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Ep 99: New offer? Go on a visibility tour.

Sarah Noel Block Season 3 Episode 99

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Unlock the secrets to supercharging your visibility and engagement in our thrilling finale of the Uncut Summer Series! Ready to double your email list? Join us as Kelly Sinclair shares her 60-day experiment of daily external-facing activities that led to phenomenal growth. Discover the magic behind email list swaps and bundle giveaways, and learn why these strategies are game-changers for boosting your business's reach.

Wondering how to craft a successful PR strategy? We’ve got you covered. This episode unpacks the synergy between PR, branding, and marketing for unparalleled visibility. We dive into practical advice on reaching out to local reporters and editors, building meaningful relationships, and hosting collaborative events or guest segments on your podcast. You'll hear personal stories that showcase how these strategic efforts can open doors to incredible opportunities and connections.

Feeling stuck in your visibility efforts? We emphasize the importance of a supportive entrepreneurial community and leveraging collaborations for success. Learn to implement a visibility tour, track progress, and take consistent action that aligns with your business goals. Pushing out of your comfort zone can yield impressive results—experience the transformative impact of the Visibility Revolution Program. For more juicy insights, visit my website and follow me on Instagram. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and share to keep the Tiny Marketing love alive!

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Speaker 1:

Hey, hey, hey. This is Sarah Noelle Block and you are listening to Tiny Marketing. This is the Uncut Summer Series, where you are getting the raw, unfiltered, unedited recordings from our interviews, webinars and workshops. So sit back, relax and enjoy the ridiculousness. Hello, hello, hello.

Speaker 1:

Today is the last episode of the Uncut Summer series, so starting next week, we're going to have all new interviews, fresh content. I already have done so many of the interviews. I think that we have enough interviews now to go through into 2025 already for season four, Pretty nuts and we have some amazing speakers. I'm so, so excited to introduce you to them and give you a taste of the series that I've cooked up this season. We're doing a series on sales for service businesses. We're doing one on moving to scalable offers when you have a one-to-one service offer. We have a LinkedIn series. So many good things coming up this season. I can't wait.

Speaker 1:

But today I am sharing an awesome interview I did with Kelly Sinclair, and I don't know why. No, I do know why. It's because I'm launching the Tiny Marketing Club officially to the public, so I've been thinking about all of the promotion that goes into it, and one thing that she talked about really resonated with me and it was a visibility tour and how to get in front of as many people as possible so you can promote your offer. So that conversation with her just kept getting just niggling in my head, it was just hanging out in my brain so I thought this would be the perfect there's the word, the perfect interview to end the series with. So I hope you enjoy my last episode of the summer, of the Uncut Summer series, and then the beginning of September we'll launch in season four babies. Stay tuned.

Speaker 1:

The beginning of September we're launching season four babies. Stay tuned. Hey, hey, let's chat about how we met in the first place. So it was system saved me. What is it? What is the group called? Oh, it's called Ready Set Collab. Ready Set Collab. Yes, it's pretty badass, I like it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's so good. It's nice to have a place where people are there with the same goal to like meet each other and find ways to connect and like collaborate, like this, and use each other's platforms, because sometimes we're like, you know, just we're hoping for that, but then we're nervous to ask people. But in this case it's like everyone's here. We've already said yes. So, it sort of starts the conversation off a lot easier.

Speaker 1:

It does make it so much easier and I've met the coolest people through that platform I am. I'm going to just get my fuzzy blanket up. My AC's turned up way too high.

Speaker 2:

We are not in AC time over here in Canada.

Speaker 1:

Now it's done, oh my gosh, I heard you're near Banff. Right, yeah, I do live near Banff. Didn't something recently happen? It came up in the news. I told you when we talked last time that my husband is a little bit obsessed with BAM for some reason, because one of his co-workers went there. But I saw it in the news for some reason recently and I can't remember what it was.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that this grizzly bear followed people down a trail for like an hour. It just kept following them.

Speaker 1:

It was bear related, not that you say that, and funny enough, before we hit record and I was talking about my bear attack, which is just my puppy named Bear, and how I got clawed trying to get her back in the yard. Yeah, I also have a bear attack story in my own unique way, but that is not the point today. Today's point is visibility. Can you tell me what the visibility tour is yes, okay.

Speaker 2:

So I love that we started this conversation talking about collaborating and how we met each other in a collaboration like group.

Speaker 2:

But the whole concept here is that, like, don't forget to promote yourself like every dang day of your business, so we can get so swept up in like, oh, I got to like redo my website copy or I need to take this other course, or I have to read a book or listen to all these podcasts, and we're doing these all behind the scenes things.

Speaker 2:

So I wanted to try and experiment where I made sure that at least one time every single day, I was doing something externally facing, which meant like connecting with another person for potential collaboration, like you or others from the group, or reaching out to somebody that I met at an event, signing myself up for an event, going on social media and actually talking about what I do, like all of these things that were much more likely to lead to people coming into my world. And I did some things over the course of this 60 days. I was like, let's try a little time frame, see what happens. And I did some things over the course of this 60 days that resulted in doubling my email list Shit. Yeah, I doubled my yeah, wow, so like I don't know why. So I've been running my business for six years and it's taken six years to get to, like you know, a thousand people, and then I got like 730 days.

Speaker 1:

That's insane. Let's just pause this visibility tour and just tell me what you did to do that. What was that all about?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that was well. I have discovered. I've discovered the magical world of um, of email list swaps and bundles. So I up to be part of a couple of really amazing bundle giveaways. So, essentially, what you need in order to participate in that is some kind of digital product that is of value that you sell, which a lot of people have that in their business already at like a lower ticket price. You know, somewhere between, a lot of people are rocking like a $7 thing or a $50 thing, and so I have a $50 thing which I was unable to give away as part of that.

Speaker 2:

So the people like it was a big contribution, so a big group of people participate and everybody shares about it a couple times. But from like, from my end, like it's very low lift as the person who's not organizing it. It was very low lift to contribute that because I already had it made. I already have like the way for people to get it. It already like leads into an email sequence and all this. And yeah, like just it was just very hyper, targeted to the audience that I was looking for and they were all over it. So it blew up. Amazing, like I broke all of my technology. I had to. I had to get the next level of active campaign. My zap ear stopped working because I all the things were like shooting off too much.

Speaker 1:

You had too too many zaps happening. Yes, I was like, okay, this is serious, that is a good problem.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it was. So it was bringing all these amazing people into my world and and I thought you know when people come in, when you get new people on your email list and especially if you don't have like I don't know, you don't give them a long time and nurture, and all this like email marketing strategy stuff. Well, my email open rate increased like it's 48% ish with these brand new people, so they're super engaged.

Speaker 2:

Totally so, like when you pick something that's very specific, like sometimes there's bundles and things like that, where it's like it's for anybody, or it's like I had one that was like focused on moms, and so for the stuff that I, my work is focused primarily on moms in business. So that was it was effective. But the one that was more effective was called the visible AF bundle. So like they're there, they're trying to get visibility I'm a visibility coach, let's go. So yeah, it was really, really good. So brought all these people into my world. So I have all these amazing people Hi, if you're listening on my email list. Thanks for being here.

Speaker 1:

Hello, and I'm glad you downloaded the bundle. Hello and.

Speaker 2:

I'm glad you downloaded the bundle Very good, and because the thing is like people have to go and pick your individual item, so not only they don't get the whole thing, they have to go and sign up individually for all these things. So that's a big effort on their part. So, yeah, but it worked out really well.

Speaker 1:

I did one of those recently. I didn't participate in it, but I downloaded a ridiculous amount of things from someone's bundle yeah.

Speaker 2:

so I think I don't know if it's like bundle season or something, but like it's a good, it's a good and I'm, I've, I'm like okay, well, if this is how, if I get like 400 plus people per bundle, that I do, I'm going to do those like every two weeks For real.

Speaker 1:

Now I'm going to do one Like why would we do advertising Right? That has come into my like atmosphere before, but I've never said yes. Now I'm going to Totally Like it was.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it blew me away. It truly did. It truly did. Okay, do you want to hear what some other things were?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I got so excited about the email list doubling that I had a tangent. But yes, let's hear about the others.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly Like so.

Speaker 2:

I was like how, how can we create these results, these kinds of results? And I had no expectations, right, and I wasn't for. Just to clarify, I'm looking at this visibility tour as like a pre-launch strategy. So it's not about like I'm going out and trying to sell all the time, but, of course, like when you bring people into your sphere, they ask what you do, you book calls, you end up, you know, maybe selling some digital products or whatever those kinds of things can happen. But that wasn't my goal. My goal was just to, like, get more people in my world.

Speaker 2:

Another thing that I did that pushed myself out of my comfort zone was I did so. I have a podcast, entrepreneur School, and I just started it in January and in the summer I was at my six-month mark. So I was like, okay, it's been six months, we've got 30 episodes out. Let's tell the media. So I did a media pitch to local media, where I do have a lot of relationships, because I have a background in PR and I've done that kind of work for my clients before. But it's different when you have to put yourself into the like. I've never done that Right. I'm like on the edge of my seat.

Speaker 2:

Well, I like go on chat GPT to write myself a press release, Cause I can't make. Like you know, chat GPT is way more generous and boastful than you would be about yourself.

Speaker 1:

It's uncomfortable talking about yourself, right? So?

Speaker 2:

use the tools that you have and allow that to support you. And so I did, and I sent it to the radio station and I knew that I was going to be able to get on the radio station. First of all, anybody listening local media is starving for content. They have a 24-hour news cycle. They got to fill that. And when you have a small community and they're trying to make it relevant to the people in their community which, as long as you can connect the dots so I was like, yeah, I'm local and we have a lot of entrepreneurs in our community and I have a podcast for entrepreneurs Done, so yeah, so I went in, I did a radio segment. They played that for a full day. They did an online story and then I was like I should send it to the paper too.

Speaker 2:

So then I also sent it to the paper and I got an incredible story. Like I couldn't even believe it. Like all about me and my business and my podcast, half a page printed in the paper. Half a page, if you think about that in advertising dollars, that's thousands of dollars. And not only that, they had an online article and when I got the paper I should have had it beside me. I'm on the front page, like the little clip, like the little like go look at, like mompreneur, I think is what it says on the front page, like you know, like here's what's in the paper this week. So that was incredible. But it doesn't even stop there because the timing of that. So all these people saw, obviously, like I don't live in a huge town, we have 30,000 people, it's a small community, but my podcast downloads the next week went up like almost 60% next week went up like almost 60%.

Speaker 1:

Girl, I'm dying. I'm dying. I love all of this. That's insane.

Speaker 2:

I haven't even thought to pitch local media. Yeah, it's a harder thing to do, it's a bigger lift for yourself because relationships, but still, as long as you can come up with an angle that positions you as it's relevant to their listeners or readers, that's all they need and, like honestly, usually in like the local, regional places, they're just so short on staff Like they're looking for anything you can give them. So if you actually write it in a press release format, I one time for a client years ago, sent a press release that was printed verbatim in the paper, which and that never happens they were just like we don't have time to edit this we're just going to put this whole thing in.

Speaker 2:

Good enough, I'm like okay, all right, I'll take that.

Speaker 1:

So let's make this super actionable for people listening. You use ChatGPT to write the press release. What are the job titles of the people that you need to?

Speaker 2:

reach out to. Oh, so you're looking for anyone who. So if you have a local paper, you'll open that up and you will see anybody who's the reporter. You're going to take a quick look at the kinds of stuff because sometimes if you have a bigger area, they do beat reporting, which means they have like a theme. So you'll look. You'll like want to be in the business section or whatever's relevant for your industry and find someone who's written something about that or who covers events or who covers like family, like whatever it is for you. But generally, like in a small town, we literally have three people who work for the radio station period. Besides, easier to find someone yeah, I have a friend who teaches you like to go on LinkedIn and find that. But honestly, every media outlet will have some kind of online version, right, so they may be producing for radio, but they're also doing online articles for it and there should be names, and generally there's names underneath and they're usually clickable with email addresses or they have a general news box. That's like news at your mediasationcom.

Speaker 1:

So you're looking for the editor.

Speaker 2:

You don't generally pitch to the full-on editor. The editor's in charge of assigning to reporters, so you would pitch directly to the reporter. But if I do that and I don't have a relationship, I'll also pitch to the general news box, just to cover my bases.

Speaker 1:

Okay yeah, PR is so outside of my world, but it works really really well, so I'm so intrigued by it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you think, I know, I think that a lot of things really fit like PR, I think is an underutilized tool. So when I talk about visibility.

Speaker 2:

I have this trifecta where it's branding, marketing and PR all together, because like marketing, we get that's sales when we're talking about like what's the goal? The brand is that you just actually have to understand your brand and be able to clearly like know who you're talking, to know what your messages are, kind of understand your own like vibe and how you show up and what fits for you. And then the PR is everything relationship wise. So I would even stick collaboration things and all of that in there, because we're not just media. Pr is not just media. That's just part of it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that is actually funny because I have. I have a similar graphic that I use all the time, but mine was collaboration as the third one, which I guess would fall under your PR one. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So you know, it was interesting because I was like, looking back at all the things that happened over the 60 days with the visibility tour was right around that time when my podcast spiked, I got pitched this guest who I originally was like and I ignored Don't tell them. They followed up, like the guest. It wasn't the guest himself who was pitching me, it was like his PR people and I was like, okay, I'll check this out, like his PR people, and I was like, okay, I'll check this out. So then I look again at this person and I was like, wait a second, he's got 1.5 million Instagram followers, he's doing an event with Ed Milet and Gary Vee and Russell Brunson and blah, blah, blah, name drop, name drop, name drop. I'll talk to him. Yeah, okay, let's do that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so that and I think it's only because my podcast ranked higher in that time, because I did that, like I'm making that assumption, but the timing was very connected yeah, so I actually just recorded that episode last week and this person is incredible. He is like very, very successful business person, very family focused, has four daughters and one more on the way, and he has, like we now have a relationship where he's like, if you come to my event, I'll bring you backstage. You can meet everyone. I'm like, okay, I'll be right there.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. That is something we should talk about for a second is when, if you have your own podcast, having at least one segment a month that's a guest segment is such a great way to build relationships. Like me and you, our first initial contact was me being on your podcast. It's such a great way to build relationships.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, it totally is. And really, even if you don't have a podcast, I would encourage you to think about what kind of a collaboration event could you host, what kind of a space where you could create a platform that you can provide to other people, because it's leverage. Instead of saying, hey, I want to do this on your thing, you could say, hey, I have this thing, I'd love to have you. And then it turns into the other side of that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, some sort of swap.

Speaker 2:

I was doing 800,000 things in the last 60 days, apparently because one of the other ones was I did a private podcast series and so I got six guest experts in and all of them contributed to my podcast. We all promoted it. We got more you know email subscribers from that, and then I'm now like guest, speaking in their communities and collaborating with them separately outside of it.

Speaker 1:

So exactly, Laura, who's been on the show twice. Was was one of your prior podcast guests.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, exactly. And then you kind of like you start building this community too of people like and and sometimes it's just you never know who's going to introduce you to the right person, because we cannot do this ourselves. Entrepreneurs, this is not. This is not like put on the blinders and try and, like you know, take your pride for a ride and didn't do it all Like see how you can lean on others. Because even in having this conversation, like I woke up this morning, I'll be honest with you I wasn't feeling very like chatting I did.

Speaker 2:

I was like meh, because I just had a launch finish and it didn't go quite as well as I wanted it to. So I was like, hey, well, I must suck at all those things that go on in your head, but as soon as you get on with somebody else who like helps you to like bring your expertise, back out, like I'm jacked again.

Speaker 1:

I am glad you're jacked again. Yeah, I actually had something yesterday that I was. I had 83 people who RSVP. Didn't only 41 people showed up live. So I was like, so I was feeling the same way today.

Speaker 2:

That's so good. When 105 people are and seven people come, that's fun. When 105 people are and seven people come, that's fun. That's also a blah. But that's also like the reality of what we live in right now, where there's just so many things going on and how do you choose what to do with your time right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And for anybody.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my landscapers are here, let's see if my dogs go nuts. Yeah, and that's just like a reminder for everybody who's listening right now that we're we're in it, we're we're doing the work. And we still have those days where we're like ugh I, where we just don't feel good about about ourselves.

Speaker 2:

And that's normal.

Speaker 1:

And that's okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so, like when it comes to the visibility tour, there's a couple things that are important to consider if you want to do this and I teach this method inside of a program called the Visibility Revolution but the main thing is that you need a theme, so you're trying to focus on one thing. So if you're a multi-passionate, like multiple different types of services, we're going to pick one thing and try and like become known for that thing in this period of time. So you're taking your one offer or your one service kind of on tour as part of that. So the goals are to increase reach, create collaborations, build up momentum and confidence. So this is where it's like, when you're you decide you know you're going to do this health challenge, you're going to go to the gym more, you got to build that up Right. And it's every day.

Speaker 2:

Every time you take an action, it contributes to like this snowball building up and rolling down the hill. When you do one thing and then you, you will get a result. You will get a result fairly soon from a lot of the things that you will do, especially because if you're reaching out, like if I say, hey, sarah, I'd love to like collaborate with you. We have one conversation, we book two podcasts out of it. Like there's a result, like that's happening now, and then what's going to happen from when the podcasts go out. Well, we don't know that yet, but it's already like you're planting so many seeds for the future by doing this instead of like sitting back and trying to be so strategic. And I'm all like I'm a brand strategist, like strategy, yay, but let's not let strategy put us into like overthinking and trying to perfect stuff. So where?

Speaker 1:

can we take this action? Analysis, paralysis.

Speaker 2:

Exactly that's the word I was looking for. So where can we take these actions and like build up the momentum? I even have? I like, oh, this is the one I filled out one Showing you my calendar. Like I tracked it, I wrote it down every single day that I did stuff Brilliant, Because it made me like see progress. You know, and especially if you're focusing on a new offer that you have coming up or you are thinking about like a sale that you want to do, or you're just like I need to pick something up in a couple of months, I need to get back on the bandwagon, create consistency again. Whatever your definition of that is and everyone has a different one, which I think is important it's about starting taking action, apply for the speaking opportunity, reach out to that person who you were talking to before, about working together.

Speaker 1:

So here's the action step that people can take Pick that one thing that you're going to be doing your tour around. So, based off this conversation, I would say your core offer makes a lot of sense. Or if you have a new lead magnet that would make sense, sense that leads into your offer, because everything you know you want to be able to sell. Yes, so take that core offer and then build out your tour from there so you can do collaborations and swaps. You did bundles, you pitched the press local press specifically because it was easier and podcasts. Is there anything else that we should be doing on our visibility tour?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think that just as a caveat. Like every business is different, and in 15 plus years of working in marketing, I've never written the same plan twice, Same Right. Because your business has goals, your own goals, you have your own audience, you have your own message and you have your own style. So there's going to be things that you may or may not like to do, and that's okay. And while I do encourage you to push yourself out of the comfort zone by, you know, going live on Instagram, if that's something you never do, if you don't show your face on camera like, yes, please, let's try and do more of that, but like going to events, doing stuff like that. It's about creating really a mixed variety of tactical things so that you can one see what works, what you like, and then do more of the things that you get results from.

Speaker 1:

That's a really good point. Test out a lot of things and see what fits you and what makes you happy, because you don't want to do something that drains you. But you do need to get in front of your audience if you're going to build your business.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, it's like that old Instagram audio is like if you don't talk about your business, you don't have a business.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Is that like a real clip?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was. I'm like this is my favorite one and it's like lives in my head. It's true, like if you're like, oh, you know I don't have the sales I'm on right now or I don't have like the exposure or the visibility I'm not getting visible, like just start, and yes, there are some like strategies and yes, there are some assets and things that you can build out to support making this easier for you. But, like my program actually is a combo of like the teaching, of building out the strategy on the assets and the action. So I'm like it's it's a digital course and a challenge had a baby. That's what it is, because I think this it's it's a digital course and a challenge had a baby, that's what it is, because I think this action piece is so important. It's like once you get the practice of building this up, then you're going to continue. Like I finished my 60 days and I'm keep going, like I want to continue making sure that I'm focusing on this every day because I've seen great results and I want more of them.

Speaker 1:

It sounds like you had insane results and I'm going to start testing some of these things that you talked about. Could you tell me more about what one? Is there anything we missed on your visibility tour before you tell us about your program?

Speaker 2:

Just the one thing is that visibility for the sake of visibility is not worth much. So like going down imagine you're like going down a street in a parade. There were thousands of people there, they all saw you, but now nobody has any way of like connecting with each other. So you need a method for capturing that visibility, which means having a lead magnet some way to like bring them into your email world. Which means having a lead magnet some way to like bring them into your email world, Because I don't want you to go out and like do all of this and then you know you don't get the people, because the people are where it goes to the next step for you.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about that a bit before we move on. So some of the best ways that I have found to capture borrowed audiences is, yes, a lead magnet. But even better is when you have that digital product like you were talking about the bundles and you give a hundred percent off promo code. If there is value tied to that lead magnet, then that will get a lot more people signing up for it. Get a lot more people signing up for it. Another thing that I always do is I create a landing page that's specific for the podcast or whatever I happen to be on, so then I can track the success of that experience that I was on and have a specific promo code for that show that I was on. So then I have the data to back up my future decisions. Is there anything I'm missing there that you have done that?

Speaker 2:

No, those exact things and as you're talking, I'm like, hey, guess what Bonus gift. I would be happy to give your podcast listeners access to my digital product that we've been talking about, which is the simplified content system, and it is literally the system and like the planner and tracker tool that I use to map out anything content related, but I also now add in all my collaborations, so it's like the month at a glance and I made it into this like magical dynamic calendar, so you don't have to like copy and paste and spend 100 years building things in Excel. So there's that. And like the caption document and I have a confidence on camera masterclass in there, and there's a whole bunch of great captions and tools and templates and stuff like that. So I will make a code for you. I'm sure that that's included here.

Speaker 1:

That is awesome. Thank you so much. For sure, Before we wrap up, can you tell everybody about your business, your program and how they can reach you?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. I am a visibility coach which, coming at that from the lens of a background in PR and branding, so making sure that you like feel confident to step into who you authentically are when you're going out there and promoting yourself, figuring out who your ideal clients are and how to connect with them, and so the my latest program so I do private coaching, of course, but my latest program is called the visibility revolution and, as I said, it's it's it helps you with this. I built it off of the framework of the Visibility Tour method so that you can build out all the pieces that you need to get more visibility consistently and that you also take action and practice and build up this skill set at the same time. So if you want to find more information about that, you can go to kscoca and you will find all of my contact information, and I'm on Instagram at ksco, underscore Kelly, and my podcast is called Entrepreneur School.

Speaker 1:

If you enjoyed this episode, please, please, please, remember to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and rate and review, but, most importantly, tell your friends. Share this episode with a friend so other people know about tiny marketing and our uncut summer series. I will see you next week with another great one.

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