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Lindsay's Bites

I’m Lindsay O’Donnell, a plant-based marketing guru. And I’m here to help you build your brand!

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But don’t you dare break these marketing rules in 2024:

💕 Always KNOW the rules before you break them! So you can decide how you’re deviating from the norm.
💕 Your marketing can be ANYTHING but boring.
💕 Your marketing should repel people. If people don’t strongly dislike you, then there aren’t people who strongly love you.
💕 There is no one way to grow. Take expert opinions with a grain of salt. They have a different audience and product.
💕 Copying will give you diminishing results. Don’t do it.
💕 Marketers SHOULD be annoying. Because you should have a vision you’re fighting for, a gut feeling you’re trusting, and be willing to take risks.
💕 Also, do whatever the f*ck you want.

What is your rule for 2024?

🔥 I get so much done when I’m supposed to be doing something else.

Because here’s the thing about your online ads in 2024: WHERE DO YOU START?

Even if you’re hiring someone, you need to know enough to decide whether they’re doing a good job. But we’ve done the work for you.

Basel and I created a comprehensive ads guide with insights on our own extensive experience on what is working where:

🔥 Who is on each platform?
🔥 What ads are working?
🔥 What to spend?

Whether you’re spending $5/day or working with an agency this is information you NEED to scale and manage an online ads campaign.

Get your FREE copy and an email sequence with agency hacks and pro advice that comes from over 20 year’s experience.

Leaving comments aren’t enough to build a relationship anymore. Once someone comments on your content you’ll want to follow up with a custom message.

🔥 Maybe it’s a coupon code for someone who enters your contest.

🔥 Or a free download for someone who leaves a specific comment on your post.

🔥 Possibly it’s a limited-edition sales offer for your most engaged followers.

Our marketing director, Paddy,  has been testing this technology for our clients so they’re really getting value for their contests and content.

Check out his lesson on what we’ve learned and how you can use it is now in our Collective.

What else are you doing to build relationships in addition to your content creation?

✨ SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT ✨

Trust me, it’s more fun than it sounds.

Last week in our membership for food entrepreneurs, we not only went over auditing your social media channels and but also what is trendy now, what HAS always worked and what WILL always work.

My goal was to ensure that these foodpreneurs know how to audit their social today or in five years. Because I can teach them trends but what’s really useful is how to look critically at the purpose and goals of each of their channels.

So, what always works?

💥 Collab content always performs the best; you’re able to share an audience of shared interests.
💥 Newsjacking. Try taking advantage of current news and topics and integrate it into your content. (Is there a way to tie in your content to Beyonce’s new country album?!?)
💥 A really, really great giveaway. Yes these are still effective for reaching new people but you want to make the most of new traffic. We’ve been using an app like Many Chat to collect emails from people who enter and send them a coupon or an offer.

I think social media has never been more crowded, but it’s also never been more dynamic or exciting!

I know after doing this lesson I’m due for my own audit!

Here’s one of the BIGGEST mistakes I see brands and marketers making:
😳 They’re missing a key section in their funnel.

And here’s how to know if you’re doing the same:

✨ Are you promoting the sh*t out of yourself and your brand online and trying to sell there?
Probably a problem.

🔥 Imagine a funnel. The top of the funnel is where you reach the most people in the most superficial way (social media content, online ads, and PR). The bottom of the funnel is your highest-price offer.

🔥 Many brands are missing what should be in the middle, where you talk more deeply, warm up your customers, and weed out who really isn’t ready to align with you.

Think of a newsletter, a subscription, or an SMS campaign. You also want to drive people to a place where you can communicate directly or re-target them.

😉 Yes, you will sell some products or services on social media, but your overall conversion should be higher when you add another section of your funnel.

And you’ll have to work twice as hard trying to get sales with every social post than having a strong call to action in the next section of your funnel.

🔥 Want to learn more? We’ve got some courses on marketing funnels in our PQ Collective and we’ve been digging into it in our weekly newsletter that marketers and entrepreneurs reach every week!

Not sure how to take advantage of some of 2024’s biggest trends? Here are some ideas for your own brand. And for anyone looking for marketing strategies specializing in food brands, make sure to follow me and sign up for our newsletter!

Hyper Personalization:
🍋 This can be anything from a personalized recommended shopping list to a personalized video answering a thoughtful customer review.
🍋 Think of hyper-personalization by segmenting your email lists, your ads, or your offers!

UGC (User-generated content):
🍋 The best partnerships are the ones that go beyond a one-off. How can you work with influencers in the long-term for organic and paid content?
🍋 How can you create something truly unique to bring more people into your funnel? Maybe it’s exclusive content for your newsletter or an event.

Bold Stake in the Ground:
🍋 Audiences are looking for brands that stand for something! Make sure your purpose and vision is clear.
🍋 It should be obvious who you’re for and who you’re not. You should be repealing as much as you are appealing.

Tread Every Platform like a Search Engine:
🍋 Audiences are using almost every platform like a search-engine, use keywords in your posts and in your bio.
🍋 Look up long-form questions to include that you can answer and think about what problem you can solve and how people are searching for it.

What other 2024 trends are you excited for?
We go even deeper into these trends and more in our monthly membership!

I LOVE being a guest on industry podcasts!⁠ I mean I love talking shop but it’s such an easy and long-term marketing investment that can yield results even YEARS after you do it.⁠

It can pay off for years: Besides the fact that its generally a really fun experience, being a guest on a podcast can pay dividends for YEARS. Depending on your topic, people can find your episode years after it’s published. I know because I’ve gotten new clients from really old podcast episodes.

Here’s how to get on podcast to promote yourself, your business, and build your personal brand:

FIRST: Make a list of podcasts you’d like to be on by searching interests and topics.

Listen Up:  Make sure you listen to at least 2 episodes and look at episodes from at least the last 2 years to ensure your topic fits, that it would be of value to their audience, and that is hasn’t been covered before. Confirm that the podcast has guests (some don’t).

The Pitch: Find the email of the producer/host of the show and make sure your email includes:

  • An introduction with their name
  • A reference to at least one episode to demonstrate you’ve done your homework and know your value to their audience

Don’t Forget: Include 2-3 ideas of topics that you can discuss and why it would be interesting and helpful to their audience. If possible, include links to articles or other podcasts where you’ve educated on this topic

If You Can: Do whatever you can to make it personal and thoughtful. That could include references to their Instagram posts or a project they’ve worked on. The point is to stand out but also showcase that you’ve done your homework. Make sure you include your website and social links.

✨ I usually have a 30% success rate for outreach so keep that in mind.⁠

 

How to Create and Implement Ethics & Compliance Policies

Business start-up can be an overwhelming process with many aspects to consider. We need to think of registration, licenses, insurance, accounting systems, management, assets and resources, websites, marketing, and so much more. But once your business is established, there will be time to delve into other topics, such as policies, ethics and compliance guidelines.

If you have hired your first employee or established regular vendors and suppliers, it’s a good idea to introduce a code of ethics and a social responsibility policy – this ensures clarity and consistency within your organization. Empowered employees know in which direction the company is headed, and these policies will help inform and shape their decision-making.

Remember, just like any other written contract, it’s best practice for ethics and compliance to create these policies before you need them!

A Code of Ethics

This is a written collection of the rules, principles, values, and employee expectations that an organization considers significant, which are fundamental to a company’s success. A code of conduct or ethics will serve as a guideline or framework for ethical business standards relating to behaviour and decision-making.

The Code is a communication tool that informs internal and external stakeholders about what is valued by an organization, its employees, and management. Organizational ethics begins at the top, and the leadership and example of strong managers can help instill corporate values in employees. Trust and cooperation between workers and managers must be based on fairness, honesty, openness, and moral integrity. The same applies to relationships among businesses and customer-to-business relations.

Why bother with Ethics policy development?

A business should be managed ethically and work on Ethics policy development for many reasons:

To maintain a good reputation, keep existing customers and attract new ones, avoid lawsuits, reduce employee turnover, avoid government intervention, please customers and employees, and do the right thing.

More and more companies have written codes of conduct. A company code of ethics directs the company’s road map. Although ethics codes vary greatly, they can be classified into two categories: compliance and integrity-based.

Compliance-based ethics codes emphasize the prevention of unlawful behaviour through control or legal compliance procedures. Where compliance ethics codes are based on deterrence, integrity-based ethics codes to find the organization’s guiding values create an environment that supports ethically sound behaviour that can stress shared accountability among employees.

Some people think individuals have ethical principles, or they don’t. Some managers feel they are not responsible for an individual’s misdeeds and that ethics has nothing to do with management, but we think that ethics has everything to do with management, as ethics and integrity in business go hand in hand.

5 simple steps to improve Business Ethics

Here is a step-by-step process that can help improve business ethics.

  1. Management must adopt and unconditionally support an explicit code of conduct.
  2. Employees must understand that ethical behaviour begins at the top, and management expects all employees to act accordingly.
  3. Managers and other leaders must be trained to consider the ethics and application of all business decisions.
  4. Contractors, distributors, suppliers, vendors, and customers must be told about the ethics program as pressure to put ethical considerations aside often comes from the outside, and it helps employees to resist such pressure when everyone knows what the ethical standards are.
  5. Ethics code must be enforced promptly if any rules are broken; this is the most purposeful way to communicate to all employees that the code is serious.

What to include in your Code of Ethics

Common sections included these codes include:

  • Core values or principals
  • Ethical decision making
  • Compliance, Laws, and Regulations
  • Sustainability or the triple bottom line
  • Human rights
  • Fair Labor practices and working conditions
  • Discrimination and harassment
  • Health and Safety
  • Fair competition and Business Conduct
  • Corruption
  • Security, protection, and proper use of company assets
  • Confidentiality, information security, and intellectual property
  • Bookkeeping, reporting, financial integrity, and transparency
  • Fraud
  • Conflict of interests
  • Privacy and personal data protection

All of these topics are under the umbrella of ethics in business.

Social Responsibility

Social responsibility is the concern businesses have for the welfare of society, not just for their owners. Social responsibility goes well beyond merely being ethical and is based on a commitment to Integrity, fairness, and respect.

It’s not enough for companies to brag about their social responsibility efforts; they must live up to the expectations they raise. Customers prefer to do business with companies they trust, and we can build that trust over time with our actions.

Dimensions of Social Performance

The social performance of a company has several dimensions.

  • Corporate philanthropy is charitable donations to non-profit groups.
  • Corporate social initiatives this is an enhanced form of corporate philanthropy and social initiatives more directly related to the company’s competencies (such as donating time and expertise).
  • Corporate responsibility includes everything from hiring minority workers, making safe products, using energy wisely, and providing a safe work environment.
  • Corporate policy refers to the position on social and political issues.

Social responsibility includes our responsibility to customers, such as the right to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose, and the right to be heard.

Ethical behaviour is good for shareholder wealth; it does not have to subtract from the bottom line but rather adds to it; we call this “doing well by doing good.”  Many investors believe that it makes financial and moral sense to invest in companies that plan ahead to create a better environment.

Businesses’ Responsibility within Society

One of the businesses’ responsibilities within society is to create new wealth, which is then dispersed to employees, suppliers, shareholders, and stakeholders. But businesses are also responsible for promoting social justice. Social contributions can include various socially oriented activities, such as cleaning up the environment, sharing technological advances, and supporting low-income individuals.

A commitment to corporate social responsibility implies a commitment to some form of triple bottom line (TBL). TBL does a framework for measuring performance against economic, social, and environmental parameters that best focus on their economic value and the environmental and social value they add and destroy.

Your business can demonstrate social responsibility towards stakeholders by satisfying customers with goods and services of real value, making money for its investors, creating jobs for employees, maintaining job security, ensuring that hard work and talent are fairly rewarded, creating new wealth for society, promoting social justice, and contributing to making its environment a better place.

You are probably already doing several of these, so why not promote those aspects and put them in writing?

I am annoying.⁠

I’ve been told that my whole life. But you know what?⁠ Annoying people get sh*t done. ⁠And far too many of us worry about being annoying.

🥴 I’m worried I’m annoying my audience by selling too aggressively.⁠

🥴 I’m worried I’m posting too much.⁠

🥴 I feel like I’m bragging by sharing my story.⁠

Chances are you’re not being annoying enough.⁠
Have you ever planned a big event? To get people there you need to be UH-NNOYING.⁠

And if you’re not irritating people beyond your target, you’re probably not really resonating with your target audience either.⁠

Here is some random DUMBASS advice that actually works:

🍋 Use ‘Re:’ or simply ‘hey’ in your email subject lines for higher open rates.

🍋 Use a separate person or email when sending emails about contracts or billing for better responses. (It’s like when you have a person assigned to collecting paperwork or money people take it more seriously.)

🍋 Posting at random times like 10pm or 2am can get you higher engagement. And if your apps like it when you do everything in the app like editing and scheduling.

🍋 You have to be over the top persistent and annoying when pushing a product or event. More aggressive than you think. Being annoying is a skill and I am a master.

🍋 If you have an SMS strategy, start the first message with ‘Hey’ to have a higher chance or starting conversation.

I definitely use some of these sparingly. Which ones do you use and what would you add?