Client Spotlight: Chris and Lori Cambas, CoupleStrong

In this episode of Digital Marketing Done Right, Lee Kantor and David Brandon interview Chris and Lori Cambas, founders of CoupleStrong. Chris and Lori offer couples counseling resources to help people create lasting relationships. They’ve embraced content marketing in all its forms, including blog posts, video and a surprisingly powerful TikTok presence.

About Digital Marketing Done Right

Digital Marketing Done Right is a joint production of Rainmaker Digital Services and Business Radio X. It focuses on success stories from Rainmaker Platform clients, showcasing how they use technology and marketing to build their businesses.

Transcript

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Digital Marketing Done Right, a customer success spotlight from Rainmaker Digital Services and Business RadioX. We cover digital marketing success stories drawn from real Rainmaker Platform clients and showcase how they use the Rainmaker Platform to build their business. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:36] Lee Kantor here with David Brandon, another episode of Digital Marketing Done Right and this is going to be a good one. Who do we have today, David?

David Brandon: [00:00:43] Hey, Lee. So we’ve got Chris and Lori Cambas from Couplestrong. I believe I’m pronouncing that correctly, right? Cambas.

Chris Cambas: [00:00:51] Yeah.

David Brandon: [00:00:52] Yep. So welcome. Welcome to the show.

Lori Cambas: [00:00:56] Thank you for having us.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] Now, before we get too far into things, can you tell us a little bit about CoupleStrong, how you serve folks?

Chris Cambas: [00:01:03] You want to take that one, Lori, or do you want me to go ahead and take it?

Lori Cambas: [00:01:10]Sure.

Chris Cambas: [00:01:12] So CoupleStrong is a company we created that really provides resources for couples. It’s always been a dream of ours to be able to get out in front of couples, keep them from getting into therapy offices. And so that’s what our, you know, our our website does that we host on Rainmaker. CoupleStrong.com. We have a video library, we have an assessment library, we have a handout library of couples challenges. So we provide you know, just an extensive array of resources for couples to better their relationships.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:39] So what was the catalyst of the idea? How did this come about?

Chris Cambas: [00:01:43] Gosh, 17 years ago, me and my wife hosted a clinical training for therapists. I thought it was going to be a one off. She said, Hey, let’s keep it going. Um, and so for 17 years we’ve been hosting clinical trainings for therapists, but out of that grew this idea of, you know, Hey, what if we can just keep them out of the therapy office and get out in front of them? So CoupleStrong has always been, you know, in our thought process. And we finally put it all together with Rainmaker. And we’ve been at probably the past year, a little bit over a year with Rainmaker, and it’s just been blossoming and growing in a lot of a lot of positive ways. So we’re we’re very pleased, that’s for sure.

Lori Cambas: [00:02:23] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:24] What are some of the trade offs between therapy and what you’re offering?

Chris Cambas: [00:02:28] You want to give it to … take that one, honey?

Lori Cambas: [00:02:31] Well, the resources that we do offer are not in place of therapy, especially for those couples who are in crisis. However, it is enrichment for couples. There are a lot of challenges. There’s webinars they can watch, there’s handouts and assessments they can take. It’s not only for couples, but a lot of couples therapists use this website as well for resources, and they’ll ask some of their clients to do some of our CoupleStrong challenges on there. So that is, you know, different from being in a therapy office. They’re able to do some enrichment from home without a therapist and hopefully not have to come into the office.

Chris Cambas: [00:03:17] That’s the real differentiation, right? This is all about enrichment. It’s not about couples in crisis. However, we do have therapists nationwide that that use our challenges and handouts, those types of things as kind of part of their treatment plan for couples. So it’s kind of, you know, serving a dual purpose.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:34] How are you defining crisis like? I would imagine that different people would see their behavior and activities as a crisis that may be not a therapist wouldn’t see it as a crisis. Can you share a little bit about what differentiates normal friction with crisis?

Chris Cambas: [00:03:50] Yeah, So I see crisis every day, and that’s affairs, right? That certainly is a crisis. It creates PTSD in the offended party. That’s probably 99% of my caseload or someone in the midst of, you know, in the throes of addiction that really throws relationships into crisis and the individual who’s addicted into crisis for sure. Certainly when couples come in, you know, just kind of the general couple, the relationship doesn’t feel good and they’re arguing. But from a clinical perspective is that, you know, a level ten crisis. And the answer would be no. And in those situations, we can calm things down pretty quickly. And actually in those situations, from an educational perspective, with the resources on CoupleStrong, that could be pretty effective.

David Brandon: [00:04:36] Now that we were talking about some of these things, we had somebody on recently, Keith Rhys, who is in health and wellness space. For you guys being in therapy, he mentioned that there were several things that you had to be more cognizant of when you’re on social media, when you’re putting out resources into the web, you know, that sort of thing. Do you have any of those sort of minefields ethically or platform censorship wise or anything like that that you have to navigate in your field?

Chris Cambas: [00:05:08] Well, I think we talk about all the issues that couples go, you know, suffer with on our social media sites, on our website, et cetera. But we’re clear the stuff that we offer, right, that we’re actually offering to couples and I’m not I don’t mean informationally on social media, but the actual resources that we’re offering for couples are for enrichment and knowledge not in place of therapy.

Lori Cambas: [00:05:33] And we’re very careful when we are using examples and things like that that, you know, we’re HIPAA compliant. We don’t have anyone on our website that are actual clients or anything like that.

Chris Cambas: [00:05:48] Right? Right. Makes sense.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:51] Now, when you started, I would imagine I think you mentioned that it was kind of in person in real life. How did you kind of mentally make that transition to go more digital and open up your world to, you know, the world rather than just the folks that are coming to you in person?

Chris Cambas: [00:06:12] Well, you know, all the concepts are the same, right? And the idea is to be able to reach as many people as possible. So you can only see so many in person, whether that’s offering an in-person clinical training or, you know, in-person therapy. When you move digitally, you can you can hit millions of people with the information.

Lori Cambas: [00:06:30] Right, and digitally, when you go digital as well, you become more relevant in this day and age. Even though we’re older, we’re still trying to stay relevant.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:46] Now but the difference in going kind of in a global manner in that digital allows you to do, you have to kind of create engagement. You know, it’s, it’s still instead of 1 to 1, it’s one to many. Are you having to kind of rethink maybe some of your activities so that they can be shared with lots of people and they in turn can share it to help you kind of grow like like is the thinking any different or is it.

Chris Cambas: [00:07:03] Oh, we used to do assessments and I would just hand out paper and now we do it digitally and they just download a PDF. So it’s really the same. Well, I think, you know, let me say this. In the day and age that we live in, I think that we go the extra mile to be careful and make sure that using Lori’s language we’re relevant to … to everyone, right? I mean, the principles of relationship are exactly the same. Right. And we’re mindful of all different forms of relationship, and we deliver it in a sensitive way. Helpful? Not helpful?

Lee Kantor: [00:07:57] Well, I’m just trying to understand kind of tactically at the level of, okay, now you have a website and people are going to engage with you on a website rather than they’re going to come to your conference or to to your talk that you’re giving and that and sometimes I guess you can just translate whatever you were doing in your talk to now you’re just going to talk on a live stream or something like that. So maybe that’s how you’re doing it. But I didn’t know if there was anything that you were doing differently digitally, and I’m not talking about kind of the concepts, I’m just talking about how it’s executed and it’s delivered to the person, you know, in another country that, you know, either is watching it live or is kind of downloading something after the fact.

Chris Cambas: [00:08:44] Yeah, we’re not really doing anything different from a from a digital perspective than we would do live in person. Again, whether it’s digital or live in person, we’re just we’re sensitive to our audience and realize that generalization, um, you know, is going to be a landmine in and of itself. So we’re careful to address that, right? Like this is, this is kind of the basic concept here, right? This is what the research shows us on sort of a standard couple, let’s say. Right. Um, say just two people that are part of a relationship. So, you know, we’ll generalize in that sense, but also give clarification that saying, you know, this is the research as it stands now under these precise set of circumstances, under this context. Right. And so whether that’s, you know, on our website, you know, whether we’re live streaming, whether we’re videotaping stuff and uploading those videos onto the website or delivering it in person, it’s the same material.

Lori Cambas: [00:09:47] Right. And I think I’ll jump in just for a second here is that, you know, for the people around the world that aren’t in the same time zone and we’re not live, you can go to the website and watch a webinar or watch over 300 videos we’ve done in, you know, podcast room. Um, and, and so they could get information that way. And, and even past web webinars we have on demand so there’s still can get access 24/7.

Chris Cambas: [00:10:21] Yeah.

David Brandon: [00:10:23] Now that brings up an interesting point. You guys talked about generalization and trying not to overgeneralize. I feel like in your particular niche, it can be maybe challenging to niche down like your particular audiences. How do you differentiate for different audiences and how do you do that? You know, when you’re speaking to such a broad segment of society.

Chris Cambas: [00:10:51] Yeah. Let me let me grab that one, Lori. I think that the research is very clear on relationships meaning to people. There’s two people. The elements of relationship are the same across the entire spectrum, whether that’s a husband and wife, whether that’s a parent and a child, you know, coworkers, whatever you want to call it, just two people doing relationship. The elements of the relationship are the same. Now, can there be, you know, subtle nuances to, say, a couple living in Israel versus a couple living in Baghdad versus a couple living in Moscow versus a couple living in Chicago? Sure. I mean, there could be some cultural elements that we can certainly be mindful and, you know. Take note of and bring and bring to the forefront. But at a straightforward level, the elements of themself on what creates great relationship are pretty clear across the board from a from a research perspective. That helpful?

David Brandon: [00:11:57] Yeah, that helps. Thank you.

Chris Cambas: [00:11:59] Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:00] Now, can you talk a little bit about your marketing? How do you kind of … how are you going about marketing the the services and the different educational offerings that you have? How do you build kind of that digital clientele?

Chris Cambas: [00:12:18] Yeah. Why don’t you take that one, Lori?

Lori Cambas: [00:12:20] Yeah, we have first. It took a lot of content, content, content and SEO and things like that. So when people are searching, they can find us. We with National Marriage Seminars had a huge database of therapists and we had built relationships prior to starting CoupleStrong. So we are able to use those resources as well as social media has been a big factor in getting our name out and getting followers and trying to get the brand recognition. And so that’s been our biggest push right now.

Chris Cambas: [00:13:07] I think the idea of with National Marriage Seminars, I mean, you already had 100,000 therapists in our database. And so to, you know, plug CoupleStrong into our our e-blast that we would send to them advertising clinical trainings and saying, hey, check out this website became a simple thing to do. And it really pushed a lot of traffic over to the CoupleStrong website. And in turn those therapists started pushing their client base. The couples that they were seeing, you know, over to the website as well. So that was a you know, that was a big help for us that we had already been doing. You know, we’d already been dealing in the therapy world for 17 years and just had a huge list already.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:49] Now, have you discovered kind of a best channel or is that is that something that kind of just evolves over time, that maybe something works for a while then you have to pivot to a new channel? Or do you have kind of go to marketing channels you utilize?

Chris Cambas: [00:14:04] Well, I would say our emailing is always, you know, extremely helpful. I mean, that’s the biggest revenue generator. However, I think you might agree with this, Lori, TikTok has been I mean, really kind of unchained, right? I mean, it’s been incredible, right.

Lori Cambas: [00:14:21] Because of our topics, too. You know, it’s a little bit different on in that area of social media. And when we’re talking about, you know, relationships and affairs and betrayal and, um, you know, narcissism and codependency et cetera. Those are really key words that people really want to listen to and hear about. And, you know, introducing ourselves in a relationship with the person on the other side of the computer, that’s the best way to do it. I mean, we could put pictures up every day with a link to read, um, you know, a blog. But them actually seeing us, um, I think makes a big difference.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:09] So was, was there any experimentation on coming up with the appropriate format that’s going to be effective in TikTok or did you just kind of just start trying stuff and seeing what’s getting traction?

Chris Cambas: [00:15:22] We threw it out there.

Lori Cambas: [00:15:24] We were winging it.

Chris Cambas: [00:15:26] And now we know. Now we know it works. Right?

Lori Cambas: [00:15:30] Right. We just … we’re not afraid to try anything. So Chris and I will just, you know, let’s do it. And if it works, it works. Let’s see what sticks. And then when we find, you know, uh, what, you know, was successful, then we just grab on to that and go.

David Brandon: [00:15:51] It’s really interesting because y’all are, I think the first one that we’ve had on here that’s really used TikTok heavily. Um, do you see a lot of direct traffic come from TikTok or do you see more like indirect results with it?

Chris Cambas: [00:16:08] Correct. Correct.

Lori Cambas: [00:16:11] Chris has gotten a lot, a lot of therapy sessions and marriage intensives from people watching us on TikTok. I would say out of all of our social media platforms, that would be the one that we’ve gotten the most referrals from and we’ve used that, you know, have been on that social media platform the least amount of time and demographic.

David Brandon: [00:16:34] Go ahead.

Chris Cambas: [00:16:35] We’ve got like 70,000 people in less than a year that are following us. And I mean, we got millions and millions of views. Or over.

Lori Cambas: [00:16:42] 20 million views.

David Brandon: [00:16:46] Wow. That’s awesome. And yeah, I mean, I think it’s easy, you know, especially if you’re from the outside looking in to think of TikTok as a younger platform. Does that demographic hold true as you’re looking at it from who you’re getting for sessions, you know, your back end data. You know, what are you seeing?

Chris Cambas: [00:17:04] No.

Lori Cambas: [00:17:05] Actually. Oh, go ahead, Chris. I’m sorry.

Chris Cambas: [00:17:08] Yeah, I was looking at the other day, and it really holds consistent from. The age brackets of and the demographics for therapists actually come into clinical trainings, which is totally different than than couples. Um, you know, it’s 25 to 55, right? Um, and so let’s say 25 to 34, you know, is, you know, ballpark, let’s say 20% and then 35 to, you know, 55 then engulfs just a huge percentage of of the folks that are coming to us. Then 55 above it starts tapering down a little bit. But we we get them. You know, the vast majority of people are 25 to 55.

David Brandon: [00:17:53] Fascinating.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:55] How do you move them off TikTok onto your website and into your email list?

Chris Cambas: [00:18:01] Yeah. Everything from, you know, saying, hey, go check our website out, you know, in different videos that we make to having our link there on the TikTok platform. I mean, guys, we post to TikTok every single day, all kinds of stuff. I mean, we’re heavily engaged with, you know, 70,000 people a day and growing. And, you know, we’re constantly, you know, talking about CoupleStrong and and so that all that engagement on a daily basis pushes people over to the website

Lori Cambas: [00:18:33] There’s advertisement that we put on there as well on the stories, you know that will just be a picture with a link, you know, to go check it out. And that’s what happens.

Chris Cambas: [00:18:45] TikTok has been a super positive experience for us, that’s for sure. And by far I mean outpaces for us anyway, Facebook and Instagram. It’s not even close.

Lori Cambas: [00:18:58] Yeah. I think our next where we’re headed, though, I think will do really well is on YouTube. We’re going to start our YouTube channel now. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:11] So is one of the channels kind of the worst? And if they’re the worst, is it something you discontinue totally or is it you just taper it down to a minimal amount of investment?

Chris Cambas: [00:19:23] I think we’ve just tapered down. I mean, Twitter hasn’t done anything substantial. I mean, we still engage it, but at a very limited, you know, in a very limited scope.

Lori Cambas: [00:19:34] Twitter is not a big platform for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:37] So when something works, you kind of double down and put more energy and resources onto it and then kind of taper off the things that aren’t working.

Chris Cambas: [00:19:45] Yeah, absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:47] But you’re still … but you’re experimenting throughout your on your top performing channels. You’re still running experiments and trying different things to see if you can kind of juice it a little bit.

Chris Cambas: [00:19:59] Absolutely. Yes. Listen, we just from different backdrops that we film on, right? We filmed a lot in a podcast studio. We filmed some from our home. And just because of different backdrops, like the podcast studio that tends to get those videos tend to get more views than if we were sitting comfortably in a really nice living room at our home. Right. So everything from, you know, the backdrop to the topics that we’re talking about, we always experiment with for sure.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:32] Now. What’s your favorite part of marketing?

Chris Cambas: [00:20:36] That would be a Lori question.

Lori Cambas: [00:20:39] Well, the favorite part is, I guess, the benefit or seeing something succeed. I would say building relationships, I think, and we’re old school. I think I was a director of sales and marketing and general manager for Marriott for years. And I just learned that just being authentic and building relationships in your marketing and advertising, um, is, is the best way. Word of mouth, you know, recommendations, things like that I think go much further than the amount of money that some people spend on it.

David Brandon: [00:21:24] Now, that brings up something interesting, Lori. You know, with you two being a team, a husband and wife team as well as co-founders, you know, you mentioned, you know, you were a director of sales and marketing. I noticed that’s mentioned on the site as well. You know, what do both of y’all feel like you bring to the table, you know, complementary wise as far as being a team on this? Business.

Chris Cambas: [00:21:51] You want to go first?

Lori Cambas: [00:21:52] Sure, of course. Chris is the master therapist. He’s the relationship expert. I’ve been helping with the trainings and in the past with the therapists. I do all the advertising, marketing, booking, the hotels, all of that. He’s the go to person for the clinical side. And so I think that with those two things, it’s been successful.

Chris Cambas: [00:22:24] Listen, from a therapist’s perspective, you know, it’s been 20 years of reading a lot of books and seeing a lot of clients and doing a lot of trainings. Anybody can do that. One of the I think one of the reasons why our videos become successful, I mean, we’ve been married 28 years and so we’re relaxed with each other. But Lori can set a question up for me very easily. And so in doing that, it’s much smoother. So it’s more than just the idea of, Hey, Chris, you know, you have a therapy brain and Lori’s a marketing brain. It’s the history. I mean, we’ve spent, you know, almost 30 years together. And then just the ease of our interactions that I think I think that more than anything else makes people comfortable with our content.

David Brandon: [00:23:15] That’s awesome.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:16] Now, you mentioned the importance of referrals and word of mouth. Is there anything you’re doing from a tactical standpoint that you can share to help other people kind of get more word of mouth and referral business? Is there any tactic that you use that you find effective?

Chris Cambas: [00:23:33] I think we’re just content, content, content. And then being ourselves, right? I mean, we don’t try to be something that we’re not. We have constant content that’s going out there, but that content is just who we are. And so we’ve gotten to this point now where we’re, you know, we’re … I think we found our tribe, so to speak, Right. The people who, like, you know, really have bought in and they’re following us and getting a lot more engaged. That’s from my perspective. Lori, I mean, you have anything you want to add to that or take away?

Lori Cambas: [00:24:09] No, that’s that’s about right. I mean, we’re just I think it’s because we really believe in what we’re doing as well. And it’s not about all the likes and the you know, we’re not dancing on TikTok and singing and none of that, and we’re just who we are. And the information that we’re sharing is just really needed. There’s just so many couples in trouble. And and I think to to hear someone on a social media platform, that’s it’s actually, you know, touching their heart or touching, you know, a moment or a time in their relationship that needs work, I think that’s it’s just finding exactly something that someone needs. And I think everyone needs help in relationships.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:04] Now, do you have any advice for folks that are new to content that haven’t really kind of gone as deep as you have regarding content? How do you decide what to create and what is appropriate and and the voice that you use? Is it. How did you come about where you’re at? It sounds like everything at the heart of what you do is really authentic and is coming from your heart. But for someone who has never shared like that and have become that vulnerable, it might be hard for them to imagine what to talk about and what to put on a video or what to write in a blog. Can you share a little bit about how you come up with the things that you decide to talk about and share?

Chris Cambas: [00:25:54] So the idea of what do we … you know what? How do we come up with what we want? To share? Those types of things. It’s really easy. You know, again, I’ve been in therapy rooms for almost 20 years. And so the the topics of what’s hot, what are couples wanting, become very easy, right. I interact with it every single day on a daily basis. And You probably hear a lot of those topics, you know, in everyday conversation as well, from everything from narcissism to affairs to addictions, et cetera, et cetera. So from, you know, what are we talking about? We talk about all the things that, you know, become really problematic for couples relationships. And then, you know, how did we ultimately get there? Well, you know, again, spent 20 years in not only doing couples therapy, but also, you know, hosting, you know, close to 10,000 clinical trainings that we’ve had 50,000 therapists go through. So what I’m driving at is we have the pulse of our … we know who our customer is. How’s that? And we know what they’re looking for simply by probably overexposure to our environment. You know, we’re completely, you know, entrenched in on a on a daily basis. So we know what we know what the audience is looking for.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:19] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Chris Cambas: [00:27:24] Yeah, I think the idea for us is just always more exposure just by being on the podcast, right, helps us. The more exposure we get, the more, you know, the greater things are for us. And we’re just I mean, we’re certainly grateful just by, you know, being invited on to the podcast. Rainmaker certainly has been great. You know, great to us. Ed’s been a tremendous help. We meet every Monday and, you know, talk about strategies and things that we could do, whether that’s, you know, eBooks or, you know, webinars or, you know, social media stuff. So you guys do a lot already. And just again, just by being on this podcast is a benefit to us for sure. And we’re grateful for all the things that Rainmaker has done for us.

Lori Cambas: [00:28:07] Absolutely.

David Brandon: [00:28:09] We likewise.

Chris Cambas: [00:28:10] Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:28:11] Now, if somebody wants to learn more, where should they go?

Chris Cambas: [00:28:15] CoupleStrong.com. Absolutely and they can always reach out to Lori. Lori. lori@couplestrong.com as well right. Yeah, yeah, so those are, you know … CoupleStrong.com is the website and there’s a chat box on there where it goes directly to Lori but you can also reach out to her directly at lori@couplestrong.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:28:39] And that’ll give them access to a lot of information all the social channels and lots of kind of ways to engage.

Lori Cambas: [00:28:49] Right, absolutely. Most of our social media you know we’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok of course and Pinterest, LinkedIn. So it’s couplestrong1 or couplestrong_1 on TikTok.

Chris Cambas: [00:29:08] It’s CoupleStrong Nation. That’s a big channel. The TikTok channel is a big one and that’s CoupleStrong Nation.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:16] Well, thank you both for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Chris Cambas: [00:29:22] Thank you guys for having us. Appreciate y’all very much.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:25] Any last words, David?

David Brandon: [00:29:27] I think we’re good. It’s been great having you guys on and we look forward to working with you more in the future.

Chris Cambas: [00:29:33] Thanks so much. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:36] All right. For David Brandon, this is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on Digital Marketing Done Right.