Spectacled Marketer, founded by Tyrona (Ty) Heath, is an inbound marketing consulting agency that provides customized strategies and online education programs to help entrepreneurs generate and nurture high quality leads for their business. Spectacled Marketer takes a holistic approach to creating visibility for your brand with four tactical marketing channels - search engine optimization, blogging, social media, and email marketing. Through their 8-week online educational program, Marketers of Tomorrow™, this former product educator at Google is teaching all entrepreneurs how they can reach new clients and become marketers of tomorrow.
The most important thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to understand your customer’s journey.
Remarkable Marketing
Why is inbound marketing important for all entrepreneurs?
Inbound marketing and lead generation is about cutting a clear path for the customer to walk down once they get to know the services you have available. The most important thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to understand your customer’s journey. Ask yourself, ‘What are the challenges and opportunities they face? What are the things that keep them up at night? How can I, as a business owner, help them problem-solve?’
A lot of business owners don’t really think about marketing in this way. They might know how to drive traffic to their website, but the question then becomes: What is the viewer supposed to do once they get there? Why should they trust you? Why should they continue to come back to your site? By building an inbound marketing strategy you become empowered to serve your customer and more capable of capturing potential business. At Spectacled Marketer, the first thing we do is define our clients’ target audiences, so that we understand what their needs are and therefore what kind of content and experience is going to make sense when marketing their business.
Watch Tyrona's bSMART interview here!
By building an inbound marketing strategy you become empowered to serve your customer.
How can we update our company website for search engine optimization?
Search engine optimization (also known as SEO) is really the practice of making your site more ‘findable’ online. Everyone is familiar with doing a web search via Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Search engine optimization is the process of making sure specific keywords are present on your site, so that search engines zero in on those keywords and increase your possibility of being found.
Also, it’s the practice of making sure that you attract other sites that are interested in connecting with you. You want to make sure you’re attracting as many inbound links as possible from other relevant websites to help lift your standings and make it more possible for you to be found on Google, Yahoo and Bing.
How does blogging increase our brand visibility?
Every business should have a blog - without question. Blogging allows you to share your perspective, to answer your customer’s questions, to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the industry, and to help educate your customers. It doesn’t always have to be text content - it can be videos or pictures. There are all sorts of different ways you can create new content for blogs.
Starting out, everyone should focus on trying to create one blog post a week. You can have other people in your company blog so there’s not just one person doing the blogging. An editorial calendar can really help you coordinate your blogging efforts as a team.
Something else that can help save time is to be active in multiple venues across the web. Create and comment on other relevant content that you find on the Internet. If you don’t have time to write a full blog post yourself, review someone else’s blog post. Comment on something that happened in the news. Comment on a current trend. You don’t have to write a novel, but make sure that what you produce has substance and is useful to your audience.
Blogging allows you to share your perspective, to answer your customer’s questions, and to help educate your customers.
How do you use social media to increase website traffic?
You want to be where your customers are, whether that's on Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Reading a tweet or seeing something re-tweeted can often be a first encounter with a brand. From a ‘getting-to-know-you’ standpoint, social media can be that first engagement for you because of its enormous reach. What you can do to bring followers back to your own site is create content that asks them to take specific actions.
People often ask, 'Okay, how do I create great social media content?' You can have some fun with social media, but when it comes down to it, remarkable social media content is always a winner. What do I mean when I say remarkable? I think Seth Godin puts it best: if you’re driving a car and you look outside your window and you see a cow, you think, 'Hmm, a cow, keep driving,' but if you look out your window and the cow is purple, you think, 'Woah! Stop the car! There’s a purple cow outside!' That’s the kind of content you want to create; purple cow content. You always want to ask yourself, 'Is this remarkable or not?'
You always want to ask yourself, 'Is this remarkable or not?'
How does email marketing promote specific website calls to action?
If you’re sending out a newsletter in the first place, good job! You should actively communicate with your customers, and a newsletter is an excellent way to do it. My tip for successful email marketing is planning. People just don’t plan. They’ll say, 'Okay, it’s February, we need to send a newsletter. Quick, write the newsletter!' But what’s your overall strategy? It’s not just about sending email messages; it’s about sending email messages strategically and thinking, 'How can I be helpful? How can I help answer questions or solve problems in a way that brings the customers closer to me?'
The biggest mistake I see in newsletters is no call to action - just a newsletter that says, 'Hi, we’re doing great. We hope you’re doing well, too. Goodbye.' And the person reads the newsletter, and they think, 'Fantastic! But what should I...? How can I connect?' Include a call to action in your newsletter. It doesn’t always have to be about selling, because it’s not about sales all the time, it’s about building a relationship.
It’s not about sales all of the time, it’s about building a relationship.
Spectacled Vision
How can Spectacled Marketer increase the visibility of our business?
With so many people doing research online, reading reviews before buying, and sharing information on social media about different brands, it’s critical for you to invest in your online presence. One of the things we believe at Spectacled Marketer is that your website should be a hub for your business.
Everything we do starts with the customer. We use an editorial calendar, so you’re always aware of when content is going to be posted. We help you get organized and blog in a strategic way that is continually aimed at the needs of the customer and not just creating content for the sake of creating content.
We help you build an email database and craft messages that define your email marketing strategy across your sale cycle. We recognize that building your presence on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr is vital, as these are all channels where your current and future customers are engaging. You want to be found when someone does a Google search for your service. You want to be present and have a voice. It’s critical for everyone to ask, 'What is my online presence?' in order to increase your business visibility.
With so many people doing research online before buying, it’s critical for you to invest in your online presence.
How can we become Marketers of Tomorrow™?
If you’re struggling to take your marketing to the next level because of a lack of training and resources, Marketers of Tomorrow™ is an online education program designed to help business owners effectively develop and implement their own inbound marketing systems. The course is 8 weeks long, super flexible, and highly actionable with Google Hangout, coffee chats with other business owners, and one on one assistance from me.
We’re offering Marketers of Tomorrow to a limited number of bSmart members for a heavily discounted price of $99 ($1,499 retail value). To sign up, complete this form and say ‘bSmart’ referred you. Once you complete the course, you’ll have an understandable, repeatable, and highly scalable system that you can start using right away to achieve better results in your marketing campaigns. With Marketers of Tomorrow™, we can help you define, 'What do I stand for? Who are my customers? What is their journey? And how can I be a part of that journey?'
How did your background at Google prepare you to launch your own inbound marketing company?
Working at Google was tremendous in helping lay the foundation for me to start my own business. In my role as a product educator, I had to stay on top of all products, changes, and features, in order to help our marketing agencies and our end-advertisers use the products effectively. One of the things that I learned to do was translate engineer-speak into language that people can actually understand. I took great pleasure in helping to shape the Google voice and the general communications educating their customers about the great products that were available.
I took all of the great things I learned at Google and the things that I learned while in the MBA program for consulting, and grew Spectacled Marketer from there. I won’t say it was a lightening bolt that hit me all of a sudden. It’s something that evolved over time and grew in strength. The idea for Spectacled Marketer came out of that experience. In creating the name ‘Spectacled Marketer,’ I really wanted to think about something that communicated the idea of information. Spectacled Marketer stands for focus, vision, and seeing clearly.
Spectacled Marketer stands for focus, vision, and seeing clearly.
What are your greatest lessons learned in building an inbound marketing company?
When I first thought about entrepreneurship, it seemed quite romantic. But in reality, it’s very hard work, though it’s also rewarding and fulfilling. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that you have to be even-keeled as you go through decision after decision. Good things happen; bad things happen. But you still have to trust in yourself and what you’ve learned.
As a start-up business you’re resource-constrained from the beginning. You have to be able to roll with the punches and pull the all-nighters. But then there are great days when you’ve pulled that all-nighter and you pitch a proposal, and the next day that client says, 'Yes, I want to work with you.' That’s the best feeling in the world. All of that work you did, the sales, the all-night work; it’s suddenly worth it. I would say the greatest lesson is to remain even-keeled. Don’t panic. Don’t get too excited. Keep on pushing, and one day you’ll get where you want to be.
Be fearless and don’t be afraid to put yourself in the game.
How can we be smart as entrepreneurs and women in technology?
Without question – be fearless! Jump on opportunities and know that if you’re not in the game, there’s no chance to win. You may not always get what you want. You may not always win. But be fearless and don’t be afraid to put yourself in the game. Make it a possibility and work towards what you want to achieve.
If you’re thinking about starting a business, or becoming a female entrepreneur, I applaud you! Running a business gives you strength to believe that you can start something that didn’t exist and make it real. That is a real skill, and considering where we are now in this economy, it;s only going to grow in importance. Small business entrepreneurship is the engine that runs the economy. Every great business starts off with a single entrepreneur with a dream.
As a woman in technology, who’s done this for herself, I want other women to know that it’s possible. Don’t be afraid to reach out to other people for advice, support, and mentorship; connect and help each other! Give yourself the time to think about the difference you want to make in the world. Take time to think about your passions. Run with your idea. How do you want to make your mark on the world? And then start to put things in place to do that. Every big and successful business started with one entrepreneur and one idea.
Every big and successful business started with one entrepreneur and one idea.
Meet Tyrona Heath
Neighborhood: New York
Occupation: Founder + CEO of Spectacled Marketer
Dream Mentor: Malcolm Gladwell
Ultimate Accessory: Bright scarves
Must-have Shoes: Riding Boots
Favorite Nail Polish: OPI - You Don't Know Jacques
Can't Live Without Product: Matcha Green Tea
Salon Recommendation: YouTube - DIY
Signature Scent: Jo Malone Blackberries and Bay
Beauty Essential: Mac Make-up
Cocktail of Choice: French Martini
Travel Destination: Costa Rica
Current Craving: NY Pizza
Best Advice: 'A year from now you'll wish you started today.'
De-Stress Technique: Running
Latest Gadget: Nest Thermostat
On My Playlist: Titanium - David Guetta and Sia
Favorite App: Evernote
University: Georgetown University / Emory University (MBA)
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