Winning in the Swipe Era with Performance Marketing

What kind of persuasion does it take to be an effective marketer in the Swipe Era? Kyle Coen, growth strategy manager at DCG ONE knows that the answer can be found in performance marketing. Join Kyle with host Greg Oberst on this episode of The Whole Idea Podcast. Get Kyle’s take on surrounding the target with experiences that punch through the noise and drive engagement and conversion.  

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Transcript

The Whole Idea Podcast by DCG ONE

Winning in the Swipe Era with Performance Marketing 

Greg:

Welcome to the so-called Swipe Era of marketing. Now, how do you swipe back? 

Hello and thanks for tuning into another episode of The Whole Idea Podcast by DCG ONE. I'm Greg Oberst and joining me today is Kyle Cohen as the growth strategy manager at DCG ONE. Kyle knows how to soften up the swipers in the marketing arena. Welcome, Kyle. 

Kyle: 

Thanks, Greg. It's really great to be here. I'm excited to be on the podcast.

Greg:

Well, great to have you. The consumer marketplace certainly does seem crowded and chaotic most of the time. Some of the old standby rules for marketers, then I'm thinking about like the rule of seven and the, the, the 6.5-second rule. Do any of these guidelines even apply anymore? 

 Kyle: 

They have changed dramatically. The good news is, at least from where I sit, the classics of persuasion are still very much intact and important. Aristotle's ethos, pathos, and logos. We still have to have each of those three ingredients in our advertising, or it will be weak. Robert Caldini's six factors of persuasion, reciprocity, commitment, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity, all of those are still very, very relevant. Where we get into something that you ask, you know, what's new and how have these things changed? Yes, this, this Factor of 7, meaning someone needs to see an ad 7 times before they're going to get off the couch and do something. 7 is still a number that we anchor to, but quite honestly, we could, we could just as easily say it's 7 to 15 times because they're all getting hit at least 7 times per product, so we can differentiate by just putting in a few extra touches. 

However, that said, you know, 7 is still a number that that we recommend just, but we are noticing that—it might be 8, 9, 10, that kind of thing. 

Greg:

The 6.5-second rule... 

Kyle:

That I think is where we've seen more change. We are now in an era where our attention spans are even less than they were 10 years ago, because of the frequency and volume of messages that are coming at us on a regular basis, the 6.5 seconds is, is almost, it's almost too long. So, I'd say, you know, and, and there have, I haven't seen any new studies on this, but I'd say we're, we're well under 6.5 seconds in capturing their attention. We may have 3 to 3 to 5 seconds to capture attention of our, of our target audience and get them to, to do something else because every other input in their day is fighting for that time. So if we can, if we can get folks to understand the core of our argument or understand the, the benefit to them within the 1st 3 to 5 seconds, we can typically get them to continue reading or listening or watching. 

Greg:

I get a sense that it's more sophisticated filtering processes by the user, just knowing that they've got a lot of content to get through, they've got a lot of content at their fingertips. So they're naturally going to be quicker about swiping and looking for relevant content. 

Kyle: 

You're absolutely right. 

Greg: 

Kyle, I want to go back to Aristotle for a second. 

Kyle:

Sure. 

Greg: 

Now help me brush up on ethos, pathos, and logos. 

Kyle:

Aristotle's three keys to, good persuasion. Ethos being the ethics essentially of the person. Am I a qualified speaker? If, if you were interviewing me now on how to build a bridge, I'm not the right guy. I have no engineering degree and, the most I know about bridges is I drive over them. Ethos is, is the speaker qualified or is the company in this case, qualified to give me this message. We want to make sure that there is that credibility involved. 

Pathos is probably if not certainly one of the strongest appeals we can make and pathos is an appeal to emotion. I used to when I, when I taught students at, at university, I would ask them, I'd say, what's your favorite movie? And give them some time to think about it and then say, OK, why is it your favorite movie? The answer is always the feeling is the thing that was persistent, and so that's where I think we are very much today in terms of marketing and advertising is pathos is going to be one of your stronger, if not your strongest appeal to a human. 

The last one, logos is logic. Does your, does your argument hold together? Is it logically sound? Bottom line, regardless of which one you value as most important, you need to have all three. When your company is going out with any sort of outbound marketing, it absolutely has to appear as though it is a credible voice in the marketplace that they can be relied upon to execute what they, what the company says they'll execute. 

I think back to some of the old soap commercials on the subway with the people raising their arms to grab the, the steady bar, you know, “Aren't you, aren't you glad you use dial?” And then there's someone else walks in and puts their arm up right in front of them and says, “Don't you wish everybody did?” Terrific spot in activating the, the logic of the entire argument that using this particular soap will make sure you don't smell bad on the subway and hypothetically everywhere else. 

Greg: 

Well, and lots of emotional appeal there. Who wants to be embarrassed by that. Well, thank you, Professor Cohen for that. You know, along with changing consumer habits and proliferating technology and media channels, Institutions are also experiencing a shift in their ability to control their messaging. 

Kyle:

We've seen a dramatic shift, and I wouldn't even say recently, I'd say probably the last 20 years. And granted this is depending on what kind of audience you are part of, what segment of an audience you're part of, but for the most part, institutions have taken a backseat to An Amazon review of a product by Martha in Des Moines, Iowa who, who says this is the greatest thing I've purchased in the last 5 years. You got to have one that is far more influential now than some of these vaunted institutions that we really used to look at. Good old Martha in Des Moines is, is more influential than a PhD in a certain field. Because she's writing a review of this product that she wrote that she purchased, and that's what people are looking at. 

Greg: 

You know, the capability or the ability now to self-publish so easy for me and you to get our messages out these days in so many different in a variety of channels that the ability to control your own messaging if you're a marketer now becomes a little more challenging. And thus the proliferation of influencers, which is yet another channel and another mouthpiece in the marketing landscape. 

Kyle: 

It gives us the opportunity and the need to be far more precise in who we talk to, and in what we say to them. So in a way, it's pushed us to be better at our jobs as marketers and advertisers. It forces us to be on our A game. And making sure that we are targeting the right people and saying the right things to them to persuade them. 

Greg: 

Well, let's take that thought a little further then what, what are the new rules then emerging in this modern marketplace? 

Kyle: 

The new rules are really about experience. Experience marketing is the future of marketing in that every time you or I interact with a brand. That's an experience in our lives. it's a moment in our lives that we may or may not forget. However, those experiences are, are most authentic and, and our most resonant when they're well targeted. So data becomes an incredible part of incredibly important part of the mix here along with relevant messaging like what we were talking about above when we talked about Aristotle. So the data has to be lined up and you have to be surgical in that precision, and the same I'd say is true of, of the message. Whatever you say to that target group of people has to be very aligned with their everyday thinking and also really tap into their everyday needs and then when they have that again, whether it's a video on TV or video online or a social media ad or a letter in the mail. It is a moment. It is an experience for them. 

So to bring it full circle, I think we are in a we are in a phase of marketing now where it's more about experience as a whole than it is just putting an ad in the paper. 

Greg:

And hoping for the best. 

Kyle:

And hoping for the best. 

Greg: 

Broadcasting, is that an antiquated term these days? 

Kyle: 

No… 

Greg:

I don't mean it in the sense of radio or television. I mean it in the sense of mass dissemination of messaging to a large audience, some of which may not be interested in your message. You know, the, the thing is, and I don't want to, I don't want this to get lost in the shuffle. I'm talking about performance marketing, what you just mentioned, broadcasting. Is something that's still incredibly valuable for a brand campaign, because you're out there trying to change hearts and minds, not have a commercial exchange of dollars. So you want to reach in those instances you want to reach doubters or people who have not heard of you, that kind of thing. So you do want to, to spread the message far and wide for a brand or an awareness campaign. 

When I'm thinking of performance marketing, that is, that's very much a, a sales driven activity where brand and awareness really come out of PR, we want you to feel a certain way about our brand. The precision marketing for performance really dials in on, we're not trying to get you to feel a certain way about our brand. As a whole, what we're really trying to do is get there to be some sort of commercial exchange. And to do that, we, we have to make sure that we're talking to the right people and saying the right things. 

Greg: 

So just to summarize about the new rules, then it's really more about thinking first about the experience. Driving that experience with relevant messaging, targeting, and data to help get you there. 

Kyle: 

OK, yeah. So oftentimes in performance marketing where people need to see results, right? Everyone's got their goal for the year; they have to hit their goal. Those instances are where frequency of message delivery is What I like to do is figure out what's the client's objective? What is their overall objective, and you can back that up to even before we make the decision to do an awareness campaign or a performance campaign, because the objective is going to, going to dictate either one of those. 

But if the objective is, I need to hit my numbers. Then we're talking about a performance campaign that puts us into this place of finding the absolute best data, and by data, I mean list of people to go after and then understanding as much about that group as possible so that we can provide the right kind of language, the right kind of imagery. To move them again off the couch. One ad rarely gets the job done by itself. 

So, what I like to do is make sure that the frequency of ads is high enough that folks are going to be experiencing this multiple times, each time a little bit different message, a little bit more progressive message progressing toward a purchase. 

Greg: 

Is it always the same media or medium? 

Kyle: 

No, it's not. And one of the things that I like to move campaigns into something we've developed here, is a proprietary methodology for DCG ONE. Called "Surround the Target." 

Greg:

Tell me more about that. 

Kyle: 

Well, the title is very descriptive. Surround the target is just that we, we want to use the, the multiplicity of touches that we get to really surround the, the prospect or the target or the donor, whoever it is. With those 7 to 10 touches but do so within the course of their daily lives. 

We go back to experience. I'm living my life and I'm moving essentially from experience to experience and what we want to do is show up in their mailbox, social media feeds, in their connected TV devices. Showing up in different places, but essentially surrounding the prospect, surrounding the prospect or the target is the main goal, and we can do that. There's several ways we can do it, but one of the ways that we get into this is by leveraging the core, the core foundation of DCG ONE, which began as a printing and direct mail company. We're so much more now, but those strong roots in measurement and finding the right audience and optimization of a campaign are all completely applicable to the digital era. Am I hitting the right people? Show me the numbers so that I can see which ads are working best, which ads to remove, which ads to put more money behind. 

It's still very, very much about the math, which is something that direct marketing has always leaned into. Now, you know, as we call it performance marketing, it's the channels have expanded, the mediums have expanded, but the process is still very much leans on that core direct marketing, direct mail principles. 

Greg: 

So we know something about the prospect. We know something about their lifestyle. We know something about the way they use media. We know something about their consumer habits from day to day. We know this through data that that we amass. So, your point with surround the target is leverage all of that to naturally weave your way into their work, into their lifestyle with relevant messaging.

Kyle:

…and essentially give them experiences in between their experiences. We think about our life as a string of experiences, but There is downtime, but in that downtime, or in that time where someone's checking their phone or having the television on or listening to streaming streaming audio, those are the instances where you're exactly right. We want to weave in a message there for our clients that that is persuasive that will move them to action. I think persuasion is the core of what we do. There are, there's certainly a debate to be had there, but the distance between inaction and action is persuasion. That's how I look at it. 

Greg: 

I would think also another big upside for marketers is this idea that with all this targeting and precision going on, you're really removing a lot of risk. 

Kyle:

Yes, that's another big advantage to the way that we're able to execute performance marketing in this day and age is we eliminate waste. We can eliminate a substantial amount of waste and by waste I mean dollars that companies are throwing at advertising that aren't really doing anything. What we can do when we really dial in the targeting. I not only improve our communication with the people who are already ready to make a move, we are, we're eliminating, we're substantially eliminating waste. 

Greg: 

And so that's STT surround the target and, and you're perfecting that proprietary approach to marketing here at DCG ONE. How do you organize STT internally and what are the some of the advantages that that we have at DCG ONE to be able to execute that? 

Kyle: 

Well, again, I go back to our roots as, as, initially, a print and direct mail shop. That in and of itself sets us apart in how we look at things. We look at things based on a direct mail list and then that list becomes what we want the people that we want to surround. So if I know that you're on my mail list, then I want to make sure that you're seeing my ads on Facebook, my ads on Instagram, my ads on LinkedIn, my ads on connected TV. I want you to hear my ads that are coming through streaming audio. It's a fundamental shift in that it's about the individual. It's about the person. If you are the right person, we want to surround you with our message. If you are not the right person, we consider that waste, and we're not going to put the money there. 

Greg: 

Well, with integrated capabilities, it seems like you can cast a whole new vision on a campaign, a whole new perspective that ultimately might be much more effective than siloed capabilities where channels aren't talking to each other as efficiently as they might be able to. 

 Kyle: 

Absolutely. And that's the crux of it, right, is all of your channels in in an STT type of campaign, all of your channels are working together. They're all coming across with the same message. They're all, they all have the same goal to persuade you to do a certain thing. So we're able to talk to targets as humans, whereas, you know, if you're doing a big broad brand campaign, that's more difficult because you're talking to masses and what we're doing is talking to individuals. 

Greg: 

And the continuity in the messaging too becomes a little more seamless and one message to the next makes sense. 

Kyle: 

That's one of the other doors that opens when you use this type of approach. Now you can do sequential messaging because you control when people see each ad. We're doing a different type of campaign, the siloed approach, there's not insight into what ad our target sees first and what ad our target sees next. However, with what we're doing here with, with surround the target methodology, we can 100% control that and we can 100% control the message in each of those flights to again move folks to take action. 

Greg:

OK. With STT Kyle, what kind of improvement should a marketer in a campaign expect to see? 

Kyle: 

It varies. It's kind of like asking me how much should a car cost. There, there's a lot of range there, right? But I think probably the most persistent number that I have seen has been at least a doubling in the response rate to your direct mail. So folks who are sending mail already. When you add the SET methodology, and you, and we really go after the whole human, the whole person, not just one experience of their lives like checking the mailbox, but multiple experiences. What I've seen is, is an easy doubling of legacy direct mail response rates. 

Greg: 

We talked initially in this conversation about the chaotic nature of the marketplace, the proliferation of messaging, but with that comes incredible and new advantages and opportunities for marketers. This seems like it would be a good time to be marketing in that sense. 

Kyle: 

It absolutely is. If you have a numeric objective, as in I need to sell 1 widgets or I need to get X number of people on board a cruise or to join our vacation club, those instances are the absolute best for surround the target type methodology that we're that we're talking about here, because anytime there's a, there's a number attached to your goal, we can work backwards from that, that number and tell you, OK, well this is how many people we need to start marketing to. This is how many people we expect to react to the first ad, the second ad, the third ad. This is how many people will respond overall and then we can apply conversion percentages and things like that that will allow the company to see exactly how they're going to, they're going to meet their goals, executing this type of marketing. 

Greg: 

Information is power. And tools to disseminate that power and that information have never been more available and numerous. 

Kyle:

And that that list just keeps getting bigger, which is exciting because we talk about tapping into the human experience and being part of the experience of someone's day. So I can only see this expanding, especially when we're talking about surrounding a target as new media comes online. We are able to quickly implement use of that. 

Greg: 

And the other phenomenon within that, people now expect a personalized experience. 

Kyle: 

The places that are going to be best for you in terms of performance marketing are going to have strong roots in direct mail because they know how to personalize, when to personalize, how much data to personalize because we, we also know there's a, there's a downside to it. If you personalize too much, it just feels creepy. So, striking that balance is critical, and that's why DCG ONE, because of our, our roots, is so good at developing these types of campaigns. 

Greg: 

All right, Kyle, let's wrap up with a couple of quick tips for marketers in the swipe era. What should I be thinking about the most? 

Kyle: 

You know, it for me comes down to targeting, targeting, targeting. We need to know who we're speaking to, so we know how to speak, what to say, where they are in the consumer journey, and making sure again that we're hitting the right people, so that means to get to that level of targeting, you have to have a stellar data collection system. And whether that is something that you have in-house or whether that's something you reach out to someone like DCG ONE to handle, the data exists out there to help folks really narrow in targeting, and that is the that is the key to successful campaigns, successful performance campaigns. 

I would offer a word of caution. In terms of data collection, we all know that there's a lot of data being collected on us with every online interaction. What I would caution is asking too much, too much too soon of the consumer, of the consumer, yes, you again, it goes back to knowing, knowing your target audience. If they're ready for that, you can, you can take them there, but that's typically something that again goes back to this methodology that we're talking about, that allows you to sequentially message folks. You, you've led them to a place where they're ready to give that information. Otherwise, steer clear. 

Greg: 

Don't get greedy. 

Kyle:

Don't get greedy. 

Greg: 

Kyle, great discussion. Thanks so much for joining us and bringing your expertise to The Whole Idea Podcast. 

Kyle: 

It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

Greg: 

And here are my key takeaways: 

• In the swipe era, some of the old rules of advertising and marketing are still at play, but they're getting roughed up, evolving to accommodate new media, channel integration, and changing consumer habits, among other things. 
• These days it's less about a standard number of touches and more about establishing the right frequency of customized experiences for your prospect and surrounding the target with media and messaging to ensure exposure and engagement.
• And that is the essence of performance marketing where data and targeting rule and when specific measurable goals are the objective. 

My thanks again to Kyle Cohen, growth strategy manager at DCG ONE. If you have questions for Kyle or would like to talk further about applying the principles of STT to your marketing or advertising campaign, drop us a note at podcast@DCGONE.com. 

Thanks very much for listening to The Whole Idea Podcast. Our producer is Kelsey Brewer. I'm Greg Oberst. Watch this channel for our next podcast and more expertise, insight and inspiration for whole idea marketing. 

Take care.