Episode 385: Pivoting Your Marketing With Ryan Waterbury

Hey everybody, Rob here again. And today I’m here with my monthly co-host, Mr. Ryan Waterbury. How are you?

I’m doing pretty good. We’re finally above 0°F for the first time in five days.

Are you? Can I send you some more deep freeze Canadian air to visit you?

No, you can keep your warm Florida, Canada air.

Yeah. Well, we don’t have the snow. I don’t know if at the time of this recording, if you’ve seen Vancouver, but they have been buried in snow and I have a couple of friends out there. My response today was keep it because we don’t want.

Ohh yeah.

It here. So there we go.

Where we’re so far into the season now, I don’t know if I really. Wanted to use there.

I’m sure not we. We’ve had a little bit, but nothing. Awful. So you know, it’s funny. You and I have been talking this week and we’ve kind of outlined a couple of shows and we’ve got some good topics coming up. And today we wanted to dive in, kind of pivoting and changing in your marketing because you’re doing a bit of a pivot right now. You want to talk about that a little bit.

What you. Ohh what I’m rethinking about my marketing is seeing some of the success that I’ve had with client marketing and after it was a year of doing at no PC marketing for any clients and I’ve just done really development and design focused projects. And a couple of the celery channers and. I had a few clients come in new niches for me and they said, hey, we need to do some PPC marketing. Can you help out with that? And I said, yeah, you’re very local and it fits in with doing a lot of the local stuff I had done with. In relation to restaurants in in pre 2020 days but you know we saw the dip in PPC marketing after the 2016 election in particularly in the US, a lot of people got privacy. So with this they said hey, why are. You collecting all this data and.

Yeah, they did.

And the pixel tracking that we were doing, where Meta and Google’s new every everything about you got got tougher. There was less information that we could use to retarget and Apple in particular leading the way when they, you know, stopped tracking with. Emails safari. It became one of the most privacy focused browsers and now we have. And other browsers where I saw better results of coming through organic channels. So I had shifted and recommended to my clients that we moved their PPC budget to SEO because we were seeing more growth there and and. It was successful for a while. But now that we’ve seen changes in the industry, again with AI and garbage content and search, we’re seeing search as less reliable. We start, I started looking back at PC marketing and I thought about this for myself, where PC is where you want that. Immediate shot in the arm that if you’re targeting is on point, you get results immediately when you start increasing your and spend and that’s exactly.

I think that’s. And I think that’s the that’s the key, right. If you want quick results PPC pay per click for those who don’t know, it’s the way to go if you don’t mind a long strategy, probably SEO’s a better way to go because we know anybody in the business, SEO changes take four to six months give or take. And the other thing I would be looking at and it’s worth throwing out to what we’re talking about, this is local. Strategy. So everybody talks. About Google business. Files you’ll you’ll Google My Business, but don’t discount Bing local business profiles either. As far as I’m concerned, you should have the website up on both platforms and that’s really important to be honest with you.

And before they kind of killed it, you could manage multiple profiles from a master Google business profile. I still do. And every one that I’ve managed to do there, when I log in to do my my Bing. Business profile. It imports all the changes that we make from the Google business profile. It’s super easy.

I actually have my I have mine set up to sink on a weekly basis so I don’t have to my Bing profile. I don’t have to touch, it’s all done by my Google profile and I think truthfully if you’re not doing both, you’re leaving money on the table because they matter for search.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I had talked about, and I briefly you know, with that that’s actually given being a huge boost with. You know the fact that they were the first, you know, search engine to. Roll it in. To their their search modeling that a lot of people started using it more and finding more reliable results. And there there’s a trust factor with Google that people don’t necessarily trust the results that you’re using. Alternative search engines and DuckDuckGo you know, is tied in with Bing with some of their advertising and so. Yeah, you have to be everywhere and you. Know maximize that as much as possible, but yeah. You know this? Month in particular. If you’re on my newsletter I said, hey, I’m gonna start doing some more marketing for my own agency. And I always like to use my agency as a case study when I’m we’re talk. About marketing for small business and you know from my old blog post, but now I’m taking some of the things. The good things that we’ve done for clients and applying them back into skill back my business Pre 2020 I was growing and now I’m starting to see that growth again and want to get back to those levels so. How I did it was vocal SEO optimizing my Google business profile. PC marketing both on meta and on Google. And then of. Course e-mail marketing and keeping a consistent newsletter, and then also having just some simple drip campaigns rebuilt and refocused for some of the new service offerings and to retailing them to help people, you know, find things online today. So that’s the focus of my newsletter that that I’m going to be talking about how to put together. It’s basically a how to on how to put together a a business marketing plan. For a small.

And Ryan, what URL for your letter? I’ve been on it so long, I can’t remember. And I think now you can laugh, but I I think people that don’t subscribe your newsletter need to get it because you put out some great tips with that URL again buddy.

One dog dot solutions slash newsletter and that’ll take you right to the sign up page. That’s all that’s on there quick and easy. And once you’re on, I don’t spam and I don’t. I don’t. I don’t like the guys that send every day or even every week. I send out my newsletter every other. And it’s packed with three top level action items and a little bit about, you know what I’m doing or what I’m seeing that’s working in in the industry.

No, I I tend. To do a little more than you on the news other side, you know that this week I’ve had a couple little extras because at the time that this record, I’m in another book, which is great marketing, Ross Brands 100 Live stream and digital marketing tips for 2024. So you know, thank you to Ross for asking me to be involved in a great project. It’s been that one’s been fun. So he’s gone to 100 digital experts. So that’s a good form of marketing. I always like when other creators come to me and say, can you be a contributor, which is, which is cool. So I’ve done a little more this week, but generally. Well, I do one or two a week and I try not to make it all about me. I mean, there might be the odd special offer. There might be the odd price increase reminder, but really I like to just like you, I like to help people succeed. And that’s the more important thing with the e-mail marketing, right?

So ohh exactly I you know honestly for me when I started doing the newsletter it got me in front of my clients more often and at the outset. And even now when I’ve had new people sign. Up it’s I have at. Least one person reach out. That either thanks me for a tip, but they said hey, thanks for the reminder. I need to take. Care of that or. They, you know, come in with another inquiry that they want a little more explanation. And so e-mail marketing is is nice where you’re not blocked, you have a one to one relationship with your customer and it’s not about discovery. You know finding that that ad in the right placement on Facebook or you. Know having the. The right search. Query to come to your article or your PPC ad on Google. It’s a nice way to have a conversation and continue a relationship with with your client base and for me it’s been one of the most helpful and. We’re provided one of the the biggest returns on investment of any of the channels and you know at a certain point it’s just time and I’ve gotten it down to about two hours of my time every other week I sit down and I write, edit, you know, do my photo. Editing and, you know, research the the topics a little bit that I’m going to write. And it’s.

It it.

Wasn’t always like that. I can tell you some of the first newsletters that I put out were eight hour endeavors figuring out the right format and you know you’re coming up to podcast 400 and yeah, that’s you. You can, you can imagine, you know, when you started.

Of course.

How? How different it was? Than what we’re doing right now and that’s that’s one of the things that I want. To touch on and remind. People that when you start your marketing process. It it can be painful. And you, you, you have to be ready to accept a lot of failure before you start finding success.

It’s a warning. It’s a warning process and what I would say to you is for me, we talked about curating newsletters. One of the things I do very well. I don’t know about you, but I read a lot of stuff on my iPad or on my Android phone. Yes, I live in a mixed environment which causes all kinds of issues, joy and one of the things I do is I use a service called pocket and what I do is pockets really easy. I just click on the share. Button and I’ll be reading an article and say geez, I should file this for later or I should file this for the newsletter and I just save it and I tag it and then when I go to curate a couple of tips in my newsletter I’ve already got a basis of articles. Better that I can curate the tips I do so my newsletter time. Believe it or not, to write the newsletter is down to about 30 minutes because I’ve saved all the stuff as I go.

Yeah, I.

And that and that’s really key.

Yeah, exactly. And I do the same thing. I’ve got a a a click up board of just my newsletter ideas and I. Have it I I. Have it’s the reason I put the mobile app back on my phone. It was terrible for. A while, but you know. What it it was a having that collecting. Place to put it. Yes, down and now we’re getting into Todd Jones copywriting, you know? Yeah. Idea territory. But that for me, I did doing that and finding, you know, good tips throughout the week that that come across my desk cuts down the time, you know, considerably.

Yeah it does.

But yeah, I mean and being able to curate that and weed the junk out from from the the useful information for. Plans and to be able to help them and and guide them that that’s what I want my newsletter to be and that that’s what it’s there for and you know that’s my target focus.

It’s it’s funny when we talk about our own marketing. It used to be back in the day 10. Years ago, everybody bought. And then I mean, as you know, I made the decision, we’ve been colleagues and friends for a long time now, about 3 1/2 years ago, I said I don’t want to block anymore. I started this thing called a podcast, which you alluded to and you know we’re doing 1 here and 400 is bearing down by the end of February. And you know, and it’s interesting because mine’s internal marketing channels have gone to podcasting, SEO, the newsletter. And interestingly enough, my personal website more than anything else and and appearing on other podcasts and stuff like this. And at the time of this record, where am I? Monday? I’m back on this week in WordPress, the prominent WordPress new show, and I try to do that. About every five or six weeks just to keep. You know my name out there. The PR out there and the host is Mr. Nathan Wrigley is a wonderful, likable guy, so that doesn’t hurt, but you know. But. But the point I’m making is choose the avenues that work for you and maximize those avenues. The other thing that works well for me. Believe or not, it’s LinkedIn, like from a I am so well known running a big group on LinkedIn. If I can sort out all the spam texts I get every day, I’m good. I know.

So for me, using LinkedIn is painful I. I log in. And immediately after I’ve, you know, logged out, and if it’s at the end of the day, I will. Wake up and check. My e-mail and there 5 message reminders. Hey can I help you with your marketing and like do realize I’m a marketing agency? And do this for clients. So no, I don’t. I don’t need no. And so that’s a huge that’s been. A huge turn off on that platform. For me. I know a lot of other. People are successful on. There and find that to be one of their platforms of choice and that’s, you know, I was getting to that that same spot where you said find the find the the spot that works for you because LinkedIn doesn’t work for me and you know.

Yep, Yep.

Other platforms do. Facebook has been still pretty good for me for from a paid and organic marketing platform.

You know my, you know, my love hate relationship with Facebook, don’t you?

Yeah, exactly. And so that, that’s.

I know.

The thing when you’re on your marketing journey where? You had the failures on Facebook I’ve had. Them on LinkedIn, you know and. They didn’t work. For us, so we. We’re putting our efforts into platforms and activities that we found success and that are useful and enjoyable for us.

And that and that convert and that convert to your customers and not where your followers are.

Provided good returns.

So we were talking, excuse me earlier today and I said to you and we know you’ve shifted in the PPC and I’m looking at PPC again and we talked about interesting. I had a conversation with Zoe up at Reddit this week. The interesting conversation. I’m looking at Reddit for client right now, and one reason I’m looking at Reddit is Reddit does really well between the 20 to 35 category in terms of age, male and female, and guess where my clients demographics are between 20 and 35, right?

I exactly and I. I did. I looked at Pinterest. I had a a really great Rep that had a good pitch that came across and I looked at it and I looked at their their research and their demographics and on where it was hitting and it just didn’t fit for any of my clients at that at that time. But you know. Again, I’m finding some success on Google and Facebook with a client but. One of the big. Successes we’ve had is with local Google business profile optimization and. And where and I I took a step back and that reminded me today with our conversation that. They they benefit from a lot, a lot of people that start DIY and don’t want to do their projects. And Pinterest is one of the best, best search engines and curation platforms for DIY ERS. So it you have. To understand, you know your clients demographic or yours, if you’re doing your own marketing and you have to be on the places that. Your clients are so.

There’s there’s no question, and it’s interesting. I’ve got still quite a few clients in the political space. You know, Reddit does not allow political ads outside of the US at all. So that ends that Ave. you know, but these are things you wouldn’t know if you didn’t have the conversations, right. And that was something truthfully, I was not aware.

Yeah, and the when? Politics was a a niche that I had served for a long time and. It’s to me it’s the, you know, I got into. It’s how people and and help some of my colleagues and connections. And I I always felt so dirty when you you started doing the marketing and and doing some of the things and so. That’s all I need, so I’ve had to walk away from personally. Because it just. It didn’t sit right with me, but again, that’s, you know, part of my journey and you know, you know, and in my business on who I’m I’m serving and what my client base is. So that’s another part of it finding who your optimal client base is and sometimes marketing. And when you look at the the data. When you get down to it, you’ll find that sometimes your base of users isn’t necessarily who you thought they were. So that’s another tool to use to improve your service and improve your products is through the the analytics. When you get down, get down to looking at who’s buying your products from, from your marketing efforts.

Yeah, I think we also gotta remember, marketing is a marathon, not a Sprint. So I’ll give you an example of that. Last year I had a client come to me. The last week in November saying I need marketing for book done. That was an independent published book for the Christmas holidays and the first thing I said to them if we start now, you’re looking at turning this in February and March, not in December. And they looked at me and said Ohh, you can make a post go viral.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

And I’m like guys, viral doesn’t happen very. I know very often and if you know how to do it, why you talking to me? And I said we can start now the first week of December, but I guarantee you won’t have results until until late January, February actually because especially in books, there’s a reason why big publishers all want their books for Christmas in. August and September. That’s the ramp up for the Christmas season. We all know that. So what happens? This client does five weeks of marketing and then writes me an e-mail the first week of January and says you’re not really any good. I’m cancelling our contract. Right. And I’ll be quite frank. I had a clause in the contract that said I needed four weeks notice to cancel and I just looked at and said OK, goodbye. And then I sent him back her reply and said, do you not remember this e-mail I sent you back at the end of November that said the end of January, early February. Ohh well our friends tell us otherwise and I’m like, OK. Then go talk to the experts because I know nothing you know and.

Yeah, it’s, it’s it’s kind of interesting when you get to that, I see how clients are are ones that I always had. I used to have a three month minimum on my contracts and then I just said, you know what I’m gonna do month to month and on some of.

Yeah, yeah.

These and the the last one of the last clients I worked with on a regular retainer and we still do ad hoc work and and we’re seeing things we did two solid months of really good work and revamped her site. And then she said I’m not, I’m not seeing any. Trying to walk in and she was getting more calls and things were, you know, starting to turn around from a pretty disastrous place. It was in month three at the start of. It about two or three weeks after that I watched the rankings, that stuff. So it slowly started coming up and rising from the work that we had put in those first two months. And it it depends on the industry. It depends on the client, you. You can send them leads. You can work with them, but this gets back to one of our earlier episodes, client education and in marketing and it it doesn’t matter what channel it is. You need to educate your client that. Sure, you can get lucky once in a while and turn the results quickly, especially with PC. But don’t count on it. The last we’re we’re running a successful campaign for a client right now on Facebook. And things are looking great. Flying is happy. They’re getting more leads than they’ve had in their offseason, but. To find a winner in our testing on Facebook, we used to see those in seven to 10 days. Well, Facebook picked one out at 28 days and the client was gonna astonished. I said, well, sometimes it takes that long. And at this point, here’s where we start doing a lot more testing and a lot more variations to increase. And that’s when I think the light bulb went on that we have to look at this as a marathon, not not a 5K or 100 yard tax, you and.

Oh, I agree with you any. And we also got to look at this with the marathon with budget. So clients are unrealistic, I think until they’re educated about what it costs to do pay per click ads, what it costs, by the way, a website is part of your marketing venue. It is not an IT project. We need to get that straight. What it cost to keep your website up to date, what it cost to do social. Ohh well I. Have an employee that will do it, a part timer and I’m all OK. And what’s your part timer worth per hour times X number of hours? Like that’s a cost whether you have them on staff or not. And we gotta start deriving this marketing budget so we can actually help people. Because when you stand there and say to clients, you know, they’re those social media marketing’s gonna cost you, you know, 500 bucks a week, they look at you and. Say you’re crazy. Well, there’s time and effort involved and they. Gotta be realistic too.

I exactly and you know, when I tell clients when I’ve done some proposals and they said, oh, OK, so this is it. And I said no, the we need to decide on the budget on the platforms that we’re going to work on, you mean that’s not included. I said no, absolutely not. Well, why is it so expensive? And I said. I invite you to do this on your own and then add up all the money that you’ve spent on the platform before you find a winning solution or when you don’t. More likely and come back and give me that number and see if it’s lower than what I’m proposing right now. Yeah, and it. And I actually had one client that came back after trying to mark it and they said. I’m not getting any sales. I’ve spent thousands of dollars and I can’t figure it out. And I said, OK, Are you ready to start start a a campaign and and do it. I didn’t want to say the right way. I said do it in a more professional. Manner and they.

Said yes, and that’s that’s good learning.

And that’s the thing that a lot of clients don’t don’t take into account. We’ve been doing this for years. And do you? Know how many? Failures that we’ve had in our own marketing.

Ohh, just a few and and. What I’ll tell you is. Every time a client says do it this way, I I’m at the point now where the first month to throw up my hands and say OK if you want to spend your money, go ahead because the way I work is I’m never billed for the clients head spend that goes directly to the clients credit card, not mine. So if they want to build their credit card budget. Feel free. I’m and and then they look at me and say, why didn’t this work? And I said you told me how you wanted it done. You didn’t wanna listen to advice. So I did it your way. Now do we wanna talk?

Yeah. And I I’ve had some of those conversations again and and it’s because I’m working with, you know, more new clients that haven’t done, you know, PPT marketing before that you know, spend, education and all different steps of at a client that was angry on how ads. Were displayed on mobile and you know I had had to take a step back and I said you. They they don’t know that this is how how we convert things. They want a header and footer navigation and and they wanted them to explore the site and they said. If they’re exploring the site, then they’re not hitting the get quote button and they’re more likely to leave than they are to do that single action that’s on the landing page. And hands down. I will throw out a free piece of advice. Right. Now the worst thing you can do. Is give people choices when you send them to from an ad to another page.

Do not give.

And one of the.

Them any any choices and actually on that winding page you should strip out all your navigation. You should strip out all your header. You should strip out all your footer. I’m serious and and just let them go to that page with one button action. I 100% agree with.

Yeah. And, you know, I’ve done studies. I shared a key study. That I had done where? I let the customer do that exactly. They wanted to change and they said OK, we’re gonna split test. And we’re going to see, we’re going to see what which, which converts more. It wasn’t even yet. Three days later we had 50 conversions on the page with no navigation and one on the one with navigation.

No, I need it and. And while we’re tossing marketing tips out there, my my big tip of the day is when you sign up for newsletter, your thank you page should not be. Thank you for signing up for my newsletter. My thank you page reads. Here’s three types of good content. One is my blog. One is my podcast and the third one is my Web security care plan. Link to get you on the care plan. Right on my thank you page and and it says while you’re waiting for your newsletter in your inbox, check these out right away. Like, don’t the thank you page is the most misused. Page on an entire website.

Absolutely. And and this is part of why I’m revamping, because the service offers have changed and why I’m also dipping heavier into e-mail marketing. It’s a it’s for me, it’s that follow up e-mail immediately that either gives them the previous newsletter as a sample. And and an introduction e-mail that says hey, here’s our previous newsletter so you can see what you’re getting in for or welcome e-mail that says hey, thanks for signing up and confirming your subscription. That’s another upsell point. And if you’re not utilizing all those avenues. And you you need to do it in a professional and tasteful and relevant manner. If it’s relevant, then your clients won’t won’t see it as obnoxious or pushy, and that’s that’s the other part that we have to address at some point is that if your offer is relevant. And genuine to your client, it will never be seen as sales of your pushy at all.

Yep, I’m about to offer, as you know, I’ve raised my rates and we’ll be addressing that in a future podcast. We we’ve talked about that. I’m about to put out an offer out there that will take the 25% off with the coupon code, but here’s the deal. You have to sign up for the newsletter to get the coupon code. So you know. There there is. There is ways to market and get people on a a a mailing list or newsletter. Without being pushing, he give them something and say come here. At Pod Camp next month, I am gonna release my slide deck at Pod camp from my presentation after Podcamp. But guess what to get slide deck, you’ve got to sign up for the newsletter because there’s not. There is a cost to doing something. That’s a relevant offer. Those who are interested in that will sign up right away.

I right and you know a. Lot of people will say I hate. Signing up for blah blah blah. But you know what, 9 out of 10, if they’re signing up for that type of knowledge. They’re going to find relevance in your newsletter, and it’ll be that small percentage one or two out of the 10 that will unsubscribe because they they just wanted the free piece of info and most people stay on and they will. If your content is relevant and useful and and this is another SEO tip. Don’t jam keywords, just do relevant and useful marketing to your content for your clients. And everything else will come naturally well.

One 100%.

Yeah. So that’s what. So I’m taking. A whole organic look at my site. Uh, my, my, my funnel for my for my. For my legion, from whether I’m I’m going to do lead magnets, little PDF manuals and and just look at it and I’m going to take the data over the past five years, see what works what then, and realign them with what services that I’ve enjoyed doing. Right now and so.

Yeah, I’m doing. I’m doing I’m. Doing the same thing. It’s funny because. I’m now at the point of on my site. I let people book right in so they want a strategy call. Well, the the way I’m rejigging my funnels is. You get to link to book the strategy call in an e-mail. I’m I’m I’m forcing people into the newsletter and then using automation so much so I’m looking at a service called make. Right now I I think you’re where I make it. It says after equivalent.

Ohh yeah and check your map make.

Yeah. And I’m and I’m looking at automating some of the stuff going on in the back end between all the stuff and it’s making a difference, I’ll tell you.

Go ahead. It makes a huge difference and you know I that’s another part of my journey that I I will. I’m going to hit on on Monday’s newsletter on why I made the change to some of the fluent products and one that I picked up recently just because the integration is so. Much better than. For booking. And it’s totally integrated with fluid CRM, my e-mail marketing application, yeah. But at the end of my quick funnels ioffer a free strategy call and that’s that’s imperative that you know you have those things in in your funnels ways to. Get people onboarded.

Speaking of free strategy calls, you do have an offer coming up. What? What was it we were talking before the show. So did you want? To share that here.

Yeah. So I know you were talking about it and I I had been thinking about the same thing and and you really put down, you know, some specifics and mine are almost identical. And that from now from Monday. Until the middle of February, I’m gonna offer an hour free strategy. My consulting time Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. I will have a one hour slot open to talk about anything that you want to talk about during that hour to help you with your marketing your content. Any problems that you’re having, WordPress or otherwise, that are related to your? Business but that that is a a valuable piece of time that that I can offer my expertise and my experience over the past 10-15 years of marketing successes and.

You know.

And and and it. Goes to February 14th. Show little love. To Ryan and Valentine’s Day and all of that, and love to your business and date Mr. Ryan up on that. That’s the tagline show. Yeah, Ryan, as always, you know, I think people enjoy this. It’s a good way to, to kind of look at their marketing. How’s? The best way to get a hold of.

You can find me. On every major major social media network. Except TikTok and threads because they mine too much data at one dog solutions, you can e-mail me at Ryan dot Waterbury at one dog dot solutions or my website where you can sign up for my newest newsletter. One dog got solutions.

And make sure you ask Ryan and passing how those two office managers of him or of his are doing, cause I think they’re sleeping right now.

Ohh no the shooter the. The the intern who’s always on the.

Ryan, thanks so much. Have a wonderful day,