Ever wondered how to transform your small business with the power of strategic marketing?
Join us on Digital Journey as we sit down with Sanna Westermann, a marketing dynamo whose career path spans from waiting tables to owning a successful social media marketing company.
Sanna shares her compelling insights on why marketing is a game-changer for businesses of all sizes, including those with limited budgets.
Learn why clear communication and visual appeal are non-negotiable elements in your marketing strategy, no matter how big or small your business is.
Want to reach out and learn more about Digital Journey? You can email us at kaylee@digital-journey.net or check out our website www.digital-journey.net.
Ever wondered how to transform your small business with the power of strategic marketing?
Join us on Digital Journey as we sit down with Sanna Westermann, a marketing dynamo whose career path spans from waiting tables to owning a successful social media marketing company.
Sanna shares her compelling insights on why marketing is a game-changer for businesses of all sizes, including those with limited budgets.
Learn why clear communication and visual appeal are non-negotiable elements in your marketing strategy, no matter how big or small your business is.
Want to reach out and learn more about Digital Journey? You can email us at kaylee@digital-journey.net or check out our website www.digital-journey.net.
What's up guys? This is Katie Johnson here with Digital Journey. If you're a person that's wanting to learn social media, maybe that's just for you personally, maybe it's for your business. This is the right place for you. Well, hey, everyone, today we have Santa Westerman with us. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me Happy to be here. So Santa is an amazing individual. We have been in some different coaching programs together and she has so much knowledge, so I'm very excited to hear what she has to say. So Anna has an interest and a passion for helping people find creative solutions to complex problems. She has a demonstrated history of working in the marketing and communications industry. She is a strong marketing professional with an MBA from the University of Alberta. She has lots of wisdom to share. So go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself how you got to where you are today and what your journey looks like.
Speaker 2:
I think, like many people in our industry, it is a wild roller coaster. I've touched base in probably five or six different industries. I've worked as a server, bartender, a new home salesperson, in charities and nonprofits. I've built and ran a nonprofit and worked in the government, provincial government, health admin, everything and all throughout it. Though every single job I've ever, ever had, I had this focus of what is this business missing? Why is this not successful? Why is this health program not more successful? Why aren't we promoting it better?
Speaker 2:
it's always how to communicate it with the public, every job that I go to. So, even as soon as I graduated my from my undergrad my undergrad I started a social media marketing company with a partner, and since then it's just finally evolved in the last two years to my full-time job.
Speaker 1:
That's amazing. So what is your favorite part about working in marketing?
Speaker 2:
It's such a fun, creative place to be. A fun creative place to be. If you are interested in visual arts, it's. I love making things aesthetically pleasing and clear.
Speaker 2:
Every time I look at a website, every time I look at an advertisement if you guys are watching the hockey game, I'm from edmonton, alberta, so our oilers, edmonton oilers are in the stanley cup in the finals as of last night the most amazing part was they have these advertisements along the billboards that change on tv but in person they're just boards, so they rotate and they change based on the television that you're watching in the region that you're in, and they wow, I didn't know that they did that. That's so cool. What a really good way to market and sell advertising very much so.
Speaker 1:
So you said, in the different marketing fields you notice a lack of that. Does every company or every entrepreneur, small business, need marketing, or is that something that you just need if you're a big company?
Speaker 2:
If you are selling a product, if you are public facing, you need marketing. Yes, there's only a couple of situations where you wouldn't, and that's if you are a massive, like specific industrial company that sells a part or a machine to just one or two other companies. You just need a relationship with those companies. Right right, but that's internal marketing too. You need to build those relationships and have a consistent messaging with them. Marketing in the sense of advertising out almost every industry, yes, but internally, every single one for sure.
Speaker 1:
I completely agree, and there are people that come through and are talking to me and they're like well, I'm a small business, I don't have a big budget, so marketing is one of the things I'm pushing to the back burner and, in my mind, marketing is something that you need in order to increase your sales so that you can have a bigger budget. Small businesses, especially, are like I don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to put into marketing and I'm like well, starting off, you don't have to. Marketing doesn't have to be as difficult as a lot of small businesses and entrepreneurs think.
Speaker 2:
I think the biggest issue is that it's risky if you don't do it properly. It's 100% verified, scientifically proven. There's a million case studies. If you're running an event, for example I was just looking at these statistics because I was helping someone build their business plan for running an annual event two grand on advertising for your tickets um, it will increase your ticket sales by a very specific percentage, like 33 percent, and then your budget is directly tied to sales, like the more you spend, the more tickets you will sell. Yes, it's an. It is a numbers game. It's not. It's not as like wishy-washy as maybe a small business owner would think initially. And we're all like that. It's hard to put up $5,000 and to advertise something. The biggest issue is you have to have the infrastructure ready to take the sales that you're going to get from that. Five grand spend or it is a waste of money.
Speaker 1:
Very true, because if you're advertising, you might know that your products or your business is great, but you have to deliver on your promises and you have to be able to do that with the quality that you're advertising for. So if you're advertising for this fantastic product that's going to earn your clients $5,000 extra a month, you might know how to do that, but if you don't have it packaged and presented in a way that they will understand it and appreciate it, they're going to say what have I bought, what have I bought into? And at that point your, your advertising, kind of flopped, because then you're labeled as not as reputable and not as trustworthy. So you definitely have to. When you come to marketing, you have to already know this is what I'm selling, this is how it's done, it's.
Speaker 2:
It's not start with marketing, then figure it out like know your product first you have you have to have a really solid sales process in place. That's clear, clearly defined. You know if you, if it's anything to do with customer service which it always is you if you can't manage 30 new customers, don't spend the money to get 30 new customers, absolutely Like for any client that I have. If they came up to me and said to make $10,000 extra next month and I'm going to spend $8,000 to do it, no one would ever say that by the way, but if that magical scenario came up, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2:
I wouldn't work with that person If I didn't absolutely know they had everything in place to be able to take on that capacity, because then they're just, they'll be angry at me and that's going to make me and my brand look bad. They're not going to be able to manage their sales, they're going to get negative reviews, they're going to crash and burn. I would never recommend to do that. I'm being very picky with the people that I work with after many trial and errors, if I don't think that you're going to be successful or you have very poor manners. Even you just know when someone's going to work out. And I want to help people be successful, not just take their money because they want to do marketing.
Speaker 1:
And that's one thing that I know you stand for, as well as digital journey. We want to see the people in our program succeed, and if you have one person that shouldn't be in your program but you just want their money, all the other people in the group are going to suffer as well.
Speaker 1:
It needs to be the kind of people that you say. I know you're going to succeed. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We're going to put a quick pause on it and I have a question for you. Are you struggling with social media? Are you overwhelmed by what platforms to be on, what to post? We talked a little bit about how, knowing where you should be, I can help you.
Speaker 1:
Digital Journey is an exclusive group mastermind that teaches you how to grow your social media to find where your target audience is on, so that you can spend less time on social media and increase your profits and gain new respect from clients and grow your product in general. You deserve that. So if you're interested, I'd love for you to set up a call with me. You can reach out at wwwdigitaljourneynet and you'll be able to find me there. If this is something you're serious about, I want to hear from you. If you have a question. Maybe you're still trying to figure out where in the world should I be for social media. Let me help and we're going to get back to the episode. I see you want to put the work in and that's how I know we can get you results versus you seem kind of wishy-washy, don't know if you're going to put the work in. It's like nope, like that's why our masterminds and our groups and our work are exclusive because we want to have the right people in it.
Speaker 2:
Yep, there's an application process and it's important to get through.
Speaker 1:
Yes, yes, very true. So you talked some about digital strategies. We know that big companies like Nike, apple have huge digital strategies. How important is it for a small business to have a digital strategy? Or is it worth just okay, I'm just going to randomly put $2,000 into this advertising campaign or should they have a good digital strategy built?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it depends on how important wasting money is to you. It's like you can put you're being advertised to advertise. You're on Instagram and it says here, you should boost this post that you had. It's so popular, it's $3 a day. You should boost it for seven days. No, no, hold on. Wait, is it a post from your business that's just reposting a meme about a dog? No, don't put money into that.
Speaker 2:
Of course, yeah, a digital strategy is essential, just like having any business plan, just like having goals for your own personal life. All the life coaches and business coaches and any coach in the world would say structure out, look, plan ahead, visualize what are you doing. Why are you doing it? When it comes to digital marketing, the platforms that you use are important. If you have this coaching business, should you be on LinkedIn? Or, if you have, if you're selling moccasins, should you be on Instagram? Or which one should you focus on? Should you be on multiple? Your money can be wasted very easily and I think that's a huge hesitation why a lot of small businesses should be hesitant.
Speaker 1:
And that's one of the reasons why it's so great to have some kind of group coach who has done the research, who knows what they're doing and can walk alongside you and say, hey, let me guide you, so that you're not wasting thousands of dollars experimenting on your own. You know, put that small amount of money towards me, showing you how, so that you can save your money, you can save your time, which is time is just as valuable as money. You know, we all know that in the business world, and so knowing that there's someone that can help walk you through that process or teach you how to do it is so valuable. Give a man a fish they'll eat for a day. Teach a man a fish they'll eat for a lifetime is so valuable. Give a man a fish they'll eat for a day. Teach a man a fish they'll eat for a lifetime.
Speaker 2:
That's the same with digital strategy, Learning from other people's mistakes. It's much more fun, I promise.
Speaker 2:
Yes absolutely Learning it the hard way. If 10 years ago someone, if I could go back and do something over again, it would be finding a mentor or a coach or just somebody else in the industry that I was even interested in and sitting with them. There's a ton of programs out there and I never went into any of them, not for many years. In the last two I have now attended two or three very expensive to me masterminds and they have been invaluable. But it's that initial like investment. Sometimes it's money, sometimes it's time, sometimes it's both. I wish I had that mindset and understanding that amount of value 10 years ago because I think I could have been in a very different place in my life now. But I'm going to start now.
Speaker 1:
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:
Somewhere Right.
Speaker 1:
And you already are doing fantastic right now, so tell us, you know, where can we find you? What's a little bit about how you do what you do.
Speaker 2:
No, I like how you do how.
Speaker 1:
I do.
Speaker 2:
I have a social media marketing offer. Basically, if you want some really good graphic posts, you can just go to my website and sign up. But a more exciting thing that we'll be posting soon is a few webinars and I will be starting a group mastermind series for real estate investors, agents and brokers. That is an industry that I am in love with and in myself. I'm an investor myself, a landlord for six years, and I'm working on investing in some multifamily developments soon. So you just have to keep an eye out on my Instagram at ActiveReachYeg or any of the platforms Same username it's exciting.
Speaker 1:
That is so cool. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a pleasure having you.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much for having me. It's always a great time to talk to you, Kaylee.