Transcript

Nicole Smith
Welcome to take control with Nicole. As business owners we experience firsthand the fine line between our personal and business lives. During our conversations, we will look at simple hints and tips to create time, reduce overwhelm, and help you to navigate through your journey to where you want to be. If you’re looking for smarter ways to work, and create space and time freedom in your day, then you’re in the right place. All right, let’s go.

Nicole Smith
Hello, I’m Nicole Smith, COO, Operations Specialist and Systems Designer from The Artisans Business Solutions, and welcome to Take Control With Nicole. Today I am speaking with the fabulous Mia all about aligning systems and business goals with the magic of fabulous campaigns. But first of all, let’s introduce Mia, Campaign Del Mar founder, global marketing strategist and the real Emily in Paris. Besides having earned the nickname the campaign lady, Mia is an expert marketing strategist and founder of Campaign Del Mar. You’ll love her hard hitting no B.S. marketing expertise to honed by 20 years in the industry. She is a widely published writer for publications including Social Media Examiner, Mumbrella, Marketing Mag, Smart Company and Better Marketing. The first decade of her career was spent in brand management roles for global consumer brands such as Vegemite Kraft, Maybelline and Bic in France. Now she’s a full-time trainer, mentor and consultant that works with you to drive your business results. Strapp in for your journey to marketing glory. Well, welcome Mia, I’m excited to have you here. So thank you for joining us and let’s do it.

Mia Fileman
Thank you so much Nicole, you are such a ray of sunshine every time I see you at One Roof, I’m like, I just want to be around her. I just want to be in her aura. And I’m so I’m thrilled that you’ve invited me on to this awesome poddy.

Nicole Smith
Oh, thank you. My cheeks are like all happy. And thank you. That’s beautiful to hear. Isn’t it? Wonderful, fabulous community.

Mia Fileman
The best of the absolute best. I mean, my love for One Roof runs so deep.

Nicole Smith
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It’s just that I cross my hands whenever I’m feeling really connected. And it’s just connections. So fabulous. Well, let’s talk about you. Tell me all about you. How did you arrive to create Campaign Del Mar, all the things.

Mia Fileman
Sure. So like you mentioned in my bio, which made me sound really good. Thank you so much. I’ve been in marketing for two decades. Yes, I’m old. And so I did the whole corporate thing before starting my business. And I worked for global brands. And then I met my husband who’s a very sexy helicopter pilot, and he flies for the army, which meant that my life just completely changed. Because as a defense spouse, I move every two to three years, I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know how long I’m gonna be there. It could be two years, it could be three years, it could be five years, you never really know. And so I needed a business that fit around my lifestyle. And I want the same for my customers. All of my customers are fellow corporate escapees, and they want that flexibility of being able to be present, or their families or their partners, and also share their gifts with the business community. And so that’s what brought me here.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, I love it. And that freedom of choice that you can create as a business owner, I know I’m ex-corporate as well, many years in corporate finance. So it’s very stuck and rigid in the way that you have to operate. It’s a refreshing space to be in to be able to actually design a business that aligns with how you want to be as a human and also the opportunity over this side of the recording here. I’ve got this real passion and drive to support businesses to create sustainable work practices for not just them, but for their teams. So we have this real opportunity, don’t be as business leaders to do that.

Mia Fileman
Yeah, I’ve been I feel like I’m saving people from having to go back to full time work. And that’s my mission is like every business owner that succeeds because I can sort out her marketing. And her marketing can be successful and she can win customers. That’s one extra person that doesn’t have to go back to a nine to five job wearing heels, commuting to work, paying for childcare, and working for an asshole boss. Yeah.

Nicole Smith
I love it. How did you become to love campaign marketing because this is something that people know of social media and they know of emails and they know of all these things. And when you first start business, they’re the things that you kind of yelled out to do, right but I started to, obviously starting to follow you over the years that campaign this word keeps flowing through. So like, Why do you love it so much?

Mia Fileman
I love them because they work. That’s the first thing is that, you know, there’s a lot of spaghetti that gets thrown at walls and it doesn’t stick. Whereas campaigns have a proven track record for building brands like I like name, a top market leading brand. And I will tell you what campaign catapulted them to success. And so that’s the first reason. But it’s so interesting that you say that about how business owners are not even really familiar with the term campaigns. Whereas I have a degree in commerce, and I majored in marketing. And campaigns are what we are taught at business school at university. So when I started Campaign Del Mar three years ago, it actually shocked me that no small businesses were running campaigns. No one knew what a campaign was. And there was just this over-reliance on social media. And they say that, you know, you’re onto a winning thing in business, if you are like, this doesn’t exist, but it should. That is exactly how I feel about Campaign Del Mar, small business owners stand to benefit the most from marketing campaigns, yet, nobody is offering that.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, it’s so true, isn’t it? Because we are told to show up, to be present, to share, to talk about our office, to talk about us, to connect with our people. But a lot of the time, it is very much like okay, well, what’s the flavor of the week? What’s your what’s your theme for the week? But actually, you haven’t taken that step back and looked at, okay, so from a business point of view, where am I heading? What are my strategies? What am I? What am I offers? What am I services? How are they all connected? How are we actually communicating the value and all the things to our people? And so creating a package, right, that’s what a campaign is all the elements together, that feels really easy. And fun, actually, doesn’t it? Not that I’ve done one yet, watch this space? Maybe by the time this comes out. But yeah.

Mia Fileman
I love the app package. There’s like about 20 different ways that I’ve had to come up with talking about campaigns to try to get people to understand what it is, packaged as a new one. I like that. It’s similar to my container analogy, which is like your campaign is everything that goes within a container of an idea. But first, you need the idea. And then all the content sits within that frame. But my go-to definition for campaign is a connected series of actions leading to the desired outcome. So it is about everything that you do no Instagram post, no Facebook ad, no podcast interview, flapping around in the wind. But all of it coming together in this considered cohesive effort. In order to meet a very specific objective, not all your objectives all at once. But one specific objective.

Nicole Smith
But Mia, there’s so many things we want to do.

Mia Fileman
You don’t have to choose, you just have to choose when you’re going to focus on what so one of my favorite things to do when I first meet a new business owner is to look at the year and go, okay, let’s bring up a Google spreadsheet. I’m sure you’re gonna be like this, so many better ways Mia than a Google spreadsheet, you’re showing your age. You know, we bring out a 52 week calendar and we go, okay, what months are we going to focus on what objective you know, because or weeks, weeks or months, depending on how long you want to be in campaign for. But what I find is that we wake up in the morning, and we think, what do I want to post about on Instagram today, and then we put a post out there. And then tomorrow we talk about something different. And the next day, we talk about something different. And the next day we talk about something different, and your audience hasn’t had a chance to put their pants on to like, you know, sit with what it was that you talked about yesterday, you’ve already moved on. And they’ve got whiplash, right? So this surprises people, this is probably the most surprising thing that comes out of learning a campaign approach is that when I’m in campaign mode, I am talking about the same thing for weeks. Nothing else.

Nicole Smith
And it’s funny because I know I’ve been guilty of it going on but they don’t want to hear about the same thing over and over again. And but then you you take a step back and you realize, well not everyone actually sees every post and if they do, we’re we’re giving them all the different things like that. That is confusing. And I know that it’s that’s what’s been happening but here I’ve also switched. I don’t know people out there have been following but I was so I believe focused on ClickUp for a long, long time there. And so I became known as the ClickUp queen. But what that actually did is it detracted from what my business is actually about. And it’s, it’s, it’s about clever systems design. ClickUp is like this tiny part of the overall holistic view that we support businesses to design. And so now we’ve shifted the messaging. But again, it’s that consistency, where just repeating, repeating, repeating, repeating, probably undoing a campaign in a way, but just not planned. So probably need to get some structure there. But that’s a me thng.

Mia Fileman
That’s so interesting that you sort of inadvertently found yourself pigeon holed with this, ClickUp, which, you know, people are all are always saying, like, make sure you find your niche, and you stick to your niche. But perhaps that was a bit too niche. Because if someone like me didn’t use ClickUp, then I’d be like, Oh, well, Nicole, The Artisans, probably not for me. So really interesting that you are able to like, first of all, gain that insight and that perception, and you know, have that awareness, and then reposition your brand positioning, so that it was away from specific tools, and more so about one step higher, which is systems.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, that’s right. And it’s interesting, when you I look back to when I originally started, that’s where I was, I was, that was that was the message system. And I went in, and then I’ve gone back out. So anyway, I digress. How do we know like as a as a small business owner, maybe it’s exactly what I’ve just described, my journey has been is that when we know we need to come and speak to someone like you to get some experience on how to really shape what a campaign can be how we can, you know, create it. So it’s beautiful and easy for us to execute in our businesses.

Mia Fileman
Yeah. So I usually say that there are a few sort of steps that you need before you’re ready to start a marketing campaign, because marketing campaigns are not 101. So it is definitely not the first thing that you should do in your business. I actually think strategy and systems are the first things that you should do, which hopefully is music to your ears. So we obviously want to get very clear on you know, who is our target audience? How are we going to serve them? What are we going to be known for? And you know, how are we going to achieve that. So you know, just some basic strategic questions. And then we need a few building blocks in place before we can start running a marketing campaign. So we want active social media accounts, we want to be able to send regular emails, whether we’re sending them or not, it’s neither here or there. But we need the tech and the configuration to be able for someone to submit a form on your website, and then to be able to segment them and then to be able to trigger an email or, or an email sequence. That’s really important. And we want to have really great branding and a website that you’re proud of. So I don’t accept anyone in Campaign Classroom that just has landing pages, that doesn’t have a responsive website, that says all the websites coming and it’s like, well, once the website is here, then we’ll talk about running a marketing campaign. But it’s all for nothing to create this great campaign that captures all all this attention, and it leads to a website that’s half baked. So I would say that that’s really the kind of the prerequisites for a marketing campaign.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. Right. And I think up until that point, you kind of still in early stages of business, you kind of figuring some of it out some people just arrive and they have it all figured out from day one, which fabulous humans but um, three and a half years in, we’ve been figuring stuff out as we’re going. We’ve obviously had the systems in place because hello, that’s who I am. But, you know, it’s really now three and a half years in that it’s feeling it’s I’ve written on my board, I am in growth mode like that. And so that’s like the trigger point for me that okay, marketing is not just about making my feed busy. We need to think about what am I actually doing here? What’s the what’s the purpose, this intentional purpose of what we’re doing. So that makes total sense.

Mia Fileman
And it’s really hard to put a a number on that in terms of like, oh, first year in, three years in, because I listened to your episode with Hareta McMullan and she just recently completed Campaign Classroom and she joined Campaign Classroom first year in to her business because she’s just so insanely clever, let’s be honest. And she already had those building blocks. She was just she was just very savvy that she knew I need active, I mean her content, I actually recommend Hareta should be a marketer. Her content is so good But her emails are great. Her website is fantastic, professional photography, gorgeous branding, great, great brand strategy, good systems. And so like, you know, that’s one year in so it’s not about you have to be three years in or you have to be five years, and you just need to have those building blocks.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, that’s right. And that’s the same way over here, who we work with, we don’t talk about six figure businesses, got to be 10 years in, it’s not actually about that. It’s about as a business leader, as a business owner, where are you at in your mind and your structures, your setup and your desire to be where you’re wanting to be? If you’re there, and you’ve got the things set up. Or you’re ready to get creative and make them a thing. Then you’re our people. We can help you when you’re ready. It doesn’t matter what stage that concert. So yeah, isn’t on her. She’s amazing. Gorgeous conversation, I didn’t go chat. I do love going back one of my things on Wednesday morning when our episodes go live. It’s my little ritual. As I’m getting ready, I put, I press play on on the episode and it’s like listening to it fresh every time anyone comes out. It’s just I love it. Anyways, let’s talk about, so we’ve obviously got some business goals, some strategies, some, some understanding how we’re working. How do these really align with campaigns and marketing? Is it that we have an objective that comes right back through? Are we planning it right at the start? And we staying with your 12 month calendar? Like is that, so you’re thinking of marketing at that point, when you’re doing your sort of 12 month plan from a strategy point of view? Or can you come in afterwards and weave, weave the things in once you’ve kind of created a bit of a focus?

Mia Fileman
Yeah, so we want to start with like our overarching marketing strategy. And it’s like, that is very top line, you know, how are we going to stand out? How are we going to be positioned in the market? Are we going to be positioned as more premium? Are we going to serve more early stage businesses? Are we going to go for in-house marketers or we’re going to go for business owners or like really those top level decisions that really get finessed in your overarching marketing strategy. And it’s at that point that we set a marketing budget, and that we set overarching marketing goals for the year. So you know, it’s like, okay, what revenue are we going to hit? How many podcast episodes are we going to launch? And what is our goal for the podcast, like we’re at top 20 marketing podcasts now in Australia, so that was a goal from last year that we were able to achieve. And then we break that down into specific campaigns to meet each of those marketing objectives. So let me talk through this. There are many different types of marketing campaigns, there is not just one marketing campaign. So you have a brand awareness campaign, which is all about getting you new audiences, new eyeballs, getting new people to your funnel, so it’s really a top of funnel objective. And then we have a lead generation campaign, which is taking people that may have heard of us, and getting them onto our email list. So taking them off a borrowed channel like social media and getting them onto an owned channel. So really, really important for a service based business like you and I. And then we have a conversion campaign, which is like bums on seats to a program, a membership, or an offer, or service, whatever it is. And so, where I find that most small businesses go wrong, is that they cram too many objectives into one launch, campaign, whatever they want to call it, a promotion. Yeah. And so what their effect trying to do is get people to know like, trust and buy from them. In the matter of like, a couple of weeks. I’ve seen seven days cart open, cart closed. And unlike seven days, I never I didn’t hear about you until last week. And now you’re sending me eight emails about joining this mastermind, like, just I Yeah, so it’s too much and it’s overwhelming for the customer. So what makes campaigns so successful is that they are focused on a single objective. So what we do is we run a brand awareness campaign. And for two weeks, four weeks, all we’re doing all we’re focused on is building our audience and just like growing our Instagram followers, driving traffic to our website, getting like constantly looking at our Google Analytics and being like, Yeah, this is great. We’ve got 200% increase in website traffic like this is how we’re going to measure the success of this campaign. It I’m getting, I got three invitations to be on a podcast. This is all great brand awareness, getting your name out there. So that’s really important if you’re a new business, because before people are going to buy from you I need to know you exist. So we have brand awareness. And then after the brand awareness campaign, we can start to run a lead generation campaign. And then after the lead generation campaign, we can run a conversion campaign. And then of course, the question is, well, can I back to back them? Yes, you can, but not in your first campaign. Okay, been doing this for 20 years, we back to back campaigns all the time. But it is intense, like really, really intense, which is why you’re hearing all over social media or live launching, burnout, burnout, this is exhausting. Live launching is killing me. And it’s like, you are trying to do something that professional marketers don’t even try to do, which is, you know, try to take someone from an unknown stranger to a customer in a matter of 14 days. Like that’s not feasible in a service based business environment.

Nicole Smith
It’s, it feels like you’re just talking, it’s funny, because you know, right. And I don’t actually connect, I don’t connect with the word launch. It feels like, okay, well, where’s Where are we going? Like, I talk about open doors when I’m doing and even that I don’t really talk about. But anyway, regardless, that felt a lot. Like, you know, Hi, I’m Nicole, come, come and join my list. I know you’re gonna buy from me. Now we’re best friends. Right now, wait, good jumper, like, hey, how about we just like sit down and like, connect and get to know each other a bit. And I think I spoke about it in one or if the other week is, I’m really on this genuine connection train at the moment, because I realized that I was sort of hiding away for a bit for whatever reason. And my, that is silly, because I know that when I get out there and connect with humans, that energy and myself just like, who thrives. And so like that has been my core focus is getting out there getting to know meet new people connect and learn about them as a human and what they do, of course, as well, but like, who are you, right, and making that connection. So in theory, I guess it’s a mini campaign from a personal level, again not planned, maybe I’m doing these things not needing to, but the back-to-back feels a lot. It really does. But there’s this pressure from outside doesn’t need to be from inside. But there is that general, like, you’ve got to be doing this, you must do it this way. You’re only going to succeed. If you do X Y, Z, I’ve found that cutting the noise out and actually just connecting back into; why am I here? Like what is my purpose? Why am I creating this business? And as I shared with you before, after we press record, but you know, really, creating the sustainable work practices, showing businesses and modeling to businesses that it is possible is like my real driver now. So how can we easily communicate that and how can we support people that are really like that different focus of campaign, it feels a lot easier.

Mia Fileman
Oh, much more sustainable, more strategic. And I ta, what’s the rush like time is on your side, like, so I know you’re gonna love this because like, you know, your fellow geek like me, but I went back through my data, and I had a look. And the shortest amount of time that someone has gone from just hearing about me to purchasing from me is six weeks. Yeah. So I need six weeks minimum, I need six weeks, any less than that, and they’re not ready to buy. So like, I feel like you’ve got time to, as you said, develop a more meaningful connection with someone. At the end of the day in service based businesses. It’s all about trust. If someone doesn’t trust you, they’re never going to buy from you. And trust takes time. So this whole like, quickly, urgent momentum, cut open, cut close, like it’s too rushed. And I feel like you’re leaving money on the table because you’re not giving enough time for people to go, yeah, actually, you know, I’ve opened up Instagram. She’s there. I’ve listened to this podcast, she’s there. I’ve opened my email. She’s there. I’ve now heard about this 30 times, which is statistically what is required for someone to take action, they need about 30 touch points. And then they go Yeah, you know what, I am ready. Whereas if we quickly close the doors to our offering, then those people will have to wait and then they’re like, ah, okay, well, I missed out. So I don’t connect with the the word launch either. Like, I mean, launch, what exactly?

Nicole Smith
Where are we flying to?

Mia Fileman
Yeah, it’s like there is already so much marketing jargon and vocabulary that appears in a marketing textbook. We don’t need to create new terms that don’t appear in a marketing textbook. Like we’ve already complicated marketing so much. I feel like we should use the terms that already exist, rather than just inventing new ones.

Nicole Smith
Let’s just keep it simples guys, really simple.

Nicole Smith
Interrupting this week’s episode for a special story, a man was once with his wife’s family for Thanksgiving. During the preparation of the meal, he observed his wife cutting the back of a ham before putting it in the oven. Curious, he asked her why she caught the back of the ham. She responded, it’s tradition. It’s the way we’ve always done it in our family. Her mother just arrived, so he took the opportunity to go over and ask why they caught off the back of a ham. She said, It’s tradition. It’s the way we’ve always done it. Fortunately, his wife’s grandma was also there. So over he went and asked the same question. She replied, once upon a time, the pan was just too small, and it was the only way to get the ham to fit in the pan. What a curious question and ponder to have a look at in your business and the ways that you are operating – that response, we’ve always done it that way. Imagine how many more ham sandwiches this family could have enjoyed over the year. The fabulous thing is that you have the opportunity right now to lead your team and show them how there is a new, better and simpler way to operate. If your goal is to streamline your business, then systemizing your operations is a fabulous place to start. When you’re ready. This is how The Artisans support our clients each and every day. And we look forward to exploring how we can support you to shape that experience for your business.

Nicole Smith
You know, a lot of my business today has been connection, word of mouth, right? So meeting people in a room or someone’s worked with me and told Sally to come and work with me, you know, that’s how it has been. And so now the when I’m looking at my marketing, it’s actually to amplify those connection points, it obviously will be bringing in new humans and being able to create those connections as well. But when people come to work with me, you you now that it needs the trust factor, especially what we do we like in your business, we see all the horrible parts that you don’t want to share with the world. And it’s a real privilege to be in that spot. And that’s why you know, the people who work with us, it’s it is going through that journey and having that connection, because if we don’t trust each other, and it’s two way street, we don’t trust each other, the experience won’t be great. And that’s so I truly want to do. Absolutely. So, I want to come back to the data stuff. Because that seems that sometimes is the what seemed to be the boring things. But you’re right on, like, give me a spreadsheet with data. Like let’s geek out on it. How important is it?

Mia Fileman
Oh, it’s everything. Yeah.

Nicole Smith
How do we start, like if you know, because when you start a business, open the doors, you must get Instagram, you must do Facebook, you must be on LinkedIn, you must have website, you must do email marketing, like what’s is there like a key point of reference of data that we should be kind of referring at any stage doesn’t have to be when we start, but you know, we’re really deciding to take this seriously. And what are the sort of metrics that you kind of recommend us to check in with?

Mia Fileman
Yeah, so the very first thing I think you should do is get on a call with your ideal customer and have a 20-minute interview and be very prepared for that. So find the person that you think is going to be your ideal customer and be like, Okay, actually, what I want is to work with people like Nicole, corporate escapees, turned entrepreneurs, really clever. You know, mums, non-mums, dog mums, whatever they are and go okay, I’m going to get five Nicole’s and I’m going to spend 20 minutes on a call with them, finding out what they’re missing, what they want, what’s important to them, what they’ve tried, what hasn’t worked, what has worked, and just really get those audience insights directly from the customer that is going to save you so much time and money down the track. You know, it has taught me everything that I needed to validate this business model, for instance, that the number one thing that female entrepreneurs seek is flexibility. So that message is very prevalent. Biggest bugbear social media grind is that they feel like they’re just constantly on social media and not getting anywhere. They don’t know what the word campaign means. They don’t know what a campaign is, and they don’t know why a small business needs one. So like all of this is marketing gold, absolute gold for me. And so from there, we’re like, okay, there’s a clear need, and there’s a clear opportunity for what it is that I’m offering. And then yeah, of course we get set up with our emails and we get set up with our, our Instagram. And then we start to look at the cold hard data. Okay, so open rates, click through rates, reached, saved, shares all of that, and really be across those data points. You know, if we’re, for example, if we’re running a lead generation campaign, you best believe I’m checking the opt-ins to my database on a daily basis. Like, right, you know, okay, great, 20 new people today on the database, fabulous, that’s working. Otherwise, if it’s not working, let’s tweak. And let’s go, okay,yesterday, we got 20. Today, we got zero, what’s going on? Like, maybe what I did yesterday wasn’t really resonating. Let’s go back to what I did the day before yesterday, and like really just fine tuning to make sure that we’re actually meeting those, those objectives. So all marketing, really is, is very good listening to your customers, not your brother’s cousin auntie’s mother-in-law, but your ideal customers, like everything I’ve ever created for any brand global or campaign Del Mar has come from an audience insight.

Nicole Smith
All marketing is, is good listening. That’s a quote tile right there.

Mia Fileman
While we take note. Captured, captured.

Nicole Smith
The other thing I picked up from, from that as well as, as, as smaller businesses, and I assume big bigger businesses do it as well, when you’re actually monitoring what is happening, that live insight, we have that ability to quickly shift and change and shake it all about, so that we can actually support our humans to to find and connect with us. Because you’re, for me, it all comes down to actual connection. So the listening is part of connection, it’s hearing what our people need, and then supporting them to discover how they can find it for themselves or learn it for themselves or connect with someone who can help them to find it for themselves, you know? So that makes total sense. I know we, I ah, we use Kajabi. Yeah, for most of my things, and I go in, and when I log in, I do look at when the email goes out on a Wednesday morning, I go in and have a look at the email in the notes. I also look at the podcasts and the stats, and then the opt-ins for us over here we’ve done, as I said, we’ve done some shaking around what we’re doing with our marketing strategy. And I’m noticing the opt-in numbers are going up. And I’m like, Oh, this is exciting, because it hasn’t been a focus for a while. And so we’re doing something right. So it’s great. But I think even more focused in approach, which is what we’re doing, what you do with campaigns, is you get that result quicker, because you’re actually listening to what people want, you’re creating a real easy pathway in for them to come into your world, or onto your list or whatever it is to be able to connect with you. I feel so good. It’s really exciting. But a colleague and a friend Serena Lowe from The Androsia Connection.

Mia Fileman
I love her. She’s great.

Nicole Smith
Right is. Along with Cathy Rast, three of us went away for a weekend and we talked business for like three days straight. We also had a little side game of when everyone said strategy, we might have had to have a beverage of choice. It was great. But she always talks about the numbers and the metrics and being able to connect in and so yeah, that’s, that’s fabulous. Okay, so is there anything else you want to share about campaigns? Anything that you would you know, anyone looking to start out? Really excited about what they’ve heard today? And think I’m ready. Really ready. What do I do? Like, what is that push over the edge or that jump? On the train? Yeah.

Mia Fileman
So, so far, we’ve talked a lot about, you know, what a campaign is and how it works. And then I think the missing part, all of this is the creativity part of campaigns. So, you know, we’ve spoken about how campaigns, bring all your channels together, and they’re informed by audience insights. And they’re focused on a specific objective. And all of that is true. But the magic of campaigns going back to the topic for this podcast episode is creativity. Yeah. And so marketing is art and science. And so we’ve spoken a lot about the science, but my favorite part of it is the art, because that’s what captures attention. That’s what’s going to stop the scroll, for lack of a better term, and get people to go oh, okay, this is really different. And so, rather than this sort of boring, same, same marketing I see rolled out all the time, I guess the thing that I’m most proud about is that I teach my customers how to be more creative in their marketing, and how to take big creative swings and be braver and be bolder, in order to actually rise up above the noise. So in terms of like how to get started, then I would obviously encourage people to come and check out what we’re doing at Campaign Del Mar, because we share a lot of tips and tricks about how to be more creative in your marketing. But I definitely think that like consistency, with your emails, with your social media, is a really good place to start. And then just sort of like really battening down those fundamentals or foundations. And then once you’re like, okay, cool, I’ve got a good rhythm with my social media, it’s happening. I’ve got a good rhythm with my email marketing, it’s happening, I’m ready to take the next big step in my business. And when I say big, I don’t mean expensive. And I don’t mean like 1,000,001 different channels, I mean, bold, I mean, brave. I mean, like doing something that people are like, you’re going to impersonate a guru, and you’re going to make a 90 second film, where you, like, literally impersonate these online entrepreneurs, and you’re going to spray paint and money gun pink, and you’re going to shoot out money for money gun on film. I’m like, yeah, that’s, that’s what we’re gonna do. Yeah, because people are gonna be like, holy boy, that was cool. So that’s, I think, really the, the next step.

Nicole Smith
And that is cool. That was like, hell yeah, that is fabulous. And I really love that you are doing this and you’re modeling what it can be for us watching and seeing what you’re creating. I know that Fi, your, your fabulous friend and colleague Fi Johnson, who have also had on the podcast recently, has also done your Campaign Classroom along with Remi from Sunday Best Digital and I’ve seen what they’ve been creating, and it’s so exciting and I love. Creativity is is what I’m all about, as well, I what we do, I call it creative act, we’re designing design is a creative act. May seem boring for some, but I love workflow design and a systems design. So but being able to move away from the, the marketing, though, you’re gonna miss out into that opportunity and switching up the language a little bit to make it fun and connected for you. And it’s, you can really see the difference when you’re experiencing it from the other side when someone’s taken that, you said a bold, creative angle. It’s just refreshing and beautiful to say.

Mia Fileman
And you just feel so proud of like, it’s something that you look at and you go you know what I slogged for that, you know, like Fi Johnson, I could not be more proud of her. She really put herself out there. That was some really scary shit. But now look at it like that momentum around Peach Business is palpable. Like it’s so good. So, you know, we’ve got to do what’s hard. And we’ve got to push ourselves outside the comfort zone and like, you know, the Guru’s, we deserve it. The scariest thing I’ve ever done, like I literally had to take acting classes to do this. And my good friend Odette when it launched, she was like, mate, you have balls of steel. And I was so worried about it because it was gonna ruffle some feathers. Right? Like it was it’s an anti-marketing campaign. So there it was, it was designed to ruffle some feathers. So so the most successful thing I’ve ever done in my business, it completely changed the trajectory for Campaign Del Ma. Before that, we were like, yeah, cool. Couple of $1,000 a month was our revenue. And then like, it literally doubled, like, you know, more than doubled, like it really put, kicked us into a new tier. Going back to what I said about catapulting brands, building brands, that’s exactly what these campaigns have the power to do.

Nicole Smith
I love it. It’s very inspirational to hear as well, because, you know, as a business owner, as I said, I’m in growth mode. And I’ve been doing all these things. Of course, we look inwards first, we’ve been looking at the way we work and building a fabulous team. I love my team. They’re amazing, but building them. That is really if you’re building insulara, all the time that no one sees it if you don’t tell anyone about it. And it’s a conversation that I’ve been going over the years it’s not big-noting, right. Be proud of what you’re doing as a business owner stand up and share because I’ve had people come when I’ve shared things that come to me afterwards and thanked me for sharing that experience and saying that it’s inspirational to now be able to do those things for themselves. So you just never know who’s watching. And so make those bold moves. Really stand out there and celebrate what you are achieving as a business owner. Because why not? Like, let’s not be silent. Let’s celebrate.

Mia Fileman
Totally also, playing it safe is the riskiest strategy of all because you’re guaranteed that people are going to scroll past it. I mean, if you are risk averse, I really question whether business is for you.

Nicole Smith
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree on that one. Yeah. I love it. Tell us about your programs.

Mia Fileman
So I’ve got a couple of programs. The signature program is Campaign Classroom, it is an advanced program over nine weeks, we create an integrated marketing campaign together. So it is for more established business owners and marketers I have about 50/50. And then I have a couple of programs if you’re not quite ready for Campaign Classroom. Nail Your Email Marketing Strategy, so really, about, you know, getting your email marketing to start making you money because there’s a lot of people winging it, their email marketing at the moment. And then I have Setting the Stage for Campaigns, which is getting those foundations that we spoke about, consistent strategic social media, high performing website, getting all of that ready, in four weeks in order to run an integrated marketing campaign.

Nicole Smith
I love it. So it is really all about getting yourself set up for success, right. That’s the same as what we do here, is get yourself the foundation said so that you can go and take over the world. I love that getting a, yeah, that’s fabulous. I’m sitting on the fence on Campaign Classroom. I’m like looking. I’m like, oh, that looks so fun. Seeing so many people do it now. It’s just beautiful. So Oh, fabulous. Okay, anything else you want to let leave us with, and then we’re gonna jump into our three questions.

Mia Fileman
No, I’ll see you there. August 22.

Nicole Smith
Amazing. Oh, that’s my husband’s birthday. He can buy me a birthday present. Fabulous. Okay, here we go. You ready? All right. What is your go to app that creates these in your day?

Mia Fileman
Kajabi.

Nicole Smith
Do you use it for everything?

Mia Fileman
Absolutely. Everything. Yeah, the only thing that I pay for separate to Kajabi is Calendly. Just like $70 a year. Yeah. Kajabi is everything, my podcasts host, my course, my website, my CRM, my email marketing platform. It’s everything. Yeah.

Nicole Smith
And when when those systems are designed really well, they can really streamline the way you run. So yeah, we certainly have gone off topic, but I love Kajabi too. We love it. Um, Suz Chadwick introduced me to it a couple of years ago and been a game changer. It’s been so good. Okay. Online, paper, hybrid, to-do-lists lover?

Mia Fileman
Online.

Nicole Smith
Yep. Cool. So what do you use?

Mia Fileman
Asana.

Nicole Smith
Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What would you do if you create more space in your world?

Mia Fileman
Maybe do yoga teacher training?

Nicole Smith
Yeah. Cool. You do do a lot of yoga where are, don’t you?

Mia Fileman
Yeah. So I kind of am now a trainer, educator, even though I mean, I’ve never had any formal teacher training. Like, no one’s taught me to train. Yeah. So but I also don’t want to go become like a get a diploma of education. So I thought what could be really cool is combine my love of yoga, learn to be a yoga teacher, which will teach me how to be a better teacher in everything. But the kind of yoga teacher training I want to do is 200 hours.

Nicole Smith
Yeah. So I need to create a lot of space for 200 hours.

Nicole Smith
Well, you put it in your objectives. And you know, plan it in with your campaigns, get the revenue in and all the bits and pieces flow on. And that’s fabulous, isn’t it wonderful. I think as service providers, we do have a knack book. Many of us have a natural wanting to educate and teach. Because I know that’s what we do as well. A big core part of what we do is we don’t do it for you. We do we do it with you so that you know you learn the skill so you can keep growing and building it as your business changes. And it’s I love, love teaching. It’s a beautiful, beautiful place and space to play in.

Mia Fileman
I never, I honestly never thought that I would be I yeah, it just, I realized I actually started this business with this idea that I would just help people run campaigns. And then I realized just the education gap. And so it was like, well, before I can build a campaign with you. I need to teach you what it is. So I just sort of naturally fell into it to be quite honest, but I guess business is a long game for me. This is the last job I will ever have. So I’m not in a rush. And I have very young kids. So 200 hours of yoga teacher training is not for me right now. But it’s on, as you said, it’s on the list. And in a couple of years’ time when I have teenagers, then great, but not everything has to be done today.

Nicole Smith
That’s a really good message to wrap us up. And there’s this urgency that is created by external factors. But really, when we’re actually listening into what’s going on, in what our actual desires are and what’s happening in our world. That’s when you can make really good educated decisions and plans. Very wise words of wisdom. Thank you very much. Okay. Where can we find you? Where are you hanging about?

Mia Fileman
Everywhere. I’m prolific. Definitely the best place to go is campaigndelmar.com. And then I’m on Instagram. I’m on LinkedIn and I’m on Tik Tok.

Nicole Smith
Oh, I haven’t gone to Tik Tok yet. Is that a thing you reckon? I need to be doing that? Oh, there’s a need word. We don’t use the need word.

Mia Fileman
Oh, I like that. Presently Tik. Tok is for people under 29 years old. So if your target audience are not under 29 years old, and marketers, okay, marketers need to be on tick tock because we, trends, it’s our, it’s you know, we need to understand these channels. So Tik Tok is just full of marketers and under 29 year olds. So if that’s who your audience is, then it’s worth considering for me Tik Tok is very much at the moment, I’m learning by doing. So I’m not, it’s not part of my campaign strategy. It’s not part of my overall marketing strategy. Right now. It is very much I’m figuring it out, figuring out what role I want to play on Tik Tok, so that I’m informed.

Nicole Smith
Continuous improvements are always a thing isn’t that we just as business owners, you’re constantly learning and evolving as new things come into life. So.

Mia Fileman
Yeah, and actually, I really love it. It is an unrivaled storytelling platform, like it is not what I expected. I thought Tik Tok was gonna be really silly. I thought it was gonna be like, the worst part of Instagram. Yeah, it is very, very different. And you won’t know that until you actually start using the platform. But yeah, it’s, it’s fascinating.

Nicole Smith
And now you’re a trained actress and all. We got to get those skills in and you know, get creative with some spirit fingers. So amazing. Well, thank you again, so much for coming on today. This has been a fabulous educational piece for me. I always say, whenever we have guests on, it’s at the perfect moment for myself. And of course, our audience that travels the journey as well. So thank you so much.

Mia Fileman
Thank you so much Nicole. This was an absolute hoot. I could have spoken to you for hours. So let’s do this all over again on the Got Marketing podcast.

Nicole Smith
Perfect. I’m excited. Yeah. Well, thank you everyone out there for joining us today. I hope you had the most fabulous rest of your week and enjoy creating clever systems for your business. Bye now.

Nicole Smith
Well, there we go. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been such a pleasure having you on board. Have we connected on socials yet? If not, please come on over. Say hi, I’m on all the platforms at The Artisan Solutions. So I’d really look forward to seeing you over there. And if you enjoy today’s episode, don’t forget to tag me and I’d love it if you could leave a review. And of course share this with others so others can come and join us next time. All right, then everyone have a fabulous rest of the week. And until next time see you then.