Talk Digi To Me - Authenticity with Carlie and Erin Bovell

In this episode, Carlie and Erin discuss the creation of content. How to create on demand as a marketer, how to incorporate authenticity every time you tell the story of your brand. Because as Erin says, what trumps content is Authentic Content!

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Transcript

Carlie Robinson  00:12

Hi. This is talk Digi to me, where we dig into stories about digital marketing, business and entrepreneurship. I'm your host, Carlie Robinson, and I'm so excited for my guest today, Erin Bovell. She puts all the energy in the room. She's a radio host on y1 Oh, 3.3, she's a social media marketer, and she's even got her own business. I can't wait to hear everything you've got to say, Erin, thanks so much for joining me. 

Erin Bovell  00:35

Thanks for inviting

Carlie Robinson  00:36

I'm so excited because when, just before we started, you reminded me of a show.

Erin Bovell  00:43

For those of y'all who are not new to this space, Carlie and I did a show, I think, in 2017 called the Wine Down. 

Carlie Robinson  00:51

Glad you remember the year

Erin Bovell  00:53

I know, yeah, as I was saying to Carlie, it is not only based on my great memory, it's all the fact that I stored that image somewhere randomly.

Carlie Robinson  01:01

It was so fun. We talked about news. We drank wine. It was a great video show. Yajaira Archibald was producing it with us. That was, that was the time of our life. It was epic.

Erin Bovell  01:11

I had a time for sure. And also, we wore the same colors. Yeah, we did not coordinate this. We're both in white. I feel like, Yeah, this is definitely a full circle moment for me, and I love it here. 

Carlie Robinson  01:20

I'm loving it. I'm loving seeing your growth, also very consistently. So for the listeners, for the viewers, want to tell us a little bit about your journey into in marketing as an entrepreneur, like, how did you get into marketing? First of all? 

Erin Bovell  01:35

I have a background in dance, so I was one of those who decided to study the arts. And you know, it can come with its own creative challenges. Especially in performance arts, there might not be much of an outlet sometimes for you to actually put it on display, unless it was crop over season. And now that has completely changed. Thank God for evolution with that aspect. But moving from performance art, I then got into marketing on a radio standpoint, I would have worked as a voiceover artist for a very long time, and then I was granted the opportunity to work with an advertising agency, and I worked in the back end, writing their actual scripts. And then slowly but surely, I guess, from script writing for radio, I then got into social and so forth, and we've snowballed into this where I'm currently at

Carlie Robinson  02:22

and you're hosting the morning show at the moment on radio. How's that going?

Erin Bovell  02:25

It's going great. Those who may know you'll hear me as my What do I call myself? The in between music talker from six am until 10am on y 103, that's me, and you can actually put a face to that voice now. And I also have my own dance brand, because dance has never left me. I have continued in that, and the company's called Flow Work.

Carlie Robinson  02:46

yeah, do you think that if you're gonna be in marketing, you really need, like a creative, some creative spirit to survive in marketing?

Erin Bovell  02:55

I remember, actually, at the time, a previous employer saying to me when the client comes and they're asking you to do a ton, a maubaton of changes, and those who work in marketing know exactly what I'm talking about. We don't call them issues, we call them creative challenges. It's like if they're trying to challenge your mind creatively every single time for you to see if you can output something different. And yes, there is a level of resilience that you have to have within self to be able to output, not only on demand, but also just in general, creativity of self. 

Carlie Robinson  03:29

I like what you're getting into there, because that's something that myself, I think about a lot as well, being able to create on demand. It's like, okay, we need to write XYZ. So could you do it by five o'clock now? But I need to sip my coffee, I need to dim my lights, I need to get into the mode that'll take three hours. Yeah, we can start. Yeah, pretty much.

Erin Bovell  03:54

But you know what it it gets you there. You know sometimes it's gonna be sometimes you'll feel like your back is against the wall, but in those moments, I guess that's when they say, pressure makes diamonds, and definitely diamonds are made in those moments. 

Carlie Robinson  04:08

I think that brings us to to one of the topics I really wanted to focus on today, which is brand storytelling. And a part of that is using authenticity. I think that if you're going to be a creative, you have to have that sort of that has to be authentic to you. It has to live inside of you for you to be able to bring it out in the work that we do. So in terms of content marketing, we've got so many things we have to create on a day to day basis. We've got articles, we got to write, we got videos we got to do we've got podcasts. We have to do infographics, design work, all different types of content marketing. How do we keep a brand story authentic throughout that process? 

Erin Bovell  04:48

Well I guess for me, being able to focus on your why, always being able to go back to your Why. Why did I create this product? Who? Who am I aiming to serve? Because at the end of the day, yes, you can create art for yourself, but I know that there's a message that you want to get over to and you want to reach certain people. So ideally, you want to stick to your brand ethos, for a lack of a better term, and then disseminate it. So there's the conversation around the seven C's, literally not the tablet, but I'm the actual 7c of content marketing. I would say, I may not remember all, but let's go through them. I would say that the first one is community, which I kind of touched on just now, knowing the people that you actually want to serve, and being able to talk to them, personify them. And I mean, like a T like, I guess I'll speak for myself. I remember having this exercise with actually, a mutual friend of ours, Corey, and he was saying to me, Aaron, if you could identify persons that come to your dance classes, who are they? And let's actually name them. And one of them, I dubbed my mother's name Margaret, you know, and I consider that woman to be the woman who is either who is mature and wants to continue establishing her sensuality and femininity and rediscover that. And then another one could have been, you know, Khadija, and that name doesn't stick, but either way, don't mind that she is younger and she's now stepping into her sensuality and our femininity. And when I was able to figure out who those communities were, I was then able to disseminate the message, which goes to the conversation, which is another one of the Cs

Carlie Robinson  06:33

I want to get that one, but you're making me think of a really good, practical exercise that you have to do, which is developing your brand personas. That's exactly what you're talking about. You want to start your brand message, you have to do that little bit of exercise in Who am I talking to? What do they care about?

Erin Bovell  06:49

And where are they Yeah, where are they having these conversations? Are they really having these conversations online, or are they having them offline? And I think a lot of time I know this is like talk digital to me, but digital does go offline. You have to be able to reach people in their pods or in their hubs, outside of their phones, their laptops. This, if anything, their phone or laptop is just the initial touch point. You have to really penetrate the community when you actually go and touch these people, because they're still human, and there's a human element to all of marketing, that's what, absolutely, yeah, you know what I mean. So back to conversation. Now, literally, I guess, following on, where are they, what are they talking about, and what type of engagement do they want to have? You know, the said same Margaret, she might be, let's say, a divorcee. She wants to have the conversation about, well, how do I get back to me? Yeah, how do I feel my most feminine now that there's a part of my life that has changed, you know? And then similarly, it could be another thing where, let's say it's another brand. What are you saying to them? How are you developing those conversations? How do you engage authentically so that they feel that they're represented? That kind of thing, you know another C is content. And again, I think this all ties in as well too. What is the content type that you will use, that they will best gravitate to? So we all know reels are a thing, and they're only seven seconds, and at this point, if you're not delivering what you need to do within that first second, you already know somebody swipe and go. Nobody ain't going for you page. No more. Everybody just scrolling through the Explore. That's how it is. I I saw a video recently, ironically enough, and I actually clicked on it, and I'm following that person, but they were speaking on, you know how a timeline is now, these days, your content is going to be mushed between something about climate change and another thing about cats and dogs and funny videos. So whatever it is that you're putting out there, it has to be, I guess, entertaining, relatable, topical enough that it will actually make somebody stop. Yeah, you know, whether it's an infographic, as you mentioned, a blog, an article of writing, whichever, whether it be a video, etc, picture, it has to tell that story that you're wishing to invoke emotion wise from that person.

Carlie Robinson  09:05

Question for you on that is video King? Is video still king? Like it has to be moving in order to get attention. Is a still photo enough,

Erin Bovell  09:13

I think, or I should say, my diplomatic answer to that is going to be, content is king. But what's even what trumps content is authentic content, original? Hello, original content. Because everyone is gonna do a trend that they saw. Yeah. But the real question is, after a while, when the viewers see it, you just blend in with everyone else who did the trend. How are you actually now telling your true story. What is the original content that you're creating? Everybody wants to go viral, but are you going viral for the right reasons and to the right community, right community? You know, it's not just one thing to know when you look at your metrics. Oh, great. 10,000 people saw me, whether it be organic or a paid ad, but out of those, 10,000 And how many conversions are you actually getting? Yeah, another one of these. C's very marketing, you know, like you want to get the sale. And I mean, again, it comes, and it should come from the upper level of have I? Am I serving the right person? Am I sharing the message that I want them to actually hear? You know, is the conversation enough for them to engage with me, so that they will actually click and, you know, click link in bio, whether they're reading the blog or whether they're actually deciding to sign up for the course. Yeah, you know, that kind of thing. So I feel like, yeah. 

Carlie Robinson  10:32

Do you think enough people are measuring conversions, or are too many people getting fixated on did I get an enough likes and enough eyeballs on it, are we still fixated on that and not what's the conversion? 

Erin Bovell  10:44

I do think that there is a still a very heavy focus on vanity metrics and persons might be more so establishing a conversion based on a smaller spend and a greater yield, if and I think that's how social media blew up. We all recognize in the marketing world, you can spend 10 USD and you can get over 10,000 views, and I do not know if persons have really taken the time to adapt their mindset of am I really getting 10,000 of the right people viewing my content. So I am not entirely certain if persons are paying that much attention to conversions, but I can speak only for my brand. And I think, you know, at present, that's something that I'm definitely focusing on.

Carlie Robinson  11:34

I think that's a question that a lot of I've kind of heard from a lot of people, like in the CEO or business owner level, who are maybe more traditional in their marketing sense, and they haven't, they're not quite bought into social media as much as they want to know, all right. Well, how many customers Am I getting from this? So, like, I don't care about these views, whereas I think the younger ones of us who are more excited about social media, and it's like you said, it's vanity metrics in a way we're excited about that. We look at like, the awareness and the impressions as like, yes, big thing. But we tend to forget like, Okay, well, that doesn't necessarily mean a sale. We still need to look at the numbers at the end your ROI,

Erin Bovell  12:12

agreed, agreed, agreed. And that could possibly lead into creation. You know, it can lead into story. What is the story and series of stories that we are telling as we create for this campaign or create for this content calendar, what are we really outputting that will then yield for the proper conversion or the most authentic conversion that we wish for? Yeah,

Carlie Robinson  12:38

and another reminder here is to do some testing in terms of, like, one of the types of content that we put out that have given us the best result. Yeah, no, you know what's working for us. Let's replicate it. Just keep doing it over and over.

Erin Bovell  12:51

I mean, I feel like that kind of wraps up all this. C's Truthfully speaking, because if you can kind of pinpoint all of those and then get to the end, test and invest and do your analytics really. And whatever those true analytics are for you, like, whether it's okay, I just wanted to get 5000 new followers or 500 that's probably more like realistic metric. Or if you wanted to get, you know, 10 more sales than you did last quarter, whatever that is to your point, test and invest and figure out, okay, are we on, are we on the timeline, or do we need to adjust? Kind of thing? 

Carlie Robinson  13:26

What's your process? When you have to approach a new either creating for a new campaign for digital or social, or maybe you've got a new client and you're ready to work on their first calendar. Like, do you have a creative process that you put into that? 

Erin Bovell  13:38

Yes and then at the same time, no. Sometimes I literally just, you know,

Carlie Robinson  13:47

Perfect

Erin Bovell  13:47

I come out I say, universe bestow me creation, you know, sometimes I actually do going with pen and paper. Actually, I'm very old school in that regard, where I like to write. I guess it's a mixture of a few things. I personally like to attack things by quarter, and I think this could be more telling of my personality. I want to know an overarching theme that I wish to tell for the next three months, and then by Month, I will then dissect what I want to tell each month that will flow within a series of stories. So I guess let's say, let's tie it to natural calendar. January. Everybody's get it. Let's say it's a fitness brand. Yeah, everyone's getting back in the gym. We already know everybody getting back in the gym either bought the clothes or they're looking to buy the clothes. They're looking to buy the supplements they want to work off the Christmas meal, correct? You already know what's the story you're planning to tell, and it works light and sinker every single time. You know what I mean. Sorry. Everybody out there who's been thinking to themselves, Oh, no, I'm not a part of the sales psychology. And you know, no one can rope me into marketing. Boo, don't worry. I just let you in it too, you know, but it, it works from the standpoint of, once you don't feel like you're being exploited, you can still continue on. And, you know, from the from, I guess, knowing that quarter, I then structure out campaigns, and then I build whatever caption development I'd like, probably storyboard some visuals, figure out what I'm gonna separate from info to actual video to pictures, and then kind of test and invest and go from there.

Carlie Robinson  15:31

Do you find it difficult to work on the same brand over and over? Yes, okay, because I do struggle with that a lot. 

Erin Bovell  15:39

What I what I do is I throw it out to my friends, like you, because some sometimes in realistically, you know, two heads were better than one. Yeah,

Carlie Robinson  15:52

I know. And I find, like, you know, if you keep staring at something, you're gonna stop seeing it properly. You need to close your eyes or get fresh eyes and fresh perspective, agreed.

Erin Bovell  16:01

So, yeah, pretty much use your friends. That's what they did for, you know, or or now, with the beauty of the internet, I don't find it in any way lazy on my part to exercise utilizing AI, yeah, or possibly using someone else's template online. That's what all these resources are for? They help to, as you say, generate new ideas, and there's a level of freshness that you would have never expected could have come to this thing because you were only looking at it from one pair of lens, exactly. Yeah. What about

Carlie Robinson  16:34

continuing to be authentic to that brand and their messaging? Do you find that like meetings help or getting to know the business owner or getting to know the products and using them yourself. Do you find that things like that really help you tell the authentic story of them?

Erin Bovell  16:50

Now, agreed, I do, and I am very old school in a sense of I love a good brainstorm. Nothing beats being in a room with a bunch of creatives and actually being able to hash out ideas and being inspired and feeling that energy, and then being able to go and cultivate something like it really does get the juices flowing and going. So if there's one thing I will never take away as we move into more digital, I'm sometimes, you know, a reserved area or era, you know, I will definitely keep those brainstorms going for me. You

Carlie Robinson  17:27

know, what I like doing? I really like actually consuming the product that I'm talking about. We're using the service that I'm talking about, because I feel like that gives you just a different, a whole different approach to it. Like, if it's a cookie or a drink or whatever I like to go out to buy it, to touch it, to feel it, and say, oh, you know, okay, I have ideas. No, yeah, I find that helpful.

Erin Bovell  17:48

No, it does. And I think similarly as well, too, it tells to the authentic story, because now you are not only speaking from a standpoint of a a second person, you're actually like the individual consuming it, as you mentioned. So it's a first person experience, and who better than to talk about it as a consumer than you consuming product?

Carlie Robinson  18:10

One story that comes to mind is things like a Shirley biscuit. So if you think about how me and God, everybody loves them, but like the act of eating around that is something that if you've never eaten the Shirley biscuit, you'll never talk about

18:26

Carlie Robinson  18:26

The minute you put that on social media, people are like, Oh, me too.

Erin Bovell  18:30

Yes, it is. And again, it relates, yes, it relates to the whole community thing, you know? Like, you can't, you can't speak on it unless you know about it, and you are about it, you know? Yeah, no, agree.

Carlie Robinson  18:41

I don't know if this is factual or not. Maybe it isn't. Maybe you'll have a different opinion on it, but I feel like business owners who are really fundamental to their brand or their product or their service, I either the face of it, or they're the inventor of it, or they're the person who's really doing a lot of the pushing on social media, I feel like they have an easier approach to telling their story in authentic way, because it's almost like it's coming straight from their mouth. It's coming straight from their heart. I mean, what do you have an opinion on that? Do you think it's easier, I guess, more authentic? I

Erin Bovell  19:13

will say, yeah, for sure. If it is that it's your baby, then you're probably gonna talk about it in the most loving, euphoric like, you know, I created this thing. But I guess that also comes twofold. From a standpoint of when you are so close to something, maybe you might miss other things. And I do think that it does help when you can take a step back and also listen to others around feedback is so important, I'm betting how I know of my brand. There are my dad's brand, the women probably have another view. It may be synonymous with my view, but at the same time, it also might be one that I never considered, because I don't know what I could be cultivating. At times I don't. Know what space I might be creating, other than the one that I believe I have in my head. So it's always good to, you know, listen to other voices that are trusted, you know. Yeah,

Carlie Robinson  20:09

so let's talk about your your own brand too, because I wanted to ask you about that, um, you know, you've been in social media. You're a radio personality, you know, you're a media personality. You know about marketing. You've also started your own business, and now you have to take up your social media. You have to create your own social media. You have to drive that process. Is that hard?

20:34

Erin Bovell  20:39

Yes, it is difficult. And I literally feel like this should be a shameless plug by looking for somebody to handle my social media. Oh, no. Girl, it is shambles. I mean, by my standard, I guess, you know, by my standard, based on the fact that I know the output that I do for others, and you know, I know somebody can probably, like, Girl, how is it you pointing all that energy for everybody else, and you kind of put in space. So I work in Pana. All right, hold tight. I work in Pana, but in the mean, in between time, I actually agree with you. It is a bit tough, um, and I also think that it gives speaking on a business, on a business trying manifesting the entrepreneur, the enterprise that flower will become. I think it's important to have who's in your business, who will do and who you can delegate, who you can disseminate to, and that allows you the freedom to create where you want to be. So of late, I want to more. So get back to focusing primarily on choreography, where I want to go with that, how I want to reach my people, the message I want to send. And in turn, I would love to give the social to someone who can, who I can give that message to, and they can distribute that accordingly. There's a lot that you do when you recognize that you're becoming a solopreneur, and you get lost in the bookkeeping and the you know, the Yeah, is my own. Like, man, too. I put up my camera. And I joke about this all the time, but I put up a camera and then I don't hit record.

Carlie Robinson  22:26

Imagine if you did that for a client, you would kill yourself.

Erin Bovell  22:29

I would never do that, but you're doing exactly but that being said, yes, it's important to you know, I would outsource personally. So, yeah, it tough, but we were okay, but, but I think also, what I, what I'm, what I'm trying to wrap up, is have a team. Don't wait until you're 10 years in and you're thinking, you won't hold on to you baby, because you're the only body that could do this. No, no, that's not how you grow. Yeah, you grow by actually being able to lead, and by being a really good leader. You're gonna have to find strong who's, I didn't say what's, I said who's, because those are the people that will help hold up your brand pillars and actually take the brand where you want it to go. Okay,

Carlie Robinson  23:11

well, I guess that's a good segue into things like brand pillars and explaining what we mean when we say brand pillars. In my head, those are like, well, I guess you said it, the aspects that hold up your brand. They're also called, like buckets, essentially like where you can drop content into different types of content that will support them. A big one is authenticity. I think that's a really major brand pillar. Locality, or being local is another one. There are a lot of local companies who might want to emphasize that as something you know, it's produced locally, or it reflects the authenticity of the country that is in, and that kind of thing. What are some of the other brown pillars that you might focus on in your work?

23:57

Carlie Robinson  23:59

It depends on the type of business to business, Corporate Social Responsibility is another one that it's good to talk about what you're doing in your communities, and if you're environmentally friendly and like that kind of thing. And those are definitely good, almost like headlines or headers that you can use to create content under those themes. I think that works out well. One other thing I want to touch on a little bit today is inspiring loyalty among followers. We're an instant gratification generation. I think you said that earlier. How do we keep people loyal? How do we keep people interested in content. I mean, it comes out 24/7,

Erin Bovell  24:45

I was listening to something recently, and the person said, I'm not entirely sure if it's factual, but in particular, with I think either Wimbledon or something or the other, they put out over 1000 bits of content within. In one series of an open like, if you're having, I don't know, a couple of matches, when I think of 1000 bits of content, that's how much I probably could produce a year. And I feel like we even produce that much. So when you say, like, content is coming out, like Bush, it really is these days. And you know, being able to incite loyalty within customers, I think, is very much based off of knowing your authentic story and knowing, I think we talk about it from a standpoint of the is it USPS unique selling points? Yeah, like, you have to know that this is a unique ability within you. Yeah, there are 8.2 billion people in the world, and there's probably just as much businesses that have been created, whatever you could possibly conceptualize. It's already out there. Yeah. Like, that's the fact. The question really more so is, how can I tell that story with this thing? I don't think that we as brands, businesses, solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, enterprises, should focus so heavily on a product only. We are really selling emotions. And if you look at the bigger brands, you'll recognize that they do exactly that, you know, like Nike, for example, with their slogan, just do it. They're really selling athleticism. They're they're selling that you are able to be greater than what you think in your head. Push past all those negative thoughts and just do it, you know. And I feel like, if you look at other brands and you kind of go down the list, you'll recognize if you focus more on selling the emotion you want people to feel that ties in with your authenticity, that ties in with the loyalty of the customer base that you will have,

Carlie Robinson  26:50

I think, I think that's a good point. It's almost like the product itself. Let's say they're all the same. There's really no difference. What the person is buying into is you? Yeah, the story that you've told them about who you are. Sometimes people will make the purchase based on the thought that they Oh, I like this person. We share the same ideas. Or this company, we share the same ideals. Yeah, we have the same community mindset. 

Erin Bovell  27:14

I can see myself in this product, in this service, and I will come to that person just because of that. Yeah, yeah,

Carlie Robinson  27:27

I've had a really great time talking to you today. I definitely, like I said, brings the energy in the room and very on topic, you're definitely somebody who's always been very authentic and continues to be so in your work and in your own in your own company. Um, before we close out, like, what's next for you? What are you working on now? What are the big projects coming up? Anything fun?

Erin Bovell  27:50

I mean, so much fun is happening. I'm even a little bit nervous to even talk about it. But you know what? In the aspect of being authentic, I'm manifesting my teacher, there will be events from Flower coming pretty soon. Definitely newness. I'm very excited. I've been talking to the girls for a while, and I've been saying I feel like I am the brand, the company, is in a transitional phase, and I am looking to really challenge myself and step out of just the choreographic realm that I've been in and start doing more and serving the community as I really wish to like I want to continue to dive more into Feminine Empowerment and that kind of thing. So look out for some floor work events, for sure. Stand up on radio two

Carlie Robinson  28:36

I love to hear you want to keep the radio.

Erin Bovell  28:38

I appreciate you so much. Yeah, more to come there as well. Love to develop some new shows. Carly, yes, I said I wanted to get into radio, but I did not also getting into radio. Man. I had to create my own ideas and my shoes. Shameless plug right here. Anybody that would like to sponsor idea?

29:00

Yes, and what else. Just continuing to live in my most authentic being and just, I have a slogan. I want to get paid to play. 

Carlie Robinson  29:13

This is your mantra before bed on the night, yes,

Erin Bovell  29:17

my mantra for bed when I, you know, when I take off the little makeup or whatever. I don't really wear a mask. Don't mind that when I when I decide to decompress, and I light a candle, like talking to myself, and I put it on a little sultry music, little the little um, the hurts, you know, I mean the whatever for her chakra disrespected the spiritual community. I used to say I want to get paid to play, because when I feel like it's play, then literally, abundance will come. Oh yeah, you know, I want to put that out to everyone.

29:47

29:47

Carlie Robinson  29:48

I love that. Erin, I really hope that you are dancing in the abundance in the near future. Thank you so much for joining me. This has been talk Digi to Me.