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Hello everyone, welcome to the digital brand builder. Joining me today is Robbie Kalman Baxter and we’re going to talk about one of my favorite subjects, and a subject, I need to know more about which is what brought Robbie on, and that is subscription models and what she calls a forever transaction with your customers, how do you grow lifetime customer value I mean this is such a critical skill for marketers if you’re in the SAS business or any kind of subscription business. You’re going to want to tune in and stay tuned into this so welcome. Robbie to the show.

04:34 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

Thanks so much for having me mark.

Mark Fidelman  04:36

My pleasure. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself in 100 words or less.

Robbie Kelman Baxter  04:42

Yeah, I’m a subject matter expert and advisor on membership and subscription models, and I’m the author of the membership economy and the forever transaction, and I work for organizations to move to a long term relationship with their customers to enjoy recurring revenue.

Mark Fidelman  05:03

Wonderful. And so you’ve just completed your second book right. Yes. Okay, we’re gonna dive into that a little bit. But first of all, can you kind of explain what we’re focuses on, say, the subscription models or is it just SAS businesses or is it across the board or just kind of give us a kind of lay of the land of what you’re focused on.

Robbie Kelman Baxter  05:26

Yeah, well, I first got interested in in subscription pricing. About 1718 years ago when I was doing some work for Netflix, and I fell in love with their business model and the way they were so focused on doing one thing really well, the people they serve. That which is professionally created video content created in, with delivered with cost certainty in the most efficient way possible. And I saw how they stayed focused on delivering on that promise to their members. By continuing to add to their catalogue of content, improving their technology, and really not letting themselves get distracted by any other things that came their way video games or user generated content or anything else just doing that one thing really well. And as I was falling in love with that model, everybody else was too and they I started getting calls from people who said hey we want to be the Netflix of our space, whether that’s Software as a Service SaaS as you talked about, or media, you know, news, music, and then crazy stuff bicycles dental brain pain management products insurance. Everybody was trying to figure out how to be Netflix and what I realized was, you can’t be Netflix, but you can start to apply these principles that I can put into a framework, almost any kind of business can use to build recurring revenue with the people they serve that there were these principles that applied it was this new world this membership economy, and businesses could use those principles to kind of reach the holy grail which we all want which is you know subscription revenue Predictable Revenue direct relationship with the people we serve and tremendous loyalty. And so, I’ve worked with companies across more than 20 Industries. I’ve worked with brand new startups, with just you know a solopreneur. I’ve worked you know with with with fan clubs and influencers and I’ve worked with digital natives Survey Monkey, you know, LinkedIn and then I’ve worked with really big traditional old line businesses consumer products, retail heavy equipment you name it somebody wants to join the membership economy.

Mark Fidelman  07:47

Can any business join this membership economy or is it is it really limited.

07:54 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

The only things that I found that don’t really work are businesses that don’t need sales and marketing, so if your last gas for 100 miles or you have the patent on a drug that is going to save certain people’s lives and they have no other choice. You know you can treat your customers terribly and not work on a relationship at all because they’re going to find you, and they’re going to use your services. But even those businesses run the risk of being disrupted by a substitute that has a better model and is more customer centric. But for those of us that are you know marketers working with with businesses any business that works with marketing any business where the customer has choices to achieve their goal or solve their problem, those businesses can benefit from the principles that we’re talking about.

Mark Fidelman  08:48

Okay, so let’s, let’s then start now that we have the overview let’s then start from the beginning, and I’m very curious as to how Robbie if you’re brought in to help some of these organizations or maybe you have some examples from your book. How does somebody really decide on what their membership program is going to be. That’s the first question, and then followed by okay you decide what it’s going to be, how do you decide on how to price it.

09:13 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

Yeah, so the first thing you want to do is think about what is your forever promise and who are you making it to. So those two questions, go hand in hand. The promise is, what is it that you’re going to do on an ongoing basis for them that justifies their loyalty and engagement and willingness to pay you on a regular schedule. So it’s kind of the difference between I’m going to sell you a blazer and I’m going to make sure you always look appropriate for any professional occasion, right there’s, it’s a different way of thinking about what you do for your customer. So you want to know what’s that promise and then who is it for so in the world of clothing is that for you know is the promise about professional or is the promise about looking stylish or is the promise about variety ease convenience cost savings. So you want to really think about who is this person and what is the promise you’re making to them. And then you want to think about what is the goal that this membership is going to serve for your business. So is this about what is what is the challenge that you’re facing Is it about the revenue, or is it about deepening the kind of marketing relationship that you have with your customers a lot of membership models or need for deepening the relationship, so that when a lumpy purchase needs to be made, you’re the one that has the release. So those are kind of.

10:46 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

What is it that you’re delivering what is the value you’re delivering. And then, you know, you get into pricing.

10:54 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

Right. Oh, yeah, so do one. So,

Mark Fidelman  10:57

yeah, I’m sorry. We’ll cut this part out, but why don’t you talk about pricing so for, for example, you know, I’ve got a course that I’m trying to figure out pricing for, and I want different levels, and I’m not calling a membership but I’m thinking rethinking that based on our earlier discussions. So how would you go about determining price for something like that or you can get into, you know, products product pricing I know Amazon’s probably studying this to death, and they’ve got subscription models for just about everything. But, so, you know, first a service and then a product, how do you determine price for those things.

11:36 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

So let’s say that you’re that you’re trying to price for a service let’s say that you’re a solopreneur subject matter expert or celebrity, and what you’re really charging for what is the forever promise that you’re offering and maybe if that’s about. I’m going to teach you how to be successful in digital marketing. So you want to think about, well, who is that for Who are you going to help be successful in digital marketing is this for an individual, that’s trying to build their, their independent personal brand, or is this for you know a fortune 50 company so you really really want to get clear on who you’re doing it for you want to understand what is the value of providing this benefit forever. And then you want to kind of work backwards like what I always suggest to my clients is triangulate between what is your actual cost because you want to cover your costs and make it worth your time. You want to think about what are the substitutes what are the other alternatives that somebody would have to achieve that same goal. And you want to think about what is the value to that member of providing you know whatever you’re the access to your to your services. So those would be kind of the three things that I would use to come up with a price. The other thing that I would keep in mind is what is the goal of this offering is this something that you want to do to kind of bring everybody into your community you want to build a footprint, you want to kind of lock them into your community, in which case you might care less about optimizing for profit or is the whole shebang so for example Netflix, they only make their money from the subscription. Right, so, so they can’t give it away. On the other hand, LinkedIn, gives away a tremendous amount of value. Because if we weren’t there, the non paying members of LinkedIn weren’t there, there would be no value for the recruiters and the job seekers and the sales people that are paying the higher level subscriptions. So it’s really important to understand your, your model, and where the revenue is coming from you out you know you asked about Amazon Amazon’s model of membership amazon prime. You know, there’s been a lot of, you know, a study done on that and the revenue that they generate from it. But, you know, the biggest value that they get is not necessarily the revenue from Prime, it’s the behavior change that it drives once you sign up for Amazon Prime you buy everything from amazon prime, and then you start to use the other services that you didn’t initially sign up for, but they come with prime and you start to get exposed to that so things like using your Kindle. You know, the free books that you can get from them, the three storage you get from them. Yeah, the video content you get from them the music you get from them. And suddenly, their footprint they own you you’re you’ve made them a habit, and having that having that relationship to the customer gives them permission to sell a whole bunch of other things.

Mark Fidelman  14:49

No, I love, I love these big holes I’m, I know that a lot of people listening are gonna wonder well you know I’m not Amazon, and I’ll have other services to offer. Is there something. And I don’t know if you want to pick a retailer who’s really struggling right now. If you don’t know this It’s May one 2020 we’re in the midst of, kind of a depressing situation that you’re probably all aware of. And if you’re listening from the future. A lot of retailers are struggling, and some of them are if they’re not they’re not essential but not even in business, so they’re trying to figure out how they can pivot and change your business model so my question is okay if you’re speaking to those people. How would you advise them to create some sort of subscription or membership program.

15:36 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

Absolutely. So we’re already seeing some, some early adopters and innovators. When you want to do like let’s say that you want a toy store, a local, you know, local toy store, you might build a direct relationship with your neighbors, where you deliver toys on a regular schedule that align with the child’s maturity level, you know so different different gifts. You might also say for members of our store so that’s kind of one model which is sort of the subscription box model, where you get, you know, a new product periodically and maybe you overlay that with insights about the value of play, how children, you know, are developing, you know kind of what you can do as a parent or grandparent or a good friend to support your child’s growth and creativity, that would be one model, another model would be what I think is very popular right now is that the premium services model, which a lot of retailers are adopting kind of following in the footsteps of Costco, but it’s a model where you say you pay a fee because this is a store that you know you’re going to use a lot. And so you get better value and better service for being a member. So this is where you know you might say again if you’re at the toy store, you might say well if you’re a member of our toy store, you get free wrapping. You get notified with, you know, when certain things go on sale, you have access to a toy concierge so you can call up and say hey you know I have a 10 year old birthday party. I need to present Can you, you know, help me pick something rapid and drop it off in my house, for example, that kind of service level of the Restoration Hardware is doing something in that space right now CBS is doing something in that space right now, different benefits of course Restoration Hardware it’s more about getting decorating advice. Access to swatches without having to put a deposit down and pretty large discounts, in exchange for your hundred dollar fee to be a member, and, you know, another example CDs where you get discounts on certain products you get kind of jumped a line at the pharmacy which is a big deal, especially right now. So thinking about what is it that you what are the problems that your members are coming to you for that you’re not quite delivering on. Right. And why do I go to the toy store I go to the toy store because I want my kids to have, you know, fun developmentally appropriate stuff and I want family games and activities that keep us connected. Why do I go to the pharmacy, because I want to stay healthy or get back to my optimum health and I want expertise, and I want it to be no cost savings. So how do you build that into your membership.

Mark Fidelman  18:28

Great advice. So, okay, and I know you can go on and on this subject and I encourage you to read Robbie’s book, and there’s gonna be more examples there. But let’s Let’s now move to the next phase which I assume and let me know if I’m missing a step. So you’ve got the idea you know what you’re gonna do, you got the pricing down. Now it’s like okay how do you deploy this and get the word out.

18:51 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

Yeah. So if you’re a going concern. Let’s go back to this, you know, kind of marketing expertise example you’re going concern you have real clients. You’ve, let’s say that you’ve picked a segment of your real clients that you want to serve through your membership. The first place I would go is to your actual clients that are actually getting something that is pretty close to what you’re going to offer so in other words they’re the ones that are already availing themselves of all of your services, they’re the ones that have kind of verbally said to you. Just tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it because I trust you and I know you understand this space better than I do. They’re going to be the easiest ones to sell this to because you’re almost doing this already, and that’s going to be a good place, Derek, and to see how the membership works, what your actual costs are, you know, for example, a lot of service membership say one of the benefits is you have access to call me whenever you have a question, and people are often really scared, I offer this actually for, for, you know, my, my business I have, you know, unlimited access to me and when I first started doing it I was really worried that people would abuse it, they don’t, they really don’t. But But when you’re trying it out you wanted to see and make sure are people abusing the services, what are the actual costs I’m incurring. How is it working is it deepening the relationship like I hoped, is it doing the things I had a hypothesis about what this was going to do for my business. I had a list of hypotheses, how many of these are actually true so you start there. Once you know that somebody’s doing this gets value, it’s profitable for you. And it engages them for the long term. That’s when you want to turn on your loudspeaker because you know that the, you know, if you can bring them in, they’re going to stay and be very profitable and be very happy. So that’s when you start working on, what is your, I always think of it is your trigger benefit or your headline benefit that gets somebody to join. And once you know that, you know, then you can work your way basically you’re working backwards up the funnel. You start by saying if somebody joins are they going to stay. That’s the first thing to test, then you say, How do I get them to join. If I have them in front of me. So forget the kind of marketing piece if I was in sales mode hand to hand combat of sales. How would with with this confidence that if I had a prospect in front of me. I could get them to sign up and that they’d be happy. The answer to that is yes, then you say what are the ways that I can bang the drum and build awareness to bring those people, to me, and you’re an expert on that so I’ll leave it at that.

Mark Fidelman  21:29

Yeah and you know I’m kind of going through that right now. If you look at the best in the business for what I’m doing in terms of courses. What they do is a long lead up a kind of a launch, and they work with influencers and keeping a very short here but they work with influencers to help build anticipation. And they, they build exclusivity and they say it’s only open for a few weeks and all that these, these tactics I find manipulating, but you know I’m so deep in the business that I understand what’s going on. A lot of people feel like they don’t want to lose something, so they know there’s only a three week window to join that you know particular course or mastermind, you know, they get they get this anxiety about it and they sign up and when if they thought about more maybe it’s sad maybe the timing isn’t right for them. But

22:17 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

here’s the thing. That is great, bringing people and giving them you know a sense of scarcity and and prestige to join something, those things are great in a membership model when you have a subscription, the way that you benefit it’s not a transaction that happens one time as a transaction that keeps on happening. So, you have to before you do those things before you reach out to your influencers before you, you know, start, you know, sending out the signals that this is a scare

22:50 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

they sign up for that first month, they’re the right person to stay forever.

23:03 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

Join and then they leave, because it’s not a fit for them. So that’s why I’m sort of suggesting that you make sure first that your offer has a very very long life cycle, before you invest in those. Those acquisition tactics those awareness and acquisition tactics, but they can be like those tactics work great at getting people in the door which is, which is really powerful.

Mark Fidelman  23:27

Okay. And I agree, I mean there’s so many acquisition tactics that that I mean that’s your right that’s what I do is I figure out what’s the best one for what you’re trying to do, whether it’s a subscription model, or whether it’s you know something else. There’s a variety of different things that you can do in order to maximize the top of the funnel type activities to bring people in and it really depends on what your subscription or membership model is there’s not one size fits all you really got to be strategic about it and then educate people as to, you know, why should I join a subscription Why should I. Why should I do this or that you gotta, I’ve already touched on a lot of reasons why. But you have to make it so plain and obvious to them they say yeah, it’s a better deal for me, and I don’t think not anymore.

24:15 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

Yeah. And once they join you as the, as the business owner. Subject Matter Expert the influencer, you want to really think about what is it that I can provide for this person on an ongoing basis, how, how am I going, who is the person that’s going to stay with me for a long time, because it’s so much easier to generate revenue. If, if your customer stays with you than it is if you have to keep going out and finding new ones.

Mark Fidelman  24:46

Yep. Great. Totally agree so let’s Let’s now move to kind of a post acquisition phase let’s say you get them on a subscription model or membership model. How do you keep them there. What are so do you have some specific examples, or some

25:02 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

very specific. Yeah. So, and again, I encourage people to think about this before you put on your loudspeaker before you reach out to your influencers before you do your marketing campaigns to bring people in. You want to make sure that if you get them, they’re going to stay so that involves what I think of as engagement metrics and engagement features. So these are the features that are going to make somebody say, Hey, I came for that pitch I came for that one thing that they were marketing, but I’m staying. Because something, whatever that is. So for example, I might join a committee like an expert community because I want to learn, you know, the five ways I can use video or the you know whatever the specific things, and then the reason I stay is because I say wow you know everything this person teaches me about marketing is something that I haven’t heard anywhere else. This is actually a really good place for me as a marketing practitioner to stay ahead of the curve, it’s my secret weapon for new and emerging trends in the digital world that’s very different than I have this very specific task around what we’re going to do this month around video. So I come in for the trigger I stay for that bigger reason I might also stay another hook that keeps people for the long term is the community itself, which is the people under your brand umbrella that have similar goals and help each other they’re actually creating value under your brand. They’re, they’re part of the product. So for example if there’s a whole group of people and we’re all marketing leaders that are organizations, and we have this opportunity together under the umbrella to talk about our digital marketing strategies. How amazing have people that have the same vocabulary and have sort of been learning from the same expert to be sharing our real world successes and challenges that becomes part of the value and then I say, you know, I came for that course that I’m staying for this community of trusted colleague. So that’s really how you want to think about how you keep them. And the other thing I would say is, especially in the world of subject matter experts and thought leaders. One of the things that you want to do is balance between your current members who are pushing the envelope on what you do next. Kind of like, okay, I’ve, I’ve absorbed all the expertise you’ve taught me. What’s next, you know I’m doing all the things you said what’s the next thing what’s what’s coming around the curve, you want to always stay a little ahead of your best members. On the other hand, you want to think about tomorrow’s members and see what is, what are their choices right now, what are their challenges and am I rolling out the welcome mat for them, because if you have a really successful membership. The risk is you focus too much on today’s members and forget about tomorrow’s members and even make them feel like outsiders when they join. And, and what ends up happening them is they look for an alternative or they create their own alternative.

Mark Fidelman  28:07

Okay. And. Okay, so if. Is there something you put in place to kind of measure the success of each of those things is there. How do you know things are going well or not going well are they benchmarks. Okay. The

28:24 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

first thing is, most people, if you have a monthly membership. Most people quit after the first month. Vast majority. And then the second month is a little bit better and the third month is a little better, and usually in most businesses by about the fourth month it levels off, and then people stay for whatever the duration is at the value of membership so in Netflix’s land it might be three years or more. I was talking to somebody the other day who runs a program to help solopreneurs start their businesses. He was finding people were dropping off at seven months, so you want to understand the true customer lifetime value you especially want to track onboarding to make sure that people are doing the habits of your best customer so in other words when they join. So for example if one of the benefits initial benefit is joined to take the class, but you know that the reason people stay is because of the relationships they establish while they’re taking the class. You want to make sure that they’re establishing relationships so you want to start figuring out what are the engagement metrics to track that tell you that somebody is making your offering or your community, a habit. So you want to track those engagement metrics, and you want to really understand retention retention is not very sexy. But it’s super important and very lucrative if you understand why people are canceling their memberships, you can fix it. And you can fix it and lots of different ways you can fix it by communicating the value, better in the first place, you can fix it by onboarding members, better if the reason is that they joined, they had all these high hopes but they never figured out how to become part of the community or how to access your catalogue of content or they never made time to access the content. You can kind of provide breadcrumbs to get them there. If the reason they’re leaving is because they’ve consumed all your content and believe you have nothing left to teach them. You might want to add more content, but tracking retention is probably the single most important thing you can do to optimize your long term lifetime value.

Mark Fidelman  30:25

And there’s all sorts of charts and graphs and there’s a certain level that you got to keep signing people up at versus people canceling or else your, your situation you get into trouble. I mean, I have a lot of data experts that have given me those those charts and graphs and for the purposes of this podcast we’re not going to go into them. I might have them on later to kind of explain it but it’s really critical to kind of monitor monitor that and make sure that you’re above the line, else you’ve got a failing business over time. And like you said if you might if you’re monitoring that you’re being very communicative and you can make the adjustments, you can you can change that trajectory. So, yeah, very, very well said. Is there anything that we haven’t covered Robbie that we could have covered that people in this podcast or listening to this podcast should know I know you’ve got a book that goes far deeper into all this stuff but is there anything at a high level that we can give to the listeners to create a better subscription program or membership program.

31:27 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

I think the one other thing that I would want to share is that, for better or for worse, you know, five years ago when membership economy came out, I wrote it because it didn’t see what I was seeing, they didn’t see the power of subscriptions and membership. Five years later that is not the problem anymore. Everybody understands that subscriptions are really valuable and important, but they’re not necessarily executing in a way where the product offering justifies subscription pricing where the offering is actually something that is for the long term, and provides ongoing value and consumers and businesses alike are getting much more sophisticated about subscriptions, and there’s some subscription fatigue out there. So when you introduce a new subscription. The good news is that your customers prospects are going to understand what a subscription is they understand how to be billed for it they’re willing to do subscriptions, but they’re also going to really want to see that you’re offering justifies subscription pricing so I would just encourage you, before you go out there with a subscription. Just ask yourself, Is this something that makes sense, like what is the reason this is a subscription and not something that you can purchase outright.

Mark Fidelman  32:47

All right, good. I mean this is so valuable if you’ve haven’t listened to this again I encourage you to do it. The other thing that you should do is buy Robbie’s book we’ve got two final questions Robbie. And I asked everybody, this. And the first question is what is the hottest digital marketing technology that you recommend. I could tell you that you told me stream yard. Earlier,

33:12 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

just gonna say stream yard I just, you know, I’m LinkedIn live beta tester so I’m one of the first, I guess, 500, people to have a live on on LinkedIn. And I’ve been using stream yard as a way of, you know, sharing my live streams both on LinkedIn and Facebook and YouTube so that’s been that’s been something that I’ve been really having fun with.

Mark Fidelman  33:36

Okay. And our second question is who’s influencing you today in marketing.

33:43 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

Well, today it’s you. I mean, candidly the conversation we had about how to think about video in my own business is very powerful and really thought provoking for me to think about very practical ways that I can be incorporating I always talk about how you package value. I have this expertise in subscriptions in membership and business models in strategy. And I packaged it as a book I’ve packaged it as consulting I packaged it as keynote speeches. And I’m starting to do more around packaging and video and candidly I found you did not pay me because Mark did not be shocked, but what he is teaching is actually something that I really need to learn at this moment in my career.

34:30 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

Yeah, I,

Mark Fidelman  34:33

I would encourage everybody really to take a look at and I’m gonna be doing a lot of free stuff. And, but if you want to get the next level if you really want to turn video into this video sales funnel and really move it to the next level and where you’re not breaking breaking the bank, I mean you can I mean you can spend a lot of money if you’re a corporation, but you can also do it from home if you’re a solopreneur and you have a good idea. It’s, there’s no better medium, and I’ve what all I’ve done is combine it with a sales funnel, we figured out how to combine these videos with sales funnels on nearly every channel, and show you how to do it very very inexpensively and lead to a high ROI sale, again if your product or service resonates with your target audience so. All right, Robbie so wonderful conversation. Where can people find you and buy your book.

35:26 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

My book anywhere Amazon Barnes and Noble, your local indie booksellers who probably need your support more than ever. Books really easy to find it’s in, it’s in Kindle it’s an audible print it’s going to

Mark Fidelman  35:40

be in multiple languages, give everyone the title again.

35:42 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

It’s called the forever transaction, how to build a subscription model so compelling, your customer to leave. And you can find me on. Robbie Kalman Baxter calm, his website there’s tons of content there. you know, print, video, audio, lots of goodies and, and you can find me on all social media, mostly LinkedIn and Twitter.

Mark Fidelman  36:12

Wonderful. All right. Bobby thanks again for joining us on the podcast I think you know in a couple months you should come back and talk about perhaps what we’ve combined together because we’re going to work together, going forward, and would be interesting to kind of combine that element that you’re talking about in terms of subscriptions and memberships with a video sales funnel, it could be quite interesting.

36:37 Robbie Kelman Baxter 

Really interesting.

Mark Fidelman  36:39

Wonderful. Thanks again and. And we’ll talk to you soon. All right. All right, I’m gonna cut out that ending, no one like we’re getting off a call or something.

How To Build A Compelling Subscription Model Business
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I always like to find new approaches that work new tips and tricks really to help you out and help myself out. And I came across one where a marketer generated 11,592 leads for venture pact and venture pact is a software development marketplace. And what they did is they launched a lead generating calculator that basically asked the question, find out how much your app costs.

And the landing page you see here converted at 66% 66%. And this was followed by eight questions with multiple choice answers. They asked what platform they were on. I mean, basically all the qualifying questions you, your salesperson would ask to get to understand that person’s particular app, but didn’t want extra thing and not only asked for that user’s email address, it asked for anybody, they’d recommend the app to their user address as well.

And then the final page with results included, and that’s a result of the calculator included a call to action, leading the company or leading whoever’s taking the using the calculator back to the company’s website. And that was even a 4% conversion rate. So what was most interesting though, for me, not just the leads, but they promoted the calculator on Quora. And they’d look for related questions to how much it costs to build an app and just posted the link there.

And the result from the calculator boosted traffic by 15% generated 11,592 leads and increase the conversion rate by 28%. Now that’s clever. That’s something that you should look to implement. If it make sense in your business.

How This Marketing Calculator Generated 11,592 Leads
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TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everyone, I am in Carlsbad, California. And I want to talk about a marketing campaign I did all the way over in New York City. Why am I doing Carlsbad, California? Well, it had to do with density.

So what we did is another marketing stuff where we set up a booth. And we had people come in and compare data speeds on their cell phone. And we compare those data speeds to this new provider that was in New York City. And we captured on film, and we showed them the difference between that speed that they currently had and the speed that they would get with a new cell phone provider. And those videos did extremely well out there because it was real as authentic, we captured the emotion we captured everything that had to do with surprise and shock of those people in real time.

So that is our lesson for today. If, in COVID land now you have a product that would do well in these densely populated cities, setting up a booth and demonstrating your product or service isn’t that bad of an option, as long as you capture it, as long as you’re creating content that allows you to put it out on YouTube or Instagram or even Facebook. So there’s that my current Tip of the day as well as campaign of the day. Talk to you later.

This Marketing Stung Crushed It
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Digital Brand Builder Podcast
SUMMARY KEYWORDS

podcast, brands, campaign, audience, sponsorship, marketplace, marketing, influencers, sides, medium, website, model, grandfather, podcasters, growing, people, coupon code, ned, profile, build

SPEAKERS

Mark Fidelman, Nedko Nedkov

Hello everyone, welcome to the digital brand builder podcast. Today we’re going to talk about one of my favorite subjects, obviously, because I’ve got a podcast, I’ve got a couple, actually, a couple more in the works. But that’s a subject for the future. So we’re going to talk about, okay, you’ve got a podcast, how do you do influencer marketing on podcasts, how do you find brand ambassadors, how do you advertise on podcasts, to reach your target audience so we’re gonna talk about all these subjects and more with somebody that joined is joining us all the way from Eastern Europe. His name is Nedko, Ned cough. And besides, only having one letter difference in his first and last name, which we’ll get into real quickly. I would like to introduce Nedko to the show and Nedko Please give us kind of 100 word or less bio about yourself.

Nedko Nedkov  04:18

Thank you for joining me on this phone. All right, so I’m with my teenage years, and I’ve been outsourcing for search engine rankings for, like, 1012 years ago with the agency for one party. And over the years I started to get more involved into beta for passing, I was co founder in small contextual network. And over time, I really started to get more patient around pricing in startups. And that’s how we started our first project from birth as a first startup which is website supervising marketplace and over the years we were learning, and in 2020 20 we were stuck at home. As the whole world and stuck at home and. And that’s when actually we, we, I’ve been listening way more on podcasts and it’s started to become like a great medium for me very interesting. And so, at some point we decided to be both our main project and two ends we start, and we build atheism, with z.com, which became like our really focus for 2020 and it was like really great and we’re starting to feel like momentum from the market.

Mark Fidelman  05:42

Okay. So, yeah, what better medium than podcasts, while we’re all at home, or most of us are at home, especially in our line of work, and so easy to do. I mean I’m talking to you from Bulgaria, and I’m in San Diego. So it’s, it’s kind of the perfect medium for marketers. If you know how to use it well. And that’s the big the big question mark that we’re going to get into. Now, Nedko

06:09

about that name

Mark Fidelman  06:10

of yours so how did you Was this something that your parents did on purpose, or how does that, how does that work.

Nedko Nedkov  06:19

All right. So it’s a tradition in Bulgaria, to leave like the grants chance to be named after the grandfather, especially the first kids like if at some point after the grandfather if it’s a girl after the grandmother. And actually, my grandfather’s name is Nedko, as well, but we put all v spam in the name, so that’s how it began. Medium, like my father is medium. But my grandfather is Nedko, and so I started for you family language you can save. Got it so

Mark Fidelman  06:57

that that makes a lot of sense I thought maybe you’re going for like the one you know how celebrities are referred to by just the first name.

Nedko Nedkov  07:10

Okay. My grandson’s parents loved me so much and helps us over the years.

Mark Fidelman  07:17

Right. Okay, so let’s jump right in. So, let’s say somebody listening to this either wants to, you know, reach influencers on their podcast or advertise on podcast if they’re a brand on an influencers podcast. What is it that you, you do, and how do you do it

Nedko Nedkov  07:46

on your sponsorship sponsorships marketplace where it’s mostly for cost data. So we connect brands and influencer marketing agencies with, with most relevant podcasts, based on like context so right now and we are working on. when we are onboarding podcast with their audience and I will sit down in August.

Mark Fidelman  08:10

But, before you move on how do you do that is it is it an AI technology or, or is it manual.

Nedko Nedkov  08:17

So it’s, it’s, machine learning. And so, yeah, we are, we are working on AI and to you. Like, right now it’s based mostly based on search engine matching, and phone categories,

Mark Fidelman  08:32

should you you’ve categorized all the podcasts are out there is it is that what you’ve done it

Nedko Nedkov  08:36

those are like the most popular 20,000 podcasts, and they’re all categorized. And then we also added on that our machine learning model where we have like search engine, which searches between titles, descriptions and smart tags that we work on, because the sample cost needs more more context standards, and all this and so right now it’s connecting it’s sorting them based on based on searching on category. And then we are working on filtering part which is going to help you on on the secondary level to filter those, the results that you get from the searcher category into filtering by downloads, and by audience details and pricing, at some point when we onboard enough podcasts.

Mark Fidelman  09:37

Okay, so you do a lot so what’s the peer to peer advertising aspect of this.

Nedko Nedkov  09:43

Yeah. Okay. So, we are more focused, not so much on programmatic advertising, like we’re more focused on coffee that’s where we literally, where we meet and you can see me, because we are peer to peer and we’re really living into, like, open infrastructures and direct communication between the podcast host or the agency that represents the podcast, and the brands. And we really connect to the both sides to communicate directly. They should be already offers from the podcast, but also they can make a custom offer for the professor after discussion, they get like direct messaging system in the marketplace, and then we support with the escrow with the sale and with feedback on on the sale of the, of the delivery of the podcast I need the outtakes for here, we do the escrow part where once the podcast is is written and uploaded, when you share the link with the advertiser then the money unlocks and both sides are happy because the, the receive the product is yours. Changes gear to gear works best for you can say, like, you know, probably fiber. Right, trying. Yeah, we’re trying to build like fiber for podcasts where we connect the both sides and really let them do

Mark Fidelman  11:24

as they want. So, you probably looked@matchmaker.fm is it, it’s different than that.

Nedko Nedkov  11:29

Yeah, matchmaker is more like for interviews and it’s really matching both sides also another one is also great fun. Those are more like for finding gifts and finding podcasts to participate with us it’s more like you’re looking for sponsorship maybe paid, interviews, will be an option. It really depends on the podcast because he can list, any kind of offer really from the regular Ferrero Vidro and also to sponsorship and to whatever entity alone is much better, as, as a podcast your audience is, you know way more loyal and interested to you and to what you have to say. And if you if you vote for some product or brand or whatever, if there would be way more trust and interest for the audience to check it out. Instead, if it’s a commercial. So that is what we are focusing on. And to get the podcast to really engage with his audience and to to do a direct sponsorship reading, or implemented as he decides and podcast.

Mark Fidelman  12:42

Okay. Okay, so now that we got that covered, I want to talk about other ways that podcasters like myself and other, let’s say brands or marketers that want to collaborate with podcasts. What other strategies or tactics do you recommend people do.

Nedko Nedkov  13:03

I believe there is a emerging trend as on the publisher side, there are more podcasts growing, same time over two brands started to understand end to end, they listen probably themselves, but also, they started to understand how great and loyal yes on the podcast, so they also start to build on their site like brand ambassador programs, usually it’s like some, some pretty creative creative, or, or content, which the influencer the podcasts can really join with them and share to its audience and they like commission based. And this is really a great model because it’s a win win for both sides since you know it’s it’s really adult engaging too much time and not in too much bang for the podcast to figure out like content creators and all this because it’s already, and in the same time the brand can work with a much wider audience with more podcasts, which it wouldn’t be able to afford to take it to the director, but I think this is a great model for science. Also, I, I think that there are there are some affiliate networks out there that may accept influencers might think and those influencers. Friendly affiliate networks, they also accept so they also should not have to accept like different podcasts. That’s another thing that can work also. And so, pretty much that’s the, the level that I think is the best model right now also another, another thing that can work is there were two Facebook groups that much focus to brands like because search in Google search. When service to grant matching, and the work that they’re talking mostly about Instagram places. The when they hear about, like, ask them what what do you think about podcasts, medium, and they’re like, Oh, tell me more. It sounds interesting. So that’s another thing to think where the, the presence marketing, like instagramers and all those are already presented, and to try to cover there and be there for the podcast, same time for brand says it’s dope music too late to start implementing like their strategy that they already use for influencer marketing like they use different tools like ninja outreach buzzsumo and all those to automate outreach into Instagram influencers, but there are no such, not so many such tools for podcasts right now. So you need to be a little bit more creative here, and that’s why we are working on that part to onboard as many podcasters so we can match the both sides. And that, that is another thing that the brands can start with work Kion, I believe, will be very helpful with outreaching protests and campaigns and take them literally, sort of, like, with over dizer with us, they can solve, like the most famous few hundred podcasts per category. And then, of course, it needs some more manual, time to to verify to browse through those profiles and figure out like which two pairs of them make more sense for your brand, and then you can literally have to outreach them, that that’s the kind of possible podcast because it’s, you know, very decentralized medium. So it’s, it’s not only, you never know if they use like websites or email or Twitter. So that’s something that takes a little bit more time and we turn that into a service program. Also, and it’s like you have coverage on, like, the most popular podcast in the foundation of this on two channels like email and website, your Facebook and Twitter, or email to make sure they hear you, because some of them like if maybe sometimes legions to to represent them and all this, so you need to gather the unit together at least two touch points with them. And then, based on, like, you have to research more on, like, the engagement of the audience, and to see like rankings. That’s another thing that is good to do like crossmatch rankings from a PayPal teacher and different tabs at charitable. And then the chat bubble you can even see your rankings and how they go up and up, and they’ll come, and then you cross match those details and also if you see there. Let’s say like on even just 20 podcasts, let’s say, episodes, if you start to see emerging reviews, it means that the content is very interesting to know audience. So those are like the podcast that have both reviews and, and the episodes grow over time. Those are the best parts to reach and if it’s like 20 to 50 results and kept like in reviews or something like this it’s it’s great to fall pitch because those are like mid size, podcasts, and those are the best last two to start working on because I believe the influencers marketing at the home, and podcasts marketing is saying is like PR campaign you know if it’s better to, we’d like to do like one term campaign, which is like few months maybe campaign where you build up where you build up with a few podcasts, a week and and build up because you. You learn a lot more about what content converts and. And you can build, much better content over time and to build much better momentum with, with less investment you know with smaller podcasts and then to grow up to the bigger ones. And the. Think about this, you need to customize a little bit more about tracking with the podcast, so maybe here, you’ll give me also like ideas like what what will be the, the best model will be with, like, coupon codes maybe like one vouching for some reason or another way we figured out overtime was like custom domain, because it’s very hard to, like, but maybe the coupon code makes more sense to be able to track like performance and or ROI. And another thing is to make like social campaigns to move to channel you know like if you make. Let’s say some campaign for winter season, or some specific moment. You can you can make it can make a multi channel campaign where you share it on social networks, but you also do podcasters to bring the podcast audience to the social channels to participate share, like or whatever, and this way you can make much, much better social presence with covered by the podcast, so it’s really to cross match and to do babyface think like, for, for a few months really not you know not to split the whole, not to blow the whole visit in a week. For some, yeah. Split it with smaller podcasters with smaller recording plants as people called test day you can learn so much more. And,

Mark Fidelman  21:32

you know, when you compare it to something like video, or other forms of marketing. What, why should people care about podcast.

Nedko Nedkov  21:40

Alright, so I think the podcast is way more personal. Not communication, but you can also almost Save as a communication website. Because it’s the listener serve so much more interested to listen to the podcasts, like episode after episode. While when you do with video, you literally search in YouTube, and you like for a few minutes, or you watch for a few minutes at the most, that they you leave for watch another video well on the podcast you’re really focused for 15 minutes and more. So, I believe the CPM thing here in the podcast should not be compared to the CPM in website at all. Even in Instagram it’s yellow nice pictures, which make a lot of see again but fairly engagement is really well, and there is no way to go against it’s really just likes and that’s all while on the podcast is really very interested audience into what the podcaster has to say something really for Pro with his coaching for brands and for some campaign. It could be way more personal.

23:02

Yeah. Okay. And then

Mark Fidelman  23:06

I get that is the only problem I have a podcast and obviously I wrong one, is that it’s harder to click on something unless you’re at the show notes, you can remember, and people can repeat your website, over and over again. But I think, you know, from my perspective it’s it’s a harder conversion, but it’s a better branding opportunity, it allows people to get to know you better especially if you’re consistent

Nedko Nedkov  23:33

awareness, but on a personal level you can see this way. And also you can, if you make like campaign based you can really use a custom domain or something to make it more, but maybe the best way will be also to to cross the cross match or how to say you know like make a campaign, like, easy to remember will campaign which is on Facebook and promoted on the podcast. To you make you make a viral campaign this way is, instead of, you know, just seeing the domain and then it really depends on the, on the product. If it’s a. Yeah, it’s a b2c product is better to make more social campaigns and to make more brand awareness, but if it’s, let’s say, important informative product like software or something, then it’s probably better to to use a coupon code and, like, try different kinds of trial campaigns.

Mark Fidelman  24:37

Yeah. Okay. All right. And so we’ve covered a lot with the podcast, especially as it pertains to marketers and how you take advantage of them. Is there anything else that you like about podcasts that make it a better either advertising or marketing, median, medium, or channel at your eyes.

Nedko Nedkov  25:02

I think it’s the best thinker on podcast is first it’s really personal and engagement audience in a much different way. And the second thing is really, it’s emerging major. So it really will be growing over the time like I am looking at the market are in dire prognosis and it’s like, growing like 20 30%, per year on listening, our civil war just come on listeners. And I believe this will be really growing up, and they’re like, 800 thousands if not, maybe 1 million active podcasts, right now, and there will be just growing because they’re like 15 million. You YouTube channel so you know they have to grow way more with the podcasts, and then they’re saying the monetization works mostly for the first 10 to 20,000, bucks. So there is a lot of opportunities for from small businesses to bigger brands really to do much with focus and to build. Win Win partnerships and commissions or giveaways campaigns, or of course on YouTube. Excellent.

Mark Fidelman  26:24

All right, well, we are going to wrap things up, Nedko, but we before we do, we always have two questions. The first one is what is the hottest digital marketing technology that you are recommending your clients friends family.

Nedko Nedkov  26:44

That’s a good question. Let’s say, for I believe that the technology that is most underestimated even by small business because they think it’s too complicated is really required for instance, let’s say, like, even Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube fans. Tick Tock Avon and podcast, because I believe that the main thing about small businesses that they don’t produce enough content so they can start building killer quality content, and for them to communicate it properly. You know to to through the social networks through podcasts and participation because this is something that you can do almost freely, you know, and it can really bring your work more brand awareness and to show your understanding to show who you are and the clients will find your own so I think this is the main thing, which gets me to influencers and to build more content. Okay, and

Mark Fidelman  27:56

what our second question usually is and we’re gonna stick with it is, who is the most influential person in marketing today.

28:05

All right.

Nedko Nedkov  28:10

Got it. For me, it’s really interesting it’s like my marketing. I don’t you can say Seth Godin, I really like his daily newsletter and everything else. And so those are like the most, most famous ones I can see. Okay.

Mark Fidelman  28:31

Yeah, I mean those are two of the standards set, Gary Gary’s more in the, in the weeds, too I like him a little bit better. Seth is more strategic. But, but, but both combined. They’re good. Right. Yeah.

28:51

Cool. All right, well, we are

Mark Fidelman  28:54

going to wrap things up. But before we do, where can people find you and by the way, go check out pod vert Iser spell pod VTIZ are calm, and you could check out his peer to peer podcast sponsorship marketplace. But other than that, where do people find you online.

Nedko Nedkov  29:20

You can also find me on LinkedIn, on Twitter. Yeah, by name, you can find. Connect. Yeah. All right. All right, so remember the name, but that’s, that’s a great thing go out go see the left to my names again.

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