Online marketing basics is where it all begins and in this episode, Tim Elliott shares some great content.
Online marketing is one of the most important skills for any business owner or entrepreneur. It’s the process of promoting your products or services online, and it can be a great way to reach new customers, build brand awareness, and grow your business. But online marketing can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you’re just getting started. That’s why we’ve invited Tim Elliott, head of marketing at M&A and Virgin Startup mentor, to share his expertise on online marketing basics. In this episode, Tim shares some great tips on how to get started with online marketing, including how to create an effective online presence, how to reach your target audience, and how to measure your results. Whether you’re just getting started with online marketing or you’re looking for some tips to improve your online marketing strategy, this episode is for you. Thanks for joining us!
You can learn more about luxury branding here.
Nathaniel Schooler 0:37
Today, I’d like to introduce Tim Elliott:- by day he is head of marketing for an acquisition and investment company in the East Midlands in the UK, where he spends his days helping great companies grow. Outside of the day job he has a real passion for startups and was awarded Virgin startup mentor at the start of 2018. So that’s quite interesting. And he’s also been a Chartered Institute of Marketing tutor. Tim shares some really great information in this episode with me.
Well, Hi there, Tim, it’s great to have you on the show. I’m really excited about this expert talk today. Because you’ve got oodles of experience in the marketing world. And yeah, I think it’s great. Yeah, great. Great to speak with you again!
It all begins with branding :- Luxury Branding with Krug Champagne with Douglas Commaille – Episode 35
Tim Elliott 1:17
Thanks it’s good to be here. As usual, share some of my my oodles of experience. 22 years I’ve been a marketer now, 22! A long time.
Nathaniel Schooler 1:29
It’s a long time. And so I think the best thing is, we start off with the marketing basics, and we start sort of talk about that, because, you know, everyone today they say it’s all about online, right? And yes, online marketing is important, you know, is as well as I do, right.
But there is still no substitute for really well targeted piece of mail or, or, or a phone call that is, you know, researched to the point of, you know, where they live, you know, where they’re from, you know, you know who their secretary is, you know, who their team are. And if you call them up, you have a proper conversation with someone, there’s a lot to be said for that.
So, where do we started with marketing basics?
Tim Elliott 2:21
I mean, marketing is about people and problems, and not products and services, right. So, you start with people and the people were interested in, in terms of marketing is our customers, right? So, job number one for a marketer in marketing basics terms is to understand your customer as much as you can, right.
Get some research on it, look at the previous people who bought them, have conversations with him, you know. Don’t use data, talk to people, because conversation just like this one, move stuff forward a lot further, you can support what you learn from that by data and take it wider. But understand your customers as much as you can more than the next guy will help you win at marketing. That’s the fundamental starting point and one that people miss all the time doing some good old research.
Nathaniel Schooler 3:26
So you would you would potentially do that in with a questionnaire if you if you if you had people who would respond if it was a targeted questionnaire. Because obviously, you can’t just send out a questionnaire to people that you don’t know, and say:- “I’m thinking about this.” You need to, you need to target the right individual. So for an example, whatever, whatever sort of demographic, you’re, you’re hitting, you’re going to hit that particular job description and say. Well, hi, I noticed that you’re in such and such a job doing a bit of market research around x, because I know you might use it in your job, could you help me and then and then you’ve got three questions on a on a questionnaire,
Tim Elliott 4:12
three to three to five by three or five a really good numbers, I have no reason why just people respond more if it’s three or five, I think it’s some deep seated human behavior thing, right. But you’ve got many ways of doing this, right? If you’re an existing business, you have at some point sold to somebody, right? So we bought all of us with existing businesses, we’ve got
clients that we can bring up there are there are, you know, with friendly with if we go, we’ve got, look, we’re doing a bit of research, can we ask you three questions may that you’ve from down the road, right, it will really help us out and formulate those questions around what you’re trying to do, like said at the beginning, right marketing’s about people and problems.
So :- “Why did you buy off us?”
“What problem does our widget or service or product sold for you?
Right? And how they use that explain it in their language, the benefits they get, will help you develop that question for people who are prospect customers, right? As, you know, like, obviously speaking to people for podcast interviews, right. You can ring or contact somebody that you’ve not spoken to before and go, Hey, I want to ask you a few questions on the Podcast. And people don’t short, right,
It’s starting a conversation. It’s building a relationship, it’s not going out there with a product and a service first, because nobody cares about your product and service people care about people.
Nathaniel Schooler 5:54
They only care about themselves,
Tim Elliott 5:59
Right they are after something, like I say.
People are after solving a problem or making a change, right. So problem solving is pretty easy. You just provide the solution for whatever problem I have making the changes, they want to save money, they want to do something quicker, they want to improve the result of doing a thing, there’s some kind of change, right? That people in it fundamentally, it’s solving the problem or making a change.
And a lot of those solutions are marketing problems, right. And it’s your job as a marketer to find out what they are. There’s only one way of doing that. It’s asking them questions, right? ready to learn. tell you that because it’s not in depth enough. Not unless they’re sticking out on Twitter, hey, I’ve got this problem. Can anybody help me, which is the last place people usually get like when they’ve got no other option? The last Twitter and then Twitter will respond, however Twitter responds, you know.
Nathaniel Schooler 7:00
Yeah, if anyone’s actually listening.
Tim Elliott 7:06
Yeah. So it starts off with those things, right? People people in the most important things in marketing 100%, and you’ve got to start there before you understand any channels, any communication types and stuff.
Nathaniel Schooler 7:23
Yeah. And you’re also you’re talking, you know, these questionnaires are very useful if you’re, if you’re thinking about like NPD, like new product development, and you go out and ask your audience, like:- “What do you want?”
And then you go and build a product that actually people actually want, instead of going:- “Oh, we’ve got this product and you need to buy it.”
It’s like:- “Well, no, I don’t want that product. I want this.” You know, and some of the most successful companies in the world have done that. Like what are those ice creams the really nice ice creams with the chocolate on the outside is that there’s a shop in Amsterdam that actually has them.
Tim Elliott 8:04
I’m picturing it. if that helps. Which not not, it doesn’t pretty much!
Nathaniel Schooler 8:08
Delicious. But what they what they did is they actually asked the visitors to their outlet in Amsterdam, their favorite ice cream flavours. Yeah. So then they then they just went and launched a flavour that was that was based on what people actually wanted based on popularity. It’s like, it’s just like, it’s a no brainer, really, isn’t it?
Tim Elliott 8:31
It’s a no brainer, right?
And people start at the wrong end of marketing. They’ll start with stuff like what’s on Facebook? How often do a Facebook Live? And you’re like, Well, okay, that’s cool. But and then go right? Was my Facebook Live, not reaching the right people, and then I would reach the right people, but nobody cares. And it’s just the wrong way to go. If you find out what the people care about, on what to do, they will be automatically have more resonance with your message, right? You start with people, and then you develop products, services, and messages or propositions that will speak to those people because they’re the people you need to sell. Right? And you don’t need to talk to 1000 people think market research, right? It’s 10s of thousands of people. And 10s of thousands of pounds.
You know, a handful of people, right? You know, 10 people, if you speak to 10 people, three of them are existing customers are popular in the pipeline, maybe a couple of past customers and prospects, right? You’ve got a good like, 10 people will give you a good indication where everybody else is gonna say.
Nathaniel Schooler 9:47
Yeah, for sure. And the past customers as well. Get it give you some amazing info. Like:- “Why did you stop buying from me?” “Well, you’re product wasn’t what I needed.
Well, you can repair that relationship with an old customer, then that’s going to be a long term customer. Yeah, I mean, some of the best relationships that I’ve got are from people that we’ve had massive problems, like, together with either, you know, not a service that I’ve provided, but generally, outside service providers have messed something up, which I’ve had to go in and fix or, you know, stuff like this. And so that’s the beginning of the marketing basics, right?
Tim Elliott 10:30
Yeah.
Nathaniel Schooler 10:32
Building community and building interesting content is also fundamentally important.
Tim Elliott 10:40
Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s definitely, right. So if you understand your customer, producing the right content that’s going to appeal to that type of person should be super easy, right?
It’s common sense, right? If you know what problems I have and my opinions and what what benefits I’m seeking. This is like, classic marketing stuff, like, what benefits I’m seeking what problems I’m having? What job I’m trying to do with the thing. I want to buy a few? What’s the main reason I needed to do do I need it saved me time? Don’t need it save you money? Do I need it to improve the thing. Write, about how your thing does that stuff?
It’s not. It’s not complicated.
It’s quite simple and people overcomplicate it, right? The marketing basics to us the title of this podcast are often the things missed, because people think, well it’s simple. Of course, that’ll happen, but it but people don’t do it. People don’t talk to their customers, enough. People don’t make the content that their customers want to receive in the format they want to receive. Because there’s loads of big new shiny stuff, knocking around like Instagram stories or Facebook Lives. What if people don’t want their content on there?
Nathaniel Schooler 12:04
Yeah, well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? People just in marketing, people are just obsessed by the next shiny object. And that’s the, that’s the biggest, biggest problem with marketing is, is every marketing agency, if you’re going to hire one, they will try and sell you every single thing that they have. And, and the problem with that, is that you are you first of all, you can’t service all these channels, you don’t have the time and effort or probably the necessity to service all these channels, you could be on all these channels, but you need to be very careful and thinking about how you actually do that. And where that also fits into the whole marketing strategy, right?
Because online, like we’re saying, is only just one part of marketing, right? Because you’ve got, you’ve got your website, and that’s where people go to find out information about you. But you could also have a company magazine, potentially, if you were, you know, a high end yacht manufacturer for, for example. Yeah, yeah, you know, and your website isn’t the most important thing it’s actually, that brochure, which you send to a potential customer Who you met at a boat show, who doesn’t even want to look on the internet.
Tim Elliott 13:29
It’s, it’s, again, a piece of basic marketing is integrated marketing, right? There’s, you integrate everything, like a campaign, right? The format that your message is in, is the least important thing, right, like, look at us right now, right? We’ve got an audio thing going off and a video thing going on, we can take the link of this audio or the video and stick it through, saved up from or something like that, and it will transcribe that into a blog post. It will need copywritten admitted, you know, because we’re having a chat. Yeah, well, we’ll be 98% of a blog post or a paper newsletter or an email newsletter, or some social content, right? You just have to get the message, right, right. The message is the important thing that you get to your customers, and you know what message your customers need to hear, because you’ve spoken to them, right?
And you’ve done the research and it’s backed up by data.
So you’re only going to produce the message that people one in whatever format, it’s that easy to put it out in many, many formats. Nowadays, we have the our fingertips, right? Yeah, but the message is important thing.
And that’s where you stop adding to the noise. And you make a difference. You know what I mean? It’s red, it’s about that resonance with people don’t have to reach 40,000 people, you have to reach the right 20 people.
Nathaniel Schooler 15:08
Yeah, I agree completely. And, and that message, in essence, comes from your survey and comes from the feedback that you’re receiving.
Tim Elliott 15:16
Yeah.
Nathaniel Schooler 15:17
And all you do is you compare the results, then there might be five problems that these people have faced that you can fit. Yeah, you just work out that these 10 people or 50 people, ideally, or Android said, we thought that this particular microphone didn’t have this feature. And it costs us money, right? Because the background noise was awful.
And we went out on the road and did a Podcast in a in a in a bar, because it was the only place we could do one because all the venues were booked. And that was where the gentleman invited us. But it was rubbish, because there was too much background noise we bought wrong microphone. So if you can address that point, right, these people are going to go, Oh, wow. He actually understands my pain point. He’s written an article about my pain point. He’s interviewed someone who’s been through the pain.
Yeah, and then described it right. And then offered you a voucher at the bottom, which says:- “If you were a customer of ours in the past, here you are, here is a voucher for 50% off, you just send for your old purchasing receipt, we give you 50% off or even give you free product”
Tim Elliott 16:39
Or, even if impress them so much that you’ve listened to them and changed your business because of the issue. They happened. “
Okay, well, that was good.”
Nathaniel Schooler 16:49
Yeah. And they just buy it
Tim Elliott 16:51
“I’m back. If you’re willing to do that. I’m back.”
Because next time I have a problem, or I’ll go ahead. You know what, I wish this widget did this. You can I can make it do that. Yeah. Yeah. If you think about which it should do that, you’re not going to be the only person that we sell to? Yeah, that has some amazing stuff. Right?
You can under under questions on the survey, right. One of the the favorite tactics I’ve got at the moment is reversing the research question, right? So asking people not if they would like this thing, or what they thought about it, because they’re all super positive, right?
Usually surveys, because you only want good answers. And that’s why people just remiss and don’t answer it. But if you say, if we stopped doing this, would you be disappointed, like, not very disappointed, too dead? disappointed, right? And have the right people will tell you, people will vote if, if you’re threatening or suggesting you will take it away, people will be more honest with you, because I don’t want you to stop doing but if they go, yeah, I’m not bothered. And why is it? Why Why are they not? But that is a lot more powerful answer. If you go to like this thing people go beyond It’s all right. All right, is not useful to anybody
Nathaniel Schooler 18:19
know, it’s not.
Tim Elliott 18:20
If you reverse that I reverse that and ask them if they’ll be disappointed if they couldn’t have it anymore. The answers are super more honest. Right?
Nathaniel Schooler 18:31
That’s interesting.
Yeah. So. So as part of marketing basics, yeah, let’s, let’s, let’s sort of put this put this to right, before we move on to talking a bit more about online marketing. But marketing basics, incorporate, obviously, the brand wording, which is something that you know a lot about same as I do and deciding what that product what the features are, right?
Like, you know, what does it do?
So, the statements around that, yeah, then there is statements around why it’s different, and, or better than anything else?
What gives it authority and credibility and then there are words which you use, which normally would be for a person, but would represent the sort of almost personality, I suppose, of the brand.
And then you take those and you create a logo, you create an image, you create messaging, you create all the words that you need to reflect that brand with the words. But, but what’s happening now is, there there is a new software tool, which will help to get those words into a better format.
So they will resonate with a specific audience. And one of my, one of my friends, I interviewed her couple of days back, she’s just release the episode today, actually, Episode 27, and she talks about that in there. And it’s, and it’s what it’s called neuro marketing. And it’s, it’s how the emotions of the individual are reflected in the words that are used. And it’s a, it’s a science now, I mean, it’s become, you know, so targeted that so that’s the beginning of it all, then we go to the images, don’t we? And then we, and then we go, obviously, to the content. And then obviously, you’ve got the one to one contact methods, right? So you’ve got like the mail, snail mail, which is still used, right, I love mail.
Tim Elliott 20:41
Very effective,
Nathaniel Schooler 20:41
Yeah, very effective. If you write someone a letter, it goes straight to them. And they’re like, no one ever gets a letter anymore.
Tim Elliott 20:49
So I didn’t, I got a handwritten letter yesterday, which is the first time in like, 20 years.
Nathaniel Schooler 20:58
Well, that’s another tip. I mean, you if you write a letter you you hand, right, the envelope be, the open rate from a handwritten envelope is far greater they’ve proven than a one with a printed printed sticker on the front, right. And you can have a message on there if you want to, if you decide that you want to.
But on top of that, obviously, you’ve got the phone. And then you’ve got, you know, the telephone which actually could ring potentially, you got email and you’ve got all these digital channels, and then you got social and then you’ve got online, but you’ve also got like business cards, which, which, according to my friend, Jonathan chases, Britain’s leading hypnotist, he seems to think there are ways to time I don’t believe that personally, I think business cards still have a place. And so the leaflets and brochures and magazines, but
we’re also in essence, still in this world of advertising, where we don’t know what is actually working, because we don’t actually know who’s going to see it.
Tim Elliott 22:07
You’re absolutely right, right. And which is why if you do all the activity first, before understanding the customer, you’re going to have that classic marketing quote, where they say:-
“I’m pretty sure 50% of our advertising doesn’t work. I’m just not sure which half?”
You know what I mean, if you understand your customer, you’ve only got a real simple process to follow. You’ve got to get the right message, which you know, from your customer to the right people who you already know who they are. Yeah, at the right time.
Yeah, right. And there’s, there’s basic three stages of the right time, right?
There’s, are you acquiring a new customer?
Is it all this stuff before they’ve purchased or are they already purchased?
And you’re trying to retain them as a customer?
Or have they been retained for a while, and you’re trying to upsell or cross sell, you’re trying to increase the lifetime customer value, right?
There’s three timings there. Are you getting the which message? Are you getting to the right people at one of those times? Because they’re different contexts. And that’s all like marketing. 101, right. It’s those things:- Right people? Right message? Right time?
Nathaniel Schooler 23:24
Nice. All right.
Well, thanks for the basics. That’s, that’s, that’s really great. So about online marketing, right?
Tim Elliott 23:31
Yes.
Nathaniel Schooler 23:32
What it’s a bit of a sort of fragmented world, the online marketing world, and there are all these people that tell you need to do this, you need a funnel like that. And you need 20 funnels, and you need, you know, all these words, all these blogs, all these videos, all these podcasts. And it all just becomes like a world of hyperbole of just lost thoughts, wasted activities that deliver zero value, because you cannot be on all channels. You cannot do all of these things all at once. And if and the problem is the net is too wide, and they’re trying to catch all these people into a net, which in essence doesn’t distinguish so the fish just run away. Swim away. Really.
Tim Elliott 24:22
Yeah, I mean, I’m a massive, I use digital and online all the time. And, and when I talk about digital and online marketing, and in videos and other podcasts and stuff like that, it always comes across like a bit grumpy a bit rantee, like I hate it
But it’s not that at all. I’m a massive fan of it. I just see a lot of it done poorly, right? So online marketing can be as simple as one idea really well executed, right? Just one idea.
You don’t have have to do all of this stuff, as you said, right. Just have a look at the most successful company on the planet Amazon, right. I can imagine their marketing meeting decades ago going to, you know, with quarter of a million quid a year marketing consultant sitting around a fencing table, right? And they get and Jeff Bezos going. “Can’t we just ask the customer what they want?”
They were. Well, that’s ridiculous. That won’t work. There’s no creative. And you know what, I’m just going to build a little list at the side and see people fill it in a wat:-
“That’s ridiculous. People won’t fill back in without any context.”
And then I can imagine a look to go late night people are filling up, people are filling this little wish list:- “What do we do now? What do we do? So we retarget them with Facebook ads?”
“Okay, no, no, no, let’s just sell them the stuff that they want to buy.”
It’s not complicated. And everybody’s got their version of a wish list. Right? And that should be about 80% of your online focus should be. Is it a Podcast, right? The 80% of the people you want to work with? Do they listen to your podcast? Do you like download an E book?
Do they tune in every week, when you do a staff takeover of a Facebook Live or Instagram story? #
Do they subscribe to your newsletter, where you release voucher codes every week?
Right? That’d be one thing that you know, really works. So focus on doing that 80% of the time, 20% of the other time, play with whatever you want, try and improve it, try and make it better try something new.
Because people’s behavior changes, especially online, right, especially online and it changes fast. So you need that 20% of your time to stay in touch, in case behavior changes in case technology changes in case Facebook book is up again. And people leave it whatever right but somebody somewhere needs that point of the spear that one idea that they really well execute online. And the transformation you will see from online marketing by doing that, that simple process, a bit of focus will change the game online for people.
Nathaniel Schooler 27:30
Yeah, its massive, it’s changed it for me since I started this Podcast is, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s amazing. And the “Expert Talks” that I’m doing a just a just outstanding, you know, and the people I get to talk to, I get, I get coaching, like I’m sitting there, you’re giving me you give me coaching Tim!
You know, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s shocking, actually the difference that it makes, when you firstly enjoy doing what you’re doing, that’s the most important thing, do something that you are capable of doing without having loads of extra resource. Because if you don’t have loads of resource, you need to, you need to be very careful with what you’re doing.
And you don’t need to spend all this time and effort and money on things that in essence of good to deliver you zero value because then they don’t reflect where you are and who the people are. Because I want to I want to attract intellectual people. I want to attract people who like you just want to learn like we’re all seem to be similar in our personality types. It’s a it’s a basic DNA, it’s an entrepreneurial excitement. And every single person on my podcast show has that entrepreneurial excitement for life and what they’re doing.
So it’s a, it’s, it’s like, I would go on holiday with everyone that I interview there, because they’re great people. Yeah, but it all becomes more complicated when you’re broadening out those behavior types doesn’t it to to target people for business, because then you’ve got like you, right, you’ve got the entrepreneurs. Yeah, which is, which is, which is, you know, you and I, right. But then we’ve got like the small business people who, in essence, you know, if you’re going to target them, it’s going to be a different message, it’s going to be more about like saving money, and not not buying new outlets and not expanding, it’s going to be about sustainability and ease of working and lifestyle business instead. So it’s just sort of it.
But it’s also about not not complicating those personalities that you’re trying to target either. And those people because I was talking to Bryan Eisenberg, a few weeks back, and he said that companies just just just go too much into it, they split it up. And and actually, there are only six different personality types that he was targeting in one business, they had like 25, and he’s like, you’ve got 25 different behavior like that you’re trying to target you mad? and he just reduced it right down and got massive results.
Tim Elliott 30:20
Hundred percent, right, that the one of the first exercises I do with clients, right, is to try and get them to map out their ideal client. I don’t care who they sell to at the moment, right? Really, I just go right, design me, your ideal client, tell me where they are geographically, how much they spend with you? What product they buy? How often they buy it? What turnover, they’ve got? What payment time they’ve got?
Let’s design all your marketing to try and find and engage and nurture those.
Because you’ve not right online marketing will take all the time. I know the budget you give it, it doesn’t care. Like, it literally doesn’t care. There is no filter by Google and Facebook and social media that goes actually we won’t take that extra thousand pounds you’ve put into your budget, they’re going to take it right marketing will take it we don’t care, we will suck it in. Yeah, and not give you anything. If you’ve got something fundamentally wrong, like a headline, like a an image, like you’ve just targeting the wrong people.
Nathaniel Schooler 31:33
It can be even worse than that. I’ve got a jumping on here, because we’re finding out it a minute ago, when you were when you were saying and it’s almost like the most the worst mistakes I’ve seen from from from online marketing or with some of the biggest companies the worst mistakes, you know, going so far as potentially spending probably, I don’t know, 10 grand a day or something, or on paid advertising. And then you click the link and it goes to a dead page just as an example.
Yeah. Like you say, the headline is wrong. But but but I think the dead link thing is like, that’s the biggest lesson. Like if you if you don’t check that your links work, right. Like, you know, and you and you send something out, and then you change the URL, and someone in the office doesn’t change it. And you do a redirect, right?
Tim Elliott 32:29
Hundred percent. Yeah.
Nathaniel Schooler 32:31
But the thing is, is that there are there are people that make that URL mistake with, with big businesses and click, click, click. And what happens all the budget gone? Or? Or what about this one, right? I heard about this one. Jason at Creation Agency, he was telling me there was a customer, and they were this company came to him, and they said:-“Look, we need some help with our, with our, with our marketing, you know, Google AdWords and this sort of stuff.”
He’s like, well:- “Have you got a budget?”
They’re like, well:- “We just sort of spent it is like, what? And they and they spent 100K, I kid you not?”
Yeah, they wasted 100K on Google AdWords. And they were going after that we’re going after the words Cloud computing or something. So 100 pounds a click. Yeah, right. Just gone.
Tim Elliott 33:25
Yeah. Yeah, I mean,
That that kind of hearts back to our previous chat about marketing basics, right? If you understand your customer, which is the basic which you should be before you doing any online marketing after the words they use when they’re looking for your product, right. And they’re not going to be we’re not in 1992, right? We’re not going all I want a screwdriver to know what we wake up. We know how to search. Now, we need a Phillips head screwdriver sent to me today. And it needs to be for me, you know what I mean?
We want we know what we don’t go and Dominoes and go hide Dominoes:- “Can we have a pizza” And they go shop and then some pizza, right?
So in very specific, we know what we’re after it goes to that natural language programming stuff you are on about earlier, like Google know what we mean just type any word and it will suggest all the actual stuff that we need, right? So people go in between one and two word like even three word keyword searches on Google, I imagined will be wasting a lot of money.
Nathaniel Schooler 34:38
Oh, yeah, definitely. The more specific you are, the better. I mean, to actually rank your website, even if you’re trying to rank it. When you’ve got a competition of like, see, you’ve got a competing websites, or 150 million web pages that are competing with your keyword that you’re trying to do organic search for you. Which means you go for a keyword which is so competitive, you’re never going to make it. You, you could do anything you want. But you’re never going to make it right. Because it’s going to take you so long that in five years time you might get there. But actually, yes, you would get 100,000 hits a month, right? If you got to number two, or number three, or number one or whatever, but it’s better to go after lots and lots of the longer tail keywords so you’ve got like, you know, 10 words or seven words like you say that are super super specific. Yeah, because then you know, they’ve got buying intent as well like the page but you know, that they want what you have because there’s so specific right.
Tim Elliott 35:48
Yeah, that’s that word I was thinking of. I’m waiting for you to finish that word intent right because people putting screwdriver or holidays into Google don’t have the tend to buy one. If I’m after a holiday. I’m looking for five star hotels in Malta in July!
Nathaniel Schooler 36:08
You are Wow.
Tim Elliott 36:09
And I after exactly the same thing. Right after exactly the same thing. I’m after a holiday. My intent. It’s massively different with those searches. Right. And it’s intent’s. Nailed it. Right. You know, as we’re talking about online marketing, there’s some there’s some online marketing formats, like social media, where the intent is not to buy a thing, it’s to talk to another person or engage with some stuff, right. And Google, the intent is different if the keyword is right, because people are looking for a result, you know, and there’s, there’s various combinations of those types of intent throughout online marketing.
But intent, it’s one of those things that you will understand by looking at your existing customers, where do they go to find out information about your thing when they’re looking for a service.
Yeah, you know, you could talk to your existing customer and go, okay, when you’re looking for not a service you provide, right? When you’re looking for a catering service? Where do you go when you need to buy one? Or where do you go to research?
Because when they go to research will be when they go to research. Where they going to buy it will be where they’re going to buy it? Yeah. And, you know, from, you know, from that question where their intent is, and you can put more effort in that intent, because that’s important.
Nathaniel Schooler 37:37
You’re basically educating the customer or potential customer to buy the right product, because you don’t want to sell them something they don’t want, anyway.
Tim Elliott 37:48
Yeah, it’s really hard to generate demand, it’s really hard and really expensive, you should already be there when they were already got, you know, let somebody else come convince them that they want a new widget. But then you put your widget there with me.
Nathaniel Schooler 38:06
Yeah. And you, you, you educate them to the point of knowing that what you’re selling is the best product for them, or what you’re selling doesn’t work for them. Because the last thing you want is a refund, you don’t want to refund you don’t want to sell someone something that they get it back like so that you send back to someone just it’s just a total waste of time.
Tim Elliott 38:28
This is it. And this comes down to one of your specialities Nat and that’s the wording right, or the technical term is that the value proposition of that product or that service that person, right. that value proposition should be strong enough and focused enough that it repels the wrong customer.
Nathaniel Schooler 38:51
Yeah, I agree completely. Because 80% of the people aren’t your customer anyway. The people that are looking, they’re not your customers, because they’re not gonna they’re not going to buy into what you have, you know, that’s what I was. That’s what I was understanding. But it’s like, online marketing is just the problem is, is that everyone thinks they’ve got to be everywhere, do everything, be on every channel, and an agency will try and tell you that that’s what you have to do.
Yeah, but actually, you don’t have to do that. If you just pick one channel, two channels, three channels, plus your content creation, all you actually need in order to have a conversation, obviously, do Google AdWords or pay Pay Per Click stuff if you if you’ve got budget, but if you’re a small business, you just target the right people.
If you’re a big business, then you can afford teams who specialize in each one of these sectors. But don’t be don’t be confused that you can do it yourself. Because each one of these disciplines is a discipline. I don’t do PPC pay per click or paid ads, I can’t do it. I don’t have the mindset is not my brain power that does that. So I have to partner with people who do that stuff. Yeah, in order to sell things, right.
So you know, it depends on your skill set as to what you’re actually going to do. And if you’re going to manage all these things, because you might manage a team, if you’re listening to this, you get a need to understand each element of what it entails. So yes, you need to do a course. And you need to study each one of these things. Social, SEO, content creation, video, you know, all these platforms, you need to understand it. But you don’t need to do it yourself. Because it’s you can’t do it all yourself, right?
Tim Elliott 40:46
Yeah, no, that’s it. I mean, you you hit the nail on the head again, they’re really with it your job to understand your customer, and understand the channels they use to buy stuff and why they used to buy it have to do it. In theory, you should use lead with that process as possible. Right, the thing with using agencies and marketing, outsourcers and freelancers that it’s a brilliant, very good at what they do. There’s no you know, they’re good people, but the only as good as the brief you give them if you’ve done a bit of work, and you’ve understood the channel and your customer and the proposition why they need to buy your thing,
the work that these other people do these markets do will be super more effective,
because they they go well, why wouldn’t we do all that? Why would we do all this other stuff we usually try and sell because he knows that his customers are here and they buy it here. He just needs more of that are done more creatively. Right. Yeah. So she so it’s all about the brief, but you can’t give them a good brief if you don’t understand customer channels. proposition. Yeah, right. And so fundamental three.
Nathaniel Schooler 42:05
Yeah, I mean, I think there are lots of emerging technologies that are coming along, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got like chatbots, which can convert natural language into 200 languages and understand it, and then you can go back and use that data to create more content because you’re getting answers from people it’s creating frequently asked questions should ask questions and stuff that you need to think about and come up with, but frequently asked questions and should ask questions. And just like gold dust.
Tim Elliott 42:37
They have been the best marketing thing for what, 30-40 years since the internet came on. Yeah, yeah.
Nathaniel Schooler 42:44
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Is that people think everyone in digital, yeah, hold my fingers in the air on that one. Are just obsessed with digital. And they think that everything is digital. Yeah, but you must work out a combination of all these things, online on its own….I’m sorry, it doesn’t, it doesn’t work. You need to combine it. And you need to go now. Face to face meetings, pick up the phone, have a zoom call, send a postcard send a birthday card, bunch of flowers, whatever it is, and it needs to be on point and it needs to be personal to that individual. Right? I mean….
Tim Elliott 43:24
Yeah, definitely. I mean, digital, I would say and from my initial experience, right, it’s kind of lost a lot of meaning. Just because everything has digital elements. You don’t see a TV advert without a hashtag or Twitter handle. You don’t see a Billboard magazine and newspaper or local thing, even those little local magazines. You get stuck through your door, right? And take away leaflets about the social and website details. Everything’s got a digital element to it. Newspapers are selling more digital, or get more digital readership than me. Yeah, right. It’s digital. It’s not a thing. It’s just marketing with stop thinking. In general, right? They can, everybody will have kind of multiple touch points. They might, they might have a chat with you tomorrow night in the pub. Right? Meet Nat in the local pub. Have a couple of beers. Go on. Check his website. Listen to his podcast. Meet him again.
Nathaniel Schooler 44:25
Very simple, right.
Tim Elliott 44:27
Nobody buys, customers don’t buy in channels, right? You don’t see people going on. Just going to buy a camera digitally! Just going to buy a camera. Yeah, right. They can thinking channel. So the only people thinking channels and marketing people. And that’s the issue!
Nathaniel Schooler 44:45
Yeah, it’s an issue I’ve got because they get lost in channels, that they get lost in channels, lost in campaigns. And actually, they don’t create content that is so on point for people that it brings them to the point of buying. It’s like, Yeah, that’s it. Really. Is it simple? Yeah, I can laser isn’t it at the end of the day.
Tim Elliott 45:08
That’s it right in hit the nail on the head again right. marketing people, especially online, need to focus on impact, not activity, right? Because if you focus on activity, it’s just expensive and timely. And noisy. messy. Yeah. can find impact? Nobody’s going to complain?
Nathaniel Schooler 45:30
Yeah. Well, also, it’s it’s down to like, what metrics are you tracking as well, it’s like your finance director, he wants money. In the end, he wants he wants cash. So if you’re using marketing at all, in any part of your business, right, and you’re spending money on it. Yeah, time is money anyway, because you know, you there is a correlation, you can think you’re spending 20 minutes on Facebook, but actually that 20 minutes is 20 minutes of your life. You’re never going to get back.
Tim Elliott 46:02
Yeah! Yeah.
Nathaniel Schooler 46:04
So a direct correlation between how much time you’re spending how much ad budget you’re spending and how much return is necessary. As opposed to Yeah, the alternative which is just got 50 Facebook likes, oh, I just got 20 new followers on Twitter, or,:-
“Oh, I got 500 downloads”
I’m sorry, 500 downloads yet in a day from people that are never going to buy your product, never get to tell anyone about it. Never get a recommend you, never get to tell their friends about you. It’s like, why would you even bother? It’s like it’s just a pointless approach. Yeah, to to all of it as far as I’m concerned.
Tim Elliott 46:46
Yeah. Again, it’s marketing 101 if you have a good marketing strategy, the metrics that you’re trying that you measure in your marketing no matter what the channel, no matter what the format, should reflect and be aligned with the business metrics so the turnover, the profit, the customer growth, the customer retention type, these are all marketing metrics, marketing is the only thing that that touches every department of a company.
Because every customer talks for even if it’s Dave the delivery driver that’s a marketing opportunity! So every person in there, should be there to drive forward those important to business metrics and marketing isn’t the same. We’ve just stopped labels on stuff like impressions and reach that you know we love to measure a thing and label a thing marketing people will have to label a new thing and a lot of it doesn’t matter unless it moves the business forward it’s that impact over activity.
Nathaniel Schooler 47:49
It reminds me of of that person who was at NASA and you probably heard this story, and someone someone walked up to them, but this guy was like I think he was cleaning the toilets or something yeah or the lady was cleaning up someone said what you’re doing and and the person said :-
“Well I’m helping to put a man on the moon sir!”
Which is just a brilliant place to finish on I think!
Tim Elliott 48:25
Yeah a hundred percent
Nathaniel Schooler 48:27
Stonking. Thanks Tim.
Tim Elliott 48:29
No problem.
nat 48:33
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