Full Transcript of Think Fresh - Episode 8
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;20;16
RYAN
We’re doing this. All right.
JEN
Hello and welcome to – Were you talking? Oh, my God. All right, we’ll try this again. Ryan, are you settled?
RYAN
I’m Settled.
JEN
Okay.
00;00;20;18 – 00;00;41;05
JEN
Hello, and welcome to Think Fresh, a podcast brought to you by de Novo Marketing’s Collective Creative. Coming to you from our Ideas Institute and here to talk about all things marketing: insights on new trends, innovative ideas and marketing tools you can use in your day to day life… and whatever else we deem relevant. I’m Jen Neumann, de Novo CEO and your host.
00;00;41;08 – 00;01;00;16
RYAN
And I’m Ryan Shenefelt, Account Manager, Innovation and Education Lead, and resident nosy eavesdropper, always looking to push the envelope.
JEN
He is indeed very, very nosy.
RYAN
Today we’re going to talk about planning for the next budget year. Well, this is my first time back in the podcasting studio in quite a while.
JEN
Yeah, it’s been a little bit because we cut you out of it for a bit.
00;01;00;17 – 00;01;19;22
RYAN
I was cut out. I had Covid for one time, so I couldn’t be in the room when we were recording. And then we had, we ended our season, but we’ve got more to talk about. So we’re back for one more episode of 2024 or season one?
JEN
Season one. It’s in the books after today and it’s not really a bonus episode.
00;01;19;22 – 00;01;38;19
JEN
Everybody, it’s I got ahead of myself and as we were doing the the outro or the last part of our podcast last time, I said, well, that’s a wrap on our season. And we were like, oh, it is? But we’re actually eight. It’s a good number.
RYAN
Eight’s a good number. So Jen, we’re we’re one season in. How is how did how did the podcast go for you?
00;01;38;20 – 00;02;00;07
RYAN
How was it? We were so nervous when we first started.
JEN
It was great. It was a fun learning experience for me. Being on this side of the microphone, is really, different, I think, than listening to other people talking on podcasts.
RYAN
Oh yeah, it, I don’t like my own voice, which many people are probably shocked by because I never stop talking.
00;02;00;07 – 00;02;21;00
RYAN
But listening to myself has been a, it’s almost been like therapy in a way. I’m like, oh, your voice isn’t that annoying, right?
JEN
Oh, it is is absolutely that annoying. No it’s not, and it’s funny. I had the same thoughts too when we first got our first couple of drafts from our producers. I thought, this is going to be really hard to listen to.
00;02;21;03 – 00;02;40;02
JEN
But it’s not like we’re we’re fine. We’re we’re attractive voices in marketing, not annoying voices in marketing.
RYAN
Our A has changed. Annoying, from annoying to attractive, I love it. It also gives. And I know that we’ll do this maybe towards the end. But big shout outs to our producing team who makes us sound good each and every each and every month makes it sound smart too.
00;02;40;02 – 00;02;55;19
JEN
And they have to sit here and listen to us talk the whole time.
RYAN
A whole lot of stuff.
JEN
This is like a two hour process when we record. It’s not just, you know, however long the episode is that our listeners get to listen to, these poor people have to listen to us for a couple of hours.
00;02;55;21 – 00;03;19;18
RYAN
I am curious how the process goes for for other podcasts, because you only hear the end product, you only hear the end product of those podcasts. And some of them are are an hour long. And I’m just curious knowing how much we cut out, how the process goes for everyone else. I’m curious.
JEN
Our producer has talked about making this a video podcast at some point in time, and I’m resisting that just because I don’t always like to do my hair.
00;03;19;20 – 00;03;38;17
RYAN
Everyone sound off in the comment if you want this to be a video podcast! It’ll just be me and my mom sounding off in the comments for a video podcast because I want I want clips, I want YouTube clips.
JEN
Oh, no.
RYAN
But Jen, you’ve recently got back from a little bit of travel. Where have you been?
JEN
I’ve kind of been all over, so I got to visit my daughter.
00;03;38;17 – 00;04;04;20
JEN
Shout out Anna – de Novo intern. I visited Anna, who’s studying in Spain. And that was that was really great. I hadn’t been to Spain in nearly 25 years. And, it’s beautiful country, and I’m so glad that we got to see her there and in her element. And then I just came back from, of all places, the Cayman Islands and, I was there for a meeting of my peer group of other agency owners.
00;04;04;20 – 00;04;23;28
JEN
And, we can all agree that it’s been kind of an interesting year, economy wise. And you know, it was great being in the Cayman Islands. Except for two things. A, we kind of had to fly into a hurricane.
RYAN
Just a small thing.
JEN
Small hurricane. And then we spent two days locked into a windowless conference room.
00;04;24;00 – 00;04;42;16
JEN
That, I swear to God, was 60 degrees. And then you’d walk out and basically your glasses would fog up. And so I stuff, like, I’m a little froggy today because I feel like I’m kind of that in and out of air conditioning.
RYAN
Yes. And and airline, airplanes. The dry air on an airplane doesn’t help anyone.
00;04;42;17 – 00;05;04;20
JEN
A lot of time in airplanes and airports. But, you know, it’s so great when you go somewhere else. And just seeing, being exposed to different marketing. I mean, it’s an occupational hazard. And I’m sure a lot of people who listen to this podcast will feel the same way. It’s like we go places, we’re thinking about fonts, we’re thinking about, oh, that’s an effective billboard or that’s funny or that’s culturally relevant here, but not there.
00;05;04;23 – 00;05;25;02
JEN
I think I didn’t see what I’d consider a lot of advertising in the Cayman Islands at all, but there was a ton in Spain. And I mean, there’s some really clever stuff over there.
RYAN
And even traveling outside of of Cedar Rapids, I think. Well, I do take that back. Even in Cedar Rapids, you’re always looking at other marketing and just seeing what they’re doing, seeing what other people are doing.
00;05;25;04 – 00;05;49;04
RYAN
And getting outside of your standard market, I think is a good creative exercise.
JEN
I think it’s funny that you consider going outside of the 319 actually traveling.
RYAN
Well, I, I’m, I was even thinking of Des Moines. And is Des Moines in 319?
JEN
Noo. 515.
RYAN
Oops. 515 but yes, even going outside of there, Des Moines has a larger billboard market than we do in Cedar Rapids.
00;05;49;04 – 00;06;12;02
RYAN
And when I go into Chicago, that’s when I really light up.
JEN
It’s insane. In Chicago.
RYAN
I mean, just every so many feet, so many billboards and, an occupational hazard when you are the driver. But when I’m the when I’m the passenger princess, which is my favorite preferred route, I get to just take in all of the billboards and get to critique the ones that just don’t make any sense.
00;06;12;04 – 00;06;33;03
JEN
I think one of the the cool things about larger cities that you see a lot more of, and some people might not think this is cool, but just being in the in the occupations we are in, how they use buildings instead of just billboards for that out of home advertising. Some of it’s great. Some of it’s really not great.
00;06;33;05 – 00;06;52;10
JEN
But talk about using your real estate. Right?
RYAN
There’s been some, some places that have like projected all the vintage signs that were painted on on older buildings especially. I think they did it here in Cedar Rapids, actually. There was, they found a photo of an old vintage sign on the side of a brick building, and they used a projector in order to project what it used to look like.
00;06;52;17 – 00;07;10;00
RYAN
And I’m like, okay, that’s that’s really cool because you’re not you’re not damaging a building, and you’re still honoring the historic nature of it by bringing and also bringing in some, some old advertising which people love.
JEN
You know, where I draw the line, though? The blue Culver’s barns. I don’t care for that. Have you seen that, like going into Madison or some of those?
00;07;10;05 – 00;07;32;16
JEN
It’s mostly in the Midwest, but like, they’ll paint an entire barn blue and then they’ll have a culvers. And it’s like farmers for culvers. I’m like, Culver’s isn’t exactly a farm to table company.
RYAN
They’re just showing how much they support the support the farmers. But yes, I also, cringe when I see things like that as well.
JEN
I’m just afraid McDonald’s is going to start doing it.
00;07;32;16 – 00;08;00;28
RYAN
A bright red barn with just “mmm” on it. Just the big M. I might get behind that though. I could get behind that for market, M for marketing. Okay Jen, let’s get into –
JEN
Oh, maybe we do need an outtakes episode. M for marketing. For marketing. Don’t ever say that.
RYAN
So let’s get into our topic for today, budgeting and planning for the next budget year.
00;08;01;01 – 00;08;20;16
RYAN
We’re recording this in November, which is when a lot of people are working. Working on their budgets.
JEN
Yeah. And depending on your organization, I mean, some companies and organizations have a mid-year fiscal year. Sometimes they’re at all times of the year. But whenever your your fiscal year starts and ends, it better start with a budget.
RYAN
Right, right, right.
00;08;20;18 – 00;08;36;00
RYAN
Because if you don’t have a budget, then you’re just throwing things at the wall and you’re trying to build your marketing plan or trying to build your plan in the air and it’s not that’s not I mean, I know you’re combining. Right? Okay.
JEN
Build your plan in the air?
RYAN
You don’t want to do that. And you also don’t want to build your plane in the air.
00;08;36;03 – 00;08;54;00
RYAN
Works works the same way.
JEN
Budgeting always feels like a little bit of a chicken and egg thing, especially when you’re talking about marketing budgets, because there are a lot of things that you can do. And there tend to be limited resources. I have yet to work with any organization that says, spend what you want, it’s all going to be fine.
00;08;54;02 – 00;09;21;13
JEN
Especially when it comes to marketing. But it’s it’s really kind of difficult because you’re either trying to fit your strategy to an existing budget or you’re trying to wrap a budget around a strategy. And so it is a little bit of a dance to figure that all out. So that’s what we’re here to talk about today and hopefully shed some light on processes and give you guys some good tips for how to take the stress out of marketing.
00;09;21;13 – 00;09;42;25
JEN
Because a lot of people in marketing are creative, and we all know that creatives aren’t always the best at math. We’ll try to make it a little easier.
RYAN
Yeah, yeah. And we’ve got some resources for you in this episode as well. So, stick around and listen, obviously, but don’t forget to check those show notes for some additional resources as well.
00;09;42;27 – 00;10;05;29
RYAN
So Jen, you mentioned like what comes first. You have the budget first. You have to build that budget around the plan. We generally like a budget number first. So then we can help our clients build a plan around that. How do they get that number?
JEN
It is always better to start with the number, and how that number is arrived upon is going to vary by organization or company.
00;10;06;01 – 00;10;28;18
JEN
But this this goes back to what we call the Venn diagram of getting shit done. So if you’ve got budget, time and resources, your CEO believes in it or your CMO believes in it, you’ve got approval. You’ve got permission to run with it, and you’ve got the ideas, the talent, or the combination of support from outside your organization.
00;10;28;20 – 00;10;54;27
JEN
You’ve got the ability to to develop the creative and do the planning that comes with it. That’s where when you have an overlap of those two sides, that’s where you’re going to have success in your planning, in your plan itself. But without that left hand side, without that left hand side, the budget and the approval piece of it, you’re really not going to you’re not going to accomplish what you what you planned for.
00;10;54;27 – 00;11;29;08
JEN
So start with that number. And then how that number is arrived at is really going to vary. But 5 to 10% of of net revenue is a typical place to start. It doesn’t mean that every organization is going to do it, and some organizations are in very different stages of maturity. Newer organizations probably need to spend more than they do, but can’t. Existing organizations, might not feel as much need for it, even though there is a need for it, but they’re just they’re a little bit more complacent.
00;11;29;10 – 00;11;49;21
JEN
So it really just depends like what phase of life is your organization in and what are you trying to accomplish? But that budget piece is pretty key. So as much as creatives like to plan and come up with amazing ideas, you have to remember that without the resources, you can’t get it done.
RYAN
Yeah. So you said roughly 5 to 10% as a as a starting number.
00;11;49;21 – 00;12;06;12
RYAN
And if you are a newer business, you might want to be on that higher end. An older business or a more established business might think they don’t need to be. But remember, depending on what your goals are for that year, you have to be keeping those in mind too. It’s like, oh, we’re going to be launching a new product, which usually yields a higher marketing, a marketing expense.
00;12;06;12 – 00;12;27;21
RYAN
So keeping all those things in mind.
JEN
And especially tech forward companies, they probably need to be on that higher end. It doesn’t mean that they necessarily can be or they may be raising capital to do that. But yeah, it depends on where your business is in the life cycle. And then even nonprofits, should be thinking about that, whether it’s staff or whether they’re outsourcing to a fractional team.
00;12;27;23 – 00;12;47;12
JEN
Whether they are planning for some of the things that are really important to to extend their mission to their communities. Even nonprofits think about that. Even communities have to think about that.
RYAN
So we talked about using a percentage of your of your revenue. There’s there’s other ways to, to build your, your marketing budget. Right.
00;12;47;12 – 00;13;10;05
JEN
Yeah, well, there’s a dartboard, which, you know, or just, you know, sending up a prayer here and there. A lot of organizations will just go off what they did the year before and, and maybe give an increase, you know, you’ll find some, some marketing departments at the end of the year will scramble to spend their money because they know if they don’t, they won’t get that in next year’s budget.
00;13;10;08 – 00;13;32;08
JEN
That’s also not a great strategic right to do it. But hey, call us if you need to do that. So it really it kind of depends on the philosophy of your management too. That goes back to do you see marketing as a worthy investment that returns, revenue to your organization. And, you know, that’s going to vary too.
00;13;32;08 – 00;13;56;20
JEN
So here we believe marketing is a is a very good investment, and we really depend on being able to show that ROI, to our clients so that they can make their budgets, and plan appropriately.
RYAN
Yeah. I love when clients bring us in for, for their planning process, not only budgeting, but also when they ask us what our metrics were.
00;13;56;21 – 00;14;13;10
RYAN
We like to give our metrics each month, but sometimes just getting, some questions from our clients just to do ROI, return on investment, all of that stuff, return on ad, spend, all of those things, we can help provide our clients, or we can help provide and just give them some more insight into their budgeting for the next year.
00;14;13;11 – 00;14;42;25
JEN
And I just want to add that sharing metrics on both sides of it shouldn’t just happen at the end of the year.
RYAN
Correct.
JEN
A good agency partnership is where, the agency and the company or organization are sharing those metrics on both sides, not just, you know, the, the metrics on how the marketing performed. But we want to know, how is this impacting your bottom line or whatever your goals are, and being able to put those things together and align those things that shouldn’t just wait till the end of the year.
00;14;42;28 – 00;15;07;22
JEN
But it is really helpful to be a part of that budget planning process just because it gets us thinking. How do we adapt to, you know, whatever is available? I mean, this this is a year where marketing decreased for some companies. And, adjustments have to be made in, in those companies and it does impact their sales. So they’re, they’re learning it at the same time.
00;15;07;22 – 00;15;28;05
RYAN
Right. So when you are building this budget, we have our we have our percentage. But there’s other factors to include. Right. What are some of those factors Jen?
JEN
What gets included in a budget number for a company might vary like some don’t necessarily factor staff into it, some do. So you know, if you’re including staff, that is where you get to that 5 to 10% of annual revenue.
00;15;28;05 – 00;15;49;09
JEN
Number, because typically that’s also including staff in that, staff might be an outsourced staff, right? It could be freelancers, it could be an agency relationship. And even as you’re budgeting, you might be thinking about whether you’re going to add, you know, a full time or part time person or if you’re going to increase with your with your contractors or agency.
00;15;49;10 – 00;16;15;12
JEN
So staff, inside or outside resources are all an important factor that goes into that. Because somebody has to do the work, right and somebody has to measure it right. So, it you also need to include software, right? It’s not just a matter of we all have Word, right? When you have people in marketing, you’re also taking into account specialty software.
00;16;15;15 – 00;16;47;19
JEN
Software that measures, software that helps you with, you know, media placements, whatever that might be. That should be incorporated into that as well. Or subscriptions. Specifically when it comes to measuring the ROI on that, having programs that really help you measure that data as it comes in and helps you visualize that for your other decision makers in your organization, because if they can’t see it and understand it, then they are not going to understand the work that you do and the value that you’re bringing to your organization.
00;16;47;26 – 00;17;10;25
RYAN
The software is the one that could sneak up on you or the subscriptions. I was telling my students and even I think some of my coworkers, when I first started using Photoshop, you bought Photoshop and you had Photoshop. 20, 2011.
JEN
That’s an interesting number, Ryan.
RYAN
And you had Photoshop 2012 or that year. But now you can’t do that.
00;17;10;25 – 00;17;32;26
RYAN
You can’t even buy Photoshop if you tried. You have to pay monthly for Photoshop. So those subscriptions, they can they can inch up pretty quick. And you should definitely be including those in your in your marketing budgets.
JEN
Right. You also have to think about the advertising by platform. So, you know, it’s great to say, okay, we’ve got x, y z for our number.
00;17;32;28 – 00;17;54;10
JEN
But now you have to break that down into not just the categories we’ve already talked about, but then you have to break that down by platform. These are not the days where it’s just like, well, this is our TV budget, and that’s what we spend. It is, it’s quite a bit more intricate. And there are a lot of platforms out there, and you have to do a lot of evaluating to make sure that you’re advertising on the right platforms.
00;17;54;10 – 00;18;12;26
JEN
Otherwise, you can spend a lot of money and not get much for it.
RYAN
Right. And this is where that we like to build dashboards. So we go over a dashboard, we update them. They’re they’re usually updated live, but meeting with our clients monthly to go over them. But this is great. Where at the end of the year, we don’t like to just go over it at the end of the year.
00;18;12;26 – 00;18;30;12
RYAN
But this is where you can see kind of that overview. And that dashboard allows you to then be able to see which platform is working better for you, which platform you want to emphasize more or maybe not attribute too many resources to over the years because it didn’t work?
JEN
It’s the ultimate AB test, right? What is returning investment?
00;18;30;12 – 00;18;50;06
JEN
And as much as we would like to be able to say, like we know exactly where to place media every single time we nail it, every single time, no marketer out there has that has that special magic formula, right? Some of it is you have to see how it performs. And if you’re looking at a live dashboard every month, you can make those adjustments as you go.
00;18;50;09 – 00;19;20;16
JEN
But when you get to the end of the budget year and you sit there and you look at it and you say, Pinterest is not performing for us, but TikTok is, for example, that gives you a chance to kind of rejigger all of that. And, and appropriately place that for the next year’s giant AB test and make sure that you are always tweaking that to fit your audience where they’re at and where they’re making decisions and how they like to interact with your brand.
00;19;20;18 – 00;19;45;28
RYAN
Right. And there’s always going to be a new platform. There’s going to be new opportunities for you mid-year. So just making sure that you do have the ability to move those budgets around. We like digital -or I like digital advertising specifically because you’re not then locked into a large spend like you sometimes are with traditional media, you can pause something one month to test out TikTok ads, or to test out advertising on Hulu or Netflix, now that that options available to us.
00;19;45;28 – 00;20;09;19
RYAN
And if it doesn’t work out well for you, you can always pause that again and then go back to some other place. Being very, having a flexible budget is still very helpful when you are trying out new, new platforms for like what Jen was saying, the ultimate AB test.
JEN
Ryan, talk a little bit about how you decide where to allocate, those budget dollars.
00;20;09;19 – 00;20;30;02
RYAN
Well, it comes back to the company’s goal, what they are trying to do that year. It might determine or help us guide where we’re going to be placing those advertisements. So if, kind of kind of three different things that we look at geography, demographics and then interest of that, of that individual, if the goal dictates any of those three, that is very helpful.
00;20;30;02 – 00;20;48;02
RYAN
And that allows us to steer that right off the bat. So if they’re launching a new location, that means that we are looking more towards that geography feature. We’re still laying in our demographics and our interests, but we want to be geographically. We want to saturate one market. However, if they are a e-commerce business, we don’t have to worry about geography as much.
00;20;48;02 – 00;21;09;00
RYAN
We’re looking more towards that demographics and the interests. And when you can use social media and other things that we’ve talked about on the podcast, like placer, remember location data, we can learn a whole lot more about our existing customers then that allows us to target either more of them or start broadening. Start broadening our circle out a little bit more to try to bring in some other audiences.
00;21;09;07 – 00;21;31;13
RYAN
But those demographics digitally targeting by demographics is is one of the easier one of the easier options? But where you really have a lot of success is when you go into psychographics like those personas and the interests. Because a 33 year old male, that can be a very different thing for a lot of people, that’s me. But that is also, half of the NFL.
00;21;31;19 – 00;21;52;00
RYAN
Ryan’s talking about sports. So you know that this is going to be crazy. And we behave very differently. Right? But if you’re only looking –
JEN
You behave very differently than men in the NFL?
RYAN
Shockingly, yes. Shockingly, yes. But if you’re only looking at demographics, if you’re only looking at, age and gender, that’s all you can look at and you’re going to be targeting and marketing us the same way.
00;21;52;00 – 00;22;10;29
RYAN
And that’s it’s clearly not the best approach.
JEN
So you’re saying that, that a company that sells rainbow, staplers probably, doesn’t need to target the whole NFL.
RYAN
You know, I don’t think they do. And and I did just do a quick Google search. The average age of the NFL of an average NFL player is shockingly way younger than me.
00;22;11;05 – 00;22;30;10
RYAN
They’re 26 years old. Wow. Who knew? Not me.
JEN
You’re getting up there.
RYAN
I know. Wow. Yikes
JEN
Ryan has to take a break now and go reckon with what he just learned. Right?
RYAN
So breaking it down into into those three buckets and determining which one has more of a priority if that geography, the demographics or that psychographics.
00;22;30;10 – 00;22;47;29
RYAN
The interest in the personas.
JEN
Yeah. Talk a little bit. You use the word saturated, and talk a little bit about how you make decisions on platforms and targeting, you know, kind of just that it used to be send a postcard out, right. The old spray and pray, which sounds it’s just it’s a horrible thing to say, actually.
00;22;47;29 – 00;23;09;26
JEN
But talk about specifically in digital how you can narrow those choices down in your budget.
RYAN
Right. So if you are thinking about postcards, you can just think of your, your mailbox. If all of a sudden you only have one mailbox and whenever you go out to your mailbox, you pull out 50 postcards, you’re not going to be able to pay as much attention to each one of those postcards.
00;23;10;09 – 00;23;29;23
RYAN
Digital advertising can be the same way when there’s too much inventory and when there’s a glut of inventory, people get overwhelmed and they can easily start to ignore it. That’s why our platforms are constantly trying to create new ways to advertise to people. Another thing we see sometimes is ad fatigue, where they see the same advertisement over and over again and over and over again and over and over again.
00;23;29;26 – 00;23;47;07
RYAN
So you want to change out your advertising? A quarterly ad refresh is really helpful in this, in this arena, just so nobody gets that ad fatigue. And just because you used an ad a year ago doesn’t mean it’s bad. You can go back to that at, refresh, kind of go back and see if see if something worked a little bit differently.
00;23;47;10 – 00;24;12;06
RYAN
Opinions change quickly and maybe somebody is now more keyed into that message that you were using a year ago. And by then it feels nostalgic, right?
JEN
There’s always this temptation to be like, well, we should be on all the platforms. And Ryan, you have done a really good job breaking out which audiences are better suited for advertising and content in general, organic content as well.
00;24;12;08 – 00;24;32;19
JEN
So how do you do that when when they’re like, we want to be all the on all the platforms, right? We think we should be advertising and doing our organic content on all the platforms. How do you how do you decide which ones are best? For that particular customer or client on our end. But like, how does a marketer determine which ones are best for their audience?
00;24;32;19 – 00;24;49;23
RYAN
A lot of these companies, they try to make themselves everything to everyone. So if you are just curious about, the stats of who’s on Facebook or who’s on LinkedIn or who’s on threads, these companies will try to make it as broad as possible so you can find your target demographic in there because they want you to be there.
00;24;49;26 – 00;25;11;20
RYAN
Right. But you should be looking at your, your target customer, which sometimes is your existing customer, figuring out who that is, getting that really strong persona and figuring out where they like to behave on or where they like to spend their time online. Because you know, your Facebook demographic is very different than your Pinterest demographic, which is very different than your threads or your X demographic.
00;25;11;22 – 00;25;35;01
RYAN
Really knowing who your customer is is the best way to figure out where you should be spending your time and your resources.
JEN
And sometimes we’re answering people’s personal interests. They’ll say, well, I haven’t seen that ad. That ad doesn’t show up on this platform where I spend all my time. Well, we’ve had to remind clients multiple times, like, you’re not always your own target demographic.
00;25;35;01 – 00;26;04;07
RYAN
And it’s so hard.
JEN
It’s so hard. But really, like I said, there’s there’s no company or organization out there that says you’ve got as much budget to spend as you could possibly need spend, just, you know, go spend it all kind of thing. Every one of them expects a return on their investment. So getting more targeted, not just in the geography and the demographics and the interests, but align that with the platform that makes the most sense for your audience.
00;26;04;14 – 00;26;21;05
JEN
And that means research, right? Which should also be in your budget.
RYAN
Yes. Good call, good call. Making sure that there is time to evaluate where people are, where people are at now. And that changes. That changes. There is a natural ebb and flow of social networks and where people spend their time online, and that changes with, with the seasons.
00;26;21;05 – 00;26;43;16
RYAN
That changes pretty quickly.
JEN
Yeah. My mom wrecked Facebook for everybody.
RYAN
Right?
JEN
Absolutely. Wrecked Facebook.
RYAN
And and that’s something that, I’m always shocked by. So I do have the opportunity to teach a class of about 20 or 30 20 year olds. And I always do the interest inventory of where they spend their time online this semester versus last semester.
00;26;43;16 – 00;26;59;08
RYAN
So one year ago, more students are back on Facebook. I was shocked almost 90% of them raise their hand when it’s like, who uses Facebook? They raise their hand. And I was like, okay, wait, no, who actually goes to Facebook and scrolls through? Because I’m like, if they have a Facebook account, they just don’t want someone else to have it.
00;26;59;08 – 00;27;17;21
RYAN
And they kept their hands up.
JEN
That’s so interesting. Although, I mean, it kind of tracks even my my college age student is spending a little bit more time there too. So, what do you think’s changed there?
RYAN
I don’t know, I, I think there’s a piece of it that, they are kind of aging into where the millennials were, right?
00;27;17;21 – 00;27;39;01
RYAN
The millennials wanted to stay connected with their friends from high school. Well, these are the same feelings that Gen Z is now having. They want to stay connected to their friends in high school, from their friends from college. So they are going back to a platform that is more, profile based versus algorithmic based. You can go check in on people, you can kind of control your algorithm a little bit more on Facebook.
00;27;39;01 – 00;27;55;17
RYAN
I feel like, and I think they’re just looking for that personal connection that they, that they no longer have because they’ve moved away from people.
JEN
Yeah. I’ll be interested to see how that holds up. So keep the research up.
RYAN
Yeah. Yeah. So Jen, we talked about setting your budget. But that can be pretty nebulous. We’ve got a tool actually.
00;27;55;17 – 00;28;18;20
RYAN
We’ve got a template that people can download and use.
JEN
We do. We created this quite a while ago. And then we give it a little update here and there. And we add in, a little bit more breakdown on platforms. But it’s a really simple way to at least get the math done. As I referenced earlier, sometimes marketing people are not always the, you know, best at, math.
00;28;18;22 – 00;28;36;06
JEN
But this really does some of the math for you. So, we were dropping that in the show notes. You can grab that. It’s a Google sheet. So when you get it, it’ll be read-only. You can’t enter anything in it as as it stands. Go to file. Drop that down. Make a copy of it. It’ll be on your drive.
00;28;36;08 – 00;28;54;11
JEN
I think that you can probably even download it as an Excel document and the formulas should hold, but I’m not making any promises there. But it’s a pretty simple way. You basically pick your projected annual sales revenue for the next year. You put that in there and then you pick your budget number.
00;28;54;11 – 00;29;24;22
JEN
So I’ve got it ranging from as low as 2% up to 12%, and that will automatically generate that number for you. Then you would drop that number down into the next, into the next section of that, that first tab and enter that budget number in. And then you can start to break things down. You know, the marketing services, the advertising, print mail, collateral, all the support you need for your sales team and other things, like you can break down targeted sponsorships if you want.
00;29;24;24 – 00;29;49;03
JEN
Other opportunities that come up for, for different companies. Throughout the year. This also feeds into the second sheet, a second tab on that sheet where you can really break that down by service quite a bit more, and then you can break that down into advertising platforms, by category and some of your more traditional methodology.
00;29;49;05 – 00;30;08;25
JEN
It’s a really good place to start, right? And start thinking about what am I, what do I need? Like back to that Venn diagram idea, you know, what am I going to need for a budget this year to get done? The things that I need to get done that I am that that I am required to get done, in order to move this company forward.
00;30;08;25 – 00;30;28;25
JEN
So it’s a it’s a great resource. It’s it’s there, it’s free. Download it, use it and reach out if you need some help.
JEN
I mean, we can’t do your math for you if the spreadsheet doesn’t do the math. I definitely can’t do the math for you, but, but just understanding maybe a little bit better what platforms you should be on.
00;30;28;28 – 00;30;51;20
RYAN
Right. And you’ve got the categories already in here. So this is a way of, breaking it down. So if you don’t if you’re not constantly thinking about, oh search engine optimization, video production, etc., it has those ideas just to jog your memory on them. You can then take this change the colors if you want, and present it to present it to your board, present it to your CEO, etc..
00;30;51;22 – 00;31;12;10
RYAN
Know we’re not claiming any ownership on here. We want to we want to help you out. There’s also a good note over here. You can manually override certain areas as well. So if the recommendation is to include a little bit of money for, data appending, for example. But you know that you don’t want to be doing any direct mail or list acquisitions.
00;31;12;16 – 00;31;42;12
RYAN
You can then take that money and reallocate it somewhere else. Just giving you the basic percentages. And it will allow you to, to really be in control of your own budget. But it’s got those got those buckets and got those, those other categories in there for you.
JEN
So before we go to our next segment, I just first of all, for those of you in the marketing world that are doing your budgeting right now, like we feel your pain, it’s not easy and there is always more to do than resources available.
00;31;42;15 – 00;32;07;16
JEN
So starting with that number, getting that budget number, or making the case for the budget number, sometimes, use that spreadsheet. In that case, use the spreadsheet if you’ve got your budget number too, that can be really helpful. But the really important thing is aligning your available resources with the skills and the knowledge and the know-how to get those things done.
00;32;07;18 – 00;32;36;17
JEN
The resources you need to get that done, and get that done within the available budget. So and hopefully you just knock it out of the park next year and your marketing and your boss just gives you, 50% marketing budget. In all likelihood, that might not happen. But, it is really important to align your goals with your available resources, because the one thing you don’t want to do is make plans that you can’t deliver on.
00;32;36;20 – 00;32;52;28
RYAN
Now it’s time for power of three, where usually we pull out three practical tips from our previous conversation. But this time we’re doing it a little bit different. We’re looking back at our previous advice over the last year, and we’re shining a light on some of our previous content, to think about as planning and budgeting come up this year.
00;32;53;00 – 00;33;15;15
JEN
All right, Ryan, what’s your number one, your top, podcast recommendation for the year of our podcasts. From this year. What’s the first one? If somebody is brand new to the podcast today, this is the first they’ve ever heard of it. They’re thinking fresh. What podcast should they go back and listen to first?
RYAN
I think the first one would be episode three, The Language of AI, with our special guest, Kathleen Perley.
00;33;15;20 – 00;33;39;06
RYAN
This is where we gave some practical advice which platforms to check out ways that you can use AI in not only your marketing, but your company as a whole and ways places where you should use it. Places where you probably shouldn’t use it. And just give kind of the the marketing AI rundown in in about 40 minutes.
JEN
And I’ll say that podcast is aging well, it is because AI is changing really, really fast.
00;33;39;06 – 00;34;00;03
JEN
And I think Kathleen’s advice was very practical. But she also brought forth some ideas that like ways to use AI that people maybe aren’t thinking about. I think lots of people understand how to use it for content generation, but people aren’t necessarily thinking yet about like analysis and code and things like that. And Kathleen got into that.
00;34;00;05 – 00;34;19;26
JEN
And also just was highly entertaining.
RYAN
Yes. Great evergreen content Jen, so our second if they’ve got if there’s only two podcasts that you’re gonna listen to, the first one is going to be episode three. What’s our next one?
JEN
I would say episode five. This one’s the opposite of AI because it’s messaging matters. And that one feature, Chad from our team.
00;34;19;28 – 00;34;41;25
JEN
And that was great because it really got into more of the human generated side of I think the word content kind of makes storytellers cringe a little bit. But it really got into how to craft effective messaging and tell a story that stops people in their tracks. So it’s kind of the polar opposite of the first one, but both are really good podcasts.
00;34;41;25 – 00;35;02;12
JEN
So, I think if this is your if you’re new to the podcast, go back and listen to that one too. Ryan, take the last one. What’s the third podcast? That somebody should go back and revisit?
RYAN
Yes. Third one, I would say episode four, that is about location analytics and leveraging location to enhance your marketing. That’s where we brought in Julian and Ally on our team.
00;35;02;12 – 00;35;22;09
RYAN
They are our expert digital advertisers, and we talked about figuring out who your existing market is and how you can use that in order to better target your existing marketing efforts. So figure out who’s currently coming to your location. Look at how you want to expand that. Look at how your numbers change as you digitally target different areas.
00;35;22;14 – 00;35;44;07
RYAN
And, really just getting a better idea of who’s coming to your business.
JEN
And to use Ryan’s words, that was one of the podcasts that I was cut out of. And I listened to it while I was mowing my lawn, and I was I was actually so super impressed. Like, those were really that was good sound advice that came out of that and introduced a platform that’s new to a lot of people and made it very understandable.
00;35;44;07 – 00;36;05;01
RYAN
Yeah. So if you if you are curious if when we were talking about goals, and using your budgets effectively, that is a great podcast to check out again, that’s episode four, leveraging location to enhance your marketing. And that just talks a little bit about some of the tools that are out there to give you a better idea of who your actual customers are, and not just necessarily who you think they are.
00;36;05;07 – 00;36;28;09
RYAN
We want to get out of our brains and into the actual data, and this platform helps us do that. So in summary, if we had to pick our top three podcasts or topics, from Think Fresh Season one, they are episode three The Language of AI with Kathleen Perley. Episode five Messaging Matters with chat from our team and episode four Leveraging location to enhance your marketing with Julian and Ally from our team.
00;36;28;09 – 00;36;55;18
RYAN
But we would also love for you to listen to all of them. We’ve got eight podcast episodes out there. In our opinion, they’re all pretty good, but if we had to pick the top three, that would be them.
JEN
And you can listen on repeat for that matter, over and over again. If you just really enjoy, us giving each other crap for an hour every month.
RYAN
Like Jen was saying, our soothing voices are the perfect way to mow the lawn.
00;36;55;20 – 00;37;18;15
JEN
As we wrap up season one, a special shout out has to go to the team that makes this happen.
RYAN
Yes, to our in-house guests. The experts from the team. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. Julian Klepach, Ally Machala, Chad Cooper, Alicia Anderson, and Jill Mast. We had additional assistance from our team Ashley Burt, Kassie Hensel, Anna Neumann, Natalie Novak, Brooke Ruckdaschel, and Becca Skalsky.
00;37;18;18 – 00;37;39;15
JEN
And of course, we couldn’t do this without the production team. Think Fresh would not happen without our esteemed producers: Annie, “Should I Get Bangs?” Sexton-Stewart, Andrew “Could You Talk into the Mic” Ravera and Jav, our vibe curator, Duker. Also a shout out to our expert guests. We love bringing in our peers and our clients into the conversation.
00;37;39;15 – 00;38;05;13
JEN
And Kathleen Perley, episode number three The Language of AI and Lori Boren, episode seven Powering Cities Through Communications.
RYAN
Well, we can’t end season one without a special thanks to my extra special co-host Jen Neumann for having my back during this inaugural season. You kept things crazy and exciting the whole time. We talk about these things all of the time and it’s been nice to be able to consider this work now that we actually have a microphone in front of us.
00;38;05;18 – 00;38;27;03
JEN
And my show notes say that I’m supposed to tell Ryan how great and beautiful he is, right now. So, I’m not going to do that.
RYAN
Wow.
JEN
But I have really, really enjoyed co-hosting this podcast with you. Thank you for keeping it fun. And that’s a wrap on season one. For real this time, guys.
RYAN
We’ll be back in your ears for 2025.
00;38;27;03 – 00;38;57;17
JEN
Same bat time, same bat channel.
RYAN
Jen, what does that mean?
JEN
Oh my God. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Think Fresh.
RYAN
And remember, the conversation does not have to end here. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Review our show on whatever you listen to your podcasts on, or share all your marketing trials and triumphs by shooting us an email at info@thinkdenovo.com with the subject line “Dear de Novo” so we don’t miss it.
00;38;57;19 – 00;39;17;19
JEN
And while you wait eagerly for our next episode, you can get your fix by checking out our blog Fresh Thinking at blog.thinkdenovo.com. Stay tuned for more engaging conversations, laughs, and of course, marketing brilliance and me making fun of Ryan in the next episodes to come.
RYAN
Here’s to fresh thinking, sparking creativity, and never being boring.
00;39;17;22 – 00;39;23;06
RYAN
Bye friends!
JEN
Are we swearing on this or no?
RYAN
We’re doing this. All right.
JEN
Hello and welcome to – Were you talking? Oh, my God. All right, we’ll try this again. Ryan, are you settled?
RYAN
I’m Settled.
JEN
Okay.
00;00;20;18 – 00;00;41;05
JEN
Hello, and welcome to Think Fresh, a podcast brought to you by de Novo Marketing’s Collective Creative. Coming to you from our Ideas Institute and here to talk about all things marketing: insights on new trends, innovative ideas and marketing tools you can use in your day to day life… and whatever else we deem relevant. I’m Jen Neumann, de Novo CEO and your host.
00;00;41;08 – 00;01;00;16
RYAN
And I’m Ryan Shenefelt, Account Manager, Innovation and Education Lead, and resident nosy eavesdropper, always looking to push the envelope.
JEN
He is indeed very, very nosy.
RYAN
Today we’re going to talk about planning for the next budget year. Well, this is my first time back in the podcasting studio in quite a while.
JEN
Yeah, it’s been a little bit because we cut you out of it for a bit.
00;01;00;17 – 00;01;19;22
RYAN
I was cut out. I had Covid for one time, so I couldn’t be in the room when we were recording. And then we had, we ended our season, but we’ve got more to talk about. So we’re back for one more episode of 2024 or season one?
JEN
Season one. It’s in the books after today and it’s not really a bonus episode.
00;01;19;22 – 00;01;38;19
JEN
Everybody, it’s I got ahead of myself and as we were doing the the outro or the last part of our podcast last time, I said, well, that’s a wrap on our season. And we were like, oh, it is? But we’re actually eight. It’s a good number.
RYAN
Eight’s a good number. So Jen, we’re we’re one season in. How is how did how did the podcast go for you?
00;01;38;20 – 00;02;00;07
RYAN
How was it? We were so nervous when we first started.
JEN
It was great. It was a fun learning experience for me. Being on this side of the microphone, is really, different, I think, than listening to other people talking on podcasts.
RYAN
Oh yeah, it, I don’t like my own voice, which many people are probably shocked by because I never stop talking.
00;02;00;07 – 00;02;21;00
RYAN
But listening to myself has been a, it’s almost been like therapy in a way. I’m like, oh, your voice isn’t that annoying, right?
JEN
Oh, it is is absolutely that annoying. No it’s not, and it’s funny. I had the same thoughts too when we first got our first couple of drafts from our producers. I thought, this is going to be really hard to listen to.
00;02;21;03 – 00;02;40;02
JEN
But it’s not like we’re we’re fine. We’re we’re attractive voices in marketing, not annoying voices in marketing.
RYAN
Our A has changed. Annoying, from annoying to attractive, I love it. It also gives. And I know that we’ll do this maybe towards the end. But big shout outs to our producing team who makes us sound good each and every each and every month makes it sound smart too.
00;02;40;02 – 00;02;55;19
JEN
And they have to sit here and listen to us talk the whole time.
RYAN
A whole lot of stuff.
JEN
This is like a two hour process when we record. It’s not just, you know, however long the episode is that our listeners get to listen to, these poor people have to listen to us for a couple of hours.
00;02;55;21 – 00;03;19;18
RYAN
I am curious how the process goes for for other podcasts, because you only hear the end product, you only hear the end product of those podcasts. And some of them are are an hour long. And I’m just curious knowing how much we cut out, how the process goes for everyone else. I’m curious.
JEN
Our producer has talked about making this a video podcast at some point in time, and I’m resisting that just because I don’t always like to do my hair.
00;03;19;20 – 00;03;38;17
RYAN
Everyone sound off in the comment if you want this to be a video podcast! It’ll just be me and my mom sounding off in the comments for a video podcast because I want I want clips, I want YouTube clips.
JEN
Oh, no.
RYAN
But Jen, you’ve recently got back from a little bit of travel. Where have you been?
JEN
I’ve kind of been all over, so I got to visit my daughter.
00;03;38;17 – 00;04;04;20
JEN
Shout out Anna – de Novo intern. I visited Anna, who’s studying in Spain. And that was that was really great. I hadn’t been to Spain in nearly 25 years. And, it’s beautiful country, and I’m so glad that we got to see her there and in her element. And then I just came back from, of all places, the Cayman Islands and, I was there for a meeting of my peer group of other agency owners.
00;04;04;20 – 00;04;23;28
JEN
And, we can all agree that it’s been kind of an interesting year, economy wise. And you know, it was great being in the Cayman Islands. Except for two things. A, we kind of had to fly into a hurricane.
RYAN
Just a small thing.
JEN
Small hurricane. And then we spent two days locked into a windowless conference room.
00;04;24;00 – 00;04;42;16
JEN
That, I swear to God, was 60 degrees. And then you’d walk out and basically your glasses would fog up. And so I stuff, like, I’m a little froggy today because I feel like I’m kind of that in and out of air conditioning.
RYAN
Yes. And and airline, airplanes. The dry air on an airplane doesn’t help anyone.
00;04;42;17 – 00;05;04;20
JEN
A lot of time in airplanes and airports. But, you know, it’s so great when you go somewhere else. And just seeing, being exposed to different marketing. I mean, it’s an occupational hazard. And I’m sure a lot of people who listen to this podcast will feel the same way. It’s like we go places, we’re thinking about fonts, we’re thinking about, oh, that’s an effective billboard or that’s funny or that’s culturally relevant here, but not there.
00;05;04;23 – 00;05;25;02
JEN
I think I didn’t see what I’d consider a lot of advertising in the Cayman Islands at all, but there was a ton in Spain. And I mean, there’s some really clever stuff over there.
RYAN
And even traveling outside of of Cedar Rapids, I think. Well, I do take that back. Even in Cedar Rapids, you’re always looking at other marketing and just seeing what they’re doing, seeing what other people are doing.
00;05;25;04 – 00;05;49;04
RYAN
And getting outside of your standard market, I think is a good creative exercise.
JEN
I think it’s funny that you consider going outside of the 319 actually traveling.
RYAN
Well, I, I’m, I was even thinking of Des Moines. And is Des Moines in 319?
JEN
Noo. 515.
RYAN
Oops. 515 but yes, even going outside of there, Des Moines has a larger billboard market than we do in Cedar Rapids.
00;05;49;04 – 00;06;12;02
RYAN
And when I go into Chicago, that’s when I really light up.
JEN
It’s insane. In Chicago.
RYAN
I mean, just every so many feet, so many billboards and, an occupational hazard when you are the driver. But when I’m the when I’m the passenger princess, which is my favorite preferred route, I get to just take in all of the billboards and get to critique the ones that just don’t make any sense.
00;06;12;04 – 00;06;33;03
JEN
I think one of the the cool things about larger cities that you see a lot more of, and some people might not think this is cool, but just being in the in the occupations we are in, how they use buildings instead of just billboards for that out of home advertising. Some of it’s great. Some of it’s really not great.
00;06;33;05 – 00;06;52;10
JEN
But talk about using your real estate. Right?
RYAN
There’s been some, some places that have like projected all the vintage signs that were painted on on older buildings especially. I think they did it here in Cedar Rapids, actually. There was, they found a photo of an old vintage sign on the side of a brick building, and they used a projector in order to project what it used to look like.
00;06;52;17 – 00;07;10;00
RYAN
And I’m like, okay, that’s that’s really cool because you’re not you’re not damaging a building, and you’re still honoring the historic nature of it by bringing and also bringing in some, some old advertising which people love.
JEN
You know, where I draw the line, though? The blue Culver’s barns. I don’t care for that. Have you seen that, like going into Madison or some of those?
00;07;10;05 – 00;07;32;16
JEN
It’s mostly in the Midwest, but like, they’ll paint an entire barn blue and then they’ll have a culvers. And it’s like farmers for culvers. I’m like, Culver’s isn’t exactly a farm to table company.
RYAN
They’re just showing how much they support the support the farmers. But yes, I also, cringe when I see things like that as well.
JEN
I’m just afraid McDonald’s is going to start doing it.
00;07;32;16 – 00;08;00;28
RYAN
A bright red barn with just “mmm” on it. Just the big M. I might get behind that though. I could get behind that for market, M for marketing. Okay Jen, let’s get into –
JEN
Oh, maybe we do need an outtakes episode. M for marketing. For marketing. Don’t ever say that.
RYAN
So let’s get into our topic for today, budgeting and planning for the next budget year.
00;08;01;01 – 00;08;20;16
RYAN
We’re recording this in November, which is when a lot of people are working. Working on their budgets.
JEN
Yeah. And depending on your organization, I mean, some companies and organizations have a mid-year fiscal year. Sometimes they’re at all times of the year. But whenever your your fiscal year starts and ends, it better start with a budget.
RYAN
Right, right, right.
00;08;20;18 – 00;08;36;00
RYAN
Because if you don’t have a budget, then you’re just throwing things at the wall and you’re trying to build your marketing plan or trying to build your plan in the air and it’s not that’s not I mean, I know you’re combining. Right? Okay.
JEN
Build your plan in the air?
RYAN
You don’t want to do that. And you also don’t want to build your plane in the air.
00;08;36;03 – 00;08;54;00
RYAN
Works works the same way.
JEN
Budgeting always feels like a little bit of a chicken and egg thing, especially when you’re talking about marketing budgets, because there are a lot of things that you can do. And there tend to be limited resources. I have yet to work with any organization that says, spend what you want, it’s all going to be fine.
00;08;54;02 – 00;09;21;13
JEN
Especially when it comes to marketing. But it’s it’s really kind of difficult because you’re either trying to fit your strategy to an existing budget or you’re trying to wrap a budget around a strategy. And so it is a little bit of a dance to figure that all out. So that’s what we’re here to talk about today and hopefully shed some light on processes and give you guys some good tips for how to take the stress out of marketing.
00;09;21;13 – 00;09;42;25
JEN
Because a lot of people in marketing are creative, and we all know that creatives aren’t always the best at math. We’ll try to make it a little easier.
RYAN
Yeah, yeah. And we’ve got some resources for you in this episode as well. So, stick around and listen, obviously, but don’t forget to check those show notes for some additional resources as well.
00;09;42;27 – 00;10;05;29
RYAN
So Jen, you mentioned like what comes first. You have the budget first. You have to build that budget around the plan. We generally like a budget number first. So then we can help our clients build a plan around that. How do they get that number?
JEN
It is always better to start with the number, and how that number is arrived upon is going to vary by organization or company.
00;10;06;01 – 00;10;28;18
JEN
But this this goes back to what we call the Venn diagram of getting shit done. So if you’ve got budget, time and resources, your CEO believes in it or your CMO believes in it, you’ve got approval. You’ve got permission to run with it, and you’ve got the ideas, the talent, or the combination of support from outside your organization.
00;10;28;20 – 00;10;54;27
JEN
You’ve got the ability to to develop the creative and do the planning that comes with it. That’s where when you have an overlap of those two sides, that’s where you’re going to have success in your planning, in your plan itself. But without that left hand side, without that left hand side, the budget and the approval piece of it, you’re really not going to you’re not going to accomplish what you what you planned for.
00;10;54;27 – 00;11;29;08
JEN
So start with that number. And then how that number is arrived at is really going to vary. But 5 to 10% of of net revenue is a typical place to start. It doesn’t mean that every organization is going to do it, and some organizations are in very different stages of maturity. Newer organizations probably need to spend more than they do, but can’t. Existing organizations, might not feel as much need for it, even though there is a need for it, but they’re just they’re a little bit more complacent.
00;11;29;10 – 00;11;49;21
JEN
So it really just depends like what phase of life is your organization in and what are you trying to accomplish? But that budget piece is pretty key. So as much as creatives like to plan and come up with amazing ideas, you have to remember that without the resources, you can’t get it done.
RYAN
Yeah. So you said roughly 5 to 10% as a as a starting number.
00;11;49;21 – 00;12;06;12
RYAN
And if you are a newer business, you might want to be on that higher end. An older business or a more established business might think they don’t need to be. But remember, depending on what your goals are for that year, you have to be keeping those in mind too. It’s like, oh, we’re going to be launching a new product, which usually yields a higher marketing, a marketing expense.
00;12;06;12 – 00;12;27;21
RYAN
So keeping all those things in mind.
JEN
And especially tech forward companies, they probably need to be on that higher end. It doesn’t mean that they necessarily can be or they may be raising capital to do that. But yeah, it depends on where your business is in the life cycle. And then even nonprofits, should be thinking about that, whether it’s staff or whether they’re outsourcing to a fractional team.
00;12;27;23 – 00;12;47;12
JEN
Whether they are planning for some of the things that are really important to to extend their mission to their communities. Even nonprofits think about that. Even communities have to think about that.
RYAN
So we talked about using a percentage of your of your revenue. There’s there’s other ways to, to build your, your marketing budget. Right.
00;12;47;12 – 00;13;10;05
JEN
Yeah, well, there’s a dartboard, which, you know, or just, you know, sending up a prayer here and there. A lot of organizations will just go off what they did the year before and, and maybe give an increase, you know, you’ll find some, some marketing departments at the end of the year will scramble to spend their money because they know if they don’t, they won’t get that in next year’s budget.
00;13;10;08 – 00;13;32;08
JEN
That’s also not a great strategic right to do it. But hey, call us if you need to do that. So it really it kind of depends on the philosophy of your management too. That goes back to do you see marketing as a worthy investment that returns, revenue to your organization. And, you know, that’s going to vary too.
00;13;32;08 – 00;13;56;20
JEN
So here we believe marketing is a is a very good investment, and we really depend on being able to show that ROI, to our clients so that they can make their budgets, and plan appropriately.
RYAN
Yeah. I love when clients bring us in for, for their planning process, not only budgeting, but also when they ask us what our metrics were.
00;13;56;21 – 00;14;13;10
RYAN
We like to give our metrics each month, but sometimes just getting, some questions from our clients just to do ROI, return on investment, all of that stuff, return on ad, spend, all of those things, we can help provide our clients, or we can help provide and just give them some more insight into their budgeting for the next year.
00;14;13;11 – 00;14;42;25
JEN
And I just want to add that sharing metrics on both sides of it shouldn’t just happen at the end of the year.
RYAN
Correct.
JEN
A good agency partnership is where, the agency and the company or organization are sharing those metrics on both sides, not just, you know, the, the metrics on how the marketing performed. But we want to know, how is this impacting your bottom line or whatever your goals are, and being able to put those things together and align those things that shouldn’t just wait till the end of the year.
00;14;42;28 – 00;15;07;22
JEN
But it is really helpful to be a part of that budget planning process just because it gets us thinking. How do we adapt to, you know, whatever is available? I mean, this this is a year where marketing decreased for some companies. And, adjustments have to be made in, in those companies and it does impact their sales. So they’re, they’re learning it at the same time.
00;15;07;22 – 00;15;28;05
RYAN
Right. So when you are building this budget, we have our we have our percentage. But there’s other factors to include. Right. What are some of those factors Jen?
JEN
What gets included in a budget number for a company might vary like some don’t necessarily factor staff into it, some do. So you know, if you’re including staff, that is where you get to that 5 to 10% of annual revenue.
00;15;28;05 – 00;15;49;09
JEN
Number, because typically that’s also including staff in that, staff might be an outsourced staff, right? It could be freelancers, it could be an agency relationship. And even as you’re budgeting, you might be thinking about whether you’re going to add, you know, a full time or part time person or if you’re going to increase with your with your contractors or agency.
00;15;49;10 – 00;16;15;12
JEN
So staff, inside or outside resources are all an important factor that goes into that. Because somebody has to do the work, right and somebody has to measure it right. So, it you also need to include software, right? It’s not just a matter of we all have Word, right? When you have people in marketing, you’re also taking into account specialty software.
00;16;15;15 – 00;16;47;19
JEN
Software that measures, software that helps you with, you know, media placements, whatever that might be. That should be incorporated into that as well. Or subscriptions. Specifically when it comes to measuring the ROI on that, having programs that really help you measure that data as it comes in and helps you visualize that for your other decision makers in your organization, because if they can’t see it and understand it, then they are not going to understand the work that you do and the value that you’re bringing to your organization.
00;16;47;26 – 00;17;10;25
RYAN
The software is the one that could sneak up on you or the subscriptions. I was telling my students and even I think some of my coworkers, when I first started using Photoshop, you bought Photoshop and you had Photoshop. 20, 2011.
JEN
That’s an interesting number, Ryan.
RYAN
And you had Photoshop 2012 or that year. But now you can’t do that.
00;17;10;25 – 00;17;32;26
RYAN
You can’t even buy Photoshop if you tried. You have to pay monthly for Photoshop. So those subscriptions, they can they can inch up pretty quick. And you should definitely be including those in your in your marketing budgets.
JEN
Right. You also have to think about the advertising by platform. So, you know, it’s great to say, okay, we’ve got x, y z for our number.
00;17;32;28 – 00;17;54;10
JEN
But now you have to break that down into not just the categories we’ve already talked about, but then you have to break that down by platform. These are not the days where it’s just like, well, this is our TV budget, and that’s what we spend. It is, it’s quite a bit more intricate. And there are a lot of platforms out there, and you have to do a lot of evaluating to make sure that you’re advertising on the right platforms.
00;17;54;10 – 00;18;12;26
JEN
Otherwise, you can spend a lot of money and not get much for it.
RYAN
Right. And this is where that we like to build dashboards. So we go over a dashboard, we update them. They’re they’re usually updated live, but meeting with our clients monthly to go over them. But this is great. Where at the end of the year, we don’t like to just go over it at the end of the year.
00;18;12;26 – 00;18;30;12
RYAN
But this is where you can see kind of that overview. And that dashboard allows you to then be able to see which platform is working better for you, which platform you want to emphasize more or maybe not attribute too many resources to over the years because it didn’t work?
JEN
It’s the ultimate AB test, right? What is returning investment?
00;18;30;12 – 00;18;50;06
JEN
And as much as we would like to be able to say, like we know exactly where to place media every single time we nail it, every single time, no marketer out there has that has that special magic formula, right? Some of it is you have to see how it performs. And if you’re looking at a live dashboard every month, you can make those adjustments as you go.
00;18;50;09 – 00;19;20;16
JEN
But when you get to the end of the budget year and you sit there and you look at it and you say, Pinterest is not performing for us, but TikTok is, for example, that gives you a chance to kind of rejigger all of that. And, and appropriately place that for the next year’s giant AB test and make sure that you are always tweaking that to fit your audience where they’re at and where they’re making decisions and how they like to interact with your brand.
00;19;20;18 – 00;19;45;28
RYAN
Right. And there’s always going to be a new platform. There’s going to be new opportunities for you mid-year. So just making sure that you do have the ability to move those budgets around. We like digital -or I like digital advertising specifically because you’re not then locked into a large spend like you sometimes are with traditional media, you can pause something one month to test out TikTok ads, or to test out advertising on Hulu or Netflix, now that that options available to us.
00;19;45;28 – 00;20;09;19
RYAN
And if it doesn’t work out well for you, you can always pause that again and then go back to some other place. Being very, having a flexible budget is still very helpful when you are trying out new, new platforms for like what Jen was saying, the ultimate AB test.
JEN
Ryan, talk a little bit about how you decide where to allocate, those budget dollars.
00;20;09;19 – 00;20;30;02
RYAN
Well, it comes back to the company’s goal, what they are trying to do that year. It might determine or help us guide where we’re going to be placing those advertisements. So if, kind of kind of three different things that we look at geography, demographics and then interest of that, of that individual, if the goal dictates any of those three, that is very helpful.
00;20;30;02 – 00;20;48;02
RYAN
And that allows us to steer that right off the bat. So if they’re launching a new location, that means that we are looking more towards that geography feature. We’re still laying in our demographics and our interests, but we want to be geographically. We want to saturate one market. However, if they are a e-commerce business, we don’t have to worry about geography as much.
00;20;48;02 – 00;21;09;00
RYAN
We’re looking more towards that demographics and the interests. And when you can use social media and other things that we’ve talked about on the podcast, like placer, remember location data, we can learn a whole lot more about our existing customers then that allows us to target either more of them or start broadening. Start broadening our circle out a little bit more to try to bring in some other audiences.
00;21;09;07 – 00;21;31;13
RYAN
But those demographics digitally targeting by demographics is is one of the easier one of the easier options? But where you really have a lot of success is when you go into psychographics like those personas and the interests. Because a 33 year old male, that can be a very different thing for a lot of people, that’s me. But that is also, half of the NFL.
00;21;31;19 – 00;21;52;00
RYAN
Ryan’s talking about sports. So you know that this is going to be crazy. And we behave very differently. Right? But if you’re only looking –
JEN
You behave very differently than men in the NFL?
RYAN
Shockingly, yes. Shockingly, yes. But if you’re only looking at demographics, if you’re only looking at, age and gender, that’s all you can look at and you’re going to be targeting and marketing us the same way.
00;21;52;00 – 00;22;10;29
RYAN
And that’s it’s clearly not the best approach.
JEN
So you’re saying that, that a company that sells rainbow, staplers probably, doesn’t need to target the whole NFL.
RYAN
You know, I don’t think they do. And and I did just do a quick Google search. The average age of the NFL of an average NFL player is shockingly way younger than me.
00;22;11;05 – 00;22;30;10
RYAN
They’re 26 years old. Wow. Who knew? Not me.
JEN
You’re getting up there.
RYAN
I know. Wow. Yikes
JEN
Ryan has to take a break now and go reckon with what he just learned. Right?
RYAN
So breaking it down into into those three buckets and determining which one has more of a priority if that geography, the demographics or that psychographics.
00;22;30;10 – 00;22;47;29
RYAN
The interest in the personas.
JEN
Yeah. Talk a little bit. You use the word saturated, and talk a little bit about how you make decisions on platforms and targeting, you know, kind of just that it used to be send a postcard out, right. The old spray and pray, which sounds it’s just it’s a horrible thing to say, actually.
00;22;47;29 – 00;23;09;26
JEN
But talk about specifically in digital how you can narrow those choices down in your budget.
RYAN
Right. So if you are thinking about postcards, you can just think of your, your mailbox. If all of a sudden you only have one mailbox and whenever you go out to your mailbox, you pull out 50 postcards, you’re not going to be able to pay as much attention to each one of those postcards.
00;23;10;09 – 00;23;29;23
RYAN
Digital advertising can be the same way when there’s too much inventory and when there’s a glut of inventory, people get overwhelmed and they can easily start to ignore it. That’s why our platforms are constantly trying to create new ways to advertise to people. Another thing we see sometimes is ad fatigue, where they see the same advertisement over and over again and over and over again and over and over again.
00;23;29;26 – 00;23;47;07
RYAN
So you want to change out your advertising? A quarterly ad refresh is really helpful in this, in this arena, just so nobody gets that ad fatigue. And just because you used an ad a year ago doesn’t mean it’s bad. You can go back to that at, refresh, kind of go back and see if see if something worked a little bit differently.
00;23;47;10 – 00;24;12;06
RYAN
Opinions change quickly and maybe somebody is now more keyed into that message that you were using a year ago. And by then it feels nostalgic, right?
JEN
There’s always this temptation to be like, well, we should be on all the platforms. And Ryan, you have done a really good job breaking out which audiences are better suited for advertising and content in general, organic content as well.
00;24;12;08 – 00;24;32;19
JEN
So how do you do that when when they’re like, we want to be all the on all the platforms, right? We think we should be advertising and doing our organic content on all the platforms. How do you how do you decide which ones are best? For that particular customer or client on our end. But like, how does a marketer determine which ones are best for their audience?
00;24;32;19 – 00;24;49;23
RYAN
A lot of these companies, they try to make themselves everything to everyone. So if you are just curious about, the stats of who’s on Facebook or who’s on LinkedIn or who’s on threads, these companies will try to make it as broad as possible so you can find your target demographic in there because they want you to be there.
00;24;49;26 – 00;25;11;20
RYAN
Right. But you should be looking at your, your target customer, which sometimes is your existing customer, figuring out who that is, getting that really strong persona and figuring out where they like to behave on or where they like to spend their time online. Because you know, your Facebook demographic is very different than your Pinterest demographic, which is very different than your threads or your X demographic.
00;25;11;22 – 00;25;35;01
RYAN
Really knowing who your customer is is the best way to figure out where you should be spending your time and your resources.
JEN
And sometimes we’re answering people’s personal interests. They’ll say, well, I haven’t seen that ad. That ad doesn’t show up on this platform where I spend all my time. Well, we’ve had to remind clients multiple times, like, you’re not always your own target demographic.
00;25;35;01 – 00;26;04;07
RYAN
And it’s so hard.
JEN
It’s so hard. But really, like I said, there’s there’s no company or organization out there that says you’ve got as much budget to spend as you could possibly need spend, just, you know, go spend it all kind of thing. Every one of them expects a return on their investment. So getting more targeted, not just in the geography and the demographics and the interests, but align that with the platform that makes the most sense for your audience.
00;26;04;14 – 00;26;21;05
JEN
And that means research, right? Which should also be in your budget.
RYAN
Yes. Good call, good call. Making sure that there is time to evaluate where people are, where people are at now. And that changes. That changes. There is a natural ebb and flow of social networks and where people spend their time online, and that changes with, with the seasons.
00;26;21;05 – 00;26;43;16
RYAN
That changes pretty quickly.
JEN
Yeah. My mom wrecked Facebook for everybody.
RYAN
Right?
JEN
Absolutely. Wrecked Facebook.
RYAN
And and that’s something that, I’m always shocked by. So I do have the opportunity to teach a class of about 20 or 30 20 year olds. And I always do the interest inventory of where they spend their time online this semester versus last semester.
00;26;43;16 – 00;26;59;08
RYAN
So one year ago, more students are back on Facebook. I was shocked almost 90% of them raise their hand when it’s like, who uses Facebook? They raise their hand. And I was like, okay, wait, no, who actually goes to Facebook and scrolls through? Because I’m like, if they have a Facebook account, they just don’t want someone else to have it.
00;26;59;08 – 00;27;17;21
RYAN
And they kept their hands up.
JEN
That’s so interesting. Although, I mean, it kind of tracks even my my college age student is spending a little bit more time there too. So, what do you think’s changed there?
RYAN
I don’t know, I, I think there’s a piece of it that, they are kind of aging into where the millennials were, right?
00;27;17;21 – 00;27;39;01
RYAN
The millennials wanted to stay connected with their friends from high school. Well, these are the same feelings that Gen Z is now having. They want to stay connected to their friends in high school, from their friends from college. So they are going back to a platform that is more, profile based versus algorithmic based. You can go check in on people, you can kind of control your algorithm a little bit more on Facebook.
00;27;39;01 – 00;27;55;17
RYAN
I feel like, and I think they’re just looking for that personal connection that they, that they no longer have because they’ve moved away from people.
JEN
Yeah. I’ll be interested to see how that holds up. So keep the research up.
RYAN
Yeah. Yeah. So Jen, we talked about setting your budget. But that can be pretty nebulous. We’ve got a tool actually.
00;27;55;17 – 00;28;18;20
RYAN
We’ve got a template that people can download and use.
JEN
We do. We created this quite a while ago. And then we give it a little update here and there. And we add in, a little bit more breakdown on platforms. But it’s a really simple way to at least get the math done. As I referenced earlier, sometimes marketing people are not always the, you know, best at, math.
00;28;18;22 – 00;28;36;06
JEN
But this really does some of the math for you. So, we were dropping that in the show notes. You can grab that. It’s a Google sheet. So when you get it, it’ll be read-only. You can’t enter anything in it as as it stands. Go to file. Drop that down. Make a copy of it. It’ll be on your drive.
00;28;36;08 – 00;28;54;11
JEN
I think that you can probably even download it as an Excel document and the formulas should hold, but I’m not making any promises there. But it’s a pretty simple way. You basically pick your projected annual sales revenue for the next year. You put that in there and then you pick your budget number.
00;28;54;11 – 00;29;24;22
JEN
So I’ve got it ranging from as low as 2% up to 12%, and that will automatically generate that number for you. Then you would drop that number down into the next, into the next section of that, that first tab and enter that budget number in. And then you can start to break things down. You know, the marketing services, the advertising, print mail, collateral, all the support you need for your sales team and other things, like you can break down targeted sponsorships if you want.
00;29;24;24 – 00;29;49;03
JEN
Other opportunities that come up for, for different companies. Throughout the year. This also feeds into the second sheet, a second tab on that sheet where you can really break that down by service quite a bit more, and then you can break that down into advertising platforms, by category and some of your more traditional methodology.
00;29;49;05 – 00;30;08;25
JEN
It’s a really good place to start, right? And start thinking about what am I, what do I need? Like back to that Venn diagram idea, you know, what am I going to need for a budget this year to get done? The things that I need to get done that I am that that I am required to get done, in order to move this company forward.
00;30;08;25 – 00;30;28;25
JEN
So it’s a it’s a great resource. It’s it’s there, it’s free. Download it, use it and reach out if you need some help.
JEN
I mean, we can’t do your math for you if the spreadsheet doesn’t do the math. I definitely can’t do the math for you, but, but just understanding maybe a little bit better what platforms you should be on.
00;30;28;28 – 00;30;51;20
RYAN
Right. And you’ve got the categories already in here. So this is a way of, breaking it down. So if you don’t if you’re not constantly thinking about, oh search engine optimization, video production, etc., it has those ideas just to jog your memory on them. You can then take this change the colors if you want, and present it to present it to your board, present it to your CEO, etc..
00;30;51;22 – 00;31;12;10
RYAN
Know we’re not claiming any ownership on here. We want to we want to help you out. There’s also a good note over here. You can manually override certain areas as well. So if the recommendation is to include a little bit of money for, data appending, for example. But you know that you don’t want to be doing any direct mail or list acquisitions.
00;31;12;16 – 00;31;42;12
RYAN
You can then take that money and reallocate it somewhere else. Just giving you the basic percentages. And it will allow you to, to really be in control of your own budget. But it’s got those got those buckets and got those, those other categories in there for you.
JEN
So before we go to our next segment, I just first of all, for those of you in the marketing world that are doing your budgeting right now, like we feel your pain, it’s not easy and there is always more to do than resources available.
00;31;42;15 – 00;32;07;16
JEN
So starting with that number, getting that budget number, or making the case for the budget number, sometimes, use that spreadsheet. In that case, use the spreadsheet if you’ve got your budget number too, that can be really helpful. But the really important thing is aligning your available resources with the skills and the knowledge and the know-how to get those things done.
00;32;07;18 – 00;32;36;17
JEN
The resources you need to get that done, and get that done within the available budget. So and hopefully you just knock it out of the park next year and your marketing and your boss just gives you, 50% marketing budget. In all likelihood, that might not happen. But, it is really important to align your goals with your available resources, because the one thing you don’t want to do is make plans that you can’t deliver on.
00;32;36;20 – 00;32;52;28
RYAN
Now it’s time for power of three, where usually we pull out three practical tips from our previous conversation. But this time we’re doing it a little bit different. We’re looking back at our previous advice over the last year, and we’re shining a light on some of our previous content, to think about as planning and budgeting come up this year.
00;32;53;00 – 00;33;15;15
JEN
All right, Ryan, what’s your number one, your top, podcast recommendation for the year of our podcasts. From this year. What’s the first one? If somebody is brand new to the podcast today, this is the first they’ve ever heard of it. They’re thinking fresh. What podcast should they go back and listen to first?
RYAN
I think the first one would be episode three, The Language of AI, with our special guest, Kathleen Perley.
00;33;15;20 – 00;33;39;06
RYAN
This is where we gave some practical advice which platforms to check out ways that you can use AI in not only your marketing, but your company as a whole and ways places where you should use it. Places where you probably shouldn’t use it. And just give kind of the the marketing AI rundown in in about 40 minutes.
JEN
And I’ll say that podcast is aging well, it is because AI is changing really, really fast.
00;33;39;06 – 00;34;00;03
JEN
And I think Kathleen’s advice was very practical. But she also brought forth some ideas that like ways to use AI that people maybe aren’t thinking about. I think lots of people understand how to use it for content generation, but people aren’t necessarily thinking yet about like analysis and code and things like that. And Kathleen got into that.
00;34;00;05 – 00;34;19;26
JEN
And also just was highly entertaining.
RYAN
Yes. Great evergreen content Jen, so our second if they’ve got if there’s only two podcasts that you’re gonna listen to, the first one is going to be episode three. What’s our next one?
JEN
I would say episode five. This one’s the opposite of AI because it’s messaging matters. And that one feature, Chad from our team.
00;34;19;28 – 00;34;41;25
JEN
And that was great because it really got into more of the human generated side of I think the word content kind of makes storytellers cringe a little bit. But it really got into how to craft effective messaging and tell a story that stops people in their tracks. So it’s kind of the polar opposite of the first one, but both are really good podcasts.
00;34;41;25 – 00;35;02;12
JEN
So, I think if this is your if you’re new to the podcast, go back and listen to that one too. Ryan, take the last one. What’s the third podcast? That somebody should go back and revisit?
RYAN
Yes. Third one, I would say episode four, that is about location analytics and leveraging location to enhance your marketing. That’s where we brought in Julian and Ally on our team.
00;35;02;12 – 00;35;22;09
RYAN
They are our expert digital advertisers, and we talked about figuring out who your existing market is and how you can use that in order to better target your existing marketing efforts. So figure out who’s currently coming to your location. Look at how you want to expand that. Look at how your numbers change as you digitally target different areas.
00;35;22;14 – 00;35;44;07
RYAN
And, really just getting a better idea of who’s coming to your business.
JEN
And to use Ryan’s words, that was one of the podcasts that I was cut out of. And I listened to it while I was mowing my lawn, and I was I was actually so super impressed. Like, those were really that was good sound advice that came out of that and introduced a platform that’s new to a lot of people and made it very understandable.
00;35;44;07 – 00;36;05;01
RYAN
Yeah. So if you if you are curious if when we were talking about goals, and using your budgets effectively, that is a great podcast to check out again, that’s episode four, leveraging location to enhance your marketing. And that just talks a little bit about some of the tools that are out there to give you a better idea of who your actual customers are, and not just necessarily who you think they are.
00;36;05;07 – 00;36;28;09
RYAN
We want to get out of our brains and into the actual data, and this platform helps us do that. So in summary, if we had to pick our top three podcasts or topics, from Think Fresh Season one, they are episode three The Language of AI with Kathleen Perley. Episode five Messaging Matters with chat from our team and episode four Leveraging location to enhance your marketing with Julian and Ally from our team.
00;36;28;09 – 00;36;55;18
RYAN
But we would also love for you to listen to all of them. We’ve got eight podcast episodes out there. In our opinion, they’re all pretty good, but if we had to pick the top three, that would be them.
JEN
And you can listen on repeat for that matter, over and over again. If you just really enjoy, us giving each other crap for an hour every month.
RYAN
Like Jen was saying, our soothing voices are the perfect way to mow the lawn.
00;36;55;20 – 00;37;18;15
JEN
As we wrap up season one, a special shout out has to go to the team that makes this happen.
RYAN
Yes, to our in-house guests. The experts from the team. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. Julian Klepach, Ally Machala, Chad Cooper, Alicia Anderson, and Jill Mast. We had additional assistance from our team Ashley Burt, Kassie Hensel, Anna Neumann, Natalie Novak, Brooke Ruckdaschel, and Becca Skalsky.
00;37;18;18 – 00;37;39;15
JEN
And of course, we couldn’t do this without the production team. Think Fresh would not happen without our esteemed producers: Annie, “Should I Get Bangs?” Sexton-Stewart, Andrew “Could You Talk into the Mic” Ravera and Jav, our vibe curator, Duker. Also a shout out to our expert guests. We love bringing in our peers and our clients into the conversation.
00;37;39;15 – 00;38;05;13
JEN
And Kathleen Perley, episode number three The Language of AI and Lori Boren, episode seven Powering Cities Through Communications.
RYAN
Well, we can’t end season one without a special thanks to my extra special co-host Jen Neumann for having my back during this inaugural season. You kept things crazy and exciting the whole time. We talk about these things all of the time and it’s been nice to be able to consider this work now that we actually have a microphone in front of us.
00;38;05;18 – 00;38;27;03
JEN
And my show notes say that I’m supposed to tell Ryan how great and beautiful he is, right now. So, I’m not going to do that.
RYAN
Wow.
JEN
But I have really, really enjoyed co-hosting this podcast with you. Thank you for keeping it fun. And that’s a wrap on season one. For real this time, guys.
RYAN
We’ll be back in your ears for 2025.
00;38;27;03 – 00;38;57;17
JEN
Same bat time, same bat channel.
RYAN
Jen, what does that mean?
JEN
Oh my God. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Think Fresh.
RYAN
And remember, the conversation does not have to end here. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Review our show on whatever you listen to your podcasts on, or share all your marketing trials and triumphs by shooting us an email at info@thinkdenovo.com with the subject line “Dear de Novo” so we don’t miss it.
00;38;57;19 – 00;39;17;19
JEN
And while you wait eagerly for our next episode, you can get your fix by checking out our blog Fresh Thinking at blog.thinkdenovo.com. Stay tuned for more engaging conversations, laughs, and of course, marketing brilliance and me making fun of Ryan in the next episodes to come.
RYAN
Here’s to fresh thinking, sparking creativity, and never being boring.
00;39;17;22 – 00;39;23;06
RYAN
Bye friends!
JEN
Are we swearing on this or no?
