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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 2x Webby Award Honoree Be A Marketer podcast! New episodes coming in July!
On today's episode, you'll hear how small businesses can move beyond social media followers and start building real relationships they actually own. This is the Be a Marketer podcast.
Dave Charest:My name is Dave 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. And at Constant Contact, we're here to help.
Dave Charest:Well, hello, friend, and thanks for joining us for another episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. And, of course, that means the person that keeps this show running smoothly is here. That's right. Say hello to Kelsi Carter. Hi, Kelsi.
Kelsi Carte:Hi, Dave. I love that intro.
Dave Charest:I'm so special. Trying to keep things surprising for you from a for here in and out. So here we go. You ready? What what's one thing?
Dave Charest:Or is there something in your life that you're like, alright. I'm not gonna rent that. I'm not gonna borrow it. Like, you have to own it on your own.
Kelsi Carte:That's a really good question. I would honestly say, for me, a weed whacker has become which sounds crazy. But all last summer, we kept having this steal of my fiance's grandpa's weed whacker. And I noticed, like, this year, we need it too. So I'm just like, I need to own my own.
Kelsi Carte:I can't just borrow someone's, but also a phone, a cell phone. Need to own them. Sure.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I guess that makes sense. So what is it about or what would it have been about owning the weed whacker, let's go with that example, that, like, makes the difference to you?
Kelsi Carte:I think it's just the transportation of it. It's right there, like, with me. I can store it how I want to store it because her grandpa does not take the best care of his
Ryan Burke:Ah, I
Kelsi Carte:see. When it's not in my possession. Yep. So it's more of knowing that I will be taking care of it, and it will be getting used properly and stored properly.
Dave Charest:Mhmm. There you Yeah.
Kelsi Carte:I just don't have to worry about, like, having to go pick it up. If I wanna see something I wanna weed whack, I can be like, okay. Let me just go to my garage.
Dave Charest:I love you. Get that voice too. You you
Kelsi Carte:get already. Gonna go get it.
Dave Charest:Excellent. Well, so, you know, it's like one of those things for me, right, when I think about that, it's like, alright. I think we talked about this a little bit the other day, but like a car, for example. Right? Like, I'm not gonna go lease a car or at least not anymore.
Dave Charest:Right? I'm at the point where I'm like, no. I just wanna buy the thing because I wanna be done with it. I don't wanna be making payments, but I also don't want to be in that situation where, like, oh, if something happens, I gotta make sure I do this because I don't really own the thing. Right?
Dave Charest:Like, I I have to be kind of, like, beholden to all of these different rules that are going on. The reason I bring this up is because like I think this is one of those things that, you know, that's one of the things I like to own. But also, we talk a lot about this idea of like owning your audience when it comes to marketing. And essentially, what we're talking about is this idea that, yes, social media is cool. We know so many people will start there.
Dave Charest:But at the end of the day, you're kind of on rented land when you think about what that means. Right? Like, you don't own the platform. And if something changes or the site goes down or whatever the case may be, you actually don't have any access to those people that are your followers or that are connected with your pages. Right?
Dave Charest:And so I don't know. It's just one of those things that yeah. Like, ownership really does make a big difference. I'm looking forward to the day where the bank no longer owns my home because I think that will hit a little bit differently too. Yeah.
Dave Charest:Right? But, like, again, in reality, you don't really own that either. Right? And so until you've paid it off a %. So I like that a little better.
Dave Charest:And so we're kinda had this conversation today with some folks from the Constant Contact team, of course, just a little bit more about that idea and some of the things that we're doing on the product side. So, Kelsi, who's joining us today?
Kelsi Carte:We have three wonderful guests. So they are Jesus Flores, Brian Burke, and Mike Crawford. They're product leaders at Constant Contact. Jesus is a product manager focused on audience growth. Ryan Burke is a director of product focusing on small business growth, and Mike Crawford is a senior product manager responsible for the contacts experience.
Kelsi Carte:They're the ones behind some of the new tools that make it easier to grow and manage your list even if you're just starting out.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Of course, always great to chat with the folks behind the scenes that are responsible for making improvements to the Constant Contact product. In our conversation today, we talk about why building your contact list is the smartest move you can make, especially if you're relying on social media, how Constant Contact's new lead magnet tool helps you capture more qualified leads even from social, and ways to use your contact data to send smarter, more effective marketing campaigns without needing a full fledged CRM. So let's get into our conversation here. I wanna kinda set the stage for our conversation here today, and I think probably a good way to start this is talking about Constant Contact's latest small business now report.
Dave Charest:It's called Growth in Motion, and the whole goal of it was really to explore the mindset and the marketing and the goals of new small businesses, and these are folks started in the last five years. And one of the findings that I think is really interesting and a a big good backdrop for our conversation today, but 63% of the small businesses that we talk to rely on social media as their main marketing channel. And with 54% of those people really planning on keeping it as their primary channel in 2025. And I guess it, you know, it get makes sense. Right?
Dave Charest:Like a lot of businesses are starting on social media, and it really feels like an easy way to start building your audience because there's a little barrier of entry, and a lot of people are actually probably familiar with it. Right? But it's also, I think, really kind of risky when you think about continuing that as your primary channel because you don't own those followers. So I was just having a conversation earlier today with someone, you know, we've got another potential TikTok ban coming up, and it happened before. And, you know, we see this all the time.
Dave Charest:These channels change their algorithms. They make a different spin someplace else where they wanna focus on a certain type of content. And then suddenly, as a business owner, your reach is gone. You don't know what to do. You don't have access to that audience that you've worked so hard to kind of build on the platform.
Dave Charest:And, you know, the good news is I think in all of this, the other thing that we've seen is that 33% of the small business owners see email marketing as an underutilized tool for converting leads and just building customer loyalty. And so I think as the business starts to mature, they're recognizing that there is value in being able to have that direct connection with their customers. And I think we would all here agree on that. And so, Jesus, I wanted to start by going to you. We're talking a little bit about this idea.
Dave Charest:But from your perspective, how are you seeing small businesses really kinda, I guess, miss the mark, right, by just starting and then staying on social alone?
Jesus Flores:Yeah. You know, you touched on the the bans of TikTok and and some of the algorithm changes, and I think that's maybe not commonly known or thought of is that social media reach is governed by algorithms that can change, platform policies that can change, and that can cause a sudden drop in visibility for an audience that you worked so hard to build. You don't own your followers on social media platforms. So an example is a business who might have a large following on a platform that suddenly comes less popular, banned, changes its algorithm, and that reduces your ability to now reach that audience. So if a social media platform faces these types of issues, your connection with your audiences is essentially disrupted.
Jesus Flores:I think about local businesses who rely heavily on a social media platform, let's say like a local bakery that sends out or posts out weekly specials. If that platform goes down, you'll lose your primary method of communicating with your customers. And that's just an important factor of why you should diversify your communication channels. I think another miss is just simply having a lack of direct communication as I kind of touched on, Where social media doesn't offer that same direct line of communication as an email list. Your messages can get lost in the noise of the platform.
Jesus Flores:So unlike email where your messages land directly in an inbox that the subscriber owns, social media posts are competing for an attention in an already crowded feed with a ton of others who are like you. And that highlights the importance of having multiple ways of reaching your audience, especially with email so that you're not getting lost in that noise. I think lastly, but highly important are just those misconversion opportunities. Businesses might gain attention on social media, but fail to convert that interest into tangible leads or customers by not capturing email contacts. And so like, write another example, clothing boutique might get a ton of likes on an Instagram post, but without the ability to capture email addresses, you can't directly inform those same interested followers about sales or new arrivals.
Jesus Flores:And so capturing leads through multiple touch points like email sign ups on your websites or linking bio pages, it ensures that you can convert those visitors, those followers to loyal and and repeat customers.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Yeah. So I wanna dig into here just a little bit that idea of I mentioned it. We're kinda saying it here. Right?
Dave Charest:That idea of, like, owning your audience. So from your perspective, like, what does that really mean and why is that so important?
Jesus Flores:Yeah. To me, owning your audience means having a direct line of communication with people who have explicitly shown interest in your brand, typically through an email list without a dependency on a governing social platform to store those records and make them available to you. It's your list. You own it. You can carry it from platform to platform, and you have a % control over that email list and how you communicate with them.
Jesus Flores:So unlike social media, your reach isn't dependent on platform algorithms or policies. If, social media changes their algorithm and start to defavor your content, your email list still remains that stable asset of being able to get in front of those people who who value your products and services. And so that stability means that you have a reliable way to grow your email list, maintain customer relationships regardless of any of those external changes that might be happening kind of cross platforms. And so to me, like your email and your contact list is that valuable asset for sustained customer engagement. It's effective lead generation.
Jesus Flores:It's revenue growth. That engaged email list allows you to nurture those leads, build customer loyalty, and directly promote your products or services without the reliance on social platforms that you just candidly don't own.
Dave Charest:You know, think you bring up a good point. I I just wanna make it clear for everyone when you're hearing this because, like, that idea again of owning, you mentioned that you can kind take it with you.
Dave Charest:And I think that's the big thing that we're really trying to get across here. Right? Is that, like, if a social psych goes down or goes away, which many of them sometimes do, you don't have anything to take with you. You did all of that work. It's gone.
Dave Charest:But to your point, you know, obviously, we hope you're using Constant Contact and you stay with us. But if you wanted to, you can export that list. You own it. Right? Those are contacts that have given you as the business owner permission to contact them.
Dave Charest:And I think that's the big difference here is is what we're talking about when we're talking about ownership. It's not just moving it to someplace else, which obviously, we do think it's a good idea to diversify as well in what you're doing, but it's that ownership piece that's really really key. Ryan, you've obviously spent a lot of time thinking about folks who are kind of brand new to this, and maybe they don't even consider themselves marketers like a lot of our customers when you start thinking about it. But what do you say to someone who who's like, well, you know, I don't have a list yet. What are they gonna do?
Ryan Burke:Yeah. No. I think it's an interesting question because the whole concept of list, and when I at least when I think about it, it's like I have an Excel sheet with names and email addresses and information. But you'd be surprised at what kind of quote unquote lists you actually have, whether it's contacts in your phone, folks that you actually interact with on your Gmail. So many small businesses today start with their business name at Gmail.
Ryan Burke:And so you have contacts in a variety of places and social being one of them where it is eyeballs, but now you have to have like the right tool or test out some things to kind of convert those eyeballs into a warm lead, which is giving you information, an email address, and it allows you to kind of prime the pump of those that you can talk to directly via email and other channels. I think one of the most important things to acknowledge is wherever a list or direct contact information lives, it does not mean that you have to start with hundreds of them at day zero or when you're getting going. Building a business, any kind of business, any size of business takes time. And you start small, start with your network, and then they're going to help you build that list over time. So it's not, hey, let's get to the top of the 5,000 foot mountain at the start.
Ryan Burke:It's really kind of thinking about how do you interact with folks that you want to interact with as your business? How do you kind of feed them into your system and allow them to help you do the heavy lifting of broadening your eyeballs, broadening your list size, and broadening who you can communicate with one on one.
Dave Charest:Yeah. So I'd like you to tell us a little bit about, you know, one of the new features that we're kind of bringing into Constant Contact is it's called lead magnet. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that. And we kinda talked about this idea of businesses really starting on social. And I think this is one of those tools that's really focused on helping that sort of customer.
Dave Charest:Right? Like move people from social to that place that they own. So tell us a little bit about what Lead Magnet is and maybe we should clarify a little bit. Right? Because I think some people have in their brain what a lead magnet is, but what we're talking about here is a tool called lead magnet.
Dave Charest:Right? So maybe you can get tell us what that is and give us a little bit of a difference there.
Ryan Burke:Yes. Over the last handful of months, we've been building and and iterating and and getting feedback along the way of of this tool that is called LeadMagnet. You can, like a traditional LeadMagnet, you can add documents to the end or like sweeteners to help users or help potential contacts come through. But what lead magnet does, the intention is for it to be a super quick way to get quick surveys, quick sign up forms, link in bio, or like a social link tree that you can link off of one of your social media platforms. To get those things set up quickly, so you can kind of help amplify one, your social profile health.
Ryan Burke:So you have kind of these different mechanisms that aren't just from your newsfeed or from your profile to allow people or potential leads to find out more about you. But it's also an intuitive quick way for mobile specifically, where someone can like give you little bits of feedback. I put myself in, if you think about a real estate agent, for an example, lots of open houses, trying to source buyers and sellers, different things that they do. And the ability to know a couple pieces of information about you, what kind of home you're looking for, where are you looking for it, what's your price range, things like that, just helps them have a more warm conversation with you about how they can help you kind of get to where you need to go. So our tool is intended to be quick.
Ryan Burke:It's intended to be easy. It's intended to be shareable. So you can use it to help to help complement any content that you're putting on social and drive users into that kind of or potential clients into that funnel of getting more one on one with you.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I like that distinction just in terms of when we say lead, like, this is really more of the true lead in many instances. Right? Where I think the real estate is the perfect example. If somebody's in the market to buy a house, you can start to find out right away, like, okay, like, where are you?
Dave Charest:Is this the first house you've purchased? Right? You can start getting answers to those questions that gives you information as the agent or whatever the case may be who gets that information and then can reach out to that person right away. And so we're talking about true leads in that instance, right, where I think sometimes when we're talking about just contacts in general and kind of building a list, those people may or may not be actually more qualified to actually be a customer of yours. They you get various reasons why people sign up for a list.
Dave Charest:Right? And sometimes it's not always to be a customer. And so what I really like about that is that distinction between what lead magnet does and maybe, you know, Jesus, I'll go back to you when you start thinking about maybe some of our more traditional customers or folks that we have now, like all of the different ways that they can actually look to grow that contact list. And I know you've kind of talked about it about this way of all this different kind of traffic, right, that you have coming to you. You wanna talk us through some of that and maybe some of the tools that we have to help out folks when they're trying to grow their list from these different sources?
Jesus Flores:Yeah. The four kind of channels that I envision, I guess there's three channels and one maybe like growing aspect of it. So the first one is website traffic, second is social media platforms, the third is any type of in person traffic, whether that's events or a storefront. And then fourth is like, I don't have an audience or any traffic yet, and I want to grow that. So you might have started the social page, you might have started the website, you might have opened the storefront, but you don't have any of what Ryan called those eyeballs on any of those things yet and you need to generate that interest.
Jesus Flores:And so starting with social media, I think an emerging best practice and even something that's starting to become expected by social followers is a tool that's that you make available to your followers in the form of a LinkedIn bio or a a Linktree page that really provides followers or visitors with a single point of access to all of your different pages, especially a sign up form for your email list. So I see people linking out to, you know, YouTube and TikTok and all of these other platforms, but it's also that let me email you. Right? Like, let's join the list and let's keep this conversation going. And so for those who are just starting out or maybe don't have a huge following, I love to recommend social ads to reach a wider audience and invite them to join your list or invite them to follow you, check out your website.
Jesus Flores:I think there's this perception that social or Google ads are pricey and some of them can be depending on the reach that you're trying to gain and the how many days and the duration of the ads. But typically, you can run an ad for as little as like a dollar to $5 a day and still get some decent reach of reaching new people who can be driven to your social pages. For those who have websites and blogs, you already have people visiting those pages, whether they're checking out at your store or they're reading the blog posts that you're offering. So capturing that intention or that interest by forms of things like website pop up forms or inline sign up forms gives those users the ability to quickly say, I liked this content, I liked your products and services, I want more and I want to stay in the loop. A best practice that I see, especially with people who offer products or services, is the website pop up with an incentive to that visitor.
Jesus Flores:If you join my email list, like maybe you came here to buy a product, give me your email, join my list, I'll give you 15% off your first order. That's a pretty typical and standard mechanism for getting somebody to convert into an email contact through an incentive that you offer to them. And then in person audiences. So again, that's storefronts, hosted events, community events, any type of person face to face interactions that you're having, that experience is gold. That's the ultimate type of buy in that you can have versus websites and socials where you don't get to interact with people face to face.
Jesus Flores:This is one of the highest touch points and engagement points. And so you want to make it easy for that physical audience or those people you're interacting with to go from a physical interaction to a digital contact. And so we offer sign up forms and landing pages that you can connect to QR codes so that somebody can take out their phone, scan it, be brought to your sign up page, and join your contact list in the same interaction as they're at your booth or having this conversation with you. And so again, that fourth no traffic bucket is social Google paid ads. Some platforms like TikTok do help people with no audience be pushed out to those who don't know you yet.
Jesus Flores:But again, that virality isn't always guaranteed. And so to me, paid social and Google Ads really helps you with defining your target audiences, defining your daily target spend, and that really helps to get your product services or brand in front of those who just aren't familiar with you yet.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Couple things I wanna add in here. Right? So I just wanna talk about the pop ups because I think this is probably an underutilized tool in many instances because oftentimes, and I hear this a lot, right, people say, oh, I hate pop ups. Right?
Dave Charest:They take it very personally, like, oh, I hate when that happens. And okay, I get it. Sure. Because a lot of times people don't implement them in a great way. But one, they work.
Dave Charest:People will sign up when they see those things. But I think also, you have to think about it. Think about what that experience is, and I think in any of these tools that you use should not be done without thinking through the experience for the user. Right? Meaning, make it additive to the experience of them coming to your site.
Dave Charest:So rather than it being a thing that's interrupting them and getting in the way, right, you can have you can change the timing on these things. Yeah. I remember I used to use one on my site after someone has been on, like, a piece of content for a few minutes, And then it would pop up and like, hey, you passed the two minute test. Right? Seems like you really like this information.
Dave Charest:Why not get on my newsletter to get stuff for so it's like, you can use it in smart ways, not just, ugh, I'm trying to get to a thing and now this thing is bothering me. You can think about it in ways to do things that are additive. Even if they're looking at specific content, like, hey, you really seem to be liking this article about this thing. Do you wanna get my free checklist on how to do this thing? Right?
Dave Charest:Think of smart ways that you can do that. I wanted to mention that because I think so many people are quick to dismiss that because it's something they personally don't like. But you do that, cut off your nose to spite your face, you're missing an opportunity to do something with that. The other piece is that I think this is a newer piece of technology that we have within Constant Contact, but you can actually create these QR codes within Constant Contact now. Right?
Dave Charest:So I think that's important to and I think that's a great thing because I know that's always like a a big headache. It's like, okay, now I gotta go create a QR code. Where do I gotta go do that? Then you're just like searching out for this stuff. So I love that we have that in there now.
Dave Charest:So I just wanna encourage people to to check that out. Mike, I wanna go over to you and say, like, let's say we start implementing some of these things, whether that's, you know, lead magnet or we're putting a pop up up and we start getting contacts into the back end. Right? We've got our contacts in Constant Contact. What's next?
Dave Charest:Like, what happens once we've got them in there?
Mike Crawford:Yeah. So touching on owning the audience. Once you have your contacts in Constant Contact, we wanna help you by being the source of truth for these contacts. And so we wanna give you a one stop shop that has their email addresses, any other contact information that you've collected about them, and help power other things throughout the app as well. Just make it super easy for you to manage them, put them in different lists, different segments, look at different views, a column on a table can be any kind of field that you'd like.
Mike Crawford:So you can have a very customized view that's what's important to you.
Dave Charest:So I get this question a lot in terms of like, well, you know, is Constant Contact, is it a CRM? And I know we kinda make this distinction between it's not a CRM as much as it is, like, what you would think of your typical sales type of thing, but it's really more of a a marketing CRM. Can you talk to me about what that means?
Mike Crawford:Yeah. Absolutely. So that's the direction we wanna go. We wanna really lean into this MCRM, what we're calling it, marketing CRM. And we wanna take out all the best marketing features of that CRM and really put that in front of users.
Mike Crawford:We're not focused on the full sales aspect. We're not trying to do account marketing or pipeline deals, anything like that, but give you a full fledged contact profile that has all the data. We talked about events. We talked about lead magnet. All these things could be translated to a contact profile, and you can see all of that information about your contacts in one stop.
Dave Charest:Can you maybe share some examples of right, because we always talk the money is in the list, right? And a lot of that boils down to the data that you have and the things that you can do. Can you you talk to me a bit a little bit about or share some examples of how using in the information that you have within Constant Contact and help them use that a little bit better so they can do more, I wanna say, targeted or just better marketing in many instances.
Mike Crawford:Yeah. Absolutely. So we we have a ton of data about these contacts that are it's not really surfaced very well. And so that's the first step we wanna do is just bring that to the surface and just put that in front of users and let them see all that. So you can see event registrations and how many they attended, how many lists they're on, how many emails they've been sent and opened, clicked.
Mike Crawford:From there, you can take that information and build an automated segment. And then this email is opened more times than that email is, and you can kinda compare the different tones that you're using, the different content that's in there. We can make suggestions based on that. So if a segment is more focused on your VIPs or like your frequent buyers, you can send them luxury items or, you know, high valued items that you know they're gonna buy. But folks that are maybe less engaged, send them a coupon to entice them to actually get on your site and buy something.
Dave Charest:Talk to me a little bit about and I know we might not be there a % yet, but of course, AI comes into play here in a lot of instances, particularly when we start talking about content creation. For example, of course, you've got ways you can do that within Constant Contact. It can help you even create full campaigns if you wanna do that. But I think what's really interesting and I've always found fascinating is the way AI can kinda help you with the data and kinda start to uncover things in the information that you have. Can you give us maybe a preview of like how AI may end up showing up within the contacts experience?
Mike Crawford:Yeah. Absolutely. So AI is very good at taking that large dataset and finding patterns within it. So we wanna focus on basically everything I just said, but do it automatically for you. So take all that data, suggest different segments that you can build out for yourself, and then from there, suggest different content to send to those segments.
Mike Crawford:We wanna also focus on surfacing that data and maybe summarizing it. And so instead of having to look at individual stats, you can get like a paragraph or a couple sentence about what this contact is or what this group of contacts is to better understand who you're marketing to.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I love that idea of just really being able to dig into that and then offer right suggestions, giving people ideas. And and Ryan, I know you're big on this idea of really trying new things. And I think this is one of those things that I think you just really need to put this hat on, right, when you're thinking about marketing. I think everybody kind of wants the answer.
Dave Charest:And I think the reality is the answer is always it depends. And so that means you kinda have to go into it with, like, that mentality of, like, trying things and adopting that testing mentality. Talk to me a little bit about how somebody should be thinking about that and even getting over that idea of, like, well, I'm not ready. It's not perfect yet. Right?
Dave Charest:Right? Like that whole thing. Talk to me about that.
Ryan Burke:Admittedly, we all try to do it in our day to day, whether it's professional or or or personal. Right? Sometimes if you overthink what you wanna do, you end up getting this feeling of you don't end up doing it. So sometimes I'm not suggesting like there's a shoot from the hip and just like go, go, go, go, go. Like you have to have some plan of how you want to move forward.
Ryan Burke:But I think the beauty of doing things digitally, whether it's via email, on social, directing people to links in bio, or things like that, this stuff can update in real time. So you can try something, see if there's a signal of it working. Like you got five more kind of leads that came in on this kind of post with this link. Keep going with it. But if it doesn't work, you can try posting it on a different platform or a post the next day about something slightly different that will bring more people to engage with your content.
Ryan Burke:The other thing that I will say, and going back to what Mike was alluding to, contacts is like the brain. There's a lot of information in there. It's like the central hub. And then you can think of, and I know maybe you can see us, maybe not, but like from Jesus and my perspective, it's kind of like the arms, the legs, ways you can use it. What this brain can tell you or help you understand is different channels, different messages, different outreach that you can try, see if those things work or not, and then try something different or continue down because you found something that worked.
Ryan Burke:I know it's not academic or scientific of the steps to go through, But what I think our platform collectively does very well, it's kind of, hey. You're this kind of business. You're trying to do this thing or achieve this goal. Here's a starting point of a few things to try, and trying is better than not trying at all.
Dave Charest:Right. Not doing anything at all. I think that's the big thing. Right? You have to do things in order to get the feedback, and then you can learn from the feedback.
Dave Charest:But if you don't do anything, you got nothing to learn from. Right? You got nothing to move on from.
Ryan Burke:For folks just like listening to this and all of your other version or the podcasts that have been been sent and like all the the those that listen, it's only so much time in the day. And so much of that time is focused on perfecting your product, your service, your offering, and it's you, right? As a business owner, those are you. And our goal is to help you figure out how to get you out there, and to kind of engage with people, and convert them into leads, and help you succeed with kind of what your passion is, which is running your business.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Well, take that same passion that you put into taking those steps to get started with your business and just apply that to marketing. Right? It's just about getting started and doing. You're not gonna break anything.
Dave Charest:You're gonna end up finding out what works and what doesn't, and then learning, but growing through that along the process. So I'm excited about all the work you guys are doing, and I'm excited about the new things and the updates that we have coming to the product for our customers. And so I wanna put you each on the spot here a little bit, but what's one small thing from your perspective, someone listening today, one of our customers could really try to start growing or just even better managing their list? Jesus, I'm gonna go to you first.
Jesus Flores:My recommendation would be to conduct an audit of all of your pages and the tools that you have access to or or provide others with access to and ask yourself, how easy is it for one person who visits my Instagram page to find my sign up form, to find my TikTok, to find my storefront? I often have talked with small businesses who have all of these different social media platforms, but from one, you would never be able to find the other. And so unless I send you all of my direct links, do you have the ability to quickly and easily find me on all of the places that you would like for me to reach you at. So put yourself in your community, your audience's shoes, and ask how easy it is for them to find you on on other channels and to join your email list.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Mike, what's going on from your perspective?
Mike Crawford:Yeah. I see users just uploading or adding contacts that they already have, but it's just an email address. I would really like to encourage folks to to add any data they have via custom fields, fields that we already provide. Just add that data in, and then you can use that as a basis to create segments and and really target specific groups within your list. We see a lot of return on users doing a segmented send rather than just a a bulk list send.
Mike Crawford:They get better opens. They get better clicks. So that would be the first step I would take.
Ryan Burke:I'm gonna go macro and then go go micro. So it's kinda two parter. It's a marathon, not a sprint. So I think there's trying, there's changing, there's pivoting and being comfortable with that kind of ambiguity, that how you're working and how you're running and launching and growing your business, It takes time. It's not what none of us are overnight success.
Ryan Burke:So I mean, it takes time to get there. On a micro level, I will say coming from it from like a growth, new growth, of capture or bringing in and acquiring new leads, A hundred eyeballs is as good as one person that you interact with kind of walking down Main Street in your local city or town. So like the ability for you to, yes, have content that engages a variety of folks on a social platform, that's important. Getting one person to come through that pipeline, incredibly important. But even having something available on your phone when you are even going to another establishment.
Ryan Burke:So many missed opportunities of that one on one interaction to convert them into a potential lead for your business. I think thinking of it from marathon, not a sprint, and every interaction is important. Whether it's a hundred people that see a post, or you come across one person every day. Ultimately at the end of the week, you have five or seven new leads if you're kind of getting one a day. So just kind of like thinking it from that perspective, that personal interaction, it's a warm lead no matter where they come from.
Ryan Burke:But that human to human interaction and being able to sell your business to that potential lead is important. Don't miss those in person opportunities of one on one interaction.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Love that. Fellas, thank you so much. I appreciate the time and sharing kind of what we've been working on for our customers here. I think I'll just remind everybody that at the end of the day, your contact list in many ways is a health score for your business.
Dave Charest:Right? Because you've got this group of people that are direct relationships that you own. Again, as we there's that word again. Right? And you've got a better chance to grow if you can keep and continue with those direct relationships.
Dave Charest:Because the tools are going to change, the platforms are going to shift, but the list is yours, those are your people to contact. And so, really start thinking about, I would even challenge you to maybe put a little bit of that energy that you're putting into social media because you often have to feed that beast in so many ways. Put a little bit of that more of that energy into growing that list and taking care of those folks that have raised their hand to say, yes, they want to connect with you in that format. Because ultimately, that list growth is business growth, and you're gonna see some more practical changes from really doing that. So gentlemen, thanks again.
Dave Charest:Good talking to you, and we'll talk to you soon. Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number one, own your audience. Social platforms can change or disappear completely. When you have an email list, you have a direct line to your customers.
Dave Charest:So take advantage of the list growth features within your Constant Contact account. Number two, start with what you have. Connect with those people you already have an existing business relationship with. Ask them to join your list, enrich that data where possible, and then grow from there. And number three, segment and personalize.
Dave Charest:Use the data you collect to send targeted content that drives better results. Constant Contact can help you by automatically segmenting based on the specific information that you have about your contacts. So take advantage of that to get better results from your marketing efforts. Now here's your action item for today. Try using Constant Contact's lead magnet feature.
Dave Charest:Now this feature helps you convert your social followers into real leads that you can follow-up with. It's designed to be quick and easy to set up and, of course, easy to share, especially in places like your social profiles. As always, more details in the show notes. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Be a Marketer podcast. Please take a moment to leave us a review.
Dave Charest: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.