Show Notes

I’m joined today by LinkedIn Trainer and Podcast Host Janice Porter for a discussion on organic marketing and what role it should play in your marketing strategy.

Janice Porter is all about relationships. Having an innate curiosity, she has leveraged that into business relationships, and teaches others how to do the same. Her passion is working with people who want to build the relationships. Janice shows her clients how to implement a tangible touch follow up system with clients, prospects, and associates to stay in front of them while at the same time celebrating and appreciating them.

Connect with Janice Porter:

Website: https://janiceporter.com

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janiceporter

Janice’s Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/relationships-rule/id1467446457

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Watch the Podcast Here:

Hey there. Thanks for listening and welcome to the marketing matchmaker podcast. If you're looking to grow your business, increase your revenue and scale your impact all while staying true to who you are and the people you serve. This is the show for you. I'm Jennifer Tamborski, digital marketing strategists, fractional CMO, and founder of Virtual Marketing Experts. My team and I work with six and seven figure coaches, consultants, and online entrepreneurs who are tired of playing the guru game of one size fits all marketing. They're ready to create a business and marketing strategy that actually builds relationships with their ideal clients creates massive shifts in their business and rapidly increases their revenue. As your marketing matchmaker, I'm going to help you find the perfect marketing match for you. This show will teach you how to reach your ideal client, connect with your audience, build that perfect relationship and generate more revenue. All through a process I like to call dating your ideal client. Now let's go have some fun!

Welcome back, everybody to the Marketing Matchmaker, I am super excited about today's episode. I know a couple episodes ago, I was talking to you about paid traffic versus organic traffic and the difference between the two. And obviously, as someone who does pay traffic for a living, I kind of lean that way. However, I completely think that organic traffic is credibly important to your business. 

So I wanted to bring on Janice. Janice is all about relationships which as the Marketing Matchmaker that is the key to whether you're doing it organically or through paid traffic. She's first and foremost  her family; She's very proud of her two daughters and appreciates the support of her husband through all that she does. Having an innate curiosity, she has leveraged that into business relationships, and teaches others how to do the same. Connecting people is a skill that Janice uses when needed, and only when she feels that it will be managed most professionally as she holds her relationships very dearly. 

Her passion is working with people who want to build the relationships, relationship marketing, and networking. And she does this using online and offline strategies. We're going to talk a little bit about LinkedIn today. Because LinkedIn is a huge part of Janice's business. She believes anyone in business or who's looking for a new position needs to have a professional presence on LinkedIn, which means having a profile and being powerfully able to utilize the platform to attract new clients, new referral partners, or being found by recruiters. Staying connected and nurturing relationships comes next. 

And Janice shows her clients how to implement a tangible touch follow up system with clients, prospects and associates to stay in front of them, while at the same time celebrating and appreciating them on a consistent basis. I love LinkedIn. And I know a lot of people don't use it as effectively as they should. So I really wanted to have Janice on the program so we could kind of talk about that and how it can tie into my concept of dating your ideal client, which is all about building relationships. Welcome to the show, Janice, I am so excited to have you here.

My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. I love that, dating your, what was it? Dating your ideal client?

Yeah, I like to look at marketing in terms of relationships just like you. I just do it in a way that everybody can understand. Because everybody understands dating at some point in their life. Everybody has dated. And so if we break it down in a way that everybody understands it makes marketing I think less scary. Yeah, for sure. So tell me a little bit more about you, and, and LinkedIn and kind of how you help your clients really use it to its biggest benefit.

Thanks, Jennifer. Great question. Really, the first thing I like to check in with when people say, Well, you know, I need to do something on LinkedIn. My first question to them is why, why do you think you need to be there, you know, like, it's not for everybody, just like all of the other platforms aren't for everybody. Like, I have an Instagram account. But God knows I never use it. I'm just a voyeur on there. Like I love looking at other people's, you know, images, but for me to make, because I think early on, I got some great training around Instagram. And I realized that number one I didn't, I'm not saying my clients might not be there. But I don't have the patience to make those images with the filters and make it all seem right and whatever. And I know, that's evolved since I first looked at it. But for me, LinkedIn was more linear, easier for me and my brain to understand. However, I also say, Are your clients there? Are your prospects there? Is that where they hang out? Because then for sure, you need to be there. So we need to figure that out first. And once you buy into that, then it's a question of, 

Okay, let's make you look the best you can look speaking to those clients, those ideal clients so you can date them properly so they can be attracted to you. Right, so that you can use your analogy right so that you can ask them out first and find out what they're about and show some interest. in them, so it's always first about why are you there? Or why you think you should be there. And to, then let's make you look the best you can be from then we go into, okay, well, now you're the best you can be, you look good. How are you going to act there? Right? First Date opportunities. 

So you know, our inbound calls, how are messages? How do you treat those? And what do you do to figure out if they are, in fact, someone you want to talk to further and build a relationship. The third piece that I look at is content, I see the messaging strategies and the content as two separate areas of opportunity. And for some people, they're natural writers. So that makes more sense. For others. It's about talking to people. And that's kind of where I feel the most comfortable. However, it's important for visibility, credibility, and being an authority on your subject to have consistent content.

I completely agree with you. So I love the strategy of first asking them why you want to be on LinkedIn, right? Or any social media platform. Right? That's the point. LinkedIn is a social media platform. And it's one that you can use organic or paid traffic on. And you should probably be using both right? Yeah, that's kind of the idea of that, you definitely want to be using organic traffic, and adding paid traffic as kind of that bonus. That being said, How do people know if their audience is on LinkedIn? Like, what's the best way for them to kind of figure that out? 

Well, that's an interesting question, actually. Because if you've been in business for a while, you kind of know where your audience is. But there's a couple of things you can do. You know, when you're out there networking, whether it's online or off, one of the things that I like to do is when I'm having a brief conversation with people in a Zoom Room, or if I'm at an event, God knows the last time I was at an event. Anyway, I would say to them, Hey, are you on LinkedIn, let's connect there first. And so I asked them, you know, the same way I might ask them? Do you prefer text messaging, phone calls or emails? What's the best way to get hold of you? 

So I usually ask them about that. But I also asked them if they're on LinkedIn, because they know that that's what I do. And so that's the easiest way to find me. The other thing you can do is you can know by searching, you know, you can search, see if they're on there, number one, number two, you can search for their industry. I mean, it's a professional platform. So anybody who's in the professional and the lawyers, the doctors, the Indian chiefs, right? They are probably on there, the financial planners, anybody in sales, the realtors, the mortgage brokers, because and I'll tell you why. Because when you Google somebody, you'll see that Google indexes LinkedIn really highly. So if you have a LinkedIn profile, and it better be a good one, it will come up high on the Google search. So that's one way to find out really quickly.

I love that. And you're right. I mean, I tell my audience and my clients all the time, if you don't know, ask your audience, right, you have to be able to talk to your audience to know where they hang out. But that being said, I think pretty much anyone nowadays anyway, that has a business is on LinkedIn, because it is a professional network. It's also kind of become more of a content focused, driven platform over the years. And one of the things I love about LinkedIn that you don't necessarily find on Facebook is that you don't have all the BS that comes with politics or you know, all of that kind of stuff. People go on LinkedIn, they talk business, they talk, they may be giving out their content, but they're not diving into your relationships and your whatever, whatever those things are that you see on Facebook so often.

Yeah, I kind of liken it to Facebook is kind of like the backyard barbecue. I think Instagram is like it's lifestyle marketing and not necessarily true lifestyle, right? Pretty sure. And Twitter is like you know I'm gonna age myself, but you know, Cheers when people drop by Sam’s bar?. But it's also now fully political right? So I don't even go there. And then LinkedIn is like the cocktail party, the gala event, the formal wedding, it's just a little bit more up, you know, like I have, right? And so you can get to the heart of a business conversation much faster than you can on, say Facebook.

And I actually love that comparison, for two reasons. One, the people on LinkedIn tend to have a higher income, right? They're the earners and the spenders, as opposed to Facebook, where sometimes you get a lot of people looking for that free content, because that's absolutely not Yes. That's the only people on Facebook and no, LinkedIn can absolutely be another platform where you can find that audience.

So the audience on LinkedIn are skewed by just over 50%. Male, female are pretty close. And the socio economic level is higher. You're right. And the decision makers are there. Yeah. So people are faster at making a decision. Let's do this. You know, instead of on Facebook, like you said, they want the free checklist first, and then they want to ask 14 people, and then they're not really sure they want to spend that money. So it's different. It's just a different feel, you know,totally it is. It's one of the things that I love about LinkedIn is the amount of good content that's on there right now.

So let's talk about that for a second. If you don't mind, yes, I want to just say that there is a lot of content on there. And yet, LinkedIn has not made that, they keep changing, things are always changing things, but they never tell you until it happens. And then all of a sudden, you can't find something. So one of the things that used to be really strong on LinkedIn was what they called pulse, which was their “how you write your articles” on LinkedIn, which you can still do. Okay, so anything over like, it used to be 1300 characters, but I think it's more now. No 1300 words, I think works. But it's over that now. So you can write long articles on there. But you can't find them anymore. You can't find it unless people post or put them in their featured section and link to it. The good news is it's still there. The bad news is it's hard to find them. But the other thing about that is that you're better to have the article listed there or printed there than to send someone off site, to your blog or to your website. LinkedIn doesn't like that.

Yeah, I don't think any social media platform likes to take people off their site, it's kind of the whole point of the social media is to cast on whatever platform you're on. So I know, I love that tip. Because I know a lot of us started writing LinkedIn articles, because that's what LinkedIn was pushing. And now, it's not as much. I think it's becoming more video focused, more video centric. That was at the beginning of it. So isn't the world? Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we do this right. You know, that's how we're going to interact, especially in the last year. 

How else are people see each other's faces? You know, I mean, right now we're in the fall of 2021. So we see, we're not even gonna dive into the whole of what's been going on. It's a reality that this last year has changed a lot of the way people have done business. And I'd say that's a definite reality. So to that end, on LinkedIn, they have introduced cover stories, which I'm still not a fan of, but cover stories are when you look at someone's profile and their their profile, headshot turns into a video, it's kind of scary, and then you have to click on it and see that 30 second video could be an introduction, you know, to who they are, and whatever which has its merits. I just find it creepy. Still, I'm not very quick to change those things. 

The second thing they've done is they've added video messaging, which is, I think, really good in that it's private still it's your message to somebody but it's a video and so they can see you. You know, which is brilliant. You can only do it from your phone at this point, but it does show up on your desktop as well as all your devices. So those two things in itself and then yeah, those are the two big ones. I think in terms of video. Plus you can plus LinkedIn live is more prevalent now than it was the vast, you know, you had to ask and then you'd wait and wait and wait. And then, you know, to get access, and I think it's more prevalent now.

Yeah, I think it's rolling out faster now than it was in the past. And you’re still waiting. I mean, that is one of the things that drove me the craziest about LinkedIn live when it first came out. I was like, Oh, yeah, I know how that works. And it was Yeah, definitely, you know, process to get it.

Yeah. So yeah. When someone goes on LinkedIn, what would you suggest for their profile? Like what are the things that they need to pay attention to? When they're, they're writing their profile? Or they're writing the caption underneath their picture, those kinds of things?

So the thing that I teach people to look at on other people's profiles, so I can back end it here is what's the first impression when you go to somebody's profile? That first impression comes from the old newspaper term “above the fold”. So what you see at the beginning at the top part of their profile, their banner, or background image, their headshot, their name, their headline, those are the first things that people see. 

So are you presenting the best picture of you? Is it showing up as you've taken, the time that it takes to create a personalized banner, a custom banner. Now, when I say custom, it could come from your website, it could also be done on Canva. Or it could be a beautiful image that you wanted to share. But it needs to be more than that. It needs to fit you, your business, and so on. So that needs to be done. So that we're not seeing the default blue banner, your headshot needs to be professional, I don't care what business you're in, it needs to be professional, as much as possible. No selfies, no logos, okay, no pictures of you with your child or your dog or your cat, it needs to be a business headshot. 

And then your headline. Now, there is a new feature in LinkedIn called creator mode. And a lot of people are changing things, that affects not your headline, the piece directly under it, and the invitation whether it's to connect with me as your follower, but that's another story. So we'll just talk about this for the moment and their headline needs to, for your benefit, have keywords that people will search on LinkedIn to find you. So you're a marketer, it's not so much that it's marketing, but you're a marketer. So digital marketer, you know,

Paid ads, sales funnels, sales, yeah. Or if you're a coach, Coach,

Trying to use what I call labels, people words, so instead of “accounting”, use “accountant”, because people search for people, mostly on LinkedIn, so that's, that's the first impression. It's also important that you have a filled out About section. And that About section is your narrative, it tells your story. And it speaks to your target audiences. So it shows how you solve the pain points for them, or that you understand what their pain points are, and that you speak to those things. To those you do it in first person, it's a narrative. And it shows your personality. That way, if you just cut a copy and paste from your website, it's third person or from your resume even worse than a lot of people do. It's more formal, but it isn't really a lot. It's not the purpose of the about section in my estimation. Yeah.

So yeah. What do you think about those people that put you know things like I'm a shiny unicorn that solves your every need or thing like that? So even that positioning statement, as I call it, or benefit statement, that's part of your headline needs to speak to your audience. I don't care that you are the shining solution to everything unless I know you care about me. So don't put it in those terms, switch it around, you know.. solving those problems for you, I'll just be generic. Right, you know, right. You know, you.

I think people also need to understand that LinkedIn is still a search engine, right? Like, so if people are looking for an accountant, they're going to type in accountant, not, you know, understand-er of all numbers, right. Right, exactly. It's good to have a positioning statement, though, that can filter your audience. So they, they they know, that's the person I'm looking for, they look at your sense of humor, or your personality that shows up in your About section, then talking to you is going to make you know, I always have to talk to people, I get a gut feeling about somebody, but, it is important to show you and who you're speaking to. 

And, yeah, so when you talk to people about starting their messaging campaign, right, that instant messenger in LinkedIn, when they're first reaching out to random connections, do you suggest that they send a message?

Absolutely, absolutely. However, that first connection request gives you 300 characters to write a message. Now, generally speaking, people who go to accept those don't always look and read that message. So don't make it, you know, full blown 300 characters, you might say, we met on zoom at the A-B-C event last week, would you be open to connecting here? That's it? You know? And then once they accept, then you start the real conversation?

Yeah, I love that. Because two things, right? When you get connection requests on Facebook, I don't know about you. But when people that I don't know or connect with me on Facebook, it's a little more uncomfortable than if they do it on LinkedIn. Right? I expect people to connect with me on LinkedIn, and I persuade them to sell me on LinkedIn. My expectation on Facebook is different. And I don't know, that's me personally, that's not everybody. And I think it's easier to start that conversation for me on LinkedIn. And it is for me, because of my own, like, internal thoughts about it.

I find that I feel less uncomfortable connecting on LinkedIn to random strangers than I do on Facebook. And I think a lot of that has to do, honestly, with MLMs. And the way they've used Facebook, so people that connected with you on Facebook, direct through messenger, we're always selling you something where Facebook was supposed to be a personal platform. And to me, LinkedIn is a business platform. Right? And I look at how such,

However, a lot of MLM people have come over from Facebook because Facebook wasn't working. So now they're coming over to LinkedIn. And I have to say, I'm an MLM believer. I love network marketing. I have a network marketing component to my business. And those people give it a bad name. 

Yes.

I love MLMs. I'm fully supportive of them. And there were some people that were taught really bad marketing.

They weren't taught anything. And they have to throw up all over everybody and tell them about you know, it's funny. I got a Facebook message two days ago from someone that I met, and we are connected, but I haven't really had a conversation with her in the past for a couple years. So she's reconnected with me and in the next breath, she's telling me that she wants to send me some samples for her new business and I'm like, really? Do you really want to reconnect with me or are you just trying to sell me? So I'm now the big girl and I messaged back and say it's really nice to hear from you. I'm really not interested in any new products. Thank you so much. If you still want to have a conversation, I'm open to that. You know, I put it out there.

Let's talk about that then for those people that are out there messaging on LinkedIn, how do they start a conversation? Other than that initial connection? What is it that makes a company station successful on LinkedIn?

Be authentic, be interested in the other person, right? have done your homework and actually read their profile, right? And see if there's anything on that profile that becomes a conversation starter, a rapport builder with them. And so if you are doing the outreach, okay, then when you do your searching on LinkedIn, one of the things you must look at is, are they active on LinkedIn, because it brings up you know, the search brings up a lot of people and you start to narrow it down. 

And then when you start to look at the people that you think you want to connect with, well, what made you want to do that in the first place, they had a good photo, they had a good headline, they were in the location, you wanted them to be in whatever the thing is, when you go to their profile, does it have an activity section? Or have they done nothing in the last two years or 90 days even? Because when you reach out to them, they're not going to see it? Right? 

Right. So if they're active, they will pay attention. And if they then accept your connection request, now you start a conversation, thanks for accepting my connection request. I looked at your profile, and I love the fact that you are involved in, you know, the ASPCA. I'm a dog lover myself, blah, blah, blah. So I always start with something that they can relate to. And it might be the smallest thing on their profile. It might be the things that people don't look at, like, you know, at the bottom of your profile, there's a thing called interests. And if you click all there, you'll see that it breaks it down into who are the influencers, you follow? Who with the schools you follow, who are the groups that you're in, and I think there's one other companies. And so if I see that somebody follows Sara Blakely, because I love Sara Blakely, I will start a conversation about that. Because anyone who likes the people that you like, must be a like minded person. Right?

Well, that is a huge tip! 

Yeah, I think so actually, and you got that one from me for now, really is because I think that's one thing that people struggle with when it comes to organic marketing is creating that true authentic relationships, especially when they're doing the reach out, right, we both know, in marketing, you have time or you have money that you can invest. And if you don't have money, then you get to invest time, right, and creating relationships take time. So really looking at the best ways to go about doing that. And those little bitty things are important. Yeah, I think

it's really important to make it about them to show that you've paid attention. And if they respond to that, you know, if they start asking you questions, too well, you may have hit something here. So the goal is for me, is to take that new relationship, that new connection, warm it up a little bit, build a report, and then off on take it offline, if you think there's going to be something there. Now interestingly enough, I mean, if I'm looking at somebody's profile, and it's perfect, they may not be a good prospect for me, right? 

Or I might look at them from a different perspective for my follow up, you know, my Send Out Cards business, which is the tool that I use to nurture and stay connected to people. So that might be a different story when I'm connecting with them, but either way, if I see they need help on their profile, or Alaska LinkedIn type question, right? And then the object is to get them off and into a zoom call or a phone call, or, God forbid, an in person meeting, right?

Someday we'll get back to in person meetings. And the reality is the best thing about being social media and virtual is we can meet people. I mean, you're in Canada, I'm in Missouri, we will never meet in person without ever going back to in person. 

And, you know, I'm actually going to meet someone for lunch on Friday, which I haven't done for a long time. And I'm actually going, you know, out of my area, like it's not that far like it but it's across the bridge. And I haven't done that for so long. I don't know if I'll ever do it for business, you know, unless for a bigger conference or something where I want to be, you know, there. But yes, it's changed a lot. 

It has. And I love the fact that you I mean, your, the biggest thing I think people can take away from this conversation is to start the link the relationship on LinkedIn, and to move it off, right? Because social media is amazing. And that's not really where you sell, right? Like, that's, that's not the whole point.

That's right, that's exactly right. And that's where, you know, those MLM earners that are coming over with their cute little emojis and things like that, I need to talk to them. And I feel it, because I'm an MLM person, too. And I love that industry, which I already told you. But I'm saying it again, because they need to see things differently on LinkedIn. And, you know, it's not about you, it's about the people that you want to talk to, and how you can make their world better. So speak to them not speak, you know, I, I, I.

I think that goes for every business out there, right? Every business owner, I've said this before, nobody really cares about you, right? I mean, it sounds really harsh, but they don't, they care about what you can do for them. And that's the whole point. When it comes to organic marketing, or paid marketing or just marketing in general, growing your business, it's about how you can support your clients.

That's right. And I think people like you who do those ads and create those, those platforms, those paid messages for people are like gold, because honestly, that's not my forte, my forte is talking to people and, and showing them the power and the value of actually having a conversation that centers on the other person and makes them feel like gold, and moving that conversation into a relationship. That's my unique thing. That's what I love to do. Putting the right words in the ad that will draw people to it is not my thing.

I think that the theory behind both are the same, right? It's about making that connection and pulling them off of the social media platform. Doesn't matter whether it's paid or organic. However, if you're first starting your business, like if you're just getting your business up and running, doing organic, kind of marketing through LinkedIn, or Facebook, or Instagram, or however you're going to do it is really super important. And it's a good way to grow and expand your business.

If you do it properly, right. 

Absolutely, absolutely. 

And so circle back to the beginning of what we were talking about. You don't have to be everywhere. absolutely need to be where your audience is and where you feel comfortable.

I couldn't agree more with that. I was talking to someone just this morning about that, pick one platform and become really, really good at it. And then you can start broadening out. So if LinkedIn is your platform, and you know, your ideal clients are there, I would suggest connecting with Janice so that you can get your profile up and running. And you can get, you know, kind of figuring out how LinkedIn works. And doing it organically first. And then we can start with the paid traffic. Because you just have to be able to sell yourself and your business before you can start running traffic to it. 

I actually have Janice's contact information in the show below. Oh, so if you're interested in LinkedIn and interested in that I would connect with Janice. And do you have Janice Do you have a last tip or last, you know, words of wisdom to our audience for today? Um,

I think it goes back to being authentic and, and putting that best picture of you out there. And by that I mean the best image, the whole thing, the first impression. And so, start by putting that time and effort whether you do it yourself or whether you get someone like me to help you to build your profile, so that it's effective and then You're feeling confident, more confident about your outreach and your message and your content strategies because you have a good base, you look good there, everything speaks to the right people. And I did, I don't know if it's in the show notes, but I did put in the chat, my calendar link, if anyone wants to reach out have a an intro conversation with me, I encourage people to message me on LinkedIn and ask to connect with me and say that they heard me on your show. And I also do have a free 16 point checklist for building your profile. If anyone's interested, they can go to my website and download that. No problem. So that's Yeah, that's it for now.

Awesome. All of that information will be in the show notes. So definitely connect with Janice on LinkedIn, I think you would be amazed at what she's able to do. And on that note, I want to circle back to the whole thing. This is all about relationships. Marketing is all about relationships. Dating, your ideal client is about building that relationship, whether you're doing it from an organic perspective, or you're scaling and you've gotten to the point where you're wanting to run paid traffic to your pro your product service or solution, right. It's about creating that message that's going to connect with your ideal client and really be really growing that relationship. Thank you so much for joining me today, Janice and I look forward to talking to all of you soon. Thank you.

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 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 yourmarketingmatchmaker.com. I look forward to hearing from you.