You are listening to the Taps and Tee show weekly conversations for people, passionate about marketing, golf and craft beer. Marty is the cofounder of Bad Rhino an award winning digital marketing agency helping golf and craft beer brands get real results in social media marketing. Here is your host, Marty McDonald. [00:21.7]
Marty: Hey everybody welcome to another episode of Taps and Tees. And we’re continuing on here with the little theme here of just interviewing fun good professionals that I know that I've worked with, I've been in Masterminds with just to give you an idea of who's out there. I think if you're listening to this, you're interested in marketing and how you can help either craft brewery or your golf business, whether you're own a course or you're managing a course or in charge of marketing at any golf related things. That's why you're listening to this, and I want to introduce as I've been bringing on the last few weeks, some of my friends, some people that I've met through Masterminds that I know do good work and are good people and that's most important. [00:59.1]
And today is a great guy I got to meet a couple of years ago down in Atlanta at another Mastermind event and we hit it off because we had a Philadelphia connection, which was fun. We got to talk about the six years equals that just won the super bowl, which was really good. But he's a really good guy and he's super, super sharp and he knows what he's doing. So that's why I have him on. So Justin is Managing Partner at Propellant Media. He does digital advertising, paid media advertising centered around geo-fencing marketing. So if you don't know what that is, he’ll explain it a little bit. It does, you know it's a popular thing, but there's a little thing in there that you know, people are like, huh, how does that work? But it's awesome and it's very effective. We've used it at Bad Rhino. So I'll let Justin talk a little bit more and not do a giant intro. So Justin are you there? [01:41.8]
Justin: I am. What's going on sir?
Marty: How you doing buddy?
Justin: I'm good brother.
Marty: Good man. I appreciate you coming on. Why don't you give everybody just a little bit more detail on who you are and what you do.
Justin: Sure, no, definitely appreciate that Marty. So again, Justin Croxton, I run a digital advertising agency. We have two offices based in Atlanta and in Charlotte, North Carolina. My company is called Propellant Media and I think it was difficult for a lot of agencies and Marty, you can appreciate this is we're all trying to figure out how can we differentiate ourselves.
Marty: Sure.
Justin: There's agencies that are out there. And so for us we said, all right, well, you know, yeah, I have experience in Facebook ads, yes I have experience in ad words. But you know what, if we were to focus in on this whole world of programmatic display advertising, and for those who don't know, programmatic display is what we consider the buying and selling of ads in real time on a lot of these third party apps and websites. So angry birds, whereas a friend's weather channel and all the different websites are out there. [02:39.7]
And within the world of programmatic display, this is what we call geo-fencing marketing. And it was like, wow, that is a fascinating thing to be able to leverage from a, as a marketing tech for companies. And we said, you know what, let's hone in on this. We started to see that it was getting, gaining some popularity, lot of people doing searches for it. And we decided to just really become the masters of being able to execute that on behalf of clients. And so now we do geo-fencing advertising. We do all forms of programmatic display. We also do over the top TV advertising. We lead with that as an organization. And so you know, you know, for us, you know, before that, you know, running this agency, I went to business school in New York and then before that I lived in Atlanta doing commercial real estate. So I have a lot of experience, a lot of different areas, which is very fascinating. But but the agency and the marketing type firm has been sort of the baby for the past four plus years. [03:32.3]
Marty: So tell us a little bit more about how the agency started for you because like you said, you have a varied background and I think a lot of us do when we get into these Mastermind groups and you start talking and you're like, ‘Hey man, that was me following this crazy path. And then now I'm an agency owner for the past 10 years.’
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: How did it happen for you?
Justin: Yeah, I think for me it was, it was interesting, and I don't really share this story. You probably don't even know this about me, but I actually had an Amazon business. I had his company called Bar Brats. And so Bar Brats, the whole sort of the purpose behind it was to sell bar products to folks on Amazon. And I always, for me, always wanted to have a company that was just automated; it just kind of ran itself. And then I can just working on growing the business rather than.
Marty: Right.
Justin: Constantly. And that, that puppy was, was doing really, really well for us, you know, for, for, for me and the family. But I still sort of had my own consulting, you know, digital marketing on the side. It was another company that I had called Qcommerce. And so that's where I was doing search engine optimization, well, bit of Facebook ads, but not a lot. [04:35.8]
And then also doing ad words for clients. And so then, you know, yeah, I would say back in 2015 there was a group of guys that came together, some, some other brothers came together and said, Hey, you know, let's start this agency, you know, what do you think Justin? I was like, ahhh, you know, we can form the LLC but I'm not gonna be able to spend as much time on it. And then, you know, they just kind of kept prying and I said, you know what, I will I will, you know, slowly but surely, you know how it is. [05:03.3]
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: You're kind of like that little fish. You kind of started getting real there more and more.
Marty: Worry you down a little bit.
Justin: You kind of worry you down a little bit. And it got to the point where I said, okay, I will devote more and more time to this venture. And then I started you know, putting a lot of my, my perspective, all the things that I've learned in business school as well as just everything that we've done in marketing, applying it to the agency. And when we first got started, you know, Propellant Media, that is the crux behind it was really, it was geo-fencing and programmatic display to an extent.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: But it was really to start working with academic institutions cause for us, we said, we know, you know, a lot of historically black institutions are underrepresented when it comes to having good marketing.
Marty: Right. [05:50.3]
Justin: Marketing sucks, let alone academic, let alone academic institutions in general. And so, you know, for us, you know, our team, we're just really passionate about that. But then the trouble with that, that part of it is, you know, when you're a startup you're like, Man! You know the bureaucracy in these agencies.
Marty: Yeah exactly.
Justin: Let alone institutions is very, very difficult. So we just got to, got to the point where we said, you know what, let's pivot after about a year and a half, two years and not really making a lot of money. I made some some drastic changes, which included revamping the website, focusing on inbound marketing, honing in on programmatic display and geo fencing.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: And then that's when the company really took off.
Marty: Yeah, no, I think it's really interesting when you hear those stories because even as business owners and whether you're sitting there and you know, owning craft beer, brewery, and you're looking at all these options to, to market. And so it's like people are throwing these and they're throwing them all over the place and then they're saying, this works, this doesn't work to switch here. You need to add this in. Everybody's a little bit different when they approach it. And that's why I'm bringing people on here on this podcast. So you can hear that, right? I want people to hear that…
Justin: Yeah. [06:57.7]
Marty: As agency owners, we go through some of that same process of figuring out what's best, not only what we can provide and become experts in, but also what's best in the areas that we're serving.
Justin: Right.
Marty: And sometimes, you know, it falls in your lap and it's easy and other times you have to adjust on the fly. And I think it's important that everybody understands cause there are so many marketing options that are out there and it gets confusing. So Justin, like shifting that in there. I mean, what do you, what do you love about it? Where your business is right now?
Justin: You know, so the, the one thing that I love about the business is that I feel like we can tell a story to every single client that comes to us and telling them, Hey, the same stuff that we're recommending to you, we are doing all of it for ourselves. And it's rare. And at least in my mind, I do think that it's rare to find agencies, marketing consulting firms that are leveraging the same best practices. And when I say the same best practices, I mean like, you know, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, Facebook ads, you know, you know, a great example is HubSpot. [08:04.7]
We have the HubSpot software on our website. We try to have pop-up form show up to get individual's email addresses. But a lot of times there's clients that will, that, that were other agencies that we know that will sell HubSpot software but aren't using it themselves. And you're kind of like, well, you know, how, what, what more convincing, what more of a convincing story can you tell then your own case study. And so I feel like for us, we've gotten to the point, I mean, we're not perfect, but I think we've gotten pretty darn good with being able to develop our own sort of marketing life cycle. And then now we're at a place where a lot of it's dialed in and now we're just adding more to it. We're adding more to, to the arsenal and then continuing to offer some of these solutions too. You know, many of our different clients that we work with effectively. [08:54.3]
Marty: I think one of the best things that when I first went onto your website, cause I noticed that all of your remarketing works, like I didn't really opt in on anything at that point, just had went there. So I'm like okay all these pixels are firing cause now I'm all over the place and I see Propellant Media. Then when I did download something I then noticed like the message changed a little bit.
Justin: Yup.
Marty: And then the retargeting and everything was like flowing. Like you could just tell, I mean obviously I have a little bit different insight than the average person, but that's also really good to know like, Hey, if I'm going to use this service or work with these guys. And then we did use your service for an event.
Justin: Right, right, right.
Marty: And it worked out awesome. I got my team when we were out at you know, CBC, which is their first conference.
Justin: Right, right
Marty: Out in Denver. They were so excited because people were coming up to us. They're like, Oh we got to talk to you cause I see your ads everywhere. [09:47.3]
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: And it was just like awesome. It was immediate validation for that.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: And all we did was geo-fence, you know the area, the convention center, then all the hotels.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: And it was a short thing, but it worked. And for 30 days after we did have people respond and got a decent.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: Did two really good deals out of it that we're not in the, well they're in the brewer space but their services to that industry, which was really interesting. So I think that's a huge thing is like when you love what you do and you're doing it and the minds will do it for yourself. I think a lot of agencies need to do that. [10:18.0]
Justin: Yeah man. And I mean it's so funny you mentioned that like one of the easiest things, not even just agencies, but any company can do is just site retargeting by itself.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: I mean literally, like you can site retarget through the Google display network through the networks that we have access to, through Facebook, you can even do it through LinkedIn, but you think about all the traffic that goes to your websites.
Marty: Hmmm.
Justin: You know, just not, not even just like the offline marketing and those folks that you just find you directly, but also on the online marketing you're doing, being able to implement just site retargeting by itself makes all of your marketing and all of your networking efforts that much smarter. So you know, for us, you know, yeah, we do it for ourselves, we love it when clients do it for themselves. But you know, in my opinion, I personally believe that the site retargeting, I know this is a little off topic but.
Marty: No that's fine.
Justin: Site retargeting as its own tactic.
Marty: Yeah.
Justin: Is without question, some of the best tactics that someone can implement. [11:14.0]
Marty: So this is really good because if you know, especially anybody who's listening to this that we have entered into a conversation where you're talking about, Hey, I don't have the budget right now. I always tell them like one of the easiest things you can start with is set up a simple ad program and start with the remarketing. Retargeting, however you want to define it.
Justin: Right.
Marty: And that's like the most cost effective way that you can just get started. Now, I can't promise you crazy results if you don't have all the other things going on.
Justin: Right.
Marty: But at the same time, it's one of the most simplest things that any business owner can do. At least on a basic level. So just explain real quick like that one minute overview of what it actually is.
Justin: Yeah, and so we're clear, this is different from geo-fencing marketing, right?
Marty: Yep.
Justin: So site retargeting is the process in which someone goes to your website, right? And then you leave and then you start seeing that person's ads wherever you go. So for many of you who are out there, you may have been too, you know, amazon.com you're shopping for some shoes or golf clubs, or you know, you're trying to buy some beer or whatever it might be, right? And then you leave. [12:18.1]
And then you go to your favorite game, angry birds, maybe. Want some words with friends? Maybe you're on CNN or maybe you're on Yahoo and you see those same exact ads again, that is what we call site retargeting where someone is retargeting you off of their website effectively. And if you think about it or not, if you think about it, but at least for us, we've seen it and this is studies that shows that the cost per conversion for site retargeting is typically three times less than just any standard marketing paid media that you're doing. So you know, if you're, if you're, if, if, if you're trying to figure out, all right, well, you know, how am I going to increase my brand awareness, but most importantly continue to reach those people who have been to my site knowing that they may not convert on the first go around, site retargeting is without a doubt the best traffic that you can leverage. Now that's different from geo-fencing, marketing, geo-fence, it's sort of in the same thought pattern, but instead we're geo-fencing and we're retargeting people, but based on your physical activities and the places that you go. [13:21.0]
Marty: Yeah, I think just taking the people that have already been to your website and then just retargeting them around the web is one of the most cost effective ways. Cause you already know that they either were looking for you or they have some interest or they're a past customer or they bought something. And yeah, that's a good thing. Appreciate explaining that.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: Because the first thing that I mentioned when somebody says, well, we don't have this giant budget to do it. And I'm like, well, the first thing you want to implement is something along these lines and it always includes that.
Justin: Always.
Marty: So I appreciate you doing that. So outside of your family, you know, getting everything kind of going in the morning, what drives you to do, you know, good work and do what you do?
Justin: You know, I think that yes, it's family. Yes, it's, it's, it's faith. You know, it's, it's, you know, obviously, you know, for many of us it's the urge to want to make money.
Marty: Sure.
Justin: It’s well, but yeah, I think for me, I've seen how dynamic working in marketing can be and I can sort of juxtapose that to when I used to work in commercial real estate, commercial real estate was fun. I was a broker. I used to I was a tenant rep broker so I was representing tenants that were in the office, were that were in the market looking for office space. And then I made a transition over to agency leasing where now I am leasing high rise mid-rise office buildings and we were marketing some of those buildings. So that's kind of how I got into marketing. [14:42.1]
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: But the one challenge that I had, or the one thing that I just kept thinking about was number one, yeah, I've always felt like there was a ceiling. Like I wouldn't be able to make the of money that I wanted to make, but, but even more importantly I felt like there was going to, it'd be a sort of this, Justin's going to always be in this real estate box and I will never be able to do anything else out of real estate. Like, yes, I'll be able to, I work with clients that are in different industries maybe, but it will…
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: Still always be in this real estate box. Whereas I feel like, and I think Marty, you, you agree with this, you know the work that we do in marketing, you know, you're kind of really dissecting a client's issues, their problems.
Marty: Yeah.
Justin: You’re not just marketing at the time.
Marty: This is true, this is true.
Justin: I mean, even just think about like, like the conversation we have with clients around cash flow implications or or, or their sales enablement process. I mean, a lot of times when I'm talking to a client, it's beyond just how am I sending traffic to your site? Because yeah, if I send the traffic to your website and I'm sending you all these leads, but you're not closing them, then it at some point or another, you're still gonna probably blame in most cases. Right? [15:55.6]
Marty: Yeah.
Justin: Or, or, or if you're spending this amount of money in marketing, you know what your average customer value is, then you now know that, okay, well it's taking me about a month and a half to two months to turn that lead into a customer. Whereas my cash flow implications don't support that.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: So I need to figure something out. Those are the kinds of dynamic conversations that we get to have in this space of marketing. And I mean what company doesn't need it? What beer craft golf course doesn't need marketing. A lot of folks try to rely on themselves and think that their cachet of their brand is the best thing out there. [16:33.6]
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: And they all need to do anything and all they need is an email list and nanananana……. and, and, and there's a certain level of personalization that happens. You have to think about your, the creative and the messaging. You have to think about all the different digital marketing channels as well as those offline marketing channels. And I just never really felt like I would have been at this space of doing some of that, this dynamic.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: If I stuck with commercials, say, I mean I'm sure I may, may, maybe I'd be making more money commercial sale. No, but you know, I feel like there's a lot, yeah or option value with being the space that I'm currently in now. And it's been, man, it's been so much fun, so much fun. [17:10.2]
Hey, if you're enjoying what you're hearing on the show and want more, head on over to TapsandTees.info and get our free report with game changing tips and strategies straight to your inbox. Just enter your info and stop being stuck with no marketing plan. [17:23.2]
Marty: Yeah, that’s great answer and it's so true. It's like you do get to dissect some things and a lot of times like start with like, what have you ever built that didn't need at least a push, you know, to get something off the ground, to move something to do anything and marketing is that push. And when you talk to people over and over again, there's a common theme. And the common theme that I see is if you're in say a professional service, you don't understand your cost of sales, i.e. How much does it cost to bring in a new client? And then if you're in beer, golf, you can take that same concept and every pint that you sell when somebody comes into a taproom, every time someone signs up for your product or to play around a golf, those costs need to be factored in there. Hey for, you know, I'm just using this as an arbitrary number. Every time someone signs up to play a round that's new, it costs us 750 to get them in there and marketing costs. [18:18.8]
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: And that $55 round or a hundred dollar round or whatever it is that has to be incorporated in there to think about that. And sometimes you find, okay we have that and then nail down in there the “easy” clients to work with.
Justin: Right.
Marty: Then you have others that just say, well I can't afford the marketing because I don't have the sales. And it's like, you know, court cart, horse cart horse. Like where do you want, how do you want to devise this?
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: And it's, it's sometimes it's sad cause you want to help, but you do, you have to dive in to some of those things.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: With potential clients and current clients.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: To get their good results for them and not waste their money.
Justin: Okay. Can I give you another, another? Hopefully I'm not.
Marty: Absolutely. No, go for it man.
Justin: Let me give you another, to that point and how that aligns with, with geo fencing and it's a very tough conversation that we have often with, and I'm not even going to speak to this directly to just, you know, beer and golf. I'm actually going to talk about restaurant brands and restaurant groups.
Marty: Go for it. [19:14.3]
Justin: Lot of times we'll have a restaurant group that will come to us and say, Hey, you heard about this whole thing called geo-fencing advertising. We see that we can geo-fence all of these other locations and we can send traffic to our doorsteps. And he says, yeah, you can do that with us. Awesome. Okay, great. And so they'll come to us, they'll give us a list of locations that they want us to geo-fence. And for those who don't know, geo-fencing is targeting people in very, very precise areas. So if you're a restaurant group and let's say you make seafood, that's like really your mainstay, you can target like 20 other seafoods within a five mile radius of your location. And just target those individuals knowing that those people love seafood. And then if they liked seafood, hopefully they'll consider you're a restaurant at some point in the near future. And so for us, what ends up being the challenge is will we'll talk to him the same, Hey, you know, geo-fencing is, is real. It can be looked at as bottom of funnel. Meaning we're targeting individuals who are in market.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: Well, if you think about it is really disruptive, right? [20:15.0]
Marty: Sure.
Justin: We're putting our ad in front of someone hoping that they are the right audience, right? And a lot. And there are times when, you know, if, if I've geo-fenced this other restaurant I just ate, you know, but, but the good thing with the restaurant industry is like, I eat every day, right?
Marty: Exactly.
Justin: But, but, but, but, but, specifically that person may not come to your restaurant for two weeks, maybe even a month and so.
Marty: Or longer.
Justin: Or even longer than that. And so what you're trying to do is raise your profile, raise the awareness so that, Oh, snap man, I love, I love lobster.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: I didn't even know this place existed down the street. Oh, let me take a look at their menu. Oh wow, that looks really good. Oh they got even nice video on, okay, now you're not now. Now, now these restaurant groups are thinking beyond just.
Marty: Yeah. [21:02.9]
Justin: Okay, how, how am I turning this into a positive ROI within the first week, no no no no no you can't think about it that way. Like you said, Marty, it's the cart before the horse. You have to think about doing the push and then once the push happens, you know, you're sitting all of that traffic to your site. You have all that sort of fine tune the proper way. And then after that, you know, hopefully those individuals are coming in. We do have the, you do have the ability within geo-fencing to measure foot traffic as well.
Marty: Yeah.
Justin: So we saw your ads and they came in. And so not, not to, not to dig too deep, but I just felt like, you know, a lot of times in marketing, a lot of folks just want that ROI immediately and.
Marty: It doesn't happen.
Justin: Yeah it doesn’t happen Marty, no, you're the first to say, tell clients upfront it's like, yo, you know, you're gonna have to give this puppy some time.
Marty: Yeah all the time.
Justin: Because it doesn't always work out like first week or even the first month. And then sometimes we all lose businesses. Sometimes clients get it and those are the ones that usually a benefit in the long term. [21:59.5]
Marty: I actually have put in place, if you don't get it, I'm not going to work with you. I'm going to work with your competitors because, and this is nothing new. I mean, if you're listening to this or you see me speak or on another podcast or webinar, I mean I'm not speaking anything different and that's why I'm bringing on people like Justin because I know he understands how things work and I know he's invested in getting results. We all are. But you have to have reality to it. And for the restaurant world, it's very interesting you bring that up and craft beers very similar is you're looking at, okay, well we're going to launch this thing and it's month one and it's like, yeah, you're going to see some things that we can show you but you're never going to get anything that's tangible that's going to really do this. [22:41.4]
I'm like, I asked for a six month commitment and if you can't do the six months and you're not willing to look at that over a six month period, then I can't help you because all of this is going to be is turmoil and strife, you know the entire time. And you know, you can look at it a couple of different ways. You're going to put a plan together that's going to work and it's going to include the geo-fencing. But to your point, Justin is like you eat every day, but most of the time when you target somebody, they're coming out of a restaurant that's a competitor. So maybe they go out in your high end restaurant. Well maybe that person goes out say twice a month and they're in their significant other. They already know where they're going for their next one. So now you're on month two, so now you're already looking at close to 45 days before that person, the result of that ad is going, wow, this new place around the corner. Maybe we should try that, and they put it on their list and then as that starts to snowball, then you're going to start to see those things further down. And what you said there is perfect because.
Justin: Yeah. [23:37.5]
Marty: You have to look at it from a standpoint of what is your product, what is your sales cycle? And most restaurants, bar owners, they don't look at, they're looking at month over month, day over day.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: What are my Friday and Saturday going to do so I can meet my bills. We totally get it. But if marketing's not a part of that and you're not going to be in business for so long.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: Well speaking of restaurants and all the fun stuff that we could talk about, We are sitting here in the middle of a pandemic, we're recording this in a early may, I'm almost to mid-May and you know, we're sitting here and I'm actually traveled into a, the Carolinas a little bit, play some golf and do some other things that are a little bit more open. But right now, how's everything, you know, on your end and you know, what's it affected business wise and what do you see coming out of this? [24:23.5]
Justin: You know, I think it's funny, I just saw a message from one of my partners who mentioned that the consumption of media is up drastically.
Marty: Yeah, I know
Justin: Amazon is killing it right now.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: People just have more time. And so, you know, I definitely think that there's a lot of businesses that are hurting. A, big time, I mean.
Marty: True.
Justin: Typically the restaurants, the restaurant industry, airlines obviously, restaurant for sure, for obvious reasons. I do believe that we're gonna. I mean, we're, we're certainly going to see the other side of this, but I mean, now we're at a 14.7% unemployment rate now.
Marty: Yeah I know.
Justin: So you think about all the, all the job gains that we've had over the past 10 years Poooook, just like that, which is, which is insane. I think it will come back particularly with the, with the amount of money that was pumped into the economy. But it's, it's, it's going to take some time, but the one thing is for sure you know, sort of drown ourselves in our own, you know, levels of despair and anxiety and sadness. Watching Stevie, you know, going on to our, our mobile devices and going to Facebook, Instagram, you know, the, the amount of media consumption. [25:39.2]
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: Will still be there if not go up. And so I, you know, I know that for our business, you know, we've certainly had some, seen some challenges, but we've also seen some opportunities to get creative. And I think this is a sort of another lesson. That's for, you know, everyone that's out there. It's like, this is the time to, take a look at your site again, you know, rethink your marketing plans. You know, you know, think about how, how is your, your, your operational cycle, which are at your location you know, all those things. Now is the time.
Marty: Hmm…hmm, yeah.
Justin: Out of any amount of any time because now you can say, okay, I got maybe a little bit more time to really focus on this. So that when things do start to pick up you know, your, your, your labor costs, not in terms of head count but in terms of efficiencies has gone down. And then ultimately you're making more money based on sort of the labor and the, the value that you're bringing your customer base. [26:43.9]
And I don't care whether you're a golf know, a brewery, beer, blah, blah, blah, all that. And certainly, absolutely for any any craft beer brand that's out there who doesn't have that e-commerce presence where you're just sort of expecting people to come to your site and you know, just kind of get to know you a little better no no no no no… you need to, you need to find ways to, you know, turn that some into some type of, some form of e-commerce.
Marty: Absolutely.
Justin: If , if…based on, based on, you know, certain laws and different, different states of course. [27:18.6]
Marty: Yeah, no, that's a perfect summary of some of the things that we're seeing. And the last part that you just said is many times companies, and it's funny because we're in 2020, right? And yeah, you stop and you pause and you go, huh, wow. They actually are not really set up for e-commerce, digital sales, whatever you want to call it.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: Because e-commerce kind of translates into, people think Amazon, they're buying, you know, products that will be delivered to their homes. But you know there's a lot of other people that were forward thinking lawyers, some doctors had already said this out four or five years ago, that you can set up a call and say therapy online, you know, they create a secure spot so, you know, no one can hack in there. And they're doing it, you know, via video and you know, some therapists like they like that and others are like, nah, I'd rather see people in person. [28:10.5]
But now they're actually rethinking everything. So there's some people that have been ahead of it for four and five years. Some people that are just getting onto it right now. But what you just said is now's the time. Think about it. Because guess what, when you thought, Oh, that would be a nice to have if we had takeout on our, you know, website or if we had, you know, for a restaurant or if we had a way to order, preorder or beers before the Saturday, you know, timeframe to go pick them up that they're, you know, we're canning them, putting them out, Hey, we've always had a call ahead for tea times depending on the type of golf organization.
Justin: Right.
Marty: You're running, private, public, et cetera.
Justin: Right.
Marty: And guess what, if you're thinking about it and you're always thinking about it now everybody's thinking about it.
Justin: Yeah. [28:53.9]
Marty: And if you don't have those things, redoing your website, getting things set up so that you can do that. Getting an email list and text options. I don't know how many craft brewers got back to me and said, Hey, remember us, you know, continuing breaking your stones about, Hey, you want to build an email list? And we were, they were like, no, we don't want to be intrusive. And I was like, okay, you don't want to build it but now you need it to communicate.
Justin: Haww.
Marty: Hey get a phone number so you can text message people. Why would we want to do that? Well this is why I wasn't trying to suggest that a pandemic was coming, but you need multiple modes of marketing to you know, communicate and marketing is communication. So everything Justin just said, and this is why like bring it on smart people. Not only because it makes me look good because some of the ideas that I've been pitching, but that's not the case.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: Like I know Justin thinks for himself. He's got an agency that really works and you should definitely check out Propellant for sure. But he, you know, he talks about it in real terms, you know, I mean, the first time I met this guy, I was like, man, this guy, it tells you like it is. And I love that. [29:54.8]
Justin: Dude, well, first of all, I appreciate that. And then secondly just to, just another tip for everyone that's out there, you were talking about the email lists part part of it like.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: We, we, we Propellant Media, I think we have about, I don’t know, maybe 15, 16,000 people on our email list. And this was all from the marketing that we've done, meaning all the people that have been to our website, downloaded one of our eBooks, watch one of our videos, yada, yada, yada. Right? So now we have an asset that we can leverage during this time.
Marty: Right.
Justin: When, you know, maybe there is less, you know, Google searches or there's less people that are searching for geo-fencing or programmatic or et cetera, et cetera. We have that asset, that’s the first thing I was going to mention and why it's so important for folks to have that email list. So that's number one. But number two, so to what Marty was talking about related to just trying to be ahead of the curve, go and look, go to your Yelp's, go to your Google reviews.
Marty: Hmm…hmm. [30:49.3]
Justin: Go to all those different platforms and take a look at all the different reviews that are out there on your brand. And you'll see the answers will be just right there in front of you. I mean, you'll literally be able to do entire summary or your own survey of what people want and they keep asking for, but you're not providing it. That's, that's probably one of the best places that you can go to really get a sense of what you can start providing. That's going to be low cost, high reward, low cost, high reward. That's always what we're trying to accomplish. [31:25.7]
Marty: And it's great during this time cause you'll have a little bit of time to look at it. And my homie thing was just the sense of urgency there because everybody's looking at it and then they're all revamping everything. So coming out of this, like Justin said earlier, you know, I think with everything, no economy-wise like when you look at it, we're going to come out of it exactly when, who, who knows? It's kind of dependent on a variety of things, but you might as well be prepared cause people are going to shop different people are going to be in places different and the way they interact with you know, traditional “businesses” is going to be different. So be prepared. So normally on this podcast we don't have kind of a brain dump from smart people we're usually talking about what's going on in brewing, what's going on in golf. And those episodes will be coming back very soon. But to close this out, let's talk about some of those fun things. So I know, I think you're a wine drinker more so than beer. But it could be wrong. I can't remember. [32:22.7]
Justin: Oh well no, it's, you know its.
Marty: Okay.
Justin: I get, I get pulled to the wine world with my wife.
Marty: Okay.
Justin: And so I can't, I can't speak as much to the, to the wines as I do the beers. And you know, I drink beer, I won't say all the time, but you know, often enough. And what was funny for me is you know, I like a good IPA every so often.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: IPA every once in a while. But you know, you know, Purple Haze actually that's my thing there.
Marty: There you go.
Justin: I don’t know what it is, I don't know what it is about the Purple Haze maybe cause it like you know, I started literally thinking about being in some type of behavior, a little smoke baby I don’t know. Maybe it’s got something with my mind.
Marty: There you go.
Justin: Pur…purple haze is perfect.
Marty: That's fine, that’s the type of answer you look for, you know
Justin: Yeah, yeah, that's where I'm at with that. It's purple haze all day. [33:14.1]
Marty: See in that. And that's a good thing. I mean, I think any brewer that'd be listened to us like, yeah, that's a perfect, that's why we try and pull out our names and no go down there. But that's, you know.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: That's a perfect description there. In terms of golf, I know you have some golf clients.
Justin: Yes.
Marty: We talked about that before. But do you play at all?
Justin: Yes, yes I do.
Marty: Okay.
Justin: Its most of us who are not Tiger Woods or
Marty: Sure.
Justin: The other PJ, you know, professionals, we all suck. Right.
Marty: Exactly.
Justin: And I'm probably in the bottom 5%.
Marty: That’s all good.
Justin: It's out there. But yeah, I have my own, have my own set. Try to get it out whenever I can. You know, it's been a little difficult though. Like I've had some elbow issues, so that.
Marty: Wow. Yeah, the age thing.
Justin: You know the age thing, right? Yeah. And I'm, how old am I know? I’ll be 37 in a couple of weeks, so that's, that's sort of an interesting world to be in right now. But golf, that's my, that's my Zen. That's where I kind of get out. It's kind of do my own thing and half the time I'm just going out there myself you know. [34:14.2]
Marty: Exactly.
Justin: Yeah, so love it.
Marty: Cool.
Justin: Absolutely love it.
Marty: One of my favorite things to do is go like, be the first one out on the course early in the morning and, you know, dark out sometimes.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: Or day light just coming up. You watch the sunrise, you get out there and you play and you can be alone in your thoughts and plus you get done really fast.
Justin: Yeah, yeah.
Marty: That's like one of my favorite things. For sure, but don't worry I mean, I think anybody that says, Oh, well, I'm like a two handicap and I'm like, great, and all this. I'm like, okay, let's get you out there.
Justin: Right.
Marty: But you don't have to be good to enjoy it. And then by the way, that elbow thing at 37 being a, you've got a few years on you.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: That stuff doesn't get any better by the way.
Justin: Doesn't get any better by the way, right.
Marty: You just gotta fight through it.
Justin: You just got to deal with it.
Marty: I attended a year ago, I'm talking to my trainer at the gym and I'm like, you know, I played 36 holes and he's like, Oh. He's like, those are your first two, two times out. I go, yeah, back to back. And I'm like, man, I got all this tendonitis right in my elbow, like right away. And it hurts. Like I couldn't even turn the steering wheel.
Justin: Wow.
Marty: Like it was bad. And he was just telling me, he was like, yeah, he's so, we'll strengthen this party arm. And he's like, but that's also age. And I was like, shut up man. You just called me old. [35:20.5]
Justin: You supposed to make me feel better about myself. You're supposed to be lying to me. Lie to me please.
Marty: Just a little bit.
Justin: Just a little bit.
Marty: Just a little bit.
Justin: You know, stroke, the ego, just a touch.
Marty: Exactly.
Justin: Yeah, man. I've been dealing with this thing for the past like six to eight months.
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: And I'm just like, man, I don't know if it's ever going to get better. I will say, I haven't tried this yet, but have you heard of PRP it’s called like platelet injection therapy.
Marty: Oh yeah. Well that, I've heard of it. I don't know much about it.
Justin: I haven't, I haven't done it. Yeah. But it's, you do have to, in most cases you do have to sort of pay out of pocket for it
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: But it takes like your, it takes your blood, you know, puts in his spindle, spins it and it just pulls out all the white blood cells and you inject just those white blood cells into that area where you may have that tendinitis or tendinosis. But in this case, tendonitis and it's supposed to make the healing process for that area. Like, just like go up drastically. No I haven't done it yet because like when I was right when I was about to do it, which is about a month and a half ago, that's when all this COVID-19 nonsense hit us. And so I haven't been able to get some back to the doctors yet. But no, for me that's probably the first, cause I've done everything else. I've got a Decadron shot. [36:31.4]
Marty: Hmm…hmm.
Justin: I've done, you know, I've done a little bit of therapy, but I was like, you know, I don't think that's really going to fix it. I need something else aside from actually getting the surgery, which I don't think.
Marty: That's a last resort.
Justin: That's the last resort man.
Marty: Well, just to say Justin's not a doctor, but at the same time I, you know, whatever he's looking into he is probably a smart man. But Justin..
Justin: Just real quick, thank you for saying that because I don't want to get sued for giving doctorial advice so you are right. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. I am not doctor everyone.
Marty: So he knows marketing though.
Justin: I do know marketing.
Marty: He knows marketing.
Justin: Just do your research. That's all I'm going to say. I don't know anything beyond that.
Marty: Justin, where can people find you online?
Justin: I mean anyone you can do a search for me in Google and Google, Justin Croxton, you'll find me and where you can just go to our website, Propellant Media without the.com it's www, www.propellant.media and you have any questions, you know, most of the time or at least half the time I have answers. But man, this has been great. Really, really great conversation, Marty. Really [37:42.0]
Marty: No, I appreciate it. I have a couple of other topics I think I'm going to hit you up on that will probably be interesting.
Justin: Right.
Marty: Might be a little controversial so I don't want to bring them up now, but I think it would be kind of fun because you have the right attitude about it.
Justin: Yeah.
Marty: And all those kind of triggering off of purple haze, but.
Justin: Aaaah.
Marty: Thanks everybody for, yeah, thanks everybody and thank you to Justin for coming on. We'll see you next time and we'll see you real soon. Thanks for listening. [38:05.0]
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