← Success With Jewelry
Success With Jewelry
124 - Laryssa and Liz Interview Marketer Cami Leisk About Marketing For Jewelry Artists
00:41:16
Welcome to the Success With Jewelry podcast, hosted by Laryssa Wirstiuk and Liz Kantner, two experts passionate about helping independent jewelry artists thrive. Welcome to Success with Jewelry Episode #124! This week, Laryssa and Liz interview Cami...
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- [00:00]
Larissa
Welcome to the Success with Jewelry podcast where we invite you inside our conversations about business success and marketing for jewelry designers and entrepreneurs, where Larissa enlists jewelry.
- [00:11]
Cammie
Marketing experts with a combined 16 years of experience in jewelry marketing and proven track records and helping jewelry brands meet their goals. When you listen to or watch this podcast, you get an intimate and exclusive peek behind the curtain of all the things you wish you could know about earning success in this industry.
- [00:27]
Larissa
Welcome to episode 124. In this episode, we'll be chatting with Kami Leisk, co founder of Loam Marketing, a company dedicated to helping artists market their work effectively. Loam provides photography, video and website services designed specifically for artists and arts organizations.
- [00:45]
Cammie
She's here to share how artists can leverage their content across multiple online platforms to maximize visibility and engagement without feeling overwhelmed. We'll dive into essential marketing photos, blog topics that translate into social media, the power of consistency, and even why you don't need an Instagram if it's not your thing.
- [01:04]
Larissa
Plus, in the bonus content, Cammie will share her top strategies for making content creation feel effortless. Hey, Cammie and Larissa, let's get into it.
- [01:14]
Cammie
Welcome Cammie.
- [01:16]
Kami Leisk
Thanks for having me.
- [01:17]
Larissa
Thanks for being here. Do you want to go ahead and do a quick little intro about yourself?
- [01:22]
Kami Leisk
Sure. So Loam was started about four years ago in response to the growing need for promotional materials in our community. We're in Western North Carolina. We're based about 15 minutes away from the Pemblen School of Craft and Spruce Pine. And we, my business partner Brady and I, were really seeing the people around us struggle to do all of this extra stuff around a studio practice. So, you know, the things like photographing your artwork and posting on social media and updating your website, all of those things are another job on top of a job like having a studio practice. I mean, I think a lot of folks can resonate with this idea that, you know, you're working more than a full time job to keep a studio practice, especially if it's your, if it's your sole income and all of that extra stuff. Learning your camera, learning your website platform, especially if you're only doing your website a couple of times a year, that can feel really overwhelming. And so we started offering our services and we both were like, oh, I don't know how to start a business. But we did it and we thought, oh, we'll just get some jobs at coffee shops and piece it together. And basically as soon as we put the word out with a couple of people, it was like we had A full schedule, day one. And it was just an amazing response and we've just kept going from there.
- [03:00]
Larissa
I think it's such a testament to leaning into a niche because you came in with like, this is the audience I want to serve. And I think that's really important to have clarity on. But also for artists, it's really, you know, I feel like some agencies or some marketing opportunities or people to work with feel a little like unapproachable to artists. So when somebody really understands the needs of a studio practice or kind of the, the time frame of creating art, like you're, we're not going to turn out collections, you know, five times a year, ten times a year. We're going to be working like maybe all year on one small collection of a few pieces. And I think it's just a different mindset.
- [03:43]
Kami Leisk
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think like there's, there's room in the budget sometimes to hire out photography, there's room in the budget sometimes to have someone help you with your website, but sometimes there isn't room for that. So I started feeling really passionate about helping people learn that stuff in a way that felt like, you know, I'm not making YouTube videos that cover every single thing. When you're opening a squarespace website or something like that, I have someone come in at the end of a website design project. I'll have them come in and we'll spend just two hours together going over their specific website, their specific pages, so that they can walk away and like feel empowered to do the work themselves if they want to. And then if they don't or they don't have time, I'm here, you know, But I also, I'm just one person. And so managing all these websites is actually totally impossible.
- [04:44]
Cammie
Are you also a working artist? Like, how did you get into this niche?
- [04:49]
Kami Leisk
So I did go to art school and the, the original plan here was for me to be a studio artist. But to make ends meet, I was always working in galleries and museums as like arts administration staff. So I was always handling work, shipping artwork, interfacing with artists. And that's kind of how I, how I got into understanding some of the, the ways that you need to approach marketing art versus marketing other types of things online. Like other types of businesses.
- [05:29]
Larissa
Yeah, I think another kind of big difference with artists and you know, like a traditional product based business is that you're not always selling everything on your website. So thinking about how you want to present your, your work, maybe work that's sold before, having a Portfolio, what's actually for sale and if you are selling things as an artist, I think that sometimes I find that it's like confusing. Like are these things for sale or are they not for sale? So like managing those challenges too?
- [06:00]
Kami Leisk
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's definitely like when whenever I come to an artist's website and I'm, I'm like, okay, I'm at the homepage, whatever. I do sort of like a quick assessment, like, okay, what's the story here and what is the product here? And I think if you yourself can get really clear on what, what is your story and then what are you selling? Sometimes those things are very intertwined, but sometimes they're not. So I don't know if that, if that helps at all or if that's a piece of information that anybody wants.
- [06:39]
Cammie
But yeah, I would imagine too, and correct me if I'm wrong, but like your clients are not necessarily the product's not like add to cart by ship. Like there might be a conversation involved or maybe there's some aspect of customization. I don't, how does that work?
- [07:01]
Kami Leisk
Definitely sometimes there's, it's such a spectrum. Like we're so flexible because there are people that are potters and you can buy a mug and it's just like big bang, boom, it's in the cart, you buy it, it's really simple. And then there's folks that are making like custom furniture where you need, there's a longer time scale, you need a deposit up front. Those are very direct interactions that are happening via email or on the phone or something. And so those that, those two website examples, like the potter versus the furniture maker, those are very different, very different websites. I think when it comes to jewelers, there's, there's almost like a combination of those two. I see a lot of folks that have a shop where they have inventory that's ready to go. Like they have a certain number of things that are ready to go and you can buy those things. But then they have like their higher end part of their practice where, you know, maybe that is a custom engagement ring or it's, it's like a customized experience and that requires a lot more management and sort of one to one interfacing. So I think identifying like those different parts of how your business works will help you with your, your site structure and ultimately help you to kind of like focus in the writing. That's going to like affect your SEO.
- [08:33]
Larissa
Yeah. Just to give everyone context, Cami and I met through Crafter Commerce and I went to one of her presentations and it was really like they, and I've been in marketing for a long time and digital marketing. But like, she explained SEO in a way that it finally like all clicked for me. Like it made sense. And through this presentation too, she like talked through site structure. She talked through like figuring out what you're trying to say and organizing it and then how to use SEO. It was really a great presentation. We're not going to get into all of that today, but I just, I want to put that out there for everyone that you're really skilled at teaching.
- [09:12]
Kami Leisk
Oh, thank you. That's, that's really nice to hear. I feel like I had a call with an artist the other day who is like, you know, I've been working with this huge marketing brand or like marketing, sorry, not brand company. And they speak in all this jargon around all of the factors that go into SEO and they sort of just lump it together and we sort of lose the meaning. I think partially because we use the acronym SEO and we're not saying search engine optimization every time. And those words that search engine optimization, like that word optimization is really the whole definition. Right. It's, it's not one thing. It is like that. I think that's why it's so frustrating or nebulous to find answers on online about what SEO really is, because there's so many different factors and there's like a zillion things that you could pay attention to. But throughout my experience I've been able to kind of narrow it down to like around like 40 things that you need to pay attention to. And I have a really, a really straightforward checklist that I'm using a lot. So that sounds like a lot of different items. But, and we can get into some of that if you would like to today.
- [10:43]
Larissa
Yeah, let's, let's stick with our topic at hand. Maybe we'll ask some SEO questions in the bonus content. But first and foremost, I mean, this is the question we kind of want to start with here is why content matters for artists and designers.
- [10:58]
Kami Leisk
Yeah, well, content really is the basis for all of your online marketing. Whether that's really excellent photos or writing, especially writing that is explaining some of the obvious things about your practice or a certain collection. Those are, that is how someone is going to interact with your work. So a photo paired with a description that sounds really simple, but at the core of it, that is the only way that someone is going to add a screen, figure out the real life interaction that they'll have with Your piece. So, you know, the types of content that I'm talking about are like product descriptions. That's huge. And I think people sleep on product descriptions a lot because once you get to the point where you're finally putting your work online, you're like, oh, my gosh. Just like, dimensions, materials. Like, it's so annoying. But writing that one lifestyle sentence in your online shop like, that is huge. It's worth it. It's worth it to just bite the bullet and do that.
- [12:09]
Cammie
Yeah, I agree. Hugely overlooked. Because it's the last click before the cart, too. It's like the last touch point before someone decides they want to potentially purchase.
- [12:20]
Kami Leisk
Absolutely. And I think in that same line, like, photos that describe the piece really clearly, like an on white photo is really great to understand what the product is. But if you can figure out how to put this thing on a person, put it in space with another prop or another lifestyle feeling, like, you can really start building your brand just by choosing props that align with your aesthetics.
- [12:54]
Larissa
I think that that's another thing that's really missed on a product page. And Larissa and I love a product page. You're speaking our language, but is that there's only the one photo, the one white background photo. And then it's like that thing is floating in space. We don't know the scale of it. We don't know what size it is. We don't know, like, fully the colors, like, if it's a gemstone. So there's a lot missing. So building out that product page not with just the description, which, like, measurements are key. Like, if you don't have the measurements of a piece, like, written in your product description, that's like a huge missed thing because you're expecting somebody huge. Yeah, go ahead.
- [13:32]
Kami Leisk
I would be shocked if, like, 50% of customers actually pay attention to the written scale information. Like, I. I worked in a lot of galleries and I can't tell you how many folks, especially if we didn't have any kind of scale, visual scale, how many folks would be like, I thought that was way bigger. Or like, I thought these earrings were, like, tiny. And they showed up and they're huge. So we have, in this business, we've started to. And I just wrote a blog post about this, like, a couple days ago. We'll link it in the show notes about, like, describing scale in an image. Because that is going to go loads farther than just writing down, okay, this is 0.25 inches by, you know, like, people can kind of understand that stuff, but place Cues and props and spaces. Those things are super helpful. And if you have the time and the bandwidth to put that together, like, that is gonna do. People can just see it in their own lives when you do that kind of thing.
- [14:41]
Cammie
That happened to me once as a shopper. I, like, bought something off of ebay, like, a while ago. It was some kind of, like, lawn decoration, and I thought it was, like, a normal scale thing, and it ended up being, like, a dollhouse minia thing. And when I got it in the mail, I was like, what is this?
- [15:01]
Kami Leisk
Yeah, Because I didn't read. Definitely think that it can happen. I think it happens more outside of the jewelry world. I think the jewelry world, like, you kind of understand jewelry scale, right? If you're on a jewelry website, like, you can understand that. But it is things like that where it's like, okay, this could be, you know, a half an inch tall, or this could be, like, 15ft tall. And I don't know, you know, where we're at here.
- [15:32]
Cammie
Well, I've seen it in jewelry for sure, too. Like, I'll see this happen. Actually, I won't name names. No. I saw a jewelry brand that's, like, primarily E commerce. I'm used to looking at their pictures, and then I had an opportunity to see them at a trade show, and I was like. Like, I had no idea how small these pieces were, because in the pictures, they look so larger than life. And there is no model photography.
- [15:59]
Kami Leisk
Yeah. Having a human being for scale is so useful. It does so many different things. And I've seen a lot of people, like, if you can't get a model together or you don't want your own ear and neck in, like, every single shot or whatever. I've seen people using, like, a digital version of, like, a human, and then they, like, put the thing on, like a drawing of a human or something like that. Or, like, you know, you could. You could do that in an analog way, too, I suppose if you're. If you have, like, a specific aesthetic, you could, like, make a little, like, bust or something. People that are actually artists will understand that maybe a little bit more and make it. Make it look good. I think I would have a great time doing that.
- [16:51]
Larissa
But, yeah, I think of Marla Aaron, ages ago, did a photo shoot where it was, like, common objects with her jewelry, too, or, like, her favorite candy or snacks or something like that. It was a cute photo shoot. So there's other ways to show scale too. Obviously, having it on someone is the most ideal.
- [17:09]
Kami Leisk
I love that idea of Using common candies or something like that. That's a cute idea.
- [17:15]
Larissa
Yeah, you can have fun. What would you say? And I'm sure there's a very long list of common challenges artists face when it comes to creating and managing content.
- [17:24]
Kami Leisk
Well, time is the biggest thing. Like I said earlier, the, the lift that you're asked, like that folks are asking themselves to do when they're managing all their own content is take. They're like removing themselves from the studio. They have to put their brains in a completely different analytical like format. And so yeah, like time and time spent away from the studio, both of those things are huge challenges. And then like if we take Squarespace as an example, they are changing their interface kind of often. Like they're moving where tools are kind of often. And if you don't work with your website for six months or a year and then you go in and try to work on it, things are going to be moved around and it's going to feel like, oh my God, I have to relearn this whole thing. So I think both of those things are connected to time. And like, you know, you have to dedicate so much time to being in the studio and the sort of equation that you have to run to get yourself out of the studio to do some of this marketing stuff is, is challenging. But if you can figure out how to be efficient in those hours, then that becomes, you know, it becomes easier to motivate, to leave the studio and work on building content.
- [18:50]
Larissa
So if they were to prioritize, if, if designers and artists were to prioritize a certain type of photo that would be the most useful, what would you kind of, where to start?
- [19:02]
Kami Leisk
Well, the answer to that might be like a. If, if this, then that kind of thing, like if the, the, the goal of that person at that moment is to get their work into more shows, then I might prioritize the. On white photography, if their goal is to sell, sell more work, I would prioritize photos that are more lifestyle or scale based or a little bit more like stylized. And then also maybe photos of process for both of those things. So process photos do a lot to both express the fact that this thing is handmade by a human being and that is part of why it's special. And then also you're doing a little bit of like value explanation or like worth explanation where you're saying like, this isn't just a lump of gold that has been hammered. Like, this is a process that I have learned over ages and ages. And so there's There's a lot that sort of subconsciously gets transferred. Like a lot of images, a lot of information gets transferred. When you look at either a video of somebody working or you see an image of them in process, it really humanizes the. The piece and kind of brings someone into your story by, you know, so that kind of content, like, process content, is quite a low lift because you can just set up, you know, like, Adam Whitney does this every day. He just sets his camera up and he's just taking a bazillion photos every time he's working on something. And at the end of it, he has a ton of content. And he didn't really. I mean, like, the. The camera was a purchase and like, all that stuff, but he is able to then hand off a bunch of content to social media. And he didn't really have to, like, get out of the studio, you know, like, he's. He's killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.
- [21:20]
Cammie
I'm looking him up right now as you're talking.
- [21:24]
Larissa
Yeah. And I think that sometimes with the process or behind the scenes, a lot of artists think they need to do like, a really, like, edit it together video with, like, sounds and transitions and stuff. And it doesn't need to be like that. I'm usually engaged just by like, a bench shot or like a what's on your bench kind of situation. So it doesn't necessarily need to be this overly produced thing.
- [21:45]
Kami Leisk
Totally, totally. I think people really resonate with. I hate to use the word authenticity, but I don't know what other word to use there. But, like, humanizing your practice and being casual sometimes is the most effective way, you know, even. Even if what your. Your goal is is just to, like, connect with other makers, like just posting something that's just, like, really satisfying to you. Like, when I used to make pottery, I used to just get. So I was trimming the bottom of a pot is, like, so extremely satisfying. Like, that part of the process. I just wanted to do that all the time. And I think there's a lot of potters that feel the same way. And I think that jewelers will find this similar thing where, like, you know, maybe somebody really likes soldering or something. I don't know. But, like, I saw actually, you're wearing a pair of. Are those Erica Bello earrings? I saw a video that she did that was literally just a soldering. And it was like, she was like, I love when this happens. It's so satisfying. And then, like, I was like, yeah, that's so satisfying. To watch. Like, I wonder what she's making these days. And it like, literally made me go to her website. So I think though that kind of thing is underrated. I'm glad you brought up the, like, casual kind of vibes because I just saved that video.
- [23:07]
Larissa
That's so funny. I know exactly the video you're talking about. But I love, I'm not a maker. I've never been a maker, an artist or anything like that. And I just, I love anything that kind of gives me a glimpse inside a maker's mind.
- [23:21]
Kami Leisk
Yeah, absolutely.
- [23:24]
Larissa
What are your tips for creating versatile content that can be repurposed across platforms? Because I think that that's another thing that we really want to get across in this is that, like, you don't have to do reinvent the wheel all the time or like, do things, you know, every single day. Like, you can create content and reuse it and make sure it's used on all of your platforms.
- [23:44]
Kami Leisk
Yeah, I think that versatile content is often things that aren't connected to an event or like a specific moment in time. And I think, like, understanding that, like, you can totally repost things later or, or whatever if you just think like, okay, I'm putting, I'm, I'm doing this time investment in something, I can use it again later, that will help sort of frame how you're thinking about this. So versatile content is really carefully put together, like lifestyle shoots. You can reuse those images all the time. I think that blogs are super underrated. And I'm learning myself that every time I'm doing a blog post, it's like I'm pulling out images, I'm writing specific things about like a certain topic. But then all of that effort that I've put in to gather the image, resize it, you know, pair images with the right kind of text, all of that can be used across my newsletter. I can make a social media post about it. I can, you know, whatever, a bunch of different things. I can reach out to a specific person and say, hey, I know we've been working together on this one thing. Here's a, here's a sort of like, you know, broken down illustrated version of what we, what we chatted about. So as far as like, how to create it, gosh, the answer to that is so complex and different for each person, I think.
- [25:34]
Cammie
Yeah, I agree about the blog. It's like more effort up front. It can be hard for people to do that. But once you sit down and think through it, like you said, you can use that in emails. On social. In many different types of social posts, you could squeeze like 10 social posts out of a blog post, sometimes more. So it is worth that amount of thought, I think.
- [25:59]
Kami Leisk
Also, like, answering sort of seemingly obvious questions about your practice is wildly useful. And that could be a way to start a blog. Like, why do you use silver? What is it about this shape of earring that has captured your attention? Why are you a jeweler? I mean, that's, that's a really complex question. Maybe, but, you know, versatile content is sort of like, maybe, maybe think about some of the vague questions that you answer sometimes for people that don't know you or, or like when you're at trade shows, what are the most, most asked questions? And that's going to be really versatile. Writing, you know, like, as far as images go, probably something that, that has, has some lifestyle involved in it. But as far as writing goes, like, I think creative people have so much information in their brains, but it might feel like they don't really have, like, from the inside, it might feel like you don't have anything to say. But the reality is like, if, if I asked someone like, you know, why are you like, casting versus chasing or something? I don't know. I have horrible jewelry. Yeah. Why are you doing it in this process versus this process? I might get a really long answer from that. And so I think, you know, use your network and use your friends and, and see if they could like, you know, sit with you and brainstorm for 10 minutes about what questions you might be able to answer in writing form that would give us all a window into your practice. Like, I use the, the, the metaphor of a shop window when I'm explaining, like, how you set up your homepage. And that's kind of like, okay, the first step is like, all right, we walk by your shop window. What do we see? What is the glimpse that we see? But you have the opportunity with a blog to really, like, you're letting us into the back room. You're showing us all of this casual stuff. You're showing us your process. You're showing us things that you care about. If you get a new tool, write about it. Why did you get that new tool? How is that tool going to help your practice? I, I'm going to bring Adam Whitney into this conversation one more time. We were up in. He's teaching it at Penland right now, and we were in his studio, and for like 45 minutes, he was doing, he was like, explaining certain, this certain type of tool, and I was sitting outside sort of just listening in and thinking, like, how human is it to sit here and talk about tools and geek out about how this tool is like, you know, changing your process or like, what it's doing for the final product. So I think thinking about, like, the vague. The vague things and like the sort of universal human things, like a tool. Why is a tool important? What do you like about this tool anyway? That was a very long winded answer.
- [29:11]
Cammie
Yeah, Even the most obvious thing, like, I don't know, say you work with diamonds and you like step cuts. You might think to yourself that, oh, there's a lot of information on the Internet about this. Like, I don't have to add to that noise. But if you are bringing in your perspective along with that, I think it is adding something new.
- [29:35]
Kami Leisk
And double bonus, if you are explaining things in a conversational tone, AI chatbots are going to pick up on that. And, and you're like doing SEO for, for search engines. And then you're also optimizing for chatbots because you're answering questions in a conversational tone. So those robots have to do less work.
- [29:58]
Cammie
Totally.
- [29:59]
Kami Leisk
We could have a whole. We could have a whole episode about the.
- [30:04]
Larissa
Do a whole series.
- [30:06]
Kami Leisk
Find information.
- [30:07]
Larissa
Yeah. Because I feel like we, us three could speak forever about a lot of different topics. But. Okay, where do we want to go from here? Let's. Let's kind of get to this point before we wrap up and talk to insiders. But why is consistency so important? And why does it kind of feel like redundancy?
- [30:29]
Kami Leisk
At its core, marketing is familiarity. So if you can build an audience that is familiar with your work, that is going to help your whole practice in the long run. So another word for familiarity, familiarity is redundancy. And it might feel like maybe like boring or like you're annoying someone or like it. You know, I don't know what the feeling is that stops people from doing this redundancy thing, but it's extremely important. Important because it builds trust around your brand. So if you see the same picture in a couple of places, like, that's not annoying anybody. That's not like, you know, I think, like, especially when it comes to newsletters, a lot of my clients are like, I don't want to send out a lot of newsletters because I don't want to annoy people. And most of the time I just sort of get in their face and I'm like, get over it. Like, literally, you're not annoying people. This is, that's not how this goes. Like, we're all Inundated with sort of hellscape emails all the time. And having an email from an artist that's like, look at this thing that I'm trying to make light of the world, you know, like, it's like a breath of fresh air to get an email from an artist and you're sort of letting them see into a creative lifestyle. It's different than the things that are coming through when I am like deciding to spend my money on something that's like maybe a large purchase, even if it's kind of a small purchase, I might look at it and then like sleep on it. And then if the next day I like open my Instagram and something from that artist pops up, like that's sort of like the second. It's like a second touch point. And it might take me two or three. Especially if you're like marketing a class that you're taking. It's going to take me a couple of times of seeing that to pull the trigger. You know, I mean some people pull the trigger really fast and, and that's not, you know, that's sort of a wonderful person that does that. But if me personally, I have to be like, oh, like maybe I'll do that and then I'll sit on it. And so that, that familiarity happens in a short term as well. Like, like the, the doing, doing the sort of redundancy in your practice in at large is like building that long game. And then sort of short term redundancy is like, okay, I did a blog post. I'm going to make a newsletter in that same week and I'm going to post about it on social media. If that blog post is about a class I'm about to take, that's working well for me. You know, there's different audiences in all three of those places. And yeah, yeah.
- [33:24]
Larissa
Also reusing photos or like using the same content on your Instagram, in your emails on your website, like that is creating like cohesiveness across all the platforms, right? I. When you have a high bounce rate, it's often because somebody's like clicking to your website, right. And it's like very different than what they're seeing from whatever they clicked from.
- [33:45]
Kami Leisk
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. Like, there is this thing that happens when you're like, oh, it's like a trust thing. Like if the branding is different or the vibe is different from one platform to the other, you might get turned off when you get to something that is different than what you just saw. And I think that Happens more in like the, the social media to website direction than the website to social media direction. But I mean, I think redundancy is also a powerful tool because you don't have to do such a intense lift. Like you're not making brand new content for all of your platforms all the time. Like you can get one theme together and stretch that out across a month or two months and that's completely like it's, it's easier on you and it is better for you, I guess.
- [34:47]
Larissa
Yeah. And in terms of examples of artists who do this well, I mean we mentioned Erica Bello earlier. Like she does a really nice job of making sure. And I've gotten packages from her before for and like that even aligns with everything else she's doing.
- [35:02]
Kami Leisk
Martin does this really well. Ellie Richards does this really well. Those are not jewelers, but they, you know, still craft people. Laura Wood does this pretty well too, I think. Yeah, yeah. She does a good job of like pairing lifestyle images with images on white so that you're like getting a really clear idea of the form and color with the on white images and then you're getting a really clear idea of the scale. Yeah.
- [35:37]
Larissa
Great. Okay, last question before we wrap up. How do you get motivated to consistently produce content? Like, any tips to like stay motivated in doing that?
- [35:48]
Kami Leisk
So I've been thinking a little bit about monetizing my content and I haven't pulled the trigger because of various reasons. But that could be a way to get motivated is think like, okay, if I build this and people really like it, I might be able to turn this into a paid newsletter, especially if you're sharing a lot of educational material. The other way to get motivated is to welcome feedback. I know that sounds kind of scary. It puts you in a little bit of a vulnerable place. But if you start getting positive feedback from your audience, that can start help like that can, that can help to kind of, I don't know, keep the engine rolling. Like, like inertia is so hard. And it took me years to start my blog because I just could not get that engine started. And now that I've just done the first one, I've done a couple now and I'm getting positive feedback and it feels like that is sustaining me in, in some way. And I also think that like, yeah, motivation is such a tricky little animal.
- [37:09]
Larissa
Yeah, I liked your point about, I mean, even if you're not monetizing your content, knowing that showing up consistently will lead to sales. And I also love your point about like feedback because I My new thing in my email marketing is to be like, hit reply and let me know that you saw this or tell me how you're doing or whatever. And like those replies feel so much more real than like looking at my click rate, you know what I mean?
- [37:32]
Cammie
Absolutely.
- [37:33]
Kami Leisk
Going engagement, happening there, feel engagement.
- [37:37]
Cammie
But also try trying not to rely on that because feedback can be few and far in between. Even if people really like your stuff, I think most people are not going to take the extra second to say anything back to you. And so if you're relying on that external whatever feedback to keep you going, that's probably not sustainable.
- [38:02]
Kami Leisk
Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, I think going back to maybe a goal for why you're producing content in the first place. And like, Liz, I went to your, your chat in Asheville the other day and one of the things you mentioned is like put some of your goals on a post it note and put it in front of you like, like up on the wall somewhere that you can see it every day. And like help, help to remind yourself of your why. And I, I mean we could probably chat with a lot of different people about how motivation works and how you can motivate yourself. I recently saw some, some post about how smart goals, I don't know if anybody is familiar with smart goals, but it's, it's a set of standards that folks have been using for a long time to sort of like set a measurable goal. And then you go through these steps and then you have, you have finished your goal at the end of this sort of process. And there was an argument for kind of putting smart goals to bed and trying to look more for like, I will do this action for this amount of time and sort of making a commitment to yourself to do that versus like putting this big goal out there and breaking it into smaller steps and then like checking them off. Like some people find a lot of satisfaction checking off these little tiny tasks. I do. But I think that as far as my own blog goes, like, I made a commitment to myself. I'm going to do one blog post every month for 12 months and see how that goes. I mean, I do the same thing when I'm cleaning my house. I'll set a timer for 15 minutes and I'll just start cleaning. And sometimes like, and I'll, I'll. Sometimes I'm like, oh f this, I'm going back onto the couch. And sometimes I'm like, you know what, now that I'm moving, I can do the kitchen again. You know, like, I can do the bathroom also. And it's. So there's a. There's a thing with, like, momentum and motivation being, like, hand in hand. So if you can. If you can commit to yourself that you're going to do one social media post per week for the next three months, it might be at the end of three months. It feels like a smaller lift. I don't know. Does that feel like it?
- [40:27]
Larissa
Yeah, I love that. All right, Kimmy, how can people get in touch with you?
- [40:34]
Kami Leisk
They can email me@hello.com they can find us on Instagram. That is loam marketing. Yeah, those are the two best ways, probably.
- [40:53]
Larissa
Thanks for being here. We'll have to have you back because we covered about a quarter of what we wanted to talk about. All right. Is your content strategy consistent? Let us know. Visit successwithjewelry.com and if you love the podcast, we'd love to hear from you. Send us a message or leave us a review. Thanks for being a part of the success with Jory community.