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- [00:00]
A
What's up, guys? Welcome Back to episode 74 of Sweat Equity. Today's episode, we're going to be talking about the difference between good and great content, where a lot of the drop off from an idea to a solid execution happens. You know, a lot of people have great ideas, but in practice they're not made properly for social, whether that's the script, whether that's the filming, etc. Social. So want to give some context on that. So hopefully, you know, if you have a good idea, you're actually getting the most out of it. Because I know that's something you've been dealing with your clients quite a bit. Alex.
- [00:35]
B
Yeah, way to appreciate you teeing that up. I'm going to send you one video so that you can look at because I'm going to reference a few things from this. But the entire idea of behind this, this episode for me is the difference between a good idea and a great idea is really just the execution of a good idea. It comes down to how well it's planned. Everybody could have good ideas. You could say, hey, I want to do this street series. And it's like, yeah, that would work. Like, that would absolutely crush. But how it's executed, then how it's edited and then how it's distributed is like actually going to be the determining factors of what makes it a great idea. Right. And so I, I look at it from a bunch of different aspects. I think the first one I always think of is obviously hooks when we're thinking about a good idea, like whether it's a street series. You know, it's very easy to be like, hey, let's do a street series where we ask these people, you know, a simple question. Actually, I just saw a video from a, an ASAI bull place. I don't know if you've seen the actual page. I think I, I don't know what the actual name of the pages, but they have a street series that's absolutely crushing, where they go up to people and they ask them like, how do you pronounce this? Like, how do you say aside? And it's really good. In theory, that's a very simple idea. And you know, if you, if you were an external team working with an internal team, the internal team could be like, oh, that's an idea we already have. It's like, yeah, yeah, like cool. But it's not just the idea. Like, everybody could have an idea 100%. It really comes down to the execution of the idea. And so like, if you even look at his the way he, he executes it, he's already in motion. Going up to somebody like this versus a lot of people would be like, okay, today we're on the street and we're going to be asking people how you pronounce this word 100% bad.
- [02:17]
A
Or in the video that you sent me, which we'll put up on the screen, it's like a pasta video. Like, the whole point of that video is that visual stimulation in the hook. That's what gets anyone hooked on it. And the magic of any quality piece of content is the actual reason you stick around. It's that first two seconds. And to your point about the street interview thing, the. It's funny, when you look at any legendary show, think about like the Tonight show, right? Or, you know, whatever it is, how much value was actually put into the host, you know, OG Sports center, when they would have Stu Scott and all the guys that were on there rip like, the show is not the same. The format is the exact same, but the execution is not because of the person in the chair. And I think content is obviously in short form. Those same things apply, you know, like. And so how do you close that gap?
- [03:09]
B
Agreed. And so when I'm thinking about hooks and I'm talking to a brand or working with a brand, I'm thinking about it really from three layers. And this doesn't apply to every single video. Like, we look at this video from this restaurant and it's like, you know, verbal hook doesn't apply. A title hook doesn't apply. But when we look at a visual hook, right, like that, there's a lot of layers to then a really good visual hook. So when I think of hooks, I'm looking at those three, right? I'm looking at the verbal hook, I'm looking at the title hook, and I'm looking at the visual hook. Now something that I've been putting into practice more so the last 90 ish days is making a hook library. So what are my top verbal hooks? What are my top title hooks? What are my top visual hooks? But now when I'm thinking about a visual hook, I am thinking about three layers to it. There's either the angle. So if it's a macro shot versus an overhead shot versus a wide angle versus a close up, whether, head on, whatever, you can think about the angle as part of the visual hook or as its own visual hook, right? We look at this, this clip again, it's like a macro shot of the kind of this, what, like a pasta machine, right? The second Thing is, the action, if I'm making a. One of my best videos, right, was a good content versus bad content. Ironically, based on the name of this pod, was a good content versus bad content. And for running brands, right? And I had action Brunson in the. In the background. I had him running because one, there's a few things in that clip. He was overweight. Two, he was running. Three, it was a very known person. If I would have just used a standard person from Nike. And when I say standard person, like a regular person running, not even, you know, like Shakari Richardson or anything like that. If I would just use somebody regularly like that, within that, my visual hook, it wouldn't have worked as well.
- [04:58]
A
I could not agree more. It's fascinating. I have been trying to. I feel like I got red hot on my own content, and then it's kind of slowed down. And it's because all of the ideas that I've had recently, I haven't been able to find that just like, banger visual, amazing visual hook. And I can't even stress like, that is where good content goes to die is when you don't have a strong visual hook. And I think you just nailed it. It's like there are various almost checklist items of what makes a strong visual hook, you know, so there's the action. Like, three of my top videos are a girl. Like, basically, you know, something's happening, like, she's pouring a matcha or like Emma Chamberlain is like watching these test tubes, like coffee move through test tubes. But at the same time, if you just have someone extremely recognizable, that's culturally relevant, you know, Drake, this lady Matilda, Yerf, whatever, like, and you just highlight that person. There's still some pattern recognition in the brain, but you have to emphasize it because I had a Ryan Trahan video who's extremely recognizable. But when I look back at the hook, even though I say, you know, this founder has taken JoyRide suites to XYZ and X timeframe. Proven concept. I know that spoken hook works every time, but I didn't do my little circle animation over Trahan. And I honestly think that's why that video didn't pop, like, massively. You know what I mean? Like, I think that was a viral packaged video. And it didn't do as well because I didn't do that little. There was. It's all the components, a little pause circle. All the components. There was like an action. It was zooming in on him opening a box. And it's a very recognizable face. But There wasn't an animation to actually circle his head. And it is that granular. Like the thin line of success on a piece of content on social is that granular. And you can only kind of do understand that from being in the chair. But like, there's gotta be a word too. I want. We'll put the video back up. What is Visual asmr? You know, like, I don't know because.
- [06:58]
B
I have a video. I have a video about this video that I'm.
- [07:01]
A
Yeah.
- [07:02]
B
And I'm like, what is it? What am I naming it here? Like, I'm kind of coming up with something. I should look at my script.
- [07:08]
A
What an opportunity for you to come up with a. You might be able to hit a new jargon, like you might be able to hit a new buzzword, but it.
- [07:15]
B
Is like, it's like this satisfying.
- [07:16]
A
It's Visual asmr. Yeah. Like, it's like.
- [07:19]
B
Cause like, even if you look at the comments on this video, you know, somebody's like, why did we watch this 48 times in a row? Somebody else is like, why is this video 18 hours long? Because it is. It's just purely. It's so satisfying. And that actually goes into the third part of a good visual hook is the aesthetic. So how something looks. And, and so when I look at this video and I look at the opening shot and we can watch it together, especially with this, like this opening shot, right. It. It nails all the things I just said. In. In reality, for like a good visual hook, you just need one of three, in my opinion. For a great visual hook, though, you can have the aesthetic, you could have the action, and you can have an angle. So like in this case, the angle is this close up macro shot, no person in it, just purely the product, right? Then you have the action, you see the pasta coming out, and then you have. It's not a knife, but like you have like a knife kind of coming down and swiping and cutting the pasta. And then the aesthetic is they just have a specific like rustic kind of look to it. Nice and luxurious. It's shot really well. And right there you have like this absolute banger of a visual hook. And there's like the satisfying layer too, where you're kind of waiting for the person to slice it because it has to come out a certain amount, a certain amount before you can do it. Before it's like the right time.
- [08:37]
A
It also would. It's almost like it would over grow. Yeah, there's a little bit of suspense. Oh, this is gonna get Too long. And then boom, slice 100%.
- [08:46]
B
And then if you look at the remaining remainder of the shots, I'll start it again. If you look at the remainder of the, the shots in this video, they kind of play off the same. Like that. That's really same formula. Yeah, it's another macro shot. It's satisfying because you see the, like all of the pasta and then you see them just continuing to cut. Right. And I think this is like a five or six shot video. This has three or four million million views and it's all shot macro. And I do think that this is something that is, this is something that we're going to see, be seeing more of this year is kind of these macro shots that are extremely esthetic, extremely. Kind of like you're saying like visual asmr. Yeah, because that Range Rover sequence of pieces of content I talked about last week followed the same formula. Yeah, it was all close ups. Very asmr. Like, like soft background music, but a lot of sound effects, tight shots, kind of have this like visual appeal to it. Make you feel like, damn, I want to get in. Because this, I mean, you could ask yourself, right? Like, I watched the Range Rover video. The first thing I did was how much does range? Like I went on Google, how much does a Range Rover cost?
- [09:56]
A
100%.
- [09:56]
B
Or like, you know, the Range Rover SV? Like, how much is it? Because I want one now. I watch this video and I automatically want to order Italian food.
- [10:04]
A
100 or go to this restaurant. Like, you want to go peep this restaurant? And I, I, it's, it all comes back to, I think something that happened in the Facebook ads era. And, and I'll say this time and time again is people forgot about the importance of marketing touch points in moving someone towards conversion. Where you need to hit them just completely unprompted when they're not expecting it, with something that just makes them aware of you before you need to ask for the sale. And Facebook ads conditioned everyone to think, I'm just gonna run meta ads and conversions are just gonna come and I'm gonna run this like CAC to LTV game. And what content has done is completely broken the investment model of old touchpoints you used to have. Used to have to spend so much money on a massive TV campaign or a massive billboard or a celebrity sponsorship, whatever it is. You can literally take that lottery ticket, invest it in a good camera and some basic knowledge about asmr, and change your business's foot traffic forever. That's insane. That is insane. This video Realistically, what did it cost them? Maybe 500 to $1,000. Like I don't know, maybe if that.
- [11:15]
B
I forgot who it was that interviewed like the guy that's shooting the content for, for this.
- [11:19]
A
Oh really?
- [11:20]
B
Yeah. And it was like some intern that like owed money or somebody that owned money and then they started shooting the content and then now they're like running the social and dude, like if you look at their content, they're absolutely crushing.
- [11:31]
A
Yeah.
- [11:31]
B
Like this isn't just a one hit wonder that I'm, I'm sharing here. Yeah, almost every video has 100,000 plus views. Actually if you look at some of the numbers, it's like 525,000 619,000. And these are some of the mo more recent ones. That one I just showed you has 5.4 million.
- [11:48]
A
Like so think about it like this too, because we live in Austin, Texas where it's impossible to get a reservation anywhere. Prime time on the Friday night if you get it on Thursday. So what are all these restaurants investing in? They're investing in these local micro influencers basically to pump them. You know, when, when a restaurant is struggling in Austin, it's almost like, you know, you know it's struggling when like a certain group of characters will pull up and get a free meal or I forget the. I mean it's a Tex Eats. It's like you know, 365 Austin whatever. Right. It's all of these different people and.
- [12:20]
B
And they actually used to be the people that would determine like the hotspots 100%. Like when I.
- [12:25]
A
That's the natural curve of every influencer. It.
- [12:27]
B
It's funny because I, and I've told you this story, maybe we've talked about on the pod, but I used to work with them2016,17.
- [12:35]
A
Yeah.
- [12:35]
B
When they were like early, early and like I worked with a lot of restaurants and, and just a lot of different like spots in, in Austin. And yeah, like we would work with all of those, those cats to essentially drive foot traffic. It would work, it would get, it would work really well. Like it would get a lot of people there. You didn't have to do a discount. And now it's like complete inverse.
- [12:54]
A
Something anyone who's a creator or brand should always consider is this concept of feedload. So feed load is like what percentage of what type of content is in the feed. I learned this term from TikTok because this is actually how they determine how to show shop videos, how to show ads, how to show organic content. Like they're Very locked in on like we only show TikTok shop content 25% of someone's feedback and then we'll show, you know, hilarious content, 50% news, 15%. Like it kind of moves a little bit with the customization. And when you talk about these local influencers, their feedload used to be probably like 90% discovery, organic, highlighting the cool places. As they turn it into a business, it becomes probably 50, 50 maybe. And it's something people and brands I think can, can learn from as a creator. It's like same with you and I, like we both have a lot of opportunities to create sponsored posts, but you don't want 50% of your feed to be a sponsored post because then people will be like, wow, like I'm not really entertained or getting value out of this interaction.
- [13:58]
B
And that's also then saying you're going to see less of that person's content because it's only a certain percent of that content that's on somebody else's feed.
- [14:05]
A
Exactly. And so ultimately, you know, I think the way brands can kind of take. Take that same approach is like it's actually a much better investment for Aeria. Renata. Right.
- [14:16]
B
I wasn't even gonna try.
- [14:19]
A
Yeah, Renata.
- [14:20]
B
That sounds right.
- [14:21]
A
Australia Renata.
- [14:22]
B
You just scan that you're like. That's a crazy word.
- [14:26]
A
Yeah, for sure.
- [14:27]
B
Look when you look at the app, when you look at the at. Sorry, not the actual and but to.
- [14:32]
A
Your point, right, like they, you know, they're investing in. There's very little, you know, hey, we have a promotion coming up. Like there's none of that. Right. Everything you're getting out of their feed is just value. It's just value and visual simulation everything. And so because of that it's this delayed gratification by not asking you receive.
- [14:54]
B
And to me the crazy part is, you know, we talk, talk about top of funnel, middle funnel and bottom of funnel content. They were able to take bottom of the funnel content and make it top of funnel.
- [15:04]
A
Yeah.
- [15:05]
B
Which goes to show again the idea of taking a good idea and making it great by executing at the highest of highest levels.
- [15:11]
A
Yep.
- [15:12]
B
The other, some of the other things I think about when executing a good content idea and making it great is shot list. Depending on like what you're actually shooting a shot list and then having visual examples of the shot list is, is huge. Then the next is remove having. We essentially have anti rules as well with. With some of our content. Like if you're making a piece of content here and you're not going to read it script by piece by piece. From the script. We have the anti rules of don't do. For example, like don't introduce yourself. You don't know how many videos flop because you introduce what you're going to do or who you are or what this video is about. And fourth, nobody gives a. About any of that. Yeah, People just want to get right like the way the algorithms work. If I, if you scroll and all you see is like me saying, hey guys, my name is Alex and I'm the founder of marketing Samuel. I don't care.
- [16:07]
A
Yeah.
- [16:08]
B
But if I'm doing a street series and all of a sudden I'm like into the question of how much does Nike spend on advertising?
- [16:13]
A
That's a topic that's interesting to you?
- [16:16]
B
Yeah, I've actually never showed you that series. I filmed it probably like I remember seven, eight months ago.
- [16:21]
A
That was og.
- [16:22]
B
Yeah.
- [16:23]
A
South Congress.
- [16:24]
B
Yeah, I was on South Congress with a sign.
- [16:26]
A
Everyone has a straight interview era. Like everyone gives it. Yeah. I mean, it's because you also can get such a high volume of content.
- [16:34]
B
In four hours, you could have 10 videos.
- [16:37]
A
Yeah.
- [16:37]
B
Potentially more, if not more.
- [16:38]
A
Yeah.
- [16:39]
B
If not more.
- [16:40]
A
And, but at the same time, low status being the. I don't know, people kind of like it.
- [16:47]
B
People are down for it. I don't want to be the one doing.
- [16:49]
A
I don't want to be the interviewer.
- [16:50]
B
I don't want to be the one.
- [16:51]
A
I don't be the conductor.
- [16:52]
B
I felt weird being on the street with like a. We had a FX6 shooting. I was like, ah, this.
- [17:00]
A
Yeah.
- [17:00]
B
You know, like after an hour though, you feel, you feel a little bit more comfortable.
- [17:03]
A
Oh, dude. You gotta understand sometimes when you're really in the trenches, especially in this content game and a client looks at you and they're like, like, we just kind of feel like you would represent the brand better. Like you gotta.
- [17:15]
B
What brand was it that there was a brand that told you that, right?
- [17:17]
A
Yeah, it was my brand, Collars and company. So they, they're like a, you know, preppy, whatever type of brand. Like it's a firm collar for a golf polo and homeboy was just like, yeah, man. Like I kind of think you need to get on camera. So I went to out in front of the Austin proper and I'm like filming stuff and I was just like, everyone's like, what are you doing this for? And I'm like, they, they think I'm the model. You know what I mean? Like, they think, they think I'm like the model. And everything. I was like, damn. Um, but it was still fun. And I don't know, sometimes that you have to like stay in the day to day like that. I would recommend everyone, you know, go to your photo shoots, go to shooters.
- [17:55]
B
Yeah.
- [17:55]
A
Because you have to stay in the day to day to, you know, stay ahead and like understand what's going wrong at those places.
- [18:02]
B
When, when we went to Wadapalooza and you know, we, we executed everything. There is no chance it would have been executed to the degree like it was executed if our team wasn't there there. And I'm not saying that's not.
- [18:14]
A
You just break the brand and then, then, yeah.
- [18:17]
B
And from the edits. Right. Like, we could have briefed him, we could have gave him the ideas. Two things would have changed. They wouldn't have hit the volume we hit. We hit 20 or 25 pieces of content within that span. Right. So within that three day span based on the ideas, then the revisions. You know, there were some videos that had three to four revisions that it was three to four revisions before it was like approved internally. It was like, hey, we got to take this shot out. This needs to get replaced with this as the hook. Like all of those things make a world of a difference when. When we're talking again about good. A good piece of content versus a great piece of content. And it sucks though, because there's so many there. A lot of these brands do have great ideas, but you have to be so obsessed with content to understand. You have to be nuanced differences. Yeah.
- [19:02]
A
Like you definitely do to be able.
- [19:04]
B
To execute against it.
- [19:05]
A
So I was looking into Particle and Kalidata because I've been trying to get back on my Twitter game. Like, I stopped tweeting.
- [19:13]
B
I saw you post a little something.
- [19:15]
A
Yeah. I've just been randomly throwing some stuff out and I found something. So what everyone talks about with TikTok shop is the halo effect. Right. So it's this desire that if you go viral and there's not necessarily attribution for it, but it'll change the business on other platforms. And, and we're experiencing this with a few clients, it's on average around 30 to 50% organic search boost when you're viral on TikTok, which is crazy. So if you can sustain that with TikTok Shop as an investment, break even. It's a marketing hack that is still even being explored. Like, who knows? It's completely changed your business. Like the top brands on TikTok shop, it's like comfort goalie These people, who knows, I mean it could be that's a nine figure bonus for them to do that much revenue on there. Anyway, so I found this brand Array. Have you heard of Array? They're, they're kind of like they, they were initially they were a bloating and indigestion supplement company for, for women. So very focused on, you know, the women space. And their hero product initially was a de bloat product. So that was kind of it. I feel like that's a crowded space. I feel like, you know, that's a space where your claims have to outrun what you can even deliver a lot of the time too. And so they probably had a lot of dissatisfaction. They probably had whatever. And they only did around 25 million last year, which is good. But I think if you're doing 25 million and you spent 15 on ads and you had a certain gross margin, you got to pay people like I bet they didn't make that much money on that 25. Anyways, what's crazy is is I've seen them on TikTok Shop for a long time pushing the bloat product. It was always kind of eh. The popular bloat products on TikTok are from Chinese sellers and they make the wildest claims that you've ever seen. And so competition there, your price compressed where they're selling for extremely cheap and their affiliates are saying things that would make your investors be like, we have to close this down. So they launched a product called MB1. It's MV MB1. So it's natural energy, cholesterol and overall health support. So MB1 right in the last. Basically like, you know, the chart. Right. And I honestly want to put up.
- [21:41]
B
The chart because I have seen this up this company.
- [21:43]
A
The. The chart is so insane. So when you see it it's like everything starts picking up in kind of early February, late January. That's when they start going super viral. Now they did $800,000 on TikTok shop in 30 days. So naturally you're kind of thinking, okay, well that's awesome. This is a $25 million brand. They just added 10 million on a new sales channel. That's probably game changer for them. And I don't know their meta ad spend. I don't know, you know, enough details to confidently say that this is the catalyst. And I know they, they're subtle, they're aware of the podcast, but of sweat equity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the founder follows me on IG and the. So they did 25 million last year maybe 30, call it 3060 days from February through March they did $34 million. $34 million.
- [22:46]
B
Particle. Is that.
- [22:48]
A
That's from Particle. So and what's the winning. Gosh, what's the winning product? It's the lean and define MB1. Right. So you know, you look at their.
- [22:59]
B
Revenue chart and have you looked at their Google trends?
- [23:02]
A
I haven't looked at Google trends. That's Another component here. 35 million. 35 million in Q1 was that. I mean this is now a, you know a multi hundred million dollar business. And you look at that date, right. They start popping, they start popping late January and then in March they, they popped even more. They did like 25 of that in March, 17 of that in March. Wow. So there is a direct correlation between how many views they got on Tik Tok Shop and all these influencers and all the activation that they got. They did a million on Tik Tok Shop but then they did 35 on their site in that time frame. So two things that made that crazy to me.
- [23:51]
B
I mean and just look at the, the Google Trends because TikToks. Yeah. When, when there's the flight to a heart attack.
- [23:57]
A
Yeah. I mean that's insane. Right. Like just think about that.
- [24:02]
B
So people don't talk enough about how if you can get something to go viral on TikTok, the halo effect it.
- [24:09]
A
Creates, it's ridiculous because it is such a low trust platform. Like the demand created is not even possibly captured on there. Right. I mean this is, you know, I'm just looking at their top affiliate videos. Obviously there's some ad dollars behind a lot of these but you know, top one has 4 million views, second one has 4 million views. Milli. Millie. Millie, Millie, Millie. Like I'm going to go out on a limb and say they probably have 30 to 50 million product impressions on TikTok alone and they're capturing so much of that excess demand with lower funnel content on meta probably. I'm sure they're sophisticated on the media buying side. You can create custom audiences based on who looks at your stuff on TikTok and, and I mean just completely changes their business, you know and we have two clients right now who are also having their businesses changed by the halo effect from TikTok shop and the spillover to retail. So there's a crazy correlation, you know and it's like this vibes based thing. You can't really quantify it. You can't measure it, you can't quantify it. But at the same Time as soon as we hockey stick on TikTok shop, they hockey stick in Walmart. Yeah. And so whereas the, you know, all other inputs are equal, the control variables are equal. It's just that TikTok shop exploded and so therefore they started exploding in retail.
- [25:28]
B
It's so interesting to me with, with TikTok specifically as a brand, it's not the best platform to build an audience. No, it's great to get eyeballs awareness and it'll drive foot traffic, it'll drive organic search traffic. But like building an actual following of 500,000 people on tick tock is slightly irrelevant, right? Totally versus Instagram is the inverse.
- [25:52]
A
Totally.
- [25:52]
B
As a brand you'd want to have.
- [25:53]
A
500 because you control that, you control it a lot more.
- [25:57]
B
But the, the in that and that's where it's like you have to have like these completely different strategies for, for Tick Tock and in Instagram obviously some of the content can be repurposed but realistically like a lot of the strategies, like you could, you can test a lot more top of funnel, middle funnel, bottom of funnel content on Instagram versus Tick Tock totally because of that, that controlled sense of hey, I have 500,000 followers, it's going to show it to 10% of it.
- [26:20]
A
It's the wildest thing that you have to just trust because I think even despite believing in the power of TikTok shop and social commerce and building a business on top of that, I still have my doubts. I still was kind of like, I don't know if this is right for everybody. I don't know if this is necessarily the smartest thing for everybody to invest in. And I would say over the last four months of having brands explode on there at around a 10% net income. So for context, if you were doing really well on Meta, you'd get like a 3x roas. I have a lot of brands in like the 3 to 6 roas space, but they're not the ones doing 500k plus. The ones doing 500k plus are chilling around 1.5, 1.8, 1.5, 1.8 only works for a subscription based business on Meta. Obviously you don't have subscription on TikTok Shop, so most people think that's a below break even point for them. But seeing the impact it has made across their other platforms is definitely the first time where I'm realizing like if you are a consumable, you have to figure that platform out. Like if you are a product that people are going to be able to make any sort of kind of like impulse buy. You have to figure the platform out. I feel like skincare supplements, I think revenue, I think apparel for sure is.
- [27:42]
B
Getting there too because is it more lower end apparel? Because I don't feel like a 150.
- [27:47]
A
Shirt but so like what's your buying behavior with Legends, right? It's like you buy a pair of shorts, test them out. But I'm just saying like with a, with a multi SKU apparel brand like typically you try them first and then once you like it you get a ton of product from them. No, I mean or are you just kind of like balls deep immediate $400 aov. I know which one you are.
- [28:11]
B
It depends like we said. Yeah, it depends the brand totally. But like very rarely do I just get hit with an ad for a brand that actually I'll say one like there's this brand Optimistic runners I think is called and they've sick like shorts. Absolutely love them. I got hit with one of their ads like just clean shot, clean product shot and I probably dropped three $400 on them.
- [28:37]
A
Well we both have a problem with our, with our spending habits so I would say like normal and I everyone low key might based on e commerce sales in the US But I think what, what I'm trying to get at is, is in a lot of ways people try and drive trial of their products. It's like how do I sample as many people as possible? How do I get my product in people's hands? What I think TikTok shop represents for a lot of those folks is a entry point into your brand that if you can run, break even and drive a ton of trial like comfort is an example of this, this you know, weighted hoodie, whatever brand. Like they're so viral on TikTok shop that it just spills over everywhere, everywhere. Makes their Snapchat ads effective. It makes everything very effective for them. And the founder is really smart. He's talked about how he doesn't want to compete on meta in the oral care space. You know, imagine going up against all the brands that are spending millions and millions and millions of dollars in oral care. It's like no, like just lean into the craziest, most viral hooks on Snapchat and TikTok and like bet on that long term. So he's not a one day click roas guy, he's just kind of like a blended myrrh kind of guy. And a lot of the space is really where this really became apparent to me was a lot of the people that I was talking to at Shop Talk, that Vegas conference were these enterprise audience solutions on Meta. They're basically businesses that charge you like 5k a month to get like better data on Meta and to target the same people you've been targeting for a decade, forever. Yeah. And they still don't want your shit.
- [30:08]
B
So there's such a shift right now with, from paid to organic and all these brands are starting to, to understand or not understand it, but at least get curious about the idea of what happens if I spend 100k a month on, on organic content.
- [30:21]
A
Completely change your business.
- [30:22]
B
What would happen? Yeah, would my, would my, would my return on ad spend go from 1.6 to 2.2? Yeah, because I'm spending this much on organic and gaining this many impressions and getting in front of this many people and also creating a different perception around my brand. Like it's happening. And like people, the, the what we need to happen at least in, in our world and in our space is like we need one of like the DTC darlings to happen to them.
- [30:49]
A
Right.
- [30:50]
B
Stop the Jones beauty or. Yeah, like one of those brands. And even though JRB is like they do really well in organic, they're not doing amazing. They put out good concept but they're not putting out like great content where you. Yeah, you. We need one of those DTC darlings to like do it and have that.
- [31:05]
A
I met one. I met one Shout out. I. I don't know if I want to drag them but I mean, yeah, it's a brand called Cozy Earth. Right. So like they're a huge decade long, phenomenal, best in class execution, D2C brand, like crushed it. Amazing job for the last 10 years.
- [31:24]
B
Across the border on organic.
- [31:26]
A
Zero organic presence whatsoever. Organic is what I'm going to get at is like their entire marketing department's initiatives is how do we unlock incremental customers because they sell cozy PJs. They sell. I think I might have even touched on them a little bit in the pod last week.
- [31:44]
B
I thought you.
- [31:45]
A
Yeah, they sound familiar, but they are the exact. It's top of mind for me because I saw a post from them today which was just this zero title headline, zero compelling visual hook. Like if you go through the checklist of things we talked about at the beginning of this video, every single one was not checked on this video they posted this morning. And I'm like, you have, you're making $15 million a month. You're spending eight to get there. Right. Maybe you're spending five. I don't know, but you're spending $50 million a year on Meta. Like what would happen if you just took 200,000 of that 5 million dollar marketing budget you're putting into D2C channels like Google and Meta. You put 200,000 into just building the best content team in your space. I think they would stand out. I think when people are looking at them versus miracle sheets versus all these other, you know, kind of traditional D2C sheets brands or traditional PJs brands, like if they just started creating best in class organic and affinity, I think it would completely change performance of that 4.8 million that they were spending on Meta. So we're like. And their team knows that that's where it's interesting is their team knows that they don't know how to act on it yet. Because right now there is literally such a gap between social media managers and creators. There's a lot of social media managers out there that aren't creators and I think that disqualifies you from being a social media manager in today's day and age.
- [33:18]
B
Yeah, I completely agree. And I think there's still such a disconnect between CMOs that are completely focused on paid.
- [33:27]
A
Yeah.
- [33:27]
B
Because they don't value and don't care about organic. I'm not going to out the brand, but it's one of the DTC darling brands where all they care about is Meta, you know, and don't get me wrong, they're spending eight figures a year on Meta. So it's understandable to be like I'm going to put all of my attention here because we're spending so much time here, but they want to be a one of one when it comes to organic, yet they have half of somebody's time being spent on organic as a nine figure company. That is wrong. When you can take 30%, 30,000 of that, that budget that you're putting out every single month and put into a content team.
- [34:06]
A
Crazy. Which would change everything.
- [34:08]
B
Would change everything. Not only that, the influencer roster list that they have that they could integrate into their organic. There's not people that that many brands that can compete with them.
- [34:18]
A
So what I was going to touch on there is that the band aid for this bullet wound back in the day used to be Influencer.
- [34:26]
B
Yeah.
- [34:26]
A
That was kind of how you built affinity and Influencers so cooked. Now just because all of the creators sold out over the last three years because all the VC money told them to launch a brand. Right. Like that's kind of just what happened. Most people diluted their personal brand in favor of launching some CPG product that's not profitable now, probably mid quality. And so you've seen this massive loss of trust in a lot of influencers at this point. Like, it's kind of a more mature market for sure. And so who's the best person to tell your story? Well, like, if you're a brand just adding value, like, no one's going to be mad at you for creating content, but if it's an influencer just shilling you, then no one wants to see that either. So that's a waste of money. But now if you're cool, the influencer has something to talk about and integrate you more out there. It's like how you integrate with those influencers is guided by this content team instead of. It's not just, hey, influencer, here's a brief. Exactly how do you integrate them into your brand universe? Yes, but you have to create a brand universe first and you have to care enough to create a brand universe.
- [35:30]
B
And that's exactly where I was getting to is like they have an influencer roster list of very, very high end influencers that would be perfect to integrate into their content strategy. As in, hey, we're going to develop this series with this person because they fit this part of our brand. Yeah, that's how I think about it. And that's how they, they should think about it. If they have, you know, somebody that's very well known in tech or somebody that's very known in like the inventor and outdoor spaces, like, well, what can we do with this individual that they would actually publish on their own is the way I like to think about, like, what kind of content can we do as a brand that they would want to publish and be proud of? If you can figure that out and then in like weave a product piece into it. Sure. But yeah, that right there changes the landscape of influencer marketing and the trust factor as well.
- [36:16]
A
The guy and I actually think it's worth doing a full podcast on. So maybe it's a teaser for next week's episode. But Trahan, Ryan Trahan, what he's done with joyride sweets, like, have you deep dived his account before? Yeah, it is so best in class. It actually hurt because I was like, wow, like I'm a G League guy and this is a, you know, NBA all star. Yeah, he's just, it's so effortlessly good, the packaging of the idea, the storytelling, the. But the, the zig and zag of every story, how it integrates the product authentically without being salesy. Like, the entire strategy. And the reason I want to bring it up is because you have to dive into first. Why do YouTubers succeed? It's because the initial idea is very interesting. You know, one of his concepts that I just. I thought, I mean, this was insane. He's like. He's like. This target in California is very strange because out of the 150 targets that we're in, it's the lowest selling one. We only sell 14 a week. So naturally I had to fly out there and see what would happen. And when I got there, and it's like, he just takes you on this ride. But then to that point, me saying it out loud just now would be. It's fine if I did it. But the editing, the. The, the visuals, everything is just perfectly retention based, where the whole time you're so stimulated with your attention and it combines so many different specialties that if someone really wants to dive into, like, okay, what is best in class content look like? I think. I think joyride might be the goat.
- [37:50]
B
Oh, they're. They're. They're up there, dude.
- [37:51]
A
I think he's got it. And he also has a mission, a challenge. Every. Every video feels like an episode and a broader narrative of a season.
- [37:59]
B
And it's like, we got something cooking for. With a brand like this, you should.
- [38:03]
A
That's awesome.
- [38:04]
B
I can't. It has to get approved and it has to roll out. It would roll out in May, literally the day I get married. But if it hits it, it's going to hit. Hit.
- [38:14]
A
Yeah.
- [38:15]
B
Which I'm excited for.
- [38:16]
A
Yeah.
- [38:16]
B
But I agree. He is world class at. I mean, there's a reason, right, that he has 20 million. He's got 20 million subs. His whole penny series was like, was lights out. I told you about the whole collective story when I walked in.
- [38:29]
A
Yeah.
- [38:29]
B
Yeah. They're absolutely dialed. It's what we should do with the pod. They were sitting down together, looking at all of the metrics, looking at, okay, drop off, went to the time, figured it out, started putting notes on like, okay, here's what we could do here better for the next video. And like, it's crazy.
- [38:47]
A
Yeah. No, I mean, turns out you have to be psychotically dedicated to something.
- [38:51]
B
You just got to love it. You got to love it.
- [38:53]
A
Yeah.
- [38:53]
B
Absolutely love it.
- [38:54]
A
He definitely loves the game. Well, cool. That's all I got for today.
- [38:58]
B
Same.
- [38:59]
A
All right, y'all, as usual, shoot us a review. Spotify, Apple, everyone that's asking to sponsor the pod, it's pretty sick when we have real reviews from y'all on Apple. I think Spotify, we have more Spotify reviews than a lot of pods that make a lot more money than us. So that's kind of sick. Means y'all actually mess with us. But please leave review on those two platforms. Comment on YouTube. It all, it all helps us. So, that being said, catch y'all next week.
- [39:26]
B
Peace.