Nicole (00:00):
Hi everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of Pixie Dust & Profits. I’m Nicole.

Yasmine (00:04):
And I’m Yasmine.

Nicole (00:05):
And today we’re going to be talking about promotion from within. And we don’t mean job title promotion, we mean marketing. And this is all about how you can use the inside of your business to promote other pieces of your business. And I think that this often gets branded as content repurposing, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about rewriting something you’ve already done or distributing a blog post as an email and a social media post. We’re talking about actually hard promoting your other products, tools and resources within other products, tools and resources. So let’s give you the inspiration behind this episode and then we’ll talk about all these business lessons we have for you.

Yasmine (00:51):
So it all stemmed from seeing that Jamie Lee Curtis, Owen Wilson and Keith Stanfield were at the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland to promote the upcoming film, which I mean it’s, it’s out now. Haunted Mansion, I’m just gonna say is like one of my favorite, like classic Disney rides. And part of the reason is because there’s so much like fun lore behind it. Like aside from like going into the doom buggies and everything, there’s like so much interesting history, which a lot of which stemmed from the original ride at Disneyland and like we’ve been on Nicole.

Nicole (01:26):
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think one of the interesting things for me, haunted Manchin was one of those things that terrified me as a kid because of the elevator room. And so I never really went on it. And then I started watching some of those behind the scenes with the imagineers that’s on Disney Plus and they had a whole episode about the Haunted Mansion and it was really fascinating to hear how the imagineers basically had two competing thought processes behind Haunted Mansion, where like, where some people were like, it needs to be scary, it’s a haunted ride. And some people were like, it has to be funny. It’s, you know, we’re Disney and so goofy. It kind of became this like clash. But they made both work somehow. So if you go on the ride, you can tell that there’s a distinct point where things turned from like spooky to just comical really. So yeah, it’s, it’s a good ride. It’s a staple. I have not had the opportunity to go on the re themed version that is the Nightmare before Christmas, but that sounds really fun. My brother was supposed to go and experience that, but they couldn’t get Oggie Boogie Bash tickets, so they decided to try again next year.

Yasmine (02:34):
Yeah, that I’ve done the Nightmare before Christmas version multiple times at Disneyland specifically. And it is it’s an adventure all on its own is what I’ll say. I just, wait,

Nicole (02:47):
Wait, wait. Like let’s go back though. Like talk about using your own stuff and repurposing it, right, right, right. Like they, they’re, they’re bringing in just for the month and it draws people in just for that. So, you know, our last episode was about limited time seasonal offers. This is about like using your own things for other things like Disney to Yeah. Using your

Yasmine (03:05):
Own IP and re theming rides, which Disney does quite a bit. Across various rides. They’ll have like special edition versions of the rides like with the like Ghost Space Mountain, which again isn’t necessarily a specific ip, but they once had like a Star Wars overlay on Space

Nicole (03:22):
Mountain. Yeah, it was in Paris.

Yasmine (03:24):
Yeah to Space

Nicole (03:25):
Mountain.

Yasmine (03:26):
Yeah. Super cool. So what inspired this episode was the fact that they had the stars from the movie at the ride to promote the ride. And like this isn’t something new for Disney. Disney frequently brings in their actors from live action versions of things to promote an upcoming film because so many Disney movies are attached to Disney attractions. One of our favorite examples of this was back when like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were all the rage, Johnny Depp would occasionally just like pop over to Disneyland. And the last part where you’re like now with the updated ride leaving, I’m trying to say like the, what is it? Like the

Nicole (04:06):
Leaving the,

Yasmine (04:07):
Just the end of the ride. Yeah, you’re, and right, so the last part of the ride when you’re just about to like leave the ride you see a Johnny Depp replica sort of like, you know, sitting on top of the Arch and like looking at you and Johnny Depp would actually go in and like, you know, be in places where like fake Johnny Depp is on the ride. And it was like super cool and it caused like a lot of publicity for the film but also the riot itself ’cause people then wanted to go to Disneyland to see if they can actually spot Johnny Depp.

Nicole (04:41):
I think what made the one about Haunted Mansion really fun is that it was multiple actors. Yeah. It wasn’t just, I mean the Johnny Depp one kind of felt like he wanted to do that for fun ’cause he loved that character so much and so he would just show up and get in full garb and and do this promotion. But the Haunted Mansion was obviously very intentional and there’s something about seeing Jamie Lee Curtis in the cast member uniform. Yeah. For Haunted Mansion. ’cause I think they were, I’m sure they weren’t operating the ride, but I think they were kind of like helping out as if they were cast members for the ride. Which I just think is a fun way to do it because it probably isn’t the type of ride they could have gotten them into an exhibit on that you could actually

Yasmine (05:20):
See

Nicole (05:20):
Them. Because

Yasmine (05:21):
Haunted

Nicole (05:21):
Mansion definitely has a lot of, like when you pass this point, the light is gonna be on a different focal point. So it’s not like they could jump into the set but a lot of fun here. And you know, you’re already in Disneyland, you’re already walking around, you probably had no idea this was happening. It’s not like they pre-announce these. Maybe if the premiere was like that coming weekend or something you might expect there, there might be mentions of it. So this is what we’re talking about where you’re in one product and you find out about another product and because you had that special experience with the first one, you’re like, oh I saw Jamie Lee Curtis, I’m gonna go see that movie. You might not have seen it otherwise. So it’s kind of that promotion within a promotion and some of the ways that this comes out in your business, and I’ll give an example because I have someone who’s working on this right now.

Nicole (06:09):
She’s putting together her first course and she’s working on teaching people different things and I said make sure at the end when you’ve done filming all of the tutorial and all the learning and all the training stuff, you go back and film your introduction. You can do the introduction first if you want, but I think it helps to go through all of the material and record all of that and then record your introduction. Because in that video you can say, Hey welcome to the program while you’re in this program you’re going to learn X, Y, Z. And you know what that is because you’ve already recorded it. And if you’re looking for the more advanced topics here, you know, I’ve got another product over here, it’s this course, you know, that’s not for right now, but I just want you to know it exists so that when you’re ready for it after this course, ’cause after this course you’re gonna learn all of these things. You’ll be ready for it, that’s over there. And obviously it not that quick. You can talk about it in different ways, but just kind of previewing what the next step is after the step they’re currently in. And so that’s a promotion for another product inside the product that they’re using. And so I want you to think about things like that and how you can incorporate more of that in your business.

Yasmine (07:18):
So similar to the point Nicole was making a lot of the time, you know, if someone joins a program, if you have an ascension model in your business, which we talk about at length on this podcast ’cause it’s something we believe all businesses should have, you need to have a pathway for them to go to next. And talking about what that next step is is so crucial and so important. You know, once they finish like, you know, an course that’s more or programs more targeted at someone who’s in the beginning stages of whatever you are teaching, you want to them to know what they have to do next to get to the most advanced stages. Maybe it’s going to a more advanced course, maybe it’s joining a mastermind, maybe it’s joining a membership where they can get, they can get ongoing support. It’s really important to really lay out what that next step is and what that pathway is so they can continue working with you. Because what you don’t want is to give them that you know, baseline of information and have them implemented and when they want to take it to the next level, start seeking out what that next level is and not immediately thinking of you. You may think like, oh they’re in my universe, they know this exists. It goes back to the old marketing adage of like, you have to say something seven times before it actually like sinks into someone’s head.

Nicole (08:33):
Well and then sometimes the other part of the what emails you have coming out in your newsletter might not match up or where that person is in your course or Exactly. Or whatever product they’re experiencing. So you might we’re all bad at promoting ourselves, so you might not even be talking about the thing that is there next level for a long time because you’re not planning another promotion for that for four or five months.

Yasmine (08:55):
Exactly.

Nicole (08:55):
So if you embed it in all the other things, it’s right there in front of their face for when they’re ready for it.

Yasmine (09:00):
Mm-Hmm. . Exactly. Maybe it’s like mentioning that this course is available and if it’s something that you only open up like once a year, the call to action is like, get on the wait list. ’cause At least they’re taking that initial step and they’re gonna receive your promotions when you know things open up again. So always make that next step clear because you wanna remain top of mind when people need you. And I can think of like countless times where this has happened, even with products like physical products, you know, you might buy something for one trip and then next like, you loved it so much, next trip, you wanna think of that brand again. So letting ’em know like the other things that you have available. I’m talking about Disney shops in particular in this example, it is helpful for me, like I travel a fair amount, a little bit less so now that I have a kiddo, but still a fair amount.

Yasmine (09:52):
And like one thing that I loved was I had bought like a duffel that also turns into a garment bag from a brand. And in my order there’s like a little like sort of brochure thingy of like the other items that they have in their line, like suitcases and stuff. And when it came time for me to like upgrade my luggage, I was like, I love this bag so much, the quality is so good. And I remember that like, oh right, they also have this. So I went immediately to them even though it was like almost a year later when this need came about, just because I like had literally glanced through the marketing material at the time and thought about, oh, that’s cool that they have that. Maybe I’ll keep ’em in mind when I need new luggage, when I need new luggage. I didn’t bother searching because I was so pleased with the quality of this one big, I felt like I would get a good deal and a good product if I purchased from that company again and I did. So promote your products from within is so, so, so important.

Nicole (10:50):
Yeah. Especially if someone doesn’t opt to purchase that right away. Mm-Hmm. , you still need to come

Yasmine (10:55):
Back to it. You wanna plant a seed, you wanna plant the seed. It’s better to do that than not be top of mind at all when they’re thinking of making that purchase.

Nicole (11:04):
I think the other thing that goes along with this is sometimes this is the work that you don’t think about if you’re doing content consistently, which most of us probably are not, but some of us are, you know, sending a monthly email, writing a blog a month, that type of thing. If you’re doing content consistently, are you going back to that content? Are you linking back to mm-Hmm products that have been created since that resource was made? Are you linking to other blog posts that you’ve made since then that are related, like planting the seed, getting the related content in there? And I mean, I would say that the contract shop did a lot of this where we’d go back to old blog posts that were still getting traction from Pinterest clicks and we would update them to make sure they linked to new contracts that exist that didn’t exist previously that were related to that topic.

Nicole (11:57):
Just going back to your old content and, and kind of weaving a web where someone who is there and who is interested is going down the rabbit hole. You need to build the rabbit hole. It doesn’t just happen. They sometimes people can be reading a blog and they’ll click the menu bar and go somewhere else, but very rarely they’re gonna click the link that’s right there. So builds the rabbit hole. If you’re just putting things out there and never linking back to another resource. I’m gonna challenge you to think about what else do I have that I can point to from this.

Yasmine (12:32):
So thank you again for joining us for another episode. I hope you learned that there are many ways that you can drive your existing customers to other products. So whether they’re ready right then or ready in the future, they will think of you when they need to make that next purchase.

Nicole (12:47):
If you wanna hear more from us, make sure to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast episodes. And go ahead and send us a DMM or follow us on Instagram. We’re at @pixiedustandprofits and we would love to hear from you. We love chatting Disney, we love chatting business. So just send us a message. We’re happy to chat and we’ll see you real soon.

Yasmine (13:08):
Bye.