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Dave Lukas Chats with Sarah Dudley

18: Secrets of a Top 15 Millenial Influencer with Sarah Dudley

In this episode, Dave is excited to welcome Sarah Dudley. Sarah is the founder of Marketing Macros, a company that helps individuals and brands define and build their digital eminence. Helping you figure out things like - Who are you? What do you portray online? Why should people listen to you? Why should people buy your product? Sarah works with clients to help them understand what those are and how to build a digital brand.

Sarah has an MBA in Marketing from Northwestern and was named by LinkedIn as a Top 15 Millennial Influencer in 2016. In her short career, she has already made a major impact on so many companies. As Sarah says, “Marketing is the perfect intersection between psychology and business. Every day, we ask ourselves who is our audience, what do they want, and how can we give it to them in the format they prefer. We need a deep understanding of our customers and an even better understanding of how to show them, in a profound way, that we are the best people to help solve their problems.

www.Marketingmacros.com

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-dudley-54545a33

Connect with Sarah on Twitter: @saradudley3

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Show Notes

From a young age, Sarah was drawn to books. She used them as escape from the world around her. She came from a somewhat broken home. Her parents were never together and her mom had trouble with jobs causing them to move around a lot. Growing up this way was fuel for Sarah to live a better more stable life. But, books were an escape for her and she fell in love with writing and storytelling herself.

She excelled in school and when she went to college fell in love with psychology and the science of why people do what they do. She majored in business and psychology.

After some soul searching, she realized that marketing was the perfect intersection between business and psychology and went and got her MBA.

In one of her early assignments she was asked to take on social media for the company. She became addicted and started building a community and voice online.

Now she has helped small and mid-sized business, as well as executives create personal brands and provides thought-leadership. She loves helping people build their value through a digital brand.

Sarah’s Elements of a good story:

It’s relatable – tying business or products back to experiences
It ties into emotion – It pulls at people and makes you feel something
It has a call to action – it asks the reader to do something further

Sarah talks about millennials and explains that they distinctly value experiences more than things and that they are much more entrepreneurial than people think. They are bigger risk takers when it comes to following their passions.

In building a brand, Sarah talks about how one of the bigger reasons to build a brand is to take back control of what and who you are portrayed to the world, and what is out there about you. You want think about what you want to be known for or be the expert in. Then, depending on where you audience is at, those are the platforms you concentrate on. For example, if your audience is professionals, then you would focus on Linked In. Once you have this, focus, focus, focus and create your own content.

You have to put yourself out there. What could you do if you live without fear? Will you regret not doing something as much as you would doing it? Take the leap and act.

Sarah’s formula for a successful social media strategy:

It starts with consistency. You must be dedicated to taking the time and making the investment needed to gain traction
Make sure you are in tune with what works best on your social mediums and what people are responding to on them (ie. video, audio, text, etc.)
Be real. People gravitate toward authenticity
Just putting content out is not enough – make sure you are delivering content that engages them and helps them
Identify tools that you can use such as tools to schedule posts like Hootsuite or Buffer, etc.

Top tips for energizing an existing brand:

First, ask yourself if your message is realty the right one. Does it really resonate with you audience?
Is your website updated? Is it optimized for today’s user wanting instance communication or feedback?
Are you using the right content on the right mediums, especially video. Video is critical in today’s world.

Best tip for building a tribe? Be relatable and relevant to your audience and be “human” in your mediums
Up and coming platform to watch? Facebook Live (not so up and coming, but new and difference and driving the future)

Biggest lesson? You don’t have to be defined by your circumstances. You can always change them.

How can businesses engage Millennials more?

Millennials want the opportunity for their ideas to be heard and bring their experience of growing up in the digital age to their roles

Best Quote

Tweet This: “In order to get people to act, you must ask them to act.”

Identify your WHY. Make sure you know what it is and embrace it. Draw on it for encouragement. It helps you remember that there is a bigger picture.

Set Goals. Go get your goals and then set new ones. Give yourself a target to go after

Find a Mentor: Align yourself with someone you respect in different areas of your life.

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