"The thing that keeps me up [at night] is that there are people who are just small businesses trying to get out there and learn what they need to do to keep themselves alive or to get started, and they think that they can do it on their own—and they can't," Rebecca Bugger says in this episode of Marketing Smarts.
Rebecca, an advertising expert, nails down some universal truths: Your website should be intentional, informative, and easy to navigate; you have to know where you advertising audience is spending its time; and you can't just pick one facet of advertising—you need a combination of tactics.
"One strategy is not going to be enough. Just having ads appear on Google is not enough. Just having a billboard is not enough," she says.
Facebook and Google have become, even if not what Rebecca refers to as "monsters under the bed," large and complicated and unwieldy creatures, because their digital advertising game has gotten so complex it's impossible to keep up on your own.
"I get two calls pretty consistently.... One is, 'I've been doing it this way for 10 years and now it's not working and I don't understand why.'
"It's because...it's changing every single day, it is becoming something that we have to consistently be watching," she explains.
"You can't set a campaign up on Google or Facebook and just let it run anymore," she says.
Back in the day, times seemed simpler. Advertising, Rebecca and host George B. Thomas conclude, is continually changing, and you should always be testing your methods to see what works and what doesn't.
Watch the full episode for more insights and information:
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Episode Details, Guest Information, and Referenced Links
Episode No. 6
- Live date: July 13, 2022
- Episode link: https://youtu.be/hpOF4-55kGo
- Original podcast episode: How to Identify What Advertising Strategy Is Best for Your Business: Rebecca Bugger on Marketing Smarts
Guest's social media profiles:
- Twitter: @beckyboogs
- LinkedIn: Becky Bugger
MarketingProfs resources referenced in the show:
- Seven Results-Driven Paid Strategies for B2B Marketing
- Pump Up Your Ad Campaigns Through Marketing Analytics
"In B2B News" article referenced in the show:
Full Transcript | Marketing Smarts Live Show Episode 6 | Identifying the Best Advertising Strategy for Your Business
This rough transcript is machine-generated. It's been only minimally edited by humans.
George B. Thomas: All right. We are live. So let's get started here with episode six of Marketing Smarts Live. Welcome to the Marketing Smarts live show by MarketingProfs and the Marketing Smarts podcast, where we dive into valuable guest content and much, much more each and every week.
I'm super excited to bring you episode six of The Marketing Smarts Live Show on this topic of how to identify what advertising strategy is best for your business. I'm your boy George B. Thomas, speaker, trainer, catalyst, and host of this here show, the Marketing Smarts YouTube Live, as well as the Marketing Smarts podcast found on your favorite podcast app.
Now, today's topic, again, is how to identify what advertising strategy is best for your business, and of course, whatever tips, tricks, strategies, or best practices hit my brain along the way of this fantastic journey.
Our guest clips today are brought to you from Rebecca Bugger. She is the head of business development at Stub Group and has years of experience in the field through working as a marketing director, account executive, senior copywriter, and director. She's always focused on humanizing the sales process and creating reliable forward-facing employees. Bugger uses generic branding and marketing skills to determine if digital marketing will work for every single one of their clients.
Now remember, the clips of Rebecca today are pulled from the full Marketing Smarts podcast episode. If you wanna listen to the full interview, the Marketing Smarts podcast link to the full show will be in the description below after the live show ends. That's right, all the right links in all the right places at the exact right time.
Now, when you think about creating an advertising strategy for your business, what comes to mind? Are you the type of person that you set out on the journey all by yourself, or do you look at or look for a guide to help you along the way? Heck, maybe you're like me and others who, when thinking about a digital strategy for their business, many times get paralyzed by the mass amount of questions around where, who, what, why.
When it comes to that advertising, well, while creating an advertising strategy sounds like it should be a walk in the park, many times it's not. That's why the first question I asked Rebecca was, What keeps you up at night pertaining to advertising strategies? And ladies and gentlemen, this is what Rebecca had to say.
Rebecca Bugger: I think that the biggest thing that keeps me up at night —that we're seeing right now across the boards in the digital advertising industry —is the fact that people don't realize that Google is the monster that it is. And it's not necessarily a bad, big, scary monster that's hiding underneath your bed waiting to attack you, but it's something —Google, Facebook, Instagram, all of these digital platforms —they're not as simplistic and easy as they come across to be, nor are they as simplistic and easy as they were 18 months ago or two years ago.
The digital advertising space has transformed dramatically post pandemic. People who never would've imagined advertising online are advertising online now, and I think the thing that keeps me up is there are people that are just trying to get out there and learn what they need to do to keep themselves alive or to get started, and they think they can do it on their own and they can't, and they get themselves in very big holes and messes with platforms like Google and Facebook.
George B. Thomas: Did you hear that, my B2B marketing friends? Have you realized Google is a monster? Heck, many of these platforms have become monsters to navigate. Trust me, I am around them and trying all day every day. And the thing I heard in that segment is that the waters are more crowded than ever and many of them are finding themselves quickly in holes as Rebecca stated. Now, Rebecca went on in the interview further into a second thing that keeps her up at night pertaining to businesses and B2B marketers and digital advertising. Uh, so it's not just one thing that's keeping Rebecca up at night. It's two. And so let's go ahead and take a look at the second thing that she brought to mind.
Rebecca Bugger: And the other thing is that they go out and they're doing it on their own, and they come to us for help. And they don't know what their market is. They don't know who they're trying to reach. They don't know where that person lives, the person that wants to buy their product or use their product. Sometimes there's a gap that's really, really wide that's existing right now between full service agencies, digital marketing agencies, and creative agencies.
It used to be you could go to one agency for everything, and nowadays your marketing really has to have a wider breadth than that. And if you're not working with someone that understands each one of those facets of your marketing and advertising in detail, you're probably missing out somewhere along the line.
George B. Thomas: Missing out somewhere along the line. Do you know your ICP, your ideal client profile or your buyer personas? Do you have a partner or a guide or are you missing out? These are all great questions to ask yourself as you go through this journey with your digital advertising or just advertising strategy broadly.
Hey, we'll get back to Rebecca and her thoughts on advertising strategy. But first I have to ask, are you part of the MarketingProfs community? If not, become part of the marketing community by heading over to mprofs.com/mptoday. That's right, mprofs.com/mptoday.
Now it's time for the in the B2B news where we talk about breaking B2B news or really important tips we find on the Google News tab related to you and your B2B business.
Today's In the News section, B2B marketing Trends, Winning Strategies in the Coming Years. And yes, this article came from Forbes. I want you to listen in to this and ask yourself, does it resonate with you as a B2B marketer? Yearly or even longer term marketing plans have lost their value amidst the constant waves of change we are expecting today. As a B2B leader, whether you're in a marketing or sales or business development position, you need to build an agile strategic plan and leverage technologies and tools to lead a more productive sales and marketing team. All without the certainty that you will be able to execute this plan.
You can count, however, on the fact that you will need to modify any plans and adapt your tactics to respond to increased market complexity and shifting customer behaviors. My gosh, shifting customer behaviors. If you said yes, then you need to take some time to dig into this article. It talks about things like proof of concept, customer voice, ungated experience, customer segments, and much, much more. Of course, you can get the link to the article after the live show is finished. So let's get back to Rebecca and her Marketing Smarts podcast episode.
I wanted to dig into what Rebecca thought was a very important part of your advertising strategy that sometimes people might be forgetting about. Now, think about how many people think about spend, creative, copy, and some other items, you know, like what else...what else should we be paying attention to?
Well, here is exactly what Rebecca said about this. I think you'll find this very interesting.
Rebecca Bugger: Your ads need to connect together. So when you're looking at the wide advertising strategy, maybe you have a billboard, maybe you have a Facebook ad running. Maybe you're appearing on the search ads results. But all of that's leading people where—to your website, most likely, that's where they're ending up.
Whether they're seeing your name on a billboard, googling you, and going to your website. Seeing an ad on Facebook, clicking it and going to your website, or searching for you intentionally and then going to your website, they're all landing on your website. So I think the most important thing is understanding how that website is going to convert.
And a big mistake a lot of people make on those websites, if you're just sending people there randomly, is too much information. Make sure that the website that you have developed in line with your advertising strategies is set up in a way that makes the person who's landing there have a very easy way to convert.
Whether it's filling out a form, clicking a phone number to call, dialing a phone number to call, or purchasing a product. We have to assume that people that are coming there have intentions of working with you, and it needs to be easy for them to. So I think having that really easy to navigate intentional branded website is super important.
George B. Thomas: Did that take you back a bit? Where are you sending people when placing your ads digitally or out of home, or might I say anywhere? I can't tell you the amount of folks I've helped that were running ads just to places like their homepage or we looked at their strategy and in 2021 and yes, even 2022, their website is still not mobile friendly, or they're not AB testing form length or they're not focused on CRO, conversion rate optimization, tactics.
There is so much that you can do to make your website a lead generating machine, but that should be in place for the betterment of your digital advertising. I'm curious, what are your thoughts on digital advertising and top-notch converting website strategies? Keep the conversation going by using the hashtag #mpb2b, and of course with that hashtag, let me know.
Again, we'll get back to Rebecca in a few minutes where we dive into the question of single advertising versus mixed advertising, and what is a major point of focus no matter what.
But first it's time for some dope B2B learnings from the vault of MarketingProfs articles. That's right. It's time to dig into the treasure trove of valuable information and pull out two pieces of gold to help you be a better B2B marketer.
Article number one this week is Seven Results-Driven Paid Strategies for B2B marketing Oh, man, let me say that again. If the thought of remarketing keywords or keyword targeting or you know, ROI focused get you going. Then you'll wanna dive into this quick yet valuable read again. The link will be below. You'll get information on seven strategies that you may or may not have been using in the past, or maybe even some bits of information to help you tweak what you've been doing or doing.
Now, article number two for this week's episode is Pump Up Your Ad Campaigns Through Marketing Analytics. And the fun part about this is what do radio, website conversion lifts, and multitouch attribution have to do with each other? Simple. They're all part of this article slash case study with complete measurable results of marketers putting data and insights to work for their businesses or their customers.
To learn more after the broadcast and to read both articles in full, head to the link location below in the description. Yes, links right place, right time, all that good stuff. I love having fun with that. By the way, it might annoy some of you that I say that several times, many times on the show, but moving forward, okay.
Let's get back to Rebecca, cuz that's why you're here. But first, how much are you paying attention to the humans you're trying to help? How well do you know their habits, their needs, their desires? It is really important to know all of these things when you're trying to implement amazing advertising strategy.
But don't take my word for it. Here's what Rebecca had to say.
Rebecca Bugger: One thing that we always tell our clients is that you need to know where your market lives. Is your market spending time on Facebook? Are they driving? Are they out and about in the community? Where are the people that you want to reach living at? And what kinds of habits do they have? What are they doing? And that's how you can define where to reach them.
One strategy is not gonna be enough, so just having ads appear on Google, not enough. Just having a billboard, it's not enough. The thing that we tell people is they have to keep seeing who you are, and knowing who you are in the places that they're comfortable.
So, you know, we know influencer marketing is a really big thing right now. Anytime I'm talking to a clothing company, for example, and they want to run Google shopping ads or Amazon ads, I tell them their organic social media strategy on the advertising side of things has to be active and running at the same time as any other ad strategy.
If you have a billboard up, you have to have an influencer that's talking about your product and sending people to your website. At the same time, just choosing one facet of it isn't going to be enough. You need to have that connectivity. So if you are trying to reach moms of children under two—still important to figure out where they're spending time.
Maybe they are taking walks in the park, so you should have a billboard up at a park or you can geotarget that park so that when they're sitting on the bench waiting for their children playing on the slide at that point in time, maybe they get on Facebook and we've targeted that park in a way that they're getting served ads to purchase a product that you think is perfect for these moms.
You know, older people don't spend as much time on social media, so maybe you still need to do direct mail marketing to people. I know that hearing aid companies are a great example of that. They're still sending direct mail out to people who are over the age of, you know, 70, 75, because serving them ads on Facebook or on Google is isn't something that's going to work.
In order to understand how you're developing that advertising strategy, you have to understand your target market and you have to home in on it in a way that you are giving them an easy way to becoming a customer or a client.
George B. Thomas: Did you catch the granularity that Rebecca talked about? If they're a mother at a park, an older person who might need print advertising, and of course, I hope you heard how she tied it all back from knowing your humans at a deep level to then sending them to a destination designed to convert easily. Some great words from Rebecca so far today.
Anyway, it's time for some words of wisdom. We're gonna kick it back to Rebecca and some words of wisdom around this topic of what advertising strategy is best for your business. Listen in. Get ready to take some notes on this one.
Rebecca Bugger: I think that one of the biggest things that people need to understand when they're marketing today and coming up with plans is they need to have an expert, whether it is a full service agency or different experts across the board when it comes to advertising. Right now, it's almost impossible to do it on your own.
I mean, there are hustlers out there that figure it out, but there are so many ways that you could literally be throwing your money to the wind if you try to do it on your own. That's your best case scenario, especially when it comes to digital advertising. I get two calls pretty consistently on the business development side of things here. One is "I've been doing it this way for 10 years and now it's not working" and "I don't understand why it's changing every single day."
It is becoming something that we have to consistently be watching. You can't set a campaign up on Google or Facebook and just let it run anymore. The types of campaign strategies that you're using on those specific platforms have to be specific to your business, and they have to be optimized and looked at in a way that is going to make sure that you aren't losing money on a daily basis.
So whether it is hiring someone to do your graphic design so that it's set up in a way that is actually appealing to the eye and that they know this style works particularly for your business vertical, or someone to design you a quality website that is set up to convert customers or having an expert person answering your customer service lines at your business.
You can't do it all yourself anymore. There's too many facets to marketing, so making sure that you're working with someone that knows what they're doing, understands how to look at your business specifically, and isn't giving you a cookie cutter template on what to do... is so important.
George B. Thomas: Are you trying to do it alone? Do you need to find a great partner? Are you stuck in that hole or are you throwing your money to the wind and not in a good, like let's make it rain, way. I hope not. And if so, today is the best day for change. And optimization. I hope you heard Rebecca say that word.
Have you enjoyed today's journey? Let us know. Use the hashtag #mpb2b. Head to the description below. Yep, it's now getting towards that time. Head to the description below. Click on the link to the full Marketing Smarts Podcast with Rebecca Bugger and keep on learning more about advertising for your business. Remember, these were just a few clips from the original Marketing Smarts interview, that, by the way, was sponsored by Mountain and Terminus for that podcast.
If you got value outta today's show, hit that like and better yet share it with a friend to keep learning more. Hit that subscribe or watch additional MarketingProfs videos right here on this channel or platform that you're on, or go tune into the original Marketing Smarts podcast episode on your podcast app.
Don't forget to become part of the MarketingProfs community by heading over to mprofs.com/mptoday. And as always, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble B2B marketing human. And we'll see you on the next Marketing Smarts live show next week.
