This episode is a walk through lessons learned both in business and in marketing. Join Sherry Crummy and I as we explore the importance of planning, understanding the tools you're using, why you're using them, and inevitable adventures in choosing clients, and finding the sweet spot that is our area of specialty. Basically, we're two marketers geeking out about marketing and you can come along for the ride with us. 

We also included a number of shout outs to local businesses in our respective areas. Be sure to go to the full episode notes to check out these fantastic local businesses. And if you're not in the Ottawa/Carleton Place region of Ontario, see what's available to order online.

Learn more and connect with Sherry on her website, Facebook page, join her Facebook community, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Karen: Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining me today. I'm really pleased to welcome my friend Sherry Crummy, the owner of Crummy Media Solutions to the show. Sherry is a digital marketer and web designer who helps her clients build a web presence that grows their business and their revenue. 

I'm so glad to finally have you on, Sherry. I'm going to hand it over to you to introduce yourself and tell everyone a bit more about what led you to work in the digital marketing space.

Sherry Crummy: Oh, thanks so much, Karen. I'm really excited to be here. I've been in business for – it’s going on to nine years now. It's about eight and a half, going into nine. I've been in marketing for many, many years; advertising and marketing. I started about 30 years ago. It's like, "Wow, can I be that old?" Yes.

Of course, everything was print in traditional advertising and marketing back then. I worked as an advertising assistant for a division of the National Defense for 10 years. I decided that's when the “interwebs” was becoming very popular. Everybody was getting online, everybody was getting websites. This was in the late '90s, '95 to late '90s. I decided at that point I better go back to school if I want to advance my career. I felt stuck with where I was, so I went back to school, to Algonquin College, and studied multimedia. I loved it. I thrived.

From that, I got a job with the National Capital Commission. I was there for many years, and then a local university. I worked there. But, while I was at one of my jobs, there was a big layoff, and I was part of that. Then my husband said, "Well, why don't you start your own business?" I didn't know how to run my own business, so that really scared me. There was something called the Self-Employment Benefit Program back then. I was able to get into that program with my mentor, Roy Van Der Mull. He's out of Perth. He taught me a lot about running a business and cash flow. Cash flow is a big thing, who would have thought, and just about how to run your business, and that's how it all started. Then there was a whole debate about what do I call my business, and my husband kept on saying, "You've got to call it Crummy."

Karen: What was your business name originally though?

Sherry: I didn't really have one definite. I was just calling it Sherry Crummy. No, what was that calling it? Sherry Crummy Digital Marketing or Media Solutions or something like that. Then I just dropped the Sherry. That was a big thing though! Now I call myself Crummy Media Solutions. 

Karen: I actually was on Facebook the night that you changed your page. Of course, with Facebook, if you change your page name, all your followers get a notification, which it can be a good thing or it can be not as fun. With that, I was like, "Oh my god, she called her business Crummy Media Solutions. That's amazing." I loved it. I thought it was brilliant.

Sherry: Yes. Well, the big thing is I've been Crummy all my life. When I married my husband, I wanted to keep my name because I was in my 30s at that time. I actually hated my last name when I was younger because kids teased me, but I learned how to make fun of it before they did so took away that from them and I claimed it. Then I realized as I got older that people remembered me because of my last name. Now I get, "You're that Crummy girl." "Yes, I am. I'm that Crummy girl."

Karen: Well, and you are memorable for your personality too because you've got a wicked sense of humor.

Sherry: That's the thing too, choosing Crummy Media Solutions as your business name you know I don't take myself too seriously. If you get me, if you get that, then you'll get me. 

Karen: Yes. I heard the best quote a few months ago, and it was attributed to Sam Frymer, who I'm not familiar with. I'm not exactly sure who they are. The quote is, "Only those that get you deserve you."

Sherry: I love that.

Karen: I love that so much. Because especially in marketing, we're very much focused on deciding on the target audience that we want to reach, deciding who your ideal client is that you want to work for, and often encouraging businesses to not worry about it if there's people who don't want to work with them; because your audience isn't everyone with money. That's just too many people. 

Sherry: That's right. Right, everybody is not your ideal client. It does take a while to really get that though, that you aren't trying to target everybody. You know that it's something that we have to get through to clients on a regular basis that there are ideal clients that you prefer working with and prefer working with you and are aligned with you in your values more than others. There's tons of marketers out there, everybody's not going to align with me, and they're going to align with somebody else, and that's fine.

Karen: Yes. One of the things that is similar between you and I is that we both are big fans of having a strategic approach, making a plan. I've been your client because as I have shared before on the podcast, I really believe in marketing so much that I will hire marketing help because I need it just as much as anyone else. Just because I know marketing, it doesn't mean I am well versed in every discipline of marketing. That whole idea of taking a strategic approach and having a plan is something that some clients resist. What do you say to people who just want to take action and skip that whole planning part?

Sherry: It happens a lot. A lot of people come to me because they know I teach social media. They'll say, "Well, I need to learn how to use Instagram." I just say, "Okay, let's dial it back and say, why do you need to use Instagram? Is it because someone told you that you should be on it? Is somebody telling you that you should be on the latest social media tool?" It's not necessarily where you want to be, you have to be clear on if you're going to be using these tools without a clear plan, you're going to be wasting your time. Many people have said, throwing spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks.

You don't have that much time to waste, you're busy in your business. So being really focused on which tools you're using and how to use them. Being very clear, to begin with, who's your target audience and what are your key marketing messages, then you are actually going to figure out what's working and what's not. This is why I keep on telling everybody, you have to figure out what are your key performance indicators, and what are the ways of measuring that, and measuring what's working and what's not.

I always tell everybody to make sure you have Google Analytics installed on your website, and you're measuring all the social media tools and seeing what's creating traffic to your website, and what's actually getting the sales for you too. It's really about saving time. I know they think it's a lot of work upfront, but in the long run, it's saving time and creating more sales and getting more in front, building in front of their clients, ideal clients, but also building relationships with them.

That's the key thing with social media too is you have to build relationships. You can't sell to them the minute that they see you on social, that's jumping to the roof. You're not Superman, you've got to take the stairs. 

Karen: Yes. Another thing that I really appreciate you is that you walk the talk. You are very good at building relationships with your audience, and you live in an area that is very small, people know each other, there's tight connections in the community, and you've been there for a long time and built quite the name for yourself. After nine years of doing both digital marketing and web design, these are really highly technical areas of marketing. It's one of the reasons I stay away from them. 

I can't imagine having to stay up to date on all of these things, all the changes on social media, the changes in the web, because they're changing all the time. But you then translate all that technical information and distill exactly what your clients need, and you do a really good job of that without overwhelming them. How do you approach the learning you have to do and then that subsequent education for your audience so they understand what they need to do on their end without giving them too much?

Sherry: Thank you for that. I constantly listen to podcasts. I constantly listen to books. I'm not big on reading books, it's hard for me to focus because my brain's all over the place.

Karen: Oh my gosh, especially in 2020.

Sherry: Yes. I walk the dog every morning and I listen to either a podcast or a book. I was just listening to a marketing book this morning while I was walking the dog. It's constantly researching and really trying to decipher what's important to my ideal audience. My ideal audience doesn't want to necessarily jump on the latest tool right away, and I don't either. I'm very resistant if it's the latest tool. I wait a few months and see what's happening with it, who's using it. There's no point in jumping on the latest tool if nobody's there, especially if you have a very engaged audience on other tools, then that's where you should be focusing your time.

For you to be jumping all over to all these other tools, it's really going to be breaking up your content and your strategy and it's going to be taking away from the tools that you were originally using because it's hard to be everywhere. I usually tell people to concentrate on one or two tools until you've mastered them and then you can jump on to another one, but makes sure you feel very comfortable in the first two tools where your audience is, and then you can look into other things, but as far as learning the latest things, just learn what you need to know to reach your audience for now. When new technology is needed for you, you can learn it at that time. It's just like you've got to know how to update a website, you need to know how to use the tools where your audience is, and you need to measure results.

Then as far as getting people into your sales funnel, then you'll have to learn that as well. I think that's what people forget about too, is getting people onto the sales funnel as well. 

Karen: Well, and I think a lot of business owners who don't really have a background in marketing, which is totally fine, you can get into business and you don't need to know anything about marketing. You just have to have a willingness to start to learn because marketing really is such an important driver of business, but so many, I find, don't have a sales funnel or understand how to set one up, and that's where someone like you can come in as a really valuable resource to help grow their business. 

We've had so many discussions over the years like you mentioned the various tools that are out there. We've had a lot of discussions over the years about marketing and the tactics people are using, and the big names, the views that are out there, what's something that you wish people would understand about marketing that doesn't seem to be well known?

Sherry: Marketing is about relationships and building the relationships with their target audience and it's going to take a while and you're not going to get there overnight. I think that's why people get impatient and they want to find the magic pill. There's no magic pill when it comes to marketing and you have to get people to be aware of your brand first and build your brand and then you can market to them the items or the products or the services that you want, but they have to get to know you first, and that will take a while, so that's still part of marketing.

The other part of marketing is what sets you apart that if you're selling, like me, marketing, what is making me different than anybody else? So, being very clear on your messaging and clear on your target audience. People think that they're clear with their messaging and they're not. Sometimes I go to websites and I have no idea what they're selling. If I don't know within the first three seconds when I go to your website, what are you selling, how can it help me, and how do I buy it, you're going to lose your audience. That's another thing that people don't realize. 

Karen: Yes, it's interesting. I was actually visiting some websites the other day and one of the things that I work with clients to do is to actually create their messaging. I was on a couple of websites the other day with someone else in a meeting and I just was looking, "Oh, this is weird. These companies are targeting one audience when they should be targeting this other audience." It's all very driven to the wrong people, and so there can be a real disconnect between what you're saying and what you're doing. That's where having someone who can help with messaging can be really valuable, and that's the importance of messaging and a lot of businesses don't really have a messaging framework at all.

Sherry: The other thing that they don't realize is that you're solving somebody's pain point. Everybody has a pain point and no matter what you're selling, you are a solution to that pain point. Even if it's selling giftware, they're looking for a unique item for their mother for Christmas. That's my pain point, I don't know what to get my mother for Christmas, and you can solve that problem.

As far as the overwhelm of social media marketing, that's the pain point that I help clients with. It's really addressing the pain points, having the clients see themselves in these pain points, and then having you being the guide to get them through that pain point and come to a solution, get more sales and build their clientele, so that's the other thing that is not focused on in marketing.

Karen: Now, you don't exclusively work in helping people understand social media, you also help them build their web presence in terms of their website. It's interesting with websites because over the years there have been various changes that have happened on social media. I've seen businesses, large enough businesses, well-known enough businesses that actually dropped their website entirely thinking they can just go to Facebook or whatever. To me, that's such a dangerous choice to make.

Talk about the web process. Because I know you've had some really-- especially during the pandemic, you've had some emergency work, helping certain clients go from brick and mortar presence to web presence in e-commerce very quickly because the lockdowns have necessitated a pivot in their business.

Sherry: Yes, many businesses have just been brick and mortar and then they're trying to start an online store, but the thing is with creating an online store, it's not just about creating the online store, it's so about reaching that target audience and speaking and the messaging to their problems. Also, marketing that website. People aren't going to find it out of the blue. I'm finding that many businesses, they're trying to make their website look pretty rather than functional. It's nice for it to look graphically pleasing, you want it to look professional, but the functionality of the website is way more important, and the messaging of the website is more important than how pretty the graphics are.

There's not the focus that I think there should be as far as the functionality in the messaging. Also, making sure the website looks good on mobile devices. Is it functional? Is it easy to get to where you want them to take action and to buy or to schedule an appointment? Is that easy to do on mobile and on desktop? That's not a function that people are looking at that much either. They forget to test it on mobile, whereas more than 50% of the population, and that keeps on going up, are looking at your website on mobile. It's maybe up to 60% now during the pandemic, I don't know.

Karen: Well, and it's affecting search rank now too.

Sherry: Yes. I've had people tell me that, "We rank really well on our website when we google ourselves." Well, people aren't necessarily googling your name. Of course, when you google yourself, you're going to rank higher because it's also using your browser history. I always tell people to use Google Chrome and open an incognito window and then search for themselves and search for the terms and keywords that their clients might be looking for. It might not be what you're thinking it is either. I often look at that as well.

As far as the website, it's really about thinking about what your goal is first; what you want your website to do. It's important. Everybody needs a website, but as far as what you want it to do, you really have to be clear on your goals of what you want your website to do, whether it's building your brand, getting sales, booking appointments, scheduling a call. You have to be very clear with what action steps you want people to take.

Karen: You alluded to messaging earlier. I see websites all the time and I tend to look at the messaging because it's one of my things.

I see all the time that someone has gotten clever with the words they want to use or they want to be fancy with the words they use. What they sacrifice in doing that is understanding. If you're writing for yourself and not for your audience, you're going to have a disconnect there.

I remember having a project I was working on a while ago where I had to change the homepage hero on a website. My web developer that I was working with asked me who the audience was and I said the board of the company because I didn't agree with the change that we were making and it was requested by a board member. 

It wasn't for the audience of the business, it was for the board because they thought they knew better what should be on the homepage than the marketing group did. It's one of those things that is very hard sometimes for businesses. To take a step back and put themselves in the shoes of their customer and really have a customer-centric approach to what they're doing can be difficult.

Sherry: A lot of people think the website is about them, and it's not. It's about your clients, it's not about you. When you write it with keeping your ideal client in mind, it's going to be totally different. Even your About page, it's not really about you.

You can talk about your history, but have it relatable to the client, saying something about, "I was there too, and this is what I did. If you were struggling with this, this is where I used to be, and this is where I've come, and this is what I've learned." Then people can relate to it. It's not about your 20 years of experience, nobody really cares unless they see that it can help them.

Karen: I like to call it “pretty baby syndrome” because often a business or a product is referred to as the baby, and you get so attached to it, and you think it's so fabulous, but what happens is then you start to relay all the information about that baby to your audience, and you become that person with the phone who only ever talks about their baby and shows pictures to everyone they meet. They want to talk about other things too.

When it comes to a business, those features you're listing off that you think are so wonderful, they're just facts, no one cares about it, they want to know what's in it for them, what does your product or your business do for them, how can they benefit. We are humans, and we're kind of selfish that way, and that's okay. 

Sherry: It's also how some people thought that they were supposed to do it too, or they may have been told, "This is the way you're supposed to do it."

It's just relearning in that new way but the effective way of reaching your audience and connecting with them.

Karen: Yes, it's a challenging mindset to overcome. You were mentioning earlier that there's a lot of focus on the visual. I find that with marketing, there's two things that often get left behind when developing a whole marketing program. One is the planning, as we mentioned earlier, but the other is what you're saying: everyone wants to go and hire a designer, get the logo made, decide on their colors, work on all the visuals, but there's not necessarily the same commitment to what is your point of view, what do you want to say to people, what is going to happen with your target audience if they don't use your services or products?

Thinking about all of those things is really important to creating that baseline messaging so that you can reach someone effectively.

Sherry: "How is your life going to be better by doing business with me?" That's what people want to know, "How is my life going to be better?" 

Karen: Yes, exactly. One of the things that I've talked about with business owners quite a lot lately is the idea that we learn lessons here and there. You have been privy to some of my own lessons learned where I've had repeat occurrences. Have you experienced that in your business where maybe it's working with a client who you decide, "Okay, that's not the right kind of client for me," and then a few years later you take on a very similar type of client and go, "Oh, shoot, I forgot about that?” 

Sherry: Yes, that's right. Well, I think it's all related to self-esteem and mindset. I've had to work on both of those things a lot. Mindset is a constant thing with myself. I'm sure it is with many others. 

Sometimes I slide back into old things, and listening to my gut. I've worked with clients where you see the red flags off in the distance, or they might be right in front of your face, and you're like, "Oh, that's not a red flag, it's kind of orange." "It's not really true red." "Could I change that color? Maybe. They just need to work with me and then that red flag won't be red anymore."

Karen: The stories we tell ourselves.

Sherry: No, a red flag is a red flag, and you need to pay attention to it. If you see them with your first encounters with clients that they are going to show themselves very quickly, very soon, and you're going to be spending a lot of your time trying to appease and making something work when it's not working. That's a mindset thing where it's the scarcity mindset. I think it's part of that.

Karen: That's a hard one to overcome, especially if your business isn't making as much as you want to be or think you should. I have had clients where I've taken work on that I'll say, "I'm not doing this kind of work anymore, not at all," but then I have a particular client who is one of my favorite people and so pretty much anything they contact me about, I'm like, "Yes, I'll help you. No problem." It's not so much scarcity in that particular relationship, it's more just I love working with that particular client.

Sherry: Yes. As long as you feel good about it, that's fine, as long as you feel good about the work you're doing. The other lesson learned is sometimes I need to put the blinders on so I'm not comparing myself to others because it's so easy to do, compare yourself to other businesses, "They're doing this now," and, "Oh, they're doing this." "No, this is my focus." They can do everything in the world and nobody's a master of everything.

I've really drilled down on, "Okay, this is what I'm good at. This is my specialty. I'm not a specialist at this and this. If you want help with these things I'll give you some recommendations, but this is what I do." Just staying really focused on my business and my ideal client and what their needs are and where I want to go keeps me on the straight and narrow. It's really hard not to look at what your competition is doing all the time though.

Karen: It's funny you bring that up because in our space, in marketing, it is such a saturated market. There's design agencies, there's web design agencies, there's PR agencies, there are agencies that are full service, there's consultants galore. Yet, there is enough business for all of us. I had a conversation a while ago, and the person I was speaking with said that, "So, you want to become an agency?"

I said, "No, absolutely not.” I don't want to become an agency because I have a lane that I want to be in. I have specific things that I want to do, and I can do those things very, very well, and I want to stick with those things. If I start adding to that, it's going to create a bit of dissonance for me because I don't want to be an expert, for example, in digital marketing. I have genuine and massive respect for people who are in the digital marketing space, so I'll just hire them to help me out or refer clients to them instead of trying to keep that business.

Because I think that is also a scarcity mindset when you try to be all things to all people rather than stay in a particular area. It also doesn't benefit your business because when you try to go wide your message is watered down as opposed to when you really narrow your message into a specific area, then people are like, "Oh, okay. Yes, that's what I need," or, "No, that's not what I need, let me look elsewhere."

Sherry: It confuses your audience. "Oh, I thought you did this, but you're talking about this." That's like, "What? Okay, are you even speaking to me anymore?" That happens a lot too. It just creates the disconnect with your audience. I find staying in my lane and focusing on my target audience has been great for me. In creating my Facebook Group and speaking to my audience through my email marketing, everything I do is keeping my ideal clients engaged and speaking to what's important to them.

Karen: Your Facebook Group is something that you started at the beginning of the pandemic, but you've been wanting to do it for a while. Talk about that a little bit. What was the primary driver? Obviously, with the pandemic, it shifted a bit. What made you want to start a group?

Sherry: Well, the main reason I wanted to start a group is because the Facebook algorithm has been a pain in the butt for many business owners. That's my technical term. It's really a love-hate relationship with many business owners, the Facebook algorithm. It's trying to get organic reach on your Facebook pages anymore is really hard. Some businesses are still doing it because they have a plan, they have a content calendar, they know how to reach their audience, they're mixing it up, they're getting value on a regular basis to their audience, and they're mixing it up with doing video and photos. Still, it's not as much engagement as you get on your personal profile, or you get in a group.

Groups get a lot more reach, the posts in a group get a lot more reach than on a business page. That's originally why I wanted to start a group for my business, but I knew it was a lot of work if I was going to do it right. There's no point starting a group unless you're very clear on what you're going to do with it because it is a lot of work, and if you don't nurture it, it won't grow and it won't have the engagement.

I wasn't sure, I didn't want it just be about, "I do this marketing thing." I didn't want it to be just marketing tips all the time. When the pandemic hit and the shutdown of the businesses happened, I thought this is a perfect opportunity for me to reach my target audience and create this support group for small business owners on Facebook. That's how it started, and it was just basically helping them shift to online, but also letting them know about any grants, or funds, or learning opportunities that were out there. That's really how it started.

Now it shifted to more marketing and business support. I had other people come and speak in the group as well at the beginning. Again, people's business needs have changed because of the most recent shutdown. Again, they need to focus on getting more sales and more traffic to their websites. Again, it's just keeping a finger on the pulse of my audience and what their needs are, and shifting with that. As my audience shifts, my group will shift with it.

Karen: That's one of the great things with a Facebook group – it really is more of a two-way conversation. With a Facebook page, as a business, you are the one who's posting, you're broadcasting that content out there, and people engage with it or they don't, and you can have the two-way conversation in comments, but with the algorithm and just the way people interact on Facebook, they tend not to do so as much.

In your group, you had a discussion recently about what people are doing over the holidays, working on their business, working in their business. That generated quite a lot of discussion, not just between you and the members of the group, but between people in the group as well.

Sherry: Yes. That's a perfect thing.

Karen: It's not just a relationship-building opportunity for you and your business, you're actually facilitating a community there.

Sherry: Yes, and really supporting each other. That's really what I wanted a group to be about, is that we can all rise up together. People have said that we're in the same storm with this pandemic, but we're in different boats, hopefully.

Some businesses are really doing well during the pandemic, and some are doing okay, getting by. Some are really suffering. People engaging in the group and letting them know what their business is doing, they're getting ideas off of each other too and supporting each other. I've noticed that as well, "Oh, you're doing this, so tell me more about your business." They're not that far apart, one’s in Smith Falls and one's in Perth, but they didn't even know that the other one existed. 

Again, it's creating this extended support group, and it's not just me giving tips, which is valuable on my page, I'm also concentrating on giving value on my page, but it's the value of creating the community connection and getting other people's point of views that are in business that's the real key with the group.

Karen: During the pandemic, I've seen this shift where not only is there more help, it's very intentional. People are seeking out ways that they can help other businesses, whether it be advice or support through sales. I genuinely hope the shift is one of the things that lasts post-pandemic.

Sherry: Yes, I do too. I'm seeing that a lot too. I think it's not just in our small-town community, I think it's also happening in bigger cities as well.

I see this a lot; businesses sharing posts from other businesses on their page. The local restaurant is sharing posts from the other restaurant down the street. Black Tartan Kitchen in Carleton Place has been sharing posts from other restaurants on his page because he is not open during the pandemic. That's just Ian's nature as well, is to share that.

That's the other thing too, is through all this, social media and the sharing, we know all the business owners, we know them by the first name. That creates that more connection that we talk about going to Apple Cheeks, but other people call it Krista’s Place, right? "We're going to go to Krista's." They don’t call it Apple Cheeks. When you’re creating that, you're supporting that person, that business owner, not the brick-and-mortar store per se.

Karen: That's why those relationships are so important, especially with local businesses. Small businesses rely on those personal relationships. When I was buying stuff from my friend, Molly's Place, who owns The Village Quire in Westboro, in Ottawa, I was just getting Christmas cards there. She honestly has the best selection of sassy cards for people. I just love her shop. I happened to go in on a day she wasn't working, and I later mentioned to her, and she said, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I missed you."

Business owners want to see the people they know in their store, and then the people they know want to see them because you have that affinity for each other. It's a special thing, and it's one of the things I love about how the pandemic has brought people more awareness of the importance of buying local and more awareness of the importance of small business in the economy. It's really wonderful to see.

Sherry: Yes, that’s an awareness that I think that we’ll carry forward. I think people will continue supporting small businesses in their community because they have realized how important they are. The threat of losing our small businesses, our restaurants, that would totally change our towns. I can't even imagine all these beautiful restaurants not being open anymore. People are doing what they can, people are buying gift cards even though they're closed and they can't use it. People are still doing what they can to support these businesses as best as they can. I think that's going to continue, and I hope it does.

Karen: Even the businesses themselves are showing such resilience. I've seen so many restaurants that because of the pandemic, they've shifted to grocery. I couldn't find yeast anywhere back in the spring and there happened to be a restaurant nearby called ALE in Stittsville that was selling yeast as part of their grocery offerings. They were able to do that. It was great. You felt perfectly safe because you'd go, drive up, call them and just open your trunk and they would put the groceries in. You never ever got anywhere close to them. It was brilliant. Businesses are showing up and being resilient in this. They care about the safety of their customers.

Sherry: Yes, they totally are. It's also making businesses realize what was working and what wasn't with their business, and making them look at different things too. Like you were saying, doing groceries, locally there's Generations Inn that I told you about, that have totally shifted to doing E-Grocery Canada now. They don't think they're going to open it up as an in-restaurant again.

They just see this is much easier than running a restaurant, having groceries and doing meal kits. It's competing with the other big names online for doing meal kits. That's brilliant, doing meal kits locally. I'll totally support that. I don't have time to figure out what I'm cooking for dinner tonight, I still want meal kits, but if I can buy them locally, that's amazing.

I love that they're doing that too. Then there's other restaurants in the community that are doing family-meal-type things every weekend. That's The Grand Hotel in Carleton Place. They've been doing that since the beginning, that they're doing family meals every weekend. You pick it up and you reheat it at home. It's amazing. It's gourmet meal. I can pretend I made it, "Yes, sure. I totally made this. Don't look at those containers."

Karen: We've given a lot of shout-outs to so many other businesses, which is fun. I want to encourage listeners to check out what's happening locally because in your town, in your neighborhood, there are businesses that need your support and will deeply appreciate it as well. 

Let me shift back to you, Ms. Crummy. What have you got going on in your business? Is there anything that you would like to promote, and how can people find you?

Sherry: They can find me on my Crummy website, crummymedia.com.

Karen: Before we go on though, your website is not at all crummy because you just launched a brand new website not so long ago.

Sherry: Yes. A couple of months ago. I'm super happy with it. It took a long time. As you know marketing yourself is very hard to do. Even for business owners, it's very hard for business owners to market themselves. Sometimes it's good to have an outside perspective because you're not totally sure what is going to resonate with people and what really are their problems. My new website is totally focusing on my ideal client and their pain points and how I'm offering solutions. Then I also have my Master Your Online Marketing program that I've run two intakes now.

Karen: It was excellent, and I will actually share that one of the reasons I took it was because it had been over five years since I had promoted myself on social media as a business. I really haven't stayed up-to-date on what the various tools are doing and what the current rules are and best practices. It was an amazing help to me to take your course because you walk through all of the major social media tools.

Let's be clear, you don't get into these niche ones like TikTok and Snapchat. If that's what you're looking for help for this is not the place to go, but if you really want to dig into the major networks, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, you're actually covering all of those in-depth but also helping people building a plan.

Sherry: Yes. I don't talk about Twitter but I do talk about LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, but the first session we talk about is creating a strategy plan. I always tell people, again, it's important to have a strategy plan before you use any of these social media tools or digital marketing tools, and it's not just social media. It's not just Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. It's also talking about email marketing, talking about Google My Business and Google Analytics, and all the other free Google tools that businesses don't really understand are out that are available that are free and can totally step up their business.

I do a whole session on Facebook and Instagram ads because it's not just about hitting that boost button. I talk about going into Ads Manager and making the most out of your ads in Ads Manager, and the strategy behind each of these tools. Email marketing is huge too. I do a whole session on email marketing because I think people really need to focus on, no matter what your business is, building their email list.

I think that's another thing that people don't realize the value of is the email list. I'm really trying to focus on people trying to build their email list because that's an engaged audience. It's the audience that's going to more likely buy from you, has the highest return on investment of any tool. 

Karen: That's it. That's an audience that has invited you into their inbox. That's huge.

I remember when I was promoting my business before we did email marketing, oh my gosh, I resisted it so much because I just hated newsletters, and I still kind of do. I do. I've softened my approach to it because I subscribed to so very many to watch what other people are doing, but email marketing is extremely powerful.

Sherry: Yes. A lot of people are resistant to sending out more than one a month too, "Well, we don't want to bother people." If you're bringing value, you're just showing up, you're posting on social media, if you're bringing value, you're not bothering anybody, you are doing them a favor. If you've come from that point of view of constantly giving value, you still have to promote yourself. I say it's the 80/20 rule where you're giving value 80% of the time but you also have to remember to sell at some point too.

You know what, have an offer, a call to action, get them into your funnel, but giving constant value is what social media digital marketing is all about. That's the way they're going to stay engaged. It doesn't matter how many times you post or email people, as long as you're giving value, then-- If people aren't subscribed, they weren't your audience. You've tried. It's okay. Don't take it personally. It's not personal.

Then we talk about all that and then about evaluating what's working and what's not because again, measuring everything is going to determine what works and what doesn't. Then, I do a one-on-one session with everybody too to make sure that they're on track. That's my program, and I'm super happy with it and it keeps on growing and evolving and improving and I think it's pretty awesome right now.

Karen: That's wonderful. Well, we'll definitely include links to your website and Facebook and all the places in the show notes so that people can find you, as well as a link to your online marketing program because it is a tremendously valuable program. I can attest to that from firsthand experience.

Sherry: Thanks so much.

Karen: It's been a real pleasure having you on. Thank you. I'm glad we were finally able to make it work out.

Sherry:Thank you so much for having me.