Mia Fileman 0:05
Are you tired of marketing jargon and empty promises? Me too. I'm Mia Fileman, and this is Got marketing?, on the show. I deep dive with marketing insiders to unpack successful campaigns. I didn't earn the nickname the campaign lady for nothing. Get actionable tips, learn from winning strategies and avoid falling victim to marketing fads and fakery. Hello Friend and welcome to the Got Marketing? podcast.
Mia Fileman 0:33
Hello friend, and welcome to the Got Marketing? Podcast. I am recording this podcast from a hotel in Houston, and there was no meeting room, so I'm currently sitting in the empty restaurant, which is just across from the bar, and there are some fabulous tourists having a wonderful time. And every once in a while they burst out laughing, which you are going to hear on this podcast. I apologise in advance. The benefit is that the bartender is looking at me and bringing me drinks every once in a while. So I'm not too mad. Today, we are going to talk about Meta ads done differently because if I see one more scroll past a boring, generic Facebook ad, I'm going to get so mad. Because it is literally like taking money and flushing it down the toilet. Now, in order to have this chat with me today, I have, of course, invited onto the podcast, my Meta ads manager, Tanai Seymour from Ads Haus. She has been running the Campaign Del Mar ads for the last few years. She is the most legitimate, upfront, honest, sensational human being who really understands Meta advertising because her strategies are rooted in human behaviour. Welcome to the Got Marketing? show Tenai.
Tenai Seymour 2:19
Thanks for having me, Mia.
Mia Fileman 2:19
So nice to chat with you in this official capacity.
Tenai Seymour 2:23
It's a little bit odd, but it's exciting.
Mia Fileman 2:25
A little bit different from us. But yeah, let's let's do it. I'd like to start with a little bit of your background because you have a really fascinating career history that spans lots of different roles and industries, I guess. So let's start there.
Tenai Seymour 2:41
So you're 100% correct. I actually went to uni and did a degree in International Business, so focusing on marketing and psychology, I then decided to, I'm a horsey girl at heart, so I sort of had done enough of the higher education thing, and followed what my passion was, which actually led me into cattle export, where I was one of the youngest people in Australia and the youngest female in Australia to actually do my job. I then went chasing the big bucks and started doing fly in, fly out work, working on gas pipeline. So I was in a quality assurance role, very data driven, very process and procedures driven. And then after that, I decided to come home and start a family. And as we all do, we start a business when we have our first baby. And in the process of starting that business, I was looking for a marketer to help me, support me with the whole setup, and I found an agency. We started working on that business. They then invited me to work for them, which started my journey into Facebook ads. Effectively, I was thrown in the deep end, and it was a sink or swim situation. I'd never touched Facebook ads in my life. I had no idea what I was doing, and all of a sudden, I was responsible for 10s of 1000s of dollars of client money. And luckily, I swam, so I ended up heading up the Facebook ads team for this agency. We brought on a few support staff, and we had a number of clients from the success that we had seen. But it always sort of stuck in my mind how it all began and how I was just sort of thrown in the deep end. And unfortunately, it's not the only case that I've heard where big accounts are sort of handed over to people with less experience. And it just it doesn't sit well with me.
Mia Fileman 4:45
That was my exact experience as well. Like that happened to me too many times until I found you, and I was like, I'm done with this. I'm sorry. I'm done with being wooed by the founder of an agency who like whispers sweet nothings into my ears and then hands me off to somebody that is so Junior I wouldn't even hire them in my team.
Tenai Seymour 5:05
Exactly. Exactly, and I do think it's a big downfall for agencies at the moment. Obviously, they've got bills to pay. They've got a lot of expenses, so they try and work on a numbers game where they bring in more people than they probably should, and then the quality of work sort of drops from that end as well. So yeah, I decided that I was done with that and broke out on my own and started Ads Haus, where it's me, myself, and I a massive team of 1. And it's all about creating that boutique experience and really getting back to what it should be, and understanding who my client is, what their offer is, or what their business is, and how best to position that as well.
Mia Fileman 5:24
Yeah, and why ads like that's all you do at Ads Haus, and you you literally just do it for Meta at the moment. What is it about that that is so appealing to you?
Tenai Seymour 5:34
Meta changes so often that if you're not in it all the time, the skills that you've learned very quickly become redundant. And I think this is also a big downfall with agencies, is because they're trying to put their finger in too many pies. They're not a specialist. So they know the basics. They know the general way to structure campaigns. However, it's evolving at a really rapid pace, and so I think to be able to give the best opportunity for those ads, you need to be specialised in that if you have a particular problem with your body, you can go to a GP or an agency, in this case, and you can get an okay kind of result or reaction to whatever your issue is. But if you're looking for really hitting the nail on the head, you go to a specialist, you go to an orthodontist, you go to whatever it might be to that they know your body, that body part inside and out, and a can tell you almost from looking at you, and they know what tests to run. So it's the same thing with Meta ads. The strategies that I'm using now are completely different to what they were three months ago, because the platforms just evolve. And I only know that because I'm in multiple accounts every day, so it's more of a you know, we're not being reactive. We're being proactive as to how to adapt to these changes.
Mia Fileman 6:39
So we have a couple of Meta ads experts in Marketing Circle, including you, and all of you have expressed frustration with the fact that a lot of clients come to you wanting ads, but they're not quite ready for them. So what makes someone ready for starting ads? What do you need to have in place before you run Meta ad?
Tenai Seymour 7:01
So we think one of the issues is awareness from the client as well. A lot of clients think that Facebook ads are the silver bullet that are going to solve all of their problems. And I also think that clients need to understand that ads are just one piece of the puzzle, and they need all of these other areas of their marketing to be in place for the ads to really do their job. Ads should be considered that magic sprinkle on top to amplify your results. They shouldn't be your sole source of marketing to obtain those results. So what I sort of look for is number one, is their website optimised? Are they putting the effort in to explain their offer or their product or their service? Are they hitting those potential barriers to conversion? What might stop that person from going ahead and converting? Are they active on their social media channels? Are they investing into email marketing? Are they willing to take on the advice from their marketer as well in regards to content creation? So I think it's like a marriage between a business and a marketer or an ads manager. It's a two-way street. Your marketer or your ads manager is only as good as the information or the content that you can provide to them, and you can only provide content or information to them based off their insights and their guidance as well. So it's very much a two-way street. So making sure that all of your marketing ducks are in a row before you introduce ads is a big thing on my checklist.
Mia Fileman 8:44
I mean, you're speaking my language, because the sale is going to be made on the website, and so the ads drag people to the website, and nothing breaks my marketing heart more than getting someone to your website and then spectacularly letting them down when they get there with a poorly designed website with no UX and no conversion rate optimization. It's just so sad Tenai. So sad.
Tenai Seymour 9:11
It is. It is.
Mia Fileman 9:12
So you mentioned that paid ad success doesn't happen in a vacuum, and that you need other activities outside of Meta ads. What do you see the role of organic social media and email marketing or PR playing in this ecosystem.
Tenai Seymour 9:30
So I always think of what next. So whenever you're utilizing any of your marketing activities, each individual platform has their specific job, but what next with your ads, they're going to get you to a destination, whether that's your website, whether that's your in. Instagram, whatever the goal is, but then you need to think what next. So if you're spending money to send them to a particular destination, and then that's it. You don't put any effort into anything else, they're going to fall off. You're not going to see those results, because you haven't thought of the what next. Every step you're trying to move them down that buyer's journey, to get to that conversion point. So at every step, you need to be thinking, what next? What can I do to help them move to the next stage as well? So as human beings, we're curious. We want to find out all we can in as quick a time as possible, because we're all so busy. So by making sure that you're active, particularly if you're in campaign mode on omni channel, so across all of your platforms that you're sending the same message. It doesn't matter wherever they land, because that is your what's net. You're helping to massage them down that that journey effectively.
Mia Fileman 10:46
Yes, exactly, spot on. Love that. And so you mentioned marketing campaigns. You know, my favorite things in the whole world. How can you incorporate meta ads into your marketing campaign?
Tenai Seymour 10:59
Now, with campaigns, with ads in particular, you don't have to be always on. For some brands, it works very well. But you can do short bursts around campaigns, and you can invest heavier in those campaign periods, if you've thought about what next. You need to take a step back and look at your overall funnel and work out where your priority is. You also need to have an understanding of the decision making timeframe that your clients or your customers take as well, so you can incorporate that into your marketing efforts. If you know it can take up to three months for somebody to be introduced to you and then to actually contact you, then you need to ensure for three months, you're staying top of mind, that you're, you know, educating about what your product or your service is that you're helping them through that decision making process, that you're leaning into all of your marketing channels cohesively to send that actual message to get them to the conversion point. Now, if your decision making timeframe of your potential client is about three months and you're only running ads for a week, that's not going to be a very successful campaign if you've already tapped into all of your retargeting audience and you utilize your ads just for retargeting, then you're not taking that strategic look and that strategic step back to go, Okay, I've exhausted my list effectively. I need to bring new people into my world, so they can start at the beginning of their three month journey before they make that conversion. So I think being able to identify the timeframe that people need before they make that conversion point, and where you need that support to bring people in or to retarget or whatever that might be, I think that's really important from an ADS point of view, and all of your marketing activities will support each other to get them through to that end goal too.
Mia Fileman 12:57
Yeah, this is something I talk about in Campaign Classroom in terms of like knowing how long your customer journey is. And a really practical way of doing this is go back to the most recent customer that you acquired and have a look at when they joined your email list. My CRM will tell me that in Kajabi, they will say, you know, Tenai, has been on the list for two years or six months or three months. And then do that for all of your recent customers and have a look and see how long have they been in the funnel before they actually converted? For me, it's around six weeks. I'm pretty good at converting people once they're in my funnel. For some brands, it's years, years of people just sitting there in a funnel without the nurturing to get them over the line. And I loved what you said about how ads is one piece of the puzzle. Again, I teach this in Campaign Classroom, but I know that you need a smart mix of paid, earned, owned and borrowed channels during your campaigns, because it takes at least 30 touch points for somebody to take action, and each of those buckets, paid, earned, owned and borrowed serve a different purpose. So your paid channels help you reach a new audience, your earned channels help you build credibility and trust. Your owned channels convert and nurture your people and borrowed channels, well, that's what we're dealing with with social media. So so they all play an important function as part of your campaigns. Since you've been running our campaigns, we've found that we are able to convert people faster, so they are less likely to be kicking around our funnel for a year or two years, we're able to convert them in that six week period. So it plays a really pivotal role. But it's not the only thing that we've got going during our campaigns. We have this entire. AR, organic strategy, email strategy, PR, strategy, you name it- Strategy happening to support advertising.
Tenai Seymour 14:55
from your example there, like when we run your campaigns as well, we take that time to have a bit of a debrief afterwards and go, okay, what is the data telling us? Because from when you're looking in ads manager, it gives you a seven-day window to see data, it doesn't give you the full picture of what happened next or the importance that that role played. So it's important to have those conversations and say, okay, this type of campaign brought in a lot of traffic from Ads Manager we didn't necessarily see a lot of direct conversions, but you could be seeing something different on your back end as well, and by doing that, it allows you to be even smarter with your future campaigns, because you're leaning into that data and you're making it work for you effectively. I think it's also important when you do structure your campaigns, that you separate certain audiences, so then you can see that data very clearly and how it plays its role for that audience within the overall campaign, too.
Mia Fileman 15:55
Yeah, so important. How do we weave behavioral psychology into our ad strategy to improve performance?
Tenai Seymour 16:04
Oh, I love this question. If you're scrolling through Facebook, pretty much a fifth of all of the posts that you see will be sponsored ads. Now you may or may not be aware of those sponsored ads, but next time that you're scrolling, when something captures your eye, take a moment and look at it and try and work out what it was that actually captured you. People are sold on the emotion, people are sold on the connection or how that product or service is going to help them. Than sold on the product or service itself. It's all about your potential client or your potential customer and how you can actually help them. So if I was to say, I have a new bottle of water. Cool. So what, don't really care doesn't stand out. But if I was to say I don't know, something along the lines of, you know, quenching that thirst when you really need it, or if you're leaning into the fact that they've been doing a really heavy workout and they're looking for something that's going to quench their thirst, you're identifying the moment that they're in, you're connecting with where they're at that moment, and you're offering a product, in this case, that is going to solve the problem that they have. So by understanding their problems or their pain points, you can then tailor your messaging to target those pain points with your solution effectively, and at the end of the day, that's what people are looking for. Once you connect on that level, then you go into the nitty gritty of whatever your product or service is to help them get closer to that conversion point as well. But by understanding your ideal audience, and not just on a surface level, but really getting into the nitty-gritty, that's when you can tap into the messaging that's going to connect with them. And a really good way of doing this is, look at your testimonials. Ask your current clients or your current customers what they love; like, be super simple because if they're your ideal client, they're going to tell you exactly what it was or what their potential pain points were, or things that they were sitting on the fence about before they actually converted. And that's the goal that you then take into your ads to help get those new potential people across the line as well.
Mia Fileman 18:21
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Like your customers, your audiences, hold all the answers to the questions you might ever have, I had a hypothesis that because, you know, I based it on me, and I'm a female entrepreneur, and they're, they're also my audience, that I personally a little bit of a commitment-phobic. So there are just so many memberships, subscriptions, and payment plans, and I'm just so afraid of them as a customer that I had a hypothesis that if I was going to create a membership, I would want a no-commitment option, and so I created one for my membership Marketing Circle, but it was validated by one of my customers, Alicia, who runs Marketing with an A and she said, as soon as I saw that there was a no commitment option, I was in, and I'm like, it just validates that hypothesis. I like to approach marketing as a scientist, you have a hypothesis, and then you take it to market, and you test the hypothesis.
Tenai Seymour 19:13
Exactly. And there's no better way than speaking to your customers or your clients directly, because that could tell you, and even they give you bad feedback, that's something that you can work on as well. It's the same as this trend at the moment of people reading out one star reviews, you're calling out what people potentially don't love, so you're getting past that, that barrier as well, in almost a humorous way, to help them get across the line. So it's genius.
Mia Fileman 19:17
Do you mean those like anti-marketing campaigns where, like, people are reading out all of their one star reviews and how ridiculous and petty they are to sort of say that, yes, we get one-star reviews, but they're not from people that like they're not...
Tenai Seymour 19:31
Exactly.
Mia Fileman 19:32
What is the reverse psychology of that strategy? I'd love to hear from your perspective.
Tenai Seymour 19:35
So, as humans, we're pretty cautious, and particularly with the economy, we're very careful of where we want to invest our money. And some people will look at reviews, and they might see a four star review. But they don't necessarily always go that next step and see -some people will, but not everybody, go that next step to see, well, what was it that actually pulled that review rating down? And as you said, there are so many Karens in the world that are just like shipping took forever. Now, that's not the business's fault. That's Australia Post's fault, but the business is getting bad review for it. And I love going through reviews like I think they're hilarious, seeing some comments about I don't know. I could only buy one of this product because it was sold out in my size. Well, that's not worth the bad review. So by actually going into it and pulling it apart and just normalizing it, you're sort of neutralizing the effect that it has. You're not making it as explosive or as potentially damaging. You're just normalizing it, and you're taking away that sting. So people are just like, oh, well, maybe if they do have four star reviews, all those Karens, I can sort of like, negate them, and it sort of helps them get across the line. It also humanizes you as a brand, because generally, it'll be a founder that calls out these one star reviews, and at the end of the day, we're not buying the product for service. We are buying the story about the brand or the person behind the brand as well. So I think that goes into a big part of humanizing the brand or the the offer, too.
Mia Fileman 21:18
Yeah, I feel like there's like, some really unreasonable reviews like you mentioned. And what's interesting, what happens when you get a one-star review, or you get negative feedback, is that your evangelists come out to play, and so, like, if anyone criticises me on social media, which is which happens, of course, then the people who are my biggest supporters will come out and be like, What are you talking about that's not what she said. Like you completely just straw manned her argument, and you didn't listen to the words that came out of her mouth. You just you turned her words against her. And so I think the founders that use the one-star review strategy, that's what they're trying to do. They're rallying the troops. They're like, All right, come on. Come to support me. I think it's a very clever strategy, especially when it's used in ads.
Tenai Seymour 22:07
Exactly. I love anti-marketing, like I think it's not many people actually do it. You can do it really poorly, and that can have a negative brand effect, but if pulled off really well, then it can be a game changer, because it's not same same. It's not cookie-cutter. It's something different. It's human nature to be interested in the potential bad selling points. It's the same as gossip. Everybody is like, Oh, what is so and so same? Even if you're not that interested, there's a little piece of you that kind of is.
Mia Fileman 22:32
Yeah, it's controversies and ooh, what was that one star review about? Yeah, I shared a reel recently, and I was like, why I never shared this video? And it actually blew up quite well, and I knew it would, because I had such a strong hook of that curiosity, of that controversy, what was in that video that she never shared it. We call this an open loop. Okay, so you open the loop. But then people, when it comes to our innate human behaviour. We want to close that. We want to know what happened. Why didn't she share that video? All right, let's talk budget. Because I'm sure you get this question even more than I do, but I get this question like, I don't know, 100 times a week, maybe not that many. How much should I be spending on my ads to drive impactful results? And I know you're probably going to say it depends, but is there a minimum?
Tenai Seymour 23:19
I actually love this question, and yes, I hear it a lot. It basically comes down to three different things. Number one, where your brand is at. Are you a new brand, and you need to really focus on brand awareness and getting your product or your service out there because that will take more budget, and it will take a longer time to see results because you haven't invested in the time, or you haven't had the time to social proof, to build that trust, to get all those testimonials and bits and pieces like that. So it will take longer, and you can speed that process up by investing in ads. Number two, it will also depend on where you're wanting to target effectively. So if you have a very niche audience in a very geographic location, you don't need to spend a lot of money if you have a fairly broad audience in a larger geographic location. So you're wanting to target Australia and New Zealand. Island and America and Canada, and anywhere. You obviously need more budget because you need to reach more people. The third thing that it also depends on is whatever the value of your product or service is; if you're selling a $80 product, that's a lot easier to sell than an $8,000 product. It's a quicker decision-making timeframe. People don't need to think that much about spending $80. They're spending $8,000; they're going to do a little bit more research. They're going to invest more time to make sure that this is the right product for them. So to put a value on it, my general rule of thumb is $10 per audience per day. Now, that sort of is my baseline, and from that, you can work out number one, how many audiences you actually want to test. So you can go, alright, I want to invest $100 per day. That gives me ten tests to start off with. Now those ten tests could be different audiences. They could be different copy angles. They could be different products or different services as well. You could be looking at retargeting an engaged audience, so website visitors or social followers or email lists, things like that as well, because they're all going to behave very differently. It will also give you an understanding of where you need to focus, and it gives you that flat line so you've got data coming in, sort of quick enough that you can see how you can potentially optimise. You're going to get the same sort of results if you're spending, say, $2 per day, but it's going to take you a lot longer to get the data to be able to make those optimisations. Once you have that flatline data. You're like, Okay, I know the cost per landing page. I know my conversion rate roughly. Now I want to hit certain goals. You can then reverse engineer your budget. You're like, all right if I need, I don't know, 100 people to my website to make X amount of conversions, and I want to make 100 conversions, then I need to allocate X amount of budget based on previous historical data. So how long is a piece of string –would be my general answer. But if you're looking for somewhere to start, and you do not have to invest 1000s of dollars per month, I don't think, like, start smarter. Don't just throw money and go, oh, something's gonna work. Screw that. Like, I want to actually know that it's working before I invest more money in it.
Mia Fileman 26:43
I think that's the biggest fallacy with Facebook ads, is that some people look at it as like almost a life raft, and it's like, oh, my organic strategy is not working. Nothing I'm doing is working. So I'll just throw money at ads because the problem is just getting new eyeballs on my content. Whereas I would argue, and I'm pretty confident that you would argue the same thing, that if your organic strategy is not working at all, there's actually a problem with your messaging or your value proposition, or your offer or your pricing, and then if you're running ads, at that point, you're just throwing good money up ad, you should have some organic traction before you start investing in advertising to then amplify the results. It's not your saving grace.
Tenai Seymour 27:20
Correct. If you're running your organic socials as well, that gives you a starting point because you can see what content is naturally working well. So that's obviously where you start with for your ads. That type of content, or that type of angle or hook, gives you a base point to start off with. You're not going in.
Mia Fileman 27:35
Correct. And what I also heard from what you just said, is that the broader the audience that you have, the more audiences that you have, the more money you need. So strategies about sacrifice, you have to bet on a particular audience. You have to say, Okay, I could appeal to all women, but that's going to be really, really expensive because there are so many different segments within 50% of the population; I am going to bet on women over 55 or women under 25 or women who run businesses, or women who are salaried employees. I'm going to make some sacrifices in order to be more focused and more intentional with my marketing strategy.
Tenai Seymour 28:18
if you do narrow it down. So, given those age ranges that you just spoke about, you're going to speak to women in the 50-plus audience very differently to women in the 25-plus audience because their pain points or their potential issues are going to be completely different as well. So by separating your audience, it also allows you to communicate with them more succinctly and focus more on their pain points, which is going to help you get closer to that conversion.
Mia Fileman 28:47
Yeah, I think some of the most successful marketing I've ever seen is so niche, it will blow your mind, like so specific to a really particular industry with a really particular problem, because then you can absolutely just speak their language, and you feel like when you watch that content, or you read that content, you listen to that content, that it is talking directly to you.
Tenai Seymour 29:05
Exactly.
Mia Fileman 29:06
And nobody else.
Mia Fileman 29:08
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Mia Fileman 29:50
Alright, let's look at what is working in terms of ad creatives in 2024 that smaller brands can try. And I'd love to discuss both product and service-based brand examples. So what are you loving in terms of creative.
Tenai Seymour 30:18
hands down, video is king at the moment. It doesn't have to be perfectly polished. I think people are over perfectly polished. It's not realistic. And they want to see raw. They want to see organic. One of the top performing ads from your last campaign was you talking to the camera making a smoothie. So I think a really good thing to highlight is having a visual hook. So if you're talking about something, people need different things to focus on. So the visual hook, or this example, was you making a smoothie. So putting different ingredients into a blender, that's what we call a visual hook. You're then talking about the offer, which is the audio hook. You're explaining it. But people are there because they're like, but what smoothie is she making? They're still consuming the information audibly, but they need that visual. If it's somebody just sitting there talking, you're going to lose them if they have a holding something of interest that's a little bit quirky. I think that's a really good way of doing it and just being real. Like, if you talk in a particular way and you're trying to put on something fake, people can see straight through it. So just be genuine. White space is also a big one as well, and what I mean by that is social media is pretty cluttered. You're visually fatigued every day from all the things showing up in your face all the time. So by taking a step back and having a block color in the background just to highlight a product or a service or a feature. It's a nice visual way of taking a breath effectively, and it does make that ad stand out against the crowd. So don't overthink it. Don't wait until something's perfect. I would be looking for clues. Look at comments on organic posts or messages that you've received, and think about how you could incorporate that into your marketing. Social media. It's a social platform. It was designed to be social, so the more organic and conversation-starting you can be with your ads, the better it is going to perform. A big trend at the moment is the Notes app on an iPhone or something like that, is typing something to do with a product or to do with the service, making it look like you've just pulled it up from your notes on your phone. That's a really big one at the moment, but yeah, don't overthink it. Keep it simple.
Mia Fileman 32:44
so is it like a green screen with the Notes app? Is that what you're doing like the Notes app is behind you?
Tenai Seymour 32:48
People aren't even on it at all. It's literally just like a screenshot of the notes that they've written. They're just like reminder get whatever product, or it might be my three favorite things about whatever product that it is, and it's literally just like a screenshot from the notes in their phone.
Mia Fileman 33:07
Oh, my goodness, I love that. How low production, like effort.
Tenai Seymour 33:11
Exactly.
Mia Fileman 33:12
That's so good. The smoothie video was so successful. And actually that was, you know, how I mentioned earlier in our chat that there was a video that I said, why I never released this video. It was the precursor to the smoothie video. So I made the smoothie video in literally two minutes, but the day before, I had spent four hours trying to record a Facebook ad video for you, and I was putting stuff into a handbag, and I was talking at the same time, but I over-engineered it, Tenai, like I did full makeup, full hair, I scripted it, and then I was like, trying really, really hard to put things into the bag while talking at the same time. And it just came off as, like, really stiff and just not me, and I shared it in Marketing Circle, and people in Marketing Circle will not blow smoke up your ass just for the sake of it. They're just not that kind of people, which I absolutely love. They're there to support you. They're not there to lead you off a cliff and and then you're like, you cow. This was shit, and you didn't tell me it was shit. So I loved it because I shared the video, and they were like, yeah, it's good, but it's not really you. You're not this manufactured. And so the next day, I was in PT gear and was actually making a smoothie, and I set up the tripod and filmed it in one take. And that was it. That was the smoothie video. And so I think the lesson here is, don't try too hard, and that that over-manufactured, over-engineered, is not the winning strategy on Meta.
Tenai Seymour 34:50
Hands down. And, like a lot of my coaching clients, will have heard this before. So I used to work with a shoe brand, a very well-known Australian shoe brand, and they had beautiful photography, like spent 1000s and 1000s of dollars, and I happened to have a pair of their shoes on, and I'd been speaking to the owner, trying to get her to loosen up and just let me test something. And this was a very long time ago. So this was like ten years ago or so, back when boomerangs were, like, the thing, and I went into the bathroom at work, and these shoes were sparkly, and I literally clicked my heel together in a boomerang in the toilets at work. That ad was still being utilised last year. It wasn't overproduced. It was a mum in jeans and sparkly shoes clicking their heels together. It was like a Dorothy moment. And the longevity of that creative because it wasn't perfect because it wasn't over-engineered, but there was some movement which sort of captures your eye, but it's also relatable, and it sort of puts it into context in regards to who their ideal audience was, so that, compared to these beautifully styled images, won hands down every day of the week.
Mia Fileman 35:58
Oh, so great. Do you know what a creative I love, and I'm seeing it more and more common these days, is a straight-up comparison, like our brand versus an alternative? And sometimes it is like head-on, and they're talking about a competitor, or sometimes they're just talking generally about a comparison product. So the one that comes to mind is Apothecary, and it is a non alcoholic drop tonic. I guess you will say that you just put in a drink, and it doesn't have any alcohol or zero grams of sugar. It apparently promotes mental clarity and gives you that buzz without the hangover. And I love their creative, Tenai because it is a glass of wine, and then it just says, glass of wine versus the Apothecary drops. And then it just has like a checklist underneath each one with like a comparison table, essentially. And then the copy is incredible. It's like the perfect alcohol alternative Rosé all day, but make it herbal. Meet our gorgeous new zero-proof herbal tincture. One dropper is enough to give you a blissful daytime buzz without the alcohol, sugar or hangover. Are you feeling this as much as I am?
Tenai Seymour 37:13
I am actually googling where I can buy this.
Mia Fileman 37:15
Me too. Now, I can't wait to get back to Australia so I can buy some of the Apothecary herbal tinges.
Tenai Seymour 37:46
So let's unpack this for a second, because I agree, like, I think this is an absolutely amazing ad. So the visual of the wine glass, because if you look at the actual image, it just looks like a dropper bottle. It has no context around what it's for. Incorporating the wine glass then connects the product to what the alternative is. So that's very clever. It's on a white background. So as I was saying before, negative space, that's going to stand out in a really busy feed. Obviously, they're going for wine drinkers, but they're going for women specifically because they're focusing on Rosé. So Rosé appeals to a very particular audience. Their copy angle is like chef's kiss because they're hitting all of those keynotes that their ideal audience is after. You know, they're talking about Rosé they're talking about a herbal tincture. It's going to give you a blissful daytime buzz without the alcohol, sugar or hangover. So they're obviously focusing on, I'm saying, 30 to 45-plus women. So they obviously are probably looking for health-conscious substitutes as well, which is where the sugar comes in. I don't know about you, but I'm not cool for a hangover anymore. My hangover days are long gone. So I'm like, hell yeah. And they're just keeping the headline hook, which is the perfect alcohol alternative, succinct, explaining exactly what it does as well. And that flows on really nicely to the copy. So keeping it light, keeping it airy, which is also aligned for me, visually with Rosé as well, and then just highlighting those features, it's it's got everything really needs.
Mia Fileman 39:18
Yeah, it's basically telling us that we can have it all like you can have the buzz. And it doesn't mention taste. Because to me, most of the reason why I drink wine is because it's delicious. I actually really like the taste, the flavor. But it does give me anxiety, which I'm not down for anymore, either. And so it's basically saying you can have it all. You can feel good. You can have a special drink, so you're not just drinking water, but you don't have to pay the price the next day. So I'm sure that there is a cognitive bias, and I will find this and put it in the show notes that links to this, but it's basically like tricking our minds into telling us there is no trade-off. Because humans expect a trade-off. We're just like, yes, okay, I get this, but then I have to trade this. And what it's saying is you don't have to trade anything, which I think is a really interesting play for the brand. Yeah, yeah. I just love how direct it is, and it speaks to our previous point around not over-engineering or over-intellectualising or over-complicating, and like word-salading your creative. You just keep it really simple with a comparison table like this versus that. Like, how can we get down to that cellular level when it comes to your product and what it does, as opposed to trying really hard to overcomplicate it, like, let's go back to the absolute basics of this product.
Tenai Seymour 40:44
100%, and I can tell like this ad is targeting brand new people, so it's at top of funnel. And if we actually have a look at it, because it's saying, meet our gorgeous new zero proof herbal tincture. So if we had already been to the website, or if we had already been to their socials, I would expect to be hit with an ad explaining more about the product, because they don't need to introduce it, because we would already know about it. But the fact that they have two sentences in their primary text, so they're giving you that little teaser to make you want to go to the website to learn more about the nitty-gritty details, as well. So, as you said, keeping it short, keeping it simple, the whole job of an ad at top of funnel is to get you to whatever destination you want them to go to. Don't bombard people with information. It's like creating a Tinder profile. You need to give a little bit away, create some interest so you can get them on the first date, and the first date is getting them to your website. On the website, you can have the conversations about the specifics of the product or the service. But if you're putting like your life story on your Tinder profile, then, ain't nobody listening to that.
Mia Fileman 41:44
Yeah, there's one final creative I wanted to discuss with you that I've seen a few people use lately in the service-based context, and they're running ads saying something along the lines of, I'm looking for a couple of people to take part in a pilot or beta program of my online course, or membership. They're running ads for it, and then the ad's been running for four weeks. So I'm like, I think it's clever because it seems like you're just putting yourself out there, and you're being really vulnerable, and you're just like, hey, I'm trying something for the first time. I'm just wanting to test out whether this course or membership is going to work. But then the ad still running four weeks later, and you're putting quite a bit of money behind it, and Facebook advertising seems like it's a bit of a stunt. What do you think?
Tenai Seymour 42:43
Okay, so there are two things here. As a marketer, it raises so many red flags for me. It does anything but make me interested. It probably sends me the opposite way. Mostly, for the reasons that you've just said, if it's a beta round, why are you trying to bring in new people to it? Wouldn't you be retargeting your existing audience of warm, engaged people first, to run it as a pilot? So that sort of gives me alarm bells. Number two is, as a marketer, I look at how long also that an ad has been running, or the comments that are underneath it as well, and sort of judge it on that. But number three, I think this is a really deceptive type of marketing that will prey on people who are looking for support, who are in vulnerable positions. I think this preys on them. It doesn't appeal to them. I think it preys on them. If you're going to launch a program and you want to test it, you would be launching it to an engaged audience first. You would be running that trial internally before you launch it out into the universe. And I think something like that, to me, sounds like it's not a trial program; that that's just their marketing tactic to get people in. They're doing price anchoring, and people think that they're getting it at this discounted rate, but that's going to be the rate moving forward.
Mia Fileman 44:08
That's such a good point. Yeah, thank you for validating my initial reaction to that, I'm just like, it's just, it's just not adding up for me that you would run an ad. I have run beta programs for my membership. And you were right. I did not run sponsored posts for it. I went to my past customers and I individually invited them to join the pilot program. So it seems like a bit of a bait and switch like you said, Tenai. Well, it has been such a pleasure chatting with you. Do you have any final thoughts about small business, meta ad campaigns that you'd like to share before we wrap up?
Tenai Seymour 44:44
My top tips, I think would be always think about what next. So if you want to run ads, and I didn't say this beforehand, but you can actually lean into Ads to do pre-testing so you can find out what angles, what creatives, what hooks actually get the engagement before you run your campaign. So there is always that option. I don't think there's ever such a thing as a wasted ad campaign. Every ad campaign is an opportunity for learning. You learn what to do for the next campaign; you have data that you can lean on. And I also think that if you're wanting to run ads, invest in reaching out to an expert, even if it's for an hour, or whatever that might be, but that hour to help you get set up or answer those niggly questions will be worth its weight in gold before you spend any money on the platform as well. So I think being really clear on what your goals are before you want to run the ads and being invested in creating the content in anticipation for those ads. So you have plenty to work with and try and think outside the box. Be a little bit different. Don't just do the same as everybody else, but just because they're doing it doesn't mean that it's working well. It just means you're another sheep in the flock. So I think ads certainly have their place, but it's just understanding where that place is.
Mia Fileman 46:44
I couldn't agree more, like, I'm a huge advocate for training and upskilling. I mean, that's literally my business, but I choose to outsource my ads because I it just it doesn't spark joy for me, and I play to my strengths, which is much more creative, organic strategy. You can't do it all, and you definitely can't do it all well. So decide what it is that you're going to outsource. And I feel that something like meta ads, where, like you mentioned at the top of this episode, where they change daily, and that your strategy that you use three months ago is no longer relevant, is a big enough argument to me that you probably need to engage a professional to help you, even for some just some coaching to get you where you need to be.
Tenai Seymour 47:25
Exactly. And even if it's just for the confidence, like if you feel like you know what you're doing. And I teach marketers who run ads for clients as well, because sometimes they need somebody to bounce ideas off, or just need that confidence boost that what they're doing is correct, and I just think I too, outsource. You know me, I'm the outsource queen. If I have zero interest in doing it, well, then I'm not going to waste my time or my anxiety levels focusing on something that I know I'm not going to do as good a job of. So just invest in reaching out to an expert and just seeing what your options are before running ads.
Mia Fileman 48:05
Love that. Thank you so much. Today, it was an absolute pleasure chatting with you. I'm going to put all of your details in the show notes. I appreciate you being so generous with your time and your ideas over the last hour.
Tenai Seymour 48:18
Thanks for having me, Mia.
Mia Fileman 48:18
Thank you. You listened right up until the end. So why not hit that subscribe button and keep the good marketing rolling. Podcast reviews are like warm hugs, and they're also the best way to support a small business. You can connect with me, Mia Fiieman on Instagram or LinkedIn, and feel free to send me a message. I'm super friendly.
