The Blogger Genius Podcast

If you want to know how to kill it at copywriting, read on... Contrary to popular belief, you can't just build an online business and hope people will show up. It doesn't work that way. You have to make personal connections with your audience by showing them why they need what you're offering. You have to pique the interest of people who come to your site, grab their attention. Today's episode will offer plenty of help and tips for you to grow your business and increase your sales. My guest is Cole Schafer, marketer and copywriter. I knew I had to have him on the podcast when I read his tagline on his blog, which says, "Live fast. Write often. Pet dogs." Copywriting vs. Writing Copywriting is selling things with words. Regular writing is communicating ideas or stories. When someone writes a story, there is no set goal other than entertainment. With copywriting, there is a clear goal. You can be a good copywriter if you understand that everyone purchases something either to move closer to pleasure or to move further away from pain. The best products can do both things, but most products do one or the other. The most successful products tend to move people closer to pleasure rather than focusing on their pain and relieving it. People get more excited about moving towards pleasure, not about moving away from pain. How To Get Someone To Take Action As marketers, we can't rush our audience to make a purchase. Some of Cole's clients have been on his email list for over a year, and they're finally reaching out to him, but only after building that relationship and personal connection. Your audience will know if you're trying to shove your products down their throat and that is not the way to connect with your people. You want to build a relationship by showing up for your audience, sending out those weekly emails, doing your podcast, whatever it is that you do. Once a quarter, Cole adds a small discount to his writing course and leaves it up for 48 hours. The sense of urgency does help sales. Another thing that helps people decide to make a purchase is when they see that many other people are enjoying a product. We are wired to follow the crowd. If you show the numbers of people you are helping and how many satisfied customers you have, your audience is more likely to follow along. Here's a great example: when I shop on Amazon, I read the reviews to see if others like the product. I trust the herd and save myself time. Marketing As a Human The digital world of marketing has created a scenario where we no longer have the person-to-person connection we once did. Over time we have lost how to market to the individual. With signs, television, and the internet, we are now mass marketing. You need to market human to human. One way you can do this is to pick your best customer and get in touch with him/her. Fly them out to you, have a phone conversation, go out for lunch, and have a conversation. When you market with one person in mind, more people are going to relate because you are able to become more specific. Using Hook Sentences In literature, the hook sentence is the first sentence you read in a book. Cole collects his favorite hook sentences from books he's read, and well-known hook sentences, to help him learn how to write better hook sentences himself. You have a very small window in which to grab the reader's attention. A hook sentence needs to be ten words max, short and punchy, and it should draw the reader in. Some of Cole's favorite hook sentences are: "I lost my arm on my last trip home." "It was love at first sight." "It was a pleasure to burn." Every single one of those is under ten words but at the same time, they are very powerful. Your subject line in emails, your headline, your sales pages, your blog post titles, they are all hook sentences. How To Create Hook Sentences When we write, we might spend hours on the content itself, but then spend mere minutes writing up the headline for it, and then hit publish. Just because you put time and effort into writing an article doesn't mean someone else is going to read it. The one piece of advice that Cole gives to all writers is the 80/20 rule. If you spend 5 hours writing an article, 1 hour should be spent writing your hook sentence. Write down 25 of the best headlines you can think of. Share them with friends, colleagues, family, etc., and ask them to tell you which 3 stand out to them the most. You can raise your click-through rate by 50%, 100%, or even 500% by using this method. What To Do When You Don't Know What To Sell If you are offering a service-based business, you want to create a hybrid product: half-service, half-product. One of the issues that freelancers face is that when you are trying to scale a service business, you only have 2 choices: you can either hire more workers or raise your rates. Raising your rates is a good option but eventually, you're going to be as high as you can go. What you can do is sell a product that goes hand-in-hand with your service that you offer. This eliminates the constant "trading dollars for minutes." Start by selling your services, then couple a product with that service. If your audience is using your service, they will likely also want your product. What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turn your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! Read the podcast transcript for "How to Kill it At Copywriting" Timestamp Intro 6:03 Copywriting vs Writing 11:36 How To Get Someone To Take Action 21:26 Marketing As A Human 25:38 Why To Use Hook Sentences 30:15 How To Create Hook Sentences 36:00 What To Do When You Don't Know What To Sell TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE EPISODE Successful copywriters understand that people make purchases either to move toward pleasure or to move away from pain. Market with one person in mind; when you speak to one specific person, others will be able to relate. If you can learn to write one really strong sentence, you can become a very capable copywriter. If you're a freelancer in a service-based business but you're stuck on what to sell, try creating a product that goes hand-in-hand with your service.

I interviewed today's guest, Laura Fuentes, about a year ago on the show. The interview was one of my most popular ever! Laura is the creator of MOMables, food plans for families. What I love about Laura is that she is very down to earth and practical about the empire she is building. Building a Food Empire Laura's MOMables business consists of meal plans, courses, and digital products. The meal plans are based on a subscription model. Every month, Laura provides her customers with 5 meals, a meal prep sheet, and a shopping list. Laura also sells health and wellness programs in ebook format. Laura's programs can be compared to Whole30, but specifically for families. It is a 30-day program for both kids and adults. Laura also has courses where she teaches parents how to put healthy eating for their family into practice. She has a course on picky eaters, as well, for those parents who are battling out mealtimes and need some practical help. Laurafuentes.com is her lifestyle blog and it's where she shares how she lives the life of the courses she sells. Learning to Create Video Content Laura was a self-taught cook who competed on Food Network in 2014 and won! She had never been on camera in her life when she auditioned for the show. In fact, Laura taught herself how to cook by watching Food Network. Her readers were asking Laura to create videos for her recipes, but she was much too afraid of the camera to comply. But after her stint on television, she decided that it was time to give her audience what they wanted. Laura told her husband, "I now know that I can do it and it's not about winning. From that experience, I learned that I could, so I did." Later in 2014, she began her dive into video. She took 2 full years to get her processes down and learn how to make great, high-quality videos. At this point, Laura owns a video production company where she produces videos for large and small clients alike. Growing the Video Side of a Business Laura is not creating the "hands and pans" style cooking videos. She does all of her videos in front of the camera, no overhead views. She wants her audience to get to know her through her videos. Her videos average about 3:20. Laura has found that anywhere in the 3:30 - 4: 00-minute range is what her audience wants. From the time she began doing video in 2014, all the way through 2017, Laura was releasing 1 new video per week. Because she had other facets of her business to run and needed to hire out all of the editing and preproduction of her videos, her budget didn't allow for more than 1 video per week. Since the fall of 2018, she has begun releasing 2 videos per week. And of those 8 videos a month, 1 or 2 will be sponsored videos. Laura uses the returns from sponsored posts to build the areas of her business that need growth but aren't bringing in enough income on their own. Monetizing YouTube Ads on YouTube don't make Laura a lot of money. Over the last 28 days, Laura has made $227 from YouTube. She is not what you think of when you think YouTuber; someone who pays the bills solely from their YouTube account. Laura's goal isn't to be a famous YouTube star. As a matter of fact, she doesn't even like to wear makeup for her videos. As she puts it, "I'm not that funny, I don't wear makeup. I just make my recipes." But she is happy with how things are playing out on her channel now. She is experiencing true joy with her YouTube efforts and looks forward to creating video content. Social Media Burnout Laura doesn't experience burnout over creating YouTube videos. She personally experiences burnout over the pressure to constantly be churning out new content. But the majority of her burnout comes by way of social media. Because brands are focusing so heavily on Instagram nowadays, Laura feels the pressure to focus on that platform. Whereas, her preference is to send people to her blog or YouTube channel. Laura says, "If I could get rid of every platform and just choose one, I would choose YouTube. I just feel like IG is an exhausting race that I have no interest in winning." Being Enough For Yourself What Laura thinks of herself matters so much more to her than what anyone else thinks about her. We all struggle or go through periods of struggling with looking for outside validation. Laura wants to model for her children that outside opinions are not the be-all, end-all. She wants to show them that they don't have to put on a show of perfection for others; they can be themselves. Laura does care, but she cares about how she thinks about herself, not how others think about her. When you're in it to win it, you cannot drag yourself down with negative talk. That is not the way to gain success. When you get turned down by a company or a client, it doesn't mean you're a failure. It means you're not the right fit for that project. You have to be about serving others, not being emotionally invested in others accepting you. Once you don't care what others think, you can jump into things and do them without fear. You will have new opportunities, you will grow so much as a person, and your business will grow too. I don't know about you, but I always feel so inspired every time I talk to Laura. Let's all look in the mirror and be happy with who we are. What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turn your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! Laura's 2 previous episodes on The Blogger Genius Podcast: #024: How to Sell to Moms by Being a Giver with Laura Fuentes (Part 2) #023: How to Start a Business by Solving a Problem for Moms (Part 1) TIMESTAMP Intro 3:18 Building a Food Empire 7:27 Learning to Create Video Content 10:45 Growing the Video Side of a Business 18:43 Monetizing Youtube 20:35 Social Media Burnout 26:00 Being Enough For Yourself Read the podcast transcript for "How to Be Self-Taught and Build an Online Empire with Laura Fuentes" TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS Take the time to learn new skills, even if it means you have to teach yourself. Slowly ramp up your efforts as you learn more about what you're doing. You don't have to be everywhere on social media all the time; choose carefully to avoid burnout. Focus on serving others, not on what others think about you.

Today, MiloTree Community Manager and my friend, Paula Rollo, is back on the show and we are talking about how to think about branding yourself and your business. We're looking at the question of where best to focus your energy. In this episode, we share how we have both gone through our own branding process and how you can easily do it, too. Branding Beginnings Branding is so much more than just hopping onto sites like LogoJoy or TailorMade and creating your logo. There is also a tool on Shopify that will generate business names for you. These are all fun tools to play around with but there are steps you need to take before you start making logos. When Paula started her business around 15 years ago, she did not even know about branding. She simply made content without a vision and hoped people would find it. Tip: When coming up with your blog name or logo, you don't want your viewers to have to guess what you are about. You have to state upfront what your brand is about. When I created Catch My Party, I was very specific about what the business was, but that made me feel pigeonholed into that space without a lot of room for growth or change. The inspiration for MiloTree comes from a beautiful tree found in Hawaii. The name is very open-ended, which allows me to expand somewhat within the boundary of the name. And I'm glad we chose it as we have definitely expanded the things we offer through the app. It's no longer just the "Pinterest Pop-Up Company." When branding first became important, you didn't have to be as specific, but as Google has evolved and the industry has grown, you need to be much more specific about what you're offering to your audience so that you become an authority in your field. Personal Branding vs. Company Branding Before I started my own personal Instagram account recently, I thought through what I wanted my account to look like. I keep Catch My Party, MiloTree, and my own personal account, Jillian Tohber Leslie, separate to brand them as the individual things that they are. I decided to focus on three things with my personal account: How I run two businesses and a podcast Moving to Austin and discovering the area How I focus on my wellness and health My husband and daughter occasionally show up on there, but they are not the main focus. When I am posting about myself, I am showing the human side of my business and people can get to know me. That builds trust with my audience. You have to decide early on if you want your brand to have a personality, or if you want to be your brand. A lot of blogs and brands get stuck trying to do both. Some brands don't want a face behind their brand, but then they lose all personality whatsoever. People want something to connect to, even if it's just a common theme. Sharing Yourself To Build Trust When building your brand, you need to know where your business is going, know what you're trying to accomplish in the world. For instance, if you have a health and wellness blog, you are trying to convince me to change something about my lifestyle. To do that you need to share your personal story and credentials in order to gain my trust. Anyone can start a business success blog, but I need to know your backstory. I need to know that you have a successful business and that you know more than me about building a successful business. Focus your personal brand on how you can serve others, and you will be able to remain authentic and true to yourself. Being A Personal Brand We all need to be mindful of the brand we're putting forward. Today it is easy for people to find us online, including prospective employers. The brand you put forth is what they're going to see and how they're going to think about you. If you do not brand yourself, and you focus on your company's branding, you are still discoverable. You still need to have a personal aspect of your brand. I always suggest that people Google themselves and see what shows up. Do you like what pops up under your name? If not, you may need to think about some personal rebranding. Comparing Yourself To Others Another way to get clear on your branding is to look at your competitors to see what they are doing right, and mimic that. But you should also be looking at your competition in order to see the ways that you are different. If someone was unhappy with another company, how would coming to your business offer them a different experience? Find ways to differentiate your blog from others who are in the same niche. Brands tend to solve one problem and move on. Focus on being cohesive and offering solutions to problems that might not even be known yet. You can fill in the blanks that the big companies are missing because what may not be lucrative enough for big brands could be lucrative enough for you. Honesty vs. Oversharing At one point, a couple of years ago, our culture decided that we wanted to know everything about everybody. We shared pictures of our food, our friends, our evening routines. But people quickly discovered that they didn't care what their neighbor had for dinner; they weren't following them because their neighbors were food bloggers. Today, people want you to be honest, but people also understand that there are boundaries to sharing your life. Boundaries look different to everyone, and you are free to decide what your boundaries are. I do not post any pictures of my daughter on Instagram, whereas Paula has pictures of her children all over her account, but without their names posted. We both set the boundaries that we are comfortable with. I came to the personal branding game late, but if I am making someone feel happier, feel less alone, or more inspired, then I am branding myself the right way. What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turn your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! Timestamp Intro 1:14 Branding Beginnings 14: 41 Personal Branding vs. Company Branding 24:47 Share Yourself To Build Trust 28:08 Being A Personal Brand 29:34 Comparing Yourself To Others 32:56 Honesty vs. Oversharing Read the podcast transcript for "How to Think About Branding Yourself and Your Business" TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS Don't make people guess what your blog is about. State upfront, through your name, logo, description, bio, etc, exactly what you are about and what the reader can expect. Decide if you want your business to have a personality or if you want to be your own brand. Share your own story so that your audience can develop a sense of trust in what you tell them to do. Find ways to differentiate your blog from others in the same niche. Ask yourself, "If someone was unhappy with another business in my niche, what could I offer them for a better experience?

Angela Davis from the blog, Frugal Living NW, is an affiliate expert. She's sharing how to make six figures using affiliate marketing. And the best part is she only works part time! In this episode, we talk about what links to add to your posts, why patience is the secret, and which affiliate networks you should join. Listen to this episode to learn the secrets to increasing your blog's passive income with affiliate marketing! Full transcript of "How to Make Six Figures in Affiliate Marketing with Angela Davis" What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turn your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

For this week's podcast episode, I thought I'd dig into our archives and reshare one of our most downloaded Blogger Genius episodes ever! The reason this episode is so popular is because I'm interviewing Pinterest insider, Tori Tait, and she's sharing straight up... how to shortcut your Pinterest strategy and succeed. She's sharing what works and what doesn't! What she emphasizes is that mastering Pinterest doesn't have to be hard. It just takes a few key insights. We talk about why bloggers don't need a lot of money to succeed on Pinterest, why you need to think like a marketer but act like a blogger, why the goal is to design the most engaging pins possible, and why you always need a call to action in your pins. I promise you will learn a lot from Tori. Here's the full transcript of this episode including show note links. Tori has been a long time MiloTree customer. She grows her Pinterest followers with her MiloTree Pinterest pop up. If you are trying to grow your Pinterest traffic, I recommend you sign up for MiloTree. Watch your followers on Pinterest grow faster! Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Today's guest is YouTuber, Amanda Muse. The thing I find fascinating about Amanda is that she does things her own way. We're talking about how to be authentic on YouTube and make a great living at the same time. On her channel, Amanda talks about what she wants to talk about. She puts herself out there. And she's found serious success with over 61k subscribers! Whether you are a newbie to YouTube or a seasoned veteran, you will learn something new from this interview. Plus, I know you're going to fall in love with Amanda! Making Money on YouTube There are two main ways to make money on YouTube -- ads and brand partnerships. The first way to make money is through AdSense, YouTube's built-in ad network. The more viewers you have, the more ad money you make. Amanda makes her money through brand partnerships. There are YouTubers who don't have to do brand sponsorships because they have millions of viewers and monetize through the ads. But unless you have millions of subscribers, brand partnerships is the way to go. Hiring a Team to Help With Your YouTube Channel Amanda works with a team called Kin Community. They pitch their clients to brands, such as Walmart and Wendy's. When you first get started on YouTube, you are the entire team. You are not only the content creator, but you are the makeup artist, the producer, the editor, and the salesperson. Amanda knew that sales were not her strong point, so she found a team that can take care of that part for her. Amanda feels that once she handed over her weaknesses to someone else to take care of, her business really took off. Amanda has a video editor who also edits all of her podcast content. And she has an assistant who manages her Facebook page and helps with content ideas and planning. Finding the Right Agency to Represent You as a YouTuber It can be very easy to get involved with a sketchy agency and then be stuck. Amanda recommends a few things to protect yourself when looking for an agency: Read your contracts thoroughly Make sure that you can get out of an agreement fairly quickly Retain ownership of all of your own content, especially video It took Amanda time to find the right agency. She had to try out a couple of different companies to know what she wanted. Her advice is to reach out to other YouTubers with similar-sized audiences and ask them for advice or help. Best Practices For YouTube Content Creation When it comes to releasing content, you have to be consistent no matter which platform you're on. Amanda recommends that you release video content to YouTube each and every week. Amanda currently releases two videos a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. If she cannot make a video, she does a live video to engage her audience and build relationships. If possible, release your videos at the same time every week. YouTube will recognize that you're posting at the same time consistently and it will favor that. Keep in mind that YouTube prefers longer videos. Gone are the days of 2-minute videos. And when going live, spend the time chatting with your viewers and save time at the end to get to all of your audience's questions. Showing Vulnerability Amanda likes to be an open book on her channel, but she has definitely put privacy strategies in place. For example, she does not video her home, she does not say where she lives, and she does not share information regarding her children. Once your children are older, you just can't post as much about them because they begin to value their own privacy. Making this decision has slowed down the growth of Amanda's channel somewhat, but it has not hampered brands using her channel, or her ability to monetize it. Burnout Amanda used to do a weekly vlog. It was a 17-minute video, which was a compilation of a couple of minutes each day. But after a while, it was almost like having someone in her home every day. Because Amanda had such a flexible channel, she shifted her style to a vlog a couple of times a week. Knowing when to say "no" is so important. You have to know your limits and what is worth your time and energy. Amanda does not hold herself to perfection. If she can't get a video edited because she's been sick, she will post it the way it is. Having people around you that can help you along, offer support and distractions, and just be there for you off the screen is so important. Using Social Media to Grow Your YouTube Channel Besides being on Youtube twice a week, Amanda posts a photo nearly every day to her Instagam feed, and about 15 Instagram stories a day. She puts out a podcast episode once a week also. There is a post each day on Facebook. Her Facebook page isn't a huge focus for her; it's mostly for sharing interesting things and one planned post a day. Amanda does not see herself as a blogger, but rather she has a website which she uses as a landing page for people who come over from her YouTube channel or her podcast. Advice for Future YouTubers Go deep and find your secret skill. Amanda's secret skill is that she can make friends and talk with anyone. She shared a few tips with us for those of you who might want to get started with YouTube: Talk to the camera like you're having a one-on-one conversation with someone. Find out what you enjoy and then apply a specific strategy to it. Treat your YouTube platform and audience like its own unique place and create unique content for it. Stay true to yourself and just keep working. When you do that, your audience will come, your following will grow, and you will know that you've found your niche. What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turn your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! Timestamp Intro 4:44 Making Money on YouTube 8:20 Hiring a Team 17:36 Finding the Right Agency 22:30 Best Practices For Content 27:54 Being Vulnerable 32:02 Burnout 39:59 Using Social Media 41:11 Advice for Future YouTubers Read the podcast transcript HERE: TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS There are several ways to make money on YouTube, so don't be discouraged if you don't have millions of viewers. Look for brand partnerships. Be consistent in releasing new content; plan on at least one video per week. Be authentic with your audience in order to build relationships with them so they keep showing up. Avoid perfectionism and learn when to say NO in order to avoid burnout.

Today my guest is Spencer Lum, owner of ExtraBold. Spencer teaches how to get people to want what you're selling, by meeting them where they are and serving their needs. I think you're going to get a lot of really powerful takeaways from this episode about marketing and copywriting. How To Create A Want in Your Audience The difficult part of marketing is stepping outside of yourself and knowing it isn't about you. Spencer calls the normal marketing tactic, "eat your vegetables" marketing because if you look at it closely, that's exactly what they're doing. They are trying to force you to want something because they think it's great. Marketing consists of two things: Understanding what your audience wants Drawing them in through their interests Learning What Your Audience Wants If you want to get out of your head and know your audience better, spend time with them, getting to know what they're going to think or say next. You can't live in that dangerous ground of "kind of knowing them, but not really…" There are a few basic wants that every person has. One of those basic wants is to be financially well-off. Another is for life to be just easier. Think about the seven deadly sins. These are wants. Don't forget that you need to meet people where they are at, and slowly point them in the right direction and invest in them, until they are ready to buy what you're selling. You have to speak your audience's language. Don't try to change them. Respect what they want from you, as they are. Maintaining Balance It takes two things to complete a sales cycle: The selling part that gets your product out there (awareness) The purpose that brings value and help to your audience (solving a problem) Good salesmanship is a way to help people. You want to make money, but it's not the only reason you do what you do. When your purpose aligns with someone else's purpose, they will feel good about buying your products. Marketing Using A Landing Page In order to understand your audience members' basic wants, you give a hint of what you have to offer, you let it linger, and then you give another little something. You don't give everything away at once. Think of it like dating. Once you actually have them hooked, and they want what you offer, you can call them to take action. If you are able to tell someone what their problems are, it creates trust, and they will believe you have the answer to their problem. People want to feel that they are seen and understood. By being able to show that you understand them and their problems, they will feel seen and important, and you are more likely to make the sale. Action Step Spencer created a free course that goes over a lot of things we talked about today. You will learn how to get your audience through the three stages of marketing sales. You can find that guide at www.goextrabold.com/bloggergenuis. Download yours today! What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by converting your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! Timestamp Intro 7:30 How To Create A Want 16:50 Learning What Your Audience Wants 28:30 Maintaining Balance 34:38 Marketing On A Landing Page 49:43 Action Step Read the podcast transcript HERE: TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS You must understand what your audience's basic wants are. Think of the seven deadly sins. Find the balance between your ultimate purpose and the need to sell your product or service. Give people a hint that you've got something that will change their lives, but don't give it all away at the beginning. Think of it like dating. Mystery is good. Make your audience feel seen and understood and they will trust you and your product/service and be more willing to buy.

In today's world, as a blogger or creative entrepreneur, you need a creative marketing strategy to get your site found. In this episode, we're talking about how digital advertising can boost your business (even if you don't sell anything). Today I am interviewing Jessica Gleim and Amy Christie, the co-founders of Flairst Creative Collective. These women are digital marketers who know their stuff! Why Is Online Advertising So Powerful? People today spend more time on digital devices than ever before. Being able to take advantage of that, and market to people who are already on different platforms just makes sense. Digital marketing is also powerful because we have never been able to micro-track people in the way that we can now. We can choose who we want to show our ads to. Google, Pinterest, Facebook, etc… all have their own ad platforms, and those ad platforms are all tools in your toolbox to help you reach people. Ads Without Product to Sell Even if you don't have a product you are selling, sponsors and brands want to work with people who have good traffic coming to their site. Using digital ads will increase your traffic and make more people aware of your brand. This will bring you more money from the ads on your site and, more importantly, you'll have higher metrics to share with brands. Conversion From Ad to Sales If you sell a product, even if it is a cheaper product, you should run ads as well. If you have an eBook that you are selling for $6.99 and can run an ad for 75 cents, all the rest is just residual income. Figure out what it would cost you to get the conversion from ad to sale. Your cheaper products could lead to the customer ultimately buying your larger and more expensive products. DIY-ing Your Digital Marketing There is a lot of testing involved in digital marketing but most marketers have to be budget-conscious. You don't have to spend a lot to learn how to use digital ads for your site. Here are the steps Jessica and Amy laid out for us: Start with the top of your funnel - the cold traffic you are trying to bring into your website. Build a small campaign - try a few different creatives (ads) on a few different audiences. Let your campaign run for a couple of weeks - find out which audience responded to which creative. Using Facebook Campaigns Jessica and Amy used Facebook campaigns to send traffic to MiloTree. They started with cold audiences to try and get pixeled (which is Facebook's version of Google analytics). The pixel allows them to learn more about the audience that is visiting our site. The number one mistake people make when running Facebook ads is not optimizing their ads correctly. You have to know what the objective of your ad is. The objective of the Facebook campaigns for MiloTree is both awareness and traffic. They want to draw attention to MiloTree and then send them to the site. Because you put time, work, and money into your ads, it is not enough to just raise awareness. There have to be conversions to make it worth it! Tracking The Funnel Another benefit of digital marketing is the ability to keep track of the people in your funnel. Through the Facebook pixel, you will know when anyone in your funnel fills out your opt-in, completes a purchase, or if someone abandons their cart on your site. There are a few things you need to understand when setting up digital ads: The objective of your ads The customer buying cycle What the stages of your funnel should be How to build ad campaigns within your Facebook manager Becoming Confident in Digital Marketing Everyone is spending time on a digital device at some point during their day. There is so much content and so much competition in almost every industry that it is sometimes hard to maintain your SEO strategy and ranking. If you are coming into this with a new idea or a fresh take on something, it can be hard with the current algorithms to show up. This is why paid advertising is so important. Jessica and Amy want entrepreneurs and business owners to feel confident that they can convert customers using these ad platforms successfully, as it continues to get harder to rank organically. They will be coming out with a course soon to help you create your own digital ad funnels, so learn more at Flairst Creative Collective. What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by converting your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! Timestamp Intro 10:35 Why Is Online Advertising So Powerful? 12:20 Ads Without Products to Sell 15:33 Conversion From Ad to Sales 21:45 DIY-ing Your Digital Marketing 25:46 Using Facebook Campaigns 34:40 Tracking The Funnel 40:16 Becoming Confident in Digital Marketing Read the podcast transcript HERE: TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS Digital marketing is powerful because it allows you to market your business on multiple platforms as well as track the audience who sees your ads. Even if you don't have a product to sell, digital ads bring traffic to your site which increases the metrics that brands want to see in order to offer you sponsored campaigns. You don't have to spend a ton of money when you're starting out; most online entrepreneurs are very budget-conscious. The #1 problem with running ads is not having a clear objective when you start and therefore wasting a bunch of money.

My guest this week is Tammilee Tillison, a travel and lifestyle blogger. I think you will find it interesting to hear what she has to say about blogging in these niches. Tammilee and her husband have been blogging for over ten years on their blogs, tammileetips.com and parkrangerjohn.com. Monetizing a Travel Blog Tammilee and her husband John live in Washington state but they travel on average 160+ days a year. They have several revenue streams. They have ad revenue, sponsored posts, sponsorships on social media, and affiliates. Tammilee is currently figuring out SEO since it was not even relevant when she began blogging. Work-Life Balance as a Blogger Tammilee doesn't have much downtime. She works even when she is on vacation, knowing that every experience is going to be put into her content. But burnout happens to everyone. Tammilee tries to avoid burnout by spending time doing something she enjoys, like reading, and pushing away the hurried thoughts about everything she could be doing. The Instagram and blog posts make it seem like travel bloggers live carefree, happy, unburdened lives. But behind that, they are constantly thinking about how they're going to use their experiences, and so they aren't always just enjoying the moment. Creating Curated Content Tammilee is monetizing off of her blog. She wants to have content and pictures that make people want to go to the places she's been. To do that, she sometimes has to create a story using only one picture. Spending a lot of time making an image perfect is how Tammilee can show the quality of the entire trip or vacation. Outside of the lovely images, we are running businesses. We are trying to make money and support ourselves. Tammilee tries to show every side of the destination so that her audience is not misled by thinking that every area is as beautiful as one photo. Traveling For Free as a Food Blogger People who go into travel blogging so that they can travel for free not only give the business itself a bad rep but are misleading. No one is going to travel completely free. There will be expenses, even if you're getting hotels free, tickets free, etc. Tammilee's business expenses are invested in camera equipment, travel expenses, and the time itself that this job takes. Traveling for free is possible, but there are pros and cons to every situation. Make sure to ask someone who has been in the business longer than a year, so you can understand both sides of the story. The Logistics of Being a Travel Blogger Although it depends on the level that you're at as a travel writer, Tammilee can reach out to a hotel and say that she would like to come and write about the hotel. They do get many offers but whether they accept it depends on whether it looks good, whether it fits into their calendar, etc. You may get a $150 hotel night offer, and then there are many asks in return for that. They want your photos, tours of the best rooms, etc. It's not just about what you're getting. It's also what you're bringing to the brand. Social Media Platforms Instagram is the big player right now. It's likely that at some point, the bubble is going to burst and something else will take its place. Someone who is on multiple social media platforms will be able to reach a different type of audience on each one and be able to monetize on more readers. Tammilee does have a Youtube channel, but she doesn't use it very often because she doesn't enjoy making videos as much as she does taking pictures. Tammilee does a lot of Instagram stories and Facebook live videos. With Facebook live, she can pop in and then just show everyone around her environment, in a true, non-curated way. Some brands do want blog posts and some don't care anymore. Brands that have been in the business longer know that the social platforms are constantly evolving, so it's a good idea to have a finger in every pie. Niching Down as a Blogger Tammilee has a built-in audience that has been with her on a journey over ten years, and so she can expand from traveling blogging to lifestyle blogging. She can write about travel, food, and lifestyle depending on the audience she wants to reach and her mood. Tammilee's audience is one big group of people and contained in one email list. She sends everything to everyone and lets them decide which links they want to click through on. Tammilee's Most Used Tool Tammilee loves Tailwind, because even when she's tired or too busy there is something steady going out to her audience. Tammilee also loves Coschedule and has it set up for a year in advance. Travel Tools Tammilee says to invest in a really good phone with a killer camera. She has a Samsung Galaxy 10. Even though they have expensive cameras, sometimes there is a need to take pictures quicker, and having a phone to snap a picture makes all the difference. I just did my last sponsored post with my phone alone. The camera quality is so high, the photos look better than ones taken on my camera when I first started out. Top Three Travel Destinations Tammilee encourages people to travel somewhere that would make them slightly nervous, and see how different it is from their preconceived notions. If you have a place that you've always wanted to go to, every time you see it you wish you were there, you need to visit that place. Visit a place where you have memories. A place you went as a kid, or a place that your family talks about, so you will have those memories again. Travel Blogging Advice Tammilee would say that finding your tribe of people who will help you push through the hard days is the most important thing. Her tribe consists of her husband and women who are doing similar things as Tammilee. In this industry, there is a lot of competition and distrust, but if we come together, work together, and build each other up, we can all benefit. Tammilee's Blogging Why Tammilee wants to inspire people to live their best life. That can look like so many different things, but she wants to inspire people to do what makes them happy, what makes them feel fulfilled. What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by converting your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! Read the podcast transcript HERE: TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE When all of your experiences make up your content, you have to take special care to avoid burnout Don't fall for the illusion that travel bloggers always enjoy 100% free travel Learn how to use social media to your advantage in order to secure more sponsored content Niche down now and you can expand once you have a loyal audience

In today's episode, I am chatting with Camille Whiting from the blog, Friday We're in Love, about how to use analytics to up your SEO game to get even more traffic. Even if you don't like analytics, this post is going to be highly beneficial for you. You're going to learn strategies for how to make smart choices and know where you should go next. Missing The Boat For SEO and Content Creation There are two camps when it comes to SEO. Either a person is all in, learning everything they can, and rushing forward, or they are scared to start thinking about it because they don't like the technical side of things, or it seems too daunting. There is a lot of SEO shame where people know they should be doing it, but they don't feel confident, so they just make more content and sit in an SEO shame bubble. You need to remember that SEO is a wonderful opportunity to help share your amazing content. Best General Practices for Improving SEO Focus on your content moving forward People do not want to read big, chunky 1,000-word posts. Our readers are skimmers. You need your content to be easy to read and skim. Headers in blog posts are very important You want to use H2's as much as possible so Google knows what your content is going to be about. Use Yoast to see if your content is easily readable Test: I always ask myself, when reading my content could someone in line at Target understand my post by skimming it distractedly? Make your content the most useful content on the web Search your topic and see what posts are ranking. Then make your content even better -- easier to read, more thorough, more up-to-date. Also, know that your content is not about you. It is about your reader. Your reader needs to be able to find the information within one or two clicks. The solutions you offer should be very easy to find. Keep blog photos to a minimum and know why you're adding them in Are your photos serving the audience or are they just to gratify yourself? Most of your traffic will be mobile, so think about how your photos will look on a small screen while they're scrolling in line at the grocery store. Importance of keywords You should have three to five keywords per post, and optimize them throughout your posts. Look up keywords, and if you feel that you can't rank for a certain keyword, you can use a synonym that is less used. When you are writing a post, look up three to five keywords, and focus on using them naturally throughout your post. Building Off Of Existing Content Look through your content and see which posts are doing really well. You can then create more content building off the content that's already doing well for you using keywords to grow it. Then keep branching off of those posts and create content that will go along with your highest performing content. This allows your reader to have every answer they might need on the topic. Google Analytics Once you've gone in there one time and looked at your analytics, you will see how cool it is, and how easy it is to understand. A good first step would be to look at your acquisitions and where they are coming from. You want to know where your traffic is coming from, if people are finding your content through searches, and if your words match searches. The behavior tab is really helpful. You can see what people are interacting with on your site and be able to understand your content's impact on your audience better. Golden Tip For Beginners You can outsource the tasks that you feel are weaknesses for you. Camille believes she would have grown faster if she had hired professionals instead of trying to do everything on her own. Look for the weaknesses that you know you have, and invest in hiring those things out. Camille's Most Used Tool Camille is a huge fan of automation software; things like Tailwind, Instagram app scheduling, and Google Calendar. SEM Rush is a pricey tool but so worth it. If you want to get serious about your SEO, this is the tool you want to have. Camille has more info at fridaywe'reinlove.com/analytics, if you'd like to learn more about the other tools that she uses. You will get a free trial period, to see how it works for you. What Type of Online Entrepreneur is MiloTree Right For? Are you serious about growing your online business (advanced beginner and above)? Have you got some traffic but you know you need more? Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by converting your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE! Timestamp Intro 6:58 Missing The Boat For SEO and Content Creation 9:42 Best General Practices 21:40 Keywords 23:33 Building Off Of Existing Content 26:10 Google Analytics 32:07 Golden Tip For Beginners 33:23 Camille's Most Used Tool Read the podcast transcript HERE: TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE SEO is a major way to get your content in front of more people Your posts should be the most helpful content on your topic on the internet Choose 3-5 keywords and use them naturally throughout your post Outsource your weaknesses