The Design Business Show 179: Thrive in Your Business Through Intentional Online Marketing with Nancy Badillo

Nancy Badillo has been in the digital space for 12 years, helping small business owners build and scale their businesses by leveraging the power of online marketing. With a focus on e-commerce coaching as well content creation, she is able to provide her clients with valuable expertise from start-ups all through growth stages – making sure they’re equipped with everything needed so that success can thrive.

If you’re serious about creating a full-time income with your passion, so you can spend more time with the people you love and enjoy the freedom of being an entrepreneur can offer, Nancy can help!

Here’s what we covered on the episode:

Nancy’s Start to Digital Marketing

Nancy shares that she started working in digital marketing 13 years ago out of necessity
In 2007, Nancy purchased a home, was a full-time student, and also worked full-time — which was too much to take on all at once
When the recession hit in 2009, the company Nancy was working for went through bankruptcy, and Nancy went from making 6 figures to barely making 15k/yr.
Nancy says she was looking for ways to save her home and Googled how to make money online, which is how she got into digital marketing
In the beginning, Nancy did not make a lot of money, which resulted in her working 3 jobs, losing her home, filing bankruptcy, and not being able to continue school
How Nancy ended up working at a call center for 7 years and pursued digital marketing as a side hustle but did not make much money from it for many years
When Nancy started in the digital space, she started a blog and was making money through SEO, affiliate marketing, and Google AdSense, so she decided to start a blog all about SEO
One mistake Nancy feels she made when first starting out is being all over the place and trying to do it all — one minute she was a blogger teaching about digital marketing, the next she was creating a blog, flipping it and selling it, she tried freelance, eBay, and many other things
Even though Nancy was all over the place, doing all those different things helped her get to where she is now — but she also believes niching down and growing her authority in one area would have led to her success quicker
Nancy was making money in digital marketing but wasn’t making enough to quit her full-time job
How Nancy decided she was going back to school to get a master’s degree in business and a minor in marketing because she loves digital marketing and thought if she couldn’t make money online, she could always work in a digital marketing agency, which she did for 5 years to have the experience

Digital Products + Becoming an Etsy Coach

In 2014, Nancy got engaged and was told by a friend to purchase her wedding items from Etsy; she did and ended up purchasing digital files, and many other items for her wedding
When Nancy downloaded the digital files from Etsy, she thought about what a great idea it was and decided to do a case study for her blog
Nancy took on another thing and opened an Etsy shop without really understanding it or without ever doing e-commerce; because of all her experience in the digital space, Nancy made 21k in her first year, which is how her Etsy Coach began and how she was able to niche down and grow her business
Nancy explains that her blog was about SEO, how to make money online, growing your social media, etc.
When Nancy started her Etsy store, she didn’t know how to do anything crafty, so she researched digital products and saw that a lot of people were selling quotes, which is what she started with
Nancy shares her biggest mistake was seeing everyone else in this market selling quotes and thinking it was okay to do too — she, unfortunately, was hit with infringement notices from Etsy
Again, Nancy had to start all over and started learning more about intellectual property and clip art and learned that you don’t need to be a graphic designer to buy premade clip art that people sell to you with a license that you can use to create something then sell
How digital products didn’t start as a passion for Nancy but has since turned into a huge passion of hers
Because Nancy had just gotten married and was in the wedding mindset, she started creating digital products for weddings, and after she had multiple products that matched, she started creating lookbooks to get upsells, which led her to triple her income the second year
Nancy shares that she was always working or going to school while pursuing her side hustle; she would get home from work and work on digital marketing until 1:00 am; she would sacrifice weekends, time with family and friends — 2020 was the first year that Nancy stopped working and took her business full-time
Because Nancy had consistent success with Etsy, she thought becoming an Etsy coach to teach people how to sell digital products would be a good niche because she noticed there were not a lot of Etsy coaches
Nancy started offering free critics of people’s Etsy stores on her YouTube channel, which is how she was able to build trust, credibility, and her email list
For the first year and a half, Nancy did not show herself in her videos because, as an introvert, it was hard for her, but she says once she started, it was the best thing she’s done for her business
All critiques on Nancy’s YouTube were free, but she shared that she started a smaller store with tutorials and sharing how to do Etsy related things where she put a listing for $100 private critiques that were more in-depth than her free, public ones

Balancing Multiple Platforms + Staying Available to Audiences

Even though Nancy had a lot of digital marketing experience, she still struggled with imposter syndrome
Nancy’s first store was very public, which created some problems because people would copy and steal her work, so she created a second store where she makes money and is much more private
In 2019, Nancy created a course for printables and gave it out for free because she thought no one would buy it — the following year, she redid the course and shared that in the last 10 months, she’s made $400k from it
Because Nancy’s audience has grown to be so large, she now has an assistant who helps her manage them
Nancy shares one of the best things she has done for her business has been implementing funnels — they have helped her understand nurturing her email list and have helped her get more sales consistently
How Nancy suggests getting an assistant if you can and how her assistant helps with her social media and email
In Nancy’s course, she has a pinned thread at the top of the group, so anytime people get stuck, they can ask questions in the thread and get a response directly from Nancy within 24 hours
The reason Nancy tries to make herself available to her audiences is that she doesn’t want to be another course creator where you buy from them and never talk to or see them again — she admits this can be a challenge since so many of her platforms have large audiences
Setting boundaries has been an important tool for Nancy because she tends to be a people pleaser

Blogging, YouTube, Pinterest + Nancy’s Etsy Course

If you’re just getting started or want to start a side hustle or business, Nancy says it’s important to niche down to something you are passionate about or something where you are passionate about the outcome
The second tip Nancy has for getting started is making sure you get yourself out there on videos and your platforms — if you are overwhelmed with being on every social media platform, make sure you have a blog, podcast, YouTube channel, or some main platform that is always driving your traffic
Nancy shares that the great thing about YouTube is, yes, she makes money, but her content is always being viewed
Why blogging is so important and how Nancy has a blog about health where she is averaging $37k/mo through affiliate marketing
Nancy says blogging is the best thing because people are always looking for content, so you can put out whatever you are going to sell, and then you can add other things to it like affiliate marketing to start generating money
How Nancy loves Instagram and TikTok, but she knows they aren’t going to give her the same results as YouTube or a blog
How Pinterest is Nancy’s #1 platform even though it has the least amount of followers because it is a search engine and drives the most traffic
Nancy shares that when it comes to starting, make sure you niche down, build your credibility and choose evergreen platforms like YouTube, blogging, and Pinterest that always drive your traffic because to get more sales, you need a high volume of traffic
Email marketing is also a powerful tool, Nancy explains, because if you plan on building a sustainable business, that’s how you’re going to be able to promote your products and services
If you’re not ready to put your face out there for your brand, Nancy says you can build your business without doing that and shares that she doesn’t show herself much on her health blog but still makes money through affiliate marketing
In Nancy’s course, you learn how to start, manage and scale your Etsy business, and she shares that it’s good for anyone who is a seasoned seller or for people who are starting out
What makes her Etsy course different is that in addition to the 5 module course, you get 8 additional bonus courses, including how to grow your Facebook group for your Etsy store, How to use Instagram, How to grow on Pinterest, etc.
Nancy stresses the importance of being intentional on social media — don’t try to tackle all the platforms at once and become just another user because you aren’t using them correctly; master one, and then move on to another one
If you go to Nancy’s website, you will find everything from her course, her YouTube channel, free resources to paid content, as well as everything you need to know about her