You’ve landed on the Banowetz Marketing website. For information about Sara Leisinger of Who’s Lance Digital Media, you can find her on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
Transcription:
– [Narrator] Welcome to Sarah Squared, the podcast for all things marketing, business growth, branding, and social media. Sara Leisinger is the owner of Who’s Lance Digital Media, serving start-ups and solopreneurs. And Sarah Banowetz owns Banowetz Marketing, a full-service agency located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Together, they make up Sarah Squared, dedicated to the inspiration, motivation, and education of growing businesses. The podcast starts now.
Sara Leisinger: All right, welcome back to Sarah Squared I am Sara Leisinger.
Sarah Banowetz: And I am Sarah Banowetz.
Sara Leisinger: And together we are Sarah Squared.
Sarah Banowetz: Sarah Squared. Thanks for being here you guys.
Sara Leisinger: That doesn’t ever get old, does it?
Sarah Banowetz: Okay, let’s jump right in. Today we are talking about Who’s Lance Digital Media which is Sara Leisinger’s company.
Sara Leisinger: I’d like you to know that she sprang this on me when I walked through the door.
Sarah Banowetz: I know, I’m like we’re focusing on you today.
Sara Leisinger: Oh gosh, it’s like I said I feel like when you talk about yourself you literally have to become your own hype man, which is … it’s a bit strange. Self promotion is so strange but I’ll just talk about the company maybe.
Sarah Banowetz: But you’re not talking about yourself, you’re talking about Who’s Lance. Who’s Lance.
Sara Leisinger: Well, I kind of am Lance. Don’t tell telemarketers that though, man. When they call I tell them I’m a bottle washer.
Sarah Banowetz: So, Sara we wanna know everything about Who’s Lance.
Sara Leisinger: Oh gosh, everything?
Sarah Banowetz: Who is Lance?
Sara Leisinger: Well, he’s a jolly fellow. I’m just kidding. So, basically Who’s Lance came about, like the name itself, is that you’re?
Sarah Banowetz: Yeah let’s start there.
Sara Leisinger: Okay. So, Who’s Lance came about from that play on words. I am a freelancer and so coming specifically from there it’s just a question that I would ask myself every time. I’m someone who calls themselves a freelancer before I became one and it sounded appealing to me but I … Who’s Lance. And so it’s a question that’s always stuck with me and when I name my company it became Who’s Lance because it’s a freelance agency.
Sarah Banowetz: I love it. I love it.
Sara Leisinger: Oh my gosh. It actually caught on more than I thought it would. I guess people just remember it.
Sarah Banowetz: It’s memorable, that’s great.
Sara Leisinger: Yeah, I mean my name is Sara so I know what it’s like to have a forgettable name you can, you know the sentiment. You know the sentiment.
Sarah Banowetz: I love that we both have the same name. I spelled mine correctly.
Sara Leisinger: Oh, well I mean, if you like baggage.
Sarah Banowetz: I have an H, Sarah does not have an H.
Sara Leisinger: No. Not at all. Okay to be real, my mom said my dad was an idiot and forgot to put the H at the end of my name at the hospital. So I’m pretty sure it was a mistake but I am also pretty sure I was not a mistake.
Sarah Banowetz: No one’s ever a mistake.
Sara Leisinger: Just kidding.
Sarah Banowetz: What do you do Sara? What does Who’s Lance Digital Media do?
Sara Leisinger: Oh, well at first when we started which wasn’t too long ago honestly I had started doing, like I said, freelancing and I was freelancing doing some local SEO and also some web design and social media. And I started to figure out that if you wanted to do a deep dive into any of those areas you needed to either:
Sara Leisinger: a) Hire a staff of people or,
Sara Leisinger: b) Get a little bit more narrow to begin with.
Sara Leisinger: And so although website and SEO did appeal to me and it’s something that I keep up with in terms of knowledge and industry stuff and then trying with my on website but hey painter’s house, we’re still working on it.
Sarah Banowetz: I understand that.
Sara Leisinger: But social media was really what appealed to me the most and mainly because I really liked the people on the other side of the screen. I don’t know how else to put that. The people who are consuming content really interested me as to why they were consuming the content that they were.
Sarah Banowetz: Because you really love diving into the analytics of the digital media too, right?
Sara Leisinger: I do, I am a nerd. I am a nerd. I always tell people I had a mallet when I was a child so my personality had to develop first. So the thing is I’ve always been intrigued with people. When I was in college I was studying DNA, so what people are made of and what made them do what has always intrigued me.
Sara Leisinger: I don’t know this is, it just seemed an adequate fit to look at the analytics of different platforms and what people were doing and what they were paying attention to as a part of their social DNA. So, it’s always been at this point it’s been super, super interesting for me. I’ve started the process of exploring other platforms outside of really, really big platforms and that’s also been fun too because there’s really niche platforms out there too that cater to a really specific type of audience. So they’re not trying to catch everyone. So, that’s been fun to do actually.
Sarah Banowetz: It’s exciting.
Sara Leisinger: Yeah. So, anyway.
Sarah Banowetz: Who are your clients, Sara? Who really resonates with the services that you provide and who has the pain point that you can help solve?
Sara Leisinger: So my clients, I have three levels of clients, I have the start-up business owner who probably has more time than money, and they have more time to devote to putting into their social media. So, they usually fall in the line of being … of taking lessons and being educated.
Sarah Banowetz: So you would help educate those people?
Sara Leisinger: Yeah. Yes, I do.
Sarah Banowetz: Okay.
Sara Leisinger: So, I give lessons per platform essentially.
Sarah Banowetz: Excellent.
Sara Leisinger: And then for the people who are maybe they’ve got a bit more resources but they’re not quite ready they need somebody to help them train that in-house social media person and plant them in that company, that’s where I fall into that is I basically do social media strategy for them and I’m simultaneously training people in. So I’m in the process of, with a couple of my clients, training people in to do in-house social media for them.
Sara Leisinger: And then on the top tier that would probably … I don’t know if I don’t know if I’d call it top tier, it’s just the corporate level. I work with people who they need workshops, essentially, to either teach their employees how to properly represent them on social media. I’ve worked with a few direct selling companies that they have people, they want me to come in and teach their people how to do social media and how to brand themselves personally within a bigger brand, excuse me. And just bigger training, that would be training departments which is something that I’ve been getting requests for and so I was just like, “Well, I’ll create a service for it and we’ll see if I like it.”
Sara Leisinger: So far so good. It’s cool, it’s just people don’t realize the depth that they need to have to have an effective strategy before them for social media. So that’s been I think I spend probably the first meeting with somebody which is ranges from three to four hours just depending on because everybody’s got something to talk about as far as their social media is concerned and they usually hate it.
Sarah Banowetz: What do you mean they usually hate it? What is it that they hate?
Sara Leisinger: It’s just frustrating or irritating like the whole concept of the social media figuring out what platforms they should be on, figuring out if their current strategy is working, what is working with their current strategies, well all analytics based. But frequently people don’t know how to read their analytics, they don’t know if they … where their voice is better heard so some people are better on video, some people are better written and some people are better on audio. Some people are really good at all three. It’s totally fine like just wherever your voice is best conveyed but anyway that’s a …
Sarah Banowetz: Well, I think we’re on an interesting point in our society right now where, and tell me if I’m wrong here, but larger companies they realize they need to be doing social media and they have no idea how to even start. Like where do I put my first foot? Like having a strategy for social media is even, correct me if I’m wrong here, is even beyond them at that point. Really it’s what’s the first step I take?
Sara Leisinger: Well, and a lot of that is, so when I’m usually helping companies identify their social media personnel it would be starting social media, so someone who’s just consistently posting who I would call a poster. They’re not trying to vary content, they’re not doing A/B testing, they’re not nothing really extra it’s just if you say you’re gonna post something every Wednesday at this time, they do it. There’s not really any reading of analytics at that point, it’s just, that’s what they’re doing. The second level which I would say a lot of people call themselves is the social media manger which is they maybe know how to read some analytics, they maybe know what kind of posts get better traction or what kind of content gets better traction with the audiences on a given platform but usually not more than one platform.
Sara Leisinger: And they’re there for a purpose. I think all of these people have a purpose depending on where you are in the game. They should be able to help you build an audience. Hopefully it’s not through a likes campaign. And then I mean, like I said, reading of the analytics is super, super limited they’re maybe operating one or two platforms for you but there’s no rhyme or reason to it. It’s just you have to be on social media, so let’s put you somewhere, throw the mud up against the wall and see what sticks. I don’t know why you would want mud sticking to your wall, but anyway.
Sarah Banowetz: So, how can you help those people that are in that position right there?
Sara Leisinger: So, what I would do in that particular position is just do analysis on their … I start every person that would like to sit down and have a cup of coffee and talk about their social, we start with a social media analysis. And that includes looking at three of their platforms, whichever one builds awareness for them, whichever one builds trust for them and whichever one makes it easy for people to take action for them I’m gonna analyze three because as a strategist I build three in tandem, to create a vortex around the brand.
Sara Leisinger: Now, the reason that I do that is because from what I can see there are platforms that are related to different parts of the sales process.
Sarah Banowetz: Dive into that a little bit deeper.
Sara Leisinger: Jeez! You want me to give away all juice here? I’m just kidding.
Sarah Banowetz: Yeah. What does Garry B say?
Sara Leisinger: Huh?
Sarah Banowetz: What does Garry B say
Sara Leisinger: I don’t know. I don’t worship Garry B. I mean, I listen to him but I actually watch what he does more. It’s really interesting observing his platform.
Sarah Banowetz: Well let’s see this because we should probably wrap this up pretty quickly. We should wrap it up pretty quickly but I did wanna say one thing.
Sara Leisinger: Sure.
Sarah Banowetz: I wanna for everyone listening, you guys listen, you need to talk with Sara Leisinger because here’s the deal:
Sarah Banowetz: a) She’s very personable, I love her personality.
Sarah Banowetz: b) She makes us-
Sara Leisinger: [crosstalk 00:12:21].
Sarah Banowetz: I don’t have to say that. Sara has not paid me to say that.
Sara Leisinger: The checks in the mail.
Sarah Banowetz: Thank you. No, but number one, her personality is amazing you’re gonna love to just sit down and chat with her. Number two, she is very focused on the analytics behind the social media and I will tell you as a marketing person myself that’s huge because I’m very focused on ROI, return on investment. And I think that’s one of our shared core values is strong ROI’s on things that we do, whether it be social media for Sara or across all avenues. And I will say that for anyone out there who’s listening who does not yet I don’t know why you wouldn’t, but who does not yet see the value of marketing on social media think of this, we need to be talking to people where they’re hearing and listening, where their eyes are at and people’s eyes are on social media.
Sara Leisinger: Absolutely.
Sarah Banowetz: So, that is people aren’t reading the newspaper anymore, there scrolling through Facebook.
Sara Leisinger: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Sarah Banowetz: Right?
Sara Leisinger: Yeah.
Sarah Banowetz: So, that is where eyeballs are at and if you want to market your company that’s where you need to be at, and people are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, these are don’t get me started on Snapchat. I have teenagers, I hate Snapchat but that’s where people are at.
Sara Leisinger: It’s all about influence, man.
Sarah Banowetz: That’s where they’re at.
Sara Leisinger: And that’s one of the things is that like even with something as … so for you and I Snapchat is not like super fan because we’re older than a teenager, but because our society is going through a youthification that’s where the influence is at. So the 20-year old that is on Snapchat and I explained it to one of my clients who sells make-up who her target market is the 40 year old and up. And basically I said, “Hey, you don’t necessarily wanna run in there right away.” You do wanna figure out snap ads, but you wanna put up quality content on there first by doing some cool make-up looks. Like doing stuff that would appeal to that 20 something crowd with a big glam make-up or the fun eyebrows, or just something silly or fun or classy or chic whatever fits within your brand.”
Sara Leisinger: That way when the 40-year old mom who’s on Instagram who sees your Instagram profile says, “Hey, I’m gonna go ahead and check out this make-up artist such and so she sells such and so type of make-up. Hey have you ever heard of her?” She’s most likely gonna ask her 18, 19, 20 something year old daughter who’s all over Snapchat. And this chick has seen you on Snapchat, “Yeah mom, yeah, she’s awesome. She’s all over Snapchat. I love the look that she did the other day. Oh by the way, can you get me some mascara.”
Sara Leisinger: Please tell me that that has totally happened, that is a story that somebody experienced this week. So that platform I just treat as a place of influence. And yes, there is time and place for the ads there but the thought process towards it should be like, “Hey, where is our society at right now? Where is the attention of the influencers?”
Sarah Banowetz: Well, and I was talking to another business owner this week too and we were talking about restaurants. Similar thing with the make-up. With restaurants, they were telling me that it’s the kids, the teenagers in the car on the way to, “Hey, we’re gonna go out to eat, who, where are we going?” And the teenagers are having a strong influence on where you’re going out to eat and it needs to be top of mind.
Sarah Banowetz: So, if the kids the 14-year olds are seeing your restaurant ads on the platforms that they’re on, they’re more, they really have a strong influence on where the parents are choosing to go to dinner.
Sara Leisinger: Absolutely. Because who wants to hear a teenager whine?
Sarah Banowetz: You guys and you don’t have any idea, I think how many teenagers do I have right now?
Sara Leisinger: Two?
Sarah Banowetz: No.
Sara Leisinger: More?
Sarah Banowetz: I have four.
Sara Leisinger: Four teenagers?
Sarah Banowetz: I have four teenagers right now. The oldest is 19, the youngest is 13.
Sara Leisinger: Holy smokes woman.
Sarah Banowetz: And I also have a 12-year old who’s very much a teenager, so really I have five.
Sara Leisinger: Yeah [inaudible 00:16:13].
Sarah Banowetz: Five teenagers. I have six kids.
Sara Leisinger: I have a four year old who’s a teenager. I’m just kidding you.
Sarah Banowetz: I bet you have a four year old who’s a teenager, four year olds do think they’re teenagers.
Sara Leisinger: Yes, yes. [crosstalk 00:16:24].
Sarah Banowetz: Okay Sara for the people who want to get in touch with you, how do they do that?
Sara Leisinger: You can visit my website at www.whoslance. So WHOSLANCE.com or you can look for me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Linkedin.
Sarah Banowetz: Awesome, awesome. So next time we will dive into talking about me, I guess.
Sara Leisinger: Yes. We’re gonna talk about you.
Sarah Banowetz: My company.
Sara Leisinger: You are under the spotlight.
Sarah Banowetz: Banowetz marketing and-
Sara Leisinger: Yes, definitely.
Sarah Banowetz: So yeah, tune in next time and we will talk to you guys later. Bye.
Sara Leisinger: Bye.
Sara Leisinger of Who’s Lance Digital Media can be found on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
Sarah Banowetz of Banowetz Marketing can be found on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
