1616 – Fractional CMO vs Marketing Agency with Find Your Audience’s Nathan Yeung

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0:59with us right now it is fractional cmo and founder of find your audience found on the web at find your audience.online it's nathan young nathan thank you for joining us thank you so much josh yes explain it to tell us what you do with find your audience and how you work as a fractional CMO. Yeah, it's a great story. Really what we do is we're kind of like a plug and play marketing team. We're really a marketing function. So a lot of people have probably heard the terms fractional consultants. So I'm a fractional CMO, but I'm a fractional CMO with a team. And so that's because I kind of got tired of just advising and providing strategy.

1:38I really wanted to be hands-on and actually being a part of the execution because I think it's great to provide the advice, but it's really important to see the execution through. So I've really built a large team around doing that everywhere from designers to media buyers, content writers to managers, just to ensure that, you know, kind of like the work that I put into is actually being executed well. What's the difference between hiring someone with kind of that fractional CMO role versus we're just going to hire this agency who's going to do marketing for us? So I think it's just really the focus on where their attention is going to be put into and invested into in the business.

2:18So I think when it comes to a fractional CMO, it's really fundamentally high level. It's very strategic. It's really opportunistic in trying to identify kind of like key white space in the market. I think when you go down to kind of the agency level, you're really looking at execution and tactics. So I think a lot of people on this podcast will probably really understand this, but like, you know, when you go to an agency, you typically already know what you want, or you have an idea of what you want. So when you go to an agency, you're kind of like, I want a website. You go to an agency, I want a webinar.

2:50You go to an agency, I want a brand. When you're going to a fractional CMO, it's really like, hey, so I have this idea. What exactly should I be doing for marketing? Where should I be positioning? How should I actually be positioning? So it's a little bit of that brand work, but it's also just fundamentally building out that operations and function as well for that organization and prioritizing the actual operational execution of marketing things. And so I think that's really, marketing things, aka the plan. So I think that's kind of the big difference is one is very strategic high level and planning perspective, kind of longer term.

3:22And obviously, when you go to the agency, it's much more tactical and execution oriented. Yeah. And who do you typically work with? We have a full breadth of clients. I think we're one of the few agencies, I guess, that really work across a ton of industries. So we work with like natural franchises. So we deal with like national franchise campaigns all the way down to supporting the local restaurants. We work with the largest B2B enterprises in Canada, such as Firmex and Procom. Firmex is the largest data room provider in Canada. Procom is the largest IT recruiting company in Canada. We even assist in several portfolios inside of Constellation Software, which is another large incumbent in Canada, the largest software company in Canada.

4:06They have, you know, well over a hundred different software companies that they own. And so we also then work for venture capital and private equity and people go, well, how does that work? And I go, well, if you really think about it, marketing is a cashflow number. And our goal here is to make sure that that cashflow number is very prudently spent and kind of forecasted well. So we assist private equity firms on the buy side and diligence. And then in venture capital, we assist in actually just building out the function for some of their portfolio companies. Yeah. So two kind of client categories I'd love to talk about.

4:41I'm going to ask you about restaurants in just a moment, but I would really love your perspective on what is working well for B2B today? Because I know that that's one area that you do a lot of work in. So the one thing that I think working well in B2B is really, really, really simple. And I think this is the one thing that just a lot of people forget about marketing. I always say that marketing is an amplification of revenue. It's not just marketing. And I think we get pigeonholed in this idea that it's like, okay, well, your KPI is just inbound. One of the things that we do very, very well is we increase the productivity of the sales teams.

5:19So really taking away all that unnecessary work and putting it onto our shoulders so that your sales team are really focused on what they do best, which is technical selling and really customer relationships and customer retention. Like that's where they should be spending all their time in. So our marketing team actually takes away all those additional work, like working on the PowerPoint, providing more ideas for sales likes, you know, sometimes even coordinating for conferences, they're absolutely not good uses of their time. And so we actually focus on that. So that's actually like a campaign initiative when we engage with clients.

5:53So I know this is probably not great news for everyone, but, you know, focusing on your sales is number one. And you can actually do that by marketing by actually making sure that your sales team are properly supported. I think this is fundamentally overlooked all the time. The other thing that I think is incredibly important is just content generation. That's also not something anyone really wants to hear because content generation is hard. But the one thing that I will simply say is content generation plays dividends, not only in the short term, but the long term. Because when you're doing content generation, you have the ability to repurpose content.

6:26You have the ability to re-engage people. It becomes kind of this multi-purpose tool, like kind of this is Swiss Army knife. Every time you do a piece of content, it's like a Swiss Army knife you're producing. It can do multiple things. You can use it for emails. You can use it for follow-ups. You can use it for webinars. You can use it for SEO. So content generation is always going to be a key part of your BDB marketing function. So I hear you talking a lot maybe about demand gen content, that sort of thing. Do you get clients that come in the door and say, listen, Nathan, we just need leads in the next 30 days.

7:00Can you help us out? Like, where would you take that conversation? So first and foremost, that's highly dependent on their price point and highly dependent on how complex their sales cycle and process is. So if we're talking about a product that has a lower price point, call it something that lends itself to a product-led growth model, lends itself to a single stakeholder making a decision, that's probably quite possible. It's probably very possible. Realistically, you could probably do a demand generation campaign or a paid performance campaign, and you could probably actually produce leads and actually get conversions.

7:38The retention on those conversions might be a little iffy because you're rushing into a campaign, but nonetheless, it's probably something you can do, and it's highly probable. If you're looking at a product that has a sales cycle that's anywhere between three to six months, has more than two or three stakeholders in their buying group, the reality of that is you can do it, but just know it's going to be bloody expensive. The reality is, is that the more complex your your the stakeholder group is, the longer the sales cycle, the more expensive it is for you to drive a direct performance campaign.

8:10And the one of the things that I like to really explain why that is, is because when you're doing a direct performance campaign, you're targeting people that are already well in the funnel. Right. So they're already near the decision making thing, but you're actually forcing them to consider you at a point of decision. And to do that, that means you're probably spending one, a lot of money on expensive things like pay-per-click. On pay-per-click, you're specifically looking at incredibly high intent keywords. And you're building out landing pages very specific to those keywords. So it's going to be expensive, you know, easily$500,$750 a lead.

8:50But you're hoping to see conversion rates that are obviously above 50 % because they're so bloody expensive. And then the worst part is few and far between. So I think that's the other thing is that when you look at really, really high intent keywords for these complex sales products or solutions, you typically have very low keyword volumes. And so therefore, everything gets more expensive. So again, very possible, but you have to align that expectation of how much it's going to cost to acquire that customer. Yeah, that's fantastic. Are there any trends that you're seeing or that, you know, anyone that is on the B2B side of things?

9:25The reason I'm asking so many questions, but I mean, that's kind of our world on the B2B side. So I'm fascinated. But any trends that you would say, listen, if you're in B2B sales or marketing or you own a B2B company and growth is your mandate, I would be paying attention to blank. Anything that you're excited about that's on the horizon? You know, on the horizon, I don't know if there's anything on the horizon that I would be super excited about. I think fundamentally, you know, when we look at the new horizon, it's always shiny objects. And, you know, marketers are the bane of that. We create those shiny objects and they're not always the shiniest.

10:05So, you know, if I were to say, like, what would I really lean into right now? I think leaning into your email infrastructure and really understanding how to create email infrastructure for outbound, I think is super important. And some people might argue, oh, Nate, that's not really marketing stuff. And I'll argue it kind of is. The other thing that I think is incredibly important is not just the email stuff, but really, again, going back to this content creation, it's this idea of I don't believe product-led growth models work for every organization. but I do think the framework is a healthy thing for every organization to think about.

10:40And so creating content that is under the kind of the direction of product led growth is really important for onboarding for, for, for people who want to do a self discovery journey on your, on your business. So I think really leaning into those and scaling that through time is really important because it's something that takes a lot of time. You can front load it, but it's, it's going to be incredibly painful. and I think that's something that everyone should lean into always because the more content you have the more content you have to basically sell people on themselves I think it's just a great way to kind of constantly layer your sales a bit more without actually sales doing anything so I think that's really what I would lean into right now yeah yeah and so and you do a lot of work in the restaurant space too what trends have you been seeing in that on that side of it or also So, you know, when we think about how you can drive growth and revenue, you know, for a restaurant chain or single location, whatever, like, where do I mean, it's not content necessarily.

11:42Well, it's different content. I'll let you explain like what you typically do there. Yeah. So restaurants is such an interesting business because it's such a departure from B2B. But fundamentally, some of the things that we work in and we think of are still the same things. when it comes to restaurant marketing or even any single store marketing, you know, even if you're just selling, you know, pencils, for example, the one thing that I always say is, you know, everyone's like, oh, let's do a promotion. Let's do sales. And I go, look, that's fine. But the reality is, is you have to identify kind of what's the purpose of the sale?

12:14Is this sale to essentially grab new users, like new customers? Or is this sale a kind of a gift to your current customers? And really think about the pricing around that and think about also your concentration of sales. So one of the things that I find really amusing is often we get a lot of restaurants that come to us and be like, oh, you know, we have like this overstocked food we got to let go. So we're going to do a sale. Can you help us promote it? And they go, I can help you promote it, but it's not going to sell well. And they go, why isn't it going to sell well? And I go, well, first of all, if it's overstocked, it means it's not selling well anyways.

12:43Second of all, if it's not selling well anyways, unless you're willing to give it a cost, what kind of promotion are you going to get people driven to your restaurant to really want to buy that, right? So if you're a seafood chain and you're selling wings, having a wings promo isn't really going to be very enticing for a lot of people. Unless it's fish wings, of course. Unless it's fish wings, right? Or something that they've concocted that's relevant to their brand. And so I often go, you want to do promotions around actually your highest selling product. And the reason is because it gets the most reach, right?

13:16So let's now bring this not away from restaurants. Let's just say pencils. Let's just say you sell the best pencils, you know, in the world. Everyone knows about your pencils. You know, you do a promotion on erasers. Why bother? Do a promotion on pencils. Why? Because essentially when you do that promotion, everyone that wants that promotion is going to promote it even more, right? They're going to tell their friends and their communities. And so the number one advice that I would give every single person in the restaurant industry or in any of your businesses is promote your highest concentration sale product.

13:47And I know that seems counterintuitive because you go, oh, well, if I promote it, I discount it, I lose more margin. But that's not the purpose of the campaign. The purpose is for you to acquire new customers. Right. So you acquire new customers by getting more reach and you maximize your reach by promoting things that you sell the most of and getting the most attention of. Now, you don't want to train your customers to get used to discounts. So I'm not recommending you do this discount every single month, but you do one big discount or you do twice a year where essentially the goal is to really get new customers in.

14:20So, you know, if you're, again, going back to that pencils, maybe you sell the most expensive pencils, you're now going to get this person who just likes pens. But you know what? You have that promotion. They've seen it. Their friend keeps telling them to buy it. They buy it. They love it. They become a customer, right? So yes, you are losing margin, but the game plan is to get new customers. And so I think a lot of people get too stuck on the margin perspective and forget it's about acquiring new customers. And the customer base is what ultimately keeps your business very sustainable. That's the main focus we have when it comes to marketing for local businesses.

14:50Nathan, you've been at the helm of Find Your Audience for nearly six and a half years now. Congratulations. relations. What do you do as a consultancy or agency owner to grow your own business? That's a beautiful question, incredibly frustrating. And I feel like a lot of people on this call will attest to this. There's a saying where it's like, you're so busy working in the business, you never work on the business. And I am certainly at fault for that too. So if you were to ask me, hey, Nathan, where do I find a majority of my business? A majority of my business comes from referrals. Now, that's kind of a lie because those referrals were strategic in the sense that I find distribution partners.

15:36And so in my eyes, what I do is when it comes to sales and when it comes to marketing, I identify people within my network or within my businesses that we're servicing that are strategic distribution partners. So if I know that a client could probably refer me to 10 people, they get extra effort because ultimately I know they refer me to 10 people. So they're essentially a distribution partner to me. So the way I look at it is I try to find distribution partners. And I try my best to work with organizations that I actually think are going to be distribution partners. So when you work with venture capital, it's a great example.

16:09They have multiple portfolio companies. When you work with private equity, same thing. They have multiple partners. If you're working in insurance companies, you could potentially think the clients of the insurance company could be your distribution partner. So sorry, your future client. So this whole idea is, you know, I say that everything's referral, but it's really much a very strategic referral marketing deployment strategy where, again, I'm looking for these points of influence. And the way I look at it is like they're pseudo partners, pseudo distribution points, and then I market towards those people.

16:42um and so i do essentially abm like account-based marketing around those individuals so that they i i retain kind of mental convenience with them and uh and and generally speaking they they find me and they and they hire us um so demand generation all that kind of stuff we don't do too much um we do do a ton of content creation so i i am on this guest uh this this podcast i'm on a bunch of other podcasts now i also have my own content creation channel um so we are doing a lot more of that and we have seen some fruit from that effort. We don't do any specific emailing just because marketing historically is actually the most sensitive service to email, cold email.

17:22Yes, right. Yeah. You've heard that too. Most people hate marketers. So we don't do too much of that. And then conferences. Yeah. Nathan, your website is findyouraudience.online. Who should be reaching out, connecting and like, what are those next steps that they're listening to our conversation? Maybe they did a search on you. They found this podcast. They've been listening to our conversation and now they're ready for kind of that next step. Yeah. What would that be? I think you can just truthfully just go to the website and you can just book a meeting. We have a, we have a button on the top, right, where you can go ahead and you get access to my Calendly link.

18:02You can even just go find me on LinkedIn, add me on LinkedIn and ask me a quick question. Or if you're really bored, you can go find me on fya.marketingbytes with a Y on Instagram and watch videos until hopefully I sell you that I'm intelligent enough to maybe help you. But, you know, realistically, I think it could be as simple as a meeting, but it really depends on where you are in your marketing journey. If you're really looking for just some high level advice, I recommend taking that discovery call because probably in that 30 minutes, I'm going to help you more than, you know, you doing research for four hours.

18:32Yeah. Nathan Young, again, founder of Find Your Audience, fractional CMO, your website, findyouraudience.online. Nathan, it's been great having you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Josh.

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