Episodes

Your business should be growing, if not, listen up. On this episode of The Hayley Osborne Show, I’m sharing marketing strategies you should be implementing in your business right now. I know you can create effective marketing for your business that doesn’t have to break the bank, when you know how.

Implementing low-cost, easy-to-do marketing strategies can give your business a quick and impactful boost that will ultimately set your foundations up for sustainable long-term success in the future.

The idea around this is so your business maxes its reach without stretching your budget. I want you to be able to quickly implement your marketing strategies and start seeing results. These results come in the form of higher engagement which means you are connecting with your audience and they’re loving what you’re putting out there. Results also mean you can refine what is working and what is not so you can easily adapt based on real time feedback.

Because when you get results, it’s the lovely catalyst you need to keep going.

OUTLINE

0:00-0:01 – Introduction 

0:01-0:06 – Overview of focusing on marketing strategies to safeguard your business during tough times 

0:06-0:16 – Optimizing social media accounts like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn 

0:16-0:21 – Leveraging social media properly to drive people to your website and build your email list 

0:21-0:26 – Importance of consistent branding across all social media platforms 

0:26-0:31 – Optimizing your website for SEO through keyword research and helpful content 

0:31-0:36 – Ensuring your website loads fast on all devices for a better user experience 

0:36-0:41 – Benefits of collaborating with other businesses through promotions, content partnerships, and online events 

0:41-0:46 – Using email marketing to tell your business story and develop trust through regular communications 

0:46-0:51 – Recap of discussed marketing strategies and importance of implementation 

0:51-0:56 – Thanking listeners

Hayley Osborne 

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Hayley Osborne show. I’m really glad that you are here, my beautiful friend, this is episode 114. And today, I really wanted to come to you to talk a little bit about a business survival guide for you, and the marketing strategies that you should be implementing already. So I think a lot of us get, we get so caught up in working in our business that we forget to work on our business. 

And it’s often the simplest things that we miss, because we are so close to our business that we can’t see it anymore. And I often see this a lot with the business owners that I work with it is excuse me, it is the smallest things that you aren’t doing right now that when things get tough, you should have actually done already. 

So I wanted to give you a few tips and tricks on what you should be implementing now to sort of safeguard yourself for when things do get a bit tricky. So say you have a pipeline of income that has dried up for some reason or another. And so you know, you want to be able to safeguard yourself. So, you know, I know that running a business is no small feat. 

I do know that I have been doing this for a really long time. And although I have definitely put in activities, strategies, automations, and all sorts of systems and processes into my business, it still doesn’t mean that it’s so simple, right? So I know that we need to be resilient. And you know, we need to be able to set ourselves up to cope with unexpected things that happen so that we can make shifts and that we can, you know, be more resilient. And these things can be challenging. 

Even the most resilient entrepreneurs, and I’m sure business owners and I’m sure that you are very resilient as am I. But we do get challenged from time to time. And that’s okay. But here’s the good news is with adding in these simple things, tough times don’t have to be the end of your business. And you know, or the end of something that you really love doing as a part of what makes up your business model. 

So I do know that with strategic planning and a focus on, you know, those low cost, high impact marketing strategies, you can not only just survive, but also thrive in any environment. You’ve just got to get the mix right and a strategy is so important for you to do that. And what’s more important is laying the right foundation so I wanted to take you through a bit of a business survival guide 101.

When it comes to your marketing, what I will say two before we get started is the waitlist is currently open to my signature membership superhero marketing. So the waitlist Yes, as I was saying I had a brief pause because I had a massive sneeze and I really didn’t want you to hear that. But I’m in essence of keeping it real. 

The waitlist is open now for my signature membership superhero marketing. And it is the place if you didn’t know to help you have the biggest impact. With the least amount of time and effort when creating activities and strategies in and around your business is marketing to help you grow. That is what the membership is all about. 

And you can go to my website, Hayley osborne.com and add yourself to the waitlist because when doors do open in October, this waitlist is going to be full of bonuses for those of you that join via the waitlist via the waitlist and in the the time that the waitlist is open prior to doors opening is actually going to be epic, so I’m only opening the doors like go grandly twice this year to the membership, the membership is growing so beautifully. 

And I’m so proud of the community of business owners that is that inside the membership, they are achieving such great things. And, you know, it is such a marathon, not a sprint, when you’ve you implementing all the things all the time inside your business, and it is definitely those 1% that you do every single day that add up bit by bit throughout the year. 

So if you start at 1%, now, in a year’s time, you would have been 365% further ahead than what you were if you didn’t take those little nibbles every single day. And you know, education is definitely my highest value. And so if you can continue to do that, inside your business, by adding yourself to things like memberships, where you are learning and upskilling, and you also have that community element of people to lift you up. 

It is such a beautiful thing. So how do we reinvigorate your marketing? How do we? How do we work with this business survival guide? That I have kind of pieced together? What are the key things that, um, strategies that you should be implementing right now? Just ready, ready and have like behind your business. 

So the first one, I definitely want to say is, I think you need to look at really leveraging your social media. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, this is not your own asset. However, it is the most powerful form of marketing the world has ever seen. And it is growing. And if you can do the right things in social media, where you are creating extra brand awareness around your business, and then you’re taking your audience cleverly away from the platform onto your own assets, which is your database. 

That is what you need to be your main objective to use that platform for and also building that know like and trust it so beautiful. But in order to leverage your social media, the number one thing that you need to do at the beginning, is really optimize all of your social media accounts. Okay, so take a long, hard look at them. 

And make sure they are optimized to the hilt. So Instagram, for example, make sure your bio is super optimized, make sure your Instagram highlights are super optimized, make sure that you have the right trio of pinned posts to the top of your feed. Now, this is prime landscape. And if you’re not using it for its worth, then you guys are doing yourself such an injustice on this free platform. 

It’s like, and I know it’s such a funny thing. It’s like, you’re I’m sure that lots of people feel like, Oh, I’m scared to show up. I’m not confident enough to show up. i What if I show up? And nobody likes me? What if I put this in my bio that I’ve wanted to but then someone makes a silly comment. What if what if, what if never happens, you just do it, rip the band aid off, get it done is better than perfect every single time. And I’m just talking about Instagram. So you also want to leverage your Facebook. 

So you want to be able to capitalize on the main thing, which is your cover photo, not your profile pic your cover photo. So if you want to include some things in there that are written about your business and how you can serve people and help people, you can pin it to the top of your Facebook profile, make sure that your about section is up to date. 

And just make sure that the aesthetic even across both platforms, your touch points are the same, you are appearing the same as what you are across the rest of your digital touch points. Then we can move on to LinkedIn making sure that it is super optimized and the same thing. Make sure the profile picture is the same across the board. 

All your social media platforms should have the same profile picture. And then in LinkedIn, the cover picture again acts as a prime landscape. Make sure your about section is right and make sure you’re utilizing LinkedIn for all it is worth. Okay, so you can write articles. You can write weekly newsletters, you can write posts, you can obviously you need to create a business page in your LinkedIn as well, which acts as a kind of microsite for your website. 

Okay, so you operate under your personal brand and LinkedIn, you’ve got your business page, which then directs people to your website. It’s such a beautiful mix and if you can get these leverage points right, then you are definitely setting yourself up for success and you know, definitely adding that element of survival in making Ensure that your foundations are right and that your platforms are set up correctly. So they are a minimum minimal cost, they’re all a minimal cost. 

You just need to know how to do it properly. And with a strategy, a social media strategy or a marketing strategy, these are the things that will help you ace this space and leverage your social media to the absolute hilt. And you know, what those things do is create, make your trajectory a lot faster. Okay, so when you have a guide, and you know what to do, you’re no longer throwing spaghetti at the wall. Everything is optimized the way that it should be. 

And what happens when, say, somebody like me comes in and looks at your social media and your marketing. I have an outside view, right? When you’re so close to your business, you can’t see it anymore. So my thing is a periscope view. And usually, I’ll say things like, Well, why don’t you have this in here? Why don’t you have that in here, I have a client who’s worked on some of the biggest brands in the world. 

Personally, yes, like Visa, Adobe, TEDx, those clients, and they’re not showcased anywhere. So that is really, really important. I have just been featured on Crushes Business Builders, I flew to Sydney and did some recording on film. And, you know, that will appear in prime landscape on my social media because it just adds value and street cred to my business and my credibility, which is amazing. 

So if you’ve got things like that that you can add in to optimize your business, any kind of media features that will really showcase your expertise, add it in, because this will be leveraging your socials to the absolute hilt. The second thing that I think you should do and add into your little business survival guide, as a marketing strategy is making sure that your web website is optimized, and optimized for the search engine. 

Okay, so this is definitely a long term strategy. And it is a little bit also leaning towards that self PR of your own. But you know, when you can optimize your website, it will improve your website’s visibility and like being found in people’s search results. 

So if you can do some really good keyword research, and there are different tools that I use inside of my business, to help my clients with this research, and figure out what it is people are searching for, when it comes to the business that you have, if you can answer those searched questions within your website, in the form of written content, blog, content, podcast content, anything like that, then the likelihood of your website coming up as number one, when people search for those questions that they ask Google is really, really high. 

So tips for SEO is obviously do your keyword research, quality content is the best. And then, you know, making sure that your website looks good across the board. So desktop, mobile iPad, and that it loads really fast. And that you have all your meta tags and descriptions and things like that done. And there’s different speed tests that you can do. And different tests that you can give will help you understand what your relevance score is within Google. 

And there’s also websites that you can go to to make sure that you have very small images that are very good quality on your website that will help your website load fast, because what happens is, and I’m sure that you know this, too, is that when you go to Google something, say you’re looking for like that top or that outfit or whatever, and you click on it, and you search for it. But the website takes more than a minute to load. You’re gone. I know that I am. And then I’ll never go back and I’ll say, or it’s something that I’ll visit later, but later never comes. 

And so I think it’s really important to make sure that on your back end, it is exactly the same experience user experience as what it would be what you like when you are searching for things as well. So that’s really important. Put yourself in your customers shoes, what do they want out of a website 99% of people are always going to Google you before they pick up the phone. And so it’s your job to make sure that everywhere they land. 

It is in complete alignment to your business values mission. In brand awareness, logos, colors, fonts, tone of voice, it is all the same, which is something I teach inside the membership as well. Another thing, that is a really good point that I wanted to make in terms of, you know, your business’s Survival Guide, and marketing strategy that you should be implementing right now is collaborating with other businesses. 

And I’ve been doing this a lot lately. And that comes in the form of partnerships across collaborating with people on podcasts and things like that. But you know, running co-branded promotions or going live with another business, or, you know, providing discounts to each other’s customers is such a lovely way to collaborate with other businesses and reach other audiences that you wouldn’t necessarily reach. 

And then content sharing to like, writing a guest blog or a guest column on somebody else’s website is such a beautiful way to also add your own street cred, especially if they have high traffic, but also add your keywords into their website, and hopefully with a few backlinks that will help with your SEO. And then, you know, doing things like hosting joint online events, like webinars, masterclass challenges, resources, just to capitalize on using that audience as well as your own. I think that’s a really, really powerful way. 

So the three things that I’ve suggested to collaborate with other businesses that will really help your business survive, because you are utilizing other people’s audiences. And then, you know, I’ve spoken about this in detail before. And I think that in the future, I will talk about this topic more as my kind of last point is your email marketing. 

So you know that your database is your own asset, you know, that every social media platform that you use to market your business is rented space. And so the idea is to tell really good stories all the time, to get people to understand who you are, what you do, how you help people, the problem that you solve, and then you tell the storyteller to build your knowledge and trust. 

And this is consistent. And I know this is hard, except for the consistency then creates trust. And then when you have something to sell your audience has been hearing from you consistently for ages. And that is a really great way to then grow in and either talk about a freebie that you’ve got coming up with an event, a lead magnet, a free masterclass or whatever that is, and get conversion. So you’ve won these people up. 

And now all you need is their email and their name. So they can come into your database. And then you can nurture them as a warm audience, because a warm audience is somebody that has subscribed to you. And that it has said yes to being on your database. 

Now. Another thing that we all know is that we don’t give away our emails for free to anyone these days. And so if I’m signing up to receive information from you, or a free guide from you, or something like that, and I give you my name, and I give you my email, and then I don’t hear anything from you, it’s kind of like spamming in reverse, right? 

So I handed over my email and my name, because I want to hear what it is that you have to offer. I want you to help me, I want you to be in my inbox every single week. And you’ve probably signed up to multiple massive retail outlets that end up sending you two emails a day, seven days a week, and it’s like, Oh, my goodness, I just have to unsubscribe. 

Why did I even subscribe to that? That was ludicrous. And so just know that when someone does give you their email, it is your responsibility as a business owner, to send regular communications to them because they want to hear from you. They want what it is that you have to offer. And if you’re not giving them an opportunity, it is like spamming in reverse. 

And I’ve said that so many times. So I really hope that this has kind of helped to help you to understand the marketing strategies that you should be implementing right now. Before times, get tough inside your business and use these and refer to these as your business’s Survival Guide. 

Because I don’t see why lots of people don’t do this when it’s so easy for them to implement and sets them up for success. As long term success in the future, when things might get a bit rocky inside your business. So I hope these things have helped you. And if you have any questions, feel free to send me a DM and Unst on Instagram. I am always there. 

I love to hear from you. And again, you know, leave me a review and subscribe because that really helps the podcast, get out to more people, and just helps it be promoted. Okay, guys, that’s it. I’ve gotta run. I will see you next week for another episode of The Hayley Osborne show. I hope you’ve enjoyed listening to this episode.

If you have hit subscribe so you don’t miss any new episodes released every Tuesday. And while you’re there, leave me a review. I would absolutely love to read it. Also, don’t forget to tag me up Hayley K. Osborne over on Instagram and share this post with your audience so they can get learning to sharing is caring. If you want more, head over to Hayley osborne.com.au forward slash podcast for today’s show notes and links to catch you next week for another episode of The Hayley Osborne show.