0:01

Welcome to the Josh

0:01

Bolton show. interesting and

0:06

inspiring conversations. And now

0:06

your host, Josh Bolton. Thank

0:13

you. So I'm just curious. So how

0:13

long have you said you've been

0:17

doing reach See, like 10 years, right?

0:19

Eight and a half

0:19

years formally incorporated a

0:22

spotlight LLC, who started out

0:22

in 2014. Before that I was in

0:26

house for a little while. But

0:26

prior to that, I was freelance,

0:32

and did some did a lot of

0:32

consulting work. So all told, in

0:36

my current incarnation, it's

0:36

been since 2014.

0:40

Wow. Wow, that's

0:40

impressive.

0:45

It's been a blessing to

0:47

us that the

0:47

opportunities and the clients

0:50

you get to work with him must be fun.

0:52

It absolutely is. We've

0:52

been blessed to work with

0:54

everybody from, you know, major

0:54

consulting firms and fortune 500

0:59

companies, all the way to

0:59

individual authors in the local

1:04

area doing great work. It's been

1:04

I mean, so far, it's been an

1:09

amazing ride.

1:11

That's awesome. So

1:11

I'm just curious on a side note,

1:15

well, how would it is, depending

1:15

on the author, they don't make

1:19

enough, how do you work out the

1:19

pricing with them? Or is it like

1:23

for customer kind of thing?

1:25

Um, well, you know, I

1:25

have a standard publishing

1:29

contract I, I basically, I work

1:29

with two different publishers

1:33

and your right author, royalties

1:33

are a fraction of what you

1:37

actually pay for a book, when

1:37

people go the traditional

1:40

publishing route. And I thought

1:40

it would be a good idea to go

1:44

the traditional publishing

1:44

route, just for my first couple

1:47

of books versus self publishing.

1:47

And you're right, I don't have

1:51

any control, by the way, either

1:51

of the price. And royalties, you

1:56

can certainly negotiate but they

1:56

are everyone, you know, everyone

1:58

knows it's a fraction of the

1:58

cover price of the book. And

2:03

yet, I got one, I got one book

2:03

review on Amazon, by the way,

2:08

the book has like a 4.7 rating

2:08

on Amazon. But one person said,

2:14

I'm taking this down one star to

2:14

four stars, because the books

2:17

too expensive. And I felt like

2:17

saying, I have no control over

2:21

that. It is available at a

2:21

discount. And I can actually

2:26

share that discount with, with

2:26

listeners so that I can do

2:31

something about giving a coupon

2:31

to your listeners.

2:34

That's awesome. I'm

2:34

gonna say, look it up on my I

2:37

need to get to that book. I've

2:37

just been so busy. Like,

2:40

hopefully, there's an audio version, I can just listen there.

2:43

You know, there isn't.

2:43

But I'm going to talk to my

2:45

publisher about I will, I will

2:45

read this book. And it'll be

2:50

because I will be the audiobook

2:50

believer to like I literally,

2:54

almost all the reading to its

2:54

body.

2:58

Same unless it's

2:58

like something very technical,

3:01

like math that you really should

3:01

see it. I don't read like paper

3:05

books anymore.

3:06

I don't Yeah. And you

3:06

know what, I'm a huge fan of

3:10

paper books. And I'm thrilled

3:10

that books are not not gone. One

3:16

of the schools I teach at

3:16

Brandeis University has this

3:18

wonderful library, and I walked

3:18

past it yesterday, and we're

3:23

doing a campus coat drive. And I

3:23

donated two coats to the

3:27

community. And I walked past the

3:27

library, and they had that

3:29

library smell. And I was like,

3:29

ah, that is a great smell. But

3:34

at the same time, I got my

3:34

Kindle here. In fact, I

3:37

literally have two 90% of my libraries here now. I

3:40

actually do enjoy reading paper

3:48

books, but it's just it's just

3:48

more efficient, right?

3:51

Yeah, it's more efficient, because like for me, I can be working. I'll just pop

3:53

in one headphone. I could be

3:56

driving for an hour blast

3:56

through like two or three

3:59

chapters. Kind of thing. Yeah,

3:59

this was normal reading. I'd be

4:03

like, Oh, shit, there's a car

4:06

kind of mistake.

4:06

Exactly. Exactly. And you get it

4:10

done on the train. And yeah, no,

4:10

I think I think that, you know,

4:16

ebooks are the way to go. And

4:16

the Kindle version of my book is

4:19

also available at a discount.

4:19

Plus, it's cheaper. Anyway, so

4:22

you it's a win win.

4:24

Rice is awesome. So

4:24

what are the books so I can look

4:28

them up? And I'll add it to my

4:28

wish list to like, okay,

4:33

audible. When does this come out kind of thing.

4:35

Oh, so yeah, I'm gonna

4:35

actually ask about doing an

4:39

audible book. But the book

4:39

currently is available just in

4:42

print and Kindle version does.

4:42

The second book that's out right

4:46

now. It's called marketing

4:46

metrics. It is from Kogan page,

4:50

the full title it's it's an

4:50

earful, marketing metrics,

4:54

leverage analytics and data to

4:54

optimize marketing strategies.

4:57

And that's truly what it's all

4:57

about. Okay. And the first book

5:02

is with flat world. And it's a

5:02

textbook that will teach you

5:06

everything on just like the

5:06

basic level, presuming no prior

5:09

knowledge about marketing

5:09

analytics, which is a little bit

5:13

different from marketing

5:13

metrics, it's more on the data

5:17

and how do you do the data? And

5:17

that's a marketing analytics A

5:21

Comprehensive Guide from

5:21

Flatworld. Also available on

5:24

Amazon.

5:27

It definitely after

5:27

this chapter, I'm gonna go pick

5:29

one up because I want to

5:29

everyone's been yelling at me

5:32

about is like, Yo, you need to

5:32

get into marketing, do this,

5:35

this and this, and I'm like, ice

5:35

cream. But how am I supposed to

5:38

interpret this to this? Like, I

5:38

get it, like, you get so many

5:43

impressions to move so many

5:43

clicks through just so many

5:45

purchases. But there's other

5:45

moving parts that can be like,

5:49

even though it's not good,

5:49

because this is Hi, you doing

5:52

fine kind of thing? Or am I did

5:52

I interpreted all that wrong?

5:57

You did not say your face was

5:57

like, What was he talking about?

6:01

No, no. So I'm trying,

6:01

I was trying to formulate a

6:04

response that would apply in as

6:04

many situations as possible. So

6:09

let me let me take it back, left

6:09

a step. There's no one metric

6:16

that tells everybody every

6:16

fight, depending on your

6:22

industry, depending on your

6:22

goals, depending on you go to

6:26

market strategy, there's a bunch

6:26

of metrics that do tell you an

6:31

enormous amount, I would say if

6:31

there's such a thing as a

6:33

universal metric, it's going to

6:33

be your your advertising ROI,

6:39

your return on adspend, and your

6:39

marketing ROI. So for every

6:43

dollar or pound or euro, or

6:43

whatever your currency is for

6:47

every everything I invest in

6:47

marketing, how much of that

6:52

comes back in profit. Now, in my

6:52

books, I talk about revenue. And

6:58

the reason I focus on revenue

6:58

versus profit is that I also

7:01

want this to be useful to the

7:01

agency world. And when you work

7:05

in an agency, you often don't

7:05

have the insight into the

7:08

profits that your clients are

7:08

generating, you can only look at

7:11

the revenue by looking at the

7:11

list price, for instance, of

7:14

what they're selling, et cetera,

7:14

et cetera. So I use revenue, a

7:17

lot of marketers rely on

7:17

revenue. It's ideal, of course,

7:21

if you look at profit, and I

7:21

talked about that in my book

7:24

about how that's where you want

7:24

to get to, but frankly, even if

7:27

you're just looking at dollar

7:27

for dollar, how much am I

7:30

investing in my marketing, and

7:30

if that how much is coming back

7:33

and what people are spending,

7:33

it's a good sign that marketing

7:36

is helping you get to the right

7:36

customers. So if there is a

7:40

universal metric that says

7:40

you're doing great, it's going

7:44

to be that there's there's other

7:44

metrics, and they really depend

7:49

on you know, are you an E

7:49

commerce business? Or are you a

7:52

b2b brand? Are you a b2b brand

7:52

that has a long sales cycle, a

8:00

short sales cycle? Are you brick

8:00

and mortar primarily? So lots of

8:04

nuances come in after that? But

8:04

that ROI, that's that Universal

8:09

Golden metric, you got to be tracking?

8:12

Cool. So I wouldn't

8:12

say you, you mentioned in your

8:15

pitch and the listing, you had

8:15

like eight metrics that you you

8:19

work with and teach people about?

8:22

Yeah, I absolutely do.

8:22

And I would say that those are

8:25

the ones that I recommend that

8:25

everybody focus on as much as

8:30

possible. So I talk in my book

8:30

about the core four, which is

8:36

the four major types of metrics.

8:36

But going beyond the types of

8:42

metrics, there's also the

8:42

specific data you want to look

8:46

at. And here's how I how I

8:46

envision them. Number one,

8:52

again, we just talked about it,

8:52

you want to look at your return

8:55

on adspend. Or you want to look

8:55

at your marketing ROI more

9:01

broadly. You know, if you're

9:01

looking at that, you are golden.

9:08

So look at both of those

9:08

metrics, if you can, then you

9:12

want to take a look at your

9:12

customer analytics. And that's,

9:16

that's absolutely critical. And

9:16

that can be everything from

9:21

what, what gets your customers

9:21

excited. In other words, what

9:26

are they clicking on on your

9:26

website? Is it let's say, I'll

9:30

give you an example. And I'm big

9:30

on I'm big on having products on

9:34

my desk. So let's say your lip

9:34

balm, lip balm company, like you

9:38

make chapstick. And you it's

9:38

organic, and it's hypoallergenic

9:43

and I know gluten free. I just

9:43

make buzzwords are the buzzwords

9:50

right. And let's say you have

9:50

blog posts on your website, some

9:53

of which talk about oh, how to

9:53

make your personal shopping more

9:57

sustainable, how to have a lower

9:57

carbon footprint. Have you also

10:00

blog posts on how to manage

10:00

having, I don't know, gluten

10:03

allergy. And you know, which is

10:03

a very serious thing for people

10:07

who have it. And then you've got

10:07

other things talking about,

10:10

just, you know how good this

10:10

stuff is like how high quality

10:14

the formulation keeps you from,

10:14

you know, freezing, when you're

10:20

out skiing, or something like

10:20

that. You're gonna want to look

10:24

at the metrics on Well, what are

10:24

people clicking on, because

10:27

let's say I've got 50 blog posts

10:27

out there, a third of them are

10:32

on our sustainability, a third

10:32

of them are on our quality of

10:37

our product. And a third of them

10:37

are on how it's hypoallergenic.

10:40

So it's even, and you're equally

10:40

promoting all of them, then you

10:45

can look, though, are people

10:45

equally reading that, because

10:48

let's say everyone is really

10:48

more focused on reading about

10:51

your product quality, you don't

10:51

get a lot of traction on the

10:53

stuff that's about it being

10:53

hypoallergenic, maybe then that

10:57

part of your value proposition

10:57

is not as exciting to customers.

11:01

And maybe the thing that's sort

11:01

of in the middle there is the

11:05

fact that it's sustainable.

11:05

That's incredibly valuable

11:09

information that you can gather,

11:09

just from your web analytics,

11:13

and only from one small part of

11:13

your web analytics, which is the

11:16

analytics around what people are

11:16

reading on your blog, like,

11:21

that's enough to start to give

11:21

you an indicator of what your

11:26

customers interests are, doesn't

11:26

mean it's definitive, right? I

11:29

mean, you're gonna have to do

11:29

more analysis, more research,

11:34

but it's pointing you in one

11:34

direction. So number two, after

11:40

you're looking at your ROI, is

11:40

look at your customer analytics

11:44

broadly. But specifically, look

11:44

at your top content on your

11:49

website. Top content is really

11:49

critical. And by the way, I'll

11:55

put together a cheat sheet on

11:55

all of this as well. So you've

11:59

got to listen here

11:59

writing everything down, if like

12:01

I

12:02

feel free to do that,

12:02

but I will also pull together a

12:05

cheat sheet for all of your all

12:05

of your readers. So

12:09

be sure to put in the description for everyone. Perfect. Absolutely.

12:13

Next up, what you want

12:13

to look at is who are your top

12:17

segments? Are the customers who

12:17

are the ones who are the most

12:22

loyal? Who are going to spend

12:22

the most money with you? Or who

12:28

are the highest growth, it

12:28

doesn't have to be all three,

12:31

what matters to you. If you're

12:31

at a place where you're not

12:35

really looking to grow

12:35

exponentially. Let's say you're

12:37

a mature company, it might be

12:37

loyalty or might be spend. If on

12:41

the other hand, you're a new

12:41

brand, you might be wanting

12:43

people to be the ones who have

12:43

the highest growth potential. So

12:47

look at your top segments. Also

12:47

make sure that up segments is

12:52

defined for your organization,

12:52

right? What do we want? Our what

12:57

do we want our customers to look

12:57

like? What customer segments do

13:00

we want to reach? So that's

13:00

number three. Number four is

13:04

your traffic sources. So where

13:04

are we getting traffic from?

13:08

Because first metric return on

13:08

adspend that's looking at where

13:13

are we investing that we then

13:13

end up getting customers from

13:19

but you could be getting

13:19

customers from places you're not

13:23

even investing maybe there's an

13:23

influence out influencer out

13:26

there talking up your

13:26

organization, or maybe you're

13:29

doing really well in organic

13:29

search. Without even realizing

13:35

it. It was through this that for

13:35

instance, for one of our clients

13:38

analytical answers over

13:38

Massachusetts, which is a

13:41

scientific lab, we discovered

13:41

literally the coolest things. It

13:45

didn't end up having any real

13:45

impact on their lead generation

13:51

b2b business, but it was a

13:51

really cool sign that our

13:54

content strategy was giving them

13:54

buzz. They're they're an

13:58

analytical lab, which means they

13:58

use very high powered scientific

14:01

instruments to analyze materials

14:01

for a variety of industries from

14:05

pharmaceutical to defense tech.

14:05

And we decided to do a just for

14:10

fun series around the holidays

14:10

where we had them use the super

14:13

high powered state of the art

14:13

microscopes to look at Sugar,

14:18

salt and flour under

14:18

microscopes, and then explain

14:21

how different types of sugar

14:21

salt and flour impact your

14:25

baking. We just a lark, it was

14:25

so much fun. We had a wonderful

14:31

I would in turn wrote the blog

14:31

posts who was studying chemistry

14:35

at BU, and this got picked up by

14:35

Buzzfeed.

14:38

Oh, that's huge. If

14:38

that's the case,

14:41

it was immense. And

14:41

suddenly we're getting all this

14:45

traffic. Of course it was non converting

14:46

traffic because almost nobody

14:49

was baking chocolate chip

14:49

cookies,

14:52

but they're like, oh my god if I put a certain flower and that can be this. I

14:54

don't want that.

14:57

Exactly, exactly. So we

14:57

all got Get out of it. And we

15:02

would never have known that if

15:02

we hadn't been looking at our

15:04

truck top traffic sources. Now

15:04

had we been with a b2c brand, we

15:08

would have been all over it for,

15:08

you know, pitching BuzzFeed with

15:12

more and more stuff, it was

15:12

certainly a big win. And so

15:15

that's the sort of thing you

15:15

want to measure is what are your

15:18

top traffic sources? Because

15:18

then you can leverage them for

15:22

understanding where you could

15:22

potentially be getting even more

15:26

traffic or generating even

15:26

better buzz.

15:29

So that's for, again, I'm really trying to

15:31

focus on like, what are the things you can get started with

15:33

right now? Right, you want to

15:37

look at response rates across

15:37

different sectors. And those are

15:42

actually going to be my next

15:42

three? My next three metrics. So

15:47

your marketing, automation,

15:47

email, open rate and response

15:51

rate? How are people responding?

15:51

And by the way, if you're not

15:54

doing marketing automation, it's

15:54

going to be your email open and

15:57

click through rate?

15:59

Thank you so much for that clarification.

16:01

Yes, absolutely. So in

16:01

some email platforms call it the

16:06

open rate, which is the

16:06

proportion of people opened an

16:09

email, who then clicked on it,

16:09

we also want to look at the open

16:13

rate, because that's going to

16:13

tell you is my message

16:17

interesting to my existing loyal

16:17

customers. And if so, which of

16:22

my messages like let's say you

16:22

send out one email, that's a

16:26

Bogo, buy one, get one free, and

16:26

it gets like a tepid response.

16:30

But then you send out something

16:30

that has a free recipe or some,

16:37

let's say your sporting goods

16:37

store, some exercise tips, and

16:40

that gets an outstanding

16:40

response, then you know, what

16:44

your existing loyal customers

16:44

care about and what they want

16:48

from you. So that's really,

16:48

really important. Look at the

16:51

patterns, look at what gets the

16:51

best response from your existing

16:54

audience that if you have

16:54

marketing automation is going to

16:57

be in your marketing automation

16:57

data. In Email, it's going to be

17:01

your open rate. And your either

17:01

click rate or clicked open rate

17:05

depending on how your platform

17:05

finds it. response rate is

17:09

equally important elsewhere, but

17:09

I think people miss measure it.

17:12

So on social media, people look

17:12

at likes. But like so cheap,

17:19

right?

17:19

Honestly, that's, I

17:19

can really pay guard Thailand 10

17:22

bucks, and I get like 100,000

17:22

likes,

17:25

you know, you could

17:25

literally like you can have

17:28

people just randomly like

17:28

things. So instead, you're

17:30

looking at real sentiment, what

17:30

are you? What are the comments

17:33

like? What's the common

17:33

sentiment? How many shares how

17:38

much engagement does a social

17:38

media post get? So that's an

17:44

another really, really important

17:44

metric, social media engagement,

17:48

really, because that tells you

17:48

again, that your message is

17:51

resonating. Now it's resonating

17:51

at a much lower level than an

17:54

email, or in an email open, it

17:54

requires much less commitment to

18:00

the brand doesn't necessarily

18:00

signal intent to buy, right,

18:05

which is why you want to look at

18:05

the next metric. And that is

18:09

your click through rate. Now

18:09

click through rate applies

18:12

everywhere. And that's simply

18:12

the percentage of people who see

18:16

something who then click on it.

18:16

And you can easily for most of

18:22

your reporting platforms, but

18:22

the click through rate tells you

18:27

how many people saw this message

18:27

actually decided to take action.

18:34

And I think a lot of times

18:34

people misunderstand this, I

18:38

would report on click through

18:38

rate, even 10 years ago, we had

18:42

CEO saying things like well,

18:42

clicks, don't turn me on Well,

18:45

I'm glad to hear that. But so

18:45

then you tend to think that

18:51

there's going to be an immediate

18:51

conversion, a lot of people. And

18:54

that's not what it's about, you

18:54

want to capture those micro

18:58

conversions you want to, you

18:58

want to give people something

19:01

that gets them to commit to the

19:01

brand in some small way, like,

19:05

I'm gonna sign up for the email,

19:05

or I'm going to follow them on

19:08

social media. And so that's the

19:08

next metric you want to look at,

19:12

obviously, you're tracking your

19:12

conversion rate. But if you just

19:15

look at that, especially if

19:15

you're in his long sales cycle

19:18

business, you're gonna lose 90%

19:18

of your customers to your

19:22

competition, because you're

19:22

expecting them to come in the

19:26

door, even when they're in like

19:26

the first day of a nine month

19:29

sales cycle and be waving you a

19:29

check. And that's not on the go.

19:34

So if you ignore those little

19:34

early signals, like somebody

19:38

clicked on your website, that's

19:38

a sign of interest. So you want

19:42

to have a mechanism for micro

19:42

conversions, whether it's an

19:45

email, whether it's a social

19:45

media sign up, it might even

19:49

simply be a return visit. I

19:49

wouldn't go so far as to call

19:52

that a micro conversion. But you

19:52

certainly need to be doing

19:56

retargeting ads and measuring

19:56

whether you're getting return

19:59

visits, especially If you're

19:59

b2b, and in a long sales cycle,

20:03

so I would say micro conversion

20:03

rate is much more valuable

20:09

unless you're selling like a

20:09

cheap commodity item that people

20:12

just buy. Right off the bat, you

20:12

need to be looking at your micro

20:16

conversion rate, because

20:16

otherwise, you're really not

20:20

getting the full story. And then

20:20

finally, there is a metric that

20:25

I just referred to where you

20:25

need to look at your return

20:30

visit, you want to figure out

20:30

how can I see those visits with

20:34

Linsay retargeting ads, even if

20:34

you are not seeing those return

20:39

visits, that's my bonus one,

20:39

though, ROA as return on

20:43

adspend, or ROI, your top 10

20:43

Your top segments, your traffic

20:48

sources, your marketing our

20:48

automation, or email, click rate

20:51

and click to open rate, social

20:51

media engagement, your click

20:54

through rate and your micro

20:54

conversion rate are the top

20:57

eight. And then I would say if

20:57

you want to look at a bonus

21:01

ninth metric that's going to be

21:01

your percentage of returning

21:05

visitors, because that's a sign

21:05

that people are seriously

21:08

considering doing business with

21:08

you, and a sign that you are

21:11

reaching the right audience.

21:11

Now's not the time to rest on

21:15

your laurels. Now is the time to

21:15

rope them back in get them to

21:19

engage with your brand.

21:22

Yeah, that's really

21:22

good. I really liked how you

21:24

presented that because a lot

21:24

I've had other people try to

21:29

pitch this to me, but they don't

21:29

add up all the angles, like you

21:31

just did. Yeah, I

21:34

think that's so important. You want to hit all the angles, because, again,

21:36

there's no magic metric, you

21:40

want to look at all of your

21:40

metrics together, because what

21:44

does, let's say you have a high

21:44

click, click rate or click to

21:48

open rate on your email. Great.

21:48

But if that if you're not

21:54

reaching the right segments, if

21:54

it's a segment you're not

21:57

terribly interested in because

21:57

they're, they're unprofitable,

22:01

that's doing all the clicking,

22:01

then you might be losing money,

22:06

you can't be like, Oh, yay, we

22:06

have this great click rate. If

22:10

it's people buying stuff, that's

22:10

your lowest margin product. And

22:14

so that's just one example where

22:14

looking at two metrics, instead

22:17

of one metric changes the whole

22:17

picture. On the other hand, you

22:22

could be sending out an email

22:22

that's got a mediocre click

22:25

rate. But the clicks are all

22:25

coming from your most profitable

22:29

segment. In which case, you need

22:29

to look at improving that versus

22:34

looking at the email with like

22:34

this wonderful click rate. But

22:37

it's not. It's genuinely not

22:37

getting you anywhere, because

22:42

you're not making any money off

22:42

of those transactions. So again,

22:46

you've got to look at all of

22:46

your marketing holistically, you

22:49

cannot rely on a single metric

22:49

ROI is, you know, an important

22:55

metric. But most of the time,

22:55

you're not going to know that

23:01

for a while, especially in b2b.

23:01

You need to look at intermittent

23:06

metrics, not not intermittent

23:06

intermediary metrics. To know

23:11

whether you're on the right

23:11

track, you can't just sit around

23:14

and say, Okay, well, I won't

23:14

know my ROI for two years,

23:18

because that's how long it

23:18

takes, you know, for the sales

23:21

cycle to complete itself. And

23:21

then we know how profitable

23:24

customers because if you're

23:24

dealing with like, the higher

23:27

end of b2b, that is often the

23:27

case, you don't have two years

23:31

to sit around waiting to see if

23:31

this was a profitable campaign.

23:33

So you want to look at all of

23:33

those other metrics to see, is

23:36

it trending in the right

23:36

direction? Are we making good

23:39

progress? Is it looking like

23:39

it's going to deliver high ROI?

23:45

And that's, that's the way you

23:45

win.

23:49

That's so

23:49

interesting. Yeah. Especially

23:52

with b2b, you could spend 10s of

23:52

1000s, even hundreds of 1000s

23:55

dollars in ads, and promos and

23:55

all that. But they may be like,

24:00

Yeah, but we like so and so's

24:00

sales guy better, we're gonna go

24:02

with them. And you're like, I

24:02

can't. But you didn't know until

24:05

like the two years edge.

24:07

Exactly, exactly. You

24:07

got to be purposeful and

24:10

thoughtful about it in a much

24:10

more organized way by looking at

24:14

a wide range of metrics, not

24:14

just one or two.

24:16

So for the traffic

24:16

source back to, as you were

24:20

mentioning, influencers is that

24:20

a big one you're seeing

24:23

especially if you're your

24:23

customers, like hire, go into

24:26

like influence, a fire,

24:26

whatever, kick talkers, that

24:29

kind of thing.

24:30

It depends on a lot of

24:30

times, what we'll do is

24:34

influencer outreach that's a

24:34

little more organic. But when

24:38

supply can be really valuable,

24:38

any of these influencer

24:41

platforms can be excellent. I

24:41

would say especially if you're

24:45

on Tik Tok, you really have to

24:45

work with creators versus just

24:49

relying only on your brand

24:49

presence or on advertising. And

24:53

you've got things like Spark ads

24:53

that genuinely are both With

25:00

influencer marketing and

25:00

advertising, I had the privilege

25:03

of having Susan Winograd from a

25:03

Search Engine Journal guest

25:07

lecturer my class earlier this

25:07

week. And she talked about for

25:11

Tiktok. For instance, the

25:11

extreme importance of doing

25:14

spark ads and spark ads are like

25:14

a hybrid, obviously between

25:19

insulin influencer marketing and

25:19

advertising. And just so you

25:21

know, for folks who are

25:21

listening, I'm sure you know,

25:25

Josh, it's about paying to

25:25

promote content by a creator,

25:31

not by your brand, that happens

25:31

to mention your brand. So that

25:36

is, I think, where the trust

25:36

factor is now with consumers,

25:40

you really want to do it in a

25:40

way that's respectful,

25:43

respectful of people's time,

25:43

respectful of individual

25:46

creators. motives and the type

25:46

of work they do. Don't have

25:52

people do stuff that's not

25:52

authentic to who they are. They

25:55

probably won't agree to it

25:55

anyway. But Nothing's worse than

25:59

cringy influencer marketing, but

25:59

when you do it the right way.

26:03

It's fantastic.

26:05

Oh, yeah. And then

26:05

your whoever they're following

26:08

is there's the diehard, like,

26:08

anywhere from 10 to 20%. They're

26:11

gonna just go over and be like,

26:11

alright, with you. We're with

26:14

you. Because same kind of thing.

26:16

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

26:16

That's so important. So

26:20

important,

26:21

and really is Yeah,

26:21

especially with tick tock. It's

26:23

funny, I've moved it. There's a

26:23

little gray pouch right here.

26:28

And it's a gimbal. And I was

26:28

watching Tic toc. And this lady

26:32

with Parkinson's saw her hands

26:32

like shaking like this. It was

26:36

she had the gimbal. And the

26:36

camera didn't move at all. And

26:39

I'm like I said, Because I hate

26:39

to be that guy. My hands are

26:43

kind of shaky when I hold my

26:43

camera, not as bad as yours. But

26:46

it's noticeable, Mike, but your

26:46

gimbal is perfect. What is it so

26:49

I can buy it kind of thing. And

26:49

then she's like, Oh, this and

26:53

that. But but it's this, here's

26:53

a link and she sends it. And

26:56

then afterwards, she is all

26:56

freaked out, like, oh my god,

26:58

that was an affiliate link. And

26:58

I literally just was like, I

27:00

don't give a shit here. Here's

27:00

like 10 bucks can that they?

27:04

You know, I think

27:04

people want to support creators,

27:06

right? We've been getting so

27:06

much good stuff, I'm happy to

27:11

click on your affiliate link. If

27:11

I support you, as a creator, I

27:14

want I want you to give me those

27:14

affiliate links, because I know

27:18

how much work goes into it, you

27:18

need to monetize. So give me

27:21

that affiliate link, I'll click

27:21

on it, I'll buy directly from

27:24

that. I'll even go out of my

27:24

way. And people will click on

27:28

that affiliate link, if it's

27:28

from a if it's from somebody

27:32

they support.

27:34

And that was a big

27:34

one in this podcast I followed

27:36

for a long time, what he would

27:36

used to do is say hey, here's a

27:40

general link to Amazon hits an

27:40

affiliate link. So he's a cool

27:44

shop at Amazon. Just bookmark a

27:44

click it in your web, it's gonna

27:48

bring you up in the app. And

27:48

then just go about your day, and

27:51

I get like, three bucks off each

27:51

versus purchase no extra charge

27:56

CEOs. I was smart. I was like, I

27:56

didn't think about it pretending

28:00

like that. If we don't do it

28:00

anyway, just press it, it'll

28:02

send you back to the app, and

28:02

I'll get like two $3 off each

28:05

purchase.

28:07

I think that's I think

28:07

that that's really helped more

28:10

and more people are going to

28:10

monetize. And I think it's more

28:13

help people are going to support

28:13

obviously supported artists on

28:17

Patreon. And that's great, but

28:17

it's like I have to go through

28:21

more clicks I have to sign up

28:21

for another thing. So I believe

28:26

that if you do influencer stuff,

28:26

right? The Influencers community

28:31

is going to rally around it.

28:31

They're not going to be bothered

28:34

far from it.

28:35

Yeah, and an

28:35

influencer hopefully knows,

28:38

understands that you want as

28:38

little pages to come up like

28:42

okay, you've clicked Patreon.

28:42

Thank you. Here is your name and

28:44

email. Did you click that? Okay,

28:44

now you had some created an

28:47

account like Dan, I just do that

28:47

earlier. It's like alright,

28:49

whatever, fill it out, like now

28:49

you have to fill punch in your

28:51

payment by then you lose everyone.

28:54

And you really do. I

28:54

know only really do Patreon for

29:00

and I know this is awful. I

29:00

really do it only when I'm

29:03

actually like purchasing a

29:03

serialized comic book or

29:07

something like that.

29:08

Yeah. But for me,

29:08

it's like if it's someone I

29:11

believe in, they put the latest

29:11

ces really selfish is they put

29:15

the link they put the time to

29:15

put it in the description on

29:17

YouTube or podcast and I can

29:17

click it it takes me straight

29:21

there. John, you got my money. I

29:21

have to go to Patreon find you

29:25

sign up make it account punch in

29:25

my info. I'm done.

29:28

Yeah, no, no, I'm done. I'm not I'm not here

29:29

for this. It's too much for me

29:32

my exhausted. Yeah. Yeah. And I

29:32

so I think you know what, that's

29:39

that's where we're at as a

29:39

society and brands need to get

29:43

with the program and leverage,

29:43

leverage what you can leverage

29:49

what you can and that's going to

29:49

be the affiliate marketing and I

29:52

think that that is it's

29:52

wholesome. Honestly, it's the

29:56

way people support their

29:56

favorite creators,

29:58

right. They get

29:58

something they Why, and they

30:00

know also the person gets a

30:00

little kickback from it too. I,

30:05

I've been really trying to edit

30:05

videos on YouTube and all that.

30:09

And this one guy I follow on

30:09

YouTube, his name's Finn

30:12

bizarre. He's all about editing

30:12

and make it engagement. And he

30:17

tries to make everything funny.

30:17

So I watch on my phone with a

30:21

web browser that blocks ads. So

30:21

though, I watched like, 17 of

30:25

his videos back to back, and

30:25

unlike the final two, he was

30:29

pitching his precess. And so I

30:29

went on a whole, like, what are

30:34

the presets? What's the value

30:34

kind of thing that he's selling

30:38

for 50 bucks, I realized what

30:38

he's selling, he could easily

30:41

ask for 600 kind of thing. And

30:41

he's just like, it's not

30:45

realistic to sell at that rate.

30:45

So I'm just gonna sell it at 50.

30:48

And the throat, I can't I bought

30:48

it. And I said, Okay, I watched

30:51

like 17 New videos, you probably

30:51

lost like 50 bucks on me,

30:54

somebody presets.

30:57

I, that's that's exactly how I would

31:01

recommend people work with

31:06

influencers, find those people

31:06

who have real value that they're

31:09

delivering, who are giving real

31:09

value to their consumers who are

31:13

giving real value to their

31:13

community, and help them deliver

31:16

more value. Right? Don't I

31:16

completely understand like some

31:21

fashion influencer types of

31:21

deals that I see people do where

31:24

it's like, I'm going to style

31:24

this cardigan and then give you

31:27

my discount code. And I'm

31:27

definitely seeing people click

31:31

through on that. And we've done

31:31

that kind of thing in the past.

31:34

But how much better if you, for

31:34

instance, talk about how to pack

31:39

for a trip. And I'm not an

31:39

influencer, I'm not being paid

31:43

to endorse this jacket. But I

31:43

gotta tell you, it's one of

31:45

those jackets that looks like a

31:45

suit jacket, but it's warm. And

31:48

also it's crushproof. And if I

31:48

were an influencer, I would pull

31:52

this together in a blog post

31:52

around how to pack for a trip

31:57

with like a guide of exactly

31:57

what you need to wear exactly

32:02

what you need to have. And

32:02

that's going to be so much more

32:06

value than okay, here's a

32:06

cardigan or here here's a here's

32:09

a sport jacket or a suit jacket.

32:09

And so make it easy for the

32:14

influencer that you work with,

32:14

to get that kind of value from

32:20

the influencer content that you give them.

32:24

Yeah, or a big one,

32:24

a lot of like, viewed ticked off

32:29

YouTube, whatever, has been

32:29

saying, like, advertisers are

32:32

very strict on how do you

32:32

present it? And one of them, he

32:36

said, he's like, I know, my

32:36

humor is not the most

32:39

politically correct, but it

32:39

works for my audience, and I can

32:41

get you a higher conversion is

32:41

like just lets the Creator be

32:44

creative. Like this in the name

32:44

kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, as

32:52

long as they don't like directly

32:52

talk shit about the company, I

32:54

don't care.

32:56

You know, I say as long

32:56

as people align with your

32:59

values, right? I, you know,

32:59

politically correct means

33:03

different things to different

33:03

people. Obviously, we as a, we,

33:07

as a company have some very

33:07

specific values around

33:09

diversity, inclusion,

33:09

sustainability, social impact.

33:14

And as long as people say that,

33:14

I do not care if they swear. I

33:18

do not care if they don't have

33:18

you know, it's like, don't have

33:24

it be corporate. Don't have to

33:24

be too polished. Everyone knows

33:28

that. That's fake.

33:31

When it's like, I'm

33:31

on tick tock in YouTube to

33:33

escape corporate kind of thing.

33:36

Yes, exactly. Exactly.

33:36

So don't have to be too fake.

33:40

Don't have it be. Yeah, do not

33:40

have it be something that people

33:46

are like, Oh, this, this went

33:46

through like 16 different

33:48

degrees of legal and 12

33:48

different people making sure

33:52

that you use the brand correct

33:52

adjectives. And other it's like,

33:58

no, no, you've taken all the

33:58

life out of the piece.

34:03

Yeah, what little

34:03

life it had you just chopped it

34:07

up? Just absolutely

34:07

try. So I have a big old geek,

34:11

right. And so I used to kind of

34:11

hide that side of myself when I

34:18

was lecturing when I was giving

34:18

talks at conferences. And people

34:23

would be you know, I would get

34:23

very pleasant responses. And

34:27

then once and this is this is a

34:27

little bit of a it's an

34:31

emotional story. That was taken

34:31

care of my mother she she had a

34:34

terminal illness, which she

34:34

lived much longer with. Thanks,

34:37

thank goodness than anyone

34:37

expected. And I had a night

34:41

where I had like, not slept. And

34:41

I had to give a talk at an

34:45

international conference. And I

34:45

was like all my words. There is

34:49

not enough coffee in the world

34:49

because I'd been up all night

34:53

taking care of this is gonna go

34:53

so badly because I don't have my

34:59

filter. As on I was talking

34:59

about SEO and I shared with you

35:06

like, my unfiltered opinion of

35:06

some best practices in SEO that

35:10

are not really best practices. I

35:10

think there may have been some,

35:14

some, you know, some swears

35:14

thrown in there. I think I

35:21

express my opinions very

35:21

forcefully. And I heard people

35:25

literally like tears of laughter

35:25

were running down their faces,

35:28

and I got the first standing

35:28

ovation of my life. And that's

35:32

what I realized, you know what,

35:32

people respond to authenticity.

35:37

And I'm totally fine. Um,

35:37

honestly, you got to know your

35:41

audience, right? I'm not gonna

35:41

get up at like a White House

35:44

dinner or something. But, um, you

35:49

definitely do not have to be

35:49

like this corporate buttoned up

35:53

citizen. I currently have

35:53

developed a, unfortunately

35:59

massive obsession with ancient

35:59

history. And I now use that as

36:05

analogies when I'm explaining

36:05

complicated like Mark martec

36:10

topics, and I thought, Oh, God,

36:10

people are going to be cringing.

36:13

What a big old dork I am. And I

36:13

send out an anonymous survey

36:18

after every class and every

36:18

talk. And people are like, you

36:20

know, those historical analogies

36:20

were not only very helpful, but

36:23

I learned things about history.

36:23

And I'm like, Okay, let that

36:26

keep flag fly. It's

36:27

working. Right?

36:27

Some of the stuff. I've I don't

36:31

even know what they're talking about. But the fact that the person's like, super authentic

36:33

on YouTube, or whatever I just

36:38

described, because I'm like, I

36:38

just like to he's super

36:40

passionate, or she or whatever.

36:40

And it's just like, the energy.

36:44

It's like, Yes, I don't know

36:44

what the heck you're talking

36:47

about, though. But I like the

36:47

energy.

36:51

I mean, that's just it,

36:51

give, give

36:53

your chin give your genuine

36:53

energy. Give you genuine real

37:00

energy, to the extent that it's

37:00

okay. In that

37:04

environment. Yeah. And self, be careful. 10 Swear. But

37:07

do you know, do what is right

37:14

for you?

37:16

So I do have a

37:16

question for you. Because you

37:18

would definitely know this much

37:18

better than me. Let's say I do

37:23

have a good concept of what I'm

37:23

doing. A general gist of who I'm

37:26

talking to you, but the data is

37:26

not. There's not enough to fully

37:30

painted a picture is the more

37:30

talking like YouTube and

37:34

podcasting for me to help you

37:34

out? I know, like, generally,

37:39

we're everyone is, but I don't

37:39

know who they are, what they

37:43

like, I just know kind of where

37:43

they're at. How would I

37:46

extrapolate that information?

37:46

Like, oh, because of this

37:50

region? I should be talking more

37:50

like this to them. Convert to

37:54

here. Okay,

37:55

I'm, I'm gonna say I

37:55

am. I think you asked a question

38:00

that has become the topic talk

38:00

about history geeking out. That

38:05

I think is where what we were

38:05

taught in school about marketing

38:10

leads us so down the wrong path.

38:10

When you talk about like, should

38:13

I gather my messaging and change

38:13

it based on the region? I'm not

38:19

a big believer in targeting by

38:19

demographics, versus

38:24

psychographics. I wish I had my

38:24

slide deck in front of me, but I

38:30

do this slide presentation to my

38:30

students. And let's say, I say

38:34

okay, you are trying to target

38:34

teenage girls for a makeup

38:38

company. You have one of those

38:38

college savings plans that you

38:43

want to target parents with

38:43

multiple children. You're a pet

38:48

company and you want to target

38:48

people who travel with their

38:51

pets. And then this is based on

38:51

one of my students, real life

38:56

stories. You are LGBTQ travel

38:56

packages to Hawaii and you on El

39:01

alkaloid, LGBTQ millennials.

39:01

Okay, got it. Got it. So then

39:05

I'm like, here's a cute girl and

39:05

I show them Joan of Arc. Then

39:10

I'm like, Okay, here's a parent

39:10

with multiple children, and I

39:14

show them gearing as costs.

39:14

Great. And then I'm like, here's

39:18

a gentleman traveling with his

39:18

pets, and I've got Hannibal

39:20

crossing the Alps. And I'm like,

39:20

here's an LGBTQ millennial and I

39:25

show them Alexander the Great

39:25

and I'm like, Are you going to

39:27

walk up to any of these people

39:27

be like, dude, or mme? In the

39:31

case of Joan of Arc? Would you

39:31

like to buy my lip balm? My

39:34

package tour my pet carrier,

39:34

you're gonna put the animals

39:37

elephant into a pet carrier? So

39:37

the answer here is we're gonna

39:44

look at demographics and you see

39:44

people they tell us all the time

39:47

Well, yeah, our target

39:47

demographic is teenage girls.

39:49

And like really, you would sell

39:49

this to Joan of Arc, would you?

39:52

And I'm not saying I mean,

39:52

obviously, these are outlier

39:55

individual. You know, I would

39:55

say adultery so anything to

39:59

dangle Time, but you're, you're losing the

40:02

ability to target people based

40:07

on the use that they have for

40:07

your product. When you say our

40:10

target audiences, moms, well,

40:10

you know, where do what it's

40:16

much more useful to say our

40:16

target audience is people who

40:20

need a child safety seat. There could be dads, it could be

40:23

grounds, right. And I think it's

40:29

extremely reductive is to target

40:29

by demographics. And I think

40:34

it's a product of where we

40:34

didn't have such good data about

40:37

people. So we had to just

40:37

assume, okay, if I want to sell

40:42

lip balm, it's something teenage

40:42

girls like, so I'm just going to

40:45

target like 17 magazine back

40:45

when that was the thing. Because

40:49

that was the proxies we had for

40:49

audiences, we can never actually

40:53

know who's in the market for lip

40:53

balm. And then you can avoid

40:57

trying to sell Sephora to Joan

40:57

of Arc. And again, at all

41:03

attempting to sell anything,

41:03

again is gone. So that's my

41:05

history geek analogy. So to back

41:05

to your question, Should you be

41:11

targeting people differently,

41:11

depending on their demographics

41:17

or their region? Only if the

41:17

region is germane

41:21

to what they want? Okay, right.

41:27

And like, I'm not going to try

41:27

to sell snow shovels in Alabama.

41:31

But that's not because I think

41:31

people from Alabama will never

41:35

want a snow shovel. It's because

41:35

it's useless to them most of the

41:38

time. So I'm gonna look at

41:38

people's demographics only in

41:43

the basis of is that something

41:43

relevant to what I want to sell

41:46

to them? And if it is, yeah, if

41:46

it's not, and you can also look

41:53

at people's demographics from

41:53

the wrong lens, if you're

41:56

looking at like age, gender

41:56

identity, maybe even income

42:01

level region. That's not the

42:01

salient point. You know, what

42:06

you could sell to all four of

42:06

these individuals and they would

42:09

want it siege engines, right,

42:09

you could sell them armor, you

42:16

could sell them spears, because

42:16

the demographic that matters is

42:19

where these people are warriors.

42:19

And that is actually also a

42:22

demographic but it's an

42:22

occupational one. And again, now

42:25

I'm really going down a history

42:25

rabbit hole. Oh, I like it. Or

42:29

that the demographic that you

42:29

are going after is actually the

42:32

demographic that motivates the

42:32

consumers behavior and not

42:35

something incidental, that oh,

42:35

we only sell this to tall people

42:39

or whatever.

42:41

Okay, so then it's

42:41

more in a less elegant way. Be

42:48

broader for specific is what I'm

42:48

hearing

42:54

and understand your

42:54

consumer to that customer

42:56

journey map. So to extend this

42:56

now into the world of fiction,

43:02

we did this in my class

43:02

recently, I was like, Okay, do

43:06

create a PPC commercial for

43:06

like, totally fictional

43:12

historical examples of what you

43:12

would be selling to people and

43:15

some of my wonderful delightful

43:15

students came up with dragon

43:19

fire proof shields that they

43:19

would have been selling to the

43:22

characters in Game of Thrones

43:24

that would everyone

43:24

would want to find out when I

43:27

was like

43:28

it and the ad was like

43:28

perfect. It was like guaranteed

43:31

dragon fire proof for your money

43:31

back. Just absolutely. For my

43:39

students. That's what they were

43:39

looking at the right demographic

43:43

and understanding the customer

43:43

need and the customer journey is

43:47

all my shields been like singed

43:47

by some dragons. I need another

43:51

one. It's gonna have to be

43:51

dragon fire proof. That's my

43:54

motivator there. Right? And it

43:54

doesn't matter their age doesn't

43:59

matter. You know, the gender

43:59

doesn't matter whether they're

44:02

Millennials or boomers. They

44:02

need that dragon fireproof

44:07

shield. Whenever anyone says oh,

44:07

it says Millennials suitable

44:11

they're usually wrong. They just

44:11

mean people in their early 30s

44:14

or late 20s weren't actually

44:14

Millennials at this point

44:16

anyway. Or I want boomers by

44:16

which they mean gray hairs.

44:20

They've completely forgotten me

44:20

and Gen X even exist. You know

44:24

people who have gray hairs? No,

44:24

no, you want people who need a

44:30

dragon fireproof shield, I don't

44:30

care if they're 16 or 67 They're

44:34

buying your product. That's the

44:34

demographic that matters to you.

44:39

It's lost as a

44:39

result of losing all your money

44:44

back well if it doesn't work

44:49

which brings me to

44:49

another thing in marketing has a

44:52

really dirty reputation that we

44:52

make promises that we know

44:55

you're not gonna hold us do. Not gonna get your money.

44:56

packet patch shield didn't work.

45:02

So I'm the spotter that

45:11

circles back to things like

45:11

affiliate marketing influencer

45:14

marketing targeting by

45:14

demographics which again, you

45:18

know, clarify my position on

45:18

that pick the right demographic

45:21

children. What your lip balm she

45:21

wants that flameproof, she'll,

45:25

well, okay, she's not fighting

45:25

dragons, but

45:28

you want to think about? I have

45:28

this problem

45:34

arguments sometimes with clients

45:34

or students, marketing is not an

45:39

inherently dirty practice. It's

45:39

how you do the execution on it.

45:44

And we've had debates internally

45:44

around like, is this SEO tactic

45:47

spam, like in YouTube? We've had

45:47

some luck with really heavily

45:51

tagging specific videos with, I

45:51

would say, almost like,

46:00

repetitive tags, and yet they

46:00

worked great. So then they're

46:05

like, Well, is this spam? I'm

46:05

like, Are we hurting anybody

46:08

with this? No. We're using the

46:08

right tactics. And I think

46:12

people outside of marketing or

46:12

in fact, many of us in

46:16

marketing, who just don't want

46:16

to do things that are spammy.

46:21

They were reluctant to use all

46:21

of the tactics at our disposal

46:28

when I want to circle it back to

46:28

marketing. Why are we targeting

46:31

people by very basic

46:31

demographics that often have

46:34

nothing to do with their

46:34

motivations as a consumer, like

46:38

how old they are, or what zip

46:38

code they live in? It's because

46:43

we don't want to use the more

46:43

specific data saying, Oh, these

46:47

people are all in the market for

46:47

really good shields. Because

46:50

that would involve, you know,

46:50

Cookie based technologies in the

46:54

past. Now, it involves other

46:54

kinds of tracking technologies.

46:58

It's, it's personal data around

46:58

people. And there are privacy

47:04

aware ways of doing that ranging

47:04

from looking for proxies for

47:11

your audience, like people who

47:11

subscribe to, you know, Dragon

47:16

proof shield monthly magazine.

47:20

I want to make that

47:20

the title of the show, Dragon

47:23

Fire true sealed or your money

47:23

back.

47:26

That's the title of the show.

47:27

That's the title of the show.

47:29

So you can find out

47:29

what people want consumers

47:33

pretty heavily telegraph what

47:33

they want. They're like, You

47:37

know what, man, I'm gonna

47:37

conquer the known world, or I'm

47:40

gonna cross the Alps. With my

47:40

elephants, you can be fairly

47:43

sure they're in the market for

47:43

your dragon fireproof shield

47:46

again. Now I'm mixing real

47:46

history with Game of Thrones,

47:49

but fun. People are telegraphing

47:49

what they want from you. It's

47:53

not intruding on their privacy

47:53

to notice, hey, I couldn't help

47:56

but notice you're crossing the

47:56

Alps with all these elephants,

47:58

you need some shields.

48:01

Right? That's not

48:01

That's not hard. No, no brainer,

48:03

intruding

48:04

on that person's

48:04

privacy, you definitely do not

48:07

want to use things that do

48:07

violate people's privacy, when

48:11

they could have a whole other

48:11

conversation around that. But at

48:13

the end of the day, consumers

48:13

want to be targeted with things

48:17

that are relevant to them. And

48:17

they're telegraphing that to us,

48:22

they're buying patterns, they

48:22

know we're tracking their buying

48:26

patterns, they're buying the

48:26

stock, we want to sell them and

48:29

they would welcome us coming up

48:29

to them with offers that give

48:33

them the things that they want

48:33

to buy. I mean, when you're

48:36

busily you know, crossing the

48:36

Alps with your elephants are

48:39

conquering the known world. Do

48:39

you have time to shop on Amazon?

48:42

No. You need the ads to target

48:42

you.

48:46

Right. Now that's

48:46

true. So then, okay, you were

48:51

talking about the proxy and the

48:51

less invasive way of collecting

48:55

this information? What is some

48:55

of them, you tell your clients?

48:58

Just a side note on that? How

48:58

long do I got you for? Because I

49:01

feel like we can go at least three hours.

49:03

I know we could go at

49:03

least three hours. I've got a

49:05

hard stop. Right? Well, I mean,

49:05

do you want me to talk for more

49:07

than an hour? Would people want

49:07

to listen to that?

49:11

The energy is so

49:11

great. I try I actually looked

49:13

down was like, oh, shoot, I

49:13

might have a meeting next.

49:16

Okay, well, I can go to

49:16

like what I can definitely go to

49:19

one or a little little after

49:19

one. So I'm proxy audiences are

49:24

I think the thing that I feel

49:24

most comfortable recommending to

49:27

the widest range of clients

49:27

because it once again, again, it

49:32

goes back to I am telegraphing

49:32

my intent by by subscribing to

49:38

this YouTube channel, by

49:38

purchasing from this company. I

49:43

don't think any consumer today

49:43

in 2022 and beyond. And you

49:49

know, I don't want to date this

49:49

video, but I don't think any

49:51

consumer in today's society

49:51

expects that their purchasing

49:55

habits are a secret. And so

49:58

I'll leave that by

49:58

the way. as well. And suddenly,

50:04

it's not a secret anymore.

50:06

It's not. And

50:06

especially if it's public

50:08

behavior, like what kind of

50:08

creators you're subscribing to.

50:11

So if you're subscribing to a

50:11

Twitch streamer on dragon

50:17

slaying, then you're saying I am

50:17

interested in these shields. I

50:24

do not consider that to be the

50:24

kind of information that you

50:28

can't wildly use in your own

50:28

marketing, provided you obey all

50:32

applicable laws and you maintain

50:32

your ethics. But if you look at,

50:36

for instance, the audiences for

50:36

specific creators for specific

50:39

media, that's a good proxy

50:39

audience that is privacy aware

50:44

in most cases. So go to, again,

50:44

what we talked about influencer

50:49

marketing, there's got to be an

50:49

influencer in your space, no

50:52

matter how niche, it you know,

50:52

elephant harness monthly might

50:57

be a thing.

50:57

I don't know. I

50:57

will, it was,

51:00

it really would be. But

51:00

you know, no one else has ever

51:03

tried that. So it is a very

51:03

niche audience. But there's

51:06

gonna be maybe somebody Twitch

51:06

streaming something that's

51:09

related to that niche interest.

51:09

So what you want to do is you

51:15

want to go and look at those

51:15

proxy audiences. That's number

51:20

one. The second thing is

51:20

leverage your first party data

51:24

much more than you already have,

51:24

you have so much good data

51:26

locked into your CRM system. And

51:26

even if you don't have a CRM,

51:30

yeah, it's in your email

51:30

marketing, it's in your

51:32

ecommerce system, it's in all of

51:32

those things that should be part

51:37

of your CRM, all of the data on

51:37

the people who've done business

51:40

with you already. Most companies

51:40

don't even have that as

51:44

organized as they'd like it, let

51:44

alone are they leveraging it to

51:49

make the sales that they need to

51:49

make. So first things first, get

51:56

a handle on what data you have

51:56

on your existing customer, it

52:00

can cause from 2x to 5x, to more

52:00

than 5x more to acquire a new

52:04

customer than it is to upsell

52:04

and develop a deeper and better

52:07

relationship with an existing

52:07

customer.

52:13

Rather than send your sales team out into

52:15

the field and say, You know

52:19

what, find us more conquerors.

52:19

And by the way, I'm not

52:21

endorsing any kind of

52:21

colonialism with this. I'm just

52:24

stretching a metaphor. Invading

52:24

people

52:30

don't do it. Um, but wouldn't it

52:30

be

52:35

better to just upsell the

52:35

customers you have? And you're

52:39

doing it? And no one's doing

52:39

that well enough, except the few

52:42

companies that have absolutely

52:42

gotten a handle on their first

52:48

party data. But no, in all

52:48

seriousness, I am not, you know,

52:50

not glorifying colonialism. I'm

52:50

just getting caught up in my own

52:54

metaphor here

52:55

to say it's your

52:55

metaphor in its history, it

52:57

happened you can't say that. And,

53:00

and it's it's going

53:00

it's rolling, because it's a

53:02

nice way to keep it separate

53:02

from any other like any

53:07

industry, because if I say b2b

53:07

or b2c people will think, Oh,

53:10

this is not relevant to me. But

53:10

if you go into like this total

53:13

fantasy realm, it makes more

53:13

sense, because you can see the

53:16

core topic, which is you have

53:16

more first party data than you

53:21

think you know, what people want

53:21

from you who've already done

53:24

business with you who are

53:24

potentially satisfied customers,

53:27

they should be satisfied

53:27

customers. Nobody is organizing

53:30

and leveraging that except a

53:30

very small percentage of

53:33

companies that heavily resource

53:33

it most small to midsize

53:37

businesses. Even a lot of

53:37

nonprofits that live off of

53:41

donations and should be building

53:41

much better relationships with

53:43

their donors and supporters are

53:43

not doing enough with it. And so

53:48

first party data, proxy

53:48

audiences, both of those are

53:52

very privacy aware. And I

53:52

guarantee you you're probably

53:56

only realizing 75% of the ROI

53:56

from either one of those unless

54:01

you've been systematic about

54:01

both your CRM and about your

54:04

data driven targeting and marketing

54:08

Sorry, I'm just writing that down. Let's first try to predict Crux and let's

54:10

that's really good because

54:14

that's been a big one for me.

54:14

It's like, oh, I want to start

54:17

running ads for different

54:17

products. I have but on my idol,

54:20

here like saves me so much money

54:20

because I'm like, Oh, I'll run

54:23

it for this person who really

54:23

likes martial arts and dragons

54:27

and watches Van Helsing kind of

54:27

thing else totally by now here

54:32

again, like that's a terrible

54:32

waste of $500 they maybe get one

54:36

or two T shirts from

54:38

Yeah, yeah. And and you

54:38

in the meantime, got a huge

54:41

amount of first party data

54:41

customers who haven't bought

54:44

from you and longer than you

54:44

typically have repeat customers

54:48

like first of all know how often

54:48

your customers come back to you.

54:51

How often do they need a fresh

54:51

set of helmets or spears or

54:57

whatever and what bulk and it If

54:57

they are not making those

55:01

purchases with you why are they

55:01

not making those purchases with

55:04

you? Or they will locked in? Are

55:04

they going over to your

55:07

competitors? Or have you simply

55:07

failed to stay on their radar?

55:12

Once you know that, I think a

55:12

lot of people are hesitant to

55:15

over message. They don't want to

55:15

be

55:20

seen as obnoxious. Half the

55:20

time.

55:25

There, you're not being

55:25

obnoxious by being proactive. I

55:30

think you are actually probably

55:37

probably not marketing enough.

55:41

And especially nowadays, yeah,

55:43

yeah, yeah. And you

55:43

know what, I honestly think

55:46

that's another metric that I

55:46

didn't even dig into enough,

55:50

which is, look, when you're

55:50

looking at, for instance, your

55:53

open rates, your click through

55:53

rates for your email or for your

55:57

CRM, look at whether it's

55:57

starting to drop off or whether

56:02

it drops off in response to a

56:02

specific type of messaging. And

56:06

if it's not dropping off, and I

56:06

know this is almost a game of

56:10

chicken. But if it is not

56:10

dropping off, you're probably

56:16

still well within the sweet spot

56:16

of how often you could be

56:19

reaching out to your mailing

56:19

list and how much you can be

56:22

reaching out to your existing

56:22

customers. Because people will

56:26

tell you when they are fed up

56:26

with your messaging by

56:28

unsubscribing, or simply not

56:28

opening. If they're not doing

56:33

that, then you probably could

56:33

push a little further. And

56:43

probably be doing a lot more

56:43

with reaching out to your

56:48

existing audience.

56:51

That's true. Yeah.

56:51

This especially with the emails,

56:56

I was using Karcher. That's my

56:56

next question coming up. Is it a

56:59

recommend CRM, just so you can

56:59

think about that? I was using

57:02

kartra. And this guy was like,

57:02

oh, free templates. Just give me

57:07

your email. I'm like, okay,

57:07

small price to pay. He blew me

57:10

up within 10 minutes with 25

57:10

emails. Yeah. I was like, I got

57:17

my one thing. And I was just

57:17

like, I'm like, get me out of

57:19

this thing. Like, quick. What am

57:19

I does he not see it as one of

57:23

those I set them right to see

57:23

not to see that? Does he not

57:25

care?

57:27

You do. I'm always

57:27

astonished when companies do

57:30

something like that. And I've

57:30

actually talked to people who,

57:35

you know, we're using those

57:35

practices about why and they

57:38

say, Well, if it works with

57:38

like, 1% of people, we really

57:40

need to make our numbers so we

57:40

really, really have to push, you

57:44

have to push in a way that

57:44

smart,

57:46

though? I would say

57:46

I would say I would buy targeted

57:49

retargeted ads instead of going

57:49

if your email.

57:53

Yeah, it's just, um,

57:56

I think people just were too

57:56

wedded to old fashioned tactics.

58:01

Well, well, my one

58:01

mentor, he helped me with a lot

58:05

of my business then I realized

58:05

that he was teaching people how

58:08

to spot a charlatan and an

58:08

outlier and a grifter. And then

58:12

in teaching that he I've like,

58:12

Wait, you're exactly what you're

58:15

preaching against kind of thing.

58:15

It was a whole paradox in that

58:20

but the one he because everyone

58:20

was saying, Oh, I subscribed to

58:23

so and so. And he woke me up

58:23

like, three to 10 messages a

58:28

day. And he's like, Oh, it's

58:28

whoever this one of the email

58:31

marketing godfathers it was

58:31

Nigel Carnac it's not because

58:36

that's mindset. But there's some

58:36

someone like huge and he pretty

58:40

much says you keep slamming it

58:40

so harder so consistently they

58:45

have no choice but to click and

58:45

he's gonna and that's recent

58:50

that's been the President's for

58:50

email ever since he said then

58:53

early 2000s I don't like no that

58:53

does not work.

58:58

That does not work that

58:58

is again again and I'm a very

59:02

peaceful person believes that

59:02

but I'm gonna get back into my

59:05

metaphor and say that is the

59:05

siege warfare mode of marketing

59:10

of like, I'm just going to stand

59:10

out here with my counterpart of

59:13

email, keep flinging things at you. Like okay, people get

59:15

mad when you do that since

59:23

you produce throw

59:23

rocks in my room. I'm gonna be a

59:25

little mad

59:27

I've got archers and

59:27

it's like I'm not gonna and it's

59:30

called reporting you as spam. Right don't do that.

59:35

When that's where

59:35

then cuz the guy was like, what

59:38

is the sweet spot and like you

59:38

said he he's like, three emails

59:43

a week, kind of like a start of

59:43

the week like a pep talk and

59:46

newsletter made one like a

59:46

reminder like, Hey, we're doing

59:49

this event later on in a couple

59:49

months. And then on Friday, like

59:52

I have a great weekend and

59:52

whatever funding you want to

59:54

add, that will best for cute

59:54

you're in their mind, and I'll

59:58

bother either when one of them

59:58

you actually make a pitch,

1:00:01

because you're not too much of a bother, they'll click and actually read it is the too far

1:00:03

off,

1:00:06

I would say three times

1:00:06

a week, if you don't have a if

1:00:09

you're a salesperson, and you've

1:00:09

had good conversations with

1:00:12

somebody, and they're a warm

1:00:12

lead, and you're in a long sales

1:00:16

cycle, yes, three times a week

1:00:16

is totally fine. If, on the

1:00:20

other hand, you are a brand, and

1:00:20

you're sending out a mass email,

1:00:25

even if it's to a targeted

1:00:25

segment, I think three times a

1:00:29

week nowadays is getting a

1:00:29

little bit much I would say 10

1:00:31

years ago, when people were less

1:00:31

busy and had fewer media

1:00:35

choices, you could do that, I

1:00:35

would take that three times a

1:00:39

week messaging, and I would

1:00:39

shift it over to LinkedIn, I

1:00:44

would shift it over to tick

1:00:44

tock, I would be doing it as

1:00:47

Instagram reels. Because that's

1:00:47

more of an opt in situation

1:00:51

where you're not pushing into

1:00:51

the inboxes of people. You're

1:00:57

You're honestly better off doing

1:00:57

that than abusing your email

1:01:02

list. And again, every

1:01:02

department, every organization,

1:01:06

every department within your

1:01:06

organization is going to have

1:01:08

different mileage, some people,

1:01:08

that's fine. Some people, you're

1:01:13

gonna get unsubscribes, you need

1:01:13

to really look at the

1:01:16

unsubscribe rate and the open

1:01:16

rate on that. I mean, if people

1:01:19

are opening your emails, it's

1:01:19

working for you. But if you've

1:01:22

got like a 4%, open rate, that's

1:01:22

a sign nobody wants to hear from

1:01:26

you three times a week, via

1:01:26

email, go do that on tick tock,

1:01:31

you will probably grow your

1:01:31

brand you'll reach people you

1:01:34

don't yet know. And you will not

1:01:34

be annoying your existing

1:01:40

mailing list.

1:01:43

And that's kind of

1:01:43

what I was mentioning to him. I

1:01:45

was like, Howard, for some

1:01:45

hosting, keep my feet in

1:01:50

people's mind have a little

1:01:50

piece of their mental real

1:01:52

estate. But we don't want to

1:01:52

harass them or bullying him into

1:01:55

it. How we're supposed to coax

1:01:55

somebody. So to say that because

1:01:58

like social media, hazing, I

1:01:58

don't personally use it, because

1:02:01

he's like, I use affiliate

1:02:01

marketing to get my leads. But

1:02:04

he's like, social media is a

1:02:04

great way. Because if they

1:02:06

really want to see you, they'll

1:02:06

just click it. They're annoyed

1:02:09

to click off, but it doesn't

1:02:09

affect you directly. Exactly,

1:02:12

exactly. And that's

1:02:13

a much easier way of

1:02:13

doing it. And again, it can help

1:02:16

you reach folks who you don't

1:02:16

have first party data on because

1:02:19

they haven't done business with you yet.

1:02:22

100%. So, back to

1:02:22

the other question that started

1:02:25

to solve what is the CRM you

1:02:25

recommend your customers to use?

1:02:29

Oh,

1:02:30

I don't like to endorse

1:02:30

any particular CRM I do want

1:02:34

like, so I'll break it down as

1:02:34

I'll talk about. Because I'm not

1:02:39

an affiliate of any of them. And

1:02:39

I do try to keep neutral we work

1:02:43

with so many we do work with a

1:02:43

lot of companies that are

1:02:45

invested in HubSpot, we also

1:02:45

work with a lot of folks who do

1:02:48

MailChimp, which frankly, is

1:02:48

close to being a pretty robust

1:02:54

CRM at this point that is our

1:02:54

needs. So But that said, I'm

1:02:59

also a fan of Salesforce, we've

1:02:59

done a fair amount of work with

1:03:02

that the the CRM you need is the

1:03:02

one that has the features that

1:03:08

you want. And that your folks

1:03:08

within your team can use easily.

1:03:19

It may not have all the bells

1:03:19

and whistles, it may not have

1:03:24

every single feature because

1:03:24

most of the time, people don't

1:03:28

use every single feature in

1:03:28

their platforms, but it's going

1:03:32

to be what your consumers want.

1:03:32

And you know, in terms of

1:03:38

gathering the data around what

1:03:38

your consumers want, and it's

1:03:41

going to be what your your

1:03:41

community of users within your

1:03:45

company is going to feel

1:03:45

comfortable with. The number one

1:03:48

CRM to use is the one that's not

1:03:48

going to get a lot of pushback

1:03:51

from very confused people who

1:03:51

are going to be running that CRM

1:03:54

within your organization.

1:03:54

Definitely give people training,

1:03:57

but do not. Again, with the elephants, if

1:04:01

you need a pony, cuz you're like

1:04:05

a pizza shop on the corner, do

1:04:05

not get an elephant CRM

1:04:14

it's interesting

1:04:14

because I'm, I'm shopping around

1:04:16

for one, but through the

1:04:16

sustain, I was using kartra

1:04:20

earlier, but that one got really

1:04:20

weird dealing with them. And I

1:04:26

finally would just cut my money.

1:04:26

It was like, Okay, I'm done.

1:04:28

That's the guy blow me up like

1:04:28

20 times in 20 minutes. But it's

1:04:34

one of those like, I'm trying to

1:04:34

people have been asking me to a

1:04:37

place to like, kind of like kind

1:04:37

of like you like how do I do

1:04:40

this kind of marketing like

1:04:40

Well, let me call Christine. The

1:04:45

thing

1:04:48

with our clients as we sit down, we do a needs assessment and then we give them

1:04:50

a choice of like two to three

1:04:53

CRMs we think would solve their

1:04:53

problems that we have them do a

1:04:58

demo of each day. And then you

1:04:58

their gut instinct is going to

1:05:02

tell them what they want based

1:05:02

on the user interface. Like

1:05:05

there's, there's two or three

1:05:05

CRMs for every need. And the

1:05:09

deciding factor is does this

1:05:09

user interface instinctively

1:05:12

make sense to me? The way I like

1:05:12

to work?

1:05:16

That's it. Like that's in a nutshell.

1:05:18

Perfect. So kind of

1:05:18

my analogy I wrote down is the

1:05:21

simpler, the better. Also

1:05:21

powerful, okay. Because Carter

1:05:27

was so complicated for me. I'm

1:05:27

pretty tech inclined, I like my

1:05:31

computers. I like software. I've

1:05:31

been learning coding, so I get

1:05:34

it. And I'm looking at this,

1:05:34

like, what the heck am I

1:05:38

supposed to do with this kind of

1:05:38

thing. So that right out of the

1:05:43

gate, I should listen to my gut

1:05:43

and just be like, this is a bad

1:05:45

idea. Just get your money and go.

1:05:48

Absolutely. Absolutely.

1:05:48

That's awesome. I am gonna go

1:05:55

going. You know, it is.

1:05:58

It's 109. We don't absolutely

1:05:58

have to like get going. But we

1:06:02

could certainly I mean, if you

1:06:02

want any questions, I'm here for

1:06:07

that.

1:06:08

Oh, boss. I was

1:06:08

thinking you were central.

1:06:10

Sorry. That sounds like wow, we

1:06:10

have plenty of time.

1:06:16

No, it's one o'clock my time.

1:06:19

Yeah, then my only

1:06:19

three going out questions is

1:06:22

really simple. I live in work.

1:06:22

What have you been doing to keep

1:06:25

yourself busy during these COVID times?

1:06:28

Well, when I'm when I'm

1:06:28

not reading up on military

1:06:31

history, or trying to figure out

1:06:31

how to sell package tourism, lip

1:06:36

balms to history's greatest

1:06:36

warriors and succeeding very

1:06:39

little. What I do is I am in a

1:06:39

habit I kid you not I have three

1:06:44

dogs and a cat. So I rescue,

1:06:44

rescue these animals, and they

1:06:49

keep me busy. I like to go

1:06:49

hiking on all of the local

1:06:52

trails around here to exercise

1:06:52

my pets. For several miles every

1:06:56

weekend, it depends like I might

1:06:56

do 810 20 miles a weekend with

1:07:01

the dogs. I'm an avid knitter I

1:07:01

love to bake when it's cold out,

1:07:08

which hopefully will be soon.

1:07:08

And I really just enjoy spending

1:07:12

time with friends and family.

1:07:15

That's awesome.

1:07:15

Second question, someone

1:07:18

inspired by you wants to walk

1:07:18

down a similar path, what are

1:07:21

some tips, tricks or advice you

1:07:21

give them to get going,

1:07:25

I'm fine. Find the area of marketing that that

1:07:26

feeds your soul. I know that

1:07:29

sounds a bit cheesy, but find

1:07:29

the part of marketing that

1:07:31

doesn't feel like a slog. It

1:07:31

could be graphic design, it

1:07:34

could be front end development,

1:07:34

it could be marketing

1:07:37

automation, I find that what

1:07:37

makes me tick is solving really

1:07:42

complicated tech stack problems,

1:07:42

but doing it with an eye to what

1:07:46

the marketing strategy is like,

1:07:46

how are we going to gather this

1:07:49

data about customers? And how

1:07:49

are we then going to make it

1:07:53

operational so that we're

1:07:53

targeting people, and we're not

1:07:57

selling elephant harnesses to

1:07:59

gang ISKCON.

1:08:01

That's very

1:08:01

important. But he's like it,

1:08:04

there's no use for me, though.

1:08:06

I don't need this. You

1:08:06

should have sold it sold these

1:08:08

tangible. And so you think to

1:08:08

yourself, that sounds like a

1:08:13

boring job. But I really love

1:08:13

data. And I found that being

1:08:17

just into the data is what makes

1:08:17

me happy. So find the thing that

1:08:20

makes you happy. Don't let

1:08:20

people say Oh, well, the jobs in

1:08:24

that are drying up, find the

1:08:24

aspect of that where the jobs

1:08:28

are plentiful. Right,

1:08:30

because there was

1:08:30

only so much AI can do

1:08:32

correctly, at

1:08:33

least only so much.

1:08:33

Exactly. There. There's

1:08:37

something for everybody in

1:08:37

marketing, find your passion and

1:08:40

then find the most likely job

1:08:40

descriptions, maybe identify

1:08:44

three or five that will allow

1:08:44

you to do more of that and less

1:08:49

of what you don't want to do.

1:08:49

And then, for instance, if

1:08:53

you're like, I totally wish to

1:08:53

cross the Alps with large

1:08:58

animals, you're going to join

1:08:58

Hannibal's army if you're like I

1:09:00

want to say France to join your

1:09:00

works army. So in other words,

1:09:05

figure out where you can go with

1:09:05

that passionate enthusiasm where

1:09:09

you're appreciated, there's

1:09:09

companies that will will

1:09:12

absolutely love you. And if

1:09:12

you're not in a place where

1:09:14

you're doing your best work, get

1:09:14

an exit plan, but it's also an

1:09:20

insurance plan to the place

1:09:20

where you will do your best

1:09:22

work. So that's my advice.

1:09:25

Wonderful, I love

1:09:25

how you hit like all angles of

1:09:27

that to work and everyone

1:09:27

contact us.

1:09:31

You can go to my

1:09:31

website, it's thought light.net

1:09:34

t HOUGHT. Thought as in thinking

1:09:34

light li gh t. So t h o u g h t

1:09:45

li ght thought like dotnet and

1:09:45

you can hit the Contact Us

1:09:50

button and that will eventually

1:09:50

quickly make its way to me. And

1:09:55

you can go on Amazon if you want

1:09:55

to buy my latest book marketing

1:09:58

metrics and And that's under my

1:09:58

last name Christina inch img II.

1:10:03

But I if you go to the Kogan

1:10:03

page website, que OGANPAG, the

1:10:13

discount code that I'm going to

1:10:13

provide is going to work there

1:10:15

to get you 20% off. And that's

1:10:15

discount code metrics. So, all

1:10:22

due respect to Amazon, you go to

1:10:22

my publishers website, you'll

1:10:25

get a little you'll be able to

1:10:25

use the coupon code.

1:10:28

And that's fine.

1:10:28

That's awesome. Thank you so

1:10:31

much. Absolute pleasure. This

1:10:31

telehealth went the hour for the

1:10:37

Well, I hope people got

1:10:37

as much much geeky joy out of it

1:10:41

as I got out of having this

1:10:41

conversation with you, Josh.

1:10:43

It's been wonderful. To see

1:10:45

energy alone. I'm sure a lot of people don't like you, dude, you should listen to

1:10:47

this just fun. Hope so.

1:10:52

I hope as long as

1:10:52

they're laughing with you and

1:10:54

not at you. It's a good day.

1:10:54

It's a very good day.