Accelerating Brand Momentum | Scott Palmer

David: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV, the web series and podcast for agencies, brand marketers and media buyers. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Scott Palmer, Vice President media and digital at French/West/Vaughn, a full-service PR and marketing agency based in Raleigh, North Carolina with offices across the country. Scott's 15 years of media and digital marketing expertise extends across many categories to drive growth for clients in consumer goods, B2B, travel and tourism, and government. He has worked on both the agency and client side with experience running campaigns for companies like Wrangler, ABB, Treetop, and Counterculture Coffee among others. Scott, welcome to Simpli.fi TV. Scott: Thanks for having me. Great to be here. David: It's always a pleasure to have someone with your kind of experience on the show. I feel like you're truly in the trenches every single day with your clients. So I want to ask you, how can agencies and marketers help their clients not only grow, but grow quickly so that they achieve that hockey stick growth that they all crave? Scott: That's a great question, and we are definitely in the trenches with our clients and our partners too. And we get asked about the hockey stick growth a lot. And the council that we offer them is there's several things that have to come in play for that to happen. The first has to be the timing has to be right. The product market fit has to be there, the community has to be ready for it, showing some traction, whether that's some kind of direct response engagement that we're seeing that's starting to increase. The community size has to be untapped, and we have to have distribution in place for fulfillment. And then certainly, all the other factors for the marketing plan have to be ready to be firing and all engines. But once we do get that, we layer on levers and a multi-channel plan, a multi-channel approach around the audience, layering on levers, on digital, on tv, on other audio channels, prints, traditional, and making sure that we have a tracking plan in place so that we're tracking the engagements. For the plan as we're scaling, we're scaling either regionally or within the audience set. And then from there, we are in the trenches and it's a lot of testing, a lot of creative testing, a lot of audience testing, and a lot of incremental shifts that happen over a long period of time to get that growth going. But once our brands see it's an exciting ride for, but it's certainly a lot of work. And I think there's also something to be said for when the time is not right, when the audience is not ready, the product is not ready, or it's not quite there yet. And looking for those, having a sense for when the time is right, when is to invest. And having that plan in place to scale with a lever as the measurement plan is very important to have. David: I feel like that would be frustrating for you as the marketer when you have all the plans to make amazing thing happen for the client and they're just not ready to fulfill the product, or the community isn't there. How do you deal with that? Scott: I think there's something to be said for always on campaigns. Even at a smaller level, maybe they're focusing on a specific audience, but constantly working in audience, nurturing, trying to grow an audience, looking for insights from the audience, testing new things, creative testing. Again, audience testing, even at a smaller level can give you insights that can help funnel backend to either product development or messaging development or other areas within marketing that can help inform the marketing plan, the growth strategy to help get there. So definitely not something to sit back and wait on, definitely be proactive. Definitely be working at it on an ongoing basis and have the campaigns work. I think it's just scaling it back and being more focused and very focused on testing and a smaller audience set until you're ready. David: So I love what you're saying here. I feel like marketers don't take advantage of that often enough. They feel like their only job is to make sales, but what you're saying is that a marketing campaign can actually provide insights into how to create a better product, build a better community, things like that. Is that what you're saying? Scott: I think yes. No, definitely. Definitely warming up an audience and keeping them engaged. It's so competitive. I don't know what the latest stats are in how many exposures any one person receives each day, but it's higher every year and you've got to compete and you've got to compete. You've got to be active and represented in the market. And campaigns and [inaudible 00:05:24] campaigns can help you to do that, even if at a small level to be learning, developing, warming up the audience, getting learnings back, and also training the systems. I think the importance of having a system in terms of an advertising system, whether it's a DSP or another advertising platform, they have to be trained to yield the most efficient results and constantly working at it, even at a small level, can help to do over a long period of time. David: I know you work in paid media, owned media, and earned media. Would you rank those in order of importance? Scott: We do work in all three as a PR marketing firm, full service, we're on all the medias. And I think brands strive for a strong owned and earned media approach. And I think that a lot of word of mouth comes from that experience in the community, from owned content, earned media accelerating it from earned perspective. But I don't you get there from just those two alone. You certainly can. I think it's more likely you can with paid supporting in a very strategic way, based on whatever the brands or the business is, the nurturing of the message over time through a paid capacity when done well can help grow the brand or can help inspire the other owned earned channels as well. David: All right. One last question, and I didn't prepare you for this one, so good luck. Do you have a favorite campaign that you've worked on, and why was it your favorite? Scott: I have a lot of favorite campaigns that I've worked on. We have a campaign that was around a concert that happened in a rural area, and we were not really sure about the response going into it. And we were able to develop an audience and then we were able to really, through our campaigns, building the audience can feel the demand building ahead of the rollout. And when the tickets go on sale and the ticket engine breaks, it's just great. So I know it's not great from the operations folks who are fulfilling, but that's one that's always been fun for me to think about. When there was, we were able to get that traction, get the growth, feel it ahead of time, and then roll all the way through, and it was a great success for the brands. David: That's the exciting part of our jobs, isn't it? Scott: Yes. David: All right. Before we go, do you have a podcast or a book that has been instrumental in your success? Scott: Yeah, I look to Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. I know it's probably a popular one, but I just recall from the book Phil's days competing with tiger in early days. And when I think about opportunities and challenges that are ahead, that just kind of motivates me to take those challenges on. Thinking about where that particular instance was in the book, taking on the big brand, the legacy brand, and going after and going and get it. So I would say Shoe Dog has been one to me that stands out. David: You're not the first guest to recommend that one. Scott: Sure I'm not, won't be the last. David: And what is the best way for viewers to learn more about you? Scott: LinkedIn and X are great. My handle's @HeyScottP. And so I'd love to interact and catch up on anything. David: All right, well thank you so much for being my guest today on Simpli.fi TV. Scott: Thanks so much for having me. David: And thank you guys 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 David McBee. Be awesome and we'll see you next time.