The Business of Business Podcast: How These Inbound Marketing Strategies and Techniques Will Increase Your Prospects

How These Inbound Marketing Strategies and Techniques Will Increase Your Prospects

Mar 16, 2021

How These Inbound Marketing Strategies and Techniques Will Increase Your Prospects with Monique Idemudia

Monique Idemudia is the founder of Dragon Digital Marketing, a digital marketing agency for small businesses based in St. Petersburg, Florida and passionate about inspiring small business owners to build an online presence and grow their business with the power of great digital marketing. She is an execution-driven consultant and specializes in inbound marketing strategies with which small businesses can scale.

A little about me

Practically addicted to cold brew and iced americanos
Loves running (Yes, I actually enjoy cardio)
Embarrassingly obsessed with my bearded dragon Horatio-Marquise
Has been to 21 countries ...and counting
Has lived in Germany
Speaks English, French and German
Liked math in school
Knows how to code
Prefers waffles over pancakes
Host of the Dragon Digital Marketing Podcast
Writer on the Dragon Digital Marketing Blog

I'm a small business digital marketing consultant for small businesses that want to grow

I've founded the Dragon Digital Marketing agency because I'm passionate about small business marketing and designing a digital marketing strategy. Being as creative as I am, I always come up with ideas. I like when it gets technical and enjoy to bring a vision to life with small business marketing tools.

If you're an entrepreneur and want to become more influential and grow and need help with crafting the right plan of action that allows you to scale efficiently, Dragon Digital Marketing is the agency for you.

We specialize in creating digital marketing strategy frameworks that cover everything from your branding to your marketing, to the different channels you use, like social media, email, or your website, just to name a few.

If you have high aspirations and seek to make a bigger impact in the world, you have to consider a lot of different aspects and be clear about your processes all the way down to the nitty gritty.

And you don't want to lose yourself and stay authentic while you take your business to the next level. You also don't want to do everything manually and leverage small business marketing automation. This is exactly what me and my team can do for you.

You need a well thought out small business digital marketing plan from a professional small business digital marketing consultant.

A successful digital marketing strategy focuses on generating traffic and leads, capturing information and building an audience, presenting your offers and closing deals, retaining customers and overdelivering on your promises, as well as nurturing your audience and following up. It also includes and aligns with your branding strategy, overall marketing goals, channel strategy and the content you publish.

www.dragon-digital-marketing.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (00:02):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm Roy. We are a podcast that bring a lot of different guests from a lot of different disciplines, a lot of viewpoints, just trying to put information out there. Um, you know, that is our main focus is just, uh, not only educating our business, our smaller businesses, solopreneurs entrepreneurs, but also giving them resources to go to if they, you know, may recognize that they have a need. Uh, we do talk to a lot of great professionals. And again, today we have another awesome professional with this. It's Monique Idemudia, and I hope that I got, she coached me through that, but I hope that I got that right. She is the founder of dragon digital marketing. It's a digital marketing agency for small businesses and she is based out of, uh, St. Petersburg, Florida. Um, Monique is passionate about inspiring small businesses, small business owners to build an online presence and grow their business with the power of great digital marketing. She is an execution driven consultant and specializes in inbound marketing strategies in which small businesses can scale. So first off, Monique, welcome to the show and thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be with us. Hi

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (01:25):

Roy, thank you so much for having me.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (01:28):

So first off, you know, I guess the, the good question is kind of, how did you end up here? What led you to the digital marketing and especially focusing on small businesses?

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (01:41):

Right. I've always worked in digital marketing. I've loved marketing ever since. It's always fascinated me and excited me. I'm a creative person, but I'm also like a little bit of a numbers person and an analytical person. A marketing has like the perfect, um, makes where I can use my skill set and, you know, apply all of the knowledge that I have and use all of the skills that I have all in one. So it's really multifaceted and yeah, it's a lot of fun to me and yeah, I decided to help small businesses with my agency because I love small businesses and I, you know, I like to help small business owners and I want to really help them grow and scale. And, um, you know, versus working with like large corporations, it's not as fun, not as exciting to me. I get to really work closely with the people and I get to see the impact that I, that I make. And it's just a better connection and a nicer, more personal relationship.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (02:41):

Yeah. And I think, uh, you know, I do a lot of work with small businesses as well, and you can really see the needle move with them, or sometimes, you know, maybe even a needle, small amount for a large corporation benefits in greatly, but it's not near as fun as the, you know, seeing how you can really transform a small business. Well, you know, and that kind of leads into what, um, I guess what drew me to new and got us to speaking originally about, you know, you coming on the show is I like what you said about, uh, building strategies that can scale. And I think that's kind of a jumping off point. It's important because a lot of times we do things that at some point we kind of bumped into the ceiling, we just can't push them further. So, uh, can you tell us a little bit about this, uh, you know, how you can help businesses build these strategies to scale?

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (03:36):

Yes, that's right. So oftentimes there comes a point where a lot of small businesses can grow and scale anymore when they've reached that point because the processes and the systems are just not built for that. They haven't been laid out to handle, um, you know, all of that input coming in. So it's really important to systematize the entire business and structure the strategy. Um, you have different processes there and you have to be really, really aware of every single stage. You have to be aware of the stages of awareness of your target customers. You have to be aware of the target that you want to achieve and how you funnel your target customers through your bias journey and have goals set for each stage. And then you also need to have software in place that handles it for you. And everything has to be well integrated, um, with each other. So it's like this. Yeah, perfect orchestrator of people and processes, SOP plan software, all working together. So you can really grow and scale your small business.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (04:49):

Yeah. I'm a fool. We even start talking about the digital aspect or marketing in general. I think you bring up a good point with all these different things that need to be in place. The very first thing I suggest is to be able to have a conversation because there's so many, uh, people doing things that I don't want to say unscrupulous, scrupulous, but they will take your money and do things that don't really propel your business to that level. And I've talked about it with, uh, others before, but we'll just pay, uh, likes, you know, if you get likes on a, an account that is just bang, basically it's just managing driven because somebody, I can have thousands of people like my account, but that does, if they're not buyers or potential buyers in the future, then they have no value. I mean, I would rather have one light with the person who was going to be a buyer and then a thousand of people that don't because it doesn't gain this anything.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (05:51):

So I think the importance is setting down and hearing exactly what you just said is that this is more than about candy market for me. Yes. Here's my check. And then it just sometime magically happens. I mean, you have to have a conversation, number one, to make sure you're a good fit, but also you have to build these processes on these systems before you can actually get going. So it's good to, to understand that from your marketing, person's point of view, what they can do for you, what they're willing to do for you, and then also manage those expectations.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (06:29):

That's right. Yeah. So you really have to get to know the business, like, like everything, um, and analyze everything and take all of that into account and then map out the strategy. It has to be custom. It can't be a cookie cutter template or a cookie cutter funnel. What, uh, what an entirely different business in mind. So really, really custom. And you have to make the effort to really actually care, first of all, and then get to know the people, get to know the business and really get to know their goals. And, you know, there's different ways. There's not one, uh, the one and only way to achieve a certain thing. So you can really map it out and then customize it.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (07:10):

Yeah, I think it's important because a lot of times people say, Hey, marketing is marketing. I can do a four gathered selling, you know, candy person sell cars. And I think the back end process of me putting an ad, something let's just use Facebook. I mean, the process of putting some text in a box, selecting go, Hey, that's all pretty much universal, but the messaging, I mean, the, somebody like yourself, that's working with small businesses really has to fundamentally understand, you know, who's my customer, what is my business? What is my value proposition? Because honestly, there can be two like businesses that have very different value propositions. So, uh, if your marketing person won't take the time to sit down with you and have this conversation, it would probably be a big red flag.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (08:03):

Yes, it should be. It shouldn't be a big red flag. If your marketing person is not willing to take the time to sit down with you and really get to know your business and create personas for that business and, you know, really, um, segment your audience and turn them in to like different groups and buckets that you can then, you know, work with. So that's really been, and it's also important to agree on KPIs and not chase vanity metrics, such as likes, like you've mentioned that mean nothing, and they don't affect the bottom line and it's not getting your profit because you want your marketing to be an investment and actually making more money back. So you really have to approach it strategically. That's.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (08:45):

Yeah. Yeah. And I think the other part of that is that as the consumer or as the client, you should not have to beg and stay after. You're a marketing to do that. If they don't come at you pretty quick with these are the things that we need to do, then it probably need to move on. But enough about that, that's just, you know, it's very important. There's so many people that in this day in time, anybody can hang a shingle out that says, I'm a marketing guy, I'm a finance guy. You can say that you're anything, but knowing these intricacies of how to actually work that process, not everybody has that detail. So that's just good to know when you're interviewing or talking with other people. So let's just start with the basics that, you know, you, you mentioned inbound marketing, so there is inbound marketing and outbound marketing. What are some of the key differences? And the second thing is why, why do I care? What the D why would I care as your consumer? What those are.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (09:47):

Yes. Right. Okay. And bound and outbound marketing. They're both fundamentally different. Outbound marketing is like, you're reaching out to your target customer. You're cold calling them. You're sending them emails. You're sending them DMS on LinkedIn or wherever, and reach out to them. And you just pitch to them and you want to sell it to them. And you're the one who finds them. Like either you buy a list of, uh, contacts with their contact information, email address, phone number, wherever you get that information from, and then you call them up or you hire like, uh, at their company to do that for you. And, um, that's outbound marketing. That's like the old school way on the way that it used to be. And people just, you know, got kind of sick of it. You know, people don't like being sold to people left to buy what they don't like being sold to.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (10:41):

And they like to buy from people that they know like and trust and, um, organically come to them. And it's just a better approach to bring, to allow people to have the realization themselves, that you're an expert you're trustworthy and you can help them. And you have the perfect solution for them organically through content that you put out. For example, I'm on your podcast right now. So people can see, I actually know what I'm talking about. Um, you know, not just pretending to be a marketer, but I actually, you know, know what I'm doing. And I have a proven track record and there's content out there that shows it and that proves it. And that will attract people. And that's the inbound ways of the inbound ways, really doing content marketing and putting your videos, blog articles, uh, podcast episodes, uh, graphics, whatever you have out there. And that attracts people to you. So you're not as intrusive and salesy and pushy. Um, as the, as the stereotype is for a lot of marketers and salespeople as well. But yeah, you're just letting your success, your, your actions speak for themselves, so to speak.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (11:59):

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that a couple of things, just from what you said that I kind of recognize is, so the, you know, the outbound marketing is basically the business, taking the approach to reach out we're inbound is you let people take, come to you, you know, their time when they're ready. And like you said, sometimes people are turned off by a very aggressive, outbound marketing, and you ended up turning somebody off that may have been environmentally, but now they, you know, they have a bad taste for your company. So they're like, I'm not even going to consider. So think that is, um, one thing to consider. The other thing that's interesting is that, so when you do outbound, you're limited by your, how many people you have. I mean, you can always scale by adding people, but when you add people, you add costs training. There's a lot of complications. Whereas I'm assuming with inbound marketing side, that is where the scale really works. Because once you have success, because it's much easier and probably much cheaper or more cost effective, put it that way. It's more cost effective to scale to get that next lead than I actually have.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (13:17):

Yes. Right? Yes. When you're at Brown, you're also burning a lot of leads because if you leave a bad first impression and you're really pushing and following up like a million times, you don't take the time to like, even get to know the person and you know, how, how you can, how you can provide help and how you can benefit them. But you're basically saying, um, I want your money. Um, you know, you only get one chance, right? That's what you're doing when you do outbound. Versus when you, when you do inbound, um, you can convince people through your content and you can put out different forms of content that help people learn more and, you know, educate themselves about what it is that you do. And whether, you know, common, myths and misconceptions, and they can get like a realistic understanding about what they need. And what's actually good for them and just learn more as well. And then they can come to you and reach out when the actually, you know, when, when they're ready, when they, when they feel like it, when they've reached that stage. So time is also very important. Uh, you can reach out to the right person when I'm working, but if it's at the wrong time, then you've last that, that person as well. So yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (14:33):

Yeah. Sorry, I'm not being rude, just taking some notes because there's a lot to go with this, but, uh, you know, the, uh, the other great thing about the outbound about the inbound portion is that you can make that work for you 24 hours a day, because you know, like the other night I got busy and it was, you know, 10, 11 o'clock. And I'm thinking about a Christmas gift from my dad. So I'm kind of looking through some stuff. Now, if you'd called me at 10 or 11 o'clock at night, probably wouldn't have been too happy that you make enough solicitations. That that's both illegal number one. But, you know, I mean, the point is that I had access to content that I could look at at, on my terms, whenever that is 24 hours a day,

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (15:22):

That's right. It's also South brain forcing, you know, people can share that content so you can get new traffic and new people come into you and you get word of mouth referrals and you know, it just, it works 24 seven, basically. You don't have to do actively reach out to people all the time and your stuff is out there on the internet, 24, seven, 365 days a year, and people can find it and, uh, share a day and night. And, you know, a piece of content that you may have graded two years ago can still gen generate you leads today. And I'm also going forward into the future. So it just snowballs and may become so big and powerful, uh, once a year, really, you know, doing it and you're fully leveraging it. So it's really a powerful approach to marketing being indicted.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (16:11):

Yeah. One more thing about that is the, uh, you know, I feel like our consumers are getting smarter now. I'm not talking about more of a, you know, three or $5 item that somebody might pick up. That's not a lot of thought goes into it, but once your price point start rising and the purchase of a good or service takes more thought and consideration, I think we have begun with the internet has allowed us to do more research. So instead of me having to call you and say no need that, I don't know what your product or your service really is. Can you explain that to me? The think that we, as consumers are doing much more research before I call you and say, Monique, I'm ready to buy in that, is that kinda what you are seeing?

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (17:01):

Yes. And you give the people the opportunity to do that and to do that research what your content. So you can also, you know, influence that. And yeah, that's really powerful. And just also what I'm seeing. So people are definitely much more informed than they used to be, and they're doing their research and they're also really interested because they can access that information, you know, easily on their phone. Um, if you're connected to the internet, the whole world is, is in your hands basically. Yeah,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (17:30):

Yeah, yeah. And the other nice thing about that is it allows our prospects or consumers to much more easily share the business information with friends and relatives too. It's easy, you know, just a forward or share something. So I think that's another big thing. Um, so tell us some tips, I guess, about, you know, I've got some content that I want to publish either website, I guess, blog, you know, there's a lot of methods, but what are some ways that I can make sure that that gets viewed at one? Cause that's a great, you can create great content, but if nobody ever sees it, it's pretty much worthless. So I think that is, you know, what is the next step once we created it in order to get it out to the right people?

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (18:19):

That's right. So content promotion is just as important as content creation. You guys create the content and then also go ahead and promote it and which channels you're promoting it on really depends on your business and depends on your audience. You have to analyze it. You can do surveys, ask questions, ask your existing customers, do some market research and see what people like, um, how people like to consume the content, whether they prefer to read an article or watch a video, like you don't know, you have to find out and then see where they hang out, which are their favorite social platforms. Like where are you going to be at as your small business, or is your brand, and then be where customers are. You have to come to them, um, you know, to, to get your content in front of the right eyeballs. So that's really, um, that's really, um, individual, there's no general advice that I can give here, but you can easily find it out.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (19:14):

And another important thing is to really, um, create buyer personas. So you know, everything about your ideal customers and it really, it really personalizes everything it's like now, you know that you're talking to a real person and they're not just like a number anymore, this abstract, Oh, like, this is my ideal customer. Right? You, you got it. You can reference that over and over again and refine it. And it's going to help you to resonate more with the right people so you can get your content in front of them. And, um, yeah, that's really important.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (19:51):

Yeah. Sorry. I just had a battery failure on my recording device. Can you still hear me? You still hear me now? Yes. I can still hear me. Okay. I don't have too much background noise. Yeah. Uh, so, um, yeah, I was just making a note that that's important is to create an avatar of our, our customer. They're all different they're for every business. And then also that's going to change maybe for, you know, six months or a year. We always have to revisit that, to see if this is still the same person that we're selling to. And it's also different to try to differentiate between, um, who may be our in user versus who may be the purchaser. And I just say that because I, I talked to a gentleman not long ago that did some work with, um, with kids through a martial art studio. So some of their advertising was reaching the kids, but of course they don't have the buying power to actually make the purchase, but, you know, they were able to convince mom and dads to do that. So anyway, there can be a differentiator between there as well.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (21:09):

Absolutely. Yeah. This is a great example of your marketing to kids. You have to convince the parents as well because your parents have the money saying when you're in B2B and you're selling to larger companies, maybe they have, you know, hierarchies, they have report lines. So the end user may not be the one that the purchaser with the purchasing power that you know, has control over the budget. So you really have to identify the different roles in the buying center and see, you know, who you approach, how and yeah. That's

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (21:42):

So then the next thing we do, we have done once we create that buying persona, then also really looking at the channels because our, I think our cha, if I'm not wrong and you can, you know, you can elaborate on this, but I think our channels have become very differentiated who resides where, and just some of the big ones that I can kind of relate to are, you know, business professionals, if you're like doing B to B sales, probably want to be on LinkedIn. Whereas if it's a consumer sale, uh, if it's for a, uh, I don't know, middle-aged maybe I think middle-aged is probably now the bigger audience on Facebook and then kids typically, maybe Tik TOK or Instagrams, maybe even Twitter. I don't know what, what are you, what's your take on that? Yeah,

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (22:38):

That's right. So you have to identify which channels make the most sense for you and where your ideal customers actually hang out and what are they using because that's where you want to be as well. So do some research about that. And that should also be part of your buyer persona or of your ideal customer avatar too, to figure that out. And you definitely want to go Omni channel and not put all of your eggs in one basket and, you know, do just one thing and focus all of your energy and efforts just on one channel. So you want to distributed a little, which they'll focus on a couple of, you know, key things, key channels. You don't want to dilute all of your marketing power and try to, you know, do everything at the same time. And then you end up being good at nothing because nowadays it's very competitive and you have to be amazing at what you do in order to stand out or your, your posts are just not gonna stick out. And especially on social media, what you've mentioned of the social platforms, uh, people have infinite feeds and you can keep on scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and you, you know, you need to post and create a content that is scroll stopping that really waste them staffers second, and think like, wow, okay, this stands out to me. This is for some reason unique, um, you know, to, to be in order for you for, for it to be effective for you. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (24:02):

Right? Yeah. And that's the, uh, the other good question is posting because I know algorithm well, there's so much out there now that I feel that if I post something, let's just use Facebook for an example, I post something on there. Now, if you're not on there now you may not see that the chances are very high, that that post is already burned off by the time you get on there. So, and there's, you know, as I've, you know, I have my own ideas, but as I've done a lot of interviews lately, you know, I hear a lot of differential, different opinions on how much you should post. So let's talk about that for a minute. What, what do you think, uh, you know, I'm selling the service that in, uh, I'm doing Facebook or LinkedIn, how often do I need to post?

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (24:59):

Yeah, that's a great topic. Um, it really depends on the social network. Each social network is different and the lifetime of posts on each social network is different. For example, on Instagram, your post is pretty much dead after just a couple of minutes. Um, because yeah, it's, it's just so competitive. So many people post their pictures under the same hashtags that are just super, super popular. So you have to post more frequently think about posting daily. If your audience is international, you may even want to think about hosting several time today to reach people in all of the different times as, because one person gets up and starts their day. And for one person, it's the end of the day, they're just going to bed and just, uh, just, uh, trying to chill or whatever. So that's important. And for example, LinkedIn, uh, the pros live a lot longer and you can still see things in your feed that people have posted like a week or two weeks, or sometimes even three weeks.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (25:57):

I've seen that three weeks ago. So that really depends. And you can also post the same content, just adjusted a little bit and, uh, you know, tailor it to the social platform, but you can definitely recycle it and repurpose it and post it on different platforms or even under the same platform, just a couple of days later, um, at a different time, maybe. So you don't have to always come up with new content and that's how you can make sure and improve your chances. Then everybody gets a chance to, to see your posts. And then, like I said, go Omni channel. Um, ideally that person is also a subscribers, your email list, for example, then you can send an email out to them and give them that information and share those, those news with them that way as well.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (26:46):

Yeah. The, um, I guess the other part of that too, is, um, well, I just lost my train of thought and then we'll come back to that because I had another, I had another thought about when you said that about getting with them. So there are ways if I'm not mistaken now, too, if somebody checks out a posts, we can see kind of, if I'm, let's say I've got new sales and maybe I've got service components of my business, if I post a new sales posts versus the, um, repair type posts, you can actually look at that. So you know how to target re sending them information. I mean, like it, and then I hate to pick on car dealerships, but let's just use that for an example. You're looking for a new car. If I start flooding you with information about how awesome I can repair your car, you're like, that's not what I'm interested in, but there are ways to make that happen. Correct. Yeah,

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (27:52):

It's the psoriasis, there are many ways that you can make that happen. You just have to find out, you know, what people's problems are, what their pain points are and what they're, uh, what they're searching for. So that comes back to the stages of awareness. You know, a person starts as a complete stranger. How aware are they of the problem and of your solution? Are they interested yet? Are they actually, uh, searching things and trying to find out information and trying to learn and educate themselves and Google stuff? Or are they already, you know, well-informed and they're already ready to buy, and they're just looking for someone to stop the problem for them, for someone to hire, to repair their car, for example. So you have to like map it out that the different stages of awareness, and then also take your funnel as an example, and, um, just, just match it to the different stages of the marketing funnel as well.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (28:49):

So you really know where the person is at as an individual, like everybody is at a different stage, and then you have to cater to that and create content for each of those stages to reach people in each of those stages. So that's how you do it and what most people do, or what I see most people doing is they're only targeting the people that are already ready to buy. Um, and then they're just missing out a huge portion of the entire pool of people that could be potential customers for their business. And they don't market to them. They don't market to the people who are not solution aware yet for who are we, we not even problem aware yet. And, um, yeah, that's just such a missed opportunity because there's huge potential.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (29:38):

Yeah. And what we want, you know, our society is a lot more, um, instant gratification focus. We can't lease back the, you know, the, um, from the old days. So we always talk about building a pipeline is that, you know, I want to reach you if you're ready to buy the day for sure. But I also want to be putting out information to make you, like you said, brand aware that I exist, that I have your solution, but be there in six months from now when you are ready to buy. So I guess that kind of gets back to these consistency and running the ads and things like that.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (30:18):

Yes, exactly. So you can just, you know, be all short term instant gratification. You have to think longterm too, because the time passes anyways. Right. For example, if you're going to, um, pop, publish a blog article, let's take that as an example, you optimize it for SEO and you optimize it for all of the keywords and also from a technical perspective and everything it takes like a year until you rank for it and get all of that organic traffic would all of those, um, potential customers coming in, coming to your website that, uh, want to buy from you. Um, the time is gonna pass anyway. So if you're, if you're not doing it at all, you can't win, but you know, if you're doing it, you can win. So, you know, you're in it for the long run. And hopefully like you, you want your business to grow. You want to survive and you still want to be there many, many years from now. And since the time's going to pass anyways, you can, you can really invest in that and leverage that as well. So you have to think longterm and, you know, um, also be open to long-term digital marketing strategies and not just the short term, because then again, you're, you're missing out on, uh, on a huge opportunity.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (31:28):

Yeah. So the other thing I did recapture that thought I had her last year, but we're talking about most and stuff. It's like, uh, you know, text is good and people want something to read when, you know, if we're putting out inflammation to educate, we have to have texts for sure. But my understanding is that, you know, texts can draw people in and then, uh, pictures are like leaving breadcrumbs to your content and videos are likely being chocolate covered, crumbs to hear content. So, you know, like when we posted and, um, again, use Facebook, LinkedIn, since I'm more familiar with those, but, uh, when you do post some texts, select the picture that's relevant, I think it helps the draw. The picture gets people's attention. Like you were saying earlier about just scrolling by stuff. If it's just texts, I think you have a tendency to scroll by it faster than if a picture is like, Whoa, let me look at that.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (32:36):

Yes, that's right. Have a visual, uh, you can design your own graph phase or use a stock photo or whatever, but it definitely helps. Um, it's also great because then you're probably takes up more screen real estate and it becomes larger because all of a sudden that picture is there. So you can be more present and that impression, uh, generates more awareness for you as well. And videos are even even better than pictures because, uh, it's just a richer, medium, and you can also build rapport through video, you know, really, really greatly. Um, especially right now, everything has to be socially distance. You can't meet people in person. That's why it's so great to go on video, um, do virtual events. So you can really connect to people. They see you, they hear you talk and move your, your mimics, your gestures at the same time. And you can get that really personal connection and you just increase your chances of people stopping and watching it. And then also clicking on the link and clicking through, versus if it's, you know, just texting and always have a call to action, as well as also super, super important. Whenever you're posting something, you have to lead people and, you know, tell them what it is that you want them to do, because you can't just assume that they'll know it or they'll just do it because they, they won't.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (33:55):

Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. That's very important. And then, uh, as we talk about that, the, um, uh, one thing I'd say is don't be afraid to show your human side or that personal. I mean, I guess there's different degrees of vulnerability, but a lot of times people are, you know, we may go with, uh, a spot photo versus take a photo of yourself, your staff, because, you know, as you mentioned earlier, I think people buy from people that they connect with, that they feel some kind of a kinship with, you know, they trust for sure, but you know, you like dogs, then don't be scared to have a dog in your picture or something like that. Is there, is there value in that?

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (34:44):

I think so. Definitely because at the end of the day, we're all humans and everybody, you know, people interact with people and people buy for people, even if you're in B2B, it's still, people is still human beings that, uh, that buys from you. So if you can connect at a personal level, you find something that you have in common, you're being sympathetic. You're, you're just showing that you're a real human being and you liked docs and you're not always no buttoned up burner as suitor or whatever. Um, and you're just being, you know, personal and yeah, just, just be vulnerable human, um, and show you, show your personal side and that will definitely benefit you. And yeah, that's a, that's a huge plus if you, if you can do that.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (35:28):

Yeah. And it's, so cost-effective nowadays the iPhone, well, let's just say any, uh, smartphone takes good video. There are, uh, services where you can caption your picture. You know, there's a lot of things out there. If that's what you really want to do, look forward. It doesn't cost a lot or take a lot of time. You know, these are the other thing I find is it's surprisingly, um, quick to do these little tips and tricks that will really help you like taking a picture. You know, it's not like what some people think that we got to have the big photo shoot hair and make up, and we're bringing in video Crees. That's not really what I'm talking about as much as, you know, cause I I'm the guy that thinks if it's too contrived, if it's too sanitary too, uh, scripted, I'm not as interested in that as I am, you know, that the guy that's out on the back deck, you know, taking his own video or whatever, I just, I find more value in that personally.

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (36:33):

Absolutely. And that's also the trend that we see. It used to be like that back in the day where you needed to have those high Lester productions and everything needed to be super professional in order for you to even be taken seriously as a business versus now you can just take your iPhone, um, you know, just record yourself. Uh, you, you can use selfies as, as your pictures. You can just make your own videos. All you need is just your phone and we'd be like a tripod and go ahead and make it super casual video. Gary Vaynerchuk is super successful with his video content and you know, it's anything but super professional. You know, you don't need a film crew coming in here and make every and everything to be perfect. The chart is even in everything being imperfect and just real, you know, which is a real, just normal, like we all are. So yeah, definitely. You, you have to overcome that. Don't be like a perfectionist and think that everything has to be perfect. Just be, just be you. And you know, that's what it's all about. It's about being different and being uniquely, you, you need a unique selling proposition, you need value proposition and that's what it's all about when it comes to differentiating yourself and building your brand. And that's exactly what you achieved by doing that.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (37:51):

All right. Yeah. And especially with this pandemic, you know, we've got a couple of dogs that, uh, they've been awesome today, but every now and then they will come jump up in the picture, be a little bit noisy in the background, but you know, um, that's everybody's lives. I mean, that's the thing is like you said, those imperfect, imperfect, perfect imperfections is that everybody has the same thing. So yeah, we're all, you know, people are dealing with their kids or spouses and mothers or mother-in-laws or whatever. There's a lot of stuff going on. So it, it kind of lends the fact that, Hey, you're human and it also kind of lets them know that it's okay for them to have these things, things going on. That's right. Pomona. We appreciate you taking time out of your day to be with us. It's been an awesome talk. I feel like we've learned a lot. Um, first off, what is a tool that you use in your daily life, either a professional or personal, a tool, a habit, a ritual, something that you just don't feel like you could do without every day?

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (38:57):

Um, I like to use, I like to use food sweetie, to schedule my social media posts in advance. It helps me a lot with my planning. I don't have to, you know, set my, set my alarm to think about posting. I can do it all in advance, preschedule it? And it's, you know, so amazing. It gives me analytics reports. I can even interact and answer comments and interact with my audience and all different, uh, social media platforms at the same time, all in that dashboard, all in one platform. So that's super handy. I love active campaign for marketing automation. It just handles so much stuff for me that I otherwise would have to do all manually. And it's such a time saver. Um, if you have that set up. So yeah, those are like, uh, two of my favorites. I like Trello for project management. Um, so yeah, there's a, like my favorite tools.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (39:52):

Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Well, so let us know. Uh, so who is your customer? What can you do for them and how can they reach out and get ahold of you?

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (40:02):

Yes. That if you're a small business and you really want to grow and scale and you have big dreams, I can definitely help you grow and scale and adapt a digital marketing strategy and adapt your digital marketing strategy and help you create a strategy that is just for you. And it's going to be super actionable, like a plan of action step by step and systematize all of your operations and your entire business. So it can grow and scale what you and you can achieve your big dreams and hopefully grow. Right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (40:32):

Okay, great. Great. So how can people reach out and put you to work for them?

Monique - Dragon Digital Marketing (40:37):

My website is dragon-digital-marketing.com and they can find everything you can reach out to me. I have a lot of content and resources on there as well, so you can learn right. Everything. You can also find all of my social handles there. I'm on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Um, yeah, that's the best way to reach us.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast - Inbound Marketing Strategies (40:59):

Okay. Yeah. We'll be sharing the website in the show notes as well. So y'all reach out, put Monique to work for you. Let her help you grow your business. Uh, you won't be sorry. Let her help you scale your inbound marketing for sure. All right. Well, thanks again. This has been another episode of the business of business podcast. You can find us at www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com also on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and, uh, this recording will go up on YouTube as well, be sharing and share with your friends. And, uh, we own all the major platforms, iTunes, Google, uh, Google play, Stitcher Spotify. So reach out until next time everybody take care of each other.