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The Unstoppable Marketer®
Trevor Crump and Mark Goldhardt bring you quick marketing and entrepreneurial tips, tricks, and trends for DTC business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. These are lessons they've learned through the years of being right in the thick of scaling dozens of businesses. Whether you have an established business looking to grow, just starting your business journey, or trying to become a digital marketer, this marketing podcast will not let you down.
The Unstoppable Marketer®
EP. 105 Unlocking Ad Success: How Creative Drives Conversions
Ever wondered why some video content hooks you instantly, while others pass by unnoticed? We’ve cracked the code on crafting engaging videos by testing different hooks, using quirky observations like our everyday habit of asking questions just for the sake of politeness. From personal updates such as embarking on a multivitamin regimen to brace for colder weather, our conversation naturally shifts towards the festive season, revealing our Halloween plans. While my enthusiasm for Halloween shines through, Mark’s nonchalance adds a hilarious contrast, especially as we recount our plans to transform into characters from "Hocus Pocus"—and yes, we’ve got a fun plot rundown for those not yet bewitched by the film.
Politics and media are in the spotlight as we tackle the election cycle's final phase, spotlighting significant figures like Trump and Kamala Harris. Their interactions, especially with decentralized media outlets like Joe Rogan's podcast, reflect a major shift in how news is consumed. We dissect the symbiotic relationship between new age media and political engagement, including Kamala's rejected attempt to connect with Barstool Sports. This narrative underscores the evolving landscape where Gen Z and millennials opt for platforms like X and TikTok over traditional media, shaping a new era of political discourse.
We lighten the mood with a humorous analysis of Dwayne Wade’s statue unveiling, which inadvertently sparked a marketing lesson due to its amusing lack of resemblance. We liken this process to fishing—where finding the right bait ensures success—and dive into the dynamics of crafting emotional contrasts in advertising. With insights on fear vs. aspiration and the power of social proof, we explore creative ways to engage audiences in a fast-paced media environment.
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
There's literally a thousand ways to skin a cat, as they say.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Take your winning concept, turn it into video. If you can't produce a whole video, go film some stuff yourself. You can go grab stock videos. There's still ways to test and then figure out what hooks are working for your demographic. Is it showing the pain first? Is it showing the resolution first? Is it something that has nothing to do with either of those and it's just an interesting visual?
Speaker 2:Yep, and either of those, and it's just an interesting visual. Yep, and document it, and document it. Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the unstoppable marketer podcast with me, as always, mr mark goldheart. How are you, sir? I'm good, good, I'm good, good, good, good, we got, uh, you know it's funny, we taught I, we I can say this because you know my little brother, because we were with Nicholas, we worked with him. But every time he calls me.
Speaker 1:Jolly old St Nick.
Speaker 2:Yep, every time he calls me, he always is like hey, what's going on, man, how are you Like? That is always his opening line and I'll always say doing good, man, or you know doing this, or whatever. How about you? And he just goes good, good. So it's like this, like he has no idea that he does it, but he's asking as a formality, probably doesn't really care exactly what I say. The response is always good, good, so we're going to be over at the house in 20 minutes, Can I da-da-da-da-da-da?
Speaker 1:you know.
Speaker 2:Good good, good, good, good, good, good good. I don't know if I've ever told him that, so if he listens, I don't know if he listens to this Well, I did Good.
Speaker 1:Good, I did start a multivitamin regimen this week. It's a good time to do that. I've never taken vitamins.
Speaker 2:We got snow, we got the weather changing. That means the sicknesses are coming.
Speaker 1:It snowed today.
Speaker 2:I went to go drive over the mountain and I had to turn around because there was two inches of snow on the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you had to turn around.
Speaker 2:I did. Why my tires are.
Speaker 1:A little scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I didn't want to go down that hill. Okay, that's fair, that's a big. It's like I'm going down a canyon hill, you know, yeah, that's fair, so I flipped around.
Speaker 1:Luckily I only made it halfway up for us utahns, though, two inches is it no, it's not bad.
Speaker 2:If I was in my wife's car, or even if I had like better tires, I probably would take the tesla and well then, tesla's, heavy though you gotta, yeah, the tesla's heavy, so the tesla can handle it, I think it'll be fine, yeah um but multivitamins nice.
Speaker 1:So we'll see how I feel.
Speaker 2:I've never done vitamins I do vitamins every day for a while. I don't know if I noticed the difference.
Speaker 1:To be honest, I'm 35, so I said mid-30s. I need to get into a little bit more of a health routine.
Speaker 2:I get less sick. I do think I recognize that, that I get less sick in the wintertime.
Speaker 1:But I don't notice anything this summer. Yeah, I guess we'll find out. We'll see if I get more energy.
Speaker 2:I'm excited for you.
Speaker 1:More focused, less sick. Halloween is this week. Halloween's this week. It's one of your favorite holidays. It's one of my favorite holidays. My probably least favorite holiday yeah, it's my wife's one of my wife's least favorite too yeah, it's just so I love it.
Speaker 2:I love everything about it, huge fan I dislike almost not.
Speaker 1:I don't dislike everything, like I'm not, like I hate halloween, we don't do anything. There's just so much I don't like about it.
Speaker 2:There's virtually nothing I don't like about it.
Speaker 1:I hate the smells.
Speaker 2:I don't like that. My kids have a ton of candy. You know the smell of the fake web.
Speaker 1:I think I understand what you're saying Like that like plasticky smell from costumes.
Speaker 2:Or just like makeup, and yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Hate it. Yeah, that's good from costumes or just like makeup and yeah Hate it, just hate it.
Speaker 2:That's good. You know what Kenzie and I were. We would go to a Halloween party. We were Thackery Binks from Hocus Pocus. Have you seen Hocus Pocus? I have not, you've never seen Hocus Pocus.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Not even as a child.
Speaker 1:No, we didn't have Disney.
Speaker 2:Well, this doesn't matter to you, but anyone listening? We are Thackery Binks.
Speaker 1:Hocus Pocus. Is that lame Disney movie right? It's the best With like the witches that are all ugly.
Speaker 2:It's the best of the Halloween shows.
Speaker 1:Of course I say that because witches are always ugly, right, they try to make them ugly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's Halloween. Yeah, it's Halloween Not that the actresses are ugly. If you're listening to this, we're what like a day there's a redhead one and there's a yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I've never seen it, but I know what you're talking about, because everyone talks about it all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'll show you my costume and then I'll show you what the character looks like.
Speaker 1:So when you say Thackeray, he's the main character. What is he? He's a witch.
Speaker 2:He's a. His sister gets killed by the witches in the very beginning and he Did they eat her? Gets cursed into being a cat for the rest of his life because he tries to save her. So I was Thackeray Binks from the witches' days, like the Salem Witch Trial days.
Speaker 1:Oh, it starts in the Salem Witch Trials. Yep, oh, okay and.
Speaker 2:Kenzie was Thackeray binks, the cat from present day who stuck around. Oh cool, and he can count, he can talk and he lives forever.
Speaker 1:The cat just gotta see the movie oh, so he's a kid, so he gets turned into cat and he lives forever yep to protect that area so that no one brings the witches back.
Speaker 2:You gotta watch the show.
Speaker 1:We could spend too much time on it. So wait, the witches cursed him. Yeah, the witches cursed him, but he also lives forever.
Speaker 2:Cursed him to be a cat, to live forever Not to protect, but that's what he decides to dedicate his cat life to.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Because if somebody, the way the witches come back is if they light a candle. They come back A certain candle, the black flame candle, and it has to be lit by a virgin.
Speaker 1:A virgin yeah.
Speaker 2:It's actually a really good movie because of how funny it is, like it's a kid's movie but they talk about virgins a lot.
Speaker 1:They talk about virgin sacrifice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, virgins they talk about. They talk about virgin virgin sacrifice. Yeah, it's like those 90. You know how 90s, 80s, 90 shows that were more kid shows. You're like, whoa, there's a lot of sexual innuendo, innuendos here. Have you gotten to that point yet watching shows with your kids yet? Uh, not really. Yeah, you, you'll. You'll get to it at some point in time where you start to watch something you're like, oh my I did not realize.
Speaker 1:True, I did. I did watch the goofy movie and I was like, as a parent, I'm like I don't, I'm trying, I don't know, I don't like this movie half as much as I did when I was as a kid.
Speaker 2:There's like some innuendos there and there's some yeah, there's a lot as you like, obviously it obviously it goes way over the kids' heads, but I'm like oh, I don't. Shrek has some good ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, Shrek is just so clever about it all. Yeah, To me Shrek is they do it pretty, they do it great Well.
Speaker 2:All right, let's move forward. If you're listening to this, you are what. Are we a day or two away from the election? Uh, no, we are. Is it election day? No, it's a week.
Speaker 1:Well, I know right now it is, but if they're listening to it, oh, if they're listening I don't know when do we release these mondays?
Speaker 2:no, we at least release these tuesdays then two days away we're two days away from the election. Anything, anything, any marketing election things we should address, or is right now just like the savage, the savagery of the election election. That's kind of like what it is. It's like the Hail Marys of the election, where you know everyone's like coming out. Trump is coming at Kamala as like, hey, you're the dumbest person on earth, and Kamala is coming at Trump Like he's Hitler, like that's kind of the last minute Hail. Marys.
Speaker 1:Yeah To stay away from the rhetoric of. Yeah to stay away from the rhetoric of nazis and commies and you know all that. I don't know if there's really anything other than I haven't seen big trump released a podcast with joe rogan. Joe rogan, that's right that garnished 100 million views. No, it hasn't. No, it's like 35 million, right?
Speaker 2:now, I was actually looking at it.
Speaker 1:Spot. Check that Grace.
Speaker 2:This is what's crazy. I got it right here. This is actually what's kind of crazy about that podcast. It's 35 million views in less than 37 million views in three days, and if you go to Joe Rogan's most popular episodes, it's 50 million 61 million. Which?
Speaker 1:is Bob Lazar, which is Bob Lazar?
Speaker 2:Which is Bob Lazar, and that Jeremy Corbell. Yeah, and that was five years ago, so 61 million.
Speaker 1:And then let me guess number two. Let me guess Elon Musk.
Speaker 2:Nope, that's now number four. It used to be number three, but Trump just.
Speaker 1:So Bob Lazar is number one. Oh shoot, who's number two snowden edward. Snowden, edward, snowden.
Speaker 2:He's at 38 million so trump, I'm sure, by tomorrow trump will be.
Speaker 1:He'll be the second most popular okay which is, which is the only reason why that's relevant, I think, is we.
Speaker 1:You know, we keep talking about the decentralized news network, I guess, like this new age media and it'll be interesting to see how this plays out Like did Trump reach the audiences that he was trying to reach while completely not told? Like he had surrogates on traditional media. Jd Vance has made a lot of appearance on CNN, like on on cnn and other news outlets you've had, like the vivek ramaswami and the vivek, so he's had surrogates, but trump himself has pretty much not been on traditional media, where kamala has very much been on traditional media.
Speaker 1:She had a town hall recently, she did some other things, so so what's really interesting is this is the litmus test I think to, to know if traditional media has kind of faded into a very obvious second and third place. Like how do people consume information? I don't think it's with millennials. People just don't watch the news like our parents did. Yeah, it's true, boomers used to sit down at 10, like my parents, seven or whatever every day would sit down and watch the news like our parents did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. Boomers used to sit down at 10, like my parents, or at seven or whatever every day would sit down and watch the news at like nine or 10, at nine o'clock or 10 o'clock news. Same with mine, I had, and then after they would watch the late night show.
Speaker 1:Yep, would yours do that? Yeah, they'd watch Jay.
Speaker 2:Letterman or Jay David Letterman or Jay Leno.
Speaker 1:My family was Jay.
Speaker 2:Leno, we were David Letterman. I don't know why that's funny.
Speaker 1:I don't know like why people chose, but we were just Jay Leno, I guess. Yeah, so anyways we. Well, that's what my parents did. I have never turned on the news once. I never have either, never I consume all of my news through written format, and it's usually through X. Now I, yeah, I consume all of my news through written format, and it's usually through X. Now.
Speaker 2:I, yeah, I consume through X, where I, or I follow, like certain people, on Tik TOK and that's how I do it. Yeah, this is very true, and we're we're not Gen Z, we're millennial. You know, I think that's a millennial and under kind of thing. For the most part, yeah, I agree, it'll be very interesting. I did, I did catch some uh, some uh. I followed. Do you know jack mack is, uh, he's part of the barstool sports network I don't know him, but you've probably seen him before.
Speaker 2:You probably just can't think about who he is, but he came out and said that, uh, kamala's team reached out to the you obviously know barstool oh, yeah, yeah and you know they have several different, like big networks, of whether it be a podcast or a show or whatever, and she reached out to all of them to get in in on one of their podcasts or interviews, and all of them turned her down. So so I think I think she. Why did they turn her down?
Speaker 1:um, I listened to dave portnoy, uh is it a political thing, like they don't want to support her as a candidate, or is it?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, so I can't remember one of the guys. I don't know if they've had any.
Speaker 1:Have they had any political people?
Speaker 2:Not that I know of. So Dave Portnoy has the BFF podcast and then there's the other guy, who's more, who's like Dave's right-hand man, but more on the sports side, where bff is like the guy with the mustache. Yes, um, he came out straight out and said, no, we like there's no way we'd have her on. So he came out and then portnoy kind of was like, if I recall, he was like and just like I don't think it would have worked, like he didn't really say, like I don't want her on. He kind of even said like I talked to her, but eventually it just ended up not being something, whereas jack mack, who doesn't really have a show, he's just like a tiktoker, like he just he does he does kind of like news, like he just, he just breaks something down and he said they don't want.
Speaker 2:He said that they reached out to him and he sent a list of questions and they ended up turning like they're, like we need to the questions, you get 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:Oh, so they just didn't want. They didn't want the restrictions. I don't even know Well because I think that's what's interesting about podcasts is there? It's Trish. With traditional media there's going to be a little bit more nuance of like hey, this is on the record, this is off the record, that you know. There's this you can call it integrity or standards or whatever where with podcasting there isn't, it's pretty unfiltered, and a lot of these people who are big in the podcasting world, they've made it big by being unfiltered, sure?
Speaker 2:yeah, but but jack mack didn't care, like he, he was just like hey, here are my questions and I think they turned him down and he kind of shows some of his questions and some of them were kind of like funny, like you know. He was like. You know, he's like I was gonna you know the way I wanted to bring up, like her tax, like you know, her taxing richer people, as I was gonna show her my salary and see if I was gonna be one of those people who are gonna be impacted.
Speaker 1:He's like that's how I was gonna address you know, it's like there's little things like that and so, but anyway, so I I don't think that because I think there's quite a few people in barstool that have said they were gonna vote for. So I don't think I don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's interesting, I don't know if there's a yeah, like I said, one said no. A nuance Dave and team said it just wouldn't have worked out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then Jack Mack said yes, and then they turned him down after they got questions.
Speaker 1:according to him, so, nonetheless, like new media is important and we're going to see just how important. And again, the caveat here is politics are different than products.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:It's just to understand where are the eyes and the attention, like the eyes and the attention are not on the evening news every night. Yeah Right, most people sit down and maybe they'll watch the news, but they're also having their TikTok open or their Instagram and they're watching reels. So never been a better and worse time to be in digital marketing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. Last little current event thing Did you see the Dwayne Wade statue unveiling? Yes, it was brutal.
Speaker 1:Sorry, Dwayne.
Speaker 2:So hopefully, maybe we're clipping this in as we're talking.
Speaker 1:Dwayne Wade is part owner of our hometown Utah.
Speaker 2:Jazz, he is, he is. But the best clip is like there's like two or three clips that are going around. They unveil it and it's like it's covered smoke, it's like coming out, I think even some flames, kind of like fly up a little bit, and then his face is kind of like this yeah, he's kind of looking at it, but he's like trying to, you know like he's got the pursed lips you know how like sometimes the purse look at lips look is kind of more like a like he's definitely holding in like shoot a three and you dagger somebody and you're kind of like you do that, he kind of like tries to morph it into that, I think yeah, that's bad
Speaker 1:and then he's so funny we'll show a clip right here, yeah he's so funny how he goes, like he's like who's that guy?
Speaker 2:like he's like, can you believe this? Who is that guy? Like I love that he. He's saying it as I can't believe it's me, but it's just so ironic because it is like, yeah, you're right, who is that guy? It looks nothing like him and then it like he sits down with his boy and the media catches a reaction between the two of them and it is so priceless His son's, just like it's so good I don't know how this happens so often with statues and I don't know how that happens so often.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think we can tie this into marketing well, cristiano ronaldo had one that was horrible.
Speaker 1:I think david beckham had one that was horrible yeah uh, recently, duane way, there was another basketball player recently in the last couple years that had one that was brutal well, you see this, you see this. We have two basketball player statues in Salt Lake for John Stockton, carmelone, and they look like John Stockton and Carmelone. They were done 20.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure when technology was significantly worse.
Speaker 1:So how like who? Art and does nobody look at these things before they're released?
Speaker 2:we'll think about it. Like I said, I think we can tie this concept into some like marketing things like think of can you think of the last? I can think of one campaign that happened and I think it's far enough. Oh, it's far enough removed that we can talk about this without with with anyone from either side being okay with it. But the whole bud light, dylan mulvaney campaign when everyone came out and said we had no idea, like on the bud light team, we had no idea that was happening right because there's a huge reaction and then the senior team kind of threw the junior team under the bus and said we didn't know about it so you're like, okay, cool, were they lying?
Speaker 1:I don't know or or do they not pay attention?
Speaker 2:it's so. I mean it's so believable in two different ways. It is totally believable that one they're lying. And it's also very believable.
Speaker 2:After we've been in the corporate world, you know to understand how, just like, some people just don't like, they don't do the checks and balances you know, yeah, maybe, yeah, it's hard to know from really, really high things that end up losing bud light, not just millions, but billions of dollars right to small things like hey, we sent an email that had a really bad misspelled word, but it's funny, these checks and balances, yeah, and there's, there's also just a question about the board yeah, there needs to be checks and balances with creative, but if you're small, we talk about this all the time, right, like because we we often give people the advice that you should worry less about those checks and balances than you think.
Speaker 1:For sure, the big difference here, and why it's hard to extrapolate a lesson from the Dwyane Wade statue other than just like checks and balances, is because that's a permanent fixture. Yeah, it's very true. I mean, it's literally carved in stone.
Speaker 2:I mean, they could probably cut its head off and redo it. I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Think it works like that. I think you have to totally redo the bust and the sculpture and maybe I have no idea I don't know enough about that so, yeah, let's forget the statue, but the checks and balances.
Speaker 1:So like, if you go to creative, the checks and balances that matter the most, especially in social media, is you have to just have high velocity. So how do you just churn out certain concepts at a fast rate, as at the fastest rate possible? Basically, that you can also keep in mind you do have budgets and like, depending on how much money you're spending like sometimes your budget can't handle testing a ton of ads, sure, but you have to be testing ads, you have to be going through different iterations and you have to be willing to have a Dwayne Wade moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think, Something that might when you mean by that is like something that you might might be ugly. That might be ugly Might not be on brand yes or is something that you wouldn't have thought of, where you, as the owner or you as the team?
Speaker 1:or you as the brand might look at it and say like, oh, that doesn't really look like us yeah, but sometimes guess what, like again, we're not trying to draw too many parallels here because again, even with politics and marketing it's different. We just like to play around with these ideas. But with the Dwayne Wade statue, dwayne Wade's looking at that and kind of laughing, but Dwayne Wade hasn't had more attention on him or his name or his likeness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably since he retired. Probably since he retired Like I would bet, dwayne Wade searches have gone through the roof. Yeah, so there's a ton of attention around him and it's not that negative on him.
Speaker 2:Sure, no, not. I mean it's not negative on him at all, it's just it's more so on the Miami.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't even mad. It's just like that's hilarious, like how did that happen? And guess what? In in a week no one's talking about this for sure. So what I'm? What I want to analyze and maybe we should before this podcast is released and maybe we can plug it in later is I wonder what his merch sales are doing yeah, it'd be very interesting, like if you typed in Dwayne Wade jersey.
Speaker 2:You know, we could probably just look at that really quickly just in Google Trends well, yeah, google Trends is easy. I don't know what the sales are, but but if we follow the you know sales, follow search kind of mentality. If, if more people are searching for duane wade jerseys, duane wade, I'm gonna go. Duane wade is one term and then I'm going to add a second term Dwayne Wade.
Speaker 1:Jersey. Oh yeah, so his search interest is skyrocketed, probably from people. So it went from search interest on Dwayne Wade went from like sub 10 to a hundred for Dwayne Wade and then if we put in Dwayne Wade and then if we put in Dwayne Wade jersey.
Speaker 2:I mean Dwayne Wade jersey is up too how much is Dwayne Wade jersey up it's? Not up a ton, but it's pretty much from zero in the last 90 days to 25.
Speaker 1:Dwayne Wade jersey. I'm seeing it jump all the way up to 50 what's your?
Speaker 2:last 90 days did I type in Dwayne Wade jersey wrong?
Speaker 1:Dwayne Wade. No, that should be right yeah mine's showing mine's showing like almost 50.
Speaker 2:Well, nonetheless, whether it's 25 or 50, it's 25 or 50 more.
Speaker 1:More than it was before it enters for his jersey.
Speaker 2:So yes, it probably.
Speaker 1:So maybe a little funny, maybe a little awkward, but I bet he's sold more jerseys over the last little while.
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Speaker 2:So let's get back to creative testing. You said something that was I think I think could be an interesting thing to break down as a media buying expert. Uh, for those of you who don't know this, I know like obviously everyone knows I don't shouldn't say obviously, but mark and I own a couple different businesses. We own a performance marketing consulting agency and then we also own um, a marketing SAS tool for for surveys, and we own some other things, but Mark, mark's like background and X biggest expertise is in is in media buying, um. So you said something I wanted. I wanted to add some like authority here. Um, you said something that I think was very interesting that I hear from a lot of small brands that small, smaller brands get, and even bigger brands actually get a little bit confused on this. Why do you, why should brands be iterating and testing massive amounts of creative?
Speaker 1:well there's. The main reason is because you have principles that always work right. So you have the principle of the scarcity effect right, of using scarcity in your ad. So, hey, this a scarcity ad would be. If you have a hot selling product and it's constantly going out of stock like, you can really use that to your advantage to say, hey, this is something that has sold out five times, it's just released. That's going to get people having a little bit of fear of missing out.
Speaker 1:There's other ways to you know, draw out that emotion. You know, draw out that emotion. But really the the fact is you never know what's going to work with certain things and and people's attention is always changing and social media has changed things. So, like, we've talked with companies like raindrop and creatively and we brought them in on the podcast. They do long, like more evergreen ads, and the reason why those are so important is because those tend to withstand time better, like far better than generally like a static ad or, you know, like a UGC ad or whatever it is, or a restock ad or a restock ad so you can control a narrative around a brand or a product for longer with those bigger ads.
Speaker 1:But most people, most companies, are not in a position to fork out the kind of money it takes to create a big, evergreen ad. So you're going to be down in this like lower bracket of lower production, and if you're in that lower bracket with lower production, then you have to just play the volume game, which is how do I test, how many interesting things can I test to find out what hooks are gaining the attention that I need to sell my product? Yep, and we've done this a long time, like there's no better way to do it than just doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like, you can have a great idea and we we have it down to a formula where we don't have to do quite as much as we used to. When we're doing even like something like a compilation, where you just take all the old footage of a company and you turn it into a new ad, we kind of understand like, hey, this is a good hook, this is what. These are the three hook ideas we need to test. Here's the body. So the body of the ad doesn't have to change as much as like you're trying to test out just hooks maybe the beginning and the end yeah, we talk about this all the time and like that's going back to our fly fishing analogy.
Speaker 1:um, when you're fly fishing, right, like the hardest part is, or if you're just fishing in general, like the hardest part is just getting the fish to bite the hook, because once, once that happens in fly fishing, you can still lose that fish as you're trying to bring it to net, and that does happen, but it doesn't happen.
Speaker 2:It's less likely.
Speaker 1:Like once you have the fish on the hook.
Speaker 2:You're a lot more likely to reel that fish in versus not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, obviously, because, like if you don't have a fish on the hook, you're never going to get a fish to net.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and getting a fish to bite on the hook is you have to go through different flies, like you have to say, okay, it's morning, like I see some I see like a mayfly hatch, like I can try some, like caddis I can try, you know, like some PMD flies, like I can try these different hooks and if they're not biting, if they're not rising to the surface, that means like the fish are all down. So then you have to go below the surface and use like what are called like nymphs and stuff, and use like a dry dropper setup. But you have to rotate through like the best, the best ones, like know how to say, okay, like I tried this, this isn't working, I gotta change my hooks. And that's why I love comparing it to marketing, cause that's all you're trying to do is get someone to hook and guess what, sometimes those hooks are your filter too.
Speaker 1:So we've talked a lot about measuring your ads and measuring like hey, is an ad working? Like one of the ways to measure an ad is called your hook rate, which is how long are people staying past your five or ten second mark? It depends on how you want to measure it. Yep, um, we have found that we don't typically like to measure that very much, because sometimes our best hook rate ads have the worst performance? Sure, because it's keeping the wrong people around yep right.
Speaker 1:So like you have to be nuanced about it. Like, are you trying to catch a big fish or a small fish? Or like, what type of fish are you trying to catch? Because they sometimes they eat different things. Yeah, and sometimes you don't want certain people hooking on your ads yeah so if you, if you have the right hooks, like what you're really measuring is like, how effective is it at creating the action you want, which is going to be people who are interested in your, your brand, and then buy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like how you can really measure three different things right. It's like how good is it at getting people to stop? There's your hook. How good is it at catching people's interest? There's your hook. How good is it catching people's interest? There's your click, and even maybe more so, like the link click-through rate. Yeah, and then how good is it at selling the product?
Speaker 1:and I would say link click-through rate. If you want to look at top, some people say none of this matters and like all you need to worry about are cpas. Yep, which is neither here nor there. I don't even like really want to get into that today, but we like to say hey, like a good top level is link click through rates when you're comparing against other ads and in like a similar category. Because link click through rate is the actual. Hey, I'm clicking on the buy now or whatever the call to action is Like they're actually clicking on the action, the desired action.
Speaker 1:Whether they take that or not is another question, but that's how you know. Hey, this audience not only is watching this ad. If it's a video, a static, you know you don't have the hook rate, you're just going to be looking straight at link click-through rates and cost pers and all that. But again, the only way to get through these and figure these out is like if you test more yeah and that's not just testing.
Speaker 1:To test, like don't just test everything and anything out there yeah, I was gonna be my next and don't test like the same and and I think a lot of people get caught up on this, which is lesson number one when you're testing ads is don't like you're not amazon, like don't sit there and like test a different font, like four different fonts and like the same title, sure, or like we're like six different colors of orange.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like six different colors of orange.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like just test different concepts out before you test more granular details yeah.
Speaker 1:So what I mean by by that is, if we have a static and say, hey, we're gonna test for statics, what a lot of times what we like to do is we say, hey, here's, here's the four statics. What a lot of times what we like to do is we say, hey, here's, here's the four statics, but here are the four headlines that we're testing, right, so we can say something like I don't know what are we selling like shoes, yeah, hey, the number one, shoes for running, right. And then you can go like more a little bit instead of uh, more like feature or use case. Then you could go more emotional, which is, hey, the number one, dad shoe, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or the shoe that dads trust.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So now we're, or the shoes that help mom, pregnant moms, yeah.
Speaker 1:So now you're getting more into the benefits and you're identifying your customer in the headline, like in the actual H1. Totally, you're filtering for who you want to target Okay. So, like number one running shoes, like there's a lot of runners Sure.
Speaker 2:And you can be talking to men, women, 18 year olds.
Speaker 1:Yes, A better headline might be that's going to cause more emotion. That we would probably test is something more like hey, a running shoe that doesn't suck.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or a running shoe that lasts, or you know, like now you're starting to cut like cater in on. Hey, if I'm a running shoe company and I'm selling running shoes and I've done surveys and I know my customer, I know that the three most important values for them is that a running shoe lasts right, that a running shoe has. Let's just, let's just say you're dealing with it's comfortable maybe an older demographic and arch support is a big deal sure so it's like durable arch support and then comfort, in that order.
Speaker 1:So we're going to take those and we're going to test those in the ads first and foremost like hey, comfort durability and arch support. Yeah, and then out of those three tests, we'll probably use the same image in those three, just to figure out you don't want too many variables in that imagery, right, because yeah you don't want to like, just test five different if you go arch support with a different image of comfort, and comfort wins.
Speaker 2:Was it comfort or was it? The image was more compelling. Yep, yeah.
Speaker 1:And now when you're testing these ads, you can do one of two things you can either use well, there's three ways of doing it. If you're using cost caps, which some people are advocating a lot for right now, you can just throw it all basically into the same ad set. Yeah, you can just throw it all basically into the same ad set. Yeah, there's an argument sometimes for doing that, even with a broad max conversion ad set too, right? So method one is you just throw in your variables. We don't tend to like that just depending on levels of spend.
Speaker 1:I personally like using dynamic creative ad sets where you can test different ad copy, you can test those different variations of those ads, you can set a certain spend limit on it and then you can get through testing really fast, like, I mean, the algorithm does a really good job of figuring out which ones are working the best, yep, so I like dynamic creative ad sets oftentimes.
Speaker 1:Or you can also just create like a small ad set where you're where you're testing ads and then migrating winners over to. But you want to make sure the costs that you're mitigating the loss on that, because sometimes there's false positives and false negatives depending on your business goals, sure, but anyways, yeah. So you can either just like throw them in there and just like let the algorithm do its thing into your, in your evergreen ad sets, or you can separate it into a dynamic, creative or just a regular ad set and test those variations out yourself and then generally after you, because, because, obviously, if a brand's just starting running ads or they're just getting, you know, getting going here, you kind of just have to test a bunch of stuff, right, is what you're talking about?
Speaker 2:Yep, now what? What's your recommendation? As as you start to learn, how are you documenting? Or how should these guys, how should people be documenting, to be like, hey, you know what Comfort is, comfort wins over our support all the time. So are you putting that in these like winter categories to now say, okay, cool, let's test comfort, but in video format or let's test comfort with these 10 different images.
Speaker 2:It's the same headline, but now we're testing imagery. Yep, you know, is it comfort with a mom holding a kid? You know to showcase like that emotion of, is it comfort of an elderly person who's Well, yeah, let's just say it's comfort for a demographic.
Speaker 1:Typically you're selling to 45 to 60 year olds or whatever right like. I'm assuming there's not a lot of 60 year olds that are still like running if we're using this hypothetical example of a running company. Yeah, hey, we tested some statics. Statics are the easiest things to test because you can turn them out a lot faster right, you can create them that now you have videos.
Speaker 1:Let's say, you have a bunch of videos, you don't know what to do. You can then compile those videos into compilation ads or even use ai videos and you can mix stock videos. Right, you can do that to now create hooks around an old person I don't want to say an old person, but let's just say like a 50 year old experiencing foot pain after they ran, like they're taking their shoe off with foot pain.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. So now you're creating this moment where it's like hey did. Does somebody identify with this person?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so here's the pain. Now we resolve the pain.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, or you can try the flip or the reverse of that, which is more of hey, here's the good part, which is this person feels good after they run, and maybe the headline or whatever you're using, or the voiceover says do you wish you felt like this after you ran, and then you show the pain and then you show the the resolution the resolution. So yeah, essentially you can start with statics test and then you start grabbing that idea. Okay, comfort's our winner.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:How does comfort translate into four different new hooks or? Three hooks on a video.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:And again, the body of the video compilation is generally going to stay the same, which is we always recommend, like throw in some social proof, throw in some testimonials, right Like you can do all that. You can make it look like an ad, it can be ugly, you can throw UGC into it. Whatever it is, there's a, there's literally a thousand ways to skin a cat, as they say. Yep, speaking of a Chadwick hooligan from your show, of Chadwick Hooligan from your show. Nailed it Chadwick Thwitz, thwitz.
Speaker 2:Thackery Binks.
Speaker 1:Thackery Binks.
Speaker 2:Very close.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, a thousand ways to skin a cat. We have our processes, but these are just some general ideas. So take your winning concept, turn it into video. If you can't produce a whole video, go film some stuff yourself. You can go grab stock videos. There's still ways to test and then figure out what hooks are working for your demographic. Is it showing the pain first? Is it showing the resolution first? Is it something that has nothing to do with either of those and it's just an interesting visual?
Speaker 2:Yep and document it.
Speaker 1:And document it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that you can understand what the learnings are. You can go back six months later and retest something.
Speaker 1:So we like to document that and then we use ChatGPT to help us create new ideas as well. So ChatGPT can help you in this documentation and iteration process.
Speaker 2:Chat GPT and between chat GPT and surveying right, like as we survey more customers. It helps you get more ideas on things you can test.
Speaker 1:Yes, because it'll also identify with the customers, like, for example, we've seen customers list their top four reasons for buying, but sometimes number three is the best hook, sure out of their motivation, sure yeah so that's why it's important not to just take number one like you got.
Speaker 1:You got to just test and say, hey, visually. So, for example, if we're taking this hypothetical shoe company and they say comfort, arch support, and then uh, durability are their three most important, but durability, I think let's just say durability was number one, right in our first it was durability, arch support and then comfort. Durability might not be that emotionally intriguing from a visual standpoint.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and and durability is oftentimes like an overplayed thing.
Speaker 1:That because you can mix durability with quality, right, yes, everyone's, oh, high quality, high quality, best shoe exactly yeah, so durability, even though that might be their number one motivation, if you survey them, it also might just not be that intriguing, yeah, or it might just be table stakes like totally the most important, but that's just what they expect, so everyone's expecting, sure, so you can't just take your number one and say that's all we're testing.
Speaker 1:Yep, so like that's why when we did that example, it's almost like I went straight to comfort, because comfort is already, in my mind, the easiest thing to visually demonstrate. Sure, it's the most demonstrable of the three motivations, because even in arch, support and comfort kind of go one one together yeah, so arch support is going to be more of like injury prevention, where the the comfort is going to be more of like you feel good while you're wearing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so, uh, so what? What are some? We've recently talked about this with some clients of ours or just people we've consulted with. We've talked a lot about hooks, like lately. What are some categories and different styles of hooks that people can be testing and trying Like? For example, we had this conversation with a brand who was talking about how they like they're very much and they're a really big brand and they very much they're in the health world. They like to be more positive. Hey, this is how you're going to feel when you take our products where we've seen kind of the opposite, that like in the ad testing world, more of that fear based. Hey, this is what will happen to you if you don't.
Speaker 1:Versus this will happen to you.
Speaker 2:if you do, tends to outperform the, the hell tends to outperform the heaven a lot of times. So give me some examples. What are some good examples of different styles of hooks that people can be testing and trying?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the number one. I mean, the number one thing that we like to do is we like to play off of this idea. We, at our agency, we call it heaven or hell. So are you trying to create like a positive, aspirational emotion in the hook, or are you trying to create like a fear based emotion, a fear of missing out? Right, so, it depends on the brand, but sometimes, in a highly competitive market, the fear the fear based is often going to and speaking of halloween, right, the fear base is going to win. Yeah, and fear isn't like you're scaring them, like you're going to die, you know, but it is, it's. It's a very quick, demonstrable way of showing like whatever the pain point is that they're experiencing, rather than the relief.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:You're showing the pain, because a lot of people will identify with the pain.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not necessarily the, necessarily the relief with a quick snippet. So a good example of that is, if you are a skincare company, using hell is going to be like. This is what your skin looks like now.
Speaker 1:Or if you don't use our product, which is maybe it's acne, maybe it's blemishes, maybe it's wrinkles, whatever it is right. It's like a quick before and after. Like this is what it looks like with us, usually starting with like the not great and then showing the great results. That's always going to be the better. Now, there are rules around that with Facebook that you can't do, sure sure.
Speaker 2:Depending on health.
Speaker 1:But nonetheless that's just a good. Can't do Sure. Sure, Depending on health, yeah, but nonetheless that's just a good idea. Yeah, Heaven for sale. So sometimes the aspirational works better. So if you are a clothing brand, right, sometimes it's not going to work to show like oh, you don't look good wearing not our stuff, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's going to be more of.
Speaker 1:Hey, how do you imagine yourself, like, why are you shopping? Usually, people are shopping for clothes because they want to feel a certain way in a certain moment. Right, they want to look a certain way.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's where I think a lot of people miss the mark when they're trying to create ads, is it's not just looking a certain way, it's looking away in a moment. Yeah, so if you're selling um, let's say you're a men's clothing company selling jeans, right, you got to think about, like, what are the moments that men see themselves wearing those jeans?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Is it? Oh, they actually want jeans cause they they're.
Speaker 1:They're working outside and they need something that's going to be durable. Is it? Hey, they actually want jeans because they're working outside and they need something that's going to be durable, is it? Hey, they want to look a little nicer because jeans kind of you know, they can fluctuate between dress up and dress down.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So what are the ways that people envision themselves and what are the moments, and then you try to showcase those moments and then they can see themselves in those moments while they're shopping for clothes, sure those moments and then they can see themselves in those moments while they're shopping for clothes, sure?
Speaker 2:what are some other cool hook styles that and you were before the podcast.
Speaker 1:We were talking about these different yeah, like one of another, one's going to be social proof as a hook. Yeah, so as seen in shark tank, that's an easy one, right? Or like as seen on over 5,000 five-star reviews yeah, over 500,000 customers served or over 2 million protein shakes sold, or whatever. It is Right yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like a big number showing that people trust you is going to be a really easy hook to use as well. Totally Now, again, if you're a small company, you might not have that social proof, yeah, which is why I think the heaven and hell concept is just the easiest way to start iterating on your ads right now.
Speaker 2:Especially if you're a little smaller.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then the emotional contrast is really just important, because when you're thinking of heaven and hell, your hook might be heaven, your hook might be hell, but you're going to showcase the other part.
Speaker 2:You're going to contrast it in the ad.
Speaker 1:If it's a video ad, if it's a static, you're not really going to be contrasting that Sure. The contrast in a static is usually going to be something clever with the wording.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Usually a straight image isn't going to do a whole lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But if you have a funny headline overlay on your static, sometimes it can contrast with the static itself.
Speaker 2:Totally.
Speaker 1:So, using wordplay, you can use a bad word with an asterisk in it, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like maybe it's a really elegant shot of a woman wearing a gown in a moonlit meadow right or something, but maybe the the headline says something like classy as shit right, yeah, yeah, there's like a juxtaposition there yeah, like you create, you create a contrast.
Speaker 2:You're a little edgy, but this is classy Like edgy and classy.
Speaker 1:So that's ways you can create contrast and statics. But again, I think, start with heaven and hell, because heaven and hell always has a contrast. Right, like you have heaven, which is this glorious place, right, and we're thinking of this in the abstract, not the literal Sure yep, and then hell is like misery and like what you don't want to happen or edgy right, so like, if you can contrast, like that's how you draw attention, is contrast?
Speaker 1:yeah, I agree without contrast you're just kind of bland yeah, you just kind of fit in with everyone else.
Speaker 2:Any other off the top of your dome?
Speaker 1:good example hooks well, if people want to Sign up for our newsletter and community there that we don't have yet. We'll have it all outlined for him there. Yeah, no, but no, I think. Yeah, there's other examples, but I think for the sake of time and and conciseness. So, yeah, there's other examples, but I think for the sake of time and conciseness.
Speaker 1:That's where you start. Cool, because a lot of people, even big brands, miss that mark all the time. There's not contrast, it's just here's my features or here's a few benefits. And that's a great place to start, which is usually it's going to be benefits over features. Yep, great place to start. But now, how do you start having, start having, like you said, more juxtapositions or more contrast? How do you start drawing?
Speaker 2:attention to things in a clever way. Yep, yep, I think the big thing that I want to maybe just like reiterate before we close here is um, if you're talking about more or less creative, more is always going to be the side to err on.
Speaker 1:We've seen it, yeah because you're not always going to use every piece of creative either Totally, but if you have the creative engine going, it's a lot easier to get through hard spots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Meta's doing such a good job with their algorithm too. A lot of people think that the more the more. Now, obviously, if you're only spending two to five hundred dollars a day and you've got one hundred and fifty ads in there, that's a different story, because it's going to be challenging to allocate budget to all one hundred and fifty of those Assets. But so there is a limit assets. But so there there is a limit, obviously. But for the most part, meta does such a great job at making sure that it's testing this creative and if it's not hitting those benchmarks you've set, it's going to push it aside.
Speaker 2:So you might be spending fifty thousand dollars a month, or a hundred thousand dollars a month and two ads 10 ads might only have $25 each of that hundred, you know. So it's like you. You might see a bad performing ad, but it's like when you go look at the spend, it's not. It's not sucking up a budget to actually make a difference, not not to say that that $25 that it used on it isn't still your money, but there's learnings from it, right? You, instead of being like, oh shoot, we should take this down. It's what? Why didn't this ad perform?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's just going back to the Pareto principle, 80-20 rule yep, I mean, we already know that you're always going to have 20 percent of your ads are probably going to generate 80 percent or more of your your revenue and profits. Yeah, like the 80 percent or more of your your revenue and profits yeah like the 80 20 rule is undefeated.
Speaker 1:It's everywhere and we talk about it in everything all the time because it is undefeated. Same thing with your ads. Yes, in the end, 20 percent of your ads will be what generate almost all of your revenue. The problem is, those ads aren't always relevant, and so if you don't always have a little new ad churning machine, then a lot of times we see companies get caught flat-footed and whatever the algorithm changes or the taste changes or the season changes or whatever, whatever it is that changes, and they're stuck thinking we, oh well, we had our winners, yeah, and now you don't anymore?
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. And it's really hard to start churning that engine while you're losing, because then oh well, the defense yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, we don't, we can't afford to lose, right? It's like, well, you kind of have to lose when you're figuring out what's working. Yeah, totally so. Anyways, to recap, please, what we like to do is you go and, when you're starting your iteration process, start with your three main motivators of your customers. Right, filter those through the heaven and hell concept as you create statics and videos. What's the emotional contrast and what are some hooks you can start testing? Start testing them out in the structure which is usually going to be an ad set.
Speaker 1:You can do a dynamic creative ad set or just a regular ad set. Put spend limits. A dynamic, creative ad set or just a regular ad set? Put spend limits. Don't let it go crazy, but sometimes they work so well you just release. Sometimes that ad set ends up being your winning ad set anyways just because of the new ads.
Speaker 1:But keep it structured, keep it simple, let it run. Don't turn it off if it's not working in three days. Let it run for 14 days, sometimes seven days. Get enough data in there at a low budget that you can say this worked or didn't work.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Okay, and before you decide it didn't work, look at the metrics. Which is going to be your link click-through rates, your top line metrics, your CPAs. Sometimes you're going to have awesome link click-through rates, but maybe it's just the wrong offer.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you're going to have awesome link click-through rates, but maybe it's just the wrong offer. Yeah, so don't just throw an ad away because you have really high engagement but low conversions. Think about it and say, well, are we just sending them to the wrong experience? Sure, do we not have the right offer? Is it the wrong land? Like, did we mix up the landing pages? Are we sending them to a collection page or to a product page? Yeah, so sometimes it's not the ad, it's just the experience. So, yep, then analyze the experience, but totally look at your link click through rates to determine if it's a high engagement ad. It's an easy way. Yes, you can use hook hook through rates on the videos, but but that doesn't always translate to doesn't always translate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because sometimes you want a certain person like you want a certain amount of people not engaging totally yeah, there's certain demographics that don't buy, but love watching things yeah, usually they're 55 and older. Very, very true If you know your meta demographics.
Speaker 2:Yes, All right. Well, thank you everybody for tuning in and we'll see you guys next week. Yeah, Elections.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good luck. Thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. Please go rate. And 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.