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Show Notes

Ready for a masterclass in event marketing? Join us in this electric episode as Jennifer, our digtial marketing strategy expert, sits down for a real-time strategy session with Hannah, who’s on the brink of launching her most ambitious event yet. Together, they’ll break down the art of attracting audiences, creating buzz, and ensuring every seat gets filled! From leveraging social media and crafting compelling email campaigns to harnessing the power of partnerships and influencers—witness firsthand the strategic moves and decisions that can turn “available tickets” into “sold out” in no time. Whether you’re an event planner, marketer, or just someone with a dream of hosting a blockbuster event, this session promises to be a goldmine of insights. Tune in, and let’s sell out that event! 🌟🍾🎉

Contact Hannah McKitrick

Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/hannah.mckitrick/

Website Link: https://myintuitivehealth.com/

Instagram Link: https://www.instagram.com/hannah.mckitrick/

Want to Work with Jennifer and her Virtual Marketing Experts Team?

Are you a coach, consultant, or online course creator who are looking to grow your business, increase your income, and scale your impact? Connect with me at YourMarketingMatchmaker.com I look forward to hearing from you.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Hey there, everyone. Welcome back to marketing matchmaker. I am super excited to dive into another strategy session today. I love doing these. And today, Heather or sorry, Hannah McKittrick has agreed to join me in playing in this space. So we always start these off with Hannah, tell me about who you are, what you do, who you serve, and see if we can’t dive in from there into your marketing.

Hannah McKitrick 

Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. And so my name is Hannah, not Heather. I am an alchemical culinary healer. And my mission is to really pump the flavor and fun back into not only food but your life. And so, I work with women, a lot of a lot of women who are single or live alone are empty nesters and really looking to bring more connection into their mind body soul. And really nurture what I call soul health, which is a combination of feeling happy, feeling light, feeling connected to others, and just having fun. And so the vessel in which I deliver that in our mind, body, soul healthy cooking programs virtually. And then also culinary wellness retreats in person in Italy. And those programs, the women really get a felt experience of how the energy that they bring to cooking, because I’m all about play and light can really shift their entire being in a really magical alchemical way, if you will. So that’s kind of where the title comes from.

Jennifer Tamborski 

That’s really cool. So I love the fact that you’re going to Italy, that’s always you know, really sets you apart from every other nutritionists, Coach, what, whatever you want to define yourself as it definitely sets you apart there. So tell me how you’ve been attracting and gaining leads up until this point, like what is your marketing looks like for your business?

Hannah McKitrick 

Yes, so it’s interesting. So I just finished a mastermind, I call it Embody Your Light Mastermind that had the retreat in Italy. And after that, like during that retreat, I offered the women, you know, to do this program again next year. And almost everyone signed up again. And so repeat customers, I would say, clients and where I’ve, and I’ve met a lot of them. A lot of them serendipitously or referrals are in person. And I’m beginning to realize that in person is like, really beneficial for me if I can organically get in a room, and people organically like ask what I’m doing, then that is pretty successful. And I basically am at a point where I have pretty good client retention, but I want new clients and, um and so yeah, that’s kind of where I’m at. And I haven’t like, honed in on my, you know, flow with that yet. I’m still like, honestly, I only just realized how imperative in person is for me because I started my business during the pandemic. So that wasn’t even an option. But now I’m like, oh, most times that I go to like an event like something happens. So and yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Is okay. So networking, obviously in person networking is kind of what you’re you’re discussing getting in and meeting people in person. Is that really how you want to grow your business? Or is it.. Do you think it’s required?

Hannah McKitrick 

So, in person networking is one option, but also what I’m saying is like, I’ll go on a personal retreat, like and I’ll meet people and then they’ll work with me right? Or like what it feels more exciting than like going to a networking event is speaking on stage somewhere and so I’ve I’ve done I’m like just wanting to like I have one lined up for November I did want in June, but it’s not like it. It feels like death for me to like Google search like events that combine spirituality and women who want grow themselves and are like, successful? And it’s like what? You know? Because yeah,

Jennifer Tamborski 

no, I can completely understand that that’s, I guess having a speaker coach, right or, or a speaker Booker, like someone who books speaking events is probably a great way for you to grow that side of the lead generation. I would say though, how many of those a year can you do? And how many clients? Do you? Are you going to get from those type of events?

Hannah McKitrick 

Um, I have time, you know, like, I’m pretty efficient with things. And so, I mean, I could do at least once a month, if they’re, if they’re local more. The last two that I went to, I flew to. And it’s, like, it’s like, right, like, that’s the question of the game, like, how much?

Jennifer Tamborski 

Yeah, well, let’s talk about your goal. Like, what is the goal for the business? How many clients? I know. So when you come on the show, I gave you an intake sheet for to get some information. And on there, you said you wanted to earn 250k? A year? What does that look like client wise? How many clients do you need? What is the you know? How many leads do you need in order to get to those clients?

Hannah McKitrick 

So that would be about 25, to 30, okay, in my high level program. And so like, this year, I’m about halfway there. And I’m filling a program that begins in January, and the retreat is in May. So it’s like, it’s a four month program that includes the retreat. So I have up to, you know, 15 spots available on that. And so that’s kind of like my, you know, short term goal from now.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Right, is to fill those 15 spots. When you go to these events, these speaking events and such, are you how many? How many leads do you get from them on average?

Hannah McKitrick 

Um, so the one that I just went to in June, there was 31 people and three people signed up for my middle tiered program cook well, where we just make healthy cooking fun. And so they’re in that and they could potentially convert to the higher program. And that they signed up like on the spot. And so that’s kind of like the concrete evidence that I have the, you know, like, I only just started doing the speaking things like, Well, I did one other speaking. I was just I was just given an award on stage and had to say what I did to the audience and then when I got off for people signed up for like that middle, well program. So I don’t I don’t really have concrete numbers, like I know, that’s probably not the best for the market.

Jennifer Tamborski 

You’re, you’re in that starting position of your business. So you’re still kind of gathering that information. Tell me about your value ladder. What does that look like? Because you said you have a middle tier. So do you have a bottom tier as well?

Hannah McKitrick 

Um, yeah, so like in September for instance, I’m doing something called a cook lighter challenge like a three day let’s see how fun we can make this type of challenge and how light it can be. And and then I have my middle one which is cook well and that is a 10 week virtual program where we literally do like virtual cooking classes with a small cohort and also bring in some of that self growth healing energetic work because it’s all connected and what I do and then I have my four month and body or light mastermind with the retreat and that is really about like, what it’s what it’s what life is like when you can like literally be that lightness that like someone thinks that we’ll get from following a diet which is never true. I don’t I don’t do teach diets I keep it very simple and very flavorful. And yeah, so the light it’s like it’s like people take themselves so seriously, and there’s just no need and like I’m guilty of that like for sure I’ll I love a good like mind, you know, battle with myself but like do I really know and so that’s why I create that container. So that people You can like surround themselves with that kind of high vibrating energy and then absorb it and entrained to that.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Yeah. So I want to I just want to be clear that I understand your business model currently. So the first four months of the year is the mastermind. So January to April ish with that retreat in it. And then the rest of the months are to fill the mastermind or like, how does that work?

Hannah McKitrick 

So last year, this year, I did one mastermind. And I’m doing three Cook well programs, the 10 week ones.

Jennifer Tamborski

Uh huh.

Hannah McKitrick

And then next year, I’m actually doing two masterminds. So one begins in January, and one begins in July of 2024. And the July one is actually almost already sold out. From just past clients. We’re going to Greece. And so now like, I, I have like a cook while program, the 10. Week, one beginning in September. And then also, yeah, the mastermind beginning in January. So I’m kind of like, filtering people into those. Now, yeah, so

Jennifer Tamborski 

it sounds like, from my perspective, it sounds like the best way for you to grow and scale your business is going to be focusing in on that value ladder, right? Bringing people in using that three day challenge, whatever, whatever you want to call it, but that three day training, to sell them into the middle point, and then taking those people and moving them up. Because the whole point of a funnel is you take as many people at the top and then you start funneling them down to that high ticket.

There’s a lot of people out there that could use your services. But they may not be able to afford the high end one and they want to jump into that middle tier, there are going to be people that would like to get to know you a little bit more before they invest in the high end one.

So I think if you focus a little bit more on filling those two, the the two big ones will end up filling themselves, right just with with the people, like you said, with your returning people, or the people that you sell that middle tier offer to. And I think I definitely think speaking is a great way to do it. I think if you really want to scale. I don’t know if there’s enough speaking engagements for you to run your business and speak. Right. Like I don’t I don’t know, I think there might be a funnel or networking or paid traffic or something that’s going to get you in front of more people a bigger audience in in a shorter period of time.

Hannah McKitrick 

Yeah, yeah. Like I’ve definitely been focusing on selling the challenge now. It’s just hard because I get such an instant gratification and conversion from in person that like, I don’t know.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s fast. I’m not saying to give it up. Absolutely. Continue doing it. And I would say your instant gratification is three sales. Well, what if you could sell three sales a week? By doing it a little more? Automated, a little less in person?

Hannah McKitrick 

Yeah, I mean, that sounds good, too.

Jennifer Tamborski 

So, and because we don’t really know, I mean, I definitely I’m all for speaking, I think it’s a great way to bring in high ticket clients, I think it’s a great way to, to get in front of people. I just think if you’re really looking to scale, you need something that’s going to bring in them more consistently, right?

You get people on your schedule, you get people on your whatever, however, your sales processes on a daily, weekly monthly basis rather than one event that you may or may not get people from. So I think you just,.. marketing isn’t a this or that it’s multi layer, right? So adding in something else on top of your, your presentations, and let’s be honest, all speaking is is a webinar in front of people live instead of virtually,

Hannah McKitrick 

right. And so like what would you recommend as like a first step to doing that?

Jennifer Tamborski 

So I would say either you’re looking at doing Some kind of webinar or some kind of of training, you that can sell either your mid tier or your low tier offer, whichever one you want to focus on, I would personally sell the mid tier, as long as it’s less than $5,000, you can easily sell that on a webinar. So I’d focus on selling that mid tier offer, and do a couple of you don’t have to do ads I love. Obviously, we run ads in our company, it’s part of what we do. So I always love them. And you can do it organically reach out into your community, reach out into your groups on Facebook, on social media, all of them LinkedIn, whatever your Facebook is, and also all of your previous clients and say, Hey, I’m doing this live webinar training, who do you know that needs to attend? And just fill that up, do do those at least once a month, while you’re also trying to fill in the live speaking engagements. And if you I mean, if all you have is time going to to create that. So when you do those live speaking engagements, what you’re talking about,

Hannah McKitrick 

um, the one that I’m doing in November is cooking as your next business strategy. And it’s kind of talking about the interconnectedness of like, the Mind, Body Soul, and also like the energy that you put into your body and that you’re emitting and how that attracts success into your life.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Yeah. Obviously, and what about the last one? Was it the same topic that that ended up? There are people that signed up immediately was what was the topic there?

Hannah McKitrick 

Well, so that one, I was a sponsor. Okay. So I only like gave like a three minute intro on stage. And then people would like, come and visit my booth. So it was kind of talking about making your health fun and sustainable, which is what I do.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I think playing with some topics to find the one that’s actually going to resonate with your audience is going to be key. Right? So starting with the topic that you’re doing in November, obviously, somebody was interested, or they wouldn’t have booked you. But starting with that, and then maybe trying a couple of other ones.

Between now, let’s be honest, at least between now and and November, November and December, people take off on their health mess. So you have September, October, to do several webinars to see if you can’t fill up some of these other pieces. What’s your sales process look like? For? Do you have one for somebody that?

Hannah McKitrick 

Um, yeah, so like I did. Cooking for the mind, body and soul workshop in like, April or March or something. And after that, I sold people into the mid level one, and I just gave them a link. Okay. But for someone new, I’ll have a sales call,

Jennifer Tamborski 

okay. Okay. Doing a sales call is great, because it will give you some feedback on which level would be better for them. Right. So having a webinar that ends like your call to action is to get on a sales call with you, especially if it’s ice cold traffic people have been referred to you, but they still have never met you kind of thing. Getting on a call with them can help you to indicate for you which one would be better for them, they can buy into which one which will help you fill that January cohort as well as the other levels.

But I definitely think if you think about January, as your goal to that’s when people step into their health, right, that’s when they’re going to buy for. So if you think of your health system, that middle one and start selling that as well, like hard selling it in January, you’re able to create sustainable revenue through that, which allows you to then take those people and move them up instead of trying to find cold people to sell into a 5,10,15, $20,000 package.

Hannah McKitrick 

Yeah, no, that makes sense. And like, that’s like, it’s like the stuff I’m doing, you know, I just like I just want it like faster and like, you know, like, easier like now because I’m like, yeah, like I’m doing all that stuff but like, I’m not sold out yet. Why haven’t I sold out yet?

Jennifer Tamborski 

Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing, when we’re talking about those, when we’re talking to talking about scaling to 250, 500 million, those kinds of things, it is it becomes about that value ladder. It’s about bringing in a lot of people into the low and the mid tier so that you can have a small amount of people in that high tier.

Hannah McKitrick 

And so is that what you help ads with, like fill up, things like that?

Jennifer Tamborski 

Yeah. So we usually I suggest for I suggest, if you’re going to run ads, your mid tier offer needs to be 500 to 1000. And up from there, like you can have higher tier offers, but you need, you need enough money, like if you need to be able to have sold enough people to cover your ad spend, right. So if you’re going to bring in someone at $500, you need to know that you need to sell 10 In order to cover your ad spend, if that’s what your ad spend is it can it can variable, like those aren’t hard and true numbers.

And $500 is about as low as you want to run ads to if your if your offer is lower than that, I don’t know that you get the ROI out of ads. So that’s why that mid tier is, as long as it’s less than $2,500. And more than $500. in that ballpark ads can become really beneficial because they can bring in people faster.

That’s I actually have a podcast that I recorded on using ADS as a feedback loop, right? Because it can tell you really quickly that this messaging works. And this audience is working and this so like I can run ads for a week and know that message is not hitting it is it’s not we need to adjust, we need to pivot, you may not need to throw everything out. It’s just a pivot on what’s going to hit and then doing a webinar. I have one client right now that does it every two weeks. And as we fill it so that she gets more comfortable and gets more people into her system, so she can then move them up into her her offer. So it’s just depends on the client. But yeah, that’s what we use ads for is to speed up the process.

Hannah McKitrick 

And how long do you find that it usually takes to like gain traction, like a couple of months, couple of weeks…

Jennifer Tamborski 

It’s all gonna depend on whether we get the messaging right the first time or not. I’ve had clients in the past that we’ve literally launched them once and they skyrocketed in a couple of weeks. And then other clients were like, yeah, that message just isn’t hitting, we had to keep tweaking.

So it’s whether or not my clients know their audience well enough to create that that message in that thing, I would say 30 to 90 days is is on average. If you are really dialed into who you work with, and what they want to hear, you can definitely get ROI within 30 to 90 days depending on on those factors.

Hannah McKitrick 

So interesting. Yeah.

Jennifer Tamborski 

Ads are fun, I will admit that I love them. And they’re not for everybody. It all just depends on the on the business and what makes you comfortable. Because if you’re not comfortable doing something like a webinar repeatedly or even different webinars, it’s not going to work because you have to have you have to be giving them something in order to get your email address in order to nurture them in order to get them to buy. So

Hannah McKitrick 

Right right. Right. great perspective.

Jennifer Tamborski 

So is there so when it comes to your business, is there any other questions you have about your marketing or anywhere else we can take this little journey?

Hannah McKitrick 

Um, yeah, if I were to hire someone who would you recommend? Specifically..

Jennifer Tamborski 

For?

Hannah McKitrick 

like yeah, um, knowing my end goal, right and you kind of know Here’s where I’m at, like, Would it be someone to like book speaking engagements? Or, like? Do you know what I mean?

Jennifer Tamborski 

Yeah, it’s going to depend on the speed at which you want to do this. There are only so many speaking engagements out there, like you said that the idea of searching for speaking engagements that fall into your criteria is exhausting to you. So absolutely hire a speaker. And whatever they call them, the speaker, Booker for that. And if you want it to go faster, you’re going to need to look at something else. Because there are only so many of those per year that are out there. So only so many opportunities.

Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get on people’s podcasts. And it doesn’t mean that you can’t get in front of other people’s audiences to do these kinds of things more organically, or, you know, with less of a monetary investment involved, it’s more of like finding the right people to get on on their stages to contact their audiences. It all again, is going to depend on your speed at which you want to go.

Hannah McKitrick

Got it.

Jennifer Tamborski

So, here’s the thing, everybody goes at the speed they want. When it comes to the marketing, everybody gets to decide how they’re going to take their business to the next level and what’s comfortable for you. If you feel like you need to be in front of a live audience. It’s definitely time to either look into a booking agent or look into a VA that can find you job, you know, booking speaking gigs, those kinds of things. For those for other people that want to do it more, without faster without the the live engagement, they don’t require that funnels, pay traffic, you know, those kinds of things can help to speed up the process. It’s just a matter of what works for you and and what you’re comfortable with.

Hannah McKitrick 

For sure, for sure. Yeah, that makes sense. And like, do you have resources for these speaker Booker’s?

Jennifer Tamborski 

I do actually, and I will be happy to connect you once we’re off the podcast to to the resources that you need to take those next steps. So for those of you out there that are struggling to grow your business, increase your revenue and scale your impact and want to discuss your marketing, head over to your marketing matchmaker.com and sign up for a free strategy session. I love talking about marketing and I’m happy to do it.

OUTRO: Thank you for listening to the marketing matchmaker podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love to hear your feedback. Please head over to Apple iTunes and leave a review so we can hear from you. And if you are a coach, consultant or online course creator who are looking to grow your business, increase your income and scale your impact. Connect with me at your marketing matchmaker.com I look forward to hearing from you.