Molly Ruland:

Okay. Oh, wait. I gotta open my I gotta open. Matt’s gonna have to edit this out later.

Molly Ruland:

Here we go. I have all your notes here. Alright. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to camp content where we dive deep into the strategies, stories, and successes that define today’s marketing landscape. I’m your host, Molly Ruland. And today, we have a great guest lined up for you. Joining us is Sheila Butler, a marketing expert who has shaped the promotional landscapes of some of the biggest brands you know and love from Disney to JPMorgan Chase and beyond.

Molly Ruland:

With over 25 years in the industry, Sheila’s marketing spans integrated marketing, loyalty, partnership strategies, brand transformation, and so much more. She played a pivotal role in launching the Disney Visa credit card, which revolutionized brand cohesive financial products 21 years ago. That’s impressive. But that’s just scratching the surface. Sheila has influenced customer engagement strategies across hospitality and financial sectors, partnering with giants like Starbucks and Visa to create memorable campaigns and lasting impact. Beyond her professional accolades, Sheila brings heart to her oops. Heart to her work. She spent a decade volunteering as part of a certified therapy dog team with her beloved golden retrievers.

Molly Ruland:

I love all that I love dogs, and I love golden retrievers. We’re gonna talk about that for sure. I follow all the golden retriever Instagram accounts. I don’t know why. I don’t even have a golden retriever, but that’s a whole other conversation. Today, she is here to share her insights on not just surviving, but thriving in the complex world of marketing and how she’s helping brands evolve through her work at Butler Marketing Group. So welcome to the show, Sheila.

Sheila Butler:

Hey, Molly. Thanks for having me. That was quite the intro.

Molly Ruland:

Well, you get we gotta let people know who they’re talking to, man. We gotta tee you up and let people know. We got a real expert in the house today, so pay attention. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I love talking to people that have been in the game for a long time because you bring experience that is impossible to recreate with AI or any of these new kids on the block. Like, there’s just something about having experience and doing something, for a long time. You know, Alex from Mozy had a post that was like, it’s not confidence if you’ve done something enough times, and you know what the outcome is gonna be.

Molly Ruland:

He’s like, there’s no confidence involved. It’s math. Right? And so I’m sure there’s a whole lot of that going on in your history as well with 25 years in marketing.

Sheila Butler:

It’s been amazing. So first of all, I didn’t even major in marketing in college. I’m an undergrad in voice and business, but part of the business was a master’s in arts administration or part of the classes. So I thought it was gonna be marketing, maybe an arts organization, but it just happened. I landed my dream job at Disney after college. And first, I worked in entertainment, and then I moved into special events development because I was fascinated about how they brand parks and festival experiences that reflect the brand and bring it to life in this really immersive sort of way. And that got me into the marketing bug. It taught me deep skills around brand management.

Sheila Butler:

Right? And then I moved into, launching the cruise line business and updating all the marketing materials when the ship was live. And then I’m working in Synergy, which is across different Disney lines of business. So my account was Disney Publishing, and I worked with them on publishing books for the theme parks. But I didn’t intend to be in this marketing career. I didn’t intend to work in financial services. Most people don’t leave a theme park on a cruise line and say, I’m dying to sell credit cards. But that’s what happened, and it really ended up being the right path for me. I worked at a tech startup for about a year, helping entrepreneurs brand their businesses and get ready for venture capital pitches.

Sheila Butler:

And, when they went under, I found myself looking for work and went back to the safety of corporate America. It was bank 1, and they had pitched a credit card proposal to Disney so I ended up working on that and that was really how I got immersed in it. Bridge my previous life into financial services life but it’s been an incredible ride. I’ve had the good fortune working with some amazing brands, some of which you mentioned. So, Starbucks and Disney and IT and Best Buy and VP and, like, you name it, and you just learn a lot. And it’s sort of like I don’t know if you’ve had a lot of people who work in partnership marketing, but it’s almost like a lens into working in another company without working for that company. Because you get to know it so well, and you’re understanding their loyalty program and their brand and their customer base and their voice. Right? And so, yeah, it’s been incredibly rewarding.

Molly Ruland:

I mean, it’s, you know, it’s a unique set of experience to have such, corporate background and corporate experience, and it is cool to peek behind the curtain of other companies because then you’re like, I would do that, I wouldn’t do that, right, or that’s brilliant, or that’s not so great. And that gives you a lot of really great real time experience going in. So how did you go from, you know we were chatting a little bit before, but how did you go from working for these corporations and having some legacy, right, and some, you know, real experience there and a reputation there to now the Butler, marketing group. You know, how, you know, how did that happen?

Sheila Butler:

Again, kinda crazy bright. Didn’t think you know, I haven’t been dreaming all my life of being an entrepreneur, but I am, and I love it. Right? So what happened was I left Chase because I really miss hospitality and travel, and I took a job, working for a global loyalty program associated with Choice Hotels and all their partnerships. And it kinda fits my background of partnership marketing and loyalty at JPMorgan Chase. And, during the pandemic, I moved down to Orlando. And the travel was quite a bit going back and forth from Orlando to DC for my job, and ultimately ended up leading the in-house marketing team at Choice Hotels before I left. But I knew I wanted to create more roots in Orlando. And so there was a bank that wanted to rebrand themselves, and they were working a lot with Fintech companies and wanted to repackage themselves.

Sheila Butler:

And so I took a job as chief marketing officer for them. And that really got me closer to small and medium sized businesses because that was more of their customer base for lending, like commercial lending and so forth. Right? And built some roots in the Orlando community as well for me. And, so when I started my company a year ago, I just thought, okay. Well, there are businesses that need someone who understands fortune 100, but also really understands startups.

Molly Ruland:

Mhmm.

Sheila Butler:

And small and medium sized businesses. And I found a lane where there’s a need for my unique superpowers. And so that’s what I’m doing. And my whole decision making process is incredibly simple. When I talk to someone who’s a prospective client, I think, can I do cool things with cool people? Yes or no? And that’s it. And that’s the joy of running your own business.

Molly Ruland:

Amen, sister. I mean, getting rid of clients that don’t align with you is, like, one of the best feelings in the whole world.

Sheila Butler:

Or don’t take them on. Because sometimes you think I’m gonna have to fire them one day. Because you could just tell, like, they don’t align with your values or they’re they’ll be scope creep or no respect for boundaries, like, all sorts of things. So if I do look at it a lot of times and go, I’m gonna have to fire them. Yes. I will. Okay. Then don’t take it on.

Molly Ruland:

Don’t take it on. Don’t take it on. So let’s talk a little bit about the Butler Marketing Group. Can you give me, like, a snapshot of the company? Is it just you? Do you have a team? What does that look like?

Sheila Butler:

Okay. So it is me for the most part. So I create marketing that leaves a legacy for companies and brands. Right? When I need support, when it’s something beyond what I think people want me to be spending my hours on when they’re paying me my hourly rate, right, then I Avengers assemble, which means I bring in people who are great at that. I know people who are great at SEO, people who know InDesign really well and can do great, creative templates and copywriting at a cheaper hourly rate than me. So I can bring people in when that’s what I need.

Molly Ruland:

Which is amazing. I feel like that’s the future of work. Like, you don’t need these, like, staff and full time employees all the time because it’s a waste of a lot of resources. And, you know, it’s a global market now. You have opportunities everywhere and people with different skill sets. So put them in, you know, put them in when they’re needed. You know, take them off the bench, put them in the game. That’s really interesting.

Molly Ruland:

So where are most of your clients based?

Sheila Butler:

They’re all over. That’s the crazy thing. So, my clients are around the country. I Zoom with everyone. I do have one person who’s in the Orlando area, but we Zoom anyway. It’s more efficient. Right? But my clients have come from different industries. So change management and culture, HR culture work, entertainment companies, marketing agencies that need brand transformation work.

Sheila Butler:

I’ve got a dental client right now. I may soon have some health care and health and wellness clients. So they just come from all over, which is really, really fascinating to me. I don’t know if you saw my logo, but Butler Marketing Group’s logo is a kaleidoscope. And I feel like my true point of difference is that I come with a very unique perspective because I’m the sum of all my experiences. And so it’s just it’s a different way of seeing the world, and I feel like that’s one of the benefits for me of continuing to bring on clients that have really diverse businesses and different audiences and in different industries because it helps me grow.

Molly Ruland:

For sure. So when you’re you know, are you working with a pretty diverse group of clients as far as large and small companies? You know, because you’ve got you know, it sounds like you’re not you’re the industry. You’re agnostic to the industry, but it’s more about the quality of the service or the level of the service. So is that based on the company size, or how do you base that?

Sheila Butler:

You know what? It’s just organically happened. So I would say, part of my client base right now are, like, small and medium sized clients. I also have some bigger work that’s coming in to where I’m working with other agencies

Molly Ruland:

Mhmm.

Sheila Butler:

As the marketing strategy specialist, and that ends up being a lens into bigger companies. And who knows where that’s gonna lead. Right? I’m 1 year in. I can’t wait to see what the next year brings and how different it will end up being than what I think today.

Molly Ruland:

I mean, it was such an interesting time. Like, the word fractional has never been more popular than it is right now, but I think that’s I think that’s indicative of, like, the new workforce that we’re in and the new world that we’re in, like, post pandemic. I think that it makes more sense in a lot of ways to bring somebody in as a pinch hitter, like the cleaner, if you will, come in and lay things down, and then they don’t necessarily need to be around. So I think it’s really interesting to see all the different collaborations and partnerships and just this new way of looking at working with people where they don’t have to be an employee. Yeah. But then it opens up a lot of collaborations between different companies. Like you said, work with the people that are good at what they do, and you stay in your lane at what you’re really good at, and then you feed each other ideally.

Sheila Butler:

Right? Exactly. You know, it’s been interesting, as I’ve talked with people about being a fractional CMO. Sometimes it takes people aback. Right? I’m like, is it the CMO? Because I need to spell it chief marketing officer. I’m not chief medical officer, chief marketing officer, or the fractional part. Right? And most of the time, it’s the fractional. People just pause for a minute. They go, remember fractions? Right.

Sheila Butler:

That’s it. It’s just a portion of the time. Right? And there are businesses so if you’re a bank of less than $2,000,000,000 in deposits, you probably don’t need a full time chief marketing officer. If you are a business of, like, you know, under a $100,000,000, probably also don’t need a full time person. How are you gonna have enough work for them to do? How well do you have a big enough staff for them to lead? Right? And so there there are very specific types of businesses or my target audiences to where they need someone to craft the marketing north star to really redefine their brand, re explain it, and articulate it in a way that’s digestible and meaningful for their target audiences, build out the marketing strategy that aligns with the business objectives and where the business is going, and then guide and up skill the team. Right? Because there are marketing activities happening in every organization. And sometimes I send an email because someone asked me to send an email. And then when you ask the 5 or 6 whys, you kinda get to, I don’t really know what it’s doing.

Sheila Butler:

I just know they asked me to do it. And that tells me there’s a huge disconnect between marketing efforts and spending money on marketing versus tying it to the business strategy and objectives and having a clear marketing strategy.

Molly Ruland:

Exactly. I mean, I think that’s well, you know, there’s been a lot of layoffs, a lot of turnover, a lot of movement, a lot of people working remotely. So I would imagine that that area is a little bit murky for a lot of people. Right? And sometimes as an employee, it’s better just to show up and keep your head down. You know, I know in my experience, which is why I work for myself, when you try to, like, step up and be helpful, it works against you in a lot of companies. You get penalized for it. Right? So a lot of people are just sort of keeping their head down. Right? And they’re not necessarily thinking about these things, especially if it’s a bigger company that has customers coming in, but you got the North Star.

Molly Ruland:

Where are you really going with this? What is the point? And so, yeah, I think that I think it’s a much smarter way to do business. It brings people in where they need them and then lets them go. You don’t keep the electrician on salary all year. You just call them when there’s a problem. You know?

Sheila Butler:

Right. And so yeah. So, typically, fractional gigs are, maybe, like, 8 to 12 hours a week. And some of the weeks, maybe, like, it’s 20 hours, but then another week, it’s less than. Right? Again, it’s the ebb and flow of work. And then it’s also at a fraction of the cost to the company. You’re not paying for all the benefits. You’re not paying for 4 zero one k matching and so forth.

Sheila Butler:

You’re just paying for pure skill. Right? And so it can be very, very beneficial. Plus you’re sort of not really in the books.

Molly Ruland:

Right.

Sheila Butler:

You know, when people look at permanent headcount. Right? You’re sort of off to the side a bit too, which in some companies, they don’t necessarily look at the cost of labor. They look at the number of heads.

Molly Ruland:

Interesting. That’s really interesting. Can you give me an example of a success story that you’ve had with your clients in the last year?

Sheila Butler:

Oh my goodness. Okay. So which one? Okay. So one, what was really satisfying to me is I had a client. They’re so cool. So they’re in the entertainment industry, and they create fabrics and furs for movies and, and TV and commercials and so forth. Right? And so they can craft the fabrics. They use that then to make furs.

Sheila Butler:

They make the puppet pelts for, like, the sesame workshop characters. They’ve made Wookie costumes. They made the Chewbacca fur, like, really, really cool stuff. And so I was having a lot of fun with them. They had acquired additional businesses over time, and so they needed to be at a point of inflection and needed to redesign what they were all about to the entertainment industry. And so they were sharing with me the fact that a lot of companies don’t want to refer work to them because they don’t want their capacity to be eaten up. So if it’s, you know, a giant film industry, Titan, they wanna make sure that this company is available when they need something. So they don’t wanna refer to them.

Sheila Butler:

Right? So as we were doing their branding, we ended up calling their brand promise the, artist in secret because they’re really the n and when we did their, their, sort of articulating in not so much a tagline, but that they’re the touch of magic in storytelling because they’re like the tactile magic and, you know, tech workshop of the creative industry. And it was really fun to go to a conference in the fall when we had just finished all their branding to test drive the marketing messaging and see what landed. So the artisan’s secret ends up being the artisan’s artisan. Like, we’re the artistry behind the artist. And, it was just a lot of fun and very satisfying to me just to see how it was all coming together and to see them become more comfortable in articulating their brand in a really new way.

Molly Ruland:

I love it. It’s so cool. It’s so true because people, like, sometimes when you’re too good at your job, they don’t want anybody to know so that they can still call you when they’re busy. That’s a great problem to have, though, in the grand scheme of things. Alright. So let’s move, we’re gonna move into some of our speed round questions. These are always fun. And so you don’t have to, you can answer them as fast or as slow as you like, really.

Molly Ruland:

There’s no pressure here. But alright. Number 1, what is one content marketing tool that you can’t live without in your business?

Sheila Butler:

So I think it’s incredibly important to have templates so that you don’t spend your client’s time on building something from scratch. And so I can’t live without templates, including my strategic annual marketing roadmap, which is basically every owned, earned, and paid channel by week, right, to say this is the right message. This is the right month, and it’s on this paid channel. It’s earned. Here’s when we’re gonna drop the email in our own channel and have, like, you know, the interstitial page on the website, like, whatever it may be. But that to me is something that I can’t live without, all my templates.

Molly Ruland:

And it’s a big

Sheila Butler:

to home.

Molly Ruland:

Oh, for sure. And they’re constantly a work in progress, a good template anyway. You constantly find new things. You’re like, let me switch that. I’m a big fan of templates and Trello myself, so I’m on that team as well. Okay. Blog posts or videos, which do you think has a stronger impact?

Sheila Butler:

Oh, video, and I’m not good at them, so I write blogs. You’re

Molly Ruland:

great at video. What are you talking about?

Sheila Butler:

If I do this myself, it would be really bad.

Molly Ruland:

No. I doubt that. I think what it is is, a lot of you know, when people talk about short form video and then you would turn the camera on and you’re like, hi, everybody. Like, that stuff, I think, is really hard for anybody. Yes. Like, it’s a certain type of person that just, like, turns it on themselves and makes good content. Right? That’s the thing that’s, like, a whole different that’s like an influencer, really, more so than a business owner. You know what I mean? I’m not

Sheila Butler:

gonna post fun.

Molly Ruland:

No. No. Exactly. It’s getting weird out there too. It’s definitely getting weird out there in that video, but I like the conversational stuff. I know I drop my best gems when I’m having conversations like this, and so it’s great to clip it later. But when I’m trying to say clippable things, I just sound like an idiot. So you just gotta catch me in the wild, you know, and maybe I’ll say something entertaining or relatively intelligent.

Molly Ruland:

Okay. Well, what is your number one tip for creating engaging blog posts and email content if you’re more of a writer?

Sheila Butler:

Oh, don’t use chat GPT.

Molly Ruland:

You don’t like rocket chips emojis?

Sheila Butler:

It’s just and I I called Chip, I called Chad GPT Chip, because it sounds like he’s my coworker. But Chip is not good at Blox. I think that for me at least, part of my brand is authenticity. What you see is what you get. And so, therefore, I I I can’t use that. It has to come from the heart.

Molly Ruland:

Agreed. You know, I use, team GPG for some stuff, but what I’ll do is I’ll just, like, throw what I wanna talk about in there and let it do the outline, and then I go in and I just rewrite it because it just helps me to organize it. Yeah. But, chat GPT or team GPT can’t sound like me. They don’t have years of Irish Catholic guilt built into their psyche. They until they can recreate that, they won’t be getting my voice correctly. That’s for sure. What is the biggest marketing trend you see emerging this year?

Sheila Butler:

I I do think that it’s around AI, but I’m curious to see how it all ends. So the conversations that I’ve been having with people in fact, I’m working on a white paper right now about, AI and the use of AI in a particular industry’s marketing. What I found in talking, especially with larger companies, is that, there’s such a fear around it that it’s almost a paralysis. I know that AI can be great for many things. It can be efficient. It can be a starting point. It can be, like, make this better because Grammarly is AI. Right? Right.

Sheila Butler:

All these different things, it can help make project management easier, note taking easier, all

Molly Ruland:

the settings. Right?

Sheila Butler:

Right. Yeah. Analyzing consumer sentiment in, in blog posts and responses and so forth. It can do many, many powerful things, but I think that what I find really fascinating is that I think there are a couple of buckets of considerations that are really, the linchpins on why companies are struggling. So I think one is around ethics and policy

Molly Ruland:

Mhmm.

Sheila Butler:

Around, like, how do you collect data? How do you store it? How do you analyze it? How do you protect it? The fact that lawmakers can’t keep up with the rapid transformation of AI, so they don’t even know what to do. Yeah. I think that in another bucket, there are biases because AI is using historical information, historical data, so there are inherent biases built into that. For sure. And then I think another one is where do humans end and AI begins and the reverse, and what’s the dance? And it’s gonna look different all the time. So we think that’s honestly the biggest trend, which is that it can do so much, and yet are people willing to let it do what it does best? And can people figure out where that hand off is between humans and AI?

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. I agree. I think AI can be an excellent tool for a lot of reasons, but it should not replace people. You know? And I think a lot of people think it’s gonna replace people, and I’m sure in some industries it has, but there’s just, you know, you can’t take people out of the equation. But, like, if I wanted to, edit a transcription, hell yeah, I’m using AI. It’ll take me 4 minutes to take that data and summarize it into key points. It would take my guy 4 days. Like, that’s a no brainer.

Molly Ruland:

Right? But it frees him up to do something that’s more important than combing through a transcription in the first place. Right? So I think it’s like reallocating tasks, but I don’t think it’s a replacement. But I think every company is gonna have to deal with that in their own way. Right? Right.

Sheila Butler:

Right. I see it as augmentation, not replacement.

Molly Ruland:

That’s a fan that’s a good fancy way to put it better than I do. That’s for sure. Augmentation, I’m gonna remember that one for sure. Alright. Can you name a brand that you think is nailing their content marketing right now or their marketing?

Sheila Butler:

Oh. Oh, man. No. Nothing’s coming to mind, honestly. No. Who do you think?

Molly Ruland:

Well, you know, I just talked about this on the last podcast, but, there’s a bunch of, like, ad trends in Latin America right now where they take and I’m seeing it trending up in North America where they take, like, a clip of, like, a bull running into a man or somebody falling on ice or something that gets your attention. And then right when you’re somebody falling on ice or something that gets your attention. And then right when the person lands on their butt, it clips to this, like, electronic store in Mexico City, and the girl falls. Like, she finishes the video, and then she’s like, come into our store. It’s like the most low budget thing. Emeril, send you some on LinkedIn. I think they’re hilarious. But that’s just, like, the people using, like, the Internet to boost their business.

Molly Ruland:

But these, like, little shops are getting, like, half a 1000000 views, and it’s, like, changing their business in, like, the most dramatic way because they’re, like, a taqueria or something. Yeah. Yeah. They’re brilliant. But, I mean, I guess who’s really getting the marketing right? That’s a good question. There’s not a lot of brands that I really, really resonate with right now. I feel like in the public space, there’s a lot if you feel like you really have to protect yourself from a lot of these brands.

Sheila Butler:

Right? Yeah. You know what’s interesting? I follow Southwest and Instagram even though I haven’t really flown them very much. I’ve never lived in a hub city. I do think that they’re doing some nice things to tell their brand story in a really interesting way that is engaging.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. Because that’s super super important. Yeah. Well, it’s like Wendy’s account. Wendy’s account was great, and then it got hacked. Are you hip to this? So remember the Wendy’s Twitter account was doing really snarky stuff and like talking mad smack with like Burger King or whatever. Like, it was really good stuff. People were like, oh, this is brilliant.

Molly Ruland:

But then somebody actually hacked it, and it’s like a real live, like, person with a lot of mental health issues and for years now. Like, open up the Wendy’s Twitter account. It’s just, like, years, years.

Sheila Butler:

That’s awful.

Molly Ruland:

I know. It’s Wendy’s too. You’re like, how did you let this happen? Guys, security, that should be a no. If you’re watching this, change your Twitter password cause you probably had 17 interns in there and you don’t even know who they are anymore. So it might be time to change that password. Can you imagine? But I used to love their content because it was, like, talk smack with the other, like, burger type establishments, and I just thought that was brilliant because nobody was really doing that then, but now they’ve just gone completely off the rails.

Sheila Butler:

She is a redhead. So you know?

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. Yeah.

Sheila Butler:

That’s funky.

Molly Ruland:

That ginger man, she was going for it for sure. Okay. And then my last speedrun question. What social media platform do you think is the most underrated from marketing? Oh,

Sheila Butler:

I mean, I think that people are still trying to figure out threads, honestly. So I don’t know if it’s underrated or not. I think that sometimes it feels like a solution, like, looking for a problem type of thing.

Molly Ruland:

Is that the replacement to Twitter that Facebook rolled out? Yeah. Is that what threads are? They keep pushing it on me and my feet. Well, my dogs are.

Sheila Butler:

I know. For me, I tend to be an Instagram person because I’m more of a visual person. And but I don’t. I don’t need a ton of information. I want it to be, like, quickly digestible and move on.

Molly Ruland:

My dogs are ridiculous. I don’t know if you heard, like, the screaming. They’re like, I’m missing out on something. We’ll edit all that out later. Yeah. Threads will be really interesting to see. They really keep pushing it on me, but I’m just not sold. I think I’m just so turned off from x that I’m like, I’m good.

Molly Ruland:

I’m good on anything even remotely resembling that crap, honestly.

Sheila Butler:

Correct.

Molly Ruland:

That’s where I’m at. I even took, like, the Twitter thing out of my signature because I don’t even wanna see the x. I’m like, get that away from me. I want and we have, like, 12,000 followers or something there, and I’m like, who cares? Next, Keep it moving, Elon. That guy, what a mess. Okay. I am alright.

Molly Ruland:

So now we’re gonna move on to our real or fake segment. I’m gonna list off some podcast names, and you’re gonna say whether they are real or fake.

Sheila Butler:

I’m literally gonna get all these wrong. I just just just so you know.

Molly Ruland:

It’s my favorite part of the show. Okay. The first one is marketing over coffee.

Sheila Butler:

Real. But I would prefer it to be marked over bourbon. Should I start 1?

Molly Ruland:

You should. I think that’s a sign. We’ll have to look that up. Okay. Number 2. That one’s real. It’s real. It’s real.

Molly Ruland:

Yes. Number 2, the loyalty leap.

Sheila Butler:

Real.

Molly Ruland:

Fake. Oh.

Molly Ruland:

I know.

Sheila Butler:

The URL is available to anyone who wants to buy it.

Molly Ruland:

Loyalty Leap, exactly. Number 3, engage and evolve the podcast.

Sheila Butler:

I I hope it’s not real.

Molly Ruland:

It is fake. Number 4 It’s

Sheila Butler:

very boring.

Molly Ruland:

It is. But you should see there are some terribly named podcasts out in the world. I’m like, what are you doing? Alright. Number 4, Business Wars.

Sheila Butler:

I want it to be real.

Molly Ruland:

It is, and it’s probably a couple of white guys rather than that thing because only they

Sheila Butler:

It sounds like cats in shirts. I want some snapping.

Molly Ruland:

I could see it now. We should start that one. That would be fun. Like, you can only present your argument in a Broadway musical style. That’s the role of the entire podcast. Jeff Hands. Yeah. Exactly.

Molly Ruland:

Creative entrances. Okay. Alright. The Marketing Mix Mastery.

Sheila Butler:

Oh, I’m cubed. Fake.

Molly Ruland:

It is fake. And then the last one, branding beyond borders.

Sheila Butler:

Real.

Molly Ruland:

It’s fake. Okay. It’s this little fun segment, like, because why not? There was one that I listed off. It totally sounded like a dirty text podcast, but it was, like, a real one about, like, app-like, marketing after hours, but I was like, they should really change this because if me and my guests were both, like, a little red and embarrassed by the whole operation. We’re like, I swear it’s real. I swear. Alright. And so before we go, I have one more question for you, and that is if you could launch a loyalty program for any brand or any product that doesn’t have one, which one would it be and why?

Sheila Butler:

Oh, so I’m not gonna name the brand itself, but because I love travel, I would create a very unique sort of one of a kind tailored loyalty program for a high end travel company, like an international travel company. One of those to where it’s like the world is your oyster, and we’re gonna create custom trips for you and then align the loyalty program and some sort of membership, some sort of annual membership that ties into your once in a lifetime trips every year. I think that would be very fun. Then you can curate the experiences over time because you get to know the members. It’s a small but very understood sort of base of clients. Because that sounds like a lot of fun. It sounds like you can constantly create.

Molly Ruland:

Exactly. And I mean, that makes a lot of sense. Like, I was planning a trip to Ireland with me and my dad, and he was like, well, I found this one, but it was like 8 different bus rides and there were 6 hours each. And I was like, dad, you are not gonna, they’re gonna be shuffling. Like, this is not the one for us. We need like, you know, an extra day in each one of these places, and that’s really hard to put that together. Right? So, like, a loyalty custom travel program, I think, would do really well. So if you’re a travel company, we should tag them in this post when it comes out.

Molly Ruland:

You should consider hiring Sheila because she knows how to create loyalty programs, and that sounds brilliant. And if people have enough money to go on custom trips, they wanna go on more. And if they like the first one, they’re gonna like the next one, and then they’ll be inclined to tell other people. So Mhmm. I think you’re onto something, Sheila. I think you need to pitch these people. We need to send out some proposals this week. So on that note, thank you for coming on the show today.

Molly Ruland:

I’ve had a lot of fun hanging out with you and getting to know you. And, I am super impressed that your business has only been around for a year. Now you are bringing decades of experience very, very clearly, but it’s a real testament to what happens when you put women in the driver’s seat and they take control of their destiny and they decide what it is they want, like moving to Orlando and leaving the security of big paychecks to go out and do your own thing, because it’s what you wanna do and what you wanna spend your time on. So I commend you for doing that and leading by example, and I hope that your business continues to have tremendous success because you deserve it.

Sheila Butler:

Thank you. That’s so nice. Thank you. This was so fun.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. Me too. Well, listen. I’m coming to Orlando soon. We’re hanging out. So

Sheila Butler:

Awesome. Okay. Next time, over wine.

Molly Ruland:

Yeah. Exactly. Is that or wait. We could do the podcast here. Marketing or bourbon. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Sheila Butler:

There we go.

Molly Ruland:

Limited series. 1, come soon. Exactly. Exactly. Well, Sheila, thank you so much for spending time with me today. I know how to reschedule you, like, once or twice. I don’t even know. I’ve found myself out of town.

Molly Ruland:

So thank you for being a true team player, and I enjoyed spending time with you today and I look forward to spending some more time with you.

Sheila Butler:

I did as well. Alright. Thank you so much. Great meeting you.

Molly Ruland:

Thank you. You too. Thank you for tuning in to Camp Content. I thought this was a great episode. We’re finding out a lot of information, and if you’re looking for an industry vet who has tons of experience with these massive companies but knows how to make them work for smaller companies, then look no further than Sheila. And, of course, that goes without saying, if you’re thinking about creating a loyalty program or your current loyalty program needs to shape up, I feel like Sheila might be a good person for you to, hit up and send her an email and connect with her and tighten all that up. 2024 is coming in hot. It’s already halfway through the year, so it’s a great time to tighten up for the next few quarters and for next year.

Molly Ruland:

So on that note, thank you for tuning in. If you found this content valuable, please comment on LinkedIn, share it with your friends, make fun of us, do whatever you gotta do, but hit us up and let us know. And until next time, be excellent to each other. Thank you. Thanks. Okay.