SEO & Messaging: The Best Non-Icky Tips w/ Brittany McBean

Brittany McBean

[00:00:00] Brittany Herzberg: All right. Welcome back. We are here with one of my copywriting mentors, Brittany McBean.

[00:00:04] Brittany Herzberg: Say hi, and then Crystal's here as well. Say hi. You can say it out loud. 

[00:00:09] Brittany Herzberg: Hello. I love how we start these things. I am so stoked. We're gonna be talking about like research, messaging, conversions, seo. We're gonna loop it all together. We're gonna figure this out together. So I'm stoked. You're stoked. Brittany, you wanna tell us a little bit about you and who you are and who you help in the world?

[00:00:29] Brittany McBean: I don't know what I do thoroughly.

[00:00:33] Brittany McBean: Can you please keep that? I love that. Please. 

[00:00:37] Brittany McBean: I am a conversion copywriter and launch strategist. So I own a micro agency and we write launches and funnels for our clients. Our clients are typically more established business owners who have a validated offer and are typically working towards their million dollar launch or funnels.

[00:00:52] Brittany McBean: But then I also mentor copywriters who are trying to establish and build a premium copying business. So that's what I do 

[00:00:59] Brittany Herzberg: and she's really good.

[00:00:59] Crystal Waddell: [00:01:00] Oh. Yeah. Are the dots connecting? Okay. Yeah, they are. Okay. So I totally remember Brittany talking about you like so many times. 

[00:01:08] Crystal Waddell: Cause she was always talking about creating a premium copywriting business.

[00:01:11] Crystal Waddell: So those words stand out to me. 

[00:01:14] Brittany Herzberg: So the dots are connected. You 

[00:01:15] Brittany McBean: both. It's her. It's her. But yeah, it's both of us. We work 

[00:01:17] Brittany Herzberg: together. 

[00:01:18] Brittany Herzberg: I'm, this is gonna be like the funniest month of podcast because I was saying before we hit record, we've got Britney Crystal today and coming up on a future episode, we're gonna have Crystal, crystal, Britney, 

[00:01:29] Brittany McBean: Should we have nicknames like, What's, so 

[00:01:32] Brittany Herzberg: I go by B on here.

[00:01:34] Brittany Herzberg: Okay. So as long as I won't throw you off and then, I don't know, do you want a nickname? We can give you like a superhero nickname. 

[00:01:39] Brittany McBean: I feel like if I had thought about it before, I would've come up with a good secret agent nickname, but I don't know how I'm gonna feel with anything I come with on the fly.

[00:01:46] Brittany McBean: So we'll just go with B and Brittany.

[00:01:49] Brittany Herzberg: Okay. Let's see, how are we gonna bring this back in? I, 

[00:01:52] Crystal: this whole business of doubling and tripling your conversion rates, like what is the magic bean there?

[00:01:59] Brittany McBean: [00:02:00] Yeah. The short answer is messaging. The long answer is a lot of times my clients come in with a degree of success. They've made their first or second or third or fifth, six figures on their offer. And they've done it using more traditional marketing strategies. Ones that have been taught by marketing influencers or whatever you wanna call 'em, the people at the top of the pyramid scheme that is the marketing coaching world.

[00:02:24] Brittany McBean: And they've used that to launch their program, their. Online course or their mentorship program, or their coaching program or what, whatever that is. And it's gotten them so far, but they've also hit a plateau and they're usually feeling some degree of discontent around, like things don't feel super aligned, things feel a little icky, maybe they're not actually getting the students that they really like.

[00:02:47] Brittany McBean: And so what it comes down to is relying on these gimmicks as opposed to like the actual messaging. And so what we do is dive really deep into what's going on with their people [00:03:00] through really in-depth research process and strip away all of the flashy gimmicks and the things that have traditionally been used to peak anxiety, to trigger a sale and to generate a lead to buy.

[00:03:16] Brittany McBean: And rather than generating sales that way. Actually speaking to people in a really nuanced and in-depth and empathetic way to meet them right where they are and increasing conversions by really hitting the right message. A really, I know I already said the word nuanced but a really unique message and one that like really speaks to where their audience is and also brings in the right student and also decreases refund requests and all of this stuff on the backend as well.

[00:03:48] Brittany McBean: So it's yeah, of stripping away the gimmicks and using the connection to actually increase conversions. And that seems to work every time and more and more so [00:04:00] as I'm sure this is not a surprise to anyone and I think all you have to do is scroll comment section and TikTok to understand what's going on, but.

[00:04:09] Brittany McBean: Our world did not used to be this chaotic and this terrifying and this stressful and this anxiety producing. So we used to respond to exterior anxieties, right? You tell me that something's going away and this is my last chance to buy and this is a fast action bonus and I have to have this. And then I'm gonna get really excited and be like, ah, fomo, I better get this.

[00:04:30] Brittany McBean: And one, we now we've seen enough of that, that we now know that's not actually true. I'm gonna be able to buy this tomorrow cuz this is a false funnel or two. If I can't get it from you, that's fine, I don't care. I can get it from someone else cause I'm not buying this today. But we now have that external anxiety that we cannot control because every time we open our phones or turn on the news, there's something so terrifying that it only used to belong in our post-apocalyptic movies.

[00:04:59] Brittany McBean: That [00:05:00] the second, there's another negative emotion that comes across our screen that we can control. We're clicking off. And what people are now wanting from their quote unquote content. I hate saying like content creators, but what they're wanting from what they're consuming are the things that bring them peace, the things that make them feel seen, the things that make them feel heard, the things that make them feel calm and like it's gonna be okay and not stressed out.

[00:05:22] Brittany McBean: And so the pendulum is swinging. Yeah, I can say more about that, but I'll stop. I'll stop. 

[00:05:28] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. Gosh, that's so true. I have learned the hard way, through a heart event that happened to me in 2020 when I had broken heart syndrome from all that hot mess of a situation of a year and everything that the only way that I can really, stay away from it, it's just to turn it off.

[00:05:42] Crystal Waddell: Like I don't watch the news. I took the Apple News app off my phone, all that type of stuff. So now I really choose which news and things that I listen to. But, that's also not a real great way to stay informed. Say if a hurricane is coming to North Carolina.

[00:05:58] Crystal Waddell: But when you were talking [00:06:00] about the message aligning and, attracting the right people and like people you actually wanna work with in your programs and stuff, I thought I was like, does, do you think s e o helps, do you think s e o plays a role. In that alignment and, getting the right people into your programs.

[00:06:18] Brittany McBean: Yeah. I think at the most simplistic level, and I think a lot of your guests have shared something similar, and this is obviously something you all know as experts, but at the most simplistic level, s e o is strangers finding, you as the answer to their question. And I think at more technical, complicated marketing jargon, it's cold traffic finding you when they are problem aware or solution aware.

[00:06:43] Brittany McBean: That is a reference to the five stages of awareness, which is a principle that was, I guess created by a man named Eugene Schwartz. And that's probably something a lot of your audience is familiar with cuz they're really smart.

[00:06:54] Brittany McBean: But I'm happy to share more about that if you want. But. That's an excellent time for someone to enter into your funnel. And [00:07:00] if you, if your message is the right message, like if you can connect that like with what they're searching for, right? If you get those keyword whether there is some more nuance to it and you're really trying to reach a very specific, certain person who uses this specific certain word, or whether you're just like, Hey, I just want these people to find me.

[00:07:18] Brittany McBean: And then once they do, I want only the people that connect to this message to, to stay. I think it's really important to know how to be the answer to that question when that cold traffic, who is problem aware, is solution aware is finding you, and then it's. Everything else on the page, like not everything else other than seo.

[00:07:37] Brittany McBean: Obviously SEO is incredibly important, but it's the rest of that copy and it's the rest of that message that then allows people to say yeah, I'm staying here and I wanna keep finding answers from this person, or I wanna keep having them solve my problems, or learning solutions or learning more about who this person is or how many times have you searched something and something comes up and you're like, yeah, that's not what I'm looking for.

[00:07:58] Brittany McBean: Or maybe that is the answer, but oh [00:08:00] my God, I cannot watch this guy on YouTube scream at me while he's giving me the answer. Yeah. So I think it's incredibly important, but you, it's, you have to have the right strategy to get them there, but then like you have to know what you're saying to keep the right person there and move them to the next stage in the funnel.

[00:08:14] Brittany Herzberg: I've seen. From several different angles. You and your team do a really great job of remembering that person on the other side of the screen. So I think you do such a great job with the research processes that you have, and even in the copy creation, messaging, creation, you're remembering who that person is.

[00:08:31] Brittany Herzberg: And I think that's something that we all could use a reminder of. Just remember, there's another human on the other side of this who's actually consuming what you're putting out. And if it doesn't feel good to you when you're creating it, when you're putting it out there, it's probably not gonna feel good to the person who's reading it.

[00:08:47] Brittany Herzberg: So that's one thing that I just wanna drop our awareness into, because I've heard from so many business owners, they'll put things into practice that don't feel so good for them, and they know something feels off, but they don't really know what it [00:09:00] is, and they don't necessarily know where else to look for a different solution or a different tip or strategy or something like that.

[00:09:07] Crystal Waddell: I think that's really insightful. It's something that we could all reflect on, because it's like, if we wanna attract a certain person, what is that person like? And that's where this interesting level of research comes in.

[00:09:20] Crystal Waddell: So when you mentioned the five stages of awareness, and I'm thinking to myself, where does SEO O fit into the five stages of awareness?

[00:09:26] Crystal Waddell: And it actually fits in at every stage. But in different ways. But I wondered if you could go ahead and just talk to us about what those five stages of awareness. 

[00:09:35] Brittany McBean: Yeah I'll keep it super brief because there is so much great information on the internet. And if you wanna pop into YouTube and type in Brittany McBean, five Stages of Awareness, I have a great video that can help you out.

[00:09:44] Brittany McBean: Awesome. Yeah. Love that. How about that? How about that? Eugene Schwarz, principal, I can never say his name, so I'm just gonna keep going a person is in one of five stages of awareness when it comes to your product and their relationship to it. And so the five stages, our awareness [00:10:00] are unaware, problem aware, solution aware.

[00:10:03] Brittany McBean: Product aware and most aware. So I'll go through that really quick. Unaware simply means they're unaware. I'm not gonna go into depth because it's not likely that you would interact with someone at any point in your funnel that is unaware. And this is not a good place to spend marketing time, money, or effort.

[00:10:21] Brittany McBean: Someone who is problem aware, is aware that they have a problem, but is not really aware of what so the solutions are. And so when I say solutions, I can mean anything from pay to free offer, like any number of fixes to their problem. And so this is honestly I just find this being the easiest example.

[00:10:38] Brittany McBean: It's certainly not the only example, but let's say someone is struggling with their physical health, but they are feeling really fatigued and bloated. So they may not know that they have celiac disease or something, but they know that they feel fatigued and bloated, right? So they're problem aware.

[00:10:57] Brittany McBean: So when they move into solution [00:11:00] aware, they Crystal's pointing at herself when they move into solution aware. I'm laughing against that. Tell me more. Yeah, and I should preface this. I don't know anything about what I'm talking about. I'm making this up for demonstrative purposes only.

[00:11:13] Brittany McBean: Please do not use this to diagnose yourself or honestly figure out literally anything. So when they move into solution aware, now they're like, I probably feel fatigued and bloated cuz there's something going on with my physical health. I can go see a doctor, I can download the Noom app, I can get a trainer on, I can get a, like an online trainer or nutritionist.

[00:11:34] Brittany McBean: I can buy one of those kits where I can do like food sensitivity testing, right? So they're like aware of all the options, but they don't know which one is best for them. So once they're product aware, now they, yes they're aware of all these options, but they've honed in on one. So let's say you are the you are an online nutritionist who also does food sensitivity testing for your clients.

[00:11:56] Brittany McBean: So now they're like, okay, I know this [00:12:00] person. Let's call her Kaneisha. I made that name up. I don't know if there's a Kaneisha coach out there. There probably is, but I know that Kenisha there is. Hi. Does yeah. Hi. Hi. How are you doing? You're having a great day. I know that Kaneisha is a nutritional coach and I know that she does testing for food sensitivity.

[00:12:14] Brittany McBean: I know that food sensitivity causes bloating and fatigue. I wonder if this has anything to do with me. I'm still like, maybe it's new, maybe it's this other stuff. But I'm interested in Kaneisha and when they are most aware, that's basically like they're on your sales page or your checkout cart.

[00:12:28] Brittany McBean: They are like pretty convinced that you are the solution to their problem. And they just have, they're about to take that buying step. So it really is like going through their journey. And it, you can map this out as a customer journey. This is literally a funnel. If you turn this thing vertically, it becomes a funnel, like top of funnel Facebook ad onto a landing page, onto an email sequence, onto a sales page, onto a webinar, whatever it is.

[00:12:54] Brittany McBean: This becomes your funnel that you are moving and coaching this person through these different stages of [00:13:00] awareness as you're moving them closer to making a buying decision. Whether that decision is yes or no. And I have to say 

[00:13:07] Brittany Herzberg: that you had a course I'm gonna butcher the name of it. What's the copywriting one words that convert That one.

[00:13:13] Brittany Herzberg: Okay. So that course I was watching it and I think it was you, right? Where you took the funnel. And you tilted it on its side. Blew my mind. Literally. It just absolutely blew my mind because when she took it and it went from like a funnel to like on its side of this is the progression of what your client is going through.

[00:13:29] Brittany Herzberg: I was like, what? Like the, it's that simple. Anyway, that was amazing. I just have to say that. Oh, as you're talking about the different stages that our clients are in, I'm finding it fascinating, I am my client's ideal client.

[00:13:44] Brittany Herzberg: People are finding me, I am their ideal client. Like no joke I am able to do, cuz all of the copywriting that I do includes SEO O research and strategy. So as I'm working with them, I know what people would search because I'm sitting here with my fingertips on my [00:14:00] keyboard going, this is what I would look up.

[00:14:01] Brittany Herzberg: These are the things that, these are the words or the phrases that come to mind. So I find that really fascinating and I think it might be a superpower and I need to bottle it up and sell it somehow. But like it's really fun and it's very cool to notice that. And also to recognize okay, what stage of awareness am I at?

[00:14:20] Brittany Herzberg: Is that also where your people are at? Let's go ask them. Let's go talk to them. So on that note, what kind of data are you and your team looking for to help you figure out what messaging and what copy needs to go out and what strategy you need to create to call in the right people who are at the right stage of awareness so that it's an easy yes for them to click buy or whatever?

[00:14:42] Brittany McBean: That's a great question. It's really hard not to project. And sometimes you can't, sometimes you do have it almost is a leg up when you're like, oh, this is me. I was just searching for this. I was just looking for this, or I've been curious about this. Or I actually just purchased this. But you still have to be objective in knowing [00:15:00] and that is just my lens, and that could be really helpful and valuable information and give us like six steps, ahead.

[00:15:07] Brittany McBean: But you do have to maintain some sense of objectivity. And then, so what I like to do, because I am really good at what I do and I do have a really strategic brain and I do really enjoy like interpreting the data and then extracting the messages and there is, there has to be some sort of extrapolation.

[00:15:24] Brittany McBean: Like you can't, messaging can not just be numerical data, right? But like I do that after we get the data. So you do have to stay objective. So really quick, I'll share a little bit like how we added the data, and then I wanna give you a quick example of a time where I wasn't in the stage of awareness as the client we were reaching and or the student we were reaching, and that was very recent.

[00:15:43] Brittany McBean: So anyway, when we're looking at the data, we're grabbing it from three different places again, to try to get to hit that critical mass, right? And get as much of a holistic view as possible. I'm using all these buzzwords. Do I sound really smart? I sound really smart. Okay, so we're looking at first we're doing a cold audience data of mine.

[00:15:58] Brittany McBean: And so this is actually where we're getting our like top of [00:16:00] funnel messaging. So when I say cold audience data of mine, that's what we call it. But this is pretty much your typical like research that you hear marketers, copywriters share as what you should do for standard record research. So I am going to my client's industry, but not their list, not their audience.

[00:16:16] Brittany McBean: So this is like searching Amazon book reviews, Facebook groups, Reddit, right? So taking my client, going outside their world and seeing what conversations people are having about. This topic, this industry, this thing outside of their world. And so before they meet my client, before they're in their world, in their funnel, what kind of conversations are they happening or having, right?

[00:16:35] Brittany McBean: And that's gonna give us like that seo that that Facebook ad, like all of that, like top of funnel content, right? So we're getting that and then we're able to basically find the themes and then analyze that and actually put that messaging in like pie charts so that we get a physical hierarchy and we can see what we need to lead with in terms of the problem, what we need to lead with in certain, in terms of the negative stuff, problems, fears, anxieties.

[00:16:54] Brittany McBean: I don't focus on fears and anxieties, but I wanna know what they're experiencing and going through the positive [00:17:00] stuff, the outcomes, the goals, the dreams, desires their hesitations, all of that stuff. And then we dive into a warm audience, data of mind. So we're sending surveys out to our audience list, or I'm sorry, our client's list.

[00:17:10] Brittany McBean: And our clients usually have larger lists. So we're able to get a pretty significant. Number of responses. And so we're typically polling both buyers and non-buyers, but obviously these are now the people like in their world. And so that's going to gimme the messaging of the lowest hanging fruit, the people on their list, especially the non-buyers.

[00:17:27] Brittany McBean: Like what are they experiencing? What are they going through that we can, we don't have to pay for these leads. They're people, not leads, but like they're already there. How can we speak to them? And also where are they after they come into your world? And then we're really able to gather some quantitative data there.

[00:17:43] Brittany McBean: Really come up with that hierarchy. Cause that's where we get the most data. And then we do one-on-one interviews, and that's way more qualitative data. My team and I are sitting down having one-on-one interviews with our clients, students, so like audience members basically readers, sometimes students, sometimes non-buyers.

[00:17:58] Brittany McBean: And just getting [00:18:00] those more like slice of life moments, getting to really hear like the emotion, getting to understand like the nuance and what's going on. So we're not just looking at a survey response and then getting to put all of that together to put together this more fully formed view of what's going on.

[00:18:13] Brittany McBean: And so in that then we're able to discern and then also, so that's all the external research, but then we're also looking at our client and what they do and what them or their organization teaches and what their product teaches, and who are the students that are most likely to buy and who gets the most out of this product.

[00:18:27] Brittany McBean: And so then we can put together this picture of where someone is. So an example of that we just wrap, wrapped a project with An organization that teaches astrology, one of my favorite clients I've ever had, which is funny cause I've never really been into astrology. That's not something that's not like a way I see the world.

[00:18:42] Brittany McBean: I've never had a problem with it. It's just not something I have any information about. So I'm certainly in like the. Unaware slash problem aware. I would be like, what is astrology? Explain astrology to me. Those would be my cool searches. But we quickly learned that her people are astrology aware. [00:19:00] They have a first reading or a first touchpoint and they have some foundational information and they come to her organization called Astro Hub or Astrology Hub.

[00:19:07] Brittany McBean: If you're into astrology, you should check it out. Absolutely incredible. But they come to this organization to get more education and more information. So they are in the solution aware stage. And since I'm not solution aware and have none of that vocabulary, we had to use the research to gain that vocabulary and had to use the data to l to ask those people to tell us where they were so that we could reflect that back to them.

[00:19:29] Brittany McBean: I could not project myself into that at all. I had to use what they were telling us, which also I. Yes, it's nice when you can intuit some stuff, but also it's really nice when you can say, I can't make assumptions. I can't make wrong assumptions here, and I can't it's not like I'm right, you're wrong.

[00:19:46] Brittany McBean: I know. It's just this is what they're saying, this is what I have to go with. I 

[00:19:49] Brittany Herzberg: honestly feel like. When you don't know what's going on, when you don't know the vocab, when you don't have any touchpoint into the subject matter, you learn so much [00:20:00] from the people who have been who like are that 

[00:20:02] Brittany McBean: person's audience.

[00:20:03] Brittany McBean: You see it for what it is and Yeah. And when you, and they're teaching you. Yes. And when you can take what you know about the industry and what you do best, and I'm not good at much. Like I'm really not good much else. No. Stop it. No, it's true. Like I, I think that I am very good at this and I really enjoy what I do and I get that affirmation from our clients.

[00:20:20] Brittany McBean: And I do think like that whole like zone of genius thing, like if whatever that is, I think I'm in it, but I'm not good at much else, right? Like I re this is how my brain works. And so there is that, right? There is that okay, but it. It's like that meme of Julia Roberts and like all the math moving around.

[00:20:35] Brittany McBean: I feel like I start to see all the math like, come together even though I can't do math, right? Like I, once I'm looking at all that, but like when you don't know, you have to go with what's there and they're the ones telling you. And then my job is to take all of those pieces and be like, oh, this is how the puzzle goes together.

[00:20:51] Brittany McBean: Like we don't have the picture that we're working with. They give us all the puzzle pieces and then we're like, this is the puzzle. This looks really good. This is how it works. Yeah. 

[00:20:59] Crystal Waddell: [00:21:00] You are totally speaking my language here because I love research as well, and all of this just it's funny, I never knew anything about UX research and UX design, and I'm always talking about it right now because I'm on this journey to learn about it.

[00:21:13] Crystal Waddell: But I feel like everything you just described was some sort of alignment. Obviously user experience, research and design. Yeah. So it's so neat to see like how you said those puzzle pieces come together, in my mind for understanding those pieces of awareness. And then my, I'm visualizing like, the words flying in, at each level it's these are the words that belong in this particular stage of awareness. But you just made this that much more clear, cause I have this huge chart and so now I can add the terminology, cold market research to that top of funnel. Part of the process, and then add, the other warm audience data, mine, to the middle part of the process.

[00:21:54] Crystal Waddell: And I just love it because it's like you're filling in these gaps and I just think it's wonderful. Some people might [00:22:00] be a little bit overwhelmed with this conversation. Sure. I could imagine my dad listening right now. And we talk about these episodes all the time, so I can't wait to talk about 

[00:22:08] Brittany Herzberg: this one with them.

[00:22:09] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. But I 

[00:22:10] Crystal Waddell: wondered, when B was talking about being her own kind of her own client's, i c a for the first time, it also painted the picture for me of why we need personas for our research. Because when she said that, I thought, oh my gosh, yes. 

[00:22:27] Crystal Waddell: But then I realized, I was like, when you said, okay, not everybody's gonna be just like b. It's okay, so we can build out B pretty quickly and pretty easily, but then we have to ask that fun question that who'd we learn that from? Brenna? Who said that?

[00:22:42] Brittany Herzberg: I don't know if it was Brenna or maybe Sunny.

[00:22:44] Brittany Herzberg: Oh goodness. Just go listen to all of the podcast episodes. This is our plug for that. Okay. Yeah. 

[00:22:49] Crystal Waddell: It was either Brenna or Sunny that said, every time you do something, the next question is what's next? So what's next in this situation is to build out another persona because [00:23:00] obviously B'S not the only type of person that's looking for holistic medicine or holistic ways to manage health, or whatever it is.

[00:23:08] Crystal Waddell: So those things really align for me, and that was a huge takeaway. So I just wanna say thank you for that. And then the last comment I wanted to make, I think for what you said is and I have an illustration from my business as well, and I think I've talked about it before, but this idea that.

[00:23:26] Crystal Waddell: People sometimes bring in their experiences with the overall situation. Maybe they haven't had an experience with you but say for my e-commerce store, maybe they've bought something online from a random e-commerce store that they didn't really know and they had a bad experience. So once I realized that, I also realized, oh my goodness, I'm not just competing against other people who sell senior night gifts, or wooden letters.

[00:23:55] Crystal Waddell: I'm not just competing against those direct competitors of who [00:24:00] sell what I sell. I'm also competing against their past experiences or their current expectations. 

[00:24:07] Brittany McBean: So what we've started doing and I do wanna get back to that point of this is really overwhelming if you're a business owner. Cause it's super important to like, to notice what is within my capacity to do as a business owner.

[00:24:21] Brittany McBean: Like I do this as someone that my clients have hired me to do as an expert. Like they pay me $25,000 and I spend 13 weeks doing this for them, right? This is not likely something somebody's going to do for themselves. And there are things you can do for yourself. So we'll get to that. But I really wanna acknowledge yeah, if you are doing this for your business, then you are probably not doing the rest of your business, right?

[00:24:44] Brittany McBean: This is my business. Okay, so what we have started doing, It is it is no secret that every market is saturated. And that's not, I don't think that's a bad thing. I actually think that's a really good thing. Cause if it's if you do the same thing as me, then I'm gonna be really loud about who I am.

[00:24:58] Brittany McBean: So you can be like, I [00:25:00] love her or I hate her because if you wanna work, if you wanna work with me, then you probably don't wanna work with this person. If you wanna work with this person, you probably definitely don't wanna work with me like that. Anyway in 2020 and so I'm in the online business world.

[00:25:11] Brittany McBean: That's just the world that I'm in. And obviously it blew up in 2020 business registration went up 61% in the United States, in the, in Q3 of 2020 and kept rising until Q3 of 2021. Nobody has not been through a funnel, nobody has not purchased something online. Nobody is not aware of an online course.

[00:25:32] Brittany McBean: Whereas before somebody. My clients might have been engaging with someone as the first solution that they've ever encountered. And yes, obviously somebody's gotta be the first, but it's just it's just not likely that you're gonna be the first at this point. So what we've started doing in the research that we're doing and in the deliverables that we're creating for our clients is creating two parallel journeys.

[00:25:51] Brittany McBean: Almost like that stage of awareness journey. Like I, I map that out for our clients based on the research. And so one journey is as it relates to the problem that they're trying to [00:26:00] solve. So the problem that my client solves for them, just hit my mic. Hopefully that wasn't loud. The second journey is related to their experience trying to solve this problem.

[00:26:11] Brittany McBean: So let's go back to my astrology client, for example. One journey that we're mapping out is why they want to learn astrology and the. What the problem that it solves in their life. This idea of uncertainty, this idea of feeling like there's something bigger, wanting to know more, wanting to understand their purpose, right?

[00:26:30] Brittany McBean: That's their journey with wanting to see astrology. But what we learned in the research or wanting to understand astrology, what we learned in the research, that the biggest problem that they were expressing was not, I don't know where I came from. The problem they were expressing was every time I go to learn something about astrology, the information is so confusing, so convoluted, so all over the place that I can't make heads or tails of it.

[00:26:53] Brittany McBean: So we were like, last year, we were like, oh my gosh. There are two separate journeys going on. Like they are [00:27:00] expressing problems, frustrations, anxieties, desires, hopes and dreams as it relates to the solution like, How they're looking to solve this problem, like their actual experience with the product, with the fix.

[00:27:16] Brittany McBean: And then there's also this journey as it relates to the problem that they're trying to solve. And we didn't use to map that out like 2019. We weren't doing that. We were just doing like their problem to solution as based on the product that my client has and the problem that it solves for them.

[00:27:33] Brittany McBean: And now we're like, they have had an entire experience with other fixes, with other solutions, with other products. And that has created an entire separate journey that we are now speaking back into. And it is not likely that we are going to be speaking to people in a super aspirational place. They're likely jaded and frustrated.

[00:27:49] Brittany McBean: And so we now have to have all of this additional, not even additional messaging, cuz it's not about adding more copy, but we need to be this is gonna sound so gross holding space for [00:28:00] these experiences that they, you got through it, that they've had. I did it. If that makes sense. 

[00:28:05] Crystal Waddell: One of the questions I had was like, how do you make them feel seen? And I think just acknowledging what they've been through is, a simple enough thing.

[00:28:14] Brittany McBean: Yeah. All you have to do is reflect it back to them. If you stick the knife in and twist it, you're gonna make them feel worse and that might make someone stick around for a hot minute, but eventually their therapist is gonna be like, stop following them. That's not gonna.

[00:28:25] Brittany McBean: And if you pretend like it doesn't exist and you tell them, it's just a limiting belief, then you have not validated that person's experience. Like we don't have time for abusive relationships with marketers anymore. Like we have them with our parents that we have to deal with. We don't have time to have them with marketers.

[00:28:41] Brittany McBean: So if you validate through, like acknowledging and reflecting, they feel seen, they feel heard, they feel known, they feel understood, and they feel safe, and they will buy from you if they feel like you're safe. And we don't wanna just make them feel like they're safe. We would like to actually create a safe environment for them as well.

[00:28:58] Crystal Waddell: So you [00:29:00] said that we could bring this back to the person who's doing it on their own like more simplified, I don't know, version. Yeah, 

[00:29:07] Brittany Herzberg: yeah. The DIY version. Yeah. 

[00:29:10] Brittany McBean: The things that I mentioned before were cold audience sending a survey and one-on-one interviews.

[00:29:15] Brittany McBean: You can start there. The truth is, the more data you have or the more information you have, more examples you have in front of you, the more accurate of a picture you're going to have. And so that can be overwhelming trying to collect all of this information.

[00:29:30] Brittany McBean: But also, if you only find five responses in this one Facebook group, that could give you some tunnel vision, that may not be the right direction. So maybe what it is that every quarter you're gonna spend one week on your market research and you're gonna pick one of these things to do. Maybe it is the cold audience.

[00:29:44] Brittany McBean: Maybe it is sending a survey. Maybe it is the one-on-one interviews and you're going to see how much you can do in two days. Don't say I'm gonna go until I have a hundred responses, because then you're. You'll be going forever, right? Just see how much you can do in two days.

[00:29:56] Brittany McBean: We can link in the show notes, but I do have basically a market [00:30:00] research like resource and it gives you the spreadsheets, basically the spreadsheets that I use and a little mini training on exactly how to collect this data and like how to organize it.

[00:30:08] Brittany McBean: Cuz otherwise it just sits there and dies in a Google folder. So anyway, you're gonna spend just a little bit of time every quarter doing one of these things and gathering a good amount of information. Truly go download this thing. Cause I walk you through what it looks like, but you're basically gonna organize that information into patterns.

[00:30:23] Brittany McBean: And then once you see those patterns, so let's say like you are like, all right, this is the column in my spreadsheet of all the problems, people are saying, okay, now what at the highest level can I identify like the top three problems? And then put those responses in those top three categories and then, okay.

[00:30:38] Brittany McBean: This is the number one problem people are saying. Now I know in my messaging, like that's probably the thing that I need to be talking about the most. And then when I'm actually getting down to write the copy, going into those answers and seeing what words were they using? How are they expressing this?

[00:30:50] Brittany McBean: How are they like talking about it? And you just, what are the negative things? What are the positive things? Keep it super simple, super easy. What are the negative things they're talking about? What are the positive things they're talking about? So maybe you're doing that with a cold audience and then you're like, great, [00:31:00] this is my top of funnel messaging.

[00:31:02] Brittany McBean: What are my top of funnel assets? Is it a podcast? Is it a YouTube channel? Is it a landing page? Is it my Facebook ads? Is it Instagram ads? How can I go and adjust the messaging? How can I go and change the messaging to reflect this new messaging hierarchy, this new strategy? And then maybe next quarter, the message matching is super important. So yes, it would be ideal to have a consistent messaging experience, but Let's just do what we can when we can, right? So then maybe the next time you're sending out a list to, or a survey to your list, and maybe you're also posting some questions on social media, please get at least 50 responses.

[00:31:37] Brittany McBean: Anything over 150, you're just gonna get redundant. So you don't need to analyze more than 150 responses. It's crazy town. It's just like that's eight hours of your life. You'll never get back, but at least 50 responses. And you're gonna do the same thing. And then you're like, okay, this is my warm audience, this is where they are Now, how can I adjust the like content that I sent to my email list?

[00:31:55] Brittany McBean: How can I adjust my sales emails? How can I adjust my promotional content, my webinar, all of that stuff, my sales [00:32:00] page. And then the next quarter, hop on some one-on-one calls with your students and maybe some non-buyers you've identified who would be like ideal fits, and maybe some people who wouldn't be good fits.

[00:32:08] Brittany McBean: You're not gonna identify that, you're not gonna tell them that, but it's also important to know what brought you into my world and like what messaging maybe shouldn't I be using? We're not like, we're not trying to kick them out but you just wanna be understanding what's going on and just get a better picture of, and just what are the negative patterns?

[00:32:25] Brittany McBean: What are the positive patterns? Like you do not have to complicate it, but literally add those up to figure out what are the things that they're expressing the most. And like maybe do that every year because I don't know if you've noticed this, but like things change pretty fast and like the three years that were 2020, that was of similar for a lot of people, but especially in my world where it's pretty heavy in online marketing, 2022 was really, especially the second half of 2022 was really different for people.

[00:32:52] Brittany McBean: Yeah. Than 20 20, 20 20, 20 20, 20, 21. We were like John Ralph here, flushed with cash. 2022 [00:33:00] dried up. So we like, we have been very intentional with our customers data. And we're saying like, show us all of your data from the last two years because we need to have a before and after because the last six months like is not the same.

[00:33:14] Brittany McBean: And so you don't have to be doing this all the time if things aren't working. If your conversion, and look, if your conversion numbers are working, then don't spend all your time doing this. Go find the things that aren't working and fix that. But like when things are shifting, just start talking to your people and seeing if you can figure out like where you're missing the mark and try to stay objective as possible.

[00:33:33] Brittany McBean: Yeah, 

[00:33:33] Crystal Waddell: I'm obsessed with conversion rates, and I'm obsessed with e-commerce conversion rates especially, and I saw something when I was working with a store they, I don't know, she had seven to $8,000 worth of sales before 8:00 AM it was like 8:00 AM her time, 11:00 AM my time, cause she was on the West coast and I was like, oh my gosh. And then I saw her conversion rate and it was under 1%. And every time I have seen [00:34:00] anything about e-commerce conversion rates, the target has always been at minimum 1%. And so it actually took a little bit of pressure off of me because I was like, okay, even if I'm not at that point, I can still make that kind of money.

[00:34:13] Crystal Waddell: I just have to find the balance between the two, and I think that idea of interviewing someone who is not a good fit. Is such a great idea because there's a lot of people that will come into our world at Collage and Wood who can't necessarily afford the product that we're selling, and I've even seen that comment on ads that we've run on Facebook. It was like, oh, this isn't worth $300 or whatever. And I just smile. Cause I'm like, whatever. But yeah, this to me is saying, whoa, something is missing in our targeting there because obviously our person is not going to say that and they're definitely not gonna leave a comment like that on Facebook.

[00:34:55] Brittany McBean: Yeah. 

[00:34:55] Brittany Herzberg: So I love that you talked about going back and one of the things I [00:35:00] like to remind people of, SEO O, the O stands for optimize. Go back and optimize. And it doesn't have to be this, like you said, this big like long drawn out, month long process where it's I'm just gonna be in my like cave of research and talking to all other people.

[00:35:14] Brittany Herzberg: It's like you still have a business to run, especially if we are talking to you and you're a solopreneur, you're wearing all the hats, you still have to run your business and you can get this information, get this data, get this language, and go back and optimize things. So I really like that you called out, what is your top of funnel product strategy marketing tools?

[00:35:32] Brittany Herzberg: Is it a podcast, blog, whatever. Use that top of funnel research for that. Go back, talk to the warm audience, optimize those things, go back, talk to the, so I really like that you matched that up for everyone. And then the other thing I wanted to comment on, cuz I'm also like rewatching a training that I've taken and something that I feel like it's there, but it could be like, beefed up even more is if you're really new, if you haven't had that many people buy your thing, go through your thing, whatever, get some of [00:36:00] the feedback from people that have worked with you or that have gone through your thing that can speak to you, to your qualities.

[00:36:06] Brittany Herzberg: Because we can't forget that. I feel like a lot of times at the end of the day, people are buying, I'm buying, Crystal's wooden letter. I'm working with Britney with her package. So it's I want to connect with you, I want to work with you. So we can't for, we can't leave ourselves out of the equation.

[00:36:21] Brittany Herzberg: And if you're like super fresh, super brand new, that's a really low hanging fruit that you could start with. 

[00:36:27] Brittany McBean: Yeah. And also if we are just like, okay, who does my audience need me to be? Let me mold myself based on the research. It's who am I? Who do I know myself to be? What are my values?

[00:36:37] Brittany McBean: What do what am I not bending on? What do I wanna advocate for and against? What does my personality, and then what does this research look like through that lens? What does this message look like through that lens? So it's certainly not about molding yourself. And the other thing that I'll say is what I hear so many times is like, everybody thinks I'll start with the website, which is the hard, or like a sales page, like the thing that is like the most technical and the most code and have to be designed.

[00:36:58] Brittany McBean: And it's like you gotta go into a [00:37:00] backend and you're gonna screw it up and then you're gonna be on like with support for eight hours, right? My clients run multimillion dollar businesses and we'll finish the strategy portion of our project, like before we write copy and they're like, this was amazing.

[00:37:12] Brittany McBean: We're taking this strategy and I'm gonna start testing this message out in our podcast episodes or in our broadcast emails. They don't go rewrite their website. They don't go fix another piece of copy. They're like, Hey, in the next email we send out, we're sending it out all around this and we've never talked about this before.

[00:37:28] Brittany McBean: And then they'll be like, oh my gosh, our responses like people just were like all in their inbox, right? Just like past your messaging in the lowest, like easiest, lazy, like what is the laziest way you can test this messaging Like stories Instagram, your email, your podcast, be lazy, but do not let that research live and die in a survey.

[00:37:50] Brittany McBean: That's the biggest mistake I see. Because people are like, do your market research, send a survey, do your market research, interview your people, and then my clients will be like, okay, I sent a survey and I'm like, [00:38:00] amazing. What'd you do with that? They're like I sent a survey. And also, and then.

[00:38:02] Brittany McBean: When you're a business owner, you're doing a million things. So no, no shame there. But if you're going to take the work to write that survey and in the the market research thing that I have I basically tell you what questions to put on a survey and how to structure it. But then just look at those answers and just put them in some categories.

[00:38:16] Brittany McBean: That's all you have to do. 

[00:38:17] Crystal Waddell: What I really appreciate about that feedback is the fact that you're giving social media a job, or you're giving Instagram or whatever platform you're using a job to do something that's gonna help your business versus just getting on Instagram because someone said it was going to be good for your business in some way.

[00:38:35] Crystal Waddell: So I love that there's actually a purpose and a strategy behind that. And, I'm thinking, oh, how could we use that? But that's the biggest and most important message I think, is that we should use those other platforms as, ways to improve our businesses rather than try to.

[00:38:50] Crystal Waddell: Build their business by using their platform. 

[00:38:53] Brittany McBean: Yeah, the reason I'm not on social media is cause I don't have a purpose or a strategy. I I'm on it, but it's a desert wasteland cuz there's [00:39:00] not a strategy or purpose for it right now. Like it has not been where my money has come from.

[00:39:04] Brittany McBean: if there's not a strategy, don't do it. But if you can come up with a strategy and it works and do it strategically. 

[00:39:09] Brittany Herzberg: And that was actually something that when I went through five Figure Leap, that was like a strategy of mine that was challenged and I appreciated that there was a little bit of pushback and it was like, this might not be your place.

[00:39:19] Brittany Herzberg: And so I was like, okay, what has come from my time on there? And I actually came up with a surprising amount of collaborations. Clients have come from there. So it's cool, it's working for me. Do I need to show up and, break my brain and use every single like tool that's on there? No. That way I can figure out like, what do I had this conversation with a client yesterday.

[00:39:39] Brittany Herzberg: It's She's so resistant to social media and I'm like, that's cool. Maybe you one day decide that you wanna try some things. What lights you up? Because she's even if as I was talking with her on Zoom, like her whole body language changed. She was just like, I hate this. I'm like, then don't do it.

[00:39:54] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. Figure out what you like, figure out again, where you have the actual reward coming in. [00:40:00] Whether it's a lead, again, a person, whether it's like a potential client a collaboration opportunity. Don't forget that sometimes it's just like a visibility opportunity too, that you might connect with on there.

[00:40:09] Brittany Herzberg: But yeah, put your energy and your effort in places that light you up and actually give you something back for your time. 

[00:40:17] Brittany McBean: Yeah. Yeah. Like the Venn diagram, like of the ROI plus it doesn't suck my soul. Yeah, it has to, it ha you have to find the thing in the middle. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:40:26] Crystal Waddell: Okay. So I think this is probably gonna be the last question that we might have time for.

[00:40:31] Crystal Waddell: But I'm just curious we talked about like the top of the funnel in the middle of the funnel and the messaging that goes there. What about the actual conversion piece? Is there a certain type of messaging or certain type of words that we're looking for in the conversion? Like when they're actually ready to buy that makes them make the choice?

[00:40:50] Crystal Waddell: Is there a name or a way to categorize that type of 

[00:40:53] Brittany McBean: language? So traditionally, I would've told you, and traditional marketing tells you that when someone's at the bottom of the [00:41:00] funnel, the details that they need to see. Top of funnel, we're making emotional decisions. Bottom of the funnel, we're making logical decisions.

[00:41:06] Brittany McBean: And so you share more details as you go down. And when you're at the closest to the bottom, the last touchpoint, the details that they need to see are things like urgency and scarcity and bonuses and all of that. Traditionally, that's what I would've said. What I now believe to be true is what people need to see even more at the bottom of the funnel is even more validation.

[00:41:30] Brittany McBean: So what we do in like our last few emails so okay. Checkout cart. We've got social proof. That's super important, right? So like social proof, bottom of the funnel, we've got the checkout cart is always gonna have the top features as it relates to what the research said they care about the most, like the product or with the top features.

[00:41:48] Brittany McBean: Very transparent and obvious pricing. They don't have to do any math. We're not doing this like starting at 3 97 time six no, this is what it crossed, this is whatever, right? And then social proof. So that's checkout cart. But like the last [00:42:00] few emails that we're sending, we are validating the fact that they haven't made a decision yet.

[00:42:05] Brittany McBean: So we are saying like, the fact that you haven't made a decision means that you're an incredibly discerning person. And this isn't just like blowing smoke up their booty to like, whatever. But we're not using fomo. We're not saying make a decision now. Why are you still on the fence?

[00:42:17] Brittany McBean: Get off the fence. We're like, the fact that you're still reading this, like you are discerning about your decisions. You've been burned in the past. This needs to be an intentional investment. We're validating their, their They're critical thinking. They're questioning their their discernment basically.

[00:42:32] Brittany McBean: As opposed to card's closing tomorrow, oh my gosh, the card is closing and after that, everybody explodes and the world ends in no world wants the speed and then the price goes away, and you can never ever get this again. That's what traditional marketing will tell you to do. I think that's still works for some people.

[00:42:45] Brittany McBean: And I think that is going to work less and will continue to attribute to less student success, more student failure and more refund requests. So yeah. It's again, making them feel seen and heard. But maybe even more about now the logic is [00:43:00] about that customer journey as it relates to the process of trying to solve their problem.

[00:43:05] Brittany McBean: So we're not speaking as much to the solution, but we're speaking like, you're reading this because you already know that you want this solution and that this is. This is off and promising that, but like you haven't made the decision because it's really hard to trust someone again. And it's really hard to try something just one more time.

[00:43:20] Brittany McBean: And that's okay. What information do you need? What questions do you have to make a decision? And telling them like, I don't want to make this decision for you because after tomorrow, if the card does close, if it actually closes, the decision will be made for you. So I want, I would love you to be able to confidently decide no if it's a no or yes, if it's a yes, what information do you need from me?

[00:43:40] Brittany McBean: Here's the answers to some questions. Here's what other students have said. That's the kind of things that we're doing at the bottom of the funnel. Love that. Thank you. Thank you for 

[00:43:49] Crystal Waddell: that. 

[00:43:50] Brittany Herzberg: Okay. So let's say someone is listening. They love you as much as we do, and they wanna find you. Where can they go find you?

[00:43:57] Brittany McBean: So if I [00:44:00] always joke like social media is just such an absolute. Joke for me, like my whole team's Brittany, we should do social media. And I'm like, that sounds great. Who wants to do it for me? I am the most consistent and the most generous with the information that I teach on YouTube and on my email list.

[00:44:15] Brittany McBean: If you want to get on my email list, the freebie, the, I hate saying freebee, the market research thing that I mentioned, whether you want that or not, just grab that and that will get you on my email list. You can unsubscribe any time. But I do share YouTube videos where I just teach everything I know cuz I love the sound of my own voice and I don't know when to stop talking.

[00:44:34] Brittany McBean: If you would like to work together, we have some capacity left for 2023. And so it's just brittany mcbean.com/contact. 

[00:44:43] Brittany Herzberg: I love it. And you are so giving with all of the stuff that you share. But yeah, thank you so much for being here and for just sharing everything I love. Every time I get to talk with you, there's always you joke that there's not a whole lot that you do great, but there's always something that I learned from you, even if you feel like there's not.

[00:44:57] Brittany Herzberg: So thank you. 

[00:44:58] Crystal Waddell: Sometimes the act [00:45:00] of, finding the right words is one of the most difficult parts. And we talk about keyword research, but again, if the words are not in alignment, With the customer's journey, then they're not as effective as they could be.

[00:45:14] Crystal Waddell: This is a deeper dive and I really appreciate like how you segmented the strategy because it really shows, okay, these are the types of words that go towards, for somebody who knows nothing, and that really solidifies that idea in my mind, and hopefully for whoever's listening right now, that the words that you use to talk to somebody who doesn't know about what you do are going to look a little different than the words to the people who do know what you do.

[00:45:43] Crystal Waddell: But then you're gonna go back to those original words to remind people of what they didn't know, that now they do know when they're ready to make a purchasing decision. So those were some huge connections I thought that you made today in terms of seo. 

[00:45:58] Brittany Herzberg: If you're listening to this and you're [00:46:00] like, I don't know the words, the people have the words.

[00:46:03] Brittany Herzberg: The people have the words. Yeah. It is, it's so simple. When they give you the thing, if I have a friend that I'm stuck on a project, it's because I don't have the words from the right people. So the people have the words, go talk to the people or GoTalk what they've said on like Facebook or Amazon reviews or whatever.

[00:46:17] Brittany Herzberg: They've got their words for you. So it's not this big, giant scary thing. It's totally tackalable. 

[00:46:22] Brittany McBean: And trust your instincts over marketers. Yes. Because marketers and copywriters will say, use their words. Use their words. Which is great advice, which is why Brittany just said it, why B just said it.

[00:46:31] Brittany McBean: And, but you will know if you're working in a really sensitive or painful area and where people aren't gonna say these things out loud, or it's okay if they say it, but it's not okay if you say it. You like nobody knows your people better than you. So trust your instincts. And just cuz a copywriter said, use their words.

[00:46:48] Brittany McBean: You may know if it's not okay to use their words. So you may know if you need to use some synonyms or some coded language because your people need to see that, that you're sensitive and you know what they're going through, but they're not ready for you to say it out loud. They're not ready for [00:47:00] them to say it out loud.

[00:47:00] Brittany McBean: Trust yourself more than marketers. We don't really know what we're talking about that much. Exactly. Thank you for saying that. 

[00:47:07] Brittany Herzberg: We don't. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. You've been amazing. We could talk to you all day long, but we'll catch you on the next episode. Thank you for listening.

[00:47:15] Brittany Herzberg: Go check out all of Britney's things. We'll have everything linked below, and we'll catch you later. Bye 

[00:47:22] Crystal Waddell: bye.