Building brand visibility can be an expensive process if you don’t know where to start. Lorraine Ball, owner of Digital Toolbox, shares her tips for establishing and growing your online presence without breaking the bank.
Here is the transcript from the presentation:
Ryan: So, now we’re going to move on to the speaker part of our meeting today. And so, we are are coming near the end of International Ideas Month. And so, what better way to celebrate new ideas than inviting an expert who is going to be able to share with us how we can use online resources to build a cost-effective way to get our brand out in front of as many eyes as possible, whether it’s existing customers we’ve already worked with or finding new customers.
Ryan: So, everybody, I’d like to introduce you to Lorraine Ball, with Digital Toolbox, and she is going to share her presentation of Build Reach Without Breaking the Bank. So, let’s give Lorraine a hand.
Lorraine: Hi everybody.
Lorraine: Ryan, do I have I have shared screen capabilities now? Yes, I do.
Lorraine: OK, hold on. Bear with me, alright. So, can everybody see my slides?
Lorraine: I love, I love when technology works.
Lorraine: Alright, so Ryan has asked me to talk about how to build reach without breaking the bank, and so, I’m definitely going to give you some tips there, just a quick introduction.
Lorraine: There we go. This is me. In addition to being a digital strategist, I host a podcast, and I’m an amateur photographer. I love taking pictures, so, if you follow me on pretty much any of the social channels, you may get a marketing tip or you may get a picture of a bunny rabbit. That’s just the day of the week, that’s what you get.
Lorraine: So, when I look at this topic, How to build reach, the first question I always ask is, why do you want to build reach?
Lorraine: And that’s not a trick question people. Because, you see, there are, when it comes to marketing, there are three primary things you can do with your marketing. You can build reach, engagement, or conversion. Reach is that top of the funnel. Putting your message out there to as many people as you possibly can. Engagement is that second level of interacting with people who have already been introduced to you, and conversion is getting people to take that next step, getting people to fill out a form on your website, pick up a telephone, drop by your office.
Lorraine: Here’s the hard, cold, ugly truth. You can’t do it all with one campaign. There is no one thing that’s going to take someone from start to finish, and I think this is where a lot of business owners make a mistake. They spend a lot of money on reach or a lot of effort on reach, and then they’re like, but I didn’t get any sales. That’s not what reach does.
Lorraine: Let me say that again. If you’re looking to close sales, don’t spend money on reach. Reach is very specifically going to work if you are a new business where people don’t know who you are, you don’t have a community. You are an existing business, and you have a new product.
Lorraine: Something, my apologies, I have a very noisy cat in the background and he may hop up on the desk at some point and say hello.
Lorraine: If you have a new product, something that either your current audience is not familiar with, or maybe it’s something that fits an entirely different audience. Maybe you are redefining your business and you want to go after a new target audience, then reach makes sense, and the last place where reach does make sense, is when you plateau.
Lorraine: Well, you’ve built your marketing, you have a community. You’ve got all this going on, but where you used to get so many leads through your pipeline, that’s kind of falling flat, you’re not doing anything different, but all of a sudden nothing seems to be working.
Lorraine: These are times that you need to invest in reach and invest can either be time or money.
Lorraine: What I want to remind you is that reach is not the end goal. It’s not just about, well, I put that out there and I got 5000 views, good for you. What are you going to do as a follow up? And that’s really important.
Lorraine: So, let’s talk about building reach. First thing is, you gotta remember as, and small business owners don’t always put these two things in equal categories, it takes either time or money. You want to build reach fast, run some ads. You can run Facebook ads and you can build reach very, very quickly. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s going to get really expensive, but you can do it and with a little practice you can do it well.
Lorraine: But if you don’t, if you don’t want to do that, then you have to invest your time. What I always encourage business owners to do, however, is to put a value on your time. I just spent an hour on that, it’s no big deal. OK, what’s an hour of your time worth? What else can you be doing with that time?
Lorraine: Yeah, I can, I can spend an hour working on a video or creating a social media post or I can do this, that generates sales, or I can do this, that does something else in my business. So, put a value on your time and decide, is it worth $125 to spend an hour on that, or is it worth $50.00 or whatever you value your time at, but make sure you’re trading, you’re, you’re really equivalent, creating a good metric of what am I, you know, what am I spending time or money? Because even when you spend time, you’re spending money. OK.
Lorraine: Earlier I said reach is not the end goal. It isn’t and it is not about just throwing stuff out there and shooting the video in your car or putting up a post on social media and hoping that people like it. That’s, that’s going to waste a lot of your time and you may get reach, but it’s a vanity metric cause it’s not going to move people through your pipeline.
Lorraine: So, you got to start, step back, and start with a plan. Ask yourself, who do you want to reach? Are you, you know, are you looking for anyone with skin? If you’re a Mary Kay lady and you’re like, OK, I’m gonna look for everybody with skin. OK. Or, a chiropractor who’s like, well, anybody with a spine can use my product, and you can go that broad on your reach.
Lorraine: I don’t necessarily think it’s the best thing to do, but you can, when you narrow it down, when you focus in, and sometimes, even if you focus in really tight, you actually are going to get better results when you stop trying to create content for everybody, and you’re a chiropractor and you decide, I’m just going to put content out there for people who are experiencing this very specific type of lower back pain. And in your mind, you’re thinking, but what about all those other people? Don’t worry about them. You can do something else for them.
Lorraine: Because when you put very specific content out there, you will attract people who have that more specific need. They are more likely to engage and respond when you decide who you’re talking to, then you can decide what you want them to know, what you want them to do, how you want them to engage. And then create that type of content and create content that will answer their question.
Lorraine: Now when it comes to building reach and in the digital world, every time I do a presentation, and I’ve been doing this for probably 15 years running around the country talking about digital marketing. Every time I do this and I say this is what’s working, I always have to follow it with now this is what’s working today. The algorithm can change tomorrow. Some new platform can emerge, some new technology that will completely change what I’m about to say. But in this moment at this snapshot in time, the very best way to build, to build reach is short form video.
Lorraine: And short form video is anywhere from 10, I say 10 to 60 seconds. It’s actually 10 to 59, would be very, very specific about that. 59 seconds, be hardcore, because if you flip over into 60, you end up in a very different place on all social media platforms.
Lorraine: Where this came from, TikTok has absolutely transformed how we watch video and how we interact and engage with with with video. Now, I’m not saying you necessarily have to jump on TikTok. I’m saying TikTok was the thought leader, and as a matter of fact with some of the things going on right now, some of the proposed legislation to force ByteDance to sell TikTok, there’s a lot of people that are actually backing away from this channel. But the impact of TikTok has transformed Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. They’ve all copied the short form platforms, you’ve got Reels on YouTube, you have Shorts.
Lorraine: I’m going to tell you, on my YouTube channel. A typical video might get 5, 6, 10 views. It’s not a big channel. A typical short may get 2, 3, 4 hundred in that same time period. And that’s because Facebook, Instagram, YouTube are all biasing to short form content.
Lorraine: They have seen what TikTok has done and they’re like, ohh, people like short form content. OK, if you share Reels from your Facebook page, if you share reels on Instagram, or shorts on YouTube, you’re going to get priority visibility in the search when people are browsing those platforms.
Lorraine: Remember that YouTube is a Google product. OK, so I’m going to talk about, you know, I’m going to talk about that in a minute. But remember that Google, YouTube is a Google product. I’m going to come back to that.
Lorraine: LinkedIn kind of experimented with Reels, and they were calling them Stories, and they’re kind of there, but they’re not there. But short form video is working there as well.
Lorraine: I’m having more success on YouTube, I’m sorry, I’m having more success on LinkedIn. When I take the video and I turn it, I actually rotate it 90 degrees and do more traditional 16 by, 16 by 9 rather than the 9 by 16 format.
Lorraine: Some short form tips, this is not random. Do not hop into your car today and shoot a video and go, OK, I did my-, no. You want to be authentic but polished. It doesn’t mean it has to be really stuffy, but it does mean that you have a certain plan. There’s a certain professionalism.
Lorraine: Make sure when you shoot your video, take a minute and look at what’s in your background. I had a guy who shot a whole series of videos, and he was shooting it kind of in his closet because the sound was really good, and he had a flower pot coming out of his head. He looked like an idiot and so he had zero credibility.
Lorraine: Again, you don’t have to be in a professional studio, but make sure that what’s framing you, you know, have a little bit of art behind you, kind of a clean space. If you want, like what Marcus is doing, blur your background a little, but make it look a little polished.
Lorraine: The other thing that you can do with your video to make it look polished is use a tool, use some of the video editing tools. There are video editing tools now available on your phone. I really like Canva. You can drop the video in, and there are already these really professional backgrounds that you can brand, so it’s a very distinctive message, but it’s branded for you.
Lorraine: Now, what do you put in your video? FAQs, how to, tips. Think about all the questions that you get asked. Behind the scenes, how does stuff get done?
Lorraine: One of the very best videos, this is going to sound so silly. When I owned the marketing company, one Monday morning, I took the camera and I had somebody follow me through the office and I gave people a tour of our building. Oh my God, that video got tons of views. And we even got a call from somebody who felt like they knew us after that.
Lorraine: Customer testimonials. One of the best things you can do is put lots of faces in your YouTube channel. I get good feedback on my videos, you know, when I do a podcast episode, but I get better engagement and interaction when I feature somebody else.
Lorraine: And lastly, this is not a sales pitch, people. Do not use your 10 to 60, 10 to 59 seconds to talk about you. Nobody cares. This is reach. This is where you introduce ideas. This is where you present answers to questions. This is where you build credibility that earns you the right, in your follow up content, to then offer more of a pitch.
Lorraine: Oh, God, Lorraine, I don’t have time for this. I just, I don’t have time for this. That’s OK. You can spend money instead. If you want to do it, here are some ways that you can maximize the time you’re spending.
Lorraine: Number one, don’t shoot one video at a time. I mean, OK guys, you always look better. But women, you know the drill, we’re going to put hair, we’re going to do makeup. We’re going to make sure the lighting is right. Guys, pay attention to the lighting too. You’re going to focus on your background, going to get everything set up and you’re going to do a 10 second video. You’re going to spend 30 minutes to get a 10 second video? No.
Lorraine: Get your act together and do half a dozen videos at the same time. Do one long form video that you can maybe use somewhere else, and then you’re going to cut it up using those editing software, and you’re going to have content for six weeks after one hour of shooting and editing video. Make your time count.
Lorraine: Edit and add a little Polish and then adjust for platforms. The long form works really well on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, the horizontal works better on Twitter and on LinkedIn, so play with your backgrounds.
Lorraine: I now have a design that works really well. Because I shoot it long and then when I turn it, I actually put my text on the side to, basically, I don’t have to do any editing to the video, I just kind of slide it over a little bit and move the text and it’s really fast.
Lorraine: And this last thing I said earlier that you know, YouTube is a Google product. What that means is that words get, words are valued so, when you post video, add a description, think about your keywords, use hashtags, and link to other content.
Lorraine: Now a lot of times, on my shorts, people don’t see the description, but they do on the traditional videos and over time I’ve seen traffic coming from, it’s not just that I’m building a community on YouTube, I also get traffic to my site. OK, I am done talking about video. Go shoot some.
Lorraine: Let’s talk about some other stuff. You got to have a blog. Lorraine, I don’t have time for a blog. Too damn bad. If you’re looking for SEO, if you’re looking for content to share that is not video, you need to write long form content.
Lorraine: Now I will tell you my favorite cheat, I have earned a living for 20 years writing. Copywriting, web copy, blah blah blah blah blah. I’m not a writer, so, what do I do? I whip out my phone and I dictate. I talk, because that’s what I do. Yeah, you may have noticed, I talk for a living. This is kind of like who I am. So, I dictate and then I upload my audio files to otter.co- I think it’s Otter, O-T-T-E-R-dot-I-O.
Lorraine: And they transcribe it. And it’s not perfect. The more you stumble over your words, the more editing you will need to do. But, you’re 2/3 of the way to a blog post. I struggle sometimes for a good opening, and I stare at that sheet of paper or my computer screen. But I don’t stare if you put a phone in front of me, I just start talking. And it is the simplest, easiest way to get great content that answers those questions, and you can pretend you’re talking to a buyer.
Lorraine: You can actually upload, if you do conference calls like this and you record them with your clients, upload that video to Otter and it will transcribe it. There’s a free version and then there is a paid version. There are limitations with the free version. The paid version, I think, is $119 a year. It’s really reasonable if you’re using it.
Lorraine: Otter. Yes, Deanna. O-T-T-E-R-dot-I-O.
Lorraine: Next thing, once you create this blog post, just like I told you with video, divide it up into smaller pieces, and that becomes a series of social media updates that all tie back to that same piece of content.
Lorraine: Create multiple graphics. And every so often go back and share it with a new picture. You always have new people out there who are going to see your stuff, and so having that new picture helps, kind of, catch new attention of new people. And then distribute that on social media platforms. Now- wrong one.
Lorraine: You need to have friends. You won’t get noticed by yourself, and so you need to have strategies. You belong to these networking groups. Take this same relationship that you are creating in these groups online.
Lorraine: Number one, use them to game the algorithm. On just about every social media platform, the algorithm notices when a post gets likes, shares, and comments, and it is more likely to present that content, whether it’s a video or a blog post, to a wider audience. And so, this works really well on LinkedIn, but it does work on the other platforms.
Lorraine: I have a little chat group, it’s I don’t know, maybe ten women that all serve a similar market to me. And what we agree to do is, I will do a blog post or an update or a video or something on LinkedIn, and then I grab the link to the content, and I share it in the group and say hey, need a little love. And the next thing I know, my colleagues will comment, share, like, share on their platform, interact and so suddenly this little post that maybe had a few views, gets a few 100 views, because as we are interacting, now, their friends and family, or friends and family, but their friends and coworkers or colleagues see their comment on my post and I get introduced to a much wider audience. And then in return I do the same for them.
Lorraine: Now, you can’t abuse it. I can’t put a post in there every day and expect people to continue to support me. But, one, I pick one post a week, most of us do, and there’s plenty of love to go around. And so, every post that I do, gets that wider exposure. It does work on Facebook, but again it’s much better on LinkedIn right now. Facebook is so obsessed with trying to get their ads to work in their metaverse and Reels, it’s hard to get their attention. But, LinkedIn is, their algorithm is still paying attention to this now.
Lorraine: You need high quality comments, and again I’m going to go back to LinkedIn. This same rule will apply everywhere else. High quality comments are 10 words or more. Likes and shares are, kind of, almost ignored.
Lorraine: So, you’re flipping through the timeline, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, you ain’t doing squat. I mean, you might get noticed by one person. Big whoop.
Lorraine: You wanna get noticed by a lot of people? You wanna get reach? Read the post, watch the video, whatever it is they’re sharing, and then say something that actually adds value. Ask a follow up question, share something that you know and start that conversation.
Lorraine: Two things happen. #1, other people will see your comment and react, interact, engaged, and again you start becoming noticed by a lot more people. Now the person who shared that post in their timeline, my name shows up. Not only do I do this with my friends, but I will carve out time to do this with thought leaders in my space, remember I told you time or money, I could run an ad to try to get the attention of these people or I could look at what, and I, I don’t do Neil Patel and people that are way top, because they get so many comments. It’s just not even worth it. Not even that mid-tier.
Lorraine: People that have 5 to 10,000 followers. So, they’re kind of in my sphere. I will read their posts, I will comment. I will look at other people who have commented on their comments and I will comment on that. So, I’ll pick people in their feed who are also engaging and engage with them. Every time I do that, it’s bringing wider reach.
Lorraine: When you’re looking at social strategies, things to keep in mind. Groups versus pages.
Lorraine: The primary purpose for pages it gives you that anchor. It allows you to advertise and most of the platforms ignore you. When was the last time that you really got a lot of engagement on your Facebook page or your LinkedIn page? I can tell you it was September of 2017 when Facebook changed their algorithm.
Lorraine: Right now, today, in this moment, both Facebook and LinkedIn are biasing for groups. Have you noticed that if you belong to a group suddenly your feed is filled with updates from that group? Facebook has figured out that people really do want to talk to other people who they’ve said they want to talk to?
Lorraine: And so, you want to expand your reach, join relevant groups. Share relevant content, no advertising. Don’t be doing that. Don’t be putting your ad in somebody else’s group. You will get kicked out of the group. But if you are in the home services business, join homeowner groups, and neighborhood associations, and participate in the conversations. Let them get to know you. And at some point, you’ll have an opportunity to say, oh, yeah, this is like if somebody says, OK, My neighborhood page, hey, does anybody know a plumber? I’m looking to get my carpets clean. Looking for this or that. I’m going to say, oh, yeah, you know, I use so and so.
Lorraine: Now some neighborhood and community groups only allow people who live in the neighborhood. Some are a little bit more open. Look for those. If you’re a business group, join those groups and then follow that same strategy.
Lorraine: Put notes on the pages in the groups. Interact with other people that are interacting on those pages. It’s called social media, people. It’s about being social.
Lorraine: Last thing, Google My Business again. Google loves Google and until they are replaced by another search engine, you need to play by their rules. If you do not have a Google My Business page, get one, build it, it’s easy, search How do I create a Google My Business page, and do it.
Lorraine: And then the really cool thing, all of this content that you’re creating for everywhere else. Just share it there, make it part of your regular social media updates. Make sure you’ve got good descriptions and keywords, but, we’ve seen, and it depends on the business B2C much more than B2B, but we had a carpet client, and we had been managing their Google My Business page and posting regularly and repeating. You can repeat, oh my God, we would repeat the same posts over and over again, like once a month, we had the same stuff coming up, a little bit of new and a lot of the same. We were generating probably 400 phone calls a month. That’s not an exaggeration. Running Google ads for his business would cost $20 a phone call. And we were generating 4 and 500 phone calls just with content. You do the math.
Lorraine: It is staggering, clicks to his website – thousands, and again in his industry you were paying 10 and $15 a click and we were generating so much, we finally convinced him to stop paying for his Google ads, he didn’t need to, he needed to be creating more content for his Google My Business page. OK.
Lorraine: I’m sorry that I’m cutting out. Hopefully I’m back now. I’ll sit still and stop pulling on my headset.
Lorraine: All right, so, if you want to learn more on a lot of these topics, definitely check out DigitalToolbox.Club. I will put in the chat a link. We have a nice digital marketing plan workbook. It’s free. I’ll just put a link to it. You can, you can download that. And of course, look for more than a few words, wherever you listen to podcasts, the episodes are between 1 minute and 10 minutes and you can find the videos on YouTube with that.
Marcus: I got one for you, Lorraine.
Lorraine: Yes, sir?
Marcus: So yeah, we’ve been in business for about 12 years. I’ve been part of it for 6. I was owner-operator, working in the field until I was able to finally pull out. So, just as of about a year ago, I’ve started working on the business instead of in the business. We don’t have, I just started a LinkedIn profile like two or three months ago, so can you give me some guidance there, what do you, what do you recommend? Like Kennected, the company Kennected, or somewhere like, get in there and really build.
Lorraine: I have, I’ve never paid for my LinkedIn, so unless you are going to be doing hardcore lead generation from LinkedIn, like, if you know you’re going to be really aggressively, and you need the extra contact, contacts very quickly, I don’t think that that’s necessarily valuable. I would be a little bit aggressive on just building the network on your own. Spend some time, upload your address book. You can do that and it’ll automatically pull out everybody in your contact form that you can then go, hey, we’re connected, do you want to connect here? And, you know, so it’ll be a lot of your former clients. It’ll be coworkers. And and do it that way.
Lorraine: Again, more organically, you’re going to get, you’re going to get connections with people who you are legitimately connected to and that that will create much more value than buying a lot of contacts that may or may not ever do business with you.
Marcus: Yeah, I’m looking to grow more of the commercial side of my business, the residential, I think, grows fairly organically just because we’ve been around for a long time. People like us and trust us and use us.
Lorraine: So, I would, I would definitely start with your address book there, too, because you’ve got commercial contacts. You know, you’ve got property managers in your address book, you’ve got building owners, start with that. And then if you’re not, if it’s not coming fast enough, then I might look at one of the paid services, but I always, always advocate that you can do so much just on your own before you kind of make that leap.
Lorraine: Can that help?
Lorraine: Also, you may not be aware, but you can download your LinkedIn contacts and if they have an e-mail address in their contact, you will get that e-mail address and then you can add them. Kind of, like, to an e-mail campaign. I’d be very careful, I’d put them on a separate list, and I would say, hey, you’re getting this because we’re connected on LinkedIn, but you can unsubscribe because you don’t want to get dinged or marked as spam.
Lorraine: And I had 6000 contacts on LinkedIn and I had 3000 people on my e-mail list and I was like OK. There’s all these people, and you find out really quick who your friends really are.
Lorraine: OK. Other questions.
Lorraine: Well, I’ll tell you what. If you give me just a minute, I will put a link to that free workbook in the chat. There it is.
Marcus: I do have one more question for you. So, long form video, what about going live? What’s, what’s your?
Lorraine: I cheat. I use StreamYard, Restream does the same thing. I shoot the videos and most of the time, except Friday morning, any other time you see me live, I live, I’ve shot it in advance. I’ve cleaned up the video, and then I push it out to the streaming services as if it was live. Friday morning with Jen, that’s the only time I do a live live, and even that we usually spend some time right before we go live, making sure we know what we’re going to talk about and stuff like that. If you’re really good and really comfortable, yeah, it can work. If you have the least bit of hesitation about that, I would cheat and I would do it the way I do it.
Lorraine: It also, what I find is that very often, when people go live, they ramble. And their message is not as concise and the attention span of your audience is that of a flea. So, before you make your point, they’ve given up on you. And so, that’s kind of why I, why I do the cheats, why I do the pre-record and then go live.
Marcus: And you said StreamYard or Restream?
Lorraine: StreamYard, Restream. I’m sure there are others. I’ve used StreamYard forever. And again, what I like about StreamYard, reasonable in price, and I can push it to several channels at the same time, so I can go live on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, all at the same time.
Lorraine: Now, in order to go live on LinkedIn, you have to be approved as a creator. So, the first thing you want to do is apply to be a LinkedIn creator. If you haven’t done that, that will allow you to create newsletters which are just your blog posts repurposed, doesn’t even have to be new content. But, the advantage to that is LinkedIn will e-mail that newsletter to all of your subscribers, so, my newsletter goes out once a week and it goes to like 1500 people, but it goes out under a LinkedIn umbrella, not a Loraine Ball umbrella, so there’s that extra level of credibility.
Lorraine: And Deanna, how do I find more podcasts to be on? Oh, my God, there are so many referral sites. I would start with PodMatch. That’s where I actually get a lot of my guests. I would look at, oh, Amplify, PodcastGuests.com. I would just search, you know, apply to be a podcast guest and all of these different sites will show up.
Lorraine: If you’re going to be a pod-, if you want to be on podcasts, if that’s kind of your thing, a little bit of advice there, too many people, because I get now, OK, my podcast is 13 years old. I’ve got almost 850 episodes, so I’ve been around a while. I get easily 20 applications a week. And I typically ignore, I typically dismiss 19 to 20 of them because they start with, this is who I am, I’m fabulous. Won’t you be lucky to have me?
Lorraine: How do you start a pitch that actually works? I listen to a couple of your episodes. This is what I like. This is what I can offer your audience. And here’s how I can help promote it. Those are the pitches that podcasters pay attention to. Pitches that have a page and 1/2 bio of somebody, I don’t even read the bio. I don’t. I just don’t even bother because it’s very clear that all you’re doing is cutting and pasting that same bio in every single show, hoping somebody will notice. And the only people that will notice you are people that don’t have much of a, not that, don’t have much of an audience and aren’t getting a lot of requests, you know, they’re not getting a lot of pitches, which tells you something about the show to begin with.
Lorraine: There was something else I was going to say on that, I have no idea.
Lorraine: The other thing I do is when you start, like, if I have somebody who’s a good guest. I’m going to look and see who else do they know. When I’ve been a guest on somebody else’s podcast, number one, I share the crap out of it when it goes live. I mean, I, you would think it was the only podcast I was ever on, but I want that host to invite me back and I want that host to suggest that maybe, you know, hey, I’ve got a friend who’s also got a podcast. I think you’d be great. The podcast community is smaller than you think.
Lorraine: OK, great, Ryan. We’re good.
Ryan: Does anyone else have any questions for Lorraine?
Ryan: Alright, well, let’s give her a hand for her presentation today.
Lorraine: Thanks guys, this was fun.
