Blab #15: ROI Driven Marketing

Tom Haslam - (host):

Welcome to Marketing Labs. This podcast is brought to you by Marketing Labs, an expert digital marketing agency based in Nottinghamshire. If you are a business owner or marketing professional looking for straightforward non-salesy tips and advice to help grow your business online, then this is the podcast for you Strap in because we're about to reveal the things that other agencies would rather you didn't know. Hello, everyone. We're back.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

2024 is here, and we're here for another episode of Marketing Labs. We're proud of the content. We're shared with you last year, and we're looking forward to sharing some new and exciting content in 2024. For those of you that don't know me, my name's Tom Haslam and I'm the creative director here at Marketing Labs. Today we're going to talk about a topic that's at the very heart of every successful marketing campaign, return on investment. How do you measure it? Why is it crucial for any business? It's what any business wants when they're going into a marketing strategy. Joining me today from Team ML is our very own founder and CEO, Matt Geni. How are you, Matt?

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Morning, Tom? Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. All good? Yeah. Yeah, very good.

Tom Haslam - (host):

2024, first part of the year. Yeah.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Excited. Yeah, very excited.

Tom Haslam - (host):

We're also very lucky to have our fourth guest speaker join us today. We have with us Jordan Stachini. I did it.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

You did it. Well done.

Tom Haslam - (host):

The founder of Co and Co, a marketing agency based in Manchester. So prior to founding co co in early 2020, Jordan headed up global marketing teams across the uk, Europe, Africa, and Asia, specialised in performance-based marketing, long-term strategies, and experiential marketing. You like to chuck a few words inform me. Testing. Testing, CO and CO is all about driving ROI. No matter the activity, it all comes down to making the till ring sounds about right. Alongside our team, Jordan supports clients looking to make a tangible and measurable impact on their bottom line. In Jordan's world, everything can be measured and if you aren't measuring, you aren't marketing, you're gambling. Now that resonates, don't it, Matt? To be fair.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Yeah, very much so.

Tom Haslam - (host):

If you're not making return on your investment, then what's the point?

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

It's an ultimate goal,

Tom Haslam - (host):

Isn't it? Exactly. Every business wants a return. So welcome, Jordan.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Hello. Thanks for having

Tom Haslam - (host):

Me. Thanks for coming. Good trip.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

It's far forever than I thought, and I had been pre-warned as well. How long did it take? It took two hours. Oh really?

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Yeah. Shows were worth it though. Well, you

Tom Haslam - (host):

Better be. No pressure now. No

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Pressure. Did Tom do you justice?

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Yeah, no, I'm happy. Good.

Tom Haslam - (host):

I'm happy as well. I think normally I start getting a bit like and lose me words, but I smashed that, didn't I? Not bad. I mean,

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

You had practise about 25 times saying my name, so I wouldn't have expected you to

Tom Haslam - (host):

Mess it up. I was thinking before STIs, tini, how is it? But I got it right. Yeah. Not like when we did it with Andy. I got that very wrong. Sorry, Andy. If you listen to this,

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

And that was also probably anywhere between five and eight seconds after we told you. Yeah,

Tom Haslam - (host):

Which makes it 10 times worse. Do

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

You know what though? When you've got a name like me or Andy have got, it's my life. My whole life is correcting people. So growing up we actually had a, I'm not going to do it for you, but we had a little rhyme to me and my brothers and sisters.

Tom Haslam - (host):

Yeah, I think

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

You've got to do it now. No, I'm not doing it. So we can when you are four or five and your best mate is called Laura Allen, and you've got to learn how to spell your names and your name is Jordan Rochelle Tini, and her name is Laura Allen. You've got the shit under the stick, aren't you? So yeah, spent the last 34 years correcting people on how to say it. Are you going to

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Do it? No, I'm

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Not going to. We'll

Tom Haslam - (host):

Keep trying. Maybe we'll do a separate episode on that maybe. Yeah,

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Put it on my paywall.

Tom Haslam - (host):

But thanks for being here anyway. It's really good to have you. So ROI. Why do we think it's so crucial for businesses to understand ROI when approaching the marketing strategy? What do we think?

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Well, I mean you kind of summed up before, if you're not making money ultimately from something, whether that's immediately or over time, what the fuck are you doing it for really? Because no matter what your business is, the idea is to make money from your activity. I think for me and my experience having been in-house and now working with clients is to really, really nail ROI. You have to understand that ROI is not always actually about money. It is ultimately long term, but in the immediate term it might not be. And to understand that you have to really understand what conversion is. You have to really break down all these different types of conversion that are available to you as a marketeer, as a business. So if you are in a business where you only see a conversion as a sale and that's it, that's all you see, then yeah, all you're going to get are sales, but you are missing out on such a massive part of the market who aren't ready to transact to give you their money there, and you just can't do that.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

You have to see value in other activity as well. And if you're then talking about a wider marketing strategy that covers different channels, it covers different periods of time, it covers different angles, it covers different campaign content. You have to be going for these different types of conversion constantly. That is a fully rounded marketing strategy. The best example that we kind of give people is it's a bit like the jacuzzi thing, if you know what I'm about to say. So it's like all jacuzzis are hot tubs, but not all hot tubs are jacuzzis. All sales are conversions, but not all conversions are sales. And that's how you have to think about it a bit like all Hoovers are vacuum cleaners, but not all vacuum cleaners are Hoovers. So you really have to start breaking down what these other types of conversion are. And then once you understand what those other types of conversion are, you can build your strategies around achieving them.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

And each one of those strategies will lead to a different conversion and each of those conversions will lead to ROI at a different period of time. So when you're putting a strategy together, what we call it is you have your salary channels, the things that are going to bring in money today, they're going to keep your lights on today, they're going to pay you staff wages today. They're going to keep your business running. And then you have your pension channels and they're the ones that are going to look after your business longer term. So in your life, your personal life, you have a salary and hopefully you have some sort of plan for what happens when I don't work anymore. But yet you have your salary and you have your long-term plan. And it's the same with business. And every channel, every opportunity from marketeer can be split into a salary channel or a pension channel.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

Some kind of have a foot in both camps depending on what it is that you are trying to achieve and what it is you're telling people. But ultimately you need a strategy that encompasses immediate gratification for want of a better word, and long-term success. So that's kind of what we talk to people about. And again, let's say that you and I, Tom tomorrow are both going to go out and we're both going to go and look for a new car. We're both going to go to the same dealership. We've got the same amount of money in our pocket to spend. Now a car is a big ticket value item. So that's something that normally people are going to take longer to transact on because of the amount of money that's involved. Tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds if you're doing things. But actually when you and I walk into the dealership, we both need a car.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

So we're both important to that dealer, but the driver of why we need that car is really important in understanding when we are going to transact. Now you might be in there because you just fancy a new car, right? Doing well, you've got a bit of money, you think fancy a new car, I'm going to go and get one. I might need a new car. I've just written mine off or because it's broke or I might have a more immediate reason for needing that car if that dealership just sees me as the customer as the opportunity. That's really shortsighted. You also have 50 grand whatever to spend on a car. You just might not make that decision there then. So they have to take you still as a customer, as a potential customer, and they have to just work you differently. So they might get a sale quicker from me, but if they don't look after you, if they don't say, oh yeah, we've got this, and they show you around and they give you a bit of literature and they check in with you in a few days, they invite you to maybe a dealership event in a couple of weeks.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

If they don't put that time into you to nurture you, to keep you aware of them, they're going to lose you because you are going to buy a car. But if they don't look after you, if they don't see that long-term potential, you're not going to buy a car from them and they're going to lose out. They go somewhere

Tom Haslam - (host):

Else

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

They, it's a great analogy that actually love an analogy. Yeah, it's a really good analogy because I would say this is probably one of the most common mistakes you see with marketing. Absolutely. It's that you can understand where the logic comes from, but the notion that you have to be, you should only do marketing activity, let's say if it's driving an instant return and every business is different because the time lag between that awareness stage and that conversion stage might be two days, it might be a year, it might be two years. It depends on what the purchase is, but forgetting about that sort of anybody that isn't just at the bottom of the funnel is actually quite a dangerous approach. It's

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Really dangerous. And the funnel is something that every business really has to think about. And we are primarily talking about sales focus businesses here, but every business is a sales focus business. I genuinely believe that nobody's started a business out of the goodness of their heart, even Oxfam's a business. You know what I mean? That's what I always tell

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

We did by the way.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Yeah, I'm sure. So everything is a business and you do have to at the top of that funnel, when people are in that decision-making process, maybe they're not even in a decision-making process, maybe they're in an education phase where they don't actually know they need you yet. If you are not there providing the education, if you are not there providing the insight, if you are not there as this beacon of information for them as well as opportunity, you're going to lose out. Massively going to lose out.

Tom Haslam - (host):

How many of our clients don't understand that funnel process though, in terms of when to nurture, when to build awareness, when to educate? It's

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Well, I'd go even beyond that to be honest. I would say just businesses in general. How many businesses in general don't understand that process? I mean it's hard. I've never seen any statistics and I don't think even if somebody tried, you'd be able to get them. But I would suspect at least two thirds, three quarters of businesses just aren't geared in that way.

Tom Haslam - (host):

No,

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

No, I would definitely agree with that. We have that conversation with people obviously a lot. And it's not until you sit down and map it out with people and give them real world examples of spending the time. And the other thing is you guys will know this as well as an agency, as a marketing agency, you are often asking businesses to part with their money and saying You're not going to see any results though straight away, especially SEO, which you guys will know about. SEO is something that we always really try and encourage our clients to do because, well, it is a pension strategy is that long-term strategy. And when you sit down with someone and you say, right, so I want you to give me X amount of money every month, we're going to put it into this thing called SEO, not going to give you any results for 12 months, 18 months, two years, but I just want you to give me that money and I'll promise you, I can always

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Guarantee, trust

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Me, trust me, trust me. That's a really hard conversation. But if you pair that with, okay, give me this investment into this channel, this activity over this period of time, but also give me this which is going to be more immediate, whether that's your PPC paid, social, whatever it might be, this is going to give you the immediate stuff. And while we're banking on this immediate stuff, now this is what the SEO is going to be doing kind of long-term. I mean we've got a great example where we've got a client who had the same conversation with in a really competitive traditional industry, property industry, and we said to them, they're in lettings. And we said to them, right, we've done your whole new website, you are all set up. It looks fantastic. But if you've got a really good looking website and you don't put any money into making it perform, it's a bit like owning a Ferrari and just not putting any petrol in it and then being like, well, why is it not going anywhere?

Unknown Speaker - (?):

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So we're going to need some petrol for this Ferrari. So got them to commit to some decent SEO spend. Bear in mind they're in the lettings UK lettings industry, which is hugely competitive, especially when you think of the likes of right move and even booking dot common people like that. We've now got them to a point where they're ranking above booking.com and Rightmove for some key terms that they weren't even touching 18 months ago, whatever. And now they love it and now they're like, can we put more into it? Can we do more? And you think you aren't this so enthusiastic 12 months ago, but if getting 'em to understand that it does take time, it really does take time.

Tom Haslam - (host):

I think it is a mindset thing, isn't it? It's like we have that our analogy, don't we one plus one equals three,

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Which is it comes a stupid analogy, but it makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Yeah. It's

Tom Haslam - (host):

Like if you invest, invest in SEO, which is going to give you your long-term delivery, why not get a short-term delivery as well and consider other platforms or channels, shall we say, that are going to help get that short-term return. So it's

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Like, and also having the double visibility hundred percent, okay. You might have just for simple maths, you might have a particular keyword where a hundred people a month search for a thousand people a month, but they don't just click one result. One of them might click, one of them might click 10, one of them might click three. So actually having that double visibility doesn't actually always equal one. It can much maybe equal 1.5 or two. So yeah, having both of those strategies aligned is so important. It's funny because this week I've had a conversation with a client who are trying to understand internally we have the data to help them and support them and we have done, but they're trying to understand internally with stakeholders what portion of their revenue digitally is being driven by brand. By brand terms. It's a very interesting conversation because there's a misconception internally that it drives everything, which sounds silly when you say that to anybody in digital marketing.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

But actually as well, there are some insights that you can give them to show them that not everything is always just black and white. So for example, when they're analysing their direct traffic, we showed them that the journey, when we're analysing last click conversions on direct, we're showing them that that journey actually starts from organic and ads. So that brand awareness is being created by something else that's forgetting that on the opposite side also, there's last click conversions on organic that might come from people who are already aware of who their brand are and vice versa, but also first click conversions from organic and brand. But the point being that it can be quite complex and aligning that in the strategy and the goals can make such a big difference for making sure that they're aware that actually it's a big jigsaw. And what you've got to do is try to put your focus and efforts in the right places. So I guess where I'm going with this is what are your thoughts on those kind of challenges as a business? Because actually they're very logical. A stakeholder in a business that's looking at, they receive a report on the desk and it says 90% of our revenue might come from direct traffic. What's your approach in convincing those stakeholders that it's not actually just as black and white as that?

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

It's hard. It is hard. It's tough. And I think the more data the business has got the better. And normally we see that conversation where they haven't got a great deal of analytical information, so they just see the black and white, they see, as you say, we're getting a load of organic traffic, therefore everyone must know about our brand, therefore we're fantastic. Okay, okay, fine. Let's agree, right that that's true. Tell me everything else that you are doing. Everything from individuals posting on LinkedIn to social media, everything. Tell me everything you are doing because all of that stuff that you are doing around it that you are probably not measuring, that you are probably just doing because well, you've got to do it. You, you've got to do that. If you don't believe that that is having any impact whatsoever, my genuine response would be turn it off.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

Just turn it off, see what happens and see what happens. Because I guarantee you your brand awareness that you think you've built dis disintegrate going to take a nosedive. But that is normally, as I say, when people don't, all they have is Google Analytics or whatever software they're using to measure their website, but that is usually the case that they're not measuring the other stuff. They're just going, oh, but it's all brand awareness. It all falls under this lovely fluffy category. And touching back on what you said before in the intro, I don't believe there's any fluffy activity. I don't believe that. I believe everything can be measured, whether that is measured offline, old school, person to person, qualitative, quantitative, asking people yes, no questions, everything can be measured. So that would be my response to that is, okay, well all these other things that you're doing, show me the results from them first of all.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

And if you can't do that and you're still confident that you've created this great brand awareness because you're getting all this organic traffic, turn all the other stuff off and then in two weeks let's look at your organic traffic. I have a feeling the other stuff probably matters. And also if you're so convinced it doesn't, why are you doing it? Why are you doing it and what are you doing? And that is sometimes when the penny drops because all this other stuff they think is brand is not brand, it's content, it's engagement, it's higher funnel activity. But that's just what we use social media to spread awareness for education, for insight. Okay, so that's higher funnel marketing activity. You're capturing people, you've identified, there's people that needs to be educated and you're capturing them. Oh, right, okay, but we're not doing it for a sale.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

Well, it's not to drive a click to the website or get an inquiry, but you're telling me that activity is doing that. So do you know what I mean? Sometimes they have it in front of their face and they've just got, as the analogy used, they've got all these pieces for the jigsaw, but they've got some in that room and some in that room and a few bits fit together in there and a few bits fit together in there. Bring all them bits together and we probably have a full picture. But I think again, it comes back to people being hell bent on that inquiry, that lead and also last click conversion, like people are obsessed with last click conversion attribution is still not widely used across most businesses. And we do a lot of work from a more of an operational perspective of businesses to help them get their CRMs in a system where they are tracking single customer journey.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

You go into most businesses and go show me a single customer journey. They basically show you a phone book and they're like, well, this is all our contact, but how have they interacted with you? How many times they've been on your website, how many emails have they got? How many emails have they opened? How many emails have they opened versus how many they replied to show me all this stuff? Oh no, we don't track that, but I can tell that they inquired on Wednesday. You can't tell me anything. When did they get any database? Two years ago, right? So you think they've just been sat on your database for two years and now they've decided to inquire what about what has happened in those last over 700 days for them to inquire now? Oh I dunno. We don't track that. Great. And the

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Funny thing is as well with that process, so you've got so many different touch points as part of that journey and every single one of those journeys is going to be different. Okay, there's going to be some correlation and over big numbers, you're going to see some quite interesting insights and some direction if you like about what you are doing well or what you maybe aren't doing well. But the interesting thing is just those channels can get a bit complicated for somebody who doesn't do this. When you then add into the mix different types of attribution, it can get very, very difficult for people. And I think this is sometimes where human nature, I think sometimes that when something gets quite complicated and you don't understand it to resort to gut feeling, and this is I think where a lot of it comes from because you try having a conversation with somebody, they've had a hundred conversions this month. Let's say two of them, the journey went search, Google branded term converted, five of them went searched for an informational keyword, clicked on an ad, left your website, came back to your website, clicked on your social media, followed you, left your website, come back, then you've got five more that do something else and then two more that do something else and one more that does something else. And that journey is very convoluted. You then throw into the mix attribution, it can get challenging.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Definitely can. And I think when it comes to things like that, you do have to start the basics. Okay, let's all agree we'll start with last touch attribution in terms of how much value we're going to associate with that last touch point, but let's still record the other stuff. Let's still have that intelligence. Even if you can't get a client past the no, the last touch is the most important. Even if you can't get them past that, which is a mindset thing, I think it always comes back to mindset all the time. If you can't get them past that, at least get 'em to the point where they are tracking the 15 touch points up until that point. And I think one of the things for us is if you've got a database that you are building and you have people in there and you get to this point where you have that customer journey, let's forget about attribution for a second, but if you have that customer journey tracked in there for me, and one of the things I say to clients is you are always going to attract a client through a third party source.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

So whether that's PPC, whether that is paid digital, whether that is anything basically other than you as the company reaching out, even your own website is a third party source until someone is on your database. So everyone comes onto a database through a third party. If they continue to come back to you through third party sources, you fundamentally got something wrong with your CRM strategy. And this is a really important part of conversion as well. You should only pay for someone once. You really should if you are paying, and again, I'll use property as an example, if you've got someone who's come onto your database through Rightmove in your CRM, you should be tracking what they've come in on, house, apartment bungalow, two beds, three beds, four beds, price point, everything else. You know enough about that person to have a quality conversation with them about what they're looking for on a regular basis.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

If that person doesn't come back to you through your own database activity. If you are paying for that person time and time again, the next time it might be social media. The next time it might be PPC, the next time it might be, God forbid, through an agent who they've gone to an agent and then the agent, if you are constantly paying for someone to come back to you, you've got something really wrong with your CRM strategy and CRM is a huge part when we're talking about conversion. I genuinely believe you should only pay for someone once. You shouldn't be paying for them time and time again because it's a waste of fucking money, isn't it really? And that's really important when you're talking to people about conversion because companies will pat themselves on the back when you start tuck catching the touch points and they'll go, oh, this person's interacted with us 14 times.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

They haven't. They've interacted with right move, they've interacted with Facebook, they've interacted with Instagram, they've not opened any of your emails. And the ones they have opened, they've not engaged with, they've not replied to, and you're just paying for visibility. Yeah, you're paying for visibility, you haven't got them back in, you haven't brought 'em back in, you are paying for it time and time again. And that's a really hard mindset to shift people onto. So then when they're looking at something basic like lead volumes and they go, oh, we generated 5,000 leads this month, did you? Because actually there's a large number of them that you already had. So in real terms, how many have you actually generated? And this again is where it comes back to normally these are the businesses that are focused on the sale or roulette in this case, but they're focused on getting money from somebody once that person's in the database, that is your opportunity for different types of conversion. That is your opportunity for content, that's your opportunity for education, that's your opportunity for working out what it is this person wants and being the source of that, whether it be information, whether it be a product, whatever it is. But you shouldn't be paying for someone time and time again. And the more times you're seeing it, the worse you are.

Tom Haslam - (host):

I agree. I think it's an interesting way of looking at it and I think like we say, it always comes back to mindset, the strategy and the goal, but along that process things might change. I want to talk about tools or techniques that people can use to help track their ROI. We all understand sat around this table what those tools and techniques are. Because we're a digital marketing agency, we understand data, we understand analytics. But if there is let's say a marketer, a business owner who wants to try and better understand that themselves, what tools or techniques are we open to giving them to be able to do that themselves? What do we think?

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

For me, I think the first thing that you have to get your head around or you have to accept or you have implement within your business is that marketing and sales are not the same thing and you either have to have a really good healthy relationship between the two, otherwise it just won't work. Sales cannot dictate the marketing strategy. A sales strategy and the marketing strategy are not the same thing and they can coexist and they should compliment each other, but sales, for me, sales leading on marketing is like the tail wagging the dog. It doesn't work,

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Doesn't work. It's one of my biggest pet hates.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

I hate it. Yeah, absolutely hate it. And I always say, you wouldn't let your sales person cut your hair so you shouldn't let them cut your marketing spend or your activity because again, and quite rightly so a sales person's primary, I'm pretty sure they're hardwired to be this way, is to sell it is to that is the conversion that they care about. As a marketeer, I actually think that's the last thing that you should care about. You should care about all the other conversions and that fundamentally, if a business owner or someone was saying to me, what do we need to do to improve ROI? My first question would be, what is the current relationship you have between sales and marketing? Because a lot of the time the problem lies there and you have to sort that out just as a fundamental business practise before you can then start arming people with analytical tools, all of that kind of stuff. I think that's super, super important. If you don't do that and sales plays this really powerful role in the makeup of a business, your marketing strategy is never going to be anymore than a constant feeding of the sales team and that's just not how it should work.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

I think that challenge is amplified as well because, and I mean this in the nicest way to salespeople, but they're generally quite alpha.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

I mean I do a talk where the first slide says just for all the marketers in the room, the world does not revolve around the asshole of salespeople. Just get that out of the way. But in businesses, salespeople, you are right. They're the alpha, they're the people that they're bringing in the money and everything else. They

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Dominate everything.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Turn the fucking marketing off and then let's see how good they are shall

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

I guess the big challenge for them is that they're so reliant on the marketing doing part of their job for them so they can finalise that conversion and so they can get their teeth stuck into it. So that's why they're generally quite desperate to push for very bottom of the funnel stuff because they need it. That

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Feeds them, feeds them.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

They're bottom feeders. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But because they're so alpha, it tends to dominate the strategy in the process. And actually I go so far as to say that most businesses actually, a lot of them don't understand the difference between sales and marketing and they think it's more than the same. Agree.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Yeah, I agree. And I think that's sometimes where you end up with in organisations. I was very lucky within the organisations that I worked in before I started Coen Co where I was very much in charge of that strategy and worked very well with the sales team. But exactly like you said there, if they come to dominate, you will end, and this will probably resonate with marketers that are going to listen to this, but you'll end up with heads of marketing or marketing directors who aren't heads of marketing or marketing directors at all the marketing operations people and they are, they're turning the cogs and they're pressing the buttons and they're pulling the levers, but they're not actually driving the strategy. Again, sales is very short term, very shortsighted. There's a reason that marketing strategies are done 12 months, 24 months in advance. It's because a long term it is a pension job, it's not a salary job and you're dead. It becomes a sales business and it becomes, everything is about getting a lead in for the sales team today. So there's a job to do with educating salespeople as to what marketing actually does and the role that it plays and how it supports but does not do your job for you.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

And if done correctly, actually it also makes your, they should be the best friends of marketers. They should be because if done correctly, it sustains their job for a long time and also makes them quite successful.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Absolutely.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

But it has to go hand in hand. And this is quite an interesting thought because, so to give you some insights into marketing Labs and the listeners, some of these listeners will be our clients and some of them will already know this, but some of them aren't and we're dreadful at sales genuinely. We're probably one of the worst businesses you will meet when it comes to sales. We

Tom Haslam - (host):

Probably,

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

We've never had a sales person. We've managed based on the back of performance and because we're actually on the opposite side on the marketing side, we're extremely good based off the back of that and our performance, we've managed to build a seven figure annual revenue off the back of supporting businesses and help them achieve their goals. We've not done it. In fact, I'd say it's contrary to our sales ability.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

I would challenge that though, and I would say you obviously are great at what you do. Very successful. You're driving those inquiries into business. I would say that you are good at sales because you understand where those inquiries have come from and what they're looking for. You are not going for the sale, are going for understanding what it is that someone's looking for and that is what makes people good at sales is understanding what the problem is.

Tom Haslam - (host):

I also think just to throw in before you jump in, we are not good at sales in terms of being hard sellers. We're not hard sellers.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

You're not car salesmen, you're not out there trying to get the sale like that. The sell

Tom Haslam - (host):

Through experience in my eyes,

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

So this is what I was going to say. I think almost accidentally

Tom Haslam - (host):

We've and knowledge,

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Yeah, we've probably fallen into this process of being able to convert because we have a passion experience and knowledge and we're good marketers and that's the thing that I think has helped us a lot, but it might be surprising, it might not, we didn't have a pipeline until a few months ago. We're seven years old, so I was going to say

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Was you didn't have one, you weren't tracking one.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

We didn't have one.

Tom Haslam - (host):

Wow. Complete didn't have one. It's only sort at the start of 2023 when we thought

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Nobody in the team at all has ever been responsible for sales. Not even. Not even you

Tom Haslam - (host):

Sort of

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

As you pick it up by default I guess, but it's very, I

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Appreciate it. I take

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

That. Yeah, very reactive. Certainly not. Do

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

You enjoy it though when you have to do it?

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

No, I hate it. Do you not? No, I hate it.

Tom Haslam - (host):

I think, yeah, but I'll come back to the fact I think you don't sell, but because you've been in SEO for 20 years or however long it is,

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

You've given away his age. You sell

Tom Haslam - (host):

40,

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Not yet.

Tom Haslam - (host):

Not yet. Always one mate. You've been in SEO for so long, the industry so well. So you just naturally sell through knowledge and passion and

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

This is sort of my point really because coming back, I guess the analogy where it's going, and I know it was a bit of a long-winded one, but I think it was necessary to tell the story. I wanted to prove your analogy of the tail wagging the dog because the concept, I'm not saying every business has to behave like us by any means. We're probably quite unique actually in that sense. However, if you get all of that right, it's then no longer the tail waggon, the dog and the last bit. It just comes from your passion and your knowledge. You don't have to be that sales person or that hard sales person. I agree. You're just doing your job.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

I mean similar to, we've not been going as long as you guys will be four in February. We've only just brought someone on to grow the pipeline, the sales side of things. Yeah, so we have had a healthy pipeline for a while and I think to be honest, that comes more from my background of how I have worked with sales businesses, so that's just been my take. That's okay. We build a pipeline and we work the pipeline through and everything else, and I guess it is come through circumstance in that I can't be as in the business as I have been up until this point, my time is best spent elsewhere in working on the business rather in, we all know that fucking thing that everyone said.

Tom Haslam - (host):

I'm just trying to calculate how many analogies we've used in this pod. Think

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Six or seven, I tell you what, right? We'll come back to it in a minute, but ask me shortly about the analogy that I gave about eyebrows because it was the best and worst thing that I ever do.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Eyebrows. Do you know what we're going to have to do? Some of these analogies need to be shorts about

Tom Haslam - (host):

Shorts, Jordan's analogies. Yeah,

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Yeah. Have you listened to any of our shorts? I haven't. They're just one two minute insights and some of these would be great for them,

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

But we have had a pipeline for, I mean we had a pipeline in my head, I put it on paper last year. Everyone goes like, so what's your plan now? I'm like, no, I had a plan going to have to have one now. So we've only just brought someone in, but even though her job is ultimately to build that pipeline to get those initial conversations started, all that kind of thing, when we were putting the job together, I was like, I don't want her job title. I'm saying her because it is a girl. It might not have been a girl at the time, just saying it's a girl. And I said, I don't want the job title to be business development sale. I just don't want it to be because we are not, those type of people mean I've sworn a lot on this podcast, but our website is full of it.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

Keep swearing fine. My post are full of it. Our whole thing is no fluff, no bull, just make marketing. That is how we are and that's very important to me. So this person's job title is called head of making Shit Happen. Their job, their job is to make shit happen for the business and when we go into meetings I'm like, so this is Meg, she's our head of making shit happen. They go, what? I'm like, that's her job. And she said, the only person, she's not told in her family what a new job is yet is a nan. She's not quite sure how she's going to explain it, but it was really important to me that yes, her job is to go out and to build relationships. That's key for me is that all of our pipeline has come from relationships. We don't do any outward marketing.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

That's really interesting. We get inquiries through our website and stuff like that, but those inquiries come through organically to a degree. But everyone that I speak to and you'll do the same. Someone comes through the website or they give us a ring, whatever, and the first thing, well first thing I say is how did you hear about us? If they don't say the website, I go, just go onto to the website, have a read. If we're still for you, call us back. We're not for everybody, but it's about relationships and our whole pipeline to this point has been built by relationships and that was what I wanted. I wanted it to be her building relationships. We are not a massive agency. We can't facilitate 50, a hundred leads every month coming in, so I'm not asked about that. I don't want you to go and do that.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

I want you to go and get five, 10 really good quality people that we want to work with as well. Build a relationship with them and it's actually a smart sales tool. Building loyalty between people is a really smart sales tool because they feel obligated towards you. So I completely get what you're saying about you've not had a pipeline, you don't focus on sales. We didn't either. Everything was built through relationships. One of our clients, I met him outside a bar. This is in the morning by the way. We've been at a networking event, walked outside of chatting away to one of the girls and you can just feel someone in your space. I was thinking it fucking is like round. Anyway, I turned around, I said, oh, sorry, I was dancing with you there anyway. He said, oh, well you just did that networking event, so we'd been at a business networking event, right?

Unknown Speaker - (?):

The pointers to talk to people, hadn't spoke to him, hadn't seen him. And I said, oh yeah, yeah. He was like, oh, what do you do? Got chatting. I ran a marketing agent say, oh right, what do you do? I'm a lawyer. I'm automatically thinking, you're fucking no good to me lawyer. Okay, cool. Can I have your business card? And our business cards are concertina and you can rip them off and they say, we make shit happen. Pass it on. And the idea was you can turn 'em off, pass 'em on. And he was like, oh, this is really cool. Anyway, he took it back to the office and he was like, your business card gone down brilliantly. I said, well, if you also ever in a bar and you've got a wobbly table, it's really good for just sticking under the table. Fast forward.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

He was like, oh, do you do this? And it was talking about LinkedIn workshops and stuff. I was like, yeah, we work with people on that. They were then a client. So it comes from a bit of interaction, human interaction, not a network event. Oh, I'm Jordan. I run a marketing agency trying to pry find out if you've got any requirement. It came from someone in my way basically. Well, I was in their way to be fair. Just leaving an event, having a chat and going say I was talking to you about the socks before. So we had some socks done before Christmas. Love a bit of branded merch, shameless love it, and these gym socks and they just black and white just say like co coincide, but they're in a wrap. That said marketing that blows your fucking socks off. We sent these out to clients.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

People wanted to work with stuff like that along with some Guinness Chocolates. I love talking about Guinness and some branded Stanley Cups and just some bits like that really just sent 'em out to people. Anyway, put a post on about how everyone had loved these socks and they kind of become like the must have gif for Christmas 23 and this guy saw them and he was a global brand director for Huddersfield town football club and he was like, these are great, love how you got your tone of voice on it and everything else. Exchanged a couple of messages. He was like, I'd really love to do this more kind of stuff with our merchandise, et cetera. Turns out Huddersfield Town just been bought by an American guy who owns Sacramento Kings and people like that in America and we got on a call, these guys started talking about socks.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

These guys actually want to really improve their match day experience. They want to drive footfall through more activations and things like that. And now we're having conversations with them about doing all of that for them. We're actually going to watch the match tomorrow at Huddersfield. All because you saw a post on LinkedIn, we had a human chat about brand tone of voice and stuff like that. We got invited down to the stadium, had a chat. Yeah, actually we've done this for other people before, so I believe all the best sales start with a relationship, but that's a marketing mentality. That's not a sales mentality.

Tom Haslam - (host):

I agree. I think when talking about networking, God, that

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Was a tangent, wasn't it?

Tom Haslam - (host):

We probably

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

It's good though. It's good. It's humanising it hundred

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Percent. Absolutely.

Tom Haslam - (host):

Speaking about networking events and things like we had this conversation the other day we did about getting back and going to some, I used to be a serial networker. I used to go all over the

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Place, thought that when I first saw you Serial networker him

Tom Haslam - (host):

Can tell, can't you? Yeah, I was going to say a naughty word then, but I'll leave it out. Can tell

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

That I despise them. I think I've been to two in my life.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Well done for going two. Just

Tom Haslam - (host):

Stood there by

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Myself. Yeah,

Tom Haslam - (host):

But the thing is, the thing I hate now about networking is that you can see a mile off the people who are trying to just force their product and service down your net and I'm like, I just want to talk and meet people. I went out the way and just talked to a charity the other day and just chatted and signed myself up for a three peaks walk and then I was just

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Talking, maybe you shouldn't go back to networking.

Tom Haslam - (host):

I mean, yeah, I did regret it when I walked out, but anyway, I was just like cancelled now,

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Haven't you? They were like, sucker.

Tom Haslam - (host):

Yeah, I don't think my legs could take it anymore. Anyway, I just wanted to get away from the people who were just trying

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

To force. Again, networking is a really interesting thing to talk about because it's a route to market, right? And when we are talking to again, sales driven businesses that normally have got a lot of business development people or whatever, and there is an expectation go out and God forbid a sales person going drum up some of your own business and we talk to people, especially when we're doing LinkedIn workshops and stuff is, okay, how do you then take this offline? How do you create this online persona that then when you walk into a networking event that you almost are known before you go in there? Let's almost create a bit of celebrity culture around it. You want to walk into a room and have built this online profile within your industry, within your sector that you walk into room and people automatically think they can come and talk to you.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

Everyone thinks you can go and talk to a celebrity. They think that you know them. You need to create the same thing when you're going offline into networking, but you need to be smart about it. So I agree with you. You can spot a mile off someone who's gone. I'm going to go to that networking event. I'm going to try and speak to everybody in the room, find out who is useful to me. You don't need to do that. What you need to do is have a strategy. You need to work out which ones are the best ones to go to. They're your roots to market, they're your channels. You then need to get a list of the people that are going to attend, work out on that list, who you want to speak to. They're your prospects. If you do a bit of research into them, go and find out a little bit about them on a human level.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

And then when you go to the event, you go, hi Tom, how are you? Oh, ask about that person. People love talking about themselves. Ask them about that person. Do your research that you kind of know where maybe some of the pain points are. Get them to talk about their career, get them to talk about their business, get them to talk about their job, get them to tell you what the problem is and then when they inevitably go and what is it you do? You've got the solution. You've just sold to them without going into the room and going, what do you do? What do you need? What can I give you? You've already identified it and they're doing the work for you.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

It resonates. It is funny you should say that because that's actually quite closely aligned with a little bit how the SEO channel would work. So all of the forms of SEO and I guess search ads, search marketing, because all of the forms of marketing is very much about getting yourself in front of the right people. That's the goal, isn't it? Ultimately in the hope that they are the right people and you can solve their problem and you might catch 'em at the right time or whatever it might be. SEO is actually the opposite of that, isn't it? It's they're looking. They're looking. They're in market. They're in market. If they find you, you've got a good chance that they're going to convert and that process is actually quite interesting. It's a similar process. What you're doing is you're cutting out all of that sort of shotgun approach where you're just firing everywhere and what you're saying is, I'm going to be there. I want to be aware enough about who I might be. I'm going to pinpoint which ones I need to talk to. Instead of all of them. They tell me their problems and that's the bit that lines with SEO. They're coming to me telling me what they need help with, which is an interesting approach because it's quite difficult to do that I think with lots of forms of marketing actually. But that's quite a good system

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

And networking is a really good example of an offline activity that you can measure. So you can literally on an Excel sheet track, how much does it cost me to go to this event? What pipeline have I built off the back of it in terms of potential project work or retainer or whatever it might be. You can measure that. So actually doing real life stuff, you can measure big time organic LinkedIn, personal LinkedIn strategy, which is a big thing that we help people with. We're actually holding our first LinkedIn masterclass at the middle of March, I think it is, and it's very similar to what we do for companies that have got big sales teams or big business development teams. But if you're a business that's only got one or two, you're not going to invest in a full workshop. You don't need to. So this is kind of allowing people to come and access that information that we do with bigger businesses, but on a one-to-one scale, but that investing in your personal LinkedIn, creating this human side to you in a professional setting can be measured. We measure it. The inquiries that I get through my personal LinkedIn when I've had a conversation with someone, I know what the value of that person is so I know how much pipeline we've built from it. You can measure these things, which again is one of those objections that you often come up against with businesses of can't measure. If someone goes to a network event, how do we know? You absolutely know it's cost 50 quid for them to go to the event they brought a client in who's worth 50 grand.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

Why don't is what your ROI is because it's not come through a digital analytical platform,

Tom Haslam - (host):

But they've not tracked it themselves. They forget,

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Track it, they forget.

Tom Haslam - (host):

Yeah. So I think this pod's been good. We've gone talked about ROI. We've gone off topic a little bit. We've gone back to ROI again, but finally before we sort of wrap the pot up, I want to talk about being flexible in a strategy because we all talk about we've got to have a strategy in place, whether it's short term, long term. What was the analogy you used?

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Salary or pension.

Tom Haslam - (host):

Salary or pension. Yeah, I really like that, but I want to talk about flexibility and adaptation within a strategy. What advice would we potentially give to people to stay agile and responsive to, I dunno, changing market conditions, whatever it might be, changes in the business. What would you say about that?

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

I mean, being hell bent on a strategy for any period of time is really dangerous. Whether that is a month, six months, a year, two years, because listen, no one saw Covid coming, did they? So there were whole marketing plans that got ripped up because of covid. That's something no one saw coming. Then you look at things that people are more aware of, whether that be interest rates, whether that be inflation, whether that be consumer spending, being down, whatever. So I think if you tie yourself to a strategy, you are setting yourself up for failure. For me, the way to and what we do with clients, say to clients, whatever, it's have your regular touchpoint for me, once a month is not really enough. You need weekly, quick, short, snappy. What's the data telling us right now? That's one of the beauties about digital marketing.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

You can make changes on the turn of a hat. You can just do it. So you need to be constantly looking at your data in a short term frame. You need to be looking at it on a short-term timeframe, but not making decisions that will impact you long term. So what I mean by that is kneejerk decisions, kneejerk decisions you need to be aware of on a shortterm basis. What's happening, and I would say on a weekly basis, you need to be doing that as a team. You need to be reading that data and coming up with assumptions and theories that maybe in the next week's meeting or the following week's meeting after that, or the monthly meeting, you can go, right, we've been tracking this now for a couple of weeks. We're pretty sure based on the data that this is what we're seeing.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

Then you make your decision. You don't do it based on what you see in that day, in that moment, on that morning, whatever. You constantly look and you make assumptions and you share that information with each other, but you have your clear lines in the sand of we won't make any changes till then. Now if what happens between then and deciding the change something tanks, maybe make a change, then maybe do something. But don't make these knee jerk reactions based on what you're seeing on that day. And again, for want of another analogy, number eight, you wouldn't make, let's say you woke up today and it's just one of those days, it's just shit, it's Monday, it's raining. You feel a bit shit. You're not in a great mood. You wouldn't make big life decisions based on how you feel in that moment because you're driven by emotion, you're driven by a bad mood.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

You're driven by a feeling that will pass. It's the same when it comes to data. Don't make decisions based on a bad day. If you constantly having bad days like you would as a person, you might think this isn't right. I've been feeling this way for a bit too long now. I might go and talk to someone, might go to a doctor, you might talk to a mate, you might say, I need a holiday. Whatever it might be. You do something about it, but you'd give yourself time to come to that conclusion. Data is exactly the same. You need to do exactly the same thing. You need to be aware of it, have an idea of what you're going to do. If things don't get better, have an idea of what you're going to do. If things are going amazing, how are we going to optimise this?

Unknown Speaker - (?):

How are we going to grow on this? How are we going to build on it? It's not always going to be negative, but you can't make those snap decisions and you need to have those constant points of reflection all the way through. And again, every week you look at it, and then a month, you look at everything across that week. After a quarter, you look at the three months. That's how you do it. You constantly build on it and have the right people in the room. I feel like salespeople have had a bit of a f flogging, but fuck it. We've absolutely hammered. We've hammered them. I hate saying we're all brave. Marketing people are all brave and we're together, aren't we?

Tom Haslam - (host):

Yeah. Yeah. If fun was in here now, we might not be the same fact it would,

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

But have the right people around the table as well. I think that's where we were talking before about that really important relationship between sales and marketing. Having those people in the same discussions is really, really important. Big time, really important. And you're not always going to agree. You're not always going to get on and that's fine. That's totally fine, but you can't argue with data. And I think that's what it always comes back to.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Always comes back to,

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Always comes back to Absolutely. And the marketing hold the data. Yeah.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Yeah. And you've just got to build out the hypotheses behind those thoughts, haven't you? And then eventually you can prove it. And ultimately that's what it's about. And okay, if you prove of wrong, you adapt. Like you say, you've got to be agile, but otherwise, that's the most scientific way of approaching this at time.

Tom Haslam - (host):

Yeah. Awesome. I think we'll end on there then. Don't make a knee jerk decision

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Before we end. Yeah. Can we have the eyebrow?

Tom Haslam - (host):

Oh yeah. Another analogy.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Yeah. So I posted about this on LinkedIn in real time. It literally just happened probably a year ago now, and it went a bit nuts. It went viral because I think it really resonated with people, especially marketers, and I think the Post are saying along the lines of, I've just seen a marketeer make the number one mistake when it comes to marketing, and that is not understanding your audience. And what they did is in a room full of men, they made an analogy about how interconnected brands should be like great eyebrows. They should be sisters and not twins. Now I'm sat in front of two men now and you're probably thinking, what the fuck is she going? So this is the reaction that that marketeer got anyway, fell flat and marketeer left the room. By the way, I was the marketeer.

Unknown Speaker - (?):

It was me. Anyway, walked out thinking, oh, fucking hell. That didn't go very well. The CEO, who was in the meeting went home, relayed this analogy to his wife, and the wife went, oh yeah, that makes total sense. What's she saying is they should look similar and be of the same family, but they shouldn't be identical. And he was like, oh, that makes total sense. But understand your audience because a room full of men like this room did not understand that all interconnected families of brands should be like great eyebrows. They should be sisters and not twins. That's a good analogy. Now you understand the analogy.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

It's a good analogy.

Tom Haslam - (host):

Your eyebrows are rotten, aren't they?

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Maybe They've never been touched. Never been touched. So they're completely natural.

Tom Haslam - (host):

Nope.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

You have. Occasionally you'll get a long one and you just pull it out. But

Tom Haslam - (host):

I get Josie to do mine. Yeah,

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

I know. Yeah.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Yours looks pretty preened. To be honest,

Tom Haslam - (host):

I never touch 'em apart from Wendy. No, Josie does.

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

I don't do anything, but

Tom Haslam - (host):

I mean, I've got nothing to say about women's healthcare or anything, shit like that. But

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Threading horrendous, worst pain in the world, do not recommend

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Jaunt it. No, you can't. I you, I know what you're going to ask. No,

Jordan Stachini - (guest):

Listen, I wouldn't let a professional do it. I wouldn't let him do it. Yeah, it's not happening. It's awful. Its worth pain. How do

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

It? Bad pain. It's not happening. Pain. Bad

Tom Haslam - (host):

Pain. Can I talk then? Nope. Alright. Okay. We'll leave it.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

They probably won't grow back, but anyway, we all make mistakes. That was a good mistake to make. That was my mistake. That's a good mistake to make then. That was my mistake. You can use that. Oh yeah. Everything's content. Yeah. Great content.

Tom Haslam - (host):

Awesome. Thank you for coming. Jordan.

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Jordan, what?

Tom Haslam - (host):

Sta Yeah, well

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Done. I would've

Tom Haslam - (host):

Got that wrong. Go on. You say it,

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

Dini. Yeah,

Tom Haslam - (host):

We've done it. We've smash, smashed it. I've won the day. But thank you for coming. Thank you for having, have you enjoyed it? Loved it. Worth the two hour trip

Matt Janaway - (CEO):

And two hours back. And

Tom Haslam - (host):

Two hours home. Yeah. Four hour round trip just to see me and Matt and talk about eyebrows. But thank you. Anyway, thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you. There you have it folks. Another episode of Marketing Blobs in the Bag. I want to extend another thanks to our incredible guest, Jordan Sini said a surname so many times now and I've said it right every time for sharing her invaluable insights into ROI Driven Marketing. Remember, if you found this episode helpful and informative, be sure to subscribe to Marketing Labs. Leave us a review, share it with your fellow marketers, your friends, whoever it might be. Your support means the world to us. We've got more exciting content and guest speakers lined up in the coming weeks to stay tuned for our next episode. Until then, keep those marketing engines revving. As always, stay ROI focused. See you.