101: Growing Your Business with Social Media & Email Marketing

1. Ambition is dreams with drive.

Your current circumstances and pain points can provide the motivation you need to create change and build the life you dream of.

2. With email lists and social media, people give brands permission to interact with them.

Unlike television and other traditional advertising, people can choose to follow you or subscribe to your newsletter, so it’s easier to reach people who are a good fit for your specific offerings.

3. Social media is like a party.

If you follow the rules, you can build connections with people but then invite them to join your next “party,” whether that’s signing up for an email newsletter, attending an event, or making a purchase. 

Kevin B. Jennings on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter

Lisa Zeeveld on Instagram and LinkedIn

BELAY’s staffing services

Kevin’s first interview on One Next Step podcast

(03:16) Kevin explains how he got a song featured on MTV Cribs with Kim Kardashian

(5:46) Kevin shares why his first job inspired him to one day work for himself

(9:40) What is required in order to build a life that’s different from the way you grew up?

(11:40) Why are social media and email marketing so important for sales and revenue generation?

(14:48) The social media metrics that are easiest to measure have the least meaning

(17:42) Kevin shares how seeing social media like a party can transform your strategy 

(24:35) How can businesses measure their success on social media?

(27:53) The customer journey takes time, even on social media

(30:51) What steps should businesses take to get started with social media?

(39:57) This week’s download: Kevin’s Social Media and Email Marketing Starter Kit can help you use these platforms to grow your business.

Kevin B. Jennings:

If you’re thinking no one’s buying from social media, that’s because you’re trying to skip the dating process. I just met you, let’s get married. That’s not how life works. It didn’t work in your real life. It’s not going to magically work online because you say it enough. And I think most people want to show up and just say, “I’m awesome. Please marry me. Give me your money,” and that’s never going to work. Because it didn’t work offline, it’s not going to work online.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Welcome to One Next Step, the most practical business podcast in the world. You’re now one simple tip, practical tool, and small step away, from growing your business. One Next Step is brought to you by BELAY, the incredible 100% remote organization, revolutionizing productivity with virtual assistants, bookkeepers, and social media managers. Accomplish more, juggle less modern staffing from BELAY. And now to your hosts.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Welcome to One Next Step, the practical business podcast that helps you run your business so it stops running you. I’m L.Z., and I’m joined by my dear friend and co-host, Ryan.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Hey L.Z. Our listeners are in for a real treat today. Today, L.Z. Is talking with our good friend, an expert marketing consultant, Kevin B. Jennings. Kevin is the owner of Junction 32, a fantastic marketing consulting firm, which also by the way, has BELAY as one of its clients.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yes, we absolutely love working with him on our podcast. And truthfully, he’s helped in so many other areas of our business. Our listeners may remember him from Episode 25, when we talked to him about the power of branding. But today he’s going to be discussing how to use social media and email marketing to grow your business. Many business owners might not have a lot of money to put into marketing. But social media and email are cheap, affordable options that anyone can utilize, especially given Kevin’s fantastic advice.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

But before we get started L.Z., it’s time for a pop quiz. Are you ready?

Lisa Zeeveld:

I’m ready.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

All right. What do our listeners, Beyonce, Bill Gates, and the Dalai Lama all have in common?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Let me think about this. Swagger, bank accounts.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

You’re getting close.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Athletic abilities?

Ryan Fitzgerald:

The Dalai Lama’s specifically.

Lisa Zeeveld:

I don’t know. Maybe spiritual leadership of Tibet.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

You’re getting so close. But the answer L.Z., is that they all have 24 hours in each day, and that’s it. No matter who you are. But with BELAY’s modern subscription staffing, offering virtual assistance, bookkeepers, website specialists, and social media managers for growing organizations, you can make the most of the precious 24 hours that you have. Accomplish more, juggle less, modern staffing from BELAY.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

All right. Let’s jump into your conversation with Kevin.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Welcome Kevin. Man, I can’t believe I get to talk to you today. I’m energized, I’m excited. Man, welcome.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Well, first of all, L.Z., you know how much I think you are amazing. And so, it is really cool to hang out with you. I actually would be paying, I would be glad to pay you to hang out with you extra for this hour. So, I’m really lucky and I’m excited to talk to you.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Well, I feel the same way. So, we’re in good company.

Kevin B. Jennings:

That’s right. Let’s do it.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. Well, I think you were one of the coolest guys I know. And I know that you’ve been on our show before, because we had some folks who are very familiar with you. But for those who are not, I’m going to ask you a fun question, so everybody else knows how cool you are. Okay. You ready for this?

Kevin B. Jennings:

Ready.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Okay. Tell us about the time you had a song featured on MTV cribs.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Yes.

Lisa Zeeveld:

What is cooler than that?

Kevin B. Jennings:

Well, it’s definitely my random fact. So, some people say, “Tell us your random fact,” this is it. So, I wanted to be a songwriter and producer when I was a kid, and in high school in college. And I had an internship, and the internship was with one of my mentors who was a producer here in Nashville. And he let me submit some of my songs with him for TV and film. And he came back and said, “Hey, some of your songs have been chosen.” They don’t tell us exactly where it is, but they said, “I do know what some of them going to be on MTV Cribs in the style network.” And so, they give you episode numbers, but you don’t know who the episode is. And on TV, they don’t tell you the episode number. So, that summer I was like, “I’m going to watch as many MTV Cribs episodes as I possibly can.”

Kevin B. Jennings:

And so in 2007, I’m watching MTV Cribs during the summer, and my song comes on. And I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” And I’m like wigging out. And I have no idea who this person is, this celebrity, but it was a 27-year-old woman who was living with her parents. So, it was actually her parents’ house. She was taking on a tour of, and that woman is Kim Kardashian. And we were touring on Bruce Jenner’s house at the time. So, I had no idea that fast forward in 2022, I could say my song was on Kim Kardashian’s first appearance on MTV Cribs.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Wow. And you’ve never tried to reach out to her and be like, “Hey, we know each other.”

Kevin B. Jennings:

I was thinking about that today when we were preparing for the podcast. I said to myself, I would love to talk to her and just ask her questions in general. So, my song was on MTV Cribs with Kim Kardashian.

Lisa Zeeveld:

That’s phenomenal. See, listeners. Now you know how cool Kevin B. Jennings is, and what an honor it is for him to be hanging out with us today.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Yeah. I’m a pseudo celebrity.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Not pseudo. Come on, give yourself for credit.

Kevin B. Jennings:

I’ll take it.

Lisa Zeeveld:

I feel like that’s just a little bit of a teaser, super fun fact, definitely rates your coolness level, super, super high. But I’d also love for people to know more about your story. So, maybe just give us a quick recap, and how you got to where you are today as a business owner and elite marketer.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Yeah. I would think this is more around three different things that happened in my life. One, my parents got divorced when I was seven, and they got remarried to each other when I was 27. Crazy long story, save for a Tyler Perry movie. But right now I ‘d say that seeing my mom raise us. And she did two things, she always encouraged us to dream. She’d be like, “Hey, the struggles we have right now, don’t have to last forever if we’re willing to dream and try something else.” And that was really big for me. And I think the other thing with that was, seeing her struggle though, really, I would say put a deep seed of ambition to say, “Okay what can we do to grow, be better and make sure that money, to be very transparent, is not always an issue?” And so that was the first thing that my mom and my childhood there.

Kevin B. Jennings:

The second thing was my first job with Chuck E. Cheese. So, with all this ambition, I wanted to help and make sure I wasn’t, as I would say that my extracurricular activities wouldn’t be a burden in my mom. And so, I went to get a job. And my first job was 15. You could only get a job at Kroger or Chuck E. Cheese in Nashville, at 15. That’s only who would hire that young. And so, my mom didn’t work weekends. And to be transparent, my boss was not a very good leader. I mean, his defense, he was 22. And I’m like, he’s 22 years old.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Leading a 15-year-old.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Exactly. He’s 22, leading 15 year olds at Chuck E. Cheese. And if I’m even more empathetic for his situation, what else is happening for 22 year olds? Well, all your friends are at college. And here you are working full time at Chuck E. Cheese. So, he’s probably extracting as much emotional value as he can from his position and authority.

Kevin B. Jennings:

But that also led to him being okay with letting some of the high schoolers smoke with him, or being okay with letting some of the… And he didn’t break any laws, I would say besides that one. But I would just say it was like, he wasn’t a very good boss. So, I told myself with 15-year-old logic, so this is why my mom told me not to go get a job so soon, because you’re going to have bad bosses. So, I should work for myself one day. And that was just my 15-year-old brain processing the situation. And so, I went through all of my education, preparing myself to one day, work for myself. That’s how I thought about it.

Kevin B. Jennings:

And I would say the last thing was just trying to pursue music, it became very clear that you are giving your product, your song, whatever, to some executive or some company saying, “Help me find customers.” But if you don’t find customers, they say, it must be because the song’s not very good. And at the same time, the music industry was suing all their customers for stealing songs on Napster and all that stuff.

Kevin B. Jennings:

And I found out that brands were willing to pay musicians for custom music on whole music, website music, advertisements. And I was like, “What if I sold my music to companies instead of record labels?” And that got me into a whole industry called Sonic branding, which is where you actually try to answer the question, what does your brand sound like. And through that journey, I just fell in love with like branding and marketing and using that together. And that’s this melting pot to say, maybe this can be my career path. And I found I was good at it. And we look up 15-plus years later, and here we are.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Wow. That’s an incredible story. And I think you and I know each other very well. And I think that’s why we’re such great friends, is because we share that passion of working hard. And I think we both have a little bit of something to prove in there because of our backgrounds.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Exactly. And I think even as I get older, I’m still learning just how deep those seeds were, and how it shifts my paradigm from, first of all, how I value work as a solution to change your circumstances. But also I tell people all the time that, the difference between dreaming and ambition is dreams are about possibilities, which I totally believe in, but ambition is dreams with drive. And I think that typically starts with some place of pain that says, my current situation, I’m not okay with. So, I’m going to have to do something to shift that. And I think that is where the ambition comes in, where it’s like, no, I will keep going because there’s something about my current circumstances that I’m not okay with, that I’m willing to make a shift to make something happen.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. And I’ll even relate that to, and I don’t think a lot of people correlate them, but that does mean changing your brand. So, if I think about little Lisa and the brand that I was then was broke in the middle of the trailer park. And I had to change the brand and change the narrative of who I was, in order to have more opportunities. The same way, in that businesses have to focus on their brand to get more revenue and to get more business.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. The story. And that story we tell ourselves, but also the story people tell about who we are. What people say about who we are, affects what we get to do, whether we like it or not.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Oh gosh. We’re just getting started and it’s already so good. It’s already so good, man. So, let’s focus a little bit on social media and email marketing. It’s such a big deal as it relates to sales and revenue generation. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Kevin B. Jennings:

The reason why it is still so critical is because it’s still one of the biggest channels where we can have direct permission based access to prospects and customers. So, if you think about it, TV’s all about interrupting them. You want to watch, pick your favorite show. And I’m going to pay the network to interrupt what you want to be watching, to make you consume what I’m doing. In reality, how often do we love our desired activity being interrupted? It’s like, no, thanks.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Never.

Kevin B. Jennings:

And so, that’s a heavy lift as a company to make someone enjoy an interruption. Versus social media and email where I’m saying, I’ve chosen to follow you, I have chosen to give you my email address. Or the algorithm says, because you like this other thing you might like what BELAY or Lisa or Kevin are doing. And so, just that alone means either it’s based on interest or permission, which people are more receptive to taking in that message. So, I think that’s the first thing. Second thing is, it’s cheap. I mean, if we’re being transparent, it’s like email, if you look at per send, if you do a mailer, if you take postage, printing, all that stuff, you’re going to be paying 75 cents to get in front of that person, and it doesn’t even include you pay your person at your company to write that message, and the staffing behind all that. Where with email, you’re paying tenths of a penny to get in front of that person from just a pure delivery perspective. So, the ROI is so much better as well, because the costs are so much more affordable.

Kevin B. Jennings:

And so, those two things together, people being receptive to the message, but also the cost to do it, still have email on social media as really powerful channels for a small business.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. I have never heard it explained that way about advertising and being disrupted. And I think that’s so true. I’m one of these people that if I am watching live television, I mute the commercials. Because I want to feel like I have a choice. Like I don’t want to watch. I’m going to mute it. And yet how often I’m being fed advertising content through my social media channels. And I’m just taking it all day spoon after spoon, like this is good stuff. Could be the same advertiser on both places, but it feels different when it’s a commercial interrupting my show versus having somebody who I have grown to trust over watching their social media feed, tell me that same product is awesome.

Kevin B. Jennings:

I ditto, retweet, like, share, everything you just said.

Lisa Zeeveld:

No, you just made it all make sense to me. That’s super cool. Well, I also know that a lot of people are struggling to see ROI on social media and email marketing too. So, why is there so much disparity in those results?

Kevin B. Jennings:

Yeah, this one’s harder, but I totally understand. And I would agree. And I would tell anyone that that’s a reality, and it starts in two places. First, in social media and email the scoreboard, it can be very clear and followers, subscribers, open rates, whatever. And as entrepreneurs and leaders who want results, you’re drawn to a place where the scoreboard is the clearest.

Kevin B. Jennings:

However, those are vanity metrics. Those are metrics that have no real impact on anything. And so, now you have the place that’s the clearest to measure is the one that’s the least meaningful. And the place where’s the most meaningful takes a bit more effort to measure. So, I totally want to say that that’s the first thing is, they give vanity metrics not measure to actually tell you what to do next. The other part I would say is that because of that, we are viewing social media and email marketing through an inaccurate lens. So can I amass attention? And that’s really cool, but we all know that attention doesn’t mean anything in sales and marketing. It’s can we get them to take action on what we want them to do? Attention’s the first step. It’s not the final step, but attention is all it tells you about. And so, we have to essentially view these platforms through different lenses.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. That’s really good. I mean, now you’re hitting my ego a little bit talking about the vanity. Because I do, I think that when you open up your social channels and you see how many followers and see how many likes or how many views you got on your reel, it feels good and it feels like you’re doing something. But I know that’s what I hear from my friends who are trying to use, especially Instagram, who are trying to use it as a revenue generating machine is they get like, gosh I had 10,000 people watch that real. Why isn’t anyone buying my services? And just because they like you, doesn’t mean they like your product. And so, there’s a lot there that I feel has to be uncovered, but it does. It feels good to know that you had that many views and likes and followers.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Absolutely. And there’s nothing wrong with it. The tension is, if that’s how you’re measuring success, you’re going to say, where’s the money? We’re putting this time in, we’re spending this money. Where is the money? And I think that’s where it is. So, that sets me up to, I think that a big way to view social media appropriately is to view like a party.

Lisa Zeeveld:

I like parties.

Kevin B. Jennings:

I like to party too. I DJ for fun on the side. I’m like, let’s party. And you have to view social media like a party. So, in reality, L.Z. Says, “Kevin, I’m throwing a 4th of July party. Would you like to come?” Now before I even ask her anything, what am I going to assume? Well, there’s going to be red, white and blue decor. It’s probably going to be a barbecue. It’s going to be outside. So, there are some elements that I’m going to assume. Might be by a pool. Now she might say, “Kevin, I’m doing something different. This year’s going to be more of a upscale.” That’s fine. But we can make some assumptions because of the theme.

Kevin B. Jennings:

So, is that the time to show up in a costume? Likely not. So, there are rules to the party that if I want to maximize my ability to enjoy the party and connect with others, I have to say, it’s Lisa’s party, Lisa’s rules. And she’s set a theme for how that party’s going to function. So, that’s not the time for me to show up with me bringing certain types of foods to the party, or certain type of attire to the party. And now when I come, I connect people on that ground of how we’re dressing, how we’re looking, how we’re eating, how we’re talking at this particular party. And then from there I can say, I connected with one of Lisa’s friends at the party, and we hit it off. Lisa said, “You two should know each other.” And we start to talk. And then I said to that person, “Hey, I really enjoyed talking to you during this time. I’m so glad Lisa connected us. Hey, actually, I’m throwing a party in a few weeks, back at my house. Now, Lisa’s already invited, but you are welcome to come as well. You don’t have to come through Lisa. Let me get your email address. And I can just email you the invite to the party.”

Kevin B. Jennings:

So, now from this place, my personal email list is growing and contact list, but that individual gets invited straight to my party. Well, where’s my party? My website. Come straight to my party. We can hang out here. I have my own place. I don’t need Mark Zuckerberg’s party for us to hang out. I don’t need that. I’ve got my own party. I spent maybe tens of thousands of dollars creating this party. So, you can come to my place and we can all hang out. We’re all going to be doing something really awesome. Maybe it’s a webinar. My party’s going to be my next party. It’s going to be something live I’m doing. But I have my own party and I want you to be able to come.

Kevin B. Jennings:

And then I invite that person. And then I get their email address. I can invite them back to my next party and my next party, my next party, until I say eventually, “You know what? You’ve been coming to a lot of my parties. And I’m so happy that we’ve been enjoying this relationship. I think have something special I could offer you if you’re interested, based on me knowing you now, what you might be interested in.” And I can take that next level. And so, it’s really allowing ourselves to say, this can operate a lot like a real relationship would offline, because there’s still human beings on the other side of these phones and these devices that are interacting with us online.

Catherine Bowman:

So, one of my favorite things is getting on a Zoom call, and a couple of times I’ve looked into the eyes of some exhausted and tired leadership. I implemented really a focus for my clients on delegation, and had one leader in particular who just held it all in. I said, “Let’s start with delegating and doing that from a financial perspective.” And so, we built his budget and his chart of accounts, around what ministry head is going to own this. I challenged him to not look at the nitpicky line items, to just look at the overall budget for a couple of months. And he quickly became relieved of that stress. And that was a huge win for that client. I remember talking six months later and he was not the same person, he was six months ago. And it was a win-win for both of us. Because I could do my job and his people could do their job, and then he could do his.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Their story can be your story too. And all it takes is one next step to get started. You shouldn’t have to do everything. And with a BELAY bookkeeper, you don’t have to. Visit belaysolutions.com today to start accomplishing more and juggling less.

Lisa Zeeveld:

I feel like sometimes people get upset. I’m going to use the word, the algorithm, the nasty algorithm. You hear it all the time. Like, I hear that Instagram’s going to change up the algorithm, or Facebook’s changing. And we get mad. But in the example you just used, that’s like me getting mad that you’re saying that you’re going to make hamburgers at your 4th of July party and I was expecting pizza. That’s actually not my party. I can’t be mad about that. But if I invite you to my party, then I can have pizza all day long, because that’s what I want and not get mad because you’re in my website. So, gosh, I hope that helped everybody else who’s listening. Because man, that was like a huge light bulb moment to me. Why get mad over what someone else is doing at their party?

Kevin B. Jennings:

Throw your own party. So the bottom line here, at typical time is, be a party goer and be a party thrower. And so, you got to go to some parties, meet some people, and then invite them back to your party. You say, “Well, Kevin, where should I go?” Where are your prospects or customers, or audience or community, where are they at online now? Meet people where they are, hang out with them at that person’s party, and say, “This is so great. Thanks Mark. I appreciate meeting you here. Thanks Susan over at YouTube. It was great to meet you here. Hey guys, I appreciate you all. I don’t need you to keep this relationship going because I have my own party or a VIP list, AKA email or text list where we don’t need this to continue growing our relationship. But I do appreciate the opportunity to meet you here. I’m just not going to let it stay here.”

Kevin B. Jennings:

Because like your parents told you growing up my house, my rules, and if you ever want to break their rules, it’s their party and they can throw you out when they want to because it’s their party.

Lisa Zeeveld:

All right. So, we need to be using social media and email marketing, and thinking of it in a way that we are going to attend a whole bunch of parties, we’re going to go to parties, but then we’re also going to throw our own parties as well. And that’s how we’re going to get results, is by of throwing the parties because we got to get them in our space, but we got to attend first, we got to be social, we got to be there.

Lisa Zeeveld:

So, how do we know if it’s working? How are we measuring these results?

Kevin B. Jennings:

So, I like to think about this in two different ways. One is that people are paying you multiple forms of currency. People are paying you multiple forms of currency. So, here’s what I mean by that. So, first they’re paying you attention. Even the word pay. Pay attention. That cost money. All right. Then the next thing is, pay me with information. Giving up your anonymity, does matter. Because here’s the thing. We all understand the minute I give your company my phone number or email address, before you check out today, sir, would you like me to get your email, I already know what’s coming. I’m going to hear from you every single week for the next year, So, because of that, I know there’s a cost to give up my anonymity. So, what is the value of me giving up my anonymity?

Kevin B. Jennings:

I just saw literally last night, Facebook is running ads on TV, about the value of personalized ads. And they’re running an advertising campaign trying to convince people to stop doing that privacy check where it says no tracking on the app, because it’s hurting their business. So, they’re like, we can tell people how awesome personalized ads can be, because you only see stuff you want. And they’re paying millions of dollars in TV ads to convince you to give up your anonymity. Because they know that’s where they need to get back to.

Kevin B. Jennings:

The next thing is, then they pay you with compensation. Here’s my money for your product or service. And the last layer is, they’re paying you with their reputation by being an evangelist. Which means a person who doesn’t buy from you, but actually refers you, is still more valuable than your real customer because they’re putting their name on the line to tell other people about you. So, if we can look at it that way, say, I’m trying to track how many people are paying us attention, how many people are giving us information, how many people are giving us their compensation or money, and how people are giving us reputation? And if we can look at it like that, we, first of all can say, well, I know when I’m actually getting results. I’m tracking that because it’s a bit of a funnel, just walk them down that path to be clear on those things.

Kevin B. Jennings:

But that lines up with social media followers as a metric, to email subscribers or converting people from social media to email subscribers or to your text list. Or I might even say this. Social media followers, web traffic from social media, then email subscribers or text list than customers. But essentially you’re trying to walk them through that. So, I would say, that’s why be measuring much more obsessively is how we getting them there. Now there might be things between those steps. But if you’re looking at it at a high level, if you’re thinking no one’s buying from social media, that’s because you’re trying to skip the dating process. I just met you, let’s get married. That’s not how life works. It didn’t work in your real life, it’s not going to magically work online, because you say it enough. And I think most people want to show up and just say, “I’m awesome. Please marry me, give me your money.” And that’s never going to work because it didn’t work offline, it’s not going to work online.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Do you feel like there’s any more skepticism that has also come with social media? And so, the dating process is longer than it would’ve been 20 years ago without social media?

Kevin B. Jennings:

First of all, I love that question. I would even say this. I would say that because of interruption based marketing, we are used to saying, I put in my $5, I interrupt Lisa and I’m going to convince, maybe not Lisa, but I’m going to convince at least one out of 20 people that I interrupt. And I’m okay with that, because it works.

Kevin B. Jennings:

And I think what’s happening is we have DVR, we can skip your ad. Right. And so, business owners are used to just being able to interrupt and get the result quickly. And I think the patience that’s required to move at the speed of trust, is frustrating. But it’s always been there. But I think social media’s made us blatantly aware that we have to move at the speed of trust, where we haven’t had to do that before. Because word of mouth, Lisa says, “Kevin, that person’s awesome. You can trust him, because I trust him.” Then I see the ad and then I do it. But they never knew. I’m really buying off the confidence of my trust in Lisa, my friend telling me to trust you. But now, word of mouth is trackable. I can see her share that post.

Kevin B. Jennings:

And so, I think it’s almost illuminated what’s been there. And then I think it is a little bit longer because we have so many more options as well. I think we’re all aware of the options. We’re a Google search away from 100 options. And I think that that also does add a little bit of length to our time of converting people to customers.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Sure. So, there’s more. We have a magnifying glass now on the customer journey which shows all the granular steps that happen. Whereas before we were up like a 30000-foot view and just said, well, we sent them an ad. We interrupted them while they were watching the Super Bowl. And then, oh look, they bought something. And so, ignorance was bliss almost, because you didn’t see all that was happening. And now you’re seeing the likes and the shares and the comments and you’re going, this is taking so much longer, but really it’s not. We just have greater insight.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Absolutely. And with more media involved, there are fewer people watching the Super Bowl. I used to get a larger share of society with that ad. And now we’re like, I’m not watching tonight. I’ve got something else I could watch like Netflix, and I can watch Ultimatum, which I am watching and don’t judge me. And so, I can watch Ultimatum or Love Is Blind right now. And this is a social experiment that is so much more fascinating than the Super Bowl. And so, that’s where I am right now.

Lisa Zeeveld:

I love it. And you don’t have to worry about being disrupted.

Kevin B. Jennings:

There’s no interruptions.

Lisa Zeeveld:

There’s no interruptions.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Absolutely.

Lisa Zeeveld:

That’s perfect. Well where should our listeners get started? It’s a lot of good information. I loved all the analogies because you just made it real, you brought it home. But now I’m thinking, where do I go from here?

Kevin B. Jennings:

Yeah, absolutely. So, the key thing is, what do you want to happen? Like what do you really want to happen? Because a lot of business owners don’t even need social media for revenue sake. They’re doing, because everyone told them you should be doing it. And I totally get that pressure. I really do. And the reason why that pressure is real and if you’re that person, know it’s okay to feel that way. Because I do truly believe that online invisibility affects our offline credibility.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Let’s do that one more time.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Online invisibility affects your offline credibility. So, I tell Lisa about a great restaurant. She’s going to say, “Kevin told me the restaurant’s great. Let me look it up.” She can’t find them. They don’t exist. She’s like, “Kevin told this place is great. I can’t see a menu, I can’t see a picture. I can’t see a Yelp review. And now I’m only relying on Kevin.” Where I used to say, I take Kevin. I then say, let me check out that place Kevin said go look at. I look at the pictures of the food. And now I use that to strengthen my confidence, and reduce my feeling of risk.

Kevin B. Jennings:

So, I do believe there’s a value of being online at a baseline level for the sake of reinforcing that you really exist, and that you’re not George Glass right from the Brady Bunch, you’re a real person. But I think beyond that, I think the reality for most who are saying, what do we want to accomplish? So, actually give it a real goal. My recommendation is you say, I want to build my marketing reach. And by marketing reach, that just means how many people do we have direct permission-based access to sell and promote our business on demand. So remember, on demand. I have to pay to get on TV. I have to pay for the radio spot. I have to pay for the Google search. The email list in social means I have 15000 people, 5000 people, 100 people that I can go talk to, whenever I want about what we’re doing. That is a valuable metric to start with.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Then the second thing would be, who are you serving? No, truly get clear on your customer persona. Because otherwise, you’re going to say, “Well, expert X, Y, and Z said, be on every platform.” Well, if your customers on every platform then who cares? No, we’re going to meet people, our people where they are. So, I’m thinking about a company like BELAY that serves leaders, you can over index on LinkedIn compared to other platforms because it’s a platform where people are showing up and they want to do business. They want to grow their business. They want to think differently. It doesn’t mean there’s no value in other platforms, because I’m a leader on LinkedIn or Instagram, I’m the same person. However, from a prioritization of resources, we would say, let’s make sure we are more focused on getting the value out of LinkedIn before we think about TikTok. It’s not because TikTok has no value. It’s just, where are our core customers currently at today? And spend our effort there learning the game and the rules of that party, so we can actually get those who out of that party to our party.

Kevin B. Jennings:

So, what do you want to accomplish? Start with marketing reach. And then really prioritize what platforms you want to be on. And start learning the game of that particular platform to master it. And then the last thing would be email, email, email, email, or you have to do that. There are people who already love you, know you, like you, who would actually already raise their hand if you just said, we want to talk to you without the constraints of social media. Are you interested? I mean, a lot of them would say yes. And so, let’s make sure we’re nurturing people who are already on our VIP list.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. I love email as a consumer, because I feel like I’m inundated with a lot of information all the time. And I know that from my favorite people, I want to hear from them and I don’t want to miss it. And so, if I give you my email address, that’s me saying, “I don’t want to miss anything that you’re sending out. Please don’t forget about me.” Like that’s one of the things I get so frustrated about is there’s businesses I want to hear from more, and I miss their sales. I miss when they’ve got new services they’re offering because they don’t email to me. They have it. I’ve given it to them freely. And I’m saying, “Hello, I’m here, I’m here,” and they don’t do it. And so, I love that you’ve brought attention back to email, because I think that that’s such a more intimate relationship with your customer that you’re missing out on. Even if it’s just a weekly, “Hey, I just want to let you know. I’m still here.”

Kevin B. Jennings:

I love that. And there’s research around that. It’s called the nudge effect, that when people see you in their inbox week after week, even if they don’t open it, you are raising your level of consciousness in that customer’s mind. I’ve been thinking about getting a VA for weeks. And I keep putting it off, and I keep getting busy. But BELAY keeps showing up in my inbox. So, when I finally pull the trigger, my brain’s like, there’s only one solution in my mind right now, and it’s because I’ve heard from you the most. And you’ve continue to put yourself top of mind with me. And I think that’s a really great thing. I couldn’t agree more.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. I literally have been following this shoe company for two years. I just never like sat down to go, I’m going to order those shoes. So, I never said I wanted to unsubscribe because I knew at one point I wanted the shoes. I finally did it yesterday. Boom, two years. Two years they’ve been sending me email and they’re like, “Yes, we finally got something out of her.”

Kevin B. Jennings:

Now Lisa, can I ask you a question? And if you, we can cut this out the podcast, if you want to.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Do you mind me asking, what was the value of your order financially?

Lisa Zeeveld:

$290.

Kevin B. Jennings:

Okay. I want every business owner to think about that. So, we have this person who’s been hanging out with for two years, we’re paying tenth of a penny because of email to stay in front of her. And when we finally convert 290 out the gate. And if we have a great shipping experience, the product’s great, we can be considered for future orders all the time. Absolutely. And I think that’s the point. Because of the speed of trust, we’ve got to stay and win the long game because it was never a no, for Lisa. It was always a, not yet. And when we stop emailing, we treat her like she was a no, because she didn’t convert on the first random ad she saw. And it’s like, no, she just needed her time. When the time was right, she was there. And I would guarantee you that, first of all, if they’re not measuring lifetime value, which I’m sure they are, your lifetime value is probably five X that. Easy. But even if not, I guarantee that first interaction was already profitable for them.

Kevin B. Jennings:

And so, I just want people to hear like, this is not about, am I looking for scraps? No, you’re actually thinking, because customer doesn’t convert immediately, bail on the relationship. And what happens is, you’re losing out on some of your best potential customers when you don’t do this and stay in the game and nurture the relationship. Lisa is a great customer for them. And I think that if they do right by her, in a future conversation she might actually mention the brand, but they haven’t earned that yet. I’m not saying you wouldn’t actually. But I’m just simply saying, this goes to show, and I think that’s a really great example of real life, of how it typically works.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Absolutely. And I was actually recommending them beforehand because I knew they were a great brand. I just wasn’t ready. And I kept them in my inbox because of that. And so, I think there’s so much value.

Kevin B. Jennings:

I love that.

Lisa Zeeveld:

I have more to ask you Kevin, but I think that the podcast gods are like, this is probably enough for today. So, can I ask you to stick around for one more question?

Kevin B. Jennings:

My pleasure.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Awesome. All right guys, you definitely don’t want to miss this. In order to hear the clip though, you must subscribe to our email list, and then we’re going to send you a link to this bonus content, or you can visit OneNextStepPodcast.com, or you can find a link in our show notes.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Wow. A lot to take in there. Kevin is just a wealth of knowledge when it comes to email marketing, social media, and how businesses can really leverage channels in effective, affordable ways. I mean, who knew that people changed their email address less often than their mailing address?

Lisa Zeeveld:

I know. I truly had so many light bulb moments in our conversation. And I always love any reason to get a chance to catch up with Kevin. My biggest takeaway from my conversation was to start your own party. So, many people are just attending other people’s parties on social media, but they forget to start their own.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Now as always, we have a one next step for our listeners to take. Today, you can download Kevin’s social media and email marketing starter kit, so you can leverage the opportunities to grow your business.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Well, thank you so much for tuning in for this week’s One Next Step. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on Apple Podcast or follow us on Spotify. And if you’re ready to start accomplishing more and juggling less, go to belaysolutions.com.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Join us next time for more practical business tips and tools to help you advance your business one step at a time. For more episodes, show notes and helpful resources, visit OneNextStepPodcast.com.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Join us next week for an inspiring conversation with Stacy Tuschl, CEO and founder of The Foot Traffic Formula. Stacy will discuss the practical steps you can take today to start delegating parts of your business so you can focus on the things you’re best at. Here’s a quick preview.

Stacey Tuschl :

I want to pick and choose what I love and what lights me up and what excites me today. I don’t want to be dreading payroll or dreading… Right? I don’t want to be thinking, “Oh, I’ve got to post on social media today.” I want to get all of that off my plate.And the only way to do that is to truly start to figure out like, “Well, what are the next steps? And who do I hire next?” And I’m just a big, big believer in delegating. I don’t want to add things to my plate. I want to remove things, and I want to zone in, on what I am truly really good at.