Speaker 1: 0:16

Welcome back to Market it with Atma, where we share the tips, tools and strategies to help your business be successful. Thank you for joining episode three of the live podcast series. We are joined today by Brian Acosta, ceo of Advent Trinity Marketing Agency, and he is going to help us learn how to not make mistakes during one of the most critical parts of your business strategy the launch phase. Welcome back, brian.

Speaker 2: 0:44

Hey, hey, hey, thank you guys for having me again.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Appreciate you Thank you for joining us. So I'm excited about this portion and I want to kind of just dive in. Let's start big. So why is launching so much more than just going live?

Speaker 2: 0:58

Yeah. So you know, going live, everybody wants to go live and especially if you're a business owner, uh, most business owners they're, they're eager to go live. Why? Because, uh, the return on investment, right, they're trying to get out there so that they can uh start to see the business flow, start to see the leads come in and, um, the excitement right. And so I always have to kind of reel the business owners in and investors and be like, hey, okay, listen, we've got to reel you back in and remember, everything is about strategy, everything is about making sure everything is aligned and working properly. So, you know, when you launch, it's not just about launching, and we talked about this earlier.

Speaker 1: 1:41

You know, it's more like an orchestra right it is, but I can see the the interest in in having revenue come in. I mean, that's all business owners are thinking about is when will my revenue come in?

Speaker 2: 1:53

yes, so here. Here's why I I referenced the orchestra, though okay, so imagine an orchestra uh wanting to play, they get excited. What happens when people get excited? They let their emotions take away.

Speaker 2: 2:08

They're not listening to the conductor, uh errors start to happen out of sync absolutely everybody starts to get out of sync, right, and then you, you'll notice very quickly, uh, you know if something's wrong with the music and you know, um, if, if things don't sound right, um, that's what happens in marketing a lot of time you have to make sure that every component is launched properly, effectively, and everything is in sync. And I think it's funny I chose this because I actually have a music background. I was a Dallas Cowboys drummer right, was in drum line, played in orchestra. I actually played in orchestra percussion, right, and so, uh, this kind of touched base with me is this you have to make sure that the music you, you know, when you go and listen to orchestra, you want to listen to something beautiful, you want to tap into emotion that's the same thing with marketing.

Speaker 2: 2:59

You have to make sure that every component is working properly, so that the music right and it's completely engaging with the audience. So making sure that you're orchestrating each phase of the marketing during the launch, which is awareness, engagement, conversion, delight and advocation. And sometimes you have to focus on one phase of the business, one phase of the journey, the customer journey, you know, during different phases of the seasons.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Okay, okay, because there's ebbs and flows with any industry, right?

Speaker 2: 3:33

There's ebbs and flows, so when do you turn on the gas to try to get more leads, or when do you pull back to say, okay, listen, they're not ready to convert. Let's try to get you know our word out there, let's get, there's get their. I had to say but we do, we collect, data right, getting them to the website, getting them to engage on social media getting them to engage so that we can retarget them to convert later right, absolutely, and so just make sure your launching involves preparation.

Speaker 2: 3:59

Okay, okay and this goes back to the strategy and the build phase. If you haven't listened to the past two episodes, you're starting to see why those phases were so important the preparation of ensuring that you have the right creatives and you're able to measure, you have the right content, you have the right events set up. It's also not just about you know, know, ensuring that you have a campaign and you have the right content. Do we have the right event set up so that you can track the, the customer? You know, did they like, did they turn into a lead? What pages did they? They jump on?

Speaker 1: 4:37

right with that point. What are the most effective channels to launch a brand today, would you say, and how do you help clients choose which channel?

Speaker 2: 4:45

so that's a great question, because, um there, there's no silver bullet okay, and a lot of businesses. They want that silver bullet. I want the secret, the secret sauce, the secret cabi patty sauce yes uh, you know, look how that's going for plankton, that that's a seamless plug for SpongeBob. I'm so sorry, but anyways, you can tell I'm a millennial. It's all right, it's all right.

Speaker 1: 5:09

So how do you choose?

Speaker 2: 5:11

So how do you choose, is you know? You go back to the data, and here's some data. Here's some interesting data that we pulled from HubSpot. Hubspot is a multimillion-dollar company, right, and so pull a lot of data from their CRMs and their studies for B2B. So if you're business to business, you know one of the top things that you should be doing is SEO and website, and I'm gonna spend some time on this, so give me a second, okay.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Okay, I was ready to ask my next one.

Speaker 2: 5:36

SEO and website. Okay, the reason why that's so important is making sure you have blogs is, when you go to b2b, you think about it right. Businesses are are as like consumers. So b2c consumers buying shoes, and you know when you're buying things for business, it's a bigger investment. Yes, also, not only is it just a bigger investment. You know, um, you're making decisions for the business right, so you want to ensure that you're you're choosing the right product. You're choosing the right product. You're choosing the right vendors right, because you don't want to be that person that hired a vendor or a product and it didn't work right and it all falls on you. So there's all that consideration. So, seo, website we focus on making sure that you, as the business, are credible.

Speaker 1: 6:24

The decision maker in the business right.

Speaker 2: 6:27

Well, the. The website is designed to ensure that whoever's looking at the website is is this business that I'm looking at? Is it credible? Is it credible? Um, do they know what they're talking about? Uh, can I trust them? So there's a bigger, there's almost a longer process when it comes to b2b. Another thing is paid social for B2B.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Okay.

Speaker 2: 6:46

Paid social is huge because paid social you know investing in things like LinkedIn and Facebook right, because you're dealing with, you're most likely dealing with business professionals. You know they're rarely going to. I mean, they may be on TikTok and me on Instagram, but they're not there for what? They're not there for business. They're not looking for things on Instagram, facebook, uh, I'm sorry, instagram and TikTok they're looking for answers. So usually they're recruiting on LinkedIn. Uh, looking at blogs, you know they're looking for resources or solutions to a problem.

Speaker 2: 7:20

Right, exactly, um. And then you got B to C. Okay, so B to C. I have some some interesting data here I just found right. So email marketing is still one of the biggest things you could do for B to C.

Speaker 1: 7:33

You know it doesn't surprise me, honestly, because it takes six to eight touch points.

Speaker 2: 7:39

Right, it's for someone to see it consistently, yep so email marketing is the biggest you know return on roi channel for b2c. You got paid. Social, of course, right, uh, and content marketing, um, but content marketing is different when it comes to b2c. It's more about the product and what does it do?

Speaker 2: 7:55

right and what you know problems is to solve right. Um. So you know, you've, you got um. And here's some global discovery channel. Um, you know analytics here, search engine, you would say 33% people make decisions on the search engine. Tv ads are still alive, everyone.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Wow.

Speaker 2: 8:12

At 32%. Okay, and when we saw TV ads we're talking about, like now, people with TV ads it's no longer just TV ads, it's streaming ads.

Speaker 1: 8:23

That's what I was going to ask. So if you're watching Paramount or if you're watching freebie or any of those, I'm watching Amazon and I see that ads all the time.

Speaker 2: 8:32

You know, um, you got social ads, of course, right, social media and then the brand side itself. So social ads is 30%, brand sites is 26%. So here's, here's the tip, right, um, you have to know where your audience is. You have to know where your audience is, uh, and that goes back to ensuring that you do strategy and you do research, uh, so that you can be more, uh, ensure that you're engaged with them. Um, so, uh, and making sure that you're conversion ready. So, let's say, for a sas program, right, a software as a service, you should be doing SEO and LinkedIn. Right. When it comes to direct consumer, which is B2C, you should be doing Instagram, email marketing campaigns and any paid social. That where your audience lives.

Speaker 2: 9:16

So, it goes back once again. It goes back to strategy. You have to define your target, demo right, and you have to flow out your buyer's journey. What does that journey look like, right and so? Uh, and then, once you have that, then you map out the channels okay, so we've talked about channels a little bit.

Speaker 1: 9:36

Let's talk about budget, um so how much? How much should I, should people or a business owner be spending on the launch phase, and where should they be sending it?

Speaker 2: 9:47

All right. So here is where it gets finicky. Not finicky, I'd say, it gets sensitive, because people they get lied to a lot on social media. Well, my friend didn't spend a lot of money on social ads and things of that nature. Lot of money on social, you know ads and things of that nature like listen. The reality is this data that I'm about to give you comes straight from all the people like sba, small business administration a lot of in a lot of research has been done, but marketing budgets typically are anywhere between it should be should be.

Speaker 1: 10:19

It's a very important part of this.

Speaker 2: 10:21

Anywhere from five to twelve percent of total revenue.

Speaker 1: 10:24

Total revenue meaning.

Speaker 2: 10:26

Total revenue as in, not before expenses.

Speaker 1: 10:29

Okay, we're talking like total revenue.

Speaker 2: 10:31

So let's just you know, I don't have a calculator on me. Do you have a?

Speaker 1: 10:34

calculator. I do not have a calculator on me. I got my phone. We're not going to go into too much calculation, but what you're saying is there's a percentage, right?

Speaker 2: 10:44

calculation. But what you're saying is, there's a percentage, right, you already got it up. So here we go, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just do one million dollars, right, okay, uh, and I'm gonna do that. Uh, five percent here. Um, so you know, I want to be a millionaire of course everyone does.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Everybody wants to be a millionaire.

Speaker 2: 10:56

I want my business to be a millionaire. Okay, so you know.

Speaker 1: 10:58

You know, according to this data, you should be spending about at least minimum fifty thousand dollars a year so if they're projecting to to gain at least a million dollars in revenue, that's how much they should be spending on marketing dollars to make it to that level. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:13

So I mean you've got and that was on the low end right 5 to 12 percent. And then you have industries you know varying, so you've got manufacturing 5 to 7 percent. Business services like this one is 10 to 12%.

Speaker 1: 11:27

So what do we do if we don't have that budget from the start?

Speaker 2: 11:36

You gotta go get funding. You know it's it's, it's hard to say, uh, you want to do traditional, you know networking and things of that nature that will help, but, uh, you want to have a proof of concept and proof of business, and then you're going to have to, uh, either find an investment uh partner or, you know, get, you know uh credit from the business. You know the, the banks. I'm sorry, uh, because you have to have funds and and once you have the funds cause I want to go into how you allocate those funds right. Once you have those funds, Okay. So this is where now we have how you allocate them. Okay, once you have those funds, okay. So this is where now we have how you allocate them. Okay. So if you were to allocate, here's kind of a simple guide you want to allocate 30% to 40% on ads, especially if you're a startup.

Speaker 1: 12:13

And then that's on ads, not management fees, correct, not management fees.

Speaker 2: 12:17

So you're talking Google ads, facebook ads, tiktok ads, tv ads, radio ads, anything that you're paying to be be broadcasted. Okay, you want to spend 20 to 30 percent on content. So email blogging, landing pages, right? Uh, here's an interesting thing. Okay, because the credibility is huge now. Now you can either do if you have customers and they're willing to do testimonials it's the best way way to do it but if you don't, you want to spend some serious, some 10, at least 10 to 20 percent on influencer and partnership ads.

Speaker 1: 12:50

OK, that was going to be my question later on in the show. Why influencer and partnership ads?

Speaker 2: 12:55

Because everything is about credibility. You know, we can say all we want about our product and service. We have the best customer service.

Speaker 2: 13:03

Right, we have the best service, right, the best you know product in the world, and this and that, and you know, as as the owner, uh, and as the creator of our intent. It tends to happen where we believe we are the best and we're passionate. Um, but the the market is not about what you think, it's about what the market thinks right, and so if you're going to influence the market, you have to have people, other people speaking on behalf of your product or service right to create that trust and validation right?

Speaker 2: 13:33

yes, and here here's the last thing to 10, because this is important, because a lot of people don't factor this in. 10 needs to be on contingencies, like if something goes wrong, and analytical tools to track what you're doing when you're, because you don't just want to throw money into the market and not know how it's performing. And a lot of people do that, yes, so they're just like. You know, excuse me, they'll just go on and they'll throw facebook ads, they'll do google ads and, and you know, you ask them if it's working and they have zero idea. Well, I've got some likes and comments on my page, right, but they have zero idea of how that is actually turning into a monetary value for their business, right?

Speaker 1: 14:13

And that's important, because if you don't have those funds, especially contingency, don't start spending money on ad spend right, would you agree?

Speaker 2: 14:20

Exactly, and it's all about you know, uh, uh, you, you want to tie everything back to you know how, how aggressive do you want to be, and in your velocity right? And so you know your velocity depends on on you know how you're launching this and how you're you're managing those funds and where you're going so, and I was going to ask um can you explain what it means for someone to have velocity in their campaign?

Speaker 2: 14:48

Yeah, so launch velocity has a simple formula right Launch velocity equals the speed and the momentum of the acquisition and engagement that you're trying to accomplish during launch. Okay, how many likes do I want? How many people do I want watching these videos? How many people do I want commenting? How many people do I want following? How many people do I want watching these videos? How many people do I want commenting? How many people do I want following? How many people do I want inquiring? So here's something that I think different in my head, because when you're dealing with marketers, they're talking about conversions, conversions, conversions right.

Speaker 2: 15:20

And we talk. We talk about cost per lead, we talk about cost per acquisition. So what is the cost per lead? It's the cost per. You know if they put their information in and ask questions, right? And then the cost per acquisition is did they actually come in and tour? Or you know, you do a free trial those acquisitions. How much did it cost to acquire a new customer? Okay, so here's my deal. Leads to me are not conversions, they're engagement.

Speaker 1: 15:49

That's important to know.

Speaker 2: 15:50

Yes, because here's, here's what happens. You know, to me, leads, they're inquiring, they're engaging, but they haven't converted yet. You know, right, a conversion to me is did they actually pay you money, okay, and so you have to kind of know the and we talked about this in the first is like 3% actually. It's what? Three percent actually, you know, convert, right, that's a scary number. Ok, so how many leads do you need in order for you to get a true acquisition?

Speaker 1: 16:25

How many? Yeah, you have to figure that out, right? Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2: 16:29

And so when you know when you're, you're launching in your velocity, you kind of have to figure out that formula for your business, right? Okay, you have to take a look at your authority. You know, how do you stand in the market. Have you taken a look at competitors? How do you rank against them? How many customers do they have compared to you? Right, and how do you build that authority? Because, at the end of the day, that's how you rank on Google too, is it's about relevance, right?

Speaker 1: 16:58

So I do have a question for you, now that you've said that I get asked this question all the time. What's the difference between launching with ads versus launching organically without ads?

Speaker 2: 17:08

Oh, that's a good question, because you know there's a difference between posts and ads, and we get that all the time when it comes to social media. Yes, so paid ads is how you're paying. If you're paying directly to facebook and google to uh, promote your, your post, your business, your page, uh, your website, you're paying. And and the thing about paid is, it's predictable, uh, and you can scale with it. Uh, it's immediate and that's something that a lot of people don't understand. Is that, uh, because we're going to talk about organic and it's immediate? And that's something that a lot of people don't understand?

Speaker 2: 17:36

Is that, because we're going to talk about organic and it's not that organic isn't important, it's just the reality about organic, and I hate to say that that this is a sensitive topic, especially in the marketing industry, because everybody has their thoughts, but I believe you gotta do both. But you get immediate reach with paid. It's measurable cost per action, so you can actually see your measurability. Okay, uh, and honestly, it's the best thing to do when you're starting a business is advertise, because that's how you launch, that's how you get people aware and engaged with your business, right, yeah, organic, okay, so I didn't pay facebook, I didn't pay google. But now, um, I'm posting on my page and I'm posting and I'm not seeing a lot and I get this a lot you know, I'm not seeing enough.

Speaker 2: 18:19

I post on my social media platforms but people just aren't engaging, and I'll post on my personal. By the way there's, you have to understand that those are two different algorithms.

Speaker 1: 18:27

Very different algorithms.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Yeah, and so you know organic is about trust. It's about credibility you think about. You know organic is about trust. It's about credibility. Think about what we're doing with this podcast. We didn't spend any ad dollars on this podcast, right? No, but we're using this organically to establish trust, credibility, and then when people convert, it tends to have a lower cost when it comes to converting, yes, because it was less, you know, budget spent on advertising and things of that nature, but the thing is that it's it's it takes longer, absolutely, it's a longer push, and they both go hand in hand, though you can't do paid and you can't. You can't just do paid because that's a lot of money and you can't just do organic. So the goal when starting a business is to start pushing with advertising, use organic to build trust, right, and then, as both of them start to go parallel, your cost per lead and cost per acquisition starts to go down because people trust you more. Think of it If you're a startup business with a new product, a new solution, and people are skeptical, right.

Speaker 2: 19:32

They're going to be like do I really want to do this? So your cost per lead is what?

Speaker 1: 19:36

Higher, of course, right.

Speaker 2: 19:38

But the more and more people start to use it, which is the organic right, the more and more people that actually start to use it and the organic posts and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 19:47

The more people start to organically start to research, you organically start to go to your website. Now the cost per lead starts to come down, cost per acquisition starts to come down right and now that spend that traditionally that you were getting, you know cost per lead. If my cost per lead and acquisition is up here now it starts to go back down to your, your original goal and then eventually, as you build big brand, a big business now.

Speaker 1: 20:11

That gets extremely low that's important to know because, like you said in the beginning, having that budget's important because it looks like initially you're always going to be a little bit higher and then it'll start to level out on the ad spend and things like that, right I?

Speaker 2: 20:25

think the biggest thing is like expectations, especially when starting a business, is that you have to you and, and my mentor, you know, um, and he's an investor. Okay, he's always remember, remember he's, he's actually invest in stocks, right, and uh, he always says if you're investing and in a flip you're already lost right because eventually you'll start to make mistakes. You always have to think long term. The bigger, the the biggest investors out there that they they invest strategically for the long term okay.

Speaker 1: 20:59

Okay, with that being said, um have, can you tell us any recent campaigns that you've had that have been successful? Put your money where your mouth is.

Speaker 2: 21:08

I guess you could say yeah I got two actually, um, it's funny. Um, no, actually, wow, I just thought about it. I got like three or four. Now, okay, uh, let's, let's start with the. Yeah, okay, let's start with um, the, the, uh, the one in-house here, okay, it's a nuva desk co-working, okay, so, um, so that one believe it or not took a while. Okay, uh, it took two years for it to finally take off wow but once.

Speaker 2: 21:34

But once it did it blew up right. And then one thing that we did, one campaign that we strategically did that kind of like you know really pushed, it was when we launched events.

Speaker 1: 21:48

Interesting.

Speaker 2: 21:49

So coworking, just kind of background, coworking spaces, you know, like coworking office spaces, shared desk, you got this podcast room, media production room but once we said, hey, we're going to do events where we bring the outside community in for networking and for lunch and learn, but you know, most coworking space, believe it or not, what they'll do is they'll do events, but only for the members. What we did was we did public, right, interesting events, but only for the members. What we did was we did public, right, interesting, and um, we did public because the goal was not, uh, hey, we just want members to be involved. The goal was lead generation. We wanted people in the facility the brand awareness, the trust so the lead generation?

Speaker 2: 22:29

I kid you not, this is crazy. The lead generation from one year without events to the other was 30 000 percent increase oh my goodness yeah 30 000 percent astronomical. So we went from like a thousand emails in our in the crm to like I think we're they're in like eight thousand nine thousand emails in the crm wow, that is incredible, is incredible.

Speaker 1: 22:54

So what was your second?

Speaker 2: 23:03

The second one, uh, was a law firm. Okay and uh, believe it or not, they actually launched without us first. Right Interesting, you know about this and you're saying interesting.

Speaker 1: 23:08

Because it is interesting. I love hearing it from someone else, but this is an important story to tell because this is where most of our clients come from, from this kind of navigation through the marketing world. So I'll let you elaborate.

Speaker 2: 23:20

So, oddly enough, it was funny because they came to us and this goes back, this goes back to the launch point about ads versus organic. Yeah, here it is. So this is a startup law firm, right, absolutely, their budget was backwards, okay. So so what happened was they came to us and I said this doesn't make sense, right, you guys are on your law firm and you're doing more organic and not enough ads, like it doesn't make sense. So so we took their strategy. We still did discovery. I want to understand, uh, specifically, how to help them. And once we flipped the budget, miraculously, they not, I mean, they went from three, from three leads a week to three leads a day. That's a massive difference, right?

Speaker 1: 24:02

That was within the first couple of months.

Speaker 2: 24:04

The first couple of months they were like I'm completely bugged. What am I doing? Which is good. I like those stories.

Speaker 1: 24:09

Running out of time and space, but it's a great problem to have.

Speaker 2: 24:13

And another one. The final one I have an example of is we actually had an ultrasound company right and you know it came to us and part of the problem was that they had one division service that was doing well but the other ones were like kind of blank.

Speaker 1: 24:31

Right, you know non-existent.

Speaker 2: 24:32

And then, once we built the right campaigns, we built the right strategy, goes back to strategy and bill phase. So we have the right assets and then we launch properly to target the other segments. Now, all of a sudden, they're getting phone calls for these different services that they're providing and, honestly, I believe they doubled their phone calls right.

Speaker 1: 24:54

Yes, and they had been in business for 20 plus years, 25 years before all of this actually came to fruitration within their area.

Speaker 2: 25:02

So it's funny, it doesn't matter how long you've been in business, that's right. It it goes back. Did we strategize? Did we build the right content and, um, you know assets right? Was the website optimized? Was? Do I have the right, you know videos to get people engaged, to get people asking questions, to get people to convert? Do I have those assets prepared and ready? And now we launch.

Speaker 1: 25:27

Right, right, absolutely Well. Thank you for sharing those with us. So let's let's get back to to make sure our listeners and our, our owners understand completely what's one common launch misstep that can completely kill your momentum. Once you launch, you think you got it all in order. What's one common misstep?

Speaker 2: 25:48

I mean, it really goes back to did I look at the data before I even started to touch anything? Um, oh, you know, big one big mistake is that the launch it's not working. It's not working. So they start freaking out because, no matter what you look at it, you know people are like, well, you know, I'm very strategic and I have a lot of people that think that they're very analytical and but the problem is that they, um, they get overexcited uh or they get uh over, like they allow emotions to consume the direction of the business.

Speaker 2: 26:18

And we get it because, when dealing with money and people are like, well, I don't do make emotional decisions, I don't care who you are, you could tell me you don't make emotional decisions. Buddy, you are the biggest liar in the entire world when it comes to money, I'm gonna be emotional when it comes to money.

Speaker 2: 26:36

Okay, when it comes to money, you have to keep your emotions in check to your best of abilities, because what happens is they'll try to pivot, they'll try to change a campaign mid-campaign they, they have zero data. You know, they, they. The only thing that they see is that we're not getting leads, but they don't know exactly what's going on in order for them to make a strategic adjustment to actually make it start working.

Speaker 1: 27:01

Right.

Speaker 2: 27:02

So that's one of the biggest mistakes is that they try to optimize without even knowing what the data is telling them. Okay, right, so, which is why you need to make sure you have analytical tools to be able to track that. 80% of product launches require post-launch pivot. Lack of flexibility kills campaigns. This is a big one. So 80% of product launches. If you don't have flexibility which goes really back to the build phase, if you don't have enough assets to make adjustments like what happens is I launch a campaign, but I only want to launch one campaign. I don't have any backup campaigns ready oh no.

Speaker 1: 27:41

So what if the market doesn't like that one campaign?

Speaker 2: 27:44

then that's the 80 that you just you were part of.

Speaker 1: 27:46

Well, I wouldn't say me, but, yes, I completely understand it. Okay, well, that's that's very important to understand more if you want no, I mean you can give us a couple more. Okay, okay, here we go. So I got three more, here we go.

Speaker 2: 27:59

You know, pausing ads early. So this is, oh my gosh. I think you know Ruben, who's our SEM person, could have like literally an entire tantrum over this, because it's Well, you know what? Turn it back on, pause it. You want to turn it back on? Wait, pause it. So, guys, if you're listening to this, you are dealing with artificial intelligence, you're dealing with algorithms. Okay, when you turn it off, you mess with the algorithm. It doesn't matter if it's Facebook, it doesn't matter if it's TikTok, don't turn, turn off campaigns for how long?

Speaker 1: 28:43

how long should they leave a campaign on before? They consider it three months, three months, three months that's a long time. It is a long so before you launch it.

Speaker 2: 28:52

That that's part of the importance of making sure you have everything set up correctly you've got a plan before you execute yes and so um, you know, typically you can probably get away with monthly right, making monthly adjustments but at least 30 days yeah but what happens is like people want to make huge shifts and huge changes mid uh, mid campaign and it really kills a campaign. Wow, it really does. Um, you know, another error is relying on uh, digital ads and ignoring the other stuff. Right, the direct mailers and just the organic networking and things of that nature, organic networking, referral-based.

Speaker 2: 29:33

So I always tell people I'm a salesperson too. And we have a phrase in the gym industry Story's laughing because I think she knows what's coming. What do you think my phrase is?

Speaker 1: 29:45

No, I'm not going to say I'll let you be the one to divulge it. I think I hear it a lot though.

Speaker 2: 29:49

You live?

Speaker 1: 29:52

oh, you're just okay, I'm going to make him say it.

Speaker 2: 29:54

You live by the walk-in, you die by the walk-in, and that is so true. So if rely on digital marketing and advertising to grow your business and you're like, hey, that's like you know putting your eggs in one basket and then you know praying to god something you know works uh, and the thing is, you live by the walk-in, you die by the walk-in, right? If you don't have and this is a lot of people will just, you know, I'm just gonna rile on google, I don't have anything else, and in that I have. I've heard it so many times and I'm like listen, that is not a good business model.

Speaker 1: 30:27

Absolutely not.

Speaker 2: 30:28

You have to have inbound and outbound marketing. Okay, you have to have somebody out there representing your business. You have. I mean, think about how we started our business. We're a digital marketing firm and yet we were out there in the chamber, we were out there networking.

Speaker 1: 30:42

We're still out there networking. We're still out there, we're still exactly.

Speaker 2: 30:44

We're still out there because relationships is still number one. Advertising is definitely going to give you leads, you know, uh, but we're not, we're not. We're not going to allow uh, even with slumps like this right in the summer, because people are on vacation. You guys are probably on vacation right now listening to this on the beach or somewhere right. I'm over here working. Good for you.

Speaker 1: 31:04

You're optimizing it, though You're downtime. You're optimizing.

Speaker 2: 31:07

Optimizing for content creation, organic right, and so you know those are just a couple of things that I see that are errors, that people just at the end of the day, they're just emotional. Because it's an emotional time Launching a campaign, I want to make sure it works and because it's an emotional time Launching a campaign, I want to make sure it works and they're making emotional decisions instead of tactical and data decisions.

Speaker 1: 31:31

Wow, so to your point. What you're saying is if somebody were to be launching today or tomorrow, what's the first thing they should do? Just to reiterate what you kind of just went over if they're launching today, what's the first thing they should do?

Speaker 2: 31:44

you have to make sure you understand what your goals are right. What are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish? Well, you know, is it, is it lead generation? Is it engagement? I think where do I start? And at the end day, it starts with awareness, right?

Speaker 2: 31:59

absolutely can't expect people to convert if people don't know who you are. Right, you have to, you have to set goals of what those costs per acquisitions are. You know, do you understand the industry standards in your industry and how much those costs per lead, is Right. So, setting goals, making sure you know you yourself understand how much those leads are going to cost, you yourself understand how much those acquisitions are going to cost. Right, doing that research. You have to do the research, understanding the audience, understanding who you're trying to target. Making sure, is it Facebook, is it Instagram? Is it TikTok?

Speaker 2: 32:34

Right, you have to create a blueprint, right, how you're going to scale. Are you going to lean on emails, seo, social-based testimonials? You know you have to actively, actively track what's going on through your portal, right? What kind of portal do you have and are you tracking your dashboards? Are you tracking your Google ads, your Facebook ads, ads? Um, are you tracking and can you truly tell if I, if I were to sit down with you and I sit and I sit down with you and I say, hey, what is your cost per lead? Right? How much does one lead cost you?

Speaker 1: 33:13

and do you know?

Speaker 2: 33:13

and do you know? And how much does one customer cost you? And do you know? And if you can't do that, it's because you don't have the right tools in place to track that on an ongoing basis.

Speaker 1: 33:24

Right. And when you have those analytical tools, to your point about campaigns, do you have the funding to shift the campaign Right, exactly.

Speaker 2: 33:31

Which goes back to that 10% contingency Right, you have a 10% contingency plan, right. And so, yeah, it really boils down to if you didn't listen to the first two episodes, I would recommend you go back and listen to strategy. Did you strategize and did you build the right assets to properly launch? Because your goal for the launch and let's just be completely honest here, your goal for the launch is just two things Can I get them to engage, which is inquire and ask you questions. And can I get them to engage, which is, you know, inquire and ask you questions. And and can I get them to convert into customers. That's what the launch phase is about. It's it's how do I get out into the market, how do I get them asking questions and in the doors and you know, so that we can, you know, treat them or, you know, give them the product or service and convert them from a prospect you know, somebody who doesn't know who you are to a actual customer.

Speaker 1: 34:27

Right and the launch phase. With that being said, you have to sustain that phase for a while to understand where you need to shift to, where you don't need to shift to, before you even move on to grow correct, Yep.

Speaker 2: 34:39

You can't even you, we didn't even you. Know, most people don't even hit the grow phase until sometimes even year two or three.

Speaker 1: 34:48

To really optimize your strategy. Okay, great. Well, you've given us some actionable insights today, brian, and I want to turn it over to some of our questions from the audience.

Speaker 2: 34:58

Take it away.

Speaker 1: 34:59

Are you ready for all these questions?

Speaker 2: 35:01

Sure.

Speaker 1: 35:02

Okay, so the first one I've had up for a while and I wanted to make sure I addressed it is I'm launching a new product, but my audience is split between two platforms. Should I double efforts or pick one to focus on first?

Speaker 2: 35:15

Okay, great question. If you are just launching, you need to double up. And here's why you double up Because, yeah, I know, but how do you know what channel? You don't. You don't know what channel because you haven't, you haven't spent any money. Until you have real data, you can, you can uh, you can think, you know, you can have theory right in theory. A lot of people do theory and they don't make it right. You have to test, you have to have the funds to do it. So go ahead and get both of the campaigns up, uh, test for about a month, 30 days, 30 days, okay, right, and then see what happens. Uh, and then be like, okay, which one got the most engagement? Which one, which one is? Are people actually inquiring, which one? Are people asking questions and commenting? And then you kind of it's it's the rule of ab testing. Are you doing ab testing? That's why it's called ab testing okay.

Speaker 1: 36:03

So if one is doing much better, you want to increase your funds to that campaign and decrease the other.

Speaker 2: 36:10

Yep, and it's just like stocks. Think about it, the stock market. You move one stock to another right, mm-hmm. Same thing in marketing.

Speaker 1: 36:16

Okay, great, that was a great answer to that question. Now question. Now I have a second question. Is it better to build hype before a launch or to focus more on?

Speaker 2: 36:30

follow-up emails and follow-up information after yeah, it's kind of, you know that's a, that's funny, but you got to do both, uh, okay. So here's what happens is, um, you have to build the hype, uh, to get people to uh get excited, because everything's about emotion, right. And then you launch, right, and because what you're asking is leading into the next episode, which is the grow phase, which is what happens when you have all this inquiries, what happens when you have all these people asking questions.

Speaker 2: 36:56

What happens when you have all these leads? What do you do and how do you nurture those, those contacts? Because they might inquire with you but they aren't ready to actually buy and make a betting decision. So we'll talk about that next episode, but you should be doing both.

Speaker 2: 37:09

You have to build a hype because you have to get excitement and everything's about emotion. But here's the deal If you just focus on excitement the front end and you don't focus on the back end, what ended up happening is people, people, buyer remorse is real guys it really is and it's the worst thing to have a client have.

Speaker 2: 37:28

Yep is more and by the way, it's gonna happen. It always happens actually. So it doesn't matter what industry you in, by remote, is real and if you're not nurturing those relationships also, you know people aren't. People are, you know, not prone to make a decision on the first inquiry okay, see, those are great points to remember.

Speaker 1: 37:50

Even I needed to remember those at some points because sometimes we slack off on that follow-up. But we'll discuss that more on the next show. A third question I have do you recommend using influencer marketing? Influencers are a big deal, it seems like this day and age. And how do I pick the right influencer for my? That's a great question.

Speaker 2: 38:09

So influencer is here, guys, is important. You know, influencing is so important to influencing the market. Huh, okay, marketing, market. I'm gonna say that a lot of my way during this podcast. At the end of the day, the root word of marketing is Market, market, which is why we call it Marketing with Atma. So you have to be able to know how to influence the market and the only way to do that is you as a business owner. You get excited all the time, even a manager I've got the best product, I've got the best service, we're the greatest of all time. You saying that is different than somebody else saying that, absolutely. So influencers, there's all forms of influencers. So let's dive into this, and influencers could be a couple of groups, right, okay, the first one is what everybody wants to be when they grow up. They want the big influencers, they want the mammoth influencers, they want the Dwayne, the Rock Johnson type influencers, wouldn't we all?

Speaker 2: 39:12

love that. Yeah, so you got the Lord. Obviously, there are a lot of money, right, they're gonna cost you millions of dollars, okay, so let's, let's turn it back here. Let's not it back here. Now let's go into the influencers micro influencers. Micro influencers are those who are local, maybe more industry specific, okay, and they're going to cost you a lot less. They have a following, but they're here to help you. They might not get all the conversions you want, but they're going to help you get the credibility. They might not get all the conversions you want, but they're going to help you get the credibility. Okay. Now the influencers that people don't think about your employees, right, so your employees, you yourself and your employees, getting them involved, doing you know, talking points and making them thought leaders and doing stuff on LinkedIn and Facebook and stuff. And then, finally, your customers influencers.

Speaker 1: 40:04

Why not?

Speaker 2: 40:05

right, getting them to do testimonials right, that's great. And so people don't realize the amount of levels of influencers. They're just thinking about the big mammoths. But you have to get creative, especially if you have a low budget, and you have to kind of have a strategy of both using multi-influencers I would. As a small business, I would focus on micro-influencers if you don't have any customers. If you have customers, I would do micro-influencers, customers, and if you have employees, I would do all three.

Speaker 1: 40:36

Oh nice, those are good tips I hadn't thought about before. So last question, guys, if you have any more, feel free to put them in the chat. But this for so. Last question, guys, if you have any more, feel free to put them in the chat. But this is the last question I have for now. If my last launch flopped, how would I recover and relaunch, relaunch, without losing that trust?

Speaker 2: 40:53

so that's a good question. So if your last, uh, if your last campaign flopped, it goes back to hey, you're gonna have to take a step back and go do a strategy first. So go listen to the strategy podcast, strategize. Do a plan and then you're probably most likely going to have to rebuild most of your assets, because what happened was, if it didn't work, it wasn't the money you spent or what was spent. I would say 80% of the time it's. You just did not get your message across.

Speaker 1: 41:26

Okay.

Speaker 2: 41:27

And it goes back to the assets. Do I have the right testimonials? Do I have the right content? So ensure that you have go back, re-strategize, rebuild and then relaunch.

Speaker 1: 41:37

Wonderful. Well, thank you for giving us so much insight, Brian. Is there kind of a summary you can give us of what our business owners or entrepreneurs should really take away today?

Speaker 2: 41:48

Yes. So you know, one key point is launch equals. You want to make sure that it's a full orchestra, okay, right, don't go back to the music. Okay, so go back to the music. Is everything in tune, everything working together? You're not just going live just to go live, you know.

Speaker 2: 42:02

And did you choose the right channels and did you strategize to ensure that you have the best ROI? Did you create a smart budget, right, an adjustable budget that aligns with how you're spending, but also, is it flexible? Can you move it around? And then, did you create a blueprint for velocity, right? How are you going to speed things up? How are you going to speed things up? How are you going to slow things down? Because the thing about velocity is, when we think about velocity, all we think about is how fast we're going. But in any kind of race right, there are turns, there are hills. Right, think about the motor. You know these NASCAR and you know different types of racing. You know motorsports, right, there are going to be curves, these NASCAR, and you know different types of racing.

Speaker 2: 42:44

You know motorsports right. There are going to be curves, there are going to be turns. How do you adjust to those turns? You've got to slow down, then speed up, then slow down then speed up. Right. So velocity is, how are you controlling that velocity? Okay, Are you blending paid and organic, Because you just can't just do one and I don't care, I know, and you know I'll probably get bad mouth. You're like you don't run an organic crop earlier, this and that, and you know a lot of marketers.

Speaker 2: 43:08

They have this, this internal battle because, there's ad bit and there's ad marketing, but businesses and then there's just organic and the reality is you need both. A true business needs both, okay. True business needs both, okay. Okay. Make sure that you're looking at data and you're preparing, so you're going to have pitfalls.

Speaker 1: 43:28

Yes.

Speaker 2: 43:29

Okay, you're going to have flat tires. Look at NASCAR. I like how I'm just using these analogies, right.

Speaker 1: 43:34

But the pit crew is important, right.

Speaker 2: 43:37

We're here, Okay, but you know you're going to have pitfalls. Are you able to adjust? But at the end of the day, it starts with clarity Did you strategize? Make sure you strategize. Make sure you have a plan of action, a budget to launch to the proper channels.

Speaker 1: 43:53

Wonderful, great advice. Great advice, brian, and thank you so much for showing us how to launch with impact. Intention and the whole package of how to make your business grow To our audience out there. Intention and the whole package of how to make your business grow To our audience out there. Please, if you have an interest in really taking your business to the next level, go to AdventTrinitycom and schedule an appointment with us and until next time we will see you. You.