Speaker 1: 0:01

Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. With me, as always, is Mark Goldhart. Mark Goldhart, how are you, my friend?

Speaker 2: 0:12

Doing great, colleague. Co-host. Yeah, glad to be here, excited Episode 100. Episode 100. Thanks for everyone.

Speaker 1: 0:20

Thank you for everybody who's joined in. We've been doing this now for two and a half years. Right, we started in November of 2021. I was just telling Mark it seems like it took us forever to get to 100 episodes, yet I feel like we were recording all the time.

Speaker 2: 0:36

But 100 episodes. I think the hardest thing is you start getting stuck in a routine which is a lot of what we help or try to help with companies, right? Is how to break out of marketing routines, which is routines are great, but sometimes you get stuck in in a monotonous flow.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 0:55

And so I think uh, we too are trying to better this. That's why we want you to go take that survey. Yep, Help us out. Yeah absolutely Cause. We want to provide better content for you. 100 and be honest too yeah, we're not looking for pats on the back no, we don't.

Speaker 1: 1:13

We'd actually rather have the opposite yeah, we just want yeah, we. If you're a listener, we already know you like it yeah we just want to know what we can do to make it better mark, and I already have some like really cool changes that we're talking with our producers about, that we think we're going to make. But, uh, would love to get some feedback from you guys. As you know, we are we like to survey people, so we like to ask you guys what you want.

Speaker 1: 1:33

Give us the feedback. Yep, this is what we discussed today. So we have a few questions already that have that. Have that came in last night, hopefully I'm seeing I'm seeing a red bubble on our IG live, so it looks like there are questions coming in right now.

Speaker 1: 1:46

Um, so we are going to answer some of those questions towards the end, but what Mark and I really really wanted to do was, as we kind of talked about what a fun episode would look like not just a fun one, but a very valuable episode would look like today is us going through the last 99 episodes and picking out some of our favorite principles, one-liners, concepts that are going to be detrimental, if you're not following them, to your progress into 2024 and into 2025. So it's like these are the must do things If you want your market, your marketing team, your brand, your business to succeed and not either one go stagnant or start to go down. That's, that's how we define things, cause there are. So just to let you know, there are. I mean, we had I think we had over 50 guests in the last 99 episodes. Maybe it's over 45. I can't remember. I couldn't remember the count, but we've had over let's call it over 45 guests who've all brought so much heat.

Speaker 1: 2:52

I know you and I, just together, have brought some sometimes even more heat, because on the guests we're trying to get, you know, we're trying to learn more about them, whereas like when you and I talk, it's just like straight, this is how you can get better kind of stuff, you know. So there's a lot of content that we had to go through, but it was fun to kind of go through everything and pick out and highlight some of our favorites. So what we're going to do is we're just going to kind of go like one by one and we'll riff off of each other, uh, on things you should do. So you want to go first, or you want me to go first? Please me, I am the oldest, you're the oldest I am the oldest, the oldest goes first.

Speaker 1: 3:28

Yeah, oldest, oldest goes first. Okay, I'm gonna go with one that is like has stand the the test of time, like this isn't anything that is new, but it's like. It's like a. It's like the pick and roll in basketball it just never gets old. You should just always be incorporating that play.

Speaker 1: 3:51

And this was brought up by two different people. I'm sure it was brought up by more people, but Sarah Ebert from Press Floral she's the founder of Press Floral, which is like a take your wedding bouquet and we turn it into art and then Thomas Higgumy higgum from lola blankets. So one of the things that they brought up was how important it was to always have either the founder or founding team or somebody in charge of making sure that their product was flawless and always progressing and always getting better, because they are both. Lola blankets is a blanket company, makes the coziest blankets on earth, in my opinion. And press floral we.

Speaker 1: 4:32

I've never used them, but their artwork is amazing. But what they talk a ton about is like they have, like it's so easy to have competitors who come in and undercut your prices and and under you know, try to take over your branding and do all this stuff and at the end of the day, there's not a whole ton unless you have intellectual property that you can sue them or go after them, for which most people do not. Obviously there's, there's brands out there with that kind of technology, but most people are not in that situation where they're like, hey, somebody's creating a blanket like ours, I'm going to sue them, unless it's like the snuggie or something like that, and you have something proprietary.

Speaker 1: 5:13

So what they just said is like stop focusing on what your competitors are doing and be so focused on what your customers love about your product and making it better, and so I think I think that's the number one on my list, because I think, like I just don't think people are focused enough on that.

Speaker 2: 5:29

I love that.

Speaker 1: 5:30

What do you think? Anything you'd want to add?

Speaker 2: 5:33

No, I love the idea that founders the C-suite, if you will, depending on how big your company is like everyone needs to have a hand in the product because ultimately, the product is the user experience. Right Marketing is the perception of the brand. Like you are creating an expectation of what a customer can have with your brand, but the product is what's going to elevate that user experience, to create repeats.

Speaker 1: 6:01

Totally.

Speaker 2: 6:01

And with the rising cost of acquisition, acquisition you have to have your product experience nailed down yeah, that's a huge one.

Speaker 1: 6:08

I didn't even touch on that, like if you're not getting people to come back and repeat or and, and you might not have a repeatable business. So, like pressed floral, I know that they've made their business repeatable where they can do other things, but I would imagine that their returning customer rate is probably not higher than 20 if I had to bet but yeah, because people don't go through those kinds of life when their main thing is a flower bouquet for their wedding?

Speaker 2: 6:34

yeah, you know, I do know. A funeral, you know, yeah, that's not happening every year yeah, I guess, I guess.

Speaker 1: 6:40

But word of divorce rate is 50. So maybe, maybe, but but exactly word of mouth, right? So it's either repeat customer rate. Or are those people saying you know my wife, for example? Hey, you know one of the first things she says to her sister who's getting married make sure you work with press floral, you know. So you have to have either have a product good enough that people are going to come back and buy or they're going to refer family, friends, colleagues, whatever.

Speaker 2: 7:05

And it can be both too. Obviously, I love it. Mine is going to be from Karen at Lulu Co. Oh, I don't have a one-liner. I don't. I'm not a one-liner guy, but the principle that she taught so well and that would help them succeed is having empathy for your customers. So something that she did is she had these lives where she would get on with moms, but she would coordinate this at times that moms could be on with her.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:29

Right, so it was like at night is usually like the best time even though that's not the best time to be on for like a general audience, she was getting on in these particular times that resonated with her target customer, which is new moms.

Speaker 1: 7:44

What's cool about that is I actually remember when we were in our Fawn design days, she wasn't doing that, so before she was doing it, like midday or something like that, and I always remember thinking that's really cool. And then she came on and she's like I started doing it at night, like after I put my kids to bed, right. Wasn't she saying stuff which was very, probably, very inconvenient for her, which was very, probably, very inconvenient for her?

Speaker 2: 8:06

yes, very inconvenient as a business owner like, yeah, you only have so many hours in the day, but she would get on yeah because that was the time that moms wanted a sense of community and like people going through the same struggle. And so when I say empathy, how this can relate to every brand is I'm not talking about like the sappy, like you feel bad with someone all the time, sure?

Speaker 1: 8:25

the like.

Speaker 2: 8:25

Having empathy is just being able to put yourself in in your customer's shoes by understanding them and adjusting your marketing and your community, building around what their needs actually are. Yeah, sometimes that's like, hey, maybe people just want a good time. Liquid death their whole branding right is about a good time. Yeah, chubbies, mr rutherford yeah that's just a good time, and rutherford actually is another great one about having empathy for the customer. Like it was all about dude. All these guys are just stuck in a cubicle for eight hours a day.

Speaker 1: 9:00

Yes, this sucks like nobody wants to be in an office for eight hours a day.

Speaker 2: 9:02

Yes, this sucks. Like nobody wants to be in an office for eight hours a day. I mean, some people do know, right? No shame to you, but let's, let's celebrate Like when we all get to go out and be with the, with the boys, or go out and have fun with the friends and the family, get in the sun.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:17

That was Chubby's brand, yeah, and so he built that off of having empathy for this common experience that everyone was having.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Well, this wasn't one of mine, but I just want to add to it the same way you just did, is Jacques Spitzer. When he came on like two years ago, his one liner was it's not about your why, it's about their why, which is all about empathy in my opinion, right so. But the question is is like, how do you get to know what their why is? Yeah, you got to find a way to get to know what their why is. Yeah, like you gotta find a way to get to know what their why is, and that's something that karen did a really good job at is my guess.

Speaker 1: 9:52

I can't remember if she said this in the episode, but my guess is she probably they were just got a bunch of feedback as, as people were on the live, they were probably like, oh, I have to go, I gotta go pick up my kids, or oh, I wish you could do this later, i'm'm sure. Or or sending them DMS. But they they probably felt comfortable enough because she was literally going live weekly with them. Where, where they felt comfortable DMing her or just putting it in the comments Like, hey, I wish you would do this at this time. I'm get. I'm guessing that's probably how she discovered, like hey, I need to switch my times up here.

Speaker 2: 10:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:21

So I love the empathy piece, like I think that getting to know your customers is also huge.

Speaker 2: 10:27

Um, because it's just like, once again, like brands are a dime a dozen but in both but in both of those situations it goes back to the owner right. The founder had a vested interest in taking care of the customer. Yeah so, karen, and then with, even with, preston Rutherford, the third no, I think we were just joking around that.

Speaker 1: 10:49

That's what would be cool.

Speaker 2: 10:51

They were both founders. They had a vested interest, not just from a business perspective, but they genuinely wanted people to feel a certain kind of way.

Speaker 1: 11:01

Yes, yes, very much so of way.

Speaker 2: 11:09

Yes, yes, very much so. And that goes back to the product.

Speaker 1: 11:11

Look at us, you want people to feel and have a good experience. So I love it. I love it. My second one I'm gonna go with jake carls, who was the. He is the co-founder of midday squares, and we talk about midday squares. I'm sure we bring them up like every other episode. At least I do, because I'm you do I'm I've counted they're just nailing it right but, he.

Speaker 1: 11:32

He just said, like I don't think I have a one-liner, but all he talked about was essentially the the. The message was like hey, the most important person, person online is someone who can tell a story and they've done such a great job at garnering attention. They're a chocolate company like hershey's and mars, and you you name any other chocolate company like have you ever consumed a piece of their content? Like no, it's the same thing with like a soda company Like I've never consumed a piece of-.

Speaker 2: 12:07

I mean, I love those M&M commercials, but yeah, yeah. Haven't seen an M&M commercial in a while.

Speaker 1: 12:13

I mean, but like you're not on social media, like jonesing for a piece of content, from M&M's right.

Speaker 1: 12:19

So and that goes along with a lot of those bigger brands, like the soda brands they're not garnishing organic attention at all. They're paying lots of money because they have the capital to do a Super Bowl commercial or to do just a commercial in general, but what Midday Squares realizes is that they are the underdog in a very, very, very small market. Acquisition costs, especially in the CPG space, are oftentimes some of the highest in the industry when I say it's really competitive because there's high lifetime values.

Speaker 1: 12:52

Yeah, exactly and and and meta and tiktok and those advertising platforms understand that, and so you're paying oftentimes more money per yeah whether they understand that or it's just simply supply demand exactly right, it's probably both.

Speaker 1: 13:06

So their big way, to you know, crack the code and to sell and to get attention was to to tell stories. And so they have invested so much time into crafting very interesting stories. And these stories aren't. They're not talking about chocolate all the time. They do like they tell store, but they're just talking about their business. They're talking about individuals, you know. They're talking about things like how the husband, like it's a husband, wife and brother who all own it together, and so they tell us stories about how hard it is for the three of them to work together. They tell stories about how their marriage almost failed because they work together. They tell stories about how their website got hacked by a porn site. They talk I mean, it's just interesting stories and it doesn't really matter what the story is, it just matters how you tell it.

Speaker 1: 14:00

And if you can tell a story interestingly enough, you are going to get attention. So I think that's a to me, like that's mission critical. I think there are so many brands who've stepped away from organic content creation because they think that it's impossible. I mean, I complain about it all the time, like my stuff doesn't get half the traction it used to on TikTok or Instagram and I get so pissed about it. But at the end of the day, like I can point the finger at Instagram and I can point the finger at TikTok, and I like to do that from time to time but like I also just have to like, look inwardly and be like, am I telling interesting enough stories? And the answer is probably not, if I'm not getting the attention.

Speaker 2: 14:41

And you're not starting them off right. Going back to hooks. Yeah, yeah, or that right Right and or we have quite a few comments that have come through. Is it comments?

Speaker 1: 14:50

Yeah, we've had some comments, Brett Swenson shout out right.

Speaker 2: 14:53

He said he wants to know what we think about the election impact this year.

Speaker 1: 14:57

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:05

Right. Data driven around media costs an overall option. That's a good question, so that's a good one. Yeah, however, I was gonna say something that stuck out was jt barnett. Right, he emphasized you want to explain who he is jt barnett, he is the. He is an influencer. Right, he built up a pretty solid tiktok following the creator house, what was it called? That's kind of how we got it the honey house, the honey house yes, it was like a content creator house.

Speaker 2: 15:26

Yes, okay, uh, owns creator x that he helps facilitate brands and creators to sync up and form long-term partnerships. Yes, so that people can have brands can have a face of the brand and we've worked with them and they've been awesome yeah, with some of our clients they've been incredible, but with organic content, he's.

Speaker 2: 15:42

He emphasizes that a lot of clients They've been incredible, but with organic content he's he emphasizes that a lot of people just are always chasing a trend, which, yes, there are trends that you should, you should jump on Right. However, he says you really have to formulate your story in an authentic, engaging way.

Speaker 1: 15:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:58

And that's what sets good creators apart and good brands apart from the mediocre and less known ones. Yeah, so you can always be chasing one right, right the trends, but ultimately, if you're telling your story in the right ways, in an authentic way, maybe you don't have the biggest reach, but you have the right intent, and we talk about that. Sometimes reach is not as important as intent, and sometimes you have to do both. Yeah yeah, but yeah, JT Barnett and his methodology. He's helped blow up quite a few brands with their organic strategies.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Yeah, he was one of the. If I remember right, he was one of the masterminds behind Poppy. Yes, like really, really scaling.

Speaker 2: 16:40

Helping Poppy on the TikTok side and when I say mastermind.

Speaker 1: 16:43

He didn't do it. He scaling, helping poppy. And when I say mastermind, he didn't do he he helped them understand that they needed to tell stories and that's what helped them blow up, in fact, the story. If I remember right, they went on shark tank and he said that when he talked to the founder and said, hey, tell your founding story because she had this gut health like you know they I think they were doing the trending stuff yeah and he said tell your founding story.

Speaker 1: 17:04

You have this gut health journey that helped you build this drink that helps other people out, and that video alone on social media made them more money than Shark Tank airing did.

Speaker 2: 17:16

That's incredible. Which is crazy? Just her telling the story of her gut health.

Speaker 1: 17:21

Organic storytelling.

Speaker 2: 17:23

Organic storytelling and, ultimately, as we jump into some of these questions and start answering some stuff. But I think the trend going into 2025 is going to be even more about human connectedness, and that's what all of these themes really boil down to. Themes really boil down to if you if you're going to distill it into one concept it's ai is going to continue to take on more and more opportunities in a company right, it's going to help you do a lot of things, but at the end of the day, humans want to connect with humans totally and products and services are a way to facilitate that connectedness. Yeah, that's not to take away like, yes, materialism, whatever, we can have that conversation another day. But a love language for a lot of people is gift giving, right, like, I'm not going to say that's bad, right, having something is a way to connect with other people.

Speaker 1: 18:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:19

Right. Wearing a certain brand is a way to connect with other people. That's why people have brand loyalty. It ends up it's less about the brand and more how they feel connected to that brand with other people.

Speaker 1: 18:30

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2: 18:32

And I think that's going to end up being the big trend is how do you, in your storytelling and your marketing, hook them right, which can be clickbaits. So everyone complains about clickbaits, but then everyone keeps clicking on them. So it's true, I don't know if it's really a bad thing anymore yeah, clickbait as long as you provide the value yeah, yeah right, you can be clickbaity and provide value. Yeah, um, but it's all about? Are you establishing that connectedness? Are you, are you helping them in a way that makes them and their life better?

Speaker 1: 19:04

yep I like that one. Um, should we go one more each and then answer answer questions? Do you think we have enough questions that we, or do you want to go two more each?

Speaker 2: 19:12

we got some good questions that I think we can tie in to some of these, to some of these let me at least go one more.

Speaker 1: 19:20

yeah, because we've like a lot of the ones we've talked about just like kind of like fit in with each other. You know, they're almost like, we're almost kind of like saying very similar things, but this one's a little bit different. That, I think, is really important, mark, and I had a really good episode. It was just recently that we talked about niching. Remember that episode where, like, how important it is to niche, um, so I think if you're starting a brand, um, um, it's either niching or niching. So we talked about it two different ways. You can have a niched product or a niched audience, um, and sometimes it's both.

Speaker 1: 19:53

And my comment is stemming from Chris Hall, who was the he's the CMO over at Bruce Bolt, which is like a baseball batting gloves, and something that he said that shocked me was I can't remember when I was interviewing him, I said something like yeah, so your audience is baseball players, and he's like no, it's not baseball players. And I'm like they're baseball batting gloves, like baseball players seems like a very niched market when you just think about it, you know. And he's like we are travel ball, like our niche market is the travel baseball community, which is people who play baseball year round, so it's not little leaguers. It's like, for example, my son loves baseball but he does not play baseball year round. He's a little leaguer. But my neighbor, he's a travel baller and he owns three pairs of Bruce Bolt gloves.

Speaker 2: 20:42

Right.

Speaker 1: 20:43

And part of the reason why is because these people it costs a lot of money to do travel ball, so parents are so much more willing to spend money on things that they believe will help impact the performance of their kids.

Speaker 2: 20:57

They're already four grand deep. What's?

Speaker 1: 20:58

yeah, oh, much more than four grand that's a couple hundred on a on.

Speaker 2: 21:02

Yeah, exactly gloves.

Speaker 1: 21:04

So so niching your either product will be very, very helpful, especially as acquisition costs rise, um, or niching into an audience. What another audience? Uh, like this was brett swenson from kizik, like one of the things, the one of the ways they started out. It wasn't necessarily a niche product because it's shoes, but they be. But the problem they solved was to two different audience types that were very niched. One was well, it started out with just old people, old people and then pregnant women and then evolved into pregnant women now they're serving.

Speaker 1: 21:41

I mean, you're wearing them right now and you are not old and you are not pregnant and no, but I don't like to wear my shoes in the house, and these are much easier to get on to go take the garbage out and then take them off on. Yeah but a brilliant way for I mean the shoe market is. So I mean the baseball glove market probably is not that saturated. I mean you have some dominators like wilson's and the spallding's and the Franklin's that probably dominate that market the same way like a basketball.

Speaker 1: 22:07

Yeah you know like. But the shoe market is crazy, like between the Nikes and the Jordans and the all birds that you know. I guess they're not a huge one anymore, but you know what I'm saying? Yeah, so for them to be like hey, if we want to enter the market, let's go for old people, let's go for pregnant women. That was such an awesome entrance into them becoming a nine-figure brand who are now doing other bigger, cooler things.

Speaker 2: 22:32

Speaking of Kizik, too, and Brett, there's Alex. We've got to throw out what he said, which is sales, follow, search.

Speaker 1: 22:40

That was a good one-liner. That is a one-liner that has stuck with me. What does he mean by that?

Speaker 2: 22:52

Well, I think the principle that we can take going into 2025 is, as people are trying to figure out their organic, if you're trying to connect with people, if you're doing that the right way, don't give up on an effort just because you don't see immediate sales off of it. Learn how to measure incrementality over time. Yeah, so by understanding what kind of buy windows people have, or consideration times, yep. And then look at your search, see, like hey, are people searching your name more and more.

Speaker 1: 23:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:17

Are you noticing that they're staying on your website? Is it? Are they just considering it? Do they need a better remarketing or marketing campaign and actually draw them in again? But brands are going to have to learn how to do what some might say is top funnel.

Speaker 1: 23:33

Sure, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:35

Get people to consider you, get people to know who you are, and that's what. Again, going back to like midday squares and all these people that are doing the organic storytelling hey, a lot of people know who they are just because of a silly video around, something that went wrong in their chocolate factory. Totally Not because they're really considering buying chocolate from them in that time.

Speaker 1: 23:58

Dude. Well, I was not considered like I was such a legitimate testament to the top of funnel content, to becoming a like not necessarily a lifelong customer, but I've. I've been shopping with them for I mean, my lifetime values got to be in the last 18 months pretty high.

Speaker 2: 24:15

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:16

Like, anytime we go to target, I always, always, buy it always, and they're like three bucks each. So I am not buying midday squares yeah, I always do but, I am their customer, like I am very much their target audience, like my wife and I totally are. But yeah, it's because I saw a piece of content that was stupid or just a good story I shouldn't say stupid and then you said, oh, what are?

Speaker 2: 24:39

these guys about yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:40

And then, like after I saw him for six months, I'm like oh, I love healthy alternative candy, you know chocolate. Like I'm a sweet guy, I like to eat food and then I always like a sweet after. But I don't want something super sugary, Correct, but I want something sweet.

Speaker 2: 24:55

Love it, dude.

Speaker 1: 24:56

This episode is brought to you today by Bestie. If you are an e-commerce store on Shopify, stop and listen up. Are you surveying your customers? Do you know how they get to your website? Do you know what marketing channel introduced them to you? Do you know what motivated them to buy? Do you know what your MPS score is, if people actually like and love your products?

Speaker 1: 25:15

If you don't know the answers to some of those questions, or any other questions you might have for your customers, you need to start using post-purchase surveys. Bestie is the only post-purchase survey provider that utilizes AI to not only help you craft your questions, but also takes the insights that your customers give you and creates actionable insights and steps for you to make as a business to help grow and scale your company. Today, bestie just lowered their prices so you can be serving your customers for as low as $39 a month, and not only that they have a 14-day free trial in the App Store. So go check them out right now. Test the 14-day free trial. If you happen to pay the $39 a month, you are not going to lose out on much and you are only going to be able to gather more data around your customers to help grow and scale your businesses. We love Bestie and we use it for every single brand we work with. Go check them out today at bestieai.

Speaker 2: 26:13

Well, do you want to jump into these questions? Yeah, let's jump into the questions.

Speaker 1: 26:17

And say who it is.

Speaker 2: 26:18

Give him a shout out yeah, walker erickson shout out to walker as we know, meta has become more of a pay-to-play model. If your brand is just starting, when is the right time to start paying for ads rather than just trying to grow organically? It's a good question.

Speaker 1: 26:35

I think we'll both have similar answers, but good different perspectives on this one. Uh, one thing that I would highly recommend is if you can avoid starting out with paid ads and you can like, you can get in the muscle memory habit of building things a little bit more organic. The paid you won't get stuck in pay-to-play number one and you won't ever feel the golden, or I shouldn't say you won't ever. You'll be less likely to feel the golden handcuffs of what happens to pay-to-play so like if you jump into pay-to-play like really, really immediate. So one of the things, like one of the mistakes that I made, at can I can, I just interject a little

Speaker 2: 27:14

bit not to argue with you on a lie please, please, argue with me I think we do need to reframe the way we say because I know we say pay to play the reality for every business out there is welcome to business like it's pay to play. Sure, right, nike still pays to play, of course, and they're huge, like they of course might not have to, but they know they have to be the top of mind in consideration. So, yes, I'm not arguing with what you're saying about the organic approach, because you still have to have organic approach, because that organic also feeds into your ads Totally. But there's never going to be a time, really, if you want to make it big, that you don't have to pay to play.

Speaker 1: 27:59

Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with that. There's one guy, uh, there's this guy I follow uh all the time. In fact, he's a guest that I would I'd love to have him on and his name's ryan dubs. He was the creative director for kylie cosmetics, um, and now owns a company called do of the gods, which is like a skincare brand, has like a very serum, yeah, yeah exactly.

Speaker 1: 28:22

And, um, he, they don't run any paid ads and they're just, they're crushing it. They don't pay a dollar in ads, they they get their stuff in the script scription boxes and he just does such a great job organically with Tik TOK and branding that he crushes it. And I always will like he never responds to me, so I'm sure he's annoyed by it, but'm like he's always like oh, we hit 10 million dollars or hey, we're hitting 15 million dollars without any ads and I'm like well, why not run ads too? And because they're still investing.

Speaker 2: 28:52

They're paying to play because they're investing in their content yeah, they're putting money and time from an editing perspective.

Speaker 1: 28:57

Maybe they have people writing the scripts for their content whatever it is, or maybe he's just a genius at it yeah I mean, and I do think he is a genius, he is like, I've been following the guy for a long time and he is very smart, but I, I do what? Like yeah, you're right, like they're, you're, you're, you can and should be a part of the pay-to-play model. But once again, going back to the golden handcuffs, if you you just start pay to play and you think, okay, I just need a quick buck now and I'll figure out the organic later, maybe you will, but there's a good chance you're going to fall into the 95% of the rest of the brands who never do.

Speaker 2: 29:29

Yes, that's true.

Speaker 1: 29:30

So work, find ways to work with affiliates, content creators, and become a content creator yourself. That would be my number one priority. It happened with us I was about to say it happened with us at Asher Golf. Like we fell very hard into the golden handcuffs days because it was so easy, like I would just like create two ads, put 500 bucks a day and every day we'd make six grand from two ads. So it was like, why would like? I don't really need to create content.

Speaker 2: 29:57

2016 was a different time.

Speaker 1: 30:00

It. So it was like why would like? I don't really need to create content. 2016 was a different time. Oh, it's the golden era. Different, different day has to go wild west. Yeah, I've spade play, but Not at the same time.

Speaker 2: 30:07

Yeah so so you Walker, the right time to start paying for ads is probably after you develop an organic strategy. I think so.

Speaker 1: 30:15

Yeah, cuz you nailed it right if, if it wins organically, it'll win paid.

Speaker 2: 30:18

Yeah, and define win, though. How do you win organically? Because it is, I mean, look, it is harder to grow organically. Yeah, there's so much going on, and sometimes paid also feeds into your organic growth, sure.

Speaker 1: 30:32

Winning organically, probably like. I know that views is a vanity metric, but I actually like it because if your content gets views, it means that people are watching a long duration of it.

Speaker 2: 30:44

Define if you actually have some kind of product market fit, which you should. So do your organic strategy first and then sell it in real environments, whether that's through your organic presence, but just make sure people are buying it outside of your immediate family.

Speaker 1: 31:04

Yeah, and they're not just following you because you're a good storyteller, but they're not going to come and buy anything.

Speaker 2: 31:08

Yeah so get real feedback on whatever it is you're selling and then, once you have the real feedback whether that's 10 purchases or 100 or 200, you're going to have to figure that out for what kind of product you have. Maybe, you have a $1,000 product or a $50 product, get feedback, understand where it is, because the problem with marketing dollar spend is it's gasoline. And gasoline in the wrong places does a lot of harm, yeah, but gasoline in the right place, like within an engine, is great. It's phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 31:42

Yeah, I agree, maybe not for those who support the Green New Deal, but it's an analogy, yeah it's an analogy.

Speaker 1: 31:48

Calm down, we both have Teslas. All right, we're okay.

Speaker 2: 31:52

That's right, I'm a Tesla guy. We both have Teslas. Except on the weekends, and I'm a forerunner guy.

Speaker 1: 31:58

When I have a lot of kids. I'm my, you know I go from 100 miles a gallon to eight.

Speaker 2: 32:03

Yeah, yeah, it's called balance, yeah, equilibrium. Yeah, yin yang. What's our next question? Okay, great question, walker. The next one is how will marketing look different over the next six to 12 months? What trends are you noticing? Let's go into 2025 and then maybe work back, and then we can answer Brett's question about the election season.

Speaker 1: 32:28

Yeah, you want to start this one.

Speaker 2: 32:32

Yeah, going into 2025. So the next 12 months yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:37

What do I see in terms of trends? The biggest trends that I think I've been noticing is UGC has kind of become just like a channel. It's not really this like silver bullet that people think it is anymore, and so a lot of stuff is going back to going like what we're talking about, this organic storytelling, and the trend I'm seeing is the companies that seem to win are really resonating with that going into 2025. Because, again, the trends are AI you're going to have so many ad variations, you're going to have so many statics and gifts and the ability to get your message out there in a quick way with creative gifts and the ability to get your message out there in a quick way with creative that the trend of how to stick is going to be human connectedness and how do you connect with actual people?

Speaker 2: 33:26

totally so. You're going to get better and hopefully everyone's iterating quick to find out like what hooks are working. But you know people's attentions are changing, like we talked about a trend that we're seeing in tiktok is like some of the biggest tiktokers are just people talking about current events yeah, yeah right, just it's them and a screen grab behind them yeah, people like, yeah, like, for example, like news, like hey, look at this branding, this campaign, or look at this news or what. This is what's happening with the election anymore.

Speaker 1: 33:58

People aren't watching fox news anymore, people aren't watching msnbs anymore. But if so, if you can catch something that's happening you know and relate it back to your business or something like that, it that could be a great way to organically catch people and I do think twitter ads nice might might be something in the next 12 months to look at. Interesting. I don't disagree with that. I think Elon Musk is doing some very interesting.

Speaker 2: 34:26

Well, I mean you just look at the usage of the app it's at an all-time high. And that's election season. That possibly is just election season. Sure, I don't think it's going to go down until if it does at all until after January, february, the inauguration season. But X is becoming where people go for their news, and so if usage is up, that's where people are. So like does X or Twitter figure out how to get their ads algorithm to work better? I think they're putting a high priority on it I like it.

Speaker 1: 35:01

It's interesting. I think one of the trends that's happening is like we're. I think that qvc style shopping on platforms like tiktok, um, I mean, it's blowing up right now in the last in the last. Like I mean that that this goes even to the next six months. Right like this is, and and I I don't know how long it'll last, I don't know if it's going to be huge, but like if that they've been doing it in china for the last like two years.

Speaker 2: 35:28

You know the my question is is this a new trend or millennials just getting older? Because it could be right.

Speaker 1: 35:36

I remember old people watching yeah, I grew up watching qvc stuff shopping network stuff or like yeah that would like. We would do that on sleepovers, bro, like I'd have sleepovers with my friends and like, as that night would go on, we just like turn on the qvc channel and we just like watch see what weird gimmicky yeah, like I can get nine knives and 10 free if I bought that tonight.

Speaker 1: 35:56

Or everybody remembers the uh oxy clean, or oh yeah, the yeah or the, the guy who had like the tape the tape like it was like water, cement tape, stuff, yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:08

Or Chia pets or Chia pets, yeah, yeah. So I think Q, I think QVC style, which is Tik TOK shop. I think that's going to be big for the next 12 months. Um, like I said, I I had I've had like two bad experiences buying on TikTok shops where nothing came and I never heard from the people again. Luckily, it was like 15 to $30 purchases, but in the last like 45 days I've probably bought five or six different things from TikTok shops.

Speaker 1: 36:37

I think it's brilliant. I think it's brilliant marketing to get somebody who is like you know what's happening is they're taking like a podcast clip from Joe Rogan who's talking about who might have like a, a guest who's talking about gut health. Let's just, I'm just making something up and how important gut health is and because Joe Rogan and he just gets he garnishes so many views and he has such interesting people on and somebody can clip that and then can like go into them talking about how important you know apple cider vinegar is for your gut and you can buy apple cider vinegar here. It's such a brilliant way to sell.

Speaker 2: 37:17

It is.

Speaker 1: 37:18

So I think that that's kind of like a whole new. It's not that new, but I think that's a huge, huge trend for the next 12 months for sure dude and the qvc stuff.

Speaker 2: 37:29

And then we're gonna reel this back really fast but and go to election season. But the qvc stuff. What's so brilliant about that kind of platform like if you just go back to the tv ads is man, does it show you how it works fast? Oh yeah, right, so good. Like I mean it sells you so fast. It's like oh no, I dropped my phone. Look at this. Like remember the cord phone? Yeah, like you could hold it totally so it wouldn't drop, and like it had like someone like dropping a phone in a pot oh no, I can't get up.

Speaker 1: 38:01

Yeah, I fall and I can't get up. Those like little heartbeat yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:04

Like it shows you the value so fast. And there's something to learn about that, which is, yes, you got to catch attention fast, but like you got to catch attention and then show the value fast. Like and that's how you keep people long, because man, those tv ads would go sometimes for what like three, four minutes yeah they weren't short, yeah, so how do you keep someone engaged for that long like wait, there's more by now. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:30

So yeah, like I mean tick they mastered it. Qvc tiktok shoppy style ads are so good for problem solution, where you can demonstrate very, very easily, and also really good for gift giving.

Speaker 2: 38:44

Yes.

Speaker 1: 38:45

Like those two things are amazing.

Speaker 2: 38:47

But I think everyone should try it out. I don't think anyone really gave even Instagram live a fair shake or live selling Like. If you do, if you do like new releases a lot, hop on there, see what kind of, and you can just turn that around and turn it into an ad too.

Speaker 1: 39:02

Yeah, and a lot of times. All you're talking about is paying somebody with product and commission, all right.

Speaker 2: 39:08

So what is the election impact this year? Data driven around media costs and overall option. Well, we we dove into that a couple episodes back when we looked back at 2020. Yeah, a couple episodes back when we looked back at 2020. And maybe we'll do a few clips with exact numbers, because we don't have our computers out right now, but I remember overall CPMs during the election season rose about 20%.

Speaker 1: 39:36

Yeah, it was between 20 and 40%.

Speaker 2: 39:38

Okay, so we're expecting about a 30%. Last time we chatted rise just in CPMs, and when we say election season, what that really means is about 30 to 40 days from November 4th. So you're looking at like end of September running into November 4th, which really sucks sometimes, depending on your brand.

Speaker 1: 40:04

And it bites, especially since it's during Black.

Speaker 2: 40:06

Friday, season 2. Yes, however, there is a silver lining here, and that is October isn't usually most brands' not best month. So the question is how do you get eyeballs and maintain focus on your brand in a slow month? Most brands have to do that in October anyways. It's just going to be harder to get that immediate return because your costs are definitely going to go up.

Speaker 2: 40:36

So look into conversion rate optimization. Look into ways to make sure that your conversion rates can stay high. Look into ways to expand your reach for cheap which is organic.

Speaker 1: 40:48

But yeah, we're looking about 30 cpm increase which oftentimes just happens over black friday the month of november yeah, that's going to happen, no matter what.

Speaker 2: 40:58

So, at the end of october, what's happening is you're going to get.

Speaker 1: 41:00

You're going to experience this 30 days sooner.

Speaker 2: 41:02

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:03

And it's going to be double the amount of time that it usually happens.

Speaker 2: 41:05

Correct.

Speaker 1: 41:06

So this is my recommendation is.

Speaker 2: 41:08

Cpms can go up 100% during Black Friday, totally.

Speaker 1: 41:17

My biggest recommendation is yeah, there's the obvious ones which is like, oh, conversion rate optimization We've talked about, like creating organic content to supplement CPM costs, right, so, like a thousand dollars a thousand dollars, you know, or ten thousand dollars in a day in September, you know, september 1st does not go as far as, or goes much further than, ten thousand dollars a day by October 1st, probably, right, right.

Speaker 1: 41:43

And so you've got to do one of two things. I mean, the first thing I would highly recommend is just one understanding that and being prepared for it, so that you're not sometimes people, uh, like we'll take a thought, like a look at things from a false positive perspective to be like, oh my gosh, we're done, like something's wrong with our business, when, when, in reality, it's like your traffic's just down because your CPM shot up 30% and so that money just is not equal what it used to equal, and so just be prepped for it. So one is just mentally being prepped for that. Two is getting your numbers prepped to understand what you can afford, right, so let's say your cost.

Speaker 2: 42:20

And that doesn't mean you don't want better ads, of course, but. But let's start. Just be realistic and have baselines.

Speaker 1: 42:25

Let's start at, just like, some really basic concepts. So if I were were Kizik, for example cause that's you know where Brett's coming from and he where he's asking these questions and is I would understand, okay, hey, I know my CAC is, let's say it's $60. That's what it costs for us to make or to win a customer. Our AOV is $120. It costs us $40 to make these shoes. So right now we make $20 in profits per first time new customer. Understand what your company can go through. Can you lose $10? Can you only make $4? Can you break even? Understand what that is.

Speaker 1: 43:08

Um, understand what your cashflow is, because you might be able to.

Speaker 1: 43:11

You may have a very high lifetime value, but you may be cashflow deficient, right From POs or other initiatives that's happening behind the scenes, right, and so, even though on a normal day you could afford to lose five dollars or ten dollars or twenty dollars per new customer, if your cash flow, you know, is in trouble.

Speaker 1: 43:33

Those are the things that you need to understand, because I would actually recommend that you don't just dramatically decrease your spend even though you're going to see inefficiencies, Because what happens is you're not going to get more efficient if you decrease spend. That's not how it works. That used to be like a thing Like let's decrease spend and get more efficient. I mean, there might be you decreasing spend might help you clean up some fluff, but you're going to be impacted somewhere, whether it's the sales follow search model, which is, if you're doing tons of top of funnel and you decide to cut it off, okay, you may not. You may feel great now, but come January, february, march, you might get really hit because you weren't doing some preparatory work then. So I actually don't totally recommend decreasing your spend, but better understanding what you can afford, because oftentimes what happens is guess who the most likely people are to become a repeat purchaser. It's somebody within 30 to 60 days.

Speaker 2: 44:26

So well, it's a purchaser who's yeah, it's someone who's purchased within 30 to 60 days after that initial purchase, exactly so if you're going, to highest likelihood to get them to buy again.

Speaker 1: 44:36

Yeah. So if you're like one, let's say you're. Let's say your daily budget's a thousand dollars. Let's say that that gets you 20 new customers a day and CPMs go up and so now you're only getting 15 new customers a day. That's going to lower, right, so you're going to get less new customers per day. That's going to help you come Black Friday and Q4 gifting season. But if you decrease that even more now you might be only getting seven new customers day and it's just going to hurt potentially what might happen for you in November December.

Speaker 2: 45:15

Yeah, and even though we're expecting this lift, I think just to give some people some basic numbers. So let's just do some easy math for baselines. It's okay, election season happens. Let's just say it's a 50% increase across the board of CPMs and let's just say that's then bleeding into your CPA, so you have a 50% increase in CPAs. That cuts into your margins quite a bit right, totally. So let's say you spend a hundred dollars and you were getting 10 purchasers.

Speaker 1: 45:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:43

So your CAC was 10. Now it's going to be $15. Yep, and maybe your AOV is 20. Yeah Right, but if you go look at your cohort analysis, because a lot of companies, their best cohorts, are September, october purchasers, because, guess what, they all come back and buy again during.

Speaker 1: 46:01

November, especially if you have a great product.

Speaker 2: 46:03

Yes.

Speaker 1: 46:04

If you don't have a good product, then you might see lower cohorts. You might be like, no, that's not good.

Speaker 2: 46:08

It's like, okay, maybe you don't have a great, because CPMs go up anyways in November, but in October buying intent goes down. Yes, Because people are expecting sales in November. And so one strategy that we've deployed for brands in the past that has been successful is yes, your CAC goes up in October, but these customers came back and bought at a much higher clip in November. Yeah, and because some brands are scared of that, like, well, I'm gonna have a sale next week. It's like okay.

Speaker 1: 46:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:40

That doesn't mean you should stop selling.

Speaker 1: 46:41

And your CAC may dip by 200% come those times.

Speaker 2: 46:45

So you've got to look at things in a quarterly perspective. But, yeah, that's a great question. Election season is going to be tricky. It's not going to be a perfect science. So I'd say the strategy, using your past metrics, go to 2020, look at what your CPMs did in your industry. Yep, I'm expecting anywhere from 20 to 40% lift right, might be lower than that's great, but put a baseline in of, like, what's going to happen to our business If CPMs go up 35%? All things constant. Yep, cause, yes, maybe the algorithm gets better. That'd be great. Yep, maybe the algorithm isn't you could use it and it profits your priority.

Speaker 1: 47:21

Maybe the algorithm isn't. You could use it and it profits your priority. There's cost caps. Zuckerberg came out and made an announcement about how he meddled in the 2020 election, so maybe he's going to be, you know, doing something a little different this year to get us better CPMs. Who knows?

Speaker 2: 47:33

Well, and I'm curious about Zuckerberg because, if I recall, the special categories were not required back in 2020.

Speaker 1: 47:42

I can't remember.

Speaker 2: 47:44

For sure not in 2016.

Speaker 1: 47:45

I'll have to go back and look at 2020.

Speaker 2: 47:47

But the special categories might change. I don't know how their distribution works, like if you're in a special category, like politics Right, or credit, like there's credit, there's housing. You know, I don't know how that works with the way they distribute the ads.

Speaker 1: 48:02

Yes, yeah yeah, it's a good question. I can't remember either.

Speaker 2: 48:05

That might be something that's changed and we'd have to go ask a MetaRep. Yeah, but that's your best bet. Go back, look at priors, set a baseline of like, hey, what are we going to do if our costs go up 30%, 40%, yeah, sometimes, and again, don't just say that means we cut. Say can we afford that over three months going into Black Friday?

Speaker 1: 48:28

100% Highly recommend that. That's how you look at it. Before you just cut, Because everyone will say let's cut.

Speaker 2: 48:34

Yeah, everyone's going to say cut because that hurts, of course, but it's like, well, if we get 60% of those people to come back and buy during Black Friday, yeah, if we get 60% of those people to come back and buy during Black Friday, yes, there's a discount, but what does that do to the overall cash flow for a quarter?

Speaker 1: 48:48

That was a long response to that, a great response. What else? Do we have Any other questions? Yeah, let's jump in.

Speaker 2: 48:54

Let's get through some of these.

Speaker 1: 48:55

We'll try to be a little quicker. That one was. I felt like that was an appropriate amount of time because that is a very yeah, guess whatever, it's going to be sticky. Yeah, yeah. We're getting into a hairy time of year, so buckle up and get prepared mentally.

Speaker 2: 49:11

Okay, here's a question, yep, Going into hooks. How does somebody create the best kind of hook for their audience?

Speaker 1: 49:17

Understanding your audience, number one, and the reason why you can understand, like the reason why it's important to understand your audience with hooks, is because you're going to understand if you understand better why the customer buys so their, why you can better understand what's going to hook them. I just went through this with my content To add to that. Oh yeah, there needs to be a little bit more.

Speaker 2: 49:38

It's from what I have seen, and I am not a content creator. It's from what I have seen and I am not a content creator.

Speaker 1: 49:44

I'm not. You're an ad creator, though.

Speaker 2: 49:45

I'm an ad creator. That's good and we're pretty great at taking old content and turning it into really good performing ads. You got to focus on the core emotions here, which is a hook isn't necessarily making anyone feel anything. It's so fast, like you're, you're really just trying to get someone's attention, which is intrigue, right. So it's intrigue which can be social proof. It can be a quick blip, it can be just like simply surprising. But you're just going to have to go through rapid iterations because it is like ads and hooks, like the one thing that I have learned is I cannot tell you like I have a good idea of like hey, let's try this and this and this. So like let's take seconds six through seven of this ad and put that as the hook, yep, and let's test that verse, this verse, that Yep, one of those will work, but like it's so hard to determine which one.

Speaker 1: 50:43

I'm always wrong. It's always like, oh, that's going to be the best performing ad and like it's almost impossible, and I've been doing this for so long, I'm always wrong.

Speaker 2: 50:49

So, yes, understand your customer. Start thinking about what you have been interested in, totally, like what has got your attention from a hook perspective, and think about click baits and the way people get you to click on things that like it's like, oh, that wasn't really what it was. But just think about why are you interested in something right off the bat, like what caught your your attention right like is it a big zit?

Speaker 1: 51:13

yeah, there's visual. Yeah, is it?

Speaker 2: 51:15

there's design work and there's wording like lucky egg, had a hook for one of the organic pieces, which was when they were doing that slap game.

Speaker 1: 51:25

Oh yeah, and it was like somebody getting slapped. This isn't an ad, but this is organic hook right.

Speaker 2: 51:29

It was like, I think, the guy getting hit with the face and then it was like challenging my boss to a game. So you've got to think about the hook as being more of like a climax and then you get into the substantive story and what really matters to on a deeper level. But like you're not going to get to that deeper level if you don't grab their attention right off the bat. And grabbing their attention can be again, it could be fear-based, it could be hope-based, it could be intrigued, but it's gonna have to be emotion. Yeah, one you think in one second intervals. Like biggest problem with hooks is people think it's like a three, four second delay, like it's got to be immediate. Yeah, colors help. Go look into the psychology of colors too, do you want to know.

Speaker 1: 52:10

One of my best hook videos for my content was what. I did this I.

Speaker 2: 52:16

Had. It was like the fake, but I'm picking the nose.

Speaker 1: 52:18

I did this and then Licked with that, so it looked like I'm picking and eating my book. Yes, but I but I said something that connected with it. That was fine. The other thing that you can do is go look at uh, people in your same category who are winning um on the organic stuff. Don't look at their ads because you like. If you go to facebook ad library, you actually don't know what is winning, you don't see how much budget's going to those ads and those kinds of things. So you might be looking at stuff.

Speaker 2: 52:46

Yeah, that's a huge caveat because some of the best-looking ads are not the best-performing ads Totally, but still go look at a brand that you think is doing a good job and guess what? You can test that.

Speaker 1: 52:56

Totally.

Speaker 2: 53:06

Or content creators who are getting good traction and good views and see how they hook people.

Speaker 1: 53:09

That's what I've been doing a ton for hooks. All right, let's move on. Okay, I think that's time, all right. Well, thank you everybody for uh joining the hundredth episode of the unstoppable marketer. We're really excited. Please go to my link in bio. I have a survey and, like I can't tell you how much it'll mean If you go take this survey, today is going to be the last day. Well, if you're watching the IG live, you have time, but September 10th, last day that you will be able to take that, you'll get entered into when to give away, um, and, and the feedback you'll give us is will be tremendous, like it'll be so helpful. So we want to thank our producers over at the film lab. Uh, we've been with the film lab for I, I want to say the last 18 months of the last two and a half years. Yep, um, I think we maybe did this for a year alone and boy was that painful.

Speaker 2: 54:00

but so, if you need, some content needs, hit them up podcast content needs.

Speaker 1: 54:03

they're part of our giveaway.

Speaker 2: 54:04

We love them Also when we're talking about storytelling if you're a company that is looking to. They're fabulous at it. Get some better, higher production content. When we're talking about Top Funnel, that kind of content does great, right, top Funnel.

Speaker 1: 54:22

And tell them like this actually is legit. Tell them Bestie sent you and they'll give you a screaming deal. Actually, that's right.

Speaker 2: 54:28

Screaming, screaming, screaming eagles, screaming eagles, yeah.

Speaker 1: 54:33

All right, everybody. Thank you so much and we will see you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. Please go. Thank you so much for listening to the unstoppable marketer podcast. Please go, rate and subscribe the podcast, whether it's good or bad. We want to hear from you because we always want to make this podcast better. If you want to get in touch with me or give me any direct feedback, please go, follow me and get in touch with me. I am at the trevor crump on both instagram and tiktok. Thank you, and we will see you next week.