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Data-Driven Marketing: Insights and Strategies with Agile Marketing's Jacki Saxton
84 Plays1 year ago
Join us in this episode as Brent Oberlink and Travis May sit down with Jacki Saxton, a dynamic Account Manager at Agile & Co Digital Marketing Agency. Jacki brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, with a career that seamlessly blends her passion for education and digital marketing. With over a decade spent shaping young minds as a Secondary Social Studies Teacher, Jacki made a bold transition into the world of SEO and digital marketing, where she now leads innovative strategies for a diverse range of clients. Certified in HubSpot and Google Ads, and with expertise across platforms like Google Ads, Meta, and LinkedIn, Jacki shares her unique journey and offers invaluable insights into the evolving digital landscape. Whether you're interested in digital marketing, career transitions, or just love hearing stories of personal and professional growth, this episode is for you. Tune in to hear how Jacki's background in education has influenced her approach to marketing and learn how she's driving success in the industry today.
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Transcript
Importance of Google Business Profile
00:00:00
Speaker
When you're starting off with your marketing, what are some three things that we should be doing? Like I said, Google Business Profile. Everybody should have a Google Business Profile. You can set that up for free. You adjust it super, super easy. You can do it from your phone. um And it's one of those things where think about yourself as a consumer. Think about yourself as an internet browser. When you are looking for a company, are you clicking on the first ad you see? Maybe not. Are you looking at that Google Business Profile in the bottom corner that has like the stars and the information and the hours and the reviews?
00:00:29
Speaker
Are you looking at the first result that's like organic?
Meet the Hosts: Jackie & Travis
00:00:32
Speaker
All right. Welcome back to another edition of The Better Contractor. Today, I'm joined by Jackie with Agile Marketing. Jackie, welcome. Hello. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah. And I have Travis who, I think we're, what is this? Episode 28, Travis? 29, somewhere in there. 29, 28, somewhere in there. Anyway, whatever episode this is, we've been talking about giving Travis a nickname and you have a nickname. It's called The Professor.
00:00:58
Speaker
Because you always have deep thought you're, you look like a professor. I mean, look at you. You touch your beard a lot. You play with the beard hairs a lot. um I mean, you are, you are a professor Travis. So next podcast, I expect a turtleneck and round glasses. Well, I was thinking like my mind's going to basketball, which isn't so, uh, turtleneck and and round glasses. All right, man.
00:01:21
Speaker
but we yeah we can do i went to indiana jones is kind of yeah the tweetweed jacket with heron bone and yeah the have get that bullet I think lean more towards the ah the Indiana
Partnership with Agile Marketing
00:01:37
Speaker
Jones professor. tell yeah but Yeah, so we so the better contractor we use agile for our like full service marketing firm. So we We are picky about who we partner with. We're picky about who our vendors are. So we try to pick the best of the best. And I think on this podcast, you will see why we picked Agile and why we were thankfully assigned to Jackie. So Jackie, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.
00:02:04
Speaker
Awesome. You're much too kind, Brent. Thank you so much for that. Well, like Brent said, I'm Jackie. i'm I'm here from St. Louis, Missouri. I actually grew up not too far from St. Louis in a rural community called Troy, if anybody's familiar there. um Big proud members of the FFA out in Troy, Missouri. Good stuff. And then I went from one rural community to another when I went to school at Kirk'sville um at Truman State University in Kirk'sville, Missouri. So like the small towns.
00:02:28
Speaker
um I actually went to school in Chrisville for um history was my undergrad and education was my graduate so I was actually a high school history teacher for the first 10 or so years of
Jackie's Journey: History to Marketing
00:02:39
Speaker
my professional career. I worked at um a local high school here in St. Louis, loved every single minute of it. um It was great, yeah. ah Made it through COVID. You know, COVID was pretty hard on a lot of educators. And kind of at that time, early COVID years, 2019, 2020-ish, I actually started writing like all teachers. We all have side hustles, right? I started writing SEO articles for Agile. So that's where I started here with Agile in the marketing world was actually in the SEO realm. So for SEO, search engine optimization. And when you learn all about search engines and how you pop up on Google is really, really cool. So that kind of piqued my interest there in marketing. and
00:03:16
Speaker
um Like I said, made it through. I feel like the hardest years of COVID and needed a bit of a break. A position opened up here at Agile, and I swooped in and snagged it. So I've been here, I guess, three years or so now, and it's been lovely, absolutely wonderful. I learn a lot every single day. I feel like one of marketing is one of those things where, you know, when I was teaching, I could go on autopilot. You know, the content's not changing in history, sorry.
00:03:36
Speaker
But you know here, there's something new every single day, constantly updating platforms, constantly updating clients, whatever it may be. So ah definitely an exciting, fast-paced world here in marketing, but really, really enjoy it. I think one thing that really ties together like education in the marketing world is people, right? um So I work with people every single day, work with clients just like I would work with students. um And it's it's been great. All good things.
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah, awesome. I know one thing when we started using you guys, it really, you guys are a very data driven marketing.
Agile Marketing's Data-Driven Approach
00:04:06
Speaker
If you tell me a little bit more about that, I think you know where I'm going with that and and asking that question.
00:04:11
Speaker
Yeah. So we like results and I want hard results, right? So everything that we do, whether it is, you know, when Chance goes to work with somebody for the first time. So if he's doing like his kickoff call, which I'm sure, you know, happened with you, Brent, um he should be asking questions. He's asking all kinds of questions about your company. He's learning a little bit about you as well. Then he'll put together a you know, proposal of what he thinks you guys need and then from there, you know, a lot of the account managers will kind of take over and that's what I really get into is what do we see on the back end? So what is the data telling us in terms of what's the next step? So if we're if you're, you know, I'm sure Chance has said it a thousand times, if you need if you need leads right now, what do we need to do? We're going to head to Google, right? If someone is is typing in searches and you can appear for those searches, like, yeah, you're going to type that into Google.
00:04:56
Speaker
But if it's one of those things where maybe you're more visual company, maybe we're going to put you on Facebook, we're kind of focusing more on the audiences and interests, or maybe we do need more of that but SEO kind of behind the scenes. But either way, no matter which direction we're going, like you said, Brent, we want that data, and especially in terms of like different platforms and performance i want to know if i've got you on both facebook and google is one performing better than the other um i want to know how many form fills i got i want to know how many calls that we had i want to know the clicks i want to know um you know we'll do audits before we start working on any kind of seo so we know what we have a starting point and then we have a goal of where we want to get we want to hire domain ratings we want bigger
00:05:33
Speaker
backlink profile, whatever it may be.
Role of Lead Data in Marketing Strategy
00:05:35
Speaker
um So we start off with data, kind of our starting point, and then we're constantly using that data to determine where we're going. What's the next step? Is it, are we doing the right thing? Should we make a move? Do we need to pivot? Should we continue to capitalize on what we are currently doing? So yeah, we want that backend data, that that form fill, the call data, all the things, especially for leads, we want to make sure that we are doing our job and that we are providing a value. So from a contractor entrepreneurial perspective, so There's a lot of people that feel, or if you watch and it looks like they think, okay, for marketing, they think marketing equals social media. Meaning I need to do posts, I need to do stories, I need to just get some video out there. And that's all that I need to do. So with our, you know, agile and a better contractor, Atlanta Corp, obviously we do our own video. We do our own posting. Talk to me a little bit more from a learning perspective. If I'm listening to this podcast and being like, Hey, I'm doing all that stuff. I'm making posts.
00:06:31
Speaker
Why do I need to do what what you guys do? Why do I need to hire Agile? Sure. I think it's one of those things of what's your goal, right? So you're making posts, but what are you doing with that post? You're posting it. Are you trying to get more leads?
00:06:43
Speaker
If you're trying to get more leads, what's the next step in that post? So if they click on that post, are they going to your website? Are they going to your Facebook page? what What exactly is the goal? And I think a lot of that often gets kind of misconstrued in marketing that, like you said, social media equals marketing. And and I think that's a big part of my job is truly just educating clients as best as I can in terms of What is the strategy we're taking? What is the difference in the strategies that you're looking at? Like, I can't tell you the number of times that I'll tell somebody or someone will ask me about SEO. Why am I not appearing for this search term or whatever it is? And it's like, oh, buddy, that's that's Google ads. We're talking about Google ads versus SEO is a whole different ball game. So I got a little bit bit off kilter there, Brent, from your your question. But you're good and um why? a
00:07:28
Speaker
Like, what is the difference? Or what's the goal there? Like you said, someone's posting something, but what's the goal there? And that's just kind of would be my question is like, you may be getting out there, maybe getting your brand out there. And if that's your goal, great. That's brand awareness. That's huge. That is a big part of a marketing strategy. But if your goal is to get leads,
00:07:45
Speaker
one post on Facebook or Instagram or even consistent posts on Facebook and Instagram organically may not be your best bet. um You know, whats what's your next step? So if you're just doing marketing, are you or if you're just doing social like Facebook or Instagram or or TikTok, again, it's what's your goal? Do you want to get your name out there? Do you want to drive leads? Do you? What's the end result? So it's usually in the data that you guys are collecting, fine tuning those strategies.
00:08:09
Speaker
Oh yeah. and forward and Even on like websites, I see a lot of people they'll use, I won't name names, but a build your own website type thing. Talk to me about how it's beneficial to use a company like yours instead of a build your own website. Why that's important.
00:08:23
Speaker
like a build your own website, like a like a Google site. like What do you mean by build your own website? Tell me more about that. Well, Squarespace. like Oh, sure. Oh, okay. So I do have to, again, specify there. So we don't build websites. That's not part of what what agile does. um Oh, but man, that's that's a tough one in terms of...
00:08:44
Speaker
You can build your own website. I will say that. you're You're welcome to do that. But again, you mentioned like the behind the scenes things. So if you build your own website, and i and I work with some clients who are on Squarespace, and again, like the the platform, all platforms are similar. They start start off at like a pretty solid base level, but obviously the more bells and whistles, the more expensive it gets, the more capabilities you can get as well. um
DIY Website vs Professional Help
00:09:05
Speaker
So yeah, you can you can build a website on like Squarespace or something like that, but You know, what's the follow up question, right? So what's the goal of the website? Is it just brand awareness? Are you trying to collect leads? If you are trying to collect leads, do you have a form somewhere on there? um Do you have specific service pages? Do you have specific, um you know, location pages, things along those lines where, yeah, I can create this big, beautiful, pretty website.
00:09:29
Speaker
But if it's not optimized, and that's kind of that SEO talk that we'll talk about, if it's not optimized on the back end, if we're not talking page titles and yeah URLs and meta descriptions, all of these things that when you're building a website you don't think about, then yeah, you're missing opportunities. So I don't think that's necessarily, you know you're not doing something wrong by building your own site, but I think you could be missing opportunities when you are doing it yourself and not consulting.
00:09:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Professor, it's your turn. Yeah, no light-hearted conversations with that title. but i know yeah there all So I know that you had an education background. I think it came out in one of the conversations, Jackie, but I didn't realize it was history, I guess. So I love, love the history. It was, my dad was really into history and so, especially military history and so grew up reading a bunch of stuff. But to my most favorite quotes, going back to the quote master, to one of my most favorite quotes are about history of, it's Mark Twain with Missouri, just North, the Hannibal, right? Hannibal, yeah, that's right. So that was one of the things when I lived in in the St. Louis area for almost eight years, I had no idea the amount of history that was in Missouri in St. Louis, but but like the Mark Twain. Yeah, that's a better list.
00:10:48
Speaker
but but His quote of history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. But then when you couple that with Winston Churchill's quote, the further is kind of paraphrasing, up the further backwards you understand, the further forward you can see about the importance of studying history and looking at it. But then also when when you couple both of those together with Mark Twain's that you can see patterns essentially. And then also with Winston Churchill's is hum the We've been on this earth for enough time that just about every scenario is played out in one form or another. Human behavior and motivation and things don't change a lot. We'll use the tools of our time, and that's where, like Mark Twain's, it doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes in that there will be nuances that shift humans and what we use for the the end results or what we're were trying to achieve.
00:11:45
Speaker
based off what we got available, but ultimately, we're all going after the same thing. And if you want to understand a little bit about where you're headed, as far as an individual organization, and and what results you're potentially going to get, if you understand patterns and you understand history, the better and you understand it, you can forecast a little bit better than just letting things happen to you.
Data-Driven vs Intuition in Marketing Decisions
00:12:11
Speaker
Because you know, within a few degrees, you're going to get a certain result that's similar to what other people have gotten. And I think that maybe dovetails in or ties in with the the metrics and the data. So I'm a huge data geek too. I'm not a big fan of gimmicks. yeah And ah i mean that there's sometimes a place for that for maybe if you're trying to achieve attention or get attention.
00:12:35
Speaker
But i I want to see results. I want to see ROI. I want to see that it actually, whatever you're doing, mood the needle on something. And when it comes to marketing, that theyre with the evolution of technology and tools and things that we've seen over the past 10, 15 years, but really since the rise of the internet and the smartphones, data collection and communication and all these new sources of data collection, we've we've had We've had quite a challenge over the past maybe like five, six years-ish that we we started to have the capability to collect a bunch of data on a bunch of stuff. But there's there's also another quote out there that a and an abundance of data typically results in the poverty of attention. So you have all this information and data. And typically when you have so much, there's thresholds that it could become over overwhelming in a sense that
00:13:33
Speaker
I have no idea. It's all white noise. They're just so much. I have no idea. But but there's definitely way cooler tools and with the rise of AI, with monitoring and measuring tools and software and things that are out there that can now aggregate that data and help you understand and make sense of what this is, see and behind the scenes about performance, who's clicking on what.
00:14:01
Speaker
who who the audiences are, what's resonating, what's not. right Every industry is dealing with, they need to start adopting technology to augment what historically might have been gut or gut feeling or there's an acronym that people defaulted to HIPAA, highest highest paid person's opinion. whoever Whoever in the room had the the biggest paycheck, that's whose opinion drove whatever strategy going forward. And so for like marketing, in a day and age where everything's got a digital presence, it has to in every company, the individual and your personal brand, people, we talked about it on other podcasts of, if you've got a business, people are, they're going online and searching for you first.
00:14:53
Speaker
And depending on what they see or
Digital Presence and Customer Perception
00:14:55
Speaker
they don't see is potentially going to drive how they interact or what they interact with. And so that it's so important for you to have that presence. But to you're saying and what Brent values and is look at the metrics. but Like we we live in an area where we've got so many tools and and things that can assist us in helping make smart decisions. We don't have to rely on gut feeling anymore. What we think or just one person's opinion, there's definitely tools out there that can help guide our behavior and or and pivot our ah resources. And so for this marketing thing, it's such historically, it's been smoke and mirrors and alchemy and some magic in there, ah people not really understanding it. But I think with what Brent was talking about too, finding it the right company,
00:15:49
Speaker
pursuing somebody who's doing really good things in there, and then your guy's approach of asking a lot of qualifying questions, what is it you're trying to achieve, as opposed to just prescribing something, but then leveraging the data. So I love and i loved the aspect of the metrics and the data and helping utilize that to guide decisions.
00:16:14
Speaker
Well, I think historically with marketing, you never knew like pre-social media. You did billboards, you did newspapers. And unless you specifically asked, how did you hear about us? You didn't know if your stuff was working. You didn't know how many people viewed it. You didn't know how many people actually would come in because of it. You know, even with this podcast, like we met last week and kind of went over as a group, like, okay, which, which podcasts are most viewed? At what minute did people fall off? How long did they listen? So you have all that data now to know.
00:16:44
Speaker
This is the topics people like, whatever was said around minute four, that didn't resonate very well or whatever, you know, or get to the point a little bit quicker is what that's usually telling you. So anyway, Jackie, I'll turn it back to you though. Yeah, I know. I think all of that makes sense perfect sense. Yeah. and and And really great point too. And like you said, um, a lot of the marketing, especially early on, again, I'm still fairly fresh in it. So I really come into it with all of the bells and whistles. So I see the the Google data, the analytics and all of those things.
00:17:12
Speaker
But Travis, yeah, you're you're absolutely right. like We got to work backwards. We got to see where you're starting from, what you've tried in the past in order to move forward with with something you know more productive. So yeah, exactly. Like you guys have mentioned multiple times, right? You have to make sure you're on the same page with your marketing company. like Make sure your goals are the same, and like obviously that we're on the same page constantly.
00:17:32
Speaker
um But yeah, that that data is everything. And I want to collect all of it. And we have nothing to hide. And like I feel like maybe that's something that everybody should know is is both sides, both teams, like you guys, your side and our side, we have access to the exact same stuff. So you see, you have access to all of your Google accounts, your analytics stuff, your you know behind the things you know, your club, your emailing accounts, all of these things, you have access to all of that. And at any point in time, you can hop in there. And obviously, it's beneficial for us to be as transparent as possible as well. And so, you know, I think so often marketing teams in particular are, you know, we we see like a dip and
00:18:08
Speaker
um whatever the situation may be, you might be afraid to ask questions. But I think that's one of those things, too, where you really have to work with your marketing team. So like not only are we we're looking at that past data, that tap past performance, but if there if there is a situation where something has gone well, great. I want to hear from you what has gone well. like If I drove a bunch of leads, like was it were they good? Were they quality leads or was it not? Or if you know something poorly happened or if we see like a dip in lead generation, something along those lines.
00:18:37
Speaker
great, I want to work with you. And I feel like Brent and Travis, you guys both do a really good job with this have like, hey, I want to work with you in terms of, here's the next topic that's relevant for my service industry. Here's the next, you know, thing that might be relevant for someone to see or to hear for them to to click on something. So yeah, like we're collecting that data, working with your marketing team, all really important things there. So if if somebody was because there's just, it can be overwhelming. So you get somebody who who understands that they need to do marketing,
00:19:07
Speaker
and especially in this industry, there's so many options. There's so many technological yeah crazy things or you see the TikTokers or the YouTubes or the Shorts or the crazy videos to get attention.
Key Strategies for New Businesses
00:19:23
Speaker
So if you had to distill based off of you guys work with multiple clients across industries in this technological age, if somebody was going to revamp or start starting a business or um they've had a business for for several years that's successful and now they're going to focus on marketing coming from either side. If there was only like three or four things that they 100% had to focus on that that is worth their time and effort and money and blood sweat and tears to put into marketing, what would be the the top things? What but should they pursue?
00:20:02
Speaker
yeah So a couple, three things you mentioned um that, yeah, when you're starting off with your marketing, where are some three things that we should be doing? Like I said, Google Business Profile, everybody should have a Google Business Profile. You can set that up for free. You adjust it super, super easy. You can do it from your phone. um And it's one of those things where Think about yourself as a consumer. Think about yourself as an internet browser. When you are looking for a company, are you clicking on the first ad you see? Maybe not. Are you looking at that Google business profile in the bottom corner that has like the stars and the information and the hours and the reviews? Are you looking at the first result that's like organic? um And a lot of times I find myself going over to that. as We call it the Google as like a map pack.
00:20:42
Speaker
um your Google pack down there on the kind of like the bottom, right? So if I'm typing in a specific company, I'm probably going to be going to that Google profile because I know all that information is accurate. um You know, that's not an ad. That's something that that business put together themselves. That's what they want us to see. So I feel like your your business profile in particular, that is your presentation to everyone on Google.
00:21:01
Speaker
um So always making sure that's up to date, that information is full. If I see one that doesn't have any reviews or if I see one that doesn't have hours or you know a phone number, um that's incomplete to me and that is a red flag, you know what I mean? So I think that's something to always kind of keep in mind that and that's something that you can do for free. Those are little things that people, that we as consumers think about yourself in your own habit as a consumer. And are you are you looking for a complete profile? If it's not, does that send a red flag?
00:21:28
Speaker
Great. You can do that yourself. Add those images. You can ask your clients for reviews, all of those things. I'd say the next thing there would be that lead feedback in marketing. um So if you're working with a marketer or a marketing team, absolutely. Like so, um if you're working with an agency like us, for example,
00:21:46
Speaker
um One thing I'm constantly begging clients for is feedback on leads. I hate flying blind, and so what we'll do, and you guys know the drill, you've been with us for a couple months now, we'll pretty much collect every single lead. I want data on every single lead, and I can tell where it comes from, if it came from a certain website, a certain ad, a certain landing page, if it came from social media versus Google or whatever it is. That lead feedback is so incredibly important just because it's It's wild how much changing and updating that we need to do as marketers on our side um based on that lead feedback. And so what's wild is, um for example, I'm trying to give some examples here. Like I've had a client who one particular search term for their industry took off one month and I'm like, oh, this is fantastic. I love everything about this. And, you know, it was working with like a display campaign or something along those lines.
00:22:38
Speaker
And I am trying to get a hold of my client. I'm like, hey, we're getting goodre good leads here. How's it looking on your ends? Nothing. Didn't get any feedback. So I let that continue to run to continue continue to collect conversions. Finally, when my client got back to me, they're like, yeah, we got all those leads. They were not good quality, not what we were looking for. So we had a lot of time there where we spent money providing a bad lead, which was soul crushing on my end, soul crushing on their end. And it could have been something that would have been you know mediated just by a little bit of communication. And so I would say definitely like making sure you're providing lead feedback, whether that's for you yourself, your team. um Because again, if you're doing your own marketing,
00:23:16
Speaker
Pay attention to that, pay attention to that data.
Impact of Quality Visuals in Marketing
00:23:18
Speaker
Are you getting more from social media? Are you getting more from TikTok versus you know Facebook or whatever it is? Are you getting people who are emailing you more often? or Are you getting people who are calling you more often? um So yeah, kind of keeping track of those things, keeping track of your leads, providing feedback whenever um you can. Number three, I would say 100% is what you're putting out to the world, right? So what are the visuals you're putting out there?
00:23:44
Speaker
And it's such a tricky thing, right? Because on, you know, our organic side, so when I say organic, we're talking about the things that you're doing for free that you are doing. um Obviously, the paid side is what you're doing with ads and all that good stuff. um But yeah, I would say definitely number three would be your quality of media if I'm being completely honest here. Don't get me wrong, there are different, there are appropriate places for a video just from your iPhone or whatever it may be.
00:24:09
Speaker
They're appropriate places for like a a fun little like TikTok dance or whatever it may be as well. But if you are, you know, if we're putting ads on Facebook or if we're putting together your website and you're giving me those photos from your phone, that's not great quality, right? So that's not, a who am I going to entice?
00:24:26
Speaker
with that type of creative. um Would you click on that photo? You know what I mean? So, again, it one of those things that you always have to kind of consider yourself as a consumer. Like, I'm putting it out there. Is that good enough for me to click on? And if not, what do you do, right? So, I would definitely say, like, just being aware of your your visuals that you're putting out there. So, the videos, the images, if you're putting graphics together, all of those things.
00:24:48
Speaker
and making sure that you have quality creative to put out there if you are starting marketing. That's one of those things that we're constantly begging um some of our clients for. And it's just like quality creative that we can put out on Facebook that you feel proud of, right? That someone's using an ad and they want to click on. um Because if you're not, that's it pretty much just kind of a little bit of wasted money on that particular platform. So so where do you draw the lines? You see the spectrum is is all the way from authentic, cheap,
00:25:18
Speaker
free on your iPhone TikTok videos ah that 30 seconds goes viral to the opposite end of the spectrum. i'd I'd call it cold corporate of where it's so polished and so put together and rehearsed that and probably expensive too. And then there's everything in between probably a step down from that would be less corporate polished but maybe more fun and energetic but still very professional. ah What's the right approach? If like one's expensive, one's super cheap, one seems to get traction in some and not in others and and what message does it send to do? I guess what's your insight? Is somebody who's like, all right, we're going to do videos, we're going to do pictures.
00:26:13
Speaker
So the hard statement of well, the unprofessional phone videos, I think but people could find evidence that that's not necessarily true. I mean, sometimes those get traction as being authentic. And so like, how do you how do you demystify what's appropriate?
Tailoring Marketing Approaches by Client
00:26:31
Speaker
How should they look at if we're gonna pursue like, is it a combination? What's right? What's wrong? Like, can you clarify or or shed some light on that?
00:26:42
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think you kind of nailed it and in every way. um You're exactly right. And I think it's a client by client basis. It's a case by case basis. I wish there was just a black and white answer of like, you're this kind of corporation, you're this kind of creative. That's really just not the case, right? um So it depends on the client, 100%. It depends on the platform as well. So like you said, TikTok, we could put a lot more crude stuff on TikTok. And by crude, I mean just like unpolished, a lot more unpolished on TikTok. That's expected, right? um On Instagram, and you're thinking like, you know, we have, when we're talking about advertising on Facebook, That's Facebook and Instagram. That's meta. So that's hitting a lot of different people, right? You're hitting not only your Facebook scrollers, you're hitting your Instagram scrollers.
00:27:19
Speaker
um And so same thing from like Instagram, you know, again, it's a case by case basis. So we we have some clients who provide a service, a local service. So local clients in particular that are providing like a service to other people locally. um What would you want to see, right? So if I'm, if I am looking at, I'm trying to think of a good example here.
00:27:42
Speaker
um like dog training. So one of our clients, we have some some great dog training clients that um we have great commercials. We have corporate commercials that we'll typically use for things like brand awareness, where we're trying to push it out to as many people. We want as many eyes as possible on that. Yes, I want that polished. I want that clean. I want that to look lovely with all of your branded materials in it. Now we take that down a notch and we're looking at you know that same client, but we're looking for more lead generation. That's a little bit different audience. I want someone who's ready to convert now. So that might look a little bit different. Do they want to see the generic branded video? Probably not. They might want to see that that iPhone video, like you've mentioned, of someone's dog, like a before and after. I want to see day one, and then I want to see day, whatever, two weeks later while they're perfect. And I'm seeing that from an iPhone with Susie from down the street that I know.
00:28:31
Speaker
You may have just gotten a new client. That's someone that I know. That's a trust factor. I've seen it with my own eyes before and after. It looks authentic to me because it's that iPhone video. um So again, like ah it's a case by case basis, unfortunately. i and i think um It depends on who your goals are, right? So if you want to just get that brand awareness out there, we want that big, beautiful corporate video that everyone can get eyes on. If I'm trying to get someone like in the doors, then maybe we need to kind of rethink that strategy a little bit. And what would you want to see as a consumer? A little bit more personalized. And then ah yeah the the customer too. So if we're looking at the ah contractor space,
00:29:10
Speaker
Yeah, I'm thinking what majority of the customers are going to be business owners, middle aged.
Staying Relevant in Marketing
00:29:21
Speaker
And what do they want to see? It would be different if all your clients were clients for college age kids. Contracting space, it changes a lot. Because if you're doing like, construction, you know, like home building, then you're all homeowners. If you're doing only industrial and commercial, then you're dealing with huge mega companies.
00:29:40
Speaker
you know, like FedEx, UPS building, you know, their big warehouses. Um, and even like in the tree lawn care landscape, you know, we're a kind of tree, you know, tree business, but we're a hundred percent in oil and gas, you know, so another tree business may be nothing but residential. So it's, you know, knowing your market too. But one question I did have Jackie, and this is probably a little bit vague in a way, but I'm putting myself back into a young entrepreneurs shoes and Why should I hire someone like you? Like what's the advantage of going with someone like agile or doing some of these free things only by myself? If I wanted to grow my business.
00:30:23
Speaker
No, I think that's that's a great great question. um And I think, so you're starting from scratch, brand new, never had anything. Yeah, I think that's that's really great working with an agency or a marketing company because we can set it off right from the beginning. We can start collecting data from day one. um So like a couple of the things, and in you asked like why why work with us, it's because we know all of those little nuances, all those little check boxes that again, like maybe contractors building their own sites or somebody building their own marketing,
00:30:51
Speaker
um you know plan may not know about. So we know that I want to get you set up with like Google Analytics Search Console. I want to check the health of your website. We're going to do all those like little audit things to get a little test to get a um an idea of where you're currently standing. And so then, if you have a good marketer, a good marketing team, they should be able to present you with a lot of options. Again, like making sure you're we're meeting that your goal. So again, you're a brand new contractor. You're working with a marketing team.
00:31:18
Speaker
be very clear on like what gold we want. Do you just want to build, like lead generation, build that brand awareness? um And so like as a brand new contractor, you're you're kind of starting off on that right foot. So I'm gonna start you off getting like your your Google verification. We're gonna start with your LSA's, your local service ads. um We're gonna start with like all of these things kind of cast a really wide net that you as an individual may not have been able to cast on your own. um And especially like depending on your your industry, Do we know if we need to be on Google? Do we you know if we need to be on Facebook? Is Bing the correct market for you? So I think with an agency or with like a professional marketing team, um a lot of those questions that it would take you a long time to figure out individually are going to get addressed right away. And you can kind of put that toward your your marketing plan moving forward.
00:32:04
Speaker
So I feel like, yeah, you build a great foundation. If you're working with your website in particular, and we're working with SEO, we're going to make sure all that's optimized. um And the other thing too, working with us in particular, is that we make sure you own everything. I don't want your Google account. If you decide to leave us and go to a different marketer, great. Take your stuff with you. That's fine. That's data that you need as a you know as a company. like if if Take a look into the past stuff. If it didn't work, great. Pivot. Try something different.
00:32:30
Speaker
um So I think, again, like working with an agency like us, like we're going to make sure you have access to all of that stuff that you may not have known about, that you can take with you if you need to go. And I think that's another thing, too, that like we we see in marketing a lot. like If something's not working, great. Switch teams. That's OK. That happens. But you know making sure contractors in particular are prepared to take, if they need to move their services or whatever it is, they know exactly what they have. They know what accounts they're running out of. They know what platforms they're running. and They know their their lead data, all that good stuff. And I think you can get that with an agency, like just bigger picture and better idea of your your marketing, what you need to do moving forward. A lot more questions are going to be asked that you maybe not, you don't know about yourself as an individual.
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's super important when you're starting out to have your marketing done correctly. Like you said earlier from the visuals, so the professional, like it looks put together, you know, you don't look like a brand new company just starting up because the people people are going to use the image they see online for the most part to judge you, you know, so like first impressions, everything.
Investing in Marketing for Growth
00:33:37
Speaker
It is that way. It's online now though, a lot of it. So I, like when we first started lander Corp, social media was there, but it wasn't nearly nothing like you see today. It was basically Facebook. I remember right back then. And I remember we partnered with a different marketing firm back then. And, uh, but we did it right off the bat. Like I think we were a year in maybe. Um, and when lander Corp was created, we hired them. I thought it was astronomical amount of money. I thought I was crazy for spending it, but I knew.
00:34:07
Speaker
If I wanted to see the growth, I wanted to see that I had to present ourselves in such a way, mark ourselves in such a way to get above the bigger players in the industry. So we spin it. um And I will say, you know for those of you listening that may be on the fence of whether or not to do something like this, we had 100% growth year after year after year after year. I don't have it for me. I think there were seven years of 100% growth in the beginning.
00:34:31
Speaker
And that was an all marketing, it wasn't all marketing, but did that help a bunch? A hundred percent, because it told our story. It told it it a loted you know allowed that we were new, but then we also went into, this is what we stand for, this is who we are, this is what we believe, here's our services, we're willing to come do the project that other bigger companies may not do. But then it looked good. you know So at least the impression was, if they're this picky about this,
00:34:58
Speaker
Maybe they'll be just picky about my job site as well. So anyway, that's kind of my plug for spending the money on marketing and doing it right from the very get-go. Yeah, I think you're you're absolutely right. It it makes sense. and And like you said, it's expensive, but if you started off right, you can only get better, right? And you're just piling on more and more data and more and more information to continue to build from. Yeah. I think i think it's relative though. It's expensive if it doesn't pay off.
00:35:28
Speaker
yeah Sure and when I say expensive there, I'm just saying at that stage of the game. You're like that's a lot of money Yeah, I mean it's if it's truly viewed as an investment and and then it's got to be a calculated it because and i'm I'm trying to there's parallels that we do it all the time. So it's the little bit better piece of equipment if you're just starting out to this you buy the the more reliable piece of equipment. It's expensive, but it's considered an investment because it's going to give you time, it's going to break down less, it's going to give you time back, you're going to be able to do maybe more with it. It might not be the brand new one, brand new model, but you you spent a little extra money to get the better equipment. is I'm drawing the parallels with like safety too. so We've made similar comments about you do the safety upfront, even though it might
00:36:25
Speaker
costs more to buy the equipment or the training or you pay more for the skilled labor or you're taking extra time to do things safely, it's gonna mitigate potential challenges that will cost you a lot of money or even the business or people's lives in the future. Similar with training, similar with marketing, I mean, you're not just throwing money at it. You got to you got to make a calculated decision if you're going to do the marketing but ultimately and maybe you don't have to do all of it yeah but by getting off on the right foot ah getting the right direction will save the money and time and effort much later when you're completely off course and now you have to do all the cleanup on it and
00:37:14
Speaker
spend the money to to go get things back or to do things appropriately. So but I think it's just like similar conversations that we've had, whether it's safety, whether it's training, the marketing component of it's an investment. Yeah, some things are an expense, but they're actually an investment. And I know, you know, with businesses stuff, I'm, a lot of people want to think, Hey, you know, times are tight or whatever. So what expense can I cut?
00:37:39
Speaker
And I always say there's actually another side of that. Another question you should ask is how can I increase my income though? You know, so everybody always wants to cut, cut, cut. Well, there's still another question to that is, okay, you can cut a little bit. Sure. But how can you increase your, your, your income? You know, and a lot of this stuff is kind of safeguarding that, you know, the safety. You know, I can speak to that where, you know, one incident can raise your work comp, you know, premium by way more than if you'd had a safety program for the 10 years prior.
00:38:07
Speaker
So there's there's there's a lot of that as well. And I think marketing is another one of those that until you do it, you don't know what you're missing. you know And I think that, to me, again, it goes back to that first impression. If you're not creating a good first impression, how many phone calls are you missing? And and and if you're not getting the reach that you need to get with your posts and and your and you're Google and all that, how many people are you missing? The importance of marketing. What's in it for me? depart i mean It almost doesn't matter whether you're starting the company now or you've had a company for the last 30 years and everything in between. Why is it important to do this? Because you you have both both company and people were searching for your company on online.
00:38:58
Speaker
as soon as like I'm looking for a lawn care business. And I saw Jackie's lawn service, whatever, billboard, or I'm going to go search for you. app But just to really hammer down, if you're starting out, you see it as an expense. I need to go get clients so that I can get income. And that would be the argument against doing spending time or money in our marketing. You've got the company that's been around for 30 years. We've been around for 30 years, and we haven't had to engage in this.
00:39:28
Speaker
and really focus in that we've we got name name recognition or multi-year clients. Why should they focus on why is it so important in this day and age for them to actually spend the time, money, and effort when it might seem counterintuitive to focus on marketing?
00:39:52
Speaker
Wow. So why should a company focus on marketing? Yeah.
00:40:00
Speaker
but Because as Brent said earlier, like it might be viewed as an expense. Like, all right. what i hear louding one Like with the older contractors or entrepreneurs have been in business for a long time. You know, I have the name recognition. I have all this already. So what I need to do this and I think that goes back to you need to always stay relevant. So whatever innovation with this marketing or that's a software or something you can do in the field to gather data and be more up to date and just relevant. I think the moment an older company stops doing all of that is the moment that they then get swallowed up or market share taken by someone who is doing all of that. So I'll say that and then I'll push it back to you, Jackie. Yeah, sure. No, I think you're, you're exactly right. Like, um, and it all goes back to what are your goals, right? What are your goals? If you want to grow your company, you want to invest in marketing.
00:40:55
Speaker
Right? If, like you said, Travis, if you're just a ah guy that's been doing this for 30 years and I'm content with my company and this is it, this is all I want to do and I have my two jobs a week or whatever it is, great. That's your that's your goal for your company. That's fine. You don't need to to go make that investment. But if you want to grow, if you want to build, if you want to, like you like you guys have said, stay relevant in that industry and especially stay relevant to your audience, you need that marketing. um And I believe like most,
00:41:20
Speaker
Most clients would not feel comfortable jumping into Google Ads or jumping onto Facebook by themselves. So yeah, you you need that that marketing team or that marketing expertise as well. um to to grow, to build, right? And like you guys have said so many times, marketing is so many things. It's more than just like Google ads and Facebook ads, but we're working with your website. We're working with like your your Google profile, all of those things. So when you're focused on marketing, you're all encompassing your entire business. um It just depends on what your goals are, right? If you wanna grow that business, if you wanna focus more on growing your organic results, you're gonna need that as well for, ah you're gonna need that marketing component as well. I like it. Jackie.
00:42:01
Speaker
So I guess to summarize this podcast, if you want to grow your business, invest in marketing, that's point one. If you want someone else to take market share from you, do not invest in marketing. Find someone like an agile, whoever it is, whether it's them, someone else, find someone to help you get that data, fine-tune your SEO, fine-tune your ads, whatever it may be. Find someone to do it. Hire a couple of people to do quality visuals, like Jackie said.
00:42:30
Speaker
She gave you guys some free points, go back and listen to that session, at least do the free points, but then at some point find you an agile and run with it. Jackie, thank you so much for your time. Always helpful, always insightful. Thank you. Brent, Travis, thank you guys so much. This is a great opportunity. I hope I gave you a little bit of what you wanted there. You did. You did perfect. Travis, the professor. Thank you so much. Thank you. Guys, if you'd like to podcast share it,
00:42:59
Speaker
If you didn't, tune on out.