Tony skinner
Hi, and welcome to the podcast channel with www.podcastsmybusiness.com.au. And today we have Mia from www.mediainaction.com. And I love that it’s M I A it spells.
Mia
Yeah it’s good. And I initially did it because I, you know, wanted that personal touch. But now I’m like, Oh my god, like, what happens in 10 years when my phone’s still going crazy? Like, will I have a chance to, I guess, situate myself away from the brand as much. So it’s not just to me and dominated, but I’m finding that nice healthy balance, I guess. But at the same time, not losing that personal touch. Because I believe that’s why a lot of my clients are coming to me, I guess.
Tony skinner
Yeah, well, any business, I mean, that the person is the most important aspect of that. And we all forget that. Especially we went through, let’s face it, the COVID epidemic, and lots of people working from home and going remote and zoom and whatever. But you know, I think still face to face is king. And that personal relationship is king.
Mia
That’s all I’ve learned is that the you’ve got the personal and professional network is absolutely everything. That’s where you meet everyone. You know, reputation is everything. You know, never burn a bad bridge, you know, all of my clients, I like you were talking about my website before I actually got my website up a month ago. Wow, just really say that I’ve had no time to do it. Because I’ve been so busy, because I’ve had referrals, referrals, referrals, so and social media and websites, all of that is absolutely important. And I don’t believe you can survive without it in this day and age. But the key factor is, you know, relationships and your, you know, personal and professional network. That’s what gets you to where you need to be at the end of the day.
Tony skinner
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, looking at that, let’s have a look. There’s a media, it’s such a wide, broad landscape. So we were just talking before you come from a traditional media background, I used to work for what became the evil empire as well, which is brought us limited.
Mia
Yes, yes.
Tony skinner
It’s still around.
Mia
Yes. Oh,
Mia
yeah. Yeah, no, it is for sure. But I think there’s also, you know, for instance, one of my clients is the managing editor of Vogue. So GQ Vogue, living, both Australia, and a lot of magazines is shutting down, I think at the same time, there’s also value there, because you know, you’re the last one standing, I guess, the value of it is higher among now than ever. So what can you do to offer your customers because people still want that experience, but in a, you know, new way.
So I think if they, you know, lack, you know, all of the traditional media outlets can transform with the times and tape that, you know, undermining value of whatever it is that they’re bringing to the table, then they can still be relevant. It’s just transitioning, I guess. So you know, going online, doing events, you know, podcasting, you know, all of it just transforming with the times, I think, and that’s why you see the difference between the ones that are powering through and the ones that are falling behind. And COVID was a good example of that.
Tony skinner
Yeah, well, it certainly puts a lot of businesses online, just like we’re doing now. We’re doing this podcast remotely. And that helped me with my business a lot, which I launched in March, I got another business outside of this, but in March, so that wasn’t too bad for me. I’m in a business network.
And it’s helped me to get across to more people quicker. So I guess if we look at the media landscape, look at social media and digital marketing and a whole range of things. So yes, where do you think especially looking in, let’s look into the crystal ball, because let’s all ignore 2020 as quickly as possible.
Mia
Been a great I hate saying it, but it’s been an incredible year. Like I I feel so bad every time I say like, I don’t want to say it because it’s been so negative for so many people. But I picked up all of my clients, majority of them during COVID. I started my business a year ago, and I’ve got 10 girls in my office and you know, nearly 30 clients. Because, you know, I understand the power of digital, but at the same time I understand the value of what traditional marketing can bring.
So, yes, it’s been a tough year. But at the same time, it’s been a great one for my business, because we’ve identified like I was telling you that sweet spot to build social currency for clients and convert that into real dollars. Yeah,
Tony skinner
I mean, to be honest, it’s been pretty good for me and so it’s been pretty. You’re right. I feel always feel guilty. That, you know, it hasn’t been that bad From now on, I have no cause for complaint. But looking into the landscape for next year, and we all hear about you got to be on social, you got to be here, you got to be there. If you look at social, you’ve got Facebook, you’ve got Instagram, you’ve got LinkedIn, other main channels out, because as a business Podcast, where should I business be devoting most of its spend and time in relation to social?
Mia
I think it just depends on your target audience. So obviously, if you’re speaking to consumers, like yours is, you know, you want consumers to be interested, but at the same time, you want that b2b networking opportunity. So LinkedIn is really good for that. You’ve got WeChat, you’ve got little red book, you’ve got those areas that are, you know, very dominated in the Chinese community as well.
So it’s really, it’s just, it’s really unique to your target audience.
And once you know, who your target audience is, what they look like what they interested in, you can choose the right social strategy and platforms to put them on that channel. So I do believe that Instagram and Facebook are the two babies in a way like babies because you’ve got that personal profile that you can represent yourself in. So you’ve got, you know, people want to visit and sorry, and LinkedIn as well, you know, people want to visit the page, people want to, you know, have that there to finish that full consumer experience.
So if I hear about you, or someone spoken about you, or there’s a review, whatever it is, we go on to naturally, I believe, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn to check it out, you know, get that credibility, get that tick of approval, in a way. And then that goes into the branding, as we were saying before, you know, is it up to scratch? does it represent the brand or missing opportunities and directing people to these pages? And then you can go into, you know, like I said, the the we chats, YouTube, podcast, all of that, to see what is relevant for the business even a step further, but I do believe that majority of businesses like 95%, like meet, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, in this day and age, just they just do. Yeah,
Tony skinner
yeah, I agree with that. And I think it comes down to like you talking about your clients. So if you’re an fmcg, which is food and drinks and things like that, what I call snappable. So things you’ll take photos of and share,
Mia
Yes, generated content. So people want to be tagging, sharing, you know, beefing up the network, absolutely. They’re heavily into Instagram, and Facebook, and not necessarily LinkedIn as much. Because again, that’s more of a b2b business opportunity, unless you’re sourcing suppliers and things like that. And you want to be forming the relationships in that step extent, but, and then you’d be speaking about, you know, heavily into advertising and influencer engagement and, you know, getting third parties to endorse your brand. So PR, and advertising strategies, I said heavily heavy there. But then, you know, even with websites and email sequencing, blog submissions, and implementing chatbots.
So you’ve got that customer service person, you know, you don’t necessarily need so many people in the office, you’ve got an AI chat bot, that’s pretty much answering, you know, requests at 12pm, or 12am, in the middle of the night for you. So there’s, you know, the services and technology has just, you know, grown exponentially. And it actually becomes quite overwhelming for a lot of businesses, because they’re like, what do I need to be on what I need to invest my time? And am I spending too much money on something that no one’s really hearing me. And so that’s when you really, like I said, with the target market, you need to really know who your target market is. And really narrow it down, but not losing touch of those three baby platforms. Keep the reputation there.
Tony skinner
So what would represent how do you track and see where you’re spending your money? And most wisely, was it Henry Ford that said, I know my advertising is working, but I know which part of it is working or something like that?
Mia
Yeah, no, this is, and this is why I started my business because I came from, well, I worked in news and I worked. I went to boot into sattu, which is news, one in Jakarta. Then I was working to the largest dog walking company in the globe in New York. So doing all the marketing. So then I landed a job in a PR agency in Sydney.
So it was my experience was very diverse, and I was quite young. And I could see that clients were spending a lot of money on PR retainers. And I would find every meeting that I would sit in, like sit on in and listen to the feedback from the client. It would be like, Oh, this is great coverage, you know, but what’s it getting me? What’s it getting me that was the same conversation they had all the time, and you couldn’t necessarily Track track it to say this, their retainers were anywhere from five to 10 grand a month, what is that actually getting me, you know, we can put a KPI on the amount of deliverables you’re getting, but am I getting a return on investment. So that’s when I always could say, you know, social, social social, because you’ve got the insights you’ve got, you know, you’ve got those analytics where you can actually justify to the client.
That’s why I wanted to start Media in action. Because I could say that, you know, the third part is endorsing your brand, having the credibility there, having someone to speak about your brand, that reviews, all of that is so important. And the storytelling behind your brand is so important, and you definitely need that. But then adding advertising into the mix, and being able to put, you know, a real number to what it is you’re spending and being able to justify it, and just absolutely changes the game, and makes for a lot of conversations. And when you’re, you know, end of year reporting, and you know, end of month reporting all of that so much easier.
Because, you know, it’s like, I know, I’m getting you, I know I’m making you money, but I can’t justify it through PR whatever it is that influence or whatever it might be, but actually using the right technologies in an advertising digital marketing landscape, you actually have the right metrics and algorithms to be determining insights that justify why they’re spending that and then they grow with you because they spend more, you know, they want to invest, you know, the more you invest, the more you get in return. I believe that’s the right strategy. So yeah, I think I think these new technologies allow for that. And that’s half the reason why I started it.
Tony skinner
Right. Okay. So let’s say I had a figure to say. So if I had 100 grand a year, to spend on marketing, advertising and PR, what do you think would be the split on that?
Mia
This is the thing with that with social media, people don’t understand how much labor like goes into a content calendar, for instance, if we’re posting Monday to Friday, and then we’ve got to do stories, right, we’ve got to do three stories a day. That’s graphic design, that’s a copywriter, that’s a photographer all in one mix, just to get you there. And because, you know, we were dealing with algorithms that people are spending 1000s and 1000s of dollars.
So how can we sit up the top when if we’re not posting frequently, whenever going to grow a brand? So I would say that, although with the 100,000, I would say 30 on social media to keep the presence there. Because at the end of the day, it’s a full consumer experience. If I’m advertising on Google, and then I’m, you know, doing Google ads or Google Shopping, for instance, but then you know, I want to check it out, I go onto Instagram, but then it doesn’t look good. So then you’ve missed the opportunity to Does that make sense? So you need to complete the full consumer experience. So completely diversifying it out? So for someone like you, I would be saying 100,000 is a lot for you. But I would be saying like I would be saying yes 30,000 on social media to 20,000 on content creation. And then I would be doing at least 10, you know, another 20 on PR, and then the rest would be advertising that actual media spend. So and then converting that. So identifying the acquisition cost, and then actually converting that and growing that continuously.
But again, like I said, that’s why we identified that sweet spot in between both of them. Because I do believe that if you can do the full service agencies, you can also the social media at the same time, the PR, at the same time advertising in this landscape, you have to that’s where you’re going to see the best return on investment because you are completing that consumer experience as a lot, but it’s it’s the world we live in. Yeah,
Tony skinner
well. That’s true. I guess that’s not my budget. I just thought I was trying to go a bigger one. Because it all sounds better when you got a bigger amount rather than $1,000 a month. Do you go What?
Yes. Exactly.
Never enough. It’s never
Mia
that easy. Yeah. And that’s what I’m saying. Like with the, with the advertising and with the you know, leveraging new technology, you do see that return on investment and you can justify how much you’re spending because you’re seeing the return on investment. And it makes for these conversations to be a lot more pleasant. And rather than you know, not necessarily being able to justify what this you know, PR article in the newspaper got me you know, we might have seen a spike. But again, and that’s another reason why I started it because you could see a spike in a PR placement but then what would happen after that.
So okay, we got you in the Daily Telegraph Sydney confidential right. And as an exclusive and we received an influx in sales. But then, you know, two weeks later it stopped. Yeah. Oh, you know, how do we capture that audience and then advertise to them consistently. So, you know, we did a good, the best example I can give you is one of my clients customers for cancer, they raffle off, you know, custom vehicles and all of that to raise money for Cancer Council. This is elusive exemplar of my business model.
They, we got them on sunrise. So traditional PR, right, you don’t get bigger than sunrise. In Australia, it’s, you know, the best. It’s the best, you know, in terms of ratings, and we put them weekend sunrise and Harley Davidson, they got their website crashed, because there was so many people on their website, I think there was like 100,000 people at once, purchasing a $25 ticket. And then from that, because we have pixel, so facebook pixel implemented in on their Facebook, we can actually capture that entire audience, and then convert ads to the peak to them consistently. So I think in five days, I made like $100,000 in off the $25 ticket, because we could not just see that spike that PR generates, but actually harness that audience and continuously advertise to them, because we know they have a direct interest in what we have to offer. Because they’ve visited our site.
Tony skinner
Right. Okay, great. So if this makes sense, it does it does. I understand all about the pixels and everything. So I do know. So what would be a tip that a business could would be able to implement easily, and let’s face it, we’re heading towards the end of the year. So when they come bursting out of the blocks in early January, what would be a good strategy for a business around about that time?
Mia
It’s just any business. So you mean like I’m coming back and ready to just
Tony skinner
come back. And so some tips about how to get some quick wins?
Mia
Yeah, you got to start now, you have got to pack you’re already behind. So you know, you’ve got to be thinking about March, April, you know, it’s, that’s, that’s what I mean, by that you need a good strategy, and you need to know who your target market is. And for a very long time, we had a beauty client, and we thought we were talking to a different target audience. And as soon as we identified who their target audience was, they were making a ridiculous amount of sales that I probably shouldn’t be saying that, um, if you don’t know who your target audience is, like,
You are wasting your time and money. So invest in surveys, invest in your, like I said, your personal and professional network, and understand exactly who is interested in what you have to offer, and actually advertise to that audience. And once you’ve got a niche audience, like yourself, it makes for your advertising to be so much easier and so much more effective. Because a lot of people believe they know their brand, but they actually don’t know they’re, you know, they believe what you might think is very different to what your audience thinks. So if you can identify that and know that you’re already you know, so much further ahead. And I think in terms of a tip, if it would be get online as soon as possible and invest in brand ambassadors not influences anymore. I think influences are fantastic.
They are the new magazines in some way. I always say this because they are that third party that endorses a brand and it’s so much more accessible. Now, as I was saying before, in terms of identifying how much money someone’s made, swipe up links, you know, QR code. QR codes is a loose example of coupon codes as well, you can actually see how much money they are making you rather than, you know, getting a placement in a magazine. So I’m leveraging them but forming relationships with you know, say, if it’s a beauty brand, three fantastic brand ambassadors who can constantly represent your brand. And rather than investing in an influencer here and there, you know, you’ve you’ve got them, they represent you, they’re walking advertisements for you just as long as they’re, you know, demographic and the target audiences matches yours.
Like that is everything that you need. And so and, you know, switching up the influencers to brand ambassadors, starting now and investing in content shoots. So, rather than just doing influx of shoots every year, when you think you need content, be strategic, get a shoot, you know, do a two day shoot, invest the money in a two day shoot, that’s going to safeguard you for content for the next year, create different scenes, you know, because content is absolutely everything as we were saying before, so if it is a hospitality client, you know, let’s not to think about what’s coming in winter. Let’s think about you know, summer spring, all of that. Let’s get you know, the right attire. Let’s create the scenes and in You know, 10,000, whatever it is in a, you know, a three day shoot, but you’ve got content for the next year, rather than an influx of, you know, content every so often that just ends up costing you a bomb. Does that make sense?
Mia
Yeah.
Tony skinner
All right. Thank you so much that Yeah, I agree that content is king. And that’s what I’ve been saying all along. And you’re right about planning. Now I’m planning. I’ve already got my plans for what I’m going to be doing the first quarter and the second quarter of next year. Yeah. Well, it’s not everything I’m going to be doing. But you know, the big ticket items, the big things that I’m going to be doing, already done, and I got this quote, I’m going to launch this second quarter and launch that and you got to plan ahead and start looking for your audiences now.
Mia
Absolutely. Content calendars and investing in sites like later or icon square, or, you know, Hootsuite, all of those scheduling systems. If you’re a business owner, and you can’t afford a marketing specialist, or whatever it is, if you’re just starting up, and, you know, invest in those scheduling platforms, and actually create a content calendar that maps out, you know, Mother’s Day or those relevant days is Talk Like a Pirate Day, eat with your left hand day, there’s so many days that you can create content and you know, come across as Super engaging, but you need to plan ahead.
So get that content, map out a content calendar, posting absolutely every single day stories every single day, being on the right channel. So again, back to the target market, identifying the right channels that you should be on, and getting the right ambassadors opposed to an influx of influences, to be you know, forming those relationships again to you know, so they can be constantly promoting you, because otherwise, it can look explicitly advertised. And people are turned off by that. And, and, yeah, again, just investing and understanding who your brand is.
And then strategically being aware that you have to have a presence. And you have to advertise in this day and age, because you are just competing with an algorithm that is absolutely saturated. If you want to get ahead, you’ve just got to invest to get ahead. But you’ve got to know who your target market is, you’ve got to have the compelling content to match it. And you’ve got to stand out from the crowd.
Tony skinner
Hmm, absolutely. Right. And, you know, if you’re not out there looking for you’re describing who your target market is, do it now. Do it now. Don’t wait around.
Mia
Exactly. And there’s so many businesses that I’ve, I’ve met, you know, and they’ve spent years and years and years on all this money that they’ve just spent, and they’ve got nothing in return, because they don’t know who they’re talking to. And as soon as you do, and, you know, again, leveraging that personal and professional network, you use ahead, you know, your strategy, you know where to be, you know, who to talk to, you know, the tone of voice, you know, the content that you need to create, and it is so much easier, and you will forever be in front and you’re on a path to, you know, inevitable success because you know who you’re talking to.
Tony skinner
And I think it’s that word, inevitable success. You know, so many people have said, Yeah, I became an overnight success. It took me five years. Yeah,
Mia
absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Going on a reality TV show or something like that. Yeah. It’s It’s hard work. And and you need to commit, like to start an online brand like you need. You have to be willing to wait it out. But you’ve got to have the right strategy and you know, talk to the right, you know, talk to the right audience. Again, I keep saying it for at least six to 12 months to see that you just do.
Tony skinner
Yeah, exactly. Right. It’s that timeframe. I’m doing stuff on LinkedIn. And I’ve got back to engage someone just a few months ago to help me with my messaging. Because my messaging was all over the shop. So now the messaging is right. I’ve got the podcasts, I’ve got everything else. I’m putting up content almost every day, and doing all those
Mia
little payoffs to, you know, spruce it up, as well.
Tony skinner
That’s something the new year we’re looking at my my business brand of the kids screaming, maybe I could do something with that. Who knows? That’s
Mia
absolutely, absolutely cool. Yeah, I’ll do a breaking news story changed someone’s life, you know, something that people are gonna remember you for? I think, a PR stunt doesn’t hurt. But I think, yeah, we’re just competing with algorithms now where a lot of people are doing the same thing. So you have to, you just have to be aware that if you don’t have a point of difference, it’s going to be very hard for you to grow. It’s going to be very hard. For you to get to where you need to be. And and once you can identify that point of difference and speak to the right audience you will Yeah, get there’s no way you can fail, I believe.
Tony skinner
Yeah, I agree. You just got to look, try. Try and try again.
Mia
Yes, absolutely. And a good advertising strategy and you’ll be fine.
Tony skinner
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, Mia, thanks very much for your time.
Mia
Thank you.