1507 – How Advertising Works Today with Radical’s Ryan Alford

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0:55With us right now, Ryan Alford. Ryan, you are the host of the Radcast, a podcast. It's Top 20 USA Business Podcast. You are also founder and CEO of Radical, where you're found on the web at radical.company. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us. Josh, my pleasure. It's great to be here with you. Appreciate you having me on the show. Absolutely. So share with us a bit about your work and what you do with Radical and kind of your overall impact in the world. Yeah, I'll keep it concise, but I've been in the agency, marketing ad agency. It's funny, everybody asks me all the time, what's the difference between marketing and advertising?

1:37Well, it's a long story, but it's fairly simple. But I've been in the ad agency business for 20 plus years. Spent a lot of time cutting my teeth in Manhattan and have had the pleasure of developing some of the most known and recognizable ad campaigns the last 25 years. Can you hear me now with Verizon? the first iPhone launch, the Droid campaign by Motorola and Google, and many others, which if your TV is sort of on the dying edge here a little bit, it's now all on, everybody's watching it on TikTok. So TV ads are just on TikTok. People just don't call it that. But yes, been in the ad game a long time and started my own agency five years ago.

2:19And I moved back to the South in South Carolina where I'm home here and started the agency and the Radcast at the same day, five years ago, just about to the day from now. And they've been on kind of equal trajectories. As you know, in the podcast world, you just got to stick with it, have discipline and put the content out and let the audience develop over time. And so we host celebrities and famous founders and talk business and their business growth. Everyone has a side hustle these days. So try to give insights and background on some of the who's who in business and the celebrity entertainment world.

2:57And then the Radical, our agency, helps what I'd call Smedium, 50 to$200 million in revenue companies for the most part, B2B, we skew heavily towards or e-commerce. And yeah, so been in the ad game a long time working for others. And then the last five years, I've been doing it for myself. What have top executives learned today about advertising? What do they know that maybe not everybody knows about how advertising works today versus, say, 15, 20 years ago? Well, the highest ones are still, at the highest level, they're still learning this. But I think they've learned that you have two options with content these days.

3:43You either entertain or you educate and people think with their head and they buy with their heart. And so if you're developing content today, it's no longer speeds, feeds and talking about your product. It's making emotional connection through humor, through interesting content, human content, which is actually what we radical this human lens that we apply to all content development. And I think the highest level executives understand now that if you aren't developing the relationship with your customers or potential customers on an emotional level or connecting with them in a community, through a community building lens, that people are just more aware of being advertised to than they ever have been.

4:28and attention is so fleeting. If they sniff, you're just trying to sell me with your content, with your marketing, the consumer runs quickly and executives at the highest level are understanding that more now than ever. Wow. Well, that's gotta be exciting because I suspect then that's something you've tried to stay on the front edge of in your longevity. I mean, just based on some of the campaigns that you've talked about, they're notable, they're memorable, they're fun, they're less likely, I'd say, for me to skip, where it just feels a little bit more native and entertaining. Yes. And so that was kind of always my, I mean, I hate to say when he has a shtick, but my shtick has always been human and having that human connection.

5:19And I think that's what really breaks through. Look, we get like what, eight to 10 ,000 messages a day from every logo. Like we get hit from every logo that hits your eyeballs. You don't know what your subconscious is, is reacting to these things and you, we don't even know it. And so to break through, to get attention in what is a very fleeting attention society, you have to really have a connection. You have to be consistent and you've got to really be developing a, you know, a community type relationship with your customers. Yeah. Well, you know, and I'm, it's interesting because, you know, we're at the, I haven't done any advertising for over 70 years.

5:58We have some other systems for inbound, but I'm kind of like really wondering now, like we finally do have something we're thinking, yeah, I think we're going to maybe for the first time in a long time run ads. And we're like, wow, well, where do we start with that? So like, you know, even something like a, like if it's like a B2B type, let's say you're an agency and you want to provide services to your clients, like how would you begin or what questions would you ask to know what the best content to use to connect with your potential buyers might be? Yeah, I mean, it starts with, we kind of do the 80-20 rule.

6:34It really starts with like, where is your target at? What platform are they on? If it's a consumer e-commerce base, then we need to be on TikTok. And the style and the approach of TikTok is very unique. it's talking about fleeting attention, but there's a process to developing content for them. If it's LinkedIn, it's B2B, where a lot of our clients are, then it's obviously in this day and age, it's getting to the bottom line and talking revenue, talking results quickly, or whatever that solution is. And, you know, problem solution. And what I call it like problem aware, you know, like a lot of people know what the symptoms are, but don't know exactly what the problem is.

7:20And I think creating content that goes at that and helps them to find that problem better with which you, you are naturally the solution. I love the whole teeing up the problem where you don't even have to give the payoff that you're the solution, right? That's the most powerful. Empathy over the problem. Yes. Like an illustration and like, you know, kind of like, you know, we all suffer with, we all struggle with this we all blah blah blah blah um it's like yeah yeah yeah yeah um whereas i think if it i think i like i agree with you like if it gets too transactional too quickly it's like ah whoa we're not at that level in the relationship yet back off dude yeah it's right but i mean you know at our agency you know it's kind of the you can we're an ad agency but 80 of what we do do and develop is organic content for social media for our clients.

8:17So we play both sides of the fence here. And, you know, developing content that can be turned and amplified through paid media. But we think through the lens of organic creation first, i.e. what can it can that content on its own breakthrough in a social environment, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, whatever it might be, Can it break through on its own organically? And then let's pour the gas on the fire with paid on top of that or amplifying it. And so I think that's where we kind of break through the mold a little bit, which is thinking in that organic content and approach and development first.

9:03Yeah. What do you talk about? You know, Ryan, obviously someone's listening to our podcast right now. You can go search the Radcast right now. Tell me more about what you talk about on the podcast and who you have and the impact that, you know, kind of the transformation that will take place as someone starts binge listening. Yeah. We started out, we have two episodes a week. We have a guest episode on Tuesdays and Fridays. We do marketing and business news where we talk about trends, news of the week. It's a very topical discussion on Fridays, a little more lighthearted. I have a co-host, Christina Yossi, who's a comedian and also works here.

9:43We take a very, I call us the Joe Rogan business podcast. I know that sounds a little overextending, but we're very mainstream in our talk and our discussions. But we do, I do always bring it back to practical recommendations for people. but I think we do it in a very listenable way because we talk about things that are hitting the mainstream that might be in pop culture, things that people are hearing the news, the crazy thing that Elon Musk is doing this week. But then I'll translate what the crazy things Elon Musk is doing into, well, here's what that means from a business and marketing standpoint.

10:17So they get value from that. And then our guests, everyone from Bruce Buffer, the voice of the UFC, to Heidi Montag, who was all the rage 10, 15 years ago on The Hills, which is a reality TV show, to Casey Webb, who's, if you ever watch Man vs. Food. So we bring on, you know, kind of those names that you may have heard of, those first, second tier entertainers, actors to talk about their business journey. And then we bring on some big hitters like Mark Randolph, the founder of Netflix. I mean, so famous founders and we just we like to use big names because people have heard of them and they have fascination with knowing how they grew their business or their personal brand or whatever.

11:01And then I kind of ask it in a very conversational way. It's a very conversational discussion. It's not OK. How did you grow your SEO? That's just not us. You know, it's just a little more personality. Yeah. Ryan, you know, as part of your kind of keeping your tabs on the industry, I know podcasts, obviously, because you're a content producer yourself in that space. But where does where does podcasting fit today when we think about connecting with audiences and maybe from a marketing and or advertising standpoint? Josh, I mean, you know, and you're hitting on this. I've been following you from afar for a while.

11:41You're like, you know, literally, you know, you're crushing it in this space. And I really admire the way you're approaching it because of how big podcasting is. And because if literally I'm going to do it through answer that question through the lens of what I've done. If we put on a grid here, time and growth, if I lined up Ryan Alford's personal brand, Radical, my ad agency, and the Radcast, these things have had equal trajectories the last five years. I'm now verified on every platform. I have half a million followers across all platforms. The Radcast is top 20 in business, and the Radical agency is doing eight figures in revenue.

12:18All of these have been on an equal path because they all feed one another. The Radcast gets more known. Radical gets more known. Ryan gets more known. The more, and I have been literally trademarking this tagline, so I don't mind saying, it pays to be known. And you get known through authority and building authority, which is what you could do on podcasting. And you start to build relationships with people before you even get to know them because they get to know me. And so 80 % of our leads for our agency come through our podcast. and you know how many times I asked for an order on my podcast?

12:53Zero. Never, right, no. You know, and it's interesting. I think about, you know, just what classy professionals do in business and how amateurs perform in business. And I think it's just the results speak for themselves. I mean, if you find yourself doing lazy, desperate spray and pray methods, I don't think that that's a great strategy today. And if you can just stay classy and it's, it's modeling knowledge, right? So we just, you know, just look at what leaders are doing and emulate those leaders and stop buying into gurus that have programs to sell you about just this sloppy nonsense. That's just, you know, it's, it's a maddening.

13:41Yes, it is. um and so you know but it's it's fascinating to me um people know these things like when you say it pays like when i say it pays to be known and like if you say you know if i raise my authority i raise my opportunities people kind of nod right but it's fascinating how difficult it is for executives or people to kind of get off the blocks a little bit and so i do help and we do have a very specific channel of helping executives leverage personal branding and authority branding to expand their opportunities personally. But certainly, look, if the most known executives are some of the most well-known companies in the world, you think Elon Musk is playing the personal brand game?

14:27You think Jeff Bezos is playing it? They don't talk about it that way, but they're out there in media. They're doing shows. They're out there in pop culture. And so it's the same thing can be those same tactics. And some of these things that I did for the largest brands in the world can be leveraged for people developing their personal brand or companies developing their business brand. Yeah. Ryan, who should be reaching out and connecting with you? So I want to share your, so your website, obviously, is ryanalford.com. And then, of course, your agency is radical.company. But who needs to get off this podcast, reach out, connect, dig in, because there could be a collaboration that could be pretty powerful together.

15:12Yeah, I put it in two camps. The working with me directly, I work with clients directly on personal brand podcasting growth and kind of that overall authority raising. And I work one to one with executives that are wanting to do that really through that lens of personal branding, you know, leveraging themselves to grow their business. and then our agency I would say if you're out there and you need a full service you know digital agency that's hyper social hyper content we we develop 5 ,000 videos a month at our agency like we if you're a business that's in that 50 plus million or you know really just kind of gets into a budgetary discussion so you know small to medium businesses certainly we're probably not helping the average coffee shop owner necessarily, but it really just depends on the business.

16:03And we do skew heavily towards B2B. So if you're a B2B company that you've kind of crashed, you're at that threshold, you're doing, you want to go from good to great. You want to go great to hyper great. That's who we're going to. Yeah. I mean, because look, here's what I say. Marketing is not medicine. It's gasoline. I can't fix, my agency can't fix a bad business. Marketing will not help. But if you're a good business and you're like, dang, we aren't really doing marketing right. We aren't really doing advertising right. We're not doing great content, but we got a great business. We got great people.

16:38We can explode that business. We'll blow them through the roof. That's what we're doing. But you have to understand that, again, we're not a Band-Aid. Yeah. All right. So again, websites, radical.company and ryanalford.com. That's R-Y-A-N-A-L-F-O-R-D.com. And Ryan, any particular like, you know, kind of pillar content, you know, maybe a longer form piece of content that you can offhand recommend or think that might be a great next step for someone's like, I need more Ryan. Obviously the podcast. Well, here's the thing. I post, I've posted almost 5 ,000 times on social media. I give away all my free advice.

17:24My, all my best advice is given away for free. If you go to Instagram where I'm verified and have almost 200 ,000 followers, I've posted over 3000 videos. You'll find nuggets of knowledge right there. Like there's, I might send my sons just to the, to the, to that knowledge base instead of college by the time they go, if the rates keep going up. But there's an encyclopedia of marketing knowledge on my Instagram feed and on my TikTok feed alone. Again, over 3 ,000 videos. And so go follow me on social media. And I enter all my DMs. So, again, I give away all my free advice if you just want me to execute, though.

18:03Then you have to hire us. Yeah, I appreciate that. Ryan Alford, again, thank you so much. Your website is RyanAlford.com, Radical.company. and again, you're the host of the Radcast. Ryan, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much. Josh, love what you're doing, man. Keep doing it and honored to be here. I really appreciate you.

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