Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

The Digital Marketing Success Cycle: A Smarter Way for Small Businesses to Grow with Dave Charest

• Neal Schaffer • Episode 399

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Unlock the secrets of successful small business marketing with insights from Dave Charest, director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact. Discover how even small, impactful actions can create "wow experiences" that fuel word-of-mouth marketing and elevate your brand's digital presence without emptying your wallet. Join us as we promise a transformation in your marketing approach, leveraging email, social channels, and automation to not only engage but also build lasting relationships with your customers.

With Dave's expertise, we highlight the timeless power of word-of-mouth marketing, showing its relevance in today’s digital conversations. Learn the art of staying top-of-mind for potential customers by effectively integrating these strategies into your marketing framework and watching your small business compete with larger brands.

Our conversation is packed with practical tips, including the strategic use of tools like Instagram, email, and text messaging. We emphasize aligning marketing strategies with specific business goals, ensuring every effort is purposeful and impactful. 

Whether it's setting personal benchmarks, conducting regular technology audits, or adopting a simple and focused approach to outsourcing, this episode has everything you need to enhance productivity and ensure continuous self-improvement.

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Speaker 1:

Word of mouth is the secret weapon of small business marketing, yet so many businesses overlook its power. In this episode, I sit down with Dave Charest, director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact, to break down the digital marketing success cycle and why word of mouth marketing should be your top priority. We'll discuss practical steps to maximize your marketing efforts, automate engagement and create strategies that truly drive business growth.

Speaker 3:

If you're a small business owner looking for simple yet effective ways to stand out, this is the episode for you, so stay tuned to the next episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast digital social media content, influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, blogging, tiktoking, linkedin, twitter, facebook, instagram, youtube, seo, sem, ppc, email marketing Whew, there's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil on your side, because Neil Schaefer is your digital marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing, one episode at a time.

Speaker 3:

This is your digital marketing coach and this is Neil Schaefer.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer. Welcome to episode number the magical 399 of this podcast. I am, of course, your digital marketing coach, neil Schaefer man. You know episode number 299, looking back was on January 6th 2023. So well, taking me a little bit over two years to get 100 more in the bank, but you know I'm glad I'm back to a consistent schedule of 50 episodes a year.

Speaker 1:

I fell behind a little bit last year but playing catch up this year. If you can see that from the frequency that I've been publishing and I am just happier as ever, digging in to these interviews, my solo episodes, sharing video clips on the socials, publishing LinkedIn newsletters, getting your feedback, engaging with you I am really committed to the long haul for this podcast. So I ain't going anywhere and I hope you're not going anywhere. You can ensure you don't go anywhere by simply hitting that subscribe button so that you know whether you're a corporate marketer, you're a business owner, an entrepreneur, you work at a startup, you're a content creator, service provider. I try to give a little bit of digital marketing medicine to all of you. So today, as always, right the title, the teaser we talk about small business, but what I teach you is applicable. Really, even if you are a big business, you should be using these concepts, because if a small business can do it, big business should be able to scale it right. But, as you know, small business marketing is tough. I'm a small business, yes, even though I'm an expert. It ain't easy right, especially when you're competing against bigger brands, bigger entities with bigger budgets. But the good news you don't need a massive budget to see results, you just need the right strategy. That's pretty much my DNA. It's also the DNA of my guest, dave Charest, director of small business success at Constant Contact, who I had a chance to see on stage in Los Angeles at the Small Business Expo.

Speaker 1:

I want to say this was back in October of 2024, but I saw him on stage. I went up to him. I gave him a copy of Digital Threads. He also said he was a podcaster. I'm like Dave, I got to get you on my show. I got to get you to share your wisdom with my audience. So here we are. So we discuss what he calls the digital marketing success cycle and how, especially small businesses can maximize their efforts. Dave is going to share some valuable insights on the power of word of mouth marketing, the importance of email in building lasting relationships constant contact after all, is an email marketing platform the very first one that I subscribed to, actually and how automation can save time while keeping your business top of mind. If you're looking for a smarter, more strategic way to grow your brand, this conversation is packed with practical tips to help you succeed. So let's move on to the interview.

Speaker 3:

You're listening to your Digital Marketing Coach. This is Neil Schaefer.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer, and welcome to another edition of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. I've been trying to spend time whenever there is a convention or a show in town around marketing. I do my best to try to get to these and just to keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening in the industry network. Often there's technology vendors there that I can engage with, find out about their latest technology. Vendors there that I can engage with, find out about their latest offerings. So recently I had a chance, because I'm located in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, to visit the Small Business Expo. And, lo and behold, when I was sitting there looking at what are the presentations I should watch, I saw a very, very interesting one on small business marketing. A lot of talk about small business, email marketing, social media marketing. I'm like this is exactly down my digital threads alley, for those of you that know my book.

Speaker 1:

So I went in and, lo and behold, today's guest was actually the keynote speaker at that day, speaking in front of hundreds of people. His name is Dave Sharest. He is the director of small business success at Constant Contact, one of the leading email marketing software providers. Constant Contact is actually the very, very first email marketing software that I used, and now that they've added tons of automations and I love the user interface, I'm looking at maybe going back to them. I'll have to talk to today's guest about that but his presentation was so compelling and it was really, really focused on that small business marketing audience, and I've felt the same way.

Speaker 1:

I've seen speeches about social media marketing or digital marketing, where they bring up all these really, really big brands as case studies. But of course, these big brands can do those things because they have big budgets, they have loads of people. Us small businesses don't have that, and that's why Dave's speech really resonated with me. The minute he finished, I went up to him and I'm like Dave, will you please come on my podcast, because I think that his message needs to be heard by a lot more people. So, without further ado, what more can I say? But I'm really excited about today's interview. Dave Charest, welcome to the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, my friend.

Speaker 2:

Hey, Neil, Thanks so much for having me. You know it was funny when you came up to afterwards and we were chatting a little bit and I was like, oh, I know you, I think we've. You know, like ships in the night, have crossed paths over the years but never actually had a chance to meet. So it was an absolute pleasure to actually get to see you in person. And thank you so much for inviting me on the podcast today.

Speaker 1:

Oh, the honor is mine, my friend, really excited to dig into today's topic. But before we start, you know, director of small business success, you are also and I should have mentioned host of the Be A Marketer podcast. So you are firmly in podcasting, marketing, email marketing. But where did this all start?

Speaker 2:

You know, even before Constant Contact what was your initial journey into marketing? Yeah, great question. So my journey into this all I mean I think I started it's probably like 2006 is when I kind of got the ball rolling here around that time and I had been living in New York. I have a background in theater, so I went to school for theater and I had a job that I had been working at while I was in school to help pay for things and all of that, of course, and I ended up kind of moving up in the ranks in there and I was doing insurance billing and it was one of those things that I was like how the hell did I end up here right, that's a story of a hill. My friend Right, right, my friend Right, right, I'm like what. And so I ended up being at a place where I just wasn't happy at the job anymore and I had done a really good job of kind of compartmentalizing. But it got to the point where I was. You know, sunday night would roll around and I was starting to feel sick to my stomach because I was like, oh, monday I got to go in and I got to do this thing and my wife and I started talking and it was at this time where I really started to get interested and excited about what was happening in the online space right, just in terms of social media and marketing and the ways you could connect with people and so I started really going down a path of learning a lot about that. I was kind of just teaching myself this stuff and I said to my wife I was like you know, I can't do this thing anymore with the insurance building. I need to move on to something else. And we thought it'd be a great idea if I started my own business. I laugh at that because I had two little kids at the time and my wife had the opportunity to work, so it just worked out where I was able to kind of get something going. I lined up some clients and I really started to implement all of these things.

Speaker 2:

Now, what I learned during this was that man, did I suck at running a business? Really good at the marketing pieces, really could understand that was really good at explaining it. I was doing a lot of work with different theater companies and things like that and helping them with their marketing, and it got to a point where I was like, okay, this doesn't make sense, we were going to move back to. I'm from the Massachusetts area originally. I was going to move back here and at that time I had a friend of mine on Facebook, funnily enough who. I was like, oh, this person works for Constant Contact. And I was like, well, that would be interesting. I wonder if they've got anything available.

Speaker 2:

Because I was looking for, I was looking to transition into like an actual job, right, and there was this opening for a content developer, right, this was somebody. And it was like the job description read like dear Dave, do you do these things? And I was like reading this thing and I was like, yeah, yeah, I do, I do do those things. Because I was heavily into the content pieces of things and how that all works. And so I reached out to my friend long story to spoke with the hiring manager.

Speaker 2:

We had like this 15-minute conversation hit it off right away because I had a lot of things I was excited to start to implement. And I was like, oh, constant contact got a big audience, it'd be great to do that. And 15-minute conversation got off the phone. I said to my wife I'm like I'm definitely going to get that job. And within two weeks we were moved back to Massachusetts. I was starting at Constant Contact. My kids enrolled in school and here we are 13 years later and moved up the ranks there from content developer to manager of content and social. I was director of content marketing for a while and now into this role here, where I'm more forward-facing just in terms of representing the company at events and hosting the podcast and those types of things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's awesome. I love the unique stories that everyone brings to this field of marketing. You know, starting your theater experience Now I'm like, okay, you look very comfortable on stage, so I get it now right, but start also being a small business owner yourself and understanding the challenges. I think that's really critical to the job that you do. So, you know, congratulations on the journey.

Speaker 1:

So today, fast forward. We're going to be talking about this digital marketing success lifecycle for SMB small businesses and I think one of the first things when we talked about this beforehand was focusing your marketing efforts to increase word of mouth. And you know, as I said, when you gave your presentation, I was like nodding. I think my neck I was sore after that, but, but there were so many awesome takeaways. And just this importance of word of mouth, you know, especially for small businesses that are trying to get their name out there, it's something that you know people don't talk about. They, they go off to the next shiny object. You know, tiktok, sexy or whatever. It is right. So let's sort of dumb it down a little bit and start with that importance of word mouth marketing. And then what are the things that we can do to try to get more of for our business.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, time and time again. So I'm very fortunate to be able to talk to small businesses all the time, and we do internal panels at Constant Contact and, obviously, through the podcast I've been talking to them and at events like the ones where we met. And time and time again, when we ask where do you get most of your business, it's word of mouth is typically the answer. And, of course, as you know, word of mouth now extends into this online space and the reality is, if you break down marketing into its core component, it's about communicating with the people that are, you know, have interest in the product or service that you offer. And it's really about just keeping your business top of mind so that when you know, they know what you do and so that when they're ready for that thing, or if somebody says, hey, you know somebody that does such and such, they're going to think of you first.

Speaker 2:

You're just trying to short circuit that piece of thought, right, because the reality is like we're looking for those shortcuts, right? When somebody asks us something oh, what's the answer? What's the answer? And I'm going to think of the thing that comes to mind first. And so, ultimately, that's what we're trying to do, and and so, ultimately, that's what we're trying to do, and in that online space now it's really about how do you just be part of more of those conversations, right? So how are you there? How do you show up so that you've got more opportunities to bring people into your sphere and so you have more people to influence and, hopefully, get to do business with you?

Speaker 1:

And would you say then, and sort of fast forward over that definition of the digital marketing success cycle. But would you say, this is sort of that. First step is you already have a business. Easiest thing you can start to do is incite that word of mouth. Is that like the base, would you say, or did we fast forward?

Speaker 2:

I think so.

Speaker 2:

So I think, if we're looking at the cycle itself, it's really about taking three specific actions, right?

Speaker 2:

And I think the ultimate core of it is knowing that, like we were applying this to marketing, because I think it really works for anything as you think about what you're doing, but the idea is to review what you're doing, make a plan based on what you've learned through that review and then actually put time on the calendar, execute against that plan.

Speaker 2:

So these are the three things that we see that I've seen business owners do time and time again to start to make success go for them from a marketing perspective and just from a growth perspective for their business. Right, they are constantly going back to say, okay, here's what's happening, here are the adjustments that I need to make, so here's the plan I'm going to put together for that, and then I'm actually going to put time in the calendar. So I actually do those things. I mean, I'm sure you've experienced this as well, but you go to these events you know, I just finished speaking at the Guru Conference, for example and you get all of these great ideas and you have these things that you want to do, and then you go home and you forget all about them, right, and so you really do need to do this kind of triumvirate of things right To be able to really take action and make progress, and it's often that it's progress over perfection.

Speaker 2:

It's about moving forward, learning and then taking the next steps.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more and I think that you know, beginning with the word of mouth and I attest to it myself. It's funny, dave. You know I'm a fractional CMO. So the minute you put that title on LinkedIn, you have all these people saying, well, we offer services to help fractional CMOs get new clients. All these people reaching out, but at the end of the day, the clients really come from like know and trust, and overwhelming majority of that is from word of mouth. It's something that we all intuitively understand. It's hard to measure and it's hard to implement. But I'm curious do you have any tactics for those that are listening, things that you've seen that companies have done? Obviously, being top of mind means being where people are, and we know that's social media, we know that's email, we know that people search for information Now we got AI that people are searching as well. But any sort of tactical advice you might give the listeners on how to potentially increase that word of mouth?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So how we look at it at Constant Contact is through this lens of what we call engagement marketing, and the idea is basically wherever you have an interaction with a potential customer this could be online, this could be at the store, this could be whatever it is that they're visiting your website they get a flyer in the mail you really want to look for ways to provide a great experience for those people. We call them wow experiences, right, and that wow doesn't have to be anything complex. It's really just about thinking of something in relation to your business that you do. That might be a little bit different, right, and sometimes that could be as simple. As you know, somebody walks into the store and somebody's there to say hello. Right, it's like these simple things, because oftentimes people aren't thinking about these things, and if you can do something that makes somebody feel good about the interaction that they've had with you, that's obviously something that people will talk about.

Speaker 2:

We know people talk about things that they really enjoy, and they also talk about things that they don't enjoy, right, probably more so, but when they're having that great experience with you, it's a great opportunity to entice them to stay connected with you, right, that could mean following you on social, giving you an email or a mobile number, something like that, that allows you to stay connected, and then it's putting a plan in place to engage with those people, to stay in touch, whether that's in the inbox, on the phone, wherever it may be to.

Speaker 2:

Again, now you have this opportunity to stay more top of mind, and again, that's when people, when they think of you, when they need you or they know of something that you're offering that brings more people to your door the social visibility piece starts to happen when you're doing these engagements online, right Of course, and so you start looking at people engaging with the things that you're doing online or you're interacting with customers. That gets you in front of other people that are connected to them, which can bring more people to the door, and that's kind of the cycle that we go through. That that's how we explain it Like. This is ultimately what we're trying to do and try to put into place for our businesses, and if we can just keep feeding that, we're going to see that continually bring things back to our business.

Speaker 1:

So you know, feeding that we're going to see that continually bring things back to our business. So the important thing there is this focus right of your marketing and it almost sounds like you're recommending does your current marketing, when you look at it from the lens of generating word of mouth does it generate word of mouth or does it not? And let that be the way to guide you in what you should be investing in doing. Is that sort of a correct assumption? Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 2:

I think it's that and it's looking at. Then, now you've got these tools available to you, right? So how do you use those tools to help you take advantage of that right and do that? And what do those tools need to do? Because they've each got a different purpose and they all. I think it's important to note, too, that these all work together right.

Speaker 2:

It's not about doing one thing right, and I think that's the sometimes the misnomer right? Everyone's always looking for the silver bullet, if you will, right, what's the thing that's going to? You know, push you over the edge, right? And sometimes you get to a point where something breaks and then it feels like, oh, that's the thing that is the breaking point, but the reality is that only happened because of all of the things cumulatively coming together to make that happen, right. I mean, you've been doing this for a long time, neil, right. Like building up and getting to this place wasn't just one action. It's a bunch of actions that you've taken over the years to get here right, and so I think that's the important thing to think about here too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think you know, as a small business owner, I'm just reflecting on my own recent marketing. You know, coming out with a new book, there are so many different channels, but I immediately go to Amazon because If you want to increase sales for a book, you need word of mouth. You're not going to get word of mouth unless you get that book into the hands of people. This is why I'm investing in doing Goodreads giveaways or Amazon ads, because if I can sell even if I can sell at a loss and get that book, I can make it back in. The word of mouth is sort of the mindset there. So I've been influenced by your presentation as well and I think if everyone had that, what will generate that? And I think if everyone had that, what will generate that?

Speaker 1:

And in digital threads, I have a separate chapter on user-generated content. I know this gets maybe a little bit advanced for the average small business owner, but how Instagrammable can you make your customer experience? I think you also touched upon some of that as well. So these are the things I think about that hopefully everyone in the audience should be thinking about as well. So we now have this strategy of this focus on word of mouth, marketing. You mentioned that there are two questions that you need to ask yourself to support your goals in terms of this whole. You know cycle and I'm a big fan of the word. You know the term flywheel. I almost feel like once you're in the cycle, it becomes its own flywheel, sort of generates its own success. But you know what are these two questions and how are they going to help us, you know, get going on this cycle.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely so. I think the thing to recognize is that oftentimes, people are asking or people are giving even the wrong advice, right, sometimes, because what happens is we all have access to the same tools. How we use them is really based on what it is that we're trying to do, and I think that's the piece that's often missing from the equation. Someone will say, oh, you got to get on Instagram, you got to do this. Well, why do I have to do that, right? Yeah, exactly, you don't know what I'm trying to do. How about you ask that question first and then tell me, right, and so I think you got to start there, right? Because if you are, you know, trying to open a new store versus trying to run an event, the things that you need to do and how you use those tools to support you are going to be very different, and these things change all the time. Again, the importance of reviewing and then putting a plan in place and then executing the plan, because you're going to be continually shifting based on new milestones that you're reaching, shifting based on, you know, new milestones that you're reaching, and so the questions are really, I think, when you start looking at, okay, if you're reviewing what you're doing from a marketing perspective. You know what you're trying to do. What are the? Are there things that you may need to implement? Am I missing something? Right? We?

Speaker 2:

Often my presentation focuses on making sure you have a website, of course, so people can confirm that you're a business that they want to work with. Right, people are still going to go there to do that. Having those social channels in place so that you are connecting and engaging with people, because people will also be looking there. But then, also, making sure you have an email or text marketing, because you own that relationship and you have a way to contact people. And so, as you look at that, okay, are there tools I might be missing? Right? Sure, there are other things you may need to do, but, you know, focused on, you know, your particular goal at that moment. Are there things I need to implement?

Speaker 2:

The other question I think is are there things that I can improve? Okay, so here's what I am doing. Okay, based on some things I'm hearing, since I think there are some fundamental things that you need to put in place, regardless of your goals. Right, like, making sure you're asking people to join your email list. Right, pointing people from social to that, bringing people closer, doing that on your website, doing that when you're at events, doing all of those things so that when you are doing specific things and marketing things, you have more people to go to to be able to hopefully influence. And so those are the two big questions I think you need to look at, because those point you in a direction of like okay, I'm doing this, but I have to do, I have to make some changes, add something or improve on something to help me get to that next level.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know that very first topic of you know you got to do Instagram. I recently had a chat with one of my fractional CMO clients and they were just focusing on Instagram followers. And so what is? What is the ROI of the follower? Now, if we talk about impressions or engagements and as an indicator of word of mouth, you're not going to get engagements unless you get visibility. And with the way the algorithms work, it's not necessarily about followers, right, and that even leads to. Well, you're spending 50% of your time on stories versus reels. Is that a good bet? So, just taking a step back every once in a while I like to do these on a quarterly basis myself of just really looking at your activities and are they aligned with this. You know this digital marketing success cycle that we began to talk about, so I sort of want to get back to that, because we talked a lot about that, that word of mouth, that that should be the focus. To begin things. What are some of the other components of that cycle that we haven't talked about?

Speaker 2:

So, when we get into the review plan, execute, so review. Of course, we're checking in on what we're doing and how that's working for us the planning piece. I think there are some things here that I think are important for folks to focus on. I mentioned making sure that we're collecting email addresses right. We're getting contact information in terms of mobile numbers, those types of things. I think the other thing to really think about is you know, are there ways that you can then use those tools to engage with people right At key moments? And I'm thinking of putting in place like simple automations. For example, right when somebody joins your list, you have an email that goes out to them, that welcomes them and maybe delivers on the thing that you entice them to sign up with? Right, are you using? Are you using the thing that you entice them to sign up with? Right, are you using the data that you have? Do you have a birthday, something like a birth date, that you can then send an automated happy birthday right, like little simple things? Are there things like an anniversary email? Do you have like a time where maybe somebody joined your list or maybe they first bought their first product with you? All of these reasons and I want to call them excuses in many ways to connect right. In a way, that's a little off the path, right, but you can set these up and they work for you all the time. I think it's also understanding you know when is the right time to use a text message, let's say, versus an email, and oftentimes, you know, I think that boils down to thinking through a couple of questions that you want to ask yourself. Right, because text messaging is interesting, because when somebody sends you one, you're going to look at your phone right away. And again, as long as people are expressed interest in receiving that type of stuff, you really want to ask yourself well, is the thing that I'm sending, is it timely? Is it going to be of interest to the person receiving it? Does it feel personal? Is it conversational? Right, because we always want what we're doing from a marketing perspective to match the nature of the channel, right, so we're using it in that way and we're leaning into the strength of that channel.

Speaker 2:

I think it's also important to start thinking through specific things. You can do so from an email perspective. Really, at the very least, think about including two types of emails in your strategy, right? Promotional emails and non-promotional emails. That means, yeah, promotional emails, of course, as you might imagine, are things that have some type of sale or discount or some type of time sensitivity to them. But then those non-promotional emails are really things that are designed to engage, educate, right, to add value to the relationship. So people get to know you, you start to build those relationships.

Speaker 2:

We want to use those two things because you don't want to be saying buy this, buy this, buy this, buy this all the time. Right, there is that relationship piece that comes into play here, and so those two kind of help you stay top of mind. Again, there's that word, right, stay top of mind. So when people are thinking of, or ready for they're going to think of, your business first, and so you know, those are just a few things that you can really start to think about. I think it's also important to look at the social channels that you're using. Oftentimes we see people make the mistake of and to social media's credit, right, I'm just using the general term here, of course, but we do a really good job of they do a really good job of making you feel like you're missing out on something if you're not participating on them. Right and to your point, looking at the metrics and things like that, they also do a really good job of giving you a lot of metrics that may or may not be important to you, right?

Speaker 2:

But it makes it feel like you're doing something right, and so it's really about finding the channel that makes sense. On people who say, well, where are your customers? I think, yes, that's a component of it, but the other piece of it is where do you feel comfortable to, as a person, doing the marketing right, as the business? And so you have to find where those start to overlap so that you can focus on one channel, figure out how that works best for your business and get something from that. Start to see the value that is bringing to you before you add another channel, because oftentimes I've seen too many people kind of take the cut and paste kind of mentality to it and that might be fine. Again, I don't know what your goal is, right. So if your goal is just to be everywhere, that's perfectly acceptable. But if your goal is to actually you know, maybe get some more engagement or have somebody do something, you may want to take a different tact to it, right, and so it's about leaning in, learning what works and then adding something to that so you don't end up just spinning your wheels and getting frustrated, because I find we often over-index on social Amen, amen. I don't really know why that is. I think it's part of the human element of it, right, and those things that the dopamine hits and things like that. But we overemphasize there and if we just use that in a strong way but then shifted some of that energy to a tool like email or SMS, for example, that may end up changing your business in ways you didn't think it would right.

Speaker 2:

So time and time again, when we talk to folks, it's about what makes them successful. They're like oh, I do a weekly newsletter, right, I've been doing it since this time, for years, and we've talked to people that I can think of one of our real estate agent customers who, I think since 2007,. He's been sending a white weekly email. He's built this list up. He just shares his thoughts on the market. He doesn't prospect for clients anymore and he closes a hundred deals a year just because he sends this email. Right, and he's got people on this list and he's the first person that they think of.

Speaker 2:

Right, because somebody in the leadership space who similar weekly email sends some tips and things like that, but also includes she sells things that you can use in your leadership trainings and all that, and of course, she does courses and all that, but similar, she sends a weekly email, has a deal in there. Every Wednesday is a good sales day on her website. Right, it's doing those types of things, it's showing up consistently, it's being there and just it's that consistency. I think that's the big word in marketing as well. Right, just making sure that you're doing those things that allow you to be there consistently, because when people you never know when someone's going to be ready, but they're going to remember because you're always there and they're going to come to you first.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, now I'm remembering why I really loved your speech, because what you preach and what I've been talking about are very much aligned. So this success cycle is plan, do check, act. And this is exactly PDCA. Professor Edwards Deming, this is a framework that I talk about and I think it's very appropriate for marketing. Treat it as an experiment, but you need to plan, do check and act upon that.

Speaker 1:

And the other one is and I wrote in Digital Threads because I believe that there's three main digital channels you have search, email, social, and the one channel that people put too much weight on definitely is the social and the least on email. So I love the fact that you brought up the email, because the social becomes this hamster wheel of content creation that you know once a week, twice a week, three, three times a week. Now I got stories, oh, I got to be authentic. Oh, I got to use the latest. You know filters and it could really be a time suck, for it is important. But you know that email, especially when you set up those automations, you set it up once and you forget about it, and it's constantly engaging your behalf in a channel that you own right, which is email versus social, where you hope your followers will see your content, and we know that that's a game of diminishing returns. So, yeah, I couldn't agree more and I hope that, if there's one thing and obviously you represent Constant Contact, but even if you didn't and I don't represent any of these companies email definitely is that piece and I'm sort of excited. So I actually am launching a Shopify store for the first time for my books and I'm going to put my consulting services on there as well. And obviously, when we talk about e-commerce, klaviyo is this company that is really deeply embedded in Shopify and all my clients use them.

Speaker 1:

So, for the first time, it's like, hey, and it does raise that question that you brought up. Well, I added it, but how would I use it? And if we have that same mentality with social media, like, how are we going to use this? What conversations are we going to have? And we do it with intent. Like you said, promotional content, advertisements do not generate word of mouth. What sort of content might generate word of mouth? So it's the same concept.

Speaker 1:

And also another thing you brought up is that relationship building same concept, and also another thing you brought up is that you know that relationship building. So in digital threads I have this, you know, funnel of, of digital relationships, of how you you bring relationships in a similar funnel, and email is just critical. You know checking in on a regular basis when you do them right. So I hope you know one of the takeaways is the importance of email as being centered all this. But another one is that intentional, you know, creation of content that is focused on that word of mouth and also that relationship building and putting everything you do through that lens. So these are really great reminders for everyone listening.

Speaker 1:

But we're not done yet. Dave, you mentioned that there are some productivity tips, because obviously this is a lot, I think, like any other, when we talk about like the flywheel, once you get this going it becomes like muscle memory, but until you get this going, it becomes like muscle memory, but until you get it going, it sounds like a lot of work. It might be a lot of work, but you promised that there are ways of staying productive in the process, so I'd love if you could give that advice to our audience.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for sure. So I think there are a couple of things there. One, of course, is, as you're going through this process and you're getting to this place where, okay, you understand what it is you're trying to do, you have your goals, you know how you're going to use some of these tools. It's really the number one thing, time and time again, I hear from people who are successful with this marketing stuff is they put time in the calendar to do the work, whether that's a half an hour, whether it's an hour, and my goal is always to all right, how are you going to use that time? Right? So we're trying to give you the tips to like lean into, like, all right, here's how I'm going to do this thing, and it's by putting that time in first and foremost. So it's looking at what you're doing. Maybe there are multiple things that you need to do. I think it's about prioritizing that work. So I often recommend to people okay, circle three things of on the list of things that you need to do from a marketing perspective. Circle those three things, cool. Now pick one of them what's most important to you right now, and then schedule the time, put that in the calendar. So then you're working towards that, then you can move to the next thing.

Speaker 2:

I think it's very easy to feel overwhelmed by everything, because there are a lot of things coming at us, and if we think about a small business owner who's, you know, not just doing marketing and I think this is an important point to bring up too, because I think there's a couple of different types of businesses right, it's very easy for you and I to talk about what we're doing on social, because part of our role and our job is to be on social. Indeed, you also have businesses that aren't building themselves on social as much as they're using social to accentuate what they're doing, and I think there's a different cadence, there's a different way to approach that, right? So, like, someone building their business online may need to be online more than someone who's just kind of using that to help, you know again, get the word out about their business a little bit more. And so I say that because it's very easy to compare yourself when you're looking at things on social and be like wow, look at all the engagement that's happening over there, or look at all the followers this person has, and I feel like those things aren't as important, depending on the nature of your business right. You really want to stay focused on what it is that you're doing, the people that you're serving, and what impact the things that you're doing are having on your particular business, and so try not to fall into that trap of using a social to compare right, compare against yourself, set benchmarks and goals for yourself and work towards those.

Speaker 2:

The other thing I think is important is to really think about. You know most of the tools that you're using today are integrated with other tools that you're using in many ways. You know so, if I look at Constant Contact, for example, we are integrated with tools like you mentioned, shopify, right. Canva is another big one that everybody is using right, like those tools specifically. So let's go to Shopify.

Speaker 2:

If you can integrate that with your constant contact account, a couple of things are going to happen. You're going to get your contacts that are, you know, shopping with you are going to come in. Some automated lists are going to be created for you so you can see people who are first-time buyers versus you know multiple purchases or haven't bought anything. You start to get data that is important to you, but, above that, as you start to create emails, you're also going to be connected to your store, and so you don't have to go through this process of like oh, I want to talk about widget X. Well, I don't have to create an image for widget X and then write the description and then you know, load all that stuff into my constant contact account. It's already there. All you're doing is just dragging a block into your email. That then pulls up all that information that you can then edit if you want to right. So, again, that's saving you valuable time that you know you'd be spending doing that when you could be doing other things.

Speaker 2:

I think most tools today have some type of AI component available to them. I think those are important to experiment with and to play with to see how that can help you. So you know, for example, constant contact can help write your email, copy your, your social media, copy your, your text messages. It can build from an email to help you summarize that email to share out if you wanted to do something like that. Again, these are all ways, particularly if you're not a marketing brain, and it's not right for everybody, right? Some people, that's the piece that they are good at, and so they're going to lean into that, but other people, it's not the thing that they're good at, so they need something to kind of start from right, and these are all things that help make that process a little easier.

Speaker 2:

You know, one of the things I'm most excited about in terms of constant contact and helping folks in this area Because it's often, yeah, how do you put together the strategy? What am I supposed to do? How do all these tools work together? We have this tool that just came out recently called Campaign Builder, where you actually let it know what you're trying to do and then it builds a plan for you, including the thinking behind it in terms of, like social, maybe you want to include an event in there, but email text and it gives you the timings and when all of those things are supposed to happen. So you can then say, okay, yeah, I want to do this, I can schedule that, I can schedule that, make adjustments that I need to, but then you've got your multi-channel campaign in place, because we talked about earlier how it's not really just one thing. You want to be in all of these places, so people are seeing it there, but, again, using those tools in the right way, and so these are all ways that really allow you to take a little bit of time, investment to figure the thing out right.

Speaker 2:

And what I like about Constant Contact it is designed for small business owners who are not, you know, marketers by trade, but rather necessity. So it's pretty easy to kind of get started and get going. But it's all about setting those things up, setting up the automations, and then saving yourself time so you have things that are working for you and then you can build on them as you find. My hope is always you're going to do something and you're going to say, oh, wow, that works, what else can I do? Right, but oftentimes we start to try to do everything and then nothing is really working and we get dissuaded from even wanting to invest there again, and I think that ultimately is to the detriment of the business.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a lot of important takeaways there. I want to focus on a few. Technology is this thing that you might have invested in something, but is it going the direction you want it to go? So I always recommend a technology audit and I know if you're a small business owner. This is a lot, but like once a year, you know, because it's human nature Once you get used to using something you continue to use it.

Speaker 1:

But that case in point, right. So I have a WordPress site. I've always used just the general newsletter. You know email marketing software. I don't need to name the name, it's not important for the conversation. But then I got the Shopify store going, and immediately, because my developer is familiar with Klaviyo. And then boom, right. But now I'm going to have two separate email lists, whereas if I had originally used Constant Contact because you already have that Shopify functionality integration I can then use, I can get the best of both worlds. But I'm not going to have that, at least at the beginning, until I move constant contact. So this is something where and you know those AI features and, yes, you can use ChatGPT.

Speaker 1:

But it's that productivity of having it inside and I love that campaign manager you talked about. You know, this is my first experience with Shopify. It's like it guides you through the whole process. You need a shipping policy. Oh, here's a template that you can use. We're not lawyers, but feel free to use this as a starting point. And I love the fact that you're giving small business owners a starting point, because I think that's critical. And the other point I wanted to make about productivity and I have a dedicated chapter in digital threads is also outsourcing. As a small business owner, you don't need to do all this right, and if you want to do a search on a Fiverr Upwork for constant contact email campaign builder, I am sure those people are out there. So that's my other thing that we often forget about. But, dave, this has been really awesome advice. Is there anything, when we talk about the digital marketing success cycle for small business, anything that we left out of the conversation today?

Speaker 2:

Well, I'll just add this that I think it's really easy to feel overwhelmed because everything is coming at you very fast, everything is changing very quickly and I think it's okay to say take a breath. The things are actually very simplistic at the end of the day. And if you keep it simplistic, again, go through this motion, review, plan, execute. I'm just trying to keep my business top of mind. It feels more achievable when you can start to do that, and that's ultimately where you need to be, because doing something too much leads to inaction, and if you can right size it and make progress towards something, you're going to be in a much better position. And I think that's the important message to take away from all of this you can do it. You don't have to do everything. Do what's right for you, but understand how it works so that, to your point, if you're hiring somebody or doing something like that, you know that they're going to be moving you in the right direction.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is a marathon and not a sprint and so long as you know, you're doing more today than you did yesterday, the next week. And I also wanted to comment you had mentioned don't compare yourself to others. Compare to yourself, and I attend a lot of YouTuber conferences and that's the biggest YouTubers all say the same thing You're only trying to compare. You're trying to get better performance on this video versus the last video. It's not about the others, it's looking at your own metrics and trying to improve from there. So I think we all need that for mental health. But it's also true, right, you can't boil the ocean, as they say. So, dave, this has been great. If people obviously Constant Contact Be A Marketer podcast, you might have multiple URLs or points of contact, but if the listener wants to reach out and learn more about you, constant Contact your podcast, where should we send them?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely so. Of course, Constant Contact. You can find more information about there. You can find links to the Be A Marketer podcast in there. It's a simple way to go to my website. I have links to the podcast there as well. Davesharescom and then, if you want to connect with me on social, I'd love to do that. Linkedin is my primary social channel, so that's where I'm focusing most of my activity there. So hit me up, let me know where. How will you found me, and let's connect there. I'd love to do that and let's connect there.

Speaker 1:

I'd love to do that. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, dave, and I hope that the listener, if you're interested, you will reach out to Dave. He's a great guy and, yeah, I mean this whole podcast came because I reached out to him, so I hope you'll do the same and gain the benefit of listening to his advice. Well, thank you once again, dave, and hopefully we much. It's been a pleasure. It's great chatting with you. Thank you All right, that was a fantastic interview.

Speaker 1:

Hopefully, after listening to that, you have an idea of the elements you need, from Dave's perspective, to engage in this digital marketing success cycle. A lot of what he says. Also, there are parallel thoughts that I have in digital threads, my comprehensive playbook for digital first marketing. Go to neilschafercom slash digital threads, amazon or just do a search for digital threads wherever you buy books. It is a very unique name so you should be able to find it. It is also available in ebook, audio paper and hardcover. And hey, if you need help creating your own digital marketing success cycle, obviously I highly recommend you read digital threads, but if you need just a little bit more help, I have a group coaching community called Digital First. Go to neilschafercom slash membership for more information. I also provide one-on-one fractional CMO services consulting for you and or your team. Go to neilschafercom slash CMO for more information on that.

Speaker 1:

But if you get enough just from listening to this podcast, hey, how about if you had a few minutes and you really got a lot of value? I'd really appreciate it, and it would really help this podcast get exposed to new listeners If you were to share a quick review. Give it a five-star ranking and give a quick review. On whatever platform you listen to this podcast, make sure you take a screenshot and send it to me so that I can send you a special gift, alrighty. Well, that's it for another episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. This is Neil Schafer signing off.

Speaker 3:

You've been listening to your Digital Marketing Coach. Questions, comments, requests, links go to podcastneilschafercom. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at neilschafercom to tap into the 400 plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group coaching membership community If you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.