61 – Back to Marketing Basics with Danielle Harris

Laura

0:04
Hi, this is Laura Lee Griffin.

Nikki

0:06
And this is Nikki May, with the Startist Society, inspiring you to stop getting in your own way and start building an art biz and life that you love.

Laura

0:15
We are artists who believe strongly in the power of community, accountability, following your intuition, taking small actionable steps and breaking down the barriers of fear and procrastination that keep you stuck.

Nikki

0:30
Follow along with us on our creative business journey as we encourage you on yours.

Laura

0:39
Danielle Harris helps creatives prioritize marketing so they can share their gifts with the world. Helping creative entrepreneurs focus on the marketing strategies and tactics that will give them ethical and sustainable growth in their business is her goal.

Nikki

0:54
In addition to her 10 years of experience, Danielle has a BA in marketing, a Master of Science in marketing and an MBA. If she’s not qualified to talk to us about marketing, I don’t know who is. Danielle, welcome to the Startist Society, we are so happy to have you here.

Danielle

1:13
I am so glad to be here. Thank you guys for having me.

Laura

1:18
We like to start out our interviews by getting to hear your Startist story. So I know that some people find their way to marketing after something else. But looking at your education, you’ve clearly always been interested in it. So how did you develop that interest?

Danielle

1:35
So here’s the thing, I did study that in college and grad school and all. But I actually, when I was leaving and graduating from high school, I thought that I was going to be a doctor. And I went in, and I studied biomedical medicine, sort of biomedical engineering, and then like biomedical science in general. And then I was taking all the classes. And then I realized, no, I just actually liked Grey’s Anatomy a lot. That was the thing. I was like, I’m good at this, I’m fine at it, I love the sciences. But that was not, that was not going to be my thing. What I had always thought it was like oh, well, I’m going to be a doctor. So I’m going to have a practice, I’m going to take some business classes, so I know how to run my practice on my own. So that was always kind of a part of it. And when I was taking my first marketing class, it was just like this beautiful puzzle of like, oh, so here’s the scenario, you have this product over here and you need to market it to these people, how do you patch that all together? And it was so interesting to me how it’s just like, ooh, these people like this, so I should market this on this area over here and I should do these types of things over there. And it was just like this great puzzle that I wanted to know how to figure out. I was just like, I think I like this. So once I realized like, Okay, I don’t want to be a doctor, maybe I should do this marketing thing. So that was like, kind of early-ish in my college career and I just loved it ever since. And I incorporated into more artistic type classes. So I did video editing because I was like, Oh, well, yeah, I did like Grey’s Anatomy, maybe it was like to like, do the video editing type thing. So I took video editing things, which all mixed in very well with a marketing background. And I just, I loved it ever since it was just a great puzzle of trying to figure out people need or want something, and how do I let them know that these are the things that can help them out. Because there are a lot of people that always have the the thought that Oh, marketing’s yucky, like it’s gross, it’s very manipulative. But that’s not necessarily the case, it’s really just presenting your best foot forward about how you can help serve the needs of other people, or make people realize like, you didn’t even realize that this was a need that you had. I can solve this problem you didn’t even recognize. And so that was something that I just really very much loved about marketing. And so over the past years and my story of going through some not sexy type groups, I worked in concrete, the concrete industry for 10 years, I was helping structural engineers market, concrete in codes and standards. So basically buildings don’t fall down, which is you know, very important.

Nikki

4:28
Oh, that sounds terribly exciting to market though.

Danielle

4:33
Completely, to me completely unsexy. So when I decided to focus on my own business, I realized like I wanted to work with creative people. I wanted to work with people that really had a passion for what they were doing, creating, making. And that just really lit me up. And so that’s when I pivoted within the past couple years, really focusing on on those individuals in particular and I just have to say I just really love that, I love helping people figure out their little puzzle, like I said before, figuring out, okay, here’s what you do. And here are the different avenues that you have. How can we put that together in a way that makes sense? So we can share your gift with the world?

Laura

5:14
Yeah, and get it in front of the right people. Because I get that whole thing that sometimes as artists and creatives, we feel a little bit like it’s slimy, like the word marketing has this, I don’t know this weird context around it.

Nikki

5:27
Used car salesman.

Laura

5:29
Yeah, yeah.

Danielle

5:30
Exactly.

Nikki

5:31
Or in my case, used bus salesman.

Laura

5:35
But then, realizing that it doesn’t have to be that way and that really, you’re putting things in front of people – when you get that right audience – that they want to hear or that they want to see. But getting from A to Z is really confusing for a lot of us. So I’m excited to hear more about that from you today. Because I know it’s information that we can all use.

Nikki

5:58
And we’ll definitely jump into more detail about all that stuff in a second, but I just want to hear a little bit more about your story and how you went from concrete to what you’re doing now – did you start taking some clients on the side? Or did you just quit and dive headfirst?

Danielle

6:15
A little bit of both.

Nikki

6:16
Okay.

Danielle

6:17
So specifically how I started out – maybe about two or so years ago, maybe this would be about 2018/2019, I started thinking, how exactly can I fill this creative void that I was personally having. And so I just started to take on clients, I had always been the person that people say, Oh, she might be able to help you with XY and Z. And so I was like, well, maybe I’ll fully lean into that and maybe start charging people money for doing that. So I was helping people with their social media strategy. That was something that I’d done regularly, through my nine to five, I helped a podcast festival get up and going, did their marketing for that type of event. And then it wasn’t until mid 2021, where I was just like, Okay, I think I’m ready. And I officially made that jump and transitioned over after I had taken clients off and on for the past year and a half or so. And now I’m loving it. I’m loving helping out people in all types of industries. I’ve helped writers before, I’ve helped people that are using their hands to craft and create something.

Nikki

7:32
Visual artists. Yeah.

Danielle

7:35
But it’s just been very, very fulfilling, just because like I said, the, my previous job, I was doing a lot of things that were very highly technical. And it’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy that and I didn’t see their passion for it because it was obviously important. But it was one of those things where it didn’t light me up. And I really wanted to lean into something that very much lit me up. And working with people that are artists, that use a lot of their creativity to make something that I couldn’t even imagine put together. And I just love it so much.

Nikki

8:13
Awesome. So okay, first of all, I have a comment about your website. So your URL is drharris. And or drharrisconsulting, correct. But every time I look at that, I see Dr. Harris. Which after telling your story about how you thought you wanted to be a doctor, that’s even more perfect.

Danielle

8:39
And it really works, because that’s like those are my initials also at Danielle Rene. So, it’s just awful circle.

Nikki

8:46
Yeah. So the big message on your homepage, on your website, it says – that really resonates with me, it says “Grow your confidence and your community without feeling overwhelmed.” And really, that’s what we’re all trying to figure out, right? There’s so much to know about marketing, and so many things we’re supposed to be doing all the time, it’s so easy to get overwhelmed. So can you talk to us a bit about your approach to help creatives market their work without feeling overwhelmed all the freaking time?

Danielle

9:19
So first of all, I just want to say that the people that are further along than you a lot of times have teams or outsource a lot of different things right. And so you often as you’re first starting off are comparing your square one to someone else’s square 55, which is not a fair comparison.

Nikki

9:39
Absolutely.

Danielle

9:40
And so really, what I tell people, when they’re first starting off is to focus on one thing, what is going to be your core area that you’re going to work on? Do you want to write emails to people? Are you a writer and long form works best for you? Send out emails; that’s where you want to focus your time and attention. If you want to do Instagram type things, do Instagram. Don’t focus on every single other platform. Eventually, you might get on those places. But to be very proficient in 15 different platforms, it’s not good, you’re going to spin out. You’re going to be like, oh, I should be doing here, I should be here, I should be there. Focus on one thing at a time, get very proficient at that. And once you feel like you have a process and system in place for getting that done effectively, then you can move on to something else. And to be honest, that will take time, you have to try to figure out an experiment, what is going to work best for you. A lot of times, people are just like, Okay, I don’t know how often to post or how often to send out things. Try it out what what feels sustainable to you. Because what’s going to work is what you can do repeatedly on an ongoing basis. And so if doing something every single day, seven days a week, posting, five times a day is not going to be sustainable for you, then don’t do it and don’t try to stress out about that, because what’s going to happen is that you’re going to feel guilty about not doing it. And then when you feel guilty, you’ll end up not doing it more, and then time will go away and you’ll just realize, oh, it’s been it’s been two months, and I haven’t done any marketing activities.

Nikki

11:14
Not doing it more is my specialty.

Laura

11:18
I think that what you’re speaking to is consistency, too. And consistency is I think important in marketing, but it can be very difficult to find, you know what is right for you. And if it looks like oh, I have to post every single day to Instagram, a brand new piece of artwork or a brand new something that feels super overwhelming.

Danielle

11:40
And consistency is not the same as frequency either. So yeah, you have to remember that, when you’re starting off, starting is the most important portion of that. And then getting into that habit. And then once you start to build up that it’s like, okay, maybe I can do more, because I figured out something and you can amp it up. But all of this takes time and to be under the impression that anything is going to happen overnight is just just false. I I’m definitely believer of the fact that marketing, good marketing just takes time. And to put in the work and the foundation, it’s going to be a slow start, you can start off fast and furious if you want to. But is that going to be sustainable for you?

Nikki

12:22
Yeah, then you’re gonna burn out just as quickly.

Danielle

12:25
Exactly. So I’m more of a proponent of starting at a pace that you can maintain anything can ramp up, good. And if you need to downgrade for whatever reason – life, then you can do that too. But trying to figure out what’s going to be a balance of something that you can really maintain, like, on your worst day, what can you do, and then you can figure out what you can do on your best day. But like, if you can optimize for what your worst day is going to look like, then that’s gonna be that’s gonna be the key.

Nikki

12:54
That’s awesome advice.

Laura

12:55
Yeah, and there’s so many different platforms, like you were saying is trying to focus on one, you know, there’s there’s Instagram and Pinterest and email marketing and Facebook and paid advertising like Google ads, or Facebook and Instagram ads, there’s so many different things you could focus on. And when it comes to like paid ads, a lot of people when they’re starting out, is it important to focus on organic growth first, or like at what point do you go, Oh, I should do paid advertising.

Danielle

13:22
I personally believe to get a practice of organic first, just because it’s going to be really good for you to get your rhythm and find your voice. And so once you have your voice aspect of finalize of who you’re speaking to how you say different things, then you can then experiment on how to message that on a paid scale. But I personally like to get more of a grounding and foundation organically first, and then move on to to the paid aspect of it. Just because, organic’s always going to be a really good powerful tool for you to use. And you can scale up and down for paid however, whenever you want to. That’s not to say like, don’t start off right away, if you want to, like I said, I believe in experimenting. So if you want to experiment and go down that route, fine. But I just personally believe that having a good organic foundation is going to be really good in solidifying some additional skills as far as knowing how to talk to the people that you really want to talk to, what language really resonates with them, without having to pay for it.

Nikki

14:29
Yeah, that makes sense.

Laura

14:31
Yeah, I know the very basics of marketing is sort of to start by identifying your ideal customer avatar, right? Like the ICA or basically your ideal customer but a lot of us as artists have multiple ideal customer avatars. So, for example, I teach classes for other artists but I also want art directors to see my own illustrations and artwork to license for products. So one of the confusing things is as I’m starting out is trying to market to two distinct to audiences through like a single website or a brand, that’s very confusing to me on how to do that successfully,

Danielle

15:06
I think you have to just be very clear about what you do. And very clearly segment, especially going back to my days, when I was working in the the concrete industry, I want to say that there are like seven different groups of people that this one organization all talk to. And it was getting very clear about who are these different types of people that you wanted to talk to. And really, it just came down to like, knowing what language they speak and knowing where they’re at. Because one tactic in one area is not necessarily going to work for another group of people in another area. Which then you’re seeing, like, well, that kind of goes counter to what you were saying to just focus on one area, where most of your people are going to be at? Is there an overlap in any of those places? So do all, you know, say you have three different groups of people that you’re trying to talk to you? Is there an overlap in where those people are at? And how can you talk to them in a way that clearly conveys, here are the three areas of things that I do, that I focus on, and some of it might be very forward facing, that you do and other things might be back end facing where it’s one on one contact, old school networking type aspects of it. And some of it is more Instagramy, Pinteresty type things that you do. But just really being very clear about where those people who live and hang out and that’s all a part of like, what I like to do is for, like four steps of marketing, being very clear about the research of it, knowing where the people are at like, the client, that the avatars. What are some events or networking hubs of wher these people that you want to reach out to work at, then building up your awareness in these different areas, then building relationships with these people. So you can ultimately, yeah, your sales and sell your classes or your course or whatever it is that you’re selling.

Laura

17:05
Yeah, and I think that’s good advice. I think there’s a lot of people on Instagram, there are definitely art directors looking on Instagram. And then there’s also people who are potential students looking on Instagram. But there are ways to reach out directly, you’re pitching your portfolio to art directors, you’re developing relationships with people outside of that for a very specific goal. But it is sometimes hard to have like a website and be catering to those two things and making sure that you’re like when somebody lands on your page, it makes sense to them.

Danielle

17:35
Yeah, and honestly, I yeah, I think that just starting off and saying like, here is what I do for this person, like being very, like blunt and clear. Like, here’s my page, here’s my face at the top, and then if you are an art director, here, if you are a student here, if you’re a whatever else demographic here, and here are the three ways that I can help you. If you haven’t done that a lot of times it can just get very confusing, and then people don’t know. So I tried to I want to say to pare it down, so it’s not like, oh, yeah, I help like 50 million types of people. Because if you’re trying to help everyone then looks like you don’t help anyone. So just be very, very curated. Like, here are the three types of people that I can help in a distinct way and the steps to follow if you want to work with me.

Nikki

18:24
Yeah, that makes sense. Personally, I go back and forth on whether or not mine should be one website/brand or two, because I have, I make and sell my own art and products with my art on it. And that’s one thing. And then I also do websites for artists. And while, while some artists might also buy my work, which is fantastic, the people who are just interested in the work, don’t care at all that I also build websites. Do you have any thoughts about about that? Like if your audiences really are truly very different, having and managing two separate brands? Or do you prefer what you just mentioned, which is having your own website, and then you just point the people in the different directions?

Danielle

19:19
Well here’s the thing, that’s not going to be an answer that you might necessarily like, there is no one right way. You can do it however you want to any, any way works.

Nikki

19:28
And I’ve done it both ways, and I’ve gone back and forth on it, and I haven’t really decided what’s best for me.

Danielle

19:37
And I think it just really depends. So if you are marketing yourself as like, say a personal brand like you, yourself are the face of it, then I think you can do a lot of different things. But if you were trying to work under the name of say a particular name to business, then no, maybe you splitting it up my work, but all that to say, you can do however you want to that goes back to what I really love experimenting of what works for one person might not work for another and what works, and vice versa, what works for everyone else might not work for you. I say experiment it out. But if you are working under, like I said, generally, if it’s your name, your face that is the forward facing part. I think that you can, quote, get away with a whole lot.

Laura

20:26
Yeah, like half have an umbrella brand, basically.

Danielle

20:30
But if you were saying like, Oh, no, this is Acme Company, right? And you know, we do this and this other name, company portion does this other thing. That may make a little bit more sense. But all that to say, experiment, see what makes the most sense. But also remember that that’s an additional thing that you’re going to have to build up a name brand recognition around, when you’re setting yourself up to needing to do alright, well, do I need a presence for each and every one of these separate brands that we’re going to do and then that gets into the overwhelm. And then it gets into like, Okay, well, now I have to do one message. Same thing for here. Another thing for over here. And that can just really blow up on you.

Nikki

21:10
Yeah, sounds over complicated.

Danielle

21:13
Start small. I say.

Laura

21:14
Well, especially when it’s just you, like you mentioned before how you know, some of these people that we look to that have amazing brands have a whole team of people. And when you’re just starting out, it’s you’re, you’re wearing all the hats. You don’t have a team of people, you don’t necessarily have a virtual assistant to help you. So it takes a lot of time. And if you’re trying to do two brands instead of one, that can feel very overwhelming.

Danielle

21:37
And we want to eliminate the overwhelm as much as possible. Because there’s so many things that are already overwhelming as okay is my day job is going to work. Ss the art that I’m creating is that working out? And then on top of that you have to do whatever bookkeeping, and the marketing and all the other stuff. What are some ways that you can simplify that process as much as possible by just focusing on one thing. If you got one umbrella brand, you have three core messages or however many that you want to end up having, and going from there. And if you want to grow and expand and do all the things later, I say go for it. But I like to start off smaller, simpler, and then build up some momentum to then expand.

Laura

22:22
That makes sense.

Nikki

22:23
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So I have a question for you. Can we do like a little exercise. So say, I’m an artist coming to you saying I need help with my marketing. I’ve been making a lot of art, but I’ve been afraid to put it out there. I’m just going to like make up an example and see what you might suggest. So I started an Instagram, and I maybe have posted a couple things on the feed. And I feel like I have to do all the things. So I’m trying to start an email list. And I also set up Pinterest, and Facebook and Twitter. And I just, I’m paralyzed. I just have art that I want to share. I don’t know exactly where I’m going to go with it. But I know I need to get it out there because I want people to to buy my products or to license my designs for other products. Where do I even start? Because I’m so overwhelmed by all the options?

Danielle

23:27
That’s a great scenario. Because that’s how a lot of people end up starting out.

Nikki

23:32
I mean, that’s a lot of our listeners are in that exact spot.

Danielle

23:37
Market first question would be, who is your art for?

Nikki

23:42
Well, it’s for everybody. I just want to share all my stuff with everybody. How do I know who it’s for? And all the hard questions that you

Danielle

23:51
If you had a picture of the person that was coming up, say you were at a booth that was buying your art, what do they look like? What do they do? What’s what’s their story? What is that one person, you’re just like, ooh, this person, I know that they, I spot them, I know that they would love my art. Who are they? Give me a description of them? Would they be on Pinterest? Would they be on wherever and I’m starting at who you’re trying to really attract from from that person. Because once you get there then you can figure out all the rest of the stuff because it comes down to the fact that you need to understand who exactly you’re trying to sell to and be in front of the right people and that so that’s a mental exercise is going to be on you at first to be like Oh, yes, it’s for everyone but like, also like toothpaste is for everyone. But also there’s organic toothpaste, that that’s like not for everyone like there. You’re to an extent, niching down like not fully to that extent but like there’s a vision of an ideal person because there might be the person is like I don’t want to pay a whole lot of money for whatever, but I still want to experience nice things. Is that who they are? Or are you charging $10,000 for your art? And so that’s a different type of person, just being very clear and specific on what that is. Is it for the everyday general consumer of things, or is it for like, the highly specific, they have like a very keen eye for something that you can uniquely provide for them? Like getting very clear on that aspect of it. Because what you might do for something, and it’s just like, oh, yeah, like it’s a little it’s a trinket, it’s a little thing that you put on your desk, how you go and approach that to massive prints that you want to sell in corporate spaces, that’ll be a completely different thing. Everything’s not for every one. It’s just getting clear on that, at the very beginning is so important.

Laura

25:54
And I think it’s, it’s interesting, what you’re kind of defining is, where do you want your artwork, as well, to be? So like, what products? Is it fine art that’s going to be hung inside of a corporate building? Or is it that you want your patterns to be printed on children’s clothes? Right? Like, if you have sort of an idea of where your art best fits, then you can start catering your advertising and your feed and the work that you put out in the world to sort of cater to that audience.

Danielle

26:24
Exactly.

Nikki

26:25
Yeah. Because a lot of people may not have sold anything at all yet, you know, they’ve been making art, they’ve been taking classes, they’re finally feeling like, it’s time to put it out there, but like, I can look at the people who have bought my art and say, you look a lot like this audience. But if you haven’t made any sales, then I think the way you put it, the questions to ask, are the perfect questions to try to get, you know, I haven’t sold it, but here’s where I picture my art. So who are the people who would be seeing it in that location? So I think that’s a good way to approach it.

Danielle

27:02
Yeah, I think if you start there, then you’ll start to pare down. And if you are on all the platforms, cool, because now you reserved those domain names. Don’t necessarily feel like you have to post everything on every single thing. If you feel like it, then cool. And if that’s where your initial research. And when I say research, I’m not talking about like, miles and miles of pages and pages of like this academic type stuff. I’m talking about, like, going on Facebook groups, or no, just looking around on Instagram or wherever else and saying like, okay, yeah, yeah, these these people feel like the type of people like I might want to sell to, and picking up on things from there. It’s like, okay, yep, that looks right, that sounds right. Okay, maybe based off of the comments that they are saying, or the the vibes that are going on here, that might be where I want to go and pare down. But if you’re on 50 million things, honestly, I’m tired for you.

Nikki

28:03
Let me ask you a specific question about the 50 million things. So this is what I do, and you can tell me if it sounds like it makes sense or not. I went ahead and reserved my name on all the platforms. And I think that’s a great thing to do, whether you’re planning on using them all now or not, because you want to make sure when you’re ready, that you have the name, I have mine, it’s nikkimayart across all the platforms. But I focus on Instagram. That’s where I spend most of my time. But since I have the other platforms, and I can set it up to do it automatically, I automatically have it post to other ones. So I’m spending my time on Instagram. But, and especially for the podcast, we spend our time more on Instagram and Facebook. But since it’s really easy to just use a tool like Later to automatically post it to all of them, I figure it can’t hurt to just have a presence there, even if that’s not where I’m focusing. So I’m spending my energy on Instagram, but just automatically posting it everywhere. Does that make sense? Or is that a waste of time? Do you have any thoughts about that?

Danielle

29:12
No, that’s working smarter, not harder. Yeah. Especially if you’re still mostly focusing and directing people into one location, so that’s your Instagram page, then you don’t necessarily have dormant pages in other areas. If people might happen to tag you in something else and like okay, yep, they do have a Facebook page. They seem to be more active or comment more on this other spot, but it’s not blank and bare. And if it is blinking bear like that’s fine because my Twitter is essentially just twitter handle with maybe one random tweet, but I have it reserved, should I care too and want to do it. That’s absolutely a great way to go about that, cross promoting in, in all the different platforms. I just say, make sure that you’re using best practices. because one of the things I absolutely hate is when people post for Facebook primarily, and they have a link in their caption, but it automatically goes to Instagram. It’s an there’s like this link that’s in the Instagram caption that you can’t click on. That drives me crazy, right so much. It’s like you can’t click on it. So like, why are you putting this link in this area that I can’t even click on or do anything. But I will just say like, make sure that when you are doing post in that type of faction, that you’re editing it a little bit to make sure that you’re taking into consideration the best practices on the different platforms. But yes, I’m all for working smarter and not harder.

Nikki

30:39
Awesome. Yeah, cuz I figure if somebody accidentally finds me on one of the platforms that I’m not super active on, it’s just, you know, an extra nice accidental find.

Laura

30:51
An added bonus.

Danielle

30:52
Yeah, absolutely. No, I say that’s an absolute great way to go about doing things. But just making sure that you’re not spinning out about that, especially if you’re just like, I’m primarily focusing on this one platform. And not necessarily thinking like, okay, now I had to recreate right specific new brand new content on a platform that you’re not initially focused on. Because if you, if you are intentionally focused on a different one, you might want to change it up a little bit and have some custom. But if that’s not where you’re going, which, if you’re starting off is absolutely what I’m suggesting – not focusing on every single one, right, then cross promoting like that across to the different platforms is actually a great way to go.

Nikki

31:33
Awesome. Thanks.

Laura

31:35
I think that a lot of artists are pretty focused on Instagram, because it is a very visual platform. And part of the challenges that have happened in recent months is that there’s a big shift to video, right, and a lot of us are very scared of video and doing that. Because we love making beautiful still images. And then having this, it’s sort of like the algorithm pushes you towards if you’re not putting video out there, then I’m going to show it to like 10% of the people that would normally have seen it in your feed. So do you have any recommendations for people on that on that platform at all, and how you know how to kind of push through that.

Danielle

32:15
So definitely get on video.

Nikki

32:19
Step one, accept that you have to.

Danielle

32:22
Just get on video. But here’s the thing, there are several different ways that you can go about doing that. So yes, you can show your face on there, if that’s what you like, and enjoy doing, if you want to dance, doing the reels, you can absolutely do that. But another thing that you can definitely do, is you could do voiceover type stuff. And then you can do what, of course I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of people do the behind the scenes of how you go about making whatever it is that you make, and then maybe an audio description of just voiceover. Yeah, maybe it’s just your hands that we see, the actual creation process, if you’re sewing something, if you’re painting something, if you’re writing something, go about doing that. And maybe it’s just a description of, and a nice calming ASMR type voice of and this is how I go about doing this, and I did that, and I put the colors together and I swirl them together. However you want to go about doing that, but you don’t necessarily have to, to show your face if that’s something that you’re comfortable with. I’ve personally say though, like people like to connect with a person behind everything, but if that’s not where you’re at right now, I say that’s completely fine. But let us know your personality through some type of way. So if you if you have a comedic twist to you, then do some voiceover and show us how funny you are in your process. Or if you make mistakes about something, go and show us your mistakes because people like to see that everyone is human and like oh yeah, I totally screwed up over here. But here’s how I covered it up. Or this is how I edit it whatever type of thing but honestly, you’re going to have to be on video sometimes. However you go about that. It could be something where you’re on a meditative walk maybe that’s part of your process before you get to creating you go outside for a walk. So maybe you just show the walk that you take.

Laura

34:22
Your ritual, whatever your ritual is or…

Danielle

34:24
Yes, however you go about doing that maybe that’s the video content that you post. But you should be doing some video and the good thing is is not like YouTube length where it has to be like 20 minutes of you talking about something, 30 seconds is completely fine.

Laura

34:40
Yeah, I mean, that’s all that anybody has the attention span for anyway, 30 seconds. But yeah, I like that idea where you know, having your face is good, but there are other options and you can still have things like you were talking about is like your preparation process, that’s still part of your brand, like showing how you create your artwork. And what goes into the intention behind it. People could be really interested in that aspect as well.

Danielle

35:07
Yeah, people just love how people set up their space. Honestly, if you’re just like, here’s, here’s how I prepped this one little area before I even get started. Do that.

Nikki

35:16
Oh yeah, I made a reel of… I did a time lapse video of me cleaning up and organizing my desk in my studio. And I got more interaction on that reel than almost anything. And it’s just a time lapse of me cleaning up.

Danielle

35:31
People are so interested in the behind the scenes of how things get made, whatever it is, it could be like how, how I make up a marketing plan, people like to say like, oh, well, what tools? What process? What this? What that? Like, tell people, show people that?

Nikki

35:47
Well, speaking of that, Danielle, why don’t you tell us a little bit about that.

Danielle

35:53
You know what I am super simple, when it comes to things like that. I use Canva, I think everyone uses Canva. I’m not an artist, I that is not my gift, at least in that way. So I very much make use of the Canva Pro. I use Later to schedule posts things, although I do a lot of organic, just posting directly in the feed also. And then I also use AirTable. So I use that as a tool to organize and what I call an idea bank. So there will be times where I have this brilliant idea for something, I will dump it into my idea bank. And so when it comes to the time period, where I set aside to actually create content, I am not coming to the content creation process with nothing. I have a bank of maybe like 20 or so ideas, and that can go and sift through that. And it’s like, Okay, here’s an idea that was just really just like an idea. And other things I have like more depth to them, like I get them fully fleshed out in my head. And so I have like outlined to say like, Okay, do I want to flesh out this one idea? Or do I want to really clean up this idea that I already kind of had polished? So yeah, I use AirTable to get all of that organized. And between those couple of things, that’s really what I use at this point, I don’t think you have to have anything super complicated. I also don’t think you have to pay for a whole lot of things. Later has a free version of their platform. Canva has a free version of their platform. AirTable is completely free. You don’t have to pay for a whole bunch of stuff.

Nikki

37:31
And the free versions offer quite a lot really.

Laura

37:35
Yeah, when you’re getting started, it’s great.

Danielle

37:37
If you want to if you want to spend money, you can always spend money. But I’m not going to be an advocate of saying like, Oh, you absolutely have to pay for this. If there’s anything you want to pay for like I’ll definitely pay for the Canva Pro just so I can like resize all the different graphic images. Oh, and that I am not a big fan of saying like, Oh, yeah, you absolutely have to pay for every single little thing. Cause you don’t. Because your expenses add up really quickly. And then you get to resent like, I pay so much money for this. I’m not even using it. Well, yeah, yeah, like that.

Laura

38:08
Yeah, I actually love Canva Pro as well. I just recently joined. And there’s just cool animations and cool, like all kinds of cool stuff that it can do.

Danielle

38:15
Good stockphotography that’s in there as well, stock video.

Nikki

38:20
So Danielle, do you create a marketing calendar and plan in advance specific campaigns? And like, how often, what you’re going to post when? Do you do that kind of thing for your clients?

Danielle

38:36
So when I work with my clients, I usually help them out with setting up very foundational things of who they’re talking to how they’re going to talk about that and revolve it around there. And then working backwards if there is a particular campaign. So let’s say they’re launching access to a course, then we’ll work on, coming up with very specific content around that. Then outside of that, coming up with here, some general themes that she’ll be working towards. So to say, if there’s a month that’s very particular to your to your field of work that say it’s the summertime and you know, your ice cream shop, you know, you might have a little bit something different than if it’s winter time. But typically what I work on personally is what is going to be my priorities of the big things that I’m launching. So if I’m launching or working on my one on one consulting, then I’m talking about how are the different ways that this is helpful for other people. So if you were in the process of preparing for, maybe it’s a show that’s coming up, then maybe you’re creating content around the fact like here’s how I prep for this process and the themes of the pieces that I’m creating for those. So that might be the general overall theme of that. But it’s really about like what, what are going to be your priorities kind of for the year that you’re setting up, and then working around that. Because there should be Some general themes about what to talk about because it could be about yourself, helping people and audiences know more about you as an individual, knowing about the style, why you have this particular style in your work that you do. And then other things that just are kind of like adjacent to it. So you kind of feel like a more well rounded person, especially if you’re an individual brand as opposed to like, no, this is just the the art or the business or whatever it is. People like to think that they know a little bit of insider knowledge about you, like, oh, yeah, they always drink tea in the morning before they go and get to creating like, knowing a little bit of that aspect.

Nikki

40:38
In my case, they always drink bourbon. Not in the morning. Not in the morning.

Laura

40:45
You have coffee too.

Nikki

40:46
I do. I do, I have it right here next to me. I drink coffee until it’s time to switch to bourbon.

Danielle

40:54
Perfect.

Nikki

40:56
That’s why I’m chronically dehydrated?

Danielle

41:02
Well, yeah, that’s that’s kind of my thought, my thoughts behind content calendars. They know, you can generally theme them but I like to have like a little pool of topics that I can pull from at any time and then transition to specific things if there’s a lunch or a particular event that I’m working towards.

Nikki

41:21
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Laura

41:24
Yeah, the cool thing about Airtable is that Airtable is not only available for your desktop, which is where I normally kind of use Airtable, but it also has an app. So you were talking about that idea thing, and sometimes your greatest ideas happen in odd moments, like when you’re out and about, or you’re taking a walk or something like that.

Nikki

41:42
In the bathtub…

Laura

41:44
You can go into the app and plug that in, and keep your little ideas list. So I like that.

Nikki

41:50
So I want to switch a little bit and and talk about the first week of December, you offered a free biz planning coworking session, which I thought was a fantastic, generous thing to do. I signed up for it, and then sadly, couldn’t make it because I had something else I had to do at that time. But um, first of all, I think that’s a great marketing thing. Because what you did there basically is you generously offered something free to anyone who was interested. But then it gave them a free taste of what it’s like to work with you. So can you talk a bit about that and why you offered it and how it went?

Danielle

42:29
Yeah, absolutely. I am a big planner. I love to plan things out. I don’t like to be surprised. I also like to procrastinate. So if I plan things out, then I know exactly when to procrastinate.

Nikki

42:43
Ooh, teach me that.

Danielle

42:44
It was kind of impetus, you know, around that. But when I decided to set this up, I knew that a lot of people get overwhelmed at the end of the year, at the start of the year, of what am I focusing on? What should I be doing? And so I wanted to offer a space for people could be together and trying to figure out what is my move? What’s the next thing for the New Year? And so I put together a few prompt questions for people to kind of get them thinking like, Okay, well, what went well, what didn’t go well for the year, you know, in 2021. And then going forward, how do you want to feel about the year and having this event in general, did a couple things. One was to help create a community around people that wanted to move forward in their business. But not only that, it also offered me an opportunity to talk with people that I may or may not have actually worked with before. So I had people that came into the space. Now a lot of the people I had known that they had been part of the active group of people that I’ve been talking with for a while. There were also a couple of people that I didn’t really know or didn’t really realize that were interacting or had been seeing things of mine before but never, never interacted in any meaningful way before and it was an opportunity for them to join. So because I offered this up, I then had access to their email addresses which you know, always a good thing to collect, even if you aren’t focusing on email marketing, collecting emails is going to be great. It’s was a great way for me to then create a relationship, so afterwards, I can say like, Well, hey, thank you for showing up to this. Here’s some other things that you might want to think about when planning or here’s another way that you might want to work with me specifically. And I thought it was just a really good way to offer something that’s a value to people, but also a meaningful way to continue a relationship or deepen a relationship that I want to have with people that may be interested in my success.

Laura

44:46
That’s great. And I love that concept like Nikki was saying, as of getting a taster, you know of the different services and also, you know, getting to know your personality and seeing if that’s a good fit for their needs. And when it comes to like the art world, a lot of times, I think we do want to focus on email marketing at some stage, maybe that’s not the very, very first thing that people do. But I know how important that can be for conversions later and to be able to sell your artwork. So as people are doing that the freebie thing is also useful for that like having awesome freebies.

Danielle

45:20
I would say don’t call it a freebie, because you want to make sure that you’re putting a value on it.

Laura

45:26
Oh, that’s interesting. Okay.

Danielle

45:28
So even if they don’t have to pay for it, they, they are exchanging something. So hopefully, it’s information about them. So you tell me a bit about you, and I give you something of value that you can have. So maybe reframing it in a way where it’s just like a value exchange.

Nikki

45:46
I love that. Yeah, it’s a way of trading, trading something of value, rather than giving away a freebie. I like that way of thinking.

Danielle

45:54
Yeah, but it can still be something that’s very valuable. I just want to make sure that people understand that. It’s something that’s just like, oh, yeah, it’s a checklist. But is it a checklist that it’s really helping people to move from point A to point B in whatever journey it is that they want to have? It’s free for them to access, but you still – they got something and you’re getting something in return.

Nikki

46:19
Nice.

Laura

46:20
Yeah, that’s cool. So some people, when they’re getting started, are really confused about what can they put in an email newsletter? Like, how should they be nurturing this, this community that they’re trying to build?

Danielle

46:33
There are a couple different ways to do that. I know that there are several people that like to do exclusive things, things that are not on any other platform that is exclusive to email. That’s one way to go about doing things. It could be like a behind-the-scenes Day in the Life or it could be, oh, did you see this post that I had? Well, here’s the real lowdown story about what happened here. It could be an exclusive aspect or a sales vehicle where you use it as early access, early bird access for things. But as far as the nurturing process, I think it’s really just going to be along the lines of how you want to interact with the people. How much of yourself do you want to give? It’s a long form, medium email, somewhat-ish.

Nikki

47:22
Yeah, it can be.

Danielle

47:24
I think it just really needs to be something that you feel comfortable giving additional exposure to, whether it’s a lesson that you’ve learned during a process, or if it’s something that’s going to be coming up, I do feel like it should be something a bit more exclusive than any of your other posts. That’s just me, that’s what I like, I like to feel it’s if I allowed you to come into my inbox, I don’t like signing up for emails. I’m a marketing person, but I still don’t like signing up for every single person’s email right now comes out here. So if I’m, if I’m getting your email, like, I want to feel as if that I’m getting something that I couldn’t get from your social media.

Nikki

48:07
Yeah, if you can see it on Instagram, what’s the point of cluttering up your inbox with just the same thing you’ve already seen?

Danielle

48:14
I think it should be, it should be a bit deeper than that. Or something that’s more personal, or some other lesson that you’re not exactly sharing. And it could be something where you have, there’s a lot of concepts of like, maybe come up with your email first. And then you take a bit of the content from your email and turn it into a post for something else. But the email is really like the meat and potatoes. Yeah, the content that you have. And the other things can be supplementary. You can think about it in other ways, too. You can have like, Oh, no like Instagrams, the primary, and then I give some other things on the email list. But that’s what I personally like I like to okay, like emails, like more exclusive and like, the insider’s club.

Laura

48:56
So I have a couple questions on that, on email. Number one is recommended frequency. And number two would be when you mentioned format, long format, like when is long too long? Because people don’t have that huge attention span, like we mentioned. So I’m kind of confused sometimes in email, where do I draw the line?

Danielle

49:16
I think that’s very personal to you, like your form, how you design things. I know that there are some people that have longer emails, but people just devour them. They love it, they like the personality and the vibe of it. I tend to make mine on the shorter side. But that’s because I just like brevity in general. I was the kid in school that they were always just like write longer, write more. That’s, that was never that was never my strong suit. But if you’re a writer and you just like love going on, make sure it’s engaging and interesting. Also don’t make like to make it a novel. But as far as frequency, I say a frequency that you can keep up with. So if you are brand new, and this isn’t anything that you’ve ever done before, you can start off with once a month, and have it known that every first Tuesday of the month, I send this out. That could be your regularity. It could be like every other week.

Nikki

50:12
Again, consistency is more important than frequency.

Danielle

50:15
Yes. All the time. Yeah, get on the schedule. I mean, once you feel like, okay, this is something that I can keep up with, then you can do it more if that feels like an I really want to interact more. Yeah. Or if you’re just like, No, I, I can do once a quarter. I mean, if you’re still, if you’re honestly just trying to start off, that is completely fine, it’s more about building up the practice of doing it. It could take you a year and a half before you just like, Okay, now I’m really in a stride of of doing this, I would just say come up with something that you are actually realistically gonna do on a regular basis. And then once you get there, of course, there’ll be people like, say, like, oh, yeah, I send out you know, two emails a week. If you can do that.

Nikki

51:02
More power to ya.

Danielle

51:03
If that’s what’s good for you, do it. But if you’re just like, I really need to build up this practice, like, yeah, I don’t, I was just starting off and doing good on posting to Instagram on a regular raises. Now you want me to also do this as well. Start off slow. Don’t be afraid of saying like, Oh, but now there are other people that send out something that’s weekly. Everyone starts somewhere. Some people just really love and enjoy the writing process and the email creation process. Other people don’t. Yeah, go with your practice, whatever makes the most sense for you.

Laura

51:34
I personally do monthly or at least attempt to do monthly.

Danielle

51:37
I like monthly.

Laura

51:38
I have a lot of pictures on my emails. And I’ve also heard that’s not always good to have lots of pictures, because I guess other people’s servers can can boot them out or put them in junk mail or something. I don’t know.

Danielle

51:51
Yeah, it depends. If you get in, what was outlook, Outlook, the Microsoft one, there’s some times where it doesn’t initially show those up, it has to especially download them. It’s a mix, I think it goes back to experimenting and seeing what the deliverability is on those different emails, a lot of the different platforms they will have, what their best practices are for that. I tend to not have that many. I do a mix, I do a mix where some are like, it’s just a letter-ish format. Yeah. And there are some where I’ve got, like, embedded a couple of my Instagram feed things that link back to my Instagram page. It’s a mixture of the two, I think you just had to figure out what – a lot of this is gonna be like, not very specific, but also very specific, you have to sort of figure out what works best for you and your vibe. But you, can you can do pictures, I wouldn’t go overly saturated with them because that could then be a lot. But making sure that it’s in a format that is readable. Yeah, for everything, obviously. And then making sure that again, you can do it on a consistent basis that makes the most sense. But as far as having pitchers, I say, throw a few in and look at your results as far as your stats go. Areeople opening it up looking at it, is it delivering well?

Laura

53:12
And do you recommend for beginners a certain platform to use for email?

Danielle

53:16
I would say don’t get bogged down on which platform, choose a platform. Whatever platform. I use MailerLite, specifically, there are other people that use other platforms, especially if you’re still first starting off by the free one.

Laura

53:29
Yeah, yeah, I use MailChimp. I use MailChimp. And I have a free program with them that works really well.

Danielle

53:36
Yeah, don’t don’t pay unless you really have a huge database. But if you have a huge database, you probably aren’t brand new to this. But you can ask a couple people that you really trust that are doing something. But you’re going to spend too much time trying to research and find the right platform as opposed to like just getting started.

Nikki

53:56
That’s my specialty.

Danielle

54:00
And a lot of scenarios, specially when you’re first starting out, you don’t know what you like, or don’t like. So you need to start someplace and go from there. And then you can figure out, Okay, I like this, or I don’t like this, but you won’t know specifically and for yourself unless you just start going at it. So you can get into the habit or the rut of analysis paralysis, like oh I’ve got these three different ones. And this one does this thing and this other one does this other thing. And then you might figure out like, oh, this thing that I really thought that I would like and use is actually not even a feature that I use it all right. So just just pick something,

Laura

54:35
Just start! That’s what we’re all about is just getting started.

Nikki

54:38
That’s our overall message, you know, just get started. So okay, Danielle, tell us. This has all been super great advice. And I know that everybody listening is going to want to learn how they can work with you. So I know you have a one on one consulting program called The Blueprint. Can you tell tell us a bit about that, and is that the best way to work with you?

Danielle

55:04
That is absolutely the best way to work with me. The Blueprint is just that it is a program where we give you the foundations of exactly how to get started in your marketing. The main things that I like to focus on is what I call the foundations. And so it’s really getting a clear understanding of who you are as a person, the values of your business, and getting a really clear understanding of the people that you want to serve. And so one of the first things that I start off with is getting people to really do a deep dive of like, the questions that we asked before is like, Who do you see purchasing, consuming your art, and getting very clear on that. And once we’re clear on that, and then once we’re clear on who you are, and what you value, that we build out a plan surrounded by that you can not, in my opinion, build something, as far as a marketing plan that really connects with people, without getting those things, right. So you can start off by doing all these other things of getting logos together and getting you know, nice graphics of every other thing. But if you don’t understand who your people are, that you’re trying to reach, the probably might end up creating a logo or some type of plan that doesn’t actually resonate with who you’re trying to attract. So I like to start off with the foundation’s with getting a good blueprint plan in place, and then going from there. And so that’s something that I offer, it’s a three month process. And we meet on no regular basis of getting those aspects together, where we understand who you are, who you’re trying to connect with, and how we can make sure that your voice is actually heard. And it’s doing it in an organic, sustainable, non-stressful way.

Laura

56:51
Awesome. So one of the questions we’d like to ask all of our guests is, what is one piece of advice that you could give an artist or designer who is just getting started,

Danielle

57:02
specifically to artists just getting started, wanting to do anything in marketing, I would say don’t be afraid of the fact that you may or may not have business, quote unquote, business experience. I think there are a lot of people, that are just like, that wasn’t ever anything that I studied before or knew about before, I’m just new to this. I don’t I don’t know what to do. Honestly, that can be an advantage. There are so many people out there that have been very well trained in a lot of areas. And having an outside perspective is really good. So making sure that you’re trusting your own instincts about things. Absolutely get advice from other things, but realize that you have a vision and trust that vision that you have for yourself. Yeah, just making sure that you’re you’re really trusting your instincts and not being so intimidated by what else is out there and all the advice and what everyone else is doing and like comparing yourself to others.

Nikki

58:03
Trust your instinct is great advice. Okay, another question we like to ask what’s one resource that helped you a lot when you were just getting started? Software or a person to learn from?

Danielle

58:17
There is a website that I like to go to and refer to people if they are really, of the mindset of I don’t know what I’m doing, I want to learn a lot of things about marketing. It’s called HubSpot. HubSpot has a very good marketing blog. So if you want to get templates for anything or learn about latest practices are any type of research, I think that they are a really great resource to go to and learn a lot out what’s new, what’s trending, how to go about doing different things. And examples have tons of examples.

Nikki

58:49
Yeah, that’s a great one. We’ll definitely link to HubSpot.

Laura

58:52
Now, is there anything that you wished we would have asked you that we didn’t?

Danielle

58:57
Hmm. That’s a good question.

A mistake that I made in marketing.

Nikki

59:02
Oooh, yeah, that’s a good one. Tell us about a mistake you made and what you learned from it.

Danielle

59:10
So there are a couple of different things. But I’ll start with this and I actually I talked about this recently, online. And it was the fact that I paid for a lot of things that I really didn’t have any business paying for. Systems where it’s like, Oh, I don’t even have the people to make this system work. I was looking at client management system. And I was just like, I don’t I don’t have that many clients. manage this, like why am I paying this money for that or hiring someone out for a thing that was like, there, people are like, Oh, I should have like email funnels. You’re just started off. You don’t need email funnels. You need to just practice writing an email, paying for things and investments that are three, four steps in advance of where you’re at, I say embrace the level and the space that you’re in right now. Because there’s so many lessons that you can take from that, as far as honing in on your voice, knowing what type of content people that like you most resonate with. But if you’re trying to go in advance and skip steps, you’re just going to end up going back and relearn those lessons all over again. So, save your money, stay at whatever level that you were at, fully embrace that, if you’re just like, I’m doing this by yourself, all by myself. Yes, you are. And you’re learning what things that you do, like you don’t like so that later on as you grow and expand, you know, like, Oh, when I get a virtual assistant, at some point, when I’m actually ready, I want them to do X, Y, and Z thing, because you’ve done the different aspects. And you know, like, this is what I want to outsource to that, yeah, fully embrace the level that you’re at and don’t try to jump ahead to what you see people, like I said, 50 steps ahead of you doing. Embrace where you’re at right now.

Laura

1:01:05
Yeah, you compare yourself against somebody who is super successful. And you think, Oh, they’re doing all these things, I need to do those things. But you really don’t.

Danielle

1:01:13
That they are successful because they’re doing these things. Now they’re successful, because they got really good at the earlier steps and they learned how to scale the earlier lessons into these more advanced things. If you don’t learn the early lessons first, and you can’t properly scale up, and you’ll end up just having to go back and learn it anyway. And that’s gonna cost you more time and money.

Nikki

1:01:35
Yeah, I think a lot of us are guilty of, we see somebody doing it well, and then they’re selling the, you know, the perfect system for you. So you feel like you have to, well, I can get where they are if I buy the system that they’re using. So I think you know, that shiny object that someone’s dangling in front of you, that we’re hoping can save us from having to figure it out ourselves. But really, you have to figure it out yourself for your own business and your own way of working.

Danielle

1:02:06
Because what works for one person may not work for you. What works for you may not work for someone else. I feel like I say that all the time. But it’s absolutely true.

Nikki

1:02:15
So true.

Danielle

1:02:16
Anything can work. However you do things can work, but you have to figure out what works for you and what’s going to be sustainable, for sure. And if you try to scale up without understanding what works and what doesn’t work, you’re going to have something that’s going to be really messy, and you’re going to wish that you had something simpler, and you could have just embraced starting, being at the beginning. There is something very beautiful about the starting and being at the beginning. It doesn’t feel like it and the course of it because you see you all these other people that are so much more advanced and you’re just, I want to get there, I want to be there. But as you saw them starting from the very beginning, they were at where you’re at.

Laura

1:02:56
Yeah, exactly.

Danielle

1:02:57
Just flow with that.

Laura

1:02:58
So where can our listeners find you online, Danielle?

Danielle

1:03:01
You can find me on Instagram my primary location that D, that R that Harris Consulting at my website and also drharrisconsulting where you can learn more about my one on one service that I have. And if you find my Facebook, I’m not going to share you my Facebook. I’ve got a Twitter also don’t look for that. Instagram, that’s that’s where you can find me, there and my website. And then also, I talked a little bit about my, my planning guide for the year you can find a link to download that specifically on my Instagram account, too.

Nikki

1:03:38
We’ll link to that too. For sure. Awesome. Danielle, thank you so much for being here with us. This has been, it’s been fantastic. We’ve been needing to get more into marketing and you gave some great advice that I know everybody’s gonna find some value in.

Danielle

1:03:54
It was so fun talking to you guys. You guys are fun.

Nikki

1:03:58
Awesome. To learn more about Danielle and read today Startist Society show notes go to startistsociety.com/danielleharris, and if you have any marketing tips that you’d like to share with us or ideas you want to bounce off other Startists, join us in our Startist Society Facebook Group.

Laura

1:04:19
If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, we’d love for you to leave us a five star rating and review. Reviews help us reach more Startist like you and keep us inspired to continue creating new episodes. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week.