The Virtual CMO

Designing Your Brand Strategy with Russell Pearson

July 20, 2020 Eric Dickmann, Russell Pearson Season 2 Episode 1
The Virtual CMO
Designing Your Brand Strategy with Russell Pearson
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, host Eric Dickmann interviews brand strategist, Russell Pearson. Whether stalking the big stage, directing the boardroom or rocking a comedy club, Russell brings passion, humor, and insight to every presentation for 25 years, Russell has helped thousands of business people evolve and grow their businesses. In highly competitive industries, his mission to fight apathy in the workplace and to reignite the spark in the hearts of business founders around the world.

Russell is the founder of the Crimson Fox Creative Studios, the host of the Marketing Report podcast and the national president of the Professional Speakers of Australia.

We discuss the importance of building a brand strategy, marketing automation tools, designing your brand, and how to leverage audience engagement for growth. We also discuss Russell's 52-week video series on marketing hacks for your business.

http://www.crimsonfox.com.au
https://russellpearson.com/marketing-podcast/

Listener Offer: Get access to Russell's 52-week video series at for FREE at https://russellpearson.com/52-week-video-series/

Eric Dickmann can be found on Twitter @EDickmann and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/edickmann and on my personal website https://ericdickmann.com

Russell Pearson can found online at https://russellpearson.com, on Twitter @russell_pearson and on LinkedIn @Russell-Pearson

If you'd like to contact us with feedback or guest inquiries, please visit: https://fiveechelon.com/the-virtual-cmo-podcast/

For more information about Virtual CMO strategic marketing consulting services, visit The Five Echelon Group at https://fiveechelon.com

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**Please note, this transcript was generated by an artificial intelligence engine. It is intended only as a rough transcript and there may be some grammatical, spelling or transcription errors.

Eric Dickmann: 0:08
Welcome to season two of The Virtual CMO podcast. I'm your host, Eric Dickmann, founder of The Five Echelon Group. Our goal is to share strategies, tools, and tactics with fellow marketing professionals that you can use to impact the trajectory of your company's marketing programs. We have candid conversations about what works, and what doesn't, with marketing tactics, customer experience, design, and automation tools. Our goal is to provide value each week with a roster of thoughtful and informative guests engaged in a lively conversation. So with that, let's introduce this week's guest and dive into another conversation with The Virtual CMO. 

Today, I'm excited to welcome Russell Pearson to the podcast, whether stalking the big stage, directing the boardroom or rocking a comedy club brand strategist, Russell Pearson brings passion, humor, and insight to every presentation for 25 years, Russell has helped thousands of business people evolve and grow their businesses. In highly competitive industries, his mission to fight apathy in the workplace and to reignite the spark in the hearts of business founders around the world. Russell is the founder of the Crimson Fox Creative Studios, the host of The Marketing Report podcast and the national president of The Professional Speakers of Australia in his spare time, he moves hot metal as a blacksmith and his father to three beautiful daughters. I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation with Russell. He's an insightful marketing professional and has lots of great tips for businesses to grow their businesses. Russell welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast. I'm glad you're with us today.

Russell Pearson: 1:53
Thanks, Eric. It's awesome to be here.

Eric Dickmann: 1:56
Well, that's I really appreciate you taking the time. I know we're worlds apart a year down in Melbourne, Australia. I'm over here in Orlando, Florida. I would just love it. If you could talk a little bit to the audience, just give them a sense of your background. Where did you come from? How did you get into the marketing space?

Russell Pearson: 2:12

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I sort of look at myself as a, as a business strategist these days, but, you know, the journey really started about 25 years ago. I was in, Branding and advertising, working in a lot of, design areas and also, creating a brand. But for large corporates mainly, I mean, I was doing a lot of pharmaceutical work in the nineties when all the pharmaceutical money, monies, the pharmaceutical company. Is that a lot of money?

Eric Dickmann: 2:35
Yep. Yep. They still do.

Russell Pearson: 2:37
Yeah. Yeah, there was a wall there though that I really pulled back, during the two thousand. But, you know, back in the day, whether it be Pfizer or Astra Zeneca, or, Sigma, all these different companies we were working with. And, I, at the time was working for another organization that was wanting to move into a sort of digital technology space. so I. Educated myself. And I helped that company move into the online space. We started creating websites for people. We started doing video and multimedia work on top of the sort of brand design side of things. And so when I got out to start my own business, probably 15 years ago now, I started Crimson Fox and Crimson Fox was set up really be a brand design company and get very, very clear for people about what a brand is and that not being just the logo, understanding the logo is just a trigger for brand reputation, but, to help people understand then that there was more to a brand and really it was a reputation and somebody they needed to manage because if they weren't managing it, was it still exists? That's still existed and it could easily be broken, by the promises that they were making. and a lot of people not even realizing that they were making promises. So it was an interesting cause that that was very much a production environment. helping people, create, the look and feel for their brand, for create the websites and the, and the collateral. But what was interesting is through that education and helping people understand that a brand was not just their logo, not just the color scheme or font, that moved me really into that consulting side. And, and, and that got me into, to the marketing space and the business growth space that I find myself in today. and what's interesting about that. And was that something that I, I learned years ago? I think I started teaching at university about this sort of thing about 15 years ago. And at the same time as I started the business, I realized that back when I had, back at university, I would look at design in its purest form as the aesthetic, of what something is. And then, I forgot a little bit of experience. I realized that it was actually more than just the aesthetic of the thing I'm doing. It's actually part of a larger purpose as a, maybe a campaign that. Runs. And we had to have a design fit within a campaign. And as I got more experienced, more experienced, I started to step further back and actually say that the campaign was then actually part of a strategy. And then the strategy was part of a business model and a business plan. And I kept moving back and finding these areas. Is where I still loved the design, but I could start this design at a larger scale

Eric Dickmann: 5:10
that's a very different path. I think that a lot of people would normally take, right. They would almost take the opposite path where they started more on the strategy side and then said, okay, now we need some design to fit into this, but you really have had that eye on design for a long time.

Russell Pearson: 5:26Well, I was able to bring design thinking and it was funny because, you know, through the early two-thousands, everyone was talking about design thinking, but that was my training. And so when people started bringing design, thinking to strategy, I was already doing it because I was already identifying the problems that needed to be solved, but it was from a different lens.

Eric Dickmann: 5:42
strategy gets tossed around so much, but one of the things that I see when I talk to a lot of businesses is that. They're kind of winging it, especially when it comes to marketing, they're just doing these random things without necessarily a strategy around what they're trying to accomplish. And oftentimes they don't even have the tools in place to be able to measure and monitor what they're doing. So a path to success is kind of unknown because they don't even really know what success means. Do you see that a lot when you're dealing with your clients and doing the strategy work?

Russell Pearson: 6:16
Yeah, I do. And I think part of the problem is that people think the strategy is some big, scary monster and something that only strategic do, which is absolutely not the case. I think his strategy is actually not that hard. It's a case of identifying where you are, knowing where you want to go. And by what path, the trick, I guess, for, for most people is being able to self-diagnosed where they are. being able to really see a future or create a future for themselves, which they haven't experienced before because that becomes a difficult thing. You're just making it all up as you go along and then picking one path rather than reviewing what are all the paths, because there are, you know, 101 different ways to get from where you are to where you want to go. But what's the best way for you to go right now, based on what you're working with, is there a faster way? Is there a more effective way? Whom do you want to bring with you on the journey? There's a lot of questions, I guess. And that's what strategy. For me, it's about I'm facilitating that is asking those questions, to bring insights to life.

Eric Dickmann: 7:15
Do you see a common trigger amongst your clients that brings them to you? what has them in the market looking for a strategist?

Russell Pearson: 7:23
They're stuck. They're stuck and they're frustrated and I've, I've run a small business. We had a, I think one of the 10 to 12 staff at one point, and, on the sole production side of that to be used ago. but I understand the problems that business owners have. They've got so many hats they're trying to wear. There are so many things they're trying to do. And usually, there was a drive that they had, when they founded the business and then they find themselves in a new reality where they. Working in the business for their employees. they're working in the business for their clients, but they're not actually working in a business for themselves. And they've, they've lost that connection to why they started in the first place. So when I find a business owner in that space where they're, they're frustrated, potentially even a little angry and a little stuck, that's the trigger for me that says I can help this person because, it's, it's usually about helping them reconnect to not just the reason why they started, but what they love about. The business that they've created and then working out how to get that back into the business and because that's the thing that helped them grow in the first place.

Eric Dickmann: 8:24
So it's a big reach that plateau, they kind of flatten out. And what they're really looking for is that connection back to the business, to figure out how we can grow, how we can connect our business to our customers.

Russell Pearson: 8:36
In the well in the early days. And what I'm talking about is a small business here. Like, the reality for me is most businesses don't go out of business. In fact, the statistic about four out of five businesses, failing has got very little to do with them, not be able to capitalize on the market or be able to, get the funding they need or any of those sorts of things. It usually comes back to the founder of running out of. The energy they've, they've they give up if they don't give up, they can always take another step forward. Now that's in those founding years. And for some people that'll be two years for some, it will be 50 years. It's very different depending on where you're at, but there's a helping people in the strategy space in the small business. But part is very much about reconnecting with that founder and driver so that they can actually move the business to the stage where they get it under management. And then there's a different strategy altogether, which is. Not just about market capitalization, but how can this new leadership team re-engage to drive it to the next level? Because without those people driving the business forward, it stagnates and dies and no matter how much a market opportunity there is there if the energy isn't there to take advantage of it, someone else is going to do it first.

Eric Dickmann: 9:45
I know it's hard to generalize, but. Do you see more often than it's a case of management micromanaging the business and therefore it stagnates because you've got the owner or the CEO who has to have by hand and everything? And therefore they become the point of failure. Really? There, everything gets bogged down with them. Or do you find that? they don't take enough interest in everything's delegated out, but there really isn't anybody coordinating the efforts of all the various teams and executives. And so there's, there's nothing that's really working together.

Russell Pearson: 10:19
Yeah. It's, it's so many different things. It's, it's cultural number one, I would say, which has to start from the head. if the head's not right, then the culture is not going to be right. And then having, having that person or those that, that leadership team, engaging people who are on the same mission as them. Now, everybody's going to come to your business for different reasons. Some are going to be trying to be the best they can be because they are very competitive. Other people are going to just want a job so they can feed their families. Other people that have been told at some point in their life that they're nothing. And they're trying to prove everybody wrong. And everyone comes to your business for a different reason. But if you can. Create a mission that everyone can get behind and everyone feels that they've got a, it's fulfilling to them. then you start to create that culture that, that all pulls in the same direction. Now that that is generalizing. Cause there's a lot more detail to it, but there'll be a point and it isn't usually at the start of the business, but there'll be a point when the business becomes, you've got to have profit. If you don't have a profit, then you really shouldn't be growing. And that's one of the biggest issues for, for most small businesses is they sort of just. Break-even, but if they can move to this profitable space if they can get that culture right. And actually having it leading in the same space, it will give them enough time to find the second tier of leadership. And that's where you can start to bring in a general manager. That's where you can start to bring in team leaders who. Need to then delegate. And that that's the time for the founder to either step out of the way or to reeducate themselves and become the new person they need to be, which is a supporter rather than the leader because they give they need to allow those other people to become leaders in the organization.

Eric Dickmann: 12:01
It seems like there are so many small businesses that run their business. And as long as there's a positive balance in their bank account, they view themselves as profitable, but that's not really profit. That is money that could be allocated towards other expenses. That's, it's just, what's in the bank account today and that's a terrible way of running a business.

Russell Pearson: 12:22
That's right. And, and I always like to look at the profit as, Client acquisition and making sure that that initial client acquisition is that doesn't have to be profitable, but close to breaking, even because everything after that becomes, That that's where the profit lies, you know? So how do you acquire customers in a way that's not going to break the bank and then how do you actually grow into that space? Because if you don't have that growth path, if you haven't designed the growth path for your business, you'll literally going from client to client, and have I go cash in the bank? Yes, I do. But it's only for the next three months or as long as this project runs,

Eric Dickmann: 12:56
do you think there's enough emphasis put on. Product market fit where your product or service fits into the market, how it compares against the competition, what are the distinct values that your product builds, or you think that in many of the businesses that you work with blinders are on and they just think that there is a market for whatever they're producing?

Russell Pearson: 13:19
Well, it's an interesting one. Every, well, there was a certain period of time where everybody who was in the strategy space wanted to help their clients find a blue ocean. which means, for those who haven't heard that term before, it simply means a space where there's not competition. the reality is people are spending money where there is competition. So I've never shied away from that. I love the competitive game and I love the game of positioning because it literally is a game and much like chess or anything other. and the way people differentiate is it's just interesting because, it's rare that somebody in a competitive space, like a truly competitive space, let's say like recruitment or something like that, has really a different service. All right. So it's rare that they have a different service. It's rare that they have a, Very different price point. You know, they're often around the same sort of price points. So how do you find an opportunity standard in that market? Well, you can, the great thing is you can actually go to the personality of the people. You can go to the personality of the leadership and you can actually start to stand out for ways that people think are not valuable and they become some of the most valuable, I've got this little thing I'd like to talk about here in Melbourne, where, there are certain types of berries, right? That, that we get here in Melbourne. Now you'll get them across the world that blueberries and raspberries, things like that. But the blueberries in Melbourne, for some reason over the last year, every second Punnett has been sour. Oh, really? Yeah. It's, it's, it's a strange one. Cause I love berries and I would get these pundits and I'm like, ah, this one's sour and I throw the punnet away and you know, get the next one. Oh, that was good. And I'll get the next one. sour again now one day I decided that I'm not going to throw us to where I'm going to do something different. And I took the blueberry and I picked up a raspberry and I put the blueberry in the raspberry. There's a little bit of genius. It tasted amazing, right. And a taste completely different. Now, if you haven't tried this, you got to try it. And I thought these are fantastic. I've got to see if, this is a real thing. And I looked up online and they actually exist. These are called bras berries. Right. And, there are celebrities out there pushing them, but they exist as a real thing now. What's interesting about that is sometimes in our business, where the blueberry and the service is sometimes it's, it's fantastic and our clients love it. Sometimes it's a little bit sour, cause maybe it's something they have to do rather than something they want to do. And I'm thinking like tax accounting, recruitment, whatever it might be, right. That they don't love the fact that they have to do it, but they do need to do it. And so. What you get to do as the business is you get to wrap your yummy raspberry, outer layer around the blueberry, the service that you actually deliver, where the service correct, and create something completely new. Now, this can literally come, from the smallest of places. What is, what are the people on your team? Love, love, for instance with me, I love blacksmithing. Yeah. How many marketing blacksmiths are there? There's not that many and it just comes off a tiny little thing. I love,

Eric Dickmann: 16:27
probably got the market to yourself.

Russell Pearson: 16:29
Yeah. Right. But it allows you to stand out. It allows you to differentiate and it allows people to at least get to know you. Which then gets them the opportunity to like you and then trust you over time. So, all we're trying to do is stand out amongst this very, very noisy marketplace. And so. Yes, we need to understand where the players are. We under that stand where the positions are, but if I find that like every marketer happens to also be a blacksmith, which is weird in itself. Right. But if I find that that's the case, I'm not going to talk about the blacksmithing. Am I right? Yeah. So, so understanding, especially for small businesses, what are the things that you love to start talking about them? What are the things that you love to hate? This is an interesting one, because that will be where you can actually create almost a movement around the thing that you're doing because you're pointing at something that's wrong in the world and you're here to fix it. And then. Even talking about the things that challenge you in business in life or whatever, it might be, allow you to make a human connection with people. because they, they say, Oh, this person is human and they have challenges in the world too. And they're looking to better themselves. I'm attracted to that. And so how do you attract people through really the old fashioned or who like trust process, whether you're in a big business or a small business, it really, it really doesn't matter. The is to stand out, usually a lot smaller than people think.

Eric Dickmann: 17:55
I think. Yeah, that's really an interesting example though. I love that because I think it's very visible obviously to most people. it reminds me a little bit of this whole idea around pivoting as well. I know pivoting is, is a little bit more drastic than what you're talking about here, but there are some elements there that I think are applicable because. I see in a lot of businesses that maybe they have a great product or service, but as a standalone offering, maybe, it just doesn't have the market space that it needs to be successful. But if they pivot slide lately and change it and maybe make it a companion product to something else that's out there in the market, or somehow blend it together with something else that's successful. But then they really have a runway to be successful. And I've found a lot of founders are against that because they get very tied to the development of their product or service. There's a lot of pride of authorship, but that there really is a lot of room sometimes when you just make some small changes to say, how can we fit in as opposed to trying to go against the full force of the market.

Russell Pearson: 19:05
Some of it is brand. Some of it is positioning. And I guess really what you're talking about is the business model there. and, and even campaign based work. So a lot of people don't look at the obvious, even in a small business, like what's the most, what's the fastest way to grow your business by another business, right? It's like if you buy this business, you buy that business. You bought a business suddenly you're four times the size that you were. If even if they're just the same size business as you were. Right, right. you, you can do that. There, there are so many ways to grow your business. I think the challenge that I've run into, the successes that we have to lead to new challenges. So yes, we can create, marketing systems and marketing approaches that help a business grow. But if the next it can't grow in the production side or it can't grow in the scaling of actually what it produces. That's where I see most businesses run into a brick wall because they've just focused their growth strategy on the front end and actually not looked at the back end about how can they scale at that point in time now cart before the horse the flip side problem is that a lot of people design a product and then take it to market. Right. Which means that I don't even know if the market's ready for it. But if you are going to go to the market, find out what the problem is, then create the product for it. That's usually the best way to actually create growth for your business. You then need to think very, very fast about how do I scale and not miss out on that opportunity.

Eric Dickmann: 20:33
Marketing is the engine that drives demand, but too often it takes a back seat to other priorities. Awareness fails to materialize demand drops in sales falter. Don't wait until it's too late to build your brand awareness and demand generation programs. If your company is struggling with their marketing strategy, we want to help let's schedule a call to talk about your unique situation and what options might be available to get your marketing program back on track. To learn more text C M O two (407) 374-3670 that's C M O two four zero seven. Three seven four three six seven zero. And we'll reply with further details. We hope to hear from you soon. Well, I know one of the things that you've created is this whole video series around marketing hacks. That's designed for businesses. Talk to me a little bit about what you've created there and how businesses can use tools like that.

Russell Pearson: 21:32
Yeah, absolutely. this actually came off the back of one of the things I suggest for most business people anyway, is, is what do you need next? whether it be in your business or your education, your, your marketing, your sales. What's something that you can add into your life that becomes a practice because obviously through adding something as a practice, we will start to do it consistently and start to improve, but because of the consistency and because of the practice in doing it. So what I did a few years back as I. Was speaking to an old mentor. And, he said, really, you got to get onto video because I created videos back in the seventies. He said, and I'm still using them today. Yeah, you're probably right. I probably do. I need to get good at video. So I decided to create a 52-week video series, which was a video that I would create every single week and, and get out to the market. And I would commit to it now, the way I committed to it was. I created the first two or three episodes, and then I put it out to people and said, do you want this? And they said, yes. And as soon as people started to watch them, then I had, I was three weeks ahead and I had to keep making one every single week after that. So it forced the at force, the practice in there, but I've created these 52 weeks. of, marketing and branding, tips, tricks, and I guess hacks and, that's available free, Russell pearson.com and, yeah, it's just a really useful way to stay on point because the focus, and focusing on our time is a, is a big part of, of what we do as business owners. We can get pulled in a hundred, one different direction and, have all these spot fires, but you can use that 52-week video series as a way of going all right. This is going to land every week in my inbox, I will use the next half hour after I listened to it because there are only 15-minute segments. So some of them are even four minutes. Well then the next half hour after that, to take that information and see how it applies to my world and that way you're creating a half-hour every week, we actually look at the development of your own marketing.

Eric Dickmann: 23:31
That's great because I think that's a challenge. We have, there's so much information out there on the web. There are so many people producing great content, but it's scattered about. And so you may be able to go to one place to get one thing and another place to hear something else. But I think having that series of things where you can just digest it a little bit every week and follow down a path, and it's a great idea, great for you obviously in creating the content and forcing yourself to do that. But I think there's a lot of value there for businesses.

Russell Pearson: 24:00
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I've aged a lot, I think, in the last four years. So I look back at those videos and go, ah, you know, what would I do if I was a, you know, a couple of years younger? so yeah, well, I'm still doing that though. I'm still creating a regular video, obviously. you know, I've got a podcast that I do every week. I've got, events that I'm doing, while at the moment, because of the current state of play in business, I am doing them every week. Cause it's easy to do them for my own house.

Eric Dickmann: 24:24
Well, I'm glad you brought that up because yeah. There's been so much conversation around COVID and the way the world has changed and whatever new normal is going to mean for people. But we've definitely seen some changes in trends in marketing. I've read some reports where email open rates are up because people are spending more time. And they don't feel as bombarded by these emails anymore. So they're actually opening them up and they're reading them. People have been participating in a lot more webinars, obviously the zooms and the various WebExes and what not are hugely popular. But from a marketing standpoint, how do you think some of this stuff is going to last, how are people really going to change how they outreach to their customers because of this quote-unquote new, normal that we're moving into.

Russell Pearson: 25:10
Yeah. Well, I think, there's, there's a couple of things. One, in particular, is this is highlighted more than ever the need to have a list. if you know, you will have hurt no matter how long you've been in business, you will have heard it at some point, grow your list, grow your list. And you've got to nurture that list to make sure that they're still engaged with you along the journey. Coming into this situation. So many businesses were like, well, I can't get in front of new customers. I can't get in front of your customers. So what am I supposed to do? So will, how many customers yeah. You had over the last two years and, they'll highlight several hundred. I'm like, well, have you gone back to those people yet? Right. They're like, Oh, great idea. I hadn't thought of that one. but there are people with like lists of thousands and thousands of people and they're communicating with them. Maybe once a quarter, maybe once a month. but I think that's the wrong way to communicate because it's like a, just a very light touchpoint. It's not communication, it's a newsletter. So how can you actually communicate with these lists and actually keep them part of the conversation in a way that's? Seeing if they're actually, if it's still relevant, what you're talking about, talking to them. So keep working those lists. I think that's very, very important and continuing to grow those leases are a massive part of everybody. I think business is just, we've just highlighted in the, at this time.

Eric Dickmann: 26:31
I want to focus in on that list thing, because I think it's very important because as I've seen a lot of communications that have come in from various companies, the ones that I tend to open up and read every week are the ones that are really providing value, that isn't just a sales pitch and say, Oh, we're having a sale on this. If it's a consumer brand, it's the ones that are passing along, things that are truly of interest and value to me and my business. And those are the ones that I open up. Those are the ones that are read. Those are the ones that I click on the links to see where they're going. And I think that the companies that just push this nonstop sales message where buy this, buy this here's this promotion that it just grows so old because you know what? Every email is going to be the ones where you open them up. And you say, I wonder what content they're going to be sharing with me this week. That's I'm going to find a value. I think if you can get into a communication strategy that is more focused on delivering that kind of value, you are going to build that trust with your customers and you are going to have more sales opportunities.

Russell Pearson: 27:37
I think there are two things there as well. The, yes, that you need to be providing value. Absolutely. No doubt whatsoever. on the flip side is that let's say that we send an email out and we send it to a thousand people. Maybe 300 people open. That means 30% and 70% don't so 700 people have not seen that message at all. You can actually send it to that 700 again, and then 30% of them open that email. You've then got the next 70%. Haven't seen that email. You sent now three emails and you're only getting to maybe half. Of your entire list. So I think one of the there's two there are the two points of the monitor is one is that I think people are scared of spamming their, their email list. When in actual fact, most people on the list do not see it. Most people do not see what they've got. Now, if they've opened it, then you leave them alone. You don't go chasing them with a hundred emails, one after another. And I think we're at a point now where we can get sophisticated enough with our emails, that if someone has opened the email, then we don't go after him again, you, we give him a break and what's the next step in the sequence to actually help them. But if they haven't opened it, then. We're not hassling them because they haven't seen it. so, so that's one, I think that there's an opportunity to go back more times than we ever think. Okay. We get, we get sick, you know, our own branding and our own message far before anyone else does. so we can, we can definitely be doing that. And. The other, the other point is that while we, as, the people doing the marketing may get sick of the message or, may be interested in people who are in providing value. And what have you, that's the value we perceive. There is a reason why people joined a list and it's because they signed up for something, or they are interested in something that we had. They may have a very different set of interests instead of values and what they perceive as valuable than we do. So I like to lean on the numbers and, if people are clicking on the information, I'm sending them, it tells me that they're interested if they're clicking on it and spending time on it and then taking next steps on it because I've created maybe a couple of really interesting, valuable pieces in a funnel. If I'm seeing them through that, then it tells me they're interested. And so I want to give them more of those sorts of things. And so, I, I'm not. Well, I used to, I guess I shy away from bombarding people with email or the perception that I was bombarding people with email. But in reality, now looking at the numbers, I'm finding that I'm barely even getting through to people even once every three months, even if I send them 20 emails.

Eric Dickmann: 30:19
and I think underlying what you're saying as well is that you need to have a system in place that allows you to track those emails so that you understand those open rates that you understand who you can send that second, third, fourth one, to be able to sequence those things together. Because if you're just sending our group, you know, from your outlook, you know, mailbox, you're, you're missing a whole lot of analytics, right?

Russell Pearson: 30:38
Yeah. And he's a, he's a hack thing that I came across the other day. No, I use, you know, relatively sophisticated email programs. Now I sent a very simple email with a raw link, so I'd have HTTPS forward-slash whatever, in that email. And I sent it out to, to my list, for them to ask a question of me, which I could then give them an answer. I'm looking at the detail, of the campaign and no one's clicking on it. I'm like, how is no one clicking on it? Like, this is something that people are normally clicking, you know, quite a high percentage. And then I realized that I hadn't gone through the step in the program to make that a link. For the program, I'll just put it in as, as raw. Okay. And so the system, some didn't recognize what is a click and Watson. So it's a simple little thing, but, we need to start thinking more sophisticated about not just communicating, but how are we measuring that communication? Exactly what you're talking about.

Eric Dickmann: 31:33
So true. I know we're here today on a podcast, and I put links in my show notes about my guests and their social media handles and websites and whatnot, but some of the various podcasts platforms don't support embedded links. And so you literally have to spell it all out in your show notes because well, it may link on a, on Apple podcast, for example, it might not on Spotify or Google podcasts so yeah, you just have to understand. How all that's working and it amazes me how many people don't test because so many errors can be found. If you just run a simple test, send it to yourself, and see what's working and what's not working.

Russell Pearson: 32:09
And I think care too. Like the, I pour over my analytics. Like I spend far too much time, especially around email because I can see what an individual did. I can see this one person has bought this product from me, and now they're doing this and I can start to see a pathway for them as a client. And most people will go, ah, I'll let the marketing guy do that. Or I'll, I'll let the, you know, the, it person worked with it personally, the email marketing for our company, and then not looking at the detail. And they're not seeing what people are clicking there. They're creating these articles and they might create three articles for every newsletter that goes out. And then they're not looking. What did people click on? What do people engage with? They're only saying, did anyone give me feedback today? Right. If you get too focused on yeah, they're lazy. Right. And if you get too focused on what did that create a sale or whatnot, you're not really understanding the full, behavior of your customer, the journey that they're taking, what they're, what they're responding to, what they're not responding to. You can spend hours in analytics. Yeah, and bit, but building, making sure that you don't your process for bringing a customer on is not, I advertise out an offer and they buy, or they don't, and I don't care about the rest. You need to have a process for engaging people. And this is, I'll just. Really quickly talk to this. There are three beliefs someone has to have to buy from you. One, they need to believe that they have a problem. If they don't know they've got a problem, they're not in a space to buy. Now 80% of the market that you could potentially tap into doesn't recognize they have a problem yet. So how can you identify the symptoms that they're having so that you can start to educate them about that so they believe they have <TAG> number two is they need to believe that you have a solution to that problem. Now they just need to know you enough to know that yeah that exists, so that's the second belief. And now the third belief is that you have the best solution for their problem right now. Now that doesn't mean, and this is where positioning comes in, that doesn't mean that you're the best quality one in the market. That doesn't mean you've got the best price. It's just given their current situation you have the best option for them to take right now, which is the point to take. So yeah, those three, <TAG> if people don't have a system to move people through that, then they're really not marketing I guess they're putting a sign-up and saying, people will walk in or they won't.

Eric Dickmann: 34:28
And that really gets to the point of looking at things from the customer's perspective, as opposed to the company's perspective and understanding why they would be a buyer. Right. I think that's really good stuff. And for our audience, they should know that they get all kinds of words, the wisdom from you on a regular basis on your own podcast, the marketing report. Tell us a little bit about

Russell Pearson: 34:47
that. Well, I certainly did this week, Eric, because you were on

Eric Dickmann: 34:51
there just

Russell Pearson: 34:54
going out, but certainly do go and have a look at the Marketing Report podcast. you'll find it on all good, podcast feeds whether it be an Apple Podcast or Spotify, but you'll also find it in russellpearson.com and then have a look at my episode with Eric Dickman. Cause we have a good conversation about customer relationship management.

Eric Dickmann: 35:12
We've had some good conversations. Yeah. We can talk for hours on marketing, I think. Do you have any, events or seminars coming up that the audience should know?

Russell Pearson: 35:21
Yeah, I've, I've, I've often got events on. You'll usually find them@russellpearsonprograms.com/live. cause that's usually why I have my live events on, but if you go to Russell pearson.com, you'll usually find all the different things that I'm doing, programs and events, and all the other places that I'm speaking.

Eric Dickmann: 35:37
That's great. know I hope the audience will really check out what you're doing because you post a lot of content out there. Some really good marketing advice, some strategy advice. I really hope people will follow you, check out your website, check out, the podcast, the marketing report, as he said on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast, player of choice, Russell, I really do appreciate you being on The Virtual CMO today. I've enjoyed our conversation.

Russell Pearson: 35:59
Thanks so much, Eric. It's been great being here.

Eric Dickmann: 36:03
that wraps up another episode of The Virtual CMO podcast. As a reminder, if you'd like to learn more about Virtual CMO, strategic marketing consulting services, or anything else discussed here today, please visit us at fiveechelon.com. There's a link in the show notes. If you'd like to send us comments, feedback, guest inquiries, and your five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts are always appreciated. If you'd like to reach me. I'm @EDickmann. That's E D I C K M A N N on Twitter. If you'd like to connect on LinkedIn, please let me know. You heard about me through The Virtual CMO podcast. I look forward to talking with you again next week and sharing some new marketing insights on The Virtual CMO.