Imbue Authenticity in Marketing with Suzanne Reilley

In This Episode

• [02:15] -Suzanne Reilley shares her process for getting booked on shows, leveraging media training, and intuition in her pitches to podcasts.
• [09:01] – Suzanne discusses the fundamental importance of being customer-centric in business, emphasizing understanding the customer’s needs, challenges, and aspirations.
• [11:18] – Suzanne details various methods for collecting valuable customer research.
• [16:56] – Suzanne outlines the key elements that make for a great conversion copy.
• [27:10] – Suzanne delves into the principles of engaging and respectful copywriting, underscoring conscious and authentic marketing.
• [32:14] – Suzanne describes her primary role in copy advising and coaching, aiming to empower clients to write their own authentic and effective copy.
• [38:43] – Suzanne shares her personal need for nature and balance in managing her business and recommends others find similar ways to maintain their well-being.
• [42:00] – Here’s how to get in touch with Suzanne Reilley.

Jump to Links and Resources

Suzanne, it’s so great to have you on the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

I’d love to point out that you pitched yourself instead of using an interview booking service, which I get a lot of, and I thought your pitch was really good. I don’t normally review the pitches; that’s my team, but your pitch happened across my virtual desk, and I don’t know. I relied on my intuition, and I decided to say yes. So, I don’t normally get guests on that have pitched, and I would love for you to share your process for getting booked on shows and how that differs from the typical approach that someone would use to get booked on a podcast.

Sure, definitely. So, I recently started pursuing media training. I’m skilled in what you mentioned in digital marketing, but PR is different. Certainly, some of my skills have transferred in terms of writing emails and communicating with people. But it is a whole different world with different best practices and just a different culture.

I’m always merging logic and intuition. Intuition often has a heavier weight and a heavier focus.

So, I pursued media training to leverage my marketing efforts. So it wasn’t always just meeting. I love meeting people organically, and social media has a place. Still, I wanted to share value with other people’s audiences and share podcasts on mine to leverage those efforts a bit more.

So, I am also very intuitive and always mix logic and intuition. And I’ll be honest: intuition often has a heavier weight and a heavier focus, but I’m always merging the two. So, I was just searching, did a quick Google search, or clicked the right things. I came across prpitches.com, a media training platform and software Kimanzi Constable has put together.

I just looked at it briefly, thought yes, and signed up. I’ve just been devouring everything inside that course. He also has training on what to do and what actions to take. He has templates for a podcast pitch template, a contributor pitch template for large publications like Forbes and Success, and things like that.

So, there are templates for these different types of things. With his guidance in the course, I put it together with topics I can speak on confidently. Then, in the software, I can also pull up shows that fit my expertise. It gives an introduction to the show, and it also lists the last ten episodes, so I can give it a look and see it initially. Cause I wanna be on the right shows, too. So, does this seem like a good fit? And I thought, yes. So, I used the pitch template, pitched it through the software, and then you replied, that’s awesome.

Well, yeah, it worked. I like that you reached out yourself rather than using a booking service because most of our pitches are from PR professionals booking agencies or podcast booking agencies. And yeah, you stood out. And I’m not averse to using a tool that helps finesse an email and track whether it got through and responded to. We use Pitchbox, a sophisticated platform for link-building outreach and guest podcasts, as well as for all kinds of media and link-building opportunities. I also had the co-founder of Pitchbox, Michael Geneles, on this podcast a while back. Great episode, by the way. Listeners check that one out.

Nice.

It’s great that you take something you learn, apply it, course correct if necessary, and get results. I love marketing. It isn’t just theoretical; you’re applying it, learning, and growing throughout the process. So kudos to you for that. I also like the fact that you use your intuition, too, as you decide where to pitch and how to pitch.

If you feel this would be helpful to the listeners, would you mind sharing what is different about a pitch from a PR company that can be a little off and what the other side of that looks like? Yeah.

Yeah. So the kinds of pitches that we get, and I don’t look at most of them these days, it’s my team, but they’re typically some ingratiating or disingenuous comment at the beginning about having a great show and that the latest episode, whatever, insert in the blank, it’s pretty obvious that they didn’t listen to that episode or they’re not a listener to the show at all, but they say it anyways, and that is an immediate turnoff. What is their motivation to do so? It’s not pure intent; it’s just to grease the wheels.

Delivering on promises in marketing is crucial to avoid being spammy. Focus on conscious and authentic marketing to reveal light and do good in the world. Share on X

Another thing that some of them do is post a review, take a screenshot of it, and say, “Here’s a five-star review I added to Apple Podcasts for your podcast.” And that feels really icky because they have no business as a nonlistener writing a review, even if it’s positive; that doesn’t feel authentic to me. I would prefer they don’t do that and then leave these five-star, inauthentic reviews. That doesn’t happen as much. This used to be a thing several years ago.

Thankfully, I don’t see that very often, but it feels icky to me. Then they’ll put in this huge blurb about the person that they’re pitching, and it very much feels flowery and hyperbole and so forth. It’s just a real turnoff. It’s not specific. It’s vague and world-leading renowned—all these vague and overblown statements. So that’s the sort of stuff that gets an immediate delete—not even a no, just delete.

And yours was different.

I think one of the biggest things is that I’m hugely customer-centric.

That’s great. That’s really awesome. Like I said, I’m new to this, so it’s really awesome to understand the difference and that what I sent through was authentic. That’s really important to me in marketing, really understanding that there is a person on the other side of the receiving message. And I don’t like things that feel icky, and I hope not to create anything that feels icky. And so, yeah, it’s just good to hear.

Yeah. So how do you create funnels and copy and authentic campaigns, rely on your intuition, and are successful? What’s your process or approach to creating these kinds of initiatives?

Sure. So I think, and certainly anything I’ve learned, it was by making many mistakes before getting to the thing that worked. But yeah, I think one of the biggest things is that I’m hugely customer-centric. It’s not that the customer is always right or that type of thing, but it’s really wanting to create a website, offers, emails, social content, or anything like that for the reader because that’s who it’s for. It’s very, very natural and very understandable how business owners want to share about their passions and want to share about themselves.

Say, our company has built this or that, and there is a place for that. But really, I have found that the vast majority of a brand should be highly customer-focused, and there should be a lot of research to understand who that person is, what they want and need, what their challenges are and making things for them. And when we make things for them and conduct business ethically and responsibly, people come to the site, and they’re, and it’s like a sigh of relief. It’s this response of, wow, this person really gets me.

They really understand me; I’m in the right place. I can trust them initially, so maybe I’ll take a shot at this. Everything is built with a ton of customer research, with the business goals and passions in mind, and with some competitor research in mind; those are the three things that, in my experience, can answer almost any question that people have about what to do next, what to build or why something should be.

Yeah. How do you collect this research?

There are a lot of different ways to do it. There are a couple of ways that I’m not as much of a fan of. I have always mostly been in the entrepreneurial space or in full-time roles with small teams. So, I’ve never had multimillion-dollar budgets to work with. So, it’s kind of a blessing because I’m always looking for the easiest and most powerful path from here to there. So when people say, like, sometimes big corporations will hold focus groups, and to me, that’s just, it’s a lot of time, a lot of work, and a lot of money. It’s a lot. And similarly, with customer interviews, people can do customer interviews.

The benefit of those is that you can really hear the tone in somebody’s voice and how they’re speaking about something. You can really hear the things that are emotionally charged. You can hear what they find really challenging, but it takes time.

The continuum of writing ranges from mere engagement to the unethical use of persuasion techniques. It's important to distinguish ethical marketing from predatory tactics. Share on X

You have to find people to interview, and you also have to be a good interviewer because, a lot of times, people won’t speak about themselves. They’ll speak about their thoughts about the industry at large. So if you say something like what was happening in your life that brought you to explore this product or service, they’ll say, “Well, I think what people are really looking for in this case is such and such and such.” No, no, I was curious about you. So you have to direct the interview properly to get good information, which can take a bit of learning and skill.

The other thing that people sometimes use is surveys. And I don’t really love relying on this path either because we are all so over-surveyed these days. You searched Google, and it was like, “Would you like to take a survey? How are those results? It’s like you can’t take two steps without meeting a survey.” And so, I will use those sometimes, but only very strategically.

The very specific question in a very specific place, very sparingly. So, the ways that I defer to instead, and I teach my clients how to do this because it’s just so helpful. As I said, there are basically three top Amazon reviews in crafting anything. Mine in the comment section of your social media and also competitors’ social media.

And the third one is going through past client communication. I’ll describe Amazon reviews a little bit because not everybody is familiar with them. So basically, you pull up your niche, your topic, or the thing that you’re trying to research. So, say somebody is looking to simplify their marketing or something like that. So you look up books that are all about how to make marketing simpler and how to understand marketing. Look for the ones that have a lot of reviews.

Of course, omit any that are just overly flowery or hateful or just look like spam, but look for the ones that look genuine and read through and, in one part, feel the overall vibe of the conversation. If you’re the intuitive type, you really get that sense of the overwhelming feeling that everybody likes the space that everybody’s in.

Then, I will also look specifically at people’s hopes, dreams, fears, and aspirations, especially in ways that seem emotionally charged and stated as elements of a story. It was like the kid dropped the egg on the floor and just walked away, and it sat there. You can see it, and you can feel it. So you’re looking for those things people want, that they’re challenged by, and basically put it all in a document that you can refer back to later because these are the building blocks of great conversion copy, but you can go through and see the trends.

Conversion copy can be misunderstood. It’s a really different type of writing.

One thing I’ve come across, instead of marketers telling me just fluffy theory, I really want to know the how. Even if you tell me the concept, I want the details broken down of how to actually do this. So then, as just like a rough example in the copy or in a title, you can say, “Here’s how to such and such detail, step by step, not just the theory, not just the frustratingly vague theory.” So you just take what they’re saying and turn it into either a copy or the offer itself, a value proposition, the web copy, the landing page, or this.

So, it makes up the building blocks of literally everything. And once you know how to do it, it makes things so much easier. You don’t have to come up with random ideas in your head that you don’t know if they’re going to resonate or not.

Gotcha. And then, what are some of the other components of a great conversion copy besides this customer research and the market research that you’ve collected? And there must be some additional secret sauce that you’re baking into the copy for your emails and landing pages.

That is true, so I think the conversion copy can be misunderstood. And I totally get it because a lot of us have been, “writing since elementary school.” So people go, “Oh, I know how to write. I can write this.” But it’s a really different type of writing. It’s like saying if you could write in elementary school, it doesn’t mean you can write legal contracts. And just because we could write in elementary school doesn’t mean that we know the art and the science of conversion copy.

So basically, there are differences. And I will say I help people refine their copy, but I don’t really have. I don’t offer an in-depth copywriting course because I believe there are people out there who already have that nailed, and I’m happy to send people there. I learn largely through Jeff Walker‘s Product Launch Formula. Joanna Wiebe’s Copyhackers, and I haven’t used the StoryBrand method, but there’s a lot of synergy for people who come to me after having done that. 

So, yeah, I really recommend that people take dedicated training on what this is and what the craft is. But basically, it’s a series of practices that keep people engaged. That can include things like speaking to the reader instead of about yourself and keeping things conversational instead of being like academic writing.

You want it to flow and be easy, sometimes adding italics or things in quotes or certain line breaks. There’s also a texture and a cadence to it to have in mind. There’s the concept of starting in the middle of the action, just like a lot of books do. So there are a lot of principles like that to fold into the copy, whether it’s emails or landing pages, and it really is this art and science that I believe is so helpful for people to learn as a skill set. 

As business owners, we have to pick and choose what we’re going to do ourselves and what we’re going to outsource, whether to do it yourself or do it for you. And I think learning to write copy is one of those skills that’s really worth learning because it’s such a high-value thing.

Learning to write copy is a really worthwhile skill because it is so high-value.

So, it can be quite an investment to hire for. When you’re writing stuff all across your funnel, websites, emails, landing pages, and thank you pages, it goes absolutely everywhere.

Also, if somebody learns to write it themselves, we all know there are times when something breaks. I’ve been in the middle of a launch with somebody, and they’re like, oh, we forgot to write this thank you page, or we forgot to write this page, or that page, and you can just hop in and write it and not. People aren’t always immediately available to hop in.

So, what about we’re in this brave new world of AI? You could prompt ChatGPT to write you an email or a thank you page in the style of Donald Miller, StoryBrand Framework, Copyhackers or Product Launch Formula, and copy and paste, right?

You could. Here’s my experience with that, and I’m so glad this question came up. I was just talking about this with someone yesterday. So my experience with AI is that, okay, so first of all, I’m so used to doing this by hand, and I’m so used to my own process, which I tend to default to. But I have played with ChatGPT when my brain gets stuck or when the ideas jam, and just to put something in there and be like,”Okay, what are you seeing? Machine learning? Can you help me think up new ideas or different ways to say this or different things to include?”

You know, Ann Handley, who’s the author of Everybody Writes. She was a past guest on this podcast. She came out in a recent newsletter with the concept that AI is like a golden retriever that comes to you with a ball, and it’s very exciting, easily amused, and incessant.

So, if you need that help, by all means, grab that golden retriever called ChatGPT or Claude, and it will help you come up with ideas for articles and outlines and phrases and research tidbits and so forth. But the danger is that you get lazy if you rely too much on it. It can be a first-draft tool or a first-draft version, but it makes you lazy if you’re relying on it. And thus, her position is not to use it for anything other than research or when you’re out of ideas or you’re stuck looking at a blank page, and you just don’t want to have to pull it out of your head.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think with ChatGPT, it’s important to know enough to vet what it gives you. So sometimes when I’ve pulled things up, I have the experience to look at what it pulls up and either say, “Oh, that is a really good idea that I haven’t thought of,” or the one time I tried to have it write a value proposition, which is really hard to write because you have to fit a whole lot into one little phrase. Sort of like what’s unique about the company, who they help, how they help them. It has to be specific, memorable, all these things.

Let me see if ChatGPT can write value propositions. And no, it sucks at them really bad. I was like, “Okay, I’ll have to keep writing those myself.”So I think it’s important to at least have enough knowledge. I’ve also heard of people talking about it like an assistant, so it can bring you things, and you can say, “Oh, this is really good, I’ll take this, I’ll take that, I’ll take that.” I would love it if that were refined a bit more, and maybe ChatGPT can do that, or maybe you need to do that. But I wouldn’t just blindly take what ChatGPT gives.

The other thing I’m coming across now is that I think we’re seeing a bit of duplication of what it shares. So, I had it help me write one of my course titles, and the first part of it involved cracking the code. And now all these different places I’ve seen cracking the code, and I’m like, “I gotta change that title now because it’s just like the ChatGPT phrase of the hours.”

Yeah, yeah, everything is leveraged, or I totally get what you’re saying. I think this relates to your pitch. One of the items in your list of topics that you could speak to in the email you sent me was conscious and authentic marketing. I don’t think using ChatGPT or Claude in an undisclosed fashion to write your first draft, tweak it and then submit it as your work is authentic.

Yeah, I agree. When you say that you’re thinking of submitting something, say it like a podcast pitch.

Whether it’s to your blog, a third-party website, or your email list as an email newsletter, you have to disclose that you used AI to write it. I don’t know that very many people are that keen on doing that.

Yeah, that’s a good point. I hadn’t really thought of that in terms of disclosing or not. I haven’t used AI that much for it to affect me personally. But I mean, with big media publications, they don’t want any AI whatsoever, which I really appreciate.

It’s important for copy to be engaging. There’s a difference between engaging and manipulative.

I mean, that would make a world where everything we read in magazines and newspapers and things like that would be AI, which I would really like humans to be sharing their thoughts and have us be able to connect in those ways. And so I think if it’s, I mean, so definitely not in the news or magazines or large publications. Thinking through sales pages online can be a little different. 

Let’s say you had a lead magnet and a free PDF download. That piece of work, that intellectual property you’re offering for free as an opt-in, is not original work. Suppose you used AI at all in the book and in that download. In fact, in a recent episode with Heather Pierce Campbell, a lawyer, we talked about AI and how it’s not copyright-protectable. Anything that is AI generated, and so if you’re weaving into a book or some other IP, AI-generated text or images, now you have something that’s not considered an original work. You can’t submit a registration to the copyright office.

I see, yeah, and that’s a great point, and that isn’t something I’ve even considered doing. I think when I’ve thought of using AI, it would always be for the opt-in language on the opt-in page or some type of title or sales language. I’ve never even considered using it for the content, so I haven’t thought much about the legalities of that. I can’t imagine offering something without sharing my expertise and thoughts because it would get wonky. Then, if people opt in for that piece and say they love it, and then if they want to work with me in other ways, there would be a disconnect. They’d be like, “Oh, you weren’t like that other piece.” So, yeah, all the stuff I’ve made has been me, and I’m thankful that I’ve not even considered this concern.

Yeah. You wrote about conscious and authentic marketing, as I said. So, what do you do with your marketing or with your clients’ marketing to make it more conscious and authentic?

First, I want to speak a bit in the realm of copywriting because sometimes the question comes up of whether that is manipulative. If you bring up the topic of persuasion, it starts to get a little bit icky. But there are elements of copy that are elements of persuasion. And I’ve literally racked my brain over this for a long time, thinking, am I really being respectful to this audience if I’m using persuasive tools? And it was really bothering me. 

So, I came to the point that there’s a bit of a continuum where something we write has just no engagement. It’s just talking about the weather, and it’s just like a nice note to a friend or something. And maybe it has an impact for that purpose, but it’s not engaging in an online space, and it’s just not very effective in that way. On the other end of the spectrum, there are absolutely copywriters who are studying the dark arts and will prey on people’s insecurities and wrangle them for as long as is necessary to make the sale at all costs. I am not that person.

And so I exist in the middle. I believe it’s important for copy to be engaging. There’s a difference between engaging and manipulative, and I will resonate with a person’s current experience. Still, I will not drag up a whole bunch of extra fear and insecurity that wasn’t already there. I just think it’s rude. I don’t like buying things like that. It’s having messaging that is engaging and respectful in that way. It’s also a matter of connecting an audience with a need and desire and a challenge that a product or service solves well. So, I believe that another way is conscious and authentic marketing. I’m really helping stitch together two people or a brand with a purchaser who would love to meet each other.

I’m not interested in selling ice to Eskimos or making people buy another widget they don’t need. So yeah, it’s being respectful of an audience. It’s connecting them to things that it’s clear from the research that they really want. That’s just a great recipe for long-term sustainability in business. Anyway. Like people might be able to manipulate an audience for a while, but there’s a cost. I don’t like that whole energy.

Things are only spammy when we don’t deliver on what we’re promising.

Nope, gotcha. And when you have an intention to reveal light or do good or be a force for good in the world, I do believe that whatever sales or marketing that you’re embarking upon will be more conscious and more elevated and will get you a better result, not just for you, but for everyone involved. So yeah, that’s something that I have kind of front and center in my mind as I am. Whether it’s producing a podcast, writing an article or blog post, working on a book, speaking to a client, or giving a talk, I always think about revealing as much light as possible. And that does make a difference, 

Definitely, and I think it also comes down to one of the things I think it’s important to share, which is that when we write a really engaging sales page or landing page or email copy, whatever we’re offering, it sounds obvious. Still, it’s so important that we deliver on that. So things are only spammy when we don’t deliver on what we’re promising. And it’s just that I’ve had a pretty steep, unwinding, and messy path learning a lot of this stuff, which I think a lot of people can relate to. And so I can appreciate just the wisdom and evolution I’ve gained from that. So, I have peace about my own journey in that regard. But it is also a really big joy for me to help other people see things more simply, see things more clearly, and help them see around corners. So, if there’s a way for them to do it faster and easier, I can help them do that, too.

Yeah. So you’re primarily coaching and not marketing for your clients, is that right?

Yeah. So, a couple of different things with that. So, I had been doing a lot of strategy and copy for anything all across the funnel. For example, when people say, “Okay, people are dropping off at this place. What’s going wrong?” Like troubleshooting and then writing the copy to make it better. Usually, there’s some kind of disconnect between where people are coming from and where people are going. I’ve also streamlined that messaging to make sense across all the pieces. I’ve written a lot of copy for emails. I do really enjoy that.

I love to immerse myself in a brand, understand all the nuances, and see how all the pieces fit together.

There is sort of a drawback to that, which is that I love to immerse myself in a brand. I love to understand all the nuances. I love to see how all the pieces fit together. When I was doing that type of service, I found that when I would leave the project, I took all that with me, and the client didn’t really know how the words came together, why they came together, what went into it, so they just weren’t really an integral part of that evolution. Now, I’m doing more copy advising where people are learning to write copy, put messages together and then sometimes send them to me that they want some feedback on. And I’ll be able to say, like, “This is beautiful.. This could be expanded. This title could be a little bit stronger,” and help them hone their craft. And in the process, they become intimately knowledgeable in their own brand. 

I find that to be a lot more empowering. Both have a place. A lot of times, we can’t write all the copy for our own brand because there’s just a lot to do. But I’m really enjoying helping to empower people to write their own copy. I’ll still take some copy projects, taking a little break. They take a lot of energy and focus, and so I’m just sort of being sparingly with how many I take right now.

Also, sometimes, if I take just two projects, I’m jammed and don’t have space for anything else. So, by taking less of those, I just have a little more space for other things.

By the way, I was interested to see that self-care was on your list of topics.

Oh my gosh.

How is self-care something that helps you with your marketing?

Okay, and let me go back. I have an open loop about what else I’m typically helping people with now. Yes, they come to me with their brand issues, and they’ll say people aren’t converting here or they just have some kind of problem, and I help them troubleshoot that. Instead of what many people do on their own, there’s a problem. So they scrap the whole thing. They’re like, we need a new website or something new. And that’s like if your car is making a noise, and you just start tearing out the engine and stuff. No, like you go to a reputable, responsible mechanic with your best interest in mind and pinpoint the problem. You implement the easiest, most powerful, most efficient and most cost-effective solution.

So, I help people pinpoint and advise them on how to do this. Sometimes, there’s a whole lot of work to be done, and sometimes, it’s just a little thing that needs to be shifted. But either way, they know and can make really informed changes to make a difference. 

So, back to self-care. Oh my gosh, it’s so important. First of all, it’s important to mention that most of us live in a society that values bigger, faster, and more all the time. It’s always, how can I 10x? How can I double my income next year? How can I grow to have more employees? And I am all for limitless success.

I’m all for any amount of growth people want. I think it’s important that we make an intentional decision about what revenue goals we have and also what lifestyle goals we have. Some people who are grinding get to their goals and are really stressed out. They don’t love what they built and wish they didn’t build it as big. Or maybe they really missed what they were doing, “one level below that.”

We must make an intentional decision about what revenue goals we have and also what lifestyle goals we have.

So, I think it’s really important to consider who we are, how we’re wired and what we believe we want to build based on that. So, for me, I do spend a lot of time caring for my mental health. And so I need balance, space, and do things that I enjoy. I need to do things that fuel me rather than take from me.

I’m deeply feeling and sensitive in the best and most challenging of ways. And so I must respect that, or I get ground into a stuck place. So, I think the first step in self-care is knowing yourself. Some people want to run three companies at a time, and that’s how they’re wired. If someone just thrives on working 10 or 12 hours a day or whatever, do it. But I’m someone who needs nature and, like, a casual lunch and a, like, a walk in the sun. So, I build my business accordingly. That means I will never dominate my industry.

But I don’t want to. That would wear me into a nub. So I can be really successful in the ways that matter to me. And that’s perfect for me if you ask me. And I recommend that other people do similarly.

Do you have a particular morning ritual or routine that helps you prepare and be in a place of receptivity, intuition, and flow for the day, whether you’re working on marketing coaching or whatever?

You know what, it’s so funny you asked that. I think this is an important aspect of self-care, and the answers we would expect are some form of fresh air, exercise, meditation, or a healthy breakfast. And I’m kind of a slow start in the morning, my self-care is not talking and coffee. So that’s the coolest part of self-care, that we can take inspiration from things online, like the green juice in the morning or going for massages or the classic go-to things that you’ll find in different articles online. But I think one of the things that I’ve learned is that it’s so important to hear and understand ourselves. Sometimes self-care looks like I’m just not doing that till tomorrow. Sometimes, I don’t drink much because I don’t process it well. I’m just really sensitive to it.

But someone who has a different relationship with that might be like, I just need to drink a couple of beers and, like, watch a movie. Self-care is really unique to each individual, and it’s unique to each situation and moment. It can be that I need to be with people, or I need to be alone, or I need to be. So, my morning routine is usually some form of rolling out of bed and not talking and drinking coffee, just being really honest about that. And then I’m such a night owl. So sometimes, I’ll do creative work late at night or just get back to things in the quiet of the night. So I think it’s really important that we honor our rhythms. And I listen to that.

Yep. On my other podcast, which is a personal development show, Get Yourself Optimized, I interviewed Dr. Michael Breus, who’s a famous sleep doctor. He’s the author of The Power of When.  There are these chronotypes that he’s typed in the book. Like there’s the dolphin, there’s the night owl. He doesn’t call it the night owl; he calls it something else, the wolf, I think there’s the bear, and so forth.

Knowing your chronotype and working with it instead of against it is really important. I’m trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. So if you recognize that you work really well at night, relish that and prepare for that. Don’t try to have early morning meetings because you feel like you have to.

I so agree. Nobody has ever revolted against having an afternoon meeting. I think people think that a non-traditional rhythm may cause more problems than it does. I mean, I don’t have kids, so if someone has young kids, that’s a different story. But yeah. So, the decisions are all really unique to us. I think it’s important to take notes from the best practices in any of these realms and trust what we need at that moment.

Yep. Awesome. So I know we’re at a time here. If you would like to share your website and any social platforms that you’d like our listeners to check out so that they can follow you, learn from you, and perhaps even hire you, where should they go?

Sure. So, if anyone wants to get in touch, I’m at suzannereilley.com, and that’ll always be the most up-to-date. I have a free email opt-in if anything shifts, changes, or evolves on the website. It’s called Content Calendar Mastery. I have it on my second monitor over here.. Map out a year’s worth of engaging topics in 90 minutes or less. And it’s really a way to mine for the questions people ask.

If you have 52 of those, you kind of have your content topics for the year if you’re posting once a week. So that’s a place where you can get some notes to continue, as you said, not only understanding the theory but taking specific action on that topic. I would also say I’m most active on LinkedIn. I dabble on other platforms, but LinkedIn is probably the best place to find me.

The last quick question is, do you have a favorite book or course or documentary or anything that you’d like to share that’s not, of course, your own because you do awesome stuff, but this will be somebody else’s documentary or tool or resource or book? What would be the thing that you want to leave our listener with?

That’s such a good question. I’m combing through the mental files, certainly two that I’ve mentioned: Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula, which he launches once a year. It is about launches, but it is also, I mean, probably the number one place where I learned about crafting an ideal client, doing competitor research, voice of customer research, funnel strategy, and email copy pricing strategy. There’s so much stuff in there. I learned so much from that. And even if you want to put out an online course, that’s a big thing right now; many people are coming to me wanting to put out their first online course, which is a great place to learn strategy around that. 

Also, anything from Copyhackers. Joanna Wiebe is the owner of that.I find their stuff to be a little more advanced, but it’s very good. And I’m sure there’s more. Those are the two things that come to mind right now. I will also say that I love Convertkit for email marketing.

I’m sure there are a lot of other platforms out there. Okay. So I’ll also caveat the copy recommendations with I am someone who I probably intuitively get to the right thing for me, and I’m also someone who will focus on one or two resources because if I focus too widely, it’s just too confusing. I recommend that to anyone.

Understanding your customer's needs, challenges, and aspirations is the cornerstone of thriving businesses. Share on X

Like, if you listen to everything you see out there all the time, all at once, your brain’s going to jam. When I find resources that I think, are good, I just work with one or two or maybe three. So, there could be other fantastic courses that I don’t know intimately. I always looked for focused ones, highly respectful of an audience, and focused on metrics and performance.

Awesome. Well, those are great tips, but yeah.

Convertkit is great for email marketing. Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you so much. That was fabulous. Yeah, I appreciate your pitch and your sharing those wisdom nuggets. Our listener who is interested in working with you will contact you at suzannereilley.com.

Awesome. Thanks again for having me.

Okay. Thank you, listener. We’ll catch you in the next episode. Have a fantastic week. My name is Stephan Spencer. I’m your host, and this is Marketing Speak. Take care.

Important Links

Connect with Suzanne Reilley

 

Apps and Tools

 

Books

 

Businesses/Organizations

People

 

Previous Marketing Speak Episodes

 

Previous Get Yourself Optimized Episode

 

YouTube Videos

 

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

Know my customer’s needs, challenges, and aspirations. Through deep research and empathetic listening, I can build stronger, trust-based connections with my audience.

Read top Amazon reviews to extract valuable customer insights. These genuine expressions of satisfaction or dissatisfaction can pinpoint areas for improvement and innovation in my offerings.

Analyzing social media comments to tap into the current mood and sentiment of my audience, making my content more relevant and engaging.

Review client communications. Old emails, chat logs, and support tickets from past clients contain recurring themes and concerns. 

Keep my copy conversational and engaging. Use formatting tools like italics, quotes, and line breaks to make my content easily digestible and relatable.

Start my content right in the middle of the action to instantly hook my readers. This technique is highly engaging and pulls my audience into the story, making my content much more compelling.

Align my marketing strategies with my personal values and mental health needs. Striking this balance leads to sustainable growth and helps avoid burnout, ensuring long-term success.

Avoid over-reliance on AI. While AI can be a helpful tool for generating ideas, always vet its output for authenticity. 

Customize my work schedule to fit my personal rhythms and needs. Understanding whether I’m a morning person or a night owl can boost my productivity and overall well-being.

Ground my marketing campaigns in genuine communication and my intuitive sense of what feels right. Authenticity resonates more powerfully with my audience than any polished but insincere messaging.

Visit Suzanne Reilley’s website, suzannereilley.com, and sign up for her free email opt-in, Content Calendar Mastery. Additionally, make sure to follow her on LinkedIn, where she is most active and shares valuable advice and updates regularly.

About Suzanne Reilley

Suzanne Reilley is a business coach, marketing strategist, and copy advisor for professional service businesses and online course creators—specifically those who are passionate about helping others.