The Balance of Nurturing and Selling - A Strategy Session with Tia Parnell | 117
On Episode 117 of the Market Scale Grow podcast, I sat down with Tia from Parfaitement Parnell for a strategy session. Maybe you can relate to how Tia was feeling. She wanted to get more visible online and promote her resources, but she didn’t want to feel like she was always selling. So, we created a strategic digital marketing plan together to help her find a balance between nurturing and selling.
That feeling of being “too salesy” is a really common one for business owners and entrepreneurs.
People are often concerned that they are annoying their audience or turning people “off” because they sell too much. I want to share a few tips I gave Tia about striking that balance between nurturing and selling (and what current marketing trends really say you should be doing).
A Bit About Tia
Before I jump into the tips, here’s a bit of context about Tia’s business. Tia is a French teacher in Ontario, Canada. She creates modern and engaging resources for French teachers.
Along with digital products, Tia also has a course and membership for teachers at various stages - from brand-new French teachers to teaching veterans. She has an active email list and social media account where she engages with her audience.
You can learn more about Tia from Parfaitement Parnell on her website.
Tips for Creating a Strategic Digital Marketing Plan
As I mentioned, Tia and I spent the majority of the strategy call discussing how she could bring balance to nurturing and selling. Below were some of the big takeaways from our strategy session! We talked about way more than I could fit in this blog, so check out the full podcast episode for all the juicy tips.
#1 Segment Your Audience
When I introduced Tia, I talked about how her products and services meet teachers at various stages in their teaching careers. This type of product suite is amazing because she can reach a wide audience, but it does require a very strategic digital marketing plan.
A big thing we talked about was how to segment her audience. If you listened to Episode 115 with Melanie from Duxbury Digital, then you might be familiar with this conversation!
Essentially, you can better target your audience and speak directly to them if you create segments. For example, a segment for new French teachers and another for those with over five years of experience. These two audiences likely have different needs and struggles, so she can better sell (and nurture) them with these different segments.
#2 Focus on Nurturing
If you're like Tia and you hate sounding salesy, then you’re in luck. A big part of a strategic digital marketing plan is nurturing your audience (and it’s likely you’ll need to nurture a lot before someone buys).
You can focus on building those relationships and connections through DM conversations, social media posts, weekly emails, and more. Email is huge these days in terms of nurturing. Add in the person’s name, share tidbits about your life, and engage with subscribers to establish a connection.
#3 Continue to Show Up
During our strategy session, Tia mentioned pulling back on her email list. I think we’ve all been there. Marketing gets tiring, or you feel like a broken record, but consistently showing up can make a big difference in your strategic digital marketing plan.
Instead of always trying to generate new content, I recommend repurposing old content. Turn emails into blogs. Turn blogs into social posts. Reuse old emails and give them a facelift. There is no right way to do this… so starting with what she already has will be the best use of her time and energy.
If showing up consistently is a big struggle for you, check out Episode 101 about How Consistent Marketing Creates Success. I’ll give you some ideas for showing up consistently, so you can see higher results in your marketing goals.
Don't forget to follow me on Instagram @heyitsjenzaia and tune in next Saturday for more business tips and strategies!
xo, Jenzaia
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Episode Transcript:
Jenzaia: Welcome to Market Scale Grow. My name's Jenzaia and today is a very special strategy session. It is another live strategy session with Tia Parfaitement Parnell! How are you?
Tia: I'm good. How are you? I'm so excited to be here.
Jenzaia: I know. I'm super excited to chat with you too. Do you wanna just start by introducing yourself and your business? Give a little bit of background and then we can dive into the strategy portion.
Tia: Absolutely. So like you mentioned, my name is Tia. I am the owner of my small business Parfaitement Parnell, which started as just kind of a fun, let me post my resources on Teachers Pay Teachers and see what happens. And since 2019, it has really transformed into nothing that I could have imagined - in the best way possible!
So what I do is I create modern and engaging French resources for teachers. I provide them with strategies to be able to teach confidently in their classrooms and in that second language environment. And yeah, I do things like memberships, courses, resources. I'm also a new mom, so I'm navigating life between being a teacher, running a business, and being a parent. So it's a very busy but exciting journey that's kinda coming to fruition.
Jenzaia: Yes, and I'm super excited. I remember we've kind of crossed paths quite a few times and so I'm, yeah, I'm really excited to watch your business grow and I'm super excited to dive into this.
Tia: Me too, and I love to see how you also grow your business. I listen to your podcast. I love all of the tips and tricks. It's just cool. It's cool to know someone that's on a podcast!
Jenzaia: Now you're on my podcast too, so yay!
Tia: Full circle!
Jenzaia: Okay, so do you wanna give the listeners a bit of an idea of what we're gonna be chatting about and how I can support you with your marketing today?
Tia: For sure. So up until now, something that I have not invested a lot of time or business money back into is the marketing component of growing my business. So it's not that I felt like I needed to, but I would really like to make it a big goal of mine for this year to dive fully into committing to marketing, and getting my products out there, my courses, my resources, even my mailing list. I just, I'm not really sure where to start when it comes to things like Facebook ads. I tried to set one up once, absolute disaster, never again, and I was like, I'm traumatized by this.
So I'm hoping that you can kind of help me find some steps and then we can continue to work together to continue to grow this marketing goal of mine.
Jenzaia: So is there one of those specific products you're kind of envisioning? What does your product suite look like?
Do they work really well together or would you have very different audiences that you'd be trying to nurture for each of these?
Tia: It's kinda tricky cause like it all is the same audience in the sense of the demographic. It’s French teachers. I wouldn't say specifically Canadian French teachers because we do have some people in the US that I work with, but mostly Canadian French teachers.
The thing with the products is like I have a signature course, a flagship course, that is geared towards brand new French teachers. Then I have membership options for the more experienced teachers who are looking for a little bit of learning in terms of professional development and things like that and resources.
But they don't need those foundation steps. So the audience is the same, but the stage at which the audience is at in their teaching practice is a little bit different. Does that make.
Jenzaia: That's a really good way to structure your product suite. To have the same audience, but at different points in their journey so that you can help them from day one if you find them quick enough. And then all the way through their journey. So it is actually a really good way to set up your product suite. I love it.
Tia: That's an accident!
Jenzaia: Sometimes it just happens. You create the first piece, whatever that might be, and then to fill in those gaps, you're like, I have this membership, but how can I fill in that gap? And then moving forward and filling in those gaps. Is that kind of what happened?
Tia: That's exactly what happened. It really did start with exclusively resources on TPT, and then I was like, oh, I kind of wanna do a course, and this is when Covid hit. So everyone was struggling with technology and that was when I launched my first course that was all about how to navigate your digital classroom online and stuff like that.
And so, once I did that, I was like, I really enjoy putting courses and things together. And I was like, how can I help more people? And then from there it kind of expanded into different kinds of courses. And then eventually I did a membership because I was like, I'd like to challenge myself with creating content every month and things like that.
And now it's turned into two memberships and quite a few courses. So yeah, I think it happened really organically, but I'm very happy with how it panned out. I would like to reach more people. I want to be able to get out there a little bit more and to make my products and what I do with my business, a classroom-household name, if that makes sense. That's what my goal is at the end of the day.
Jenzaia: And remind me of your audience…It's French teachers, but particularly in Ontario, at least like junior?
Tia: It kinda depends because for like French immersion specifically, I would say my products range from grades two to six. So it is lower elementary, but kind of also junior elementary. But then I incorporated all the way to grade seven. So I just say elementary - it was the biggest umbrella for me.
Jenzaia: Both of us live fairly close to each other. I've discovered we're both in Ontario and so that's why I said junior intermediate.
I'm glad you said the age range or grade range. For each of these different stages that someone might be in, I know you have different opt-ins, like free email opt-ins to your email list. Do you have something that kind of gears to each of those different phases? How are your opt-ins structured?
Tia: So for the course, that's for like the brand new teachers. The opt-in guide that I have created is Five Tips for New French Teachers, and it's just some tips that give you a little snippet of what is actually included in the course. Things that you wouldn't necessarily learn in teachers college.
And so that's an email opt-in. And then once they opt into that, they're put in like a workflow and then they go through basically a sales sequence. But it's kinda like a nurture sequence. And then at the end it's like, okay, here's the course if you'd like to sign up for it. If not, join my regular mailing list.
And we do a bunch of stuff every single week with that. So either way, the traffic from that kind of leads back into just my mailing list in general, which I think is helpful because then if they found that the information from that initial course wasn't for them, then eventually, as they work through this mailing list, they kind of get a view with the different options that are available for the different level of teaching experience they're at.
Jenzaia: That's perfect. And so that course specifically, is it open all the time? So I could opt in today and buy it, or I could opt in in six months and buy it?
Tia: Yes. So I did at initial, kind of a launch week at first. I did my founding members. Then I did a big launch. Now it's just open. I just kind of pick seasons to promote it. I really emphasize enrollments and do special bonus offers and things like that in the summer when I know a lot of new teachers are finding out they're gonna be in a classroom and things like that. Also, I wanted it to be open all year because I know teachers get hired at any point during the year.
But it's tricky because I don't wanna be promoting every five seconds. So I'm not really sure what the best strategy for something like that is. Cause I don't wanna annoy my audience, but I wanna make sure it's available to those who need it, if that makes sense.
Jenzaia: I honestly think the way you have it set up makes a lot of sense and that promoting that free guide would be less annoying to people because it's free value.
Teachers who are a bit more advanced may still be able to get something and then self-select out of the course. And it's not necessarily a sales pitch. I do feel like in a way we have to sell our free offers. But it's a little bit different and people don't take it like, oh, she's selling and selling and selling and selling.
Pushing out that free offer, the free guide, which then if your email sequence leads to selling the course, I think that that's a really good way and it gives exactly what you want. If there is a new teacher that reaches out to you, you're able to say, well, here's the free guide. And the course is always open. You're not locked into open and closed cart dates and saying, well, it's not January, so you can't buy.
Tia: Exactly, and I think that's where my kind of marketing struggle comes in. Because sometimes I worry that marketing comes across as so salesy and I'm not a super sales-y person, so I'm really trying to learn more this year about where the balance is and how to do it in a way that actually converts. But it's also something that I can emotionally live with.
Jenzaia: That's so huge right now. A couple things to keep in mind are touchpoints. Interacting with people is really, really important right now. And nurture is super, super important. People have less trust in the online space than I would say they had even two years ago. I am not an economist or a money person in any way, but with the fear of a quote unquote recession, people are holding onto money a little bit tighter. And so when they're ready to spend or when they find something that they want, they're gonna go to those people who are creating relationships, building relationships, providing a lot of value.
And if they've got a ton from you, when they are ready to buy, or if you do put that sales piece out in front of them and it's like, oh, this is perfect for me. Because they already know you and they already trust you. So not avoiding the sales piece, but keeping that in your mind that nurture is so, so, so important right now.
Tia: For sure. And I'm curious, so my nurture kind of mostly comes from interactions, whether it's on social media or whatever. And through kind of the weekly emails that I send out, I try to provide a snippet of my life and then I'm like, okay, also here's a free product for you. And it's one of those things where I think that that helps with the nurture secrets.
But do you have other advice for how to continue to nurture your prospective customers?
Jenzaia: Emails are really, really great. I would say, actually that's probably my number one because it feels personal. So that's really, really important and being consistent with that. How often are you emailing your list?
Tia: So I'm doing weekly emails. I do 'em all at once. I've gone back and forth because I'm like, is weekly too much? I find that leading up to the school year, the open rates are really good, and then kind of as the school year goes on, they slowly start to diminish, which makes sense because if you're waking up every day to 5,000 emails, like you're not gonna wanna open them.
I get it. So I thought about switching to biweekly and then kind of like beefing up those emails. But I'm not sure. What would you recommend for an email schedule?
Jenzaia: So first thing is that there's a really important balance right now between quantity and quality. I wouldn't necessarily want you to pull back because again, quantity and showing up in people's inboxes is really important. But something that has worked really well for me and for other people that I've talked to is segmenting your list. If you wanted to every other week, send out that beefier email to everybody on your list, but then alternate weeks only sending out your email to people who have engaged in your email list in the last 60 days.
So it could be anyone who's opened that email in the last 60 days, gets an email every single week. But if they haven't opened it, then they only get it every other week. Does that make sense?
Tia: Okay. Yes. I think that's actually good because then you know the people who are opening it, like actually would like to receive the emails. I'm sure it would change the open rate stats as well.
Jenzaia: I mean, yes, and so it does a couple things. First of all, it continues to drive the content to the people who are saying, yes, I want the content. It gives you higher open rates, which makes you look better and less spammy. And when people are in a phase where they're like, oh, I want everything Tia's providing, then they're getting it. But then if they're in more of a phase where they're pulling back, they stop getting them. Then you're cluttering their inbox a little bit less.
And so it has a couple different benefits there. So that might be an option that you consider. How I use it in my business, my Monday emails go out to everyone about my podcast. Everybody gets them. But Thursdays, depending on what that email is, sometimes I use that filter and sometimes I just send it to everybody.
So it kind of depends on the content and what's happening in my business. But I do use that filter sometimes with my Thursday emails.
Tia: That's definitely something I wanna look into. Cause that's neat. I didn't know that. I didn't even consider doing it in a segment way, so that's awesome. Thank you. And you use Flowdesk, right?
Jenzaia: I do. So what I do in Flow Desk, I just create a segment for that one email and then afterwards I delete them.
Tia: Smart because then you can just kinda be like, this is finished. That's great. Thank you!
Jenzaia: So email is my number one for relationship building. You have a blog, right?
Tia: I do, I have a blog, but I have discovered that I am not very good at promoting my blog. Like I'll write these articles or I'll work with whoever to write them, and then I just post them and I make like one Instagram post and forget about it for a year.
And then when I'm doing my weekly emails, I'm like, oh yeah, this would be great with this blog post that I've never shared with anyone.
Jenzaia: And so that's your repurposing content strategy? You can pull those blog content again and again. Pull quotes from them. Carousels for teaching are a really good way too. If you do like a title page and then the three points you pulled in the blog, then you have a carousel.
Tia: I love that.
Jenzaia: And I feel like the repurposing content is something that saves us all time, that we all really need.
And I also think your brain has to do less work. Like you've already come up with the outline for that blog. And then an Instagram post is almost just the outline, right? It doesn't need to be the fully fleshed out version. So once you have the outline, some of the work is done, and if you're working with somebody else, they may be able to support you in that, and then you have an Instagram post that you didn't have to do as much work for?
I personally don't have anyone doing my Instagram, but like that is a way that you could get the content without more work.
Tia: I have such a hard time letting go of tasks that really are time consuming for me because of the fact that I feel so personal about my business. I want it a certain way. And so I really like that suggestion of using the blog post because then I can be like, can you just use these points and create something? And I feel better about that. So that's a really great point as well.
Jenzaia: And you as the face of your brand, you're the one who's creating the content and the strategy, and you're like the higher level thinker. Those smaller pieces, somebody else can do them because it's still coming from your brain.
If you wrote the outline that those are still your words, it's still your vibe, it's still you, and so that's just another way to use that content. Blogs nowadays are less red than they used to be. So the other way you can repurpose them is video content. So if you did a carousel, you could also do like one of those face to camera reels.
Again, you did that same content. Because people are watching reels. They are consuming videos too. You're on TikTok, right?
Tia: Yeah. Again, like I'm on TikTok, but I'm not very good at posting consistently, which is a bummer because I love how you said that it can be repurposed for video. So I really think I'm gonna try that. I'll tag you when I do that cause I think that's a really good idea.
Jenzaia: First of all, that's gonna help you with that visibility piece that you're looking for, because reels are still pushed out to new people, and so that's great.
It also doubles as more of that nurture content because it's high value, it's quality, and that's what people wanna see. And so if a new person comes across you like, oh, these tips are great. Someone new has seen you and you've nurtured them. So that's like a double touchpoint almost all in one.
Jenzaia: And I know you do reels already, which is why I feel like it's something you could incorporate into your strategy.
Tia: I never thought about using the blog post for reels. 99% of the time, I'm scrolling, like, what am I gonna post?
t's as simple as taking three points from that post and changing them into video format. That's genius. I love that.
Jenzaia: Here's something very fascinating. I follow you on Instagram and I never would've guessed that you had a struggle figuring out what to put on Instagram.
So that's something I think everyone needs to hear is sometimes from the outside it appears one way. Like you have consistent content that's going out regularly, that's high quality. But then in the background, our thoughts are, I never know what to post. I don't know what to put out there.
So just that mismatch of what other people are seeing and what you're feeling.
Tia: For sure, and I feel like the biggest waste of my time is sitting there being like, what am I gonna post? What should I post? I'm glad that it seems consistent. I spend a lot of time thinking about it.
Jenzaia: I feel like I do a podcast episode and then anyone who wants to consume it has consumed it. But we have to remember that people may not even know it exists. Like might not know your blog exists, might not have had time to do it this week. I already put it out in my email as well.
So I'm already duplicating. They've already seen my email and my podcast, but that's not how it works, right? Like there's different people who are looking at your long form content, or who are reading your emails, or who are on social media. So hitting all three of those places feels really repetitive to me.
But it's not to our audience.
Tia: Right. And I think that that ties well into kind of the marketing plan in the sense of, if you are getting your material out there to as many channels as possible, you're reducing your own planning. If you wanna call that in terms of just kinda coordinating how everything's gonna go because you're focusing on one topic, I guess.
And then you can just blast it out everywhere and it's less work.
Jenzaia: And then I know getting into paid ads is something you're interested in. There are two places I would recommend doing that. The first one is amplifying your lead generation.
So putting money behind your freebies, especially like the one we talked about already, where you have a fully fleshed out email sequence. If you do have people who are opting into it and then purchasing that course then you have a bit of ROI at the end.
But emotionally, that might be too far away. So the people opting into your email list are a different form of return on your investment. It's not money for money, but you're paying and then your email list is growing. And maybe they won't buy the course right away, but they're on your email list and the next time you promote it, or if they weren't at the right level, the next level might be better for them.
So that's where I recommend everyone's start is - they're freebies. And putting a bit of money behind growing your email.
Tia: Okay. That's amazing. Cause yeah, I, I've dabbled in the Facebook ad situation. I'm gonna need your help on this one further and we'll book another call for that. But yeah, I just, I wasn't sure where, because I was like, do I do it with products on TPT or on my own website?
But I guess it makes more sense to do it through lead generation because people are more likely to sign up for a free item than to dive right in. Especially if it's a cold audience, like to dive right into a paid product and they're like, I don't even know you.
Jenzaia: Yeah. And there are pros and cons. If you did wanna go the product route, there's pros and cons promoting it on T p T versus your own store. The name recognition of T p T is huge. The way you run ads isn't as great on TPT though. It is better from an ad setup perspective to run to your own store. But then again, there's less brand recognition and someone's like, I don't know this person. So there are pros and cons. Most of my clients run ads to T P T. If they wanna go that route, I still recommend building their email list simultaneously.
And then the third place is driving traffic to your blog. And so picking blog posts, and this is like a tiny, tiny fraction, maybe five to 10% of your overall ad budget. But the goal of that is just bring cold people in and nurture them with content.
So more people will see your blog and then maybe they'll read a couple blog posts, they'll find you on Instagram. And then once they've done that, you can start retargeting them with those other ads. Either the email list or the product ads. You've drawn them in with your high value content and then you can push your email list to your product ads, which is your main goal, right?
Tia: For sure. So I guess a question for ads is what is the general timeline for something like that?
Jenzaia: So with an ad that I'm running about a $25 a day budget. I like to give it three days, 72 hours to stabilize. And then after 72 hours, you can start to see if it's doing what you want or not. The big caveat to that is if in the first 24 hours, it's completely tanking, turn it off.
I have seen many, many ads that tank in that first 24 hours, but by the 72 hour mark are doing really well. I've seen the opposite too, where it's doing really well in the first couple hours and then it tanks. There's a lot of ups and downs that happen after 72 hours.
If there's no leads, I wouldn't say like, maybe Facebook needs more time. It typically does not need more than 72 hours. If your budget is bigger or smaller, then you need to adjust your time for that. Like if it's a $5 campaign, you might need to give it a whole week.
If it's a hundred dollars a day, you may actually legitimately be able to make a decision within 24 hours. Typically, $25 a day is a pretty standard budget, and I would say 72 hours.
Tia: Amazing. Thank you. I did not know that. Cause I think that's also part of like my hesitancy in the past. I wasn't sure of the time, what yielding results look like, things like that. So I'm excited.
Jenzaia: If you want to expand your reach without going to ads right away, collaborations are great. I feel like you do a lot of that. You do lives with other people and you've been part of like groups, but that is something else that it's free.
Typically, collaborations are typically free and it does open you up to another audience, and so continuing to do those collaborations is another venue to get more of that visibility.
Tia: I think that's what kinda sparked this whole marketing focus for this year too, was because when I was doing a collaboration with a bunch of teachers, it was amazing how many more people we could reach.
And then I was like, so if this works, I can't even imagine how much more of an audience I might be able to reach with paid.
Jenzaia: I've done at least one episode about this, like traffic levers. You have organic traffic, which is like your own social media, and then the collaboration lever of stealing, quote unquote other people's audiences. And then paid. And all three of them can be very valuable, very useful. And at different points in your business might be more active; like you're using them more often.
Do you have any other questions you feel like we haven't hit?
Tia: I don't think so. We've covered a lot. I'm so grateful. Thank you so much again for answering all of my questions.
Jenzaia: My favorite question to ask at the end is what are your three takeaways from this session?
Tia: Oh my gosh. So my three takeaways. That's a good question.
The emails. I'm really interested in trying your segmented strategy. I've never tried something like that and the way that you kind of laid it out and how it could help to grow and to nurture your list. So that's definitely one takeaway. The second would be how to repurpose that content.
I'm excited to look at the blog posts and transform them into emails and social media posts and things like that. I feel like that's gonna save me a ton of time. So I'm very excited about that. And then the third takeaway. It's probably gonna be just diving into paid ads. Like I have a little bit of a better idea now.
Jenzaia: Amazing. If people wanna look for you and find you, where can they do that?
Tia: Yeah, so I am on Instagram @ParfaitementParnell. I'm on Facebook as well. And yeah, you can also find me on my website, parfaitementparnell.com.
I have my blog, more information about courses and things like that, and just little snippets about my life if you're interested in learning about it.
Jenzaia: Thank you so much for joining me!
Tia: So thank you so much. This was so much fun.
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