Blake Beus  0:00  Alright, how do we start this one off?

Greg Marshall  0:02  We're talking about micro lead generate. Right,

Blake Beus  0:05  right, right.

Greg Marshall  0:06  And maybe I don't even know if that's a name that someone has come up, you know, somewhere else, we're or you want to take credit for it, because technically you call it, which is micro lead generation is, well, why don't you explain kind of what we're talking about with micro lead generation? And how you came up with that name? Yeah, yeah. So

Blake Beus  0:25  I mean, everybody in their dog talks about lead generation, getting them, you know, off of social media or off of wherever and onto your email list or your text messaging list. And all of that is great, everybody thinks about that talks about that, always putting effort into that. But there's like a little mini step before that, that you can do that works really well, under certain circumstances, that that should be considered. And it's this micro step, where you're basically basically generating leads that you don't know much about them yet, you don't know their name, you don't know, their email address you met may not even know exactly how many people are on that list. Yeah, but you're putting, you're putting concerted effort into building that list of leads, that you can then follow up with an offer for either, you know, a solid lead generation, or a product purchase offer or something like that. And so essentially, what we're talking about here is building audiences via whatever means that you can, that are much, much, much more likely to be interested in what your next offer is, that you can then target with traffic or with paid ads. Yep. So you're building a list of leads, but you don't know anything about them, other than they got on the list through whatever you were doing to get him on the list. So yeah, that's that's the concept there?

Greg Marshall  1:54  Well, here's, here's a question. And you can actually do this both organically and paid. You can, you can utilize content and put money behind it to build this micro audience. But I'd like to get your opinion on. Why do you think not as many people talk about this audience? Proactively building right?

Blake Beus  2:13  I think it's because it's it, it's hard to conceptualize what's happening there. It's not necessarily tangible, like an email list, I can go in there. And I can see oh, hey, we got x more leads on the list. My list is now you know, 15,000 people big Yeah, I spent this money to get there. I have all that information about them. And oftentimes, like business owners, whatever they want the hard numbers, well, they should want the hard numbers. Yeah. But sometimes there's these more intangible things you have to think about. And frankly, this used to be way more common. Back in the mail marketing days, the all of that stuff 50 years ago, because you just didn't have access to the data. Yep. But I felt my gut is telling me, that's why we don't have people talking about or not talking about it in this this way, per se.

Greg Marshall  3:10  Yeah. And I think with these types of audiences, too, I think you're right, with the tangible, right, you don't have a tangible name, phone number email, to kind of control the, where the direction of the nurturing goes. But the tools that we have available now are, you can actually retarget or run ads towards people who have watched your videos who have liked your posts, or commented, and those people, in my opinion, if you were to define, like, you know, when you have this conversation, should I do paid? Or should I do organic, and there's always like one side, that's like, it's all about pay the others, it's all organic? Well, on the organic side, if, if you're willing to invest the time, effort and energy to build this organic following to grow your business, then that would mean that would mean that you believe that these audiences are valuable. Right? Or else you wouldn't do it right? Right. So why not proactively both organically and pay try to grow these audiences so that you can go ahead and try to get them involved in whatever it is that you are offering? Right? Right. And that's kind of where I see not everyone is even ready to give you their name phone number email right away. Some people need to see a little bit more ago. Can I trust giving my name or an email to this company because I don't want them hounding me or, or emailing me all the time or calling me right

Blake Beus  4:39  or maybe they're not quite ready to purchase not because they don't trust you, but because they're not to that point. Yep. They need a little bit of leveling up. So you're capturing people kind of pre you know, pre being in the market ready to buy and you It's still a strategy that works.

Greg Marshall  5:01  And I think it's a more long term strategy as well, because you're building these audiences of people that obviously aren't ready to buy right now. But if you think about it, there's only a certain percentage of people that are ready to buy or take an action today. Right? Right. But there's a much larger percentage of people that are at least starting to become aware of what is out there to help them out. So when they are in that moment, they can make a decision. And if you start early enough, you can become that first go to person and they're like, in fact, I have someone that I'm talking to you, where they said, Yeah, I've seen your ads for six months. You know, in your mind, you're like, wow, six months, that's a really long time for you to take action. But that means he fits this profile, right? The person that at the time of seeing it was not complete in market, right, not in the need that day or that time, but now is, and because I was in front of him this entire time, he decided to reach out. And it just gives you a because it almost removes the like the sales part of it at that point. Because they're basically saying, like, I'm ready to buy, just what do you have to offer? Right. But it takes the patience, yeah, to do that, over a long period of time, which is, which is challenging. Yeah.

Blake Beus  6:22  Which is the reason why starting and stopping your tactics, campaigns, even even your organic is so harmful to a strategy, always, always having a little bit of something in the works me, maybe you're crazy busy, and you don't have time to put effort into organic posts. And organic is a big part of your strategy. Just phone it in and show up couple of times a week to at least have something, right. Same thing with ads, maybe your ads aren't quite working, and you need to revamp the strategy rather than shutting everything completely down. Maybe shift, you know, shift 10% of the budget you're spending into just some sort of awareness campaign or, or some, some getting some videos out in front of somebody that maybe isn't a specific offer, just to kind of keep people seeing seeing what's going on. And you're spending this much while you revamp the other parts of your strategy or something. And I

Greg Marshall  7:22  do think that having a continuous marketing plan, it's almost like you can't measure outside of E commerce, right? E commerce is pretty straightforward. When people see something they typically want to buy or their cycle isn't, you know, they're not waiting 90 days to write a t shirt. Right? But if you're in the service industry, right, or you're selling something more expensive, people take much longer to actually commit and buy something, right. So you have to like, keep doing things. And it's almost like you have to It's like investing, right dollar cost averaging. It's almost like you have to have $1 cost averaging mindset of like you're investing over and over again. To get those people that when they're ready, they're ready to buy is making your job easier. Because if you stop Yeah, then you lose the potential that compounding interest or compounding revenue.

Blake Beus  8:13  Yeah, it's the reason why you don't see say, Coca Cola. We're making enough money, stop all that. Yeah. Like everybody knows who focus. But they're never going to stop their ads, because they know that you gotta remind people keeping and reminding people or whatever it it keeps the momentum going. So yeah, let's talk about some specific strategies. We'll talk about the concept, right, like, how would someone actually put this together? Well, I know my kind of several different ways, but I want to pick your brain on death. What are the ways you would have someone implement that maybe for different types, like a service or a product or whatever?

Greg Marshall  8:52  Yeah, I mean, basically, I'm a big proponent of video, because I think video, you can, you can target pretty pretty well with video as far as like, how long people are watching through on most social media platforms. You can't do that on YouTube yet. But I hear that that's coming.

Blake Beus  9:10  But you can target them after they hit a threshold

Greg Marshall  9:13  can use Yeah, you can talk to them after they watch at least 30 seconds, at least 30 seconds

Blake Beus  9:17  of your video, but you can't target like on Facebook, you can target if people watch 10% 50% 90% 90% But YouTube, you basically have they've watched 3030 seconds or more of your video or ad or they haven't. Exactly that's how you go.

Greg Marshall  9:33  Okay, and so, but with that being said, that gives you information that can you can pretty much figure out like who's really interested

Blake Beus  9:41  well in 30 seconds is a long time as for a video ad Yep. You can almost guarantee that the person is quite interested if they haven't hit the skip button. Yep. And they've watched your ad for 30 seconds or more. And

Greg Marshall  9:55  I mean, and the biggest strategy I like to use is to develop the Killer, deliver value upfront and you know you're here to deliver value all the time. But really, all that really means is give them something that they can tangibly use immediately. Yeah, right. Like, after they watched the video, they should be able to take an action and either solve a problem or entertain themselves to do something. But they have to walk away with being able to do something with the content. And I had this conversation with a client yesterday, we were talking about, she has some content that's working really well. And she switched up her strategy. Two, this new strategies working really well. But she was like, I'm not really sure why it's working better than the other one. And the main shift that she made that maybe she didn't realize was, in her videos, she actually created to where the person could take the content that was given to them, and immediately implement it, versus the other one was almost speaking a little bit maybe over their heads, right? Not not to be like condescending, but just, you know, you get stuck, kind of like in your own space, and you're talking and your language versus new customers language. And that's why it's working. I think the key is, when they watch something, they should feel like, oh, I can actually, it's almost like they're testing you before having to commit to buying from you.

Blake Beus  11:19  Yeah, I would say one of the differences, because we can even illustrate that with this podcast right here. The difference in those types of content is first we talked about the concepts. Yeah. So we're giving people concept ideas, but how to actually implement those concepts is where the actionable piece comes in. So if we wanted to deliver value up front, based on what we're talking about right here, I probably wouldn't start on an ad with the concept. Yeah, I would start with the, here's a very specific strategy you can use to build these micro lead lists. Yes. And we've talked about that. So you've talked about video and retargeting. That's one of my favorites. Like, if I were a local business, you're going to do globally, but local businesses, oftentimes don't think about the strategy. And it's super cheap for what they use. But if I were local video business, the easiest way to do this is to just create a video ad and deliver some value up front. We've, we've talked about, I'll give you an example in a minute, but deliver the value up front, run ads on all the platforms for video views, but just in your local area, and you can get super cheap video views that way. And now you're building retargeting lists or micro lead lists on each of these platforms. And then you follow that up with either a lead list based on your business model or a purchase based on your business model or something like that. It's a very easy strategy where you can saturate an area locally for not a lot of money. Yep, and start building these micro lead lists that you can then convert into leads or sales.

Greg Marshall  12:53  Yeah, and I think the the benefits of doing this right is everyone, I believe, should use this because it's valuable. But the benefit is, it doesn't remove anyone out of using this strategy. Because of cost. Right? Anyone can do this, you could start as little as like $1 a day, and start building the so. So even if you don't have a big budget, you could start this strategy immediately. And even if you have a big budget, I still believe you should use this strategy to keep yourself in front of the target audience that you want to work with. Because that's to me, it's like, you're investing in the long term, and you're trying to get market share, right, and you're trying to get people to want to do business with you. And sometimes it for some people it takes longer than others to decide if they want to work with you, or because everyone's getting courted, you know, yeah, every day, all different types of ads and things like that. But if you keep showing up and giving them things of value, where they can tangibly take what you talked about, and use it immediately. And you just keep doing that. Over time, they're just gonna say it's almost like they've tested out your product on their own without utilizing you yet. And they have already had success, they're gonna be more prone to listening to what you have to say, than someone that's like, hey, I can make a million dollars in one day, but you got to buy for me, right?

Blake Beus  14:23  Yeah, absolutely. And it gives you it's really just one of the simplest strategies to set up as well. You don't have to create any complicated funnels or anything like that. And literally, anybody can do this, even if you're not an ADS expert, or whatever. In fact, it's a really good way to kind of test out an idea also, you you run some ads about something and see how people respond to that ad. You can spend 50 100 bucks to test out a concept before you actually build out the whole funnel and everything like that. So it's really one of the easiest strategies, however,

Greg Marshall  15:02  yeah, it is. And it's it's cost effective. It's easy. It's it's actually so simple, that it's easy to not do. Right. It's one of those tactics where it's like, it's so simple that you overcomplicated, right? It's like, well, you can if you just did it, yeah. And repeatedly did it, it will

Blake Beus  15:21  work. Yeah. I think another reason you don't see this happen very often, is probably because of how media buyers and marketing agencies show that they're delivering value. And what I mean by that is, if someone goes and hires a media buyer for, you know, $1,000 a month or $2,000 a month, or $10,000 a month, whatever their business is, and wherever they're at, those media buyers now feel, rightfully so an obligation to show what they're actually getting done for the client. But because of these micro leads, you don't have a lot of data about them, you don't have their email address, their name, their age, you have you know, nothing about them. Other than that the list is there. And the list is maybe this size, you don't even know how big the list is. It's hard for them to say, well, we have all of these micro leads, lists and in about, you know, in a few months, you're gonna start seeing more sales, they want to start delivering value now, which is fine, but having these conversations so if you're working with a media buyer, or marketing agency, and they're not doing this, I would definitely say talk with them about this and say, Okay, let's implement this. And let's put a percentage of our budget towards this as part of a long term strategy. It doesn't have to be a big percentage of your budget, it could be a small percentage of your budget should be part it should be part of your budget, and it should run continual continually.

Greg Marshall  16:44  Yep. And I think too, because you're right on the money there with, you know, with marketing agencies, you have to show ROI, right? And the ROI is like, basically, how much money am I making? Yeah, but it's almost I mean, yes, you need to have that metric. But it's almost like you should be focusing more on the process. It's kind of like in sales, right? When I would sales, train people, I would say, don't focus on your sales goal, like what your your quota is supposed to hit focus on every day, did I do the amount of activities that are correctly necessary for me to get there, right. And it's the same thing in marketing, you have to be thinking more? It's almost like you should be focusing more on how do I get the activities done, to make sure that I'm getting a return and measuring that versus just the end result and return? Yeah, right. Because there's a lot like, for example, I was listening to a podcast yesterday, where they talked about when they scale clients, they know a client is not scaling aggressive enough. If their return on adspend is too high. A lot of people true. Leave. Yeah, that's good, too. Like, yeah, you're getting a 30x return on adspend. You're probably not spending anywhere near the amount you should to grow.

Blake Beus  18:03  Yeah, yeah. Cuz think about it. Think about it. A 30x return on your ad spend is not sustainable, long term. Like it just doesn't happen. So if you are getting a 30x on your ad spend, you can't be thinking, You know what, it's gonna be great making a 30x on my ad spend for the next 10 years. Yeah, it's going to be amazing. It won't work. It's not going to happen. So if you're getting a 30x right now, that means there's a lot of market share that you can kind of scoop up and start building those lists, internal lists, building customer lists, whatever. So you actually have a much stronger foundation for the next five years for the next 10 years or whatever.

Greg Marshall  18:37  Yeah, it's it's funny, because I think when they I had, I've never heard it said that way. And I was like, that makes sense. Because like, for me, if I looked at something and just said, Well, I'm getting X return asthma. Right? Or, or the infamous I'm getting very low cost for purchases. It's like well, those usually do come from retargeting, right? People who are warmed up already. Yep. And the issue is that audience is only so big.

Blake Beus  19:06  Yeah, it's, yeah,

Greg Marshall  19:08  you'll run through it pretty quick. Yeah, if you want to, like grow, you need to go outside of that audience. And if you were able to find a 30x return on cold traffic, you probably will get shut down on these platforms, because they would be like, That is way too high. You're doing something you ain't supposed to

Blake Beus  19:25  run into that was running my stuff. We were getting really good return on adspend. And Facebook kept saying, We're shutting down your ad account because clearly, these guys are scamming the system. And I'm like, we're not scamming anything literally running ads to this landing page and selling a thing and delivering it.

Greg Marshall  19:41  The sad part was that to the same, the same offer that we have been running the whole year, the whole year, and so yeah, but I think you know, when you think about basically your returns, you almost need to think more about and I'm seeing this shift a lot actually even on economy stores the lifetime value versus customer acquisition costs instead of customer acquisition costs to average order value. Right? Right. So selling one off thinking more about selling the customer over and over and over again, which I think I came into marketing differently because I came from a different industry, the gym industry where that's kind of built into that. So you're almost trained to think that way. But in E commerce is the opposite, right? Before it's, can I get a cost of purchase at 10? Get an average order value 35 And make the difference and make that like, split, right. But now with acquisition costs going up? And you know, there's less tracking, let's target all that. It's more challenging, and there's more competition. Yeah. Right. And with that, you need to figure out

Blake Beus  20:49  if you're thinking like, oh, I cut you off, go ahead.

Greg Marshall  20:51  Do you need to figure out? No, you just need to figure out like that model. Edit, like if you're trying to scale like, and when we say scale, that's kind of like a generalized word, right? When scaling really means like, you're trying to absolutely destroy it. When it comes to growing your business. Like you're trying to spend 1000 2000 5000 $10,000 a day to like really capture market share, at those numbers, you're not going to be able to sustain what you're getting at 50 bucks a day. Yeah. Right. And so it requires a different kind of thinking.

Blake Beus  21:25  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Before we wrap up, I want to talk about one other strategy I've seen people do that I think can work pretty well, given the right circumstances. So if someone already has a pretty strong organic strategy, right, so they're posting good content regularly organic, and this can be on literally any platform, yep. And they're seeing some growth and things like that. But organic is already part of what they're doing. And they're very consistent in getting those posts. One way you can start building these micro lists for that type of a business, is to literally take every single post and put five to $10 of ad spend on each one of those. Yep. Right? Whatever, whatever that works. And just target an audience that is similar to your existing followers. And just put that out there and just make that part of your strategy. So I'm posting every day. You know, if you put five $5 on each of those every day, five times 30 is in a month is 150 bucks a month? Yeah. Right. So to, to some businesses, that is not very much more what they're spending. But it can can over time over a period of year or two years, or three years, can just explode your micro lists your retargeting audiences everything,

Greg Marshall  22:47  and you'll see greater, like, all of a sudden, they'll have more reach out having questions, and they know that so. And that's the point of marketing is really to kind of generate that demand. Yep. Right. And then once you generate the demand, then it goes into sales. Yep. How do I monetize this? Yeah, man. So

Blake Beus  23:05  and if you're, if you're that seems to work. If you're on a tighter budget, what I've seen people do is they say, Okay, I have a good organic posting strategy on whatever platform, but my budget doesn't really allow for an extra 150 bucks a month, because we're kind of just starting out whatever been there got it makes sense. What you can then do is take last week's best ad, which had the most reach and those comments, whatever, and then put five or 10 bucks behind that one. So you only have to do that once a week. So $10 Each week, for a month, that's an extra $40 a month. Now, for some businesses, that makes a whole lot more sense. You're still getting a lot of benefit out of out of that. You're still executing the strategy. But you know, you instead of 150 bucks that month, you're only spending 4040 that month, and that's for some businesses, that makes a little bit more sense.

Greg Marshall  23:52  It's start where you're at, but with the intent of always trying to grow if that's your goal to grow your business.

Blake Beus  23:58  Yeah. So well, let's wrap this up. I think we think we've covered it pretty well. Greg, how can people get in touch with you,

Greg Marshall  24:05  Greg Marshall Dotco, and you can book a free strategy session and Blake Blake beus.com. Alright, so next time later, goodbye.