Fearless Advertising Strategies | Andre Ezeugwu

Ann Kraus: Hello and welcome to Simplify TV. I'm Ann Kraus. My guest today is Andre Ezeugwu, the CEO and founder of Ifodige Media Group in New York City. Ifodige Media is a multi-outlet advertising agency providing billboard, radio, events, and digital marketing solutions for businesses of all sizes. They reach more than 276 million consumers weekly across their content partner programs. The mission of Ifodige is to help people succeed and create opportunities that remove as many obstacles so they can reach their goals educationally, financially, and economically. Andre has worked in Philadelphia, Tampa, and New York City for Beasley Media Groups Radio One and Hot 97, all the while building his network, knowledge, and understanding of the diverse digital media advertising and entertainment landscape. Andre, welcome to Simplify TV. Andre Ezeugwu: Thank you for having me. Ann Kraus: Of course. So this removing obstacles, that's what really struck me. Tell me about how you remove obstacles for people by being an agency. Is there a story you can share with us on that? Andre Ezeugwu: Of course. Certainly. It's literally the reason why we exist and why I'm able to do this full-time and do it successfully. I feel like the little guy in business tends to be forgotten in advertising. Because advertising, if you really want to play the game and you want to play it right, it's a pretty high cost to entry. You see big companies like Pepsi and Coke spending millions, and McDonald's, and you're like, "Okay, well I have a restaurant business. How do I compete with that?" But most agencies, because we know agencies, how we make money, whether it be a percentage of the total spend of advertising, aren't looking at the little guy because they can spend but so much to really drive an action. So enter a company like mine who sees this issue and sees this as a wide open market for us to be successful. By utilizing digital media, which has a bit of a lower cost to entry, not only does it have a lower cost to entry, it also has a very targeted approach, while also combining terrestrial media as well, but combining it in a very minimal way, but in a way that's very familiar to not only the advertiser but the consumer, and then compounding it with more lower-cost but effective digital assets. Ann Kraus: So this combining of territorial, I'm sorry, combining of terrestrial advertising with digital advertising, this has been going on for years. So is there a special formula on how you explain this to your clients? Andre Ezeugwu: 100%. So usually where before how it used to be, digital media was like an afterthought. It was an add-on. It was, here's our radio campaign and we'll just throw in this digital media of our run of schedule for our website or just this display ad here, or because people just was going with what people were more comfortable with, people understood, which was the terrestrial media. And digital media was our way of us to get high margins in on top of the terrestrial advertising, right? Well, I flipped it. I put a majority of the money in digital media, and I also use digital media's tools of how targeted our advertising is to drive the point that return on investment is the whole reason why you're spending your few thousand dollars, your hard-earned few thousand dollars you've allocated per month for advertising because you don't want any waste. And I talk about how terrestrial media, everyone that's driving past this billboard, you're getting everyone listening to this radio station. Your market's not everyone. Your market is a very clear and specific person that we're able to micro-target with digital media. However, still keeping true to our terrestrial roots and understanding of what we know people initially utilize to digest information when it comes to advertising. Ann Kraus: Interesting. Okay, so that flip, is that hard? That flip of digital first? Is that hard to explain to that small business owner? Andre Ezeugwu: Not really. If you do it confidently and you have the proof to back it up, especially the small business owner where you show that you actually care and have a knowledge of their business, you're going to win every time. For example, so I go into a local restaurant, say a local pizza shop, and they're trying to get their name out there yet still you got Pizza Hut and Domino's just within a mile radius of them and they're like, "How do I stand out?" Well, here's two things that I would recommend them. One, you buy a typical poster billboard. Nothing too crazy, just one billboard. Which by itself, is not going to do that much, right? But you geofence that billboard as well as your competitor's locations. So whenever anyone drives past that billboard, and they will see it because they'll see it at a light or wherever or they're about to hop on a train or wherever this billboard's located. And whenever they walk into their competitor's restaurant and then they go home, they're going to go on their phones and they're going to see ads for your pizza shop. When they're watching TV or Hulu or Netflix, they're going to see ads for your pizza shop. Whenever they're just playing Angry Birds or whatever, they're going to see ads pop up for your pizza shop or in an article. Eventually, that subconscious continuance, omni-advertising approach really just off of the strength of one billboard and a majority of just very targeted display advertising based off of your competitors' customers and people that are driving past this billboard in your neighborhood, you will slowly, month-over-month see a compounding number of a majority of your consumers grow as you continue this approach because people are going to feel that FOMO effect. It's like, "Man, I saw that billboard. I also saw it on my phone. And I do like pizza." That's the key thing here, right? It's your competitors. Eventually, they're going to stop in and then it's your job as the business owner to sell them and keep them coming back. Ann Kraus: That is a key point right there, is it is their job as the business owner to keep them. That advertisers can get people anywhere, but business owners got to help us out by hanging on to them. Andre Ezeugwu: Can I add to that as well? Just for a little bit, I know we're short on time here. But as coworkers in this industry, I know we tend to get customers that try to put a lot of the burden on us when it comes to that, right? Like, "Oh, well this didn't work this month, or I need more, you served it, but these numbers don't mean much to me. Where's the proof?" Well, I put the burden of proof in them when it comes to their tilt. So I ask them, "What is the typical ticket price for a customer to walk through your door?" They say, it's $18, I say, "Okay, $18 is what you are saying per customer is valued at for you," right? So then, all right, fine. That helps me better understand how many customers I need to bring for you to see a profit off of your investment that month. And if my numbers dictate that in terms of number of customers that then walked in your door that we also serve ads to, and if our numbers show that that number of people came to your restaurant, and if you're on your end not seeing the growth, then there's something at the store, and feel free to put the onus on them. It's something that they're not doing that's keeping the retention of customers growing. Ann Kraus: Very good. I like that approach. I like that approach. The name of your company, though, I want to talk about that. It stands for In Fearless Optimization Does Innovative Growth Emerge. How did you come up with that and what is fearless optimization? Andre Ezeugwu: Well, it takes risks to be successful, and everything about my business is catering to the small business entrepreneurial person who tend to pretty much work every day in their business and they're growing and they're figuring out how to scale and everything takes risks. And most times, these risks are things that you're doing as an entrepreneur for the first time. You may not necessarily have a history of doing what you're doing, you're really just trying something new. So it requires a sense of fearlessness to be successful. And you've done that, you've successfully done that in your business. A lot of us in our business is the same thing. You're just trying something based off of knowledge of what we saw on a YouTube video or did it for years and to try to branch out on our own like myself and then we're finding success there. And that's where the optimization comes into play. With the optimization of your fearless knowledge of what you've accumulated and having someone have a clear and keen understanding of how to be successful and the trust in that is where you'll see the growth. And it's just, putting together that acronym was just our way of basically speaking to fellow entrepreneurs and saying, "Listen, if you want to grow, you need a company that understands what it took for you to get to where you are today. Not one that's just looking at you to be able to drop a million dollars a month or at least be a million dollar client." No, no, no. I'll take the $30,000 a year client. I'll take that client. As long as you're consistent and month-over-month can give me that $2,500 to show growth for you, we'll always win. Ann Kraus: I have to say that your energy is contagious. I'm all pumped up now. I want to be an entrepreneur and I want to go start a new business. But do you have a podcast or a book that, I'm guessing you're a reader and there's things that help drive this energy. Is there something that's been instrumental to your success? Andre Ezeugwu: It's funny. I was thinking about a book, because I read a lot of books. And one that I knew I wanted to bring up on this call is 50 Cent's Hustle Smarter, Hustle Harder, or probably it's maybe the other way around. So Hustle Smarter, Hustle Harder. But it's a book that's completely, I'm sure no one has ever told you on any of these episodes to read. And the reason why I say that is because he talks about the entire book of the entrepreneurial mindset, and it's from a perspective that you wouldn't typically probably take advice from, right? It's from the guy who comes from nothing, who has nothing, who takes a risk in music, and then after he realizes that, oh, this music thing isn't working anymore, he switched gears and just kept switching and switching to different forms of whether it be drinks or whether it be clothing and just kept going. And now it's the TV and entertainment, and he's now making smash hit after smash hit when it comes to his videos. I was very, very keen on how he was able to build that growth and clearly show that growth and how to understand people, how people are keen in terms of your success or your downfall, who you have around you, how you can utilize the laws of power to your success. It's all things that I'm like, yeah, this is a book for the everyday person who's not quite sure which way to turn, and they don't necessarily wake up motivated to just go and run through a wall every day. How do you keep that consistency? Ann Kraus: Okay. All right. That's good. I'm going to look that one up. So after people watch this and see your energy and everything, they're probably going to want to learn a little bit more about you. What is the best way for people to learn more about you or your agency? Andre Ezeugwu: Well, the best way to learn about us is just following us online at Ifodige Media on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. We are just on every platform. Or just our website, ifodige.com. I-F-O-D-I-G-E dot com. Ann Kraus: Excellent. I'm glad that you spelled it, because that was a tough one. Andre, thank you so much for being my guest today on Simplify TV. Andre Ezeugwu: You're very welcome. And I'll also add one last thing about the name and also my name too, Ezeugwu. It's always a conversation piece. And the fact that you're able to have a conversation piece, I implore you guys to always have something that is a conversation piece. It's your way in. It looks different. People are intrigued. They open. Our open rates are super high on our email campaigns because we have a name that people are like, "What is that?" But they understand media and they understand advertising, and now whenever they see our name, they know who we are. They don't mistake us for any other company or my name for anybody else. There's only one Andre Ezeugwu, and that's key. Being unique in the marketplace is super key. Ann Kraus: I can't really say the same for Ann. but Andre, thank you so much and thank you so much to everybody who has been watching. Simplify TV is sponsored by Simplify, helping you maximize your relevance and multiply results with our industry-leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit simply.fi. Thanks for joining us. I'm Ann Kraus, and I look forward to seeing you next time.