Ep. 37 | Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Marketing with Christie Osborne

Today on the podcast, I’m chatting with Christie Osborne of Mountainside Media. Christie helps wedding pros develop sane and scalable marketing strategies to grow their businesses. We are talking about a subject today that I know you will all be on the edge of your seats for: measuring the effectiveness of your marketing - including your website and funnels. 

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Transcript

spk_0:   0:01
It's not too late to set yourself up for success in 2020 if you aren't currently booked out for the Year of 2020 with calendars on your books and all the ways you're gonna make money. If that's not you, I want to invite you to join my free online training. How to plan out your 2020 photography calendar and get more clients in your books. In this master class, you're going to learn how to map out your 2020 photography calendar. No more planning last minute events and desperately trying to fill your session spots. How to create a strategic marketing plan to book out your year If you're confused on what to post on social media and email your clients, this is for you the two tools that dramatically change the game in my business and gave me my time back and why Planning or 2020 calendar can result in your best year Ever get ahead of the game and go into the New Year feeling confident and ready to have your best year yet you can access this training at frame your way. Dog Brook jefferson dot com slash replay Welcome to the brain your way. Photography podcast. I'm your host, Bert Jefferson. I'm a wife, Mama to two and full time photographer in business. I created this podcast with the aspiring photographer in mind to bring you inspired stories. Strategies to help you go from zero to mostly figures and tips and tricks to get one step closer to work. Live harmony. Are you ready to bring your way to your dream career? Let's dive in today. On the podcast, I'm chatting with Christy Osborne of Mountainside Media. Christie helps wedding pros develop sane and scalable marketing strategies to grow their businesses. And we are talking about a subject today that I know you will all be on the edge of your seats for measuring the effectiveness of your marketing, including your website and funnels. So, Christy, please introduce yourself to my audience.

spk_1:   2:09
Hello, I'm Kristie Osborne, owner of Mountainside Media, and I love winter and math.

spk_0:   2:19
If you guys are like What is she talking about? We were having a debate in con conversation about how I don't like winter. It's winter outside, but she lives for the winder.

spk_1:   2:32
I live for the winter. I'm a skier. I live in a ski resort. There's lots of sunshine in the ski resort in the winter because the snow bounces up into your face. So maybe not good for a photography. I don't know much about that, but, um, it's really great for, you know, getting your vitamin d. Getting your exercise on skis better than the gym.

spk_0:   2:52
Oh, I bet for sure. Speaking of working out, I'm like two weeks of no working elements. Really. Anyway, that is another subject For another time, I will note note to self funny to go work out. But I would love for you, honestly, just to kind of dive into all the goodness. What do we need to know about Christie and what we're talking about today?

spk_1:   3:14
Okay, so I'd love to share my origin story. Just a cz Ah is a context to kind of tee it up, and that is not the big origin story. But in a nutshell, For the purposes of this podcast today, I have run a blood called the Mountainside Bride for free eight years, and it's ah, the mountain wedding log. And like many bloggers, I started selling directory listings to vendors, photographers, planners, florists mostly, and I have always had a head that likes to measure things and tests things and see what works and what doesn't work is a child. Well, that would take things apart. Take my crib apart. It take appliances apart. I do long division in my head for fun when I learned howto add, subtract, multiply and divide. So I've always had, like, a kind of ah, weird head like that. So I just instinctively set up tracking measures used to use ah platform called click meter which I don't recommend for a number of reasons I won't go into today. But basically it allowed me to track not only what was happening on my website, but how well I could send links to these ERT said Web traffic to these vendors. So I was tracking every single post differently for different vendors. I was tracking their directory listing. I was tracking blogged posts that I would write about them. So I got a pretty good idea of what was working, what wasn't working for both my business and for each individual vendor. So I was feeling really good. In hindsight, I should have been sending these reports out monthly or quarterly to keep people abreast. And if you are advertising with a blogger, I recommend that you request that. Sorry, blogger friends. And so I a year, you know, we're coming up on the year and I started sending my renewal e mails out to vendors, and they were like there was a number of them Now, everybody, obviously, but her a number of them that were like, um, I'm not really getting any r o i on my advertising view. And I was like, What's what did you just do with the 2000 links that I sent to your website Right on dso I hop on a call with them and I would go through what I was seeing on my end as a blogger. It's my job to send traffic to your website as a vendor. It's your websites job to convert that traffic into enquiries, right? And, um, we talked about that with Britney Miller. I'm a Yeah. So Britney Miller talked about that Like your website has a job, and it has to have these certain things that it says So, um, I started getting started talking to vendors about like how to get their website to convert better and what might be the problem. Because if I'm able to send traffic, there's one of two problems. Either I'm not sending qualified traffic, right, so they're getting traffic, but it's not qualified or their website sucks. And what I would like to do today with you and your audience is talk about how to measure those two things right, because this is what started it all for me. And this is what a most passionate about.

spk_0:   6:35
I love that I'm super excited to dive in because there's a lot of information out there, as you and I have discussed, and they're telling you to dio 5 100 different things and move in different directions. But there's not very many telling. You are asking you to pause and see if it's working there. Just It's just a information overload, and we're making our funnels of freebies all these things. But then we're like, it's not working, but we don't ever like investigate why? So I'm I'm so excited for you to dive into this. Oh, my

spk_1:   7:12
gosh. And I'm so glad that you said that because when I teach Google analytics in particular, which I'd like to start off talking about, Um, I typically say that the data that's coming in through Google Analytics and Google Analytics isn't actually data. It's It's an aggregate of a data set, right? And all of that is to say, is typically if your websites big enough, it's a sample size. It's all of the data. Google's taking a sample size of that data, which is a data set, and they're saying, By and large, your website performs in this way, right? So it's not. You don't actually have access to all of the data points because there would be big privacy violations there. But anyway, all that is to say is data or analytics are inert. They there's no meaning until you a sign it meeting and the way that you start ringing meaning from your Google analytics in particular, any kind of insights or analytics is to start asking why, right? So oftentimes we wagon and look at our Google analytics. So we're like, Oh, I'm getting, you know, 2400 sessions a month in traffic and you pat yourself on the back and you log out or you're like, Oh, my bounce rates below 50% or 30% or whatever, and you pat yourself on the back and then you log out and that doesn't do anything for your business. The only thing that does anything for your business is when you're able to get enough insights to take action. Well, how do you get those insights? Start asking questions. Why is this happening? Who is coming to my website? So an actionable metric is Oh, there's 2400 sessions coming to my website, but 98% of them are coming from Russia or the Ukraine, not a qualified audience, a better dusa something about it, right? So that's an actionable metric. Seem you're looking at the same metric traffic in your cross referencing, of course where they coming from, but you're looking at the same metrics. But instead of just saying, Oh, traffic, you're asking why? And even if all of your traffic is local unqualified, asking why you're getting all that traffic, where is it coming from? How doe I leverage those insights to get more of the same qualified traffic can really level up your business in ways that don't really require you to have, ah, geeky math minds like mine.

spk_0:   9:31
Yeah, I'm in a season right now where I'm hanging on every word that you're saying because I don't want to just put stuff out there across my fingers and hope it works. And if it doesn't like, I I wanna know why I like I do. I want to investigate, and I'm in this unique season of my business. I know a lot of us are actually where we want to know how much traffic is our website getting. And if it's not getting good traffic, I want to dive in two different ways to bring traffic there. And so and this is like, this is not gonna be done in a day. Clearly, you're just gonna have to This is a long term game, and it takes a while, but I'm I'm just super intrigued on analytics and like learning how to use them, not just look att. Thanks. I think a lot of people tell, you know, look at them, but they're not teaching you what to do with them. So that's why this is, like, such a good first of all episodes selfishly for me, but hopefully for everybody else. Well, let's,

spk_1:   10:32
um let's do this for fun, since you've had some really great guests on the show already talking about websites and funnels those air the easiest things to measure Andi, often the most overlooked in terms of meaningful measurement. So let's talk about Britney Miller's ah website podcast first and talk about how you can take her advice and then put some metrics against it so that when she says, you know, you need to have a website that functions you handsome, quantifiable data to answer that question Is my website good? So the first thing that Britney talked about on your website is you need to be addressing someone. Ah hoo! And, um totally, totally brilliant. I was I was so into that was like, Yes, I was like, Preach, preach, Um And so when you're in your Google analytics in your wedding vendor, most of us, like the majority of us, are serving clients in a specific geographic location. And even for those markets like I live in a resort town, even those markets where we get a lot of destination couples, they're coming to us, right? And we know where they're coming from. In California, they come from l A and San Francisco. The end, um, so one of the things that you want to look at as you want to go into your Google analytics and under reports you can look at the demographics of your audience. Now, if you haven't turned this on yet, there's a little check box that gives Scougall permission to do this. And basically this. This is because of privacy laws and things like that. You have to opt into it. But you can look at the demographics and four people who are doing weddings in particular. Your demographic is likely going to skew female, and it's going to be there going to be aged 25 to 34. Okay, if you are getting a lot of people who are 65 in plus to your website, you can ask yourself why now there could be a couple of different reasons. It could be that your traffic is completely unqualified, or it could be that, um, you're attracting a lot of moms now. A lot of the power that comes from Google Analytics is through cross referencing report, so there's another report that gets turned on when you turn on the demographics report. And that's the interest report, and this is really, um it's it's sort of Ah larger sort of 30,000 foot view, squishy way to understand if the traffic that's coming to your audience is qualified. But what it will do is it will list all of the other interested interests based on people's Web browsing habits that they might be interested in. I have found being a consultant and, um, a business consultant and somebody who does done for you. Service is in the wedding in event industry for the past four years, full time that if somebody's planning a wedding, oftentimes their interests will skew to food and travel, even if they're not a destination market. They're looking at hotels and venues. So Google sees that as travel, so food, travel, fashion because they're looking at bridal fashion and Google doesn't separate out wedding stuff, they just aggregate these big, large affinity groups. So if you are specifically in the wedding world and you look at your demographics and interests and you find that you are attracting females between the ages of 25 34 who also are interested in food and travel and fashion you're probably attracting a good quality audience to your website.

spk_0:   14:25
That's fascinating, don't you? That's really fascinating.

spk_1:   14:29
It's fun. It's fun. Now. We talked about, um, we talked about asking Why, Right? Like, why is this happening? I had somebody to have me take a look at her Google Analytics wedding plan in Chicago, and I looked at her Google analytics and she was skewing 45 to 54 male demographic with interests in sports cars and computers, and I t. And she's wedding planner in Chicago. And so I was like, Mom, she's getting great traffic. She's like

spk_0:   15:04
my Web sites are

spk_1:   15:04
converting and I was like, All right, well, let me just look at the basic things

spk_0:   15:08
They said things

spk_1:   15:09
you can tell a lot of about what's wrong by looking at the most basic things. First, it's Malcolm's razor right? Simple solution is best. I was like these air, your demographics and interests. Any idea why? Right, cause I don't know. I'm not a fortune teller. I'm just looking at numbers and trying to piece together a story about humans based on those, and she

spk_0:   15:33
was like, Oh,

spk_1:   15:33
that's interesting. You know what? I bet it is My husband is a sportscaster on the radio. Well, people were searching for him and finding that she was his wife and then going to her website. Right? So we realized that we didn't have qualified traffic and then we could start to talk about Well, if we know that this amount of traffics gonna come in unqualified, how can we pack qualified traffic in around that? We start talking about campaigns and advertising stuff like that to solve that problem. So that's the who of your website.

spk_0:   16:10
That's good. That's good information right there.

spk_1:   16:13
So, um, we also talked in the podcast episode with Britney. About what? Their problem. Waas right. Like what? There what? Their challenge. Waas. And again, this is a little bit more 30,000 foot view. But you can start to look under your behavior reports on your website, and this is especially useful if you're running a blawg. Um, and you are talking about not just really weddings, but other block and tackle information that your couples need to know, such as how to dress for a winter photo shoot where, you know, um um portrait session or an engagement session or you know the top venues that you love to work in and why, in terms of, you know, interesting scene and lighting opportunities or the top vistas and and beautiful places to go in your location, which is also really good for, like, location A CEO, um, you can find out a lot about what your biggest fear clients. Biggest challenges are by how sticky those those pages are. You can also find a lot off website about what your client's challenges are by the types of social media posts that you host so often. Times of vendors, I tell him. Get off the real wedding crack. I know that that we need it. It's block and tackle stuff like we need to show our portfolio. We need to show real weddings. Um, but also and I'm kind of jumping over to Jen's interview about funnels and you know, her white rabbit. Um, content. Also, you want to both on your website and on social media have highly valuable content that you think solves the challenge of your ideal client avatar, and then you start testing it. So you're like my ideal client avatar, and she used ah, an example. Jen use an example about portrait sessions and your kids growing up so fast having those memories. Um, so if you were to write, um, a you know, blawg post about how to preserve those memories in between portrait sessions or how to take a picture with your iPhone of your kids to preserve those memories. Oh, and P s just because you teach somebody how to use an iPhone doesn't mean that they're not gonna have professional photography because they're two different products, right? So whatever you do to add value, you make a guess. You put some content out into the universe, and then you see how people react to it. You know, if people are like sharing it and commenting and saying Thank you so much. This is This has been so great for me. I've been transformed by that. Then you know that you're actually solving a challenge in a problem. And if not stopped producing that content because it's a waste of your time.

spk_0:   19:08
Mmm. That is really, really good. So for me, I definitely need to get back on my blogging game. I actually enjoyed it. I'm very I'm kind of like you. I am more on the analytical side. I like to explain things and educate hints having about gas. Um, but there's a lot of blog's that I want to create, but I'll be honest, like I'm either paralyzed with what to talk about, which this gives me freedom and produce it once, See what happens. If you don't have nobody likes it, then don't re create it. But the other thing, too, is I get stuck in. Am I giving too much away, like in a block? You know what I'm saying? Like because I do have a course that teaches moms how to take their own pictures in between the times that they ask us professionals for their portrait sessions. And I mean, I love to empower them. So it's kind of like just what direct, You know what is too much? And then what is really valuable? Because I've heard ah, lot of people lately say, if you're a photographer, one of the best blobs you could ever do is location S e O. Go write a block about the five top places that you love to photograph that's gonna give other people exposure to, and I've heard a couple I've seen the controversy online. And the controversy it is, Yeah, but I don't want all the photographers to nowhere I photograph. So what are you thoughts?

spk_1:   20:36
Sure, sure. So I've seen all that, too. So I think that, uh, just kind of going back to what Britney said about your website. Because I feel like those two podcasts are really sort of the foundation for measurement. What Britney said about websites, you need some sort of authority messaging on your website, and that can be awards. And that can be, you know, um, other accolades and stuff like that. But if you look a, um, Luen Stevens, think splendid reports every year that those rewards don't factor too strongly into they do factor a little bit, but not super strongly into, um, How you know how and why couples are gonna book you. And so what I would say is those those blogged posts about where you shoot and how you shoot, Not necessarily how nobody cares about how you choose. Nobody cares about how the sausage is made, but they do a beautiful portrait. You do your top five and people copy you, but they don't blogged about it. You're still the authority. You're still the person that people think of. You know, there's there's probably no there's not tons of people in the wedding industry who do have metrics and measurements. But outside of my industry, there's tons of analysts and tons of people who do. Um, Google analytics and the people who win the most clients are the people who are out there saying, I'm really good at my craft and here's proof positive because I'm writing about it on podcasting about it. Unspeakable national conferences about my instagram stories are all about it, and that just builds authority. And then the second thing is, I've been on the Internet for a long time. I was I am a little bit older, so I was around. I was in graduate school when Twitter launched, and I remember the Fail whale so you can look that up is a little piece of history. Um, but I've been on the Internet for a long time, and what I have noticed about why people buy products by service is is because, yes, all the information is out there and P s, it's out there with or without you. So you can either be an authority in the thought later or not. But the way that the information is assembled on the Internet is it's like taking a 10,000 puzzle piece and flinging it across an eager lawn and telling somebody to put the puzzle together. When you're offering a course or a service, you are putting the puzzle pieces lovingly into a box and bringing it to the person and then showing them how they all fit together. And they might still need to actually put put the pieces together. But it's it's contained in a way that it's that it's actually doable at that point. And then, lastly, about everybody else gonna copy me, I just have a question for your audience. How many of you have experienced the new weekend warrior photographer coming into your market and you're just holding your head in their hand in your hands? Because they're photography's crap. You could. You could make 10 million bog posts, all about how to do great photography. It doesn't it's not gonna make them a good photographer, because the only way that you become really great at what you do is through practice and experience

spk_0:   23:48
who, man. I mean, we could just stop your episode right there and just call it done. Um, I know it's not what you get on to talk about, but that's like a swift kick, but that we all need. And I just think that we need those reminders. Says you're not the first person to tell me that, you know, on. And I think that it's we what you focus on your focused on people stealing your ideas or you know, the negative parts of that yet, you know, if you're gonna see so and I was also, if somebody

spk_1:   24:22
is actually stealing your work like stealing, stealing your work, do use copies escape to monitor that Google has a takedown form. If, uh, if you just google somebody stealing my copy or copyright complaint on Google, you can fill out of form. I've had things taken down and then also the Shaming website. Stop stealing My photos is always a delight. Thio submit to to get people this stuff because in the photography industry, there's stealing your ideas and your and your in your portrait locations. And then there's actually stealing your photos. And unfortunately, in our industry a lot of photos get stolen by a lot of people, So I'm not saying don't worry about it in that regard, do protect yourself. But in terms of like holding back your information, I just I think that that's very short sighted.

spk_0:   25:14
Well, thank you for going down that rabbit hole with me. I'll let you climb back out of it. So there's one thing

spk_1:   25:21
I really wanted to give to your audience because I know that that these were supposed to be short and tight. I just want to talk about measuring funnels, right. So Jen talked about, you know, the landing page and the thank you Paige. And I think that she did a really good job of showing how they stacked up in that buyers journey or the customers journey really well. So I won't rehash that. But I do want to talk to you about measuring those campaign. So I'm going to start with the landing page in the thank you, Paige. First, the landing page, as Jen said, has one job. And if you are trying to get enquiries, start with the landing page that's trying to get enquiries. Right. Um, I know that she talked a lot about, like having a download first. Um, but I liked the measure Money. First. I like to make money for my clients. I love money. So I like to focus on money first. Because if somebody does wanna book my client, I don't want to create friction by having them go through my email auto responder in order to do business. So I personally like to start with, um your inquiry pages your landing page make the form short and sweet. You know, you can ask them their budget and their debt guest count and their venue, location and all the things. And they're in their spout. You know their partner's name in a sales call. Don't let don't make them spend 30 minutes trying to fill all that crap out there on their phone. First of all, that's a pain. Just get their name, their address, and they're they're ideal wedding date. So, you know, if you're even open right, and that's the inquiry form. So once you create an inquiry form, the magic is creating an additional. Thank you, Paige. And this Thank you. Paige has two functions. One, it has a customer service punk function says, Thank you so much for your inquiry. Here are the next steps. Okay, I personally like to automate people jumping on my calendar. I do not want to get on an email correspondence with somebody. It says,

spk_0:   27:30
So I'm available on Wednesday or Thursday. When are you

spk_1:   27:33
available? And they're like,

spk_0:   27:34
Oh, Wednesday is not good for me. And, you know, there's a a plan

spk_1:   27:37
about, but no, it's like, how many hours in the year do you waste doing that? So automate your calendar, ring the Enquirer, you say thank you so much for, um ah, for your inquiry. To make it easy, I have opened my calendar up. Jump on a time That's great for you. And we'll get going. So they jump on your calendar. You can redirect to a sect, which is what I do. Redirect to a second. Thank you, Paige. This is your final Thank you, Paige. That you're gonna measure. This means that somebody is booked a call with you. So on that. Thank you. Paige. You say, um, you're all set. Can't wait to meet you. We do our meetings on zoom. Here's how to prepare. Come with any questions. Look at thestreet, blood posts, whatever it is that they need to do to prepare for that meeting. What that does is it handles them and cares for them in a way that thinks for your message will be in touch soon. Doesn't so part of what you're measuring always and part of what you're doing with measurement is your your measuring how well you can care for people so that they want to do business with you and having that Thank you, Paige. That really sets them up to feel cared for can make your sales call a lot easier, right? Cause I don't feel like thanks for your response will be in touch of 40 48 hours. They get something immediately. Now let's talk about how to measure that. You go to your Google analytics and you're gonna set up what's called a destination goal. This is in your admin menu, so there's a gear all the way down on the left hand side. At the bottom, there's a little gear. You click on that, it brings up your admin menu, and there are three columns on the all the way to the left hand column it's the View column. You will see goals. You're gonna click that and set up a new goal. Here's a caveat. Just set up one goal for now. Don't set up 20 goals. Don't use all the functions. I can't tell you how many people who have had their Google analytics polluted and I couldn't use them because they're like, I want to see. I want to set up a page. You goal. And I want to set up a time on site gold. That doesn't do anything to help me measure how much money you're gonna make next year. Okay, so let's just focus on the money. Not on all the other crazy stuff that Google will allow you to do. Just cause you can do it doesn't mean you should. So we're gonna focus on one goal. The destination. Thank you, Paige. So in that goal, set it up. There's going to be an option. And this is where you're gonna get tickled by Google and want to do a whole bunch of stuff you shouldn't be doing. It's gonna offer you a whole bunch of options for testing time on site in videoviews know, things go all the way to the bottom and click Custom and customs. Not that difficult to set up. So you click custom another another screen opens up and asks you to name your goal. And this would be your inquiry. Thank you. Right. So just name it simply, and I'm doing the spy memory. So I'm not I'm not sure if I can remember what the exact screen looks like. So you're gonna name the goal. Oh, and you're gonna choose what type it is. So you're gonna a TTE this point you're going to choose. It's a destination goal. So what this means is, any time somebody hits your special Thank you, Paige, it's going to count as a conversion. The way The reason why we only do thank you pages at first and not landing pages is that, um, we what we want we're gonna want to measure conversions first. The landing page can show interest. It definitely shows strong buying signals, but it does not necessarily show who converted into an actual lead. So you're gonna go down in name your goal. You're gonna choose destination. I'm actually calling it up now. Yes. So you name it. I was right, all by memory. Okay. And then here is the trick in the gold details. It's going to default to destination equals to do not choose that you are going to choose Destination begins with. And the reason for this is when you go out into the Internet with your links and you know, you put something in your instagram bio or you're you put something in, ah, Facebook group and somebody clicks on it. Oftentimes these platforms will upend the girl with the curry string. Now, I know that everybody just went blank with that. But basically, it's all that gobbledygook on the end of the clean URL that when you click on something, you know, sometimes if you look in your browser, you're like, What is all that junk? If you're looking at a desktop, they're pending the link. And if if you choose the equals to default, none of those a pendant links will be recognized by Google Analytics is a conversion. So you're just gonna click on that drop down menu and choose begins with and then you're going to put you don't have to put your whole Earl and I don't recommend it cause a lot of us has Http and https level. Just put slash Thank you. Slash That's it. Um, And then if you know the value, the lifetime customer value, you can assign a value you don't really have Thio. And then don't touch the funnel. Because oftentimes we're using things like 17 hats and honey Buck and all the other things. And as soon as somebody goes off of your sight, it breaks Google's funnel. So the way that Jen talked about funnel development in the way that Google measures funnels is difference to leave that alone for now. So that's how you set up a goal. You can verify that goal if you've had that. Thank you, Paige. For a while, you can verify it. Click the verify button and we'll tell you how many conversions you would have had when you if you had set up that goal earlier. Um, but if you're just setting up your thank you, Paige, it will tell you that. And then what happens is say you have ah link in your instagram bio that goes to your inquiry page. Google is tracking all of that inbound track traffic and then because your Google analytics is evaluating what people are doing on your website when you're when they hit that. Thank you, Paige. It tracks is a conversion. Now, when you go into your Google analytics, you can go under the conversions court and look at the source. Look at the source in the medium, which is usually the default. And it will say you had three Thank you, Paige, goals this month. And they came from Instagram. And you're like, Oh, instagrams, really powerful. Maybe I should do more on Instagram Advertise on Instagram use link Tree on Instagram Quick story about this I had a client had came to me to set up her Google analytics for her subscription service. And when we looked at Google Analytics without setting up a goal, we noticed that all of her traffic came from her like a majority of her trafficking from pinch arrest. We're like, Oh, interes we should advertise on Pinteresque Popova. So that was a good guess. You looked at the Data lodge are coming in for an instagram from address We're gonna guess advertised there. Great. But we also felt like we wanted to test other platforms. So we also set up some campaigns, organic campaigns and some ads to test on instagram. We tracked our links and I want to talk about this. If you have time, it will take me, like five minutes ago. But we tracked all of her links. We set up her Thank you, Paige. We set up conversions and what we found was even though Instagram was a powerful traffic driver in the funnel, they weren't ready to do business with us off of Instagram. They were just looking for inspiration. They were just looking for information and that the highest conversion, this blew my mind. The highest conversions that we got was running Instagram ads. And so we pulled our money out of Penn dressed. We still use Pinterest is a traffic driver, cause you can pixel people once they hit your website. Remark it to them on social media, which is a different podcast. Um, but so we still use Pinterest organically. But we shifted all of our marketing spend to instagram ads because we knew that those were converting higher and ah, we went from about $2000 to $20,000 in revenue in four months. Wow, because we shifted our money to the proper place for conversions. And we're measuring conversions. That's that.

spk_0:   36:06
Yeah. Okay, so I want to back up real quick because that was so much goodness, I kind of wish that I would have been tracking, you know, a long time ago. I'm sure everybody's gonna be like, Wow. Wish I would've started. Um, but the next best time shortest today. So I will get on that. But I want it back all the way up to the very beginning. When you started Muppet is new mention No, you're not gonna spin hours in your email inbox corresponding with someone asking about dates. And I just have to put a shameless plug here because I have said this four months and everybody is probably rolling their eyes. But this is why I use Iris works, right? So I'm gonna leave that there. But the other thing is, we go over this, we settle this up if you missed it. The workshop happened on Monday. December 2nd is when this happened. And if you missed it, you can check the replay, and I will show you how to plan out your 2020 promotional calendar and make sure that you have all this set up. So where you don't have to waste your time and cross your fingers and hope you're gonna get client, you will know you will know when you're available when you're not, and then you're gonna learn how to fill your calendar with people. So I had to throw that in there because it's validation for what I created for you guys to let you know. It is a much simple free workshop, so don't miss your chance to do it. The other, saying What I want is I'm like, populated by how much Google allows you to dio like I've always heard Google analytics are important, but I've never really honed in on using them correctly, and I'm sure nobody has. Honestly, I'm sure nobody has your You are the expert in this area here, and we're all learning, and I I know for a lot of you you're probably like in over your head, and probably or stem didn't learn the episode off just because you think that it's overwhelming. But I think if you'll just listen to this episode, a couple pines and do it while she's speaking. E think it's gonna be a lot easier for you no matter what stage you're at. If you are a beginner photographer and you're listening to this, then honestly, I applaud you because five years ago I would have loved to have heard something like Has learned how to have a look. It's like it's not all about social media. It's not all about email marketing like your website does matter. So please don't let anybody tell you that you don't need a website. You need a freaking website, that's all. That's the Slovak and

spk_1:   38:41
and also like to take the overwhelm out of it. There's really just three things that you need to think about when you're looking at your Google Analytics website. Are your Google analytics deceive your website functions? One is who who's coming to Are the people coming to my site, the right people, and then to Are they interested in doing business with me? So I didn't talk about this, but you can go ahead and look at the behavior reports again, and you want to make sure that on your website, especially if you're a blogger, I've seen this with especially photography blog's Everybody's looking at your bog, and nobody's looking at your about Paige or your inquiry page. So those air your bottom bottom funnel money making pages that show the best buying signals. Are they looking at your portfolio page? Are they looking at your about, Paige? Those air, you know, buying signals. And if they are on your inquiry or contact page, they're getting super serious. They're they're hot to work with you. And if you're not getting a lot of traffic on that and you're busting your butt doing all these blood posts and you're just getting blood post traffic, you need to start asking yourself, How can I get people off my block and onto my main website so that they can take the next logical step to do business with me? So what you're doing is you're just you're just looking for the answers to three things. Are they coming to my site? Are they showing buying signals? And then finally, are they converting? And that's the thank you, Paige Cole. Everything else you don't need like you don't need, I can't 99% of what I do for for wedding clients. When I set up their Google analytics are touching those three questions, so keep

spk_0:   40:27
it simple for sure, and it really is that simple. It's just a lot. It's just like a long process to talk about. But it's also super simple. So that's why I can't wait to go back to my inquiry page nature and see what it even says after they have submitted cause I think that's the key point there, right? Is that Thank you, Paige, and then tracking that. I'm excited to see it because I have. You know, I've glanced at my Google analytics just to see what website traffic I have and what not and it's it's definitely increased. I want to know who in where and why and how I can make it better. So I'm I'm super fascinated. This was my dream episode. I know I'm so weird, but I love this stuff like I because what if you're in business and that's a paying? Like a lot of you have said, I've read your reviews of reverie. Miles, I've got your messages on Instagram. Ah, lot of you have said I love the way that Brooke challenges me to second with that business owner role and not just the creative side s what? Your creative side is only going to get you so far. But if you want to run a photography business and make me pass, if your kids or bring on an associate photographer one day, you gotta have this stuff in place. And so, in case you're wondering, like, why aren't waiters hearing from photographers here lately? Well, this is why I like this matters to And so, um, you know, I knew that there wasn't a pod Castle. This is like, I want you guys to get both sides. Not just the shiny good stuff, but the things that matter. And this is what will help you make more money in your business. And so that's why I asked Christy, Come on.

spk_1:   42:11
So I don't know if we have time to talk about campaign tracking, cause I know we're running long. Um,

spk_0:   42:17
you're totally fine. I'm not gonna not gonna cappie it. You're good.

spk_1:   42:20
I want to talk about sort of the last step to really supercharge your your ability to analyse your marketing and advertising. But I will say this The caveat. You can really mess up your analytics if you If you put in the wrong inputs. I'm gonna talk to you about what inputs you should be putting in. And I'm gonna give you a hall pass that if you don't want to do this right now, that's fine. Google has, um, has become much more sophisticated and understanding where your traffics coming from, Like it it's coming from. You can see this. You go to the social report, you see Facebook, Instagram Pinterest. Do you know what I mean? So, um, this isn't super super necessary. But when you're ready to take it to the next level, you actually and especially if you're spending a lot of money, you actually want to start tracking your links and controlling how your links their tracks. So you know that the tract properly So you're going to Google? Uh uh, Google Campaign. You are l builder or Google campaign builder, and that will give you Google's product for building trackable Earls. The reason why you want to use Google's campaign builder is because that is how Google analytics will properly read, attract link, and it will. It will in just that data into your analytics in a way that Google Analytics understands So there's a couple of, um, there's three different fields that you have to fill in or Google will not allow you to build the link. The first is the Earl. So let's just say you're running some down Funnel like my calendar's filling up fast inquired today about dates and prices you put in your inquiry page. That's your landing page. And then it's going to ask you for your campaign source. You have got to use Google's words for our I'm sorry. Not that that's campaign medium. It's gonna ask you for a campaign source. This is where the traffic's coming from. So this is Facebook. It's instagram. Um, if you're doing email marketing, some people recommend that you put in like male chimp. I think that that's useless. I do email marketing, not just for myself, but I'll by email marketing from other people. So if I'm working with another vendor, Ah, planner and I'm like, Hey, will you do a blast for my campaign? And she says, Yeah, and she's using male chimp and I'm using male champ. It just gets confusing. So I just put my business name in there, not dot com, just my business. Same all lower case who will seize upper and lower case words is different words. So you have to adopt a convention. Lower case is easiest again. Google sees dashes and underscores is different. So adopt a convention. I use dashes. Some people use underscores. But it's all lower case. You say I'm going to run on Instagram campaign in my bio. Um and so you'd put the campaign sources instagram all lower case. Then you have to fill out the medium. You have to use Google's words. So you know, when you go into Google Analytics and you look at your traffic sources and it says direct organic social email and all those things, if you do not use those words, Google will not know what you're talking about and it will dump you in the other bucket. You will have. No, you gotta dig for it. And it takes a lot of work. So for all intents and purposes, for, um, for wedding vendors, they are going to be on social, so they're gonna use social lower case. They're gonna be doing an email marketing campaigns. They're gonna put email or they're going to be doing paid advertising on social media, and that's CPC. Okay, that's it. That's where you live, That's all. Um, and those are Google's default channels, and so is long as you're using one of those three things again. Keep your campaign simple, and you put in this source Facebook instagram, your own business, somebody else's business or whatever. Um, you'll be fine, and then the campaign name. Now you can get creative again. You know if it's a black Friday sale, if it's a cyber Monday sale. If it's an engagement season sale, you just put some key words in there to help you keep track. And then you take that link, you can shorten it down, and that's what you use in your Facebook posts or your ads or your instagram bio or whatever. This is a little bit more advanced, but now when you go and you look at your conversions and you're looking at your thank you, Paige conversions you, you can actually say Okay, well, I know that most of my conversions came from Instagram, but what was the campaign name that most of them came? And you can start to see how different campaigns we're performing so Maybe engagement season doesn't perform as well as my calendar's filling up. And that's how you can get into like, instead of just the gut reaction like it feels like I got a lot of engagement. You can actually put some riel quantitative data to that. But campaign girl tagging and campaign tagging is definitely advanced. And, um, I'm gonna let you off the hook because if you do this wrong, you can pollute your data and just not get the right information in the right places. And then you're just it doesn't show any conversions for you. So, um, definitely look at some YouTube videos. One person I follow is called analytics a N N I E. Analytics, and she has a guy to campaign tagging that you can Google. She comes up really high on Google, and that will give you a breakdown. But when you're ready, start tracking your links, and that will really CED allow you to start testing different types of content and things to see what's working what's not working to drive sales.

spk_0:   48:07
That is so exciting. I had no idea that you could do all of these things. I have a long laundry list of things that I need to be looking into. But I'll take it one step at a time and go back and start with that. Thank you. Paid first and track that. But I I just love that. The fact that we don't have to best more, we could literally go over to Google Analytics and look at what it's doing for us. I think it's super beneficial, and I'm all about moving, you know, forward. And this is definitely one of those talking your effectiveness, for sure. So

spk_1:   48:47
and also I just want to tell a little story because I know a lot of people who follow you. They were doing beautiful work. They have great social media channels. A lot of them do have beautiful websites, and, um, it's easy to really feel like you're on top of the world and just be like, You know, I don't really need a lot of this measurement because my business is booming and I'm on top of the world and I know what my audience likes on social media and on my website and stuff like that. I'm good when I was just a quick story about being good when I was in when I was the digital, the director of interactive marketing, which is digital marketing now for Mammoth Lakes tourism. After about three years, I got to a point where all my campaigns were good, too. Um, I knew where my audience was hanging out. I knew how to advertise. I knew the messaging that they liked. And, um, I knew how to grow all of those campaigns. And I got to a point where I remember one time I was in the springtime we were start Oh, um, Segway out of winter and into summer messaging. And I remember looking at the reports and saying, You know, everything's good. Lonely Planet's good trip advisers Good. Travelocity's good. Um, you know all of these things air good. Um, but some of them are better, right? And so what would happen if I took two excellent channels and focused on them or two excellent ad campaigns and focused on them and dropped the three campaigns that were good, but not as good as these two things like, How much more money could I make my community? How much more conversions could I get? And so I would say if you're out there and you're thinking, you know I'm good, I'm good. Metrics can really allow you to, you know, take and make a decision to let go of the good in favor of the excellent and truly level up. Because if you're good at seven things and you're excellent at three, why not take all of the money and effort and time for those four good things and roll it into the excellent things and really level up your business?

spk_0:   50:57
Mmm, That's awesome. That's

spk_1:   51:00
no metrics aren't just for losers.

spk_0:   51:02
Oh, that could be interpreted like so many different ways, so that that's awesome. I'm Wow, This has been a jam packed episode. I am so thankful that you came on and and honestly, just roll back the curtain and let us, you know, into your your head and your strategy. And I hope that people will adopt this and again. If you don't understand nicholsfirst, I'm re listen. Knew it bite chunks like, I promise it's not that hard to understand. It really is simple, and I cannot wait to jump in furniture and we can talk about this inside of our Facebook group to be asked questions on this. You guys really all composed anytime. Ask questions and we can have a conversation. And people drive there too. So, Chris speed, you have anything else that you want my listeners to know? I mean, I think I've

spk_1:   52:03
covered it. I don't want to make their brains to mush. E. Yeah, yeah. Um, I did create a download for you in particular, and i it of the five metrics and Google analytics that event pros should be measuring. And in this download, I do step you through. I have screen shots for you know, how to set up your goals and things like that. So if folks would find that useful, I mean, it's we're in the wedding industry, so I had it designed. It has pretty pictures, and it feels a little like friendlier than just having me come at you with my scratchy little voice. But you can find that at mountainside media dot com slash Brooke for this podcast. Thank you for having me.

spk_0:   52:49
Thank you so much. Christie, this has been awesome. So many takeaways. And I'm really excited to see the results people are gonna get once they start tracking there. Their marketing and their analytics. Some super excited. So thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I want to be featured on the podcast. I'm currently looking for photographers who are interested in a coaching session that will be recorded and aired on the podcast in 2020. To apply to be a guest on the show, please visit Brooke jefferson dot com slash apply.