Cemoh 137: Chanel Clark from The Marketing Club

Simon (00:01) Welcome to the Cemoh Marketing Podcast. This is a bit of a landmark moment because not only are we recording this on Riverside, we should be hopefully live streaming this on LinkedIn. I clicked a few buttons and connected a few things. So I hope the fuck it works. If it doesn't, we're not live-streaming to anyone. So it doesn't matter. But if we are, then great.

Simon (00:29) So on and so forth. So my name's Simon Dell. I am the CEO of Cemoh. We are Australia's largest fractional CMO network. We do fractional CMOs. We do lots of other fractional marketing people as well. If you want to know what fractional means, Google it. If you want to find out more about us, cemoh.com, that's C-E-M-O-H. If you want to talk to me, it's [email protected]. We are looking for more guests for the podcast. So if you think you're interesting, send me an email and I'll tell you whether you are or you aren't interested. And if you want to connect with me, I'm on LinkedIn, very easy to find. And the last thing is if you'd like to do a review, went into my, I went into Apple podcast and then see that we've only got one review. We used to have a lot more than that. don't know where they've all gone. We've only got one review and it's a three star out of five star review. So I'm very fucking unhappy with that. Whoever did that, I'm gonna find you and hunt you down and work out why you only gave me three stars. but anyway, enough of that. Onto the more important things. Today's guest is a lady by the name of Chanel Clark. She's gonna tell you all about herself. I met her, maybe about six months ago. Very interesting. So welcome to the show, Chanel, how are you?

Chanel (01:50) I'm good, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Simon (01:53) You'll also know she has a Kiwi accent. She is here in sunny Brisbane, but as she speaks more and I get her to say fish and chips, well realized that she is Kiwi and not Australian. So how are you doing today?

Chanel (01:56) Is it that obvious? I'm good. I'm actually, we just did a big event last night for our Brisbane chapter. So I'm slowly decompressing from that to be honest, because it was a massive night with a huge turnout.

Simon (02:21) Did you have a few drinks?

Chanel (02:25) No, I just always find like I get such an adrenaline rush from them and then I get home and it takes me so long to like calm down and yeah, it's always just bit of a process but it was so good.

Simon (02:35) So let's talk about your background. Obviously you have a marketing background. You've been doing marketing for a very long time, but I think the uniqueness about you and the reason obviously you and I connected in the first place and then the reason for bringing you on today is that over the past few years, you've been building a marketing community. Tell us a little bit about what that community is.

Chanel (02:45) Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, mean, when I started it, the whole reason behind starting it was because as a young marketer coming up in my career, I was sort of trying to get a handle on what does marketing look like as a career, you know, what are the opportunities, etc. And I was going to a lot of industry events at the time in New Zealand. And I mean, while it was good to go to events and kind of see what was going on in the industry, it felt very much not where I was. You know, I was sort of like early to late 20s going to these events where it was sort of like 50 plus year olds, no one really wanted to talk to the excited blonde girl in the room. Everyone already had their careers panned out. I just felt a little bit lost. And then I thought, if there was something to exist more for like my demographic or that whole sort of, do I do next? What would that look like? And it was interesting because I sat on the idea for a year because everyone said that no one joins things in New Zealand.

We're commonly known as community people, we prefer to DIY and not ask for help. So I was like, damn, know, maybe I don't do the thing. And then I remember I spoke at an event once and I thought, screw it, if I announced to a whole room of people that I'm doing the thing, then I have to actually go and do the thing. And at that point it was literally just supposed to be a Slack community. I thought maybe we'd get 20 to 30 marketers, meet up for coffee once a month, draw my bond over all the things that we do and that'd be at game over. And then in the first week we had like 180 people join and I was like, shit, this is already bigger than I thought it was gonna be.

Simon (04:29) They called you out on your bullshit like within a week and then all of a sudden you've suddenly found yourself with a new child that you've got to look after.

Chanel (04:33) Pretty much. Yeah, I got humbled seven days in and I was like, okay, great. So this is the thing now. And then the community just stayed on Slack. You we had all these different channels where people could ask for help or recommend people or, you know, tools and resources, et cetera, or find jobs. So we lived on Slack for about three months before everyone was like, this is great, but I actually want to meet people in person. Like, when are you going to do a social networking event? And you know, I'm in the background writing like, yeah, cool. Now we're going to do a social networking event. So.

Organized that, everyone got to meet each other. That was great, probably did those for another six months and everyone was like cool now I want to learn something when are the educational events coming and I was like, you know, those are totally on the plan Let's go do that And then once we started doing events, it basically just blew up and now you know Australia was never part of the plan because I wasn't living in Australia at the time. It was basically just a bunch of people on LinkedIn who were in Australia saw that I was promoting the marketing club in New Zealand and a few people reached out and were like, when do we get the thing? Like there's nothing here like this. And I remember thinking, you you guys are 10 times the size of New Zealand. Surely someone's done something like this. Like you don't need a Kiwi like me to like bring this over. And then, yeah, I guess I kept hearing from people that while they were sort of the bigger industry events, there was nothing that really felt like there was something tailored to marketers collectively, know, it was always either like very industry specific or sort of felt kind of out of reach, you know, like the $600 ticket event amounts to go to these things. So similar to New Zealand, I was like, okay, cool. I'll give you a Slack channel. You guys can all connect to network. Slack got old very quick. Everyone's like, yeah, no, this is great, but when are we catching up? And I was like, I'm not even in the country to run a VEX. Like I can't do this yet.

And then the minute I moved here in April last year, I was like, right, I'm going to hit the ground running. We're doing events. did 17 events in six months, which was absolutely wild. My partner was like, it feels like you're on FIFO with all the bopping around you're doing between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. But it was amazing. Like we got to do events last year with Google. We spoke at South by Southwest in Sydney, which was epic.

And now, know, we're a community of over 8,000, which is absolutely insane and was never supposed to happen, but I'm so grateful for it. yeah, building the plane while flying it, but it's been so cool to be able to bring a marketing club to the community and essentially kind of figure out like, what does that mean for people? What is the value that they want to get? And even just, you know, bringing an industry together, I think quite often, you know, marketers are always underestimated. We're considered a cost, an investment.

So just being able to meet other people that really understand what we go through and then just be able to network and be like, my God, you get what I'm saying has just been so valuable. So yeah, that's sort of our journey in a nutshell. mean, it's only been two years, which feels insane, but this is where we're at.

Simon (07:27) Yeah. And your background itself is marketing. You've acted more as a marketing consultant than you have as an internal marketing person, right?

Chanel (07:37) I work for myself full time now as a marketing consultant, but pre that I was always in house, either head of marketing, marketing manager. I I started out as an intern at a social media agency and then sort of just scaled the ranks from there.

Simon (07:51) And so, and what are you finding? You've got 8,000 members there, you know, across Australia, New Zealand. I'd imagine you've probably got some outside of that as well. But what do you find that level of membership is? they senior, juniors, sort of somewhere in the middle, a bit of a range of everything? What's a common job title you see in that community?

Chanel (08:14) Yeah, I mean that's interesting because obviously I originally assumed when we started it that it would just be the younger marketers that want to join us because they're the ones that feel most lost and don't know where to go to but to be honest we've got such an even spread you know like almost 30 % of our community are that senior level marketer and you know yes they've been in the industry long enough but they also almost feel like they're being forgotten about and they want a community that they can connect with, they want to keep up with what's going on. We've got a massive amount in the middle stage marketers, probably like 40 % of our community is in that stage. And then about 20 % is in that sort of early stage marketer. Everyone from uni students still studying marketing all the way to in their sort of first two to three years of marketing. So it's a really even spread. I mean, we've got everyone from like Ecom, PR, digital, all the way to like agency land. So. It's been really cool because that was obviously what I was hoping was going to happen, but when you build community, community can easily run away from you in a different direction and you just have to adapt. So the fact that it has kind of gone the direction I wanted it feels really, really cool.

Simon (09:16) What do you, I mean obviously you hear these people talking, you watch their conversations and things like that. What's the biggest challenge for this cohort of people at the moment from a marketing perspective? What's the biggest challenges you see in marketing these days?

Chanel (09:36) Yeah, I think the biggest one is getting marketing understood as an investment, not a cost in a business. There's still a lot of people I hear from, even head of marketing level, who are fighting with boards to get budgets, fighting with even people within the business, is the importance of marketing, the importance of brand building before you go and allocate all this exorbitant spend. They think you just throw money at it, push a button, and everything's going to do it itself. That's definitely one, like just validating that we're not the colouring in department. We should have never got called that and Uber came up with that as an absolute asshole because it has stuck around for like 15 years. And then the other...

Simon (10:13) I'm gonna get a t-shirt with that on. know, head of the colouring in department, I think. I need one of those.

Chanel (10:22) We're actually doing an event soon and I thought about we should do coloring books just to really hit it on the nose. But yeah, that would probably be the biggest one is like, how do I feel like I can validate what I do in my role? And I mean, I haven't experienced it as well. Like when COVID hit, I was made redundant day one of lockdown because the business basically deemed marketing as an unnecessary resource. And I was like, sweet bullet dodge because if this is how you view marketing, I don't want to work for you anyway.

Simon (10:35) Yeah.

Chanel (10:49) And then other than that, it's pretty much just feeling overwhelmed around everything that's going on in marketing. You know, suddenly AI is taking over and there's all these new trends popping off and how do we stay relevant and what channels do we use? And I think a lot of marketers are expected to know the answers all the times. And you know, when you're so in the weeds of doing all the work, it's impossible to stay connected with all the different trends and insights and updates, et cetera. So just figuring out how do you kind of demystify what's actually happening in the industry and then who can you talk to that can give actual tangible advice because when I was going to lot of industry events in New Zealand, you know, it'd be great to hear from the CMO of some company around how their $20 million marketing campaign worked. And it was aspirational inspirational, but I'm like, yeah, sure. If you give me $20 million, I'd probably do a pretty kick ass marketing campaign too.

But that's not the reality. I've got a 20K marketing budget to split across 12 months. I need to know real world things that I can do right now. So a lot of the events that we do, it's not like we try and get the big speakers that everyone's heard of because it's not really tangible. We wanna get the real life humans that are in the weeds doing the thing that can actually give those tangible takeaways.

Simon (12:04) Yeah, it's funny, you kind of often compare it to like a football match and you go, know, I'm pet managing Manchester City and I've got, you know, I can drop a hundred million dollars on players every, you know, every year, then, you know, I'm gonna have a good football team. But the, you know, the reality of those marketing managers out there, you know, they've got, you know, questionable players, small budgets.

Simon (12:31) And sort of looking at that, then what do you see as the most effective, what do you see as the most effective marketing channel? Because everybody would, everyone talks about social media and things like that, but when you sit down with a client, where do you see the sort of best opportunities or maybe the quickest wins are?

Chanel (12:53) Yeah, I think while there's definitely a place for social because it is it is an easier channel like you can do so much on social organically without doing anything paid which is so advantageous, right, because you can target people who aren't even like anywhere near you. But I think for me, when I talk to clients, you know, if it's quick wins that they're after, and everyone wants quick wins, but they want to know what's working, I always look into, you know, Google paid stuff, because it's very easy to track. You can obviously see, you know, cost per click, ROI, etc. And then also just brand building activities. Like I feel like the world has forgotten that, you know, you're trying to market to humans who actually enjoy real life experiences. So whether it's putting your brand on a billboard or running an event or building a community, giving people experiences is what humans remember because we're emotional creatures that want to connect. And that is what I see, you know, like brands who are going big right now, they're building experiences before they do anything else. And I mean, you build an experience, again, all of that goes on social.

So it's like you're kind of putting, you're doing everything all at once and I think that's what works really well.

Simon (13:58) How do you build an experience if you are what I would describe as a boring brand? I mean, it's great if you're a fashion brand or you're retail brand or you're food or whatever it is. Doing something with that is, it's not easy. I mean, you still have to do it, but ideas are slightly easier to come by. If you're an accountant, creating experiences for accountants is... is not, you know, it's not easy. How do they, how do they do that kind of thing? How do you do that with boring brands?

Chanel (14:36) I mean, I think to be honest, like every brand has a story to tell. Like I've had some finance or, you know, accountant clients. And the first thing I say is, you know, rather than spending all this money doing these Google ads and pushing what you sell, like actually show people what you do and tell the story. So for example, you know, could you have an event at your office or at a different venue and educate people on like, why do you need an accountant? What can we help with? What do you need to be set up with, et cetera? So it's more around education and showing rather than telling people. And you know, at the same thing then you can invite people who might be interested. It gives them a chance to network. You know, you might get a speaker who talks about how using an accountant helped them build their business, whatever.

And it's just like, there's so many ways to create experiences, whether it's a boring company or something that's easy, that you can essentially show rather than tell. Because I think at the moment, like all of us are, know, borderline ADHD, our attention span is so small these days. So it's like, if you can show me something versus speaking at me, it feels like a lot more of an organic and authentic experience.

Simon (15:38) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's, I agree wholeheartedly that that experience is such a cornerstone of any marketing strategy and plan. It's very easy to, know, drag someone into the office and say, hey, we wanna post on LinkedIn.

It's a lot harder to drag someone in the office to go, hey, we want to create this one-to-one experience or this one-to-group experience where we can engage directly with our customers. often people get scared of that. There's a lot more thought involved. There's a lot, you know, there's a lot, lot more chance of failure and things like that. But I think if you as a business owner can actually stand physically in front of a room full of 20 prospects and talk to them in a way that is engaging and entertaining and educational. That's gonna go much, much further than throwing money into social media, pay-per-click and all those kinds of things. Those things work and I say, I'm not saying don't do them, but I'm saying as a cornerstone of business is to, you see how you can get yourself physically in a room with your target mark.

Chanel (17:03) Yeah, I mean people follow people before they follow brands, right? I mean that's why you've seen even in the last few years, know Influencers who then suddenly build a cult following and then go and launch their own brand People already know who they are. They understand what they do They understand their values that when you go and launch something they're like, well, I already know what you stand for So now I'm gonna buy the thing that you're promoting. Whereas if the product came out first before the human, it's a lot harder to kind of sell it, well this was the story and this was the idea. And I think that's what I find really interesting mapping at the moment is you see so many brands leaning into the power of storytelling or, you know, like Starbucks came out recently and started heroing like different workers at different coffee stores. So it's like get to know the people behind the brand before we then sell you the coffee.

Simon (17:47) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's just talk about the community just for the final sort of couple of questions. You you've stood in front of people, you've told them you're building a community, you've got 180 signups, you've gone from 180 to 8,000. What are some of the things, if you're gonna build a community, if someone's gonna build a community out of there, are there sort of two or three rules that you would say?

Simon (18:15) That this is what a community needs to do, it needs to look like, otherwise it's gonna fail. Are there things that you sit there and go, I have to do these things every week in order to nurture that community?

Chanel (18:29) Yeah, I think first and foremost it's figuring out honestly why you building that community Obviously, I think the marketing club grew so fast because it was very obvious that I was doing it for the benefit of others There was no you know, I never thought it was gonna get this big so there was no ultimate business strategy or plan. There was no hidden way of making money. was just, I want to build the thing that I wish I had. And if it helps everyone else in the process, that's great. So I think defining the value of what are you doing it, why are you doing it, and what do you want to achieve? That's the first thing. I then also think thinking about where are you going to do it? For us, Slack made sense because a lot of people were already on Slack for work that they do. So I was like, right, we're not asking for a habit change there in terms of how to communicate with other marketers.

Obviously LinkedIn was a great channel for us because that's where we do a lot of our BDMing on for the marketers, but it's also the number one B2B platform in the world, so it made sense to show up there. So yeah, figuring out what channels make sense for you. And then I also think just figuring out what is the purpose of what you are doing. There's nothing that would stop any other brand right now going and starting their own marketing club who has way more followers on LinkedIn than I do or way more recognition.

But I think what matters is when you put community first, then community really builds that community. And that's probably been the bigger thing for us is because it's been so obvious that we wanted to build this for the marketing industry, naturally people have wanted to get involved and told their friends and then, you know, they've then come on board and been like, now our whole team's gonna come to your next event or hey, we'll host you at our spot. Like we've never had to pay for a venue because everyone just loves what we're doing so much. So I think when you do something for the right reasons, then naturally the success almost instantly follows because you're not, know, we've never come across as trying to make this bigger than we are, flashier than we are, or be like, we're very expensive to be involved in. You know, anyone who has a conversation with me, it's very obvious that I didn't do a business degree, I did a marketing degree, I'm creative, I'm fluffy, I'm not like down to the point and you know, very analytical or anything like that. So I think just, yeah, staying true to the value of what you are trying to do. Like I would be lying, you know, lot of people have said to me, the minute a community hits 10,000, you can start talking about selling it and, you know, really heavily monetizing it. And to be honest, while yes, we need financial help from commercial partnerships to do bigger and better events, there is nothing in my head right now that says I'm going to sell this, make a quick buck and get out because that was never why I wanted to start it. And I have held true to those values for the last two years and that's not going to change.

Simon (21:06) And I love that about what you're doing, but I'm gonna play devil's advocate with you there because I think the values that you have around building that community are good now. And you say I'll never change, but I think the idea that you'll never change with those values doesn't really take into account that things might change for you in the future. There could be all sorts of things on the horizon there. And I think I would probably argue that your 8,000 members would not object to you commercialising the business in a way that they thought you were still staying true to the original values. I would say, if I was a member of that community, I'm almost expecting a level of commercialization at some point, because I understand most of them, whilst you say you're not, and I think, you know, you're doing yourself a disservice there to say, you know, you're not business, you're not business focused or not business trained. think, you know, to have got to this point, you have at least got a strong understanding of how business works. Otherwise you wouldn't have got here.

Chanel (22:17) Yeah. Hmm.

Simon (22:35) Right? I would argue that the community would be embracing of you if you turn around and said, hey, look, I've done this for you guys for the last two years. I need this to earn some revenue to allow me to do this bigger and better and deliver more services and more education and all those kinds of things to you. And I think evolution of these things is natural, right?

Simon (23:05) So, I think, and you and I have had this conversation, we've had this conversation face to face and emails and all those kinds of things, but I would argue that your community is, it would be accepting of a level of commercialization that didn't infringe in your beliefs. Yeah.

Chanel (23:12) Mm-hmm. I mean, yeah.

Yeah, it's definitely happening. What I mean when I said that is, you know, it's not like we're never going to get there because, you know, at the moment I've been bankrolling everything and it's great for two years, but it's not sustainable. What I mean is that like the values of why we started won't change. The value of what we want to deliver on won't change. So for example, you know, if we are gonna start charging people to be a part of it, we're not gonna come out the gate swinging and be like, it's two grand a year, and then you gotta pay for all this other stuff. It's very much gonna stick to the values of we're accessible for all marketers at all ages and stages of that journey. So we never wanna price you out. We don't wanna start seeing dollar signs and partner with brands that make no sense for us. It's very much sticking true to why we started, but just doing it in a way where it feels like it actually completely benefits the community, because I'm sure I've been a part of things that turn into monetization and subscription and it feels like it's just completely lost the soul of what I joined up to do in the start and they've just seen dollar signs and run a completely opposite direction.

Simon (24:23) Yeah, look, I mean, I completely understand that it's a fine line. It's a very fine line between, you know, running a community that then drains you both emotionally and financially versus flipping it over, flipping the switch and you get great benefits from it, get great money from it, but you lose some sort of element of you know, of the soul of the business. And I think...

Chanel (24:29) Yeah. Yeah.

Simon (24:52) there's been plenty of examples over that. mean, you know, one of the ones that I think has successfully maintained its integrity to a degree. And I would argue there's probably many people that would argue against what I'm about to say here, but would be Reddit and how Reddit has managed to maintain a certain level of values and you know, brand beliefs, even as it's grown and grown and grown. then I think, IPO'd on the US stock exchange to get to that level and still have a commitment to the values that you had when you started, I think is a just extremely, extremely tough challenge. And if you do it, then it's fantastic. So I don't envy your position. And I think it's all goals, right? That's my North Star metric if I hit it I hit it if there's some compromises along the way it is what it is But at the moment, I'm like, that's the plan I'm gonna try stick to it as much as I can and just see what happens.

Simon (26:03) Okay, look, last question while the dogs are going nuts in the background. What if people want to join the community or if people want to talk to you with what's the best way of doing that? How can they reach out to you?

Chanel (26:06) All right. LinkedIn. I'm on there all day every day. just, mean, website coming soon, but LinkedIn right now.

Simon (26:19) OK. Cool, cool, cool, And last question, I guess, for all those marketing people out there, one, I was gonna ask you for a tip, but I don't think it's really right for you to give a tip. I think it's more right for you to perhaps give some sort of encouragement. I think a lot of the marketing people are isolated. They're getting...you know, they do get questioned. do. They do get said that they're, you know, they're a cost rather than investment. What's your, what's, what's your word of encouragement for all of those people out there?

Chanel (27:06) That's a really good question. mean, it's like so, I guess I'm someone that finds motivation from people who doubt what I can do. So for me, I think along my career, while it felt like it was a dumpster fire at the time and I didn't understand what was going on, I think it almost just solidified to me that, you know, how badly I wanted to succeed in the industry. And I was so hell-bent on doing that, that I just tried a bunch of different things. Like I got made redundant twice, I got pushed out of a company for being female and every single time I was like, sweet, guess I'm pivoting to something else now, still within the industry, but just trying to get so much experience to figure out what do I enjoy doing, what don't I enjoy doing and what should I never charge for it. So think my biggest piece of advice would just be to like lean into all the different experiences that you can get and figure out what you really enjoy doing because...

A lot of marketers these days are feeling pressured to niche down and be like, well, I have to be a Google Ads specialist or I have to be an e-com person. And the thing is, being a marketing generalist is not a bad thing. I think people started being like, Jack of all trades, master of none. But I mean, I've literally built a business out of being a marketing generalist. I've got clients who celebrate that I do that. I think that'd be my biggest piece of advice is just double down on what you enjoy doing, back yourself on what you know, and honestly just like, don't listen to what everyone else is saying because most people are filled with shit.

Simon (28:29) Good advice, very good advice. Hey, thank you very much for that. It's been lovely talking to you. Wish you all success and thank you for being on the show.

Chanel (28:30) Thank you. No, thank you for having me. No, thank you. This is awesome.