[Fully Managed] Corinne Fisher from Purely Digital Marketing Ep. 140

Shannon: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Fully Managed Podcast, the podcast where we discuss marketing and business tips to help assist you on your business journey. I’m your host, Shannon, Penji’s Partnership Coordinator, and I’m joined here today with a very special guest, Corinne Fisher from Purely Digital Marketing. Thank you so much for coming on with me today. I really appreciate it.

Corinne: Thanks, Shannon. I’m happy to be here. Thank you.

Background and Career Journey

Shannon: So could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, kind of how you got to this point in your career and everything that you think is important in between?

Corinne: Sure, absolutely. I started my agency almost seven years ago now, and I had always wanted to own my own business. I just wasn’t really sure what that was going to look like. Since I was sixteen, I’ve been kind of playing around with website design and development, and this is back when there were not any drag and drop builders. So I was, you know, coding and HTMLing, all that fun stuff back then and got a corporate job right out of college. I worked there for about two and a half, three years and decided corporate life was not for me. I did not want to be in a cubicle, hated every single minute of it.

I left that job and took a job at a startup company where I was literally their only employee, but my job was to sell software that they had built. It was a very niche audience that I had to sell it to. And I maxed out the audience, sold it to every last person we could. And I knew it’s a great thing, but I knew that my days were limited because there was no one left to sell the software to.

Shannon: That makes a lot of sense.

Corinne: Yeah. And so sure enough, I got laid off and I was pregnant with our second daughter at the time. But you know, at that time I was very, I felt very at peace with what had happened and I felt like God was closing one door and opening another. So I took that as an opportunity to go full force with my agency and ever since then we’ve been growing year on year. We now have a team of [number not specified] and we have served hundreds of clients and I’m just loving every minute of it.

Shannon: I think that’s incredible. It’s really nice to be able to see that good things can come from bad things. I don’t like to consider anything really bad because there’s always opportunities that come from that. But it’s really nice to know that that was the way that you saw it as well.

Corinne: Yeah, absolutely.

Shannon: So it’s good that you were able to do that. And creating your own agency and having it for this long is definitely a very difficult feat. So I commend you for being able to get to this point.

Corinne: Oh, thank you. Thank you. It’s not without its challenges, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Shannon: For sure. Starting an agency is very, very difficult. I’m sure my bosses can definitely relate to that. I’ve heard some things.

Coffee Talk

Shannon: So my next question for you is, I saw on your website, and I love seeing this, you, I think it said something like two hundred, two thousand cups of coffee. What is it?

Corinne: That’s a made up number because who counts their cups of coffee? That would be kind of crazy but very marketing coordinator of someone. I’ve seen someone I love looking at people’s LinkedIn posts and them being like “I’ve tracked this very absurd thing in my life and this is what I decided from it.”

Shannon: Right, right. And I was wondering, it very much could be more. Well, what my question was, what kind of coffee do you like? What’s your favorite coffee? Then if this is what’s fueling—

Corinne: My husband is kind of a coffee snob. So guys, oh, gosh, what is it? Well, we drink mushroom coffee.

Shannon: How is that?

Corinne: It’s really good surprisingly and it’s good for your gut as well so yeah we drink mushroom coffee and then occasionally we’ll drink another brand I can’t think of what it’s called right now but it’s very you know very easy on the stomach too and it’s half calf I can’t go full calf or I will have the shakes.

Shannon: Is it naturally caffeinated or do they infuse caffeine into the mushroom coffee?

Corinne: They infuse. Mushroom coffee is like a mixture. There is some coffee in it and it’s got mushroom compounds and other vitamins and caffeine obviously but it’s not a ton of caffeine. It’s not like your regular full cup of coffee caffeine.

Shannon: Okay. I’ve been super curious about that because I’ve seen a lot of ads for it and I know that coffee definitely has its negative side effects and I kind of depend on it so I’ve always been very curious so thank you for enlightening me a little bit on that.

Corinne: Yeah.

Chief Empowerment Officer Title

Shannon: So I noticed that you decided to go with the name Chief Empowerment Officer. I was wondering what that’s all about.

Corinne: Yeah, so I went to a marketing agency conference. And this awesome lady by the name of Cassie Shea got up and spoke about basically owning your identity and your title. And what does that mean to you? And someone else had a creative name for CEO. I can’t remember what it is right now. And so I started writing down different things that obviously would go with CEO, different titles that would match that. And chief empowerment officer just really stuck out to me. And it goes right along with our agency’s core values. And just the reason that I started my company to begin with.

One of the biggest reasons I didn’t like the corporate environment is because I did not feel supported and I felt like I was just a number and I felt stuck. Right. And I never wanted anyone on my team to feel that way. And my goal has always been to empower people, empower my team, empower my clients, and always do the right thing by them. So that really stuck out to me. And I kind of ran with it. And I love that. I don’t know. I just love that title.

Shannon: No, I really like that, too, because I think that there definitely is a for lack of better phrasing, a vibe around a CEO title that you’re kind of untouchable and not approachable for the company, even if it’s small, sometimes I think people are very intimidated by it. And I like that yours is not only more approachable but more uplifting like you’re there for your team and you’re not there to just be this entity that is in charge of the team because I definitely think that says something.

Corinne: Yeah exactly exactly yeah we encourage we encourage questions we encourage openness honesty I never like you said I never want to feel unapproachable.

Shannon: No, that’s good. I think that’s really important for an agency’s success because you’re only as successful as your team is. And I think that when people feel encouraged and supported, it’s much more likely to have that, you know, not only an environment setting yourself up for success, but something that you enjoy going to work to every day. It feels less like work when you’re enjoying it.

Corinne: Oh, exactly. Exactly. No, of course.

Medical Field Specialization

Shannon: So I noticed that you have kind of you mentioned the medical field specifically on your website. Do you have kind of a niche for this or is this just something that you kind of specialize in?

Corinne: Yeah, so we work with a lot of body contouring wellness clinics and med spas. And so we understand the regulations associated with those industries specifically. So we are able to really serve those industries. We’ve worked within multiple different niches and industries from law to home services to medical. But we specifically like to call out that one because it does come with its regulation challenges. And we understand those and we know how to navigate them.

Shannon: Okay. Could you give an example of what some of these things are?

Corinne: Yeah, absolutely. So Facebook, for example, if you’re advertising weight loss services, they actually don’t like you to use the term weight loss at all. So we kind of get around that with advertising for other things like body contouring or fat loss services. I mean, it’s literally the same thing, but Facebook is okay with you saying fat loss, not weight loss. And you can’t use before and afters of like someone losing weight. You know, you can’t use a before and after picture in your creatives on Meta for those ads. So that’s just one example. Google also has its regulations in those industries, but yeah, it can get very nuanced things that you would think were okay, but your ad account would get flagged or suspended for things that you never would have thought of.

Shannon: No, that’s really interesting. And I like that you’re able to navigate that. And that’s something that you advertise because you know you’re good at it. It’s nice to be able to take in clients, not only because you enjoy that field, if that is the case, but also that you’re experienced in it. So you know what you’re doing when you’re doing it because I think that it’s probably very difficult to adjust to a new field if they have those kind of regulations whereas you’re able to advertise that you already have experience and understand the way in which this works.

Corinne: Yeah, absolutely. And if someone is getting into that field in terms of marketing for them, it can be a lot of wasted ad dollars and a lot of wasted time if you are not familiar with the regulations. And so at the end of the day, it just wastes the client’s time and it wastes their ad dollars if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Shannon: Yeah, exactly. So it’s nice to be able to advertise that you have those skills specifically, because I think that often people will maybe go to a different marketing agency that isn’t familiar with it and they’ll have to figure it out by trial and error, which is not good for either party.

Corinne: Exactly, exactly.

Working with Small Businesses

Shannon: So you work with a lot of small businesses. Do you personally prefer to work with local businesses or kind of anywhere?

Corinne: Well, do you mean local to me or?

Shannon: Local to you, yes.

Corinne: Oh, okay. No, actually, we have a few local to me clients, but most of them are just all over the U.S. At one time, we had clients in Australia, Dubai. We don’t have that as many now in other countries, but we have them all over the U.S.

Shannon: Oh, cool. So do you ever have to navigate the possibility of serving possible competitors?

Corinne: Rarely, it rarely comes up. And even if they are in the same area, there’s plenty of business to go around. So to be honest with you, it’s really not that big of a deal as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Because competition is good. Competition is good to increase prices, first off. It helps to create diversity in the market. It helps you to adjust and make yourself better so that the clients are served better. So it’s really not as big of a deal as people think that it is.

Shannon: That’s interesting. I do always like to ask that for people that work with small businesses more regularly, because I do hear sometimes that especially working locally, I think it must be much different, especially if you’re only working locally, then competitors are maybe more pressing than in a bigger industry, of course. A law office in two different states are probably not going to conflict, really. But I’m always curious about it because I do hear that that is something that marketing agencies run into trouble sometimes. But I think that’s more when you’re specifically locally based.

Corinne: Yeah. Now, you would if you started having, like, if I started having painters you know three four painters in the same area reach out to me and want to do business then at that point it’d be like okay this is getting a little complicated because then you’re betting against each other if we’re running google ads for example but yeah because we are so diversified across the us we rarely run into that.

Shannon: Okay. Have you run into it in the past where you had to do something differently?

Corinne: It has only come up where I’ve maybe had two clients in the same area that served the same city. And in that sense, it’s still not a big deal because even on Google, there’s one of our primary services that we offer is local SEO and getting people into the Google map pack, right? So there’s three spots there. There’s three spots available in the Google map pack. And so if we have two clients serving the same areas, we’re able to get both of them right in that map pack. So it really has not been an issue.

Google Maps Takeover Program

Shannon: Okay. So actually speaking of that, the Google Maps Takeover program, I would love to hear more about that because that was something that interested me that I haven’t really heard of before.

Corinne: Yeah. So with our SEO services, we take a Google Maps first approach. And what that means is we recognize that for local businesses, one of the primary drivers of phone calls and website visits and revenue is Google and the Google Map Pack specifically, because people use that to read reviews. They use that to click to call, click to visit your website. And that is consistently shows up as the first source of traffic for all of our clients unless they’re running Google ads and spending a ton on Google ads. Right.

We push local SEO as a very important piece of your digital marketing efforts, because you don’t want to have to pay, continue to pay thousands to Google forever. And if you can show up organically more often, that is going to be one of the largest, provide one of the largest return on investments for digital marketing efforts specifically.

Shannon: No, that makes perfect sense. It’s kind of more unique to like a more unique approach than I’ve heard of outside of this, because I think that a lot of people focus on Google ads in the way that you were mentioning where I guess it’s not more organic where and you’re wasting money in that kind of way. So I think that that’s really interesting. And when I do think about it, I, that is kind of how I look into my own local businesses. So it makes a lot of sense that that would be where you’d want to be searched for.

Corinne: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. If you don’t already know who you’re going to go to or what you’re, you know, who you’re going to use for specific service, what do you do? You usually go to Google and read those reviews.

Shannon: So what are the elements of this pack so to speak like do you have to think of different is it kind of the same strategy for each business to kind of get the results that you’re looking for with the specific thing or do you have to navigate it differently based off of the business?

Corinne: That’s a great question. The process as a whole is the same. The only thing that varies are the keywords and the content. So one of the first things that we do is keyword research. And we’re first identifying what keywords are people actually using and searching for our client services. We don’t ever want to assume that we know. So we conduct the keyword research first, and we focus primarily on the higher volume keywords that are being searched.

So that would be the primary differences, the keyword approach, and then potentially some of the backlinks that we obtain, we want to obtain relevant backlinks to that industry. So we wouldn’t want to get a you know, a citation from a doctor’s third party site for you know, for an HVAC company, for example. So those are the primary differences in the strategy, but as a whole, it’s largely the same.

Keyword Challenges and Client Communication

Shannon: Do you ever have a situation where a company wants to be searched for a specific keyword, but it’s not something that you think would be successful, if that makes sense?

Corinne: I know. Oh, I’m fine. Okay. What do you do in those situations?

Just have a conversation with the client. Usually they’re reasonable and they understand. Sometimes it takes them a while to come around to the idea. Usually it happens that they’re not getting the results that they want. And I have to go back and tell them, remember when I told her that nobody was searching for these keywords, but they’re searching for these other keywords. That’s our problem and it’s been our problem. And so can we try it my way now?

So yeah, usually they, usually they trust us in the beginning, but sometimes it takes a little while to get them to really understand, okay, this is why we do it this way. One example is med spas. A lot of our clients don’t like the term med spa. But that is how a lot of people search for them. And that is how a lot of people are actually typing in and looking for for those particular businesses. So we have to be strategic and we do actually have to use those keywords. We don’t have to use it everywhere. We don’t have to like plaster your website with it, right? But we need to be strategic and still working into our efforts. So, yeah.

Shannon: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I think that it’s definitely difficult for different businesses and business owners to get out of their headspace of how they think their business is and then how people are going to not only look them up, but also be interested in them in the first place. And I think that goes to people’s websites as well, where a lot of people that look at their website over and over again aren’t looking in the lens of their customers because they’re looking at it in the lens of how hard they may have worked on their website. And I think that’s something that’s really difficult.

Corinne: Yes, absolutely, a hundred percent.

Shannon: So I think it’s definitely similar with kind of keywords of that you don’t want to necessarily identify with a certain word or phrase, but people are going to be looking you up anyway using that. So it makes sense that you’d have to navigate and kind of explain that, even if that’s not the preferred way of them being found.

Corinne: Right.

Shannon: Okay, interesting. Okay. I never really thought about it like that because I do I am always interested in the keywords aspect of things because I know that a lot of people look for marketing help, but not necessarily know what’s needed. And keywords are something that a lot of times I feel like it comes down to sometimes. And so it’s interesting to hear that it can also be a difference of opinion of what you’d like to identify with.

Corinne: Yeah, yeah. Are there other, oops, sorry.

Shannon: Oh, go ahead, Shannon. Oh, no, I was just asking if there was any, if there were other industries that you’ve run into where this is like an identity thing, if that makes sense.

Google Business Classifications

Corinne: The only other instance is that Google may classify your business in a way that you don’t like. We have to pay attention to the categories that Google has available and how they classify your business and what they call it and it doesn’t always match the branding or exactly match how a client may want to portray what it is that they do. So that’s another instance where we have to be strategic in kind of how we work that in to our efforts.

So one example is we recently had a client that is a Christmas light installation company. And they do Christmas light installations, and they also do architectural lighting, outdoor lighting. Google refers to them as a lighting contractor. And they didn’t really like that term, lighting contractor. “We’re so much more than just a lighting contractor.” However, we have to work that in to our content efforts. So we’re usually able to navigate it and kind of work in the Google category into their content without it being a main focus. But we still have to work it in somehow. Like I said, it doesn’t always match how you want to refer to your business with how Google classifies it.

Shannon: Yeah, no, that definitely adds up. Maybe I’m unfamiliar with it a little bit, but how do you mean by Google classifying you? Where in the process does that happen where Google comes up with a classification for your business?

Corinne: Yeah, so every Google business listing, you have to select a main category, basically what describes your services.

Shannon: Okay.

Corinne: That’s what I’m referring to, their main category. You can list a number of different categories. However, you have to select a main category. And that is, believe it or not, one of the biggest ranking factors is selecting the right main category.

Shannon: Yeah.

Corinne: And you also, and in our content strategy, we need that main category listed in the H-one of the homepage. All right, so that’s where the issue can come into play is where they’re like, hey, I really don’t want this in my H one. So we have to get a little bit creative on the design aspect. But yeah, I’m talking about the GBP main categories.

Shannon: Okay, that’s interesting. I never knew that. I love, okay, well, I love learning. So this is really exciting. I didn’t know that there was, I don’t own my own business. So all I do, all I learn from this is talking to people like you who have experience in doing this on the day-to-day. That’s one aspect of SEO that I didn’t know was a part of the process. Or I guess it might not even be a part of your process specifically, but them creating it.

Corinne: Oh, no, it is. It’s a very small thing to correct. But it’s so funny because we’ll take on clients and they’ve just had the wrong main category selected for five years. And we switch it and it’s like the next day they’re showing up. Now, of course, we do a lot of other things after that. But that is that can really make a huge difference.

Shannon: No, it’s very interesting. Something so small can be so critical in showing up on search results.

Corinne: Oh yeah.

Shannon: Okay. Well, that’s really cool. I get so excited about learning new things. So that’s awesome to be able to know. I just didn’t know that. It’s, I love, I don’t, maybe I don’t love, I mean, it’s definitely detrimental to people that don’t know about these certain things, but I think it’s really interesting when something so small can be so impactful for certain things, especially the success of a business. It’s just very interesting.

Corinne: Yeah.

Fun Questions – Outreach Preferences

Shannon: Okay, so now it’s time for a little game. We’ll take off our marketing hats for a second and I’ll ask you some funny questions. So my first question that I have for you, I’ll start with a marketing question. We’ll ease into the absurdity. For outreach, say you’re looking for a potential client, maybe this was earlier on in your agency do you think that LinkedIn or email outreach is the best way to go for like cold outreach?

Corinne: Yes I would say LinkedIn because you can honestly I don’t like either one.

Shannon: What would you choose instead? What would you choose instead then?

Corinne: If you’re just getting started in person, I mean, that’s how I did it seven years ago in person networking events. It’s gonna take a lot of cold outreach if you’re just doing email and LinkedIn before you get any traction and you’re gonna be over it by the time you finally get a client. So I, if you’re just getting started in person networking events, building up your you know, your with potentially with friends and family at first, but yeah, I would say networking events, BNI’s, chamber events and things of that nature at first.

Shannon: OK, no, that definitely makes sense. I like when people choose things that aren’t just the questions, the options that I provide, because it’s also a new perspective. And I definitely understand that. I think that having in-person encounters are definitely much more impactful for people getting to know you and trust you too like knowing someone in person you get more of a feel of the personality and how you think you might work with them and I think that’s really helpful in deciding whether to get involved in someone’s business.

Corinne: Yeah absolutely and just to give some like perspective to that I don’t even go to networking events anymore like I don’t do BNIs or chamber I don’t have time I’ve got three kids and I run my agency. But I do go to occasional conferences. I only went to one conference last year. That one conference was responsible for a twenty percent growth on my agency.

Shannon: Wow.

Corinne: So that’s how impactful any person networking is.

Shannon: Interesting. Okay, well, that’s very, very cool. I’ve always, doing this podcast, I’d really like to go to more networking events like that. So I will definitely be using that as a factor to discuss with my boss. Okay. But, you know, I think that’s really fun. The reason why I like doing the podcast so much is because I really do like talking. Of course, this isn’t in person because we are remote, but it’s still really nice to be able to get to talk to people face-to-face and get to know them. I do enjoy that, and I don’t get to do that much through email. You don’t get to know people as much. Some people are huge personalities through their email though. I do. And you get some of those sometimes you can tell who they are by just the way that they talk.

Corinne: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And also I’ll recommend conference to you. It’s called the agency builders conference in St. Augustine, Florida, where I live. And it’s, it’s phenomenal. I mean, it’s a smaller conference and there’s just breakouts and everyone’s just sharing what has worked, what hasn’t worked in their agency. And it’s a phenomenal way to connect with others. And just, this is a really great conference. So I recommend it to anyone in the digital world.

Shannon: That sounds incredible. I’d really like to get involved in that. I’ll look that up immediately after this, probably. So thank you so much.

Fun Question – Eggs Challenge

Shannon: Okay. One last question. I’ll ask you something fun. Okay. How many eggs do you think you can eat in a waking day?

Corinne: Okay.

Shannon: It was like, say it was like a competition. Like regular eggs?

Corinne: I mean, they can be any style. They just have to be eggs. I don’t know. In a day?

Shannon: In a day.

Corinne: Oh. I don’t know, maybe thirty before I got sick.

Shannon: That’s awesome! Okay, I get a very wide range of answers for this. I love this question because it’s just so silly. But I’ll get, sometimes I’ll get like five and I’m like, okay, are you really trying? And then I’ll get like eight dozen and I’m like you just I think you just die from that.

Corinne: Yeah I don’t think that you’d survive like I mean I’ve eaten like probably five for breakfast before you know so that’s not a big deal but I’ve seen like a whole day.

Shannon: Yeah, I don’t know. Probably thirty would be my limit before I was burping them up.

Corinne: That’s a reasonable number, to be honest. I think it’s I think you’re pushing yourself a little bit, but it’s not too out there.

Shannon: Right, right.

Closing

Shannon: Well, I appreciate your honesty with that answer. Thank you for entertaining me with answering my absurd questions as well. Well, this was a fun note to end on, unfortunately, a little over time, but I really appreciate you coming on with me and teaching me a lot. I actually really did learn a lot from this, so I’m really excited to be able to, you know, not only give that knowledge to our audience, but also be able to, you know, factor it into what I do every day too.

Corinne: Awesome. Thank you, Shannon. I really enjoyed being on and I hope someone was able to learn something from us.

Shannon: They definitely do. If I did, I’m sure that they did as well. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And for everyone at home, don’t forget to like and subscribe to hear and learn more from this podcast. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

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