In this episode of On The Same Landing Page, Patrick McGovern joins us to talk about making your marketing strategy recession-proof, top vs. bottom of the funnel marketing and how becoming a specialist in your area could benefit you in the future. With a plethora of knowledge from years in the marketing industry, Patrick provides real insights and detailed solutions to a lot of problems in current marketing culture.
Astra
Hello, and welcome to Episode Eight of the same landing page. Today we are talking to Patrick McGovern over in the US of A. Welcome, Pat. It’s nice to have you here.
Pat
It’s awesome to be here
Astra
Pat is the marketing director of a company called Ascedia. But that is not where he started. You’ve had a very colourful career starting as a Butter copywriter back in the 80s. Isn’t that right Pat?
Pat
Wow, someone’s done their homework. Yeah, that’s actually correct. In the 80s. Remember that? Anybody, No, anybody?
Astra
As always, I’m Astra, head of advertising at Web Presence. And today we are joined by Jason and Paul, do you want to say hello?
Jason
Hello
Astra
Paul, It’s an audio recording, you have to say hello. You can’t just wave hello.
Paul
Hello
Astra
So we’ll get straight into our first segment, which is 10 minutes of a marketeer. And that’s you Pat, but you’re not just a marketer. You’re also a key decision maker in your company. So I guess really, we want a little bit of background about you first, so as I said, already, you started as a copywriter way back in the 80s. And now in the 2020s. You are a marketing director. So what have you seen the biggest shift in the digital scape in that time?
Pat
Wow, that is a big question. It’s a huge question. Yeah. In that time, it’s really been it’s been that shift into the digital space. So you really have a disruption going on. That’s taken place. And this is nothing new, but it’s really kind of a fundamental shift from traditional, which we call print. Magazine TV, over into the digital space and that just accelerating as we go further and further along.
Additionally, I think what’s happening in this space is that agencies, in general, are becoming more focused and less generalized. Right? And I see a big trend for companies to be taking things more in-house versus just using the resources, of agencies. Now, again, I’m painting with a roller here. These are huge kind of trends that are that have occurred over the last 25-plus years. Right.
Astra
Have you seen that in your company as well then, are you going more focus taking things more in-house?
Pat
Yeah, so we’ve been around. Acedia has been around since 2000. So we’re, we’re 22 years old this year, come September. Which is just about a month away here. And when we launched, the focus was a digital-only shop, which back in 2000, was pretty novel and pretty unique. That certainly has changed a lot. There are a ton of digital agencies that are out there, right? And so that uniqueness is the shine has kind of a bit worn off in our time As an agency, we have worked on a ton of different verticals, anything from higher education to health care to manufacturing , to professional services, you name it, we’ve worked on that.
And to date, it has served us well. I think going forward in this 2022 Plus we’ve got to tighten the focus, we’ve got to tighten the lens. I think to be successful, will require more discipline in who we go after in the focus that we want to have. And that’s going to be really key for us again in the next three, five, ten years. Now, that said Can agencies make it by being a general agency? I absolutely think they can. I know a lot that are out there that do this. I just think that path is going to be much harder going forward than it has been in the past.
Astra
Until you’re a podcaster. Pat, you’re still my follow-up question before I’d even uttered a word there. I was going to ask you about the direction you’re going and how you’re going to tighten the lens. Obviously, we’re all very aware as both marketers and key decision makers in this room, that there is going to be the dreaded economic downturn. Paul shaking his head but
Paul
It’s only happening because everyone keeps saying it’s gonna happen. We need to ignore it and carry on
Pat
You know Paul, that’s a real that’s a real interesting point, because there is definitely there is definitely the two worlds right by here in the states by what has been accepted. By and large for a long time has been two consecutive quarters with a downturn is a recession. That’s, that’s, that’s typically how we’ve now you can argue whether or not that’s true, but that’s how I have things look.
And when I asked my network of other agency owners of other people that are in the space they are certainly seeing a pullback. Now what exactly a pullback is, I don’t know. It varies from agency to agency from company to company, right? So there’s something definitely occurring, no doubt. But there’s the other half that Paul’s mentioning. I mean, I don’t know how it is where you’re at. But things are jammed. Like you go to an airport, it’s packed, you go to stores, there’s a lot of people. I mean, I don’t know if we all didn’t get the memo yet, or it’s coming out what’s happening, but there is definitely a ‘here’s what’s happening and here’s how people are reacting’ and will those two combine and Connect? I don’t know it’s going to be very interesting. I got some thoughts on that. But we can wait until talk about that a little further down.
Astra
It’s interesting, isn’t it? You say airports are packed and people are going out buying it. It’s such an unusual time. Obviously, COVID is a map by and large a massive reason. That they think there’s going to be an economic downturn, but also it’s helped lots of people save lots of money on things that they would usually be spending when they were locked down. So, they’ve got more to spend now and I think people have to kind of reconcile that economic difficulty that might be ahead with trying to have fun. Well, they can because if the lockdowns taught us anything, it’s that you don’t know, you know, your freedoms might be gone at any point. So, I think maybe it’s a mindset thing, isn’t it in many ways?
Pat
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, when you take a look at something like travel, which is just so volatile, right and that can be impacted by so many things. I mean, again, my small circle of friends, of colleagues, I mean, a lot of people are travelling. They may have shifted a little bit how they’re travelling, but the question is not am I going to go on vacation? Am I going to go on holiday.?It’s like I’m going, but now I might not go to the four-star place, I’m going to be okay with a three-star. You know, I’m not going to go on an air trip. I’m going to drive. But I’m going. Right. So, you know, we’ll see how that kind of reconciles again, as we go forward.
Paul
I think you and I were both we were both doing this in the late 2000s around 2008 When the last kind of big recession hit. And like, we could talk for hours about what that was like, but have you found it on the back of two years of lock downs and weirdness and our whole kind of day-to-day life changing anyway? Do you see any parallels between back then and today? In terms of like how people are changing?
Pat
Yes and no. These are such so the no part let me start with that first is this is just such a weird time. No one really knows, like, what to expect going forward. Now. 2008 was definitely a hit. But there seemed to be a sense that it’s like, well, this kind of comes along and here’s the playbook for how we have to react to it. Right? Again, I’m painting with a roller here making a lot of generalities, but there seems to be that type of feeling like Yep, we got to go through this. We’ll come out of it.
Just given the fact of our life, just past conversation, Paul, it’s just when we were talking about like, well are we in recession or aren’t we? Technically Yeah, but attitudinally wise, we’re not. So that’s so different. The things and this is the sad part about our space. The things that are similar, are the same things that are always similar when there’s a downturn. Right, we’ll pull back on marketing people are at least starting to talk about that. And as much as we all could talk about the reasons that shouldn’t happen. That’s the first head on the chopping block. Yeah. Right. And that, again, just continues and just seems to be the continual playbook, right, wrong or indifferent. That seems to be always kind of what people go to when things start going a little bit South .
Paul
I think that’s fair. I think that goes along with a lot of a lot of companies view marketing as an expense sometimes not as an investment. It’s not like the oxygen they breathe, whereas we might describe it that way.
Pat
And especially Paul, if you’re dealing with manufacturing, you know, a lot of place again, here in the States. A lot of manufacturing organizations work is a marketing and sales function, right? So marketing is really thought about as a support system for sales. ‘Hey, we need a couple of landing pages up here. Hey, can you send out this email? Hey, we’re having a trade show.’ Right? The tip of the spear is sales, marketing you just support this thing, right? Now. I understand that that’s been the game that’s been played for the last 50 plus years. I think that model is a bit broken. I think if they both work in tandem, they’re going to get a lot further. But to your point, Paul, I think when again, when things start going a little bit south, people tend to rely on the sales team to get them through rather than working, you know, the axon called marketing as well. Right.
Paul
Yeah. Yeah, I think I think that’s fair. We see it time and time again, don’t we?
Astra
I think it’s funny, though, just with you saying there about manufacturing. And this is, again, a very small sample of clients that we work with but we’ve had, again, the attitudinal thing where they know there’s the economic downturn coming, but we’ve had two manufacturing clients say to us you know, ‘the sun’s still gonna rise every morning’. This is actually a perfect time to make money. We’re going to buckle down and spend as much as we can because they know ultimately, all of their competitors are going to pull back that marketing’s spend which gives you time to dominate. So I don’t know if that’s a resilience because they’ve been through this before and you know, they survived it kind of thing. And if they’re trialing a different thing, but you obviously went to director level in 2008, and are director level now, what will you do differently now versus what you did in 2008?
Pat
So a couple of things. For 2008. I, the agency that I was at, which was different than the place I’m at now. I think we could have done a better job of being proactive. Right? Of talking in sitting down with our clients at that point going. What’s worrying you what’s scaring you? What’s on your mind? Are you worried about dollars? Are you worried about the budget? Let’s have that conversation. Let’s be proactive about this. Rather than have the call come in going. ‘Hey, guys, money’s real tight. We’re going to cut back a little bit’ well why aren’t you doing that and then sort of giving them all the answers as to why they shouldn’t. That’s too late, then that game is done. It’s over. Once that call comes in, you’re just going to look like you’re blocking something. But if you could get in front of that and sit down and say Astra let’s talk about this. Here’s what I’m hearing. What are you seeing out there? Okay, cool. Is that worrying you? Cool. How do we be a good partner with you? What can we do? I’ve got some thoughts. I’d love to hear from you. All right, now you’re starting to form a relationship here now. It’s like, bam, these guys are watching out for me, right? These guys are in my camp. They’re looking at me. Now that may mean hey, we got to cut back. Great. Let’s pull up let’s put the brakes on this part. Knowing though, let’s keep an eye on it because when it starts turning around, we want to accelerate You cool with that. Yeah. All right. Again, now we’ve got a dialog coming.
Right. I think too many agencies back in 2008. Were more of just like, let’s wait, let’s see what happens. Let’s be, let’s be kind of on the reactive side, going forward, and I think agencies are going to be better off but certainly this is what I’m encouraging. And then our team is to be more proactive. Like let’s sit down. Let’s hear what is going on. Understand the things may happen where they have to pull back. Okay. So that’s one thing.
The second thing too is again, I think focusing right, no matter you know, we could go back and forth. Are we in a recession? I don’t mean regardless, if if, if things go down, things will come back up. So the question then becomes, how fast and how can we accelerate the on-ramp? And I think agencies again, can do that by staying really focused on what their core strengths are. Now, people always in when I say core strength, I mean, also strengths and verticals. Now, I know there’s the natural kind of tendency for agency owners and people in the agency to go Yeah, but are we going to be limited ourselves? Are we going to be cutting our revenues because and I think about that, and I think about it in this term, if I’m coming out of of a downturn. I’m going to be looking for the partners who’ve got the best case studies, the best record of dealing with my vertical if I’m a marketing person, that’s not a generalist, that’s a specialist. Right? They’re going to be able to get me from point one to point four faster than a generalist. I just think that’s the way it’s going to be. You could disagree but that’s so what am I doing? encouraging that? Right, encouraging that type of thought process and thinking to go on at the agency.
And then finally 2008 The game was a lot different. You know, things go down and things slow down. Okay, that could happen. We should prepare for it. What does that open up opportunities for? I don’t know about you guys at the agency. But right now, anytime we talk about developing content, it’s hard to get things done. Why? Because we’re all busy. Yeah, well, slow down. Let’s use this time to create a bunch of great content that’s going to be needed when we come out of this. Right? Absolutely. It’s the case studies. That’s the podcast, that’s the cutting edge, right. Let’s double down on those types of efforts. And really use that when we come out and really use that as a business development while we’re in this as well. So those are some of the things that are going through my head.
Astra
They’re all like solid advice as always, Pat, are you having those conversations obviously with your clients, but from a director point of view, how are you talking to your team about it? Are you instilling these values in them as well? Are you leading with optimism? Are you being reactive, progressive, whatever?
Pat
Guys, I’m heavily caffeinated and I’m always optimistic. Okay. You know, I just, I have a tendency to see opportunity in a lot of different places. And when there are downturns, the opportunity in my mind gets magnified. Because people do retrench and now you have the chance to do things you may not have been able to do otherwise. If you’re in sales in which I am out there. Most salespeople are a bit optimistic, right? So I’m trying to encourage that with everybody I talked to on the team as well. Let’s look for these opportunities. And let’s exploit the hell out of them as we can, because the window is not going to be there long. Right? Things will shift back. The players will rearrange, right things will happen and that opportunity to make a move to the opportunity to create things is going to be gone. So when it’s there you got to strike.
Jason
Yeah, they just to add to this is like there’s a common story that I see everywhere. Everyone in the run up to the research on this. And it’s this classic 1990/91 recession where McDonald’s pulled back spend on brand awareness, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell increased and as a result, they got massive market share as a result of that. The facts I keep finding this story and not many others. It makes me wonder like is it that just a one off? Or is that just is that more? Is it more brands be doing that focusing on a little bit of brand awareness, and then the other sides that to my mind the other sides of that perspective is to focus on the bottom of the funnel. There’s like those two ways in which companies will often fight through this right? Only spend money where the money is working for us. So where we spend a pound we get 10 pounds back and I can see that and I can track that all the way through. If you were to answer this within the whole funnel, do you think that’s a little bit of a limited way of approaching this thing in terms of focusing on one area of the funnel or not? Or is it a case it was it just a case of focusing on the content as you said earlier and focusing on stuff that’s kind of evergreen that’s going to help people as they go out?
Pat
Yeah, yep. So a good question. Jason. So, I look at it this in general, in general, my, if I’m, if I’m recommending something to someone in and again, we’re dealing with a lot of just nonspecific but I look at it this way as a 70/30 60/40. Basically, split that is 60 to 70% of my budget or the budget that I’m recommending should go to that bottom and should start closing deals should have a very positive ROI should be doing that. 30-40% gain, this is going to vary depending on kind of brand recognition in your space in the field, the kind of environment that you’re in, etc, etc, etc. You’ve got to be talking about brand. You’ve got to be talking about what’s different about you, you’ve got to be talking about things other than just the bottom of the funnel type of piece. Right? I think if you get into that cycle where it becomes an 80/20 thing a 90/10, you just become a commoditized product, that in the short term, you could kill it. Longer term, you’re gonna pay the price, you’re gonna have the impact of this right? And again, to win. And I think this goes for agencies as well. Like you have to be marketing yourself. Because, like, we’re not McDonald’s. We’re not Budweiser, right. People are gonna forget about Acedia. Like that. We’ve got to be out there doing things right to keep that keep the flames going and stoked. So that’s how I’m thinking about this. Jason right. And that’s my approach. And those are kind of rough numbers that I always kind of fall back on, again, depending on the situation, right, because those vary a little bit. Yeah, but that’s in general where I’m thinking about things.
Astra
What have your proactive actions been used and said there about like developing your assets and your verticals. Have you got a transitionary period where you’re going to start moving into specialist areas as well.
Pat
now, I mean, basically what we have in What’s are you meant let me take a step back. What sparked this is we’re a small agency, we’ve got about 30 people. And I’m considering small anything I get my numbers I usually are usually 50 and under for an agency small and then 50 about 50 to maybe 100 or something that’s a medium size and then above that you got pretty big and then global right after that, but we’re a small shop. I don’t know if it’s the same as it is where you’re at. Here in the States. People are bouncing around at a crazy rate, right and just the grass was always greener, they could get more it’s just tough and it’s tough building a culture when you’re dealing everything remote. It’s really hard to build that up. So I might as well go for the ballers because I really don’t have a close connection with, right? I bring that up because people are leaving and they left our agency right. We’ve lost some people. And when that happens, it’s both good and bad. Bad in the sense that while these were key people were small shop, so anybody anytime somebody leaves, it’s like, yeah, we knew that person. That’s what this person exactly worked on. Right? The good part is anytime people leave, it’s a nice chance to step back and go. Are we doing this right? Are we taking the right path? Is this a chance to kind of shuffle the deck and think about things differently? And at this last kind of round that’s what we’ve been doing. And that’s what we’re in the process of working on right now is tightening the lens. Who are we going to be going after? Let’s get that content. Let’s get that machine in place. And I would say that started in probably mid-July. And hopefully, by early September, we’ll be hitting on all eight cylinders with this. That’s the hope. Right? And what does that mean? What does that mean? When I’m saying that? It means putting out a lot of content. It means proactively going after some clients that we think that we would be a good fit for in getting on their radar. Right. So when that time is ready, when they’re looking for some help in X, Y or Z. We’re there. Right? So that’s the kind of quick timeline that we’ve got in place. And I’m sure that’s going to evolve and I’m sure there’s going to be setbacks. And I’m sure there’s going to be things that happen but like I said that timeline for us has been basically mid July, early September to kind of get the machine going where we could begin putting out content on a regular basis quality pieces, and then being proactive on some of our outbound
Jason
how specifically being with that content are you have you got a used like from an Account Based Marketing approach? Are you literally looking at maybe 10 or 50 companies and be like these guys would want to know about this? Let’s talk about it.
Pat
That’s exactly it, like who do we think would be? Who do we think we would be a good fit for given our background, right? And, again, we’ve got a lot of great case studies that are just in people’s heads. And it’s just a matter of pulling these things out. And what I find as well is the natural tendency from the people I talked to, not just in the agency I’m at now but in prior agencies is that even? A lot of the work people just kind of like we don’t want to talk about that. Maybe something as simple as how did you migrate this website over to this new platform. That in and of itself is kind of a boring topic. Unless you’re charged with finding a company who can migrate your website from one site to one platform to another, all of a sudden that becomes very, very important to you.And if you would have got an agency that’s like, this is how we did it. There you go. Right, that’s really key.
So it’s pulling all of those things out. Jason Paul, as what you might think is really boring. Becomes gold to someone else. No, let’s just let’s get that out. But, you know, I read something about, you know, people doing case studies, and it’s like, and I’ve seen this happen a million times too. It’s like the time it takes to write a case study is longer than the campaign itself. It’s like why your case? I mean, literally, look at all case studies boiled down to really three points:
What was the situation?
What did you do?
How are the results?
Okay, let’s expand that. Let’s make that six points. Right. What was the situation? Two points? What did you do, two points. What were the result? Two. That’s it. You’re not trying to do everything. All you’re trying to do is like, yeah, these guys seem smart. I want to talk to them. Right? It doesn’t have to be a tone. It doesn’t have to be this arduous process. Right. So that’s one of the things I’m trying to get across to the team too. It’s like, you give me six points. I’ll shake this into out, you know, out, I’ll do it. I’ll take care of this. I’ll make it into something where we’re going to scan and it’ll be very digestible and very readable for our clients, or prospects.
Paul
I think that’s great. Because, you know, that’s, that’s what we try. It’s not just for agencies either. And that’s all of them. We try and teach our clients to do the same thing as well. It’s harder than it should be. So you want to, you want to be able to go to these prospects and say, Hey, we have a great fit for you. I know this problem you have and I’ve been solving it for the last 10 years. That’s one thing to be able to say that it’s another table to say check out their case study section. There’s 40 of 40 examples of doing that exact same thing. Like it’s the turning it inside out right where you don’t hide all these special skills you’ve got in house you just put them all out there for everyone to come and find themselves.
Pat
Yeah, yeah. And you know, there is guys I think we’ve talked about this in the past but there is. Astra you started off this what’s the big change? Right? Yeah. And in thinking about this now is we’re, you know, X amount of minutes into this. I think a huge, huge change is speed and speed to market. Right? Look at the time when any of us entered. The business may longer than you guys has any point at any point in your careers has anybody clients on a regular basis gone. Hey, Paul, you’re going to fast? hoe little things down my man. Okay. We don’t want that website up that fast.
Paul
Only my dreams.
Pat
It’s not happening. It’s not going to happen. There’s always going to be a shortening of time, there’s going to be a shortening of just the length of time that we have. Now, that’s both good and bad. The good part about it is if you accept that is the kind of framework that you have to deal with. I think people then are a little bit more forgiving about all the i’s being dotted, all the T’s being crossed. I’d rather take something that’s 80% of the way there and get it there when I need it versus 100% and it’s taking way too long. It’s like my opportunity’s gone things. It’s not worth the hassle. Like, Let’s be good. Move it along. Right. So, to your point, Paul, about taking you know and showing that you can do things quickly, in this case, a case study but using speed as a kind of a real major selling point, I think is going to be huge for agencies going forward. I think that’s going to be a real, just a point of distinction.
Jason
That’s a really good point about what people will always want. And that’s a there’s a I don’t know if you’ve heard of the guy called Jeffrey Bezos, but he I saw a quote on LinkedIn. So it could all just be lies, but apparently he doesn’t look for what’s going to change in the future. But what will stay the same and what you’ve done there Pat is his position that as the one thing that people will always want stuff to get done quickly get started. So that’s a really interesting point. I think that’s what you need. To engineer yourself around, isn’t it? It’s getting things actually finished the amount of pieces of work. I’ve started and then have sat in drafts and sat in version 2.5 But it hasn’t quite been signed off and then we’ve pulled away and who knows how many of those were masterpieces? Probably not most of them. But there could have been some really good lead-generating content in there. So I think it’s just about getting that stuff out, agreeing on it and then and getting out to market. Yeah, it’s really some really good, really, really good insights, Chef power where we could probably carry on much longer. But we’ve got a format to follow.
Astra
we do. I was gonna end with another big question, but for now, we’ll keep it to its most quantifiable easy ones for you, Pat. So we ask these to everybody on the podcast and this is just foreign data really. We’ve kind of touched on a few of them already.
But so the first question is, if you had to order the following marketing materials in order importance for you and your business, but the first being the most important and the last being when you get rid of if you had to, what order would you put them in? So first we’ve got PPC, social media, both organic and paid. We’ve bundled together their email marketing and SEO. So list them in an order the order that you think is the most important versus the least,
Pat
That’s great. So I’m gonna go this way guys. I’m gonna go SEO one, email marketing two, social media three and PPC four, now let me give you my why on that. SEO is just I think that just kind of table stakes into the game you have to have that if you’re going to be out there at all. Email marketing, I think is just a killer tool that so many organizations just do a terrible job with just a terrible job with social media is just I believe that is a great top of still a great top of funnel now we’re kind of using all social media here, but PPC is the one that you know, it’s the need that yeah, it does serve a function but you asked me to rank it and that’s why I put it there.
Astra
If we had a fifth option, my job would be just above the bottom. Theres sort of a recurring theme in the podcast. I think out of eight, seven have put it last. So I think if it gets to 10 Paul fires me so the next question is on a scale of one to 10 How confident are you in your current marketing strategy?
Pat
Well, I am a 10. In our current marketing,
Astra
Love it, ever the optimist.
Pat
I believe that we are now there’s two there’s Are you confident? Yes, I’m confident in it. And then there’s the how are you executing against it? Right and so I would say that they’re we’re not attending, but we’re moving in the right direction. So if I look at the trendline, we’re going in the right place.
Astra
Okay, last but not least, I don’t know if you can improve on a 10. But what’s the most important factor? I’m assuming you’ve just kind of rounded it off there by saying which direction you go again, but if you had to outline one specific, what do you think’s most important factor in improving your 10 out of 10 score?
Pat
I would say consistency is gonna be the game. That’s gonna be the game changer for us. Right? Everybody? The natural tendency is to get excited about something and move things along, especially something new. And that’s a really exciting in month one, everybody’s behind it. Let’s go Let’s go. This is cool. All right. Talk to me at month four. When you’re in the trenches and stuffs not still not coming in, but you know it’s the right way. That’s when the bullet hits the bone. Okay, that’s when you really got to dig and keep pushing forward.
Astra
Sounds like that’s a very good segment to round off the chat about recession. I think that now we’ve done one of the darkest things that can happen to companies and people all across the world. We’re gonna move on to a section called ‘Who’s Line Is It Anyway’ for my relief? This is a very special edition as our first overseas guest, but we’ve decided to put the USA against the UK for this one. Jason, I’ll let you lead here.
Jason
Yeah, so this I remember seeing the show. I think there’s a UK version of it. And I’ve seen the American one and I’m pretty sure there’s a UK version of Who’s Line is anyway. So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna give you a quote, and you need to tell me whether the person that said it was American or English, obviously it helps if you know who it was that said it. But the real goal here is just to see if they’re American or English.
Okay, get off. There’s a few here. We’ll just see how we get on with time. But first one, ‘life’s too short to hang out with people that aren’t resourceful.’
Astra
I’m gonna say American.
Paul
Agree on that one.
Jason
Do you have any guesses as to who that is?
Astra
Life’s too short to hang out with people who aren’t resourceful.
Paul
I’m gonna go muskie boy for that one.
Jason
Elon Musk? Yeah. Okay.
Astra
Jeff Bezos.
Pat
So I was that’s what I was gonna say is Well, you know what? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, me too
Astra
Yeah. Good. And then Okay.
Jason
So you’re all correct in terms of them is someone from America? Well done fat and Astra Jeff Bezos sitting right there. Okay, next one.
Picking a few the okay a flower is a weed we have an advertising budget.
Astra
That is beautiful
Pat
is a weed with an advertising budget?
Astra
I think American again I’m gonna say
Pat
I’m gonna go I’m gonna go. Well, I’m gonna say David Ogilvy is he English or the American.
Jason
I actually should know that
Pat
was born in England but he became a US citizen, right? Yeah, exactly. That’s true. So I’m gonna say he’s where he was born. So I’m gonna say English. Okay, good. I
Paul
I’m going to agree with that Pat because he seems to know more the both of you.
Jason
Well, you’re very close. It’s actually the vice chairman of, Ogilvy Rory Sutherland So yeah, we’re always having said that he’s who’s English so yeah, coast Guys, guys. Okay.
This is classic ‘content is king.’
I mean, I don’t know if I agree with the fact that this guy said this.
Astra
Is the guy from HubSpot. So American I’m gonna say American. Okay.
Paul
I’ll go with that.
Jason
I’ve had a lot of people say I mean, I said it. Yeah.
Paul
I think I just got it today.
Astra
Man. I’m gonna go Yeah, I’m gonna go American. I’m gonna go I’m gonna go American. I’m gonna say Seth Godin.
Jason
Okay, good shout base. It’s actually Bill Gates. Apparently, I’m going to leave the source on this. Just but maybe interesting. I would never put him down to be honest. But that one. Okay, this is a slightly longer one.
‘The real enemy of all great achievement is caring too much about what total strangers may think of the way you’re living your life.’
Astra
I am gonna go for the law of probability of using four Americans in a row and say, UK for no other reason that’s my only that’s the only reason
Paul
I’ll go UK it wasn’t as punchy as some of the others I think that that goes UK side
Astra
yeah had like an almost an heirs and graces thing the way you said it which made me think
Pat
I am I’m gonna go with the pack here on this one, but I have no idea who said it.
Jason
So it’s Steven Bartlett from Diary of a CEO. And so we finish up there with you on one more. One more. Okay. Okay, ‘don’t reach don’t count the people that you reach, reach the people who count’
Astra
Oh, that’s cheesy. It’s got to be. It’s gotta be American. I think it’s too motivational, too optimistic.
Paul
Or do you think I see I think that’s something like a Londoner would say I can see Jason saying that. I’ll go UK on that.
Pat
I’m gonna go I’m gonna go I think I think Paul, I think you’re onto something. I think it’s Paul Auden. Creative Director at Sachi for a number of years.
Jason
Wow, got the receipts . It’s actually says down here as English for David Ogilvy so he that he is in so it’s it is David Ogilvy founder of Ogilvy and Mather. Yeah. So it’s two answers to that. But yeah, some good some good quotes there.
Astra
I want you on my pub quiz team got knowledge
Jason
and now I think we’ll go on to strategy analogy.
Astra
Yes, section three.
Astra
so do you want to explain the segment for the listeners and for Pat?
Jason
Yeah, so we’re gonna we’re gonna put a word up on the screen. Well, we’re going to use a random word generator to come up with a word. And then all of us on the fly are going to associate a marketing strategy to that word, or a strategy analogy as we’ve, as we’ve put it, and this is born from the fact that Paul will explain things in a very roundabout way, a way that you will always remember but away that will, inherently has storytelling within it, which is great, except when you want them just to explain to you something, I mean, five minutes activate but this is why this has kind of come from this this this segment. Have you got the random word?
Astra
I do. It Is church
Jason
should I do another one? Yeah, that’s too.
Paul
Yeah, let’s keep church
Astra
in my life.
Pat
I’m gonna take church and I love this. So Do you want me to go first or do you want it you guys want to go? Okay, so marketing strategy is this. ‘I am not going to do a marketing campaign. It’d be this. ‘I’m not going to build a church, just for Christmas and Easter are going to want people to come to there just just two times a year. I want them there all the time. So my marketing campaign has got to be year round, fully focused.
Astra
I can only offer sarcasm I’m afraid. I was just gonna like living through a recession is like getting on your knees and praying for the best. Nice serious one. Well, you spend 20 minutes explaining you’re so poor.
Paul
So that’s like I know my relatively snappy I think so. I think when I think of church, I think like the marketing routine, right? You don’t get to go to church once a year. Yeah, I’m gonna have I’m all churched up for the year. You know, and sometimes you might not like going to church every week but you know you turn up on the Sunday and you sing the songs, you shake hands with the people, you spend a couple of hours and then you go home. A lot of what we do in marketing needs that same routine right? It’s the church of marketing. So you have to go in you check your data, you write your reports, you check in with the team. Review the strategy, you’ll have a religious epiphany of some kind, but for marketing,
Astra
I had an analogy a while ago, which I’m gonna say because it’s a Jason I feel like you might see it otherwise. It’s copyright Astra, which is you can kind of like into marketing or talking about marketing to clients. And it’s that ‘sometimes even the choir need reminding of the verse’, when they how often do we have a strategy in place? And they’re like, Yeah, your clients like we’re on board. We’re on board. We’re on board, and then they’re like, Wait, why are we doing that? And you’re like, This has been a six-month strategy. It’s not overnight kind of results and you have to kind of like, keep looping over it. So even the best client who’s like really endowed with your tactics can sometimes need a gentle nudge in the right direction.
Pat
That’s a good one. Keep that one. Yeah, thanks. Pat. That one down. Yep, that was good.
Paul
What was the call again, sometimes you have to sometimes
Astra
Sometimes even the choir needs reminding of the verse. It was off the back of their preaching to the choir kind of bit. Like
Jason
what there’s a lot of stuff going on right now. You can hear it almost in my brain,
Astra
just tiptoeing around all the woke things that you can say about the church. Does that oh
Jason
I’m really scared of like Okay, right. I’m really reaching I’m borderline making out I’m four words ahead in my brain for what’s coming out of my mouth. Okay, so just bear with me. So when you When do you go to church when even religious or not? People tend to go to church during matters of upheaval, some big changes have happened, they’re getting married or, you know someone has passed away or someone’s being Christian. So significant moments in their life. Haven’t got to the end. That’s a fact. We can all agree we’ll come back next episode. I honestly don’t have one. I just don’t have one. I guess what can we say about that? In the end? When you need sales, you have to sit down and look at every part of your marketing funnel. And making sure it all actually works. I think people get a bit more serious again about the core vitals of how your business works. Everything gets re-evaluated the business plan gets re-evaluated and you take from source at customer level, right down to the end. Like then being a customer and then getting more you take away our ads and I’ve lost it I’ve lost I tried but I kind of lost it guys, go back to get back to you.
Paul
That’s okay, that wasn’t the worst one you’ve done either.
Astra
So we when we started this podcast, one of the loose formatting ideas was that we would rank people’s analogies in like a Top Gear distinct style board, and I think eight episodes in we might have enough to start doing that.
It’ll be great social media content. everyone’s a winner. Well, I think those naturally come to an end. Jason would like to go now. Okay, Pat, thank you very much for joining us on the same landing page. It’s been an absolute pleasure and shared much insight as always.
Pat
Awesome. It’s been it’s been great hanging out with you guys for a little bit. Thank you so much for having me on. Guys, great. Thanks. I have a recording stopped. There we go.
Paul
Thanks Pat, Bye.
