Marketing That Is Simple And Effective—Getting Back To The Basics

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm really excited for today's guest because I had fun on my anchorman voice. She's a big deal. But before I introduce our guest, I would be remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host. And I know you're thinking it's gonna be Scott Todd. No, Scott Todd is out today. It is actually David Panales, the Facebook whisperer. David, how are you?

I'm doing wonderful, Mark. I look forward to Scott Todd every single time. And I'm pretty sure on the replay, I'm gonna hear my own voice and be like, yeah, that was it.

The key is not to listen to your own voice.

Right?

Right.

And now our guest knows about this because, David, how would you introduce Molly? Oh, man, Molly, he's been so excited about this podcast.

Thank you.

For, like, months because you've been hard to get on the show.

Sorry.

He boxed me this morning and called you a marketing ninja. But I will properly introduce you as Molly Pittman. And I know you guys know her. She's Digital Marketer's vice president and traffic manager, and she is basically a huge deal in the marketing world. What was that little conference you guys just held in San Diego?

Traffic again. Traffic and Conversion Summit.

Yeah, Traffic conversion Summit. Like, if that thing, like, fills up in, like, hours, there's, like, thousands of people all just to see Molly Pittman. Molly Pittman, welcome to the show. How are you?

I'm great. Thank you so much for having me.

So, Molly, you know, marketing is such a huge, huge thing, right? What differentiates, say, digital marketer or the Molly Pittman way of marketing versus everybody else? Like, why are you guys so big?

Good question. I think a lot of people like to sell the shiny objects, right? Or something that's new and great and not that new tactics aren't amazing, but more so they're selling, you're going to make $100 million. This specific marketing tactic, I think that that's unfair to the audience because it's unrealistic. It's not something that's going to happen for 99% of the people that actually execute said tactic. So I think at Digital Marketer, what we do a good job of is going back to the basics because none of the shiny objects, cool, new tactics are going to work if you don't understand really, how your product or service takes someone from an undesirable before state to a desirable after State. And whether it's your product or service or just a blog post that you want people to read, you always have to think about, how is this going to change the life of my end user? And I don't mean it has to be something prolific. Right. It could be a razor that somehow saves men five minutes a day because it's super duper fast. It can be the smallest little change to someone's life. But we really teach people how to craft that message. How do you craft and articulate the change from the before to the after state? And then, of course, we do teach tactical and new and exciting, but it always comes back to the message. Right. And really what makes your product or service great?

David Benalis, what are your thoughts?

I am just, like, so excited just to be listening to her talk right now.

David's starstruck, Molly.

I'm a little starstruck.

I'm flattered.

This is exactly. So I'm a lab member at Digital Marketing. This is exactly what there is. It's just unbelievable content. Mark and I specialize in marketing within our niche, and I am learning something new every single time I hear her and Ryan Dice talk. Yeah, I'm a little starstruck, Mark. I can't help it.

No, I appreciate that, David. And really, our goal at Digital Marketer is to take someone from I don't know how to market my business to now I do. To be able to educate people and to form relationships with our customers. Like David. That's what why we wake up every day.

Yeah, it's amazing. So, Molly, what is it about newbie marketers that really kind of makes you.

Pull your hair out?

Like, what is the biggest kind of newbie mistake you see people making again and again and again? You're like, if you just stop doing this, you can get to the next level.

No, there are really two sides to that. So I love working with newbie marketers that already have a good business or a product or service, because we can execute, like, two or three different things and it totally changes their life. Right? They're like, whoa, this is what I've been waiting for. This is amazing. Someone that really has something good to sell. I think I start to pull my hair out working with marketers who just want to market and they want to start a business to deploy good marketing strategies but don't have a product or service to sell. Does that make sense? So that's why I get frustrated, because it's not the act of marketing that's going to make you money. Right. Marketing is just the articulation of why your product or service is good. So I just get frustrated when people expect to make all of this money executing marketing tactics on a product or service that doesn't exist. And not that we don't welcome those people. Um, it's just the people that have unrealistic expectations would be where I get frustrated. But otherwise, I love working with new people because all of this is like, you know, brain science to them and so exciting.

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I think I read once that a third of the. Of your sales will come from, you know, the offer. Or, like, you have to. You have to, like, break down, like, your whole thing. Like, it's the offer, it's the pricing, or not. That is the offer, the offer, the copy, and then the marketing. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, no, absolutely. We kind of teach specific to ads. So whether it's on Facebook or Google or even an email, you first have to have a good offer. So an offer is whatever you're sending the traffic to. So even if it's a blog post, even if it's a lead magnet or if it's your product or service, if you're asking them to buy, why should they buy? Right? What is your pricing? What is the value? Is the perceived value higher than the actual dollar amount that you're putting onto this thing? You have to have a great offer. A lot of people will come to me and they say, molly, Facebook ads don't work or buying traffic doesn't work. But it has nothing to do with the ads or the way they structured their campaign. It's just that their offer is poor. So that's the first thing. It's similar to having a good product or service. You have to have a good offer. The why has to be there, and then you have to have good copy. So copy is just the written articulation of the offer. But that has to be there, especially for people that read. Right. Third is the creative. So the image or the video that you're using. It also has to convey why the offer is good. And especially with Facebook ads, a lot of people build these awesome campaigns, and then they'll download a stock image of a cat or a pretty woman laying on the beach, and they're talking about financial services in their ad. But the image is of a cat, right? And they think, oh, people will stop. It's fuzzy. And people love cats. And it's like, no, that has nothing to do with what you're actually selling. Even if you're getting People to stop and look. They probably aren't your target market. And even if they click, they definitely aren't going to want what's on the next page because it's not a cat. Right. So we really teach a lot about creatives. How can you convey your marketing message in three to five seconds? And a lot of times we'll take keywords from our copy, do quick Google searches and then click on the images tab and start to scroll through what Google Google is telling us visually relates to that keyword. Because Google has all of the data. Right. So if you Google candy and go to the images tab, it's going to tell you which images people have clicked on across the web that are most related to the word candy. Right. And we don't knock those images off, but we're starting to get ideas like how can we visually, you know, how can we visually portray whatever we're trying to say in our ad copy? We'll even use little elements that you find in day to day culture that people already have a psychological relationship with. So for our event traffic and Conversion summit, when we were selling tickets and it was the last chance to buy tickets, the ad had an iPhone battery image, but it was red, so it was about to die. And even if you don't have an iPhone, even if you have a, you know, you're on some sort of electronic device to see that ad, you know that a low battery means panic. It's scarcity. You need to take action. You need to plug your device in. So we were able to use that image as a way to portray scarcity or the little iPhone bubble that pops up when someone's chatting you, it shows up on Facebook too. We've used that to portray the idea that someone on the other side is actually there to chat. So really going into the psychology behind your creative, what does that image actually mean to people? How can you convey that message and then targeting. So you don't want to build this awesome campaign and then put it in front of the wrong people. So we teach people to really research their targeting. What books is the market reading, what websites do they follow? How can you target them on these traffic platforms based off of where they're already getting their information? And then the Last one is AdSense. So just making sure that your ad is really congruent with the page that you're sending traffic to. Because again, psychologically, as you scroll through the Internet, if you click on something and what's on the other side isn't what you expected, you will automatically hit the back button. So research has proven that. So how can you ensure that there's congruency between the ad and the actual page? So, yeah, that was a long bit, but those are the five elements that we teach for a marketing campaign.

David. I mean, that's a lot right there.

Okay.

You know what's interesting about that? It's the best time ever to be in marketing. Can you imagine the day? Let's say it's the 80s or the 90s, pre Google, right?

Yeah.

You're kind of guessing.

Oh, my God.

What people are thinking.

Yeah, we're so lucky.

Yeah. I mean, we know what they're thinking. We know what they're clicking. We see the images. So really, Molly Pittman, you're kind of like this, like, creative combined with a deep researcher, right?

Yeah, that's exactly what I do.

And then you get into the brains.

And you're like, yeah, no, I mean, we're so lucky. Not only the amount of data that we have. Right. We know what people are interested in. We know what their intent is. And this will only continue. Right. We start to look at things like virtual reality, and you're literally in someone's world. Like, product placement will be so easy as that develops. But from a tracking and budget standpoint, too. Think about a small business. You know, you used to buy an ad in a local magazine, or maybe you even splurged on a billboard. But that's a huge commitment. Right. You don't know how that's going to perform. And you have to pay for that up front. And there's no tracking. Right. You don't know. I mean, you might see, okay, there was a brand lift or traffic in my store increased, but you don't really know how much of that was from that specific ad. So with platforms like Facebook and Google, you can spend as little as five or ten dollars a day. You can track. You can really target people off of their interest and intent. So, yes, we are very lucky to live in this day and age as marketers.

So when do you know what are the key numbers you need to know? And how do you find those key numbers before you can say, molly, take my money. Let's go paid. Let's go paid Traffic. Let's make this thing a perpetual traffic machine. Conversion machine. I'm ready to go.

Yeah, that's a good question. And this is what this. This gets in the way of a lot of people's success. So I'm actually teaching a course right now where there are traffic plays. So I'm showing Them like different plays that they can execute in their business depending on the type of business they are and sort of what assets they already currently have. And a big thing that I'm teaching is, okay, what should I track? Because every campaign that you launch, the success metric, as I call it, should not be roi. Those are only a few campaigns that you should be running where the true metric is roi, because people are at that step in the customer journey. They're ready to buy. So the other campaigns, the success metrics are different depending on what type of campaign you're running. But you're looking at things like video views. So how many people watch my video and therefore I can retarget them or cost per pixel? So how many people clicked on my ad over to my blog that I can now retarget or cost per lead or cost per lead acquisition, Whatever your entry point offer is in your business. So as you move through the customer journey, you have these different traffic campaigns that introduce yourself to someone just like a real relationship. And then you have a campaign that actually asks them to go on a date. Right. And then you have a campaign that asks them to get engaged. Right. And it's very similar to how real relationships develop. So every campaign is going to have a different metric. And I think understanding that is huge because the goal of every campaign is not to make a million dollars. That's just not realistic. So that's a great question.

Yeah. And I love the way you break it down on your blog. You kind of talk about dating, but you're talking about traffic temperature. Right. Someone who doesn't know you is totally cold. Right. But then maybe they click and now you have an opportunity to warm them up.

Right, Exactly.

So you start giving them value. You start talking to them maybe about your raw land business, how it's easy to finance. You don't have credit checks, you know that you have, you know, properties that have no restrictions. And now they're warming up. And then how do you know when to make that leap Molly, into okay, they are hot, give them an offer.

That's a good question. I think it's when they've shown interest in return. Right. So Ryan is really great at teaching this. And he explains that when he proposed to his wife, he knew she was going to say yes. Right. Like they had talked about it. She had signed them up on the knot dot com. You know, like there were these different signals that showed him that, like, yes, this is an appropriate time to ask this question. And that doesn't just have to be about dating. Like you know when you've done a good job in your career, when you can go ask for a raise, right? Like, you just know when enough equity, relational equity has been built. So it's at that moment when you know that in your business you have given them value and they've shown intent back. So they've given you their email address or they attended a training, or they visited your website, they've shown interest in return, then it's totally appropriate to ask them for something in return for your business.

David Benalis this is exactly what our community needs right now. Mark, I've seen way too many people just put up very poor pictures. So bad initiation for a date. They put a poor headline, poor pricing. Yeah, this is much needed right now. I think I see a lot of people struggling with headlines. It's just the whole dating analogy that comes up so much in different marketing books. I guess you just have to learn how to date before you learn how to market.

Yeah. And David, even with the headlines and things like that, just because you have created an ad, just because something exists doesn't mean that people want it. Right? And even with our blog posts or simple things that we're asking people to do, we spend just as much time on that ad copy as we do selling a $25,000 mastermind. Because every step along the way that the headline, the ad copy, you must tell them, why should they do it? You know, what are they going to have after they do whatever you want them to that they don't have now? How are they going to feel differently? How is their average day going to improve? You know, you can use analogies or comparisons or tell a story like, there are so many ways to write ad copy without being, you know, an ad copy genius. Right? And again, it comes down to psychology of explaining to them not just, hey, there's this free thing, get it. Like, no, that's not what they want to hear. How is this going to benefit them even for longer sales cycles? Like, there's a local real estate company here in Austin, they're obviously selling homes, but throughout the year they're always producing content and running ads to pieces that are going to benefit the community. So whether it's like a definite guide to Austin's dog friendly bars and restaurants, right? Which is huge in Austin, everybody has a dog, so that's something people want or something relevant. Like here's the best places to go for Valentine's Day, right? Like throughout the year you see all of this content from them that's easy to produce. They know their market. It's absolutely relevant. Now, is that piece of content producing ROI for them right in the moment? No. People are reading about Valentine's Day, right. But when it comes time for someone to buy a home or to sell their home, that company has been right there all along. You know, they've given a ton of value and. And that's where that ends up benefiting them, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. I could see, Molly, that a new marketer could easily become overwhelmed and have sort of like this paralysis by analysis, where if you're an engineering type, you want to drill down and you want to do a lot of research and you want to know what keeps them up at three in the morning. And then you want to be tracking and you want to do AB split testing, everything, and you're going to be measuring and managing and all of a sudden you still don't even have anything built. Anything built. Right. From just the simplest starting point, Right. What would you say is the simplest thing to start with?

Ooh, that's a great question. I mean, the simplest thing is the before and after. If you Google Digital marketer before and after Grid, we have a blog post that will walk you through what I just talked about. You know, what do they have? How do they feel their average day? You know, if you're selling, if you're a local business that's, you know, in lawn care, right, and you're going through this before and after Grid, well, what do they have before? They have a dead, you know, or overgrown yard, right. What do they have afterwards? It's prestigious, right. It's beautiful, it's green. How do they feel? Maybe they're overwhelmed or they're frustrated afterwards, they're relieved, right. And going through. And this is for every business. I think a lot of people look at our information because we are digital marketer and think that it only works for people selling information online. And. And that's absolutely not true because this is fundamental in any business. So it would be figuring out that before and after and then your customer journey. So what are the steps in your business? What assets do you need to create? How are you taking them from totally unaware that you exist to promoting your business? So I think that's the biggest thing to figure out. And in terms of technology and all of the frustrating side, if that's not something you want to get involved with, I recommend hiring someone to do it for you because it's probably just a distraction if you are a creative marketing type.

All right, David Benalis, you weren't kidding.

Right?

The marketing ninja.

We need to have a part two and a part three. This is nuts.

Well, I mean, that's the amazing thing about marketing, and that's the frustrating thing about marketing is it's just endless. It literally is just endless. And what works today probably won't work tomorrow. And Molly, why is that? Why won't. Why can't you just keep running the same ads?

Yeah, I mean, what works today in terms of the before and after and why your business matters, that will continue to work forever. Right. Like if you go back and read Dave Ogilvy or any of the first direct response marketers, any of their books, what they're teaching is absolutely applicable today. And we actually have murals around the digital marketer office as a tribute to a lot of those marketers, remembering that what we're teaching is not new in any way. Right. We're just standing on the shoulders of giants and people that figured this out. But the application of it does change as our world changes and as technology continues to change. So I think it's about continuing to do what's always worked for you. Right. Like your marketing message will always work. It's just, which platform should I apply it on? What new types of ads do I want to try? And I honestly recommend, don't change things until they quit working. And when they do quit working, start to look at the newer options that are available and see if you can apply the same tactics that you were using, you know, to just a new platform or a new ad type.

I love it. Well, Molly Pittman, your digital marketing mentorship has been phenomenal. But now we're going to put you on the spot and ask one more little bit of marketing wisdom.

Absolutely.

What is your tip of the week? A website, a resource, a book, something actionable where the art of passive income listeners can go right now, improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got?

Can I give you two?

Yeah, I mean, David's like, let's do part two now.

So the first one is. So I'm always keeping a swipe file of ads on my computer, but I also leverage different ad swipe file libraries, whatever you want to call them. So adespresso has a really good ad library, and so does Compass. Get Compass Co or Addespresso.com so you can sign up. They both just have these incredible libraries of ads that you can organize by business type or by ad type. And it's a great place to go to get inspiration, good and bad. Right. So they basically just gathered all of the ads that they've seen online, there are thousands. So that's a great place to go just to get ideas and specific to your market and probably to feel good. Be like, wow, there are a lot of bad ads out there. So that's number one. I'm always gathering ads and going through ads on those platforms. I think that that's the best way to learn is by looking at what others are doing and also actually doing it yourself. But then my second tip would be a book. It's called Magic. Hold on. It just. Sorry, guys, I lost it for a second.

That was an incredible tip number one, by the way. That was like four tips in one.

Sorry. Okay. It's called. It totally slipped my mind. Okay. So the second one is called Big Magic. It's a book by Elizabeth Gilbert. So she wrote Eat Pray Love and some sort of fictiony nonfiction gray area type books. But this one is really great. It's called Big Creative Living Beyond Fear. And what this explains is how the creative process actually works. Because as marketers, you do have to be creative, right? If you're a total engineer type, you need someone that's creative working with you. So this book absolutely opened my mind to how the creative process works. And it's the basis for a lot of what I teach with creating ad creatives. So what I was talking about with the images and the videos, I really love that book. I read it all in one sitting. So it's really specific to authors and writing. But the same applies to marketing. So those are my two tips.

Very cool. Very cool. David Benalis, Facebook Whisperer. What's your tip of the week?

My tip of the week, it's going to be a book by Jeb Blount called Fanatical Prospecting.

Fanatical Prospecting.

We can do all the marketing we want, but if we don't start the phone call, hop on the phone, we don't start the initiation, we're not going to convert any sales. So I don't know how many times I see within our community, people are afraid of the phone and actually calling these people who have inquired about property. Essentially, if you sum up this book, you get on the phone and that's it. I mean, marketing is fun. Sales is a grind. So I could talk marketing all day, but then eventually I got to pick up the phone and call these leads and close a deal.

Yeah, no, I love that. It's cool. We actually added a physical sales team to Digital Marketer about a year ago. And there are people that talk on the Phone talk on messenger, talk via email. And I love that you brought that up. I'm going to recommend it to our sales team. But, you know, sales and marketing, I believe, are really the same. So my team, the marketing team, we are charged with driving those leads and sales to a sales team. Right. But the marketing doesn't end once they get on the phone, once they get on messenger, once they get into this one on one conversation, wherever the customer wants to have it. You know, they have to use the same language that we're using in ads. They have to understand the customer journey just as much as we do. And I think that's what has traditionally created such a divide between a sales and a marketing team, because they don't realize they're all a part of one long customer journey. So just my little rant. But I totally agree. Marketing's job is an acquisition's job is to drive that interest. But there's nothing wrong with picking up the phone or emailing or Facebook messaging with someone. A lot of times they just want to talk to another human.

Yeah. At the end of the day, it's all about relationships and adding value. Like what Molly was saying, like, what keeps them up at three in the morning? What problem can you solve for them? And if it's not completely clear to them that the dollar they're spending, they're going to get $2 back less in time, frustration, whatever it is, they're not gonna buy. Right. If they don't clearly see it. And that's your job as the marketer, to generate that interest and then be like, David Benalis, pick up the phone and be like, let's go.

Give me your money now.

Do it now. Let's go. Life is short. Let's go.

Yeah, let's do it.

Let's do it.

And sometimes you will have people that just want to give you money. And that's okay.

That happens.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, well, my tip of the week is learn more about Molly Pittman and digital marketer@digitalmarketer.com and if you go to author Mollypitman, you can see a lot of her blog posts as well. But I will have links to it and I mean, just on her page alone. Like traffic temperature. How to build real relationships with automated campaigns. Facebook's comment to messenger feature Everything you need to know. Facebook messenger ads, how to use them in your business. I mean, this is incredible. And it's all free.

Yeah. First.

Yeah. So, you know, talk about it. Giver. So Molly Pittman, are we good?

Yeah. I enjoyed it. Thank you guys so much.

All right, David, are we good?

I'm seeing stars right now.

Well, I'm glad you were able to make David's week, Molly.

I'm happy to be here. Thank you guys so much.

And I want to thank all the listeners. And look, the only way. The only way we're gonna get the quality of guests like Amali Pittman from digitalmarketer.com is if you do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, you got a rate, you got to review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of your review to supporthelandgeek.com we're gonna send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. So please do that. And, David, should we try to do it?

Yeah, let's do it. All right.

Molly's like, oh, no. 1, 2, 3, let.

Let freedom ring. Yeah.

Yeah, that's hot. Scott's like, oh, man. All right, thanks, Valley. Thanks, David.

Thanks, everybody. See you later.