Timbo Reid on Push vs Pull marketing
Tim Reid is a marketing coach, prolific speaker, podcaster, blogger and author, specialising in business marketing. He contributes to his own podcasts and heaps of other sites, blogs and magazines.
With 20 years experience in corporate marketing, his practical experience underpins his speaking and writing popularity. Among all these other things, Tim is the founder and host of Australia’s #1 marketing podcast Small Business Big Marketing with a global audience across 94 countries.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbHZs1DK6Nc&rel=0&w=560&h=315]
Transcript
Adam Franklin: Hi there, so it’s Adam Franklin and I’m here with Tim Reid, host of Australia’s number one marketing podcast, Small Business, Big Marketing. He’s also the host of Australia’s most popular internet marketing training podcast, Freedom Ocean. He’s the author of the book Cha-Ching, and a popular keynote speaker. Welcome, Timbo.
Tim Reid: G’day, Adam. How are you?
Adam Franklin: Very well, thank you. Okay, are you ready?
Tim Reid: About as I’ll ever be.
Adam Franklin: Fantastic. Now, there’s a lot of…
Tim Reid: I feel a little bit under dressed.
Adam Franklin: Well, maybe I’m overdressed, Tim. It’s all good.
Tim Reid: Exactly.
Adam Franklin: …So there’s a lot of talk at the moment about content marketing versus traditional marketing. Now what do you see the difference being? And then, what does effective content marketing look like?
Push vs Pull marketing
Tim Reid: Right. So, two simple words here. Push and pull. That’s three words, but – push, pull. So, you know, old school marketing was all about pushing out content on unsuspecting prospects in the hope that they would buy, at least knock on your shop door, give you a ring, send you an email.
And, you know, advertising, sponsorship, direct marketing, letter box drops, that type of stuff is what we call push marketing. And there’s an absolute role for it. It’s worked, it’s worked a treat, for decades. And, you know, in some cases better than others. And having worked in advertising for, you know like, 15 years, I know a lot. I’ve done a lot of push marketing, but then along comes the internet, and it produces this concept of pull. Of pulling people towards us.
By the way, the internet wasn’t kind of the creator of content marketing, because content marketing’s all the same. People have been writing books for years, you know? But, this concept of pull marketing is where you pull people towards you because you are providing information that makes them go, “Huh. This guy knows what he’s talking about. He seems to know / she seems to know a lot about their particular industry”, and it’s kind of based… For me, content marketing, Adam, is based on the premise that every single one of us – you, me, anyone listening to this as a small business owner – is standing on a mountain of knowledge. We all know a lot about what it is we do. And we have a choice.
We can either go, “You know what, I’m just going to hold it close to my chest, and share it piecemeal,” or, you know, “I’m going to share it openly. I’m going to share my knowledge openly, via a podcast, via a blog, via speaking from stage, via a book, via a forum, via a mass amount group, and in doing so, position myself as an expert, and pull people towards me in the hope that at some point, they’re going to go, ‘Geez, what have you got that I can buy from you?’ ”
Content. Content. Content
Adam Franklin: And then, Tim, what are some of the common mistakes you see as people try and make this shift into content marketing?
Tim Reid: These wonderful channels for people like you and I – exactly what we’re doing now – to get our message out into the marketplace…
Given that that’s the case, there’s lots more people doing it. It’s pretty easy to create a podcast now, you know? The beautiful Blue Yeti, you know? The MacBook Pro. Skype. Skype Call Recorder. Happy days, you know? It’s pretty easy to write a book now and get it published, on Amazon using a website like LuLu. It’s pretty easy. Video marketing, because you know, we’ve got the best video camera going around in our pockets.
So there’s a whole lot more people doing it, Adam. So, the trap I’m seeing is that the quality of their content lacks. They go, ‘Ripper. I can do video marketing‘. And then they go, ‘Oh, hang on. What do I have to say if I hit the record button?‘ And that’s just a classic marketing principal, a classic… A classic, like, marketing wake-up call, I call them, is this: Get your message right first, before you worry about where to put it.
Okay? Video, blogging, podcasting, write a book, whatever. It really depends on what’s your thing. Do you like looking down the barrel of a camera, do you like writing, do you like talking into a microphone? They’re easy decisions: What have you got to say? is the harder decision.
Top three tips
Adam Franklin: Sure. So, Tim, if you were in charge of a fast growth business – like many of Bluewire Media’s clients – what would your approach to marketing be? And what are some of your top tips, I guess, to achieve the biggest wins to kick-start that marketing momentum?
Tim Reid: Okay, so, let me understand that question clearly. So, if you were embarking on a serious marketing campaign, what are, kind of, my top threes? Is that kind of where you’re…
Adam Franklin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your top three tips.
Tim Reid: Okay. Let me ask, Bluewire clients: marketing savvy? Put you on the spot here, you’ve got to be careful what you say. Marketing savvy, or looking for real guidance?
Adam Franklin: Marketing savvy, looking to make that shift into the internet world and the digital world and to apply a lot of their marketing principles that have worked well offline, but make that transition online.
Tim Reid: Okay. So, number one, what I’ve already said, which is get your message right first before you worry about where to put it. And what I mean by that – and messages like verbal message, written message, spoken message, you don’t want to go completely, you know, off the radar. Look, smell, sound, touch, you know, play to the senses. Every one of our senses takes in messages, and so – what messages do we put out to appeal to the senses? Because marketing’s emotional. And the more we can appeal to people’s senses, the more emotional connection we can get with our consumers – our prospects, our customers – the more likely they’re going to be drawn towards us, pull marketing, and they’re going to stay with us.
So, build a brand. Part of message creation is spend the necessary time building a brand. Know what it is you do, how you do it, who your best mates are, what’s the personality you want to get across in your messages? You’ve just got to know that stuff. Once you know that stuff… actually get really specific here, Adam, and say, go and have your website designed and written completely like, because the websites, and they already may have that, but review it in the light of the work you’ve done on your brand.
Your website is the place where the most information can live about your business. Now that doesn’t mean you should have a million pages, although that would be pretty cool, because that means you’re getting a lot of stuff indexed by, you know, the all-powerful Google, but what it does mean is: Get your message right on your website – your words, your copy, your images, your video, your audio, all that type of stuff.
You are who Google says you are.
Because once you’ve got your website sorted, your website’s home base for all the other marketing activity: social media, video marketing, and all the above-the-line activity that you’re doing, you’ve got a brochure out in the marketplace, you’ve got a radio campaign, or you’re speaking from stage. People are going to go and check you out online. You are who Google says you are, you know? And they are going to come in and check. They’re going to go… Look, in an ideal world they’re going to ring you and say, ‘Where do I sign? Who do I give the money to?‘ In the real world, they’re going to go and check you out on your website. So, message first, medium second, get your website sorted, and then, you know, there’s a great saying that ‘you’re online and you’ve just got a website‘, and I love that because most small business owners think they’re online because they’ve got a website, and that’s just not the truth, that’s not true anymore. That’s 10 years ago, you know?
You’re online and you’ve just got a website.
Being online now has means like an online strategy that has a whole lot of channels feeding into your website, whatever it be, social media’s one of them, you know? Like, everyone wants to have the social media conversation, it bores me, you know? It’s a bit of a… It’s a bit of a bright, shiny object. It’s important: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google Plus, Pinterest, they’re not going away. But, they can take… There are a lot of small business owners who think that they are the silver bullet for their marketing, and they’re not. That can be a real distraction and real let down.
So if you’re going to choose a social media channel, choose wisely. Choose wisely, based on the fact that you are going to be able to commit to keeping it up with current content, useful content, and be in it for the long haul. Because, you know, social media is just people having conversations online. That’s all it is. It’s, you know, forget re-pins, and likes, and re-tweets, and hash tags, just worry about the fact that it’s people having conversations online, and the same rules apply offline as they do online. So, there you go.
Social media is just people having conversations online, and the same rules apply offline as they do online.
Adam Franklin: That’s fantastic, Tim. Thank you for that. And I totally agree, ‘you are what Google says you are’, and, you know, that’s one of the most important things, is that people are going to be Googling you once they’ve met you, once they hear about you, once they get your business card.
So, where can people find out more about Tim Reid? The Ideas Guy, the number one podcaster, and the number one keynote speaker?
Tim Reid: That’s the best question you have ever asked.
Adam Franklin: Well, thank you.
Tim Reid: Well planned, well asked. So, timreid.com.au, if they want to book me for a keynote, which is what I do a lot of. 2013 is my year of the keynote and workshops. So head over there and if you want to listen to Australia’s No. 1 marketing show, then head over to smallbusinessbigmarketing.com, and every Tuesday I put out an interview. I call them ‘fireside chats’, where I have a fireside chat with a successful small business owner that I reckon is cranking some aspect of their marketing. And they go for about 40 minutes an episode. I’ve been doing that for three years. Love it.
Adam Franklin: Thanks everso mate. In the time it takes to drive into work, or go for a run or catch the bus somewhere, listen to Tim Reid’s awesome podcast. Thank you so much, Timbo.
Tim Reid: Love your work, Adam. Thanks, mate, for having me.
Adam Franklin: It’s a pleasure, thank you. Okay, thanks for that, mate.
Tim Reid: Sweet.
Connect
Connect with Tim Reid via his website – timreid.com.au and smallbusinessbigmarketing.com. On Twitter, he’s @TimboReid. Tim is also The Ideas Guy – www.theideasguy.com.
