Consistency in Marketing: The Art of Trust Building - Alicia Williams - S2 Episode #5

Alicia Williams, a marketing genius with a passion-infused go-getter personality is the co-founder and creative director at Aliste Marketing. She has collaborated with some of the biggest industry disruptors and executive powerhouses and emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the industry. Since 2008, she has been successfully building a collective of brilliant creatives, strategists, and specialists that produce a truly end-to-end marketing solution for established brands. 

Discussion points - 

Q1 - What sort of bogus misconception strategy you want to set the record straight on? 3:20
Q2 - You guys have a pretty targeted niche, so how did you find that? 5:15
Q3 -  How do you identify which channels are the right fit? Are there some practical tools and tips that may give us the answer more objectively? 8:24
Q4- What are your thoughts on the reemergence of in-person events? 11:14
Q5 - Give us a couple of pointers on the practices that have been most effective for you in utilizing LinkedIn. What has it worked for you, and what do you love the most? 15:21
Q6 - How do you measure success on LinkedIn? Is there anything that you track that helps you decide? 18:30
Q7 -  What is your origin story? Can you tell us how you got started? 20:00
Q8 -  How do you pick your people? How do you vet that they're good? 25:25
Q9 - What are the tools that you are using? 33:22
Q10 - How do you see your agency going forward? 35:55
Q11 - How do you define your audience? And what is the good initiative for you when it comes to growth? 37:54
Q12 - What's exciting you about the future? 39:30
Q13 - What are your feelings about AI, and how you are approaching it? 41:02

 

Show notes - 

• It definitely wasn't a straight line, it was exact bumps and swirly rallies, in order to figure out who our audience was, and also what we really liked doing and what we were good at, and being in a position within our business to say, we're not good at this, or this doesn't bring us joy. 5:37
• LinkedIn is a massive treasure chest for me specifically, to get in front of the right people. Like, tell me what platform honestly, you could reach out to the CEO of Pepsi and get a response. 9:20
• From a client perspective, it goes back down to who are their buyers, and what’s their buyer persona. What's the age, the industry, the geographic location? Like what do they care about? And that honestly helped guide or does guide where they should be hanging out from a platform standpoint. 10:15
• I think in-person events absolutely have a place. And they're great, especially for learning and development, and getting in the room and showing a presence. I'm just very intentional about which ones I go to, I think of it this way, what events are worth me not being home for my family to go to? 12:39
• We do have a LinkedIn group that's filled with marketing executives, I measure the growth of that group and the engagement. The other is my connection growth, making sure that my connection numbers are increasing with the right people. And the third is we have a LinkedIn navigator it will show profiles, and engagement is tracked based on others in your space. 18:24
• We built the team to really have a collective of different specialists, they are hyper-focused on what they do, and they do it really, really well. Where my strong suit comes in is that strategy and that implementation part and kind of making sure the wheel spins. 22:53
• So when I say I've spent years building this collective, it has taken years to test it, try it, and have them treat me like a customer, before I introduce them to a client. 27:09
• Our clients know, our strong suit is the strategy and implementing the creative part. The other avenues like SEO and ads, are specific contractors that we pull in for that client. 29:47
• Clients want to know, their goals are being hit, the work is being done, we have their back, and who's sitting in those seats. It's irrelevant because they trust that we're building the team that's gonna get them there. 33:04
• Clients and brands that are going through a transition that have a marketing executive in house already, that's who's a really good fit for us from a brand perspective. 38:46
• You don't need to have a huge website, you could have a basic website, get you started, and it achieves the goals, you could use the AI tools to help you in terms of getting content going and wordsmithing and whatnot. 40:32

Myth Busted - Being on every social media platform instead of just focusing on where your audience is and doing that platform really well. 

Links - 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliste/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alistemarketing/

Company website: https://alistemarketing.com/

 

Show Credits - 

Host - Varun Bihani & Jessie Coan

Produced by Bobby Soni 

Edited by Priyanka Sharma 

Content by Aakash Damani, Yashika Neekhra, and Juhie Bhardwaj