In this episode, John McDougall talks with Jill Diamond from By Jill Diamond. Jill explains how talk marketing has helped her improve her marketing efforts. She looks at the success of her YouTube channel and talks about changes she would have made if she could go back in time.
John McDougall: Hey, it’s John McDougall and I’m with Talk Marketing Academy. I’m here today with Jill Diamond of ByJillDiamond.com, and we’re going to be talking about how to build a better digital strategy. Welcome Jill.
Jill Diamond: Hi, John. Thanks for having me.
How Has Talk Marketing Changed Your Marketing Strategy?
John: Hey. How is talk marketing, helping you rethink your marketing strategy?
Jill: Well, when you think of social media, you just think all the time about how you’re going to get your message out there, but then getting your message out there isn’t necessarily the same as having people find your message. So what I understand about talk marketing is that you need good SEO so that people are going to find what they’re looking for.
You need to find places that you can take, let’s say, your YouTube channel or your podcasts, and you need to be able to then make sure that people are going to find that information. So by blogging about it, which is what I’ve been learning with you guys, by turning those videos and turning those podcasts into blogs, then I can have the right SEO and the right keywords that people are going to search for. And then all of that stuff that I’m putting out there in the world that I want people to learn from and see, they can see. So that’s good for me, and then from the analytics side it’s to know, to be recognized, and to be seen because I’m using the right keywords in my blogging and so forth. That’s a little bit of what I understand about talk marketing.
John: Yeah. And you weren’t doing a lot of that keyword research and stuff before taking the class.
Jill: Right, right. Years ago…
John: Years ago.
Jill: Years ago. I used to do that with you guys, and then you reminded me that I wasn’t doing that anymore, and hey, I have this great class, would you like to join it? And so that’s been very useful to reeducate myself and get myself back on track with understanding more of what’s available to me today.
How to Get Started With YouTube Videos
John: And you’re a natural YouTuber and have great skills there already before we came to you. That’s your big strength, should people be afraid of the technology or time commitment that it takes to do YouTube videos?
Jill: Well, I will be honest with you and I will say yes, but I don’t think…
John: A little bit, in some ways?
Jill: Well, it’s a total commitment. When I started on YouTube, I want to say 10 years ago, or maybe more, I was doing one video a month and I didn’t even know I needed to go in and talk to my fans and write to them and respond to them. And for years I was just organically growing my YouTube channel until I realized that there was so much more to it to get the subscribers and keep the subscribers. And then over time, what I realized was one, I had to do much more than once a month and two, I needed to engage with my audience.
It’s overwhelming. It’s a commitment. And so when I say, yes, there’s something to be afraid of, but I want to take the words “fear” and “afraid” out of the equation and say, don’t be afraid of it. Just understand that it’s much bigger than you think it is, and it takes strategy. You need to understand your competitors and you need to have a plan. You have to have a plan and you have to be committed. So it’s something you need to think out and then choose the right moment to get started.
John: But in the end result, it probably makes you feel pretty good though, too, that people comment on your videos.
Jill: Oh my gosh, yes.
How YouTube Videos Help Your Marketing Efforts
John: People bond with you over it. Do you get good comments or people emailing you?
Jill: One, I get business from that. Number two, but more importantly, I do the YouTube videos because I get to share my passion and I get to help people. So whatever it is that any of your customers or your clients are doing, they’re passionate about it. So to have a place where people need your knowledge, it’s amazing. It’s so incredibly rewarding, the people and their comments and your relationships you build.
How to Stand Out on YouTube
John: That’s awesome. And how can people stand out? Now there’s just so many people on YouTube.
Jill: Right. Well, you have to understand your competitors. So you have to dig in and do that competitive analysis and understand who are they? How long have they been on? How are they different? So if you know how you’re different, those are your videos.
John: Right, you fill that gap.
Jill: You fill that gap of how you’re different.
What Changes Would You Make to Your Old Marketing Strategies?
John: Yeah. That’s a great suggestion. And if you could go back in time and change one or two, or whatever things, five or ten years ago in your marketing, what would you have changed?
Jill: Five or ten years ago. You know that’s hard, right? Because we know how fast the world moves today with technology. And so what’s there today wasn’t there then. Again, I think it just goes back to consistency and I think 10 years ago, I wasn’t even responding to my fans, for example, on YouTube. And that was a huge mistake. Now, I am approaching 100,000 subscribers.
John: Congratulations.
The Importance of Engaging With Your Audience
Jill: But it’s taking me eons to get to the last 2000 people. So when I think back to maybe 10 years ago, if I had been engaging people from the beginning and really understood the medium, understood what platform I was on, I think that I could be at maybe a million by now. Yeah.
John: Yeah. So that’s a good tip. If you start to build a fan base, don’t just think about the content, think about the audience too and…
Jill: Totally.
John: Engage.
Jill: And that’s the thing. Even if you think about talk marketing and your website or any way that you’re going to reach people, you really have to remember that it’s about them and it’s not about you.
John: Right. They’re the hero, you’re Obi-Wan Kenobi or whatever guide you want to name yourself as.
Jill: Yes, totally. Absolutely.
John: Have you heard of the book StoryBrand? There’s a cool book, StoryBrand.
Jill: Yes, I have. Yep.
John: Yeah. It’s kind of on that concept about a lot of marketing falls flat because it’s a little bit of too much authority marketing. It’s like me, me, me. My conversion optimization teacher, Bryan Eisenberg, had a calculator, the WeWe calculator. He said, you we we on yourself on your website if you say, we do this and we do that. But if you say you do this and you can be so much better and you do that right on the homepage of your website, you speak to your customers because you know they’re what’s important.
Jill: And even, for example, if you’re selling something and you have actionable buttons, if you put the “I” in the button, that’s the reader’s “I”. That’s not rather than you. And so there’s all these clever ways of playing with that.
How to Start Improving Your Marketing
John: Yeah. And how do you suggest people get started and overcome common obstacles to do better or get on the path to better marketing?
Jill: Yeah, right. So two things come to mind, Nike’s Just Do It, because when it comes down to it, anything new that we add to our plate is going to take time on our calendar. So it’s really just a question of doing it, but then what does that involve? Again, it involves researching the different platforms, the different modalities in which you can reach people, decide what’s right for you, decide what you have the budget for, who’s your audience. So it takes that first step of understanding what your options are and then making a choice. Sometimes it just comes down to making a choice.
And again, I think that a lot of it has to do with timing because once you start something, you need to stick with it. So if you’re feeling like you’re ruminating or you’re wondering if you’re going to start a YouTube channel or start a podcast, I guess part of it is, is now the right time? And do you have the time? Can you make the time for it, because you have to really give all of yourself to it.
Improve International Communication With Jill Diamond
John: Yeah. Those are great tips. Jill, how can people find you online?
Jill: ByJillDiamond.com. That’s ByJillDiamond.com, and also I’m on LinkedIn. Jill is my name there and on YouTube, it’s the Jill Diamond YouTube channel. And those are the key places that you can find me.
John: And your topic, communication skills and what are your main topics? Just so people are aware.
Jill: I train international professionals how to be confident when they communicate in English. So that means that they’re learning about the American accent and they’re learning about communication and presentation skills according to American culture.
John: All right, good. Everyone, check out ByJillDiamond.com and check her out on YouTube. She’s really passionate. She sometimes pulls out a guitar and you never know what you’re going to see on the channel.
Jill: All right.
John: So check it out.
Jill: Thanks John.
John: Yep, absolutely. Good talking to you, Jill. And this has been Talk Marketing Academy and we’ll see you next time.