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Success With Jewelry
140 - Laryssa and Liz Interview SEO Expert Holly Callis
00:38:57
Welcome to the Success With Jewelry podcast, hosted by Laryssa Wirstiuk and Liz Kantner, two experts passionate about helping independent jewelry artists thrive. In Episode #140, we’re thrilled to interview Holly Callis, founder and CEO of Empowered...
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Success With Jewelry Podcast. Your go to source for real conversations about business marketing and what it actually takes to succeed as a jewelry brand Today.
- [00:10]
B
I'm Larissa, the strategist, systems queen and the one who finds joy in turning big marketing challenges into step by step plans that actually work. Email marketing and generating revenue through it is a specialty of my agency, Joy.
- [00:24]
A
Joya and I'm Liz, your creative compass and advocate for designers doing things differently. I live for brilliant brand storytelling, beautiful visuals, and helping designers confidently show up and shine. I founded the Stay Gold Collective to create community and support for independent jewelry brands.
- [00:43]
B
Together, we bring you nearly two decades of jewelry marketing experience and on this podcast we're pulling back the curtain on everything we've learned. Whether you're just starting out or scaling to your next big milestone, you'll get honest insights, helpful tips, and maybe a few laughs along the way.
- [01:01]
A
This is episode 140 and we're interviewing Holly Callis, the brilliant founder and CEO of Empowered English, the agency known for helping brands ditch the jargon and find a voice that actually resonates with decades of collective experience. Behind her team, Holly's helped hundreds of businesses, including jewelry brands, clarify their message and craft copy that connects. She's the first person new clients meet, the engine behind marketing and business development, and the final set of eyes on every piece of work that goes out the door. With an MA in Law and a BA in English Literature, Holly brings both analytical thinking and creative spark to everything she does. In this episode, Holly helps us break down the difference between copywriting and content writing. Yes, there is one the most common mistake jewelry brands make in their product descriptions and emails, and how to write a homepage that actually works for your business. We get into SEO without making it scary. And in our Insider only bonus segment, we talk about overrated copywriting advice, using AI without losing the human touch, and how to get unstuck when you're too close to your own brand story. You're going to walk away from this one with fresh ideas and a serious urge to rewrite your about page. Let's dive in. Holly and Larissa, let's get into it.
- [02:25]
B
Welcome Holly.
- [02:27]
C
Thank you so much for that great introduction, guys. That was really awesome. I feel like I've got a lot to live up to now after that wonderful Larissa wrote it. That was a great show.
- [02:35]
B
Larissa, I was creeping on you a.
- [02:38]
A
Little bit on the Internet.
- [02:39]
B
I mean, but Holly and I know each other so yeah, I was pulling from what I know.
- [02:46]
C
I put more pressure on the. But yeah, it's great to meet you guys and great to be here. I'm really excited to share, share my thoughts.
- [02:54]
B
So I think the thing, I mean, copywriting content, there's just so much that I think people are confused about and AI doesn't help. Like, it's definitely a tool and a lot of people in our industry of jewelry are using it. But even with that, it feels like it complicates so much. So this is such a good topic today, right?
- [03:15]
C
Yeah. And I think that the industry is changing so much. I'm someone who is really interested in AI, really interested in the latest technology, and at the moment, it feels like the sands are shifting underneath the feet of many writers or creative people out there, and also for many business owners too, who are thinking, how, you know, is it worth it to invest in copy and content writing anymore? Can I just do this myself with. With AI tools? And there's so many questions at the moment, I think, in this space. So it's a really timely, timely theme.
- [03:48]
B
Awesome.
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A
I'm excited to hear more about what your thoughts on this, because feeling that as someone who writes Instagram captions and emails for people, it's just, where does AI fit in and how. I guess I'm just excited to learn more from you.
- [04:08]
B
So what's the difference, Holly? First, let's like, just break it down to terminology. What's the difference between copywriting and content writing? And why should a small business care about the difference between the two?
- [04:22]
C
Yeah, sure. Well, I could get like a really technical answer involving a sales funnel and everything like this. But I, I'm gonna keep it simple. But copywriting is essentially that, like, sales point. It's, it's written, it's sharp. It's written to get you to do something, to get you to do action. And you'll see copywriting in ads and, you know, sales emails and landing pages and in that final end of the funnel sort of stage of your jewelry website or your jewelry sort of like sales funnel. Whereas content writing has a bit of a different purpose. And content writing is the core to content marketing. And that might be used for. To build up your brand reputation online, to improve the authority of your brand and to make people aware of what you do and what you offer. But it also the main sort of engine behind content would be, my opinion, SEO and helping people discover you and find you organically. So while copywriting is for that end of the funnel, driving them to make a conversion, driving them to make a sale, content is a little bit More general. And it's there to build up your reputation, build up a relationship, and provide a more holistic view on the kind of services and products that you offer.
- [05:41]
A
That's really interesting because I think that a lot of time with copywriting, people think, oh, I just need to get words on the page, or I just. There's less of a line that's drawn to, like, the goals of what they're trying to achieve and what they're trying to say.
- [05:56]
C
Yeah, And I think that is. We're going to talk about this a little later. I think that probably one of the biggest mistakes that people make in this is they think, you know, I can write that I'm a. I can speak English. I can write that this is going to be fine. But in actual fact, there's so much of a strategy and so much of a thought behind how you communicate something. And I'm, I'm not a visual person, so I like to read things. I much prefer to read things. And so maybe I'm a little biased, but that is how you, you communicate the value of everything. It's through how you describe something and the words that you use around that. And so if you're neglecting your content and the strategy and the copy, you're going to be sort of missing out on a lot there.
- [06:43]
B
That's such a good point. And something I hear a lot is that, oh, people don't read anymore. Why should I care about this? Like, I have nice pictures. That's what people care about. And I get really frustrated by that because it's not only about whether or not people read, but all of the other benefits that you can reap by having, you know, your story really solid and thought out.
- [07:12]
C
Yeah, right. And, you know, and I, I do speak a lot about SEO. Like, I think that's probably, that's something that I really enjoy. I always say I enjoy that because it's kind of like you get a grade on your homework, you can see really clearly how much traffic you get and the metrics behind that. I'm really interested in that. So it's like you write something well and then you get a little grade. That's why I think I love it so much. But when you, when you are writing, like when you create a beautiful website, Google can't see that. And now we're moving towards, like, LLMs and sort of ChatGPT and these kinds of AI tools that also read your site. They don't know what a good picture is. They don't know the creativity that you put behind that and they can't understand that at all. So if you're neglecting the words that are on your page, it means that it's difficult to understand for probably what is your biggest audience, which is those robot spiders. Right. Your robot audience. That is probably the most important audience. Because if you don't have that, you know, your audience, your real customer, your paying customers won't be able to discover where you are. So just pictures is brilliant. And that is a great, you know, copywriting thing. It's a great, it's a great important thing for your, for the bottom of your funnel and for those conversions. It's really important. But to get people on there, it's not about the pictures and how pretty your site look, although that is important.
- [08:40]
A
Also, I think people still read. I love reading. I'm a reader. I get very frustrated with like reels where all the copies on the video or it's just there's talking and there's no captions and then there's no written text in the, like actual caption of the post. That very much frustrates me. I want to read the story and, and, and read about what you have to say.
- [09:04]
C
Yeah, and actually that's true as well because I, especially when you're making a big ticket purchase, like with a jewelry piece. And actually a few weeks ago I was looking at buying like a little and it was really expensive piece of jewelry and it just had pictures on the thing. I, I saw it on Instagram. I really liked it, clicked on it. It was, it was about ten thousand pounds, which is about twelve and a half thousand dollars, I guess. And so it's a big purchase. And I was thinking about it for my first day and I was like, I love it, but it just looks pictures. And so I had a lot of questions about that. You know, I'm not going to just spend $12,500 on something that I've just clicked on on Instagram for the first time. And I didn't really feel like they answered a lot of questions in that and I had a bit of doubt about, you know, and so I never bought it in the end. And now I, I've been thinking about it again, actually. I can't find it.
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B
Oh my goodness.
- [10:02]
C
I know. We just needed to more.
- [10:06]
B
Holly is speaking so many truths here. AI doesn't care about your pretty pictures, first of all. And second of all, your pictures are not answering the questions that someone's gonna have if they're buying a high ticket item.
- [10:21]
C
Yeah.
- [10:21]
A
Was there A clear contact us button. Cause I find that there's a lot of times, like, I have questions about something and there's no easy way to contact someone, which, you know, is tough when you're spending a lot of money also.
- [10:34]
C
Right. Yeah. And even if you just want, like, reassurance, like, and I. And some. Sometimes it's just something as simple as, like, you know, they say, oh, international shipping is a fee. But then I'm like, well, wait, where are you based? Like, where.
- [10:48]
A
Wait, where are you based? What is your name? Where do you live? Like, where is this being made? Or where are you shipping from? I'm super intrigued by this ring and I want to ask you more about it later and find it for you. I want to reunite you with it.
- [11:02]
B
Liz is going to find them.
- [11:04]
C
We're never going to get it back, unfortunately.
- [11:09]
A
But it's also interesting what you said about ChatGPT being like the robot reading your computer. Because I was at an SEO workshop here in Asheville recently and the person teaching it was kind of like, you have to write for the robots. That's why FAQ pages are now on home pages. And because Chap GPT kind of responds to questions.
- [11:31]
C
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And there's, I mean, I'm going to preface this right now by saying that this sort of search engine optimization for LLMs, when sometimes it's called LLMO, sometimes it's called GEO, sometimes it's called SEO or something like this, and there's so many acronyms. And right now this is such an emerging sort of discipline and an emerging area, and anyone who knows, anyone who's telling you that they know how to rank in these search engines is possibly not telling you the truth. Because nobody knows for certain how this is happening at this moment, as, as when we're discussing. And there's so many tools that are promising to give you the same metrics that you can find in tools like AHREFS and semrush for Google. But these, these tools are notoriously opaque and difficult to understand how they make their decision. But so there is a lot of information now saying, you know, put in questions on there, answer those questions directly. And that kind of makes sense from a semantic point of view because of course you are asking ChatGPT questions. But is ChatGPT literally pulling up the same question that you then have on your homepage to answer that? Probably not. And instead I'm seeing a lot of information that's saying, actually authority, backlinking the amount of other websites that talk about you and point to you as an answer, how people are sort of talking about you on crawlable, indexable, search and social media pages, say, for instance, and LinkedIn on Reddit. We know that those that GPTs and LLMs have access to that data, and we know also that they prioritize those answers because they see them as being a little bit more human. So it will pull information from social media like Reddit and LinkedIn as an answer. So it could be that actually posting, if you're making a blog post, posting about that. Multiple areas having a Reddit channel, that kind of stuff. Are they called Reddit channels? I can't remember what they're called. But those areas might actually have more of an impact than putting a load of FAQs on your homepage. But it's about that balance between, well, are you riding for a robot? Robots don't spend money like people do. And really, that's what we really want. We want that money. And so if you find that FAQs are also answering those questions of, you know, just basic, simple things like, oh, you do ship internationally, then, yeah, let's go with FAQs. But if we're just putting in a load of FAQs with some sort of keyword filler just because we have this idea that that's what ChatGPT wants, I think maybe let's rethink that. So I think with all these things, like with copy, there's a balance. You don't want to be too salesy and too beautiful because no one's going to find you. But then at the same time, you don't want to be too robotic and weird because people will find you but won't buy from you. So it's like two sides to the coin. And I guess that's where the strategic approach of copy and content comes in.
- [14:29]
A
Larissa loves a product page. We both really value a product page. It's the last step before somebody adds something to their cartoon. Any tips for product descriptions?
- [14:42]
C
Yeah, I thought about this when we were in that. And I guess for me, I think we really, we've spoken a little bit about this. But it's not just the product, Right. That you're describing. Although I want to know, especially when I spend a lot of money, I want to know everything about that product. Things that you might not even think. I want to know how heavy is it? Right. How does it feel? Like, where are the edges rounded? Or how does it feel on your finger? What does it look like on mold? Multiple people's, like, skin colors, like I want to see this and with maybe with other pieces of jewelry. And I want this information, all of the information. But I also want a bit of a story. Like, I think when you're talking about something that's so pricey, it's not just something that you would buy every day on a whim. This is something that you're investing perhaps for a special occasion or something like this. So that storytelling aspect and that narrative needs to come through in the content that you, that you're preparing. One thing that I like to see is a, like a hero at the top of your page with all of the information on it so that people who are returning can make that purchase quickly. But then I like the page to go down and tell me a story underneath. And that would mean in, you know, different headings, different pictures in. I like that extended product page one, we've spoken that, you know, people don't like reading. I like reading, but I guess they don't really like reading all the time and people skim those headings. So when I write a long landing page, I like to make sure that the headings only like, just the headings tell the story. If I took away the copy that was underneath that, the headings would still tell me the same story as I go down the page. And then if I expand on that a little with the copy underneath the heading. But the people who. People can read into it as much as they want to in that. So they could just read the heading and take away the same things as what they would if they went in and read more about that part of the story. If that makes sense.
- [16:47]
B
Yeah. Thinking about it more visually also, you know, it's writing and people are reading it, but they're also digesting it with their eyes too.
- [16:57]
C
So. And I think perhaps when you're. If you just think of an example of like looking at a landing page that you've. That you've seen recently, when you are on that landing page, the top part should tell you everything that you need to know and the benefits that you're going to get and who this is for and all of that stuff in a second. You should just get that straight away. But then as you go down, there should be elements of that, of the product that perhaps come that are then presented to you and told to you. And in that, at the heading, you should be able to get that key part. But if I'm interested in, for example, sustainable diamonds, I might want to know more about why, where these diamonds come from, what makes them sustainable. So While the heading might say it's sustainable diamonds, so someone could take away, okay, they're sustainable. If I'm interested in that, I'd then be able to go in and find more information about that. But it wouldn't be at every, it wouldn't be like laying out all of the information re breaking it up with these headings so that the headings tell the story as much or as little as you want to read as you go down the page.
- [18:05]
A
And any tips for emails?
- [18:10]
C
Yeah, emails is a funny thing because I have had mixed, mixed experiences with emails and I am an SEO. As he sort of like specialize more in SEO and content, sort of like website copy and content. But for emails, I recognize that there's such a strategic opportunity to leverage them and use them. I wouldn't say that I'm the expert in those things, but my key takeaway would just be sort of like general thing of like, you know, make sure that you're building a relationship and you're not just selling. And I think emails there's, there's space for content as well as your copy. Right. Although I'm, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that, Larissa. Like, as you know, you're, you're, you're an expert in email marketing and do you find that, that jewelry audiences want to read things in the email or are they more interested in just seeing the pictures? The beautiful pictures?
- [19:10]
B
Yeah. Well, our general recommendation for email is sort of like what you said for the product page, like having scannable headlines. But rather than expanding on that with copy and the email, the call to action is the more important thing because the call to action is going to bring them to the website where those maybe longer descriptions are the landing page with more information. So the email's kind of like a vehicle to get them to where more of the description and the storytelling is.
- [19:45]
A
Yeah, I think it's interesting with emails. I've seen this trend where it's just a text email from like big brands. Like no images, just like written. Like it's like a personal Gmail email.
- [19:59]
B
I've seen those too. I have a little bit of a love hate relationship with them. I think if, I think if you're going to go in that direction, you better be a damn good like writer because if you are not considering how every word is like showing up in that email, you're gonna lose people after the first sentence. And so the ones I think are the most successful are really pulling you in. Like they are on point. You could tell a Professional copywriter wrote this. And the ones that are more rambly in nature, I. I have no patience for them.
- [20:38]
C
Yeah.
- [20:39]
A
It's interesting because I've received a few from, like, bigger brands, like, I think Catbird, for example, and other brands. And I'll open it, but you're right, I start reading it and then I move on. But it does intrigue my interest. And, like, I remember that I got one from Catbird. So it kind of does the work of, like, awareness and, like, maybe I went to the website later. But that's a good point because I don't think I've ever read one fully. I've just been intrigued by them.
- [21:06]
B
Yeah.
- [21:07]
A
And I like to read.
- [21:08]
C
Yeah. I don't know whether this is, like, my bias, I guess, but when I'm in my emails, I'm doing something like I'm working or something like this. And so for me, email wouldn't be. It's not a. It's a tricky thing because I do recognize that people make a lot of money through emails. And it's certainly like, you know, my personal opinion doesn't just write. This author's like a marketing channel. Like, if you are. I. I guess that's why I'm. I kind of struggle with it as something that I can offer advice with. And I wouldn't find myself being a. I wouldn't say that I'm like an expert email copywriter, but because of this, and I think a lot of people are at this point, point in their, you know, in the. In the emails, they're not. Especially with something that's high ticket value. Right. It's about. It's all about nurturing, isn't it, and building that relationship and building that trust with someone rather than going for the sale.
- [22:18]
A
Interesting. It's interesting to hear how different people, Like, I know we're off topic here, but it's interesting to hear how different people like to be marketed to. Because, you know, I'm guessing because you found that ring you love on Instagram, you're doing a lot of discovering and shopping on Instagram versus things hitting your inbox, right?
- [22:35]
C
Yeah. And I actually hate things hitting my inbox because I'm, you know, I'm so busy, and I'm like, don't, you know I'm busy. I don't have time for this. I get so many emails every day. Whereas Instagram is, like, the place that I would go. And maybe it's a little bit more aspirational. And I'm like, yeah, I want to be that same Instagram. That's her. So, yeah, maybe that's the case. And I, I am very susceptible to Instagram marketing, actually. I just spend like £500 on some sort of like, linen things for no reason at all. Yeah, I bought linen pizza.
- [23:16]
A
Oh, you're not alone there. But I think in the insider episode, I'm going to ask you more questions about your favorite jewelry brands to follow on Instagram. But anyway, getting back to our topic. So let's say somebody's writing a homepage or about page. What should that copy actually be doing for them?
- [23:31]
C
Yeah, I think we. For a homepage, both of those pages have different purposes, right? So for your homepage, you need to be showing off the kind of things that you do and the, the products that you offer, the, the big motivation and story behind you. But your homepage isn't the story to. Isn't the place to be telling your audience about you in that moment. And I think when we group them together, home and about, maybe you start to think, well, and one of the most common mistakes, actually that I see people make on their homepage is that they, they're like, we are this. We. We are these people. And that doesn't make me want to stay around. I don't care about you personally. Sorry, I'm honest. I want to be an Instagram influencer. Okay, You've got to know, tell me how I can reach that and how I can become this, like, beautiful person that I'm seeing on Instagram on your About Us page. That's where you're building up that trust and showing them, you know, we're real people behind the brand. This is who we are. This is our motivation. This is, this is where we are. So there's two distinct angles that are your About Us pages where you. Who you are and building that trust, whereas your homepage is showcasing that overall view of what you do. I would say as well that I'm not that bothered about SEO on your About Us page. The only time that I would be bothered about that is if you as a founder have a big presence or you have some. A person that, that I. That has a lot of search volume for. Like, that would be a time when I'm like, orienting an About Us page to that person. But if you look at any of the sort of like, search engine results pages, you're not going to find about an About Us pages ranking for any of the commercial keywords. So get creative in your About Us page. Tell your story in a unique, fun way and think about Trust and ignore SEO in your About Us page. In your homepage though, that's a different story. And actually you want ranking on your homepage for the main keywords to describe what you do. And so for that, you know, we need to do some research. You need to be finding the kind of words that you're, that you're looking for that your, your audience are using to try and find businesses like yours. So two separate distinct things. Don't confuse them. I would say your homepage is your overview. Your About Us pages is building that trust and telling the story of the people behind you.
- [26:08]
A
Can you talk more about this term SEO, which is a scary term for a lot of business owners? What are some beginner friendly ways for a jewelry business to write more SEO friendly content without sounding robotic?
- [26:23]
C
Yeah, and I think we've spoken a lot about that dichotomy. Content that ranks, but also that sounds human and we're going to talk a little bit later about AI and how to use that in this way. But the, the basics of SEO is, and this has been made clear in so many Google updates, it's are you providing helpful content to your audience? And if you're providing helpful stuff to your audience, then that's essentially what SEO rewards. There's a lot of strategy behind it and techniques that you can use to sort of like fast track that. But my, the first place that I would go to, and this is maybe even a free tool, it's called Answer the Public. But I would just, if I was a beginner, a jewelry brand looking to sort of start a blog and bring more traffic in organically, I'd go to Answer the Public and I would just search for the products that I offer and look at the questions people are asking around those topics and theme. So it might be something like, you know, what is the birthstone for emerald? Like what month is the emerald birthstone? Or something like this. Right. And I would write a whole series of blogs on that and that will bring in traffic for people who are asking those questions about your products and it gives you an opportunity to showcase this product. So right at the beginning, most beginner friendly thing is think about your customers and what they're asking you. And then right for that, as you get a little bit more into it. I think there's a technical element too which is, you know, make sure that your website is fast to load and make sure that you've got all of your headings tagged. Headings is such an easy fix and so many businesses don't do that. But just make sure that you've got one heading, one on each page, and the rest heading twos and threes, in a nice way. So many people just use the headings as sort of like to make the text on the page bigger or smaller, but that's not the purpose of it. Just get that technical aspect in small tweaks, and you'll see some success from that too. So for beginners, don't overcomplicate things. I would say just what are your audience looking for? And then is your site navigation? Like, can you use your site in an easy way? And then that's it. What I would say is you can do that with AI tools. You can do that with tools like ChatGPT. However, don't. And I don't want to make that too. Like, you know, I don't want to really say make that too sort of like of a firm line, I guess. But what makes you different is if you're writing that blog about Emerald Birthstone, that blog is available online and it's been written a thousand times before. And so if you're going to use StrategyBT to write that, what you're gonna get is sort of a match of like a mismatch of all those 1000 blogs that are already available. And you're gonna put that up and it's not gonna rank and it's not gonna perform well, and it's not gonna build any relationship with the people that you're looking for. So also do this from your own story. Like, tell it from your own perspective and bring some. Try and find something unique about that blog, and that will also serve you well.
- [29:42]
A
That's great advice.
- [29:44]
B
So what I think I hear you saying, Holly, is that blogs are important.
- [29:51]
C
Yeah, they're really important. And I think I love blogging because it's. I don't know, it seems like something that isn't like, a real job, you.
- [30:00]
A
Know, I started as a blogger when blogging was. What year was it? I don't know, 2010? I don't know, 2009?
- [30:08]
B
Like Live Journal?
- [30:10]
A
No, it was like early, like, blog spa and WordPress and things like that. And there was this, like, really robust community of bloggers. And you would get like thousands of comments on a blog post. Like, it was all like, you'd get engagement in a way that we do not see anymore. It was a wild time.
- [30:29]
C
Yeah, Yeah. I wasn't around in that. In that time. Like in 2009, I was like, that's cool.
- [30:39]
A
I just aged myself quite a bit in college. I was like blogging about, like, Death Cab for Cutie and stuff like that. I don't know, whoever was hot then, like the indie space.
- [30:52]
C
I need to like, put up on this, like, podcast, like, pictures of us in 2009 for this.
- [30:57]
A
I had the Zooey Deschanel side bang situation.
- [31:02]
C
Was it even 2009 if you didn't have it? Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, nice to know you and your little side part. Blogging away still.
- [31:12]
A
I can't get rid of the side part, though. Like, I don't know how people have moved to the middle part. I don't understand. I can't do it. It doesn't make sense.
- [31:22]
C
But yeah, I mean, I, I love blogging. I think it's so interesting that you could just write about things that you like and make money from that. Even in. Even if it's not in the same way that it was. You could do perhaps 15 years ago. But it's certainly not something that is. Is obsolete at all. And in fact, you'll see that some of the best performing pages on websites that bring in a lot of traffic are their blogs and other informational resources. And yeah, there's no comments underneath there, but they are really, really valuable things. I would say, though, things are harder. And actually there's a. I don't know if you saw this recently, but the. The CEO of Fiverr, he sent out this email to this. The team, his team, and he basically told them, you know, AI is coming for your jobs whether you like it or not. And he said this really interesting thing at the end, and he said that the easy jobs just got made obsolete. One of the hard jobs, like, what was the hard. What was the easy jobs? And now no longer a job. What was a hard job is now the easy job. And what was the impossible jobs is now is now the new hard. And I think that you see this in like marketing in general and sort of digital marketing, where the more we become online, the more this real estate, it's just like sport over. And the more what you could have got away with a few years ago, right? It's now that's not. That's just the bare minimum. You've got to do so much more than that. And that's the same with blogs and content. Like before, you know, you could have done well if you just wrote a load of blogs and just a blog every day, you're gonna do well. But now a blog every day. Well, for some of these big businesses, that's just the minimum that they're doing. They're doing two, three blogs a day because they've. AI has just leveraged that so much so now to stand out from that. It's no longer a volume play, it's a quality play. Right. And now a blog is about investing your time into creating something unique and amazing that really adds so much more value and that gets shares and, and that's much harder than just, you know, five blogs a day using ChatGPT. So, yeah, it's, it's really. And at the same time, like, it's, it's a scary time, I think, because we perhaps are getting quite off topic here. But it is a very scary thing, I think, for many businesses because, like, how can we compete now? You know, even just from a, a working perspective, like it's my job. At risk is AI coming from my job. But for businesses that are selling, you know, products, how can you stand out? How can you compete against the, like, huge businesses that are dominating search engines and doing, you know, how can you, how can you rank against businesses like Amazon and how can you sort of like attract customers back? And I think it comes down to that unique voice and the uniqueness of you and your unique story and prioritizing. That is something that's really important.
- [34:31]
A
I love that. One more question before we move on to chat with insiders. You've worked with hundreds of brands. What's something that the most successful ones have in common when it comes to messaging or storytelling?
- [34:43]
C
Yeah, I think it's, it's that they're consistent with it. I think it's been consistent across all, all channels and all of the way that they communicate this with their customers. And what I mean by consistency is, yeah, it's keeping a consistent story, but also it's showing up like every day or showing up every week with the same message. I have a couple of stories about that, but one, one recently that I had is I work for a business not in the jewelry sector, actually. They sell online courses and they sell three online courses and we send out emails. In actual fact, for this business, I do write email content for them and we send out a load of emails. We send out emails every day almost to, to this list that we've highly segmented and all of this stuff. And we also have, you know, whole web page. It's all like geared towards this and everything like it. And one time we sent out this email and we have a list of maybe around 20, 25,000 people, very specific niche of people that would be looking for these online courses. And we sent out this Email. And this woman replied, and she said, what are your courses? And we're like, so obvious. Like, we talk about this all the time. We literally are always talking about these three courses that we offer. We only offer three courses. But in actual fact, for her, she hadn't received that information in the last, like, two emails that she'd received. And so she didn't know. And so she'd signed up. And we hadn't included that in the last, like, two emails. And so she was like, yeah, what are they? I would be pretty interested in this, but I didn't know what you. What you teach. And we kind of laughed at that. But then we thought, actually, it is about that consistency. We. We've dropped the ball. If there's someone on our list who's received three emails and they don't know what we're selling, how is that the case that we've not been consistent with that message? Right. And that it's about showing up and saying that message at every opportunity that you have? I would say consistency is really important.
- [36:50]
A
I love that. That's. That's amazing because I feel like a lot of artists are like, I said that already, or I feel like I'm repeating myself. But it really does pay off.
- [37:00]
C
Yeah. And you're. You're repeating yourself because it's for you. That's what you do. Like, you know, in my case, like, 12 hours a day, as you're thinking about that 24 7, right. You go to sleep and you're thinking about the things that you offer, the products that you sell, and you're dreaming about those things, and in the morning, you think about them. So, yeah, you're sick of it. But your customers don't know. They don't know that. So at every opportunity, you need to be showing up and telling them. The other thing that I would say about consistency, too, is, and perhaps you. You too, both have experiences about this, right? But you'll get a new customer. They'll be like, yeah, we're really interested in starting a blog. Or we really know that Instagram is really important. And. And then they do it for a month and they're like, oh, we're not seeing any sales from it. Instagram. We're just gonna stop doing that now. Like, no, you're not gonna see any sales from Instagram. If you just show up in a month and do stuff like that. It takes time. And that consistency means you need to show up with your best version of that on social media or on your blog for a year, for 18 months and then you can honestly look back and think, oh, yeah, you know, these are, this is the outcome of that. But if you're doing it for six weeks and then you call it quits, you're not going to see results from that. It's consistency over time will get you results.
- [38:20]
B
The least, the least sexiest marketing advice.
- [38:23]
C
I know.
- [38:23]
A
We were just talking. We talk about the consistency all the time. But we have to move on to chat with insiders. Holly, thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you?
- [38:32]
C
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, I guess, and which is my full name? Holly Grace Callis. And also check out my website, which is empowered english.orgnot.com because that domain was too.
- [38:46]
A
All right, what was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Let us know. Visit successwithjori.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 part of our community.