Get Answers: Best Bang for Your Marketing Buck, Cloud Storage, and Promo Timelines

Episode Overview

This monthly edition of the podcast is all about answering YOUR questions on digital marketing and craft beer. 

This month, we're talking about: 

• Where to get the most bang for your buck with digital marketing right now

• Whether or not your should use cloud storage systems 

• Promotional timelines for events like Valentine's Day and Super Bowl 

Want to get your questions answered next month? Shoot us an email at podcast@gethoptimized.com. 


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Intro/Outro Music by ComaStudio from Pixabay 

Episode Transcript

(AI-Generated, please forgive any typos)

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the Get Optimized podcast. This is Chris, your host, and we are back. We're back, baby. So we took a little bit of a break at the end of the year last year to do a few things. You know, we wanted to kind of take a step back, revisit what we're doing on the podcast, revisit what we're doing in a lot of different places in our marketing, and also it's good to take breaks, and also the end of the year is busy.

November, December is a crazy time for everybody, so we didn't want to, we didn't want to cheap it. You know, and rush through things. So we're back though, and we've got this awesome new format we're going to start doing monthly, uh, that is the Get Han the Get Answers the Get Answers. See, I'm a little rusty, I can't even say things on here anymore.

So, what it is is the Get Answers edition of the, uh, podcast, where we are, essentially, we fielded questions, um, from multiple places throughout the week, throughout the month. We've got a whole bank of these things that we, we get sent to us and we are trying to answer some of those questions in bite sized pieces during this version of the podcast.

So, uh, real quick, if you do have questions, you're listening, you're listening to this and you're saying, wow, I've got a question you didn't answer, shoot it to us at podcast at getoptimized. com. And you can also follow us on social, send us the DM, however you can get it to us. Anyways, we're gonna try to answer some of these questions on a regular basis and, uh, get you guys some answers on stuff related to digital marketing, craft beer, that stuff, you know?

All right, so this week we're gonna be answering a few things related to where you can get the best bang for your buck online right now, thinking like Google, Meta. YouTube, that kind of stuff. So we got a little bit of an answer there for ya. Uh, also we got a question about cloud based file storage systems.

And, uh, what to use? Are we using that? Should you use it? That kind of thing. And, um, a question about timelines and really marketing planning timelines leading up to events like Valentine's and Super Bowl. And super timely with that because literally we're recording this a few weeks out from those events.

So relevant there, but not just Valentine's and Superbowl, you know, we're talking, uh, any kind of major event or, or kind of mid grade event that you're running for your tap room or for your brewery. Uh, how long should you be promoting before that stuff? So we got some answers for you on that too. So, okay, let's get into, uh, the first question here, which is again, where is the best bang for your buck online right now, uh, in, in what we're referring to is like channels, right?

Like Google, Meta. TikTok, all those, right? And like, I always feel a little cheesy when I'm like, well, I gotta answer this with a depends answer. And, and honestly, where is the most bang for your buck really is situational on where you're at with your marketing strategy and where you're at with your business.

And what I mean by that is like, what do you need most in order to grow? You've gotta do an analysis of where you're at and You know, what your marketing funnel really looks like and ask yourself questions like, you know, do we need to drive more awareness? Do we need to get in front of more new people or do we need to drive engagement, brand loyalty, following, that kind of stuff?

Um, are we selling online? Is e commerce really important to us? Is that going to be our best ROI opportunity right now? Um, do we need to sell more retail? Get more beer off shelves, get more beer flowing through taps in other bars and tap rooms out there. Answering those type of questions will help give some context on what you need to do from a marketing perspective and where your, your dollars are going to be most effective for you and really to simplify all those way to maybe ask it is like, where do we stand to get the most ROI in general, and that is probably where you should be spending your marketing dollars.

That's a question we ask every single month. When we meet with our clients to talk about the next month and promo strategies is, okay, is there. What are we going to make the most money on in the next 30, 60 days? Let's put our dollars there. And then from there, you can start thinking about channel and placement.

And I'll give you some, I mean, two kind of answers. I know, I know what you're, what you're asking here. You want kind of an answer. I'm like, what, what channels should you use? Where should you dedicate your time and resources? And I think there's a few that come to mind, or a couple really, that come to mind that are definitely part of the conversation, if not the only place.

really, when it comes to, to, to leveraging digital marketing channels. And the first one is Meta, is the Meta universe. I don't mean the Metaverse, like the VR thing. Um, I mean like Instagram, Facebook, Reels, Stories, this kind of thing. Meta is just really, really good. And for a lot of reasons, I mean, you have lots of messaging formats.

You can use video. You can use carousels. You can use post captions. You can use events. Um, you have everybody on these platforms. And okay, yeah, you're right. Not everybody is on there, obviously. You got your hipsters that don't have Instagram and stuff. Um, but you're talking millennials and the shouldering groups around millennials.

And like, you think of that as a key market for craft beer. These folks are on Instagram and Facebook for sure. Massive majority of them. So you have your audience there. You have the targeting capabilities within the advertising platform for things related to beer, alcohol. You could target geo. I mean, the ad platform alone makes this channel super, super effective.

Your costs to run ads are relatively fair. And I mean, fair, like, I mean, it's not really fair to charge them way too much. Everybody's charging too much. Right. But in comparison. You know, you can spend, you know, a hundred bucks and make that go pretty long way on one promo. I mean, you can spend three to five hundred dollars a month and run your, run your Tapper marketing like that.

Month over month. Um, so in comparison, that's, that's pretty solid, uh, in terms of ads, uh, ad costs. Um, also you have all your organic elements too, so you need to grow a following, you need to inspire brand loyalty. I mean, you just got the tools with Meta, so I tend to lean that direction. The other channel I actually think is extremely valuable.

It's probably the most economical, the most efficient, and the most valuable marketing channel, even above Meta. And maybe this will surprise you, but it's email. Email is fantastic. For lots of reasons. One, well, actually lots of reasons isn't the way to put this. There is a few really, really strong reasons why email is so good.

Uh, and I'll tell them to you. Firstly, you own the contact list with email. That is an asset to your business unlike with any other social media platform. You don't own that following and if you are one of the people that has had your Instagram hacked, You have lost your passwords to the business manager or something like that.

You understand the pain of growing that following and then losing it. And, uh, cause you don't own it. You can't transfer following you. None of that stuff is available there. So just owning your own contacts is a humongous value. Secondly, your ability to talk to your audience in a very direct one on one Format the deliverability of that message in that one on one format is so powerful.

I mean, everybody looks at their email. Yes, there is some spam that you, uh, you're going to get, you're going to get knocked out from spam filters. And yeah, you, you only have a certain amount of open rate. Maybe it's 40, 50%, something like that. So maybe half of your audience is, is, is paying attention at any given time.

But the one on one nature of that is so, so valuable. That in. Thirdly, and this is related to what I was just saying, thirdly, people have opted in to receiver. They're literally saying, yes, send me the stuff. And that, those three alone is huge. When you look at the, and I guess fourthly here, fourth, so maybe a lot of reasons, if you think four is a lot, fourthly, it's extremely economical price wise.

I mean, if you just go get your standard off the shelf email newsletter system, like MailChimp, you're talking 20 bucks a month. 20, 30, 40 a month for a standard one depending on how big your list is and how many messages you're sending out and, excuse me, how many, uh, uh, automations and stuff you're doing.

20 a month, let's say you have 1, 500 people in that, in that email list, 20 a month to reach 1, 500 people is nothing. And you're talking four times, let's say you're sending an email every single week, that is very, very economical. And even when you start looking at fancier systems, ones that allow you to gather opt ins, um, via your Wi Fi, right?

So if somebody comes in, they want to sign up for your Wi Fi, you got a little gateway on there. This is to say, you know, sign up for our rewards program to get access to Wi Fi. Love those systems, I think they're super powerful. Um, yeah. Those are not that expensive. I mean, the one we always recommend is Beanbox, and they're like 50 to 70 bucks per month, and they give you the Wi Fi system, they give you the email marketing tools, the automations that you can run based on engagement.

That's the real benefit of these Wi Fi things, where if somebody comes in, and they auto log into the Wi Fi, that counts as a visit, right? You're almost tracking, not almost, you really are tracking foot traffic. With your audience and you can send messages based on the frequency of that foot traffic so so powerful Um, by the way, if you're saying i'm interested in that go check out our website get optimized.

com We have a link on there for beambox. We're a beambox partner and uh, you can get some I think you get a free perk of like a You get your little device for free that they send you if you sign up via our link. Plus that always gives us some credit with, with Beanbox, which is nice. So, um, again, that's getoptimized.

com. Look for the, uh, the resources tab. We've got a Beanbox link right in there for you to go check it out. But anyways, enough of the plug. Meta and email are my answer to that question. Other things I would consider that I think are valuable. Google display, YouTube, especially YouTube shorts. YouTube shorts just opened up as a, they opened up ad placements within YouTube shorts.

And now you can use YouTube shorts, which are essentially reels, TikTok story style formats, that vertical format on YouTube, super, super important note right there. In fact, we're going to be using that in an email newsletter coming up specifically about YouTube shorts. We're in on this. I mean, it's super interesting.

Um, Paid search is extremely powerful if you are the right business. So really, all of my B2B listeners, paid search. If you're trying to drive leads, um, paid search, huge. Uh, TikTok, here's my, here's, everyone always asks about it. For organics, yes, we like TikTok. Um, there's a lot of attention on there.

Millennials are getting on it. Gen Z is definitely on it. Organically good. So if you've got a, a mission to have strong organics, you got to think about tick tock from an advertising perspective, it's just, they don't even allow alcohol advertising. So from like our agency perspective, I'm like on tick tock, it's just hard for me to justify all the time and effort it takes to run your tick tock, um, and not be able to advertise and search things.

Maybe I'm, maybe I'm jaded. I'm just an advertising guy. So, uh, someone will probably tell me, No, TikTok's amazing. We crush it. Great. I'm happy for you. Oh, uh, but from an advertising perspective, not that great. Uh, by the way, we are going to give a presentation on multi channel marketing about, uh, all things related to, uh, advertising marketing outside of meta.

So what can you do besides meta? If you're, if you're one of those folks that's just out on meta, you're over it or you're just curious on how to grow Instagram and Facebook. We are giving a presentation at the Craft Brewers Conference, um, in Las Vegas this year. We're super excited to be selected again to, to speak on that.

Uh, we live in Las Vegas, so it's easy for us to be here. So if you need any advice, hit us up. We're based here, but we will see you there, uh, when that time comes this April. Excited about that. Okay, let's move on. I've got a couple more questions to get to. I said bite sized at the beginning of this, right?

So, but I promise you the next ones will be a little easier. So, the next question is, do you, uh, need to use a cloud based file storage system? Quick answer, absolutely yes. Why? It's easy to share. The cloud with your team, it's easy to share with your partners, like, uh, a marketing agency to put all your photos and videos and brand assets, logos, fonts, all that stuff in some folders and share with everybody is super, super easy.

And my favorite is that it's easy to access on the go. Like literally you can pull this stuff up on your phone. Um, and, or any computer, you know, uh, if you were up shit Creek and without a computer. And on the go, and you had no resources, you could walk into a FedEx Kinko's, is that even a word anymore?

Kinko's? You guys know what Kinko's is? The FedEx office places or a library and pull up your cloud and get somebody something. It is too powerful to not use. It's relatively affordable. Absolutely use it. Which one is the, is the preferred? Well, we actually, uh, asked this question in our craft for your marketing Facebook group.

So. We asked, uh, you know, which one is everyone using, and 81 percent of people use Google Drive. We're, we use Google Drive too, so our vote was Google Drive. Other ones on there like Dropbox, Microsoft, um, that kind of thing. So, uh, interesting that everyone's using Google. I, I think Google just dominates this platform.

They got the docs, they got the file storage, they got everything. By the way, if you want So check out more content like that. Go, uh, check out the Craft Beer Marketing Facebook group on Facebook. You guessed it. Okay, last question is, uh, how much time do you need to lead up to events like Valentine's and Super Bowl?

So referring to like marketing time, right? Like how much promo? What time do you need to plan for, for events like Valentine's and Super Bowl? And again, I got to leave with a little bit of a depends answer, but this one's easy. It really depends on how big of an event you're trying to make out of it. And the real depends is, it depends on how much your potential ROI is.

Like how big is your, how high, excuse me, is your ceiling on this event? If you stand to gain a ton on this, you got plenty of room. You've got lots of seats, tons of beer to sell, tons of tickets to sell, then okay, that's gonna change things. If it's medium, you're gonna do okay. Historically, look at your historical numbers.

This event is pretty good day for you, not astronomical. Okay, that's gonna factor into your decision here. Our typical go to for stuff like this is if it's a big event, you got a lot of potential, high ROI potential here. You got to be thinking in the realm of four weeks for maybe a little bit more. If there's a lot of competition, that's another depends.

Part of this is, is how much competition are you fighting for? Uh, you know, that competition thing really comes into play when you have events like St. Patrick's day, Oktoberfest, those kinds of events, everyone's doing it. So you got to almost think four to six weeks for really big high competitive events, but you know, go to is about four weeks.

That promotional period probably looks something like a week or two of just solid awareness building like straight up reach, impressions, focus, campaigns, top line metrics, followed by a week or two of a combination of awareness and engagement. You're starting to fold in your stuff related to likes, comments, shares, downloads, signups, RSVPs.

Even ticket sales, you know, folding here if you're if you're selling tickets, you could really push that the entire length, excuse me. I'm burping a little bit because I'm drinking a beer here. It's Friday. So excuse me if you've heard that on the mic here. But, um, anyways, one to two weeks of awareness, one to two weeks of like a combo awareness engagement, uh, objective.

And then one final week of just hard push that that last week is like you're hitting it hard, uh, with your messaging, with your details, especially if you were selling tickets. If you're pre selling tickets, chances are you're going to sell like funny enough, we just went through this for New Year's. We had a client that sold a New Year's dinner, um, and it was like 50 percent of the ticket sales took place.

In the like three weeks leading up to the event, three, four weeks leading up to and then the other 50 percent happened in like the three days before it was, it's like if people wait until the last minute on stuff, so you've got to plan for that last minute surge, especially if there's competition on that event day, if you're a mid, if you're thinking midsize, which I think valentine's super bowl kind of fits into that, depending on your brewery or your, or your facility.

Absolutely. And what you're doing, but two weeks probably. Uh, and you split that the first week, you really want to focus on awareness, building, getting lots of people to see this stuff. And then that second week is about engagement, frequency, impressions, call to actions, that kind of stuff. Uh, that's, that's tends to be our go to on those timelines.

Of course, it's not always that way. Situations call for things to change, depends on how fast you can get collateral turned around, and all of those things. And I could talk about it forever about the things that throw a wrench in the system. I'm sure you could think of some too. But okay, hopefully that was educational for you.

I really like these questions. Thanks for sending them to us, everybody. If you got more questions Send them to us for our next one we're going to do next month. Uh, the email for that is podcast at getoptimized. com or just go follow us on Instagram or wherever. Send us a DM and, uh, we will fee we will file that question away and, uh, try to get to it during this episode.

Um, also, if you got some education from this or you got some value and you think that somebody you know will get some value too, Please share this episode with them. That would be super awesome. And, uh, that will do it for us folks. Thank you for tuning in. We'll catch you next time.