Transcripts
Hello, welcome
Kevin Dieny:to The Close
Kevin Dieny:The Loop podcast.
Kevin Dieny:We are really excited for our first episode here and to get
Kevin Dieny:into the topic of proven marketing ideas for small businesses.
Kevin Dieny:I am joined by two illustrious guests, the first one I have with me today
Kevin Dieny:is Matt Widmyer, he's the sales development manager at CallSource.
Kevin Dieny:He oversees the ever-growing sales development division here while
Kevin Dieny:working as a liaison between the marketing and sales departments.
Kevin Dieny:Whether this is an individual or a team's operational gaps that he's facing, he'll
Kevin Dieny:roll up his sleeves and he'll go to work.
Kevin Dieny:He is a problem solver, he's a mentor, and he is a coach, all rolled into one.
Kevin Dieny:Matt has a wife and daughter and loves all things outdoors.
Matt Widmyer:Hi everybody.
Kevin Dieny:Matt and I have known each other for a few years, so
Kevin Dieny:he kind of represents our sales side and we the marketing side.
Kevin Dieny:It's always great conversations we get into.
Kevin Dieny:I'm also joined by Ronn Burner.
Kevin Dieny:Ronn Burner is an independent marketing strategy consultant.
Kevin Dieny:He appliances marketing and an MBA with his marketing automation experience to
Kevin Dieny:help organizations design, and execute, and measure their marketing strategies.
Kevin Dieny:When he is not designing programs, Ronn's time is spent as an avid
Kevin Dieny:sports and fitness fanatic and can be spotted with his 11 year old son
Kevin Dieny:at Disneyland on any given weekend.
Ronn Burner:Yeah, that's a true story.
Ronn Burner:Glad, and happy to be here.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah, thanks Ronn.
Kevin Dieny:Ronn also, we've been working with us before and we've known
Kevin Dieny:all known each other for years.
Kevin Dieny:Getting into the topic now.
Kevin Dieny:I wanted to quickly share and set the stage.
Kevin Dieny:So the framework that I've thought about and come up with for this episode
Kevin Dieny:has come back to every business is trying to figure out, "What marketing
Kevin Dieny:idea should I implement next?"
Kevin Dieny:"What should I do to maximize my investment in growing my business and
Kevin Dieny:generating leads, whatever the goal is?"
Kevin Dieny:So rather than come up with like a straight up list of let's call it
Kevin Dieny:like a hundred different ideas that any business should be considering...
Kevin Dieny:I took a different approach to this and looked at this like; every business
Kevin Dieny:should look at its internal resources and their capabilities first to assess.
Kevin Dieny:Okay, what do I have to work with, because I think that quickly narrows down
Kevin Dieny:for you, what let's call them channels or campaigns or anything like that,
Kevin Dieny:that you would be capable of running.
Kevin Dieny:I think the best example is if you don't have any phone numbers, you know,
Kevin Dieny:you're not going to be calling anybody.
Kevin Dieny:So if we gave you a bunch of ideas, like, oh yeah, you should
Kevin Dieny:just pick up the phone and call.
Kevin Dieny:Call your perspective customers or prospects or whatever, then you would be
Kevin Dieny:like, "Wow, that idea is completely moot for me, don't have that capability."
Kevin Dieny:So, there were a few different dimensions on this and I wanted it to go over.
Kevin Dieny:One of them is if you don't have contact information, you don't have a CRM.
Kevin Dieny:You don't have some kind of a way of knowing who your previous clients were.
Kevin Dieny:If you don't, maybe you do have that, but you don't have
Kevin Dieny:it clearly in your database.
Kevin Dieny:You're probably not going to be able to utilize those very much.
Kevin Dieny:Well, let's say you do have 10,000 phone numbers of prospects in your
Kevin Dieny:database, but you don't have any CSRs, any phone handlers, any SDRs like
Kevin Dieny:Matt manages, then you have the data.
Kevin Dieny:You just don't have anyone to use it.
Kevin Dieny:So then you have to think about, am I going to call these people?
Kevin Dieny:Do you really want to spend time calling them?
Kevin Dieny:Or do you want, you know, to have someone who's going to be
Kevin Dieny:doing that dedicated full time?
Kevin Dieny:So I think you look at your business.
Kevin Dieny:I wrote down a couple things I think you could look at, and those
Kevin Dieny:are contact information, like emails, phone, numbers location.
Kevin Dieny:Do you have addresses like direct mail or do you have access to like
Kevin Dieny:an advertisement thing that'll just hit an entire zip code?
Kevin Dieny:Do you have the time and effort?
Kevin Dieny:Yep.
Kevin Dieny:Budget.
Kevin Dieny:You have skilled labor; people who can call for you.
Kevin Dieny:Is there demand?
Kevin Dieny:You have a website?
Kevin Dieny:If you don't have a website, you're probably not gonna be
Kevin Dieny:doing anything digital fully.
Kevin Dieny:We have an idea here.
Kevin Dieny:That's like, "I'll go, go look, work on your SEO or your social
Kevin Dieny:media," and you don't have a website or something like that.
Kevin Dieny:Probably need to do that first.
Kevin Dieny:So anyway, that's the, the basis I wanted to set this up for is every
Kevin Dieny:idea is going to have something that you're required to do.
Kevin Dieny:If the idea requires you to do things that are just outside of your reach,
Kevin Dieny:probably not the best idea for you.
Kevin Dieny:So when we talk about a proven marketing idea think about what you
Kevin Dieny:have and what might suit you best.
Kevin Dieny:So I wanted to jump right into it.
Kevin Dieny:We'll start with Ronn.
Kevin Dieny:Ronn, did you have any marketing ideas you thought of, or you wanted to
Kevin Dieny:bring to the table we could discuss?
Ronn Burner:I think you sort of touched on it initially.
Ronn Burner:You know, that the leads in the database and one thing that I find to
Ronn Burner:be essential, I mean, yes, you need the website, but you want to segment
Ronn Burner:in a way where you're not speaking to the entire group as the same person.
Ronn Burner:So if you can get some sort of level of segmentation or some sort of low
Ronn Burner:level of differentiating them and with different personas, even if you
Ronn Burner:keep it simple and have it smaller.
Ronn Burner:And then you're trying to touch on them in a way that speaks specifically to them.
Ronn Burner:Even if it's the same product you still want them to learn about it in a way
Ronn Burner:that's specific to them in a way that suits them in a way that fits them.
Ronn Burner:It's just really important to build that rapport with your audience.
Ronn Burner:So they feel like that they can trust you and they feel like that they know you.
Ronn Burner:So this, the key element that you really touched on was sustainable and scalable.
Ronn Burner:So first thing I would do, yes, you're right.
Ronn Burner:Is the website is super, super important.
Ronn Burner:Some sort of database management, some sort of controlling the data
Ronn Burner:that you do have, but aside from those two things, I really...
Ronn Burner:I think just mapping out what your plan is, what you intend to do in a
Ronn Burner:way that's sustainable and scalable.
Ronn Burner:And then from there, once you have that basic little infrastructure, even if it's
Ronn Burner:small, once you have that in place, now that's something that you can expand upon.
Ronn Burner:And that's really the way I would approach it from a small business standpoint.
Kevin Dieny:Okay...
Kevin Dieny:so when it comes to segmenting, the most conventional way I can think of, that's
Kevin Dieny:pretty easy to do is if you have a CRM or a database and separate, maybe the
Kevin Dieny:good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff or the whatever you're trying to do
Kevin Dieny:next from the people that you probably, it probably won't be able to do next.
Kevin Dieny:And that, that does kind of require some tagging, some information
Kevin Dieny:baked into that to pull that off.
Kevin Dieny:So I'd say if a business is like, "Oh, well, how do I
Kevin Dieny:get started with segmenting?"
Kevin Dieny:I'd be like, well, you need probably some form of CRM or database, and
Kevin Dieny:second you would need them, people, in there separated in some way.
Kevin Dieny:And the most obvious way to me is customers from not customers, but it
could also be:people in this area or that area, or people who have
could also be:bought this from me or that from me, or I don't know, something like that.
could also be:Right.
could also be:You're pulling them apart that way.
Ronn Burner:Yeah, I think engagement is that's really the
Ronn Burner:besides customer and non-customer.
Ronn Burner:It's engagement, I call it proof of life.
Ronn Burner:Both you gentlemen, we worked together previously and proof of life was
Ronn Burner:always something that I was into as it relates to data hygiene, the database
Ronn Burner:hygiene, if you've reached out via telephone or email numerous times
Ronn Burner:in a period of time and there was no indication whatsoever that there was
Ronn Burner:even somebody on the other end of it.
Ronn Burner:I would certainly put those in a bucket.
Ronn Burner:It doesn't mean ignore them.
Ronn Burner:It just means treat them differently and approach them a little differently.
Ronn Burner:That's...
Ronn Burner:that's one way...
Ronn Burner:Matt?
Matt Widmyer:Yeah.
Matt Widmyer:We all lived in this world for a while.
Matt Widmyer:I think to the point where I started having dreams and sometimes even
Matt Widmyer:nightmares about it of slice and dice everyone in your, a CRM, but some of the
Matt Widmyer:stuff we tried, I mean, we tried industry.
Matt Widmyer:And I think that makes the most sense if you work in
Matt Widmyer:multiple industries, like we do.
Matt Widmyer:The day to day of a dentist versus somebody who pours concrete
Matt Widmyer:versus somebody who is the manager at a lollipop factory is going
Matt Widmyer:to be extremely different, you know, from person to person.
Matt Widmyer:Also, what role do they have within the business?
Matt Widmyer:So the title is also really key.
Matt Widmyer:And then as Kevin alluded to the relationship they have, are they
Matt Widmyer:a customer, did they used to be a customer or are they a prospect?
Matt Widmyer:Are they somebody who we are just like trying to actively pursue and
Matt Widmyer:where are they in the process too?
Matt Widmyer:So all that stuff, you'd have to kind of assess what you have to in
Matt Widmyer:terms of data points is, you know, do you have their phone numbers?
Matt Widmyer:I can't tell you how many times sales managers came to me and
Matt Widmyer:said, "Hey, we should run an email campaign or a phone campaign."
Matt Widmyer:And then there's either no phone numbers, or no email addresses.
Matt Widmyer:And it's like, "Okay, we have to start after we spent all this
Matt Widmyer:time building this big thing out."
Matt Widmyer:And then we have to go back to square one.
Matt Widmyer:So that's always step one is assessing the situation, seeing what
Matt Widmyer:you're actually working with first.
Kevin Dieny:Right.
Kevin Dieny:The next thing I wanted to dive into was a different approach on this.
Kevin Dieny:So let's say we divide the digital idea from a non-digital idea.
Kevin Dieny:So one of the non ones would be, let's say like direct mail, right?
Kevin Dieny:If you do have.
Kevin Dieny:If we're talking non-digital, it's like a spreadsheet of addresses.
Kevin Dieny:If you just have a businesses, can you looking at your billing system?
Kevin Dieny:Everyone who bought from me, I do have an address on maybe they're not in a CRM.
Kevin Dieny:Maybe I'm more of like a brick and mortar type place.
Kevin Dieny:Okay, I'm going to send some direct mail to an entire zip code around my
Kevin Dieny:business, like a restaurant might, might think of doing something like that.
Kevin Dieny:What do I need to send a bunch of mailers around my area?
Kevin Dieny:What's involved in that because when you're talking about a proven marketing
Kevin Dieny:idea, are you looking for an idea that's proven to generate whatever
Kevin Dieny:the goal is, like a customers in your door or business to your site, or just
Kevin Dieny:greater awareness that you exist in the area you just opened up or something.
Kevin Dieny:When it comes to proving it, you also have to set up with it, some form of
Kevin Dieny:how you're going to track this thing.
Kevin Dieny:There are a lot of marketing ideas that don't let that work.
Kevin Dieny:But let's say they're hard to track.
Kevin Dieny:There's some that are maybe won't work so well, but they're easy to track.
Kevin Dieny:They run the gamut right of where they are in their abilities
Kevin Dieny:and where like capabilities of bringing in whatever your goal is.
Kevin Dieny:And then on the other side, how hard and how difficult is this to track?
Kevin Dieny:And if it's like, "Okay, how many people walked in my door of my shop or business?"
Kevin Dieny:Or, "How many people came to us from this specific marketing idea?"
Kevin Dieny:So Matt, what ideas do you have for, let's say tracking some of
Kevin Dieny:these ideas that you think would help, prove that they had some lift?
Matt Widmyer:Yeah.
Matt Widmyer:So obviously the easy one is to ask somebody how they heard about you, right?
Matt Widmyer:And, you know, cross your fingers and hope they tell the truth.
Matt Widmyer:You could also do call tracking.
Matt Widmyer:That's what we do as a company.
Matt Widmyer:You know somebody is calling in, but you can do flyers, you can do coupons....
Matt Widmyer:I mean, there's definitely ways to track and then you also would need a landing
Matt Widmyer:place for that in the CRM as well.
Matt Widmyer:Right?
Matt Widmyer:So in the form of a, some kind of a unique field or unless you're using
Matt Widmyer:like campaigns or, or something like that in your CRM this kind
Matt Widmyer:of way to tie it back together.
Matt Widmyer:Did I answer your question there?
Kevin Dieny:Yeah.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah.
Kevin Dieny:I know there's lots of popular, like trackable phone numbers, QR codes a
Kevin Dieny:website link that has a like UTM parameter shortened so it's not super long, you
Kevin Dieny:could ask someone, there's geo fence.
Kevin Dieny:There's some things that come to mind.
Kevin Dieny:Did we miss anything Ronn that you wanted to add to that?
Ronn Burner:You touched on a lot of them the difficulty is not knowing
Ronn Burner:what a company has at their disposal.
Ronn Burner:Like what resources do they have, because certainly you can really get into the
Ronn Burner:weeds with attribution and tracking and you can get down to where they've clicked.
Ronn Burner:You know, even a couple of places after they've left you.
Ronn Burner:I mean, you can really get into it.
Ronn Burner:But from a variable...
Ronn Burner:basic fundamental level I do think, like you mentioned, it's priority to have a
Ronn Burner:website and it's a priority to have some form of database because without that,
Ronn Burner:there's no way to differentiate one person from the other and one might be super,
Ronn Burner:highly engaged and buy all your content.
Ronn Burner:Somebody might not even respond to you.
Ronn Burner:So you absolutely need some form of sorting of that.
Ronn Burner:Some sort of database I would say for attribution.
Ronn Burner:And if you want to use a link, if it's something linkable, even if
Ronn Burner:it's a mailer or I know Kevin and I, we've talked about Bitly there's
Ronn Burner:different ways to use a PURL.
Ronn Burner:And like Matt said coupons and stuff.
Ronn Burner:If you're in the store sort of business that can offer some sort of promo code or
Ronn Burner:some sort of identifier, the whole point is incentivize, if you want activity or
Ronn Burner:engagement from somebody they most likely need to be incentivized in some way.
Ronn Burner:And that doesn't mean talking about all the features that your product has.
Ronn Burner:It means talking about all the value that you can give them.
Ronn Burner:And when there's value offered that incentivizes some way, or somehow to
Ronn Burner:get them to then do your ask, which is, you know, contact them, fill out
Ronn Burner:the form and the fill out the form can have with a field specifically that
Ronn Burner:they need to punch in a promo code, or you can even have a hidden field,
Ronn Burner:like a lot of you know, automation, instances and stuff have hidden forms.
Ronn Burner:So when that activity, the click, whether it's a mailer or an email will
Ronn Burner:then take them to the page, which has it is creating a query string there.
Ronn Burner:They're filling out the form and now it's populated in hidden data for you.
Ronn Burner:And they've just profiled themselves.
Ronn Burner:You didn't have to do anything.
Ronn Burner:All they did was your action, which was your success.
Ronn Burner:And they profiled themselves by telling you exactly what it is
Ronn Burner:they want or are interested in.
Ronn Burner:That's kind of the perfect world.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah, I was thinking about that because of projects we've
Kevin Dieny:worked on, one of the things that came to mind for me was urgency.
Kevin Dieny:So when it comes to a marketing idea, let's call them longer term,
Kevin Dieny:like an investment in a website.
Kevin Dieny:It's definitely not an investment in just a one-time one go thing, because
Kevin Dieny:so many campaigns can use the website.
Kevin Dieny:It's kind of like a predominant product marketing.
Kevin Dieny:Even if you don't necessarily like your product, isn't like sold on your website.
Kevin Dieny:It's it is sort of your brand presence online.
Kevin Dieny:Not every company has people visit its website.
Kevin Dieny:There's lots of businesses that we've worked with.
Kevin Dieny:And I've worked with over time that the website almost seems like a
Kevin Dieny:necessary evil, but here's the thing....
Kevin Dieny:The inner connectedness of everything, even online to offline does require more
Kevin Dieny:and more that businesses do a few things.
Kevin Dieny:And the starter kit for businesses nowadays seems like it includes a website.
Kevin Dieny:A connected way of putting your website on what's called listing sites.
Kevin Dieny:Google my business is probably the most predominant one, but the
Kevin Dieny:yellow pages used to be the tried and true right back in the day.
Kevin Dieny:Even businesses that probably weren't getting a whole lot of leads from it.
Kevin Dieny:People could source it.
Kevin Dieny:And that's how it got more awareness out there.
Kevin Dieny:So.
Kevin Dieny:I think that if you're looking at what are some of the basics I need for , urgency?
Kevin Dieny:If you want leads this month, then okay.
Kevin Dieny:A website kind of takes a little longer than a month to get going.
Kevin Dieny:So maybe there's something else that you can do, but at what cycle and how
Kevin Dieny:frequent, how immediate is this need that a marketing idea has to solve for, right?
Kevin Dieny:Cause like you can go Google some marketing ideas.
Kevin Dieny:And it'll probably say, "Google my business, social media, get your website
Kevin Dieny:in order, send emails, call people...."
Kevin Dieny:But again, what resources do you have?
Kevin Dieny:It's hard to get those going quickly.
Kevin Dieny:For a small business, every single month that goes by without leads
Kevin Dieny:and you've spent money is terrible.
Kevin Dieny:So what's a fast way that you can, let's say ... get some people through
Kevin Dieny:the door, get some business going.
Kevin Dieny:So how about you, Matt?
Kevin Dieny:Do you have any idea for something that's a fast idea?
Kevin Dieny:Something that you could see the turnaround on within a
Kevin Dieny:months time of launching.
Matt Widmyer:Is this a loaded question?
Ronn Burner:I'm glad you're going first!
Matt Widmyer:No, I mean, that's, that's what, as an SDR manager, that's what
Matt Widmyer:we live and die by on the telephone right now, at least for right now.
Matt Widmyer:That's that's our fallback, right?
Matt Widmyer:So the way I look at it, as if everything else went away the
Matt Widmyer:phone would still be there.
Matt Widmyer:And that's what we kind of need to sustain.
Matt Widmyer:Sure.
Matt Widmyer:You can go and test the waters with other things, but you want to
Matt Widmyer:be able to eventually assess how other things are doing, but you
Matt Widmyer:do those in tandem with the phone.
Matt Widmyer:The phone never goes away because you're introducing those other things.
Matt Widmyer:So if you have an audience of people, the only thing you really need to be able to
use on the phone is:who are you talking to you and B what are you going to say?
use on the phone is:So this is where you really need to get into, you know, knowing
use on the phone is:what your products actually do and why somebody is going to take the
use on the phone is:time to listen to you on the phone.
use on the phone is:Because a lot of the prospects we call.
use on the phone is:We aren't the only ones calling them.
use on the phone is:So you have a good 10 to 15 seconds the whole time, and they're thinking, "Why am
use on the phone is:I going to continue this conversation?"
use on the phone is:If you don't hit the mark, then it's either a callback
use on the phone is:or it's not going to happen.
Kevin Dieny:Okay.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah.
Kevin Dieny:And also there are sites that have make available, phone numbers for purchase.
Kevin Dieny:It's a little different than emailing; emails have a lot more scrutiny.
Kevin Dieny:There is a do not call, so don't, don't mess with that.
Kevin Dieny:You can get in trouble for that, but there are databases and things you can do.
Kevin Dieny:If you're calling, if your customers are businesses, you could just look
Kevin Dieny:up, Google some businesses nearby and find their number, but it's
Kevin Dieny:trying to reach those people it becomes a little, little tougher.
Kevin Dieny:It's going after customers, if you're B to C, right?
Kevin Dieny:Is it worth my time to open up the white pages and call down on a list of people.
Kevin Dieny:But there are curated lists and things you can get, I would say phone numbers
Kevin Dieny:are probably on the safer side.
Kevin Dieny:If you're just calling them cold, I think that's probably
Kevin Dieny:one of the fastest methods.
Kevin Dieny:Like within 10 minutes you could probably call someone, maybe make
Kevin Dieny:a sale or, or at least get someone through the door depending on
Kevin Dieny:what it is you're talking about.
Kevin Dieny:But yeah, that's a good one to jump into if you wanted.
Ronn Burner:Phone is obviously the Quicken and easy.
Ronn Burner:The problem with the phone as everybody knows is I don't answer anything
Ronn Burner:that I don't know that's coming in.
Ronn Burner:And nowadays my phone tells me exactly who's calling whether
Ronn Burner:they want me to know or not.
Ronn Burner:So it's just hard to catch people when they're like, "Oh, I can take this."
Ronn Burner:I would say to your point originally about urgency, first of all, I would devote
Ronn Burner:all my time on getting a website because how do you expect, just ask yourself
Ronn Burner:this, how do I expect people to find us?
Ronn Burner:If you don't have a website, you can't be found.
Ronn Burner:I mean, nobody's scrolling through yellow pages or white pages like that.
Ronn Burner:It's difficult to envision any sort of traction outside of word of
Ronn Burner:mouth or outside of a direct contact with somebody to ever be found.
Ronn Burner:So that ROI on whatever time it takes to slow down your process
Ronn Burner:to get the website up and running and then post things to a blog.
Ronn Burner:Obviously the perfect world is blogs, just so you've become more and more
Ronn Burner:and more searchable, to get into Google ads and all of those types of things.
Ronn Burner:But aside from that the original point was urgency.
Ronn Burner:And I would say if you're lucky enough to have the situation where you can
Ronn Burner:offer, if there's a profit margin or some way to incentivize, and I always
Ronn Burner:use the example of at a Lakers game.
Ronn Burner:So taco bell will give every single American a free taco if the
Ronn Burner:Lakers score 100 points, right?
Ronn Burner:So a taco is 39 cents or whatever it is, but it's brilliant.
Ronn Burner:And the reason it's brilliant is because they're getting you in the
Ronn Burner:door and you're are now spending money.
Ronn Burner:There's no way, very, very few people are going there for
Ronn Burner:that one, single free taco.
Ronn Burner:They're going there and since they got the free taco, they're
Ronn Burner:going to order more things.
Ronn Burner:So same with the stolen base thing.
Ronn Burner:So the idea of giving things away sounds on the surface.
Ronn Burner:Like, no, no, no, no, we can't do that.
Ronn Burner:Well, the idea is you want traffic and you want customers, so it depends on
Ronn Burner:what your product suite looks like, but that is also like some sort of promotion,
Ronn Burner:some sort of campaign that you can run.
Ronn Burner:If you have the ability to email, if you have the ability to do the mail or
Ronn Burner:like we discussed earlier, some sort of promotional campaign to incentivize
Ronn Burner:based on urgency and based on value.
Ronn Burner:Which is, you know, black Friday lives on this sort of a thing.
Ronn Burner:But you can't go broke making a profit.
Ronn Burner:So if you give something away for 10% off, you're still got 90%
Ronn Burner:that you didn't have otherwise.
Kevin Dieny:The offer, the magnet, the thing that whatever
Kevin Dieny:gets them there that's huge too.
Kevin Dieny:If you think about that, because some offers don't fit the medium very well.
Kevin Dieny:For instance, like calling people, just to see if they want 10% off
Kevin Dieny:something that they don't even know, they want may not work out so well.
Kevin Dieny:But if someone's already looking for something like on Google ads or
Kevin Dieny:the drive by a billboard and they're already have something in mind and they
Kevin Dieny:see the 10% or 25% off or whatever.
Kevin Dieny:Then that kind of does get them past a hurdle.
Kevin Dieny:An offer of price is usually trying to combat a price rebuttal, where
Kevin Dieny:someone's like, "This price is too much!"
Kevin Dieny:Your product may not be worth it in their eyes because they
Kevin Dieny:don't quite see the value.
Kevin Dieny:So it lowers that initial cost of them, maybe trying something
Kevin Dieny:totally new, like restaurants.
Kevin Dieny:It's very risky to try a brand new restaurant versus going to one that,
Kevin Dieny:you know, has been open for a while and you've tried for a while and has a legacy.
Kevin Dieny:So reviews help a ton with that.
Kevin Dieny:Right?
Kevin Dieny:Like they can kind of be that, "Okay, I'll trust somebody else's word of mouth."
Kevin Dieny:If you want people in quicker, if you want some urgency and you're
Kevin Dieny:capable of lowering your initial price requirement of coming in or giving some
Kevin Dieny:sort of an incentivized discount or like, "Hey, if you bring your friend
Kevin Dieny:with you, then you get 25%, like instead of 10%" or something, just
Kevin Dieny:to get more people through the door.
Kevin Dieny:Those are a lot of good ideas.
Kevin Dieny:And what you actually craft your message to be of the marketing campaigns.
Kevin Dieny:So that's really good stuff.
Kevin Dieny:Okay...
Kevin Dieny:the last thing is kind of more open for you guys.
Kevin Dieny:So is there anything else that you thought about, or that we haven't
Kevin Dieny:talked about that you wanted to mention?
Kevin Dieny:So I'll start with Ronn on this one.
Kevin Dieny:Is there anything that you thought of before that hasn't been brought
Kevin Dieny:up yet you wanted to jump into?
Ronn Burner:Oh, marketing is such a vast pool.
Ronn Burner:We barely just touched on the very, very basic things.
Ronn Burner:Something that both of you have heard me say often in all the years and meetings
Ronn Burner:we've been in together is "Keep it simple, stupid" and the only reason I say that
Ronn Burner:is building some sort of infrastructure, some sort of foundation that you
Ronn Burner:can build on because the foundation built correctly can always be...
Ronn Burner:growth happens.
Ronn Burner:Growth will happen as you evolve, as your resources come in, as traffic comes
Ronn Burner:in, all of these things will naturally grow and it will grow at a way that's
Ronn Burner:sustainable simply because you put in place the proper foundation to support it.
Ronn Burner:And as you grow.
Ronn Burner:And as it grows you're able to now dive into more of the software that's required.
Ronn Burner:More of the segmenting which is required which is, you know, segmenting
Ronn Burner:is going to be very important to speak to them specifically.
Ronn Burner:I guess the only thing I would add that we haven't really touched on
Ronn Burner:is I think of it as a relationship.
Ronn Burner:So when you're building a rapport with them.
Ronn Burner:They're not your customers, you're not trying to do a bait and switch.
Ronn Burner:You're not trying to do anything other than build a relationship with them.
Ronn Burner:Because back to the website thing, brand reputation is king like a good reputation.
Ronn Burner:It goes or bad reputation is another way better way to look at it.
Ronn Burner:Is, if you start to get a bad reputation it's curtains.
Ronn Burner:So building that relationship and the thing that a relationship
Ronn Burner:building does is it keeps them loyal.
Ronn Burner:And retention is a king, even though marketing, a lot of people don't realize
Ronn Burner:that, but keeping your customers is more important than getting a new one.
Ronn Burner:Retention also does something else, and that is word of mouth.
Ronn Burner:That's free marketing, that's free advertising.
Ronn Burner:And when you can generate a buzz and when people are talking to their friend,
Ronn Burner:like, "You know, what do you know, what I, what I did, this is great.
Ronn Burner:You should check this out."
Ronn Burner:That sort of buzz only comes from your relationship that you've established
Ronn Burner:with them and from your rapport and from being honest enough where they trust you.
Ronn Burner:And when they trust you, that's when they're going to start recommending you.
Ronn Burner:And that's when they're going to keep coming back.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah, I think one of the subtle things you mentioned there I
Kevin Dieny:wanted to highlight was when you get to the point of, let's say you're a
Kevin Dieny:business running one campaign at a time.
Kevin Dieny:So I'm focusing on my website or I'm focusing on SEO or I'm focusing
Kevin Dieny:on ads or I'm sending mailers.
Kevin Dieny:You will see a tremendous lift when you overlap multiple channels
Kevin Dieny:and multiple things over time.
Kevin Dieny:So it's sort of like reinvesting in the campaigns, you may see
Kevin Dieny:this campaign worked better than that one so I want to do this one.
Kevin Dieny:You might not have the budget or the capabilities of doing multiple
Kevin Dieny:things at the same time, but if you do get to that point of having
Kevin Dieny:multiple channels, multiple campaigns overlapping over each other, helping
Kevin Dieny:each other it definitely gets it out there in a compounded, and amped way.
Kevin Dieny:It just helps some channels help others.
Kevin Dieny:So a campaign on its own may not work as well as campaigns lifted by multiple
Kevin Dieny:others, but that does require again, looking at it from what it requires, it
Kevin Dieny:may require more resources and may require something else that you don't have.
Kevin Dieny:So if you're not there yet, You have to pick.
Kevin Dieny:"Which one do I think is going to work best?"
Kevin Dieny:And then, you go with that.
Kevin Dieny:And based on what you have, the ones that will be the cheapest for
Kevin Dieny:you, are based on the ones that you have most of the stuff, right.
Kevin Dieny:It's like, do I have all the ingredients to make this cake or do I have to go
Kevin Dieny:all the way to the store to get it?
Kevin Dieny:Anything you have that you can make work with?
Kevin Dieny:What you have will be cheaper.
Ronn Burner:The other key point, there is all of those channels with the same
Ronn Burner:messaging, which I totally agree with you, you hit the nail on the head there, all of
Ronn Burner:those channels with that same messaging.
Ronn Burner:A, it can be done with one.
Ronn Burner:And then you tinker it for the other channels for social media or
Ronn Burner:whatever, but what do they all do?
Ronn Burner:They're all driving them back to the website that you should have.
Ronn Burner:That's the key.
Kevin Dieny:Matt, is there anything we didn't dive into
Kevin Dieny:that you wanted to touch upon?
Matt Widmyer:Yeah, I think the phones are our bread and butter.
Matt Widmyer:Right.
Matt Widmyer:But it, if it makes sense to do only, only be calling somebody,
Matt Widmyer:you know, it doesnt, right.
Matt Widmyer:It doesn't, it could still probably get by barely on that, but we need
Matt Widmyer:the emails, we need the chats, we need everything else that comes along with it.
Matt Widmyer:Love how, Ronn mentioned also the value of taking care of somebody,
Matt Widmyer:giving them a good experience, right.
Matt Widmyer:They're going to be back and not only are they going to be
Matt Widmyer:back, they're going to be happy.
Matt Widmyer:They're going to be talking about you, reviewing you.
Matt Widmyer:And now they're going to be telling all their friends about you too.
Matt Widmyer:So that's I think where every business should strive to be.
Matt Widmyer:Because it doesn't cost anything.
Matt Widmyer:Right.
Matt Widmyer:It's just you doing what you're supposed to, what you're supposed
Matt Widmyer:to be doing in the first place.
Matt Widmyer:Right?
Matt Widmyer:What you've promised your customers, if you're going to do
Matt Widmyer:before they even did walk through your doors for the first time.
Matt Widmyer:I think that testing is critical.
Matt Widmyer:You have to figure out how long you're going to run a test for.
Matt Widmyer:If you're running something for three months and it's expensive and you don't
Matt Widmyer:even see a light at the end of the tunnel, Pull the plug cut your losses.
Matt Widmyer:And, it's not a loss because you've learned a lesson right now.
Matt Widmyer:Wasn't the time to do that.
Matt Widmyer:Maybe you revisit some other time, but hopefully you have something else
Matt Widmyer:that you're armed with now that you can take into next time you try that.
Matt Widmyer:If you ever bother trying it again.
Matt Widmyer:There's a fine balance and this is where it's really gonna depend
Matt Widmyer:on the capabilities and what the company is actually working
Matt Widmyer:with, the budget, all that stuff.
Matt Widmyer:There's a balance between how hard you're physically working and what
Matt Widmyer:you're actually doing and how much money you're actually spending.
Matt Widmyer:There's a little bit of a correlation there.
Matt Widmyer:Right?
Matt Widmyer:Cause the more you're spending, the less you're actually doing, if we
Matt Widmyer:had no budget at all, I mean, it only cost them a phone bill to pick
Matt Widmyer:up the phone and call somebody.
Matt Widmyer:So that's about it and the cost of a person, if you're paying a person to do
Matt Widmyer:that, but still that's I think that's where, how we can skate by, on just
Matt Widmyer:that channel is because it's usually a little bit more cost-effective.
Matt Widmyer:Now, if we had all the budget in the world...
Matt Widmyer:yeah, sure, let's send everybody, a $1,000 gift card to take a demo.
Matt Widmyer:I don't think our price point justifies that, but it'd be a
Matt Widmyer:really easy way to serve the market.
Matt Widmyer:And then just look at spam if it was that much anyway, but you know, I think
Matt Widmyer:that if you find some kind of a ROI point - what are you hoping to achieve?
Matt Widmyer:So you should think about all this stuff before you go too far down the road,
Matt Widmyer:especially spending money or dedicating a lot of time, on something like this.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah.
Kevin Dieny:Yeah.
Kevin Dieny:So, I'll do a quick summary here.
Kevin Dieny:The things we talked about, the things that stood out to me...
Kevin Dieny:The first one was look at what resources and what things you have to begin with.
Kevin Dieny:What do you have to work with so you know, this is maybe the
Kevin Dieny:marketing ideas I could do.
Kevin Dieny:The ones you have the most stuff for the most resources, the most
Kevin Dieny:database, the most information for the most access to maybe, you
Kevin Dieny:know, a friend who can hook you up.
Kevin Dieny:Whatever things you have to go with it.
Kevin Dieny:Definitely look there first and it may not necessarily be the best ideas in there.
Kevin Dieny:So then it's like, "Okay, well, where do I have to go outside?"
Kevin Dieny:Maybe have to spend some money, and maybe I have to hire
Kevin Dieny:somebody like Matt was saying.
Kevin Dieny:Because in the second part is like, how do I prove it?
Kevin Dieny:If there's no way of tracking it, you're kind of just hoping and throwing
Kevin Dieny:it out there, hoping that it works.
Kevin Dieny:The other people might've said, "Oh, this works."
Kevin Dieny:And so you trust them, but having a trackable way to prove
Kevin Dieny:what you've done is humongous.
Kevin Dieny:And any time that you have any doubts about whether something's working,
Kevin Dieny:you can go back and look at that.
Kevin Dieny:That's huge.
Kevin Dieny:That's enormous for, for other people to be able to repeat , and
Kevin Dieny:for you to be able to hand that off.
Kevin Dieny:You can see inflection points or hinge points of what really makes
Kevin Dieny:that thing sing and makes that work.
Kevin Dieny:And then the last thing was touched upon with what Ronn and Matt were saying,
Kevin Dieny:which is when you get going with some of these ideas, "How do you know they work?"
Kevin Dieny:"How do you know you're happy with what you're getting?
Kevin Dieny:And having a baseline of, okay, my product sells for $200 or $50 a
Kevin Dieny:month, or I know the average meal that I serve is about $15-20 bucks.
Kevin Dieny:Or knowing your revenues and your costs, and then your breakevens of, I need to
Kevin Dieny:at least make this much sits with the other things, because you can afford to
Kevin Dieny:spend more or spend more resources in something that maybe has a higher return.
Kevin Dieny:You could also do more with something that costs less initially.
Kevin Dieny:And if you're tracking it along the way, at any point, you can be like, okay,
Kevin Dieny:this isn't working, I can cut it out.
Kevin Dieny:You don't just have to go the full time and then realize this is bad for me.
Kevin Dieny:So those stood out to me at least for finding a good marketing idea.
Kevin Dieny:And obviously we didn't tell you exactly like what to do with a social post.
Kevin Dieny:We didn't really go into the specifics of each marketing idea because I
Kevin Dieny:think what matters more is finding one that's suitable for your business.
Kevin Dieny:And.
Kevin Dieny:I think that comes out of, subjectively what is going on in your business and what
Kevin Dieny:can you do and what can you afford to do?
Kevin Dieny:And what are you looking at?
Kevin Dieny:Are you the business that has the thousand dollar gift card capability?
Kevin Dieny:Or are you just like, man, I just need, I don't even have a website yet.
Kevin Dieny:So it all fits into those things.
Kevin Dieny:We know it's difficult and it's hard.
Kevin Dieny:And every dollar you spend is a dollar you could put in your pocket.
Kevin Dieny:So it's definitely gotta be worthwhile.
Kevin Dieny:So, any last minute thoughts you guys wanted to chime in on?
Kevin Dieny:And then we'll kind of close out.
Kevin Dieny:So we'll start with Matt.
Matt Widmyer:I think just whatever you decide to do once
Matt Widmyer:you reach that point where you decide this is finally scalable...
Matt Widmyer:I can double down and pour more money into this and then just run with it.
Matt Widmyer:You have to always look at, like right now I have half a dozen people on my team.
Matt Widmyer:If I had one person, what would I be doing?
Matt Widmyer:And if I had a hundred people, what would I be doing?
Matt Widmyer:How do I get a hundred people?
Matt Widmyer:Gosh, wouldn't that be cool.
Matt Widmyer:But you have to look at like, okay, if it's not working with one or five or 10,
Matt Widmyer:it's not going to work with a hundred.
Matt Widmyer:So the little operational kinks and stuff like that you need to take
Matt Widmyer:care of before you get to that point, but I think scalability is huge.
Matt Widmyer:And that is the main benefit.
Matt Widmyer:I'm such a CRM fanboy too, when it comes to getting the data in there and
Matt Widmyer:getting all the right data, getting the accurate data and keeping up to date.
Matt Widmyer:That's really, the only way you're going to scale a business is by
Matt Widmyer:having a solid CRM infrastructure.
Matt Widmyer:And then obviously, like Ronn said, website's great.
Matt Widmyer:Website's great for us too, because anytime somebody doesn't know what the
Matt Widmyer:heck we're talking about on the phone, you can just have them visit our website
Matt Widmyer:and kind of explore at their own leisure.
Matt Widmyer:Right.
Matt Widmyer:So all those things are super important.
Matt Widmyer:Super scalable.
Ronn Burner:Yeah, I'll piggyback off of that because I've said it several
Ronn Burner:times, even on this call scalability and sustainability is something
Ronn Burner:that I say in the consulting and implementing marketing departments
Ronn Burner:for organizations, because often times there's grandiose ideas and you can get
Ronn Burner:there, but you need to get there and you need to get there in a way that's
Ronn Burner:efficient in a way that makes sense.
Ronn Burner:So not only is scalable applied to the database and things of
Ronn Burner:that nature, which is massive.
Ronn Burner:I agree a hundred percent.
Ronn Burner:And I believe it applies also to process like you need to have a processes
Ronn Burner:in place of what you're going to do.
Ronn Burner:And that's why I always go back to having a game plan, map out what you want to do,
Ronn Burner:what your plan is, think ahead 90 days.
Ronn Burner:Then start building in pieces, so its scalable, and then you're going to go over
Ronn Burner:these 90 days and always be 90 days ahead.
Ronn Burner:The reason I say 90 days is because, to launch a campaign and then even
Ronn Burner:to use the additional channels with the same messaging to drive them
Ronn Burner:back to your website, like we already discussed, but the reason I say at
Ronn Burner:90 days is then what, like then what?
Ronn Burner:And it goes back to reporting and it goes back to attribution.
Ronn Burner:The 90 day plan says, okay, I do want to do this, go to market
Ronn Burner:strategy or whatever this plan is, whatever this promotion is, right.
Ronn Burner:But after that, this is where I want to go.
Ronn Burner:And then after that, this is where I want to go.
Ronn Burner:So now you're doing some sort of a cadence and some sort of a
Ronn Burner:frequency, and you're being consistent with your messaging to them.
Ronn Burner:So just think in terms of game plan and even little wins at first, and
Ronn Burner:then, like I say, you add on that.
Ronn Burner:But game plan and process, because the better your efficiency becomes the better
Ronn Burner:the performance will be on the other end, because it's going to now open up
Ronn Burner:the opportunities to put work elsewhere into the strategy into other areas.
Ronn Burner:Because you're not so tied up trying to do double the work because your
Ronn Burner:processes just aren't efficient.
Matt Widmyer:Yeah.
Matt Widmyer:How did you refer to that in the past Ronn, digging a pool, with a shovel?
Ronn Burner:Right?
Ronn Burner:Yeah, you can dig a pool with a shovel or you can dig it with a high performance
Ronn Burner:machine and the end result can absolutely be the same, but how you get there,
Ronn Burner:is it two very different worlds?
Matt Widmyer:Yeah.
Kevin Dieny:I think anyone listening to this might have like alright, maybe
Kevin Dieny:I'm walking away from this with not the best idea that's going to work
Kevin Dieny:for my specific business per se, but a toolkit of how to get there.
Kevin Dieny:And that's really exciting.
Kevin Dieny:I think if you can go to your office, your home, wherever you're working right
Kevin Dieny:now and be like, "Okay, I'm just going to write some notes down, I'm going to take
Kevin Dieny:a look and see, I'm going to look into my database, I'm going to take a pretty good
Kevin Dieny:look around at my business and see what I really have; when I can work with might
Kevin Dieny:be different than my neighbor's business.
Kevin Dieny:Or if I look over at the store next to me, or my competitors might have
Kevin Dieny:different resources than they do.
Kevin Dieny:So I may not make sense to just copy every single thing that they do."
Kevin Dieny:At the end of the day, it's going to come down to what you can pull off, what you
Kevin Dieny:can prove, what's going to raise money.
Kevin Dieny:What is going to meet the goals that you have and you can start small.
Kevin Dieny:So I want to thank all the listeners who've tuned in to this episode.
Kevin Dieny:And when it comes to connecting with us I wanted to ask you guys, what's
Kevin Dieny:the best way for someone to reach out to you and connect with you.
Kevin Dieny:Matt, what's a good way for someone to let's say, find you, connect
Kevin Dieny:with you, or ask you any kind of questions from this that they'd have?
Matt Widmyer:Yeah, sure.
Matt Widmyer:You can find me on LinkedIn.
Matt Widmyer:Matt Widmyer it's M a T T a w I D M a Y E R.
Matt Widmyer:Or you can email me at my CallSource email: M widmyer@callsource.com.
Kevin Dieny:Cool.
Kevin Dieny:How about you Ronn?
Ronn Burner:Yeah.
Ronn Burner:You got to keep it simple so they don't have to jump all over.
Ronn Burner:I'm also on LinkedIn and Ronn Burner, R O N N very tricky burner, B U R N E R.
Ronn Burner:And I sometimes check my LinkedIn....
Ronn Burner:There's also the show page, show notes, everything will be there.
Kevin Dieny:So thanks everybody for tuning in, really appreciate it.
Kevin Dieny:Hope you are excited to jump into some new marketing idea or maybe even to turn
Kevin Dieny:off a marketing idea that you probably realize is not working out so well,
Kevin Dieny:maybe you should go do something else.
Kevin Dieny:So it's all progress.
Kevin Dieny:So thank you everybody.
Kevin Dieny:Have a good day.
