Podcast With Marty Marion

Brand Positioning Secrets Every Agency Must Master in 2025 with Marty Marion

Show Notes

Unlock the game-changing "Brand Positioning Secrets Every Agency Must Master in 2025"! 🚀 In this must-watch episode of the Agency Insider Show, I sat down with renowned brand positioning expert Marty Marion. Discover how to master the art and science of positioning and deposing to dominate your category, attract top-tier clients, and outshine your competitors. Learn actionable strategies to craft messaging that resonates, disrupt your industry, and leverage psychology to influence consumer decisions.

Marty reveals the secrets behind breaking industry rules, creating category-class leadership, and why positioning alone isn’t enough—it’s all about combining it with deposing for maximum impact. Whether you’re running a small, medium, or enterprise agency, this discussion dives into proven methods to scale your agency and win in today’s competitive market.

Stay ahead in 2025 with insights on AI’s role in branding, mastering consumer psychology, and building campaigns that convert on the first touch. Ready to position your agency for unparalleled success? Watch now and transform your approach to branding forever!

👉 Hit subscribe for more insider knowledge, and let us know your favorite takeaway in the comments!

Chapters:

00:00 - Intro

00:39 - Real Life Mad Man

06:35 - Changes in Marketing Landscape

25:03 - Agency Positioning in AI Era

26:38 - Understanding Positioning

28:45 - Concept of De-Positioning

31:10 - Creating Positioning Messages

33:05 - Tesla and Elon Musk's Positioning

39:40 - Controlling Consumer Decisions

48:07 - AI Impact on SEO

51:55 - AI's Influence on Positioning Science

55:57 - Importance of FTER

1:06:57 - Rapid Fire Round

1:08:10 - Alternative Career Paths

1:08:23 - Influencers on Career

1:08:30 - Essential Marketing Skills

1:08:35 - Successful Brand Positioning

1:09:10 - Learning More About You

1:10:11 - Final Advice for Agencies

Transcript

Intro

0:01 welcome to the agency Insider show I am your host NAIT kosel and today we have a

0:06 very special guest joining us he is a renowned brand positioning expert the founder of Master positioning and has

0:13 been called the real life [Music] [Applause]

0:19 [Music] [Applause] [Music]

0:24 [Applause] madman please welcome Martin

0:30 Mar thank you gra it's very good to be here Marty it's great to have you on the

0:37 show before we dive into our main topics could you give our listeners a brief overview of your background and how you

Real Life Mad Man

0:43 became to known as the real life madman so if you are familiar at all

0:49 with the television series Mad Men which was very very popular for many

0:54 years was based around one of the giant new New York Madison Avenue big agencies

1:03 one of the biggest in the world and I was a principal of that agency that the show was based around so people started

1:12 calling me a madman and I like it I am

1:19 mad right right right and and and a bit about your background as well so I

1:25 started out as um International marketing director

1:31 uh responsible for creating strategy for all of the agency's big a tier clients

1:37 on a worldwide basis and our clients were the biggest in the world if you

1:42 didn't have a $5 million starting budget we wouldn't even

1:48 talk to you wow and I was there for many years and was responsible for creating

1:54 the go to market strategies the competitive Advantage Strate IES uh for many many household

2:03 name brands in eCommerce in uh packaged Goods in financial services health care

2:12 I wound up really spending more time in the health care sector because at that

2:18 time the insurance rules and the reimbursement rules for Health Products

2:25 and health care in the US were changing rapidly and the agency that I was at didn't have

2:34 a dedicated Health Care Division so we created one and I basically took it over

2:40 and built it into about the third largest medical pharmaceutical and

2:46 Health Care Ad Agency in the world wow and then I got head hunted away to

2:53 another Agency on Madison Avenue um where I ran International Market

2:59 marketing and strategic planning and client acquisition and business development for the agency

3:07 worldwide I spent a lot of time working with gigantic Enterprise level

3:13 clients billion dooll companies household name brands and

3:18 products and when you are working with clients

3:25 that have those kinds of budgets you can do almost anything you want to do and as you well know in any

3:33 field of marketing or advertising or agency the more information you have the

3:40 better the results you're going to get for your clients for your ads for your

3:45 creatives and so we did a lot of research tremendous amount of research

3:51 and we studied the following

3:57 questions were there any factors that the leading brands in every single

4:05 category all did the same why were they the leaders why

4:10 wasn't one of their competitors a leader or the number one player in the

4:16 category we found some very interesting things number one we found that

4:23 every company every brand every product that was the number one in its category

4:29 m they broke the rules of the category

4:35 meaning every category has a set of this is the way it's done this is what we

4:41 talk about this is how we position our product and the leaders changed the

4:49 rules which is very interesting because when you play by somebody else's

4:56 rules you never really have an advantage right when you set your own rules then

5:03 everybody else has to play against your rules so you have the advantage and your

5:11 competitors wind up having to spend a lot of time and a lot of resources

5:17 trying to catch up to you or you know overtake you instead of focusing on growing their own business so it's

5:24 really a double [Music] win and after working for many years at

5:31 that level I realized that there was a tremendous opportunity to take that kind

5:38 of Insider information that the big big agencies used strategically to create

5:46 their ads and their messages for their clients and apply that for small or

5:52 medium businesses and smaller agencies and I kind of like the idea of

6:00 helping startups and small early stage companies and

6:05 agencies understand what it takes to get an advantage so I've been doing that for the last I would say 20 years now I

6:14 still work with Enterprise clients I still like that but I really enjoy working with smaller

6:23 agencies and mediumsized agencies a lot more because the rewards that they get

6:30 are rewarding to me okay so right now uh of course uh you've been

Changes in Marketing Landscape

6:38 in the marketing industry for decades how has the landscape changed since your

6:43 days on Madison Avenue I think there are several big changes that have happened

6:50 that put us in a completely different world than we've ever been in

6:56 before I started before the internet was a

7:02 thing right and so the primary channels for

7:09 advertising at the big big agency level was always

7:14 television print radio

7:20 and what happened was this internet thing came along and some agencies at

7:27 the big level embraced it and some didn't and the agencies that embraced it as I

7:33 said before when you know these kind of Insider tricks of how you win the

7:41 agencies that embraced the internet early on they set the rules of how you

7:47 Market on the internet right how you advertise on the internet and the world

7:54 of digital exploded at an exponential rate right and when that happened

8:01 several changes kind of you came out of the sky that impact

8:07 agencies the first one is that if you look today at agencies across the net

8:15 almost in any category you could be an SEO agency you could be an ad agency PPC

8:21 you could specialize in social media you could do all of them or many of them

8:27 they're all saying the same thing we're the best we do this we'll 10x your

8:33 revenues and so on everybody says the same thing

8:39 and when you're on the client side and you're looking for an

8:46 agency you need to kind of cut through the noise all these agencies are

8:53 promising me the world they're all saying the same thing they're all offering me incred in Revenue growth and

9:00 more sales and more clients and more this and more that and you know what I

9:06 tell this to my clients everybody in the whole world thinks that

9:13 their newborn baby is the most beautiful baby that has ever been born in the

9:20 whole history of babies right and it's great babies are cute

9:26 they're you know fun and but not everyone is the most

9:32 beautiful or the cutest right so if you wind up saying the same thing

9:42 as your competitors are saying even if you're not using the exact same words if

9:47 the implication is the same if the way your targets hear you is the same if they

9:56 interpret what you're offering sound the same you an

10:02 advantage and so I reach back and I look at how we did these things in the big

10:09 agencies in the Madison Avenue agencies our clients let's say who sold a brand

10:16 of automobile they weren't the only automobile in the market right and every

10:21 automobile promised the same thing more miles per gallon quieter ride more

10:28 comfortable safer right everybody's saying the same thing or essentially the same

10:36 thing and the real change that has happened n Nate in the years since pre-

10:44 interet to early internet to today is that clients have become more

10:52 sophisticated and they are bombarded with more offers and more message

11:00 than ever before and so when you have one or two

11:05 choices that kind of jump out at you it's relatively easy to make a decision you got 20 30 50 100 choices in

11:14 front of you and they're all scrambling for your business as a client the choice

11:20 becomes a little harder right complicated and so what I tell the

11:27 agencies that I consult to small agencies medium agencies specialist

11:34 agencies right if one channel agencies and also Omni Channel agencies what I

11:39 tell them is two things number one when you are trying to scale your

11:49 agency it's all about bringing in new clients

11:55 right but when you take a step back and you say what is this opportunity for

12:03 me how do I get a new client and you realize that a

12:10 client Prospect for your agency is likely using some other agency

12:18 today there are very very few entirely

12:23 brand new entrance into any market right how many new car companies

12:31 come along a year one two they're very very few and if you're

12:37 an agency that depends on clients who are looking for SEO services or looking

12:44 for you know Facebook advertising services or media whatever it is that you do there are very very few brand new

12:53 clients and what that means is that your targets the clients you want to come to

13:01 you are already bound and working with some other agency

13:08 right so you've got to take them away to get your market share your Market shair

13:15 isn't just you know hang out your shingle and spend some money on Advertising for yourself and and people

13:23 are going to come to you it's not a matter of looking like the best and I

13:31 hate that word it's the most dangerous word in all of agency marketing and all of

13:36 marketing but if you realize that the majority of prospects that you want are

13:44 already working with someone else you need to understand what it takes to bring them

13:51 away right if they're happy working with whoever they're working with today why

13:58 would they leave if I absolutely love my favorite brand

14:05 of toothpaste and when I'm out of it I buy more right why would I change Brands I

14:13 like it I don't get cavities it keeps my mouth thresh and so on so right people

14:18 have favorites well clients have what we call

14:23 incumbents I'm using agency abc and you are a agency

14:31 XYZ you want me as a client but I already have an agency why would I

14:38 switch and it turns out that there are only two reasons why any client would

14:48 switch one is for some reason they doubt that they're getting what they think

14:54 they should be getting from their agency they doubt that um their agency

15:01 is really doing the best job possible for them they doubt that whoever's been

15:08 assigned as their account manager really understands their business and you know isn't just doing the same thing that

15:15 they do for every other client I doubt and if you analyze it one level

15:22 deeper you realize that doubt is nothing more than a question mark

15:29 and if I put a question mark in your mind and say I'm an agency you're a

15:35 prospect client but you're working with another agency and you're happy you don't have a

15:42 reason today to think about leaving them or finding another agency right right if

15:48 I can put a question mark in your mind that causes you to think oh maybe

15:55 I'm not getting the results I should be getting or maybe I'm not getting the

16:01 kind of results that others in my category are getting maybe that's why

16:07 I'm not growing as fast as I want to grow right and nobody's ever happy with their growth or their scaling everybody

16:13 wants more so if I can put a doubt in your mind as a client a

16:21 prospect we as human beings are hardwired to answer

16:27 questions because if we go all the way back in time to our caveman ancestors

16:33 right um you heard a noise it was a question mark what is

16:39 that noise where is it coming from and if you didn't answer that question fairly quickly maybe it was

16:48 dinner for you maybe you could you know slay the Beast and have some dinner or

16:53 maybe you were dinner he right so if you didn't answer the question was a big

16:59 risk and we are still hardwired to answer these

17:05 questions you know I think everybody that's going to listen to this

17:10 knows that we have questions all day long but if we go to bed at night

17:16 without answering important questions in our mind we don't sleep well right we

17:21 wake up we're puzzled what's the answer I've got to find it I've got to find everybody needs answers to questions

17:29 but now we get to the next level let's suppose that I as an agency

17:36 am successful in putting a question mark of doubt in your mind as a prospect right

17:42 as potential client there are two answers to that

17:48 question no I am not getting what I think I should be getting therefore maybe I should look

17:55 elsewhere or maybe I come to the decision I am getting what I think I

18:01 should be getting or I'm okay I'm happy with it making my money I'm bringing in Revenue there's no need to

18:09 change so if I'm an agency in competition with others if I cause doubt to happen in the

18:19 mind of my targets it's a little risky because maybe they come to the decision they

18:24 don't need to change and all I've done is hurt myself right I've helped the

18:32 prospects that I want to take away become more bound to the agency they're

18:38 working with now so I'm going to lose this so there's another

18:44 way and the second way is to create a feeling of

18:51 dissatisfaction because if you're dissatisfied that means you've already

18:57 come to a conclusion that you're not happy that you're not getting something that you think you

19:03 should be getting that you're not where you should be after all this time with

19:09 the other ones right and dissatisfaction is always a cause a trigger if you will

19:18 for a client to start to separate from whatever agency or consultant they might

19:25 be working with today you're some dissatisfied so you as

19:33 a an agency looking for new

19:39 clients you want to try to create a sense of

19:46 dissatisfaction in the minds of your targets and this is one of the biggest

19:51 mistakes agencies make their message to the world out

19:58 there is all about scaling and I will 10x your

20:06 your revenue and 50x your client acquisition and I'll fix this and I'll

20:11 get you on page one of Google and you're G to get more clicks on your Facebook or

20:17 Google ads than ever before whatever it is that they're promising is all

20:24 about you being able to achieve a greater level of success somehow but it's not

20:32 enough because if I'm not unhappy with who I'm using today or

20:38 what I'm doing today maybe I have an in-house Department that's doing the work for me um maybe I'm doing the work

20:47 myself if I'm not unhappy with the results if I'm not dissatisfied actually

20:53 even upset angry disappointed

20:59 why would I change right so you know um I'm going use a

21:05 couple of examples right there are I'll use some TV ads because they're obviously the most widely seen right um

21:15 for many years there was a uh a credit card company Capital One yes and they had I

21:24 think Samuel Jackson as a spokesperson very familiar and he would come on the

21:30 ad and he would say what's in your wallet question mark right that's a

21:37 question what's in my what's in my wallet is it really the best credit card

21:43 I could have is give me the best rewards cash back credit limit whatever it is so

21:51 it causes me to doubt that's the first potential mover but I might come to

21:57 realize you know what's in my wallet I have an American Express platinum card in my wallet so you I'm fine I'm okay I

22:05 don't need a Capital One card so it's a little

22:10 risky but then there are campaigns that work on

22:17 dissatisfaction several years ago at the Super Bowl budl

22:24 beer produced a dissatisfaction campaign

22:30 four words four words disrupted a

22:35 billion dooll category so there

22:40 t came on the Super Bowl right one of the most watched events in the world

22:48 right and they said Bud Light brewed

22:54 without corn syrup

22:59 period that was the entire campaign brewed without corn

23:06 syrup well that's kind of good because everybody knows corn syrup isn't very

23:11 healthy for you right so it it's in favor of Bud Light

23:17 they you know they're reasonably healthy for some reason right but the real home

23:23 run was that if Bud Light is the beer

23:28 that is brewed without corn syrup what are other brewed with right every other

23:34 beer has corn syrup right so people watching the Super Bowl drinking beer

23:39 they would grab their bottle or can of beer and they would say oh my God my

23:45 beer has corn syrup in it or they would think maybe my beer has corn syrup That's not healthy for me right sugary

23:52 and carbohydrates and my blood sugar and my blood pressure so it disrupted it

23:58 made me potentially unhappy with my current choice of brand of beer and they got

24:06 sued for it by Kors and you know other beer companies sued them they they won

24:15 eventually um but it disrupted a gigantic category that you know you

24:20 would think it's pretty hard to unseat a leader in that

24:26 category and there are obviously a lot of ways any any agency

24:33 or um any consultant any coach can acquire new clients right you

24:40 can brag you can make offers that you think are irresistible right right um or you can

24:50 work at a different level of the subconscious mind and that is the

24:59 entire ball game in marketing right so so let's say if you

Agency Positioning in AI Era

25:05 know how AI is evolving and how the world is moving forward let's hypothetically say an suu agency has to

25:13 reposition itself in this AI with how how do you can you take us through one

25:19 example hypothetical example how should they be doing it because you are a brand positioning expert so how should they go

25:25 about doing it so if you look at AI as a

25:31 source of answers you're probably eventually going

25:36 to fail right AI makes mistakes a lot of them right uh large learning models are

25:44 still in the learning stage right um

25:49 and you can get some pretty spectacular answers but if you read them 100 answers

25:57 from chat GP you can start to see patterns right in

26:03 the Ever Changing world of that's how it starts they open up

26:08 with that right and in conclusion at the end and if you use that as content if

26:14 you're looking at AI as a source of content anything other than rough input

26:23 for you you're probably making a mistake at this point in time

26:29 but you can use AI as an agency or even as a client

26:35 for positioning development let me explain

Understanding Positioning

26:42 that okay if you talk to a hundred people in

26:47 the marketing World thousand people in the marketing world and you say what is

26:55 positioning you can get 100 different answers right and that's part of the problem in

27:01 marketing is that our language our use of of definitions is very

27:07 fragmented I say positioning is this you say positioning is that some book said

27:14 positioning is something else right and brand strategy if you

27:21 will or marketing strategy is actually all dependent on positioning right so

27:28 let me set a definition positioning is a

27:34 science of influencing your

27:40 targets to feel positively in favor of your brand or your agency or your

27:47 service right that's positioning is trying to occupy a space in their mind

27:54 that when they think of your category they think of you

27:59 brand awareness is positioning if I said quick name a German luxury car and

28:06 everybody in the world said mercedesbenz right mercedesbenz would be

28:11 the number one maybe the only German luxury car sold but we also have

28:16 Porsche we also have Audi we also have

28:22 BMW and so they're all fighting to get that little real estate in your mind

28:28 find that when the question of the best German luxury sports car comes up you

28:36 pick their brand that's positioning there's a hundred ways to get there only a few really make it only

28:43 a few really matter but here's the real secret because we talked before about

Concept of De-Positioning

28:50 the fact that your targets are typically going to be bound to someone else right

28:58 positioning is not enough to win the game okay the flip

29:05 side called deposing and

29:12 deposing works with positioning

29:18 simultaneously I need to position deploy positioning

29:24 science to get my targets to believe positively in my favor right but I also

29:34 need to compel my targets when they

29:39 think of our category to think that others my

29:45 competitors cannot will not do not

29:52 provide to the Target what I can

29:58 which is a solution to a problem resolving a pain

30:06 Point fulfilling a need or desire okay or protecting you from

30:13 something you don't want why do people buy mouthwash they don't want bad breath

30:19 because it's embarrassing right so there's a lot of things that we

30:24 don't want we buy products all the time and services because of things we don't want to

30:32 happen right right so positioning is the science of

30:38 influencing your targets to think in favor of you deposing is the science of

30:46 influencing your targets to not believe that your competitors are viable options

30:53 when you put the two together that's why you win

30:59 okay so uh go on

31:05 go I was gonna add one more thing right if I might

Creating Positioning Messages

31:11 please the question becomes let's say we agree

31:17 that my definitions of positioning and deposing are accurate and correct and

31:22 I'm telling you they are I've been doing this 40 years right

31:28 the next question is very obvious how do I do it how do I create a positioning

31:34 message how do I create a deposing message can I create a message that does

31:41 both at the same time and go back to the Bud Light commercial right okay brood

31:49 without corn serup there's a positioning component to that but there's a deposing component to

31:57 it at the same time that is one of the best examples I

32:04 can [Music] use to demonstrate the power that even a

32:10 few words can accomplish positive positioning and deposing of your

32:17 competitors without going negative I don't have to call out my

32:22 competitors by name I don't have to be negative and nasty discouraging and

32:28 disparaging and insulting what I have to do is look at the

32:35 category right because there's so many competitors in every category okay I want competitive

32:43 advantage to dominate my category instead of pointing the finger

32:49 at any one competitor I want to say that the way the entire category today is doing

32:58 things is not going to solve your problem right now go back to the very

Tesla and Elon Musk's Positioning

33:05 beginning when we talked about what agencies do to help their clients become

33:11 leaders in their categories is they break the rules they set the rules they're actually creating a new

33:19 category by creating new rules and we call that a category

33:25 class here's one example Elon Musk everybody knows Elon Musk

33:32 everybody Associates Elon Musk to some degree with Tesla Elon Musk didn't invent the

33:41 automobile right and people who are looking for an automobile have dozens of choices which one am I going to

33:48 buy what Elon did very clever he positioned his

33:55 automobile company not as the company originally that made a sports car and a convertible and a

34:01 family car and a he positioned his car as emission

34:07 free right well he couldn't invent the category of automobile because it

34:12 already existed but he basically stuck his his

34:18 sword in the ground and and claimed the territory of emission free

34:25 Vehicles so people who were environmentally conscious potentially um who concerned about

34:32 climate change for example might say you know what that's a great idea no

34:38 emissions I'm going to look at a Tesla and that is a

34:44 positioning because it's a benefit right positively thinking in

34:50 favor of Tesla because they're Mission free wow that's that's great but it's

34:55 also simultaneously deep repositioning cars that run on gas right

35:02 and fossil fuels right so if you can find a way to create a new category a

35:09 category class Elevate the category away from what it is

35:15 today then you have both a positioning and a deposing component built in and

35:23 you win that's what makes you as an agency win that's what makes you as a

35:30 consultant win that what makes you as a client in your category win don't care

35:36 if it's a local service or an e-commerce product or an Enterprise level it doesn't matter they all work exactly the

35:44 same way why why because of the way our minds are

35:51 wired every decision every decision I'll say it again every single decision all

36:00 of our lives in the moment we wake up in the morning so we go to bed at night

36:07 every day seven days a week 247 365 days a year is all

36:14 controlled by our subconscious decisionmaking

36:21 capabilities which are called juristic urist stics are filters if you

36:30 will that our brains have evolved to protect

36:36 us so you're walking down the street and somebody comes up to you and says hey would you like to buy it

36:42 nope that's a euristic you didn't stop to say oh what are they selling is it really good do I need this you people

36:51 shy away from being approached you know unexpectedly right right

36:58 you're walking down the street you're coming to the corner and there's 30 people there and they're all looking up

37:04 at a building what do you do I look at the building as well you look up because our

37:12 subconscious mind said they're all looking up what's

37:18 up there could it be dangerous to me so I have to

37:24 look we didn't stop to say well you know what that crowd of people you know

37:30 they're not really professionals like I am so maybe I shouldn't follow their no

37:36 it happens instantaneously and all of the answers to all of our decisions from what pair

37:44 of socks am I going to put on in the morning to what am I going to eat for lunch

37:50 to what university am I going to send my daughter to um to what agency am I going

37:58 to hire to what product am I going to sell to what channel am I going to sell it through every single decision we make

38:06 in the entire world of marketing and advertising is subconsciously

38:12 controlled period no exceptions it's not about how much money you spend to

38:19 promote your product or your service or your agency to acquire new clients has

38:25 nothing to do with that has nothing to with your offer I'm the best sure you are

38:31 everybody's the best why should I believe you right and so if we start to

38:40 understand the human psychology of consumer psychology of buying and

38:45 behavior and we're an Advertiser or an agency that's working on behalf of a

38:51 client and we can embed these triggers into our messages

38:58 and our content we can achieve the results we

39:03 want the reactions we want to enable us as either an agency or

39:11 a a product or a service to

39:16 control the way our targets react and respond to our

39:23 messages and make their buying decisions we can contr that

39:29 completely by using Ur ristics in the crafting of our

39:35 messages period That's the ball game right there okay now uh let's talk about

Controlling Consumer Decisions

39:42 uh how controlling consumers and client buying decisions so of course uh let's

39:47 talk about tactics that can influence consumers and client banking decisions of course you said one is positioning

39:53 and deposing but what Strate what other strategies can agency employee to guide

39:58 consumer choices effective we look at agencies as having

40:03 really couple of objectives one objective is for them to acquire more

40:09 clients right okay so they're doing their own marketing and the other is they make

40:15 their livelihood by helping their clients become more

40:21 successful right sell more product uh more brand recognition be the one that's chosen

40:28 more and more make more Revenue right keep clients for a longer time get

40:33 ranked higher on Google get into the generative AI searches

40:39 so we ask ourselves what are our opportunities to

40:49 influence the way somebody makes a decision and there are actually about a

40:56 half a dozen what I call top level issues that go into how people

41:05 make their decisions and how you can control that one is to understand that making a

41:16 decision whether it's a client who is looking for a particular

41:22 type of consumer right right I have a product that's good for let's say newborn mother

41:28 newborn mothers of newborn babies right okay okay so I make diapers or

41:35 washcloths or whatever it is my target is women who recently had a

41:44 child I want to control the way they make their decisions when I say here's

41:50 my product isn't this great for you and so we work from their point of

41:57 view not ours you are the mother and you're faced with five six

42:05 seven different options how do you make your decision well sometimes it's price-based

42:12 but that's never really a winning positioning right right you if you

42:17 compete based on price it's a downward spiral you know we call it the death spiral is your competitor can just drop

42:24 their price to buy the market share and then you have to drop your price again and it's a never ending cycle until

42:30 you're out of business the price is a terrible position to take unless you're Costco or Walmart and

42:37 your positioning intentionally is we're the cheapest one in town

42:42 right other than that price is a terrible way to to Market yourself or to try to get a consumer to

42:50 say yep I'm buying that one because it's cheap so we look at what is the process

43:00 by which consumers make their decisions okay your ristics plays a big

43:06 role because if I show you an ad cor right and in the ad let's say I'm

43:14 selling T-shirts or I'm doing advertising for a client of mine who makes t-shirts what do we usually say

43:21 about t-shirts right they are soft uh help you uh stay

43:27 cool they fit great they're slim and trim and they keep their colors in the

43:33 wash and I can come up with a thousand things that are typical for t-shirts you

43:39 know claims and benefits that you know my t-shirts does this but at the end of the

43:47 day consumers don't buy your T-shirt because of something you say it

43:56 does buy your T-shirt because they've decided that the other

44:02 t-shirts aren't what they want the buying decision is

44:10 actually a process of elimination not a process of making a

44:18 choice right it's a beauty contest and with each round of

44:23 evaluation more and more contestants become eliminated until there's one left

44:30 standing and that's the one I buy I dropped my laptop on the sidewalk two

44:36 weeks ago and destroyed it it got broken into a hundred pieces my travel to see

44:43 clients a lot I need a new laptop right okay which one am I G to

44:49 buy well you know I've had that laptop for several years and now I need a new

44:55 one the technology is Chang changed dramatically Which laptop am I going to

45:00 buy now right well I don't want this one because

45:06 it doesn't have a numeric keypad and I need the numbers on the right side of my

45:11 keyboard um I'm not going to buy this one because the screen is too small and

45:17 I need a bigger screen for spreadsheets or whatever I'm not going to buy that

45:22 one because it doesn't have a dedicated graphics card I do a lot of Photoshop

45:28 work and video editing so I need a a graphics I'm not going to buy this one

45:34 because it's too heavy to carry around with me all when I travel all over the world it's eight to 10 pounds of laptop

45:41 I don't need that so we wind up eliminating I don't want that one for this reason I don't

45:48 want that one I don't want this one I don't want that one and know there's only one or two left and that's our choice that's what

45:56 we're going to buy so if you're selling something you want to use your

46:04 ristics to trigger reactions by your target

46:09 audience to eliminate your competitors not to choose you because at

46:18 the end of the day now need if I can prevent you from saying no to

46:25 me but I can get get you to say no to all the others at the end of that process

46:32 there's only one option left you say yes to me all right so just

46:38 to you know kind of wrap this up a little bit in in a nice ribbon what we've just talked

46:43 is making a buying decision is not

46:49 primarily a process of choosing as much as it is a process of eliminating

46:57 other options right and that happens subconsciously

47:04 it's instantaneous decision right I can go online right now and I can look at 50

47:10 different laptops and any given laptop model is 800 different configurations right I get

47:18 this one with you know one terabyte of of SSD this one with two terabytes of

47:24 SSD different screens different memory different right all sorts of

47:29 capabilities I don't have to physically go to a store and look at them and see them I

47:36 can go online I can say what's the specs oh well that's not fast enough I need a faster

47:41 processor U right that one that screen is too small I can do this now online

47:47 and that's where I want to answer your earlier question it's where AI comes in

47:52 right because consumers can use AI to help them find options and eliminate

48:02 options but agencies can use AI to do the same thing let's talk about

AI Impact on SEO

48:09 an SEO Agency for a moment okay

48:15 traditionally the objective of SEO is what to rank higher on Google all right

48:24 yes I tell my clients SEO is not about

48:30 ranking SEO is about getting the click I don't care if my client is in

48:37 position eight if that's the one that's getting all the clicks now it used to be that the higher

48:44 up you are in the Ser the more the higher percentage of clicks you would

48:51 get for a particular search query right but those days have changed why

48:57 why because Google has now moved the first step towards what we call a zero

49:05 click world you ask a question in Google and

49:10 you get an answer right there the generative AI tells you the answer well

49:17 why do I need to click on a website I

49:22 don't so the object objective of SEO

49:29 today is not necessarily about ranking

49:34 organically it's much more about having Google select you select your content to

49:42 show in their featured Snippets in their knowledge panels in their people also

49:47 ask in their generative Ai and direct answer boxes because that's taking up

49:53 the majority of the search return page now and fewer people are going to scroll

49:59 down and scroll down and scroll down and click on this link and click on that link so you're losing right now about

50:08 60% of all searches result in no click

50:15 right and it's going to get worse Google wants to go to 100% zero

50:22 click and so what happens is the way one approaches SEO today as an

50:28 agency is not to tell clients you're going to get them ranked

50:33 better because that matters so much less today than it did two years ago

50:42 right if I were starting an SEO agency or if I was advising an SEO agency

50:48 Consulting to one I would help them craft a positioning message and a

50:55 deposing message that says exactly what I just said SEO is no longer about

51:02 getting ranked on Google it's about getting selected by

51:10 Google because if Google shows your content in a featured

51:15 snippet it's kind of like having Google's seal of approval right Google's

51:20 recommending me because they chose me my answer my content to put in the featured

51:28 snippet right so the world of SEO has changed so if

51:34 I want to I can deposition immediately every single SEO

51:40 consultant and agency out there that's talking to clients or hoping to win more

51:46 clients by saying I'll get you ranked higher because that's outdated

51:52 already right so when we talk about

AI's Influence on Positioning Science

51:59 ai ai is just an evolution in a

52:05 tool AI makes us

52:11 capable of finding some answers or directions faster let's stay with SEO

52:17 for a moment right SEO is still about keywords

52:22 because if we want Google to select us for a Fe featured snippet to show us in

52:28 the featured snippet featured snippet for what for

52:34 specific search query right Google has to be able to match that the user

52:41 entered this particular search query keywords right with the content on my

52:48 web page to say that is the answer that this guy is looking for so I'm going to

52:56 show it so you still need to do your keyword

53:02 optimization correctly so that Google knows you have the web page and the

53:08 content they should be showing the Searcher right that's where AI comes in so I can

53:15 go to AI I can type in um based on the following core

53:21 keyword give me 20 different modifiers

53:27 so right instead of just best laptop best laptop for Creative people

53:33 best laptop for video editing best laptop for students best laptop for

53:38 engineers best laptop for photographers etc etc and the longer taale the more

53:45 defined I can get in my keywords the more likely Google is going

53:51 to see my content as more helpful more inform formative more

53:58 valuable and the higher likelihood of them showing my

54:03 content to a Searcher now I teach positioning and I'm consider myself one

54:09 of the world's experts in positioning science and deposing and juristic and

54:16 cognitive biases and so I've crafted stuff on on

54:21 my content in my articles that I write and publish immedi substack you know all

54:26 over the place so that for a hundred different search queries that really

54:33 matter to me I already have the featured snippet and I appear in the generative

54:38 AI that Google has selected because I wrote it with urtic

54:46 in mind I'm helping with my content to

54:53 train Google's AI their large learning model because where are they getting the

54:59 information from they're stealing if you will borrowing

55:06 using what experts out there in the world are publishing the content that they're

55:13 using and so if you publish better content you're actually helping them

55:19 improve their llm and they're more likely to choose

55:25 you because by using your content inside

55:30 their large learning model repository it's right there for them to

55:36 serve right so there's a lot of very important strategic ways to to win as an

55:43 agency as a consultant um to make consumer decisions as an SEO as a PPC

55:50 expert so many ways to win but they're not the way you think it is all right

55:56 now uh so so uh in today's digital landscape the

Importance of FTER

56:02 first interaction with the potential client or customer is of course crucial so uh let's discuss the importance of

56:08 converting prospects into something uh as a client so why is fter

56:16 so crucial in current digital environment I love that question um and

56:22 I'm really really glad you asked it because it's something that I don't think a lot of agencies or even clients

56:30 that are uh you know brands or e-commerce or service providers really understand so I'm going to use an

56:37 example okay let's suppose and this is a true statement I

56:44 really I have a fascination with shoes I like shoes you could say I have a shoe

56:49 fetish right I see a beautiful pair of shoes it's really interesting I'm probably going to buy it

56:56 so I'm on my Facebook feed and I'm scrolling down I'm not looking for shoes

57:01 I wasn't even thinking about buying shoes I'm scrolling through my feed seeing what my friends are posting

57:07 seeing what's going on all of that and I see an ad and it's an ad for a pair of

57:16 shoes and I stopped for a minute because I like shoes so I'm going to stop for half a second and catches my eye oh pair

57:23 of shoes huh and I look at him I say wow those are really interesting they're

57:30 beautiful what am I likely to do click on the ad right great so they

57:36 won they got me to click that's already an early win right in the stage right

57:43 what happens when I click I go to their website and I go to their website and I

57:49 take a look around and for some reason I decide I'm not buying from them wow the

57:56 prices are outrageous or they don't have my size or I just

58:03 don't like their style maybe the ad you know wasn't exactly what I what am I

58:09 going to do I'm going to leave their website right I'm G to bounce without making a

58:15 purchase so my first touch on their website did not result in a

58:23 purchase what did it result in it resulted in raising my current

58:32 awareness and interest in shoes it also resulted by clicking on

58:40 the ad in My Telling Facebook that I am in market for

58:49 shoes so I look at their website I decide it's not what I want I go back to Facebook what happened

58:56 you start seeing shoes ad my feed is absolutely bombarded with shoes socks

59:05 running shoes it's crazy

59:10 right because I've told Facebook I'm in market Facebook is in the business of

59:15 getting paid for showing ads so they say oh Marty's into shoes let's show him 50

59:23 other shoe ads right

59:28 and guess what one of those may actually get my business okay yeah so the first

59:34 touch the first one I clicked on when I got to their website they didn't Capture

59:41 Me So they lost me but worse is they actually sent me to

59:49 their competitors so because as particularly in e-commerce

59:56 your money is made on your LTV your lifetime value of

1:00:01 customers if I sell let's say um a bottle of vitamins or a bottle of

1:00:08 shampoo whatever it is that I sell when you run out of shampoo you're

1:00:13 going to buy another one right um and when you run out of that one you're going to buy another one so let's say a bottle of my shampoo lasts

1:00:19 you for two months right and let's say that on a sale of a

1:00:26 bottle of my shampoo I make $10

1:00:31 right what does it cost me to acquire a new buyer of my shampoo more than $10

1:00:42 likely so my money isn't made on the first purchase my money is made if that

1:00:50 customer that consumer comes back and makes a second third fourth purchase

1:00:56 because now I don't have to pay to acquire them again right so I make a much larger

1:01:02 margin on a second third fourth sale

1:01:08 right next piece of the puzzle is if I'm

1:01:15 spending 30 $40 $50 to acquire a customer traditionally through

1:01:22 advertising and it's it's expensive for me

1:01:28 to offer something let's say for free let's say the cost of goods of my

1:01:35 shampoo is $8 right and I'm willing to give you a

1:01:40 free bottle of shampoo it's kind of irresistible

1:01:47 right right if you're looking at shampoos um it's kind of irresistible

1:01:53 here's a free bottle of shampoo why wouldn't they take so I take the free offer now what

1:02:00 happens I've just gotten some shampoo it's on the way it's going to be delivered in five six seven

1:02:06 days what am I not doing I'm not buying a competitor

1:02:12 shampoo because I just got one and during that period of time when

1:02:19 my shampoo is being delivered that company has an opportunity to engage with me build a

1:02:26 relationship with me offer me something as an upsell a cross cell right a

1:02:32 stimulation here's 5,000 points to start your loyalty membership they can do a

1:02:38 hundred things if they get me to take an engagement action on my

1:02:44 first touch right but if they don't hit me on the first touch it's over I'm not going

1:02:54 back so what I try to do with my clients e-commerce is I try to find a

1:03:02 way that they can offer something of incredibly High perceived

1:03:09 value at zero or no or very little cost to the

1:03:15 Target okay because if I can put my flaws into them

1:03:21 somehow and I don't blow it I can nurture them and bring them deeper and

1:03:26 deeper and deeper instead of having to rely on discount offers all the time

1:03:32 subscribe now and save 20% I don't even know if I like the product why would I subscribe to

1:03:38 it right sign up for my newsletter and get 10%

1:03:43 off okay so I save a few bucks on a purchase but you're going to spam me to death with your

1:03:49 newsletter all of these things that are traditional tactics being used on websites and offers

1:03:57 they're not effective they cost you money somebody subscribes here's a great

1:04:02 here's a great statistic 60 to 75% of every subscriber

1:04:09 in every subscription program out there leaves the subscription program within

1:04:14 six months so what have you done you've given money away for six

1:04:20 months now if you've made a lifetime value in that six months that's enough for you

1:04:27 great but if you haven't all you've done is throw money away so there are factors

1:04:32 that go into whether you should offer a subscription and how much discount you should offer on a

1:04:39 bron a lot of strategies that serve one purpose only

1:04:45 Nev one purpose you need to capture the

1:04:50 Target on their first touch because if B ERS never come back

1:04:58 so you've got to get them on the first touch and you've got to engage them with you and then you have to give them a

1:05:05 [Music] reason to make a second purchase okay right and very often

1:05:14 that's a discount offer not really a big fan of discount

1:05:20 offers because it says I'm a little desperate right I'm appealing to your

1:05:26 cheapness frugalness your your desire to save some money not spend some money

1:05:32 right um I don't like discount offers I'd rather give you something of value that

1:05:39 had a low cost to me that I could afford to give away a lot of and get you

1:05:46 engaged and then keep you engaged so when you put all of these things

1:05:53 together you get a recipe for winning the psychology of why people buy or why

1:06:00 clients decide to hire you the use of urtic to get people to

1:06:05 trigger instant Behavior reactions right positioning and deposing understanding

1:06:12 that selling is not a process of being chosen as much as it is a process of not

1:06:18 being eliminated and when you put all these things together you have a recipe for

1:06:23 winning right okay that's a very I would say

1:06:29 interesting takee but that's a very deep take so obviously you have to absorve it

1:06:35 and understand the layout I completely Ag and with the AI coming in it's it I

1:06:40 think the positioning is becoming far more important to do and of course the first touch is very very important

1:06:47 now yeah people having a uh just a short time frame attention span of a you know

1:06:54 of a jelly right okay all right Marty uh before we let you go we are going to do a quick

Rapid Fire Round

1:07:01 rapid round the rules are simple I'll ask a series of quick questions and you respond with the first thing that comes

1:07:07 in your mind are you ready okay okay I'll bite okay biggest branding

1:07:14 buzzword you are tired of um 10x or any ex okay one campaign you wish you had

1:07:22 created fidget Spinners okay okay favorite tool or platform for

1:07:29 Branding work favorite tool or platform for Branding

1:07:37 work um me okay one thing agencies should stop

1:07:43 doing right now stop saying the same thing every other agency is saying create something unique create you know

1:07:52 the classic concept of blue ocean right right create a category

1:07:58 [Music] class okay make yourself a different set of rules that

1:08:05 the rest of the industry has to play by right if you weren't in branding what

Alternative Career Paths

1:08:11 would you be doing I would be traveling the world um sampling different foods and

1:08:21 cultures okay biggest influencer on your career

Influencers on Career

1:08:26 David O Okay the one skill every marketers must Master

Essential Marketing Skills

1:08:34 Tics a brand you think is nailing positioning today

Successful Brand Positioning

1:08:39 Apple

What do you love most about what you do

1:08:44 The challenge of helping someone win

One piece of advice you would have given your younger self

Run for

1:08:57 One piece of advice I would have given my younger self was buy Bitcoin when it first came out

That's absolutely right

Learning More About You

1:09:12 answers Marty that was fun and insightful and thank you for playing along uh so as we wrap up uh Marty it's

1:09:20 been absolute pleasure having you on the agency inside the show before we sign off where can our listeners learn more

1:09:26 about you and your work the easiest thing to do is to find

1:09:31 me on LinkedIn okay Marty Maran m a r t y m a

1:09:39 r i o n right um and find me on LinkedIn and connect with me um I am

1:09:48 always happy to talk to people give them some guidance and advice for free I love

1:09:53 doing it um you can email me and I'm very responsive and it's Marty again M

1:10:02 rty atmos.com

1:10:08 all right and any final piece of advice for agencies looking to stay ahead in

Final Advice for Agencies

1:10:15 the ever evolving marketing landscape don't get

1:10:20 frustrated okay don't feel weighed down

1:10:25 by the way you've always been doing it okay it's okay to take a risk as long

1:10:32 as you understand what you're doing okay okay no pain no

1:10:40 gain okay okay uh thank you Martin as I said it's

1:10:46 been an absolute pleasure having you on the agency inside the show I've done a lot of uh podcast with lot of Industry

1:10:52 leaders specifically to the digital but this was related I think the listeners will get lots of value not just because

1:10:59 the they are learning digital marketing but they are learning more about the positioning and how they can position

1:11:05 their uh agency better it's all one ecosystem marketing advertising

1:11:12 psychology positioning deposing Uris sixs it's all one

1:11:19 ecosystem okay all right uh thank you all for tuning into to the agency

1:11:24 Insider show remember to subscribe and leave a review if you enjoyed this episode until next time this is nnit

1:11:31 kosel signing off thank you thank you m thank you