Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep # 126 Marketing Mastery: Building Trust in the Digital Age
Marketing your business successfully isn't just about being found—it's about creating trust and meaningful connections with potential customers. In this enlightening conversation, Avivit Fisher, owner of REdD Strategy marketing consultancy, shares powerful insights on how local businesses can rise above the noise in today's competitive marketplace.
"Relationships are the number one thing," Avivit emphasizes, revealing why your website serves as your digital home base while platforms like Google Business Profile can dramatically increase your visibility without expensive advertising. She expertly breaks down why many business owners struggle with marketing—from therapists who dislike self-promotion to contractors with neglected online presence—and offers practical solutions that work across industries.
The discussion delves into the psychology behind consumer decision-making, particularly the critical "know, like, and trust" journey that transforms strangers into loyal customers. Avivit explains how reviews function as social proof, why email marketing remains essential for service businesses, and the specific incentives that motivate people to engage with your brand. For business owners wondering about return on investment, her insights on consistency and methodical approach provide a clear roadmap to success.
Beyond marketing tactics, Avivit shares her personal journey from graphic designer to marketing consultant, including the surprising benefits of entrepreneurship. Her story of building a business while raising children resonates with anyone seeking more flexibility and independence in their professional life. Whether you're a therapist, contractor, lawyer, or any local service provider, this conversation offers valuable strategies to enhance your marketing approach and connect more effectively with your community.
Ready to transform your business's visibility and build lasting trust with customers? Visit ranklocalNJ.com to learn more about Avavit's services or connect with her on LinkedIn.
REdD Strategy
Avivit Fisher
646-745 7209
avivit@reddstrategy.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.
Speaker 2:Hey, good afternoon everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast brought to you by the Bergen Neighbors Media Group. Based out of Harrington Park, and just down the road in the same town, is Avavit Fisher. She is the owner of Red Strategy. It is a marketing consulting firm, I guess, for want of a better word. And Avavit, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we you know. Truth be told, we first met when you and your family first moved into Harrington Park and you were featured on the cover of this amazing magazine called.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:And yeah, so we've known each other for a while but we kind of run in the same circle. So it's great to have you on the show and I guess we'll get right into what Red's strategy is and the kind of services you offer, and we'll go from there.
Speaker 3:Sure. So RedD Strategy is a marketing consultancy. Initially it started as a marketing consultancy for small business owners, and then I narrowed my niche to therapy practice owners, mental health providers, and right now I'm actually expanding again to local small businesses because I think that there's a lot of things that can be done on a local scale, especially when it comes to digital marketing and so on. So I work with practice and business owners. I help them rank locally online. I help them create a marketing strategy that leverages different channels of marketing. Some like social media, some hate it, so I work around people's likes and dislikes, but essentially I help them stand out in their community, in our community town county what might be Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always talk about the top line melody, which is a term that Bono from U2 used in his book. And when asked you know what is top line melody? He said well, it's that song, that tune you hear when you walk around the corner. It's always in your head. You know, it's how you rise above all the noise and the disruptions and all the you know. When it comes to advertising, we're exposed to like 5,000 to 10,000 ad messages a day. So how does your company become that top line melody? So I totally, totally agree with what you're, what you're doing, and now there are a number of different ways for people to find you as a business, right? So what are the things, what are the different kinds of platforms and and I guess we could say tentpole pegs that you work with for someone to have a multi-platform holistic strategy?
Speaker 3:Right. So first of all, I mean relationships are the number one thing. I would say and you would know that, doug, probably you have a big network of relationships.
Speaker 3:But when we take it offline, I would say the most important platform is your own. It's your website. This is your home, digital home that you own, that nobody owns, and it's very important to have it set up correctly and then every channel out there, be it directories, be it social media, anything should lead to your home. But there's another platform that is highly underrated for many, which is a Google Business Profile platform, and this is basically I don't know how I would categorize it it's a directory by Google, so you can show up on Google maps and people, and when people are searching for your particular service on Google, the goal is for you to be one of the first businesses to come up in that.
Speaker 2:Right Without paying. Right Without paying.
Speaker 3:Google a fine $5,000 a month.
Speaker 2:So it's more organic search, exactly.
Speaker 3:It's more organic, but it can be extremely effective and it drives leads without having to pay for them per click. That's what I meant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting because, as you're talking, I have a lot of clients whose websites are not very good. Or I just had a guest on my podcast who I go to her website and then it says Winks, this is a great place for you to now to put your products, so people know who you know. So, like they didn't even update what the website, like general platform, is offering the author or the owners. So there's a lot of people need help with websites, but the problem that I see is that a lot of the clients that I work with are small and medium sized businesses that don't have a lot of money.
Speaker 2:So there are a lot of companies that will charge you $5,000 or more to build a website, thousand dollars or more to build a website, and a lot of businesses want to build a website but then also run it for you monthly and charge you a monthly fee to make sure it's optimized and you have all the right keywords and content. So where do you fall in? Do you offer, uh, just website building, like just a one time I'll create your website for you. And here's depending on the complexity of it. Do you have different prices or do you only have like one type of service that includes everything?
Speaker 3:Well, actually, website building is not a problem in 2025. You can use AI to build a website. There are AI website builders. It's very easy to build a website. I don't usually build websites for my clients.
Speaker 3:However yeah, well, for that and because you know I am more interested in marketing than website building, right, website building is its own thing. However, I optimize websites, make sure that when people are searching for a particular service or product, it leads to my client's website. So I would optimize the website and also I would make sure that it's listed in different directories and also in different directories and also the main service, I think, for local businesses specifically, it's ranking locally, so I would optimize the Google business profile. I would manage it and make sure that you get those calls and bookings consistently right. Another aspect that I'm offering is email marketing.
Speaker 3:Uh, email marketing is very, very important for service businesses, even product businesses, for the most part but for service businesses particularly, um, I would say that anybody who lands on your website needs to to take two actions either book a schedule, an appointment or something like that, or or or booking a service with you, or leave their email address so you can continue the conversation after and. And even if your main marketing is advertising in your magazine or some kind of other print ad like a direct mail, if you put a QR code within your ad, it should lead to your website where people can take action and you can actually track it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's called a weed generator or a funnel.
Speaker 3:Right, Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so here's the so in speaking with a lot of business owners that don't quite get it email marketing. So obviously, to email somebody you have to get their email address, and without having some kind of incentive for somebody to leave their email, how are you going to get it? You can't. You can't buy emails right. Or can you like? You can get emails from businesses, from like data, uh, axel, genie or some of those other lead generation companies, but you can't get residential emails right no, uh, for marketing you should never.
Speaker 3:For sales you can buy emails and for cold emailing, right For emailing your pitch or whatever you can get. But for marketing consistently you have to get people's permission, Otherwise you're going to be penalized. You will end up in people's spam and then it's just it's not good.
Speaker 3:To your question about why. What's the incentive for people to leave their email address? Well, a discount, a deal of some sort, a checklist, whatever makes sense for the business. It doesn't have to be too complicated and you know, some people are going to be a little bit wary of leaving their email addresses, but some not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know some people recommend like a white paper or download our PDF to learn more, and you know it depends on the type of business you have. And what would incentivize people, like you know, get a copy of our media kit, you know, then they have to send you an email to get a copy of it, that kind of thing, which is what I do, and then they're always disappointed when I don't put my rates in my media kit. I'm sorry, I don't have like one rate card to give you. Um, so no, that's, that's great. So how did you like? Let's go back now. So what? What's your background? Did you study marketing and where did you study and when did you launch this company and why?
Speaker 3:Actually, I started as a graphic designer. I was an art director in the beginning of my career for a while, but I always worked in a marketing environment and I got my undergrad at Fashion Institute of Technology. And then, yeah, I was a New Yorker and then I got my graduate degree. I got my master's in design management. So it's basically a business degree, uh, for creatives, for designers, and so on from pratt institute um yeah, so I, as a graphic designer I was.
Speaker 3:There was always a separation between marketers and designers and I really wanted to be involved in that business conversation. So that's why I went to grad school and I started my company. I started the business when I had my first son. I sort of started doing some side projects because I wanted to stay at home with him.
Speaker 3:And then I started primarily I started doing working with the you know service businesses photographers, wedding vendors and stuff like that and then 10 years ago, my apartment the apartment building where I lived in Edgewater in New Jersey burned down.
Speaker 2:Oh, the Avalon. You lived in the Avalon. Yeah, I lived in the Avalon. I was living in that neighborhood. That building burned down twice In 2000,. When they were building it, it burned down. That's when I was first moving into that neighborhood and I'm driving to my new apartment and I'm like, oh, what's going on over there? And then, yeah, then that the um, half that complex burned. Wow, so I didn't know you were there. Wow, yeah, I don't think I used to be a personal trainer across the street at the uh, at um, at thrive, when thrive fitness was what is now. I think it still is like a pet spa and vet. Um, there used to be a gym there before Trader Joe's came in, but the first like personal training job I had was working there. So we're neighbors, or we're neighbors. So that must have been traumatic. So you lost everything, or?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we lost everything and so, yeah, it was traumatic and I and I, you know, I was kind of looking for information and I was looking for a therapist, um, and I saw that there was such a disconnect between how therapists presented themselves and what clients were actually looking for and I was like, oh, I'm interested in this niche. I it came from a personal story, it came from personal desire to help more people to find help. So I focused on therapists a lot and now I'm expanding a little bit into other service providers. I think medical spas, any private practice that practices locally, lawyers, dentists and so on. Everybody needs marketing help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. One thing you learn is that people, if they're a dentist, they went to dental school and they know a lot about treating somebody's teeth, but they don't know much about marketing.
Speaker 3:Lawyers too, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Anybody, anybody, oh, yeah, no, anybody. You know, I mean it's, it's daunting, like all the services that you offer. I mean you try to do it yourself and there's no way, um, but a lot of people do try to do it themselves. They, you know, they think that having an Instagram page is all they need to do for marketing, because everything's going to happen magically and everyone's going to find them and they're going to have all their business from word of mouth. That's what I hear all the time. Oh, I don't need to advertise or market myself. I get everything word of mouth and you know, some people have been fortunate in their careers to never have to advertise or have a website or social media page, but there's not that many.
Speaker 2:And the mistake I heard a um might have been on a podcast show where someone said with new businesses owners, they buy their inventory, they buy their office furniture, they buy their office, you know, they rent their space, they forget to buy their customers and very few people open their doors with a marketing budget. They do everything they can, they spend all their money in the renovation and the whatever it is, but then when it comes to actual marketing, it's a chicken and the egg. It's like, well, I'll start spending money on marketing when I start generating revenue. But how do you generate revenue if nobody knows who you are to write revenue if nobody knows who you are? So it's like it's an amazing mistake. I feel like most new business owners make what like. What's been your experience? Like you said, you've seen that in the therapy world with therapists. Same same example. They went to their, their doctors or their licensed clinical social workers and they wanted to start their own practice. But how do people find you?
Speaker 3:uh, well, yeah, and with therapists there's another caveat to that they really dislike marketing. So if other businesses are open to it, um, and understand and very business driven therapists are, you know, they're mostly interested in healing people um not not promoting themselves.
Speaker 3:And you're right to your point of how do people find you if they don't know anything about you? So, um, and in 2025, I would argue, marketing is even more important than before, because people are becoming much more conservative with their spending. They're looking for the best deal, the best fit, the best, uh, the best option for the whatever their needs are. Um, so if you just passively sitting there waiting for them to come to you, uh, it's going to be much, much harder, unless there's such scarcity in your area that nobody else offers whatever you offer and the need is so high. It's just not going to be the case, you know.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so no yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because, but but how do you, how does having an online presence respond to this statement that people buy from people that they know, like and trust? So how do you help? I mean, knowing somebody is what you do. Right, you'll help them be found, but how do you help someone be liked Like Sally Field? They like sally field, they like me, they really like me, and uh, and trust. Right, how do you do that for someone? Because I think finding them is somewhat the easy part, but building trust, that's more of a long-term and difficult path. Would you agree? And what do you do to help with that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%. So people can find you in various ways, but let's separate people who are looking for information to people who are looking to take action because they have an urgent need. So let's say that people who are looking to take action, first and foremost, they're going to look at reviews. Right, and exactly that's why Google Business Profile is so great, because people can post reviews. And when you look up and you are searching like restaurants near me, the pack of like three listings come up and you look at reviews and you read reviews and you choose based on. You give it a try based on that. You read reviews and you choose based on. You give it a try based on that.
Speaker 3:If a service is a little bit more involved, it requires a little bit of a learning curve. Really, reviews help, but then people will go on your website and this is where the funnel comes into play, because people should see in your content, they should get to know you right, they should get the answers to their questions and, if they opt in to get emails from you, this is how you build trust. So it works well with services that require a little bit more of an investment. Yeah, a little bit more of an investment, right? Yeah, so people are trying to like lawyers, like doctors, like private practices in general, like medical spas even, and all of that when people are looking to fix something in their house. This process of know, like and trust is much shorter.
Speaker 2:See, but I'm always surprised by that because we've all had, I think, as a consumer or a patient. We've probably had more horror stories or more complaints with bad contractors than we've had with bad doctors or people in the medical profession. Because you have a guy come into your house to fix something and they either rip you off because you don't know what they're talking about. You have a guy come into your house to fix something and they either rip you off because you don't know what they're talking about you take their word for it or they fix your roof and you you hire the cheapest guy that you got from. You know something you saw in a coupon, I don't know. You know I I'd rather those guys. I want to, I want to like double and triple check. You know it's amazing to me how many people hire unlicensed, non-insured contractors to just get a cheap job done and I'm like man, what if they screw up? Or the stories of guys taking your deposit and not coming back for six months.
Speaker 2:So for me personally, I got to trust these guys before I have you, just because my friend said, yeah, hire these guys. I want to dig in a little bit deeper, so, but I think to your point though. Most contractors have crappy websites.
Speaker 2:They do Contractors, plumbers, you name it. There's really not. I was just looking at one guy's today. It was a new client of mine. I hope he's not listening, but actually I'm going to give him this advice. He doesn't have any reviews on his website and he doesn't rank high in what you were saying organic. If I type electricians near me cause he doesn't have any. He does not have any reviews. So yeah, at the minimum.
Speaker 3:At the minimum, his Google business profile should have reviews of people who use them, and part of my service is generating those reviews, and the reason people don't have reviews is because they don't ask for them. It's because, they don't have a process of asking for reviews.
Speaker 2:And where would they be posted? Right, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so in itself it becomes a tedious process. Nobody has time for it. It's always overlooked. But reviews are you know, they're very important. It's, you know, social approval basically.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right. So let me ask you this what's the difference between a Google guaranteed business it's sponsored, so they're paying to be guaranteed Like? Is that a new thing with Google being a Google guaranteed business listing as opposed to somebody else who's just not paying? And, as you said, you know, because you optimize their, their, whether it's business listings on Google or whatever that that you know. What's the difference between a Google guaranteed business that pops up? I've actually never heard that. What is a Google guaranteed no.
Speaker 2:I've actually never heard of Google guaranteed. The check Mark says Google guaranteed and it's sponsored. It's funny about the sponsor because I've actually never heard of Google Guaranteed. It's a checkmark. It says Google Guaranteed.
Speaker 3:And it's sponsored.
Speaker 2:And it's funny about the sponsor because I've had people say to me you know, because they sponsored that spot to be on the top, I'm not going to click on them because I know they paid to be up there Doesn't mean they deserve to be up there, and that's an interesting thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but those are ads, so it's different from what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is organic.
Speaker 2:I know, but when I do the organic search, those come up first. Really so these Google guarantees come up. First, these first two, and it says it's sponsored as well, and then under that I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and I go down the line and I'm into like 20 and I don't see the guy that I'm talking about. Who? Who is, uh, two towns away from us.
Speaker 3:So, um, page two, the goal yeah, I would say, is to be in a top three right of organic ones yeah um, google gives it. I I mean if, if it's if you're paying for it, it's a different story. Obviously, when you pay for ads, um, they could be more effective you know right, because they're a top result.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly yeah, so nice.
Speaker 2:So what is it that you love about, you know, okay. So, first of all, you're you're a mother of two and, yeah, you're not commuting to the city anymore, thank god. Neither am I, but you know being your own business owner. Um, you know, with great power comes a great responsibility, and you eat what you kill. Nobody's paying you to show up every day. Um, what have you loved about this journey that you've been on? You know, has there been? Obviously, we all go through learning phases, but what's it been like, and what's it been like for your kids, your boys, to see a mom who's who's created her own business? So let's. I've asked you a lot of questions, so let's start with one.
Speaker 3:What do you love about what you do? Independence, first of all. I don't have a boss. I love that right. Um, I also can. I also can be extremely flexible with innovation, like something new that comes up. There's no bureaucracy within, within, like the company that needs to like. We need to discuss and have meetings. I try things, I see what works. I learn about it. There's a lot of flexibility and independence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I mean, that's the good thing about being a business owner. Yeah, obviously there's challenges, there's ups and downs. We have to market ourselves, we have to market ourselves, we have to, you know, generate revenue. But I, I'm a big believer in um. I I get a sorry, I get an email every day from a guy named Larry Levine. Um, and I plug him all the time. He should start paying me, um. He has a book called selling from the heart and a podcast called Selling from the Heart and every morning at 6 am I get his daily dose of inspiration. Yeah, today was the Heart First Sales Advantage.
Speaker 2:This is when you lead with sincerity and empathy, you create trust that goes beyond the transaction. So I can get into an email I'm not going to read everything, but every day it's a reminder of being authentic and if you have your client's interest at heart, then that eventually it doesn't happen overnight. It's not a quick fix, just like marketing isn't. But I firmly believe that if I lead from my client's benefit, if my business is driven by what am I doing that's going to help them. What can I do differently? The same thing you said I could try different things, and if they don't work, okay, but I have no bureaucracy, I have no boss to tell me that you can't do that. It's been tried before.
Speaker 2:No, I try it and because my ultimate goal is for my client to have success and you know, I can promise brand awareness, but at the end of the day, people want the phone to ring and I think if you lead from the heart and you have your client's interest in mind, that's personally, what I'm fulfilled by is yeah, there's great things about having the autonomy of having your own practice.
Speaker 2:I can go coach baseball at four o'clock. I could play poker with your husband and other guys on a Friday and not have to worry about I'm stuck in traffic in the city on a Friday and not have to worry about I'm stuck in traffic in the city. But it's for me, it's the satisfaction of knowing that I'm trying to help somebody grow their business. And you know, I don't know how you feel about that, but I think when you're in a marketing role something that's not always so tangible I didn't, you know, it's not like you're selling widgets. You know you're, you're selling. Sometimes it's a feeling and it's it's a process, it's an investment strategy. I don't know if that resonates with you or not.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, because and people come to me and it's like, well, what's going to be the ROI on that? You know it's very difficult to sometimes to give. There's so many variables right and some of the variables are not even up to you, like the market fluctuates and things happen. But the important thing is being methodical about that, is being consistent, about that is being consistent. Consistency, I learned, is what generates leads. It's what generates what creates awareness. And, just like you said, this guy that emails to you every morning, it's consistent. You know he's on top of your mind. You just mentioned his book. I mean, if he emailed you once in a blue moon, you wouldn't have remembered really.
Speaker 3:So so consistency is very important, Um, and you have to give it time, Um, and that's right, so you know. But there are forms, certain formulas that you can follow. That can that, can you know, optimize your chances for success?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that and that's just it. Um, it's giving you a better chances for success. Yeah, and that's just it. It's giving you a better chance at success. And then I touched on being a role model to your sons.
Speaker 3:Do you feel like you're a role model or do you not realize it? It's funny because I think that my kids didn't realize that they even had a job until like a couple of years ago, because, because I was so uh, I had such a strong, like uh, separation.
Speaker 3:Like they come home from school, I'm a mom, like right, I'm dedicated to them. And they were like, oh, mommy has a job, what do you do? And then my son. You know, I remember my older son, who's who's now almost 13. A few years ago he was asked in school what does your mom do? And then he already knew what I was doing and what my business was and he was like he's, she's helping doctors. And there was such a sense of pride.
Speaker 2:You know, so it made me feel good yeah, that's amazing. So we're uh, we're kind of running out of time here we spoke a lot. I tend to talk too much, but I apologize for that. Um, so let's, let's just talk about how people would find you. Uh, what's the best way to reach you?
Speaker 3:Sure. So, actually, if you want to find more about my services, you can go to ranklocalnj. com. It will bring you straight to this service that I mentioned. But also you can find me on LinkedIn, avivit Fisher, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm very, very active, and my main website, which is reddstrategy. com.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's great. Well, avivit, thank you so much for joining us today. It was great, and you and I are going to come back right after Chuck says goodbye.
Speaker 3:All right. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:All right Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPBergen. com. That's GNPBergen. com, or call 201-298-8325.