On this episode of the Digital Marketing with Bill Hartzer podcast, I spoke with Naira Perez from SpringHill Digital. We talked about paid media, creating audiences, defining your audience, and potential customers. We also talked about budgets for social media ads when just starting out, and the difference between social paid media, search engine paid media, and native advertising.
Below is the transcript from the podcast:
Bill Hartzer (00:00):
Hi, this is Bill Hartzer. And this is the digital marketing podcast with Bill Hartzer, for Thursday, September 17th, 2020. And today I have the pleasure of having Naira Perez here from SpringHill Digital. She’s the founder of Springhill Digital, a paid search and paid social media agency. So tell me a little bit about yourself and you know, how you got into the industry and, and your backgrounds.
Naira Perez (00:31):
Yes. Thank you, bill. Thank you for having me. I’m very excited to be here and chatting with you. Yes, so I’m the founder of SpringHill Digital, where we help small and medium businesses to have an effective digital advertising campaigns through social media. Like you said, through Google ads, Bing ads, basically search engine, marketing and advertising. We specialize also in startups. We help them get started in ads. And I mentioned that because I love small businesses and that’s why I started the SpringHill Digital. Originally when I entered the industry of advertising, it was through infomercials and they liked to consumer. So most commonly TV ads obviously, but also radio and print ads and anything that had an 800 number attached to it. We would do it. And what that would generate was every day, we will get the number of calls and orders, and we wouldn’t even be able to hear this correct.
Naira Perez (01:45):
And, and how the reps and the customers talk. So we knew what was working and what’s not working. And we could change our tactics in real time. And I say real time back in the day, it was more like weeks or even a month where now is instantly. So whenever I made the transition to digital, it was just a natural, it was, it was a natural progression that also was fantastic because we went to real time. It truly was. At anytime I could look at how my ads were performing and make changes on the spot. So I have a background in logistics, so I love optimizing. I love, you know, finding the most effective way to do something. So for me, numbers are a fantastic thing to play with. So after being in, in the infomercial agency and then in digital agencies I decided to start SpringHill Digital because I found out that it’s smaller clients have small budgets and they tend to get lost in big agencies. They just cannot solve the problems of smaller clients, just simply because their budgets are small, but their needs are big. So that’s when I decided that SpringHill Digital should be created just to help these kind of clients help them get started, help them get to medium size and even bigger size. And then after that, you know, they won’t get lost anymore.
Bill Hartzer (03:30):
Sure. I have been in the internet marketing or internet industry since the nineties and the first real, I remember banner ads and, you know, trying to get clicks to websites. And then I guess the first evolution really was, was you know bidding on keywords with, you know, with, with overture and goto.com and, you know, then, then Google and Google launched on Google AdWords and so forth. And, you know, then we just now Google Ads, you know, that was basically what we’d call keyword advertising, a lot of people just ended up calling it Google Ads, but now we have three different types of advertising on the web or the main three ones, not only just we have the search engine, search engine ads or pay-per-click we’ve got social paid media and search engine pay-per-click and then we also have native advertising. So can you explain the difference between social paid media and search engine paid media and native advertising?
Naira Perez (04:46):
Yeah, absolutely. So the social paid media, which will include the big ones as well as small ones, but the big one will be Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, which is more of a professional social media platform and includes Twitter. I mean, we could go on and on and on. So the social media ones the difference is I know the audience, the audience is there for a certain topic that they want to talk about. They want to go into a professional development. They want to connect with their friends, they need Instagram, they just want to see their friends watch videos. So, or in YouTube, they just want to learn how to use or watch programs. So in that sense, it’s a very passive medium where I’m interrupting their programming with my ads. They’re there for another reason that is not me.
Naira Perez (05:48):
They’re not looking for me. And I’m right in the middle, like, Hey, you know, you have a problem. I can solve it. This is my ground, or enticing them with an offer. So the, the good thing about social page, social media is that actually I can target them very well. The audience definition is amazing. I can, I know that that person is a man between the ages of 20 and 40, that likes sports et cetera, et cetera. I can really do a good job at targeting. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know that he is John’s me. I just know he has a profile and therefore he’s interested in these things, which are related to my brand. So the message is going to make sense. I don’t, I don’t know if it’s the time for him to listen to my message.
Naira Perez (06:50):
I don’t know if he is actually looking for a solution to the problem I’m solving with my product, but I know that if he were, it will be him. If he was, then it will be fantastic. So let’s say snow tires, he may be summer and he may not, he may not need the snow tires then, but if I can fit the profile of a person that may be using an area that is prone to snow, and I can guess, you know, certain characteristics of his demographic, he likes cars. Maybe he has a car, blah, blah, blah, he’s on of the driving age. Then, then I will tell him about snow tires, even though he’s not looking for snow tires. On the other hand, we have Google ads as an example, and I say, Google ads, I can say being ads, I can take Yahoo ads.
Naira Perez (07:42):
Those are intention base. In that sense, these people are looking for something, but I don’t know as well who they are. So in this no tire example, I actually know they’re typing, searching. I mean, you can do these play, but searching as an example for snow tires or they’re searching for is snow levels in the mountain or so I know there’s an intention behind it that relates to my product and therefore I can serve them my ad, but I don’t know if he was the 10 year old making a paper on it’s knowing them on times or if it was the dad or if it was the mom, I don’t know as well who they are, as I know it in social media, but I do know they’re looking for something really specific that actually my product, these related to, so the audience matters.
Naira Perez (08:39):
That’s what we’re saying. They audience matter. And then native advertising, there is a lot of types, the ones that we do we do through Taboola and they have a lot of publishers which we’ll put ads in their websites mainly. The ones that we see a lot is news sources, news websites. So you read their articles and at the bottom, there is other articles. They look like articles, but they are ads. And so they kind of blend in with the content. So those ads are also very passive because people are there to read the news and then they find your ad. And if you entice them enough, if you actually have content that they will be interested in, then they will click in it. So in that sense, there is some targeting actually double uses a lot of third party demographic collectors. So I can target very well, but it is not as good as social media that’s for sure. And social media gives you a lot of formats that you can use that are really good, that can make your product look really, really amazing to the audience. And you can explain it better. So those are the difference. It really depends on the audience and the intent.
Bill Hartzer (10:08):
Sure. So you mentioned the audience though, obviously that is going to be critical for a lot of these, any just about any advertising or even creating the message on messaging on your website and the landing pages that they get to and defining that audience and, and knowing exactly. Okay, well, who’s my ideal customer. And having either that defined for one audience or multiple different types of customers, but that your customers and that is going to be critical for a lot of the stuff on the web. Yeah. You know, not just for SEO and, and, and creating, you know, the messaging and, and creating the copy and the text on your website and so forth, but also defining, you know, that audience is, is critical for, you know, for, let’s say for Facebook advertising, because, you know, we don’t want to necessarily necessarily just target, you know, very broadly because we have that option to get into that demographic.
Bill Hartzer (11:23):
The only, I guess the only situation where we may want to open it up, you know, a little bit more, and, you know, he had more people is that, you know, maybe you’re a restaurant and you want to, you know, get in and you target one particular city or one, you know, where the restaurant is located within say a certain distance and, you know, you target, then you show those ads to everybody who is located in that city that, you know, otherwise still you know, that defining in, taking the time to define that audience is going to be, cause it’s going to be critical.
Naira Perez (12:06):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And even, even within that audience, I would say, unless he makes it super, super small, if you have a restaurant if you’re a high end restaurant, then you want, you want to go with people that actually buy it, you know, Neiman Marcus, or like Nordstrom, or, you know, you, you want to reach the person that is going to come to your restaurant. And instead of the person that is going to buy that doesn’t care as much about the food or the experience. And then we’ll just go to McDonald’s and get them more or burger on the fine. So, but but you’re completely right. You need to really research your audience. And we actually use a lot of that SEO research that you made to make your website rank and to make your website and rally around for search engine.
Naira Perez (12:58):
We use a lot of that too. Also they find our audience and vice versa when SpringHill Digital we do, that’s what differentiates as a lot of it is times with all their competitors. Is that the fact that we take time to look at your Allianz, we do look at who is it that you want to reach and who would be the most receptive to your message because that at the end of the day call me a dreamer. But I think that advertising could be a useful tool for people to find solutions to their problems. The only thing is we have to make advertising relevant and just target the right person. That’s when, when you actually are solving problems with your product. So we actually go and look at how people are talking about a certain topic. We had a client that was an example that was talking about very technical terms and talking about it was about, it was about babies and talking about the attachment and how moms will analyze that the attachment of their kid, if they sleep trained or something like that short, well, moms don’t think in those terms, they are thinking about that topic, but moms will think, well, my kids love me less.
Naira Perez (14:17):
If I sleep train, they’re not thinking about the attachment. I don’t talk to other moms about, well, then the attachment will be affected. So whenever we’re making ads, whenever we’re making blog posts, whenever we’re talking to those people, we should always talk in their language and just talk about, well, no, your, your kid will still love you, but, you know, or don’t worry about these part, you know, look at these other things. So, but that comes with, as an example, a trick that we use is we go to Amazon and look at topic books that talk about those topics and just read the reviews of the people that have read them. Then we found out questions that they have. Then we find out the key language that they’re using the words, which then we’ll use for Google ads, or we use for SEO. And, and just make a really, really complete picture of how these person looks in the, in their life. And what is that worries them. And what are the problems that they have?
Bill Hartzer (15:25):
Sure. There is a great feature. That is part of Facebook is kind of lookalike audience where you can take your current customer list or current email list data from, you know, names, addresses, phone numbers, email, and upload that list. And then certainly one option is to market and target thoroughly in Facebook, you can target your current customer base maybe offer them a promotion or a coupon or something like that. But also they have this lookalike audience where they’ll take the demographics information from that particular list that you upload and then find other people who are in the same age group and the same demographics essentially. And essentially lookalike audience.
Naira Perez (16:34):
Yeah, it’s a fantastic feature. I’m glad that you mentioned it. Yes, lookalike audiences are great. You, like you explained, you just stopped load a list of customers and then the algorithm will create a persona or a profile of, of who is your customer because Facebook’s platform has so many data points on each one of us that they just find the most common and create a profile. And then once that’s created, then it goes out into the platform and looks at people and search for people that meet that profile. So in a way it’s very effective. However, I would say, you need to plan ahead and look at what do you want them to do, because it’s not the same to look at customers which are going to purchase then leads or news feed subscribers. So upload the right list.
Naira Perez (17:40):
A lot of companies have many lists. You have your subscribers, you have your customers, you have your repeat customers. So make sure that what you want them to do, then that you select the proper list and you clean up that list. Cause there’s nothing more frustrating than having a dirty list, clean up the list, upload it, and then create campaigns based on who those customers were and what you want them to do. A very a very wrong thing to do will be to just put newsfeed subscribers or newsletter subscribers. They are there to get information from you, but they may never purchase. They may be great for email, but that’s about it. So if you expect those news those subscribers to actually buy you’re going to be various appointed and you’re going to create a lookalike audience that is totally wrong.
Naira Perez (18:38):
However, if you want them to purchase, then you get the customers and that’s and create the offer according to what you want them to do. Again, that planning that goes on top is key because not only lookalikes, you can have, you can tell Facebook to just see who interacted with your page and create an audience of who interacted with your page, or that watch 10% of the video or 50% of the video that you posted, or, you know, there’s so many fantastic options. That’s why, you know, in my mind, Facebook is the pioneer in targeting and it’s amazing what they have done. But it can be overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re doing and you don’t plan for it.
Bill Hartzer (19:27):
Yes. And also, you’ve mentioned a newsletter subscriber, that it could actually also be your competitors might actually be subscribed to your newsletter and then your advertising basically to your competitors and showing your messaging as well. So you don’t really know exactly, unless you have a lot of additional information about those newsletter subscribers, you know, it could be you know, we don’t actually know. And they also think, I’d like to invite, to also point out is that, that’s all good for starting, but it’s critical that as you go forward, you’re watching your conversions, you’re watching which advertising mediums are performing better. And others, because, if you do Facebook and Instagram, you might have more sales or more conversions on Instagram than Facebook or vice versa.
Bill Hartzer (20:37):
You know, the same thing with just the Google PPC ads that vary on a regular basis that you need to go in and see which keywords for example are converting better than others. And if certain keywords are not converting well or have never had a conversion in six months then maybe you need to adjust your budget on certain campaigns, certain keywords, certain Facebook campaigns may need to be adjusted. Know then obviously we can see with conversions, you can see, the average age group. And it may be if you’re advertising between people that are 18 to 65, but only people 50 to 65 are actually buying, then you may want to adjust as well.
Naira Perez (21:40):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I say if, if a company has, if a brand has more than one channel, then they’re using the other layer is to see how the relationship between them. Because sometimes if you have Facebook, it raises awareness. And then people look for you at some other point in, you know, in Google and then they’re serving that. And then they convert in Google, but the first time they saw you was in Facebook. So we need to really be aware of all that relationship, but absolutely, especially with a small budget, you have to optimize and you have to watch where are the campaigns performing the best and just AB test all the time. If I turn Facebook off, is my Google going to be affected? If it’s not, then there’s no relationship fine. Normally everything is related because now audiences can jump from one channel to another very quickly looking for information. So more than likely they’re all related. But if you have a small budgets, then I get these questions all the time, which channels should I go to? And it just depends. And you have to analyze what works for you. That’s wearable. Maybe then you take a professional that can do that for you, because you want to run your business. You want to make bread. You don’t want to have to deal with Facebook and Google ads.
Bill Hartzer (23:08):
So one final question here is, how much do you recommend spending on spending? I mean, can we start off with a very, very small budget and go from there? Or should we, yeah. How much would you recommend? Maybe we’re a small business with a couple of employees, how do we figure that out?
Naira Perez (23:35):
Yes, that’s a good question. One that I get a lot. So if you’re going to do it yourself and you’re not going to pay anybody else, then I would say, reserve, at least a thousand dollars gives you a lot of wiggle room, a thousand dollars a month. And that gives you a lot of wiggle room, but I have clients that I thousand dollars is too much for them. And so they spend much less. When are you do that? Know that you’re going to have to be patient because it’s going to take more time to get results. Facebook, as an example, there I’ll go to them, needs 50, 50, 50 conversions, whatever you find that conversion to be 50 conversions in a seven day span to actually just learn and know how to duplicate that success and look for the people. So know that we have those thresholds that we have to go through.
Naira Perez (24:25):
So, but I have clients that are spending, you know, 10, $15 a day, and that’s much less than a thousand dollars. But they are they’re they’re patient. They just want to build brand. They want to get some orders on the side, but that they know is going to take time. So now if you want professionals on the on your side, then you’re going to have to double that at a minimum. Especially if they do create it for you, then you go even higher. So in a year I would, I would say you have to reserve at least $25,000 in a year, if you want to hire a professional and paid the platform side, actually. And there’s many levels of professionals obviously, but that’s, that’s what I would, I tell people now sometimes we can make with less and sometimes we start with less than, than grow and then go over that. It just depends on each situation and what you want out of the ads and setting realistic expectations is what you should, you should do for your campaigns or a professional should tell you like, this is where it will take you these budget. But yeah, there is small campaigns that work really well. And there are others that need a lot of optimization and a lot of time because they’re so small.
Bill Hartzer (25:51):
Well, great. So thank you for spending this half hour with me, here on the podcast. How can we get in touch with you if we have any more questions or want to hire you to help us with our campaigns?
Naira Perez (26:08):
Yes. Thank you. So we can go to our website, it’s Spring Hill digital.com. And then actually there, you can contact us or even you could just download a planning guide that we have, that it’s free. If you decide to do it on your own or try it on your own, we have things not to forget to plan for as an example, well, different formats for your creative or you know, don’t forget the CTA, that call to action. Things like that. It’s a three, so it should be really completed, then it will get you off in a good start. So just SpringHill Digital right there on the homepage.
Bill Hartzer (26:53):
Okay. Thank you very much for spending this time with me this afternoon. The website is Spring Hill Digital.com. Niara Perez. Thanks again. This is the digital marketing podcast with Bill Hartzer for September 17th, 2020. Thanks again for spending some time with me. Thanks.
Naira Perez (27:13):
Thank you.
You can connect with Naira Perez and Springhill Digital through their website: https://www.springhilldigital.com
