Content Calendar Management with Izzy West

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 91 — Content Calendar Management with Izzy West
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Izzy West
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.83 Brandon Burton
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community. And now
00:14.562 Intro voice
Your host. He recently built a dula for our backyard. He's my dad, Brandon Burton.
00:16.428 Brandon Burton
Built a deck and a perk.
00:22.412 Brandon Burton
Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I am your host, Brandon Burton, and it is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your Chamber members and your community. You're joining us today for episode 91 of Chamber Chat Podcast. And in this episode, we really want to address how you get your information, your messaging from your chamber out into your membership and your community at large. And being able to do that in a way that's not totally overwhelming and you know where it bogs you down and sucks energy out of you, but we want to be able to do it in a way that adds value and life back into your chamber. So our guest today to help us kind of dive into this subject matter is Izzy West. And Izzy, she's a communications and community engagement manager for the Little River Chamber in South Carolina. And she loves digital marketing and nondues revenue so much that she blogs about it for other chamber pros. that is when she's not binge watching Netflix. So we're excited to have Izzy with us and kind of dive into her e expertise and experience on this topic. And we will do that as soon as we get back from hearing from our sponsor. Every chamber is looking for new ways to increase their nondues revenue. Has your chamber found a good affinity program? I have a great affinity program to offer your chamber that will continue to increase in revenue year after year. I want to introduce you to Swipe It for all of your credit card processing needs. Swipe It has a unique affinity program that 1. lowers your credit card processing fees at the chamber, 2. helps your chamber members be more profitable, and 3 provides recurring nondues revenue to your chamber. To learn more, please visit Chamberchatpodcast dot com slash C C for credit card. Again ChamberchatPodcast dot com slash C C and get swiping with Swipe It.
02:37.878 Brandon Burton
As a podcast listener and as a chamber leader, have you considered the benefits that podcasting could have for your chamber? This is what I like to call the podcast pivot. If you're like many chambers, you're always looking for ways to provide non-involvement value to your member investors. Many chambers are finding that podcasting is a great solution. A podcast platform becomes a media arm for your organization that builds trust in your community. Tells us stories about your members as well as your advocacy efforts and becomes a valuable, tangible asset for nondues revenue. If you'd like to see if podcasting is a good fit for your chamber, visit chamberchatpodcast.com slash pivot to learn more and to gain access to our free chamber podcasting guide. Again, this is found at Chamberchatpodcast.com slash pivot. All right, Izzy, we are back. If you would take a moment to say hello to all the chamber champions out here listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
03:45.068 Izzy West
Hi y'all, my name is Izzy, like you said. I'm the marketing person at the Little River Chamber and I do all of my own stunts. And that's a joke because I'm clumsy and this is a podcast.
03:59.594 Brandon Burton
I love that. So I wish we had a a highlight reel, you know, or what do they call it? A blooper reel that we could show afterwards.
04:11.424 Izzy West
Eventually I'll get around to making one. that's a great idea.
04:14.764 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about the the Little River Chamber, just so we can all gain a little more perspective as to where you're coming from, kind of the size of your chamber, both membership wise, staff wise, budget, just give us a a better idea of where you're coming from.
04:32.822 Izzy West
Sure. we are near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to give you kind of a idea of location. We are unusual in that we don't have a city government. so if you're an unincorporated area like we are, you actually have to go directly to the county for any governmental needs. And then like in everything in life, there's pros and cons to that. we have three hundred members and about two to three staff.
05:01.902 Brandon Burton
All right. I didn't realize you guys are in an unincorporated area. There definitely is pros and cons to it. in fact, I've lived in unincorporated areas before and in fact an area that wasn't unincorporated and then incorporated while I lived there. And that was interesting. So definitely definitely there's pros and cons. But as I mentioned in our intro, our topic for discussion today is going to be around content calendar management. So Izzy, she manages about a dozen or so social media sites and really is the kind of the the marketing arm there at at her chamber and and has a good pulse on how to kind of schedule out content marketing and and to really do it in a way without causing overwhelm. So I know that's a a topic of stress maybe for some chamber professionals as especially maybe in a smaller chamber where it's a one or two person show and they're trying to do everything. So share with us what works for you when you look at at kind of scheduling out your content calendar, what works to kind of keep you on track and to to keep the overwhelm and stress at a minimum.
06:25.452 Izzy West
Right. Like you said, you know, especially when you're a small staff, even just having to do one more thing can really stress you out. and right now we've got two full time staff. So I am I am the staff and then I have a CEO that I report to. so I do all of the marketing and then as a millennial I do anything technology related. but we actually have thirteen social media accounts and I know a lot of people are gonna freak out and be like, Okay, what all you want? So I went ahead and made a list for you. And so the chamber itself has a Facebook, a Twitter, a YouTube, and a LinkedIn, as well as Google My Business. You can actually post on Google My Business, which I don't do all that frequently, but sometimes I do. but then we also have a destination side. So we don't have what I'm gonna call an official CVB. but because we're so close to Myrtle Beach, we will always have to have a hand with destination and visitors just because of where we live. so that kind of account we have on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and and actually Pinterest. and then we have two large festivals that both have their own Facebook and Twitter. So you heard at least four different Facebooks and four different Twitters, so don't freak out. You're not missing out on a whole bunch of platforms. That's just where again you have different goals for different accounts. So we went ahead and spaced them out like that.
07:49.4 Brandon Burton
I was gonna say when you first said thirteen accounts, I'm thinking, Okay, I'm ready for some really off the wall, you know, social media brands that were started in India or something.
08:00.502 Izzy West
Like don't have TikTok. I don't I don't have I d I never got into Periscope. I just it it's more of about okay sometimes you have more than you've realized. and and I do have some tips and tricks where I do kind of save myself time across those, but I did actually I went back and counted for y'all. I actually on my chamber Facebook page I post an average of 60 posts a month. So that's twice a day. So if you can post that often. I recommend it, but if you can't, like anything else that you do in life, you kinda want to do your best to work up to what you can. so if you don't post that often, start with once a week. Start posting once a week and work your way up to daily if you can.
08:48.428 Brandon Burton
So I know in social media consistency is a a huge key to it. And I probably need to be better with how I manage my social media accounts and and being consistent with it. I guess I'm consistent once a week when when new episodes publish and stuff, but I could be better for sure. So I know also with with social media, a lot of it is gonna be kind of trial and error. Like you you try something, see what works, and then you adapt and make those adjustments. So the fact that you're posting on average twice a day from the chamber account onto Facebook, what did you learn that got you to this point to where you're you're averaging two posts a day?
09:32.69 Izzy West
those are kind of two different questions. So I'll take it in two different ways. so the first is like you said, to experiment, try things out. You know, it's just social media. if you make a post and it fails, who cares? I mean, obviously you wanna be successful and do well with everything that you do. but if you're not trying new things, you know, you're gonna eventually fail because of that. So even with some of my recurring posts, and I'll talk about that later, if it didn't perform well, I'll go back and I'll cut it back out of my schedule and I just won't post that thing again. so definitely try different things to see what works with your audience. and I will I can give some different types of posts that do well for me. But your community, like every other community and chamber, is gonna be a little bit different. So some things that work for me and don't work for me will be the opposite for you. So you get inspiration from other chambers, but at the same time you have to try and see what resonates with your community.
10:35.458 Brandon Burton
That's right. The old saying you've seen one chamber, you've seen one chamber, but we all rip off and duplicate from each other as well. So So can you share maybe some examples of what types of posts you you had mentioned that you have recurring posts that
10:42.03 Izzy West
Exactly.
10:51.916 Izzy West
Yes. Experiment with. So I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. When I say recurring, I actually have a paid social media scheduler that I use that has they call it either evergreen posting or recurring post. So I can say here, share this quote and add it to my feed. And after it does post it, it'll actually add it back into the queue. So if you have the same type of post like Business after hours. Let's say I know I'm gonna post an event, I'll throw business after hours into my queue and it it'll just go back into that loop again to repost it, but I don't have to manually go in there and reschedule it. Does that make sense?
11:31.99 Brandon Burton
I do. Yeah, that d that does make sense. Yeah. so that would be an example, I guess, when you have an event like business after hours. Are there some other examples of types of posts? I know some chambers will do you know, National Ice Cream Day. What's your favorite flavor? You know, a asking those kind of questions just for engagement for fun, more or less, but
11:57.656 Izzy West
Yeah, I call them engagement bait. You can call them whatever you want. but yes, I highly recommend it. and I've got Frank Kenny's content marketing bundle and he's got I again I call engagement bait where it's got questions and quotes and use a gift to explain this. Those are great, those are definitely ones that I have in my Evergreen. So I kind of bulk upload them and then I just say, Hey, post one of these a week and then I just don't look at it again. So like if I'm out sick for two weeks Like our social media will be updated. Even if it's not the most timely things, it will be active. And to some extent, you just want to have an active social media presence, which is what I tell our member businesses, because when somebody is coming to your page, sometimes they just want to know that you're a real business or that you're open. and that is actually a sign of credibility. And I know it sounds really weird because it's Facebook, but especially for us young people, if you don't have a Facebook page, that's really sketchy for us. and I've actually like turned down dates with guys that don't have a Facebook account because it's really weird.
13:03.438 Brandon Burton
Interesting. Yeah.
13:06.091 Izzy West
So the mind of the millennial, sorry guys.
13:08.694 Brandon Burton
Yeah. No, that is interesting. We can all learn something from that. that is that is neat. So when we talk about the different platforms, where do you see the most engagement or the most I I'm asking this more from the the point of view of if if I'm a chamber professional that has very limited time, which I think I'm speaking for a large majority, where's the best place to to put your focus and attention?
13:39.064 Izzy West
So right now, most of us are all on Facebook. And so because that's where people are, that's where I'm going to have my business or my organization on. As a marketer that's looking at other marketers, we're all kind of just waiting for the next big thing. So I don't have another big fish to tell you about. We're all kind of sticking with Facebook for now. And then if you can have a present on Twitter or LinkedIn, that is still good again to just kind of be out there. But again, it depends on your community. So I live in a beach community, we wear flip-flops to work, and that is not a big deal. not very many of my community is on LinkedIn. But if I go over to Raleigh, North Carolina, which has more corporations and a more downtown feel and a business suit and tie, there's going to be a lot more people on LinkedIn over there. So again, it kind of goes back to like trying to figure out. But I do actually have a tip for you. so one of the ways I save myself some time and some stress is I automate the accounts that I don't want to spend an active amount of staff time. I use a website called If This Then That. and right now you can have up to three recipes or applets is what they call it. and so what I do is I say, okay, every time I post a link to Facebook, I want you to tweet that out for me. And so that would be a s a a single recipe. so that's automating my Twitter. So you can do the same thing with your LinkedIn, you can do it with Instagram, Pinterest, whi whatever your main account is, you say, Okay, also post it to this thing.
15:22.83 Brandon Burton
So would that be across the board? Cause I'm thinking there may be some posts that you put on Facebook that you just want for that crowd that maybe you don't want to go out on Twitter or LinkedIn. So how do you decide what goes out on which platforms?
15:36.888 Izzy West
So that is a con of what I do. so like I said, pros and cons to everything. So I am just saying, okay, every post. I don't look at the content when I do that because it's automated. So there will be some things that go out that don't perform well on Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever the second automated platform is.
15:56.566 Brandon Burton
Okay. But I d I don't see that really hurting you, right? I mean it's it's out there and it's information.
16:02.286 Izzy West
No, like I said, it's just social media. if you have anything that is really specific to that platform, like if you have now you you have reactions, but all the reaction buttons look different on each platform. So if you have icons of those in your posts, that will all be kind of obvious to your audience. or just again some different vernacular. And then yes, there is a different crowd on each platform and there even if you even though I as a person on all of these, I'm using them for different things and I interact with them differently. So again, yeah, it won't perform as well on some of them. But for me, my goal is just to have an active presence and it's worth worth it to me.
16:49.504 Brandon Burton
So as you're giving that response, a a thought came to my mind when you're posting, and I'm thinking specifically with Facebook, because you have a a page for the chamber. how often do you do a paid post or sponsored post versus just posting it and hoping that it gets to enough people that need to see it?
17:13.358 Izzy West
So I don't do it too often. I kind of do it one off based on the goals of that event and what our budgets are for different things. So I might do it for a festival or a farmer's market, but there's usually like a budget behind that event that I can take out of. personally I don't boost it just to increase my audience because I do enough things that I feel like I am naturally already increasing my audience but without having to pay for one.
17:41.014 Brandon Burton
Okay. I know that's a struggle that a lot of people see when it comes specifically to Facebook is you may have a business page for your chamber and and you post something awesome and you get, you know, some engagement from the first, you know, dozen people or so that see it, and then it's just flat.
17:58.114 Izzy West
Well, it is really sad because on average, only one percent of your Facebook audience will see your Facebook post. and that is why marketers are kind of taking a step back and we're looking for the next big fish or the next big social media platform. We just don't know what it is yet.
18:14.68 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Well, and you've worked hard to build that base of followers for that page and everything is your audience. So
18:22.678 Izzy West
In part of that's been consistency, but another thing I really like to do is for our chamber event, I like to create Facebook events. Okay. And when you post inside of a Facebook event, that is reaching people that are just looking at events that may not necessarily follow you. So that is a good avenue not only to promote your events and get event attendees, but it will actually naturally grow your social media following too.
18:46.754 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Have you experimented at all with Facebook groups for the chamber? Or do you just do you have? How's that gone?
18:54.356 Izzy West
so I have two. I have one for members and honestly have not done a good job with it. it is pretty stale, it's the same people that interact with it, but on the other hand, I kind of let it be that way because I wanted them to do whatever they wanted with it. so I I'm still kind of watching. I haven't had to admin anything, and I try not to post too often in it because I don't want it to be Be annoying for them. So I still want them to follow my page and interact with my page. So I don't necessarily post more chamber promotions in it unless people ask me for it. The one that's doing really well is our moving to Little River. So we are going to double our population by 2040. So that is huge. But we also have a relocation guide. We're always interacting with
19:30.807 Brandon Burton
Okay.
19:49.032 Izzy West
new residents, potential residents. So obviously that is a really good demographic or audience for the chamber to attract and know. So I do use that group to mostly only promote actually moving or living in there. I created Facebook units inside of the group, which is like a whole nother thing. But basically I have posts that are stationary in there. that I've gone and copied and pasted some of the notes and points from our relocation guide into that Facebook group. So it's more of an educational learning. So like I said, we don't have a city government and most people don't know that. Even the ones that have lived here for like 20 years. I really use it to educate our locals so that they better understand the area they live. And then businesses can naturally get recommendations because I don't let people post ads, but I let them post to ask for recommendations. And so I'm like, okay, don't post an ad. But if somebody says, hey, I'm, you know, looking for somebody to mow my lawn. Well, if you're a landscaper or a lawn guy, you can go comment on that post and say, hey, I do this, here's my fee or here's my card, my number. That's a really good way for them to engage with it. So it's also a really good platform or avenue for our member businesses to meet their potential customers.
21:15.31 Brandon Burton
That makes a lot of sense. So let's take a step back a little bit. I feel like we've we kind of went down a rabbit hole here. I I'm getting a little overwhelmed. So the the idea is to try to try to simplify things, looking at the calendar and and making a plan. So when you look at your month, what are the things that need to be on the calendar? And and you've given some tips like if this, then that website. What are as you look at the month, what are those important things? How are you scheduling that? And what other tips and tools would you suggest to help make that process easier?
21:56.312 Izzy West
So you said my favorite word, which is plan. Here's your action item if you're actually still listening to me. I want you to create a plan. If you want, you can Google free content calendar and you'll get a ton of free spreadsheets that are in Excel. And that's okay. but I like to create my own inside Google Calendar. I like to create a calendar because then you can set up posts by date. So if you know that you have an event the second Tuesday of the month, you can create. a quote unquote event to remind yourself to post on the first Tuesday of the month so that it's always accurate and I just have to go to next month and print it out and I don't have to worry about double checking dates and stuff like that. So no matter what you do, you create a plan and then you go through okay, what are the types of posts I want to do and create your thing for the week. So for example, every Sunday I create a Facebook post welcoming one of our new members. And so Whenever it's time for me to work on social media, I don't actually look at my week. I go look at that post. So I will actually go down the line and I will check off welcoming new members. So that's called batching. And I know I'm I'm kind of dual talking about two different things right now. No. But by batching and looking at okay, just working on that post, you're gonna get it done quicker.
23:12.024 Brandon Burton
That's good.
23:21.656 Izzy West
But you also have that paper calendar or that spreadsheet, whatever you're using, so you know where you've left off. So we all get interrupted and you know somebody's gonna come in or call, or you're not gonna remember where you left off. Well, you can look at what you checked off, so you know right where you left off, you know, and if it's a few weeks away, you can just say, Yeah, I'm done and move on to the next thing. And you don't have to worry about it, because again, I'm not looking at this week. I'm doing this in advan advance as much as possible. So to backtrack types of posts was like I'm looking at new members, I want to promote events. I actually have a schedule time and it might just be Monday morning when I feel like it. I'll actually go through Facebook and try to find posts for members to share, and I just call it a share. you I like to post pretty pictures of the area. Those perform so well for me. So if you have any sunset photos or any just really nice views, share those all the time.
24:20.524 Brandon Burton
Especially if there's an iconic, you know, bridge or building or something that says this is your area. Yeah.
24:26.146 Izzy West
Yeah, it's definitely. or and if you have a tagline or part of your logo, throw that on it. If you took the picture, don't put it on somebody else's picture. but if you took that picture, that that performs so well for us. and sometimes, you know, feel free to invest, even if it's just a staff member or, you know, an intern with a cell phone, send them out to go take pictures of your area. They'll perform well for just those posts, but you also be able to reuse them for your blog post and your printed articles and whatever else you might need pretty photos of. But then I take it a step further and I'll go use Canva and I still use the free plan, so don't worry, guys. and I will use that as the background for any quote photos. so there's a really easy one that's like l life is easy, just add water. And I'll throw a scenic photo of our local waterway on it. And that will always perform so well. so that's a way it's just promoting the area. It's you know, it's still local, so people really resonate with that.
25:28.332 Brandon Burton
That's cool. So I can speak to the batching process. I mean, that's what I do with the podcast. I mean, we're recording right now. I've got four podcast interviews today. I'll batch them and then when I do the editing, I'll do them all together and then I'll upload them and schedule them for release all at the same time. So batching is one way to to be super efficient. And then I'm not thinking about it every week, you know, as I have a an episode coming out each week. It's all done and it's set and and it'll kind of do its thing from there. So if we can incorporate that kind of automation by putting in the work on the front end when you can kind of schedule that time to have a a block of time to do some batching. these are
26:10.614 Izzy West
You can't see me, but I'm nodding my head so hard. Okay.
26:13.486 Brandon Burton
I could feel it, yes.
26:17.23 Izzy West
I'm crazy. I created so I'm not trying to self plug, but I sort of am. on Amazon I've actually self-published a physical planner. so just what it sounds like where it's got the month and the weeks and all that stuff. And if it's an important post like that, welcome the new members. If I left off on I I know what week I left off on, I'll actually flip to that page in the planner and I will pre-write out a note for myself to go look at those post types and to again reschedule. So I'm still doing the batching. If it's really important, I'll go reassign myself that task to work on.
26:51.554 Brandon Burton
That's perfect. And if you'd like, I'm happy to put the a link to your your your planner, your calendar in the show notes for this episode too. So if people want to check that out.
27:03.116 Izzy West
Yeah, check it out. But even if you don't use a planner, again, it's just more of the fact of logging the things that are important to you. so I may not always do that with like the scenic or the pretty photos, but I will at least do it for the ones that I know relate back to membership.
27:18.594 Brandon Burton
Yeah. And I I find it interesting too that you talked about even with a Google calendar that you'll kind of fill it out and then you print it. So you have a printed calendar in front of you. I know. This is coming from a millennial every
27:31.314 Izzy West
I know and we all love the technology, but I'm crazy. I really like paper. Like I like physical books. I like paper. because with digital I can exit out or minimize or I'll stick it in a folder and never reopen it or think about it. But if the paper is right in front of me, I have to check it off to be able to throw it away. So if I want it out of the way, I need to get it done.
27:54.722 Brandon Burton
That's right. And I I mean I I work the same way. So that makes perfect sense to me. Other people may be like, What? There's not an app that you suggest? But that makes sense.
28:04.184 Izzy West
There's a thousand apps out there, but it just it goes back to what works well for you. So if you work great digitally or with an app, use that thing.
28:11.246 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. So what about when you have I I imagine as a a chamber you have some kind of affinity programs or or affiliate programs for some other non dues revenue streams. How do you incorporate that into your content calendar?
28:28.83 Izzy West
so I talk talked about a few weekly posts that I do, but there are a few that I do monthly. so one is cross-promoting your other account. So on Facebook I'll say, hey, go subscribe to our YouTube channel. Another monthly post that I do is for affiliate or affinity programs. and you can do it in a variety of different ways. You can create a video tutorial. so if you have a sorry, my mind blinked. If you have a tool or software that you recommend. So again, my chamber uses a paid social media scheduler. So I actually use that as a program to promote to my chamber members. And I will do like a video say, hey, this is how I use this or here's how you do this quick thing with this. So that's an example of a post. You could also just do a link post to the actual page on your chamber website. That's fine. Whatever works for you for you. But I would go ahead and make sure that you do that about monthly because you want to get in the habit of posting about it and telling people about it regularly, but monthly also won't annoy people and won't make them feel like they're being sold to all the time.
29:35.25 Brandon Burton
So is that in total for affinity affiliate programs where you do one post a month total or per program that you offer?
29:45.28 Izzy West
Nope, that's total for me. So again, you can do whatever works for you. obviously there are many chambers out there that do it more regularly, and that's fine. So you want to test, see what works for you. I only post about a single program once a month. one to kind of I've s I've s noticed that if I do it more than that, my stats go down. But at the same token, that's less work for me to worry about.
30:08.492 Brandon Burton
Yeah, no, I think that's that's good to be able to learn from that. that that's good. So one other thing I wanted to ask, how does all this come get wrapped up, I guess, with email marketing too? Because I assume you guys have a a membership list that you do a a regular email or newsletter type thing. What's going in that versus what's on social media? How much crossover is there, and how does that play into your your content calendar?
30:37.518 Izzy West
So there definitely is some crossover, but again, you used a magic word and it was content calendar. We didn't say social media calendar, we said content calendar. So on that content calendar or spreadsheet, whatever you decided to use, I don't just put Facebook posts. I also have blog posts, I have emails, anything that I need a reminder or a checklist or check off of what I need to schedule and put out. So we do email newsletters. So we call it an e-newsletter. if there is a member that decides to do an email blast with us, I go ahead and add it to that schedule. Again, I like to be able to check things off and do them. So I'm putting those on the calendar so that I know it gets done and I can see it printed. And this also actually helps me from sending out too many emails. So we all know that one place where every time we see their name in the inbox, we go delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. I don't want to be that person.
31:36.694 Brandon Burton
And to be perfectly candid, yeah. For a lot of people, it's the chamber.
31:41.408 Izzy West
I know and it makes me so sad. And I get into a few I'm trying to I'm trying to find the nicest way to put heated arguments. I get in some polite disagreements with my CEO and my my board because with events obviously you you want people to come and some people need an extra reminder, but I'm like, Okay, but is that only for five people? Because I have six hundred people on my list and I don't wanna
31:50.766 Brandon Burton
Yeah.
32:10.518 Izzy West
annoy those other five hundred something people with an email that they don't want because they didn't want it in the first place. Yeah. so I'm like, I've sent out an email. I put that, you know, every time we have an event, I do a standalone email that's here's all the info. Here's the calendar button. Here's the registration link. It's nice and pretty. I go, here you go. and that's actually usually when I see most people register for events is when I send out that standalone email. And they also get the reminder in the newsletter. You know, I've got them all listed for the upcoming month. but when I put it out onto that calendar and I can see it color coded, I can see it visually and I say, Okay, I'm actually up to like four emails this week. That's kind of a lot. Maybe I should stop or maybe I should reschedule this one and I kind of look at it and move stuff around.
32:58.208 Brandon Burton
Yeah. No, I think that's so important. And I think unless there's a an effective way to segment who's already engaged with that email or opened it, then you really need to take a hard look. Is it is this really worth sending out again? And maybe you send it just to the ones that didn't open it and slightly change the subject line or something to say, did you see this or something just to to draw attention? This is not the exact same thing, but it's important that you need to take a look at it. But you're not bothering people that have already looked.
33:29.218 Izzy West
Right. so you can do that. Constant Contact lets you do that now. the segmenting though is a little bit easier for more expensive programs like ActiveCampaign or I'm gonna start something with GrooveMail, mailer I don't know. There's a ton of more advanced things and it's like, okay, if they click this but not this or if they got that, and it's super advanced and I'm not there yet, my chamber's not there. So we just we like Constant Contact.
33:58.179 Brandon Burton
Nothing wrong with it.
33:58.658 Izzy West
Do pay for it. We're we've actually outgrown the chamber program on it because of our events. We have so many vendors on our email list that we actually do have to pay for it now. But we still like it. We can still use it. They are working on trying to make sure that we have all those new tools that they're coming out with. Like you said, the resending of the email to people that didn't already open it.
34:22.156 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Perfect. Well, as we start to wrap things up here, I wanted to ask you, I mean, you've shared a lot of great tips with us and how you're doing things, but what would be one action item that a chamber professional could take from our discussion today to really help take their chamber up to the next level?
34:41.89 Izzy West
Yes, I love action items. Your action item is to create a content calendar. it doesn't have to be fancy, it can be pen and paper, it can be your notes, whatever it is, because you wanna have it in writing. And again, I like to be able to check things off, look at it, see what days or platforms that I'm overloaded on and spread it back out. but just have a plan somewhere. And I promise you a after a while it will save you time.
35:13.214 Brandon Burton
Absolutely. Create a content calendar. So I ask this question to everyone I have on the podcast. We're all interested in what the future of chambers look like. And from your perspective, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see their purpose going forward?
35:30.762 Izzy West
It's really interesting because in one way we won't change in the sense of if you've seen one chamber, you've seen one chamber. and for a while, you're hearing that okay, you need to work like a marketing agency. and then now I'm kind of hearing where a lot of people are leaning back to, okay, we need to go back to workforce and advocacy. So it's gonna be really interesting how we merge all that together. So marketing-wise, again, that is what I do. So a little bit of bias, but it because I understand it and can do it, that's a way for me to create non-dues revenue, but also add specific benefits for chamber members, which has actually helped us retain and attract new members with our different benefits. But at the same time, you know, a lot of the goals for chambers was workforce and advocacy, which is my personal weakness. but it is still so important. And to tie them together, you're gonna have to promote and market those things that you are doing with workforce development and with advocacy. So using the new technologies of the times to engage the people that want to know that you're doing that.
36:47.106 Brandon Burton
matter what marketing's gonna be a part of it. Yeah. Yeah.
36:51.662 Izzy West
Little biased, but I feel pretty comfortable with it. Like, yeah, it's it's it's still gonna be big.
36:57.602 Brandon Burton
That's right. Well, Izzy, it's been such a pleasure having you with us here on Chamber Chat Podcast. I'd like to give you an opportunity for the listeners out there, if they have any questions about what you've talked about today, or if they wanted to follow you. I know you've got a great blog where you share a lot of tips and strategies. What would be the best way for a chamber champion to to connect with you and to to follow you online?
37:23.586 Izzy West
Yeah, thank you. if you want to connect one on one, I do prefer LinkedIn or Twitter, the Izzy West. And like you said, I do have a blog, the Izzy West.com, and Izzy is spelled I Z Z Y. and I've been with my chamber for five years. I'm still here. I love it. I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon. But after I was going to different state chamber conferences and different things, I was kind of hearing from some other small staff that are like, how do you do that? How do you do that? Well, that's why I created my blog. So if you go to the Izzy West, I actually do try to create some tutorials and how-tos and ideas of different things that I do at my chamber and how you can replicate that. So please check it out.
38:06.082 Brandon Burton
That's awesome. Definitely worth following her on the blog. She shares some great stuff there. And I will update our show notes page to have a link to your blog as well as your your calendar, your scheduler, and your your LinkedIn and and Twitter pages as well. And that show notes page will be found at chamberchatpodcast.com slash episode ninety one. But again, Izzy, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your your tips and strategies with us. I think you provided a lot of value for all the chamber champions out there.
38:39.64 Izzy West
Thank you, I hope so.
38:42.56 Brandon Burton
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