Episode Description:
In this episode we have a special guest Gina Pomponi, COO of Bluewater Media – a full-stack marketing agency with in-house production. Gina speaks of the importance of reaching a broad-audience like those found through TV to actually help better define your target audience – and the compound power of combining traditional media and digital media to produce a synergy the maximizes the results of each.
Connect with Gina Pomponi
Website: https://bluewater.tv/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gina-pomponi-75351a21/
Action you can take right now:
The goal of this podcast is to provide marketing and service insights, but also to provide actionable items that can occur right away without much thought. This episode explores different marketing channels for your business.
- List out your competitors strengths and weaknesses. In advertising and promotion, you should see if you can highlight your strengths against your competitors weaknesses. Don’t mention a competitor, and don’t even mention a generic weakness of the competition – just start by highlighting how our business excels in the problem area!
- Write out the definition, which you believe, is your target audience. Think about secondary demographics? Maybe consider testing alternate demographics on Facebook and seeing if you can uncover any insights.
After-Show Thoughts:
What a conversation with Gina! She certainly laid out many things to consider when advertising – and when coupling traditional media with digital media. I also appreciated the comments on bias selection. I’m sure this is something that happens far more often than we likely realize.
Lastly, I think it’s important to highlight just how difficult it can be trying to balance multiple agencies across multiple mediums. It’s not uncommon to hire an agency at some point to help with something specific, let’s say social media marketing. You are happy with the agency, but two years later decide to run television ads, but your digital agency doesn’t work with television or handle production so you use a new agency for this task. Six months after that you decide to partner with a different production company on an in-house video ad. Before you know it, you’ve fragmented your ad spend across four or five organizations with competing goals.
Consider reviewing your needs, at least once a year and don’t hesitate to move away from an agency that can’t fulfill all of your needs – even if you’ve had a good relationship. In the long run, it will be more trouble than it’s worth.
Episode 23 Transcript:
00:00:00 Justin
Imagine that you’ve defined your absolutely perfect audience, a target that is so specific that no ad will ever miss.
00:00:10 Justin
But what if that audience is wrong?
00:00:14 Justin
That and more coming up on the marketing and service.com podcast.
00:00:27 Justin
Hey Justin, Brusso here from the marketing and service.com podcast the podcast to help you build your business by creating incredible customer relationships.
00:00:38 Justin
If you enjoyed this episode then please take a moment to follow or subscribe. And if you want to do me a huge favor, please leave a five star review. It means so much to me.
00:00:47 Justin
And it helps keep me motivated and keeps this podcast going. I would love to hear from you, so please hit me up on the marketing and service.com Facebook.
00:00:54 Justin
Page what marketing challenges are you having with your business? What would you love to learn more about? Let me know.
00:01:00 Justin
I would love to hear from you and you can always shoot me an email justin@marketingandservice.com
00:01:04 Justin
That’s jestyn at marketingandservice.com. Today’s guest is Gina Pomponi. Gina is the CEO of Blue Water media.
00:01:14 Justin
And she joined as a partner as president of the Television Media Division.
00:01:18 Justin
And what’s so great and what I’m looking forward to speaking about with Gina today is the role that television plays in advertising today.
00:01:26 Justin
Television advertising is referred to as traditional advertising because it is the old school traditional way to advertise things coming up in marketing. In my age group, it feels like traditional advertising.
00:01:38 Justin
Is old school and of course we have all these new digital advertising techniques that provide very specific metrics and analytics that we can drill down and really understand our customer.
00:01:49 Justin
That makes it feel like television advertising is antiquated. However, Jean is going to share with us some things that I certainly found as a learning experience and it’s really opened my eyes to the potential and the opportunities that you may be missing out on with traditional advertising. If it’s not part of your marketing mix. So without further ado.
00:02:09 Justin
I’d like to bring Gina onto the show.
00:02:10 Justin
Thanks so much for being here. I appreciate it.
00:02:12 Gina Pomponi
Thanks for having me.
00:02:14 Justin
Absolutely. So now as the President and CEO of Blue Water media, what do you do there? What tell me a little bit about your company?
00:02:23 Gina Pomponi
Sure, so blue water media is a fully converged direct to consumer advertising agency. We have under one roof.
00:02:32 Gina Pomponi
Full television production.
00:02:35 Gina Pomponi
Inclusive of editors and animation on staff digital content, we have television media. We have digital media. We have Amazon marketplace specialist home shopping specialist web development. Really everything.
00:02:51 Gina Pomponi
That a client needs when they come to us with a marketing challenge.
00:02:55 Justin
Wow and and your. What is your typical client business look like?
00:02:59
Maybe one of my.
00:03:00 Gina Pomponi
Jobs is to make sure that we do have diversity in our clients, right? They all, I think the one interesting likeness in our clients is that they’re all trying to make their marketing dollars accountable, right?
00:03:14 Gina Pomponi
And that might.
00:03:15 Gina Pomponi
Right, and that may be that they’re trying to.
00:03:19 Gina Pomponi
Elicit a response and drive a direct sale to a website or phone number.
00:03:23 Gina Pomponi
Or retail, but they’re trying to understand as they as they twist the knobs, or as we twist the knobs on the media digitally and offline channels. How it impacts in a positive fashion.
00:03:35 Gina Pomponi
You know the their ROI.
00:03:36 Justin
That that’s something so important for these companies to and and so most of these clients are direct to consumer companies, but yeah, OK so.
00:03:44 Gina Pomponi
Yeah, and those that aren’t because we do work with some that aren’t, but you know the utilizing direct response.
00:03:52 Gina Pomponi
It’s disciplines in a media fashion is a very cost effective way to purchase media. So for traditional advertisers and we do have a few that were previously traditional, we are able to manage their media in a more flexible and cost effective fashion. So there are definitely.
00:04:12 Gina Pomponi
Ways to utilize direct response for that side of the world as well.
00:04:16 Justin
Yeah, let’s talk about that for a minute. So obviously in in this new world in new media we we hear all about all the digital advertising venues and television advertising has now fallen into what will quote unquote called traditional advert.
00:04:30 Justin
Rising, which to a lot of people sounds old fashioned, and I think a lot of businesses are are drawn to digital landscapes like Facebook and YouTube and Google because they can get these very, very specific detailed analytics about the effectiveness of their ad. But that’s not impossible to do.
00:04:50 Justin
On television, either so can you tell us a little bit about how that works when if someone decides they want to take that leap into television advertising.
00:04:58 Gina Pomponi
Sure, it’s not impossible to do, and the vast majority of our clients have both elements they have did.
00:05:04 Gina Pomponi
At all, as well as television and we like to call TV the tide that raises all ships. So when you’re when you’re running digital and you know what I equate digital to and I could be dating myself, but you know, way back in the day when we used to do direct mail and you were buying lists or when you were buying local cable and you were.
00:05:24 Gina Pomponi
OK, the wired homes how that it was that small, more specific, but it wasn’t. You know, significant, significantly scalable.
00:05:32 Gina Pomponi
So with television, we’re able to. It’s not, you know. It’s called broadcast for a reason. It’s hitting a broad reach of people.
00:05:38 Gina Pomponi
So we are able to track the response from television not only by reading. You know. Traditionally, if we had an 800 number on a commercial, obviously that’s a one to one.
00:05:50 Gina Pomponi
Someone sees a TV commercial and dials the 800 number and responds to get their information or our product, but we’re also able to do it.
00:05:59 Gina Pomponi
The folks that respond to the web as well as folks that go to Amazon and to retail outlets. No, it’s not 100% that direct one to one.
00:06:10 Gina Pomponi
But by establishing baselines of where you know clients performance are and where they’re, you know where their where. Their web sales are without the introduction of those of those new mediums, we’re able to establish baselines and then read the improvement.
00:06:25 Gina Pomponi
As we have different strategies, inflating them in, and like I said, it’s TV is the kind that raises all ships. So what happens is?
00:06:32 Gina Pomponi
As you add each one or for clients that already have digital running on television.
00:06:37 Gina Pomponi
Is layered over top or that it provides that Halo effect?
00:06:41 Justin
Right, very cool so.
00:06:42 Gina Pomponi
And digital improves as well, right? So?
00:06:45 Justin
Right, so if we if we break this down to like what? What does this customer journey look like? I think we have all been in that situation where we see something interesting on TV.
00:06:54 Justin
We’re watching TV. We see a commercial. For some, you know some new car or whatever it is, and then you say oh, OK, Now I’m aware of this. Let me go to the website and learn.
00:07:03 Justin
A little bit more about it, right? So now you’ve taken it to the digital side.
00:07:06 Justin
Side of it, and then you might say OK, this is cool. Let me actually go to the dealership and drive one.
00:07:12 Justin
Now you’re in that retail presence, or if it’s if it’s a smaller product, maybe it’s something you say. Oh, let me see if I can get this on Amazon or you go into a retailer to try to find the product so it makes sense that you’ve got this. This kind of full stack of of the journey that these customers.
00:07:26 Justin
And go through from starting with television, right down to the digital level, so you kind of get this data from 2 ends.
00:07:32 Justin
You get it from the television end and what you said the broadcast right and then you get also the very specifics from the web, which is which is pretty.
00:07:40 Gina Pomponi
Right yeah? And and then now that digital advertising and television is really top of funnel. So then you’re going down and as you said, you saw the ad on television and I’m guessing that when you’re watching television with your wife at night, you have your cell phone right there and perhaps a tablet so you know it’s interesting. ’cause of the response.
00:08:01 Gina Pomponi
For many folks, is pretty immediate, just like it had been in. You know, in the past, or or traditionally with with direct response.
00:08:08 Gina Pomponi
Vision when somebody saw a commercial, they would dial the 800 number. It was the commercial commercial.
00:08:12 Justin
Right?
00:08:13 Justin
Look, you’ve only got 30 seconds to do it and then all the previews go away.
00:08:16 Speaker 2
Right?
00:08:18 Gina Pomponi
Where the commercial was was a listening and immediate response. Well, when when the web nearnet became a big thing and we started adding URLs to our commercials and I was that 15 years ago. 20 years ago. I don’t know the years blend.
00:08:34 Gina Pomponi
But you know, we were all like Oh my gosh, what are we going to do? Websites you are going to cannibalize the response to the 800 numbers.
00:08:41 Gina Pomponi
How are we going to know when they saw it because of when they respond because back then, if you had a computer, it was back in a hall right back in an office and you had to turn it on and dial up and you know, but all it’s.
00:08:47 Justin
Right?
00:08:53 Gina Pomponi
The the response mechanisms in your hands you’re you’re multitasking. We live in a multi screen world right? And we also live in a multi touch world.
00:09:03 Gina Pomponi
So we know that.
00:09:04 Gina Pomponi
People aren’t gonna, you know? Well, I shouldn’t say they aren’t because it happens all the time.
00:09:08 Gina Pomponi
We’ll purchase after one view, but many folks need additional touches. They need more information on the website. They need to be re targeted after they see a Facebook ad or they.
00:09:18 Gina Pomponi
Search something.
00:09:19 Justin
So yeah, and I’ve I’ve seen, I’ve seen statistics that go anywhere from, you know, a minimum of five touch points to 10 touch points. There should be until someone is going to make that decision to actually purchase.
00:09:28 Gina Pomponi
Oh yeah.
00:09:31 Gina Pomponi
Right for younger people, it can even go higher than that, right? And on the democratic.
00:09:35 Justin
Yeah wild, so I wanted to. I want to get to demographics but before we go there I just I want to tie this together because what’s unique about your situation is that we’re going to cover this, you know, creating incredible customer relationships at 2 levels. You’ve had the opportunity to.
00:09:55 Justin
Be apart of this company where your goal and we share this in common. You want to create incredible customer relationships with your clients.
00:10:04 Justin
Likewise, you’re providing services that are going to enable them to provide a service and provide an exceptional customer experience for their customers in this direct to consumer environment and part of that part of doing that is obviously and I’ve I’ve mentioned this in some past.
00:10:24 Justin
Podcast episodes is.
00:10:26 Justin
Targeting the appropriate audience and defining more importantly, companies defining their audience. So how do you help? Use I’ve I’ve seen it two ways and I’m sure you have two where either you have a company that can’t even articulate who their target audience is and they end up wasting a ton of money broadcasting.
00:10:46 Justin
Very broadly, reaching a bunch of people that are irrelevant.
00:10:49 Justin
And then you have companies that can define their audience, but they really struggle targeting that specific audience because they can’t find the right venue or whatever the case may be, they end up throwing a lot of darts in a lot of different places, and again, there’s they they end up wasting a lot of money with these ads that are spilling over into into audiences that really don’t apply to their business.
00:11:09 Gina Pomponi
Right?
00:11:09 Gina Pomponi
And don’t forget about both clients who have the absolute wrong target audience because of.
00:11:15 Gina Pomponi
Focus groups they may have done or or research or preconceived notions. Or yeah, they think they find it so you do run into that a lot.
00:11:18 Justin
They think they they find it right.
00:11:23 Gina Pomponi
Not in an in the direct consumer world. We’re looking for a responsive market, right? You know, many times we will do his audience.
00:11:30 Gina Pomponi
What I call audience segmentation testing. So if you come to me and you have this product and you say I’m trying to reach you, know young professionals or millennials, and I look at the product. And I say, wow, gosh, I think this might be.
00:11:44 Gina Pomponi
Older seniors that are going to bond or whatever. So we.
00:11:47 Gina Pomponi
Might put together a test and even develop the commercial in a sense where we’re looking at different segments or including different demographics in it and then do testing on television on different cable networks or notiti skewing those different audiences to see which one responds better or most cost effectively number one and then.
00:12:07 Gina Pomponi
As you know, on Indage digitally you can also target specific affinity group.
00:12:12 Gina Pomponi
Groups to understand where in what audience is most cost effective, and then from those learnings you know. Then you then from there you can formulate how to move forward.
00:12:17 Justin
Right in part.
00:12:22 Justin
Sure, I and I think a lot of companies don’t connect this idea that you’re actually by targeting your your customer. You are already starting to provide.
00:12:23 Gina Pomponi
Follow up account.
00:12:33 Justin
I’d a level of service and you’re already starting to build a relationship because quite frankly, for example, if I turn on TV and I’m watching the news in the morning, I see 40 ads for medication for diabetes or something.
00:12:46 Justin
I don’t have diabetes. It’s a waste of my time. I would love if there was a button I could press on my TV that says I don’t have diabetes, don’t.
00:12:53 Justin
Show me that just show me the things that really apply to my life.
00:12:57 Gina Pomponi
Yeah, and you.
00:12:58 Gina Pomponi
Know what it’s funny you might be, we might remain friends and five years or 10 years from now. Talk and.
00:13:04 Gina Pomponi
That might be how television evolves 10 years from now. Just judging from that, how it’s evolved in the past 30 years so.
00:13:10 Justin
It’s very similar to YouTube. Learning your habits and showing you ads that are relevant but but I think I I think you know in that your skill set is probably reaching those audiences through the demographics that these TV networks have available.
00:13:13 Gina Pomponi
Yeah, OK yeah yeah.
00:13:25 Justin
To them.
00:13:26 Gina Pomponi
Mm-hmm, but to your point, it is a blended and usually you know, usually the strategy that’s developed. Depending upon the clients challenge is an Omni Omni channel strategy and it may be depending upon what it is we might.
00:13:41 Gina Pomponi
You know, we might say, hey, you know we are going to just test socially first so that we can we can identify.
00:13:46 Gina Pomponi
The appropriate you know, affinity groups or appropriate demographic, more cost effect.
00:13:51 Gina Pomponi
Totally up.
00:13:52 Justin
Do you? Do you find that if just out of curiosity because I’m I’m not familiar with this, I haven’t done it myself, but in in testing.
00:13:58 Justin
Do you find that if if you test on social and you find a certain audience or a certain group that does well, does that tend to translate to TV as well?
00:14:09 Gina Pomponi
You know, it’s funny that you ask me that because that can be very tricky. The answer is yes if you test if you set the test up correctly.
00:14:18 Justin
00:14:18 Gina Pomponi
So when you’re setting up a social test, many folks will say, well, well, here’s the affinity groups I want.
00:14:23 Gina Pomponi
I just want to test these when you do that, you’re predisposing your universe to just include a specific demographic, because those affinity groups that you’ve selected they now make up the universe you’ve defined.
00:14:36 Justin
Right, and they may not be the right to begin with.
00:14:37 Gina Pomponi
In that universe, has it exactly that universe had excuse a certain demographic, right?
00:14:43 Gina Pomponi
So I’m not saying don’t test with affinity groups, but I am saying make sure that you are also testing a broad base too, so it’s so very important you know so many folks just wanna.
00:14:55 Gina Pomponi
Well, I want to test, you know this much money on Facebook a week or I wanna and it. It’s like you know as I always say listen to your client.
00:15:03 Gina Pomponi
Listen to their challenges, listen to their thoughts and take a step back and then recommend to them the best course of action.
00:15:11 Justin
Very cool, excellent one. One thing I wanted to talk about a little bit is you’re dealing with a lot of direct to consumer brands and companies.
00:15:19 Justin
And one thing I love about direct to consumer businesses is that you can really control the brand right? Especially in creating a customer relationship. I think we again have all been in a situation where.
00:15:31 Justin
We purchase something at the store. It doesn’t work out. The brand itself would be more than willing to take care of this, but the retailer says no, I don’t want to deal with it. Get out and now this person has a bad taste in there.
00:15:42 Justin
About that brand. Because someone in the middle provided a poor experience and by enabling a direct consumer environment you really eliminate that and you really get sole control over the brand.
00:15:53 Justin
And what I like about what you’ve got going on at blue Water Media is that you’re covering digital web Amazon television, and you even mentioned.
00:16:03 Justin
Television production and media production. So do you find that where some brands may go to one agency for digital ads, they go to a different group for Amazon help.
00:16:17 Justin
They go to someone else for help with Google Analytics. Do you find that with the direct consumer keeping it all under the one agency really helps to control the consistency and the messaging of the brand?
00:16:29 Gina Pomponi
You know you do find clients that have a different digital agency and someone else is helping them with their Amazon efforts and and then they want us to buy their their TV, media, advertising or just do their production.
00:16:39 Gina Pomponi
What what will happen is you know if agency A is buying your TV media and agency B is buying your social and agency C.
00:16:49 Gina Pomponi
Is buying your PPC what’s motivating those three agencies?
00:16:54 Gina Pomponi
Budget right, right? So you’ve now got three agencies fighting over the same budget and not necessarily so if you’re the TV media agency, are you going to say, well, you should move more money to PPC? Probably not, because it doesn’t make as best sense and then also it it’s putting the onus.
00:17:08
Right?
00:17:14 Gina Pomponi
On clients that they’ve got to now manage, three agencies take that information because as three different agencies, you have one piece of a puzzle, so you also can’t provide the proper analytics and recommendations on what we truly recommend the next.
00:17:30 Gina Pomponi
Except today, it doesn’t mean that we don’t do. We don’t have a lot of clients where we do all the services, but there are. There are many times where client will start with us with one service.
00:17:39 Justin
00:17:40 Gina Pomponi
And then they fall in love with us. And I’m not bragging, but you know, we have an amazing account, management department and customer service.
00:17:48 Gina Pomponi
Is is really job one with us and I and I think they they begin to understand that and see that.
00:17:53 Gina Pomponi
And gosh, there’s no better, you know, any time we’re doing sales pitches or references are really, you know, our best line of defense.
00:18:00 Gina Pomponi
There because nobody says it better than.
00:18:02 Gina Pomponi
Than your own clients, but but yeah, that’s what happens it you’re going to have three different agencies fighting for the same budget and no one looking at the cohesive strategy ’cause nobody has all the information.
00:18:14 Justin
Right, right, yeah? So I I do love that you guys are doing that over there and you you know you had mentioned your account management team and I know one of the other things we have in common is our passion for creating these incredible customers.
00:18:27 Justin
Experiences and I know in the corporate world I’ve seen endless times where you have a sales department. You have a marketing department and you have a service department and all three at our odds with each other, right?
00:18:39 Justin
You know the salesman will say anything to close the deal. Marketing is making promises that that sales can’t commit to.
00:18:43 Gina Pomponi
I’m glad yes.
00:18:47 Justin
And then the service department gets a call is like I don’t even know you’re talking. We we don’t do any of those things we don’t even sell that product.
00:18:51 Gina Pomponi
Don’t even sell that, yeah.
00:18:55 Justin
So tell me a little bit about what you did at blue Water Media to really bring your sales service and marketing together in in a way that really provides an exceptional customer experience.
00:19:07 Gina Pomponi
It’s a great question, Justin. ’cause it seems like we we’ve both lived through the same thing over the years, so you know, when it came to blue water having you know, joined originally to build the media division and as as a partner I I did have the opportunity to kind of take take a step back and and look at all the other divisions.
00:19:28 Gina Pomponi
As we had all the other divisions and they were all.
00:19:30 Gina Pomponi
Working a little more siloed, not. Maybe quite as bad as I had seen in other places ’cause we all were all under one roof, but quickly saw the need not only from past experiences like we both had, but saw the need internally of processes that needed to be put in place. And I think we’ve done an amazing job.
00:19:51 Gina Pomponi
By developing an account management team so they’re not, I don’t call them client services, their account management, and when a client comes in, even when they’re in the sales phase and we’re developing a proposal, it’s not just the sales guy that’s in.
00:20:04 Gina Pomponi
Involved, they’re they’re assigned an account manager immediately that begins to talk to and liaison with the different departments as we develop these strategies to make sure that we’re all cohesive.
00:20:17 Gina Pomponi
We all understand with the clients challenges and goals are and we’re all working towards that same common good and that we can.
00:20:25 Gina Pomponi
We can obviously deliver on our promises, which is very important.
00:20:28 Justin
Yeah, that is fantastic.
00:20:29 Gina Pomponi
I know it’s.
00:20:30 Gina Pomponi
Right, I know it sounds crazy that you can have. I guess we’re 118 strong now. You could have 118 people under one roof and perhaps not be able to communicate well.
00:20:41 Gina Pomponi
But as you and I both know, that’s really what happens when you don’t have someone. A team of people that are not only from the.
00:20:50 Gina Pomponi
Client management standpoint account management standpoint. They’re not only our advocates and and working with us internally, but they’re that client voice. So it’s like the client having their person right on staff.
00:21:01 Justin
Yeah, and Gina you just laid out a road map for success that I wish a million companies would follow and take a cue from.
00:21:09 Speaker 2
Right?
00:21:10 Gina Pomponi
Right, because it’s it’s and I.
00:21:12 Gina Pomponi
And I, you know, just from talking to you before. I know, we think very, very much alike, and it’s it’s.
00:21:17 Gina Pomponi
It’s very it’s I see it. You see it, we see it. But sometimes when you know companies are moving and chugging and you know focus this way they have the blinders on and they don’t take a step back and say how can we?
00:21:30 Gina Pomponi
Make this customer experience.
00:21:32 Gina Pomponi
Better. How do we make our clients more profitable? What? What can we do? And I think that’s all needed to happen, but I just happened to get into a a place where I was able to elicit that type of change.
00:21:38 Justin
Very cool.
00:21:42 Justin
Yeah, that’s fantastic. I’m so happy you were able to get that done in because I I do think it’s so important.
00:21:48 Justin
It’s such a pillar of success for building these long term relationships. What it what are a couple things you could?
00:21:55 Justin
For a small business that’s getting started, they’re just getting into this advertising thing. Are there any tips, one or two things that you could tell a listener today that could help them in their journey of marketing advertising in general, be it digital or television?
00:22:12 Gina Pomponi
So I think that.
00:22:14 Gina Pomponi
The the one thing is understanding your competition.
00:22:19 Gina Pomponi
In your competitive marketplace, right? So if you are right, I think it’s really, really important to know what you’re what you’re doing, and it’s funny because one of the first things we do when someone comes to us, and even before I get on a phone call with somebody, make sure I know who it is, who I’m talking to, what their background is. But I have our analytics team pull me complete.
00:22:20
Ooh I like that, yeah.
00:22:39 Gina Pomponi
Competitive analysis though, so that we’re knowledgeable on it ’cause.
00:22:42 Gina Pomponi
How many times have I gotten on a phone?
00:22:44 Gina Pomponi
Call with a client that doesn’t know who they’re selling against right in their own. You know, so I find it interest.
00:22:50 Gina Pomponi
Saying don’t fall in love with your product. Be open to understa taking a step back and understanding. OK, this is what I think but be open to testing.
00:23:00 Gina Pomponi
Sure. So when we talk about, you know, understanding your your your your target audience. For example, you know you’ll have clients come to you and they might say I don’t know who my target audience is or I spent all this money doing focus groups and I think that this is my target audience so I only want to go after this very.
00:23:18 Gina Pomponi
Niche little little.
00:23:20 Gina Pomponi
Area, you know?
00:23:21 Gina Pomponi
Be open to taking a step back and better understanding.
00:23:25 Gina Pomponi
Who actually who actually wants and is going to purchase your product, but those are probably two of the two of the biggest things.
00:23:33 Justin
Awesome, so just having that little bit of willingness to pivot when necessary, yeah.
00:23:37 Gina Pomponi
’cause you?
00:23:39 Gina Pomponi
Got a test, test, test right.
00:23:41 Justin
Yep, awesome. I love that. So we’re getting to the end here so I have to ask, what is the biggest mistake you’ve made?
00:23:47 Justin
Because I, I firmly believe that we learn from our mistakes and that progress that I’ve made in my life has always been the result of mistakes that I’ve made. It’s a learning process. What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made and what’s come out of it?
00:23:59 Gina Pomponi
It is and I and it’s it’s a little on the personal side because I and anybody that knows me is probably going to laugh out loud when they listen to this podcast, but I was all business all the time.
00:24:14 Gina Pomponi
And tried to control and do it all I knew I had. I could tell you an 800 number that ran on a particular station like last like I just had everything and just tight, tightly gripped and.
00:24:30 Gina Pomponi
I, I think that.
00:24:33 Gina Pomponi
I became my job, I it became my life. I became my career. I became the essence of marketing was me.
00:24:40 Gina Pomponi
Meanwhile, back at home I was raising a child who thank goodness is now 30 years old. A doctor married very successful, but she likes to tell people she raised herself.
00:24:52
So so the.
00:24:53 Gina Pomponi
Biggest professional mistake I made was not.
00:24:56 Gina Pomponi
Not understanding that you need to delegate, you need to surround yourself with with talented smart people and you need to trust them.
00:25:06 Gina Pomponi
You need to, you know, trust your gut trust that you made the right decisions because you cannot control it all.
00:25:13 Justin
That’s great advice. Delegation is so important. I know that’s something that so many business owners struggle with, especially as they grow because you’re used to doing these things on your own right, especially in the beginning.
00:25:21
You are.
00:25:22 Justin
You’re doing it all and now you try to bring someone in and you know just even something as simple as editing this podcast. It’s something.
00:25:29 Gina Pomponi
Yeah, that’s why they call it growing pains, right?
00:25:31 Justin
Yeah, Yep, absolutely.
00:25:32 Gina Pomponi
It affects everything.
00:25:34 Gina Pomponi
So once you can get past the fact that there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and you know you might look at something and be like you know what I’d have done that a little bit differently.
00:25:34 Speaker 2
Right?
00:25:43 Gina Pomponi
But they did a great.
00:25:45 Gina Pomponi
Job they still solved the clients problem and there’s more than one way to skin the cat, right so?
00:25:51 Justin
Absolutely. And what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
00:25:57 Gina Pomponi
The best piece of.
00:25:58 Gina Pomponi
Advice this is even a more simple answer is to listen. I used to have a really difficult time. You know, I think I was always so excited and so passionate about marketing and what I did and and diving into people results and and making you know understanding the challenges.
00:26:16 Gina Pomponi
And coming up with the right strategies and essentially making our clients money that sometimes I would jump on the call and my tapes would go on and I would just start talking.
00:26:22 Speaker 2
00:26:27 Gina Pomponi
And it took me a long time and I’d still probably caught one of my weaknesses, but learn to listen, listen to your customers, listen to listen to your staff.
00:26:36 Speaker 2
Right?
00:26:37 Gina Pomponi
It’s tough, and I’ve I’ve learned to do things like doodle draw boxes to keep focus. Write down questions that I have so I’m not interrupting somebody and I’m listening so I know it’s a simple answer by.
00:26:52 Gina Pomponi
And really, it’s literally the best advice anybody has ever given me.
00:26:56 Justin
That’s great, thank you so much for that. And if people want to get in touch with you if they’re ready to go to the next level, they want to get some production done or they need help.
00:27:03 Justin
With advertising, what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you?
00:27:06 Gina Pomponi
So the best way to get in touch with me is to email me at ginathatsgcina@bluewater.tv.
00:27:17 Gina Pomponi
And I’m hoping everyone goes up onto our website and checks us out. They can find some fun and interesting things about me that they might be surprised about, like I front rock band.
00:27:27 Justin
And that’s something we have in common. We’re both musicians, our little.
00:27:30 Gina Pomponi
They don’t have it. Yes we’re both musicians, Yep.
00:27:31 Justin
Dirty little secret.
00:27:35 Gina Pomponi
Oh so but yeah, I would love to talk to people. Nothing makes me happier than to help somebody through with their challenge.
00:27:42 Gina Pomponi
And you know, bounce ideas back and forth.
00:27:44 Justin
Awesome, well Gina, it’s been an absolute honor having you here today and I’ve learned so much and I think what you’re doing is just absolutely fantastic.
00:27:44 Gina Pomponi
So would love to go.
00:27:53 Justin
And I thank you so much for coming on the show and I wish you the best luck and I will also put in the show notes that email address and the links to your website and all that stuff. So if you’re if you are in your car right now.
00:28:04 Justin
Don’t worry when you get back, just click the link and you will find Gina.
00:28:08 Gina Pomponi
Thank you and thank you so much for your.
00:28:10 Gina Pomponi
Time I had a great time on this on this I guess.
00:28:13 Justin
Thank you, I appreciate it so much. Wow, what an eye opening interview. I didn’t give that much thought to television advertising prior to this.
00:28:21 Justin
I’ve also learned that there’s some themes that keep appearing on this podcast after 25 episodes, one that I’ve always brought up and that many of our guests bring up is targeting audience, right? So coming up, I always learn that you want to target.
00:28:33 Justin
And especially the last few years you want to niche down to the most minute specific target audience possible, but.
00:28:41 Justin
It was really eye opening to me speaking to Gina when she suggested what if what you think is your target audience actually is wrong.
00:28:49 Justin
And now, because you’ve ignored the rest of the universe of the target that you thought was perfect for your product or service, you now miss out on a huge opportunity. So moving forward, I will certainly consider.
00:29:01 Justin
Going broad to get better ideas of where my product or service might fit to a specific demographic. Again, I want to thank you so much for listening to the show today.
00:29:10 Justin
As always, if you want to get in touch with me, it’s Justin at marketing and service. Com the website, of course, is marketing and service.com and definitely feel free to join the marketing and service.com Facebook page.
00:29:22 Justin
Lastly, I’ll just mention it one more time. Please like and subscribe if you enjoy and if you’ve gotten any value out of the show and always feel free to leave a five star review because that.
00:29:30 Justin
Means the world to me. Thanks so much for listening. And we’ll catch you on the next one.