1326: How a Billboard & Poem Drove Surprising Results for this B2B Brand w/ Matt Epstein

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:09.150 Welcome back to be tob growth. I'm Logan Lyles with sweetfish media. I'm 2 00:00:09.189 --> 00:00:13.429 joined today by Matthew Epstein. He's the Como over at rippling Matt, how's 3 00:00:13.429 --> 00:00:16.350 it going today, sir? Pretty good. I done awesome, man, 4 00:00:16.670 --> 00:00:19.510 I am doing fantastic. We love to get to know our guests a little 5 00:00:19.510 --> 00:00:22.140 bit. Matt, I'm curious. You can tell a lot about a person 6 00:00:22.179 --> 00:00:26.140 based on the first concert they ever attended. Do you remember what that was 7 00:00:26.260 --> 00:00:31.820 for you? Yeah, it was the Rolling Stones with with my dad and 8 00:00:32.140 --> 00:00:36.289 Oh man, that's epic. Yeah, I don't think I've beaten it. 9 00:00:36.450 --> 00:00:40.490 So I sort of I peeked on my concerts at the age of like nine 10 00:00:40.530 --> 00:00:43.890 years old. Came out of the gates swinging. That is the I've asked 11 00:00:43.929 --> 00:00:48.450 that question probably half a dozen times. I have not gotten the rolling stones. 12 00:00:48.570 --> 00:00:51.679 That that is really cool. But yeah, kind of tough too. 13 00:00:51.960 --> 00:00:54.960 Tough to top that once the bar is set so high. Well, Matt 14 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:58.799 we're going to be talking about a a specific campaign that you guys ran that 15 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:03.679 rolls up to this area of passion that you have in taking big swings with 16 00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:07.590 creativity as a marketing team. Before we get into what that story was. 17 00:01:08.030 --> 00:01:11.469 Can you give us a little bit of background on why this has become such 18 00:01:11.469 --> 00:01:17.590 a point of passion for you in your own marketing career? Yeah, at 19 00:01:17.670 --> 00:01:22.700 every single so I've I've been in BOBST ASS for about ten years and then 20 00:01:22.780 --> 00:01:27.299 all had all three jobs. Marketing played a really huge role and growth. 21 00:01:27.540 --> 00:01:32.540 It was responsible for generating over ninety percent of the leads and the revenue at 22 00:01:32.540 --> 00:01:38.650 all three jobs, and what I sort of found over those ten years is 23 00:01:38.769 --> 00:01:45.409 that the only things worth doing, or the hard things in that those are 24 00:01:45.489 --> 00:01:51.079 usually the only things that drive sort of you know, three exchange and the 25 00:01:51.239 --> 00:01:57.920 hard things usually require a ton of creativity, and that's because, you know, 26 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:00.510 at the end of the day, you you either have to if you're 27 00:02:00.510 --> 00:02:07.189 fishing in a pond with everyone else, so something like facebook or direct mail 28 00:02:07.389 --> 00:02:12.430 or something like that, you have to do it in a way that's completely 29 00:02:12.629 --> 00:02:16.340 different than everyone else to sort of stand out, get someone's tension and get 30 00:02:16.379 --> 00:02:20.460 that sort of free ex difference, or, you know, you have to 31 00:02:20.580 --> 00:02:25.259 go find upon that no one's fishing in. And so an example of that 32 00:02:25.419 --> 00:02:29.780 would be, you know, when mail chimp, for instance, they were 33 00:02:29.819 --> 00:02:35.689 sort of first to really do podcasts at least in earnest them, and and 34 00:02:35.969 --> 00:02:42.969 their mail Kim campaign, which was creative but maybe maybe also an accidental success. 35 00:02:42.969 --> 00:02:45.520 I think is a good example of sort of fishing in a pond that 36 00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:49.919 that most people aren't fishing yet. Yeah, absolutely, ill love that analogy. 37 00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:53.080 So, Matt, let's dive into this story that you and I started 38 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:57.280 ripping on the their day when we connected, and this was a billboard campaign 39 00:02:57.439 --> 00:03:00.870 that you guys executed that ended up garnering you a ton of press. Today, 40 00:03:01.189 --> 00:03:06.949 the effects of that campaign play itself out in some Seo benefits that you 41 00:03:07.030 --> 00:03:10.870 guys have seen when people google rippling. Tell us a little bit about the 42 00:03:10.990 --> 00:03:15.740 back story here of this billboard campaign, what you guys decided to do why, 43 00:03:16.020 --> 00:03:21.180 and they will get into what was the actual outcome and then unpack some 44 00:03:21.259 --> 00:03:25.979 lessons learned from it. Yeah, so we ran this really big outdoor campaign 45 00:03:27.610 --> 00:03:30.009 and the title of for the the idea of the campaign, the Tagline of 46 00:03:30.009 --> 00:03:36.289 the campaign, was was work magic, because everyone who was hopping on a 47 00:03:36.370 --> 00:03:39.729 demo, you know, we had literally heard, actually multiple times, wow, 48 00:03:39.889 --> 00:03:44.960 this is like magic. And for context for your listeners, what rippling 49 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:47.319 is? It's really the first way to manage an automate everything that touches and 50 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:52.080 employees. So not only they're you know, just help you manage their payroll 51 00:03:52.120 --> 00:03:54.789 and benefits, but all the way to actually their computers and their APPs and 52 00:03:54.870 --> 00:04:00.270 and really everything that they use. So we were we were running this campaign 53 00:04:00.710 --> 00:04:05.710 and there was multiple creatives, you know, one was payroll so powerful that 54 00:04:05.789 --> 00:04:10.620 it can run itself, the tagline work magic. One of the ads was 55 00:04:10.819 --> 00:04:15.139 targeted at someone else that was in our space, another competitor called Gusto, 56 00:04:16.420 --> 00:04:21.939 and what we were seeing at the time was a lot of customers were coming 57 00:04:21.980 --> 00:04:26.009 to us saying, look, they really like Gusto. It's a great product, 58 00:04:26.050 --> 00:04:29.850 but as they've grown and they as they've gotten bigger, they beat it, 59 00:04:30.050 --> 00:04:32.490 you know, more advanced features in a more robust platform, and said 60 00:04:32.529 --> 00:04:35.810 they you know, they came to us because they've heard that we can, 61 00:04:35.970 --> 00:04:41.879 you know, support both small and large companies. And so one of the 62 00:04:41.959 --> 00:04:47.680 creatives we put out there said outgrowing Gusto question to mark Presto Chango, with 63 00:04:47.800 --> 00:04:53.230 the tagline work magic, and so it was a fairly innocent, you know, 64 00:04:53.550 --> 00:04:58.709 annocuous add it was really just raising the question, are you outgrowing Gusto? 65 00:04:58.829 --> 00:05:01.709 For Your Company, as you've gotten bigger and we ended up, in 66 00:05:01.910 --> 00:05:08.220 return, not not too long after, getting a cease and desist letter from 67 00:05:08.259 --> 00:05:12.620 Gusto who, you know, basically said we had to take the add down 68 00:05:12.980 --> 00:05:17.740 because it was essentially false advertising, making making a false claim because customers couldn't 69 00:05:17.779 --> 00:05:21.529 outgrow Gusto, which, you know, we felt was just just sort of 70 00:05:23.250 --> 00:05:30.009 patently false objection. Of course, companies out grew Gusto. So we decided 71 00:05:30.009 --> 00:05:35.920 to respond to their season desist letter with a poem specifically in IAMBIC Pentameter, 72 00:05:36.879 --> 00:05:42.639 which worked alongside our general counsel, with WHO, as as you can imagine, 73 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:46.680 had up until that point in their career as a general council not written 74 00:05:46.759 --> 00:05:49.269 in a reply to the seas and desist. And I am big pantameter. 75 00:05:49.589 --> 00:05:53.910 I imagine that that would be a first for your general counsel. It was. 76 00:05:54.069 --> 00:05:58.389 But you know the thing about creativity is, Parker, our founders also 77 00:05:58.509 --> 00:06:01.029 very creative. I mean really, the whole executive team is, and so 78 00:06:01.149 --> 00:06:06.220 as a result we tend to really hire for a look for creative, out 79 00:06:06.259 --> 00:06:11.060 of the box thinkers, and so our General Council was was, you know, 80 00:06:11.259 --> 00:06:15.379 surprisingly sort of excited by the idea and willing to get involved. And 81 00:06:15.620 --> 00:06:17.970 so you know I won't read the whole thing to you, but that this 82 00:06:18.129 --> 00:06:23.170 sort of this sort of quick highlights are you know, it starts with you 83 00:06:23.250 --> 00:06:26.810 know, dear Gusto, our billboard struck a nerve, it seems, and 84 00:06:27.009 --> 00:06:30.170 so you phoned your legal teams, who started shouting cease desist and other threats 85 00:06:30.209 --> 00:06:32.920 too long to list. And then, you know, we sort of go 86 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:35.360 on and from there we say look, you know, in general we think 87 00:06:35.360 --> 00:06:40.279 gus does neat for mom and pop stores down the street. You handle small, 88 00:06:40.680 --> 00:06:43.279 batchedask like pros, like Pay Roll, H R, all those. 89 00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:46.670 But businesses are growing creatures and as they scale they need more features. You 90 00:06:46.829 --> 00:06:49.790 know as well. It's true, because it happened once to you and Gusto 91 00:06:49.910 --> 00:06:54.870 tried to scale itself. We saw what you took off the shelf. Your 92 00:06:54.949 --> 00:06:58.709 software fell a little short. You needed work day for support. And so, 93 00:06:59.470 --> 00:07:01.420 for your listeners out there, work day is a is a sort of 94 00:07:01.579 --> 00:07:05.819 enterprise HR system. You know. They usually serve a thousand, two, 95 00:07:05.860 --> 00:07:11.100 thousand Fivezero plus person companies, right, and so Gusto sort of needed to 96 00:07:11.699 --> 00:07:15.019 leverage or at least the word out in the street was. They also needed 97 00:07:15.060 --> 00:07:18.089 to use work day in order to scale their company and couldn't do it solely 98 00:07:18.170 --> 00:07:23.850 on the back of dust, and so a whole bunch of interesting stuff came 99 00:07:23.889 --> 00:07:28.129 out of that. We ended up getting a bunch of press and and I 100 00:07:28.209 --> 00:07:30.319 can really tell you anything about about how the rest played out from there. 101 00:07:30.879 --> 00:07:35.199 Yeah, I mean I think if this isn't a story of taking a big 102 00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:39.319 swing, I don't know what it is. Because first of all, you 103 00:07:39.439 --> 00:07:43.519 know the billboard campaign to call out a competitor. That's, you know, 104 00:07:43.800 --> 00:07:48.110 somewhat risky, especially depending on what your executive teams make up and thought process 105 00:07:48.149 --> 00:07:53.110 is around risk and creativity. That's a big swing in and of itself. 106 00:07:53.189 --> 00:07:58.230 But then to respond to a cease and desist order with a poem written in 107 00:07:58.470 --> 00:08:01.660 IAMBIC pentameter. I mean when you told me that, I was just like 108 00:08:01.860 --> 00:08:05.300 wait, what, you guys did what? And Your General Council was on 109 00:08:05.500 --> 00:08:09.100 board and got involved there. So tell me a little bit about where you 110 00:08:09.220 --> 00:08:15.290 guys saw the payoff from this, where you you took a pretty risky move 111 00:08:15.370 --> 00:08:18.769 and in my case, in my thinking, this case is, you know, 112 00:08:18.850 --> 00:08:22.490 kind of two big swings. What kind of played out from there. 113 00:08:22.970 --> 00:08:24.529 Where did you see, you know, the press coverage and where did you 114 00:08:24.649 --> 00:08:28.199 see, you know, some of the benefits of, you know, taking 115 00:08:28.480 --> 00:08:33.519 this risky move? How did it play out from their Matt Yeah, so 116 00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:35.519 first let me let me just say I want to be clear here. There 117 00:08:35.679 --> 00:08:41.429 is definitely a lot of back and forth internally, definitely some hesitation and obviously 118 00:08:41.710 --> 00:08:45.950 no one, no one was out to sort of pick on anyone or poke 119 00:08:46.070 --> 00:08:48.230 someone in the eye or anything like that. We try to keep the ads 120 00:08:48.429 --> 00:08:52.590 as an occuous and innocent as possible and you know, there was definitely risk 121 00:08:52.669 --> 00:08:56.899 involved. But again, sort of back to what I was saying in the 122 00:08:56.940 --> 00:09:01.419 very beginning, the only marketing that I've ever found to be really effective is 123 00:09:01.740 --> 00:09:05.419 the marketing that makes you a little uncomfortable. If you're not, if you're 124 00:09:05.419 --> 00:09:07.220 not uncomfortable, means you're not taking a risk, and if you're not taking 125 00:09:07.299 --> 00:09:11.169 risk, it means you're almost certainly not standing out. And if you're not 126 00:09:11.210 --> 00:09:15.889 standing out, then that's just sort of the cardinal sin of marketing, because 127 00:09:16.330 --> 00:09:18.450 no one remembers your name. So I just I just want to put it 128 00:09:18.490 --> 00:09:22.210 out there that that it wasn't as easy as, Oh, this is a 129 00:09:22.289 --> 00:09:24.000 great idea, let's go out there. And yet yeah, like, yeah, 130 00:09:24.120 --> 00:09:26.759 it was just a one meeting decision, right. Yeah. So, 131 00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:31.480 you know, what we ended up seeing as a result of this campaign was 132 00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:37.080 a we ended up getting a bunch of press all the way from legal legal, 133 00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:41.629 like some of the biggest legal blogs posting or you know news outlets posting, 134 00:09:41.230 --> 00:09:45.830 posting the letter, all the way to, you know, tech crunch 135 00:09:45.870 --> 00:09:50.870 sort of detailing the the back and forth between us and Gusto. And so 136 00:09:50.710 --> 00:09:56.539 I'd say kind of three really big things happen. So first, we saw 137 00:09:56.580 --> 00:10:00.899 a big bump in business the day that all those stories came out. Be 138 00:10:01.220 --> 00:10:05.659 We sort of, at least in the in this in the city that this 139 00:10:05.779 --> 00:10:11.490 campaign was running, really saw in a very quick shift to sort of people 140 00:10:13.570 --> 00:10:18.129 repeating that line or in the market people, you know, sort of saying 141 00:10:18.169 --> 00:10:22.919 look, I'm out growing Gusto in sort of the ways you mentioned, because 142 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:26.000 we were seeing it in in the sales notes. And so it was just 143 00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:31.799 an effective depositioning exercise. You know, Gustos the system you use for really 144 00:10:31.879 --> 00:10:35.399 small businesses and rippling is the system that you know, you could jump on 145 00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:39.230 as a small business and grow on. Excuse me, rippling is that system. 146 00:10:39.509 --> 00:10:43.669 And then the third thing is now, when you google rippling and Gusto 147 00:10:43.830 --> 00:10:48.350 sort of in any way, shape or form, in in the same sentence 148 00:10:48.470 --> 00:10:52.419 in Google and and literally the first sentence starts with Gusto cells HR benefits im 149 00:10:52.419 --> 00:10:56.500 peril software, while rippling does the same but adds item management and, as 150 00:10:56.659 --> 00:11:01.820 Gustus says, all of their website they focus on small businesses. That that's 151 00:11:01.940 --> 00:11:07.610 literally the first sentence. That's the main organic search result in Google. That's 152 00:11:07.649 --> 00:11:11.409 that the quote from the tech crunch article you were mentioning. Yes, it's 153 00:11:11.450 --> 00:11:13.850 sort of the synopsis from the article that. Yeah, this little bit about 154 00:11:13.889 --> 00:11:18.559 yeah, man, that's it's really interesting because you know, it's not uncommon 155 00:11:18.759 --> 00:11:24.679 first Hass companies right, to target those down funnel decision stage search terms like 156 00:11:26.279 --> 00:11:31.600 salesloft versus outreach or terminus versus demand base, right, those sort of this 157 00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:35.990 versus that, and then to target those with your content and you know, 158 00:11:35.149 --> 00:11:41.830 putting a run down that is fairly objective but of course highlights where where you 159 00:11:41.990 --> 00:11:45.789 edge out the competitor just a bit. So that's that's one way to approach 160 00:11:45.830 --> 00:11:48.259 it, right, but we've all seen that right, and so for someone 161 00:11:48.419 --> 00:11:52.500 to Google that and, having maybe done that with four or five, six 162 00:11:52.740 --> 00:11:58.379 other different SASS tools that they've looked into for their business and used to getting 163 00:11:58.419 --> 00:12:01.850 the same sort of run down blog post or, you know, sidebyside checklist 164 00:12:01.889 --> 00:12:05.929 comparison, all of a sudden they do that with you guys in Gusto and 165 00:12:05.970 --> 00:12:09.090 they see this snippet and they see up billboard and they see, you know, 166 00:12:09.169 --> 00:12:11.929 an article from tech crunch. Man. It goes back to that point 167 00:12:13.129 --> 00:12:18.399 where you know, you you stand out considerably and it came from that big 168 00:12:18.480 --> 00:12:22.960 risk and that big creative move right. Yeah, I mean absolutely. Now 169 00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:28.519 now we've got this permanent organic placement on Google and you know, if we 170 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:31.629 just ran a run of the mill ad and it would have just been a 171 00:12:31.909 --> 00:12:37.230 three month campaign that was up and down with you know, likely no one 172 00:12:37.269 --> 00:12:41.909 would have remembered a thing about it forty eight hours after the ads came down. 173 00:12:41.269 --> 00:12:45.220 Yeah, exactly. So let's talk a little bit about some of the 174 00:12:45.299 --> 00:12:48.779 learnings from here, Matt. I feel like we've kind of organically touched on 175 00:12:48.940 --> 00:12:52.460 some of them, but why is it that you think some marketing teams really 176 00:12:52.460 --> 00:12:56.259 hesitate when it comes to these creative risks? Is it. You know they're 177 00:12:56.659 --> 00:13:01.809 trying to be self protective. Is it that they don't have the buying in 178 00:13:01.009 --> 00:13:05.649 from the top? What's kind of the the common thread that you've seen at 179 00:13:05.690 --> 00:13:09.889 Zeno fits now at rippling, at other organizations where you have been given the 180 00:13:09.970 --> 00:13:15.279 latitude to take these big swings? Is there a common thread that you've seen 181 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:20.159 that somewhat unique in the organizations that you've been a part of that other organizations 182 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:24.559 seem to be missing? Well, I worked, I worked in advertising for 183 00:13:24.679 --> 00:13:28.789 four years, so I've I've been fortunate enough for pretty much my entire career 184 00:13:28.990 --> 00:13:33.990 and Sass to work with creative teams that are encouraged to do, you know, 185 00:13:35.070 --> 00:13:37.870 in encourage to take risk and tape of swings. But in the advertising 186 00:13:37.909 --> 00:13:41.860 world, where you you sort of get insight into a lot of other companies 187 00:13:43.139 --> 00:13:48.460 and and their internal workings. You know, I think a big reason that 188 00:13:48.539 --> 00:13:54.340 you don't see things like the Gusto campaign out there from from other startups is 189 00:13:54.500 --> 00:14:01.769 because the companies internal risk tolerance is just very low and and and also more 190 00:14:01.850 --> 00:14:03.970 often than not that doesn't necessarily come from the marketing team, it comes from 191 00:14:05.009 --> 00:14:11.600 everyone else except the marketing team, because risks are scary and and it's human 192 00:14:11.639 --> 00:14:18.480 nature to to want to mitigate risk. But the problem with with that is, 193 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:24.309 unlike sort of every other function in a business, marketing is the one 194 00:14:24.429 --> 00:14:30.029 department that cannot afford to be risk averse because it's that's sort of the antithesis 195 00:14:30.070 --> 00:14:33.629 of great marketing. I love that line, Matt. Seems to me like 196 00:14:33.830 --> 00:14:37.230 that could be a key if you're a marketing leader WHO's trying to pitch your 197 00:14:37.350 --> 00:14:43.259 CEO or your executive team on the benefits. Tell us a little bit more 198 00:14:43.340 --> 00:14:46.340 about how you would phrase that to a CEO. Marketing is the one function 199 00:14:46.460 --> 00:14:52.090 in the business that can't afford to be risk averse. Yeah, so first 200 00:14:52.129 --> 00:14:56.570 let me just also preface this by saying I again I've worked at startups for 201 00:14:56.649 --> 00:15:01.090 the last ten years and if you know, if your sales force and you're 202 00:15:01.129 --> 00:15:07.600 on top of the world and you have everything to lose, risk probably are 203 00:15:07.679 --> 00:15:11.120 actually something you should you should take. You know, keep in mind. 204 00:15:11.440 --> 00:15:16.120 But from most startups you know you really you have a whole lot more to 205 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:20.440 lose by not taking risk and you have to gain because you know you're still 206 00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:24.590 you're still a fairly small company. The you know, every the news outlets 207 00:15:24.710 --> 00:15:28.350 aren't sort of reporting on you. You don't have public investors to answer to, 208 00:15:28.789 --> 00:15:33.789 and so the actual rest of the company are fairly low. But you 209 00:15:33.909 --> 00:15:39.860 know how what I would basically say to a CEO is again, I tell 210 00:15:39.940 --> 00:15:45.259 them what I told you debating. The only things worth doing are the hard 211 00:15:45.340 --> 00:15:48.820 things, and the hard things usually require creativity and risk. You can either 212 00:15:50.250 --> 00:15:54.129 do something like this Gusto campaign, or you could spend two hundredzero a month 213 00:15:54.370 --> 00:16:00.049 on adwords, fishing in the same pond with every other single company in your 214 00:16:00.090 --> 00:16:03.799 space and sort of, you know, struggling to make the uneconomic works and 215 00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:11.480 sort of scale the program and and every probably every single founder of a startup, 216 00:16:12.200 --> 00:16:17.080 you know, probably cringes when they hear their marketing team going I want 217 00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:19.669 a hundred thousand dollar a month budget for SEM and facebook and all those things, 218 00:16:19.909 --> 00:16:23.629 because it's always just a rat race and and you're, you know, 219 00:16:23.750 --> 00:16:30.669 you're competing with tenzero other people and this sort of bottom line is, would 220 00:16:30.669 --> 00:16:33.860 you like me to zig while everyone else is zagging, because when you do 221 00:16:33.059 --> 00:16:40.259 that you usually are able to sort of drive leads at a much lower cost 222 00:16:40.379 --> 00:16:44.980 and a much higher scale. Yeah, it's it's really interesting I posted this 223 00:16:45.139 --> 00:16:48.129 thought. I can't remember where I kind of I kind of stole this quote 224 00:16:48.169 --> 00:16:52.129 and paraphrased it, and I can't remember if it was Neil Patel or if 225 00:16:52.169 --> 00:16:55.330 it was Christopher Lockett. It was it was someone in the marketing space that 226 00:16:55.370 --> 00:17:00.289 I follow pretty regularly. But basically this idea that the harder it is to 227 00:17:00.600 --> 00:17:07.480 track or necessarily determine going in the Roi of a channel or an activity, 228 00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:12.759 the more likelihood that it is a less competitive channel or opportunity and therefore my 229 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:18.710 pose oftentimes the biggest upside for Roi. But often times that seems like this 230 00:17:18.950 --> 00:17:22.789 counter intuitive piece. Right, we want to run to where the Ro is 231 00:17:22.910 --> 00:17:26.589 very definitive, but that also means that it's probably not going to have, 232 00:17:27.150 --> 00:17:30.980 you know, the biggest bang for our buck. It's going to take venturing 233 00:17:32.099 --> 00:17:37.099 out into the unknown a bit to get those big wins. But it takes 234 00:17:37.140 --> 00:17:40.220 some budget still to do those and so you've got to pitch it the right 235 00:17:40.259 --> 00:17:44.289 way to the executive team, to the CEO. I Love The you've given 236 00:17:44.529 --> 00:17:47.730 folks some lines to be able to do that. Matt. Are there any 237 00:17:47.970 --> 00:17:52.130 final pieces of advice, your learnings from not only this campaign but other big 238 00:17:52.210 --> 00:17:56.289 swings you've taken in your marketing career that you want to leave other marketing leaders 239 00:17:56.289 --> 00:18:00.000 with today? Oh yeah, I I guess, following up on on what 240 00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:07.640 you were just saying, I guess one piece of advice is to do things 241 00:18:07.759 --> 00:18:14.589 that don't scale and always be testing and welcome failure. So why combinator, 242 00:18:14.710 --> 00:18:17.630 which is a, you know, a big sort of startup incubator that that 243 00:18:18.670 --> 00:18:22.950 I was through a benefits and and and rippling. You know, they encourage 244 00:18:22.029 --> 00:18:26.579 founders to do things that don't scale on the product side, and I think 245 00:18:26.579 --> 00:18:32.500 that lesson brings true on the marketing side, which is I think a lot 246 00:18:32.539 --> 00:18:36.140 of people, you know, sort of shy away from from doing creative things 247 00:18:36.180 --> 00:18:38.740 because it costs a lot of money or, you know, it's really hard 248 00:18:38.819 --> 00:18:45.130 to scale. And I would say to that just don't even worry about any 249 00:18:45.130 --> 00:18:48.490 of that stuff yet. Just get something to work, no matter how sort 250 00:18:48.529 --> 00:18:53.410 of horror or unscalable it is to do that thing, because if it works, 251 00:18:53.450 --> 00:18:56.960 I promise you you will find a way to make it work. And 252 00:18:57.200 --> 00:19:03.599 so an example of this is we decided to send tenzero empty pizza boxes through 253 00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:10.509 direct mail, you know, literal, actual pizza boxes that were constructed and 254 00:19:10.829 --> 00:19:15.109 when you open it it's empty inside, but there's a handwritten note that said, 255 00:19:15.190 --> 00:19:18.150 you know, hey, Jane, I know this pizza box is empty, 256 00:19:18.190 --> 00:19:19.670 but I think it's full of potential. And then we go on to 257 00:19:19.750 --> 00:19:23.109 pitch rippling, you know, on in the note in the pizza box and 258 00:19:23.380 --> 00:19:26.900 we had a little card to basically offer them a luncheon learn and you know, 259 00:19:26.980 --> 00:19:32.619 look, the campaign didn't work, but to pull that off, you 260 00:19:32.700 --> 00:19:36.420 know, literally the marketing team spent like an hour during lunch for the whole 261 00:19:36.460 --> 00:19:41.170 week putting together stupid pizza boxes. Guy Never even wanted to eat pizza from 262 00:19:41.250 --> 00:19:45.410 mysa for two months after. Yeah, exaxactly, super unscalable, pretty expensive. 263 00:19:45.930 --> 00:19:48.569 But you know, we thought it was sort of Wacky, out of 264 00:19:48.609 --> 00:19:52.849 the box enough to catch someone's attention. And Look, we actually got a 265 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:56.480 lot of people who, on like Linkedin and twitter, actually said this is 266 00:19:56.599 --> 00:20:00.160 super creative. It just didn't work, which is fine, because for every 267 00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:04.519 every ten ideas, every ten weird crazy ideas, that that fail, one 268 00:20:04.559 --> 00:20:10.309 works and that that one is sort of returning the fund. That's like a 269 00:20:10.390 --> 00:20:15.269 VC term with VC's it. You know, they invested in a in ten, 270 00:20:15.349 --> 00:20:18.950 a hundred things. It's only that an investment like Google that pays off. 271 00:20:18.869 --> 00:20:22.700 And with with creative marketing, it's the same thing. Your ten crazy 272 00:20:22.740 --> 00:20:27.299 ideas fail, but it's that one that returns the fund and pays off really 273 00:20:27.380 --> 00:20:32.220 big and so, you know, that's why I say people need to welcome 274 00:20:32.259 --> 00:20:36.450 failure and why they always need to be testing, because it's just about, 275 00:20:36.890 --> 00:20:40.210 you know, coming up with crazy ideas and just getting them out there and 276 00:20:40.410 --> 00:20:44.690 worrying about scaling them later. And if you sort of do three crazy ideas 277 00:20:44.730 --> 00:20:47.009 and fail and say well, I'm just going to go back to the sort 278 00:20:47.009 --> 00:20:49.720 of bit, you know, the sort of vanilla stuff and that everyone else 279 00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:55.119 is doing, then I think you're already you're already on the road to sort 280 00:20:55.119 --> 00:20:59.039 of failure. Yeah, I really appreciate your perspective map because you've seen, 281 00:20:59.480 --> 00:21:03.119 you know, some swings and MISSRS and you've seen some home runs at what 282 00:21:03.359 --> 00:21:04.950 as well, and we all know, you know, for anybody listening to 283 00:21:06.069 --> 00:21:10.150 this WHO's a baseball fan, you know typically the home run hitters tend to 284 00:21:10.230 --> 00:21:14.509 strike out the most right because they are swinging for the fences more often, 285 00:21:14.670 --> 00:21:18.579 but the runs that they generate with those home runs. The impact tends to 286 00:21:19.140 --> 00:21:23.539 outweigh the swings and misses, the strikes and the strikeouts that that they have. 287 00:21:25.259 --> 00:21:27.140 I think you've given folks you know, some really good one miners to 288 00:21:27.819 --> 00:21:32.819 talk with their CEO and speak in the terms of investors, for the folks 289 00:21:32.859 --> 00:21:37.890 that you're trying to convince and trying to pitch on some of these big ideas. 290 00:21:37.009 --> 00:21:40.769 What's going to you know? This is how we could return the fun. 291 00:21:41.009 --> 00:21:44.730 This is how you know marketing cannot afford to be risk averse. So 292 00:21:45.210 --> 00:21:48.279 I love the advice. It's such a fun story how you guys used a 293 00:21:48.359 --> 00:21:52.759 billboard and a poem to to go back and forth with a competitor with some 294 00:21:52.920 --> 00:21:59.599 friendly jabs, generate press, generate SEO benefit and inbound leads for the organization. 295 00:22:00.039 --> 00:22:03.190 So, Matt, if anybody listening to this would like to stay connected 296 00:22:03.230 --> 00:22:06.470 with you or the team at rippling with the best way for them to reach 297 00:22:06.509 --> 00:22:10.230 out or stay connected, yeah, I they could just find me on Linkedin, 298 00:22:10.390 --> 00:22:14.109 Matt Epstein, under the company rippling and and happy to connect with people 299 00:22:14.190 --> 00:22:15.579 on top of them there. Awesome, Matt. This has been a great 300 00:22:15.619 --> 00:22:19.700 conversation. I love sharing this story. Thank you so much, for being 301 00:22:19.779 --> 00:22:22.259 our guest on the show today. Man Go, I appreciate had fun. 302 00:22:25.539 --> 00:22:29.140 For the longest time I was asking people to leave a review of BB growth 303 00:22:29.220 --> 00:22:33.569 and apple podcasts, but I realize that was kind of stupid, because leaving 304 00:22:33.569 --> 00:22:37.609 a review is way harder than just leaving a simple rating. So I'm changing 305 00:22:37.690 --> 00:22:41.809 my tune a bit. Instead of asking you to leave a review, I'm 306 00:22:41.849 --> 00:22:45.119 just going to ask you to go to bb growth and apple podcasts, scroll 307 00:22:45.279 --> 00:22:48.440 down until you see the ratings and reviews section and just tap the number of 308 00:22:48.519 --> 00:22:52.400 stars you want to give us. No review necessary, super easy and I 309 00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:56.119 promise it will help us out a ton. If you want to copy on 310 00:22:56.160 --> 00:23:00.990 my book content base networking to shoot me a text after you leave the rating 311 00:23:00.150 --> 00:23:03.470 and I'll soon one your way. Text me at four hundred seven for and 312 00:23:03.509 --> 00:23:06.789 I know three hundred and three two eight