All right, welcome to episode two of the beauty biz pro podcast with Jake and Tony. And so today is gonna be an awesome podcast, we're actually ranking seven marketing platforms that you could potentially use for your beauty business because, you know, so often Tony, you know, this we get, you know, clients or, you know, VT business owners who are asking, you know, you know, should I be on Facebook? Should I be on Tik Tok? Should I do Groupon? Like, what are all these, you know, marketing platforms? What are the best ones to do? And so we're gonna rank seven today talking about having trouble doing numbers, seven, for those for those of you watching the video. So as we do this, I would love to, I'm gonna give my answer and then Tony is going to give his answer. And it might not be the same, we might have differing opinions. And as we do these platforms, I'd love to hear your personal experience. Like if you're watching YouTube, you know, comment below, like on each platform, which one do you like the best? And so number one, Tony, is going to be Facebook, what are your thoughts? What do you what do you rank Facebook for a marketing platform.

So Facebook as a marketing platform, I would absolutely rank A plus. And that's simply the fact it's still the cheapest cost per lead. And not only that, the people who are on Facebook are typically pretty transactional. And they're pretty accustomed to, you know, going to, let's say, Amazon, or eBay, looking for a product and seeing that product on Facebook, and then actually transacting, so they're accustomed to automatically transacting on Facebook, what's your what's your thought,

yeah, I'm also going to give Facebook an A plus, like, I know, Facebook's gotten hate over the years, and I've had some issues where I've had accounts shut down and etc. But at the end of the day, I think it's still the best platform for beauty biz marketing, because of multiple reasons. One, you can have two separate types of accounts, you can have a business account, and you can have a personal account. So now I know not everybody uses a personal account for business. But I know I do. Like all my friends I reach out to, you know, I post a variety of both personal and business topics on my, on my personal account. And so to me, it goes, it's multiple avenues. 

Because, you know, not everybody's just gonna look at a business page. Some people prefer that personal connection. And that's why I love Facebook. Another reason is Facebook groups. And so being able to go into groups and you know, post about your services or finding your ideal clients, or let's say that, for example, a mom group, maybe there's a lot of, you know, potential clients in that group, you could reach out to the admins and collaborate with them. And then last but not least, you're I mean, you already mentioned advertising, I love Facebook ads. 

But last but not least, is events, if you're not utilizing Facebook events, for your beauty business, you're missing out. So for example, we have a lot of permanent jewelry clients. And they might do like some kind of permanent jewelry event or pop up or grand opening, you know, instead of just, you know, posting on their personal and hoping for the best if they can actually create a Facebook event where people can be invited to it. And then not only that, they're going to get reminders like so if I click on a Facebook event, Facebook will send me notifications to remind me, hey, you have this event coming up. And so it's a really great feature that I often see that's not utilized correctly. So go ahead.

Real quick, Jake, on your point of the event, too, that's a really good point. Because let's say you're a hairstylist, beauty salon owner, or anything else in the beauty industry, and you're wanting to run a special between x day, so let's say between the first and the 15th of the month, you can actually create an event for your special and then invite people to that event for your special. So it's a great, it's also a great soft, like you said soft reminder about that event going on face was gonna automatically remind them as an event comes closer and closer to the end.

Yeah, and in his future episode on here, we're actually going to dive into Facebook groups, and Facebook events and more tactics to really help you get booked up, whether it be events or just getting clients and so make sure you're subscribed to the podcast or the YouTube channel. So you don't miss that future video. So platform number two is Instagram. Everybody loves Instagram. What are your thoughts, Tony?
So Instagram, I'm going to give it a b minus unfortunately, it I should say, unfortunately, be my still pretty good platform. However, you know, I what I often see is a lot of scroll warriors, as I call them on Instagram, a lot of people are just looking for photos looking for ideas and things like that. It's not as transactional. 

The you know, to me, it's a great portfolio, if you will, it's a great photo book. Okay. But as far as a platform where I gain clients, if you're you know, let's say you're a trainer in some part of the beauty industry, let's say you're training, you know how to do hair extensions, or your training how to do permanent makeup or, or any of those other kinds of training plot trainings that you may do in the beauty industry. That is probably an A plus platform at that point because you can literally go in and DM your exact clients. For example, let's say you're hosting an event on how to do hair extensions, right? You can literally go in and just hashtag hair stylists, Orlando, Florida, they'll pop up and you can literally send each hairstylist a invite to your event. So depends on how you're using Instagram I really feel is how we rank it for overall, just getting clients walking through your door, I rank it as a b minus. But if you're using tactfully, and we're going to be going over that as well, Jake, in future podcasts on how to tactfully use Instagram, I think it could be an A plus platform, what are your thoughts?

Yeah, I agree, I'm going to overall for like you said, for general use in business, I would give it a B, I think you gave it a b minus, I'm gonna give it a B, just because I don't think it's as useful as Facebook, because it doesn't have the events, the groups, they are coming out with some kind of group chats, but I haven't seen those be very effective yet. I do think Instagram is a very visual platform. So I think that's why a lot of our clients do love, it's because they can send their clients to it, and quickly see a lot of their work, whether it's brows or hair, or you name it. So in that way, it is good. And like you said, you can DM you know, whether it's potential clients, potential customers, you know, other business owners like that is a great way to connect with people. So I think it's a good platform, but I still prefer Facebook over it. But at the end of the day, it's good to have both because, you know, at any time, like, and I even saw this last night, one of our Instagram accounts. Luckily, it wasn't our main one, but one of our Instagram accounts got just randomly shut down. And you know, it's just, you never know when your accounts gonna get shut down. So it's good to have a variety of platforms you can be on. So that's Instagram. Now let's talk about number three, Google. What like what you want. Let me go first on this one. Yeah, I'm gonna let you go first. Go go first on that. Okay, so to me, there's two sides of Google, there's Google business, which everybody should have, because it's free. That's how you get on Google Maps. And so you, if you haven't claimed or optimized your Google business account, make sure you do that. And we try to keep these podcasts about five to 10 minutes. 

So in a future episode, we will be talking about how to optimize your Google business account and like some tips and tricks for that. So like I said, make sure you're subscribed. But as far as Google goes, I think it's great, obviously, like people search Google, they want to be on Google Maps. And did I ever actually give it a ranking? I don't think I did. I don't think you did. Oh, okay, so I'm gonna ring Google and a minus. And so if you remember, I ranked Facebook a plus, I'm gonna give Google and a minus. Now, with Google ads, I think Google ads tend to be more expensive than, say, Facebook, or Instagram ads. But sometimes they are higher intent. And so you know, people who are obviously googling your services they might be wanting to buy now and transact now. And so I do think Google is a must have platform. What are your thoughts?

So, on that point, you know, I think this is where we disagree a little bit, because I I'm actually gonna give Google platform as a whole, including Google ads, a, just a, b, because, in my opinion, Google is a little difficult to actually utilize as a new business owner, not very tech savvy. It's not it's not for the unknown, tech savvy individuals. So it can be very overwhelming. However, you know, Google ads, and specifically, are amazing. I love them. However, they're, they're about 5x, from what we see, caught what cost 5x more than what a Facebook ad would cost. So yes, Google is a great platform, in theory, for somebody googling your business, you try to rank number one, either with Google ads, or on the map pack, if you will. But I just, Google is just very cumbersome, there's a lot to know about it. And for the newer entrepreneur, or for that single business owner, just trying to get clients in the door. I don't think it's very user friendly. So that's my thought. And that's why I give it a B is just the usability of it.

Yeah, fair enough. It's definitely more complicated than Facebook or Instagram. But I will say for those who get ranked, like number one through three on Google, who are very easily found, it's like an A plus plus for them. But then for everybody else who cannot be found on Google very easily. That's where those people really need to focus on what we call search engine optimization. And I know I keep saying this, but we're also going to do a future podcast on search engine optimization. Yeah, show you how to rank higher on Google. Alright, number four. And then number four, for platform we get asked about all the time for Beauty businesses tick tock. And so I'm curious if you're watching the video on YouTube, comment below. Do you like tick tock? Do you get into the Tick Tock vibe, I know that Tik Tok is one of the newer platforms, you know, in relation to Facebook, Instagram, or Google? So Tony, what are your thoughts on tick tock for beauty businesses?

So in fact, you know, we work with a lot of beauty business owners that utilize tick tock right now, and it's very interesting because some of the beauty businesses we work with have millions of followers, right? And I talk to them on a daily basis. And they tell me, you know, Tony, I may have a million followers, but I only have maybe five or six bookings a month from it. So what that tells me is people are on Tik Tok really just to consume content, not necessarily transact. So with that being said, you know, I give Tik Tok a C. I just think it's, it's, it's a new platform that yes, it's great for brand aware In essence, great to build an audience, but to see actually transactions from it. Right now it's to me it's too soon to tell. But I think that in the future, as it evolves as more people shift away from other platforms, I think it could potentially go up my ranking.

Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned like right now, like the key word right now, because with social media with everything is always changing. And so what we recommend right now might be different in six months, because it's always changing me for like Tik Tok. I agree with a lot of things you said, I've actually, you know, for one of my own businesses, not my marketing agency, but some of like my permanent jewelry, I've been consistently testing out, you know, 1000s of dollars of ad spend with both that business and for a few med spas, and I haven't found tick tock ads to be that great. Now, I do have some advanced tracking software that does show that I'm at least breaking even a lot of times, but it's really not like anything, like the results I get on any of the other platforms. And so for me, I'm gonna give Tik Tok a deep plus. Now I think for those who who are very super creative, love making videos love the dancing aspect of it. It can be a cool way to connect with clients but most business owners I know do not have the time or energy to make those very creative videos. The other thing I don't like about Tik Tok is like you know an Instagram you can just go message someone but you can't really do that on tick tock like they have to be following you you have to be following them. So I found the barrier to communication with someone is a lot more difficult. So I'm gonna give Tiktok a deep plus for marketing.

Yeah, and you hit key point really quick, Jake because you mentioned how you you run a seven figure marketing agency you you clearly know what you're doing in marketing and ad spend in yet you're just breaking even on Tik Tok and I'll be honest, I know behind the behind the scenes of what you do and everything like that and it's shocking to me that you know with tick tock just breaking even that should tell you any any audience any viewer Okay, who's looking at spending money and pay tick tock ads you know, it's it's a great brand rush to a right now I think it's just too early to tell.
Yep. But if if you're watching this and you've had great results with tick tock, comment below and let us know that I mean, these are just our personal experiences. So number five marketing platform that we hear all about, we get asked about this all the time on the famous Groupon so what are your thoughts about Groupon?

So I'm gonna give Groupon This is my personal opinion in mind, you know, my wife, beauty industry owner. We did dabble with Groupon for like a week. And I'm going to give Groupon a solid F. The reason for that is yes, Groupon. You know, you're gonna get business from it, however, but it attracts a certain clientele who's looking for a crazy deal. And then what we found it just wasn't cost effective with the fees. You know, it just at the end of the day, it was costing us more money than it was making us granted. We got a lot of bookings from it, it was costing more money than it was making us just because the the spread of actually how much we were making was, I believe, don't hold me to it, but I believe it's like a quarter of what her actual price was after everything. So it just it didn't make sense. We quickly stopped it. So what are your thoughts? What do you hear?

Yeah, I mean, also get an F just because you mentioned the quality of clients and I don't I don't think it means like I use Groupon myself sometimes, like when I go to other you know, if I'm traveling out of state and I want to find like a cool deal or even sometimes in the local area, I'll scan Groupon to see if I have any, like amazing offers. But at the end of the day, like it's weird, like the psychology behind it, because like a super cheap price like that. I don't, you know, I don't I'm trying to be careful, not worse. I don't treat the business bad. But I don't really view them as like a high quality business, even if they might be like, if they're on Groupon. It's just something mentally like it's just, it's a different environment. Even with me, like I might spend more money on a different platform put on Groupon, I'm looking for super cheap prices. And once that dealer offers up, I'm probably not going to spend any more money with that business. And so I think the mindset behind different platforms also plays a huge role. So yeah, for Groupon, I'm gonna give an F

ya know, another thing real quick to think about too. As a beauty business owner, let's say let's say you're a hairstylist, med spa owner, permanent makeup artists, whatever industry segment you're in, in the beauty industry, okay? Would you as a consumer go out and have somebody put permanent makeup on your face at a discount? Just based solely on price? You probably wouldn't you wouldn't hire the cheapest plastic surgeon to do a nose augmentation. Right? You want the best so I don't think that quality of of, of user is there with Groupon for me So,

I mean, I will say the one time that I bought something from Groupon was like a chiropractor, because I think they gave like a really amazing offer for like $49. But they have like a full sales funnel process where you get in there and they give you X rays. And then they upsell you on higher packages, and it's a little bit high pressure. The majority of business owners, I know don't have the capacity or the manpower to do that. And so I just I don't really like Groupon for our typical beauty business owner. Number six, Yelp, what do you what do you how do you feel about Yelp?

Well, Yelp is an interesting, an interesting one. I view Yelp as a de, like, that's my letter grade, I'm giving Yelp. Yelp is a very unique review based platform. However, as a business owner running ads or trying to get business from Yelp, you know, we've talked to them in the past, and it seemed very, very high pressure sales tactic to get us to sign up. And to be honest with you, only users of Yelp, from what we gather, and again, this isn't like factor, or this is how we interpreted it, okay. It seemed like it was very, you know, all the users of Yelp are gonna see Yelp ads, they're going to try to get your ranking number one in search engines, things like that stuff you could do on your own without having to pay a high premium of, you know, to Yelp. So that's, that's my thought,
yeah, I'm also gonna get a D. Now, the reason I didn't give an F because you can list your business on there for free. And there is a certain value to getting your business listed on more places like Yellow Pages, Yelp, etc, just because we call it backlinks. And so if you have backlinks to your website, going to like from a sorry, from a stranger website, or a different website, going to your main website, they call those backlinks. And that's going to help you rank higher and get, you know, you found more places. But the problem with Yelp and I've seen this not only with, you know, my own clients, but I've seen all over Facebook groups is they will try to get you in with like, oh get $300 of ad spend for free. And they try to lock you in that. And then they try to lock you in a one year contract with ads. And I've never seen anybody getting good results from Yelp ads, it always seems like it's a huge waste of money. And so Yelp for the free version, go for it for any paid advertising. Definitely a D. Yeah, and last but not least number seven, YouTube. How do you feel about

so YouTube, if you have the time to shoot the content to feed YouTube, I would rank it honestly, I'd rank it a B, I would honestly rank it a B because YouTube's probably one of the most visited platforms on the whole internet. And let's say you're a local business owner, and you're starting to promote videos on keratin treatments, or Botox treatments and things like that. And you're shooting videos like Botox in Orlando, okay, when someone Googles that, and your video about that, and it specifically says how Botox in Orlando, when someone Google's that, you know, I don't know if you know this, but Google owns YouTube. And Google knows that consumers value video content higher than text content. So when you're looking at that value, if you will, okay, from a Google standpoint, if you're the only video out there with such it's like, you know, Botox in Orlando, okay, you're gonna be the only one to show up because you have a YouTube video, right? So that's how I look at YouTube. I love you, too.

Yeah, I agree with you. But instead of a B, I'm actually gonna give an A plus now, okay, a lot of you, that's probably going to surprise you can see like, Oh, I've never used YouTube. And if you utilize YouTube, and you're patient, like you said, your YouTube videos can rank higher on Google sometimes than your actual website. The other things I love to do with YouTube is like, let's say that you're posting on Instagram real. Now they have what's called YouTube shorts. And you can quickly you know, take that Instagram reel and upload it to YouTube straight from your phone straight from the app. And now you have a video on YouTube that's you know about your service and about, you know, it shows your location and everything. And so, I love YouTube for that. The other thing I love it for is education. So a lot of times the way you're going to stand out from your competition, and we'll have more podcasts about this topic, specifically, is to build trust and rapport. 

And the way you build trust and rapport with your potential clients is educate them just like we're doing this podcast here. Hopefully, we'll build some trust with you guys. So educate them. And so one way to do that is to make different educational videos and even frequently asked question videos about your service. And so let's say you have, you know, five questions that potential clients always seem to ask like, so for example, with permanent makeup, they might ask, like, does it hurt? How long does it last? Like all those questions, you can film a five minute video. And then when somebody asks you about that, and instead of trying to type out a ton of answers, you can send them that link. And now they have a video seeing the business owner explaining that just like you would want a one on a consultation. So I've probably got more clients from maybe not from I probably Facebook groups will be the number one. But for my business, I've probably got more clients from YouTube than almost any other platform because people watch my stuff. And then they realize I'm pretty knowledgeable and helpful. And then they want to work with me more. And so it's just a great exchange of value there. And so I personally love YouTube a plus.

Yeah, I mean, and also with YouTube, you got your number one employee? Me?
Yeah. Tony, actually two back in 2018.
Yep. Yep, I watched a YouTube video and is literally because actually, it was because I Googled, you know, marketers in the beauty industry, and Jake's video popped up. And he was number one. And the crazy thing is, you're just getting started in it. And even though you're just getting started, you still ranked higher than a lot of other people. When I searched, so I actually built that rapport with you over the video, and I pick up the phone called you and here we are today. We're partners on your company for you. And it's going well, so,

Yep, yeah, YouTube has definitely done a lot for my life. And I know that, you know, it's always like with any of these marketing platforms, I look at supply and demand of attention. And so you want to go where it's not so crowded. So think about this analogy. Like imagine trying to go in the middle of a crowded mall, where there's like, 500, people just all bunched together at some event, and trying to yell about your services, like, you know, people are not going to hear you, it's going to be noisy, it's going to be hard to get attention, compared to if you go to a small group setting where you have a chance to really get to know people and talk with them, and they actually get to listen to you. Which place do you think you can sell more services, obviously, where you can talk to people better. And that's, you know, that's the power of these platforms, and YouTube is, you know, it's really less crowded, because people think, Oh, I have to have fancy video equipment, I have to have, you know, fancy cameras, and I have to it has to be HD and all this stuff. Guess what I'm filming this video on right now. My iPhone, like now, like smartphones are so powerful, you can literally just pull out your phone and make a vertical video, like a horizontal video and then upload it to YouTube. It's really not hard anymore, especially with all the easy editing apps, which we're going to cover in a future podcast. I know sounds like 10 times a day. But I just want you guys to know we're bringing tons of value on this podcast. But yeah, those are the seven marketing platforms. Let us know below in the comments like which one do you agree with us? Do you disagree with us? Is there one that we mentioned that maybe it's working great for you, but we didn't like it? I would love to hear your feedback. If you're not already, if you're subscribe to our YouTube channel, it's Jake Randolph marketing. And if you're on the podcast right now, we really appreciate a review. It really helps us rank higher. So Tony, any closing thoughts on the marketing platforms?

Not really, I mean, to me, I think there's a solid winner Facebook's number one, I would say I think we both have a commonality of YouTube kind of being that number two, and Google being that number three. But everybody, please stay tuned. Make sure you subscribe to our channel that way you are up to date whenever our new videos drop, and our new podcasts dropped, because we will be coming out with those quite often.
And by the way, depending on when you're listening or watching this. My book may already be out. It's coming out October 2023. And so it's a new book. It's about beauty, business marketing. I cover all kinds of topics. So if you like this, you're gonna love the book. And I'm gonna give a free copy to any of you still watching because if you're still watching, it means you love to learn and I want to teach you so if you want a free copy of my book, email Tony at PMU marketer.com. And just say like, Hey, I was on the listen to the podcast, or I saw your video and I would love to claim that free book and we'll hook you up.

Yep, sounds good. Well, thank you all so much, and catch us on the next one.