It’s sort of like asking which child you like the best. I love all of them (actually I love kid #3 the most). What we’re really focusing on is integrating efforts together so that we create a seamless buyer’s journey. We’re really trying to develop intentionality between where a buyer is in the process and distributing the right content at that time. We’re application agnostic and more interested in what best serves the need for the moment.
Marketing a product or service today is easier than ever before in history. Using platforms like Facebook ads or Google ads, a company can market their product directly to people who perfectly fit the ideal client demographic, at a very low cost. Digital Marketing tools, Pay per Click ads, and email marketing can help a company dramatically increase sales. At the same time, many companies that just start exploring with digital marketing tools often see disappointing results.
In this interview series called “How to Effectively Leverage The Power of Digital Marketing, PPC, & Email to Dramatically Increase Sales”, we are talking to marketers, advertisers, brand consultants, & digital marketing gurus who can share practical ideas from their experience about how to effectively leverage the power of digital marketing, PPC, & email.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jordan Buning.
As President and ‘Visionary’ of DDM Marketing + Communications, Jordan Buning leads the organization in developing effective marketing strategies that meet clients’ needs. Throughout his 25 years in marketing, Jordan has served clients among a diverse range of industries, including healthcare organizations such as University of Michigan Health-West and Spectrum Health, as well as public transportation, higher education, recreational products, and manufacturing.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I was an accounting major when Management Accounting and Cost Accounting gave me a reason to wonder whether I really was following my dream. A few bad exams and no interest in working an audit helped me decide. Marketing was a way to finish college with a plan. Little did I know it was actually what I loved. I took every class I could and took advantage of a marketing internship with a start-up agency. They threw me into the deep end of the pool and really allowed me to sink or swim. I’m very grateful for that opportunity. The rest is history. While I haven’t been in the same company the whole time, much of my career is built from that one internship.
Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
This is less of a ‘mistake’, but I was working with a hospital client and was asked to participate in some meetings a few days before Christmas. We met in a restaurant to meet a string of different media partners as well as a patient that had written a jingle. Our client encouraged me to deal with this person directly. I told him I was happy to get a copy of his jingle and listen to it. He was adamant that he wanted to play for me. As much as I tried to resist, he wanted to play his CD in my car. As he slid the CD into the stereo he said, “This is just the beat track, I’ll sing it to you.” It might have been a minute or two, but it felt like the longest moment of my life as this person sang his ‘jingle’ to me in the front seat of my car outside Applebee’s. There’s about fifty lessons in that moment.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I had a group of leaders in my company that I watched and learned from. They each had different skills ranging from sales, strategy, creative direction and production. I really got a hands-on education from each of them. Mark Davison would often encourage me to take an active role in sharing the work I contributed to. This usually meant as we were driving to a client that he’d tell me, “I’m going to have you present today. You did all the work.” I was too naive to know what a challenging environment I was working with.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Just the other day, an observer of our company said, “You all punch above your weight class.” We’ve always been undaunted by the challenges our clients may have. We believe we’re hired to help our clients solve marketing and communications opportunities that often don’t have an immediate solution. I love the fact they throw those challenges at us.
A few years ago a client suggested we could help them with environmental graphics. We didn’t (and still don’t) list that as one of our capabilities. But team members had proven that they knew how to express our client’s brand and therefore, our client felt like we could help them express themselves through this effort as well.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- Curious. Constantly look around the corner to see what’s coming. Be a sponge for new information, trends and perspectives and how they can impact your position. Much of my success is exploring and learning new things I didn’t yet have experience doing. When I was about to leave town for some research software training many years ago one of the partners said, “Don’t come back until you learn how to do a conjoint analysis!” And I did.
- Balanced. Possess a balanced aptitude between being analytical, insightful and empathetic. I’ve always enjoyed the data side of marketing. It’s the foundation of everything else. But there’s nothing like the opportunity to interpret what that information means in practical ways and create a usable interpretation.
- Tenacity. Be the greatest cheerleader for the vision. Your optimism will be needed at various moments when others encounter frustrations and roadblocks. This comes from my time as a product manager. I had a great boss who reminded me it was my job to shepherd my product from one end of the company to the other and that sometimes no one would believe in what I was doing. My job was to be the eternal optimist.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
We’re building to scale for the future. We’re a 30-year-old company with a lot to be proud of in that time. But we also understand that what we need to do going forward demands a different version of our company. In the last few years, we’ve implemented an operating system that creates a better structure. We’re really focusing on creating more clarity between individuals and teams to allow people to step into their roles and be effective right out of the gate. In addition, we recognize our clients also crave more clarity from us. I’m pretty sure I’ve scared a few clients with my ability to get things done, but without great communication on how we’re going to get there. We hope these efforts will continue to build long-lasting partnerships with clients and our team — as well as create more avenues for individuals to grow in a smaller organization like ours.
Ok super. Now let’s jump to the main questions of our interview. As we mentioned in the beginning, sometimes companies that just start exploring with digital marketing tools like PPC campaigns often see disappointing results. In your opinion, what are a few of the biggest mistakes companies make when they first start out with digital marketing? If you can, please share an example for each.
A few common mistakes we see when we take on new clients previously marketing in the digital space is that their campaigns weren’t attached to measurable, quantifiable goals. Often they didn’t integrate or align with the company’s overall marketing strategies, or a previous agency didn’t focus on optimizing their campaigns while in market.
Any one of these could cause devastating results to your marketing initiatives and easily stray businesses away from investing in these digital channels.
If you could break down a very successful digital marketing campaign into a “blueprint”, what would that blueprint look like? Please share some stories or examples of your ideas.
Our blueprint would look something like this:
-
Start with research. Always.
Research will help inform content, messaging, target audiences and the right channels. -
Define measurable goals.
Make sure your goals can be measured, aligned with your overall business goals and marketing strategies, and include a target date to be achieved. -
Know your audience.
Not only define your audiences but make sure you fully understand them, their behaviors, their purchase journey. When you are targeting the right people, digital marketing becomes a highly effective asset in your toolbox. -
Put a strong emphasis on messaging.
Now that you are targeting the right people make sure you don’t let them scroll by. Align the proper messaging and content to your specific audiences. When you have three seconds or less to grab your audiences’ attention, you must make sure you make an impact. -
Integrate your digital marketing tactics.
Based on your goals, there will most likely be a few digital tactics that can help. Having an omnichannel approach will ensure you are successful in reaching them. -
Define KPIs that measure business results.
Make sure the metrics you measure relate directly to your business goals and outcomes.
Let’s talk about Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC) for a bit. In your opinion which PPC platform produces the best results to increase sales?
We provide an array of digital marketing services across multiple platforms. The best digital marketing tactics to use depend highly on specific client goals and target audiences. That is why we customize our digital marketing plans for each one of our clients.
Some businesses have longer consideration stages to get to conversions. They may ned ongoing touchpoints, third-party validation, or more in-depth education before converting. Pairing search ads with video ads, in this case, may be helpful.
Other businesses may line up with seasonal or critical buying periods where you heavily run promotion ads out in shorter periods. Display, shopping ads, and social media ads driving conversions can work well here. In all cases, we find that an integrated approach with many touch points helps lead audiences to make these impactful decisions.
Can you please share 3 things that you need to know to run a highly successful PPC campaign?
- Engage. Choose digital channels based on your targeted audiences and entice them with relevant messaging that engages them and starts the conversion process.
- Optimize. Please don’t set it and forget it. Make sure your ads are relevant, creating engagement and not causing audience fatigue while in the market. Continuously evaluate your KPI’s and performance throughout the campaign and make improvements when possible.
- Follow through. Make sure your landing pages relate to your ads and provide an efficient opportunity to close the sale. Set up tracking to follow your audiences with a remarketing strategy if they didn’t convert the first time visiting your site.
Let’s now talk about email marketing for a bit. In your opinion, what are the 3 things that you need to know to run a highly successful email marketing campaign that increases sales?
The buying process has changed — especially in the last year — and companies need to adapt to buyer communication preferences. Today’s buyers are anywhere from 60–90% of the way through the purchasing process before they reach out to you. That means your buyers are interacting with your content long before they ever engage with you directly. They expect a better, more integrated digital experience to solve their problems without having to speak to you or a salesperson.
Studies show that 54% of high-quality leads received through a company’s website never get a response. That’s a huge problem. Additionally, of the 50% of leads that do get a response, 78% of those responses take more than an hour. That timeframe might seem okay, but research shows that you have five minutes or less to send a response before you’ve lost your customer’s attention.
Not surprisingly, 82% of customers who don’t get a follow-up won’t reach out to you a second time. You get just one chance to engage with them and you need to make that count. Marketing automation can create an exceptional customer experience and ensure that your leads are getting the follow up they deserve without putting additional strain on your sales team.
- Triggers
What is a trigger? A trigger is what signals to the automation system that something needs to happen. There are three types: interaction, date-based, and status change.Examples of an interaction trigger include when someone visits a certain page on your website, fills out a form, opens an email, or calls customer service.The second date-based trigger initiates on a specific date. It could be connected to a campaign launch, a customer’s birthday, or a membership renewal date.The third trigger type, status change, could be a trigger that watches a customer’s information and activates once a status gets updated. For example, if someone moves from prospect to client or active member to termed member.
- Data
Data is the glue that holds automations together. It’s important to know what data you have, where that data lives, and what data you may need to be collecting in the future for your marketing automation activities.One place your data may live is in a CRM tool that is updated by your sales team. Additionally, information may come from website forms, surveys, or website and email analytics. The information from all of these sources is used to determine when triggers are executed, what automation people are added to, and what the final communication piece includes.
- Communication Pieces
Common communication pieces include emails, text messages, push notifications, physical mailings, and website content. You can even automate PDF generation. For example, financial companies can update fact sheets with real-time financial data, or sales teams can generate personalized quotes using the company’s cost database. With marketing automation, you can create and deliver these communication pieces with little to no manual effort making them repeatable, efficient, and cost saving.
What are the other digital marketing tools that you are passionate about? If you can, can you share with our readers what they are and how to best leverage them?
It’s sort of like asking which child you like the best. I love all of them (actually I love kid #3 the most). What we’re really focusing on is integrating efforts together so that we create a seamless buyer’s journey. We’re really trying to develop intentionality between where a buyer is in the process and distributing the right content at that time. We’re application agnostic and more interested in what best serves the need for the moment.
Here is the main question of our series. Can you please tell us the 5 things you need to create a highly successful career as a digital marketer? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- Adaptable — Don’t get stuck with best-laid plans and tools. A better approach is to develop a framework that’s flexible to the present reality, but can flex to how the audience responds in reality vs. the plan.
- Passion to learn — This too shall pass. The speed at which new tools will be introduced and right-sized will continue to accelerate. Continue to live with a healthy fear that you need to stay curious to find new solutions to stay relevant.
- Analytical/Strategic — marketing is about understanding a goal and developing a game plan that achieves it. I noted strategic because it’s important to keep in mind all of the data you see needs to translate to a purpose.
- Customer-centric — Know the tools, but think like your customer and fight passionately against focusing only on what you want them to do.
- Become a great communicator — Learn how to take a great message through the right mediums with the perspective of the audience you want to reach. See things through their eyes and express to them the way to think and feel.
What books, podcasts, videos or other resources do you use to sharpen your marketing skills?
Be curious to pull from a variety of environments. I still enjoy a collection of tools including Ad Age, Fast Company and Inc for great content. Other reliable platforms include Hubspot, Gartner, SEM Rush, SEO Moz and Content Marketing Institute. I love still staying connected to current news as a means to understand the broader topics. So don’t ever forget about NPR, The Wall Street Journal. I’m also a big believer in staying well-rounded so don’t live only on business or marketing. Take philosophy and other content that will really expand your thinking.
Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. Here is our final ‘meaty’ question. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
A very practical thing comes to mind. I’d love to be able to reconcile the complexity of health care to be understood by all people. I’m blessed to be married to someone in healthcare. I’d love to democratize that sort of knowledge to bridge to better information, which allows people to best advocate for their own care. While we say the patient is in charge, it’s difficult for them to know what options may be available to them. I’d love to facilitate better access.
How can our readers further follow your work?
I get to stand on the shoulders of giants. Check out the great brains and talents of team ddm at https://teamddm.com/insights.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!