Hello everyone, and welcome to Founder’s Thoughts…
This will be a series mainly written on planes, trains and dictated on walks, where I go through the current state of marketing, and provide my expertise on the topic. I have that many conversations with business owners, aspiring entrepreneurs & the general public that real-world problems - that YOU can benefit from, always come up. I recently spoke with an aspiring entrepreneur I sat next to on a plane. Random, I know, but a great point came up in a short conversation I had with him. Can we not overcomplicate marketing? I mean, in the world of social media, viral hooks, and shorter and shorter attention spans, content and marketing can get ‘cringey’.
This concept of simple, sexy marketing is often overlooked, but if we look at some of the biggest companies (yes I know they have been around a while to develop their brand) simple often does better. Apple, Tesla and even influencers like Daniel Dalen & James Smith as an example, have now opted for more ‘story based’ advertising, letting there knowledge for topics take precedence over attention grabbing clickbait and titles like ‘How to Make A Million Pounds In 3 Seconds’Let’s take Nike for example.You don’t ever hear or see Nike use attention grabbing hooks like ‘How These Shoes Help You Run Faster’, it’s often using an athlete or story behind the shoe that they are selling. What’s the technology going into the shoe? What’s the purpose behind the shoe? Their ‘dress’ shoes - Jordans, Travis Scott Lows, Dunks - all the advertisements showcasing a lifestyle, not telling people about the lifestyle that these shoes provide. An interesting point, right? So how do we put this into place with your company? It’s such a pull to try and create the most viral video every time, but there is also room for letting your product do the talking as well. People get so focused on numbers these days, and forget why they actually created the business. To do one of two things; impact more people, make more money. It’s as simple as that. And how do we do that? Sure, by every now and then having that big traffic builder, with the clickbait titles, the quick edits and the caption that may or may not include all capitals ;) But also including the clean, simple content that these days, can actually drive the numbers that entrepreneurs worldwide crave, as people simply aren’t used to seeing an honest post anymore. They get bombarded every single day with a load of BS, for lack of better terms. So keep it simple!
Let’s calm down a little, and move back to the conversation I had on the plane. He also continued to mention about the analytical aspect of marketing, and all the numbers can get confusing. Now, I am a numbers guy, I love the fact that you can tweak three/four words on a landing page, and the numbers can skyrocket. It fascinates me. However, that’s not the case for 99% of people, actually, scratch that, marketers out there. I am weird like that, alright? In all seriousness though, numbers can be boring, they confuse people. So here are 5 key metrics that you should make use of, if you don’t want to overcomplicate your marketing;
Cost per conversion: how much money have you spent, to generate that sale. This is really key for advertising, but also organic social media as well (if you have someone running them for you). This will give you a really good idea on what is the cheapest cost per conversion, so you can invest more money into the sh** that works. Make sense?
Click Through Rate: how many people after seeing a piece off your traffic (organic search, PPC ads, social media etc…) end up visiting your site. This shows you what content you need to create, to match with people who are going on your site. If a piece of content has a 0.01% CTR, compared to a 5% CTR, you are going to want to create more of the 5% content, as those people are more aligned.
Marketing costs: I see this so many times (surprisingly), when I go into ad accounts. Companies don’t have budgets for marketing. Have a budget and stick to it. Factor in holidays, historic low periods etc… and you can really create a budget plan that is not only generates money, but saves you money as well. For example, a client of mine
Frequency: This is specifically for paid ads, however, this is so crucial. This is the amount of times your ad has been seen by someone in its lifetime. You want that ad to be seen by people depending on what stage they are in on your funnel, different times.
ROAS: In the end, all that really matters. Are you being profitable? Profitable businesses are the only ones that thrive, so how are your marketing efforts returning? ROAS or ROI is simply Return on ad spend, or return on investment.
And with that, our time here comes to an end. It really has been a pleasure writing this, totally off the cuff, passionate, and writing about what I love: MARKETING.
See you in the next edition of Founder’s Thoughts. And if you are looking for digital marketing help, jeez, about time! Get in contact with us today. Thomas Walker
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