Search Interviews:

Jeremy Weisz 5:24

No, you’d never be able to crack this code. Good luck. But

Grant Johnson 5:27

you can. Yeah. So what ended up happening was, again, I think it’s a really good case study. Of course, I’m biased, but it’s a good case study on thinking through how marketing and sales have to align. So what we ended up doing was, we did a little bit of research, of course, and we our cadence was really email, banner ads, prior to demand dimensional, direct mail, more banner ads, more emails, and then of course, there was a, an option for a gift or an offer. And what we offered at that point was an echo dot. And at that point, they were like 79, or 99 bucks. And they were brand new, they were hot, all that kind of good stuff. And we sat down and said, How do we, how do we make this? If we get appointments? How do we make this an event rather than just another sales call? Because of course, some people are going to say, Yeah, come on, I’ll spend 15 minutes with you, I get this new toy. You know, so what? So what we ended up doing, and this was several years ago, is we did an Alexa app with it. So what we did is we had the salesperson come in and say, hey, we’ve been having troubles with with these can we plug it in and make sure it works. And I think they just took it down. But if if you would say Alexa enable EyeMed then what would happen is it go through this whole whole saying that sales pitch, but Welcome to I met, here’s we are here’s how many people we insure. And of course, what ended up happening, which is what we had hoped for was the person who was going to get the stats, and we’re going to get some other people to come in and see this. And even though that technology has been around for a long time, I think people

Jeremy Weisz 7:24

still a cool trick. I mean, if you did that,

Grant Johnson 7:27

yeah. And then on a lot of people just don’t, you know, they don’t think through the process. But the real creative,

Jeremy Weisz 7:32

really creative and bustle, by the way, it’s great for the salesperson and take some stress off them. And the Alexa is doing the targeting of that moment. So that’s that’s fantastic.

Grant Johnson 7:43

15% response. Yeah, I love it sold a lot of policies. So yeah, it worked. But again, I think that’s the kind of thing that, you know, most people can do fancy creative. They don’t test enough, that kind of stuff. But really, if you think through that sales cycle, and how you can make that, from ordinary to extraordinary that face to face meeting, even a zoom call like this, you know that that are really bode well for you. And you know your chances of success in my mind.

Jeremy Weisz 8:17

I love that thinking Grant because it’s not just optimized, it’s optimizing the whole process. So it’s like, you’re not like, oh, it stops when we get the appointment. That’s when it actually begins. And that’s actually when people like cool, we got the appointment, and how do you optimize that piece of the process. And so I’m curious from the you know, you obviously take a multi channel approach to get in the room to put that offer in front of them and then deliver this amazing kind of cool presentation event. What we’re and I you know, what I gravitate towards, I hear all the stuff that I hear dimensional direct mail. And that’s where my mind goes, because I love hearing about what were some were some cool examples. They may be in this case that you sent out or even across other campaigns, because I think the art of that, you know, we’re so used to getting bombarded with email and all this stuff. And you could stick out from the crowd with that. But I just love dimensional direct mail.

Grant Johnson 9:10

Yeah, I can tell you one. And and again, this is going to seem crazy. But again, it’s b2b. So on b2b, you can spend a lot more money on a prospect. your cost per lead can be very high if the close rate is there as well. Right. So again, things you have to factor in. So we had a bank that was trying to it was a Wisconsin based bank that was trying to penetrate the business side of companies in Chicago. And if anybody’s worked in any major city, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, LA, media costs are just ridiculous. So they came to us and said, You know we can we can afford a really nice gift. So you guys come back with something that you think is going to you know, really work. So what we had at that time was there was this little device. And if you would turn the device on on any hard surface, it would create a keyboard. And it was just a little device. And it was, it’s pretty cool. And so that was part of the part of the dimensional direct mail that came. And then Believe it or not, if they would set up an appointment with a banker, they would get an iPad, we would bring an iPad to them. And people are like, oh, great case study, of course, it’s going to be successful. Well, not necessarily, because these are busy people, they can buy their own iPads if they want they, you know, they really don’t need them. But it’s a really good example of people going wow, this is, you know, this is a really cool thing. Now, the one thing I always caution about dimensional mail and any type of offer you make is, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. If I’m selling you a Montblanc pen, and say, Hey, you buy this Mont Blanc pen, and you get a Jaguar? I don’t think many people are going to respond because they’re going to go round. Really, I’d probably be a matchbox or a hot we know it’s the catch. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. What’s the catch, and people are skeptical. They’re even more skeptical today. But again, a lot of this stuff can be proved or disproved through testing. And I’m going to just just jump in for a second. A really good example, again, that I see all the time in b2b that’s not done is just basic segmentation. I don’t have to treat everybody as homogeneous. So I shouldn’t actually because what the CEO is thinking is different when that what the technology person is thinking is different than what the operations and what the finance person is thinking. So just by simple segmentation, you’ll have more success. And I would say, well, over 90% of the campaigns that were invited into, they are not doing basic segmentation. They’re not doing testing, if they’re driving them to a landing page, which of course we highly recommend. They’re not testing that. The that’s when the sale really begins, because I’m clicking and going. All right, Dr. Jeremy, you know, you’re saying, Okay, I’m interested. And then people just think, okay, I’m just going to tell you all about myself. But that’s when the selling really needs to kick in. And, you know, a lot of people forget that. And those are a couple things that I would recommend everybody at least think about, because they’ll increase your success.

Jeremy Weisz 12:39

Yeah, I mean, that’s one of the things he talked about. Also, in the in the Imad example, with four essential b2b email marketing tactics is like one you’re targeting, you know, you’re segmenting it, so then you can personalize things and you can make a compelling offer to them. I love for you to talk a little bit about you, you talk about in their conversion driving landing pages. Yeah,

Grant Johnson 13:01

yeah. So conversion, driving landing pages. Again, there’s a, there’s a process or a template that we follow, which I’m happy to share with anybody if they reach out to me after hearing this. But but really what has to happen there is, it’s like, I’m trying to give an analogy, if you make a phone call in the old days, because you like something off an 800 number. Don’t just assume I want to buy this, they always try to upsell you and that kind of stuff. But the landing pages what happens there is reiterate the offer is one thing I always say if there’s an offer, or you know, or a compelling reason I’m clicking on if it’s a white paper, if it’s a possible gift, read, restate why that person clicked on there. And then you know, the other end. So that’s one thing and then you have an option to test all sorts of different landing pages. I hear so personalization, compelling offer and call to action. And personalization is really important. Now a lot of people always ask me about purls. And pearls are okay, but if you know too much, and you pre populate with too much it becomes a little creepy. So you have to be real for people that

no approvals are it’s like a personalized URL. Right? So like if you send someone something in, in the mail, and they click on it, it’s like oh, if you go to it and it says something about response rate, you know, if it’s to you it Grant from Responsory, they’ll go in and has your stuff on there, which is kind of a cool little trick.

Yeah, yeah. So and again, so just, you know, very test centric. And then, you know, again, a compelling offer and call to action. That’s what got them to click. So, once they’re on that landing page, you know, like you see in this example here, you got the first name Jeremy, How valuable is your employee data and, you know, goes into, you know, some statistics and that kind of stuff, you got the box on the right. And you know, as far as the, the statement, and then infographic, things like that. So this is a good example, I believe there was one or two others who tested along with this, but this was the winner. And there’s another email another one. Yeah.

Jeremy Weisz 15:25

So I’m curious Grant from this, what I love about this, also is that the imagery is really cool. So I talk about your thought process and brainstorming and the team have coming up with, you know, it just jumps out at you, you want to look and see what’s going on. And you totally get what the company does, you know, from, you know, amongst bees, and like, how protected you feel on them amongst sharks in a cage. So how did you come up with that, or test different images, or maybe you tested a few and you came up with this,

Grant Johnson 16:00

I’d love to hear that, you know, we, you know, obviously, we sit down, we have a brainstorming session, we try to come up with a theme. And in this case, it was obviously had to do with animals and insects theme, you know. And what we are trying to do is figure out how, again, how we can make a compelling how we can make people stop. And we decided rather than a photo, use this animation tactic. And again, if you look at your email, you don’t see many emails like this in your inbox, you didn’t know. And the image and the headline, really have to just drive you into that copy. And again, I really want to reiterate that the creative the design, it really needs just like you said, Jeremy, pull me in. But then direct response copy is much different than traditional ad capping, right. And one of the things that I do when I consult with people, is I take their homepage, or in this case, an example and and i look at how many times they mentioned themselves versus you. So I want to know what’s in it for me, tell me what you’re going to solve remind me of like, but then things like that. And if it’s not two to one, that you’re talking about the prospect, rewrite your cop? Because, you know, I, there’s an assumption at this point, after I clicked on that. I know who you are, I believe that you’re a credible company, otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have clicked them. So now it becomes Okay, what’s in it for me? what problem are you going to solve? How are you going to help? Why are you different than somebody else that I may have already? So again, I just think it’s the like you had alluded to earlier. It’s just that direct marketing mindset. So keeping in mind that the creative is designed to pull people in. And we came up with, you know, I think we probably presented four to six options. And then we always have a rationale behind each option. It’s not like, Hey, here’s a here’s an idea. What do you think of it, we have to explain the rationale behind what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and how we’re doing it. And honestly, I cannot tell you how many CEOs that I presented to in my career that said, Well, we really don’t like this. And my responses I don’t get it doesn’t matter, right here and they go, what what do you mean, I’m paying your bills? And I said, well, you’re not our target audience. If you’re our target audience, yeah, I’m not dismissing you know, your industry, but I’m not trying to sell to you, I’m trying to sell to the prospect. And their mindset is probably a little different than you, Mr. CEO. Right. And those are things to keep in mind. And then again, when you think about segmentation, you know, content that’s engaging is going to relate to what they do and their job. And their job function years ago, we did a, we were selling financial conversion software. So most financial institutions run Pfizer or some sort of software package that ties everything together. And what we did, there was, again, this is heavy direct mail years ago, but what we ended up doing was, we told the CEO, what holistically this was going to mean, we told the technology officer how easy the integration was going to be. We talked to the CEO about what the payoff was going to be. We talked to the marketing prospect about how they could really differentiate themselves versus other competitors in the market. And in in my mind at that time, it’s like, Okay, everybody comes into this big conference room, and they say, Okay, well, you know, we have to talk about the software needs we have, and lo and behold, the CFO says, Hey, I Found this company that’s already told me what the return could be. And then they start talking. And they all figured out, hey, this is from the same company. And it’s speaking their language. So we’re in that case, we’re reaffirming that we know it’s a big step to make this investment. We also know it’s going to be tedious. And there might be some problems along the way. But we understand what those are because we’ve done this enough. And that alone is going to differentiate in that case them and even to this day, which is 1520 years later, people still aren’t doing enough of that segmentation. And why is it valuable or important to me? Yeah, I

Jeremy Weisz 20:41

love that because everyone has their own wants and needs even for the same product. I love to hear Grant to I know, you have known some of the top director smart, direct response marketers of all time and learned with them from who are some of your favorites, maybe that are still still around today. And maybe something you learned from them?

Grant Johnson 21:06

Well, I’ll start with the people that aren’t around, I was fortunate. And pretty young and naive and stupid. Dick Benson who was one of the fathers of testing, direct marketing testing, I didn’t meet him per se in person, but I talked to him on the phone a few times. And I was arguing with him about a product I was selling. And he said, Well, you know, you called me and you can argue with me all you want, but that’s not work. And I said, I want to prove dig Benson, wrong, but guess what the Dock Benson was correct. So So him Herschell Gordon Lewis, Bob stone, those are some of the folks Rachael Ray Jenkins that I got to know. Brian Kurtz is an outstanding direct marketer. Somebody I’ve known for several years, he runs the Titan program. Just a really, really bright guy who has a passion for measurability Alan Rosenspan, one of my favorite direct marketers of all time, just just a really smart guy who understands that testing and you know, fortitude are really what’s important. And interestingly enough, we had a what they call a grand control, which is sells like, millions or hundreds of millions of products in the direct mail realm. And they actually hired Alan to beat our package. Hmm. I think he said it took five or six or seven goes at it. So that was a compliment, in a way, you know. But yeah, so. So those are a couple off the top of my head. And, you know, anybody that practices smart, direct marketing, understanding, you know, some of the basics, you know, those are folks that I really, and I meet folks on a weekly or monthly basis who I didn’t know, for instance, you and Jeremy, I, I was, like I said at the beginning, when we were talking prior to going live, I’m shocked. We haven’t met each other over these years. You know, I just got a lot of mutual connections.

Jeremy Weisz 23:22

I mean, Brian Kurtz is amazing in his book Over Deliver, and I did I have interviewed Herschell Gordon Lewis, and then I’m curious what resources you recommend someone listening? Like, I believe direct response is really the foundation of everything. And, you know, like you mentioned, the, the picture like we’re looking at here, the goal that is to draw you in to read the headline and like, one of my favorites is Joe Sugarman his book where he just breaks it down. So simply, which is like, what’s the goal, the headline to get you the subhead, what’s the goal, the sub had to get to the first sentence was the goal, our says, second sentence? So I’d love to hear you some of your favorite resources out for people who want more.

Grant Johnson 24:03

Yeah, I’m gonna digress just for a second. Go ahead. One of the things very early on, you’re talking about Joe Sugarman. And I’m so glad you brought up his name. So he used to have a product called blue blocker sunglasses. Back in the day, they used to run infomercials live, okay. So they’re, they’re on, they’re on the camera. And Joe’s holding this with with the host. And he says, You know what, these are so good. We’re gonna send you to pair and you know, they’re virtually indestructible. And he says, watch this, and he drops a pair of the sunglasses off and it snaps at the temple. And he picks it up and he goes, now that’s why we give you two pair. And by the way, if it fast break, it’s gonna break here, and we’ll give you a new one absolute without skipping a beat. Now, I was like, That’s impressive. And if you ever ever talk to him again, I mean, ask him about that story. I think that’s pretty cool. Dave, David Ogilvy, who is, you know, a lot of people consider him the king of advertising. He called direct mail his secret weapon. So, you know, looking at anything that Ogilvy may have wrote on direct marketing, direct mail. That’s a really, really good resource. You know, subscribing to blogs and podcasts like you have, those are good resources. I’m probably going to start at some point a podcast, not that everybody should listen to me. But there’s just so much information. I’m in my office here and I in my office, and the whole the whole suite here we’re in, I probably have 1000 books. You know, a lot on direct marketing. Yeah. Very, very many indirect marketing. But yeah, so I would say, looking at not only marketing books, but sales books and how to how to weave that sales message into what you’re doing. Yeah, he neuro linguistic programming they have. They have a really good website and some resources that you can look into as well. And, you know, understanding copy and copy from a sales and marketing perspective. There’s a book that actually boardroom where Brian used to work Brian Kurtz, it was called secrets of super selling by Matt, I can’t think of the guy’s name right now. But anyway, one of the things in there that was really interesting to me, was when you’re talking to somebody, and you say, I hear what I hear what you say, Do you hear what I’m saying? And I say, Yes, I think I see what you’re saying, well, that’s the wrong response. Because you’re using the cue of hearing. So I should say, yes, Jeremy, I understand. I hear what you’re saying. And I know that sounds small, and but again, that’s one of those things that people feel understood. Yeah, I, you know, I can relate. Is this a one

Jeremy Weisz 27:19

Grant? Is it this one? McCarthy’s secret of super selling?

Grant Johnson 27:24

That’s it? Yeah, that’s a great book buy It

Jeremy Weisz 27:27

is amazing. With these, like, just treasure trove? It’s $9.53. You know, it’s

Grant Johnson 27:32

just, yeah. inexpensive. Yeah, that there’s actually something there’s a guy named Ed McLean, who wrote a whole series of he called a monologues on testing. And I tried for years to find a copy of the monologue. And I finally found one copy. And believe it or not, it was in a library, about 20 minutes from where I’m sitting. Well, it was a college library. So I asked him if I could buy it. And they said, No. So I just made a bunch of copies and clean the basics of testing. You know, you probably can find it online, Think and Grow Rich, great book to read. That super selling book. Again, so many so many resources, Bob Stones. Successful secrets of direct marketing is like, it is a textbook, I taught direct marketing at the MBA level for about 15 years at Concordia University, Wisconsin, and that was the book that we use. And then Ruth Stevens, I don’t know if you’re familiar with her. She knows she’s a good b2b marketer that that does some good things. And again, there’s a lot of resources and I’ll follow up with a list maybe that you could include at some Yeah. After this. Yeah,

Jeremy Weisz 28:59

I love it. And I want to talk about for a second we’ll go on the other end of the spectrum, I think from dimensional mail direct response like mailing actual, you know, stuff in your physical in we’ll talk about AI, because you’ve been using AI for over a decade. But before we get to that, I’d love for you to walk through. I have pulled up here if you are listening to it. And you can watch the video as well. I’m looking at the website, Kloxxado and talking about Kloxxado and what you did with them.

Grant Johnson 29:32

Yeah, so Kloxxado is part of English, based in London, a company called Hikma Pharmaceuticals. And we have a process that we follow which we might get into later. And I’ll tie that into a story with Hikma but Kloxxado was just launched it was actually just launched last week. As a matter of fact, wow. And this is a campaign I’m very, very proud of its b2b, and some b2c but mainly b2b going to EMTs firefighters, police, schools, any place that may have a need, if somebody overdoses, what this does is a single shot nasal spray, it will save their lives.

Jeremy Weisz 30:22

And if you’re not watching the video, there is a picture there it says break glass in case of overdose. And there’s a picture of the actual product. I mean, it the actual product is in the in the boxer.

Grant Johnson 30:33

Yeah, yeah. So again, just just a campaign that is really close to me, because it’s not who they are or anything like that. It’s because it’s a product that’s needed, it’s going to save lives. I’m very proud of this, we’re doing all their digital advertising, we did the website, we’re going to do all the banner ads, email, so on and so forth. As things pop up, we work with more and more things on more and more things with Hikma, Kloxxado. But again, just a just a really cool product that we think is going to have a huge impact, it’s already got an international play. And once the marketing really kicks in, in the next month or two here, I think you’re gonna see some pretty cool results.

Jeremy Weisz 31:21

So for for them talk about the b2b component, so and what because because there’s probably a lot of use cases for it, how do you decide who to go after? And who to prioritize? And who do you end up targeting?

Grant Johnson 31:34

That’s, that’s a wonderful question. I’m glad you asked that. So it always starts with fact based analysis or research. And a lot of times people come to me and say, okay, you’re an expert on direct direct marketing, what would you do? And I say, I don’t know, I have to have the data telogen store. And they’re like, well, I thought you knew what you were doing. And then like, based analysis, because I’ll come in with a prejudice idea. And that’s not what we want. So in the case of Kloxxado, don’t quote me on this, but I think there’s like 37 or 57 zip codes in the whole United States that make up like, 80 to 90% of all overdose deaths. So you start there, you start going, Okay,

Jeremy Weisz 32:23

it’s like direct response meets 8020.

Grant Johnson 32:25

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, so, we, we said, okay, these are the zip codes, what you know, just to keep it simple, we’ll just say, okay, there’s 25 zip codes. What we need to find in those 25 zip codes is superintendents of schools, principals of schools, police stations that are in the area, EMT and firefighters that are in the area. And you know, it goes on and on and on target audiences as we rank them from top to bottom as far as who needs it, and then reaching out to them in a sophisticated manner. That includes using AI with targeted banner ads, and dimensional direct mail, things along those lines. So it’s all about the data. And as a direct marketer, it’s always been about the data. But now as everybody demands, I won’t say once demands measurability in their marketing. Those who understand data and testing are the ones that are going to succeed. And yeah, I’m pretty proud to say I’m part of this launch.

Jeremy Weisz 33:32

That’s awesome. Yeah, I mean, that’s pretty, it’s it’s, that approach is pretty interesting, because you can go anywhere with this, but then you kind of segments in the data to go where are the zip codes in the US that have this stuff going on? And then we’re within those zip codes? Where is this stuff happening? And those makes perfect sense. And you laid out like that, but it’s not so obvious from the beginning? Um,

Grant Johnson 33:56

yeah, I mean, sometimes people forget the basic the basics of direct mail, and I’m going to use a term that I would say the majority of the audience won’t understand. And I could be wrong. Hopefully, I am census tracks. So what happens in a zip code is you can break down a zip code into the five digit zip code, the zip plus for the nine digit zip code to get at smaller. But if you even want to get smaller than that there’s census tracts which within that zip plus four, there might be 100 of them. And we might be only interested in 30 of the hunt of the 100. And that’s what Uber targeting is about understanding and knowing how to use data, where to use data, what what are the assets and limitations of data become critical, not only for everything that we do as far as measurable marketers and direct marketers, but really for any marketing going forward, in my opinion.

Jeremy Weisz 34:56

Yeah, I love that. Um, what about front so we mentioned AI You talk, you mentioned it briefly about how you use it with this. Talk about how you’ve been using it over the past 10 years and now.

Grant Johnson 35:09

Yeah, so we have a patented a partner with a patented software program. And what the software does is it actually gets smarter and smarter as you move forward. So the problem that exists when you’re explaining this to people is they think of a traditional media buy. I want to reach females 25 to 54. Well, what this does is, let’s say we use that as a starting gauge. And what this does is it goes it gets more finite, more finite, more finite as it continues to move, and figures out who’s clicking who’s converting, who’s buying, okay. And a really good example is Zondervan Publishing, which is out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. And they print just about every kind of Bible you can imagine. And they came to us and they had three Bibles they wanted to market one was the college Bible, kids that were going off to college, the leadership Bible, which was really more for groups getting together and studying things like that, you know, as a group, and then my all time favorite, the Homeschool Mother Bible. And we said, okay, why don’t we? Why don’t you give us the data you have, and we can start running these ads. They said, we don’t we don’t have any data. We just don’t have the data, because it’s at retail, and they don’t share it with us. So like I said, using that 25 to 54, we started really broad, right. And then as we honed in, after about two or three weeks, we give them our first report. And we said, here’s the first report. And it was something like 33 year old, rural, mother of three with an income of X and X, you know, and then all these other demographic and psychographic attributes. And they said, Well, what is this and we’re like, these are the people who are buying your Bible. Like, we’ve never seen data like this. And what our system allows you to do is find, you know, finite and really target in on that group. Now, there’s some good and some bad with that, let’s, you know, the good is, okay, this is who I think my audiences but in reality, this is what becomes. But if you still want to reach that other audience, you’re not moving on, you’re not there’s a reason that they’re not responding. And that’s where testing comes in. Okay, then what we’re going to do is we’re going to test a different set of headlines, a different offer different copy, what have you test, you know, try to test one thing at a time. And you move that way. And we always start with a set of two or three different approaches. And then we analyze, and it’s not uncommon for one group to be responding to one set, and another group to be responding to another. And that’s how AI we again, like you said, we’ve been using it for over a dozen years. And a couple years ago, people were like AI and machine learning, oh, it’s the greatest thing. Like, well, you can hire Joe over at his agency, who’s learning on your dime. Or you can hire somebody who’s done dozens and dozens of these programs successfully. And I just think you had mentioned email, everything from email forward is really direct marketing. And digital is a really good example as well, it started off if you remember, oh, look at how cool this is. Look at all these great graphics you can do. But there was no sense of measurement tracking, even though it was in there. Now that’s becoming a must. If you don’t if you can’t track it, and you can’t measure it, why do it?

Jeremy Weisz 39:01

I want to go through a little bit Grant about this, this direct branding methodology. But before we do, I’m just curious. So you look at Kloxxado. They are international company. I’m curious how they found you in Wisconsin?

Grant Johnson 39:22

Okay, that’s a good question. So we do a lot of insurance work as well. And we did work with I think five of the Obamacare co ops ACA work. And one of our clients was a lady who was at inhealth, Ohio, which was the co op set up in Columbus, Ohio. And initially, we went to talk to them and they said, Well, you know, you’re saying the exact same thing that somebody else is saying this local, all things being equal. We’re going to go local. Yeah, that’s fine. I get it a year later, they call us and said, Well, you know, that whole They promised we got nothing. So we come in we we do our campaign with them. And in eight weeks that we picked up is about 20,000 new members in eight weeks. And now these are responses, these are people who actually sign up and become members from insurance. So that because the conduct that the funding got cut off, again, it gets into a whole nother can of worms. Most of the CO ops went out of business. So when we went in for an exit interview with our client, she said, You know what, I’ve worked a lot of firms, you guys did what you said, you’re going to do, you got results, you prove the results. So when I get a new job, I’m going to bring you in, if at all possible. So she left in health Ohio, because they shut down. And she went to hikma, at that time, it was called westward pharmaceuticals. And after about six or eight months there, she she says come down to Columbus and meet with my boss. So we meet with them. And he says, Well, I’m in I’m in a quandary. I’m with an agency in New York, I don’t like them. And you have no final experience. You have you have nachos suta call vitamins, but that’s not farmer. Okay. So I said, Well, we have this methodology. And, yes, so I thought a really smart question. He said, Okay, what would you do a few with me? And I said, Well, my understanding is the agency you’re with in New York, you don’t like he said, No, I can’t stand them. I said, Okay, give me six months, we’ll implement this process. If after six months, things don’t work out, we will turn everything over, you can start with a clean slate, you can hire whoever the heck you want. And we’ll say we, you know, we gave it our, we gave it the best try, we could. And that was about 12 or 13 drugs ago. So obviously, our stuff is working. And just like anything, it boils down to relationships, and somebody, you know, really rooting for you or pushing you. And everybody has a process. But this is really the process that we follow, which is like I said earlier, let the data tell the story. Back based this is this is what the data is telling us. Again, I can tell you many times to be like, That can’t be right, that that that’s not what we know. I’m just telling you what the data says. Yeah. So either you’re successful, or we’re missing somebody, or there’s a big opportunity that we should look to explore.

Jeremy Weisz 42:50

Yeah, I love to have you walk through the process briefly. And then I was talking funny, you say that Grant, you know, to Diana Fryc, who runs Retail Voodoo, she’s got a great podcast that got her podcast, we talk about this exact thing, which is they help CPG companies and they like someone you know, they get all these requests. Well, have you helped the popcorn company in rural Iowa? Well, no, but we have this methodology, right. And it’s about the strategy methodology that this can work across, even if you don’t have specific experience in pharma, or whatever it is, like there is this process. So if you could walk me through a little bit about the you know, and if you’re watching the video, you can see I just pulled up in front of me a bit about the direct branding process and just kind of highlight a few things here. That’d be that’d be great.

Grant Johnson 43:36

Yeah. So again, it starts with fact based analysis. It looks at everything from market conditions. What the future market market is, is, is supposed to look like based on facts, what your competitors are doing, how they’re doing it, all that kind of stuff. And it’s laid out here right in front of us. It’s really about intelligence, right? It’s about having the data tell us what what’s going on primary secondary research, sometimes we do messaging workshops, sometimes you do personas, it depends on the engagement, the size, and of course, the time that we have, in order to do things. But once we get through that fact based analysis, then we start the branding and marketing strategies, which is really understanding like an EyeMed understanding, what’s the messaging? We’re gonna, we’re gonna go out with, what’s the rationale behind what we’re going to do? Who are we going to market to? How do they look different? You know, what, what does the persona look like? And again, just if you don’t have time or money to do personas per se, just look at their titles and figure out you know, what their day to day activity is, some of it is common sense. And then, you know, we go on to the execution really after that, which is building the program components. Now one of the things I really want to touch on is if you look at building program components, and if you go up just to the earlier one, Jeremy branding, most of my competitors that that. So they’ll say, Oh, I know what you need, you need email, or you need trade shows are. And I’m like, No, we need to, we need to understand we need to figure out the strategy and then tactics, and then how we’re going to implement them. And again, it seems like it should follow this process. But I promise, most of them will say, here’s what we do, and this is what you need to do. But that doesn’t mean necessarily, it’s what you should do. So I think that’s an important distinction. So you build a program components, what you’re going to do, how you’re going to do it, do the creative brief, you present concepts, you walk through the concepts with the client, you agree, then you start the copywriting, which is very, very critical. And, you know, you go from there, and then he executed test, and then you just keep testing in that circle. So the track and measure so if you don’t track and measure, you can’t do it. But this is a continuous loop. And what what works today might not work in three months. Does the weather stay the same outside? Know, the gas prices stay the same? No, you know, things like that. And that’s why you always have to be in this continuous, this continuous improvement loop. because things change and competitors come they go. Some competitors might think, Okay, I’m gonna get more aggressive, and really start to steal market share. Are you are you prepared for that? And if you do constant testing, you’re gonna be two steps ahead of them. They can come in, but you’re gonna be like, yeah, we knew we knew that a year ago. And you can continue to grow.

Jeremy Weisz 46:58

Grant. First of all, thank you. I’m gonna be the first one to thank you everyone. Check out Responsory.com learn more, check out more episodes of the podcast and Grant the first one. Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone.

Grant Johnson 47:10

Yeah, thanks for having me.