Ep 98 Transcript: Stop Boosting Posts and Start Scaling Your Business With Smart Paid Ads with Britt Holmes
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.
00:01:47:15 - 00:02:21:12
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today I'm joined by Britt Holmes, founder of Merritt Media Inc. now, Britt is a paid advertising strategist with nearly 14 years of experience in digital marketing, including over a decade leading campaigns in corporate environments. Though she's managed millions of dollars in ad spend across Google, Meta and LinkedIn, she's been helping service based and women led businesses to grow with clarity, with ethics, and with measurable results.
00:02:21:15 - 00:02:54:03
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
And she's known for making ads feel clear and doable without all the hype, and helping founders to build ad strategies that actually support sustainable growth. So, Britt, welcome to the show.
*Britt Holmes*
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I am thrilled to have you on here. And we talked about this a little bit before we hit record, about how excited I am to have an expert like yourself talking about paid ads, because I got to tell you, I can't even explain how often my clients will ask me a simple question or quote simple question for anyone who doesn't see the video version right now.
00:02:54:03 - 00:03:09:03
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
This is air quotes that I'm saying here. And they'll they'll say to me like, do you think I should do some ads in this question for my clients? You think I should do some ad, some paid ads on Facebook? I'm seen what an Instagram ad, her Facebook ad. What do you think about that? I like well, that's that's a loaded question.
00:03:09:03 - 00:03:34:23
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
Like, there's only so much I need to like when I ask about their strategy, they're like, I don't know. I just thought, like, I just create like a post and I would just do it as an ad. So you spent 14 plus years in ads, you've managed millions and ads, then what do you think is the biggest misconception that business owners have when it comes to paid advertising?
00:03:34:25 - 00:03:55:18
*Britt Holmes*
There's a lot, but I'd say like one of the top ones is that people treat ads as a solution to all of their problems. It's like I've had clients like even on the corporate side where they're like, we bought this business in Sweden and now we're going to run it here. Can you just do ads? I'm like, yeah, what's the URL for your website?
00:03:55:18 - 00:04:19:24
*Britt Holmes*
And they're like, oh no, we don't have a website. I'm like, well, we should we should grow a website if we'd want to drive. You know, traffic to it. So there's definitely a lot going on. I'm definitely a person that again, I've worked with large budgets and now I work with more smaller businesses because I like people that actually really care about improving the world and stuff like that.
00:04:19:24 - 00:04:37:08
*Britt Holmes*
But one of the biggest, there's three criteria that I kind of work with. Before I agreed to take on a client to work with us. One of them is and some of them kind of go like, how is this related to ads? But I think that this is kind of how I answer the question of like, should people be writing ads or not?
00:04:37:11 - 00:04:57:07
*Britt Holmes*
When do you have an online social media presence? Not because I'm like, you know, you have to be an influencer or anything like that, but simply social media is like a fact checking tool, right? So if we're spending money and people are, you know, seeing your ads, clicking your ads, we also want to make sure that we have given them that full picture.
00:04:57:07 - 00:05:21:20
*Britt Holmes*
So there's a greater likelihood of them converting. The other thing, obviously they need to have a website and one that's already converting, meaning it's already doing our desired action because if it's broke, putting money in it isn't going to fix it.
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
So we can send more traffic, but more traffic doesn't mean more conversions. Exactly. Unless it's already converting.
00:05:21:20 - 00:05:46:16
*Britt Holmes*
Yeah, exactly. So it's like your tool, your website has to already be going and working for you. And the third thing is just just being comfortable with investing some into the ads. Because sometimes, you know, it's not an immediate overnight success. Like you can definitely get traffic in quickly. You can get some high cost or higher cost conversions, that type of thing.
00:05:46:16 - 00:06:05:11
*Britt Holmes*
But we need to see some commitment financially. Not like I'm not talking tens of thousands. But you know, sir, you have to be prepared to yeah.
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
You to be prepared for some of your money to not. What am I trying to say here. The analytics, the the data like retrieving data as opposed to actually converting you into new clients like it's a learning experience.
00:06:05:11 - 00:06:24:10
*Britt Holmes*
Yeah. Yes for sure. And there's definitely a learning phase. And we do our best to get out of it as quickly as possible. But those are kind of the three criteria that like moving forward, you can tell clients have social media, have a website that works. Be ready to spend some money. And I would even when I talk to my clients, I actually back that up.
00:06:24:10 - 00:06:52:09
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
Just one more step. But it leads into exactly what you were talking about it. But a website that converts is if you don't know exactly who your clients are, if you don't have the messaging and language to be able to connect with your clients, you're just wasting money on an ad. If your ad is just as flowery, like, hey, look what I do, but doesn't have an actual call to action or something that's going to really engage someone and capture their attention, that it's not going to matter.
00:06:52:09 - 00:07:09:19
*Britt Holmes*
So you need to know who you're targeting and what it is that they're looking for from you, or from a company like yours before even getting into producing the ads. So I don't get again, it's just the step before the website like you were talking about. But this is something that I say to my clients all the time, but they feel like they're going to figure it out if they do the ads.
00:07:09:21 - 00:07:40:06
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
Like, yeah, have you ever had someone say, look, I just want to test messaging. Do you ever do that in ads?
*Britt Holmes*
So this is the thing. So the truth behind it is, is that you actually get cost savings from vendor platforms being Meta, LinkedIn and Google. If your messaging is cohesive across the entire journey. So, for example, you know, if we're looking at Google Ads, if you see a keyword and then that keyword is also reflected in your ad messaging, which then is on your landing page, it's actually more cost efficient.
00:07:40:08 - 00:08:04:16
*Britt Holmes*
So I prefer to have clients, you know, who call up your copywriter, book an hour and have them just roast your website, you know, spending $300 or whatever to get that messaging clear is a better use of that investment then playing a little bit of ad roulette. So I kind of like, you know, I like to see the messaging on the website and then we support it.
00:08:04:16 - 00:08:26:02
*Britt Holmes*
We usually would say, hey, like we'll give feedback when we first onboard our clients be like, this isn't quite the flow that we need. Or hey, this contact form is ridiculous. Like people aren't going to give you 30 pieces of detail about that, but eat the six you see, honestly. But it's just like people want less friction. So it's like as quickly as we can be, like, pretend.
00:08:26:04 - 00:08:47:03
*Britt Holmes*
What we always say is like when you're entering a website and you're like, I want to drive traffic here. Pretend you know nothing about this. And it's like, if you can't convince somebody from that one landing spot to do whatever you want them to do, you need to fix that first before ads are going to do anything. So like, people will be like, oh yeah, it's just a contact form.
00:08:47:03 - 00:09:12:18
*Britt Holmes*
I'm like, what are you selling right now? Like, we need to talk about that first before you think people are just going to, you know, give away their entire life to you.
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
So yeah, I will say I mean, people are reluctant to even give up an email address these days. We've been so overloaded with all these free resources that realistically, especially in the times of AI, I can ask ChatGPT to answer the questions that you just said you were solving in your free PDF.
00:09:12:18 - 00:09:30:26
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
So it's really got to be compelling for me to give up my email address because my inbox I was offline last week for about an hour, open up my inbox and said you have 100 new emails. I like why it's the noon hour. And of course it doesn't mean I had 100 emails that I actually had to pay attention to.
00:09:30:28 - 00:09:46:20
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
And I've been getting better, I thought at my unsubscribe. And yet for every unsubscribe I do, I seem to land on ten more emails, you know, so it's people get very protective now of their inbox. So if they're not even willing to give an email address, they're certainly not going to give you their all the details about themselves.
00:09:46:20 - 00:10:06:16
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
That also can come across as like we we use those details, not we, but hackers use those details to try to get into your account. So you only want to get so personal with things if you start asking them like what their first childhood pet's name was or what street they lived on when they were growing up, like, now we're going to have a problem, so they're going to be a little bit protective of their privacy for sure.
00:10:06:18 - 00:10:30:05
U*Shauna Lynn Simon*
So going back to that, that landing page, so whatever it is that we're doing, for some people it's just a freebie for some people that just trying to collect some leads, like everyone has a different goal with what they want that campaign to do. What do you need to what needs to be true about your offer before you start spending money on the ads, whether it's a freebie or something that you're asking for money for?
00:10:30:09 - 00:10:53:19
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
And I guess that's the other question too, though, is should your ad be trying to sell something or should be trying to give something for sure? So I, I like to say that I'm a cheap marketer, meaning that you'll have to convince me very hard to work with you. If you're like, for example, you're selling a course that's like under $5, or if it's a freebie.
00:10:53:19 - 00:11:20:27
*Britt Holmes*
I don't like working with that because it sets up a really hard dynamic for satisfaction with our clients. So the reason I stay away from those and I'll say, you know, there's lots of other providers that are willing to drive, like, have you pay to drive to a freebie or a newsletter list, or I've had people where they're like, I want to do that thing that's viral, where you sell one every course is a dollar, and I'm just going to become a millionaire.
00:11:20:27 - 00:11:46:17
*Britt Holmes*
And that's like my plan. I'm like, yeah, but like sometimes it's going to cost you $3 to get it clicks. So yes, course is one thing where the dollar you're -$2 and that's not including a management fee. So like you're never going to be happy with me. Like so it's I like to enter into relationships where I'm like, I know that the work that we do, I can drive growth in your business.
00:11:46:19 - 00:12:09:19
*Britt Holmes*
And direct growth in your business. So a lot of times what we're doing is like working with e-commerce brands, direct sales. We work with a lot of people within the health and wellness space. Again, direct client bookings like those two things, because I don't want you to be spending money on things where it's really like there's, you know, there can be success in anything.
00:12:09:19 - 00:12:34:26
*Britt Holmes*
But when you're set up against a way where you're working, where you potentially are losing $2 for every time you get a sale, I don't want to play that game. Like, now that I'm out of corporate, I really like to do good by people. And if I feel that it's not something that makes sense financially for you, even though it could make financial sense for me because I'm like, sweet, I'm getting paid to do this, I won't do it.
00:12:34:26 - 00:12:58:01
*Britt Holmes*
Because the reality is, is that I've worked really hard to build my reputation based on being strategically successful for our clients. I'm not willing to jeopardize that for making a quick buck, so I'm really not always the best marketer for that situation because I'm like, don't put me down for that. Like, I got off a discovery call two weeks ago and at the end of it, like, wow, you really made me work hard for this.
00:12:58:07 - 00:13:17:27
*Britt Holmes*
And I was like, we ended up re strategizing her entire plan, going from like, selling within a restricted category to promoting her podcast that was then making her money. Anyways, like we we ended up coming up with an amazing plan, but she's like, I've never worked so hard to have a service provider work with me because I kept being like, yeah, I'm not doing that.
00:13:18:01 - 00:13:44:26
*Britt Holmes*
She's like, well, what about this? No, like I don't want to deal with angry people anymore. Yeah. Well, they I've heard there's this cool word for like that. What is it? Integrity. Yeah, we did. You know, that has been very challenging in the online space. It can be. And I think this is a big thing is that it is really hard to find a marketer that you feel confident that you can trust because, yeah, almost anyone will take your money and say, yeah, I'll, I'll do some paid ads for you, no problem.
00:13:45:03 - 00:14:02:07
*Britt Holmes*
And I'll be honest, there was this was several years ago, and I worked with a few different companies on paid ads, and this is not turned me off of paid ads. Just to be clear on this, it's just made me much more mindful. Yeah. As the several years ago as well just made me much more mindful of kind of the ins and outs and do's and don'ts to it.
00:14:02:10 - 00:14:22:05
*Britt Holmes*
But I had one company where they were basically like, I need you to pay. It was like $500, just an ad spend. This wasn't even there. If it was 500, I was just an ad spend for a week for this super saturated area. Like this, this, this, or this very concentrated area of like this one particular city. Like we're not even talking an entire state or entire country.
00:14:22:07 - 00:14:42:02
*Britt Holmes*
And for what I was selling and the return on my investment, the number that I was thinking I was going to sell each month, I'm like, the math just doesn't make sense on this. And I kept pushing back on them and they kept basically give me the while. This is just how you do it kind of thing. I'm like and click like I'm done, like I don't I can't trust you on this, but, I it's funny as your eyes you've been talking.
00:14:42:02 - 00:15:02:20
U*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I have like all these questions that I want to ask, and I'm trying to like which ones the next one. I have to do that. Like either one of them could be. Next. I'm gonna go with the first one. The first one is you kind of touched on the fact that you don't want to sell something super inexpensive, and I will even say that I have done the $1 e-book, not in a paid ad, but I pay straight $0.65 on that one dollars.
00:15:02:20 - 00:15:27:24
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
So, like, I'm not making any actual money on it. It is intended to be more of a lead magnet, but at least like gets people to say like, yep, I'm gonna actually put in my credit card information for that. So they're the potential buyers, but it's not I wouldn't say there's a strategy, but that being said, what is sort of the sweet spot when it comes to the the the cost or the price that you're selling something for in an ad like, is there sort of a in this range?
00:15:27:24 - 00:15:48:21
*Britt Holmes*
It works really well, or can I sell like a $3,000 item in an ad or like what are we thinking is sort of that range for pricing? Yeah, I think honestly that is so specific to each industry. I you know, I've previously searched like sold luxury handbags before. And you know, those sell online because there's a market for it.
00:15:48:24 - 00:16:10:29
*Britt Holmes*
I've also sold $28 candles. So it's really dependent on the strategy and the investment. So one of the biggest things that I find as a challenge of like there's a lot of people in my space that have a lot less education than I do in terms of strategy, just because, you know, they take a course and now they're professionals at it, and that's great.
00:16:10:29 - 00:16:40:26
*Britt Holmes*
But, you know, one of the biggest things is making sure that the strategy makes sense for the budget that is available. So, for example, if you're if you're in a space and you're like, hey, look, I'm all I'm going to target an in the entire state of New York with $500. Obviously, I'm going to be successful. No, you're not, because if you're looking at that and dividing it out by population, that's kind of where the sticking point comes into play.
00:16:40:26 - 00:17:02:27
*Britt Holmes*
So a lot of times what we say our strategy is always start small stack wins and expand based on success, because it's a little easier for me to come and say, hey, Shauna Lynn, we're killing it. You know, we're getting for every dollar you're spending, we're getting 20. And we're at a point now where if you give us more money, we'll be able to get you more.
00:17:02:27 - 00:17:27:03
*Britt Holmes*
You're going to be like, hello? Yeah, take my money. Whereas if I'm saying, hey, Shauna Lynn, I want 30 grand and I'm just going to like, figure it out and then I'll like, I'll let you know in three months. You know, when you've spent 90 K what worked. So we like to build it based on we build our strategies so that they're successful based on who your current audience is.
00:17:27:03 - 00:17:49:21
*Britt Holmes*
Yeah. It's great. We want to take over the world. I 100% get it. I want to take on the world, too. But we start with what we know. We get cost savings, and then we grow based on our success because that is sustainable. Scaling. And that way, oftentimes I'm working with smaller businesses, and when they start running ads, they're terrified, right.
00:17:49:27 - 00:18:09:03
*Britt Holmes*
Because you have to pay the vendor. So you're Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google, but you also have to pay us to run it. Right. So it's terrifying because you're in a plus plus situation and you're really putting your trust on somebody and you're like, I don't even really know this person. I don't understand what's happening with this whole ads thing.
00:18:09:06 - 00:18:30:27
*Britt Holmes*
So we try to demystify that. We try to take a lot of that fear out, and we start small and grow. So that's kind of where I would suggest people go instead of thinking like, I'm just going to target the entire United States, think of what's working for me right now. And then once we we get that, we get it cost efficient.
00:18:30:27 - 00:18:52:07
*Britt Holmes*
So it's making sense financially, then we grow, then we take on new spaces of like, audiences, like, you know, if we're like, saying, oh, people in New York are really engaged with this. Now let's go to Pennsylvania because, you know, similar types of purchase like yours in this type of thing. So that's kind of our approach on average.
00:18:52:07 - 00:19:11:16
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
And I'm sure this varies depending on the company and the product and the market and everything else. But on average, like how much time would you say someone needs to feel comfortable investing in testing?
*Britt Holmes*
For sure. So what we say to our clients is we don't lock you into a contract. The way that we set up our fees.
00:19:11:16 - 00:19:31:23
*Britt Holmes*
We do a one time set up fee, which gets make sure that like your foundation is strong, it's unshakable. Your tracking is like you know where your money is going. But what we say to our clients is when we're signing them is come in with the mindset that you are committing to six months, not because I'm financially locking you into it.
00:19:31:23 - 00:19:55:18
*Britt Holmes*
It's the mental ability to be like, I'm going to allow this some time to figure it out, to make a strategic business decision for myself. So at the end of the day, I know whether ads work or do not work for my business because I can get results right away. But the game that we try to play is cost efficiency, which sometimes can take, you know, four, six, eight weeks.
00:19:55:20 - 00:20:20:12
*Britt Holmes*
And then I want to be able to scale that for you so that by the end of six weeks you're like, I've, I've gotten cost efficiency, I've grown it from where we started. And now how is this impacting my business? So it gives you more of that full holistic look at whether this strategy actually works. Because oftentimes, you know, again, it's a scary thing to do to invest right and on.
00:20:20:12 - 00:20:38:00
*Britt Holmes*
And sometimes we'll get customers like previously before I laid down the law of like hey, this is what we need to we need to be mentally prepared for that. You know, you have a month in and they're like, why am I not a millionaire? And it's like, I'm not magic. Like, I would love to be like, if that was the case.
00:20:38:01 - 00:21:01:11
*Britt Holmes*
Yeah, no, like, let's do it. But I think that it's kind of one of those things where it's challenging because you can get immediate results. But what we want to do is make sure that people are really making it cost efficiently. So that they have a sound judgment on whether it's good or not for them.
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I love that, and, you know, I want to dig a little bit further into some of the strategy for getting these ads started, and we're going to do that right after you take the short break.
00:21:56:18 - 00:22:15:27
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
All right, welcome back to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I'm here with Britt Holmes. She is a digital marketing paid ads specialist. And she's been all over the Meta platforms Google, LinkedIn, so she knows what it actually takes to make your, your business shine, through paid ads and so we've been talking about some of the decisions that you need to make when it comes to planning for your ads.
00:22:15:27 - 00:22:29:24
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
And one of the things we're just talking about is how Britt was saying, you were saying, Britt, that, you know, you want to you want your clients to anticipate potentially six months for these ads. To really give them time to work is not to say that you're not going to see results for six months, but to make that commitment.
00:22:29:27 - 00:22:53:02
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
Well, I will tell you that a good part of my audience is what I love to affectionately refer to as my accidental CEOs. So these are incredibly talented entrepreneurs who started with more passion than plan. And so part of what a lot of them tend to be inflicted with is what we call shiny object syndrome. And so things kind of, you know, change really quickly for us.
00:22:53:04 - 00:23:15:07
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
And one of the things that I have notoriously heard from clients when they first start working with me is marketing gets turned on and off for them. And it's something of course, we've talked about it numerous times on this show. I talk about in all of my coaching programs, that marketing is something that you don't you don't ever want to turn it off because you turn that tap off because what happens is like, oh my gosh, I have so many clients, I don't know what to do with them.
00:23:15:07 - 00:23:31:01
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I'm going to stop marketing because I don't want to get any more in. And then what happens is they finish up with those clients in the pipeline is dry and there is no one, no one in the peripherals are trying or in front of them in their past. So we want to make sure that we're continually keeping this going.
00:23:31:04 - 00:23:52:28
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
That said, I often hear from clients, well, I'm just going to run some ads to really quickly generate some quick leads. I can see your laugh it a little bit. So you're saying this is not a good strategy just to be cool? Honestly, you don't have to go off. You can turn it down. But like you said, you know, the worst thing that you can do is be completely out of leads.
00:23:52:28 - 00:24:14:00
*Britt Holmes*
That's never something that you want to do. You're starting back at zero. And the other thing too, is that people think, oh yeah, I'm just going to turn it on and turn off. You lose a lot of your authority when working with these platforms. When they see that you're a fairweather friend, they're like, no, you pay more. So we we do all this work for you and we get you into a cost efficiency.
00:24:14:00 - 00:24:35:17
*Britt Holmes*
And then you're like, I'm good. Now I'm done. I like cool next month when you have no leads, we're just going to have to start it all back over again. So we're negating any success that we've had by doing that. And the thing is, and I've told clients before is like, I work with a lot of therapists and they'll be like, oh, we'll like if, if we get full, like we'll just pause it.
00:24:35:17 - 00:24:55:00
*Britt Holmes*
I'm like, that's fine. If that's your decision. However, these are the precautions too, that also what's wrong with the waitlist? Because there's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. Thing is, is like people think like I personally am like I, you know, she want it. Got it. I'm that person. I always, you know, if I'm getting a car, I've already researched it.
00:24:55:00 - 00:25:14:27
*Britt Holmes*
I know every single one. I basically I bought my I just got a car recently. I walk in, I go, this is the Vin number, write up the deal. Not everybody is like that. Not everybody. Is that so? Just because you're talking to them now, it doesn't necessarily mean that that's the day they're going to close on that sale or, you know, become your client.
00:25:14:27 - 00:25:44:18
*Britt Holmes*
So everyone has a different cycle. And, you know, sometimes people are like, oh, I'm just figuring it out. But like have plans in September and, you know, it's January. So I think that it's naive to be like, I'm just going to shut it down completely, because the reality is that everybody, even though if you have like your ideal customer, like normally people purchase within this time frame, it doesn't necessarily mean everybody and yours, if you're not on consideration set, they're going to go with somebody else.
00:25:44:21 - 00:26:01:11
*Britt Holmes*
Even if you are the better person or you have the better product. So, right, it's kind of my approach is like we can turn it down but don't go offline. That's wrong. And people always want to see that you're busy.
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
So like there's nothing wrong with the waitlist, as you said. But I mean, I always use the example.
00:26:01:11 - 00:26:28:26
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I'm a runner and the hardest steps that I always take are those first ones after I've stopped. Whereas you will notice even, you know, when you watch marathons. There are times where the average marathon runner for the record, is not winning the marathon. The average marathon runners goal is to complete the marathon. There are certainly people who are really fast pace and they're up in that that upper part of the the stats, but for the most part, most people are kind of just taking their time.
00:26:28:26 - 00:26:48:18
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
And you're going to see there's there's times where they look like they are barely jogging faster than a walk. But why are they not walking? Because once they start walking, it is harder to move to a run. And if they stop completely, it's even harder. So the idea is to maintain some momentum. Semblance of moving forward because it's that much easier to actually complete it.
00:26:48:23 - 00:27:05:28
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
And I know if you're not a runner, you're not relating to this necessarily. But think of anything like your car starting from zero. Whereas if there's a reason why we roll through stop signs, it's easier to get going again. Or if we keep it in gear, right? So totally. It's never easy to start from zero. So why would we want to keep doing that?
00:27:05:28 - 00:27:24:12
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
And that's what Turn It Off definitely does. So I think that was really, really well said. I like the idea of like let's turn it down, but not actually completely turn it off. Now another question that I often get from my clients is, which platform they should be on. And this is such a big question and I know I've had I've had experience on all the platforms.
00:27:24:12 - 00:27:41:08
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I know which ones work best for my brand. I'm not going to share that here because I don't want to bias anyone. But what are some ways where you would know when Google makes more sense than Meta, or when Linked In is the place to go to? Is there some criteria that you're using to identify what the best platform is for?
00:27:41:08 - 00:28:15:11
*Britt Holmes*
For a brand? Yeah, for sure. So in the most like layman's terms ever is Facebook. Instagram. So Meta is really great for capturing awareness and driving consideration. It's also pretty good for any kind of e-commerce. Google is great for more of our localized searches. More of those like hiring ten. I love Google for anybody that is trying to get appointments booked or are actively looking to connect with people right away, it is the warmest way that you are going to get leads in, right?
00:28:15:11 - 00:28:41:08
*Britt Holmes*
Because they're actively searching for you. So I pops up when someone is actively searching for what you're offering 100%. And then LinkedIn is an interesting little beast because it is. It can be a little bit expensive. But if your audience is corporate, that is where you need to go because the targeting in there is golden. So like for example, I work with a therapist who does coaching career coaching.
00:28:41:11 - 00:29:05:24
*Britt Holmes*
We could figure out, you know, which one. She knows which companies have the best benefits. She knows you know which locations have the highest amount of corporate people we can go after. What level they are in their career, like all of these things. So it's really specific. But again, it doesn't make sense. For example, if you're selling candles, like I don't think that it makes sense to be on LinkedIn, you know, unless you're going after corporate gifting.
00:29:05:24 - 00:29:28:17
*Britt Holmes*
So it's really dig in on where you're at. But I would say, you know, if you're a service based business, stay on Google for the time being. If you're new or if you're a product based business. Meta's really great. So Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, B2B.
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I like that. Okay. So pretty much everything you said there is bang on with my own personal experience.
00:29:28:17 - 00:29:47:04
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
Like I said, I don't want to taint anything and I've only got my own experience, my businesses and a little bit here and there with some of my coaching clients, but I'm not coaching them literally through creating ads and the full ad campaign. I'm just involved in the the overall strategy. So now I mentioned earlier I had a couple of questions, and one of them I didn't end up asking.
00:29:47:04 - 00:30:08:24
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I want to circle back to it because you sort of see, you've already touched on the fact that you don't like doing like the freebies and freebies are done. Another term for them, for anyone who's not familiar, is called a lead magnet or also known as an opt in. And the idea is that you get someone onto your email list and then you nurture them with like an email sequence to get them to buy something bigger.
00:30:08:26 - 00:30:32:22
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
So if someone's buying, say, a $28 candle, do we are you working on a, you know, an additional funnel for that or and maybe the candles?
*Britt Holmes*
Not honestly the best example, but let's say you're selling some sort of product. Are you also putting them into a funnel or are you focusing just on that initial contact, the initial get the initial sale and you leave it up to the clients to figure out whether or not they've got.
00:30:32:22 - 00:30:55:04
*Britt Holmes*
They want to have more of a funnel behind it. So generally speaking, the clients that we work with, we like to give them simple marketing strategies. But what we do do, for example, if it's a retail type of our e-commerce, is there's something called remarketing. So we can go after either those who have already completed a sale or depending on the strategy, some of our clients are like, hey, we've already converted them, we're good.
00:30:55:04 - 00:31:21:14
*Britt Holmes*
We're really confident in our brand. We don't need to read, market or resell to these people. We've got this. But then there's other times where we can do what's called a similar audience. So people like those, we can target those new audiences to capture more of the same. That's already worked for people. So there's definitely lots of marketers on the internet that are like, you know, you do this lead capture and then go here and all this, that and the other.
00:31:21:21 - 00:31:44:26
*Britt Holmes*
But a lot of the brands that we work with are of the mindset of make it go away. And we love that because, you know, as a business owner, I love nothing more than when a business owner understands the value of their time and outsources things that that don't light them up or that they don't have an education of because same I'm not doing things that I'm not good at.
00:31:44:29 - 00:32:05:04
*Britt Holmes*
And that's how I like to really work with people that are focused on what they're great at and scaling. There's definitely a the ability to go in and out and all these different funnels, but our clients are people that are like, you're like, get done kind of people that are like, I want it, I want this, I know what I need to do.
00:32:05:06 - 00:32:22:01
*Britt Holmes*
You're a step to help me take it to that next step further. And that's kind of the area we like to play in. Well, I think that's a really important point. To really drive home here, though, is that, you know, there's this misconception that as an entrepreneur, you need to know all the things about all of the things.
00:32:22:04 - 00:32:53:10
*Britt Holmes*
I think that every entrepreneur should be aware enough of what their paid ads strategy is, and work with someone like yourself to ensure that they've got the right strategy. But that doesn't mean that they have to have their hands in doing all the things they don't need to run the ads. I think that they can be hands off without being completely ignorant about what's happening, because you need to know how your your brand is being represented online, what's actually driving your sales, what's like paying attention to the numbers in the analytics and where if there's if they're spending money on ads and on you, they want to make sure those are converting.
00:32:53:14 - 00:33:10:01
*Britt Holmes*
But that doesn't mean that they have to be involved in every element of the day to day of doing that. And I think this is where we often get a little bit stuck of like, well, I need to know all the things about my business, or I don't have enough money to hire someone to do the ads for me, so I'm going to do them myself.
00:33:10:04 - 00:33:26:00
*Britt Holmes*
And it's kind of the old adage, I mean, I teach a certification training course for home stagers, for example, and I will have sometimes people will say to me, well, I'll invest in the certification. Once I have a few clients, then I'll have the money to get the training. Well, that's just backwards. Let's let's be real about this.
00:33:26:00 - 00:33:41:28
*Britt Holmes*
I mean, if you are going to tell your clients that you're an expert on something, but you haven't actually been trained on it because you're hoping they'll pay you so you can go and get your training, that's not fair to the client. Similarly, you're going to learn from your mistakes and pay more in those mistakes by not hiring a professional like yourself.
00:33:41:28 - 00:34:01:19
*Britt Holmes*
If you're just going to run the ads on your own. And. And if I were ignorant enough to think that I'm going to be able to run an ad campaign successfully and be able to save money by doing it myself, as opposed to hiring you to do it, I don't see how that's possible, unless I have had a ton of experience in this space already.
00:34:01:19 - 00:34:17:27
*Britt Holmes*
So maybe I worked for another company and I did exactly that. Well, that's different, but if you're not actually trained in that, you can attend as many webinars as you want. Listen to as many podcasts like this as you want, but at the end of the day, you're not going to know enough to effectively use that money. You can learn, but it's going to be an expensive learning curve.
00:34:17:29 - 00:34:41:05
*Britt Holmes*
And if that's what you want to do, all the power to you. But if you think you're saving money by doing that, you're wrong. I'm sorry if I'm being a little harsh for some people there. And please understand, my use of the word ignorant just means not knowing. Not. There's no disrespect intended there by any means, but I think a lot of people often end up trying as by themselves for like a week and then like ads don't work.
00:34:41:07 - 00:35:03:00
*Britt Holmes*
And this is not how you run an ad campaign. So on that note, and feel free to tell me to shove it if you're like, I can't even answer that. Is there a realistic starter budget range for an average business? I know it's going to vary by business, but is there a sort of A unless you have X number of dollars, don't even bother looking at ads kind of mentality.
00:35:03:00 - 00:35:32:18
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I know when I used to do Facebook ads back in, like I like 2010, oh, it's not that long ago, right? I could like spend five bucks for a week's worth of ads. No problem. Obviously things have changed. The internet has grown. So is there sort of a realistic starter budget range for someone?
*Britt Holmes*
Yeah, for sure. You can really do anything like there's no minimum necessarily existent within the platforms or if they are, it's very minimal, like it's like $5 type of thing.
00:35:32:21 - 00:35:53:26
*Britt Holmes*
Right. But what I suggest and what we do with our, our clients is we say a minimum of $500 media spend. So what you're actually paying Facebook, Instagram, Google, that type of thing. And the reason for that, and any time of year is that we start a strategy small and we grow from that. Right? It's really dependent on how complex your campaign is.
00:35:53:26 - 00:36:18:10
*Britt Holmes*
So for example, if you have like 75 different services, obviously that's not going to go very far for you. But if you're, you know, single brick and mortar location, that might be significant enough for you. The one thing that on the management side is that I developed a system that's 50% cheaper than any competitor that runs ads based on our, like, comparable with our experience.
00:36:18:10 - 00:36:47:23
*Britt Holmes*
So again, I have almost 14 years experience running ads on all different levels. I only hire people that are corporate with a minimum of five years experience that are local. And what I did essentially was looked at all of the extra stuff that agencies include in costing and looked at it from a lens of. But as a small business owner or as a founder and entrepreneur, I don't have the time commitment for this.
00:36:47:23 - 00:37:14:03
*Britt Holmes*
And I also financially don't want to be paying for this. So one of the things that we did was we removed everything that I classified was fluff. So for example, monthly calls where we're talking about $400 spend doesn't make sense for most of our clients or us getting on that call. Right. So, you know, there you go. Saving $300 off the cost of a media of the management fee, that type of thing.
00:37:14:03 - 00:37:38:12
*Britt Holmes*
So I think that it's like if you were to come and work with us, we do a one time setup fee at around $2,000 starting place. And if you're looking at running media plus management, you're looking at around $1,100 a month. So that's compared to a lot of agencies where they're spending where they're asking for 2 to $3000 just to manage the account.
00:37:38:20 - 00:37:59:26
*Britt Holmes*
And then media were very like fair. I would say if you go anything lower, the the one thing that you want to look at is your budget divided. How many days are in the month, because that's really like what your daily budget is. And that makes the most impact. Because if you're coming in with an expectation that you're going to become a millionaire and you're spending $5 a day, you're being unrealistic.
00:38:00:02 - 00:38:26:15
*Shauna Lynn SImon*
You know, there's there's also courses now online where they're like, spend a dollar a day and like, they'll show results. And they're like, you got 25 leads after spending a dollar a month, it's not even possible. Like if you actually understood how these things work, it's like, so you're telling me that for, I don't know, five you're converting pennies, $0.05, but an average click is 3 to $5.
00:38:26:15 - 00:38:47:11
*Britt Holmes*
I don't know what these people are doing, but it's not real data. And that's I think, one of the biggest issues. And I'm going to go on a little bit of a tangent here, if you don't mind how that DIY courses is. They are great at teaching you how to press buttons. The areas that you are missing is strategy.
00:38:47:12 - 00:39:14:21
*Britt Holmes*
What actually makes sense for your business and also what happens when they go live. Because a lot of these courses look real cute and they're real affordable. Once you know, you put your oh, I can just follow it step by step. As soon as your money is actively burning in platform, you're ghosted. There is minimal support. You go online, you can go on Reddit, you can try figure it out from our help guide.
00:39:14:21 - 00:39:37:01
*Britt Holmes*
Within one of the platforms, you're pretty much left on your own. So that's why I'm like, stop dying. I will make it as affordable as possible so I could still feed my children. But please, please stop burning money and giving it to these vendor platforms that don't need your money. Like, no, they definitely don't. I think that's exactly like there is value to them.
00:39:37:01 - 00:39:58:05
*Britt Holmes*
Yes, but you want to make sure you're getting a return on that. And yeah, I mean you're the prices that you were quoting seem incredibly reasonable to me when you're thinking about what the return on that is. So let's say you're a therapist, for example, and you sell a session for, what, a couple hundred dollars? Well, how many of those do we actually need to book in a month to make our money back?
00:39:58:07 - 00:40:19:17
*Britt Holmes*
And then keeping in mind, especially for a therapist, is a great example of this, because those are one time bookings, but those people are likely to come back. So if you have an offer where it naturally leads into repeats, perfect, because you're going to make money, they don't necessarily need to see your next ad in order for them to book you again.
00:40:19:21 - 00:40:34:14
*Britt Holmes*
So you want to think about what is the not just what is that initial value of the purchase they're going to make, but what is the lifetime value of the client you're going to get from that? And if the lifetime value of each client, let's say I get five new clients a month, let's say I'm a therapist, I'm getting five new clients a month, 200 bucks apiece.
00:40:34:15 - 00:41:00:19
*Britt Holmes*
So I'm kind of breaking even, basically. But at the lifetime value of each of those clients is closer to $10,000. Well, I've I've made my money back tenfold. Right. So we want to make sure we're keeping the, I'm me trying to say here realistic ROI. And it's not always just the what goes in, what comes out. It's we got to look big picture at what it is that we're investing in getting long term as well.
00:41:00:19 - 00:41:11:19
*Britt Holmes*
But if you've got a product that you're just going to sell for a couple of months, and I'm not saying don't do it, I mean Black Friday sales, we see all the ads all over the place, but some some people make like hundreds of thousands of dollars once a year and they peace out for the rest of the year.
00:41:11:19 - 00:41:28:29
*Britt Holmes*
Fine. Have at it. But you've got to have the right strategy to do that.
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I had one more question before we wrap up. That's a that's a little bit like out of not out of left field, but if because mainly because I get this all the time of like, what should my ad look like? Can I do a static post?
00:41:28:29 - 00:41:46:18
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
Does it have to be a real I mean, I have seen there are some brands that I can think of offhand that have done some phenomenal reels on on Facebook, on Instagram, that when you're scrolling through, like you see this item is like, I genuinely want to watch this ad for comedic value, even if I'm not actually going to buy the product.
00:41:46:22 - 00:42:03:26
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
So I think a lot of people have this idea that they need to create, like a super eye catching viral reel in order to be able to sell on as any. True to that, I'm thinking specifically more with the Meta ads.
*Britt Holmes*
Honestly, I don't think so. So the thing is, is like you need to. Every audience is very unique and different.
00:42:03:26 - 00:42:21:29
*Britt Holmes*
You need to be able to speak to your people quickly, clearly, and get them hooked. Right. So oftentimes what we do is we just say, like, we'll give our clients like a little bit of a script that they can riff off of, but authentic is killing it right now. So the more real you are, the less overproduced you are.
00:42:21:29 - 00:42:44:05
*Britt Holmes*
Obviously, if you're a fortune 500, you're going to have amazing graphics. That's right. But most of the time, if you're scrolling through and you're seeing all these, like, course sellers and this, that and the other, they're doing pretty basic cameras stuff similar to what we are ripping on some captions, maybe making a boing noise here and there. But like, all of this stuff is totally doable.
00:42:44:05 - 00:43:05:14
*Britt Holmes*
Like you, the one thing is, is like, I would rather have like a not 100% perfect, but something that like is real to your audience type of ad than anything else. Like, obviously like the ones that we're looking at there that are over like the super produced ones. They probably have creative teams of ten working on them for a couple months at a time.
00:43:05:14 - 00:43:33:10
*Britt Holmes*
So right. The 30s you see took them months to actually create. Yes, exactly. So I think it's being realistic and also like, you know, some of those things are really cool. But like for example, there's oh my god, I'm going to butcher the name of it. Now. I'm like, you know, like the, the kinds of things that I think are really cool and really moving is that the authenticity, the build, the business with any type of content like, you know, speaking to my what's my problem right now?
00:43:33:10 - 00:43:53:24
*Britt Holmes*
Like, how will my how are you going to help me resolve this problem? And those are the things like that. Work is essentially and I feel like once you know your audience and who you're selling to it, it doesn't matter how cute it looks, it's the message and how you're making people feel is what is really the most powerful thing there.
00:43:53:27 - 00:44:20:11
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I couldn't have said it better myself. I think you're absolutely bang on with that. I think that being real, being vulnerable, being authentic, yes, they sound like buzzwords, but they really do resonate if you are actually being real, true and authentic. So this has been incredible. I mean, I think I could probably hammer you with questions all day long about all of these things, but everything you shared was I also want to make sure that, you know, the audience listening to this understands the you know, how to get started.
00:44:20:11 - 00:44:39:25
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
What are some things to consider before they're even starting to have those conversations? And so I think you gave it some really good jumping off points for this. But to to your point earlier, I mean, you've been doing this for over 14 years. There's no way to drill down into to everything that you've learned in all that time into a small podcast episode like this.
00:44:39:25 - 00:45:02:03
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
But I am so glad and so grateful to you for sharing your insights to my audience. I think this is going to be super, super valuable. If there is one thing that someone listening to this would take away from today's episode, what's the biggest thing that you would like them to walk away with?
*Britt Holmes*
Don't boost your posts. Or do here that would allow.
00:45:02:03 - 00:45:21:09
*Britt Holmes*
I'm just going to boost this one. Boost your posts. You are literally paying to be popular and not paying to get results in your business.
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
Oh, I like that very vanity metric. Got it. Well, amazing. Honestly, Britt, thank you so much. If people want to find you, where's the best way for them to find you? Instagram I am there a lot.
00:45:21:09 - 00:45:42:09
*Britt Holmes*
So I have two accounts we have at Merit Media Inc for the agency. We also have at Brit Holmes Live. Those are the two places I hang out. Or you can visit us at our website at Merritt media.com. I just updated it so it it's beautiful and bright and I welcome anyone who is even interested. Maybe not 100%.
00:45:42:09 - 00:46:01:07
*Britt Holmes*
So certainly ready to go book a discovery call. It's right on our contact page. I don't believe in contact form. So you can drop right in there and I'll see you in my calendar shortly.
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I love it. That's perfect. And we'll make sure to have all of that in our show notes of course, as well. But again, Britt, thank you so much.
00:46:01:07 - 00:46:19:23
*Shauna Lynn Simon*
I appreciate everything that you've shared today. Of course. It's been amazing being here. Thank you, thank you. So listen, if what you're listening to today is resonating with you, then I hope that you'll continue to tune in each week whenever we drop new episodes every Tuesday morning at 7:00 am eastern time. And please allow me to continue to come into your life and be a part of your journey.
Don't forget to leave us a review or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. And remember the best way to really support not only this podcast, but your fellow female entrepreneurs, is to share this episode with someone that you know needs to hear it. And everyone knows someone who's been considering paid ads. So share this with that woman that you know really needs to hear it today.
It's going to help her. It's going to help our podcast. And of course is going to help Britt as well. So thank you so much for tuning in. And until next time, keep thriving.