Direct Marketing VS Branding - What Every Small Business MUST KNOW!

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes and you're listening to the Business Boot Camp podcast. If you're watching the video, yes, we moved things a little bit around in the studio. There's gonna be lots more changes, and I'm excited about that. But thank you for joining for another episode of Business Bootcamp podcast. Today we are going to be talking about direct marketing versus branding. There is no right, there is no wrong. But how can you customize it to your business and your objectives for. For your company? That's what we're talking about today. Before we get into the show, though, a big thank you. Today's sponsor, which is Gusto, if you haven't Already, go to gusto.combootcamp Try out their software completely free for 90 days for as many employees as you want. And what I like about Gusto is on their mobile app for your employees, your employees can very quickly see on a very easy to read chart what their net pay is, what their federal takeout, like federal taxes is, all the payroll stuff in terms of L and I, Social Security, all that's coming out. It's very easy for them to see. It's very transparent. And that's what I like about it. So check it out today, go to gusto.combootcamp now, today I'm talking about this actually in regards to a question that came from a landscaper, and he asked about Whether or not TikTok is.

A way that he should be marketing his business. And so this kind of led me to start questioning and thinking about, like, for most small business owners, this might be a question that comes into mind. Like, should I use TikTok, should I use these social media venues to promote my business? And maybe it's not really seeing direct results. Like, it's not seeing immediate results. Like, should I focus on these platforms, invest time, energy and money into building these.

Profiles out on social media? And so I think that's what kind of led me into thinking about direct marketing versus branding. All right, so first of all, let me kind of make it clear, like, I think there's no right or wrong answer here. I think. And the reason, actually this individual talked to me about this. Cause he listened to Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee. And Gary Vee talks a lot about social media branding. Making sure that you are on TikTok, making sure you are on LinkedIn, making sure you're on all these emerging platforms, even before they're kind of mainstream, even before they even mature. Like, really making sure that you're on these platforms. So that when they do mature, so that when they do get bigger, that you're kind of one of the first movers and shakers in your industry. And so there's a lot of value to that. I also agree with a lot of those things. Then I also like, I'm a big fan of listening to contrarian opinions different and then really kind of coming up with what I believe in terms of a balance between the two. So Gary Vee is very much into branding, but when it comes to direct marketing, I really like Dan Kennedy stuff. So there's a book, he's written a whole bunch of books, but a book about direct marketing that I think is a good balance. Cause it's way on the other side where he basically says unless you are able to track and have measurable results from an ad campaign or from a marketing campaign, there's no reason to do it. Like branding is off the table for small businesses because branding is only for Fortune 500 companies. I know I'm paraphrasing and putting it, you know, condensing it too much, but that's basically what he's saying is like, look, you can't advertise like a Fortune 500 company. Which by the way, people like Gary Vaynerchuk, that's who he is doing his advertising and marketing for, is massive businesses. And even his SMBs, his small businesses that he works with, they're doing multiple millions of dollars in revenue. So for the business owner out there that's doing 200, 300, 400,000 in annual revenue, has one store, has one shop, has one location, is it really the best bang for their buck to go out and do branding? And that is just creating awareness, just trying to get publicity, just trying to get views, trying to get likes. Or is it better in their interest in terms of monetarily and in interest of their time and energy to be focused on direct marketing? So direct marketing, when I think about direct marketing, this is not like a definition. When I think about direct marketing, this is what I think about. Number one has a call to action. Like there is a definitive call now to get an estimate, call now to get a consultation call now or get a free seven day pass for like the gym for example. We use that as our call to action a lot for our direct marketing. It's very trackable. So if I am going to do direct marketing via email campaign, I'm going to have a button that they can click. It's very easy for me to track and create a very easy way of doing, determining okay, how many leads did I get from that campaign? It's very hard to do that for branding because for branding, it's one of those things that's like, it might be five years before they purchase your product, but you've been branding all they've been learning about your brand, they've been hearing about you, they've been seeing you maybe not asking for the sale. Like when you watch the next Apple advertisement, when you watch the Next, you're on YouTube or you're watching a TV ad and you see an Apple campaign, come on. There is no buy now. There is no purchase for 3.99. Like that might be a Sprint or Verizon phone thing, but like Apple itself, when they put out ads, it's not like dollar amount, it's not call now. It's not go to apple.com. it's literally just branding, seeing people with their devices, creating a perception around their devices and that's what they're building on. And so, you know, when I think about direct marketing, I think deadlines, you know, there's scarcity that you create with that ad campaign or with that marketing piece to make sure that the customer actually does pick up the phone, that the customer actually does click the button, that the customer actually does walk into your doors during a given period of time, whether it be there are only 20 of these available and you're selling shirts and there's only 20 available. Creating scarcity. Or if you're creating scarcity in terms of time restraints and saying, look, there's only, you can only get the seven day pass from the 1st of January to the 2nd of to the 10th of January and creating a definition, a window where you're trying to go directly to the sale. You're going direct marketing. And when I think about direct marketing, I think about going directly to the sale, directly going to, asking for business, directly looking for trackable results right away. And it's not to take away from branding. This is by no means me saying that branding is not good. Branding is where you want your business to be, where people come to you. Not because you, you asked for the sale, but because of the perception around your brand, around your business, around your company. And they're not coming to you because of the sale or the discount or the promotion or the call to action. You do not get a call to action in a Nike advertisement. You do not get a call to action like just do it with a runner. There's no call to action. There's no like call now go to a local Store, like, none of that, it's branding. But you have to remind yourself and remember that these are massive companies and brands that have a huge amount of awareness and they're advertising and marketing in a different way than most, most small businesses should be. Whether it be, you know, you don't see an Apple campaign, you know, in print mail, going around asking for sale, asking for the sale and saying, you know, come this Valentine's, buy your loved one a iPhone 11, like in pink. Like, they're not sending pieces of mail out there. They're not, you know, giving a promotion code on that piece of mail so that they can track the results from that campaign. They're not doing that. And so I think for small businesses, direct marketing is something that is a lot of times pushed aside because it's not as glamorous. You don't get as many views, you don't get many likes. It's not as shareable content a lot of times. That being said, I feel like it moves the needle the fastest for the small business. What I mean by fastest is that if you want to go make your business go up by 50% in revenue this year, doing branding is probably not going to work. Probably. All right, Just based upon statistics, like, there's a good chance you're not going to be able to create the next viral hit. Like, the chance of that are less than you getting a good marketing campaign. Direct mail, good Facebook ads, Google Ad campaign, a great video series that you send out through email marketing. Those are things that you can track. Those are things that are measurable. Those are things that you can predictably get results. Have a customer acquisition cost. It's very difficult to do branding because it might take 5, 10 years for you to actually achieve the result you want. And that is a customer coming in the door. When you're a Fortune 500 company, you can spend $5 million on a super bowl ad campaign and not expect any direct sales from the ad. Just, you just need awareness. You just need to see people, just need to see your logo. People just need to see your imaging. The people that kind of your demographic, a customer you want in your business. As a small business owner, when you have a couple thousand dollars to work with, that's not possible. And so I think there's this balance. I'm not pushing down branding. Branding is where you want your company to be. Branding is the ideal customer acquisition cost because you do not spend money on ads to get customers. Customers come to you because of the perception around your brand. They come to you because they don't want to listen to anyone else. And their ads and their campaigns and their offers, they're coming to you because the perception around what you're trying to do. And so that's the golden, you know, that's where you want to be at. But for most small business owners, when we have a small business, we do not have awareness of, you know, 80, 90% of the population. Whereas if I went to Apple, you know, if I tell the average person on the street, you know, do you know who Apple is? Do you know Nike is? Do you know who Coca Cola is? Most people are aware of that. And so it's a completely different mindset. I think there needs to be a balance. And this is why I'm bringing this up, is in this small business community, we need to start talking about where do we spend our money? Do we spend it too much on branding? Are we trying to emulate the great advertising campaigns that we see from Jeep and from Honda and from Toyota and from Nike and from Samsung and from Microsoft? And we're trying to emulate those when really those are not driving business dollar revenue to that company. It's driving awareness and it's really focused around branding, which is a completely different strategy than what most small business owners need to drive revenue, drive results. When they put $1,000 in, they get 10,000 DOL out. When they put $500 in, they get $350,000 out. Like whatever their campaign, whatever their customer, customer acquisition cost is, they have to figure that out. And that's much more measurable, it's more trackable. There's a call to action, there's most time. It's asking them to call, it's asking them to click, it's asking them to come the door. Those are the things that usually drive results for small businesses. And so there's got to be this conversation around branding and what that does. And instead of us trying to emulate what The Next Fortune 500 Phenom Thing Phenom is trying to do in the ad campaign, the best super bowl ad commercial you saw a few weeks ago, instead of trying to do that, you need to go look at what is the direct marketing, what is the way that I can actually get people in the door. It's not to say that branding is wrong. I am not against branding. It is the place you want to be. But if you're looking to drive results, having just your logo with one little thing, without a call to action, without a phone number, without an offer of some sort, without scarcity to get the customer to act now, it's a very good chance you're going to think that that venue does not work. That's why people think Facebook ads don't work. That's the reason people think that print mail is dead is because they're not using it in the context that needs to be used to actually drive results. You can say it's dead all you want, but if you're just putting a picture of your ideal customer with your product, without a call to action, without a discount, without scarcity, without creating Call now or a button to click to get the offer now without doing that, you are not going to see those intentional email immediate results that you're looking for and you're judging that advertising campaign on. So when you do your advertising, when you do your marketing, you gotta realize, what is my goal? If it's branding, that's a different game. They're not gonna be a button to click now and buy. There's not gonna be a promotional offer. There's not going to be a call now before you know, 36 spots remaining, that's not gonna be there. But if you're actually trying to drive business results in the short term, direct marketing is something you guys really start thinking about. Have a call to action, create scarcity, have it where they actually got a call now, there's deadlines and it's trackable. If you cannot track how many leads you got from your last marketing campaign, it wasn't direct marketing. It was more of a branding play. And I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just saying that for most small businesses, they're trying to emulate a Fortune 500s way of advertising and it's not working for them. So just think about that. I'd encourage you to start researching direct marketing, and Dan Kennedy's books are a great place to start. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Business Bootcamp podcast. In the comments below, let me know what your best Bootcamp direct marketing strategy has been and we want to hear from you in the comments below. Thank you so much. Until next time, be great. Because nothing else pays.