In this episode of The Paid Media Playbook, Laura and Lisa dive into the often-overlooked pitfalls of DIY projects. Reflecting on their recent home improvement endeavors, they highlight how a small mistake can cause significant delays and headaches. Drawing parallels to the world of paid media, they discuss how hiring an expert can save valuable time and prevent costly errors. With over 25 years of experience, they explain how their agency helps CMOs and Marketing Directors avoid common pitfalls, ensuring efficient and effective campaign management. Tune in for insightful anecdotes and practical advice on leveraging expertise for success.

Chapters:

00:00 - 02:00 - Introduction & Personal Stories

• Laura and Lisa share their recent DIY home projects and the challenges they faced.

02:01 - 07:00 - The Snowball Effect of DIY Mistakes

• Discussing how small errors can lead to significant project delays and increased costs. Drawing parallels between home DIY and managing paid media campaigns.

08:01 - 11:00 - The Value of Expertise

• How hiring a seasoned expert can save time and prevent costly mistakes in paid media.

11:01 - 13:00 - Client Examples

• Sharing success stories from their agency where expert intervention made a difference.

13:01 - 14:58 - Conclusion & Takeaways

• Key takeaways for CMOs and Marketing Directors on the benefits of hiring paid media experts.

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Links and Resources:

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• Subscribe to our newsletter here
• Lisa Wekellis on LinkedIn
• Laura Szczes on LinkedIn
• Double Z Media Website
• Double Z Media on LinkedIn

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Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Paid Media Playbook? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and Spotify and leave us a review!

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Transcription:

So what was the last house project that you tried to do yourself halfway through, realized you were in over your head and then immediately started Googling, uh, Oh no, I need a painter near me.  That happened to me very recently.

Yeah, I mean was like putting trying to install my own tile.

Yeah.

That was  bad idea  it's just bad and there's brown glue around the edges was in my bathroom It's like  new bad idea.

tried to change the doorknob on my front door, because I was like, that's easy. Like, I shouldn't have to hire a professional for this. I can read the instructions and follow them. I can read. It'll be fine. I can read. It'll be fine. It was not fine.

Doors are weird doors are weird.

Especially because the handle has like two points where it connects, and the new doorknob didn't have the same size. Oh, it was a mess. Oh, it was a mess.

And sometimes like where it is versus, yeah, where it is in the, um,  yeah, it's,  yeah,

If everything goes perfectly right, I can do it myself. But the second there is anything out of the ordinary, uh,  abort mission. And

how did he do that? What did he do? You know, I always miss like the crucial moment. I spent,  I want to, I want to say I spent like a half hour trying to figure out how to do, how to get the blade out of one of my box cutters. Because it was a weird one.

then you have a stumbling block like that that derails the whole project. I feel like we have had a few clients That I've had the same experience with paid media,  and then we walk into the project with the doorknob off the door, the knife halfway deconstructed, and then saying, help.  

exactly.

and then we walk into the project with the doorknob off the door, the knife halfway deconstructed, .

And, uh, yeah, it's good marketing directors that. Don't hesitate to say, Hey, I'm in over my head. , how could I possibly see an ROI when I'm reacting a lot, you know, and not being able to really have a comprehensive, um, plan of attack. And, uh, we walked into that, um, a while ago and had to go in and  kind of slash and burn.

Some large spends  um, that were kind of ridiculous, like  big spends for the audience. And, uh, yeah, that was,  that was something that if you don't do it for 25 years, like I have, you did this particular thing was a large market broadcast. Purchase and, um,  and it was a sports purchase too. So it was very, um,  inflated anyway, um, and kind of an ego buy.

And so from a client perspective, and just if I hadn't,  I was just like, absolutely. No, no,  like, no, I could see this price and I could see it's at 2 in the morning  and I'm like,  do you realize that's in the morning? Never just like, a lot of people don't know what, um, efficient is.

And part of that, I think maybe one of the first factors is just the lack of time. I mean, a marketing director, a CMO has so much on their plate, they can't spend an hour going through a and analyzing, like, is this, Good. Like, is this worth the money? Um, they just have so many other things they have to do.

And I think in this, the case of this client, they just took the proposal from the station, which, you know, the station was trying to sell. I get it. You, you aim high, and you see what the client comes back with. But they didn't have any time to negotiate, so they just took the proposal.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yep. And, you know, we, , uh, got on board, paused it for just a half a second so that we could really get our arms around what was going on and then came back with the, A structured, measured, realistic, um, plan . More comprehensive too, because I think a lot of times when you're not doing it for a living, you aren't getting exposed to all of the new technology, new data available,  , um, new ways of, of targeting, um, new places to target like Netflix now, you know, um, and not, you know, You know, and then, you know, because we do it for so many clients  and we work, you know, in a co op with other agencies, , we have the resources to, um, do what a lot of people don't have time to do, which is like, , how has this worked out for you?

How was this worked out for you? So we can, you know, make, learn from other people's mistakes pretty quickly so that we're not going in and going. Yes, we'll do that. Sure.

and we're able to pull inspiration to like, we have clients in so many different industries that they think about marketing so differently. They have such different approaches, but we're able to really engage with each of those, you know, different strategies and say, Oh, this aspect could work really well for you over here.

Just able to, you know, compile

yes.

the breadth of experience in a way that obviously someone later in their career will have experience in, you know, different companies and different industries. But  that's such a different approach than I am currently controlling, you know, five different campaigns

Mm hmm.

let's try something over here.

Oh, great. Now we can bring that learning to this other client and just everyone wins. Thanks.

Yep. Yep. And because you're, you're not, you're just not going to be exposed to it. So you're not going to know. And, um, that is so true.

With the client you were thinking of as well, we had the benefit of actually knowing some of the reps that they had been working with at the stations, which ended up coming in very useful for that, trying to renegotiate something that had already been decided on, which was not a good experience for anyone, not an ideal experience

not an ideal experience, but no, but because we had relationships with those, um, you know, national, you know,  Broadcast, um,  we were, you know, folks,  um, we were able to do that and in a way that they understood because they were like, yeah, you're an agency. We understand that. You actually are looking at the numbers and looking at the ratings and looking at, you know, um, and comparing pricing and running it through.

Software and getting rating subscriptions. And, you know, we're, we're, we're paying for things that the client doesn't pay for,  not to mention that they, you know,  just small caveat that we're not working with that client anymore. Um, but,  um, they, yeah, they just.  Really enjoyed doing it themselves. I think there was a, the thing is that the, the broadcast stations can kind of, um, make it attractive to work with them by saying, hey, we'll put you on camera and produce everything for you.

So that it's,  um, you know, so it really feeds at the, that's that side to, um, you know, we'll take care of the content and you're going to be a star. So, that isn't something that we do, right? Like we're not, we can facilitate that, but  you know, but then again, you can't use it anywhere, but on that station and yeah, yeah,

to pitch, if you go direct, you don't have to pay the agency fee. Which is technically true, but  if you actually looked at how many impressions were able to negotiate, uh, for the same amount of money, yeah, even though we are, you know, we have management fees, that's our job.

Uh, It still ends up being a lower

CPM.

Yeah. Yeah. Lower CPM. Yep. Because yeah, it's because we know what to pay for things.

We know what things are worth and we have an economy of scale. I know you have a meeting set up next week with a publication that I won't name names. It's not my favorite, but,  uh, you're, you're going to them with, I think, three different client campaigns coming up in the next year. And the ability to play that, play them off themselves with those separate campaigns is going to benefit all three of those clients.

I'm looking forward to that one. That's always a fun. And when I say fun, I mean, yeah, years of fun with that publication. Um,  I mean, I do know, you know, and I, I, I do know what to ask for and how to cover our asses so that we get it and ensure that it happens, um, without a hitch, you know, and that's another thing, working with difficult vendors.

Sometimes, you know. , we can anticipate these things so that, you know, we're,  we've made that mistake 10 years ago. So  we, um, you know, sometimes we just have to babysit all the vendors. So,

knowing where to push, right? Like, where, what mountain is worth dying on?

yes, yes, a hundred percent.

And then we're able to focus our time where we can actually get results instead of,  like, going down a rabbit hole that's not actually going to go anywhere because that really is just the parent company's, uh, policy and you can't change it. There, like, there are some things you can't argue out of.

No, it's so true. It is so true. And especially now, you know, when back in the day when you could get free, this free, that free, this, but now there has to be line items on certain things and they have to have it, but there's creative ways around that so that you make up for that, for paying for something you used to get for free by not paying something else.

And going in and saying, well, this is this, you don't have a hard cost here, so why don't we get a bunch of bonus here? You know, that sort of thing, because we know they have to put money behind something, you know, corporate says, we have to charge for this. And so, you know, it's like, basically moving money around to where they.

So that we're showing that we're paying for this, but we're really getting all of the same thing and even more sometimes because we have more measurement  than we've ever had. So we can hold accountable. And, you know, I love the fact. I just, I love the fact that, you know,  broadcast has gotten so much more.

Um, digital. So it's becoming better and better every time. And well, you know, budgets are going more and more to streaming too, a lot. So

It's where more people are spending their time

yeah. Yeah.

year over year. We just keep seeing, the numbers just keep coming back.

Mm hmm.

this percentage of people cut the cord. This percentage of people are streaming only, uh, just constantly. I feel like sports was one of the last holdouts and even that has gotten so much more online now.

Yep. And fragmented.

I feel like the last point we wanted to talk about with, uh, you know, calling in, calling in your heavy hitter expert, uh,  in some ways does just come down to time.

No, Reporting

Uh huh. And, oh,

and analytics.

Yeah. And people wonder like, oh, well, , you know, doing this stuff is so easy and, you know, blah, blah, blah. They

do it.

Everybody yeah, exactly and everyone thinks that digital 1st of all, everybody's a digital media expert these days. And so that in and of itself is kind of like, I don't know, that's just like a joke.

And, but knowing if you've done it for a long time, you know, what to look for, , you know, and, , you know, what. Kind of KPIs are, and you're thinking about that the second the campaign starts is  what are we trying to do here? Which sounds really obvious.  It's surprising how sometimes people can go to just to the creative  and not think about the, you know,,  you probably should spend at least 80 percent of your budget trying to

place that creative because no one will see it and you'll spend a lot of money. But, um,

so what, I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought. Cut that Leah. Um,

And then, you know, there's all of the data analysis that goes into it, which helps, obviously, the more you do it, the faster you are able to pull out like, Oh, that's going to be really interesting to someone that's going to tell a good story. Um,  There's background noise for me.  How long is that going to go on for?

Okay, it's done.  I know you can't hear it,   you know, which, which numbers are worth highlighting? And even, like, what do they mean? Okay, so creative A had this click through rate, creative B had that click through rate, uh, but what about the two different audiences?

You know, Just filtering through all of that and finding the gems quickly

uh is really important, but then also trying to explain it to people. I feel like half of my job is just explaining my job  to, uh, to marketing directors so they can turn around and then tell, you know, their boss and their team, this is what's actually happening. You

Yeah. I think the nicest compliment that we got was from Amy at the pipe place. When she said that we gave her the tools to,  um, go to people who are not marketing. But they're still like C suite type people, but they're not marketing. They don't understand the lingo or anything and being able to, you know.

Very easily, um, you know, speak,  you know, non marketing,  you know, speak, just being basic English. And, and this is what success looks like. And this is, you know, some comparisons and, you know,  we, you know, the reporting is given to the,  you know, and customized to the way that. The audience who's gonna see it is whether it's the, you know, CFO is gonna have a different data, obviously, than the, than the board of directors who wants to see, you know,  the overall big picture

Absolutely. When do you send a one pager PDF? When do you send a 20 slide PowerPoint? And when do you just send a spreadsheet?

,

Sometimes they just need the Excel, and trying to make it pretty is a waste of time.

No, it's true. 'cause they're plugging it into their own thing or our, you know, send 'em a link to the, our dashboard. Right. Um,

the like, high level check in at any moment is probably one of the best tools. That has so many subscription fees, I just Spent all week fighting a battle that I lost to try to get around one of their startup fees just because it made me mad.  

That's  the last thing I would say  is that agencies, you know, in addition to the time it takes to pull reporting and target audiences and optimize and do weekly check ins and and with the client and the monthly recaps and the. 12 page PowerPoint and all the things that we have to do there.

In addition to that,  um, we have all of these data and, um, and software subscriptions so that we can try to do that as quickly and as efficiently as possible with proof that we know we're hitting the right market. We, it's not a guessing game, which I love,  you know, it's so much more fun to go into, uh, Meetings  with big government clients and they're, they're, um,  you know, I'll use an example of when we worked with a PR firm and they had to go in super buttoned up because PR charges by the hour.

And, and, you know, so you're not, you might not even get a story picked up, but they still spend a ton of time on it. And, um, so they, you know, they kind of go in kind of super buttoned up and like, All business, whereas you and I were like super relaxed. And I just wanted to like have rapport with the,  with the marketing director, because we're coming with hard numbers.

So it's not like we can't.  Be a little more relaxed. And I love that. I absolutely love that. I think that's the best part is that we don't have to sell creative, which is totally subjective. You know, we're just sharing our metrics that we, you know, that we delivered.

I mean 69 million impressions is still 69 million impressions, even if I make a stupid joke about it.

yeah, that's true.  I know. Yep. That who doesn't want to get to know us anyway? Right. That's why you're listening to this podcast right now, people.

 Okay, perfect.

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