Sometimes, Everything Old Is…Old Again Pt. 1
(THE PROBLEM WITH OLD SCHOOL MARKETING)BY CHRISTOPHER ZULLO Unfortunately, in advertising, certain techniques become antiquated due to being overtaken by technological advances and now, it’s time to see the writing on the wall. Whether we’re talking about the decline of print advertising, cold calling ineffectiveness, one size fits all marketing and others (and we will be talking about each of these topics), when is it time to put these types of marketing, and the agencies who still hold on to them, in the rear-view mirror? How about now? Maybe now is the best time. As business owners, agencies, CMO’s etc, we all need to see the writing on the wall before it’s too late. This makes us all better forecasters while still able to stay ahead of trends with research and fact-based data to back up our reporting. When we talk about the side of the ad industry that is/was print advertising, ie newspapers and magazines, we all know that they are on life support with the rise of the age of digital media. Sure, there will be people who will advertise in traditional print until that platform has completely disappeared from human existence entirely, all while spending on a technique that is not as effective. Right now, you’re reading this on your computer or your smart phone. How do I know this? Because we didn’t print out any hard copies or publish them in any publication. Let me ask you this: How do you track engagement and ROI with print compared to digital media methods? More consumers are switching to digital news sources, using the open internet and social media for consumption. Newspaper subscriptions have declined steadily over the years with many major publications reporting losses in readership. So why place your dollars in print ads, when that industry cannot provide you effective reporting regarding reader engagement and your ROI? How do you measure conversions through print ads? More and more brands are shifting their ad buying dollars to digital media, because there are more effective checks and balances and fact-based data to show you where and how your money is being spent and how your campaigns are performing. To compound this fact, print ads lack the sophisticated targeting options available with digital advertising. Digital platforms allow advertisers specific demographics, locations, and interests, while print ads cast a wider net, with far less precision, the ol’ spray and pray method—eek! There are other factors like print production and its ever-increasing costs, along with decreasing readership. Growing awareness of environmental issues have many consumers and companies seeking more eco-friendly advertising solutions. You’ve also got the younger generations who are not consumers of print media. Millennials and Gen Z are becoming the primary consumers, and for the most part, they’re all on the side of technology and digital media advancements. There are other factors like the effects of Covid-19, the decline of local print publications, limitations on engagement feedback and many more. But this is the warning shot to start placing the dollars behind your campaigns more effectively and stop wasting them in areas of media that are no longer viable. What about the effectiveness of cold calling? I know a lot of people read that and their stomachs churn or they get chills because they hate it. Well, a lot of business owners hate it and are annoyed by it as well. In our office, we have people that still love to do it because they have a genuine interest in someone’s business and think they can really help them use their brand effectively. We also have some that completely cringe when the term “cold calling” is even uttered during any of our round table discussions. In my opinion, you’re either great at it, or you’re not. A lot of the time, business owners view cold calling as intrusive and less effective in reaching today’s consumers. The consumers being targeted today prefer online research before engaging with brands, shout out millennials! Within the realm of cold calling, those calls often result in high rejection rates, with many prospects hanging up or expressing disinterest. There are studies which indicated that sales reps can face rejection rates of 80-90%, making it a frustrating and time-consuming process with low success rates. We still have the pesky telemarketers, which are pretty much the bane of existence, that have truly ruined the organic cold calling experience. Now there are strict regulations in place, such as the National Do Not Call Registry. This has made it increasingly difficult to reach potential customers through cold calls. In a lot of agencies, ours especially, we believe in relationship-based business development. Modernized sales strategies hold a large emphasis on building relationships rather than transactional interactions. Remember the “chop shop” analogy I used in a previous blog? Cold calling often lacks the personal touch and rapport-building necessary for successful sales. More and more, today’s buyers prefer personalized outreach and engagement. Business owners beware: one-size-fits-all marketing. If someone comes at you with this technique, head for the hills. Most business owners start their business because they saw something lacking in their industry. There were improvements to be made, or better experiences to be had. What is it that sets you apart? Someone who presents this one-size-fits-all marketing strategy for your brand, is not doing their homework. They aren’t addressing you. They’re limiting you by making a broad campaign that does not consider your target audience. What the more advanced and savvy agencies can do nowadays is quite remarkable. Personalized marketing, target marketing, geofencing, digital display and on and on are utilizing and leveraging analytics and customer insights to get your brand in front of the people who need to see it. Consumers out there are trying to find and connect with you, but you’ve got to make it easy for them to find you. Every business has a different budget they’re working with. Certain campaigns can utilize everything from
Flipping The Switch: Why Switch Advertising Agencies?
BY CHRISTOPHER ZULLO Some people out there can’t understand why it is such a big deal for a business to switch agencies, when another agency may be better at helping them break through to that next level of success. It’s kind of like moving from a home that you’ve loved but have grown out of. It can be sad, scary, stressful and for a lot of us, the fear of the unknown is enough to keep us hanging on to a part of our business that no longer serves us the way we need it to. As a boutique advertising agency, our focus is always on the client and the newest, most cutting-edge ways to get eyes on our clients’ business. Media and how it is bought and sold is evolving all the time and it gets more and more exciting as the tech and the AI is refined. New minds are sculpting the way media is traded in a more open, fair, and honest way so that agencies don’t have to choose between retaining their employees by screwing their clients, or gouging clients to make more money to buy their next Lamborghini. Our media buyers are always optimizing campaigns so that every dollar allotted to a campaign is stretched and maximized to its fullest potential. Buyer beware, at least with the newer agencies, of the chop shop mentality. The pandemic really shook the industry to its core, and everyone felt the need to pivot because so many millions were home streaming their entertainment. Thousands lost their jobs or quit their jobs to start new agencies, without the proper knowledge of how to buy media to benefit their clients. One would negotiate rates as cheap as they could get it (old school, linear broadcast way of thinking) and then jack the price up as much as they could and send the invoice to their client. Other agencies would farm out all of the media buying and creative and just manage it, instead of acting in their client’s best interest to make sure they are getting exactly what they need. Another old school way of thinking, and these agencies are all but defunct, the, “get as many clients in as possible, bill them, if they’re not happy, screw them we’ll get another one.” Behind them are the agencies that refuse to change their model or refuse to adapt to the times that are changing and enhancing before our eyes. Remember when I said, “fear of the unknown?” There are agencies that are so stuck in their antiquated ways that they are afraid to change, (check out our other blogs Old School Mentality and Problems With Legacy) when the entire industry is changing and asking them to come along for the ride. As a business owner, you are the entrepreneur that had a vision and took the chance and risked it all to get to where you are today. If you’re happy with where you are and don’t want further success, then these blogs and ad agencies as a whole are not for you. But you are the type who craves further success and growth for your business. You aren’t happiest when resting on your laurels. Change is good. Say it with me, “change is good!” Change and growth, optimization and innovation are the ways that a company like Amazon went from an online bookstore to a global juggernaut. A company so massive and well known, I’m sure even tribes with no outside human contact are ordering from them. Not really, but you get the metaphor. Amazon didn’t grow because they refused to stay where they were. The innovated. They took something so pigeonholed and saw the writing on the wall…and now the CEO and founder, Jeff Bezos, is flying around the planet in orbit. Change is good. Yeah, but what about loyalty to your agency that has been with you since the start? Do you pay your agency invoices in loyalty? Do your customers pay you in loyalty? Loyalty is a great quality for personal relationships and a two way relationship with your customers. When you’re trying to grow your business and have an agency acting like an anvil chained to your ankles, how do you expect to grow? If you have an agency that specializes in one thing that was the best form of media thirty years ago, do you think that same thing still works? With all the new ways to reach people, still think it’s the same? When you take a step back and look at your business and the way people used to advertise, do you think the Yellow Pages is where you’re current conversions are coming from? Advertising is so targeted to the person you are trying to reach, it’s borderline scary. Scary in a good way, more like thrilling. Another good thing about a client centered boutique agency is, we don’t use the spray and pray method. We’re going to localize and follow trends to get you in front of the people that want to be your customer. They’re out there actively looking for you, we’re just going to get you in front of them faster. Our company believes in the ever changing and more customized approach to advertising. Optimizing our clients’ campaigns means our eyes are always on how the campaign is performing and where the best mediums to place your advertising dollars are. The creative that you agree to is also going to play a huge part in how well your campaigns do. We’re always trying to push the envelope to see how many people we can get to notice your brand. We like the unique, out of the box type of creative that will leave people talking or at the very least thinking about your advertising. That’s effective advertising. We believe in that type of advertising because that means people are talking about YOU, not us. Conversions start to happen, and customers start to populate your business, which in turn
Sometimes, Everything Old Is…Old Again Pt. 2
(THE PROBLEM WITH OLD SCHOOL MARKETING)BY CHRISTOPHER ZULLO Now that we’re back for round two of our deep dive into those agencies that refuse to adapt with the times and the ever-changing landscape of advertising, a few points we’d like to touch on are things like delayed feedback loops, those who fall into neglecting data-driven decisions, inflexibility and rigidity—always a red flag, missed opportunities with social media, and overlooking SEO and online presence. A lot of this encompasses an old school way of thinking which lacks the forethought to engage in interactive elements that today’s consumers crave. Engaging your audience through interactive approaches like social media and the open internet by using SEO tools is often overlooked by the old school agencies who are either afraid of the technology because they don’t think they’ll understand it, or they simply don’t want to learn it…because they think they won’t understand it. Think of a time in your life when you decided to put all your eggs in one basket, a gamble. Sometimes it can work out in the greatest way possible, and sometimes you can lose your shirt. When you’re opening yourself up to a partnership with an agency, it’s important to know the differences between traditional and digital marketing techniques and how it may take longer to gauge the effectiveness of your campaign in one versus the other. For instance, in a digital campaign, data is constantly updated and the reporting for you campaign can be sent to you with the analytics in real time. For a company like ours, with a seat at The Trade Desk, our media buyers are optimizing your campaigns daily. Traditional media works quite differently. Set it and forget it. Measuring the effectiveness of a campaign is significantly slower and adjustments are made even more slowly. If you’re looking for feedback on how a digital campaign is performing versus a traditional one, the data will be available immediately from your digital campaign and will take a bit of time for your traditional one. Think of it as going away with a group of friends across the country. Half the group is going by plane, the other half are driving. The flying group is going to get to the destination much quicker having had a much more streamlined experience than the group that’s driving. Digital vs traditional is effectively the same thing. You’ll get results. One you’ll be able to pinpoint with precision (digital), the other (traditional)…not as effectively. If you’ve ever been to a casino or a sports betting location, and you want to bet on a race, let’s say the Kentucky Derby, you weigh your options. Sure, there are a lot of outcomes: there’s the favorite to win, there’s the one with the odds stacked against them and all the others in the middle where anything can happen. That’s kind of what happens when data-driven decisions are neglected. Instinct or the “let’s try this here and see what happens” method of old, doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when data is available for you to look at. This is a more tangible approach with the digital side of marketing. Wouldn’t you like to bet on the horse with certainty knowing that it’s going to win based on proven date, without throwing money to chance? Your agency and/or account rep, will know how to interpret the analytics from a data-driven approach to help each client strategize for their next campaign. You will have numbers that you can tie to each aspect of your campaign and how effectively they’ve worked. This gives you the best recipe when strategizing for you next campaign. Constant optimization tools: someone always looking at how your campaign is performing and real time data that you can have in hand to see the trends with your own eyes. Numbers on the traditional side are much easier to fudge. It’s your money, you spend it how you wish. We’re also not dumping on traditional media. It definitely has its perks, but it is not leading the way in advertising anymore. Digital media has revolutionized how advertisers engage consumers. The only arena you must be a little more cautious is with social media platforms. You spend the money, and they tell you your campaign performed well, without having to disclose actual analytics. Social media advertising is a lot cheaper and has a far and wide reach. More on that later. When you’re dealing with an agency stuck in its old ways of inflexibility, rigidity and refusing to budge, and yes, they are still out there, you’ve got an issue. Gone are the days, especially with digital advertising, where numbers can be fudged, and things are hidden in plain sight, but you don’t actually understand what you’re looking at. When an agency refuses to adapt to changing market conditions, they don’t have your best interest at the forefront of what you’re trying to achieve. Before the horse leaves the stable, you’re in a losing race. Firmly believing in an antiquated, ineffective marketing strategy leaves you open to chasing down a campaign to an unsatisfactory end. What does that do in the long run? It poisons your image of the new age advertising agencies that understand and chase down the changing markets. Why would you want to work with another agency again after having been burned by them before? Knowing what you know is a great position to be in. Not knowing what you don’t know is a vulnerable position. When an agency can present you with concrete data-driven analytics, proving to you that your campaign is working, is the only time you can trust the process. It was touched only briefly, but social media can be a home run if harnessed by the right person. Due to the fact that the algorithms are constantly changing, willing to evolve with the expansion of social media is a must when trying to get brand awareness and
Saying The Things, You May Not Want To Hear
BY CHRISTOPHER ZULLO When it comes to the advertising world, or the sales world at large, every business is a target for outside sales to come in and pitch you something. Whether you’re a restaurant being pitched new equipment for your kitchen to a car dealership being pitched radio advertising, each business owner will encounter these situations, and everyone is looking to butter their bread. Ninety-five percent of the time, the people pitching you products or advertising for your business are acting in good faith and believe that their product or service can help your business excel. But what about that 5%? Perhaps it’s just knowing what to look for… As an advertising and marketing agency, we’re going to focus on the latter, since that’s our expertise. Our agency has over 50 years of experience working in every media medium that exists. Once we joined The Trade Desk, we realized the potential to not only make the money we need to sustain and grow our own business, but also to help our clients sustain and grow their businesses without breaking the bank or ripping people off (even before having a seat on The Trade Desk, that was never our style). Sometimes, as a business owner, there are a few questions you could be asking yourself and of those that are coming in to pitch you for advertising. The first is, does the person pitching to you understand your vision for your business—conversely, do you? Another could be, would this person be a good fit for a working relationship? Maybe another could be, does this person have a clue as to what they’re talking about, or are they just talking in circles until we’re both mentally exhausted, I’ll agree to something I don’t have a full grasp of? That’s a dig at all the snake oil salesmen out there, the bad actors. Of course, there are tons of questions in different phrasing modifications you could ask, but the aforementioned might be a good place to start. Understanding what you’re asking, so you get the answer you’re looking for is probably the best place to start. So, let’s break it down by each question with the answer built in, sort of as a guide for you to follow, so you can sus out the bad actors from those that actually want to see your business succeed and have YOU, the business owner, as their first priority. Does the person pitching to you, understand the vision for your business—conversely, do you? One of the main questions we ask over and over when we’re speaking with potential clients is what their vision is for their business. Eighty-five percent of the time, business owners have a clear and concise vision for their business. You start to get into trouble when the waters are muddied and there isn’t a clear vision for a business. In that case, we may be able to help you focus on the thing that sets you apart. Other times, we have to jump ship because our job is not to figure out your vision or business model. If you know your vision for your business, it will be apparent in your branding, your business model, your employees, your customer retention etc. If you feel like that’s you, why would you need to advertise? Working with an agency, like ours perhaps, gives you the opportunity to burst through the ceiling that’s keeping you held in the current pattern you’re in. If your vision is to grow your business to “x” amount of dollars in profit a year, or to have “x” amount of employees or whatever, your vision would be easy to explain in several words and your agency rep can start planning a campaign for you, and saving you money right off the bat, while you continue to operate your business. If you understand your vision and your potentially new agency partner understands it as well, you may be able to answer the next question with some parameters. Would this person be a good fit for a working relationship? Relationships are paramount! You must have a good working relationship with the people who are coming in to help you figure out how to burst through that ceiling with the knowledge and power behind them to make things happen. Advertising agencies are service businesses, so customer service is, or rather should be, at the center of their operations. If you, the client, are not feeling the love or getting the attention on your campaigns or reporting you should be, RED FLAG! Ask questions, ask for your reports, and have someone go over your reports with you either over the phone, via zoom, or in person. You should be able to understand where your hard-earned dollars are being spent and if they are making a difference in your business. You are the business owner, the client of the agency, you should not have to go looking for answers if something is not made clear to you. Your rep should be able to help you understand what the reporting shows and to care for you and your business in a professional partnership, so you know what you’re spending on, is legit. Does this person have a clue as to what they’re talking about, or are they just talking in circles until you’re both mentally exhausted you agree to something you don’t have a full grasp of? The phrasing of this question was just an excuse for me to be snarky. But it’s a legitimate question to raise if you feel like the person trying to pitch to you is just spewing words learned from an old company script or pulled from somewhere the sun don’t shine. If a rep is trying to get a point across, if they know what they’re talking about, they will be able to convey it clearly and succinctly. After you get the framework of the basics conveyed, then you can