A Conversation With Wayne Mullins of Ugly Mug Marketing

“The one with the guy who really REALLY loves marketing." If FOEM episodes were titled like Friends episodes, that would be it. Wayne Mullins is sort of a marketing guru. He's quietly built a crackerjack marketing firm from a small town in Louisiana — a firm with marquee, repeat, nationally-known clients. This conversation makes the reason for such success clear — a passionate and visionary founder, and the kind of easy rapport that builds a team. It's particularly interesting to hear someone who understands social-media marketing wax nearly poetic about email, too!

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00]

[00:00:09] Matthew Dunn: It's Dr. Matthew Dunn host of the future of email marketing. And my guest today is Wayne Mullins, founder of ugly mug marketing Wayne. Well.

[00:00:19] Wayne Mullins: Thank you so much. I'm excited about this chat today. There's nothing more than I love speaking to marketing. So

[00:00:25] Matthew Dunn: flips me out or flips me out a little bit to say good morning, Wayne, because my dad, my dad's name was Wayne and that's my middle name.

[00:00:35] And I don't talk to many of, many of, many of us. Many of you.

[00:00:40] Wayne Mullins: Um, there, there aren't that many around that is true.

[00:00:42] Matthew Dunn: It's not as, not as common, a name, a ugly mug marketing elevators size for, for people who are just tuning.

[00:00:50] Wayne Mullins: Yep. Ugly mug marketing. We are going into our 13th year of business. Um, we work with clients, uh, at the president from coast to coast across the country.

[00:01:00] Um, I would say we're probably, I guess most people would describe us as more of a boutique, small marketing firm. Um, we work with right now, we'll probably have around 60 to 70 active clients that we're working with and, uh, everything from web. To running their entire marketing for them.

[00:01:20] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. You were telling me when we were just chatting before, uh, before the record button, uh, w uh, web social, and then actually a hand in non-digital and more conventional, uh, uh, forms of media as well.

[00:01:34] Correct?

[00:01:35] Wayne Mullins: That is correct. Yeah. Those are the three departments. And, uh, you know, what's interesting over time, Michael is how, um, those departments have evolved or changed, um, throughout the year. So, yeah. Early owned web was extremely strong for us as the largest department that we had. Um, then social became really the department and now actually traditional marketing is actually outpacing growth of the other departments.

[00:02:00] So it's just. Um, I think, you know, anytime there's something new that gets introduced to the marketplace, um, all the attention, all the excitement goes to those things. And so if you were to look at the trajectory of kind of the growth or acceleration of growth in our departments, it would kind of match those things.

[00:02:20] So when web 2.0, which I know web 3.0, is this new thing, but when 2.0 was the thing, right? Um, every year. We're saying, you know, you have to have a website, so it fuels growth. Then you know, the, the launch or the, the popular growth, I guess you will have Facebook. Everyone's gotta be on Facebook doing Facebook.

[00:02:40] And now I think what's happening is people realize that. At the end of the day, it's the fundamentals that make the difference. It's not the latest and greatest, coolest thing that's coming, coming along. It's that trap and true fundamentals that when applied correctly make the biggest difference. Yeah.

[00:03:04] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. I'd, I'd buy that. Um, I was, uh, I was chatting with someone yesterday and he was a pining that, um, that we're starting to see a shift sort of a shift back away from. The the, the more, um, invasive social media forms. He said, I think email's going to grow in part because you're seeing people step back from their time investment.

[00:03:27] I said, I don't know if it's that or whether they're getting fractured across many, many social networks, but what's your reaction?

[00:03:35] Wayne Mullins: Yeah. I mean, I, I, I, that what I would, how I'd entered that as this, that I think if we're not careful, we start confusing the actions that we see people taking with the true assets that they're building.

[00:03:51] And so what I mean by that is, um, you know, we, we look at somebody maybe on Facebook or Instagram, who does that really well, a competitor. And so we believe that because they're posting. Twice a day or three times a day. We see those. And then we, well, if I just replicate that, if I just do that thing, then I'm going to experience the same success that they are.

[00:04:15] And the reality is we have to look at what is the true asset. So in that case, maybe it's the fault, the farm, the subscribers, whatever it may be. And we have to ask ourselves, okay. That person's really good at taking amazing photos and writing really clever copy. So it works well for them, but for us, based on our strengths, based on our skillset, what could we do to build that same asset out?

[00:04:38] So. Long answer to simply say, I think that for each of us, it's important to examine where our strengths lie. So for us, for our organizations, for our businesses, and then how do we build those core assets that are necessary for any marketing campaign or a marketing strategy to be successful? Got it.

[00:04:58] Matthew Dunn: Got it.

[00:04:59] Yeah. And, and I like the, I liked the, you know, the coinage that, what, what you see them doing isn't necessarily what's w what, uh, re re the result you'd get, if you did the same thing.

[00:05:12] Wayne Mullins: Absolutely. That

[00:05:13] Matthew Dunn: back up a little bit, you said 13 years, right? In business.

[00:05:17] Wayne Mullins: 13 years. Yeah.

[00:05:19] Matthew Dunn: Wow. Congrats. That's a, that's not an easy thing to pull off.

[00:05:21] How, how did you, how did you grow up? Uh, it's so traditional. Think of marketing, uh, marketing, uh, agencies boutique or not in, in metropolitan centers. And yet you've got clients from all over the country and, you know, you've earned them over years, but how did you grow in.

[00:05:43] Wayne Mullins: Yeah. So from the very beginning, Michael, this very painful story, I'll spare you all the details, but the initial three years were absolutely horrific, terrible, miserable.

[00:05:54] Um, most people would never survive through those years. Um, so that there's, that the next three years were, were bad. So the first three years were horrific. The next three years were bad, but from the. Beginning. I was playing the long game with this company. And what I mean by that is, um, I believe there's really, there's two different types of marketing.

[00:06:15] Um, there's this whole side of marketing, which is mostly advertising and I call it the action side of marketing. So that's what the 99% people do when they think you're doing marketing. They're out there. And binge strangers to know about them, to like them, to trust them, to then pull out their wallet and hand them money.

[00:06:35] And then they go back out and they're spending more money trying to convince more strangers to do that same thing. And so from the very beginning, my approach was this, that marketing is your ability to attract, which is what we just talked about, but then to keep customers and not just keep customers, but turn those customers.

[00:06:53] Into evangelists for your brand or for your product or service. And so for me, what that meant from the very beginning was this. We were always going to invest more of our marketing and advertising dollars. If you will, into. Turning a distinct clientele in danger for our company. Then we were going out there and trying to find new people and, you know, just for reference.

[00:07:21] And I'm not saying it's too like to brag necessarily to reiterate the point that, that this has worked extremely well fraud. Um, you know, some of our clients now are referred to us very personally and directly referred to us. Are multiple times, New York times selling authors. They're very large companies.

[00:07:41] They're CEOs of, uh, publicly, publicly listed on stock exchange. The NASDAQ stock exchange calling us directly. And the reason for that. Simply because we've, we've created this army of evangelists out there who are telling their, their companions, their freedoms, et cetera, about us in our products and

[00:08:04] Matthew Dunn: services.

[00:08:05] Right. And, and, and, and what you did for them as well.

[00:08:13] Wayne Mullins: That's absolutely right. I think if I were to point out one other thing that I would say has separated us over the years is this that we don't do long-term contracts with people. Um, I mean, we have the official, fancy paperwork and all these things, but this is the conversation we have with every client when they come in.

[00:08:30] Um, Give us two months within two months, if you don't feel and feed the difference, we don't want you to continue with us. We don't want your money. Um, and so we're very upfront. We're very blunt at the very beginning with the clients about that. And so what that does for us as an organization, um, is because now we, you know, there's, it's not just me.

[00:08:52] There's now actually 12 of us here. Full-time that mentality gets pushed down into the organization. So they know. That if they're not delivering results and they're not delivering results quickly for their clients, they're going to lose clients, which you lose enough clients. It starts three point badly on you as a team member.

[00:09:12] So anyway, those are the two things I think that have really helped us stand out and survive and thrive throughout these 13

[00:09:20] Matthew Dunn: years. That's great to hear. I had a, I had a gent on, uh, on, on this podcast, um, summer baby, Christopher Carr from Pharaoh. Uh, marketing for him. He's New Jersey based, I think. And he was talking about the upfront investment and process they've got for onboarding and new clients.

[00:09:41] Like they basically write a book on a new client. He said, we're we're underwater in terms of resource, investment, time, effort, et cetera. When we start, why? Because we can't do a good job. Unless we're that thorough about understanding their business top to bottom and inside and out. And he's got some of the same characteristics you described, be like long-term, long-term clients, I'm guessing your clients sticks with you for quite a long run.

[00:10:08] Um, and then they, they, they, they pass along the compliment and connected to others.

[00:10:13] Wayne Mullins: Yeah, no, that's absolutely. That's the formula it's but here's the thing that I would say, Michael, is that. In, in the world that we live in today, people are always looking for the quick thing they're looking for the short, fast, um, thing.

[00:10:28] You know what I mean? So that's the difference. This is a longer-term shot at G it's a, it's a high time investment. So best the challenge.

[00:10:37] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is a challenge and it makes her linear is early on because you're, you're, you're front loading, you're front loading, at least some of the. Exactly.

[00:10:49] Maybe a lot of it. Um, how does it feel to you now to have, you know, 12, 13 people, you know, look at you and have, you know, and have I worked for him in their head that, uh, did you envision getting.

[00:11:06] Wayne Mullins: Um, the answer is yes, I did have that vision. Um, so I'm a very big believer in setting a vision. Uh, for the next three years we have, uh, official company envision that's always three years into the future.

[00:11:18] And then we take that vision. We break it down into an annual. Strategic plan if you will. And then from that, we work on, um, a 12 week cycles. So every 12 weeks, every single person, the company as well has a new goal and three lead metrics that they're driving towards for that quarter. Um, so for a creative agency, if you will, um, you know, we're very systematic, we're very process driven, uh, detailed.

[00:11:50] Um, which for me personally, I am highly creative. I hate detail. I hate all those things. So as a leader, one of the things that I've had to learn to do is to lean into a lot of those weaknesses in myself. So that those weaknesses don't become a stumbling block for the company, because at the end of the day, The only person that's hindering the growth of the company, um, is the person that looks back at me in the mirror every single morning.

[00:12:18] That is the person that I've got to work the hardest on. Right. Wow. Good

[00:12:22] Matthew Dunn: for you that, uh, th that's a degree of self insight that. Uh, it doesn't always come with the title.

[00:12:31] Wayne Mullins: I don't, I mean, honestly, I don't think again, if you're playing the long game, you really don't have much of a choice, you know? Um, you can grow something and we see it all the time.

[00:12:42] Just look around companies that are kind of a flash in the pan. Uh, they sprout up very quickly. And then, because they don't have those roots down deep in the ground, the first adversity, the first kind of when that comes along and it just knocks them over well over. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:00] Matthew Dunn: Or they, or they can't really stick with it with no roots.

[00:13:04] You can't, it's hard to stick with it through the leaner, you know, through the leaner years. And, uh, that's what, uh, I think startups in data, you had a startup in a fundamentals. We've got to go through that curve. Uh, I gotta ask you a side question. The one other job title on your LinkedIn profile was catastrophe adjusting.

[00:13:28] I was like, that's awesome. So now you're doing the opposite or, or, or maybe you're fixing catastrophes and marketing. I don't know.

[00:13:36] Wayne Mullins: Yeah. So I did that briefly. I did that for a year and a half for state farm insurance. So got to travel all over the country and we would be sent in right after a natural disaster.

[00:13:48] He did. Doing it doing adjusting, going look at damage houses and buildings. Yeah, yeah,

[00:13:55] Matthew Dunn: yeah. That talk about, talk about process driven in a very big, in a very big organization. That's a, it's a different undertaking. And, um, and I, and I'm guessing just from what you said, that, uh, you, yourself probably graphic and visual.

[00:14:12] Wayne Mullins: I'm actually not, no, I I'm terrible at, yeah. I mean, I can barely make my way around Photoshop. Can't draw a campaign. Can do any of that style.

[00:14:25] Matthew Dunn: Interesting. So often, so frequently, um, marketing, particularly agency side, I found people come from sort of come, come from the. Design routes and then they have a hard time turning loose of it.

[00:14:39] So, so what, what, what, where, what was your strong suit and interest, you know, earlier in life? Uh, you know, Could couldn't have been marketing early on what else?

[00:14:51] Wayne Mullins: I went out. Well, it actually, it was a sales. So sales was my original background right out of school. I went into sales and tried to hold myself in that field.

[00:15:04] And the story is I got good at sales after several years and decided I wanted to do something for myself. Didn't have any other skill, but selling. So I started a lawn and landscape company and over the course of a three-year period, I grew that from startup and sold that company three years later. And it was in the course of that growth that a lot of the actual clients of the lawn care companies started coming.

[00:15:31] Because we did mostly commercial work. They started coming to me saying, how are you growing? What are you doing? Um, can you, can you teach me? And the answer was marketing. That's what we were doing. We were marketing and you know, it's interesting, Matthew, the way I learned. Marketing was this. So my background was sells and I did direct sales.

[00:15:53] So I was used to knocking on doors and walking in and sell it and stop. And when you start growing a company, as that company grows, the lawn and landscape company, as it's growing your time becomes more compressed. You don't have the same amount of time. So what I knew was I had to figure out a different way to effectively sell without me having to be out there, knocking on doors all the time.

[00:16:14] Yeah. It was through that process. I really honed in and learned, um, marketing specifically direct response was what I, I studied a lot. Copywriting is what I studied a lot. And those, if I had to say my two strengths would have been, um, would have been those two things, direct response and copywriting that goes along with

[00:16:34] Matthew Dunn: that.

[00:16:35] Interesting. Interesting. And, and goes back to your sort of fundamental. Comment from earlier, right? It's like, because copywriting is copywriting is going to is valuable now is going to be valuable, uh, you know, decades from now as well.

[00:16:51] Wayne Mullins: Yeah, it it's, uh, it is a skill that I would say, um, everyone should have.

[00:16:58] Learn some of the fundamentals of copywriting. And I think what's so interesting is, you know, we come through an education system, whatever that looks like. Um, and we think we know how to write when we graduate or get our degree or whatever it may be. And that's true because we've been through those classes, but copyright.

[00:17:16] Is basically cells in written format, you know, salesmanship and written format. And it's completely different from what most people think. Gov, when I think of writing, yes. You know, words are words, but learning to structure things in and the flow and overcoming objections as you're writing it, it's a unique skill that I think everyone can benefit from learning.

[00:17:41] I

[00:17:41] Matthew Dunn: read, I read a written. Little blurb around about copywriting a few months back that, uh, stuck with me for some reason. And the guy said the difference between copy and writing copy and regular prose writing. If you will, is that you've got to be much more empathetic. You've got to you've. You've got to say what I'm writing for my audience, not to get my idea across.

[00:18:12] More emotional, more engaging. Yeah.

[00:18:15] Wayne Mullins: Yeah. That's good. I mean, I completely agree

[00:18:17] Matthew Dunn: with that. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm guilty of, uh, I'm guilty of, uh, too much of the academic kind of pros. I think that like stay away from the keyboard. We don't want you to hit stuff. Sentences are too long.

[00:18:32] How did you, how did you go up the learning curve of digital. 13 years ago, websites exploding and then social coming in. And that's, that's a lot to keep up.

[00:18:44] Wayne Mullins: Yeah, it is, I think an important lesson that I've learned over time that there's this, that, um, as you know, so if you think about web, um, there's a bazillion options with web, like you could learn to code this language.

[00:18:57] You can learn this language, you can learn. There's a bazillion options. So for me, again, it was about playing the long. Uh, we actually, when we first started doing websites, we begin slowly building out our own custom admin panel. And again, so we picked one thing and we've invested heavily in that one thing we've adapted or changed that thing as technology has gotten better, we can improve that thing and the same thing with social.

[00:19:26] Um, so when social was becoming the thing that businesses were doing specifically, Um, we made a commitment that we were going to become true experts in that thing before jumping off into something else. So that would have been late 2015 when we said. Getting clients, Facebook marketing clients late 2015, and probably not long after that six months, eight months after that, we began having other people asking about, you know, Instagram.

[00:19:56] There was another platform at the time that was supposedly going to be the big thing called Periscope. And so we would constantly, even to this day, we constantly had people asking. You know about all these new platforms and the reality is right now, if somebody asks us, I would tell them, you know, this is the way we entered.

[00:20:14] We are phenomenal at Facebook. We're really good at Instagram because it's there, you know, the back end of that in terms of marketing, advertising platform, it's the same backend. LinkedIn is our next one. Right? So we've only been doing LinkedIn for a little bit. Um, we're still learning it. We're probably 1824 months into it, but it's not our strong point.

[00:20:36] So again, don't think you have to come out of the gate and know how to do everything well. Pick the one that you believe in the most stick with it, dive deep until you truly are a master or an expert in that thing. Um, again, you know, it's like that analogy from earlier, put your roots down. In that one thing before hopping off to the next thing.

[00:21:02] So, you know, just for, just for reference did start this out there for reference, you know, to date, I'd have to go back and look, but, um, we've probably run in that period. I guess it's about a six year period. We've probably run easily 30,000 different campaigns on Facebook. Um, you know, I don't know the total dollars that we spent.

[00:21:23] It's a lot, it's a lot of dollars, but again, it's about. The depth of that. Yeah. You know?

[00:21:30] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Wow. And then since it's a, since it's not only the topic, uh, the podcast, although we don't always talk about it, where does email fit in the world of what you do for clients?

[00:21:43] Wayne Mullins: Okay. So in all transparency, Mathew email is literally a secret weapon, and I'm not just saying that because of the show and the topic for the show.

[00:21:54] Um, so email is, is typically. Primarily by our traditional marketing department. Um, our, our social media department does some of that occasionally for some of their clients, but our traditional marketing department, um, does it for almost every single client they've got. And we're actually the department head over there is working on a case study for this client.

[00:22:16] That's been working with us now for about a year. Um, when they started, they did not have an email list. As of today, they've got, don't quote me on this. I'm probably off, it's around 40,000 people on their email list. Um, and every single time we send out an email on their behalf, money goes into the bank account every single time.

[00:22:39] And the case study is this. Every dollar that we spent on building that list, the ROI. In other words, we had to build that email list because it didn't exist. So we had to run ads. We had to do all this other stuff to build that list for every dollar we spent it now produces an eight times return on that investment every single time.

[00:23:06] But here's the, here's the thing. They make a product. Um, they make, uh, they make a fishing lore that's available around the world. It's, it's more popular than the U S some in Canada, but it's global. Um, and, but the thing is, it's true for all of our clients. Um, so we've got restaurants every time we send out an email for a restaurant sales go up that week.

[00:23:29] Yep. Dessert places, clothing stores. We've got people in, um, like e-learning continuing education places. Um, You know, so we build out funnels. So we, we use social media to drive them, to opt in for an email funnel. They get on that email sequence. That's an educational sequence that leads to the upsell. So email, to be honest with you is a core piece of what we do.

[00:23:56] And I say, that's our secret weapon because no one comes to us, Matthew and says, Hey, we really want you all to do email marketing. Yeah. Yeah, they come to us for revenue and we bring this in the back door because, you know, there's lots of reasons, you know, all the reasons. There's so many wonderful reasons that is so powerful still today, but it,

[00:24:18] Matthew Dunn: but it's, it, it it's, it's, it's an interesting conundrum about email and it's, it's, it's actually wonderful to hear the way you phrased it, but it, uh, it's, it's not the lead it's usually not, but someone comes asking for, I rarely run into mark.

[00:24:33] Uh, agencies who the top of the list is email, but I frequently run into people who say, yeah, but, you know, that's, that's really the foundation and the longterm best channel, et cetera. It's like, huh. And it's just old enough as a technology to not be sexy. Um, But it's so ubiquitous and, and you're not paying the Piper every time you hit send and a whole bunch of a whole bunch of other facts.

[00:25:06] Wayne Mullins: Absolutely. And I would say this, so, you know, the most, um, inquiries we've had or the most questions we've had about, you know, came back on. Remember when the timeframe was whenever Facebook and Instagram went down for like a day or two. Yeah. And so all of these people. Who were so dependent on being able to get their messaging out on those platforms, couldn't do anything because the platforms weren't there, there was no one there to see it.

[00:25:32] There was no way they could send it. And so people started asking like, what should we be doing in the event that this happens again? And the answer is. You want that audience, which is an asset. You know, people look at their Facebook followers or they look at their Instagram followers and I think, oh, that's, that's an asset.

[00:25:49] That's, you know, a way I can get my message to the world. And that is true, but it's something you do not own at any point in time for the stupidest little thing. And trust me, it happens your Facebook. Account can disappear. Your Instagram account can disappear, but email list it's yours. Yes. You may have to change platforms because whatever you run into an issue with the platform, but you own that list.

[00:26:20] That is your asset. And to be honest with you, when you understand. That, that list, that audience is an asset. Um, you know, I'm reminded of Dan Kennedy used to talk about this. When I was studying a lot of direct response marketing, he used to talk about how I think it was John linen, uh, wanted a swimming pool.

[00:26:41] So the Beatles, John Lennon morning swimming pool. And he basically told, I don't remember which one he told Dolan and other members, he was going to go right. The swimming pool. And so in other words, he was going to write a song. Yeah, that would then produce the money for this one, Annabelle. And to be honest with you, that is what a list can do for any business, any organization out there when you nurture that with us, when you engage that, that audience and big, big picture thing, make sure that you own that.

[00:27:11] In other words, don't have it contingent on. Facebook or it's all on Instagram or it's all on you name the planet.

[00:27:18] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like you're you're you are preaching to the choir, but it's wonderful to hear it from someone who's, you know, who's got their hands in the other channels as well. I mean, they're, they're complimentary, they're not really competitive.

[00:27:34] Um, you know, you're going to grow your email list in part, because your Facebook efforts know. Email relationship may actually help your Facebook presence in LinkedIn presence and, and so on. But the only one that you can walk away with, and the only one that probably gets factored, um, if you're selling your company is your email list because absolutely.

[00:27:56] Yeah, you own it. Interesting. Wow. And, and to have it bucketed under more, uh, traditional media is actually not entirely surprising.

[00:28:07] Wayne Mullins: Yeah. W what's interesting though, just I'll throw this out there. So this week, right, right down as we're recording this, um, our social media department is teaching a three day.

[00:28:17] It's like an hour, hour and a half a day. Uh, Facebook masterclass, where they're just sharing how to generate leads on Facebook. And here's the, here's the super interesting about that. This is taught live on Facebook in a private group that we. Um, but where the vast majority of the people who actually showed up and watched this training came from was from the emails that we sent out, promoting it.

[00:28:42] Right? So we're teaching people how to, how to be better at doing this thing called Facebook marketing. And yet we're using this other tool. That's not as sexy, not as cool. And that's the thing that's actually driving the majority of the people to sign up and it's in this thing. Yeah.

[00:28:58] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. That's fascinating.

[00:29:01] Well, one of the things that, I mean, you know, this better than I do, one of the things about channels under some other company's control. I don't know. Facebook, LinkedIn. Is is that there's no one-to-one guarantee I could, I could slave for days on a LinkedIn post and it may or may not get exposed to a minor percentage of the people who are nominally followers who are nominally connected, so, Hmm.

[00:29:27] Yeah. Versus email doesn't mean everyone's going to read every message, but it is going to get to the. Inbox or promo tab or something like it is going to be in their stack of stuff eventually, right?

[00:29:41] Wayne Mullins: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:42] Matthew Dunn: And, and, and I mean, I'm always intrigued by how, how email made the jump to mobile. I mean, arguably the first really compelling mobile device, at least my experience in a mobile phone grade, I can talk to people, but the Blackberry.

[00:29:59] Was was such a revolutionary thing. And it was because it put everyone's flipping email in their pocket. And I kinda missed that keyboard still. I don't know if you've ever had,

[00:30:10] Wayne Mullins: I didn't have the Blackberry actually had the, uh, the first one I had was a Palm trio. Yup.

[00:30:15] Matthew Dunn: Yup. Yup.

[00:30:17] Wayne Mullins: That's the one I had, it had a little stylist that came with.

[00:30:20] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. And you had to learn, was that the one with its own little scripting?

[00:30:23] Wayne Mullins: Shorthand that you had. Yeah,

[00:30:25] Matthew Dunn: yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a function of agent experience, I guess, but some of the, some of the technology sort of temporary technology waves, we went through just like, I really did all the work to get that down.

[00:30:40] Wow. Does that seem kind of nuts now? Um, but I do miss that there was a physical keyboard on the black, on the Blackberry. It was actually, it's very curvy. And you could get to be a pretty decent thumb typist on that. And you know, I've had an iPhone in my pocket for, I don't know how long it still works.

[00:30:56] Me. I still miss type on the thing. Oh, well, I mean, it's not, it's not a, it's not tangible. It's not physical well yet be a who to hear that, uh, that email is, is still working in the mix and that you're you help clients sorta get there and build that asset. Are you. Platform, you must be a bit platform agnostic as an agency.

[00:31:17] You must have people come in with system X already in place, or were particularly good at system wide.

[00:31:25] Wayne Mullins: Yes, that is correct. Um, you know, there there's certain platforms that we're more familiar with just because you know, more people who come to us to use those platforms. Um, but at the end of the day, it just goes back to, um, you know, the fact that you own the thing, right?

[00:31:39] You. That list and those people, um, the, the one thing that I think is important and, you know, you know, this and a lot of your listeners already know this, but when you think of the list, it's important to begin thinking through segmentation of those lists. And the way we love to do it is, you know, we love to segment kind of based on what we would call, we call it the natural progression.

[00:32:05] Um, If you just think of it as a traditional sales funnel, let's think of it this way. You're going to have a segment of people on your email list, who know very little about you, right? So they got on the list for, you know, a special opt in or whatever it may be. They ended up on your list, but they don't know much about you.

[00:32:24] You have a whole nother segment out there who knows more about. Um, and you want to begin building more trust directly with him. So that's a segment where think of it just in terms of they're closer to the point of pulling out their wallet and handing your money. Yup. And then the whole other segment is the segment of people who've already pulled out their wallet, handed you money and they're on the list.

[00:32:49] And what I would say, one of the biggest mistakes that people make, um, just big picture. Is, they don't think about the difference between the people who've already given you money on the list versus those who have. Because those two audiences, although it's on one list, possibly oftentimes it is the responsiveness and the willingness and ability to pull the wallet back out again, the willingness and the ability to share with a friend to share with the call week is infinitely greater for those who have already given you money.

[00:33:21] I mean, there's all kinds of stats. You can look it up. It's I forget what it is. Three times easier to sell it to somebody who's already bought or whatever the stats are, but yet. Marketers often we get a little lazy and we just view it as this is our email list. We're going to be doing email thing to the thing.

[00:33:40] Even if you write the same email, but do you think, okay, I'm a split this into two emails. I'm going to reword this one slightly differently to the people who've already bought their existing customers, and I'm gonna keep the other one the same way. And then segment that split that, you know, you have to do the work in terms of segmenting the list.

[00:33:57] However you do that in your system, but you can then track and say, okay, Which performed better. And I'm, I can tell you from our experience, you're always going to get better results from that list of previous customers. So I think a great, a great challenge for people. Um, and I mean that in a positive, like pro challenge, like this is something you should be working towards is the segmentation of your list between.

[00:34:24] Non buyers and buyers. And then the B part of that challenge is take that email, whatever it is, and rework it just slightly for the people who bought. So you want to speak to them differently, right? So you're speaking to people who already know who already trust. You already understand. You're gonna speak to them.

[00:34:42] You're gonna use language. That's a bit different than the people who have not done that yet. That's

[00:34:46] Matthew Dunn: great advice. That's great advice. I think I, I think I ended up referencing. The same, uh, retailer's story about, about every third conversation for this podcast. There's a, there's an outdoor retailer that I am subscribed to their email list for at least 12 years.

[00:35:07] Like I know at least 12 years and I've bought thousands of dollars worth of stuff from them and they still treat me like a newbie. I'm like, guys, man, are you missing it, man? He was a good, like. Change the tone and, and which is what you're saying, right. As a copywriter. I have a relationship. And I, and I don't know you from Adam are very, very different, you know, a very, very different takeoff points for what you have to say in your copy.

[00:35:37] Um, and then get even more targeted about what you put in front of my eyes and the value of your email is going to go up even higher. And, and I, I recognize the technical and data difficulties in getting there. Like it's not a trivial thing to pull up, but the fact that at a very basic. I still get treated like a newbie after 12 years just makes me go like on

[00:36:02] Wayne Mullins: it's such a missed opportunity.

[00:36:04] And what I would say for those listening would be this. Okay. I understand, like, you know, you've got a thousand people on your list or whatever the number is. It's very difficult to go backwards and try to figure that out, although it can be done. Yeah. Make the commitment going forward to say, okay, we're now going to tag people differently.

[00:36:21] We're going to whatever the system that you use does. So that going from this point forward, we're going to begin building that separate list for that segmentation of our big

[00:36:32] Matthew Dunn: list. If you will. That's, uh, that's good advice, you know, and it's partially a mechanism and, and how you do things, but it's also a philosophical.

[00:36:42] We're going, we're going down this road from the very beginning, recognizing that it's worth doing this. I'm just curious. Has the, um, has the big change in, um, in email feedback prompted by apple and their male privacy protection? Is that, has that popped up on the radar screen in your work with clients?

[00:37:03] Wayne Mullins: No, not really. Um, you know, the biggest effect that that has had for us or with us has been on the Facebook side where they began blocking the through or the follow of the app. Yes. Hmm, that is created the issue. So, um, we, we're very heavy users of Facebook for a lot of retargeting stops. So people hit a website, we reach target, and now that that's become a thing that, you know, it's more difficult to do for

[00:37:30] Matthew Dunn: sure.

[00:37:30] It's more difficult to do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're one of the realities of digital marketing, I think now, I mean, we're having this conversation in early 20, 22, is that. As, as the, as the sands shift in our desire to control data about us individually privacy, for lack of a better label, the mechanisms available to marketers to know what's happening are going to shift as well.

[00:37:58] And we'll just going to have to adapt and, you know, speaking as a person, I'm like, yeah, I'd rather be in control of that myself. I'm fine with that. Yeah. But it makes for work.

[00:38:10] Wayne Mullins: It absolutely does. But again, I think if we just go back, because again, we're spending hundreds of plates as entrepreneurs, as marketers.

[00:38:19] There's all these things we could and should and ought to be doing. But if we just go back to the fundamentals, what are the core fundamentals? My business or the thing that I'm marking for that make it tick. Right? And so at some level there's going to be these assets that exist. So it's the warm, responsive audience, like focus on the big picture of that.

[00:38:42] How do we grow that? How do we nurture that? How do we build that? Like all this other stuff's going to come and go platforms are going to come and go, but if we can stay focused on the core at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it's. We didn't take doc Snapchat. It doesn't matter. The end of the day, we're building that audience.

[00:39:00] And the question is, can we build the audience in such a way that they look forward to our communication, that they look forward to engaging and dialoguing with us? Yeah. You know, I think the other big thing is that what what's going to really separate people as the technology gets more complex is that, um, do relational companies, the companies that do go back to your example of the, of.

[00:39:28] The email that you on, that you've been on for a long time, and they still treat you as if you've never bought anything from them. Um, going forward, the companies that are going to win are going to be the ones that treat you as a relationship instead of that transaction. And the tools are in place. Now, you know, technology's advancing in such ways that it's easier and easier to make that happen.

[00:39:51] Going forward. It's easier and easier to customize the messaging based on

[00:39:55] Matthew Dunn: behavior. It's not as it possible. Uh, any more, um, different levels of clunky aside. There's a, there's a company in the email space called litmus. You might've run into them. I, uh, they're, they're the masters of proofing. What's this gonna look like on this device?

[00:40:15] What's it gonna look like on that device? It wonderful part of the email world. I got an email from Litmos a couple of weeks ago with, uh, with the, with the, do you want to keep hearing from us, but. In the email, it was, we're not going to keep sending to you if you don't want to hear from us. So basically please opt back in.

[00:40:37] That's a bold move and a lot of email marketers won't do that. And I'm thinking this is litmus. They know the space kudos for them. And I, I click the yes button cause I do want to keep hearing from them, but for them to put it out there like that and say, we're going to treat you as an intelligent end.

[00:40:55] Not as, uh, we're we're just gonna have a barge, no matter what was, was it actually improved my relationship with them to be asked.

[00:41:05] Wayne Mullins: Yeah, no, I think again, it goes back to the relationship. I mean, that's a perfect example of they're treating you as a relationship and they only want relationships with people who want relationships.

[00:41:17] Right. It can't be a relationship if it's. Yeah. And I think all too often as marketers, we have the mentality that if we just show up and throw up that people are going to do business with us. Right. And that doesn't go so well. And you certainly can't build evangelists for your organization that way it has to be relational in order to create evangelists

[00:41:40] Matthew Dunn: for you.

[00:41:41] Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. I mean, there is a, there's a, there's a kind of a needy and greedy side. To, uh, email marketing and other kinds of marketing done poorly, where once I've got. Token email address, text, text number, whatever. Yay. I get to keep sending to you no matter what, uh, right. Uh, that's that's, that's probably not going to pay off really well in the long-term and PS don't go buy lists for off the back of a truck that doesn't work either

[00:42:17] Wayne Mullins: again. It's almost like somebody needs to write the book of like what your grandfather would have taught you about marketing in the 21st century. Right? I mean, it's like the common sense stuff that we know. Like it's not good just to go out and send emails to people who have no idea who you are, what you do, just because you went and bought a list like.

[00:42:39] Like, it doesn't make sense. Like if we're in this for the longterm, we have to play the long-term game. We can't just be looking at, you know, the, the quick fix, because quick fix typically doesn't last long, right? It, it fixes it and we have to move to the next one.

[00:42:55] Matthew Dunn: I, I, I do wonder how big is Alexandria population?

[00:43:01] Wayne Mullins: 45,000. Okay.

[00:43:03] Matthew Dunn: I do much find myself wondering if the best market. Like you and I come from small towns because this is, you're not anonymous in a town of, you know, a 45,000. I grew up in a town of 500 when I was a kid. Like everybody knew your business and it leads to that. It, everything is a relationship and everything you do can have an impact on those things.

[00:43:28] So you better pay attention to it. It's not I'm here. I'm gone. No one's ever going to see me again.

[00:43:35] Wayne Mullins: No, that's super interesting, uh, concept or idea. There's probably validity to that, you know? Um, I can't go anywhere without, you know, there's, there's likely going to be a client in the restaurant or in the, the grocery store or wherever you go.

[00:43:52] Um, yeah, that's, that's interesting or a future or a future. Claire, it's just

[00:43:57] Matthew Dunn: that, you know, it's easy to lose that sense of the social. Fabric, especially in larger cities and I've lived in larger cities, not voluntarily for any length of time, but, um, it's sort of easy to, to, to forget that even in a larger city, you're actually surprisingly tightly connected in a professional community.

[00:44:20] You're actually surprisingly tightly, uh, connected. And that that's a, that's a great basis on which to conduct your business in your. Hmm. Yeah. Hmm. We'll have to

[00:44:35] Wayne Mullins: do that research because I think there's some, I do believe there's some validity to that, um, that it, that it is that relational aspect of the day that.

[00:44:46] Yeah. I just think, I think you could even take that in and, you know, do research on the companies who have that mentality versus the ones who are transactional from day one and the long-term consequence of those things. Um, I can't, I can't say this for sure. Like, this is my personal story. Is that at the beginning?

[00:45:09] I chose to take this relational approach. Um, the beginning years were terrible and awful, as I said earlier, but over time it has paid to all those seeds. I sewed sewn, sewed, whatever that word would be in those early days have now bloomed and blossomed. And there's the fruits of those labors where. You know, there was lots of other quick money that probably could have been made along the way.

[00:45:37] You know, there's lots of hopping on the latest bandwagon and doing the latest and greatest, cool thing that we could have done and probably made a lot of money real quick. But. It's the long-term game. And I think that, I think you're right. I think as marketers, we have to be careful that because our job is to convince, right, our job is to persuade people, to make decisions by default.

[00:46:04] If we're not careful, that becomes a transactional thought process. But I think if. For me, at least if we think of, okay, this isn't about the acquisition of a customer, this is about the acquisition of a costumer for the point of converting them into an evangelist. I'm going to treat them differently than if I'm just thinking acquisition, like get the next customer.

[00:46:30] Yeah. Um, so it forces the mindset to think long term.

[00:46:34] Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and flips the value real value. Polarity of the relationship, if you will. I'm not, we're not having, we're not having this interaction. Transactional is for what I can get out of just now. It's what, what, what's the longterm for both of us, um, together, so to speak, we, you know, we will stay connected whether or not we continue to do business.

[00:46:58] We'll actually probably still stay connected. It, it can be tough to keep up. To be fair. Um, the, the days where you remembered the phone numbers of people you call their long past,

[00:47:15] I had to look up one of my son's mobile numbers, so that he's like, what the heck

[00:47:19] Wayne Mullins: is know his number. I just punched his name. Right? Yeah. You just look for the name. I think, you know, this is. This is an oversimplification after you, but I think these two questions or two questions that we love to tell our clients to ask themselves, to have everyone on their staff answer.

[00:47:41] And the two questions are this, what have I done to attract a customer today? And then what have I done to keep a customer today? And so if you think about any organization, every single person on the team, Should be able to answer those questions each day. It doesn't matter if you're in cells and no matter if you're in marketing, it doesn't matter if you just answer the front phone or it doesn't matter the role, right?

[00:48:06] Like at the end of the day, every single role exists for those two reasons. To attract a customer and to keep a customer. And so for, you know, flipping the script back to us as marketers, again, we're good at asking that first question. What did I do to attract customers today? But the be part of that is something else.

[00:48:27] We as marketers, we don't need to think, oh, that's customer supporter. That's customer. Sorry. Oh, that's the account reps job. If in the world, we live in every single person with that little device that goes in their pocket or in their partners is now a media company. Right. They can literally walk in any restaurant, any store and in an instant share with the world, what they believe to be true about a business.

[00:48:56] With that reality, what are we as marketers doing to keep those people, to convert those people into evangelists on our behalf?

[00:49:07] Matthew Dunn: There you go. Well, that's it. I'm not going to top that as an ending. That was terrific. That's that needs to be a snippet on media snippet. All its own well said, well said way.

[00:49:19] What a pleasure to speak with.

[00:49:22] Wayne Mullins: Thank you so much, Matthew, I enjoyed our conversation, so I love marketing and I love it when people, I get to understand it and can can dialogue about it. If, uh, if someone's

[00:49:32] Matthew Dunn: listening to this and they go, Ooh, wow, we really need to talk with them. They can help our company where what's the best way for them to hunt a hundred.

[00:49:41] Wayne Mullins: The simplest place is just our website. I believe mug marketing.com. I mean, he's got links to social emails, all the, all the good stuff's right there,

[00:49:49] Matthew Dunn: all that stuff. I, I I'm, as a geek, I'm kind of delighted that websites are, are, are, are still where you send people because that's, that's how I think of it's like, cause you own that,

[00:50:01] Wayne Mullins: like your email.

[00:50:02] Yep. Yep. Cool.

[00:50:04] Matthew Dunn: My guest has been Wade Mullins, founder, and head of ugly mug marketing way. Terrific to speak with you today. Thanks.

[00:50:12] Wayne Mullins: Hey,

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