A marketing strategy allows your business to effectively target your desired audience. We sat down with Melissa Dickfos of In The Mixx Marketing as she emphasises how important that your business markets itself on relevant platforms, or you could be costing your business money.
Wade: Thanks for taking a few minutes out to watch momentum talks on Wade Hatchett from Your Business Momentum. And today we've got Melissa from In The Mixx Marketing. Welcome, Melissa.
Melissa: Hi, Wade.
Wade: Good to have you here. Before we get started, we'll just give you a quick introduction for Melissa. Melissa is a passionate and creative marketing professional who loves working with business owners to bring their brands to life. The marketing agency In The Mixx Marketing was created to help business owners just like you to provide creative, affordable marketing strategies and solutions. Qualified in both marketing and human resources and Melissa’s driving enthusiasm assists business owners to create marketing strategies and content that unlocks their business potential by connecting with their target audience. This includes digital marketing, copywriting and social media. She's based in Toowoomba but works with clients Australia wide. This is certainly an area of business that we see a lot of owners struggle with. So once again, Thanks for joining us.
Melissa: Thank you.
Wade: So the purpose of momentum talks is really just to share valuable content with business owners and to introduce you to specialists who can help you overcome some of the challenges that you might be facing in your business. And today, Melissa’s going to talk about marketing strategies that allow businesses to effectively target that is a lot of audience. And I'm really speaking about if we get this wrong, how costly this can be for business. So let's get started. And I'll jump into my first question. We like to start with something a little different. So what's a crazy or amazing statistic that's relevant to your industry that others might not know.
Melissa: Thanks, Wade. I think one of the biggest things that people don't realize is when it comes to social media, and Facebook is such a massive area that people focus on. It is important to remember that your organic posts or posts that you don't do that aren't paid will actually only usually reach around 2% of your audience or followers. So that is a really small amount of people, not to say that if you have content that is really engaging, then you can get much better figures than that. But it is something that people just think, “Wow, I can't believe that, that I'm only reaching 2% of the people that are following my page.”
Wade: Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it? Certainly, something that you'd expect would be a lot higher than that. 2%. So, what a stats, what a great way to start. But what's some of the services that you provide that you're really well known for?
Melissa: Like you mentioned, I focus on providing affordable marketing strategies and solutions for business owners. And that really incorporates things from digital marketing, social media, optimizing for SEO or search engine optimization so that businesses can be actually found on Google. Well It's great to have great content, if you don't have the keywords and areas filled out correctly on your website, people won't find you and they won't find out how amazing your business is.
Wade: So we're seeing a big trend in regards to people, building their own websites, or doing that quite cheaply and that can have a quite a significant impact on SEO, I'm thinking. Is that right?
Melissa: Yeah, absolutely. And that also goes into the actual copywriting on your website. So that's really important as well. So it's great to have content that sounds like you as the business owner, but you need to make sure that you are optimizing it so it is friendly for Google as well. And, you know, that goes with your blogs as well. So if you've got really great topics, you know, you can still get them seen by Google if you make sure that you have the keywords and things optimized throughout.
Wade: Okay, excellent. Thank you. What are the top sort of two or three major problems that you see arise for family business owners and that aligns with your area of specialization.
Melissa: Yeah, I think one of the biggest problems that arises is that a lot of people don't know where to actually start when it comes to marketing. It is one of those things that might seem, you know, to some people it is just advertising, to some people it's just social media, but it encompasses so much. So it's really important to actually get your strategy right, and work out where your target audience is and to make sure that you are actually spending your time, which is ultimately money effectively and in the right places.
Wade: You know, marketing obviously drives the leads into business, and in many occasions, it's the leads that drive the revenue. So it's such a critical area to get right.
Melissa: Yes, absolutely.
Wade: What's one action that a business owner could take to solve some of those problems that they're facing?
Melissa: So I think one of the biggest things would be to sit down with their team to uncover you know, where they think that their target audience is. First and foremost, if they haven't already done that, is to really define who their target audience and Avatar is for their business. So knowing you know that it is, males or females, it can sometimes be both. But building that ideal client, knowing their industries, their likes, their demographics, so everything about them, and really, making it all come together is one of the most important things. And sometimes it might be engaging your consultant even just to get that groundwork done is probably the biggest action I think that they can take. And if they've already done that, then the next thing realistically is to work out what are your goals when it comes to your sales? And so how can we then build a platform to work back and create the strategy that will actually help you to achieve those goals?
Wade: You mentioned really understanding your avatar or your client there. I'm guessing that you use this to know how to speak to them, how you write your copy and how you build your website, and all the rest of this, is that right?
Melissa: Yeah, absolutely. So it's really important to know who they are so that you can use language that they will actually resonate with. So and it's also to allow you to showcase your personality in your language that you're using on your social media and your website. And when, you know, if that is how you talk, people will expect that and they'll know that and it will come through in the copy. But it's got to be in line with your ideal client. So sometimes there can be a disconnect between how you do speak and your ideal client. And so that's sometimes where there is a little bit of work as well. Yeah.
Wade: Wonderful. Thanks. What's one valuable tool or system or piece of content that you can share that could change a business owner’s day in regards to marketing?
Melissa: Okay, so one thing, a piece of content that I highly recommend for a lot of small and medium business owners is actually to understand a little bit more about SEO or search engine optimization yourself. So something I recommend is taking a short course. One I recommend it is Kate Toones 10 day SEO challenge. So it's a nice, user friendly, she uses great language. So it's not all really technical and it is easy to understand for business owners. And it is a very affordable price. The best part is even if you do want to outsource your search engine optimization to a marketer or agencies later on, knowing how it all works yourself is a really useful tool. And because it is really cost effective, it's just something that I think is a beneficial piece of content for all business owners.
Wade: Wonderful, great advice. Thanks Mel, last question, and I said this earlier, that the purpose of momentum talks is really just to add value to business owners. So we would like to know what's the best piece of software that you use in your business and what does it do for you? If it's valuable for you? I'm sure it will be for other business owners as well.
Melissa: Yeah, so one that is something that I use nearly most days, or sometimes a lot in one day is a program called Buffer. So it is a social media management tool. And it allows you to post on a lot of different platforms. So from Instagram to Facebook, LinkedIn on both a personal or a company page, Pinterest and Twitter. So it really has all the bases covered, which there are a lot of social media management tools out there and it is really hard to find the perfect one for you. And so whilst sometimes it does depend on what your overall goals are, I find this one really effective because you can use it for a lot of different platforms. And another great benefit to is that for Instagram, not all platforms allow you to post directly to Instagram, but Buffer does, it is one of the approved tools by Instagram so you can actually post videos directly to the platform now as well which is really useful because videos are one of the most important pieces of content that you should be sharing on your social media channels as well.
Wade: Right. Thank you. I'll certainly check that out today. Look, I'm sure you can see the passion that Melissa has got for connecting businesses with their clients. So if you need to generate some more leads or connect with clients, please reach out to Melissa, or you can check out her website inthemixmarketing.com.au. You can connect directly with her on LinkedIn. Please take a few minutes now also to subscribe. And if this is something you found interesting, that will allow you to get momentum talks whenever we interview someone that can add value to your business. And as always, we're on the lookout for quality specialists. So if you've got a message or service that you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you. Melissa once again, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you joining us today.
Melissa: Thanks, Wade. It's been a pleasure.
Wade: Thanks Mel.
