Make Marketing Suck Less

Dr. Michelle Mazur (00:00): Do you have to be on social media to market your business? If you're becoming more and more disenchanted with social media, know this, you're not alone. The number one question I'm asked these days, is there an alternative to marketing on social media? My clients are requesting marketing strategies that don't have a social media component. Because let's face it, the platforms are demanding more and more of our time than ever before. Whether it's creating Reels or the constant cycle of content creation, it seems never ending and the return investment is questionable. It's gotten to the point it's making so many people wonder if social media is worth it. And this is why I wanted to have Meg Casebolt on the show today to discuss this topic. She's noticed this trend too, and her podcast, the Social Slowdown discusses some alternatives.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (00:59): Meg Casebolt is the founder of Love at First Search, an agency singularly devoted to helping online businesses get found in search results like Google, YouTube, and iTunes, and turn those new readers into leads, subscribers and sales. Meg's clients are entrepreneurs who are too busy changing the world to worry about things like website conversion and search traffic, but still want their websites to get found on Google for their brilliance. Meg lives in Rochester, New York with her husband, two boys and an 80 pound pit bull. She has an insatiable appetite for s'mores,Broadway musicals and romance novels. So if you are wondering what's the alternative to social media, you don't want to miss this conversation.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (01:51) Welcome to Make Marketing Suck Less. The podcast that knows marketing is freaking hard, especially when you're a solo business owner trying to juggle it all. I'm your host, Dr. Michelle Mazur, author of the 3 Word Rebellion and founder of the Expert Up Club. Forget the latest marketing fads and tactics promising social media stardom. I'm here with research-backed strategies to help you clarify your message and get twice as effective with your marketing. And while I can't promise you'll ever love marketing, I'm here. to make you hate it a tiny bit less.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (02:31) Hey, Meg, welcome back to the Rebel Uprising podcast. I'm so happy to have you back for your second appearance.

Meg Casebolt (02:39): I am thrilled to be here with a little bit of a different focus. And I'm also wondering how many times do I need to appear before I get the pink ladies jacket? You know like in Saturday Night Live, they hand out the jackets?

Dr. Michelle Mazur (02:51): Okay. Yeah. Five timers club.

Meg Casebolt (02:58): And I need it to be in your brand colors. I want it teal and red.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (03:08): Awesome. Well, the reason that I wanted to have you back for a second appearance is because you and I have noticed this trend that people are kind of desperate to get off of social media, or at least slow down on social media. And I know you have a podcast that is dedicated to this, but I thought we could start with talking about what was your catalyst behind your own social media slowdown?

Meg Casebolt (03:35): I would say that the catalyst for my own marketing shifts is kind of twofold. Some of it is tracking what's working in terms of generating new leads for my business and recognizing that even though I was spending a lot of time creating for this algorithm and posting to all these places and taking the selfies to put them in Instant stories and da, da, da, da, showing the behind the scenes. People would engage with me. They'd put the little fire emoji on my stories, but those were not the people who were buying from me. The people who were buying from me were either finding me through search or finding me through referral. And doing the recognition of really tracking back what's working, I realized I was spending a lot of time on something that wasn't necessarily correlating with results.

Meg Casebolt (04:34): And then I think the other side of it is that in the past two years, but really in 2020, there were a lot of times where it was suddenly not okay to post on social media because of society happening around us. And I remember in the first days of the pandemic it was, turn off your funnels, turn them off. You can't post about this. We are in crisis. And then that summer was George Floyd's murder and Black Lives Matter. And it was like, put up a black square to show that you believe this and white people shouldn't post right now. And I was like, that doesn't make sense. How does that change anything?

Meg Casebolt (05:22): And people were still sending me referrals and people were still finding my website. That didn't stop. So why did I have to stop? Not to be disrespectful to any of these movements, but it just felt like society was pushing the agenda that they wanted to push and I could no longer run my business on the plans that I had. And if something bad happens in the world, that shouldn't necessarily correlate to decreased revenue because everything in my life is dependent on these stupid platforms that don't even make me happy. They just felt stressful all the time.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (06:04): I think there are two really interesting things that you said here. Number one, you realized that it wasn't actually working to get you results. And I don't think people slow down enough to figure out or to add a question to their intake form about how people found you. When you do that work, because I know I've seen that for myself, they never find me through social media. They might be connected with me on social media, but it was some other catalyst.

Meg Casebolt (06:33): Probably they heard you on someone else's podcast and then they went to your website and then they're like, oh, I'm not quite ready yet. I'm going to follow her on Instagram just to kind of keep top of mind. People have so many different touchpoints with us. Social media can be one of them, but chances are, it's not the one.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (06:55): The one that defies them all.

Meg Casebolt (06:58): The one marketing channel to rule them all.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (07:02): Exactly. And then I do find it really interesting because I remember those times, and even with the war in Ukraine, people are like, oh, you shouldn't be posting about your business. And I'm like, you know what? This war is going to go on for a while. What are you supposed to do, not market your business? Because then you can't actually even give to causes if you don't have the revenue to support your business. And it becomes this really self-defeating cycle and it just makes social media super unstable for marketing.

Meg Casebolt (07:38): And I think also, what is the benefit of changing that strategy? Is it just performative? Does it actually support the causes that you are supposed to be supporting or are you just changing because somebody told you that you are supposed to? And if the way that you use your marketing is to provide value to your audience, can you continue to provide value or are you just performing for somebody on the calendar that they set up for you?

Dr. Michelle Mazur (08:15): Yeah. And that leads me to my next question of why do you think there is this overarching trend to move away from social media for marketing your business?

Meg Casebolt (08:25): I think for so many people, it started as well, this is a free tool where my people are hanging out and therefore it is where I should be because they're there. So that's my place to connect with them. That's the water cooler that they're hanging out at so I need to go to that water cooler as well. And I think that as time has elapsed, there are more of these societal pressures to show up and perform in a certain way and we're getting tired of it. The algorithms are changing. I've seen a lot of people lately post like, oh my God, these videos take me so long. And I'm like, then don't do videos. But you don't show up anymore unless you're creating really clever, very quick, very high time consuming videos that may or may not actually be worth the time that you're spending on them.

Meg Casebolt (09:20): Because we're business owners we're so busy and if we're not enjoying what we're doing and it's not bringing in clients, then let's find an alternative. And I have friends who love social media still and that's where they're spending their time. And they are really connecting with people hard. That's great. Keep it up, enjoy the process. If it's working, work it. But if it doesn't feel good anymore, don't feel like you're obligated to create more content for Zuckerberg.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (09:50): Yes. 100%. I think that is the thing. And the content that now we're now being asked to create is so time consuming. Someone said to me the other day and she's like, oh, I'm so proud of myself. I only spent six hours creating this Reel. And I'm like, do you know what you could do with six hours of your time? The episode that came out right before yours, I did a little like back of the napkin math and I was like, I'm spending six weeks a year creating for social media. Because it's six hours a week. It's not like it's a ton of time a week. But when you think about spending a month and a half of your working time a year creating for a platform that isn't actually delivering results to you, you come to realize that you are an unpaid employee of the platform.

Meg Casebolt (010:50): Yes. And I think also, even though it's time consuming and we're saying oh, does it really make a dent in terms of our lead generation strategy, it is also the platform that gives us the fastest feedback mechanism. Even this conversation that you and I are having, Michelle, it's probably not going to come out for a couple weeks. I'm enjoying having the conversation so I'm still getting some feedback out of it, but when I post something on Instagram or LinkedIn, people are reacting to it within seconds. They're saying hearts and they're liking it and they're commenting and it makes me feel seen. It makes me feel like I'm showing up and I'm important and I'm giving them something and that dopamine hit is addicting.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (11:38): Oh yeah.

Meg Casebolt (11:42): In our brains and the most cognitive head space thing, if we can say, yeah, this isn't directly correlating to my bottom line and my revenue, but it feels good to be seen in a world where we're isolated. There's something there. There's something really important about the connection that we have on the platforms in a digital space. It's valid.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (12:08): Yeah. No, I totally agree. And I think sometimes getting that immediate feedback can be really helpful. If you're testing out a new message or a new angle and you want to see how it does, or you want to do a poll, just getting some quick, flash feedback basically,

Meg Casebolt (12:26): Or maybe some days your hair just looks great and you want people to see your hair and be like, damn girl, that is hot. It doesn't even have to be the messaging stuff, although that is important. Sometimes you just want to be acknowledged as a human to another human. Like, that's okay.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (12:46): Yes. And why do you think people are so fearful to let social media go? Because outside of the instant feedback and the dopamine hit, one of the things I see, it's like, oh, I know this doesn't really work for my business, but I'm afraid to slow down on it. I'm afraid to take a break from it or focus on things that I know would probably work a little bit better.

Meg Casebolt (13:14): I think a lot of it is FOMO and that's where the cool kids are hanging out. There's societal pressure to show up a certain way in these places and this is like not going to the high school football game when everyone's there for homecoming. There's some peer pressure happening here and there's connection that is happening. I like to see my friends and most of them live spread out around the country. And if I am not hopping on the channels and seeing your name pop up, sometimes I'll go like, oh, I wonder what Michelle's up to? You don't want to miss those updates from people. And if it's just, okay, well she sent me an email. Cool. But maybe I want to know what's happening behind the scenes. There is a level of connection and a level of trust that's happening.

Meg Casebolt (14:09): And even if I'm not commenting on your post, I know what's up. That's valuable and it is connection. It is supporting your friends. And even if I'm not responding to your post, I'm liking them. You're seeing my name pop up. There's a reciprocity here that if we're not showing up and we're not performing and we're not engaging, it's like abandoning the relationships that we think are happening there. Even though they're very shallow relationships on social media sometimes, they can go deep, but many of them are shallow connections. I think that people still want to have that broader net of shallow connections.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (14:52): And I think there's a really important distinction because I see so many people who just post and ghost. So it's like they go to social media because they have to be there and they post and then they leave and they're not doing that second piece of interaction, which is where the actual connection happens. I've been spending more time on LinkedIn and commenting thoughtfully on a person's post is one of the best ways to make an impression and further a conversation. And so often we're not willing to take that next step. I almost think you could not post on social media and still just interact with people. Let them know you're alive and you would still be okay because you're there to connect, versus there to broadcast market.

Meg Casebolt (15:43): Yeah. I think that's absolutely true. And I think what you just said about being thoughtful in the ways that you're showing up is much more, not even time consuming, it's much more energy draining. And for me personally, the time where I'm like, oh, let me go on social and check things out, that's the end of the day when I'm tired. I'm not like, hmm, let me think about something thoughtful to say in the comments here. It's like, hey girl, looking good. That's all you're going to get from me because that's not where I want to engage in the thought leadership and the thought conversations. But if that is part of what you want to do is engage with people on social, you have to invest the energy to be intentional, which is hard.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (16:26): Yeah. I mean it isn't the easiest thing in the world to go in and be thoughtful and leave comments. But if you really want to use this as a marketing channel, I feel like that's a necessary component that people don't do. It's like they just use it broadcasting and they're like, oh, why aren't people responding? And our mutual friend Tara Newman said something really interesting the other day. She's like, if you want people to respond to your social media posts, then you need to be responding to theirs. If you want people to respond to your emails, respond to other people's emails. She's like, you've got to create that kind of cycle of reciprocity and showing up in a certain way. And I think with social media, so many people, we're so pressed for time that we forget how important the interaction actually is on the channel. And if it's going to be effective, that's really what needs to happen.

Meg Casebolt (17:25): Yeah. I agree.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (17:27): So the question I'm excited to chat with you about because I have a lot of thoughts on this too, are what are the alternatives you're seeing to social media? So what are people trying experimenting with? What are you experimenting with to rely less on it?

Meg Casebolt (17:43): Well, I think that for me personally in the business that I'm running, the marketing channels that we use tend to come down to two things which are content creation and relationship building and collaboration. So for us, conten creation is we have a podcast, we have a YouTube channel, we have a blog. We're trying to get on other people's podcasts and create guest content and just kind of be able to share value and educational content and deeper conversations than just what I can fit into 140 character tweet. My time on Twitter is mostly spent talking about ADHD and romance novels and the patriarchy. So it's not really a place where I'm engaging with SEO. So about half of the marketing efforts that we're putting in are those kinds of evergreen content creation processes. And the other half for us is collaborations and relationship building. In the same way I just said podcasting on other people's podcasts is content creation, but also it's relationship building because I get to hang out with you and have an interesting conversation.

Meg Casebolt (18:55): Being in virtual summits, being in masterminds, and sometimes just reaching out to my network and being like, I have some time and space, who do you know that needs these services? And reaching out to previous clients and saying, how's it going? Anything we can help you with? It doesn't always have to be a broadcast to a giant audience. Sometimes it can just be a shoulder tap. Sometimes it can just be an outreach. And it doesn't have to be with the next step in mind. It can just be, hey Michelle, how's it going? Do you have anyone that you know that needs what I do? Cool.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (19:28): Yeah. And I think we forget that these high touch, more personalized ways of marketing still exist. Which is weird to say. Because I'm like you, I've doubled down on a lot of networking this year. Just meeting people and seeing how I can be of service, seeing how they can be of service and just making some cool friends. And I think we forgot to do you that because we're like, oh, we have to be broadcasting. We have to be emailing. And a lot of times when I look at where my leads come from, it's because someone told someone else about my book. So it is that word of mouth referral. They read the book, they're like, oh, I want to work with her. And so they sign up for a consult call. And sometimes I don't even know the person. The person read my book and then it started giving them to their mastermind. So it's just the snowball effect. They're like, oh my coach told me about you. And I'm like, I don't know who your coach is. That's really cool.

Meg Casebolt (20:37): That's when I always reach out to the coach and I'm like, hey, do you want me to do a guest expert thing in your mastermind? It's deepening our network and our relationships and being unafraid to reach out. Even if it's a cold outreach like that where you know they know you, but you kind of don't know them yet. I think you make a really good point, which is that we forget that these high touch options are available to us because we have been told repeatedly that things should be automated and things should be easy. And that if you can automate enough and get enough people into your funnel, then you'll be super successful. And that is a business model. That is a choice you can make, but it's not the only one.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (21:23): Yeah. And we were talking a little before we hit record about the difference between being a business owner/expert and an influencer. And it seems to both of us that there is this, we're confused about what our actual role is.

Meg Casebolt (21:43): And as somebody who helps people with their marketing measurement and I'm looking at people's analytics every day and I'm looking at them and going, here's your page views and here's your podcast downloads and here's your YouTube subscribers. It's not even always the social media metrics. But recognizing that more is not always better for business owners. If you have a business model that is based on, I need to have a certain number of page views because I need to get traffic coming in. My YouTube channel's monetized, I'm having people sponsor my podcast or specific companies brand sponsor my podcast and I need them to see my download numbers. If that's your model, if you have AdSense on your website and more page views equals more money, then more is more. More is better in that case. But if your marketing is meant for lead generation, then you don't need more. You need better quality.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (22:42): And getting clear on how many people you actually need. Because a lot of the people listening to this podcast only need to work with a handful of people per year in order to meet their goals. But yet they're building an audience like they're launching a low cost membership. And those are very different things. You could have a super successful business with a tiny audience, but then you're doing more of those shoulder taps, more of that custom outreach. For me, even to my email list, if I see somebody downloads the pricing guide for the work I do, I reach out. I just send them a 45 second email like, hey, do you have any questions? And people love that because they're like, oh, there's actually a human being here.

Meg Casebolt (23:34): Knowing the math, math is scary. And especially when we start talking about percentages and conversion rates and all of that. But let's say that you need one new client a month. That's 12 people that you need to convert. And let's say that half of the people you talk to end up hiring you. So you need 24 people to contact you in a year. That's it. 24 people. And if we're playing the game of, oh, well how much traffic do I need? Okay, if 5% of the people who come to your website fill out your contact form, then you only need 500 people on your website. And some of them may come through social, and some of them may come through search, and some of them may hear you on a podcast, and some of them may come from a referral. You don't need 500,000.

Meg Casebolt (24:31): And we're building to always have more and to be capturing more and to, oh, drive everyone into your Facebook group or get them to download the thing or do the thing. And it's like, maybe just tell them just book a call with you. Maybe just tell them to buy the product they're looking at instead of needing to hit them up and put them in the funnel and do the abandoned cart sequence. Maybe just let them work with you. Let them hire you. Let them buy from you. Don't make it so difficult.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (25:02): And it doesn't have to be difficult folks. If you get nothing else from this one, your marketing should be simple. It should be easy. It should be effective. You don't need a 900 step funnel in order to get people to work with you.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (25:18): All right, Meg. So, are you ready? It is time for the 3 Word Rebellion lightning round of questions.

Meg Casebolt (25:26): Sure.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (25:27): All right. I can't wait to hear how these changed.

Meg Casebolt (25:31): Yeah. I don't remember what I said the last time I was on.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (25:34): All right. So what's one thing you're rebelling against?

Meg Casebolt (25:38): Besides the patriarchy. I would say the FOMO of needing to show up the way that everyone else shows up instead of figuring out what works for your business, your brain, your life, your goals.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (25:57): I feel that one deeply in my soul.

Meg Casebolt (25:59): I know. And even though, once you talk about this all the time are like, but maybe I should do this? We're watching the trends and we want to test them and don't want to be left behind.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (26:09): Yes. Even though I talk about this stuff all the time, I'm still like, well maybe I should be doing more on Instagram. Or even that voice in my head that's like, what am I missing if I'm not doing it? And I might be missing clients.

Meg Casebolt (26:20): Right. And I'm like, well, Michelle's doing really well in LinkedIn. Maybe I should spend more time in LinkedIn. It's already happening. Even in the middle of this conversation. It's so prevalent.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (26:32): Yes. What change would you most like to create?

Meg Casebolt (26:36): In terms of business?

Dr. Michelle Mazur (26:37): Sure. Let's do business.

Meg Casebolt (26:39): Yeah. In terms of the online marketing space, I would say I'd like to detach the idea of marketing always having quantifiable trackable results. And people are always surprised to hear me say stuff like that because I do so much of this tracking. But recognizing that just because somebody found you right now, doesn't mean they have to buy from you right now. Sometimes it takes people some time. And this idea that they join your email list then they should buy your product within seven days and so give them this trip wire thing, because then they'll buy from you and they'll be more likely to buy from you again within 30 days and tracking timelines and anticipating sales numbers based on... I'm just like, man, just let people hire you when they're ready to hire you. Let them buy from you when they're ready to... You don't know what's happening in people's lives.

Meg Casebolt (27:36): I just made this big shift in my webinar call to action which was, hey guys, I'm starting a program that has some live coaching. It's going to start next week. It's all also going to start in May. It's also going to start in August. It's also going to start in November. Tell me when you want to be part of this and I'll hold a space for you.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (27:57): I love that change. It's that fake urgency versus, no, >when does this actually work for your schedule? Because I know you're like me where we don't want someone signing-up for a program or for my one-on-one work and then they don't have time to do it. Because there is this literal thing. It's not like a false objection that you have a life outside of your business and things happen and yada, yada, yada. So giving people that agency, that choice, is refreshing.

Meg Casebolt (28:31): Yeah. So maybe my real answer is the thing that I'd like to change is that you treat your clients like adults who can make their own decisions based on what's happening in their lives and not feel like you have to use these complicated, and let's be honest, slightly manipulative...

Dr. Michelle Mazur (28:49): Tactics.

Meg Casebolt (28:49): Tactics. I recognize that when I change the way that I sell, it
decreases my sales, but it feels so good. It feels so good.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (29:02): Yeah. So if everyone acted on that change, what do you think online business would be like?

Meg Casebolt (29:11): I think we'd just have less anxiety around all of it. And it's not in a law of attraction, people will come when they come kind of way where we're leaning into the universe. But just recognizing that if people want to work with you, they can find a way to work with you and you don't necessarily have to do all the arm twisting to get them in right this minute. I think it will give people a more long term approach that puts less fear into the ways that we talk about our businesses.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (29:45): I love that. So Meg, tell everyone where they can find you and how they can connect with you?

Meg Casebolt (29:51): Sure. So if you want to come listen to the podcast, you can listen to that over at socialslowdown.com. I know we have a lot of podcasters over here. And if you also want to work with my agency on your own content strategy to get found in search results, come find us at loveatfirstsearch.com.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (30:09): All right. Thank you so much, Meg. This was a fantastic conversation.

Meg Casebolt (30:13): It was my pleasure.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (30:15): Now that was a barn burner of a conversation. There's a few things I want to call out. First, take some time after this episode and figure out if your social media efforts are actually leading to clients. Now, for me, I track where people found me when they fill out my intake form. And I know for me, most people find me because of my book or because I was on another podcast and then they connect with me on social media. So if you have this data, go back and look at your last five clients. And if you don't, go back and ask your last five clients how they found you. Those answers will reveal to you whether or not social media is working for your business.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (31:11): The second takeaway from this episode with Meg is that we have to remember that social media is actually social. It should be for connection and not just broadcasting. So if you've been doing a lot of posting and ghosting and wondering why social media isn't working for you, it might be time to change that tactic. Post less, engage, leave thoughtful comments on other people's content more. And I think if you want to stay on social media, and that would be a way it could start paying off.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (31:45): And then finally, realize there are alternatives to being on social media. And it seems to me that social media has been equated as marketing in the online business space for far too long. But guess what? Businesses were able to market themselves before the advent of social media. So look at other strategies like good old fashioned networking. The shoulder tapping that Meg talked about. SEO is another alternative. So there are lots of alternatives that help you build relationships that lead to clients.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (32:37): And finally, you don't have to completely abandon social media. If social media is working for you, it's getting you clients or you just plain freaking love it. Good. Go for it. Be on social media. However, if you're feeling like it's a lot of work for little return on your investment, you can always slow it down and reinvest the time you're spending on social media into another way to market your business.

Dr. Michelle Mazur (33:12): If the Make Marketing Suck Less pod is making your marketing more effective so that your clients can find and hire you, please share the show with a friend. The easiest way to do that is through pod link. You can find the show at pod.link/rebel, and that page will allow anyone you share the show with to subscribe and start listening in their favorite podcast player.

That's pod.link/rebel.

The Make Marketing Suck Less podcast is a production of Communication Rebel. Our production coordinator is Jessica Gulley-Ward. The podcast is edited by Steven Mills, our executive producer is me, Dr. Michelle Mazur.

The make marketing suck less podcast is recorded on the unseated traditional lands of the coast salish peoples, specifically the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish people, original stewards of the land, past, and present.