Would You Rather Game: Small Business Marketing Edition
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As a small business owner, the biggest superpower you have is that you get to decide the pace of your marketing.

hey everyone welcome to the sob marketing podcast where we celebrate the sob that you are and if you haven't figured it out yet we mean small owned business we don't mean sob listen we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it and while some days it may feel like the business is owning you

If we're being honest with each other, I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything. Our commitment here at the SOB Marketing Podcast is to give you the real talk,

what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, promoting your business, and then what doesn't really work. And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real. Welcome back to another episode of the SOB, Small Owned Business Marketing Podcast. I'm here with my beautiful sister Chelsea. Oh, hello Vivian. Hey, Chelsea. So if you guys are new around these here parts, we

We are a marketing podcast that is specific to small business owners. So we want to bring you guys information that we have accrued over our 15 plus years of marketing experience and wrap it all up in a nice little package so that you guys can feel confident in doing your marketing in house. Now,

few things first before we jump into our topic today, which we have something special for you guys. So I'm very excited about this. But first and foremost, if you haven't already, please leave us a review that is going to help us build our community. We want to be sure that we get this podcast and this information in front of other small business owners who need it. And one of the ways that you can help with that is simply by leaving us a review. So go do that. Hit pause, go do

go do that right now. And now that you're back from leaving us a review, let me remind you guys, there is something unique to our podcast in particular. We have a section at the end of every episode called a TLDL section. It's something that Chelsea came up with too long, didn't listen. Basically,

we do a brief synopsis at the end of every episode because we know that as small business owners, you guys are always on the run and you're short on time. So if you're ever listening to an episode, you can always skip to the end, get the low down, and then come back and revisit it when you're driving in the car and you have more time to actually take all of the discussion in. But for this particular episode, we will not have a TLDL section because we're doing something a little unique today. What are we doing, Chels?

Today, Vivian, we are playing a game. Can we cue game music right here? Absolutely. Perfect. Yes. You hear the game music?

We're playing a game. We're playing a game, Vivian, of Would You Rather. Oh, I like it. So Vivian and I are going to go tit for tat. We're going to give Would You Rather prompts, and then we're going to talk about them. And these are all going to be marketing-centric, you guys, okay? Yes. We're not doing just random Would You Rather questions. It's all going to be marketing-related. Vivian, do you want to start? Yeah.

Yeah. And let me just, we want you guys to hop in there and tell us if there's anything that you feel really strongly about, would you rather? Tell us your responses down below. Okay. So yeah. So if there's one that you're like, oh, I could tell you right now what I would pick then. All right. So let me get this game started. Okay.

First and foremost, let's start with Chelsea. Would you rather go all in on one social media platform? Okay. So you can only pick one. Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Tikitaki, whatever. Or, and master it. Okay. And master it. Yeah. So only pick one.

blow up your channel, master that one platform? Okay. Or would you rather be average but be on multiple platforms? I would rather master one because you can get real specific and real granular with your target audience. If you know your target audience like you should,

then you'll know. She says spicy always. I'm sorry. Then you'll, let me change my tone. If you know your target audience really well, like you should, then you'll know what platform, what social media platform they're on.

So then pick that platform. And if you master it, if you're in front of your target audience, that's what matters the most. And we always talk about, Vivian, moving people from social media platforms into your own ecosystem. So if I've mastered the social media platform that all of my potential customers are on and I'm moving them to my own ecosystem, that's going to be more effective than being average on all of them.

Yeah, you know what I love about that too? The fact that you picked that is, think about this, you guys. Are you a firm believer that concentrated effort pays off? Or are you a believer that maybe watered down effort is going to be the thing, right? So would you rather reach more people, but...

not go as deep or would you rather reach less people and go deep and so we always know from a marketing perspective and you guys don't take this as criticism because we don't do this right otherwise we would do youtube and that's it right yeah or something like that but the thing is we um we're building something over time and so we are concentrating our efforts on multiple platforms at

At some point, maybe we'll decide to change that. We also know as users though, think about your social media habits. Chelsea has been very vocal about the fact that she does not like TikTok. She does not like Instagram. She does not, you pretty much don't like anything. So that actually, yes, that's true.

I would rather not be on social media at all. From a consumer's perspective, out of all of them, I probably use Instagram the most. Okay, so you don't like Facebook. I don't like Facebook, no. Well, yeah, I'm 26. I'm a YouTube girly and a Facebook girly. And so for me, those two are my preferred platforms. Will I do the others? Absolutely. But am I going to spend as much time consuming information as...

as I would. And so ask yourself that, do you guys have any personal preferences as far as how much time you're spending on any one of these platforms? And so as a small business owner, would you rather just go lean all in into one so that you could really grow that audience or would you rather disperse your efforts across all these? - Yes, love it. - I love that. Love your first one.

I guess we're sticking in the social media realm. Realm, yes, thank you. Because my first would you rather is, would you rather go viral once in three months or experience slow growth during those three months?

Oh, that's tough. I would experience slow growth because we talk about this all the time and we're firm believers around here. Virality is not always equal money.

Okay. And so what scares me, and this is just a personal thing, a fear with viral virality is you have a video that goes viral. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's the type of audience you want to attract. And so then I feel like you're doing a little bit of this, like, great. I just got, um,

10,000 new followers, but now I'm having to parcel through to see who of those is actually the type of people that are going to buy my product and service. So it just feels a little more like work. And I also don't like that there is no rhyme or reason to virality. Okay. Like some of the stupidest quotes.

goes viral. And then the actual work that people are doing, you know, most of the time never goes viral. So that's the one I would pick. What do you think? I love that. No, I absolutely agree. The entire point of social media is to reach your target audience because you want them to make a purchase. Like, believe it or not, marketing is about sales. It's about making money. You want to make money. And so going viral, sure, you'll be in front of

more people more eyeballs does not mean it's the right eyeballs so so you would pick the same one i would pick slow growth yeah all right you guys let us know if you're thinking we're wrong right if you've had a viral video pop off and you're like you girls don't know what you're talking about drop in the comments after you leave a good review all right my second would you rather question would you rather get a one-time shout out

from a huge influencer like let's say chapelle roan chapel girl chapel roan chapel roan i'm gonna stop taking you places you can't do this anymore it's too it's been too long okay let me start the question over again okay go ahead would you rather get a one-time shout out from a huge influencer like

chapelle roan are you gonna i feel like you're messing with me you can't would you rather get a one-time shout out from a huge influencer like chapel roan or have a small but loyal community that shares your stuff consistently so one huge shout out chapel roan or consistent followers that share your stuff consistently you know what this is a really hard one

Because when you think about these big big influencers like Chapel Roan, that is a lot of eyeballs. But when you have brand evangelists who are singing your praises and constantly sharing your stuff with people who are probably a lot like them because you know birds of a feather, you all stick together. Flock together.

Is it birds of a feather stick together or birds of a feather flock together? Well, I was quoting a Billie Eilish song. Oh, yes. Yeah. I think it's... It's stick together. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. My point is with brand evangelists, they're probably going to have connections with your same kind of target audience. So it probably is more effective in conversions. Okay. Yeah.

Which is the important thing. Again, marketing is about making money. It's about sales. So that probably would have a higher conversion rate. But how many conversions are you getting from that big, big influencer, you know?

agree because there are there are some people out there also that will make a purchase just because it is that influencer yeah and also uh this one is hard because i want to go with the practical one but there's a part of me that feels like i would 100 go with a large influencer because i have seen where somebody there was there's a girl that i follow she's uh

She cracks me up. She is just unhinged, okay? And I love her. But she did a video one time on, you know...

Kourtney Kardashian has these gummies that they do for sleeping. And I guess they were talking about like she took it and she passed the F out, y'all. And she was like, what did you put in this? Okay. And so she actually tagged Khloe. Khloe then recognized her video and didn't.

they now like two three years later she got her big hit then her account grew she's been doing all of this like um she got invited to be like a model in New York Fashion Week all this crazy stuff has happened to her she makes a ton of money as a content creator now she's also an actress and now

Now, she looped it all back around and did another video with Khloe Kardashian. And so I think it opens the door for opportunities for future collaborations, maybe. Right? So once you're kind of on the radar with people that have larger accounts like that and are influencers, you can also use it as an introduction into potentially getting your foot in the door with other influencers or other opportunities. Yeah. I think I would pick the influencer. Yeah.

Really? I think I would. Yeah. If anything, just to tell him that your sister can't say her name correctly. Yeah, exactly. That's actually the reason I would pick it. Yes, you're right. So you guys can, what do you call it, bully me? Yes, absolutely. Okay, Vivian, so my next question. Would you rather only market yourself on Instagram or only use email marketing?

I feel like I already know what you're going to say. I'm going to go with email marketing. Yeah, I know. But are you saying that because I'm old? I'm saying...

Not because you're old. One, both of us are such big advocates for email marketing and how it is not dead and still a very, very useful marketing tactic, initiative, strategy, whatever word you want to use. But also, I just know that you hate...

Instagram from a marketing standpoint. I do. I can't keep up with, I mean, the nonsense. I'll just say it like Instagram, you're off your hinges. Like, I don't know what you're doing day to day, but you just, I feel like you, you live to make our life as small business owners more difficult. But besides the point, um, I would go with email marketing because I do believe that,

having that direct communication is key. And as long as it's people that have signed up for that email. So

I think it's important to understand how you acquire that email subscriber. All right. If you have high quality email subscribers, people who love your content, they love your information, they're more prone to buy from you. And so why would I not want to be able to send them an email? I mean, and this is going to blow your mind. People are actually sending emails now like three times a week.

Really? Yeah. And maybe we do this in a future episode. We could talk about kind of like the shift in the way people are doing email marketing. But they're showing up in inboxes more than just once a week sometimes. We don't. We only send a weekly email. So don't worry if you guys send up for an email list. I'm not going to bombard you with emails. But I do think depending on...

the type of audience you have, you can take full advantage of. The other thing is you just have to get really creative. If I didn't have Instagram because I chose email marketing, then I'd have to figure out a way to get email subscribers. And obviously Instagram would not be an option. All right. My next would you rather is, would you rather get free PR write-up in the news or pay for a

a sponsored content piece. That's it. So yeah, if you guys don't know in the news now, when you're reading like your local newspaper, whether that be online or on print, a lot of times they have sponsored content meshed in and they look like articles, but they're not, they're actually pieces that people are paying for. So maybe they'll pay $1,500 to get that

article looking thing printed in there so would you rather go with getting a free pr write-up or doing a paid sponsored content okay

I know my option. I know which one I would pick, but I'm going to do pros and cons for both. Okay. Obviously, the con for the paid one is that you had to pay for it, but you're in control of what's being said. That's a really big deal. Being in control, making sure that all the content that you want in there is in there and...

you know, making sure that your brand reputation is as good as it can be. That's a big deal. Free PR is free, but you're not going to be able to control what they say. However, I would still pick free PR because, I mean, one, it's free. Yes. Two, I feel like we are not giving consumers enough credit.

in them not noticing that it's sponsored content. I think more people than you think are noticing that it's sponsored. And so more people than you think are going, do I really? I don't want to say trust, but they're not going to put as much behind your sponsored content than they are going to a free PR moment.

Yeah, let's call it what it is. Sponsored content is paid advertising. Absolutely. That's what it is. Yeah, you can write in there whatever you want. Yeah, they make it look like it's an article and it's well-written and they do give you like a writer to go, you know, to help you put it together. But it's paid advertising. And so to your point...

I'm curious, and maybe we do this on Instagram, Chelsea. Let's just create a reel and see if people know the difference.

Do you know the difference between when you're reading a sponsored content piece or a true like just like PR piece? So love that you are picking the free PR. I probably would. I think both have a place depending on what you're trying to do. But I do love me some good free PR just because I think for one it you can.

You're not paying for it. If you write it well enough, the press release, they're literally just going to copy and paste it. So you're still kind of controlling the message. And then on top of it, you guys can repurpose that. Once they put it up on their link, then you just like push it out to all your stuff, your email list, you push it out to your social media followers. And so then you literally get so much more juice out of it without having to pay for anything. Absolutely. Yeah.

I once worked with an ad agency where I had to go through and revise all of their work because it would be laden with misspellings and wrong information. We were spending thousands of dollars for me to do double the work. Sometimes you don't need an ad agency. You just need resources to be able to figure it out on your own.

Yeah, that's why we created the SOB community for the small business owners who want to keep their marketing in-house but still need some support. You get templates, courses, downloads, expert advice, weekly live calls, and a supportive group of other small business owners for just $50 a month. So head over to school.com slash SOB. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com.

slash S-O-B, all lowercase. Join today and feel confident in your marketing. Okay, Vivian, my next one. Ooh, this is a good one. This is a good one. Would you rather double your marketing budget but lose half your time or double your time but keep the same budget? Ooh, that's hard. Yeah. I'm going to go with...

You stumped me on this one. I think I'm going to go with less of a budget and keeping my time. Yeah. I feel like as a small business. Well, no, you double your time, but you keep the same budget. Okay. So you're not losing money. Oh, perfect. Okay. Well, then double my time, babe, and give me the same amount of budget. Okay. I'll go that route all day long. Reasoning.

I think the good initiatives and sorry, you guys, if you can hear my, um, my rooster in the background, he's being very loud, obnoxious. Um, but,

back on track. Okay. So the marketing does take time and I feel like the initiatives that do garner you the most sales do require a little more lead time, right? So you can do paid advertising, but depending on what it is, you may still have to invest like six months to a year before you start to see results and stuff. And I know that seems like a lot, but you guys, that's

Sometimes is what happens. If you're building brand awareness with like billboards, social media ads are a little quicker, but it still takes a little bit of time for it to gain traction. So time is of the essence and I would rather pick on having as much time as I can. Budget,

I have solid negotiating skills for ad rates. So I feel like I can always maneuver it. And there are so many opportunities nowadays with these platforms and also with partnerships and collabs and stuff where you really don't have to spend as much money on that stuff. So I feel like the budget I can work with

the time I always want to have as much of it as possible. Well, absolutely. And that's what I was thinking too. You know, the thing that we need the most of is always time. Yeah. That's the thing that we struggle with is not having enough time in the day. I mean, yes, having more money would be nice, but with double the time you can use that extra time. I feel like I've said time so many times. Yeah.

If you have the same budget, you can use the extra to get real creative with your marketing initiatives. Yeah. And one of the videos actually we just recently did on YouTube was talking about, and I hope everybody listening takes this to heart. As a small business owner, the biggest superpower you have is that you get to decide the pace of

of your marketing. And what I mean by that is in the video I've actually outlined in this YouTube video, I think it's titled, Give Me Eight Minutes and I'll Change the Way You Think About Marketing. And basically, I just kind of talk about the principle of marketing and how

Using a piggy bank, marketing is nothing more than you deciding which initiatives and which opportunities you have and then depositing, making consistent deposits into this piggy bank. That piggy bank represents a potential customer that eventually, once there's enough in there, is going to convert to an actual customer, paying customer. And so the key here, the reason I bring this up is

because you get to dictate the pace. Some small businesses who have a much bigger marketing budget, they're out there doing, they're depositing nothing but quarters, which are basically a representation of paid ads. - Yeah. - All right, but for a small business owner that's on a smaller budget, maybe they are okay depositing dimes.

and that's gonna be your social media marketing, the stuff that you do consistently and you show up for, and it's still all going into converting eventually this potential customer into a customer. And so I think that's where you guys get to decide, would you rather,

you know, have a longer period of time, but the same budget, or would you have double the budget but less time? Yeah. My next question is, would you rather hire an advertising agency or team to work with, or would you choose to hire a single team member to help you specifically with your marketing? Hmm.

So do you want a team of advertising professionals or do you just want to hand select one person to bring in-house? I'm selecting one person and I have multiple reasonings. One of my reasons though is because I've worked with an ad agency before and it was awful. I had a bad experience and I don't want to do that again.

The problem that I had with ad agencies and the problem that a lot of people may have with ad agencies is that they are not in your world. They're not in your small business. They don't really, really know what's going on. So they can't create content. They can't create marketing initiatives that really speak to your brand, right?

If I hire one person, if I bring them into the fold, they will get to know my small business intimately and they'll be able to speak on those intimate pieces and change their marketing initiatives based on what would work best for our small business specifically.

I think ad agencies do have a time and place. I was listening to a podcast episode recently on Rolex. It was very interesting. And what was interesting was...

they've been doing this for so many years, but they were, it wasn't until a little while ago, or I want to say maybe in the last hundred years or so that they actually switched to, I'm sorry, you said a little while ago and then you said a hundred years ago, they've been around for a hot minute. But so I guess what I'm saying is there,

there was a turning point where the founder was doing all of their marketing and advertising and they really didn't

start to get credence. And I'm sorry, I should have said maybe 50 years ago, not 100, because they really took off as a premium brand whenever they signed up with a newer ad agency. And so I do think maybe in the term of a business cycle, there comes a point where an ad agency could potentially like skyrocket you to the next level, right? But I, similar to you,

worked with a couple of ad agencies, um, have not had the best experience. And that's just me personally, because as a, uh, executive director of marketing, I think the relationship is a little different. Like because I am representing the organization, I do know all the ins and outs of it. And so it does get a little frustrating when you're having to explain step-by-step to people that are just not in the same industry. So, um,

You know, I personally agree with you. I would take the same route, especially as a small business owner. When you look at the math, okay, they say girl math. This would be business, SOB math. That's what we're going to call it. Small business math, SOB math is essentially for what you could pay one person to bring in-house to be a dedicated marketing or advertising individual for you.

you're going to spend five times that six times that yeah or on an ad agency yeah and so it's almost similar to that question where we asked would you rather go deep in one area or would you rather disperse your efforts i'd rather go deep in this one and just hire somebody internally to do that absolutely vivian would you rather have a customer leave a negative review review on google or

Or an angry comment on your most viral post. Angry comment on my most viral post all day long. I mean, because y'all, I think we just know social media, even the viral post posts

videos I see of people that are like lighthearted, it's animal, it's children related. There's still nasty comments in there. Eventually, if you leave it up long enough, there's going to be nasty comments. So I think I can easily deal with that as opposed to a Google reviews a little more intimate because then it's telling me that like,

I haven't done something with my, you didn't like my product. You didn't like my service. Something went wrong. And so I would much rather have some, uh, keyboard warrior on the ticky talk telling me that I suck as opposed to, you know, an actual customer telling me that I suck. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. My last one. Ooh. Okay. How many more you got? I have one more.

Okay, so maybe you do yours first and then I'm going to do my last one. Okay. Would you rather lose access to all your marketing tools for a week or be forced to use only outdated marketing tactics? I'd lose my tools for a week. Really? Yeah, I don't want to do outdated marketing tactics because I just feel like that would be harder. Here's the thing with the tools is

You can take those away from me and I can for a week, for seven days, probably limp along. And if anything, maybe I can divert my efforts to doing more long-term overall strategic planning, right? So that way I'm not dead in the water. I'm still doing something that's super useful to my small business, but I'm not having to do it without my tools as opposed to like just doing marketing for the sake of marketing, but not really doing initiatives I want to be doing.

Interesting. Yeah, what would you do? I would do the outdated marketing tactics because what do you consider outdated? You know? Yeah, true. I feel like I could, I feel like using... Advertising on MySpace?

Oh, okay. I guess that's a good point. If it was specifically advertising on MySpace, then I wouldn't do it. But if I could do like outdated marketing tactics with the tools that I use today, like my Canva, my Opus Clips, stuff like that, I feel like I could make it work. Okay. Yeah. Preference.

preference all right and to wrap it up i think this is the most important question okay of all i'm ready would you rather be the social media manager for bad omens and get to tour with them or make six figures working with your big sister here at the season marketer and it's got to be an honest answer do you want me to answer honestly bad omens you would go i want to tour with them you would so

You would ditch me in two seconds? Yes. To go, I mean, they go everywhere. They've done a world tour.

I'd get to go everywhere. Heck yeah. Didn't you just buy tickets to see them? I bought tickets to see Bring Me the Horizon. Oh, okay. Sorry. I get them. I'm not a punk girly, so I get them mixed up. That's metal. Okay. I'm not a metal girly. You're more of a punk girly. We've seen Green Day twice. Is Green Day considered punk? Yes. Oh, girl. I feel like it's softcore punk or something. I don't know.

It's just punk. If you had picked any other band, I'd pick you. But I just haven't seen Bad Omens yet. Once I see them one time, then I'll be fine. Then I'll be like, yeah, I'll stick with Vivian. You heard it here first, you guys. Chelsea's ditching me to be a roadie. Can't say I didn't try. I even included in there a six-figure salary, and she was like, no thanks.

Dang, girl. I'm sorry. You asked for an honest answer and I gave it to you. Again, once I see them once, then it'll be fine. They'll be out of my system.

Well, so as we mentioned earlier, you guys know we don't have a TLDL for this particular episode. We hope that you enjoyed this nice little game we played today of Would You Rather. Please tell us in the comments below if we got any of this wrong. If you disagree with our decision making, you know, let us know. If you want to remind Chelsea that she's got a wonderful big sister and that bad omens is not all that cool, go ahead. Let her know in the comments. Yeah.

Thank you guys for listening. As always, be sure that you leave a review, share this podcast with other small business owners so that they can feel confident in their marketing. Also, just a friendly reminder, if you guys do not know, we have a monthly marketing membership, $50 a month. We have the SOB community. You get access to tutorials.

you get to hop on weekly zoom calls with us talk all things marketing related to your small business they really are some great discussions we have other members there that we love bouncing ideas off of and just chatting about so go check it out school skool.com slash sob all lowercase and go be the best sob you can be