Marketing Mistakes To Avoid (Small Business Marketing Tips From Rachael Kay Albers)

In this episode, Mallory Whitfield and Rachael Kay Albers discuss some of the common marketing mistakes that small business owners make, including website mistakes to avoid, email marketing mistakes, and what not to do on social media.

As a brand strategist, creative director, and founder of digital marketing studio RKA ink, Rachael Kay Albers has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs. As the "business comedian" behind the Awkward Marketing show, Rachael teaches marketing in an entertaining way that includes creating her own GIFs, which have more than 1.6 billion views & counting on GIPHY.

MALLORY WHITFIELD:

Hey, Rachel, thanks for joining us. So, you have so many good YouTube videos about all of the terrible marketing mistakes that people make with their small business which are such a hilarious way of teaching people about this stuff. You and I have both worked in marketing for so long. I'm sure we share a lot of the same frustrations about the stuff people do. What are some of the most egregious, just terrible things that people do because they just don't know better when it comes to marketing their businesses online?

RACHAEL KAY ALBERS:

Well, I'll tell you what, I think that the internet is a blessing and a curse because the fact that the internet is always changing is amazing. It's always giving us new ways to connect with our audiences as marketers. It keeps us excited. It keeps us hot, keeps us on our toes. That's part of why I like this work. But the downside is because the internet is always changing there's always a new tool so there's always a new temptation, a new shiny object. I think that the first mistake I see a lot of people making over and over again is thinking they have to be everywhere, omnipresent online. TikTok is the hot new tool in the last year Everyone is getting on TikTok and people love to come to me. Why aren't you in TikTok? You should be on TikTok. TikTok was made for you.

I will get there eventually. I will eventually layer TikTok on. It's not time just yet, but I will be there. But I realized I had to stay rooted in what are the activities right now that are getting me the biggest ROI. Does TikTok fit into this? It'd be super tempting to just jump on the bandwagon because it feels like I got some FOMO, but in reality, I have to key into what's really working for me. What can TikTok, bring me and where does that strategically fit into my timeline? That gave me some peace so that I didn't have to join TikTok tomorrow and spend the next four days obsessed with it because that's what's going to happen. You know what I'm saying. So, sticking with what works and this is the advice I give. The mistake is shiny object syndrome. The remedy is staying really rooted in what works and letting the Joneses do their thing around you.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that lines up with a lot of the questions I feel like I'm answering all the time over the years to small business owners because yeah they get that sense. A lot of times it's from well-meaning people who don't really know marketing. I think suddenly because we all use social media everybody thinks they're a social media expert and it's like, just knowing how to use it isn't the same thing as understanding marketing strategy.

I was getting my oil changed yesterday and I realized if I go in to get my car worked on, I have the same sort of level of I don't know the difference between synthetic and like regular oil. I don't. I had to have them explain that to me. I was like this is what happens when small business owners don't really understand basic marketing concepts, but then they just trust somebody who says that they know what they're doing to do the thing. Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't. So, how would you say that business owners should be evaluating marketing companies or marketing tactics that they should be using?

Well, I definitely think that marketing companies that come in off the bat and say, I have the solution for all of your problems, and they don't even know your business model, your ideal client your current marketing strategy, your growth plan, but they come in blindly with promises. I think it's also the companies. I am very sensitive to marketing companies that guarantee a specific ROI in terms of metrics. That is always a red flag for me because I understand that even as my fellow colleagues seem to like buy and trade in metrics. Because of my email sequence, my client 10Xed their launch or because of this SEO strategy, the client made $200,000 more than they did the last year.  It's very tempting to sell ourselves that way and to buy because of those promises. But my experience as a marketer has proven that those are false promises. Without a deep understanding, I almost want to say... What am I trying to say? Like deeply holistic and I keep wanting to...

No, like holistic, holistic is exactly the word. So, I used to work at a marketing agency and that was the thing that would frustrate me and then that became my superpower. We would get a client, a potential client and the first thing that we would recommend is an audit and a strategy. We would look at everything that they were doing. But, for me, it's like, even if that company came in thinking they needed SEO strategy, because somebody told them, oh, you needed an SEO strategy. 

There would be certain situations where I was like nobody's searching for what your company does. You don't actually need an SEO strategy. You need something else entirely because you're doing such a specialized thing. Maybe you actually just need to focus on sales because you know exactly who your customers are. They are such a small niche. I think that a holistic approach is so important, but it can be harder and it's often what people want to...

Yeah, because you can't sell the diet pill. That's what people are selling. Buy my SEO services and I will 10X your ish. Take this pill and without doing the work, you're going to drop 20 pounds. It's so funny how much despite we have this cognitive dissonance as consumers, we have been educated and we know deep down those quick fix snake oil solutions don't work. But there's that little part of our brain that wants to avoid work and is willing to be misled almost. We almost know we're being misled but there's this little voice in the back of our heads saying well, on the off chance that this is really cool, I'm going to go with it. I think that for me, as a marketer, I've had to learn the big mistake I made early on in my career and that I've cycled out.

I feel like I've finally gotten to a place that I'm better about this is I had to learn not to listen to my clients when they came in the door telling me what you just said. I had to learn no matter how good the vernacular was, people, coming in and talking about their funnel and their conversion rates and their SEO and all this stuff. I had to learn that they didn't actually know what they were talking about and to commit to my own process. People come in all the time saying, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want to do this strategy. Just give me a new logo. I don't want to do strategy. Just create some content for me that will land, and I send them out the door because they're not in the mindset yet. They are as much of a red flag to me as the marketer who promises you 10X results should be to them. Does that make sense?

Totally, totally. I think as marketers we have to be willing to turn clients away when we know that we can't help or they're not willing to be open to being helped or whatever. The whole SEO or paid search thing. I remember at that marketing agency, having a personal injury attorney-client that was like that. I was, I see red flags all over this because some other company in the past has promised him that he can get the number one search result every single time. I'm like, that's not how search works because you search, and different things come up depending on your location and your browser history and all of these things. 

So, okay. So, back to some of the marketing mistakes that people make because I know you have, you have a video series about parody movies of some of the top worst websites. You have one that's like the Theranos website or like the Jurassic Park website. So, what are some of those big pitfalls that people make with their websites that they should really know to avoid?

Well, let's go through those because that was from a series on the top five worst websites, what you're talking about, my parody videos. So, the first one was the Theranos website and that was the website that basically lies to you, that misleads you. It's what we were just talking about, the snake oil website. That's an obvious one. that was a slam dunk video because everybody could agree. But the video goes into some of the ways that people mislead and manipulate their audiences on the sites. So, that's number one. 

The second I was my rom-com parody. That was essentially websites that are copying other people, websites that are borrowing other people's language. Looking at another company, looking at a thought leader in saying, I want a career like theirs so I'm just going to go and copy theirs.  So, the template website, if you will. I'm not a big fan of templates although it certainly can be a great tool to build on I'm not a big fan of using a template out of the box and not modifying it. Let's put it that way.

The third was the Honey I Shrunk the Call to Action website. Honey, I shrunk the kids and that was when you go to a website and you're scrolling but what do you want me to do next. Either there are so many bells and whistles that I can't tell where to click, or I've just got text, text, text, and there's not even a button. So, websites that don't make it clear where you want people to go next.

The fourth was the Leave It to Beaver website and so that was the outdated website. That was the website that you built with the GoDaddy page builder in, 1999 and you somehow still were able to use the tool. So, websites that look outdated immediately are losing trust and people like to say, oh, well, look at this really successful company that has an ugly, outdated website. What I would argue there is they're successful in spite of not because of the site. So, just remove that hurdle. People don't want to give their money to a website that looks like it hasn't been updated in 20 years.

The Jurassic Park website was the pop-up website, the website where you're running away from either videos turn on automatically when you open up the screen and you're like, oh my gosh or the unrelenting pop-ups and just websites that are not user-friendly so much that they become a scary experience. So, those are the top website mistakes, and you could go to see for yourself at awkwardmarketing.tv, that series.

Yeah. Well, and so those are websites. Then I know you also have a video that I think was a little bit more recently about the email, the worst email. You're in a burger costume showing up at somebody's door.

Okay. The worst email. Well, actually, people don't typically get this one because I think we're all guilty of sending it. The number one worst email you can send your list is the I'm sorry, I haven't written in a while email because you're basically just calling attention to the fact. It's like, you're so vain you probably think everybody's waiting for your newsletter you know what I'm saying? Nobody cares. So, I haven't probably noticed that you haven't been in my inbox in a while but now I notice and I'm noticing for the wrong reasons. I'm all about if you've let your email list turn into a frozen cutlet at the back of your freezer I would rather you defrost it by just coming in with more value. So, draw our attention to the fact that maybe you realize, oh, I haven't heard from Mallory in a while but you're coming into my inbox with something that I'm happy to see versus coming into my inbox with an apology, which is like, thanks for wasting that 10 seconds of time that I just opened this.

Yeah. People do that with social media too. You took a break from Facebook or Instagram or whatever happened, or maybe you were a company and your marketing person, you had a little lapse in between marketing people. Suddenly you're coming back, oh, I'm sorry we haven't posted in a while. Nobody was paying that close of attention. Nobody noticed.

It also is just like an unnecessary shame for yourself. People coming back into their Instagram stories like, hey guys, I'm sorry, I haven't been posting. You've got nothing to apologize for. You don't owe your audience constant free content. So, that's a whole thing too. That's a whole self-care part of marketing. You've got to take care of yourself. Don't shame yourself where you don't need to do it, you know.

Okay. Well, speaking of shame though, another one of your great videos is about how you blew up on Instagram cause you got really vulnerable as Brené Brown would talk about. I love Brené Brown but there has been this sort of movement on some of our social media channels to overshare.

I would call it #phoner-ability. I don't think I coined that actually. I didn't coin that, but I will use the hashtag. I don't think there's anything wrong. There are places where you can be super vulnerable. But I think that we've gotten the message that the only way to be authentic or vulnerable with your audience is by expressing extreme emotion or by sharing all of your secrets. There are brands, especially personal brands where that may be appropriate, where there might be reasons to share all your "secrets”, but I think that we're selling ourselves short or people are misunderstanding what it is to really be vulnerable. 

Brené Brown herself, her definition of vulnerability is not what we're seeing in these vulnerable posts because vulnerability really is about doing the damn thing even when you feel unsure, even when you're afraid, even when you don't want... It is continuing to do the work in the midst. So, vulnerability isn't talking about doing the work. Vulnerability isn't showing up on your Instagram stories and being like, guys, I'm really scared to do the work today. I mean, it might look that way but not necessarily. Vulnerability is doing difficult things despite feeling unsure. This is why I'm not Brené Brown by the way. That's why I'm archaic. 

I think we fundamentally understand what it means to be vulnerable as business owners and I get a lot of my clients coming to me saying, well, I want to be on social media, but I don't want to have to talk about my dirty laundry. I don't want to have to talk about my dog or what I ate for lunch or my marital problems or whatever. For anyone out there listening to this who has thought that that's the way, you have to be. You don't! You don't have to tell any personal details about your life, and you could still be incredibly vulnerable. So, that's all she wrote about that.

Yeah. Well, I think it ties back to that idea of being holistic and what we talked about at the beginning in terms of you don't have to be on the social media channels. People seem to forget you need to be intentional. Setting an intention whether it's a personal brand and what you're sharing on your personal social media or as a small business. I've been teaching marketing classes this summer and I was teaching when all of the George Floyd protests broke out. 

There's this thing with brands where some of them are coming out of nowhere, have never had any sort of like business practices that back up their commitment to social justice, their commitment to Black Lives Matter. Suddenly, they feel like they have to say something. Then when they do, they get called out because people are like, oh-oh, you're not really doing that. Whereas I always use the example of Ben & Jerry's as a company that from the beginning was always committed to this and has always had it as part of their marketing. It's not just like the latest trend. One of my favorite business books of all time is "Ben & Jerry's Double-Dip." It's about how they got started. I don't know. I don't know if you've thought about it...

Yeah, now you're totally going from phoner-ability, which really leads straight into brands pandering to their audiences. I think that you're calling something out here which is when all of the things happened with George Floyd, I think a few things happened. I think some brands examined their values and said, oh, wait, we're not living our values and now we're finally ready to step up into that. Those brands, I think we're like, okay, what do we do? What do we do? We've got to publicly make a statement and show our audience quickly that we are in alignment with these values, that this is a part of what we want our company to stand for. The problem there, that's a very well-intentioned thing to do but the problem is what you said is that the audience, today's consumer can see through bullshit.

So, we're going to go look at that company and say, well, look, your, your behavior and your actions for however long, haven't matched this now newfound declaration of solidarity with Black Lives Matter that you're professing. So, we're not taking this bullshit until something like that changes. So, I think for the brands that are seeing that they're not aligned, that their marketing is not aligned with their values. I think the first thing is to be doing an audit, like you said, of company culture, and to be working on that first before you go and start with your megaphone telling people how woke you are. But yeah, this is the problem with the internet is that there's this feeling that we have to respond immediately to everything. Like I was saying before, you could see that I wouldn't call this...

What I was saying at the beginning of this interview is that we feel we have to respond right away to everything and where I would say these brands wrong as they responded right away in the wrong place. They should have responded right away in their HR departments. They should have been responding right away in terms of how they structure the company itself versus let's respond right away in our marketing you know what I'm saying. But that's the easy fix. Also, I'm talking about companies that I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt because the reality is I think a lot of companies were not well-intentioned and just wanted to look good and didn't have any intention of actually making sure their company practices matched their PR.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, we don't have all the answers. But one answer that I would love from you. So, resources, and it could be related to marketing. It could just be life stuff. What is one resource that really changed your life in some way that you would recommend to other people? It might be a book or a movie or a person or anything.

I've got two books for you. One would be The Middle Finger Project by Ash Ambirge and it is a business book, but it's also a life book. She has been one of the only bloggers I've followed for the last 11 years. Because she is such an emblem and certainly working to live out the idea of giving the middle finger to the status quo and making your own rules. I think both you and I are cut from the same cloth in that way. We're really interested in getting through what are arbitrary truths that we've been told that isn't actually true and what actually serves us as human beings. So, that's always my plight in this world. So, I love that book. I recommend it to everybody. I send it to my clients now as a new client gift.

Then the other book that I recommend is by comedian Sarah Cooper, and it's called How to be Successful Without Hurting Men's Feelings. It's amazing! Sarah Cooper, if the name doesn't ring a bell is the viral sensation who went famous for lip-syncing Donald Trump videos. So, she has all these TikTok videos of her adding a humorous bent to Donald Trump's just various ridiculous things that he says. She does this in this really hilarious way. and she's got this book. She's amazing. So, it's just a great way to, as women entrepreneurs especially of staying in touch with our humor, as we trudge through the bullshit that is the world we live in. The beautiful bullshit that is this world.

Yeah. and finally, if you could go back in time and give any piece of advice to your 20-year-old self, what would you tell her?

My 20-year-old self. Damn. I normally go back in time and tell my younger self to start an email list sooner, but 20, nope, no email list in sight. I think I would tell young me to stay single. Not in terms of marriage. Not in terms of marriage because I am married. Love you, honey. But in my twenties, I spent a lot of time trying to find my answers through people. If I could go back again, I would have tapped into the answers I had within which I'm now accessing in my thirties, my mid-thirties, I'm 36 now. I'm now finally tapping into my own inner wisdom and I wish that I had done that in my early twenties instead of trying to see if my boyfriends could figure it out for me you know what I'm saying?

Yeah. I identify a lot with that advice. I would give my younger self that same advice. Well, thank you so much. Can you remind everybody where to find you? They should definitely also follow you and subscribe on YouTube to your channel. Where else can they look for you?

AwkwardMarketing.tv. You can also find a little more of the business side at RKAink.com. Check it out.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Rachel.