The $100 Marketing Challenge

I'm probably closely related, more closely related maybe than you are to the, to the gorillas Gorilla family. Not the gorillas, the band. Yeah. But how are, how do you, how are you measuring that? You're more closely related than me. Well, I'm probably more Crow magnan maybe? Or is it a hair on the knuckles test?

It wouldn't be that. 'cause I'm very, I'm pretty hairless, you know, as a, okay. As designers might go, yeah, I'm pretty hairless.

welcome to the marketing team of one podcast where we have conversations about the issues one person marketing teams face when trying to meet their goals with limited time and budgets. Now, here's your hosts, Eric and Mike. I'm not informed. I have no idea what's going on. Yes. Um, well, you know, today's topic is we're gonna be discussing affordable marketing strategies or marketing strategies that have zero budget attached to them.

Yep. Which made me think of Gorilla Marketing. Oh, not to be confused with Gorilla, the Animal. Yes. Enamel. Yep. And not to be mistaken with Gorilla Marketing. Okay. Which I would, you know, I'm putting a call out there. Gorilla's team call me. I mean, I would love to have you on the couch to talk about some of your marketing, um, strategies.

What is Gorilla G. Gorilla? You've never heard of Gorilla? No. Yeah. Gorilla's right up there with like a Cardi B potentially. Oh, okay. Or like that kind of a musical Got it. Thing. Okay. So yeah, there's, that explains why I haven't. But that's not what, this podcast is not about Gorilla Marketing. It's about gorilla marketing.

Not, yeah. I won't go back and explain it again. So we've sat spent a lot of time on a lot of these podcasts talking about this core problem that people don't have budgets to do the marketing that they need to. Right. And so instead of just keep hammering that home without any. Uh, solutions, right? Mm-hmm.

We thought it'd be fun to try and do a little thought experiment today. Yeah. Play a little game. Yeah. So the question is, mm-hmm. What would we do, right? If we only had a hundred dollars a month to spend on marketing, whoa. That's not a lot of money. It's not. No, not at all. And, um. The other thing we wanted to talk about is like we realized time too.

Time is really short. So we also wanted to say like, we don't wanna say that you're spending your whole week doing marketing, right? We're talking about a few hours on a Friday or. At most a day, a week, a day of week maybe at most. But that's that. That would be a luxury. Yeah. A lot of small business owners, entrepreneurs, you know, maybe organizations of less than 10.

Yeah, they don't have a lot of resources. We go through this all the time, and I think one of the things, the other limitations we wanted to put on this challenge was that it's a small professional. Services company. Yeah. Is that what we've decided on? Mostly serving a local market, so we're talking like tree trimmers and accountants and bookkeepers and maybe massage therapists.

Maybe an attorney or two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Local attorney, yes. Something, yeah. Okay. Let's start with specific needs. Right. Okay. Like they, like they, they're not selling a product, right? Right. They are sell overall selling a service. They are. Serving it to a local, in their local market. Few zip codes. Yeah.

Most. Yeah. Okay. Is it B2B primarily? Is it B2C or, oh, that's a good question. We're more familiar with B2B. We're more familiar. Let's stick with B2B. Okay. Well that reminds me, uh, going back to gorilla. The gorilla, yeah. I'm just gonna read a few things here. I love this. This is an example from 1998. Ninety eight, ninety eight.

Maybe people weren't even born. I don't even know. Oh my gosh. That can't be. I was only in my mid fifties. That can't be relevant at all. 1998 marketing tactics. Most of it's not relevant. Oh, okay. One of the, one of the chestnut that I pulled outta here last night as I was reviewing this, getting, preparing for this very show.

Yeah. Um, but did you go to the library to procure this book? I got my library card out, went to the, you know, no, actually that was the bargain bin. Uh, like they were giving these out for free. Yeah, yeah. This epi, this issue of it. I don't know if they still make these, that that's not true. Like you. You've owned this book since 98.

I bought this book, brand new 98. Yeah. So yeah, that shows my age a little bit. Yeah. But, and it's still got space on your shelf, so there's relevancy there. Right. The, like I said, the funny little chestnut was, you know, Mike, here's a stat for you. In 1997, there's gonna be predicted almost a hundred million people online.

Yeah. And 20% of those people will buy something online.

Well, I don't even know why we're talking about it. It sounds so quaint now. It's cute, isn't it? Very cute. If we only would've invested in all these companies back then, boy, anyway, but let's talk, let's not go back 30 years anymore. But I do want to go back because there's a, there was a page in here that I thought, you know what, yeah, this is an irrelevant book.

Most of the tactics in here are somewhat irrelevant. But, um, there's still 13 principles that I just want to quickly breeze through. I won't take up a lot of time in here, but. These are the 13 concepts that make a difference and are the most important marketing secrets. And I mean, everybody's written there.

Here's my five secrets. Here's my secret. So secrets, they're not secrets so much. Well, unless you buy the book. Oh, okay. So there's, they, I don't know what they are, so they're secret to me. So there're secret to you. Okay. Yeah. Number one, you must have commitment to your marketing program. Oh yeah. So we need to understand that when we are talking about all these tactics, you need to have commitment.

You need to commit to them, like we said, one day a week and you're a hundred dollars a month, your hundred all hundred dollars. And that's a lot of money for people. So we shouldn't laugh. I don't mean to No, I mean, diminish, I mean it can be, especially if you're not a hundred dollars, could be a lot.

Especially if you're like a solopreneur. Yeah. And you're really trying to, yeah, trying to make it, make it go at it. Yeah. It could be a lot. Number two, think of the program as an investment. Yep. Marketing's an investment. We know that. See to it that your program is consistent. Yep. So when you have a campaign, don't just stop, keep going.

Yep. Uh, tweak it, you know, make your prospects confident in your firm. Okay? Makes sense. Okay. Trust. Right. Trust. Yep. You must be patient in order to keep your commitment. That's where, that's where my stuff goes off. That's the, yeah. Fall off the rails. Yep. You must see that marketing is an assortment of weapons.

So it's not just one thing. There's no silver bullet. There's no silver bullet, there's no button like you say all the time. Command, there's no Do marketing command m Yeah, that's my favorite keyboard command. Um, you must know that profits come subsequent to the sale. Well, you, you have to make the sale or you're never gonna make any profit.

Profits. Okay. Thank you. You must aim to run your firm in a way that makes it convenient for your customers. Yes. Make it easy. Remove the friction. Yep. Talked about that. Put an element of amazement in your marketing. Amazement, amazement, or delight as they like to say too. Yeah. Is Do they elaborate on these in there?

Yeah. There's a whole. 85 were chapters on this. Oh, I, I'm more curious about the amazement part. Like I'm assuming that you, you're trying to amaze your target audience. Yes. Get people more excited about doing it, right? Yes. Yep. Use measurement to judge the effectiveness of your weapons. Mm-hmm. We always talk about measuring stuff hard to do sometimes.

Yep. But you know, we'll get into that a little bit. Establish a situation of involvement between you and your customers. No, I don't believe that anymore. Yes. We love our clients. They make the world go round, right? Yeah. All right. 12. I'll get through this. Let me finish up here and then we can move on with the actual podcast.

Uh, learn to become dependent upon other businesses and they upon you. Oh. And you don't buy into that? No. I believe in it, but I don't know why we need to say it. Like that's just like you need to breathe oxygen, Mike. You know, you must be skilled with armament of gorillas, which means technology. Oh, because this is so gorilla.

So when we're talking gorilla and he's talking about weapons, yeah. They're all leveraging technology. Yes. To do your thing. Yes. And we're talking gorilla's, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A. Just for those people listening. It's a green book. It's. Poorly designed, but it was 30 years old. Who's the, who's the author? Uh, Jay Conrad Levinson.

Okay. And this was, this was huge. Back 30 years. What's the tagline there? Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business. Okay. I think it's really good 'cause they talk about focusing on profits, right? Like, and so what's the best way to. To get profits, we'll lower your expenses, so. Hmm. Or investments.

We can't call it an expense. This is an investment. We're doing a hundred dollars a month. Right. Investment in our marketing. And we need to just, just to clarify one little finer point on that. There are things that come under the admin cost, and I would put things like your Google. Mm-hmm. Let's not include that in the budgets.

I'm just trying to kind of put the guidelines. Oh, like you're talking like Google Workspace? Yeah. Or Microsoft 365 or some of those tools that, that aren't. It's purely marketing. Right? Exactly. They're operations to spend. Okay. Right. Okay. Yeah, that's good. So do you wanna go first then? What would I do?

Yeah, what would you do, Mike? Okay. Thought about this a little bit. You absolutely should have a website, a web presence of some sort. Okay. Right. So, um, I, as I've talked about before, free platforms aren't necessarily free. Yep. And, um. I would probably budget around $20 a month just to have a website up and running.

And that would pay for hosting, probably pay for hosting and the platform that'll allow you to update that thing. So Wix, Squarespace, something you can. Easily get in there. You don't need to pay a, um, developer to get in and work on. I would, I would probably, that would be a good 20, 25 bucks of the budget month.

And understand too, that if you're doing e-commerce on that site, the cost is gonna go up. Yes. That is probably 30 or 40 bucks dollars a month. But since we're focusing on, this is our little hack here, since we're focused on service providers, we don't have to get into the eCommerce thing. Good point. Good point.

Sorry. Brought that up. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So there's your 20, there's 20 bucks, there's 25 bucks. So we got a quarter of our budget blown already on a website. Sounds like a web guy telling me this. This is very much a web guy telling you this. Um, the next thing I would look at is, is some kind of, uh, cm or ideally CRM slash email marketing platform.

Okay? Okay. Um, with the goal of trying to own more of your marketing and build your list of your people. Very good. So, um, easy outreach to a mass audience. Yeah. Your curated mass audience. Yeah. And depending on the size of your potential client base or whatever like that, you could even get a free thing.

Like, um, MailChimp has pretty, it's not as generous, as generous as it used to be. Yeah. But MailChimp would be a decent one. Um. Mailer Lite is a really, Hmm. Kind of really good, um, email platform. It's not as strong on the kind of CRM side of things. Mm-hmm. But it's pretty, pretty good. It's really easy to use.

Um, and they have, um, I think you have up to 500 people per, um, in your three, 500 contacts in there for free and get a lot of things done. So, and if you're, those are a couple options. There's so many out there. Um, if, if you're talking the, the, the geographical. Space that we're talking, you know, a couple of zip codes, that should be more than another, right?

I would think so, yeah. And if you have to go more than 500, you might have a good problem on your hands. Mm-hmm. And that, like, you can, maybe you can think about spending more than a hundred bucks a month on your, on your, uh, marketing. Marketing. Okay. So that's free, free. I would say even up to like, let's say 20 bucks again.

Okay. So I would say that at that point, this is, I mean, I've kind of skipped over a couple key things I would do first, but those are, that's the software that I would deem almost essential. Um, I think, let's say it's 25 bucks for a, a more robust like CRM slash um. Well, I'll just even say like HubSpot.

Mm-hmm. There are starter tools you could do if it's just, especially if it's just you. You could get, you could spend less than 25 bucks a month on HubSpot for yourself and have a CRM and the email marketing and all that stuff. So deal flows and there's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of great stuff that could help organize all that stuff.

But, um. Let's say half the budget's gone. Okay, half the budget's gone. You got 50 bucks left, I have 50 bucks a month. Yep. Left. I would probably do some more foundational things, and this is less about paying for the stuff. This is more like mm-hmm. Making sure that you're a few of these thi these basics, foundational things are done before you start looking at how to utilize the rest of that budget, right?

Mm-hmm. So I would, I would build a focused website on. Who I am and my core services, and especially on the service pages, I would try and write in depth what you offer, um, a lot of common questions that people have about your service offering. And, um, I would try and go trying to cover it at some length.

And the reason why is I think if you have a really solid and clear to understand page mm-hmm. Here that you're going to. Uh, that has search engine benefits, right? Like it, and it's not, you don't have to engage in some long content play to keep creating content and boost your SEO. I think one solid page that covers the topic of what service you deliver mm-hmm.

For your market can go a long way. So I would definitely focus on having a page that clearly deci describes as much. There's a balance here, but you would want to clearly describe your service and the benefits that it offers to your audience. Um, don't get too in, don't get too wordy and everything like that.

Mm-hmm. You still wanna be able to, um, you don't wanna bore people to death, but, you know, 1500, 2000 words on that page, um, for your service. It would be great, should give you enough SEO juice as they say, to rank or at least come up in local search for people if they're looking for somebody local. Yep.

Okay. I would also, on that page, I would consider having, if you can do, I think a quick thing you could probably do is have some kinda like lead magnet thing. The goal being to get people into that email list that I talked about before. Right. Okay. And so if. Maybe it's something simple as like, um, a discount on your first thing.

Mm-hmm. Like maybe it's a 10% off your first month or 10% off this something that the goal is people sign up, you've added 'em to your list so you can reach out to them later and that'll come into play here in a little bit. Mm-hmm. Um. But really kind of start building this list of customers that are interested in working with you.

So you have this 10% lead magnet that you can put on there, let's say. Okay. Um, most email pro providers like MailChimp, mailer light, or whatever like that, that it's a pretty simple, like you can send a mm-hmm. You know, deliver the coupon or whatever it is to the people. I would definitely hook up all that stuff.

Have a means for having the website clearly describe what your services are at some length so you can show up, have a lead magnet, that you can start getting more people into an email list that you can curate the website. I would absolutely try and work on getting your address, um, contact information, make it as easy as possible to, for people to.

Work with you call you, contact her. What is your, what is the means of it? It is shocking how many local websites I go to. Eh, I just wanna, where's the, where are they? I don't know where it is. Yeah, yeah. What, what's their phone number? I don't know. Can't find it anywhere. And that local part is going to, is another part that I would kind work on too, is, is trying to, um, that comes into play with other things you could do, but you really plant your flag.

Mm-hmm. I'm local, here's where I'm I'm at. Um, if you can, like, what's the first step? Really think about what's the first step that you want your customers to take with you. It's, it's in the book, right? Like, make it as easy as possible for remove that for sure. For people, right? Yep. So like, I don't know if you're a service provider that where it's a little bit more consultative and stuff like that.

Maybe the first step is just scheduling a call that might eat into the budget a little bit. It's more of a, it might be an operations type thing, but something like, like Calendly or, I mean, yes, if you do the HubSpot thing, that's built into there too, right? Mm-hmm. Like a way for people to like immediately like.

Find a time on your calendar and, and book a thing. Okay. Make it as easy as possible to get that call. Um, I would focus on that too. Calendly would eat up maybe $12, something like that. Okay. Yeah. But, um, maybe more, I guess we're still kind of in this like 50 half the budgets of Yeah. You know, on software to, to make these things happen.

That's kind of in the, if you build it, they will come model. Yes. Okay. Of things. Heavy digital, heavy web. Yes. I, I would say that's a heartbeat of like, and you'd have a lot of other activities you might wanna do to drive people there, but that's where ultimately where you wanna be driving people is to, to your website and to, to make it as easy as possible to take the next step to learn about what you do.

Yep. As best possible. Yeah. Okay. The thing that's interesting about what you described is it's definitely one approach and it's very much professional services, uh, heavy online, heavy. Automation, heavy simplification of getting a meeting. Yeah. I mean, that's really the goal, right? Yeah. Is to get a meeting and then get a call.

Um. I am looking at slightly different tactics and, and these could be, maybe I'm co-opting more strategies that would align with stuff that's a little bit more consumer facing, but I it's also another way to think about too. Yeah, so mine are gonna be very different than yours and I'm going for, you know, I'm cheap, so I go way cheap on this stuff.

Okay. I mean, I. Yes, website's valuable. Mm-hmm. It does help show a very professional look and feel to your company, and I, I don't have any issues with that, but there's options that, let's say it's a little bit more of a visual or a little bit more of something that relies heavily on. Something that is more shown on maybe Instagram or Facebook.

And so the website part of this to me, I'm switching out, I'm taking your 20 bucks and I'm putting everything on Instagram and Facebook. So when you say Facebook, are you substituting a webpage for like a Facebook page? Yes. Yes. Okay. So I mean, I got a hundred bucks still in my pocket. Okay. Now I'm shooting a lot of photos and a lot of videos and there is a churn.

Based on that. 'cause you kind of gotta stay relevant and in the feed a little bit. Yeah, but I'm gonna go super cheap and I'm just gonna go that route. Okay. Keep that 20 bucks. Maybe I get a milkshake, okay. Every couple weeks. Can't wait to see where this goes. Then I'm gonna really focus in on Google reviews.

I'm optimizing my Google presence. Trying to encourage my customers to get on Google and gimme five star reviews and write stuff like gimme a testimony. Oh, I loved Eric. He was so great. Mm-hmm. He really helped me with my brain surgery. No, I'm kidding. But you know, I mean, he really helped me a lot, whatever that is.

So qualify it with some words and encourage your customers to do that again, free, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, it does take time. You gotta get into Google. You gotta. Kind of work the magic a little bit around that. Then, um, optimize if you need, if Yelp is in your world or mm-hmm. You know, in your universe. That's where maybe I would spend my first dollars is getting a Yelp presence that looks a little bit better then.

So then I've got, what, 70 bucks left? Mm-hmm. Right. Um. And by the way, for those listening and watching, if you would like to comment and choose who wins this competition, please write in the comments. 'cause I think this is, it's all about winning, you know, I think, right, Mike? This episode specifically if you wanna go there.

Yeah. Alright. Yeah. I'm throwing it down. Here we go. Gauntlet Gorilla Match. You got five star reviews on Google. You got an awesome Yelp page. Again with tons of great reviews on Yelp. That's huge. Then I would probably approach I, I think that there's a lot to be said about making yourself known locally since that's the challenge.

And getting out there, beating the streets. Mm-hmm. Shaking hands, pressing flesh, as they say. That's a sales term, so go to Chamber of Commerce. Network with some of those people now, chamber of Commerce, you're probably gonna pay some money to be involved in that. So maybe that's part of your marketing budget.

Then I would work on that and start to build up a network of referrals that would bring you business and you start to, maybe you put together a talk, maybe you sponsor a coffee mm-hmm. Thing or something like that where everybody shows up on a Friday and talks about. Taxes at the local. So you got a coffee bill there.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Maybe once a month you spend 40 bucks on coffee for everybody. Maybe more, I don't know. But there's this idea that you're out there in the, in the world and you're mm-hmm. Doing things in person. Okay. Now you could get crazy and you could start to do things like maybe make a flyer and print it out at Kinko's.

Do those exist anymore? FedEx. FedEx. Oh yeah. FedEx. Print it out, a FedEx or print it out on your printer and then you've, you could hand those out, go to church, hand 'em out to people, and you know mm-hmm. Events and things that you're doing out in the community. So that's where I'm, that's my, that's the first half of my, that's the first half.

Yeah. That's, that's where I'm, that's where I'm setting up shop. Okay. That's, that's my cheap gorilla marketing techniques. Okay. Your turn. Can we poke holes in if this is a gorilla match? Do. Is there poking holes? It's a gorilla Match. Match, yeah. Gorilla matches are all about poking holes. Okay. Do gorillas poke?

No, I don't think they do, but no, they more like tear arms off and stuff like that. Yeah. So go ahead, tear off one of my arms. Alright, go for it. This will be a big tearing off of one of the arms. Okay. I don't think it's any surprise, I'm not a big fan of Facebook and I think putting your, your, your business's livelihood on that platform for your page instead of owning something outright.

Mm. Is. Is not great. Um, there's a lot of people who don't like Facebook, don't have Facebook. Mm-hmm. Can't go through all the things, so I, that's the only thing I would argue with you about on any of the stuff you put together. Okay. I think owning your web presence is super important and being able to take, not be at the whims of, um, Facebook and Instagram or anything like that to control your visibility.

Um, is super important. So what's, well, what's the risk if it's at all the information and the link to my, uh, Calendly is in my bio on Instagram, or it's in my bio. So Instagram I don't see as big of a problem really. Mm-hmm. But I don't know how many times I went to where people tried your, your approach and you go to the Facebook page and you try and scroll to find out just a little bit of information and you're not logged in.

I don't have a Facebook account. Like, like I'm not, but I'm precluded from doing anything else because the, the popup shows up, Hey, you wanna see more, uh, log in with your Facebook account or create an account, right? So you're, you're like putting up this barrier to entry for people that might have a lot of good reasons for not, not having a Facebook account, the Instagram side of things.

They've got the profile thing, but ultimately if you're clicking on their bio or clicking on a link. You're not going to an Instagram owned thing. It's, you know, follow my links, go to my webpage. Mm-hmm. Go to type thing, right? Mm-hmm. So I, I think some of the stuff you talked about is the, was actually. If I, in my second part of what I would do with the things right, I would be looking at a lot of those things, right?

Yeah. Um, especially the Google side of things. Like I, um, I would, after getting the website set up, I've got, I, I've got all my local localness baked into that. My next step would be going into Google my business, making sure that profile is. As complete as possible. Yeah, add all the details you can. That's where the reviews come in as well.

Right. Okay. Um, making sure. So get the profile all set up, um, and then look at other online directories where you can have your information put in. And a lot of 'em will let you do 'em for free. Like you can just put in your detail, make sure that all that information is correct. There are services like MO'S Local or something like that where you can do that update and it'll update all the relevant local.

Profiles. And so that's, that would be a way to enhance your local presence. Okay. When using Google. Yeah, that's good. And then I think I would focus, instead of having two different review mechanisms that might confuse people and stuff like that, I would probably stick to the Google Review thing. And I would, I would prompt people, especially customers to, as part of the af, as part as my delivery of the service or something like that.

Hey. Give us a Google review. When people have a location office people walk into, they might even put a little card up on their front desk. Google's those. That's a powerful, powerful tool, especially for small local businesses. Mm-hmm. It might be the most powerful tool. Yeah. To leverage and it's free. Yep.

And they're really good about keeping things current, updated, bugging you. If your hours change during a holiday, I mean, isn't there. Yeah, they're in it. They want, they provide the best information on that. So they're gonna be working hard to promote you and help you. Yeah. And, and make it high quality information for people looking for you.

Yep. Yeah. Can I tear your arms off? You can tear it off. Okay, cool. Which one do you use most? Um, my right. Your right. Okay. I'll just take your left arm. All right. Off with this one. All right. Here we go. Website. Dude, I don't have that kind of time. I got one day, uh, a week. Like, I can't write this stuff. Like I'm just gonna make a Facebook thing.

And if you're not on Facebook, you know, that's okay. Okay. We'll figure it out. Maybe you get a referral from somebody who is on Facebook, you know, your grandma or somebody. Yeah. But ultimately you have to, you have to, to provide. You can't, you're spread really thin. You can't meet all the different people that potentially Yeah.

Would use your service all the time. Right, right. You have to have a, have a mechanism for clearly describing what you do to people. Right, right. Does Facebook allow that kind of, are you doing, you say you don't have time to do a website, but you could do a profile. Yeah, I could do a profile, but couldn't you just pick a.

Pick a, um, template from Squarespace and add that same information into a template. I have a coffee Bill Mike, every month. Okay. Where I'm taking all of these potential clients out for coffee. That's not cheap. Okay. You know. Okay. Betsy's, uh, cafe, she's, you know, affordable, way cheaper than Starbucks, but still, you know, there'll be throngs of people coming to this event.

Okay. And that's gonna cost me a lot in coffee. Okay. When getting out there. And, um. Chamber of Commerce or, you know, any of those types of efforts. So if we had to summarize our, if we had to have our wrestling match personas. Yeah. The Gorilla Match. Yep. Your, your, um, your Facebook coffee. I'm Facebook Coffee.

Your web. I'm Web and Google. Web. Google. Google Web. I, I'm, you know what, I think we're both aligned on the Google thing. Yeah. I think for sure. Yeah. I know Yelp has its ups and downs. Yeah. And it depends. And it's very expensive. So yeah, I mean, that's something that you gotta kind of think about. Yeah, I'm, I guess I'm taking your website budget and putting it into my Yelp budget.

But Yelp's powerful too. I mean, it's incorporated into so many different things. Yeah. Apple Maps, you know, when you click on something, ah, that's where it is. What do you think you want to go look at it? What are your hours? Boom. You know, or make a reservations at a restaurant. So we both have. One arm ripped off at this point, or I think it's just a good bout.

Okay. Good bout right there. No, no blood yet. I, I'm, we've each got one of each other's arms and we're just beating each other with their own. Yeah, he's getting Monty Pythonesque here. Little bit with all the, yeah. What's step two are your plan Step phase two? Step two? I don't have a step two. That's all of it.

Yeah, that's it. Because I'm too busy to do everything else. I mean, okay. I'm not gonna be creating content other than taking videos and photographs of things that are relevant to what I'm doing. My second part, like a lot of the stuff I talked about was just kind of foundational, like that's like, yeah. I think you could potentially do it in a weekend, right?

Like, what, what am I gonna do with my extra $50 and a few hours a week on things? Yeah. I, I would go a couple different ways. I am assuming that I, um, that, um, I'm really hard, hard at work at serving my clients and everything like that, right? Yes. So I would. I would look at ways to have some kind of referral program to make sure that, that, um, wait, you stole one of my ideas, but yeah, that's good.

Thank you for reminding me. That was another one of my ideas. Referral wise, um, we, I would. I would, this is where the email system, the CRM type thing comes into play. Right. Okay. You can remind me that to go back and reach out to these people that I have worked with Yes. And that I've had a good experience with.

And keep them in mind. Yeah. And potentially ask for referrals. Like, Hey, do you know somebody that you, that that would, could use, you know, my services? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um. That would be a free thing. That's what I would spend a lot of my time, my, my time on is, and that doesn't really, um, have to use a lot of budget.

Yep. That's good. Right. Um, another thing I really look at, and you, it, it takes some balance here and everything, but, um, because I mean, I've, if I'm the web Google guy Yeah. Right. Web Google. Yeah. I would, I would look at. With mixed results and everything like that. I, I think the other strategy I've talked about, like having your own webpage that ranks really well, that has diminishing returns because of all the stuff that Google's doing with AI io reviews and stuff like that.

If you cover your stuff and you're covering common, common questions that people have, you, um, um, you have a chance to get into the, like people frequently ask thing, that's another thing, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But the next thing that's in there is, is ads. And I think that if you took a very targeted approach in Google ads.

Interesting. Interesting. In targeted, very specific keywords, yeah. That match what you're at. I think you could probably spend between 30 and $50 and don't expect a lot of results and Google will keep telling you that you need spend more to get more. But, um, I would look at very, very targeted words and I wouldn't look at like the broad match things or anything like that.

I would do very, very specific phrases, you know, when, well, part of what I was gonna consider after doing the math and realizing that I basically got most of my money left Yep. Is to go Facebook ads. Yeah. Because that's even more affordable than Google. Yes. And both of these platforms, you can control what your budget is.

Yep. By the week, month, whatever you want. So it's a lot easier. You don't have to risk a lot. You know, there's other things that you can do that are just really small and, you know, being nice, being kind, maybe giving away certain things. Like you said, coupon is a good idea. Maybe there's other things that you can do that are altruistic as well, that mm-hmm.

You could, you know, not in a spammy way, but like promote a little bit. Yeah. Like, I helped these kids learn about this thing that I'm really good at. How are you showing people that you're nice? By just being nice when we work with people, you know? So that's all. So it's not, I'm not like gonna project like, Hey, I'm nice.

You're not, be performative with it. And like say exactly. No, no, no. Hey Facebook. This is how nice I am. Yeah. Look at how nice I am. No. Okay. That's not, no. So just genuine really just like being, like really doubling down on customer service. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Big time. Well, like you said, in the, in the, in the book.

Mm-hmm. That's a, to me, that's a barrier to entry if you're not taking care of that. It is one of those things that's like, Hey, we're trustworthy. Oh, okay. But everybody, if you're not, if you're not, then don't do business. Good luck. Yeah. Go work somewhere. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about social media, because I think there's, you know, we touched a little bit on ads and Facebook and Instagram and things like that.

Mm-hmm. There's hidden costs and there's hidden risks, and there's a lot of things that you can waste your time on, and I think that. When people say, oh, get on and be, get on social and have a big social presence, I'm not really looking at it as becoming a social influencer with mm-hmm. My strategy. Yeah.

I'm just saying for cost saving purposes, go to those free platforms. Yes. And post, yeah. Leverage those. Yeah. But there's the other side of it, which is yeah, get huge on Instagram and Facebook and then you'll be incredibly wealthy. Yeah. Because of all those things. The world of social media, and this is my take and I want to hear your take on this too.

Um, I, before you say anything, I just want to say it, is the, the idea of social media just becoming viral and it's free and you can become, it's not that anymore. It's pay to play. Yes. Every strategy that I've seen succeed has a dollar bill attached to it. Mm-hmm. Which is because how many millions of posts are put on Instagram every day in Facebook?

Every, I mean, there's maybe billions. I don't know. It's It's crazy. It's crazy. Amateur. You can't compete on that. Yeah. Like you, unless you pay money to those platforms, and I'm not talking like $50 million a month or whatever. Yeah. I'm talking like even just like. 40, $50 a month to boost something on Instagram.

Yeah. Yeah. And LinkedIn. We didn't mention LinkedIn, which I mean, if we're talking about B2B stuff is, is definitely right. It's the elephant in our gorilla match that's. Maybe we could get on Sora and have it make some sort of an AI video of a gorilla match with an elephant. If I had to do, if I wanted to engage in some social media stuff and I was a B2B provider, I, I would focus my attention there.

Okay. I like, I think there's, there's benefits there. Um, I, but um, I wouldn't advertise there. No, that's very expensive. It's expensive. It's not, you know, you have, if we're talking about our budget, I, it, it's, it's not happening, doesn't, right. So I would go into it and I, I, oh, I haven't unlocked this yet because I think you're getting kind of into a trap.

I think it probably is possible to maybe have a. Content plan or something in LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. Where you could like, but I think you're verging more on like this like content creator. And I don't think that in this scenario we're talking about you don't have the time or the, to worry about being a content creator.

So I think you just have to back to what you're talking about, talking almost like about your business in the open and. The connections that you're making. Maybe if you're throw like in your example, right? You've got your coffee thing mm-hmm. That you're doing. Like maybe just talking about, Hey, it was great to talk with our, our, you know mm-hmm.

Um, gorilla Coffee clutch, uh, and uh, just show up there as a way to like, it almost from a brand awareness thing. Like you're just doing it and people keep, are reminded of who you are and that you're there and that you can. And have a educat educational topic to talk about. Yeah. Make it somewhat structured, but, you know, it's, but, um, that, that would fit in the free thing.

You could probably do it in your few, few hours a week or, you know, sneak it in here and there. Um, I think what's interesting, and I wanted to touch a little bit too, you know, we didn't mention anything about optimizing. SEO we, you did a little bit as far as just writing what you do in an honest voice.

You gave a word count, which was really valuable to what? Yeah. That's about all you can do. I mean, everybody says test and measure and test and the, there's your budget. Your budget is gone. If you pay for any of these tools to test and measure. That's, those aren't, they start off with a free offer, you know, SEMrush and those things.

Mm-hmm. You know, and there's a lot of platforms out there that offer free SEO and analytic keyword research and all those things, but to get those are not free. I mean, they have a free offer to get you going for seven days, but not after that. I think if you spend any time in the marketing side, and like if you're this person, like trying to figure out like, all right, what am I gonna do with this little budget and everything like that.

Most of the guidance out there is not geared for you. Exactly. Like, and, and like what you're talking about, right? Like, um, I, I don't think. SEO it like it when you hear, when you do a lot of stuff about around SEOs to use your example, right? Like so many of those things, if you look at the details of what you should be doing and everything like that, they are, they're not meant for a person who's doing marketing on top of everything else that they're doing, right?

They're meant for some like, um, like either. You are the marketer for your thing and that's your only job. Or even in some cases, especially on some of these things, it's part of a team. Yeah. Of people. As we're talking about this, this thought experiment, that's one thing that's really heavy on my mind is that a lot of that marketing guidance and the things that are out there, the social media, like right.

Thing. That's, that's great. If you've got time or um, a team. There's the, I mean, there, there's this thought that there's so many great free tools out there and, you know, getting back on that topic, I don't know, you know, Google is free. I mean, it's mm-hmm. Literally those listings are free. They're, yeah, they're.

Getting paid. Mm-hmm. By all of that data and information, which is what pays them. But you know what? What other really free platforms are, Canva has a free level. So if you're trying to be a content creator or create assets or artwork, or need help with design, and you're doing it yourself, Canva has a free option.

Yeah. Now that's very limited and it's really only for digital online stuff only. Mm-hmm. Don't try to send or build like a catalog in that and then send it to print. Unless you pay for it, you know you can do that. Mm-hmm. It's a little painful of a process, but you're getting a much more affordable, you know, workflow platform.

You know, Microsoft, that's not free. I mean, we've said that's more of an admin cost, but like PowerPoint presentations, those types of things. Mm-hmm. You know, those, that's not a free piece of software either. Google Slides is free. Mm-hmm. You know, so there's all these things that you keep going back to Google on that.

That are actually free. I don't know what other platforms you can think of that are useful for this scenario that are actually free. Other than that cheaper version of Canva, can you think of anything? You're actually opening up the whole thing. Like what, what would, yeah, what would the free, the free marketing stack really look like?

And I think, um, well, I talked about Mailer Light and MailChimp. They have a free level. Mm-hmm. There, there are a lot of these like tools for. Small people to grow into. Yes. And start paying. So like there are a lot of those. Um, so it is possible, I don't, uh, like, I don't know a way around the issue that the really, I see the key difference if we are having a battle here.

Mm-hmm. The key difference is where we choose to hang our Yep. Shingle Exactly. For the web, right? Yeah. That I don't see, I, I. Your, your Facebook solution is, I I'm not, I'm not really aware of too many other, like, free website things out there. Um, wordpress.com is free, right? Yes, you can, but once you get a domain to it, yeah.

Uh, you're gonna pay for, for a little bit more so your custom domain. So there you're already paying. Um, yeah, basically any of those ones. If you want to have your, have a domain that's yours and not like dot. wordpress.org or mm-hmm. or.com or whatever. Um, I actually, I, I just thought of an alternative. If you kept your page to one, the one one page page, or you could hack some things together.

You could use something like MailChimp's landing pages or, um, mailer lights, landing pages as your, as your homepage. But you're buying a URL. You're buying a URL, which is 20 some dollars maybe for the year. For the year, yeah. Um, but you don't have to pay for hosting, which is what costs the money. Yeah.

Yeah. So let's circle back Mike, and let's just come together and, you know, I'll give you your arm that I've torn off back. I can, there you go. Thank you. I'll put mine back on. Somehow we both agree online presence in whatever way, shape, or form is kind of the bedrock, correct? Yeah. I mean, is that the foundation where we're Well, I mean, the reason, I mean, you could probably do a lot of this without it.

Yeah. You could do, you could have a plan to get a bunch of work and I mean, I know of companies that like, they have a Yeah. You know, a single page and, um, they don't care about it. Yep. It's proof of life. It's, yeah. But I think the, the, the reason why I think it's so important is that it can do work, that it can extend your reach mm-hmm.

Beyond what you could do. Like if you spent your FRI every Friday, like pounding the pavement, like knocking on doors, going to Chamber of Commerce meetings, like doing all those things, you're still only one person. Yep. You still can only make so many things. And let's say you did, let's say you went to that, you just killed it at that Chamber of Commerce meeting, and you were so engaging and everyone you talked to was like, oh my gosh, what are they gonna do after they leave?

After they leave there? Um, go on Facebook. Or go to your website and Yeah. Or go to your website. Yes. Go. They're gonna go look and, and see if let's, they're gonna do more digging without you aware of it, right? Yeah. Set that up for the best experience, you know, and then give them a path back to you so you can.

That, that's, that's my mode of thinking for it. And it goes back to then I both think, we both agree on the fact that it's all about trust. So what you just illustrated there is a path to find more and more trust. All right, well, anything else, Mike? I, I mean, I, it's not easy. This is like, yeah, this is tough.

Lot of strains. Maybe if we thought like gorillas, it'd be easier. Yeah. I mean, I'm probably, like I said, closer to Gorilla esque and my makeup, genetic makeup. But yeah, I can't think of, uh, it is hard. It's a lot of work, you know? And it's, yeah, dedicating and being disciplined and like that one day a week, I think that's a critical part of what we illustrated here.

That I, I argue a lot of people don't make time that much Time for their marketing. Yeah. Especially small business people. All right. This sounds like a good place. Maybe we should just, no, no. Sorry, what? I can't let this close without, I, I got real problems with this Facebook plan. Come, Mike, it's the one of the biggest websites in the world.

Okay? Yes. Come on. Yes. But, okay. Sometime ago we recorded an episode Yes. Where you talked about how somebody opened up a restaurant and they just completely punted on the logo and it was the worst thing ever. Yeah. I mean, and you were deeply offended by that. That was a brand thing. This is totally different, Mike.

No. This is a brand thing and this is, this is why like I think if you put your business's livelihood on a Facebook profile page Yeah. That says a certain thing about your business says, and I'm gonna say it's not good.

Like, ouch. Now you're ripping off the other arm. I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm armless. Sorry. I just couldn't let it slide. Like, I'm like, wow. Okay. Like, do what, what does that say about your business? It says I'm cost effective and I've cheap, I've, and I'm doing what I can with the limited resources that I have, Mike.

Okay. I don't have a lot of time. I'm busy making my customers delighted. See, you got nothing. Oh, I've got plenty. It's just they were all competing to get outta my mouth at the same time. Traffic jam in your head? Yep. Yep. Okay. I, I think that, um, it says, I have no ideas.

Cool. I am probably closer to retirement than I am the beginning of my career. Um, and gosh, yeah. I am really insulted by all of this. Is, can't believe it. I know this is rough. I'm shocked that you have this kind of a reaction to Facebook. I just like, here's my vision of the Facebook thing. You've got your logo.

Right, right. Which I'm sure is incredible. I can't imagine you investing in an incredible logo and them putting it on Facebook as your number one thing either. Okay. Alright. Alright. Okay. So it, we've got our logo up there, right? Got the name of our company, we've got the, Hey, we do this one little thing.

Look at all the pictures of us out in the world. Yeah. That's what the profile page looks like, right? Yeah. And then a little button that says like, you know, contact us or something like that. Right, right. Send a telegraph.

Well, I thought it would be fun to just poke you with the Facebook, but Yeah, and I didn't take the bait earlier, but I just, I just, yeah, I can't let it go. Just you were being too nice, I guess. Earlier look at, yeah, okay. Look at some of the landing page built things first. Just, oh, I think you should own your business.

Like you're, when it's your business, yes, you should own that thing. And giving it use. Making use of Facebook's thing. Well, I could see it's a cost effective measure. You're not truly owning your, your. Your brand, so let's, it's not your brand anymore. It it like that's what it's, you're seeding your brand to Facebook.

That's a great argument. That's yeah, it's a great argument. I got nothing to fight you with. I tried, but I, I don't have any arms left, so I got, I can't really fight you with no arms. But there are, it's a flesh wound, didn't really flesh wound. There are some website platforms that are actually free, like you mentioned.

The one, the landing page. Yep. Yep. For if you got HubSpot or if you got a MailChimp. That makes sense. There's also like a Wix. Yeah. There's also those kind of things that give you very limited free website. And that might be all you need. You might not have your own domain to it or something like that.

Yeah. But um, it's not a custom Yeah. Vanity, URL or whatever. But you, I mean, with the Facebook thing, you don't have your own domain. That's domain either. That's true. But at least it's a little bit closer to controlling your own brand and those things. Yeah. Well, since, yeah, I guess you won that argument then since I got nothing left to fight you off, I think there's a lot of solid parts in your plan.

Thank you. Very, very many. I just had to, had to, that was the, had to speak up at the. That was the one. Okay. Yep. Very good. You poked the gorilla, I promise. Never to poke the gorilla again. Sounds good. Until the next podcast. Until the next one, right. Awesome. All right, well this has been great. Yep. Thank you, man.

Let's go get some bananas. I am ready. Awesome. Let's do this. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in. For more information and other episodes, subscribe to the marketing team of one podcast on YouTube, apple, or Spotify podcast networks. You can also chat with us on the r slash marketing team of one subreddit or visit marketing team of one.com to learn more.