Your Marketing Mates

We'll be the first to admit that we regret not applying for awards earlier in our careers. But...it's never too late, and we're here to tell you why you should consider applying for awards next year.

Some hot awards tips straight off the press:

• Be prepared. Look at past categories to see what you could be eligible for and keep them in mind during the year.
• Know application cut-off dates in advance!
• Don't presume there are 1000's of entries and you have no chance.
• Look at the Under 30's awards. Start young.
• Keep an eye out for team awards and work with others on a project together. Learning and collaborating. Double win.
• Keep trying. If you didn't win this year, try again next year!
• Just have a go. As simple as that.

In this ep, we also share some great industry awards that you should start checking out, as entries are already opening for some categories.

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If you have any questions about applying for awards, please feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn or Instagram if you haven't already.

• Instagram - @yourmarketingmates
• LinkedIn - /your-marketing-mates

Belle & Liz x

Hi there mates, we're back (and we missed you)! 🎉 To kick off Season 4 we're celebrating the first birthday of Your Marketing Mates!

Grab a cupcake, a glass of bubbles, or a cup of coffee and take a trip down memory lane with us. This week we're sharing our favourite parts of the last year, our challenges, and hot tips for those of you who are thinking about starting your very own podcast.

Thank you for joining us on this journey, we're looking forward to what this next year will bring.

Don't forget to connect with us on LinkedIn or Instagram if you haven't already.

• Instagram - @yourmarketingmates
• LinkedIn - /your-marketing-mates

Belle & Liz x

Often as marketers, we can get caught up in the tactics and the numbers and forget the bigger picture.

In this episode, we're chatting about the importance of building relationships with your key stakeholders (managers, executives, clients, and so on) and ways you can demonstrate your value within the workplace.

In summary, these are our 5 tips:

1. Look for opportunities to connect and build relationships
2. Consider how you communicate (don't always resort to email)
3. Think about what they (your boss, client, team) want to know
4. Keep track of your achievements in a "win book"
5. Be prepared to back yourself!

The 20 seconds of bravery that Liz mentioned from "We bought a Zoo" can be found here.

And that's a wrap on Season 3! This season we've covered off 10x skills and knowledge areas for marketers.

Please let us know what you thought of this season and any other skills you'd like us to discuss in future episodes. We love hearing from you.

We will be back in a couple of weeks with Season 4 - woo!

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If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate, review & subscribe ❤

You can also connect with us on socials.

• Instagram - @yourmarketingmates
• LinkedIn - /your-marketing-mates

Welcome to another episode marketing mates! This week we're talking money and how to talk the "finance talk" to your CFO, accountant, or sales team.

Often things can get a bit lost in translation between marketing acronyms and financial terms, but it's important to clearly demonstrate the value you're bringing through your marketing activity, with the budget you've been allocated.

Hot tip: you always want an ally in the room when you're about to talk money and there's nobody better than your finance person.

Here's a little cheat sheet of 10 finance terms you should start getting familiar with as a marketer:

1. ROI - return on investment
2. Assets - things that you own
3. Liabilities - financial expenses owed
4. Balance Sheet - a snapshot of the business with all assets and liabilities
5. Cash Flow - measures the cash flowing in and out of the business
6. Margin - the difference between a selling price and the profit made
7. Profit & Loss Statement (P&L)- also known as an Income Statement
8. Gross Income - the total money earned before taking out expenses
9. Gross Profit - the difference between the sale and the direct cost of making the sale
10. Working Capital - the cash you have in the bank that you can invest.

Now don't be scared, go make friends with your finance person!

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If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate, review & subscribe ❤

You can also connect with us on socials.

• Instagram - @yourmarketingmates
• LinkedIn - /your-marketing-mates

The word "data" can sound a little scary. So let's start with the fundamentals. As a marketer, Google Analytics is an excellent tool and source of data to inform your strategies, personas, and website user journeys.

In this episode, Belle is grilling Liz about the 4 fundamentals of Google Analytics data:

1. Audience - overview of your website traffic and demographic insights
2. Acquisition - how are people getting to your site?
3. Behaviour - understanding where people are navigating throughout your site
4. Conversions - measuring your results against objectives.

If you're wanting to brush up on your Google Analytics skills, check out the great free online courses on Google Analytics Academy.

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If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate, review & subscribe ❤

You can also connect with us on socials.

• Instagram - @yourmarketingmates
• LinkedIn - /your-marketing-mates

Let's talk about sales!

Regardless of whether you're doing in-house marketing or marketing for clients, at some point, you're going to work with salespeople to track and generate leads from your marketing activity. Salespeople also have so much insight about your customers that you can leverage - making them the perfect marketing wingman.

In this episode we discuss a helpful sales framework known as SPIN:

1. Situation - gathering information about your customers' situation
2. Problem - identifying customer pain points
3. Implication - understand the problems on a deeper level
4. Need-payoff - encouraging customers to explain the product benefits in their own words

PSA: Ice cream is recommended when listening to this episode.

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If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate, review & subscribe ❤

You can also connect with us on socials.

• Instagram - @yourmarketingmates
• LinkedIn - /your-marketing-mates

This week we're talking about one of our favourite topics - content marketing! This marketing technique is all about creating and sharing valuable and relevant content pieces to attract your audience.

As Belle puts it in this episode - "Content is basically whatever you share to your channels" and can include everything from blogs and written content to videos and social media posts.

We've broken down our 4 top tips on how you can crush it with your content marketing strategy:

1. Have a quarterly content focus
2. Repurpose your content
3. FLIP IT and share a different perspective
4. Share your opinion

Spoiler: We may or may not sing in this episode, but you'll have to listen to find out haha…

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If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate, review & subscribe ❤

You can also connect with us on socials.

• Instagram - @yourmarketingmates
• LinkedIn - /your-marketing-mates

Drum roll, please! Welcome to the first episode of the "Chats with our mates" series, where we sit down with industry experts to hear about their specialist skills, career journeys and of course, extract as many gems of wisdom as we can.

In this episode, we're chatting with our friend, mentor, and copywriting expert, Malcolm Auld.

Mal has experience running multinational agencies, marketing departments, start-ups, a SaaS business, bricks n mortar, and online retail businesses. He has also published 6 marketing books and taught executives in 22 countries. Living and working in the USA, Asia, and Australia has given Mal wide exposure to different cultures.

Some of the excellent resources and authors Mal recommends in this episode include…

• Drayton Bird - "How to write sales letters that sell"
• John Caples - "Tested advertising methods"
• Ken Roman - "Writing that works"

And industry gurus such as:

• David Ogilvy
• Dan Kennedy
• Neil Patel (SEO specialist)
• Clayton Makepeace - Very Good Copy newsletter
• Joe Sugarman - newsletter

Mal is also releasing a copywriting course by the end of the year! Stay tuned.

In the meantime, you can subscribe to Malcolm's blog.

We hope you enjoy this episode! Please connect with us on socials - we love hearing from you. We're also keen to hear who you'd like us to chat with on the pod?

• LinkedIn - /your-marketing-mates
• Instagram - @yourmarketingmates

Belle & Liz x

Last week we left you in a bit of suspense…but, the wait is over! Part 2 of our social media episode is ready for you to dive into.

In our last episode, we spoke about social channel demographics and data (LOTS of data!). This week we are discussing the difference between paid and organic social content - and how you can integrate boosted posts.

There are also 5 Core Pillars of Social Media Marketing that are great to keep in your toolkit:

1. Strategy
2. Planning & publishing
3. Listening & engagement
4. Analytics
5. Advertising

Source: Buffer.com

We look forward to hearing how you use these tips within your social marketing strategies and daily activity.

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If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate, review & subscribe ❤ You can also connect with us on socials. We love chatting with you all!

• Instagram - @yourmarketingmates
• LinkedIn - /your-marketing-mates

Following on from last week's channel strategy episode, we wanted to cover off social media marketing as its own topic. Can you believe there are 40+ social media channels (and counting?!)…

We had a lot to say on this topic - from running through the long list of social channels to discussing demographic insights for each platform. It's important to stay up to date with where your users are and what they want to see, to maximise your marketing activity.

PSA: This episode was recorded during lockdown and we could have talked for days on this topic (anyone else craving social interaction haha), which is why we have broken this topic into 2 episodes.

Next week we will continue the convo with some more insight into the difference between paid and organic social media marketing.

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If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate, review & subscribe ❤ You can also connect with us on socials. We love chatting with you all!

• Instagram - @yourmarketingmates
• LinkedIn - /your-marketing-mates

The source referenced in this episode is Sprout Social's 2021 social media demographics for marketers.