The Essence of Effective Marketing | Joe Zappa

Ann Kraus: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV, the web series and podcast for agencies, brands, marketers, and media buyers. I'm Ann Kraus. Our guest today is Joe Zappa. Joe is the CEO and founder of Sharp Pen Media, an agency that helps AdTech and MarTech companies with marketing strategy, content, and PR. Before founding Sharp Pen, he was the editor of the MarTech media site Street Fight for five years. Joe has worked with companies such as Adjust, SheerID, FatTail, and Unacast. He lives in Brooklyn and has had a previous life as an academic, completing a PhD in comparative literature. Joe, welcome to Simpli.fi TV. Joe Zappa: Hi, Ann. Thanks so much for having me. Ann Kraus: Glad to have you. I really want to get discussing here with your work with AdTech and MarTech, and in working with those, you probably see, I'm guessing, a thread, in what you think they're doing right and wrong. So can you elaborate on what you believe that the agencies, these AdTech or MarTech agencies, what they might be doing right or wrong when it comes to marketing? Joe Zappa: Yeah, so I think the mistake a lot of companies in our space make, and your audience can definitely appreciate this because you guys are the agencies and the media buying platforms and such who are interacting with AdTech and MarTech companies. The mistake companies make is to over obsess on product features and to try to differentiate themselves on that basis. I think the companies in our space that do marketing the best are the ones that really zero in on who their customers are as people, like what their proclivities are, and then focus their marketing on that. So for an example, Beeswax, which is DSP/Bidder-as-a-Service now obviously owned by FreeWheel/Comcast, they're a former CMO when they got acquired. Paul Knegten is a marketing strategist at my company, and what the story he always tells about marketing strategy is that Beeswax ended up focusing their marketing on the persona of the control freak. I love this example because to focus your marketing on control freaks and to essentially say our customers, our control freaks would alienate a lot of potential customers, but it really zeroes in on what the ideal customers for that platform at that time were, which is people who really wanted to get into the weeds and use this tech-heavy platform to figure out their media buying. Ann Kraus: So not using the negative term control freak, but that's basically what they were. Joe Zappa: I think you can use it. I think that's the point. Like great marketing, you might alienate 80% of your audience, but the 20% with whom your product actually really resonates, they're going to see that and be like, "Maybe these people are onto something, and they're being honest with me." Which is something that people like in an industry dominated by the corporate speak. Ann Kraus: Excellent point. I know I was reading on your website that you do a lot of content marketing, and so with all of this discussion around AI, how do you advise agencies to work with AI when it comes to content? Joe Zappa: I think AI is best for inspiration and education. So on the inspiration front, if you have a blog you're writing or a byline and you want to come up with alternative headlines, you can be like, "Here's my headline. Give me 10 other headlines for a blog post on DSPs or whatever." Or education. If you have a writer who's never written about a specific topic, like, what is header bidding? You can, say, go to ChatGPT and ask it some questions about that. Say, "Write me a blog post about five things most AdTech people don't know about header bidding." Or something like that. I think the thing to remember about generative AI, though, is that it necessarily produces commodity content. So it's surfing the web, it's finding what other people have written, and then it's producing an answer to your question that's similar to that. So it's a good starting point. It's good for education or inspiration, but it's not really going to create the content that differentiates you in the market and really resonates with your customers. Ann Kraus: Education and inspiration, I like that. Two great words to remember when it comes to generative AI, because I know that this is a hot button and a lot of people are worried that they're going to be losing their jobs. Joe Zappa: For sure. I think that's real. I don't want to downplay that. I think there are tech companies, especially out there, who are looking to cut headcount, especially in the current macroeconomic environment. But I think that there will also always be companies that want to spend on smart humans who are really going to differentiate them, and I don't think those companies are going to go to the cheapest possible solution. Ann Kraus: Thank you for that. I know that that's going to appease hopefully some people, but for some brands and agencies, I've been wanting to ask this question because they can easily define success because they can see their products out in the wild per se. If it's a particular shoe brand, jewelry, or car, how do you measure success with your clients? Joe Zappa: Yeah, so I think marketing success needs to be understood on two levels. Ultimately, we need to understand as marketers that what the CEO, and if you have on the CRO and the board, care about is revenue. So marketing has to be contributing to sales opportunities. So that and overall business objectives. So that's something to think about. If you're working with a company that's historically worked with advertisers and they want to reach publishers, that's my business. If someone who works with AdTech companies, are you helping them create sales opportunities with publishers? If you're not, then you're probably not long for this world as a marketing agency. But at the same time, not all marketing activities can be immediately linked to revenue. So that's where I think you need leading indicators that show that what you're doing is connecting with your audience. So for example, if you're doing a podcast, I don't think if you start a podcast in the first six months, you're going to see a ton of sales opportunities from that marketing effort, but what you should see is, you're connecting with your target audience. Your audience is growing, and it's the right kind of audience. You're starting conversations. So that's how I like to think about measurement, on those two levels, leading indicators and then ultimately sales opportunities. Ann Kraus: So when it comes to those leading indicators and sales opportunities, do you put a number towards them and is that number different with each client? Joe Zappa: Yeah, it depends on the channels you're working on. If you're helping someone start a podcast, it's going to be different from if you're doing blogs that are SEO-oriented, which is different from doing LinkedIn, but you have to have a way to align with the client on, how are we going to understand if this is working? Are we at the very least gaining traction? And then, if you're gaining traction, then you can start to figure out, "Okay, is this having an impact on revenue?" Which is the next level. Ann Kraus: The ultimate goal, we hope. Joe Zappa: Yes. Ann Kraus: So the PhD and other things, I'm guessing that you do a lot of reading and listen to a lot of podcasts. Is there a particular book that you found instrumental in your success or something that you'd like to recommend to our viewers? Joe Zappa: Yeah. A book that had a big impact on me this year as an entrepreneur was 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. It's all about thinking big in business. So we all have things that we need to do every day to be successful today, this month, this quarter. But at the same time, I think we want to have a parallel track in our minds where we think about what would it look like if we 10x'd this business or we 10x'd our sales opportunities as a marketing and revenue team. That book is great for thinking about that kind of thing. Ann Kraus: So thinking bigger and not having incremental steps, but just going for the big step? Joe Zappa: If you're only ever thinking incrementally, it really is constitutionally impossible to think about the thing that would 10x your business. So you can't only live in the world of 10x because it's too abstract. There are things we all need to get done day to day, but I think thinking about both 2x and 10x, the incremental and the big picture, long-term, is helpful. Ann Kraus: Okay, great. I haven't heard of that one yet. Now, what is the best way? If people wanted to get ahold of you, learn more about you, or have a chat with you, what's the best way for viewers to learn a little bit more? Joe Zappa: Yeah, people can come find me on LinkedIn. Just Google Joe Zappa LinkedIn Sharp Pen Media, and you will find me, and I'd love to chat. Ann Kraus: Awesome. Joe, thank you so much for being my guest on Simpli.fi TV. Joe Zappa: Thanks for having me on, Ann. Ann Kraus: Thank you all for watching. Simpli.fi TV is sponsored by Simpli.fi, helping you to maximize relevance and multiply results with our industry-leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit Simpli.fi. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Ann Kraus, and I look forward to seeing you next time.