What we Fix First When a Client is Overwhelmed

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Host: Rich Mackey 
Producer: Zac Hazen

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Think of us as your very own offsite, highly effective team of local marketing growth experts, from digital marketing to traditional (who you’d also happily grab a beer with). Antidote 71 is equal parts skill and personality. We’re super fun to hang out with (in our opinion) and exceptionally good at what we do. We love our work and care about the people we work with. 

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Transcript

Why Marketing Feels Overwhelming

Zac 0:00

Marketing can feel very overwhelming very quickly. Too many tools, too many tactics, and way too many opinions about what you should be doing. In this episode, we're breaking down the first things we focus on when a client feels stuck.

Rich 0:19

Oh, so Zach, I'm overwhelmed. You know the feeling?

Zac 0:23

Too many options, too many opinions.

Rich 0:26

Too many things going on, not enough decision making happening. And it's not like it's not like we're not working hard, right? We're working really hard. But a lot of times that struggle with marketing is just because it's way more complex than it used to be. You know, run a TV ad, run a radio ad, run a newspaper ad, rinse and repeat. Um, it's all different. So um, you know, we're gonna talk about when a client comes to us and has that issue, especially a new client, how we can like, you know, do some breathing exercises, get our Zen moment in, and then help them like actually go in and tackle the issues um and simplify that. I love this topic. Like it's one of my favorites because it's so common.

Zac 1:05

Everyone starts somewhere. Usually, if you're going and getting help outside of your own company for marketing, you have some form of issue that's overwhelming you, or maybe you just don't have the time to do it. And I don't know. I I'm I I'm also pretty excited about this episode. I think you're right, it's really, really common. And I think we'll be able to help a lot of people.

Cocktail Interlude: The Cloister

Rich 1:26

Cool. So before we get into it, let's talk cloister. Not like a nun or convent or whatever it is, the the monks who make whiskey, but a cloister is a cocktail, right, Zach?

Zac 1:39

Yes, but actually it's funny you say that because it's inspired by that because a cloister is a classic gin sour that traces back to actually the Playboy Bartender's Guide from 1971. Okay.

Rich 1:52

So we've waited. So we got 1971, which is of course one of my favorite years. We've got the Playboy Bartender's Guide, but then we're gonna throw in the monks that make chartreuse, the Carthusian monks. So monks, Playboy, and the year I was born. I I love this cocktail already. And chartreuse. Caitlin would hate it, I would love it.

Zac 2:11

Yeah, exactly. So the name is based on those monks that craft the yellow chartreuse, which is craft actually crafted by Carthusian monks in southeastern France. I love chartreuse. This version is slightly updated. It's inspired by Jim Meehan's PDT cocktail book from 2011. And I think all it does is add simple syrup to soften the grapefruit and lemon to create a little bit of a smoother because otherwise it kind of punches you in the face. But yeah.

Rich 2:40

Sometimes I want to be punched in the face by a cocktail. Like you're out and you're like, I need this thing to wake me up.

Zac 2:45

Yeah, I guess simple syrup optional then.

Rich 2:48

Yeah, sure, why not? So the original no simple syrup, this one simple syrup, and it's just a tiny bit, it's a quarter ounce, so it's not a lot. So you start with one and a half ounces of gin, uh, a half ounce of yellow chartreuse. Um, there is a chart chartreuse shortage right now, just by the way. I don't know if you knew this, Zach. Did not. But there has been for yellow and green. So there are some substitutes. They're not quite as good. Um, but you do want to try to get the yellow chartreuse if you can, if you can find it. Um, a half an ounce of grapefruit juice, a quarter ounce of lemon juice, a quarter ounce of simple syrup, and you garnish it with a grapefruit twist. So all those ingredients, we've got no fizzies, they all go into a uh shaker and you shake them with ice. You strain them into a chilled coupe glass. I also love a this is a great drink. I love all these things. Coup glasses, 1971 monks, and I mean the Playboy mansion. And so Barkinger's guide's a little weird, but okay. Yeah, I shouldn't. So then garnish it with your twist. Um, and this one comes from punchdrink.com. Um, and it is called a cloister. So a little bit of history, a little bit of alcohol trivia there for you. And uh now we'll get into like feeling overwhelmed. I would not feel overwhelmed if I had two of these. I would feel probably nothing.

Zac 4:01

Yeah, no, let's get back, let's get right into the episode. All right.

Step One: Slow Down And Diagnose

Rich 4:14

All right, Zach, before we get into overwhelming, um, you wouldn't be overwhelmed. Above me is one of my photos. I've got one over here too, but this one's from uh Florence, Italy, or Firenze, if you if you prefer. It's a carousel that's in the middle of the square. You're like going through and things are kind of gray. It was like December, and then you come around this corner and it's just this bright carousel, which works. And it was really cool. So anyway, I'm in my back room today, so there's a lot of weird settings for me. But okay, you're feeling overwhelmed. First thing that you need someone to help you do, Zach, is what yeah.

Zac 4:45

Well, let's set the scene a little bit, right? Like you're a client coming to us. Okay, you have a big headache, you're very confused about what's going on with your marketing, everything feels overwhelming. What's the first thing that we do, right?

Rich 4:59

Slow it down. That's number one. So you've got to like take a breath, take a beat, and pause. And the reason we do that is we need to figure out what the actual problem is. Is it a capacity issue? Is it a time issue? Is it a knowledge issue? Is it a systems issue? Like it may be a combination of those, it may be none of those. Um, so we really want to get to the root problem, not that symptom, right? I mean, same thing like curing a disease, right? Hey, we're the antidote, right? Like that's where that comes from. It's you treat it like a disease. You've got to kind of eliminate what's going on, look beyond the symptoms and find what the root cause is. Then you can start solving that root cause.

Zac 5:43

So right, because you might be worried about something like that's not a problem at all, right? Like you might be, for example, with social, you might be looking at vanity metrics and saying, well, I don't have enough likes on my posts, or I don't have this, this, and this. When in all actuality, like there's a deeper problem there that's not even related to that.

Rich 6:02

Yep. Has nothing to do with that. It's about your content or something else, or your audience, or your targeting, or who knows. Like the other one that gets me sometimes, and I've run into this where hey, our um our click-through rate is dropping. Like it's way down, our click-through rate's way down. And it's like, okay, well, click-through rate is part of a fraction, right? It's impressions versus clicks. And so let's take a look at what's going on. So then you go, oh, well, your revenue is up actually. Right, right, right. It would be up even more if our click-through rate was higher. Yes, that's true. However, we've been optimizing on your conversions. The campaign is learning again, it's relearning with some optimization we've done. Your impressions are up like 80%. Your clicks are only up 40%, but your clicks are up. So your click-through rate isn't really the issue. Um, and there actually isn't an issue. We need to just keep monitoring it and keep it going. So, yeah, it's the thing you're seeing can be not even related to what the problem might be.

Zac 7:04

It can be pretty deceptive.

Rich 7:06

Yeah. And if you if you start just throwing tactics at it, you just start doing things like you feel like I need to do, do, do, do, do. You might be wasting money, you might be putting things toward the wrong stuff. So we really have to like breathe, pause some of your like crazy tactics that we're just trying. I mean, and we've done this too before, like you just start throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Zac 7:26

Being reactive instead of actually sitting down and strategizing of the why behind you doing things.

Metrics Misread: CTR vs Revenue

Rich 7:32

Yep. Thinking about what the actual problem is. And then when you identify that, then you can go into solution mode and start to figure out what's going on. Um, so that's one. So one of the other things that can happen though is sometimes your symptoms and your initial like observation can be like dead on, and it's really obvious, like staring you in the face. So um, I think tool sprawl, tech sprawl is um one of the bigger ones that can be obvious really fast. Well, we have this system for this and this system for this, and this system for this, and this system for this. One of the first things we ask people about when they've got multiple systems is do they all talk to each other? What's your source of truth? Which one do we believe? And if those questions are like, no, they don't talk to each other, okay. We we we've probably identified the problem here.

Zac 8:26

Yeah. If different tools are telling you different analytics, for example, like over the same exact thing, it gets really confusing. And that's what that just adds to your overwhelming likeness.

Rich 8:37

Yeah. And you run into that with people, so like HubSpot and Google define um things differently, like views and conversions and other things. And so when people start using HubSpot and they're looking at the HubSpot analytics, they want it, if it says 105 in HubSpot, we want it to say 105 in Google. Not the way it's gonna work because they look at things differently. Also, people may have blocked a cookie on one or the other. They may have a privacy, privacy turned on for one or the other. Um, and so helping people understand, like, we can use either one. Either Google can be your source of truth, that's totally fine. And HubSpot's just an informative guide, or HubSpot can be your source of truth, and Google is an informative guide. Because I mean, if they're off by like 40%, something's not set up right. Yeah. But if they're off by like four, five, 10%, like that's fine. You know, so really it doesn't mean you need fewer systems always, but it means you need to pick which ones are important to you and which ones are just informing what you're doing.

Zac 9:36

And yeah, and I think tools are only one part of that, right? That can go back to processes, the things that they're prioritizing, kind of going back to the vanity metric thing I was talking about earlier. If you're not prioritizing the right thing, then maybe there is no issue. Maybe you're just seeing things that seem like an issue, but your priorities are all messed up. You're evaluing things that aren't relevant to your business.

Tool Sprawl And Source Of Truth

Rich 9:58

And I think the other thing is like you can over-process things, right? And the example that's been used since I don't know when the Super Bowl was that the power went out and all the lights went out a few years ago, but the Oreo cookie you can still dunk in the dark, viral tweet that went out. Like that wouldn't happen if they were overprocessed. They actually had guides in place, but let their people do what their people do. And so, you know, that complexity, that rigor, like locking people in so tight can really kill creativity and it can kill your momentum. And you just oh, I did fireworks. I got fireworks that I didn't even know those were on, but yeah, so there's some fireworks. You saw that coming before I did. I saw the thumbs up. I wasn't expecting the fireworks. Yeah. Um so anyway, yeah, that can be uh a huge issue.

Zac 10:50

Um well it just kills momentum, right? Like the more complex something is, the harder it is. I mean, we've talked about filling the launch probably about a hundred times on the podcast, but simplifying tools, processes, and priorities is a big step and actually finding that sense of calm with your marketing and actually making it work for you in a way that's not overwhelming, that's not a headache.

Rich 11:14

And it's the old adage, less is more, is really true when it comes to systems and processes and priorities. Like you need to have processes in place for things that need a process, of course, especially if you've got like secure data or HIPAA to deal with or anything like that. Absolutely. What we're talking about is really overkilling it on any of those areas. Um, and I think the one we kind of didn't touch on as tightly is priorities. Yeah. You know, you can't have 50 priorities. You know, what are your like two or three most important things? And a lot of times we'll look at like, okay, you want you say this is a priority, like, you know, impressions or followers. Well, that's actually just something that comes along with great content. Your priority should be engaging content. Followers will come from come with that. So like maybe we should look at engagement and not worry about followers as much.

Zac 12:08

Yeah. Or like likes. I mean, it just like, I don't know. I you're definitely like spot on there.

unknown 12:16

Yeah.

Rich 12:16

Click-through rates versus revenue. Which one's more important? That more people who see it are clicking through, or that your revenue is up and ahead of where it needs to be.

Zac 12:27

Have you ever, I mean, have you run into a lot of clients that are like have all messed up priorities in your experience where they're just like don't know what they want?

Rich 12:35

Or I think it's less messed up and it's more too many. Because if I ask, what are the top three things I want to measure? And you give me eight things, we're gonna have to have, we're gonna have a discussion about the number before we even get into what you want to do. Um, it's really like, and I think the number one thing is everybody cares about revenue, right? Like capitalist society, we're all in this to make money. Um, even nonprofits need to bring in donations and revenue. And so that can be a really great one. And if we focus on that, you've got to kind of let go of some of the other ones. But then there comes in like, well, can we optimize on revenue? Is your revenue generating system tied into your marketing analytics and all that? So it can be a little bit wild.

unknown 13:20

Yeah.

Zac 13:20

Okay. Another question. Uh, what is like one of the most common issues you see, I guess, when like somebody's like really struggling? Uh, I know it like definitely varies depending on the client, and there's a whole lot of things that go into it, but is there like a common like issue that a lot of people run into that we can speak to?

Rich 13:38

Um, I think one of the big ones that I see is there's a lot going on and they're doing a ton of stuff, but what they're doing isn't having the impact that they want.

Zac 13:50

So they're they're throwing tactics at the wall, like you were saying earlier.

Rich 13:54

Yeah, their tactics and their KPIs and their goals don't actually line up. I'll try not to do any more fireworks in the background. Um, and then the other thing that can happen is those things can be misaligned with their funnel. So they've got these goals, but a lot of one we see a lot is they're just hammering bottle of bottom of funnel. And that is actually my analogy, I'm sure I've said it before, is it's when you walk into a bar and be like, who wants to marry me? And everybody looks at you like you're crazy because why would I want to marry you if I just met you? Like you've actually got to introduce yourself. You've got to talk to people, you've got to understand who they are. You've got to, you know, date a little bit. Like there's steps before you get to, will you marry me? Same thing with customers. So when you're doing the bottom of funnel, you're screaming, will you marry me at people who don't know who you are? And they're walking away. So that's a big one where that's their goal, or their, you know, their goal might be new business, which is great. But their funnel is just bottom, bottom, bottom, bottom, bottom. And it's like that can't work.

Zac 14:54

And there's also like disconnected campaigns, right? Where they're running one campaign in one area of the funnel without connecting it to other pieces. Like running, like creating like an offer or like a white paper and just promoting the white paper through paid ads. That's good, but you can also, you know, create like top of funnel content that leads to that and just fully bail out a funnel for it so that nothing is disconnected. You need to have a full plan.

Process Overkill Kills Momentum

Rich 15:19

Yeah. And I think the other one is, and I know we've been helping a lot of clients with this lately, is your organic content aligning with your paid content. They can work together and there shouldn't be a hard wall between them and and content can jump from one side to the other. That's okay. Um, you know, it's okay for an offer that worked really well but is a little bit less reverent to just become a free piece of content that you throw out there at the top of the funnel. Totally fine. But really thinking through everything and making sure that it's all um, you know, really working together. Um focus. You gotta focus. Because I look at my phone sitting next to me, like, who's texting me? What's going on? We're all distracted. So that's another good one. We're all distracted, right? Like we're never as focused.

Zac 16:08

Um I mean, not knowing what you want to like when you're in your marketing can be really, like, really confuse you, right? Because you're focused on one thing and then you're jumping to the next. Like, oh, like my SEO needs work, and then you do a little bit of work on your SEO, but then you find another problem. Oh, like my content needs to support my SEO. And so you just need to focus and break things down one at a time. Like we've talked about simplifying things, really getting down to the root problem, but just also just making sure that you're really like, like you said, focusing and slowing down on what's important and building things as they come and really creating like a solid strategy for building those things out before just throwing things at the wall.

Fewer Priorities, Better Outcomes

Rich 16:50

A hundred percent. I think the other thing that happens with activity is sometimes you get right people, wrong role. So you've got really great people, you love your people, they're amazing, but they may not be in the right place. You might have to shuffle things around a little bit. Um, we've done that a few times with people. Um, your role changed significantly from when you got hired. Um, I don't even think we had a role for you when you got hired. We're just like, yeah, we like this kid, we're gonna hire him. Right person, no role yet. Right. But we're like, he fits, so let's figure it out. But like, you know, Caitlin evolved through a few roles. If she was here, she'd talk about that, of course. Um, but she's still off legislating and doing all those things. Um But um, you know, she came in as a project manager because that's what we needed. Um, and then she wasn't really great at that, and she didn't really because she didn't love it. Like she was fine at it, but it wasn't her passion. She wasn't, you know, she didn't like the behind the scenes. She's a people person. Obviously, people who've watched the podcast before go back and look at some Caitlin episodes. Like she's a people person. And so she really loved the people side of it. And we're like, oh, you shouldn't be in project management, you should be in account service. Like, we'll go get a project manager. Let's move you over here. We need to put you over here. Um, Isaac started as a social media intern, and then we learned that he could write and he could write really well, and now he's writing full time, you know, and he does some stuff with content with you I know and all that. So it's one of those situations where, you know, Isaac was good at social media. Caitlin was good at project management. Isaac is excelling as a writer. Caitlin really excelled and was able to grow clients as an account service person. So really looking at that focus and the activity, and are your people aligned right? You know, because people are like, I mean, I hate saying it, but they're like an asset, like systems, people, processes, all of those things matter and making sure that they're all, you know, being used to their bet fullest and fulfilled, right? Like Caitlin was less fulfilled as a project manager than she wasn't as an account person. Isaac was less fulfilled doing social media for random companies than he is as a writer. Um, we also social media wasn't really profitable at the time either, so organic social, especially. So we kind of pulled back from that.

Zac 18:59

But yeah. Oh, and I think I think that also like with people in the right places, it's also like your focus in the right places, right? If you're if you have if you're doing the wrong things in the wrong places, but you have like you're doing good tactics, like let's say you're running a campaign that's not performing well, but you're doing the right things with that campaign. Maybe you're not maybe you need to advertise elsewhere. Maybe like search like ads aren't for you, maybe like social ads aren't for you. You can always like re-prioritize what you're doing and where your focus is. So Yep.

Rich 19:30

Yeah, and I think that that comes down like Twitter, and like we've talked about Twitter multiple times, X now. Um, and it's just changed drastically since Elon Musk bought it. Like really drastically. The audience is very different, the engagement is very different. And so if Twitter was really great for you and you're still just trying to pour more money into it to make it work, well, like maybe you need to pull back and take a look at Meta and see what's going on with um Instagram. And maybe, you know, I I don't think Threads has ads yet. I'm sure it's coming because Mark Zuckerberg wants his money. Um but like taking a look at some of those and even going for that organic engagement on Threads. I've Threads has been really engaging for specific communities, especially around like entertainment and TV shows and things like that. Um so yeah, it's is what we were doing before not working because we've changed or because it's changed, the platform has changed, the audience has changed. Um so yeah, that can be a really big one as well.

Zac 20:29

So I think we've covered a lot here, but like if we had to simplify it down, right?

Rich 20:35

Are you overwhelmed with how much we covered overwhelmingness?

Zac 20:38

There's a lot of things that have gone into it. I don't think I'm overwhelmed. I definitely have a clear picture of what we like what to do if I were a client. But just to kind of like simplify it down, if somebody's super overwhelmed, what's like in the most simplest terms possible, what should they do? I think so.

Rich 20:56

The biggest one for me is slow down and figure out why you're overwhelmed. Number one. And I would get somebody else to help you with that. Um, you know, somebody who's kind of distanced even from what you do. It's like why we go to therapy, right? Like because the therapist isn't a friend, they're not going to tell us what we want to hear. They're gonna be like, you're being stupid. You need to not do that. And here's some tools for you not to do that. Slow down, figure out what the problem is, and then start thinking about solutions. Yeah.

Zac 21:26

I mean, and if if people were to come to us, we would definitely be honest with them and open with them on what needs to change and what needs to happen. And we'll be we won't be your therapist, but we'll be your therapist for your marketing something.

Funnel Alignment Over Random Tactics

Rich 21:37

I mean, if you buy me drinks, I'll be your therapist. I don't care. It's fine. I'm just not just not licensed or anything. I don't think are therapists licensed? I feel like they have to have like a degree or something. I would hope. Um so yeah, anyway, but I'll be your uh your bartender therapist or your your s this side of the bar drinker therapist. So yeah, I think slow down. I mean, look at your tools, processes, priorities. People. See if anything is misaligned, if anything is like too overwhelming or too complex. I hit a point about three years ago where I was just pushing like fewer tools, fewer tools, fewer tools, fewer tools. And it was frustrating for people. But at the same time, it's like, look at all this stuff we're paying for. We've got other stuff over here. HubSpot was adding features. And I'm like, why would I use this tool if we've got it rolled in here already?

Zac 22:25

And uh we're gonna be having an episode next week covering what to how to choose like the right tools for the right thing and how to cut some of that bloat that we talked about earlier out. So stay tuned for that. Yep. Before you get too deep into the next week's episode.

Rich 22:39

I'm not gonna go any deeper than that. And then I think also just look at your goals and look at your tactics and look at your funnel and just see if all of that really makes sense and is aligned. Those are the big three. But number one, take a breath, slow down, figure out what's going wrong. I mean, same, same thing if you were sick and you weren't getting better. You slow down, you go to your body makes you slow down for one, but you go to your doctor, they help figure out what's wrong. When they know what's wrong, they work with you to treat it. Easy as that. 100%.

Zac 23:11

Awesome. Well, I think that's an episode. Uh you can find our agency at antidote71.com and all of our socials are there as well. If you have a question you'd like to send our way, head to ctapodcast.live to shoot us an email, or even better, leave us a voice message on our hotline at 402-718-9971. Your question might make it into a future episode of the podcast. And I say might, but it will. It will.

Rich 23:36

So all right, sounds good. So uh next week or week after, whenever that is, we're gonna be talking about tools and choosing the right tools.