How is your Digital Marketing Health?
Why you should live your purpose in Business.
Nikki Jencen a pro coach and owner of LYP Marketing talks about how your purpose should drive your business ambitions. Not the other way around!
Listen to her four-step holistic action plan that will help you break down barriers that may be holding you back in your business.
When the time comes to working on your business and in your business Nikki and her team helps identify where you should outsource services.
Enjoy the show about living in a business that aligns with your purpose.
The transcripts are also below! If you would like to be a guest, learn more and schedule your podcast with Jeff Stanislow here.
Also, if you like this and want to up skill your digital marketing networking and sales sills using social media. Check out this course!
The Host: Jeff Stanislow, CEO of Chief Internet Marketer
The Guest: Nikki Jencen of LYP Marketing
Transcript of the Digital Marketing Podcast:
Jeff S.: 00:01 Hi, this is Jeff Stanislow, the Chief at Chief Internet Marketer. Today I'd like to give a warm welcome to Nikki Jencen. Nikki is a health coach and a health coach marketer that helps other health coaches. So she's the one that knows how to do it right. How are you doing today, Nikki?
Nikki J.: 00:19 Oh, I'm so good. So good to be on your show. Thank you so much for having me.
Jeff S.: 00:25 My pleasure, and thanks for taking the time out to spend with me. So you're a coach's coach? Is that my understanding?
Nikki J.: 00:32 That's it. I am the coach's coach. It's so funny because when I was in a health coaching school, I actually had a program called Coach The Coach and that's literally what I'm doing now. Essentially.
Jeff S.: 00:47 Yeah. For years, I know they used to train the trainer type thing as a business model that many corporations use. Now one of the things that's kind of interesting, I mean, if you're a health coach, what is it that you help with that is marketing related? Tell me a little bit about how you help someone, what's the process? Is it that they might be really an excellent health coach, but is it just they don't know how to communicate themselves or what have you?
Nikki J.: 01:19 Well, here's the deal. I help all sorts of coaches. They don't necessarily need to be health coaches is just something that I know. I know that business like the back of my hand because I was in it for six years and I know health coaching, but it's all over coaches that we market for. Here's the story. I was a struggling health coach. I was struggling to get clients struggling to pay my bills and I really didn't understand marketing. I didn't understand how to market myself. I took a bunch of classes, I learned how to market, I hired coaches, I paid thousands of dollars of programs, and I have to be honest with you, very little worked. The only thing that really worked was there was two things with a paid program and that was learning how to build your avatar. That one worked was that one was probably the most beneficial and that was a thousand dollar program. So I paid thousand dollars for that advice. Then the other one that really changed my life was a Webinar that was free. The gal that I was listening to, she said to build your email list do a telesummit. Essentially that changed the direction of my entire business. I my email list from about 300 to 10,000.
Jeff S.: 02:59 Wow. Fantastic.
Nikki J.: 03:01 Yeah, I know that's a small email list, but it was a good size for me. It really did change dynamics of my business and who I was really
Jeff S.: 03:14 Well, if your target audience is 300 and you're working with coaches and specific niches and you grow that to 10,000, I would say that's a nice return on your commitment there.
Nikki J.: 03:28 Yeah, it was a lot of work and I learned a lot in the process and, I've done a lot of shows. I've done a lot of telesummits, and through that process I've learned just an extraordinary amount of knowledge about marketing myself and marketing, digital marketing, and then I fell in love with marketing and I was like, "Oh, I don't know about this health coaching stuff."
Jeff S.: 04:00 Yeah, I noticed that in some previous dialogue before we got started, I read that you actually love marketing. So, tell me what clicked for you?
Nikki J.: 04:11 Well, I really wanted to help people. I really wanted to just deal with the health part of it. When I first got into health coaching, this is before the telesummit stage and the you have to build your email list and you have to get this and you have to do this, and I really just genuinely wanted to help people and see people transform their lives for the better. That's always my aim and my goal even in the business now. It's always about the transformation, transforming your business, transforming your life, transforming your body. All those things are very important to me. I didn't really want to learn marketing, I just wanted to get clients and I just wanted to really help people. My business now, Live Your Purpose Marketing Group, that's exactly what we do. I built the business that I wanted. I didn't want to teach people how to market.
Nikki J.: 05:07 It's so unnatural. It goes against how to do business. You shouldn't be in business for yourself. When you start a business you shouldn't have to be the solopreneur doing everything. It goes against your intuitive, natural ways, to do business. You should be paying a company to do your marketing for you. Along the way you learn together. To learn to pay thousands of dollars to learn how to market yourself is completely ridiculous. That's what I did. I know a lot of people who are doing the same thing and some are doing really well from that and it works for them but it honestly took me away from what was important. The important thing that it took me away from was helping people.
Jeff S.: 06:01 Yeah. I find when I talk, when I do some consulting with clients and things of that nature, and I said there's things about like, if you're truly a CEO of a small to medium sized company and you wear a lot of hats you won't be able to just commit yourself to being a full time marketer because you're doing so many other things and you have to surround yourself with the right types of resources. But what you do have to do is you have to understand from a strategic point of view, what is your story, what it is you're trying to communicate, who is your target audience. Then you have to really kind of get into the weeds a little bit to at least understand some of the key performance indicators and what's important so you can measure some success. In your situation growing your list from 300 to 10,000 was a great success because now that reaches so much more and then we know it creates a snowball effect that people reach out and contact you and ask you questions and the more touch points that you have the more questions you can answer or recommendations you get from helping people. Yeah, I think there is a fiduciary responsibility from a business owner to understand sales and marketing, I mean, not even just specifically related to digital marketing, but they have to understand what some of the key performance indicators are for their company in a marketing perspective and most importantly their target audiences.
Nikki J.: 07:32 Absolutely. That's what our company does, Live Your Purpose. It really does hone in and teach business skills and marketing skills to the business owner because first of all, if they're a coach they might not be savvy in the business world. They don't even know who they're targeting most of the time because when they get into business for themselves they're not thinking on that level. They're thinking, and it's really most health coaches I would say, they're thinking with their heart, not their logistical left brain. They're thinking from the standpoint of I want to get out there and really help people. They skip over the logistical parts of the KPIs and all that. They're not thinking about it. They're just like, just get me to the client and I want to help them lose weight, but it doesn't work that way unfortunately. That's what our company does. It really does do the coaching and the marketing with them. We're like a team.
Jeff S.: 08:43 And I find a lot of times when it comes down to businesses in general, I don't think they do that great of a job telling their stories. I think we'll get kind of stuck in this kind of model where it's like, all right, this is the service we provide, this is the product or the product we provide, and this is what it does. It's kind of like the old features and benefits thing, but they don't wrap that all up into a story that one can understand easily.
Nikki J.: 09:15 That's my biggest thing. After I learned marketing I said, "well, marketing is the heartbeat of every business." It really is, and learning and understanding yourself and your business is critical, but also to market through story so people remember you is so important. That's one thing that I really strive for is to just really market through story and everyone has a story, right?
Jeff S.: 09:49 Yeah, yeah. I mean, nobody wants to get stuff pushed on them with just like a spam message. You got to engage someone. With all the channels and everybody, all the media buying for your attention, I think it has to be better than ever now I believe.
Nikki J.: 10:09 Exactly. We have about 30 seconds of their attention or less. So we have a short amount of time to tell our story because nobody wants to read or listen, and we're being marketed to every second. Even marketing now has kind of a negative connotation to it, and its sort of unfortunate but it is the way that it is. There's a lot of noise out there now. I think we're just so distracted. So you have to come at it from a different angle. The story telling is that different angle that really enhances our efforts to reach people.
Jeff S.: 10:52 Yes. Fantastic. So you do a lot in the marketing area and Chief Internet Marketer is about digital. So of the space, what are you seeing? What's working for your clients right now? I mean, I know it's probably a mix, but what avenue are you having a lot of success and then maybe where you thought something would of worked better for your clients, but it hasn't or just haven't found that right mix yet?
Nikki J.: 11:24 Well, on a digital marketing standpoint, email marketing has always been one of the greatest things in our business and in my client's business as well. We work with a lot of startups, so they're starting from nothing typically, and it's really exciting to see things grow when you plant the seed and you're like, "wow, you just made something out of nothing." That's the most exciting part. So email marketing has been critical for us. Really looking at Google analytics on the back end. Really taking a look at who's looking at the site, what's working, what's not working, doing testing, and building websites from scratch is fantastic. I love it, but there's a lot of learning curves in that as well. It's exciting to see with putting heat maps on the back end and just seeing who is scrolling where and where are they bouncing off. It's really fun to dig in to the technology side of it and just really see, okay, well what's really working when we test a campaign or when we work a funnel. What we think is going to work sometimes doesn't work. We have to finesse and try something else but that's the fun part of digital marketing in my realm.
Jeff S.: 13:00 Yeah, I understand. I mean, it's kind of funny, like even using heat maps, there's so many things that can be done. One of the main things like in using heat maps, if there's a specific area that you're trying to emphasize or grow, just looking at it from a color perspective and seeing if it's being visible is so important. And a lot of people just don't get into that level of digital marketing to really understand. They just think they know because they put it someplace that's where their eyes are going to go, but the heat maps will show you for sure.
Nikki J.: 13:38 Yeah. Heat maps have been one of the greatest tools in our business. It was introduced to me by my previous employer where he was extremely smart, a terrible leader, but he was extremely smart. He was, he was a horrible leader, but nonetheless he was extremely smart when it came to digital marketing. He's been doing this for 20 years and he has seen the business transform into what it is today. He's always staying with the current trends. So that's just something that I learned from him and once I knew it, it was like, wow, this is really transformative.
Jeff S.: 14:22 What didn't work as well as you thought it was going to work?
Nikki J.: 14:29 Oh my gosh, webinars. Well, so campaigns for Webinars are probably my biggest challenge and I can't figure out, there's all these people that teach you how to market your webinars, and I have to say, I have not cracked that code yet. I have tried several times. You could put a lot of ad dollars into it and sometimes that makes a difference, but to be quite honest, to get people in their seats, and sometimes even register for the Webinar is like pulling teeth. Content marketing, I know, has a lot to do with the success of a Webinar and getting people to join to get people to have a virtual seat, but at the same time I just think is something wrong with me or is this just kind of the nature of the beast of the Webinar. I tell you, I've done several webinars and I've had some that had some success and most didn't. So if you have any tips on what works for Webinars, I'm all ears.
Jeff S.: 15:47 It definitely is a challenging time. I think really because just vying for people's computer time is challenging because it seems like there's so many different opportunities for so many different webinars. It's just like, again you have to tell the story and tell the value proposition and make sure you're targeting the right people, and make sure that you can be sent to them if they don't attend the recording. There's a lot of different ways. Content marketing is a beast in itself. I think, just vying for that person's time on the computer, off the computer, or whatever it happens to be is always a challenge. I've had clients now offer to pay people to come to their seminars. I've had clients that just think that by revealing secrets, that giving everything away type thing, that's going to work.
Jeff S.: 16:46 It really is just a married methodology. I find a lot of times is people don't leave themselves enough lead time for a Webinar and don't pre-market their events enough, and really, really have that three times reach, plant the seed, ,say [inaudible] and you put it up, you market it for a week or two and then you see what happens. I think I'd rather see less of them done better than more of them not done as well with pre planning and timing and things of that nature. That is just my take on event marketing and I always try to put it in three buckets, like pre event, process and marketing, the actual event process and marketing. What's the content for that day and what's the offer or what are you trying to accomplish there? Then the post event marketing, the follow ups, the automations, sending out the recorded elements and things of that nature. Back at where we're at, this isn't easy. This is not easy. This is, I think, unfortunately you see TV commercials for websites or domains for $10 from GoDaddy and, wix.com and things of that nature. I think, unfortunately it just drives this whole small and medium mind business owner mindset that what we do is cheap and not that much of a value, like to where I don't even need a website anymore I'm just going to use social.
Nikki J.: 18:26 Yes, a lot of business coaches nowadays are even saying you don't need a website. There was a seminar that I just recently went to where she was saying, you don't need a website, but yet about couple of hours in the seminar, she went through websites.
Jeff S.: 18:48 Oh boy. Oh boy.
Nikki J.: 18:50 And so I'm like, so you're completely contradicting yourself in your seminar saying that you don't need a website, but yet you're going through websites to see what works and what doesn't work. She's a business coach, and she flaunts that she's a millionaire, blah, blah, blah, which is great. I'm happy for people who make a lot of money and it's fantastic, but at the same time it's, I don't know, it just seems very fake to me and inauthentic. I think you really, I know, you need a website. I think everyone needs a space on the web these days.
Jeff S.: 19:33 It's a cornerstone. Yeah. It really is. I have gotten the same response from our recent engagement with a client that I'm doing some business consulting. It's like, do we really need a website anymore? And I said, "well, do you really need a building?" Yeah, I mean, it's your cornerstone because all these other things integrate with your marketing strategy, with your website. Your Google analytics doesn't measure analytics on social. Now we know that Twitter and Facebook and Linkedin, they have their own measuring tools and stuff like that, but integrating them and setting them up correctly on your Google analytics, your website, gives you a much more deeper experience within data of your site. So that's really important.
Nikki J.: 20:34 I'll tell you too about Wix, because I've had Wix and Weebly before I dove into really understanding digital marketing. I actually did my Telesummits all through Wix. One of the biggest takeaways for me was when a bigger influencer that I was interviewing said, "well, how much traffic is coming to your website?" And I was like, "I don't even know what that means." That's really sad. As a marketer, I'm trying to market them via Telesummit, Right? And I can't even answer that. To tell you the truth I didn't know about Google analytics or anything when I had a Wix and Weebly. Yes, it does get you an address on the web, but at the same time, they're just not conducive. It's not real. It's not real to marketing in my eyes, and now that I know what I know.
Jeff S.: 21:46 Well, I always say when people, clients, talk about that type of stuff I say, "well you can choose good, fast, or cheap, pick any two." That's what it boils down to.
Nikki J.: 21:59 Well, and the cheap part, Wix was not fast. I had to develop or not develop, but I had to create and design pretty much from scratch. That took time. What does that take time away from? Business, helping people, and if you have somebody else who's developing and designing your website you have time to go out and network with people and meet people, hug people, talk about your business. It just relieves you of that task, of that daunting task of creating something online and dealing with that. A lot of times building through Wix, it took my time away and I wasn't focused as a business owner, wasn't focused on what really needed to get done. It was just all over the place. So, part of what we do too is we do business coaching because these coaches, they don't necessarily know about business. Now that I know. Now that I have a lot more years under my belt, I can actually say, "well, you're not focusing in the right space." I do think that content marketing, that business owners, need to focus a lot on content marketing. Then send it off to somebody who can finesse it and sound good, and give it some psychological words that people can relate to. I say psychological because marketing is like psychology. People don't understand that. Even big time marketers, they don't understand that marketing is a psychology, and we use words to get people to buy, to identify with themselves. If a content marketer knows what they're doing, they'll put those words in the copy or the content to attract more business flow, if you will.
Jeff S.: 24:13 Yeah, certainly. Certainly in regards to that. One of the things that I tried to do, I mean, other thing is like there's a marketing, there's a skills gap going on in the industry the demands are becoming more technical in nature. The requirements to really understand the analytics are becoming more and more important. People who do it and do it right are becoming more valuable. Then you have to kind of like be able to prove that you do it right. In a sense of validity, and that's what I'm trying to do at Chief Internet Marketer is making sure that digital marketers are skilled and certified and validated and bringing opportunities to them to prove their credentials. What's going to happen is, I think you're going to just find more separation, more value, for those that know what they're doing. I think that the ones that don't and regurgitate other people's content, or don't provide the value, are going to just kind of stay in that space and change over. So, tell me something a little bit about yourself that maybe one doesn't know, and then we'll talk a little bit about your favorite brand that inspires you from a marketing perspective. Then I will wrap up here and give me some contact information and how people can find you and what have you.
Nikki J.: 25:46 Okay. So, something that people might not know. Well, I'm a huge animal lover, but the funny part is I haven't had any animals up until this point. I went through this period of my life where it was sort of like I was walking, and this is after I left my health coaching business, I was walking through life like a zombie. I didn't know where I was going in life. It was very dark, and my husband was like, what do you want to do? And I'm like, I have no idea. I started to connect with animals and I volunteered at a horse rescue locally here in San Diego. It was called Rescue Ranch. So, these horses are basically abused, been abandoned, they have gone through so much trauma. It really enlightened me to really connect with these, with these animals who are so spiritual and engaged with life I would say. So, it put me into a different state of mind just hanging out with animals. I got a dog, which she's crazy. I got the craziest dog you could probably imagine for the first time. Everyone's like, well, what are you going to get? Everyone gets like a full breed, and I'm like I'm just going to take whatever [inaudible]. I got a bunny. So, now were a house full of crazy and I love it. I wouldn't change it for a thing and I just love these animals. It gives me so much joy and I look forward to it. My dog gets me out every day. We go for walks. I've never been a couch potato, but now I actually have a reason to get outside and I love it. Yeah, that was a long winded answer.
Jeff S.: 27:56 Well, in beautiful San Diego there is definitely lots of reasons to go outside. So tell me, last thing, your favorite brand and why, and then tell me some ways that people can get ahold of you. And I'll also include them in the landing page we built for this Webinar. I mean, this podcast.
Nikki J.: 28:16 Fantastic. So, you're going to be maybe like, Whoa, this is really weird, but Nike is actually my favorite brand. I'll tell you why. I know that seems really weird, but they do such a great job with their marketing because if you look at their commercials or their advertisements, every single one tells a story and every single one of them, whether or not they have words to it their video campaigns are just on point. It's like there's so smart, they're so smart and so well done and, it hits you to the core emotionally. I think kudos to Nike, because they do a really great job of just capturing the human spirit and in a brand like for shoes. It's just so silly, but they do a great job.
Jeff S.: 29:18 Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think hey, they understand that they're a global brand and they understand that they're not, never gonna make everyone happy in regards to their ad campaigns. They also understand that there's a lot of free publicity with doing things that might be in essence, shocking to some people and, and create a buzz and controversy and what have you. Their geniuses kind of masterminds behind understanding that. They'll go full circle, they'll do something that has controversy and get a bunch of buzz. Then they do something that is just warm and loving and everybody loves it and wants to get behind it. I think one of the best marketing slogans ever created is the Just Do It, personally. How simple, but how strong and supported correctly with the resources of Nike. They have a lot of resources to support them and create that brand. I always thought that was one of the best campaigns, kind of like Chevrolets. That was another one that just really clicked together and really understood and it was compelling and energetic and it made you feel like going out and doing something right.
Nikki J.: 30:45 Exactly. Those brands, I like strive to be like those brands. It's so ingenious. These teams that are a billion dollar company, but it's just something that you strive for. As a marketing company just really, how can we get into their minds? How can we emulate something that they're doing like that. It's ingenious. I love what they're doing. Yeah. You're right. Like a rock. I want to be like a rock so strong, like a rock or a diamond. Either way.
Jeff S.: 31:25 Well, anyways, your website or your Twitter handle. How do you want people to reach out to you if they're...
Nikki J.: 31:33 So I'm not on, I mean, I am on Twitter at Nikki Jensen, but I never go on Twitter, so you can find me and you can tweet me and I might tweet you back. My website is LYPmarketing.com, LYPmarketing.com, and stands for Live Your Purpose Marketing. We are completely engaged on Facebook, at Live Your Purpose Marketing. You can also friend me, Nikki Jensen, and I love conversating. I am on Messenger all the time. Also every Thursday at 1:00 PM, I go and do a live and it's more about finding your purpose and it's really not what works about marketing some is and some isn't, but t's really just engaging on the emotional marketing part of things. Then I'm also on Instagram, I live your purpose, pretty easy.
Jeff S.: 32:38 Well, there you go. Well, Nikki, thanks for your time. I really appreciate you.
Nikki J.: 32:43 Thank you, Jeff. You're amazing.
Jeff S.: 32:46 …and sharing some great value for the listeners that listen through this. I think there's some good stuff there, and until next time, I appreciate it.