A Founder's Guide to Advertising: Targeting, Copy, and Cash

Hello and welcome to the high table, the Oracle's chamber, the inner sanctuary, the conclave of elders where we talk about sales, marketing, money tactics, strategy, business growth and solving business problems. Today I want us to talk about advertising, online advertising in particular. And the reason why is because having a bunch of conversations now with a client and we are at that stage where they're considering online advertising so that they can push the start up out there so that people are much more aware of the product as a product.

IB service, OK, Well, anyway, since it's software related, I guess you can say, OK, no, let's say more like service. So they're trying to push the service out there so that folks can be more aware. And in discussing the advertising campaign, I figured there are a couple of things that I should come up here and share with you guys so that people who are in a similar situation who are about to launch a software business or an app or whatever.

Just so you know that these are some things that you ought to pay attention to so that your advertising campaign can jump off smoothly. But one thing to take into account, I beg if you're listening, is this, at some point you're going to engage a marketing professional to, you know, create the, the creative that's create the video, create the text, create the, what else, you know, create everything, the images, the graphics that you're going to use for the, the advertisement.

But there's one thing that you ought to consider and that is that marketing people, sorry, one moment I have to attend to something. I'll be right back. OK, sorry about that. I am back. For those of you who are long time listeners of the podcast, you will recall that today's a Tuesday and on Tuesday the house gets cleaned. So my attention might have to be called every now and then. So one moment, OK, I'm back again. So like I said, apologies, house is being cleaned, so my attention might be required every now and then, but don't worry, I'll do my best to make sure that I deliver value on today's podcast like I do on other podcasts.

So if I remember correctly, what I was trying to say is this. Now, one thing you need to be mindful of it of this is of something is eventually you're going to get a marketing professional to help you run the campaign. Who's going to create the the creatives as as they like to call it, come up with the creatives for the advertising campaign. So come up with the graphics, come up with the video, come up with the imagery, come up with the whatever.

But one thing you need to bear in mind is this, especially if you're going to do it yourself or if you're hiring a marketing professional. Now, unfortunately, marketers think about reach. How many people did the advertising campaign reach? Also, people who are new in the business also think about reach. How many people did the campaign reach? So for the average marketer or for the average business owner, for the average employer, for the average entrepreneur, for the average hustler, If you drop 50K and then 50 million people see it, you'll be happy because you're judging the campaign based on reach.

How many people did it reach? How many people saw the thing, how many impressions, you know, things like that. Now I'm a sales coach and a business development consultant. I live in a different world. In my own world, it doesn't matter how many people saw the thing if at the end of the day, nobody took action on the thing or if people who took action on the thing. So 1 moment, OK, I'm back. Really sorry about the constant interruptions.

OK, where was I? So I was now talking about how those of us who are concerned about sales now, who are concerned about revenue, we live in a different world. So for someone like me, I don't care if you spend 50K and then 5 million people saw it. If at the end of the day, from the 5 million people that saw it, none of them took action, the reach of a campaign and people take not taking action from the perspective of sales,

it means nothing to me. OK, Yeah, you spent 50,000. OK, good. 5 million people saw it. OK, Well, then what? Because for those of us who are concerned about sales, you know, we're held to a different standard, We're held to revenue. So if you're on a campaign, let's say you already have a business, you have a marketing team and then the marketing team is happy because they got 5 million impressions. If the sales team don't receive any phone calls or not,

intangible comes from it. From a sales perspective, that campaign was a waste. Marketers by night to high 5 themselves and say it was a successful campaign because I hear this thing all the time. The marketer will say we ran a successful advertising campaign, but it didn't yield revenue. My friend, if the thing did not yield revenue, that was not a successful advertising campaign. Let me repeat, I'm not trying to yap you marketing people.

I'm just trying to say you guys need to tweak your perspective a little bit. You can't say I ran a successful advertising campaign if at the end of the day there was no revenue. Now there are two different kinds of advertising. There's brand based advertising and then there's how I call it now, maybe like performance based advertising. So brand based advertising is the advertising that people do so that your name is still out there.

Let nobody forget you, you know, position yourself in the market a certain way. So the kind of thing that Mercedes-Benz is doing now, anytime you see Mercedes-Benz advertisement, it's not as if they want you to buy the car now they're just being positioning so that young boys are on the come up. You go to see the brand, you'll be seeing Mercedes-Benz, you see the logo, you know, you have some kind of associations so that when you are able and when you have money, when your container has landed, you will think, Oh my supposed by Mesti's.

So that's brand based advertising. Then there's advertising that people put out. There's more performance based direct response by now, you know that kind of thing. So you know, Cyber Friday, Black Monday by now 50% off blah, blah, blah. So there's different kinds of advertising. Now if you're going to do brand based advertising campaigns, oh, no problem. The focus is not revenue per SE. You're doing brand based advertising today in the hope that, you know, 3-4 year later on down the line, you would have built up a certain kind of brand equity and it should lead to business, you know, sometime in the future.

But that's brand based advertising. So I'm not talking about brand based advertising today. So for those of you who are branding and branding professionals, you know, don't worry, I'm not stroking you guys. I'm not abusing you guys today, but if the business owner is focused on revenue, then we can't say we ran a successful advertising campaign that did not bring money. At the end of the day, we definitely have to see some money.

So for those of you who are thinking of, you're going to have a startup, you're going to come up with this app, you're going to come up with this software or whatever it is. These are some of the things that you ought to pay attention to. What kind of advertising are you going to do? Is this thing going to be a brand based advertising campaign or are we talking much more performance based direct response kind of campaign because we want people to do something.

So what's the goal? Are we trying to build a brand or do we want people to sign up to the websites? Do we want people to buy? Do we want people to sign up to the e-mail list? Do you want people to do this? Do you want people to do that? Just be clear right from the beginning and make sure that when you're talking to the marketing professional, you are very clear with the marketing professional that this is what I intend to achieve.

If you want to do brand based advertising and then somebody comes up with a bunch of, you know, performance marketing stuff, it's going to mess you up. And then the other way around, if you're looking for money now, now, now, sign ups, now, now, now, traction, now, now, now and then you hire a marketing professional and then the person goes ahead and the person creates a campaign that is brand based waste of money. So just be clear with the professional.

And for those of you who are listening, you're a marketing professional. I beg, these are the kinds of conversations that you should be having with your potential customers before you collect their money. And This is why marketing has a bad rapid Nigeria because marketing professionals, you guys are too quick to collect money without asking people what exactly are we trying to do with this campaign? You suppose ask you are the professional in my own opinion,

for those of you who are, you know, founders, business owners, CEOs, you know whatever, in my own opinion, if you're talking to a professional and professional professional know they ask you a question, it's a bad sign. Just like how if you went to a doctor and the doctor didn't ask you any questions, you won't feel comfortable about this guy. It's the same thing. So bear that in mind when you're trying to select your professionals.

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And yeah, you'll get 20% off. So something to consider in Nigerian founders. All right, now back to the middle, what we're talking about. So, OK, yes, advertising. I think I just finished talking about the purpose of the campaign. Now, by the way, the reason why we're talking about all of this today, just in case you haven't figured it out, is because I'm talking to a client of mine who also is in the software space. They are about to launch a new product and they're considering advertising campaigns on LinkedIn, advertising campaigns on Instagram, and we're in the middle of sorting all these, all these things out.

So I'd had a conversation with the marketing professional that they hired 2 nights ago. And these are just some of the things that came up. Now I remember that my own era specialty is sales. I'm a sales coach and a business development consultant. So when they were talking about the advertising campaign, I told the guys that look, you know what, any marketing person that you guys are hiring are big. I want to young with this person because I wanted to make sure that all these concerns are being taken care of because remember that marketing people are coming from the exposure side of the equation.

How many people saw what it is that we did, but then those of us wine sales were coming at it from the revenue conversation, which is revenue or conversion. Conversion is when you get someone to take the next step. So our concern in sales is OK, no problem. 5 million people saw it. Of the 5 million people that saw it, how many of them took action? What action did they take? How many people visited the website? How many people joined the newsletter?

How many people downloaded the app? How people did this? How many people did that? Of the people that did this step, how many people took the next step? How many people at the end of the day can we get to become paying customers, paying clients? So that's what we're concerned about. So I just wanted to be, I just wanted to talk to the marketing professional to be sure that look, we're we're all good, honored the marketing professional to understand the scope of his job, ordered my clients interest to be protected.

And then I also want my own interest to be protected because I'm held responsible for revenue. If you do a crappy marketing campaign, the targeting was off, the reach was off, the messaging is off, there's know how that I can convert revenue from a crappy marketing campaign. So for those of you who are thinking of working with me in the future and you hear me talk about marketing and advertising and stuff like that, that's not my area of specialty.

But if you're considering those campaigns, yes, I'll want to talk to the marketing specialist because I need to make sure that a couple of things are in place so that at the end of the day, we will get revenue, which is why people bring me into the picture. People are looking for revenue, people are looking for money. So let's see, what else did I discuss with the marketing professional? OK, yes, we also discussed the nature of the collaboration.

So I let the marketing professional know that like this is not a joint collaboration per SE. Like marketing is the guys thing. But the only reason why I wanted to be in the picture was so that when they're done with all the creative, the video, the graphics, the everything, just look at everything to make sure everything is cool, especially the call to actions. The call to action is what you want people to do when they see the advertising campaign.

That's really important. We need to be clear about the call to action, what people do next. Then also wanted to make sure that the copy was relatable. Copy just means the texts, the actual words that are used in the advertising campaign. The reason why I pay attention to this is because for those of you Nigerian business owners, you guys are typically the specialist in whatever it is you're doing. So if somebody runs a solar company, the person you know has technical expertise with solar.

If somebody runs an aquarium business, the person has expertise with different kinds of fish. If somebody runs a real estate business, the person has expertise when it comes to land and title and building and things like that. Now, the problem is because the average Nigerian business owner wants to be an expert before they begin, you end up using lots of words in your advert, your advertisement that your potential customers do not understand at all.

One of the reasons why I look at the advertising copy is I want to make sure that we get rid of all those keywords so solar people will start talking technical stuff. My clients who are in the startup space already talking technicals, you know, things, you know, people like to talk front end, back end. So, so, so, so, so certified, Google certified plus Meta three star something, something Cisco, this that, that, that, that code base database, something, you know that fancy language.

It makes the advertisement look sound sweet. But The thing is, the ordinary people who are out there who are going to download your app and use your product have absolutely no idea what all those things mean at all. And then plus, when you bunch them all together, it just looks like a very long string of long words and acronyms that honestly speaking like, anyway, just be careful. You're the specialist, you're the professional.

You know what those words mean, but just pretend that the people who are going to use your products or your service are everyday ordinary people like me. Do they know the meaning of these words? So think about it. So let's see what else? Yeah. So I told the marketing guy that, yeah, you're, you're responsible for the marketing. I'm just going to make sure that before we pull the trigger that we're clear on the course of action.

And then we, the copies also the copies also on point that people, there's going to be words that people will understand and people can relate to. So if you call me in to work, you know, for your own organization and advertising campaigns are being considered, then the copy is not my responsibility. It's going to be between you and the marketing guy. The creative is not my responsibility. You guys will come up with the video and then all of that.

But Sharp, I would like to see it because when you run it and the leads start coming in, I am coaching the sales team who is going to be making the phone calls. So I just need to be sure that everything has been set up correctly. Then let's see also another issue targeting. This is also where lots of advertising campaigns go to die. You're putting out the message and 5 million people see it. But we have to be concerned with whether it was the right 5

million people. Because if we send out an advertising campaign and 5 million people see it, or 50 million people see it, or 500 million people see it, if the advertisement went to the wrong kind of people, there's no way that you're going to make money from that. Let me put it this way, I am a Nigerian man of a certain age. Unfortunately, my hairline has started receding. By all accounts, I am not a slay queen. If you sell human hair and bond straight and you know all those long, long, long hair, if you sell all those kinds of things,

I run a campaign and 50 million Nigerians see it. But unfortunately, the 50 million Nigerians who saw it, let's say 60% of them are Nigerian men of a certain age who happen to be going bald and who are not slay Queens. You have wasted your advertising revenue. Let me repeat, you're selling Bond Street, you're selling Lebanese hair, you're selling Ethiopian hair, you're selling whatever hair. And then 100 million Nigerians saw the advert, but 80% of them happened to be middle-aged men who are going bald and who are not slave Queens and who don't have slave Queens in their life.

You have wasted your advertising revenue. You want to make sure that it's Nigerian women more of a certain age bracket, of a certain income bracket in certain places who can afford your products that will be receiving the advertisement. So that is what demographics and psychographics and targeting is all about. Targeting just means are the right people saying this advertisement. Demographic just means demographics. Those are the things that they taught us in social studies, in primary school, name, age, sex,

location, occupation, blah, blah, blah. So the people that are going to see this advertisement, where do they live? What kind of jobs do they have? You know, where do they work in all these kinds of things? Then psychographics just means the things that people are interested in, you know, their interests and their hobbies. Now that's the beauty of digital advertising that we can target people based on that. We can target people based on who they are, where they work.

We can also target people based on what are they interested in. So that is a cornerstone of a successful advertising campaign. So demographics and psychographics absolutely important. So that's also part of the things that we had in that meeting with the marketing specialist. I told her, look, you know, nobody said I did teach you your work. But from my own perspective, these are the locations I think we should be paying attention to for some jobs.

Location like my client was asking me like. Why should location be important? And I told him that, look, based on the industry that you're in, you know, this is a startup, is a software thing, you're trying to attract certain kinds of people. And I told him that, look, I don't think there's any point in advertising to Nigeria at large because if some boys in Berry State or Natural State see this thing, you know, to be honest,

Berry State, Natural State, you know, Niger State, we can't really say that's a hot, a hotbed of startup activity. If you get what I'm saying, you get me right now in Abuja. When you hear I say in Abuja, in Nigeria right now, when you hear startup, you think first and foremost Lagos, then you also think Google, you want to stretch it. OK, Ibadan, OK, Abuja, all right, Port Arcot, you know, with a stretch and small, small if you enter N OK, maybe Kano,

but it might be a mistake giving your product or a service that you're trying to advertise tonight to the whole country, to Nigeria at large. So location might be important for whatever it is that you're trying to sell. Think about it and act accordingly. One of my clients who was selling some infrastructure products that were based in Lagos and they used to advertise to Nigeria at large and I had to have a conversation with the marketing guy at some point and say, look, guy, like what's going on?

You're advertising this thing and the sales team are getting inquiries, they're getting messages from people in from people in Kano State like the company is in Lagos. If they have to deliver to Kano, transportation costs will now become an issue. This will now become an issue. You know, all these other things will now become an issue. So trying to field calls from Kano State would mean that the quotes that the team is putting out will be not competitive like it won't make sense.

So it's a struggle that I had to struggle. I said I look guy limit this campaign lacos only if you want to stretch it, no problem. Maybe Ibadan because at least Ibadan boys can enter bus in the morning with all the goods. Maybe like 5:00 in the morning and then turbo enter Ibadan, use the whole day, do the installation then maybe catch the bus by 5:00 and then anyhow, sure before 9:00 PM they're back in Lagos. So a bad one is workable.

But based on what you guys are, based on what you guys are delivering, based on what you will installing, I told him Lagos please but the guy said but if I limit it to Lagos, the reach will go down. And this is where I start quarreling with you marketing people, the reach will go down. And So what is the whole point of the reach going everywhere if at the end of the day, the sales team are not able to collect customers?

So it's not just about the reach. If 50 million people see the advert, but you only get 2000 clients out of it, that actually is a bad campaign. Let me put it this way. It's about the relative numbers. If you do, if 50 million people see it and you get 2000 customers, that's case A. And then let's say case B, let's say 5000 people see it and you get 2000 customers. Case B actually is better. Some of you say, what's the difference?

2000 customers and 2000 customers? In the first one, 5 million people saw it, but then 2000 people took action. The conversion rate was really bad. In case B, 4000 people saw it and then 2000 people took action. Conversion rate is 50%. What that means is for that advertising campaign that you did in case B, if you take the same amount of money that you used in Case A and pay that money in Case B, you will get higher returns, a lot more higher returns.

Sorry, how did I get here? OK, Demographics and psychographics. So location, we need to look at that, the location for your advertising. Then the beauty of digital advertising is we can also look at job titles. What kind of work are the people doing, What kind of industry are they in? And then look at their hobbies and the things that they're interested in. You know, these are the sorts of things that we can put in the,

in the targeting criteria for the advertising campaign to make sure that the message reaches the right people. Because there's no amount of heavy advertising that you can do that will convert the wrong audience into customers. It's just not going to work. It won't. So they attend all these sorts of things. Then another thing that we would discuss with the marketing guy, because the guy also wanted to put a lead form into the campaign and said, OK, let's collect name, let's collect number, let's collect e-mail address, you know, budget,

things like that. A lead form just means when people see your advertising campaign and they click on the ad, usually would like to collect some information from them before we yeah, usually we'd like to collect some information from them because it helps with follow up or follow through. Now one thing you need to bear in mind when it comes to putting things in your lead form is the more requirements you put, the more questions you put, the less people are going to take action.

So let's say your lead form only requires people to put in their name. Lots of people will take action because it's only name. If you add name and phone number, OK, the number of people who will take action will reduce. If you add name, number and e-mail, the number of people who take action will reduce. If you add name, number, e-mail, physical address, budget, job title, like number of people will reduce. When I mentioned it to the marketing guy, he laughed.

He said, well, yeah, it's true, people are lazy. That's how he put it. I don't know if it's a matter of laziness, but anyway, sure, there's attrition in the process. Attrition just means when you add an extra step and because of the extra step, people just fall off. So attrition is a thing when it comes to sales and marketing. You make people jump through too many steps, people start to fade, people start to fall away.

So I was begging the guy that I beg the steps that will be put in there, you know, more limiter. OK, name, no problem. Number e-mail. In fact, me anyway, let me not give my personal opinion. So name, number, e-mail, I think it's OK. The marketing guy was saying how about budget? I said, well, let me not be as if I'm causing quarrel. So let me just let me just leave it. Let me just read. But I guess the main thing that I wanted to talk about today is this.

I wanted you folks to know, those of you who are business owners, those of you who are founder CEO types, you're bringing the new products into the market. You want to do advertising so that we can increase the revenues. You need to understand that there are two different games going on when we talk about advertising. There is awareness. How many people saw the thing? How many people saw the advertisement? Then there is conversion.

How many people took action when they saw the thing? Let's not focus too much on awareness. Good awareness, poor conversion is the problem. So these are the dynamics that we have to balance. Now, if you bring me in to do some consulting for your company, I'll do my best to make sure that we balance this tension. How many people are seeing it and how many people are taking action? The question of how many people are seeing it, how do I put it?

When it comes to taking action, if it's not the right people who are seeing it, then there's going to be a problem. So these are the dynamics that we have to be concerned about. Marketing is concerned about awareness. Sales people are concerned about conversion. And I guess what I wanted to say, especially to you marketing professionals who are listening, please stop saying we ran a successful advertising campaign. The problem is it didn't bring in any revenue.

Please stop saying that. If you ran a campaign and no revenue came in, the campaign was not successful. We need to sit down and we need to try and figure out what exactly went wrong, what was the problem, so that next time we can be better prepared and run a better campaign. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, you know, we all have the same purpose. We all want the business to make money. The business makes money.

That's how we consultants get paid. The business makes money. That's how you marketing professionals get paid. The business makes money. The business owner, of course, is happy because he has money to reinvest into the business and he has money that he can use to flex. So these are just some of the things that I wanted to talk about. And then remember Nigerian founders, you're about to put your product out into the market, but you're facing software challenges.

All you have to do is to go to Ekanga software factory that is IKSF dot Ng. So you're going to be able to budget properly for your projects. You don't need to learn how to code. You're going to have your product live in seven days and then also going to get a free.com dot Ng domain. And remember, whatever it is that you produce with Ekenga Software Factory will be 100% yours. When you're ready to leave IKSF dot Ng, it's not a problem.

We'll help you migrate the code. Then for 20% discount, go to IKSF dot Ng, enter in the discount code TAV, that is TAV or IED AYEDE and you get 20% off. When you do that, please send me a message here on WhatsApp 08064662140 because I want to be sure that you're being taken care of. I don't want to put my name behind something if the people are not living up to their promise. So please, if you go to IKSF dot Ng, send me a message or give me a call.

Let me know if there's any problems, If there's any issues, let me know so that we can get on it. I beg. All right. I want to make sure that you're taken care of. And then I also want to preserve my own good name or at least a small good name that I'm acquiring over here. So thank you very much for listening. I will catch you all some other time.