288 - The Future of Advertising: Embracing CTV and Data-Driven Strategies with JRW Consulting's J. Rachel West

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Rachel West, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are a consultant and, and a marketing consultant, and you have a really interesting journey that we're going to talk about. Your website is— I want to make sure I get this right— JRW consulting.org, and you're based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your backstory.

Yes, you've alluded to my interesting story, but I started out born and raised in Knoxville. I have my bachelor's from University of Tennessee, and then I went overseas and got my master's in marketing communications from the University of Westminster in London. And so from there, I've had this interesting journey where I was former vice president of an international consulting firm in the UK, working with international folks from all over the world. My team was amazing, and of course, again, all over the world, very international. And then of course COVID happened, and so the, the wonders of, of COVID as we all remember. And so I actually ended up back in the US and found a new job here, and it was very toxic. It was a, it was a really bad environment. I was bullied. By my boss, which if anybody's in, in that's been in that situation, it's just, it's so disheartening. You lose your passion for what you're doing. Marketing is clearly my passion. I have two degrees in it, 10+ years in the industry. And so it was very difficult to show up for work and be excited for what I wanted to do and what I wanted to accomplish. So dealt with that for a few years and finally I just made the decision to incorporate my own marketing agency and the that became my new passion. My, my new goal was to find clients that really need not just necessarily marketing help, but are willing to have that education, that foundation of this is why it's important to have your brand. This is the reason why I am so persistent on figuring out who your target audience is, because all of this is gonna— it's a snowball effect. It's gonna roll down the hill. And it's going to be amazing when you get to the bottom. And so that's why I'm so passionate about this, because I work with so many small entrepreneurs, specifically women entrepreneurs, who they don't have that business foundation, but they're like, I started this jewelry company because I want to help people express themselves, or I started this landscaping company because I love flowers and I want to share that with the world. But I don't know how to find people. I don't know how to talk to them. I don't know how to communicate with them. And honestly, I'm not interested in learning how to do that. And so that's where I love to come in and say, here, you don't worry about a thing. Like, you do your passion, you go plant those flowers, make that yard look amazing, design that new jewelry. And I am going to be here in your back corner just doing the little— I'm Santa's little elf and you're obviously Santa. So go out, do what you got to do. And that's really where I just, I love that. I love seeing small business owners or SEMs really grow and take off and find confidence in what they're doing and who they're talking to. Yeah.

You answered the next question, which, what is it that gets you up in the morning and gets you excited? Yes.

Yes.

What you're saying is you get enormous satisfaction out of taking prof— small business owners, particularly women business owners, and helping them thrive and grow.

Absolutely.

By helping them brand themselves, find their target audience, and then find out where the audience is and be there so the audience can learn and be served by and benefit from the work that your clients are doing.

Exactly. And again, it's one of those things where I have been very fortunate and I understand my privilege of being able to go to university and learn and study these concepts. And so I've been very fortunate in that aspect. And so when I work with clients, it's— I want them to feel comfortable asking the— what they might consider silly questions. But for me, it's all— they're— the only silly question is the one you don't ask.

That's right.

And so I'm always— I'm like, let me teach you if you want to learn. Other— I have some clients that are like, just do it, you know. But again, it's— for me, I love that educational aspect behind it as well, because I feel like nowadays that's missing in business. It's— we've got the how, but we don't always remember the why. And so when we can incorporate that back into what we do every single day— why did we start a business? Because we wanted to help people. And so when we can bring that back into what we're doing daily, the passion is just going to seep through us and seep through our business. And, and that's the key for me.

So what's your target audience?

My target audience is anybody that's looking for— so anybody being business owners or businesses, brands that are looking to really elevate their online presence or build their thought leadership. So that's where I'm at right now. And when I say thought leadership, I'm using that interchangeably with personal branding. So I know thought leadership for some is like a new term. So that's why I wanted to just clarify that it's personal branding, but yeah, just scale and grow your online presence. That's who I'm looking at.

So that people find you online or you actually, they don't find you, you put yourself in front of people who might be interested in what you offer and then you build a relationship and hopefully at some point in time they decide that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

For me, relationships are the basis for business. So. It's without that.

How do you help people find their target audience or multiple audiences in some cases, I'm sure?

Yeah, sure. For me, I, again, it goes back to education. So I, the way I come at it is I will, excuse me, I want to learn everything about that person, their business, their values, their mission. Why are they on this trajectory? Why are they doing what they're doing? Who do they want to help? Because a lot of it stems from who do you actually want to help? And then we base that on finding the target audience within the market. So obviously if you're selling phones, you're going to look for people that want to need phones. So having that kind of break down a little bit. And then actually someone brought up this point, they were like, Rachel, you keep mentioning market research, but what is that? What does that actually mean? And this was a light bulb moment for me because obviously I grew up— or not grew up, but in college, everything's research, everything's paper-driven, like cite all your work, everything. And I had never realized that might not have translated over when I was speaking to clients. And so when I was able to change my language and change the way that I talked about finding people and finding your niche, finding your target audience. That's really been like a very powerful thing for me. And so now I try to always say Google is your great friend. If you want to clean apartments, go to Google, search apartments near me. They've probably got a phone number on there and you can just call them. So market research can really be anything from using statistics all the way down to simply looking on a map.

I have to agree with you. Today there is so much data that you can accumulate. I've been doing, for the last 4 or 5 months, been doing testing messaging on Facebook and letting the algorithm find the audience. And interestingly and surprisingly, different messages for what I do resonate with different people. If you're a woman over 60 years old, one message will resonate. If you're a man, 40 years old, a completely different message resonates. But it's all the same because I teach people how to stop fights and arguments in their lives forever. But how that is messaged really depends upon who you are and what your demographic is. We never realized that. And now we're starting to tar— use that data to target people. And it's without that data, how, how would you even know?

And the other aspect of that as well is when you begin to segment your audiences, not only are you able to communicate better with them, but you're also able to really create a solid sales funnel that actually people— like, people want that. They want to open your emails. They want to crave what you have to say because you have segmented them so far. That they're like, oh, she, she's actually talking to me. Like the, what she's sending me products. She knows me. And so when you can build that level with people, that's where, where the magic happens. And so that, that happens with segment, segmenting your audience. And yeah, exactly what you said.

So what is it you think that's unique about you that you bring to the table that's different from every other marketing person out there, of which you've got a huge amount of competition?

Yeah.

What makes you different?

For me, I would say that I am very, I've been very blessed to have a very international business setting. So again, working and, and living and somewhat thriving in the UK before COVID and then obviously with COVID But I would say I've also been to over 50 countries and I've worked with people from like I said, all over the world. And so my passion really is understanding cultures and how we can work together through our differences. And you mentioned listening a lot, and I'll circle back to that. And that's actually something that I am very proud of within my teams that I've developed and coached and trained is how can you understand someone's culture so that you can create better communication. And I know here in the US we are such a multicultural community that it's really important that we understand everybody comes from a different place. And I'll give you one example. I had team members that were from Italy, and so I set the standard very up, up front in, in our department meetings, and I said all of our deadlines, everything is on an American deadline. So that means if the due date is on the 15th, you give it to me on the 10th. Not— if it's due on the 15th in Italy, you might get it on the 20th. So having that standard, having that system of this is what, what you can expect. And as a leader, I was— I had to adapt myself to all of these different cultures. I had to be able to adapt to each individual, um, because I was also the only native English speaker. So I, again, I had to really understand their culture. And another example is I've worked with a lot of people from India, and they're amazing at what they do, but they seem to procrastinate.

And so time is a different word in India than it is anywhere else.

So for me, anytime I had consulting consultants working on a specific project and they were from India, I would bump up their deadline a little bit because I'm again, very American. I want things done way early in advance. Like, I don't want to procrastinate at all. It would just— it would— I would be so anxious. And so again, that was me listening to their learning, or their learning style, how they work, and incorporating that into the way that I managed my team. Because again, you— we're not cookie cutters. Every individual, every department, every business is its own culture. And so when we can understand that and really bring to light that we all— we can work together.

You know, you mentioned earlier about the fact that you're helping clients develop a relationship with their audiences, so the audience says, this business understands me and gets me, which is pretty important. I, I would say mission critical. How do you get your clients to that place where their messaging is so validating to their target audience that the target audience says, you're speaking to me.

It's again, going back to the learning and education, learning as much as you can about your target audience. And so a lot of times, depending on the size of their audience, it's as simple as asking questions. It's as simple as saying, hey, what do you— what can I do better? What are you looking for, like, from me? And so it's honestly that, that easy. And so I've had many clients. And the other key thing I think is important to remember is that you can learn about people using random tactics.

What do you mean by that?

So One of the things that I personally love to post on my clients' social media pages is like, what GIF or GIF, however you say it, GIF, GIF meme, what meme are you— will describe you today? And so I can look at that and analyze that meme. And if it's funny, I know, okay, I can group this person like I need more funny content. Or if it's, you know, like, I could really use a pick-me-up. Okay, maybe I need an emotion or like an emotional appeal type of post. Next. So when you can use your audience or your platform to delve in deeper with your audience and really dig deep into who they are, what they are, what do they like, what do they dislike, you can tell so much about a person by the meme that they use, by the emoji they use.

So that would suggest that whether you're on Facebook or Instagram or even TikTok, that you've got to have, you've got to have engagement.

Yes, I think the big thing to remember is that No matter what size of an audience you have, you can still learn about them because even if you have zero followers, you can still be posting content and seeing, not necessarily engagement, but you can see how many views. And so you can still gauge where you're at depending on, on if you have one like or a hundred.

And it's, I like the idea that you say, so what GIF would describe you today? And then you're asking people to engage. And if they are engaged, they'll put up something, that an emoji or something that kind of shows them where they're at. And over time, you gather data about that, and you can get a sense of where people are coming from and then tailor your message, message them. When you're— when you— if you were to define a successful marketing campaign for a client, what would that look like?

I think success looks different for every single campaign, every single person. I hate to be like, oh, I can't give you an answer for that. But I think it really, it goes back to what were your goals at the beginning? What did you want to set out to achieve? Sometimes that is basic as, or not basic, but it's as simple as vanity measures, like how many people are liking your posts, how many people are commenting. That can be successful. If you get one like, that's success. And so when you're able to define what it looks like for you, then you can really start to, to, to gauge where you can go.

So that strikes me that when you're engaging with your clients, you've got to be a good listener.

Absolutely.

Oftentimes your clients don't know what they want, right?

Absolutely.

Well, how do you— what's the process that you use to find out what's really going on? Where does the client really want— what's— what are their real interests, goals, and needs?

Sure. So I think for me it's the traditional consultation call, follow-up calls, things like that. But one of the things that I personally really like to do is I have this massive document, and my clients will probably tell you it's not super fun for them, but it's basically a questionnaire where we really dive deep into their business. And I've had so many clients go through this questionnaire and say, I had never thought of that, or I had never put that thought with that? Or when they're, they're things as basic as who do you look up to? Who are your idols? Going straight down into what is keeping you up at night? What are your fears? What, why do you, if you feel stuck, why do you feel stuck? Where is that frustration, that disconnect happening? And so it's taking a look at that deeper picture and really saying this is the core of who you are. And at the end of this giant questionnaire that normally takes 4 or 5 hours to fill out, what we get at the— yeah, it's detailed. What we get at the very end is a single concept, a single notion of what this brand is representing. And that 9, 9 times out of 10— it doesn't always have to be, but most the time that is the— what ends up being the tagline for the brand or for the company is this core function, this core identity. And so again, that— it's all connected. It's all connected. And how we listen— because again, I'm in that interview or questionnaire, I'm sitting there taking notes furiously and they're just talking. It's me prompting when needing to, but really it's just understanding who they are, what they want to do, and finding that core, finding that, that true identity.

Once you've got all this information, and you— I presume that based on the goals that you and the client agree to, you put together a plan. And then how do you help the client implement whatever plan is it that you've all agreed on?

Oh, implementation's the fun part. That's, that for me, that's the, that's the designing, that's the setting schedules up and getting all of that done. So I, I personally love the implementation. And I think a lot of marketing agencies that you'll see are mostly doing the implementation, so social media management, advertising, things along, along those what I call tools of marketing.

So how do you help your clients cut through all the noise? We're bombarded, right? Bombarded with cold email, bombarded with text. You go down to social media and yeah, you got 99% garbage that you have no interest in. And how do you find if you're out there, how do you help your clients put the gem in front of them that you want to put it in front of and cut through the noise?

Sure. So again, it comes back to segmenting their audience. When they can say, I'll give you an example of a, of a sales funnel, and that will probably make a little bit more sense. But if somebody downloads my lead magnet or somebody sends me a message on WhatsApp, I can trigger an automation or I can trigger the way that they are set up in my system and my CRM so that I can start collecting data immediately. So everything that they click on, I can track everything that they look at, I can track. And it's creepy what we can do nowadays.

Well, I know.

Yeah, I'm sure you're aware, but you can even put like heat maps on websites now.

Oh yeah.

And You can see, okay, they're— yeah, okay, so their cursor, their cursor went here. This is how— absolutely, this is how long they stayed on a page.

I know it's— I've got a, I've got a, a platform I use now that when you— it's when they come to the website, there's a script that captures them and links it to LinkedIn.

Yeah.

And so I've got their LinkedIn profile. I know exactly what they've looked at on my webpage. I've got— if they got an email address, public email address, I got their public email, or I have a So I got a phone that I can text to. I'm not spooky.

It's very uncomfortable when you get that random data, right? Data is definitely a huge thing in and of itself. But looking at it from a marketing point of view, it's gold. It's how you can communicate with people because honestly, there is not a single moment throughout the day except for when you're sleeping, when you are not surrounded by advertisement or by clutter from advertising.

I know it's very distracting and annoying.

There's— there nowhere is safe when you think about it.

My podcast, it's safe here.

Yeah, yeah. Now they'll probably add— put an ad right as we say that.

Maybe on YouTube. I can't control that.

Yeah, but really there's nowhere— and, and then I would say when you're sleeping, and then maybe in, in books, but even on— in books they can do product placements. Like, really, unless you're sleeping, there's nowhere safe from this noise and clutter. And so when you are building your brand and building your business and you are thinking about this though you can get so overwhelmed, to the point where you don't make a move because you are— it's that fear of the unknown. It's that imposter syndrome that comes up and that's preventing you from making that next step because you're like, no one's going to see my stuff anyway. Why should I do this? None of this matters. And so we have to break through that mindset and say, your audience is going to find you. You're gonna find your audience. And it might take time, sure. I've had my business for 3 years and I have 380 followers on Instagram. And, but I've worked with accounts that have 150,000 followers, but she's had her business for 10 years. So you really should— easier said than done— you really shouldn't try to compare yourself because it's—

but I think you just made another point, and that is that The kind of marketing you're talking about requires patience and persistence.

Easier said than done.

Easier said than done.

Which again, it's very difficult. I actually just wrote an article about this is how people are, we're so used to instant gratification. That's right. That it's how can you grab someone's attention when all of this mark— like marketing noise, advertising noise, all of this is going around. And some papers used to say that you had about 3 seconds to capture someone's attention, and that was when I was in school. So about 5 years ago. And I think that is absolutely incorrect now. I would say you have less than a fourth of a second, to be quite honest, because think of how fast that, that thumb is scrolling. And if you're— if your message isn't boom, like immediate, no one's gonna watch. I see all these YouTube advertisements that are like 10, 15, 5 minutes long, and I'm like, honey, y'all gotta get it together because ain't nobody gonna be watching this. And actually, one of my— this, sorry, so it's so random, but one of my favorite advertisements I've ever seen was an Arby's commercial which they did a 1-second ad or a 5-second ad, and they just said meat. That's all they said was just meat. And it was brilliant. I was like, this is amazing.

So how do you decide how to catch somebody's attention?

How do you decide to catch someone's attention?

Yeah, in other words, you were talk— we were talking about, we see the people's attention spans are like the attention spans of a gnat, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

People are scrolling and flipping and they're just looking for, and then they stop, something grabs them.

Yeah.

And they look and maybe they make a decision, maybe, or they, maybe they just keep moving. Because really when people go online, they're looking to be entertained. They're, they're looking for distraction. They're bored. They don't want to be in the relationship they're in, or they're bored at work. They're looking to be entertained and distracted because they don't want to focus. That seems to me to be a real challenge.

Yeah, for sure. And I think a lot of it, again, it comes back to understanding who your target audience is and what are they looking for. For example, sorry, my cat has just decided to jump up here, but it happens all the time. It goes back to understanding what your audience is looking for. For example, mine is, I, for my YouTube channel, I do a lot of educational posts because I think that it's a wonderful platform to to show like actual how-to videos. And as a business owner myself, I have used that platform to do that. And so I like to carry that on. Whereas on TikTok, you get to see a little bit more of my fun side. You get to see a little bit more of my jokes or I'll, my, my little quip. And so I wouldn't necessarily say that it's dependent on your platform that you're on and it's dependent on your audience and what they're specifically looking for. And again, that's stuff that you have to test and you have to trial and error it.

Unfortunately, there's where the patience and persistence comes in.

Exactly. Exactly. Because sometimes you're like, oh, this is going to be so good. There's so much information here. It's going to blow up. It's going to be viral.

And then nothing.

And absolutely nothing. And it's one of those— it's so difficult because I've had, again, some of my clients that have like thousands and thousands of followers. It still happens to them. It happens to everybody. And so when you can really understand and say to yourself, It's okay, moving on. Maybe you repost it again in a day at a different time. Maybe you change up the text or the hashtag that you use or the description. There's so many different ways that what you can— what's called A/B testing or split testing.

And you don't know until you do it. Exactly. Yeah, amazing.

Everything's so different. Everything's so different.

I have one more question for you and I'll let you go. Rachel, what is one thing about yourself that we would never know about unless you revealed it to us?

Oh, there's a lot of embarrassing ones.

Doesn't have to be embarrassing. Maybe something, a hobby or an interest you have, or something.

Sure. I think, um, it happened to you in life that is interesting.

Yeah.

So I think for me, one of the things that I probably should share more online and more on my, my website is I'm a very, like, uh, musically inclined person. And so I grew up in choruses and singing and doing all the things, and musical theater is my jam. So I'm a massive musical theater fan, love music, and it's something I'm really passionate about because again, just like marketing, we can express ourselves through music, and it's a beautiful therapeutic tool.

I understand one thing you wouldn't know about me is that I play jazz violin.

There we go. So now we got to meet up and have a concert. There you go.

Rachel, thank you so much for your time today. It's been a real joy talking with you.

Hey, thank you so much, Doug. I appreciate it.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders.. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up, ratings, and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.