The Power Table with Taylor Smith
The Power Table with Taylor Smith
Reddit, Facebook Groups, & Diversifying Your Marketing Ecosystem in 2026 with Sarah Gemmell
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In this episode of the Power Table podcast, host Taylor Smith and guest Sarah Gemmell discuss how to create a profitable marketing ecosystem for 2026. They emphasize the importance of diversifying marketing channels beyond traditional methods like word of mouth and Instagram. Sarah shares insights on building a comprehensive marketing funnel, exploring alternative channels like Reddit and Facebook groups, and the value of local networking for online entrepreneurs. The conversation highlights the need to adapt marketing strategies to current market trends and consumer behavior.
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Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Power Table Podcast. I'm your host, Taylor Smith, and today we're going to talk about how to have a more profitable marketing ecosystem and get the results that you want from all of the effort you're putting into marketing. And we're going to dive into where you should actually be showing up, spending your time, where it makes sense to be putting your efforts in 2026. And I'm so excited to dive, dive deep into this topic with my special guest, Sarah Gamel. Sarah first built a five-figure month fitness business and learned how to successfully market and grow that business and then transition transitioned into coaching and providing consulting and services to help other people successfully market their own businesses. Sarah, welcome to the Power Table podcast. Thank you. I'm so excited. Let's go ahead and deep dive into the topic today, which is profitable marketing ecosystems. And I'm so excited to talk about this because I think at the beginning of the year, everyone wants to sit down and make a plan, right? Like, what am I doing differently? And what are my big goals? And how is my marketing going to help me hit my big goals? So I just want to start with something you said to me, which was when it comes to lead generation, which is what we need to make sales and hit your goals and grow your business, we all need more leads. People are often relying on word of mouth or solely on Instagram. And I want to start there because why do you feel that that is such a like problem or red flag when you see people who are relying on one or both of those areas for their leads?
SPEAKER_00Those are the two most popular that I see, I think, just in the nature of building an online business, right? And the the biggest problem, they kind of have their own separate problems, right? So the biggest problem when I see an entrepreneur who relies, it might not be solely, but it's like if we took away word of mouth, where's the marketing happening, right? Where are the where's the money being made? And it there's a big question mark there. So it's like it's really, I would say like 90% of what they rely on, even though they have these other marketing channels, the other marketing channels don't perform. So when we say solely, it's not literal, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The problem though with relying on word of mouth is that you're not in any control of it. It's a marketing channel that is like it's a very passive, you're taking a back seat and you're waiting for people to say, hey, here's a lead, here's an introduction, here's someone who needs your services. And some months that might be really great. And you might get a lot of really great referrals, but it's not something you're in control of. So it can't be predictable. It really can't be scalable because you're not in control of it, right? And then on the other side on the flip side of that with Instagram, the interesting thing about Instagram over the like, let's say the last 10 years, but really even just like the last five since pre-pandemic, Instagram used to be a platform where you could reach new people, right? You could grow organically on Instagram and hit 10,000, 20,000, a million followers by providing value, right? Or showing up consistently. All these like old school things we hear about Instagram over and over and over again, the market has shifted and the platform has changed. Most of us are not on Instagram to be full-time content creators, right? And it's it the platform has shifted to now be more of a nurture platform where it's a really great way to stay in front of people who already know who you are. But unless you are going to show up multiple times a day, every single day, it's really not the primary place to build your audience, right? Like if your goal is to go viral to be a full-time content creator, then heck yeah, do it. Right. But most of us who are running small businesses, we're like, listen, we like Instagram. We're having fun here, but we're gonna post maybe three or four times a week because that's what's sustainable. But that is not a uh a platform that you can put all of your marketing eggs in that basket, right? Because it's not getting you in front of new people. So the primary problem being like, we want to diversify, we want to make sure we're marketing in more than one place. But with word of mouth, you're not in control of it. And with Instagram, there's often a disconnect of the purpose of Instagram, right? It's a really great way to nurture, but if you're treating a nurture platform like it's your visibility platform, that's where your disconnect is. And now you're spending three hours and 47 takes to make a five-second reel that no one sees.
SPEAKER_01So, in both of those cases, I think what you're pointing at is really a lack of control, in a sense. Like you mentioned that with word of mouth is you're just waiting for people to refer you and recommend you. So I think you drove the point home really nicely that like 2026, when you think about your marketing ecosystem, we really need to be diversifying and not relying on something that while it may have worked in the past, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to lead to growth in the future. So give us some ideas on what else we could be doing. Like, how do we rewrite a new ecosystem that is going to actually work? Where are some places that you're seeing clients succeed and make gains on different channels?
SPEAKER_00The most important thing when we think about like an ecosystem is that diversification, but more than just the diversification, we have to understand the purpose of each marketing channel, right? So if if I give you an example of, I'll just give you like my funnel. I meet new people at networking and speaking engagements. That's primarily where I'm meeting new people, right? And then I bring them to my Instagram. And then that's where they can see some of my content, they can see my stories, we can be in the DMs. Like Instagram is where I send people to stay connected, right? And then from my Instagram, they might download a freebie or they might opt into a free event that they see on my stories that gets them on my email list. And then I know my email list is there to support the nurturing of that person, right? And then I know what my sales conversion is. Like, are you are you converting sales on a call, on a webinar, in the DMs, directs from the landing page? We have to be able to answer all these questions with certainty and not assumptions, so that we can say, okay, TikTok is where I get in front of new people. LinkedIn is where I connect with my corporate audience, right? Like, I know that I'm a local business, so I know I have to have a really solid Google and FCO presence. So once you can understand how you're diversifying and where the marketing channels work in your funnel, because we want to make sure we're attracting new audiences, getting visible to new people consistently, right? And then calling those people in, nurturing them, making the new audience members actual leads, and then converting those leads into actual clients, right? So we need marketing channels at each point of that pipeline. The other piece of that is really thinking outside the box. Online entrepreneurs are being fed that we need to be on Instagram and we need to have an email list. But if we only have those two things, those two things are primarily nurture platforms. So where are you getting in front of new people? Where are we driving the traffic to that um to that pipeline, right? Where are we driving traffic to those platforms? Yeah, right. And we're told like these are the ways to do it because I made a million dollars doing that. No, it's not about how your mentor made a million dollars, it's about where your audience hangs out. There's a big uptake right now. We're gonna see a big uptake in 2026 in Reddit marketing. So Reddit is its own platform, it's been around for a while, it's popular. But now we're starting to see Reddit is really putting marketing dollars behind paid advertising. And they're really starting to put out a lot of their own paid marketing to say, hey, come pay us to run marketing on Reddit. So now we're seeing more and more business owners get on Reddit and join these subreddits in their niche, in their area of expertise, and it's getting them leads, right? So, like really starting to look outside of the box of the of the norm of like Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, email list. It's like, where can you find things like Reddit? Or maybe you do need to go join your local chamber, right? Maybe you should play around with Pinterest, maybe you should hire someone to uh um fix your SEO so that you have more Google searchability, right? You have your own podcast, but is it searchable? Like really figuring out where we can lean into, and that's by understanding what worked for you now. If you think about all your leads in the last like six months, where did they come from?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I just spend a lot of time on Reddit. Like if I want an answer or I want to know the dirt on someone, or I'm considering purchasing from someone, the very first thing I actually do is go search their name or their business on Reddit. Interesting. Because I don't actually want, like, I'm not looking for, you know, something bad or scandalous necessarily, but I want to know what real people are saying about those programs or offers. Um I'll do this with software, is what I literally just did it yesterday with like a podcasting software. Is I went and looked at Reddit, like this versus Riverside. Um, and one thing, one reason that I'll like kind of deep dive on this further that I think probably people are not saying is that when you're looking at people's sales pages for an offer, and when you're on their social media, you have generally no way of knowing how current or recent their testimonials and social proof are. However, if you're going on Reddit and you're reading people's posts, there is a timestamp. So you're gonna be able to see did that person get results six months ago or was it seven years ago? And that's a big difference. And so it's really interesting that I found myself more and more like checking Reddit for a pulse before making a buying decision this year.
SPEAKER_00That is really interesting. So I've heard um from the opposite side from business owners saying that like they're doing something similar, but instead of looking for what they're purchasing, they're joining those conversations. And the cool thing about Reddit, from my understanding, I I don't use Reddit as a primary marketing channel, but I have a lot of like referral partners and clients who do, they get in there, they don't have to create content. They literally just have to like scroll through, see what people are talking about, and they just have to join the conversation, which I think is a huge plus because in today's world, as entrepreneurs, especially when we're in such a uh a world where it's very Instagram centric, right? Like your local concrete guy, that industry, that world is not Instagram centric, but as online entrepreneurs, we are, right? And it's like it's so focused in just this constant create more content, create more content, find the trending audios, create more reels, create more carousels, make more stories, right? Do more on Instagram. But it's like, what if you had a marketing channel where you didn't have to just constantly keep up with trends and new content? Yeah, you know, like, yeah, you should create your own content. Like all of marketing is content creation, but there are these ways to market where you don't have to create content all the time. Yeah, right? Like another one, just like Reddit, is Facebook groups. I will die on this hill that you can make so much money on Facebook groups.
SPEAKER_01I was literally gonna say this as I was like, as you were saying that, I was like, yeah, I actually have very successful um clients, particularly if it's local businesses or service providers. A little bit less if you're a coach, but if you're a service provider of any kind, like instead of creating so much content, if you just respond to people's comments, like just engage on their post, two sentences that are helpful, like let me know if I can help you with more, you know, I have this service, XYZ, because some groups don't allow links, but you can always just say, like, let me know if I can help you. And those type of comments, it's surprising that it still works. But I think Facebook, honestly, I'm gonna just die on this hill here for 2026. Like, I think Facebook groups are still gonna be relevant for a decade to come.
SPEAKER_00They're not going anywhere anytime soon. You might notice a change. Like the thing with Facebook groups is if you own it, you have to create content and you have to work to keep up with that. Otherwise, if you're not engaging, they're not engaging. But if you're in other people's groups, they actually don't even want you to create content because they don't want you to promote. So, like exactly what you just said, scroll through the conversations, search a couple of keywords in your Arab expertise, right? Even though I'm not like a local business, I stay in local Facebook groups. Yeah. And people go to Facebook groups for everything. They're like, here's the rash on my son's butt. What should I do? All the way to I need to hire someone for marketing, who do you recommend? Like, and everything in between. And if you just search and you just do like what, like two days a week, and you have a couple of Facebook groups that you know are really active, and you just scroll through and you plug yourself in and a trick to kind of keep in your back pocket. I will share that group and that post. And I'll like say you and I are referral partners, and I'm like, Taylor, can you just go into this Facebook group real quick and just tag me? And then you tag me a couple of my other referral partners, tag me, recommend me, whatever. What happens is psychology of frequency. So now the original poster is like, okay, everyone's tagging Sarah Gemmel. Great, wonderful. But what happens is in addition to that, you have all the lurkers who are also looking for the same thing, but they don't want to make their own post. So now they're searching for that thread. They're noticing that you're the one that's most tagged. And it's a really great way to leverage your networking and your referral partners without asking them to just constantly send you paying clients and these huge opportunities. Think about how easy it is for your referral partner to just tag you.
SPEAKER_01You also brought up something that I want to kind of take this podcast in that direction, which is you said local groups and join your local chamber. So you and I had had conversations before about how many leads we get from local things, even though our offers are entirely online, with the exception of events. Um, can we talk about that for a moment? Like, can you share more about why online entrepreneurs should be adding local networking or local marketing to their ecosystem in 2026?
SPEAKER_00100%. I think this is gonna be, I predict this in 2026 to really be a non-negotiable, right? Like being a local celebrity is so underrated in the online entrepreneur space where we feel like because we have an online offer, because we can serve globally, that we should be doing a global reach. And I'm not saying don't, right? Like reach for the stars, reach global, dream big. But when you focus first on being a local celebrity and then work your way out, it is honestly just a smarter way to do business. And it's a lot less saturated. If you think about this local market, right? And you get out in your local community and you start meeting the person who owns the coffee shop and you start going to the chamber and you start talking to the other online entrepreneurs that work in your town, right? Or live in your town, you go to a co-working space every once in a while. Like, there's all these things that you can do to implant yourself in your local community. And the chamber is such a controversial topic in our in our space, right? Like female entrepreneurs online are very anti-chamber. And I will tell you that I've been to chambers that I absolutely hate and I will never go back, but I've been to chambers that I absolutely adore and I still go trying. If you go to one in-person event that you don't like, it's not because local in-person networking doesn't work, it's not because of the demographics of the people that you were talking to. So, with being a local celebrity first, it allows for you to keep that pool small and then work your way out. And I really think that in 2026, we're gonna see that be more of a non-negotiable. We're not seeing sales go down because no one wants to send money. We're seeing sales slow down because the market has shifted, marketing channels have shifted, but your marketing hasn't changed. Like you're still trying to market the same way you did in 2020, and that's why people aren't buying, or that's why things are inconsistent or uncertain, because what worked in 2020 just doesn't work anymore.
SPEAKER_01You said old school at the beginning of this podcast, and I kind of giggled because I was like, that was five years ago. The old ways, the old way five years ago, but it's true because you know, back then I could unbox a laptop, put some pretty music to it, and be like manifesting your dream small business, and it would get half a million views. Literally. Literally, and I could just unbox a computer that my business bought me, and that was it. And people were like, Okay, cool. T let me buy your online course. Yeah. I would love to say that you could still do that, but you can't. And actually, let me back that up. I don't love, I wouldn't, I don't want that because I actually think that that was not the greatest impact that I could make, nor was it, did it feel very good, right? We're all doing these things that maybe they're low lift and they were getting views and they were making sales, but I actually that was probably the lowest point in my business where I felt the least authentic. And I was constantly like, what is the point of this? Right? Like it felt watered down and it felt silly and it felt dumb. And so, even though there were sales there, I felt like I was selling my soul in a sense. And so I actually would much rather be in the place where we are now where relationships are built one at a time. We need that local component. You actually have to talk to people. They're not just gonna buy on the win on a whim. You actually need people to trust you, and I feel like we're actually in such a better place for that. Like, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to see you in person.