Email List Building for Beginners [Step-by-Step]

Prefer to watch this blog content instead of reading it? Head here to watch it on the Brandmerry channel.

Today, we are talking about your email list. I got this question from a previous video that I did all about growing your email list. You can check it out right here. They wanted a specific video on what goes into starting and building your email list. So I'm going to break it down for you step by step in this video. Whether you already have an email list and you want to make sure all of your gaps are filled or you're just getting started, this video is for you.

My goal is to help entrepreneurs, not only have a phenomenal brand, but get that brand seen and paid. And one of the ways to do that is through email marketing. Before I jump into the step by step, I'm going to throw some awesome stats at you because if you're not yet convinced that email marketing should be a main focus of your marketing strategy for your business, these stats will definitely convince you that this is the right path to take. 

Did you know that you have a great ROI with email marketing? In fact, for every dollar you spend on email marketing, you will make an average of $36 in return.

You might be thinking, but do people really purchase from email? Yes, they do. 60% of consumers say that they make purchases based on the emails that they receive from businesses.

And you might also be thinking, oh, I don't want to annoy my audience. I don't want to have to email them, but this belief is actually holding you back because 61% of email respondents state that they like receiving promotional emails weekly. Yes, weekly. 

So if that doesn't already convince you that email marketing should be where you are focusing your energy and attention this year, I've got nothing else for you. If you want to get your brand seen and paid, email marketing is exactly how you do it.

First things first: IDEAL CUSTOMER

I've got six steps to get your email list started and ready to rock and roll. And at the end, we're going to talk about promotion. But before I do that, we've got to talk about a very, very important part of your email list growth. And that my friends is your ideal customer. 

You need to be crystal clear on who you want to fill your email list with because it's not just about having big numbers. It can't be about, I want to hit 10,000 email subscribers, and you're not being intentional with the subscribers that you are attracting. This is incredibly important because as you're going to see in some of the later steps, we're going to be creating messaging and gifts to pull your ideal customer in. And if you don't know who your ideal customer is, you can't create those things that's going to pull them in.

You need to understand who your ideal customer is at their core. If you have not done this work, I have a video for you all about market research. Make sure you watch that because it is going to be essential in following these steps to a T and making sure they actually work for you and not against you. 

I have clients who come to me with big email lists and aren't making any money. And the first thing we look at is who are those subscribers? If they're not your ideal customers, they won't buy from you.

Build your email list step #1: LEAD MAGNET

Let's get into the very first thing that you need to do to start building your email list. That is to create some sort of freebie, lead magnet, or free gift. They all mean the same thing, interchange the words however you want. 

It essentially means that you are creating something that you will give to your ideal customer in exchange for their email address and their name. Very, very important. So when you're starting to think about your freebie, your lead magnet, you want to know your ideal customer. Because you want to create something for them.

I often tell my clients to think about the email exchange as a $1,000 purchase. So for every single email that you get, you're making $1,000 in currency. When we change this focus, it requires us to create something of high value for our lead magnet.

Now that's not to say that you need to create an entire mini course, or you need to record eight videos. But you want to solve a very specific problem for your ideal customer. So while you're doing your ideal customer work, and you're starting to think about your lead magnet, I want you to write down three main problems that your audience is facing. Then create some sort of lead magnet that's going to help them solve a portion of that problem. 

Now, with your lead magnet, it's important that you're not trying to solve all of their problems. You want to make this very micro. So I'll give you an example.

I have a free class which you can watch right here, that's all about how to create a better brand that gets paid and seen. In the class specifically, I am breaking down the importance of branding, what is needed to build a better brand, and then how to get that brand seen, and some of my top strategies for marketing. 

I'm not teaching all the nitty gritty of exactly how to do each of those steps. That is taught inside of Roadmap to Freedom. But in order for my audience to understand the value of Roadmap to Freedom, they need to understand the importance of these steps first. 

So not only am I positioning my product as a great next step for them, but I'm also solving a core problem that they have, which is what am I supposed to be doing? What am I supposed to be focused on when building my brand and marketing it to my ideal customer? I'm going to give you another example.

Let's say that your ideal customer's problem is that they have low engagement on social media. You could share with them a brand guide to help increase engagement. You could share five prompts that will get great engagement, that they should work into their weekly social media schedule. And you could even, as a third option, share with them a messaging framework or a template that they can use to craft their social media posts to get optimal engagement. 

You wouldn't share all three of these, but you would share one of them. That's how micro I want you to be with your freebie and your lead magnet. 

So the first thing that you want is your freebie lead magnet, free gift, whatever you want to call it. Some examples of this can be PDFs, quizzes, a video, a class, whether that's on demand or a live class, meditation or an audio recording. 

One thing I want you to keep in mind is you want this lead magnet to be evergreen, meaning that it's not requiring you to show up at a specific time. We always want to have one lead magnet that someone can grab at any time, any time of the day, any time of the year, any time. And then of course you can sprinkle in live events like a free class or a free challenge or something on top of that. But we always want to have a way for your audience to join your email list.

Build your email list step #2: LANDING PAGE

The next thing that you are going to need to grow your email list is a landing page, a place for your audience to opt in, give their name and their email address to you in exchange for that free gift you just promised them. 

Now, your landing page is so crucial in the success of your email list building strategy, because it's essentially where your messaging is going to shine. So I recently did a podcast episode, episode 34 on the Brandmerry Podcast, where I share exactly what you want to have on your landing page to increase conversions. So make sure you check out that podcast episode, but here are a few things that I want to touch on that you absolutely need on your landing page.

TITLE
Number one is a crystal clear title. What is your freebie and how is it going to help your ideal customer? With my class that I spoke about before, which of course you can watch here, I'm saying, I will teach you how to build a better brand that gets seen and paid consistently. That is key. I'm very, very clear on what I'm going to teach you and exactly what you're going to walk away with and how it's going to benefit your business.

BULLETED LIST
The second thing you want to have is a bulleted list. Now you can choose to do actual bullets or maybe they’re blocks, whatever it is, I want you to clearly tell your audience what they're going to get when they give their name and their email address. 

What I mean by this is don't just assume because it's free, that someone is just going to sign up right now. Remember, email is currency, and we need to start thinking about it in that way. So you want to clearly communicate to your ideal customer how your lead magnet, what they're about to get from you is going to benefit them. How is it going to solve their problem? What are they going to learn? What will they be able to do with the information that you are giving them? 

Clearly communicating that will help them see the benefit and your conversion rates will be much higher on your landing page.

AUTHORITY BUILDER
The third thing that you need on your landing page is a small authority builder. How do we build authority? Storytelling. Yes. So I always recommend that my clients have a small bio about who they are, their hook statement, just really positioning themselves as an expert because the idea is that you're getting this lead magnet in front of people who know nothing about you. So we need to position that authority by sharing a little bit more about our professional bio, some of our accolades, and what we do.

STRONG CTA
The fourth thing that you need is a strong CTA. So those are those amazing buttons, that area where they're going to put their name in the or email address in. And I recommend being really deliberate with your buttons, saying things like, "Sign up now, get the download, watch now, grab the training. Those are really, really strong CTAs that are going to increase your conversions. 

As I mentioned, I have an entire podcast, episode 34 on the Brandmerry Podcast, which breaks all of this down step by step. So make sure you tune in for this particular step on your landing page.

Build your email list step #3: CONFIRMATION PAGE

The third thing that you need is a confirmation page or a thank you page. So this is essentially a page that your audience will land on after they have given their name and their email address. 

So they land on your landing page. They say yes, heck yes I want this. They put their name in, they put their email address, they hit a little button and voila. It takes them to a page that confirms that they have submitted their information.

This is incredibly important because we want to think about the times where we've put in our information online and there's been no confirmation message, or we get nothing. And we're like, oh my gosh, did it go through? I don't know. Let's just make it easy for our ideal customer.

This confirmation page can be as simple as saying, "Thanks so much. Your download is on its way. Your video is on its way. Go check your inbox now." You can take it even further and make a small offer on the backend. But I recommend if you're just starting out, keep it simple, get them to their inbox so they can grab that email right away, open it and click through. 

PLATFORMS
So let's pause for just a second and talk about platforms that I love for these different steps.

So the platform that we use over here at Brandmerry is called ConvertKit. We also recommend Flodesk to many of our clients as well. That's another great platform that we have a lot of our clients have success on. 

So essentially what you want is a platform that is going to allow you to create landing pages, it's going to allow you to create some sort of form, where they're going to put their name and their email address in, and it's going to allow you to automate what comes next. So all of those emails that you want to send that say, "Hey, your download is here. By the way, this is who I am." So on and so forth. You want those all to be automated.

So we really love ConvertKit and Flodesk. There are a lot of different options out there. So of course find the one that works best for you. But if you're anything like me and you're like, I just want a really, really great program. And I don't want to spend hours looking for it on Google, I highly recommend ConvertKit.

QUICK RECAP

So let's recap. You've created a freebie that your audience absolutely needs. You have now created your landing page, where someone is going to land to give their name and their email address for this awesome freebie that they've got to have. After they've submitted their information on this page, they are then going to land on a confirmation page. Now that confirmation page can just be a single low, easy, no design needed page on your website. 

Build your email list step #4: Confirmation Email

And now what happens. They're going to their inbox to grab their welcome email. This email is something that kicks out immediately after they put in their name and their email address.

So let's use ConvertKit as an example. ConvertKit gets that information, they tag them in the system and they shoot out this confirmation email. In this email, you want to make it short, sweet and to the point. You essentially want them to click through, grab that download, take that quiz, watch that video and get to work. 

You want to make sure when you're building your email list, that it's not complicated, that it's not a lot of steps because at the end of the day, you want your audience to have a win. We want to help solve a problem, but we don't want it to take them 72 days, because then that's prolonging how long it might take them to purchase your product or your service. 

So we want these steps to happen very quickly from the moment that they land on your landing page to getting that confirmation email. We're talking like 10 minutes max. So automation is key. Keeping that email short and simple. Hey, you wanted this. Here it is. Click here to grab it. I'll be back with another email soon. Keeping it really, really easy.

Build your email list step #5: EMAIL FUNNEL

Then the next thing that's going to happen is your email funnel. Your email funnel does not have to be terrifying. If you want an entire video on your email funnel and the top things that I recommend, let me know and I will make you that video because let's be honest, this is a lengthy piece. There are a lot of different details in it. I teach all of this inside of my program, Roadmap to Freedom, but you came here to learn how to grow your email list and that's what we're going to talk about right now.

So we already talked about the very first email. The very first email is very simple. It says hey, this is your freebie. Grab it. Now, they're getting to work. Within 24 to 48 hours, I lean on the 24 hour side, you want to send the first email of your automated sequence. This automated sequence will be set up inside of your email platform. 

Email One
If you're using ConvertKit, as I recommend, you will set it up inside of sequences and choose the timing between the emails. Maybe you're going to send an email every day for three days, you'll set it up, you'll link it to your form and voila. This is all happening on autopilot. 

When you're designing your email funnel, I want you to think of it as a handshake. It's essentially your introduction to someone that knows nothing about you. So what do we want them to know about you?

We want them to know your story. So the first email that you send should be really focused on the work that you do, who you are, and positioning your brand as an authority, as a brand that they absolutely want in their inbox on a regular basis. You can also set the tone for the type of emails that you might be sending weekly via your newsletter.

Email Two
The second email that I recommend you create is another bonus tip. So let's say that you created a freebie all about social media engagement and you shared with them five social media engagement prompts that they could use. Well, in the second email, you could now say, okay, you have your prompts. I gave those to you in your freebie, but I'm coming in with another sweet bonus. In this email, I'm sharing with you a sample template to structure your social media post. 

You don't have to create another freebie. You can deliver it directly in the email. You could also link to a really popular blog that you have, or a video that shares amazing information about something that's really valuable for your audience. You're just further positioning yourself as the authority and as the expert, someone who is going to support them in solving their problem.

Email Three
Then the third email, and again, I'm talking about a very basic email funnel right here, you could present your offer. Now, if your offer is over $47, I recommend putting a few more emails on the backend. But at the bare minimum, you can just have a very simple three email funnel, and then they would go directly into your general newsletter.

Now, one of the things that I teach at Brandmerry is the importance of this consistent communication. As we heard in the very beginning of this video, your audience wants weekly correspondence from you. 61% of surveyed consumers want to hear from their brands weekly. So I always recommend that my clients make that a routine in their marketing strategy. 

Now someone is on your list, they're familiar with who you are, you've set the tone, you've given them some amazing advice, you are now the authority. Now they will leave that automated funnel and they will get those weekly general broadcasts from you, which could be anything from your YouTube, your podcast, your blog, your promotion, anything that you are going to be sharing with them every week. The handshake has happened. And now we're all in relationship building.

Again, inside my program, Roadmap to Freedom, we understand the importance of email marketing. Everything that we teach and do inside of that program is focused on building your email list so you can get seen and paid. So inside of Roadmap to Freedom, we teach our clients how to set up their email funnel in as little as three days. We've got a sweet bonus called Funnel in a Weekend. If you want to learn more about Roadmap to Freedom and you want to see if it's the right fit for you, watching my free class by going to brandmerry.com/class is a fantastic way to learn more about the program, learn about my approach to marketing and how it can benefit you in your business and snag that sweet bonus.

Build your email list step #6: PROMOTION

Now we're moving into the sixth part of this process. This is the most important part. This is the part that is ongoing. Those other pieces, you might set them, you might be able to forget them for a little while, but now you're into your marketing. How do you get your new freebie seen? How do you get it in front of your ideal customer? 

This is where you are going to want to focus on two types of promotion. Yes. Remember I said, email is currency. Think about growing your email list as a form of promotion. You need to be talking about it consistently.

There are two categories that I love my clients to focus on: active and passive promotion.

PASSIVE

First, we're going to start with passive. What does passive mean? Passive is that banner on your blog that you set that says, "Grab my free quiz." They click it and voila, it opens up a box. It takes them to the landing page. They get to sign up for it. It's having that call to action on your homepage. It's a popup. It's having the link in your bio on your Instagram. These are all things that you're going to set up on the different platforms that you're on, on your website, maybe your banner on Facebook, you get what I'm saying, where you're linking to your freebie and you're setting it and you really don't need to worry about it. 

So if someone lands in any of those different areas, they're really interested in hearing more about you, they're interested in joining your community, they have what they need. They go to the landing page and the process starts for them.

ACTIVE

The second category is active promotion, and this is the one that's going to take more time and energy on your part and is something that is going to help you with getting your brand seen and paid. Now my favorite ways to grow my email list are through SEO platforms. Things like Pinterest, YouTube, Google, blogging, things like that. And I also love to talk about my freebies and my lead magnets on social media as well. But as you know, here at Brandmerry, we do not put a lot of pressure on social media. We are more focused on SEO strategies. So having those in place will create that consistent stream of leads coming into your email list without you having to post daily.

I talk more about this strategy on marketing inside of this video. Go watch that. That is going to really help you with the strategy behind growing your email list and the types of things that I recommend. 

Again, I teach all of this inside of my free class, where I'm teaching you how to build a better brand that gets seen and paid consistently. You can go to brandmerry.com/class to watch that completely on demand.

I hope this was really helpful in breaking down the step by step needed to start building your email list. At the end of the day, your email list is a fantastic asset. It is what you can take with you. You can download it as a spreadsheet and upload it somewhere else. We cannot rely on social media as a way to grow our communities. They are a nice little way to market if that works for you, but they are not a space where you control the narrative. Email marketing is where you get to do that. And as we saw in the beginning of this video, it can help you increase your ROI.

PS: Roadmap to Freedom doors are opening soon! This live group program will help you create an online business that allows you to create a life of abundant experiences and impact. This high-touch program helps you simplify the process so you can make more money on your terms. And, the 2023 cohort is going to be better than ever with updated content, lifetime access, new bonus content, and more! Join the waitlist and be the first to join in January 2023.

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

Types of Content for Social Media, Blogging, Videos, and More

As an entrepreneur, you know that content creation is really important and it's something I like to talk about a lot on this channel. But how should you be organizing your content, and what happens if you run out of ideas? Do you have some sort of magical thing that you can pull ideas from? 

Yes. Yes, you do. 

Today I'm going to share with you the main content buckets that you can have for promoting your business.

Content is such a phenomenal tool for business owners, because not only can it get you in front of your ideal customer AKA get your brand seen, but it can also support you in moving your potential customer through the stages of the buying process and ultimately signing up, making a sale, paying you for your programs, for your products, and for your services. 

So content is just such a crucial tool for entrepreneurs, but it can also be a main stressor. This is one of the top struggles that we get from new members inside of Brandmerry Academy, which is my marketing program.

This idea of consistently creating content and always having to come up with new ideas can be super overwhelming. And I'll be honest with you, if you're 100% relying on social media to market your business, it is overwhelming. 

Inside of the Academy we teach a different approach where we focus on SEO strategies, things like blogging, Pinterest, showing up on Google search, and YouTube, so that you are creating core pieces of content that are consistently bringing in your ideal customer and don't require you to come up with something new every single day. But still, no matter which strategy you're following, it can sometimes be really hard to feel inspired. 

So today I want to share with you some of my top buckets for content. As a small business owner, as an entrepreneur, you can begin to create different ideas under each of these buckets and pull from them whenever you need an idea or you're filling out your 90-day content calendar, which I talk about in this video right here.

So let's talk about six, yes, six content buckets. One of the ways that I like to organize these buckets for my clients is inside a Trello board. So if you're using Trello, it's a fantastic tool. We actually give our clients inside of Brandmerry Academy these six buckets, along with a ton of ideas under each one. Sixty-plus content ideas for them to get started and we're constantly adding to them. 

So what I recommend is that you take these six different buckets I'm going to share with you and add them to a Trello board or a document or a spreadsheet or whatever you want, and start to input ideas that you have under each bucket. 

The idea here is that you can always reference this anytime you're scheduling your content, or you run out of ideas. 

6 Content Creation Buckets

Content Bucket Number One: Share Your Story

Yes. Brand storytelling. I love it so much. It is such a powerful tool for entrepreneurs and completely underrated when it comes to marketing. 

Now I am, of course, referencing your brand story, but I'm also talking about all the different ways that you can break up your brand story or just share personal stories as you go about your life. Of course, the key here is to make sure that the stories that you're sharing do relate or resonate with your ideal customer. 

I share a bit more about that whole process inside of this video right here. The idea here is that you are positioning your brand as an authority while also offering empathy and connection with your ideal customer. This is why storytelling is so important. 

So think about things like your brand story, your mission, sharing your values, any client stories that you have, anything that comes up for you in your day-to-day, and how it connects to your work.

The possibilities here are seriously endless. I have been sharing random stories as they come up in my life since the beginning of starting my business. And it's often these types of stories that really resonate with my ideal customer and kind of spark them to take action to purchase from my brand. 

The reason for that is because of the connection piece. Storytelling is a fantastic way to build trust, and we know that people will buy from you when they trust you. 

Content Bucket Number Two: Share Behind the Scenes

Now, this could quite literally be showing the day-to-day of your business, a fantastic place to do this is on Instagram, on social media. And I still love using social media as a way to warm up my new leads. So someone who has found me through Pinterest or YouTube or Google will then typically follow me on social media and it's a way for us to build that connection.

So showing behind the scenes via video content is a fantastic way to do that, and I find that things like Instagram stories are a really simple way to show up and share content in this bucket. 

But you can also create small snippets of behind the scenes of your business. If you make jewelry, for example, creating videos showing you actually creating the jewelry. If you have a new design that you're coming out with and you've sketched it, show a photo of that sketch. 

That's what we mean by behind the scenes in your business. What are the inner workings that are happening? This is fantastic for transparency, which we know is incredibly important with brands and people really want to see how things are made. From a service-based perspective, you can of course share your day-to-day.

I actually love to share how I create content, record podcasts, record videos, my client calls, all of those different things, but it can also mean that you're sharing kind of the behind the scenes of your framework of your business, what you're teaching, how you're teaching it, and of course, client results. 

Content Bucket Number Three: Educate Your Audience

The third one I have for you is my second favorite. Storytelling, obviously, my fave. This one is my second fave, and this is where education comes in. 

I really believe that every single brand and business can have an educational component to their content strategy. And the beautiful thing about educational content is that it builds authority. It shows people you know what you're talking about, and they can see that through the content that you're creating. It really, really, really helps with the client buying journey. 

I have had multiple clients who find me on good Google and immediately inquire about working with me one-on-one. I respond to them via email and they will respond right back and say, great, fantastic. Where do I pay? I listened to your podcast, or I watched your YouTube, or I read your blog and I already know that you are the right person to support me. It's through that educational content that they're able to make that decision very, very quickly, often without a discovery call, I might add. 

So educational content is so powerful and this list could go on for days and days and days. This bucket is literally anything, anything that you can help your ideal customer with, how you can help them solve their problem. 

So for instance, this video is a great example of educational content. I know content creation is a main struggle for my audience so I'm constantly talking about it and sharing all these different types of videos.

We have this one right here, I've got a video on brand storytelling. We've got a video on planning 90 days worth of content. Video, video, video. 

Now, you don't have to use a video, you can use a blog or podcasting. Of course, video is a fantastic tool in 2022 and beyond. But the idea here is that you're helping solve a micro problem for your ideal customer. You're giving them information that they've been searching for, or that they need in order to move forward with their transformation. 

All my product-based businesses, you can also share educational content. I'll give you a great example from a brand that I love. They have a skincare line and they have a lot of blog content on the types of skin care that you can use, how to use their specific products, how to apply your skin care, tons and tons of information that will help someone through the client buying journey and will also help them get discovered.

Content Bucket Number Four: Connect with your Potential Clients

Number four is all about connecting with potential clients. So where storytelling was really focused on something you've experienced and how it applies to your ideal customer, this is really focused on your ideal customer front and center. 

So thinking about things like client journey, transformation, clients that you've worked with, or customers who have bought your products, or a before and after. You can also create stories around specific results that your customers have experienced, as well as talking about and addressing things like obstacles that might be standing in their way. 

So there is a bit of a crossover here with storytelling. Honestly, I find storytelling should be applied in all of these buckets, but the main focus here is how can you connect with your ideal customer and let them know that you 100% know where they're at and where they want to be?

Content Bucket Number Five: Build Brand Authority

Now, as we've mentioned before in the storytelling section, empathy and authority are huge when it comes to making purchase decisions. When it comes to brand authority, this is where you want to dial up your expertise. So while you're already sharing information on educating your audience, the different little pieces that you know, or that you teach in your business, this is where you're really highlighting your framework. What is your signature framework that you are providing your ideal customer, and what are all the different elements that you can share around that framework? 

This is also a fantastic place to kind of differentiate yourself within your industry. So if there's something that you believe that a lot of people maybe don't do within your industry, or aren't talking about, you can really turn up the dial on that and position yourself as a leader in that thought process.

So one of the things I started doing really early on in my business was talking about brand storytelling and emotional branding. At the time, a lot of entrepreneurs were not talking about this. So I started kind of leading the way and that got me featured on multiple podcasts and in guest interviews and as a guest expert in programs. So I would talk about that a lot as a way to build brand authority. 

Then as I started getting kind of picked up on these podcasts and things like that, I would share those underneath this bucket, which again, elevates my brand authority because I've now been featured. So there's a lot of different things that you can do within this bucket. But what I want you to focus on first and foremost is your signature framework. How do you deliver the results that you deliver? How do you solve the problem that your ideal customer is facing? Then you can also integrate features where you have been featured as an expert within your industry. 

And, of course, my personal favorite, offering an industry disrupt. 

Does someone believe something? Or does the industry believe something as a whole that you don't? A great example of this is my belief that you absolutely do need a website if you are marketing your business sustainably, and many entrepreneurs don't think you do. So I love to talk about my own personal angle.

Content Bucket Number Six: Promotion

That leads us to the final bucket. You'll probably notice that a lot of these buckets we've been talking about are really about building that brand awareness, starting to build that brand authority, making that connection, getting leads in the door, and building that trust to lead to the sale.

So this sixth bucket, and a crucial bucket if you actually want to get paid, is promotion. Making sure that you're consistently promoting what it is you're selling. I find that entrepreneurs really struggle with this, but at the end of the day, if you want people to pay you, you need to tell them what you have available for them. 

If your ideal customer has a problem that you're solving, but they don't understand how you help them solve it, they're not going to pay you for it. So this promotional bucket can mean a bunch of different things, but here are some ideas to get you started. 

→ You can focus on the return on investment of your program or your product. So really highlighting what they're investing and what it's going to get them in return.

→ You can also share client testimonials and clients before and after, as it relates to your particular program.

→ This is also a fantastic place to talk about objections. What might your ideal customer be thinking if they come in contact with your promotion? If they come in contact with your sales page, what might be holding them back? Really creating content around these objections and offsetting these objections early on can speed up the purchase decision process.

→ And of course, making the ask. A big part of the promotional piece of content creation is just putting your product or service out there and giving them a CTA to take the next step. Asking them to make a decision and go all in. 

So the promotional content bucket is something that you want to be repeating quite often in your business, whether you're launching or you just want to talk about your products or your services multiple times a week. 

So there you have it, six buckets to start organizing your content. I hope that this really got the juices flowing for you.

I recommend you take these six buckets and organize them into a spreadsheet or maybe a Trello board, or even just a Google doc so you can consistently add ideas to it. I love having an idea bank so when I think of something random at the grocery store, I can add it to my idea bank, and then when I go to plan out my 90 days' worth of content, I can just pull from that specific section. I don't have to feel overwhelmed like I have to create something new. The ideas are already there. 

So again, you can use the ideas under each of these buckets to show up on social media, if that feels good for your brand, but also to write blog posts. And of course, within your email marketing, video marketing, and podcasting as well. As I mentioned at the beginning of this video, this is the type of stuff that we're teaching inside Brandmerry Academy.

You can learn more at brandmerryacademy.com. Our goal is to give you advanced marketing strategies that help your brand get seen and paid without relying on social media. You can learn more at brandmerryacademy.com and find out when doors are opening again. 

P.S. Planning and creating your content doesn't have to be a constant struggle. There is a better way to research, plan, and create your content as an entrepreneur and it's all inside the Content Planning Blueprint!

The Content Planning Blueprint is perfect for online business owners who know the power of content creation but are tired of spending all of their time coming up with ideas, organizing their content, and wondering what will attract their dream clients.

In just a few hours, you'll have 90 days of content planned, a repeatable workflow to save you hours on creating and distributing your content every week, and content topics that will keep performing for your brand for years to come! Get your blueprint now >>

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Increase Your Website Traffic in 2021 and Beyond

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

What good is your website if nobody actually sees it? It's the number one struggle that entrepreneurs have when they come to me to help them with their marketing. 

What I see is that entrepreneurs will build their website, they're doing it themselves, they're hiring a graphic designer, they're hiring a team to do it, and then it sits there. And they're like, well, I spent all this time, I spent all this energy, I spent some money building this website, but no one's actually finding it except for maybe a handful of people that saw it the day that you announced that you had a new website. 

We've all been there.

I had a website for about two years before people started to find it because I didn’t know about the strategies I’m sharing with you today.

Now, more than 10,000 people land on my website every single month!

You're going to notice with these four tips, I’m sharing today, that I do not talk about social media. 

Listen, social media is an asset. I am not saying there's anything wrong with marketing your business on social media. But when we are talking about consistent quality leads, there are other avenues that you want to have in place for your business. 

Social media just isn't the top dog when it comes to marketing your business anymore. And many of my clients actually are overwhelmed with the process of using social media every single day. 

I use the analogy that it feels like you're shooting a paper airplane into a sea of people and hoping it hits the right person. The strategies I'm about to share with you are very different and they focus on client attraction.

But, before we get into all of my favorite ways to drive consistent traffic and quality leads to your website, let us first talk about the importance of your website. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUR WEBSITE AS AN ENTREPRENEUR

Now, I know there's a lot of information floating around the internet on whether or not you need a website and how much energy and time should go into your website. 

But I truly believe that one of the greatest assets to entrepreneurs and small business owners is their website. We actually refer to it as your home base over here at Brandmerry because that is essentially what it is.

If you needed to create one spot with all of the information for your ideal customer, whether they are coming in at the beginning of the buying process, just knowing they have a problem and not sure how to solve it, all the way to ready to pull out their credit card and purchase your products and your services, you can create your website. 

Your website will serve as your home base. 
It is where you get to share your story. 
It's where you get to share strong language and connect with your audience. 
It's where you get to share powerful resources in the form of a blog, a podcast, or a YouTube channel. 
It is where you get to share full sales pages of your offers so people can get all of the information that they need.

It's truly one of my favorite things to support entrepreneurs in creating. But it also can take a really long time. It's one of the reasons that I created an entire training inside of my program, Brandmerry Academy and Roadmap to Freedom because I watched entrepreneurs spending months and months and months building a website. 

Now, I am not recommending that this is the route that you go. In fact, many of my clients do it in 30 days or less. 

You don't need to have some fancy, beautifully designed website if you don't have a) the budget or b) the time to take care of that. 

You just want a central location with your info. 
And in this video right here, I talk about the four-part framework for your homepage because your homepage is incredibly important and serves as a kind of launching off point or landing page for all the resources and things that you have on your website. 

Now that we understand why your website is important and how it shouldn't take you forever, let's talk about how to get your website seen. 

INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #1
OPTIMIZE FOR SEARCH ENGINES (SEO)

One of the first things that you want to do when you create your new website is making sure that it's optimized for search engines, specifically for Google. 

Now, there's a lot of different ways to handle this. I actually talk about SEO specifically in this video right here where I talk about the strategy for SEO, how to create site-wide SEO and some of my favorite ways to boost your overall rankings. 

But so many people will create their website and they forget about the technical, very strategic backend that comes into play for site-wide SEO.

We also tend to gravitate a little bit more towards thinking of SEO in terms of blogging, and that is powerful, but what I want you to focus on first and foremost is making sure that your pages, your headings, your site descriptions are optimized.

Here’s an additional blog with some tips on this >>

INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #2
PINTEREST

My second favorite way to drive traffic to my website and the website of my clients are using Pinterest. 

Oh my gosh, I swear this is my love language. I used to use Pinterest as a consumer all the time. Maybe you're like me and you use it to look up recipes and home decor and clothes that you're going to pack for your next vacation and you never really thought about using it for business. 

Well, back in 2017, I recognized that a lot of bloggers were using Pinterest and there had to be a way for us to use Pinterest to build our service-based business at the time. So I started exploring it.

I was already blogging, so I looked at ways that I could optimize that. I figured if my ideal customer was already there looking for lifestyle things, what are the odds that they would be there to look for business pieces as well?

We started to see that traffic was consistently coming to my blog. So rather than the one day a week when I shared my blog on social media or emailed my list, I was getting views every single day from Pinterest. That's when I fell in love with it and went all in. 

And to this day, we have over a million viewers on Pinterest every single month. And one of my favorite ways to use Pinterest, obviously, is in connection with a blog.

Blogging is a great way for you to have valuable resources, high-value content on your website to support your ideal customer through the buying journey so that if someone's coming in at the very first stage and we're wanting to move them through to the purchase stage, we have great information and resources there to show our authority and our expertise.

Blogging is also a fantastic way to improve your SEO rankings because Google, as we mentioned in number one, wants to know that you have high-quality content on your website and that you are backing up what you say that you're doing within your industry with content. 

So blogging tells Google, oh, this person is an expert in personal branding and they talk about it all the time on the blog. But then, in addition to that, we can use Pinterest to drive consistent traffic to our website so when we post a blog it doesn't just disappear or we cross our fingers and hope that it shows up in Google. We can make sure that it's showing up on Pinterest.

When you’re writing your blogs, it’s important to create content you know your audience is searching for so that you’re showing up in that way, while also providing value.

A blog can serve so many purposes.
Imagine someone who doesn’t know anything about your brand and finds your post on Pinterest, they now have brand awareness.
The same can happen on Google.

Now imagine someone follows you on Instagram or is on your email list and thinking about working with you. They can see the value you provide and your blog and it might be the turning point for moving your relationship to paying client.

Blogging is incredibly powerful and can also be used to repurpose your content on other platforms, just another way to drive traffic back to your website. Learn more about repurposing here >>

Now, Pinterest requires a lot of training, it’s something I teach my clients inside of my program Brandmerry Academy and is not something I can teach you in a blog, but here are some tips to get you started.

• Consistent pinning is important, meaning you don’t just post one pin a week. We recommend at least three times a week with 10-15 pins each of those days. To do this we recommend using Tailwind.

• You’ll want to create eye-catching images for the platform, and a few variations for each piece of content. To do this we recommend Canva and Tailwind Create.

• Just like Google, Pinterest is a search engine which means your titles and keywords matter. Take the time to research those!

Pinterest advertising can be an amazing underrated asset and you can sometimes get started for just $2 a day. Check out this blog post for all the details >>

INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #3
YOUTUBE

Speaking of search engines, we cannot miss an opportunity to talk about YouTube. 

YouTube just like the other two that I've mentioned before, is a powerful platform because it again is a search engine, meaning that your ideal customer is coming to this platform to search for very specific topics. 

Since it’s a search engine it brings in quality leads because people are searching for your resources. In addition, video is a great way to build a connection because your audience is able to see and hear you. It’s one of the reasons I post weekly videos on Youtube!

YouTube is also a great way to build that know, like, and trust factor, to expand brand awareness, brand attraction, and to again get people off of the platform. 

If you watch any of my Youtube videos then you’ll notice that reference additional videos and blogs, as well as free resources to get viewers on my email list.

So there's a lot of creative ways that you can think about using YouTube. While I prefer camera face-to-face video, you could also explore repurposing your podcast onto the platform. 

You could explore creating trainings (think slideshows) if you don't want your face on camera and putting those onto the platform. 

Just as with all of these strategies, make sure that you're paying attention to search engine optimization, that you're paying attention to what you're naming your video, the tags, the description because that's going to play a role in how your videos are viewed.

INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC TIP #4
PUBLIC RELATIONS

And finally, number four, this is a tip and a tool that is so dear to my heart because it's actually my background. I have my degree in public relations. It was actually the world that I lived in before I moved over to non-profit and ultimately became an entrepreneur. And I've carried so much of that knowledge into the business that I run today.

One of my favorite ways to drive traffic to my website, to build that know, like, and trust factor with my ideal customer, and ultimately expand the awareness of my brand is through features. 

Now, by features I mean podcasts, interviews, guest speaking opportunities, featured in a publication. It is absolutely amazing what happens when you get in front of a new audience through one of these trusted platforms. 

What I mean by that is if I pitch a podcast, something I teach in my programs, and I'm invited on as a guest, I'm getting invited in front of a new audience and I'm getting invited by someone who that audience already knows, likes, and trust, so immediately my trust meter, even though this are people who've never heard of me before, is already high because the host trusts me enough to bring me onto the platform.

So we always see that after I am on a podcast interview that gets released or part of an interview series or featured in an article, website traffic explodes. 

In fact, just last year I was featured on CNBC for an article all about my digital nomad life and how I've built my business to six figures while living in an RV with my family for two years. 

The amount of traffic that I got to my website was amazing. And I made sure that my website was optimized. We sold many of my branding programs, lots of inquiries because I was really, really deliberate with saying this is who this website is for. 

So of course, we got a lot of traffic and some of those people weren't the right fit. They just wanted to see what my business is about. But a lot of that traffic did convert.

Even though, and I'm not recommending that you drive a bunch of non-relevant traffic to your website, but even though a lot of those individuals didn't convert, CNBC is such a strong platform, they have really high domain authority, that the link to my website provides a really strong backlink. 

Now, I'm nerding out a little bit about SEO. I know, I know. I talk about it again in that bonus video. You can check that out below. And of course, I teach all of these strategies inside of my programs.

CONCLUSION

Those are four of my favorite ways and truly underrated ways to drive traffic to your website. 

It's not enough to rely on social media. It just isn't going to work in your favor for consistent traffic, not to mention you've got to consistently be posting. 

With the platforms that I shared with you, one piece of content can live for a really long time or one strategy that you implement can drive traffic to your website for years and years to come.

I recommend you check out my free class where I teach you additional ways to market your business without relying on social media. 

I'm sharing with you my top favorite ways, some of which you heard about today. I'm also sharing with you the four pieces that you absolutely have to have in your marketing strategy and three mistakes that I see entrepreneurs making. 

You can go to brandmerry.com/marketing. The link is also in the description below to sign up for that free training.

All right. Go forth, drive traffic to your website. I can't wait to see what these strategies do for your business.

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Brandmerry podcast? I release new episodes every Thursday on topics around branding and marketing! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at brandmerry.com/podcast

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

Where to Start With Your Online Marketing

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

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A top question I get asked inside of my free online community is how to get started with your marketing before you feel ready!

I get the need for things to feel “right,” or “ready” but so many entrepreneurs wait and wait and wait, and wait to start marketing because they don't feel like they've got it all together or it doesn't feel ready and this waiting can stunt their overall growth and timeline to the results they desire.

In episode 12, on The Brandmerry Podcast, we talked about getting visible and how to boost your confidence around showing up online. 

Then in episode 14, I shared my top tips for finding your voice in personal branding and how to get started with that.

Now today, I want to share more about marketing your business. What does marketing mean? How do we gauge what needs to be done and when? How do we know when it’s time to focus our energy on marketing the sh*t out of our business?!

Rather than waiting and sitting in confusion and inaction, I want to give you a clear plan of what to have in place, bare minimum, to get started. I think this one's going to surprise you a little bit. 

I also want to talk through some of the mindset pieces around showing up and being seen, just continuing our conversation around showing up and what goes into that.

WHEN TO START MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS

At Brandmerry, we believe in two core pillars to running a business. 

There's the branding pillar, which is all about:

• Who you are and the problem you solve.

• Who you serve.

• What your core offer will be.

• Identifying your authentic voice.

• How you share that with the world.

• And of course, what does your brand aesthetic feel and look like.

Branding is the foundational piece of scaling your business. You have to have those pieces in place to do any of your marketing. 

However, I find so many entrepreneurs who skip the steps and jump straight into marketing. When you do this you’ll find that your marketing efforts are a constant struggle and barely taking off despite your hard work. These foundational pieces are essential.

After you've created those foundational pieces, it is about marketing. 

The marketing phase is all about spreading that brand awareness, attracting your ideal customer through lead generation, connecting with them, and leading them to the sale. 

This phase is ongoing, as it’s ultimately what brings in consistent sales.

Yet, this crucial element is often delayed as entrepreneurs are waiting for the magical moment when everything feels ready. 

WHEN ARE YOU READY TO START MARKETING?

So, how do we know when we're ready to market? 

I've got to tell you it’s a trick question, no one can define that for you. No one can say, "You will be ready at this specific stage." 

And I know that’s hard, but it's important to know that it’s going to look different for every business. 

It's completely different based on what you're offering. 
It's different based on your lifestyle and your personality. 
So no one can define when you're ultimately going to be ready.

But what happens quite often is that we are ready before we think we're ready. 

Sometimes we're looking for someone else to give us that permission slip to push go.

We need someone to validate and say, "You're ready!" And then suddenly it's like, cool, I got it. 

You're essentially always at a place where you can show up and build a community and build that know, like, and trust factor.

So you're always ready. But the question is, when is it most effective? 

With marketing, it can be tricky because you can market at any time. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs who will market right out of the gate because that works well for them while they're building their brand. 

But is that marketing the most effective? Most likely not.

The reason for this is that the brand foundations are not in place. These foundational pieces can be found inside of our branding program You! Branded.

For our clients, we find that once the brand is complete, then your marketing will be the most effective.

Now, let’s assume you’ve done the branding work either on your own or through You! Branded, where do we go from here.

These are three things that you want to have to make your marketing efforts the most effective. 

3 MARKETING STRATEGIES: TEMPLATE FOR MARKETING

GATHER AUDIENCE INFORMATION

Number one is to make sure you have a way to gather their information. 

You can be showing up and building a community on social media. 
You can be showing up and doing live videos every single day. 
You can be posting every single day. 
You can have followers joining you. 
You could be so excited, thinking to yourself, “I don't even know where these people are coming from. I don't even know who they are.”

But how do you plan on getting them off of the platform? 

How do you plan on keeping them engaged? 

And another level to this, how do you plan to confirm that they are ideal customers? 

Social media can skew our numbers quite a bit. And I know quite a few people who have giant followings and don't make money in their business. So it's not an indicator of a successful business.

If you're getting started with your marketing, a good rule of thumb is, while you're already getting started showing up and creating this content and building this trust, have a way to get them off said platform and into your community.

No matter what platform it is: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Instagram reels, Pinterest, blogging, all of it. It doesn't matter. You want a way to get them into your community. 

That's how you’re getting those quality leads. The people who are saying, "Yeah, I'm interested in what you're saying. I'm interested in what you're offering. Please tell me more.” It’s where you can build a better connection with your audience.

So if you're going to show up and do your marketing and you want it to be effective, then you want to make sure that you have a way to capture their information in place. 

That's typically through your lead generation. Having a way to get their name and their email address in exchange for a lead magnet, which could be a PDF, audio, a video, a training, a mini-course, a quiz, a discount code, a free knitting pattern, etc...

This is one of the fundamental elements of a strong marketing strategy and one of the first elements of the marketing work we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy.

HAVE A SIGNATURE OFFER OR FRAMEWORK

Another thing that I recommend having is an offer or at the very least a framework. 

This is one of the things that I teach inside of my program You! Branded because I truly believe that to market effectively, you need to know what the end result is. 
What are we ultimately selling? 
What are we leading people to with our marketing? 

It's why I don't believe in “just showing up” and creating content just to have something to post. That's not doing anybody any good. You want to make sure that the content you're creating is very effective as we're talking about and leading to something.

Now, maybe you're just starting out and you don't know what you want to sell just yet, or you haven't finalized your offer. That's okay. 

At the very least understand your framework or I often like to refer to it as your pillars. Those core things that you're going to be talking about and touching on because that's going to allow you to show up and market the result and build an audience interested in solving that specific problem.

So let's say one of my pillars is branding. Because I know that, I'm able to create content specifically to support my prospective clients with branding, and it's going to easily connect to my offer when I promote it.

I'm not creating all this content and marketing and promoting, and then there's no clear connection to what I ultimately want them to pay for. 

That's going to hurt. If you’re not clear on the result, what you want people to pay for, you’re going to create marketing that is ineffective to your bottom line.

KNOW YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER

You truly cannot market effectively if you don't know who you want to attract with your marketing. That's the point of marketing, right?

Inside of Brandmerry Academy, we focus on four pillars of marketing.

1. Brand Awareness - This is when you’re marketing so that new people know about your brand. They're gaining awareness of your brand and the work you do. You've taken this time to establish it. Let people know that it exists. 
   

2. Brand Attraction - The second part of marketing is the community attraction piece. So getting people who are now aware of your brand attracted to the community aspect, attracted to subscribing to your email lists, getting notifications when you go live, your Instagram posts, those different things. The community attraction piece is where the lead generation happens.
   

3. Brand Connection - And then the third part of marketing is the client connection. Building that know, like, and trust factor to fully connect with someone and moving them to the sale. 

This three-step process is the ultimate goal of marketing. 

How can you effectively market if you don't know who is going to be going through that process? 

How can you effectively market if you don't know who you want to spread brand awareness too, who you want to attract to your community, who you want to build a connection with to ultimately invest in your offer?

As I’ve mentioned most of this process, especially the ideal customer research and signature offer should be happening at the branding phase and will play an integral role in your marketing efforts.

3 WAYS TO START MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS TODAY

With these three foundational pieces and your brand in mind, I now was to give you a few of my favorite ways to start marketing your business today.

You've got these pieces: You understand your offer, at least a framework. You have a way to gather their info. You understand your ideal customer. 

TIP #1: SHARE YOUR STORY

This is a fantastic way to get started marketing, especially before you have an offer that's completely fleshed out before you're asking them to do anything. It's a great way to start building a connection from the beginning as you're bringing in prospective clients.

There's a lot of different ways that you can share your story. Here are a few:

1. Share your mission. If you don't know how to figure out your brand mission, go listen to episode one of the Brandmerry podcast.
   

2. Share your brand value. Start creating content specifically around each of your values. While posting your values on your website can be beneficial, what I’m suggesting is sharing stories about your values and why they are important to you.
   
   If you don't know about brand values, go listen to episode three of the Brandmerry podcast.
   

3. Share your brand story, your founder story. What led you to create your business in the first place? Why are you passionate about this work? Why do you want to serve the client that you want to serve?
   
   Start sharing your story behind the brand. There is an entire episode on the Brandmerry podcast where I talk about writing your About Me page and how to craft your brand story for that page to help you get started.

Additionally, you can talk about the purpose behind your business and your goals for your business. So you can create stories around those pieces, start showing up and start building that brand connection with your audience.

TIP #2: INTRODUCE YOUR FRAMEWORK

The second thing that you can do to get started with your marketing is introduce your framework. As I mentioned before, I recommend that you at least know the specific offer or the product, or at the very least the framework or the pillars for what you're leading your clients to. 

You can start creating content and marketing around your framework. You’ll want to identify the following:

• What's the problem that your audience is facing? 

• How can you create some content to help them through their problem? 

• How can you create some content to connect with them about their problem, to just let them know, "Hey, I know that you've got this. I want you to know that you are seen, heard, and understood," which is all we want as consumers.

Start creating content about how you specifically solve the problem, as opposed to somebody else in your industry. I do this a lot when it comes to brand storytelling. 

There are a lot of people offering branding advice. There are a lot of people offering branding support. I have a special way of doing that and it's through the art of storytelling. So that's how I solve it specifically and I make sure to share that often with my content.

If you have your framework mapped out, I recommend you break up each individual piece and share that. 

At Brandmerry, we could do weeks of content on branding. 
We could do weeks of content on marketing.
We could do weeks of content on systems. 

So having these pieces of your framework mapped out will give you content ideas to start sharing. I have a podcast episode coming out in October where I talk a little bit more about free versus paid content and the difference between those, so make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss it!

When you're thinking about sharing your framework in terms of content, think about why those different pieces are important and what those different pieces are. Not so much how you're going to teach them to do the individual pieces. That's in the paid offer.

TIP #3: ANSWER QUESTIONS

The third thing that you can do to start marketing and creating content is to just answer questions important to your audience.

If you have an audience, you can survey them. Even if you have 10 people, survey them. Ask them what they need support with. If you've got email subscribers, send them a form asking the following questions:

• What are you struggling with right now? 

• What support do you need?

•  If we were sitting down for coffee and you could ask me one question, what would you ask me?

As the different questions come in, create content to answer them. You can also post questions using tools like Insta Stories as well. 

In addition, you can also use free tools like Ubersuggest, which I've talked about multiple times on the Brandmerry Blog including this recent Youtube video where I shared my content creation process for 90 days of content, or AnswerThePublic where you can see what specific questions people are asking via Google and you can answer those in your content as well. 

You’re creating content that answers some of the top questions that you're getting. It takes a lot of the mystery out of what to post and what to talk about. 

Remember, the key to marketing is to start small, start very specific and intentionally, and then scale from there. 

This is incredibly important when it comes to where you’re posting your content.

It’s important to be realistic about what you can handle within your schedule. Thinking you’re going to blog three days a week, show up on Pinterest, make two Youtube videos, a podcast, and show up on Instagram daily is just not going to happen unless you have a team.

This is why you want to be very intentional with where you’re showing up and harness the power of repurposing. Something I talk about in great detail in this Youtube video. 

CONCLUSION

If you need me to give you a permission slip about when you're ready, it's when you at minimum, have a way to gather information, name, and email address from people who are following you, who are finding out about you from your marketing. 

You have your offer, or at least a framework mapped out so you can share content that's related to the result. 

And you understand your ideal customer. You've done the market research.

I wanted to share with you that one of the things that I focus on with my clients is clear, simple, and strategic marketing. It is something that I offer inside of my membership Brandmerry Academy.

But I also work one-on-one with clients to master their marketing, to streamline their marketing efforts, to understand what they're selling, to understand what they're messaging, to understand where they should be showing up, how they can show up effectively, all of those different pieces.

I typically do this in the form of an intensive. My VIP intensives are a 90-minute strategy session, followed by 30 days of implementation and support. Meaning that I'm not going to just cut you loose at the end of our intensive. 

We're going to talk about the gaps that need to be filled in your marketing strategy. 
We're going to map out your marketing strategy moving forward. 
We're going to get those systems and those workflows in place, and then I'm going to help you bring it to life. 

A lot of marketing support misses the implementation piece and it’s incredibly important. You don’t need to know another strategy, you need to utilize that strategy and understand how it applies to your business.

If you're interested in learning more about this, you can go to Brandmerry.com/intensive. 

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Brandmerry podcast? I release new episodes every Thursday on topics around branding and marketing! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at brandmerry.com/podcast

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Find Your Brand Voice [Personal Branding]

How to Find Your Brand Voice [Personal Branding]

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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If you've never tried hard kombucha before, I highly recommend it. If you're a kombucha fan and you also like to consume a beverage from time to time with alcoholic content, the shizz is amazing. 

No, this is not what this post is about, obviously, but hear me out.

Today, I want to share with you my top tips for finding your voice through personal branding. 
But, why is this so important? Let’s dive in.

My favorite company for hard kombucha is called June Shine. This small San Diego-based business has built a product that has expanded over the last year to nationwide delivery. Their success has been so fun to watch.

While I love the taste of the product, what has made me a loyal fan is their brand. Because of their clear brand, the company voice and their knowledge of their ideal customer, their marketing are exceptional. I see myself as their ideal customer in everything they do.

It’s one of the reasons I bought and their voice continues in their customer service as well, from their emails to their text messages you clearly understand their brand and the ultimate vibe they want to portray.

Everything you do in your business and your success ultimately comes down to your brand.

All the growth that we see, the loyalty, the brand affinity, as I've shared multiple times on my podcast, it all comes down to the work that you do on a branding level. 

I hope by now that you have watched my free training called Build a Better Brand Method. If you have, you are familiar with that method. 

I shared that method with you on the podcast. If you want to go back and listen to episode 10, the Better Brand Method, you'll learn my six-part framework for building a better brand.

One of those pillars is your brand voice.

Today I want to dive into why this is so important, how you find it, and some of the key things that I teach my clients that support them in finding their authentic voice.

BRAND VOICE GUIDELINES

Now, I will say that finding your voice and refining your voice is a process. It's kind of like what we talked about a few episodes ago around visibility and showing up with confidence. 

It is through the act of getting visible that you increase your confidence. 

It is through the act of showing up and sharing your voice that you refine your voice. 

You will learn what feels good and what doesn't feel good as you show up and get visible. 

But where do you start? 

How do you know what your voice even is? 

How do you create a voice from the beginning that feels very much like you and who you are and how you want to show up and isn't heavily influenced by others in your industry or mentors? 

This is something that I had to catch myself with when I first started my business. 

When we talk about authenticity and especially your authentic voice, this is where the relatability piece shines. 

Your voice is ultimately how you're showing up. This is how you're positioning your content. This is how you talk about your offer. It's the little quirks and little things that you do on your videos, on your podcast. 

One of the things that I do and I don't know if you've noticed, maybe it drives you nuts I don't know, is I don't edit my podcast. 

My husband will add some intro, outro music, fancy it up a bit, but I'm not cutting out things that I say or if I misspeak or anything like that. 

That was a choice that I made early on because I want to show up as my true self, without filters, without edits, without all of those different things. 

That's one of the elements of my authenticity. That's important to me. Yours might look a little bit different. You might be a very polished person.

Maybe you come from a very professional background and that is in fact who you are, not a front, not a mask, not a facade. That's who you are. 

When you put your work out in the world, of course, it makes sense to have a nice edited and polished piece. 

That's not who I am. 

And I hope this story reminds you that just because I show up this way, doesn't mean you have to show up that way. It doesn't mean you should show up that way. 

You should be showing up in the way that is most authentic to you. 

If we're creating a personal brand in which we're offering products or services based on something that has happened in our life, based on our story, or based on our experience, we are the center of the brand so the voice is our own. 

Even as I expand into more of a company here at Brandmerry, I'm coming from a full personal brand where my voice and my story are the center. 

As I'm moving into this transition of building a company with additional levels of support and team members, specifically inside of my program Brandmerry Academy, it's about taking those elements of the brand voice, me, and what that impacts in terms of values, mission, messaging, etc...the pillars that have already been created for Brandmerry, and then how I move them over and we communicate them as a company and as a brand as a whole.

It still had to start with me!

When you're just starting, it's you. 

Don't try and fancy it up. 

Don't try to make it all complicated. 

It is you, it is your voice. 

So let’s talk about how your voice specifically fits into personal branding.

TWO QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU FIND YOUR BRAND VOICE

There are two questions I want you to think about when we first dive into this. I'm also going to share with you a few key points I want you to identify that are going to help you in actually creating your brand voice. 

IDENTIFY YOUR FEARS AROUND SHOWING UP

The first thing that I want you to do is to identify the fears that you have around showing up as your most authentic self. 

A couple of things might come up for you when I say that. 

One, “Who is my most authentic self, Michelle? I have no damn idea.” 

This is why I'm a big fan of the story work that I teach in all of my programs because through the story work, I am giving you prompts and encouragement to uncover elements of your story that have impacted who you are and how you show up today and the work that you're doing.

It's through diving in and doing those pieces that you're able to start to determine who you are authentically. 

When I first started my business, I created an entire brand that was not me. It didn't look like me, it didn't sound like me. It wasn't me. And that's because I didn't know at the time what story work was. 

Story work and how I teach it is a framework that I created through my discovery. 

So when I was making that transition to figure out how to rebrand my business, because I identified that what I had created wasn’t me, I dove into the story work. 

If you're at that place where you're I just don't know, then I would encourage you to check out some free resources on brandmerry.com on the blog, around storytelling, as well as my YouTube channel.

But the next level, that is what I teach inside of You! Branded. That is what I focus on inside of my intensives. Depending on where you're at in your business, your level of investment, and your eagerness to figure this shit out, those are some options for you. 

If you don't know who you are, you’ve got to figure that out first. 
So, let's just assume, for our purposes today, that we've all done story work and now it's about how you want to show up and squash the fears that come up around being judged, looking unprofessional, not being polished, etc…

I still had those fears when I was starting, because I was looking at what everyone else was doing and thought that if they wear blazers, take pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower, they have these perfect backdrops behind their live stream, no kid running around, etc that I had to do those things too. 

I had to face those fears and say, "Are you afraid that those things mean that you aren't going to be successful?" 

Of course, they don't. 

And we know that one of the best things that you can do is stand in your authenticity to stand out online. If I were to adapt or mold to what all those people were doing, I would look and sound like everybody else.

Now, I know you aren’t here because you want to look and sound like everyone else. There's no way. You wouldn't be here. And we know that that's a bad marketing move overall. 

The first thing you want to do is identify the fears that you have around showing up as your most authentic self and then start to work through those fears and rationalize those fears. 

Is this ultimately true? 
What is this telling me about myself? 
How can I use this as a damn momentum driver to show up and share my voice?

Use Emotion In Your Brand

The second thing you want to do is attach a little bit of emotion to it. Now I know I always say keep the emotion out of marketing. Make your marketing decisions based on data but listen, branding is all about emotion. 

The whole concept of branding is emotional. So what better way to feel connected to yourself and how you are going to show up than thinking about how you showing up as your most authentic self would make you feel?

How would you feel creating content as your most authentic self? 

How would you feel sharing your website when you knew that it was a true reflection of who you are? 

How would you feel going on video and not worrying about all the little things that you have made up in your head that have to be a certain way or sound a certain way?

I can tell you from experience, it feels damn good. Even though the video was the main platform that I decided to focus on with visibility, this is something I talked about in episode 12, I still had a ton of fears around it. 

I was worried that everything had to be perfect. 
It had to be silent in my house. 
I couldn't be interrupted. 

And while I don't recommend that kids are running all around when you have a live stream, this is the reality of it all. It was the first live stream I did with my son because it was either show up with him or not at all, that I realized that there was so much power in me showing up as my true self.

- QUICK STORYTIME -

In 2016, I was hosting one of my very first challenges and for me it was huge. I think I had 50 people signed up. It was a big deal. 

I had already left my 9:00 to 5:00 and I was hosting this challenge during the middle of the day, rather than the evening as I had done before.

Back then it was just my son and me at home during the day and I thought I had positioned it right around nap time. 

Well, it doesn't always work out that way. And my son would not fall asleep before the video. 

After pacing back and forth and seriously questioning what I was going to do and freaking out a little bit, I ended up putting him in our baby carrier on my back and I just started the live stream.

I remember it was the first time I'd stood up on a live stream, typically I’d be sitting in a chair. And I remember saying to my audience, "Hey, listen. Here's what it is. I'm a working mom. I'm building my own business. My son wouldn't lay down. He's on my back. If you see hands, feet, a head or hear crying, that's what's up." 

I just laid it outright in the beginning and I delivered the entire live stream. 

He ended up falling asleep because I was swaying back and forth. And I kid you not, it was the first time that I had received such a tremendous response from a live stream where I got comment after comment after comment.

"Thank you for doing this.”
“Thank you for showing up.”
“Thank you for giving us permission."

I was selling a program on the back end of this challenge, it was a branding program, my first ever. I had multiple people tell me that they ended up joining because of that live stream. 

Could you imagine if I hadn't shown up because I was worried about the fears of what people would think of me? 

When you make an intentional choice to face those fears, to put them in perspective, and honestly, to lead with the emotion of how amazing it would feel to do this thing as your most authentic self, you can potentially change the entire course of your business. 

So before you dive into the tips and tricks, you need to consider these first two questions.

7 KEY ELEMENTS TO IDENTIFY YOUR BRAND VOICE

Now let's talk about some of the key elements that I have found that help my clients in identifying their voice. 

We're feeling confident and yeah, we're going to do the damn thing. 

Now, how do we do it? 

Know Your Audience

Number one, and as with all things in branding, you have to know your audience. This is huge. And I don't think people realize what role this plays in your authenticity. 

But let's say you are coming from corporate America. I've worked with so many clients who come from a very heavy corporate background, high-level corporations, where they have been their whole life, who leave the 9:00 to 5:00 grind for starting their own business. And some of them end up working with corporate individuals, that's amazing, but a lot of them don't. 

When they come in and start writing copy and thinking about showing up, they get really obsessed with this whole corporate train of thought. “But this is who I've worked with. This is what my boss would say.”

When I ask them who their audience is. They'll tell me and then I ask them: 

What does your audience do every day?
What's your audience wearing?
Why is your audience interested in the topic that you're sharing?
Do you think your audience actually cares about what you told me previously?
Typically the answer is No!

If you know your audience, it can take a lot of the pressure off how you SHOULD be showing up. 

It's not that we're molding ourselves to fit our audience's expectations. But if you're coming in with these high expectations of how you should be performing, sometimes it can put it into perspective for you. 

When you realize…
Wait, actually my audience cares about transparency. 
Wait, actually my audience cares more about connection. 
Wait, my audience is a bunch of moms who are also juggling X, Y, and Z so me showing up will be a great way to show both of those. 

That's one thing that I have found has been tremendously helpful for my clients, especially my clients who are coming from more professional backgrounds.

Why Do You Like Your Favorite Brands

The second tool that I love to teach is one that we have to tread a little light around. 

Now, I'm going to share this with you but I'm not recommending that you go hunt down all your favorite brands and stalk their websites and their copy and so forth. There's no room for that. That is the opposite of authentic. 

What I want you to focus on are the brands that you gravitate towards. The brands that you feel connected to and why. 

You don't even have to look at these brands. You just have to think about that brand and your interactions with them. Think about the content that you've consumed from them and write down why you feel good when you see their stuff. 

How does it make you feel? 
And why do you think it makes you feel that way?

Then on the flip side of that, I want you to think about brands that you don't like seeing and don't like interacting with. 

When you hear that name and you think to yourself, "Ugh," why is that? 

This is going to tell you how you want to show up in the world. 

We're typically drawn to things that feel most authentic to us so if you can identify some of these pieces that draw you into other brands, you can replicate those feelings but in your authentic way with your brand.

Use Everyday Language

The next tip that I have is one of the most simple, yet most difficult strategies in the book but it is going to help you so much with not just your copywriting in general, but also your storytelling. 

And that is to use everyday language. 

Start to identify some of the things that you love to talk about or some of the quirks that you have. One of the exercises that I have in You! Branded is to list out some of the most popular words that you typically say a lot and then carry that over into your messaging or ask some of your friends and family, people who know you on a very intimate level to name three quirks that they find that you always bring to a conversation.  

We can kind of survey people closest to us to pinpoint things that we don't see in ourselves because the everyday language, ultimately speaking in your true voice is really what this is about. 

So why not identify that before you ever start creating content or showing up?

Be Conversational

This is also a great way to improve your copy and your storytelling. 

When you are thinking about creating content, showing up on a video, or creating a podcast like this, imagine you’re having a conversation with your audience.

When I recorded this podcast I pretended I was speaking to you as if we were sitting on the couch, drinking kombucha together, talking about your voice and personal branding. 

Be conversational. This is what people resonate with. 

One of the greatest tools that I learned was to pretend I was writing emails to a friend. This completely changed how I wrote emails to my audience when I was starting.

This is why tip number one, identifying your ideal customer, getting to know who they are, is incredibly important. It will allow you to give them a persona and use that when writing your copy. 

If you're writing an Instagram post and you were writing a letter to them, how would you write it?
It would be descriptive. 
It would be conversational. 
It'd be funny. 
You'd have emotion in it. 

It wouldn't be like, "Hey, I have this free thing and I want you to get your hands on it. It will be great. Here's what you'll get." 

You sound like a damn robot. 

But if you're conversational and you're like, "Hey, are you struggling with this right now and it's driving you up a damn wall and you can't stop thinking about it? How would it freaking feel if you didn't have to worry about that anymore and instead you could focus on X, Y, and Z? I want to share this with you because I'm so excited about it. And it's my blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." 

Big difference. 
One feels like a friend, one feels like a robot. 

You tell me which one you gravitate towards?

Put Keywords To Your Voice

I love getting clear and specific and having a framework for things. One of the things I love after you've gotten to this point is to put some keywords to your voice. 

For instance, one of the things that I teach inside of You! Branded is all about emotional branding and identifying the emotions that you want your audience to feel. You can use similar words when you're trying to describe your voice. 

Maybe you use exclamation points a lot when you write and it's playful. 
You love to use gifs and emojis to keep it light.
You might say that your brand voice is playful, compassionate, and constantly excited. 

With this tip, you’re ultimately giving your brand voice an identity. 

If you’ve done the emotional branding work that I teach, there will be crossover and it can help in brand consistency from a brand voice and brand emotion (aesthetic) standpoint.

It will give you a marker for self-assessment as you continue to show up. You can reflect every 30 days and ask yourself, “Oh, does this sound like my voice? Does this hit the three characteristics that I established in the beginning when I was thinking about my brand voice?” But then also as you move into sharing your brand with others, hiring people to come on your team to share your brand, create graphic designs or promotional pieces, you can share these pieces with them as well so they understand how you want to be presented online.

I was just bringing on a new graphic designer, which I'm so excited about over here at Team Brandmerry, and we're trying to figure out what design we like. I’m able to give really thorough feedback and say things like, "Okay, less bright, moodier. Less playful, more grounded."  

I’m able to share these keywords because I know my brand voice and it ultimately will help them in the creation process.  

Once you’ve identified your keywords then put those on a Post-it and always check in with yourself to make sure that you're following your own criteria. The criteria you've determined.

Identify Your Values and Mission

Identifying your values and your mission plays a really big role in your voice and how you show up online. 

If you haven't created your brand values or your brand mission, make sure you go back and listen to some previous episodes that we did on the podcast. 

Episode one was all about creating a mission-driven brand and episode three was all about identifying your brand values. 

Doing that work can help you tremendously in solidifying your brand voice and really understanding how you want to show up in the world.

The Art of Brand Containers

Now the last thing that I will leave you with as we close up talking about your brand voice is the art of brand containers. One of the ways that I recommend my clients get started in choosing how they're going to show up online, organizing their content, and playing with talking about different things, is brand containers. 

As I mentioned in the beginning, the playing and the doing are all part of the solidifying process. 

As you show up and you get visible, you will figure out your voice way faster than if you're not actually creating content and putting anything out there. 

So with brand containers, I typically recommend having five. You can do anywhere from five to seven. Five to seven containers that you can ultimately create content around.

For instance, my brand containers are branding, marketing, travel, productivity, mompreneur, and systems. These have changed and shifted over the years based on my interest, but they’ve mostly remained the same. 

So those are all elements of my voice. Those are all things that I love to talk about and things that I know connect with my audience. 

I know my audience is here for branding and marketing and those are the things I “sell” in my business. 

I also know that my audience loves productivity and systems and is an extension of the work I do and things I’m super passionate about. 

Most of my audience wants to travel and love when I share my experiences with them and some of my audience are moms or maybe planning for it in the future. It's not that your audience has to connect with each piece of it, but try to find the ones that offer your ability to show up as your authentic self and connect with your audience in some way.

Think about answering this question, “Who am I? What are the things I love to talk about? And how can I create that brand experience for my audience by sharing those things?”

Your connection pieces have to be about more than just what you sell. You can't constantly be pitching your services and your products. Your audience is going to get tired, unfollow, and unsubscribe. 

Spice it up. 

CONCLUSION

As you're thinking about these different pieces I share today, as you think about how you want your audience to feel, your everyday language, the three words to describe your voice, pulling in your values and your mission, don't neglect also thinking about some of the things you genuinely love to talk about and how those can ultimately support your clients. 

It's one of my favorite exercises that I teach entrepreneurs who don't have a consistent content strategy as of yet, as a great way to get started in refining their voice and finding what their audience resonates with.

The connection piece is key and everything I shared with you today will allow you to first identify who you are and how you want to show up in the world and then build that connection with your audience.

I wanted to take a minute to remind you to grab that free ebook that I've put together for you, where I am sharing The 15 Lessons to Propel Your Online Business. 

It's the ultimate guide of shit I wish someone would have told me. I talk about a lot of the elements that I see holding entrepreneurs back from reaching the income level and the impact that they desire.

And as you can probably imagine, I made the same mistakes. 

Whether you're just thinking of starting your business or you're three or four years into it, I recommend that you head to brandmerry.com/lessons to download your free ebook. 

Because even if you get one little golden nugget from this ebook, I know it is going to support you in achieving your goals. 

Head to brandmerry.com/lessons to download your free ebook today.

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.