The Simple and Smart SEO Show

Streamline Your SEO + Marketing Strategy w/ Kristin Lawton

May 17, 2023 Kristin Lawton, Crystal Waddell, Brittany Herzberg Season 2 Episode 52
The Simple and Smart SEO Show
Streamline Your SEO + Marketing Strategy w/ Kristin Lawton
Show Notes Transcript

Kristin Lawton is the Chief Brand Mixologist at District Brand Bar.

She has come on the show to demonstrate the importance of "know, like, trust" in a marketing strategy and how SEO plays a role in each stage.

Connect with Kristin!
Website
Instagram
Marketing Style Quiz

Kristin's High-level definition of SEO: making it easier for people to find you on various platforms (e.g. Google, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube).

1.Know, like, trust marketing strategy broken down into stages:

  •   Know: Focus on three marketing channels to optimize discovery (e.g. website, Instagram, Facebook groups).
  •   Like: Engage with the audience on specific platforms (e.g. Instagram stories/DMs, email, TikTok stitches).
  •   Trust: Convert clients through established mechanics (e.g. launches, masterclasses, call to actions).

2. A well-defined client journey is important:

  • Build a good client experience, including referral systems and testimonials.
  •  Relationship-oriented approach rather than metric/data-driven.
  • Establishing a client management system before starting SEO.

3. Storybrand framework for messaging & goal setting:

  • Utilize Storybrand framework in messaging.
  • Setting yearly goals and breaking them into smaller, manageable tasks. 
  • Scheduling six-week planning retreats for organization.
  • Tips on simplifying brand and marketing: create a client journey and narrow brand focus.


Connect w/ B: YouTube, Website, LinkedIn, Instagram

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This transcript is machine-generated and has not been edited for errors:

[00:00:00] Brittany Herzberg: welcome back to the simple and smart SEO show. We are here this week with surprise, another one of my friends, Kristen Lawton. 

And Crystal's here too. 

Say hi everyone. 

[00:00:09] Crystal Waddell: Hello. 

[00:00:10] Kristin Lawton: Hi. 

[00:00:10] Brittany Herzberg: Okay. So we are going to be talking about some really fun stuff. 

This podcast episode is really inspired by another podcast episode that I heard Kristen on, where she was talking about this, know, like trust marketing strategy, quarterly planning situation.

And I was like, can you please come over and Talk with us about it. So this is where we're going. 

But before we get there, Kristen, who are you? How do you help people? What do you do? 

[00:00:34] Kristin Lawton: Thank you for having me, guys. I'm really excited for this chat. So yeah, I'm Kristen Lawton. 

I am owner and I call myself a Chief Marketing or Chief Brand Mixologist with District Brands Bar because I do everything with a cocktail mixology theme.

I think there's a lot of overlap when it comes to like marketing and branding and making cocktails. 

And I love making cocktails and drinking them. Mocktails too. [00:01:00] But I hope solopreneurs and small businesses really craft their brand identity and create a marketing strategy that is based on their unique client journey so that they're actually attracting the right audience and that their marketing is what I call the triple threat, which is effective, efficient and effortless.

So really I want people to eliminate overwhelm and market their brands with ease. 

[00:01:25] Brittany Herzberg: I love it. 

[00:01:27] Crystal Waddell: Okay. So I noticed behind you, you have a Peloton bike. 

[00:01:31] Kristin Lawton: I do. 

[00:01:31] Crystal Waddell: And then you just talk about triple threat. So I'm like, Whoa, this lady knows a little sports, Lingo. 

[00:01:37] Kristin Lawton: Oh yeah, I guess so. So we're in my bedroom, my office and my gym.

I spend about 20 hours a day in here. 

[00:01:45] Brittany Herzberg: I'm so glad that's not the only case for me. I love it.

[00:01:48] Kristin Lawton: I live in Washington, D. C. Smallish condo. And my husband has this guest room as his office. So this is by my everything. 

[00:01:57] Crystal Waddell: Awesome. 

[00:01:58] Brittany Herzberg: one question I love asking [00:02:00] every single guest, and there's no wrong answer, is how do you define SEO or what do you think of when you think of SEO?

[00:02:07] Kristin Lawton: I think it's just like about making, helping people find you easier. 

And I'm trying really trying to like also get better at it's not just about Google and like to your website but there's SEO in everything. 

Especially when we talk about the know part of the know like trust and like all of the traffic sources that people can find you in.

So, just really making like it easy for people to find you on Instagram and easy to people to find you in Pinterest and YouTube and all of the Searches that search engine that you don't think of beyond like Google.

And I don't really count Bing, but making it easier for people to find you. 

[00:02:43] Brittany Herzberg: Perfect. 

[00:02:44] Crystal Waddell: Okay. So let's start with SEO in the know part of 

the process of a client journey. What does that look like? What's that even mean?

[00:02:52] Kristin Lawton: Yeah. Okay. So I think just like baseline is we all hear about know, like trust.

And you'll like, everyone's Oh, if you do [00:03:00] this, you make like building know, like trust better. But I think that's like too broad.

I like to like actually make it very clear. So it's a path, it's your journey. You want people to first know you, then like you, then trust you. 

And the trust is where you convert them to clients.

So the know, I think there's it's really about like, how are you getting and your brand, getting discovered maybe organically, and then what are you doing to also get yourself discovered? 

Like me coming on this podcast type thing. But, so I think for getting discovered, which is like that In a way, SEO can be very like passive in terms of your marketing.

There's a lot that you do behind the scenes, but at the end of the day, like you're waiting for people to come to you. 

And so you're doing everything you can to get people to find you. 

So yeah, I think it's like thinking through what are the steps. 

That, narrowing down your customer journey and saying, okay, here's the three places that I'm going [00:04:00] to put myself out there so that people can find me.

So for instance, for me, it's my website and I'm trying to work on my blog and get that restarted again. 

Yeah. Instagram and then trying to be more active and maybe like Facebook groups or something. 

Plus then like promotion and stuff like this, but I think that's where we less SEO, though. I still think it's good.

People were to Google specific keywords, maybe they would come across this podcast and discover me that way. 

[00:04:30] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. 

[00:04:31] Crystal Waddell: So you're saying that you recommend to your clients to have three different platforms where people can get to know 

them?

[00:04:38] Kristin Lawton: Yeah. So I tend to work with a lot of entrepreneurs who are feeling very overwhelmed with marketing.

So they're usually in their earlier stages of business, maybe in the, zero to three or four year where they haven't really nailed. Anything yet? 

They're trying everything. So I like to really focus them in and say, okay let's pick three places and [00:05:00] three traffic sources or marketing channels that people are going to know you in, and we're going to build up we're going to optimize those channels.

You are working it. We're going to make your marketing efforts very like efficient and effective. And only once those are honed, can you like move on and add in a new marketing channel.

[00:05:21] Brittany Herzberg: I like that advice because it can feel very overwhelming when you hear everyone and their mother being like, you should be here and here and here and here.

And then it's okay, cool. When am I going to sleep?

[00:05:31] Kristin Lawton: I know and that's why defining your client journey is like the number one thing people need to do like you and you have to work on all of the steps, right?

You can't just focus on know, you have to build the like you have to build the trust.

But when you know okay and these are the three places that I'm building the know these are the two places I'm building like and this is the one place I'm building trust, then you can let the shiny pennies go, because you can, you're like, okay, now I have to be intentional because these are the only places I'm allowed to be until [00:06:00] those are up and working. 

[00:06:01] Crystal Waddell: Okay, so I definitely want to talk about the client journey here in just a bit yeah. 

Can you tell us how SEO inserts itself into the like part of the journey like getting people to like your brand or like your stuff? 

[00:06:16] Kristin Lawton: Yeah, maybe you guys can help with this too. So the like to me is like where you're engaging with your audience and you're building relationships and community.

So it's two way street. So I think, so for me where I'm building, is in my email and on Instagram and Stories, DMs some of the posts, but more, lots of the time, like the feed posts and the reels are more about getting discovered in the know, and it's more the stories, the DMs, relationships, where the like is happening.

And then email, it's about getting them on to, in the know period, getting them onto my email list. And then they're getting those emails. I'm replying to their responses, trying to make my emails more engaging, [00:07:00] etc. 

So I don't know where would you guys think SEO comes in there?

[00:07:04] Brittany Herzberg: I'm thinking just with everything that you're saying, it's almost like SEO is super important with the know piece of things. 

And then when it gets to like the first thing that came to mind, because of course, as I spend way too much time on Instagram and I have a blast, but when it comes to leaving comments.

I saw, I don't know when it was, at least a year plus ago, someone was like, make sure you're inserting keywords in your comments. 

And I was like, Oh, thank you. 

So you're getting these people to like you, which then leads nicely into trust, but you're getting them to associate you with this topic of, for me, it's SEO case studies and storytelling and things like that and social proof.

So it's I'm trying to say those keywords as buzzwords in my comments. 

[00:07:47] Kristin Lawton: Yeah. 

That's so smart. I have not, I'm going to be you're my credit now.

[00:07:51] Crystal Waddell: When you were talking about know and like , I feel like my blog is that place for my people because they'll find our site through Google searches.

And [00:08:00] so for the topic of say senior night, I make senior night gifts and giant wooden letters and different things for people.

So my blog is centered around, what do you wear on senior night? I did a collaboration with a stylist, what do moms wear on senior night? 

Other things are like how to decorate a field for senior night, all of the things that kind of lead up to senior night itself, because it's Hey, by the way, when senior night gets here.

And you need a gift for your senior. 

I got you!

[00:08:27] Kristin Lawton: Yeah, I would also say just because thinking like of other outlets because again, like I focus a little more on email and Instagram. 

But I've been dabbling in TikTok, but you know how people will respond to comments with a video and do like stitches or something.

I think that would be another way that SEO would work great with that also. 

[00:08:45] Crystal Waddell: And especially on TikTok. So sorry, but because TikTok is indexed by Google. Yeah. 

So I don't know what a stitch is. I'm going to have to look that up afterwards, but, Yeah, 

[00:08:55] Kristin Lawton: It's basically where you take someone else's video and then you like interrupt them and they [00:09:00] do like their, have you ever wondered like how SEO works?

And then you jump in and you're like let me tell you how I see what works like or whatever. So you're just like building off of their Tik Tok so that it helps the algorithm. And give another point of view. Yeah. 

[00:09:16] Brittany Herzberg: And Instagram has made it so you can stitch reels now too.

So if you're like me and you're like, I'm good with Instagram, I don't really want to jump over to TikTok and add that one in, then you can do it on Instagram too. 

And even, I was thinking as you guys were like talking, even with a podcast, we are building the like here. 

Which I think this is personally, I'm very much biased over here, but Crystal and I initially do you remember when Clubhouse was out?

It's still out, but do you remember when it was like, so sorry, I know you're still out there.

But that's fallen away from my platforms, but that was a place where I really loved getting to hear people talk about things. 

Because as Crystal said in one of our other recent episodes, you can't fake that.

You cannot [00:10:00] fake like you are showing up as you with whatever. If you don't know something and you admit you don't know something, I love you more and I like you more. 

So yeah, just like podcast and we can include clubhouse there too. 

[00:10:12] Kristin Lawton: Yeah. And when I think about the like piece, when I work with my clients, it's always okay what action are people taking in each of the know, like trust.

And so in "like" with podcasts, it's they are then going down the rabbit hole of your podcast and they're like listening or, and so if I was a guest, maybe they were also searching, okay, what else has she been on that? I can hear Kristen talk about, this "know, like, trust" path or whatever. 

And then also clicking any links in the description of the podcast, like those are the things that you know, that they're engaging with your content and they're liking your stuff.

[00:10:43] Crystal Waddell: So what about trust? Okay. You've got people engaging. You've been adding keywords in the comments.

You're hijacking people's tik toks and stitching your stuff in on Instagram. 

What do you do next? How do you get them to trust?

[00:10:54] Kristin Lawton: Yeah. So trust is all about converting them. One of the biggest things is like. making sure [00:11:00] people know how they can work with you and that you're actually like selling to them.

But it's also what are the mechanics? Is it, a launch? Is it a masterclass? 

Is it, call to actions in your post of, DM me to work with me or set up a free call? 

But having just to start with just like one way or maybe two ways of how to work with you in terms of how to is a booking a call or is it buying, clicking and going to a sales page and like getting into that funnel.

And then when I think about like the work around trust. It's also the full client experience and how it circles back to the know. 

So building a good client experience and setting up the, at the end of, working with the client or customer, the referral system, the getting the testimonials, sort of everything that's involved of working with a client and making sure that they then can help you circle back to get people to know your brand.

[00:11:51] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. So with that, you want to dive into telling us a little bit more about the client journey. 

[00:11:56] Kristin Lawton: Yeah. So I think we've spelled out a [00:12:00] lot, but essentially, I think it's really important that you understand how someone in your ideal audience is going to experience your brand and start that journey of working with you.

And so again, you first want to Introduce yourself to them. You want to build that relationship where they can see what it would look like to work with you that if your personalities fit, if your offer fits using the awareness journey is really great in here where you're sharing, the problem that you're solving for them, that you have the solution for it, that you're the right fit for that person to solve that solution.

And then the trust is converting them. So it's, a lot of people think about a funnel. Where you have your top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, I am a, I am very relationship oriented. 

So I like to think about it less and like this, like metric data, like graphic funnel, but more in.

[00:13:00] How someone is interacting with you and your brand and the content that you're putting out and also how you're interacting with them.

And just making sure that you start off with a funnel or a journey. That's very tight so that you can optimize each piece you can automate Where you can make sure that each piece of your journey is very succinct.

And working for you and then, with anything you want it to continue so that those clients will then refer you, maybe you collab with them, that type of thing.

[00:13:33] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. A couple weeks ago I was speaking to the Professional Photographers Association of North Carolina, and I was teaching about the basics of SEO, but I told them I was like, as a caveat. 

Before you get started with SEO, you have to establish your client management system, whether you're using something like HoneyBook or, whatever, but you have to figure out okay, once these leads start coming in, [00:14:00] because they will start coming in, what's going to happen then?

Because that is also I think sometimes we were so excited about like just going out and getting the clients. 

We don't think about that actual client experience that user experience, and what happens once they are actually considering us as a possible solution to whatever need they have.

[00:14:24] Kristin Lawton: No, totally.

That's where for me, like the trust piece is all about the actual client experience and making sure that you have everything and every tool set up. 

So that, when they submit a request on your website, inquiry that they get into, I use HoneyBook, like some system where they're now on your schedule, you have follow up emails when you're ready to send them a proposal, they get the sort of contract invoice at once.

Once they become a client, then I have automation set up to as they move through, they get different emails at different touch points. 

Once it wraps [00:15:00] up, they get sent a survey. 

That includes questions that, I can use for testimonials with a request of, can I use this language? 

Plus here's where you can leave me a review, here's language if are interested in referring me type thing, and that whole piece is so important and I know we're going to get into this, but like, when I talk about Quarterly focuses like a lot of that falls into that piece of work.

[00:15:25] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. 

[00:15:27] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. The one thing I just wanted to point out and not move too fast over is that piece of asking for the referral. 

[00:15:35] Kristin Lawton: Yeah. 

[00:15:35] Crystal Waddell: And, building relationship with that person that's beyond the actual project to where, you can work with them again, or they are sending you more people.

Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful things, to grow your business. And that's how, like especially like helping Shopify stores. 

That's how mine has grown. 

[00:15:56] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. 

The thing that I was thinking of when you guys were talking about that is that [00:16:00] I did that.

Like I built out the client experience. 

I built out the relationship roadmap before I did anything. And I really did. 

I didn't realize that it was it was smart. 

That's just how my brain works because similar to you, Kristen, like relationships are immediately where my brain goes. 

[00:16:16] Kristin Lawton: Yeah. 

[00:16:16] Brittany Herzberg: And it's because that's the lifeblood of my businesses.

And. As listeners will know, I started out in massage therapy and now I do copywriting, but I was able to bring over a lot of the lessons from my massage practice over into my copywriting business. 

One of them being my practice thrived with referrals, my practice. 

I was constantly like asking questions. And getting really good answers. 

And I wouldn't, I would leave it anonymous, but I would take those one liners that were just brilliant. 

And I would write them down or text them to myself and go, okay, I'm going to go add this to my website.

Or I'm going to like, talk about this on social because, as you both know, I love social proof so dearly and our clients are the ones that say things better than we could ever hope to, which ties in [00:17:00] nicely with SEO and all of that stuff.

But yes, for sure. Make sure you're thinking about that client experience and continuing the relationship beyond the end of the project date for sure. 

[00:17:10] Kristin Lawton: Exactly. Yeah, it's so important. That's and I get most of my work from referrals as well. 

And it's so important to build those relationships and then keep them going and, checking in every once in a while, just to see how whatever you did for them is working and, making sure they know as you work with them, like the other services that you offer.

How other people can work with you, the type of, target audience, even if maybe that person isn't necessarily, they came in through something else. 

So they're not your target audience, but that, so that they know to listen out for, your sort of ideal person. 

[00:17:42] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. I love this so much. 

One thing I wanted to touch on, cause I know that you help people with their Just everything brand, everything marketing strategy, but also tied into that is messaging.

And I think that SEO and messaging and marketing like they're all wrapped in this cute [00:18:00] little present box. 

So whenever I don't know what direction you want to take this in, but I'll ask it this way. 

When you're helping someone establish their messaging figure out their messaging. Is there certain steps that you take them through guide them through?

[00:18:13] Kristin Lawton: I start with defining their brand story and I use a lot of the framework of Donald Miller's like story brand which I just think is great because it like takes the hero, which is your, your client, your audience, through this like movie trailer almost but so I always start there and we work through answering those questions.

The basic questions of what is your brand story? 

And then I tie in a little bit about the awareness journey too. 

So if things are coming out in the brand story, making sure we're hitting the awareness journey as well. 

Before we get to the messaging, we've already worked on the brand identity.

So we understand their unique position, their personality and tone they want to use. We have done. Audience research, so [00:19:00] we know who our audience member is, so that as we're building the messaging it has the foundation of the brand identity and who the audience is and then we can create something that also feels very much more authentic to who they are and to who they're attracting.

[00:19:17] Crystal Waddell: Okay. So we love Donald Miller's Story Brand. We've talked about it several times. 

But you said that you take what comes out of the brand story. 

And I was just curious, like what is an example of something that you would pull out of a brand story to build that marketing language? 

[00:19:32] Kristin Lawton: Yeah, so so much of it, right? 

But like, when it talks about, the hero then finds the guide to help them solve their problem. 

 I build a lot of websites for my clients as well. And so thinking about, okay this language can go there and this language can go there.

Again, I think what's brilliant about the story brand is that it puts the audience in the number one seat. 

That's most important and puts the guide in the backseat. 

And so it makes it that like [00:20:00] you are ensuring that your messaging is really targeting your ideal audience.

And so a lot of it, then when I have all the buckets written out I then, and then we'll create sort of a key messages document from that. 

So it has essentially the like, who, when, where, why, how maybe not like when necessarily, some of it. And so I'll spell out. Based on thinking about how my client would use the message.

So it's either a, like an eye or their business does this works with this, or, maybe if I'm thinking about how it would be on a website, it's like the introduction would combine a little bit of the who and the how, or the who and the why. 

So maybe there's like questions in there, are you x type of person?

Are you looking for this? 

So it really depends on how the client journey and where we know we're going to use these messages. 

The brand story is like the data and like the copy that I'm going to pull to create the messages.[00:21:00] 

[00:21:00] Crystal Waddell: We can link to this on the Story Brand website, cause they have a free resource that walks you through it. So 

[00:21:06] Brittany Herzberg: I already made a note. 

[00:21:07] Crystal Waddell: Just in case anybody's listening, they're going, what are you talking about?

[00:21:10] Kristin Lawton: And like Google doc myself of so when I'm working with clients that has all this, but. It's so it's great on StoryBrand's website because you can just enter it in yourself on their website and create it. 

And if anyone is struggling with their messaging, just like that is a great place to start.

Don't have to like even read the book. Just going through that one tool is fantastic. 

[00:21:32] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, I agree. And I think the very first time that I heard about the book or heard Donald on a podcast, I immediately was like, where is this free tool? 

And I went and I spent two days, just like filling things out.

And it was great to just like brain dump and brainstorm from there. 

The thing I was going to connect is that when I create SEO packets for my clients, I'm doing the research and I'm doing the strategy for their main website pages, like home about services, whatever. 

And I start with a questionnaire. 

It's a really hands off experience for the client, but I start [00:22:00] with the questionnaire.

And really there's only three or four questions that I need the answers to. 

And, it's largely informed by their messaging. 

So if people come to me and they haven't done their messaging work, I'm like, all right, we got to back the bus up a little bit, but it's, what do you do? What do you want to be known for?

Who do you help? And how? That's really what I want to know. 

So this is wonderful that we're talking through messaging. 

[00:22:19] Kristin Lawton: Yeah. 

[00:22:20] Brittany Herzberg: I love it. It makes me so happy. So unless you have another question about messaging, Chris, you want to head into diving into that quarterly planning that I loved so much?

[00:22:30] Kristin Lawton: Yes. 

[00:22:32] Brittany Herzberg: Get out your pencils and 

[00:22:33] Kristin Lawton: pens. Let's go. 

So I, when it comes to goal setting and I focus again on branded marketing, you may have very specific business goals that don't align with this, but I honestly think most of them should. Because it's know, like and trust falls into making money and building your audience and everything.

And so when it comes to your yearly goals, I think you should only have [00:23:00] three. 

And there should be metrics based and based on no like trust so one metric around how people are getting to know you. 

Email growth. Instagram followers, that type of thing, podcast listeners. 

One metric around engagement on social, open or click through rates, that type of thing.

One metric around trust, number of clients you serve, number of digital products downloaded, or just like straight up money made. 

And those are, Doesn't have to be like the end all be all. 

I also then encourage people to track on a monthly basis, a lot of different marketing metrics so that you can make sure that the stuff you're doing is healthy and effective, but that you're focused on, like those three are going to show me that I am making progress and moving the needle in my business.

So then. Then you leave that alone. 

[00:23:47] Crystal Waddell: So I don't want you to lose your spot where you're thinking, but I just wanted to share a practical example of this as well. Related to Google search console. But I go in every week and I'm documenting the, all of [00:24:00] the data around, What is showing up in search.

But the thing that's really stood out to me is the keywords that are showing up in search at certain times. And I've been making note of that because maybe we can't use that right now, but as we're planning for the future, we can definitely incorporate that into, whatever strategy we're going to have for the next year, because it's like, Hey, by the way, this is when this pops up.

So depending on if we're going to do something like Pre launch, incorporate a pre launch strategy. We know that if this keyword is really important, then we can tie that back to a pre launch, three months prior and really hit that keyword when it starts showing up and people are searching for it.

So I just wanted to throw that out there. 

[00:24:44] Kristin Lawton: Yeah, I love that. And, I weekly can be a lot for people to track. I recommend starting with tracking metrics on a monthly basis. 

When you pull those metrics, just check and make sure it's in line if there's spikes or if there's dips look into that.

Maybe you can do some course correction, but [00:25:00] mostly at every quarter, look back at the three months and say, okay because then you have enough data to really analyze is the strategy you're doing working?

what's the story that the metrics are telling? 

Is there something that you should be doing more of, less of, and then adjusting your strategy based on three months, not just a week or a month as well.

Just like you said track it so that you can look back and say, how can I use this? 

[00:25:23] Brittany Herzberg: That's so smart. Okay. So goal setting and then ...

[00:25:26] Kristin Lawton: so those are our yearly goals. We have the three, but the work to me happens.

At the quarter. 

And, you can do it in a timeframe that works for you if you don't live and die by quarters, which I don't think anyone should. 

But I think it's just helpful timeframe of saying three months is a good amount of time to switch focuses or dive into new focus. 

And this is the sort of the work that needs to happen in your business to help you achieve those brand goals at the year.

Obviously, you still have to serve your clients and do the other work. So we're not talking about a ton of time [00:26:00] to focus on these things, but I like to choose three focuses.

Each quarter, one in no, one in one in trust to work on for a quarter. Usually when I'm doing something like a little bigger, it's like a heftier lift, and the others might be smaller. 

So for instance last quarter my focus was actually like building routines across all of them. But for this quarter, this is maybe a better example.

My know is I want to promote my quiz more. And so I want to dive in to ads and testing ads in the no category to drive traffic to my quiz. 

So what I'm going to do is, the first month is really Pulling together what I think my strategy is going to be on it. What tools do I need? Do I need to learn anything?

Do I need to take a course on it? 

Do I need to engage an expert to help me with it? 

Take time to break out what are the steps that need to happen for me [00:27:00] to actually launch these ads the right way so that, ideally they can be effective and not cost a ton of money as well.

And what do I need to do on the backend to have my follow up working? 

And then maybe the second month I'm launching the ads and I'm giving it a month to see how it goes.

And then the third month it's testing, refining. Making my work on maintaining the ads efficient and have it down pat so that the next quarter I can add something new and move on.

So that's in the know is what I'm doing. 

My like is I want to build engagement in my membership. 

And so that's a lighter lift for me. More of a priority to get into my community. 

We use slack on a very regular basis and get more engagement going in there, checking in with my members on a more regular basis.

So that's one of a goal for me that will be a lighter lift, but more regular [00:28:00] focus. 

And then for the trust. I want to add on make a bundle of my digital products to add it as an upsell for my membership. 

So for that, there is like back end work that I need to do. I have all of the tools ready.

But so it's it's more of a task that in that trust bucket that needs to get done that will eventually lead to more sales. 

, So helping my end goal of, increasing Revenue. 

So those are examples, but I like to pick. 

I think it's important that you're working on all steps of the know like trust path at all times, but it's a lot to say to just do everything at once, right?

So I'd like to say, okay this quarter, my plan is to work on this. 

And when I hear about a new strategy, I want to try whatever. 

It's okay, this quarter I'm working here. I'll pencil it in on this future quarter. 

And once I get to that future quarter, maybe I decide that's not the shiny penny I want to tackle, or I have [00:29:00] some other priority.

I've also looked at my metrics. 

I know which areas I need to work on to help me hit those brand goals so that I know that I am, progressing in my business in the way that I want to. 

But so for me, it's just a way to Really organize my project, my marketing work and making sure that I am always constantly improving and optimizing my client journey.

I know that was a lot. 

[00:29:24] Brittany Herzberg: It is, but it's so good. 

And I'm really thankful that you gave examples too, because I was totally taking notes on all of that. 

And I did take notes. 

The last time I heard you talk about this and it's just It's such a it makes me take a sigh of relief because it's like, Oh, okay.

You just broke down the big giant thing into really actionable, tackleable, I don't know. I'm making a lot of word items like it's great. 

[00:29:44] Kristin Lawton: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:29:46] Crystal Waddell: And to connect it to SEO, the low hanging fruit to me is, when you're thinking about that goal that you want to accomplish, it's just what keywords are going to help you reach that goal.

[00:29:58] Kristin Lawton: I liked how you said [00:30:00] low hanging fruit. Again, I'm always about, like, how can we make marketing feel easier and effortless? 

And that low hanging fruit can feel very nagging, too, because you know you need to be doing this.

 I stopped doing my blog for a year because there was these low hanging fruit things that I was just if I can't do my blog right. And like the way that it's going to be effective with the keyword research or the image the right size and then pushing it out to these other things.

What's the point of doing it? 

Which I don't believe is the case, but using these quarterly focuses to tackle that, which I have done, and now I'm ready to start blogging. 

I've built up the routines this last quarter to be able to do that and got everything going so that it's built into my daily life now that it makes it easy.

So I think that's what I love about having these quarterly focuses is that the goal is really to build out a marketing system of like in each of these pieces that will help make things run smoother for you too. 

[00:30:56] Brittany Herzberg: Especially as a solopreneur too. This is really helpful for [00:31:00] the one man and one woman shows out here.

[00:31:02] Kristin Lawton: Yeah, for sure. 

[00:31:04] Crystal Waddell: And I think for businesses who sell the same things over and over as overwhelming as it might seem to think about all of this at one time, it's also, relieving because you start to realize I'm doing the same things every year in quarter one. 

Or I'm doing very similar tasks like in quarter two to last year's quarter two, and when you start to see those patterns, that's where I feel like the major breakthroughs come through because it's okay, I put this plan into place and now I'm actually recognizing themes and words and patterns. And this is 

how I can improve it for next Q1, because the goals might change from quarter to quarter. 

Maybe they stay the same or build on each other, but you just start to see the relationship between them.

[00:31:52] Kristin Lawton: Yes. Yeah, for sure. And I do think, when you do start feeling overwhelmed or, okay, like you have, this big quarters coming up [00:32:00] because last year and the year before, especially if it's black Friday's coming up and it's like Christmas and all this stuff, but what I recommend is just taking that big rock of black Friday and like breaking it down into super small tasks that you can do.

And then, I do six week planning retreats with myself so that I know on a so it's like I can look at the calendar and say, here's what's going on my personal life. 

Here's what's going on in business. This is the actual time that I have to work on this. 

And because anything past six weeks it's too long to be able to forecast.

And then you're saying, okay, It's it becomes so much more manageable also because you're like, okay, now I know I can actually squeeze this in here and get it done. 

[00:32:41] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, I thought that you do the six week planning retreats definitely want to follow up that for SEO shorts if we could.

But we did a content task planning episode probably 10 or 15 episodes ago. I can't even remember, but I love it because, I didn't even realize that I [00:33:00] had planned the entire year because I had sat down and built on what I did the previous year. 

And so it was ready to go.

March was insane.

It was insane. It was one of the best months we've ever had as an e commerce store. 

And one of my monthly tasks that I've created was a profit loss thing in QuickBooks, so that I could see, okay, how did this compare to last year? 

And then it made me say, okay I need to look at next month, maybe instead of waiting until the end of the month to look back, let me look and see what's, forecasting here for April.

And it's been so helpful because my mindset shifted.

April was actually the biggest month in 2022. So now I'm thinking, OK, gear up, let's go. 

And I'm ready for it. 

Like I was able to purchase more. Supplies like we buy sheets of plywood and actual sheets like the four by eight sheets.

And so I was able to do a massive order this week in preparation for what's going on. 

The [00:34:00] shipping boxes. It's I know I need more shipping boxes. 

So instead of just buying one to two packs, I'm gonna buy five, and that way we are ready to go for whatever comes our way. 

So I just, I feel like there's so many just little values that come out of this planning process that are, just so helpful and comforting, because you're ready. 

[00:34:21] Kristin Lawton: Yeah, for sure. You're ready, but also I think when you do plan a year, you get disappointed if like things then don't go your way because like you have this full plan. And that's why I like doing more quarterly planning because I'm having shoulder surgery this week.

I just found out about that four weeks ago. 

I'm going to be, in a sling for six weeks. I don't know how much I'm going to be able to do. Everything's going to take longer. 

My husband will be gone for a month at that. 

There's things that, all of a sudden four weeks ago, like my whole plan for this quarter shifted.

And I think, whether it's for good, like you were saying okay, I now know, like looking not just the year out, but let's focus on next four, [00:35:00] like next month, what I need to do because my business is booming in the reverse. I think, it's manageable, right? 

Because I don't have these big things that I'm trying to strive for this year.

I just have like manageable things that I'm trying to strive for this quarter, which I know is intentionally going to progress my business in the way that I want as well. 

[00:35:21] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. 

[00:35:21] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. 

[00:35:22] Crystal Waddell: Awesome. So I think the very last thing that I think we could tie this up with is if you were just to give like your top tip or tips.

For simplifying your brand and marketing, what would you tell the business owner that's listening? 

[00:35:37] Kristin Lawton: Yeah. So number one, create a client journey start with and narrow it down. 

So I like to do three, no two, like one trust in terms of the marketing channels that you're on. That's going to automatically make things better.

Two, I would say develop simple routines when it comes to [00:36:00] your content strategy. 

Your promotion strategy, your engagement strategy and your sales strategy. So if you 30 minutes a day to work on those things what are you doing, to promote yourself, to engage with your audience, to sell your stuff.

So I think getting those down into timers where it's okay, I'm going to engage on Instagram for 10 minutes. 

I'm going to research, prospective clients for 20 minutes every Wednesday. 

Having those marketing activities spelled out and on your calendar time bound will help making sure that, you're doing what you need to do.

And then thirdly, I would say break out those big tasks into very small five minute tasks. 

Things become a lot more effortless when everything seems manageable. 

And if you create a checklist, say, you're writing a blog post. Add every little step that it takes. Make it in a checklist.

Include the s [00:37:00] e o, everything in there, and every time you do it for the first three to five times, follow that checklist. 

Say, okay, I'm gonna just spend five minutes doing this, five minutes doing that. Soon, it'll become habitual routine and it will feel very effortless to actually get a blog post out.

And it won't feel like this big thing, like I have this big thing hanging over me right now. 

I'm like, I need to start blogging again. 

Now I'm like, this is manageable. I can do this next week. No problem. 

Once I have an hour.

[00:37:24] Crystal Waddell: And it's super smart because then you can also delegate that because you actually have a process.

So that is awesome because you're actually doing the hard work up front, then you know it like the back of your hand. 

And so you're able to delegate it easily to someone else and actually measure that as well. 

[00:37:44] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. 

And we talked about this recently on an episode with Erica McCauley, but I did not want to have help until I had those systems and routines and workflows down.

And I'm very thankful that I waited, but such a good reminder. 

Okay. I'm really excited. 

Tell [00:38:00] people where they can find you and tell them about the quiz. I was like there for Kristen's launch party for this quiz. Fantastic. Okay, go. 

[00:38:07] Kristin Lawton: So the other way to simplify your brand and marketing is to market based on your unique personality so that it feels very authentic and natural to you.

And you figure that out by taking my quiz where you learn what your signature brand's marketing style is. 

It's a whole cocktail theme. It's super fun, but you immediately get tips based on your unique personality so that you know the best way to show up for your audience what feels natural to you.

And that just makes everything much easier. 

You can go to my website, but I also have it on marketingstylequiz.com. And yeah, then you get into my community from there. 

But make sure if you take it, come over to Instagram, I'm @DistrictBrandBar, and DM me and let me know what your type is and we can talk about strategies and how to use your unique type and your messaging [00:39:00] and marketing in there.

[00:39:02] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, and it's like good stuff too. The tips and the strategies, it's Chef's kiss. 

It's beautiful. I love it. 

[00:39:07] Kristin Lawton: Thank you. I love my quiz too.

[00:39:09] Brittany Herzberg: Alrighty. Thank you so much for joining us. This was, I'm so thankful that you were on here because I was, as soon as I heard that episode, I was like, Kristin! 

[00:39:17] Kristin Lawton: Was really fun. Thank you guys for having me. 

[00:39:19] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah, of course. 

[00:39:21] Crystal Waddell: Nice to meet you. And we'll see our I guess we'll 

[00:39:24] Brittany Herzberg: We will see you, you'll hear us and we'll think of you.

It's a very one sided relationship. 

[00:39:29] Crystal Waddell: Oh, you know what? 

B, you had created that link over on Spotify, right? So if you have any questions, comments, whatever, you can use the link on Spotify. 

If you listen there. If you listen on Apple podcasts, we still have our galas link, right? 

[00:39:44] Brittany Herzberg: We do, we have the galas link for both.

And just quick clarification, the questions are like unique to each episode. 

So if you listen on Spotify, I keep wanting to say Shopify. It is not that go listen on Spotify. 

And there's polls that you can take part in and they disappear in a few weeks. 

So make sure you [00:40:00] go like participate in the polls, ask us questions.

Yeah. Come play with us. It's fun. 

[00:40:06] Crystal Waddell: Love it. 

[00:40:06] Kristin Lawton: That's fun. It is fun. 

[00:40:08] Crystal Waddell: All right. 

[00:40:08] Brittany Herzberg: All right. 

[00:40:08] Crystal Waddell: Until next time. We'll see you then. 

Bye. Bye.