You can also watch this interview on my Youtube Channel

*PS. Below you will find an auto-generated transcript of this episode.

Arek Dvornechuck: Hey guys, welcome to On Branding podcast. And today my guest is Jessica Embree. Jessica is an international bestseller, and StoryBrand Certified Guide, and she's a marketing specialist. And she excels in helping businesses all over North America to grow with clear and impactful print and digital marketing campaigns.

Hello, Jessica. Thanks for joining us today.

Jessica Embree: Thank you for having me.

Arek Dvornechuck: Thank you so much. I'm pretty familiar with StoryBrand, framework, and Donald Miller, he's a great marketing expert. And I know that you work with clients when it comes to print and digital marketing and you use that framework in your work. 

Can you just walk us through your typical process? Who do you usually work with? Are these startups or medium sized businesses, entrepreneurs? Do you specialize in a specific niche or industry? Can you talk to us about your typical process?

Jessica Embree: Yeah. So we typically work with businesses all over North America, whether they're B2B or B2C, and we specialize in fueling their revenue. And so startups sometimes need a little bit more guidance, but we're very good at fueling businesses who have been in business for about 5 years or so and helping them with their marketing strategies, whether they're print or digital.

And 1 of the ways we do that is the website messaging, the Story Brand framework, and we're firm believers that if you're not having a storefront that's ready for visitors, then there's no sense of doing marketing in your program because, if people aren't ready to go to your site, if your site's not ready for those visitors, your marketing is going to fall flat and you don't want that to happen. You're going to be investing a lot of time and effort into your marketing and the last thing you want to do is have no R.O. I. 

So we specialize in doing that messaging for your site. P.P.C, SEO blogs, doing print campaigns that are really going to target your core customer so it resonates with them.

Arek Dvornechuck: So today we're going to talk about how to increase brand visibility. And so as you mentioned, it could be PPC, so pay-per-click campaigns. It could be more organic which is, you know, running a blog or a podcast, which we are doing now. And I know that you also argue that print marketing is still relevant. So can you talk to us more about that?

Jessica Embree: So there is a firm belief that print is dead and we actually oppose that greatly. And the reason for that being is print brings credibility to businesses that digital can't do right now. And I think we live in an age where people aren't as trusting as what they see online. We are having an AI trend and the rise of the AI in the industry, and a lot of people are questioning, is this organic original content from people, but print brings that to the table, that credibility, that longevity that brands are looking for. And one thing print does well, is it also creates a sense of community. So if we are targeting specific industries and core customers of your business, we're able to send out this targeted print program that has valuable content in them, and that's going to resonate with them.

Arek Dvornechuck: That totally makes sense. You know, print is, it's more tangible. Not everyone can do this. Everyone wants to do it. And everyone, as you mentioned, especially with AI tools that we have these days can produce massive content online. And it's not always, best quality, right?

Can you just walk us through how you write messaging for the website? Obviously you run some kind of a discovery session with your clients, right? Can you just walk us through your typical process?

Jessica Embree: So typically, when someone signs on with us, we do an onboarding call. So that's about an hour or two. And what we're doing is we're really diving into who your core customers are, what their problems are, at Tulip Media, and we really want to emphasize that problem and agitate it because that's why people are searching for you at the end. If they're having trouble with their marketing, they're searching for “marketing agencies near me” and we're hoping that Tulip Media pops up. So we want to have messaging around that saying, “listen, I know you're frustrated. I know you're tired and you're overwhelmed on what marketing strategies you need to do.

That's why you need to hire us at Tulip Media”. And we have messaging around that that's going to resonate. And what makes us so special too is, we not just do that website messaging, we also look at behind the scenes, the analytics. So we run a competitive end keyword analysis as well, because keywords are very important and not only PPC and your messaging, but how you're going to talk to your customers.

And you want to peek behind the curtain on what your competitors are doing and what they're leveraging in their keyword strategy. We work with a lot of insurance agencies and they like to talk very industry specific, sometimes they get the curse of knowledge and they use terms that no one else understands. For example, a lot of keywords that they wanted to use work around commercial insurance. But at the end of the day, we understand business insurance. It's the same thing, but business insurance resonates with me more. I don't know what commercial insurance is necessarily.

Arek Dvornechuck: Right, That's a good point. That's a good point. So they use jargon. Unnecessary, right? So your approach is basically to divert from that and try to talk about their customers, and focus on their problems so that when they read those messages. “Hey, I was struggling with this and that”. “Here is what we can do for you”. That's going to resonate with them more than just, talking about some grandiose benefits and things like that. 

You run a pay per click campaign. You also write blogs and stuff like that. Can you talk to us about maybe you have a few tips on how in general we can increase visibility, you know, as you mentioned, a blog is one of them. What else? What would you say?

Jessica Embree: Make sure you're able to be found online. Not a lot of people keep their “Google My Business” up to date. Do a lot of community initiatives if you have a localized business. Make sure your website's up to date. Make sure your socials are up to date. Send out print campaigns, do podcasts like you're doing.

I'm sure Arek, you get a lot of visibility with that. And I know I listened to a few of your podcasts in the last few weeks, and I love the learnings that we had and this is getting your message out there, that brand awareness you're looking for. 

And one thing we always emphasize at Tulip is, go where your core customers are. If your core customers are not on TikTok or Facebook, don't spend time there. Spend time where maybe if you're B2B, they're on LinkedIn. So spend time where your core customers are. That's where your marketing strategies are going to succeed.

Arek Dvornechuck: That's a good point. That's a really good point that you're making. For example, I'm not on TikTok. I don't see a point in me being on Tik Tok, doing some dances and stuff like that. um, It's not relevant, right? So, you have to have some strategy in mind. You have to know where your customers are. LinkedIn is probably the most relevant when it comes to business to business and stuff like that. So just to sum up for our listeners, make sure your website is up to date. As you mentioned at the beginning of our interview, if your website is not on point, there is no point of running a marketing campaign and throwing money on marketing because you're not going to convert as well, right?

So make sure your website is up to date. You have great messaging, good design. Make sure you have a Google My Business page, which really helps in Google search results and increases that visibility and credibility. And then you can run some print campaigns. Of course, social media, relevant social media. 

Anything else we are missing here?

Jessica Embree: Email newsletters are still a great initiative for any business. If you start to build that email list. You have people that you can nurture over time. They might not be ready to buy from you right now But build that list and keep hitting them with nurture campaigns and eventually they might turn into a customer. So don't forget about your email list. Someone once said to me if your email list is growing your business is growing.

So always keep that in mind

Arek Dvornechuck: And do you have any tips for our listeners on how to actually approach? Because email is big, I have 25,000 emails on my list which is quite a lot. And I regularly send podcast announcements, blog announcements, and stuff like that. So I can see that people open these emails and read them, but I have a few sequences also in place, but do you have any tips on how to actually start building your email list?

If we don't have a blog yet, if we don't have a podcast yet, what should we send and what should we talk about?

Jessica Embree: I'm not a big fan of buying lists because that can get you in trouble with email spam laws especially in Canada. One thing I do recommend if you want to build your email list and start nurturing people who might buy from you in the future is start putting valuable content that people can download for free on your site.

“5 ways your website is falling flat”. “Download here”. People are putting their email to get that PDF. We're putting them into a nurture campaign and we have that email now, but we're still giving them valuable content. We're still giving them. Information tips and tricks that they might be able to implement themselves.

Arek Dvornechuck: Yeah, that's a good point. So it's called, just for our listeners, it's called the Lead Magnet. This is what I have on my website as well. So yeah, it could be some valuable information. “Five tips on how to do X”. You can have a PDF, you can create it like a PDF, and then you grab that email, and in exchange, you deliver that PDF.

And that way, you get people subscribed to your email list. And then you can just follow up with them, and send them more information. And from time to time, of course, you can, you know, send them a sales email or an offer, right? Okay. So we've discussed the website messaging. We discussed all those things we can do to increase our exposure.

And do you work with specific businesses? Again, I think I asked you this question, but I'm not sure I remember. The answer, do you work in specific niches or industries or just all kinds of businesses?

Jessica Embree: That's part of what I love, Arek, is I work with so many different types of businesses. We have fire truck manufacturers. We have garden centers. We have custom jewelry. We have fashion brands. We have MSPs. We have a variety of different customers and it's what keeps us sharp. We get to know a little bit about every industry. We get to see what trends are going and sometimes those trends overlap. So we take all businesses, all industries at Tulip Media.

Arek Dvornechuck: Yeah, same here. And I know some clients might have a problem with that, but I think it's a good thing because you always get new clients. You always have this new, fresh perspective, or, if you work in one industry it becomes mundane at the end of the day and it might become repetitive, which you do, and that way, the process is the same, Basically, right?

You have a framework, you know how to write messaging, you know how to do all these things, and then you always have this fresh perspective because it's basically a different client every time. I totally agree with that. Okay, so that's great. That's great content for our listeners.

And for those who want to learn more about you, what's the best way to connect with you?

Jessica Embree: So you can find me on LinkedIn, Jessica Embree, or if you are interested in learning more about Tulip Media, you can visit our site at tulipmediagroup.com and I am a bestseller as well, so if you are interested in learning more about my book, you can visit tm.media/double-sales and there you can download a free chapter.

You can buy the book or you can talk to myself, have a free marketing call and talk about anything and everything marketing.

Arek Dvornechuck: Awesome. Awesome. So we're gonna link to your website and to your other website with the book with the free chapter for you guys to check it out. Thanks for joining us today.