Video Transcript:
Jason Drohn:
All right. What's up? This is Jason Drohn. I'm with Aaron Parkinson. How are you doing, Aaron?
Aaron Parkinson:
I am doing amazing. I was thinking my beard, it's starting to come in.
Jason Drohn:
Nice, yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
I haven't shaved yet, in like a week. It's been a week. This is the problem though, this is why I can't grow one of those really good beards because I got this part.
Jason Drohn:
Oh, right, right, right, right. Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
It just doesn't fill in. So this is about the extent of where I get to before I got to ...
Jason Drohn:
Shave it?
Aaron Parkinson:
Pull out the razor.
Jason Drohn:
Every once in awhile, I ... Well, I haven't done it for a long time. I haven't been without this since Sebastian was born, I don't think. I don't think he's ever seen me without a goatee. I might have to freak him out one day and just shave it all off and be like, "What? Who's my daddy?"
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah. The question is if only ... Does your wife think you're more handsome with it or more handsome without it?
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. I don't know. It's been a long time since I ... We might have to test the theory. If I come on next week without a ... I'm sure I probably look younger. I don't know.
Aaron Parkinson:
I don't know. I have a really good friend, our mutual friend, Ryan, who has a sales team. He broke his arm and his wrist, and he grew out his beard because he couldn't shave with his left hand.
Jason Drohn:
Oh, right. Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
And then as soon as his cast came off, he shaved his beard and his wife went, "Oh, no. No, no, no. Put that right back on. Put that right back on now." And he's never been without his full manly face shield since then. So it really, it all comes down to wife, right? I mean, if she doesn't think you're good looking, you got problems. So it's what she likes is what matters.
Jason Drohn:
All right. Today, we are talking about digital traffic types. This is a nice, simple conversation that I figured we could kind of do a little bit of damage on.
Aaron Parkinson:
Indeed.
Jason Drohn:
How do you want to kick this thing off?
Aaron Parkinson:
It's a simple conversation, but I think it's a conversation that people get wrong a lot of the time. And I think the best thing is to talk about what types of digital traffic we're going to talk about today. I think the primary ones for us at Seven Mile Media, we specialize in Facebook, Instagram, Google, including GDN, YouTube, AdWords. Right? Those are your big daddies. And then outside of that, you've got your native, your influencer, your email, your SMS. And we sort of consider those to be your supplementary, your monetization. I don't know, how would you define the difference between the two?
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. One of them ... You use all the ... You use the second class if you can't figure out the first.
Aaron Parkinson:
Right, right. Or if we're selling CBD or things that are banned on the primaries. It's funny how many people that are friends of mine still have no idea what I do. And then when they take the time to ask me because I'm not walking around telling everybody what I do every five minutes, I say, "Well, I own a direct response digital marketing agency." And they go, "What does that mean?" Then I go, "Well, we advertise people's businesses, products, ideas on places like Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube." And they go, "Oh, okay. So, why there?" Because when you talk about having an ad agency, most people think television, radio.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah, totally.
Aaron Parkinson:
Because that's from the '50s to 2000. That's it, tier one, right?
Jason Drohn:
Yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
And in the ad world it's still called tier one advertising, right?
Jason Drohn:
Yep, yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
What I explain to them is that over the last 20 years, Google, and YouTube, and Facebook, Instagram, because they're kind of like brother, sister, have taken over for CNN, NBC and CBS. When people want news, what they consider to be news, not entertainment news, they'll go to CNN, right?
Jason Drohn:
Yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
Google is CNN, right? Everybody goes to Google to find the answer to something, right? So, you can equate that to CNN, right? And then CBS and NBC are sorts of more entertainment type things. And you could call Facebook, Instagram, CBS, and you could call YouTube, NBC. And if you look at the cost to get an eyeball on a video, i.e. a television commercial.
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
Right? If you go to the big ... If you go to television, you're going to traditionally pay between 10 and 20 cents per eyeball. Where on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, you're going to pay roughly about a penny, right? Now, the difference is, and feel free to interrupt me anywhere you want, is when I'm explaining this to a business, they're like, "Yeah. But I want to be on TV because it's more prestigious." Right?
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
And my answer is, yes. Right? If you still look at the mediums, they take a survey every year and they rank what's the most credible, right? And television is always ... I think it was at one point, it was a newspaper, television, radio, right? It may have swapped spaces, right? If you're on TV, people are like, "Clearly the person must be legit."
Jason Drohn:
Right. Totally.
Aaron Parkinson:
Which is why everybody spends so much money on Superbowl commercials, right? But the problem is that, first off, it costs me a $100,000 minimum to do a television commercial, to get on to a network. And then they're going to say, "Okay, we're going to put you on this show, at this time, in this network, because we think this most closely matches your demographics." No different than us putting our ads in front of keywords or audiences. But we don't know how much of my commercial they watched. And more importantly, we can't re-target the people that did. Now, at some point, maybe a television will come out that'll feed data back in of like, "Hey, this person engaged with this television commercial for more than half." But for right now, I mean, what do you do when a television commercial comes on in the middle of a show, right?
Jason Drohn:
I can't even tell you the last time we've seen a commercial because it's Netflix, and Hulu without commercials, and it's ... Every once in awhile we'll watch a show on CW, the app, and it'll be the same commercial six times in a row. That's just their whatever ... They're screwy. But yeah, it's the only time I see commercials.
Aaron Parkinson:
Even before that, you were probably checking your phone, or getting a snack, or going to the bathroom. But you probably weren't like, "Ooh, this is a good commercial."
Jason Drohn:
Unless you're ad guys, like us, and then you're like, "Wow, that commercial sucked."
Aaron Parkinson:
That's different.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah, if you enjoy sitting down and watching infomercials on Saturday morning, if they even still play infomercials, I don't know.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah, me too.
Aaron Parkinson:
But I might be the guy that has a folder of 500 ads that I've just screenshot from other people on my computer that I'm like, "Ooh, that was a good ad." I'll put that over here.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. Yep. One of the things that I've seen is people have called me and they'll be like, "I just saw you on CNN." "I wasn't on CNN." They're like, "Yeah, yeah. You showed up in the middle of a CNN broadcast because of Facebook ads," or whatever because of the in-stream advertising. And it's like ... You play it right, you get the same credibility because you can co-brand based on an in-stream ad and you're paying a cent of you. You're not paying 10 or 20 cents a view.
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah. And the second part of that is the retargeting capability.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. It's huge.
Aaron Parkinson:
I have a client that wants me to help them launch a movie that they want to self-produce, so they're trying to get me to figure out how to get it in front of people for the least amount of money to get enough attention to then get it into Sundance, or a distribution deal, or whatever. And I said to them, "If you take $20,000 and you run $5,000 worth of media at a video view awareness campaign on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, whatever, you're going to target who you think are the right people. And let's say that's 40 million people you think fall in that demographic. And you're going to put that in front of those 40 million people and maybe two million of them are going to watch it."
Jason Drohn:
Right, yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
Well now by their interaction, you've been able to segment off people who were interested in it, out of that target demographic. And then on your next four, five, six videos, maybe interviews with the director, interviews with the actors, interviews with small independent movie theaters that have run it or whatever, you're only putting your second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth piece of content in front of people who've already shown that they're interested. And that's the difference between marketing on digital traffic mediums, versus marketing on television mediums. If you could go to television and say, "Okay, my first commercial, I want to put it up. But then I only want to show subsequent commercials to only the people that watch the first commercial." Then you have apples and apples.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
But you still wouldn't even have apples and apples because they're 20 cents and this is one cent.
Jason Drohn:
Right, yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
The only difference that you're paying for over there that could be perceived as better is the credibility of being on the actual physical television. But that is dissipating-
Jason Drohn:
Quickly.
Aaron Parkinson:
... very, very quickly. And like you said, when you go to re-target and you put it into Facebook or Instagram's algorithm, they might roll it right in the middle of a CNN show. And guess what? Now you're on CNN. Right? You accomplished the same goal. When you truly understand this, the awareness cost, the retargeting capability, and your reach from your home. You don't get to go into ... I mean, think about the products that have to go into a real television commercial, let alone the hundred grand to get it out there, you're at a hundred grand to film it. Right? I mean, you can do a commercial in your house on your iPhone for free and put it into those channels. Right? That's why it's become so much more effective. Ooh, what are you pulling up for us?
Jason Drohn:
Oh, nothing. My audio got a little wonky and my AirPods-
Aaron Parkinson:
Did they die on you?
Jason Drohn:
... stopped playing. No. I don't have anything fun playing for you though.
Aaron Parkinson:
That's the video. That's how you can compare the digital traffic assets to the television side.
Jason Drohn:
Right, yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
Maybe you could touch a bit on the different customer journey paths of people that come through those different digital traffic channels and how your messaging needs to be congruent with their buying journey path.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. Whenever I'm setting up campaigns, I'm always looking at how cold, or warm, or hot are they. And then you also think about how they can get there. If the person, if the prospect saw a video on Facebook, as Aaron just described, so they saw a video on Facebook. They watched enough of a video. They watched 10 seconds of a video, 15, 30 seconds of a video. And they didn't leave, so they bought into it at some level. Then they agreed with it enough to stay and watch. Then we can show them the next ad. That ad needs to usually address the fact that they are interested or engaged at some point with the previous piece. This isn't the start of their journey with you. Their journey is already started and they are at some point in the middle of it.
Jason Drohn:
For instance, if the first video was about getting somebody to go to ... Like a key content page or an advertorial, something that pre-sold something. And the next ad they see might be recognizing that they were already on that piece of material. You watched this video, you read this blog post, you learned this thing, you discovered this thing. Now, let me share something else cool with you. That's how we end up. Or if they took the next level, which is they hit the add to cart button, and they put something in their order form, and then they just left. The shopping cart abandonment classic case. It's like, "Well, this thing is waiting in your shopping cart. Here's a 10% discount for it." Or, "How do we get you back to pull out your credit card and complete your order?" That kind of thing.
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah. You can almost mind maps where they are at each segment. They watched, they watched more, they clicked. They didn't add to the cart. They did add to the cart. They purchased, "Ooh, let's sell them something else from our catalog." Or, "They purchased four times, let's send them a loyalty reward ad." they opt-in for the loyalty reward ad and then sell them something else and you can map that whole process out. And that's a huge difference, in my opinion, between digital traffic marketing and television marketing. Because television, marketing is just brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, which has significant power to it over time. Right? Over time, it's hugely powerful.
Aaron Parkinson:
But it doesn't give you the ability to segment the buyer journey, to deliver the messages, deliver them testimonials about people who've used the product, deliver them ... Overcome their objections, deliver the features and benefits. Tell them, "You left something in your cart, come back and get it. It's waiting for you." Or even going a step further and saying, "Hey, we'd like to introduce you to this other company that we've partnered with and you should check out their products and there's leverage there. Right? And for me, that buyer's journey works within any channel, but even taking a step out back further than that, maybe you could discuss your opinion on a Google searcher-
Jason Drohn:
Oh yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
... versus somebody who watches an ad on Facebook or Instagram.
Jason Drohn:
There are two different types of people. Facebook is an interruption-based medium. If somebody is scrolling on their mobile device or whatever, or they're scrolling through their newsfeed, and they ... The reason an ad shows up in front of them is that they liked something related. They have an interest related to ... They've raised their hand and said, "Yes, they're interested in real estate investing," let's say. And so, then we show them an ad because they were interested in real estate investing, but not necessarily because they were actively searching for something that was real estate investing-related.
Jason Drohn:
A great example of this is we have a lot of cash for a house, kind of a distressed property, real estate investors all over the country. We trigger their ads usually based on life events if we can get it past like their special category, and the life event might be there's a divorce, or there's a separation. It's a life event that happens that oftentimes involves liquidation of a property, or it is ... For home buying it's, this person just announced that they are expecting, or this person is engaged. Oftentimes those life events carry with them a purchase, so they're sometimes selling a house and then buying a house. Divorce is a three home transaction because they're usually selling a house and buying two. Real estate investors or real estate folks, I don't want to say they like divorces, but it's a good business model too-
Aaron Parkinson:
That's their opportunity, right?
Jason Drohn:
It's an opportunity for real estate. It's interruption-based. We're trying to find the thing that triggers that ad to show up. Whereas in search, it's very easy. It's, they are searching for this particular keyword phrase, and they type this into Google, and then bing, your ad pops up. It's at the top of the list. And at that point, you just need to have a good solid copy and direct them to a page that gives them what they want next, whether it's a product, or whether it's an opt-in, or whatever. It's just two very different types of people because one of them just ... They're not actively looking. They're not actively looking to solve the problem, but they're interrupted into it. Whereas in search, they're actively looking for a solution. And then if you can solve that for them, they are a perfect buyer for you because they're hot, they're motivated, and they're ready to move.
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah. And for us, in our agency, we kind of break it down into two real simple phrases, right? The Facebook, Instagram, social media marketing side of it is, "Hey, this is cool and it's the right time for you to be checking this out. Would you like to have a look?" Right? And so, we've got to be disruptive in our ads and we've got to think about where that person is at in their life, or what their preferences are, or what their historical trend of buying is. And then jump off the page to disrupt them from all their cat videos. They just want to watch cat videos. Why? What's going to be so compelling, and unique, and interesting that they would stop watching cat videos and start giving information, or pulling out a credit card? Where search engines, like Google, is, "You're looking for this. We're the most credible. Here's how to buy it now."
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
Because that's all it is, right? When I Google search stuff, I'm just looking for the most credible that can sell it to me right now. Right? Show me that you're most credible, make it an easy buy, done deal. And anything that disrupts that, annoys me because I've already made the decision that I want to buy it. Just make it easy for me to buy, which Amazon's done an amazing job at. Amazon is almost like ... It's become the shopping Google, right? Just be at the top, be a bestseller, be on Prime. That's it. I'm good. I'm sold. I bought it.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. Have you got that little banner, that little Amazon desktop?
Aaron Parkinson:
The Amazon Choice? Right? Good to go.
Jason Drohn:
Yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
Whereas, there's a lot more finesse and texture to social media marketing.
Jason Drohn:
Finesse and texture, that is a very apt way of describing it.
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah. Which is why you have to have the weirdest combination of people writing ads for Facebook and Instagram and the other social media outlets, because they have to not only be creative, they have to be analytical.
Jason Drohn:
Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
And traditionally, those things don't marry together in the same human. I don't know who is sort of the big bosses on your team, but I have two chief strategists. One is a late 50s university professor in Spain that traveled the world, was kidnapped for four days in Nigeria-
Jason Drohn:
Oh, wow.
Aaron Parkinson:
... and taken hostage. He's one of those unique life experience people. Right? And the other one is the mid to late 20s, former Green Beret. Right? And you think, "Those don't make sense for ads people." Right? But they have enough life experience to think about different angles of whatever, but they're also structured enough to work the analytical side of it. Where I find Google is almost 100% analytical. There's not that much-
Jason Drohn:
No.
Aaron Parkinson:
... finesse or texture.
Jason Drohn:
The only thing you have to think about with Google is you have to consider the phrasing that somebody uses in the search engine and you have to try to determine by your intent. Because if somebody is searching for ... Well, a great example, cash for houses. I mean, so if somebody is searching for cash for houses. Okay. Well, what are they looking for? They might be looking for how to get cash for houses, or how to learn about doing the cash for a house business, or they might have the cash to invest in houses. As opposed to the keyword phrase, sell my distressed property now, right?
Aaron Parkinson:
Or get cash for my house.
Jason Drohn:
Right. Right. I mean, all keyword phrases have ... There used to even be a tool, there might still be, about pulling buyer intent. But the only thing, the only way to get good at it is just experience. Look at thousands and thousands of keyword phrases and ask yourself the question, "What does this person want?"
Aaron Parkinson:
And then test them and then back up your data to see if you were right.
Jason Drohn:
Right, right.
Aaron Parkinson:
And I was talking with a client the other day, and you'll get a kick out of this because you have the same business model as I do, where they said, "You charge how much?" They said, "I get that for a third." And I said, "That's not surprising." I said, "But you're not paying me for the service. You're paying me for the 15 years I spent perfecting it." Right? "How old is your guy?" Right? "He's been doing this for two years. Oh, he took a course? That's cute."
Jason Drohn:
That's cute. Right.
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah, good luck with that.
Jason Drohn:
How much of his own money has he spent?
Aaron Parkinson:
Oh, there's a great question. How much of your own money have you spent? I'm like nine million of my own money. Never mind other people's money, right? "How many businesses have they personally owned? Oh, none. Oh, that's cute. Come back when you're ready to play with the big boys."
Jason Drohn:
Right. That's funny.
Aaron Parkinson:
He instantly was like, "Yeah. Fair point. Yeah."
Jason Drohn:
Right. Checkmate.
Aaron Parkinson:
You're the guy that we were looking for. Yep, got it. But that's also why we ... We're very niched out in our market. Right? We only take people who are spending at least $1,000 a day on ads, and they want to go to five, 10, $20,000 a day, and still be profitable. Right? And there are a million different types of advertisers out there. Some will only focus on local business services, or even maybe a specific niche. We only do advertising for chiropractors, or dentists, or restaurants, or-
Jason Drohn:
Or tax software companies...
Aaron Parkinson:
Exactly.
Jason Drohn:
Restaurants, a big one. Auto dealerships, another big one. Yeah.
Aaron Parkinson:
Absolutely. And we don't touch those, because those businesses don't spend $1,000 a day on their ads.
Jason Drohn:
No. Different...
Aaron Parkinson:
And ... It's just a different niche. We love to scale, versus create from scratch. There's no right or wrong, but that's ... I would never think I could compete with somebody who generated chiropractor leads for 50 chiropractors and think that I could be as skillful as them at it in the same way that they would have no clue how to take a campaign from $1,000 a day to $20,000 a day. It's not right or wrong. It's just, it's a different business.
Jason Drohn:
Yep.
Aaron Parkinson:
Where we at?
Jason Drohn:
All right, man. We're at 26 minutes. 11:43, so we ended up bullshitting a little bit too long before this call, I think.
Aaron Parkinson:
I love it, though. That's my favorite part.
Jason Drohn:
I know, right. Next week, same bad time, same bad channel. Maybe we'll be here on time a little bit earlier. That would be awesome.
Aaron Parkinson:
Yeah. Well, we'll start our BS session-
Jason Drohn:
Early.
Aaron Parkinson:
...before.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. That'll be awesome.
Aaron Parkinson:
That sounds like a good plan.
Jason Drohn:
All right, man, I will talk to you soon. Have a fantastic weekend.
Aaron Parkinson:
Everybody has a fantastic weekend.
Jason Drohn:
Yeah. Talk to you soon.
Aaron Parkinson:
Take care.
Jason Drohn:
Bye.