Overview
In this DeBrief episode, Sam is joined by Sophie Davies from Your Marketing Department to discuss how to maximise your marketing efficiency and the importance of specialists.
Highlights:
0:04- Marketing efficiency and tools
2:02- Challenges of In-house marketing
4:10- Specialisation and efficiency
6:58- The role of trusted agencies
10:55- Value Propositions and audience understanding
13:41- Adaptive marketing
13:58- Final thoughts
Sam Sayer 0:04
Hello, Sophie, how you doing?
Sophie Davies 0:06
Hello, Sam, how are you?
Sam Sayer 0:08
Yeah, good. Thank you. Good, good, good. So this is a topic we’ve kind of veered into on previous conversations of, how can you be the most efficient with your marketing budget? And I think also sort of knowing when to get the help. And I think this is something only every creative is experienced, certainly last couple of years, is, oh yeah, we’re doing this in house now and then, oh yeah. How do you do this bit? And how do that bit? And you know, there’s some awesome tools out there. And, you know, years ago, we stopped giving people designs. We started doing Canva templates, right? Yes, we’re getting the logo assets and that. But actually, then, well, here’s a Canva template for your socials. There’s a few different ones here. Let us know if you want anything specific. But here’s, I don’t know, a testimonial template, a case study one, or whatever it is, right? Yeah, brilliant. And on the whole, it works, they deviate over time. But then, you know, hey, look, the tools are there to do stuff yourselves. Great. I think that’s brilliant. I think the more empowered people are, the better.
Sam Sayer 1:16
Yeah, I think really, in the last couple of years as well, you know, people are sort of, let’s reel back the spend. And I think marketing often gets the first hit. It feels like the vanity spend, maybe. But I think I might have mentioned this in previously as well. There was a really good article. I can’t remember who wrote it. I’ll find it. We’ll put it in in the links, but it’s saying, you know, in times of crisis or economic, you know, worry you’ve got to market harder than ever. Yep, guess what?
Sophie Davies 1:48
Mark Richardson’s really on that. So in lockdown, I did a lot of research around this, and those who continue to market come out stronger and take more market share. But now, I mean, I agree a lot of I mean, we see this, you know, we’re coming in as the marketing department, but very often we’ve got people, an admin person, and another person kind of trying to do things in house. But the reality is, it’s very difficult if you don’t have that knowledge. You know, one of the most efficient ways of doing, of like making sure your budget goes further is actually having someone who knows marketing.
Sophie Davies 2:28
Yeah, you know, a lot of my clients come to me and go, Oh, I’ve been approached for an ad. Should I do it? And I’ll go, well, let’s have a look at target audience, shall we? And then you’ll find out it’s some random thing that just doesn’t work. And so you can then go, well, actually, no, don’t do it, because it’s not your target audience. The reach, you know, whilst they’re promising that they can get to 2000 people, that’s not a lot of people, because you need to get to how many people, yeah. And I think it is an interesting one, because we’re seeing more people. I mean, we try and do a lot of stuff in house. Yeah. One of the things that I’m very strong on is making sure the specialists, we go to specialists for specialist things. So, you know, SEO is a classic. Google ads is another one. You need a lot of detailed information, detailed knowledge to be able to make that work, yeah. And also, you can then hold them accountable, because ultimately, none of us knows ins, outs, Google ads, unless you live and breathe it for sure. Detail freak, which I’m not.
Sophie Davies 3:32
But also in creative, you know, I still think there’s a element of there are things that you need to do. So I I redid an ad recently, I’ll be honest, it wasn’t hugely good. So we’re at the point now where we need to go to a creative agency to go and do really simple ads. We don’t need we just need a couple of ad templates. But when you look at the old ad templates, you go, yeah, it was rebranded, but something awful. And then you realise, well, particularly because I come from a creative agency background, you look at it and go, I hope people like Sam never seen this, because they’d be going, Oh my gosh. So yeah, I mean, I do think it’s about picking and choosing and making sure that you’re using the right people for exactly the right things and
Sam Sayer 4:22
Exactly yeah.
Sophie Davies 4:23
It’s the key to efficiency. You know, as you say, You guys aren’t, aren’t that interested in, you know, resizing an ad every two seconds, yeah, because it is a lot of work. So you have to charge quite a lot, because you have to open the fire then find, you know, generally, you haven’t run an ad for a year. So somewhere in the ether, somewhere.
Sam Sayer 4:43
We were talking about this just earlier in that, when I was a freelancer, way back in the day, what sort of early, early to mid, 2000s I would just be resizing, you know, coming to agency, I’d be artwork in that day and created the next, whatever it was, some days you just resizing an advert. Right? The creatives here, we need a poster, we need a billboard, we need this and all that kind of thing. And it just took all day.
Sophie Davies 5:05
I mean, I worked in a time when interest rate rates are coming down on mortgages, and we resized ads every week, yeah? And hugely time consuming. I mean, nowadays we’ve got aI so probably, like, he’s probably just shove it in and it just goes, yeah, no. I mean, I think the other thing is making sure you don’t waste money. And I think that’s the kind of the partnership between the two of, you know, the agency and then the marketing people is just making sure that you’re, you know, doing the right things, the right people doing the right things, absolutely. Because, as you say, people are kind of trying to do it in house, but it won’t always have an impact. And also your question stuff, like, we question stuff and go, Yeah, is that right? Yeah. I think sometimes you can forget that. So I’ve been working with a client recently who is very, very new to marketing, and it is trying to get that mindset of, oh, I can do this, and you’ve got to go, but your audience isn’t expecting something that’s a bit rubbish. Yeah, your audience is expecting something that’s actually elevated, because you’re going to be charging 6000 pounds a month for whatever you do, yeah? And actually, you have spent 20 p on this thing, and it looks awful, so it’s kind of matching it as well.
Sam Sayer 6:25
Yeah, I think a lot of the fundamentals will remain, the research, the strategy, the design delivery, you know, they’re pretty constant. But then actually there’s adaptations. Well, what are people doing the world? Do we? Do we go that way? Do we do the opposite? And, you know, yeah, you know, especially with, like Google ads, you know, meta ads and like that, it’s a constantly moving goal posts. So you’ve got to have have things in place for that, but, but the basics, yeah, let’s, let’s keep that simple and give people the tools and empower them to do that.
Sophie Davies 6:58
Yeah, absolutely. And then do them with cool stuff. Because actually, you know that is never wasted money if you’re with a trusted agency. Yeah, you know, a 15,000 pounds on a website is not wasted money if you do it right, telling you my example, yeah, of you know, this is not how you do stuff. So I had this website that I’m looking into the back end, and there’s no way of changing it, and we can’t even, you know, I passed it on to your team, yeah? And they said we can’t even put a new page in, which means that whole website is completely redundant, having been built two years ago. Yeah? And that is so that, I guess, is another one of my advice is, yeah, best it’s actually uses, using trusted suppliers, and you might trust them, but get a marketing person to have a look at it. Um, you only have to ask your marketing mate and go, um, you know, yeah, what do I need? And, you know, I think ultimately, this guy just asked for a website and so wasn’t specific about what he wanted. Yeah, the agency then wasn’t specific in asking. Yeah, yeah, back. And it just seems such a waste of money and that yeah, for sure, it’s like using, yeah, being able to get the advice, right advice, and ask the right questions.
Sam Sayer 8:21
Definitely. I mean, I mean, for a website in particular, we look at like a car, you know, you want a car that’s not going to get just the end of road. It wants to take you on a long journey, right? And last a car should be, you know, three to five years, yeah, if it’s a new one, right? Yeah. Do you need speed? Do you need comfort? You know, it’s what you invest in that will get you there quicker or safer or more comfortably or whatever it is, right? Yeah? And yeah, you can cut corners and different things with it, but actually the fundamentals, you know, your messaging, the conversion rates and all that, that’s the things
Sophie Davies 8:59
Well, this agency hasn’t even set any of that up, so the client had to write all the copy, all the messaging. There’s no Google Analytics, nothing in the back end, honestly, scary, terrible. So yeah, a big, big advice is like, make sure you’ve got all the tick boxes. Yeah, you guys are very good at asking all those questions. A really, because, obviously, you know, whenever we’ve got a new brief, it’s like going through all those questions.
Sam Sayer 9:27
We review them, you know, at least every couple of months. You know,are there too many? Actually, this is a which is a better question to ask for, you know, just, just reframing that question is better. How do we make it smooth in our process? And yeah, it does take about an hour to go through our discovery call. Yeah, because it’s a big piece of work. You know, there’s a lot going on.
Sophie Davies 9:49
So actually that means that the right thing comes out for the right person, exactly so. And you can’t do things like that in house. And actually, even just getting advice on adding extra pages. So my client that I’ve referred to recently, I just said, just ask these guys, because they know best. I mean, I’m a marketer, but I don’t know quite what the best way is to make sure that that continues with the longevity. Because, as you say, marketing is an investment, and it should be an investment. Yeah, I was listening to a podcast today about the fact that, you know, building a brand is a lifetime. Yeah, everything’s measured on on a quarterly basis, and how kind of wrong that is, because, actually, you can’t measure a website in the first quarter because it hasn’t. Google hasn’t done all its bits. It hasn’t done that. Yeah, yeah. So you can kind of get, oh, it’s not working, but yeah.
Sam Sayer 10:44
And the same with, well, any, any aspect of it, really, you know, we, yeah, we, we deliver what we know from our decades of experience, yeah. But it’s always like, well, let’s put out there. Look at it, measure it, adapt it exactly, you know, because, think, because the world changes, messaging changes, you know that. So it’s, you know, it’salways a moving target, yeah, and you know, it’s what are working well in one industry work working well in another. Sometimes they ace it in a different industry. But, you know, you’ve got to try these things and iterate, yeah, iterate.
Sophie Davies 11:20
Definitely got to iterate and think, yeah, it’s a but that’s why it’s kind of important to actually hire people who understand it, because you can do it in house. But I think you’ll certainly you know you’re being pulled from pillar to post, and you’re worried about all sorts of things, so like, just ask questions.
Sam Sayer 11:43
Yeah, and I think, you know, if you’re, if you’re trying to do things on a budget and keep it lean, I think the most important things, and I will probably agree on this, is, what’s your big value proposition, you know, which we’ve covered in the previous one. You know? What? How are you helping people? What are you solving, right? And know, you know, knowing your audience and your value proposition, I think are the most important things. You know, I’ve seen some very scrappy, you know, DIY marketing go out, right, but they’ve nailed that bit, at least, right?
Sophie Davies 12:17
I mean, yeah, that. I mean, I do, I do a talk on getting the best bang for your buck, and I have to be careful not to go on and on and on that strategy. But fundamentally, if you don’t have the strategy, so you don’t have the audience, and you don’t have the messaging, quite frankly, you can, you know, you’re throwing money at the wall. So yeah, I mean, that is the biggest efficiency. And actually you can then do quite a lot in house, but you don’t understand it. And that’s a struggle I’ve had with some clients who take it on internally because they don’t really understand what I provided to them, and so therefore can’t implement it. And it takes about six months to start to get it just in the colloquialism of what you’re saying all the time.
Sam Sayer 13:04
I think it’s, it’s knowing your strengths as well. Yeah, I think that’s the key thing. I know lots about a lot of things. You know, I can give good advice on general marketing and things like that. But yeah, I know when I’m like, Okay, you to speak to x, y, z, the pros, you know, because, yeah, they’re specialists for a reason right?
Sophie Davies 13:26
Yeah, exactly, exactly, that.
Sam Sayer 13:30
Nice, okay, yeah, I think, that wraps it up neatly there. Yeah, you know, invest the time in understanding your value proposition and who audience are. Yeah, you know, yes, there’s way more beyond that you need to get right as well.
Sophie Davies 13:47
A then, you know, ask, ask a friend marketing friend before you invest huge amounts of money, or get someone who you know is reputable, Sure, absolutely. Yeah, cool.
Sam Sayer 13:58
Nice. All right.
Sophie Davies 13:59
Lovely to see you!
Sam Sayer 14:00
Yes and you! We’ll catch you next time. Bye, for now, bye.
