Molly Ruland:

Coming in hot with another episode of Camp Content. Welcome to the show. Today we are excited to welcome Simone Moreau to the show. She is a marketing expert in all things content creation, so we’re super pumped to have her on the show today. She’s a professor of marketing, a marketing coach, a consultant specializing in customer centric perceptions and digital marketing strategy. She has over fifteen years of experience, and she teaches at Fanshaw College. I probably just said that wrong. Western and Western University, while also leading workshops for entrepreneurs. Additionally, Simone chairs the London Chapter of Women in Communication and Technology, advocating for women’s personal and career development. Which I’m all about.

Matt Billman:

Yes. So whether you’re a student eager to learn the ins and outs of marketing and entrepreneurs seeking guidance or an advocate for women’s advancement, simon’s expertise and passion for her work make her a trusted resource and an inspiring force in the field of marketing. So welcome, Simon.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Thank you. Thank you both. That’s lovely.

Molly Ruland:

Absolutely. Well, I’ve been excited for this conversation since we chatted, whenever that was, I don’t know, a month ago or so.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Yeah.

Molly Ruland:

Because you are all things marketing and content, and this is a crazy time to be alive in the marketing world.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

True. That’s true. Lots happening, lots of change.

Molly Ruland:

And I would be completely remiss if I didn’t not if I didn’t mention your extremely awesome head piece there. That’s a pro microphone you’re using.

Matt Billman:

Yeah.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Thanks. Yeah, no, it’s what I do with my coaching stuff, so yeah, there we go. I figure it’s better for the audio. It’s better for people to hear good, right?

Matt Billman:

It’s like one of the fancy ones you see on the keynote speakers on stage.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Yeah. I love it. Thank you.

Molly Ruland:

Exactly. But no, that’s a really nice micro. These are the things when you own an audio company, these are the things that you notice. Right. Like good microphones. But you’re the first one to come on the show with that. I can’t remember the name of that microphone, but that is a really good microphone. Oh, good. Yes. You killed it. Nailed it. The show is over. That’s all we need to talk about. Go buy a microphone. People be like, exactly. Not a yeti. Don’t buy a yeti. Exactly. Well, welcome to the show today with your amazing audio. We’re really happy to have you. So I want to kind of chat with you about how are you seeing marketing and content marketing change right now? We’re in a weird time. Right? It’s like banks are collapsing, BC funds are drying up, other ones are being rereleased. It’s a weird time out there. A lot of agencies, a lot of people are laying people off. So how are you kind of navigating that in this changing world with your clients?

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Yeah. Oh, so interesting. I do think that we are in this really interesting flux as it relates to technology, what’s happening in space especially with AI, everything is kind of advancing a little bit differently. And I think there is a bit sometimes there’s this bit of fear around, like, what’s the role of technology? How does it fit into my job and what does that look like? And I think with marketing, this the discipline of marketing, it’s always, ever shifting, ever changing, it never stands still. So I think if you are a marketer or you’re in this profession, you have to like change. You have to be able to adapt and innovate pretty quickly. And so that’s something. So there’s two things there, one is, I think there’s a mindset that one needs to approach business with, and especially marketing as it relates to that innovation mindset, that creative marketing mindset, where you need to iterate, you’re always iterating, you’re shifting, you’re changing. And based on those tweaks and understanding your customer first, you’re always going to be shifting it. And that ever evolving change is something that’s really important. And then there’s also this component of technology. How do we fit technology into what we do? And what does that look like? So, for instance, like Chat GPT, right, that’s on everyone’s mind. It’s everywhere. It’s in education, it’s in marketing, it’s in sales. And it’s not that it’s new because it’s always been there. It’s just that Chat GPT has done a great job of marketing itself and now it’s really created a great position for itself in the market. So when we think about AI, how do we use that to complement what we do? I don’t see it replacing that thought process. You as the business owner, owning and understanding your customer and understanding your product and making those connections. But it’s there as a foundational support system that can help you do your job and really be a layer in that process.

Matt Billman:

So as it advances, do you see it helping more so or kind of becoming an issue with all the AI stuff? Because like I said, I use chat GPT for everything. I use it to write these intros.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Yeah, absolutely correct. I think it’s supporting. I think it can be a supporting system, I really do. And everyone that I talk to in industry too, they say, the truth is we have to embrace it. There’s this thing called the internet, and when Google came on with a search queue, it really rocked everything as well because people were like, oh, what do you mean? Especially in academia, right, where people are like, wait a second, we don’t go to the books. You can now find things online. It’s still that same idea. And I think if we embrace it and use it as a foundation, what Chat GPT will never replace is critical thinking, right? It’s never going to replace critical thinking. You, as the owner of your business, still need to do your due diligence and understand the proper resources, ensuring that the information is still correct. We can’t take what it gives us at face value, right? Because it scours the Internet for all this information. And there’s so much fake news, there’s so much information out there. We still have to do our due diligence in terms of critical thinking to understand and vet the resources that are there to ensure it’s still correct, right? I’ll give you an example. There was somebody who was going to be doing a presentation, and they had created a bio using Chat GPT, right? And we’re about to go up on stage, and I was with this person. It wasn’t my bio, it was somebody else’s. And they kind of said, okay, I got your bio. This is what we wrote. And the person looked at it and said, this has nothing to do with me. This isn’t what I did. Because they didn’t check their sources. They didn’t actually validate it. They didn’t do it. And so it’s so easy to think that we have this great thing that’s going to save us time, but we still have to do our due diligence in terms of really making sure we check our facts, and we are the ones that have the critical thinking. We still own our business at the end of the day, we still own the content that we put out, regardless of how we get it.

Molly Ruland:

Well, and that’s like a whole really interesting conversation, right? Because they’re saying that content made with Chat GPT, you can’t actually own it. You don’t have any intellectual property rights to it. And so people that are leaning too much on Chat GPT to write a podcast script or something like that, now, technically, you don’t own your own content, so it gets a little slippery there, right? It’s like you said, it’s a tool and it can be used. Like, I use the dishwasher, but I still have to put the cups in the dishwasher. It doesn’t just magically grab them from my kitchen counters and put them in and wash them. And so I have a friend, Liz Rudner, she’s an amazing designer. I have to quote her twice because she said, chat GPT will make you sound like a wizard. And it’s so accurate because it’s like all these over the top descriptive words, and it will lie. It will lie. It’s like it’s just ridiculous. And she kind of did a fake one for a friend, and he was like, you’re kidding, right? Like, I’m not anywhere on the Internet.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

But you bring up a really good point because it will make you sound really great if that’s what you want to sound like with all these big words. But it’s not actually how we speak, right? And I always think really great copy and content resonates on a personal level because we’re able to understand the other person that we’re speaking to, and we’re talking and communicating in a way that resonates with them. AI is just a computer. It is an algorithm, it is a way to gather a bunch of information to support us. But we still have to bring it to life. We still have to make it ourselves, bring it to life. And just as a professor, I read a lot of stuff. I get my students to write a copy all the time and try to change it based on writing web copy versus writing email versus writing a post. And I always sort of laugh a little bit because what happens is that Chat GTP is like perfect, grammatically perfect, and it always is. If you notice it comes in like those perfect blocks of paragraphs. Who speaks like that? No one. Right. So how do we make that still our own? Right?

Molly Ruland:

Well, to quote Liz again, she posted on LinkedIn like this graphic that said, don’t worry, designers, chat GPT or AI won’t replace this because the client still needs to know what they want. Okay, but I love it. I’m like it’s so accurate because you have to know what you want to put in the prompts to get the result you want. And as you know, most clients have no idea what they want because that’s why they hire us though, right? That’s the whole point.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

You’re so right. Your friend Liz is brilliant because I love that quote.

Molly Ruland:

I’ll introduce you via email for sure.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Yeah, okay. She’s brilliant because it’s so true, because one minute they’re like, oh, I want this, and then if they’re unsure and I think that does go back to being like the owner of your business, at the end of the day, it is still your business. You have to understand your customer, you have to understand their pain points, you understand the service. And because if you don’t know that, no matter if you put it in Chat GPT or you’re doing it yourself, your message will fail when you don’t know your client and you don’t know what their needs are. Right?

Molly Ruland:

Absolutely interesting. Yeah.

Matt Billman:

Especially after the new Black Mirror season came out and the one episode is all about AI and it’s just so terrifying. But is it?

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Oh, I don’t watch that show. Now I’m going to have to watch it.

Molly Ruland:

Oh, you got to watch it.

Matt Billman:

It’s so good. So my kind of question is, obviously you’ve been at Fanshaw for a while and then you took on a second position at Western and then a year after that you’re like, you know what? I only have two jobs. Let me start my own marketing consultant agency. So kind of take us through the thought process that was that kind of more so because obviously working at those two universities, there’s a lot going on. Was starting your own kind of wanting to get a more one on one, hands on approach with everything.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Oh, it’s such a good question. Yes. I love how you put that. It made it sound like, why not add a third one in. Let’s just do that. Let’s just add that into the mix, no big deal. Yeah. You know what I think I do love when you’re teaching, it’s so fabulous because you’re right in it, you’re teaching your students. But there was this idea I really wanted to get into coaching because I love making such a profound impact in someone’s life. And so the idea with coaching is that it’s 50% strategy. So we still bring the strategy to the table and it’s also 50% mindset. And so what I see with a lot of solopreneurs is they totally, completely burn themselves out because they see the million dollar coach or the million dollar business owner doing all the things with the team behind them and they’re like, oh, I’m just trying to catch up, I’m trying to do this. And a lot of times I see people taking on way too much, doing too much and overwhelming themselves in the process. And what I wanted to do was help streamline for solopreneurs or consultants or coaches who are just kind of coming out or scaling their business in a way that allowed them to build the business that they wanted in a simplified version without the burnout and the hustle. And a lot of that comes from your mindset. So that makes a huge difference. And so that one on one with somebody helping them develop the strategy and the skills but then also developing their personal growth in terms of unlocking limiting beliefs and allowing them to get rid of the confusion and sort of step into this new version of themselves so they can show up in their business like they want. When you put all that together, that’s like the magic sauce and that’s where everything comes together. And I just absolutely love seeing people step into their power. And that’s really why I do also do that

Molly Ruland:

I think that’s super important because I think a lot of times we lean too much on this whole idea and mindset only and visualization and that’s cool, right? But if you don’t have a plan, you can think you’re great all the way to the moon and back and that’s not going to get anything done. You have to have a strategy. You need to know what the goalpost looks like so you know you’re kicking the ball in the right direction. You might be heading towards your competitors’ goal line instead of your own if you don’t have a real clear game plan. And so I love that it’s strategy and mindset because a lot of the women’s events I go to, it’s like just leaning on the mindset and you are enough, you are enough. And it’s like, okay, well, how do I structure a deal? How do I get financed? How do I close ten million in business? Like let my therapist do the heavy lifting, let’s get a strategy and then we can focus on the Mindset Shift, on how to complete that strategy and actually execute on it. But if you don’t have a game plan, you can’t get anything done. And then I think that just builds back into the I’m not enough, I’m not good enough. I tried and I failed. No, you didn’t. You didn’t have a plan. You got to have a plan. Otherwise you don’t know if you hit it or not. And you’ll never hit it. Right? So I think that’s really important.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Yeah, I’m with you. And that’s what I found. I find people get into that spot, that mix around where they do exactly that. What I often say to my clients, is, it’s not a you problem, it’s a business problem, usually. And if we take that out and we focus on the business problem first, and we take out some of the other stuff, right? And we just look at the numbers, we look at the plan, we look at what’s working, what’s not working, and we assess from that lens based on putting the customer first, then we’re able to make really strong decisions to move your business forward. What tends to happen, though, is we do this, and I’m guilty too, right? I’m just human here. All the things but it’s easy to sometimes when we do or do not do something, we’re like, oh man, I didn’t do that right. Oh, I’m not doing this very well. It’s about me. Oh, I failed. To your point. I failed. I can’t do this. I’m not able to do this. That’s when the mindset comes in where we’re like, okay, let’s work on that, but also see the data for the data and let’s move that forward. So I’m totally with you.

Molly Ruland:

Exactly. I love that because I have another friend, Marianne Lombardi, who I’ll quote, and she says, it’s not failure and success. It’s a test and a retest. And I thought, what a great, great way to spin that. Because it’s not a failure. You’re just testing something. It didn’t work. Try, do it, test it a different way. You don’t have to personalize it. It’s just that thing didn’t work. That math number didn’t compute. Try some other numbers.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Yeah. And that’s what makes marketing so great. I always find that to be the thing, is that that is truly, when you think about the best marketing, that’s the iteration that they had to do all throughout to get to the goal, right? They tested, retested, tested, retested, tested, retested. And then they finally are like, oh, I got the right, I got the exact right segment, I got the exact right copy, I got the exact right everything. And they figured out, and it’s based on that, that they were able to create really great revenue, but we have to go through that iteration process. And it’s sort of funny how we don’t embrace that sort of learning process, right. We think that it means something about us or that we’re not doing it right. Instead it’s just part of the journey.

Molly Ruland:

It’s something you don’t know, right? Like, I’m no Julia Child, I can’t make a flame, you know what I’m saying? But give me a recipe book, I’ll figure it out. Right? But it doesn’t mean I’m any less than it’s just not in my skill set. So how do you handle it because right now I think there’s this huge misconception and you kind of touched on it a little bit about doing all this and having all these funnels and doing webinars and all these people with teams, and I just think it’s all a trap. I hate this whole funnel shite, honestly. It’s too much pressure for people when they have a funnel. It implies you have a large amount of traffic that you’re funneling into a smaller amount of traffic. And to have a large amount of traffic, you need to spend money on ads. That’s not necessarily it, right? And I think it’s very overwhelming for people and I need to be on this platform. Then they don’t even have a CTA. They don’t even have a landing page. They’re so focused on the visibility, but they’re not focused on the like, well, who do I actually want to work with? And am I going to get clients from there? So how do you deal with that with those who come in and go, I have a Facebook group, which that’s my biggest pet, people. I’m like, please stop creating Facebook groups, for the love of God. And stop calling them a Facebook group, not a community, because it’s a disservice to actual communities. There are some great Facebook communities, but there’s a lot of them that are just like a sales push, right? How do you deal with your clients who are like, somebody told me to do this and somebody told me to do that, and I’m doing this and I’m doing that, and how do you wrangle all that?

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Yeah, first, it happens all the time, right? They’re like, okay, let’s bring it all in. But the very first thing I think is really getting really clear on making it simple, because I do believe marketing needs to be simple to be sustainable. And that is a very hard mental process, because I agree with you. People think that more is better. I believe that’s, like, embedded into the culture, more is better, more of anything seems to be better. More material things, more wealth, more doing. Right? More whatever that might look like. And so I really try to strip back the fluff, and I believe that it becomes a lot more simple when you are really clear on the person that you serve. So I do believe in customer centric marketing first. So we put the customer in the middle, right? And you really know who is your small, viable market that you serve, right? And then you create one offer and then when you really understand that person, you know exactly what platforms they’re hanging out and that’s where you need to be. So instead of being like, oh, TikTok is the best thing and YouTube and this, sure we can make a case for all of them, but if your people are not hanging out there, then you’re just wasting time. So we really strip it back to making sure that we pick at least two to three really big platforms on where you can go to actually create those online connections and then get really specific in your message and then the plan to go after. Because it really comes down to how do you connect with your audience and get in front of them? Because you don’t need a big audience to market, right? You just need your small viable offer. And a lot of times what I find is when people are in, the more they forget about everybody who’s in front of them, but you just need to market to who’s right in front of you. And if you do that and you’re actually marketing and selling and truly making genuine connections, then you’re going to find that you do not need a lot of people, you just need to serve those who are in front of you first and you’re going to see probably bigger revenue, right? That’s the idea of customer lifetime value too, right? The idea of serving exactly who’s in front of you so that they are not only one time clients, but repeat clients over and over again.

Molly Ruland:

Amen, sister. Let me tell you, I think it could be very misleading. Like who are you talking to? And you’re falling for these traps and these one line LinkedIn posts that are like 17 separate line breaks. It’s like people emulate what they see, but they’re not looking at the data to see if those 1200 comment LinkedIn posts actually generate a discovery call or not, right? Like they just see it working and so they do the same thing. And even me, I was reminded of this recently because I’ve been more consistent with the newsletter and I’m old, right? I’m 47, so I’m like a newsletter.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Oh, you’re not old.

Molly Ruland:

I’m old enough to be somebody’s sister. But I think a newsletter, and I think it has to have a recipe in it and a picture and a personal moment and it’s like, no man, that’s the ninety’s, that’s like a whole different era, right? That’s not what it needs to be. And so I’ve just been trying a couple of paragraphs, something helpful and keep it moving. And people are telling me all the time, oh, I read your newsletter. I had a client quote me. She quoted my own newsletter to me back in an email saying, I love your newsletter, full of value. And this line really got me. And it’s just a good reminder that right, the internet is not reading my newsletter, my clients are. And the people who might become my clients. Not this, like, he hears the world. No, it’s a very small group of people who are reading it, and that’s who I should be thinking about when I’m talking to them and when I’m crafting that information to make sure that I make sense, right?

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Yeah, I love that. And I also just think, to me, if you distill marketing down into one of its simplest forms, in my opinion, is like, marketing is just having a conversation with somebody, right? We’re just like, hey, we’re introducing ourselves. We’re just starting up a nice conversation with somebody, right? And it needs to be memorable to be meaningful, right? Like, it needs to be meaningful and memorable. And I think that’s huge. And I find, to your point, sometimes we forget who we’re talking to, and when we’re having that conversation with somebody, we forget who we’re talking to them about and why we’re continuing that conversation. That’s when it falls flat. So I do love that you even bring up that example, because that’s everything, right? They’re having a conversation back with you, and now you’re seeing, like, it’s that ongoing dialogue. So I often find that a lot of times what happens is a lot of my clients start doing marketing, and they’re like, they’re just pushing information back. They’re not also asking to receive it, and it doesn’t become a dialogue, and that’s what we’re really doing.

Matt Billman:

So kind of building all that. If you go to your website, which we’ll have in the show notes below, you can put your name and email in to get the five copy secrets that actually work to attract paying clients. I wonder if we can get a little teaser and get one of these secrets.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Oh, sure. Yeah, I love that.

Matt Billman:

Okay, don’t say all five, because then they won’t sign up, but we can get a teaser here and get them to get going over there, then we’re good.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Sure. One of them is so simple. It sounds so silly, but it’s so simple. It is an empowering language. I know that you’re writers in the room, you write copy, you’re marketers. But that idea so often when you’re reading somebody’s copy, they kind of take a passive stance to the way that they write. Instead of being empowering and empowering your client to empower them to make decisions, to show that they are the ones in the driver’s seat to show their future vision for themselves. And so often, I find people are like, make sure you or think about this. And instead, how do you empower them? With more bold statements, with really holding that space for your clients to step into their future vision and version of themselves that they want to be in, right? You’re having a conversation with them. You’re letting them know it’s possible that they can go out and start this business and start this new life. They know it’s possible that they can leave their job and live in this beautiful tropical location. And they want to know that they can solve and repair their marriage. They want to know that they can have a better relationship with their teens. They want to know what’s possible. So when we’re not being empowering in the way that we communicate with our clients in our own marketing, then our clients don’t see it in themselves, and so therefore, they don’t take the action. So that’s one of the tips in terms of just really having people audit their copy in a way that allows them to do that.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah, that’s a really big one. I’m a big fan of Donald Miller’s story brand, and I just read his how to Grow a Small Business book that just came out, like a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know, recently, I just listened to that, like a weekend or two ago and just kind of reminding people that your customers are the hero of the story and not you, and that you’re just a guide. You’re not the main character of the story. And even us, like our homepage said, we’re a digital content agency. It’s like, well, no, okay, that’s just about us, right? So I changed it recently. Okay. Who cares what we are? What you need to know is that if you work with us, you’re going to generate more revenue and you’re not going to pay for leads anymore, and you’re going to create strategic relationships that are going to impact your business for years to come. That’s what I want people to know about. Heartcast Media. We are a digital content agency, right? What is the transformation? What is the journey that the hero, aka the customer, is going on? I am not the hero. I’m the guide. I’m the quiet, weird guide in the corner, you know what I mean? Just helping you make better decisions. But I’m not the hero, and I think that we lose touch with that a lot, right? Like, as businesses and their marketing and their language, even these LinkedIn posts, I mean, they just bother the heck out of me, I’m not going to lie, because I feel like it just feels so self important and they’re so long, and I’m like, Are you paying me to read this? Because this feels like a job. And it’s always about them, right? Have you ever noticed that? All those long LinkedIn posts, oh, I never knew this would happen to me until space based, I never knew this. Or, I didn’t realize it’s always me. Me. Right? And there’s no who are you talking to?

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Exactly?

Molly Ruland:

Right? Who is this for?

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

I love that because I call that the spotlight method, where you think you’re in an auditorium and there’s a spotlight. Is the spotlight on you or is it on your client? And it’s the same idea. Like, how are you putting the spotlight back on your client? How are you writing to them in. Terms of those outcomes or those benefits and what is it that they truly desire? Right. So important and it’s so easy to fall off.

Molly Ruland:

Indeed. Yeah. It’s a good lesson to learn. Yeah. If anybody’s looking for how to Grow a Business or Small Business by Donald Miller that just came out, he actually recaps the Story Brand, like Seven steps in that. And he says he might even summarize that book better in that chapter than when he wrote it because it’s been so many years. So if anybody’s interested in that, that’s a great book to check out because it’s short and sweet and very informative, for sure.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Love that. Love that. I did read the story brand. They have some really good analogies and good guides on it. Very good.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah, it’s a good reminder. It’s a good reminder because it’s easy to lose touch. Even somebody that does it for a living, it’s easy to lose touch on those things. Well, Simon, you have been fun. So your old boss was right on that one. You nailed it. Before we say goodbye and log out, though, where can people find you? What is the best place for them to connect with you and work with you and gain all of your knowledge?

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Oh, awesome. Yeah. Please connect with me online on Instagram at simonemoreaucoaching Or you can go to my website, simonemoreau.com, and connect with me on all things marketing tips, tricks, and just really general strategy and mindset to move you forward in your business.

Molly Ruland:

The other four tips. Amazing. The other four tips. That’s right.

Simone Moreau-Rodgers:

Yes. The other four tips. Thank you.

Molly Ruland:

I love it. Matt, you’re the best. Well, Simone, thank you so much for being on the show today. And thank you all for tuning into Camp Content. We hope this was informative and valuable. I think it was. Simone is a great guest with a lot of information. And if you’re looking for that one on one coaching, you should hit her up. If she’s your kind of person, then hit her up. Don’t waste any time and hit that link and get connected right away. And until next time, be excellent to each other and we’ll see you in a few days.

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