Midwest Makers Podcast: Episode 1 | Marketing for Makers That Actually Grew Our Business

[00:00:00] Hi besties. Welcome back to the Midwest Makers Podcast. I'm Kenna. I'm the co-founder of Midwest Fragrance Company, and this is where we have a real talk about building a maker business that lasts.

So grab your coffee, I've got my tea and buckle up because we're gonna yap. The topic that we're gonna talk about today is marketing. I spent today doing some thinking and reflecting on marketing and what actually grew our business in 2025, and I pulled out a few of the biggest things that I think made a real difference for us. These are the things that actually moved the needle, and I wanted to put them together into a little episode and share it with you.

If you stick around to the very end, I'm going to share some personal insights with you on how I actually ended up building out our marketing department this past year, what I actually did, and just a little bit more behind the scenes about what that experience actually taught me this year because it taught me so much. I had so many little nuggets and lessons that I wanted to share with you, and maybe it'll inspire you to think a little bit differently. So let's get into it.

Okay, first up is [00:01:00] email marketing had the biggest impact on our marketing efforts this year and actually growing our business. And I know that people love to say that email marketing is dead, but that is just so not true, at least in my experience. This year, I decided to do an experiment where I started sending one email out to our email list each month. What happened was that I saw actual real results. So I doubled down on my experiment because duh. And I started sending weekly emails. These weren't spammy emails, not just, buy, buy, buy. But really value driven emails where I got to. Directly to our customers, where I was really, truly sharing my heart and value and wanting to help you in your journey.

And guess what? We actually started making sales from these emails and I think one of the biggest shifts for me was realizing that our email list is something that we actually own. There's no algorithms, there's no hoping someone sees your post. 'cause I know you can relate, but it allowed us to build a direct relationship with you, And before this year, I think my [00:02:00] idea of what marketing was was social media. And now I kind of hate the word marketing because it can just mean so many different things. There's so many different types of marketing, and it can be this elusive thing that I feel like we're all chasing.

So I just have like a disdain for the word marketing now. But that's a side tangent. Anyways, I started to see that. I had been spending way too much time on social media and not enough time on email marketing, which actually got me results. That's really when I started to understand the difference between social media and email marketing and why they both matter, but in super different ways.

Okay. Here's a few different things for you to think about. Are you spending the most amount of your time on things that are moving the needle forward or not? Maybe you can learn that lesson for me. Okay. Another thing to think about is could you play around with experimenting with email marketing this year?

Is that aligned for your business or your goals? Don't feel pressured to go and try to do something immediately, but just something to think about. If it doesn't apply, let it fly. If you wanna [00:03:00] learn a little bit more about a simple marketing strategy go ahead and check the description. I'm gonna leave a link to a resource that I made for you.

Speaking of social media, I wanna talk about what I did with our social media this year that actually did move the needle. We stopped posting every single day to social media, and I know you're probably like every day Kenna, I can't even remember to make a post one time a week. Send help. I understand.

Stick with me here, friend. Hear me out. I did another experiment and started to post three times a week with actual intention, actual value, and a system behind it. And I'm serious. We actually started growing on social media after about a year or two of stagnation. I could not believe it.

We started to use social media for what it's really good at, which is building trust, helping people to get to know us and showing up as humans. And that's when I learned that social media's main job usually isn't to convert sales, it's to build trust and remove friction for your customers so that they can eventually feel confident in purchasing from you.

Alright, [00:04:00] so now knowing this here is my challenge for you. How much capacity do you have to show up on social media each week? Is it one time per week? Two times per week? Three times? Whatever your number is,

I challenge you to commit to that for three months as an experiment.

at the end of that time, see what you need to change or tweak what worked, what didn't, and get ready for your next experiment and then go on from there. That's how I approach everything and it really just helps so much.

And don't worry, I have a few resources for you that I'm gonna also link down below. If you don't know what to talk about or you don't know what to post, go check the description, bestie. I've got ya.

And last, but certainly not least what I did this year to really move the needle is that I started to fully lean into what makes Midwest Fragrance company special. What makes us truly us, and I let go of comparison, I hear from Makers all the time about how there's someone else in your town that's doing exactly what you're doing or they're copying you or.

The market is just saturated and you see all these other businesses doing similar things around you. It's exhausting. I get [00:05:00] it. I know I've been there, but I just challenge you to really just lean into what sets you apart. And here's the real answer, it's you. So this year what I leaned into was us, my voice, my silly, goofy, weird humor.

Our values, our heart, and here's what I really just want you to hear. Nobody can steal you. They can copy your products. They can copy your ideas, but they cannot copy you.

Here's my real talk question for you. How much energy are you spending, watching what others are doing and comparing yourself? Let it go, my sweet friend. It really does not matter. I know, I know that's hard, but what if you even took 25% of that energy and you poured it back into your own business? You could use it to write that email or maybe make that social media post regardless.

If you look silly or stupid, or you spell something wrong, or you make a mistake, or you screw your words, blah, it's fine. You'll learn. And then that it's what, see, I just messed up my words. It's fine. You'll learn. And that is what matters. I know someone needed to hear [00:06:00] that. Be authentically you and lean into that.

Okay. I'm pausing us for just a second, and I just wanna say this really quick to you before we move on. Do not listen to this episode and walk away feeling overwhelmed, like, okay, so now I need to figure out marketing and Kenna said that email marketing is the best thing I can be doing and I need to make all these social media posts and I need to do all this stuff.

No, no Stop Stop. No, no. I really just want you to use this as. Information, and I don't want it to be super pressure filled. I feel like that is just a theme in my life, and so I just have to say it out loud. I have to STO. That's a thing. That's a terminology that we use at Midwest Fragrance Company. It means state the obvious.

I want you. To let this information help you think differently, not do everything immediately. Even small shifts count. That's been the biggest thing I've learned. I'm gonna just say biggest thing I've learned for everything because all, everything is the biggest thing I've learned, but just compound change, 1% every single day adds up to real results.

Something is better than nothing, so just let it happen in its own time. Okay. Okay. I just had to say that quick.

Okay, this [00:07:00] is now a little bonus. section. I don't know if this is interesting to anyone, but it's been such a huge part of my year and as I was reflecting on what really moved the needle forward in marketing this year, I also took some time to reflect on what it was like to build out our marketing department this year.

. I have four pages of notes that I wrote as I was reflecting through this, and I could have kept going forever because I learned so much from this.

But I'm just gonna, kind of just read through my notes. It's probably gonna be messy and random and all over the place, but I just got my, that was paper just FYI.

So buckle up. Okay, so a little bit of context is that for a really long time at Midwest, my role was mainly operations. When Doug and I first started the business, Doug mainly was handling all of our production and handling shipping and ordering, and. Product development that was Doug's lane among several other things, And then for me, I did all the other things to keep the business going. all [00:08:00] the administrative things, marketing, customer service.

I was the heart. He was the vision. Just kidding. No, but really that's kind of how it worked out. We just wear all of the hats all the time. Both of us do.

So this past year, Doug stepped more fully into the CEO role, and then over the past couple of years, unknowingly at the time, we've started to build out what we now call our strategic operations team. And this started to free me up from doing all the things that I had always done

Our marketing department really needed an update. So I stepped. More into the role of marketing, and I started acting as marketing manager That was kind of probably 60 to 70% of my job over the last 12 to 16 months on top of all of my executive duties and all other duties as assigned

I know you can relate.

But what I didn't know when I started that was that I was gonna be beginning to build out an actual marketing department foundation. I had no idea. I dunno what I thought I was doing. I was just doing it looking back. I dunno how I didn't see it, But yeah, as I was just reflecting back, I was like, oh my goodness. This [00:09:00] was, probably one of the hardest things I've done in business in a while. It really challenged me. It brought up so much imposter syndrome throughout the year.

So much self-doubt, so much overwhelm, and. This year was just really freaking hard with a capital F.

There was also so much good that happened. But looking back now, I can see so clearly that this year was just such a year of foundational lessons that I needed to learn in order for me to keep growing. I learned so much about leadership and about trusting my own intuition, and about asking for help,

and just so, so many great, wonderful things that I am just. I don't even have the words to say how grateful I am for all of those lessons. I'm just gonna go through my list of random things probably no particular order.

So one of the things that I've really learned this year was what got me to this place in business, which was I see all the things that need to be done. I am a planner. I have a list. I'm detailed. I'm the executor. I call this the weeds, it's the [00:10:00] minutiae. It's important stuff, but the list goes on and on forever, and there's really never any ending in sight, all of that kind of mentality was the very thing that I needed to unlearn to grow and get to the next level.

And I found myself just continuing to default back to here versus being a visionary so many times throughout the year and throughout this experience.

And for me it just, it led to so much burnout throughout the year. I didn't rest, I didn't give myself any breaks. I just was like, buckle in and go, go, go. And it bit me in the butt.

I can just see now looking back that I needed to go through this experience. This is really what I needed to unlearn. And I think I'm still unlearning it, but I know I've come a really long ways.

It was just a hard lesson this year and I just often found myself doubting myself and my abilities and questioning if I was the right person for this. And just imposter syndrome I spoke about

but I'm coming through this now, the other side, it was the messy middle. It was the process. It's what had to happen. but sometimes that place can just suck and also be great at the same time. And learning to hold both is something that I feel like I learned to do this [00:11:00] year.

okay. Another thing I learned was I had a lot of limiting beliefs that were holding me back throughout the last few years, I think, and I started letting go of them this year Doug was a huge part of helping me.

He Taught me that I can make decisions and I can move. kind of that whole idea of not needing to have it all figured out and I can experiment. those concepts. I feel I really learned from Doug this year.

And also just a let go of overwhelm and instead just to see all the things as problems to be solved. that is now a phrase that I use all the time and I'm like, oh, it's just a problem to be solved. It's not a big deal. ' cause it's not.

I learned that sometimes in the beginning of something, it just takes so much longer When you're first starting something and you're not good at it, it takes longer and it doesn't mean that you're a failure or you don't know what you're doing. It just means that it's the process.

This year I leaned a lot into

being more organic, I'm normally such a planner, and I think this was such a huge area of growth for me, which I think is the very thing that led me to being able to feel confident enough to start a podcast out of the [00:12:00] blue and just go for it.

Building out the team of marketing and the department of marketing was really just a whole entire rep in the, I don't need to have this all figured out in order to move forward concept. And so just with each little thing that would happen, , was another rep, another rep, kind of going back to that whole concept of compound change and compound action.

Just little tiny things added up throughout the year. And then I was like, oh. I understand now I can just go and do it, and then I trust myself to figure it out as I go.

I think none of us really recognize, our areas of genius are what we're really great at and we compare ourselves to others. But I feel like this year I was able to really see what I really am good at and be able to own that.

I got the opportunity to hire a content strategist and a systems expert this year to help me in marketing, it was just absolutely life changing.

Just learn so much throughout working with these two ladies. I'm just really grateful to have been able to have the chance to learn and, just work with both of them So, I still have such a long ways to go in building up marketing, but, I kind [00:13:00] of have an understanding about the next level looks like.

For us. And so that feels really good.

I think there's just so much that I took away from this experience that I will have with me forever. And I think that that's what I love so much about business. I building the business isn't always about building the business.

It's really about. Who you build yourself to be in the process .

If this episode resonated with you, I would love to hear about it in the comments. and ps, if you're as scented product maker looking for a supplier who genuinely wants to partner in your success, look no further. My bestie friend, you found us. We sell all the goodies that you need to start your creative side hustle. And as you grow your business, we are here to grow with you.

Thanks so much for spending time with me. We're cheering you on every step of your maker journey. Okay, love you. Bye.