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This is the giraffes don't eat steak podcast. The

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show that brings you marketing stories, tips, hints, and much

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more. A treat for those who want to succeed in business

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or marketers who just want to learn. Hello, Alex.

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Hello. How are you doing? I am good. How are you? I'm very

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well. Thank you. I just finished off with a lovely avocado,

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which you'll be delighted to know since you're

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trying to liking avocados. I'm so

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impressed. In fact, yesterday, I

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went to our waterfront cafe. I took Kim, my

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daughter. Went to meet a client there, and I was thinking

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about you. The last time we were there, you brought that your neighbor's dog.

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Remember? Yeah. Mobi. Mobi the dog.

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And, of course, I ate my normal fish cakes because that's what I

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eat when I'm there. And, actually, you won't recognize the place. They've done such a huge,

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build that they've doubled the seating space.

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But in covered It's already pretty big. It must

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be. So they've build they've extended the covered

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area, but it's not not like within walls. It's, you know, when it's,

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like, outside covers. It's all glass. Yep. So they've extended

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that area, so much, much bigger now. But guess

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what they haven't fixed, which I don't know how they're gonna solve this, the parking.

1:28

Yeah. Because what's what's the use if they got all the

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seating place and no one can park there. Right?

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So that was major oversight.

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Actually, that leads to to a good discussion because

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for marketers, a lot of people, one of the myths of marketing

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is that you don't need a marketing strategy. You can just run

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campaigns, and you'll be fine. And, actually, if you

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think about this Waterfront Cafe, their marketers must have

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gone, oh, we can run some ads and get more bums on seats.

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Let's build out this extra area. But they didn't think through

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the whole end to end of if no one can park

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there, you're not gonna get people.

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Yeah. I mean, the strategy of that is so important. That's that's a fatal

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error that, It's

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like being blinded by the shiny thing of being

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able to have more customers, but not thinking

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about the reality of what more customers means.

2:33

Absolutely. I think we've we've found

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that in a few places before where we it's like

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the leads. Right? Okay. We've got this lead supplier

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who can guarantee us a 1000000 leads every month,

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and we're like, yeah. Let's do it. Let's do it. Everyone tells us to do

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it, but no one's thought about what the implications of that are. What does

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that mean to the business? What does that mean in terms of

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the the the call center handling? If it's a call

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center, what does it mean in terms of the volume of

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being able to to deal with the number

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of questions, the time taken to speaking to customers, to

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creating the sales, to creating sales packs, to

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sending out the right information, their email list. It I mean,

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it just goes on and on and on. The,

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the domino effect of having more

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business. Yeah. No. Exactly. And I think

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that's why people maybe the word strategy is what scares people.

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Right? Because it's true. Nobody wants a strategy.

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Nobody wants a strategy, but everyone needs a marketing

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strategy. And the whole purpose of it is to tie all those elements

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of the business together. Starting with, are you attracting

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if we go for your leads example, is it the right kind of people?

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Or even let's stick to the Waterfront Cafe restaurant example. That's a

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fun one. If they did a marketing campaign on Facebook,

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are they gonna get the right kind of people? Is it gonna be all kids

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that come and don't have enough money to spend? Are

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they gonna be getting may actually, maybe they have a

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strategy, and I've misunderstood. Maybe they aiming at pensioners,

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and they sending a bus out so they don't need more parking because

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they're busing people in and out. And so that's

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their strategy. Right? As as long as it's thought through

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Yeah. I mean, we don't know the full I don't

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know. Scope of it. But I've

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been there many times in my life, and I'm willing to bet

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that there isn't coach loads of people going there.

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And I've got a special area for the coaches. Where would the coaches park?

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That's they'd have yeah. They can't park across the road because the stage was

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crossing that road. I just park across the road. Main road. No.

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I had to park across the road. It was, it was quite

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fun dodging the cars, getting across there. Can

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you imagine, like, hordes of

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elderly people trying to cross that road, you know,

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with not with not with the greatest agility in the world?

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Yeah. So that's not a plan. I don't know. But,

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yeah, that's I think that's where people underestimate

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marketing strategy because and, unfortunately, there's lots of

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campaign marketers out there. Right? Come

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to me, and I'll give you Facebook ads. Come to me, and I'll give you

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LinkedIn. I get a lot of these. I'm sure you get

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I can book you 5 appointments a week

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for your agency. Right? Like, lots of those.

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Yeah. But it's just the campaign. Like, if you haven't thought

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through the strategy of what you're trying to achieve, how does it fit

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into the rest of your business, it's actually

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it's not gonna work. It's somewhat some way it's gonna fall

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down. And also I've been I've been

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getting, I mean, I always get lots and

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lots of emails about, partnerships in

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marketing and things like that. Sometimes I buy because sometimes

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I like the message and sometimes I'm in market for that

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thing. And I think I mentioned this on a previous podcast, but since

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then as well, it's happened to me a couple more times that I've

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replied to the email saying,

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yes. I'm interested. It's something like, they're offering me, like, a

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free SEO review or free and I'm like, I'm actually

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in the market for that right now. And I reply, and I get nothing

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back. Yep. So I don't

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understand what is going on there, but it's, I mean, it's a

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massive fail, I mean, in the strategy. Right? Because

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probably what's happened is maybe that company has

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worked with another company, like, say, I can get you x amount

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of leads per day, blah blah blah. But there

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isn't a consideration on the the follow

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ups that are happening and the reputation they're getting.

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And it's, a, not only is it a bad reputation in that single

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business, it's just it's just, solidifying

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my opinion on on that type of marketing

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to that type to marketers as well. I mean, it's terrible.

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And and whoever is running those campaigns, it's just it's

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damaging the view of that particular tactic

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as well, Not only the brand. It's it's doing it's doing no

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good at all. It's awful. Exactly. And

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that's why for marketing strategy, you look at the full scope. Right?

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In the old school of marketing, it was called the 7 p's of marketing, where

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you looked at from product, price, promotion,

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place, all the way across to make sure it all stacked up.

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One another example I had, of needing

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to step back is we were offered to one of my

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clients who offered more

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marketing upfront. Awesome. But at the same time, there's a

8:13

hole in the funnel, and we were we were losing,

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you know, at the same rate. So without marketing,

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signing up 5, but losing 5 every month. So I'm

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saying, hold on. Maybe before strategy, take a step

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back. Before we sign up more here, why don't we

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check what's happening with the hole in the bucket at the back end? Because

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if we can plug that, it's gonna be better for us before

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we increase. Because who knows if increasing by 10,

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we're not gonna lose 10. We don't understand what's causing

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the the loss at the end. Because the assumption is if I increase by 10

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and I lose 5, that'll be fine. But what if that whole means

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lose 10? Right? Like, if you don't understand what's causing

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it, you could end up with a bigger problem. So I'm like, stop the bus.

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1st, plug the hole at the end, see what's going on there,

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then open the tap up front because this is just a

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wasted funnel right now. No. That's exactly right. And more often

9:14

than not that the end part of the funnel is

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the most cost effective part of the funnel. Bringing in

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leads is the expensive time consuming,

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more hard work work. Yeah. Once people are

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already in the funnel, and they're already a

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customer, and especially if you have upsells and cross sells,

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there's a lot less work to do a lot less work

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to do and, and a lot more profit. And then

9:45

Absolutely. And that's, I mean, that's not a myth. Right? You can make

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more revenue from your existing customers than from new customers.

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Because with new customers, you gotta pay more. You gotta work

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harder because they don't know your brand. You've still got a bold trust and

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reputation. Once someone's bought from you, they're in. Getting

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them to buy the next product is so much easier because you

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don't have to do the hard sell anymore. And so that's for

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those of you who don't know, upselling is

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increasing the products, of the customer. So if they've

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got a silver level and you upsell them to a gold level,

10:22

for example I hate gold and silver, but, anyway, that came to my mind now.

10:25

Yeah. But it's it's the easy one to go for, isn't it? I know.

10:29

If somebody can come up with better levels than

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bronze, silver, gold, you'll be my superhero for life.

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Please contact me straight away because I'm so tired of silver,

10:40

bronze, and gold. But anyway, everyone knows what that is. And

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then cross selling is when you sell a different product

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to the same customer. Again, you understand

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the customer. You know their needs. They know you. It should be much

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easier to sell them an alternative product than

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to try and get a new customer through the door. Now why do so many

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people just not do it, Telect? Well, I think there's, it's the,

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it's just the education around marketing. Isn't it an education

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around, growing your business.

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It just, I think from the, from the face of it, it seems

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seems more obvious that the more people I have coming through my front

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door, the more people I'm gonna sell to and

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make money. But it's not necessary. It's not not

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no. It's just not true. It's not not necessary. It's not true.

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Yeah. But, yeah, of course, you still need that flow. Let's not ignore,

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but that is very important. We're just saying that if

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you if you have,

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there's there's always room to optimize that end part of the funnel. There's no

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don't just try and splash the cash in the

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front the front end when you could be fixing the the end

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part, plugging that hole as you were saying earlier,

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and, and kind of stop that leaky bucket of, of finance.

12:07

Yeah. And I mean, there's so many opportunities with understanding

12:11

why people are leaving. Right? Because that's what you're doing. You're trying to understand why

12:14

people are leaving you, because you could find a product gap.

12:18

Right? There was something they were missing that they thought they were getting. So, you

12:22

know, you don't wanna increase that disappointment with more and more people if you know,

12:26

ah, this is what they thought they were getting. Plug it. Right? Like

12:30

or change your messaging so they don't expect that that's what they were getting.

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Or there's so many things that can tell you that you may need to

12:37

make a small tweak to your process or your product or or just

12:41

your contract. Maybe your contract didn't stipulate things properly.

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And that'll, you know, stop people being disappointed, stop

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people leaving, stop people especially if they're leaving

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disgruntled. That's really, really bad. Right?

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If you don't know what was causing that that issue.

13:00

So, yeah, I'm I'm all for looking into end of

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your marketing, not just at your lead generation, but

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understanding right across the board. Yeah. And I've seen I've seen it

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just outside of marketing as well. One of the clients I'm working with, they have

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2 offers. They have a technical offer and a strategic offer,

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And everybody comes in because they feel that they have a lack

13:22

of technical expertise, and that's the issue that's causing,

13:26

whatever it is, the slow production of the product

13:30

or this, increased costs or whatever

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that more often than not is because they have a very

13:37

poor strategy or they don't have a strategy. And,

13:43

they haven't fully understood the

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potential opportunities they have in terms of partnerships, collaborations, and

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that's all the strategic element. They just look at it and say, my team doesn't

13:54

have the specialist, the specialist needs that I

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require. But we, every time we go

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in, it's like, actually

14:05

you do have the team. Actually you do have the specialist, but you,

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you, you're not, your team isn't structured well enough. You don't

14:12

have the right collaborations in place. You need to think

14:16

about these types of partnerships and needs. And it,

14:21

and it's it's always it's

14:24

always the same. It's always the same. You just look at the kind of the

14:28

technical side of it or the the

14:32

the the direct pain that you're having. You're not really looking at

14:36

where it's same with with some, like, sports injuries.

14:39

Sometimes, like, you think the injury is here because that's where you feel the pain,

14:43

but actually the the problem that's coming from somewhere else. You need

14:47

to look at the body as a whole, the holistic point of view, the end

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to end, like marketing. Absolutely.

14:54

So can we say that myth is busted, Alex?

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Well and truly. Well and truly busted.

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So if you think that you don't need a marketing strategy,

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that is a myth. You absolutely do.

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And please, if any marketing person is telling you you don't need a

15:14

strategy, think about why you're working

15:17

with them because they are wrong. Yeah. What's

15:21

a big red flag I find is when they just come to you straight with

15:24

one particular tactic. So I think you mentioned earlier,

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Facebook ads. You need Facebook ads. What how do you know? You don't know my

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business. Absolutely. Right. Good myth, Alex. Let's,

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see what other myths we can find that we can best on our

15:43

podcast. I'm sure there's many. I'll talk

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to you soon. Okay. Bye bye. Bye.

15:52

That wraps up this episode of giraffes don't eat steak. Thanks for

15:56

joining us. I hope you found value in our discussion and got some new ideas

15:59

to apply to your own business. Tune in next week for another round

16:03

of marketing insights and inspiration. If you enjoyed this episode,

16:07

please leave us a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

16:11

or wherever you listen to podcasts. We appreciate you listening.

16:15

Catch you next time on Giraffes Don't Eat Steak.