March 26, 2024 • 47 mins
Brian York, Chief Marketing Officer for The Agora companies, the financial newsletter publishing giant joins us to discuss the current state of Finpub.
This conversation started when Brian commented on my video presentation, The State of FinPub 2024
In that comment Brian said,
"There are 3 words here that are the most important, “Identify tight niches”. The bull market and Covid forced FinPub into the mainstream… most businesses chased the volume with mainstream ideas. That was a mistake.
"We need to re-focus on big, fringe ideas and go deeply into those ideas. Customers pay us to be trusted advisors with ideas they WON’T get from their brokers.
I asked Brian to join me to elaborate on that point and to get his insights into current state of finpub.
FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.
John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
John Newtson (00:02):
All right.
Hey everyone, I'm excited todaybecause I got Brian York here,
who I think a lot of you know.
Brian is the CMO of the Agoracompanies.
Brian, thanks for being here.
Yeah, no problem, thank you.
Yeah, I'm really glad to haveyou on here and this kind of
started this last conversation.
We kind of started because youleft a comment on that video the
State of FinPub.
Yeah, I thought it was a reallyreally important point that you
(00:24):
made comment on that video thestate of FinPub.
Yeah, I thought it was a reallyreally important point that you
made and basically just to readit to everybody, you basically
said that the bull market andI'm quoting here in COVID forced
FinPub into the mainstream.
Most businesses chase thevolume with mainstream ideas.
That was a mistake.
We need to refocus on bigfringe ideas and go deeply into
those ideas.
Customers pay us to be trustedadvisors with ideas they won't
(00:45):
get from their brokers.
Yeah, and I love that, becauseto me, that is kind of the
essence of what FinPub has beenforever.
Would you elaborate on that alittle bit, though, when you say
like people were chasing volumeand we were forced into the
mainstream?
Brian York (01:00):
Yeah, it's a big.
I mean I know and thank you,for I think this is a hugely
important point, so thank youfor having me on to talk about
it.
But I think, if we look at thebull market, it hurt a lot of
(01:21):
things in our business and Iknow that in previous episodes
you've had people mention this.
It became too easy.
It became too easy to chaseideas.
We forgot all of the ways thatwe serve a customer best
throughout any market.
So I think what it did wasforce us to go really into,
honestly, pot stocks and crypto.
What's the easiest way to makemoney at the time?
Pot stocks and crypto.
Unfortunately, right now, withcrypto, it seems like there's
(01:43):
another upswing in easy moneyand making crypto promos, but
that's another subject foranother day.
But our customers don't alwayspay us to be right.
They pay us for well-researchedideas and when we're simply
chasing the bull market, we'recompeting with the mainstream,
and I think that's somethingthat we need to remember is we
(02:04):
are never mainstream.
We are in the fringe.
We are chasing ideas that seem,quite honestly, unbelievable,
but they happen.
They happen a lot, and that'swhat our customers are looking
for If they just wanted thosemainstream ideas that came out
of chasing the bull market.
They would pick up anything offthe newsstand they wanted to,
or anything online, uh, but notus yeah, I think that's it's
(02:27):
such an interesting um set ofdistinctions.
John Newtson (02:30):
I feel like we need to make around that too
right, because, like I've beentalking quite a bit about the,
the mainstream of financialinformation, because everybody
is trying to well, everyone isconsuming information around
investing online.
It's becoming a much morecommon thing.
Yeah, that is very distinctlydifferent.
(02:50):
That has to do with kind of anincrease in demand, yeah, right,
but what you're talking aboutis very specifically about what
they will pay for.
Brian York (02:59):
About the ideas.
John Newtson (03:00):
Right, the ideas themselves?
Yeah, because they can.
Like you said, there's a lot offree information and in the,
the free information isexploding.
Um, it has that's been acontinued trend, for I think,
since the internet started.
Is that the?
Brian York (03:12):
amount of information.
John Newtson (03:13):
The quality of it has continued to improve over
time, and so what people arewilling to pay for is very
different than just generallyfrom investing information, and
so that idea of fringe, fringeideas and niche ideas is where
all of our acquisition is goingto come from.
Brian York (03:30):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and interesting ideas and you
know, really everything in thisbusiness comes back to the idea
that it drives the offer.
It drives you know how wedeliver things.
It drives what we deliver.
So it all comes back to theidea in the end or in the
beginning no-transcript.
John Newtson (04:14):
Their audience don't actually invest, which is
fascinating in and of itself interms of behavior that they're
paying for investment researchbut it's primarily to because
they're interested and they wantto be interesting about these
things.
Brian York (04:26):
It's actually a scary statistic.
I've been looking at that a lotrecently.
John Newtson (04:29):
It's very scary.
Yeah, so why do you think it'sscary?
Brian York (04:35):
It's scary to me to think that 75% of your audience
that paid for something isn'tusing it.
Is that high?
I think it can be in some cases.
Yeah, yeah, I think it can be,and I think the usage of the
product ties into a lot ofdifferent things.
Part of it is certainly goingto be the track record, Part of
(04:57):
it's customer service, part ofit is just usability.
But in the end, if ourcustomers are not using our
product, then we're failing them.
John Newtson (05:06):
Um, yeah, Because then they're not.
I mean, the lifetime value onthat, too, isn't going to be
great.
And then, um, why are theythere?
Yeah, and that's one of theproblems with some of the more
um, aggressive front endproducts that have been out
there is that they've, they werereally successful in bringing
new people in, but they weren'treally good back-end buyers
because they weren't actuallyconsuming the information or the
(05:29):
product in order to dosomething, isn't that?
Brian York (05:32):
yeah, all of our efforts should really be on that
middle of funnel stuff.
The top of funnel stuff isshrinking and I think honestly
it's going to shrink some more.
It's not going away by anymeans, but it is shrinking and
to a certain extent we shouldmake it shrink to those people
who are able.
We were able to monetize to anextreme in the middle of funnel.
But again, all that ties backto using our products and
(05:53):
hitting the right audience.
To my point that I made in thatcomment hitting the right
audience with the right ideasthat they're willing to pay for.
John Newtson (06:00):
Right, I'm going to dig into that a little bit
more in a second, but first I'mgonna kind of make sure that I'm
complete in kind of drawing outso many things that you brought
out up here, um, the I meanpart of chasing volume during
that time when it was boom.
I mean, like I've heard somepeople say that, well, that's
kind of what we had to do inthis period of time was, you
know, you, you kind of let yourwinners run, um, but then, like,
(06:25):
the fallout is when it hurts,but it wasn't necessarily wrong
to go after those ideas likeBitcoin and things like that
when they were such a big boom,because that's where people's
interest was their attention wasyeah yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Brian York (06:41):
It's hard to say, even in hindsight, whether it
was wrong.
I think where it becomes wrongis when you're chasing an idea
that perhaps resonates with youraudience at the time but
doesn't lead into furthermonetization.
Then I think it's the wrongidea and our business.
(07:02):
We can't make snap decisions.
We have to look at very longterm tests, tests that could
take one, two, three years.
I mean, we look at three yearsas a fully baked lifetime value
Could be more than that, butthat's our measure of three
years.
In some cases we need to lookat that and in some cases it
might take a year and a half totwo years to realize.
You know shit, we, we mighthave gotten the wrong idea here.
John Newtson (07:24):
You half to two years to realize you know shit,
we might have gotten the wrongidea here.
Brian York (07:28):
You can't go backwards though, right, right,
right, and you also can't waittwo years to make decisions
about the business when it comesto acquisition, right.
John Newtson (07:34):
There's some very unique things about FinPub, and
one of them is this idea that wego after niche ideas, yeah, and
other marketing kind ofcultures at this point, other
info, marketing cultures andstuff like that are actually
focusing more on niche audiencefirst.
So they might say, like anexample I'm not saying that this
(07:56):
is something that you should door not do, but like, okay,
we're going to go after thefemale investor or we're going
to go after or after a specificsubset of investor that is only
interested in this thing, or youknow but niche audience has
never really been a FinPub focus.
It's always been on niche ideas, right, and do you think that
(08:20):
that is going to continue?
Do you think there'sopportunity to explore niche
audience as well?
Do you think that really,because investing is the idea,
is what it is, regardless of whoyou happen to be that it's just
going to stick with niche ideaentirely?
Or have you thought about thator had any discussions around
those kind of things, aroundniche audiences versus?
Brian York (08:42):
Yeah, that's it's.
It's interesting for sure.
I mean, we're always thinkingof audience, we're always
thinking of our avatar when itcomes to those ideas,
particularly how we market thoseideas to the extent of idea
pops up as we flesh it out.
What would John think, whatwould so-and-so think, Our
fictional avatar there?
(09:03):
But are we looking at theaudience to develop the ideas?
Yeah, I guess we are, becausewe always want to think about
what keeps them up at night,what are their fears, what are
their dreams, what are theirgoals, what are their desires.
That's part of that thoughtprocess, of what are they
thinking about that we're nottalking about.
John Newtson (09:23):
Yeah.
Brian York (09:24):
Yeah.
John Newtson (09:25):
I think it was Richard Stanton Jones who had
the great avatar in mind of theperfect fit and customer is the
millionaire pig farmer.
It's like blue collarentrepreneurial folks who, yeah,
and.
Brian York (09:40):
Well, it's funny, but I'm sure you talked to some
of the folks back in the daythat were with Palm Beach Letter
and they were running BillBonner's letter at the time and
their their winning ad.
The image for it was just himas a farmer in front of a bunch
of cattle and that was basicallythe headline was something like
millionaire farmer, blah, blah,blah.
John Newtson (10:02):
Yeah, it works yeah, it works, it does.
And you know, it's interestingbecause I thought about this
when I um came across this videoof um mark andreessen talking
about their when they starteda16 and how, even as a vc fund,
what they did in the beginningwas they targeted a niche
audience, they targeted otherfounders.
(10:23):
They didn't raise from otherfunds.
They specifically went tofounders and said, hey, um,
here's, here's why we thinkyou're a better investor than
other people.
And by doing that they theyestablished like a bunch of
things that were very specificto their business.
But, um, it was such aninteresting, I think, idea to me
(10:47):
because here we have thelargest vc fund in the world by
far and he started with a veryniche audience and that same
marketing concept seemed to work, yeah, but then what makes it
even more interesting to me isthat the growth of that company
comes because they invested somuch in niche ideas, yeah, and
so there's this tension betweenthese two things that I think is
important to explore to acertain degree.
Brian York (11:06):
Yeah, I agree completely.
John Newtson (11:09):
And when you think about the state of FinPub, then
how do you see things right now?
We've had what was this massivepullback?
There was industry headwind andcompany headwinds for the last
five years, basically since, I'dsay, right after the crypto
(11:30):
boom.
We had the crypto parabolicmove.
The first one got pretty muchall you guys off of Google and
Facebook for a couple of years.
We've had cases throughout theindustry.
Brian York (11:41):
You know what day it was, John, it was April 1st
2018.
John Newtson (12:07):
Google kicked us off April Fool's Day.
What a day.
Um, how are you guys seeing,you know the industry at this
point?
How do you see any kind of themarket and the state of things?
Brian York (12:16):
Yeah, Um, I don't think it's going to go back to
what it was, nor should it Umand again, that kind of ties
into what I said before, where,if we look at that bull run of,
you know, 10, 11, 12 years whereanything we put out there sold,
I'm not sure we brought in theright customer.
To your earlier question, and Ithink we should shrink that a
(12:36):
little bit.
I think everyone shouldintentionally shrink that a
little bit, just for long-termsustainability is bringing in
the right customer, serving thatcustomer well, and I think
there are two big points here.
Bringing in the right customer,I think, involves something
that we did not have to face inthat bull run and that is kind
of the four-letter actuallyfive-letter word of direct
(12:58):
response, which is brand.
I don't think we're never goingto sell by brand and I'm going
to say that again just soeveryone's very clear.
We are not brand marketers, weare not selling via brand.
But the brand supports what weare selling.
It supports the long salesletter.
And what do I mean by that?
It's really do we know who weare?
Do we know what we're selling?
(13:18):
And from the outside, lookingin, does the customer see that
same exact thing that we are.
Because if there's a differencethere, if there's a conflict
there, then it makes it very,very hard to sell in today's
environment.
Because what's the first thingsomeone does when they see a
sales letter?
They go off and search for moreinformation about you.
You know they've got to findthings that are aligned and
(13:44):
cohesive with the message thatwas in that sales letter.
And then the other side of itin terms of I forgot the other
side of it.
Now, what was I talking aboutthere, John?
Bringing in the right, oh, andscaling it.
Scaling it so again, justmaking sure that that customer
comes in on an idea, on an offer, on a product where we are
giving them 100% of what wepromised, 125% of what we
(14:08):
promised, and just customerservice out the wazoo.
It's maintaining thoserelationships.
Keeping those customers becomesever more important.
And again, I think that'ssomething a mistake that was
made in FinPub during that bullrun was it was just so damn easy
to get customers.
We didn't think enough aboutretention, we didn't think
(14:29):
enough about renewals, we didn'tthink about that long-term
relationship.
We just kept churning going up.
And when I say we, I mean theglobal we, not just Agora.
John Newtson (14:38):
We just kept going after people hand over fist,
but I think now it's ever moreimportant to give them 125 to
make sure that they stick aroundand that you create a lifelong
customer with as many people asyou possibly can yeah, and I
always think of like, especiallywhen I think of like the kind
of the classic, kind of agoraletters and and for me some of
(15:00):
the classics, of course, were, Imean the daily reckoning with
bill bonner and everything heput out and some of that Like
there is absolutely like arelationship that's built with
the person Right.
So you have like the fact thatthey had an ad for him.
That's a farmer, both connectsto the customer and talks a lot
(15:21):
about who he is and his ideasand kind of he's great because
he has such who he is and hisideas and kind of he has he's
he's great Cause he has such anamazing voice and his ideas are
very distinct.
I think in in in pretty muchfinancial media.
But that issue of likeuniqueness comes down to like in
having great ideas.
(15:41):
I mean it comes down to likehaving really great editorial
and editors who are thinking andso like.
Finding those people seems tobe like a harder thing.
Brian York (15:53):
A lot of people have mainstream ideas.
John Newtson (15:54):
There's a lot of people that have good ideas but
they're not like.
They're just not thatinteresting.
People are to make theminteresting or they resist being
made interesting.
So how do you like?
How do you like?
How do you think about thatpiece?
It's like the editor and therelationship that the editor has
to build um with the customerthrough the copy and through the
editorial and through the kindof business I mean that that's
(16:17):
the business we're in isrelationship.
Brian York (16:19):
You know, revenue is a byproduct of that.
We've got to maintain, we'vegot to build and maintain that
relationship.
Uh, you know, we always talkabout it, like in the dating
analogy.
Like you know, you're you'rebasically asking somebody out on
a date and what are the stepsyou're going to go through?
So that's really it.
I mean, I would think the onlyflaw to that dating analogy is
that that you can and shouldsell somewhat aggressively
(16:43):
upfront, but you should sellthem on the thing that they came
in, on the idea that they camein on.
And if they don't buy rightaway, that's fine, that's fine.
Let's build that relationship,let's talk to them, let's think
about them.
If we look at lifetime value,so if we look at any given
business and we look at someonethat's acquired as a lead versus
someone that's acquired as adirect to paid acquisition over
(17:05):
a span of a year, the the leadacquired acquisition we call it
a two-step acquisition is alwaysgoing to be worth more.
The lifetime value of thosepeople built on the relationship
is always worth more than thedirect to paid acquisition.
John Newtson (17:17):
Wow, really.
Brian York (17:18):
Yeah, yes.
John Newtson (17:19):
That's amazing, so it costs more right.
Brian York (17:22):
Investing in those good people and those good
editors, that costs more Sendingout those emails, that costs
more thought um he was a, youknow.
John Newtson (17:29):
Maybe there was a little section about them, but
he had very little to do withthe promo even in terms of what,
the how it was presented onsome of those maybe it was.
(17:51):
And then the consequence thenof that is that you, you, you
haven't really built it up front, you haven't built that
relationship up front.
You haven't, yeah, really likesold them on this person and how
he sees the world.
Brian York (18:05):
Yeah, they got far too sold on the greed than the
person behind the ideas.
You know, yeah.
John Newtson (18:11):
Yeah, and so I always thought that like, and
you can't make every package aguru package, but the guru
package to me was always like ifa customer buys on that, that
guy, I mean he's in because he'sin for this person Exactly, and
so almost all front end shouldhave, like I don't know, a guru
package element.
Brian York (18:32):
Yeah, well, it's funny, the Oxford Club and I
don't know if they still runthis, I need to check but they
used to have something calledthe club package or the tour
package, and it was literally,if you can imagine because
they're in this old brownstonemansion down the street, that
way and if you can imagine justbeing taken on a tour through
(18:52):
there and these are the peoplethat you're going to meet.
This is the investment director,this is the the chairman.
Uh, you know, this is thelovely club room that you can
sit down in and have a cocktailwith your other members.
And it was all about the beliefsystem of the Oxford Club and
that the scale wasn't high.
But man, those people thatbought on that they stuck, they
stuck around and they spent alot of money.
So I think you go from thatlike a belief system package and
(19:14):
then maybe next step up is thatguru package and then you get
into like that, that system orjust that pure greed package is
the one that people don't reallycare.
Who is telling me this?
They're just sold on that ideayeah, yeah and it's, it's.
John Newtson (19:28):
I don't know if you guys have found this.
I I've seen it, but I'm not,I'm not.
It's been a while since I'vebeen hiring copywriters or
writing directly, so I thoughtthat a lot of what I saw when I
would talk to writers or see thepromos going out was there's a
younger generation that justthey kind of didn't know how to
write those packages anymoreyeah because they just it was
like, oh well, I just put, put10 000 behind everything, yeah,
(19:52):
and that's kind of the promothat I'm gonna write, yeah, and
so it was hard to to find peoplewho could then make that
transition now to like, hey, youcan't quite do that anymore.
The FTC says, don't do that.
Which, by the way, do you thinkthat the how much Backup is
where it's hard to.
(20:13):
No one wants to talk about thisstuff too publicly, but I was
going to say, like, how much doyou think that the FTC kind of
coming in and saying, hey, likewe're, we're changing kind of
the rules, that that that youknow where the line is, we're
going to get really aggressiveabout this and so you have to be
much more conservative withyour copy.
How much do you think like thatimpacted kind of this last
period where, where sales weredown?
(20:33):
Do you think that was a largeconsequence of that?
Do you think that was?
do you think that just fueledsomething else, the market kind
of shifting.
Do you think like yeah, that'sthat's.
Brian York (20:44):
That's an interesting question.
I think it it added to it, butI don't think it was the primary
reason and mainly on the backend, I think it's a good thing.
I think what the FTC did and Ithink that's been said here in
this space is that they thesewere rules that needed to be set
down to clean up the space alittle bit, clean up the space a
(21:05):
lot.
Frankly, we as a company, thestakeholders in the company, sat
down and they said we're evengoing to go above and beyond
what the FTC asks.
They set in place their ownseries of rules that look for
honesty, authenticity andtransparency in everything we do
.
Google has a similar beliefsystem when it comes to
(21:26):
evaluating their own page.
So I think it's important, andif a fraction of sales was lost
because of that, then itprobably should have been lost.
I'm sure everyone's going tocall me after this or email me
and say what the hell are youtalking about, brian?
But again, I think it gets backto these were probably not the
(21:47):
right people, and if we wereable to segment those people off
that came in only because wewere super aggressive and super
hyperbolic, we'll probably findthat there's not a lot of
lifetime value, but on the flipside the refund rate is probably
enormous on those type ofpeople.
John Newtson (22:04):
Yeah yeah, not every front-end dollar is equal.
Yeah yeah, and you know, withthat kind of idea of shrinking a
little bit, you know, I had agood conversation with Mike
Pizzo the other day.
Brian York (22:18):
Okay, yeah.
John Newtson (22:19):
But you know and he was saying that him and him
and joe had uh, joe schrieferhad had many times had this
conversation that maybe theright size of a publishing brand
is maybe 40, 50 million, ratherthan like pushing them to one,
two, 300 in their case at onepoint.
Brian York (22:36):
Do you think that that sounds about right, like
there's a there's kind of anatural size to to a brand,
especially since it's fringeideas, or yeah, I think a brand
with fringe well maybe not evenuse the word brand I think a
business with fringe ideas needsto stay small and nimble and I
think it gets very difficultwhen you're over that 50 million
size.
So I I definitely agree withjoe and mike when it comes to
(22:59):
that.
John Newtson (22:59):
Yeah, yeah, so that seems to be, um, you know,
I haven't found a lot of peoplewho've pushed up towards a
hundred million, yeah, who werehappy with the business they had
yeah, at that point.
Yeah, it seems like most peoplewere like yeah, this I wish, I
wish I'd known exactly yeah, no,I, I completely agree well and
(23:19):
know.
With that, when I look back onAgora's history because I mean
Agora, you guys, you guysbasically have been, you've
defined the industry in so manyways right Over the last 20, 25,
30 years and one of the thingsthat I always admired about the
way that the Agora grew is ithad kind of an ecosystem
approach to businesses where youhad talented people.
(23:43):
Someone had a really good idea.
They wanted to try and launch apub.
They'd get the chance to, andif it worked, it worked, and if
it didn't, the guy got hischance and maybe there was some
money was recouped, maybe somemoney was lost.
You don't lose the talent.
They go back into another group, but because of that you were
able to grow like this ecosystemof you know it's high dozens of
(24:05):
companies, yeah, like um, andso if, if it's a smaller overall
publishing or business unit, um, it would seem that like the
plan going forward might be tokind of grow out new small pubs
again or franchises.
Is that part of the plan?
Because I know there's a lot ofconversation, just as in the
(24:26):
industry, about Agora's plans tomaybe not be as big as they
were as you guys were before andin general, and so what does
that look like for you guys?
Brian York (24:35):
Are you thinking about like yeah, I mean I can't
comment on specific plans goingforward, but I would say
everybody always wants to grow.
We just want to grow the rightway.
And I think to your point.
If we look back decades ago,gosh, I started with Oxford in
2000.
So it's 24 years now and Oxfordwas a place where Money.
(24:58):
Map Press came out of Oxford,stansberry Research came out of
Oxford.
Stansberry is now MarketWise.
Of course, wall Street Daily,which ended up becoming part of
Agora Financial I'm sure I'mmissing a few Sovereign Society,
which ultimately became Banyan.
So it was a breathing ground.
It was an incubator for so manydifferent new ideas.
(25:20):
And if you look at them now,the Oxford Group has the core
Oxford and then they've gotManward Press and they've got
Monument Traders Alliance.
And Monument Traders Allianceis, I'd say, a very different
idea and execution of the idea.
It's that live trading room.
It's not your traditionalOxford concept of investing, but
it still works.
John Newtson (25:40):
There's a lot of crossover in between the files
it's so interesting to thinkthat all that came out of oxford
, because oxford, yeah, um Iremember I don't know, maybe it
was the 2005, the agoramarketing conference that um, uh
, put out some cds.
I remember the conference waslike a 25 000 conference, um way
back I think it was a fivesomewhere in that period of time
(26:03):
, um, and I remember there wasan uh you know like porter was
there and he was like there isno marketing model, we're all
doing different things.
Um, the oxford group was a smallgroup of I think there was
maybe four or five marketerstotal, but they were crushing it
in pay-per-click um but like tosee all those different groups
coming out of that group andthen at the in the real boom
(26:25):
here you can say that a lot ofthe groups that came out of them
for at least a period of timewere larger than them yeah what
do you think is so unique aboutlike oxford, that like it's the
one that's stable?
it seemed like it was stable ofthe businesses.
Right yeah, what do you thinkis unique about it?
Is there a specific culture?
(26:45):
Is it something about thatbelief system?
Like, what do you think that is?
Brian York (26:49):
Yeah, I think part of it was culture.
I think part of it was thestability for sure.
I think part of it is thatthey're typically the most
valuable customers.
That might vary now, buthistorically it was the highest
LTV of any of our customers.
You had a fairly wide range.
You had people as young as50-something upwards from there.
So you had varying investmentstyles too.
(27:13):
But I think also you hadinformation junkies there.
You had people that were reallysold on reading and
understanding the ideas.
And that's where, in the earlydays, when you had Porter Porter
, who's just a master of ideascoming up with ideas and
conveying those ideas to people,I think that that's that was
(27:36):
one thing for sure that wouldmake him successful from the
start.
Money Map Press again a globalinvesting idea.
So there we go again.
We're going back to the idea.
It's the big idea.
Whatever big idea there was atthat time, that's what grabbed
people.
That's why they were successful.
And you know, really it was astyle, a management style back
(27:57):
then, which very much welcomedthat to your point.
John Newtson (28:01):
Nice, nice.
And then when we talk about theideas, then there's a
difference between a franchiseidea, like a business unit idea,
and a promo idea.
What do you think is when itcomes to having that kind of
global idea for the businessunit?
What are the edges of that?
How does that have to look tobe kind of worthwhile?
(28:22):
Just give me a stumper there,john.
Small idea questions at you theedges of the franchise idea.
Brian York (28:39):
I'd have to think about that, john.
I'd say, first and foremost,have a franchise idea.
I mean, I remember one timeyears ago I was asking two
businesses overseas, twobusinesses in the same location
and two different publishers andI said all I need really is
your elevator pitch.
you know, because that we wereworking on their advertising at
the time and I said all your adsare basically going to work off
(29:01):
of the core pillars of yourbusiness and those core pillars
are built around your idea, yourelevator pitch, your franchise
idea, and one gave it to mewithin 10 minutes that it was
fantastic, and the other one ittook two months for me to coax
out of him and it was horrible.
So you know that's, that's justbad if you don't know what
you're selling.
So what are the edges to that?
(29:22):
I don't know the answer to that.
John Newtson (29:23):
I don't know the answer to that?
Maybe it's things.
What would be some goodexamples of like hey, that's a
really great franchise, that youunderstood what they were doing
.
Brian York (29:32):
Yeah, well, if we look at international living,
which is pseudo-financial, butthe first of Agora's, it's
retiring overseas for less as anAmerican you know which at the
time was a very fringe idea.
I think you know one of theboundaries I guess based on that
(29:52):
would be it needs to be afringe idea.
Now that that idea is not sofringe and they're having to
explore kind of subsets of thatidea, so yeah, it's got to be
something that's fringe yeah,and that's a very I mean, that's
that that's been running forsince the 70s, right?
John Newtson (30:08):
I mean?
Uh, 1978 or 79 was when thatlaunched, I believe yeah wow,
that's an amazingly stable andlong life for an info marketing,
info publishing business,that's yeah that's so like the
fringe ideas, um, and I thinkthat's something that, like you
know, in the trading side of theworld people sometimes lose is
(30:31):
they're so focused on.
I have this trading system, yeah, and so there isn't really an
idea other than, like, maybethere's momentum trading, maybe
there's you, you know, but thoseideas are.
Some of them can be fringe, buta lot of times they're they're
relatively well known, and thenyou don't have a lot of new
things to say about it, and thatmakes it difficult to have to
(30:51):
run this kind of a marketingmodel in particular, I think.
Brian York (30:53):
Well then, I think it goes back to the editor.
The onus is on the editor tobuild a fantastic, freaking
relationship and maintain thatrelationship, because if someone
can get those ideas anywhere,if someone can get that
information anywhere, they wantto go to the person that they
like to get it and that theytrust.
It's really.
It's trust.
There is what you need to build, yeah.
John Newtson (31:13):
Yeah, yeah, and that's where you know I remember
.
I forget who it was, but itmight have been something Brian
Hunt wrote, or I forget who, butsomething about like on the
trust side, like you got to ownyour mistakes.
So when you're wrong, I waswrong when you're one, when we
won.
Brian York (31:32):
Customers will absolutely forgive you for being
wrong about something.
What they will not forgive youfor is sloppy research or poorly
researched ideas.
Yeah, that that they.
They will go on to someone else.
John Newtson (31:43):
Yeah, I think that's the thing.
There's lots of someone else'sthese days, yeah.
Brian York (31:48):
Yeah.
John Newtson (31:52):
What else is on your mind these days about the
industry where it's going, whereit's not going, that it should?
In your spot, you see marketingfrom so many different business
units too.
How do you okay, we'reshrinking, but what's the,
what's the path forward?
Do you think for pubs at thispoint, or what else is on like a
(32:15):
major thing, that we should bethinking about?
That?
Maybe we're not.
Brian York (32:18):
Yeah, I think for me it's really keeping my eyes on
on connecting the dots.
It's the omni-channelrelationship, uh, because our
readers are are to the point.
You know, it's not my parentsanymore.
My parents are 81.
They're beyond or slightlybeyond our demographic.
It's someone who isn't mucholder than me now that I'm
(32:39):
selling to.
It's someone who's very savvy.
It's someone who isn't justgoing to a website for
information.
They're going everywhere.
They expect to find meeverywhere.
So with that becomes or comesthat point that I mentioned
earlier and that's alignment.
It's how do I look versus whatdo I perceive myself to be, but
also making sure that I'm thereand I'm serving my customer,
(33:00):
serving both in acquiring andfulfilling everywhere I possibly
can, where I know that they'regoing to be, and then connecting
those dots.
So connecting those dots in thedata gives us such valuable
information about who ourcustomer is and what they're
doing and when they're primedfor another service and when
they're primed to renew.
So that dot connecting issomething that is difficult and
(33:26):
is something that we're workingon.
John Newtson (33:27):
Yeah, we're working on.
Yeah, so then omni channel kindof implies a little bit that
it's you know we think of it asfin pub, it's publishing, but
really like you're a mediacompany at this point, and that
means you have to be on whateverchannels we think that the
customer happens to be on to acertain extent right, and so do
(33:49):
you think that that is kind ofone of the things that's going
to grow then?
is you know kind of that growingoctopus of media channels that
you're pushing some form ofcontent out in some way in order
to lead them back to kind ofthe central entity?
But then that means there's alot more production that needs
to happen.
Brian York (34:07):
I think the first part is true.
I think that's a necessity interms of the production.
That's what we can't let happen.
So we need to become veryintelligent with something that
we've done very well, thateveryone in FinPub has done very
well, and that is slicing anddicing our content to repurpose
and reuse it in many differentways.
And that's the project, that'sthe exercise right now.
John Newtson (34:27):
Yeah, so AI couldn't come at a better time.
Then yeah, exactly yeah, sothat's, ai couldn't come at a
better time, then yeah exactly.
Brian York (34:32):
Yeah, now, ai is fantastic for that.
But yeah, I mean, I think Ithink some of those fringe
networks are a little bit under,under utilized right now.
You know, I look at TikTok,which I was raving about three
to four years ago to people toyou know, get your ads on TikTok
.
Get your ads on TikTok, becausepeople my age were on TikTok
(34:52):
and they were there becausetheir kids are on there.
You know, if your kids are on anetwork, get on there because
there's value there.
You know that there are otherold dudes there with money that
are going to invest becausethey're watching their kids.
So how could we stand out?
You know, we stand out like asore thumb on TikTok with an ad
at the the time.
Now there are financial ads allover the place, but at the time
to see a financial ad, whywouldn't a 50 year old person
(35:15):
click on that?
John Newtson (35:16):
of course they would right yeah, yeah, yeah, do
you see also like, do you thinkI mean I don't know if you guys
, I think you guys still do atleast on the back end, direct
mail?
Um, you know, I've seen andtalked to some people who were
like you know, I mean, thebiggest problem with mail these
days is the list universesaren't there, but there's also
no competition and so there isat least on the backend, pretty
(35:38):
good opportunity just sendingmail physically.
Brian York (35:42):
Yeah, you would think so.
I honestly don't know enoughabout direct mail.
I started right as direct mailwas fading.
I know that we still do it.
I think maybe it's reserved forour house file, uh, or for ad
inserts that would go with anissue, uh, but I'm not entirely
certain.
But I agree, you know there'sno one else out there, so why
(36:02):
wouldn't you do it?
I think market wise still doesan extensive amount yeah, you
know, it seems to be it's.
John Newtson (36:09):
It's an interesting thing because, um,
yeah, you know, it seems to be,it's it's it's an interesting
thing because, um, that used tobe the big problem is, you know,
I, I, I was raised in ahousehold of a multi-buyer of
all the bottom other stuff andso, like the magalogs would come
all the time and it was justlike there was so much of it
that's how you got into this.
Brian York (36:24):
Huh, it's just your child just growing up reading
that stuff.
John Newtson (36:27):
Yeah, yeah and then I was so proud the first
time I wrote one of those typesof packages, because I was like
mom, you understand this yeah,yeah, exactly, exactly um that's
funny yeah.
So the I don't know like the,the um.
One of the things that sparkedthe thought to me, um, besides
hearing people talking about itwas I had a a friend of mine
(36:49):
works for a marketing datacompany that they work with like
a lot of e-com brands, and hewas saying that a lot of the
Warby Parkers of the world andother things.
They start on Facebookmarketing and they get up to
about 50 million in sales withtheir digital and then at a
certain point they realize thattheir cost to acquire starts to
(37:11):
be so high that it's cheaper togo to physical retail and so
they go offline and that's howthey get their much more
expansive growth.
And it was such an interestingdynamic for me.
You build your brand online,you reach a point where the cost
to acquire gets too high andthen it becomes cheaper to go
offline.
You know, online you reach apoint where the cost to acquire
(37:32):
gets too high and then itbecomes cheaper to go offline.
And then I remember in the maillike and this is not inflation
adjusted, but it was, you know,130 to $150 to acquire a
customer.
And it's like well, what do wepay now?
130 to $300 to acquire acustomer.
You know, it's like it's notthat different, and so it just
stands out to me as one of thoselike some niche niche business
(37:53):
maybe, um, for some people backend for sure yeah, yeah, no,
absolutely, and I think also uhin the mail is is uh, new member
welcome experience.
Brian York (38:06):
You know, I I remember, uh, it was very
recently I was on on x and uh,porter had retweeted.
I don't know if you say on Xand Porter had retweeted, I
don't know if you say re-Xed orretweeted someone from someone,
a new subscriber that gotsomething in the mail and it was
a really well done welcomepackage and you know, talk about
creating brand evangelists andraving fans.
I mean that dude just put it onTwitter, on X.
(38:26):
This is what I got.
It's at Porter and Company,right there.
And gosh, I remember there wasa group it was money map when
they did national institute forcannabis investors and they had
a facebook group going and allthese people were doing unboxing
of their welcome package andeveryone was like when do I get
it?
John Newtson (38:43):
I?
Brian York (38:43):
I, you know, I just joined, I haven't gotten mine
yet, so you can't buy that sortof excitement.
Yeah, yeah, that's that that's.
John Newtson (38:50):
That's.
That's awesome.
Yeah, you know, when I think,like you know, nikki, the
national institute of cannabisinvestors, that was a very niche
idea.
It was kind of mainstreamstoryline, but still it was a.
It was an investing niche.
I think back to like what arethe big front end ideas that
(39:11):
we've had and they have been?
They just like there was.
I mean crypto, cannabis, 5g,right on the tech side, the
bricks I always go back to likethe early, like 2000s, it was
all very.
Brian York (39:26):
China.
John Newtson (39:28):
So some of these stories, like they're hitting
the mainstream, but you'retrying to navigate, like here's
what the no one's talking aboutinside that, yeah, right.
So that seems to me to be likethere's this dynamic, too, of
you have to find the fringe ideabecause there are people who
are talking about Bitcoin in2012, or right, very fringe at
(39:51):
that time, but you weren'tgetting the attention in sales
because of it, but it gave youthe credibility for later too,
um and then, and so I think thatthere's also that tension.
I don't and just curious, ifyou think that this is accurate
that you might have to channelthe attention from a mainstream
(40:13):
idea or something that happensto be mainstreaming in terms of
the media.
Yeah, focus it on like, well,this is the story that's not
being told.
Yeah, everyone's missing yeah,yeah.
Brian York (40:24):
You need that level of interest at the top, and that
interest is helping you driveit into something else.
So it's here is the hiddenaspect of this that you didn't
realize, and what's what no oneis talking about in the news
right now.
John Newtson (40:36):
Yeah, but we know right, yeah, so it's like the,
the prediction it's.
It's like you're not reallypredicting.
I mean, you are, but that's nothow it feels the customer.
It's like you're illuminatinghidden corners and hidden ideas
and things that are not, andthat for me, that means that
(40:57):
you're not just your editor, butyour whole copy team.
You have to be reallyinterested in the market, and
that, I think, is another thingthat it was easy to get away
with not being interested in themarket when everything was
selling so easy, right, yeah, Isee your point.
Brian York (41:12):
Yeah, no, absolutely .
And also the copywriters coulddrive the idea more than the
editor, where really it shouldbe the editor driving the idea,
with the copywriter latchingonto that and then expanding on
that idea, or at least a 50-50relationship.
But it should never be aposition where the editor or the
I'm sorry, the copywriter isjust pushing out this idea that
(41:32):
they know is going to sell.
It's allowed to get out therein the wild and then the editor
can't necessarily support itwith how they're writing and how
they're talking and whatthey're investing in.
John Newtson (41:41):
Yeah, yeah, that's .
It's so funny you say that,cause I hear.
I remember in my head now I'mthinking of all these
conversations I had with peoplewho were like this copywriter
was trying to get me to do this,yeah, or I had to do this
because the publisher then toldme to do it anyway.
Brian York (41:53):
Yeah.
John Newtson (41:53):
Because they thought it was a good sales idea
, but they hated it.
Brian York (41:56):
Yeah.
John Newtson (41:56):
And it seemed to me that some of those editors
that became kind of the kind ofgrievance that drove them to
leave those publishers.
Yeah, that like feeling that,like I'm on the hook for this
idiot's idea.
Brian York (42:11):
Yeah that.
John Newtson (42:11):
I'm on the hook for this idiot's idea, and I'm
the one that's going to berecommending.
Brian York (42:13):
Well, and when you don't have?
That communication I meanreally the perfect triangle of
communication is your editor,your copywriter and your
marketer, that they all need tobe talking and know and live and
breathe what each other isdoing.
That's what helps get goodideas out the door.
That's what helps to creategood customers.
John Newtson (42:31):
Yeah, yeah.
And that what helps get goodideas out the door.
That's what helps helps tocreate good customers.
Yeah, yeah, and that that seemsto also be part of the reason
that the um, the freelancecopywriter kind of went.
That didn't go away.
But, um, everyone favors teamscopywriters were on teams, that
that you're able to keep thosekind of close relationships,
that close communication.
Brian York (42:47):
Yeah, uh, just for that reason yeah, no, I agree, I
, I agree.
I mean, in the best casescenario, the copywriter really
becomes entrenched with theeditor and is talking to them
nonstop during that copycreation.
Yeah, yeah.
John Newtson (43:02):
Yeah, no, it's, I don't know.
I think that, like to yourpoint before, like some of the
things that happened, like thepullback, was good for the
business in a lot of ways, justbecause it's made us stop and
think about the business, likewhat are we doing that matters,
what are we doing that maybeisn't sustainable and now things
(43:22):
are going?
I mean, and why are?
Brian York (43:23):
we doing this Right.
Yeah.
John Newtson (43:26):
Yeah, and I'm hearing pretty much from most
people that they're on theupswing pretty, pretty handily
so you're seeing that too likeyeah, yeah, I think, uh, yeah, I
don't know what, uh, whatanalogy to use.
Brian York (43:43):
I guess we've stopped bailing out the boat,
you know, now we're making surewe don't have any more leaks in
there, but uh, yeah, it's, it's,uh, we're getting there yeah
yeah, I think everyone is.
Yeah, I think I think peopleare seeing some lights um,
internationally.
I think it's it's the same.
We had a little bit of adelayed effect in some markets
internationally.
That might still be hanging on,but uh, I'd say the same thing
(44:07):
things are changing.
John Newtson (44:08):
Yeah, yeah yeah, and so then now that we're going
into kind of a, an electionyear here, um, do you think
that's normally positive,negative?
Um, I don't know.
Brian York (44:22):
It'll be a fun one, John.
It'll be fun.
Um, there's a lot to talk about.
Let's put it that way.
John Newtson (44:29):
Yeah.
Brian York (44:32):
There's a lot to talk about.
Let's put it that way yeah,there's a lot to talk about.
How much of that gets, you know, quote unquote, censored out
there as we put it out?
I'm not sure.
And again, that applies toeveryone, because even just
talking about certain issuesthat could be considered
political are occasionallygetting censored.
Now.
John Newtson (44:47):
So it's yeah that's actually that's a really
good point, because that is avery I mean, it feels like a
very new phenomenon, the lastalmost since covid yeah, um,
there was some of it in thesense of like the crypto stuff,
but that was because the icoswere, yeah, the scams were were
kind of out of control there,yeah, but other than that it
(45:08):
seems like in covid it was likethis, like sea change that
happened with the media.
but other than that, it seemslike at covid it was like this,
like sea change that happenedwith the media companies, where,
now that it is like you have tobe careful about what ideas,
yep, or even how you enter theidea, because even if it's not
something that they would beupset with if they actually paid
attention to it, you can'tenter it in an interesting or
shocking way, because it can'tbe shocking, it can't be
(45:30):
shocking.
Brian York (45:31):
So you can enter an into an idea.
You can use a lot of the samelanguage of that idea.
You cannot shock people intoreading it.
But if you were to get somebodyinto an idea using an
advertorial, get them to clickoff into something else where
they're on your turf.
That's a different story.
But you know, obviously we knowthat degrades the whole
responsiveness of the entireexperience.
(45:52):
Um, but I'm I'm interested,interested to see how that's
going to change or become evenmore aggressive as we move into
this election cycle, cause Ithink, uh, I think, there will
be another clamp down.
John Newtson (46:04):
Uh, just see how extreme.
Yeah, yeah, no.
I think that's probably a goodprediction yeah, yeah, yeah, no.
Brian York (46:13):
I think that's yeah, I'll be a good prediction.
Now is the time to talk aboutsocial issues before media shuts
you down.
John Newtson (46:19):
Yeah, no, that's definitely.
Uh, that's definitely comingyeah, yeah cool.
Well, is there any other bigthings that you think we should
hit before?
Um, because I really this hasbeen a great conversation, brian
, yeah it's been a lot of fun.
Brian York (46:34):
I've got to get to FMS.
I mean, I don't know how manyyears you've been doing that.
Like I said, it was right on myson's birthday and I've
traveled so much over the yearsand I haven't traveled much
since pre-COVID, but beforeCOVID I was on the road 10 days
out of the month, something likethat.
I've got three kids.
I always make it a point tostay home for their birthdays.
John Newtson (46:54):
I did the same thing pre-COVID.
I was on the road similarly,COVID was such a nice reset.
Then I was like wait, I got tobe very conscientious about my
travel.
I brought my kids down.
Brian York (47:09):
Yeah, I read about that Next time you're in
Baltimore or wherever.
I'll brought my kids down, umthey, yeah, yeah, I read about
that in the event, and it'sgreat, yeah, well, next time
you're in baltimore, uh, orwherever, I'll make it a point
to see you, yeah no, I'll letyou know that's great, no, but I
think you know parting thoughts.
I think it's just.
It's all about um, it's allabout creating that customer
experience.
I think the next 10 years arereally going to be middle of
funnel things.
Uh, it's maximizing lifetimevalue, and we can only do that
(47:31):
through creating strongrelationships that stand the
test of time.
John Newtson (47:36):
Yeah, and that's a fantastic way to leave it,
because that is the kind of theessence of the business.
Brian York (47:41):
Yeah, yeah.
John Newtson (47:43):
Awesome.
Brian York (47:44):
All right.
John Newtson (47:45):
Thank you, john, fantastic, so all right To have
you on again as more thingsdevelop.
Brian York (47:51):
Okay, sounds good.
Thanks, john.
All right.
Hey everyone, I'm excited todaybecause I got Brian York here,
who I think a lot of you know.
Brian is the CMO of the Agoracompanies.
Brian, thanks for being here.
Yeah, no problem, thank you.
Yeah, I'm really glad to haveyou on here and this kind of
started this last conversation.
We kind of started because youleft a comment on that video the
State of FinPub.
Yeah, I thought it was a reallyreally important point that you
(00:24):
made comment on that video thestate of FinPub.
Yeah, I thought it was a reallyreally important point that you
made and basically just to readit to everybody, you basically
said that the bull market andI'm quoting here in COVID forced
FinPub into the mainstream.
Most businesses chase thevolume with mainstream ideas.
That was a mistake.
We need to refocus on bigfringe ideas and go deeply into
those ideas.
Customers pay us to be trustedadvisors with ideas they won't
(00:45):
get from their brokers.
Yeah, and I love that, becauseto me, that is kind of the
essence of what FinPub has beenforever.
Would you elaborate on that alittle bit, though, when you say
like people were chasing volumeand we were forced into the
mainstream?
Brian York (01:00):
Yeah, it's a big.
I mean I know and thank you,for I think this is a hugely
important point, so thank youfor having me on to talk about
it.
But I think, if we look at thebull market, it hurt a lot of
(01:21):
things in our business and Iknow that in previous episodes
you've had people mention this.
It became too easy.
It became too easy to chaseideas.
We forgot all of the ways thatwe serve a customer best
throughout any market.
So I think what it did wasforce us to go really into,
honestly, pot stocks and crypto.
What's the easiest way to makemoney at the time?
Pot stocks and crypto.
Unfortunately, right now, withcrypto, it seems like there's
(01:43):
another upswing in easy moneyand making crypto promos, but
that's another subject foranother day.
But our customers don't alwayspay us to be right.
They pay us for well-researchedideas and when we're simply
chasing the bull market, we'recompeting with the mainstream,
and I think that's somethingthat we need to remember is we
(02:04):
are never mainstream.
We are in the fringe.
We are chasing ideas that seem,quite honestly, unbelievable,
but they happen.
They happen a lot, and that'swhat our customers are looking
for If they just wanted thosemainstream ideas that came out
of chasing the bull market.
They would pick up anything offthe newsstand they wanted to,
or anything online, uh, but notus yeah, I think that's it's
(02:27):
such an interesting um set ofdistinctions.
John Newtson (02:30):
I feel like we need to make around that too
right, because, like I've beentalking quite a bit about the,
the mainstream of financialinformation, because everybody
is trying to well, everyone isconsuming information around
investing online.
It's becoming a much morecommon thing.
Yeah, that is very distinctlydifferent.
(02:50):
That has to do with kind of anincrease in demand, yeah, right,
but what you're talking aboutis very specifically about what
they will pay for.
Brian York (02:59):
About the ideas.
John Newtson (03:00):
Right, the ideas themselves?
Yeah, because they can.
Like you said, there's a lot offree information and in the,
the free information isexploding.
Um, it has that's been acontinued trend, for I think,
since the internet started.
Is that the?
Brian York (03:12):
amount of information.
John Newtson (03:13):
The quality of it has continued to improve over
time, and so what people arewilling to pay for is very
different than just generallyfrom investing information, and
so that idea of fringe, fringeideas and niche ideas is where
all of our acquisition is goingto come from.
Brian York (03:30):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and interesting ideas and you
know, really everything in thisbusiness comes back to the idea
that it drives the offer.
It drives you know how wedeliver things.
It drives what we deliver.
So it all comes back to theidea in the end or in the
beginning no-transcript.
John Newtson (04:14):
Their audience don't actually invest, which is
fascinating in and of itself interms of behavior that they're
paying for investment researchbut it's primarily to because
they're interested and they wantto be interesting about these
things.
Brian York (04:26):
It's actually a scary statistic.
I've been looking at that a lotrecently.
John Newtson (04:29):
It's very scary.
Yeah, so why do you think it'sscary?
Brian York (04:35):
It's scary to me to think that 75% of your audience
that paid for something isn'tusing it.
Is that high?
I think it can be in some cases.
Yeah, yeah, I think it can be,and I think the usage of the
product ties into a lot ofdifferent things.
Part of it is certainly goingto be the track record, Part of
(04:57):
it's customer service, part ofit is just usability.
But in the end, if ourcustomers are not using our
product, then we're failing them.
John Newtson (05:06):
Um, yeah, Because then they're not.
I mean, the lifetime value onthat, too, isn't going to be
great.
And then, um, why are theythere?
Yeah, and that's one of theproblems with some of the more
um, aggressive front endproducts that have been out
there is that they've, they werereally successful in bringing
new people in, but they weren'treally good back-end buyers
because they weren't actuallyconsuming the information or the
(05:29):
product in order to dosomething, isn't that?
Brian York (05:32):
yeah, all of our efforts should really be on that
middle of funnel stuff.
The top of funnel stuff isshrinking and I think honestly
it's going to shrink some more.
It's not going away by anymeans, but it is shrinking and
to a certain extent we shouldmake it shrink to those people
who are able.
We were able to monetize to anextreme in the middle of funnel.
But again, all that ties backto using our products and
(05:53):
hitting the right audience.
To my point that I made in thatcomment hitting the right
audience with the right ideasthat they're willing to pay for.
John Newtson (06:00):
Right, I'm going to dig into that a little bit
more in a second, but first I'mgonna kind of make sure that I'm
complete in kind of drawing outso many things that you brought
out up here, um, the I meanpart of chasing volume during
that time when it was boom.
I mean, like I've heard somepeople say that, well, that's
kind of what we had to do inthis period of time was, you
know, you, you kind of let yourwinners run, um, but then, like,
(06:25):
the fallout is when it hurts,but it wasn't necessarily wrong
to go after those ideas likeBitcoin and things like that
when they were such a big boom,because that's where people's
interest was their attention wasyeah yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Brian York (06:41):
It's hard to say, even in hindsight, whether it
was wrong.
I think where it becomes wrongis when you're chasing an idea
that perhaps resonates with youraudience at the time but
doesn't lead into furthermonetization.
Then I think it's the wrongidea and our business.
(07:02):
We can't make snap decisions.
We have to look at very longterm tests, tests that could
take one, two, three years.
I mean, we look at three yearsas a fully baked lifetime value
Could be more than that, butthat's our measure of three
years.
In some cases we need to lookat that and in some cases it
might take a year and a half totwo years to realize.
You know shit, we, we mighthave gotten the wrong idea here.
John Newtson (07:24):
You half to two years to realize you know shit,
we might have gotten the wrongidea here.
Brian York (07:28):
You can't go backwards though, right, right,
right, and you also can't waittwo years to make decisions
about the business when it comesto acquisition, right.
John Newtson (07:34):
There's some very unique things about FinPub, and
one of them is this idea that wego after niche ideas, yeah, and
other marketing kind ofcultures at this point, other
info, marketing cultures andstuff like that are actually
focusing more on niche audiencefirst.
So they might say, like anexample I'm not saying that this
(07:56):
is something that you should door not do, but like, okay,
we're going to go after thefemale investor or we're going
to go after or after a specificsubset of investor that is only
interested in this thing, or youknow but niche audience has
never really been a FinPub focus.
It's always been on niche ideas, right, and do you think that
(08:20):
that is going to continue?
Do you think there'sopportunity to explore niche
audience as well?
Do you think that really,because investing is the idea,
is what it is, regardless of whoyou happen to be that it's just
going to stick with niche ideaentirely?
Or have you thought about thator had any discussions around
those kind of things, aroundniche audiences versus?
Brian York (08:42):
Yeah, that's it's.
It's interesting for sure.
I mean, we're always thinkingof audience, we're always
thinking of our avatar when itcomes to those ideas,
particularly how we market thoseideas to the extent of idea
pops up as we flesh it out.
What would John think, whatwould so-and-so think, Our
fictional avatar there?
(09:03):
But are we looking at theaudience to develop the ideas?
Yeah, I guess we are, becausewe always want to think about
what keeps them up at night,what are their fears, what are
their dreams, what are theirgoals, what are their desires.
That's part of that thoughtprocess, of what are they
thinking about that we're nottalking about.
John Newtson (09:23):
Yeah.
Brian York (09:24):
Yeah.
John Newtson (09:25):
I think it was Richard Stanton Jones who had
the great avatar in mind of theperfect fit and customer is the
millionaire pig farmer.
It's like blue collarentrepreneurial folks who, yeah,
and.
Brian York (09:40):
Well, it's funny, but I'm sure you talked to some
of the folks back in the daythat were with Palm Beach Letter
and they were running BillBonner's letter at the time and
their their winning ad.
The image for it was just himas a farmer in front of a bunch
of cattle and that was basicallythe headline was something like
millionaire farmer, blah, blah,blah.
John Newtson (10:02):
Yeah, it works yeah, it works, it does.
And you know, it's interestingbecause I thought about this
when I um came across this videoof um mark andreessen talking
about their when they starteda16 and how, even as a vc fund,
what they did in the beginningwas they targeted a niche
audience, they targeted otherfounders.
(10:23):
They didn't raise from otherfunds.
They specifically went tofounders and said, hey, um,
here's, here's why we thinkyou're a better investor than
other people.
And by doing that they theyestablished like a bunch of
things that were very specificto their business.
But, um, it was such aninteresting, I think, idea to me
(10:47):
because here we have thelargest vc fund in the world by
far and he started with a veryniche audience and that same
marketing concept seemed to work, yeah, but then what makes it
even more interesting to me isthat the growth of that company
comes because they invested somuch in niche ideas, yeah, and
so there's this tension betweenthese two things that I think is
important to explore to acertain degree.
Brian York (11:06):
Yeah, I agree completely.
John Newtson (11:09):
And when you think about the state of FinPub, then
how do you see things right now?
We've had what was this massivepullback?
There was industry headwind andcompany headwinds for the last
five years, basically since, I'dsay, right after the crypto
(11:30):
boom.
We had the crypto parabolicmove.
The first one got pretty muchall you guys off of Google and
Facebook for a couple of years.
We've had cases throughout theindustry.
Brian York (11:41):
You know what day it was, John, it was April 1st
2018.
John Newtson (12:07):
Google kicked us off April Fool's Day.
What a day.
Um, how are you guys seeing,you know the industry at this
point?
How do you see any kind of themarket and the state of things?
Brian York (12:16):
Yeah, Um, I don't think it's going to go back to
what it was, nor should it Umand again, that kind of ties
into what I said before, where,if we look at that bull run of,
you know, 10, 11, 12 years whereanything we put out there sold,
I'm not sure we brought in theright customer.
To your earlier question, and Ithink we should shrink that a
(12:36):
little bit.
I think everyone shouldintentionally shrink that a
little bit, just for long-termsustainability is bringing in
the right customer, serving thatcustomer well, and I think
there are two big points here.
Bringing in the right customer,I think, involves something
that we did not have to face inthat bull run and that is kind
of the four-letter actuallyfive-letter word of direct
(12:58):
response, which is brand.
I don't think we're never goingto sell by brand and I'm going
to say that again just soeveryone's very clear.
We are not brand marketers, weare not selling via brand.
But the brand supports what weare selling.
It supports the long salesletter.
And what do I mean by that?
It's really do we know who weare?
Do we know what we're selling?
(13:18):
And from the outside, lookingin, does the customer see that
same exact thing that we are.
Because if there's a differencethere, if there's a conflict
there, then it makes it very,very hard to sell in today's
environment.
Because what's the first thingsomeone does when they see a
sales letter?
They go off and search for moreinformation about you.
You know they've got to findthings that are aligned and
(13:44):
cohesive with the message thatwas in that sales letter.
And then the other side of itin terms of I forgot the other
side of it.
Now, what was I talking aboutthere, John?
Bringing in the right, oh, andscaling it.
Scaling it so again, justmaking sure that that customer
comes in on an idea, on an offer, on a product where we are
giving them 100% of what wepromised, 125% of what we
(14:08):
promised, and just customerservice out the wazoo.
It's maintaining thoserelationships.
Keeping those customers becomesever more important.
And again, I think that'ssomething a mistake that was
made in FinPub during that bullrun was it was just so damn easy
to get customers.
We didn't think enough aboutretention, we didn't think
(14:29):
enough about renewals, we didn'tthink about that long-term
relationship.
We just kept churning going up.
And when I say we, I mean theglobal we, not just Agora.
John Newtson (14:38):
We just kept going after people hand over fist,
but I think now it's ever moreimportant to give them 125 to
make sure that they stick aroundand that you create a lifelong
customer with as many people asyou possibly can yeah, and I
always think of like, especiallywhen I think of like the kind
of the classic, kind of agoraletters and and for me some of
(15:00):
the classics, of course, were, Imean the daily reckoning with
bill bonner and everything heput out and some of that Like
there is absolutely like arelationship that's built with
the person Right.
So you have like the fact thatthey had an ad for him.
That's a farmer, both connectsto the customer and talks a lot
(15:21):
about who he is and his ideasand kind of he's great because
he has such who he is and hisideas and kind of he has he's
he's great Cause he has such anamazing voice and his ideas are
very distinct.
I think in in in pretty muchfinancial media.
But that issue of likeuniqueness comes down to like in
having great ideas.
(15:41):
I mean it comes down to likehaving really great editorial
and editors who are thinking andso like.
Finding those people seems tobe like a harder thing.
Brian York (15:53):
A lot of people have mainstream ideas.
John Newtson (15:54):
There's a lot of people that have good ideas but
they're not like.
They're just not thatinteresting.
People are to make theminteresting or they resist being
made interesting.
So how do you like?
How do you like?
How do you think about thatpiece?
It's like the editor and therelationship that the editor has
to build um with the customerthrough the copy and through the
editorial and through the kindof business I mean that that's
(16:17):
the business we're in isrelationship.
Brian York (16:19):
You know, revenue is a byproduct of that.
We've got to maintain, we'vegot to build and maintain that
relationship.
Uh, you know, we always talkabout it, like in the dating
analogy.
Like you know, you're you'rebasically asking somebody out on
a date and what are the stepsyou're going to go through?
So that's really it.
I mean, I would think the onlyflaw to that dating analogy is
that that you can and shouldsell somewhat aggressively
(16:43):
upfront, but you should sellthem on the thing that they came
in, on the idea that they camein on.
And if they don't buy rightaway, that's fine, that's fine.
Let's build that relationship,let's talk to them, let's think
about them.
If we look at lifetime value,so if we look at any given
business and we look at someonethat's acquired as a lead versus
someone that's acquired as adirect to paid acquisition over
(17:05):
a span of a year, the the leadacquired acquisition we call it
a two-step acquisition is alwaysgoing to be worth more.
The lifetime value of thosepeople built on the relationship
is always worth more than thedirect to paid acquisition.
John Newtson (17:17):
Wow, really.
Brian York (17:18):
Yeah, yes.
John Newtson (17:19):
That's amazing, so it costs more right.
Brian York (17:22):
Investing in those good people and those good
editors, that costs more Sendingout those emails, that costs
more thought um he was a, youknow.
John Newtson (17:29):
Maybe there was a little section about them, but
he had very little to do withthe promo even in terms of what,
the how it was presented onsome of those maybe it was.
(17:51):
And then the consequence thenof that is that you, you, you
haven't really built it up front, you haven't built that
relationship up front.
You haven't, yeah, really likesold them on this person and how
he sees the world.
Brian York (18:05):
Yeah, they got far too sold on the greed than the
person behind the ideas.
You know, yeah.
John Newtson (18:11):
Yeah, and so I always thought that like, and
you can't make every package aguru package, but the guru
package to me was always like ifa customer buys on that, that
guy, I mean he's in because he'sin for this person Exactly, and
so almost all front end shouldhave, like I don't know, a guru
package element.
Brian York (18:32):
Yeah, well, it's funny, the Oxford Club and I
don't know if they still runthis, I need to check but they
used to have something calledthe club package or the tour
package, and it was literally,if you can imagine because
they're in this old brownstonemansion down the street, that
way and if you can imagine justbeing taken on a tour through
(18:52):
there and these are the peoplethat you're going to meet.
This is the investment director,this is the the chairman.
Uh, you know, this is thelovely club room that you can
sit down in and have a cocktailwith your other members.
And it was all about the beliefsystem of the Oxford Club and
that the scale wasn't high.
But man, those people thatbought on that they stuck, they
stuck around and they spent alot of money.
So I think you go from thatlike a belief system package and
(19:14):
then maybe next step up is thatguru package and then you get
into like that, that system orjust that pure greed package is
the one that people don't reallycare.
Who is telling me this?
They're just sold on that ideayeah, yeah and it's, it's.
John Newtson (19:28):
I don't know if you guys have found this.
I I've seen it, but I'm not,I'm not.
It's been a while since I'vebeen hiring copywriters or
writing directly, so I thoughtthat a lot of what I saw when I
would talk to writers or see thepromos going out was there's a
younger generation that justthey kind of didn't know how to
write those packages anymoreyeah because they just it was
like, oh well, I just put, put10 000 behind everything, yeah,
(19:52):
and that's kind of the promothat I'm gonna write, yeah, and
so it was hard to to find peoplewho could then make that
transition now to like, hey, youcan't quite do that anymore.
The FTC says, don't do that.
Which, by the way, do you thinkthat the how much Backup is
where it's hard to.
(20:13):
No one wants to talk about thisstuff too publicly, but I was
going to say, like, how much doyou think that the FTC kind of
coming in and saying, hey, likewe're, we're changing kind of
the rules, that that that youknow where the line is, we're
going to get really aggressiveabout this and so you have to be
much more conservative withyour copy.
How much do you think like thatimpacted kind of this last
period where, where sales weredown?
(20:33):
Do you think that was a largeconsequence of that?
Do you think that was?
do you think that just fueledsomething else, the market kind
of shifting.
Do you think like yeah, that'sthat's.
Brian York (20:44):
That's an interesting question.
I think it it added to it, butI don't think it was the primary
reason and mainly on the backend, I think it's a good thing.
I think what the FTC did and Ithink that's been said here in
this space is that they thesewere rules that needed to be set
down to clean up the space alittle bit, clean up the space a
(21:05):
lot.
Frankly, we as a company, thestakeholders in the company, sat
down and they said we're evengoing to go above and beyond
what the FTC asks.
They set in place their ownseries of rules that look for
honesty, authenticity andtransparency in everything we do
.
Google has a similar beliefsystem when it comes to
(21:26):
evaluating their own page.
So I think it's important, andif a fraction of sales was lost
because of that, then itprobably should have been lost.
I'm sure everyone's going tocall me after this or email me
and say what the hell are youtalking about, brian?
But again, I think it gets backto these were probably not the
(21:47):
right people, and if we wereable to segment those people off
that came in only because wewere super aggressive and super
hyperbolic, we'll probably findthat there's not a lot of
lifetime value, but on the flipside the refund rate is probably
enormous on those type ofpeople.
John Newtson (22:04):
Yeah yeah, not every front-end dollar is equal.
Yeah yeah, and you know, withthat kind of idea of shrinking a
little bit, you know, I had agood conversation with Mike
Pizzo the other day.
Brian York (22:18):
Okay, yeah.
John Newtson (22:19):
But you know and he was saying that him and him
and joe had uh, joe schrieferhad had many times had this
conversation that maybe theright size of a publishing brand
is maybe 40, 50 million, ratherthan like pushing them to one,
two, 300 in their case at onepoint.
Brian York (22:36):
Do you think that that sounds about right, like
there's a there's kind of anatural size to to a brand,
especially since it's fringeideas, or yeah, I think a brand
with fringe well maybe not evenuse the word brand I think a
business with fringe ideas needsto stay small and nimble and I
think it gets very difficultwhen you're over that 50 million
size.
So I I definitely agree withjoe and mike when it comes to
(22:59):
that.
John Newtson (22:59):
Yeah, yeah, so that seems to be, um, you know,
I haven't found a lot of peoplewho've pushed up towards a
hundred million, yeah, who werehappy with the business they had
yeah, at that point.
Yeah, it seems like most peoplewere like yeah, this I wish, I
wish I'd known exactly yeah, no,I, I completely agree well and
(23:19):
know.
With that, when I look back onAgora's history because I mean
Agora, you guys, you guysbasically have been, you've
defined the industry in so manyways right Over the last 20, 25,
30 years and one of the thingsthat I always admired about the
way that the Agora grew is ithad kind of an ecosystem
approach to businesses where youhad talented people.
(23:43):
Someone had a really good idea.
They wanted to try and launch apub.
They'd get the chance to, andif it worked, it worked, and if
it didn't, the guy got hischance and maybe there was some
money was recouped, maybe somemoney was lost.
You don't lose the talent.
They go back into another group, but because of that you were
able to grow like this ecosystemof you know it's high dozens of
(24:05):
companies, yeah, like um, andso if, if it's a smaller overall
publishing or business unit, um, it would seem that like the
plan going forward might be tokind of grow out new small pubs
again or franchises.
Is that part of the plan?
Because I know there's a lot ofconversation, just as in the
(24:26):
industry, about Agora's plans tomaybe not be as big as they
were as you guys were before andin general, and so what does
that look like for you guys?
Brian York (24:35):
Are you thinking about like yeah, I mean I can't
comment on specific plans goingforward, but I would say
everybody always wants to grow.
We just want to grow the rightway.
And I think to your point.
If we look back decades ago,gosh, I started with Oxford in
2000.
So it's 24 years now and Oxfordwas a place where Money.
(24:58):
Map Press came out of Oxford,stansberry Research came out of
Oxford.
Stansberry is now MarketWise.
Of course, wall Street Daily,which ended up becoming part of
Agora Financial I'm sure I'mmissing a few Sovereign Society,
which ultimately became Banyan.
So it was a breathing ground.
It was an incubator for so manydifferent new ideas.
(25:20):
And if you look at them now,the Oxford Group has the core
Oxford and then they've gotManward Press and they've got
Monument Traders Alliance.
And Monument Traders Allianceis, I'd say, a very different
idea and execution of the idea.
It's that live trading room.
It's not your traditionalOxford concept of investing, but
it still works.
John Newtson (25:40):
There's a lot of crossover in between the files
it's so interesting to thinkthat all that came out of oxford
, because oxford, yeah, um Iremember I don't know, maybe it
was the 2005, the agoramarketing conference that um, uh
, put out some cds.
I remember the conference waslike a 25 000 conference, um way
back I think it was a fivesomewhere in that period of time
(26:03):
, um, and I remember there wasan uh you know like porter was
there and he was like there isno marketing model, we're all
doing different things.
Um, the oxford group was a smallgroup of I think there was
maybe four or five marketerstotal, but they were crushing it
in pay-per-click um but like tosee all those different groups
coming out of that group andthen at the in the real boom
(26:25):
here you can say that a lot ofthe groups that came out of them
for at least a period of timewere larger than them yeah what
do you think is so unique aboutlike oxford, that like it's the
one that's stable?
it seemed like it was stable ofthe businesses.
Right yeah, what do you thinkis unique about it?
Is there a specific culture?
(26:45):
Is it something about thatbelief system?
Like, what do you think that is?
Brian York (26:49):
Yeah, I think part of it was culture.
I think part of it was thestability for sure.
I think part of it is thatthey're typically the most
valuable customers.
That might vary now, buthistorically it was the highest
LTV of any of our customers.
You had a fairly wide range.
You had people as young as50-something upwards from there.
So you had varying investmentstyles too.
(27:13):
But I think also you hadinformation junkies there.
You had people that were reallysold on reading and
understanding the ideas.
And that's where, in the earlydays, when you had Porter Porter
, who's just a master of ideascoming up with ideas and
conveying those ideas to people,I think that that's that was
(27:36):
one thing for sure that wouldmake him successful from the
start.
Money Map Press again a globalinvesting idea.
So there we go again.
We're going back to the idea.
It's the big idea.
Whatever big idea there was atthat time, that's what grabbed
people.
That's why they were successful.
And you know, really it was astyle, a management style back
(27:57):
then, which very much welcomedthat to your point.
John Newtson (28:01):
Nice, nice.
And then when we talk about theideas, then there's a
difference between a franchiseidea, like a business unit idea,
and a promo idea.
What do you think is when itcomes to having that kind of
global idea for the businessunit?
What are the edges of that?
How does that have to look tobe kind of worthwhile?
(28:22):
Just give me a stumper there,john.
Small idea questions at you theedges of the franchise idea.
Brian York (28:39):
I'd have to think about that, john.
I'd say, first and foremost,have a franchise idea.
I mean, I remember one timeyears ago I was asking two
businesses overseas, twobusinesses in the same location
and two different publishers andI said all I need really is
your elevator pitch.
you know, because that we wereworking on their advertising at
the time and I said all your adsare basically going to work off
(29:01):
of the core pillars of yourbusiness and those core pillars
are built around your idea, yourelevator pitch, your franchise
idea, and one gave it to mewithin 10 minutes that it was
fantastic, and the other one ittook two months for me to coax
out of him and it was horrible.
So you know that's, that's justbad if you don't know what
you're selling.
So what are the edges to that?
(29:22):
I don't know the answer to that.
John Newtson (29:23):
I don't know the answer to that?
Maybe it's things.
What would be some goodexamples of like hey, that's a
really great franchise, that youunderstood what they were doing
.
Brian York (29:32):
Yeah, well, if we look at international living,
which is pseudo-financial, butthe first of Agora's, it's
retiring overseas for less as anAmerican you know which at the
time was a very fringe idea.
I think you know one of theboundaries I guess based on that
(29:52):
would be it needs to be afringe idea.
Now that that idea is not sofringe and they're having to
explore kind of subsets of thatidea, so yeah, it's got to be
something that's fringe yeah,and that's a very I mean, that's
that that's been running forsince the 70s, right?
John Newtson (30:08):
I mean?
Uh, 1978 or 79 was when thatlaunched, I believe yeah wow,
that's an amazingly stable andlong life for an info marketing,
info publishing business,that's yeah that's so like the
fringe ideas, um, and I thinkthat's something that, like you
know, in the trading side of theworld people sometimes lose is
(30:31):
they're so focused on.
I have this trading system, yeah, and so there isn't really an
idea other than, like, maybethere's momentum trading, maybe
there's you, you know, but thoseideas are.
Some of them can be fringe, buta lot of times they're they're
relatively well known, and thenyou don't have a lot of new
things to say about it, and thatmakes it difficult to have to
(30:51):
run this kind of a marketingmodel in particular, I think.
Brian York (30:53):
Well then, I think it goes back to the editor.
The onus is on the editor tobuild a fantastic, freaking
relationship and maintain thatrelationship, because if someone
can get those ideas anywhere,if someone can get that
information anywhere, they wantto go to the person that they
like to get it and that theytrust.
It's really.
It's trust.
There is what you need to build, yeah.
John Newtson (31:13):
Yeah, yeah, and that's where you know I remember
.
I forget who it was, but itmight have been something Brian
Hunt wrote, or I forget who, butsomething about like on the
trust side, like you got to ownyour mistakes.
So when you're wrong, I waswrong when you're one, when we
won.
Brian York (31:32):
Customers will absolutely forgive you for being
wrong about something.
What they will not forgive youfor is sloppy research or poorly
researched ideas.
Yeah, that that they.
They will go on to someone else.
John Newtson (31:43):
Yeah, I think that's the thing.
There's lots of someone else'sthese days, yeah.
Brian York (31:48):
Yeah.
John Newtson (31:52):
What else is on your mind these days about the
industry where it's going, whereit's not going, that it should?
In your spot, you see marketingfrom so many different business
units too.
How do you okay, we'reshrinking, but what's the,
what's the path forward?
Do you think for pubs at thispoint, or what else is on like a
(32:15):
major thing, that we should bethinking about?
That?
Maybe we're not.
Brian York (32:18):
Yeah, I think for me it's really keeping my eyes on
on connecting the dots.
It's the omni-channelrelationship, uh, because our
readers are are to the point.
You know, it's not my parentsanymore.
My parents are 81.
They're beyond or slightlybeyond our demographic.
It's someone who isn't mucholder than me now that I'm
(32:39):
selling to.
It's someone who's very savvy.
It's someone who isn't justgoing to a website for
information.
They're going everywhere.
They expect to find meeverywhere.
So with that becomes or comesthat point that I mentioned
earlier and that's alignment.
It's how do I look versus whatdo I perceive myself to be, but
also making sure that I'm thereand I'm serving my customer,
(33:00):
serving both in acquiring andfulfilling everywhere I possibly
can, where I know that they'regoing to be, and then connecting
those dots.
So connecting those dots in thedata gives us such valuable
information about who ourcustomer is and what they're
doing and when they're primedfor another service and when
they're primed to renew.
So that dot connecting issomething that is difficult and
(33:26):
is something that we're workingon.
John Newtson (33:27):
Yeah, we're working on.
Yeah, so then omni channel kindof implies a little bit that
it's you know we think of it asfin pub, it's publishing, but
really like you're a mediacompany at this point, and that
means you have to be on whateverchannels we think that the
customer happens to be on to acertain extent right, and so do
(33:49):
you think that that is kind ofone of the things that's going
to grow then?
is you know kind of that growingoctopus of media channels that
you're pushing some form ofcontent out in some way in order
to lead them back to kind ofthe central entity?
But then that means there's alot more production that needs
to happen.
Brian York (34:07):
I think the first part is true.
I think that's a necessity interms of the production.
That's what we can't let happen.
So we need to become veryintelligent with something that
we've done very well, thateveryone in FinPub has done very
well, and that is slicing anddicing our content to repurpose
and reuse it in many differentways.
And that's the project, that'sthe exercise right now.
John Newtson (34:27):
Yeah, so AI couldn't come at a better time.
Then yeah, exactly yeah, sothat's, ai couldn't come at a
better time, then yeah exactly.
Brian York (34:32):
Yeah, now, ai is fantastic for that.
But yeah, I mean, I think Ithink some of those fringe
networks are a little bit under,under utilized right now.
You know, I look at TikTok,which I was raving about three
to four years ago to people toyou know, get your ads on TikTok
.
Get your ads on TikTok, becausepeople my age were on TikTok
(34:52):
and they were there becausetheir kids are on there.
You know, if your kids are on anetwork, get on there because
there's value there.
You know that there are otherold dudes there with money that
are going to invest becausethey're watching their kids.
So how could we stand out?
You know, we stand out like asore thumb on TikTok with an ad
at the the time.
Now there are financial ads allover the place, but at the time
to see a financial ad, whywouldn't a 50 year old person
(35:15):
click on that?
John Newtson (35:16):
of course they would right yeah, yeah, yeah, do
you see also like, do you thinkI mean I don't know if you guys
, I think you guys still do atleast on the back end, direct
mail?
Um, you know, I've seen andtalked to some people who were
like you know, I mean, thebiggest problem with mail these
days is the list universesaren't there, but there's also
no competition and so there isat least on the backend, pretty
(35:38):
good opportunity just sendingmail physically.
Brian York (35:42):
Yeah, you would think so.
I honestly don't know enoughabout direct mail.
I started right as direct mailwas fading.
I know that we still do it.
I think maybe it's reserved forour house file, uh, or for ad
inserts that would go with anissue, uh, but I'm not entirely
certain.
But I agree, you know there'sno one else out there, so why
(36:02):
wouldn't you do it?
I think market wise still doesan extensive amount yeah, you
know, it seems to be it's.
John Newtson (36:09):
It's an interesting thing because, um,
yeah, you know, it seems to be,it's it's it's an interesting
thing because, um, that used tobe the big problem is, you know,
I, I, I was raised in ahousehold of a multi-buyer of
all the bottom other stuff andso, like the magalogs would come
all the time and it was justlike there was so much of it
that's how you got into this.
Brian York (36:24):
Huh, it's just your child just growing up reading
that stuff.
John Newtson (36:27):
Yeah, yeah and then I was so proud the first
time I wrote one of those typesof packages, because I was like
mom, you understand this yeah,yeah, exactly, exactly um that's
funny yeah.
So the I don't know like the,the um.
One of the things that sparkedthe thought to me, um, besides
hearing people talking about itwas I had a a friend of mine
(36:49):
works for a marketing datacompany that they work with like
a lot of e-com brands, and hewas saying that a lot of the
Warby Parkers of the world andother things.
They start on Facebookmarketing and they get up to
about 50 million in sales withtheir digital and then at a
certain point they realize thattheir cost to acquire starts to
(37:11):
be so high that it's cheaper togo to physical retail and so
they go offline and that's howthey get their much more
expansive growth.
And it was such an interestingdynamic for me.
You build your brand online,you reach a point where the cost
to acquire gets too high andthen it becomes cheaper to go
offline.
You know, online you reach apoint where the cost to acquire
(37:32):
gets too high and then itbecomes cheaper to go offline.
And then I remember in the maillike and this is not inflation
adjusted, but it was, you know,130 to $150 to acquire a
customer.
And it's like well, what do wepay now?
130 to $300 to acquire acustomer.
You know, it's like it's notthat different, and so it just
stands out to me as one of thoselike some niche niche business
(37:53):
maybe, um, for some people backend for sure yeah, yeah, no,
absolutely, and I think also uhin the mail is is uh, new member
welcome experience.
Brian York (38:06):
You know, I I remember, uh, it was very
recently I was on on x and uh,porter had retweeted.
I don't know if you say on Xand Porter had retweeted, I
don't know if you say re-Xed orretweeted someone from someone,
a new subscriber that gotsomething in the mail and it was
a really well done welcomepackage and you know, talk about
creating brand evangelists andraving fans.
I mean that dude just put it onTwitter, on X.
(38:26):
This is what I got.
It's at Porter and Company,right there.
And gosh, I remember there wasa group it was money map when
they did national institute forcannabis investors and they had
a facebook group going and allthese people were doing unboxing
of their welcome package andeveryone was like when do I get
it?
John Newtson (38:43):
I?
Brian York (38:43):
I, you know, I just joined, I haven't gotten mine
yet, so you can't buy that sortof excitement.
Yeah, yeah, that's that that's.
John Newtson (38:50):
That's.
That's awesome.
Yeah, you know, when I think,like you know, nikki, the
national institute of cannabisinvestors, that was a very niche
idea.
It was kind of mainstreamstoryline, but still it was a.
It was an investing niche.
I think back to like what arethe big front end ideas that
(39:11):
we've had and they have been?
They just like there was.
I mean crypto, cannabis, 5g,right on the tech side, the
bricks I always go back to likethe early, like 2000s, it was
all very.
Brian York (39:26):
China.
John Newtson (39:28):
So some of these stories, like they're hitting
the mainstream, but you'retrying to navigate, like here's
what the no one's talking aboutinside that, yeah, right.
So that seems to me to be likethere's this dynamic, too, of
you have to find the fringe ideabecause there are people who
are talking about Bitcoin in2012, or right, very fringe at
(39:51):
that time, but you weren'tgetting the attention in sales
because of it, but it gave youthe credibility for later too,
um and then, and so I think thatthere's also that tension.
I don't and just curious, ifyou think that this is accurate
that you might have to channelthe attention from a mainstream
(40:13):
idea or something that happensto be mainstreaming in terms of
the media.
Yeah, focus it on like, well,this is the story that's not
being told.
Yeah, everyone's missing yeah,yeah.
Brian York (40:24):
You need that level of interest at the top, and that
interest is helping you driveit into something else.
So it's here is the hiddenaspect of this that you didn't
realize, and what's what no oneis talking about in the news
right now.
John Newtson (40:36):
Yeah, but we know right, yeah, so it's like the,
the prediction it's.
It's like you're not reallypredicting.
I mean, you are, but that's nothow it feels the customer.
It's like you're illuminatinghidden corners and hidden ideas
and things that are not, andthat for me, that means that
(40:57):
you're not just your editor, butyour whole copy team.
You have to be reallyinterested in the market, and
that, I think, is another thingthat it was easy to get away
with not being interested in themarket when everything was
selling so easy, right, yeah, Isee your point.
Brian York (41:12):
Yeah, no, absolutely .
And also the copywriters coulddrive the idea more than the
editor, where really it shouldbe the editor driving the idea,
with the copywriter latchingonto that and then expanding on
that idea, or at least a 50-50relationship.
But it should never be aposition where the editor or the
I'm sorry, the copywriter isjust pushing out this idea that
(41:32):
they know is going to sell.
It's allowed to get out therein the wild and then the editor
can't necessarily support itwith how they're writing and how
they're talking and whatthey're investing in.
John Newtson (41:41):
Yeah, yeah, that's .
It's so funny you say that,cause I hear.
I remember in my head now I'mthinking of all these
conversations I had with peoplewho were like this copywriter
was trying to get me to do this,yeah, or I had to do this
because the publisher then toldme to do it anyway.
Brian York (41:53):
Yeah.
John Newtson (41:53):
Because they thought it was a good sales idea
, but they hated it.
Brian York (41:56):
Yeah.
John Newtson (41:56):
And it seemed to me that some of those editors
that became kind of the kind ofgrievance that drove them to
leave those publishers.
Yeah, that like feeling that,like I'm on the hook for this
idiot's idea.
Brian York (42:11):
Yeah that.
John Newtson (42:11):
I'm on the hook for this idiot's idea, and I'm
the one that's going to berecommending.
Brian York (42:13):
Well, and when you don't have?
That communication I meanreally the perfect triangle of
communication is your editor,your copywriter and your
marketer, that they all need tobe talking and know and live and
breathe what each other isdoing.
That's what helps get goodideas out the door.
That's what helps to creategood customers.
John Newtson (42:31):
Yeah, yeah.
And that what helps get goodideas out the door.
That's what helps helps tocreate good customers.
Yeah, yeah, and that that seemsto also be part of the reason
that the um, the freelancecopywriter kind of went.
That didn't go away.
But, um, everyone favors teamscopywriters were on teams, that
that you're able to keep thosekind of close relationships,
that close communication.
Brian York (42:47):
Yeah, uh, just for that reason yeah, no, I agree, I
, I agree.
I mean, in the best casescenario, the copywriter really
becomes entrenched with theeditor and is talking to them
nonstop during that copycreation.
Yeah, yeah.
John Newtson (43:02):
Yeah, no, it's, I don't know.
I think that, like to yourpoint before, like some of the
things that happened, like thepullback, was good for the
business in a lot of ways, justbecause it's made us stop and
think about the business, likewhat are we doing that matters,
what are we doing that maybeisn't sustainable and now things
(43:22):
are going?
I mean, and why are?
Brian York (43:23):
we doing this Right.
Yeah.
John Newtson (43:26):
Yeah, and I'm hearing pretty much from most
people that they're on theupswing pretty, pretty handily
so you're seeing that too likeyeah, yeah, I think, uh, yeah, I
don't know what, uh, whatanalogy to use.
Brian York (43:43):
I guess we've stopped bailing out the boat,
you know, now we're making surewe don't have any more leaks in
there, but uh, yeah, it's, it's,uh, we're getting there yeah
yeah, I think everyone is.
Yeah, I think I think peopleare seeing some lights um,
internationally.
I think it's it's the same.
We had a little bit of adelayed effect in some markets
internationally.
That might still be hanging on,but uh, I'd say the same thing
(44:07):
things are changing.
John Newtson (44:08):
Yeah, yeah yeah, and so then now that we're going
into kind of a, an electionyear here, um, do you think
that's normally positive,negative?
Um, I don't know.
Brian York (44:22):
It'll be a fun one, John.
It'll be fun.
Um, there's a lot to talk about.
Let's put it that way.
John Newtson (44:29):
Yeah.
Brian York (44:32):
There's a lot to talk about.
Let's put it that way yeah,there's a lot to talk about.
How much of that gets, you know, quote unquote, censored out
there as we put it out?
I'm not sure.
And again, that applies toeveryone, because even just
talking about certain issuesthat could be considered
political are occasionallygetting censored.
Now.
John Newtson (44:47):
So it's yeah that's actually that's a really
good point, because that is avery I mean, it feels like a
very new phenomenon, the lastalmost since covid yeah, um,
there was some of it in thesense of like the crypto stuff,
but that was because the icoswere, yeah, the scams were were
kind of out of control there,yeah, but other than that it
(45:08):
seems like in covid it was likethis, like sea change that
happened with the media.
but other than that, it seemslike at covid it was like this,
like sea change that happenedwith the media companies, where,
now that it is like you have tobe careful about what ideas,
yep, or even how you enter theidea, because even if it's not
something that they would beupset with if they actually paid
attention to it, you can'tenter it in an interesting or
shocking way, because it can'tbe shocking, it can't be
(45:30):
shocking.
Brian York (45:31):
So you can enter an into an idea.
You can use a lot of the samelanguage of that idea.
You cannot shock people intoreading it.
But if you were to get somebodyinto an idea using an
advertorial, get them to clickoff into something else where
they're on your turf.
That's a different story.
But you know, obviously we knowthat degrades the whole
responsiveness of the entireexperience.
(45:52):
Um, but I'm I'm interested,interested to see how that's
going to change or become evenmore aggressive as we move into
this election cycle, cause Ithink, uh, I think, there will
be another clamp down.
John Newtson (46:04):
Uh, just see how extreme.
Yeah, yeah, no.
I think that's probably a goodprediction yeah, yeah, yeah, no.
Brian York (46:13):
I think that's yeah, I'll be a good prediction.
Now is the time to talk aboutsocial issues before media shuts
you down.
John Newtson (46:19):
Yeah, no, that's definitely.
Uh, that's definitely comingyeah, yeah cool.
Well, is there any other bigthings that you think we should
hit before?
Um, because I really this hasbeen a great conversation, brian
, yeah it's been a lot of fun.
Brian York (46:34):
I've got to get to FMS.
I mean, I don't know how manyyears you've been doing that.
Like I said, it was right on myson's birthday and I've
traveled so much over the yearsand I haven't traveled much
since pre-COVID, but beforeCOVID I was on the road 10 days
out of the month, something likethat.
I've got three kids.
I always make it a point tostay home for their birthdays.
John Newtson (46:54):
I did the same thing pre-COVID.
I was on the road similarly,COVID was such a nice reset.
Then I was like wait, I got tobe very conscientious about my
travel.
I brought my kids down.
Brian York (47:09):
Yeah, I read about that Next time you're in
Baltimore or wherever.
I'll brought my kids down, umthey, yeah, yeah, I read about
that in the event, and it'sgreat, yeah, well, next time
you're in baltimore, uh, orwherever, I'll make it a point
to see you, yeah no, I'll letyou know that's great, no, but I
think you know parting thoughts.
I think it's just.
It's all about um, it's allabout creating that customer
experience.
I think the next 10 years arereally going to be middle of
funnel things.
Uh, it's maximizing lifetimevalue, and we can only do that
(47:31):
through creating strongrelationships that stand the
test of time.
John Newtson (47:36):
Yeah, and that's a fantastic way to leave it,
because that is the kind of theessence of the business.
Brian York (47:41):
Yeah, yeah.
John Newtson (47:43):
Awesome.
Brian York (47:44):
All right.
John Newtson (47:45):
Thank you, john, fantastic, so all right To have
you on again as more thingsdevelop.
Brian York (47:51):
Okay, sounds good.
Thanks, john.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.