On today’s episode of The Engaging Marketeer, Darren speaks to Facebook ads expert Jack Walker from OptiModo Marketing. Together, they discuss targeted social media ads, including how to make sure you’re not wasting your budget, and how self-development plays an integral role in owning a business.
Firstly, they kick off with a chat about BNI.
Jack: It’s all about how you use your connections. I think people believe turning up to BNI meetings is going to make them busy, but that’s not the case at all. If you go to the meetings and don’t do anything else, you’re probably damaging relationships because people think you’re ignoring them, or not interested in their business. I like going for the personal development side of things, because I think it’s great for that.
Darren: That’s the bit that often gets overlooked. Everyone joins for the business, and what they can get out of it, but then you’ll get members in the first year who aren’t getting the returns they want, because they’re not putting anything in. Then they say – “I’m just going to leave, it’s not working for me,” and they’re the ones that go around telling other people it’s bullshit. But if you use it for personal development and look for areas where you can improve and get better, you learn so much. What made you join BNI in the first place?
Jack: I started going when my business was about six months old, and my business coach advised that I should start going. I had a little look, and the rest is history really. But again, I joined for the personal development side of things.
Darren: So not for the business?
Jack: Yeah, because I think it’s really important to develop yourself as well as your business. I don’t think you can develop a business if you’re not developing yourself, too.
Darren: That’s absolutely true.
Jack: I knew that if I was going to be a business owner, I’ve got to become confident speaking in front of people. You’ve got to be able to basically talk about your business in layman’s terms.
Darren: That is key – talking about your business in layman’s terms. There’s so many people who are putting content on their own websites that do not put themselves in the position of their target client. They talk about their business from their own perspective, and they’ll use keywords, buzz terms and industry specific phrases that nobody outside their industry has a clue what they’re talking about. So, what made you start the business in the first place?
Jack: That’s a very good question.
Darren: I try to ask good questions!
Jack: I love a challenge. I think it’s key in life to push yourself, and the one thing in business is that there’s always going to be competition. Especially with marketing – too many people have jumped on board, thinking that it’s going to be a good way to make a quick buck, but actually it’s bloody hard out there, because everybody’s being absolutely spammed with promises of high returns on investment. A lot of the time, it’s all rubbish. The hard part is not doing the work – it’s building trust back up with people and making them realise that not everybody’s like that. Once we get clients, they stick with us. We don’t do contracts – it’s all based on results and relationships.
Darren: I’ve been in this industry a long time, and that as you said, it is saturated, and there’s a lot of people offering to do SEO, PPC, Facebook Ads – any sort of digital marketing activity, who, quite frankly, haven’t got the faintest clue what they’re doing. It’s difficult from a business’s point of view to know whether somebody is good at what they do, or whether they’re just good at bullshit. How hard is it when you reach out to a client who has been burned before to have that conversation about the value you’re offering?
Jack: Our two biggest things are networking, and reaching out to people who are already with agencies. People are worried when it’s another agency that we’re going to go against each other, but it’s about reassurance. It shouldn’t always be about the “sell, sell, sell” – what we do is, we can actually give them advice. We can ask the agency that they’re currently using, “Can we have reports every week? Can you tell me the cost per lead?” A lot of people hide in terms of talking about the return on ads spent. Realistically, you don’t care about that. So, what we do is, we support the client (well, there’ll be a prospect at that point), and show them what the benchmark they’re getting from their agency should be. From there, you can say “look, that’s what they need to be doing. Here’s what we would do. If you want a chat, let’s have a chat”.
In marketing, it’s about knowing what works and what doesn’t, and having the right tools. The digital marketing space is getting bigger – last year, 102 trillion emails were sent. Imagine being an email marketer? You’re just getting more and more competition. But if you’re good at what you do, other people will see that, and come over to you. So, don’t worry about all the other marketing. Stay in your lane, get good at it, and grow – it’s as simple as that.
Darren: Would you say your expertise is more Facebook advertising as opposed to SEO, or does your agency cover everything?
Jack: We’re a small agency, so we’re flexible. But to be honest, our main drive is PID (product, information, distribution) marketing. It’s becoming more competitive, so a lot of people are turning away from it, but for me it’s brilliant.
Darren: Let’s talk about Facebook ads specifically then, as I think that’s something you really get involved in, isn’t it. Why do you think of – or, first of all, is it the case? – that Facebook ads are getting more expensive?
Why exactly are Facebook ads so expensive?
Jack: It’s getting more difficult for businesses to do it themselves and get their return on investment. Big companies were pulling out their ad budget after the stock market acquisition, because they were had no idea what was going to happen, so for companies like us that carried on running, the cost went straight down. Now, people have started to get more confident, and they’re building up again. The more people get return on investment, the more they’re going to throw out. It’s a tricky landscape, but the proof is in the pudding – it works for some businesses, and for others, it doesn’t. But content is key. You can have the best product, or the best customer service, but if your content is crap, people won’t buy into it.
Darren: What do you think about the targeting options on Facebook? Because, from what I’ve seen, they’re removing more options on an almost weekly basis, and it’s becoming more difficult to get the audiences you need for particular clients and businesses.
Jack: Well, I don’t want to give away too much secret sauce here Darren, but what we found works is actually not targeting at all. If you’re trying to sell, for example, to ladies who are interested in dresses, their feeds going to be filled with “dresses, dresses, dresses” because of the algorithm, and everyone is going to be marketing to them. So, the difference is, you go to Facebook and say, “OK, here’s what’s working brilliantly – let’s scale that.” Let Facebook learn itself where people are. In essence, marketing is like a big pond – you’ve got to dip your hand in different sections and find out where the fish are. But Facebook does that for you – all you’ve got to tell them is, “OK, we caught fish over here, let’s put another three leads over there”, rather than fishing where everybody else is. You’ve got to learn how to work with it, and often, it works it out itself.
Darren: Yeah, that makes sense. It’s more difficult for other people spending more money in one area, so it allows you to shine.
Jack: Exactly. If you were walking down a high street, and there’s a shop with no branding, you’re probably not going to look twice. That’s exactly what people are doing when they’re making a Facebook page, and not even making any content on it. The point is you have to make organic content – but it has to be valuable. The worst thing you can do when marketing your product is to go “buy this product, buy this product, buy this product”. It turns people off. If you can educate your target customers, and show them reviews, and demonstrate how it’s helped others, people will be more inclined to purchase it. There’s stats to prove that a lot of people look to social media before purchasing a product, to check other people’s experiences of it. Let me ask you a question – how many legs do you have on your table have right now?
Darren: I’m going to go with four.
Jack: Ok, so why are people relying on their marketing with one leg?
Darren: Good point!
Jack: Is your table going to be stable? All right, you may have a really big leg, but it’s not as stable as four. You don’t want to rock it too much. It’s about educating people using the right kind of marketing, and using the messaging correctly as well.
Darren: Whenever a business sets up an ad, Facebook will make recommendations on what it thinks you should do, what it thinks you should increase your budget to (it’s never decrease it, is it!) or where it thinks your placement should be. Should you let Facebook handle all of that – what’s your view?
Jack: There’s two ways of looking at this – one, Facebook wants more money, so wants you to spend more. But on the other side of things, they want you to win as well, because if you win, you’re going to be spending more, so they obviously make more.
It costs Facebook nothing to put your ad out there, so personally, we don’t go with the recommendations. It’s like doing any sort of training – if everybody does the same thing, how are you meant to stand out from the crowd? If every single brand you compete is doing exactly the same, you can’t. You’ve got to work out what’s working for you. I’ve got a question for you here actually Darren – what do you think of sales?
Darren: Well, I used to be the web designer for Game many years ago, and the marketing manager at the time once said to me, “If you win a customer on price, you will lose a customer on price”. Therefore, trying to compete and become the cheapest is not a long-term term strategy for a growing business. It is far better to position yourself as better value, rather than a cheaper price. So, sales have a place, but not in terms of growing a loyal customer base.
Jack: That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.
Darren: Oh good!
Jack: Value and price are massively different. You need to learn how to run with the algorithm, and have it work for you. It could be that you’re running a Facebook ad, and someone with the exact same business runs one, and it just doesn’t work as well. So, it’s about finding your own lane using social media.
Are Facebook ads suitable for every business?
Darren: You mentioned how some businesses run ads and it doesn’t work for them – if there’s a business owner listening to this, what should they be thinking of before they go, “right, I’m going to set up and run a Facebook ad” – what should they get right within their business first?
Jack: First and foremost, make sure you have the capacity. The worst thing you can do is to start posting ads, and let’s say they DO work – you’ve got to have the capacity to fulfil that. Second of all, you’ve got to have the product or service ready, and you’ve got to add value. Let’s say you’re a window cleaner, and are offering the average market price – but then you drop off flowers and chocolate afterwards. Guess what – you’re adding value. As an online business, you’ve got to add value somewhere. Can you add a thank you note?
Then, you have to do market research. Facebook Ad Library, for example – I don’t know why nobody knows that! And importantly, you need to test orders. Get your friends to do a test order, see what happens. Put your Shopify store on development, try pushing orders through, see what happens. There’s so many little things we’ve had before, like “oh, I realised I can’t print labels” – well, you’ve got 30 orders now, that need to be shipped out today – what are you going to do?
Darren: It’s a continual process – continual improvement.
Jack: That’s the main thing, and education. I know workshops are really good for some, but I personally can’t stand speaking in front of people.
Darren: That’s a shame – I think you’d be good at it!
Jack: I appreciate that I’ve got a different way of thinking. I’m very dyslexic you see, so I don’t do writing!
Darren: That would probably work really well for workshops, because most people who run workshops do them really badly, and they’ll fill a PowerPoint screen with text and they’ll read it all out, and people will be bored shitless. But if you do the whole thing as analogies without text on the screen, you’ll appeal to the kind of people that would be your ideal client.
Jack: This is the thing. I used to think dyslexia was a pullback, but you can actually use it to your benefit. There’s so many tools out there that can help you. I get distracted quite easily in terms of everyone sitting there for an hour and a half, and it’s frustrating, because there’s no visuals or stuff like that. I think there’s a massive gap in the market, and I want to be able to help people, because there’s a high percentage of people who are dyslexic. People might think – “oh, he’s dyslexic, I’m not going to work with him” – brilliant, I don’t care if you don’t want to work with me. We have a process, using things like Grammarly to check all the spellings, but what I’m trying to get at is, I want to be able to create events, like networking, that’s friendly for people who are dyslexic, or maybe have ADHD, and can’t sit there for hours on end. They may have public anxiety – I want to make more tailored events for business owners around that.
Darren: I think that would be an amazing niche, to do Facebook Ads workshops for people with dyslexic and/or ADHD.
Jack: It makes me sad that people don’t reach their full potential because they’re worried about what other people think. I think it’s about working stuff out. There’s nothing better than a personal brand and a strong person behind it, because the value you have as a small business is actually inherently YOU. So, to develop the company you’re inside, you need to develop yourself, and I’d love to be able to support people to do that.
Darren: That sounds like a fantastic idea, and good luck with that. So, as a final point – if someone is listening to this and thinking, “Christ, this guy knows about Facebook ads, I want to work with him”, or to talk about any other type of marketing, what’s the best way for someone to get in touch with you?
Jack: There’s a number of ways. You can head over to our website, which is OptiModo Marketing, or you can find me on LinkedIn. I’m more than happy to talk to anybody – even if it’s about business and we can’t help you, I will be there to support you, because in this pirate market, I want to be there as a lifeboat.
Darren: Fantastic, thanks Jack. It’s been lovely talking to you.
Jack: It’s been an absolute pleasure.
About Jack:
Jack Walker, a fellow member of BNI, uses his digital marketing expertise to propel businesses forward using Facebook ads, along with other forms of social media advertising, through OptiModo Marketing. A big advocate of self-development, Jack is also passionate about helping individuals understand their own value, and offers support to those who may be held back by limiting beliefs.
You can connect with Jack here:
Website: https://optimodomarketing.co.uk/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-walker-optimodo/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OptiModoMarketing
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/optimodomarketing/
About your host:
Darren has worked within digital marketing since the last century, and was the first in-house web designer for video games retailer GAME in the UK, known as Electronics Boutique in the States. After co-founding his own agency, Engage Web, in 2009, Darren has worked with clients around the world, including Australia, Canada and the USA.
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/engaging-marketeer/id1612454837
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenjamieson/
Engaging Marketeer: https://engagingmarketeer.com
Engage Web: https://www.engageweb.co.uk
