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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 Be a Marketer podcast! New episodes every Thursday!
Today on episode 73, you'll hear from an entrepreneur on a mission to empower women through digital skills education. This is the Be A Marker 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. And hello, Kelsey Carter.
Kelsi Carter:Hello, Dave Charest.
Dave Charest:Kelsey, what can you tell us about our guest today?
Kelsi Carter:Today's guest is Lucy Hall. She's the founder and director of Skills of the Future, which has the Social Day and Digital Women. Social Day started in 2015 to help people learn more about social media.
Dave Charest:So this is an event that continues to grow in popularity and attracts social media marketers, influencers, professionals from various industries who are keen to learn about the latest trends and strategies in social media marketing.
Kelsi Carter:Now Digital Women started in 2019, and it's an online community dedicated to empowering women through digital skills education. The community is made up of over 40,000 members who benefit from a variety of resources, networking opportunities, and educational content that's actually tailored to enhance their digital skills and professional growth.
Dave Charest:In our conversation today, we talk about the importance of mindset, how she sold her company and why she bought it back, and her expert tips for digital marketing. So it all started when Lucy discovered the Internet as a teenager. Now Lucy shares how the Internet changed her life and how she developed a passion for empowering women to develop their digital skills.
Lucy Hall:So if we go back even further into the past, probably back in, like, 2,002, something like that, 2,000. EBay was, like, really starting to become a thing. Do you remember? And Oh, yeah. And I was young.
Lucy Hall:I was, like, 17 or something like that. And I was sitting at home and, we'd only just got our first computer then. And it might seem kind of late in that time that I only just got our first computer. But, you know, I was doing it home, single mom, that kind of thing. She had 4 daughters at the time, me being the oldest one, and then I've got my younger sisters at home as well.
Lucy Hall:And so she gets this computer, this really amazing. It's a big chunky Dell computer with the all up Internet and everything. Oh, I
Dave Charest:remember that noise. Yeah. It
Lucy Hall:was amazing. And we plugged it in. I remember plugging it in, getting on the Internet, and just like, wow, my world changed. And within months of getting that computer, I'd set up an eBay account. My dad was a market trader, so he'd sell things on his market store every weekend.
Lucy Hall:And my uncle, used to do the same. My uncle lived over the road. And, they sold these ad belt things I've seen on TV belts that you put on that, like, kind of vibrate your stomach and give you ads. And
Dave Charest:these things
Lucy Hall:all these as seen on TV products. Sure.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Yeah.
Lucy Hall:Basically, yeah. My uncle and dad got them from a importer. So there was no wholesaler in the middle. So I could get these things for a couple of pounds, and they're being sold on the Internet, like £50 each or something like that. So I put a load on eBay.
Lucy Hall:I sold a few of those. I said, tell me that I've sold a few of these. And he's like, well, I'm gonna get you a load more in in 3 months. So I took 1200 ad belts. And from there, I became I just kept was selling more and more and more.
Lucy Hall:I became one of the first ever eBay power sellers. I remember going to this, like, eBay power seller university thing in London. I was really young, and it was so exciting. And just from there, I started to become really obsessed with, how do I make my listings look pretty? I learned HTML.
Lucy Hall:I started doing a Microsoft Master Web Design course. It came with a disc and a book that was, like, this thick.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I remember those too. Yeah. Yeah.
Lucy Hall:Absolutely, mate. It literally changed my life because then I was I dropped out of college and I was kind of, like, doing these jobs in my spare time. And all of a sudden, I'm earning all of this money and I feel so empowered because all of a sudden, it's like, wow. If I can do this, I can do anything. Mhmm.
Lucy Hall:Because I have this whole world at my fingertips. Then you start speaking to other people, like, you know, on the on the seller boards and that kind of thing. You realize that they're doing all this great stuff. And that's, I think, was the very start of social media as well for me, and I just really loved it. And that's and then coming back to now, that is why I love helping people.
Lucy Hall:I started doing social media marketing for people, and I started training people and helping people to use social media and digital. I used to help them set up websites and do websites for them and that kind of thing. Small businesses. Passionate about small business. Looks like I come from a family of small businesses.
Lucy Hall:You know? And, yeah, sometimes people would cry because they say, this is all new to me, and it's it's so hard, and I feel like we're gonna get left behind. And that really made me think I'd love to be able to just explain to people it's not that difficult. It's a mindset thing. You just have to kind of, like, understand this is here.
Lucy Hall:It's happening. Yeah. Get behind it and learn about it. Because it doesn't matter what age you are. You can learn these skills and you can do it.
Lucy Hall:If I could do it when I was 17 and my uncle can sell things online at age, like, 80, probably maybe. Yeah. Man, if I said he was 80, but, potentially, he is 80. But if he can do it 80 and I can do it 17, everyone in between can do it as well. And then social day kind of and it all kind of escalated from there towards building the communities and trying to share skills with other people to empower them to do the same.
Dave Charest:Well, so I've got a couple of questions. 1 on events and then one on I'll start with this one, and I'm gonna come back to the events piece. I'm just saying it out loud so we remember. So I've got to imagine. So you're 17.
Dave Charest:You start this. You're a power seller. This has gotta give you a lot of confidence. Right? And so as you start to move into doing your own things, both social day and then moving I mean, did you just go forward with that, or did you have any doubts about kinda doing those things and going off on your own to do that?
Lucy Hall:No. Because so my mindset is of, just give it a go. What? Mhmm. That I have nothing to lose.
Lucy Hall:If I do this, I don't have anything to lose. The great thing about the event that the first event I did is I've had a partnership with the, NatWest, which was a bank, which meant I didn't actually have to pay for the venue. So I had no risk upfront.
Dave Charest:Okay.
Lucy Hall:So by creating this kind of partnerships is really important. And I think the scariest thing in the beginning was asking the person, can I use your venue? Mhmm. Because I knew when I got that tick and I got the introduction, I knew that I could do this event that I had in my kind of mind, and I could bring people together and make money from it. Because I wanted to charge like a low ticket product because it was for SMEs at the time.
Lucy Hall:I wanted to charge like 30, £40 a ticket and then get some sponsors as well. So that it was just accessible to everybody. So, yeah, at first, I had fear like, oh, who am I to ask this person?
Dave Charest:Mhmm.
Lucy Hall:But then as soon as that person said yes, it didn't matter anymore because the risk was just my time.
Dave Charest:So where did that mindset come from to just give it a go?
Lucy Hall:I think it's because I grew up literally on a market stall selling stuff off my Yeah. You know, from my dad's store. So when I was a teenager, he put my best friend and I, he'd put us on commission. So he'd say, you'll get paid for the day, whatever it was, £50. And then for every £1,000 on top of that, you bring in to your wallet.
Lucy Hall:We have so much cash in those wallets in those days. I mean, it's I don't think it's as good as that anymore on the markets. I'll give you another £5 or sometimes it go, if you get this much, we'll give you another £10. And so it's like, wow. You're, like, 14 years old.
Lucy Hall:You're like, I could earn over a £100 a day. That's amazing. And so it really motivates us because we love going around the market afterwards and shopping for clothes and jewelry and talking to all the other, traders and that kind of thing. And so I think it's definitely working on the market with my dad. I don't even know if he realizes what impact he's had on myself and my sisters as well because they both run their own businesses as well.
Lucy Hall:Yeah. They all did, like, help him at the market. And we all stood there at the market, so when we were younger, working for him. And he paid us as well. So he didn't just expect us to help out.
Lucy Hall:He's like, work that I trust you. Work for me. And we'd have to work out different ways of the great thing about a market story is you'd have to work out different ways of marketing as well. So we used to write on signs and hold up polls with the things stuck up there going around 3 shirts for £10, 3 shirts £10, come over here and stuff like that. Just find really inventive ways to get people who are walking past into our store.
Dave Charest:Yeah. So I'm curious about the events piece of this. So, you know, running event, of course, is a simple task. There's lots of moving pieces to involved with that. And so I guess did you have any experience in events at all?
Dave Charest:Like, how did you learn that? What was that process like for you?
Lucy Hall:Yeah. So soon as I I think I was, like, 20, 21, or something like that. And I decided I want to go and get a job. Some people kept saying to me, you need to get a job and work in a company so that you can earn money on someone else's time and learn. Because you can only learn so much Mhmm.
Lucy Hall:With what you know. You're gonna learn more working in a company, talking to people. And I just really thought, actually, I really wanna do that because it's kind of lonely running this business. I've got all my family around. Like, they're talking about that and all this other stuff, and it's, like, really freaking me out and all of this accountancy stuff.
Lucy Hall:I love just the selling the stuff and doing the stuff online, and the other stuff was like, well, this is scary. So I went to go and work first for a recruitment company, so it was sales related. Found out I was, like, pretty good at sales. But what they I ended up doing was create selling all their their mortgage courses and stuff like that on online platforms, creating all these, like, HTML boxes and emails and stuff like that. So I was I was hired for sales, and I ended up doing the sales online years ago.
Lucy Hall:Like, we're talking 16 years ago or something like that. A long time ago. May maybe 15 years ago. It was a long time ago. Yeah.
Lucy Hall:I'm just trying to think about how old I am. Yes. Yes. I am definitely older than I think I am. So I was just longer than 15 years.
Lucy Hall:Yeah. Anyway, so I started doing all that, and I was quite successful at doing it. And then I went then I applied for a job in a company in London, which is news like, Newscrest had garnered, I think it's called in America. Okay.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Lucy Hall:And it was a media company, and where they did all these pub like, specialist publications. And I went because I always wanted to work in magazines. And it was quite boring as a pensions one. So it wasn't exactly the sort of magazines I wanted to, like, work on. But I started as a sales executive, and I became advertising manager.
Lucy Hall:And I loved it. I was so good at selling, like, event spaces, and I got to see how it will work, the editorial side of things. Understanding when I'm selling something, I'm not just selling an ad in a magazine. I'm selling an audience Yeah. That people want to reach.
Lucy Hall:And so I'd sell email newsletters. I'd start selling the digital things, like the banners on the website, selling sponsorship at the events, and stuff like that to institutional marketing managers, you know, the people who really knew their audience and how they wanted to reach them. So it was a much easier conversation to have. And then I went to go and work at Jazz FM for a little while before my husband said, you're earning a really good salary, and you're doing really, really well. So why is it when I open the earring cupboard to all of these butterfly massages are falling out the because I just got online, like, bought all of these things and started these websites to sell things online because I just couldn't help it.
Lucy Hall:I had all these things going on at the same time as I was working a corporate job.
Dave Charest:Well, I was gonna say, I mean, even just looking at the things that you're working on now, it's like your fingers are in a lot of pies. Right? So you've got a lot of things going on, which actually kinda leads me to when you think about the businesses that you have today and feel free to I'm just curious just in terms of, like, maybe percentage wise. But when you think of the different things that you're doing, you've got the event. You've got the community.
Dave Charest:You've got your agency as well, right, that you're part of as well. So I guess when you think of the businesses, like, where I guess, what is the breakdown? Like, where is the money coming from?
Lucy Hall:Okay. So I no longer work in the agency. So just only 2 years ago, I sold my business to a company in America, part of my business
Dave Charest:Got it.
Lucy Hall:Which is Digital Women's Social Day. And I left the agency, and my partner still runs that.
Dave Charest:Got it.
Lucy Hall:And then I worked for that company for a year, and then I reacquired my business back. So that was an exciting experience in its own That's interesting. Yeah. Business and getting it back. So in yeah.
Lucy Hall:End of February last year, I got my business back. And so now my complete entire business is social day and digital women, which is communities, events. I'd say it's the e learning and Got it. Events, but it's publishing. It's definitely a publishing events angle in there because it's the content side
Dave Charest:of things.
Lucy Hall:So Right. You see that side of things is really, really important.
Dave Charest:Well, tell me a little bit about that decision then. I mean, you sell it and then you know what? I changed my mind. I'm gonna I wanna buy that back. What happened there?
Lucy Hall:So last year in January, it was all of these tech layoffs and everything. Yeah. And they were backed by a venture capital firm. So they laid off, I think it was 35% of everybody in the company Yeah. And all of the UK communities, smaller UK communities and that kind of thing, go.
Lucy Hall:And I said, no. I need this. This is a real community. You can't you know? And so we went I went through the process of getting it back and everything.
Lucy Hall:And then so then in January so end of February, beginning of March last year, I became a sole business owner again, which was kind of it was quite scary because, obviously, I'd had people around when I'd started these things initially, but now it's just was just me. And my wonderful VA, Emily, who feels like she's part of the company, came with me. And I just wanted to make sure the first thing that I did was I kept her on the same money that she was on. And that any contractors I was using, I kept them on the same money that they were on. So I didn't nobody lost any income or anything like that.
Lucy Hall:The next thing was to do to make sure that my income was secure. And then to go, right. Let's do loads of events. Let's just get hit the ground running. And so I did social day forums and really exciting venues, did a few digital women events.
Lucy Hall:I've done the awards. And now next year, I'm ready to do the 3 day social media marketing festival in this huge venue in London. It's incredible.
Dave Charest:So why is that digital woman community so important to you?
Lucy Hall:Okay. Yeah. The reason that it is so important to me is because it's like being in a space with friends who also run businesses, who understand you, who get the problems you might have. When you feel a little bit lonely or you just wanna talk to someone, there's someone there that you could reach out to. Or if you just need if you think, how on earth do I do this thing?
Lucy Hall:That you get days where you're frustrated and you don't know how to do this. And Yeah. You know, there's a community that you just ask. How do I do this? And, you know, no one's gonna think you're stupid or think there's a silly question because we've all been there and we've all learned.
Lucy Hall:And the other thing about the digital women community is every single person that we've attracted to our community so far also wants to share skills with the others. So everybody comes and they know something and everybody shares something and everybody adds a little bit of richness and a little bit more value to every conversation and every event and every session that we do. So it's really important. The other part that we do is also the awards. And I think that's also important because what we're doing is we're asking people to say, what is it that you've done lately or in the last year that makes you stand out from everybody else and gets them to think about their achievements?
Lucy Hall:And I think people find it really difficult to, like, sit down and big themselves up. And so that poor part of it is also really important. But I just think, community is so so important because it's low I think that's the thing. It's lonely being a business owner. Yeah.
Lucy Hall:Especially, it's lonely at some point if you're a sole business owner and you don't have any staff. But then also, if you run a team even, it can be even more lonely because those people in your team, you can talk to them to on one level, but they can't talk to you you can't talk to them about any problems Right. That your company might be having and that kind of thing because you want them to feel like they're safe and secure in their jobs. Yeah. So any point, if you're a business owner, it can be incredibly known.
Lucy Hall:It can be very hard. So communities like this, are really, really important. Again, if you're in a a job or a career so for social media marketers, it can be very, very stressful or consuming. It can also feel like there's so much negativity around online. You're looking at the Internet all day long.
Lucy Hall:Yeah. To have other people to talk to and learn from is also very important. Important. Peer learning, peer conversations are just, I think, so, so important.
Dave Charest:So what do you find most challenging about owning and running the business then?
Lucy Hall:So, actually, some of the challenges that I've come across recently are definitely growth. So in the last obviously, over the course of the last year, my business has been growing. The community's growing. The events have been growing. And so I've hit a point where it's like time.
Lucy Hall:If I don't employ people in the next few months, everything's gonna stagnate because I can't do any more than I'm doing right now.
Dave Charest:I was gonna say, is it still just you and your VA right now?
Lucy Hall:Just me. Okay. Yeah. It's just me, the VA, and and my VA. And then we also, you know, pull in people
Dave Charest:Pull people when you need them. Yeah. Yeah.
Lucy Hall:But what I need is to grow. Is I need a salesperson, like a really good salesperson that can talk about all the opportunities that we have with sponsors and partners and that kind of thing. Yeah. Because that's gonna be key to our growth. As soon as we start getting spot we've got the amazing events.
Lucy Hall:We've got the amazing community. We've got a real community of people who listen and learn, and they try things, and they share it. So if we had a salesperson that was there all the time, like, speaking to people, building a list, bringing in, like, sponsors to our events, like, sponsors, partners, that kind of thing. Then we have the revenue to do more marketing, to bring in another person to do the marketing. And then we've got a marketing person that's selling more tickets and selling more memberships and that kind of thing.
Lucy Hall:And then we've got more revenue to bring someone else into the business to even, you know, to help with the events and that kind of thing. So it's that initial the problem I've had is that initial growth pain where if we don't do this now, it will come to and I can't do the sales, the marketing, the social media, the community management, all of the emails Yeah. All of the do you know just everything. I can't do everything. Yeah.
Lucy Hall:So when we get these people that we need into the business, we'll be able to make the sales and we'll be able to grow even more. Because the way I see it is we're growing anyway, but we're just growing very slowly because we don't have the power to push ourselves forward. Does that make sense?
Dave Charest:It makes, complete sense. And so, well, I wanna shift this a little bit to talk about, like, the marketing and through that too because I'd be curious. Again, there's a lot involved in this, and I think and the difference between I would think, you know, when you think of a a brick and mortar store, for example. Right? Is has the store.
Dave Charest:They're in a local community, and they're using they're using online to kind of help market their businesses. Where when you look at a business like yours, I mean, a lot of that is actually online is the business. Right? Like, it's kind of a different world in in terms of how much you have to, for lack of a better phrase, at which I use, but you have to feed the beast in a completely different way. Right?
Dave Charest:So I'd love to get into some of that a little bit with you. But first, I would say, you know, by all accounts, with your experience and how long you've been doing this, and we know we can't figure out the math. But but as you've been doing all of this stuff, right, like many accounts, you'd be considered a a digital marketing expert. So what does that mean to you though?
Lucy Hall:So I think to me, I have always just tried different things. So from the moment I started from that little eBay shop doing HTML, I've always kind of gone right. How do I do this? And I've just done it to try and work out how to do it. A lot of times, you know, it's not worked.
Lucy Hall:It's failed. There's not I don't get it right every single time, and that's how you learn. I think that's the best way to learn. You know, not for some people, but for me, it is the best way to learn by just making mistakes, trying things. So I don't know what it is.
Lucy Hall:With hearing, you're an expert, I don't know why, but I always feel like I don't know. I feel a bit icky about it Mhmm. Or something like that. And I don't know why because into a lot of people, I am an expert because that's what I've done my whole life, really. Since I started, I've been working in marketing.
Lucy Hall:I've been working in digital, and I've been working in sales. And I'm a little bit obsessed about it as well. But I think that that is the way to do it, to try things. And then once you've worked it out, you can do it. You can get better and better.
Lucy Hall:You can test things. You can iterate. Also, you know, learning from different communities, like I said, digital women, is fantastic because we learn from each other in the community. We watch videos. We come to each other's sessions.
Lucy Hall:We put on events. Going to events. Every single marketing tool out there has fantastic blogs on it, which or videos, which is absolutely free and you can totally take advantage of that. That's because most SaaS tools are fantastic at content marketing. Yeah.
Lucy Hall:Yeah. They really know how to do content marketing. But in that content marketing, there's so much knowledge in there. Yeah. So I just, like, literally spent so much time reading through all of these blogs, watching YouTube videos, and that kind of thing, and then just trying it and seeing what happens.
Lucy Hall:Because what's the worst that can happen if you start off and you're a small brand and nobody knows about you? How many people are gonna see it really? Yeah. Not that way. Yeah.
Dave Charest:It's not
Lucy Hall:gonna ruin your reputation forever, is it? If you say the wrong thing slightly or you do the slightly the wrong thing. I suppose if you've been going for a long time and then you say the wrong thing, then you're in trouble. So, yeah, I think and I'm just gonna say it again for the 100th time. Just trying things
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Lucy Hall:Is the way to learn what works for you because it's different for every single business, I think, as well.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think I'm often saying too. It's just that idea of, like, look. I'm gonna give you some best practices, but this is just a place to start if you don't know where to start.
Dave Charest:Yeah. What your goal should be is to try this and then figure out what your best practices are because they're gonna be different for every business and every audience that you're trying to reach. Right? So it's interesting to that point about the expert thing. I think at end of the day because I'm with you.
Dave Charest:Right? It's like, well, not expert. Right? For whatever whatever. But people wanna work with experts.
Dave Charest:Right? But Yeah. I've actually started thinking of it, like, well, expert, what all that really means is that you're someone who is thinking about a particular subject a lot more than other people are. Right? And, like, okay.
Dave Charest:I I could get into that then. Alright. That makes sense. Right? You get obsessed with, like, little things.
Dave Charest:Like, okay. I'll take it. Yeah. Is there anything that you remember as maybe a big marketing fail that you kind of, ran into along the way?
Lucy Hall:So here's the problem with trying things Yeah. And being the person who just goes, let's just bang out that email or do that thing. So this is what I've learned. Don't do that. Now get other people to check things.
Lucy Hall:Like, get other people to read things before you, like, just bang it out on social media and that kind of thing. It's actually, I've got a big community now, so you can't mess it up too much. I've sent things with typos, like, really bad typos that I've read it through, but I didn't see it. I don't know why. And I'm quite particular about typos and things, but I've sent things out with typos or, you know, or I've sent the wrong email to the wrong email list and, you know, things that it generally involves emails, actually.
Lucy Hall:Because once you sent it, then you sent it. Then you're like, oh, no. I can't get that back now, and I don't know what to do. But the great thing about that is you can send an email saying, oops. I'm really sorry.
Lucy Hall:This was the link I was meant to send or something. They give you a chance
Dave Charest:to send me an email. Yeah. You get a second shot at it.
Lucy Hall:Yeah. Exactly. So there's always an upside in the mistakes. But I don't think I've made a huge mistake. I've made little mistakes that I've learned from.
Lucy Hall:And, I mean yeah. So it's just it's mostly small mistakes. I've never done anything, like, by followers or I think if people did that, I think that would be a big mistake because there's just no point. They're not real. So what's the point in having people that aren't actually gonna buy from you?
Lucy Hall:And I've seen other people do things like buy email lists of just random people thinking just because they're emailing people that they're gonna get customers, but and that has never worked for them. So I've seen it, but I've not necessarily done some of those things. I think some of those things I've probably where I have read at least some information before doing things.
Dave Charest:Right.
Lucy Hall:Let me tell you something funny though, Dave, that I did. So when I had this eBay shop, I got one product imported from China for this company and it was like a new bra. It's like, one of these stick on bra things that you pull up and things like chicken fillet thing, which is sticky. They're popular on TikTok now, I believe. And it was called, Noobra or something like that.
Lucy Hall:But there was a company that actually had painted it called Unbra, but I didn't know that. And I'd sold probably thousands of these things on eBay. And then I got this, like, cease and desist Oh, no. Yeah. And I had thousands and thousands of feedback on my eBay account.
Lucy Hall:Like, I was making so many sales. It was amazing. And then I got an email saying, we've closed down your eBay account. Well, this was my business. This is where I sold everything.
Lucy Hall:I was like, I was a power seller. I sold a lot of stuff, and I've just been kicked off eBay. And overnight, I'd gone from making 1,000 to nothing. So like any good marketer, I downloaded everybody's addresses from PayPal. And I oh, bad marketer, should I say, because this is a random I went on eBay on another account, and I bought loads of second class stamps for, like, a bargain, which is probably illegal, I think.
Lucy Hall:So chicken crunchy. But I was really young. It was a long time ago, and I was just trying things out.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Lucy Hall:And then I wrote a letter to every single one of the people who'd bought stuff off me as a customer. And I sent them a letter, and I said something like, here's a discount code to my online stock. I got a shop made in India and a website, greatest deals online.com, it was called. It cost me £300. And, I put everybody to go and buy from that website.
Lucy Hall:And I got loads of wholesale customers, and then I was selling wholesale to a lot of eBay traders who were then selling on eBay. So I was back up and running again. Of course, I started a new a eBay account. So I think that was resourceful, but probably quite stupid because I could have got into a lot of trouble. So it was one stupid thing after another that I did that actually led to being okay in the end.
Lucy Hall:I got my eBay account back in the end. I had 2 eBay accounts. It's actually different things. But, yes, just a fun story. No shit at that.
Dave Charest:Well but I think it highlights the in here though is that idea of, like because I think today a lot of people kind of just really rely on social media a lot. Right? And they don't really understand the importance of, like you don't own that relationship with the audience that you're building there. Right? You're doing that on borrowed land.
Dave Charest:Right? And this has happened. Right? Somebody can shut down your Facebook page. Right?
Dave Charest:They can turn off your Instagram. The algorithm is gonna change all of those things that Yeah. Again, highlights that importance of always make sure you're trying to move those customers to that place that you own. Right? Own the contact information so that you have that direct connection with them.
Dave Charest:And I think you probably learned that
Lucy Hall:Yeah.
Dave Charest:You know, really early on, which was a good thing to learn because I have to imagine as you're building your businesses now, there is that component of what are we doing to collect email addresses. Right? Like, I guess, well, tell me a little bit about that. But, yeah, like, how important is that in in your world now of, like, building a list of people that you can market to?
Lucy Hall:That is absolutely so true because one day you can go from like, for example, just on our LinkedIn, we have a 100,000 followers on our LinkedIn page. Okay? And at the moment, you know, it's doing really well. We're getting thousands of followers every single week. It's, like, having great impacts.
Lucy Hall:We get really good engagement rate. But if they decide we're changing the algorithm so that the pages get less kind of shown in the feed, then all of a sudden, all this content we spend so much time putting out is not gonna be seen by anyone. Built all of this up for nothing. We've done all of this hard work for nothing. And same with Instagram and TikTok and all of these other things.
Lucy Hall:And they all have their moment. I remember when, Facebook had its moment and everybody was kind of, like, doing this, you know, sharing each other's pages and then Yeah. Making lots of sales and that kind of thing. And then all of a sudden, there was no reach and it all got dropped. And you can't it's really hard on Facebook now to get anybody to see your page.
Lucy Hall:And I believe Instagram is getting more difficult as well for people depending on whether you cracked it or not. But that can change. It changes overnight. People get their, account shut down overnight and that kind of thing as well. So like you said, sending people to where you want them to go is really important.
Lucy Hall:And for me, that is our emails. That is our email newsletter and joining our communities. So one of the things that is really important on social data is that we do the social media news roundup. And you can join our email newsletter to get that social media newsletter every week. But then now and again, we're gonna send you information about the events that are coming up.
Lucy Hall:So Yeah. You buy a ticket because oh, we're gonna put you on a type we're gonna ask you to join our wait list or our Typeform. So at the moment, I have a Typeform presale list that's going out for people to pre register for the event. And tomorrow, the first bunch of tickets, presale tickets are gonna go live, and that will end at the end of July. Those tickets are no more.
Lucy Hall:And the next time you can buy tickets to the 1st September, and those tickets will be double the price. So people wanna be on this wait list to get that. But we have their data now, and that's the most important thing because you can post stuff all it's a lot of work to post stuff all over social media and just do that all the time to try and get sales. Whereas if you get them to come onto your email list, it's so much easier to set because they already know you because they've already joined your list for a start to say, you know, here's our thing. Are you coming?
Lucy Hall:Are you doing a buy it? People expect that in emails as well. They expect you to, now and again, say, well, we've got this thing. You follow us. You love us.
Lucy Hall:So buy our thing because here it is. And here's the other thing. People always say in emails that you should every single email should just be valuable content. But if you sell products, people have joined your list so they can see your discounted products.
Dave Charest:You have to do both. Yeah.
Lucy Hall:You know, they literally want to buy that handbag at a discount because that's why they signed up to your list. Yeah. People sign up for different reasons at the end of the day, and it's up to us to give us reasons to get people to join so that you have and you own that data.
Dave Charest:So, well, there are a couple of things here. I mean, I think it's funny too. I think sometimes we have the the amount of energy that we put into the channels. 1st, I'm saying, like, email versus social. I think we have those reversed many times.
Dave Charest:Like, we spend so much time doing the things on social because, I mean, my point of view is that social is very good at making it feel like you're doing something. Right? Because you've got, like, the reach. You've got these things, and you can you get the instant, like, dopamine hits of, like, oh, somebody liked this. Somebody commented on it.
Dave Charest:Right? Yeah. But then if you spend some time maybe to do the math and I think every business is different, of course. But if you did the math, you're probably finding, like, well, I'm making more money by sending an email. Like, I'm actually doing more business that way than I am, like, doing the other things.
Dave Charest:And so I feel like sometimes we have those flipped around, but I think that's maybe the nature of the game. But would you say that LinkedIn is your primary social channel? Is that the one that you're using for Digital Women mostly? Or
Lucy Hall:Absolutely. And for my own stuff, like, when I post on LinkedIn. Because, first of all, I think people are there to hear about, like, work and business stuff
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Lucy Hall:Should put away. But there's not that many other distractions. People aren't sharing their baby photos, their dog photos. They're not sharing this. Because when I go on Instagram, like, it's nice to see all the work stuff and the tips.
Lucy Hall:Like, here's 3 social media tips, that kind of thing. But it's much nicer to look at a dog. Like, you know, like doing something funny, like picking up toys and putting them in a basket or cats sitting on people's laptops and that kind of thing. So I think attention wise, LinkedIn, you're going to get more attention in a b to b business capacity anyway. Also, people are there for work, for job opportunities, and that kind of thing.
Lucy Hall:My target audience is certainly there. That's not saying that I don't use ads coming up to events on, like, Instagram and Facebook because they do really work well. And obviously, TikTok's a a fantastic channel. I actually did some I've got the same behind me. I sell I've got a physical shop, my social media planner.
Lucy Hall:I sold thousands of these social media planners, actually. And one of my best channels this year, because I normally try and sell them in January time, was TikTok. And I've never sold them on TikTok before. It was really, really good.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Lucy Hall:So different channels for different things. I know some people use Facebook a lot, especially for kind of, like, entrepreneur small business type events, and they do really, really well. But for me, because people are in professional services a lot of the time as well, LinkedIn is a really, really good platform.
Dave Charest:Well, what are some of the ways that you have used LinkedIn then to I guess, what works with you to engage the community that you're building there for your initiatives that you're trying to run with, like, Digital Women?
Lucy Hall:So on our company page, I would say that having 100,000 followers on a company page puts us in the top percentage of pages, like LinkedIn pages. We've done really, really well considering it's just me. That's probably the content on there. We don't have a big team, creating content or anything like that. That's kind of just shows you how much growth you can have on the platform.
Lucy Hall:But I think of my content as top of funnel content, middle funnel content, and bottom of funnel content. And you can think of it the same as the marketing channels as well. So I think it's social media a lot of the time as the top of the funnel because this is where you're getting the attention. Hi. This is who we are.
Lucy Hall:This is who we are. And then you're trying to encourage people to come down the funnel, perhaps join your newsletter, and then you'll send something to them and say, please, can you buy this thing now because you're ready. You know about us and that kind of thing. Like, I would use our Facebook group as a kind of a top of the funnel kind of thing as well. Or a Facebook page is the top of the funnel group.
Lucy Hall:Facebook group is the middle of the funnel because they're in there engaging. And then also the newsletter is kind of coming into the bottom of the funnel to get them to kind of buy. And the top of funnel content for LinkedIn is so simple. It's something that people want to share to make them look good. So if you share top tips about something, they can share with other people that sounds really good and the graphic looks really good.
Lucy Hall:They're gonna share with their network. And that's gonna make them look really good because it makes them look really good. They love you and they can't wait for your next content come along so they can share that as well. And I really believe in this for LinkedIn, actually. I can share the same thing on Instagram that I share on LinkedIn.
Lucy Hall:It gets nothing. And on, LinkedIn, thousands of likes and, like, hundreds of comments and, like, hundreds of shares and that kind of thing. Yeah. Best one you probably can't see it on the camera. So the best piece of content is this.
Lucy Hall:It's this little thing that says, just keep growing.
Dave Charest:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lucy Hall:Just keep going. It's a very
Dave Charest:Remember that. I have I have one of those cards. I
Lucy Hall:remember that.
Dave Charest:Exactly. I
Lucy Hall:like giving them to everyone. I think it's nice. Just remember. Yeah. Keep growing.
Lucy Hall:Because that's what it's all about, isn't it? Just keep growing. Yeah. And that graphic did so well on LinkedIn that I thought, let's make this into a business card. But then, I pulled all the data off of LinkedIn, pasted it into chat GPT, and said, which content is performing the best?
Lucy Hall:And why is it performing the best? And give me some ideas for content that I can create that's just like this that is going to also, you know, get me that kind of attention. Yeah. And then it gave me all of the deep information, like, this is the best performing post. Mhmm.
Lucy Hall:This this this much reaction. This is the percentage. And here's a few posts that would do really well based on this post that you shared. So now I create those posts and I share those and I see what's doing the best. And then I'll do it again.
Lucy Hall:Or if it didn't perform
Dave Charest:Rinse and repeat. Right? Yeah.
Lucy Hall:Rinse and repeat. Yeah. Exactly. So I think LinkedIn does really well for reach. I'm forgetting people to know us.
Lucy Hall:And then there's a LinkedIn newsletter. You don't get the Facebook directly. But if you create an event on LinkedIn, you can download all of the data from the event. Ah. Yes.
Lucy Hall:Okay.
Dave Charest:Alright. Here we go.
Lucy Hall:Thanks emails. You can email them afterwards. Oh, thank you for attending this free event. By the way, would you like to go on our marketing email so that you can see information about future events? Yes, please.
Lucy Hall:You can bring my dates. So so why not?
Dave Charest:So I love what you just said there about this idea. Because one of the things I'm always telling you, particularly, you know, so, like, I'm going to lots of events doing all things and speaking at those. And it's always like, okay. You're gonna meet a lot of people today. You're exchanging business cards.
Dave Charest:Don't add those people to your marketing email list. What you should do is, yes, follow-up with a personal thing and say, hey. By the way, I have this thing you might be interested in, and let people take that next step to opt in. Because that's gonna be so much more powerful for you. Right?
Dave Charest:Because that's somebody that's like, you know what? I actually do have an interest in this. Right? Versus you're pissing somebody off because you're just sending them now these emails that they didn't want to get in the first place. Right?
Dave Charest:And so I I love that you bring that up.
Lucy Hall:It's annoying.
Dave Charest:So I'm super curious here. I mean, with all that you're doing, the big following that you have on LinkedIn okay. I got a little bit of a tip here with the chat gpt thing with ideas. But, like, seriously, like, how are you finding the time for marketing in all of this? And then, I guess, what is your approach to actually getting things done when it comes to marketing?
Dave Charest:So what do you do? What's that process look like?
Lucy Hall:Okay. So I think and you probably hear this all the time. Once you really know who your audience is and you really got that person nailed down to a tee, you know who they are. You know their pain points. You know their problems.
Lucy Hall:And you know who you are, not necessarily yourself, but you know who your brand voice is and how they sound and what they stand for and what those values are. It's actually really easy to create content. It's actually really easy to create the goals. And once you know as a business what it is that you want to achieve, that's the number one thing. Once you understand what you want to achieve, it's really easy then to create a pathway to trying to get to that place where you want to achieve.
Lucy Hall:So when you're creating all of this content, you know who you are. It's easy to create the content now because you don't have to think, what do I post? What are they gonna like? Because you know. Because you've understand your customers so well.
Lucy Hall:You've perhaps written down all the questions that your customer asks you or your customers have asked you. You use that to create content. Perhaps you've got I have community, so I have testimonials coming out of my ears. Yeah. I ask people in our community, would you do a video for us?
Lucy Hall:And then I'll do a video and post that on social media. So I think it's easy to get things done when you just know, like, what you're trying to achieve and who your audiences are. And for some reason, people sometimes skip that on social media, and they just start posting stuff. Also, I'm supposed to do this, so I'm gonna post it. Or why is this person doing so well?
Lucy Hall:I'll tell you why this person is doing so well. Because they know why they're doing it. They know what they're posting, and they know what they want to achieve from this, like, project or this marketing Yeah. That they're doing.
Dave Charest:So you got your plan. You understand what you're trying to do. You've got a goal. And I think a goal is a big thing. You know, I'm always saying that, like, everybody has access to the same tools, but how you use them is gonna be driven by what it is that you're actually trying to do.
Dave Charest:Right? And so when you start thinking about okay. You know what you're doing. You know the types of things that you want to talk about because they resonate with who you are and who your audience is or wants to be. Right?
Dave Charest:Are you putting time in your calendar? Like, how are you actually like, know what I mean? Like, what's the frequency of with which you're, like, you're covering out time in your data? I'm gonna go post this here. Are you scheduling things?
Dave Charest:Like, what does that look like?
Lucy Hall:Well, it's a mixture of everything.
Dave Charest:Yeah.
Lucy Hall:So one of the things I do like I told you before about my social media planner, I know it's a physical planner, and people must think, why would you do that? I'll tell you what happens. I don't know if it happens for you, Dave, but it happens to me. When I'm online, I get distracted, and I start doing something. And then I go off over here.
Lucy Hall:Perhaps I'm trying to get ideas, and I start going for these ideas.
Dave Charest:My physical book right here.
Lucy Hall:Yeah. Yeah. You start trying to get these ideas, then you think, oh, that looks interesting. And then you get go down a rabbit hole with something else. And before, you know, you've just wasted all your time looking online for ideas rather than actually thinking creatively from within about ideas.
Lucy Hall:And that's why I think it's so powerful to just write everything down, have it in one place. And then when you're sitting there in the garden and the sun's out and you've got a lovely cup of filter coffee or nice chamomile tea or whatever it is, cup of builders tea, whatever it is, you can get your book out. And you can just start writing ideas down without the distraction of other people's social media in your face, without the distraction of whatever's coming up in the Internet right now, whatever's pinging on your phone. You can just become so creative this way. And then once you've got all of this and you've written it all down, it's fresh in your mind.
Lucy Hall:And it might seem counterproductive because you've written it in this book, but now you have to actually create that content. But it's all there now. And even if you don't, even if you're not a scheduler, even if you're not, you know, somebody who creates campaigns ahead of time, you like to do it on the day, which a lot of business owners do. Mhmm. They post on the day because they just don't have time to sit down and, you know, schedule away and schedule away all the patients, all the skills to do it.
Lucy Hall:They like to just post something on Instagram every day and make sure it's going out. I think if you've got that book or it doesn't have to be one of these plans. It could be you have there just a notebook. It's a, you know Yeah. A sticker on it.
Lucy Hall:It says my content book or whatever it is. You've got a list of what you wanna post every day. And then you can just go into Canva. Oh, today, I know that I need to post about the promo for this because, you know, we're coming up towards this promo. Or people need to go on the wait list today.
Lucy Hall:We've got 5 days to get on the wait list before we launch this thing. So we need you to post about that today. And, oh, look, I've written what it is that I want to say. So now one needs to put a fantastic picture I've got in my phone already or a reel that I've created the other day when I was, like, sitting at my desk. Put that up with my text, and it's done.
Lucy Hall:Rather than thinking, what am I gonna post today? Fishing around for ideas. Yeah. Because that's what happens to people. They get distracted and they waste time.
Lucy Hall:And everybody says, oh, social media is such a waste of time. I end up wasting so much time. It doesn't have to be like that. If you already know what it is that you're gonna post, you're sorted. I promise.
Dave Charest:Yeah. I love that. I also think there's just something to your point about, like, writing it down on paper. That's why I like to do it. I think it just, you almost internalize what it is that you're doing, and so it has a different resonance with you as a person.
Dave Charest:So to your point, like, you kinda know. Right? Because it's in you versus Yeah. There's something to the if you're doing everything digital, it's almost disposable.
Lucy Hall:Yeah. In
Dave Charest:a way, and you don't really hold on to it as much as you've worked it out of your body and then, you know, you threw your arm into your onto the page kind of
Lucy Hall:thing. Tangible.
Dave Charest:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's
Lucy Hall:something to it.
Dave Charest:So we've got a little bit of time left, and I do wanna talk a little bit about just, you know, if you're thinking about you know, I'm sure there are tons of other people out there that may be listening who may be thinking about, okay, what is the role that, community can play in my business? Or maybe they're thinking of starting their own business. Like, what would be some top tips that you would provide them for if they were thinking of starting their own online community?
Lucy Hall:Okay. Yeah. So I think, first of all, if you're thinking of starting your own online community to support you and other people with the same problems, just think about, like, what would be the thread that pulls this community together? What is the problem that everybody has? Or what is the thing that everybody loves to talk about?
Lucy Hall:What is the thing that everybody's failing at or doing well at, for example? And then you try and find out who these people are. And, you know, a community doesn't have to be a 100000 people. A community can be 5 people with the same problems who just have a chat with each other every day. And, I think that's pretty important.
Lucy Hall:And then if you're creating a community to become, you know, a community business that's revenue generating, I always think of it as, you know, you can create community, but communities need funding. So people worry about if they've got community. Oh, well, actually, I can't ask people for money. But, actually, communities do need someone to run it and they do need funding. So it is really important.
Lucy Hall:So if you're icky about selling to your community, you're funding your community. And I think that that's really important, just understanding what your community is for in the first place. If your community has been built around your business, then if you have a business where you sell cakes, for example, you can build a community of people who love cakes, who just literally love different styles of cakes, and they wanna share their own cake ideas and that kind of thing with you. They don't necessarily want to make the cakes. They might wanna just buy your cakes, but they love cake, and they love their pictures of cakes and that kind of thing.
Lucy Hall:They like watching those new cake shows that are on telly and that kind of thing. And, again, if you're selling skateboards, for example, wow, you could create an incredible community around skateboards because these are people who love skating, and they can share skate videos and, like, reviews for skateboard. There's so many different things, and every single person can create a community, essentially. Whether it's the one that's monetized or funded or whether it is a community that is for your business, like to feed your business, or whether it's a community just for you to help you to get through your day, you know, your Yeah. Difficult days and your hard days.
Lucy Hall:And I think sometimes some of the best communities have started like that because they start off with you. I have a problem that I need people around me to help me fix, and I don't have a massive budget or I don't know where to go to get it. You start connecting with other people saying, before you know it, there's a million people in your community who've got the same problems. And you know if it's a real community because it doesn't revolve around you. So my communities that I am part of, that I also happen to run, they don't revolve around me.
Lucy Hall:The conversations happen without me. These people are making connections and talking to each other and creating content whether I exist there or not. And I think that that's the magic thing about communities. Like, they can exist without the person that created them, and they support and help people with whatever it is that they're trying to do.
Dave Charest:I wanna close on this. Why is it so important for businesses, any type of business really, but as you think about what you've been doing, why is it so important to care about your community and your customer?
Lucy Hall:So why is it so important to care about your community and customer? Because it's not only that they're literally the person that is gonna be buying from you, so you need to care about them. Because how can you create something for them if you don't care about them and you don't care about what they want and what makes them feel good or what makes them happy or what makes them feel bad. If you don't know what they need, how can you create products for them? So I really do think caring about your customers, caring about your community, making sure that at the center of everything, you want to give them the thing that's gonna help them to feel better or solve their problem.
Lucy Hall:Because that's essentially what your business is at the end of the day, isn't it? It's your customer. If you don't have the customers, you don't have a business. So they need to be the center of your world.
Dave Charest:Well, friend, let's recap some items from that discussion. Number 1, give it a go. Look, the digital space, it's always changing. But if like Lucy, you develop a mindset of, I have nothing to lose if I do this, you're gonna find yourself learning and creating more opportunities for yourself and your business. As I like to say, no one knows anything until they do.
Dave Charest:So why not give it a go? Number 2, you can't do everything. At a certain point in your business, growth may become a problem if that's your goal, of course. Now for Lucy, she's realized if she doesn't employ people, everything is gonna stagnate. She needs people in the right places so that she's freed up to focus on what she needs to do, and then the team can power the business forward.
Dave Charest:So pay attention to when it might be time to add people to your team so you can take your business to the next level. Number 3, create the content they wanna share. Now Lucy shares that part of her success on LinkedIn comes from creating content that her audience wants to share. It's content that makes the person sharing it look good. If you want more people engaging and helping you reach more potential customers, take this into account with the content that you create.
Dave Charest:The more you do this, the more people will look forward to what you do next. So here's your action item for today. Now if you wanna upgrade your digital skills, make sure you attend the Constant Contact product webinar. This is important if you're feeling like you're not taking full advantage of your Constant Contact account. You can register for an upcoming webinar where our team will walk you through how to use different aspects of the product and, of course, answer your questions.
Dave Charest:As always, you'll find links 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. Just go to rate this podcast dotcom/bam. Your honest feedback will help other small business marketers like yourself find the show.
Dave Charest:That's rate this podcast.com/bam. Well, friend, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and continued success to you and your business.