Hi everyone. So I'm well, I'm driving to begin with. Let me preface with that. I think it's legal to podcast and drive in South Carolina. I'm not sure I've got my seatbelt on. I'm not touching my phone. so I think we're okay if, law enforcement it'll be a funny bit, right? So yeah, I'm driving, but I've got some ideas.

I've been thinking a lot lately about. the notion of like specialized marketing, you know, in the sense that there are overarching. Themes and, and practices and, and best practices and, and strategies and all those kinds of things that we do in the marketing, pretty much, you know, across the board.

Right? So if I'm working with a non-profit and with a political candidate or with a business or whatever, for the most part, railroad tracks, lots of those in South Carolina. Sorry about that. For the most part, I'm going to have some common strategy. Geez, that kind of undergird a lot of the work that we do, but at the same time, there's going to be unique aspects to a marketing strategy or marketing campaign or whatever we're working on that is unique to that individual.

And I don't think we, we use that enough because you know, marketing itself is such a squishy topic for especially small businesses right now on the end, in the time of COVID and dealing with, You know, restricted budgets and, and having to make tough decisions about budget spends and, and long-term planning and all those things marketing itself, which is always kind of a squishy topic.

It's been even more constricted, in the sense that there's a lot of do it yourself first right now, which is fine, which is great. And I'm all about democratized marketing rather than talking about democratization and marketing, which means like everybody has access to it since like 2000. I was in, in five, it's been one of my themes.

I've given speeches in Vegas and LA and New York about democratization and marketing and how cool that is. And I'm, I'm a big believer in it. And I think it's great because it opens the door for a lot of people to start experimenting and playing with marketing concepts that wouldn't have had access to that.

And it's kind of like back in the day when we had my space and then Facebook came along, right. And we were all like, Oh, thank God. We don't have to deal with those ugly MySpace pages that everybody has. But in a sense, we lost some really cool. Playground, some sandbox type stuff because micro, my space allows you to Microsoft.

My space allows you to get in there and play with the CSS and HTML, and you could do some really, really ugly, but fun things with the MySpace page. So you could have sparkly. Unicorns and, and glitter and, and, you know, not just the rotating mailbox, but all sorts of fun things and only had to do is learn a little bit of HTML.

So there was a big trade and like customizing MySpace pages. And then Facebook came along, you know, in the mid to late 2000. By the first decade. Yeah. 15 years ago. And all of a sudden everybody's paid look the same and your, your creativity or your customization came based on how you presented your images, which is a whole nother case.

Study all that to say a MySpace. And it helped sort of democratize the web in a way the web designers hated myself included, but it allowed for people to get dirty and. Play with code and a new kind of fun way and realize like, Oh, all these websites that we see, this is all based on a couple of HTML characters and no JavaScript libraries and, and those types of things, which is still very true today.

I mean, the web really hasn't changed that much architecturally. we've had a lot of cute new technologies that we didn't have 15 years ago, but, you know, for the most part, we're dealing with one the zeros and that democratization of. Design kind of carries itself over into marketing because everyone thinks they can do it themselves, which they can.

But I think people hit that wall of saying like, yeah, I can make beef Turkey. And my Bronco food dehydrator might not taste as good as like, you know, Jack links or, I'm blinking. What's a Sasquatch one. Anyway, I think that's Jacqueline's I think, but, but I can make, I can make Turkey. Right. And, and they applied that to the same kind of do it yourself attitude too, to the marketing.

Like I can kind of figure out a Wix website or a Squarespace site, you know, where I can kind of play enough with, you know, our Facebook page to do what I want it to do, but it's that extra step of taking what you've learned and then transferring it and, and being able to expand out, based on your own specialty that I think most people lack and in terms of what they're doing with marketing.

So our first case study here is, someone I know very well. It's, it's my partner. and they're a really interesting person because, Mariana has, transcended a couple of genres and niches that I don't think most people realize. So she's a pastor here in our hotel and she also publishes books and she also works with me.

And our marketing company, and she's also an amazing parent and she's also amazing. what else? I would say cook, but she's not really an amazing cook, but she's done all these wonderful things and amazing things and getting great ways. And you know, some her congregation, or did the congregation, she worships with sees her as their pastor, her clients in the book side of things, the Herald sun press see her as their publisher.

She edits, but mostly she's the publisher. So she's in charge of keeping, you know, stocks of books and making sure that those things get sold and all that good stuff and other railroad track. But Mariana is also an amazing writer and she started her own side. Mariana Dutton had a few years ago, not a few years ago.

Gosh, I think it's like eight years ago now, six or eight years ago. she has the fortunate condition of having a rather unique name, Mariana. N E R I a N N a M a R, which is very common of course. And it's a town in Florida, but she is Mariana with an E bittersweet and Hebrew, interesting to us there.

so she has, the fortunate condition of having that. So therefore she can have a, first name domain. I would kill to have sam.com. I think that would be a great domain name, right? Every year. There's a domain. I'm not sure who owns it, but, it's sam.me. I believe. If it's the only one that's kind of available and the person who, whoever owns it, Mike, rebuying it every year.

So I'm not able to sneak it away from them. One day I will have sam.me, but I digress, is a great writer and she's been blogging and writing on her personal side. And she, she has gotten a pretty good little community around that and mariana.net. And it's been fun to kind of see her, explore that side of her creativity as well as her personal marketing, your marketing.

If you will. So she's written a book. And when she told me that she was writing this earlier this year, probably I guess, early summer in the spring, sometime she said that, you know, look, I've been taking these pictures and posting them on Instagram and Facebook and, and Twitter and people seem to like it.

And you know, I get a few dozen likes and, and I'm playing with some marketing techniques there with social media, but I've been thinking about wrapping these pictures up into kind of a devotional side as well. So should be. I read this compilation. It's a, you could call it a devotion. I call it more of like a, a collection of poems.

I'm a religion and literature major or a masters. So, you know, when I, when I think about the word, I think about marketing and then literature. So to me, this is a collection of points. And I, I just wanted to sit down with her real quick and, and talk about what she went into this product or this process thinking, because the book has been ahead for Harrelson press.

She's sold out the first one, which is really awesome. If you're a publisher, it means you've got a, a buy, another run of books, but also it means that you have gotten to a level of success. That's going to show that there's a long tail to this book, which is where publishers make money. so, you know, when you see Sean Spicer or bill Clinton or Michelle Obama or Barack Obama, or, or whoever's gonna sign the next big one, John Bolton, whatever, when you see these mega celebrity people who are going to have New York times, number one hits, sign these big deals for books where advances.

You know, the publishers betting on the long tail. So the, the author is gonna get some money up front. and then from here on out after that advance, after they've written the book in the book, it was published and here's an ambulance. You don't, you don't get that on every podcast. Right? Because after the book is published, it doesn't look to emergency driving through.

I might've stopped like, after the book is published, you're going to get this a long tail. of revenue and that's what the publisher makes their money, their, their revenue. Right? So, same thing with, with what she's been able to prove with this book. So it's, it's hit, it's a great niche and she's been able to really market to that niche in a way that I think is interesting because not everybody could write a devotional and have it burn through its first run in four days, which he did.

And the really interesting thing I think about this, that, that we can all take some. advice from ad out of this case study with her is that marketing to a niche and specialized marketing has its own set of challenges that are uniquely different from just kind of general marketing theory. And it's not about how much passion you have or how much knowledge you have about a topic or, or how invested you are, how much you care about it.

It's a wonderful thing. Great. It aspects, but you actually have to do the work of the marketing side, which means getting the word out. So when she started posting about this, on social media, about the book and she started doing her videos about it, which he does every night, which was really cool, you know, I kept trying to consult her as a, as it is as a business partner and as a.

No partner in life and saying like, okay, you've got to talk about this this many times and do those ones, you know, throwing out my marketing theory view of the world. And, you know, she kept saying, I don't want to bother people. I don't want to annoy people with this. And I'm like, no, you're not going to know any people people want to know about this.

And it's the same thing I tell all of my clients, you know, whether you're a business coach or you're selling stethoscope covers, which are really, it's a great business to be in right now with COVID. Two very different niches, but understanding that niche and getting in there and doing the work of saying, Hey, this is what we're doing is how you market.

You're not going to annoy people. Coca-Cola McDonald's understand that in our modern era post era, you need to see something at least 12 to 14 times before you make an action. That's why people like Squarespace advertise on podcast over and over again. Or we have Hulu live and YouTube TV. And those types of services and you see the same ads over and over again, anything.

Oh my gosh, this is so annoying, but it works. It does. I know it sounds like it doesn't and it's annoying, but distance yourself from the idea of annoying and specialization and hone in on the idea of reflexive affinity. I it's crazy term, basically what it means is know thy audience and be able to speak to that audience in an authentic way.

But speak to that audience. Yeah. So it's great that, you know, this topic, it's crazy. You are passionate about this topic, great. That you really care about your dissertation or you care about this new product, or you care about your resume or you, you care about your business consulting services, but unless you're willing to speak those things, it's not going to happen.

You're not going to be able to make people aware of the value that you're presenting to them. So here's a little four-minute segment with Mariana about market specialization and Annabel. How to really think about hopping into something like a devotional space and, and not just reaching out to friends and family, but reaching new audiences and in a way that, that shows with care and, and passion.

So I wrote this because we were in the midst of a global pandemic. We were in virtual schooling. And we had just figured out that everything was closing deck and I thought, Oh my goodness, how are we going to find hope? And how are we going to find the light every day? And we had instituted a morning walk and I thought as the season started to change, we were capturing the morning light and we were seeing it as it was just going on, just coming up.

And I thought it looked different every day. Just a little bit, even though our paths and our roots look the same and I thought this is something we need to capture. So, I mean, w what's your hope for the, for, so the book is really about a journey, a spiritual practice to look for the morning, light to recur record and journal, and then also to reflect on scripture.

Okay. So I'm someone who's. You know, personal faith, but I'm not like a huge devotional fan. I remember, you know, as a teenager, I'm not like my thing I have to say. My thing is always like, you know, the Bible is my devotional. And I remember my friends growing up who were Methodist at the upper room, that was, I was always kind of jealous.

Cause it was like a little neat little book. So I used to sneak them from my girlfriend who was a Methodist. And and so she would, she would. Give me bootleg copies.

It's just interesting because I was like, but why are you reading somebody else's thoughts about this passage? So is it full of like Bible verses and, and like here's what you should get out of the patients or, no, it's not like that at all. It's actually, poems that I've written 30 poems that are kind of matched the medically with scripture passages scriptures.

That came to my mind as I was reflecting on what was speaking to me, where I saw the divine and I think. That the divine does whisper to us, inviting us into a deeper connection, into a deeper understanding of the world. And my hope is just that that's what this would do for people provide a space, a sanctuary to look for that divine whispering that that's all around us.

Well, especially right now with everything don't know. So if someone's not really religious or spiritual or personal faith or whatever, like could they read this and, and. Yeah, you can totally just skip the scripture that's at the bottom and read the poems and write your own poem next to it. And the other thing that is in there is also a picture that kind of encapsulate, cause I had taken all of these pictures of morning light.

And so this idea that art and that nature and community reminds us that the divine or reminds us that, you know, we're not alone in this world is something that I'm hoping. This book will provide other people a space to explore that there's connections, there's imitation, or is it like right now, you know, we're recording this in December.

Christmas is coming up. It's the season of advent persons, Hanukkah. 30 days, you can do it whenever you don't have to do 36 sequential days, but it's just the idea of walking with the spiritual practice. Cool. Well, what else? Anything else can buy your copy? mariana.net/morning light. If you'd like to, we do have them in stock.

There's time to get them before you're like on a second MSNBC when they, when they were seeing it. And when they. You know, the politicians pitched the, the website and don't talk to you that insert book cover here. No, just kidding. cool. All right. Just want to get your thoughts on that, because I know that have I've had questions.

I know a lot of people have had questions and it keeps seeing the boxes and boxes of books and he sold out the first. Yeah, we sold out the whole first printing, like in a week at four days. Pretty awesome. Thank you, Mariana. Thanks. Okay. So I hope you enjoyed that with Mariana. again, you can, you can find her book area slash morning light.

There'll be a link in our show notes as always. And, yeah. And I think this idea of, of, you know, really, really specialized marketing people, I kind of gloss over and they say, okay, well, I'm going to build a website and then people are going to come and they don't really think through. What all that entails as far as, the general care that you have to do with a real sustained marketing program, that isn't going to be a one size fits all solution, but you're not Coca-Cola, you're not McDonald's you don't have those resources.

You don't have a team with thousands of people working in marketing and a chief marketing officer who was there to make sure that, you're, you're following, you know, the latest device from Saatchi and, and the fifth Avenue Madison Avenue, crowd. And I think that when you are, are doing something like Mariana is doing where she's trying to sell a very specialized book to a group of people who were searching and seeking for something, whatever their background, but still like she's selling, you know, a very specialized item.

You've got to not just think, okay, well I care about this. So therefore here's what I would do. If I were in that section, you've got applied specialized marketing in a way that includes, you know, things like personas and being able to break down scenarios of why someone would think about purchasing this thing or engaging with this thing or clicking on this thing even, and going through all those steps.

The five whys is Bob. Melissa says there's a whole marketing theory behind that, which is really beautiful. And the customer journey and thinking about. Where does this customer or this purchaser or this consumer or whatever you want to call them this engager, where does this person see your product, engage with it, find it, what are the steps along the chain to get to where you want them to go?

And we used to call that a sales funnel, and I always hated that. because marketing is not sales and advertising is not marketing. Marketing is, it has, you know, marketing and sales are two different things. Don't okay. Those confused. And don't call it a sales funnel, please. anyway. Diversified specialized marketing, really powerful topic.

I'm thinking about it. And I hope you enjoy this. We'll be back. sometime soon, probably in the next few days, I've got some interesting people lined up here. we've got another book person coming up. that's some political people coming up. That's another people that are a small business folks. Get some people in the nonprofit world, to talk about their experiences.

And I have to, admit here with this. One with Mariana again, she's my, my partner in life. so we were literally standing beside the, the dining room table and our son had just woken up from his name and we were talking about something completely different and put the iPhone on the table and said, okay, tell me about morning light and sort of ambushed her there.

So thanks to Mariana for playing along with me as always. And thank you for listening as always.