From the Yellow Chair
From the Yellow Chair
Mass Media: How to Trust the Process When Building a Brand
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If you’ve ever said, “We tried billboards and nothing happened,” this conversation is for you. Mass media can feel silent and hard to measure, but when it’s done with the right frequency, consistency, and creative discipline, it builds the kind of brand homeowners trust in a stressful moment, the exact moment they need HVAC, plumbing, electrical, or another home service fast.
I’m joined by Gage Jonathan from Johnson Media Group, an agency that’s helped home service contractors grow for years by pairing smart targeting with real-world reach. We dig into what “mass media” actually means today, from radio jingles and linear TV to OTT, CTV, and streaming audio, plus out-of-home plays like billboards, bus wraps, and wallscapes. Gage breaks down why live news and live sports still matter, and how streaming placements can add a new layer of measurability by connecting exposure to households and revenue.
We also get practical about the stuff that makes campaigns win or lose: keeping the same look and feel across your website, social, and ads; avoiding the trap of cramming every service into one spot; and choosing one channel to own before you try to do everything. You’ll hear what’s working right now, including local weather sponsorships, and why mass media can boost more than leads, it can raise team pride and even support recruiting.
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Why Mass Media Still Matters
SPEAKER_01What's up, Lemon Heads? Welcome to a whole nother episode of From the Yellow Chair. Guys, today y'all know I'm a brand girl, right? I love to talk brand. I love to talk mass media because listen, number one, it's hard to measure, but it is my favorite place to get your brand accelerated. Lemon Seed loves to help you accelerate your brand and move it quicker into top-of-mind placement with the homeowners in your area. And mass media, listen, just kiss my favorite place to do it. So joining me in the virtual studio today is a guest that I met at RuthCon. We started realizing that we had a lot in common about how we felt about mass media. So fussle up, guys. Let's get to it. Let's just eliminate all right. Gage, Jonathan, thank you so much for joining me today.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Crystal. Pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So, you know, I bring tons of energy all the way down here in Texas, and you're all the way up there in Minnesota.
SPEAKER_00Minnesota, we call it. It's cold right now. We're bringing the energy. We're still working every day, elevating these home service contractors with high-quality brands.
Gage’s Path Into Home Services
SPEAKER_01Love it. Love it. So uh, Gage and I, at this time of recording, we are coming out of like this terrible cold snap all across the country. So he and I are both recovering from that. So, Gage, I want you to tell everybody kind of what your background is. Why should anybody believe what you have to say? How do you know what you're talking about?
SPEAKER_00Of course. So, as an agency, Johnson Media Group, we were founded back in 2004. And at the time, we were doing more co-op type programs, working with consumer package good companies, Yamaha, Blimpies, all sorts of different companies. Come 2009, unique time to be switching verticals. We know the economy in 2009. We got a conceded effort towards home services. Started working initially with a company here. I'm in the Minneapolis area and really hit our stride, found our niche, amazing clients to work with. And in a lot of cases, these home service companies, they have so much room to grow. They're phenomenal operators, they're great tradespeople. We need to make sure that everybody's aware of that and continue to get the phone to ring, continue to grow their businesses. So since 2009, so it's what almost 17 years now. We've been working in the home services space, a conceded effort on, I call it on-demand home services, where people have a need. They need somebody to capture uh and help them out with the solution for their need, whether it be plumbing, heating, cooling, electric, roofing, garage stores, down and down the list. That's where emphasis lies.
SPEAKER_01And yeah, a time of need service is definitely an important thing to remember here because you want people to think of you when they need you. So you do a lot of pre-work.
Top Of Mind Wins In Emergencies
SPEAKER_00Bingo, because even though it's a time of need, really the only want in this category is I don't want you to have to come to my home. It means I have a problem. So we have to make sure you remember our company. It's something you don't want to think about, but we almost force you to with the top-of-mind awareness. So when a need does arise, either you think of us immediately, or even if you go to your phone, you see our company brand name, we have the same creative messaging look and feel online. We garner that trust and really lead to a lifelong happy customer.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So some of the things that I love about mass media and that you've already kind of touched on is, you know, I like to explain a little bit when I talk mass media, I mean things that are environmentally enveloping our market, right? So sound, sight, all the things. So, you know, radio, billboards, television, and now you can add digital to that. So digital can kind of be put into some different groups, but it's overall just exposure to our brand as often and frequently as possible.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. It's making sure we have targeted reach. So we when I say targeted, we know exactly who we need homeowners, income, zip codes, targeted down, get great reach in that subset, and then build the frequency, number of touch points behind it. Sometimes when we have long windows between transactions, we've had hundreds, literally hundreds of conversations with these homeowners before we ever do business with them. They're familiar with us, we're part of the family, and it allows us to get welcomed into their home to complete whatever work needs to be done.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And you know, I think, you know, I use this example quite often with people on mass media. You know, it is about frequency and consistency, right? So what's hard is you're like, okay, I've not I launched this a month ago and I do not I have not sold any systems because of this mass media. It is like I call it it's silent but deadly, like it kind of creeps around so much that it's very hard to see directionally, but it is working in the background of building up that familiarity and that brand. Um, I don't know, just so much brand.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's funny when I like to explain to people sometimes just what's the value uh of mass media? Am I gonna get direct sales correlation from it? Here's what I like to think about. When we think about a category that either truly is a commodity or feels like a commodity, which home services sometimes feel like a commodity, here's the example I use. True commodity is bleach. Chemically, it has to be the same to be called bleach, commodity as it comes. Why does Clorox have a 60% market share? Well, they cost 40% more than the store brand. People trust them, they see their creative, whether it's on television where it's a happy, healthy family with bleach in the background, Clorox in specific, which if used incorrectly could be very detrimental to your family. That just shows the power of a great brand where it's a true commodity, yet they ascertain powerful market share. So when we have a perceived commodity in home services, we know we have true differentiators, which we need to address. Making sure we have this top-of-mind awareness, trust, familiarity factor is going to be so powerful for us for the long term to be able to build up these customers for years to come, repeat customers, referral bases, and overall have a strong foundation to be able to build upon to grow a healthy home service company.
Prime Time Shifts To Streaming
SPEAKER_01Yes. Uh you know, Clorox is a good one. Like, you know, their brand looks better on the shelf. It's more professionally done, it looks higher end, and they're just you've been exposed so much to what they do that you assume and equate them with success and with you know good things. That's so true. And you know, I spend a lot of time telling clients, like, you know, there is a fine line of what people consider traditional media because it's evolved so much, right? So radio and TV, that thing, those things have not disappeared. No, they just have evolved from the early days of Clorox. Like, used to my kids don't even understand what it's like to have to run to the bathroom on a commercial break. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Why don't you just pause it? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What do you mean, you know, or like Friday night TGIF TV, because everything we did not grow up, or I did not grow up in on-demand service. And so you remember everything has evolved, but marketing at its core has not changed. That is exposure, it is frequency, and it is consistency, and it is a how you are evoking emotion. And so some brands I think are better served um with a jingle, some I think are better served with a billboard blitz, or I mean, I'll be honest, yard signs, or you know, you're in a super cool little vibey area. Like, are you buying other out-of-home options like at Top Golfs or bus stops? Or so it's just yeah, what did you say?
SPEAKER_00I said wall scapes.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. So cool things, right? So mass media is not dead, it has just evolved into new opportunities.
SPEAKER_00And I love the example that you give, which was essentially explaining the old prime time. We used to call it 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. You're watching NBC on the couch, that's what you're doing. Really, what's happened is that prime time has shifted to streaming, it shifted to your Netflix, Hulus, Amazon Primes. What's still alive on our ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox is live news. We're not streaming live news. Even if we are streaming live news, the ads are placed through the station. They maintain ownership there and live sports. Live events are still where we can capture these eyeballs on traditional old school television. And then we capture those prime eyeballs digitally through the streaming universe on OTT and CTV.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you know, contractors get real crazy sometimes. They're like, well, you know, I don't know what's happening. So is there a true? I'm jumping subjects on you here, but is there a true measurability? I feel like I know the answer to this. I do know the answer to this, but I want to hear your answer. Is there a true measurability on streaming TV and streaming audio?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so what's nice about placing it through an internet service for anything that we're streaming is we could then get access to that IP address. Just to get a little bit nerdy, I'll simplify it down for us. We can match the IP address back to a physical address. Ta-da, look at where revenue happened to be able to see did we help impact throughout that marketing journey and that marketing funnel what that conversion looked like. In addition, we get to see exactly where those impressions or commercials think of them were either saw or heard uh in the streaming universe. So much more tracking in depth as compared to I call it linear old school radio and television.
Simple Ads Beat Busy Ads
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yes. I love it. So I mean, I'm still a jingle girl. I love a good jingle because I think we can use it still all over the place. Uh the fun little intro and outro music, I think those are fun. Um, and I really find a lot of value in that brand equity that it continues to build. And so I just I really love that piece. And so I think it's just about repetition and then being places and solving a need. So this is one of my messaging points that I've been saying. Like, you know, and this may shock you. Uh maybe you'll disagree with me here, but sometimes I think we overcomplicate mass media messaging. So we try to, let's take a visual thing. We try to cram that we do heating and air conditioning and duck cleaning and indoor air quality, and we take Visa MasterCard and you know, American Express, and we're on Facebook and Instagram. You're trying to put all of that in a QR code, and I'm trying to we're trying to SEO a TV spot here. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, that's a good one. I'm gonna say stop SEO in my TV. That's a good idea. Because that's not how it works. You would be better off literally just putting your logo on the billboard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we have we have a lot of clients that do that. We have nice brands, we put the logo on there. That's it.
SPEAKER_01That's what it's better than trying to explain to me as I'm going 80 miles an hour past the billboard what you do. The you got you have to understand the purpose behind the tactic that you're buying, and the purpose is straight up exposure most of the time. Um, unless you're running a really cool promotion, like a now offering financing, or you're announcing a new plumbing or new a new division.
SPEAKER_00But something that's big and easy. We have a BOGO offer that we're running right now. A lot of contractors seasonally are doing that now this time of year, buy an AC, get a furnace. That's huge. We have BOGO, big, bold, bright letters, heavy contrast on the boards, simplicity and raw messaging, static video, audio is what wins.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you don't have to be like overly dramatic with your with your with your mass media as well. So, you know, and then I think your audience remembers more than you really think as an owner. So as an owner, you're like, well, you know, that billboard's been up three months and nobody called. So I will tell you this when my pest control company, when we got it started, we launched a billboard blitz. So we had six, which is a lot, but we wanted to really make a big splash. Well, for a while, people were calling and we'd say, Oh, how did you hear about us? Because our CRM on the pest control side was behind the times.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_01When we were trying to like, there was no like last point of acquisition, right? Or last point of contact. But we would say, How'd you hear about us? Oh my gosh, I've seen y'all's billboards everywhere. Well, even though those things have not been up for three months, you know what? What do you think people say? I saw your billboards. They haven't seen them in months. Now it's converted to I love y'all's radio jingle. And we turned off the jingle back in October.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Just for we just took a little break because we like to kind of we'll do a hard and heavy and then we'll take a little snap and then hard and heavy again. So, you know, but it goes to show you that people remember it um longer, it has good shelf life as well.
SPEAKER_00As long as we're doing it right, and like you had mentioned, we do go hot and heavy before we take a break. If we do a little bit and take a break, we're not gonna get that desired impact that we're looking for.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because you know, when you it mass media is one of those things you can't really ease into it.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you here's the thing, as your company, you can, but it is not going to give you the desired results that you're hoping to get.
SPEAKER_00That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_01Because it's not frequent nor consistent enough.
When To Go All In
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the only time that going in, uh maybe not full force, the right way to say it, can make sense is if we have a hyper-targeted geographic campaign where we're sacrificing overall market reach to say target one neighborhood, one maybe even just one billboard, streaming television, get some mailers, emphasize really heavily in one tight area. That can work to step into it with a smaller investment level, but to really have this desired impact and be able to grow, like myself and I'm sure yourself have seen thousands of companies grow with the impact of mass media, you have to dive headfirst in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. And you know, not everybody's ready for that yet. Um, and so it's more about preparing for when you do feel like you have the the revenue um to help you get to the amount that you need to invest. But there are affordable options, and so one of the things I tell people is we don't have to go own every mass media tactic in that market. Maybe we're just gonna own OTT or we're just gonna own whatever traditional rate, whatever it is that fits our market the best.
SPEAKER_00And it's best to start with one and do it right than to do three or four tactics and dilute your resource down. So you're exactly right. If we're gonna start with one, pick one, own it, do it the best you can, and then expand out to other avenues.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. So, right now, I know you're working with lots of clients. Like, what are some things that are really working right now that you're seeing and and that you project will work pretty good going into spring and summer?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I'll touch specifically on uh heating and cooling companies of what's been performing very well is on our local news stations, getting into the local weather sponsorships. So this is anytime we're going to our daily forecast, seven-day, any outlook that we're looking for, we're having logo inclusion directly on the programming itself inside the content. And then immediately following that weather segment, it allows us to have access to a 30-second commercial. Now, what we do with that is first off, we're getting innately tied into the weather. Oh, I see it's gonna be cold. I see X heating company in my area is sponsoring the weather report. Great rapport that we're building up initially, but then continue to echo that message across different forms of media, which is gonna be really key. When I say different forms of media, not just mass media, we need the same creative on television that's on your website, that's on your social media.Anywhere you're coming into contact with a homeowner or potential customer, we need the same branding, we need the same creative, the same look and feel. Otherwise, you're just paying for somebody to think it's a different company. We have to know who it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that I'm telling you, that is impactful of consistency across all platforms. So that's what Lemon Seed really is an expert in, is making sure we protect the direction of your brand. Meaning we're gonna say, okay, this is what's going on mass media. So let's say Lemon Seed partners with Johnson Media for one of our clients. Our job is to be the creative arm and make sure that it's matching what every other vendor is doing, um, so that they're compounding on each other, right? They're building each other up over and over again. So I I love that. Um, and then I know there's some unique uh out-of-home style things. Uh, like you talked about what is it, wallscapes?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Tell me a little bit about that.
Weather Sponsorships And Wallscapes
SPEAKER_00Wall scape, pretty straightforward. Oftentimes it's going to be more in an urban environment in a city's downtown. But think about the side of a building where there's not another building next to it, say there's a parking lot or it's on the end of a street corner with no windows. Then we put up vinyl, or sometimes it's even actually painted directly onto that wall our messaging. Think of it as like a billboard, but built into more of this urban environment. So we're getting more walkability that's happening, really makes sense for and near local attractions, whether it be a sporting venue, a local concert hall, or places that we know, again, our target audience, they're going to be visiting this area of town. So it gives us unique ways to be able to have those out-of-home activations. So it goes from wall scapes, bus wraps. Of course, there's our general billboards, there's dynamic digital out-of-home inside of grocery stores, shopping centers, all sorts of ways for us to be able to stand out, be unique, and get that brand in front of our target customers.
SPEAKER_01I love it. I love it. And you know, be unique is what you said. Be unique, stand out. And a lot of times people are like, I want to do what, you know, stand out from PE. Well, you know, to me, there's only a couple of ways to do that, and it's spend money in riskier places. Right. So private equity wants assurance. They want to be able to measure one-to-one. But honestly, I look at marketing as a closed loop marketing channel. So everything compounds on itself. So, right, so when we're doing mass media and so branding and lead gen and customer cultivation, and we are intentionally being consistent with our messaging, that is when overall we move the needle. It's when all those things baked together make your true marketing strategy. And there's just a lot of power in realizing that and then looking forward to the year when you can afford mass media. Um, because mass media is such a cool way. And honestly, you have to have a little bit of pride when you're driving around and you're like, you know what? I put up these billboards, and your company, your team members get excited to see it. It means that you're alive, it means that you're moving and shaking. You know, um, we did uh McWilliams, my family's company. We bought uh some audio everywhere, we called it, where it was like on several streaming platforms. And people would tell us, like, oh my gosh, I'm outside washing my car and I heard your jingle. Or, you know, hey, we were at this restaurant, we heard your jingle. And honestly, that's just so good for the environmental awareness. People to just naturally engage with your brand, to be fair, whether they've decided to or not.
SPEAKER_00Well, and the key there you mentioned is that pride, it's existing employees and team members' pride, it is a huge tool. Even if the creative doesn't mention recruitment, it's a huge tool for recruitment in your local area because these potential technicians, potential employees understand that you've made this commitment to the brand. You're in it for the long haul and you're able to support this advertising. So it's a real key driver to make sure we continue to grow and supplement our staffing where needed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean, it it does it creates a little FOMO, right? You know, and honestly, as soon as you can jump out there on mass media, one thing I tell people is you want to stir up your competition, launch some mass media because they don't know what to do. Right outside of their location, you know, like let's stir some things up because honestly, when you show that the competition is real, what it does is honestly invigorate the whole market. People start having to come to the table and advertise more, which means they have to increase their cost more, and all of a sudden you just jumped out there and you were priced correctly, and now they're having to jump high and price correctly, it just kind of levels everything out. But listen, if you're not getting kicked in the back, it means you're not in the front, right? So, you know, when you do these things and you start doing cool things, cool messages, cool campaigns, uh, unique things with mass media companies, you start getting noticed by the good and the bad, right? But definitely you're building a legacy company. You can eventually it drives your cost per lead down. You get more direct search, you get a better customer overall experience, a better recruitment experience. So there's very little negative to toss in there with mass media. You just need to be intentional, you need to go all in when you can and really get aggressive.
Holistic Marketing Mindset And Wrap
SPEAKER_00And all in is gonna mean. Different things in different areas of the country, different markets that you're in. The pricing dynamics are going to have sometimes drastic differentials across mediums in differing markets. So sometimes you might not think you're ready, but maybe we haven't looked into it far enough. Maybe we are ready, and the pricing dynamics in our market are more favorable than we initially thought.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Absolutely. So what is um, as we kind of wrap it up here, one mindset shift that you think every contractor or every leader maybe needs to know about marketing, especially mass media.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you alluded to this a little bit with last touch attribution for marketing. So I'll just touch on marketing as a whole and I'll stand by this. I don't think it's fair for us to ascertain a direct return on investment to any one marketing source. Even say it is paid search. We put out our paid search ad. We spent$100 to get this lead, we got a thousand back. That's assuming that that's the only time that consumer was impacted by your brand. That's not the case. We know we're gonna have five to seven touch points across media, social media, website, whether it's on Google, across the various different platforms that they have. So it's really understanding, like you're mentioning, all of your marketing works together. We don't want to make sure that we're evaluating each individual marketing tactic that we have using the same benchmarks, ROI, for example. You're going to see different return on investments from different mediums if you're using the same evaluation tool. So, really, that mindset shift is simple. Everything in marketing works together. We need to look how it's impacting the business holistically under the whole marketing strategy.
SPEAKER_01I love it. I love it. You do have to look at marketing holistically. Lemon Seed preaches this to you. So um, again, Gage, if someone was interested in your services that's not currently using Lemon Seed, how can they reach out to you for you to help them with a mass media strategy?
SPEAKER_00Super simple. Appreciate the question. Johnson Media Group, name of the company dot com. You can find our contact info there, website form fill, and we'll we'll be happy to chat with you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, easy enough. And so Lemon Seed Marketing is here for those of you that don't know to help you build a brand that accelerates your growth, um, help you have a marketing matrix to know where you should put your dollars, how you should be spending it, but most importantly, get marketing off of your plate as an owner, uh, protect your direction of your company, and really help you see the results that you're hoping to see. So if you loved this episode with Gage and I share it with someone that you think should hear this mass media message, leave us a review. And in the meantime, guys, we hope you're listening to all of our other episodes, following us on all of our social medias, signing up for our webinars. But until then, keep sipping, keep sipping lemonade. We'll see you next time.