Editor’s Note: Hey, hey! Our team at Blackwood has a podcast called The Big Brand Theory! This episode, our host, Kyle Johnson spoke with Dain Walker, founder and CEO of Victory Front, about marketing strategy, digital marketing, and going viral.
If I could give any tips to the listeners right now, it was my passion. You know, I wasn’t making content that I hoped made money. I was making content that solves huge problems that I found fantastically valuable – Dain Walker
Dain started out doing what he loved. He wasn’t looking for fame, followers, or recognition. He was simply doing what he loved and was doing it in an authentic way. He mentions in the podcast that those around him during that season didn’t quite understand what exactly he was doing, but he didn’t care. He was passionate about finding creative ways to help others and was looking to help them find their “aha” moments.
Fast-forward to today, Dain is now the founder and CEO of Victory Front and is the personality behind the @dainwalker brand on Instagram. He is an expert in marketing and shares his expertise in this week’s latest episode.
| OFFERING VALUE TO YOUR AUDIENCE |
When creating carousel content for his social media, Dain focuses on creating the “wow” factor to engage his audience.
“If you can take something huge and package it in a really bite sized piece of whatever, I always felt like there’s a little wow factor in that.”
By using giant ideas and breaking them down to their core, Dain creates easily digestible pieces of information that all work together to convey the overall complex message. He focuses on information that adds intrinsic value to his audience and gets straight to the punchline. He recommends to start by asking these questions:
“What’s really valuable to our target audience? What problems do they have? And what’s actually intrinsically going to help them”
| PERSONAL BRANDING |
A personal brand should be personal. Seems like an easy concept, right? Not so much. Out of all the people you follow right now, we are willing to bet that most of the people with larger followings (celebrities, big influencers, marketers) don’t actually manage their social media 100% of the time or maybe even ever. While this can maybe save them some time, it ultimately defeats the purpose of owning your own personal brand.
So, if you’re ever DMing with Dain, you can trust that you’re hearing directly from him and not his people. Same with his content. It comes from his brain and is never sourced out to his team. In this way, he continues to build trust with his audience and keeps his messages consistent with his personal brand. The more your socials grow, the more challenging community management and content creation proves to be but like Dain says,
“If I’m going to make it a person brand, why wouldn’t I be personal about it?”
| DIGITAL MARKETING |
“The bandaid for your problems isn’t digital marketing.”
What? Digital marketing isn’t the solution to all of your company’s marketing problems? Nope. Just like anything else, your marketing strategy should be varied and completely structured around your business and industry. This most likely involves digital marketing, but it definitely isn’t the only solution.
In the podcast, Dain gives an example about franchises and their independent managers. If every single owner and manager of each franchise have a different level of employee expectations and different ways of management, then the entire company’s branding struggles. Something as simple as a manager’s process contributes to a company’s branding, so as a business owner, you want to be sure that all of your processes and all your internal stuff is standardized and functioning properly.
“Marketing is diagnostics followed up with strategy and then finalized with tactics”
Dain was also very intentional in noting that plain ads aren’t your marketing strategy. They’re a “vehicle of your marketing strategy”, but they’re not your strategy. So, next time you run a Facebook ad and it doesn’t have the ROI you wanted, be sure to double check all the paths you had set up for that customer. Marketing is an intricate combination of pathways that all work together to form a user experience that ideally will land them on a page where they can connect with you.
| USING CREATIVE THINKING |
“Now that we have all this crap on the table, what are we going to do about it?”
Dain offered a great example of how to use creative thinking in your marketing strategy. Back in 2018, KFC had supply chain issues and ended up not having chicken for a lot of their restaurants in the UK. Instead of issuing formal, impersonal apology, they issued a funny one. “FCK. We’re sorry” was put onto all of their buckets and the apology was issued that explained the situation and noted that they were working tirelessly to get it fixed. By doing this, even though some people were surely still mad, it made the overall mess-up more excusable and made people empathize with KFC a little more.
So, don’t be afraid to engage in a little banter and humor when it comes to publicly apologizing. It might make all the difference.
| WHAT’S CHANGING IN THE INDUSTRY? |
According to Dain, the market is headed in a very clear direction. The biggest technique you want to be implementing is finding the up and coming platforms and learning how to be social on them.
Dain mentioned to keep an eye on Clubhouse. Haven’t heard of it yet? It’s a platform that encourages real talking. No content, no scheduling, no stories. Just people from all around the world talking to each other live. For now, as the platform is more up-and-coming, smaller users still have a change to make an impact. Like we have seen consistently on other social media platforms, once larger people enter the space, they will have a leg up and will eventually kick out the smaller people. So, now is your time to join Clubhouse and share your thoughts.
“I would start thinking about how can I innovate and make an interesting channel, not just do what everyone else is doing”
| HOW TO GO VIRAL |
It’s the age old question; how do we plan going viral? Well, most people would say you can’t, but Dain has experienced otherwise.
According to Dain, it’s all about becoming a student of what is happening in the market. It is essential that you stay up to date on what is trending, why it’s being pushed out into the market, and what the implications of it are. Keep in mind the idea of the real world vs. the digital world. Chances are if it will make waves in the real work, there is a good chance it will as well in the digital world as well.
Don’t get it twisted, this isn’t an easy process. It takes diligent work and lots of experience. Dain says this about learning the science of going viral:
“It’s painful. It’s not sexy. It’s not fun. Like it’s not, it’s not like a silver bullet. Something that’s really easy to execute. I’m not saying this is easy. This is hard.”
| THE BAIT-AND-SWITCH |
Ah yes, the old bait-and-switch. The reason a lot of us don’t ever want to click on links or watch that video. Clickbait has developed quite the reputation over the years and it’s not a good one. That doesn’t mean, however, that it can’t be used effectively for your business.
“You’re sparking curiosity and you’re creating confusion because what they’re about to see if probably different to what they’re expecting it to be”
So what are the tricks to clickbait? Dain explains the core principles on how to catch the eye of your audience while still serving them well. First, be sure your copy creates questions. You want to intrigue your audience and make them ask questions that leave them wanting more. Next, be emotional. We have all have emotions, so why not embrace them in your content? It’s relatable and transparent. Next, you want to solve a problem. Solving problems is the name of the game and is what people are truly looking for when they’re coming to your page. Always be sure you’re using dramatic and eye-catching visuals in your content as well. You’ve not only got to capture their eye, but you also have to be sure that your piece isn’t visually boring. Lastly, you want to share a story. Stories are engaging and easy to follow, so be sure that whatever you’re saying that you’re doing it through story telling.
“It’s gonna get people to want to engage, but I know I’m free value and I’m not gonna try and hook them into something they don’t want.”
If your current marketing strategy just isn’t cutting it anymore, you’ve come to the right place. Our team of experts here at Blackwood Creative would be more than happy to work with you and help you meet and exceed your business goals. We’re in the business of building remarkable brands – yours could be next. Reach out to us today!