NeuroMarketing and Consumer Driven Decisions

What Exactly Is SEO?

Fore! Ways Small Businesses Can Improve Their Social Media

Is Cheap Marketing Actually Worth It?

Let’s be honest, we’re always wanting the best and cheapest option, right?Unfortunately, those might not go hand-in-hand. It’s important that we make an important distinguishment, as not EVERY cheap opportunity is a terrible idea, as sometimes there are people focused on building their portfolio who will provide work for a discounted rate. So, Why isn’t cheap marketing worth it?There has been a continuous shift in the marketing world towards a race to the proverbial bottom, that only gets lower and lower. Well, How Do You Put A Legitimate Marketing Plan in Place?A Marketing professional should be able to guide you in the right direction of actually creating a marketing plan.Lastly, How Do You Actually Vet a Marketing Professional?There are so many ways you should and shouldn’t do this, and we’ve provided some of our recommendations below:Is the Marketing “Professional” providing recommendations that don’t take into account the personal side of your business? If they aren’t, you might want to evaluate this professional further.

Want To Sell More, Easier? Here’s What To Focus On In Your Ads:

Every business is created to offer benefits to its customers. Whether you offer a service, a product, information, or any combination of these three, your business is here to make someone’s life easier and to make you money. These two intentions intersect in the features and benefits of your business.  What is the difference?Features are what your business does, benefits are how those features make your customer’s life better. Why should they buy this? How will it make them feel? How does it improve their current processes? Does it make life easier? All your marketing messaging should focus on one or both of these aspects of your business, but primarily on the benefits.  Imagine you’re speaking to a five year old. You describe a new feature on your truck that you are really excited about. What is the first question they will ask? “Why?” So you explain one benefit of this feature. They ask again, “Why?” and you explain another. After about the third “Why” you’re probably tired of the conversation, but those three answers are exactly what your customers want to hear first. Not all the product specs and why you are proud of it, just how it can make their life better.  If you are a product-based business then make sure to keep all the technical specs easy to find but place the benefits front and center. If you are a service-based business then give space to both, but make sure it is balanced- for every feature, a matching benefit.  Examples Still uncertain? Here are some of our customers who excel at benefits-based marketing:What’s the first thing you see on Altru’s website? “Protecting Homes…” Now that is a compelling reason to learn more about who they are and what they do. Being a service-based business, AltruRoofing does go into a lot of specs when you look at their list of services, but they keep the focus on protecting your home and your time when working with them. Here’s another service-based business example: The StudyHub puts the primary benefit of their tutoring front and center on their home page. By the time someone gets to your website or social media page they have already chosen to click once, so make sure the first thing they see is one way you make their life or business better.  ImplementationReady to try it? There are two different ways you can approach benefit-oriented ads. You can focus on what the customer is gaining or what they are avoiding.  Start with one of your products or services. List the top 5 benefits that your customer gains. Next, list the top 5 reasons they might be frustrated and looking for that product or service in the first place.  If you are the roofing company above, the gain they’ve chosen to focus on is protection. The problems their customers are avoiding by getting a roof inspection or installation can be as practical as avoiding a leaky roof; emotional, like sleeping with peace of mind throughout a storm; or financial, by increasing the value of their home.  Hitting all three sectors (practical, emotional, and financial) helps you reach people with a variety of mindsets and concerns. Not every ad has to address all three. In fact, many powerful ads choose one and really lean into it. Try them out and see what your customer base responds best to.  Looking to find out more about who your customer base is so you can do this most efficiently? Here’s an article to help you identify who you are selling to. Want help curating benefit-focused ads and strategically placing them online? Contact us here to find out how our marketing and social media packages can help manage your online presence, boost sales, and give you more time to focus on the things you love. (See what we did there?)

4 Ways Small Businesses Can Improve Their Social Media Presence

Social media is often viewed as a monster that needs to be fed rather than a networking tool that can boost your business. How you frame it mentally might be affecting your likeliness to post and impacting your relationship to current and potential customers. We are here to help you see social media as a tool to build your business, starting with 4 ways to improve your online presence today: 1. Post Content Consistently You can’t make new friends if you don’t talk to them. As simple as it may seem, posting content is necessary for getting more likes, shares, and insights. Post 2-3 times a week to start. As a general rule, 80% should be original content- written about your business by your business and 20% can be reposting other people’s content- articles that apply to your field, market insights, and helpful tips that match your esthetic and vision. 2. Comment on other people’s postsComments are conversation. If the goal of social media for your business is to network, then you need to participate in the conversation with both current and future customers.  Not sure what to say? Just be sure to acknowledge anyone who mentions your company and thank them for being a customer. If you know them personally it’s okay to write a little more, but remember, this is not your personal account. (More on that in #4) 3. Make sure all content is high quality and beneficialContent should tell your customer about the features of your product/service or the benefits they get from using it. Market insights, promos, and team announcements are other categories of posts that are beneficial. Every social media interaction is an opportunity to build your company image and direct traffic to your website. Before posting, always make sure any pictures used aren’t fuzzy and that everything is spelled correctly. 4. Keep all content on brandThis is your business account, not your personal one. Always ask yourself: Does this post reflect my company or me? Is this my personal opinion about ____ or is it my company’s statement regarding a topic that applies directly to our industry? If social media is a tool for networking then all conversations should keep the business in mind.  Our goal is to help you see social media as an asset and not just a monster you have to feed. We have packages built to help you manage your social media channels, no matter the size of your business.

How to Turn Negative Reviewers Into Loyal Customers

You just picked up your phone and saw the negative review. Do you need to respond? And if so, how? Many times we consider responding to negative reviews as damage control, but it's actually an opportunity to earn the trust of the reviewer and other potential customers who read your response. Here’s how: Consider: Is there anything valid in their review?Even in poorly written or highly emotional reviews there is often a valid point to be made. Your business will not profit from a heated response, but it could be strengthened if you give every review the benefit of the doubt. We all get defensive when we receive criticism, especially from an unknown source, but great businesses are made when criticism is considered and used constructively. So, take a deep breath and comb through the review by asking yourself these two questions:Was their criticism the direct result of something done (or not done) by my staff/product?Maybe you did miss their phone call. Maybe the website did state the package prices incorrectly. Perhaps your employee overcommitted that week and this customer has a reason to feel that they weren’t given the time and attention they were promised. None of these issues are irreconcilable, but they all deserve an honest and proactive response.  Is there any obvious way to reverse or compensate for the mistake? Sometimes the solution is as simple as picking up the phone and calling to talk it over. You could issue a replacement product, offer a free service, or just comp the cost. Whatever you choose to do, make sure it matches the weight of the mistake made. (For example, there is no need to give a free subscription for one missed phone call, but be sure to give one if the end of the year deadline wasn’t met.)The way you handle negative reviews tells customers more about you and your business than ads and “about” pages ever will. Ironically, crafting a response to negative reviews is your quickest opportunity to gain customer loyalty.  When writing the response:Empathize without dismissingMake the customer feel seen, even if their complaint wasn’t something you had any control over. Acknowledge them and the fact that they took the time to write, then address the issue. Make sure to keep it short and sweet, defensiveness or trying to explain why the mistake was made will detract from the goal of building trust. End with a call to actionInvite them to give your company another chance. If you need to follow-up personally (not on the internet chat board) then invite them to call you, or reach out to them after writing a short response to their public review. Loyalty can be built up over time by consistently providing excellent service/products, or it can be gained in an instant by making a frustrated customer feel seen, heard, and important. Negative reviews are your company’s opportunity to do just that.  Want help with social media management? Our team does just that with a variety of packages available that are sure to fit your business needs. Contact us here to learn more.  ***If the review includes obscenities, is a personal attack against you or an employee, or is a rant that has no relevance to your business then delete it. Reach out to the writer if you feel like any of the points from above still apply, but with deleted reviews no call to action is necessary.

Tired of Writing Boring Ads? Try This Instead…

Clicks are down, you are out of ideas, and you are considering reposting that old content again or just not posting at all. How do you spice up a seemingly boring product or service? What more can you say about the specs and your new promotion? Here’s our #1 tip: Focus on the benefits. How does your product or service make your customer’s life easier? You might say, “Yes, but you don’t understand, I sell rocks. It’s not glamorous or shiny, the process isn’t clean and simple.” Okay, but what benefit do these rocks have? If online art investors are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a digital image of a “pet rock”, surely there is a way to shake up your marketing model a bit.Here’s the copy for a feature-focused ad about rocks:Pure igneous rock1 ton of solid materialColor variance developed by magma cooling and compressing over thousands of years.Zzzzzz….wait what? What were they selling? I think I dozed off.How about this benefits-focused ad for those rocks instead:Versatile seating perfect for your next outdoor partyAvailable in a variety of natural tones sure to match your decorSturdy material that will always be there for youWhat are you selling? Seating, decor, and reliability. Don’t sell the rocks, sell how they help people.Granted, there will always be someone who asks what kind of rock it is and how old it is and where you procured it, but they are not the majority of the market. If your goal is to spruce up your boring ads and compel people to click then focus on the person you are selling to, not the product you are selling. Focus on the benefits. Still looking for some help? We specialize in making your life easier and increasing your sales by offering packages for social media management and marketing consulting that are guaranteed to fit your business size and needs. Working with us gives you more time to focus on your business and less time writing social media posts about rocks…or anything else your company works with. Interested in learning more? Get in touch with us here(I’m not kidding, evidence here: https://www.theverge.com/22310188/nft-explainer-what-is-blockchain-crypto-art-faq)

The New Facebook

On October 28, 2021, at Connect 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Meta, which brings together their apps and technologies under one new company brand. Meta’s focus will be to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses. The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world. It’s the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it’s ushering in a new chapter for their company. Mark shared more about this vision in a founder’s letter.What some are failing to recognize is that this change won’t actually affect the facebook brand, just their holding company.According to a quote on the Guardian, “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the social media giant will change the name of its holding company to Meta, in a rebrand that comes as the company faces a series of public relations crises.”The goal for this rebrand, published from a Business Insider article states that “Facebook's main social app will exist underneath the new brand name, as will the rest of the company's products, like Horizon and WhatsApp. It's a bit like Google existing under the Alphabet umbrella.”Another Business Insider is found citing Mark Zuckerburg’s overall goal for a metaverse: “The metaverse essentially represents a 3D internet that spans both the physical and virtual worlds. Many people use it in reference to video games or virtual reality, and most tech companies think it's the next big thing that'll eventually succeed the internet.” Read the Full Press Release from Facebook Here Facebook Announces Messenger calls in VR Earlier this year they launched Messenger support in VR, letting you send a quick message to friends from inside the headset. But why type when you can talk? Later this year, they’re bringing Messenger audio calls to VR. You’ll be able to jump into an audio call with friends from any Messenger-enabled platform and eventually hang out or travel to VR destinations together. Facebook Announces Horizon Home In order to lay the groundwork for the metaverse, a new feature called Horizon Home will allow users to create their own digital living spaces where they can hang out with friends, watch videos and jump into games and apps together. Horizon Home builds upon Horizon Worlds, which is currently in beta, and Horizon Workrooms for businesses. Meanwhile, Horizon Venues will give users an all-access pass to live concerts, sporting events and more. Facebook Announces The future of work The metaverse will eventually encompass work, entertainment, and everything in between. Like phones and laptops today, their platform needs to be flexible enough to accommodate all these different use cases.Soon they’ll begin testing Quest for Business — a new suite of features designed for businesses, but which runs on the same consumer Quest 2 headset you can buy today. Quest for Business will let you log in to your Quest 2 headset with a Work Account, an upcoming business-only login that will allow you to collaborate with coworkers and access productivity apps like Horizon Workrooms and Gravity Sketch without using your personal Facebook account. Quest for Business will also enable access to dedicated platform functions that businesses need for work, like account management, IDP and SSO integration, third-party mobile device management, and more.

Caleb Roche Featured on THE RIALTO MARKETING PODCAST

Episode 106. The Key Ingredients Of Customer Experience & Creating Lifelong CustomersBuilding a solid customer experience and creating lifelong customers go hand in hand. But how can you actually accomplish this? In today's episode of the Rialto Marketing podcast, we’re going to dig into this and much more with our special guest, Caleb Roche from CRoche Consulting.Podcast Transcript Tim FitzpatrickBuilding a solid customer experience and creating lifelong customers go hand in hand. They are not mutually exclusive. But how can you actually accomplish this? We're going to dig into this and a whole lot more with our special guest today. Hi, I'm Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the right plan. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to tune in. I am super excited to have with me today. Caleb Roche from CRoche Consulting. Caleb has a marketing degree and an almost MBA. Okay, he's almost there. He's going to have his MBA in December. Congratulations ahead of time on that one. He's worked with companies large and small to help them make business and marketing simple. Super excited to dig in on this conversation. Caleb, welcome and thanks for being here, man.Caleb RocheThanks, Tim. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this.Tim FitzpatrickYes. Yes. We're going to talk about customer experience, lifelong customers. Super important to any business. I don't care what business you are in. Before we do that, I want to ask you some rapid-fire questions to help us get to know you. You ready to jump in with both feet here?Caleb RocheI am. I'm ready for the tough hitting questions right now.Tim FitzpatrickYeah, they're not all that tough. So when you're not working, how do you like to spend your time?Caleb RocheI love to spend time, it's a typical answer, but I love to spend time with my family. I've got an awesome wife and almost two year old. I love the word almost, I guess. And spending time with them and just really enjoying the time with what I have with them.Tim FitzpatrickNow, before you know it, your two-year old is going to be ten. The time goes by.Caleb RocheAlmost ten. Can I use the word almost ten?Tim FitzpatrickYes, you can. What's your hidden talent?Caleb RocheMy hidden talent? I've got to say, I'm quite good at golf. At least I think I am. It really just helps me kind of focus on nothing, and I don't have to worry about business. And so I like to think I'm pretty good at it. But you might ask someone else and see if that's actually my hidden talent.Tim FitzpatrickYes, golf is a, golf can be fun at times. It can be incredibly frustrating, too, right? Just when you think you got your stuff together, man, the wheels come off. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?Caleb RocheI've always been told by other business owners to be patient, since great things take time and it's really shown in my business. I'm not for sure if you felt this way, but you have moments of slow growth and you have moments of big growth and each have their pros and cons, but kind of being present in the moment and being patient when those things happen. It kind of resonated with me, and it's kind of stood out to me that it's continued to live through past five years.Tim FitzpatrickIt's a great piece of advice. What one thing about you that surprises people?Caleb RocheI don't know if you did your research enough on this one, but I'm actually 22 years old.Tim FitzpatrickYeah. I knew that. I knew you were younger. I didn't know your exact age. Yeah, so people based on what you're doing and where you're at, people assume that you're older.Caleb RocheYeah. I've had most conversations I go to, they think I'm around 30. And then usually in conversation, it comes up that this is the first year that I can drink or my second year that I can legally drink or being a little bit younger. And then it kind of dives into a conversation. They're like, "Holy cow! You're that young." And so it's kind of nice because a lot of people think I'm older, but then I don't know if it's good or bad thing that they have the shell shock that a little younger than they think.Tim FitzpatrickYeah. It's kind of funny how that works, right. For a while, when I was your age, I got kind of frustrated. The people had to ask me for my ID, and now nobody asks, "Dude, what are you saying?"Caleb RocheI'm sure once I'm, like 50, I'll be looking back and wishing people thought I was 30 or 20.Tim FitzpatrickWhat does success mean to you?Caleb RocheSuccess means to me being able to provide a great life for my family while still really being involved in family life. It's kind of a big piece of my life of not spending as much time with them the first couple of years and kind of diving back into that. So success to me is just them being happy.Tim FitzpatrickLove it. Where's your happy place?Caleb RocheMy happy place is normally in the mornings in my office, I try to wake up. I don't have a certain time. I wake up. I wish I could say it was like 4 or 05:00 a.m. That I woke up every single morning, but I definitely don't do that. But I really enjoy waking up. And I'm reading at least a book or two, a couple of chapters and sitting here with some coffee. That's been kind of where I find my happy place.Tim FitzpatrickLove it before everybody else gets up. It's quiet.Caleb RocheYep.Tim FitzpatrickWhat qualities do you value in the people you spend time with?Caleb RocheYou know, I really value people who are very transparent and that they usually value good and deep discussions. Not that every conversation I have with a friend has to be deep, but I really enjoy it. People being around people that I can talk to them about things, and it's more of a real relationship instead of kind of a fake, like, you can tell that they don't want to talk to you. I really value you're sitting there. You're like, okay, you're asking me these questions, and you really don't care about what my answer is to this, but I'm just going to go ahead and say it. So I really value when people are actually honest and they actually care about you.Tim FitzpatrickSo before we get into customer experience, lifelong customers tell us a little bit more about your company. CRoche Consulting and types of businesses you're working with. What type of work are you doing?Caleb RocheYeah. So we brand ourselves as a marketing consulting firm. So obviously we're kind of like the similar digital marketing agency, or we can handle everything from website design, social media marketing, everything that you would include in marketing. But I think we're quite similar in this as well. We really focus on building strategies for our clients, and we're really looking to build out before they actually implement things, what they actually understand and what they actually need. And so we kind of take a consultative approach. All of the people that work with us needs some guidance, at least of what they need to do, whether we play kind of like you mentioned when we were discussing offline of, like, a coaching role and kind of saying maybe you don't need our full set up services, but maybe you need some guidance, and then you have some of the people that really need everything. And so we kind of focus on we don't have a specific niche. We've worked with everything from real estate agents to some bigger companies that are in kind of specialized niches. And so our biggest piece is just finding the people that crave kind of a marketing firm that can kind of help guide them through what they need and kind of do, let's say, a 360 audit of what they're doing and kind of how they can improve upon that. So that's basically what we do. And one of our pride is we're not perfect at it by any means, and we're still improving it. But as it relates to this discussion, we've really put a heavy focus over the past couple of years as we've built our agency on kind of improving our customer experience for our clients. And so we've kind of tried to identifying pain points that maybe companies are facing when they're working with marketing agencies and trying to avoid those when they work with us, whether it's lack of communication, whether it's a lack of transparency. And so we're really putting a heavy focus and continuing on that of any client that works with us. We want them to be completely happy when they work with us. We put a lot of effort into building systems to kind of provide that great experience.Tim FitzpatrickI love it, man. So let's jump into it. Customer experience. First, we should probably start by just defining what is customer experience, and then how can we build a better customer experience within our business?Caleb RocheSo I don't know if you look at it this way and we probably go back and forth about this, but I'm pretty sure we're aligned on this. From our perspective, customer experienc is any time that someone interacts with your brand or they hear about your brand or it's always a thought that goes to your brand and how they associate it. And so how do they experience a service that they received, or how do they perceive your business or what you provide. Is that how you would define it as well?Tim FitzpatrickYeah. Absolutely. And I would look at it even from the experience of what's the experience before they're a customer as well. Right. So it's really looking at the entire customer journey from the minute they think about working with a marketing agency, in our case or whatever your business is. From the minute, they think about working with the company like yours all the way through buying and doing repeat and referral business. That all plays into the customer experience, in my opinion.Caleb RocheYeah. No, I agree. I missed out on that. So I appreciate you finding that because I think that plays a vital role, especially in those beginning parts of the experience, because this is kind of diving into building a better customer experience. But it seems like you really have to listen to their journey. And so whether they're approaching you, let's say for a service business approaching you, you really have to listen and say, are they saying we've worked with agencies in the past and here's why we didn't like them, or here's our experience, or we really didn't get enough leads or we didn't feel like they were communicating and find out what were those pain points on that journey that have brought them to you? If they've already had an experience, and sometimes you have those, and sometimes you have someone that's completely new, that they have no experience, you don't know what to expect with them. So it's kind of finding different paths you can take them through depending on what journey they're taking or what part of the journey they're in currently.Tim FitzpatrickSo how do we build a better experience?Caleb RocheI think first it starts with listening. So we've got to be active listeners in what pain points or what part of the journey are they actually in. Have they worked with other let's say, for a restaurant, I always like to use the example I heard a story once or an example of a restaurant, and you've got to identify is this their first time for the restaurant? Is it their second time? Is it their third? Are they referring customers back? Are they coming back every week and identifying where they are in that process. And so for a restaurant, let's say it's their first visit. We've got to understand what is the big things that have brought them to that restaurant and what's their appeal. And so is it for the quality of the food? Is it for the experiences that for a new menu item, maybe you have something that they don't have and kind of identifying what brought them in and then listening to how that experience was. So if they came in for the menu or let's say they came in for a new product and they really enjoy the product, asking them and saying, how was the product learning that it was a great product and kind of building upon how they started in moving forward, And I guess a restaurant probably isn't best example for this. So as I'm kind of going into the conversation, but I guess for a marketing agency, let's say for our clients, listening to going back and seeing where they are on the journey, seeing where they're at. Okay. Let's say they've had a bad experience with an agency and then building upon what are the certain things that are the pain points and how do we identify those and make sure that they don't happen? And so let's say lack of communication is a really big thing for them. We need to identify they want more communication. And so we need to hold ourselves accountable to sending them updates, making sure that they feel like they're being or calling them or texting them or keeping in contact. And it all starts from that listening conversation, listening to what they need, and then building out based on those conversations that you're having, whether you can make it into, let's say, four different buckets or if it specialized per person, and then building out different paths and experiences that are going to really make sure that they don't have that experience.Tim FitzpatrickSo if I understand you correctly, we need to understand what that prospect or clients' needs are and expectations based on where they are in that journey at any given point in time.Caleb RocheAbsolutely.Tim FitzpatrickRight? And once we understand what those needs and expectations are or what actions they're taking, then we can start to plug in the systems, the tools, the procedures that we need to have to meet those needs and expectations or meet those actions . Did I get that right?Caleb RocheYes. Because the big thing with customer experiences, obviously, you have to set systems in place. From what we've seen, you have to set systems in place to kind of hold yourself accountable. But at the end of the day, each person is different. And so communication might look completely different for one client versus the other. We have some clients that when we talk to them and we set expectations of how much they want to be communicated with, some want to be updated every single week, and they want to have a Zoom call or they want us to meet in person. While, we talk to other clients, and they're wanting every two weeks or every month because a week would be a lot of emails for them, and it'd get kind of annoying for them. So it's kind of identifying what is going to keep them kind of happy and following this experience where it's not too much communication, it's not too little. And identifying for each specific person what they need, and then fitting that in the different paths that we can kind of fill, how they kind of fell through that path.Tim FitzpatrickYeah. Got it. So in our business, some people may call us something different, but in our business, we use the customer journey, which different people look at the customer journey differently. We look at it as an hourglass with seven steps. And this is from John Jantsch over a Duct Tape Marketing where you've got, we all know what an hourglass looks like, the sand is at the top, and people are working their way all the way through. You have know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat and refer, and you map the journey. Right. Which is basically what we just talked about. So you map what their needs and expectations are at each phase, what actions they're taking. And then you can look based on that of what you need to do as a business to fill in those gaps and create a solid customer journey. Because if you can create a good customer journey, you'll help people move through that, and they'll have a solid customer experience. If you have gaps, then you identify what those gaps are and you can improve the customer experience. Do you guys use similar tools for that?Caleb RocheWe do. And we like using segmentation a lot. And so kind of putting people in boxes and identifying what segment do they fill in this population. And so we use that same approach of the funnel view of each person is in a different spot. And we've kind of got different system set up for different places and then building out of that where we kind of follow a different path. And then as soon as we find those gaps of what we can do, we slowly divert just a tiny bit, find a way to implement that within their specific path, and then move on from there.Tim FitzpatrickYeah. Awesome, man. I love it. So the key here is you got to listen to customers and you have to ask questions to really understand the journey all the way through. And once you understand that, then you can start plugging in the gaps or the tools or whatever it may be that you need to have to help ensure they've got a solid experience.Caleb RocheYep. Absolutely.Tim FitzpatrickAwesome. So let's talk about lifelong customers. Right. We've talked about customer experience. What can we do to effectively build lifelong customers once we understand and we've got a solid customer experience?Caleb RocheOnce we get kind of an idea of what that customer is wanting, I think it's important to build, let's say, a profile around them of we've taken them through this journey, using your example of the seven steps. We've got seven different areas that they've gone through, and now they're at that kind of repeat buyer stage. Now we know them. We might know their name, we might know their kids names. We know more about them than just this is his first time. This is his pain point. And so it's really building trust and relationship around that person and around that profile. And so now we have all this data that we've gone through, let's say, six months, because sometimes it takes a little bit longer, depending on what industry you're in to build that trust and to build that life on or repeat customer. And so now we've got a lot of data on them, what they enjoy to do. Do they like to go play golf? In finding those little areas that as we're listening and as we're having conversations throughout this entire journey, what are the things that excites them? And so it's kind of relating to them in those conversations. And so it's really not trying to be fake. But if someone likes, let's say golf, one of my clients enjoys golf. I'll make it a purpose to anytime we have a discussion on the phone or anytime that we talk, I usually bring up some sort of golf. Have you played golf? Do want to go play some golf? And finding little areas where you can relate more to your clients. Not only are they having good experiences, hopefully, if they've made it this step in the journey, they've had a fantastic experience. We're identifying. We're building kind of this personal relationship with them. Now it's time to really invest in that relationship and kind of build upon that to where we can relate really heavily to what they want or what they do or what they enjoy and kind of intertwined that with our business.Tim FitzpatrickSo we're taking it we're going below the surface to get to know them a little bit better on a more personal level. And when we understand them better, then we can do things to just continue to strengthen that relationship. Right. Because when you bring up golf to that one particular client, my guess is that's making them feel like, "Oh, my gosh, Caleb is actually listening. He cares. He's paying attention. I'm not just another client."Caleb RocheIt's kind of a silly analogy. But even that golf thing, like, it really shows people that when you're having conversations that you're actually listening to what they have and even identifying, let's say they have a two year old understanding and knowing that two year old or even that I've had so many people say, "How's your son?" And they'll say a name that's completely different than my son's name. And I'm like, you obviously either having a really bad day and I just can't remember or you haven't listened to my conversations enough to where you've literally pronounced my son's name wrong and yet were like friends. And it kind of shows you I mean, there are times you have bad days or you mess up or like, "Oh, my gosh, I said the wrong name." But having to where, like, people notice the little things internally, everyone does. "Oh, I can really tell that he's listening and really relates to what we do." And even with my experience, so I worked with Inspire Brands for two years. They own Jimmy John's, Buffalo Wild Wings, Sonic Tribe and a couple other brands. And so I worked in the guest experience, consumer research part of that brand. And so what we mainly did was kind of building products. If chefs that build products from scratch. And so you think about Arby's, you wouldn't think, like, Arby's had professional chefs back at the office kind of building these products. But they do. And they build these products. And then before they go to market, they actually consumer validate these products. So they look at they go to taste test and see what people think about them. Is it too salty? Is there too much cheese? Not enough cheese? They use a lot of different metrics before they push out a product. And so it's something that I think businesses can take from that is a lot of these companies are investing really heavily into, they have some sort of population that they've identified maybe 35, 45-year-olds that have different segments that they really push on. And they find people that look exactly like that and build these products around them to fit their ideal customer. And then what they do is they gather this data from them and they identify is this a good fit or not? And so not that you can do that on the whole scale that probably they do as a small business, but it's kind of identifying what data is important, what things really matter to them. And how can I tailor this to where now, anytime that they view me or they talk to me, it's this entire experience where we're a friend now, it's not just a business relationship.Tim FitzpatrickSo they understand very clearly who their ideal clients are. And then they are building products around the needs, wants, desires of that particular ideal client.Caleb RocheExactly.Tim FitzpatrickSuper important. If you didn't catch that rewind or whatever you need to do super important, they're not crafting their products in a vacuum. They are crafting them for a specific ideal client type. And they're making sure that those ideal clients actually like that before they then take it to market. They already know that it's going to be a good product because they've already received the feedback.Caleb RocheThat's where, especially in our industries, it's easy to be wrapped around. Let's say we send off a proposal to a client. And if we don't have our ideal client in mind, and let's say we send off a proposal for maybe a little bit higher than what this client is looking for, we're going to get nervous because we've sent off a proposal to someone that really doesn't fit our type. We've built packages and pricing around what our ideal client likes. And if we send it to them and they don't like that, we're not fitting within our ideal client. And so we're kind of just sending out these things. And so identifying exactly what people that you want, the ideal client, what that process looks like when you bring them in, and building products and services and experiences around that certain person is so important.Tim FitzpatrickThis is a really great conversation. And I want to transition into something that you just touched on with your experience that inspire, which is data. How can businesses use data to improve their marketing and their sales? And I'm going to preface this, and we can touch on this by saying that I think within marketing and sales, especially marketing, there is so much data that just like it doesn't mean a whole lot and data can be manipulated to make it look good, bad, indifferent. Tell me your thoughts on this.Caleb RocheI mean, I agree with you. I think people get really caught up in statistics that really don't matter for their business. And I think there's a lot of different ways that people can spin the data to where, because you can look at a piece of data, and depending on how you view it, you could look at it as a very positive thing or a very negative thing. And so it's how you spend the data. A lot of people spend data in ways that they shouldn't. And so from an agency perspective, we could have what would be considered in our eyes, a great campaign, really successful, really great clickthrough rates, a ton of impressions. But at the end of the day, if we're not driving customers to our clients, we've had all this great data, but they haven't gotten a single client from the efforts that we've been doing, I would consider that probably a field campaign or really not performing at where we want it to be. And so it's the same thing. We have this data. We can send them, hey, we've got a .35 cost per click, .35 cost per click, a million impressions. But if they haven't gotten a single customer or even some visibility from that, that's a fail on our part. And so there's different ways that you can really spend data that it's not important. And so I think the biggest piece that businesses can use data to improve their marketing and sales is they have to identify what their key metrics are that are success metrics. And so it's going to look probably different for different businesses, different industries. But identifying what are the key metrics that we really need to hone in on when we build out marketing? And so for a restaurant, let's say we're acquiring clients through some online marketing channels. Not only is it how many clients do we drive through the door, but what steps did we take as they're attending that restaurant? How many of them are repeat customers? Because we might have gotten people in the door, and they might have gotten $10 from that. But how many of those people are actually lifelong customers that are worth $300, $10,000, $100,000. And so not only is it just driving people in the door, but then it's analyzing and seeing how many people came in that were within our ideal client range. And so I think it's very important to identify the data points or the certain key metrics that businesses need for their specific industry on what's going to help them succeed.Tim FitzpatrickSo I want to throw three statistics out there or three metrics that I think are super important. And get your feedback on this. But what I find is a lot of business owners, they're just not tracking. They're not tracking much, if anything. And because of that, oftentimes, like, somebody will come to us, I'm sure they've come to you and they're like, "Yeah, we are doing marketing, but we don't even know whether it's working or not." I think the easiest place for most businesses to start, and this is really specific towards service-based businesses primarily, but you can still modify it for other businesses. But one, how many leads are you generating? Two, where do those leads come from? What's the source of those leads? Where they referral? Did it come from social media? Did it come from a speaking engagement? Wherever I want to know that. And then I want to know how many of those leads converted to customers. If you have those three metrics, man, and you track them for a while, you will know one, what lead sources are working for you. And you'll know how many leads it takes for you to get a customer. Most businesses cannot tell you that. But when you know that super powerful because you know what channels are working. And if you say, "Hey, our goal is to get the X amount of revenue." Well, you can work your way backwards and know exactly how many of these you need to generate.Caleb RocheOh, absolutely. And then it helps you inform, too, as you're building out marketing kind of plan for the future. What is our goal marketing budget? I think you hit the nail on all three of those because you can identify, let's say a certain customer costs $25. Well, now we know if we have a growth rate of we're looking to acquire 400 customers in the next year. We can put a specific dollar amount to how much we need to spend to get that goal metrics. And obviously, it can vary depending on different things. But at least it gives you a good benchmark of what success looks like for a business and how you can plan for the future, because we're both strategy based. So not only are we focused on we got you down to a $25 cost per lead. Let's say we're good to go. Let's keep running a gun, and now we can look. Okay, what's our quarter four goals? What are our yearly goals and how close are we or have we already exceed them? How are we going to improve those goals next year? I think those three key metrics are really vital when you're building out these plans as well.Tim FitzpatrickSo once you know those numbers, you've touched on a few others that are super important, but once you're tracking those numbers and you're in the habit of doing it, then you can start to get a little bit more advanced. Right? You touched on cost per lead. What's the lifetime value of a client? Because then you're going to know, okay, well, how much can we actually spend to acquire a lead and still remain profitable? But then you also touched on when you know those numbers. Right? The cost per lead, what your average lifetime value is, and you start to look at your goals. Then you start to know, dang, how much do we actually need to budget for our marketing to get the goal that we need? Right. If you track the right numbers, you can work your way backwards and do exactly what you need to get to those goals.Caleb RocheWell, I think that lifetime value is really important, too, because I know it's really hard to identify sometimes a point of are they going to be with us for, let's say, three or five years, especially in our industry, because you can have turnover so quickly or so long. But having those metrics, let's say customer lifetime value, it really helps you build a really good relationship where you can identify how much you can spend to acquire. Because a lot of businesses with marketing the way it is now, it's so in the now. It's so I want leads now, and it's that important. But what I see a lot of business owners doing is they look at them now and they don't look at the future. So let's say they've run a really successful campaign. They built customers. But let's say we're were over their budget just a little bit on cost per lead. But if they have let's say they're cleaning service, if they're cleaning service and they're getting customers, and these customers are signing up every week, they might be paying, let's say $50 per lead and getting let's say their first service is $50. But if that person stays around them for a year or two years and is on weekly service, how much more is that person worth to them than just that initial $50? But I don't think a lot of businesses as a business owner, I know it's hard to envision that sometimes, but it's really important to identify the now metrics are good. But then at the same time, too, identifying how much is this actually worth to me, and how much am I paying? So what is my actual return on investment for this client or for this person?Tim FitzpatrickYeah. If you look at the short term, you're only looking at the first part of the puzzle there, and you're missing a ton. And you're not looking at enough data to be able to make the right decision, because it's like you said, so many people look at well, my average ticket is whatever. Let's say it's a $1,000. Well, that's not the whole picture, because if they spend $1,000, but then they go to recurring and they stay with you for two years on average. Right. You got to take average numbers. Well, then, man, the lifetime value that client is so much larger, the amount of money you can actually spend to acquire that customer increases significantly. And one of the things that I think it was Russell Brunson from Click Funnels always talks about is the person that can spend the most to acquire a lead wins. And it makes perfect sense. Right. The more you can spend to acquire a lead, the more you're going to put people out, because there's a bunch of people that are going to go, well, "Geez, I can't spend that much. It's not profitable for me."Caleb RocheI think it's good too to identify referral side as well, because your service-based industries are getting clients in. But if you're providing going back to that guest experience, if you're getting these people in at a dollar amount that you can spend for marketing, you're providing them this great guest experience. And let's say they become a lifelong customer. It's really good to dive into the data, too. How many referrals are you getting from that person, especially for our industry? We've seen a lot of people that they refer to us three to four different clients, and that's pretty heavy on the revenue side for us. And so what can you do to reward those referrals as well? Because if I need to spend $250 and send a nice gift card or a nice gift, some people would be "Oh, my gosh, that $250 that you just lost." But for a referral that's worth, let's say, $10,000 a year. And so it's really important now we've kind of identified guest experiences important, building life on customers, kind of getting that identifying what is good data to use, and then building upon all that data we have to use that guest experience to build even more customers to where you're spending the same amount, let's say, on marketing or increasing it slightly. But your leads are going to continue rising, because now you've got customers in the door that are giving you referrals while you're still acquiring clients off of online channels as well.Tim FitzpatrickSo if we're tracking the right data, the right numbers, we can utilize that data to make more educated and better decisions that are going to help drive our business forward.Caleb RocheOh, absolutely. I like to use the term, it was a former boss of mine that had coined this term, and so I can't take credit for it, but it's data-driven, customer-focused analytics that are important to focus on.Tim FitzpatrickOkay, say that one more time.Caleb RocheData-driven customer-focused analytics.Tim FitzpatrickOkay. So can you break that down a little bit?Caleb RocheYeah. I mean, it kind of relates to the whole customer experience and all the lifetime value. And so identifying, looking at the data, we're driving decision-making off of data. And so we're looking into the data. What is the data telling us? But then, like we talked about, the data can sometimes lie. It can kind of give us a different perception of how we're performing. PNLs, you can look at a PNL and you might feel good about it, but it looks completely different. And so identifying what the data is telling us and then bringing the customer side on. And so maybe the data is telling us that we've spent a lot of money on customer acquisition. But what we haven't looked at is how many referrals we've received from those clients. And so we haven't actually attributed the extra 25 leads to the overall spend, which lowers our cost per lead if we look at it in the long run. And so it's identifying what is the data saying. But then bringing the customer perspective in the actual people side of it of how is the experience that they're having? We might be spending a little bit more, but they're having this incredible experience. We got the cloth napkins instead of the paper napkins. And so the whole new ball game. And so what things are we may be spending a little bit more money on and maybe losing out a little bit on, then building that ideal client out or getting the people we want. They're sending their friends over to us as well.Tim FitzpatrickLove it. This has been awesome stuff, Caleb. I appreciate you taking the time. Any last-minute thoughts, words of wisdom you want to leave us with today?Caleb RocheNo, I think it's just really important, like we've talked about. And I love having this conversation because it's so important that marketing isn't just the advertising part. It's the entire experience like you talked about. And so it's important to identify that perfect client of yours, an ideal client of yours, and kind of build an experience that builds lifelong customers out of that.Tim FitzpatrickI love it, man. Where can people learn more about you if they're interested in what we've talked about, you obviously know what you're doing, where can they learn more?Caleb RocheThey can just go to our website. It's CRoche Consulting. C-R-O-C-H-E Consulting dot com. And it's right there at the bottom. They can go on there. There's several resources. We've got some great blogs, kind of breaking down a couple of different subjects. And if they want to book a call and kind of learn a little bit more about some ideal strategies that maybe they could implement in their business without a sales pitch, they can book a free 30 minutes call on our website.Tim FitzpatrickAwesome. Love it if you guys are interested. Shoot on over there. CROCHE Consulting dot com. Caleb, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. Again, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing. If you are running into roadblocks with your marketing, you're spending money and things aren't working, or you're not sure what the next right tactic should be. Hop on over to our website, Rialto Marketing dot com. That's R-I-A-L-T-O Marketing dot com. Click on the Get A Free Consult button. We'll give you a ton of value in that call, and you will walk away with some clarity on where you need to focus right now. Thanks so much for tuning in until next time. Take care.