Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
As a small business owner, you need to be a lot of things to make your business go—but you don't have to be a marketer alone. Join host Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, and Kelsi Carter, Brand Production Coordinator, as they explore what it really takes to market your business. Even if marketing's not your thing! You'll hear from small business leaders just like you along with industry experts as they share their stories, challenges, and best advice to get real results. This is the Be a Marketer podcast! New episodes every Thursday!
Today on episode 69, you'll hear from a creative driven by intention and the impact it can have on those around you. This is the Be A Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:My name is Dave Charest, director of small business success at Constant Contact. And I help small business owners like you make sense of online marketing. And on this podcast, we'll explore 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.
Dave Charest:And at Constant Contact, we're here to help. Well, hello, friend, and thanks for joining us for another episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. As always, excited to bring you our guest today. But first, let me say hello to Kelsey Carter. Hello, Kelsey Carter.
Kelsi Carter:Hello, Dave. How are you?
Dave Charest:Yeah. I'm doing fantastic. We always say this. Right? We're excited about who our next guest is.
Dave Charest:And well, it's true. Equally true for this as well because there's so much great things that have come in to this conversation. And I I know as I was looking for clips for this, I was like, oh, there's there's a good one. There's a good one. There's a good one.
Dave Charest:There's a good one. So I truly am excited to have folks listen to this conversation that we had. Why don't you tell us who that conversation was with?
Kelsi Carter:Of course. So today, we have the wonderful Maria Miranda. She is the founder and creative director of brand management firm, Miranda Creative, which she started in 1988 and is located in Norwich, Connecticut. So something we actually both really loved about Maria is how intentional she is with her business.
Dave Charest:So absolutely right. Like, I think this was, I don't wanna say surprise, but it was, like, just, refreshing to hear just somebody who was so intentional in what she was doing and really the focus with which she attacked things and how she was really focused on just having an overall impact on not only her business, but, like, everybody kind of involved within the community. And that means, like, her immediate employees, like, the people that are clients and just like the the community in Connecticut. Right? And it was just amazing how focused she was there to really help the business thrive over the years.
Kelsi Carter:Yeah. And we even get into her dad's influence on her as an entrepreneur. He was a potato chip salesperson, and that has a strong influence as to how she has formed her business today. And she even gets into her doubts about starting her business in her twenties and what gets her through her lows of running her
Dave Charest:business. Yeah. I mean, in all of that, in addition to just these really great marketing lessons that she shares that she's she's kinda learned along the way. Another thing to mention here is after as you're listening to this conversation, you're really gonna understand why Maria, another one of our amazing customers who, was named the 2024 small business person of the year for the state of Connecticut, by the Small Business Administration. So let's go to Maria as she reflects on that honor.
Maria Miranda:When the wonderful people from the SBA called me and told me I I won the award, I was honored and surprised and then went immediately into my next Zoom meeting. That is great moment, and it was wonderful to hear about. But then I had immediately go to work to run the small business I was being recognized for. And then the emails and the notes began to arrive. And individuals I've been working with for the past 35 years were all in touch with me as to how happy they were to see that moment happen for me and my company.
Maria Miranda:And that's what really made it real and magical. One day, there was a knock on my door, and my childhood neighbor came in, the man who watched me grow up when I was 3, 5 years old. And he was he was like, We always knew you were going to be special, and the entire neighborhood is happy for you. And that when the moment became even more real and even more meaningful as I understood that it wasn't just about this year or this time. It was about decades of doing this work to impact others, and having that recognized meant everything to me.
Dave Charest:Wow. Yeah. It's amazing when you I love that idea that, like, you don't even get a chance to process it. Right? Because you're off to the next thing, and you get in there to do that.
Dave Charest:And then yeah. I mean, we'll talk about this in a little bit, but I just that idea of, you know, this is a a thing that I'd I I wanna get into this a little bit here with you, but, like, that you, you know, you created this thing, and, that's gotta be a feeling, right, to just get that. Not that you do it for recognition, but sometimes it is nice to be like, oh, yeah. You know, somebody else recognizes, and it gives you a moment to kinda reflect back on that. Well, tell me a little bit about just, Miranda Creative as a whole.
Dave Charest:What is it? What is the work that you do, and and tell us about that.
Maria Miranda:So we are a brand management firm, which is a bit different from an advertising agency or a marketing company. It was something that I realized early on was needed. When I learned about my industry and I learned that agencies charge their fees based on a per percent how much someone was spending, I I identified it early on as being a conflict of interest. How could you advise a client to do something in a smarter way, a less costly way, if the direct impact on that was for you to be earning less revenue? And I said, I'm not gonna be an agency that works on commissions, but works on commitment.
Maria Miranda:And that the relationship was going to be one of creativity and talent and doing what was best for the client, not based on how much revenue they were spending. And so that was very early on in the process, way before it became a norm. And how we work is we work in a cohort model. Clients come to us with a need for particular support. It might be a development of a website.
Maria Miranda:It might be about social media. It might be about email messaging, content writing, etcetera. And we gather the cohort together that they need. They get a percentage of that cohort's time and talent, and we become an outsourced extension of their community. They may have an internal team and we support with them, or we may be the entire outsource relationship of that particular client.
Maria Miranda:And that's how we work. We are 35 years in existence in this model. We are 30 team members all throughout the US that do that do this work. I'm really proud of the relationships and the reputation our organization has.
Dave Charest:So talk to me about then what inspired you to start the business? And maybe if you can, I mean, 35 years, amazing? Obviously, tons of clients that you've worked with through that time. So talk to me through, like, what was the inspiration to start the business and what do you remember about getting your first client?
Maria Miranda:Oh gosh. It's, you know, I have to say that the inspiration to start the business, and this was 1988, I was out interviewing with larger agencies to look for a position. I was then in graphic design with my formal degree in college. And I realized that if I wanted to work for someone that I respected and that they respected me, I needed to work for myself. But I could tell again, this is 1988, time of big shoulder pads and, Reaganomics and all of those things.
Maria Miranda:And I could tell they really didn't were not invested in me as a young person and were not invested in a relationship with me or with their clients. It was about the churn. It was about the power. And I saw a whole community of individuals, small businesses especially, who were not getting support from those type of environments. And I said to my parents, now, I would like to take over the 3rd bedroom and the apartment that I'm renting from you and turn it into my home office and work for myself.
Maria Miranda:How do you feel about that? And they were a 100% supportive, and I and I chose to do that. And, honestly, I look back in time, and I was their youngest child. I just graduated from college. They're probably
Dave Charest:saying, it's over.
Maria Miranda:I don't need to worry about her anymore. She's gonna get a job and go into her career. And I go to them and I say, you know, I'm 23 years old. I think I can run the world. I wanna start my own company instead.
Maria Miranda:I can only imagine, you know, how they really, really felt about it. But what they said to me is that we fully support you, and I think you should do it.
Dave Charest:Well, tell me a little bit about that then. Like, what do you think that role is that, you know, your parents kinda play in giving you the the confidence to go and and start your own thing?
Maria Miranda:So for me in particular, my father was a potato chip salesperson. And for for him, 35 years to 40 years, he sold potato chips from Frito Lay. And at night, he would have me go into his truck, and I would help him package the leftover potato chips. And he would tell me lessons about marketing from the road, about what he sold that day and how things went and how customer relationships really mattered. And so I went to marketing school my entire childhood every single night.
Dave Charest:Mhmm. I
Maria Miranda:actually do a lecture about this for my father. It's called all that and a bag of chips,
Dave Charest:and it's
Maria Miranda:all about that story. So I was prepared to think like an entrepreneur, to think like a person in sales at a very young age when a lot of individuals to this day are not prepared to be able to have conversations about selling or understand how to apply that language even in emails to actually selling for a point of conversion and doing so in a way that is about answering a need versus being concerned about what you're trying to sell.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Maria Miranda:And my father taught me that. So I, therefore, I had confidence in being able to say to clients, I can help you answer a need, and this is what I do. If you feel the same way about your need and my abilities, then we should be able to move forward together. And at 23, I was trained to have that discussion.
Dave Charest:So was this something that you always thought you would do then? You know, would you was a business always in the cards? No?
Maria Miranda:No. No. My yearbook statement was that I was going to develop a new form of art and a new a new I was going to be an artist and that was I was gonna be a, you know, an an artsy artsy person. And I never truly envisioned that I would be running a firm of 30 employees and helping clients, active clients, about a 150 every single day in that way. That wasn't what I thought I would be doing.
Maria Miranda:But in many ways, I actually did discover a new form of art Mhmm. And develop a new way of communicating. Because 1988, I had a drive to send a fax on. Right? There was right?
Maria Miranda:And I watched my company evolve and my team evolve for the past 35 years to being absolutely in the moment for whatever the advancements may be, which is why we really enjoy the constant evolution of what Constant Contact offers Mhmm. As you keep pace with us.
Dave Charest:Well, I'm wondering then in this if I mean, obviously, you had the confidence and you decided to do this thing, but did you ever have any doubts in the process of getting started here? Tell me about that.
Maria Miranda:Oh, yes. Oh, yes. As you can imagine, if you do work for a 150 clients and early on, you're in your twenties, All along the way, you're going to meet someone who identifies your talents and looks at you and says, don't you wanna come inside? Don't you wanna come work for me? Right?
Maria Miranda:And so there were many, many times along the way that clients were like, you are amazing. You would be even more amazing if you were my employee. Right? I'm gonna pull you away from all these other clients. Just focus on me.
Maria Miranda:Wouldn't that be great? You know, you wouldn't have to work as hard. So many times that those offers were made to me, and quite a few of them were quite tempting. In particular, one was the Ryland School of Design asked me to handle the marketing of their continuing education program, that they would fund my master's degree in anything I wanted to learn, you know, and that was very, very tempting. That would almost swayed me.
Maria Miranda:I was in business maybe about about that magical 5 Yeah. 8 year place. Right? And they almost swayed me into, stepping away from the business. And there are days where I was like, I wish I took that job, and there are days that I'm glad that I didn't and that I'm on my path.
Maria Miranda:Today, I'm definitely I'm happy I chose the path that I chose. It was the right thing for me to do. But there were moments.
Dave Charest:For someone personally, like, I'm I'm the type of person okay. I started my own thing, and I've been doing my thing for a while. And I realized, like, I really suck at running my own business. Right? I need to find some place where I can actually not have to worry about that, and which is why I'm happy to be a Constant Contact and actually use the skill set that I have and focus on that.
Dave Charest:And so what is it for you that says, nope. I'm gonna continue to do my own thing?
Maria Miranda:I would say the the moments where I have, you know, everybody has their highs and their lows. And it seems like the moment I'm ever having those lows, I get a communication from the ripple effect that I have. It might be from an employee. It might be from a client. It might be from the community in general.
Maria Miranda:And they'll say to me, you make such a difference in my life. Because of you, my company is still here. Because of you, my employees still have jobs. I get Mother's Day cards from some of my employees for over the years who write to me saying, they still apply lessons, what they learn from me every day and where they are in their careers. And the universe will deliver those messages to me at a time where I might be having a doubt about how I've spent my life or what I've done, and it reminds me that I absolutely am doing the right thing.
Maria Miranda:Now that's what there isn't any one thing. It's a renewal and a reminder on a regular basis that will keep an entrepreneur in that space. And it will evolve because there'll be times where I'll be, like, really glad I have my independence, or there'll be times that I'm really glad I have a larger team around me and I can be a little bit more vulnerable. I might need to take some time off or something. So it will evolve depending upon the circumstances as to what my why is.
Maria Miranda:Currently, my why is making sure that the legacy of this firm will move forward in the next decade.
Dave Charest:When you think about how you've managed to grow the business and from its small place to where you're, you know, over 75 clients and all of that, How did you get there? How did you do it? Did you have a path? Did you have a plan? Talk me through what that journey has been like.
Maria Miranda:Sure. We have a a series of Miranda isms here. Right? And some of them are from my father and some of them are from me. The company is not actually named after me.
Maria Miranda:It's named after my father.
Dave Charest:Got it.
Maria Miranda:When he, passed away about 20 years ago, I was kinda sad that he didn't have any children. That never happened for me. And I realized I actually do have a child, and I actually could continue his name by naming my my company after him. It's just a little emotional aside for you.
Dave Charest:Sure.
Maria Miranda:So your question was, you know, what was my plan or what was my path? So every year, I do a sabbatical for a year, usually the week of Columbus Day because I think about the discovery of Columbus as the week I need to discover what my path for the year ahead is going to be. And I think about the year ahead, and I think about up to 3 to 5 years during that week. I I study what trends are happening. I study where revenue is going to be generated, and I think about where we need to be positioning ourselves in evolving media, in evolving marketplaces, in evolving needs for our clients.
Maria Miranda:So, for example, right now, I'm gonna be naming an AI officer at Miranda Creative. Right? We're going to have a person who's just strictly in charge of AI initiatives and making sure that we have training in place for our clients, training in place for the teams, etcetera. Morinda Creative is we are at about 30 team members, and we're about 35 years in existence. You can see the ratio and the relationship to that number.
Maria Miranda:We have strategically grown by 1 to 1 and a half team members every year, and we grow that organization. We grow that business model by having enough work come in to surround a cohort for us to be able to grow the next level of our team. So we don't, we don't take rapid risks. We take very strategic choices in our client relationships, and we don't overniche. Many people talk about the power of the niche, right, to specialize in this or specialize in that.
Maria Miranda:You know, when the pandemic arrived, many, many niche agencies were gone
Dave Charest:Mhmm.
Maria Miranda:And never came back. Those in hospitality, those in restaurants, etcetera, etcetera. So we have a series of service lines, and we make sure that we never have too large a client as a percentage at any one particular time or not to be overniched. So if there was a rapid shift in the market circumstances, supply chain issue, whatever it may be, we have the ability to absorb that situation and keep the business model healthy.
Dave Charest:Got it. So did you have any struggle with coming from a place of being a, I would say, a creative mind in many instances? And there's often this confrontation between the business side Side. Right, and the creative side. And so how do you how do you navigate that?
Dave Charest:And and are there places where you find that, oh, I have a weakness here? Or, talk me through that a little bit.
Maria Miranda:Sure. Sure. You know, you asked me earlier, do I ever envision myself, you know, being in this space or running a, you know, a company of this size or doing that? No. Because I I felt early on in my life, I was more of the creative spirit.
Maria Miranda:And those who those who can't see me in this podcast, I've got curly, curly hair, and I enormous glasses and, you know, I and I wear bright orange clothing. And and so I didn't see myself as being relevant to suits kinda thing. So I learned early on about where my skill sets and my strengths were, and that became very obvious when, you know, I wasn't keeping up with my bookkeeping the way I should or I wasn't keeping up with my IRS relationships and payments as I should. And I realized that I needed to focus on what my strengths were and to surround myself with partners or vendors or team members who supplemented where my weaknesses were. And you sometimes learn those lessons in really painful ways.
Maria Miranda:You lose a client relationship. You get a nasty letter from the IRS. You learn those lessons by making mistakes, and you allow yourself to say, okay. I'm in a learning moment. I can either do something about it or I can wallow and not improve and move forward.
Maria Miranda:So whenever I speak to other entrepreneurs or people who are thinking about being an entrepreneur, this is one thing that I share with them. How are you spending your time on your own is a natural indicator of what you really want to be doing or where your scales are. I could be working on a logo or working on a design to 2 o'clock in the morning and not at all feel tired or exhausted. I'm loving every moment of it. 3 o'clock in the afternoon, if I'm writing a proposal, my eyes are watering, I'm yawning, I'm looking for dark chocolate or coffee.
Maria Miranda:Right? I clearly don't wanna be doing that work. So pay attention to those signals, and that tells you what you should be doing with your time and where you're most valuable as well.
Dave Charest:And then it it amazes, you that there are people that enjoy doing that work. Right? Yes. That boy,
Maria Miranda:I love writing RFPs. You know? Then you go right ahead.
Dave Charest:Oh, please. Have a good time.
Maria Miranda:Yeah. Show me when it's done.
Dave Charest:I wanna get into marketing a bit here, but I I I feel like these things are tied together a bit. I wanna take a moment to just talk to you about community. How important is community to you? Why is that important? And how does that play into the success of the agency?
Maria Miranda:Sure. I think a good way help to help best tell that story is when the agency went into its 35th year, we created, a brand and a logo for that year, and it was called Thrive. It was the first letters of 3 and the last letters of 5 to create the sense of thrive. And what we determined and dedicated for the year is that we wanted to thrive as individuals, express to each other what we needed as an individual. How do we wanna work every day?
Maria Miranda:What's the kind of work that we wanted to do to make us as individuals as strong as possible to the next level of community, which is the community of Miranda Creative. If everybody in our community is thriving and feeling their best self and doing their best work, then we as an organization would be very, very strong, and we would have enough energy to move out to the next level of community, which is our client community. Giving them their best work, thinking about the best ideas possible for them. And then the following outer community is the greater community. So it might be the employees of our clients.
Maria Miranda:It might be the community with where we live and where we work that we should be sharing our talents to that space to be able to help impact from the outward all the way in. The more we give, the more we gain as an organization. But you can't give of yourself unless you have taken the moment to make sure that you're doing what you can to thrive as a as an individual. So that's how we relate community at Miranda Creative.
Dave Charest:Wow. I love the I wanna call it the holistic kind of view of running that. And I I commend you for building that environment because I think it's it's an important thing that I think we've seen, particularly at a time where, again, you're saying that, like, that wasn't really the thing that most businesses were thinking about. Right?
Maria Miranda:So No. No. Right. I would say I'm happy to have created a space Yeah. Where my amazing assistant, Marjorie, is my age when I started the company.
Maria Miranda:And I look at her every day, and I think what should have been done for me and what would have been and should have been available for me when I was her age and what can I do to create a better environment for her?
Dave Charest:When you think about and I want you to think, specifically about Miranda Creative at at this particular point, but when you're when you're thinking about the strategies that have been effective for you to just build and maintain those relationships that with your clients that your dad would talk about, like, what what have you found to be most successful there? So a
Maria Miranda:there? So a few things. I just said this phrase the other day at a photoshoot. Little effort, little impact. Big effort, big impact.
Maria Miranda:So on a consistent basis, there's always going to be the easier way out to get an assignment done. And, inevitably, the impact of that easier way is lesser than what it would be if you put a meaningful impact or meaningful effort into what you're doing. So in this case, we're doing a a bubble wrap campaign where we're wrapping children in bubble wrap to talk about how parents would wanna do everything they could to protect their child. But what they really should be doing is having conversations about prevention. Yeah.
Maria Miranda:And talking about I'm talking about safety at home, etcetera. And so we could bring one bowl roll of bubble wrap, or we could be 20, and we could make the image memorable and unique for the for the campaign. Right? So instead of it taking an hour to do the photo shoot, it took 3 hours, but the impact's gonna happen. So always being in the moment and making sure you're doing the best work for the moment, but also thinking about the 4 or 5 clients that are behind the client you're working for right then and there.
Maria Miranda:The perspective of 35 years has taught me that that associate director of marketing will go on to be the director of marketing, will go on to be the senior VP of marketing, and will go on to be the chief marketing officer. And they will remember how you were when you first met them, and they will bring you along with them, and they will bring you to other client relationships. So if you're in the moment and doing the best work you can now, you are also doing the best work for 4 years from now. So thinking about to summarize it for you, thinking about the impact that you want to have and the efforts you're willing to do for it, and understanding that the influence you're having at this moment will have a ripple effect for many, many clients in many, many years ahead. Those two things will guide you to success every single time.
Dave Charest:How do you work through the balance of marketing for your own agency versus, you know, what you're doing for clients?
Maria Miranda:Sure. We did struggle for a while. I probably didn't have the right website for about 2 years because I was so busy doing the the work of others that I could never justify stepping back and doing the work for ourselves. And finally, you know, we had to realize that we had to dedicate a percentage of our labor and a fixed person, a fixed cohort of our own to do that work. So for everybody listening here who does marketing and isn't on top of their own aspects of it, I say to you, you cannot you cannot talk about about the work unless you're setting a good example.
Maria Miranda:And, and it's absolutely necessary to set a good example within your own work. So what we look to do is we look to convey our work and our story through the good works of the clients that we do. That makes it a lot easier versus trying to necessarily write original content and come up with an editorial calendar on your own, because putting that much work on yourself is probably setting yourself up for failure. But talking organically about your community, your culture, how you work is much, much more manageable and much, much more authentic, and so that's been an easier process for us. Also, we paid attention to how decisions about who to choose as an employer or a vendor partner were changing, And it wasn't so much those broad shoulder pads and those the bigger the agency, the bigger the the clients.
Maria Miranda:It really wasn't so much about that. It was about the good work done by good people, and that's what we focus on sharing. And that's our everyday, so it became much, much more manageable.
Dave Charest:Who's involved with helping you market the business now, and what does that process kinda look like for you?
Maria Miranda:Sure. I'm often asked, you know, who is your who is your director of business development? Of course, as the agency principle, part of that falls on my shoulders, But our entire community here are business development individuals. They like going out to business after hours. They will participate and do presentations.
Maria Miranda:They will be engaged in the community because just like my father, I have I may not be unpacking bags of chips here in this building, but every day in a very gentle way, I support my community to understand that that the concept of selling is not something to be afraid of, nor is it difficult because you're actually listening for a need and you're addressing the need. So a 100% of our community is involved in that, and as a result, we probably have between 7 to 12 inquiries a week that turn to us looking for relationships to to begin partnering with us. And it's a joy, but it's also sometimes difficult to make choices about who we can actually have room at the table because we don't want to overpromise and underdeliver, so we have to be cautious about our growth plans. Beyond that, the process is really truly organic. We currently don't do AdWords, but I will tell you that we do an email communication out every single month.
Maria Miranda:Because if we're doing presentations, the a 158 people who came to hear us speak about this, those email addresses move into our constant contact profile when we send out our mail. Yeah.
Dave Charest:So tell me about that process then. So what are you communicating in those, in those emails that you are sending, and and what is your approach there?
Maria Miranda:So our approach is to be aware and timely in content that we're sharing that we believe the market wants to be aware of and doing it in the form of our work. So we listen to the questions that were being asked by our current clients. We listen to the questions we're being asked when we're doing presentations, and we make note of that and we bring that out as information we will share in our email communications. So for example, there's a lot of questions right now about user generated content and how to do that well. We move from influencers to creators to user generated content partners, which is a brilliant space.
Maria Miranda:And we do a great deal of work in that space, and so we're able to talk and share examples about that. We talk about our our culture, and we talk about good work that we've done because ultimately, you want someone who's reading that communication to see an environment that will be the right place for them to turn to if they have a need now or they have a need in the future. I feel that if you're if the content that you're sharing is about what you want to share versus what the market not to hear or be interested in, you are definitely not a great agency because you don't really know how to market.
Dave Charest:Well, let's talk about that a little bit. What do you find either for yourself or for the businesses that you work with? What do you find to be the most challenging thing when it comes to marketing for them or for you?
Maria Miranda:Sure. The most challenging thing is that they're not listening to me when I say your email list is the only audience you actually own. They're like, you know, my Facebook page. I'm like, nope. That's Mark Zuckerberg's page, and he's letting you borrow it.
Maria Miranda:You know? My Instagram account also belongs to Mark Zuckerberg. My TikTok channel may not be around in 18 months. You You know? So I think one of the most the most challenging things is that they have to feed those channels now, and they're not they're not paying attention to the fact the goals of those channels is to move the relationship closer to them in the form of an email database or in the form of event participation or in the form of other forms of enrollment so that they're constantly moving those initial inquiries to a place of a more committed relationship or a warmer relationship.
Maria Miranda:And that's my my my biggest struggle because my responsibility is to get them to that threshold and for my client to then nurture them forward. If they're not passionate about doing so, I feel like I'm sometimes pushing clothes on a clothing rack. It just just keeps falling off the other side. What's the point of what we're doing? Yeah.
Dave Charest:Yeah. 1, you're speaking my language right now, obviously, coming from constant contact. But it's funny. I mean, I I guess there's a lot of psychology going in and the development of these platforms that make us so addicted to them and, like, want to or feel like. It demands so much of you, right, from a social perspective.
Dave Charest:Yet, realistically, gives you very little in return, but somehow makes it feel like you're doing something. Right? It's it's very this very strange dynamic that comes into play. And maybe because there's not that instant gratification maybe with email. I'm I'm always trying to figure this out myself.
Dave Charest:Right? But but once you start building that list and start doing those things, like, you start to see the benefits of that, which are far outweigh what you actually see from doing all of that time and energy on social. Right? It's it's such a strange thing. Yes.
Maria Miranda:I'd have to say to you what the the strangest thing for me is this. We moved from an environment and a culture where we paid some of the most brilliant minds to distill and deliver us information, to the point that we have an even larger number of people delivering us information, and we do no forms of compensation for them. Mhmm. And there are others who are generating revenue on all of that hard work. Yet people are still doing it.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Maria Miranda:They're spending their lives to show us how to strip a piece of strip an antique furniture to refinish it and spending hours doing that in front of us, getting new compensation for it. And that's the new relationship that we're in, where individuals are doing all the work to deliver us information, not being paid for it, but the channels that they are on are making money on them.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Maria Miranda:At some point, people will wake up to what they're doing.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Or at least making sure that, to your point, you're you're moving those people that are consuming that stuff that you're making so that you have control of that. Right? So you can reach. And so my question to you would be then, obviously, knowing this and being in the marketing space, like, I guess, what brought you to Constant Contact to begin with?
Maria Miranda:In the early days, you know, again, for 35 years, I I was probably working with it before some other people on the podcast were even born. You know, what brought me to it is the simplicity of use and being able to put materials together fairly easily that didn't require necessarily HTML programming to be able to put together a form of communication. And then it was also possible for me to be on the backside of it doing the work and for the clients to have access to it as well. So, you know, it may be very commonplace now, but in the early aspects of this industry, what a designer worked on and what the client received were often 2 different spaces, you know, and you couldn't collaborate or share in any way. But Constant Contact made it possible for the client to edit the copy that I had put in in the same file.
Maria Miranda:And all of those are just wonderful things for being able to get information over the threshold faster.
Dave Charest:What are some of the results that you've seen from using Constant Contact?
Maria Miranda:So without a doubt, the best conversion tool for my clients over and over and over again is email. When it comes to actual conversions of of ticket sales, of claiming coupons, of clicking to a website and making a purchase, of plotting to be able to come and actually make a commitment to be at that retail environment. They may indicate they're interested in the event on social media, or they may like the post, etcetera, etcetera, but I don't feel that they've actually moved into the relationship quite often until I've sent them an email. Over and over again, if a client is having a difficult time, like, right now, you know, many of my garden center clients are struggling tremendously here in New England because we had, you know, we were had temperatures in the in the forties up in you know, up until 2 weeks ago. So there was very delayed gardening season through here, and so it's they're struggling.
Maria Miranda:Sure enough, one of my first goals in is guiding them into doing more emails during the course of the week to actually result in sales, that spending more money on social media is giving us more impressions, but email out to an already existing audience is moving the needle.
Dave Charest:So talk to me about you know, we we talked about this idea, of course, getting people over this threshold of understanding that social isn't the thing. You've got to move them to this list that you own. You have the direct contact. Once you get people there and they're okay, I'm in, what are some of the first things that you like, let's say first three things that you need to do with that client to get them a a solid foundation? What does that look like?
Maria Miranda:So if they already have an established Constant Contact account, the first thing we encourage them to do, if they're new to us or they want to improve their relationships is we so let's do an audit of what's currently known about your information. When are you seeing your best open rates? What are you seeing for your most click throughs? Oh, you don't have UTM codes on things to see what's being clicked on? You know, let's get our best practices in place so we can have an not working because what's the point of not looking at that data and just taking educated guesses?
Dave Charest:And if the data is not there for what I need to
Maria Miranda:see, then I will start by building resources in my early see, then I will start by building resources in my early communications that are a series of tests. So I might do an education video and a culture video, a featured item. I might do a series of tools in my early communications to see what's actually gaining the attention of the market that they're trying to reach.
Dave Charest:Mhmm.
Maria Miranda:And then I take a look at their databases. And so many of my early clients have just this massive total big database where they're speaking the same way to a client who makes a once a year purchase. They're speaking the same way to that person who buys an an apple pie once a year as they are to a person who's grocery shopping every single week, and that makes no sense whatsoever. And so we start looking at at list differentiation and organizing them in that way. So first is audit what's currently happening.
Maria Miranda:2nd, if I don't have resources to get an audit to organize some early emails. And then I start looking at their lists and what they have for current lists, and then I begin looking at what is their most effective market for conversions. What do we know about them? And do we have enough of those on the email list, and how can we grow them?
Dave Charest:Well, talk to me about some of the things that you would do or implement with clients just in terms of growing that list.
Maria Miranda:Sure.
Dave Charest:And what have you found actually, I I what have you found that I I often found that list growth is one of the things that isn't necessarily to the forefront of people's minds and can be a real obviously a real great driver to be able to contact somebody again. Because once they come to your website, once they come to your store, then they leave. They're gone. I guess, what do you see? What do you do?
Dave Charest:And and how do you get people how do you convince them to make that a priority?
Maria Miranda:So the the first thing I tell clients is that a a valuable list is often a slow growth that my father would tell me. It's one of my stories for him is that the a lead that is bought, a lead that is easy to get as a result of having been bought, is a lead that actually doesn't often have value because they're there just for that purchase or just for that buy. Right? So a lead that gets 15% off, if you give them the email address, and then 30 seconds later, they unsubscribe from the list. Right?
Maria Miranda:They're not really interested in having a relationship with you. They really want that coupon offer. So things that I encourage clients to look at is to make sure that they make it as easy as possible to subscribe for those populations that want to get more information from them. And quite often, the email subscription is the last thing at the bottom of the website. Not easily readily to be found.
Maria Miranda:It isn't pinned on their social media page. There's no no information about that that that you can sign up for email information. So let's first look at making it possible to communicate and to bond with you for that audience that wants to. For the audience that is not sure whether they want more clutter in their email box and are resistant possibly to do so, share with them knowledge as a result of their ability and their willingness to give you their email. We're working with a tiny home manufacturer, and she wants to build her list more.
Maria Miranda:And I said, there are so many questions that people have about thinking if a tiny home is right for them. Why don't we create a white paper or a frequently asked questions or a tool that a person can sign up and they can get from you to be able to understand what you need to know about getting a tiny home. You've always wanted one. What do you need to know about that? And those individuals are are if they're at the point where they have those questions, they're probably a fairly qualified lead.
Maria Miranda:And if you then have a plan system for communications to people who have got that white paper or that lead and you move them gently into the process, hit them with a way too aggressive sales approach, that's that will be a great experience and that will generate for you those relationships. So make it easier to email. Don't try to buy emails. And offer a value for an individual, a authentic value for an individual who is providing that email address. A white paper, sometimes access to information they wouldn't get any other way is great.
Maria Miranda:Those are my best practice encouragements to my clients.
Dave Charest:What would it be like trying to run your business and working with your clients without Constant Contact?
Maria Miranda:A lot harder. A lot harder. If you can imagine, you know, it might nothing exists exists in a vacuum, and they might turn to a different tool. And my clients have turned to a few different tools, And inevitably, they walked away from them because there were hidden expenses, there were issues with IP addresses going directly to spam because that provider didn't have the same level of limitations of what you could do to put lists in. So it would probably add 15 to 20% of my time to manage the relationship if they didn't have the right tool in place, and so that would happen to me.
Maria Miranda:So please don't go away.
Dave Charest:If you could go back and give yourself, your younger self some advice when you were starting the business, what would it be?
Maria Miranda:I think the first thing that I would say is that if you think you're done with school, I'm sorry to tell you you're not, that you're gonna spend the rest of your life in continuing education, because the industry is going to be constantly evolving and that you need to dedicate probably, you know, at least 1 to 2 days every single month to your to your continued growth and development. That would be the first thing. The second thing I would tell myself is that you're worth more and you should charge what you're worth Would be the second thing I would tell my younger self. Just because you're 23 and you're from an fairly impoverished community here in Eastern Connecticut, it doesn't mean that you don't have the same skill sets or value as someone coming out of Hartford or the Gold Coast of Connecticut. That would be the second thing that I would say.
Maria Miranda:And, the third thing I would tell myself is take care of your health. You're going to have many clients, many friends, but you're only going to have one body, and that you better take care of that because your creative mind and your your brilliance is surrounded by this particular body, and you should take care of it right from the very beginning.
Dave Charest:Best piece of branding advice for small business owners listening?
Maria Miranda:I'm thinking for a moment because there's so many. I would say that the best piece of branding advice for my for other small businesses is that you need to set aside the time to market yourself. That there are many approaches that you can take, and the best piece of the direction to take will vary depending upon the organization. The universal piece of advice is to make sure that you have set aside at least 10% of your time every week to focus on understanding what's going on with your marketing so you can make good decisions. Because if you don't spend that time looking at your data, analyzing what you've done, and understanding what you need to understand about your market, you will never get to a place where you can make timely and efficient decisions.
Maria Miranda:You will always be on a gerbil wheel.
Dave Charest:Maria, thank you so much for spending some time here with us today. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we part ways today?
Maria Miranda:I think that I would I would add that everybody should find their tribe. Is that being a small business owner, business leader, in responsible for marketing is hard work, and that it's a lot easier. The lift can be a lot easier when you find a community that is trusted and you can ask questions of and you can share information with each other. And I would look for I would encourage those that are listening to look for that tribe, find that that that group that you can turn to and you can share your challenges, and you can ask questions of each other so that you don't feel quite so isolated in the experience because many small business owners do.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number 1, take time to review and refresh. Maria mentioned that she takes a sabbatical every year. She uses this time to discover what her path for the year ahead is going to be. She studies the trends that are happening, studies where her revenue is gonna be generated, and thinks about where she needs to be positioning Miranda Creative.
Dave Charest:This time really allows her to account for evolving media, evolving marketplaces, and the evolving needs of her clients. So my question to you is, are you making time to do the same? So many of these be a marketer conversations have touched on the importance of reviewing what's happening with your business regularly so you can make adjustments to continue thriving. So please make sure you're prioritizing this time to review and refresh. Number 2, focused on strengths and supplement weaknesses.
Dave Charest:Maria offers how paying attention to how you're spending your time on your own is really a natural indicator of what you really wanna be doing or really where your scales are leveled. So pay attention to those signals that tell you what you should be doing with your time and where you're most valuable. Then you can find people to supplement in the areas that drain your energy. And don't forget, if you need help with marketing, Constant Contact has professional services and certified experts across the country. Number 3.
Dave Charest:Market your work and story through your clients. Maria mentioned how talking organically about her community, the company culture, and how the company works is a much more manageable and authentic way to market Miranda Creative. When you focus on the good work done by good people for good clients, the process of marketing becomes much more manageable because it's part of your everyday. If you ever find yourself because you have to do marketing, and I'm using air quotes there, remember, it can be as simple as sharing the story of the work you're doing with existing clients. So here's your action item for today.
Dave Charest:I'd love for you to set some time in your calendar to review what's been going on with your marketing so far. What's working? What's not working? What adjustments can you make? Make this time a recurring meeting so you can review at least once a quarter.
Dave Charest:I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be A Marketer podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review. Just go to rate this podcast.com/bam. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show. That's rate this podcast.com/bam.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.