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August 26, 2024 • 17 mins

Today we discuss how to run great marketing campaigns with Joshua Ramsey, a veteran Chief Marketing Officer who has run thousands of campaigns. Joshua talks about his fascinating journey and reveals how a core message and strategic placement can captivate your target audience. Learn from his innovative 12-touchpoint strategy with an example that will shock you.

Ever wondered what sets a creative CMO apart from a data-driven one? We break down the critical roles of these two distinct types of Chief Marketing Officers and how they each contribute to successful marketing strategies. By examining KPIs and real-world examples, such as leveraging Google Ads for brick-and-mortar traffic, we highlight the importance of tracking analytics and understanding customer acquisition costs.

We wrap up with a few high impact tips on how to take your campaigns to the next level.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Eden (00:00):
Welcome to today's episode.
Today we are talking about howto run great campaigns and we
have a great guest to help ustalk through this Joshua Ramsey.
Welcome to the show.

Joshua Ramsey (00:11):
Hey Eric, thanks for having me.
Good to be here.

Eric Eden (00:14):
Now Joshua is a chief marketing officer.
He's run many thousands ofcampaigns over the years.
Why don't you take a minute ortwo and share just a little bit
about who you are and what youdo?

Joshua Ramsey (00:27):
In short, I started my career in the late
90s selling media, and theproblem was that I could never
retain a book of businessbecause people would pay for
marketing and they would expectto get a result at a phone call.
When that didn't happen, theybailed out.
So I kept selling media at agreat volume but never retaining
clients until I went to workfor a top 100 ad agency and

(00:50):
realized why marketing wasn'tworking.
So from there in 2004, I wasable to catapult my business
light years ahead of others inidentifying the best way to
position what's called yourstrategic message, which is your
core message, it's your uniqueselling position, it's your
business owner's blood, sweatand tears and how to take that

(01:12):
message and place it tacticallyin the right location so that
your audience will actually beable to consume what great
message you have.
But if you don't have those twoitems nailed down, that's where
things fall apart prettyquickly.

Eric Eden (01:28):
Success is not guaranteed just because you're
running a campaign.
So tell us a story about howyou came in and you ran a great
campaign and you crushed it.
We're ready to be inspired.

Joshua Ramsey (01:40):
I was approached by a company that was a pest
control company and they askedme to figure out a way that they
could sell to a specific avatar.
And basically what they werelooking for is they had
identified a key group ofbusinesses that they knew would
buy what they sell sometime inthe next 12 months.
So I went with them, worked oncompiling this list and

(02:03):
identifying the key players init.
We then put together a good,solid message that was unique to
them.
They were a pesky patrolcompany, so what I came up with
was it's more than a logo, it'sa shield of protection.
So we ran with that for a reallong time and it gained some
real traction in theirmarketplace.
And it gained some realtraction in their marketplace.

(02:26):
On top of that, we created a12-touchpoint campaign that I
affectionately dubbed thefireproof campaign, because it
catches fire and it doesn't burn.
And what we found was, throughthese 12 touchpoints, we had
first reverse, calculated andengineered our model of spend.
What we knew is the retentionof a life of a client, so if we

(02:48):
signed someone, how long theywould stay, and we knew what our
gross profit margin was, allthe way down to the net, as I
call it.
So when we identified thisinformation, we knew what our
budget should be and we set ourbudget that if we closed one
sale it would pay for the entirecampaign.
So we modeled the 12 touchpoints around what the value of

(03:08):
that one sale would be.
So that way we had low risk,high reward.
That was our focus.
Right, because ultimately inmarketing my approach is let's
not spend a lot of money butlet's get the best result.
But then it goes to theanalytics and the data, and if
your message isn't placed wellenough or communicated, it falls
flat.
On a little bit of a tangent asI tell this story, just think

(03:32):
about it in today's age, it'snot what you say, it's not how
you say it, it's what'sperceived by your audience.
So the perception really iseverything.
So what we ran through thiscampaign ultimately had multiple
touch points.
But the big touch point thathit was when the phones lit up

(03:52):
and what happened was we createda box and we put a six inch
fake roach and a six inch fakerat into the box and painted
with our logo and our phonenumber on it.
We had six calls immediatelywhen that box hit.
We had three of them who wereladies.

(04:14):
Two I think of the three werethe wives of the owner.
She opened the box and shescreamed and she called to yell
at us.
All three men, no fake story.
All three men or husbands, ceos, whoever it was in the
background because I didn'tanswer the calls.
I we would hear them laughingin the background because she

(04:35):
opened this box, this huge fakerat and roach falls out.
The he laughing, she's angry.
We get three sales 100% thefirst three, the next three that
come in with the men stilllapping new prospects.
We closed six deals.
I could walk you through the insand outs of it, but the main

(04:57):
thought, the main strategy, isthe timing matters, the
commitment and consistencymatters.
But if your messaging doesn'thave something of value that
someone can relate to, you can'tbecome relatable.
When friends and influencepeople 20 minutes versus 20
years.
If you can't have somethingthat's worth remembering, where

(05:19):
someone will go wow, thatimpacted me this way or that way
and they remember you, itdoesn't work.
And as my final point to thatstory, it was interesting
because five years after that wehad mutually parted ways.
We were still friends.
That's how I'm able to tell youthe back end of this story.

(05:40):
But five years later they wereat a trade show and they're
standing there offering theirservices.
Lady walks by and she looks tothe man with her and nudges him
and says hey, remember I toldyou that fake rat showed up in a
box in my office one day at myold job.
He starts laughing, he goesyeah, that was hilarious.
She goes this is the clamp inme.

(06:02):
They sold in their 43 years tothat date They've been in
business for 43 years.
They sold their largestcontract because of marketing
that was well-placed,well-remembered, impactful,
created something in thatperson's narrative, their
storyline, that it resonatedwith them so much that they got

(06:24):
their biggest sales.
It was a military base thatthey sold in Kansas.
That was their largest salethat they've ever had.
Base that they sold in Kansas,that was their largest sale that
they've ever had.
So sometimes things work reallywell, but the plan of execution
and the agility to change isalways important.

Eric Eden (06:40):
Wow, that's a great story.
I love it.
I think anyone who's ever had amouse or a rat would really
appreciate the humor and thecreativity of that story.
And you have to be a little bitbrave to run a campaign like
that because people will reactvery emotionally.
But that's actually like yousaid, it's all about how things

(07:03):
are received and it clearlyworks driving huge clients,
getting great response.
What's the point of running acampaign if you can't get a
great response right?
So talk to us a little bitabout you've run many campaigns
over the years, thousands ofcampaigns.
Talk to us about what you think, in addition to that story,

(07:24):
makes a great campaign.
How do you think about is thiscampaign going to be great or
not?

Joshua Ramsey (07:30):
I think where a lot of businesses miss right now
is what's called KPIs, your keypoint indicators.
I think that this word needs tobe known to every business
owner and it baffles me at timesthat people don't understand
this KPI rule.
But the KPI simply is.
This is a measuring stick oftrue expectations and what is
the outcome.
And then go back when you havethe data of the outcome and look

(07:52):
back at what the KPI was anddid you succeed or fail?
And it's okay to fail, but youhave to fail.
Forward in understanding why.
Don't hang your head low on it,but understand why.
But everything really is in theanalytics.
A lot of times when people workwith chief marketing officers,
they need to understand thatthere's really, in my opinion,

(08:13):
two types of cheap marketingofficers.
You have what I dub as thebutterfly.
They're the ones that loveimagery, they love vision, they
love color, they love picturesand placement and all of that,
and they're needed in this worlda hundred percent.
So there are many good fits andbusinesses that I can think on
the top of my head, three ofthem that a CMO I've worked with

(08:34):
and recommended to anotherclient because they were just
really good at the butterfly.
Then you have the analytic guyor woman is focused more on the
data, what happens when we dothis?
So when we do that, when wemodify this, when we modify that
, the analytics don't lie in theresult that you get.

(08:57):
I was working with a brick andmortar company, very large.
They had six stores there inthe Miami area and the business
owner asked me hey, I need youto run a campaign and I need to
drive traffic to my store.
I said, no problem, I got it.
So I ran a specific campaignthrough Google ads and when I

(09:32):
ran doing was we were runningGoogle, my Business location the
metric that was not being paidattention to was how many users
were actually clicking ondirections and go, and Google
will tell you if people clickdrive versus location, because
your location is an impression,but going get directions and

(09:52):
start is a different methodimpression, but going get
directions and start is adifferent method.
So when I showed him this metricof the increase, it was
interesting that it seemed to be, in my perspective, a little
dismissed, and it was dismissedsimply because the walking in
the store he didn't have a pieceof paper from their phone to
the store clerk to say I came inthrough this, but we were able

(10:15):
to see the traffic trends of hisoffice, along with the traffic
trends of Google and thedirections, and be able to see
the time and date stamp.
So it's really interesting whenyou start looking at the
analytics.
But you still need that prettyside.
But really, when people arelooking to hire a CMO or a head
of marketing, these are some ofthe things that I encourage

(10:36):
people to look at.
Are those elements, along withthe KPIs, of what are you really
hoping to get out of it?

Eric Eden (10:44):
I think that's great advice being analytical, versus
just designing stuff that looksreally great.
You want to have stuff thatlooks great, but I think the
analytics is weight-wise moreimportant.
For sure, especially in a marketlike we're in right now, where
everything is not frothy, peopleare a little bit less likely to

(11:04):
spend money, money is changinghands a little bit less, so I
think that the unit economics oflooking at marketing as an
investment is much moreimportant.
Some B2B businesses right noware way off track because the
way they were thinking aboutmarketing isn't working as well
right now, because they'respending so much money on the

(11:24):
marketing that it takes years topay it back.
Years to pay it back.
And I think that if you'reanalytical about it, you know
what you can afford to spend toacquire a customer, and I think
there's lots of great wayswithin campaigns to get that
response.
And tracking it back to whereit came from is really important

(11:44):
.
One of the best things that alot of people tell me is you
just have to ask every newcustomer how they got to you,
and I think that's alsosomething that helps people be
really analytical, like you'resuggesting.

Joshua Ramsey (11:59):
Yeah, good information in, good information
out.
You can make good decisions andgood choices when you have that
.
But there is one thing just tonote on that part is sometimes
high tide raises all ships.
I don't like saying that.
It doesn't make me get the warmand fuzzies, because I love, in
a perfect world, to have avacuum where we can track the
attribution 100%.

(12:20):
And no, I spent $5 over hereand $500 over here and $5,000
over there and this is exactlywhat I got from it.
But it doesn't work that way,unfortunately.
But there are ways to get closeto that.
But there are ways to get closeto that and that's finding out
where your customer came from,but realizing that the brand
effect as a whole does influencehow they're, whatever they're

(12:43):
going to tell you, causeultimately you take the data
what they told you, and thenwhat you can see online and you
put that together and you doyour best to just figure it out
from there.
And I think you'd spoke to it.
And if people see my resume,they realize how long I've been
around.
Or if they look at me and theysee a little bit of gray hair,
they realize that I've beenaround a little bit.
But when you have theexperience added with the data,

(13:07):
that's the maturation processthat puts out the good stuff.

Eric Eden (13:11):
That gray hair is called experience Joshua.

Joshua Ramsey (13:13):
Experience and wisdom is what I tell my kids,
but they never listen.

Eric Eden (13:19):
Awesome Final thoughts for founders, business
owners, on how they should thinkabout marketing going forward.

Joshua Ramsey (13:29):
I'm going to give two quick nuggets here.
The first one is I think I'veseen more and more a trend
that's very under leveraged,very easy to fix and I think it
would have significant impact,and that is something called H
tags.
In websites, h tags are typical, what's called heading tags,
and if you'll go back in andread your heading tags and think
to yourself, when you read aheading tag of your website,

(13:52):
does it invoke interest relatedto a keyword that a user would
be searching for?
So I think that's an importantone.
That's just a real quick fixthat people can do.
It will just cost you a littlebit of your time and energy to
read and think through that.
And the other one that I wouldtell people that's trending a
lot more right now isprogrammatic.

(14:12):
Advertising really has caughtfire and if people are not
hearing about it or knowingabout it, you need to change
that.
If you're running a businessyou're looking to do marketing,
programmatic is really the nextnew age generation.
You can run it.
I have campaigns.
I'm running the smallest $500on a small area.
We can hit B2B.
You can pick your avatar.

(14:33):
You can pick your persona.
There's so many fantasticthings when it comes to
programmatic that it is just thenext wave of where we're at and
it's the next.
It's the next, it is the future.
It is here, it is the future.
It's just about how fast peoplewant to jump onto it.

Eric Eden (14:51):
I love it.
Two very nerdy marketingsuggestions and I think that
people should reach out to youand get in touch if they'd like
to get more details on that andother suggestions.
I'm going to link to yourwebsite in the show notes so
people can do that easily.
We really appreciate youjoining us today, sharing your

(15:11):
story and your insights.
We appreciate it.

Joshua Ramsey (15:13):
Yeah, thanks, eric.
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