Marketing Strategy Talk w/ Josh Chopak @WGG Consulting

Transcript

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  Ian

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  Founder

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  All right, Josh Chopak thank you so much for joining me in another Marketing Strategy Talk.

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  Josh

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  Agencies Marketing Strategy Paid Marketing

  Josh

  Yeah, thanks for having me.

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  Ian

  478

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  Founder

  Specialties

  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  Of course. So full disclosure I work with Josh at my current company, CustomerGauge. He came on as a paid ad consultant and we’ve seen great results. I’ve been super impressed with his knowledge in the space. Not only across channels like Google, but Facebook, LinkedIn, you name it, he knows it. So I wanted to get you on this thing and have a quick conversation with you and share some of your knowledge. You’re one of the better growth marketers I’ve seen out there. So thanks again for joining up and let’s just dive right in.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Thanks man. I appreciate all that. It’s been great.

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  Ian

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  Founder

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  Of course. Yeah. So you’ve worked at a couple of companies in the past but now you have your own agency WGG Consulting. So what made you make that jump? What was your path to this point?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah, so I started with my first real job at a music production company actually where I was running basically their marketing and sales, all of it. A super small company, so I had to wear a whole bunch of hats. And I was there for six years we saw a lot of growth and it was great. Then I was trying to move a little bit out of the music space and more into the Boston tech scene, so to speak. So then I went to an ad agency, and I had self-taught on a lot of marketing stuff at that first job, wanting to sharpen some of those skills and at Social Fulcrum where I went, which was really just a Facebook, Instagram advertising agency. With a little Linkedin and Pinterest.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  While I was there, they phased those channels out and only focused on Facebook, Instagram. And so learning from them and their approach was, was really, really incredible and took my knowledge to the next level. A lot of the philosophy and even just the platform knowledge is super transferable to other channels. So once I learned Facebook from them, and when I say Facebook, it usually includes Instagram because they’re the same backend. Learning Facebook from them allowed me to become an expert in pretty much every other channel. So, that’s really been great. And actually it’s interesting timing. The reason I went out on my own is because they went through some troubles coming up on two years ago and I was laid off and I could go on a whole thing about, you know, there’s a lot of people that are in that position right now.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  So I’ve got a lot of empathy for that because it’s a tough spot to be in. Fortunately I kept a really great relationship with them. And they actually helped me really get my start when I decided to start my own thing. When I got laid off, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to stay in marketing, but not exactly what, and, just after a lot of reading and reflection, I realized starting my own thing was the way I wanted to go. And social fulcrum actually became a client of mine for over a year after that. And, I still get, I would say most of my leads from them. So certainly a in not burning bridges. So that transition has been pretty much the difference maker in my career.

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  Ian

  478

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  Founder

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  That’s really interesting. So just to touch on the being laid off thing. I’ve also been laid off in my career and it’s definitely one of those turning point moments, at least for me as well, where I was like, all right, what’s important to me? What do I like doing? And that’s a really interesting thing to talk about right now because LinkedIn’s kind of rough out there right now for SaaS. There’s a lot of people getting laid off. I think a lot of people are confused and maybe scared. But your story is a really good one where it literally assessing what’s important to you, what do you want to do and then forging your own path. And that’s so important right now. I think there’s going to be a lot of innovation that comes out of this bubble that we’re in with COVID-19 where people are going through exactly what you went through and realizing what they want to do with their lives and moving forward with purpose.

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  Ian

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  And you’ve been successful. You’ve done some great work for us, like I mentioned before. So being a business owner, what do you like most about owning your agency?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  I think it’s a bit cliche, but the freedom is a big part of it. And I don’t just mean freedom of schedule, but what actually is most important to me is the freedom to do things my own way. I really like to invest in the relationships that I have with my clients and with people in my network. And to really develop a genuine close, trusting relationship with a client or really with anybody. You need to be yourself. You need to be candid. You need to be super honest. It doesn’t mean rude. It just means, honest and frank and I didn’t necessarily feel that freedom when I was working at an agency. And I don’t think that’s any fault of Social Fulcrum. I think that’s just the agency model that there’s kind of a way things are done and I sort of had to do things that way.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Whereas now that I do things my way and it can change daily. You know, my, the way that we do things changes all the time. I think that has been a difference maker in a lot of campaigns that there is no one way that things are done that it really can be done case by case. I don’t need any scalable models or solutions. I really enjoy that and think it has been the difference maker in both the success of my company and the success of the relationships that I’ve had with clients and why a lot of my relationships have been successful.

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  Ian

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  All right. I’m going to throw you one more compliment and I swear I’m going to stop. I think your communication style is very good. So I’ve worked with a lot of different vendors in the past and I think you nailed it. You’re always honest, you’re always transparent. You’ll tell me when that’s a good idea. You tell me when it’s a bad idea based off of past experience. You always approach it from a data standpoint. You’re transparent about pretty much everything. So I do have to commend you on that. That is something that is so important when working with vendors. I’ve stopped working with some because of that exact reason. So I totally get why, maybe at social fulcrum, you couldn’t do that because you have to answer to the dollar. But now, with WGG you have the ability to do it the right way. I think people do value that.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah, thank you. Well, I appreciate you recognizing that. And honestly, I would just say that it’s also advice, you don’t have to do that thing that feels like you’re selling to the client all the time because that might get you a win in the short term, but it’s going to be a loss in the long-term. So if there’s one takeaway from this part of the conversation, it’s actually in your best interest to be really transparent. My business comes from referrals and investing in being honest right now is creating a better relationship and increases the likelihood of referrals. So it really, it does come down to the dollar, but I think it’s a different interpretation of I guess that order of operations than a lot of people see it. So I think everyone can and should be that level of honest. I just think it can be sometimes scary in the moment when, you know, the best thing to do is not have ads on for a month or you know, something like that. It can be a tough recommendation but it’ll be good for you in the long run.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  And based off of our previous conversations, you have some clients that are going through some shit right now. To be very frank. I would be really curious to see the different strategies for client X versus client Y? That’s really interesting stuff I want to dive into, but before I do that, give me one thing that you could probably live without in owning your own agency. What’s one thing that you wish you just didn’t have to deal with?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Well, with freedom comes uncertainty. You know, it’s the risk, the uncertainty. The fact that I can’t really control my pipeline. If clients fire me, like I’m the guy paying me. So if I don’t have any more clients, that’s tough. Business just naturally goes like this. Even even, you know, people say it goes up like that. I’ve had some downs for sure. And I’d be lying if I said, you know, this isn’t a tough time for everyone. End of February business was looking like it was about to be really great. Pipeline was looking good. Then of course this hits and nobody wants to sign a contract. So that can be really, really tough. I could do without that. I think the one thing that gets me through is the fact that I got laid off, and went through uncertainty now and I’m like, I didn’t have certainty when I had a full time job either. So really what’s, what’s the difference? But I could still do without it.

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  Ian

  478

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  I think that’s been felt by everybody not that that’s reassuring, but I think it’s across the board. It’s been tough for almost every company I’ve spoken to. It’s the uncertainty. Exactly what you said. “When Is this going to stop? When are things going to go back to normal? What happens to the budgets in 2020? What is going on?” There’s a lot of uncertainty and people, if they don’t understand something, they start to fear it. Right? So, it is a very, very interesting time to live. I was talking to my parents and they’ve never lived through anything like this. It’s literally brand new for everybody on this earth for the most part, outside of a couple very older ladies and gentlemen. Let’s dive right into how your clients are reacting. What industries are being most affected right now and which ones are pretty much staying the course?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  I can probably hit all three buckets: worse than normal, better than normal-ish and just totally businesses as usual. So I think for the hardest hit, this is not going to be a surprise to anybody, but I’ve got two, two clients that are in the travel space and so they, they went from ads on going well to ads off in survival mode. One of them might not even make it through, you know, they might just need shut down entirely, which is really difficult. And another one, they’re going to make it through, they’re an older company with more history and more of a cushion in the bank. But they’re also, they’ve gone down to to zero in revenue. So they’ve been hit pretty hard. I’ve got a couple of clients that are in the snack foods and supplements space. They’re generally doing at least as good as normal. Arguably better than normal. It’s, the numbers are unclear. I mean, I don’t have anybody that’s doing like way better than normal. I have heard some stories of other like especially packaged food companies doing like really way better than normal

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Junk food right?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Junk food and not to give away any secrets. But there is a let’s say a meat delivery company that is, that is doing pretty well.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Yeah. I imagine.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah. so yeah, it’s that kind of thing. I think those companies are having some of their best days ever. So yes. Packaged food. And then not quite business as usual, but I, I would actually say CustomerGauge, you know, and SaaS clients in general tend to be doing pretty solidly. You know, we’re seeing just in generally across SaaS clients, CPL, staying roughly the same, a little bit higher. But you know, people are still looking for content, downloading content. I think it’s a good time for that. I do think, you know, sales are less likely to close right now cause nobody wants to spend lots of money. But at least from a from a first touch acquisition standpoint it, things seem generally unaffected, which is, which is really good. And part of that is because CPMs are generally down because there’s more people on the platforms and fewer advertisers. So that, that means costs are generally down right now, but also conversion rates are down. So it’s not, that doesn’t equal a better time to advertise. It’s just kind of, you know, the nature of what’s happening.

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  Ian

  478

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  Interesting. Yeah. When do you think that’s going to recover? Do you have any sense for that? I know it’s a loaded question…

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah, it’s a loaded question. And of course the disclaimer is, of course nobody knows.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Nobody knows. Yeah, nobody does.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Well, my best, my best guess is that people, we’ll need to start buying stuff again. I think right now there’s an initial period of panic and freeze where nobody wants to spend money. Nobody wants to go out. And, and those kinds of things. And even if we kind of stay in quarantine mode, I do think, at least from an eCommerce standpoint, like people are gonna start needing stuff again. And if, if this does, even if this becomes new normal where or in quarantine and definitely that actually could theoretically be very good for e-commerce because people are, are still going to need things. And I think even from a staff standpoint, you know, we’re going to see a big shift in who has cash and who doesn’t have cash. You know, so it’s a tough time. A lot of companies aren’t gonna make it through, but I think the ones that aren’t hit too hard, they’re going to, they’re also going to need to keep going and they’re going to need to invest in their own business. And you know, certain solutions like retention analytics for instance, you know, that’s more important now than ever. So for the companies that do decide, okay, like we’re in a good enough spot, we’re going to make it through this thing, that’s the time to double down. And so I think after this initial period wears off, which I don’t think will be more than a month or so, then there’s going to be, I think a return to at least you know, some of these sales and purchases happening, whether it’s B2B or B2C.

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  Yeah, this keeps me up at night to be honest. In probably a different way than most. I feel like this is one of those, and I hate to use this word cause it’s, it’s really not the right word, but I feel like there’s an opportunity to market if you do it properly because there are so many players off on the sideline. For example, the retention analytics company hypothetically, right? If you had the ability to pull in budget from 2021 and use it in the next three months. I mean historically the brands that invest in their own brand and advertise during tough times come out stronger on the back end of it. And I think that’s proven time and time. And again,I think the initial reaction for a lot of companies across the board is to cut marketing budgets right away, which I’m sure you’ve seen, I’ve seen at other companies as well. And I just think that if you have the right message during something like this, you should actually double down and go the opposite way. If you do it tastefully, if you do it with empathy, I think there’s, there is an opportunity to do it. The companies that are big brands now and are household names did exactly this a hundred years ago.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah. And yeah, and not even, I mean even for some more recent examples, I’m not sure if you ever read thank you for being late. Thomas Friedman in New York times writer. He wrote this, this book is probably five, six years old and he wrote, he had a whole central piece of his argument that 2007 was like the year that that changed everything. And he goes through all these examples of things that happened in 2007. And among them are, that’s when the iPhone came out. That’s when Facebook started. That’s when Airbnb started. And then you’ve got the financial crisis hits a year later. And look at where all of those three companies now, if you could Apple as, as the iPhone, cause that’s really has been their major success.

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  Josh

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  Now Apple was in a great position before the iPhone. They were always going to weather a storm, but I think you look at those as to support what you just said, that they doubled down in a time of crisis. Yeah. And came out extremely strong. And now are, are definitely household names if they weren’t already. And all of that happened, like their early days, their make or break day is we’re in the midst of a financial crisis and you know, they just navigated it in the right way that now they are undisputedly you know, became an Airbnb on a little bit. Shake your territory right now, but Apple and Facebook.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  So let’s explore that. I think people don’t know what to do right now. So let’s clarify it. Right. Let’s give them the answers. So what you would do if you’re an eCommerce company right now, let’s call it, you know, you have a good amount of sales coming in are not necessarily hurting for revenue, maybe a little bit of a dip, but you want to grow and you want to grow quickly. What would you do? What channels would you go after? What would be the strategy there?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah, I do think it’s an important time in terms of ad spend. It’s an important time to at least be breaking even on, on your ad spend, if not straight sticking to ROAS (return on ad spend) goals. I think that’s perfectly logical to be conservative right now. That doesn’t mean turn off, but if you’ve got a successful campaign, keep it on, you know, if it’s, if it’s driving purchases. Also a lot of my e-com clients both now and historically have had a big retail presence as well, which right now if you’ve had retail go from a hundred to zero, then you need that e-commerce to, to perform more than ever. If you’re in that position, if you’ve lost retail income that you depend on, then breaking even on e-com actually makes a lot of sense. If you are strictly e-com then just focusing on profitability rather than breaking even.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Actually I think that could make more sense for those types of companies. So I would do that. I also think it’s a great time just to return to fundamentals that in normal times might just be too hectic, too low on the priority list. So even outside of paid ads, you know, what’s your, what’s your email strategy? How’s that looking, you know, are you maximizing your retention opportunities. Is how’s your site, you know, is do you have a, as good of a site as possible, as good of a brand as possible. Those are that take time, take energy and often are seen as taking away from other key priorities right now. If those key priorities are not happening, this is your opportunity to revamp some of your fundamentals. I think like things like having an amazing site and amazing brand are so often so mushy gushy that, you know, people are hesitant to invest in those, but those are often what make or break e-com success, especially in paid ads.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  It’s really interesting you say that because my day job is VP of marketing at CustomerGauge a B2B SaaS company, right? So I find myself doing the same thing, looking inward, basically saying, all right, like what can we do with what we have now? Can we create more content? Can we optimize the website? I’m kicking myself for not having enough foresight to basically say, all right, six months ago we should’ve been spending more time on this so we can actually reap the rewards now when everybody’s online, there’s a little bit of a lag on that, right? So maybe not necessarily the website, but organic type of content. So I learned a lesson, always have a good mix, which to be fair, I was focusing on things that produce a high ROI. But I’ve learned that things can shift very quickly. And that was, that was a hard lesson to learn, but I mean, we’re still in good shape, but at the same time, I am kicking myself for not taking it more seriously six months ago.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, hindsight is 20, 20. I think you know, from what I know of, of your approach, it was, it was logical and made a lot of sense. And of course, I mean, no one saw this coming. So I don’t think you necessarily should have you know, I don’t think you’re guilty of, of doing anything wrong, but I see and agree with your point that, yeah, there’s opportunity when you diversify a little bit. And in terms of that specific example, content generation and content strategy a paid strategy is always going to benefit from a good content strategy, but they’re also not mutually exclusive. By at least having a baseline investment in, in multiple channels and strategies it’s, you know, rising tide raises all ships. I think that cliche applies here because certainly in that example, contents is generally going to benefit SEO and paid of

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Of course. Yeah. And I completely agree. So What would you do for a B2B company, how should they tackle paid?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Right now?

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Yeah, right now.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  So I think it is a great time to invest in content. I’m kind of like, I was just saying, content will help your paid strategy. You know, the, especially with B2B where we’re usually running a lead gen campaigns that are centered around content offerings, you know download, give us your email, download this valuable piece of content and then, you know, we’ve got you in our system. We can continue to communicate and, and nurture to a sale. So invest in that stuff because that same content is great for SEO and at an even if you shut ad off just by having that content out there and the SEO is going to be good for your company. And it’s also really important to test different offers in your paid strategy. So, by investing in that content creation, you can, you can double dip and, and put that at the center of your paid strategy.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  And you know what, whatever it is, whatever the product is, five ways to increase retention. You know, I think listicles tend to work really well. They can’t be too cheesy. They need to and they need to be genuinely valuable. But those like little bullet point nugget type of knowledge offerings I think are really, really effective. So just think what, what are those, you know, well who is our customer, what does that person want to know and what is some free knowledge that we can just give them? That might seem like it’s giving away our secrets. But in reality the way people respond to getting secrets is, Oh, this company probably has a lot more where that came from. Like no one sees. You might feel like you just gave away your best secrets, but no one sees it that way. They see it as, Oh, I just got a really valuable piece of information. This company is an expert. I want to know more from them and I want to keep in touch with them. And if you give them a few more of those, then they’re like, okay, this is legit. This is where I want to invest my money.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Yeah. And the listicle thing like drives me nuts. But why do you think that still works? I thought that would maybe be dead by now?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah. Well two things. One is it’s actionable. People want tangible, people want to have their expectations managed and they want to see a headline and know exactly what they’re getting into. Okay. When I read this, I’m going to be three things smarter than I am right now. Oh, well you don’t want to do, you don’t want to do like that phase we went through 10 years ago or whenever it was when it was just all these click bait-y Buzzfeed

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Articles all suggesting that because that you don’t want to get into click bait like that. That is low value. It has to be things that are genuinely valuable information. You know, if you just say 11 pictures of cute dogs, like, you know, or I thought I was signing up for a bad retention software, what happened next? Amaze me. Like that’s awful. Don’t do anything like that. Again, it has to be genuinely valuable. You need to provide value and it’s, it’s a trade. You are trading content for someone’s information that the person giving their information needs to feel like it was a fair trade. So you need to give up genuine value to them and they need to feel like that was a fair exchange. If you do that, then they’re going to view you in a positive light and come back for more and you’re going to increase the likelihood of closing the sale at the end.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  10 years ago, it was kind of like the wild wild West of paid strategy where I literally worked for a company that did exactly that. It was like, give me the most click-baity title or headline that you can find. Give me the most click-baity image you can find, not related to the headline. And then they would drop them on the landing page and try to get them to sign up for a trial. And after a while I just couldn’t do it. That was actually the job I got laid off at by the way, because they fell on hard times. (laughs)

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  Josh

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  Josh

  There was a time where that was fashionable, where companies were finding success doing that and users were not exhausted from it yet. So it was effective for a time. I would’ve done the exact same thing, but kinds of change. Now I think people are much more covetous of their, of their information and their time and don’t fall for those things very easily because it was everywhere for so long. So now the stakes are high or the bar is higher and you gotta just, there has to be actual value and it can never appear like you’re trying to trick anybody into clicking on a link. They need to know what they’re getting into and, and you need to deliver on that promise.

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  Ian

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  Customer Experience Demand Generation Marketing Strategy

  Ian

  If I remember this correctly, it’s skewed towards the older generation, that type of like click baity article image thing. I think our analytics said 40 or 50 year old white males was like our best audience because they, it’s like my dad, right? Like they didn’t grow up with the internet. They don’t know that much about ads and look that it was kind of, it worked. I think just general generations coming up are smarter now about that stuff.

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  Josh

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  Agencies Marketing Strategy Paid Marketing

  Josh

  Yeah, that’s definitely true. And those, I think also just there’s a, there’s a fashion, a fashion element to it. I think that style has just gone out of fashion. I do think in its hay day. And that’s really how Buzzfeed’s started was that kind of content and, and you know, they’re, I would argue that they’re doing very well. There are lots of counter arguments, certainly financially if they’ve come through some tough times, but they, they are everywhere whether we like it or not. And that’s, that’s where they, and in their heyday, and in that early time, I mean, they, they were finding success with that strategy, with a really young audience that audiences now, you know, our age. But at the time, I do think that was working, you know, just college students and you know, and yeah, millennials in 20 somethings just, just scrolling through seeing that click baity stuff and if that’s what people are going to click on stuff when there’s going through the internet and if everything is like that, then it’s going to get clicked on. So I don’t know. That’s just how I, that’s just how it was, I think.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  I think also that was when the shift happened to basically like editors were getting paid by how many clicks they were driving. Right. And so literally that’s what they did. That was a crazy time for sure. So let’s, let’s go back to fundamentals, right? So let’s forget the click bait. Let’s talk about fundamentals. So audience, creative offer, what do you have any kind of tips or elements? What’s an element of a high performing campaign based off of those three pieces?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah, I can, I’m going to break the rule for a second and actually answer with not one of those three, but then I will answer the question. I promise. I would say, but two fundamentals that are really important that I just don’t want to get lost in this conversation are your onsite experience and and retention, just making sure that you are maximizing lifetime value so we can dig into what those are. But I just like when I think of fundamentals, those are very much part of the picture and have a big impact on paid even if they, even if that relationship isn’t always super direct or obvious, it’s extremely, extremely important. So I will say the, the most important of those three audience, creative and offer, definitely creative and creative is like one, two, three and then it’s the other two.

• 

  

  Josh

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  Josh

  Now I’m, I’m talking specifically about these channels. There are certainly a lot of situations where audiences, most important or creatives most important, but I think if we’re looking at paid ads, your creative strategy is your, is make or break and a lot of it gets back to, to value and trust. So people need to see your ad and think, you know, there’s, there’s so much BS out there, there’s a lot of scammy companies and you know, people just trying to make a buck. People can generally see through that. And you know, people buy with their, and your creative strategy, your, your ad creative, your onsite creative, like everything that is visual needs to resonate in a way that is often intangible. And it’s one of the reasons that I think what is working right now and really across clients is employee generated videos employee generated content or EGC as I call it.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  It’s these, these handheld selfie videos of someone saying sorry someone saying, Hey, this is Josh from WGG consulting. We do digital marketing and we’ve been doing it for a whole, a long time and it’s going really well. That’s not really that great, but it’s that kind of concept that I started this company because, you know, that kind of thing,uworks really well. And I think the reason it works really well is because it is genuine. It’s authentic. It, it has that human connection. Uyou’re able to, like, it’s just a video, but you’re, you’re basically looking that person in the eye and seeing that this is a real person who started a company because they wanted to provide value to other people for a real genuine reason. And that human connection I think is, is what people are looking for because they want to be able to trust the, wherever they’re putting their money, they want to, they want to trust the company.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  And I think that type of creative achieves that. Even if you’re not doing that, that’s where, that’s what good branding is. I’m not a branding expert. I know bad branding when I see it. I know good branding when I see it. I’m not a designer, so I can’t necessarily take it from bad to good, but I do know that when you have good branding, you’re, you’re achieving a level of trust that you can’t achieve with poor branding and poor design. So that’s why anything that is visual, anytime someone interacts with your brand, it needs to look trustworthy. And then the following fundamental to that is you need to be trustworthy. You need to deliver on your promises. We need to provide real value. And that’s how you also start to tap into word of mouth marketing and retention, LTV that, that stuff is all on an upward spiral.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  It helps your SEO, it helps your paid and helps your bottom line and all that. Audience important, but it’s the reason I just don’t rate it that high is because I think it’s, it’s often simple. Creative requires a lot of time and energy and resources, right? Audience usually doesn’t, it’s important, but you could go into a room and do a Oh quick brainstorm session. And that’s, you’re well on your way on Facebook. You’ve got lookalike audiences on Google, you’re going after keywords or, or if it’s school shopping or you know, you’re going out to your people looking for your, for related to your product catalog. And so it’s, it’s not the audience there isn’t important. It’s just that a lot of that you can do, you can usually get away with the most obvious audience strategy and have that be fairly successful for you.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  And after, after you go after the most obvious, you often reach diminishing returns. Most of these platforms, especially Google and Facebook have invested so much in their AI that going broad and letting the algorithms do their do the work for you is often the best strategy. So trying to micromanage the audience strategy may have worked four or five years ago and that really was the best thing even even two, three years ago. But now it’s not the move and you can kind of just go with, with the most obvious audience strategy. And then the off.

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  So it’s almost like the audience is the science and the creative is like the art?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yes. Yes. I definitely think that, especially when you’re starting out, you know, creative as an art at first and then you should be learning and testing and iterating. But you need to, you need to, I’m a big believer in going with gut feelings and best guesses. So you’ve got to start somewhere. And you want to put your best foot forward to start out with and then test a bunch of different creative concepts and go with, you know, iterate on what seems like the winner.

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  Yeah, it makes sense. Very cool. And what about the offer?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  So the offerr, a lot of it comes down to value, I think depending on the sector that we’re talking about. Say let’s take e-comm for example. You know, people love discounts, discounts are not necessary. I, I’m, I’m actually pretty neutral on discounts. I’ve seen them increased conversions and I’ve also seen them not move the needle at all. And in some cases some cases discounts can, can hurt conversions. Right. the situation where a discount would hurt a conversion rate is, again, it comes down to trust. If I have a, if I have an ad that feels like at the yelling at me to like act now and get a discount, I feel like I’m being a hustled. I feel like, what am I missing? What’s the loophole? This, this company doesn’t seem trustworthy if they need my money that bad. Right. And if they’re not focusing on the value that I get out of that purchase so that’s, you know, I’ve, I’ve seen some campaigns or not and I’ve, I’ve taken on some clients where like on day one, that that’s the ads that are live.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  It’s, it’s a lot of all caps and bundle and save and do this and do that. And very just conversions focused. And, and like, if I pay you, then I’ll save money, but why would I pay you in the first place? That’s really the question. So don’t fall into that trap of just, just focusing on discounts. A discount is not a product. A discount is a nice added benefit, a nice reason to buy. Now, if I have other reasons to buy, and that’s why you got to make sure you are focusing on that emotional connection. So with those like those EGC videos I was talking about, you can, you can get in there and say, Hey, this is Josh from WGG consulting. UI started this company to help companies,uachieve profitability through advertising. Uright now I’m doing 50% off your first month with me. Uif you use the code WGG 50,ucheck it out. Let me know what you think. Something like that, that can work really well because it’s coming from a real person. UI hopefully I come across as though I’m not trying to scam you. Uand so that can actually do really well also with e-comm like black Friday. Hell, yeah. Discount

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  Discount all day long. Right.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  And actually that brings up another related point. I’ve seen some brands try to create holidays or do big promotions on holidays. Nobody cares about that usually backfires. You know, we’re doing, we’re doing a big sale for Lincoln’s birthday. We’re super excited about it. Do use the code Lincoln in 75 or 75% off. People were just like, what is this happening? I’ve seen, I had a client do like Christmas in July and do a discount for that and that, that goes back through kind of what I was saying originally. It just people I think read that as scammy that you should have a genuine, the reason for doing a discount. You need to, I think it’s good to be consistent with the norm. Memorial day, labor day, black Friday, Christmas. That’s pretty much all you need for like big holiday focused sales beyond that. Never invent a holiday.

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  That’s great advice. So it really sounds like authenticity is a big piece of it, right? Trustworthiness, authenticity, that really should be in the back of your mind when you’re putting together an offer, whether it’s creative, it doesn’t matter. If you lead with trustworthiness and authenticity and you’re doing it the right way people will feel like they’re not necessarily being sold.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah. Or, and not being tricked.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  And not being tricked. Exactly. Yeah. So back to EGC or employee generated content, do you feel like that is outperforming a lot of other creative out there right now?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yes. Yes. Generally, generally across clients. I, you know, it, it’s not like every EGC will outperform every other type of ad. You know, there’s definitely exceptions, but I would say generally the most effective ads that I’m seeing are EGC ads. In the case of e-commerce, it’s still you, you need to have dynamic retargeting, which is not EGC. So that’s like, that’s, that’s a must. And same with Google shopping, but EGC prospecting videos and static retargeting videos are extremely, extremely effective for, for the reasons that I’ve said. And it’s good. It’s good to have a few different types of creative lives. I think I really only have probably one client that is like all EGC all the time. Pretty much everyone else benefits from a few different types of things where the EGC is like probably our most successful ad, but other types are also successful and add to scale and efficiency. So I’m not even, I’m not recommending that you go all in and only have EGC I just think it’s a really good way to, good thing to test and get a good way to supplement your, your current creative strategy. And I think if it’s well done and under 15 seconds,

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  Yeah. And I could totally see how like your example Josh from WGG consulting I started this company. That’s a great line cause I think, I really believe that that old adage of people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it type of deal. Like why are you doing it? Why is it important to you? Why do you think you can help people? I think that’s so powerful. And that was powerful a hundred years ago and it’s still powerful today, which is really cool that these advertising mediums can change. But there are some universal truths out there that authenticity and the mission are always going to be important in advertising and marketing, which is honestly reassuring because like I’m a big fan of like old school marketing books and that was always a big piece of those. Some things change but some things stay the same, which is again, kind of kind of nice.

  Are there any universal truths for you across all your clients that you can say this one thing stays the same across no matter who I talk to?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Performance will fluctuate within normal distribution. So if you’ve got a 12 month period of that is generally, that is on the whole seen as very successful, chances are you’re going to have at least one incredible month and one terrible month or good and bad. You know, there’s not necessarily a reason behind those that that, or at least not an actionable reason, right? That is the nature of random distribution. Not say that you don’t have any control over the day to day. You can always be optimizing and that’s part of the job, right? But performance fluctuates. And on a similar note most platforms take time to ramp up. I would say pretty much every successful relationship I’ve been a part of, started out pretty bad from a performance standpoint.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Just know that that’s going to happen. Like that’s not, it shouldn’t be a surprise. It should be budgeted for. It should be expected. And it’s just, you, it’s, it’s learning by process of elimination, right? You’re learning what doesn’t work. The algorithm is learning what doesn’t work on most platforms. You’re collecting data and you’re learning. So be prepared for that because it really, that has been a very universal truth. I, if I, if I got fired every time a client panic early in a relationship, I wouldn’t have a business. Because it’s like clockwork. And I’ve, I early on it, it stressed me out, the client stress. So I’m stressed. But I’ve, I realized through doing it dozens of times that it’s, it really is, it’s just how it goes. And so since I’ve been there many times, I’m able to say we’re good. I know the numbers look terrible. I know you’ve got to report to people at your company and they’re on your back about why these numbers are so bad.

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  Stay the course

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah. Stay the course. This is how it goes. And it, I, you know, I, I have a three month minimum when I work with clients and this is really the main reason why is because those first two months can look really bad, but they’re not useless. Bad is not useless. That bad performance is good as long as you’re learning from it. And we are definitely in early in those relationships. We are learning from that bad performance. And I’m not going to lie, we don’t always recover. You know, there are, there are, I definitely have had clients where we just never hit our targets that happens. But even the ones that do hit targets tend to not in that first phase.

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  And you were really good about this with us where you were like, all right, first two to three months will be rough. You were very upfront about it and try to prepare me for it. And I don’t want to call it panic, but yeah, there was a point where I was like, Oh, okay, this is getting interesting. I mean, money’s money, right? There was money out. And you should be seeing something come in. Cfos do not tend to like to see that type of activity. Right? Yeah. So I think the three month minimum is a very important piece to point out for other agencies that especially when you’re onboarding a new client, you need to give it three months to, like you said, stay the course and trust the process and learn.

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  Because like you said, bad is not always all bad. You’re learning and you’re trying to optimize. You’re trying to get to that next step of we’re flipping the switch because it did happen for us very, very much. So. We flipped the switch and went from bad to great and then to amazing. So it’s not all bad. You’re learning, you’re optimizing and it will eventually turn, turn the tide. So let’s go from the bad kind of optimization area to the opposite end of that. What is the most successful campaign you’ve ever been apart?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah, so I would say there’s a whole bunch of, there’s a whole bunch that are tied for first I’ll talk about a specific story which is just a fun one to talk about. And as a as a current client of mine that is, is, is doing very well even amid the pandemic. Spoiler alert. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t name the company just for NDA reasons. They brought me on June 1st of last year and that’s also a good segue cause it’s, it’s, it’s a textbook example of, of what we were just talking about. They brought me on June 1st of last year, three months minimum. Bye. Early July. They wanted to fire me. The performance was terrible. The, the trend lines were going in the wrong direction. They were panicking. Even I was panicking a little bit, you know, we all wanted it to work.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  It wasn’t working. And we were on the verge of negotiating cancellation terms. And I said, listen, just trust me. This is the process. What do we need to do? And, and when I started, I think the ROAS as about 0.6 or 0.7, their target was a 2.0. So they said, we have to hit a ROAS as of 2.0 by the last week of August. And we were at that point, like I said, trendline went, went down and we were probably at like a 0.3, a 0.4 at this point and where the conversation was. And so I said, okay. And so just, you know, we had our test plan. I said, we’re going to, we’re going to do these, we’re gonna test landing pages, we’re going to do our creative strategy. This is when they were doing no EGC. And I said, we’re going to do EGC, I want to test this right now. And we started testing it and it was mostly the creative stuff and a little bit of landing page optimization. And right on time, the last week of August, we hit a ROAS as of 2.0

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  For ROAS for people that don’t know that’s return on ad spend.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah. Return on ad spend. Yep. And that was their, their target based on their margins. And so by the last on the last week of August, we hit it. And fast forward to now it is, it’s April, you know, mid April. And there has only been one week since where we have not hit that target. And it was the first big week of, of the outbreak when the NDA was canceled. And I think everybody was just extra freaked out and nobody was buying anything. But until, until a month ago, we hit it every consecutive week. And it was mostly through, I mean, first of all, I’m grateful that they put their trust in me and in that time where they were definitely panicked and, and you know, on the verge of, of trying to get out of the contract but they instead decided, okay, we’re gonna let him do his thing and trust his advice.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  And that was, I really appreciated that. And they also, you know, we did the EGC that we did. They didn’t just send one video and then say, okay, here’s your dumb video. Like, go launch it. We did a lot of rounds of feedback where I said, okay, actually can you try it, you know, like this instead and take out this word. And things like that. They were very willing to iterate and spend the time to create the, the right creative and and iterate on things. And, and that made a huge, huge difference. Not just there trust, but also that they devoted time into trying to make it work and develops landing pages and things like that. So that, that’s been a really gratifying relationship. I mean, once you go from that low of a low, it’s an incredible, I mean, it’s now a phenomenal relationship. You know, I, I, I’m very grateful for their trust in that relationship and I love using that example because of how low it’s got. We had to go through that, that panic mode and and it just, by trusting the process and, and doing a whole bunch of testing, we got to where we want it to be and it’s now an extremely successful campaign.

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  That’s such a good story. I mean, yeah, especially when you’re on verge of cancellation. That’s crazy.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Totally like a dive and catch, honestly. Yeah.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Give me the profile of that company were they e-commerce? What were they?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  That’s a consumer company. Yeah. eCommerce. Ecommerce actually it’s really beautiful. Yeah. They have a big retail presence. I only do e-commerce for them. But they have a huge retail presence.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  So let’s dive into channels quickly. So give me your top three paid channels that B2B companies should focus on as far as ROI is concerned.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah, that’s, that’s definitely easy. It’s, it’s what probably most people assume I’m going to say, which is Google, Facebook, LinkedIn I would say actually usually in that order which I think sometimes surprises people depending on, you know, what they expect, you know, right now we’re finding a lot of success on Facebook, which is awesome. I would say I, I’m usually able to find success on Facebook though. It can be hit or miss. It’s, it’s, and it’s generally a longer ramp up period because you’re going out and finding people. Whereas Google, you can just look at obvious keywords and there’s also long tail keywords which are, which can be really important. But in a situation without a lot of enterprise SAS is in or even you know, mid, mid size plus, there’s so much competition for some of these keywords that testing anything is, is very slow and expensive and especially if it’s low volume.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  So Google is often high conversion rates, Mmm. And low volume. Whereas Facebook can often be the opposite, low conversion rates, high volume, if you can get it, the volume you can generally control that conversion rate can be, can be really tough. And that’s what takes a lot of a lot of testing. The reason I’m, I’ve left LinkedIn out so far other than including it in that top three, it’s just because it is also very expensive to me in those early days. It’s kind of the worst of both worlds where it’s expensive and low volume, right. And, and low conversion rates. So it’s like, you know, on day one, I like to avoid LinkedIn. It’s really good. Once you’ve done a whole bunch of testing on Google and Facebook, you have a good idea of what works in terms of a funnel and a content offering. And a creative strategy, apply that to LinkedIn, you’re probably going to find success there. It’s just doing R and D on LinkedIn to me is usually not a good idea and is a good way to burn through some cash. But once you, once you’re ad strategies a little bit more mature, going to LinkedIn is a great next step to add both scale and efficiency.

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  And I love love the order you put them on because most SaaS companies depending on what stage they’re in, the CEOs and CMOs will say our ‘audience is on LinkedIn’ or should be on LinkedIn, yada, yada, yada and Oh man, they’re not wrong. But they’re not necessarily taking into account how much it’s going to cost you to get to the audience.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yeah. And let me just address that. I hear that one all the time.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Yeah

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Our audiences on LinkedIn? Yeah. Okay. Fair. Also, the entire planet is on Facebook.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  That’s exactly right.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  They use Facebook or Instagram, that’s where your audience is. That’s not where your audience is, like posting as someone in that works for that company. That’s perfectly fair and true. But that is where your audience is. And, and if you think your audience is not on Facebook, then you know, you’re, I, I think, well, to put it bluntly, you’re just wrong because everybody, everybody uses those platforms.

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  Would you say that’s the most misunderstood thing on the B2B side? Is to lead with LinkedIn?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Yes, there’s, there’s, I think a bunch of misunderstood things, but that’s certainly one of them. I think LinkedIn is overestimated and you know, I’m sure people are gonna watch this and, and comment and say, we did LinkedIn as our first thing and it was the most successful decision we ever made. And like, I’m sure there’s a lot of success stories out there. I’m not bashing LinkedIn. I’m, I’m just saying, I don’t think, I think for most companies and most situations it’s, it’s, I would not recommend it as a starting point.

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  Ian

  478

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  Ian

  Right. And I think that makes total sense. Like you said, optimize and test on Google and Facebook at a cheaper cost to make creative and your audience is correct. And then push it over to LinkedIn to, to reap the rewards of the optimization. That’s, that’s a really good point. So let’s go on the other side, right? So pure play e-commerce. What are your top three channels?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Facebook, Google, Pinterest. Pinterest is, well, I’ll, I’ll start with Pinterest first because it’s probably the most surprising. It’s very hit or miss. It really depends on your demographic. Pinterest skews. Middle aged women tend to be a little bit less on the, on the coast. And it’s a long, it’s generally more, more aging, a longer sales cycle, even for e-com. So it’s not for everyone. I’ve run lots of failed Pinterest campaigns and lots of extremely successful Pinterest campaigns, so it is fairly polar, but it’s, it’s often a very good place to start.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Interesting.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Let’s back up for a second though. Facebook and Google really, like though, they should be the top four because, you know, they’re the, they’re the two biggest for a reason. But between Google shopping alone is so good. As long as you have a good product catalog that you’re optimizing and, and you know, devoting care to then, then Google shopping, you could, you could not run any text ads and probably find success on Google shopping alone, but adding text ads just to take up more real estate. And, and sometimes a lot of people just, just like those text ads, they tend to do really well. That’s really, really good. And Facebook or the instant gratification of Facebook is one of the many reasons I love it as a channel that you know, it’s, you can really control the volume very easily.

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  Josh

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  And I love it because it’s such a visual platform. So it’s a, it’s a place to tell your story and that doesn’t mean brand awareness campaigns. You should be telling your story in conversions campaign where the expectation is that people will purchase and have a profitable return on ad spend. But that’s still, it allows you for more of that, whether it’s CGC or a high end brand video, you know, whatever, whatever is working there’s a lot more of the emotional resonance feature and element that you then, then you get on on Google. So that’s why I really enjoy, I’m working on Facebook because of that creative element. It’s not just words, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, visuals and stories.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  When you said Facebook, does that include Instagram and Facebook or just Facebook?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Facebook includes Instagram. I always will include, you can select placements within the Facebook.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Well, when I’m doing those with, with very, very, very few exceptions, none of which I can even think of right now. The and, and a good example, you know, Instagram stories as an ad placement is really taking off right now. One of my, one of my clients happens to be one of the travel clients that actually is, is, has ads off right now. But before this hit they were seeing two thirds of their conversions from Instagram stories and that was on auto placements. That’s, that’s a brand that skews feminine. They’re very visual, very very direct to consumer brand looking. And so it is the type of their customer is the type of demographic that I think people expect to be on Instagram stories. But I’ve never seen, I’ve never seen numbers like that, that that is an outlier. And that’s at decent scale that the, the, the Instagram story ROAS was probably like a three or a four. And, and that’s difficult to achieve and I, it supports a lot of what I’m saying and Oh, and there’s that strategy was, was pretty much highly EGC and UGC

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Really. Wow.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  That combination of UGC and GC on Instagram stories, which even within the Facebook universe, Instagram stories is notably visual. It’s more visual than, than even, you know, other placements. And more about storytelling. That really is, is some proof of concepts that, that I think a lot of people are looking for that, you know, if you have a message that resonates especially from people that have given you money before it can work really, really well.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Really interesting stuff. So I was surprised by the Pinterest piece, so thanks for clarifying that. That was really cool to hear. We’ve worked together on the B2B side, so I wasn’t necessarily surprised by your list, but I think some people may be. Any different between like for example, a mix of e-commerce and brick and mortar. So a business that has both any difference on the list or you think it’s pretty much locked in?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  I think Facebook invested a lot in their offline conversions tool, so it could be an argument to prioritizing Facebook. Google has one as well, but Facebook’s is better. And just to kind of define what that is, it basically means that you use some kind of data around who goes into your store, feed it back to Facebook, and they tell you who saw an ad to help you with attribution. There’s really, there’s at least two ways to do it. There might be some features that that are newer that I haven’t used, but there’s at least two features. One is some kind of a manual upload. So a list based way of doing it where you get a bunch of, say you ask for emails when people purchase, right? They’ve got the little square app you put in your email, right? So you’re collecting those, you can give those emails with their information back to Facebook as a long list.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  And Facebook will tell you who, who saw an ad. You can also do it based on GPS. So there’s a lot of, when I was in social fulcrum, I was lucky enough to work with BJ’s wholesale club and this is not confidential. There’s lots of, they’ve done lots of case studies on it. Usocial fulcrum and BJ’s actually worked together as really the, the pioneers of this particular feature within Facebook, which is now,ulike out of beta testing and you know, offered on a large scale where they, BJ’s has the advantage of having huge stores that are generally isolated. So if you go into a BJ’s parking lot, you’re not really there for anything else. And you compare it, you compare that to a shopping mall where that’s not true. I could be at, I could be at depth, but I could, my visit could be attributed to the UNTUCKit store or whatever.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  So because of that, he just is able to use GPS data for ad attribution so they could say this person not, yeah. Not based on their their an email that we uploaded based on where their phone has been. We can tell whether that person saw an ad and we assume if they’re, if they went close to a BJ’s a store, then they, they probably saw an ad. And so if you have either of those retail capabilities to take advantage of offline conversions, then it could be a reason to invest more in Facebook than you otherwise might because you’re probably going to see a lot more conversions. It’s a little bit different for BJ’s. They own their own stores. If you are in third party retailers, then that gets pretty difficult. Yeah, a little fuzzier. And though those, those partners are, I mean I’m, I’m e-commerce direct to consumer at heart.

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  Josh

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  When it comes to the, the B2C space. So for me, if I’m running a company, like I don’t like the idea that people can buy something, buy my product on Amazon or from CVS and I don’t have their information. I want to be able to develop a direct relationship with that person. So my argument is generally like invest in your own owned channels as, as they say, because that’s going to be better for LTV and retention. It’s not always an option, not always the smartest thing, but as a generalization. Mmm. That’s, I would recommend investing more in your direct to consumer channels.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  And I’ll ask the stupid question for everybody that’s listening. How do they get the GPS coordinates? Is that because people have the Facebook app installed on their phone?

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  Josh

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  Yes, yes. I don’t know. I don’t know a ton about that, but that’s basically the nature of it is. Yeah, they had use my location. Facebook has a lot to use my location and and that’s about it. I think it’s as simple as that.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  So as an ad guy, I’m going to make you an ad guy right now. How does that make you feel? Do you have Facebook on your phone?

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  Josh

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  I do. Yeah. It makes me feel fine. I’ve accepted that the world we live in, you know, and, and really if you get way on the idealistic side of things, Mmm. The what people, what companies are trying to do with my information is provide value to me like this an optimistic standpoint. Absolutely. but you can accepts the premise for a moment that the purpose of a business is to provide value where, where there was none or was less. Uthat, that’s all I’m allowing. When I, when I give my information to one of these companies, like I’m, I’m fairly free with my information to be totally honest. So,uand I welcome getting retargeted and getting prospected by companies that I could be interested in because that’s more like I, I’m a, I’m a big boy. I can decide for myself whether or not I actually want to purchase, but the fact that Hmm, a lot of my digital experience is really tailored to my, my preferences and my behaviors. For me that’s a benefit of using these platforms and not some like scary downside to or like a scary price that I have to pay for being able to use the platform. I think it’s, it’s quite the contrary and uI think the ads I see are generally things I’m interested in and yeah, most of the time I decide not to buy, but every once in awhile I say, you know what, actually this seems valuable to my life and I’m going to go ahead and purchase it.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Great. I have one final question on the whole tracking thing. So this is going to maybe paint me as a crackpot conspiracy theorist, but I’ve had scenarios.

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  Josh

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  I don’t know. The answer to your question is, I don’t know. I don’t know how it works, but go ahead.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  I’ve had scenarios where I’ve never looked up a product online, but I’ve talked about it and I’m wondering if there is the ability to process language and then retarget based off of that?

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  Josh

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  Josh

  I knew, I knew that’s what you were going to ask. And I genuinely don’t know. They don’t, they don’t tell us.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  They don’t tell you that I figured that. I’m pretty sure that’s the thing!

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  Josh

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  Yeah. I also am pretty sure it’s a thing, but I have no insight or knowledge to base on. I have no, no trade secrets supporting that. It’s just, I as a user have seen that as well. But as an advertiser there’s no, there’s certainly no audience that’s like people that have said this word out loud.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Yeah

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  Josh

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  Josh

  And, and Facebook would, would never admit to it, although I think there’s enough, there’s enough anecdotal evidence that I, I think it’s, it’s not coincidental.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Oh, I’ll keep wearing my a tinfoil hat then. All right, so a lightning round. Let’s, let’s finish up here. So what are your favorite marketing books or podcasts people should listen to?

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  Josh

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  Favorite marketing book of all times, right in front of me. Not a marketing book specifically, but I still my answer tipping point.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  That’s a good one.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  To me, just like really how I approach my approach a high level marketing campaign, how I’m finding people, how I’m tailoring the message. He gets right to the heart of that Ogilvy on advertising classic you know, really get to the creative side. 10 day MBA,

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Oh, nice

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  Josh

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  But I think understanding as much as possible about business is always going to help marketing and there’s a whole marketing chapter in there. But especially for me, it’s one thing if you’re just, it’s not just, I don’t mean in a derogatory way, but if you were a, an in house marketing manager at at a, at a brand, sometimes it might matter less. But I think the more you know about what everybody else is doing, the more effective you can be at your job. For me, me to be able to speak finance language with a CFO and strategy language with a CEO like that makes me a better marketer and makes me more equipped to to deliver on expectations and to really get at the heart. Like when I get that, that panicked phone call in month two, Joshua freaking out.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Like I don’t, I’m not only looking at it like what, but our marketing campaign is smart. I’m like, okay, I can understand who reports to who and why this affects next months projections and all those sorts of things, which are really, really important. So understanding like the core of, of business w is, is, is I think so, so crucial. So 10 day MBA and for that same reason Harvard business review, just, just read it every couple months. Same exact thing. I, I go straight to the any marketing article, but I’m also looking for any high level strategy, article, anything like that that could even at tangential way apply to what I’m doing. I think just whole idea of cross training is extremely important. I’ve, I would say I’ve learned more about marketing from non-marketing books than from marketing books. Ogilvy on advertising is a good one. A couple of these like hacking growth is solid. Oh, two other really, really important ones.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Also go into cross training. They’re very similar books so you probably only need to read one, but one is called if I understood you, would I have this look on my face? Which is by Alan Alda of all people, the actor.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  (Laughter) Oh yeah, yeah.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  And the the other book very similar. It’s called the yes. And which is by the second city. The, the improv.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Yeah. The improv troupe. Yeah. Yeah.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  What both books get at is they’re about community communicating, clearly communicating complex ideas clearly. And both of them look at improv as a model for how to communicate and emphasize. Empathy is at the core of good communication and marketing is all about communication. And so you, you need to be able to really understand not just the people in front of you, but your customers and your, you know, your buyers, your entire market, your demographic personas, whatever words you want to use, you need to be listening to them. You need to mirror them. And if, if they give you any kind of feedback or if anybody gives you any kind of feedback, respond with yes and, you know, don’t say no, but that’s, that’s, that’s the killer or, or even yes. But

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  Josh

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  And we can also build on it this way and there’s a million examples of it. Both books do a really good job of exploring this idea of how to communicate in a way that is productive and builds on the original statement. And it can be a literal statement or a figurative statement. I mean user behavior is, that’s communication. It’s nonverbal, but it’s communication. If you see that people are not buying a certain product yes, and we can do this thing about it. You know, that’s, that’s, that’s people are telling you something by not buying that one thing, even though they’re buying other things. So I, I would read at least one of those two books if I had to choose, I’d probably say that Alan, all the book, but it’s close there. They’re both great.

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  Ian

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  All right. Those are two really, really powerful concepts and I want to unpack them but we’re almost out of time, I want to reiterate to the audience that those two things are so, so important. So I work for feedback company and empathy is big, right? So 100% there with you on that and the other, which, which is a great point too that you have to understand the other elements of a business. So if I could tell any of the young marketers out there that would be one of the biggest pieces of advice I would give them is understand things outside of marketing. Understand how these things impact other departments of the business. Understand what drives motivations and other departments of the business. That’s how you climb the ladder. I’ll never forget, I’ve talked to a couple of coworkers at previous jobs where the kind of the sentiment was like, this is my job.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  I’m going to do this and keep my head down. I don’t really want to get involved over there. It’s just like, that’s fine, but you’re not understanding the business as much as you should number one. And number two, you’re missing opportunities to interact with other departments and grow. And that’s if I could attribute my career growth to one thing, it’s like trying to cross the aisle and understanding the motivations and the pains of these other departments and trying to help in any way I can as a marketer, solve that and make the business a better place to work or make the business better in general and grow it faster. That’s, that’s such a good point, man. So thank you for bringing that up.

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  Ian

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  Ian

  All right, so we’re almost on time, Josh, It’s been amazing talking to you today on this Marketing Strategy Talk. Where can people find you? Shout out some plugs right now.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Oh yeah, I’m on LinkedIn. Josh Chopak or WGG consulting. I’ve got my own LinkedIn and Facebook pages for that though. I’ll be honest, I don’t update them a ton. My website’s WGGconsulting.com if you just want to learn more about who I am and what I do you can shoot me an email, [email protected].

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  Ian

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  Ian

  Josh, thanks again. We’ll talk soon.

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  Josh

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  Josh

  Ian, my man, thanks so much for having me. It’s been awesome.