Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves.
Melanie
Welcome back to the podcast. It's so nice to have you back again, or if this is your first time, hi. Today we're going to be talking about creating automations for your marketing strategy. Hilariously, I was still laughing when nobody could look and waving as well. So how are you doing, Esther? Can you help us out with this?
Esther
Yes, absolutely. Automations are fabulous. They help you and they save you lots and lots of time and effort and energy. Although it doesn't seem like it at the beginning.
Melanie
I think it does take a lot of effort at the very beginning, doesn't it? An awful lot of set-up, and I think that's what puts people off. So how would you advise that maybe somebody's got a website and they've gone to the trouble of setting up a website. How can somebody automate elements of that that makes their life so much easier when it comes to their marketing strategy?
Esther
Okay, so on the website, for example, you can have a chatbot. And in that chatbot, and in that chatbot you will put your frequently asked questions. So you will ask, give a person a list of two or three at the most options of what they want help with. So in our case, for example, would you like help with setting up a website or with your social media strategy or with rebranding. Those would be the three things that we would start with. From there then we would branch off, depending on which one they click into, Okay, do you already have a website? Yes or no? Yes. Great. How long have you had it? Then we know it's giving us all this information without us having to sit and write down all the answers and without the other person having to type anything in. We'd give them again the options of how long have you had the website for? Less than two years, two to five years, over five years as an example. Then we know how much extra information we need to ask based on these questions. Because you've been in business, you know your own business and you know what comes next. You know if somebody hasn't had a website for over two years yet, then something isn't working on the one that they have. If they've had it for over five years, it may be working quite well, but it's looking outdated and it may just need a revamp. Based on the answers that people are giving you, you then have the answer or the next questions ready. And it can be as simple as 10 questions and at the end you ask them for, Okay, what date and time suits you best to chat to us. You have your calendar linked into that and they choose a date that you already know suits you because you have your calendar up to date, hopefully, as to when you're available, when you're busy, when you have kids stuff going on, when you have other work commitments going on, and automatically they get added to your calendar. Without the whole back and forth of, Oh, when are you free? Oh, I can't do that day. Does this day suit you better? You can have dates and times set up for different time zones as well. We would do a lot of work with clients in America, so we have to have some hours set apart in the evening time, UK time, so that we can help them. But once, like you said, it does take a lot of effort or a bit of effort, because at the end of the day, you do have these FAQs in your head as well. But it's getting them down into the bot, into the automation tool that takes a little bit of time and effort, so that then click of a button, you can have your calendar filled with potential clients.
Melanie
Okay, so it doesn't really matter who you approach. These two things that we just mentioned, the chatbots and the calendar. I know typically we think of Calendly because that's what we're used to, but there are others.
Esther
Well, it's one of them, there's others.
Melanie
Yeah. So is this like a piece of text that's inserted, like a piece of code like Google Analytics? Is that just a piece of code that's added into the back?
Esther
Yeah.
Melanie
Does it cost anything for these bots or for Calendly?
Esther
Calendly does have a cost. Most calendars have a cost, especially if you don't want the logo of the calendar on it, or if you want to say, charge for your sessions, or if you want to offer them more than two different options. So on your calendar automations, you can have a 15 minute free consultation call or a 30 minute paid one. But if you go over one or two, a lot of these calendar automations will ask for a payment. There are some that you can get. Now we are big advocates of AppSumo, and you can get lifetime deals for things. Bear in mind that a lot of those deals are, yes, they're one-off payments, but sometimes they go through changes and they're always being updated at the start. They may not work. They may be a little bit clunkier at the beginning than those that are already established. But if you have very limited budget, those are the places to start. Most chatbots also incur a charge. But again It depends-.
Melanie
Is that at the beginning or later?
Esther
At the beginning. At the beginning. Some of them, I can't remember the names off the top of my head, but some of them will give you up to three questions for free. But again, you will have their branding on your website. So that's why you're getting it for free in inverted commas, and I'm doing the inverted commas on the video. You will get it for free because you're advertising them. So you are giving them back links, you're giving them a lot of power in that way to get recognised by other people. Those are two options that you have for your website. Another option, if someone comes through and goes through your download and gets you download off your website or off your social media, again, chatbots can be used in social media as well. But if somebody comes through and goes and asks for your download and registers for that, giving you your email address, then you can have an email marketing sequence set up that will automatically trigger, say, a welcome email when the person gets the download and either receives the download in that email or after a certain amount of time, you can say set it up for going out one hour after the email has been registered, for example.
Melanie
So what I wanted to ask about that actually is, that's always seemed really complicated to me. I've seen that that thing has been used on major platforms like Kajabi and that stuff. Is it always these really heavily priced platforms that you use that for? Or can you just do that thing in MailerLight or Mailchimp?
Esther
Mailchimp now charges for it, but MailerLight still does it for free, the automations. So if you sign up, for example, to our Monday morning marketing podcast email list, you will get 30 tips, one each day for your marketing. So we have that already set up. It took a couple of days maybe to get all the information collated and not full days, let's be clear here. Took me, you know, a few minutes here and there to sit down and write the stuff and get the images and the design of the email. But once you have the base of it set up, then it's just a matter of, in the case of Mailchimp and MailerLight, dragging images in, dragging text in, copying and pasting a lot of stuff that you already have. Like I said, this is information that's already in your head or on your website somewhere, but people aren't taking the time to go and look for it on your website. This is an easier way for them to receive the information.
Melanie
It's like a funnel.
Esther
Yes, exactly. It's a funnel. But instead of you manually going in and going, Did I send an email today? Oh, I didn't send an email today. I better go in and quickly send this email. It automatically does it for you. So at the same time, each day that from the day that the person registers for the email, for example, in the case of the Monday morning marketing podcast email, you will get 30 tips one each day at the exact same time, or it should be, that you first registered and first opened the email. There is also a thing that you can opt out, obviously at any time, because again, if you go back and listen to our GDPR podcast a couple of weeks ago, opt outs are the thing as well. So with all these things, with the chatbots, with the email sequence, with the Calendly links and stuff, or calendar links are not affiliated with Calendly.
Melanie
We should be by the end of this.
Esther
You have to have permission to be sending these people this information. Other things that people can do is actually be added to a WhatsApp group. So if you don't have a website and you only have your social media, remember, WhatsApp is owned by Meta. So if you're sending people from your Facebook or your Instagram, you can direct them into a WhatsApp group or a chat. And it can be a group chat or it can be individual chats. And you can have things in your business, WhatsApp, automatically going out to them with information, with discounts, everything that you would normally send on an email list. You can also send it here on a WhatsApp chat.
Melanie
So you think all the pain that people are thinking about when it comes to adding automations is as much trying to find the right ones.
Esther
Yeah
Melanie
Maybe finding out the costs and then the initial setup.
Esther
The initial setup is where you are really going to go, Why did I bother? But when you sit down on an evening and you're not having to think, Did I send that email? Did I send that information to that person? Did we ever get a date sorted for chatting to what's her face? Then you will be thankful that you no longer have that back and forth and that the leads are coming through clean and more qualified than if you were to sit and do it yourself because you keep forgetting. I mean, I do it myself. We've been in business now for a long time, and when you're talking to somebody in the spare of the moment, you're like, Oh, yeah, we do this. And then you forget that you had to also mention the other things that you offer and forget to say why you do it this way and not the other way, etc. Why do you use this material and not the other material? Why do you want to edit a podcast rather than speaking on it? Why do you do what you do? You have it. And if you sit down for take half a day and get it all out of your head and onto automations, then you will find that a lot of things flow much easier and your marketing becomes more consistent.
Melanie
So, is this something that you think every size and shape of business should be doing? Is this suitable for a start-up to do?
Esther
Yeah. I mean, even Facebook even gives you a few options. So if people come through to your Messenger and you're not available at that time, you can set up automated responses. So you can, if somebody says, Hey, I want to know the price of this product, you can have automated responses set up going, I'm not available right now, but when I'm back, I will answer you.
Melanie
Yeah, you see them all the time in food shops, don't you? Can I see the menu? Can you tell me your specials? And you see that as an option all the time, don't you?
Esther
Yeah. So any size of business can do it, and it can be as simple or as elaborated as you want it to be. But just remember, the end user is the one that has to go through the funnel, go through the process. So once you set up your automation, get a friend to check it and see how easy it is. Check for spelling mistakes, see if there's anything that's missing. When we set up the email automations for the podcast, Melanie went through all the emails. She got all the emails. She set herself up and received the emails so that she knew what other people were receiving. Those things can be set so that it doesn't matter when somebody arrives into your email list, they will automatically start getting tip number one.
Melanie
Ok.
Esther
Do It once and use it for as long as it is evergreen.
Melanie
Okay, so all we wanted to do today was to let people know there are ways and means that you can create automations at certain points in the funnel that's going to suit your audience and manage their expectations. Thank you, Esther, for enlightening us today.
Esther
No problem.
Melanie
This is an area that I've actually gone to Esther and her IPA group a couple of times, certainly on my own website. That's all we have time for today. But if you've got any questions, please fire them away to Esther@IPagroup.co. I'm sure she'll be able to help.
Esther
Absolutely.
Melanie
And we will be back very soon with another podcast. Ttfn.
Esther
Bye-bye.
Melanie
I'm still waving. Damn it.
Esther
Yes, you are. And you made me wave this time too.
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