This LinkedIn Ads Tool Auto Retargets Ideal Customers

Dude, which tools are kind of standing out for you right now? There's one that we kind of built out that's really cool. I'll tell you about it, but you go first. Or you want me to go? I can go first.

Go first.

Okay, so you have a lot of traffic that hits your website, right? You definitely want to use this. So basically we have a tool where we will enrich everyone that comes to your website and then find whoever fits your ICP and we'll automatically create account-based marketing ads in LinkedIn that target. So say like, oh, like Amazon visits your website. Hey, you know, VP of marketing from Amazon, you need to do these things over here, right? And so all the creatives, There's a template for it and it just creates these account-based marketing ads at scale as long as they fit your ICP and as long as they're like the targets, the titles that you're targeting. So that's something we created and yeah, it's a LinkedIn ads tool that will automatically retarget ICP visitors from your site.

That's cool. We've done something similar using LinkedIn. We haven't been able to make it profitable because the problem with our ideal customer is it has to go through procurement. And they usually already have an agency on file or on record. So you got to get them during the right time. And it needs multiple layers of approval. So you're spending tons of money, but you're not really getting a contract right away. It may work with SMB or mid-market.

We have someone running it right now. They target mid-market to enterprise. And so it seems to be working out for them. We'll see what happens though. But my point about saying all this is that we talk about building tools and just giving it away.

Yeah.

So this is one of those where like, maybe we should just give it away, but we're just kind of playing around with it right now.

You should give it away. It'll help. When you say you're targeting enterprise, what's the definition of enterprise?

So the client that's using this is targeting mid-market to enterprise. And so these are like an Amazon of the world.

Yeah, but how much are they selling them? Like, is it $100,000, $5 million, $10 million?

Contract sizes vary. You know this company.

But I don't need to know the company name.

What's the size? I actually don't know the contract sizes, so I'd be making it up, but you know this company.

Okay. Yeah, because the size is everything. You can sell to the Amazons of the world.

It's a mutual friend with long hair.

Don't say it. Yeah, I know who you're talking about. Not too long. Yeah.

No, it's long.

Not too long.

Okay, it's not too long, but it's long.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, longer than your hair.

Yes. I wouldn't consider that enterprise.

No, they— so they've changed their motion where they know they have to go— this is recent. Oh, so they're going upstream. This is recent.

Yeah. But also with them, it's easier to make the numbers work because their LTV is ridiculous.

Yes.

And churn is extremely low. So they're willing to spend money on—

But I don't know their numbers exactly.

Year 2, year 3, et cetera.

Yeah.

One thing that we've been doing, because we pitch a lot of global accounts, we've been taking our content and using, I think it's called HeyGen or MyGen, no, HeyGen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

HeyGen. Yeah.

And we use HeyGen to modify content that we create, like all created in English. I'm not talking about YouTube videos. So let's say we're pitching a customer in, France and I don't speak French. So I'll record the video like the team would want, but in English. And then we use HeyGen to trans— it dubs it.

Yeah.

And it makes it sound good enough. And sometimes you have to do a few different variations because it's not perfect.

Is it pretty good though? Like, what is it like 90% good?

You usually have to create a video 3 or 4 times before one of them works.

Wow. Okay. So it's a 25% hit rate.

25% hit rate, but we want it perfect for the customer or potential customer. And then we send them the video and we've seen it help with our closing rates.

Wow. So wait, so what video do you send? Like, what do you say in the video?

It really depends on the customer. So let's say if you are, let's go with LVMH because they're a French company. I would end up talking about problems that LVMH has, which is why they issued an RFP. I'm making the scenario up. And I'd be talking about how we appreciate them letting us pitch, the staff, the opportunities where we think we have the biggest leverage points, what we want to accomplish in the first 3 months to help them hit the KPIs. what we're going to do that's unique compared to other players in the space.

Yeah.

And we'll share, even in the video, I'll share some like examples of similar things that we've done for other people, but that we didn't include in the presentation. So that way it's new fresh content, kind of like a case study. And then we'll wrap it up and like, we'd love to work with you. And, you know, we'll talk about if I'm coming to that city anytime soon, I would love to do something at their office.

Yeah.

Dub it, send it over. That's why it's also not perfect because sometimes we use technical terms actually in almost all the videos.

Yeah.

And HeyGen isn't perfect for it. So then what we do is we figure out where it's messing up on the transcription and then those parts. Yes.

This is actually a good topic. Like what, what can people do to stand out in their pitch to win the deal? Right? Like obviously you have to have a really good offer, but something else you do is you add a nice touch and people really, really like that. What else do you guys include? Like, so for example, in our pitch decks, I'm reviewing it now, right? I'm like, okay, you know, is the quality of our ideas like that? Like, is it next level? Like, okay, you need to prove, you need to show that you build confidence with people, right? You need to have like 1 or 2 things that really blow their mind, right? But beyond that, it's like you need to have case studies that are relevant, right?

Yeah.

You need to maybe, you know, have them talk to a couple people as well. And then your offer needs to be so that you can't be like, hey, you know, You'll pay $100,000 a month and you get like 5 links a month or something like that from an SEO standpoint, right? Like the offer has to be really good. And so what are some things you guys are doing besides the thing that you just talked about?

Yeah, so for us, it's not the pitch deck. Pitch decks are pretty generic when you look at agency to agency. We do 2 things, or we try to do 2 things really well. One, we try to really understand their business. Like if they have videos, we watch them, understand the economics of their business. If they're publicly traded, look up all their numbers. Listen to earnings calls if they have them and we can get access to them quickly. We try to really understand how their business works.

Yeah.

Because that affects the pitch. The deck is all basic stuff that everyone has because they come to you with problems and everyone has a similar deck. It's how you actually pitch, not read the deck, but it's the discussion you're having during the pitch.

That builds the confidence.

Yes. And showing how you understand the business and talking about very specific nuances that are related to their business that only people would know if they truly understood it. That's how we win deals.

Yep. And by the way, you can't have a junior person do that. It's usually someone that's experienced and knows business. And that's hard to find, right? If it's a really big pitch, sometimes if you're the founder listening to this, you probably should get involved because it's a big deal.

Yeah, and that's where I think where a lot of agencies get wrong. Because let's say if you're pitching for account and you're competing against Dentsu, WPP, Omnicom, and Publicis. They all have had employees who work at each of the agencies before. They all use similar pitch decks. There's not much of a difference. It really comes down to the people pitching and how well you understand the business and how well of a use case you can make on you're a better fit to solve it, their problems, than anyone else. And if they believe you truly understand their business better than anyone else, they usually will give you the business over someone else.

Yeah, because there's also reputational risk for them. If they're like a marketing manager or VP of marketing, It's— they need to figure out who's going to make them look good and who's going to make them look bad, right? The one that really understands the business, oh my God, that's such a confidence builder. And if you went the extra mile that the other agencies didn't do, and you brought your A-team instead of the other agencies bringing their B-team, you're going to win the deal.

Yes. But that's what it is for us. It all comes down to the people pitching, not the materials that you're presenting. And what you'll find is whether you have appendix or not, most people don't really read the pitch deck after. And during a pitch, they'll jump around.

Yeah.

They'll get bored unless you're— it's really engaging.

It's the conversation.

It's a conversation.

Yep, I love that. Agency owners, if you want to grow faster, my partner Neil Patel and I, we are hosting live agency owner workshops in Beverly Hills, and you're going to learn how to get more clients. You're going to learn how to take yourself out of the day-to-day. You're going to learn how to recruit the right people, and you're going to be hanging out with like-minded people such as yourself. So if you want to learn more, just go to marketingschool.io/workshops. Again, it's marketingschool.io/agency. And we'll see you on the other side. One detour I wanted to take is, you and I were both speaking at a conference in Germany called This Is Marketing in about 2 weeks, right, in Frankfurt. And so I want to talk about how we're preparing to make the most of this Germany trip, right? So you've got people that you're meeting there, right? Like there's, there's things that we're doing with our talk. And like, you want to make it a thing where it's not— it doesn't feel like a waste of time at the end of the day, because that flight's not easy. Also, I prefer not to fly Lufthansa because it's an old plane, but you know, that's what we have to deal with. So, um, that's a first world problem I'm complaining about. Dude, come on, they're 747s, they're so old.

They usually update them every once in a while.

Come on, it's a 747, that's like from the '80s, man. But anyway, we're complaining. I'm complaining about stupid things. Go ahead.

Uh, so you're, you're talking about how to make the most of our trips?

Yeah. So let's just talk about how we're planning to make the most of this. 'Cause okay, we're both speaking, right? We're doing kind of the same thing we did at HubSpot where we're going on at the same time. We're going to have slides. didn't tell you this part yet, but it's going to be the same thing where we have slides and we're going through them back and forth. Um, and so yes, that's cool. We get to speak in front of 5,000 people. But beyond that, um, we're setting up a dinner that's just with, you know, us and then like a couple of companies that's going to be on— you probably don't even know this. Um, it's going to be, I think, on like a Tuesday on the 5th. Um, and then they have like their speaker dinner, which is like a regular thing, right? And so that's, that's one thing, right? And I'm meeting with a bunch of friends in Frankfurt as well. But you also have Business to do there. You have people there, I think you have clients there as well. So go ahead.

Yeah, we have clients in Germany. We have staff there as well. We're in the German market specifically. So we'll meet up with clients, potential clients, team members. I haven't met all of my team members around the world. There's no way you can meet all your team members. Yeah, that's true. I have too many at this point. And yeah, the bigger thing for me is I've just been cutting back on which events I choose. And I don't care how much money they offer. Like I got hit up from an event in Romania and they're just like, Neil, we want you to speak.

Ah, it's Affiliate World.

No, GPEC or something like that, I think it's called.

I don't know.

And the guy's just like, we want you to speak. We can't pay your full budget. We can pay you 25 grand and that includes flights as well. And it's like some e-commerce event. And I can go to that, I can make money, and then I can end up heading to Collision, which I believe this year is going to be in Vancouver, or this coming up Collision will be in Vancouver. Collision usually doesn't pay, you have to pay your own cost.

Mm-hmm.

So I was talking to my team, I already didn't want to end up going to Romania, but I was talking to Ronnie on my team who is a managing director of Canada. And I'm like, dude, you've won some really big global accounts for us or Canadian accounts for us. And they're large, like we have accounts in Canada that pay us literally over $1 million USD. And we have quite a few accounts in Canada that are large. So I was telling Ronnie, I was just like, you know, how many days do you want me to be on Collision? Because Marina, who handles my speaking schedule, she was just like, you can still go to there and you would be there for, you would have just one day at Collision, which could be enough for you to speak in the last day. And Ronnie's like, yeah, we can end up doing that. The last day's usually a dead day. Uh, and he's just like, if you're there for a few more days, You know, like 2 days before the day I'm speaking, he's just like, it would just be really good networking. And typically when I do this stuff at events like Collision, I won't generate any revenue within the next 6 months or a year, but usually 1 to 2 years later it pays off. And I was like, yeah, screw the $25 grand. I don't want the $25 grand because I don't want to go to Romania.

It's also the time you lose too.

It's the time.

That's actually the biggest thing worth so much more.

Yes.

The number 1 challenge for businesses is hiring. And more specifically, the number one thing I get asked for all the time is, Eric, where can I go find an amazing marketer? And the reality is right now, when you think about the world, we have inflation. That also means wage inflation right now. And it means that when it comes to hiring talent, you can't spend as much as you would have in the last couple of years because it's just become too cost prohibitive. And so we've partnered with one of the best offshore recruiting firms when it comes to marketing. They've been a great asset for us. And I believe that they will be a great asset for you. All you have to do is go to marketingschool.io/hire. Again, it's marketingschool.io/hire to learn more. You can fill out the form there and we're going to place you with the best marketing hires that we can help you find.

So I was just like, all right, I'm just going to start going to events that are more focused to my ideal customers. And my model going into 2025 is, I've budgeted out how can I spend $30,000 a month on conferences, not sponsoring events, but paying to go to the right events. So I'll pay for my own airfare and hotel. Imagine that I do that 3 times a month. So once in EMEA, right? Once in APAC. Yeah. And once in the Americas.

But tell people what you're paying for.

I'm paying for the flight to get there. I'm paying for my hotel, my transportation and food.

Yeah.

And I'm budgeting around $10,000 a month per event. And I'm doing 3 events a month. So $10,000 times 3 is $30,000 a month.

And it's like a collision type event where your ICP is hanging out and they're not paying you to speak, right? Correct.

Okay. And it doesn't have to be collision size. Like there doesn't need to be 40,000 people there. It can be 200 people in the room or 80 people. It just has to be the right audience. And the goal is to spend $30,000 a month traveling to events that I need to speak. It could be done for a lot less. I'm just a little bit bougie and I don't want to fly economy. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, most of that $10,000 is coming from that flight. Almost all of it is the flight. Yeah.

Because hotel, I'm not that picky. Like I'll stay at like a— like I'm going to Hong Kong on Monday. I'll stay at a JW that's like a few hundred bucks a night.

Look, I think it's worth it. I was like, okay, maybe now we're talking about bougie stuff a little bit. But when you— if you're going to fly like really 5+ hours, It probably makes sense if you're going to do it for business, for work, you should probably sit in business class because the sleep that you get, even if it's a couple hours of sleep, it's worth its weight in gold.

It is. And I'm really picky in which like, if I'm going to like India and I can't get Emirates first class, I'm like, I don't want to go.

Yeah, it's tough. And by the way, Emirates first class, they hook it up.

So, and for me is I just want really good sleep. And then that way when I land, I'm already showered and everything and I'm like ready to go.

Yep. Yeah, so on that, you can, you can shower on first class there with their A380. Um, Neil takes pictures of me when I'm sleeping. Um, remember you did that?

Yeah, and I texted you.

Yeah, yeah. But anyway, um, look, it sounds bougie, but in this case you should do it because you want to come with full energy. Because when you land, usually you land the day before or whatever, you got to be ready to go the next day. If you're flying economy like 15+ hours or so, you're gonna be very cranky, right? And so you are paying to be ready to bring it. And you bringing it might inspire like 20% more people or whatever, and that's gonna lead to more business. You gotta look at it that way. Yes.

Yeah, same with hotels. Like, I want hotels that cater to my dietary restrictions because I'm such a picky eater. So when I go to— yeah, when I go to Brazil, I was like, I always tell my team, I'm like, I want to stay at the Rosewood because every time I stay at the JW, I get sick. And I'm sick and I have stomach pains for like 4 days. And I'm like, forget this, I don't care what the hotel costs, I'm tired of having my stomach in pain for 4 days.

4 days. Yep. Hey, you know what you know. So that is it for today, guys. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and go to marketingschool.io/agency if you want to learn more about the Agency Owners Association. And we will see you later. In fact, you know, I'll tell you what, Neil and I will be recording in Germany. I didn't even tell him this yet. We will be recording in Germany. I found a podcast studio. So, you know, that's another way you can make the most of your trips. So yeah, bye.