5 Ads That Are Killing It (And Why)

Brandon Welch 0:00
And the owner happens to text me often, at least weekly, saying, here’s another one. And somebody either reached out to him, strangers called up and said he left him a voicemail commenting on the memorability of that ad. Now, some of them are pissed off. Some of them are like, that is the most annoying thing ever, which is exactly how you know it’s working. But, but just as many, if not more, going I just want you to know I sang your song all day. My kids are running around the house singing it. And when you have that kind of effect, even in such a short amount of time, there is a resultant involuntary reaction that comes from that. So just like Americans remember hit songs, just cramming your business bullet points inside music does not make it memorable. But when you take a melody that you can’t help but kind of snap around and bounce around and sing, and then you just throw some silly words with it, that’s when you have something.

Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I’m your host, Brandon Welch and I’m here with the two time and Kyle DeVries, Kyle, welcome. It’s an honor to be here for the second time back by popular demand, Kyle did an episode, a few episodes back on

Kyle DeVries 1:13
Google, and how they’re making a little bit harder for us, but how to counteract it

Brandon Welch 1:16
now, navigating the current digital landscape and all the things that the things that the big tech companies are trying to do to make it harder on us, little small business owners, you definitely want to go back and watch that if you haven’t. But Caleb is also out on vacation, and he was Kyle’s becoming our trusty backup, so he is here, and we have an awesome episode for you, just in case you didn’t remember. This is the place where we answer your real life marketing questions so you can eliminate waste in advertising, grow your business and achieve the big dream. And we’re doing all three of those today. Without a doubt. We have five ads to share with you that are making big money eliminating waste in advertising, in the Frank and Maven world, in our clients campaigns. So kind of a rare peek behind the curtain at how we’re applying all this stuff we talked to you guys about. We’re growing businesses and making big dreams happen with these ads. And are you ready to jump right in to do that, share some of these ads? Yeah,

Kyle DeVries 2:08
you want to talk about principles of good ad writing. Oh, principles

Brandon Welch 2:11
of good ad writing. You’re tempting me with a really, really good time. We have three at the end. We’re also going to do that, but first we’re going to give you the ads. We’re just going to deliver what was promised. So the first one is a radio ad. Nate, the camera guy is gonna queue it up and play it for you. Nate, go ahead.

Advertisement Example 2:31
You wanna play a game, wanna watch a movie, wanna work from home without putting on pants. Too bad your Wi Fi can’t handle the heat. You might as well string up a couple of tin cans and try to face down your family with it. Quit putting around and get yourself some real internet. I’m talking about next high speed internet, speed of light gigabyte, day or night, and you can get it right now at your house. Yes, even where you live. Wait you live where? Way out there. We don’t care. We’re already in your area, and we’re the reason you haven’t seen the neighbors in weeks. They’re on season three of Yellowstone, and they’re not leaving the house anytime soon. That’s the power of next high speed internet. You can get it for yourself at my next fiber.com see how fiber optic internet will change your life forever at my next fiber.com

Brandon Welch 3:00
We’ll see you there. It’s really, really fast, incredible, love that ad. Cheers to Carter on our team. He’s the chief writer on this campaign, and that is exactly what Carter is so brilliant at. And we’re going to talk about, we’re gonna break that down in just a second, but just on the topic of crushing it, because you can have ads that kind of make you smile and laugh, and that’s always a good thing. But let’s talk about the true impact this ad, I want to tell you is from a very, very small organization, like just a handful of counties, could even qualify for this service. It’s a high speed internet service that was sort of put in with the utility company. So the utility company is sort of brokering a high speed internet service, and they’ve been doing it a few years, but they wanted to kind of push through the end when you, when you launch a product like high speed internet, and they’ve never, nobody’s ever had it before. It kind of sells itself. But now we’re kind of kind of in the, maybe the sluggish territory of getting those late adopters in. Since launching this ad, 24% increase in web traffic in a very small market, 24% it’s great. That’s year over year. That’s like the same, same seasonalities. Last year, these guys just signed their 20,000th customer. There’s just a little over 30,000 people. So not, not very many people more that they could get technically. And so to have that kind of increase after the service has been around a while, is especially significant. It’s kind of a unique kind of a capped buying public, I guess. And also worth noting, this the radio stations. We’re playing this on tiny radio stations, man, like in the world, radio stations we measure off of rating points. They’re so small they don’t even have rating points to register, and so kind of a unique campaign to go in here. Because one of the challenges of selling internet service to people via internet ads is that they don’t have the internet yet to be able to experience the ad. And of course, we’re we, we use a lot of broadcasts in a lot of different areas, but I. Um, these stations are tiny. They’re in a really, really small towns. The DJ is probably the same guy paying, you know, payroll and answering the phones like it’s just, they’re just small radio stations. And so how do we win when the audience is really small, sporadic, um, we go big with a message like this right

Kyle DeVries 5:18
now. Strategy first, always, but the medium here, connecting through radio was such a great choice because of that tight geological region that we’re dealing with, a trusted radio source with people who might have spotty internet. So great medium choice there,

Brandon Welch 5:34
yeah. So out on the boonies, this is part of a bigger campaign where we have kind of this fast paced talking and so one of the other things is that’s going on with this ad is it’s a very commoditized product. This isn’t the first internet service to come to town. So how are we getting such a great result when it’s not necessarily a new, surprising and different product? The market is kind of already saturated doing what they’re going to do. And I want to point out that a lot of you listening to this podcast have really commoditized services. They’re roofing, they’re services that people don’t get excited about on a normal basis. They’re, you know, HVAC systems, they’re electrical contractors. They’re, you know, home improvement projects, or maybe they’re legal and medical things that aren’t necessarily instantly gratifying type things though, this, this is a utility like this is kind of like lights and water. It’s a commoditized service. When you have a commoditized service, you have to turn up creativity to get attention, because there’s no such thing as a unique selling proposition and services that have been around for 100 years, or even 2030, years, in the case of high speed internet. So we had to take a very common, not new thing and make it new, surprising and different. Exactly. How do we do that? Kyle,

Kyle DeVries 6:48
well, limitation is the springboard for creativity. So a lot of times, when you’re dealing with something like, Man, how am I gonna what? How am I gonna make high speed internet unique or different or interesting? Sometimes when you feel like you’ve got those constraints is when you have the opportunity to become different, and that’s exactly what we did with this ad. Yeah.

Brandon Welch 7:07
On the topic of creativity, this is an intimidating thing for people who don’t consider themselves marketing people or artists, but there are a handful of tools you can go to. You can you can use pace, use rhythm. You can use tone. You can use inflection. You can use contrast. You can use taste, smell, vernacular, hyperbole, culture, language, all the things that actually are with an immediate grab to you. You can choose fast or so there that was also contrast, right? You cannot. You can choose any of these things we use in a normal day just by our own voice. And obviously in this ad, some of the things we chose were pace. We sped up the pace. And that that makes sense, because it’s like fast internet, fast talking, but we paired that with actually a darker, more boring, monotone guy. And so typically, a monotone person wouldn’t be that interesting or excited. And so that divergence, and I want you to hold on to that word, divergence, is a thing you can always use in ads to make to earn attention, right? So we took really fast voice, put it with monotone, drab voice, and then used kind of a nerdy, dry librarian type humor in the vernacular, and then we dropped it in the middle of hillbilly America. And like, Arkansas is really rural, this guy does not sound like them, so that, in and of itself, is new, surprising and different, right? They have a different draw. They have a different context and a different way of talking about life, which is a beautiful thing, by the way. So lot of contrast being used in this ad and so, but at home, if you’re wondering, like, how can I do this, or I’m running ads for my company. You want to disrupt predictability in all of these areas. Don’t be predictably fast or slow. Pick a style. Don’t be predictably technical or simple. Pick a style. The harder you pull the lever towards one area, the better it’s going to work for you. So this, these ads are just getting all kinds of attention and laughs and like the community is talking about them, but it’s also translating into real business. So any other things you would add to

Kyle DeVries 9:34
that? Yeah, I think probably my favorite kind of element used in this ad was hyperbole and just being a little dramatic, you haven’t seen the neighbors in weeks. Obviously, that’s not literally true, most likely, but and you might as well string up a couple of tin cans and try to FaceTime your family with so just kind of leaning into the dramatic element of hyperbole, just kind of being funny that way. A

Brandon Welch 10:00
normal, boring ad writer would be like, Oh, your neighbors are enjoying their new internet and oh, you probably have difficulty doing things like video streaming with your loved ones, right? But we said, No, you haven’t seen the neighbors in weeks. They’re on their third season of Yellowstone. And then we said, you might as well string up a couple 10 cans and try to FaceTime your family, right? Pull it to the extreme. We did the extremes on everything here, pace, vernacular, tone, hyperbole, and then just style of voice over artist. So three bullet points about why it’s working. We’re taking a predictable thing, making it unpredictable. We’re giving you a clear value. You’re slow and you need to be fast. And we’re we one thing to note here is we’re doing consistency in the media delivery. This is on four or five times a day on the radio stations that it’s on, so it’s hard to be in that area and not hear it. Even if you don’t listen to radio. You’re in a in a store, or a, you know, restaurant, restaurant, or whatever that has that station on, you’re gonna hear it. So cool. Ad number two, this is for a company we work with called perma seal, good friends of ours. They’re in, gosh, just under 20 markets in the Midwest and east coast, and they are masters of wood and concrete restoration. So if you’ve got an old warped deck or some ugly concrete or some cracked out like structure on your sidewalks or whatever, they come in and keep it from looking bad for lots and lots of years. They have a really cool product. So because of the geographic, geographical nature of their business. They’re very lead generation based. They have a pretty tight seasonality to what they do, like spring to summer, and then not a lot of people think about, you know, their decks and stuff when they’re not walking on them. So this is a Facebook ad, and I’m gonna just read it and we’ll put it on screen for you. Nobody is ever going to be brave enough to tell you your deck is ugly Kyle, but you know the truth, it’s kind of pitiful to look at. It’s not your fault. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the sun, rain and wind have been wearing it down and turning it gray, warping, cracking and splintering it and stealing your joy of being outside. You work too hard, your home is too beautiful, and your backyard bliss is too important to ignore it. You deserve to enjoy your deck this spring, one perma seal treatment will restore your deck to a beautiful, natural wood finish, eliminate mold and toxins that are destroying your wood, stop rotting and decay in its tracks, save you 10s of 1000s of dollars in replacement costs. Keep your deck in ship shape for 25 years, guaranteed. We’re getting an early start to the summer with 25% off when you schedule this month so that you can be ready for relaxation before the sunshine emoji is here. Click Here to claim your 25% off special and get a quote on a beautifully restored deck with a 25 year guarantee. And then the headline says, Start summer with a beautifully restored deck and get a quote.

Kyle DeVries 13:10
Yeah, I think this ad is so genius because it really leans into the pain point of like, Man, my deck is ugly. It’s broken, you know, whatever. It’s maybe even a liability to be on it, like I need, I need help, and I don’t want to grill on it. I don’t want, I don’t want my kids running around on it. It’s got nails sticking up, or, you know, whatever. Yeah, I think it plays so well into an incredibly relatable pain point that so many people feel. Yeah,

Brandon Welch 13:36
we describe the problem. I forget who it was that said this, but the quote was, it’s impossible to create sales from scratch if you can’t articulate your customers problem better than they can. And so we’re articulating their problem in a more succinct, direct, concentrated way than probably they sit there and think all at once, nobody sits and goes, Oh, it’s great. It’s splintered. They walk across and they go, Oh man, this thing is not as nice as it once was. But they don’t, we don’t Power Pack all those realities in our own experience all at once. But this ad did that for them, just real quick, just just so you understand the impact of writing in this style. 12,198 leads to date, of people that are saying, Yes, I would like to know more about that, given their information, currently producing leads at a cost of 23 bucks and 2023 sorry, $23.12 just to be completely accurate, this one ad that those words have produced over $2 million in sales. You mentioned the laugh, cry or get angry hook. We call them out, and sometimes you got to be a little bit mean, not unkind, but like brash, to call the problem to the surface. Because some you know, the amount of times people walk around their deck or look at their roof or consider the health of their HVAC unit, for example, is very, very, very few in life. In the case of a deck, it might be a. Once or twice a week, right? And there’s other things that might be once or twice a year, right? It’s it’s a problem, but it’s not uncommon, yes, so you got to bring that to the surface, and you got to put some emotional thing into it. So what we did here, I don’t know if you realized it, but we said nobody’s ever going to be brave enough to tell you this. I say that too, Kyle, I have your attention Absolutely. I have challenged your psychological and tribal safety. My eyebrows have gone up. Yeah, yeah. Your heart rate changed. Probably. Your blood pressure got a little tighter, and you’re going somebody’s about to throw a rock at me. We wanted a fight or flight mode. We have we activated the alligator brain with that first thing. And I didn’t pull this, but this ad, I’ll just tell you, has a enormously high stop and click and read it rate like before even the lead generation worked. Well, it’s like the amount of people that even if they don’t do something, they stop and they go, Oh, what are they talking about? Really, really aggressive. I mean, five or 10 times more than the average ad at least. So we do that, we do that, laugh, cry or get angry hook. We believe around here that if ads don’t bring

Kyle DeVries 16:07
smiles, fists or tears, they’re falling on deaf ears. Yeah,

Brandon Welch 16:11
it’s a core value. That’s a core part of our writing process. If you’re not bringing smiles, fists or tears, you’re falling on deaf ears. So we engaged that, then we turned up the pain. We doubled down on it. We said, Yeah, you’re Dex ugly man, and we, you know, challenged his psychological safety. But then we said, it’s turning it gray. We clarified it’s warping, cracking, splintering it, and the sun is stealing your joy being outside because it’s destroyed this very valuable piece of your home. And so we clarified that problem, but we also took it away from them. We said, it’s not your fault. Blair Warren, who wrote the 27 word persuasion course, great book you can read and like 10 minutes, one of my favorite marketing books ever, said people will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions, help them throw rocks at their enemies or justify their failures, and right now, we’re justifying their failures. We’re saying it’s not your fault. It’s okay. You’re fat, but it’s not, it’s not your problem. It’s not you didn’t do that to yourself. It was the the dairy industry or the sugar industry or whatever, like any any amount of like justifying people’s failures and saying, Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe again, works for you. Now that’s possibly a manipulative thing in the hands of the wrong person, and I don’t want you to hear that like that should be your goal. But if you’re looking to turn knobs and get people’s attention and take them to something that is actually good for them, that is a helpful way to do that, right?

Kyle DeVries 17:40
I love this line, you work too hard. Your home is too beautiful, and your backyard bliss is too important to ignore. It kind of giving them that little bit of a kick in the rear end. Like, look, you’ve you’ve done the hard work. You’ve earned this beautiful home, this beautiful deck. Treat it like you’ve like you’ve earned it and you did

Brandon Welch 17:58
so it’s encouraging, it’s challenging, it’s maddening all at the same time, and that little emotional gas we we we let them out of that conundrum, even though they really could just scroll away, but we’ve got them right. We say one perma seal tree treatment. We’ll take that all away from you. We’ll restore your deck. We’ll eliminate mold and toxins. We’ll stop the routing and decay. We’ll save you 10s of 1000s of dollars, by the way, a really good thing to do in ADS is to take people from an emotional to a logical flow back and forth, emotion to logic. The mind will justify what the heart has already decided. So I stir up the heart, and then I give them a little bit of logic, this little 10 1000s, 10s of 1000s of dollars in replacement cost is true. And they go, Oh, wow. So a I’ve, I’ve positioned a pain that was even bigger than they probably realized in the moment 10s of 1000s of dollars would take to bust this out and replace it. And they don’t know what we’re going to charge for this, but, you know, it’s way, way, way, way less than that. And and then we give them some more logical safety, keep your deck and ship shape for 25 years. The chemical nature of this product is that it has a 25 year chemical bond with wood and concrete that protects it against that future decay. So really, really powerful ad. And the last thing I think we did here is we gave them a really clear next step. We said, start spring with a beautifully restored deck. Very clear. What I’m going to get that was eight words, seven words. And then we said, Get a Quote. And it takes them to a page that says, give us a few details about your home or your deck or whatever, and we’ll get you a quote. And that’s exactly what happens. They get called up by the folks at perma seal, and they get an idea about what it’s going to cost them. So, emotion, logic, it’s got all the good things in it. That’s the way you want to write Facebook ads if you wish to get direct response. Any other thoughts on that? No, nailed it. Cool. Let’s go to TV. Got something for everybody today? This is an ad from our good friends at windows, source of Kentucky. Me roll it Nate

Advertisement Example 20:01
So your windows are whistling, your walls are windy, but you don’t have time to fool with a pushy window salesman, honey. I got you. We’re more laid back than a batch of baby bunnies burn and a box of blankets, and that’s a D guarantee. Make your home comfy, cozy and cost effective with replacement windows from the window source, it’s easy get a price right now at window source, kentucky.com beautiful baby bunny windows that won’t break the bank.

Kyle DeVries 20:31
just, don’t, just wanted to hang out with with Dee and Randy.

Brandon Welch 20:34
I do. I do because I know them so much. But strangers, 10s by the 10s of 1000s go like those people, yeah, that’s part of the Dee and Randy campaign. We’ve talked about that definitely their personality is driving that. Just, just a couple of things since we started ads of Randy and Dee doing that, just, just so you know what the impact is, their website conversion rates went from the fives to sixes to Well, well, well into the double digits. There’s some months we get 15 to 20% so by people trusting and liking them, and therefore their company, they’re seeing them on the search engine pages and just converting at a much higher rate, by the way, for less money spent. We’ve reduced their cost per lead from the mid one hundreds to well below $100 it’s translating into them trusting their salespeople more. They were averaging definitely sub 40% but I think sometimes into the 30% close rate, which isn’t bad, by the way, for Home Improvement sales, they’re well over 50% closing rate right now. Okay, so when they’re when their sales team walks in the door, they’re already pre positioned for success. People are more open to spending money on their higher quality, higher end products. So their average order value has gone up from, you know, below 7000 to, you know, I think last time we talked to him, it was up over $9,000 and that’s happened progressively, like we keep seeing that increase and increase. This is cool. People are mentioning them by name. They’re calling saying, is that d guarantee there? I want to talk to Dee right now. You know, here’s, here’s what most people do. They go, have you heard our ads on TV? And the person goes, I don’t know. You know why that person probably has seen the ads on TV. It’s hard to run TV advertising for a year or two and have somebody not see it, but they don’t remember it, except for when you do what Randy and Dee are doing. That’s the way you that’s the way you know if your TV’s working, you make characters and you make catch phrases. People are literally calling their phone lines and saying, I want some of those baby bunny windows. Or can I get that Dee guarantee? Or there’s a number of catch phrases. We got one that Randy, who we position. We write his that’s not necessarily who he is in real life. It’s a concentrated version of who he is. And then we write in some extra things that probably he wouldn’t say on his own, but it makes him even more likable. We make him this cool, bodacious like Tim the tool man Taylor kind of dad, right? And so there’s one one ad where he’s going, um, our windows are cooler than broccoli in the back of the freezer, right? And just this, those little, funny little things, right? And then people start calling and saying those things, and that’s how you know it’s working, right? Fame equals fortune. Fame equals fortune. We have a new presentation on that. So what’s working? It’s producing virtually increases in profit in all corners of the business, in sales and marketing and decreased lead cost. And by the way, even in a even in a tougher market, like most companies in their category, are not growing right now. They’re growing right they’re, they’re double digit growth. And most people are reluctant to say yes, and they’re, they’re not feeling those pains.

Kyle DeVries 24:01
So you mentioned that, like when the salesperson comes into the house, obviously, they know these people. They trust these people. But you know, even at the more kind of granular, nerdy levels, like when people are scrolling Facebook, or, you know, maybe they’re in the market for Windows right now, and they go to Google and they see a window sorts Kentucky at that, you know, at the top of the page, they’re like, I know those people, like, Oh, yeah. Like, they’re, you know, they’re thinking about the TV ads. They already know you, whether they whether they realize it or not, yep. And that’s doing wonders across the board in every, every area of their business. So

Brandon Welch 24:32
right about that? It’s like an old friend, yeah, it’s like, Nate, the camera guy, you were to come try to sell you windows. I’d buy from Nate. I would buy it from Nate right now. What do you sell a Nate? Okay, so here’s some other things that’s working. So we talked about the relationship they’re building. This is a cut right out of the tomorrow marketing chapter of the Maven marketer. Tomorrow marketing is all about building relationships, being consistent, and committing to a certain level of quality. So. The relationships are the people that interact with you, right in front of you, and they’re talking to you about you. You’re using a second person voice. They’re building a relationship with you. The consistency is they show up every day, and they also are consistent because they demonstrate that they’ve been there for a long time. This company has been around for almost a decade, but they don’t have this buy now, buy now, buy now. Thing that says, Oh, you’re not going to be able to get it. They say, nope. Here today, here tomorrow, here for you. We’ll make it easy. Get a price right now, but right and the quality, even that baby Bundy bunny Windows thing they’re talking about, the cozy factor, they’re talking about what your life is going to be like when you buy their product. That’s a commitment to quality. Commitment to quality, and then it’s a clear, consistent call to action. You can get a price right now, not call and schedule today. It’s no get a price right now. And then we show it on on the screen. We show what that looks like. And people can imagine themselves going to this website and making that action, and then they’re giving a clear next step and telling you about you about the value you’re going to get when that happens. So transparent process, right?

Kyle DeVries 26:06
And I think you know, the reputation that they’ve earned through through TV, and the relationships that they’ve built with with people in their market over time kind of affords them the opportunity now to be more direct in their in their Facebook advertising and some of their their messaging, and other places, they can just say exactly what needs to be said. They’ve already earned that trust. And some, some, not every business can, can say that can. Can be that direct and have the effect that you know these ads do because of the reputation they have, exactly,

Brandon Welch 26:36
by the way you see a picture of them and their funny catch phrases as soon as you go to the website too, like you pull the website up, Nate’s gonna put a screenshot of it, you see them right there, and it’s like, Oh, those are the people. I trust them. So they’ve embodied those characters and on Facebook and all the other places. So cool. Number four is an ad from our friends at outdoor home. We don’t talk about these guys enough, but this is, like, one of the most fun campaigns we do. We do TV, radio, some really cool stuff on the website. We do Facebook ads. We brought a Facebook ad today that’s doing exceptionally well for them, that they’re like a legacy advertiser. They’ve been doing all the right things for 30 years. So they’re just like, their brand is so strong, but this particular ad even rose above the noise a little bit. Kyle’s gonna read it to you.

Kyle DeVries 27:25
Yeah, the headline of this Facebook ad says it’s not me, it’s you, dear old patio furniture. It’s time we had a chat. After some serious thinking, I’ve decided it’s time for us to part ways. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had some good times, but let’s face it, you’re starting to show your age. I need something fresh, something exciting, something that doesn’t creak every time I sit down. See I stopped my outdoor home the other day. I was just looking around while the weather was cold. But while I was there, I caught feelings, feelings for the most exquisite teak dining table matching armchairs and plush cushions that perfectly match the new rug I bought last year. I was hesitant. After all, I really loved you, but when they told me that they were taking hundreds off all patio furniture for the month of April, I cracked so don’t take this break up personally. Think of it as a chance to find a new home where someone can appreciate your unique charm. As for me, I’ll be lounging in style on my brand spanking new patio set. Catch you on the sunny side.

Brandon Welch 28:29
So we used a metaphor. Leslie Clark, brilliant, brilliant ad writer, this is her magic. Tell us about the results we’re getting with his ad.

Kyle DeVries 28:40
So we’re seeing almost 5% click through rate for this ad. So that’s indicating that the first impression of the ad is catching people’s attention. They’re stopping the scroll. They’re interested. People always

Brandon Welch 28:52
ask me, Do people stop and really read that stuff on Facebook? It’s like, yes, there’s no such thing as too long or too short. There’s only too boring. So if you do what Leslie’s done, and you write an ad that is worth reading and takes you through the lines, you’ll get, like, a good, probably average CTR overall on an ad is probably two to 3% right? Pretty good, pretty good, average. So we’re, we’re in the territory of doubling that. What’s even better to me, though, is this next one.

Kyle DeVries 29:20
Yeah, the unique outbound click through rate is all is a little over 9% so really, you know, nine to 10% of the people that are engaging with this ad are literally leaving Facebook to go shop Outdoor Home’s Website had

Brandon Welch 29:34
15 131 clicks to browse patio furniture. Yeah, you should probably know, by this category, this is really high end stuff. And the way we wrote the ad, 1500 people looking around and going, huh? I could imagine myself doing that. And I’m relating with this imaginary person in this story, which, by the way, pair it like with what we do with the Perma Seal ad we did, we did it a little different. Way, but we baked in those pain factors here. Let’s face it, you’re starting to show your age. I need something fresh, something exciting, something that doesn’t crack every time I sit down. We’re doing those needs, pains, hopes and fears, and we’re doing a little bit of that smiles, fist and tears. By the way, we’re kind of juxtaposing this story to something somebody could relate with. How about

Kyle DeVries 30:21
that headline? It’s not me, it’s you, which obviously the popular phrase is, it’s not you, it’s me. So I think that like, oh, okay, you know, what does that mean? Yeah,

Brandon Welch 30:29
that’s a little bit of an emotional it’s a play on words, but it’s also possibly an emotional jolt. Do people read the same story lines over in romance novels, and they become bestsellers every time some author rewrites one, you use the same storyline, replace the characters, replace the scene, but the plot remains the same. That’s kind of what’s going on here. We’re kind of engaging a familiar emotional journey, right? So that’s a great ad that produced it. Also we noticed some really nice increases in their average order values while doing campaigns like this. And it’s not the only one Leslie wrote. That’s just the one we picked. So obviously having a little fun. And then this last one, we’re going back to TV and or radio, going back to some tomorrow marketing for a roofing company. What a boring product. I can’t wait to put off my roofing project. I can’t wait to never have to think about my roof, right? Exactly. But eventually roofs come around, and what’s going to happen if you live in this person’s market is that you’re going to at least have to turn this off in your head. Fired away. Nathan, camera guy,

Advertisement Example 31:40
Well the weatherman said, Watch out for the thunderstorms. About it’s gonna be windy and it could even hail, but you are nice and cozy, cause you have some trusted bodies. Should the Oklahoma Weather prevail? Solid roof, solid roof, solid roof, solid when the rain drops are falling and your ceiling is a soppin, just call your solid guys. It’s solid roof, solid solid roof, solid roof, solid roof, solid roof. There’s no need to worry at all. Just make one single call to your trust. It’s solid guys, it’s solid room. When the weather’s looking cruddy, just remember you’ve got a buddy with your trust. It’s all it guys, it’s solid roofs. Solid roofs.

Kyle DeVries 32:34
Love it.

Brandon Welch 32:35
Now, I don’t know who would write such an atrocious piece of music. What you should know is this ad is very new to the market. Okay, we don’t ever suggest that you expect much feeling until you’ve had a campaign like this in a category like roofing going for 12 to 18 months, okay, since launching that two and a half months ago, 153% increase in site traffic, which you could go, Ah, well, that could be a lot of things, but how about this 81% increase in the people literally typing in their URL, direct traffic, going skip The Search Engine, I’m gonna go to solid roofs. If you know anything about website traffic that is, that is significant, and especially in such a short amount of time. Let’s talk about the actual sales side of things. 125% increase in leads. We haven’t increased anything, if anything, we’ve decreased their search engine ad budget, but we’re getting more from it. Matter of fact, we’ve had a 46% decrease in the cost of search engine leads, so we’re getting more for less money. And the owner, who’s a dear friend of mine, happens to text me often, at least weekly, saying, here’s another one. And somebody either reached out to him. A strangers called up and said he left him a voicemail of like, commenting on the memorability of that ad. Now, some of them are pissed off. Some of them are like, that is the most annoying thing ever, which is exactly how you know it’s working but, but just as many, if not more, are going I just want you to know I sang your song all day. My kids are running around the house, singing it. And when you have that kind of effect, even in such a short amount of time, obviously it’s goofy. Obviously we’re having way too much fun. With a really boring category, there is a resultant involuntary reaction that comes from that. So just like Americans remember hit songs, I saw a thing the other day that said most of us can sing at least part of over 1000 songs we never intended to learn. That’s the magic of music when it’s done this way. We’re going to do an episode on jingles. Very soon. We’re going to talk about what not to do with jingles, because just cramming your business bullet. Points inside music does not make it memorable. But when you take a melody that you can’t help but kind of snap around and bounce around and sing, and then you just throw some silly words with it, that’s when you have something

Kyle DeVries 35:11
don’t be modest. I think it’s a good it’s a good composition Brandon, and I think you know, the singer’s voice, the melody, the delivery, the messaging. It’s comforting. You know, you’ve got a buddy in a you know, obviously, nobody wants to have a leak in the roof or whatever. That’s a pretty bad thing to go through. But you know, you’ve got a trusted company. And that’s in the song is very comforting. And it’s, it’s magical. It’s memorable

Brandon Welch 35:36
contrast that to every other roofing ad in America, which is, Hi, I’m Ed from Ed’s roofing, and when you need roofing, remember me. And he’s standing in front of his truck, and he looks like a roofer. And there’s nothing new, surprising or different about Ed. He’s a great dude. Ed’s a great dude. I’m not saying anything about Ed. I’m saying when you’re in a category that people do not want to think about you have to go through a side door. So just kind of like we talked about that very first ad, which was high speed internet. We took a commoditized thing and we made it new, surprising and different. We did it this way with trombones and tubas. And yes, we orchestrated all that. And yes, I was like, Nope, we got to have a real trombone player come in, and I want this type of voice. I wanted a classic, silvery type voice. And we went to Branson, Missouri, and found a guy, perfect choice, perfect choice, right? And so even the musical style, like a lot of jingles, are done with stock music beds and, you know, just keyboard layers of things they put over. And we were like, no, we want classic America, and we want people thinking about this neighborhood, what I happen to know, and actually what kind of involuntarily informed this ad, this area of the country, broken arrow in the town where this business is has like a really, really, really strong marching band. And that just happens to be a thing. Their football games and their marching bands are like religion down there. And I just kind of somehow channeled that. And so I was like, let’s make it a little, you know, parade March thing. And so goofy guys. It’s goofy. It is so goofy. But I bet you’re singing that song later tonight. I bet you’ve heard that once, and you’re already kind of like tapping around. We do this often with service based companies. And it’s not that jingles are the only way to do it. It’s just they’re really, really effective if you don’t, don’t violate some certain rules with them. So music is obviously working here. We took a boarding thing and made it memorable. What any other things you would say about this ad, just things that are working with it. Um, I

Kyle DeVries 37:42
mean, I think we covered it pretty well, but, yeah, it’s just something that that is can bring your mood up. It’ll catch your attention. You will remember it. You’ll sing it. It’s it really hit all the elements that we’re looking

Brandon Welch 37:54
for. We turned our guys into cartoons. Yeah, yeah. We turned trying to get people who are norm, who are used to being on roofs and not used to acting. It’s probably a tough thing to make them act, so we turned them into little cartoons, and Nate and Carter and our production team made them funny. Okay, that’s five ads. What I want you to take away from this. You could say that about all of these ads, we avoided predictability like the plague. We used real second person voice. We were extremely clear about what the next step and what happens for the user when they take that next step. Most people look at advertising like it’s their job to inform, and because you’ve paid money for the ad, I get to now inform you about all the things you didn’t ask to be informed about. What you want to do instead is avoid predictability like the plague. You want to use real, second person voice talk to you about you, and you want to be extremely clear about that next step and what’s in it for them, if they take it, that’s the essence of an ad that will produce for you. In the middle, there’s a lot of creative things. There’s a lot of fun you can have. There’s a lot of use for the brilliant writers like Carter and Leslie, and there’s use for music, and there’s use for all of these fun things. But at the essence, if you’re avoiding predictability like the plague, like, if it’s predictable, if it sounds like an ad, change it. Yeah, show it to somebody. Oh, that sounds like a polished ad. You actually want your friends going I don’t know. Man, that sounds a little jagged. Oh, you should change this. That’s the sign that you’re onto something, right? If it’s predictable and somebody can’t tell you something they remembered about it, like play it from today and then call them tomorrow and say, what’d you remember about that? There’s nothing there. You got the wrong thing, man. So a predictability?

Kyle DeVries 39:31
Yeah, and you don’t want to just get your name out there. You want to build an ecosystem, build your character, and make all of those stories true across everything you’re doing? Yes, that

Brandon Welch 39:41
could be a fourth principle. Look at the Randy and Dee campaign. We’ve got 30 ads that are them doing the same personality things, but avoid predictability. Use real second person voice. It’s not a conversation you’d have with somebody across the table. Don’t do it. Don’t write like an ad. Writer or write like an ad. Spokes. Person, right? Like a real person, and then extremely clear when you click here, when you get a price, it’s gonna happen in a matter of minutes, right? Tell them what’s gonna happen. You can clarify that on your website, copy and all the things. So I hope that inspires you to write some ads that are gonna make you some big money if you need help, if you’d like some thoughts, we will do a live ad review on here. We actually have some of those stacked up. Stacked up or to do that soon. But send your ads into Maven Monday, Monday at Frankandmaven.com send your questions, send your ideas, send your comments. Tell us how much you hated that stupid solid roofing jingle, or how much you loved it. And if you want a jingle, by the way, tempt me with a good time, and we’ll write you one. Okay. Hope you guys are having a great week already. We’ll be back here next Monday and every Monday answering your real life marketing questions, because marketers who can’t teach you why are just fancy lie. Have a great week.