Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

[00:00:57]
Arlen:
Welcome to the e-Commerce Marketing Podcast everyone. My name is Arlen Robinson and I am your host. And today we’ve got a very special guest, Brandon Cockrell who has been in the business of marketing, sales, and business development for more than a decade. He is the president of Linchpin Sales Interactive, which he founded in 2016 in order to escape the corporate world and make a real difference in the lives of people looking to grow their brand. He and his team are the marketing geniuses for the modern era. Marketing can make or break any business, and in the new age of e-commerce and everyone working from home, many feel like they’re in uncharted territory. Brandon has been ahead of the game from day one and works to make his clients’ marketing campaigns perform for their businesses. Welcome to the podcast, Brandon.

[00:01:46]
Brandon:
Well, I appreciate you having me. That was an inspiring to me. It made me feel great. That intro, . Alright. I appreciate you going through that. 

[00:01:55]
Arlen:
Yeah,  no problem.

[00:01:55]
Arlen:
That is good. Yeah. Looks like you’re well on your way with your, your team and, um, you know, really super excited to kind of dig deep and see how you can enlighten us and, and, and empower us on the topic of today, which we’re gonna be talking about and diving deep into omnichannel marketing and you know, how an e-commerce business could take advantage.

[00:02:13]
Arlen:
It what it is and, you know, some ins and outs of, of that. But before we do get into all that, I know I kind of touched a little bit about on, on your background, but why don’t you enlighten us a little bit more about, you know, how you got into 

[00:02:24]
Brandon:
what you’re doing today? Yeah. So it’s, it’s kind of a, a up and down story I guess.

[00:02:29]
Brandon:
It wasn’t a straight line for by stretch of the imagination, but I, I was in the corporate. For about 11 to 12 years before I actually started this business. So I was mainly in sales the last few years. Whenever I was working with the P G A tour and the the TPC Property division, I was doing a lot more on the marketing side and really get started getting in.

[00:02:49]
Brandon:
And this was, you know, to 2014, 2015, really starting to get into the, the digital side of stuff and how that really correlates to. And so started getting in there. We had the, the birth of our first daughter. That kind of opened my eyes to think differently with what I wanted right. For the future. And you know, I, I just, I got to the point where I just felt like I was being held back a little bit and not intentionally or anything.

[00:03:14]
Brandon:
I think it was just kind of, Hey, I’m ready to, to go and do something that I believe will make a. Act and so I, I kind of quit on a whim about six, I guess about six and a half years ago now, and started this business and, you know, initially this business was not designed or planned to be even on the digital side of things.

[00:03:34]
Brandon:
I originally had started it as a part-time sales management and after. The first 30 or 60 days, and I’d actually gotten a couple of clients, which was kind of a blessing and a curse at the same time. But the one thing that I learned as I was sitting there and I was working with sales reps and, and teams and, and businesses, I, I started to realize that.

[00:03:55]
Brandon:
The main issue wasn’t necessarily the closing. The main issue was a lot of times getting more inbound opportunities, being able to engage with your prospects, leveraging the digital resources, social media, all these, this opportunity out there. So about 60 to nine days in, I pivoted and really started going all in on social and digital.

[00:04:17]
Brandon:
You know this, this whole world that we had available to us and just started creating videos and doing everything that I had to do. Cause I really didn’t have a choice. You know, I had a newborn child. Then we found out we were pregnant with our second child the day I quit , my corporate job and, and so, you know, it kind of.

[00:04:35]
Brandon:
Put a little bit more of that pressure on, but I decided to go all in kind of on the digital side. I saw that becoming a big opportunity. Plus my wife, who now works full-time in the business as well. Okay. She was a digital manager for a large healthcare system here in Atlanta. And so, you know, talking with her and just kind of talking about the things that were on the horizon and that’s what morphed this, this business and this brand more on the digital side of things and kind of got to the part of the e-commerce side of business.

[00:05:07]
Brandon:
And that’s really where we started to really thrive and for a long time. We, and we still do with some partners work on a performance basis. Mm-hmm. , so we worked a lot like commissioned sales reps whenever it came to, we have to get you sales and drive sales, otherwise we’re not gonna get paid. Yeah. And that’s, that’s really what allowed us to grow to where we are today.

[00:05:26]
Brandon:
Okay. Gotcha Gotcha.

[00:05:26]
Arlen:
Well thank you for sharing that. That’s a great story. And you know, it definitely does take a leap of faith. To kind of jump out there on your own. I know like you mentioned, when, when you did take that leap of faith, you didn’t anticipate you were having, you gotta have your second child right then and there, but, you know, life happens and you just gotta pivot and, and just keep on moving.

[00:05:44]
Arlen:
But yeah, I, I can definitely understand where you’re coming from. As far as leap of faith. You know, I founded my business, I’m Star Interactive. Over 22 years ago, believe it or not, working just for a couple years. Myself and my business partner worked for different consulting. In Northern Virginia and then, you know, we took a leap of faith.

[00:06:00]
Arlen:
This was kind of when the internet was just taking shape. 

[00:06:03]
Brandon:
Yeah, I was about to say you were real early on. 

[00:06:05]
Arlen:
Yeah, very, very early. Yeah, so we got in there early and we started off as a developing an agency, uh, a web development agency creating custom websites and custom web applications. And, you know, the rest is history, but yeah, it’s.

[00:06:17]
Arlen:
It definitely takes a leap of faith, you know, leaving from a, coming from a, a salaried position when you have that steady, steady income to just getting out there and then totally on your own. It’s like, you know, if you don’t sell, you don’t eat, and Exactly. You know, I know, you know, where you’re, you know where that’s coming from, so, yeah, definitely applaud that for sure.

[00:06:35]
Arlen:
Well, you know, as I mentioned at the top of the episode today, we’re gonna be talking about omnichannel marketing, and you kind of mentioned a little bit of that in telling us a little bit about your background. For people that aren’t familiar with that term, what exactly is 

[00:06:46]
Brandon:
omnichannel marketing? Well, it’s just being, being available everywhere that your audience could be or most likely is, and delivering on those touchpoints that it takes to not just.

[00:07:00]
Brandon:
Make people aware that your brand, your product, your service exists. But you know, working them through that buyer’s journey and continuing to build that relationship, build that credibility, continue to show them different pieces, different sides of your brand, of what it is your product or your service offers, and be able to deliver that.

[00:07:20]
Brandon:
So everywhere they’re going, they’re seeing your brand and it continues to drive them and move them. Through that buyer’s journey and you know, just making sure that you’re available for where they prefer as well, whether that’s your own website or if you go to a marketplace or a third party like an Amazon or, or eBay, or any of those options as well.

[00:07:42]
Brandon:
So, It’s really just about being everywhere, , whenever it comes to this whole digital world. 

[00:07:46]
Arlen:
Yeah, yeah. Very true. And you know, these days I think it’s more important than ever to, you know, to have this approach just because I think the pool of buyers or potential customers, you know, unless it’s just me, I, I think it’s more diverse than ever.

[00:08:00]
Arlen:
There’s so many places that you can go. To tap into that customer, you know, pre the internet, pre this whole digital age, you know, things were a lot more predictable as far as marketing. You kind of know what you needed to do. You could market in the, the newspaper, magazines, uh, different trade rags, yellow pages, white pages, those type of things, you know, to the traditional print media or TV and radio and that’s it, you know, that’s basically it.

[00:08:26]
Arlen:
Yep. You know, there wasn’t really too many options. There really wasn’t that whole. Array of all of these social networks that are out there where you can really, you know, meet people where they are and you know, you can kind of decide which channels are gonna be right for you. Which really actually brings me to my next question.

[00:08:43]
Arlen:
With all of these diverse marketing channels out there, it can be a little bit overwhelming for e-commerce businesses. So how do they really. Side, which channels they should actually focus on and what would be right for them.

[00:08:53]
Brandon:
Yeah, no, great questions. One, we get a lot, obviously at the, at the end of the day, the, the, the right answers just test, you know, obviously doing some testing, even if you’re just doing it on a small level to figure out, you know, where your opportunity is and one platform, it doesn’t mean that.

[00:09:09]
Brandon:
If you’re not getting the top of funnel and more of the prospecting side, if you’re not getting the results that you want, it doesn’t mean that it’s not going to be something that you need to leverage, whatever. It comes to retargeting and staying in front of them and creating those touchpoints, but really understanding what you’re trying to accomplish first and foremost with your campaign.

[00:09:30]
Brandon:
You know, is it something where I’m just trying to get their attention and grab their attention in order to make them know that I exist and that my product. And or are you just trying to do more of a direct response, more of a middle of a funnel or bottom of funnel type a message or campaign.

[00:09:47]
Brandon:
Understanding that obviously what’s your main goal with each ad or piece of content that you’re putting out there so that then you can test and see which platform as you go out there and you’re just kind of testing different platforms. Which platform is getting you the best results? You know which ones.

[00:10:04]
Brandon:
Forming the best whenever it comes to finding your audience top of funnel and then using and leveraging all the other channels for more retargeting. You know, one, one exact example would be the Google Display Network. You know, one thing that we see with the dis. Play ads. Obviously from a top of funnel perspective, they’re not as strong.

[00:10:25]
Brandon:
They’re not providing that level of results. Should we only run Google Display? However, Google display is extremely effective whenever it comes to retargeting and staying in front of because their audience network is so big and you’re able just to show up on very credible places. You know, somebody’s reading an article and.

[00:10:45]
Brandon:
Way pops up on an article that they deem as very credible automatically that’s going to provide them with a little bit different view of your brand, just being alongside that. So really testing. Obviously, if you’re just starting off and you haven’t run an ad at all, we still see a ton of opportunity with Facebook and Instagram being the best place to start, even if you’re just gonna start on one channel.

[00:11:09]
Brandon:
For pretty of audiences. TikTok obviously has some good opportunities from a prospecting standpoint. They still have some, I think some work to do there as well, especially whenever it comes to retargeting and targeting in general. But you know, that it, it, trying to understand where your audience is, where they’re most likely hanging out, is what you wanna look at.

[00:11:27]
Brandon:
Start with those platforms first that make the most sense. And then if you’re not getting the results, no matter what you you’re trying to do, then. Suggest trying other platforms. Yeah, and then once you find that one that’s getting you the best quality traffic, the best, obviously the best stats, and you’re hitting all your, your benchmarks and your KPIs, then leveraging all the other platforms to just do some simpler retargeting.

[00:11:51]
Brandon:
Okay. Gotcha Gotcha.

[00:11:52]
Arlen:
Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome. Thanks for sh for sharing that. There’s a couple quick things I wanted to point out though. I mean, one of the things that you mentioned right off the bat, which is really key is, you know, before a brand needs to do anything or decides to do anything, they have to determine, you know, really what those goals are.

[00:12:07]
Arlen:
What is it that they’re trying to achieve with these campaigns? Like you said, you wanna focus on getting that initial marketing platform to be for, you know, your top of funnel. Then everything else, you know, kind of retargeting, getting more brand awareness. So, yeah, really gotta understand. Yeah. What are your goals?

[00:12:23]
Arlen:
Are you looking just for maybe leads? Are you looking for direct sales? Are you looking to educate customers about your brand? So, you know, there’s a lot of things you really have to decide before jumping out there, because you know, as you and I know, and most people probably have seen each of these different platforms.

[00:12:39]
Arlen:
It’s a little bit different. Touchpoints are different with customers. The demographics are different. So, you know, all of those things do come into play when you’re, you, you know, you’re making that, you know, you’re making that decision on which, you know, particular route to 

[00:12:51]
Brandon:
go for sure. A hundred percent.

[00:12:53]
Arlen:
And you know, with all of this in mind, let’s say an e-commerce brand says, okay, you know, I, I, I want, I select, let’s say Instagram. The top of funnel. I’m gonna wanna try to get some direct sales from Instagram and then I’m gonna use some of the other networks as more just, you know, infor informing people, doing retargeting, those types of things.

[00:13:14]
Arlen:
Maybe use some Facebook, maybe I’m gonna do some things on Pinterest, Twitter, you, you know, I’m gonna kind of throw all of that into them. I think the next question that a brand is gonna have is with all of these things and these marketing campaigns that you’re running, let’s say you’re not, you’re doing all of these in-house, you’re not using an agency to.

[00:13:31]
Arlen:
For you, what are really some tools or resources, you know, that a brand should utilize in order to effectively manage all of these different campaigns and make sure everything is in sync and that you’re not, you know, you’re not burning unnecessary cash on, on, you know, campaigns that aren’t performing well.

[00:13:48]
Brandon:
Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, I, and there’s a ton you look at that. I think whenever it comes to tools, obviously with the continuous, the, the continuation of privacy, the continuation of regulations, the continuation of iOS 14 type three Os, where. Tracking has become extremely difficult for these platforms.

[00:14:10]
Brandon:
That’s really where you’re seeing the biggest impact. They’re not able to track effectively, and so what you get is you’re kind of getting them predicting what’s going to happen based off of data they they have in the past, and it doesn’t accurately tell you, you know, exactly where something may be performing the best or what platform.

[00:14:28]
Brandon:
You’re just not getting accurate information, which leads to you trying to make decisions on stuff that’s not a hundred percent. Third party tracking softwares. We, we actually utilize something called Hiro, if you’re familiar with it, that we use for our partners and our clients. That allows us to track, uh, AO and across all platforms.

[00:14:49]
Brandon:
So really getting in. There’s a lot. There’s others. Outside of High Roast that you can use HROs and the only, it’s just the one that, that we utilize. But there’s a lot of third party resources and tools that you can leverage that will help you make the best decisions and know that it’s more accurate.

[00:15:05]
Brandon:
And it, yeah, it shows you the. Full journey of that client where you know what’s working and what’s not. So Okay. You know, obviously that’s a big part as far as some resources that I would recommend, because if you are looking to do things across. Channel you’re, you are looking to kind of create that omnipresence approach.

[00:15:27]
Brandon:
Every platform kind of has their own feel, right? And whenever people go there, so you know the, the same piece of content that you’re putting it out on Pinterest or on LinkedIn may not be what you need to put out on TikTok or Facebook or Instagram. And so really having. Finding, even if you just contracted out, you know, a video editor or a a, a content creator or a graphic designer or a copywriter is very, very important.

[00:15:57]
Brandon:
Very, very good resource to invest in whenever it comes to that. And so the one thing, and I think last one was what best practices. Absolutely. So, you know, whenever it comes to the omnipresence, I mean, we talk, I talked about it a little. But really identify as you get started. Where is your best prospecting, so to speak, platform.

[00:16:19]
Brandon:
Where are you getting the best results of getting attention and awareness for the most cost efficient price? You know, obviously you wanna make sure that it’s getting out and you’re getting the click-through rates you’re getting. The cost per clicks, you’re getting those numbers within the benchmarks that, that you want for that platform and, and obviously I’m not gonna get into those stats.

[00:16:39]
Brandon:
You can Google a lot of times average click through rates for each platform and all that. So the information’s out there if you’re trying to do it on your own. But yeah, you know, you wanna make sure that you identify where is. That top of funnel and where am I getting the best awareness and attraction it becomes to people being people finding out about my brand for the very first time, and then it becomes, where can I get really the most impressions for the most cost efficient price from a RET targeting standpoint?

[00:17:06]
Brandon:
Really analyzing that and saying, okay, where does this make sense for me to put this from a retargeting standpoint and even a top of funnel standpoint from time to time, but. You know, I think the biggest thing, if there’s any, anything that I can, I, I can’t stress enough. And I think that we tend to get away from this, and the biggest part of being omnipresent and omnichannel is getting people into your database.

[00:17:31]
Brandon:
Yeah. And off these platforms. Mm-hmm. . And that would be my biggest thing to anybody out there. Especially if you’re just starting off or maybe you’ve been around for a while, we tend to get caught up and because there’s so much noise and there’s so much shiny objects out there whenever it comes to. This platform’s working, you should be on that or go to this platform, this platform’s where you need to be in thinking about all these platforms.

[00:17:52]
Brandon:
Yeah. And you are completely negating the most powerful asset, especially as an e-commerce brand. And that is building up your database. Sure. And running offers, promotions, contests, especially if you’re starting off just to get people to give you their contact information to get into your database. And now that database becomes a whole nother channel.

[00:18:13]
Brandon:
That you have direct communication with. And so that’s, you know, probably the, the biggest thing that I would stress is the best practice at the end of the day, obviously you’re trying to get in front of ’em, stay in front of ’em, to build that brand, build that awareness, build that credibility, build that trust.

[00:18:28]
Brandon:
Yeah. But ultimately, , get ’em off the platforms and into your database. Yeah. And then you have direct line of communication to market to ’em. Yeah. Yep. I like that.

[00:18:36]
Arlen:
That’s very important. And I, like you said, I think a lot of people get caught up in all of these features, the bells and whistles of these platforms, and then the engagement that they have on that platform.

[00:18:46]
Arlen:
They forget, you know, if they don’t have that customer’s information, if that platform goes away, you know, tomorrow, then they’re, you know, they’re sol, you know, they’re, you know, they’re gone. They’ve. That relationship there, there’s no other way to contact that person. So, yeah, very important. And I’m really glad that you stressed that.

[00:19:03]
Arlen:
So, you know, those, they have a place of course, because people are gathering there. People like these social networks, they like exchanging information, engaging with brands, engaging with their friends, family, all that. But at the end of the day, yeah, you, you, you gotta get there. Phone, you gotta get ’em into your own database and your own pipeline.

[00:19:21]
Arlen:
So yeah, very, very important. One other thing I wanted to kind of circle back on was, you know, you, you kind of mentioned. These versus, and these tools and, and you know, trying, trying different things and, and doing some testing. You know, in the world of sales, I’m sure you’re familiar with the, the, the slogan A, B, C will always be closing, it’ll always close deals.

[00:19:38]
Arlen:
In our whole digital world, when you’re testing campaigns, it should be al a b t always be testing. So you always gotta test these campaigns, see what’s effective, what’s not. I know a lot of question, a lot of times people are wonder when they’re launching these campaign. You know, how long or how do you know how long to run a particular campaign before you know, all right, this is just not gonna work.

[00:20:00]
Arlen:
Like, you know, what’s a, you know, I know it may be hard to tell or hard to determine that, but when do you know that you’ve given it enough time to determine, you know, the, you know, the efficacy of, of anything that you’re putting out there before you, you decide to pivot or, and pull your resources and focus ’em in, into a different platform?

[00:20:17]
Brandon:
Yeah. So that, and another great question, and you definitely want to have. Planned out upfront. And typically what we look at, we’re looking at impressions, we’re looking at, you know, the, the amount of budget spent to get those impressions. You know, obviously, because we want to know it’s getting out in front of enough people, whether that’s a thousand and this, this can vary depending upon your market.

[00:20:37]
Brandon:
It can vary depending upon, you know, if you’re looking locally, nationally, globally. You’re going to Wolf to make sure you’ve got those definitely honed in as far as we’re gonna run it until we hit this. Now, you know, the one thing that I see happen a lot is people do stop too soon. Yeah. And they just don’t let it continue going because you start off a campaign, you get 72 hours in the CPM is.

[00:21:00]
Brandon:
Through the roof and you’re going, there’s just no way I’m gonna be able to afford it. It doesn’t make sense. Yeah. But then if you give it 24 more hours or make a small tweak that CPM drops, you know, 75% and so, yeah. You know, you’ve gotta make sure you’re giving it enough time. So typically what we’re looking at, Is the impressions and trying to figure out how many impressions are, are, do we need to get in front of, and watching obviously the data to show us, okay, is this resonating around that number that we’re looking to go?

[00:21:30]
Brandon:
Whether that’s a thousand impressions or you know, we’re looking at 10,000 impression, whatever it may be, just to give it enough time for us to be able to say we gave it a good test run and it’s just not getting the, the, the stats that we want, so then we need to make some changes and go back at it again.

[00:21:47]
Arlen:
Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. You, you gotta give it enough time. And I, I think you’re right, the impressions are very key. You gotta make sure you’re getting enough eyeballs on it. Cuz you could be, have something out there, but it’s, you know, it’s in the wrong area. You’re targeting the wrong demographic and you may not necessarily need to, just can that particular campaign, you can just pivot it, adjust where you’re targeting it, targeting and then, you know, keep it going.

[00:22:11]
Brandon:
For sure. And, and to add to that, cause you said something there that made me think about that. The other thing. Two is really look e everything. Whenever it comes down, regardless of it’s e-commerce or just marketing in general, and sales in general and all of that, everything is about identifying the bottleneck and process of elimination, and that’s what it comes back to.

[00:22:30]
Brandon:
So if you’ve got a campaign, you can’t just send it to one audience. And have that one campaign to one audience, you need to, I, you know, really go after different audiences that you run that to. So you know, if you’re just sending it to one audience, who knows if it’s a creative, if it’s the message, if it’s the content, or is it the audience?

[00:22:51]
Brandon:
And you’ve got to do enough there as well. In order to make sure that you’ve got it out there to multiple audiences Sure. So that you can identify, and if all of ’em are kind of, you know, not working, then either one, you can try to, to correct that audience and try it again. Or try changing some things up and see, you know, if that makes a big difference.

[00:23:11]
Brandon:
So really making sure that you’re. Doing everything you can to do a process of elimination. Yeah. And that’s really what we’re trying to do. 

[00:23:18]
Arlen:
Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Cuz you, you don’t wanna pull the plug too early if you really haven’t totally exhausted, you know, a a particular target area, target group, because otherwise Yeah.

[00:23:28]
Arlen:
It’s just, you could be , you know, leaving some, some money under the table. On the table. Yeah. 

[00:23:33]
Brandon:
Yeah, for sure. And the one thing I wanted to add as well, One, one big part, like, and you’re probably a aware of this as well, being in the industry and, and doing this for a living, that is where you will see a big difference between an agency that is in it every single day, or a, a professional or a specialist that’s in it every single day.

[00:23:54]
Brandon:
Because we’ve been doing it long enough, we, we now do something called rapid fire testing. We’re able to see on a small budget and a lot smaller test what’s going to really show the signs of working and be able to make that decision a lot faster, as you probably would, versus someone who’s trying to run it on their own.

[00:24:15]
Brandon:
Or maybe they’ve got somebody that isn’t necessarily a specialist in the field, they know enough to get it out. So, you know, it’s things like that that you may want to tap into and look for someone who’s kind of specialist in there to help you, at least with the testing process. After that, it becomes a little bit more clear.

[00:24:30]
Brandon:
Yeah, 

[00:24:31]
Arlen:
yeah. I’m glad you mentioned that, because, you know, that’s the power of working with an agency there. They, you know, companies like you and other agencies, you kind of know what to look for, you know, based on dealing with other c. You know, when you should pull the plug, when you should pivot. And so, yeah, that there is value in that and you can definitely save money rather than, you know, maybe keeping something out there when it gets stale and you’re not achieving the right results.

[00:24:54]
Arlen:
So that’s, that’s definitely very important. Well, well Brandon, as we get ready to wrap things up, I just wanted to see if you could share some examples of some e-commerce businesses that you’re either familiar with or that you’ve worked with that have lo launched successful omnichannel marketing campaigns.

[00:25:09]
Arlen:
And, you know, what were some specific. Things that they did that, you know, made them 

[00:25:13]
Brandon:
a successful campaign. Yeah. So, you know, as far as some examples out there, I mean, there’s some probably well-known brands whenever it comes to e-commerce. And I know the founders of these companies, they’re, they’re out there and they’re, you know, trying to give back to the e-commerce community and all that and offering up different trainings and all that.

[00:25:30]
Brandon:
But, you know, boom, by, uh, I think it’s Cindy Joseph, Ezra Firestone. Uh, I think that’s all the marketing for that. But they do a phenomenal job, obviously, as you would expect them to. Snow teeth widening is another one. Just snow, right? And, and what everything he’s doing. But that’s a good one. Chewy. The pet brand does a great job, right, as well.

[00:25:49]
Brandon:
You know, some of those well-known ones. Obviously we’ve had an opportunity to work with brands in the beauty space. Michael Christopher Beauty is one. Does a great job whenever it comes to his products, but being, you know, just omni omnichannel, really diving in and being across and getting opportunities to, to put himself out there in the positions in front of his audience, whether that’s more traditional setting, like H S N or if it’s more, you know, on, on the digital side of things as well, on social media.

[00:26:18]
Brandon:
So there’s a lot of resources, but some of those well-know brands obviously, that I mentioned you can easily find and, and look at and see where they’re at as well. 

[00:26:25]
Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I always e. Business owners and brands to, to take a look at that. You know what a lot of these big guys are doing because, you know, they’re, they’re spending millions and millions of dollars on the dec every single decision that they make from small to large.

[00:26:39]
Arlen:
And so, you know, if you can kind of study what they’re doing, sign up for their mailing list. You know, even if it’s a brand, you’re not even interested in their products per se. You couldn’t even use it. Purchase their products, get in there, you know, maybe something smaller so you can kind of get in their whole funnel and then figure out, you know, how are they engaging with you, what do you see as far as retargeting?

[00:27:00]
Arlen:
And you can really learn a lot for 

[00:27:01]
Brandon:
sure. And I think one thing to, to mention on that is, while these are big brands, Yeah. A lot of people would instinctively think, well, they’ve got these huge budgets, and that’s all they’re, that’s how they’re able to do that. The, the reality is, is that’s just, that could, that’s further, that can be further from the truth, right?

[00:27:16]
Brandon:
Like that. I’m telling you right now, we’ve run successful omnichannel campaigns for. A thousand dollars a month for some clients. And if you’re looking to go national, obviously just a few thousand dollars a month can really do a lot for your brand and Right. You know, obviously they have to have big budgets cuz their audience is so big.

[00:27:35]
Brandon:
You know, while as you’re depending upon where you’re at, you’re able to retarget and whenever you’re retargeting these. Algorithms are set up. Their main goal is to keep you spending more money. So their job is to take the ad that you put out there and put it in front of the best people to get you the best return.

[00:27:56]
Brandon:
That is all they’re worried about. Mm-hmm. . So if you’ve got a smaller audience, just having an ad campaign out there saying, I want you to show it to people that watched this video, or went and checked out my website, or took a a, an action. They’re going to find that person whenever they get on that platform, even if it’s just one person at the very beginning.

[00:28:16]
Brandon:
Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So you can put a very small budget across these platforms and still get the same effect and feel, and then you’re able to grow as those continue to start bringing in results. Yeah. 

[00:28:27]
Arlen:
Yeah. That’s very true. I’m glad you mentioned that. It’s. Not necessarily about the amount of the budget up upfront.

[00:28:32]
Arlen:
Yeah. Even with a small budget, just like a trial run, you can really kind of determine if something’s gonna work and then slowly increase that and then, you know, you can get a, a larger return on your investment at that point. Hundred percent. Well, Brandon has been awesome talking to you. I, I definitely learned a lot and I know our listeners and viewers have as well, so it’s definitely an area where it’s not going anywhere.

[00:28:54]
Arlen:
You know, omnichannel marketing is something that every business, I think has to really stay on. All of these different diverse channels that are out there. And so, yeah, you just gotta figure out what, for your brand, do a lot of testing and then, you know, double down on what wor on what works. It’s, it’s, it’s just, it’s just all about that.

[00:29:09]
Arlen:
But, you know, lastly, before we let you go, I always like our listeners to get to know our, our, our people on a podcast a little bit more. So if you don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact question about yourself that you think our listeners and viewers would be 

[00:29:22]
Brandon: interested to. Yeah, this is always an uncomfortable question for me cause I’m like, I don’t, I don’t know anything fun about me, but, you know, obviously just that, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m married.

[00:29:32]
Brandon:
My wife works full-time in the business. She’s, she’s kind of the brains to be quite honest. She’s the one that is over the accounts and, you know, we have two children that we try to try to, uh, juggle as we, we build a, a business and the agency side of things and all that. And so I, I think that that’s unique in.

[00:29:50]
Brandon:
Just trying to trying to build a business with your significant, obviously there’s ups and downs with it, but Right. You know, we’re, we’re making it work and, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s fun most of the time. So hopefully, hopefully that la that, that allows the audience to get a little bit Yeah, definitely knowledge in there.

[00:30:06]
Arlen:
For sure, for sure. Thank you for sharing that. We appreciate that. And yeah, I mean, that’s good stuff, like you said, to be able to work there in the trenches with your significant other, you know, it, it takes a lot and you know, I know it’s, it can definitely help you guys grow because, you know, you’re, you’re both fully invested.

[00:30:21]
Arlen:
You’re all in, you know, both of you are all in working on the same end goal. So that’s, that’s a, that’s a PO positive thing. That’s, that’s really good to hear. Well, well, awesome, Brandon. Well, it’s been great. Thank you for sharing that. You know, and if any of our listeners wanna reach out to you and, and pick your brand anymore about omnichannel marketing or, or any digital marketing subject under the sun, what would be the best way for them to reach you?

[00:30:43]
Brandon:
Well, you can go to our website, lynchpin sales.com. You can obviously follow us LinkedIn. Instagram’s a great place. Uh, if you ever want to have questions or Dmma at, it’s at Lynchpin sells. And, you know, we do have a, a new program that I’m excited about as well. It’s kind of for, it’s for e-commerce, but it’s also for small businesses as well, which you can go to a, a acquire and close.com to learn more about that.

[00:31:08]
Brandon:
Okay. That’s awesome.

[00:31:08]
Arlen:
Thank you for sharing that. We’ll be sure to include that address in the show notes so people can get to that easily. And thanks again, Brandy for joining us today on the e-commerce marketing. Thank you so much. 

[00:31:18]
Brandon:
It’s an honor. 

[00:31:21]
intro:
Thank you for listening to the e-Commerce Marketing podcast.

Podcast Guest Info

Brandon Cockrell
President of Linchpin Sales Interactive