July 21, 2025 • 49 mins
Authentic storytelling in marketing is much more than a trendy buzzword; it's a comprehensive strategy that should permeate every customer interaction from first touch to final purchase and beyond.
• Effective storytelling means presenting your brand's story as an evolving journey that spans multiple touchpoints
• The customer journey increasingly happens off your website, making platform-diverse content essential
• YouTube is overtaking Google as a search destination, highlighting the growing importance of video content
• When articulating your unique value, ensure it's something competitors can't claim, and focus on specific customer experiences
• Content must trigger emotional responses to stand out in today's oversaturated market
• Create a content ecosystem with three tiers: hero content (high production), hub content (product-focused), and hygiene content (quick updates)
• Assert your company value—don't be afraid to boldly state "we are" rather than "we could" or "we do"
• Case studies focusing on customer stories rather than your company are incredibly effective for building trust
• Brands should measure top-of-mind awareness and brand favorability to track storytelling effectiveness
• Always use your first-party data to validate what advertising platforms tell you
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The Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing podcast is a podcast hosted by Internet marketing expert Matthew Bertram. The show provides insights and advice on digital marketing, SEO, and online business.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing,
your insider guide to thestrategies top marketers use to
crush the competition.
Ready to unlock your businessfull potential, let's get
started.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Howdy.
Welcome back to anotherfun-filled episode of the
Unknown Secrets of InternetMarketing.
I am your host, matt Bertram.
Today I wanted to focus onstorytelling, because
storytelling is just somethingthat I think that a lot of
people think that they do, butI'm not sure if they get it
right.
I think it's a buzzword that'sout there.
I think people know it'simportant.
The rise of video is happeningand I wanted to bring in another
(00:41):
agency owner that's been doingphotography since they've been
15.
So over 20 years Owen GarrityFPW Media.
Just like EWR Digital we liketo abbreviate things Owen
Garrity's been running an agencyfor over 12 years and really is
(01:02):
an integrated agency butfocuses on storytelling first,
and I thought he would be goodto come in and talk about
storytelling as an expert.
Welcome to the show, owen.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Matthew, great to be on, I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I'm excited too.
You know why don't you justtell me like everything with
search is changing right and, asanother agency owner that's
doing digital and everythingelse, you know what's most
topical to you?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, I think, like you said, literally everything
is changing and by the time thelisteners are listening to this,
versus when we recorded it, itwill have changed even further,
and that's kind of the situationthat we're in.
So I think that what we'rereally working with clients on
right now is I don't necessarilywant to say going back to
(01:57):
basics, but in some regardslet's make sure that all of the
groundwork, that the foundation,is built so that we're really
nimble and can pivot and canroll with the punches as things
change and be really wellpositioned to capitalize on
those changes.
And when we're talking aboutstory, I think the number one
thing with that is understandingour customer right.
So if we're a brand and we'retrying to tell a story, who are
(02:20):
we trying to tell it to and why?
And I think that that's thefundamental part where people
start to slip up immediately isthey don't take the time to
fully understand that reallyfundamental foundational setting
of good storytelling.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
What is your definition?
Maybe enterprise business,small business?
What are the definitions ofstorytelling and how should it
be viewed?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
And then we can dig into it more.
Yeah, so I would say I take apretty radical view to that,
which is that every interactiona brand has with a customer
should be telling an evolvingstory.
So it's not any one specificthing saying oh, we tell our
stories on our YouTube channel.
No no no, no, no it's.
We tell our story over anevolving multi-touch journey,
from the very first time thecustomer interacts with us to
(03:17):
the very last time on purchasesupport if it's a single
transaction or hopefully, for anentire lifetime if it's an
ongoing transaction.
Business.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
No, I love that.
So you know you've got toprobably start with the strategy
of, like what is the story youwant to tell?
Right, and I think people gointo, like you know, you're
defining your unique sellingproposition, you're defining
your target personas and thenyou start to build out this
(03:46):
customer journey.
You know, when we start to getinto these, these workshops, and
really try to define what makesyour brand different, right,
and how to, how to separate thenoise and tell that story, a lot
of people are given sometimesnot every time and not all the
time but generic answers right,like we have excellent cover
(04:06):
services.
Excellent I can't talk today,sorry Excellent customer service
, we have the best product onthe market, or like the thing.
I think that, like almost withthe USP, it's got to be
something that somebody elsecan't say.
Or you can't replace your namewith a competitor and like it
flow.
It needs to be unique to you.
(04:28):
I mean, what's your take onthat?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah.
So let's let's take we haveexcellent customer service as a
thing Cause I think I youprobably hear that a lot from
people.
I hear that from a lot ofpeople and by and large it's
true, but we always kind ofprobe a little further, which is
okay, but then what does thatmean for the customer's
experience?
So, instead of customer service, I want to talk about customer
experience, because that's amuch more applicable story to a
(04:54):
customer, right?
They care about how is myexperience going to be
interacting with you as a brand,and so that can be a story.
Right, if we offer customers anexperience that is not
replicated at any of ourcompetitors, by offering really
good customer service, by havingpost-sale support, by doing all
of these things, that each oneof those things is not wholly
(05:16):
unique or actually differentthan our competitors, but by the
fact of the sum of all theparts, we are able to have an
experience for the customersthat is second to none, that's
something we can work with right, and so I think it's really
about framing it's more focusingit instead of being on the
brand.
What are we doing?
It's, what are we doing that isthen impacting how our customer
(05:38):
feels and the experience thatthey have when they interact
with us, and then the more thatwe can tell the best version of
that reality to the customer.
That's a story that theyactually care about and will
stop and pay attention to.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
So what I'm hearing is you got to get really good at
articulating what it is thatyou mean by what you're saying
and communicate that message ina way.
And the best way to communicatethat message that people are
going to retain it is in a story.
So it's like, oh, we haveexcellent customer service.
Well, what does that mean foryour experience?
(06:13):
Like you said right.
And like, how, how is thatgoing to impact them?
Like, what's in it for me andthe with them?
Right?
And so I think it's superinteresting, even as we kind of
expand into search and agentsand LLMs and all this kind of
stuff.
It's like how do you communicateclearly the message you're
(06:35):
trying to communicate and doesthat person receive that message
?
And then they make the decisionwhether that aligns with, like,
their goals, their values, likewhere they're trying to go,
what they want.
But if you can't articulatethat, a lot of the even sales
process or or brand process orcustomer journey is trying to go
.
I want this, I want thisexperience at the end, or I want
(06:57):
this result at the end, Likewho's going to help me get there
the fastest right?
Who can I trust to do it?
And like, what is that journeygoing to look like, or some form
of those questions.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I would say Well, 100%, I mean.
I think that most customers aredeluged by choice, right.
The amount of choice that theyhave in most developed markets
are infinite, almost, and sothere's five competitors that do
essentially the same thing onessentially the same timeline
for essentially the same price,unless you have a really novel
(07:32):
product, right, and that's awhole nother deal.
That's an easier story to tell,but assuming you don't, you're
established, you already exist,you're in the market.
We really need to focus on thatarticulation, and what you're
getting at is there's so manymodalities by which we need to
focus on that articulation, andwhat you were getting at is
there's so many modalities bywhich we need to articulate that
now.
And not only do we need toarticulate that to humans, we
(07:52):
now need to articulate that tocomputers, which is really
interesting, because if we starttalking about how LL, I can't
speak either.
You're rubbing off on me here,but on the large language models
and how they're integrating inwith search, the authority thing
becomes really important, right?
Otherwise, if these modelsaren't training on authority and
(08:15):
really trying to sniff outauthority, and good at that,
essentially search will justbecome this beige thing of it's
AI generated content,referencing AI generated content
, in infinite.
And so the fact is that we'respeaking to two audiences now
we're speaking to the model andwe're speaking to the human,
because to get to the humansometimes we're going to have to
go through the model, and sothen story becomes even more
(08:36):
important, just in a differentway.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So, for everyone listening, we're not going to go
down the rabbit hole today ofhow to speak to the bots, which,
if you're interested in that,please leave a comment, and I
have some people lined up thatare incredible at sharing what
is happening with AI and LLMs,and I've been even looking at
(09:04):
doing some masterclasses on this.
But for today's topic, I wantto stick to talking to humans.
I want to talk to.
I want to talk about thestorytelling component of like.
The data is telling me thatYouTube is overtaking Google.
Okay, tiktok is overtaking like.
(09:25):
That's where people are findingawareness and are finding
brands.
They want to consume thatinformation.
They're spending more time onYouTube than any other platform.
Even Google did a recentannouncement that you need to
pay attention to YouTube.
It's becoming the hub videos.
It's even better than socialmedia, in my opinion, which I
(09:51):
need to drink my own Kool-Aid ofwhat I'm saying, and I did just
hire full-time videographer toto help with this Cause.
This is audio.
This podcast is audio.
We're going to put it onYouTube, but you need to be on
YouTube.
It's not a nice to have.
I think it's a need to have now, and those posts and those
videos stay on YouTube wherepeople can watch over and over
again on social media.
They last a couple hours, rightand, and you got to keep on
(10:12):
that hamster wheel posting itNow.
Certainly the content finds theright person today, um, and you
don't have to build theaudience, but you still have to
tell the story in a compellingway.
That's going to get somebody totake action.
And so, owen, I would love tohear what you've been doing,
which are already in alignmentwith the markets.
Moving to where you're at, walksomebody through that
(10:37):
experience of assessing howtheir brand presents itself
online and then how to identifymaybe some of those holes in it,
and we can just give like arough framework for somebody
listening to to maybe apply itto their own business that's
listening, or maybe some oftheir clients.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Absolutely.
I think we always, you know,kind of look at what are the
assumptions that are being made,right.
What we find oftentimes is thatcompanies, especially the ones
that have been in business andactually the more successful the
company is generally speaking,the more assumptions that they
have about their customers.
So if you've been in businessfor 80 years or 100 years, which
(11:18):
some of our clients have been,they feel like they pretty much
understand who their customer isbecause they deal with them on
a daily basis, so forth and soon.
Well, there's a couple oftrends that we all need to pay
attention to.
One the decision makers isaging down considerably, whether
that's a, you know, a tchotchkeor a huge, you know industrial
contract, right, that decisionmaker is pulling the trigger, is
(11:40):
aging down.
So what's true about them wasnot true about the generation
before, by and large.
So that's number one real bigfactor that we need to allow for
.
The next thing is thatauthenticity right, if we think
our customers care about certainthings but we don't actually
know and we put out a story, amarketing message that speaks to
(12:01):
that pain point that we believeto be true and it's not not,
immediately, we've, we've killedthe efficacy of that marketing
campaign or that story, and sowe really work through with,
with clients.
Let's, let's get reallyinquisitive and let's do some
research beyond just you knowour customer personas.
Like, let's look at what areother, what are our competitors
(12:22):
doing?
How are they being effectiveand why?
What are they solving for that?
We're not, because most likelywe can solve for that too, but
we're just not talking about it.
And I think the last thing isthat most brands are really
cautious in their language thatthey use, about how great they
are, which I find really weird,right, if you really think about
(12:43):
it, most brands aren't willingto say we're the best.
I mean, they may say that, butthey're not willing to say it in
every single way, at everysingle turn, and and.
So if you're not coming fromthis place of we are, if you're
using language like we could orwe do, we do know it's like we
are, we are this.
If you're not using thatlanguage, your story starts to
fall flat.
(13:04):
And then I think the last, thevery last thing is a little bit
of emotional manipulation, right, it doesn't hurt.
Is we want somebody to feel,something?
Right?
The old adage is a photo tellsa thousand words or whatever it
is.
I'm butchering it, but we wantsomebody to feel something
because, at the end of the day,whether it's talk, youtube
(13:25):
shorts, social media, we have toget somebody to stop and give
us their very limited attention.
They're very, they're verylimited time.
Most likely there's somethinggoing on in the room.
Right, kids are screaming.
They're in a busy officeenvironment, the TV is going.
Whatever it is, we need them tostop, and the way that we do
(13:46):
that is by showing somethingthat they care about on an
emotional level.
Right that we have some sort oftrigger.
They have a fear of missing out, they have envy, they have
jealousy, they feel safe, right,they know that that company is
going to fill a need.
Right, we're going to take awaya stressor, whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Is we need to have that emotional hook, and if we
don't, it's just going to go byand they're not going to pay
attention yeah, I mean, I agreewith everything that you're
saying, really, um, you've gotto elicit emotion in in what
you're doing, and there's somuch noise today that everything
(14:24):
is becoming bland.
So that's what I'm seeing.
I'm seeing there's kind of liketwo directions which you should
probably be doing bothLeveraging AI as quickly and
fast as you can to incorporateit into your workflows, because
it just accelerates yourproductivity, your creativity,
your enhancement of whatever youreally know how to do.
And then the other thing is youneed to build a brand.
(14:47):
Today, I mean, I can tell youwith search, how, how it's
starting to fan out, how all thebig social media platforms and
search engines and LLMs havedone deals and just scrape each
other's stuff all the time andand they're they're looking for
that authority that you talkedabout early and identifying like
is this a brand that peoplecare about?
(15:09):
Is people follow and how shouldI value that based upon
everything else?
And you know, what I am seeingis there's like a level of like.
I even was using some LLMs todo some comparison Okay, of, of,
of, of a different vendor, of acouple of different vendors,
(15:29):
right, I was trying to do avendor assessment, okay, and it
scraped their website.
It scraped some reviews.
Um, did?
It?
Did a couple of things, but forthe most part, like when they
were talking about copy on theirwebsite, I couldn't tell the
difference.
Okay, like there wasn't a uniqueproposition between these, and
I was like, okay, and thenthat's when I had to to to rejig
(15:53):
the search, to go a lot deeper,to get some analysis of what
other people are saying of, likeon Reddit, on reviews, and and
aggregate that to be go, well,you're not telling me why you're
different.
I got to find out that fromother people, and then that
reduces my trust factor, right.
And then, okay, I was hoping tojust find a selection.
(16:14):
Now, I got to set up a callwith each one of them, right.
And so what I'm seeing insearch is people just want the
answer right now.
Like that customer journey ishappening before they even get
to you, before they even come toyour website.
It's happening off page, andthe best way to influence those
people is for them to hear yourstory from a third party, right,
(16:37):
and the best way to do that, Ithink and I've thought this for
a long time is through video.
I mean, when you talk aboutstorytelling, like, let's even
go back to that, like, give usmaybe a couple different
examples of a really authenticstory that was that that you
helped create, or you there's acase study of anything you want
(16:58):
to share.
But like how the change rightto the storytelling, in the
storytelling, to fit the rightmodel that you were talking
about, just launched it.
Just launched the brand.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, so one of the things that you hit on is case
studies or hearing peer stories.
Right, and you know, I thinkwhen we think most people think
of testimonials it's kind ofcheesy, whatever.
But where we've really pivotedwith most of our clients over
the last couple of years isdoing more data driven case
studies, where we're going tothat customer's business, we're
(17:35):
setting up the problem right.
What is the problem thatthey're facing?
We put them on camera, we talkabout their business, we
spotlight them.
Really.
The whole video is much moreabout our customer's customer
than our customer, and thatmakes it a lot more authentic.
It's a win-win for everybody.
But it also shows in a realworld scenario that's not super
(17:56):
staged, that's not superscripted, how is that customer
interacting with our client'sproducts and solving the
problems they have, the problemsthey have all of their peers
have, by and large, right, andso that's that's something that,
dollar for dollar, is one ofthe most effective things that
we do, because people are ableto see that and it lives forever
(18:17):
.
Right, like you said, it's onYouTube, it's it's it's it's
forever.
A couple other things that we'vedone we did a.
We've done a couple of brandeddocumentaries where they're
longer pieces.
Documentaries.
Where they're longer pieces,they're on subjects that are
interesting to the customer basebut have no direct product tie
in Right.
So they they may.
They may have products in them,but it's not a infomercial
(18:40):
Right.
It is absolutely just asponsored documentary and we're
getting attention because we'retalking about something that is
highly important and interestingto the customer base, but it's
not selling a product, right?
A great example of that is wedid a project called Lionheart
for Safariland a few years backwho sell body armor to the US
(19:02):
military, and so the wholeproject was centered around
preventing veteran suicide,which is, you know, a hugely
impactful subject for that wholeconstituent.
Every decision maker in thatconstituent cares about that,
and we got millions of views andhad a huge uptick in social
presence.
You know just like the metricswere off the chart from
(19:25):
something that didn't actuallyhave anything to do with selling
products, but it sold a lot ofproducts net net over the last,
however many years, because thatattention cycle just continued
and continued, and continued.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
There was a cause.
There was a cause that peoplecared about and that they were
interested in and they injectedtheir brand in a way to say that
we care about this too andwe're addressing this.
Or we're like you in that, likewe're one of you that
understands the challenges, likeI, like that documentary and I
would tell you I'm going to gowith a less serious example that
(20:02):
that is way over the top.
Okay, like, but it but itfocused on attention.
I don't know if you're familiarwith the YouTuber, mark Roper.
Okay, this guy came up withthis like a little STEM product
for kids and you know, I havetwo, two young boys and he did
(20:22):
this one video that, like,everybody likes animal videos
right, that's where everybody'sattention is.
Right, they're watching animalvideos.
He did a very, very well done,probably movie level documentary
or survivor level documentary,which all their stuff is that,
because production quality,where I'm trying to go with this
(20:44):
, but it was a squirrelgymnastics or squirrels trying
like steal nuts, and then therewas like an obstacle course and
it was like two hours, okay, um,and it was, but it was so well
done.
I was like, who is making this?
Like, what are they doing?
Like and it has like crazyamounts of views and and he did
(21:06):
it in, like his backyard orsomething and and it launched
his brand.
Okay, like, it just absolutelylaunched his brand because he
sucked in all of that interestand he was tying in concepts of
engineering, of you know,building stuff, like all the
things he did like indirectlyand I'm not encouraging people
(21:27):
to go do that Like from abusiness standpoint, it's just a
far extreme of of grabbing thatattention with very high
quality production value.
Right, like I think that there'sa like people say, okay, like
the shorts and stuff that peoplewant to see behind the scenes.
I would love to get your takeon that, owen, of uh, what is
(21:51):
the mix of the high qualityproduction?
Because there is absolutely aplace for it, and then the
behind the scenes use the phone,uh of of what's happening,
because people want to see both.
Right, and maybe they're in adifferent mode, but I think you
need to have both too, becauseyou need to show the polish and
then you need to show theauthenticity.
(22:12):
I mean, how do you like layercontent creation, maybe?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
absolute high level.
That's the stuff that peoplewatch and they're like, wow,
that's incredible highproduction value.
You know our hub content is onestep below that's.
Maybe you know our product moreproduct focused stuff, right,
that's not so brand overarching,that's very product focused.
And then our hygiene stuff istop of mind awareness.
It's that behind the scenes,it's that quick, you know,
getting that cell phone shot,uploading it to reels, making
(22:51):
sure that we're always in theconversation as a brand, and so
we just kind of take those threebuckets and then plan the story
arc through all of thosebuckets and then through all of
the touch points.
Right, and I think that youknow when we talk about this,
just a piece of video content byitself doesn't necessarily move
the needle.
It has to be a part of thatevolving story, regardless of if
(23:14):
it's a really well producedhero video.
You still then, when you go tothe website, when you are on
your, you know, favorite ESPNapp or whatever it is, you still
need to see a display ad that'sreferencing that same thing
that you saw two days ago.
So it has to be this ecosystemand this evolving story, and I
think that that's where peopledon't take it that far or don't
(23:37):
do it well, because they getlost in that process.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Well, I think you hit on something so big, you
produce like a fantastic pieceof content for somebody, right,
and you're like, if you build it, they will come right, like you
have this one video, right, andyou, you, you, you build this
massive video and it's likeawesome and they're so happy,
right, and then they don't doanything with the video.
(24:02):
They don't know what to do withthe video.
They don't.
They don't build it into theecosystem, they don't push it
out on multiple channels andrepurpose it.
Like they just have this videoand maybe they stick it on their
website or whatever, and itjust like lives there and dies
there, right, and it doesn't seethe light of day.
I would, I would love for you toeven, um, uh, punch it out a
(24:24):
little bit more on.
Like, okay, talk about thatecosystem and and maybe give
somebody like a simple, like yougave a simple framework of how
to create, like, what types ofcontent?
Let's talk about distribution,cause, like I know, I get that
question a lot oh, I got thisgreat thing and then they don't
do anything with it or theydon't know what to do with it,
(24:46):
and I feel like that has to bepart of the conversation.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Absolutely.
So let's use like a B2B clientfor this example, because I
think it's a little bit easierto map it out.
So, let's say, we created thisvideo that is one of their
customers telling thisincredible story about how
they've helped them.
Well, we're also going tocreate a white paper that goes
along with that, that dives intothe specific problem as an
industry as a whole right, andthat's going to maybe live on
(25:13):
LinkedIn, for instance.
We're not even going to put thevideo on LinkedIn, maybe we're
going to have the white paperjust on LinkedIn.
Then we're going to have someblog posts that talk about the
similar project right.
Then we're also going to have asocial strategy that goes along
with that.
Then, at their trade showactivations we're going to have
in booth messaging right, we'regoing to have signage and
banners that tell that samestory, that are talking about
(25:34):
that.
Then maybe we're also going tohave an infographic that's going
to live on social media.
That's going to refresh after,after the time, right, because I
think that's the other thingtoo is that these things
shouldn't live for just onecycle, right?
How do we go back and refreshit?
So, in two months from now, weneed to have one of these pieces
of content, kick that cycle offagain so that we're getting the
(25:55):
maximum value of thatinvestment Right, integrated
into our search campaigns thatwe're running.
Probably we should, becauseit's a really impactful thing
and we can keep the generalhygiene campaigns going.
Our branded keywords are that,but we can layer in a small sub
(26:19):
campaign, turn it on and thenturn it off, and so that's all
from just one video, right?
And so you start to think aboutthat of like okay, if we create
a content ecosystem around eachstory that we're telling and
you think about that more inthat regard, it totally changes
the game about how effective youcan be concept, right, and
(26:58):
digital or digital marketer RyanDice, or is it?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
And like he talks about in community management
and how to use social media.
You have to take that piece ofcontent, you have to break that
piece of content up and put itall in all these things.
What I heard from you is kindof a concept that I headed at,
uh, at the beginning of thispodcast was the customer journey
lives off your website, right,everything you just said didn't
(27:23):
include the website, like likeall the examples were.
You know, maybe the case studydid, I don't know, but but, um,
you know you said LinkedIn.
So you're talking aboutbuilding a full customer journey
funnel or the things that youwant them to hit all off page
and then throwing it into ads,of kind of, uh, catching new
(27:45):
attention and bringing them intothis funnel that you're
building.
You're architecting across theinternet, right, and how you
want them to maybe touch thesedifferent spots.
And I think you need to do thatand I think it's difficult and I
would love for you to speak tothat, because the biggest
pushback I get on hey, you needto do videos, or you know, I've
(28:09):
been like go hire a videographer.
Or do you know somebody like,get on podcasts, like, like you
need to create content.
There's this framework thatthat we use, called seven, 11,
four, so seven hours of content,uh, 11, see, see the brand 11
times on four different channels.
Like, and it fits a lot of likeour overarching strategy of
what we're trying to do, and thenumber one best way to get
(28:31):
there is to have someone consumeyour video, right, and also
have someone be aware of yourbrand, right, and so I think
videos work in two areas, butwhen someone goes to you, yeah,
but that I don't have time forthat.
That's too difficult, like youknow.
I know we need to do it, butwe're not doing anything like
(28:53):
that, uh, like what?
how do you respond to that?
How do you answer that?
And like what data maybe, uh orcase studies do you point to to
say like you need to do this?
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Yeah.
So, first and foremost, I getthe struggle.
You know, what's reallyinteresting is, even us as an
agency struggle to do it forourselves because we're too
close to it, and I think thatthat's where you know, this is
one of the areas where I thinkoutsourcing really is beneficial
, because it allows somebody tocome in who's objective, who can
actually highlight what is thebest version of reality that's
(29:26):
not mired in the problems ofevery day, and so they're very
focused on.
Well, maybe they don't have theconfidence to tell that story,
and I think that's what it comesdown to.
A lot of we don't think it'sgonna be that effective because
we don't believe it ourselves tosome degree, right, or there's
doubt.
But for a lot of our clients, wedo top of mind awareness
surveys on a regular basis.
So we're either taking thesurvey data that they already
(29:48):
are producing or we're doing ourown survey where we're tracking
year over year as we're doingthese campaigns, and what I
would say is that for the vast Imean 95% of them, we're seeing
huge incremental jumps inawareness and in positivity.
Right, if we look at brandfavorability scores, the more
(30:08):
that we are in market with areally authentic message, the
more.
Those scores are going to moveup just from the advertising.
Nothing at the underlyingcompany level has changed.
It's not like they've changedtheir customer satisfaction,
training or anything like that.
All we're doing is presenting aversion of reality to their
customer.
That is then being internalizedand is translating to a
(30:29):
positivity score.
So it's really incredible whenyou think about it that way of
like, we don't need to changeanything about actually how we
do business.
We just need to change how wetell people we do business.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Man, like, how aware are people of your services?
If people are making aselection of something you offer
and you're not in that top ofmind like category of the
selection process, you're notgoing to make it through the
rest of it, right?
So people got to have yourattention.
And another thing that you said.
That's really interesting.
I made this connection in myhead.
(31:02):
It might not be completelyrelevant to your point but I
thought I would share.
It is the reason that peopleare not doing it is because they
don't know how right and theyneed an expert to come in and
say here's how we're doing it.
There's like the fear of like Idon't know how to do it, it's
too difficult.
That's where frustration orsorry, not frustration, what is
(31:27):
it called when you don't dosomething you know you need to
do Procrastination,procrastination.
See, I can't talk today.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Thank, you, we're Alan.
We're helping each other out,so we're going to get there.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
We're going to get this message across to anyone
that's listening.
So, um, procrastination is thefear of not knowing how to do
something.
And then, from what I've readand I'm not saying this is like
the end all be all, but itresonated with me that either
you, you're telling yourself inyour head that I'm going to get
(32:00):
this, I'm going to do this lastminute and I'm going to get it
done and I'm Superman or I'm notgoing to give myself enough
time to do it and if I fail,then it's okay.
I'm not going to give myselfenough time to do it and if I
fail, then it's okay.
And that's where, like that islike, when I heard that, that is
like crazy to me, that that'swhere procrastination comes and
you just got to get started andyou got to do it.
(32:21):
And then, relating back to whatwe're talking about, is, if you
don't know how to do it, butyou know you need to do it,
reach out to someone like Owen,like, reach out to someone
that's done it and they can helpyou.
And, to your point, um, havingan objective person, look at
your own brand, because anybodythat's managing their own brand,
(32:41):
like you said before, is tooclose to it.
And I also think a lot of thesebig brands, to be honest, are
eating off of the, the logovalue, the brand value that
they've created, and they're notdoing anything original and
they don't want to rock the boatand it's just kind of the safe
harbor mentality.
And I think that newercompanies are starting to eat
(33:03):
the lunch of these bigger brandsbecause they're more nimble,
they can navigate, they'retaking risks and the thing that
I hear, not like publicly, is alot of the big brands, a lot of
the big consulting groups, a lotof the big firms.
No one wants to use them, butnobody ever got fired from
hiring IBM or whatever that adwas, uh, years ago.
(33:24):
Like, so, so, so, like you needto take risks If you know you
need to do something.
Like if you know you need tolike lose weight, like right,
like maybe it's a health thing,maybe it's a, it's the summer
thing, whatever it is like, andyou don't have accountability on
yourself.
That's why personal trainersare exploding through the roof,
like imagine what that person'sjob is like from the 1950s.
(33:48):
I'm going to go to the gym andsomeone I'm going to talk to.
I heard this somewhere on apodcast.
It was just hilarious, but itwas like like that person's just
there to hold you accountableand like, spot the weights for
you.
Even if that's what it takes, itstill will work Right, and you
need to reach out to someonethat can help you with strategy
(34:08):
and has done it before and likethe thing that.
That I think that that well, atleast from our experience, that
that I have a lot of experiencewith is I've worked with
industries in all different,like all different industries,
all different kinds of people,all different experiences, and I
can aggregate those experiencesto kind of go here's where we
(34:30):
should start and then, like,based on data, we'll do that,
but this will kind of keep youout of the ditch.
And I know um at, uh, f P Wmedia it's it's the same way
over the last 12 years Likethere's probably stuff that
you've tried that's fallen flaton his face, and then there's
other stuff that happens, andthen the crazy thing is the
stuff that works on thisplatform or video that falls
(34:53):
flat.
We'll work over on this one,right, and then so, like there's
a lot of like data analyticsand and and testing it.
And the thing that I love aboutdigital marketing and and uh,
data-driven marketing is if youran a billboard or a TV ad or
whatever traditional media, youlet that sucker run and it's
just like.
I hope it works right.
(35:14):
Maybe you did that marketresearch, like you're saying.
I think the referencing, thebrand lift, is incredibly
important.
I think people don't do thatenough for the brand awareness.
But with digital you can seehow people are responding and
you can iterate on the fly.
So you're not buying a flightof impressions or whatever.
(35:34):
You're managing that experienceand that process and you can
also test a ton of differentsamples of stuff and we get into
AI and whatever.
But, like, you can test a ton ofstuff, figure out what's
working, customize that message,personalize that message for
different people, and you canstart with something basic and
(35:55):
then you can build on that.
But, like, the message I'mtrying to communicate is you
just got to get started and youcan start with something basic
and then you can build on that.
But, like, the message I'mtrying to communicate is you
just got to get started and youneed to find an expert that can
help you do that.
If you know this is somethingyou need to do find some way to
get some accountability to toget going, whether it's
internally, externally, whatever.
I don't know if you had anythoughts on that.
I was kind of just on a tangentthere, but on a soapbox,
(36:20):
because I feel like a lot ofpeople know what they need to do
and even when I talk to them,oh, and they're like, oh, yeah,
yeah, I know I need to do that.
Then I'm like, well, why aren'tyou doing it?
Then, right, like there's adisconnect there.
I don't know if you have anythoughts on this.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Well, a hundred percent I mean I had a.
I think it's also framing whatis failure, right Cause I think
it's getting people comfortablewith the fact of like failure
inside a campaign is actually areally good thing, because it
means net, net are.
We're going to kill that partof it and we're going to do
something else, because you knowwe have a plan that 50% of
these things aren't going towork and we're going to kill
them off as they don't work, andthen we're going to just
(36:59):
concentrate our resources onwhat is connecting, what is
resonating.
I had a conversation with aclient a couple of days ago
that's really struggling withtheir Amazon sales and so forth,
and we did an analysis and Isaid at best, 50-50, this is
ever going to work for you.
Here's what we're going to try.
We're going to talk in twoweeks and I may tell you this is
(37:22):
not going to be an effectivesales channel for your product.
It's too crowded, your marginsare too low.
It's just not going to work.
And that's what my team told me,and I think you've got to have
partners that are comfortablesaying that to you too, right?
Especially when we're talkingabout storytelling, it's like
you may go in a direction andyou do all of the research and
you have something that landsreally flat.
You immediately need to beprepared to pivot and launch
(37:44):
something else.
Right, so it's being nimble,it's doing that.
It's it's embracing your brandas a challenger brand, even if
you're established.
Right, challenger brands arecalled that for a reason because
they're taking those risks.
They're doing that, and if youare measuring the analytics on
the back end, like you talkedabout, and have a really good
process for doing so, you'renever taking so much risk that
you can't unwind it.
(38:06):
Right.
You're taking sort of educatedrisk.
You know that you're going togo in a certain direction, but
you're going to quickly pull itback if it doesn't work and go
in a different direction, andthen, by and large, those
campaigns over a year are goingto perform way better than
something that's playing it waysafe.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
A couple of things on that.
I love it is fail fast, right,fail fast and then and then kill
that.
And when you find somethingbetter, don't go backwards,
right, like, don't don't gobackwards and try something else
because that you've alreadytried, unless you're doing it in
a different way.
Like you gotta keep pushingforward and and challenging.
(38:45):
What is it?
Elon musk, every time he comesup with the new space shuttle,
he burns the last space shuttle,like it's like we're not going
backwards, right, as soon asit's operational, like any, I
mean, right, you can, there's nogoing back, you've got to push
it.
You've got to gate what you'redoing and push it forward.
(39:05):
But I know a lot of people getscared and then they go back,
right, they're like let me goback to traditional, let me go
back to whatever was working 20years ago.
It's not going to work anymore,right, if you tested it.
It's not going to work anymore,right, like if you tested it,
it doesn't work, keep going.
And that's why you want to domeasured tests and track that
data and keep pushing forward.
(39:27):
The thing that I was going toask you and I'm losing my train
of thought here is I'm sure I'llremember it here in a second,
but why don't I open up thefloor?
If there's anything that wedidn't talk about and cover that
you think is valuable, uh, Iwould love to give you a floor
to just communicate that to toanyone listening.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Yeah, I think one of the only things that we didn't
really touch touch on is what,what happens when this goes
wrong.
Right, how and how do weprevent that?
Because it can.
There's a risk.
The more risk you take, themore risk you're taking.
And I want to go back to thevery beginning, which is brands
go wrong and get in hot waterwhen they alienate their current
customers.
(40:11):
And I think that that's reallyhappened right over the last
five years.
And when we talk about, you know, causes, I always want to be
really careful of that.
When we, when we do cause quote, unquote, cause-based marketing
, we're really doingproblem-based marketing.
It's it's even if it's thatdramatic example with with the
Lionhearted project that is notobjectionable to anybody within
(40:33):
their audience.
Right, even though it's a veryintense subject, it's a very
safe subject for us to talkabout.
And so that I think is reallyimportant is, especially for a
brand that's starting off, thatcan't necessarily afford to take
a big hit.
Make sure that the storytellingyou're doing is also safe to
your customers.
I don't care what the worldsays, I care about what your
(40:53):
core customer says, right, andif you show them a message or
you speak to them in a certainway, that's offensive to them
your core constituent you'recooked.
So it's all goes back to reallyunderstanding who is your
audience and making sure thatyou're always putting them on
that pedestal and reallyspeaking to them in the way that
(41:14):
they want to be talked to.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
So the yeah, the Bud Light, or whatever it was,
campaign was-.
Great example Right Like don'talienate your base.
If you're going to do somethinglike that, you should probably
test it in a small market pilotprogram.
See how people respond.
Maybe I can't imagine-.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Which they did.
I mean that really wasn't awide campaign to their, I guess,
credit on that.
But it takes somebody getting ahold of it.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Someone getting a hold of it and blowing it up.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
There's no such thing as test markets in today's
world, right?
I mean not like there used tobe, because everybody has a cell
phone and so you could test itin middle of nowhere, Iowa, it
doesn't matter.
One person with a cell phonecan make it worldwide in a
second.
(42:04):
So again it's.
It's doing things for a purpose, right?
I think it all comes back towhat is the purpose of what
we're saying.
Are we chasing a trend?
Are we saying something becausewe think it's the right thing
to do, or are we sayingsomething because it's adding
value to our customers andthat's the litmus test.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Yeah, no, and that helped me remember my thought.
My thought was what are youtrying to solve?
What are you trying to achieve?
What does good look like at theend of that?
Right, and a great call-out too.
If they tested that, it justwent viral because someone got a
hold of it, went viral becausesomeone got ahold of it.
You know, maybe they needed todo the, the, the, just, uh,
(42:43):
bring people in and ask them thequestion, right, if they're
core customers, because I feellike that could have been
addressed if they would havealso thought, like, what, where?
What's the end result of wherethis could happen.
Like they think, oh, we're justgoing to grow this small
segment of market share and theydidn't look at, like, the
underlying impact.
So I think it falls in withwhat you're saying.
But like, when you're creatingthese videos and when you're
(43:04):
spending this money and you'relike, oh, you know, a high
production, like the campaigntowards veterans right, veterans
right, or?
Or people that are that are,that are suffering with PTSD, or
anything like that, you'respeaking, you know what you're
(43:26):
trying to achieve.
Like, you understand who you'retrying to reach and you want to
communicate something in adifferent way and you understand
that how it's going to fit inand and how you say like it's
going to be safe to to whatyou're doing.
And also I want to pull throughthe the return on investment,
or even value, that a video cancreate, cause a lot of people
(43:49):
will look at well, this isexpensive, right, like this is
going to cost a lot, it's goingto take a bunch of time and my
people's resource I always getasked that how much of my
people's resources is going totake.
I'm like, well, the more you'reinvolved, like the better,
because it'll be more authenticand it's more helpful.
And you know things that wedon't know, even if we know
about your business and theylook at all that like physical
(44:11):
cost.
But if you measured it against,like the campaign you talked
about previously, what theimpact could be and like how
they sell something from thatvideo, like you got to you got
to look at the bigger picture.
Like you talked about goingback to the ecosystem concept
(44:49):
and and how this fits in andknowing how people consume
content, I mean, how do you getyour story out there, like, and
I mean let's end on maybe whatare some questions that people
could ask themselves to helpself-identify if they need to.
(45:09):
I mean, people are going to belike I need to do more video,
and I think we all do, but, likeit's hard to look at yourself.
Like you said, it's great tobring in a third party and
they'll give you that objectiveview.
But how does someone even startto assess?
Okay, like I am doing video, oryou know, like, how do you look
at the full brand not just video, but the full brand story and
(45:33):
analyze that?
And I know you talked about ita little bit at the beginning,
but I want to just encapsulateit into a thoughtful message, a
thoughtful short message.
How would you do that?
Speaker 3 (45:48):
Yeah.
So really kind of short andsweet which is across if you're
the brand thinking aboutinternally.
Are we offering value to ourcustomers across all of our
advertising touchpoints?
And I think for most people theanswer is no, or we could be
offering more.
And again it's going back towhere we started, which is
customer experience.
(46:09):
If we are just yelling atpeople saying, buy our stuff
which is essentially what mostadvertising is, it's like, hey,
buy our stuff, right, that isnot adding value to them on a
personal level at all.
So if we're not adding valueacross every touch point,
(46:29):
there's opportunity to have ahigher return on investment from
the advertising we're doingBecause inherently, the more
value we add at each interaction, the more likely we know from a
data-driven perspective thatthat person is going to buy.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
I love that.
One follow-on question for youwhen you're talking about
internet marketing what's oneunknown secret of internet
marketing?
Speaker 3 (46:53):
It's a little bit cynical, but use your own first
party data to validate what theplatforms are telling you is
true.
I think that a lot of peopleforget that almost every
advertising platform that yougive money to is a completely
garden and you are assuming thatwhat they are telling you is
exactly accurate.
While they have every incentiveto give you the rosiest picture
(47:15):
, you need to have everyincentive to look at the most
negative picture from aperformance perspective.
So whatever Google is tellingyou or whatever Meta is telling
you is true on your adperformance, you need to make
sure that you're seeing thatcome through on website visits,
on click to purchase, oneverything, because at the end
of the day, they're going totake the most optimistic view
(47:35):
and you need to take the mostpessimistic view.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Some of these platforms just got in trouble
for that.
So what Owen's speaking to-?
Speaker 3 (47:44):
And they will continue to.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, yeah, I mean there's and what is the internet
theory?
There's something like 60% andincreasing of the internet is
all bots, right?
There's a lot of conversationabout that.
We'll save that for anothertime.
So, Owen, how do people bestfollow your work?
Get in touch with you, find outmore about what it is you do
(48:08):
and the knowledge and authoritythat you're sharing.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
Absolutely yeah.
So great way to connect with meis on LinkedIn or on Instagram
at Owen Garrity on bothplatforms also.
Owengarritycom.
And then on the business side,if you're looking for an
engagement or some help withyour marketing, you can find us
at fpwmediacom and then fpwmediaon all the major social
channels.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Awesome.
Well, thank you so much forcoming on and talking about
storytelling.
My name is Matt Bertram.
I just launchedMatthewBertramcom.
The agency's growing.
The agency's running on its own.
They're doing some great work.
I am stepping into more of aconsulting advisory, fractional
CMO style work for B2Bbusinesses, so check out what
(48:55):
I'm doing there.
I am launching a couple of newbooks here shortly and another
new podcast.
I've decided we're going to gowith a new podcast and keep this
12-year running podcast samename, so people can find it.
I have taken all of the oldtopics and used AI to categorize
them and summarize them intochapters in a new book that I'm
(49:19):
launching called the UnknownSecrets of Internet Marketing.
Of course, and check all thatout.
Thank you for listening.
Until the next time.
My name is Matt Bertram.
Bye-bye for now.
This is the Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing,
your insider guide to thestrategies top marketers use to
crush the competition.
Ready to unlock your businessfull potential, let's get
started.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Howdy.
Welcome back to anotherfun-filled episode of the
Unknown Secrets of InternetMarketing.
I am your host, matt Bertram.
Today I wanted to focus onstorytelling, because
storytelling is just somethingthat I think that a lot of
people think that they do, butI'm not sure if they get it
right.
I think it's a buzzword that'sout there.
I think people know it'simportant.
The rise of video is happeningand I wanted to bring in another
(00:41):
agency owner that's been doingphotography since they've been
15.
So over 20 years Owen GarrityFPW Media.
Just like EWR Digital we liketo abbreviate things Owen
Garrity's been running an agencyfor over 12 years and really is
(01:02):
an integrated agency butfocuses on storytelling first,
and I thought he would be goodto come in and talk about
storytelling as an expert.
Welcome to the show, owen.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Matthew, great to be on, I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I'm excited too.
You know why don't you justtell me like everything with
search is changing right and, asanother agency owner that's
doing digital and everythingelse, you know what's most
topical to you?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, I think, like you said, literally everything
is changing and by the time thelisteners are listening to this,
versus when we recorded it, itwill have changed even further,
and that's kind of the situationthat we're in.
So I think that what we'rereally working with clients on
right now is I don't necessarilywant to say going back to
(01:57):
basics, but in some regardslet's make sure that all of the
groundwork, that the foundation,is built so that we're really
nimble and can pivot and canroll with the punches as things
change and be really wellpositioned to capitalize on
those changes.
And when we're talking aboutstory, I think the number one
thing with that is understandingour customer right.
So if we're a brand and we'retrying to tell a story, who are
(02:20):
we trying to tell it to and why?
And I think that that's thefundamental part where people
start to slip up immediately isthey don't take the time to
fully understand that reallyfundamental foundational setting
of good storytelling.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
What is your definition?
Maybe enterprise business,small business?
What are the definitions ofstorytelling and how should it
be viewed?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
And then we can dig into it more.
Yeah, so I would say I take apretty radical view to that,
which is that every interactiona brand has with a customer
should be telling an evolvingstory.
So it's not any one specificthing saying oh, we tell our
stories on our YouTube channel.
No no no, no, no it's.
We tell our story over anevolving multi-touch journey,
from the very first time thecustomer interacts with us to
(03:17):
the very last time on purchasesupport if it's a single
transaction or hopefully, for anentire lifetime if it's an
ongoing transaction.
Business.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
No, I love that.
So you know you've got toprobably start with the strategy
of, like what is the story youwant to tell?
Right, and I think people gointo, like you know, you're
defining your unique sellingproposition, you're defining
your target personas and thenyou start to build out this
(03:46):
customer journey.
You know, when we start to getinto these, these workshops, and
really try to define what makesyour brand different, right,
and how to, how to separate thenoise and tell that story, a lot
of people are given sometimesnot every time and not all the
time but generic answers right,like we have excellent cover
(04:06):
services.
Excellent I can't talk today,sorry Excellent customer service
, we have the best product onthe market, or like the thing.
I think that, like almost withthe USP, it's got to be
something that somebody elsecan't say.
Or you can't replace your namewith a competitor and like it
flow.
It needs to be unique to you.
(04:28):
I mean, what's your take onthat?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah.
So let's let's take we haveexcellent customer service as a
thing Cause I think I youprobably hear that a lot from
people.
I hear that from a lot ofpeople and by and large it's
true, but we always kind ofprobe a little further, which is
okay, but then what does thatmean for the customer's
experience?
So, instead of customer service, I want to talk about customer
experience, because that's amuch more applicable story to a
(04:54):
customer, right?
They care about how is myexperience going to be
interacting with you as a brand,and so that can be a story.
Right, if we offer customers anexperience that is not
replicated at any of ourcompetitors, by offering really
good customer service, by havingpost-sale support, by doing all
of these things, that each oneof those things is not wholly
(05:16):
unique or actually differentthan our competitors, but by the
fact of the sum of all theparts, we are able to have an
experience for the customersthat is second to none, that's
something we can work with right, and so I think it's really
about framing it's more focusingit instead of being on the
brand.
What are we doing?
It's, what are we doing that isthen impacting how our customer
(05:38):
feels and the experience thatthey have when they interact
with us, and then the more thatwe can tell the best version of
that reality to the customer.
That's a story that theyactually care about and will
stop and pay attention to.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
So what I'm hearing is you got to get really good at
articulating what it is thatyou mean by what you're saying
and communicate that message ina way.
And the best way to communicatethat message that people are
going to retain it is in a story.
So it's like, oh, we haveexcellent customer service.
Well, what does that mean foryour experience?
(06:13):
Like you said right.
And like, how, how is thatgoing to impact them?
Like, what's in it for me andthe with them?
Right?
And so I think it's superinteresting, even as we kind of
expand into search and agentsand LLMs and all this kind of
stuff.
It's like how do you communicateclearly the message you're
(06:35):
trying to communicate and doesthat person receive that message
?
And then they make the decisionwhether that aligns with, like,
their goals, their values, likewhere they're trying to go,
what they want.
But if you can't articulatethat, a lot of the even sales
process or or brand process orcustomer journey is trying to go
.
I want this, I want thisexperience at the end, or I want
(06:57):
this result at the end, Likewho's going to help me get there
the fastest right?
Who can I trust to do it?
And like, what is that journeygoing to look like, or some form
of those questions.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I would say Well, 100%, I mean.
I think that most customers aredeluged by choice, right.
The amount of choice that theyhave in most developed markets
are infinite, almost, and sothere's five competitors that do
essentially the same thing onessentially the same timeline
for essentially the same price,unless you have a really novel
(07:32):
product, right, and that's awhole nother deal.
That's an easier story to tell,but assuming you don't, you're
established, you already exist,you're in the market.
We really need to focus on thatarticulation, and what you're
getting at is there's so manymodalities by which we need to
focus on that articulation, andwhat you were getting at is
there's so many modalities bywhich we need to articulate that
now.
And not only do we need toarticulate that to humans, we
(07:52):
now need to articulate that tocomputers, which is really
interesting, because if we starttalking about how LL, I can't
speak either.
You're rubbing off on me here,but on the large language models
and how they're integrating inwith search, the authority thing
becomes really important, right?
Otherwise, if these modelsaren't training on authority and
(08:15):
really trying to sniff outauthority, and good at that,
essentially search will justbecome this beige thing of it's
AI generated content,referencing AI generated content
, in infinite.
And so the fact is that we'respeaking to two audiences now
we're speaking to the model andwe're speaking to the human,
because to get to the humansometimes we're going to have to
go through the model, and sothen story becomes even more
(08:36):
important, just in a differentway.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So, for everyone listening, we're not going to go
down the rabbit hole today ofhow to speak to the bots, which,
if you're interested in that,please leave a comment, and I
have some people lined up thatare incredible at sharing what
is happening with AI and LLMs,and I've been even looking at
(09:04):
doing some masterclasses on this.
But for today's topic, I wantto stick to talking to humans.
I want to talk to.
I want to talk about thestorytelling component of like.
The data is telling me thatYouTube is overtaking Google.
Okay, tiktok is overtaking like.
(09:25):
That's where people are findingawareness and are finding
brands.
They want to consume thatinformation.
They're spending more time onYouTube than any other platform.
Even Google did a recentannouncement that you need to
pay attention to YouTube.
It's becoming the hub videos.
It's even better than socialmedia, in my opinion, which I
(09:51):
need to drink my own Kool-Aid ofwhat I'm saying, and I did just
hire full-time videographer toto help with this Cause.
This is audio.
This podcast is audio.
We're going to put it onYouTube, but you need to be on
YouTube.
It's not a nice to have.
I think it's a need to have now, and those posts and those
videos stay on YouTube wherepeople can watch over and over
again on social media.
They last a couple hours, rightand, and you got to keep on
(10:12):
that hamster wheel posting itNow.
Certainly the content finds theright person today, um, and you
don't have to build theaudience, but you still have to
tell the story in a compellingway.
That's going to get somebody totake action.
And so, owen, I would love tohear what you've been doing,
which are already in alignmentwith the markets.
Moving to where you're at, walksomebody through that
(10:37):
experience of assessing howtheir brand presents itself
online and then how to identifymaybe some of those holes in it,
and we can just give like arough framework for somebody
listening to to maybe apply itto their own business that's
listening, or maybe some oftheir clients.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Absolutely.
I think we always, you know,kind of look at what are the
assumptions that are being made,right.
What we find oftentimes is thatcompanies, especially the ones
that have been in business andactually the more successful the
company is generally speaking,the more assumptions that they
have about their customers.
So if you've been in businessfor 80 years or 100 years, which
(11:18):
some of our clients have been,they feel like they pretty much
understand who their customer isbecause they deal with them on
a daily basis, so forth and soon.
Well, there's a couple oftrends that we all need to pay
attention to.
One the decision makers isaging down considerably, whether
that's a, you know, a tchotchkeor a huge, you know industrial
contract, right, that decisionmaker is pulling the trigger, is
(11:40):
aging down.
So what's true about them wasnot true about the generation
before, by and large.
So that's number one real bigfactor that we need to allow for
.
The next thing is thatauthenticity right, if we think
our customers care about certainthings but we don't actually
know and we put out a story, amarketing message that speaks to
(12:01):
that pain point that we believeto be true and it's not not,
immediately, we've, we've killedthe efficacy of that marketing
campaign or that story, and sowe really work through with,
with clients.
Let's, let's get reallyinquisitive and let's do some
research beyond just you knowour customer personas.
Like, let's look at what areother, what are our competitors
(12:22):
doing?
How are they being effectiveand why?
What are they solving for that?
We're not, because most likelywe can solve for that too, but
we're just not talking about it.
And I think the last thing isthat most brands are really
cautious in their language thatthey use, about how great they
are, which I find really weird,right, if you really think about
(12:43):
it, most brands aren't willingto say we're the best.
I mean, they may say that, butthey're not willing to say it in
every single way, at everysingle turn, and and.
So if you're not coming fromthis place of we are, if you're
using language like we could orwe do, we do know it's like we
are, we are this.
If you're not using thatlanguage, your story starts to
fall flat.
(13:04):
And then I think the last, thevery last thing is a little bit
of emotional manipulation, right, it doesn't hurt.
Is we want somebody to feel,something?
Right?
The old adage is a photo tellsa thousand words or whatever it
is.
I'm butchering it, but we wantsomebody to feel something
because, at the end of the day,whether it's talk, youtube
(13:25):
shorts, social media, we have toget somebody to stop and give
us their very limited attention.
They're very, they're verylimited time.
Most likely there's somethinggoing on in the room.
Right, kids are screaming.
They're in a busy officeenvironment, the TV is going.
Whatever it is, we need them tostop, and the way that we do
(13:46):
that is by showing somethingthat they care about on an
emotional level.
Right that we have some sort oftrigger.
They have a fear of missing out, they have envy, they have
jealousy, they feel safe, right,they know that that company is
going to fill a need.
Right, we're going to take awaya stressor, whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Is we need to have that emotional hook, and if we
don't, it's just going to go byand they're not going to pay
attention yeah, I mean, I agreewith everything that you're
saying, really, um, you've gotto elicit emotion in in what
you're doing, and there's somuch noise today that everything
(14:24):
is becoming bland.
So that's what I'm seeing.
I'm seeing there's kind of liketwo directions which you should
probably be doing bothLeveraging AI as quickly and
fast as you can to incorporateit into your workflows, because
it just accelerates yourproductivity, your creativity,
your enhancement of whatever youreally know how to do.
And then the other thing is youneed to build a brand.
(14:47):
Today, I mean, I can tell youwith search, how, how it's
starting to fan out, how all thebig social media platforms and
search engines and LLMs havedone deals and just scrape each
other's stuff all the time andand they're they're looking for
that authority that you talkedabout early and identifying like
is this a brand that peoplecare about?
(15:09):
Is people follow and how shouldI value that based upon
everything else?
And you know, what I am seeingis there's like a level of like.
I even was using some LLMs todo some comparison Okay, of, of,
of, of a different vendor, of acouple of different vendors,
(15:29):
right, I was trying to do avendor assessment, okay, and it
scraped their website.
It scraped some reviews.
Um, did?
It?
Did a couple of things, but forthe most part, like when they
were talking about copy on theirwebsite, I couldn't tell the
difference.
Okay, like there wasn't a uniqueproposition between these, and
I was like, okay, and thenthat's when I had to to to rejig
(15:53):
the search, to go a lot deeper,to get some analysis of what
other people are saying of, likeon Reddit, on reviews, and and
aggregate that to be go, well,you're not telling me why you're
different.
I got to find out that fromother people, and then that
reduces my trust factor, right.
And then, okay, I was hoping tojust find a selection.
(16:14):
Now, I got to set up a callwith each one of them, right.
And so what I'm seeing insearch is people just want the
answer right now.
Like that customer journey ishappening before they even get
to you, before they even come toyour website.
It's happening off page, andthe best way to influence those
people is for them to hear yourstory from a third party, right,
(16:37):
and the best way to do that, Ithink and I've thought this for
a long time is through video.
I mean, when you talk aboutstorytelling, like, let's even
go back to that, like, give usmaybe a couple different
examples of a really authenticstory that was that that you
helped create, or you there's acase study of anything you want
(16:58):
to share.
But like how the change rightto the storytelling, in the
storytelling, to fit the rightmodel that you were talking
about, just launched it.
Just launched the brand.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, so one of the things that you hit on is case
studies or hearing peer stories.
Right, and you know, I thinkwhen we think most people think
of testimonials it's kind ofcheesy, whatever.
But where we've really pivotedwith most of our clients over
the last couple of years isdoing more data driven case
studies, where we're going tothat customer's business, we're
(17:35):
setting up the problem right.
What is the problem thatthey're facing?
We put them on camera, we talkabout their business, we
spotlight them.
Really.
The whole video is much moreabout our customer's customer
than our customer, and thatmakes it a lot more authentic.
It's a win-win for everybody.
But it also shows in a realworld scenario that's not super
(17:56):
staged, that's not superscripted, how is that customer
interacting with our client'sproducts and solving the
problems they have, the problemsthey have all of their peers
have, by and large, right, andso that's that's something that,
dollar for dollar, is one ofthe most effective things that
we do, because people are ableto see that and it lives forever
(18:17):
.
Right, like you said, it's onYouTube, it's it's it's it's
forever.
A couple other things that we'vedone we did a.
We've done a couple of brandeddocumentaries where they're
longer pieces.
Documentaries.
Where they're longer pieces,they're on subjects that are
interesting to the customer basebut have no direct product tie
in Right.
So they they may.
They may have products in them,but it's not a infomercial
(18:40):
Right.
It is absolutely just asponsored documentary and we're
getting attention because we'retalking about something that is
highly important and interestingto the customer base, but it's
not selling a product, right?
A great example of that is wedid a project called Lionheart
for Safariland a few years backwho sell body armor to the US
(19:02):
military, and so the wholeproject was centered around
preventing veteran suicide,which is, you know, a hugely
impactful subject for that wholeconstituent.
Every decision maker in thatconstituent cares about that,
and we got millions of views andhad a huge uptick in social
presence.
You know just like the metricswere off the chart from
(19:25):
something that didn't actuallyhave anything to do with selling
products, but it sold a lot ofproducts net net over the last,
however many years, because thatattention cycle just continued
and continued, and continued.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
There was a cause.
There was a cause that peoplecared about and that they were
interested in and they injectedtheir brand in a way to say that
we care about this too andwe're addressing this.
Or we're like you in that, likewe're one of you that
understands the challenges, likeI, like that documentary and I
would tell you I'm going to gowith a less serious example that
(20:02):
that is way over the top.
Okay, like, but it but itfocused on attention.
I don't know if you're familiarwith the YouTuber, mark Roper.
Okay, this guy came up withthis like a little STEM product
for kids and you know, I havetwo, two young boys and he did
(20:22):
this one video that, like,everybody likes animal videos
right, that's where everybody'sattention is.
Right, they're watching animalvideos.
He did a very, very well done,probably movie level documentary
or survivor level documentary,which all their stuff is that,
because production quality,where I'm trying to go with this
(20:44):
, but it was a squirrelgymnastics or squirrels trying
like steal nuts, and then therewas like an obstacle course and
it was like two hours, okay, um,and it was, but it was so well
done.
I was like, who is making this?
Like, what are they doing?
Like and it has like crazyamounts of views and and he did
(21:06):
it in, like his backyard orsomething and and it launched
his brand.
Okay, like, it just absolutelylaunched his brand because he
sucked in all of that interestand he was tying in concepts of
engineering, of you know,building stuff, like all the
things he did like indirectlyand I'm not encouraging people
(21:27):
to go do that Like from abusiness standpoint, it's just a
far extreme of of grabbing thatattention with very high
quality production value.
Right, like I think that there'sa like people say, okay, like
the shorts and stuff that peoplewant to see behind the scenes.
I would love to get your takeon that, owen, of uh, what is
(21:51):
the mix of the high qualityproduction?
Because there is absolutely aplace for it, and then the
behind the scenes use the phone,uh of of what's happening,
because people want to see both.
Right, and maybe they're in adifferent mode, but I think you
need to have both too, becauseyou need to show the polish and
then you need to show theauthenticity.
(22:12):
I mean, how do you like layercontent creation, maybe?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
absolute high level.
That's the stuff that peoplewatch and they're like, wow,
that's incredible highproduction value.
You know our hub content is onestep below that's.
Maybe you know our product moreproduct focused stuff, right,
that's not so brand overarching,that's very product focused.
And then our hygiene stuff istop of mind awareness.
It's that behind the scenes,it's that quick, you know,
getting that cell phone shot,uploading it to reels, making
(22:51):
sure that we're always in theconversation as a brand, and so
we just kind of take those threebuckets and then plan the story
arc through all of thosebuckets and then through all of
the touch points.
Right, and I think that youknow when we talk about this,
just a piece of video content byitself doesn't necessarily move
the needle.
It has to be a part of thatevolving story, regardless of if
(23:14):
it's a really well producedhero video.
You still then, when you go tothe website, when you are on
your, you know, favorite ESPNapp or whatever it is, you still
need to see a display ad that'sreferencing that same thing
that you saw two days ago.
So it has to be this ecosystemand this evolving story, and I
think that that's where peopledon't take it that far or don't
(23:37):
do it well, because they getlost in that process.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Well, I think you hit on something so big, you
produce like a fantastic pieceof content for somebody, right,
and you're like, if you build it, they will come right, like you
have this one video, right, andyou, you, you, you build this
massive video and it's likeawesome and they're so happy,
right, and then they don't doanything with the video.
(24:02):
They don't know what to do withthe video.
They don't.
They don't build it into theecosystem, they don't push it
out on multiple channels andrepurpose it.
Like they just have this videoand maybe they stick it on their
website or whatever, and itjust like lives there and dies
there, right, and it doesn't seethe light of day.
I would, I would love for you toeven, um, uh, punch it out a
(24:24):
little bit more on.
Like, okay, talk about thatecosystem and and maybe give
somebody like a simple, like yougave a simple framework of how
to create, like, what types ofcontent?
Let's talk about distribution,cause, like I know, I get that
question a lot oh, I got thisgreat thing and then they don't
do anything with it or theydon't know what to do with it,
(24:46):
and I feel like that has to bepart of the conversation.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Absolutely.
So let's use like a B2B clientfor this example, because I
think it's a little bit easierto map it out.
So, let's say, we created thisvideo that is one of their
customers telling thisincredible story about how
they've helped them.
Well, we're also going tocreate a white paper that goes
along with that, that dives intothe specific problem as an
industry as a whole right, andthat's going to maybe live on
(25:13):
LinkedIn, for instance.
We're not even going to put thevideo on LinkedIn, maybe we're
going to have the white paperjust on LinkedIn.
Then we're going to have someblog posts that talk about the
similar project right.
Then we're also going to have asocial strategy that goes along
with that.
Then, at their trade showactivations we're going to have
in booth messaging right, we'regoing to have signage and
banners that tell that samestory, that are talking about
(25:34):
that.
Then maybe we're also going tohave an infographic that's going
to live on social media.
That's going to refresh after,after the time, right, because I
think that's the other thingtoo is that these things
shouldn't live for just onecycle, right?
How do we go back and refreshit?
So, in two months from now, weneed to have one of these pieces
of content, kick that cycle offagain so that we're getting the
(25:55):
maximum value of thatinvestment Right, integrated
into our search campaigns thatwe're running.
Probably we should, becauseit's a really impactful thing
and we can keep the generalhygiene campaigns going.
Our branded keywords are that,but we can layer in a small sub
(26:19):
campaign, turn it on and thenturn it off, and so that's all
from just one video, right?
And so you start to think aboutthat of like okay, if we create
a content ecosystem around eachstory that we're telling and
you think about that more inthat regard, it totally changes
the game about how effective youcan be concept, right, and
(26:58):
digital or digital marketer RyanDice, or is it?
Speaker 2 (26:59):
And like he talks about in community management
and how to use social media.
You have to take that piece ofcontent, you have to break that
piece of content up and put itall in all these things.
What I heard from you is kindof a concept that I headed at,
uh, at the beginning of thispodcast was the customer journey
lives off your website, right,everything you just said didn't
(27:23):
include the website, like likeall the examples were.
You know, maybe the case studydid, I don't know, but but, um,
you know you said LinkedIn.
So you're talking aboutbuilding a full customer journey
funnel or the things that youwant them to hit all off page
and then throwing it into ads,of kind of, uh, catching new
(27:45):
attention and bringing them intothis funnel that you're
building.
You're architecting across theinternet, right, and how you
want them to maybe touch thesedifferent spots.
And I think you need to do thatand I think it's difficult and I
would love for you to speak tothat, because the biggest
pushback I get on hey, you needto do videos, or you know, I've
(28:09):
been like go hire a videographer.
Or do you know somebody like,get on podcasts, like, like you
need to create content.
There's this framework thatthat we use, called seven, 11,
four, so seven hours of content,uh, 11, see, see the brand 11
times on four different channels.
Like, and it fits a lot of likeour overarching strategy of
what we're trying to do, and thenumber one best way to get
(28:31):
there is to have someone consumeyour video, right, and also
have someone be aware of yourbrand, right, and so I think
videos work in two areas, butwhen someone goes to you, yeah,
but that I don't have time forthat.
That's too difficult, like youknow.
I know we need to do it, butwe're not doing anything like
(28:53):
that, uh, like what?
how do you respond to that?
How do you answer that?
And like what data maybe, uh orcase studies do you point to to
say like you need to do this?
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Yeah.
So, first and foremost, I getthe struggle.
You know, what's reallyinteresting is, even us as an
agency struggle to do it forourselves because we're too
close to it, and I think thatthat's where you know, this is
one of the areas where I thinkoutsourcing really is beneficial
, because it allows somebody tocome in who's objective, who can
actually highlight what is thebest version of reality that's
(29:26):
not mired in the problems ofevery day, and so they're very
focused on.
Well, maybe they don't have theconfidence to tell that story,
and I think that's what it comesdown to.
A lot of we don't think it'sgonna be that effective because
we don't believe it ourselves tosome degree, right, or there's
doubt.
But for a lot of our clients, wedo top of mind awareness
surveys on a regular basis.
So we're either taking thesurvey data that they already
(29:48):
are producing or we're doing ourown survey where we're tracking
year over year as we're doingthese campaigns, and what I
would say is that for the vast Imean 95% of them, we're seeing
huge incremental jumps inawareness and in positivity.
Right, if we look at brandfavorability scores, the more
(30:08):
that we are in market with areally authentic message, the
more.
Those scores are going to moveup just from the advertising.
Nothing at the underlyingcompany level has changed.
It's not like they've changedtheir customer satisfaction,
training or anything like that.
All we're doing is presenting aversion of reality to their
customer.
That is then being internalizedand is translating to a
(30:29):
positivity score.
So it's really incredible whenyou think about it that way of
like, we don't need to changeanything about actually how we
do business.
We just need to change how wetell people we do business.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Man, like, how aware are people of your services?
If people are making aselection of something you offer
and you're not in that top ofmind like category of the
selection process, you're notgoing to make it through the
rest of it, right?
So people got to have yourattention.
And another thing that you said.
That's really interesting.
I made this connection in myhead.
(31:02):
It might not be completelyrelevant to your point but I
thought I would share.
It is the reason that peopleare not doing it is because they
don't know how right and theyneed an expert to come in and
say here's how we're doing it.
There's like the fear of like Idon't know how to do it, it's
too difficult.
That's where frustration orsorry, not frustration, what is
(31:27):
it called when you don't dosomething you know you need to
do Procrastination,procrastination.
See, I can't talk today.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Thank, you, we're Alan.
We're helping each other out,so we're going to get there.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
We're going to get this message across to anyone
that's listening.
So, um, procrastination is thefear of not knowing how to do
something.
And then, from what I've readand I'm not saying this is like
the end all be all, but itresonated with me that either
you, you're telling yourself inyour head that I'm going to get
(32:00):
this, I'm going to do this lastminute and I'm going to get it
done and I'm Superman or I'm notgoing to give myself enough
time to do it and if I fail,then it's okay.
I'm not going to give myselfenough time to do it and if I
fail, then it's okay.
And that's where, like that islike, when I heard that, that is
like crazy to me, that that'swhere procrastination comes and
you just got to get started andyou got to do it.
(32:21):
And then, relating back to whatwe're talking about, is, if you
don't know how to do it, butyou know you need to do it,
reach out to someone like Owen,like, reach out to someone
that's done it and they can helpyou.
And, to your point, um, havingan objective person, look at
your own brand, because anybodythat's managing their own brand,
(32:41):
like you said before, is tooclose to it.
And I also think a lot of thesebig brands, to be honest, are
eating off of the, the logovalue, the brand value that
they've created, and they're notdoing anything original and
they don't want to rock the boatand it's just kind of the safe
harbor mentality.
And I think that newercompanies are starting to eat
(33:03):
the lunch of these bigger brandsbecause they're more nimble,
they can navigate, they'retaking risks and the thing that
I hear, not like publicly, is alot of the big brands, a lot of
the big consulting groups, a lotof the big firms.
No one wants to use them, butnobody ever got fired from
hiring IBM or whatever that adwas, uh, years ago.
(33:24):
Like, so, so, so, like you needto take risks If you know you
need to do something.
Like if you know you need tolike lose weight, like right,
like maybe it's a health thing,maybe it's a, it's the summer
thing, whatever it is like, andyou don't have accountability on
yourself.
That's why personal trainersare exploding through the roof,
like imagine what that person'sjob is like from the 1950s.
(33:48):
I'm going to go to the gym andsomeone I'm going to talk to.
I heard this somewhere on apodcast.
It was just hilarious, but itwas like like that person's just
there to hold you accountableand like, spot the weights for
you.
Even if that's what it takes, itstill will work Right, and you
need to reach out to someonethat can help you with strategy
(34:08):
and has done it before and likethe thing that.
That I think that that well, atleast from our experience, that
that I have a lot of experiencewith is I've worked with
industries in all different,like all different industries,
all different kinds of people,all different experiences, and I
can aggregate those experiencesto kind of go here's where we
(34:30):
should start and then, like,based on data, we'll do that,
but this will kind of keep youout of the ditch.
And I know um at, uh, f P Wmedia it's it's the same way
over the last 12 years Likethere's probably stuff that
you've tried that's fallen flaton his face, and then there's
other stuff that happens, andthen the crazy thing is the
stuff that works on thisplatform or video that falls
(34:53):
flat.
We'll work over on this one,right, and then so, like there's
a lot of like data analyticsand and and testing it.
And the thing that I love aboutdigital marketing and and uh,
data-driven marketing is if youran a billboard or a TV ad or
whatever traditional media, youlet that sucker run and it's
just like.
I hope it works right.
(35:14):
Maybe you did that marketresearch, like you're saying.
I think the referencing, thebrand lift, is incredibly
important.
I think people don't do thatenough for the brand awareness.
But with digital you can seehow people are responding and
you can iterate on the fly.
So you're not buying a flightof impressions or whatever.
(35:34):
You're managing that experienceand that process and you can
also test a ton of differentsamples of stuff and we get into
AI and whatever.
But, like, you can test a ton ofstuff, figure out what's
working, customize that message,personalize that message for
different people, and you canstart with something basic and
(35:55):
then you can build on that.
But, like, the message I'mtrying to communicate is you
just got to get started and youcan start with something basic
and then you can build on that.
But, like, the message I'mtrying to communicate is you
just got to get started and youneed to find an expert that can
help you do that.
If you know this is somethingyou need to do find some way to
get some accountability to toget going, whether it's
internally, externally, whatever.
I don't know if you had anythoughts on that.
I was kind of just on a tangentthere, but on a soapbox,
(36:20):
because I feel like a lot ofpeople know what they need to do
and even when I talk to them,oh, and they're like, oh, yeah,
yeah, I know I need to do that.
Then I'm like, well, why aren'tyou doing it?
Then, right, like there's adisconnect there.
I don't know if you have anythoughts on this.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Well, a hundred percent I mean I had a.
I think it's also framing whatis failure, right Cause I think
it's getting people comfortablewith the fact of like failure
inside a campaign is actually areally good thing, because it
means net, net are.
We're going to kill that partof it and we're going to do
something else, because you knowwe have a plan that 50% of
these things aren't going towork and we're going to kill
them off as they don't work, andthen we're going to just
(36:59):
concentrate our resources onwhat is connecting, what is
resonating.
I had a conversation with aclient a couple of days ago
that's really struggling withtheir Amazon sales and so forth,
and we did an analysis and Isaid at best, 50-50, this is
ever going to work for you.
Here's what we're going to try.
We're going to talk in twoweeks and I may tell you this is
(37:22):
not going to be an effectivesales channel for your product.
It's too crowded, your marginsare too low.
It's just not going to work.
And that's what my team told me,and I think you've got to have
partners that are comfortablesaying that to you too, right?
Especially when we're talkingabout storytelling, it's like
you may go in a direction andyou do all of the research and
you have something that landsreally flat.
You immediately need to beprepared to pivot and launch
(37:44):
something else.
Right, so it's being nimble,it's doing that.
It's it's embracing your brandas a challenger brand, even if
you're established.
Right, challenger brands arecalled that for a reason because
they're taking those risks.
They're doing that, and if youare measuring the analytics on
the back end, like you talkedabout, and have a really good
process for doing so, you'renever taking so much risk that
you can't unwind it.
(38:06):
Right.
You're taking sort of educatedrisk.
You know that you're going togo in a certain direction, but
you're going to quickly pull itback if it doesn't work and go
in a different direction, andthen, by and large, those
campaigns over a year are goingto perform way better than
something that's playing it waysafe.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
A couple of things on that.
I love it is fail fast, right,fail fast and then and then kill
that.
And when you find somethingbetter, don't go backwards,
right, like, don't don't gobackwards and try something else
because that you've alreadytried, unless you're doing it in
a different way.
Like you gotta keep pushingforward and and challenging.
(38:45):
What is it?
Elon musk, every time he comesup with the new space shuttle,
he burns the last space shuttle,like it's like we're not going
backwards, right, as soon asit's operational, like any, I
mean, right, you can, there's nogoing back, you've got to push
it.
You've got to gate what you'redoing and push it forward.
(39:05):
But I know a lot of people getscared and then they go back,
right, they're like let me goback to traditional, let me go
back to whatever was working 20years ago.
It's not going to work anymore,right, if you tested it.
It's not going to work anymore,right, like if you tested it,
it doesn't work, keep going.
And that's why you want to domeasured tests and track that
data and keep pushing forward.
(39:27):
The thing that I was going toask you and I'm losing my train
of thought here is I'm sure I'llremember it here in a second,
but why don't I open up thefloor?
If there's anything that wedidn't talk about and cover that
you think is valuable, uh, Iwould love to give you a floor
to just communicate that to toanyone listening.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Yeah, I think one of the only things that we didn't
really touch touch on is what,what happens when this goes
wrong.
Right, how and how do weprevent that?
Because it can.
There's a risk.
The more risk you take, themore risk you're taking.
And I want to go back to thevery beginning, which is brands
go wrong and get in hot waterwhen they alienate their current
customers.
(40:11):
And I think that that's reallyhappened right over the last
five years.
And when we talk about, you know, causes, I always want to be
really careful of that.
When we, when we do cause quote, unquote, cause-based marketing
, we're really doingproblem-based marketing.
It's it's even if it's thatdramatic example with with the
Lionhearted project that is notobjectionable to anybody within
(40:33):
their audience.
Right, even though it's a veryintense subject, it's a very
safe subject for us to talkabout.
And so that I think is reallyimportant is, especially for a
brand that's starting off, thatcan't necessarily afford to take
a big hit.
Make sure that the storytellingyou're doing is also safe to
your customers.
I don't care what the worldsays, I care about what your
(40:53):
core customer says, right, andif you show them a message or
you speak to them in a certainway, that's offensive to them
your core constituent you'recooked.
So it's all goes back to reallyunderstanding who is your
audience and making sure thatyou're always putting them on
that pedestal and reallyspeaking to them in the way that
(41:14):
they want to be talked to.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
So the yeah, the Bud Light, or whatever it was,
campaign was-.
Great example Right Like don'talienate your base.
If you're going to do somethinglike that, you should probably
test it in a small market pilotprogram.
See how people respond.
Maybe I can't imagine-.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Which they did.
I mean that really wasn't awide campaign to their, I guess,
credit on that.
But it takes somebody getting ahold of it.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Someone getting a hold of it and blowing it up.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
There's no such thing as test markets in today's
world, right?
I mean not like there used tobe, because everybody has a cell
phone and so you could test itin middle of nowhere, Iowa, it
doesn't matter.
One person with a cell phonecan make it worldwide in a
second.
(42:04):
So again it's.
It's doing things for a purpose, right?
I think it all comes back towhat is the purpose of what
we're saying.
Are we chasing a trend?
Are we saying something becausewe think it's the right thing
to do, or are we sayingsomething because it's adding
value to our customers andthat's the litmus test.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Yeah, no, and that helped me remember my thought.
My thought was what are youtrying to solve?
What are you trying to achieve?
What does good look like at theend of that?
Right, and a great call-out too.
If they tested that, it justwent viral because someone got a
hold of it, went viral becausesomeone got ahold of it.
You know, maybe they needed todo the, the, the, just, uh,
(42:43):
bring people in and ask them thequestion, right, if they're
core customers, because I feellike that could have been
addressed if they would havealso thought, like, what, where?
What's the end result of wherethis could happen.
Like they think, oh, we're justgoing to grow this small
segment of market share and theydidn't look at, like, the
underlying impact.
So I think it falls in withwhat you're saying.
But like, when you're creatingthese videos and when you're
(43:04):
spending this money and you'relike, oh, you know, a high
production, like the campaigntowards veterans right, veterans
right, or?
Or people that are that are,that are suffering with PTSD, or
anything like that, you'respeaking, you know what you're
(43:26):
trying to achieve.
Like, you understand who you'retrying to reach and you want to
communicate something in adifferent way and you understand
that how it's going to fit inand and how you say like it's
going to be safe to to whatyou're doing.
And also I want to pull throughthe the return on investment,
or even value, that a video cancreate, cause a lot of people
(43:49):
will look at well, this isexpensive, right, like this is
going to cost a lot, it's goingto take a bunch of time and my
people's resource I always getasked that how much of my
people's resources is going totake.
I'm like, well, the more you'reinvolved, like the better,
because it'll be more authenticand it's more helpful.
And you know things that wedon't know, even if we know
about your business and theylook at all that like physical
(44:11):
cost.
But if you measured it against,like the campaign you talked
about previously, what theimpact could be and like how
they sell something from thatvideo, like you got to you got
to look at the bigger picture.
Like you talked about goingback to the ecosystem concept
(44:49):
and and how this fits in andknowing how people consume
content, I mean, how do you getyour story out there, like, and
I mean let's end on maybe whatare some questions that people
could ask themselves to helpself-identify if they need to.
(45:09):
I mean, people are going to belike I need to do more video,
and I think we all do, but, likeit's hard to look at yourself.
Like you said, it's great tobring in a third party and
they'll give you that objectiveview.
But how does someone even startto assess?
Okay, like I am doing video, oryou know, like, how do you look
at the full brand not just video, but the full brand story and
(45:33):
analyze that?
And I know you talked about ita little bit at the beginning,
but I want to just encapsulateit into a thoughtful message, a
thoughtful short message.
How would you do that?
Speaker 3 (45:48):
Yeah.
So really kind of short andsweet which is across if you're
the brand thinking aboutinternally.
Are we offering value to ourcustomers across all of our
advertising touchpoints?
And I think for most people theanswer is no, or we could be
offering more.
And again it's going back towhere we started, which is
customer experience.
(46:09):
If we are just yelling atpeople saying, buy our stuff
which is essentially what mostadvertising is, it's like, hey,
buy our stuff, right, that isnot adding value to them on a
personal level at all.
So if we're not adding valueacross every touch point,
(46:29):
there's opportunity to have ahigher return on investment from
the advertising we're doingBecause inherently, the more
value we add at each interaction, the more likely we know from a
data-driven perspective thatthat person is going to buy.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
I love that.
One follow-on question for youwhen you're talking about
internet marketing what's oneunknown secret of internet
marketing?
Speaker 3 (46:53):
It's a little bit cynical, but use your own first
party data to validate what theplatforms are telling you is
true.
I think that a lot of peopleforget that almost every
advertising platform that yougive money to is a completely
garden and you are assuming thatwhat they are telling you is
exactly accurate.
While they have every incentiveto give you the rosiest picture
(47:15):
, you need to have everyincentive to look at the most
negative picture from aperformance perspective.
So whatever Google is tellingyou or whatever Meta is telling
you is true on your adperformance, you need to make
sure that you're seeing thatcome through on website visits,
on click to purchase, oneverything, because at the end
of the day, they're going totake the most optimistic view
(47:35):
and you need to take the mostpessimistic view.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Some of these platforms just got in trouble
for that.
So what Owen's speaking to-?
Speaker 3 (47:44):
And they will continue to.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, yeah, I mean there's and what is the internet
theory?
There's something like 60% andincreasing of the internet is
all bots, right?
There's a lot of conversationabout that.
We'll save that for anothertime.
So, Owen, how do people bestfollow your work?
Get in touch with you, find outmore about what it is you do
(48:08):
and the knowledge and authoritythat you're sharing.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
Absolutely yeah.
So great way to connect with meis on LinkedIn or on Instagram
at Owen Garrity on bothplatforms also.
Owengarritycom.
And then on the business side,if you're looking for an
engagement or some help withyour marketing, you can find us
at fpwmediacom and then fpwmediaon all the major social
channels.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Awesome.
Well, thank you so much forcoming on and talking about
storytelling.
My name is Matt Bertram.
I just launchedMatthewBertramcom.
The agency's growing.
The agency's running on its own.
They're doing some great work.
I am stepping into more of aconsulting advisory, fractional
CMO style work for B2Bbusinesses, so check out what
(48:55):
I'm doing there.
I am launching a couple of newbooks here shortly and another
new podcast.
I've decided we're going to gowith a new podcast and keep this
12-year running podcast samename, so people can find it.
I have taken all of the oldtopics and used AI to categorize
them and summarize them intochapters in a new book that I'm
(49:19):
launching called the UnknownSecrets of Internet Marketing.
Of course, and check all thatout.
Thank you for listening.
Until the next time.
My name is Matt Bertram.
Bye-bye for now.
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