Per-channel brand voice for better ad hooks - EP 039

Modern Marketers with Blake Beus and Greg Marshall

Blake Beus 0:00 We want to talk about hooks like you this is something you brought up about it. And you were talking with me before we turn this on it was the the importance of add hooks, and you had some new ways you've been kind of thinking about add hooks. Yeah, thinking about how hooks work when you're working with clients, all of that.

Greg Marshall 0:17 Yep. So here's, here's a kind of a quick backstory. So when I first started running advertising, like Facebook, basically, and even email marketing back in the day, all you had was your ad copy and your ad hooks and, and what you put in the ads, right or in your messaging. And so I feel like I got really good at that. Okay, back, you know, back in the day, there was no such thing as pixels and all this other crap, right, and algorithms. So basically, back back, when you would create the messaging, you would spend a good amount of time really trying to write a good ad hook, and then good ad copy to follow that. And that's what made good ads. And I will say I had a lot of success running these ads, purely focusing on without using AI, or any, you know, sophisticated interest targeting none of that. Just good old fashioned ad hook ad copy, with a good ad creative and picture. And we were we were discussing that. I believe messaging is underrated, when it comes to how to get your ads to work. And the reason why I say that is because I see a lot of clients, I see a lot of people out there that when they push their ads out, they're so focused on the targeting, they put almost zero effort in the messaging. And so they may be actually in front of the right person. But because their messaging is not compelling. It's not it's not going to work, right. And that's the part that's the art and the skill of selling and marketing and how to make money basically, when you're running things is to actually have things that compel people to want to take an action. And so add hooks, is probably the most important and most overlooked thing. Because if they never actually stop, then everything after that, whether that's the captions below 100 email, your video will not be seen, right, therefore doesn't matter. Right. So then if you were to actually isolate, which is the most important thing, it's the ad hook, because without it, no one consumes the rest of the content. And you almost don't have to be so perfect on the content, as long as you can get them to stop and look at

Blake Beus 2:46 Right, right. Right. Right. So, I mean, like, so many of the people I've worked with in the past, you're right, they focus on the targeting and the mechanics of the ads. Like why do you think so many people are focused on on those things? And then the ad, hook or angle or ad, you know, tends to just be an afterthought? Like, why do you think that is? Because I feel like that's pretty universal?

Greg Marshall 3:12 Yep. I think well, here's my theory. My theory is they're bad at sales. And, and but think about the others. Yeah, this isn't a knock on people, because you can learn to get good at it. Right? What I'm saying is they're bad at sales currently, right? And they've never actually probably sold in person, or understand the fact of what you need to do to actually get a sale. And a lot of people have negative beliefs about selling, right, and that transpires and how they write their ad copy, or how they sell their stuff online, the same bad habit you might have in person is going to move on to the internet. And so for example, you see someone at a tradeshow. You ever see those booths where they're just sitting there? And they're not doing anything? Yeah. And no one's basically going Yeah, no, yeah. And no one's buying anything, right? It's not because their products bad and the person across product is good. It's that the other the tables, I have all the people, they have the ad hook they're selling, they're figuring out a way to get your attention to stop to go ahead and take a look at their products, and then go ahead and give you a persuasive message. That's where I think online is almost designed, like the perception is that you can hide behind the computer. Right. And so I think that's really what happens is you're, you're kind of taking that same habit that you would do in person and bringing it onto the internet.

Blake Beus 4:41 Yeah, yeah. I, you know, as as you were talking to me, it kind of gave me a couple of ideas and thoughts here. The first thing I want to say is many people that are starting running their businesses, whatever, they're there, they're an expert in an area and that area is Almost always, not ads and selling. Like even, even if they're selling a product or whatever their their expertise is probably in the logistics or the creation of that product or, or the distribution of that product and everything but but as the business owner or the founder, or whatever their expertise is probably not in selling. And so that carries over into, alright, I want to run some ads, let's do this, let's let's think about the logistics of running ads, all of these things. But the the hook is this creative. exercise that is a different skill set than those other things. And and you're 100%, right, you're not good at selling yet yet. This is another muscle that needs to be worked. And, and maybe I'm seeing all this through my own filter, because again, software engineer background, very much in the data side of things of the marketing and sales is where I approach stuff. And when it came to running ads on my own products. I I was bad at the copy. I even had one person that I worked with, too, we kind of did some some accountability group because she was starting something Her name was Monica and and she told me she's like, I'll be honest, your ad copy is boring. Yeah. It's just not good. Yeah. And honestly, that hurt. Sure. But I was like, your right. And it was not a skill that came easy to me. And I had to work at it, and do revisions. And I read books. Yeah, I started like copying other people's, like screenshotting other people's ads that I thought were good and putting them in a file. And And over time, they got better, and I started getting better results. But it was, it was not easy.

Greg Marshall 7:00 Well, here's something and just we do not want to downplay the importance of the data. Yeah, and understand, because you need both, ya can't just have one, very much an intersection of a lot of different skill sets when you start hopping into online advertising and marketing. But one thing that I think happens is when you're trying to write, for example, selling, right, if you are not familiar or have never done face to face sales, you will typically think more logically, yeah, right. And you'll put logical things on your ads like this product has this, it has that you can get this, you got 42 different things, whatever, whatever, right. And that's important that but that stage is secondary, right? It has to come after I capture your attention. And one of the things when you talk about the ads are boring. It's usually based off of fear. So just like selling in person, we usually try to dumb it down a little bit, or dial it down to almost not offend, or be too drastic with what we're saying. Or to not be like those annoying ads that we see Yeah, out on the air that was exactly exactly had all of those fears. Yeah, and those, that's just a normal fear, okay, this is normal, a normal fear of selling. And what you have to do is just overcome and test these different methods of being able to stop people, you know, in their tracks to look at your ad. And what you'll find is, it's not as scary as you think, right? When you write a little bit different, right? Or talk a little bit different, and how you're promoting your products, because I just had this conversation yesterday with a client, very common in professional spaces, where you have someone that has gone to school and has certifications and degrees. A lot of them are very upset about usually one or two people in their space, who are making a lot of money but who are deemed uncredible or uneducated, right in their space, and that they're making these bold bogus claims, right. And I always say the reason why they're selling so much is because they don't have that filter, stopping them from, you know, saying this is what we can do. And they're hitting that emotional point, right for the customer. Right? It's the customer doesn't buy off logic, right? Buy off emotion, right. And it's all about emotion. And it's very little about

Blake Beus 9:36 logic. Right? So I mean, along those lines, let me because this was a you're talking about fears, and these are bringing them back I'm not really but but is it possible to hit those emotional triggers and make bold claims while still remaining ethical? Yes. Right. Because because I feel like that's a lot of people's concern because we can all point to someone In our industry that is full of it. And they're making these claims especially No. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So many advertising guru. So how do you how do you balance your bold claims, while maintaining, you know, your integrity, that is probably a core value to anybody listening to this? Sure.

Greg Marshall 10:21 So this is how we would do it and in the fitness space is, we'd make bold claims, and then go ahead and give the like, the actual real truth and story of how to do it, for example, sell them what they want, and then give them what they need. Everyone does it backwards, if they're not having success with their ads. They're selling them what they need, and leaving out what they want. Okay, a good example would be, I want to lose weight, right? But what I don't need is a magic pill. Right? What I do need is consistent exercise, and healthy eating, done over a long period of time. Right? Right. That's what that's what I need. But as a consumer, I don't want to hear that. Because that's, I'm looking for a simple trick, you've probably already heard that 100 times before, right? So because of that, you have to, if you give them something to stop them, right? How you can lose your first 10 pounds in seven days or something like that, right? That gives them like a timeframe, that's short enough to get almost that like instant gratification. And then what you would say is now, if you do this system, you'll do this, this, this and that you get them enrolled, and then you transition them into a real program, right, almost without having to explain it. Right, you just do it, right. And that's what worked really well for us is where we were able to attract people that wanted to train and get fit and healthy. Give them a goal that they could reach in a short amount of time. And then just transition to the ethical stuff. Right, right. This this is a periodized program. Uh huh. You're gonna fall? I'm just not going to really tell you that. Yeah. Because then I know, you won't be able to track into that. Right.

Blake Beus 12:15 Yeah, and it gets me thinking too, is oftentimes the the full scope of what you're selling is a conversation that is very lengthy and very in depth, that probably happens, that communication happens over a period of weeks, months, years, let's talk specifically about fitness, right?

Greg Marshall 12:40 The talking about the full scope of what someone needs to do to maintain

Blake Beus 12:45 a healthy body weight, or maintain those fitness goals or lifestyle goal goals, that conversation is very complicated, because there's all these different areas. And if you try to have that entire complicated conversation upfront in your ad in your sales video, it's not going to work. Yeah, what you need to do, just to kind of restate, what you're saying is give them some sort of obtainable short term goal, that opens the door, to have them be able to be willing to listen to the rest of the conversation as you walk them through this program that teaches them all of these different ways. And there's so many different ways to achieve that in the health and fitness. There's lots of people that, you know, you'll hear paleo keto, all of these different things. And some of those work for some people, some of those don't work for some people. But that's a conversation that you can't stuff all of that into an ad copy. So you need something very, very simple. And that was the problem I was having. I was trying to stuff all of the nuances and everything into my ad, if when really what I needed them to do was to just try it out, yes, get some results. And then that would open the door for me to be able to communicate with him via email, or in now in my membership group that we do together, or, or all I can have those longer conversations over a longer period of time to explain the nuances and how to really take off with XY or Z

Greg Marshall 14:15 Exactly. And I think the biggest, the biggest takeaway to do ethically is to really just think well, what will get them to pay attention almost, if you struggle with this, like let's say you're highly highly educated, and tell us which is the are the ones that usually have the hardest time because they know so much about it. They know how it actually works, that they have this resistance, because they're like in my line, Is this really how it works, right? Take what you would want to say and say the opposite, right? And so for example, let's say you want to say well, you have to do complex super setting and you got to do three to five times a week, whatever say the exact opposite of that, right? You're going to use a simple technique, and that will work to get you extra Also in the next couple days, right? Use a portion of that and just say the opposite of what will act what you actually have to do. That typically is a good way to get the added or say something that you feel almost uneasy saying, when it comes to your philosophy, that's usually enough to do the correct ad. Right. Right. It should almost feel uneasy, because if you do it correctly, it will stop the person in their tracks. And they want to know, is that true? So you can take like, you know, in the fitness space, you can use like things like, you know, three, three ways personal trainers lie to you. Yep. Right, that will get people to stop and read and read it. Why gym members? Why gyms? Want you to sign a contract and cause you to become fat. Yeah, right. Or the little secrets that are unknown to X, Y, and Z. Customers. These are

Blake Beus 15:56 the real reason Planet Fitness has free pizza on Fridays

Greg Marshall 15:59 exact right? They want to keep you overweight. So you gotta keep coming. Yeah, they know you like pizza to stay. Yep. And the price point is low. And so I mean, you can have that conversation, and then you can and then that opens the door to something more lengthy, whatever. Yeah. So that's, that's basically what you want to be doing. It's just how do I stop them or tell them something that they've never heard before? That's like a really good way to get the attention as to say something that they're not hearing all the time. Right. Right, or that goes against essentially the religion? what's being said out there, no matter what industry you're in. So if you're like in the physical therapy space, they're always talking about injury prevention, and this and that, and that's like, it's not enough to excite someone. Right, right. So you'd want to say the polar opposite. Why physical therapists are lying to you about how to avoid injury and avoid overtraining? Right,

Blake Beus 16:55 right. And I think the other way to kind of approach this, because I mean, you've already said, say something that makes you a little bit uncomfortable. And when I think about this, and this is a shift that I had to do, as I had to start thinking about staging, meaning everybody's at a slightly different stage, and when you're creating a product or program or something, you're an expert in that area, but you've got to remember, it took you 510 years to get there. And the people, you people you're selling to this may be their first time they're taking a serious look at trying to solve this problem, whether it's fitness, or finances in their business, or online advertising or something like that. And so if you try to give them the entire seven course meal that you've learned over 10 years, it won't work. Yeah, they need, they need something that was going to help them fix kind of an immediate problem right now. And that's a very simple conversation with some simple claims. That's going to get them there. And then as they progress through, you know, stage one, you can move them into stage two, which is a lengthier conversation with some nuances where they can, where they now have that foundational understanding, because you, you know, you hook them with the foundational hook or whatever. And now you can walk them through the rest

Greg Marshall 18:11 of them, which is why that's the ad hook is so important. Because once you get on and the content you have, yeah, is normally enough. Because you have the expertise in your space. Yeah. It's you're just not able to get them in. Yeah. And that's where you should spend most of your right focus is how do I get the attention? To get them in? Yeah, because after that, it becomes easier because now I have their attention. Yeah. And then I can share the, you know, all of the expertise that I do have in my particular subject, and how I can help them out. But if you can't get them to sit down, and actually pay attention to what you're saying, there's nothing that could possibly get them to consume your content, right? Because they're not even sitting down listening. They're just like, it's kind of like saying, if people are walking by and you're just screaming out, yeah, like, Hey, this is why you know, you need a personal trainer, blah, blah. It's like, they're not listening because of walking. Yeah. Versus if someone's sitting down in front of you. Yeah, they're ready to listen and hear the message.

Blake Beus 19:18 Yeah. So so like, what if we pivot just a little bit here, and we talk about some ways that that people can get better either some resources they can do or some exercises they can do and, and you want to like even show you showed me a couple of ads? Yeah, like we could we could talk about those specific ones. Do you think there'll be Should we do that? Yeah, I think it's like for example, I screenshotted a couple ads earlier today. And for people that have access to the video inside the the membership group, you can actually hold it up there. If you have that screenshot. You could show it there on camera if you want.

Greg Marshall 19:48 Yeah, I mean, so I think I will have to definitely get this for you. But we've got the three reasons why women love this tea for their money. Add. Yeah. And they've got a before and after selling transformation there. And they say Side effects may include job promotion free drinks or father's blessing, right? Yeah. And to me, that's a very

Blake Beus 20:12 endless selling T shirts. Yeah. But they're using consum, some kind of humor. They're using a couple of key things that I would say your average guy would would love.

Greg Marshall 20:24 Well, what, what I think is even more important, is look out plain that is a bar. I mean, it's a black T shirt. It's, it fits well, but it's a black T shirt. There's not even writing. Yeah. And it's still got my attention that shows you that. Sometimes it's not even the product. Yeah, it's, it's just a promise you can give me right. And so you're talking about promotion, free drinks. And and, you know, one of the things that I think that's important that ad does, you know, it's targeting man, it's also doing a couple of the other ads that are in their ad account that I looked at, they're really kind of like tapping into the ego, of the man. And you're right, right. So free drinks. A bigger promotion. Right? Right, your father's blessing. Yeah. You know, and then some of the other ones is, you know, make it look like you can benchpress two times more than you can, like, think about that this is all ego boosting, that is kind of a good angle to take a very plain product, and turn it into an exciting product. And

Blake Beus 21:35 I think it's okay to be a little tongue in cheek because your average reasonable person knows that a plain black T shirt is not going to necessarily get them a job promotion. However, it does happen to kind of this part of our brands, it's like, but if I am dressing nice, I do feel better. If I have a shirt that fits well, I do feel better. And and that that does kind of translate. But obviously, they're not saying I guarantee this shirt will get you a job. Everybody understands that this is tongue in cheek humor. But but it works. And there is, you know, a bit of truth there. And I don't feel that that is deceptive. Not at all or unethical at all.

Greg Marshall 22:18 I just think it's funny. Yeah, it's funny, if you show it, it makes it interesting. And you go, like, there is that little piece in your head that's like, you know, I do have shirts that don't fit as good, right? When I wear them. And it would be nicer if maybe it fit better around the waist or the shoulder. So you start to like, you think about that. Yes, the file I you know, what I have had times where I wore a shirt that doesn't feel like it's the most flattering, or it's the best on my absolute. And I mean, just a little tangent. That totally happens with me, even just with plain T shirts, I've

Blake Beus 22:53 very square shoulders. And so if a t shirt is is cut so that it's more angled at the shoulders, then it doesn't, it doesn't fit, right. And it ripples in weird places. And I don't ever wear it even if it's a good deal at all. But and so getting a t shirt that fits well does make a difference. Legit does

Greg Marshall 23:10 so because you heard those other benefits, which, like you're saying tongue in cheek, we're having fun, it's humorous, it's this kind of creative, you start to consider buying that T shirt in your hand. There's there's nothing that like we all know, wearing a black T shirt is not going to make me benchpress two times or get a new job. We all know that. But it's the fact that now thinking about those end results, which is what a lot of men will like is to have a better career higher earnings. Get people to flatter them. Like that's core emotions that both men and women probably want to feel. And they're tapping into that and associating those emotions and feelings to the t shirt. Yeah. And

Blake Beus 23:58 who knows, it might even work simply because every time you put that T shirt on, you're gonna think Man, I bought this because of that hilarious ad or whatever. It might be more outgoing and confident. And like that does well, here's where it just

Greg Marshall 24:12 made me realize too. Here's how to drive more word of mouth. If you buy this t shirt, because the ad was kind of unique and funny and you're wearing it. I think you will tell your friends about it like Yeah, but this t shirt I bought from this company they've got this funny ad I saw this and it almost can be a conversation starter. No, absolutely right. Like I'm thinking like, you're hanging out with your friends. You're just chilling and you're getting into conversation and you know you have got a small talk. You start talking about this or that you know before you know you can like yeah, man I like this particular shirt and especially if the shirt actually does fit good or is made out of a slightly unique fabric for a T shirt right because I like some something slightly unique Think about it. Yep, that can bring it up in conversation. So because of that, now you've got the ad gets your attention, it makes it memorable. You get the product. And then you start talking to your friends about where you got this product. You may even show them just like I showed you. The ad Yeah, have a product. That is, I mean, that's invaluable. Oh, if you can create ads that spark that level of emotion, you can essentially grow as big as you want. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So So to talk about, like some real things that you can do if you're struggling writing good hooks, or whatever.

Blake Beus 25:40 The very first thing I would say is, write write several different add hooks. And when when I'm talking about an ad hook, I'm mostly talking about kind of your main concept or that first sentence. In the ad. It's a little bit broader than that the concept of an ad hook, but, but write that first down, but I would say don't do it by yourself sitting in a in a room by yourself in front of a computer, maybe call in a co worker or a friend that you think is funny or bounce ideas off one another. Do you remember back in the going to date me back in the 90s? deep thoughts by Jack Handey? Do you there was a Saturday Night Live thing? And they would always just have these kind of a deep thought and it was supposed to be inspirational? Oh,

Greg Marshall 26:26 yes, right? Yes, like random, right nonsense. And

Blake Beus 26:30 so for some reason, I read somewhere how they wrote those, and it's literally just two people in a room, they would usually bounce a tennis ball off of the wall, and they're just coming up with this, just a long list of crazy idea. And then they would pick the top, you know, handful of those in a session, work it around a little bit and turn it into this thing you have, that's a process that would work for creating asks right, like, sit down in a room with a couple people come up with 100 terrible ideas. Yep. But of those terrible ideas, you're going to have a handful of those that that you think you know what if we tweak this a little bit, it's going to be unique and clever and, and really resonate with our audience. And then you can run with that,

Greg Marshall 27:10 well, here's, here's kind of a. So one of the ad hooks, or I don't even use this ad, I use it just for regular content. And it works is using things that sound more specific as well. So for example, in the marketing space, we helped a client grow by over 2,000% in 30 days, and no, they didn't start at zero, this is just a very strong ad campaign that we had. That worked really well. And they grew over 2,000%. Now, I could use how we grew over 2,000%, which I tested that, and it worked. Okay. But then I switched it and tested another version, it says how we grew our clients account by 2,096%. And now and that one really took off. Yeah. And the reason for that, I believe is the how specific it was. It makes it more real, right? If I say how to grow your bids by 100%. That almost sounds like that's just so random. And almost too perfect. Yeah, to perfect. All right. I like that. But if you were like how to grow your business by 102%?

Blake Beus 28:20 Well, that's a little bit. I haven't heard someone tell me. Yeah, that's more specific. And for whatever reason, I believe that it feels a little bit more legitimate because it feels like there was some actual math that happened behind that, right? And you can do that with any industry doesn't have to be growth or whatever it could be, you know, fitness, how I lost 5.2 pounds,

Greg Marshall 28:39 what about 12 days, whatever, how I got seven more dates by wearing this t shirt.

Blake Beus 28:45 Right? Right, like how I or in the job interview space, right like that. I've seen that kind of that space is growing quite a bit right now. You know how I increased my salary by 33.5% by switching my internet, but by leveling my interview skills or something along those lines, right like that. And those are things that actually can happen. And

Greg Marshall 29:11 those remember that's touching on the point of what people want the end result for everything that we're doing is basically the same. Yeah, right. You want to be more attractive to the opposite sex. You want you earn more money. Yeah, you want to have more freedom, right? You want to have better relations with your family. I mean, these are like core desires of like, most people, if not most many people. Yeah. And you're most likely selling to many people. Yeah. So you want to talk about these results, because every product and every service that's out there usually is accomplishing one of those of that list I just gave it's very simple list. Yeah. And it's very funny how it's often left out in the selling. Yeah, products and services we forget to actually touch into the result that we all want,

Blake Beus 30:05 right? The emotional result. And I think there's some ways you can kind of remind yourself to do that I, I'm going to mention two books that I found helpful for me, cuz I'm like, again, engineering kind of mindset. The first book and this one was probably my favorite. It's called Great leads. I can't remember who wrote it, but you can just get it on Amazon. It's not very expensive. It's if you've heard of that, the the golden child of all marketing books, it's, it's that book that was $450, written by the guy back in the 50s. No, it wasn't Ogle Ogilvy. But it's, it's called, oh my gosh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna I think I can see the cover. I think I know you're, it was out of print for like 20 years, and then a company bought it up, and you can buy it again. Now. It's called whatever. Anyway, this one kind of takes those concepts. But instead of having it be a 450, page, textbook style, really big heavy book, they take it down and basically distill the concepts into hooks. Yes, they use the word leads. Yeah, for like the lead off of your ad. But really, it's it's hooks. So great leads is great hooks, and they just talk about these concepts in writing that first first line or that first hook of of your ads. So that one was really good. And the other one I would say is is not as good, but I liked it was copywriting secrets by Jim something. He's like, buddies with Brunson or whatever. Yeah, that one, that one was good. But in that book, he had this thing that, that I really liked, when you're trying to write an ad to capture emotions, if you're the type of person that it's very easy for you to write about a feature like, this has this many, you know, whatever get, he says after you write that feature with the data, put a so that at the end of it, and then put whatever the result is, and then at the end of the result, put, which means and then you attach an emotion there. And then once you have that sentence structure in place, Riri kind of rework that and maybe remove the soul that or the which means maybe lead with the motion, but rework that sentence and maybe even drop the data point the feature. Yep. And now you've got a decent hook. Yeah. But it was, it was kind of a process that works for me, because I'm a very kind of data driven person to attach a motion and result to what I'm selling, and then kind of rework it and I was able to come up with leads that worked. Yeah, and

Greg Marshall 32:33 I think that's the key is practice ran and spending the time I think that's the point is, if you were to allocate the time that you spend during the week, if you really want to take things to the next level, you should spend a large portion of your time on this, the Add hooks, because if you take how people usually break down their week, they're usually like, maybe there's 10 activities, right? Nine, nine of them are non revenue, generating activities, right? Logistics, shipping, product, design, all that stuff, right. And that's all important. And but but then they spend a very tiny amount of time on the sales and marketing, right? And the thought behind it, which in theory is backwards, you should be spending most of your time on the sales and marketing, and then come up with the delivery of that. And if you do that, I promise you the results that you get will be way better than what you're currently getting. Because now you're spending more time and thought your a lot of people are just doing as an afterthought, right? I've got this great shirt. All right, just throw some out there because the shirts so nice, it's just gonna person and that's backwards thinking, right? It's you have to go, how do I make this shirt sounds so amazing that people will buy anything? Because it's that amazing, right? Not the shirt is so good. I don't even need to sell. And that's sometimes the thought process that I believe people have is, well, my products are so good. I don't need to think that much about how to sell it right. And that's arrogant thinking. Because you're competing against a lot

Blake Beus 34:14 of people. Well, not only you're competing against a lot of people, when you start running ads, you're getting in front of people that have no idea who you are, who you are, or what your brand is, or anything like that. So you have to find some sort of way to stand out. Now, before we wrap up, I did want to talk about this because we did we chatted about this before and want to circle back about this. You're talking about brand voice and writing ads and how you've worked with some of your clients. And sometimes you get pushback by by them saying well, that's not kind of our brand voice for the ad or whatever. Like explain that a little bit. Let's talk about quickly a couple of solutions. And we're up this one up. Yeah,

Greg Marshall 34:50 so I think so a challenge that we run into when running ads and I've run into this so many times not funny is if we right Something that sells. So here's a story, we wrote, why I wrote something that was getting the most sales this particular client ever got. And the response I got back from them was, hey, we would like to stop this ad, even though it was making the money. We'd like to stop this ad because it doesn't sound like us, right? And we want to change it around and make it sound more like this. And then we ran that ad and it didn't it flopped. Right? Right. And it's a very kind of delicate thing to say, Well, mine worked better than yours. We should do that. Right. And, and no one ever I know, I don't want to tell someone what your work is not good, or it's not performing. But one of the things that you should be open to is, if you're currently struggling with selling your products, or you're not getting the conversions you want, you should have someone else write it for you. And be open to that idea. Because most likely what's happening is you're too close to the product or service. And you're right, you're writing and creating things too logically. And that messaging is not resonating with your audience. So when it feels like it's not your voice or your brand voice, that could be a good thing. Yeah. And that's not to be funny. But that could be a good thing. Because that means you're testing the total, totally opposite approach, which is what you need to do. If you're not getting the results that you want,

Blake Beus 36:26 right? Well, and you're not selling to you. Correct, your customers are different than you. So you might think this ad doesn't sound like us. But your customers may not know what you sound like that internal monologue you have going on. Maybe

Greg Marshall 36:39 they don't know who you are, they don't they don't know who you are, nor do they care unless you make them.

Blake Beus 36:44 Right. And the other thing I would talk about, and it would be to maybe explore a different type of brand voice. Yeah, for different channels, right, maybe you've got a brand voice that that works when you're selling in person, or via email, or whatever. But on ads, it's a different channel. And people interact with ads in a different way. So be open to the idea of exploring a different brand voice some different angles in your ads, because of the difference with which people interact yet with ads.

Greg Marshall 37:16 So I think you know, the key to what we want to wrap this up with is spend 90% of your time on the Add hook Park more than anything. Yeah. And that will that's the biggest leverage point that I think that you'll get is you'll see if you're looking for, like exponential growth in what you're doing. focus mostly on that. Because that's really what's gonna happen when it comes to a change in how many people are clicking. How many people are excited about your product. How many people take the offer, if you don't have the good ad hook, you won't get the results you're looking for.

Blake Beus 37:54 Right. Alright, let's wrap this up. Greg. How can people get in touch with you

Greg Marshall 37:57 Greg Marshall dot coat and you can book a free strategy call. And Blake use.com/sm Three is the best place to get in touch with me right now. Well, hopefully enjoy this episode and we'll talk to you next time. Bye