How to adapt your marketing strategy to the current market | Right on Time Podcast Episode 73

Get ready because everything is about to change. There's a new way of living life and doing business that will blow your mind. This is a podcast all about the timing of life and the timing of success. It's what we call the Right on Time life. And you are listening to the Right on Time podcast with Amber McHugh.

Hey.

Hey. Oh boy. We have got a good episode for you today. You know, before we dive in though, I gotta say I've got a lot going on right now. There's a lot of change happening. There is a lot on my plate, both personally and professionally. We're gearing up for our 10th annual planning event of the year for entrepreneurs and small business owners@theplanathon.com yes, 10 years of annual planning in the fall. Actually, that is fall us might not be the fall for everybody. I am going to actually be in summertime. I am going to have year round summer in Cochabar, which is my next move destination, which I am right in the middle of. As you are listening to this episode, as this episode is dropping. So yeah, there is a lot going on. We are planning for one of our biggest events ever because it is the 10th annual. You know, we got to go big. We are in the middle of a move. There is a lot going on in the environment. There is a lot going on for our clients. We want to be there to support you and there is a lot going on for you. Are you feeling it? Are you in those seasons of whoop? Ok, all right. We are back at it, right? We hit the ground running. If there is a lot going on for you, I gotta imagine there may be a lot going on for your clients and your prospects as well. And we've got to adapt and align our marketing strategies and our business strategies to what is going on for our communities. And today's podcast guest, Kristen is incredible at adapting. She's incredible at designing content marketing strategies, period. But because she can adapt, she aligns that marketing strategy for what is current and what is coming. So if you have been feeling that there is change afoot and you're feeling the need to change something in your marketing approach and strategy, you're definitely going to want to listen into today's episode where we talk about what people might be feeling, how we may need to shift our marketing approaches and strategies to align with that. We're going to talk about different products that you may layer in to align with people where people are now membership opportunities as well as she. We've got some bonus insights on how Kristin Keeps everything in her brain organized. For more than three years, Kristin has nurtured multiple niche blogger networks that have grown over a thousand members. She's created an online home for bloggers to connect, learn and grow personally and professionally. She facilitates marketing opportunities for brands looking to harness the personal endorsement and power of a tight knit blogging community. She creates training materials for her blogging in Balance community which you can take and implement in your business for more effective content marketing. Kristin's focus is positioning a brand as a key presence in their user community by creating niche relevant content in a variety of mediums. She is also quite skilled in email marketing strategies that develop and strengthen direct relationships with your clients. This episode is incredible. Let's dive in. Smith, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you.

I'm so pumped to be diving in. You are. We have known each other for a whole lot of years. I don't know, maybe like 6, 7, 8.

It's been years now. Your oldest went to college after my first year, so.

Oh yes. So that means seven years because Lily just graduated and she did after high school she did a gap year. Three years at community college, two years at Santa Barbara, so six. I'm holding my hands, but I believe.

It was during, it was around the gap year because I remember us having a conversation about the gap year. That is wild.

Yes. So probably before as we were prepping for it. Oh my gosh, time flies. You know, you have such a breadth of expertise, which is one of the reasons I am so excited to speak with you now and share you with the listeners listener. Because there's a lot going on, there's a lot changing and you have such a strong perspective and such a grounding, reassuring perspective on content marketing. Memberships, email, like the state of the marketing, content marketing space especially. So let's start there. As you think about like what's happening right now in businesses, in small businesses, in people's lives, what comes up for you around your areas of expertise in this marketing landscape?

I think one of the things we have to be really aware of right now is that people are tired. There is a bone deep consumer fatigue that is happening and it's just, oh, we have pemec, we have economic stress. There was politic rest before that and not just in America, sort of globally. There has just been a lot of changes and upheaval and random pivots and sudden shifts and all of those sorts of things that exert stress on individuals. And I think this year we're seeing the accumulation of that where our consumers are just Tired. The bandwidth for another shift, another pivot, which is a huge part of what we do in marketing of creating urgency. Right. So we apply a little stress to get people to take action on a, on a very level there, there's the fatigue so present that that little bit of stress can now become a turn off. It can, you know, people that normally would be really excited about what you're doing. I think that stress isn't creating the response that traditionally we expect it to have, which says that we have to be the ones willing to pivot to support them in a different way.

Oh, my goodness. You know, the way that you worded that and phrased that because, yeah, I feel it like, oh, man. And I've talked to people who have said I was actually sort of in a small group conversation, mini focus group, and they shared that they were feeling less hope now than they were at the start of the pandemic. Because like, okay, at least at the start of the pandemic, when shutdowns started to happen in various places of the world, there, there was hope that, okay, this isn't going to last forever. But now it's like, well, we don't even. What, what, what is even happening and we have no idea when things are going to fill in the blanks, slow down, go back to normal. Like, there's just no sense and okay, I'm out. Bandwidth for that is a message from a lot of people and then that we've got to adapt. So where a sense of urgency would fit in before, maybe it's a little bit more right on time now. Or where there was stress, pressure, limited spaces. Right. Okay, how do we adapt some of these things for a whole different way of being and marketing and connecting with our clients? So how do you sort of shift marketing strategies? How do you shift content strategies to reset?

So I think a lot of, you know, obviously the answer is it depends everything in marketing. But the, you know, the sort of approach that I try to take is that right now I want to, I want my consumer to see as consistent, reliable support.

Yeah.

And so the voice has to be more personal, it has to be more reassuring. And what that looks like in terms of how you pivot your offers really depends on what you're doing. But like the example you and I have spoke about before, I had a client who had a really successful spring launch. She met all her goals. It's an online program. And at the end of it, we were doing her after action review and she was like, it just felt heavy. It felt harder, like grittier to reach these goals than it has in years. She has a very successful ad strategy. She has all the, you know, bits and pieces nailed down to execute a launch, but it just felt like a headlift. She had to be really in there and encourage people and doing out. And it was nitty gritty in a way that it hasn't been since she was first starting these launches. And she just looked at me during the after action review and she was like, I don't really want to do my fall launch. I don't want it to feel like this. And so when we started talking about it, one of the things that we sort of pinpointed was that people weren't reacting to the application of urgency in the same way that they had in the past. Where in the past when she, you know, offered a fast action bonus, people would be like, oh yeah, I want to get that now. They were like, I just don't have time for this. I don't know if I have time to get my, to get the value out of this program. Like it elicited worry instead of a compulsion to act. And so we had to look at ways we could still offer value to her people without creating that sense of self doubt which is really what she was seeing. And so what we ended up doing was we said, okay, if we're not going to get the revenue generation from bringing in new people, then our other option is to increase the lifetime revenue for from her current audience. And because she, you know, she has a well founded business and she's been in business for a while, what made the most sense for that was to look at it almost like a downsell. So let's look at ways that we can take small offers and trickle them throughout the fall to make up that revenue that she would have gotten from a fall big launch, but in a much lower stress supportive kind of way.

Very interesting. You know, when I think about okay, fall is actually right around the corner. But I just started summer so I got to sit in summer for a little bit before I would think about making. Because when I heard you say like okay, canceled fall launch, I'm like, oh my gosh, already like wait, anything can happen in this space and time. But strategically and from this idea of yes, our businesses can bring us joy if you are not feeling it, if you are strategically seeing this isn't working the way that I expected, I designed it that it typically works, it's okay to change your strategy. And this is really beautiful. When you stepped in, of course you do, because this is how your brain work. You're like, oh no, we got another plant. Yes, right. So you mentioned customer increasing the value of each customer. For anyone who is listening and be like, wait, what are we talking about here? This is customer lifetime value value. So when you look at someone working with you, do they work with you once and it's done? Okay, maybe it's a hundred thousand dollar partnership. So yeah, it's done. Like we did the work. Or Maybe it's a 10k, right? Or maybe it's a one time course. But maybe there's an opportunity to your point, layer in additional offers. This can be done in so many ways. Like what immediately came to mind? I love your small offer stacked in. Is there a reoccurring revenue? Is there a continuation after a program or an experience? Are there follow ups? Does it become membership? What are some ideas that you have for people to like? All right, if you need to change and you need to increase that customer lifetime value, what do you typically go to first to decide? Okay, what should we do here?

There's so many different ways. My obviously and you know this, my personal favorite is a membership model. I love memberships. Not only do I run a membership, but I am a member of a lot of memberships. As a consumer, it's one of my favorite models because I like the consistency and the support and I like the feeling of being able to dip into something when I need it, even if I don't access it all the time. So I feel like with memberships there's a little bit less of a push to on the consumer side to like feel like I got my money's out of it, my money's worth out of it right now because I know it's going to be there for me when I come back around to it. So I'm probably a little predisposed to like recognize this solution in this moment because it's how I like to act as a consumer. But for the membership model, if you offer a service, there are a lot of different ways that we can do that. It doesn't have to be like monthly masterclasses or something like that, which is sort of the typical. If you have a shop that sells prints, you could offer a monthly membership at a very low cost where they get one digital image a month and the idea and then they get suggestions on how to showcase it in their home. Maybe it's a membership around more ways to bring beauty and art into your space. Right. And so they get suggestions on how to stage it. If you are A service provider, maybe you do a, you know, ask Amber monthly service where they join this membership, they get a hotline where they can ask questions at any time. And twice a month you pop onto a call, you answer all of those questions and they can access those calls and hear everybody else's answers as well. Right. I think there's a lot to learn from what some creators have been doing with Patreon communities, where these very sort of low intensity services that are really popular with people and you can adapt that to whatever your business is. So that's one way to do it. I've also seen a lot of people having success right now with paid subscriptions in the form of email deliverables, where at the beginning of the month, whatever your expertise is in at the beginning of the month, you send your subscribers. Here's how it applies this month. So if you teach people how to watercolor, maybe you send them a little video tutorial. In July, you teach them how to paint an American flag. In August, you teach them how to paint like a little backpack or books maybe in, in September you teach them how to draw, how to paint leaves, right? So something that is seasonal and consistent and not urgent in the same way. And so instead what you're marketing to them is that comfort and reliability of a business that they trust instead of urgency.

Oh, really interesting. You know, Kristen, the way you're talking about memberships is just giving me a fresh perspective on them as well. When I look at my budget, right, I look at subscriptions and I don't so much think, am I using this or am I not this point in time, this moment, But I look like last six months. I do look at the overall investment like, oh, yeah, even if you only use it once every six months, it's worth it. But I also get a little bit nervous sometimes when I see many subscriptions in my, my P and L in my personal budget. So I'm like, oh, okay, all right, that list is getting too long. Whether, right. There's value there and some of them are must haves. But. And I'm thinking more of the tech subscriptions right now. Like, I like to keep my list short. And in my life, I move like, okay, you got to clean things out regularly. As we gear up for the move, there's some boxes all around me. So this is really interesting about the tap in, right? It's going to be there, the less pressure to use it. And many times in a membership, right, you can grab last month's next, like you can float sort of Back and forth. Just on a personal note, how many memberships would you say? Part of.

At least 12 that I can think of off top of my head.

Oh my gosh, I love it. And do they come all.

Yeah. So I.

You.

I love the acquisition of new skills. Like it's. That's really more my hobby than in specific hobby. I just like learning new things. So the reason the watercolor popped into my head is because last year that was the thing that I decided to learn how to do. I'm like the least artistic person you have ever met in your entire life. I cannot draw a straight line with a ruler. It's just, it's okay. It's the way I am. But I decided I was going to learn how to watercolor and I started with free YouTube videos, found that I really liked it and so I invested in a membership and I scheduled time on my calendar every week. And I ended up with so much watercolor that I started sending it as random gifts to all of my friends because it was just sort of stacking up. But I really enjoyed that. And so even after that I shifted away from watercolor as sort of my priority learning. I made a point to once a month I try to make a piece and I send it to a friend because it helps. It supports one of my goals of connecting with people that I don't talk to every day. And so that works for me. So it's worth it to me to keep that membership because it reminds me to go in and do that project that supports another goal in my life. I belong to a couple of meal planning ones just because I like the new recipes. It's anything that when I think about services and subscriptions and memberships, I look for any friction point in my life and I want to build in resources. So wherever I have a like a repeated friction point, I know this is a tough thing for me. Then I am willing to subscribe to something so that it's there when I need it and that I have pretty much I've put in place generally one everywhere that I've got like a sticking point.

That is so cool. Now this is interesting. I'm asking this because I know this isn't necessarily into the content stuff, although it might pull through. But what's coming to mind is how do you keep all of that organized, right? So many people, digital courses, sitting on the virtual bookshelf, collecting. How do you tap back in, keep track of your passwords, logins, all the things for logins.

I use a password manager on my Computer.

Okay, cool.

Because yeah, otherwise I would not. Yeah. For everything else, I use Notion. So I have a library in Notion that every. All my like online magazine subscriptions, blogs that I like to follow, the every online course I take, every like mastermind I join, anything that I'm going to access more than once. Basically I put in my library on Notion and I have it set to display on my home dashboard, my homepage for Notion. I have it set to display things that I added six months ago. And so it brings those back up and I look at them and I have a status designation that lets me say, okay, I need to revisit this in the next month. And so that moves it to the top of my priority list.

And that.

Lets me kind of revisit.

Yeah. So what is Notion for? Anyone who does hasn't heard of this yet.

Notion is a playground for data nerds, is the best way to describe it. It's essentially a database system where you can build databases to show whatever information you want to in a thousand different ways based on how you think. So it's a very. It's similar to like task management systems like Asana Monday, those sorts of things. But it's incredibly customizable if you like getting into like the, the details of how things are shown and displayed and if information is managed.

And then some people use it sort of as a, as a note taking or managing documents. We've got some people in our modern CEO community who use like first draft of sales page. They'll send it for review. Notion, they'll.

Yeah, how's it is my like external brain. So like anything that I think of because I have it on my phone and so it basically lets me, you know those random thoughts you get throughout the day where you're like doing something else. You're like, oh, I need to remember that. That's what Notion does for me is it captures. It's a capture tool to keep track of all the things that I want to come back to.

Very cool, very cool. Okay, little tangent there. But maybe someone needed to hear that or has been hearing about it and wondered how to use it. Okay, so I'm going to bring it back to the membership and the content and, you know, adapting for this landscape that we are in. And one of the things that you are also so good at is designing a content strategy to support whatever the business goals and objectives are. But as we step into this season where there is a little bit of unknown, there is notably some uneasiness and there, I mean, just opening up the news, and any given day, if someone chooses to do that, it can be alarming. So there is a lot going on for people. We know this. We came out of a busy couple of years. So how do we align content strategy with this in mind?

So I think when we look at people who are experiencing unease or anxiety of any kind, one of the most reassuring things that we can offer them is a plan. And so when I looked at sort of reworking my content, and I've done this with each of my clients that I've met with in the last couple of months, when we look at their content, we say, okay, how can we give people a plan for this piece of anxiety that they might be having? Because if they're looking for an answer, there's something that they're not sure of, and that's generally, our content is providing answers to a question. So if there's something they're unsure of, we want to give them some certainty. So I'm positioning my messaging to be very reassuring in that you can do something about this. So with each piece of content, whether it's social media or it's a blog post or it's an email or it's a video, I think about, what solution am I giving them? What am I telling them that they can do right now? Because I want to give them that one little, yes, I have this under control. Yes, I can take care of this right now because I want them to associate my brand with that makes me feel better. I'm going to pull the urgency and the uncertainty out of my messaging as much as I can, and I am going to help them find a plan and an answer and feel like, okay, that may be crazy, but I have this under control and I can hold on to that.

Oh, that's so beautiful. Even the small things, right? Like, what can we take action on? And guiding people to see, like, okay, there are some things we do have control over, and how do we show up in that and helping craft that plan and making it sort of done for you? Like, I'm going to. I'm going to guide you through this. Actually, someone just wrote in today and said, are you going to guide us? Our quarterly plans at the virtual retreat that we have inside the Modern Sea, I'm like, oh, absolutely, yes, yes, we got you. But that I love that. Like, guide me through, tell me what to do next. And I will. I will fill in the answers, but if you give me the framework for it, okay, I have a clear path forward. I'm thinking about that. Like, the book writing front. Like, I have words. I have so many words, but it's hard to think about all the things at once. So I did research and I could plan or I could have someone just show me the path.

Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, it's interesting. I think about how I use services and I've, you know, obviously been in your program for years now. And even though, like I know how to quarterly plan, I teach people how to quarterly plan. This is the how is not a problem for me. But even though I have planning very down pat, it is really reassuring for me to show up the first Thursday of every month and know that I'm going to block off that morning and run through it. And there are times when, you know, I might be busy or I might have other stuff going on. And so sometimes I will turn on that zoom and either be working on something else or already be working on that sheet. And I'm not really sort of plugged in and paying attention. But having that in my ear is really helpful to just sort of centering and saying here, you know, this is what this time is for. And the consistency of it sort of builds upon that habit and makes it stronger. And I think all of us have ways that we can do that in our business of saying, okay, I'm going to give you something that you can rely on that is consistent, that, you know, I can be a support, support for you even if you don't need exactly this right this second. And when we can do that, it really, you know, on a marketing basis, I think that sometimes as business owners, we can start to feel like marketing is like the used car salesman aspect of my business. I'm having to like push and pull people and, you know, sort of manipulate emotion so that they see the value and all this other stuff. And it can feel just kind of, for lack of a technical term. Right. And when it comes down to it, what I've learned over the years, I don't have to do that because if I make a product or an offer that I know solves somebody's questions, solve somebody's problem, I don't have to sell them anything. Yeah. I just educate them and help them recognize whether or not my offer or my product is the solution that they're looking for, I am simply a part of their achieving that solution. I'm their partner in coming to that conclusion or achieving that accomplishment or implementing that solution. When I'm their partner, I can get rid of all the sleaze. I don't have to do any of that. And for me personally, I would much rather exist in that space on a personal level.

So perfect. Love this. And I think there's a shift happening that has been happening slowly over a whole lot of years, but it has really accelerated the more present people have been to. To your point, dial up on that urgency, right. And just be in alignment. And I love what you said there about focusing on the solution and that sometimes that means like, what's the result that I'm going to get you to. Right? Which there's a big focus on that. Especially if you're in a revenue generating space. This will earn you X amount of revenue. And you know, oftentimes I see people think that like, oh, it's easier to sell business because I can tie a revenue number to it, but not always. Right. We're all at different stages. We may have destination, but when you can call out your unique approach to get someone to that destination and you put them in the driver's seat and you sort of become a partner and a guide along that journey. To me, the way that you describe that and what you're speaking to, it just feels so much more aligned to who I am as a human and feel so much more comfortable in terms of, okay, how can we show up in a way that isn't pushy, that isn't aggressive? I am here for you. We're going to walk this path. If this is what you're going after, I got you.

I think it's fair to say that it also took me a lot of years to get there. So there were years that I fought owning my own business because I felt like I had to, you know, limited time offer every time I sold something. And all because that's how I was taught my backing, my background is in marketing. And so, you know, that was what I knew. And it took time and it took me saying, okay, well, if that's the only way I can be successful, I don't want to do it. I can find something else. And I had to sort of wiggle my way around and experiment and find what aligned with me. There are people who thrive on, you know, deadlines and urgency and those sorts of things. And if that is your speed, then embrace it and find the people who also thrive in that. But I am seeing in general just looking at trends between my work and my clients and what I'm hearing is that I think that we have to look at what our people are doing and what they're telling us. Their behavior is telling us that they need and right now I'm seeing a lot less needing urgency and a lot more needing just to know that you're going to be there for them tomorrow. And I think we're seeing a significant shift in consumer behavior. Just overall. When I look at the economy and I look at what online business is doing and I look at what employers are having to do, I think we're seeing a shift in how people choose to spend their money and choose to allocate their priorities. And that's going to change how we need to showcase our offers in order for them to see the value.

Yeah, you're hitting. You started the conversation with this idea that we have to be adaptable as marketers, as business owners, as leaders and you know, as you're speaking to consumer behavior and what's happening now, I've been researching, watching this as well for both businesses and in collaboration with my client businesses. And one of the things that I came across is spending on home goods is starting to go down and people are now reengaging and spending on services and experiences. We're ready to get out there again. And so it's really interesting to watch what is actively happening. And you want to align wherever it makes sense, your services, products, et cetera, to match behavior. And also when you can foresee it and some of that is right, our gut like, okay, we are observing and we are having a discussion right now and I don't know that there is any research to support this. Let me know if you have seen some research. But I have heard conversation on podcasts, I have been in groups where we are talking about it. I have talked to my friends, my family about it. But like, let's all slow down a little bit. I think probably the Great Resignation is probably one of the biggest pieces of data we have. But, oh, I don't have to live that way. I don't have to work that way. I don't have to be in these locations. So this, okay, so what you're saying around urgency, how do we align with that new way of being? And as I think about it, I'm like, okay, I am a goal getter. Like, I want to reach goals, I want to move forward to them. I pace myself. I pace myself right on time. But how do you sync those things up? And yes, we can get go after our goals with more ease, at a reasonable pace, without the pressure and the little pressure cooker we put ourselves in. And how do you think some of those things are going to play out in the coming months around behavior? Whatever comes up for you. We've spoken to the marketing, but what are your thoughts on this?

I think that with regards to consumer behavior, I think it's going to become more and more important that we are able to identify and segment our audiences because people do not want to waste their time. They just, they're over it. Like, they don't want jammed email inboxes, they don't want text messages from everywhere that they've ever bought a product from. They don't, they don't want all of those things. Right. And so in order for us as business owners to remain relevant to our people, we have to be able to deliver them the right information for them. So really taking the time to build the systems in your own business where so that your messaging is individualized and segmented and on topic and relevant to that individual user is going to be really important moving forward. I think that as business owners, we are going to have to embrace the fact that this digital, you know, incredible world that we've inhabited for the last couple of years is shifting. An interesting tidbit. My husband is currently in a master's degree program and the vast majority of the people in his classes are 19, 20 years younger than him. So, you know, we're a bit older than a lot of his classmates. And in a recent conversation we realized that the majority of his classmates did not have Facebook accounts. Wow. And I mean, like, didn't use, I'm not talking, I didn't use it. I mean, did not have accounts. And these are young, upwardly mobile earning professionals who are out there in the world establishing their own households, paying their own bills, doing all of those things. They're not like 18 year olds who, you know, list to live at home. And so they're, they're just not engaged there. Yeah, and that was a bit of a shock to me. Like, I knew that the demographic was changing and you know, I think, you know, groups have seen a little bit of a decrease. And what several of them told me was they were like, oh, it's just so angry. And so they had disengaged.

That's interesting. I think, I bet if you looked at that 18 year old demographic too, it's probably shifted. My daughter who just graduated, she has a Facebook account, but she does not see it very often. If I tag her, she won't see it there for months. But Instagram, you know, it's funny, as we think about the social media landscapes, I, I am finding myself back more on Facebook than other platforms because as Instagram has shifted to More. More stimulation. I'm like, oh, Every time I open the app, I'm like, like, I've got a flashing light in my eyes. The sound is up. Like, oh, dial it down. It's just sensory overload for me. Like, oh, my gosh. Facebook feels really peaceful for me right now. I also curated my community, so there isn't a lot of.

I noticed that in my Facebook, I've curated really strictly so I. I am the master of the snooze and the block. And so because of that, I've, like, shrunk my circle down enormously from sort of peak Facebook usage three or four years ago. And I don't know that I. I think we're seeing in a lot of our young people, they don't quite have the life skills yet to do that level of curation on a platform, and so their curation is to just not engage.

Yeah, fair enough. I mean, there's a lot to that, and that's going to shift depending on who our audiences are and who we serve. Okay, where are you showing up? Did they give any indication where they are showing up instead?

There was a lot of LinkedIn.

That's what I was hypothesizing and wondering. Like, it's purposeful. It's clear.

Yeah, they know what they're there for. And in this particular group, these were all young professionals in a professional licensed program, and so they were. They've all experienced remote work as they've come onto the workforce, and so they're actively looking and seeking to engage and create community around their professional identity. And I'm really interested. It's something that I'm sort of paying attention to. I'm trying to figure out how to gather more data around it, but I'm wondering how people who maybe already have a professional identity, where are they going now to connect with people around that kind of self identification? Because in the past, I think our generation would look at more. We joined Facebook groups that were very much self identification. This was how we showed up in the world, was aligned with what Facebook groups we joined and the pages that we followed. And these kids, and I'm going to call them kids because they felt like children when we were talking to them. They may pay their bills, but they're still very young. So they. They just didn't have that in the same way. The vast majority we were talking about, like, they. They have, like one or two close friends and they have this very small circle that they had deeper relationships with, and they were actively seeking deep, meaningful relationships. But they really didn't feel the need, I think, for visibility could be anonymous.

Yeah, yeah, right.

They didn't need to know who their followers were on TikTok or the people they were interacting with on Discord was another one that showed up when we were talking about it. They didn't need to know who those people were to feel validated by the visibility.

Yeah.

And that was a really interesting aspect of it for me. I don't know what that's going to mean for us marketing wise yet, but there's a. I think there's some interesting, interestingness there. I did notice as we were talking about it that there was a little bit of a pullback from TikTok.

Oh, interesting.

Where people were just, they're like, yeah, you know, I love it, but it doom scroll. Like I just get into it and I can't pull out of it. And so there was, I think, absolutely appreciate that.

I could appreciate sometimes even on TikTok and on Instagram. Now as they've changed the algorithm, I pop in to check on a couple things and my curated beam, like, nothing's curated. It's all, I don't know these people. Do I follow that person?

No, you do not.

But they're just showing it to me to sort of do. Of course there are all sorts of strategies and reasons for that, but it creates an element of overwhelm that also makes me, as I mentioned, like, okay, I gotta, I gotta shift how I'm connecting because I also want purposeful connection and interaction. Right. We've got goals, we've got things, we're building, staying intentional.

And so I think there's opportunities business wise. So if you have, if you run a mastermind or a group program, maybe you offer the ability to do like text message access instead of having to rely on a Facebook group or a Slack channel or something like that. I think that we're going to have to look forward or look towards as we go forward, giving people ways to control the flow of information and how they're receiving things. Because like we mentioned before, when people need reassurance, giving them control is a good way to do that. And we're going to have to let people choose how and when and in what format they want to access our offerings so that we don't become just part of the noise.

It's so true. We have designed, we redesigned the modern CEO as Kristin knows full well, she was a big part of our focus groups on this and shared feedback and insights. And we redesigned so that it does not have to Be a part of. You don't have to be on social media anywhere to participate and take advantage of the program and get support. It's all inside the online home, you know, And I, over the years, sometimes, like, I'm already hanging out in fill in the blank platform, just meet me where I am. But at this point, I'm like, no, I'm actually not hanging out there. And we noticed this trend too, over the years. People would say, oh, I'm not on X. But that surge in the last nine to 12 months, looking back, I was thinking about that timeline. We're like, okay, we have to redesign because the behavior and the data absolutely supported. You're. You're right. People were saying it before, but then the data finally caught up after years of the conversation, like, all right, we got to change the game.

And I think there's a lot of opportunities there for us as business owners. Right. So if you have any kind of a library of resources, you have a really powerful reason to reach out to people, like, through email. Still, I am 100% convinced of the value of email because it just. It remains. Right. It remains a critical communication tool that we have with our people. They come back to it is why. Right. And so if you have a library of resources, are you reminding your people what all is available to them? So it's an easy way to show up consistently as a solution every month, week, two weeks, whatever works for your rhythm. You can say, hey, I know that this is what's going on. There's a lot of people experiencing this. Let me give you some insight on how you can use this tool to make your life a little bit easier today.

Yeah, right.

You can let your email, if they already have access to it, you can let your email to them just be a solution. And that's such an incredible relationship management strategy. And so we can create those connections and have that slow burn that lets us increase the lifetime customer value.

Oh, bringing it full circle. This is beautiful. You may be able to tell that I could just sit in conversation with you, Kristen, forever. This is delightful. The flow is so beautiful. I know there were so many nuggets in here, and I have to think people may want to continue down this journey in this conversation with you. Where do people find you?

BlogYourGenius.com is the homestead for everything that we do. We have a wonderful membership that is there for people to access whenever they want. We add resources regularly. There's like four years worth of classes all about creating content and telling your story and leveraging your story to attract the people who need what you offer. And then we also have some masterminds that run quarterly and all sorts of fun stuff. It changes based on what our people need and we just go from there.

You are the way you run your business, the way you connect with people I just admire and love hearing about. So thank you for sharing your genius and follow Kristin. Go find her. Are you on Instagram?

I am. Blog your genius everywhere.

Easy breezy. Blog your genius Everybody Give us a shout out when you go find Kristen on Instagram or if you check out her content. What a gift. Thank you for your time, Kristen.

Thank you so much for having me.

I was not kidding when I said that episode was going to be good. We covered so much in that conversation and I hope there is a nugget in there that resonated with you and that helps you as you are navigating seasons of change for yourself and alongside your clients and your community. There is a lot going on and you are right on time. Keep on keeping on and if you got a nugget out of this episode, we'd love to hear from you in a review or give us a shout out on any of the platforms that you are on. Kristin Smith is at blog. You're a genius and you can always find me at Amber McHugh. Thanks for listening.