How Owning Her Brand Voice Doubled Revenue with Holly Haynes

Your brand voice matters more than any algorithm. 

Leaning into your own brand voice is one of the scariest things you can do…because people see and hear the real you. AND, leaning into your brand voice is one of the most powerful things you can do…because people see and hear the real you! It can be a double edged sword. That is why I cannot wait for you to hear the super smart way that Holly leaned into her authentic brand voice to create such incredible (and consistent!) results.

In this episode, she breaks down the three to four emails a week that her audience loves to read, how it strategically reinforces key themes, and keeps her top of mind (without taking all her time!). Holly is so generous in this episode. 

She shares how really leaning into her voice across all of her media platforms doubled her revenue in one year and is the strategy she continues to use today. The best part? YOU can apply these same principles to your business. Holly keeps it simple and doable.

0:04:45 - Emphasis on non-social media-centric business strategies using podcasting, email, and SEO.
0:06:30 - The role of effective copywriting and niche marketing in doubling her revenue in 2023.
0:08:55 - The importance of using analytics to understand client sources and tailor marketing efforts.
0:11:20 - Benefits of a structured content strategy that simplifies creation and ensures consistent messaging.
0:13:40 - Use of automation tools to manage social media efficiently, focusing on more substantive business tasks.
0:16:05 - Comparison of immediate social media gratification versus long-term engagement through email.
0:18:30 - Tips for managing email communication frequency, starting small, and scaling gradually.
0:20:45 - Importance of creating a solid content foundation and using templates for consistent communications.

➡️SHOW NOTES: Grab all the links and resources mentioned in this episode on the blog here!

https://www.megankachigan.com/how-owning-brand-voice-doubled-revenue-holly-haynes

Want more? Attend Holly’s virtual event Ditch The Social Drama LIVE on Wednesday March 12, 2025

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:02

Holly, hello, hello. I am here today with Holly Haynes, who empowers female entrepreneurs to build thriving, scalable businesses without getting lost in the ever changing social media algorithms. I love that. With over two decades of experience supporting fortune 500 companies, she built her own business while juggling a career raising twins and retired. Retired herself and her husband in just two years. She is a recognized industry expert and speaker featured by entrepreneur.com thrive, Convert Kit, honey book and hello audio, to name a few. And so Holly and I actually connected a couple years ago, maybe three or four years ago now, but it feels like it hasn't been that long, because I just binged her. Ditch the social drama private podcast, which is free, which we're going to talk about a little bit more in this episode. And it was so good, you guys need to listen to it. And even if you're if you love social media, which more power to you, because that's not me. It is worth downloading, just for example of what a good lead magnet looks like these days that delivers so much value really goes above and beyond. Could be paid if you really wanted it to be. And just, I feel like Holly and I caught up over the last few years just by listening to that private podcast. I feel like we're caught up on some things. So I am so excited to welcome you to the show and dig in a little bit deeper on all of that. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here, and it's so cool that we've been able you were on my podcast. Crush the rush. I think it was four years ago. I mean, I think it's been a minute. And so it's cool to see like, how our businesses have grown, and to reconnect, and all the things totally Yeah. I think back at that, you were still, like, in your corporate job, and you're like, No, I have a plan, yeah. And then it's so cool to see you now, out of that just doing your business and totally thriving, and like, you reached your goal, and it's so cool to see you doing that, and like, doing your thing, going beyond now. Yeah, thank you. It is kind of crazy how it all comes to life sometimes, yeah, you just like, pinch yourself. You're like, wait here I am living out, especially like this time of year, because it's, like, when I put in my notice. And so I do think about it, and I definitely don't take it for granted at all. And so that's, like, really important to me is to, like, remember, like, where we started, and then really, like, lean into and we'll talk about this. Like, what do you want your schedule to really be, where do you want to spend your time? Like, how do you want to spend your time? Because, you know, I've been given this gift of time freedom, which I think so many people want, and so it's like, I don't want to take it for granted. But then I also am really passionate about teaching it and teaching it in a way that you can achieve it without, like, I always say, like, selling your soul to social media and being like a slave to your laptop. Yeah, so many people like, have fun with it, or maybe to an extent they do. But I'm just like, for me, I don't know it feels like a chore or a necessary, temporary evil, almost. And I think a lot of my clients, too, can feel that way of like, Oh, but I have to be on social media to stay relevant, or people check or whatever else. But so that's why I want to talk about, well, is there an alternative, like, obviously, you can have a successful business without necessarily being on social media or not having that be your driver, as you say. So you said that really leaning into your voice and copywriting across your platforms, email, SEO, sales page, all those things, helps double your revenue in 2023 and it's still the strategy you're using today. End of 2024 this is going to go live early 2025 Yeah. Tell me more about that. Yeah. So I think, like, before we dig into the strategy behind it, it's really important to have, I call it a home base, and you can listen to it in the private podcast, but basically it's a home base that's not social. And I have clients that love social media, and they use it and it works great. And I have other clients who don't love it, they don't want to be on it at all. And then I have clients in between, and they're like, well, sometimes I want to use it and sometimes I don't. So what I found was to have a home base that's not social media. If you want to use social it's great if you don't, it's no big deal. But for us, what that looked like was podcasting, email and SEO, and I actually just ran our Google Analytics for the month right before this podcast interview, and it supported all of that. And so what I like to do is look at the data. And for you, it would be looking at the data of like where your clients come from. Like, did they come from referrals? Are they coming from Instagram? Like, I would, I would not tell somebody to stop using Instagram if 100% of our clients were coming from there. Like, that's not a good strategy. So like, really thinking about, where are your people coming from? Are they reading your emails? Are they googling you? And so the example that I like to use is, so I'm about to turn 46 I Google things. I do not look at hashtags. If I'm on Pinterest, I'm looking for decorating ideas or, like, how to make snacks for my kids. And so most of the time, it like, reflects what you are doing. And so when I thought about this, I was thinking about it for two reasons. One, at the time, I was still in corporate and working for the C suite, and I couldn't share on social all the time, so I had this like hindrance there. But also I was like, Well, if I wanted to hire a business coach, or I wanted to hire somebody to help me in my business, I would go ask somebody, and I would probably Google it, like, that's where I would start. And so it just got me thinking of like, well, this needs to be my home base, because this is how I'm finding people. And so what we do is we create a content plan every month where it fuels our home base, which is podcasting. It could be blogging, it could be email, it could be like, pick your path, and then we repurpose it into different pieces and parts. And so that's sort of like, where the anti social strategy came about. But to answer your question, once I had that in place, I was like, how do I make this even more robust? Like, how do I stand out? How do I like stand out? I mean, there's a million business strategists in the world, and so I really started to lean into one I need to communicate frequently, and two people need to know what makes me different. And so I think this is where copywriting comes in a lot, because it it's very, very specific. But there's different ways that you can niche down. You can niche down into like who you serve, like demographics. You can niche down into different businesses you serve. You can niche down into how you serve. And for me, it really was the how. And I really started leaning into this, like life priorities based business model. And I started talking about me leaving corporate. I started talking about I can't post it on social 10 times a day, because it was impossible, and so I really leaned into being really, really specific about the things that I was going through, the fact that I Google things, the fact that I have never searched a hashtag in my life, and really sharing those things, but sharing it consistently across all of Our platforms. So we started being really specific with our SEO keywords. We started being really specific with our blog titles, and they all sort of fit into this, like life priorities, first idea that I had, and then we sort of like poured fuel on the fire, and we started being really, really consistent. And what that looked like, was sending three to four emails a week for a year, and when I share that strategy, people are like, Oh my God, that's a lot of content. Keep in mind, I just gave you the formula at the beginning, which you can listen to in the private podcast. But what it did was people got to know me better because I was being really, really specific. I was using keywords over and over and over again, like you will see me talk about life, priorities, business a lot. I talk about our anti social strategy, like I have themes that come across. And so when we went to sell, because we had done so much nurturing over this period of time, the selling was way easier, and that's what increased our revenue. Ultimately, that's like the short version. I love hearing that, like hearing a real story of that happens. Because I feel like as a copywriter, this does not surprise me at all. But like you said, so many people, you know, their eyes are gonna bulge because you say three to four emails a week. You know people think that. You know, is that too much? I don't want to be annoying. I don't want to clutter their inbox. I'm going to get unsubscribes. But like you said, because you nurture so well, then the selling is just almost natural after that. Yeah, and I think, I mean, I can give you some data. I mean, I can tell you that our like our so we still, to this day, follow that sequence for the most part, and our average open rate, because I just did our data before this is like 43% and we just came off of a launch. So to me, that's actually like a little bit lower than what we normally see. But the more emails we sent, the the higher our open rate went, because people were used to like, oh, it's Sunday. Holly's going to send an email. The other thing that we did is we followed a formula and so and I would, I'm sure that you have some really cool email ideas as well, but we send at least one newsletter every single week, and. And I send it the same day, the same time it's branded. I don't call it a newsletter. It's our Better Together email, and it tells a little bit of a personal story. And then we, like, bring in community, which is what our brand is about, but that comes out every single week. Like, I always say, no matter what happens that email goes out and a podcast will come out, like, those are my non negotiables. And then on Sunday, we send what I call a strategy stack. And it's like, I call it a shorty email, and it's like, one thing that you can do this week to help you take the next step in your business. And then we'll usually like, link something like, it might be something free, it might be something paid, but so basically, just with those two email formulas alone, like you're getting to know me, we're getting super personal, we're sharing what's happening in our world. And then I'm coming back around and giving you, like, a here's a quick tip to implement. But I feel like if you're going to send a lot of emails, like, you don't send them just to send them, like, we have to be like, super intentional. And then the third email, I sort of switch up depending on what's going on. Sometimes I'll do like lead magnet swaps or highlight people in our community, or I'll do a client spotlight, or I have a email that I call a hand raiser, and it's kind of like the concept of what you see on Instagram, where it's like, comment more if you want to learn more. And so what I'll do is I'll just like, share a tip or something, and I'll be like, comment profit if you want to learn how to plan your q1 revenue in less than 30 minutes, or something, whatever the thing is. And you don't get a ton of responses. But what it does is it makes the email very conversational. So if you get three responses now you're having conversations with people, and it's sort of, it's not like a one way street anymore. And so that's been really cool to see come to life at all. So I think it's like the mix of being really consistent with that and then having this like formula that we sort of follow every single week. Yes, I think the formula is huge, because I think a lot of people who you know is are not, obviously not email marketing experts, necessarily. They're experts in what they do and sending emails. What do I say? I don't know. And to have this formula that makes sense. It gives you a framework or a structure, and then you're like, oh, yeah, I know I would say here or this happened this week. That makes sense to talk about here. And I love that it's such a good mix of, there's personal, there's like, helpful, there's conversational. I'm curious to hear because you so you still do have a social media account, right? It's just not your driver, yeah? Okay, so you repurpose things there, yeah, yeah, you'll see it come through. Um, so like, if you get my emails, like, you'll see the same content show up on a post, or, like, I mentioned that our podcast is our home base, so because I record video for our podcast, that creates at least three social posts a week without me having to really do anything because of like, templates and things that we have in place. And then when I sit down and write, like my newsletter as an example, I'll take that personal paragraph, and I'll make a real with it, with, like, some B roll of me doing something. And so 95% of what you see on social is is repurposed from somewhere else. I always say, if I don't get to it, it doesn't hurt me, right? Like, it's like, it's a bonus. If I do get to it, it's great. We have a plan and a strategy in place to repurpose it, but it's not our it's not our starting starting point that is good, and I feel like that would take so much of the pressure I think people feel off of social media and the just the constant hamster wheel of content creation. And so, like, Yes, you are constantly creating content, but you're being so smart about it by creating, you know, your podcast is your home base, and then everything else kind of flows from there. And then it's easier to get, you know, workflows in place and whatever else to make everything else happen. Yeah. And if you don't have a podcast, it could be like your, you know, newsletter, email, or could be a blog or something that is a couple of paragraphs long that you can take and like Megan to something else. But I would also go back and remind you to look at your data, because what I can tell like we just had a huge launch, and not one person came from social. I mean, they might have watched it to, like, get to know me a little bit better. It was kind of like the magazine that I call it, like, you know, you listen to use this podcast, and you'll go, look, you'll maybe you'll look me up, and you'll be like, Oh, okay, I know who she is now. But ideally, people are coming from our email. List or like conversations that we're having. So do you feel that are you having conversations also through Instagram, whether that's in the comments or DMS as well, and do you feel like those conversations are similar or different than the ones that you have through email? Yeah, they're actually different, and that's a great question. I feel like I've trained my audience to pay attention to email, because I talk about it so much. But also I don't check my DMs very often. So if you send me an email, I will get back to you probably within the same day. If you send me a DM it might be a couple of days. I'm not saying I don't check them. I do check them, but it's just not as frequent. We also have automations set up behind the scenes, so we use many chat and so as an example, our podcast will go live. I'll post the podcast real. It's the video that's repurposed of me talking, and then, like in the caption, I'll be like, comment crush the rush podcast for this week's episode. And then I have automations set up with many chat behind the scenes. We also have automation set up for, like, new followers behind the scenes. And like, one of my favorite automations is, and if you listen to this now, you're going to know my secret, because most people don't, can't tell that it's an automation. But if you share a story like one of my stories, you'll get an immediate response that's like, thanks so much, or thanks for tagging me. That's an automation. So my goal is, is that I don't really have to open the app. I can schedule things, and I can just be intentional with my time on it. That is so good, because I feel like there's apps out there that can, like, block social media, block your email, like I personally love and use the freedom app, um, it'll block it for, you know, whatever hours I set it to block, you know, the any apps I want to block. But how much smarter is it to just reduce your need to even be on there and, yeah, redirect that to your home base, as you say, which is often more powerful. Anyways, I feel like because I forget what the numbers or stats are, but it's like, you know, your Instagram posts or store, your story gets lost in 24 hours, if they it even gets seen, and the post gets lost in the algorithm. And I don't know how many seconds, minutes, hours, but so many more of your emails are getting seen, open and read, and I think something about the inbox is just feels a little bit more personal, too, rather than because when people are on Instagram like they're Mindlessly scrolling, they're doing it while they're doing something else. They're doing it because they're procrastinating or because they're just tired, and so you have to have this strong pattern interrupt, and then I don't know, it's just like, I don't know so much more work, almost. But it seems like the fun, the showy, the like cool kid thing to do, and yet it's so cool to hear like, actually, there's another way, and it works really well. And I love that. You know, your numbers, yeah, I mean, I will say writing a funnel or an email does not sound as fun and showy as like, here's this cool video transition you can do. I guess it depends what you like. And you know, I think social is a very instant it's like instant gratification, like, I posted this, I did this. People like it. It's like instant where I feel like email, and this way of nurturing through different types of email is more of a long game, but implementing, like our hand raiser email, or implementing a series where you're sharing the same type of email on each on the same day of every week, actually helps you get this, like, instant gratification, because you're like, Yes, I sent out my newsletter for like, four weeks in a row, or, oh my gosh, I sent this hand raiser out and like, three people responded. So it kind of gets at that a little bit. But I think we have to remind ourselves that, like, social media is really designed for that instant gratification. And I always say, like, you know, we're in most of us are in business for the long run, like it's not like a quick fix. And so I try to really implement strategies that will last the the test of time, like it's not going to change tomorrow, right, right? So okay, based on that, I'm like channeling What would my audience want to ask? I know what they would want to ask, and they're like, but how long does it take you to write three to four emails every week? I just don't have that kind of time. It takes me two hours to write a post. What would you say to that? Yeah, yeah. So in terms of, like, actually writing the emails, the thing that's helped us the most is to have a formula. And I always say, like, you don't have to start with three. Start with one. Our newsletter formula is the same formula every week. So I'm not starting from scratch. I'm like, copying the last one, and then I'm like, filling in the blanks. And so the personal story probably does take me a minute to write. It's I don't know. I'm not. I always say I'm not a great writer. That's probably like a self limiting belief. So it's maybe 30 to 40 minutes to write that personal story, which is way longer than it should take. But the rest of it is like fill in the blank. So like the header is the same and the ending is the same, and the PS is the same, but it's like, we're just sharing something different every time, and the community section is the same, but it's like different links. So that newsletter maybe takes me an hour a week, but there's really cool tools that you can use to repurpose it. I love Google, Gemini. You can, like, take that and then you can turn it into posts. Or you can ask it to make a real for you. You can ask it to create, like an SEO friendly blog post from that. So it's like putting in the time for that actually will pay off when you use tools like AI, because then you can repurpose it really easily. So that would be the first one, the strategy stack that we do, which is kind of like the one business tip a week, which a lot of people can do, like, if you're a photographer, it might be like a photography tip. If you're like, whatever business you're in, you can always come up with, like, one way to help your audience. That usually comes from our podcast. So that comes from that, like, that like, sort of content that's like, structuring our week. So for me, that's just rewriting that a little bit again, using different AI tools is a great way to do that. So what you're hearing me say is, like, you have one piece of, like, long form content that you take and then you can, like, repurpose it in different ways, so that one doesn't take, I don't know, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, because it's something that is super quick, super easy. Again, you're following a template, and then if you do want to post it on social, it's the same template. So if you look on my Instagram, you will see the same covers, the same text, the same like it is repeated over and over and over again, and no one cares, like no one cares that you have the same, real cover or the same. It doesn't matter. So that doesn't take as long. And then, you know, the third email is kind of optional. I really like doing case studies, because I feel like if I was going to hire somebody, I would want to know what they did. We take our case studies from our podcast, if you don't have a podcast, like, if you have a testimonial or something like it. I think my point is, is, it might take you two hours a week, but the thing is, is it's going to give you so much content, and it's going to nurture your audience so well that you're, like, never going to run out of things to share. Yes, yes. That is such a smart system and way to do it. And I love that you said, like, you don't have to start with three emails per week, yeah. And if you're only doing like one email per month right now, like, jumping to three per week is just not realistic. Like, right that is, yeah, not setting clients go from like, not sending any emails to hearing me talk about this, and they're like, I can't, I just can't. And I'm like, Okay, let's just start with one a month. Like, just start with that, and then get your repurposing process in place. Then go to two times a month, and then you're like, repeating it. Then go to three, then eventually get to weekly. And then once you get the weekly down, then add a second email, then add a third email. Like, do not do it all at once, but having that formula that you follow every single week is, I think, the game changer for all things content, yeah, yeah, that is super smart. And yeah, if you can be strategic about how like, what do you want to tell your audience, make your like. That is the kind of template that is good. I don't know for copywriting. I know so many people have template shops and sell those kinds of things, and I don't know it can be helpful to a small extent, but I feel like too many people come to me saying, Oh, I bought this template. It didn't work. It doesn't sound like me. It's too robotic. It's too like whatever else. But when you are creating your own templates that you are then repeating every week based on your, like, specific, personalized, tailored strategy, that is something that that for sure, makes sense and is smart, and it's going to help you reduce the time, because, like, it is a lot of content, and we can be smart about how we do that, and that is such a smart and great way to use AI as well. I would almost say, like, if you're worried about time, don't send an email for a week and use that time to come up with your formula. Like, what's your formula? Like, what are you create a piece of content that you can create every single week on repeat or every single month on. P like to pick your time frame and then figure out, like, how am I going to repurpose it in different ways? Then start implementing it? Because so often I see people like, oh, I have to write this email because I've always done it. And it's like, well, if you've always done, you've always done, and it doesn't work, then you're not going to actually see any change. So just pause. Don't send it for a week. No one's going to notice. Actually get the formula in place and then think about strategically how to grow that. Yes, and that might answer my next question for you. I always like to end with what is one quick win, easy first step that our listeners can do today. Yeah, I think it would be, I think you hit the nail on the head, actually is, I think, like, plug and play emails are awesome, kind of like mad lib style. But what has helped us the most is having, like, a template for how we're sending emails and content. So really thinking about, like, what is the thing that we're going to send every single week, and then create a template for that so that you can plug and play your own voice into that like so for us, it looks like we have like a we use ConvertKit. We have like a Friday newsletter template in ConvertKit. It took me probably an hour to make it, but I'm using it over and over and over again. And then on top of that, I have, like, an Instagram reel template that I use that, like every time I write a newsletter, then it goes to this reel. It's the same formula every single week. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that is so great. Um, it makes it so much easier to delegate to. Well, it does, because when you have a team, then they can take that, and that's what we do now. Like one podcast episode for us goes to like, I think, 17 different places, and people are like, whoa. But I'm like, it's not just me doing it. We also use AI, but we have this like, template system in place where I know I have to be responsible for, like that Pete, that signature piece of content. But once we have that, then it, you know, can be sparse out into different places, right, right. Okay, this is so good. And if you would like to connect more with Holly, which I recommend you to Lee, tell us more about how we can keep in touch with you, yeah. So I would encourage you to go listen to our ditch the social drama private podcast. I actually have an episode where I talk about content repurposing, and we talk about your home base and how to do this, if you just go to hollymarie haines.com forward slash social, and you can see all of this come to life, and now you have, like, a sneak peek behind the scenes of what works and how we do it. Awesome. Thank you so much for your Yeah, sharing deeper into your ditch, the drama process and your numbers and yeah, just being so open with your strategy and your framework and your formulas, it makes so much sense. Thank you, yeah, thank you for having me. You.