Bad Marketing Sucks

Hosted by Paul Sterett & Chad Richards

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Feb 2024

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We are on a mission to eradicate bad marketing. One business at a time. Hosted by Paul Sterett and Chad Richards.

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February 16, 2024Episode 1617 min

Elevate Your Marketing: Building Strong Relationships for Higher Margins

Episode 16 Elevate your marketing strategy by understanding the profound impact of building strong relationships. Paul and Chad talk how cultivating genuine connections fosters sustainable growth and success. Learn how prioritizing authentic relationships with customers, partners, and stakeholders can drive higher margins and propel your business to new heights. Embrace the power of connection and witness the transformative potential it holds for your brand’s longevity and prosperity. Unlock the key to sustainable growth and elevate your marketing efforts by nurturing meaningful relationships built on trust, loyalty, and mutual understanding. https://youtu.be/xa7m0s6ezrk?si=9NtVreI6eaexQyV1 Transcript 00;00;00;00 – 00;00;04;04Speaker 1Paul? How we doing, man? 00;00;04;05 – 00;00;06;19Speaker 2Oh, fantastic. Jed Richards, how you doing? 00;00;06;21 – 00;00;08;11Speaker 1Doing good. Glad to be back. 00;00;08;13 – 00;00;09;20Speaker 2Oh, it’s good to be back with you. 00;00;09;21 – 00;00;20;22Speaker 1Tell me your thoughts on the power of relationships in business and how that relates to, a business’s margins. 00;00;20;24 – 00;00;49;17Speaker 2So your margins are squarely in your relationships and how strong your relationships are. So, you know, we’ve talked before about our customers, listeners, customers live in two spaces. They live in a relational space, in a transactional space. And so before they become transactional, that’s when we have the opportunity. Very few people take this opportunity, but we have an opportunity to build a relationship with our customers. 00;00;49;19 – 00;01;14;03Speaker 2And by, you know, when we talk about building relationships as being visible and communicating with them in a way that they can actually receive, what we’re talking about in that space, if we do that, well, when they go to make a purchase and they have a relationship with us, price is going to be a factor that is further down the list. 00;01;14;06 – 00;01;35;08Speaker 2If they if they don’t have relationship with us, like say they have a need, what are they going to do? They’re going to go they don’t have somebody, they don’t have a go to company. They’re going to go to Google. You’re going to search put in their search query and they’re going to get a list of businesses trying to figure out how they’re going to solve this problem that they have. 00;01;35;11 – 00;01;51;20Speaker 2Yeah. And so on. That list, if they all are equal in relationship and, you know, being known to that person, they’re very likely going to just go, that price is going to be the most important thing because there’s nothing else to differentiate that list. 00;01;51;26 – 00;01;52;07Speaker 1Right. 00;01;52;10 – 00;02;18;11Speaker 2And so when we, talk about increasing our profit margins, our relationships with the customer are one of the first places to start. Yes. And most people don’t do that. So here’s an example that I like to use is if, you need to move something like the other day, I moved a dresser upstairs, which is. 00;02;18;16 – 00;02;19;08Speaker 1In your house. 00;02;19;08 – 00;02;24;13Speaker 2In my house. the front steps and the stairs up. you know, it’s miserable. 00;02;24;14 – 00;02;25;22Speaker 1Ibuprofen. Okay. 00;02;25;22 – 00;02;47;27Speaker 2Yes. But, you know, if I’m going to find help to do that, I’m going to call you. In this case, it was Rafi. And, we we have a really strong relationship. We’re good friends. Yes. Was the immediate answer. I’ll be right over. And so we got that. We got the thing up there. So and it’s going to stay there. 00;02;47;27 – 00;02;50;01Speaker 2Oh because if you’re listening we’re not moving yet again. 00;02;50;01 – 00;02;51;04Speaker 1Those are some stairs man. 00;02;51;05 – 00;03;10;23Speaker 2So but let’s say that you were Rafi are not available. And I have to go to another person that I have a relationship with, but not as strong as with with you. Then I’m probably going to call James and say, hey buddy, can you come help me move this dresser. I’ve got some beer. You know we can enjoy afterwards, you know. 00;03;10;25 – 00;03;30;15Speaker 2So that, that next layer out cost me a little bit more to get this help. Sure. But if he’s not available, then I’ve got to call Tony, and I’m like, hey, dude, I really need some help. Yeah, but I got some beer and pizza, right? So it’s going to cost me even more to get there. Sure. So it’s not much different when we’re looking at businesses that are trying to to, to get customers. 00;03;31;00 – 00;03;43;10Speaker 2and the cost of what it takes to get that customer and then not just a cost to get them there, but then what they do with, you know, beat you up on price and. Yes. And making that purchase. 00;03;43;11 – 00;03;44;04Speaker 1Right. 00;03;44;06 – 00;04;07;17Speaker 2The stronger the relationship we have, the easier it is for them and the faster they’re going to be to select us. Yes. And price is going to be lower on the list of things that are priority. No, no, it’s always got a price. Buyers. Oh, sure. But if we’re doing things, well, if we’ve got a good strategy in place and we understand what our customers are doing. 00;04;07;20 – 00;04;15;09Speaker 2Then building those relationships in the right way are going to increase our profit margins. I absolutely don’t know anybody who doesn’t want to do that. No. 00;04;15;10 – 00;04;31;08Speaker 1Well yeah. I mean they should be doing that. And so I think the margins are where the power is. Yeah. you know, it just kind of. I had a story here, something, I went through this recently, and it’s it’s really right in this wheelhouse. So about a year ago, I was looking to buy a thermal scope. 00;04;31;11 – 00;04;50;24Speaker 1for my hunting needs. And I was looking at one in particular that was not out yet, and I liked it and wanted it. And I called the company that I had seen that one that was not necessarily the most prominent company, but they were the ones that resonated with me the most because of how they went about addressing these different scopes and how they explained them. 00;04;50;26 – 00;05;11;04Speaker 1so, I found them on the podcast and went to a website and finally called and they were like, look, man, it’s not out yet, you know? But it’s coming. We don’t know what exactly when, but we’ll let you know. Well, fast forward a year. And I thought, man, you know this thing. Well guess what? It came out and, they sent me a notification and said, hey, you know, someone let you know it’s here. 00;05;11;04 – 00;05;33;19Speaker 1So I called and I talked to, a salesperson there at the company, and he said, hey, yeah, we do have it, but let me talk to you for a second about another one that’s out as well. Yeah. You know, two different scopes in the same ballpark, a price, right? Yeah. And he went through all the different, features and benefits and all the things that were really important to me when making such a larger purchase. 00;05;33;20 – 00;05;46;14Speaker 1Right? Yeah. and he spent a while with me, you know, discussing this, and I didn’t push me, but I purchased the one that he, didn’t recommend, but the one that he brought to my attention. 00;05;46;20 – 00;05;49;05Speaker 2He made a video where he made another option. 00;05;49;10 – 00;06;05;24Speaker 1Of another option. and so they they sent it to me overnight. Pay for the insurance. and when it came, they got a notification and they sent me an email said, you know, you’ve received your scope. It’s been shipped. If there are any issues or any problems, please let us know ASAP. 00;06;05;24 – 00;06;06;03Speaker 2Yeah. 00;06;06;03 – 00;06;12;27Speaker 1So we can address this. Okay. Could I have gotten that scope somewhere else for maybe a little bit less money? 00;06;13;05 – 00;06;13;22Speaker 2Guarantee it. 00;06;13;22 – 00;06;23;10Speaker 1I feel pretty confident that could, you know, 3 or 4 or $500. Okay, great. But at the end of the day, it’s just the process. And the way they made me feel. 00;06;23;10 – 00;06;23;28Speaker 2Yeah. 00;06;24;00 – 00;06;36;18Speaker 1they were my go to gas for scopes. Yeah. You know, and and they will continue to be. So if I ever have anyone or hear anyone talking about wanting a thermal scope, I’m going to say, guys, listen. Yeah, this is where you need to go. 00;06;36;19 – 00;06;39;12Speaker 2And what did you do, 10s after you got off that phone call? 00;06;39;17 – 00;06;56;17Speaker 1Oh, I contacted you and said, man, you called. These guys are great. And here’s the thing. And again, I mean, I think that this is talked about so much in such a mystical, magical way that, you know, and it makes people think, oh my gosh, I mean that what are we talking about? I mean, this is some kind of an elusive object. 00;06;56;18 – 00;06;57;04Speaker 1No it’s not. 00;06;57;05 – 00;06;58;12Speaker 2No it isn’t. 00;06;58;13 – 00;06;59;06Speaker 1It’s simple. 00;06;59;13 – 00;06;59;28Speaker 2Yeah. 00;07;00;03 – 00;07;14;29Speaker 1It’s just taking the time to communicate and talk to people one at a time. Yeah, and make them feel validated. Make them understand what’s going on and make them want to do business with you. Yeah, well. 00;07;14;29 – 00;07;32;18Speaker 2Look, that’s what building relationships are. If we go to a party or we’re out and we’re meeting somebody new and, we start to to see what coming out commonalities we have. Sure. You know, where are you from? If you’re from the same city, what school did you go to? Hey, do you know this guy? Yeah, I know that guy. 00;07;32;20 – 00;07;56;10Speaker 2Do you believe what he did in high school? You know, we start looking for these commonalities. And in each thing that we identify with, each other. We build a strong relationship. And so business is no different. It’s like if you can’t begin to speak to your like directly to a single customer. Like I know that everything rolls up to, to numbers and the monthly, quarterly yearly and all that stuff. 00;07;56;12 – 00;08;21;09Speaker 2But it starts with one, one customer at a time. Oh yeah. If you can’t speak to them in a way to build that relationship, and it really is building like one one brick at a time, whatever, whatever nouns you want to want to use. But you have to get through these layers, because if you stop at the third layer, like I mentioned earlier, and you have to use a lot of beer and pizza to get them there. 00;08;21;23 – 00;08;24;05Speaker 2That’s just that’s not a very strong relationship. 00;08;24;08 – 00;08;28;10Speaker 1No it’s not. And you end up competing on price and becoming a commodity. 00;08;28;11 – 00;08;47;23Speaker 2Yeah. And you know what’s interesting is that when you have a really strong relationship with somebody and you, you, reach out and say, hey, champ, can you come help me out? Then you’re going to bring the beer to me. You know, and that’s, that’s when you’ve got that strong relationship and, and in business it’s, it’s having that relationship through the transaction. 00;08;47;25 – 00;08;58;22Speaker 2And then what you did with that scope is you got off the phone, you made the purchase. You immediately called me. Yeah. Dude let me tell you about this. Yeah. Because it was that, that that. 00;08;58;22 – 00;09;11;02Speaker 1Could have such an impact. Look, he could have sold me the one that I’ve been calling about or waiting on for a year. Yeah. He could have just said, yeah, man, come on. But he didn’t. He took the time. And, you know, I’m sure he’s got other things to do as well. Right. Yeah. 20 30 minutes going through this with me. 00;09;11;05 – 00;09;14;16Speaker 1And it was just that stuck out with me in such a huge way. 00;09;14;16 – 00;09;19;15Speaker 2Yeah. And you, you, you mentioned that they had a podcast. Now not everybody needs to have a podcast. 00;09;19;22 – 00;09;20;10Speaker 1No no no no. 00;09;20;11 – 00;09;42;14Speaker 2But what they they chose to communicate with you buy a podcast and they did it over a year’s time. I mean, think about that. You spent a year waiting on a product. I did that you probably could have ten minutes after you discovered that it was going to be a wait. Purchase something else. 00;09;42;14 – 00;09;43;14Speaker 1Yeah I could have. 00;09;43;17 – 00;09;50;28Speaker 2I mean so so that business. Not only built a relationship, built a strong enough to wait a a. 00;09;51;02 – 00;10;08;05Speaker 1Year year one year. That’s crazy. One year. Yeah they did. And I kept going back to the and watching their podcast and, and just getting the information and just trying to learn more you know and as I was doing that I was I began to, you know, kind of, and build this kind of relationship with these guys as they were talking and stuff. 00;10;08;05 – 00;10;15;26Speaker 1So. Yeah. Yeah, it’s really a powerful thing. what do you think one of the major reasons why many businesses struggle with it? 00;10;15;29 – 00;10;23;10Speaker 2because they just they don’t have a really good understanding of it. There’s there’s so many things that have turned into cliche buzzwords. 00;10;23;11 – 00;10;23;17Speaker 1Yeah. 00;10;23;20 – 00;10;47;16Speaker 2B.S., and you’ve, you’ve got there are so many things that business can do, but they, they’ll, they’ll skip over the most fundamental thing. And so it’s like if you can’t articulate who you are, it’s your brand. you’re going to leave it up to chance. And it’s really hard to build a relationship with somebody and to make that connection if you can’t articulate it yourself. 00;10;47;18 – 00;11;09;25Speaker 2It’s like, again, being at a party and walking away from a conversation like, oh man, I totally forgot to tell him about this thing. Yeah. You know. Right. And and so business owners, it’s so easy to skip into cut corners because, dude, you can have an advertisement out on Facebook or LinkedIn in less than five minutes. Oh I know. 00;11;09;28 – 00;11;25;19Speaker 2So, I mean, if you got that level of quick dopamine hit access because somebody clicked on it. Versus taking the time to actually build a solid foundation and build a brand so that you can build a relationship so that you can increase your profit margin. 00;11;25;19 – 00;11;47;03Speaker 1Yeah. Right. Do you ever feel like well you know I know we’re going to continue standing on this soapbox right. Oh yeah. But at some at some point it’s like, man, we just keep going back to and going back to the reason why we do and go back to the foundation and making sure that the foundation is solid and strong is because it nothing that you do without a solid foundation is going to be successful. 00;11;47;03 – 00;12;00;23Speaker 1No it’s not. No. You can go to business, you can go to market without it. And you may have some sales, right? You may have some things go your way for a while, but at the core of it, if you don’t have a solid foundation, you’re in trouble. 00;12;00;24 – 00;12;08;01Speaker 2Yeah. I mean, you can if you define sales, or success as a grind, then yeah, you’ll be really. 00;12;08;01 – 00;12;42;25Speaker 1Successful and have at it. that’s not a place I want to live. No. You know. No, not at all. It’s a time, sucker. It’s a it’s a money sucker. And it just it just it just it just brings. It brings everything into such a hard place of business. Yeah. You know, for sure. and I think another reason why is because business owners are really they’re, they’re, they get very busy and doing what they do every day and trying to be successful and, you know, you know, helping customers and also helping, you know, employees do their jobs, you know, and, you know, it’s very difficult to go alone. 00;12;42;27 – 00;13;02;20Speaker 1ideally for us and what we do, it would be fantastic to be able to meet every business owner in the initial stages of saying, hey, I’ve got this idea, you know, I’m ready to take this to market, right? But that’s not the reality. I mean, a lot of times people, you know, they, they they really, they, they believe they can do it themselves. 00;13;02;20 – 00;13;10;07Speaker 1Yeah. and they, they kind of just get a logo put together and throw a website together and let’s roll. We’re going to make we’re going to make big money. 00;13;10;09 – 00;13;11;08Speaker 2Yeah. 00;13;11;10 – 00;13;17;18Speaker 1but you know, the great thing about what we do as well is we’re able to meet people where they are. 00;13;17;18 – 00;13;19;05Speaker 2Yeah, that’s that’s critical. 00;13;19;07 – 00;13;31;21Speaker 1It is because we’re not able to reach everybody in the beginning and say, hey, stop. Just just pause, man. Take a deep breath, relax a little bit. Let’s go back to the the foundation of this thing and build it. Right. 00;13;31;21 – 00;13;56;22Speaker 2Yeah. Okay. And that really sets you up for building those relationships. It does because most people, most businesses that we encounter. And just whether it be that we work with or just observe, they’re they’re stuck in that transactional chase. They’re just chasing the transaction. And and a lot of that comes from just a, overlooking this step of that solid, solid brand foundation. 00;13;56;25 – 00;14;20;26Speaker 2Because when you when you really understand it, we all desire it. Every business owner desires and, but they haven’t found it. But when you find that and that’s one of the things that we, I just love so much is just seeing that, that look of relief and enlightenment to be able to put it put together, an understanding of, hey, this is how a human being, a consumer, this is how they work. 00;14;20;28 – 00;14;22;22Speaker 2Yeah. This is how this how it all happens. 00;14;22;23 – 00;14;23;21Speaker 1The psychology involved. 00;14;23;22 – 00;14;36;06Speaker 2Yeah. This this is this is who you are. You’re not expressing this. So let’s express your brand and let’s not leave it up to chance. And then let’s matches up with your business cycle. And it’s like it’s a beautiful thing. 00;14;36;06 – 00;14;39;17Speaker 1It is when you put it all together. Yeah, it is and it is. 00;14;39;17 – 00;15;03;06Speaker 2And it makes me sad because there’s just so many people that don’t, for whatever reason, they, they don’t have the wherewithal to, to look for that help. And, and it’s easy to fall into that. I mean, heck, I mean, I, I fall into that trap before. Oh, yeah. So it’s, it’s it’s, it’s easy to, to fall into, but it’s, it’s help is not far away. 00;15;03;06 – 00;15;22;18Speaker 1No. And I mean, if you can’t do it yourself and you can’t get it right, which a lot of business owners can’t, you’re gonna have to end up paying somebody like us. Yeah, 25, $35,000 to do it. But here’s the thing. No matter who you use, make sure that they know what they’re doing. They know how to lay the foundation correctly, and it will pay off big time in the end. 00;15;22;19 – 00;15;26;08Speaker 1Yeah, right. It’s an investment. Yeah. People have to understand. 00;15;26;10 – 00;15;41;22Speaker 2Well, because again, it’s it sets you up to be able to actually make and build those relationships. And it goes back. I mean, it just there’s just no other way to say it. Your margins are in there in the strength of your relationships. 00;15;41;25 – 00;15;42;15Speaker 1All day, every. 00;15;42;15 – 00;16;11;23Speaker 2Day, every single day. Yes. And and it’s it’s not it is not an unattainable knowledge. You it’s it’s learnable and it can be applied to, to so many facets of, of of a person’s business. Sure. And yeah. Then it, then it actually helps people out. Yeah. And and then there’s the margin of time. You know, if you, if you have a good, solid foundation and a good strategy, you get a lot of time back. 00;16;11;25 – 00;16;13;22Speaker 2and everybody wants to increase their time. 00;16;13;26 – 00;16;14;28Speaker 1Man, do they ever. 00;16;14;29 – 00;16;15;12Speaker 2Yeah. 00;16;15;17 – 00;16;33;18Speaker 1You know, we all want to spend more time with our children, our families, and doing the things we love. So. Yeah. So let’s continue beating that same, getting on that box and we’ll keep hammering away and absolutely hoping we’re resonating with someone every single day. Every single day. And I’ve enjoyed this. Yeah. Until next time. We’ll do it. 00;16;33;24 – 00;16;42;02Speaker 2See you. See?

February 9, 202420 min

Cut the Fluff – Build Stronger Customer Relationships

Episode 15 In the dynamic world of marketing, the mantra “go big or go home” often takes center stage. But what if the real secret to success lies in the finer details? Join Paul and Chad as they delve into the intricate art of building stronger customer relationships on this episode of the Bad Marketing Sucks Podcast. Discover why cutting through the fluff and focusing on the little things can be a game-changer in the relational phase of marketing.

December 7, 2023Episode 1422 min

Enough with the Pitch Slap

We have reached our boiling point. Just can’t take it anymore. It is time to stop the Pitch Slap. No more terrible pitching 10 seconds after a new LinkedIn connection is accepted. Enough is enough. It only make companies who use this tactic look like jerks. Just a bad marketing and sales approach. https://youtu.be/BUcer5Oo0wI Click on the Transcript to see full Transcription: Transcript CLOSE Transcript Paul (00:00): Chad, so we got a hot topic today. Chad (00:03): Oh man. I’m waiting on this one for a while. Paul (00:05): So we’ve all experienced this. No one likes it. Why people continue to do this. I just don’t know. I don’t know that I have not found an answer yet. The problem that we face is the pitch slap. Chad (00:20): Yes. It’s terrible. Paul (00:21): About two seconds after somebody connects with you on LinkedIn, Chad (00:24): Bam. Bam. My dms are full of it. Yeah. Pitch slap. Yeah. Paul (00:30): I can’t take it anymore. Chad (00:31): Yeah, I know. It’s terrible. And I relate it to, it’s similar to the dating world, back when we were all dating, and it is very similar to asking a girl on a date, right. The connection request, and then you take her out and it’s like, Hey, you want to get married? Paul (00:50): Yeah. Just right away. And she’s like, let’s Chad (00:52): Go. Can you imagine the look you would get or the response you would get on that? Paul (00:57): Yeah, and it’s not just like a little bit, I get paragraphs, I get Chad (01:04): Thesis, novel Paul (01:05): Essays, whatever you want to call it, but plenty of them explaining Chad (01:10): Everything that they do. Paul (01:12): I had one the other day that I thought, I’m going to give this a shot. I’m going to connect. Seems like a worthwhile and about, I mean, at least they waited like 12 minutes and then got five paragraphs and I actually responded and said, man, I was just really hoping for a connection and not to get pitched ride Chad (01:33): Away, just treat me like a human. My thing is how do you know what someone needs until you figure out who they are and what they’re about. I mean, you’re just spraying and praying. Warm Paul (01:46): Up conversation at least. Yeah. At least learn a little bit. My favorite of all favorites is, you know what? I can help you get 20 to 25 new ideal customers, and we did this for four or five different agencies last week. I’m like, oh my gosh, Chad (02:01): Really? Paul (02:02): You figured out my ideal customer by looking at, oh wow, Chad (02:07): My goodness. Paul (02:08): Yeah, Chad (02:08): You should be paid a lot more for doing this. Paul (02:11): Exactly. But they got a deal. They Chad (02:13): Going, it’s crazy. And it is becoming a bigger issue. And I think one of the things that we see a lot just in general is, and it’s not just people, although people are brands, but it’s also companies. They’re talking at customers and not talking to customers in a way that resonates Paul (02:38) : Without a doubt. Chad (02:39): And it becomes just like Charlie Brown’s teacher, wah. It’s a little Paul (02:46): Bit, Chad (02:47): And then they wonder why they struggle being able to grow as a business and to continue in the trending up with their business and brand. Paul (03:03): It just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t. Is there something that we’re missing that they have enough of a success rate? I don’t know. The thing though is if it is successful, if they’re actually able to bring on business like that, how many idiots out there? A lot are responding. And Chad (03:21): I would just have to think that going into 2024, I mean, aren’t we at a place in society where maybe we did go through that phase where people were more open to that type of pitch, so to speak? Maybe. But don’t you think we’re kind of getting back a little bit trending back towards more personalization and Paul (03:45): I hope Chad (03:45): So reaching out to people and treating ’em like humans. Paul (03:49): Well, I mean, if you’re saying from a standpoint of what you and I are seeing, I think that what you and I are seeing, we’re being more selective with the people that we connect with, particularly on LinkedIn. And so by virtue of that, we’re calling out what we see from the people who are really trying to be superficial, that are trying to be more gimmicky. I mean, I hope that that’s outside of what the algorithm is feeding us and what we’re engaging with. I don’t think that is necessarily the case based on the number of spam messages I get, not just in LinkedIn, but in my email as well. Chad (04:30): It’s all the same. But wouldn’t you think that at some point that people would start to realize that this is really not effective? Paul (04:39): I would think so. Start making change. The volume by which I see ’em is Chad (04:44): The biggest part. The frustrating ones for me are the ones that you get the connection request and then I guess they’d got an automatic Paul (04:50): Deal. Yeah. Oh, there’s a lot of automation, that’s for Chad (04:51): Sure. And then it kicks into your dms and it’s like, Hey, and they go through this long spill. It’s like, well, if I’d have known this, I wouldn’t have connected the Paul (04:58): Poems really get me. Have you gotten a poem yet? Yeah, Chad (05:01): I’ve gotten a Paul (05:01): Poem, gotten poems and song lyrics. They just really touch my heart and they bring Chad (05:07): A tear to your Paul (05:08): Eye as I delete them. Yes. They really do. They bring a tear to my eye as I delete ’em and laugh as I walk away. Chad (05:15): I just wish that, and I know that it’s difficult to call people out on it in a way that without hurting their feelings, but I’m getting to the point where they’ve kind of almost not hurt my feelings, but they’ve kind of offended me. Paul (05:30) : Yeah, it’s just a waste Chad (05:31): Of time. So it’s getting to a point to where it’s a waste of time, but you want to call it out and say, Hey, look, why not treat me like a human? I was hoping that this, Paul (05:42): So there’s a question, what does it mean to be human on LinkedIn? Because I guarantee you, I guarantee that there are a section of people that reach out to both of us that think that they are and they’re coming across as not. So is it something that we are perceiving differently or are they taught just an unfortunate, bad way to go about it? Chad (06:09): What does it mean? That’s a great question. I don’t know. I think we both kind of came from an era where there was, in the world of business, it’s more Oh yeah, for sure. So we still try to carry that over into this digital world, and it’s difficult at times because you are talking through a computer, but you have to remember that the person on the other side is a human Paul (06:42): Well, hope Chad (06:42): So. They have feelings. They bleed. They live the same life we do. I mean, it’s the same world. I mean, it may be different. Their life may be a little bit different, but we’re all people. Yeah, Paul (06:53): Exactly. Chad (06:54): So I don’t know. I guess it really, it goes back to maybe your generation in a way. That’s a good question. I don’t know. I just know that we come from, I wouldn’t say old school, but kind of a little Paul (07:12): Bit. Yeah. Obviously Zoom is helpful, but man, I tell you, there’s some days where I’m just zoomed out. Yeah, I know. I mean, I’ll talk to you on the phone. It gets old, but I can get zoomed out pretty quick. Yeah, Chad (07:26): It gets old Paul (07:26): Quick. Actually become a term now. Zoomed Chad (07:29): Out. Zoomed out. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me think of a rifle zoomed out. Exactly. But yeah, it’s an issue. But I just wish that in talking to people, and especially with brands and companies, how to reach their ideal customer in a way that resonates with them. And it’s more than just, you’ve got to have the right tone. You got to use the right messaging. But what happened to birthday cards and anniversary cards? Oh, yeah. What happened to the things that, the personal touch? Paul (08:12): Well, I think it’s twofold. I think you have some people who maybe not be as familiar with that. That’s why there are some people that we follow on LinkedIn that are advocating for those types of things, and people think it’s earth shattering, but they just may not have been exposed to it. Not everybody, like my Godmother, before she passed away, I mean, she would literally at the beginning of the year, would buy birthday cards for everybody. I mean, she had ’em ready to go. Not everybody’s like that anymore. So you’ve got people that aren’t familiar with it as well, but there’s also a factor of what if a company is just not aware enough to gather that information and observant to gather that information Chad (08:56): Well, but every company should be wanting to differentiate themselves Paul (09:02): A hundred percent. I agree. But there’s some planning oftentimes to be differentiated. True. And if we are not thinking ahead to say, well, what information do we need to gather? What do we need to observe in order to do something unique like that, then if they don’t have that information, then it’s kind of hard to do something. Chad (09:24): It’s kind of hard to do it if you don’t have it. I mean, I noticed that some companies will send an email when your birthday, if they happen to know that when your birthday is maybe a Valentine’s or Easter or something. And it’s good. I mean, it’s obviously standing out a little bit more than the average, but if they would take it one step further and gather the information up front and just say, Hey, listen, just, and I know everybody’s not going to do it. Paul (09:52): No, they’re Chad (09:53): Not. But for the ones that do and just getting their birthday, getting their information, giving their anniversary date if they’re married, and I can take this a step further as well. I get so many, and I know you do too packages Paul (10:08): From Chad (10:08): All companies, and it’s just they miss such a huge opportunity. Paul (10:13): Oh my gosh. On Chad (10:14): Just the packaging in the box alone. Paul (10:16): And we were talking about this the other day because we got Jesse Rob’s book in the mail, and he has got some beautiful packaging that came with that. Yeah, Chad (10:26): Isn’t that Paul (10:27): Interesting? On Point? I was almost excited as much about the packaging as that was the book that came with it, and he signed it. He actually signed it for this show. Bad Marketing Sucks. Chad (10:38): Yeah, it was awesome. I saw it. I loved it. But is it hard? Okay, so here’s the question I’ve got. Is it hard for a large company to do that? Paul (10:47): Yes, it is. Because once you get to a certain size, and wow, there’s lots of elements to this, but you get to a certain size decision-making is slowed down significantly. There are large companies that we’ve worked with in the past that nobody wanted to make a decision because they were afraid of, what if I got this wrong? And so they would be incredibly apprehensive to do apprehensive, and then everything that happened became very bland because it was safe. So those great ideas and large corporation or larger business are great ideas that just die on the vine because nobody wants to carry them forward. Nobody wants to be the one to stand out, even though unless you have it, unless it’s part of their identity, part of their mission or their essence. Apple. Apple, Chad (11:42): Man, listen, that’s part of their thing. It’s funny because my boys back over the years, they would get Apple products for Christmas and they would save the Paul (11:51): Boxes a hundred Chad (11:52): Percent. And I would say, guys, I Paul (11:53): Guarantee you I’ve got three iPhone boxes in the office over there. Chad (11:56): And I’m like, guys, what do we, I mean, you don’t need the box. No, no, no, no, no, no. You’re not throwing it. How you go through and throw all these stuff in boxes in wrapping paper, they don’t want to do it. They don’t want to part, I’m thinking it’s a box, but to them that box means something. Paul (12:11): Oh, well, I mean, if you’re not Chad Richards and don’t have an iPhone, then the box means something to somebody. Chad (12:17): But you get my point hundred percent. It’s like, what is it about this box? Paul (12:21): We were clearing out the closet to put Christmas gifts in the closet, and I have at least two boxes, previous packaging boxes for iPads that we’ve done. But I’m the same way. It’s like I can’t don’t want to throw that out. I don’t Chad (12:35): Get it. I get it, but I don’t get it. And I guess my point is is that Paul (12:39): Just wait until you get an iPhone, you’ll get it. Chad (12:41): I think every company should strive for that a Paul (12:43): Hundred percent. Chad (12:44): So go back to what we just talked about. Okay. We say it’s hard for a larger company to make those or someone to stick their neck on the line and make that decision, but how hard is it to just get boxes or packaging that is just branded? I mean, how hard is that? Paul (13:03): So functionally it is not hard. There are plenty of services out there that’ll do it. Chad (13:08): Is it expense? Paul (13:10): It’s a little bit more of an expense, but I mean, it depends on how you view it though. I mean, if it makes a bigger impact in the long run, if it’s part of the identity that it doesn’t get thrown away, then another great example is Augusta National, the Masters. Oh yeah. So in previous years when I’ve been lucky enough to be selected in the lottery, last night I was cleaning off my dresser. I have the envelope that the badges came in, practice round badges or tickets came in. I haven’t even thrown away that, but it Chad (13:50): Resonates that well, Paul (13:51): And it’s part of their Chad (13:52): Identity. Don’t want to. I know. It’s interesting how that is. And that’s from someone who grew up right down the road is still that important to you? Paul (14:00): A hundred percent. So from a P proximity standpoint, being close is not novel or obviously there’s an accessibility overall for anybody, but to this day, it’s on the same par as the iPhone box that I have in my desk that I haven’t thought Chad (14:20): Away. I can see that. Paul (14:21): But it’s part of their identity, and they’re very committed to that. Sure. They set a standard of excellence, and Apple does that as well. So for a business to just not think about it, they’re missing that opportunity. But until they define it and put it in a line in the sand, I get Chad (14:39): It. I get it. But okay, so let’s take it a step further. I mean, why would it be so hard to just put a thank you card in the box? Paul (14:47): It wouldn’t, but someone’s got to take the initiative. I Chad (14:50): Mean, just throw it in the box, man. Hey, it’s a branded card. Thank you for your business. It’s not difficult to do. Paul (15:00): No, it’s not. Chad (15:01): And I think that a lot of businesses, they want to stand out. They want differentiate. They’re trying to, and we’ve talked to ’em about this before, quite a few, and it’s like, but it’s the little things. It really is. Start there. It really is. Once you get, I mean, that’s how you differentiate if you really want to stand out. But Paul (15:22): Well, and so let’s take this back to the pitch slap and someone connects, and immediately I’ve got five paragraphs. It is not hard to go a little bit further down my LinkedIn page and see what my interests are. So I’m on the board of our soccer club. Chad (15:40): Soccer. Paul (15:41): It’s like immediately, if you include that, I’m going to pay attention way more than the fact that you are impressed with my understanding of the marketplace that you don’t even define what Chad (15:57): Part of the marketplace am I so good Paul (15:58): At? Oh my gosh, it’s just so bad. So this is still in that whole thing. If there are genuine people that are trying to connect, yet, they read something somewhere and some guru told them, this is how you need to send X amount of dms, and this is how you send them numbers, you respond, anything like that, just a little bit of effort. Literally scrolling your finger. Scroll. That’s it. Scroll down a little bit further. Scroll Chad (16:30): Down. Just tweak it just a little. Paul (16:32): Right. And I’m going to at least spend more time Chad (16:37): Considering response, my response. Sure. Oh man. Yeah. Paul (16:39): Yeah. So being those little things you talk about. Yeah. Scroll down a little bit further. Actually read some posts. Chad (16:50): Yeah. Paul (16:51): Because there, it’s not, it’s just that and Chad (16:54): Little figure out what you’re about. Because anyone that’s writing their own posts this as well. They’ve got their own Who they are is should be be should be resonating. Yeah. It should come through in their communication. Yeah. So yeah, just go down and just get a little bit more information about who that person is. But yeah, I mean, I just wish that it’s businesses and people and companies and people would just take the time to get back to treating people as humans. It was 25 years ago. Paul (17:31): Yeah. Well, what we have now, we didn’t have 20, 25 years ago is the speed at which, if we can get those messages out, right. Chad (17:41): Well, that could be a Paul (17:43): Curse, but it does. It is. Because it’s even more important for a business to articulate their brand and who they are and who they’re not to their employees who are reaching out on their behalf. Because one of the worst things that you can do is have an employee that thinks, Hey, I’ve got this great tactic, and then now I’m going to make this company look like an absolute idiot because they think they’re crushing it and they’re just pissing people off. Chad (18:10): Yeah, I’m going rogue, but I know what I’m doing. Just let me do what I’m doing now. I’m the poster child around here, but yet you’re driving the company into the ground. Paul (18:20): A hundred percent. Yeah, it’s, it’s a dangerous thing. But we talk about who’s going to put the thank you cards out there. So you need those people with initiative. You just need to train them and make sure that they’re doing it in a way that’s going to protect your brand rather than really make you look bad. Chad (18:39): It’s really just as simple as, I mean, maybe I’m looking at it all wrong, but to me it’s just as simple as having a stack of cards with nice brand. Thank you. On the inside. And maybe even talk a little bit more about what your company’s passionate about. Maybe you’re into sustainability. Maybe you’re into the green, maybe you’re into whatever the case may be. And Paul (19:04): The green isn’t making money, right? Chad (19:05): Well, no, the green isn’t as far as, Paul (19:10): Yeah, I know what you’re talking Chad (19:11): About. And just whatever it is that you’re passionate about, that’s probably going to resonate with your customers or some of ’em in some way. Paul (19:20): Yeah, exactly. Chad (19:21): And just, Hey, thank you for your business. We appreciate it very much. Paul (19:27): Well, look, I mean, we can talk about that’s the importance of that, not just making that connection and getting to the delighting stage rather than satisfaction. But what important way for them to enter back into their buying cycle, the last memory that they’re going to have with you, just in that example that you give. That’s my point. We talked about your hat. I’m sure that they had some, maybe they didn’t have anything in the box, but they followed up with you real quick. They Chad (19:55): Did a great job. Yeah, Paul (19:57): They really did. And it’s made a big difference. Chad (19:58): Made a big difference. Yeah. We’ve Paul (20:00): Talked about it twice Chad (20:01): Now. This part. Yeah. It’s one of those deals that stands out with me because just the way the whole process went Paul (20:07): And it stands out treating like a human being and it stands out. You’ve got a big Chad (20:10): Head too. I’ve got a monster Paul (20:11): Head. So there’s Chad (20:13): Monster head. There’s Paul (20:14): Just Chad (20:15): Physical Paul (20:15): Observation Chad (20:16): There. I’m a lifelong customer at this point. Unless my head shrinks, which I doubt that’ll Paul (20:21): Happen. That would be impressive. Chad (20:24): That would be Paul (20:24): Impressive. Go the other way. But yeah, so I guess to wrap it all up is just don’t pitch slap. Chad (20:30): Don’t pitch, slap. Paul (20:31): Scroll down a little bit more. Actually read Chad (20:33): Some post. What do you think? Maybe 10 to 15, 20 seconds Paul (20:37): Of Chad (20:37): Scrolling. Maybe 30 extra time per pitch slap. Paul (20:42): Yeah, I think so. I mean, if you give me 45 seconds, it might be a little bit Chad (20:47): Easier. Less than a minute. Yeah, Paul (20:48): I think so. I think so. But man, it would just be nice if we could get rid of the pitch flat. Chad (20:53): It would be, and companies that keep talking about wanting to differentiate their brand. Yep. Do a little stuff. Paul (21:00): Do the little stuff. Chad (21:01): Yeah. Start there. And then once you start there, then you can really build off that into other areas of your business. Paul (21:07): Without a doubt. Chad (21:07): It’s like trying to build a house from the top down. We’re going to get the roof on, but wait a minute, what are we going to attach the roof to? Yeah, exactly. We have no walls here. Where’s the foundation? Same concept. Build it right? Build it from the ground up and do it the right way. Paul (21:24): Absolutely. It’ll serve you well Chad (21:27): In the long run. It will serve you tenfold. Paul (21:31): Plus, without it out. Without out. Well, I am going to go and see how many pitch laps I have. I sure you’ve got plenty. And enjoy Chad (21:39): That. Paul (21:40): We’ll have a laugh about how good there. Chad (21:42): I’m loving it. I’m loving it. Let’s get back to work, man. Paul (21:44): Let’s do it. 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November 23, 2023Episode 1334 min

Street Art in Marketing

David Speed’s journey has taken some interesting turns over the years. Of of them is pioneering street art in the Marketing world. While he is all in on exploring neon pink, he has some great perspective on how to use art to stand out. https://youtu.be/sS9uJWAEcXI?si=WJXPKnTh5ytwUHb8

November 16, 2023Episode 1227 min

Two BIG Mistakes Businesses Get Wrong in Marketing

Of the many things a business can do wrong with their Marketing, Jeremy Mace shares two of the big ones he sees as problematic. Jeremy has a lot of experience with a wide variety of disciplines within the marketing and branding world. His two big mistakes he sees businesses make are not allocating enough budget and lack of attribution. Glad to have Jeremy on Bad Marketing Sucks! https://youtu.be/uWsq63HUVlg?si=h5j0RNyAMM5ag7IB Connect with Jeremy on Linkedin Click on the Transcript to see full Transcription: Transcript CLOSE Transcript So, Jeremy, welcome to the band Marketing Sucks show. How you doing today? I’m doing great and I love the name. It’s awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We we enjoyed ourselves. Glad to have you today. Tell us a little bit about yourself. You’ve got a long history of branding and marketing in the area in Georgia. Yeah. I mean, the Augusta, Georgia area in particular. Tell us a little bit about your background and who you are. Sure. I, I think by you’ve got a lot of history means you’re old. So I’ll I’ll take that. As you know. It’s all right, Chad. I think you are. You’re maybe least a little bit older than I am, possibly. No, I’m not. You’re all I’m a little bit older. And Paul is older than all of us. really? Wow. Well, there you go. So look at that. You got him. The kids. I have the. Yes, I’m older than all of you, man. So you can see that I’ve got a bunch of comic books, posters and stuff in my office and I love all that. And I wanted to be a comic book writer and a producer. And so that’s what really got me started in the whole gig. And I borrowed some money from my grandparents in the early nineties or mid-nineties and tried my hand at running a comic book company and promptly lost all the money because we had bad marketing. Right. So there’s a testimonial right there. Probably ought to have some good marketing, probably ought to have some business experience beyond being 19 years old. So that was also kind of a downside. I also realize that comic book writers and artists, like 99% of them are struggling and it’s not an easy road to go and only a few of them break out. And I found out that even the guys that were making, you know, writing Spider-Man and the X-Men back in the nineties weren’t hardly making any money because they worked for Marvel. So it was just unless you had a big screenplay take off or something, you were you were going to be stuck. But I did realize that I loved putting the books together. I liked the fonts, I liked the colors, I liked publishing, I liked being in front of people telling the story of why we had put made the comics together. My dad had been in sales, so sales and marketing was kind of in my blood. And then the graphic design and the artistic side came into play and that that meant that I could make more money on the side doing graphic design and that type of stuff than I could ever trying to do comics. So comics became a hobby and I still love it. It’s fun. I’ve worked as a graphic designer for the Apart Agusta Apartment Finders Guide. Way, Way Back is how I got my first gig. Really enjoyed doing that. Yeah. You’re dating yourself here? yeah, man. And well. And then there was this thing called the Internet. I’m not sure if, you know, Al Gore created it back in the mid-nineties and after and yeah, after Al Gore did that, we decided that we probably ought to learn how to use it. So I taught myself basic HTML, CC and at that point, you guys remember flash websites, Macromedia Flash. Yeah. So I learned how to do flash, built some websites. I had an upside business go in that I quit the apartment Finder’s guide, started my own business with my brother, makes graphics that continue to grow. And when you’re when you’re doing freelance and back in the day, I guess I’m more of a generation X kind of guy. If somebody asks you to be able to do something, the answer is yes, right? And I think nowadays there’s this whole kind of millennial and generation Y that’s saying, you know, you know, stay in your lane and only do one thing and maximize it. And I just don’t have that. I’d rather jump around. If somebody asks me to do something, I’m going to tell them, Yep. And I’m going to figure out how to make that work. And so I would I would learn how to do advertising, I’d learn how to do banner ads, I’d learn how to build websites, I’d learn how to to put together a marketing plan. I’d learn how to put together a, you know, a branding strategy. And over over the years, I did pretty good, built up a business and then was bought out by Taxslayer. So Taxslayer is a great local company in Augusta and Evans and worked there for a few years, then went back out on my own and worked as a book cover designer for Amazon.com, which was really fun and got to got a few other artists and paid them to do some of the work. So ended up outsourcing a little bit of that. That was great. And then in 2008, I there was this great Web property called MySpace. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with that. Yeah, Yeah, he was a big MySpace. I honestly I think I think my MySpace is still Yeah I think it is it might exist Jackson is here we got like 7 million I think we got like 7 million notifications stuck in it. Chad, you know you had a MySpace. Yeah, I think it’s right next to my Hotmail account. Yeah, exactly. His his his profile picture is Michael Jackson Thriller. But anyway, go ahead. Well, I was using I was using, you know, MySpace on Netscape Navigator and back in the day. But back in 2008, Facebook had just come along and Twitter was in its infancy. The social media was really getting started and there were no real digital agencies in Augusta. And so I had a guy come and say, Hey, would you like to create a I think you’d be great to run it. Will you will you want to partner together? And let’s create a digital advertising agency? And we did. And the most awesome thing was we were working for the traditional agencies at the time. We there were lots of them in Augusta and we were doing their digital work. So we would do social media strategy, we would run Google ads, we would do all of that. And over the next ten years, between 28, 2018, all of the work that we had done, we would do a good job. We would end up getting more ad spend. And all of those larger agency said, Why are we paying these guys to do it? We need to hire our own. So it was over time we became a we in the integrated traditional agency in consulting, and then they all integrated digital and now everything’s digital. And yeah, that’s one of the things I was going to talk about, like, what’s the difference in nowadays, you know, marketing now versus marketing then Like what? What are the changes I’ve experienced? Yeah, that’s probably the big one is traditional needing digital and digital needing traditional. They’re merging together. But where I see the separation happening is between marketing and advertising. Those things are pulling further apart. Whereas the, the branding in the marketing is congealing into one thing and advertising’s almost its own baby. And the people that are really good at advertising aren’t necessarily really good at branding and marketing. And you need you need both on your team. Obviously you got to have people that do both and there are agencies in town and organizations that have both. But it’s rare that you’ve got a one man show that can really kind of do it all. Yeah, so that was it then. I sold that company in 2018 to a local development company, was more focused on software development and they wanted advertising and marketing to be a part of their team, worked there for several years and then more recently have focused on a really cool ministry project where we’re building a discipleship app and we’ve got some different opportunities for it. And so my world has really changed. I’ve done everything from being a creative director to graphic designer to a sales guy to leading teams of creatives and, you know, all those things. So how’s that, that do it? Yeah, well, I love that. I love that leads me right into my next question. Based on your your your experience here, in your opinion, where do you feel like most businesses go wrong with their branding marketing? Okay, I’ve got it’s two things. First off, is budget, second is second is attribution. So budget and attribution of budget a little bit. What are your what are your thoughts on that? Nobody spends enough. Nobody spends enough. Not the they do eventually. You mean initially? Well, yeah, they have to. Yeah, initially. So that’s a that’s a great point Paul. They the the thought is is we’re going to create this great product or you know, we’ve got a restaurant, it’s going to be so good. Everybody’s just going to come and show up or we’ve built this app and people are going to use it once and it’ll just spread like wildfire or we’ve, you know, we’ve got this business and they’re going to find out about us and word of mouth is going to do it. And even with word of mouth marketing in today’s world involves marketing automation. So email marketing is falling underneath that, communicating to your clients. You’ve got to have a website, you need to have a content strategy. There’s just a ton of that and that all takes time and money and nobody wants to put that in. And so they, they undercut it and then they find themselves in a hole that they’ve got to reinvest to dig themselves out of. And if they would go into it with the right mix, you know, look at that 20% of your operators going into marketing, that’s a big number for a lot of people. I can’t imagine that it would take that. But the successful businesses time after time are the ones that are are investing in that budget. So that’s that’s my think thoughts on budget. What do you think, Chad? Do you think that’s right. And the next one with strategy, is that what you know, next one’s attribution. Everybody’s got a strategy. They may have a bad strategy, but they’ve got a strategy. Right? Right, right. But attribution is attribution is almost completely lacking right there. And what I mean by attribution is you’re running an ad campaign. You spend $1,000 a month on that ad campaign. Are do you know what that thousand dollars brought you? How can you attribute the dollars to performance? Have you thought about the value of just showing somebody your ad versus them clicking on your ad? How do you attribute Billboard ads? Right? How do you attribute podcasts like this? Like there’s extreme value in content marketing, but if you don’t have an understanding of what it’s bringing you, how your website’s converting, looking at that full marketing funnel, going all the way down to the bottom and being able to attribute at each stage, you are going to be guessing on your budget, which is already a problem. You’ve already told you you’re not going to spend enough. Now you’re only guessing on what’s working, and then you’re also not going to value your partners or your employees. So if you’re working with an agency and you don’t attribute any value to them, you’re going to be ticked off and you’re going to jump to another agency in a year, Right? And that’s what happens. We see companies burn through your agency surface happens all the time. And so because attribution is not set up. So I feel like your as a as a marketer, as somebody that’s talking to people about branding and marketing, it’s our job to talk about how important attribution is because they can’t really judge your performance unless they’ve got attribution in place. And if you’re working with somebody that doesn’t have attribution in place, you better have it in place for them so that you can prove it out. That makes sense. Yes, it does. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and what does that go back to the saying that we’ve all heard a million times at this point, 50% of my advertising is working. I just don’t know which 50%. Exactly right. So it’s crazy. Yeah, that’s a that’s well I’ve heard that from from business owners and there it’s either resigned to it or they just like that’s just part of it. It’s what it is. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That’s crazy. Yeah, that’s right. Let me let me let me tell you a little bit about attribution. Let me give you guys a quick story. So there’s a university nearby that may or may not have changed names 17 times. Okay. We might know. We might know who that is. Okay. Now, they had a rebrand and their advertising budget was significantly traditional at the beginning of that, like 90 traditional 10% digital. We were working on that 10% of the digital and we had attribution set up from start to finish. And so every month we would we would meet and show, Hey, look, look what we’re doing in this. Great. We’re getting all these leads. We’re sending people for applications, we’re doing all this is great. And the traditional they were they had some traditional methods of attribution, but it’s difficult to tell what’s going on. And it’s easier with digital stuff, obviously. So the budgets shifted over the next six months to instead of 10% digital, 90% traditional, but 90% digital 10% digital, it was a six month swing, it flip flopped and it was because of attribution. And the only way you can go after that additional budget is if you’re if you’re able to prove that and show it. Sure. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Yes. That’s interesting. And have it. Well, yeah, it’s something that I’ve run into so many times and I’ve scratch my head about. It’s like attribution and knowing the right question to ask and getting and not overlooking the answer to the question that you’re asking, like somebody says, Hey, so on a basic level, it’s just a verbal attribution, you know. Jeremy, where did you hear about us? Well, I got your number off your website. That’s actually not answering the question. That was know. That’s just saying I got your number off your website. And so if you if you have to ask if people are not setting up that attribution correctly, then someone’s going to go dump $50,000 into their website and like, you know, yeah, that really wasn’t right. That needed it. Exactly. The other thing that can happen is if I’m if I’m the marketer, I can look at the client and go, So how much is getting a new client worth to you? Right. And if they don’t have an answer to that, you’ve got to help them figure it out. Because with without that answer, there’s no attribution and a lot of people don’t know. They’re just like, well, you know, where we’re growing, our revenues growing and those kind of things. I’m like, Yeah, but if I brought you a new client, would you give me $5,000 cash? yeah, that’d be great. That’s a cool. Then we’ll spend about $5,000 per new client to bring in, which means I need $100,000 monthly budget and they just go right? No exact. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So let me ask you, Jeremy, based on your your, your experience and maybe projects you’ve worked on or maybe just campaigns that you’ve seen, give me some examples of some of the best marketing that you’ve either been a part of or are seeing yourself. Yeah, these are what, when when I thought about this question, I, I, I thought of things that worked on me as being effective marketing. So and I didn’t put any White Hart or Jeremy Maze campaigns here so. Right there’s no we’re just talking about outside. So for video, one of the most effective is dollar Shave Club. I know you guys have seen this video. my God. It’s a lot. Yeah. it’s it’s fantastic. And that was the majority of their budget went into producing that video when they got started. But it was such a strong premise. It was great. And then it went viral and they paid to get it out. They had a good combo of both things. And man, when when everybody is showing it to you and they’re like, What do you think, man? I was like, Yeah, I’ve seen it a hundred times. So good. And, and you can watch it with a client and you can tell me, okay? And it’s and that that type of humor is not for every business, but it, it’s so effective. Right. You guys have got the the no B.S. on your website. It’s a similar thought process, right? It’s like, listen, we’re telling you like it is. There’s a little bit of humor involved here. If you don’t like it, you know, go someplace else. And we probably should be doing business. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that one’s great. Another one that I really think is truly effective is HubSpot. HubSpot is the marketing and CRM platform and their combination version of their SEO, their blog, their email campaigns, their actual customer service and follow up. They, they know what I’m doing and interacting with the site. There’s chat bot, I mean, all of it. It’s just a great mix. None of it feels overbearing. They’re giving me the attention. I need if I’m in that and that is all inbound marketing rather than being completely outbound. And so HubSpot is just the gold standard. That’s why I think you have to use they definitely the last one is a new one and is more social media based and digital ads and it’s mainly bands. Dotcom email in l y bands dot com. Now you would love this, Chad. You got to go check this out. I love it because of course I’m a nerd. They’ve got Lord of the Rings themed bands, wedding bands for For Men. Okay. So you can get you can get ones that kind of look like, you know, maybe it’s it’s a very subtle they’re very, very good. But these guys targeted me because of what I like on Facebook and what I was looking at. So I’m looking at nerd culture stuff and they knew this guy likes comics. And Lord of the Rings, I shown that I went to the website and it actually what appealed more to me were the ones that are World War Two based. They’ve actually got a wedding band with parts of a Sherman tank in it right? They’ve got bands that have like cool like Whiskey Barrels integrated into the inner ring of it. They’re just gorgeous. But all of a sudden I start seeing those bands everywhere I’m go and man, they are following me everywhere. I’ve looked at the website like three or four times. I told my wife about it and so this is an extremely effective product placement and strategy that they’ve approached. They know who I am. They targeted me. I saw it, I engaged. Now I’m stuck. I’m probably going to I mean, Kim’s got to make some more money since he might buy me one of these to say you might actually get your band here. I got a cool one, but I would change it out for this. The Sherman tank is really cool. Do they have Aragon’s ring? They do that? Well, not. Not. my gosh. I love this nerd talk, man. Now they don’t have, like, the snake. The bar here is ring. It’s actually a one that’s based on his leather cloak and like his. The Lord of the Rings. Yeah. Cool. Can we get Chad to watch this? Come on. I have. I’ve seen some of it. Yeah, I have. Yeah. My wife thinks I’m crazy because I literally. I’ll sit down and just get all the extended versions and just start. Start cranking them out. Yeah, me too, man. We love them, Kim. My wife. My wife actually likes it quite a bit. She gets something out of it every time. I just think this story’s so classic. It’s awesome. But that combo for the for the for the rings. The Lord of the Rings Rings was just drew me right in. And it was their marketing and their branding that did it. It was had nothing to do with anybody telling me to go look at it or anything like that. I just saw the image. They were only showing it to me because they knew the stuff that I liked and I thought that was genius. So. So they got the branding right from the outset. Yeah, they did end up targeting the target and the targeting was just message point, right? Yep. Perfect. Absolutely. Well, let me ask you before we go today, give us a few tips. Give our and give our listeners a few tips on on how they can avoid the pitfalls of bad marketing and branding, for that matter. Yeah, that’s kind of all in the same book. And well, let me only talk about the branding one first. So you have to be able and this concept goes with both. And I know it’s going to sound aggressive. You have to be willing to kill your babies. Yeah, yeah. Now what this means is that sounds a little bit harsh. It is a little bit harsh, but fall in love with it. Let’s let’s let’s talk about that company that that bought us years ago. Taxslayer. Great guys, huge Georgia fans. And I mean, they make you look like a fairweather God. I know that they they are they are all in. And I did a logo for one of their pro products and I used blue and black and my God, they were not okay with that. Yeah. Yeah. How that. And then, then we were working on another project and I used orange in one of the concepts. no, you’re better off with blue and black. I mean, I know I’m just in that sense. Right. So what’s interesting is I had proof in the research that this product changed, like they needed to have some differentiation in their product lines. If everything is silver, black and red, then everything silver, black and red and it all blends together. You got to find some way to differentiate. And so we we pitched that and it was like pulling teeth. And in fact, we weren’t able to do it for almost a year and a half. And then finally they decided to go for it. So I think that that I think that the colors like being able being willing to do that. Another example of that is Savannah River Brewing Company. I’ve helped them do some labels and some stuff and man, the owner, Mike is such a fan of all this superhero comic book stuff. He and I style is going to be much more illustrative and real nerd culture stuff, but that’s not who goes to Savannah River Brewing Company. It’s primarily the some of the younger military guys. It’s outdoor. So we’ve got to kill our own desires to do what we like and go for what’s actually going to work in the market. So that’s my advice, is be willing to to to kind of kill your own, your own flesh, to give it a spiritual term or kill your baby or whatever. You got to get it. Be willing to get rid of that so you can make a good decision for your business. Yeah, I’ve always, you know, described that in terms and heard that in terms of you just don’t fall in love with it. Fall in love with like the foundation, the principles, the things that that must be there, that work, like you said, that work in the marketplace, work in your industry. But don’t be so this is a place don’t let your ego get too far. I think that’s the key there, right? Yeah, right. I agree. And there there also, I’ll give you here’s a freebie card. This a freebie for you guys? Awesome. It’s a freebie. If there are too many cooks in the kitchen. You have a cafeteria? Yep. Right. And a cafeteria is going to produce one type of food and it’s not going to be as quality as if you can slim it down and have a head chef. So when you’re working with a client, find out who that decision maker is. And if you are a client, predetermine that. Yes. Yes. I’m willing to take other ideas and other other input. And maybe I’m not a decisive person, but yet I’m in charge of the company. I got to pick the logo. I don’t want to let five or six other people demand what’s going to work for our brand because chances are their ego is in the way. Yeah, so you got to have a leader that’s willing to do it and create a hierarchy and have one chef you can work with. Yeah. Now I will say that was profound. I agree. That was very, very profound. We could actually write a small book on that. you know, like a, like a toilet book that you sit and look at. Toilet book, right? Sure. I think it’s going to get off the rails at this point. But yeah, of course, we told you that. Wow. I mean, you know what I mean? How to make a craft. It’s a short read. How to make a crap sandwich, right? I mean, it’s too many chefs just giving somebody some insight. Sure. But I agree. How you get too many. This is true decision makers. And is that kind of the antithesis of a decision maker? It is. You have that many, right? Or what I like is when you’ve been working with a client for three months, you’ve got a great logo brand, everything is working, they’re happy, everybody’s happy. And then they show it to their spouse and their spouse doesn’t like it. And you’re like, Holy crap, Why was it your spouse at the first meeting? It’s like, this is not okay. So that’s that’s nice. That happened too many times. And then I’m like, Listen, I’m coming over to your house and I’m sitting down and I’m talking to this person. I have a book because this is the right thing to do. Yeah, exactly. That’s right. I love it. Good stuff. Well, Jeremy, we certainly appreciate you having you on today. This is something we’ve been trying to do for a while, and I think schedules just never really were able to align. So this is good and maybe we’ll get back together in the future to discuss more because we could talk about this for days. But yeah, I think we need to schedule some Lord of the Rings viewing. man. wow. That’s what we need. Yeah. In fact, we go. In fact, this can just change to the Lord of the Rings podcast. I’m in and I’m in, Chad’s out, Chad’s out. And we’ll just have a job, I guess. Well, okay, I guess that wraps it up there. We have learned all that we need to learn about branding and marketing and we have our next mission. God, we’re just scheduling that podcast. You’re going to have to change that background though, man. And no doubt, I mean, this is Ad Day material here. We’re all over the place. All right, man. All right, Jamie, thanks so much. Thank you. 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November 9, 2023Episode 1119 min

4 Times Your Brand Needs Help

Lots of business owners focus on getting started with the bare minimum. When it comes to branding it shows. I this episode, Chad and Paul talk about 4 times your brand needs help. If you are just starting out, take the time and build your brand well. You’ll make a lot more money and spend less on marketing. If you did not put the work in from the beginning, there has never been a better time to create a better foundation for your brand. https://youtu.be/7NbMOIKD0AE Click on the Transcript to see full Transcription: Transcript CLOSE Transcript Paul: All right. Plenty of time. Chad: Yeah. Paul, how you doing, man? Paul: Chad, I’m doing fantastic. Chad: Good. Paul: I’m going to do something different this episode. I’m going to see if I can get through it without coughing my head off. Chad: Man, that’d be a miracle, wouldn’t it? Paul: Having an intermission. Chad: Yeah. Paul: An unplanned intermission. Chad: That was hilarious. Yeah, man, you got to do what you got to do. Paul: The real question is though, who watched the YouTube video long enough to see that happen? Chad: I don’t know. That’s a good question. I’d love to know. I think somebody did, because I saw a comment on there about whether it was COVID or the flu bug. Paul: Oh, that’s right. Chad: So somebody did. Paul: At least one. We got that down. We got that down. So you have a topic today that you want to talk about, and it is surrounding brand evolving? Can a brand evolve? Does a brand evolve? Chad: That’s an interesting question. Paul: Yeah. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’ve seen some clients where they’re like oh, we got to change your logo every four or five years. I’m like, I’m not sure how I feel about that. I mean, Pepsi has changed their logo before, but not dramatically. Chad: Yeah. I mean, they’ve made some changes. I mean, there are times when I think it is necessary. The biggest thing, I think, is that a lot of businesses will just put everything to bed. The website’s been completed. They’ve got their manifesto, they’ve got their color fonts, they’ve got their logo and everything, and they just put it to bed, and they operate for a good eight to 10 years, sometimes longer. And they just think that hey, we’ve done it. It’s been accomplished. And they may be following that brand, and they may be expressing it very consistently across every department and all of their outreach and everything. But over time, things change. There could, technology changes. I mean, there may be times where you might need to modernize it based on new technology, which could involve your colors and your website, at some point in time, needs to be updated potentially. Paul: So you’ve got four things here that we can go through. So I think you’ve already started on the first one. Chad: Yeah, that’s the first one. Paul: Repositioning or reshifting, I think I see where you’re going with this because I think a lot of people will do certain things they feel checks the box, but it’s not really strategic and it’s not really a brand. And then they do some, they actually try to position. Is this is what, you’re going with that. Chad: Yeah. Well, sometimes you have to shift to appeal to maybe a new target audience. Maybe some things have changed within the organization. You might want to differentiate yourself from competitors in a way to stand out more. So yeah, there are those times when you need to go back and revisit that. Paul: So would you say that’s a brand evolving or is that a brand going back and doing the work they should have done to begin with? Chad: That’s a great question. It just depends. I mean, if you are trying to, so let’s say you have a competitor that comes on the scene and they’re starting to look like you. They’re trying to mimic you a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I could see where you might need to make some changes and it could simply come from just not addressing it and doing it right the first time. I mean, I’m not saying that it’s not. And then you also have, there are times when you could be expanding into new markets, especially from an international standpoint. Paul: Yeah. Okay. So that’s an interesting point there. Chad: Yeah. I mean, you’ve got different culture, you’ve got different language, and at that point you have to go back through and probably change some of your messaging to resonate with that culture. And you need to go back and revisit that at that point. Paul: So that makes me think of a recent episode we had with Sergio Terrez, and he was talking a lot about that, the way that the Hispanic community is poorly marketed to because businesses just don’t understand the culture. They think that Google Translate is enough and it’s just not. And that also reminds me of another brand that is based in Japan, and they have just a different way that, they actually have some mascots that are different than they would ever have in any other country. Chad: Yeah. Is that Daikin? Paul: Yeah, Daikin. That’s the one. That’s the one. I guess that’s the second point. So new territories. Chad: Yeah. So when you say mascots, they’ve got, so it’s something that is really… I guess when you say mascots, that’s more known in Japan than it would be in the US or any other parts of the country. Paul: I can’t remember exactly what that mascot is or that icon or whatever it is in Japan. But I know that, I believe it was last year and I think they’ve rolled this out by now, they developed a butterfly for the United States, because that fits more. Obviously in Japan, I only know this because of my teenage daughters, but anime is just different there than it is here. Chad: How it’s expressed? Paul: Yeah, exactly. So again, maybe like this brand evolution, or is it brand expression? Different places need- Chad: Different parts of the world. It just needs to be expressed differently, something that resonates more with the culture. Paul: And they could probably get that wrong pretty quickly. Going back to what Sergio was saying about just the Hispanic community. A lot of people get that wrong really quick. Chad: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean like he was saying there’s different ways of speaking the language, and if you don’t get it right, it’s not going to resonate. You’re not going to reach them in a way that they’re going to remember you or feel your message or understand you in a way that they want to do business with you. Paul: In a way, he’d make you look like an idiot. Chad: Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah, I enjoyed having Sergio on. That was really some good information that a lot of businesses tend to forget about. Paul: Absolutely. Chad: I think they try to do it from a way that, like he said, just pull someone in who speaks Spanish, and maybe it’s someone in the office or something. It’s not done in a way that just really resonates. Paul: Yeah, there’s a big difference between, and we said in that episode, I have a degree in Spanish, but it’s been a long time since I’ve actually spoken in Spanish on a consistent level. Chad: I was trying to get you to speak it around here a while back, and it’s like well, I don’t know. Let me kind of go back and think about this a little bit. I need to brush up here. Paul: Let’s go to Veracruz. I’ll order for all of us in Spanish. Chad: Tamales. Paul: We will eat like kings. We’ll eat like kings. Chad: Okay, Paul: So we’ve got reposition, reshift. We’ve got expansion into new territories that we’ve talked about. So the next point is a brand refresh. Tell me what and when does a brand need a refresh? Chad: Well, I mean, technology changes over time. So you’ve got to keep up with that, with the modern technology. And again, it could be that your colors don’t match up with who you are anymore. It could be that, obviously the website, I mean you’ve got to go back and you cannot just, you know this, we can’t just build it. It can be as robust as you want it to be originally. But you can’t just say, okay, well that’s done and let’s just move on, and 10 years go by and this site is just hasn’t been addressed, updated, or anything. I mean, you can’t. That’s not smart. Paul: And that really is something that I would say the vast majority of businesses right now suffer from is it’s the checkbox, we’ve got the website. And you talk about going back and making sure your colors represent you now. Those types of things are really, again, going back, they probably weren’t done well the first time around, and then you check these boxes and these days, if you’re not addressing your website and doing something proactive every single month to add some- Chad: What about just content? Paul: Just something to make it alive. You’re going to be dinged on your authority score. Now, of course, Lisa can talk a lot more than that than we can, but it is one of those things that, yeah, check a box. We’ve got a website. We built it 15 years ago. It’s pretty good. We’re fine. Chad: That’s great. Yeah. I mean, it works. Paul: Or does it? Chad: Well, I mean, it’s functional in their minds, but at the end of the day, it’s not really functioning the way it needs to be. Paul: Missing out on a lot of opportunities. Chad: Missing a lot of opportunities. And I think a lot of this is, again, business leaders, owners, get so busy doing what they do day in, day out and providing for their customers. It’s easy to forget. Paul: Of course it is. Chad: I mean, you’ve gone in your house before and hit your TV and you had to maybe update an app. I mean, those things are prompting you to do that, but your website’s not going to send you anything and say hey Paul, hey Chad, it’s time to reboot this thing. It’s just not hitting you in the face. Paul: I mean, it’s like how we tell you it’s time to get a new computer, Chad. Chad: It is time. Paul: You’ve had it for 20 years now. Chad: I’ve had it for a while. It’s time, but I’ll tell you, man, I’m one of those as long as it’s still working effectively. Paul: But I think that we probably could get something. We could put that Mac, we could send it to Apple and they could put it in their museum, and we might get so something out of it. I mean, that would be pretty cool. Chad: It’s older, but we’re exaggerating a little. Hey, listen, it cuts on. Paul: Yes, it does. Chad: It does everything that I need it to do. Now, there are some things that I probably need to, and it’s time, but in terms of it’s functional- Paul: It does come on. Chad: It does. It comes on. But again, it’s the same type of thing though, isn’t it? It’s working. So you can see where someone could say hey man, I’ve got this site. I’ve got this brand, everything. Paul: That has actually turned out to be a better analogy than I thought, but it is working, but mine works a lot faster than yours. Chad: Well, sure. Okay. Then we go back to how a brand evolves over time, how it needs to be at least revisited. Paul: Kept up with. Chad: I’m not saying every 10 years you need to do a total brand change. No, not at all. But you’ve got to be cognizant of that brand and what’s going on with it, because it needs to be revisited. And just to take a look and say hey, where are we with this? Paul: Yeah, absolutely. Chad: It’s been 10 years and we’ve grown, et cetera. And then there’s also times where, and this is the one that probably most people don’t want to talk about, but this probably could be considered really the most important one. And that is you start getting a lot of negative perceptions about a brand. Paul: Oh yeah, for sure. Chad: Or negative feedback. At some point it’s probably prudent to at least consider. Paul: And that brings us to the fourth point that you had in this is listening to feedback. Was that just external feedback, like customers, or is this internal feedback or what level is this? Chad: It could be both, but mainly external. Yeah, negative feedback in terms of from the customer’s view that they just haven’t had good experiences, whatever the case may be. And it may be time to go back and revisit it. Paul: Could that also land in the bucket of it wasn’t done well to begin with? Chad: Again, yeah, it could be for sure. Paul: That really ties back in to some degree what we spoke about last week. Chad: But it could be customer service, like we talked about last week. It could be just things that they’ve gotten a bad reputation for not living up to the promises that they’ve made. And at some point, it is probably a good time to maybe consider going back in and just doing a rebrand. Now, here’s the thing though, and you know this and we’ve talked about this so much, before you do it, before you make that decision to do a rebrand or make any major changes to your brand, you have to be very methodical about that. You’ve got to do research. You’ve got to make sure that you go through and think it through. Paul: Absolutely. Chad: Because a big decision, and you don’t want to leave behind the current customers that you have that are satisfied with your product or brand. So yeah, I think the moral to the story is there’s a lot of things that could potentially call for some rebranding or some changes of the brand. It’s very important to make sure you think all that through very well before you do it. But at the core of this, you can’t just throw it in there, be done with it, and just walk away from it. Paul: Yeah. Really, it needs to be thoughtful. You need to do the work. I mean, there’s some work that goes to getting it done right the first time. Chad: And really, I think that’s probably part of the moral of the story is that if it’s done the right way the first time, there really shouldn’t be a need to go back and do a total rebrand. Of course we know that a website has got to be updated at times, and you need to add content, and there’s some things that you need to do with that. But unless you’re going into international market or things of that nature. And the customer feedback, if you’ve got negative customer feedback, you’ve got more issues to solve. Paul: Without a doubt. Chad: Just rebranding it is not going to solve those problems. Paul: And I was thinking about that, that’s a heck of a bandaid to try to put on some serious problems. Chad: Yeah. Oh, no doubt. I don’t even know if it’ll work unless you go in from the ground up and get that thing situated in the right way. Paul: Well, you have to change names. Chad: Yeah, there’s a lot to that. Paul: That’s a heck of a lift right there. Chad: It is. Paul: I don’t know. Maybe some people get to that point. They need that much of a drastic change. Chad: It could be. Paul: But for the most part, I mean, you’ve got people that are doing well, they’re getting by, but there are gaps. And it goes back to your computer versus my computer. Yours turns on. Chad: It does. Paul: And there’s a lot of people that turn on. They turn their lights on, they go to work, they’ve got a customer base. Chad: So are you saying it’s taken for granted? Paul: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and it’s the opportunity missed or the opportunities missed. Chad: Right. Paul: I think that is, because it goes back, it’s amazing how many people still have websites in this day and age. I literally saw a website, I was going to lunch the other day, for a restaurant that I could barely read their menu. There are just too many resources available to just check a box and leave it be. And your brand is one of those things. You cannot check that box. You need to constantly revisit it. And all four of these points are important because you should be aware of what’s going on all the time, and really making sure that you’re caring for that because that is your livelihood. Chad: Yes, it is. It’s very important. And it’s one of the most overlooked things that we see. Well, let me take that back. One of the most overlooked things that we see is the initial work that needs to be done the right way. Paul: A hundred percent. Chad: And just really doing it the right way. Paul: Having a good foundation, being thorough. Chad: That’s where it’s really missed, but it can also be done the right way and things change over time. So there’s several points to be made here, but yeah, great conversation. Paul: Absolutely. Well, this time, well we haven’t shut this thing off, so I don’t know if I made it through without coughing. Chad: We’ve got just a few more minutes. I think you can make it. I have faith in you, Paul. Paul: It’s not my fault. We’re in Augusta, Georgia. Chad: It’s 80 degrees today, close to it. Paul: What was it? Two and a half weeks ago? It was cold. Chad: Oh, man. Paul: Then we had a stretch of eighties, then it got really cold again. And the deer were moving, so of course we had to get out there then now it’s in the eighties again. Chad: The bucks were on the move. Paul: And apparently I can’t handle that. Chad: Are you feeling better? Paul: Yeah, I’d say about 80%. Chad: That’s good. That’s good. Paul: About 80%. Chad: Just more whiskey, man. I’m telling you, man, the whiskey is the best medicine. I don’t care what anybody tells you. Paul: I agree. I’m no stranger to that. But yeah, so I’ve made it through without a session of coughing and remission. Chad: Hallelujah. Paul: So this is good. All right. Well this is something, like all of this conversation and the conversation we had last week, and obviously the conversations that we’ll continue to have about this ,goes back to it’s just not that hard. Chad: No. Paul: It should not be. There’s just too many resources out there for people to get quality help to make sure that they are doing things well, building a good foundation on the front end for their branding, and then applying that and building on that and going forward rather than having to make mistakes. Gosh, we’re all going to make mistakes make, but there’s a lot that you can avoid making. Chad: We all are going to make mistakes, but having it done the right way. And there a lot of people think that three quarters, if you get three quarters of it right, then man, you’ve accomplished. No, you’ve got to have a hundred percent in order to get this thing right. Yeah, you do. Paul: I’m a big advocate of don’t make great the enemy of good, but get your brain done right. Chad: This one has got to be, I don’t agree. It’s got to be done right. Paul: Yeah. Get your brand done right. Chad: Yeah, for sure. Paul: It’ll save you a lot of headache, a lot of time and money. What is it? What’s the saying that people don’t ever have the money to do it right the first time, but they always have the money to fix it. Chad: Isn’t that right? It’s interesting how that works. Paul: Yep. Get it done right the first time. Chad: All right, well let’s get back to work. Paul: Okay. Let’s do it. Thanks man. Chad: Thank you. /* Style the tab */ .tab { overflow: hidden; border: 1px solid #ccc; background-color: #f1f1f1; } /* Style the buttons inside the tab */ .tab button { background-color: inherit; float: left; border: none; outline: none; cursor: pointer; padding: 14px 16px; transition: 0.3s; font-size: 17px; } /* Change background color of buttons on hover */ .tab button:hover { background-color: #ddd; } /* Create an active/current tablink class */ .tab button.active { background-color: #ccc; } /* Style the tab content */ .tabcontent { display: none; padding: 6px 12px; border: 1px solid #ccc; border-top: none; } function openCity(evt, cityName) { var i, tabcontent, tablinks; tabcontent = document.getElementsByClassName("tabcontent"); for (i = 0; i < tabcontent.length; i++) { tabcontent[i].style.display = "none"; } tablinks = document.getElementsByClassName("tablinks"); for (i = 0; i < tablinks.length; i++) { tablinks[i].className = tablinks[i].className.replace(" active", ""); } document.getElementById(cityName).style.display = "block"; evt.currentTarget.className += " active"; } If you enjoyed this episode? Listen to 5 Ways to Market to the Hispanic Community that is mentioned in this episode.

November 2, 2023Episode 1024 min

Lurking Brand Killers

There are some lurking brand killers out there all business owners need to be aware of. Overlooking simple actions to take in your branding and marketing can hurt you and your business in a major way. Aligning the promises you make in your advertising and marketing with your team is critical to actually deliver on your promises. https://youtu.be/h2NbgeXqHFE

October 26, 2023Episode 923 min

5 Ways to Market to the Hispanic Community more effectively.

Lots of businesses want to market to the Hispanic community. Lots of businesses are doing it wrong. Sergio Terreros joined Chad and Paul on this episode of Bad Marketing Sucks to share 5 ways businesses can be more effective in their marketing. Sergio on Linkedin https://youtu.be/SlCUplaNivU?si=03ER-GUybrP-LSMm

October 19, 2023Episode 827 min

Brand Branding and Marketing … not the same thing.

Lots of people and businesses like to think that a brand, branding, and marketing are all the same thing. They are not. In this episode Chad and Paul talk about the differences in the three and the relationships they have with one another. It doesn’t take a ton of effort to put things in the right order. Not getting them in order results in some pretty bad marketing. https://youtu.be/OslTQIz2Qrc?si=Y9ruBFDJ7qqzNsQc Click on the Transcript to see full Transcription: Transcript CLOSE Transcript Chad (00:00): Hey, Paul. How you doing, man? Paul (00:02): Doing fantastic. How are you doing? Chad (00:04): I’m great. I’m great. What have we got going on today? What is our thinking? Paul (00:07): Well, I think that we’re going to talk more about branding, brands, marketing. Is it all the same? Is there any difference? Where does it all start? Chad (00:17): Yeah. Paul (00:17): How does it all fit in? All of that fun stuff. I Chad (00:19): Love it. Paul (00:20): Love it. All the things that keep businesses up at night, right? Chad (00:22): Sure, absolutely. Paul (00:23): Which is total crap. Chad (00:24): It is, yeah. Tell me about your thoughts on what a brand is. Paul (00:29): What a brand is. So everybody has a brand, a personal brand. Every business has a brand, which largely comes from the founders, the individuals. But the moment you have a spark of inspiration to start a business, whether you have a problem and you’re going to solve it for yourself, and then you do it for others, or you just see a pattern of problems and you’re going to be the solution to those for other people, everybody’s got that brand that starts from the spark, that first inspiration, it’s you. It’s who you are. Now, taking that and making that bigger than one person Chad (01:12): And Paul (01:12): Taking it out of maybe the garage Chad (01:15): Or Paul (01:16): The kitchen table, they all start there. But then once you’ve made that commitment to bring it out, then you start moving into the branding. Branding is that public domain. Chad (01:31): Okay, you’ve got your brand, Paul (01:33): Right? Chad (01:34): Let’s take someone who is passionate about coffee beans and they want to open up a coffee shop. So the day that they decide to do that, well, I’m going to open up a coffee shop. This is my dream. I’ve got a connection. And somewhere in South America, Paul (01:48): Hypothetically, Chad (01:50): That day, that dream is formed and it is implemented, and they have decided to do that, and they are starting to implement these new coffee beans. So that brand, Paul (02:03): At Chad (02:03): That point, essentially what you’re saying is formed. Paul (02:07): They don’t even have to have context and Chad (02:10): Coffee. All right? But I’m just, okay. But at that point, that brand Paul (02:13): Is Chad (02:14): Essentially formed. Paul (02:15): And so again, things like origin stories and things of that that have become cliche, that’s what that really is at the core, is Chad (02:24): Their story. Paul (02:25): I have an idea. I want to bring this idea out. That is when the brand starts and who you are and what you believe, that’s where the brand starts Chad (02:37): And what you stand for difference. Okay. So at what point does that brand that we’ve already established, when does that become branding? Because there are two obviously different things. Paul (02:50): So I see it as that your brand is your first. That origin with an individual or a small group of individuals is where the brand starts. Chad (03:00): And Paul (03:00): Then you bring that to a team as you go to form a business and bring it to the public. Once you make that transition from internal to the public, that’s when branding begins to become branding Chad (03:16): At that moment. Paul (03:16): At that Chad (03:17): Moment Paul (03:17): When you come to the public, because it’s a mixture of what you believe about yourself and what is perceived and experienced in the marketplace, that becomes shaping the branding of who you are. Now, there’s some technical sides of branding. Things like logos, fonts, colors, and all of that. That’s part of the technical side of branding. Bringing that idea to life and bringing it from an internal to a public state. Chad (03:50): Does Paul (03:50): That make sense? Chad (03:51): It does. Paul (03:51): Okay. So you’ve got that technical side of things, but a lot of it is once you bring that out and you start to actually perform services for your target audience, sell goods, or perform the service that you provide, then their perception and your execution becomes part of that branding as well. Chad (04:10): Okay. So let’s go back. We’ve already kind of define what the brand is. We talked kind of define what the branding, the moment that it becomes branding is taking it to the public, Paul (04:22): Right? Chad (04:22): Okay. So those two things are defined. So at what point in time is do you move into what is considered marketing? Marketing? So you’ve got branding, marketing, so you’ve got the branding, which we’ve already established is once you take it to the public, when does that move over into the realm of marketing? Paul (04:45): So marketing is another transition from internal to public as well. So you’re, you are creating assets to make promises to the public about what you’re offering, the goods or services that you’re offering. Chad (05:00): Okay. So let me ask you this. So at what point in that endeavor do you have to get definitive on who your target audience is Paul (05:11): As quickly as possible? As quickly as possible? So the way I see that is, and you and I have talked about this a lot over the years, is so there is a target profile for every good or service that you offer if you’re offering a good or service, and there are optimal ones and less optimal ones. So target profile is really who is going to be the highest profitable groups of people that need your product. And that could be, and it’s not. So take real estate, for instance, it’s like one real estate firm may focus on people downsizing. Chad (05:52): Yes. Paul (05:53): Versus one real estate firm might focus on new families, new Chad (05:57): Buyers, Paul (05:58): Or that starter home, and then, well, we outgrew this. Chad (06:02): Right? Then you’ve got another target audience that could be people that are investors. Paul (06:06): Exactly. Chad (06:06): That are just buying something to invest in. Paul (06:09): So as you’re making that transition to marketing, finding that target profile is critical, because if you cannot speak to them properly and at the proper times, then you’re going to waste a ton of money. And the efforts that you put into bringing your brand to life and branding and bringing it into the realm of marketing is going to be very frustrating. It’s going to be less effective. Most don’t experience it as being less effective. They just experience the outcome of being, wow, that didn’t work. It Chad (06:41): Didn’t work well. Paul (06:44): But in answer to your question about that, identifying that target profile as critical, as early as possible. Chad (06:51): As early as possible. Yeah. I think one of the biggest confusions that people that have is that a logo color font is branding, and we’ve got to get that done. We get a website done, just get something out there. Right? And once you’ve done that, then you’ve really, you’ve done everything you need to do pretty much in the branding world of the product or service that you, but let’s talk about that a little bit more, because it’s such a, you have people that believe that Paul (07:26): In Chad (07:27): Their mind, Paul (07:27): A lot of people, Chad (07:28): But it’s much more robust. Am I correct? Paul (07:32): Yeah. If you’re just doing that checklist that you just laid out for us, I got a logo, I’ve got some fonts, I’ve got some colors, I’ve got a website, Chad (07:39): And Paul (07:40): You’re checking those boxes, then you’re looking at it from a very thin tactical perspective of this as branding rather than, it’s just remarkable to me how many people still have websites that they’ve checked the box and they’ve never gone back to look at, and it doesn’t articulate anything about who they are, why anybody should care. It’s literally just a box that they checked. We have a website Chad (08:06): Just to say that. Yeah, right. We’ve got it. Paul (08:08): Which in this day and age, I mean, that’s one of the most valuable assets that you actually own. Chad (08:14): Well, that’s the engine. Paul (08:15): Yeah. Chad (08:15): Right. Essentially big time. Yeah, Paul (08:17): Hundred percent. Because all of these other things, social media, we don’t own anything on those. We don’t own our profiles. Chad (08:25): Right. Paul (08:26): LinkedIn can shut you down in a heartbeat. Chad (08:28): So can Facebook, Paul (08:29): Every single one of ’em, they can change their terms Chad (08:31): Of Paul (08:31): Services, Chad (08:32): Algorithms, everything and everything. Yeah. If you had, okay, so lemme ask you this. If you were to, I got a question for you. So where do you think the biggest discrepancy is, or where do you think the biggest shortfall is from a business owner, an idea guy who’s got this brand, who’s bringing this brand to market? Where do you think the biggest pitfall lies from the moment that he or she decides that this is my idea, this is what I want to take to the public, and actually all the way through the end of that, through the actual marketing campaign itself. Where do you think the biggest pain points are for these individuals? Paul (09:15): So the biggest pain points or pitfalls, those can be very Chad (09:19): Different things. Well, I mean, it’s a pain point when it doesn’t work effectively, Paul (09:23): And that’s typically how it’s done. And most people, at least in my experience, and I could have a very odd experience, but in my experience with this is that most people are, their pain points are that didn’t work, but they never really took the time to have a strategy for their brand, have a strategy for their marketing, and tie it all together to be measurable and within the cycle of business and the cycle of a customer’s buying cycle. Chad (09:54): Sure. So what you’re saying is essentially you’re saying that they put something together, they craft this message, and they just kind of throw some stuff on the wall? Paul (10:03): Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I could see the started of a business saying, okay, well what do I need to do? Well, I need to form an LLC, I get an attorney, I get an accountant. I’m going to get a logo, I’m going to get a website, and now I’m just going to go off and do it. Chad (10:20): Yes. Paul (10:24): In my opinion, that’s one of the reasons that so many startups, so many small businesses fail. They Chad (10:28): Fail. Yeah. So when I say pain point, I mean obviously it becomes a pain point when it doesn’t work. Paul (10:34): Exactly Chad (10:34): Right. So if you were to give someone some advice and say, okay, well these are the pitfalls that you need to avoid. These are the things in that process, Paul (10:45): A Chad (10:45): Brand branding and marketing. If you could, I don’t know, maybe there’s five, maybe there’s 10, maybe there’s three. I don’t know. Paul (10:52): What Chad (10:52): Would they be? Paul (10:53): So the first thing I would say is to actually develop some written language about who you are and what you’re doing means it’s going to help force you to try to articulate a differentiation between your competitor. Because most, in any industry and market, you can go in and take 10 websites Chad (11:16): And Paul (11:17): Change a logo, change a few words, and they’re all the same. So there’s no differentiation. Chad (11:22): So when you say that, you’re talking about getting to the grassroots of the real reason you open this business or service, the reason why you do what you do, and you’re passionate, the reason why you’re passionate about this, right? Is that what you’re saying, essentially? Paul (11:42): Yeah, exactly. And what separates you and why anybody should care about you versus somebody else. Chad (11:47): Right. Okay. Paul (11:47): And so few people go through that process. It’s not easy. And when you’re based on conventional wisdom and you’re just going by a checklist and you say, well, I’ve already got my website and I’ve already got these tactical things done, but they’re not really saying anything. They’re chasing SEO, they’re chasing keywords and trying to game the system, which you just cannot do anymore. But that’s the first thing in answer to your question, that’s the first thing that needs to be done, is you have to be able to articulate. And the written word is so important in that because it becomes that, as I would call it, a brand manifesto, once you transition from yourself or a small group of founders into a team. Chad (12:31): And Paul (12:32): As that team grows, if you don’t have something to guide your employees and your team to say, this is the essence, this is what we are. Chad (12:41): So what you’re saying is, is that that manifesto somewhat becomes the Paul (12:45): Culture Chad (12:46): Of that workplace environment, the foundation of the culture, of that workplace Paul (12:51): Environment. Exactly. Because in the absence of that, then it’s just going to be, it’s Chad (12:57): Flying by the seat of your pants. Paul (12:58): Yeah. It’s personal preference. Chad (12:59): Sure. Paul (13:00): That’s the difference between somebody that’s put together that has policy and discipline Chad (13:04): Versus Paul (13:05): Everything that comes up. We’re just going to interpret it how we feel at that moment, what our personal preference is. Chad (13:10): And Paul (13:10): That’s just a dangerous, irresponsible Chad (13:12): Way approach. Okay. That’s a pitfall. Okay. What’s the second pitfall? Let’s say that someone has that, they’ve done the manifesto, they’ve laid all that out, they’ve talked about who they are, why they are and what they do. What’s the second biggest pitfall in your opinion? Paul (13:25): So it’s not connecting that with the visual parts of a brand. So we talked about these. What most people do is a tactical checklist. I’ve got a logo, I’ve got fonts and all that stuff. Taking that brand manifesto and using that to create the visual brand and the brand books and the brand guidelines, Chad (13:44): Make Paul (13:44): Sure that you provide one of the most important things that you can have in any aspect of life. And its consistency. So those are your anchors. Those are your Chad (13:54): Foundation. So when you say consistency, you’re saying consistent in everything that you do within that organization with your teams. Paul (14:00): Correct. How you express Chad (14:02): Who Paul (14:02): You are visually, verbally, in the written word, all of those things. Because that’s the buildup to marketing. It’s taking this to the public and saying, Hey, this is who we are. These are the promises that we’re making about our good or service. Because it is remarkable to me how still businesses skip so many steps, just go straight to making the promises. And then when people say, I’m going to take you up on that, when the consumer, Chad (14:37): The end consumer, Paul (14:38): They’re going to come Chad (14:39): In, Paul (14:40): They’re going to say, Hey, I’d love to know about this. I’d like you to fulfill, make good Chad (14:45): On this promise you made, I promise you made. Paul (14:46): And you’ve got employees that say, I have no idea what’re strong about. Chad (14:50): Right? That’s not good. Paul (14:52): Or they go in and the employee takes their personal preference and it’s completely different than what Chad (15:00): Was promised Paul (15:01): This marketing. I mean, that right there just blows me away that we have so many businesses that continue to do that, Chad (15:13): And they wonder why they fail, Paul (15:15): Yeah’s it, and they say, well, my branding and marketing failed or didn’t work. Chad (15:21): It’s like, Paul (15:21): No, it actually worked really, really well. But what they found Chad (15:26): When Paul (15:26): They came to take you up on that promise Chad (15:29): Was Paul (15:30): So drastically different Chad (15:31): Than what you promised. Paul (15:32): Yeah. Then that’s what your planning failed. Your lack of planning, your lack of strategy. Chad (15:38): So that’s a pitfall. So that’s pitfall two, Paul (15:41): Massive. Chad (15:41): So we get to pitfall two, all that is what we just discussed. Okay. What would be pitfall three as we move through this entire, through the marketing phase? Because obviously it goes past the marketing phase. You’ve got a good or service that someone purchases from you. At that point, in my mind, once they purchase that item from you, you’re kind of almost married in a way. You’ve asked them to metaphorically, Paul (16:12): You’ve Chad (16:12): Asked them to marry you at that point. A lot of businesses fail, I think after the sale as well. Paul (16:21): A hundred Chad (16:21): Percent. It’s like you’ve purchased it great, but they don’t court well. And in marriage, as we all know, the real courting begins after the IDOs. If you want to stay married Paul (16:34): Without a doubt, Chad (16:35): Relationships Paul (16:37): To maintain a relationship, it takes work. Chad (16:40): Oh, yeah. Oh, we could go on and on about, and we’re not marriage counselors, but certainly we all understand, Paul (16:45): But even in a customer relationship, Chad (16:47): It’s similar. Paul (16:49): So you’ve got this cycle that the customer’s going through, they’re just living their life. Something happens. So a situation kicks them into a need, and then they look at their options, then they make contact, or they make a decision, they make contact, and then they purchase, and then they kick right back into that cycle. So businesses that fail to nurture that relationship and recognize that we cannot change this buying cycle, Chad (17:22): It is what it is. Paul (17:23): Yeah. Chad (17:24): There’s Paul (17:24): Nothing we can do to change that. But knowing what that cycle looks like is where businesses that are really successful at it nurture that relationship and reaffirm the buying decision that they’ve made. Chad (17:37): So Paul (17:39): You’re absolutely Chad (17:40): Right. So it’s courting essentially in the end. Yeah. Okay. So we’ve got the second one. So what would be the third pitfall in your, because we’ve also got to get to a point where we take that message through marketing to the target audience that’s been defined. So is there a pitfall in there where somebody could go wrong in that marketing? Oh my gosh. Paul (18:04): Is there a pitfall in there? Chad (18:05): Well, I mean, I’m trying to point out how much Paul (18:08): Time do you have? Oh my goodness. Chad (18:09): We’ve got about another 15 minutes. I’m going to, well, 12 minutes. I’m going to allow you to, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to give you maybe five minutes to talk about that. I know that could go on forever. Paul (18:20): I mean, we’ll have, there’s so many pitfalls in that, Chad (18:24): But let’s just say this. Okay. There’s some pitfalls, the tremendous pitfalls in that and the marketing end of it, of taking that message to your target audience Paul (18:33): Through Chad (18:33): Various media. Paul (18:35): Absolutely. Chad (18:35): Alright. Then you have another one, which is after that person has purchased your good or service and not developing the, or courting them in a way that is effective and they end up either forgetting you or being turned off by you, Paul (18:51): Or both of which are bad, very Chad (18:53): Bad. Both are bad. And all of this encompasses that marketing. Paul (18:59): Okay. So I’ll talk about one thing from that standpoint of in marketing, here’s a major pitfall that I see is the right message at the wrong time. And so what I mean by that is, so until somebody has a need, they are just not going to pay attention to facts and figures because it’s not necessary at that time. But we will latch on to things like emotional messages that are conveyed to us Chad (19:34): Connections. Paul (19:34): So if I’m watching television and the air conditioning has gone out, well, lemme back up. So if the air conditioning goes out, I don’t go sit down at the TV to wait for a commercial to come on so I can write a number down. So anything, when you’re talking about television in this instance, or even digital delivery of videos Chad (20:02): In Paul (20:02): Some capacity, Chad (20:02): Sure. Paul (20:05): That type of information is the right message at the wrong time. Those details will matter later when I need them. Chad (20:16): But Paul (20:16): At that time, when I’m watching golf or I’m watching football, anything that’s in that message, in that video is a waste of real estate. That is a huge, Chad (20:27): You’re not in a buying mode. Paul (20:29): Exactly. Chad (20:29): Okay. Paul (20:30): But I am in a relationship. Chad (20:32): So what you’re saying is, is that creating the top of mind awareness through a connection type of a message to you at that moment as a potential customer on your couch watching sports or whatever, what you’re referring to here? Paul (20:48): Exactly. So what is top of mind? So if you need to move something, you need to move your house or move a piece of furniture, who are you going to call? Chad (20:59): I’m going to call a moving company, Paul (21:03): But most people are going to call their friends. Chad (21:06): Oh Paul (21:06): Yeah, that’s what I was looking Chad (21:07): For. I thought you were meaning, yeah, you’re going to call a friend. Paul (21:10): Yeah. Chad (21:10): Right. Sure. Paul (21:11): So in which of those friends you’re going to call first, you have the best relationship with. Chad (21:17): Sure. That’s probably going to be you in that moment. Paul (21:19): Exactly. And I ignore your call unless you’ve got a case of beer and pizza, then I might come over. Chad (21:25): Oh, I see now. Paul (21:26): Okay. Yeah, I might come over just planted some seeds, just so you know. But last time I moved you, I don’t think there was any of that involved. Chad (21:34): I think there was pizza, but that’s been probably 10, Paul (21:37): 15 years Chad (21:38): Ago. Man. That’s true. Paul (21:38): From that townhouse to the one you’re in now Chad (21:40): In my home. Yeah. Paul (21:41): So equate that with a business, that’s what top of mind is. It is a relationship. Chad (21:47): So Paul (21:48): If we want to be top of mind where we’re delivering messages, we need to know what state that buyer is in their cycle so that we know how to craft that message and how to take our brand, express that at the right time with the right message. Chad (22:05): Yes. I’ve noticed in the HVAC industry over the years, that there’s pain points every year because these companies get much busier. It’s summer when it first starts to get hot, and it’s in the cold in the winter. When it starts to get really cold, that’s when the unit start to struggle. So I see where you’re going with this. And then the rest of the year is almost like top of mind awareness. Yeah, Paul (22:29): Exactly. Chad (22:30): Or a service type deal that they’ve got a contract where they come out and service it and things of that nature. Okay. So we’ve talked about the difference between brand branding and marketing, essentially. I Paul (22:41): Mean, Chad (22:41): We can, obviously, there’s a lot more that we can discuss in the realm of Paul (22:46): Marketing. Chad (22:46): I mean, that could go on. We could be here for another couple hours. We don’t have time today. And we talked about some of the pitfalls and what do you see? Do you see a lot of these lot of businesses trying to gold it alone a lot of times and trying to do this themselves? And would that be one of the reasons why they struggle so much and they may experience more of the pitfalls than someone who is actually using an expert? Paul (23:15): Yeah, I think so. I think there’s a lot of status quo, old conventional wisdom out there that people follow. It’s not hard to see. Legitimately, I cannot believe this blew my, I still cannot get over this. I was riding down the road the other day. I saw a billboard with a QR code on it. Chad (23:36): Wait, what? Paul (23:37): A billboard with a QR code on it. Chad (23:39): Well, how can I get Paul (23:40): Exactly. Chad (23:41): I mean, that’s a long way to get my phone. Paul (23:44): That’s like, Chad (23:44): What would be the reason that’s wasted Paul (23:46): Space? The only thing I can think of is that somebody thought that, Hey, again, Chad (23:52): Was it a spoof? Was it supposed to be funny or no? Paul (23:55): I just can’t see how it could be. But so that is somebody, the world, I only guess, I can only imagine that they win it alone. And they thought, Hey, this would be good. Versus having somebody say they saw something on QR codes, which QR codes can do some brilliant things. Chad (24:14): Sure. Paul (24:14): But not on a billboard. Chad (24:16): I mean, how far does your phone zoom? I mean, you made fun of my phone a lot. Oh, I did. I Paul (24:21): Get it. Oh my gosh. Chad, please, for the love of God, do what we say about your phone. Chad (24:27): Okay. Well, give me a second. My phone, unless yours does yours, can you zoom that far into a QR code on a billboard? Paul (24:36): Probably. But my question before that, Chad (24:39): You going to die trying to do it riding down the road. You’ve got to turn around and come. Yeah, it’s pointless. Paul (24:43): Yeah. I’m going to just hold on. Hey, Chad, I’ll call you back. I got to turn around real quick. A QR code. I’ve got to see what that QR code goes to. Chad (24:52): Oh, man. Paul (24:52): Yeah, that’s really bad. Chad (24:54): That’s a great example. Paul (24:55): Yeah. But it’s stuff like that that Chad (24:57): It just makes no Paul (24:58): Sense. There was something that inspired or sounded good at a time, but Chad (25:04): Needed some perspective. It’s also, I could take it that a little further. I mean, we’ve seen the different commercials and stuff too, and on different types of things, but some of them, recently we went on tv, the one we talked about it recently, a while back, and there was another one here locally where I don’t don’t want to poke fun at anybody. Paul (25:21): Exactly. Chad (25:22): But he was in a service industry that was in construction. Paul (25:25): And Chad (25:25): You’ve seen it. You can’t handle, handle this. It’s rough, man. And don’t, at some point, people have to be more aware of the image that they’re presenting to the public. Exactly. You can have a great, good or service, and you can have a great idea, and you could do a lot of things. And you could have the manifesto. You can know who your target audience is completely. And just the message is so bad that it’s just, they run from you. Paul (25:51): It Chad (25:51): Is a big turn off. So there’s so many points to this that we could go on about, but I think we’ve, we’re so passionate about this. I love these types of discussions because it helps Paul (26:03): Absolutely. Chad (26:03): Kind of hash it out and just talk through it. Paul (26:09): Yeah, because I, we’ve seen all things, so many different things that are not great. Chad (26:14): Yeah. Oh man. Paul (26:14): And it doesn’t have to be that way. Chad (26:17): And Paul (26:17): So I think I’ve mentioned this to you before, but years and years and years ago, my dad diagnosed me with the case of the ought bes. I know how things ought to be, Chad (26:27): Ought to bes. Okay. And Paul (26:28): It drives me nuts. I Chad (26:29): Thought you said, thought you were saying oddities, but okay. Paul (26:32): That probably as well. But no, the case of the oddities Got it. I know how things ought to be, and it drives me crazy when it’s not. And this kind of basic understanding of a brand branding and marketing is part of that. It’s like it doesn’t need to be that hard. But businesses after, businesses after businesses just make it harder than it Chad (26:56): Used to be. But I think that’s because they’re good at what they do. We’ve talked about Paul (27:00): This, Chad (27:00): Their brand, I mean their service or their product, then they’re not experts in this. And a lot of times we’ve talked about before, you can have a great product or service and fail, unfortunately, because you don’t go about it the right way. Paul (27:14): Without a doubt. A hundred percent. Chad (27:16): So yeah, great info. This is great info. Looking forward to talking about this more. Paul (27:22): All right, man. Well, I enjoyed it. We’ll do it again Chad (27:24): Soon. I enjoyed it. 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October 12, 2023Episode 724 min

Champagne Taste on a Beer Budget

David Porter knows all too well about businesses looking for marketing help who have champagne taste on a beer budget. It doesn’t really go well. David’s Linkedin https://youtu.be/7F_fdBUbzVo Click on the Transcript to see full Transcription: Transcript CLOSE Transcript Paul: David, welcome to Bad Marketing Sucks. How have you been lately? David: Very, very well, thank you. Very well. And it’s Friday after all, so you can’t complain on a Friday. Paul: Not at all. Not at all, so tell us what you do and how you got there? David: So my name’s David. I’m the director of a company called Surge Marketing Solutions, and we’re a full service digital marketing agency. What that means is, people come to us with a selection of problems and then we have a full range of solutions there to help them solve their problems ultimately. So the best way to describe it is we have three silos. We’ve got the creative team, we’ve got a development team, and then we’ve got a marketing team. So it just means that whatever the problem, we have something in our tool bag to fix that problem, ultimately. And I think, well the reason it’s come about is, I’ve worked in various marketing roles, I’ve sold radio advertising, I’ve sold press, I’ve sold digital. And what I found was lots of companies out there do a lot of good stuff. Equally, a lot of them do bad stuff, but you would only get… Chad: Imagine that. David: I know, it’s crazy, isn’t it? You only get the solution that someone can offer. So if you go to someone who specializes in out of home and you say, I need to promote up my company, then they’re going to talk about bus shelters and radio. And if you talk to somebody who just does Google AdWords, then Google AdWords is going to be the thing you should use. So I wanted to be in a position, digitally speaking, that when someone comes to us, we say, right, where are you now? Where do you want to be? Now let’s look at everything you’ve got going on and then we’re going to put a solution in place at the right time because you might need a plethora of things, but it might not necessarily be affordable or it might even work. So we’ll start here, get some success, and then start introducing other things as we need to, ultimately. So that brings us back to that full service solution. What do you need? When do you need it? And in what order? Paul: Very nice. Now, okay, so obviously you referenced your experience, a little bit of corporate gigs. David: Yeah. Paul: What have you seen, give us an example of the worst you’ve seen. Something that just makes you cringe and makes you just want to fix it. David: So it’s generally to do with people’s websites. And people can be really precious because, oh, I built my own website. Brilliant. Okay, let’s have a look. Yep, I can tell you definitely… Chad: Obviously you have. David: And then people can become really precious around logos. So they’ll come to us and say, right, we want a new website. Brilliant, all the bells and whistles. We’re going to have a slick design, the right use of white space and fully responsive. It’s going to look brilliant. Well, we want to keep our logo. Okay, but your logo looks like it was done in Word on art, and we’re going to build this shiny website and you’ve just got this thing sat at the top and then it’s, our logo has to be massive. Why? They’re on the website, nobody cares about your logo. And we often go through the, we show people the progression of Apple and Starbucks. So if you look at the Apple logo that started as Sir Isaac Newton under a tree holding an apple, I mean, God forbid the person that had to embroider that onto a T-shirt. Paul: Oh, absolutely. David: And as time’s gone on, that’s just now the Apple sign. And Starbucks is the same. And that was the lady, or the Siren as she’s known, was quite far back in the image and it was all brown, because obviously coffee’s brown, so that graphic designer was obviously thinking about that one a lot. Paul: On point. Nailed it. David: And now it’s just a picture of the Siren without the logo, without anything else, and you just know that’s the brand. So it’s trying to help people who’ve got something terrible whilst keeping the core it and go, well, this is the bits that are good, so let’s extract them and turn that into something better, and then we can do a website that’s going to work for you. So I’d say that happens a lot. And just in terms of being handed something that is a long, far, far away from where it needs to be, if they’re going to start getting customers. Paul: Yeah. Even the businesses that I’ve run into that have a pretty decent logo, the thing that frustrates me the most is that you will have it in the lowest resolution and they have no, they don’t have any historical, like the source files, where are they? David: Yeah. Paul: And to be able to do anything of quality, not having the source files is so miserable. It’s like, just please, hang onto those. David: They don’t understand the file format either. So we’ve had it and they’ve sent it over as just on a Word document. It’s like, not even a JPEG, you’ve got to have some vector files or something stashed somewhere along the line. But yeah, it’s interesting, but again, I think that’s something to do with lack of experience as well. Ultimately, you don’t know what you don’t know. Our job is to educate. Paul: And really to take the time to have the hard conversations and say, I know you love this and I applaud you for that, but this is really where we need to be guiding you. Those are not easy. I think those are not easy conversations to have. David: They’re not. But it’s like, I wouldn’t go to a mechanic and stand over the engine and go, I don’t think you’re doing that right. I think you should do it this way. I’m employing the mechanic, so go fix my car. And I think when you’re employing an agency, it’s a case of, and don’t get me wrong, it’s an element of trust, but if you’re employing us, you’ve got to trust us. And some of the things we’re going to say are hard truths, but we’re saying it in your best interest because if you’re here and you want to be here, there’s no magic bullet. It’s going to be a case of fixing lots of things and just keep doing the 1% and eventually you’ll be where you want to be, but then you can’t be precious about things. And if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you’re going to get the same results. So try something new. Chad: Yeah. Don’t be afraid to, that’s the key. You know? Afraid to step out. David: Good marketing is about failing. And we explained to our team that if you’re not pushing the boundaries and you’re not failing, then you’re not trying something new. So if we’re not trying something new, how are we doing the best for our clients? And it’s okay to fail because you’ve tried it and you know what not to do on that account next time. So I think constantly, you don’t want to fail all the time, but I think it’s an important lesson in failing because it makes you better as a marketeer, makes your agency better and the client gets a better result as well. Paul: Yeah, I came across something, maybe a year and a half, two years ago, and it was probably on Twitter, and this has been presented in multiple different places, but somewhere at one time there was a study of quantity over quality. And so you had two groups. First group, let’s say there’s 10 people in the group in this college course, go take the perfect picture. And then the other group is, go take as many pictures as you possibly can. And the ones that were going after perfection did far worse than the ones that were iterating and failing and trying new things out. Chad: Trying to get better, right? David: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. David: Yeah, agreed. It’s the only way. You’ve got to, you learn more from a failure than you do success, so be prepared to fail, it’s okay. Paul: Yeah. All right, so what are your favorite things you’ve been a part of when it comes to trying new things and ultimately having a success out of it? David: I think social media, so when I started the agency almost 10 years ago, it wasn’t really a thing. I mean obviously everyone had Facebook, but business pages and things were only really starting out for the last couple of years. So it’s been really interesting to take something that didn’t exist really and then turn it into something and we’d had no experience. So we took on our first client and it was actually quite a major client, it was a theme park in our area. And looking at what they’ve done, ultimately they’re just, social media’s a difficult one. If you say too much, you don’t get a result, if you say too little, and we always explain that your wife might complain, she’s complaining all the time to you, but then again you don’t hear it because she’s complaining all the time. So it’s the same with social media. If you keep saying it over and over, people don’t hear it. So it’s about that kind of saying the right amount of stuff to the right people. And what we’ve discovered they were posting every day, every day. And if you can’t think of something interesting to say, then people can’t be bothered reading it either. So taking over that account and pulling it back a bit and explaining that actually less is more, let’s do a little bit less in these areas, but be more targeted. And their average reach went from 500 people to about 75,000 over the next year, and we were doing less and they couldn’t get their head round it initially. It’s like what you’re saying, we should only do three times a week and we should only have so many things going on? It’s like, yes, trust us. And engagement went up and tickets, I think ticket sales went up by about 22% in that year alone. Chad: And you got 30% of that, right? 35% of that? David: Yeah, I’d have more stacked on the wall if I got 35%. I can only afford the one. We got [inaudible 00:09:06] whether we succeed or not, we got paid the same unfortunately. Chad: Yeah, I know. I know. David: A nice model. Chad: Yeah. Paul: That’s going to be another conversation… Chad: For another day. Paul: Yeah, exactly, how to change that model. Well, on that note, just take note, Blair Enns and David Baker have a brilliant podcast, 2Bobs, and they cover some of that topic. So take note of that and look them up because they’re brilliant. David: 2Bobs. I will have a look at that. Paul: Yeah, so all right, oh, go ahead. David: The only people that generally say, you can have a percentage of this are the people that haven’t quite got a business yet. So it’s like brilliant but we’re taking it from zero to something, whereas the successful businesses [inaudible 00:09:48] Paul: Yeah, no doubt. So, all right. What would you say from that particular case study that you just articulated, where did they get that mentality from, of we’ve got to do volume over quality? David: Like anything, it’s lack of understanding. And it goes against everything you would understand. You would think more frequency the better because with radio advertising, it’s all about frequency, it’s all about opportunities. Chad: Top of mind awareness, right. David: Yeah. You need to be hitting at least four opportunities to hear in order to make a decision on something. And that goes into like music too. So I think that mentality came in, well, that means you need 25 spots a week and you need to do this. So I think that mentality has come across a little bit and people just thought, the more we see it, the more people see, the more people see, the better we’ll do. But what they don’t really understand, until we go through the process is that you’re only talking, maybe, 3 to 5% of people who like your Facebook page are going to see your content. And Facebook’s a funny one because it decides what you do or don’t want to see. So you might have a thousand friends on Facebook and you get to see lots of pictures of breakfast and dinners and the kids and the dogs and stuff, but you probably only see a hundred to 200 people post. And that’s cause Facebook said, well, you don’t like, you actually don’t like Jeff, you’re not a big fan of him. You never like his pictures, so we’re going to stop showing it to you. And the same is true with business pages. If people aren’t interacting, they’re not liking, they’re not sharing, they’re not tagging, they’re not talking about them. Facebook goes, well, you don’t like them. So that overdoing it seems like the right thing to do, but actually it’s counterintuitive and that’s a big part of the process we generally have to go through is just hold off, step it back a little bit, let’s be more focused in what we do. And that generally works for most clients. Paul: It’s not really any different than just building a relationship with a human being, right? David: Yes. Paul: So if you and I meet at the pub and I text you 10 times before you get home. I’m like, hey man, that was awesome. Let’s go hang out tomorrow. You’re like, this guy’s a creep. Chad: Yeah, are you drunk at this point or not, not crying? Maybe? Paul: Maybe, maybe not. But David’s not going to dig it. David: At the end end of that night my head could be on that wall if you’re going to be texting me [inaudible 00:12:08] Paul: That’s right. That’s exactly right. But the businesses do the same thing. Oh hey, you stopped by. I’m going to try to talk to you 20 times before you get home. Chad: It’s too much. David: They do it with email marketing too. So you’ll find that you’ll buy something brilliant, you’ll get an email and then you go, oh, that might be interesting. And then the next few days you get another email and it just becomes white noise. And then you just go, no more emails. And social it’s too easy to do. But again, it’s that if you can’t think of something to say, then don’t say it. And it’s social media for a reason. It’s supposed to be building relationships with people, like you said, and I think people just go too far or they don’t go far enough and they’ll go, so what happened today? We’ll post about it. Well, nothing’s happened for two weeks, so we’ve got nothing to say. So then there’s that middle ground. It’s like the Goldilocks effect. Not too much, not too little, just right in the middle. Chad: Yeah. Paul: Yep. Chad: So you would say that social and your traditional advertising are very different in terms of how you reach that customer? David: Yeah, I would say so. And I think it’s because it’s more measured. So traditional advertising still has a place, but the stats show that spend on digital is just going up and up and up. And even over the last five years, it probably was about 15% of marketing budgets and it’s now in the 30, 40% kind of bracket of what people are spending online. And the biggest difference is being quantifiable. So with social, you can say, well, any avenue, whether it’s SEO or Google AdWords. You can say, this is how many people saw it, which is what most old-fashioned media would say, well, we know we’ve got this many readers, or this many people bought it, right, we might have read it. Well, we can say, well, this is how many people saw it, this is how many times they saw it, this is what they did about it, and then they actually had a conversion at the end of it. So we can attribute that this is your conversion ratio. And a lot of that stuff is kind of finger in the air when you’re doing things like maybe press releases or magazine articles or newspaper or traditional print. And it still has a place because it’s really good brand awareness, but quantifiable results, digital is kind of where it sits much better. Paul: Yeah. Now I remember when digital first started coming out. So we actually both worked at Comcast doing ad sales there, but primarily TV. But when digital started coming out, it was twofold. It’s like, hey, this is cool, but then it became part of your budget. It’s like, well… Chad: It’s another line, yeah. Paul: No one really knows about this yet, but it’s come a long way of what you can and can’t do. I will say, oh, good ahead. David: Sorry. About, when I started my career, I did it about, I was 18, so about 22 years ago, and that was before Google, and there was a thing called Overture. I don’t know if you remember that? So basically, they were the AdWords management for the main search engines. So that was your AOL, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves [inaudible 00:15:07] Chad: Oh, okay. David: And that used to set up the bid management across all seven platforms, but again, people weren’t really aware of it. So the cost per clicks were massively really low, but it was brand new. Nobody really knew about it, nobody believed in it, ultimately. And obviously it’s become a much bigger animal now that people can’t ignore. Paul: Yeah, I think the most impressive ad that I remember, which we’re served so many, remembering what is in and of itself, impressive. Chad: Right. Nobody wants to stand out, that’s the problem. Paul: I think it was for, well, I mean I don’t remember. I think it was for Marriott Hotels, but the top banner had a guy reach down into the 300 by 350 banner and grab an orange. And it was brilliant. I’ve never seen anything like that since. Chad: Wow. I don’t remember that. Paul: Oh, it was awesome. It was really, really good. David: Well, I’ve seen, there’s those 3D boards they do now, so it’s kind of like, if you had a corner building, you’d have the screen on both sides of it. So they do them and it’s a whole 3D thing. So there’s actually, like off Back to the Future when they’ve got that shark coming out at Marty McFly when he first goes in. And it’s that but it’s fully animated and coming out and looking like it’s diving out the screen. It’s insane. Paul: Yeah, I’ve seen some of those. Now, have you seen some of those in person? I’ve only seen them on… David: No, no. Only on a screen, unfortunately. One day. Paul: Yeah, all right. We’re going to book a trip and we’re going to go… Chad: If you’re going to book a trip, he wants to go to Vegas. Paul: That is true. That is true. Chad: He’s been several times and he’s had a great time and I think he’s enjoyed the alcohol as much as he has the gambling. So am I correct on that, David? David: You’re 100%. As long as you keep the telephone numbers to a minimal Paul, then we’ll be okay. Paul: Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. Absolutely, absolutely. So all right, so what is the number one thing that you would guide somebody? So if somebody just showed up, called you up and said, hey, I need help. Just give me direction. So we’re going from bad marketing sucks to great marketing. How do we get there for this client? David: So first off, I always try and understand the business. So it’s important they understand their business as well. A lot of people can set something up and it’s a passion and don’t necessarily know the acumen side of things or understanding your margins so how would you actually make profit? Also then, who’s your target audience? Because you can’t sell, some people say everyone’s my customer and it’s not normally the case. And even if you have a really popular product, you’ve still got an area that certain people will buy it more than others. So I think understanding your products or service, understanding your profit margins, and then understanding who your customer base is. Only then can you start to work out what you should invest so you can work out to get a return and where you should invest in terms of making sure the right people are seeing your product. And one of the first things we look at is typically, have you got something that people need or is it something people want? Is it an impulse purchase? Is it a high ticket item, low ticket item? And sometimes people have created something and nobody knows anything about, well, there’s no point in being found on Google for a product that no one knows about and fixes a problem not many people have. So it’s them working out, well, do we go on Google that basically gets you found when people are looking for something or do we have to go onto social and say, we’re going to put it in front of people that should be interested, but we don’t know when. And then it’s looking at what might be the solution that combines all of those things. And then it comes down to, well, what’s the budget? And we always explain to people that marketing budgets are like gambling in a casino. You put down what you can afford to lose because the worst case scenario for any business is to say, right, I’m going to spend 500 pound a month, 5,000 pound a month, the figure’s arbitrary, it doesn’t really matter. But if you can’t afford to spend that money without seeing a return in the first one, two or three months, then that doesn’t really create a strong marketing strategy because it’s stressful. You need that money back. So you need to be able to say, right, there’s going to be a period of loss potentially. And that means you need to be able to put the money in without seeing that return while it builds up. Because most campaigns can take three to six months to really start building traction because you need data and then you need to make decisions. So we always kind of say about, right, put a budget aside and what’s your annual budget? Rather than saying, I can maybe afford a grand a month. Well, what can you afford over the 12 months? And then we will look towards breaking even and then getting a return on it. And if you live hand to mouth, that’s problematic and will cause issues in the business and it’ll cause friction with the agency. And ultimately that relationship will break down and we should all be wanting the same thing. And it comes down to what you want out the relationship. The client should be getting good service and results and the agency should be getting a fair fee. So if everyone’s profitable, everyone’s happy, and that’s the only way it’s going to work. Chad: Absolutely, makes sense. Now, one more question, do you find that a lot of businesses with a beer budget try to compete with businesses with a champagne budget? David: Yeah, I say they want a champagne campaign on a Rola Cola budget. Chad: I like that one. I have to start using that one. David: Yeah, it rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Chad: It does. David: Yeah, you get that a lot. And I think it’s about just being realistic. So obviously with things like, with any campaign, if you’re going to do platform spend, it’s, look if you’ve spent 500 pounds, you’re going to reach this many people. If you spent a hundred pounds, you’re going to reach a portion less. If you spent 5,000 pounds, you might reach more. So it’s just about understanding, again, your market and the restrictions of who’s in that market as well. But everybody wants to compete with the big boys. It’s just a case of doing it in order. So it might be, let’s not do search engine optimization quite yet because it’s going to be based on your industry might be two years before you start seeing a result. So it’s not really affordable to put that money in for two years and not see a return. So maybe this other option’s better where we can start getting instant traffic and people who are interested in what you do and then test it and refine it and then improve it over time and then build up to that. But yeah, low budgets and high demands are a common thing, unfortunately. Chad: Yeah, I think that’s universal and that is unfortunate. David: Yeah, that’s worldwide. Yeah, a hundred percent, that’s worldwide. And the other thing is the people that pay the least, expect the most, which is… Chad: And they’re the hardest to work with, most of the time. Have you found that to be true as well? David: Massively. So our biggest client are our easiest ones to deal with. They just go, all right, our report, looks good. Phone call every week, report every month, sit down, go through it. This is the good. Well we have a slide called the good, the bad, and the ugly. So it’s like, this is brilliant, this didn’t work quite well and this just failed miserably. Why? What do we do about it next time? Paul: Oh, nice. David: And they’re brilliant. And then the other ones that are spending the smallest amount are like, phone calls constantly, emails constantly, where are we at with this? And it’s like we spend more time communicating with those clients than we do getting to do the work. So it’s like, if you just get on with it, you’ll find you’ll get results. Chad: Absolutely. David: But, that’s the nature of people. You’re not going to get away with that. Chad: It is. So do you have, are primarily your client base in the UK or are you spread out? David: Yeah, so we have clients all over the UK, which doesn’t sound as impressive when you’re in America because we’re a really, really tiny country. But yeah, we stretch the whole of the UK. All five hours of it. And we’ve got that right out in London, right up to Scotland. We’ve experienced clients in other countries as well. So we’ve ran campaigns for companies that wanted to target things like Spain, Italy, France, and multiple countries, which is quite interesting cause we got to then think about changing the language as well, so the adverts could work out, is your laptop set up in English or is it in Italian? And then we were able to test Italian adverts versus English adverts and see which one got better conversions. Chad: Oh wow. Paul: Nice. David: Which is cool. But then predominantly it’s mainly looking after clients in the UK. Paul: Very nice. Very cool man. Well thanks so much for joining us today. And I think now what’s just left, we’ve got to figure out when Vegas is happening. Chad: Yeah, we’ll have to get with you on that. Paul: I’ll just let you and Chad go. Chad: Yeah. You won’t let us go alone. I know you. I know how you are. You at the cards… David: We could reach out to your listeners of the podcast and if they think it’s a good idea, maybe we could have a GoFundMe and we’ll all [inaudible 00:23:35] Chad: There you go. There you go. Absolutely. Paul: And then somebody can have a percentage of it. David: Yes. Chad: That sounds awesome. I’m all in. All in. David: Yeah, we’ll share the wins and none of the losses, obviously. Paul: That’s it. Chad: Perfect. Paul: Awesome. All right man. Well thanks so much. Chad: David, we enjoyed it very much. David: Me too. Thank you for inviting me on. 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