#042 Explode Organic Growth With A Paid Ad Strategy - a podcast by Rony Hay

Who is Rich and Clear 

A skin care company focused on the African American community as its main target market. They have affordable skin care products that actually work. Before Klout brought them on board, the owner, Ernest, had built up a following of more than 500K followers on Instagram. The business was successful and sustainable, without having run a single ad. 

Why paid ads? 

Earnest was looking to take his business to the next level with paid ads. This is an ideal situation for Klout (and any marketing company). When a business is already established and successful organically, using paid ads is like pouring gas on an already serious fire. 

How did we get started? 

One of the issues about starting with a client like this, however, is a potential lack of data. In the case of Rich and Clear, there was data from Instagram in terms of followers, likes, etc. but nothing from ads on Facebook or Google. However, the company had a ton of data from Shopify that we were able to tap into to build out our first ad sets. 

Is email dead? 

We've said this a number of times on the show, but it's worth repeating. Email data is absolute gold. Still. Not only for email marketing (we get to that in a bit), but also for building out campaigns, audiences, and more. As Rony Hay says, "Email is print money." We ALWAYS recommend building an email list as soon as you start your business. Even a small number (e.g. less than 100) can be powerful data for marketing. 

Google vs. Facebook Ecosystems 

You want to make sure the company is represented on both major ecosystems for brand legitimacy. People will search for your brand after seeing your ads, or your products. You need to be present in both Google search and Facebook to build trust. The second reason is to be able to retarget ads across both system. 

Key problems with Rich and Clear before Klout 

The company had a very common problem that we see when we bring a client on board: the Facebook Business Manager was suspended and we had to spend a considerable amount of time cleaning up the account before we could kick off our campaigns. The company's facebook page was also suspended, further complicating things. 

The Klout Solution 

Because Facebook was essentially dead when Rich and Clear came on board, we focused on Instagram campaigns to build up the account initially. After we cleared and re-opened Facebook, we launched campaigns there as well. In addition, we built out email campaigns and automations to take advantage of all the massive amount of data Earnest already had in order to start increasing customer lifetime value. A huge issue with this was that all emails were going to spam for past customers. So we very carefully rebuilt the list responsiveness by using text-only emails initially and then slowly re-introducing images and other CTAs. 

Critical Learning 

If you have an email open rate that is less than 10%, you have trained your list to believe that you're always promoting and as such, your emails have a very limited perceived value. You should take action immediately to change this. In order to do this, you should produce community relevant content that does NOT promote. 

SMS Marketing 

There is a future opportunity to build out SMS marketing for Rich and Clear. We're not there yet (because we build out one thing at a time). However, SMS is a great different channel to use because of the high engagement rate. If you can get people's phone numbers they are gold for future marketing. 

Ninety day results with Klout 

The business was averaging about $100K in revenue when we brought them on board. While we actually started somewhat conservative in our campaigns, 90 days into the client relationship, the company is now breaking $200K per month. Email revenue has gone from 1-2% to 19-20% of monthly top line.

Further episodes of Impact Marketer

Further podcasts by Rony Hay

Website of Rony Hay