EntreLeadership - #251: Rachel Hollis—The Top Marketing Trend Now

Episode Date: March 7, 2018

In part three of this special four-part episode, Chic Media CEO Rachel Hollis shares her advice on the best way to spend your marketing dollars now. Rachel says it’s more important than ever to know the language of your demographic and the lifestyle they aspire to. Join us to find out how to do just that. entreleadership.com/podcast Rachel Hollis' website: The Chic Site Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. From the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Our feature conversation this episode is with Rachel Hollis, the CEO of Sheik Media. And don't forget, we're going to give you a free resource from the team at Entree

leadership. All right, folks, our feature conversation, as I said, is with Rachel Hollis. I love her story. This is really inspiring and very practical as well. Here is my conversation with Rachel. Well, this is exciting, folks. We have Rachel Hollis in with us in studio here,

and this is a relevant, relevant conversation. We're talking about all this month. So I want to hit you with a big question. I don't even know how you narrow this down. It's hard. Okay? Yeah. Top marketing trend for 2018, the crystal ball, Rachel, as you see it.

Yes. What is it? It's about the lifestyle and not the product. Oh, hold on. That's good. Hold on, hold on. See, you're just rolling. If you at any point tell me, yes, it is about the lifestyle and not the product.

Okay, now I'll break it down. So so many brands make this mistake where they're constantly trying to sell using digital marketing, showing off the product only. And really what today's consumer wants to see is the lifestyle that they will live. How will my life be made better, prettier, smarter, funner when I use your product? So instead of showing me a shot of the vacuum, show me the lifestyle of me as a mom of four and how life is going to be made easier when I'm using that vacuum. And I think this is something that both big brands and little brands really get wrong. They really miss the mark on is that we want to see how it's going to help us, not just what it is.

Boy, that's a big deal. It's like showing them forward, what life will look. like if you engage with our product or our service. Absolutely. All right. So let's talk a little bit of practicality here. So we've got small business owners listening in here and they're going, okay, now, how do I approach that?

Because I understand how to sell a product or market a product. What are the differentiators on how we approach pushing this lifestyle out? Yeah. I think the most tangible piece of advice, which might sound too simplistic, is go scroll Instagram. Instagram is the greatest social media platform for showing off an aspirational lifestyle. I always tell clients to go and find brands that are similar or have a similar customer base that you have or the customer base you want to get in front of and go see what they're doing. How are they showing off those photos? What do their videos look like? What is their email look

like? And then just, I don't want to say steal it, but definitely adopt some of those ideas and incorporate it into your life. Well, one of my favorite books. And the, These folks have heard me talk about it on the podcast many, many times, and that's still like an artist by Austin Cleon. And there's something to what you said. I don't want to move past that. This idea that every artist never, and no one of the came up with an original idea. They were inspired by somebody else. And then all of a sudden they become the first Van Gogh or whatever. And then that spawns all this influence. I really love that. Now, let's talk about how this type of marketing, lifestyle versus product, give us some examples of how we've seen that really catch on in the marketplace. Well, I think this is something that I know so much about because I work in lifestyle media and my audience is women. And women, first and foremost, we don't sell products. We sell aspiration. We sell a feeling.

So the best example I can think of for that is, you know, Lulu Lemon. Oh, yeah. Right? I was a hero on Christmas morning because of a well-stocked Lulu Lemon box for Mama. Yes. She loved it. And we loved it because it makes us feel like we're in shape, even when we're. when we don't go to the gym. Like we're wearing those clothes and it makes us feel like we're a certain kind of person.

Okay. So if you're going to go follow a brand like that, you see that they're going to show you a bunch of different ways that you can rock that product in the visual sense. They're not showing you a picture of just pants. They're not showing you just a sports barer, just a pair of tennis shoes.

Nike has never once sold shoes. They've sold the feeling of wearing a pair of Nike's. So I think that you can see this over and over with some of the biggest brands. and oftentimes we lose side of that. So how I think this manifests for maybe a small business, let's say you own a bakery, don't show me a picture of just the cake that you made.

Show me the birthday party that it was a part of. Show me that, you know, I didn't mess up trying to make my own cake for my four-year-old. I actually had your help as the local bakery owner and it made my life easier. Show me how it's going to make my life better. Don't show me what it is. Yes, that's so good.

Okay. So before I let you go on this, thinking of your target market, so assuming all these smart people listening know who their target customer is. Okay, yeah, let's hope we've gotten there. Some practical questions they can ask to be able to ascertain what is the feeling or the desired future of my customer so that I can then create that idea on marketing. Well, I mean, I sort of touched on this earlier, but I think it's very important to ask getting into the ideal customer, who else are they following?

What are the other brands that they really love and how is that brand speaking to them? Knowing your demographic really, really well, what's the language that they talk in so that you're being very specific in how you market to that person? I would also ask, are you thinking of seasonality? Are you thinking of what are the problems that they actually have? Are you thinking of how you can solve a problem for them? It's something when we're, you guys know this if you're marketing a book or if you're marketing a conference, You don't talk about the book. You talk about the problem that's going to solve.

A pair of spanks. Do you know what spanks are? Please. I mean, you have a wife, but I'm just making sure, you know, to hold everything in. Sarah Blakely was never selling you, you know, a tummy corrector. She was selling you that you're going to look great in your dress. So you just want to make sure that you're really diving in and asking those questions. And I think a lot of times, if it's not something that's already occurring to you, get a little brain trust.

Get a bunch of other business owners that you know or some friends that you can talk to and have them. help you dig into, there's no such thing as asking too many questions in that place, so you can sort of get to where you're headed. Good stuff. She is Rachel Hollis, and there you go, folks. That is her number one marketing trend in 2018 and might have ad. Just good advice. Hey, thanks for hanging out with you. Yeah, thanks for having me.

Some very practical and good information there from Rachel Hollis. Hope you enjoyed that. On behalf of Will the producer, Jim the engineer, and the entire Entree leadership team, Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.