the business of story
Park Howell’s Business of Story platform provides business owners and marketers with storytelling tools and tips to help them stand out amongst their competition and earn brand loyalty.
Park came to me wanting to be more consistent with his marketing efforts and increase organic traffic to his website. He and his marketing team were spending hours every week managing multiple platforms including ten social media profiles, a weekly email newsletter, and a monthly online magazine.
My goal was to simplify his marketing process as much as possible by streamlining processes, automating where we could, and focusing on channels that would provide the highest ROI in the long term.
tactics
Social media marketing across Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest
Email marketing
SEO & blog content management
Brand design management
Streamlined processes, created automations and minimized expenses
Results
Set up a welcome email sequence and post-product purchase sequence. Over a 17 month period, email traffic increased by 251%. The Welcome email sequence also generated $500+ in revenue.
Increased email subscribers by more than 2,100 over 1.5 year period through increased traffic to the site and Facebook lead generation ads, an average of 116 new subscribers each month.
Updated blog to be library-style with featured posts, branded featured image templates and the ability for readers to choose authors and categories.
Removed poor performing blogs and pages, updated website pages and added a professional bio to every blog.
Increased organic search traffic by 83% to 54,000+ users.
Increased podcast page views by 8% and average number of downloads by 168% to 22,000+ downloads per month.
Secured a podcast sponsor resulting in $9,000 in annual revenue.
Established a consistent brand look for each podcast episode and blog and ensured they were sized properly for each channel.
Eliminated $3,800+ of annual expenses by consolidating marketing tools.
Dates managed: March 2018 - current
the business of story podcast
Working with a graphic designer, we established a consistent brand look for each podcast episode and ensured they were sized properly for different social media channels.
We simplified the podcast show notes process, ensuring proper SEO practices while reducing the time needed to produce each show.
Secured podcast sponsor and worked to promote them throughout the show, website, email list and social media with $9,000 in annual revenue.
Average monthly downloads went from ~8,000 to 20,000+.
Business of Story Instagram profile showcasing the branded graphic and podcast templates
Business of story blog + seo
To make the blog a better resource for readers, we added a featured post at the top, as well as adding category and author selection options.
To make the Business of Story brand more recognizable when our content is shared on social media, I implemented branded blog graphics.
Implemented a standard footer/boilerplate template that can be easily customized to add calls-to-action to every blog.
Added more internal links to Park’s most popular blogs and pages and eliminated old blogs that were not driving organic traffic.
These changes resulted in an 83% increase in organic traffic.
The new Business of Story blog
New bio + calls-to-action included in every blog
Google search console results showing organic traffic increases
Email marketing example
Email Marketing
I set up a welcome email sequence which introduced new subscribers to our offerings and products and shared our most popular resources. The Welcome email sequence generated $500+ in online purchases.
Set up a product purchase sequence so whenever someone purchases a product online, they are now sent a follow-up sequence to see how they are doing with the product and provides an opportunity to upsell for more expensive services such as consulting.
Established a more consistent email marketing schedule to share new blogs and tools with our subscribers on a regular basis.
Automated the weekly podcast newsletter via RSS feed. Eliminating the need to create and review each weekly newsletter saved hundreds of hours.
Over a 17 month period, website traffic from our email list increased by 251%.
Social Media
Established a consistent posting schedule in the Business of Story Facebook group to re-engage group members.
Deployed a social media scheduling tool that helped repurpose legacy content to be re-shared throughout the year.
Activated Pinterest posting which earns 5,000+ views per month on average and is the #4 driver of website traffic from social media.
“Marissa is that rare professional who is wise beyond her years, a complete self-starter where reins are more effective than a whip, and whose is always thinking about the next step. She is a constant learner, tinkerer, and go-getter. Get her on your team, and then try and keep up with M. I’m proud to see how quickly she is growing into a top professional. She has been instrumental in helping me launch and grow the Business of Story platform internationally. ”