Mindful School Marketing: Finding a great podcast co-host

Forming a successful partnership in business might be the most powerful, yet, most challenging things to do right.

This goes beyond simply linking to each others business or handing over the occasional customer referral. I’m talking about two (or more) partners both handling responsibilities and working towards a shared goal for the overall mission.

Tara Claeys, founder of Design TLC, has a certain knack for this stuff. She co-hosted the WordPress podcast Hallway Tracks along side Liam Dempsey and is now laying down the roots with a new partner in podcasting, Aubrey Bursch.

So I think it goes a little something like this: Aubrey invests her knowledge and experience with Easy School Marketing into the podcast content, while Tara flexes her strengths in design, compassion and years of podcast experience.

Together they host Mindful School Marketing, The Go-To Podcast for Independent School Professionals.

Transcription

Tara Mindful School Marketing Matt Report + 2

[00:00:00] This episode of the Matt report is brought to you by mal care. Learn more about Malik here at Dot com. You’ve heard me talk about mal care before, but they’re back with some interesting updates. Not only are they the WordPress plugin with instant WordPress malware removal. Well, let me read some of these features. 

[00:00:15] Deep malware scanning. They know about malware that other plugins don’t. Number two, that one click malware removal process makes it super easy to remove from your WordPress website and number three, a new feature called auto bot ultra defense system. Okay. I made that ultra defense system part up, but get this, it automatically blocks the bots hitting your website. 

[00:00:35]So, not only does that protect your website, but in the long run, it’ll improve speed of your site from not letting those bots through the doors. Check out mal care at care.com that’s mal care.com. I don’t want to be a malware specialist. You don’t either check out mal. care.com. thanks for supporting the show

[00:00:56]Matt: [00:00:56] episode of the Matt report is brought to you by search WP. Find search [email protected]. Let’s talk about the power of their metrics. Add on for a moment. Since I redesigned the Matt report website, I put search front and center on my homepage. Why search WP metrics metrics. Give me the inside data to what visitors on my site are looking for.

[00:01:18] I love the graphs and the actionable advice that it provides me. I can make informed decisions to create new content or optimize existing content that my audience is searching for. Remember when Google gave you all of that search data? Yeah, it was great. Back then, way back then when they gave it to us, they don’t give it to us anymore.

[00:01:36] Put on-site search front and center for your visitors. Get that data back. Get searched [email protected] along with their metrics. Add on that search wp.com. Thanks for supporting the show.

[00:01:49] Forming a successful partnership in business might be the most powerful, yet most challenging things to do. Right. That’s probably an understatement of the year. This goes beyond simply linking to each other’s businesses or handing over the occasional customer referral. I’m talking about two or more partners, both handling responsibilities and working towards a shared goal for the overall mission. 

[00:02:10] Tara clays, founder of design TLC has a certain knack for this stuff. She co-hosted the WordPress podcast hallway tracks alongside Liam Dempsey, and is now laying down roots with a new partner in podcasting, Aubrey Birch. So I think it goes a little, something like this. Aubrey invests her knowledge and experience with easy school marketing into the podcast content while Tara flexes her strengths and design compassion, and years of podcast experience. Together. They host mindful school marketing, the go-to podcast for independent school professionals. 

[00:02:40]You’re listening to the Matt report, a podcast for the resilient digital business builder. Subscribe to the newsletter at maryport.com/subscribe and follow the podcast on apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts better yet. Please share this episode on social media. We’d love more listeners around here. 

[00:02:56] Okay. Let’s talk to tara and aubrey and why they started this [00:03:00] crazy podcasting thing that they 

[00:03:02] Tara: [00:03:02] First of all. Thanks for that. Nice mention and hallway chats is really a labor of love that Liam Dempsey and I did for three years. And I think that was it a great experience for us and introduced me to podcasting and it was a complete community donation, there was no business development involved with it at all.

[00:03:21] And so, and we loved it and I continue to love it. But As time went on during that three-year period of time, I started niching down my own WordPress agency to do work for mainly schools and nonprofits. And as part of that process reached out and met other people in the school, community, marketing community, Adria among them.

[00:03:38] And she and I have been in a mastermind for over a year now. And so we struck up a good friendship and also collaboration, our services sort of overlap. And so the long answer is that we in that. In that relationship that we built as hallway chats was sort of winding down. I really didn’t even miss a beat before reaching out and seeing if Abby would like to do a podcast that that was directed toward our, our common target audience, but also that we could have fun doing as well.

[00:04:12]So there is a business development aspect of this for us, as well as a community aspect as well.

[00:04:18]Matt: [00:04:18] The, yeah, you’ve obviously have a knack for finding.

[00:04:25] Great co-hosts, which is not an easy feat in the podcasting world. It’s one that I have failed miserably at for about nine years as a podcast. It’s like just trying to find somebody who just wants to talk to me for an hour every week. What’s wrong with that.

[00:04:39] Shouldn’t be that difficult. It’s very difficult. Aubrey, I’m going to pass the question over to you. Is this your first time into podcasting? And if so, how did you feel 

[00:04:49] joining 

[00:04:50] Aubrey: [00:04:50] And it’s been a blast. And I am so thankful every day that Tara actually asked me to do a podcast with her because I was thinking around February, 2020, I was like, I should launch it. Podcast. And I’m so glad I didn’t act on that first impulse because Tara’s kind of taken me under her wing and really like showed me everything that goes into, preparation for a podcast, execution, everything.

[00:05:15] And it’s just been a great learning process for me. And also Tara?

[00:05:19] is one of the most generous, amazing. Like solid people you’re you’ve ever met. I, as you probably know, Matt. And so we just kind of hit it off in terms of, understanding each episode and what our flow was with the episode.

[00:05:34] And so we jumped right in and she’s been just such a great guide and such a great co-host. I couldn’t have asked for a better one and I’m so grateful for the opportunity for sure. 

[00:05:45]Matt: [00:05:45] I’m looking at the website right now. Mindful school marketing.com seven episodes in you probably have a couple others you haven’t finished and uploaded yet. Has there been one major surprise to you Audrey about this whole podcasting thing, [00:06:00] something more challenging or more exciting than you

[00:06:03]Aubrey: [00:06:03] Well, I would say the challenging

[00:06:04] thing is I guess when you have a co-host and it’s not a challenge, it’s more like putting together the pieces, right? Like we’ll be talking and we’ll be typing in the chat. Sometimes we’ll be like, oh, like, okay, this is conversation is going. Do you want to ask the next question?

[00:06:17] Or should I, and so that I had never, I’ve never, Co-hosted or co interviewed anyone. So that was, I don’t want to say it was a challenge, but it was like a new experience. And just what was it challenging and rewarding? I would say this whole, just the people we meet, it’s just amazing, like the, the little hidden gems that they sprinkle throughout their conversation.

[00:06:37] I just feel like, my bookshelf has grown tremendously because we always ask like a question about like, what’s your favorite book? Or like, what book would you Recommend for the high school curriculum or something like that. And we are getting some great books in there and like, there’s, what is it?

[00:06:52] The anglers fly fishing, person we add on. That’s just fantastic stuff. Things come up like really good conversations that, in this busy life that we live, it’s so rare to kind of dive deep in like center and focus on, on someone for like 30 or 40 minutes. So it’s been fantastic. 

[00:07:08]Matt: [00:07:08] I feel like just picture like a smoke-filled bar and me and Tara, just sitting at the bar with our whiskies going, oh, she’s got, oh, that’s what she thinks right now until, until we’re on like episode 20. And, and then Arby’s. The whole demeanor changes about podcasting. This sucks. Why didn’t you tell me to do this, that’s exactly what we’ll hear in about three months, but Hey, everything’s great right now. 

[00:07:30] Tara, how much of your. Of doing the hallway chats and, and marketing and everything you’ve done up until this point in your career. Did you, how did you funnel into, I’m going to read the byline of the podcast right now, the go-to podcast for independent school professionals.

[00:07:45] There’s no messing around. We know what this is about. How did you come to this and what are some tips for people who are struggling to get a premise 

[00:07:54] Tara: [00:07:54] well, I think there are a

[00:07:55] couple of things. Aubrey has a great personality. She’s got so much energy that I think it’s really easy to work with her and to have a team that way. So thinking about going to your question about, choosing co-hosts and Liam and I had a similar kind of, we each covered the basis, I think.

[00:08:10] For this podcast, positioning ourselves that way. One of the things that we thought about a lot was the fact that there were really no other women in this space doing a podcast. And that a lot of the people that, that do these jobs, these marketing jobs within schools, private schools, independent schools are women.

[00:08:28]So we saw an opportunity there to bring a sensibility that we have as moms, as women entrepreneurs, as women in general too. Should this space. So I think that sets us apart from there. Aren’t that many, to be honest, like enrollment related podcasts for schools like this. So, there was an opportunity there, but I think what we wanted to do was to, to feed our own sensibility that we learned about each other during the, our mastermind.

[00:08:56]As we’ve gotten to know each other, is that. We’re both super [00:09:00] interested in. Self-improvement like, we both love all the books about that. Oh, we’re we just are. Really can’t get enough of that kind of thinking , and to have that mindset and apply it to any job, you can, this podcast could be the, anything mindful school marketing podcast, really, because it is about, I there are specific things, certainly that we.

[00:09:21] Talk about that are related to challenges that schools face, but in general, to do a good job at anything, you have to be mindful about it. And so it’s been really fun for us to talk to people who, who deal with that. People who work with different personality assessments and continuous learning and self-improvement type stuff.

[00:09:43] And it also has helped us. I think we identify. The roles that we play in this podcast partnership based on those types of personalities. So it’s a really, well-rounded I think conversation that we have in general on the podcast. And that’s what I think makes it a go-to podcast is that it’s not one, it’s not one week after another, about Facebook ads and marketing funnels and stuff like that.

[00:10:05] It’s it really, we touch on those things, but we also bring into it lifestyle stuff, which is really 

[00:10:10] great. I think. 

[00:10:12] Matt: [00:10:12] is this a fair statement? In the WordPress space? And RB, I’m not sure how much you know about WordPress podcasts, but there are many, there are many, sometimes too many, sometimes not enough, but there’s like probably 20, at least reoccurring WordPress podcasts and as exciting and as large as the WordPress market is.

[00:10:34]Folks like Tara and I, there’s very few of us who actually care so much about the inside baseball of WordPress to do a podcast. And that is to say that a lot of folks show up on Tara’s old podcast, my podcast, other podcasts, it’s the same person doing the same, routine and there’s nothing wrong with it.

[00:10:51] It’s just that the listener, the audience says. I heard her story on this other podcast. I’ll skip this episode or I heard his thing over there. I’m going to skip this episode. Do you feel a little bit of that? Not to put words in your mouth, Tara, this is a long way of getting it. Do you feel like that’s alleviated when you’re doing a podcast like this?

[00:11:10] Because it’s so concrete, it’s so precise versus the

[00:11:14] hallway chats. 

[00:11:14]Tara: [00:11:14] I would say what hallway chats was designed to absolutely. Get around that. So we talked to people who didn’t share their story before in this case, I think because we’re not talking to people who are only in that space. We the people who are listening to our show, maybe haven’t heard that story before, because they’re not familiar with that person.

[00:11:35] So, in WordPress, there are the WordPress people who, people, the stories who we’ve heard and who are super smart and have great things to share on podcasts. But if you brought in somebody from Squarespace or, some other kind of web world, they would. They may be famous in their world or popular or well-known, but they’re coming into a new environment.

[00:11:55] So I kind of see that. I don’t know ABI 

[00:11:57] if you agree, but we’re not just talking to 

[00:11:59] people in the

[00:11:59] school 

[00:12:00] [00:11:59] Aubrey: [00:11:59] yeah, I would absolutely agree. I think that’s what makes it really interesting. And I think valuable for people listening are independent school market because they are used to hearing from the same people over and over in the space and by Making our podcast about so much more than just, delivering the hardcore marketing behind and for independent schools, I think that’s really opened the doors to some very interesting conversations and some unique guests that our audience would not hear from 

[00:12:27] otherwise. 

[00:12:28]Matt: [00:12:28] Aubrey on the marketing side, pass the questions back to you on the marketing side. Is there anything that you’re doing on a. Or how you think or how you approach or how you edit the show on either a per episode base or just podcasts from a 50,000 foot view. Anything you’re doing specifically on marketing to make sure that I hate to say the word return on investment, because a lot of people in the podcasting space get caught up in that three letter acronym, but is there anything you’re doing hyper-specific on the marketing side to say every episode that goes out is a chance for us 

[00:12:59] to get 

[00:13:00]Aubrey: [00:13:00] And please tear, add to this. I would say it’s a lot about brand awareness for us at this point. And we’ve strategically made sure that? we’re sending to an email list. We share it on our email lists. We have our guests share the podcast on their platforms. We use it at least I use it as an entry way also to other speaking engagements too, because it adds to your credibility in the space.

[00:13:22] Immediately. Oh, you have a podcast. It’s a great conversation starter too. So, we’ve definitely utilized obviously the social platforms to promote it. And then some of our colleagues have shared it on their lists too, which they have quite large lists. So it’s really been quite easy. I would say to promote at this point just naturally using using the resources we already have. 

[00:13:44]Matt: [00:13:44] Yeah, my full-time job is at a podcast hosting company and fielding questions from, beginner, podcasters and veteran podcasters alike. And a lot of the questions are around monetization advertisement, sponsorship. How many downloads do I need before Coca-Cola knocks on the door and says, we want to sponsor your podcast.

[00:14:01] It’s like, well, get in line with the rest of us. So you’re either going to do direct sales or you’re going to find a creative way to do it. What people often forget is the relationships that you build in the random opportunities that show up because you have a podcast.  I can’t even account how many dollars that has added up for me over, eight or nine years as a podcast, or it’s tremendous, very hard to measure, very hard to rely on, but it happens.

[00:14:31] It’s almost like if you. Yeah. Like you can do a podcast and nobody can listen, but they just know you do a podcast. And they’re like, oh yes, they’re putting in the work over there. But if you ever stopped doing a podcast, they’d be like, oh, they gave up, oh, why do they give up? Just the mere fact that you do a podcast heightens your investment in. 

[00:14:50] Tara: [00:14:50] Yeah, that’s an interesting point. Actually, when you say that I’m thinking about it because our podcast is relatively new. We launched with four episodes and we’ve had, about, we’re doing two per month. So yeah. When we [00:15:00] look at the download numbers, it, they’re not huge at this point. And so if you focus only on the download numbers, I think then you’re, it’s going to be harder to translate that to that return on investment.

[00:15:11] But what you’ve described, what ABI was talking about, just the, the authority that it brings to each of us and to us as a team is I think not measurable, but really, really helpful. And that’s probably right now at this phase in our. Podcasting career is, is the key. And then once that grows and then the downloads, I think will follow because people will know more about us.

[00:15:33] So, and we haven’t delved into sponsorship yet, but that’s on our list. That’s something I don’t have experience with because we didn’t do that on holiday chat. So 

[00:15:40] I’ll be reaching out to you, Matt, for help when we get to that point. 

[00:15:44] Matt: [00:15:44] Yeah, well, this is an, it’s an interesting segue, cause I literally have your sponsorship page in front of me. Cause I wanted to talk about this. It’s sponsored by of course the both of you. So you have easy school marketing and design TLC, but this is very interesting because I’m interested to know how you balance and I know you.

[00:16:01] I know you’re obviously both not shouldering to have the best call to action up in front of everybody every time. Like it’s my turn this week, or maybe you do a interested to learn like design TLC has a special offer. Take our free website test, right? So you can click and get that. Or easy school marketing has joined our free virtual monthly school leaders, power hour meetups, two vastly different sort of call to actions and values split amongst two.

[00:16:26] Co-hosts kind of interesting. Have you seen some good. Return on. I know it’s young, still seven episodes in, but it’s an interesting way to think about it. How did you think about it? And will you go to the

[00:16:38] paid sponsorships? 

[00:16:39] Tara: [00:16:39] Do you want me to answer that Aubrey? So I built the website and we did is, did a sponsorship page. And so it was really, to be completely blunt, it was the natural way to put content on that page was to have us each put our own information because right now, yes, we are funding it and producing it.

[00:16:55] And so we are the sponsors of it. We’re not driving traffic to that page. I think. Once we have a little bit more time and downloads under our belt, then the plan is to go to some authoritative companies within the school marketing space and, and, and share some sponsorship package ideas with them. But we are not quite there yet.

[00:17:19] And I think That’s something that we need to think about and plan, I always had this issue with, with hallway chats or issue concern. I want to make sure that any sponsorships, I see them also as endorsements. And so, I think you have to be particular about that. And especially in these times that you’re choosing companies that you feel good about having involved this year podcast.

[00:17:43] So that’s, that’s a key element 

[00:17:44]Matt: [00:17:44] When I booked on your calendar, it was like three months out or something like that. You had, you have a pretty good pipeline already of shows. Do you feel like you’re already getting booked too far out ahead?

[00:17:55] Aubrey: [00:17:55] Think we’re in the sweet spot 

[00:17:57] right now. The w w what we did was we [00:18:00] actually intentionally batched as many episodes as possible, and the first couple of months it was a whirlwind, but actually it was really good. And I think good practice for me being new to podcasting. To do that.

[00:18:12]And we strategically set the episodes to go the more timely ones, obviously we’ll go before the ones that are more timeless. So I think we’re set and we’re set for the summer, which I think was key to both of us who are looking for work-life balance which we talk about on our show. So we’re living it too.

[00:18:30]And then we have a funnel for potential guests that we want to have on. Moving forward into the fall, like, and we’ll start reaching out to them and then creating another batch wave. I think that’s key for us. My schedule is incredibly busy. I know Tara’s is due. So it’s, it’s really planning strategically and then making sure we have the right people in line next. 

[00:18:50]Matt: [00:18:50] Aubrey as the marketer in you, or does the marketer in you scream to say, look, I got all this content now. Like I can do clips. I can do Instagram posts. I can do top 10 episodes. Like there’s all these things I can do. Is that starting? Are you starting to get the itch for that already? As, as you start to plan and plot going into the fall 

[00:19:09] Aubrey: [00:19:09] I talk to my clients about all the time. I think we have to look at our bandwidth, and what’s realistic. So what can we do given the time and the energy and the resources that we currently have, and then figuring out strategically. Okay. Obviously I would love to do all those things, man.

[00:19:24] I’m a creative by nature and I’m a marketer and terrible tell you I’ll throw a million ideas to Sunday, right? So it’s picking and choosing which ones to use and then, putting those into practice because we can all try to be perfectionist and try to create the perfect podcast plan with the top 10 list and everything like that.

[00:19:43] But that’s, it’s just not. It’s not going to be executed well, and it’s either going to burn us out and then we’re going to lose the joy for what we’re doing. So I think that’s the key and that’s how the mindset I’m going into it with. And Tara, please feel free to chime in, but I think that’s really important.

[00:20:00] It’s like we’re doing it and we love doing it. And so we want to keep looking, do we want to keep, keep loving doing it? And so, we’re, we have to just be strategic about where our time and energy goes and what, and how we’re going to market, how we’re going to market it. 

[00:20:14]Matt: [00:20:14] is there an inverse there where the, where. I remember when I, the reason why I started well, the podcasts that we’re talking on today was to try to find a way to grow my, at the time WordPress agency, that I was running day to day. And I use the episodes as leverage in, in sales, not. You’re not a known agency, didn’t have any real brands or logos in the portfolio of recognition.

[00:20:37] So the only leverage I had was, Hey, check out these at the time, whatever 50 or 60 episodes, that was an iTunes. If you like what I’m talking about there, maybe we’ll, we should be pretty good for doing business. Have you seen it the other way around where you’re now leveraging this podcast for the business in, in specifically in sales opportunities for people to get to know you a little bit better?

[00:20:57] Tara: [00:20:57] Yeah, I think we talked about before this whole [00:21:00] idea of authority and, our tagline is the go-to podcast and there’s a great book called be the go-to that I’ve been reading, as I explored diving into this, this vertical of schools and how to, how’d you approach that it’s a very, it’s a very small market, I think relative, relatively, so becoming known in it.

[00:21:21] Requires putting your name out there and in a certain number of ways, speaking at conferences well, COVID, kind of has put the kibosh on that. And and so the podcast is a way. To build that authority. So I think I’m not sure if that’s answering your question, but I do an Abra does when, whenever we do presentations, we mentioned this podcast.

[00:21:38] I mentioned it when I’m chatting with clients about about our services prospective clients. And then there are episodes also that have good pieces of information that I think are, are easy to share. As well with existing clients. And I will point them to this episode. This is a great tidbit that we heard about Facebook advertising, check it out, that type of thing.

[00:21:59] So yeah, it’s, it’s multilevel something that will help our businesses grow. We hope right. And if not, we’re having fun and we’re sharing great information with people and meeting really cool people. So that’s, I think you have to have that perspective. We committed to a year of doing it and we’ll see what happens and, and 

[00:22:16] hopefully it’ll go on from there. 

[00:22:18]Matt: [00:22:18] Remember when you said you 

[00:22:19] Tara: [00:22:19] We did. Yeah. Each year, one at a time.

[00:22:22] Well, like you said, you have to, like, if you can’t commit to a year, you’re you shouldn’t be doing it. So 

[00:22:27]Matt: [00:22:27] Let’s shift to the, to the business side of the businesses that, that you both run. And specifically in that, in the market of, let’s just say educate, and maybe I can’t bucket this in to this category, but education school, the school department, school systems. I remember when I sold a WordPress hosting for a company called Pagely primarily to higher education, like the sales process. Was like year and a half long, to just to get, Hey, we’ve got this idea. We want to switch hosting to a year and a half later, they finally made the switch. If I was lucky when I was selling websites at my agency, just local school systems, nothing major, but local school systems, same thing, huge long drawn out decision by committee process, I guess.

[00:23:11] Rightfully so. Has COVID changed this at all for web and marketing, from what you both see in, in your respective spaces, are people moving a little bit faster or are they a little bit more open to being flexible or is it same thing? 

[00:23:24] Same day

[00:23:25]Aubrey: [00:23:25] COVID change has changed many things in the educational space. Both public and private. And so. The clients that I work with, which are mostly private school heads of school for small and medium sized independent schools. It, I think this time period has, has opened their eyes to the necessity of marketing.

[00:23:46]A lot of schools unlike businesses. Well, that’s not true. Some businesses are like this too, but haven’t really expanded their marketing dollars or marketing team. To meet the new needs of what marketing looks like [00:24:00] now. And with independent schools, what a lot of schools saw was that in spring 2020, They sell massive attrition.

[00:24:06] And so there was a scrambling during that summer to really market hard. And then a lot of what happened was, some public schools went back virtual and so then the private school sector saw a swing in the opposite direction with enrollment. So I do think there’s, there’s been at least over the past two years, I’ve really seen schools more likely to embrace.

[00:24:28] Marketing efforts. And to truly understand that they might have an admissions team of like two, but the marketing is like half a person. Who’s also the receptionist who does like 18 other things. Like they’re seeing the need to really grow, grow that and expand and use strategies that are not necessarily used traditionally in independent schools. 

[00:24:50]Tara: [00:24:50] Yeah, I would echo that and I work specifically on their websites, obviously. So, I’ve seen. I’ve seen people holding off and also refreshes and updates are tricky because all of the content that they have is from the past year, if they want to update their photos and stuff, all the kids have masks on.

[00:25:08] And so how do you deal with that? You have to bring in people over the summer and do different Photo shoots and things like that. So I think schools are trying to balance the reality of the future with the present and the recent past in their communication strategy and in their messaging and their imagery and all of that type of thing too.

[00:25:29] So, and, and because we work mostly with small private schools, it’s different than higher ed for sure. Way different. I’ve done a little bit with higher ed and yeah, that is a whole different ball game. One of the. One of the blessings. One of the things I love working with the organizations that I work with is that they are small.

[00:25:47] So they actually can pivot really fast. And that really helps them during COVID because they were able to make really quick decisions. And they were the schools that were doing hybrid or doing in person. And so a lot of them had a really great year with enrollment because a lot of families wanted their kids in school.

[00:26:04] it’s really makes it easier working with them because they can make those decisions. They don’t have to go through five levels, same way with a public school. Also, you have boards and, and, and just word of education and all of that to go through. So, so they’re nimble, which 

[00:26:17] is nice.

[00:26:18]Matt: [00:26:18] I had some friends that I have young children. They’re not, my oldest will be going into kindergarten this year. But I had some friends that have their kids are older, but they’re in private school like elementary level private school. And they were in, they were in class, I think probably like 90%.

[00:26:36] Throughout like this whole COVID thing. Whereas the flip side is like all my friends who have kids in private, in public schools, everybody was home losing their minds, trying to balance this and then the hybrid stuff. And that was, and the thing, luckily I avoided that I think going into the fall, I don’t think I’ll be dealing with that for like a kindergarten level.

[00:26:58]But it’s amazing how things like [00:27:00] this. I don’t really have a question here. It’s more of just like a. Noticing this it’s amazing how COVID shook up things that you’d never expect till it, for it to unearth like, like private schools, right? You might all of a sudden find more private schools coming online.

[00:27:16] Because of what just happened, where maybe it was reserved for high income, communities. Now you might have somebody like, Hey, it makes sense now to put my kids in private school, because it’s just a different level of service with air quotes in the air. If you’re not watching this, it’s amazing what COVID did to shake up all these different impact, these different industries,

[00:27:36] education 

[00:27:37] Tara: [00:27:37] yeah, for sure. Yep. And also doing more online stuff too. I have some clients that do after-school programming and so they had to completely pivot to offer online learning, offer cooking classes, online, developing whole curriculum. In a totally different way than they were used to doing with videos and all that type of thing.

[00:27:56] So pivoting has been a key word and in the past year, and it’s been, it’s been exciting to see some of these smaller businesses organizations accomplish that pretty smoothly. 

[00:28:08] Yeah.

[00:28:10] Matt: [00:28:10] I assume you’re still using WordPress. Aubrey, are you a diehard WordPress 

[00:28:15] Aubrey: [00:28:15] but I always send all my WordPress questions to Tara. 

[00:28:18]That’s pretty much it. I my website platform is don’t. I feel like uttering, these words might, hate mail might come my way, but like right now, my platforms on Kajabi, just because I started building out online courses on the backend, but I am not selling Kajabi, nor am I.

[00:28:34] Saying that’s your go-to WordPress is much more functional and you can do all sorts 

[00:28:38] of cool stuff with it. 

[00:28:41] Tara: [00:28:41] I’ve trained her very well. You can see. 

[00:28:43] Matt: [00:28:43] I was just about to say that sounds like Tara speaking right through her. 

[00:28:47] Tara: [00:28:47] Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:28:49] Matt: [00:28:49] so you haven’t, so you haven’t convinced Aubrey to switch to like lifter LMS and build all her 

[00:28:54] Tara: [00:28:54] no, her website’s great. And I think, I actually am looking into Kajabi a little bit just to understand what it does, because I think it is a good resource. WordPress is not for everybody and for everything. And I think we learned that more and more now. And so a lot of times. Third-party platforms that are built for a specific purpose, like membership or online courses.

[00:29:14], it’s a lot easier. It’s a lot more user-friendly and they don’t have the maintenance to have to deal with. So yeah, I think that’s fine at WordPress is a great solution for the target audience that we serve. And there are a lot of small schools who use WordPress. There are some third-party CMS is out there that that do.

[00:29:35] A really great job and they’re really, really expensive. So, some schools use Wix, some use Squarespace. Most of them use the third party system or WordPress. So there is, there is definitely a good opportunity there to, to help schools with 

[00:29:49] their WordPress websites. Yeah, 

[00:29:52] Matt: [00:29:52] it’s always interesting to see WordPress users, heads explode when they’re like somebody pays for a CMS. Well, yet, because it works and it [00:30:00] works well. And then that’s what they need at the end of the day. It’s, it’s, it’s amazing. I’ve been interviewing a lot more folks on no-code platforms, bubble web flow.

[00:30:09] And there’s another one that’s escaping escaping me right now that is very popular, but that community loves the tools that just empower them to get the job done. And they’re happy to just give up that ownership side of the code to just

[00:30:27] have it work and do the

[00:30:29] thing that they’re paying for it to 

[00:30:30] Tara: [00:30:30] I just, yeah, I just talked to a PTA president this morning, whose website I’ve been managing for a while and they had a parent redesign it and. So the licenses are all out of, they’re not on the site anymore and I’m trying to manage it and it’s just kind of a headache. And when you have organizations like a PTA that you have transition in leadership, and then you have loss of information and continuity, something like WordPress.

[00:30:54] If you don’t have a con a con. Continuous person managing it like an agency, then you can really be in trouble because all that information gets lost. Whereas if you put it on Squarespace or something like that, sorry to mention that. But I think Squarespace has a great, it serves a great need. You don’t have any of that.

[00:31:11] It’s all there. It’s all. Or some or Kajabi or whatever. You don’t have any of that. Plugins to maintain and licenses to update and all that kind of stuff. So there definitely are use cases where WordPress is not the best solution. And I’m the first person to say that as much as I love 

[00:31:26] WordPress 

[00:31:26]Matt: [00:31:26] mindful school marketing.com mindful school marketing.com. Get the podcast where everywhere, right? What else? What else can people say? Thanks. Where else can people go to say thanks for joining us on the show today.

[00:31:38]Tara: [00:31:38] I’m Tara clays on Twitter. I am a LinkedIn and design tlc.com 

[00:31:44] is 

[00:31:44] Aubrey: [00:31:44] Great. And I’m Audrey [email protected]. You can find me ABI Bursch at LinkedIn. That’s my platform of choice. 

[00:31:50]Matt: [00:31:50] Go subscribe to mindful school marketing on apple, Google, Spotify, wherever you find your podcasts, leave them a review in iTunes. Build that up. And as soon as they have their pod chaser account, okay. Even leave them a review there. It’s going to be an amazing way to find and discover other podcasts, airport.com/subscribe.

[00:32:08] Join the mailing list and we’ll see you in the next episode.


Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *