Estie Starr | Strand Consulting & The Better Business School
“Let’s make a viral video.”
Every marketer has heard those words at one point or another in their career.
But making viral videos isn’t easy - otherwise everyone would do it.
In this week’s episode, business and marketing consultant Estie Starr breaks down the science of virality to uncover the exact ingredients necessary to make something go viral.
But she also explains why making something go viral isn’t always the best strategy, and shares when you should - and should not - shoot for virality.
Get the details on all of this, and more, in this week’s episode.
Resources from this episode:
Connect with Estie on LinkedIn
Check out the Strand Consulting website
Learn more about the Better Business School
Listen to Estie’s Business Breakthrough Podcast
Estie and Kathleen recording this episode
Kathleen (00:15):
Welcome back to the inbound success podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Estie Starr, who is the founder of Strand Consulting and The Better Business School. Welcome to the podcast Estie.
Estie (00:29):
I'm so excited to be here. Thanks.
Kathleen (00:31):
This should be fun. We're gonna talk about a topic I love, which is virality. Um, and I feel like this is one of those words that can strike fears in the heart of a marketer. Um, cuz I can't tell you the number of times I've had somebody say, well can't you just make me a viral video? <laugh> I'm like, um, so we're gonna talk all about this concept of virality, but before we dig into it, I would love it. If you could just provide a little bit of background on yourself and you know, Strand Consulting and The Better Business School and, and all these different endeavors that you're involved in.
Estie (01:04):
Sure. Uh, so it all started long, long ago. Uh, back in 2011, I was working as a CIO of a multinational, nonprofit. Loved my boss, loved my job had flex time, which was really important to me. I was a mom of three little kids at the time. I'm now a single mom of five, not so little kids anymore. And I would've stayed there forever, but you know, as organizations do, they hired Amy middle manager who just created this toxic environment and anyone who's ever been part of this really would get it. You know? Um, he's like your team is now my team and you're my new secretary. I'm like, oh, I'm good at a lot of things. I'm not an amazing secretary.
Kathleen (01:46):
<laugh> like
Estie (01:47):
Actually I'm the new leaving person. Hi.
Kathleen (01:50):
Yeah.
Estie (01:51):
And I was terrified, right? I was the sole supporter of our growing family. I had no idea where our money was gonna come from. My now ex-husband was still studying then and I just couldn't stay. And I had this secret dream. I wanted to do small business consulting and this was 2011. This is before everyone of their brothers, nephews, dog Walker as a business coach, no one did. This was in my twenties and I just, it was this burning drive. I'd be sitting at these cafes and I'd overhear people talking like, oh my gosh, you should like sell your cupcakes for a dollar, be such a good business. You would love it, always in that voice. And I like, oh my God, I could help you. But I, I it's a business school and I've been running businesses profitably since I was a little kid, but I didn't know how to be a consultant.
(02:35):
I just wanted to, it was just a thing. Um, so I left my job with this dream and that was my dream to build a full service consulting firm for small businesses. That was my dream. I saw that they were consulting firms for bigger businesses and there were a bunch of, you know, random freelancers that little guys could piece together. Cause this is the beginning of the small business revolution. And that was my dream. And you know, took a minute. Um, but we did build to, I mean, we're over seven figures now, but took us, uh, two years under two years to six figures, profit with no ad spend. And that's my whole thing. It's how you bootstrap thing is it's how you earn more money without spending more money. And that doesn't mean you spend nothing, but it's how you get more with less.
(03:17):
And you know, by, I think 20 17, 18 multinational, we got staff on seven continents, seven continents, seven time zones climbed from six continents. I never hit Antarctica <laugh> I did it everywhere else. And then a couple years ago we opened the business school because yeah, my, my whole passion in my drive is that little guy has affordable solutions that work for them. And as the consultancy grew and we were full service, creative consulting. So we also had a full agency arm. So we did websites and branding and social media and campaigns in the whole thing. It wasn't affordable to all the people I wanted to help. So we opened the business school to help people with more, do it yourself and done with you educational type, um, components till they got up to the level that a lot of them did graduate into the consultancy. Right?
(04:04):
So, you know, as a business model, it works. So that's, and that's what I do now. And I am just sitting with this vision, that business and marketing knowledge becomes for everyone. What building a house is now. Not everyone knows how to build a house. I don't know how to build a house, but I know that there are people who I build houses. I know it's not haphazard. You don't just get lucky. And I know the difference between a contractor architect, plumber, electrician, and interior designer and in business and marketing your average person doesn't but they will. That's the journey I'm on.
Kathleen (04:36):
I love that. And I, I mean, having been a two time founder, myself of different small businesses, I, I too am very passionate about helping, um, founders succeed and, and make sure they get past that. What is it? The ever elusive, I think three year mark where 90 something percent of small businesses fail in the first three years. It's some crazy high number.
Estie (04:55):
Yeah. And it's 80 in five years. Right? So if they cross the three year mark, they hit the five year mark. Um, but I'll tell you, what's fascinating that people don't talk about. Sometimes they fail in their success sometimes failure. And again, this is my world for over 12 years now I've been hanging out here. Um, 2011 is when I left my job to do it full time. But it was eh, dabbling a little before that, um, some of the businesses, they actually hit a level of success, but a, they don't know how they got there. They didn't do it necessarily strategically and they don't know how to sustain it. And they don't know how to build up. Right. You never come your business bigger than you. And so if you're missing the personal development with it, they just, they crash and burn and then they go get a job. I've met a number of people who build quote unquote, successful businesses. Right. They like work, they work, they hit something and they like, boom. And then they like just total crash. They couldn't sustain it. They couldn't handle it.
Kathleen (05:47):
Yeah. I, I can see that. I think it's, it's hard being a founder is, can be very lonely, can be very difficult. So I totally see that. Yeah. Um, so shifting gears, Ugh. This topic of virality, like I said, I mean, any marketer who's been in this business for any length of time has heard somebody say, let's make a viral video or why can't that just go viral and people that's this call? <laugh> people think it's so easy. Like every person who's ever seen the dollar shave club video thinks, well, this looks easy to make and why can't we just do this? And you know, the reality is if everybody could do it, then it, you know, everyone would do it.
Estie (06:25):
And it's not that everybody can't right, because anybody could become an expert classical pianist. We know exactly what that would look like. Right? So some people might not have natural talent, but if you sit and you practice for hours every day, and then you get experts and you invest yourself in your time and your energy into consistently learning, learning, even if you have the tiniest musical talent, you could probably get to mastery. So you could make a viral video. And some people do make them by accident, but you can do it on purpose. You might not want to invest what you need to do that. And that's when I study the science of virality, there is a way you can do it. You just might not want to do all the things you have to do to get there. It's not instantaneous. It's not tomorrow or yesterday. You can do it. Just have to pull all the right things together.
Kathleen (07:11):
So let's break that down a little bit. What are all the right things like, you know, when you say the science of virality, talk to me a little bit about the science side of it.
Estie (07:20):
Okay. So first you've got context, right? Where are you trying to go viral? Why are you trying to go viral? What are you trying to go viral with? Are you trying to go viral in mass media are, you're trying to go viral on social media. Social media is a bunch of different platforms. You don't go viral on all of them with one piece of content. I'm trying to think. I no, never seen even one. And I study this all the time. I've never seen any one thing go viral everywhere. I've seen some things that go really well, one place and they go moderately well in another place. Um, but you've never so things doesn't explode everywhere because every different medium is its own party. That's how I look at social media. Every medium's its own party. And that party has its norms. Its algorithm is slightly different, right?
(08:05):
That's the party manager. Algorithm's sole job in as many people to stay as long as possible. That's its whole job. You help the algorithm. It helps you. And so level one is where are you trying to go viral. Right? And to decide that you might wanna know, why am I going viral? What's the point? How many times do I wanna go viral? You have content creators on every platform that go viral consistently on their platform. And you see my platform and their bio's always like, you can follow me on XYZ two. <laugh> follow me on Insta also, you know? And you see them like on instead, they've got like a million followers and then on TikTok, they've got 200,000 why, and they're doing well, different parties. People who are doing amazing on Facebook, they move to Instagram and they're like, not Instagram trying to move me. You know what I'm saying? Like, so level one is pick your context. Where are you trying to go viral? Why? And you're just trying to go viral. Say you have a viral video. That is not that hard. Yeah. If you just wanna say, I have a viral video, that's not that hard. You wanna go viral to actually develop your business sales, get people engaged. That's a whole different story.
Kathleen (09:06):
So, so you're saying it's not that hard to do a viral video, but I would say, I don't know. I mean like there's lots of people who've tried and failed. So like, is there any kind of a science behind what goes into making something viral in terms of like the elements of a good piece of content or you know, the emotional strings you have to pull? Like what what's, what do you think are the components of something that is gonna go viral?
Estie (09:32):
Absolutely. So there are right. There are standard frameworks that you can follow. Um, you've got hook, you've got switch. You've got a little bit of a roller coaster and then you've got an open loop. Those four components. If you look at, I would say probably in the high 90%, I've never done an actual calculation. Right? Cause tell you got random things. That'll slip in 97%. Let's pretend. Yeah. Um, we'll find those four elements, a hook, a switch, a little bit of a rollercoaster and an open loop.
Kathleen (10:03):
Okay. So let's break those down a little bit. Break it down. Yeah.
Estie (10:06):
So hook means you gotta grab my attention. It used to say in the first three seconds, I'm gonna tell you in the first, second, right. Something's gotta intrigue me. Right. And the world we live in now where TikTok rules all social media. Um, and not just cuz it's TikTok because then Instagram makes tos and Facebook makes quote unquote TikTok where I, they call it their own thing and Snapchat disappeared cuz they're like, we're too cool. We don't have to keep up with TikTok. Right. And so roll the world. Um, you're scrolling one second. You haven't caught my attention. We're done catching my attention has numerous elements. And that again, that's why I say context is so important right on Instagram. You've got the image. You've got the caption again. If it's a real, you've got some other elements, TikTok, which you, where I spend the most time, cuz I like to start things at their source.
(10:50):
Um, you've got the video itself, which has visual and audio. Then you've got the caption underneath, which you've got kind of two levels to, you've got the first line and a half and then you've got the next one. You've got the um, how many views it has by itself is already a polar. So if you've done something or you have a way to get it, have more from the beginning, which again is a strategy in and of itself knowing your timing, all of that kind of stuff. So something has to grab me right away. Right. And again, if you have no other experience, so you're working with your visual, your audio, your words let's say, and that that pretty common on all platforms, not every platform has audio. Right. But um, it's gotta catch me. There's gotta be something there at the Congress. And by the way, the name on the account is part of the words.
(11:42):
What is that account called? I saw a video the other day. Um, it was very cute. It's there's a, there's always a TikTok trend, right? There's always a couple dozen. Um, and one of the TikTok trends now, just at the time that we're recording, this is dance where the person like pretends to fall. Right. So it's a pretend trip. So again, a lot of the viral content has that hook in it already and the person's pretending to fall. And sometimes there are two people in the video. Sometimes the other one knows it. Sometimes they don't, but there's this like, oh my gosh, they're falling. And then they're like, no, they're dancing. Ha ha ha. Right. So there's your switch, but get my attention. And so in that one, the caption was like, when your boyfriend says he'll do anything for you. <laugh> right. And then you see them doing the dance and he falls down and it's like, huh.
(12:24):
And then you start dancing. So it's you get it, look, switch. What is grabbing my attention? The combination of elements. It's the scenery. It's an congruity. What is happening? What is happening that grabs you immediately is there's something in the bottom caption. Cause again, we blink things super fast. So even if I'm not reading it, my eyes have taken it all in immediately. And some part of my brain has registered interested or not interested. And if you're just making the same thing, someone else made, I'm probably not super interested. But if there's something incongruous, there's something just, just weird about it. There's like a very professional setting with like an ice cream truck music. You're like what what's gonna happen? I don't know. I see an office, but I hear an ice cream truck. Okay. I'm intrigued in congruity.
Kathleen (13:14):
Okay.
Estie (13:14):
Curiosity, illicit curiosity immediately. And there's so many ways to do that.
Kathleen (13:20):
Yeah. And I feel like there's a pacing thing. Like, because as you mentioned, our attention spans are super short, like grabbing attention quickly, but then keeping the pace moving really fast. Yes. Seems like it's key.
Estie (13:31):
Yeah. And, and keeping it moving. Um, again, there's fast, but there's also actual pacing and that's why, again, I'll keep going back to context tos. I have found that viral tos again in the 90 plus percent, they go on a beat on a tick and a talk. It's fascinating. Watch them. There's a switch on the tip talk. Now that TikTok is not a specific timer, but there's a rhythm. Whether the rhythm is inside the music that you're using or it's just, and if you look at the really, you know, um, the blue check creators, right? The ones who are really, really dominating, they do this intuitively I would believe that they never sat down. Cuz I calculated this and then we did a video with it and it went, I don't know, like 10,000 views. Um, just with that, that was like the main thing that we paid attention to was the switch on a beat. It was actually really hard to do. Cause I had no experience with it. I, we took that video at least a dozen times.
Kathleen (14:28):
Huh? That's interesting. Yeah. I feel like TikTok the challenges. There's so many like very unique formats on TikTok that are not present on other platforms and diving in and learning. Those is a, is a, an entire discipline within itself.
Estie (14:42):
Yes. But those are just decorations. They're all decorations. It's not about the formats. Cuz again, if you get the foundational elements, all the other stuff is just decoration. The foundational element is curiosity and yes. Pacing. And when I say the switch, there's gotta be a switch. Right. So you get me curious with one thing and then I think it's going one way and now you switch me now it's going another way. I'm like, I know what's happening now. Now my little, you know, my little animal brain is like, what's going on. <laugh> that's
Kathleen (15:16):
Interesting. Cause I'm thinking back to some of the videos that like have really grabbed my attention in recent years. And like one that comes to mind was I think it was double min gum. Maybe. I don't know if it was double meant, but it was the one when the pandemic was ending and you see all these people like emerging from their office buildings and their apartments. And then like all of a sudden they're all running out to this park and they start making out with each other and was like this unleashing of pent up pandemic energy. Yeah. Um, and it did have that sort of concept of the switch of like it started in a very sleepy, like kind of, you know, everyone was cooped up way and then it turned into this like free for all.
Estie (15:55):
Yeah. You can take that with really almost anything. And sometimes it's a subtle emotional shift switch. Right. So if you look and again, TikTok just where I play right now. Cuz it's because it leverages this. So, so well, and you just look at these people, you see sometimes constant creators. You're like, why does this video have 3 million likes? <laugh> why, what is it? And then you watch it and you see that the person in the video first they're like this they're smiling. So you can see me. And then they're like a little bit moody and then they look almost pensive and you're just like, there's this emotional shifting it. Doesn't actually have to be that insanely obvious just has to be a switch, right. Someone falls and you expect them to be upset and then they jump up and smile and you're like, what is going on?
Kathleen (16:42):
So why do you think that switch is so compelling?
Estie (16:46):
I think because especially now, but I think it's always been this way. We are engaged when we don't think we know what's happening. Soon as we think we know what's happening, we tune out and on social media, you're not likely to tune out. You'd rather just see the next thing that engages you. You're there for the dopamine hits. That's what you're there for. You're there for the things to surprise and delight you and kick in and a little, a dopamine hit essentially. Right. That we know that that's already been studied by now. And so if you're watching something and you know what you're expecting and it's just going and it's, again, our attention spans are shorter. Our patience for things that are repetitive is smaller. Um, when we think we know where it's going, it's not as addicting. It's not as exciting. Right? Go back to foundation.
(17:32):
To me, social media is built on the early experiments of BF Skinner, right. Which is the science of what's behind gambling. This is randomized reward. Right? So behavioral conditioning, right? All those experiments with the little mice and the levers. So you put a mice in a mouse, mice, whatever one on one, doesn't matter, you put 'em on a little cage and they have to press a lever to get food, go to lover, press lever, get food, cool, press the lever, get food, press the lever, get food. And then they press lever. Nothing comes out. Now they've been conditioned. Every time they press a lever, they get food. That behavior will extinguish. Right? Couple more times they'll try like, okay, food's gone done. If you, and there's a couple other versions of this, but the one that is the most addictive, which is really what's behind gambling as well, which social media leverages the same exact way mouse plus pushes a lever.
(18:21):
Food comes out, goes back, pushes it once nothing, twice. Hell it they're like, okay, goes back. But once, twice, nothing, three times, nothing, four times nothing, five times pellet. Oh, I don't know how this thing works. That thing when you stop feeding it. Okay. Again, if you randomize this enough, it will keep coming back almost forever. Hmm. Cause it doesn't know what's happening. We are addicted to things when we cannot figure it out. When it arouses curiosity, we keep coming closer. What is it? What is it? And I, I study a lot of psychology, I think their marketing textbook. Um, and so there's a lot of psychology that goes back to, you know, prehistoric times and industrial and like, but that curiosity, it makes me come closer. I wanna know more. I wanna see more. It's engaging. Whereas something that I assume I know is actually disengaging when I think I know, just think about it when I think I know something I will disengage when I don't, I'm now interested. And again, if something interests me also for other reasons, and that's where the emotional hooks come in, I
Kathleen (19:22):
Think that is super interesting.
Estie (19:24):
Yeah.
Kathleen (19:25):
Yeah. That whole mouse experiment is fascinating.
Estie (19:28):
Oh, it's one of my favorites. It's absolutely one of my favorites. I, um, I taught entrepreneurship in some high schools for a while. And with that I was teaching the students also to just be, you know, savvy adults as well when they go out into the world. And uh, I taught them the, the social media experiment, but I did it in real time with jelly beans. I turned them into my,
Kathleen (19:49):
I was just gonna say, it's funny that you say that because what it made me think of is like, um, is, is different jelly bean flavors where like you, you keep and tasting and like every few you're like, that was a really good one.
Estie (20:00):
Yeah. The ones where you don't know. Yes. Um, the, like the horrible ones.
Kathleen (20:04):
Oh, like the birdie spots.
Estie (20:06):
Yes. I call those the horrible ones. Cause I think I once eight ear last, I don't remember.
Kathleen (20:10):
Oh, they're disgusted. Yeah.
Estie (20:12):
Why do people still do it? They're still selling them. People are still buying them. What's gonna happen. Which one is toothpaste? I dunno.
Kathleen (20:21):
I know it's crazy if you think about it, but we keep eating them.
Estie (20:24):
We keep eating them. We wanna know.
Kathleen (20:27):
Yeah. It's like, well it's the old forest. Gump life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. And it's true. We keep you to the chocolate, to the box too, even though we're like, Ugh, that was disgusting. Give me another one. I wanna see what's in it.
Estie (20:37):
See if this one's better.
Kathleen (20:39):
Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. And
Estie (20:40):
That's really the whole swiping culture. Right? Let me see if this one's better. I, I have to go into that. Right. But whether you're swiping up down right. Left, doesn't matter. Yeah. Let me see if this one's better. Unless I like this one and the thing I like I'm coming closer to, I'm interested. I'm invested. And so viral contents again, when we talk about viral, we're talking about something, that's sticky something. That's sticky, something that engages us at multiple levels. So I'm engaging the mind. I'm engaging the emotions. I'm engaging different feelings and I'm engaging sometimes just an incongruity to what's happening in the outside world. Right? So why do baby pans and videos work? Why? Cause I'm sitting there and I'm not having the best day. We can assume that most people are not necessarily having the absolute best day of their life. If they're sitting on social media at three in the morning, probably not. And so on comes this pan video and from your place of like, life is tough. Life is terrible. You know, my catches left me and it's just awful. And then suddenly these hands you're like, oh it's and you, you have the emotional switch. But in the pan video, by the way, there's emotional switches. Also one of the most viral video animal videos I've seen like the baby turtles walking into the ocean were just like, you gonna make you gonna make it.
Kathleen (21:56):
Oh, I last night I watched for longer than I care to admit, I watched a video of a woman feeding five pet monkeys who were wearing dresses and I love it. And she was like the, she had this whole order of like the monkeys could only eat in a certain order. And there was this one monkey who wasn't happy. And so he started sucking his thumb and I was like, this is bizarrely gripping <laugh>. So
Estie (22:21):
Cause why, first of all, there's so many curiosity elements there, like what is happening? You have, why are the
Kathleen (22:27):
Monkeys dresses?
Estie (22:28):
Why would there's so much in congruity? Your brain is like, I don't know. And it's firing and you're excited. And there's dopamine, like things are going on annotating, emotional elements of nurture of care of structure. There's so much in something like that. Foundational elements they're always there.
Kathleen (22:47):
So here we go, put monkeys and dresses into your videos. <laugh>
Estie (22:51):
So here's the thing. The thing is that it's very hard to copy. You can model it, but when you try to copy it, it doesn't always work. Does that make sense? Yeah. The copying is the problem. Mimicry modeling when mimicry is not identical, right? So more modeling than mimicking modeling will work. If you're modeling the framework, what is happening there? There's curiosity. There's in congruity monkeys and dresses. There's nurture, right. There is some level of system and organization happening. Um, there's again, the difference between animals and people and, you know, Disney knows this. I was why glad to have so many animal movies, but there's no, um, a certain level of our judgment filters go off when we see animals, right. When we see people, all the judgments come in, um, the ages and the races and the ethnicities and our history with that. But animals don't invoke that in us for the most part, unless one has an animal trauma. And so animals are almost emotionally neutral, which is part of why animal stuff goes so well. Yeah. There's neutrality to that.
Kathleen (23:56):
Yeah. So you mentioned in the beginning that like you, anybody could theoretically do this, but would you really want to, and I wanna just pull on that a little bit. So what did you mean by that?
Estie (24:10):
Um, so I'll give you an example. I had a client won call me as I'm sure you've had many and I've, I've had more than one, but this story is the one that I'm picking on. So I had a client call me, they were doing, uh, I always use real examples, but I've blurred them so that even if the client themselves heard it, they wouldn't know it was them. Um, so let's say, let's say they were doing a new real estate project, right? A new, big real estate commercial development thing. Let's let's say it's, it's not exactly the same, but let's say, and they're like, okay, we're trying to get a bunch of investors into this commercial real estate development. And everyone says, you just need viral videos. We need videos. We wanna viral video. I'm like, what do you want a viral video for?
(24:48):
You need a group of what? Three to seven, really wealthy investors for a commercial real estate project. Why am I making you a viral video? So that a bunch of 13 year olds like it? Like, what is this going to give you? He's like, oh, but I'm like, I don't care. Who said, what, what is your goal? Well, my goal is to get a bunch of high level investors into this project. Okay. How about parlor meetings with a, which are with a really nice presentation. Yeah. I used to do that and that used to work, but it's a different world now. I'm like it is. And the different world just has nicer presentations. You wanna put a bunch of money at this will make you a hologram presentation. Feel better now. Mm-hmm <affirmative>
Kathleen (25:26):
Mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah. Now is it so it's about ROI basically.
Estie (25:32):
It's about ROI and it's about, what's your goal and what's your intention? You know, I've met social media creators who have hundreds of thousands of followers and never forgot how to monetize it. I've met people who have hundreds of social media followers and are earning millions and millions of dollars. This is one tool in your toolbox. What do you need? What are you building? What are you trying to do? Use it strategically.
Kathleen (25:56):
So when under what circumstances would you say it does make sense to try to create something that you think is gonna go viral?
Estie (26:04):
Um, I would say when that virality will give you mass access to the audience where you've already tested and, and found a solid conversion rate and a solid sales pathway, and you're gonna get mass access. So you're getting a huge influx top of funnel without paying for it. Now go play. So you've built some level of a and again, when I say file, I don't really mean online could be offline as well. It could be anything. Um, but you have something that you sell, you know, how to take people from early attention all the way through to sale in a reliable way. And now, instead of putting your time, money, energy, into paid advertising of some sort, you're putting it into quote unquote organic viral content. And by the way, it costs less usually <laugh> um, because, and if you, I was just thinking about this this morning, cuz what else would I do in my free time?
(27:00):
But I was thinking about the fact that the goals of the ad platforms and the people who pay them are not always in alignment. I want you to imagine that you pay an ad platform a hundred thousand dollars and you're trying to get a million dollars in business. And it works really, really well. And you end up getting your million dollars in business only 50 K. You're not paying anymore. You're done right now. They're your goal to get as much as possible for little as possible is the opposite of their goal, which is to get you paid as much as possible to give you just enough for you to keep paying.
Kathleen (27:33):
Yeah, exactly. So what would be an example, like you mentioned, if you already have tested something and you already sort of have some audience, but you that, but it would give you the ability to reach more of it. Like what would be an example of,
Estie (27:44):
Um, something like that. So let's take any of these again. I play in the world of small business. Yeah. So I could take an online program, which I don't know if I could say in a different voice, um, I could take someone who sells niche swimwear. Right? You sell niche. Swimwear. I just cuz again, TikTok. Yeah. You sell niche swimwear. And the niche of it is it's certain type of coverage or for certain body type and it's summer. So it's the season now we're at the end of the season, right? This would be better at the beginning of season. If you're in a Western country, um, upper hemisphere, upper hemisphere, not Western necessarily. I'm like, I was just talking to someone yesterday was winter. Cause they're in South Africa and yeah, but they're South Africa. So they're the other side of the world, but they're also the bottom.
(28:25):
So Northern hemisphere, there you go. Upper Northern English is my first language. I wanna, <laugh> what it actually is. And so you've got this niche, swimwear and you know that when you get exposure to a certain number of women, right, you've done trade shows and conferences, people love the concept. They love the message. The swimwear is great. You don't have a lot of returns and you have enough in stock to sell at least, you know, a few thousand units. And now you can pay for ads. You can go stand on street corners or fairs or whatever, or you can sit and try to make viral videos and send people to approve online funnel that, you know, grabs them. So you wanna have tested the online funnel also, right? Because the fun part about virality is you don't get to choose location. So if you're doing something location based, that's usually not an ideal candidate for virality. Um, because you don't get to choose location. Yeah. But you do get to choose the psychographic and often demographic profile by what buttons you're aiming to hit.
Kathleen (29:33):
Now, have you seen any patterns as far as like production quality? So I feel like there's different opinions on this. Um, you know, some videos you see go viral, like somebody shot it on their iPhone clearly. And then there's others that look highly produced. Is there any correlation there?
Estie (29:53):
Um, from what I've seen once again, you're going platform specific in context. So if every platform is a party, which they are Facebook is your reunion. LinkedIn is a networking event. Twitter's a street corner, Instagram's coffee house, TikTok, a slumber party, highly produced content unless you're doing it like the Betty and um, Veronica, Archie and Veronica comic. So commercial break, but it's not really interlude. I saw comic years ago and I have not been able to refund it. But if anyone who hears this show has it for me, please send it over. Uh, there was a comic where you see on the radio, Betty's listening to the radio. Right. Everyone knows Archie and Betty Veronica. Right? Okay. Yeah, just me. Good. Um, and they did a Riverdale. Everyone knows it. <laugh> and so Veronica and Betty, both here on the radio, like the natural look is in amazing.
(30:46):
So you see Betty, she sweeps all the cosmetics off of her dresser. She goes to the bathroom, washes her face with soap and water, fresh and clean. She's so excited. Veronica goes to the mall right. And gets her whole face super done up. Um, and then they both, of course they go to Archie, right. Because you know, this is the eighties, um, <laugh> they go to Archie at nineties or whatever, they go to Archie and they're like, how do I look? And Archie looks at Veronica. He's like, wow, you look so natural. Like you just stepped out of the shower. You look amazing. And then he's like, what about me? He's like, he's a little less blush. And of course you like throws him into a garbage can or something. But that idea where you do all the makeup to look natural. Yeah. So it's quote unquote, highly produced, but it's highly produced looking like you didn't and TikTok that'll work YouTube. You could be super, highly produced. Right. It's a, it's a whole different place. YouTube, a highly produced thing. It's not that people care, but it could go even better. Yeah. But on TikTok, something that looks overly produced, you're not playing at the right party. Yeah. That's a slumber party. That's where everyone's trying to look like they did this with their iPhone, even when they did it.
Kathleen (31:58):
Yeah. That's a good point. Interesting. So any, any good stories from clients you've worked with who've, who've either tried to do this or that you've redirected to something else.
Estie (32:08):
Um, so I think my favorite success story and we've had a number of them, but my favorite one, cause I just met with her, um, is it this week, this week or last week? And we did numbers was actually a brick and mortar launch. So we actually used virality for okay. So I take back my thing, you can do it, but it's a different kind of viral strategy. So we did a viral campaign for actually a local business launch. And this is a little different than just creating a piece of viral content. This is where you're, you know, your next leveling besides of virality, if you will. So she had this incredible brick and mortar concept. Um, uh, I'm trying to think, let's say it was a restaurant. Yeah. Let's say it was a new restaurant. There are restaurants and this restaurant was, I'm trying to think if that example's gonna work with this, not okay. We'll make it work. Let's pretend. Okay. So super vegan, healthy, uh, farm to table, but in some very unique way and it had this beautiful core concept of, you know, what she's bringing to the world with it. And again, see, it's a littler because this, this thing actually, uh, hold on deciding on example.
(33:28):
Okay. Let's do different. It's not gonna match right. Clothing store. Okay. Cause there's stock that. And it's important that there's stock here. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so now our restaurant became a clothing store. The example will work much better. So we're opening a new clothing store. Now there's a lot of clothing stores. You can buy clothing, a lot of places and many, many people just buy 'em online. Right. And, but she had this specific concept for a brick and mortar clothing store. That again, it was unique. It genuinely was unique. It was something unique in this space, but the audience that she was looking to serve. And, and I love the idea personally. I really, I really bought into it as well. And I said, we are really gonna push the mission on this. And so what we did was we did like a viral influencer campaign.
(34:14):
And so we set up a whole, um, like a raffle, right? Um, so let's say we get a makeup artist and we got a hair stylist and we got, uh, a clothing stylist and a colorist and like all these things. And we said, you know, uh, a couple of women are going to win this incredible makeover package sponsored by this new business that's coming. And we started posting that now again, this business is brand new. It's got no following. It's got no cloud, it's got nothing. But we leveraged influencers who did have a following who got paid guy, this cost, this was money. Uh, but it was money that came back 10 times over more. And, and those influencers part of their payment was to post that they, and they feel good, their part of this campaign, um, and the campaign intrigues and it excites it's a little bit like gambling.
(35:12):
Also, all you have to do to enter is you can't enter yourself. Someone has to sponsor you to enter. Mm. Right. So we're hitting emotional buttons and connection and family and community and that whole piece. And there's a lot of emotional layering that we put into this cuz that's what I like to do. Um, and so, so we did that and, and then it was months, right. We ran this campaign for months before the store opened. So first announcing that it was happening and then hyping it up. And then we had professionals, professional camera crews come in. Uh, we got all of the influencers into one place and we had them do like a mock makeover, but we didn't show the face. And we did like a really, it was a whole thing. We had personal views with these influencer. We gave them some of their own content to post that was very highly produced, that they would appreciate it. And then we picked our winners, we brought camera crew. Um, and I, I just wanna say I didn't, I was part of the main strategy brain behind this. Yeah. I did not do the execution. I oh,
Kathleen (36:11):
That's fine. Yeah.
Estie (36:11):
With the team. So I just wanna be clear about that, cuz that was not my team's doing. And the, the agency that did it was brilliant. They did really, really well. And we did work together on it. Um, but I was not the executor of this execution or music
Kathleen (36:25):
<laugh>
Estie (36:27):
Anyways, um, and brought the camera crew into surprising them. So you never got this emotional element of like them being surprised at this concept. And like dear kind, see you got all the emotions and all the curiosity and everyone's like insanely excited. And when the store opened, we are now less than six months in, um, close to three quarters of a million
Kathleen (36:48):
Dollars. Wow. That's awesome.
Estie (36:50):
On a launch that's so we're gonna go profitable on a brick and mortar product store launch within the first year.
Kathleen (37:01):
That's great. Yeah. Well, very cool. <laugh> all right. I'm gonna shift gears cause we're gonna run outta time and I have two questions I need to ask you. Um, first one is, um, you know, this is a fascinating topic and I feel like you referenced TikTok and a bunch of other things that are, you know, relatively kind of emerging newish and marketing is changing so quickly. Digital marketing is changing so quickly. So how do you personally stay on top of it all and keep yourself educated?
Estie (37:31):
So for me, one of the things that I do is I'm always looking for the foundational element that permeate the new things. So I never look at a new thing and say, oh my God, this is brand new. I need to figure it out. I look at the new thing and I'm like, okay, what are you built on? So that really shortens my learning curve a lot. I'm, I'm always reading. I'm always learning. I have my own podcast where I interview experts. Um, that helps me. I read a lot. Yeah. That's kind of what I do. I, I talk to people a lot. I really love to pick the brains of experts themselves. I'm always reading, but I would say the thing that, that shortcuts, my learning the most is I never look at a new thing as brand new cuz they're not. Yeah, they never are. They're always. And so I don't have that much to learn as things change if that makes sense.
Kathleen (38:19):
Yeah, that does. That does. That's a great insight. Um, alright. Second question. This podcast was all about inbound marketing, which I define as anything that naturally attracts the right customer to you. So is there a particular based on that definition, is there a particular company or individual that you think is really setting the standard for what it means to be a great inbound marketer these days?
Estie (38:39):
Hmm. That's a good question. I don't know. I don't follow any specific people if that makes sense. Like I don't have any, any marketing groups that I follow. So I can't, and I think there's so many brilliant marketers out there. There really, really are. There's no one person that comes to mind. I could tell you some companies yeah. That I think have done a really good job. Um, I think Tesla is probably one of my like top, top companies following them from when no one wanted an electric car to where they've got a six month wait and used Teslas are sometimes worth more than new ones. And you're just like, you did it. Like you made this cool. And yes, of course they do Alabama marketing as well, but like they cracked it. Yeah. You know, like
Kathleen (39:36):
Love him or hate him. You gotta admit Elon is a good marketer.
Estie (39:39):
Oh my God. He is a genius. He's an a so like of, so I don't see him as a quote unquote marketer, but of my like people that I idolize he's up there, Malcolm Gladwell is up there. Malcolm Gladwell is the only podcast I've ever, like he's got a podcast called revisionist is history. I think it's the only one that I've actually listened to
Kathleen (39:58):
All the way through. Yeah. That's awesome.
Estie (40:01):
Yeah. Yeah. 've read pretty much everything he's ever put out. Um, so he's very high on my list as well,
Kathleen (40:07):
So. Awesome. All right. Well you look
Estie (40:09):
At marketers who identify as marketers, I guess.
Kathleen (40:10):
Yeah, no. And that, and honestly the best one, the best answers tend not to be. It's like people in different ways who just instinctively know what to do. Um, so I love those. I love those answers. Um, now if somebody is listening and they wanna learn more about you and what you do and, and or they wanna reach out and have a question, what's the best way for someone to connect with you online.
Estie (40:32):
So go to estiestarr.com/freegift. And if you go there, you'll also see other ways to reach me. But E S T I E S T A R R.com/freegift. And then you can connect with me and also get a free present.
Kathleen (40:45):
Awesome. And what's the name of your podcast?
Estie (40:48):
Podcast is Business Breakthrough with Estie Starr.
Kathleen (40:51):
Go check that out. And of course, as always, I will put links to those things in the show notes, which are available on kathleen-booth.com. So head there to connect with Estie and listen to the podcast. And if you're listening and you enjoyed this consider heading to apple podcasts and leaving the show a review, um, and lastly, if you know anybody doing amazing inbound marketing work, send me a tweet at @Kathleenlbooth because I would love to make them my next guest. That's it for this week. Thanks for joining me Estie. This was a lot of fun.
Estie (41:20):
This was super fun. Thanks for having me.
