WPblab EP93 – Unorthodox Marketing with Meg Delagrange

Amish-born artist Meg Delagrange has always approached social media in an unorthodox way. She’s now in a venture of Design and Marketing at Urban Southern. This week on our show we’ll talk about taking an alternative approach to marketing can sometimes be the best play.

Bridget: “To me, the people that really stand out in marketing are the ones who do it a bit differently” (examples, Robert Nissenbaum, Rob Giles, Meg Delagrange)

Meg has a unique background that really stands out.  She’s helping to build a brand and can provide ‘unorthodox’ advice!  She puts a lot of her personality into her marketing.

How much of yourself should you put online?

  • Meg used to put almost everything online, but now that she knows herself better, she gives herself time to process first
  • There are guidelines … you may talk about dating, but best not to drop names – you have to know what is and isn’t okay to show …Ask yourself, “will this be valuable to someone else?”
  • You can share interesting/crazy stories that happen in your day, especially your mistakes – they can really resonate with people

Don’t be afraid to share benign / seemingly unrelated things about yourself (hobbies, etc) … they will give you more dimension

Started building her personal brand years ago (but wasn’t aware that she was at the time)

It takes time to learn … watch and learn what’s working and what isn’t and ask yourself why different posts work better than others

Shared a post on LinkedIn today about how to write your personal bio

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-write-memorable-bio-brand-statement-stands-out-meg-delagrange/

Who are you – Who is your audience – Who does your brand benefit >> Brand statement

If you are having trouble describing who you are – write out a bunch of things about yourself and then pick the ones that stand out to you

What’s the value in people knowing you, what’s your ‘thing’?

  • Meg was born Amish, she’s a single mom… she hopes she brings a bit of grittiness and honesty to her brand

There are so many facets of us as people, that spinning out a giant, generic ‘elevator pitch’ just comes off sounding unnatural

You’re bigger than your job and the tools you use to do your job – what makes you who you are?

Be careful of ‘elevator pitches’ – don’t use jargon that doesn’t resonate, use words that makes sense and that are true to who you are

How do you fight against the system and go against the tide? If everyone is doing something a certain way, and the same way – how do you break that mold?

It starts with the knowledge of who you are and then you start to build a culture around that. Pick something and start with it, you can change it up later and build on it – the truer you are to yourself, the more you are attracting the right kind of customers/people to you

You become so passionate about what it is that you’re doing that every part of you bleeds it

Everyday, you’re scrolling past the people you could be reaching and you’re trying to come up with smart, clever marketing to hook people… but it’s the real moments, the connection with people, that matter more than anything else

Urban Southern desperately needed a new website – they hired Alex Vasquez … they had many references, but they chose Alex because she met him at her 1st WordCamp and told her she was “a really intimidating but fascinating women” and it felt so cool and authentic and she remembered him – He had established a ‘moment’ with her

In the beginning Urban Southern had no engagement with their customers – they’ve worked on it a ton and now spend quite a bit of time connecting and replying and commenting

You need to make your social accounts & interactions something worth sticking around for

When she was with WannaPixel (??) they used a lot of clever social talk in the beginning but it wasn’t really connecting with people. On Colorado Gives Day – they would be really intentional about interacting with hashtags …. that day she went on their facebook and commented very specifically and intentionally on the people who were raising money – it made an impression and someone decided that day, they were going to use WannaPixel

If you’re starting and you have a young agency… plan to be in it for the long game, it takes work and it takes time to build a brand and to build up relationships – there is no “Growth Hack”

Being authentic vs. being rude

We all have challenging interactions with clients – if you can authentically but gracefully express the struggles you are dealing with (take time to process and calm yourself down first) – it can become a relatable lesson for your followers. Don’t make it super personal. Vent, but “vent with value!!”

Try to take the finger that you’re tempted to point at someone and turn it back to yourself and frame the issue around your response and what you learned from it – try to turn a negative experience positive

The painting on her wall (behind her on video) …if you look from afar, it’s interesting, but  if you go up close, there is still a whole world more to discover that’s interesting.  Think about that in your marketing

Did I do at least 2 things today to make an impact and move my business forward?

Everyone should have at least 3 ‘traction strategies’ going at a time (email newsletter, social media campaign, etc.)

45 sales in first year to over 3000 products sold this year… over 9000 people on email list

Read a book on Amazon called “Traction” … implement strategies and keep developing new ones.  Don’t stop the old ones, add to them! Layer your strategies. https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer-ebook/dp/B00TY3ZOMS/

Come up with your own unique ideas if you can – you can copy and see if that works for you, but originality stands out

The poppies in her painting – within the pod of one poppy there is an average of 10,000 – 60,000 seeds – they have the potential to create countless more poppies! All of us human beings are like that poppy flower, we have unlimited potential!!


Cool pick of the week

 


Show notes contributed by:

  • Cheryl LaPrade – @YayCheryl
  • Sherie LaPrade – @HeySherie

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