MAP IT Marketing

I’m getting older (aren’t we all!) and often get super frustrated when trying to find clothing, and skin care that is targeted to me, but uses younger faces and bodies. I want to see things using my type of skin. Or my type of body.

I first heard about our guest Gemma Ede’s range Conviction when someone I love following on Instagram - Emma John, talked about how she was using the product on her skin. Emma’s an incredible stylist and has influenced me before. Last time it was a white linen shirt! 

Using micro-influencers such as Emma to help promote her range wasn’t the initial way Gemma used influencers. She initially started with an agency that offered “big name” or “big following” influencers, and while these all produced good traffic to her website, they often didn’t result in sales, and weren’t the target market Gemma believed she had created her product for: Women over forty needing skincare that was easy to use, felt good and gave her results. 

Her ads often use her own face, or the faces of her customers, with their own stories, and she’s building a range of engaged fans who are helping her sell her product with their own delight.

In this podcast we talk about how Gemma came to create a skincare range, what she’s learned about marketing it, and what’s up for her next. 

(AND for the record - I love and really rate her product. And no - she didn’t pay me to say that!)

In this episode we cover:

• How Gemma started her business 
• Why she’s now following her gut on her marketing
• Why she’s planning to maintain a direct to public model
• How she now selects influencers 
• Why she uses real people in her advertising

 

Important Links

Check out Conviction here

Follow Conviction on Instagram

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Become a part of the MAP IT Marketing facebook group

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’ve got a particular love for family run businesses because we’ve got one ourselves! So when I heard that Fiona from The Damson Collection was now working alongside her son in her business, I really wanted to find out how that dynamic works. 

 

Fiona was an editorial and commercial photographer for twenty-five years, until she had to find an alternative income after losing her ability to see with binocular vision. (it’s since been restored) She had started up a macaron business, and moved to Hawkes Bay to run it. While there she bought The Damson Collection from the orchardists who had started it, and since then has grown into an award winning business.

 

The business had mainly sold their Damson plum based products via markets and retailers. With a pandemic impacting both of these avenues, Fiona had to move online fast - and thankfully her son Rogan was there to help. He stepped in, took over the online side, and the packing of orders and the team was born.

 

Now several years into this new combination, the mother and son duo continue to work together, with both contributing significantly different skills into the mix. 

 

The Damson Collection has won both national and international awards for their products, and with more new and innovative ideas in the pipeline, it’s clear that this business is definitely going places. 

In this episode we cover:

• How Fiona grew her business
• Here initial plans for the business, and why they’re still in development
• How Fiona’s been able to move out of operations
• How Rogan and Fiona work together in the business
• What’s up next for The Damson Collection

Important Links

Check out Damson Collection

Follow them on Instagram

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Become a part of the MAP IT Marketing facebook group

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m sure you’ve either experienced that “free webinar from hell” or heard about them. You know the ones where you sign up for what looked great on paper, to find it’s got three bits of fluffy info, and a forty minute sales pitch (with a promise of the good stuff if you stay and listen, only to find the “good stuff” was the fourth bit of fluff)

 

I’m a huge believer in the power of using webinars to build trust, gain new clients, and make sales. But I’m not a fan of crappy webinars that waste the participants time

 

So in this episode, I’m going to run down how I structure my webinars, tell you what you need to think about, and what you can do to make your webinars effective, and the elad generating machines they are supposed to be.

 

I struggled for a long time to get my head around webinars and how to use them, and now they’re a big part of what we do to grow trust, community and get more clients.

 

So come along with me as I take you behind the scenes of what I do to plan for our webinars.

 

 

In this episode we cover:

• What platforms we use 
• What you need to think about before planning your webinar
• How I structure my webinar
• How to reward people for showing up
• When to sell
• How much time should be selling

Important Links

DEMIO - Check it out

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

Become a part of our Facebook group

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guest today, Vanessa Victor has a saying. “Once you’ve met a Neuro Divergent person, you’ve just met a neuro divergent person.” What that means is that the way a neuro divergent brain works will present itself differently in everyone. 

With between thirty to forty percent of the population considered to be likely Neuro Diverse, and the fact a neuro divergent person is more statistically likely to own their own business, there’s a lot of us running around out there in small business land!

I know that my brain really struggles with normal basic tasks, but can also get huge amounts of work done if I’m having a good day. This up and down nature of my output, and my focus used to be a source of great anxiety, along with my knack of oversharing, my oversensitive nature, and my anxiety in new types of social situations. 

All of this has had a large impact on me as a business owner. And I know I’m not alone.

So I’m so thankful I met Vanessa. She’s dyslexic and has ADHD, and also happens to teach organizations and businesses how to make the most of their ND team members, as well as helping those same members learn skills to help them thrive in a neurotypical world. 

She’s also a small business owner, and knows first hand the traps and issues that can crop up for us in our businesses. She’s going to be sharing both what she’s learnt and what she knows as an expert in today’s podcast

Vanessa is one of the owners of Remarkable Minds. They provide solutions, tools and life-changing programmes. They coach individuals and businesses with a range of solutions to enable anyone with neurodiversity to feel empowered, confident and capable.

In this episode we cover:

• What Neuro Divergent means and what it covers
• Whether being ND is a disability or not
• What are some of the common issues for ND business owners
• What tools can we use to help us
• What we need to look out for

Important Links

Get in touch with Vanessa

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Become a part of the MAP IT Marketing facebook group

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While there are a few outliers who are thriving at the moment, many of the business owners I’m speaking to are definitely seeing a cool down in leads and sales at the moment. Now I’m not an economist, but I love to read and explore, and I’m also a mega planner. So with markets all over the world saying a recession is coming, and my desire to make sure both we and you are prepared, I thought this was a great opportunity to talk about how we need to market during a recession.

 

If there’s anything you can get out of this episode, it would be two things. First, a recession doesn’t always mean disaster is coming. Many businesses can thrive during a recession. It’s about narrowing your focus, your message and really getting your target market clear. 

 

The second is that marketing must continue. I don’t know if you’re like me, but when I’m stressed I want to hunker down, and sometimes the marketing stuff feels a bit harder to do, because it’s taking me away from the effort of just surviving. I’ve experienced this recently, not due to recession effects, but just with a large couple of projects that have taken up my head space. But this is not a time to abandon marketing. In fact marketing might be your ticket out of any recession based pain you might be open to.

 

I’m confident you can recession proof your business. We’ve managed to survive over two years of a world wide pandemic. So take the time, listen to the eight key points and get marketing. We’ve got this. 

In this episode we cover:

• The most important thing to do
• Why you’ve got a solution in front of you
• What may need to change
• How to build trust and engagement
• Why consistency is essential
• Whether you should reduce your marketing budget

Important Links

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

Become a part of our Facebook group

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m incredible thankful we now live in a world where pursuing a life where you can support yourself with your art and creativity is now a completely viable idea. When my mum was young, and she was a potter, it was the times of co-ops and you felt like you were on the edges. When I was younger it was still very much seen as a side gig and you had to be pretty sure of yourself to really commit to it.

I think you still need to really believe in the importance of allowing your creative and artist life space if you’re going to succeed in making it a career, but that’s not enough. While in some ways it’s never been easier to get your name and work in front of your perfect audience, in other ways, there’s so much marketing and brand building to do, as well as all that boring businessy stuff

One of the things I love about our guest today, Greg Straight, is he’s managed to build a business that mixes his fine art passion with his work in the commercial space, and the accessible (this means lower cost prints) art space.

Greg could be described as an illustrator, artist and graphic designer but in recent years he’s grown to become one of NZ’s most prolific illustrators carving out a niche generating custom illustrations for high profile brands wanting to stand out. Greg’s work is all around us, as well as nationwide campaigns for household brands, you’ll find his designs featuring on tote bags, reusable coffee cups, drink labels, billboards and magazine covers to name a few. His distinctive yet versatile style has become in demand by a number of iconic kiwi brands and international clients.

Enjoy this episode learning about how to thrive as a creative business owner. 

In this episode we cover:

• Why Greg pursued an art business
• The reason Greg still wants to create original works
• How Greg managers the juggle of creating and business
• The benefits of working on nationwide campaigns
• Why using an artist can help define a brand

 

Important Links

Go to Greg’s website

Follow Greg on Instagram

Follow Greg on Facebook

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Become a part of the MAP IT Marketing facebook group

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The human brain is hardwired for story over facts. This is the secret of all conspiracy theorists, politicians and cult leaders since forever. If you can tell a story, you can change a mind. Now I’m now suggesting that you listen to this podcast and go off to start your own cult! But I do want you to think about how you craft stories for your business, that help you attract your ideal clients, and help them trust you enough to buy from you.

 

There are a few hooks involved with learning to tell stories. We don’t want to move deep into manipulation, they shouldn’t promise something you can’t deliver and you’ve got to write it for the listeners not yourself (which sometimes means you need to leave out a really interesting side note.

 

I’m fascinated about the power of storytelling. I am also aware than corporate businesses have often taken this word and made it so far removed from true story - to the point where I sometimes roll my eyes when someone mentioned “tell a story”

 

Stories need a beginning, a middle and an end. They need conflict and drama and a central character  who’s fighting a battle that only you, their partner, or coach or inspiration can help them with. This is you and them, taking on the mountain together.

In this podcast I’m going to share with you what I love about storytelling, the power of telling a story, and what it needs to include. Because there’s one thing I know. Stories are a powerful thing when we use them in our business.

In this episode we cover:

• Why tell stories?
• What can the impact for your business be?
• What a story needs
• The power of vulnerability
• Who the central character needs to be
• What the elements of a good story is
• How to start a story
• Does every business have a story in them?

Important Links

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

Become a part of our Facebook group

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m not a fan of nitty gritty action lists, but I do love mapping out a plan. I’m extremely goal orientated, and always want to know my “why” before I commit to anything. If the goal is juicy enough I’ll work incredibly hard to reach it.

 

I also love the idea of being a little more whimsical with my planning, although if I’m completely honest, I’m not sure I’ve got it in me to do it! I can’t start something then work out how it’s all going to bring in the income. But after working with thousands of small business owners, I know that many people can.

 

One of the common questions I get asked is how to monetise a Facebook Group you may have started. Depending on the niche it can be complicated to make sudden changes and if there wasn’t a plan for this at the start, you may need to slowly introduce new guidelines and expectations. 

 

There is no one right way to build a business. And there’s no right way to incorporate a Facebook group into that. 

 

Ines Curin started her business with a Facebook group. It was a singular purpose - to create a space for New Zealand women in business, where they could build a community. Several years later she now runs a group called Girls Talk Business NZ with 8.5k members. The business side of the group has evolved and changed and how Ines is in a place where she’s confident it’s moving in the right direction.

 

Whereas I’m the planner extreme, Ines has taken a gentler approach and her style may appeal to how you’d like to grow a group and business too.

 

In this episode we cover:

• Why Ines started her group
• What she’s learned around boundaries
• What she loves about running a community
• What she’s found difficult
• How she’s brought others around her to support her members
• What her plans are for the future

 

Important Links

Check out Girls Talk Business NZ

The Girls Talk Business website

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

Become a part of our Facebook group

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are no guarantees in life except when it comes to this: once we use up time, we can’t get it back. For small business owners, trying to fit marketing into an already full on week, it’s easy to understand why marketing gets pushed to the bottom of the list. A lot of us don’t enjoy it, we can get freaked out by all the things we need to do, and quite frankly, it’s hard to know how we should be using our time best to market in the most effective way to get actual results!

If you’ve ever struggled to fit marketing in, or know you are putting in a lot of energy but not getting a whole heap back, these are the thirteen excellent time saving marketing hacks I not only use for our own business, but I share with our clients. Even if you only take one or two away with you, you will start to feel better about your marketing. 

One of the things I’ve realised when it comes to marketing is often our reluctance to do our marketing is that we’re hitting so many different learning curves when we’re starting out. We’re learning technical things, how platforms work, best practice and then often also having to learn skills in image creation, writing and worst of all - having to get used to seeing our face and hear our voice in our marketing.

So out of all the hacks I’d like to point out one very important one. Be kind to yourself. Learning is a lot of fun. It helps us change and evolve. But learning is also very tiring. So pace yourself. You’ll get there in the end. 

 

In this episode we cover:

• Why you need to know where you are heading before you start
• How to use the extra time you are going to get
• Why it’s easy to ignore marketing
• How to make the most of your marketing time
• How long it takes to see results
• What sort of content you need to start with first
• Tools to make your marketing simpler. 

 

Important Links

Try out Metricool

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

Become a part of our Facebook group

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is not my normal type of podcast! I wanted to share with you some of my new book Be a Spider, Build a Web: Sticky Content Marketing for Small Businesses. And I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a podcast that’s just the author reading out a chapter - but I did ask my incredible Facebook community if they thought it was ok, and they said yes - so here we go!

This podcast is me reading Chapter Two of Be a Spider, Build a Web. It’s a breakdown of why our content marketing strategy is like a spiders web, and the different elements you need to create a strong and converting content strategy.

For all of us, our content marketing activity will be different. We’re at different stages, have different resources and skill levels, and we have very different budgets! But all of us need to think of our content marketing as being a connected web of everything we say and do, on every different platform or outlet we use.

So I hope you enjoy this reading of chapter two. (and yes, I’m a marketer, so of course I’ve got a link to the book in the show notes if you liked it)

Normal podcasty-moments start up again next week! 

In this episode we cover:

• Why I felt the need to write a book
• How content marketing is like a spider’s web
• Why we need to always start with the anchor point
• How a spider web is a little bit like a funnel
• Why we all have different radius lines on our web
• What to do when someone enters our content strategy web

Important Links

Buy your copy of Be a Spider, Build a Web

Download the free workbook

Register interest for Rachel’s content coaching programme

Rachel’s YouTube Channel

Join the My MAP IT Marketing Strategy School

Become a part of our Facebook group

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.