Mark Fidelman  00:17

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the digital brand builder podcast. Joining me today is rune court out. And he is with a company called sales flair. In fact, he’s the CEO of sales flair. And today we’re gonna talk about a very interesting subject. I haven’t heard this before, but it really intrigued me. So I wanted you to hear about it. And that is how to grow a business by constantly launching. So this perpetual launching, so I don’t know how to introduce you any more than you already. I already have your own. Can you kind of tell us a little bit about yourself in 100 words or less.

Jeroen Corthout  00:57

And so I’m co founder and CEO of sales flair. My background is in sales and marketing mostly but I’m an engineer by education. Actually a biomedical engineer, I worked for a while in a pharma company and then help pharma companies with organizing their marketing sales and CRM. Then went back into software, which is more my thing. And helping actually agencies and software companies mostly that’s why mostly I want the software to be more successful nowadays with your sales.

Mark Fidelman  01:38

Wonderful and then how did you start sales flair? How did you start it?

Jeroen Corthout  01:43

We started sales in 2014. I personally had worked with Salesforce for a long while. When I was in, in in in a marketing consultancy, we had Salesforce internally and I really tried to use it as a practical sales tool, but I never understood that I really tried hard because it was my first CRM. And I had the idea that the way serums were sold, they were going to help me to organize my sales. But it never really did. I kept organizing myself and other systems and then just logging some stuff into into the CRM when I never I, I really needed to. And then fast forward four years then to 2014. When we were working on a business intelligence software company, we had a ton of leads. And we tried to organize ourselves. Well, we found that no CRM that we tried, really helped us. And plus, when when we then started using Google Sheets, which was stupid as well, but we found that we spent a whole lot of time duplicating data from somewhere else, basically. Which we weren’t very good at, we were in disciplined enough to keep filling out the sheet, which then got us into all kinds of issues because the data was not up to date. And we would contact people at the wrong times, and all those kind of things about stuff we already said. I mean, if you don’t have the right data, you you immediately start doing stupid things with your customers. So we thought, like, what if we make a system that pulls that data that we’re duplicating actually together for you as a salesperson, and helps you to sell better. So instead of making a system where you need to input a whole lot of data for your management and get not much back, we built the system that offers you data helps you to curate it and then helps you to stay on top of your leads as well, with with automated suggestions and all that so that you Can never drop leads anymore without having to spend a whole lot of time on on data input.

Mark Fidelman  04:08

Wonderful. So who’s like your main competitor that?

Jeroen Corthout  04:12

Uh, it depends how you look at things. A lot of people will compare us with Salesforce. That’s what I found when doing quite some interviews, you know, a lot of people know the pain of Salesforce, and then start looking for an alternative. If people then compare it with other systems, it’s most often nowadays with one HubSpot, because they have a free CRM. And a lot of people don’t really know what they’re looking for. So they just go CRM. First thing they find is HubSpot. They have an enormous amount of money to to throw at the at the traffic problem, let’s say. And then secondly, it’s a lot of pipe drive as well. Pipe drive is like us a real practical system. For you to follow up your leads is easy to use as well. It’s easy to set up as well, where we make a difference there is in the easy to keep it up to date as well. Because pipedrive is a manual system and in our system, it’s, it’s really automated from the ground up.

Mark Fidelman  05:20

Okay, so let’s talk about how to grow a business by constantly launching Why don’t you tell us what that means, first of all,

Jeroen Corthout  05:31

so across the lifetime of sales flair, we have got sales rare to many different sort of versions and states and along the way, we’ve taken every opportunity we could to actually relaunch sales for and that means relaunching as a sort of new product but it also means launching it into an New and bigger channel. So the first large sales service probably in somewhere 2015, we first launched our first product, which was not getting a whole lot of attention because it it was just what they what they call a minimum viable product but not a minimum lovable product. We get it in the press a few times throughout the summer of 2015, where we announced that there was something new on the market. That’s goods compete with Salesforce for instance. That’s that’s the company that people mostly want want you to compete with Microsoft Dynamics. We then spend a whole lot of time reading Selling sales flair one on one to people. And it’s towards the end of 2016 that we launched sales flair online. In the center, I mean, application was always online, but you couldn’t sign up fully self guide it’s through through the websites, you always went through me. And I would guide you through the whole process so that I was sure that you understood everything were properly set up and all those kind of things. We weren’t really ready to let things go yet. And it was also a good strategy for us to keep improving the problem because we always saw what was going wrong. But then that online launch, that’s something we did. While we went to TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, we took that as an opportunity to do a bit of a launch event there and from their own we have been lost Launching, I think, the month of March after that. So the year after on product hands, which is the the main product community in the world, I’d say a better place nowadays to launch then in Ben TechCrunch goes on TechCrunch you will only get when you get massive amount of funding. And then about three, four months later, we launched on appsumo. appsumo is the biggest. I don’t know how to call it like Groupon for software. Which then brought us to a whole other level. So imagine in terms of scale. When we launched online, we probably had 2030 people trying us out when we launched them Product turns, we had more like three hundreds trying us out. And then when we launched on appsumo, we added about 6000 people in a matter of three weeks on the software. So always building up this, this, this the scale of the launches, at that point that was really launching our CRM. And then from there, we’ve also started repeating that process a bit. We do monthly product launches. But sometimes there’s also a bigger one, which we then take more time to launch. For instance, the last one we did in April, I believe this year, we launched our latest evil workflows feature quite big to get attention for that work.

Mark Fidelman  09:57

So this constant launching versus Like one launch and over what what advantages do you see there?

Jeroen Corthout  10:07

First of all, you can you can aim at different audiences, you can launch in different places with a slightly different focus. And secondly, you can keep building so, you can launch your first version you can launch a big new feature slash product you built into your product, you can do that another time and each time you get attention for that specific thing which, which increases the amount of interest in your product, which might hit a slightly different audience or keeps you Top of Mind with your target audience. Because if you just launch once, and then stop people, that there’s a sort of hype for a moment, which then starts starts dying down after a while, and people don’t consider you as new and fresh and stuff anymore. They start looking at other stuff.

Mark Fidelman  11:26

Okay, and how do you know what, when to launch new things? And, and when I mean is it meant monthly, weekly? You know, how do you determine all these consecutive launches that you’re doing? How do you space them out?

Jeroen Corthout  11:41

Yeah. So so if you’re, if you’re thinking about the product updates, we try to do them monthly. Sometimes we have bigger features that make that that pushes us a bit. But we tried to get new stuff out every month. In terms of functionality. This is Always, I mean, allowance on our own channels are. It’s it’s an email that goes out goes on all the social medias and all those kind of things. And that’s something we do on a regular basis. We also launched content twice a week, if you want to call that a launch as well, but then the real bigger launches, that’s really based on our own feeling that we’re launching something new, something that will appeal to the audience in a different way, sort of than our original product. Then we decide to do bigger launches to drive more attention with that. Okay.

Mark Fidelman  12:48

And then when you’re preparing for the launch, do you have a methodology for you know, you start with this, then you go to this, then you go to that to have kind of a methodology. How do you how Do you launch big or small within your organization?

Jeroen Corthout  13:07

Um, it’s for us it starts mainly in almost all of these cases with booking with customer ones. We keep very close track of all the things that people are asking for. So we know exactly what’s what’s most popular with them and why we start sort of making a brief for that. We don’t do the the press release thing that they do at Amazon, if you’re familiar with that, where they every new thing that they want to introduce it needs to written in a press release format, but it’s it’s it’s somehow like that you could say, then from there, our first step is mainly development. So in that case, we start scoping out It needs to do, how it needs to look like and then how it’s going to be implemented. And then when it starts reaching the goal life dates, software wise. We take back what we scoped out initially in terms of this is what for this is why they wanted all these kind of things and turn that into a narrative. So for instance, if you if you go look at our product updates, you’ll see that it’s always written from standpoint like, three ambitious issue, then you’ll be happy to know that we have the solution for it now. And, yeah, it’s always super important to know who you’re talking to what your exact issue is and how you’re solving that. So you can exactly bring that story when you’re doing the lounge. Then depending on where it goes, I mean where it goes, live. We have a different way of preparing for these things. Because we’ve done these things multiple times, if you are interested in one of those, I can always go into detail. Yeah,

Mark Fidelman  15:14

I mean, I think, you know, people are just trying to learn how to do things better, right? That’s why new ideas and then how to implement it so that they can be successful. Like you were successful. So yeah, if you could dive in that would be wonderful.

Jeroen Corthout  15:27

Yeah, let me let me maybe take productions as an example. So the important thing on productions is one. That’s the audience that you are building what you’re building for overlaps with that of product and, and product and there’s a community for new products. So you can imagine it’s a lot of people who are either building their own startup or in the sense of a text up or working on an agency, or just generally early adopters. If your product or what you’re building is good for that, then this might be a good place, then to get attention. You need to have that audience in mind and start building a narrative for them. Understanding how your, the thing you’re launching is different from other things they’ve seen before because that’s very important. And how are you gonna make that clear? Then go through the process of posting on products hands, hunting, as we call it. If you create an account and then get a bit of credibility with it, then I think you can quite easily get boasting rights nowadays. And then you can go through the process yourself of seeing all the materials you need. This is a thumbnail a bunch of graphics, a name a slogan in. And when you launch, most people also both an intro comments. So you basically start taking what you’ve defined as the story, how things are different and who it’s for and all that and start translating it into these materials, because these are the materials you specifically need for product. And then when you’ve nailed all that, the main job you have is getting on the front page. Which done on that? Yeah, that does not happen organically. People might have the dream that they just post something on product and then it will hit first place but that’s not how it works. You need to give it a push at least at first So make sure you have an audience of active Product Hunt users that is ready to promote you and your launch. And then have a way to, to ask them to push you to the top. And when when when you get that happening, then well, you will get visibility, you will get more outputs and all that what we did in our last launch with email workflows, is also incentivizing some users or early users of the functionality to make videos about how they use it, and then post that also in the comments so that people could get a much better feeling of of the how to use it and what it’s for and all those kind of things in a much more community driven sort of way, even if it was, it was slightly pushed, let’s say, we asked them, it gives a very good community feeling around it.

Mark Fidelman  19:09

Okay. And what? How did you get your community to push it? What were you doing?

Jeroen Corthout  19:18

So first of all, we have a list. You

Mark Fidelman  19:23

get out actually, how’d you get the community first? And then how did you get them to push?

Jeroen Corthout  19:30

Getting the community is a is a hard work in the beginning. And it comes from all kinds of directions. It’s getting users on your software, it’s getting people to read your blog, it’s getting active in, in groups and all that to get people to know you. It’s building a network. That’s, that’s, yeah. A lot of work. It’s really building that audience. As soon as you have that audience things Become a bit easier. If you don’t have it at first, you can, of course, fall back on your friends, family, colleagues, ex colleagues and all those kind of things. To to at least get get a bit of a push there. As soon as you have an audience, then it’s a matter of activating them. For us, for instance, we we asked our users who is interested in helping us when we do launches, we have a list of those people and we can always email them whenever we need help. We also have a list of all the people who ever helped us with launches, apart from nets, like our own network and all these other things so separate from our customers. And we can also go through through that list to ask people to to help us out and share and all that Okay,

Mark Fidelman  21:01

so it did. I won’t drill down on this because a lot of people don’t realize how difficult is this but to get back community, did you have any kind of offer to get them to sign up for something? How did you build it?

Jeroen Corthout  21:16

No, not really. I think a lot of our early community building was around being active in on Quora, in Facebook groups. A lot of it was from Facebook groups, where we found like minded people and started sharing things that were valuable to them things we were doing and that we found they could be interested in. That helped us a lot in terms of networking and getting the name out there and all those kind of things.

Mark Fidelman  21:51

And then what I mean when you launched, how many people did you have in the community to help push on product On

22:02

Product Hunt

Jeroen Corthout  22:05

The first time I think we had a few hundreds

Mark Fidelman  22:09

and that was enough to get you on the first page.

Jeroen Corthout  22:12

That is enough to get you on the first page. Yeah, I, we ended the day with 700 upvotes I think which back then was a more normal number nowadays it’s a bit quieter unless you do a lot of a lot of push to get on the front page. He only needs I think, the beginning 30 to 50 or something to get in the top five. You need to hit say 100 in the first few hours.

Mark Fidelman  22:47

Okay, so it’s also a timing thing. It’s getting everyone to do it at once.

Jeroen Corthout  22:52

Um, yes and no. I think that the algorithm counts. upvotes per hour. So yes, in the beginning, you need to get quite a mouthful to get up there so that other people can see you that you don’t know. So they can upvote you. But you don’t have to do that. When the product and they, so to speak starts exactly, because if you do it a bit later on, you have a tendency of growing higher with less upvotes, which I think is because they they count up votes per hour. Yeah. So if you start a bit later, with more, less upvotes and less hours, you know what I mean?

Mark Fidelman  23:44

Yeah, I know what you mean. Okay. Anything else that made you successful in product on that you do want to bring up

Jeroen Corthout  23:53

if I could give one tip. I would say that you make sure that people who come from Product turns are also welcomed on your site in the right way. So mostly you will link people to the front page, or at least the page that is about the thing you’re going to be launching. But what you can do is use something like hello bar or intro bar or something like that. To welcome the product enters on the page, share a special promo with them, which you can already share on your product on page and intro comments. But it’s it’s very good that you also shared when they land on the page, and that way, give them an extra incentive to actually try out what you’ve been what you’ve been launching.

Mark Fidelman  24:44

All right, well, we’re gonna wrap things up here. If anyone has any questions for him, or for me, just give me a shout on Twitter at Mark Fidelman Where can They find you.

Jeroen Corthout  25:02

You can also find me on Twitter if you like, the ads and then my name is Yuri Cortez. Or you can find me on LinkedIn. If you connect with me on LinkedIn, please include a message. So I know where to come from otherwise, it’s just another random person who sends me a LinkedIn request.

Mark Fidelman  25:22

Okay, excellent. So and also, you have a free trial that you would like to offer people anyone interested in his CRM system, his company’s CRM system, just go to HTTPS, colon slash slash sales flare calm, and you can register for a free trial. Girona was pleasure to have you any parting words?

25:48

Um, no, it’s really great to be on the show. All right.

Mark Fidelman  25:53

Likewise, good to have you and good luck with everything. Thank you.

SPEAKERS

Jose Quiroz, Mark Fidelman

Jose Quiroz  00:00

tgw partnerships in their Best Buy’s, some of the affiliate partnerships our strategic partnerships, you know,

Mark Fidelman  00:05

okay, that’s fine. Why don’t we do that and you pronounce your name, Jose Queiroz, you don’t get a rose. Okay, you’re gonna force me to provide my San Diego version of a Hispanic accent,

00:17

you could say,

Mark Fidelman  00:18

and then that’s my new Jose kiddos kiddos. Well, dude, you’re gonna you’re gonna not do as well. All right, well if you’re ready, because you’ve been so patiently waiting. I’m going to kick things off.

Jose Quiroz  00:35

Yeah, I’m ready for that I do have a question. I’m going to have time at the end of it, when is this going to be scheduled to go out just like

Mark Fidelman  00:41

a probably a week, you know, we’ll always within the week.

00:44

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Mark Fidelman  00:48

Okay, are you ready I’m going to pause for two seconds, and then I’m going to jump right in. Hello everyone, welcome to the digital brand builder podcast today. Joining me is Jose kiddos. And Jose is Managing Director of Digital Content day. And today, Jose and I are going to talk about a new subject, one of my favorite subjects, and one that we haven’t done on the show because it’s a little complicated. I can’t wait to dive into this it’s on affiliate marketing. And we’ll also kind of sprinkle in you know how you make those partnerships more strategic and Jose is going to walk us through all of that. So, with that, Jose, welcome to the show, and if you can, in 200 words or less give us a little bit of information about yourself.

Jose Quiroz  01:41

Sure, sure. So, thank you for having me and you nailed it on the pronunciation. I know we were joking, before we hit record after 50

Mark Fidelman  01:48

times trying Yes,

01:51

you hit it on the head.

Jose Quiroz  01:53

But you know, you kind of summed it up. I actually have two titles Managing Director of Digital command thing, and owner of my own digital agency called Tiki DOS, and they both serve different purposes and will kind of get into that today but really I like to consider myself an immigrant, I’m a lot of people trying to coin me as an entrepreneur, but the entrepreneur in me came from immigrants, you create your own opportunities, in a sense, and I started my career at the corporate level doing digital marketing coordinating and project management started my own agency locally did really well, held on to a corporate client and then shifted all my focus to corporate medium and large sized businesses. I’ve been called a digital architect. I can provide digital blueprints digital contractor and really. My specialty is unlike any other agency out there social media agency website is etc is I partnered closely with the owner, the founder or the CEO to help them understand the digital world, because there is a. They get a sense of relief when I come in and I’m able to break down the strategies break down the vernacular and the vocabulary the opportunities in front of them in the digital world because they feel like it’s gone a little way out of their out of their wheelhouse right because they’re so focused on to their business. So, in a nutshell, that’s kind of what I do. I’ve been in digital for a little under a decade. And I love this world.

Mark Fidelman  03:12

Well, I do too. Obviously, and you know one thing I tell you know people that I work with, in a lot of them I try to get to do affiliate marketing but it’s, I think they have this image of just these hacks that are out there on YouTube and maybe a blog that you know put up banner ads here and there, and they think that’s affiliate marketing and they don’t see, you know, The other side of things, the things I see and probably what you see, there’s some real professionals out there that know how to use Facebook and landing pages and that’s all they do day in and day out and they’re just masters at it, and they’re always on top of what’s new and what’s working, that group of people I like to work with now there’s the whole underbelly to I’d say 8070 to 80% of these affiliates are bad actors and they’re, they’re doing bad things. blackhat type of things or even white hat and not being ethical on how they’re getting people to sign up for things or to buy things but we’re gonna dive into that slowly so what can you just basically lay the foundation for affiliate marketing and why it’s important that people use affiliates in, let’s just start with that.

04:21

Sure, sure.

Jose Quiroz  04:22

So, the first thing I would want to start with is letting folks know that you got to keep up with the right perspective and digital, a lot of businesses or entrepreneurs, etc. They put digital tactics first before their business strategy. So define your business strategy first before you start bringing in a digital tactic. That’s the first thing I want to start off with but when it’s so when it comes to affiliates. And one of the reasons why we dug into that was because one of my clients nationwide retailer about 100 stores nationwide. They were building their e commerce platform, platform. And the challenge was how do we grow this how do we grow traffic and revenue. With this little budget as possible with damn near zero dollars right. So, before us, it became affiliate marketing became a really important play because it’s a performance marketing strategy and a performance marketing strategy means that you don’t come up with a from budget you pay out after the performance has happened after the sale has been made, the conversion, the contact, whatever it is that the result that we’re hoping for. We’re paying for that once that happens and not necessarily saying here’s 5000 years $10,000 a month, go free me some sales it’s corporate me some cells and I’ll pay you out when it comes to this so I think that’s the very first reason why businesses should consider affiliate marketing because it’s a pay per performance and you don’t come up right up front, at a budget. That’s, that’s, to me it is the most important kind of reason why. Then, when you’re going to start to dig into affiliate marketing you want to ask yourself two questions. One, do I have the technical know how or resources to build an affiliate program in house. Using third party software’s technologies developers, or is it more efficient for me to find affiliate partner, someone like a racket tan viglink, skimlinks, you know all of these different companies that solely focus that now these companies are middlemen right they’re gonna. You’re the retailer you’re the brand you’re the company. They’re gonna connect you with the affiliate, and obviously they get paid a commission on that relationship and any technology that they have on tracking etc. So, start there as well as an organization. Do I have the tech know how to do it in house if so you’re going to need to understand that you’re going to have to track pixels and conversions and payouts and all that good stuff. Or can I partner up with a vendor, who’s already established has the platform and could do this for me in a sense,

Mark Fidelman  06:43

well I mean the, I mean that’s a great question Do you want a middleman or you want to do it yourself. Can’t you do it yourself and then use a platform like impact radius, that tracks all of that, or you still suggest that use a middleman because you don’t have the resources in house to kind of optimize it and make it work.

Jose Quiroz  07:00

You pretty much gave my answer. Because at the end of the day it’s business right and so it’s been really critical on critical thinking on. Do I have the resources to actually make this happen and maybe you can start off in house small, maybe run a pilot program three four or five different affiliates you want to work with, and then start to scale it up and get to the point where Okay, I’m managing 100 different relationships. I don’t have it, I need a third party, then you can go that that route. But yeah, again it just really starts with that if, if I’m talking to a medium, large sized business I typically tell them hey just find a partner because for example, one of my clients as well for their e commerce we have about 150 affiliates that we work with on a day to day basis. And some of these affiliates are massive retail not offers calm, etc. You’re not going to be able to manage that relationship one on one, you need a third party. mitigator for that because they have a relationship with them, so kind of just depends. Okay.

Mark Fidelman  07:56

Um, so let’s say I have a clothing company. I don’t have the resources to do affiliate marketing on my own, but I want to take advantage of a no brainer, which is finding affiliates, maybe they’re fashion affiliates or maybe they’re just damn good professional affiliates to help me market, my new clothing line that’s coming out. So, is there a circumstance where you could see me doing it myself because there’s a platform so good it’s just so easy, or would you recommend to that company. Hey, get a middleman. You know one of the ones that you mentioned and I don’t know if you have one specific to retail, but get a middleman because you can learn from them, and then if you feel like it’s strategic enough you can bring it in house.

Jose Quiroz  08:42

Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good question. So, um, to answer your question on a retail affiliate bracketing is the leading, I believe in retail affiliate because again they do retailmenot offers.com honey all these different Groupon, all this good stuff. Um, there is a scenario where you can do it yourself with Shopify and Shopify plus they have the ability to create affiliate tracking within the platform itself, which is typically the biggest hurdle to overcome, is the tracking, because you want to make sure that you’re crediting the sale to the correct publisher or affiliate you’re paying out the right, points because now you’re talking about your margin right and how that’s gonna affect your margin that’s something you have to consider too. I have XML profit margin on my product. If I have to give five to 10 15% of it, where does that leave me. Um, so again, these are all things that when you get a third party it helps because they can help you probe these questions and define these questions but if you’re going to do it individually, I would say that you go to something like a Shopify or whatever, e commerce platform you’re using see if they have the ability to do tracking custom tracking for you with some development support or have an in house developer. And then after that your main your day to day when it comes to affiliate marketing is going to be relationship management. So, I’ll give you an example, with our retail client we compete up against Nike. Finish Line Adidas footlocker these massive billion dollar athletic and apparel and sneaker companies, we’re we’re, we’re competing with them for the same affiliates, because it’s the sneaker bloggers is the guy that has seen 200,000 Twitter followers who just has sneaker news all day long. Those guys they’re paying out much heavier right they’re paying anything from 15% to a 25% Commission. We’re coming in and offering five to 7%. How do we stay competitive by maintaining those relationships consistently reaching out to those affiliates, making sure that weren’t top of their inbox top of their mind. And so then there’d be more willing to support, and then also add also another thing that people would see as a as an issue is actually it’s actually a positive for us because Nike, Adidas etc and these brands are going to sell out much quicker. And so those affiliates are going to have less probability of actually getting a commission on them. So when they work with us. It’s a higher probability they’re gonna get a commission on it because we’re not going to sell out as fast as the competitor but we can still pay them out. So, if you were going to do it yourself. I would say one, whatever ecommerce platform you’re using inquire and see if they have some kind of tracking that you can do so you can build a affiliate program within your platform. If they don’t look for a third party software that can do it again. It’s all about alleviating as much overhead or store dependencies on you as the as the owner was organization. So if there’s a third party software that could almost plug and play. Or if you have developments inside that you can keep the tracking then great. Once you have that set up tested all that good stuff. Then you’re going to want to find your list of folks. And one of the ways that you’re going to manage that is let’s say you have five of them, you’re going to run a campaign with them for about 30 days, and you’re going to analyze the results, who’s bringing more traffic who’s bringing in more conversions etc. You know the top two producers move on the three day replace with someone else. And you go and you go and you go until six months or a year from now you’re gonna have a solid group of affiliates who are diehard we’re producing an or LP you really really grow.

Mark Fidelman  12:05

Wow. Okay, well great advice so. All right, now let’s get into you’ve either hired a third party or you’ve done it yourself, how do you make sure that you’re getting the best affiliates possible represent your brand, and they’re working in a way that is ethical.

Jose Quiroz  12:24

Yeah, one of the good. So, typically when you’re going with a third party ethical kind of ethical question gets resolved right because they have a submission process through them, and they have a validating process and they even have the ability to show you this affiliate has been producing 10,000 a month for X amount of months, or this much or this material, etc so they have the criteria for you when you’re doing this on your own. You’re gonna have to wear that hat, right, and almost think of it as an interview, right, what probe Pro, what do they do, where the followers wants their content you’re more than, more than okay to go ahead and ask for numbers. What’s your impressions like what’s your click through rate like what’s your conversion rate like etc so you really want to. It’s all relationship based, so you’re really going to need to meet with these people understand them, what what is the why for them right because a lot of these affiliates, unless you’re talking about the big guys the rebates and the Ebates and stuff like that but if you’re talking about, you know, a guy for us in the retail in the sneaker world, who built a following through a blog, you know this guy is not an organization he’s not a business he’s just a guy who has a passion and so happen to make something out of it. So, you get to get to know them. What is their why what started what drives them now. And it’ll become really apparent and become really really apparent that we had affiliates that we had to pause the relationship because they were using bots to scan our website for a new product. Wow. Exactly, exactly. Now granted, it wasn’t necessarily, um, you know it’s not like they were stealing money or anything of that nature but retail and e commerce specifically bots are a huge problem. And so, if we can identify you from an actual bot, it becomes difficult right. So, things like that are gonna come up but don’t be afraid to be direct to ask to pro to interview, and then define that and you know if you haven’t nice qualifying process, and one of them sneaks in. Then you can address that, you know, and that’s the thing with the third party as well it does help eliminate some of that because if you do run any issue with the publisher, whether it’s on varied you know you haven’t paid out, or they’re doing something unethical you can always go to the third party to help me to get that.

Mark Fidelman  14:41

Okay, that’s interesting and good advice, because I’m sure people that have started out in affiliate marketing didn’t know what they’re doing and joined, you know sites like shareasale and I’m not knocking yourself I’ve had success there have run into some bad experiences and they like affiliate marketing BS. But there really are some professionals some ethical professionals. The balance I find it. What’s your comment on this is you’ve got to incentivize them enough, or you have to have high enough conversions. So, that they continue to work with you, you know, keeping the good ones is hard because they have other options they can go somewhere else and make more money. So, when you talk about strategic vendor relationships and all that. How do you make sure you maintain that with them. And, you know, build a win win scenario for both of vendor and for the affiliate partner,

Jose Quiroz  15:33

you know, the first place that I start is typically with the business owner, with the CEO or the founder or some person in C suite that I’m talking about the strategy, and I give them the perspective of this don’t think of them as affiliates think of them as digital sales people instead of them being in your store, you know, pushing a product there on the, on the web, but pushing product recommendations to their audience. So, if you come in with the mindset of this is a commission based digital sales rep. A lot of your worries and concerns and almost dumb reason to why you should go here. Go away. Right. So, once you kind of keep that in mind that they are digital sales people, then you understand that. Okay. I know what motivates sales people money, and also some like affirmation and you know, things of that nature but money, so you can do different things you can do tiers, right, sales people also like to be competitive. So, if you hit this tier your commission is that 5% you hit this tier become 7% this tier and above 15 right incentivize them for growth. Another thing you can do is you can stay consistently tracking and if there’s any dip or decline within any of your top affiliates reach out to them, hey what’s going on what you don’t want to kind of help you with unique content, do you need to create it, are the links not working, am I just tracking wrong. What’s up, and you’ll start to there and the thing is with them. Unless you’re talking about obviously the big guys. The return me nots in such. Most of these independent affiliates are very transparent, and they’ll tell you when your competitor did this and so that’s why I’m, I’m favoring them, you know your competitors doing that doing this etc so it’s honestly just about having that open communication with them and so you’ll need a dedicated resource to this. And you can just simply probe and ask, etc. And one of the good things too about affiliates as you can really start to get you get to understand your consumer much more when you partner with affiliates because the reason why you’re partnering with them is because they have the attention of the consumer that you’re seeking. And because they have that attention they understand them a little bit more. So, there could be a good synergy synergy there when you’re working with them not only to commission out etc but then to gather product ideas service ideas customer service ideas based on what their audiences say,

Mark Fidelman  17:53

Okay, well, when you say you build a strong relationship you build that when when they understand the consumer and what I find is they probably understand them better than you do. Oil yeah so they’re good. They’re good source for other things that you might want to do in marketing. How do you, then you know kind of take it to the next level, and you’ve got one strong strategic relationship, maybe you have to. How do you know whether to scale or not scale, how do you know how

Jose Quiroz  18:26

do you know how to move forward with that. Sure. So, this again that third party is really where that comes into play because some other third parties, they will give you a strategic planner, and you meet with them monthly or quarterly, and they help you analyze the reports and say based on the reports, I would say you increase the Commission on these, you build a stronger relationship with these people, and you invite these new people to your program so that you say you would be doing the same thing if you’re doing it on your own obviously this now falls onto your shoulders so you’d want to look at the reporting. Identify the KPIs you’re trying to track most likely it’s going to be conversions because again this is the pay for performance so I wouldn’t advise people to look at impressions clicks maybe, but really it’s going to be about the performance aspect of it, and the traffic that’s being driven. So, you look at that, based on that you say Okay. Is there room for me to offer this person more commission or more opportunities, or this person has to have a competitor, because they’re gonna have a competitor, and so does that make sense does that. Does that make sense and kind of work that way as well. So again if you’re going to a third party, you’re going to have to. If you’re going through important third party, they’re going to give you that and you’re going to have a strategic planner is going to help you if you’re not, then you’re going to have to analyze that yourself. And it’s really just let the reporting dictate that I’ve also built relationships with affiliates directly. And so, for example, and I’ll give them a shout out called coupon cause it’s actually a pretty really it’s a really cool affiliate there a coupon site however any purchase any coupon that gets redeemed through them they get a percentage off of it and then that percentage they give some to charity or cause. So I made a really good relationship with with that individual that person was able to share with me other affiliates that do similar or within that realm, which have a similar audience that I could then start engaging with. So, the stronger you build that relationship with them, then they’re going to be able to expose you to Hey here are these other opportunities that that you can do. And then the final thing I would say here and this is something that a lot of people don’t know and don’t take into consideration is, you can find affiliates, who can offer you technology or digital services that you would have to go flat out budget for at one point or another. So, an example is a social media agency. I’ve got partnerships with social media agencies where they’re running prospecting and retargeting ads for us on a pay per performance model, we don’t have a monthly budget we don’t have we have to come out of pocket XML, in order for them to run these ads. They run the ads. Any conversions they drive, we pay out a commission, and we’re happy so that’s another thing with affiliates, it’s not just about the guy with the blog or the or the Twitter account. There’s affiliates in the technology space in the social media space, etc etc so you can start getting into those strategies as well without having an effect with a budget up front.

Mark Fidelman  21:24

Okay, um, finally this is fascinating stuff. Is there any unique affiliates that you’ve worked with that you’re like wow I never would have thought of doing that. That was successful, maybe it’s somebody who just focused on, I don’t know, email or. or. Tick Tock or something like that.

Jose Quiroz  21:44

Yeah, that’s a good question, um, the one that comes to mind is not necessarily something out of the box in a strategy sense. But, so, rebates Ebates all this stuff. These affiliates have been around for a long time right you buy from us, you get cashback and really what’s happening there is that Ebates is getting 15% on any sale that they cut through, they get that 15% they keep seven, they give you the remainder right that’s why the consumer can get cashback or they will they keep 10 and they give you five. And so now you’re getting 5% on cashback. So this this model has been around. I saw a new affiliate, I think is called active junkie. They did that same model, however they did it in the outdoor space strictly outdoor space so backpacks tents camping gear kayaks etc etc. That to me wasn’t necessarily something that was, you know, out of the box, but I thought it was a great way that an affiliate was able to hybrid models and kind of a niche, and do something unique within a niche using already an established model. And what we found there is that we were able then to select the product categories that we wanted to help promote in that channel, or with that affiliate specifically. So, even though we do have mostly Jordan Nike, Adidas etc. We can then some of our training pants and some of our dry fit shirts that you know would be good for hiking, we can then move over here and have a more unique approach to to the campaign, with the support of an affiliate who has.

Mark Fidelman  23:21

Sorry, but that was loud. Wrap it up. No, no, but not at all because I got a few more things I want to say that one of the most fascinating things that I saw affiliate do was they take viral videos in your field on YouTube and they embed them on a web page, and they put advertising all around it. I don’t know if that’s still if they’re still able to do that with the way that Google and Facebook looks at landing pages, but they drove a ton of traffic through those viral videos, and then on the side there. They’d have surveys and they’d have other things that led to their clients, and allow allow them to sell things and to collect information on new prospective customers I thought that was fascinating. So, okay so let’s return to, you know, the other thing, it’s not for me it’s, it is about the affiliates making money, but they make more money if you make your site your landing page whatever you’re driving traffic to more optimized for higher conversion So do you have any recommendations for that.

Jose Quiroz  24:28

Yeah, so you’re 100% right and that goes true for anything, right, your Facebook campaign your email campaign, whatever channel you use to get someone onto your site that site has to be optimized the way I position it for people it’s like if you were running ads in a newspaper or local radio going to Chamber of Commerce etc for everyone to come to your new location in that town, then when they get to that location. It’s not merchandise correctly, it’s not cleaned it’s the associates don’t know what they’re doing. That’s what a bad user experience is like on the web, right if your copies wrong and your features are off and it’s not mobile friendly you just drove someone to an unprepared store. So I 100% agree with you on that. Yes, it’s definitely needed. Here are some tips tips of the industry that you can do in order to kind of get yourself in the right foot, most likely whatever it is that you’re trying to sell online, someone is already selling it. Maybe not exactly the same maybe they have a different process they have a different framework, whatever the case they serve a different audience, whatever the case may be, but most likely there’s already a website out there, a competitor who’s doing that. So look at their product page, right, especially if they’re, if they’re bigger than you right they’re generating more revenue. Look at their product page the services page later and draw inspiration from there, that’s going to be your fundamentals well I should include you know a call to action and opt in and testimonials of client logos and product reviews, start making a list of what’s been featured there. When you do that, do your thing, you know make changes as you see fit for your brand your audience, etc. I wouldn’t go too crazy in a sense of moving things around right and a product page you’re not going to put the buy now point all the way to the bottom, or on the top of the header right, you’re going to kind of keep it in best practices and what the consumer is used to, but once you kind of have that defined, then you can get really creative and clever within the fundamentals of getting the product page or the service page whatever landing page correctly.

Mark Fidelman  26:31

Wow, okay. Yeah, fascinating stuff. Again, and very critical. I want to let everyone know that you save yourself a lot of money by having a highly converting process. And then a follow up I mean if you look at it as a whole funnel, if affiliates are making money because you’re also doing retargeting or you’re doing, or they’re doing retargeting, or if there’s, you know, a kind of email follow up where you’re giving them credit for that sale that can also reduce the cost of working with that affiliate. Well, at this point, is there anything and I know this is all high level, there’s a lot of detail that goes into setting up a successful program. Is there anything else that we didn’t cover that we should have covered.

Jose Quiroz  27:13

Um, no, I, the biggest takeaway for folks I think is. Keep in mind again these guys are digital salespeople, and into paper performance like it’s a very low risk to get into it. If you’re going to do it yourself obviously there’s a lot of management that has to go under and then there’s some technology that you have to keep in mind, tracking etc. But the biggest thing I just want people to take away is that there’s affiliates, doing amazing things, and experimental things and there’s so many different things in this space that you can partner with them, you know, actually I’m going to give you another quick one. We have an artificial intelligence company based out of Australia, who has been doing amazing work with Tommy Hilfiger in Australia, I can tell bad things happen Calvin Klein in Australia as well. They’re doing really great things with retailers on Australia and they’re trying to break into the states. And because they don’t have many clientele in the States, if any, they’re going on an affiliate model, where typically that software would cost you anything from five to 10 grand a month to operate. For us it costs us a X percent commission on a product right so you can speaking on full funnels we’ve had affiliates, who help the abandoned cart funnel and and then they get paid a commission on that we didn’t have the technology resources in house to build it ourselves so we were able to get some of these tech features taken care of by partnering with with affiliates. So, if anything, I just wanted to give give that in the diversity of the affiliates it’s not just about a blogger or a guy who has a Twitter account but there’s big companies out there doing things and they have an affiliate model to them.

Mark Fidelman  28:56

Okay, awesome, thank you so much. Well, we’re gonna wrap things up but we asked two final questions of everybody. The first one being. What is the hottest digital marketing technology that you recommend today.

Jose Quiroz  29:08

Yeah, so that one’s interesting because there’s so many right but this one. Yeah, yeah, the one and it’s this is a very shameless plug over at digital government that we’re a digital experience studio based out of Miami we did amazing work. We’re a boring company versus a child company to antonian parents, which is a global agency Mini Cooper at&t Burger King you name them we will work with them. We have a tool called Digital DNA and digital DNA is a database of about 2 million consumers globally. And we can tap into them, to run kind of a brand health monitor on an organization, and this will help identify likability strategic clarity and tend to recommend uniqueness brand efficiency unaided awareness innovation and this happens, both on and off and offline. So digital DNA is proprietary. But to me, that’s something that I have not seen in the space. I’ve seen folks do surveys, you know, hit a database to a focus group, but the way our platform is set up is completely digital, and we have access to these 2 million consumers and it grows, globally, that we can tap into quickly to to understand it because at the end of the day, the strongest thing in the online space is your communication is your messaging they say content is king. Well that’s because content is the only way you can communicate online, whether it’s video content text content pictures content. So to me that’s that’s the bigger tool because it helps you understand your consumer and that’s gonna save you years of hurt when it comes to trying to figure out who you’re trying to talk to online and what’s the positioning what’s the messaging and all that good stuff.

Mark Fidelman  30:49

Well, I, I love that and I don’t consider that to shameless plug because it’s really unique technology that’s that’s helping people and people should know that you offer something like that so let’s go to final, final question number two, who’s the most influential person in marketing today I know you snuck in three, which is fine if you want to go through those three but they’re all very recognizable names Who do you think they are.

Jose Quiroz  31:14

Yeah reasonably had said that I said I’m really depends on who you’re following right because we’re in this world where people have massive platforms and so if you ask a Tony Robbins Dr. Don’t say Tony Robbins, you ask Gary Vee diehard someone say Gary Vee but to me what at least in my industry and what I’ve heard, either me be compared to or oh you remind me of would be a Gary Vee Simon Sinek in the Tony Robbins. Those are the kind of guys that that stand out to me, especially when digital has an infant, and these guys are really leading the front and convincing folks and businesses that hey, digital is definitely something you should take extremely seriously. Okay.

Mark Fidelman  31:56

Um, yes I I think in those three people I all three of them I fall for different reasons I think Gary is probably the most legitimate marketer, but the other two kind of influence marketing in their own ways. Both Simon and Tony. But with that I really appreciate you being on the show I learned some things with affiliate and I consider myself an expert. Glad to see you kind of reiterate well my thinking and add, add to it. So, you know anyone listening to this that hasn’t done affiliate marketing, even if they have done affiliate marketing. This is going to be valuable to you, and Jose. With that, I want to thank you for being on the show and you know let’s let’s do this again like three six months we’ll come up with another topic that you’re an expert in that I can kind of chime in on and let’s keep educating people on marketing

Jose Quiroz  32:45

yeah yeah hundred percent thank you so much for having me. I do have some offers for your audience. Definitely

Mark Fidelman  32:51

don’t should shout it out and also let them know where they can find you.

Jose Quiroz  32:55

Okay. Yeah, perfect I think they’ll fall perfectly into the offers um you know from understanding your show and your audience I think you have to send to people your rent you have entrepreneurs and these individual CEOs who are really trying to learn digital and take it to the next level and then you have C suite or high level folks from organizations who’ve listened as well, to see what’s going on in the digital world so I wanted to have an offer for both of them so the first one for the solo entrepreneurs solo CEO was either trying to build a brand themselves or just trying to leverage digital for their brand of giving a free guidance call the guidance call is really just to help you understand the world break down some of the vernacular breakdown some of the strategies, and really just show you what this world has to offer and how you want to maneuver in it and what’s the best path for you, be working with me or not. I just feel like that’s missing in the industry as a guide. There’s a lot of cells and a lot of marketing but there’s not very many guides out there so I want to do that for folks. So the best way to go about that is you can check out the website jyqiz.com and hit me on the contact, or you can reach out to me on LinkedIn mosaic you knows or Jose kinos Digital if you look that up. And the last name is qu IR o z, shoot me a message saying, digital guidance and you know what we’ll chat and then we’ll see what’s the best approach to first to have that quick conversation to help guide you in the right direction. And then for the bigger guys that are on here the C suite guys the organizations who are listening into trying to get into. I want to offer the digital DNA tool to you guys so this will be an introductory brand health monitor for the first 10 clients to contact us, we will have some criteria, because that digital coming into like I said we work with some fairly big companies at&t for 15 excetera so we will have some criteria that will that will let you know once you kind of reach out but if you meet the criteria, and you’re within the first 10 organizations to reach out to us, then we’ll do a we utilize the digital DNA global panel to provide a snapshot on where you stand versus your competitors online and offline and again that’s going to help you track your likability give you strategic clarity and tend to recommend uniqueness Brandon efficacy unaided awareness, innovation, all of that good stuff and one of the criteria will be to provide us three competitors, so we can do that competitor analysis for you so you can check that out at digital content id.com slash brand dash health dash monitor so digital comm youtube.com slash brand health monitor and GM yet this show is hot in Spanish so ca Li E and T.

Mark Fidelman  35:32

waterful did so well. Alright, Jose pleasure again check them out. Go, go, go check out that DNA tool, I’m going to as well so

Jose Quiroz  35:43

get out let me know let me know, I’d be more than happy to kind of show you the, the inner workings of is. It’d be amazing I would love to see it.

Mark Fidelman  35:51

All right, Thank you so much,

35:53

and thank you everyone.

Transcription
Mark Fidelman 00:16
Hello, everyone, welcome to the digital brand builder podcast.
Mark Fidelman 00:21
joining me is Roger Nair. And we’re going to talk about how to use podcasts like this one, to drive sales to drive revenue branding, whatever your purposes, we’re gonna talk to Roger about how you use a podcast to do that. So I’m super excited. I’m hoping to learn something I’m sure I’m gonna learn something. But before we jump in, I want to turn it over to Roger real quick to give us a little bit of background about himself. Hey,
Roger Nairn 00:53
Mark, thanks so much for having me on the show. So my name is Roger Nan, I’m the CEO of jar audio. jar audio is a podcast production agency. We work exclusively though, with brands so we help brands get into the podcast world and create their own original podcast. So we help grow revenue and impact through ROI driven podcasts that make meaningful connections with the brand’s listeners.
Mark Fidelman 01:17
Okay, who cares about podcasts? Why is this important to brands, you know, what
Roger Nairn 01:21
brands, brands care about engagement with their audiences and and podcasts are fast becoming, you know, one of the best ways to to engage with audiences, obviously, you know, the medium itself has been around for about between five 810 years. A little bit longer than that. But But, you know, as far as the popularity goes, what we’re finding and what brands are finding is that podcast, audiences themselves are quite unique. They’re expanding and growing, but a podcast audience is highly educated, a little bit more affluent, really interested in educating themselves digging deep into subject matters. So if you have a brand can find the sweet spot and create a really fantastic value driven podcast, then they’re able to engage with their audience for a lot longer. And, and, you know, you know, you being a marketer, me, me coming from a marketing background, you know, brands brands very rarely have have a problem, you know, getting an audience’s attention, you know, through programmatic and able to target through, you know, all sorts of the new amazing digital tools we have today. That’s never really been the problem, you know, the problem is keeping that audience’s attention and, and what we’re finding is that if a brand can produce a great podcast, then they can actually hold their audience in the funnel longer. And and really, what it’s doing is it’s plugging the leaky funnel by increasing retention, you know, our podcasts, for example, get upwards of 95 to 98% retention rate throughout the entire episode. That’s a 20 to 30 minute episode. Now, I can’t think of any other medium right now that’s able to hold somebody’s attention for that long. And then, you know, there’s all the other reasons like the cost of production and all that sort of stuff. But it’s a it’s a fun time right now, and brands are wanting to get into the game, so we’re able to offer the full service dallben do so.
Mark Fidelman 03:20
Okay, so you bring up podcasting as one way to hold retention? How does that compare to like video?
03:28
Yeah, so the data that we’ve been able to pull says that when it comes to like a brand message in a video, typical YouTube video, let’s say it’s about a minute long, only gets about a 50% retention rate. And then, you know, when you think about the ROI on that, you know, the expense of producing video, you know, it’s not as great of a return as something like a podcast that’s able to retain, retain, you know, retain, listen, thanks for, you know, in our case, upwards of 95 98%. And quite honestly, you know, most are able to get upwards of 85 you know, 85 90% so this is not just a, you know, the case of ours, it’s the case across the industry wide. A lot of it has to do with the fact that podcasts cover topics that the listener is wanting to dig deep into, it’s also such a it’s such an intimate medium like it’s literally like whispering into your ear you know, you sit down you put on your earphones, you spend some time by yourself for walking the dog or washing the dishes or whatever you’re doing. And so there’s this there’s this element of just you and the and the voice and and you just get swept away and and that really helps to increase listen links as well. Okay,
Mark Fidelman 04:42
but you know, the other thing that you didn’t mention that I’ll mention because I do both video and podcast is the cost. The cost is a lot different than the production value. It’s got to be a lot higher except for sound. I mean, sounds really critical on podcast, apps and sound is critical on video as well, but there’s so many other things you have to deal with, like lighting and location. And oh, I mean, there’s so many different things. Yeah.
Roger Nairn 05:07
And yeah, and and you know not to get into the weeds too much. But being, as you know, if you want to change something in a video, if you want to edit something down the road, it’s not easy to go back in and recreate that, you know, that sort of scene and that environment and the lighting and all those sorts of things, it’s a lot easier to go in and tweak some audio, there’s some there’s some, you know, there’s some editing that still needs to be done. It’s not, you know, something that you you flick a switch on, but it’s such a more flexible medium to be able to tweak down the road.
Mark Fidelman 05:39
Yeah, agreed. So let’s move into how you turn your podcast into either lead generation or branding opportunity. I know it’s plugging in, I agree, it plugs up the holes in the funnel itself. But I’d also like to start from the top of the funnel and just say, Okay, how do people use podcasts for top of funnel type content to start people becoming aware of your brand your product, or that do that individually? even exists?
Roger Nairn 06:09
Yeah, totally. So we I mean, obviously, everything we do is is is sort of through the lens of a marketing medium. But at the end of the day, nobody’s going to listen to a 2030 minute ad. So off the top, let’s just cover that there’s very, very little mention of the brand in the podcast itself. What we do, you know, when we sit down with our clients is we start completely focused on who the listener is. So we do all the research to understand who this person is, what are they listening to one of the care about? What are the, you know, what are the things that they need to be either taught? or How can, how can they be helped or entertained? And then and then we and then we really dig deep into how the brand can serve that. So one of the questions we always ask our clients is, you know, what does the world need most that you’re most qualified to talk about. And then let’s focus on that. And so we, we sit down with our clients, and we say, you know, this is the audience that we want to either reach or move or have act, you know, make a purchase all those all the different, you know, things that we’re looking to accomplish, and we craft the podcast to make as big of an impact on them as possible. And the only way to really do that is to just deliver as much value as as possible. So, you know, and then the you know, and then the KPIs bit is obviously important, but it all flows out from what sort of a show we’re we’re producing and what we’re able to deliver for, you know, for that, that podcast to that audience. So if you’re a brand like Expedia, who’s like, who’s a client of ours, you know, they came to us and they said, you know, we have a bit of a brand challenge. And then that brand challenge is our, our, our customers don’t see us as enough of a helpful brand. And we want to be able to turn the dial up on our helpfulness metrics. Can you help us with that, and so we created a podcast with them, that is all about helping the audience hack the travel world, you know, there’s no better, you know, there’s no better brand who’s capable of helping people navigate the online travel space than Expedia. And so we created a show called out travel the system, it’s a podcast that is geared towards, you know, helping you make the most out of online travel, either purchases or research or just helping you understand how best to how best to travel. And so we create this show, it has very, very little mention of Expedia, you know, every once in a while, they’ll bring on an Expedia member that the Expedia team because quite honestly, some of their like, data scientists and some of their experts are world renowned, and they are literally the best in the world at what they do. So we created the show all about how to, you know, navigate the travel world, and and then, you know, push it out to their audience. So, you know, we have a full sort of six point marketing plan that we put together for all of our clients to do so which I can get into the details of, but the, the show, you know, the show is pushed out, and they have all sorts of different engagement, you know, gauge engagement tactics that they take to nurture that audience increase that listenership, and, you know, watch it grow.
Mark Fidelman 09:26
Well, before we jump into that, I would I would like to jump in the six point plan, but how do you decide on a focus for brand because like you said, you don’t want to talk about yourself in a podcast, it’s gonna get boring. There’s only so much you could say, and I think you can introduce aspects of your brand throughout all the different podcasts where it doesn’t seem too salesy. So my question is, okay, we have a brand, and I do a lot of videos with these brands. What is it that on the podcast side, should that brand do and how do you decide? I guess the question is, how do you decide on the What the topic should be for the brand?
10:02
Yeah, again, you know, it all goes back to the, to the audience, actually. So it’s really understanding what does the audience need? And then and then, you know, kind of turning around and, and and asking a couple questions. One is, you know, let’s look at the brand values, you know, what does the brand represent? And then what can the brand offer in the form of either skills or characteristics? I mean, you know, at the end of the day, it has to be entertaining as well. So, are there certain elements of the brand that have, you know, a humor aspect to it, or a dramatic aspect to it, and let’s lean into that. And really what it is at the end of the day is we you know, it’s we find that intersection between who your audience is what they need, and then what your brand represents and has to offer and, and in the middle of that intersection, is, at least a kernel are an opportunity for some concepts around the show. And then what we do is, we actually produce personas will produce a persona for who the you know, who are, you know, typical AUDIENCE MEMBER it is, and will use that persona to scrub up against all the concepts that we come up for potential show ideas, as well as when we get into the production, you know, when we make decisions, like, who the host is going to be, what the sound is, like? What sort of music are we going to choose? We’re again, rubbing up against the persona, and understanding and asking ourselves, would this person listened to the show? Is this helpful for this individual? are we offering enough value to them, because at the end of the day, you know, very little thing, you know, we’re gaining very little, from a brand perspective, unless it’s, you know, we’re getting very little, if we’re just having listeners listen to one episode and walk away, we want them to listen to an episode, we want them to subscribe, we want to create a relationship with them. So we can, you know, get them into that funnel, and nurture them along. So as much, you know, as much as we can understand about how to continue delivering value and continuing to deliver value is is is going to be beneficial for everything really.
Mark Fidelman 12:12
Yeah. Very well. So with that, and, you know, I always like to throw out an example, um, let’s say, you’ve got a pet CBD brand, is, you know, it’s not THC and CBD. So, you know, if you were going to start a podcast, and I am putting on the spot, so I don’t expect the perfect solution, because I know how long these things can take. But even a pet brand, I bet you could come up with some kind of a podcast, because you’d be appealing to maybe an audience that have pets that are at the end of their life, and they need some sort of CBD formula to help them through that aspect of it. But
12:54
yeah,
Mark Fidelman 12:54
what would you What are your thoughts on that?
12:57
Yeah, so you know, you let’s say you’re that CBD brand, you’re all about integrity and product in and, and science and education. So you know, so those are some of the brand values, let’s say, and then really understanding who the you know, who your audience is. So obviously, their pet owners, they’re loving and caring of their pet, this is like a child to them. And they’re going through a difficult time because they’re, you know, their pet is nearing end of life. So, you know, kind of create a will create a persona around that, let’s say it’s, you know, his name is Kevin, and he lives in San Diego, and he’s got a, you know, an older German shepherd and, and, and has tried pretty much everything when it comes to pet products at all, and is also willing to spend almost anything for his pet because again, and this is like his, his child, well, let’s scrub up some of those brand values with you know, with this persona, and, and come up with, you know, some ideas, so maybe there’s a show called canine care all about all about, you know, alternative ways for for afterlife or, or, you know, palliative care for, you know, for your, for your animals as you get closer to end of life. And then and then create a show around that so that everything everything around that show could be about alternative ways of caring for your pet, we can have multiple different guests, multiple different voices, and this is again, where we get into the production side, we make those decisions, like, you know, what type of a show are we producing? Are we producing a sort of one on one interview like we’re doing right now, or we may be addressing it from like a panel standpoint, you know, maybe an idea is every show has two different experts on one from more of a traditional medicine side and one from a more alternative medicine side and and they’re not there to argue but they’re there to just explain their side of the scenario or the you know, their point of view and and then we have our hosts kind of moderating Between the two and let and leaving it to the, to the audience to decide on on what makes the most sense for them. Or maybe we’re looking at a more of a documentary style production where we’re, you know, we’re, you know, we’re coming into the, you know, someone’s house and spending time with their pets, and really kind of learning more about who the pet is, and, and what sort of relationship that they have together and kind of weaving that throughout the story. And again, this goes back to my original point about the engagement levels of podcast is, is, you know, incorporating tools like that we call it sort of audio texture, whereby you’re shifting the conversation into different areas, or different and you’re going down different sort of roads, and avenues. Those are all ways of keeping the listener engaged and actually keeping the brain fresh and listening longer. And again, this is a marketing tool. So the longer we can have people engaged, the better. So we’re making decisions like that, again, going back to our persona, you know, what is Kevin gonna be interested in listening to? You know, what are some of the other podcasts that Kevin listens to? And what sort of storytelling tactics do they take? Let’s incorporate that in the show. And so it’s really fun, you know, it’s, it gets really fun, because we get to completely blue sky, you know, what the opportunities are in the show? And, and try to make it as, you know, listable as possible?
Mark Fidelman 16:21
Well, I have to, I have to say, everyone listening, Roger, and I did not plan that. That was him coming up with that off the cuff. And I actually think it’s a pretty good idea for a podcast. Thank you.
16:33
Thank you. Yeah, it’s my, it’s my, it’s my advertising days, where I was, spot put on the spot by many clients are like, you know,
Mark Fidelman 16:40
idea now, right? happens all the time, subtly. And they expect you to have the right answer right then and there, which is Oh, yeah.
16:47
And they’re paying for it.
Mark Fidelman 16:48
Paid for exactly. So you mentioned a six point plan. And I’d like for you to quickly kind of go through each of those in and just to give people an idea of what you do, assuming that they want to do it themselves, or they want to work with you, or whatever, they have a better understanding of what it takes.
17:07
Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first thing to remember when it comes to audience growth and marketing of your podcast is you need to think almost like a publicist, or like your, you know, you know, your Netflix or your, you know, universal and you’re pushing out your newest, your newest production, you need to look at it from from multiple angles, versus just putting some Facebook ads, online, things like that. So we look at it from six, six buckets, the first bucket is what we kind of call marketing. And that’s where we’re looking for opportunities through different different channels to promote the show, let’s, let’s say for example, you know, we’re, you know, we’re talking about our CBD podcast for pets, you know, let’s reach out to BuzzFeed, and let’s pitch them on why our show should be included in a list of the Top 10 podcasts for pet lovers, things like that, you know, these are all opportunities that you can reach out to different, you know, different channels and media to to, you know, to pitch them on why they should, they should feature you and you know, in their, in their channels, the secondary is PR and answer earned media opportunities. And this is where we’re creating, we create a PR pitch kits for for our shows, and we’re creating a media list. We start very wide with our media, we look for, you know, kind of national opportunities, New York Times, Chicago Tribune. You know, the the California market, things like that, and then we’re reaching out and pitching why, you know, our show should be should be featured. And then we’re getting a little bit more niche so so if we’re if we’re talking pets, then we’re we’re reaching out to the pet media Marcus and and we’re, you know, pitching on why our podcast should be featured in in those opportunities. And then we’re getting even even more discussion we’re getting into the more kind of media media they you know, the the media who’s covering things like podcasting and and the podcast industry, and pitching them on why there’s great opportunity to you know, tower, either our host on for, for an interview or feature our show, you know, in total, and then we’re even getting into specific podcast media, which you can pitch as well. The third area is what we call spotlighting. Now, there’s a big misconception in podcasting that when you’re featured at the top of Apple podcasts, for example, in the new and notable section, which is sort of the holy grail, as you know, of, of getting you know, the word out on your podcast, a lot of people think that that’s a, you’re beating some sort of algorithm. The reality is that those are all editorial decisions. Those are there are real people in you know, in in the apple offices who work for Apple podcasts, who are making those decisions, which means that you can pitch them, you can reach out to them. You can tell them why you think you deserve to be featured, whether it’s a new show that you’re really excited about or maybe there’s a option. opportunity, and there’s some seasonality behind it. You know, if you have a show that has a great episode that is, you know, Christmas themed or something, why don’t you pitch them on why your episode should be included in a list of great Christmas episodes, things like that. The fourth area is what we call cross promotion. And again, going back to our, you know, our persona of Kevin Raskin ourselves, what are the other shows that Kevin’s listening to, because to us, other podcasts are sort of the low hanging fruit of opportunities, because those are other podcast listeners, or, you know, those are the other podcasts that you know, our fan base is listening to. So we’re creating a big long list, and we’re just doing the legwork to reach out to all these podcasts and discuss opportunities with them. And as you know, the podcast world right now is a bit of the Wild West, and there is a ton of opportunity, and really no rules when it comes to, you know, these sorts of deals and, and and working together. So we’re, we’re we’re pitching on why our host should come on their show in exchange for maybe their hosts coming on our show. Or in some cases, we’re even swapping content, we’re saying, Hey, we’re gonna give you one of our episodes to include in your feed as a bonus episode to your listeners. And in exchange, we’ll do the same thing on our on our feed, we’re gonna include one of your episodes as a bonus episode in our feed. And so you can you know, you can play all those all those sorts of games together. And it’s, it’s, it’s really fun, and the community is quite open to those sorts of things. And then the fifth area is paid. So paid opportunities. Now, we’re not a big, you know, we’re not a big fan of paid social for promoting podcasts. It’s not to say that, that we don’t do it, we just find it doesn’t work as well as buying ads on either other podcasts, or on podcast directories. And again, it goes back to what I talked about with cross promotion is there, that’s where the, that’s where the listeners are already. So it was the
Mark Fidelman 21:51
podcast directory. Sorry to interrupt. Yeah, but where are the podcast directories before you move on?
21:56
Yeah, so so podcast directory is great example is like castbox is a is a great podcast directory, you know, there’s opportunities to buy either push notification, or display ads, um, you know, Stitcher does stitcher does advertising as well, so much like, you know, other, you know, much like other directories for for other products, you know, podcast, apps themselves, have have advertising included in them. overcast is another example. There’s about 15 of them in total, that you can, that you can reach out to and have discussions about, you know, demographics, and what the best way is to, you know, to get your, your podcast in front of those audiences. And included in that opportunity is advertising within podcasts. So there’s sort of two ways of doing that. One is the sort of what I would call the baked in way of, of podcast advertising. And that’s where you’re literally handing a script over to the host of one of those shows, and they’re reading it and, and therefore, your ad is baked into the show, it’s, it’s not going anywhere. And then there’s the dynamic advertising opportunities, that’s where you’re dynamically inserting your ad into, into a donut either in the, you know, the beginning, the middle, or the end of the show. And the great thing about that is you’re able to target specifically, you’re able to produce and, and, and push out multiple versions of your ads. And, and they’re able to target specific to demographics, and geography and geography and stuff like that. And, you know, relatively inexpensive compared to others. And then the final kind of bucket that we use is, and we really need a better name for this, but we just kind of called them more buckets. And, and really, what what this is, is we ask our clients, what’s the sort of what’s the unfair advantage you have compared to, you know, either your competitors or other, you know, other verticals. And then let’s, let’s take advantage of those and promote the show. So if you’re a bank, you know, you’re, you’re, you know, you’re sending out monthly statements, either through email or through, you know, through the third letter mail, let’s promote the show with a little line, you know, included in that about checking out the new podcast on those statements. Or if you’re a nonprofit organization, you’ve got a massive list of volunteers that are just aching to be engaged with, you know, with the organization. So you know, promote the show to them. We always talk about starting with those closest to the brand first, and then promoting outwards from there. Because they’re going to be your evangelists. They’re going to, you know, they’re going to pass on the show to others. They’re going to listen to help, you know, help, subscribe, they’re going to listen there. They’re going to subscribe, they’re going to leave your reviews. They’re gonna be excited to to push the show for you. So you get that you know that you get that organic, that you get, get that organic push. So those are the those are the six buckets now Each of our clients asked us the same question every time, which is do we need to do all six? And the answer is no. There’s the you know, it really depends on on what you’re looking to accomplish. And what’s right for the brand and, and what’s going to make the most the most sense for the show.
Mark Fidelman 25:17
Yeah, I love all those things. I want to insert my own ad into those six, we just had an episode on a four minute podcast hack, which was similar to what you said about inserting pod, your podcast ad within another podcast and that episode you could see in in our list, I think it’s the one previous to this.
25:40
That’s a great episode. Yeah. Great.
Mark Fidelman 25:42
So you’ll, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll appreciate that if you’re listening in on this. Okay, so, love everything we’ve talked about, I have learned a lot. I’m curious as to what tools you use to kind of measure the efficacy of your clients podcast, what do you tell them to get?
26:00
Mm hmm. So we firstly need a you need an online host server of some sort to, to host your file and push it out to all the different podcast directories. Now, you know, there’s a whole number of them. Lipson is one buzzsprout is another simple cast, we happen to use a program called Omni Omni studio, fantastic program, companies based out of New Zealand, beautiful people to work with. And and essentially, it’s our home for hosting our file, as well as the title of the show all the meta data, including show notes, and then we’re able to connect to all the different pocket structures and push it out. And when you do that, it then allows you to pull in all the data. And that’s really one of the most exciting parts about podcasting is the amount of data you’re able to gather. So with all of our shows, and and this will be pretty much the same with with with most of the services that you’re you know, you’re you’re going to use, you’re able to pull in all the analytics. So things like downloads the reach number of subscribers, you’re going to be able to get into the age and sex and geography of your listeners, you’ll be able to tell what devices they’re using, whether they’re listening on mobile, or desktop, or on their smartwatch or on their smart speaker. You know, it’s amazing how granular you can you can get. And that’s on a show basis, and even on an episode episode basis. And then you also have your your consumption data. And that’s where you’re able to tell how long listeners are listening to, you know, listening to an episode four, where are they dropping off? Where are they skipping? You know, when were they getting bored? Really? Where are they, you know, becoming uninterested. And if you have a show that has sort of a consistent format, and you’re seeing a consistent drop off at a certain point, you need to ask yourself, what’s going on during that part of the episode? And is there improvements that we can be making? And that’s that’s, that’s really what this data is for is it’s for improving your show, it’s for, you know, taking in and understanding what could we be doing differently better, again, focus on the listener focused on value, how can we make a better show so that it says listenable as and shareable as possible? And so all this data is, is is is available to you. Now, I will say that, when it comes to podcasting, the access to data is probably the one bit that is still very much a work in progress. I’ll give you a perfect example is every directory or and interestingly, when you listen to a podcast on your phone, like like I use a I use an app called overcast for example. overcast is actually just pulling in the data from Apple, Apple podcasts. So actually, when you connect your your show to these directories, as long as you can connect to Apple, podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, Stitcher, and let’s say radio publica, you’re pretty much getting into about 90% of all the of all the apps and opportunities out there, which is great. The challenge with that though, is Apple doesn’t release the same amount of data as stitcher does. A perfect example of that is stitcher will tell you what age and sex. The listeners were that listened to your podcast, but Apple won’t. Apple will tell you differently, you know, a little bit of different data that maybe Spotify won’t. And so you have to kind of make some educated guesses when it comes to, you know, some of this information and it hasn’t gotten to a point yet where it’s it’s it’s all uniform and cookie cutter, there are, you know, there has been the introduction of of a B into, you know, into measurement and they’re starting to certify. And and so a lot of a lot of these directories and services aren’t falling in line with how I be, you know, certifies and assesses whether something is a download or listening and things like that, but it’s still work in progress. That being said, it’s it’s, it’s fantastic information and you’re able to use it and gain a lot of value from it. But it’s, it’s not quite quite there yet.
Mark Fidelman 30:34
Yeah, I mean, it’s come a long way from when I first started podcasting, I wasn’t familiar with some of the tools you brought up. So I’m going to check them out. Because I think it is critical to find out, especially in a format like mine, where it is very similar each and every time to find out where the drop off was, or is whether it’s, you know, everyone hates me as a host. Right? No format, where they’re like, okay, I don’t care about your last two questions that you ask guests. I personally, I think they do. But you know, enjoy Jade, I really don’t know.
31:05
Yeah, or maybe you know, if you have, if you have advertising in the middle of your show, but you notice that people are skipping through it. You know, you need to ask yourself are, you know, are my listeners either pissed off that I have ads now? Or are they not the type not the type of ads that are, you know, that are resonating with them. Because the data actually shows there’s great great study that BBC came out with called BBC audio activated that said that podcast listeners 95% of podcast listeners, don’t mind hearing advertising, and actually have more affinity for brands that advertise on podcast, which is unheard of. In the advertising world. A lot of it comes down to the, you know, the the types of types of products but also the, the way that the ads are produced, a lot of them come from the the the show themselves, they’re sort of baked into the characteristics of the show, and are less sort of broadcast II and, and and more tailored to to the audience. And so
Mark Fidelman 32:07
yeah, I’m curious as to, before we go go to our final two questions. I’m curious as to if you’ve done the research on whether a host advertisement within that their podcast is more effective than just random, not randomly, but putting a branded commercial within a podcast.
32:25
Yeah, so the the data shows, and I don’t have the exact number, but the data shows that a host read ad is more effective. Because it’s, it feels like it’s more natural throughout the show itself. And, and, and therefore, it’s actually more expensive than then the sort of dynamically inserted dynamically inserted adds,
Mark Fidelman 32:45
okay, well, that that helps me because I’ve been thinking about Okay, now I’m ready to expand this, how do I expand it? And that was one of the ways I was thinking about doing it, and you brought some others earlier on today. So this has been very valuable. With that, let’s segue to our final two questions. One, I think I know what you’re gonna say. But what is the hottest digital marketing technology that you recommend people to use today? Well, I’ve
33:11
been definitely podcasting. But drilling down a little bit further, I think there’s, there’s a lot of really great engagement opportunities in podcasts when it comes to streaming. Now, you know, traditionally podcasts were downloaded, you know, downloaded directly to your phone. But now that we’re seeing more streaming streaming services, like Spotify, for example, there’s a lot more opportunities for brands to communicate in a number of different ways to listeners throughout the show, and I’ll give you a perfect example. Spotify is actually testing this out but I see no reason why they won’t just roll it out. They’re going to do a polling service so that when you’re listening to an episode let’s say we’re talking right now and and there’s an opportunity in the episode to say hey guys, why don’t you leave us your answer to this poll and the poll is you know, what do you think is going to be the future of you know future podcasting? And and and just you know, look down at your phone or maybe your phone will vibrate in a little poll will pop up and listener right then and there can respond with their answer you know, maybe it’s a multiple choice or maybe it’s an open answer but it gives an opportunity for them to feel like they’re either adding to the show and then the and then the host can take that data and and report on it in the next episode or are using in a number of different ways. I think all these things are amazing and they only helped enhance the you know, the experience I can imagine all sorts of different you know, storytelling opportunities, whether it’s kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure style way of podcasting where, you know, you’re you’re given a choice to go down, you know, sort of one dress In the story or another direction, and you’re able to choose it on your phone, and, and kind of just skip to the next know, the next section, depending on what your choices, all these sorts of things are really cool. Now a lot of the more traditional podcasting folks don’t like this because they feel like it’s slipping further and further away from, you know, sort of traditional podcasts. It’s kind of like, you know, people that don’t like video and podcasts, which, you know, there, there are those that are out there that feel like it’s, it’s always got to be just purely, you know, purely audio and stuff like that. But I’m a big believer that as long as it continues to deliver value, and there’s a reason behind it, and it’s, and it’s, it’s just going to enhance the experience, and it’s all great,
Mark Fidelman 35:39
great answer. I am one of those that don’t do podcasting and video at the same time. And it’s only because I’m a purist on the video side. It’s not because I have anything against everyone else doing it, I just look at, okay, I’ve shot those and the engagement, the amount of time people spend watching it very low compared to the other videos I put out there as well. I’m just like, okay, I could just record it and add some extra production value to it, and it would be rolling. Other things for me just hasn’t worked out. I’m sure there’s a way. Yeah,
36:15
I’m the same way. And I always ask myself, like, what’s the, you know, why do people want to listen to Why do people want to watch a zoom call session? Yes. And, and, and, and, again, I have no problem with, you know, with video and podcasting, but again, is there a way to enhance it, you know, or do it live, like through LinkedIn, and, and, and having different opportunities right then and there, you know, while you’re listening and respond to people, you know, asking questions and stuff. And so I always coach our clients who say, you know, should we should we be video on? You know, first I was asking why? And what can we do to make a difference? Whether it’s, you know, overlaying it with some really cool animation or, you know, cartoons or whatever, whatever makes sense for the brand, but to just show him a zoom call is, I don’t know. Not a fan.
Mark Fidelman 37:03
Yeah, I mean, you can do frames around we, if we do a podcast and they want video, we start with video, and then we turn it into a podcast and then the video we have B roll, we put a little frame around the two people talking or if it’s three, we put a frame around all three. So we have total start with video then go podcast, not the other way around. But yeah, you don’t have a monopoly on what’s right, what’s wrong. Exactly for your brand. Okay, let’s go to question number two. I was surprised that your answer. However, I really respect the man. So who is the most influential person in marketing today and why?
37:39
I’m a big fan of Scott Galloway. Now, for those that don’t know, Scott Galloway is a Professor of Marketing at the New York University’s Stern School of Business. He’s also an author, speaker, he has a couple podcasts. One of them is called pivot that he does with Kara Swisher. The other one is called the prof. g show. He’s also got a show on vice, and he’s got online courses, and he seems to be interviewed on all the major networks. I know, CNN is a big, big fan of his, you know, the reason that I think he’s so influential these days is he keeps focusing on the importance of brand strategy. And he believes that you can drive value with brand strategy, and, and, and communicate value through your, through your brand. And maybe, maybe it’s just, you know, maybe it’s just the timing of when he became popular, but I think, you know, with, with, with everything that’s gone on this year with COVID obviously, all all brands are having to reassess, you know, who they are and what they you know, what they represent as a brand and, and how they engage with their audiences and and, and you know, what sort of value they put into the world. It’s so easy for brands to fall immediately to all sorts of tactics, you know, programmatic buying, and, and all these sorts of things that none of it’s wrong, but I I feel like so many of them are forgetting the basics of just good brand strategy. And so he has this knack of going back to the simple and, and and talking about, you know, what that brand represents and what sort of value it’s delivering in the world. And, and you know, what brands are and what brands represent and how brands sort of navigate throughout the world, whether it’s, you know, business world or politics or education. And to me, it’s just been a really refreshing sort of reminder of how everything has to come out of good strategy. Because if it doesn’t, then you’re just sort of throwing darts in the dark and really kind of forgetting what’s important here. audience and, and and and delivering all that value to them.
Mark Fidelman 40:04
Yeah, there’s two other things you Everyone should know about Scott Galloway one, he wrote a great book, one of my favorite books called the the four horsemen, I believe was the title of it. And also, he’s got an amazing video series on YouTube that he shut down. I have no idea.
40:24
I can tell you, I can tell you. Why don’t we Why? Because he got a show on vice that I think they they took all the video down because they wanted people to, he was essentially recreating the videos on vice. Yeah,
Mark Fidelman 40:36
but I mean, his episodes were, and he’s not, you know, he’s got no inflection in his voice. But he’s got this unique sense of humor that shines through, comes across as his erudite professor. And he’s talking about complex subjects. And he makes them simple. And he makes them funny. And then all the B roll and the cartoons and all the animation really add to each of these videos. And they’re shot in black and white. I’m like, What the heck yeah.
41:03
>And he’s got a lot of, he’s got a lot of heart.
Mark Fidelman 41:05
He does. He’s got a lot of heart. And it works. You know, this bald, geeky looking guy, he comes. You know, he knows he knows his stuff. Yeah. I was just surprised to see Scott Galloway as your choice. But I understand that now. With branding, I think especially in today’s day and age, you got to have a strong brand. And once you do have a strong brand, and you have a community behind you, you can do almost anything in that space. So yeah, I’m in podcast, obviously, as we’re talking about today, podcast is one way more way to add to that brand. So Roger, I want to wrap things up, had a fantastic discussion. I think everyone’s learned a lot. I know, I learned a lot. I would love to have you back maybe in six months to talk about something very specific to podcasting, which, you know, we could talk about offline. But yeah, I mean, any closing thoughts before we wrap up?
42:02
No, no, I truly appreciate the opportunity to have the conversation though. The one thing I will mention to everyone listening, we run a webinar, which you’re all invited to, it’s a biweekly webinar. If you go to gr audio.com, forward slash webinar, you can sign up we we, we conduct this webinar for the marketing community, and really any communication professionals. It’s called 10 reasons why your brand needs a podcast now. And we’d really dive deep into all the reasons behind why brands should be getting into podcasting. But then we also get into how to get started, you know, really an expansion of the conversation today. You know, do’s and don’ts, opportunities and and really get into the, you know, the nitty gritty of how the sausage gets made.
Mark Fidelman 42:54
Wonderful, and we will add those to the show notes. So it’s jar audio.com forward slash webinar. Yes, I see that. All right, Roger. Thanks again. And I look forward to talking to you on another subject in about six months.
43:07
Thanks, Mark.