You can save 20%+ on your ad spend by knowing exactly where your customers hang out?

Welcome to The Did You Know Podcast by Varisource, where we interview founders, executives and experts at amazing technology companies that can help your business save a lot of time, money and grow faster. Especially bring awareness to smarter, better, faster solutions that can transform your business and give you a competitive advantage

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Welcome to The Digital Podcast by Varisource, where we interview founders and executives at amazing technology companies that can help your business save time and money and grow grow especially bring awareness to smarter, better, faster solutions that can transform your business. 1.5s Hello, everyone. This is Victor with Varisource. Welcome to another episode of the Did You Know Podcast. And today I am super excited of our guest, which is Win Big Media, we got Brandon Mckee, who is the COO, and they basically provide data driven marketing agency that helps, you know, and target the right audience so you can generate more leads and optimize on ad spend. And Brandon, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Victor. That was a great intro. Appreciate it, man.

Yeah, no worries. I mean, there is so many exciting questions about what you guys do because there's so many. Obviously legion, right? Ad spend is a huge topic. Every company has it, every company needs it, but everyone is trying to figure out how to best do it right. And there's so many marketing agencies out there, but when I met you guys, my mind was blown just of what you guys have done previously, but also how you guys approach it differently. So maybe a quick intro of yourself and the company.

Yeah, sure. So I've been with a company about a year and a half, as we previously discussed. Victor really? Our mission is to kind of break the cycle of what people think about marketing agencies, right? So a lot of people have terrible experiences. At least the clients that we work with come to us and been through four or five, sometimes ten marketing agencies. So we want to do it a little bit different. We are data backed completely. In fact, we won't work with somebody that won't allow us to take a look at their data and ultimately come up with a strategy that fits what we see in the data. We don't do guessing. We don't throw things against the wall and hope they stick. We don't have we're agnostic. We don't have any sort of kickback from Facebook or any of those social media platforms. So it's really what's best for the business owner. And like you said earlier, producing leads and getting an ROI for our customers.

Yeah. 1.6s And we'll continue to kind of go into more of this discussion about kind of the secret sauce of what you guys have, what you do. Everybody knows how important data is. Right. You have to have data to know who, what, when, why, how to accomplish your goal. But where do you think most of the industry wide, 1s the other marketing agencies, or even customer in general, what are they missing? 1.7s What type of data are they missing? Why is it not as effective, which causes overspending and on ad spend? 1.6s What type of data do you think is missing out there in the market?

Sure. Let me explain kind of how we produce these reports. Victor and that could probably help there. So basically what we're doing at any point in time is we're tracking 230,000,000 American consumers, 500 million connected devices, and over a trillion different decisions that are your customers or everyone's customers are making on a daily basis, right? So what we do with that is we package that up into what we call our first step of the unfitted marketing system is our Customer Insights Report. And that is kind of the golden ticket. Right. It's about a 75 page document we produce for the business owners that work with us, helps us understand who, what, where, when, why someone's making a purchasing behavior, even with their daily routines and habits are right. So it helps us be extremely targeted. It helps us actually formulate the creative messaging that's going to go along with your brand. What we see a lot in the industry is there's a lot of business owners and our marketing agencies that have an idea of what they think their customers want to know or how they want to purchase, but they don't know for a fact. So for us, it's the mission to understand the data and then create a strategic plan. But ultimately it's going to take you to the promised land. It's going to produce those leads going to reach your targets in a more effective manner. It's going to make you money. 1.5s

Yeah, 1.2s working with marketing agency and just knowing throughout the kind of space is oftentimes customers have to spend the money on ads or even to the agency just to find that data. Right. A lot of these agencies says, hey, of course we got to know about your of business and we got to go find those data and do a lot of testing, which cost them a lot of money and takes them six months before you even have any data. So the fact that you guys, when you work with the customer, you're giving them the customer the data right off the bat, I think it's a pretty big game changer. But obviously a lot of people may not be aware of the Win Big Media brand yet. 1.3s Obviously your CEO is a wellknown figure in the data space. And can you talk about kind of his background and some of the success? Because I think the audience would really love that kind of the history of how the company started and why 1.6s he started this

company. Sure, yeah. So we really just saw a niche in the market. So our founder is Philip Stutz, and so he has a couple of different companies. And really where he started is actually on the political side. So we have a marketing agency that specifies in political marketing campaigns only, and that's where Philip started. He started that company gosh over seven years ago now and really found a niche within the political realm helping candidates and politicians win elections. And we found that the same data and process, not only were we able to leverage it and very successfully help plenty of different politicians, you know, get into office, but we found out that we could use that same data and put it over to our corporate side of our business. And so then Philip founded Win Big Media, which is where we are today, helping corporate companies in a different way, a different way than they've ever seen or been used to. Ultimately, you know, like I was telling you earlier, Victor, we hear horror stories about different marketing agencies that people have worked with or honestly, people trying to do it themselves internally and not getting any results. So our mission is ultimately to help those business owners get an ROI, get the leads and door that they need, and then help them figure out what's going to work and then double down on it, capitalize on it.

Yeah. No. When I talk to you guys and seen the kind of data and win rates you guys had for politics on that side, the politicians, I mean, winning politics race is one of the hardest things, right. So competitive. And you really have to to win the hearts of hundreds of thousands and millions of people, right? 1.2s So what you guys are doing there, and it's not so different, obviously, corporations are trying to win the hearts of customers and businesses and consumers. So it's all about data. It's all about psychology. It's all about having all that information. 2.8s That's awesome. So I guess in the last couple of years with COVID and this digitizing world, have you personally or even just as win Bake, see any differences like what has COVID or the overall last two years change and maybe the buying behavior or even how people are utilizing marketing?

Sure. I'll give you one main one, Victor, is that and this is in a data report that's actually on our website, if anybody's interested in kind of checking that out. But one thing we've seen over and over, it doesn't really matter the industry is that people are abandoning their favorite brands. And the reason they're doing that is almost solely on either price or convenience. COVID changed everything, right. People aren't necessarily buying in person anymore. They're buying online. We just saw it with one of our clients at the national furniture chain, is that everyone's buying online now for them. So we had to pivot there. Right? And so really, it's just ultimately it comes down to price, it comes down to convenience and frankly, how people want to do business with you, how they want to engage with you now. So we've seen definitely a huge increase in the favorite brands being abandoned, and people are looking for either more cost effective options or more convenient options. So if you're a business owner listening, you got to think about that stuff. And I'm not telling you to go cut your price in half. That's definitely not what I'm saying. But, you know, there's a lot of different things in the data that we're seeing that you may not know unless you actually take the time to look at it. Right? It's.

Yeah. So, I mean, personally, I love data. I would eat it for lunch, dinner and breakfast if I could, but 1.1s it's really interesting to pick your brain, especially. You guys see so much data. Maybe what have you seen as maybe the hottest? Obviously depends on the customer industry, I'm sure, but the hottest social media platform, 1.9s there's so many now, right? There's Pinterest, there's YouTube, there's Facebook, TikTok. There's just so many. And I think sometimes companies have a hard time figuring out where to spend their time, a lot of time. They just think it's Facebook. Right, because that's what you do, that's what they think they should do. 1s And they think TikTok is just for teenagers or whatever. And what have you seen kind of that misconception. Right. It's part of the data problem. Meaning they just aren't basing those assessments or thoughts or decisions on data, they're basing it off of feeling or maybe assumptions. Right, and so what have you seen as kind of maybe the more popular 1.2s social media platforms and then kind of how do you guys help customers figure out which platform, social media platform is best for their business?

Sure, yeah. 1.2s It's a tricky question, but a good one, Victor, is that there's really not one platform that we see is just crushing it and outperforming everyone else industry wide. Right. It very much depends on what industry you're working in. You brought up Facebook, though, which is always interesting and usually the first thing out of someone's mouth when they engage with us. Right. So I'll talk about that for a second, is that Facebook, we're continuing to see, is more of a brand awareness platform now than it is going to be a conversion or lead generation platform. So that does defer depending on the industry and what it is that you're selling. But that's something really important for people to keep in mind. We engaged with the business months ago that had about 95% of their marketing budget funneling through Facebook. And then when we actually did this data report I've been talking about, we figured out that that was actually fourth in line for them in terms of where they should have been spending their money. Pinterest was up there, Google PPC campaigns, and so actually Direct Mail was even up there and they hadn't even thought about that. Right. So when I say we're agnostic to platforms, we really are, and there's not one that's outshining everyone, I mean, you talk a little bit about TikTok earlier. I think it's important to understand, especially if you are a business owner, maybe different generation, and you're selling to another different generation, though, to understand there are different ways to reach them and you can't just go off gut feeling. You really need to look at your data and your audience and figure out how to best reach them. If you want to optimize your business and sales, 1.9s

Yeah, 1.2s that's really fascinating. On that data point, that customer spending 95% of their ads. And again, 1.3s that's oftentimes people's main source of lead generation or company survival because the more leads generated generate, the more opportunities, the more money, and you grow your company. Right. But if you're overspending or not optimizing your spend on ads in the right places, not only are you wasting money over spending, but you're also not getting as much results as you need. So that's super fascinating for me. So obviously, talking to a lot of, whether it's SMB or mid market or even enterprises data, people understand they need data. But a lot of times, even if you give them data, they don't know what to do with it. How do you guys approach that with customers where they say, hey, even if you give me this 70 page report, like, this is great, but I don't know what to do with it, I don't know how to best execute. Right. And so how do you kind of help customers understand the data and then actually creating value out of that data?

No. Good question, Victor. And yeah, you're totally right. And we get that question a lot, right. Hey, once I invest in data, how do I read it and how do I execute on it? Right? So really where we come in is that 55 to 75 page report. We don't just hand it to someone and say, hey, good luck. You know, what I do is I bring my entire data analytics team, our senior vice president of Client success, in on that call, and we'll actually do a 90 minutes analysis of that data with them. We even offer a follow up call after that to answer any questions. You're not going to be able to digest all that data in 90 minutes even, right? So you get some time with the report and then we're able to answer some follow up questions. But really where the magic happens is probably in the strategic roadmap. And that's really the second 1.6s part of the undefeated marketing system, is taking that data and then putting it together into what we call a strategic roadmap that helps you understand how to execute on it. We love people that want our data and maybe they try to go execute on their own. There are people out there like that and that's fine. We just want to provide value where we can. But the most successful businesses we've worked with actually go through all five steps of our undefeated marketing system and then they let us do that strategy, right, because then we can show them, hey, this is what we're seeing in the data, this is how we would execute on it. And that's a really eye opening time for business owners. They realize that, wow, there's probably about ten to 15 things that we need to be executing on now, and I need help. And so that's where really we come in. We can help kind of prioritize. You talked about budgets earlier and ad spend. That's a big part of what we do, making sure that we're taking your entire budget and we're optimizing it and we're spending it where it's going to get you the biggest bang for your buck. Not necessarily cutting someone's budget or doubling it, right, but saying, hey, you're spending. I'm just going to make up numbers here $100,000 a month on ad spend, and here's how we're going to better optimize it so you get the most out of that $100,000. So it's really just getting better returns for what they're already spending, which is exciting to hear for business owners. Typically, they don't necessarily want to increase, right. But they want to get more for what they're spending. Right. 1.1s

Yeah, no, absolutely. And undefeated marketing system. First of all, I love the sound of that. It's pretty bold, but I love it because you guys can back up. 2.4s First of all, I don't buy many books, but I actually bought one of Phil's books, and I love it. I mean, it was that to me, because as their source as technology marketplace, we really want to work with super innovative companies that are creating game changing services and not just another marketing agency. There are so many out there, right? And they all do good things, but they don't have the type of data that you guys have. So obviously, 1.7s we have audience that are sealed level executives from smaller businesses to larger businesses with different types of spend. And one of the things when I first talked to you about when I talk to you guys, I was like, all right, so they have a lot of data. They have all of these Valley. It must be super expensive. 1.9s Probably smaller companies or mint market. Enterprise may not even be able to afford it. It's meant for the enterprise. But really, as you guys kind of told me, your model, it's incredible. It's super cost effective for anyone and every company, right? Especially if you have ROI that you provide for them. But can you kind of explain, for smaller businesses, maybe with smaller ads, how do you help them? Meaning they may not even know where to kind of attack first, right. And then two, you have the opposite side. You have companies that probably has a marketing department. They have the ad buying team, and they may even already work with another marketing agency. Walk me through kind of that two different scenario, Brendan, on how you either become the main marketing engine for a company, or how do you complement a company who already has some marketing engine in place?

No, that's good question, Victor. I will say this is that we always say, like, say we play very nicely in the sandbox, right? So you mention kind of the enterprise level company that, yeah, there typically are other players, right. There are different agencies. There's probably an internal team where people leverage us on the enterprise level in our strategic advisement, our ability to constantly append those data reports that we see and guide them in the right direction. A lot of times we get involved in messaging and creative. You'd be surprised how many times we run into a really well thought out operation on an enterprise level. And they have all this data that either they got from us or they've tried to produce on their own and they're not paying attention to their creative at all because of it. So that's actually step three for us is making sure that your brand and your creative kind of match what the data is saying your customer wants to see. So that's really where we provide a lot of value on the enterprise level. The actual day to day operations, sometimes they'll take care of. On the flip side, though, and I really like to touch on this whenever I talk about the company, because we get that question a lot. I'm a two location home services company. I think you're too big for me. And we absolutely are not. Where we actually see a lot of value is we are full service marketing company ultimately. So once you go through step one and two with us and really we're going to help you understand your customer better, help you come up with a plan to execute on that. Most business owners at that level asked us to help them with it and the execution. Right. So we get involved. We do creative for them, we do messaging, we do all the media buying. I like to think we do it for a really reasonable cost, ultimately, because our mission is to scale businesses, help them grow, and in turn, we will grow with them. Right. I think a lot of marketing agencies don't have that perspective. It's what can I get from this person now? Meaning the business owner, right. How much money can I get from them now? Because they may not want to do business with me in six months? Where we look at it as more of a long term partnership is what we call it, how can I grow with this business owner until he has 50 locations? And then we're talking about a different sum of money, right? So I'll it's about what value can we bring to any situation? There is no company too small for us, there's no company too large for us. It really just depends on where they are in that journey and then how we can layer in and help them. 1.8s

Yeah, that's really 1.3s amazing. 2.4s I guess if you look down kind of the next maybe towards the future and this is something I always like asking executives at our partners, because there's always Map, there's always innovation that maybe you guys are looking at or maybe just kind of seeing how the market is changing in the next couple of years. Where do you see kind of any kind of interesting thoughts on where this marketing agency or even 1.9s this whole market, the sales market, going towards any changes or kind of thoughts in the next couple of years? Obviously, when we think about crypto, when we think about Web Three, when we think about AI and all of these crazy things, people even applying AI to add buying, like, what are some interesting thoughts you have for the next couple of years? You think, where the market?

Yeah, you brought up AI, which is a great point. Victor, we've been utilizing AI services on our end for upwards of two to three years now to help optimize our copy, help optimize our creative even, and make sure that ultimately even what my team internally using our data is coming up with, that there are some checks and balances there, right? Because there's a lot of cool tools out there that most people get wide eyed when I talk about to them and don't even understand that they're out there. So if you're a business owner out there that doesn't even know what AI stands for or doesn't understand where the market's moving there, it's really. 1.1s It was time two years ago, honestly. But it's time now to start learning about that and either getting with an agency that utilizes that or doing some self education and some serious thinking on that. In general, though, Victor, I think that I don't think there's any magic bullet or magic pill that's coming out in the next 612, 18 months that's going to change the game. I do think a lot of people are looking at the economy right now, and they're getting scared, and they're starting to peel back on ad spend. They're starting to peel back on marketing in general. You've heard of all the layoffs happening everywhere at some of the enterprise level companies and even some smaller companies. But what I would challenge the leaders out there listening to this and the business owners is don't start going backwards with your marketing. Don't start peeling back. And that's not from a selfish seat. You probably aren't working with me right now, right? I mean, I wish you would, but it's more about how you come out of this, right? Are you going to come out of this recession stronger or are you going to come out of this needing to completely restart your marketing engine again? We saw it when COVID hit just when I started with the company. We had some companies that doubled down with us, and they stuck with us during those hard times, and they actually increased their budgets in ad spend, and they came out of it way stronger and actually positive on the year over year, two years in a row. And then we had companies that left our services. They said, hey, look, I'm scared. The money is starting to dry up a little bit. I'm going to peel back here. And sure enough, they came knocking months later saying, hey, I'm ready to get started again. But you lose all that momentum. So that would be my biggest recommendation to anyone listening is don't get scared about what's going on. Be smart, be strategic. I'm not saying throw your accountant out the door or anything like that, but understand and that marketing is not going away, that you have to spend money in marketing to make dollars. And so being strategic about that and having a very specific database approach has never been more important. 1.1s

Yeah. And I think it's probably more of a reason to work with you guys because definitely understand the recession and the concerns about spending, but you still need customers. You still and doesn't matter unless you're just like closing your shop forever. You're always going to need that. And to me, me is any company on earth, if you know who your right customers are, what they like, where they like it, where they're hanging out and what they want to buy, how they want to buy. I mean, if you knew all this information, it's not too hard and I assume you have the good product and the right product, it's not too hard to sell. Right. But actually the hard part is getting those data and understanding where they are. And that's why I love what you guys do. You guys take it end to end for these customers. So as we wrap up here, Brenda, I mean, I could probably talk to you for hours, as I told you every time, but to pick up to pick your brain. But actually I love wrapping up these sessions with usually a last 1s question for you to give kind of any suggestions or tips for business owners and executives and companies and I think you obviously gave a good one on the last questions towards the end, which is, hey, no matter the 1.3s economy situation, you still need to optimize or you want to optimize your spend right. And but you want to do it more effectively. 1.5s But any other last kind of tips or thoughts you would want to leave with executives or owners of businesses?

Sure. Biggest one for me, and this is what I always tell everyone that decides to work with us or doesn't even Victor, is that you don't have to be things to everyone, right? You don't have to do every different platform and every different marketing way out there, right? If you tried to do that, you'd probably do all of it at 50% and fail. Right? That's really why agencies are alive, because we help subsidize that. So it's more there's no get rich quick pill. You know, I hate to tell people that sometimes I get disappointed business owners across from me when I say that, but ultimately, investing in data, understanding how to reach your specific customers, whether it's through Facebook, like we talked about earlier, maybe it's more of a direct mail campaign. Whatever it is out there, 1.2s going into that and being very strategic about that, I like to say firing with a sniper rifle instead of a shotgun. Don't do the spray and pray method, as Philip so well says a lot of times when he stars on pods or does a speech. Making sure that you have a plan that you're not wasting time, energy and resources. Because ultimately that's the worst thing you can do is have a revolving door when it comes to your agencies that you're working with or revolving door with your employees, right? Because you're failing them by not giving them the data and the resources to be successful for you. 1s

That was an amazing episode of the digital podcast with various source. Hope you enjoyed it and got some great insights from it. Make sure you follow us on social media for the next episode. And if you want to get the best deals from the guests today, make sure to send us a message at sales@varisource.com

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