167: How to Build Trust In Marketing Your Design Firm
Michele 00:00
Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice. Joining us today is Andy Seeley, CEO and co founder of Creatively Disruptive, which is a digital marketing agency built by as they call it, a team of professional nerds that works together as small business champions. Andy is a small business marketing expert committed to helping businesses keep up with the latest algorithms, which we know kind of feel like they're shifting, we'll talk about that a little bit, and making sure that they get their money's worth for their online advertising. And we're going to talk a lot today about remarketing campaigns, and about just email marketing and why it is so important. And so I hope you enjoyed this podcast.
Michele 00:49
Every day empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health, and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design, industry, educator and Speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice.
Michele 01:23
Hi, Andy, welcome to the podcast.
Andy Seely 01:25
Hello. I'm happy to be here.
Michele 01:27
I am so glad to talk to you today. Before we get started in kind of the meat and potatoes around marketing, share with our listeners if you would Andy a little bit of your history and your story. And what brought you to create the firm Creatively Disruptive.
Andy Seely 01:45
Yeah, we started the firm in 2015. Six years ago, there was a spin off company from another firm that I owned, another media outlet, it was more of a media outlet than a than a marketing agency that focused on tourism. So we did a lot of work with restaurant sorry, restaurants and resorts and hotels and you know, tourism type activities and so forth in the Reno Tahoe area. We had San Francisco, San Diego, and Nashville, Tennessee. Funny enough, we, you know, we ended up selling that media company, mainly because we felt a little restricted to who we could help. And we would definitely going down the media consultancy kind of route with that company. Even though we were a media company in itself. I mean, I found myself often times talking to clients with that company, and saying, hey, you should you should also be advertising in this medium and doing these things which had nothing to do with what I was telling them. And I was like, you know, maybe we need to actually be looking at another kind of way to do this, where we can really help businesses. And I like the thought of being able to help a lot of smaller businesses that weren't necessarily tied to just tourism, right, and local locale areas, I wanted to help businesses all over the all over the country and potentially all over the world. And that's kind of like where it came in. I met up with my cousin. And he's much more technical. And he's much more on the analytical, technical kind of side of things. I'm much more on the messaging and in the in the revenue driving side of things. And it was a little bit of a match made in heaven. And you know, six years later, we're doing phenomenally well with 80 plus clients across the United States, the UK, and Australia. And things are going really well. And then obviously, you know, the last that you know what's been going on in the last year or two years, has really kicked things off to another level altogether, with the pandemic and the push towards online. Here the online industry has is probably you're really starting to hit a golden age at the moment then. So you feel very blessed. And it's been a nice, nice journey. And then prior to that other business that we had I was I was in television. I was in a I was a sales director for a television for a number of years. So we've always been in the media kind of realm.
Michele 04:24
That's awesome. So quite a varied career there.
Andy Seely 04:28
Yeah, I'd like to think so. never boring that way.
Michele 04:32
Well, Andy, you and I just started having some conversation when I was like, hold up, hold up, I need to hit the play button or the record button because we don't want to miss this. One of the things that I really wanted to focus on in our conversation. They were a couple things. One is you I know that you love to talk about tools and strategies to increase digital visibility. And that's so important. I think everything's becoming number We know it's digital, but also, you know, video and all these things. And as you know, the listeners here are mostly those that are in the interior design industry. So the things that we're doing, are making other things more beautiful. And so it's very visual in nature, and the people willing to look at what we do, right, so many of our design art clients of the designers in the in the work rooms in the stagers that I support, you know, they're usually hanging out on Facebook, and Pinterest, and Instagram and places like that. And then in some cases, you know, when you're moving more into a corporate setting, we may see LinkedIn pop up a bit more. But um, I you had mentioned to me and I think this is interesting. So I'd like to start a little bit with what you were sharing with me about your story of looking for a designer and what you notice was missing, just from your own research. And then let's this parlay that if you will, into, for those of us listening, how we can take the lessons learned from somebody who was looking for a designer and what you saw, and then you know how we could solve that if we are in our area, because it's often where we get the most insight when we talk to somebody who's kind of if you will work through our process, or gone through it and said, Hey, wait, hold up. Something's missing. Yeah. You mentioned that you and your wife had bought a home in the Greater Phoenix area. A little over a year, ago, I think you said.
Andy Seely 06:32
Yep. Yep, we, yeah, we bought a home in the Greater Phoenix area about 11 months ago. And we didn't, we did buy a house, we had bought a home we living in it. And at the time, and probably still to a degree now. Although as you start getting furniture and stuff into the house, that makes it harder and harder, right? But at the time we, we were like, Okay, we've got this, this nice, nice size homes about 3000 square feet, we want to have it feel like a vacation, right? We've kind of like wanted to be like a build, like a resort, we build a backyard and a pool and everything around it. And our first thought was, we should find a designer, a designer to give us some, you know, pointers and to help us in the direction. And you know, we had, if I'm honest, we have zero knowledge of even how interior design firms work, or how it goes and whatever. So as most people, when do we go on to Google start looking for interior design companies? And if I'm honest, it's because they're very fractured all over the place, very disorganized kind of result that we got, you know, it was hard to find any, at least without Google searches and so forth. And then most of them that came up, they didn't, they didn't quite feel quite right. They felt a little a little disorganized. That was the impression that we got. And, you know, even though we had looked at a few design, companies, websites, and so forth, after doing some pretty serious searching, there was no like follow up, there was no, there was no, there was no efforts to capture our email addresses to continue talking to us and to remarket to us there was no remarketing efforts, or very little remarketing efforts going on, meaning there wasn't, you know, typically like for us, if we've given given give you an example, if you go to creatively disruptive calm, there's a good chance that that when you leave it that you'll get follow up ads on Facebook and Instagram where where there'll be ads kind of Al's coming up remarketing to you because we know that you've come to our website. And now it's like, Okay, well, we know that they come to our website now with that show that shows that there's some kind of interest, some kind of impedance. So we want to stay in front of them and top of mind, because often times it's not quite right, right. It's not but not the right timing or whatever it is a lot of reasons why somebody might go to your website and not be a customer. And that doesn't mean that you don't you just forget about them. It means Okay, we need to build that list of people that at some point, looked at your website, because that shows them hands that shows that maybe they are thinking about something or they've got something on their mind. And we want to make sure that we're continuously marketing, there was none of that we never got any kind of remarketing to us. And ultimately, it was just a little bit. You know, we just never really found the right person. We never really felt like we connected with anybody. And it didn't. It seemed like a bit of an industry that was disinterested if I'm honest, we had a budget, we didn't have a mass. It wasn't a massive budget, but it was in the year 1000s or 10s of 1000s that we were potentially going to look to put towards this. So it would have been a decent little job I'm thinking again, really not knowing the industry. And how much things cost and everything, I have no clue. Because we didn't end up using working with the designer, my wife ended up finding a local neighbor that has some design experience. And they kind of hashed it out together and figured some stuff out. And, you know, I think they've done a decent job. But I always wonder, you know, I wonder what the experience would have been if we actually found a professional, and how that would have gone and how much happier we might have been. And, you know, obviously, you know, if we were going down a route that we were really happy with, maybe we would have ended up spending more, but maybe we would have been happier with the result. So my takeaway was that, it felt like as an industry, at least in the Phoenix area, that from a marketing standpoint, a winning of client standpoint, it was kind of a very much a second rate thing, we actually spoke to one interior designer, but it was a big turnoff, if I'm honest, she was very, I felt like she was just a little bit too busy for us, and, you know, gave loads of restrictions as to when she could come over for the initial console. And, and I and she was asking for a payment to just come and have that initial consult, which I'm sure is not unreasonable. And I didn't think that was unreasonable. But I felt it was unreasonable that it was like I won, you're going to pay for me to come over and to I'm going to come over whenever I would like to come over, which wasn't always very good for us. Because we you know, we've got a little boy, and I'm running a company and blah, blah, blah. And we ended up just saying, you know, Thanks, but no thanks. And there was no ongoing marketing, even from here, even though she had our email, email addresses, even though she had a lot of information, there was no ongoing, kind of like, follow up, you know, she didn't know necessarily know that we kind of got turned off by her attitude. And maybe we could have had that turned around if we actually saw some stuff and, and saw how our processes were and so forth. And it just seemed like a little bit of a and I don't know if it's if it's normal, but uh, you know, I've spoken to friends and family that have actually looked into this too. And it's always been a little bit of a scary, a scary industry to get involved with, mainly because it seems a little aloof, if that makes sense. And that seems to be what I've heard from from meaning. It doesn't need to be that way. I think when I think of if I do, and I'm not an interior designer at all, but let's say I was let's like, wave my magic wand and turn myself into an interior designer, but keeping my digital marketing head on. You're what interior designers develop is amazing potential content. Right? It's content is keen, in, you know, in online marketing and digital marketing content is, is the key part two success. I would imagine that if I was a pretty good graphic designer, there would be a lot of things that I could look at, I apologize, I've got a little puppy here that is barking. So if it's coming through on the on the sky cool, I apologize in advance.
Michele 13:14
There is a lot of opportunity, though. So let's talk about what those opportunities are. I wrote down a couple of things that you said. And before we jump into that I will share with you number one, I think you also fell into what a lot of people have fallen into and that is these last 11 months, even probably all the way back to about Yeah, I guess we're probably maybe even 12 to 14 months, our industry has exploded. And when I say stupid busy, I mean Crazy, Stupid busy, to the point that everybody got sent home. So the same way your business has kind of exploded with everything moving online. Our business in our industry has exploded with everybody moving home and going oh snap, I need to change this house. Because I'm sitting in these, you know, four walls, if you will. And so some of what you may have picked up from that particular designer that you spoke with that buisiness and that hurriedness is actually probably the stressed out nature of our industry right now. We I have some of my clients that I'm not even kidding you, Andy, they are booked out all we're recording this in around mid August, they are booked out through the end of 2022 going into 2023 with people just waiting and I'm hearing it everywhere because we cannot physically number one, get to them fast enough. But number two, the cost of everything is going up and we can't get supplies because of you know COVID and then things traveling in and the breaks and everything. So we are dealing with an industry right now. Where there is a huge demand. It sounds like a boom, huge demand, a lot of overwhelm. And then a lot of now, how do I do this? Now, I'm also going to say, there is an entire area of those designers that are new, or that are in areas that may be right there can't support what they do, right. So maybe they're in a more rural area, and they have to drive into, you know, a more metropolitan area to do their work. That happens a lot as well. And so, you know, we see a little bit of everything. So, number one, I hate that all that happened to you. But I will say just, you know, to give grace to the industry, everybody is just crazy right now.
15:42
It sounds like from a marketing standpoint, that marketing, it's a little bit like contractors, because we work with a number of contractors, a few, actually, many contractors don't really need a lot more work, they've got a lot of work. And they actually overwhelmed, although a couple of the couple of contractors that we work with, obviously, are in the same situation, but they're looking for a certain type of work same and, and just waiting for people to reach out to you through. And what they've learned is just waiting for people to reach out to you through referrals, kinda takes the control out of your business as to who you want to work with. Obviously, you know, with referrals, if you're, if you've got a high end client that's referring someone is probably likely another high end client, but maybe it's a high end client in a certain area that you want to be working with maby, it's certain types of design that you want to attract people that like that kind of design. Because just because someone's a high end client might not be a good fit. Right, exactly. Yeah. You know, I think with the digital marketing, and that's what you know, our contractors definitely have found is that they can attract that client that's right for them. And I know for us for our marketing ourselves, we try to attract attract a certain kind of client, right, we want a certain type of client that we know, we're going to have the most chance of success. And we want to limit the kind of clients that we not going to have as much success with and not saying that those clients that those people that we want to limit are not good for somebody else. Exactly. Just not right for us. And we're actually in reality, we're not very good for them. We're not we wouldn't be the right fit for them. And I think digital marketing is not just about being busy. It's about actually crafting your business with the right client base on your demand, if that makes sense.
Michele 17:30
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Totally agree with that. So so let me I want to back up and talk about you. One of the things that I made note of was you said they didn't even try to catch my email, talk a little bit about the right way to catch an email. I mean, there's certainly a lot of wrong ways to catch it. Right. Right. And we know about that. And that, you know, I think I know that even I sometimes am fearful of not having, you know, double authentication or everybody like agreeing 14 times that I can email them. And so I sometimes even get hesitant, without really making sure that I can email somebody, and then I have others that turn around. And if they even see my email somewhere else, they're snagging it and emailing me. So that you know, you see, I guess what I'm saying here, Andy, as we see things on both sides, talk to us a little about a little bit about what is how I'm going to say the best way, the most relational way that doesn't feel salesy. And so sometimes when people want my email what feels it? What is the best way if somebody if you had visited an interior design, website, looking, let's say you had done your Google search, it had given you four or five really great results, you went to that website? Let's talk about that for just a minute. From a digital perspective, what would you have set a rate and a great and a feel good way to gather your email? And then I want to talk to you about what we would do with that.
Andy Seely 19:01
Yeah, so email marketing, the best email marketing is never paid, come and do business with me, he is 5% off, right? That's, that that's not good email marketing, or, hey, sign up to my email list and get $10 off but you turn those off an order or 50% off the order or whatever, whatever it is that in my mind, that's really not what you're looking for what you look, what you're looking for, especially in industries where there's a lot of IP where its intellectual property, which definitely interior designers, with ideas, right it's it's a shopping and sales, sailing of ideas and we're in the same kind of thing. It's, it's knowledge and ideas and thoughts and the best way in my mind, and if I again, if I put my you know, if I became an interior designer, where we would go with this would be to build a list which is full of fear of missing out kind of feeling so It's like, Hey, if you're interested, you know, sign up to my email list and get some timely tips and ideas on how to, you know, design, you know, design your home, or build the home of your dreams kind of thing, right? Where, because people are always looking for ideas, and especially if somebody has gone to your website, you know that that's what they're looking for, you know, 90% of the people that are probably going to the interior designers website, trying to find ideas, trying to get answers trying to get thoughts, trying to figure out, you know, what, what they're looking for. I mean, the reason why people hire interior designers, from my standpoint, as somebody who's going to hire one is that we're a bit bereft of ideas.
Michele 20:44
Right, right.
Andy Seely 20:44
We know kind of what, what we want to feel when we walk into our house, but we like how do we how do we create that with actual things in a plan?
Michele 20:53
Exactly. I love that you said that. So if all of my designers are listening here, we talk about all the time, we're selling feelings, not things, right, you just hit the nail on the head for that one. Okay, so we want to create this, let's call it this trade, right. And I'm going to give you these tips, these tricks, these ideas, these inspirations something, and an exchange, you're going to give me your email address, and then I'm going to be able to send you all this great information as we go.
Andy Seely 21:22
And the idea is that you're sending information that I'm going to be interested in looking at, what you don't want to be good at doing is getting people's emails and then just spamming them with a whole bunch of stuff about what you want. Right? Because, right, and with interior design, what I would be if I signed up for that, I'd be wanting to see some examples of some stuff that you've done. some thoughts on color palettes and different things that are going on the best people, at least from an IP online marketing, your email, email marketing standpoint, that I've seen have been people that are prepared to shoot have heard pretty much everything, but not they're not holding back. They're not like shit, you know, they're not going to show you how to make a Kentucky Fried Chicken with with seven spices, right? By going to how many spices in Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Michele 22:17
But I think it's a lot.
Andy Seely 22:18
More than seven, right? Yeah. But you know, we're not going to like show you 90% of it, or 80% of it, uh, not so. So it's like, Okay, I have to hire this person to actually really actually understand how this works. Most really good marketing, they kind of share it all, we share it, or we literally share every single thing that we know. Because it's not just about the knowledge of doing it, some people are DIY is some people are going to try to do it themselves are going to take your knowledge, and they're going to try to do it themselves. Or they might even learn how to do it, you might end up inspiring them to be interior designers, who knows, but the majority of the people probably 95% of the people that you're speaking to, don't have the time for it, don't have the inclination for it. And they just need to know that somebody is good at it, and that they feel really that, hey, Michele, She's the girl for me, she's going to actually be able to make my house to feel exactly how I want it to feel. And you're engendering that, that's kind of where you want to do go and being very free with your knowledge is a very powerful way of convincing somebody to do business with you. And the power of email is that it doesn't cost you anything once you've got it. So it costs you some effort and it costs you sharing some of your knowledge, but you're not paying 50 cents a click. Right, right. And, and, and it's something that's very shareable. It's something that like, let's say, I signed up to your email, and I was getting emails on like, man, I really like Michele's word, maybe I'll I'll hire her, maybe I do hire her but and then I continue getting emails and stuff from you, where it's been interesting stuff. It's not new advertising. To me, it's you sharing interesting things about interior design, and so forth, I'm much more likely to share it with my sister, I'm much more likely to share it with other friends and family members who might who I know might be looking, you might have just bought a home or so forth. And again, that's all free. And unlikely to do that. Because I'm like, hey, this, Michele's putting out some really good stuff. I want to help my friend by introducing her to Michele, and then they, they maybe sign up to your email list as well. And they say that over time, an email list is worth, you know, $25 on email, right? Because obviously, not everybody's gonna ever do business with you. But if you end up having 100,000 emails, you know, 25 times 100,000 you know, 2.52 point 5 million worth of of emails, right? And with different industries, that number is even higher. So that's 25 is like of all emails, that's emails selling, you know, $1 products up to you know, whatever. So the higher end cost those emails are worth even more over time. And it's tremendously effective and affects some of our clients. Because we would do paid advertising is probably a specialty. We do Facebook, obviously, Facebook, Instagram at the same platform, just slightly different presentations. And we do Google, we do CRM, which has conversion rate optimization, which is the new SEO, I guess, which is building websites that convert and get results. And, you know, we do email marketing and email marketing, over time ends up becoming about 30%, or 40%, of a company's business in conjunction with the paid advertising. The other thing about email marketing is if I do business with you, let's say, Michele, you come in and you help us with our home, what's the chances in a couple of years we want to make some changes? what's the what's the chances that we might want to update some things? What's the chances that we might want to do X, Y, Z? Now, we might have have run with what your what your idea was, what your what your thought was without design, and can do some stuff ourselves. But there's also a good chance that we might re reach out to you and say, Hey, Michele, would like to come back in and we want to redo some things. Can you give us some thoughts, and, and being connected by email, keeps you connected with us? You know, you see this with real estate agents. I mean, we had a really nice real estate agent that helped us purchase this house, and she stays in touch with us. And she actually does a very good job. She's not saying, Hey, would you like to sell your house and just constantly pushing stuff on us, she just seems little things out and just stays connected with us. And, you know, if we end up selling our house, and she stays connected with us, and we had a good experience with her, what's the likelihood that one, we might refer her to somebody else, one of our friends or two, we will use her again. And it's a it's a powerful thing. And I'm, I'm sure a lot of you, a lot of a lot of you or your listeners probably do some things, but we were I would highly recommend them to go, we'd be down the route of just being open and sharing and not not hold everything. And we literally, like we actually have a course, Michele, that we have got out there. If you go to creativity, disruptive comm we have a course. And you can actually sign up for free. Now we actually say pay what you can. But we say, pay whatever you want. And it's actually literally all of our knowledge on how to market yourself self as a small business owner online, that's everything, because we actually, it's actually a platform that we use to market out to help train our new staff members. And so you could pay if you want to, but there'll be up to you, or you can do zero, and you can actually sign up and what we get out of that is one you get your email address, you get to see that we know what we're doing. And it's a lot of information, as you could imagine with digital marketing. But we basically just, we give you 100% of our knowledge base. Our bet is that you're too busy or just don't have the inclination to do it.
Michele 27:58
Yeah, that's let's talk about that for just a second at because I think that is definitely something to hit on. You know, I had heard one time you can tell somebody what to do all day long. But the difference is do they have the time and the ability to do it. And that's why I know when I talk about when people are hiring us, they're not just hiring us for what we know they're hiring us for the expertise to implement it. Right? It kind of like I say to somebody, I said, Look, I know how to pull your tooth, I've watched plenty of YouTube videos, you probably don't want me to do it. I can't say that I have the expertise in it. But I can say I have the knowledge. And so sharing knowledge shouldn't be anything that scary. Even like you mentioned, not even understanding maybe how a full interior design process worked, or how the process worked for that designer, even just having a document that says how to choose the right designer for you what our process looks like, does it fit what you're looking for. And then you can create all kinds of information that actually set them up to what I would like to say is self edit. They're either self editing out, you're not my person, or they're self editing in, hey, let's go to the next stage. Because so far, this sounds great, and exactly what I'm looking for. And if we don't give them enough information to do that, for me, I know one of the things that I like to do if somebody signs up for a discovery call, I want to make sure that they've got lots of information before we get on the call together. So that they they already have a lot like I've already taught them stuff, sent them emails, sent them webinars, sent them educational content, so that they are more ready if they have if they have consumed that data. And that knowledge and that information. Like you said they know that I know what I'm doing. And by the time we get on the call, it's really just a timing kind of issue or an investment level kind of issue at that point. And so it just makes all the difference.
Andy Seely 29:57
Right and I'd say there's two types. customers that you can go after is the one that wants affordability. And they and they're constantly focused on pricing, right? Most of us, I mean, we don't we don't focus on that client, that's definitely a client that we're looking to avoid. We look, we're what we're looking for is clients that want a result, right? That focused on the result that you're looking for. We're not we're not looking for somebody who's, who wants to hire a digital marketer. And the the most important thing is to get it to be as cheap as possible. And I'm not at your, all the conversation with us when we're talking to them. You know, we do discovery calls to figure out if we're the right fit. We're not looking, you know, that person's constantly asking how much is it and what the year and they don't want to talk about what their budgets are, and they, it's all about money, and how and costs and so forth?
Michele 30:48
Well, welcome to interior design, that thing that happens to us, right,
Andy Seely 30:52
and that's a, that's a bad, that's a client that we're actively looking to avoid, right? Because what we're looking for is we're looking for somebody who's is focused on the result, because the two different and it's the same with, with every hot, you know, if you're, if you're looking to be a high end designer, if you're looking to be a high end digital marketer, the result driven clients is we want to be because the price of your service is less important to them than the result that they're ultimately going to get. And if we if we are constantly, you know, getting those people that are looking to spend nothing, then we were running downhill. And we basically, you know, the, the winner of that battle actually is the loser. Right?
Michele 31:39
Right, I made a comment one time, I was not going to engage in a race to the bottom, right.
Andy Seely 31:45
And the difference between the two is this, the person that's looking for the result is looking to find someone they can trust that they look at and they go, I trust that this person can actually give me the result, because the result is so important to them, by prepared to pay the money, but they need to know they need to have that trust that they're not going to be laid down. Right? The person who, who wants to pay as little as possible, but a little bit less worried about the result, because they're not even thinking about it, because they're just thinking about how much it costs. And when it doesn't work out for them. I'm not so bothered by it. But if you can give them a cheap rate, they'll probably work with you right? Now, the high end client, that was what, pretty much most of us want, that looking for that trust, they're looking to feel like, okay, Michele, she's the one I found finally found the person I'm going to work with, she understands me, she gets me she's going to she's going to do a really good job for me. And that's where good digital marketing and good content comes in. Right? We are sharing yourself; we are, we are showing that you just trust your clients as much as you want your clients to trust you. And you can do that. And then it can be tremendously powerful. Now, as I said, granted, you're going to end up getting people that are going to take some of your information, and they're going to run with it themselves. But you never get them to be your client anyway. So what are you losing, you're not really losing anything, especially when it comes to digital marketing, because there's hundreds and you know, 1000s, of searches and so forth everywhere in a large, large metropolitan city is 10s of 1000s of people every month looking for your services, possibly even more than that, right. And if you're, if you're a designer that's prepared to travel, even nationwide, there's probably millions of searches. So there's a bottomless pit of potential customers, where I would always suggest that somebody who's looking to sell a product or service at a high ticket that needs to be about engendering trust, and you need to need and whilst you're asking me as a client to trust you, you need to be showing your clients that you trust them by saying, Hey, I'm an open book, this is who we are, this is how we do our thing that is tremendously attractive. And we've seen that time and time and time again, the clients that we work with the operate that way have tremendous success. And for us as marketers, we've got almost a never ending cavalcade of, of content that we can share, which excites the market even more. And I think, you know, as an interior designer, you know, you would have a lot of great photography, you might have some great videography, you could probably, you know, sit down with a camera in front of you and just talk about different aspects of design. And there's a tremendous amount of great content that these platforms love like Facebook and Instagram love that stuff. But the algorithms as they start seeing people showing an interest in a genuine way, which is you being open and showing really good information, those algorithms will start seeing the reactions of your audiences. And the algorithm will start rewarding you and it becomes a bit of a snowball and You know, in the end, you end up having your a tremendous amount of incoming inquiries from people who are willing to pay what you want to pay, because again, they're not concerned about how much you're charging, they're concerned that you're going to deliver a result.
Michele 35:12
So how often did all the algorithms change, Andy,
Andy Seely 35:15
um, the algorithm is pretty much the same. That just goes about things differently constantly. Right? Like the algorithm in a nutshell, if I talk about same, but different, the same part of it is what the algorithms are looking for. Because if you think about that, let's talk about Facebook and Instagram, if you think about those two platforms, if it wasn't, for us, it would be an empty space, right? It's just a platform with things that we can actually do. So Facebook and Instagram need us to actually make them relevant, right, because we're uploading the content, we're putting things on it, we're putting things in there that people find interesting, that causes many people to come back several times a day, to their platform. And because we're putting up interesting information, or knowledge or interesting information, depending on who it is, you know, that's causing people to fear missing, missing something out on that platform, which causes those people to go back multiple times, which then allows Facebook and Instagram to serve ads, to those people that keep coming back, because they want eyeballs coming back constantly. And that's how they make the money, they make the money through people coming back constantly to see what's going on. So Facebook and Instagram, well, Facebook, is Instagram, but Facebook basically looks at that, and I go, Okay, we're going to reward those that are producing the best content, we're going to reward those that are producing content that people are engaging with, that people are enjoying, the people are seeing that people are searching for, because that's the content that's keeping them coming back. That's the content that's allowing us to serve more ads up and make money. So the algorithm is constantly looking for users that are producing great content. And, and, and not just great content, but great content that people engage with them. They're having conversations and building communities around. Right. Okay. And the algorithm hasn't changed with that. It's a very much biased algorithm around engagement. Now, the engagement factor can sometimes be negative as well, right? So, you know, you see all the outraged posts, and so forth, especially with politics and so forth, where people, there's a massive engagement, because everyone's yelling at each other, the algorithm unfortunately, keys in on that as well. And they go, Okay, well, this really seem to get Michele interested. And maybe all it does was make you angry, and it will start serving more stuff up to you of that type. So, just to give you a little hands, if you're sick of what Facebook serving up and it feels like it's just a place where a lot of stuff that annoys you get served up, it's probably because you're interacting with it, if you stop interacting with it, if you give yourself a month, of only interacting with stuff that you love, Facebook will become a platform of stuff that you love and trust. Right, yeah. And then if we as small business owners, and you know, in your community, as interior designers want to make Facebook a better place, post all your wonderful stuff, or wonderful imagery of all the ideas and, and things that you've got going on. And you can play your role in changing that, and there's going to be a lot of people that are going to enjoy what you're doing, they're going to interact with it, and Facebook will serve them up more of it, and they will serve you up more to more people because people are interacting with it and enjoying it. And so their algorithm is you know, is slightly modified, but it's always trying to do that same thing.
Michele 38:40
Right as the underlying,
Andy Seely 38:42
yeah, that's the underlying kind of like bedrock of what Facebook's all about. The things that change all the times is how it's done. And that can be a pain in the butt and every bite stuff we were doing this time last year, it doesn't work now, right because the way we've got to put it together the way we put it up so it's a constant there is an element of a constant battle with just knowing your how they've changed the processes and how they've put things in and what priorities there are and there's a lot of more so than we've seen ever before there's a lot of you turn down posts or they've they canceled them out or rejected ads and so forth. Facebook's very aggressive about rejecting content now. I've never seen that I've never we've never seen it's, it's it can be you might you might put some flowers up. And for some reason that gets rejected. And that might be just the algorithm looked at as a different thing that you didn't want you put up a new you've got to like offer it to be looked at by a person appears to us to some flowers and then they approve it. That kind of stuffs happening a lot more now. So it's a lot of meant more manual labor management that we're seeing. But it's still that same immensely powerful platform is still We think it's 170 million people just in the USA, that use that have active accounts on Facebook is 2 billion people worldwide. That's the one place where with is your, I don't think there's a place anywhere in the world, any media or anything, where a small business owner with a limited budget can reach the exact person that they want to reach as easily as they can using Facebook. The problem is, right now, and this is a great issue for me to have, because it is becoming a little bit more complicated, because of all the hoop jumping that needs to be done. And quite frankly, oftentimes, small businesses are like, you know, I'm a baker, I want to be baking bread, I don't want to be figuring out how Mark Zuckerberg wants me to he wants to use his platform, I've got to bake bread, I can't be bothered, I'll just hire Andy Seeley and his team to promote my business. So it's good for me to a degree. But I will say Facebook's constantly trying to figure out how to make it easier. But they're also trying to navigate politics, people how people feel about the platform. And that seems to be top of mind right now. But I do know that there's a few things coming up with is I think it's going to be good for small business owners that want to try and figure it out themselves. But there is still hoop jumping, and it changes constantly. So I don't know if I've really confused everybody by just going into that kind of diatribe. But
Michele 41:29
No that's good. It's good to know, because it's what we're also seeing. Yeah, you know, I know that I'd played around in the Facebook ad world for a while, just for my own business. And years ago, some things would sell right through and then you would get caught on something that you're like, wait a minute, all I did was change the picture or two words. And now the whole thing's caught? Like what is the deal? So you just, you know, prove that. Let me ask you about another thing real quick, you were talking about the power of remarketing, where those ads start coming back in when we're on Facebook and Instagram. And I've got to say it. It's crazy, because I know that I go out and look at it. Like I'll give you an example. I like to online shop for clothes. Now I've got my little favorite Instagram influencers, I've got people that I follow things that I see, number one, I don't have time to go to the stores. Number two during COVID. You know, that wasn't really the place you wanted to be. So you were doing more online shopping, looking for something new and different than maybe what I could get in my community stores. And of course, I love the little boutiques around me. So I go to the small shops, because I love to support local when I can. But I love that. And I would go out and look at something and I'd be like, I don't know, I'm going to think about that. And then for the next week, it was every time I went on Facebook, every time I went on Instagram, everywhere I went, it was like it was in my face and my face and my face. And then I was like, I need to go look at that again. Like I'm really I'm really thinking about that more. Even though I knew what was happening. I knew what they were doing. I knew that it was remarketing to me. But it still stayed in my face and made me think about it because it's been top of mind. But and I'm going to say in a very in my face, but also subtle way. And it was the combo of the two that would make me go back and look at it.
Andy Seely 43:19
And I would say think of remarketing. Like you're you showed an interest in my an a product and that just wasn't good timing for you at that moment. And I'm just reaching out to say, Hey, hey, Michele, you called through and you wanted to buy distress. Did we still interested in uh, yeah, I've still got it here. I know, it wasn't the time you really seem to like it, would you would you be interested? That's basically what it is. Right? And right. Many times with marketing, especially with paid marketing, it always drives me crazy when I see this as people will pay say for Google advertising. A lot of people there's a lot of people that love Google and hate Facebook. And there's a lot of people that like Facebook and hate Google, the reality is the two of them working together, your magnifies both. And to give you an example with remarketing, what you're able to do is let's say I let's say I run some Google ads. I'll talk about two different things on remarketing. So I run some Google ads, and I'm spending X number of dollars if I don't have any kind of remarketing especially you say Facebook or Instagram remarketing, backing up that Google dollars, it's a little bit like pouring water on a concrete on a concrete driveway, right? The water splashes on that width the concrete that flows off goes in the gutter and rolls down the street and that's time right so I've got water sure there was water on my on my concrete for a bit. But within 10 minutes, it's all dry and you wouldn't even know if there's anything here and think of that like your website. you're pouring traffic onto your website. Sure these people there something might happen during that moment. And when they've gone they're gone and it's gone. Right if you actually mix. match that up with say a little bit of a reminder Getting campaign on Facebook, all that Google traffic that you're that you're doing. And I would imagine this would work very well for interior designers have your new business or the people that have never heard of you before. Find you through Google. Because you know, if somebody is looking for some interior decor, interior decorating or interior design help, they're going to type that into Google right in the local area. So you capture that high intent client is actively searching for your service at that moment, they go to your website, they have a look, maybe they go and they go, Oh, I'm just not so sure. Or maybe the timing is not right, or, hey, this looks really good. I'll come back to this in a couple of months, right? And they leave. If you don't have remarketing, you've got no control, you're just going to have to Okay, I hope they come back. You know, I don't know what happened to that traffic. But I hope I hope they come back. If you have that remarketing on Facebook and Instagram, the pixel will pick up that that person arrived and look to maybe looked at a couple of pages, and that will be your very high intent client. And Facebook would will take that and just reserve them, you will brand to them over and over and over again. Every time they leave, they go back to Facebook, and Instagram. And the key with that with a remarketing campaign is kind of like your email marketing campaign is keep them interested, keep them engaged with you keep them going, Oh, yeah, I went to her website, I was going to contact her in a couple of months, I forgot about it, I need to I need to reach out to her. Right, because we were busy animals, we're running around with our heads cut off all the time. We get distracted by everything. What remarketing can absolutely do is actually reengage people back into and remind them hey, I'm Michele Williams, remember, you can check that out my website, maybe you should come back and revisit me when you're when you're ready. And you can stay engaged with that. In fact, there's lots of different tactics to keep people recirculating through your system. But you can like actively be doing different things with that person for up to 180 days. And typically somebody will make a decision. And so inside that time, if you stay connected with them. And that's even if you don't actually if they haven't even given you anything, they haven't given you their email address, right, you don't have anything to actually actively reach out to them. That's just the system knows that Andy went to Michele's website. So now Michele is going to stay in touch with him. By every time or every other time or every three times that Andy comes to Facebook, Michele's going to seem to give a message to him about different things to stay connected with them. And during that process, you might even the might be the odd thing where you're trying to get my email address, right, so you can really catch me. And I would suggest, Michele, if there's one thing that I know, we've been talking for a little bit, but if there's one thing your listeners should really consider is a Google campaign mixed with a remarketing campaign, maybe not even a top of funnel campaign on Facebook or Instagram, but a remarketing campaign so they can recapture the traffic that was on the does go to the website. So they can stay connected and say and say, Hey, here's a, you know, start sharing all the really great content that they have to fill that person with trust and confidence that you as a designer can get them the result that they're looking for. And obviously at that point, you're the least concerned about how much you're going to charge, they're much more concerned about the result that they're going to get, which is what you want, which is the right client that probably most of us want. Now, if you don't do Google ads, if you don't want to do that, the minimum thing that I would suggest that you do is actually just have a very low level remarketing campaign that doesn't necessarily need to cost you a whole bunch, utilizing whatever traffic goes to your website. So when you're going to your mixes, and you're rubbing shoulders with people and handing out your cards, and somebody goes, You know what, I'm going to check out our website and they go to your website, you've caught them, then then your Instagram and Facebook loop. And it could cost you a few dollars a day. Right? But it's tremendously powerful. And that basically turns a lot of your processes into you know, it's automation, rather than you constantly having to do everything, which is tremendous. I mean, I'll add a little company, we we've got two salespeople, and we generate two new incoming conversations every single day for each one of those people, right. And that allows us to pick and choose who we want to work with as well. Right? Because if we, I know that we can probably deal with, I don't know 15 to 20 new clients would be a big would be a big month for us. We are when we're choosing who we want to work with. If we're actually communicating with 60 people every month, we've got to like choose who we want to work with if we only one With 15, we can't work with everybody. And not everybody wants to work with us. But we are actually actively sluicing through all the dirt. I hate to say it like that, but you're using the gold mining or the gold panning analogy was sluicing through all the dirt to find the nuggets. And we're actively choosing who we want to work with. And I think, I don't know, there's been a time ever in the history of small business where we've been able to actively just choose who we want to work with, in a way that's not nasty, right? Like, we you're not like saying, don't come into my store and get out. Right, right. You're choosing who you want to work with. And more importantly, the system draws in the people that you want to work with.
Michele 50:43
Well, and I think that's what we all want to do, right? Indeed, we want to, like we said earlier, we want to have people almost self edit, so that by the time they come to us, they're almost our raving fans, so that at the time that we're having that conversation, again, they already know that we're about results. Yep, I know, I know, even for those that are reaching out to me, two things I always find interesting. And I'm willing to tell people, so I've got a discovery form out there. And it asked questions, and I am shocked by the people that tell me they want massive results. And at the bottom, it says I want to do this as cheaply as possible, or I have no money to invest. And I'm always curious, why would you reach out to a service provider? Like how would if somebody were to call the interior designer and say, hey, I want you to come design my home for free because I have no money to invest? And I want to do it cheaply. I don't know any of my designers that would pick up the phone and think oh, wow, I'm so excited. Let me call them back. Right. But I'm shocked when they have that attitude about their own business, right? We're creating an entire firm here. And they're telling me they don't want to invest in it. And I'm thinking, Well, why would you want me to invest in it if you're not going to invest in it.
Andy Seely 51:56
Digital marketing will that I cannot tell you how many times I've heard somebody say I would like to make a million dollars a year. Currently, I'm making nothing. But I have a $500 budget. So like,
Michele 52:10
Oh, I went to work two hours a week last year,
Andy Seely 52:12
the one that I listened to I we at least have the two hour week thing, but we definitely have Hey, can you please make me a millionaire for $500. And I'm like, we're like, whoa, I'm probably not, that's going to be really tough to do that, we could definitely make you a million dollars if you've got a product that people care about. But you're going to have to put some investment into it. But I think I think that we are able to, to avoid a lot of that. And having a well run funnel, digital marketing funnel, can actually clear out a lot of that. So you can actually have a lot less time wasters and tire kickers. And a lot of times if I'm honest with you, the reason why you get people say to you and I see this time and time again, oftentimes will set you in it, we have a similar questionnaire when people are booking to have a conversation with us. And we kind of I train my team to ignore the I don't have any money response. Yeah, we don't, we don't actively exclude them right away, we still have a conversation with them. And the reason for it is oftentimes the reason why they say they don't have any money is they actually do have money. But just not sure if they want to tell you that they have money because they don't trust you yet. Right. So having a well run digital marketing system, which is exactly because you actually nailed it, where by the time they come to you, they're already excited, they're already prepared, they're already ready to go, is tremendous, right? And he's been, and you can do that you can get to the point where the client has already, they already know what you're doing. So you can have an assumptive conversation, you're not trying to sell them on anything. At that point, you're just helping them you just you're the counselor, you're the person and authority. You're the person that has all the answers and the ability to give them the result that they are looking for. And you can actually just assume that they're going to do business with you and you just wait for them to say sorry, I don't want to I don't want to do business with you. You can just walk through it without asking, would you like to do business with me? You just stop doing business with them? And that's kind of how we were? Yeah, we if you if you were to call us and book a cool Michele, we would ask you a whole bunch of questions. Find out what your situation is see what your what your pain points are, what your difficulties are and find out what's important to you and what you what you want to accomplish. So we have a good understanding of what results you're looking for. And then the problems that you're dealing with. And then we go through Okay, hey, we found out all this information, here's what we're going to do to move forward let's move forward. And it's just a it's just we're just assuming that you're going to do business with us because the conversation because it's an inbound conversation we you've looked at us and go Okay, these guys are obviously experts and authorities in the space. I'm asking for help because I've got a problem. We're actually in a situation where we're talking as a counselor as a an authority, rather than someone who's chasing a bit of business. And that's it. Tremendous place to be to be. And as a, as a designer, I think that's where we're designers and high performing designers shouldn't want to be it's a little bit like being a doctor, right? A doctor, it's a it's a business. I mean, you know, but how often do you go into a doctor? And you say, well, one, I want to know how much it is. And I just want to I just want the facts. No, the doctor is going to ask a lot of questions, this doctor is going to walk through a whole bunch of stuff the doctor never asks, okay, do you want me to fix you? It's going to cost X number of dollars, do you want me to they just do it? Right? It just, it's because it's a consultative authority to thing where the patient has come to them asking for a solution and asking for help. Because they they're not happy about something,
Michele 55:43
Right? It's not like we're going there. And Right, right. So let me ask you this. And if somebody were interested in the services that your company offers, tell us a little bit about where they would go and how they would get started.
Andy Seely 55:56
But the best way to do it is to go to create creativelydisruptive.com. You can look for Creatively Disruptive on Facebook, as well, you can have a look through the hundreds of reviews and recommendations that we've had, we've got five stars, like yeah, which is unusual for online marketing, they have five star reviews on Facebook. But we've got a five star average, five out of five, and we got about 130 something reviews. Have a look there go to CreativelyDisruptive.com. If you want to look into me to see how what I am free to go to LinkedIn, you can find me, Andy Seeley. And you can actually I've got a whole bunch of recommendations from industry pros, you can actually see what kind of person the CEO of Credibly Disruptive is and how I operate, which I think is important when you're looking for digital marketing firms know how, what the attitude is of the CEO and what the beliefs are. So you can do a little bit of due diligence and for that, but reach out to us through creativelydisruptive.com, and you know, the team is really good at finding, you know, really kind of going through a process to find what you're looking for and what results you're looking to do. And then what's the best way to go about it. And we actually have a pretty foolproof process, which involves a lot of research and planning before we actually ask you to spend any dollars on Google and Facebook and so forth, right? Because a little bit like a designer, right? Yeah, there's a lot of planning and, and figuring out what's the best way to go about it before I go and buy furniture and artwork and all the different things that could very quickly escalate into a lot of dollars, which could be absolutely wasted. If I don't know what I'm doing, right? How many times does a designer go into a house and go, okay, we probably need to get rid of this and this and this. And that's 1000s of dollars worth of stuff that that house homeowners, the purchase is very similar to digital marketing, you know, before you spend a penny on Facebook and Google because I'll take every penny that you haven't given nothing back, we actually design and plan out the right path for you to actually get to where you want to be because we're very result focused as you as a designer would be very result focused and getting the results for your clients. So reach out to us incredibly disruptive. If you are interested in learning about what we do sign up to our small business course you can pay nothing if you want, if you don't have any money, if you want to pay something, you can pay something, whatever you want, you can pay a million dollars or $0, whatever you want. They'll allow you to see what we do. And you can there's lots of classes is 90 something classes and they're showing you how to do different things from a digital marketing standpoint, get an idea of what we're about, and then you could reach out to us or maybe you'll learn enough to just do it yourself. But like I said, our goal is to help those that just don't have the time or the inclination and to do it right the first time. And we're pretty good at it.
Michele 58:59
That's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Andy, for a really great conversation today just being able to even hear and see and think about and I think the thing that has definitely got my attention is definitely some of that retargeting. So really just making sure that when people take the time to come to the website that we're staying top of mind, because I clearly know that it works for my clothing budget at home, and the Amazon delivery packages and other delivery packages that show up daily. So you know, want to make sure I'm using the some of the same tactics that I know were,
Andy Seely 59:34
and that's one of the cheapest. That's one of the cheapest tactics to use. If you've got traffic coming to your website, make sure your remarketing because it doesn't cost a lot.
Michele 59:42
Right. That's awesome. Thank you so much. Well, I will put all of your links in our podcast notes and so everybody will be able to get over to your website. And again, I just thank you for taking time to share today.
Andy Seely 59:54
Thanks for having me.
Michele 59:55
Have a great one.
Andy Seely 59:56
Okay.
Michele 59:57
Andy, thank you so much for joining us today. And sharing I know one of the things I probably need to go brush up on for sure is my remarketing campaign. So I just appreciate you even bringing these things to our attention. I also want to encourage each of you as you're listening to this podcast to think about what you can be intentional about, it's so easy to get caught up in the busy in the day to day doing that we're not being intentional about the businesses that we're creating. That's one of the things that I love teaching business owners like yourselves, in my in my courses, and in my coaching, you know, the goal that I really have for you, as you listen to this podcast or work with me, is to make sure that you understand your financials, we call that financial fluency, you speak the language of the numbers so that you understand what's happening at all times, and how to use those numbers to grow and scale up or to scale back or scale sideways, whichever way you need to do it. It's also really important to me that you all understand that you're building a business of intention. So you're being very intentional, as we even talked about with Andrew today about who you draw to your business. And so what does that look like? And how do you put plans in place? And how do you even define what that is, and then I'm really, really high on you all having a strategic plan, which is that detailed plan that is usable, that helps you move forward. And so all of this is covered in my coaching packages, whether you work with me, as an elite member of my coaching, business, or whether you're in my designers in our circle. If you want to know more also about how this has helped other businesses, you can check out the seven figure case study that I have out on my website, at ScarletThreadConsulting.com, you'll find that in the top right in multiple places on the website, but also under the Resources tab. And if this sounds like something that you're ready to do and invest in to get as we talked about today, the results that you want, I would love an opportunity to chat with you. While you're on my website, hop on over to the work with me page and then fill out a discovery form. And let's get on the phone and talk about how we really can move your business to the next level because I'd love to be able to walk with you journey with you and assist you and just do all these things that you need to do a little at a time you can't do everything at once and just know step by step you're going to make it further than if you don't do anything. So be profitable intentionally. Because as we always say, profit doesn't happen by accident. Profit is a Choice is proud to be part of the designnetwork.org where you can discover more design media reaching creative listeners. Thanks for listening, and stay creative and business minded.