Cracking the Ad Code: Maximise Your ROI with Skip Wilson's Insider Strategies

Welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur with me, Jim James, in the UK. I have a guest who's going to talk to us about advertising. I'm going to ask him whether advertising really works or not, because in fact he's running a very successful white label advertising management company. He's also going to talk to us about why and how he ended this business, because it's actually not the business that he started. So he talked about his pivot, and we're also going to talk to him about some of the mistakes that he sees people making when they're planning their advertising campaigns, which would be really useful for all of us who have been a bit burnt with spending money on advertising, whether it's on social or in print or even on outdoor. Welcome Skip Wilson, who is in Greenberg, South Carolina.

Thank you.

And he is the CEO and founder of a company called Draft Media Partners. Skip, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Well, it's my pleasure. I have to admit I was a little bit nervous because Skip has a long history actually working for iHeart, was one of the founders and running the digital side with all the podcasting. So I'm a bit worried today whether my production values are going to be high enough for a man with his—

Hopefully, hopefully you were put at ease when you saw that it looks like I'm broadcasting from a Just an empty shell of a room. We just moved office locations. So, but there's nothing, there's nothing less impressive than where I'm physically standing right now. I don't think.

Yeah. No, thank you. Yeah. So, for those of you that want to look at—

I was just going to say, you'd be surprised how many—

For those of you that would like to see this on YouTube.

I mean, you'd be surprised how many high-budget podcasts are thrown together last minute and those things. So, in other words, that's I think you would be, you'd be very much at ease with even, with even the huge production values, my friend.

Thank you, Skip. I'll take that as a compliment. For those of you that would like to see YouTube, you can check out my channel at Jim A. James. And you see Skip, yeah, it does look as though he's in a slightly green, slightly Al-Ghuraib-style room, but he's not wearing an orange suit. He's got a very fancy blue shirt on that says Draft on it. So he's dressed for the occasion, even if his office hasn't yet been made up to the way that he used to have at iHeart. Skip, so you've moved.

We just moved.

We seem to have a bit of a delay.

Yeah, sorry. Sorry about that. And part of moving offices meant to— can't find my wire. I can't find my wire. So I'm on the AirPods, which hasn't— beautiful annoying delay. So I apologize to everyone. That's, that's, that's on my end, just for clarity, not Jim's.

Yeah, thank you. And so I, I do have a form where I ask people to fill out and upload all the equipment that they've got. And Skip did tell me he's got everything sorted out, but because he's moved, he's got caught short. But we'll carry on because his audio quality is good. It just means there might be a slight to-and-fro delay, but we'll, we'll do our best to give each other the, the space in between the questions to answer them. Skip, advertising. You know, the old saw is, you know, that half of your advertising dollars are not working. You never know which half. You're in the media planning, media buying business with Draft Media Partners.

Mm-hmm.

How can someone find out how much they should be spending on advertising And how much of that is working for them? Let's start with your subject matter expertise before we go on to you as an entrepreneur.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So when there is that, that adage is an old one. Some say it was Henry Ford, some say others, but that shouldn't be true today. Advertising, we're in sort of a golden age of trackability and really have been for at least the past, 5 years or so of being able to, if you're not tracking your advertising, that's something that can be easily fixed and should be easily fixed right away. The problem is that most people, when they started tracking the advertising, realized that very little, it was more like 10% of their advertising was working. So even the 50% part was optimistic.

Oh, wow.

And that was the big sort of challenge. But really, I mean, advertising is nothing more than a paid message, you know, a specific message to a specific audience to achieve some specific result. And so as long as you're tracking what is going on with that result and where it's coming from, you should have a very clear indication of how things are going and which, which piece needs to be tweaked.

And Skip, you plainly can speak the language of advertising, and you've explained it know, nice and clearly. But from a layperson's perspective, how do we then implement that? Because a particular message at a particular time on a particular medium in the customer's journey, how do we actually plan that so that we know that we're spending that 10% at least wisely?

Yeah, and 10% should be, is probably where you are if you haven't been tracking anything. It should be close. The majority of your advertising should be working after some tweaks and changes. But the way to start first is to think of your own sales cycle, assuming that you are a company that sells things. Now, if it's an awareness campaign or a public good campaign, that's a little bit different. Even those should have those specific KPIs or specific things they're trying to get people to do. But assuming that you are selling something, you first want to start off by figuring out what is that journey like for folks? Are they searching for my product for months before they make a decision? You know, for example, I might, someone might look at, you know, 40 or 50 houses online before they even schedule a tour of one or something like that. Whereas if you're a plumber, Then there's not a long buying cycle, right? That's somebody steps in water or something like that that day and there's water where there shouldn't be water or there's a pipe burst or something like that. And that's a phone call that's happening within minutes. So you always want to start off by thinking, what is my actual journey like? Then you want to go as high up on that as possible. If you have a small budget, the easiest thing to do is to reach the folks that are right at that point of starting to get into the consideration cycle. So, in other words, if you are a realtor, to keep going with the housing thing, then what is that first step? What is that first person's mindset when they start thinking about a house? Or if you're selling an e-commerce product, if you're selling a— we've got a client that sells an earwax removal product. What is that person doing? What are they thinking about? What— those types of things. Start there, and then you really want to try to figure out what's the one thing I want them to do besides purchase something. In other words, if I'm a realtor, I want them to request information so that I can get their contact information so that I can reach out to them. So you start to build that type of campaign. If it's an e-commerce product, like I just mentioned about the earwax removal, The first thing you want to do is maybe give them some information about how and why that's important, you know, how deadly, you know, how not deadly, but, you know, if you can, if you can find out if it's deadly.

That's news. That's news. Ewmax is deadly. You heard it first on The Unnoticed Entrepreneur.

Exactly. Exactly. But, you know, if you can, you know, what is, what is the reason someone might, you know, problem agitate solve? In other words, find out what sort of problem they have. Then you want to make that as painful as possible for them and then offer the solution. So you just want— so it's a little bit of a hard question to answer in terms of what each individual listener should do in terms of what the answer is. But I can at least tell you what questions you need to ask. It is, who is my buyer and what mindset are they in before they've contacted anyone? Because that's the cheapest point to reach them. It's much, much more expensive if I'm a realtor. The reason why you'll hear things like Google Ads didn't work or something like that, it's much more expensive if you're a realtor or a financial advisor or something like that to get that person when they, by the time they start looking for realtor near me, you know, that's going to be a $10 or $15 click and you're going to have a lot of competition for that space. And that's a heavy ask, especially if they've never heard of your company before. So that's the biggest mistake I see is that people go right there. Instead, you want to try to reach that person before they've contacted So that they're not Googling realtor near me or earwax solutions. You want them instead just coming straight to your website.

Skip, that's really interesting. How would you find those people almost sort of pre-discovery then? Because that's what you're talking about. The minute they start to be in discovery and with intent, they're looking at pages that have more expensive real estate. How are you getting them up, if you like, out of the funnel?

The easiest places to start are, if I'm, for most businesses, the easiest places to start are platforms like YouTube where you can find people looking at videos and things related to your topic that might show, indicate that they're in that research phase. The other places are things like podcast advertising, audio advertising, Those types of things, and then of course Google, Facebook, etc. I think does work provided you aren't trying to make the sale in the moment. In other words, the things that don't work is when they you run an ad that's like you know join today or schedule a consultation. Those types of ads—that's a big ask to have a cold audience instantly try to have a conversation with you. But instead, if it's get this piece of information or whatever. Those work. Those can be very effective.

Skip, that's really, really insightful. And I think as you've highlighted there, people say Google doesn't work, but actually their strategy wasn't optimized for Google or for Facebook. Can I ask you about creatives? Because we've, you know, talked about it from a placement perspective. Yeah, my first job out of university was actually in an advertising agency, uh, which is great fun by the way because we used to have to draw the adverts, um, and color them in literally with pens. I'm dating myself here, but, uh, we literally did storyboards. Um, what about the creatives, Skip? You, you talked about placement. How important is the creative to the success of a campaign?

The creative is, is everything. I mean, it's, it's half the equation, right? It's specific, specific message to a specific audience. We've talked about the specific audience part, but it's that specific message that is, that is absolutely key. We often will, because agencies, a lot of times we're working with a creative agency, we're more the execution arm. So there's a lot of times where we're making recommendations to a creative agency or something like that, and they can drag their feet and be a little slow sometimes to make those updates versus the campaigns where we are testing 10 different headlines or 15 different creatives, and you can get wildly different results just by changing the headline a little bit. And so it's incredibly important. The biggest thing in The biggest sort of challenge that most advertisers have when they're doing it themselves is writing short enough. There's that old joke and forget who said it first, but that if I'd had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter. And it's that same—

Mark Twain or someone, isn't it? Yeah.

Probably. That would make sense.

Yeah.

And it's the same thing in advertising. Your message should have one Your creative, what the actual ad says, should have one message in it. You're getting them to do, to read one thing and do one thing. And so that's the biggest problem, quote unquote, I'll see. And all the time you'll see these billboards or these large advertisements where it's some crazy long company name. You just want to keep in mind your average person, even if it's a 30-second ad, they're only actually spending about 8 seconds with that ad, whether it's a video ad, billboard, etc. Nobody's looking at it for enjoyment. So you want to get a very quick, punchy, this is the thing you want to do. That's the message.

And I think quite often the client, my experience was that the client would like to put as much information in as they can because they feel as though the client, you know, or the customer should know everything about them. And the creatives or people in your position are saying, if it could be 2 to 3 words, That would be great, right? So there's always this tension between the client and the creatives and the agencies buying. Okay, that's perfect. So Skip, just to be clear, with draft—

We are in a beautiful age with that, by the way, now, because when I was starting, you know, years and, you know, now almost 16 years ago when I was starting, that was always a point of tension on those things. Nowadays though, you can just say, okay, well, why don't we run one with your creative? Mr. and Mrs. Client. And then let's test that against this different messaging. Is that okay? And then because we know the one that we do is gonna crush the other one. So.

Yeah, you can A/B test it, can't you, Susie? Nice. I had a company called PickFu on the show and the founders, and they enable you to post content online and they have panels that will give ratings and comments. So not just an A/B test, but actually with subjective human-based responses, um, which they're using for packaging and advertising as well. So that's, uh, very powerful. As you say, accountability, transparency is immediate now, isn't it? So that's fantastic.

Exactly.

Now, Skip, if we're also a little bit transparent, I mean, obviously you're the founder of Draft Media Partners there in South Carolina. Um, This wasn't always the business that you had planned, was it? So let's just talk about this as, as an entrepreneur. You've obviously got a lot of background in advertising and media planning, which thanks for sharing. But with your experience as an entrepreneur, just tell us a little bit about Draft and what you started off trying to build. Because ad tech, and we've, you know, alluded to ad tech, is a very, very competitive and lucrative market.

Absolutely. I, I— so the original idea was there for, you know, more than a decade, uh, my— I felt like I didn't have a good response to when a client would ask simple questions like, you know, if we gave you a million bucks, what could we get in return, right? There was always sort of a squishy answer, even though for most advertising it's a very objective thing. In other words, we know what a Facebook ad should convert at. We know even for from a radio campaign, if it reaches X percent of the market, what sort of return on ad spend is it generating? So like those are objectively known things, even though it didn't seem like anyone in the industry knew them or used them in planning. So the original idea was I had sort of had my little poor man's like Google spreadsheet version of all those facts and figures by industry and all those different things to where I could answer that. And I was like, you know, we could turn this into a an ad planning tool. And so that was what we did. And then we sort of ran with that and we were like, okay, you know, also small to mid-sized agencies don't have a great way of getting access to data. So let's pull in all these data sources and let's, they don't have a great way of actually, like some of these, what's called DSPs or places where you have to actually place the ads usually have big minimums and things. So that becomes very expensive. So we're like, let's pull all that in. So let's bundle all these things together. and create Draft Advertising technology. And the idea was we'll sell that as a software as a service to agencies, agencies and fractional CMOs to just make their life easier. And we'll charge them, you know, monthly recurring revenue fee. And then they got access to this planning tool and all of that. But that, of course, did not actually— didn't work out, which is a good thing. That's one of those very happy things. Because the, you know, the problem was, hey, they've got all this hard cost going out the door to these software as a service companies. For whatever reason, it didn't dawn on us that we were just making that worse by adding another software as a service company. So just a complete product mismatch there. And we kept getting all these requests of, hey, thanks for building this plan. Can you just do the campaign now? And so we realized, you know, after several months that like, oh, actually that's the better way to do this anyway. We could also just be the ad execution company and bring in more and more tools to make that flow better and easier. And so that's exactly what we did. So complete business model change from passive software as a service to active, more of an active service platform. Almost sort of acting as a software as a service.

Yeah, and I guess in that sense, you're using the platform that you've built, this DAT platform, for your own, as your own internal engine, aren't you then? And serving the clients using the platform that you've built.

Exactly.

Skip, yeah, you know, many consultancies have built something and then tried to sell it and find it's quite a difficult transition. You, you've done it the other way around where you've gone from a technology back into a service. Um, how did you sell that? Because market positioning-wise, that's different, right? There you are. How are you marketing Draft, um, advertising now then as a, as a really a service provider rather than a SaaS?

Sell it internally or externally? Internally was probably more of a challenge.

Well, yeah, I think both. They both— yeah, because, uh, either way, because actually internally, um, my experience is people join a company believing it's going to be one thing and they kind of have it in their heart that it's one thing, you know. Tell us through both of those then, if you've got an internal communication story.

Yeah, internally it was, uh, it was proved out really by the market. I mean, we went from overnight being, um, you know, kind of hoping that we can keep the lights on for another month to suddenly having a hard time keeping up with orders, right? And so that, you know, that's one of those things where just sales prove, you know, you know, it's like that old, the old joke, sales cures cancer, right? That, that was, that made it a very enticing idea that, okay, this is something because now we're, we have people coming to us. We actually have yet, we just, I mean, really just this year started trying to do any sort of outreach ourselves. It's been purely organic growth so far. Which has been nice, but we're transitioning to being able to set ourselves up. As far as externally, because we are now, because we listen to the feedback of the market, it sells itself pretty simply. I mean, we operate off what's called a PLG strategy, a product-led growth strategy, where we now give away what we thought would be the product our planning tools and all of that. We now give that away for free. So it's like, hey, here's this platform, here's this tool, you can use it. And by the way, if you want extra help, you can use our team. And so that's been the model.

Oh, how interesting. So you're giving away for free what used to be the service. And then charging consulting fees to people that might want to have your skill set.

Yeah, we actually only, we charge a percentage of the ad spend. So we actually built our pricing model to match kind of what they were used to anyway. So in other words, when someone does a campaign with us, we just keep a percentage of that ad spend and that's the only way. We don't charge for creative, we don't charge for Um, for, for anything else, we don't charge an hourly rate or retainer. It's all month to month and it's all just a percentage of ad spend. And you'll see here the different divisions of the—

Yeah. And Skip's, uh, when he says— Skip says, when you see here, I'm— for those of you that'd like to look on YouTube, or you can go to draftadvertising.com and you can see the website. And Skip's just referring to, um, something on the website. Yep. Go ahead, Skip.

The section just below this where it's those different divisions, one of the things that we really wanted to do was once we realized that this is our business model now, we wanted to be very strategic in our mergers and acquisitions. So we acquired a direct mail company, we acquired a promotional company, we've built out our outdoor division and traditional media.

Brandcast division.

Because very rarely do we get the objection of— the most common objection we get when we do come into a company is, oh, we already have somebody for XYZ thing. And so it's like, oh, great. Well, have you— do you have anyone for outdoor? Because if not, we've got the largest— we've got the largest selection of outdoor advertising, at least for US Europe and Australia. And so we wanted to be able to be very turnkey and also what I call platform agnostic. We— I wanted to be able to not be married to any one product, but instead be able to make the best recommendation. And so, yeah, we're product agnostic, if you will.

Okay. Yes. What Skip's referring to is now they've got on their website 8 different divisions. Of course, those of you from China will know 8 is a lucky number. So he's Plainly chosen it for that reason. And that, for those of you interested, is because the number 8 and the word for gold sound the same. And then you've also won a MarTech Award in 2023. So plainly, Skip, things are moving along really nicely. Now you're basically taking, I guess, more and more budget from a client and putting it across, if you like, omnichannel, as we used to maybe call it, right? Indoor, outdoor, online, offline, and so on.

Exactly.

Skip, clever strategy, a nice pivot. If there's a mistake that you'd made, notwithstanding the product market fit at the beginning, if there was a mistake that you've made in building Draft from a marketing point of view or sort of a getting noticed point of view, could you maybe share what that has been so we don't maybe make the same mistake? Yeah.

One mistake is we originally thought, well, if our thing is white label and behind the scenes, then we don't really need to focus on our own presence at all. So like the website you just saw is something that we have barely touched. And it's, so we need to work on that. We need to work on our own pitch decks and those things. But the idea was, you know, The original thinking was, hey, we're behind the scenes. Nobody cares about us anyway. So the problem with that is like, all right, well, so we are a white label. So half our clients, a little bit more than half our clients actually don't even know that we exist. However, if you are in that type of situation as a business, you want to vary up your efforts a little bit. Because what we realized is that we, that means that we can't have anything like reviews or case studies or any of those other things That would be very normally very easy.

Yeah. And so what was the solution to that? Because, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so what's the solution? Because any, like, OEMs, for example, the, the engine manufacturers for cars have the same problem, right? And then they compete on price actually because they're— they have no brand pull. So what was the solution, Skip?

The solution really was and is to make sure that you're not married to any one channel for sales. In other words, because we are more the OEM model. And so while yes, OEM, you know, that's going to be the majority of our sales and probably always will be, not a bad idea to do some direct business just so that you can, if nothing else, establish a little bit of lasting brand value. And start to build a little bit for yourself. We don't ever want to compete with our, just like an OEM, we don't ever want to compete with our individuals. So we always keep a control on pricing to make sure that, you know, it's fair, but not a bad idea to have a little bit of brand presence for yourself also.

Yeah. Okay. There's an interesting strategy. OEM obviously is other equipment manufacturer, outside equipment manufacturer for people that aren't familiar with that. Of course, that's where Trek started, wasn't it, with making bicycles for a North American retailer and then found that they had no pricing leverage and so they built their own brand. And that's how Trek started out of Taiwan. So that can sometimes be the long-term solution is to ultimately become a brand. Skip—

And we're in the middle of that pivot right now, actually. I mean, that's part of why I'm on things like this.

How interesting. There we go, there we go. So prescient then, Rip. So at some stage you have to build out a brand, otherwise if you— and it really is a testament to the power of branding, isn't it? Doesn't matter how good the product is, at some stage you really do have to have some kind of, of leverage. Um, Skip, so yeah, thank you for coming on the podcast to explain about advertising, about your entrepreneurial journey too. Um, and delighted that you've chosen my show to to start to, you know, break cover, as it were. If there's a tip that you would give as an entrepreneur, because now you've been running your business 16 years, so you're through the woods, you've learned quite a few lessons, you've got a fancy new, not quite a corner office, but they've put you in an office, no windows from the looks of things.

It's directly behind.

Oh, there you go. He's got to look at— Skip's got a view of the car park, so he's plainly doing very well. In the company. Skip, what would be your tip?

The biggest tip I would have is to listen. Listen to your customer base, listen to your employees, especially the ones that say no and the ones that leave angry. I mean, when you have an angry customer, that's somebody who's going to be giving you perhaps more honest feedback than anyone else. Or if you have a disgruntled employee, That's something that that's somebody who's going to give you insights that nobody else will be brave enough to give you. So doesn't always mean that they're right, right? So sometimes, you know, so you always want to take that for with a grain of salt, but it's it should at least be listened to and thought out because that's that's where that's where you'll get the most valuable information is from the the people around you.

Skip, that's great advice. A podcast or a book that you'd like to share?

So the book that I— I'm an avid reader, but one of the books that I read every year continuously and have now for a few years because it's set to be almost like a daily devotional type of thing is The Dreams That Built America by Alan C. Elliott, Dreams That Built America. It's just 365 inspirational, mostly business stories. It's always business-related if it's not directly a business. And yeah, that's— I like it.

Okay, that sounds fantastic. I presume when there's a leap year, there's an extra, an extra story. Um, Skip Wilson, if people want to get hold of you and get the benefit of your advice, And maybe some media planning and media implementation, where can they find you?

So there's our website, draftmediapartners.com or draftadvertising.com. You can also email me and my team at info@draftadvertising or draftmedia, whichever you prefer. draftadvertising or info@draftmediapartners.com. Those will get you to the same place. But that's the easiest way to reach out.

Great. If anyone's in the Spartanburg area, they can come and view your fancy new offices. Skip, thank you for joining me on the show today to talk about advertising.

Sounds good. Thank you so much.

Well, we've been joined by Skip Wilson. I hope that the in-and-out time delay wasn't too bad for you with the, uh, with the AirPods. Um, just as a note, if you are ever a guest on a show try and have wired headset. It really makes a difference, along with a full microphone, which is why I've actually got a podcast training course which I will put a link to in the show notes to try and help people prepare fully to get the very, very best out of them. Because Skip's got great advice for us there. A few things, you know, one is that advertising now is entirely transparent. You can attribute every dollar. You can test A and B and find out which ads will work and make sure that you keep the creative as tight and focused as possible. And also, if you need to pivot, pivot. There's no loss of face. And often the real money is just on the other side of the business equation. And thank you for listening to this side of the equation. I'm here, Jim James in the UK with Skip Wilson in South Carolina. If you've enjoyed this show, do please review it. and send it to a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur because we don't want to let anybody go unnoticed. And until we meet again, I encourage you to just keep on communicating.