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Which 20percent of Your Marketing Works? – a conversation with Hannah Acosta
21 Plays11 days ago
Hannah Acosta works at Ugly Mug Marketing in Alexandria, Louisiana, USA.
In this episode, of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds Hannah starts by explaining how David Ogilvy inspired the name Ugly Mug Marketing.
Hannah then explains some of the assumptions that companies make about marketing that ultimately result in the failure of their marketing initiatives.
Hannah also explains to host Michael Millward what companies who want their marketing to be successful must do. It is quite surprising! Or perhaps not?
Never one to miss an opportunity to gain live advice Michael asks Hannah to apply the ideas she is explaining in a marketing plan for The Independent Minds podcast,
Hannah accepts the challenge and confidently delivers an immediate and comprehensive marketing strategy.
It is a strategy that could be applied to any business.
Find out more about both Michael Millward, and Hannah Acosta at Abeceder.co.uk
The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr, because as the all-in-one podcasting platform, on which you can create your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms, Zencastr really does make creating content so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
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Ugly Mug Marketing is based in Louisiana USA. With discounted membership of the Ultimate Travel Club, you can travel to Louisana or anywhere else at trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, and so many more travel related purchases.
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Transcript
Introduction to Independent Minds Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
on zencastr Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasida and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:22
Speaker
I am your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida.
Promoting Zencastr
00:00:28
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr.
00:00:34
Speaker
Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can create your podcast in one place and then distribute it to all the major platforms. It really does make creating content so easy.
00:00:48
Speaker
If you would like to try podcasting using zencastr visit Zencaster, visit zencaster.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abysida. All the details are in the description.
00:01:01
Speaker
Now that I've told you how wonderful Zencaster is for creating podcasts, we should make one that will be well worth liking, downloading and subscribing to.
The Origin of Ugly Mug Marketing's Name
00:01:11
Speaker
Today I am joined by Hannah Acosta of UglyMugMarketing.com.
00:01:17
Speaker
Hello Hannah. Hi Michael, thank you so much for having me today. It's a great pleasure. Thank you very much for finding the time in your diary. I'm looking forward to finding out more about UglyMugMarketing.com but I have to ask you to start please by telling us a little bit about UglyMugMarketing.com and the sorts of things that you do but that has to include, it definitely 100% has to include an explanation of why you decided to call your organization Ugly Mug Marketing.
00:01:48
Speaker
Sorry, I shouldn't laugh. everyone gives us a little chuckle because it's very unexpected, right? The name Ugly Mug Marketing. When you think about marketing agencies, you might think of really beautiful advertisements and well-crafted content, right?
00:02:08
Speaker
Definitely. Having the name ugly might not always be the most appealing initially.
Results Over Aesthetics in Marketing Philosophy
00:02:13
Speaker
So we are called Ugly Mug Marketing because our founder and the owner of our company, Lane Mullins, he was and still is to this day a big David Ogilvy fan.
00:02:24
Speaker
And for those of you who do not know who David Ogilvy is, David Ogilvy was a very famous advertiser 80s and David's, going to one of david's i'm going to paraphrase this quote because I don't know the direct quote, but one of his quotes was that he would much rather an ugly ad that gets results than pretty ad that doesn't deliver any results.
00:02:51
Speaker
And so from that, Wayne took that and ran with the word ugly because our whole mission of our company is to provide results and not reasons.
00:03:03
Speaker
Our other mission is to help entrepreneurs get better sleep at night by ensuring that we are providing them those results so that they don't have to worry about it, even when they're asleep at night. We'll be the ones to wake up in the middle of the night and worry about those marketing results and their Facebook pages and answering the DMs and all of that fun stuff.
Unique Hiring Practices at Ugly Mug Marketing
00:03:22
Speaker
ah So from that, the mug part, You know, I really don't know the story behind that other than every single person in our office loves to drink coffee or tea. So that's actually something that we ask as a part of our interviewing and hiring is, are you a coffee or are you a tea drinker?
00:03:41
Speaker
and then we And then we judge them from there, right? Personally, i am a tea drinker. So I like to see when someone marks that they are also a tea drinker and then we can ask them questions about their favorite kinds of tea and have a more personable conversation during their interview process. But that is where the name Ugly Mug Marketing comes from.
00:04:02
Speaker
It was not anything of my own, but of our founder and owner, Wayne Mullins, and his love for David Ogilvy. ah So great question. Very interesting.
Prioritizing Marketing Results
00:04:12
Speaker
So we'll put a link in into david in the description into David Ogilvy so people can find out more about that and The interesting thing is that I don't really drink tea or coffee, but much more of a hot chocolate fan.
00:04:26
Speaker
So i I wonder how I would do in your interviewing process, being a hot chocolate fan. See, I am also a hot chocolate fan, so I think that would go over well with me.
00:04:37
Speaker
Great stuff. You have to have the bubbles on top.
00:04:42
Speaker
Or the whipped cream, if you're having a good day. So Ugly Mug Marketing focus is on creating marketing activities that work rather than marketing activities that look pretty or ah spend lots of money on it. Your focus is very much on making sure that you have effective marketing campaigns, marketing resources.
Establishing Clear Marketing Goals
00:05:06
Speaker
It's about the but the effect, the result rather than the impact of something. Oh, that's an interesting ad but it doesn't actually make anybody
00:05:15
Speaker
do any actions like investigate or inquire or buy something, but an ugly advertisement, an ugly but interesting marketing campaign can create more impact, more positive impact, more results than something that is just very pretty, so to speak.
00:05:34
Speaker
Yes, exactly that. We want to ensure that any campaigns that we're creating for any social media platform any websites that we're developing for a business are actually going to provide fruitful results, meaning more revenue for the company, having a positive return on investment.
00:05:55
Speaker
We don't want someone to spend you know, let's say $1,500 a month on social media marketing with us and not be making that $1,500 a month back and then some. We always tell our clients that it's going to take time, especially if we are creating a website from scratch or you're starting your business from scratch and there's no brand awareness, or if we're starting your Facebook page or Instagram account or LinkedIn account from scratch, it's going to naturally take some time to build up that audience,
Realistic and Measurable Goals in Marketing
00:06:25
Speaker
right?
00:06:25
Speaker
We're not just magically going to have customers overnight, but we always like to have an agreed upon goal. Hey, by the end of three months or by the end of your six month contract, where do you want to be at?
00:06:39
Speaker
Do you want to have grown revenue by X percent? Do you want to have at least 10 people dining in in your restaurant every single day? You know, whatever that number is, because then we have a measuring stick for success, right?
00:06:53
Speaker
we've agreed to this goal, we feel like this goal is realistic for us to accomplish given the amount of time that we have. And we want to, again, make sure that the client is happy with the services, but also happy with the results that we're getting.
00:07:08
Speaker
And if we don't establish that an agreed upon goal at the beginning, well, then it's a lot easier for us to fall off the rails. And it's a lot easier for our clients to then say,
00:07:19
Speaker
oh, well you're not really doing what I want you guys to do, or I'm not really seeing the needle move. So we're going to go somewhere else, or we want to cancel our contract. And we found that that transparency and that established goal has really helped clients stick with us for the long haul.
00:07:36
Speaker
It also gives us both the opportunity where if things are just not working out, and they feel like we have tried anything and everything, and we feel like we've tried anything and everything, it gives us a little bit of a starting point maybe for a difficult conversation, which we find that we don't frequently have to have.
00:07:55
Speaker
But every now and then those conversations do come up. And again, just having that established goal makes things a lot easier in the long run.
Strategic Planning in Marketing
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah. So I suppose what you're saying is that you can have all sorts of various different marketing activities taking place.
00:08:12
Speaker
But it's like on any different journey, regardless of what the journey is, you've got to know where you're aiming to get to to actually then decide what steps are going to help you reach that goal rather than just, oh, we could do some of this, we could do some of that, we could do some of that as well.
00:08:29
Speaker
You've got to know where it is you want to end up and then you plan the activities that will, from your experience, have the most likely chance of ensuring that you reach the destination that you want to as a result of of your marketing activities.
00:08:48
Speaker
Yes, that exactly. We always say we're not in the business of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. We want to put together something that is strategic, something that is actually going to you know move the needle in the right direction, so to speak, ah something that is actually going to provide those results. And for each and every client, it looks a little bit different, right? But with the experience that we have under our belt with websites and social media marketing and ah SEO and general marketing practices, we found that we were able to build each of our clients a unique strategy that does help them achieve those goals.
Specialization in Social and Digital Marketing
00:09:28
Speaker
My specialty is really in the social media and digital marketing world. That's where I thrive and where a lot of my knowledge and expertise ah comes into play.
00:09:40
Speaker
What I am really passionate about is helping companies with lead generation as well. Facebook and Meta slash Instagram, they have a phenomenal tool that allows us to build out campaigns that specifically will help clients either find new customers or grow their email list with future customers or people who might just be interested in their product or service.
00:10:11
Speaker
And we can kind of nurture that relationship over time. But these campaigns have been incredibly impactful in businesses and various industries.
00:10:21
Speaker
For example, one of my clients, one of our largest clients actually is a heating and cooling company ah that has locations all across the Gulf Coast in the United States. and we love working with them because we do know what those ideal outcomes are for them each month, each quarter, and at the end of
Increasing Podcast Listenership
00:10:45
Speaker
each year. We know how many leads we need to generate each month in order to convert those leads from social media into paying customers or at least into a phone call so that their customer service representatives can then qualify those leads and then determine if they're going to be able to make the sale or not.
00:11:04
Speaker
Okay. Now, totally unplanned, but I'm interested in what you're saying. all these various different tools and things that you use. I think that's very interesting. So I'm going to throw something in that I haven't warned you about and I hadn't thought about until I heard you.
00:11:20
Speaker
This is our podcast, The the Independent Minds. So we want to increase the size of our audience. We want more people to listen to our Independent Minds podcast.
00:11:32
Speaker
The ideal listener The ideal audience member for us would probably be someone who's either running a business, owns a business, or works in a business and is thinking about what they might do in order to solve particular issues. We want to open up people to new and different thinking about ways in which they could solve the problems that they experience at work.
00:11:54
Speaker
So ah you with your experience of marketing and online media, Facebook, and Instagram, LinkedIn, all the various different other platforms... What would you suggest that we do if we said that, okay, we want to be able to have a thousand people listen to every podcast. What would we do yeah in order to make that happen?
00:12:13
Speaker
I love this question. I love a good example, a little live case study. So i would, I would first start with what assets do we already have?
00:12:26
Speaker
And an asset that the podcast might have is a social media following already. It might be on Facebook. It might be on Instagram.
00:12:37
Speaker
And I think that people can get discouraged when I ask them, what assets do you already have? Because they're like, well, we have a Facebook page, but only have 200 followers. Or we have a budget, but we only have $100 a month. Or they always just think that it's not enough.
00:12:53
Speaker
But an asset is an asset, whether it's 200 followers or 5,000 followers, whatever it may be. Well, I've got a network on LinkedIn, for example, where just under 3000 connections on LinkedIn. Amazing.
00:13:07
Speaker
I've been inviting people to be guests from there. So that was my asset, isn't it? That's a network of 3000 people. on LinkedIn. And I suppose I need to be telling all of those people that I've had a conversation with Hannah it's been really interesting.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yes. And that they should then go and have a listen to the podcast. Yes, absolutely. That would be a good first step and it wouldn't cost me any money
Leveraging Social Media for Expansion
00:13:32
Speaker
to be able to do that. would Exactly. And that is why I like to go through what are the assets of your company, your business, your product or service?
00:13:40
Speaker
What do you already have? Because there are quote unquote free marketing tasks or, you know, tools, resources that we could be utilizing that we aren't actively utilizing, like a network of 3000 individuals on LinkedIn, or 200 Instagram followers, or Facebook followers, whatever it may be.
00:14:01
Speaker
Because here's what you can do with those followers. We can say, hey, Facebook, it is great that I have 200 people who like my podcast Facebook page. But I want to increase the amount of followers on my page.
00:14:16
Speaker
you can go and create what is called a like campaign for Facebook. Unfortunately, you can't do it this way on Instagram, but on Facebook, you can do it this way. Where you go into Facebook and you say, all right, I wanna create a campaign.
00:14:30
Speaker
I wanna run it for page likes. And I wanna go find more people that look like the 200 people that already follow my page.
00:14:40
Speaker
Because those people are an asset. Those people either listen to our podcasts consistently, They have liked our page because they are some way associated or knew a guest or liked a certain topic that we were talking about. They might fall into someone who is that business owner or entrepreneur or someone who works with an within an organization that has problems that come ah up on a daily basis, weekly basis, this monthly basis, and they're looking for solutions to those business problems and we could potentially have one for them.
00:15:12
Speaker
So we create within Facebook Ads Manager we create what's called a lookalike audience. So we can say, hey, Facebook, of the 200, or we have 200 people that like our page, go out and find us more people that look like those 200 people.
00:15:30
Speaker
So Facebook will start creating and building an audience of people. They'll study those 200 people and say, what are the common trends? Are they mostly men or women?
00:15:42
Speaker
Do they have certain interests? Do they live in certain regions, work in certain places? And they'll start compiling that lookalike audience for us. Now, if we said we just really want to limit or put some boundaries or guidelines around that lookalike audience, hey, go find us more people that look like those 200 people, but people that specifically live in the US or people that specifically live in the UK or people that specifically live in enter whatever region you want to target.
00:16:12
Speaker
So then Facebook will start putting those parameters around it. And that can be really impactful because we already know then that those people are interested in what it is that we're offering or selling because we're basically making a duplicate of those 200 people that are that are already interested in our topic or in our discussion.
Using Facebook Ads for Podcasts
00:16:35
Speaker
So that would be the first starting point for me Once you start building that audience of new page likes and new followers built off of our established followers, then I would say, all right, now let's create a campaign where we're specifically promoting a new podcast episode that's been released.
00:17:00
Speaker
Maybe we go back and we look at the data and we say, hey, we released this podcast a month ago, but it has outperformed our podcast from even the last three months.
00:17:12
Speaker
So we know that that topic is really hitting home with people. And so let's capitalize on this opportunity, right? So now we might go back into Facebook ads manager and say, Hey, I want to run an ad to my, all of the people that follow my page.
00:17:31
Speaker
And I want to promote this specific episode. So then I'm gonna drive traffic either to the website or specifically to Spotify or ah the iTunes podcast library, wherever it is that my podcast lives.
00:17:47
Speaker
And I'm going to drive traffic there specifically. Now I would recommend if your podcast lives on the web on your website that you would drive traffic there because you can install what's called a Facebook pixel to the website.
00:18:01
Speaker
And the pixel essentially within certain parameters, and it varies based on region or country that you are advertising and But essentially the pixel is gathering information about the people that are traveling to your website.
00:18:18
Speaker
And that is huge. We want to know more data and have more information around those that are listening to the podcast or that are clicking and wanting to go and read the show notes.
00:18:29
Speaker
or clicking and wanting to go and read the transcripts or that are actually listening to the podcast. That's incredibly beneficial for us as we're thinking about growing our following, right?
00:18:40
Speaker
Hey, it looks like we have a really big following of people that are in Ireland, for example, right? So maybe we need to be marketing our show more so in Ireland to, it looks like this male demographic who are in the director or C-suite executive um roles in their businesses.
00:19:03
Speaker
Okay, that's great. That's more insight for us. um And then it's also showing that, hey, this podcast episode is in fact something that our target audience is struggling with.
00:19:16
Speaker
So then maybe we find someone else that we can interview about something that topic or someone else who can speak to something that's related to that topic that was covered in that episode.
00:19:28
Speaker
And then you might take it a step further. um And we might say, hey, well, if people have been coming to our website and listening to that episode, that's someone that I might want to have on an email list because we can't solely focus on social media.
Diversifying Marketing Efforts Beyond Social Media
00:19:45
Speaker
Now, I am a social media girlie. OK, I believe in the power of social media marketing and digital marketing. But I know that we cannot put all of our eggs in one basket, right? We have to diversify our marketing.
00:19:58
Speaker
We have to be willing to enter into email marketing, or we might have direct mail, or we might also advertise on Spotify. There are all of these different outlets, but we need to be strategic about which one of those outlets that we use based on our audience.
00:20:16
Speaker
So again, coming back to that audience and saying, all right, I'm making this up, but let's say the majority of our audience is male. They're between the ages of 30 and 55 and they're either director, C-suite level, CEO, you know fall into that category.
00:20:33
Speaker
Okay, well then I wanna do some research of where else are those individuals hanging out? Is it beneficial for me to do email marketing or is it more beneficial for me to send a direct mailer?
00:20:45
Speaker
Or is it more beneficial for me to run a television ad or a radio ad? And i don't want, because we don't want to waste our precious marketing resources in places where those individuals are not even hanging out.
00:21:00
Speaker
So for me, i would say, yeah, if we're not on LinkedIn, maybe we need to hang out on LinkedIn. And if we're not doing email marketing, well, we should probably be hanging out in the email marketing space as well.
00:21:12
Speaker
So I may also run an ad retargeting those individuals who like our page and or who have visited the website and say, hey, if you've listened our podcast before, you may also love to be a part of our newsletter list.
00:21:30
Speaker
Here are some benefits of being on our newsletter. And give them real true benefits. Don't talk about why you think the podcast is so great. Why is it that someone's who is a, to run with this fake audience, someone who is a, you know, male ah director, C-suite executive, why would they be interested in this
Importance of Listener Engagement
00:21:55
Speaker
podcast? What are some topics that we cover or what are benefits of being the first listener or exclusive content or the opportunity to be on a
00:22:05
Speaker
you know, private zoom call with one of our guests, you know, what what are the benefits of actually joining your newsletter? Because here's the thing, when you release a new episode, you're releasing your new episode, and maybe you announced it on Facebook, and you announced it on Instagram, and you announced it on LinkedIn, those are different touch points.
00:22:22
Speaker
But now they're also getting an email alert saying, hey, here are the new episodes that have come out this week, or here are the new episodes that have come out this month, or hey, we know that you're interested in this topic. Have you listened to this episode yet?
00:22:37
Speaker
And sharing that content with them. Those are additional touch points, additional tactics that we can use to grow our following and ultimately, too, to build a further relationship with that listener.
00:22:52
Speaker
Because isn't it so true in marketing? And we talk about this all the time with our clients at Ugly Mug is, People are so much more willing to listen to someone else's opinion than listen to your opinion as the business.
00:23:10
Speaker
um Hannah, that is really interesting. i have been sitting here where i'm I'm going to get a neck pain. I'm nodding my head, just agreeing with you. if this was television, people would see it and sort think I was like one of those little dogs that you get in and the cars that nod as they go along.
00:23:27
Speaker
It is fascinating that and people say that time flies when you're having fun, but time also flies when you're learning something and enjoying that learning experience.
00:23:39
Speaker
I have to thank you so much for sharing your experience with us in this. It has been really very, very interesting. And I'm sure for lots of people who have been thinking about um getting involved in social media marketing, that you have explained things in a very, very practical way there.
00:23:59
Speaker
So thank you very much for sharing your experience in the independent minds. Thank you. Yes, you're very welcome. It's been my pleasure. Thank you very much. i am Michael Millward, the managing director of Abesida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Hannah Acosta.
00:24:18
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us at abeceda.co.uk. There is a link in the description. If you are listening to the independent minds on your smartphone, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data.
00:24:33
Speaker
So listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. There's a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3.0 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:24:47
Speaker
The description also includes links to all of the websites that have been mentioned in this episode of The Independent Minds. That description is well worth reading. If you have liked this episode of The Independent Minds, please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere.
00:25:04
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abysida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:25:17
Speaker
Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.