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Digital Marketing Strategies with Jim Banks · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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A lot of cases, what happens is is that people kinda get sucked down a bit of a vortex.
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They end up in this kind of big rabbit hole kinda going down into a spiral and and spending
0:09
money on things that really, you know, they they probably should stay away from initially.
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Hi.
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This is Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady host of the small bizchett podcast.
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I want to serve you.
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Left off.
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Ending small business failure.
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Welcome to the small biz chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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Melinda Emerson.
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Hi, everybody.
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This is Professor Melinda Emerson.
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And welcome back to the small business lady university.
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I am so excited to have with me a guest expert today.
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His name is Jim Banks.
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Listen, he is one of the original gangsters of digital marketing.
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He's been doing it for 22 years.
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He has generated over 1 point $7,000,000,000.
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That's billion with a beat for his customers in revenue and over 2a half 1000000 in leads for
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B2B Businesses.
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So whether you sell products or you target people, he's got it.
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He's absolutely got it for us today.
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And so Jim, thank you so much for being here.
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My students are so excited to hear from you.
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Thank you so much for inviting me to come and talk to you, Melinda.
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It's it's, it's great.
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I've heard so so many great things about, about your course, and I'm I'm privileged and honored
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to, to come and talk to students.
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Well, thank you.
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Thank you so much.
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And so so tell us a little bit.
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Like, if if you are just getting started with online ads, What is the first thing that you
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need to do?
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Cause I think sometimes people think they need to just rush out and throw a bunch of money at
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Facebook, and I'm like, What is it that you need to do before you get to that?
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What are what are the steps?
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Walk us through what you need to kinda understand first before you just jump out
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there.
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So you're absolutely right.
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That's I think the mistake a lot of people make is they just get their credit card, put it into
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Facebook, or Google, and start spending money on advertising, and assume that that like a
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magic one that's gonna kinda conjure up all these great successes, and they'll get some
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success.
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No doubt.
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Right?
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But the reality of it is is that, you know, I think in in a lot of cases, That's the biggest
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mistake that people make is that they start to spend money without having thought through
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their strategy in advance.
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Right?
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So I think before you, you kind of start spending money you need to put in place some
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foundational activities.
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Right?
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So if you take and I'm gonna talk in terms of Facebook and Google, right, because those are
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the sort of 2 that between them have got like, probably an 80, 90% market share.
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Right?
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And I think most advertisers will get great success if they run Facebook and Google.
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Right?
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I see a lot of people will just run Facebook or just run Google.
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Right?
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And I think, really, you'll have kind of success with both And again, it's the the the
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beauty of paid advertising is, you know, it's something that you can kind of start small and
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build up on, right, and and you can sort of scale it over time.
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But but in in the case of, you know, Facebook, Facebook have, something called a pixel.
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And what you need to be doing is you need to put your pixel on your site.
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So then that way, when people are visiting the site, Facebook knows what pages people have
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have been to, Right?
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So that they can actually understand a little bit better who they should be serving ads to
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based on the content of your site.
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Right?
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And when it comes to Google, Google have obviously a multitude of of sort of software
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solutions in their suite Right?
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So you've got sort of Google ads itself.
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I started buying Google ads right from day 1.
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I think I was one of the first three hundred advertisers that Google had.
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Right?
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And since then, it's kind of evolved.
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It's become a bit more like a Swiss army knife.
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Right?
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It's all of a sudden, it's got all these extra bells and whistles.
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Right?
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So what started off first off with, you know, just people buying keywords.
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Right?
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What's evolved now is you have people that are running shopping ads and they're running
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display ads and they're running you know, all sorts of different formats.
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And, again, I think it's overwhelming that, you know, people think they can just kinda go in,
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put in their credit card and just buy a couple of keywords.
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And you can Right?
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But in a lot of cases, what happens is is that people kinda get sucked down a bit of a vortex.
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They end up in this kind of big rabbit hole kinda going down into a spiral and and spending
5:05
money on things that really, you know, they they probably should stay away from initially.
5:09
Right?
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So, again, I think it it's important that, you know, you put in place the right mechanisms to
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be able to track your conversions.
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You need to set yourself a realistic goal in terms of what an acquisition should cost,
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right, and what a lot of people don't do is they don't factor into account their own time.
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Right?
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So again, if if you're selling, let let's say you're selling sneakers.
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Right?
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And you are selling sneakers for 80 bucks.
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That's what, obviously, the retail cost that the the cost to you might be 40 bucks.
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But then, obviously, that that in in theory means you have a sort of gross profit of 40,
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but then over and above that, you've got the cost of shipping.
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You've got the customer customer service.
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There's lots of additional ancillary costs that go with that.
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Right?
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So you need to kind of come up with a realistic, I can afford to spend x amount of
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dollars acquiring a new customer for this product.
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Right?
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And again, it'll it'll vary.
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Sometimes you know, people are selling different products with different margins.
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So rather than having one strategy for everything, you need to kind of, try and have
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something that is more in tune with specifically the products that you're trying to
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sell, right, so that you have a different strategy for those.
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Does that make sense?
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It does.
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It does.
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And but I isn't there a step even, like, before you get to that, though?
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Like, don't you have to kinda look at, do you have a good product?
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Right?
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You have a good price.
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It's a kind of good old sort of marketing principles.
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You need to kind of have the right products in the right place and the right promotion, you
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know, so so, yeah, so so those fundamentals have got to be there.
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Right?
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You need to understand the competitive landscape to know who it is that you're going
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up against.
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Right?
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And again, the the beauty of, you know, places like Google is Google give you, like, like,
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they call it a keyword planner.
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Right?
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So you can sign up for a Google Ads account.
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Like, you just, you know, put in a credit card that gives you the account.
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They have some tools one's called the keyword planner.
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What it will do is it will give you the ability to type in a keyword.
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It will give you ideas on the themes that you may want to kind of create campaigns around.
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It'll also give you keyword suggestions, and it will give you some ballpark prices on what they
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feel realistically, the cost should be.
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I always say to people, whatever those costs are, ignore them.
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Right?
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Because Google are looking after Google, Facebook, I'm looking after Facebook.
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I'm looking after you.
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Right?
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So whatever they say, ignore it because that's not realistically what you ought to be paying
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in sort out the gates.
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That's not to say that in time, you may not get up to that.
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Right?
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But it's it's something that I think if you go go with what they suggest to begin with, you're
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just gonna get hurt.
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So, obviously, you can type in your keywords.
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They will then give you some suggestions on what terms you may want to bid on.
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And then, obviously, from there, you know, you can kinda set up your your campaigns.
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You need to set up what they call an ad group.
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On Google.
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So, again, that that tends to be kind of, driven by a theme.
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And I always kinda say your your ad groups should really kind of line up with whatever
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product is that you're selling.
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Right?
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So if you're selling, again, if you're selling sneakers, you may have, you know, men's
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sneakers, women's sneakers, children's sneakers, Right?
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And then you so those would be your ad groups, and then your ads and landing pages will be
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unique to that particular sort of subcategory of product.
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Right?
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Cause again, I think, you know, what you what you want to try and do is you're trying to find
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a good a good fit.
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I always say to my clients, I'm much more concerned about your clients than I am about
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you.
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Right?
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That's not I I don't want to serve them, but I I feel if I do a good job of serving their
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clients, right, by providing the right product at the right price with the right promotion,
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the right landing page, the right amount of information for them to make an informed
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purchase, then we're we'll be in good shape.
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Right?
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I think there's much more likelihood of them buying it.
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Right?
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Cause again, if you look at sort of Google.
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Google is a place where people go to look for things.
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Facebook is somewhere where you're interrupting what it is that they're there to do.
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Right?
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So your your ads on Facebook would need to be different and sort of like kind of be again,
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most people will be doing things on mobiles.
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I always say to people, know, you've got to sort of think of that that in most cases,
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you're looking at probably 70 to 75% of traffic will be on mobile.
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Just because it might look fantastic on a big, you know, 27 inch IMac, right, in 4 k
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resolution, right, you've really gotta say, well, how does it look on a small iPhone?
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Right?
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Cause that's ultimately, in in most cases, what people are using in which to kind of make
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informed decisions.
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And also, I think a lot of people are sort of dual devices.
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Right?
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So in a lot of cases, they might be watching TV and they're on a phone or they're on a tablet.
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So, again, it's trying to understand how those types of behaviors could influence their
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purchasing decision making process.
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Okay.
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So you mentioned mobile.
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I'm glad you did because Do you have to buy ads differently for mobile devices, or can you use
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your same pay per click ads?
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You you can use it.
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You can you you can use the same ads but I think, again, I think what you what you need to
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understand is the context of the a keyword can be different depending on time of day, day of
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the week, location.
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Right?
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So again, if if I type in, the word pizza, right, Right?
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Say it again.
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Let's let's say I'm based in in London, and I type in the word pizza and Google knows because
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of my device and my GPS, that I'm somewhere in like Manhattan.
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Right?
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If I type in pizza, they're not going to suggest ingredients for me to go and make one
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myself.
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Right?
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They're going to know the context that it's like 10 o'clock at night.
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I'm probably looking for somewhere where I can get a bit of pizza to eat.
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Right?
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So the the keyword can have different context depending upon the time of the day, the day,
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the week, and everything else.
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Right?
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So again, as an example, at the time of this shooting, right, we've got Mother's Day coming
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up.
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Yeah?
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And that's in what about about a week and a half's time.
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Right?
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So so, again, like, at the moment, I'm I'm working with a company who's doing big, big
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things in Mother Day.
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And one of the campaigns that they were trying to run was for the UK.
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And in the UK, Mother's Day is actually on a different day of the year.
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Right?
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So we have Mother's Day here on 27th March.
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Right?
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Oh, wow.
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Okay.
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Rather than the 9th May.
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Right?
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And I'm thinking, you know, and again, that's that's where sort of some of that that sort of
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local knowledge can really come into play.
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You know, so again, if you if you're purely selling online, that context is really
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important.
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So again, different different devices.
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So, again, I look at the weather quite often if it's like heavy snow.
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I mean, obviously, with with the pandemic, things have kind of been turned on their head a
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little bit.
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But again, there's there's been a lot of companies that have done really, really well
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because they're offering curbside pickup and and things like that, which you need to include
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in the the wording in your ads.
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Right?
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Because, obviously, you know, what what you're looking for is to tell people what it is you're
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promoting, but also to to tell them why they should kind of come by something from you.
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Right?
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So again, if it's you know, it could be, you know, your promotions are you offer free
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shipping, you offer curbside delivery, free returns.
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Right?
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There's all sorts of different things that you can include in and around your ad to make
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people compelled to want to kind of buy from you, to take some of that risk away.
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Right?
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Cause I think, again, a lot of people If it's certainly if it's a significant purchase, they
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don't want to have kind of like buyer's remorse.
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They wanna go.
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I spent 300 bucks.
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Why did I buy that?
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Wanna waste the money.
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Right?
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They just wanna be able to know that they have the opportunity to kind of reverse it if they
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need to, you know, and and again, I I think that's that's sort of, quite an important part
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of what what people need to do.
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So let's talk about the landing experience.
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So I so I see your ad for chuck sneakers.
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I click on it.
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It takes me to your
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landing page on your website.
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Can you talk
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about sort of like landing page best practices and and what that landing experience should be
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like?
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What I'm gonna tell you, Melinda, is I'm gonna tell you some of the things that I think a lot
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of people do as a mistake.
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Right?
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So so there's a lot of people that that make huge mistakes when it comes to e commerce
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businesses.
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Right?
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And if I can kinda give people, any advice, it's like, don't make these mistakes.
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Right?
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Cause again, if you if you if you think about the platforms, right, so so the main forms and
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sort of, like, we we work primarily with, ecommerce businesses that run on Shopify.
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Right?
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That's not to say that we haven't run with businesses on BigCommerce Magento and so on.
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Right?
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But but, you know, we we kind of tend to work with businesses that run Shopify because they
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have again, they have an ecosystem that kind of caters to small, medium, and large sized
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businesses.
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Right?
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And then people can kinda grow into the ecosystem as they go along.
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But again, there there's also this kind of, an app store directory of all these third party
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vendors that have tools that go to support the building of a a kind of, a Shopify store.
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The challenge is that some of them are they they come at a cost.
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Right?
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So you have to pay to kind of use them.
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Right?
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And they also can slow your site down.
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Right?
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So, some of the things that I see a lot of people do, which I really think which they
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wouldn't, is you know, imagine you type in, you know, as as you you you type something into
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Google, you click on the link, you go through to the landing page before you've had a chance
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to do anything at all on the site, Right?
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The first thing you'll do is you'll get a big pop up that says, hey.
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Do you want to kinda, like, get 15% off?
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Give me your email address and sign up for my newsletter.
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And it's like, you had no chance to form any sort of relationship or report with those
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people.
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Right?
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So why are you trying to offer them?
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An incentive to kind of, like, sign up for your newsletter.
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They've they've got no reason to want to do that because they don't know anything about
14:46
your business at that particular point.
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Right?
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So I'm not saying that you shouldn't get people to want to try and sign up for your newsletter.
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That's important, but not right out the gates.
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Right, in the same way that I don't think you should be trying to give the game away right
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out the gates by offering people a discount.
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Right?
15:03
Cause again, it's like, you know, if if your product if you feel that your product is good
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and reasonably priced, then why offer a discount?
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I mean, obviously, at the moment, anyone that's kind of promoting things for mother's day,
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right, there's heavy heavy discounting going on because that's what they feel.
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You know, again, it's it's all I I I mean, sadly, my mom passed away a couple of years
15:23
ago, but I can just think to myself, I can't imagine saying to my mom, well, I was gonna buy
15:27
you a present, but I couldn't find a decent enough discount, so I didn't get apprentice.
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Right?
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You bet.
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Not.
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It just wouldn't happen.
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Right?
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So so I think in some respects, like, there are times when a a good promotion is really
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important.
15:40
Right?
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And there are times when it's less important, certainly on the b to b side of things.
15:44
Right?
15:44
So again, let's say, you know, I worked with a company that was doing emergency callout for,
15:49
like, flooding.
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They don't need to come, like, worry about somebody shopping around for discounts or
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anything like that.
15:54
It's like, if you've up to here with water, right, in your living room and the water's
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rising, rising, not gonna go.
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I'm just gonna check to see if I can get another quote from another company to see if
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they're $10 cheaper than that.
16:06
No.
16:06
The
16:07
first guy that answered
16:08
the phone.
16:08
You can get here first.
16:10
Right?
16:10
And sometimes it it is.
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It's like, who's their first, right, will be the most important thing.
16:15
So, again, one thing I would suggest if you're doing b to b, and it is a kind of an emergency
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service type solution, then click to call ads are really important.
16:25
Right?
16:25
So that's people will will, you know, you can kind of have people phone you directly.
16:30
So, yeah, so so that's something that I would I would definitely recommend if you if you are
16:34
doing kind of B2B and you are a kind of an emergency service like plumber or, you know,
16:39
HVAC repair or something like that, then have it have the ability to be able to get talking
16:46
to people kind of like quickly.
16:48
Now what about if you're selling something like candles or luxury chocolate or some something
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that will like, but people don't need.
16:57
Right?
16:57
Like, how do you how do you do that?
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Like, what's the best strategy to do that?
17:02
Yeah.
17:02
So so, I mean, that that that's an interesting point.
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I mean, again, I think a lot of a lot of the, that the reasons why people kind of do this
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It's driven by, in in a lot of cases, the opinions of other people.
17:14
Right?
17:14
So I think if you have, like, a lot of reviews of people that have used your service, I I will
17:19
say to people, like, there's 3 golden rules of of, like, getting reviews.
17:24
The first one is to ask for them.
17:26
The second one is to ask for them, and the third one is to ask for them.
17:30
Right?
17:30
Cause so many people don't get reviews because they don't ask for reviews.
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So the most important thing is to just ask for them and people will give them.
17:38
Right?
17:38
You don't have to offer them an incentive.
17:41
You know, it it's it's just something like, hey.
17:43
How did we do?
17:44
You know, it did kind of what we send you, catted that work.
17:47
But but, again, I think when it comes to, selling that experience, again, that's where I
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think sometimes the quality of your supporting information.
17:56
So again, like, if you're gonna do, something like candles, right, then I would probably
18:00
shoot a video, right, and have a video ad that runs on Facebook as a means to kind of promote
18:05
that product.
18:06
Right?
18:06
And it, again, it could be a woman lying in the, I mean, you have to be careful with, like,
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nudity and stuff like that.
18:12
Any sort of skin, anything anything that skin related, Facebook don't like it, but, you know,
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but it's something that, you know, you you could have something where people could kind of
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visualize that candle in their hallway or something like that.
18:24
Mhmm.
18:25
And and also, I think the the one thing I would sort of suggest is when you're trying to to
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kind of make sales, what you want to try and do is you want to try and offer people the ability
18:35
to kind of increase their average order value.
18:37
So, again, it could be that, you know, let's say you're selling a candle that's 20 bucks,
18:42
you might offer, you know, free shipping if they buy 2 candles, Right?
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And then that way, you know, you're increasing your average order value from $20 to $40.
18:51
Right?
18:51
And the extra money that it'll cost you for sending out you know, and you paying for the
18:56
shipping will will hopefully be more than offset by the increased sale.
19:00
Right?
19:00
Cause you're still acquiring a customer, what you're doing is you're requiring a $40 customer
19:04
rather than a $20 customer.
19:06
But let's talk about that now.
19:07
If you're selling online, Let's say you're selling on a marketplace, like you're selling
19:12
on Amazon or something like that, don't you have to take into account in your pricing?
19:18
Not just the cost of being on that marketplace, but also the cost of the shipping, the cost of
19:25
the ads because people can buy ads on Amazon too now.
19:28
So Yeah.
19:28
Yeah.
19:29
You know, isn't the pricing thing really important?
19:32
Because you can be making a whole sales is still not making money if you didn't price your
19:35
product correctly.
19:36
Yeah.
19:36
And and I I think, again, I think a lot of a lot of promotional stuff will really kind of
19:41
come down to how likely is it that people are going to buy again?
19:45
Right?
19:45
I get you know, so if you're selling a product that is you know, more likely to be a kind of
19:51
rep repetitive product, then you may want to kinda like take a small hit on acquiring that
19:57
first customer knowing that they're from a lifetime value perspective, they are gonna be
20:01
more valuable.
20:02
Right?
20:02
So again, like, if you're selling a subscription of some description, so, you know,
20:05
let's say you're doing Socks of the month club or something like that.
20:09
Right?
20:09
So people buy a box with some pairs of socks in it.
20:12
Right?
20:12
And then every month, you send them another box with some more socks in it.
20:16
Right?
20:16
So you know, that initial sale is obviously you're acquiring a a a sort of customer, but
20:22
then lifetime value wise, you may kind of get 3, 4, 5 maybe even 12 kind of repeat purchases
20:28
down the line.
20:29
Right?
20:29
And that's where that segmentation, right, this is where you know, it's important that you try
20:34
and use your sort of email platforms and things like that to segment your audience into the way
20:39
in which they actually kind of interact with you.
20:42
Right?
20:42
So again, we we try and work on the basis of, you know, you've got sort of the awareness.
20:47
People don't know who you are.
20:48
Consider a They kind of know who you are, but they want to know more about what you sell,
20:53
right, the purchase, which is they're actually at the point where they got their credit card
20:56
in their hand.
20:57
Right?
20:57
And a lot of people kinda try and dive in at that point.
21:00
Right?
21:00
And it's just go, hey.
21:01
Buy my.
21:02
Buy my things.
21:03
You've talked to all talk to all these people.
21:04
Here's my stuff.
21:05
I'm gonna sell you.
21:06
Right?
21:06
And you want to try and be in the in the conversation right the way through.
21:09
Once you get past that purchase, what you're then looking for is you're looking for the
21:13
people that will become your advocates and your evangelists, right, because they're the people
21:17
that will help spread the word about your company, right, socially, so, you know, social
21:22
social media can be really good in that respect.
21:25
Right?
21:25
And I've seen a lot of companies will use, you know, 3rd party solutions to help them kind of
21:30
set up some sort of like an affiliate program where people can recommend the product to other
21:34
people.
21:34
You know?
21:35
And again, there'll be people that you will know Right?
21:37
Casigory, this person will buy three times a year.
21:40
They'll buy something for their mom, something at Christmas, something, you know, Easter, So,
21:45
you know, you can probably model it out and work on the basis that that particular customer
21:49
might be worth four times whatever your typical kind of line item for you for your sole product
21:56
might be.
21:57
Sure.
21:58
Now I wanna ask you a question, and I know certainly is someone that owns an agency.
22:03
I can guess what your your answer might be to this, but should people really do their own
22:10
Facebook ads, or do they really need to hire help?
22:13
So I I I think it's a kind of combination of both.
22:17
Right?
22:17
The reason I say that, I I think that you need to understand the process of what it's like to
22:23
buy media for yourself.
22:24
I think also you need to educate yourself, and I guess, where people like yourself come in
22:28
with the courses that you sell to help educate people on what the right things to do are.
22:33
Right?
22:33
Cause again, it's it's like buying media from Facebook, Google doesn't come with a manual to
22:37
tell you exactly how to do it.
22:38
Right?
22:39
They, like I said, they have lots of videos, tutorial videos, that will tell you how to
22:43
spend a lot of money, but they don't necessarily have a vested interest.
22:47
If you make bad mistakes, that's on you.
22:50
That's not on them.
22:50
Right?
22:51
They'll take your money regardless.
22:52
Right?
22:53
And that and not being kind of critical of Facebook and Google.
22:55
It's just like, that's the way it is.
22:56
You know?
22:57
And I think that that that the challenges is is that, you know, if you want to to kind of take
23:01
things to another level.
23:03
The the important thing is to try and find the right sort of people to work with to give you
23:08
the ability to kind of scale it.
23:10
Right?
23:10
Cause again, what what you don't want to do, you know, if you have the capability to bring
23:13
it in house, right, then that might be an option.
23:16
But but, again, I think when when you look at it, I mean, you know, Google and Facebook
23:19
probably update their platform 50 to a hundred times a year.
23:23
Right?
23:23
So it's very, very difficult to keep up to date with all of the changes that that kinda go on.
23:28
Right?
23:28
And sometimes, you know, things that might have worked for you historically stop working for
23:33
you because the rules changed and you don't you didn't you weren't aware that the rules
23:37
changed.
23:37
And and I I always kinda say to to to kind of my clients.
23:40
I'm like, I will put far more money on the table than I will ever take off it.
23:45
Right?
23:46
So for me, it's like, I don't consider the cost of an agency.
23:49
As a cost.
23:50
I actually see it as an investment in the growth of their business.
23:54
But, you know, but I would say that because I'm running a agency.
23:58
Sure.
23:59
Well, I just really wanted you to give my students some perspective because I think that,
24:03
you know, I'm teaching them this course.
24:05
I'm teaching them the what I'm teaching them a little bit of the strategy, but I'm not
24:09
teaching them the how.
24:11
And that's because that's a whole another course I would have to teach to really be like
24:15
how to actually place ads.
24:18
I'm I'm just explaining the anatomy of an ad and sort of, like, strategy and the stuff you
24:22
need to know.
24:23
But I do think that it
24:24
is Yeah.
24:24
And and and I think I think really it's it's almost like, if you are going to approach an
24:28
agency, then you need to understand what it is you're getting for your money.
24:33
Right?
24:33
Cause again, I think I've seen a lot of people, again, we get we get approached by a lot of
24:37
companies who wanna work with us.
24:39
And when you actually look at what they've been running before, right, you realize that they've
24:43
been really badly ripped off.
24:44
And I hate that.
24:44
I hate the fact that, you know, that customers are being ripped off by agencies.
24:49
And, again, I think sometimes I don't even think it's the agency deliberately trying to go
24:53
out their way to rip them off.
24:54
I think it's just the way in which the commercial arrangement that they set up worked.
24:58
Right?
24:59
So so for me, again, I I think it's, you know, it's important that you, you know, you try and
25:04
sort of understand what sort of questions you should be asking of an agency, but I definitely
25:09
think if you've had the opportunity to kinda get your hands dirty a little bit yourself, to
25:14
start with, it will give you a much better understanding as to what's involved.
25:18
So you you'll appreciate people when they actually do come along if you do decide to kind
25:23
of go out and and sort of, you know, hire a marketing partner to kind of work with you that
25:27
you'll have a much better appreciation as to what's involved how much time it takes and what
25:32
the the kind of nuances of it are.
25:34
So if I'm just getting started, like, just getting started with Google pay per click ads
25:39
on Google or Facebook ads, what kind of, daily budget should I have in mind to test initially?
25:45
Do I need fifty bucks a day to test?
25:48
Do I need to
25:49
So, again, I I would I would probably say if you if you can spend, a lot of time to set up a
25:53
business you know, it's gonna be unrealistic for you to spend $5 a day forever and turn it
25:59
into an eight figure business.
26:01
Right?
26:01
It's just not gonna happen.
26:02
But but, you know, but I think it's it's something that, you know, I think just sort of
26:06
start off with.
26:07
I would probably suggest and and I always say to people, look, what you need to do is you
26:11
need to go in with your, expectations set right at the beginning.
26:15
Right?
26:16
I would I would say take a $1000 on Facebook, $1000 on Google, and expect that if nothing,
26:22
you know, if nothing else happens, you've blown $2.
26:25
And I I I always say that you will never ever not get success from $2000, but at least if you
26:31
kinda go in with that sort of as your as your expectation, And, also, it it really depends on
26:36
what time of year you decide to start promoting.
26:38
Right?
26:38
I mean, right at this particular point in time, it's mother's day.
26:41
It's very active.
26:42
There's lots of people out there buying.
26:44
So it's much more competitive.
26:45
So, you know, your money would go less far.
26:48
Right?
26:48
So I think it's it's really, again, just try and pick your moments.
26:52
Right?
26:52
You don't need to necessarily be on all the time.
26:54
And, again, that's that's what I always say to people, the beauty of paid media is you can
26:59
switch it on and off, right, so that, you know, again, I always say to people, if you start
27:04
ranking, so, again, let's say you were you were selling sneakers and all of a sudden, Google
27:09
decided that your site was the best site in the whole world for the term sneakers, right, and
27:14
you went from getting 10 visits a day to a million visits a day.
27:18
You just wouldn't be able to cope with the volume of incremental sales right, with your
27:22
little kind of two people that are packing boxes and shipping them out the door.
27:26
You just wouldn't be able to cope with the volume.
27:28
Whereas at least with paid media, you have the ability to say, Hey.
27:31
We've got capacity to kind of my my brother's gonna come and help me pack some boxes so we
27:36
can actually sell some more.
27:37
You know, I don't have to worry about cash flow because I've got sort of some, a kind of line
27:41
of it from the bank or something so I can actually take some more more risks with it.
27:45
I think that, you know, it's not it's not just the media itself.
27:48
That you need to kind of look at.
27:49
You need to look at all facets of the business, right, which is why, again, I think it's really
27:53
important that people need to learn the foundations of running a business rather than
27:58
just the foundations of buying ads because I think a lot of people just go credit card.
28:03
Facebook, Google, pilot in, start spending a ton of money, and don't really have a
28:08
successful business because they don't understand the mechanics of how running a
28:12
business work.
28:13
Right?
28:13
And payroll and, you know, P and L and That stuff.
28:17
Cash flow and everything else.
28:20
Well, you know, in this course, we kinda walk them through all of those things.
28:24
We talked about the nuts and bolts of starting
28:25
Which is great.
28:27
You know, we talked about all the different aspects of online marketing and what's involved
28:32
in that and really understanding who your target customer is and getting real, real clear
28:36
about that person and their needs and wants and desires And then we talked about, you know,
28:40
when you first get started in business, you might not have money, right, to buy ads.
28:44
So we talked about how to sell without ads and different things you can do, getting in gift
28:49
guides, sending product to influencers, you know, like, the kind of stuff you can do that
28:53
cost you money, but it's
28:54
The scrappy stuff.
28:55
Right?
28:55
Yeah.
28:55
The scrappy gorilla.
28:57
Ninja ninja stuff.
28:58
Right.
28:58
Yeah.
28:59
And then and then and now we're it's like, if you wanna scale a business, the only way to
29:04
really scale a business that largely sells online is to put paid ads into your marketing
29:10
mix.
29:10
Right?
29:11
Obviously, it's not the only thing doing?
29:12
I I definitely think paid ads can be, like, the rocket fuel that really kinda gets your ship
29:16
off the ground.
29:17
Right?
29:17
I mean, that can kind of, like, launch you stratospheric if you get it right.
29:21
You know, and again, the the the beauty of it is, you know, it's so easy to kinda set it up,
29:26
and it's, like, it is so easy to scale.
29:29
That if you, you know, if you kind of set yourself up at the right time, you know,
29:32
there's no reason.
29:33
I mean, the the thing with SEO is it's a it's a slow burning process, right, as much as you
29:37
want it to succeed Right?
29:38
There's no guarantee.
29:39
1, there's no guarantee it's gonna work.
29:41
2, it could take 6 to 9 months before you start ranking for the terms that you wanna rank for.
29:46
And like I said before, you could get to the point where you start ranking.
29:49
You get so much traffic.
29:50
You can't cope with the sales volume that comes with it.
29:52
Right?
29:52
Whereas at least with paid media, you have the ability to kind of toggle it down, turn it
29:57
down, turn it off, right, or or turn it up if you kinda want more sales.
30:01
So it's it's more pliable and and, you know, you can do more with it.
30:04
But it's gotten a lot more complicated.
30:07
Right?
30:07
It used to be
30:07
It has.
30:08
Yeah.
30:09
Yeah.
30:09
I mean, again, it I I think it's got more complicated.
30:12
I mean, you know, like, just in the last couple of days, you know, Apple have introduced some
30:17
new privacy kind of requirements on, iOS, which is the Apple operating system for people on
30:22
Iphones.
30:23
Right?
30:23
So all of a sudden, Facebook's gone from being a sort of really granular targeted kind of
30:29
platforms to all of a sudden gonna be estimating a lot of the conversions, and that's
30:32
catching a lot of people out.
30:33
A lot of people are worried about that.
30:35
I think fortunately for your students, don't have to worry about that because they they will
30:39
only know this kind of version 2.
30:41
They won't know the old one.
30:42
Right?
30:43
So they're in good shape.
30:44
Good stuff.
30:45
Good stuff.
30:46
Well, so if I had to ask you one last question, what is the best advice you could give someone
30:51
who's starting out with online ads, what would you tell them?
30:55
I would say don't give up.
30:56
I see so many people get this close to success.
30:59
And then they kind of throw in the towel.
31:01
Right?
31:01
Just don't give up.
31:03
But but but also, again, I mean, I'm I run a a sort of a forum for media buyers.
31:08
There are lots of people that will quite happily help you for free.
31:11
Again, I help a lot of people for free with advice and help.
31:15
To kind of give them some guidance on what needs to be done.
31:17
I quite I quite often will audit people's accounts for them and just kind of give them
31:21
some, you know, general kind of feedback on what to do and how to do it and everything
31:25
else.
31:26
But, yeah, don't don't give up.
31:28
You know, don't don't think that you'll ever be able to take on some of these big kind of deep
31:32
pocketed publicly traded companies that spend a lot of money, don't try and be them.
31:36
Just try and kind of weave your way sort of in in between the gaps.
31:40
And, you know, and and find your place and and, yeah, and just sort of stick with it.
31:44
I think it's a fun space.
31:45
And like I said, I've I've been very 4 I've made a very good living for the last 22 years
31:49
doing it and hope to to do it for however long, you know, until I probably get bored of doing
31:55
it.
31:55
I don't think I'll ever get bored of doing it, but, you know, may get to the point where I
31:58
decide to kind of call time and retire, but, you know, I don't know.
32:03
Well, thank you so much, Jim Banks.
32:05
You have been a well wealth of information.
32:07
I really, really appreciate you and appreciate your time.
32:11
Thank you, Melinda.
32:12
It's been great.
32:13
Now thank you so much, Jim Banks.
32:15
I really appreciate your time here on the small business chat podcast.
32:19
You know, you just drop Jim after Jim after Jim.
32:22
And for the rest of you, if you're interested in learning more about how to sell and market
32:25
online, head over to small business lady university and check out my new course how to
32:30
sell and market online.
32:31
It's there for you, and there are many more to come.
32:34
So with that, I hope you all have enjoyed this episode of the small business chat podcast, and
32:38
we'll see you next time.
32:42
Thank you for listening to the Small Biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
32:47
For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
32:53
Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.