't had a solid understanding of marketing.
Austin Ekeler:And so what I have learned is, I can market for popularity of like, Hey, can get people to look at one thing once or twice just by posting it. That's great. But that's not marketing. Marketing, a way to market, but it's not consistent. And what makes marketing successful?
Austin Ekeler:Consistency, right? And so people are gonna get burnt out because I'm posting something, they don't actually like it, they're just seeing it because I post it and then they start to tune it out after a while. So that's one of the lessons that I've learned in marketing is, okay, how do you grow something authentically? Yes, you can use your, I can use my kind of popularity, but I need to segment these people into a specific area so that I'm only showing the people that are truly interested in the actual product, the product. I can't keep blasting it out to everyone because then people don't care.
Austin Ekeler:And then my ratings go down, and then my interaction goes down. So being able to actually find product market fit, and actually find, right, and identify a profile customer that you can actually market to within my ecosystem is something that I've learned over the past couple years.
Dave Charest:Yeah. You're getting it quicker than a lot of other people do because you have that instant feedback, and you can start to figure that that stuff out.
Austin Ekeler:Well, it sounds quicker, but that was the course of, you know, five years that I learned all that. So You're probably quick.
Dave Charest:Well, I I mean, just in terms of, again, having the the audience, right, to be able to put things out and see, like, oh, wait, nobody's obviously figuring that out all along the way. But as you've been doing this, what have you found that you love most about running your own business?
Austin Ekeler:Wow. Okay. I think this comes back to who I am as an individual. I am a creator. I am a builder that is engraved in my body, in my soul.
Austin Ekeler:That's what I wanna do nonstop. Like I mentioned, I have some real estate. I have a fund that I have. We actually closed it, you can consider it more of a syndication now at this point. I also am starting another fund in the real estate business.
Austin Ekeler:I have a bunch of little side hobbies that I start. For instance, I do a fundraiser called Fantasy Football Fundraising that I've been doing for my foundation for a while. I'm expanding that to other guys across the league, and then we'll branch out into other sports as well. You mentioned experience, my foundation on top of that. And so I have an ecosystem of things in different directions that I wanna build.
Austin Ekeler:It's like, I wanna stay active. I was talking to one of my friends and they're on the private equity side. They're like, man, like I don't ever wanna be boots on the ground grinding. And it's like, I don't wanna be laid back looking at deals, I want to be in there, I want to be talking to people, I want to be on sales calls, and so that's why I love, and that's where I find kind of the most fulfillment out of entrepreneurship is doing the work. Like, that's where I find the most that's what's most fun about the business part to me.
Austin Ekeler:And it's just kind of, again, going back to my childhood, the way I was brought up, of what's been ingrained in me since I was I was young.
Dave Charest:Is there anything along this path that you maybe thought would be easy in terms of business, but turned out to actually be really challenging or more challenging than you thought?
Austin Ekeler:So again, going back to the lesson that I learned of the things that you don't know. Mhmm. You know, I thought being able to basically put a structure together. Let's talk about early experience. This is four years ago.
Austin Ekeler:I've had experience around for a long time. We've made like four pivots now at this point. Like, I was like, okay, I'm gonna put a small team together. I'm gonna build a quick app. Quick app.
Austin Ekeler:Tech tech was one I had to learn the hard way about. So I I hired a boutique tech firm out in California, which are not cheap, let me say that, because I I didn't know better that, oh, you can actually go find similar talent overseas for these smaller projects. So didn't know that. I, you know, took it the hard way, learned, went to this boutique firm, started working with them, hundred and $20 an hour, have like, hey, here's the scope. It's gonna be like 250,000 to build this thing out.
Austin Ekeler:Great. Cool. So about 1,200,000.0 into it, I'm like
Dave Charest:It's starting to hurt a little, yeah?
Austin Ekeler:What's going on? You know, like, so what I learned is that they didn't have my best interest. They were paid by the hour, not by the project success. And so I learned about scope creep. I learned about different organizational back end, front end things that you need to have to set up so that you don't have to redo a lot of stuff.
Austin Ekeler:And then I learned about minimum viable product and really sticking, making sure you stick to that. So just some lessons like that that you go through, but I went through that and that's another thing about being in my position where you have a lot of capital and you don't know all the lessons that you would have learned along the way, starting from the bottom as far as no capital, they're expensive at this point because you kind of tend to skip steps and go right to a place where, yes, if you're advanced, you could use these tools and be efficient with them. But my efficiency has been getting better, but it still has a long way to go.
Dave Charest:Well, I'm curious. What have you what have you taken from your professional life as an athlete? Like, what have you been able to take from just that experience and bring into the business side of things?
Austin Ekeler:Absolutely. So it's so correlated because even though the NFL is a sport, it's still a business and it's a well run organization. The teams typically do well are well run teams, not from the standpoint of only talent, but also from their standpoint of gel, of their culture. And so that's something that I brought from my athletic world, from from an organizational standpoint and put into my team. So I have really a core unit of my team members that really work for AE three o, that's my my holdings company, that really manage a lot of my projects, real estate, fundraisers, foundation, experience, really all of it.
Austin Ekeler:And then we have some kind of contracted out specialists that kind of tag into those, but we have a good core group. And then also when it comes down to just as far as I've made it in the NFL, you cannot do that unless you have a relentless mindset that's out to pursue and continue to overcome obstacles. And so for me, myself, again, I I mentioned, I am a grinder. I wanna be in there. I wanna be on boots on the ground.
Austin Ekeler:And so it's that same mentality as an athlete grinding, continue to push forward in the ranks, continue to keep your job, continue to overcome, hit new milestones, get new contracts, use that same mentality, still looking for that same type of success in the entrepreneurial world, but it's the same kind of repetition, so to speak. You just continue to build, continue to plan, continue to work out, continue to learn, continue to push, push, push, and continue to, you know, expand your your operational success, hopefully.
Dave Charest:I wanna touch on I wanna start to shift us and and and think specifically about marketing for a bit here. And you mentioned a couple of things that you learned. Right? Consistency.
Austin Ekeler:I mean, being able to do segmentation
Dave Charest:and doing those types of things in segmentation. I think consistency is something I think you learned early on. Segmentation gets a little bit more advanced. What would you say when you started doing this? Because you do have the business background as well.
Dave Charest:Like, what level of experience did you have with marketing? And where would you say you are today?
Austin Ekeler:It was extremely limited and extremely, I would say, juvenile when I first started, but that was all I really needed at the beginning. You know, in the beginning of my, I guess, use of marketing understanding, I was doing like a Twitch stream, and I was streaming four or five days a week for a few hours. This is when I was really heavily hitting it back during COVID. That was I was grinding, again, grinder. And so this is when I was like, okay, I would love to let people know what's coming up in the new streams that I'm gonna be having so they can kind of anticipate it so they're not getting on my stream and just like kind of waiting to see.
Austin Ekeler:So I started an email collection. So I started collecting emails and had people, hey, sign up for the monthly newsletter. Know, as simple as a newsletter, that's base, I feel like that's as basic marketing as you can possibly get, is putting a newsletter together. So that was what I started. I started a newsletter, put it in my chat, it had an updated kind of schedule for what was coming up in the week's stream, so you can tune in and find out where you wanna fit into that.
Austin Ekeler:So building on that, then kind of my foundation came into the play and it was like, okay, now we wanna continue to do this. I didn't know what I wanted to do at first as far as with the resources, but I wanted to make sure that, hey, if people are interested in my foundation, I was using my email list from Twitch, inviting them to this other email list for the foundation and also going out to my social media as it was continuing to grow and starting to make a new list of people that are interested in helping put resources back into the community. I didn't know what they were gonna be resource wise, but that's what I wanna do. Tangible things in the community. So we started out washers and dryers, basketball or football equipment, schooling equipment.
Austin Ekeler:That's where we started out. So I started to put that narrative out there. So I think early on, it was just really capturing audiences from my community and putting them in a place and keeping them updated on what's going on. So that's that was the most basic when I was doing really simple kind of projects and, you know, offerings.
Dave Charest:Couple of interesting things that I think you're doing here, and you're just kinda learning along the way. Right? But you mentioned the Twitch stream and doing all of that type of thing, which is, again, consistently putting out content and kind of building community around those actions that you're taking that the topics or the things that you're doing there. Tell me about your interest in technology to really help facilitate that.
Austin Ekeler:Yeah. Well, you can imagine, you know, before when we're not using really any technology, put out Google forms and stuff like that, and then I would every single month put out the new monthly thing and and go in there and send it out to people. And so it was just it was extremely manual and we didn't really have a template. I would put like a Canva thing together and then put the Canva in, just kind of custom upload it into my email and then send that out. And so once we continued to grow, I continued to start doing more projects.
Austin Ekeler:I actually hired my manager, Madison, who's still my manager and is now is like my backbone of everything that I do. She wanted to make it a little bit easier for her to manage, because we had all of these segmented lists, whether it's for the foundation, whether it's for, I do giveaways as well during the season and you get to enter in, put your email in, and you can get into the giveaway, and then or if it was the Twitch stuff, or if it was I started a company called Gridiron Gaming Group, which was with other streamers, keeping up with that. So there was all of these categories, and I was like, okay, this is too much manually to just continue to do once a month or once a week updating all of this stuff. And so that's when we started to find platforms to actually be able to kinda house these. And, you know, you can think of spreadsheets.
Austin Ekeler:Like, I still have these contactless spreadsheets of just tons of emails that we've collected from Google forms and stuff like that. So technology has definitely helped us make be more efficient and just keep up a repetitive, a more consistent cadence with our outreach, which has freed her time up to be able to do other things like HR and all this other stuff. So it's definitely been a a lifesaver in that category.
Dave Charest:Talk me through your thinking here just in terms of so you're doing this stuff on social. You obviously got a large social following, and you you obviously you bring up, oh, I wanna get people on a on the the email list and stuff like that. Why? Well, a lot of people would be like, well, why do I need an email list? So from your point of view, like, yeah, why would you even bother to start to build that and move people off of those social channels?
Austin Ekeler:I would say is a very light way to build a relationship without actually knowing somebody. So they have relationship with me in some way, whether it's through my businesses, whether it's through they love me on fantasy football, they have some connection to consider my product. Right? And so for me to actually continue to further that relationship, I need to get information to them so that they can feel like they know me and they're attached to me even more. And so that's why, hey, let's get some communication that's not too invasive, because if you're spamming at them all the time, if I post on my Instagram every single day, hey, go donate to my foundation, people are like, we're not trying to do this.
Austin Ekeler:So the email is a great way to communicate, but in a more, I think, appropriate way that's not too invasive, but also can give me enough information. Also, gives you a lot of great feedback because if someone wants to break up with you, they can unsubscribe, get out, and you don't wanna continue to waste time on people that are beyond their their minds beyond your product anymore. They're out of it for whatever reason. So it helps us continue to stay efficient with our time and keep it targeted towards people that are actually there and further that relationship with those individuals.
Dave Charest:So, obviously, we're we're talking a little bit about how you're doing a lot of this stuff manually to start. And, obviously, you know, as a Constant Contact customer, that technology comes in, can help you there. Talk me through how you're kinda moving followers to become contacts and maybe even talk me through how you're thinking about segments and using lists and all of that type of stuff.
Austin Ekeler:Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, before I even started using Constant Contact, like back before when I was doing my own manual stuff, we were looking for like, okay, what's a CRM that we can use that we can manage all these dang emails? You know? Because now all of a sudden there's new segment. Now I'm building business connections as well.
Austin Ekeler:So we wanna just keep people updated with, you know, if they wanna invest in the foundation or get my giveaways and things like that. So all of these lists are existing out there. And for us, it was okay, how can we really put this in a position where we can manage this? Obviously, Constant Contact was one of the ones that we went with, we're still with them today. I think one thing that's extremely important that I've continued to do, and I would encourage anyone else out there is, you have to stay proactive in your push forward with your product.
Austin Ekeler:And that's finding new markets, or even doubling down if you found a product market fit, I think that's the biggest thing that we've done. And so I've had, like Gridiron Gaming Group, mentioned, it was something, we pushed it out there, and we weren't getting as much feedback as we would like to, and the market and the environment that we were pushing into was really not really receptive to the concept as much as I would have liked, and it was way too much work on our end. So that was great for us, not for the company, but great for us to know, because okay, we probably aren't making the best of our time if we keep pushing this company out and trying to do these bigger events with different streamers and stuff like that. So that's one of the benefits of bringing it into that environment. And then also just continuing to, you know, the segments and things like that is something that in our situation allows us to really find who the power users are for certain things, who are people that wanna stay at a distance, and continue to kind of curate these different lists for different uses, and really continue to push the narrative forward.
Austin Ekeler:Because they're gonna continue to push stuff, they're gonna continue to tell you and give you feedback. You know, you don't wanna push the same thing out to them. They're gonna continue to give you feedback, and that's gonna tell you if you're sticky or not or if you need to make a pivot.
Dave Charest:So how do you get things done with this marketing stuff? So you mentioned you have a a small team of folks that you're working with. In terms of the marketing, are you meeting on a regular basis? Like, are you talking through strategy? Like, take me through kinda how that looks for you.
Austin Ekeler:Yeah. So our marketing process is really project based. Okay. And we have some projects that are seasonal. For example, the giveaways that we do.
Austin Ekeler:It's massive accumulator of interest for my jersey during the year that I do. I do a giveaway every single week. If you have me on your fantasy team, you come in, you basically post it on Instagram or you join and share and show that on our our widget that we use and you get added to a list. So we will gain tens of thousands of emails every single year doing this. And so that's one project.
Austin Ekeler:For example, for another project, the foundation will have different types of big projects that we do as far as weight rooms. These things are very costly, so it's not like we're doing them all the time. But in the downtime, we'll keep people up with new projects that we're looking at, with old projects, keeping them updated, this is what we've done, do updates, we'll get updates from like superintendents and, you know, coaches telling us how they're using it and stuff like that, send that out to our groups as well, so they're like, oh, like, okay, they're continuing to stay kinda in the loop of their money going towards something that's making a difference. So that's more of a year round. Another one with experience, for instance, it's more of a keep you updated type of environment where, hey, someone posted something new on experience, you're getting updates on new things that are coming.
Austin Ekeler:So that's more kind of curated to who you follow on experience, and that's it. So, again, project based, seasonal, some year round stuff, some that's more reactive based off of ongoings with experience. So we kind of use the whole gamut of opportunities and tags and stuff like that.
Dave Charest:Mhmm. Are there any things you're implementing from an automation standpoint?
Austin Ekeler:Yeah. So I just briefly mentioned tags. So for instance, there's a few different ways we use tags. So let's say someone is part of our foundation group and they make a donation to our foundation, there's an automatic tag that is going to send them a thank you, thank you Les, so they get that instant feedback that's kind of like a, yep, you've been received, you've been noticed, we appreciate your offerings. Also with experience, there's a bunch of different tags that we have on there.
Austin Ekeler:So if you've been on the app for like thirty days, we'll send you one of kind of just making sure you've hit all the different aspects that we want you to hit, the different features and stuff, have you tried this yet? If you've been gone for two or three days and haven't opened the app, boom, you get hit with the notification, hey, we haven't seen you in a while, make sure you check out this person's new content they posted. And so there's a ton of different tags that we have on. We have like a weekly tag for athletes to educate them on what the platform is. Here's a video tutorial on this thing, even for admin, you know, making sure that they have tutorials and things.
Austin Ekeler:Hey, if you ever have questions, reach out to me, so people can stay up to date. And so I think the tags are great because if you have a business that you really wanna make sure that you have great customer service, I think putting somewhere where, hey, we wanna hear from you, we wanna hear the feedback, here's a place, here's things that can help you that you might not
Dave Charest:know of, that you maybe think are
Austin Ekeler:a little tricky, is a great place to keep the automated tagging systems going, whether it's on a monthly basis, or whether it's reactive to things that they click on and stuff like that, because it's gonna continue to build that relationship with them and you, and they're gonna be you're gonna be on their mind. If you never send them any tags or any emails or anything like that, you're not on our minds. That's how we work as humans. We're kind of, we're very recent, you know, recency bias, right? Where it's like, hey, the things that I've been around, things that I've seen are the things that are kind of subconsciously on my mind right now.
Austin Ekeler:So gotta make sure, if even if it's educational, to make sure to continue to put out those those tags.
Dave Charest:I love this what you're saying here because I think this is something that's often overlooked, particularly when you start thinking of, like, okay, my goal is to sell a thing and I sold the thing. And so then sometimes that communication can stop. Right? But I like what you're saying to your point is that, like, okay, sure. I might have an athlete that signs up for the experience app, but then I've gotta get him or get them to use it.
Dave Charest:Right? Like, since so you have to kind of onboard them. And I think it's such a missed opportunity for how does somebody take that step to, you know, in your case, you know, join or sign up for the app, but then how do you actually get them using it and make them sticky. Right? So did you learn that, like, through the process of doing this, or was this something that you you were like, oh, no.
Dave Charest:We need to did you know this? Like, did you do this out of the gate, or did you learn that?
Austin Ekeler:Learned this the hard way too. It was like, okay. How can we get people to interact with our products in a way that still provides value, but it's not always selling something?
Dave Charest:Right.
Austin Ekeler:We hate to be sold things nonstop. Yeah. There is a time and place that, yes, we wanna buy, but it's not most of the time. You know? So that's where those tags and that kind of process came in.
Dave Charest:Overall, what's the Constant Contact experience been like for you?
Austin Ekeler:With Constant Contact, again, we have several segmented list and being able to even learn about these tags. This is something we've learned about since bringing in Constant Contact and doing more with experience, trying to really get people more proactive being on the app again, not always trying to sell them the 20% off and all these deals. Say, okay, let's let's pull that back. Let's let's start educating and bringing people in. So that's one of the big things that has really been with Constant Contact and experience.
Austin Ekeler:Also fundraising, we did a fundraiser with Constant Contact as well, being able to incorporate other different platforms. We have a fundraiser platform that we use. It links into Constant Contact, they have webhooks and things like that, so it's really integratable with other platforms that we use already, which is great. But the really, for us, the main thing is being able to segment these lists, continue to automate some of the stuff, whether it's tags or whether it's just in the cadence of monthly things about the foundation, it really keeps everything accounted for. And there's also getting, you're getting analytics back on this stuff, open rates, you know, the typical CRM stuff, you know, people unsubscribe, new lists, how much is it growing, things like that.
Austin Ekeler:So again, a database, one stop shop, here we go. We can just go to this one place, manage all of our different lists, even with my network, things like that, like my social network that I'm continuing to build, and my relationships in the business world have been another one, and I've been even looking at some type of new type of, hey, weekly update, because I have a lot of people from a lot of different industries, and it's like, I have a lot of projects going on that maybe some of them can help me in some other opportunities. And so for me as an individual, also continuing to stay in touch with my community on a regular basis, because as we know, and as I mentioned, we're recency biased, right? So if I don't talk to you for three months, you're not in my mind, I'm not in your mind. It's not because I don't like you, it's just because we're face down going this way.
Austin Ekeler:So I love Constant Contact because it helps me stay up to date and keep other people up to date on what we have going on. Even even with some of the stuff that I get, I'm like, oh, I forgot we were doing this. You know? Like, okay. Like, for the foundation, it's kind of running itself right now with Madison and I have people helping out and it's like, hey, we have a new project coming up.
Austin Ekeler:It's gonna be done here in the next couple months. And it's like, oh, sweet. Like, that started three months ago. I forgot there was progress on that. So it's been a great relationship so far.
Dave Charest:You mentioned, obviously, you know, running donation campaigns, those types of things. Any notable results you're seeing from running any of those things?
Austin Ekeler:I think one of the biggest things that we did a I think it was on giving it was like a Giving Tuesday that was out there. We had 8,000 sign ups. So there's it's various dollar amounts that actually come in from that, but 8,000 people that went and interacted with our Giving Tuesday campaign that we did, that was just from one weekend. I'll give Constant Contact the credit for that because they've been helping me to continue to expand kind of in my usage of the platform because it's pretty complex if you're new to it. So they've been really a great help in getting some campaigns like that.
Austin Ekeler:So that's just a perfect example of just continuing to to build the ecosystem of contacts.
Dave Charest:When you think of where you are now in your particular, you know, the space, and I think this changes all the time, but what are your what's your top priority right now when you think of what it is that you're trying to achieve?
Austin Ekeler:Top priority is to continue to push forward in the things that are already established. So that would be my foundation, my athletic career, you know, if I bring it outside too, I'm also current recently married about eight months ago, so continuing Congratulations. Our growth in our marriage. But then also, there's the entrepreneur side that always wants to build more out of me, so I'm always looking for new ideas and trying new little case studies here and there. And so that's really what fills my cup and keeps me keeps me fulfilled because in a time where, hey, done really well with football and things like that, say, okay, that's great.
Austin Ekeler:But I was still originally driven by my business motivation. And so that's where I really kind of find my peace at. And there's some things that can continue to, I guess, cross over to the football world, like just a dedicated drive to build because you can build mindset, you can build camaraderie, you can build your body up, you can build your knowledge of the game. Like those concepts kind of cross over for me. So again, it comes back to the concept of continuing to build myself to be the best version I am for the things I have going on, and look for new places to also do that.
Dave Charest:What advice would you have for another business owner maybe hoping to reach your level of success?
Austin Ekeler:Oh, it's important to know that the journey doesn't stop and it's not an unsuccessful journey if your business is not successful. I think it's only an unsuccessful journey in the business world, entrepreneurial world, if you don't take the lessons that are learned from your wins and from your losses. And so I would encourage you, if you're starting big, starting small. If you're starting big, then I hope you've learned some lessons to start big, but I would say start small because small will teach you the lessons that you can look to scale into the bigger ones. And when you typically start small, you're typically gonna be if you're starting new, you're gonna be inefficient with your time, with your resources.
Austin Ekeler:So if you start at a small pace, it's much easier to comprehend the losses and the damages that are gonna happen because it's just inevitable. You're gonna run into things. You might even have a successful company as far as being able to sell your product, but you're gonna have inefficiencies. Your marketing's not gonna be good enough or your product's gonna suck or you have supply chain issues or you have a legal thing that's holding you up. There's gonna be something that comes along and those lessons are amazing.
Austin Ekeler:They're extremely painful. And, you know, I've blown a lot of money and wasted a lot of time because I didn't know, but that's part of the journey. It's part of the reason I love it. Like, even those people that I like, I despise, like there's one group that if you ever bring them up around me, I'm like, oh my god, please never talk about them. But I also, in the same conversation, say thank you to them because now I know I will never do that again.
Austin Ekeler:Mhmm. So there's gonna be pain, but I think it's the journey of continuing to build and push forward and see the progress that you made that's that's worth it. So I would say stay encouraged, but just know it's it's a painful, painful journey that is so pleasurable to continue to look and build through.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number one: Embrace the value of learning from mistakes. Austin's story about investing in a tech project that, well, didn't go as planned is a reminder that even costly setbacks come with lessons. As a small business owner, you're going to make mistakes, whether it's a new product, hiring, or a marketing campaign that flops. The key is to treat every failure as a learning opportunity.
Dave Charest:After each setback, ask yourself, what can I do differently next time? Use those insights to refine your strategy so you're always moving forward with more knowledge than you had before. Number two, understand your audience deeply. Early on, Austin tried to reach everyone in his community with the same message and realized, well, engagement dropped. It wasn't until he began segmenting his audience that his communications became more relevant and effective.
Dave Charest:For your business, take the time to identify different groups within your audience: longtime customers, first time buyers, event attendees, whatever else makes sense. Then, tailor your emails, offers, or content to what matters most to each group. The more specific and relevant your message, the more likely people are to pay attention and take action. Number three, prioritize automation. Austin streamlined his outreach and relationship building by using automated tagging and email sequences within Constant Contact.
Dave Charest:Automation isn't just about saving time. It's about staying top of mind with your customers. Set up a simple automated welcome email for new subscribers or schedule follow ups for recent buyers or create tags that trigger special offers based on customer interests. Automation helps you nurture these relationships at scale, ensuring no one slips through the cracks and your business keeps growing even when you're busy with everything else. So here's your action item for today.
Dave Charest:Set up an automated onboarding series. Use automation within your Constant Contact account to immediately engage new users, customers, or donors. The onboarding series allows you to enhance their initial experience with personalized and timely communication, helping them see even more value in what you offer. As always, friend, you'll find resources in the show notes. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be a Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to ratethispodcast.com/bam. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. That's ratethispodcast.com/bam. Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.