Liz Nable 0:00
Digital. Marketing. Okay, before you roll your eyes and flip to another episode, stop and hear me out. I know I'm deviating on this episode a little from traditional media to talk about social media and online marketing. But trust me when I say as a small business owner, it's crucial you understand that your brand story, your media placements, your industry expert status in your digital marketing all go hand in hand. The free organic traditional media or social media you do complements the paid digital ads, like Google ads, and Facebook ads, and vice versa.
Hello, I'm Liz Nable and you're listening to Nable My Business, the podcast. When I first started in small business almost 10 years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. You see, my background was in the media. I had spent 15 years as a television news journalist and reporter working at several major networks in Australia. And then as a freelancer in the US and around the world. I spent years dividing my time between working long shifts on a news desk and travelling the world chasing stories. It was unpredictable and exciting. Until it wasn't anymore. I decided I wanted a life where I was in charge of what happened next. And where I was working to build my own empire, not someone else's. I also never wanted to work a midnight new shift again. Now, I don't have to. There was a lot I had to learn about running my own business. But one thing I already had in the bag was how to get media coverage and free PR. I knew what the media wanted. I knew the secret formula for what made us and I knew how to leverage those organisations to build my business, get more exposure and ultimately make more sales. During my decade of building my business, I have managed to get featured in almost every major news outlet in the country. I've been interviewed on television countless times, had personal profiles written up in women's magazines, done point of view pieces for large newspapers, and be listed in top 100 List women in business and in my industry. And I've never spent a single cent on PR. I took that knowledge for granted until it dawned on me one day that I could teach what I knew to other businesses, let them in on the secret and they too could build their businesses leveraging the media and gaining free PR they could use my
Rachael Dao 5:18
Thank you, Rachael, for joining me, I'm so excited to have you on this episode of the podcast.
Thank you for having me a little bit nervous, but I'm excited to be able to share some of my learnings.
Liz Nable 5:29
So for anyone listening, who's not familiar with Rachel, She's admitted to me, she's a self confessed introvert. So she's needed a little coaxing to be on the podcast, but she's got so much really valuable information for small business owners and franchisees in the digital marketing space. So I'm really glad you agreed. Tell me a little bit, Rachel, about your your journey, your background in digital marketing and about the LTE network and what you guys do?
Rachael Dao 6:03
Yeah, definitely. So I started off in digital marketing about God, it's hard to say, but 10 years ago now, I was dabbling in advertising some of my first couple of roles. And then that moved into influencer marketing about eight years ago, which is crazy to think because back then influencer marketing was such a small segment of marketing. And now it's, you know, taking in trillions of dollars in advertising across the globe. But that's been rolled into joining LTE networks. So LTE network is a franchise specialist for full service agency. And I started off talking to studio owners talking to club owners, specifically within the fitness industry, about their marketing, what they're currently doing. And back then it was just focusing on on organic content. And then that slowly rolled into adding on a little bit of advertising. So that was Facebook advertising, Google advertising, because that's where I came from, in the influencer space as well, that then slowly rolled into working with more studios, more brands, bringing on a team on board and starting to put together campaign packages working on more of a business as usual, with advertising always on compared to what it was like previously, where it was little spot campaigns, because we all know six years ago, you know, we weren't investing half as much as what we are compared to today. And that's kind of led me on to this journey of now becoming general manager of LTE network as a franchise specialist agency, where our team work collaboratively with about two to 300 Studios and clubs across Australia, New Zealand, to be able to support them in their advertising, but not just their advertising, educating them on advertising, how it relates to marketing, and then also looking at the sales process, because it never just stops at Facebook advertising. And that's kind of where it takes us to today. So we have now since expanded into other verticals, but very much our bread and butter being in franchising,
Liz Nable 8:10
Right. And so for anyone who might be I know, we'd have a lot of franchisees listening to the podcast, but anyone who's in an independent business, I would imagine the digital marketing strategies would translate to small businesses in general, is that right?
Rachael Dao 8:24
100%. So when I say we work with franchised businesses, it's really about working with the local area, and then working with the National area at a national level, and then being able to maintain that brand integrity, but on the local level, you know, running a campaign running advertising is very similar within a franchise to an independent business, the only differences is, you know, branding is a little bit different, the way we communicate might be a little bit different. Those that are independent businesses aren't necessarily following the lead on what national have done. So when it comes to advertising on a local level, very similar, just different potentially communication strategies, nurturing flows, those types of things, in which an independent business might just need a little bit more hand holding
Liz Nable 9:14
on. Yeah, yeah. And I think this is, you know, for all small business owners that I know of anyway, in my orbit, and most franchisees, as well, you know, our our specialty is certainly not digital marketing, unless a franchise owner or small business owner comes from that background. And I know that I struggle with it because it's ever changing, and it changes so quickly. Like you said, six years ago, even was a totally different ballgame to where we are now. And that's why I wanted to get someone like you who is an expert in this field to sort of, I guess, explain to small business owners and franchisees in a nutshell, like where we should be focusing our efforts, you know, potentially not having to be good at every single one. aspect of digital marketing, but maybe choosing a few things to specialise in and get really good at and make work to our advantage. So I wanted to chat to you particularly because, you know, digital marketing is difficult for small business owners at the best of times. But how have you seen that the last two years, you know, during the pandemic has changed the way we market as small businesses? And like, what do you see as like, you know, what does 2022 look like for us small businesses? Where should we be focusing our time and effort? And how do you think it sort of changed the landscape of working smarter in our business?
Rachael Dao 10:37
Yeah, I think I mean, from my perspective, I mean, it's easy to say, but I think it is relying on specialists to be able to do it. When we look at advertising six years ago, and I'm talking directly to the experiences that I had with fitness studios and clubs, we're talking about spending $75 a month, and you're getting some really great results. And that's six years ago, fast forward to three to four years ago, and businesses and studios are starting to spend that $1,000 A month consecutively with always on campaign, and that again. So really, really great result, they were able to look at, you know, when each dollar that they're spending what the ROI is, you fast forward to where we are today, post COVID, a couple of things have changed iOS 14, obviously with Facebook. But then beyond that, what COVID has done is triggered everyone to go online. And it's easy to assume who our competitors are and to say, Oh, it's just the gym down the road. But when we're competing in an advertising space, you're not just competing with the gym down the road, you're competing with EECOM stores that might be selling dumbbells, or EECOM. clothing stores that are selling fitness types, or whatever it is. The competitive group that we have online, has drastically shifted in the last two years because it has pushed everyone to do digital advertising away from the other more traditional forms of advertising. Also, with the fact that you can track, you know, when conversions are coming in or when purchases are being made, it has that more tangible aspects, which again, further direct more people online. So then, when you're looking at advertising today, compared to two years ago, the advertising costs have, I mean, within the this year in 2021, we look at Queensland specifically, and the costs have doubled across the board for our fitness clients. Maybe you're thinking about that, in just such a short amount of time. I mean, previously, when we're looking at, say 2019 to 2020, we didn't even see that amount of growth, or that amount of increase in terms of ad spend. Between those two years, and this has happened within less than 12 months, I'm talking like 789 months. So then, you know, studio managers, studio owners, where you guys have, you know, where your most valuable is in the studio, looking at the business or here for business growth, you don't have to be experts in marketing, but you can definitely find specialists who know all these tools to educate you on what they do. So that you guys can be better business owners in terms of how you allocate the funds. So I mean, even I think there are a couple of masterclass on your website that's happening with the specialists who know what they're talking about. Whether it be that marketing lead gen side or that sounds, I don't know how to run a franchise business, you don't, you don't you don't try to do sales. If you're not a salesperson, you first rely on a specialist, get feedback from them, get a little bit of upscaling and then you take it and run with it. So focus on specialists who can really upskill you help you understand and educate you on what they do. And if you want to take it on your own, by all means do or rely on specialists who can do it so that it saves you time so you can allocate your time in more valuable assets for the business. Yeah,
Liz Nable 14:16
so you're saying? So either educate yourself by doing some courses and deciding where you might do a course learn how to say, for example, set up Facebook ads, then you might then take on that job in your business. And you might pay a specialist to do something else like Google My Business or Google ads or geo fencing or something like that. Is that what you're saying?
Rachael Dao 14:42
Yeah, I mean, there are a couple of aspects of it the way we work with advertising used to be similar to that. So we would look at them as separate silos, Facebook on its own Google on its own geofencing on its own, but now as digital has continued Utah evolves, then we can have them stick to each other. So the way we work with clients is we, we have specialists in each of these categories, but each of the specialists talk to each other. Because at the end of the day, it's about the highest ROI for our clients. So when I'm talking about upskilling, on these tools, it's about understanding that, you know, Google search is intent driven. If it's intent driven, it means that people who are searching on Google already have some underlying intention to look up, you know, a fitness studio or join a gym or whatever that is. And so then they're much more they have a much higher conversion rates. Whereas on Facebook, if you're doing retargeting ads, that might mimic the same type of thing. But with retargeting ads, depending on your studio, and how big it is, and how many prospects that you might have on your list, retargeting might not be effective for you. And therefore, Facebook then becomes more of a brand awareness type platform where you're deriving interest based on what you assume people are gravitating towards. Does that make sense? Yes, it
Liz Nable 16:10
does. Yeah, next question for you is on I know, small business owners who are listening to this podcast right now will be thinking, I don't have a budget to employ specialists 24/7 I don't I can't get my head around all this because I'm wearing a million different hats in my business. So what would your advice be for a small business owner or a franchisee? So a franchisee? Who has the head office taking care of the national marketing? So that's fine. But they need to take care of their local area marketing and or any other small business or independent business owner? Where do they focus? Where do they spend their money? How do they start getting into this without being left behind? Because they don't have the funds that a big business would have?
Rachael Dao 16:54
I would say look at your data. I mean, outside of marketing, you have so much data and so much intelligence with you guys, that you can pick it apart and say, Okay, well, based on the traffic sources that I've seen in my CRM system, I can say that 20% of people are coming through Facebook alone. And if Facebook has a high percentage of traffic coming to you from there, then the next thing would be okay, how do my organic content look? Where am I getting great engagement? Am I using this tool to my best ability, and I'm not being lazy? And from that, what can I do further to help to add more to it? I mean, a little frustration of mine, is when I talk to franchisees or club managers or studio managers, is when we're breaking down, you know what they're posting on Facebook, when they're posting it? My first question is, are you looking at your data, to schedule this as a time where you have the highest engagement with that little tweak, you can be that much more effective, and you don't need to send anything with advertising, because it's about reaching the right audience at the right time. I think what digital people suddenly get, or they kind of bring this into a silo of all digital, that's a whole nother world. But digital relies on consumer behaviour, which relies on, you know, the whole cycle psychology aspect of it, the way a consumer respond to digital Yes, is a little bit different to how they respond online, or in person. But when you think about the behaviours, it's, you know, very much the same. If you have 10 people walking past your studio, then you're, you know, you're definitely going to be out there and talking to them. If you have 10 people online, that are seeing you're engaged, as an example, you do want to be there to engage with them, as opposed to non online, which is why we don't have classes that you know, 12am Yeah, in the same manner, we host content at 12am. Or even that 4am 5am 6am. If you look at your data, you can then align it with what is happening and what you would traditionally do offline, and then relate that back to how you action online. Does that make sense? Yes.
Liz Nable 19:20
So let me just rewind a little bit, because I'm trying to dumb this down to make it super, not not dumbed down. That's probably not the right term. I'm trying to make it super simple for business owners to grab slices of what you're saying. So if they're looking at data, where are their top tips to look at that data? So they might have a CRM, they might look at their Facebook analytics, is that pretty easy for them to understand and analyse? Where else are they looking for that data?
Rachael Dao 19:47
You can look on Instagram. Instagram has insights as well in which you can pick apart depending on access to website, you might have some Google Analytics data, which you can break apart And beyond that, you know, if you use any other social tools, you can go to those relevant tools. But I think those are the basics that I would recommend any business owner to have. And then beyond that you have your email system, whether that be connected to your CRM or not definitely looking at your email and SMS is and the data that you have that, I know that we've found a lot of successes in terms of conversions with email, nurturing funnels, and that's as simple as a lead coming in sending them an email, if they don't respond to that email, you then send them another email with, you know, a time that you're going to call them or a calendar booking system in which they can book in a time. So we're looking at those pieces of data to the email system, social media system, CRM system calculates everything you should be looking at.
Liz Nable 20:52
Right? Okay. So they're looking at all those different areas for the analytics to try and get a bit of a snapshot of where their customers are coming from, when their customers are most active, and what their customer behaviour is like, correct? Yeah. Okay. And so then they're deciding from there, for example, they might be on Facebook, that person's business might have their most customers coming through Facebook, or it might be through Google, or it might be through a number of different other channels. And then choosing to, to get themselves familiar with one or two types of digital marketing. Is that what you would what you would advise, and then potentially, potentially experimenting with spending the money in different areas and seeing what the results are? Like?
Rachael Dao 21:39
Yeah, even just starting with one. And that one is, again, referring back to the data and saying, Okay, well, is my biggest lead source coming from Facebook, or Instagram, or Google My Business? And then following that, and saying, Okay, I'm just gonna focus on one thing, before I try to overwhelm myself with five different tools. Yes, that one thing, right, and then add another layer on top. And then you add another layer on top, and then you add another layer on top. Because then if you're obviously trying to do everything at once, then you know, no one is jack of all trades, it does take a little bit of time to upskill. But if you can get one tool, right, at least you know that you have a solid lead gen plan for that tool. And then you can focus on building another one while that's often running on its own.
Liz Nable 22:24
And how difficult is it to get your head around? I know, for example, you know, I've been setting up Facebook ads for 10 years, and obviously, 10 years ago, they were pretty simple to set up. These days, it's like you need a university education to get value for money. How simple is it to get your head around that digital marketing, so that you can either choose to employ an expert to to, you know, spend your money in one area, and you can, you know, you can make an educated decision about where your marketing dollars are best spent?
Rachael Dao 22:56
Yeah, with I mean, with Google ads, Facebook ads, and obviously tying into Instagram advertising, they all have their the courses that they then have hosted on their website. So you know, Facebook teaches you how to go through business manager, how to set up an ad account how to set up an ad. And so they have all the tools to just give you the basics, they can get an understanding, then get into the tools, you can have a play around, and then you can see how it's been. So all of that is available. The difficulty really comes in the intellect behind how you set up a campaign. I was sitting in a Facebook was at a webinar the other day, or a masterclass some sort of session where they were educating us about what has been working recently and where they're going in terms of advertising. But one of the steps was 50% of the targeting is driven through creative. And traditionally we think are getting is
Liz Nable 24:00
that again, for me, you know,
Rachael Dao 24:03
50% of targeting is done through the creative. So the actual visual, as opposed to saying someone's age demographic of 15 to 24.
Liz Nable 24:16
Wow, that's fascinating.
Rachael Dao 24:19
I mean, we found a really interesting, because it's something that we we know we do quite heavily. But then knowing that it's an industry wide thing was very interesting for us to be able to say, oh, okay, this is what other people are doing too. But it's, I mean, it's almost when you when you actually think about it, and when you think about how we scroll through Instagram, what does catch up is what is in the actual asset, what is an actual creative, that's what stops people So then moving back to your question about you know, if a business owner wants to set up their own accounts, by all means you should have all the capabilities to be able to get the basics through the tools they have sessions, seminars, training courses for you to be able to do it. But it's also making sure that you're spending the time in the tools to be able to really watch the trends of advertising, understand what's happening to your data, and upskill based on all the metrics in there. I know it sounds very complicated, they break it down into little courses and little snippets, so that business owners can then come in and have a play around. So I think before it before it starts to sound so complex, I'd say just jump on, you know, Facebook blueprint. If you Google Facebook blueprint,
Liz Nable 25:37
I might need you to send me the link. And I can pop it in the show notes. So people can click straight through.
Rachael Dao 25:42
Yeah, of course. Yeah, basic blueprint takes you from takes you through how to build a campaign from A to Z. Wow. And it's free. And it is free. And it's and you can get certified to cool.
Liz Nable 25:57
I mean, and that's the thing, right? I keep thinking, well, it's all well and good to pay a specialist to set up my Facebook ads, for example. But it means the business owner, if I don't understand where my ROI comes from, or if I'm getting a good result or not, I may as well be flushing my money down the toilet. It's like getting your car serviced, when you've got no idea what the mechanic is telling you, they've done at the end of the day, but I charge you $5,000 for it, like they could be doing anything and you wouldn't know. So for me, I think it's really important for business owners, even if they do end up outsourcing that, to understand the basics of how it works so that they can make an educated decision on where they're going to spend their money, how much they're going to spend on and what success looks like.
Rachael Dao 26:38
Under present, and that's the same for us too, we actually hold our clients accountable to joining meetings within the first couple of months, where we're working with them to weekly meeting, because one of the key objectives as part of that start of that relationship is making sure they know where their ad dollars are going. And what we're doing with it, how we're allocating, allocating it, and how we're generating ROI for our clients, it's important for them to be accountable to these meetings, because if they're not willing to put in time to understand what is happening, and where their dollars are going, then we're not going to be able to get the highest ROI for them, because then also not giving us the right types of feedback for us to be able to generate better results. Absolutely. Education, profit, you know, is the most important aspect of it, because then we can have a constructive conversation, three, four or five months down the track to say, hey, you know, we want to double your ad budget, we've seen x y Zed come through this is your ROI. And this is the performance that has happened previously. Therefore we can forecast this to happen. And as part of your business targets, you know where this much closer to hitting whatever we need to hit?
Liz Nable 27:50
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I just wanted to rewind really quickly and wondering if you can explain this, please. Because you've mentioned it a couple of times in our conversations, and I don't know what it is. It's the iOS 14 update. What is that? And how has that affected what Facebook does?
Rachael Dao 28:09
That is essentially and I'm going to have to get one of my specialist guys to come on board to touch on that a little bit further. But it's essentially a change in which Apple has put in place. And then that has been impacted how Facebook can track the targeting ordinance or not as having the conversions. So have you seen recently, when you're going into an app after not having been in there for a while it says something along the lines of do allow us to track? Yeah, like a pop up? Or something? Yeah, like a pop up? Yeah, something along those lines. I don't know the exact wording. That's essentially a gateway now. So previously, we were able to get data back and forth. Without it tracking where the users are going. Now they can opt out of that tracking to that I don't want to be tracked. Right. Is that a privacy thing? That is the privacy thing. And so then I think there's a reason that that 75% of people have actually opted out of it, which means that as advertisers, yes, the ads are still going through. Yes, we're still hitting people. Yes, the conversions are happening. We actually matched up data from a couple of years for our clients and looked at the lead gen, we looked at the number of members assigning conversion rates. All of that was on top year on year, the only thing we couldn't track was exactly what was coming out and say Facebook advertising. So instead of reporting on 60 leads, it was reporting on 20 leads, but the clouds was still receiving a similar or in Line Amount of late to Head to the prior video. Right? Yeah, 100% the advertising is happening. But we're just missing. We're just missing a number, which we contract on our end because now it's grouped together the whole campaign.
Liz Nable 30:12
Right, right. Okay. So it's a privacy thing Facebook have obviously been forced to implement. Exactly, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. So that's something to keep in mind, I guess for us, you know, non experts, is that and that, and that's, you know, that's changed. I think Facebook, particularly, you know, they've changed the rules a lot along the way. And some of them have worked well, in terms of being able to set up ads and all that sort of stuff. And others have, obviously, you know, it's made it harder to get value for your money and that sort of thing. Because there are so many other people like you say, using digital marketing now. Can we can we have a quick chat about like, across the board, like a, in an ideal world, like your digital marketing strategy as a business can cover? And this is I've just taken this from your website. So I'm assuming this is a bit of a broad range of what people might have included in their digital marketing strategy. So social media, Google YouTube, ecommerce, geofencing, which actually don't know what that is, I'm going to get you to tell me what that is. Google My Business Content Scheduling and local campaigns? Is that a pretty comprehensive list of what you might have in your digital marketing? Strategy?
Rachael Dao 31:26
No, not at all. I mean, the E commerce is only for clients have products to sell online and offline, okay, a lot of those products are on top and only if you have a certain amount of sense. So YouTube is typically run from a head office point of view when it comes to franchising, because that is very much a brand awareness type of advertising. Beyond that, to geofencing, we use very much for events. And I'll tell you a little bit about geofencing. Just to explain how that works. geofencing essentially maps out the four walls of your studio, and then it'll track that as a conversion zone, what we can do is we can feed advertising to say, everyone walking in and out of a shopping centre, and a supermarket. And then any one of those people who then walk into your studio will then be tracked as a conversion. Repeating that anyone who goes to that shopping centre and supermarket based on the fact that they've been through those four doors, will receive an ad via an app, whether that be my fitness pal, or the AFL app, those types of apps. And then anyone who walks into the conversion zone, which is is your studio fully marked as a conversion,
Liz Nable 32:51
right? So let me just repeat that back to you tell me if I've understood so you decide, say for example, it's pouring them all on the northern beaches, and you decide that our fitness studio is going to send an ad to anyone who walks into those four walls. And when they go on to their phone, whilst they're in this the shopping centre, they'll get an ad at whereabouts on Facebook or
Rachael Dao 33:17
any that that will be through app through apps. Like my fitness pal. Yep. As an example,
I say got it. Okay. And then they'll be and then they might, you know, they might see an ad for a certain fitness studio. Through that My Fitness Pal. And then once they, they they act on that and walk through those doors of that specific business, that's considered a conversion.
Correct. So when they initially walk into what I was calling the shopping centre in a supermarket anywhere between then and the next 30 days, they can receive that ad and anytime between then and walking into your studio, they'll track as a conversion essentially. Right? And how a little bit convert.
Liz Nable 34:03
And is that something that a head office would do? Or is that from a local level? Is that local level marketing?
Rachael Dao 34:10
Yeah, typically local level marketing those, we more. We use those more when it comes to our automotive clients. So we have automotive clients in franchising, and typically one of the clients that we have will go down to the Phillip Island racecourse, and there's a Moto GP event down there. And so then we might do a little bit of advertising for that event tracking the audience's going into the dealerships. So we're looking at some big numbers here. We definitely have used them for some of the fitness clients but very much on the local level. And one of the examples in which we used it for was we fenced up. How much I can say, but we fenced off like a healthy eating. Restaurant. Could we wanted to see how many people were walking into the gym from there, so that it would then create the need or the urgency for that client to create a business relationship? Because we could see that there was a lot of traffic going in between it.
Liz Nable 35:16
Right? Right. So that's, I mean, that's a really clever way. And something that's, I guess, quite event specific, but a different way, again, of doing, trying to target the right kinds of people to come in, become consumers of your business.
Rachael Dao 35:33
Exactly. And it's one of those, which I mentioned before, you know, make sure you get the base basics right before you add on an add on an add on geofencing is one of those things, which do need a higher budget. And it's not necessarily tangible in saying I have a name, phone number and email address, like Facebook advertising. So it's one of those that you would consider only after a couple of years in which you felt really comfortable with the basics, which I would I believe, you know, getting your Google My Business Profile, right, getting your organic content, right and your sales process. And then that's the basics. And then advertising is the next layer on top, which is just basic Google search, advertising, and then social advertising, Facebook, and Instagram. And then you consider the next level of advertising, whether that's geofencing, YouTube, tick tock, and Snapchat, Pinterest, those types of tools, they're relatively new, and I daresay they're going to come into the base level advertisement at some point. But those are the Fluffy, fluffy, you don't need to have it, it's good to have if you know how to use it. And you can really change wise, where you're putting your ad dollars, because as a business owner, you know, there's no limit as to how much you spend. But there's a limit in terms of how many bums you can have on seats in your studio. And you might not need to go to that extent it's, it's the fluffy night to have.
Liz Nable 37:00
Yeah, absolutely. So let's Can we just recap that? Because that was going to be my next question. So maybe if you can flesh out a little bit more about what you just said, like your top tips that say, going into 2022, we're coming out fingers crossed the tail end of COVID. Hopefully, digital marketing is pretty much a must have in your business, no matter whether you have a budget or no budget or a big budget or not. What are your top tips for small business owners going into next year? And that digital marketing strategy? What are the must haves? Where should they start? And what should they add on once they nail that basics?
Rachael Dao 37:37
So must have. And I'd say if you don't have this, you don't have it, right? You need to make sure that your Google My Business Profile is up to date, you've got great reviews, and you're constantly checking it to make sure that it is updated when need be your Google My Business Profile is going is on the right hand side when you search. And then it pops up with the photos at the top. And then there's your business name. And then there's the address phone number, which then flows into your reviews, the time you're open. And then it goes into promotions and offers that you might have. That's your local SEO, you don't need a website. I mean, obviously, you do have a website, but you don't need a website to be able to host that over on the right hand side, essentially, is your digital storefront, your Google My Business, right make sure that you have the right links in there, right, make sure that you have the right information in there, because that's where everyone goes to search for. And once they see that they then go to your website, and then they then check you out. They do a little bit bit of investigation, a little bit of discovery. And then you know, obviously you want to have a good website to be able to convert a lead, but you need to have your Google My Business because that's where people are searching and you want to be the first option when they're searching fitness studio in the area.
Liz Nable 39:01
Just don't Google My Business before you continue. So everyone knows it's free. And correct me if I'm wrong, Rachel, but I've heard that it's the most underutilised, underrated, underused in from a business perspective. But like 90% of people who are Googling use Google My Business as a point of reference when they're trying to find a business in fitness or whatever they're searching for. Is that right?
Rachael Dao 39:24
Yes. So they're not necessarily searching for your Google My Business but they are expecting it to pop up. And if you're not there and another competitor comes up, then they'll go straight to the can or or they're likely to go to the competitor a lot of the time. Everyone you know, it goes back to that intent. People have intent and if they have intent, you want to be there and you want to be present and you want to you know, make it as easy for them to sign up as possible.
Liz Nable 39:48
Yeah, okay. So Google My Business Number one, then then what?
Rachael Dao 39:53
Then your Facebook and Instagram. Okay, so that's great. And this is organic. This is isn't even spending any money, go to your, your Facebook profile your Instagram profile, and just make a simple change of looking at when users are most engaging with your profile. And look at the top pieces of content that people are engaging with. A lot of the time, you know, there are tools like HootSuite and Canva out there, and clubs and studios that we work with will be like, oh, yeah, I can just schedule a post out to go at the same time on this product. But it's not how consumers behave, I dare say, the majority of anyone who is taking this next tip away, when you set or when you look at your data between Facebook and Instagram, it will likely tell you that people are engaging at different times. Right? And if they're engaging at different times, and why the hell are you posting them at the same time, because we have different ways of consuming content on their tools. So go to your Facebook, video, Instagram, look at the top posting time, we use a tool called Digital stack that tells you exactly your top five, posting time on each of these products separately, actually went through it with one client, Facebook was highest engaged time was 12pm, on like a Tuesday, and then Instagram was 8pm on a Monday. Right? Look at that, and look at your top three pieces of content in terms of engagement. So typically, it'd be community, something to do with your studio managers or your clients or your members. Something to do with the community. And then something to do with your the services that you have to offer. If you have the top hosting time, and you have these categories of content, tweak how you're executing content over the next couple of weeks, and see what the difference is your engagement should increase. And you should be getting more people comment on them just purely because you're getting to them at the right time.
Liz Nable 42:12
Great, okay. And that's super basic to look at those analytics to there's not complicated,
Rachael Dao 42:18
super basic, it's just, I mean, they should actually save club managers studio manages more time than make, you know, has to spend more time on a tour because then it forces you to plan ahead. And so then you're spending two hours looking at this data creating content, but then that shifts the behaviour from Okay, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to attend to this data, I'm trying to be intentional with what I opposed to from, you know, the scramble of Oh, no, I haven't gotten anything up today, I'm going to have to go create content, scrambling through the studios looking for funding to post posting something and then having to do that again the next day. And each time you do that you're spending 2030 minutes each time should really save them time as opposed to making more work for them to do. So, recapping, Google My Business, make sure that all the all the information is up to date and your review, just looking at the data and your Facebook and Instagram and what people are engaging with. And then the last one is just looking at between the leads that are coming in, what your conversion rates are and what your sales process is. Because before you embark on the advertising side, you really want to have a concrete plan for lead to sale, what that process looks like whether it's online or offline. And then you add on advertising because there's no point not having a great sales process in place driving lots of leads, because then they fall through the cracks.
Liz Nable 43:50
And it's a waste and they're cold leads by the time you get to them.
Rachael Dao 43:54
Exactly. And then you know that that then goes into the whole conversation of well, am I wasting money in advertising? And if you don't have the full sales process down pat, then yes, you are we've actually, we've actually told clients that we can't work with them before because we weren't getting feedback. But beyond that, you know, they weren't following the leads in time, and then it made them cold leads, and then they were losing money. And we, you know, got to where we're like, hey, we can't spend this money as quickly because we know that they're not being contacted, therefore they're not becoming members and you're still at point A, you're not progressing as part of the journey. So if you don't have those basic things in place, then you know, you're going to lose out and you need to have that so that you can then again, get your maximum ROI.
Liz Nable 44:38
Yeah, and I think it is about I think for a lot of small business owners we do, you know, it blows our mind when we think of digital marketing because we just feel like it's such a big beast. But but if you can use that the data and the analytics and the information from digital marketing, you're actually working smarter, not harder. So instead of, you know, 10 years ago, when used to stand at the supermarket and hand out flyers for your business, we don't really need to do that anymore. I know that that will always be something that might be part of someone's marketing general marketing plan, but there's easier ways isn't there to get to people than there ever has been?
Rachael Dao 45:20
100%. I mean, it's like, you know, pushing out and actually Google My Business on its own, I was looking at a 24/7 gym that we work with. And they had 5000 searches on their exact club within 30 days. Wow. And that number sounds insane. But you know, it is a combination of current members, potential members, Prime members, like it's a combination of all of it all. But if you think about that number of people looking you up within one month, organically, and then you add on the layer of advertising, you're getting in front of so many eyes, and if you can get in front of so many eyes, you know, what are you doing with it, if you have a solid sales process in place, then you should be able to convert a good number of days. And that's still not even spending any ad
Liz Nable 46:14
dollars. That's right. And that's another bit of a myth, isn't it, that you've got to have this huge big budget to be able to be in the game and digital marketing. But Google, my business is free. The Facebook and Instagram, organic feeds are free. And the last part is up to you is the sales process within your business. So it definitely doesn't have to cost a fortune, at least not until you can get the first bid, right. And then you can start to put your foot on the accelerator and spend some money.
Rachael Dao 46:47
Exactly. And when it comes to advertising, if you have all of that in place, and it makes it very worthwhile for you to add on advertising because you can then tantalise every dollar spent. But then in the case where you don't have those things in place, you don't have great engagement, then it starts to increase the ad cost because it's harder to get to people who are relevant to your business or who might want to engage with your business. So it's important to have those things in place to help to reduce your ad costs when you do go into advertising. And then therefore decreasing your cost of acquisition as well.
Liz Nable 47:23
Yeah, absolutely. I've just got one more little thing before we wrap up, this has been so I love this stuff. Like I love learning about this stuff. And I hope everyone else is enjoying it too. So you do specialise in multi location businesses. And I know that I've got multiple locations of my business. And I have struggled in the past marketing, because obviously, particularly in my business, which is fitness, it's hyperlocal, you know, hairdressing salon, or a nail salon or a dress shop? They're also hyperlocal as well. What's the difference? When you have a multi like multilocation? When you've got units, you know, that might be along the same territory, or there might be across other sides of the city or the country? What are those? Is this information relevant for them to is there anything that changes once you start to have more than one location in terms of digital marketing?
Rachael Dao 48:15
Not really, because each location is different. We have videos that we work with who neighbour each other, and their demographics typically look drastically different between each other. And so then the way we advertise and the way we do our targeting, in the back end, looks drastically different do I reallocate budgets is drastically different. We have a client in Fitzroy, and six years ago when we were doing advertising when we started doing advertising with them. For those of you who know Melbourne, we would be targeting along the eastern freeway because it was quick and easy for them to get to that studio. And that was obviously making sure that we're not encroaching into other franchise location territories. But then you look at Fitzroy, who's essentially next to the CBD, and then within the CBD, we wouldn't be targeting outside of that 1k 2k radius. So when we look at, you know, multi locations, the way we advertise that each location is very different. Where we find a difference is more just, there's one person to report to with two locations as opposed to one on one. It should definitely reduce the workload for a franchisee who has multiple locations. But really, ah, businesses. You know, each business is different. Yeah, same with independent businesses. They're different from each other. Yes, they are high political, and yes, they do. Get on each other's fences. But, you know, something as simple as the roads that people use to commute to your studio could drastically change how we advertise but not even advertise it to do the marketing. So you know, We have really great signage, then a lot of people are going to be set to you up if you don't have a lot of great signage, then how you present in some of those areas.
Liz Nable 50:08
Yeah, yeah. It's super simple, isn't it? Do you have any sort of success stories that you can tell us about how that tweaking of that digital marketing, with your help, obviously, in these situations, how that has kind of accelerated businesses or taking them from one level to the next? Or perhaps from failure to success? Do you have any sort of stories off the top of your head, you can relay?
Rachael Dao 50:34
For you? Yeah, I mean, just going off the, you know, having the basics, right, there's a client that we worked with, and they had. So unfortunate for them, because they opened up. And then within a few months, they went into COVID, lockdown opened back up. And then omet went into Cova, lockdown, because they're based in Victoria. So they were quite unfortunate in how they were set. But they did have their basics, right, they did know how to, you know, tidy up their Google My Business, and they did keep it up to date consistently. They had the organic content up to scratch. Certainly when we added on the Lerab, and they had the sales process, absolutely bang on. So then when we did add on the advertising, within two months, they've gone from 48 members in the studio to over 100.
Liz Nable 51:28
Wow, that is a pretty good. That's a double
Rachael Dao 51:32
it Yeah, it's essentially doubled their studio numbers, and they've spent, you know, between three to $6,000 with us, but then when you put that into, you know, 50 new members, it then all of a sudden seems very worthwhile, because firstly, they have the basics right, they're able to communicate to us what they're finding on the ground, we've been able to update that advertising and allocate more effectively. So the way we work with our advertisers, we don't allocate 200 here, 200 there, we look at where the highest ROI is. And then we allocate between Google advertising and social advertising on a base base level. And then they then feed back to us, they say, yep, these leads are really qualified, I'm getting in touch with them almost immediately. They're signing up to trials and converting into members.
Liz Nable 52:16
Right, so just ever generally doing well. I said, leveraging what they're doing well, and then they can spend, it's working.
Rachael Dao 52:28
Exactly. And then having that communication back and forth, so that we know what's happening on the ground, so we can then optimise and update accordingly. And now we're going into dropping that you know that initial weekly conversation into fortnightly conversation, because we're able to specialise in what we do, but also feed back to them. They've got all their processes down pat, and they're amazing processes. were then able to pull that together, tidy it up. And then we know that we're focusing on the marketing, they're focusing on the sale. And we can use these tools really effectively to drive leads to the door so that they can then convert it really, you know, understanding what each other's roles and responsibilities are knowing that we have this baseline to work off.
Liz Nable 53:12
Yeah. 100%. Rachel, where can people get in contact with you in the LTE network if they're looking for more information or wanting to engage your services?
Rachael Dao 53:23
Anyone can shoot me an email, I will send that to you. At the end of this is our down at LTE network.com.au That RDA at LTE network.com Daddy, if anyone has any questions, they can shoot it through to me and then I can you know if it's a specialist question, we have specialists in Google Social geofencing tick tock, so on and so forth. We can pull them in, have a conversation and give anyone up to up to speed.
Liz Nable 53:50
Amazing. Thank you so much, Rachel, that is a lot to digest. But I'm going to pull out some of the main things and summarise when we promote this, this episode on our socials so that people can get a really good snapshot of how good it is. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Rachael Dao 54:09
No, all right. Thank you for having me.
Liz Nable 54:11
Pleasure. Thank you for listening to this episode of enable my business. If you've loved it, please share it on Instagram and Facebook for your friends. I'm all about listening and learning from you my audience. So please pop a review on iTunes and let me know how you're enjoying the show. I'd love to hear from you. So if you have any questions, email me at Liz at Liz nabal.com And if you want to know more about what I do, head over to Liz nabal.com I truly hope this podcast is a game changer for you. Whether you're a small business owner, franchisee you have a side hustle or you're just starting out. This is where you truly begin to build your own empire and the life of your dreams.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
