Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:22
All right. Episode 132, we’re back Rob.
Rob Broadfoot 0:24
132, we’re back. 132, a lot.
Don Mock 0:29
133 is next
Don Mock 0:30
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 0:31
It’s like two more than 130.
Don Mock 0:33
It is a lot of talking, a lot of hot air, a lot of blustering, so And honestly, the podcasts only capture, like 1% of the bluster that happens here all day, right?
Rob Broadfoot 0:45
That’s true.
Don Mock 0:46
I mean, there’s a lot of talking going on. Actually, there’s not, we’re always head down. So I got the headphones and the music rocking, all right? 132, shout out to our dear friend, Michael, right? Because we were literally just on a call with Michael and Andrew, our SEO team, so give them some love on this one. And we were joking, all right, Michael, what’s topic for today’s podcast?
Rob Broadfoot 1:09
Yeah.
Don Mock 1:10
And Michael, I think, came up with a good one, yeah, which, kind of interesting, which, yeah, I think we both wrote it down differently. But the topic is, or the thought is, you know, why do marketing directors come to us?
Rob Broadfoot 1:21
Yeah, what are they looking for?
Don Mock 1:24
What are they looking for? Who are these mysterious marketing directors, and where have they been
Rob Broadfoot 1:29
What do they want?
Don Mock 1:31
What do they want? And why are they hiding under rocks from us? Yeah, so, so I’ll start with you. Then, What do marketing directors want from us?
Don Mock 1:31
Well they want a lot of things, and there are a lot of different reasons that marketing directors come to us
Don Mock 1:48
And the director of marketing does what? Maybe we should start there. Maybe I should back up and say, what do we think? I mean, because the job title has kind of evolved, to be honest, over the years
Rob Broadfoot 1:57
I mean, I would, I would say the job of the marketing director is to make sure that the company or corporation where they work is presented properly in the marketplace.
Don Mock 2:11
Yes, right, positioned properly
Rob Broadfoot 2:13
positioned properly in the marketplace. Right?
Don Mock 2:15
Identify their strategic benefits, right, potentially their areas of opportunity, yeah, the old swap analysis, yeah, stuff like that, right?
Rob Broadfoot 2:24
Yeah, yeah. And I think that that just to make sure that yeah, that they clearly can convey what it is their company offers to the clients that they offer to
Don Mock 2:36
And oftentimes, I think one thing that hasn’t changed, at least, you know, in my, in my numerous years with this, is that, you know, you are tied to sales, so it’s so there’s like, a VP of sales. And a lot of times those guys work in 10 but like, you know, those in smaller organizations, maybe you’ll have the both of those job titles under one individual, have the VP of marketing and sales, right? Because a lot of times it’s, oh, sales has a need. We need these things. We need these tools. We need this set of of tactics, right?
Rob Broadfoot 3:09
They’re out there, pounding the pavement, knocking on doors, and doing all these things, right?
Don Mock 3:12
Or proactively marketing can go to Sales. Hey, what do you need to help? You know, do your jobs. You know. How can we help simplify the sales process for you? You You know, is that a different website? is that traditional sales sheet is our presentations, is that, What is it, right? But they do kind of, they’re, you know, tied at the hip.
Rob Broadfoot 3:30
They’re tied at the hip. And we’ve seen, we’ve seen everything from, you know, companies where sales and marketing don’t get along so well, not scenarios where they get along great, yeah. So it’s just, like, any relationship there, right? Yeah, yeah, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but, yeah, they’re, they’re tied to the hip, for sure. And I think, you know, one of the main differences is, you know, sales is obviously directly tied to ROI, right? So the pressure ‘s on, I have to sell this and bring in X amount of dollars, yeah? And its marketing ‘s role to support that by making sure that yeah, everything is presented properly, or gives them the easiest way to sell that to clients. So I think that’s kind of the key you know marketing is it’s a little bit more difficult to tie that directly to ROI
Don Mock 4:20
well. And I think part of that, though, too, is the nebulous brand awareness campaign. Yeah, you know what I mean, like, like, it’s one thing to go into, hey, our product does the best job at XYZ, you know, like, going straight into benefits of like, Oh, we’re better, we’re cheaper, we’re faster, we’re easier, we’re whatever, right? Well, none of that matters if nobody even knows that you exist in the first place, right? So there needs to be sort of that educational aspect of swimming upstream, of like, Hey everybody, look at us. Yeah, we’re over here. Like, I can’t sell you the Purple Mattress and why it’s so beneficial for your sleeping habits, if nobody even knows what purple mattresses are, right? Or, or, and then even the upstream challenge of, oh, by the way, we’re not using box springs anymore, and we’re not using this and that, like, you know, think about that sort of educational curve, yeah. Like, oh, wait, it comes in a vacuum sealed box delivered to your door. And, Nope, it’s better than, you know, you know. Like, so, yeah, there is sometimes I kind of went on a tangent here, but sometimes the marketing ROI component tied to brand awareness can be challenging, yeah, right. So, yeah, all right, time back in so now that we’ve kind of set the stage on, you know what their role is in general, right? Why do they come to us?
Rob Broadfoot 5:36
So a number of different reasons… and a lot of it depends on to, I’m going to state the obvious, but the size of the marketing department, right, the size of the company, and we were fortunate enough to work with some of the largest companies in the world, and then also to some startups and smaller operations as well. They’re more efficient. And, you know, it’s when you have a nice, big, you know, multinational corporation. They have a very robust marketing department, and certainly there’s, I don’t know, I would say, a little bit more clarity in what they need, right? by the time it comes to us, it’s a little more structured, it’s a little more polished, it’s a little more hey, here’s, here’s exactly what we need, yeah. And we don’t really necessarily need anything else, yeah, we’ve refined it and defined it, and here’s exactly
Don Mock 6:28
Yeah, we have a plan. We have a marketing plan. We have, you know, this is our specific needs. You know, play within these sandboxes to help flush out those needs
Rob Broadfoot 6:36
And then, by contrast, you know, a smaller organization may only have one or two people in the marketing department, yeah. And then our role becomes very different under those circumstances. But, you know, at the end of the day, and it can be anything, I mean, they could come to us with, Hey guys, we here’s our marketing plan for all of 2025 Yeah, and we need you guys to execute it. We’re gonna do this campaign for this in q1 and we’re gonna do a new website in q3 and we’re gonna have, you know,
Don Mock 7:04
we’re gonna trade show, exhibit,
Rob Broadfoot 7:05
we got all of it. They’re gonna send us the whole list for the year and say, Hey, we need you guys to map it out and execute, execute against all of this work, this creative work. And then, and then other times, you know, if it’s a smaller organization, let’s say they will come to us and say, you know, we always do like to tell people. And I do, I do think this is important. We generally say to companies, we’re not your outsourced marketing department.
Don Mock 7:05
I’m fond of that expression,
Rob Broadfoot 7:07
yeah, yeah. And we said that since the since the very beginning, we are more the executioners of your plan. But the asterisk on that is, we know enough to be dangerous, meaning, if it’s a smaller organization and they don’t have the internal resources, and they haven’t developed a full fledged plan, they can kind of come to us with a framework, yeah, and we’re able to then proactively go, Okay, what about this? And kind of help them map out how you thought about this, yeah, and just kind of polish the plan a little bit and get it and get it ready to go.
Don Mock 8:01
Oh by the way, guys, we had great success doing this type of thing with somebody else. What if you consider that? Ooh, guys, I think that might be that’s not a great idea. What if we swap this out for that instead that type of thing
Rob Broadfoot 8:12
We do not fancy ourselves marketing strategists, dare I say. And that’s a dangerous thing to say.
Don Mock 8:18
No, we like to be in the creative lane.
Rob Broadfoot 8:19
We’re in the creative we’re the executioners. But so back to the original question. They’ll come to us for different things. It can either be, hey, here’s the I got, I got a year’s worth of work, and here’s the calendar, and here’s exactly what needs to happen, ready go, and then we’ll, we’ll hit the ground running and come up with that. Other times it could be, hey guys, I’ve got a quick turn and burn campaign that I need to get out the door in like three weeks.
Don Mock 8:42
Yeah, I put that down on my list, actually, as well as the the emergency fire drill. Yeah, so, yeah, which, hey, I’m not no creative firm wants to solicit emergency projects.
Rob Broadfoot 8:54
No, but we’re, we’re very good at that
Don Mock 8:56
Yeah, but, but our structure, we’ve talked about efficiency on the podcast, but our structure allows us to operate so much more efficiently. Which can, you know, you can define efficiency as time, right? To be able to do such a, you know, stellar creative product just quicker, than your existing AOR things like that.
Rob Broadfoot 9:15
You’ve always loved the phrase moving at the speed of business, right? So we say that quite often, and there’s a lot of truth to that, yeah, right. oh, something came up and, you know, be it a market influence or something out, and we’ve got to respond or do something super quick, yeah? And so a lot of times too, especially if it’s a if it’s a large corporation, we may or may not be and oftentimes not for huge businesses, but the agency of record, yeah, and they’ll have a much larger shop that’s doing great work and whatever else. But the challenge there is, you know, potentially that agency can’t move as quick, right? It’s a bigger ship to turn so to speak. And we’re able to come in, you know, hey, here’s a project, my large agency can’t tie they’re too busy, or what, you know, whatever the case may be. And then we’ll, we’ll take that air for it. We love that kind of work. That’s great.
Don Mock 10:06
Yeah sometimes you got these larger clients too, they can’t they, you know, it’s like turning the battleship in the bathtub, yeah, right, to keep the cliche train rolling, like they can’t go as fast as we can. You know. I mean, how many times have it been like, hey, it’s sitting with them, you know, in legal review, or whatever the case may be, and it’s like, oh my god, go guys. Hey, the clock ticking. Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 10:26
Well, well, file it under things. We often say to clients when they ask, well, how, how quickly can can you get it done? And the response is, we can move as fast as you can.
Don Mock 10:36
Yeah. Well, it’s funny that you say that, because actually was emailing with a new business prospect today. Hey, how long is it going to take to get the website done, right? It’s like, well, I mean, how long does your mechanic take to fix your you know, you rushed it out barn find car like, you know? And it was like, I sat there and went, like, gosh, how do I how do I politely reply back? It’s kind of almost always on the client side as to why delays would occur. You know what I mean? Like, content development approvals, like the delays, generally speaking
Rob Broadfoot 11:12
Aren’t on our side.
Don Mock 11:13
They’re not on our side, right? But, but you can’t throw that out, you know? But it but to your point, like, yeah, we we go as fast as they will allow us to go, if that makes
Rob Broadfoot 11:23
and we’ll frame it up. Like, like, like, Hey, here’s the project. They asked that question. We say, hey, assuming all approvals, you know, yeah, move with the sale through, yeah, calendar and everything else and there. And there are no delays, you know, getting content or whatever, whatever it is. We can move as fast as you can, generally, I can’t think of one instance where we’ve not met that promise.
Don Mock 11:47
Yeah, really it’s, I mean, in 17 years later, I don’t think it’s ever happened.
Rob Broadfoot 11:50
I don’t know that it’s happened.
Don Mock 11:52
Well, we’re not in the business of missing deadlines. That’s not, no, you know, because, because, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, one of the answers for why marketing directors come to us is because of trust, reliability, it is a trust based business, you know. And everybody ‘s ass is on the butcher block for some reason, somehow, some way, you know. And you know, if it’s sales, it’s, you know, quotas and things like that, you know, for us, it’s a lot of, like you said, reliability, timing, trust, things like that. We got, you know, hey, the ad is due to the publication on Friday, right? It has to be like, You know what? I mean, like, things are being, you know. So, I mean, we’re a very deadline trust driven business, right? And that’s another reason why marketing directors come to us, right is, oh, I trust that these guys are gonna get it done
Don Mock 11:53
Missing deadlines isn’t really in our business model. Doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Don Mock 11:58
That’s a bad business model. But it is surprising how often you hear that out there, you know. And there are, you know, various, I mean, hey, hurricanes happen. I mean, you know, things happen, but you know, I think all of us have been burned somewhere along the line in a previous life, and now it’s like you have that feeling, and it’s like you don’t want to have that feeling again, yeah, you know. And so it’s like, Let’s do everything we possibly can to make sure that we’re not only on time, but we have buffer just in case. You know, because anything happens,
Rob Broadfoot 13:11
I think while we’re while we’re boasting about ourselves also
Don Mock 13:14
well, we’re awesome.
Rob Broadfoot 13:15
That’s true. One of the 1000s of reasons we’re awesome is because, I think what happens is, you know, when people work with us for the first time, it’s, it’s typically a little bit different than how they’ve worked with other agencies in the past, right? We don’t need to get on the efficiency play, but because everybody knows that by now, if you’ve listened to the podcast, but it’s a little bit, it’s a little bit different. And you know, fortunately for us, once clients get through a project with us, I feel like there is a sense of relief, right? And that trust is kind of there, meaning when they pick up the phone again, they know that they understand how working with us is different. They understand why it works clearly. It worked the first time, and they called us back, and they know that they can talk to us. Things don’t get lost in translation. We’re going to meet the deadlines, the work is going to be good, all the things.
Don Mock 14:05
Absolutely.
Rob Broadfoot 14:05
So that would file that under why marketing directors keep coming back to us, that’s the follow up. But yeah, I think it’s you know. But what I do think is the you know, sometimes what happens is marketing directors come to us, and there are certain things that they don’t even know that they need, right?. And they’ll come to us saying, hey, I need you to do this. Okay? And then we’re just given our experience and everything else, we’re able to say, Okay, awesome. We can totally do that. What about this? And what about that, yeah. What about this? And then it’s a, oh yeah, oh yeah. That would be great. That would be great, yeah, which all kind of trickles down to this idea of, you know, our job, and we tell clients this often too. There’s a lot of, here’s what we tell clients today.
Don Mock 14:56
Maybe that should have been the name of the episode.
Rob Broadfoot 14:58
That should be the name, but, but one of those. I think importantly is, hey, our job is to take work off of your plate, and put it onto ours, And that’s more than just executing the campaign and coming over the creative which obviously they look to us to do, but it’s, how do we make your life easier? What should we take off of your plate and put onto ours so that you can focus on whatever.
Don Mock 15:18
I love that, yeah, so that’s kind of, I think that ties into, you know, being more proactive from our perspective, but also being more of a partner than just a vendor, right? You know? And I think that, you know, it’s, it’s, Hey, nobody works anywhere for 30 years straight and gets a gold watch and rides off into the sunset, or 40 years, you know what I mean? Like, everybody hops around and jumps, and they do different things, and you have different interests, and you have different phases in your career, right? And that’s why the trust, I think, as we mentioned, is so interesting and so important, you know. But I think that, you know, potentially, they’re unhappy with whatever they’ve got a certain area, you know, like they don’t, they don’t know there’s a pain points. Yeah, somehow there’s a pain point. And that’s another podcast right there, just in terms of, what are pain points that marketing directors might have, right? And I think that our experience, though, is able to identify, oh, yeah, you came to us for this, but hey, what about that? Like you just said, right? And it’s like addressing pain points that they maybe didn’t even realize that they had right, which is, oh man, our existing firm, I tell them to do this, and they just do that, yeah, blah, versus like, Hey, you asked for this. We also did this and that, you know? Or what about that? Or what about, you know, what I mean, just again, just probing and just trying to make the best little project possible, or best little whatever, which does, It transcends from just vendor I have a need to, like, now we’re partners, And it’s like, oh, well, then you can start to forecast a little bit more. Oh, you talked about this trade show that you have on the horizon. What if we did that? You know? Like, it’s just that type of thing, right? Which I think can help really solve pain points that they didn’t even really know that they had in the first place.
Rob Broadfoot 17:04
And sometimes, sometimes the opposite is true, meaning sometimes, you know, in when we’re first working on a project and we’re first engaged with somebody, we will ask them that, yeah, hey, What can we do better? Or what? You know, what pain point? what point do you have? What is going to make your life easier and I think they appreciate that, right? And we can, then we can address that.
Don Mock 17:30
Well, the goal is to like, I mean, hey, it’s, it’s important, it’s strategic. There’s money involved. You know, I’m not downplaying, you know what we do? You know what I mean, it’s, I always joke, like, hey, the patient is not going to bleed out on the table. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s not that level of like someone died in the office today. You know what I mean. But you know, again, just to put things in perspective, right? Is the reason why I illustrate that. But it is still very, very important, you know. And I think that, I think that ties into that. Though, what you’re saying, you know, like, it is, you know, being a, being a partner, right? In addressing those needs can also be fun along the you know what? I mean, you can have laughs along the way. Yeah, we’re the, you know, we can joke around that, hey, we’re the fun meeting of the day. It is important that you have a strategic communication problem, right? Oh, customers don’t know that you do this, or we need to highlight this ad. You know, there’s strategy, there’s methodology, there’s the power of persuasion, of advertising, all the cliches, all the good stuff, right? But it’s still important to have fun along the way, you know, you know, and have some levity and be good partners, you know.
Rob Broadfoot 18:37
And at the end of the day, also, too, I think it’s important to note our job is to make our marketing directors look good.
Don Mock 18:44
Yeah, totally.
Rob Broadfoot 18:44
Like, it’s to make them look good. It’s do great work, make their lives easier and alleviate stress.
Don Mock 18:52
Yeah. I mean, if we’re a minute late, that’s stressful for everybody, Like, don get it out there early, and then nobody’s stressed, you know?. We got enough stresses in our lives. Like, this should be the fun stuff, and this should be the, you know, and then this stuff makes a difference. And we’ve talked to another podcast about, you know, immediate impact. We’ve talked about, so, you know, all the different things of how, you know, it all works in tandem with sales and, you know, success occurs and things like that, right? But it’s important to have fun along the way too
Rob Broadfoot 19:20
So yeah, I think, you know, lots of different reasons that there, while there are lots of different reasons that that, that marketing directors come to us, a lot of them are the same, fundamentally, at the end of the day, right, to do good work and to make their lives easier.
Don Mock 19:34
Yeah, totally, totally. Well, here we go. We were joking, this was gonna be a nice, quick podcast, and we talked about, you know, our friends on the other side of the fence for 20 minute which is pretty cool.
Rob Broadfoot 19:44
That’s right, so the question is, Mr. Or Ms marketing director out there, why will you come to us?
Don Mock 19:50
Yes, well, I was gonna say, how are those people going to get to us?
Rob Broadfoot 19:55
How are those people gonna get to us? Yeah, of course. www.mocktheagency.com, on the interwebs and you can find us on social. We’re pretty easy to find. @mocktheagency We look forward to it. Bring us your next challenge.
Don Mock 20:09
Yeah, looking forward to it. Thanks, everybody. Bye.
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