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Agency Forward explores the future of agencies as tech and AI drive down the cost of tactical deliverables. Topics include building competent teams, developing strategic offers, systemizing your business, and more.
New episodes delivered every Tuesday.
Chris DuBois 0:00
Hey everyone. Today I'm joined by Dylan Chacho. Dylan is the Director of Marketing at Black camel agency and an evangelist of problemotional marketing, which we dive into in this episode. Now if you've heard me on other podcasts or follow my LinkedIn content, you'll know I am a firm believer that all marketing starts with a problem. So when I stumbled across Dylan's content, I immediately knew I needed to get his perspective on the show, and he didn't disappoint. In this episode, we discuss how to identify the core problem that you solve, why your messaging isn't resonating with your audience, how to start problemotional advertising for your own brand and more. Today's episode is brought to you by Zen pilot. There are lots of tools out there for agencies to manage projects, but any project issues aren't usually caused by the tool. They're from your own processes. Zen pilot helps agencies implement their project management tools while streamlining operations so your team can move from chaos to clarity. You can see for yourself at zenpilot.com/forward, and now. Dylan Chacho, it's easier than ever to start an agency, but it's only getting harder to stand out and keep it alive. Join me as we explore the strategies agencies are using today to secure a better tomorrow. This is agency forward, what is probably emotional marketing. Hopefully, I said that, right? So
Speaker 1 1:29
problemotional? Yeah, it's a bit of a mouthful. We're working on that problem emotional marketing is basically marketing, the problem that your buyers have, that you solve and in an emotional way. So you know, a message about the problem that you solve, and kind of how you put that message out there is in an emotional way, as opposed to a rational way. And the reason why you need to be emotional is so that you get that message about the problem heard, remembered and shared. I think we're going to be talking about problems a lot here, so I'll frame the problem to kind of show why it's needed. So most B to B companies, and they're advertising their marketing content agencies or B to B Tech, they're always marketing their solution, their brand, their product, their service, all the benefits describing it as a solution, but for the majority of people that are not ready to buy your solution is not perceived as a solution, and so they just kind of ignore that. And so majority of people are just going to ignore anything about your solution, and if it's in a really rational way, you're talking to a complete stranger, you can't bore people into listening and remembering that message. So it needs to be emotional. And when I say emotional, I'll be saying that a lot, but you know, it'd be humor. It could be relatability, usually like humor, but, you know, awe, inspiration, all these kinds of high arousal emotions as opposed to low arousal emotions like contentment or sadness, you know, things like that.
Chris DuBois 3:14
Yeah, okay, so you just got me thinking about, like, another potential metaphor to use here the it's like reading a book and and you pull some good stuff out of it, right? But then you come back to the book later, and it's like, you pull other ideas out. And it's because things have changed and like problems have surfaced that make it more apparent that, like these things matter. And so it's like, the solution won't matter until you actually have a problem that you're like, Oh, that is the solution, right? So when you see everybody leading with the solution, it's like, how do you know they even have the problem? It's all these people who show up in my DMs on LinkedIn and are like, hey, you need this? It's like, No, I don't, because you don't know that I have that problem yet. Why would you offer a solution? Yeah, so constant. So why? I guess, what is. Why do people do this?
Speaker 1 4:06
Well, I think a lot of people have have forgotten that a service or product is supposed to be a solution to a problem. And you'll see on like B to B websites or whatever, like, we have solutions, and you're just like, all right, solutions to what, like, what? What does it solve? And then, so it's not actually a solution, it's just a service or a product. And I like to say like this, no one buys a service or a product. They buy a solution to a problem to achieve an outcome, and they only perceive your service or product to be a solution to that problem, either in two ways, either they kind of figure it out on their own. They're like, Yeah, that might, you know, relieve this pain, might solve that, right? Or you tell them so, you know, you could. Either, you know, hope that they kind of figure out how it's going to solve. Their problems, or you tell them which one it is. So I'm not a big fan of relying on hope as a strategy, but maybe some people, yeah,
Chris DuBois 5:09
that was something we learned in the army. Never trust hope as a potential solution. But yeah, it's also once you if you just lead with like, the services you offer at your solution, essentially. And there's a couple different ways to go with this. One, if people don't know what they're actually looking at for a solution, they're just going to see that solution, compare it to everybody else. And when you go compare it to everybody else, it becomes a pricing battle. And so like, obviously that sucks. Like, we don't want to be in a pricing battle, because you're going to lose someone is offshore doing it, friend, they're probably providing a worse result. Not not that offshore provides worse result, but like a lot of people who go cheaper, it's because they're not doing the things you're doing as an expert. So you're going to get screwed that way anyways. But then I also find and like, you feel free to talk to this one. Like, a lot of people don't know the problem that they're actually having, right? They see the symptoms of the problem, like how it's showing up in their day to day, but they don't actually know that core problem. So like, how do you make that more, like, visible to them?
Speaker 1 6:15
Yeah, no, I You had said this on the agency life podcast with Logan Lyles, he posted that videos like, oh yes, finally, someone that understands that there's, I think there's huge misconception about what a problem even is, and so sometimes there's that you know, misunderstanding like, What do you mean? Market the problem, because you have to first differentiate the root problem and pains. So like you explained, I'll come to you like, Oh, I've got this problem. I've got a low, close rate. It's like, that's a symptom of the root problem. That's a pain caused by the root problem. And there could be potentially different root problems to this pain. For example, Nick Bennett, he I, a year ago, I had decided to work with him, and I was just talking to him, I was like, I've got this problem, man, I I've just got a really low close rate. And people won't stay with they won't work with me for a long time. And I think it's just because I suck at sales. Like, I'm an introverted guy. I don't, I don't like to do sales. And he's like, No man, that is not your problem. Your problem is that you don't have positioning, like you're just positioned to be perceived as completely interchangeable. And so he was able to articulate the root cause, the root problem that caused me all those pains that are very visible in my life and in my mind. He obviously knew how to solve that problem, if he could articulate that problem so well to me. So I think we have to kind of understand there's kind of two different, two types of problems. There's obvious problems and non obvious problems. Sure, you're a fan of category pirates that talk about these, these two types of problems, but for the audience, basically, an obvious problem is a problem that's kind of easy to articulate. It's easy for one to kind of become aware of. They're kind of it's kind of easy to see how the root problem causes that pain that you're feeling. So for an example, a manual process that's a root problem that causes pains like wasted time, and it's kind of obvious to you somewhat, and there's non obvious problems where that root problem causing those pains is not obvious. And so it's kind of hard to become aware of that on your own, and you need someone or outside forces to kind of make you aware of that problem and how it's causing the pains that you feel. I don't know if that answered your question. I'm kind of forgetting what your question was. Now,
Chris DuBois 8:55
no just, how do we make that problem more obvious to people? Yeah, I think so. I can't remember the actual stat, but it's just under, like, 40% of businesses close because they don't have market need, right? It's like, can you imagine, like, you you build a business, you have this idea, you're like, you're putting everything into it, and then nobody wants it. And it's like, that's almost 40% of companies close for that reason, like, and it's because they just don't identify the problem, right? If you had a clear problem, your solution would then have something to match to, yeah, that's why, like, I'll put a link in the show notes for the prism model that I wrote.
Speaker 1 9:38
I read, yeah, it was a long one, but it was worth it. And it goes on to the nuances of how to define that problem, which problem to solve, all that, and it's really important stuff to know, because that's what a business is supposed to do solve a problem, right?
Chris DuBois 9:56
Yeah, I think the other piece, I just kind of pulled out from what you were saying, like, I like the idea. Of having a compelling offer over a convincing argument, right? So generally, when people are saying, like, like, I have a hard time with sales, it's like, yeah, because you're trying to convince someone that they should be working with you, rather than compelling them to like they should show up and just be like you have what I need. Like, everything you said spot on. That's what I want. If you can get to that, it's because you likely made have showed them the problem, right, very clearly, and then give them the obvious solution to get there. But so I guess we've talked about how, how, like companies should be marketing and using problems within their marketing to to kind of get this impact. How has buyer behavior changed, right in order to even make this like more kind of important today? Yeah,
Speaker 1 10:47
well, I'll go back to way before I was even alive, 1980 when the authors al rice and Jack trout published their book. Positioning. It was assault on your mind. Was the Battle of your mind. Something like that somewhere
Chris DuBois 11:04
up here on one of the shelves, yeah, somewhere, I don't know,
Speaker 1 11:09
basically, they noticed a big change happening in the previous two decades where there was just an explosion of products and services and advertising and information all assaulting the mind. And basically, the human mind was being overloaded with way too much information. And so two consequences of this is that one, most buyers are going to tune out any advertisement. Organic content is a different debate, but we'll talk about advertising here. And two, they kind of categorize all the brands into what kind of category of service or product it is, and they remember only a few of those brands in that category. And so that's kind of how the human brain deals with all this, this information. And so basically, your ads are getting more and more ignored. And two, you can't differentiate your there's a need for differentiating yourself, because there's just so many choices and options. And so these two, when you understand this kind of context, you can see that there's incremental differentiation, and then there's radical differentiation. And incremental differentiation is like, you know, if different brand colors we have, you know, nicer people, where we've got a cool logo, whatever, when you're categorically still the same thing, you know, if you're a Facebook ads agency, you're still categorically a Facebook ads agency, just like all those other Facebook ads, agencies, and so you're not really that different. And so deep in the buyer's mind, the biggest way to really differentiate yourself is to market a different problem, to become for a new solution to a different problem, where you can categorically be different in their mind. That's, that's, that's a huge thing to understand.
Chris DuBois 13:25
Yeah, I think there was a to take, like Tesla, right? The they found the adjacent problem. There's a bunch of other brands that you can you can find this where it's like, we're not going to compete on electric vehicles, we're going to compete on batteries. And like, they just they made the best battery, which then enabled them to have the best vehicles. But they also got to do all of this other stuff with Tesla technology, and it really kind of focused what they were doing as a solution. Anyways, it's like, yeah, that adjacent problem could be huge, especially for, like, marketing agencies and any really B to B Company. If you can figure out what that adjacent problem is that people need solved? Yeah? Like, yeah, massive. So I guess, how are you seeing this, like, within your own client work, right? Like, how are you going in, applying this and using that to, like, drive results,
Speaker 1 14:15
yeah? So, I mean, I think the biggest obstacle, as I'm sure you know, is people like, I don't really know what problem I solve, and we work mostly with B to B Tech. So I'll, you know, I know this is mostly agency founders listening here. So double value for consideration, yeah, no. I mean, it's the same principles. It's just, I'll use more examples for B to B Tech, but basically the way, and I'm still working on this, but basically, I've noticed a pattern where most B to B Tech, and I'm sure we could, you could do this for all B to B businesses in general, solve the same 11. Into 12 or one of this same 11 to 12 types of root problems. And you can kind of see over and over again, and knowing that kind of narrowing it down, like, Okay, what type of problem do I solve? And then going into a little bit more specifically, it helps you understand the problem and define the problem and define the problem that you solve. So I'll use a little bit more examples, because that's super abstract. So there's breaking it into obvious root problems and non obvious root problems. An obvious root problem that a lot of tech companies solve is fragmented communication, fragmented processes, manual processes, lack of visibility. These are all types of obvious problems. For example, Slack solves the fragmented communication problem. There's a lot of different types of services that solve that problem in different ways. When you go more specific, you know, for different situations, different types of companies, but it all kind of goes down to that type of group problem. Then when you start there, you can start to define the problem a little bit so just kind of breaking it down to the essence, and that allows you to kind of go a little bit more into detail. And I think for non obvious problems, you've got something like strategic misalignment, organizational misalignment, risks. And I think Gen generally, these are less tech, but also more consultants, more agencies, solve the root problem of strategic misalignment. For example, our agency, I would say, falls under that category. We're saying that the problem is that you're using the wrong message in the wrong way at the wrong time, so you're you're misaligned. It's kind of dumbing it down into that overall type of problem helps you define that. And then once you can do that, the rest kind of falls into into peace, and you're able to produce content, produce advertisements that articulate that problem, frame the problem and become the solution. Yeah?
Chris DuBois 17:15
So within the, I mean, you're you create ads like problem focused ads, yeah, how are you, I guess, applying that so like identifying the problem, being able to get after that. Like, is there a special approach? I guess you don't have to give any, like, proprietary information. Would be like, what's the approach right to to being able to make that problem super obvious to people, even if it is a non obvious problem, but like putting it out in front of their target audience, so that it's with a message that resonates, yeah.
Speaker 1 17:47
So it depends on kind of what part of the funnel, and I use the funnel really loosely, I know a lot of people aren't big fan of that. Basically, in the beginning it should be kind of really simplified, and then as kind of they go down the funnel, the journey, whatever, they become more and more educated on the problem, the consequences of it, how some people solve it, how you shouldn't solve it, kind of the more details. But in the beginning, which is, you know, our service at the top of funnel, dumb it down and make it, make them aware of it, or just emphasize, empathize with it. We are kind of dumbing this down by using those kind of categories of problems that we were talking about, 11 or 12 different types of problems, and each of them kind of have generally the same kind of metaphors or hyperboles that can be used to explain and frame these problems. And so at this point of the buying journey, like, for example, if they're not aware of the problem using a metaphor or something, breaking it down, so it's just really easy for them to understand really helps them become aware of it. And also, I think it was just a really good exercise for you to understand what problem that you solve. You can put it into a metaphor like that, then you really understand the problem that you solve, and then so can they so for example, like we're thinking of, you know, an advertisement for ourselves. And the metaphor that we're putting into is like to show strategic misalignment. And this metaphor could be used for similar of similar types of root problem of strategic misalignment. It's like dating. It's like if you go on the first date and you talk about yourself and in a boring way, that date's not going to work out that well when you talk about a. Them and in an emotional way, talk about their life, their problems, then they're going to get to the next stage of the buying journey, or the dating journey, you know, the next date. And so that kind of shows the misalignment there. So the wrong message and in the wrong way at the wrong time. And so that's kind of what we're trying to do with these clients is for our problem emotional video ads. We're breaking down that problem into a metaphor and advertising that in their for their ICP, mainly specifically for these B to B tech companies that are trying to become the brand remembered for the problem that they solve when the 95% become ready to buy. So that's specifically what we're doing. So metaphors really break that down. Also super great for agencies to do that kind of exercise.
Chris DuBois 20:54
Think it's a Seth godins book all marketers are liars. That gets into, like, the worldviews and like, just how you can tell those stories that get them to like, everyone's coming in with a worldview, and you can't just tell them you're wrong, right? Because then they shut down. They're like, nobody wants to hear no and that they're wrong on something. But if you can tell them a story and they come to that conclusion on their own, it's like, you win. And so when you have those metaphors, it's like you just found a way to get around it where they're like, Oh, I get it, and they feel like they came to that conclusion, but like, No, I just planted that in your head, right? Like some mind trick.
Speaker 1 21:29
I didn't even think of it that way. And I'm gonna steal that. I'm gonna go tell everyone at my agency that. And there you sound like it's a great
Chris DuBois 21:37
book. Actually, when I was leading an agency, we did a book club, and that was one of the books that we read. And it was like, everybody read it, and we talked about the sections and like, what can we pull from this? And, yeah, super valuable, great book. I'd actually recommend listen to the audiobook while reading it. It's like, yeah, it gets in there really fast. Anyways, okay, I wanted to talk this one's probably more tactical, okay, but like, how does, how does the message change depending on the like channel that you're, you're marketing on, right, the medium that you're, you're using, and everything. Like, I know we just talked about metaphors and the ability to use this, but like, you're going to present it differently depending on where you're, you're putting it out. So how are you thinking about that? Yeah, so
Speaker 1 22:23
when I use the word medium, I usually use it differently than how most people so you're talking about channels. So to answer the question about channels, um, I think it matters a little bit less in terms of the channel. I think we should kind of be changing our view on where are they in the buying journey, rather than the channel. Of course, you know, you should always adapt to the channel, but I'd say it's kind of the same principles across all the channels. It's like, if your brand is a complete stranger, is the beginning of the buying journey, it should be more emotional no matter where that channel is. So I'll kind of break this down. I mean by it matters more about the message matters. Message matters more about where they are in the buying journey, there's kind of two things that are changing across the buying journey. One is awareness, and two is decision making. So the first is, awareness is like, you know, if you think of that kind of five different stage graphic, that's a little bit oversimplified, but you know, unaware, problem, aware, solution aware, product aware. Basically, in the beginning of a buyer's journey, the message should be about their problem, because they can't get to that solution aware stage if they're not first aware of the problem, or if it's not perceived as valuable to solve. So over the buying journey, it goes from problem focused to solution focused, and the decision making goes from emotional to rational. And I think when you understand that it matters less about which channel you know, how do you say, what you say on his channel, and more about the buyer and where they are. So on LinkedIn, you'll see debates people saying, you know, in B to B, we buy big services. They're $100,000 is a rational decision. Then you have another group of people saying, you know, beat it. They're not in B to B, they're humans. They're emotional beings. It needs to be emotional. And the way what we say is that they're both right. It just depends on where in the buying journey. So in the beginning of the buying journey, when your brand is a complete stranger, you can't bore people into listening to you, remembering you, and sharing about you. You're not going to go, Hey, Tim, you're. Just wanted to share this ad with you, or this piece of content with you. It was really boring, so it made me think of you. Usually, you're not going to say that to your coworker unless you know you really hate them. But basically, in the beginning, it just needs to be emotional on any channel, and that's mainly for advertising. When it comes to content, it's a slightly like organic content. It's slightly different because the perception of that is different. Perception of an ad is that something that someone's trying to sell to you, and for that reason, it needs to be more emotional. It needs to be something that they truly enjoy consuming. For organic content, the emotional side matters a little bit less it should be problem focused, because we've already discussed that, but matters a little bit less that it's humor or emotional or whatever. So
Chris DuBois 25:55
I want to go to that debate of whether it should be emotional or logical. I think when you look at like, the jobs to be done kind of framework, or like, everyone has something they're trying to do, but there's the actual like job that they're trying to do, but then there's a social job to be done, as well as an emotional job to be done. And if you can address all of those, it's like, right? Like, we're creatures of status, and so, like, we if we can, we have to get something done. But if you can elevate my status while doing it, hell, yeah. Like, I'm on board, right? Like, you're gonna make me look good in front of my friends, cool, yeah? But with B to B, it's like, Carl, if he purchases this and it doesn't work out, he can't just go return it, right? Like, Carl might get fired now, yeah. And so there's definitely an emotional thing here where he wants to be able to trust people and get that, like, know that they've gotten his back with this decision. But also there's a logical like, if I don't have proof that you can actually do this, then I'm probably not going to go with you. So like, yeah, it very much. Is a like, you have to have both, and it really depends on where in the buyer's journey they are. Like, yeah, so I want, alright, this again, this is probably another tactical one. I try to avoid the tactical stuff, but it's, it can be super
Speaker 1 27:09
valuable. You can't implement the strategy without understanding them. So, right?
Chris DuBois 27:14
So what's the the 8020 of problem, emotional marketing, right? Like, if someone wants to knock over that one domino and get started today, like, what is that thing that would get everything kicked off?
Speaker 1 27:28
I'm a very big fan of the 8020 I would say, defining the problem, because everything follows that. And it's not easy, but once you define that problem, everything makes sense. It's like, how do you market the problem? How do you solve that? How do you align marketing and sales? How do you create the right service that solves that problem? It all goes back to the problem. And so once you can kind of define that and articulate that correctly, now I think it's important to say that the problem in your mind might slightly change over time. And so it's never going to be, you know, completely clear, completely perfect, once you get generally you know what that root problem is that you solve and how it creates pains in their in the buyer's life, everything in your business goes back to that. So you start with define the problem.
Chris DuBois 28:31
Cool, makes sense. All right. Dylan, great conversation. I got two more for you, though. Okay. First one. What book do you recommend every agency founder should read?
Speaker 1 28:45
You know, it's interesting. We were talking about Nick Bennett, and I was telling him, I'm gonna read this book called Made to Stick, because I need my ideas to be spread more. And he's like, No, you don't need to read that. What you need to read is the 22 laws of category design. And I was like, Ah, all right, I guess I'll read that. And I read that in two days. I've downloaded it on my Kindle. I read that in two days, and then I think I read it like three times again after that, because it was just so good, and it really shows you the importance of defining the problem that you solve, where your brand plays into a category and you're not just some individual player and that people, everyone cares about you and your brand, which I think is a huge epidemic in the agency world, talking about personal brands. Personal Brand is not just talking about yourself all the time. It's like you stand for something, and that something is what type of service you are, what type of category, right? So that's the book. Yeah, awesome.
Chris DuBois 30:02
That actually hasn't been said on the podcast yet. All right, there you go. Last question is, where can everyone find you?
Speaker 1 30:12
You can find me on LinkedIn. I post three times a day. That's the main place to find me, unless you want to find me wherever I am in the world, soon to be in France,
Chris DuBois 30:27
yeah, you're just traveling, yeah. All right, if I could get my kids to luggage, I might travel around a little more too. All right. Well, thanks for joining.
Unknown Speaker 30:39
All right. Thank you.
Chris DuBois 30:45
That's the show everyone. You can leave a rating and review, or you can do something that benefits. You click the link in the show notes to subscribe to agency forward on substack, you'll get weekly content resources and links from around the internet to help you drive your agency forward. You.
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