Hello, and welcome to The Theory of Marketing Relativity Podcast. I'm Jess Burton, a marketing specialist here at Epic Marketing Consultants Corporation. Let's talk all things marketing and merchandising with our Epic team. Today, my guest is Amy Warrington, our creative director. Welcome back to our podcast, Amy.
Amy:Well thanks Jess. I don't think I've been back since my vacation.
Jess:It's been a hot minute. It's been like your like your first vacation over the summer? Yes. Oh, that's right. There
Amy:Oh, that's right. There was another one in there. I forgot about it. Because the whole COVID thing.
Jess:I feel like all of 2020 aged me 20 years, but and like, was in like, was so long ago, like the whole year was just like 18 years long.
Amy:It was the longest year that everything happened and yet nothing happened because you were in your house the whole time. It felt like nothing ever happened.
Jess:Exactly. Everything happened and nothing happened.
Amy:That's super depressing. No.
Jess:I Oh, I don't know how much more exciting This is gonna be with budget. Yeah. I don't know what I like laugh because like to me, like, I think of budget as like, I remember like, when God I guess I was like, younger, like I was a kid. And I remember someone telling me like, Oh, you should have like, three envelope thing. Spend save an eye for third one. I paid attention to that I came in.
Amy:Bills. We pay bills.
Jess:Oh, but you know, yeah, that's 100% make sense. But I don't know why a seven year old would need to know that. Um, anyway. But we're here to chat about budget. And I know like, personally, I'm not exactly the best at making a budget. But I know when it comes to work, we're all pretty good at budgeting, time and budgeting money.
Amy:Yes.
Jess:So how, I mean, you're a creative director, you kind of you steer the ship. That is where we put all of our, like, ad spend budgets or whatever, for all our clients
Amy:I tell story behind the strategy.
Jess:Yes, I'm gonna say the word budget 17 times on this.
Amy:We are
Jess:Um, so I have a quick question I've got my starter question for you is how do you kind of decide what your marketing budget should be?
Amy:Well, the answer is going to be different for everyone. But the overall answer is going to be the same. You're going to decide where your marketing budget should be by looking at where your audience is, where they're engaging, or where they're engaged. And that should show you where you need to engage as well. So that answer while it's the same for everybody is going to have different actual answers for different types of businesses, different types of companies, because everybody's going to have a different audience member that their audience that you're trying to reach out to. So that's the short and long answer.
Jess:Basically,
Amy:you are going to focus your marketing dollars where your audience is most likely to see your message
Jess:that always like cracks me up. Because I always think of like, the people that I have to like, convince like, No, no, you don't need a TikTok. You don't need an Instagram, like, they're like, oh, but everybody's doing it. I'm like, Well, are you everybody? Like who is your target audience like, right? Get if it's my mom who's in her 60s, she's not on TikTok Probably not.
Amy:I'm not even on TikTok. I tried. I downloaded it, I really want to make some really cute videos featuring Newton. But that's as far as we've got.
Jess:Add that to your 2021 to do list.
Amy:Yes, yes, I'm adding it to my to do list.
Jess:Exactly. Yeah, I think how so once you kind of figure out where you're going to put your marketing dollars. How do you kind of decide like, I just think of a pie chart like, where all like how much money goes where?
Amy:Well, let's look at it from that big, holistic picture of that pie chart image that you just said. So if we draw a pie chart, and I'm going to draw out a pie chart, kind of while we're talking, so I can keep track of everything I'm saying here. So if we have a pie chart as our big picture, that's our full marketing budget. So within that marketing budget, you have to think of the obvious things that you're going to want to spend money on, which is going to be your ads and your ad placements. So that's already going to be a certain amount of money that you need to put in there. So and that's probably not even the biggest chunk. It could be the biggest chunk it could not depending upon how things break down. But that's going to be the one thing that you definitely are going to know that's like set in stone, you know that you can spend this much ads or this much on ads but then you have to allocate where it's going to go, which different channels, you're going to allocate it to And that's where it gets a little bit more difficult. And that's where looking at your past metrics, your past performance, seeing how your past marketing spend that has either worked or not worked, that's going to be a really good indicator moving forward. Also look at the different trends, maybe back in 2018, or 19, digital wasn't really all that important because foot traffic was, but now we've had the pandemic, now we're in the middle of trying to get back to normal things still are no longer that nowhere near close to there. So now we're looking, we're still in this digital shift and where it was okay to maybe not have the best website at the end of 2019, beginning of 2020. That's obviously radically shifted. So that if it wasn't a big focus for you before is definitely a huge, huge focus now. So in addition to where you are going to be doing your ad spend, you need to look and make sure that where your ads are sending people back to, or how you are asking your people, your audience members to behave, the actions that you're asking them to take you, those probably need to shift and need to change. And you need to make sure that if before you are asking somebody to come into your store, now you're asking them to come to your website, probably and make a purchase or make an order or put in their information it's going to be you have to look at the ways that your audience was interacting with you, the way they're interacting. Now, look at your budgets from before, what your goals are for here. And then start taking those different budgetary amounts and making sure you're allocating them correctly. It's very hard to give specific examples with like such a high level question, because everybody's is different. But using past research, looking at the way your audience is behaving with you now looking at some of those different metrics to help you paint that story of what's effective and what's not. That's your best tool for figuring out what to do moving forward. And also, Google see what your competition's doing, see what other people in your field are doing and see where they're kind of taking their focus and placing it? Is it working for them? Or is it not? And then from there, you can have a bigger holistic picture.
Jess:Yes, I think I one of the biggest takeaways I have seen in my own adventures and social media has been like I've always and as I've gotten older, I've always like said, like, I'd rather shop at a small boutique that's maybe a little bit away from me, then like order from, you know, a big retailer. So like, I follow plenty of boutiques on Instagram and Facebook. And one of the biggest shifts I saw was that they were always putting emphasis before the pandemic on foot traffic, foot traffic in person sales, all this. And like you've mentioned, remember the Teal Antler?
Amy:Oh, I love Teal Antler.
Jess:And like, I've ordered stuff from them, you know, plenty of times. But the fact that like them, and as well as a lot of other boutiques have done this major shift over to, we've made our website more user friendly. We are now going live on Facebook, we are now doing I saw a boutique that was like they now have a scheduling system. So that you can basically like plan an appointment to shop the store with whoever's in the store that day packing orders. So like you could call in and like basically shop in the store without ever having to go to the store and talk to someone about like, is that fabric soft? Is it like just get all the details you need. So I think definitely that figuring out how to adapt has been a big one. And I think that like I'm impressed with the amount of websites that I'm seeing being rebuilt because that some people have said like, Oh, we haven't had a new website since 2012. And I'm like, What?
Amy:Right? Well, but I also think you put your finger directly on it. And it's making sure that you are continuing to build and maintain your relationships with your people, even though you might not be able to do it in person like you used to like all these different boutiques and everything. So making sure that your message is resonating with your audience, that you're touching them that you're making them feel involved that they feel cared for, and part of this like community. I think that's so important as well.
Jess:I agree with you. And I think I laugh because I have always been a big supporter of the QR code. And I feel like they come back. Yes, they've made a comeback because that's how if you There are plenty of places where I have been like walking like walking and I've been like, Oh man, I need to find their menu. I want to order some takeout. They haven't like on their door so you can scan it and it takes you to their website to order. Even like some of the like brew like the local breweries and wineries like when we could go places. And like in a restaurant, all the menus are now on QR codes like we're all on our phones Anyway, why not just order it from your phone. I think the adapt, the adaptation to technology has been definitely an interesting way to see how people have shifted how they're spending their money on reaching their customers,
Amy:Right. And it's so important to continue to retain your customers, especially during this pandemic, especially when so many different businesses that you love are going out of business, if you don't contact with your client base, they're not necessarily going to know you're still around, because everybody's kind of got this really negative outlook, that things aren't going well, because it's not. So being able to make sure that you are maintaining that relationship that your customers know that they can continue to come to you now and come to you in the future, because you're going to be there. That's also a really important thing to try and get out there this year that, you know, last year, everybody was scrambling to make sure that they stayed on even footing you guys made it through. Now let's move forward and show visually how we're going to continue getting better and growing.
Jess:Yes, I think as we kind of teeter, I want to say between like 30 and 50%. I like outline like I think at the beginning of the pandemic Jon Taffer said something that made 1,000,000% sense to me, they're like going to be three groups of people during the pandemic, there'll be the group that basically kind of acts like nothing happened, like, they'll go outside, they'll do things normally they'll visit the grocery store, they'll patronize restaurants, they'll be the first ones out, the second group is like the more cautious group, they'll wait until there are like, you know, heavy duty cleaning measures in place. There's, you know, the air circulation, and all that kind of stuff is correct in my, like restaurants and stores. And then that third group is probably the at risk group that like, is going to be like, No, we need like a vaccine, and it needs to be eradicated before we leave our houses. Um, where was I going with that
Amy:I'm not sure where you were going with that to be honest either.But probably just like that idea of early adopters, middle adopters, and late adopters, kind of like that bell curve word is with anything, like, people are becoming a lot more comfortable using digital media and technology than they were before this pandemic, that's for sure.
Jess:Yes. Oh, that's where I was going with it.
Amy:I thought you're going
Jess:sometimes I just have like, I like Today's been really those days where I'm just like, what's happening? what time of day it is, have I eaten yet? Um,
Amy:and your vitamin? Yeah, right?
Jess:Am I hydrated, like a plant. But yeah, there are like those three groups of people. And like part of maintaining yourself. Maintaining yourself is like being in businesses, being able to communicate with those three groups of people that like, Yes, we have our, this is our procedure, these are the changes, this is what's happening. So that like if there are people in that second and third group that aren't sure they can find information on your website, on our social media, they might hear you on the radio, talking about all the measures you put in place, but like this kind of this kind of stuff. That's how people are getting their information. Now. They're not necessarily. I mean, I'm like, I not like anti-phone but I'm not calling people.
Amy:I will only call someone when I cannot find their information on their website, and nothing upsets me more than when I finally caved and go to call and they direct me to their website. I could have figured it out on your website, I would not be calling. That's another thing that we should start doing in 21. Understand there's an element of your business and that the way people act and behave and maybe it's time to get rid of that really annoying automations system and invest in live human people to answer the phone. I'm just saying I mean, I'm, I'm a big proponent of that.
Jess:I agree as someone who sat on the phone with customer service for like two and a half hours yesterday, just like to be given to be put in a queue and then to be put in a queue again, and like it was one of those things where like, I just want to talk to a person who can like comprehend what I'm telling them and tell me if they can do this or not.
Amy:Honestly, good customer service will be almost more important than your marketing, budget and marketing. spend every single time make sure you're giving your customers the best experience when they work with you. And they'll definitely come back. Which brings us back I think to budget that we haven't talked about in a few minutes.
Jess:Very true, um yeah, I think definitely like budget needs. You're when you're making a budget and you're making a marketing budget specifically, you need to be looking at like where your clients are, where your clients are at and where you can meet them and find them and build a community with them.
Amy:To look at the amount of your budget to I guess that's the other part of it. Yeah. So there are a lot of things that you can do in a lot of places. You can spend your focus. And don't forget, when you're budgeting, when you're making your budget, and you're budgeting your money, don't forget about your time as well, because you're in that you can't get back money, you can time you can. So make sure that when you are planning out what you're going to do for the year, you are also ensuring that your team is set up for success, they have enough time to get all these different things done, they have enough resources to get them done, and that you're using your team to their fullest advantage. And that shameless plug for Epic Marketing is where a marketing agency can come in and help you with those different things. Because you know, you have a team of only so many people. And you can only get so much done in a day with that team of that size, sometimes you need help. And sometimes it makes more sense to go out to a marketing agency than it does to hire another person. So when you're looking at your marketing spend, and you're looking at your goals, also look and see where it would be more efficient for you to spend your time and your energy. So if you have a really small budget, maybe it makes sense for you to focus on your organic growth and your organic marketing, such as your SEO and your social not with ads, just your social organic, putting out really good content, doing some really good emails, some of that free or free stuff that does not well, email isn't free stuff to pay for whatever platform you're on. But those more organic ways of connecting with your audience, as opposed to spending money on ads, if you have a larger budget, that's probably the way to go. So definitely make sure that you are taking into account not only how much you have to spend, but how much time and resource you have allocated for those different goals for that amount of spend, and maybe it might make sense for you to look for an agency to get some help.
Jess:I always to like, obviously, we're all on LinkedIn, and whatnot. And I will get like the emails from LinkedIn that will say like, you know, so and so company is hiring a marketing, you know, specialist, this is the, what they're gonna, this is like the Oh, my god words perspective, like pay level. And I always kind of like laugh because I'm like, if you hire like a marketing, this is again, another shameless plug for Epic. Like if you hire a marketing agency, and you're gonna spend so think of it this way, if you're going to spend $30,000 a year to pay one person to do all of your marketing, they need to do, they might need to do the graphic design, your email campaigns, your social media campaigns, they might need to do all of your radio, all of your copywriting, all of that stuff. That's a lot for one person,
Amy:That's a lot for one person. And that's a lot for one person at a pay rate of $30,000.
Jess:I always laugh when I see the ones where I'm like, this is a lot of requirements for gonna pay
Amy:That level of pay, absolutely not you're you are looking for something that doesn't exist, if you are expecting somebody to be able to come in and do all that stuff that you are asking them for and only pay them $30 to hear if you're the employer is more than that, because you have to pay more in taxes,
Jess:right? Whereas if you hire like a marketing agency, and you want to spend $30,000, and you want us to do all of your social media, and for it to come with like a, you know, graphic design package, an email stuff that's a little more doable, because it's we've, we're, you know, we have all that there's three people working on it, but we're all specialized. So it takes us less time.
Amy:Exactly.
Jess:Speaking about pay rates, I always find it interesting that people and I know that the part of our job is to get people to understand how much like marketing costs. People have like specific budget numbers in mind. So when they're looking at different types of advertising, so like, I know what it costs for like us, when people say we want to do social media, this is what it's going to run you per month, per six month contract per year, whatever. Should are there numbers or ranges that people should keep in mind if they want to hire like someone to do their SEM to do their SEO to do a new website? Because I feel like the numbers are kind of all over the board. And I feel a lot of times when we onboard clients, they're like, wait a minute, what? More like? Yeah, like it's Yeah.
Amy:So there is really no right or wrong answer when it comes to how much you should be spending for your marketing. And the answer is simply this. different amounts are paid for different levels of talent, different levels of support, different levels of ability to execute. So there it's very, very easy, and possible for you to find somebody to do your website for you for $50 an hour. It is very, very easy for you to find a freelancer to come and write your copy for you for maybe $30 an hour. There's a bunch of different websites. You can go to there's a bunch of different resources like that, that maybe if you have a very small budget is going to make sense for your company and for you to pursue, especially if you have very limited time. And it makes more sense for you to pay somebody to do that for you. But usually people who have those lower prices are people who not necessarily aren't very good, but the reason but they are able to charge based on what they're worth. And usually, if people are charging a higher rate, it's because they know that not only are they more efficient, but they also are able to produce a higher quality product in that same amount of time, it would take some in less amount of time than it would take somebody else to do the same thing, and probably at a higher level. So if you hire somebody to do your videography, at your wedding, for $250, and you get really upset that your heads cut off, and No, nobody got a good shot, like it's probably because it was only $250. And you're not going to expect that to happen if you hire a videographer for $5,000. So it kind of all comes down to make sure that you feel comfortable with whomever you decide to hire to work with you. Make sure that you feel confident in their level and their ability to execute, make sure that you ask for past examples of what they've done. Because there are some freelancers out there with extremely, you know, reasonable rates that turned in great work, I have to wonder why they don't work for some huge agency that like would utilize those talents. But whatever. That's not my life. But my point is, I guess there is no right or wrong answer for how much money somebody should charge you for social, but just know that when you are looking at different price points, understand what is going behind those numbers understand that if you are paying $150 an hour for a social media team, it's not like the people working there are making $150 an hour, there are salaries, there are different people working in your account, you know, you're going to have one person writing copy, you're going to have another person who's working on your images, you're going to have another person QA to make sure that there are numerous mistakes. And there might even be another member of the team who is scheduling these employees out and doing the strategy. There's a lot of elements that go into making up the price for your marketing from an agency or a freelancer. So just if you have questions about why cost is that much ask, we know what goes into the pricing, we're more than happy to tell you Oh, yeah. So you know, we need to go out we need to source articles, we need to source images, we need to do this, we need to do that this is everything that goes into putting a little tied up pretty social media package together for you, you know, so there's no right or wrong answer for how much you want to spend. Some agencies are very, very expensive, some agencies are very, very reasonable, it just kind of look at the quality of work that they have produced for past clients, look at the budget numbers or look at the prices or whatever, that they quote you and see if it aligns to what you're expecting.
Jess:Yes, and I think a good, a good, that's a good note to end on. But I think a good point to make, too. And I like I think one of my least favorite phrases that I've heard over the last like year or so has been to us as epic. Well, you're the marketing company, you're supposed to tell me how much does
Amy:Oh, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever do that? Sorry, oh my gosh, never ever do that. And I will tell you why. I cannot come up with a campaign for any period of time, whether it be two weeks, two years, two months, like I cannot come up with a campaign for you without having some parameters of what you are willing to spend. Because if you give the parameters, if you even give a range, say if you're like, Hey, you know, at least I would love to see what we could get for $5,000. At the most like I the most I'mcomfortable possibly spending is 15. That gives me a really good range. It's I'm probably not going to come in at five because, you know, if you're telling me you can spend up to 15 we're going to be looking somewhere in there. We're going to be seeing Okay, what is your Where's your audience, okay, this these are the different places I can reach your audience Well, for $15,000 TVs out. So that's not going to work for this for this for this. So that way we can take what you have, we can take your budget that you're telling us and we can figure out what fits in there we can figure out how we can reach what we need to do where we need to trim our demographics, how we can focus narrow in on, maybe we want a smaller target in a smaller area, but they're more likely to purchase maybe there's a bunch of different things that we can do. And there's also ways that we can say Hey, how about if you guys do the research portion of this and then we will take over the copywriting and blah, blah blah, blah blah. There's ways that we can work the book it so that whatever your money limitations are, we can figure that out on our end, we can work with you, we can make it happen, things that we can turn over to your team to do, we'll save you money. If you guys don't have the time, it'll cost me more our team can do it. But those are the ways we can work with the client. And that makes it go so much faster to, because you want to do something and I don't have a money number to put behind it. I'm just kind of shooting in thin air. And then when I call my media reps, and I'm like, hey, I have a client, she wants to do a campaign and they're like, okay, what's the budget and you say, I don't know, it's really hard for them to tell me how many placements I can get how many impressions I can expect, if we don't have anything to base it on. So find an agency you trust, find an agency that you are confident in their ability to execute and the quality that they will execute. And then make sure that you trust them and you tell them your budget and that when you tell them your budget, you know that they're going to do the best for you for those campaigns. But if you're not going to be forthcoming with your budget, don't expect your marketing agency to be able to read your mind. That's all I have to say.
Jess:Yes, to paraphrase
Amy:Sorry I went on a rant.
Jess:No, it's I think it's like one of those things that I didn't know what irked me but does it's to paraphrase Smokey the Bear. Only you can make up your marketing spend.
Amy:Yes, yes. You know how much money you have, you know, your books, you know, what you are comfortable spending.
Jess:Think about like, so I and I do this with myself, sometimes, like when I go shopping, I'll be like, you can purchase up to $150 worth of stuff. And that way I kind of like mentally set my like limit in my head, but like I can spend up to $150 then it feels like a win win. I only spend 60.
Amy:It's like for everybody who watches Say Yes to the Dress. Yes, that is the number one rule that they ask you what is your budget, because they're going to be dresses that you fall in love with that are way too expensive. And then you're going to leave with a broken heart, and no wedding dress. But if you give your budget at the beginning, we can find something that fits you and your budget. So it's the same with your marketing agency.
Jess:I love it. Well, Amy, thank you so much for chatting about spending money. It's always a fun thing to talk about spending money.
Amy:Yeah, I do it. I love it. But I did just pay off my credit cards. It has absolutely nothing to do with this conversati n. And
Jess:It's those little victories that make you feel better.
Amy:I mean, that was my goal for 2020. And it took till 2021 in January to get there but it happened. So
Jess:you know, you were still in the trial period for the week. Exactly. Well, thank you for joining me. If people want to reach out to you where should they look?
Amy:So they can find me on LinkedIn they can find they can email epic at info@epic.com Oh, no info@epicmc2.com They can find me on Twitter all thoughts and tweets are my own and they're not very interesting. @AmyWar32 and they an of course always find me by email at Amy@epic mc2.com
Jess:Well thank you for joinin us
Amy:Thank you for having me. Bye.
Jess:Thank you all for tuning in this week. We hope this theory is relative to your marketing needs. Make sure you subscribe to get notified of our latest episodes.