How to Turn Google & Local Media Into a Marketing Machine & Get Found WITHOUT Paid Ads

Feel like you "should" be running ads, but you're not even sure what's working… or if you can afford it? In this episode, we share the mistake most small business owners make paying for marketing way too early, and the free (or almost free) marketing moves that actually move the needle for a high-end, service-based business. We'll walk you through how to set up your Google Business Profile the right way, what your website really needs to convert local clients, how to think about social media without chasing every trend, and how to use earned media (local TV, magazines, radio, podcasts) to build credibility and get found on Google. If you want practical marketing ideas you can implement this week without blowing your budget, this one's for you.

Highlights

00:00 Why "staying ready" matters more than you think.

04:00 Why marketing is last in our Million Dollar Manual (and what comes first.)

08:00 The real problem with paying for marketing too early (and the "flush it down the toilet" test.)

12:00 Free marketing that works and how to get found on Google.   

16:00 Google Business Profile basics that boost local SEO and visibility.

20:00 MUSTS to include on your website as a small business.

24:00 Pricing, location, and calls to action (making it easy for people to book, call, or buy.)

27:00 How to leverage social media as free marketing.

30:00 Why your haircut, in-person presence, and customer experience are all part of your marketing.

33:00 Earned media 101: using local TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines as FREE advertising.

36:00 How we've used press, features, and strategic partnerships to grow our custom clothier business.

38:00 How free + low-cost marketing compounds over time (and what to do if you need money right now).   

Resources + Links

Apply for Luxury Clothier Collective Mastermind HERE

More resources for custom clothiers HERE

Watch on Youtube

Follow

Appointment Only in IG: @appointmentonlypod

Resources + Links
Apply for Luxury Clothier Collective Mastermind  HERE
More resources for custom clothiers HERE
Watch on Youtube

 Follow
Appointment Only in IG: @appointmentonlypod

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What was that show that you watched that I've also seen? What? You just were just talking about it. Oh, um All Her Fault. All her fault. Yep. Anyone seen it? Very good. It's with uh the the Shiv from Succession. Sarah Snook. Sarah Snook. Sarah Snook is in it. She's excellent. Uh, and so is Dakota fanning. It's Dakota. Okay. I knew it was a fanning gal. Yeah. Dakota, which is crazy. I suppose. Uh, I mean, I'm quite old as well. We're all getting older. I'm sure if Dakota knew who I was, she'd say, wow, he's looking quite old. Not that Dakota's looking old. She's she looks great, but I was it's just so weird because I've got her sort of forever timestamp. Yeah, and for like Man on Fire. Man on Fire. Oh, that was good. Or Day After Tomorrow. Day After Tomorrow. I mean, I know. Okay. Oh, wait, no, no, no. She wasn't in the that's not the right one. No. The one with the aliens with Tom Cruise. Wait, is that Day After Tomorrow? No, Day After Tomorrow is Jake Jillen Hall. That's a good one, though. Uh the you know what, you know what it is. It's like Attack of the Martians or something like that. It's not called Attack of the Martians. Are you gonna look it up? Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna speak text. But for the oh, that's so please don't. Movie with Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. War of the Worlds. War of the Worlds. That's right. Attack of the Martians, War of the Worlds. You know, same thing. For those of you who have not seen All Her Fault, highly recommend it. Uh my wife and I binged it in a day this weekend. It was it's an eight episode, and each each episode is about an hour. So it's quite a long day. That's a that's a day. That's a day. Yeah, I'm recovering. I have bed sores. So I'm that's probably not the only thing you were binging. I bet you were binging food as well. What did I have to eat? Well, no, because it was a Sunday. So I generally try to uh be a little bit better on Sunday. Dialed in. Really dialed in. No, I wasn't so super dialed in, but I was more dialed in than I was on Saturday, for example, when I ordered pizza and uh the um what are those empanadas? Oh, you went, yeah, okay. Yeah, and I also stopped by uh grocery store and picked up some Ben and Jerry's as well. That's a that's a must to wash it all down. So a little low carb, low carb, low fat dessert at the end there. Exactly. But I did rake my leaves. Ah, there we go. So you probably burned a thousand calories doing that. Yeah, I I'm just trying to I'm just trying to uh sustain my weight up. You're really just trying to like just stay alive. Trying to maintain. Yeah. Yep, just trying to maintain. Exactly right. You never know when you might run a marathon. Gotta always stay carved up. It's better to stay ready than to get ready. That's exactly right. This is appointment only, the podcast for entrepreneurs building profitable high-end businesses. If you want control, profit, and freedom from the endless hustle, this is for you. We're Kenny and Danny, twin brothers from day one and business partners for 15 years. We're sharing insights from our own experiences running a high-end small business, the highs, the lows, and what we've learned along the way that will help you build businesses you enjoy running that aren't running you. We're here to help you continue creating businesses that support the life you actually want to live. Your appointment starts now. Let's talk today about uh marketing. The thing everybody wants to talk about, the sexiest topic in business is marketing. So funny. So we are we we coach clothiers. We have a mastermind mentorship group called Luxury Clothier Collective. And uh before we were doing that, we did something called clothier coaching, which you can actually, there's a link in the bio of Pointman only here. You can see what we did, but we came out with some online courses and they're actually really great, and we got great results from them. But uh one of them was million-dollar manual, and we break it down as far uh like weekly lessons, and the very last lesson in the manual is marketing. It can we remember it? It's been a while. Oh, the order? Yeah, the order. It starts with mindset, market, margin, mills and manufacturing, manufacturing and mills, management and marketing. Yes. So there's six weeks, and then there's a couple bonus weeks. And we always say throughout the throughout the course, these are not in order, but marketing is last on purpose. And marketing is last on purpose. It's the last piece to fall into place because it really is. If you don't, if you're not taking a good margin, don't worry about marketing. You know, you're not ready for it. You don't want, yeah, you don't want a marketing. You're not ready for it. If you don't have your management figured out, you can't afford for your marketing to work. If you don't have the right mindset, forget it. So that's what we're saying is you know, marketing is kind of the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place, but it is something that a lot of people are interested in. It's it's as far as business goes, it's something that is very forward-facing. So even people who don't understand business, the people in your life who have no idea what you do, they can have a conversation with you about your marketing. And you know what? People love to also give you advice about marketing. You know what you should do. You know what you should do? Ever heard that? My favorite when we were just starting our business, my mom was like, You know what you guys should do? You should go on the Today show. Oh, thanks, mom. Great idea. That's a good idea. Do you think you could just go ahead and uh and give them a call? Uh people still do that. You know who you should work with? Yeah, I I actually got really close. I went up to Matt Lauer's door, but it was locked. But um, nice. Uh, you know who you should work with? You guys should work with Tom Brady. Yeah, no shit, of course. But it's oh yeah, let me just give them a call. People can be so annoying. Marketing comes from a good place. It comes from a good place. Marketing, I think, is one of the most overhyped pieces of small business ownership. And I think it's also one of the things that is is the most misunderstood. I think marketing is a thing that many business owners start paying for far too early without a plan. Yeah, I think we should just kind of pause and let that sink in for a second because you're right. So many small businesses are paying, even if it's five cents, which it's not. Even if it's a penny. They're paying for their marketing. Even if it's five dollars. Oh, it's only cost five bucks. Even if it's, you know what I mean. Of course, of course, I was being silly, but they're paying for their marketing way too early. They're also paying way too much for their marketing. That's a complete different situation. And this is I I'm gonna break that down even further, whether you're working with a marketing agency or whether you're paying for advertisements and things, or you're paying to promote in certain ways. Our mentality when it comes to marketing is if you can't afford to flush the money down the toilet, you can't afford to pay for that opportunity. And I know that's kind of a sky is falling sensibility, but the reality is half of all marketing works and half of it doesn't. And nobody knows what works for their business. I don't think that is a sky is falling situation. I think that's realistic, and I think that it's just not what people want to hear. I think people wish that it made sense to spend everything they had on marketing because it's sexy and it's all it's cool to see your logo on in a stadium and it's it's cool to see yourself in a magazine and it's cool to hear about yourself on the radio. It's cool to do all the all these things, but you're right. If you can't afford to actually actually take that money and literally flush it down the toilet, you actually cannot afford to be doing that thing. You will get to a point where you not that you would want to flush your money down the toilet, but you'll be fine if your money disappears. If this amount of money is an amount of money that you can live without, where you don't actually need to see the payoff right away, then you are in a position where you can afford to pay a little bit of money for marketing. It's that simple. And that's the the general rule of thumb. When can I afford to pay for marketing opportunities? When you can afford to go without that money. If you need the ROI immediately, you can't afford to take that risk. Now, the other thing we always say is there's no shortage of things you can pay to do. There will never be a shortage of opportunities you have available that if you pay them, they will give you the opportunity. So let's not act like the sky is falling. Speaking of, let's not act like the sky is falling on these opportunities. They will always be there if you have the money to pay for them. So, what we're talking about today are the things that you can do that are very, very, very low cost, but most of them are actually totally free. That you can and should be doing, taking advantage of, that will earn you the same impact and payoff and outcome as paid marketing does, but doesn't cost you anything. And these are the things that I'm always surprised when we're having conversations with certain business owners. A lot of them are not taking advantage of a lot of this stuff. Some of them have tried one or they've done a couple of them, but very few of them have done them all. So we're gonna spend a little time today just talking about some things. And these are not all of the things you could do. These are just the things that we stand behind, have experience with, and can share a little bit of information with you about totally free things that will give you the same outcome as paid marketing does. So let's start with the way that most of your customers probably find you already. Let's start with Google. Now, I'm not gonna let's start with the yellow pages. I'm not gonna branch out any further than that and say search engines. Bing. We're we're talking about Google. Let's just be honest. Ask Jeeves. Let's start with Ask Jeeves. Is that still around? I can't imagine it is. Why don't you give that a Google? Seriously, that's what you're gonna do. I'm gonna Google Ask Jeeves. No, I'm gonna look, I'm gonna go to Ask Jeeves.com. But you were gonna Google it. No, I wasn't. Ask Jeeves. Let's start with Google, okay? So, first of all, Ask Jeeves is still around. What on earth was the last time you saw that one? What does it do? It it's a search engine. It googles. It googles. Ask Jeeves, what? Okay, anyway, I'm gonna say, why is this still a thing? So some of this is going to be very much review for you out there. And because we are going back to basics, we're going, we're going to free things. Things that if you're checked in and dialed in on how you present, how how your business is online, and and some of those types of things, you've already figured this out. By the way, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe when we asked Amanda Brinkman, small business expert, extraordinaire, one piece of advice she'd leave with small business owners, she chose to speak about Google uh profiles. I think so. Yeah. I know she talked about it. Or it was in regards to the biggest mistakes she found in filming the show. Yes. Regard yes. Whatever, I however we got there, it was something that Amanda was like hell bent on talking with us and our regulars about because it's that important. It truly can be the lifeblood of your business. So, first of all, at a very base level, your business needs to have a Google profile. You can create this yourself on Google. Google My Business, I believe, is the name of the app. You may want if you're a millennial. That's a laptop job. Um, do it, do it on a computer. Hey, by the way, guys, what we're not gonna do is we're not gonna do this for you. So we're just gonna share this with you and then write it down and uh figure it out. But I mean, it's not that hard. It's not that hard. They make it really easy. So that's the great news. There was a time, if we can figure it out, so can you. There was a time in our business where we were on the front end of technology and marketing. That time has come and gone. We are no longer on the front end of marketing and technology, but we are still capable and able to do this. So you need to have your business needs to have a Google profile so that when people are looking for you, they can find you. And it should have pictures on it and it should have information about what it is that you do. It should link to your website, it should have the important information. If you run a business that has a physical location, you also need to have a Google pin. Now, this is a part of your Google profile where it has you list your address. A Google pin is very, very important for businesses with a physical location. Google loves it when you run things through Google. So if you have a physical location, you have to also have a Google pin. That will be helpful when people are looking for information about what it is that you do. In addition to these Google-centric things, a profile, a pin, Google reviews are also helpful. Now, I hate the fact that Google reviews matter, but they do. This is the devil we know. This is the the what do they say, the person you brought to the dance that it doesn't matter if there's a a prettier person you have to dance with your date. Is that right? Why are you speaking so genderless? I don't know. It's just you gotta dance with the girl who brought you. That's the phrase. You gotta dance with the girl who brought you. It's the devil you know. You do that very, very PC over here. But Google reviews are a thing and they matter because they matter to Google. I wish they didn't, but they do. They won't forever, but they do now. They do now. Google reviews are important. A Google pin is important if you have a physical location, and a Google profile is the most important thing. Profile pin reviews. Now, all of this Google stuff, this is, believe it or not, secondary to the most important free thing or very low-cost thing that you can do for your own marketing in your business, which is have a website. Now, the only reason I say that Google is second to website is because the idea is that your Google profile links to your website. Oftentimes Google is combing your website to get information about your business. So it's not good enough to just have a Google pin. It's also, or a Google profile, it's also not good enough to only have a website. These two things are designed to work hand in hand so that when people are looking for what it is that you do, they can find you. They're as important as one another, but you need to have a website in which Google can can draw things from. So that's why I say that it is sec of second importance, but they're really both as important as one another. Now, when it comes to your website, this is one of those things that so many small business owners get wrong, is their websites are too text heavy, there's way too many pages, there's too much information, the actual real information is buried, and you're finding yourself answering the same questions over and over and over again because the people who are going to your website can't find that information. What are your prices? There's a perfect example. The important information that people need to know needs to be easily findable on your website. Now I know it's not sexy to lead with pricing information. But unless you want to be on the phone 24-7 answering the same questions over and over and over again, make it easy to find on your website. This is one thing that we changed years ago. Everybody was, oh, how much, how much is this? How much? And we always had pricing listed on our website, but it was very even if it's easy to find, you're still going to get the questions. Let me tell you that. But if you want to eliminate the frequency, it's make it easy. Uh, so that's super important. Make the pricing easy. The location where you're located, how to get in touch, how to find you, that is obviously going to be on your Google pin, but it doesn't should shouldn't only be on your Google pin. It should also be on your website for a couple of reasons. First of all, because of the way that Google pulls information out of your website to inform your Google listing, your PIN. That's really important. Also, we just learned this because we're in the process of uh redoing our own website. Did you know that uh what it what do you call that when the text is hidden? Yeah, like those like hidden those hidden like SEO keywords. It was the way you used to get keywords back in the day. Uh, that actually goes against your Google profile now. They don't like that anymore. So they've changed the way that that works. So if your website is full of that, you might want to go in there and delete those things because that's that's actually working against. There's enough AI that's kind of scraping these websites and pulling info out that you don't need to try to trick an algorithm anymore. So if you're doing those tricks, they don't like that, I guess. Turns out. There also needs to be a clear call to action on your website. I can't remember the source, but we didn't come up with this because we're not SEO experts, we're not behavioral experts, we're not web experts. But there is a fact out there that people go to most websites for an average of about three to five seconds. If it's not clear what you want them to do next, they're moving on to a different website. So you need to have action, either buttons or a call to action on your website that is easily findable for people. Now, you may be saying, Oh, well, how is this marketing? Because they're already on my website. Well, it's marketing because it's it's getting the prospective client to do, to do something, to behave in a certain way. It's marketing because it's it's all about your business. And you need to guide the people who are landing on your website to what you want them to do. For us, it's schedule an appointment or request a fitting. Or listen to the podcast, sign up for the newsletter. Yeah, right. It's those types of things. So, whatever it is for you, there, my guess would be there's there's something that you wish people that went to your website would do that needs to be unmistakably clear on your website. So your website needs to be concise, concise, it needs to be uh clear, it can't be bogged down with a whole bunch of text. It has to flow, it has to be aesthetically pleasing, and it can't be stagnant and stale. It has to have enough text where Google knows who you are and what to do. A really great way to put text that explains who you are is FAQs. Put a page on your on your site that's got FAQs. You can put a lot of text in your FAQs, and that will inform your Google listing, and it will eliminate the need for you to bury a bunch of words that are the same color as the background. So you're trying to trick, trick people into clicking on you. Lastly, and not necessarily least, but not as important as the way that your Google profile and your website work in tandem is your social media. Now, I I know this is such a common thing. It's so common to talk about social media. It's so common to talk about having a social profile, but it is very important in certain businesses. It's it's important in certain businesses. And just like we back in the day were sue, I mean, we were never like tech wizards, but we were always we were a little bit more with the times tech-wise back in the day. We also were very much more in the weeds on social media, Instagram specifically, than we are now. We, you know, we have a we have a nice following on Instagram and it was, it's all organic. That was what back in the very early days of people becoming uh, you know, this was obviously before influencers, and this was the early days when it was really easy to, it wasn't that easy, but it when it's easier to gain a following. When you started a page and you actually could build and people would organically see your posts and they'd share them around and people would search hashtags and it was like simpler times. But we were, we were very fortunate that we started our Instagram back in those days and we were able to build a nice uh following there. So we're not gonna spend a lot of time talking about Instagram tips and tricks. That's not what this is about. But if you're in certain businesses that lend themselves to certain social media, I know some businesses kill it on LinkedIn. Some businesses kill it on TikTok. Uh, some businesses do great on Instagram, some are Facebook focused still. You know, whatever it is that you're doing, uh be committed to it. Uh make sure that it's in line and that it's consistent with whatever image you're portraying online, whatever consistent. You want to communicate to people. Consistency is the word when it comes to marketing in general. Consistency, I think, is the most important word. And it's not necessarily consistency in make sure you post every single day on your social media. It's make sure the messaging is consistent. Make sure if there's a target client that you're going after, that you're consistent in the way that you speak to them. Make sure that the way that your website looks is in line with what you're going to provide to your clients. Make sure that the way your Google profile reads is in line with how your website reads, is in line with how your social profiles look. Make sure everything is consistent because everything that is front-facing and is out there is marketing. The same thing could be true of the way that you carry yourself. I mean, if if you're in the position where you're doing a lot of networking events, make sure you're presenting in a consistent way. You are your own marketing. We are. We have to be consistent in the way that we present and in the way that we carry ourselves. We get haircuts every single week, for example. That's a good example. Yeah. Uh, because we always want to be. I mean, it started with us not wanting to be taking pictures and be like, oh, my hair looks like terrible. But then it became one of those things where we kind of always want to be looking the same way so that it's consistent. It doesn't matter if we record our podcasts on a Monday or a Thursday or a Friday where we're going to basically look pretty much the same regardless of what day. Those are three of the most obvious free marketing things that every business should be taking advantage of to some degree. Some degree I would say is more in line with like the social stuff, because not every platform is in line with every business, but for sure a Google profile, for sure a website, and then the social media that works best for your industry. We're going to spend the last minutes that we have on this episode talking about something that is not quite as obvious, but is equally as important and very, very underrated as earned media. By that we just mean traditional media. So not social media. We're talking about the original media, newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, even podcasts could be considered earned media. Now, what do we mean by earned? On one hand, you can always pay to advertise on the T local TV station or put yourself in a magazine or running out on a there's no shortage of things that you can pay to do. So you could either pay advertising or you can present something to the local, local media, wherever you are, you have local TV shows, you have local lifestyle magazines, you have local radio shows and uh local newspapers. You can present something to them that's interesting enough for them to maybe want to do a feature on it, to write an article, and you can get in the magazine or the on the TV show, and they will do a feature on you in a way that reads like an ad. That used to happen to us all the time. We advertise in specific magazines, now we pay for it. But we also still get featured and we hear from people all the time who say, Oh, I saw your ad in this magazine. It wasn't an ad, it was a feature. It was something that was written about us that we didn't pay a cent for, but it reads like an ad. The other thing the traditional media does, the OG media does for you is it establishes credibility. For some reason, don't ask me why. For some reason, people pick up a magazine, they see your face in print in a magazine. That feels more legitimate to them than seeing a sponsored post on Instagram. It's not going to be like that forever, but that's how it is still. For some reason, people see that and there's an implied credibility that comes with the traditional media. They see you on a news on a news program. On a news program. I saw you on the evening news. But seriously, I mean, there's a there's a it's a weird thing, but it's still it's still true where they see you in the traditional media. There's something different that sits differently, and the credibility that comes along with that is something that you can argue with, and it doesn't have to cost you anything. Certain businesses are going to lend themselves better to some of this. We've mentioned this before. My original job was I was in TV news. So I this was something we were guns ablaze in it on for since the beginning, even before we were full-time, when I was still in news, I was able to figure out how to get our business in different magazines and featured in different ways. And we've continued to get featured. We've been in dozens of magazines, we've done dozens of TV appearances on every network. We've done lots of radio, we've we've done lots of newspaper stuff. We've we've been all over the local media. And the thing about the local media, guys, that I really want to communicate to you is there's an expectation for content. It doesn't matter if there was anything that happened in the day, turn on the local news, they're gonna have a half hour to fill. It doesn't matter if there's anything going on. There, your lifestyle program, whatever it is, uh, you know, the Tampa Bay Live or whatever, whatever it is, the that local TV spot, they have time to kill. So if you run uh an ice cream shop, for example, and you were to send an email to that producer, all their email addresses you can find by Googling or going to the station website, you were to send an email to the producer and say, Hey, I have a, you know, I think we could probably talk about the hottest ice cream flavors for this upcoming Thanksgiving. You could be on Tampa Bay live. It really, I'm serious, it can be that simple. It's not always going to be that simple and different places are gonna have different expectations. But if you're in an industry and you can even remotely figure out some way to make it relevant for their viewing audience or their readers or whatever it is, there's a high likelihood that they may want to use you and feature you on their show or in their magazine because they have space to fill and they think it's interesting. Let's just run through some ideas. Sure. Let's talk about some ideas for some earned media things. Well, before we do that, maybe let's just share a couple of examples of things that we've we've done. Okay. So one thing that we did was when we were doing uh the clothing for Thorby Ornson, the mountain. We sent over to one of the news outlets locally that we were going to be in New York dressing the mountain for that premiere. And they ran an article on it with we attached pictures that we had taken while we were. Make it easy. Make it easy. Make it easy for them. Pictures that we owned that they didn't have to, you know, go find or get permission from some photographer to use. And it was on their website and then in print later, later that night. It was just interesting. Danny and I were in New York. We were doing this thing with Thor, and I just thought to shoot it over because we were, I don't know, I'm sure we were sitting at a bar, but I just pulled out my phone and I emailed over and I said, here's what's going on. Like Danny said, attached a couple pictures that we had just taken, and I spelled out what was going on and I made it really easy for him. And Danny got a Google alert when we were still sitting there. He's like, Oh, look, we're in this thing. It's like he's like, I wonder how they knew. I was like, Well, I told them and they they were they wanted to do it. So that's you know, an example. Uh, we because of what we do, there's an element of sort of glamour to it. So we've had a lot of different opportunities. But what I will point out is I don't know of a custom clothier who's done more press than we have, we've been featured more times organically, and we are not the custom clothier who's worked with highest profile people. No, or the most high profile people. But, you know, we play the game locally. And we happen to be in a market that isn't, you know, it's not Hollywood. So generally speaking, when we're up to something interesting, a lot of people find it interesting. So we get we get featured on this stuff. Uh, most recently, we've been in a number of things already about our upcoming move because we did uh an article with a local uh business publication about like moving into the new neighborhood, and a number of different news outlets picked it up. And so we did a number of interviews about that. That's newsworthy. If you move shops or you move to a new neighborhood or you're gonna open a second location, people will find that interesting. Business magazines might find that interesting. I mean, obviously, with our line of work, anytime we want to do like anything about style, there's we have a local TV TV show called Twin Cities Live, and we're able to get on there if we've said, oh, here's the new trend. So we can very easily get on the show and talk about trends if we want. Uh, that's pretty easy. You know, restaurants would be recipes for your holiday party. All right. Yeah. So let's let's get into let's get into some other ideas. That's a great one. If you own a restaurant and you you send your head chef or someone from the restaurant who is good, that's the other thing. If you want to do TV, you better make sure that you're comfortable on TV. You better make sure that whoever you're sending looks good on TV, can communicate, isn't going to freeze up in front of a camera or with a host or be awkward. So there does need to be a little bit of self-awareness of is this the best media outlet for me or my staff member or my team? That's a great one. Restaurant. Hey, let's do a feature or a story on holiday meals. If you're a trainer, a fitness trainer, we're entering into the holiday season. You could pitch yourself uh to be available to come on a show and do something about eat this, not that holiday edition or hotel room workouts. Yeah, for when you're on the road and you want to get a quick uh pump in. Let, you know, I'll come on your show and I'll show us five moves that you can easily do in the confines of a hotel room. Or uh something about jump starting your metabolism on the the days that you're gonna binge eat later on a holiday, you know, something like that. If you're a hairstylist, you could do something about like DIY, hair trends for your holiday party. Something like that. That would work. If you're a photographer, posing tips to make your family photos look unique. There would be something probably around that time of year where people are getting family photos taken. Posing tips to look your best in your family, in your family. Here's another thing as it relates to uh marketing. And I guess technically it would be free. People love free stuff. If you're a photographer and you just want to get your name out there, you could run some sort of a giveaway for a free family photo shoot to share and like and you know, respond to your post however, however, you want them to. You're out very, very little, but that type of thing has a tendency to go crazy. So there's just another, you know, another example of I know technically it's not free because you're giving away service. Yeah. But those types of things do cost very little and can have a pretty big impact, certainly as it relates to just getting the word out there and an awareness of who you are. If you're in uh construction or building or something, you could offer yourself up to go do a show or an article about uh building mistakes that are costing you money when you want to resell. You know, something like that. These are the mistakes that are trendy, but you're gonna regret putting in your home for whenever you put your place on the market. Yeah, or or five things to make sure you're not leaving money on the table when you sell. If you're a barber, uh let me come on and I'll I'll talk about how and when to schedule to look your best for your upcoming holiday or holiday party or family event or see what we're doing. There, it's not rocket science. It's just like somewhat interesting, and you're you're presenting it in a way that they can hear their viewers or their readers getting something out of this. And you're out nothing or very, very little. There are also things you could do that cost a little bit, but it's not, you're not paying for advertising. You know, the first thing that comes to mind is partnering strategically with people who are in, you know, high profile in your area, whether that be like influencers or local athletes or celebrities or, you know, those types of things. It doesn't cost as much as an ad buy on a TV show or in a magazine, but you are foregoing whatever you would make and you're paying to get the thing done. So whatever it is, that is a way to do things. That's it's not conventional advertising or marketing. Oftentimes those types of things do go hand in hand with organic features, where if you were to partner with someone and, you know, do something for them on the house, you could then get that featured in a magazine or on a TV show or something like that. So an example that we experienced with something like this was when we we started working with Carl Anthony Towns when he was first drafted to the Timberwolves. And uh we sent out an email to every single media outlet that we had locally magazines, radio, TV. Again, you just gotta Google it. Go to Google, you can find it. It's like info at Tvstation.com or info at magazine.com. It's you send it to the generic place because chances are good that that's being checked. And we just said something along the lines of, hey, we're working with Carl Anthony Towns. He's getting some suits from us, and uh, you know, we want to have some media representation there to do some sort of a story on that. Would you be interested in in coming and being a part of that? And this was like the first experience we had that was just super overwhelming response. Every single person we emailed got back to us and wanted to be there. So we were in a position where we could choose whoever we wanted. We chose a really specific strategic magazine. They were in touch with us about what it could look like, and we had some very specific uh requirements for them to be there. We said, this story is about him buying suits from us, and we are gonna be in the picture. Assuming those two things can happen, then you can come. And they were like, sounds great to us. So we got an awesome article with the number one overall draft pick before he had done anything with any other person in the Twin Cities area. He was already connected to us as a business. And we still hear about that article today. And that was what, a you know, a decade ago, maybe. Here's the thing about doing these free types of advertising things. They're not gonna pay off right away. If you're needing to go, it's same with when you pay for ad. If you need the payoff right away, don't do it. If you need the payoff from this stuff, it's not gonna work like that. You're not gonna be financially out anything, but you're not gonna get an immediate gratification. Yeah. If you need it to pay off immediately, you're better off entering into a cost-cutting mode in your business. That's the best way. Yeah. Versus a strategic, maybe spending a little bit mode. Right. But what it does is it's this sort of it's the credibility building. It's a it's a way for you to establish yourself and to share a story that you want out there in a way that you want it out there with strategic partners, but you're not gonna see a overnight. I mean, maybe you will be those people on Shark Tank that like go from zeros to completely sold out overnight. I mean, that's that's a obvious thing. That ain't free. You're giving you're giving a chunk of your business to ABC. Yeah. I mean, it's that's far from free. It's free, but it's also very far from free. But you're not gonna have that sort of overnight success if you're on Twin Cities Live or the Tampa Bay today. You know, you're it's gonna be one of those things that takes a little bit of time, but you will hear about it and it will earn you money and it will be something that pays off. And you might be actually be surprised how frequently you hear about it. And one thing that will happen for sure is people will go to your website and Google likes that. So Google will bump your positioning on their platform with people organically going to your website. So all of these things, these earned media things do help your Google traction because you have a website. So everything does kind of work in tandem. And there are times where whenever we've done a Twin Cities live show, I just kind of put my phone off to the side and there are hundreds of people going to our website. And nobody's booking appointments, but that's still a win because it's keeping us positionally at a really, uh really prime spot on Google's search engine. So when people are in the area looking for what it is that that we provide, they're finding us. So everything can be circular and everything can work hand in hand, but you do have to treat each one of these things, your Google situation, your website, your social, and your earned media. Each thing does stand alone. But if you're doing it right, they they kind of all work hand in hand as well. And they're pretty much all free. Pretty much free, very, very low cost, if any cost. And the impact they have can be amazing. I mean, I don't how long were we in business before we spent our first dollar on advertising? I will say we our first dollar we spent on advertising was a big fail. It didn't work. It wasn't anything that we've talked about so far today. It wasn't any of the types of media we discussed, but it was uh, it was a risk, and we uh did not see anything from it. It was a calculated risk. It was a calculated risk. It didn't work, and that wasn't the only time that we did something that didn't pay off. But overall, we've had more successes than failures as far as the advertising goes, because we have a very honed-in focus on who we want to reach and how we want to reach them. And we know the types of advertising that works, and we've also experienced enough to know generally the types of advertising that doesn't really work that well. Yeah, we're not just throwing paint, you know, off the brush onto the wall and hoping it paints the wall. Where it's very, it's very focused, it's very uh intentional. And there are certain things that we know work for our business and certain things that we know don't. I mean, we were in business for years before we ever paid a cent in advertising. It was all about that earned media. It was all about having a website that looked better than our competitors. There's another thing for you, as far as it relates to free marketing, is whatever industry you're in, that's your benchmark. You don't have to have the slickest website and the hottest social profiles. You just have to stand out from who you're trying to stand out among. You don't have to have the most glamorous, you know, situation. You just have to be in line with who you are and it has to be consistent and you want to stand out from the quote unquote competitors that you have. So that's that's who you're up against. It's not, you know, we're not competing against graphic designers for the hottest looking website. We just want to have a really great website for, you know, people in our industry. Hope this was helpful. I think it probably was. I mean, not to toot our own horns, but too, too, you know. I think it's probably pretty good information for those of you who are looking for some sort of an impact to make, but you don't want to spend a bunch of money. Also, certain types of advertising you might think is a lot more expensive than it actually is. I've certainly been pleasantly surprised over the years on certain things. Also, been unpleasantly surprised with other things that I thought would be a lot more uh low cost that I'm thinking, wait, what? You kidding me? Why on earth would I pay that for that? But it's all different in different industries. So that's why we're not over here saying, I could, I could tell you, and we talk in million dollar manual in the marketing lesson about what specifically we found works for the custom suit industry. But I'm not gonna even start to try to guess what's gonna work to help people bring more of their dogs into your veteran veterinary firm. Right. Those are the types of things that I, you know, I'm not gonna share with with you those types of things, but these types of things Google, pin, profile, reviews, the social media, and earned media, you just can't beat it no matter what you do, no matter where you do it. If you found something helpful, let us know. We always love to hear good things about ourselves. That's right. Our love language is words of affirmation. And you know what I also take is uh typed words of affirmation. Venmo, Venmo. Yeah, my love language is Venmo. So go ahead and Venmo us, however much money you earn. No, just kidding. Uh, but we would love to hear from you if there's something here that you've liked. If you want to join our newsletter, the King's Herald, you can sign up for that in the link in our bio. 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