Destination Marketing Podcast Episode 33: Sasha Jackson Adam Stoker: Today's episode is brought to you by a great partner for us and it is Connect Travel Marketing Leadership Summit. Connect Travel provides some of the best trade shows in the industry and the marketplace provides a unique format that allows you to get in front of the newest technologies and vendors that'll help you take your marketing to the next level. In 2020 this event is being held at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Kissimmee, Florida on February 19th through the 21st of 2020. I went last year, had an amazing time. Definitely think it would be a great idea for anyone listening to consider attending February 19th through the 21st. And guess what? President Obama is speaking this year, so don't miss out. Sasha Jackson: You're already investing in traditional media. Do it right and invest enough so that it is profitable. Even if you are investing, but it's a smaller amount and your frequency's low, I don't think it's going to benefit you like you would want it to. So choose one if you have to but do it right. Adam Stoker: 00:58 Welcome again, everybody, to another episode of the Destination Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Stoker. I'm excited to have you with us today. Before we dive into today's episode, just a reminder for everybody of two things. One, we have posted in the last week, so much content related to previous episodes, especially from our friend John Ricks at Nebraska Tourism, that it will be really valuable for you. So if you haven't yet joined Destination Marketers, I think now's the time to go in, request to be added. We'll verify that you're in the tourism industry and then you get access to a lot of the content that we talk about here on the show. So go do that. The other thing that I want to remind everybody of is how important reviews are for us to continue to be found, continue to climb up the charts and expand our listener base as we have. We hit 7,500 downloads this past week and that's a lot considering that we just started in April and we only focus on destination marketers. So pretty exciting to have listeners all over the world. Appreciate you guys following us and listening to us and we'll dive into today's episode. Today we have a great guest. She is someone that I have known for a long time and she works with me here at Relic. Her name is Sasha Jackson and she is our Media Director here at the agency. Sasha, welcome to the show. Sasha Jackson: Thank you so much. He has 7,500 downloads. No pressure or anything. Adam Stoker: Yeah, you better keep it going. We got to keep that trend line moving in the right direction. Sasha Jackson: I'll do my best. Adam Stoker: Now I wanted to have Sasha on, and we'll dive into this after we ask her our standard questions, but traditional media is something that everybody, well, almost everybody, has to deal with and evaluate and there's so many different options out there. I want to give you the tools today to be able to execute some of those buys or at least evaluate if you're making good decisions on your media buys. But first of all, Sasha, I'm getting ahead of myself. What is your dream destination? You're a well-traveled person, so where haven't you been? Sasha Jackson: Semi well-traveled. I really would love to go to the Maldives. I've spent a lot of time looking at those pictures. A little pricey. Adam Stoker: The bungalows over the water? Sasha Jackson: 03:12 Yes. And I mean, having had a baby this year, any relaxation time seems like precious time. So, that seems like my ideal vacation right now. Adam Stoker: I follow this Instagram account called Honeymoon Reviews and 90% of the pictures are of the Maldives. Maldives, Maldives? Sasha Jackson: I don't know. Adam Stoker: Anyways, great place regardless of how you say it. I would love to go. I think that's great. Nobody's talked about that as their dream destination here yet, but man would love to go. Alright. Sasha Jackson: Yeah. Adam Stoker: Favorite place you've ever been? Sasha Jackson: Just one? Probably Florence, Italy. Love Florence. Adam Stoker: And that was last year? Sasha Jackson: Oh, you're going to make me remember it? Adam Stoker: Either last year or two years ago. Sasha Jackson: Yeah, I think two years ago. Adam Stoker: Okay. Sasha Jackson: Two years ago. It's going fast. But charming place, love the food, did a little Vespa tour, super fun. So beautiful. I mean, it's Italy, but love Florence. Adam Stoker: So you love the food. What did you have? Sasha Jackson: Oh, the first thing that pops to mind is gelato. We had a lot of real meals too, but my favorite was gelato. We ate this one shop three or four times while we were there. Adam Stoker: Really? Sasha Jackson: Yeah. Adam Stoker: Name of the shop. Do you remember? Sasha Jackson: No, it's Italian and it escapes me, but it's in pictures. Adam Stoker: Okay. Sasha Jackson: So if we need to reference it, we can pull those out. Adam Stoker: Okay. Maybe we'll throw a picture in the Destination Marketers Group. Sasha Jackson: Yeah. We totally can. Yes. Adam Stoker: So if you go to Florence, you can find the right gelato shop. Sasha Jackson: Yes. We have a picture with the worker. We became really close. Adam Stoker: That's how many times you went there. Sasha Jackson: When you go daily that's how it happens. Adam Stoker: Awesome. Well those are great answers. Italy seems to be a popular choice for either dream destination or places they've been. I think the appeal is rising for me. Sasha Jackson: 04:54 Yeah, you’ve got to get there. It has so much to see. We did an Italy only trip. A lot of people when they go to Europe will hit multiple countries. We just stayed in Italy and traveled all around and it was awesome. Adam Stoker: Great. Okay. Tell me a little bit, and obviously I know about your background, but for our listeners, catch them up on what led you here today? Sasha Jackson: Oh, well I've been in the industry for about eight years and advertising was my passion in college, so that's what I studied. I'm one of the rare people who was actually doing what they studied in school, but I worked both client side and agency side. I worked on a marketing team for a while right out of college on the client side, which is nice to have that perspective now and then moved over to the agency life to the dark side or the good side. Adam Stoker: Yeah, we've had people on the show reference both sides as the dark side, so. Sasha Jackson: Okay, well there you go. Anyways, then my specialty was account management for a long time on the agency side and then the opportunity opened up at Relic to do media and I… Adam Stoker: Yeah, we stole Sasha. Sasha Jackson: Yeah. Adam Stoker: We talked to her and reached out to her after seeing that she was with another agency. Hopefully they don't hate us too bad for stealing a great person. Sasha Jackson: Yeah, hopefully not. But it's been a good fit and the right place, right time. Media fell in my lap and it's been fun. I've really enjoyed it. Adam Stoker: Awesome. And you've been in this media role for a couple of years now and have been buying for destinations all over the country and other related companies too. Tell me a little bit about your current role, what it looks like and how you spend your time. Sasha Jackson: 06:34 Being the traditional media director, I handle all traditional channels. That includes direct mail too, which is something kind of fun and exciting, ever-changing, and lots of options there with direct mail. We do all the planning and strategy for your traditional media outlets. Adam Stoker: Great. You buy in markets all over the country. Tell me some of the markets that you've bought in so that people can kind of get a reference point. Sasha Jackson: This year, of course Salt Lake, but also Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco, LA, Boston, Denver. What am I missing? Adam Stoker: So, all over the place? Sasha Jackson: Yeah, all over the place. Adam Stoker: Awesome. Well, tell me what the transition was like, because you managed accounts right? You helped people with their day to day and sticking to their marketing plan and strategy. You moved into media. What were the new things for you, what made it easier coming from account management and tell me how that worked out for you. Sasha Jackson: There definitely was a learning curve, but luckily my last agency was really heavy, traditional media and the account team would help with that a lot. So, we'd place buys sometimes. I did a lot of invoice reviewing, which gets you familiar with radio and TV really fast when you're checking spots and things like that. I'm glad I had that background. It wasn't as hard as it could have been, but definitely a lot of things to learn. A lot of relationships to build and you have to build those relationships with the vendors and that just takes time. You don't necessarily have that on the account side. Adam Stoker: Why are those relationship's so important, Sasha, to build? Sasha Jackson: I mean, in my role you have to negotiate a lot, you have to have trust between the partners you're working with, and you want to know that they're going to give you the best offer. That what they're giving you is really valuable. Then, you of course, vet it as well. But it's nice on vendors I've worked with a lot, I know they're going to bring me their best package first. It's just an easier process. Saves a lot of time. Adam Stoker: Yeah, makes sense. Sasha Jackson: Yeah. But then you trust them to run things correctly and get you reporting on time and that sort of thing too. Adam Stoker: Perfect. Tell me a little bit about how you build those relationships? What do you do? Because lots of times it's like you're the vendor, I'm the client, you take care of me. I feel like you approach it a little bit differently. Tell me about how you cultivate those relationships with media. Sasha Jackson: 08:52 It's something I think about sometimes too. I guess advice for clients. I mean you definitely want a good working relationship. I mean even if there is something that needs improved, it's like, I’m not rude about it, but also, I'm not afraid to request a lower price or extra items. Being upfront, right? You want to have a good business relationship and I like transparency myself when I'm dealing with a lot of my vendors. I'm pretty upfront and "Hey, that's a little over what we can do. You have to cut it down or this isn't enough for the client. I need a little bit more." I think for people who are placing their own, don't be afraid to have those conversations with your vendors. They're used to it. They'll probably respond really well to that as long as you're considerate in the way that you say it. Adam Stoker: I've seen you do something, it's a subtle small thing, but I've seen you go out to lunch with a vendor and you foot the bill every once in a while, to make sure that they feel like it's a two-way relationship. I think those things that you do to cultivate those relationships, I think they really come in handy when it's time for a hard conversation or when you're off a little bit on what you'd like the client to receive and what they want to give the client, right? Sasha Jackson: For sure. Adam Stoker: I think if every destination would work on cultivating those media relationships, they would get a lot more leeway when there's tough situations or tough conversations to be had. Right? Sasha Jackson: Yeah, for sure. And that's a good point too. I mean if I want them to be up front with me, then I try to share as much insight as I can into our planning and what we're looking for on our end. I think that's definitely a good point. Adam Stoker: Yeah. I actually want to dive into that a little bit. What do you share? What's sharing too much with a media vendor and how do you make sure you give them enough information, instead of just being an order taker? How do they give you the best plan to accomplish what you're trying to do? Sasha Jackson: That's a great question. I, from my perspective at least, I don't mind sharing when our planning season is and our goals, our objectives. I don't like sharing costs up front always. Now every vendor is different. Adam Stoker: When you say cost, you mean the budget? Sasha Jackson: Yes. The budget that you have to work with. Mainly because you do want to have room to negotiate. I would say if you can see what they're able to offer and then kind of hone in on budget from there or give a range, right? I would go conservative first and then kind of see what you can do there. Adam Stoker: I like your comment on a range because one of the things we're all hesitant to do is it's always magical, right? Because if you say, “I've got this much to spend,” what's the vendor's proposal going to come back at. Magically, exactly what you said. You said every dollar that you budgeted, right? If you give a range, it gives them enough information to say, “all right, I'm going to put together a plan. This is what they're trying to accomplish. They've given me this range. Maybe I'll give them a couple of options and let you decide which plan is best.” Right? That's why I like the range idea. When you give them nothing from a budget standpoint, I mean they could recommend a $5,000 buy. They could recommend $100,000 buy, right? Sasha Jackson: 12:10 Right. If you don't feel comfortable giving a range, one thing you can say, is you can say, "Hey, we're a little tight this year. We're a little bit strapped, but we do want to do a little extra with you." And then that kind of prefaces it to them, okay, they don't have the world to spend. They just have a minimal budget. You can say things like that, like minimal spend, a little extra spend. Kind of set it up that way if you don't have a lot to work with. Adam Stoker: Totally. Yeah, I think, and another option is, “hey, tell me what you've done for a client in a similar business to me or a similar organization that had similar goals. What did you do for them and what did it cost them?” And then you use that to evaluate, “okay, I can be in this playing field,” or “oh man, that's a little out of my league,” or whatever, right? Sasha Jackson: Yeah that's perfect. Especially for those, I mean for us we know a lot of that, that we've done in the past, but for someone who's just buying, they may not have that reference point, that's great. Adam Stoker: Awesome. You've been buying for tourism for a couple of years now in markets across the country. What are you seeing? Industry-wide, what are you seeing in traditional media? Sasha Jackson: Yeah, I think that we're seeing a couple of things. Consumers have more choice than ever right now. We're seeing a lot of media shift to be consumer driven where they can consume it when they want on their own time, which is great for the most part. We have a lot of new advertising options that go along with that. I think you have to be pickier than before, a little bit more pointed. I think a lot of people are more open-minded to try new channels, that maybe they haven't explored in the past with the emergence of digital and streaming and everything that we have now. Adam Stoker: Yeah. I've had people tell me, “oh man, back in the day we could spend X amount on TV, and we would just crush it.” And it's like, yeah, TV was the only option back when you did that, you had 100% of the attention, right? Sasha Jackson: Yeah. Adam Stoker: When you say it's more fragmented than ever before, if you combine the digital options that are out there, all the different print options, TV options, radio, digital radio, digital TV, it just goes on and on and on. How do you structure a media plan that's going to hit for your audience and grab enough of that attention? Sasha Jackson: 14:28 I think it's really understanding your customer. You have to know who you're marketing to really well. I'm talking age, interest, obviously geographic location. The more you know about the person that you're marketing to and not necessarily your own preferences. Even sometimes I'll be like, oh this feels right. But then it's like no, take a step back. Let's look at what our goals are, who we're hitting, does this really reach them? Because we have so many options. You can reach your audience. There is a way. Adam Stoker: Yeah. Sasha Jackson: I think it's just the more granular it can be, the more effective your campaign will be. Adam Stoker: Yeah, I guess there's more options, but you can also be more targeted. Sasha Jackson: Yes. Adam Stoker: A give and take, right? Okay. What else are you seeing in the industry right now? Sasha Jackson: Oh man. Well gosh, I mean in general for traditional media we can talk about print a little bit. Adam Stoker: Let's talk about it. What're you seeing in print? Sasha Jackson: Print is declined over the last few years. I was looking at numbers a little bit ago and it's eight to nine percent drops year over year for subscription, especially newspaper specifically. But also with print it's evolving fast as well. So there are some augmented realities kind of interesting that some print is getting into that and sometimes luxury travelers or niche groups, like print does really well still. So, that's been something interesting to watch. It's rapidly changing, and I don't know where it's headed. Probably not for the positive in some aspects, unless you're using it for some of those specific things that I listed. Adam Stoker: Yeah, I think your general publications are in trouble. If I'm a general population publication, I'm in trouble. But I think those niche trade publications that really have a tight audience that are seeking out something like that trade publication, I think they're much more effective. Right? I think print has a business model problem and the problem is that it used to be that there's enough subscribers to pay for all the costs that come along with a physical printed copy of a publication. Right? Well now it's almost entirely dependent on the ad revenue, which for something where the value has gone down, the ad cost has gone up because they have to cover their costs. I think print, especially general print and not trade publications, if they don't change their business model, they're in trouble and they can die the slow death, or they can try to change. I think trade publications becoming more niche is one way to do it. Right? I think the other is to come up with a business model that doesn't rely entirely on ad revenue in the print publication because the cost is going up and the value is going down and no other industry can pull that off. Sasha Jackson: Yeah. Well and what you'll find with print too, if you are booking print, their rate cards have a lot of negotiating room. That's one advice I would give if you're looking at print, whether it's trade or not, definitely negotiate down that rate card. Adam Stoker: If you're listening and you've been sent a rate card and you said, I'll take the quarter page that you show here and you didn't negotiate, Houston, we have a problem. Right? Sasha Jackson: Yep, yep, yep. Ask for a lower price. Adam Stoker: Great. Anything else you're seeing from a trend standpoint in traditional media? Sasha Jackson: Man, I'm thinking. I mean we talked about streaming a little bit, just people consuming as far as the TV side of things. Streaming when they'd like and watching what shows they like. A lot of cool advertising options with that. And now we have Disney Plus and a bunch of other platforms that are just merging into streaming. I'm curious to see how that changes the landscape. Adam Stoker: Yeah, and how advertising plugs into that. Sasha Jackson: Yeah. And what it does for even some of the older streaming players now, like Netflix. Netflix has had some struggles launching some new shows, I'll be curious to watch that. Adam Stoker: 18:22 Okay guys, you heard me mention earlier that Connect Travel Marketing Leadership Summit is sponsoring the show and the show is coming up here in just a couple of months in Kissimmee, Florida and President Obama is going to be speaking there. I'm excited to go there. I actually went last year, and President George W. Bush was speaking at the time. I also had a great time at that conference. It's a unique format that's different than anything I've ever attended because you have the ability to have a short conversation with different vendors and different destinations depending on which type of business you are, whether you're a supplier or a destination. You get to have these quick meetings and find out if you're interested in finding out more. I'm excited to announce that this coming year in February, we're actually going to be recording a live episode of the podcast from the Connect Travel Marketplace show and we hope you'll come join us and chat with us and maybe even be on the show. Go to connecttravel.com you can sign up there and we hope to see you here in Kissimmee in a couple of months. Let's take a step back then. Let's say I'm a destination, right? I am planning my traditional media for the year. What is your approach, Sasha, that maybe our listeners can glean from and say, okay, I need to kind of follow this same process? Sasha Jackson: I would say do as much research as you can on the market. Every market is different. It's laid out different, some are spread out, some are not. They have different income levels based on zones and areas within that market. For traditional media it's very expensive. If you don't have enough money to blanket the whole market and do it well, like to reach a good portion of those with a good frequency, then be a little bit more strategic in understanding the market, understanding can we zone the cable buy, can we hit certain pockets? Where is our audience? Are they a higher income level? Are they lower? Adam Stoker: Can I stop you? Is that okay? You mentioned zoning the cable buy, and I don't know that, maybe some of our clients haven't explored cable. So what advantages like zoning, does cable give you that maybe a network buy doesn't? Sasha Jackson: With the zoning you can just select a certain area within that designated marketing area, the DMA. That kind of dictates your TV range. If you don't have enough money to buy, like the full DMA, you can look at certain zones, like little counties within that DMA that you could advertise on. Then it gives you more freedom to do a good job. I would say don't spread yourself too thin, right? If you have a limited budget, just think about more pocketed buys. Adam Stoker: Yeah. I would say a good example of that is here in Utah, the entire state is a DMA, right? If I'm a tourism destination and I'm trying to market to people just in Utah County. Sasha Jackson: Yeah, Northern Utah. Adam Stoker: Which is the Provo, Orem area, right? Well, if I'm going to buy a network TV buy and I'm only trying to hit Provo and Orem, I'm wasting 75% of my buy because 25% of the population's in Utah County. So the solution to that in a lot of cases, as you're alluding to, is a zoned cable buy where I can target specifically the geographic location that I'm going after. And it's not just tied to a DMA like network is, right? Sasha Jackson: Yeah. You can pick more affluent areas that way as well. I mean if it's your own market you're marketing to, you probably know what areas are more affluent or some quick Google searches if it's a new market. Adam Stoker: Right. Sasha Jackson: I love that idea. That's an option we use sometimes for clients. There's a lot of different ways to approach TV. That's just one that could work. Adam Stoker: Absolutely. Okay, awesome. What about, we were talking about your approach and I actually interrupted you in the middle of that. What did we miss in finishing out your approach to traditional media? Sasha Jackson: 22:16 I think it goes back to just understanding your goals. If you're looking for widespread awareness or if you're looking for a little bit more of a direct response, a lot of traditional media is branding, right? So, it's top of the funnel. It's going to feed into your other channels. I would evaluate that and understand, do you have enough Google searches? If you don't in a market, then you probably need a lot of branding. You need some widespread media like outdoor and some other high-level tactics, but there's a lot that encompasses traditional media like niche publications and partner websites, like banner ads, a lot of lower cost items that you can do as well. So did that answer your question? Kind of depends on what you need. Adam Stoker: Yeah, totally depends. I think the biggest thing is you're evaluating a media plan, you touched on awareness and that a lot of traditional media is branding. I think a lot of people want to look at a media plan holistically and they want to say, I want to be able to identify what every single media channel we used drove. So, if it's billboards, I want to know what our ROI was on billboards. If it's TV, I want to know our ROI on TV. Tell me how you look at that. Because I know some of these channels are very difficult to measure. Right? Sasha Jackson: Definitely. This is the golden question for traditional media that everybody wants to know. There are some ways you can track so we'll talk about that first. If you have good insight into your Google analytics, I would use that as much as you can to pair up with when your traditional campaigns are running to see if you find an increase in organic search online. If people are going to Google and searching for you and it's spiking during the time that your traditional media is live, that's a good sign that you are receiving a lot more awareness and people are wanting to find out more about you from your traditional media campaigns. It could be from other factors as well, but definitely lining up those flights to see what the trends are like in your Google analytics can help that. Also with some other media like print and even sometimes on billboard, but you can use tracking URLs, you can use promo codes. On direct mail, definitely use tracking codes or tracking URLs or promo codes, tracking phone numbers. It kind of depends on your channel, but I would use as much tracking as you have access to. Tracking URLs are free, you can set them up and direct them to your website on a lot of the print portions. But TV, radio and outdoor, radio can be a great direct response in some cases. Adam Stoker: Yeah. Especially around events. Sasha Jackson: Yeah. Adam Stoker: Stuff like that for tourism destinations. Sasha Jackson: 25:00 Yeah, we've really seen it move the needle and usually they're calling or purchasing or attending. You have some metrics on that. But really outdoor and TV can be really hard. I'm an advocate for those being simple branding base, not direct response. If you don't, if you're not looking for widespread awareness, then maybe just steer away from some of those platforms. Adam Stoker: Makes sense. I think the other thing to take into account is the buying cycle, right? Sasha Jackson: Yeah. Adam Stoker: So, you've got the three phases of the funnel, awareness, consideration and purchase, right? Well, from awareness to purchase, especially for a major vacation that we're asking a lot of people to book. That could be three, six, nine months in some cases. I know right now I'm taking my wife to Hawaii towards the end of this year. I'm probably not going to book that trip until maybe March or so. Right? But the awareness situation happened six months ago when I said, you know what, that's our next place. I think the other thing that people have to realize as they're looking at traditional media and evaluating the effectiveness is you can't look at a week after your TV ad ran and say, okay, did we get bookings? Did this happen? No. You have to look at it, in the end a marketing plan, you have to look at it holistically and say, did the entire plan together generate results? Sasha Jackson: Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. Especially, this is interesting, when we're talking about direct mail, when we track that for our clients, I see phone calls come in six to eight months after direct mail pieces drop. Adam Stoker: Right. And this is on products, right? This isn't even necessarily on tourism. You're seeing on, like we have broadband clients that we work with and they'll sign up from a direct mail piece eight months after we sent it. Sasha Jackson: 26:45 Yep. We're seeing phone calls, like long phone calls, some engaged phone calls quite a bit after it drops. Anyways, they hold on to some of those pieces. Same with billboard and TV. I mean, I would say it takes a few different touch points. If you have a billboard up, it's going to take a while for that consumer to see it, to drive past it, to start to get familiar with you and then maybe curious about you and then maybe research you. They go through the cycle and it does take time. Adam Stoker: Most travelers, I mean if you look at the general population, most travelers take about one trip a year. Sometimes it's a staycation and that's your one shot. It's a staycation. Other times they'll take an extravagant trip and go somewhere more exotic. And then there's a lot in between. But it's usually one trip a year because of time and all that kind of stuff. Right? If we're expecting someone to be ready, just because we decided they should be ready and as we were planning our advertising campaign, that's just off. But if we don't do the work up front in the awareness phase, they never make it to consideration and purchase in our funnel, they're going to be in somebody else's funnel. Sasha Jackson: Right. Adam Stoker: That's why traditional media to me still has such an important place because if you don't do your awareness advertising, you don't even get the option to participate in the consideration and purchase phase. Sasha Jackson: Yeah, and I mean, one thing that's interesting about traditional media too is there is a lot of digital emerging. However, it is a very crowded landscape in some parts of traditional art too. But in some ways, traditional stands out and reaches you in ways that digital can't. There is that aspect to it. But an omni-channel approach essentially is the best way to go with that in talking about digital. Adam Stoker: Absolutely. Okay. I got another hard question for you, Sasha. Sasha Jackson: Okay. Adam Stoker: You ready? Sasha Jackson: Ready. Adam Stoker: Alright. I am a destination and I get one of the 4,000 phone calls that I get a year saying “hi, I'm so and so with this media outlet and I would love to have you place a buy in our publication, event, guide, whatever it is.” How do you know if it's worth it? Sasha Jackson: 28:53 You're going to get some kind of proposal. They're going to tell you the deliverables at first. Do not make your decision based on that only. Drill down on getting a media kit which basically will list, I think most people are probably familiar with it, it lists more information, impression subscribers, reach whatever is. You can also ask for, you touched on this a little bit, but you can ask for case studies. You can ask for campaign metrics from a similar client. Some are really careful about what they divulge. Adam Stoker: Right. You don't want to trade secrets. Sasha Jackson: Yeah, they can remove the name and say, hey, another tourism client saw this success. Then when you're looking at online, if you're running banner ads or e-newsletters or social ads with a publication, whatever it is, I would definitely ask for their website metrics. So monthly unique visitors, click through rates, average open rate on email. This isn't something that most vendors automatically send that first email. They send you, “hey you can get XYZ, here's the price and maybe a few metric points.” Adam Stoker: Don't you think asking those questions, the right questions, makes them realize, “Hey, I'm probably not going to be able to pull the wool over their eyes,” right? Sasha Jackson: Yes. I mean because it's hard to argue with data. Some vendors, if you're wanting website metrics can share with you some Google analytics data that they have on their website. But however much info you can get from them, don't be afraid to ask. Ask it and see what you can get. Adam Stoker: Great. Okay. Now a couple more questions for you. I think one that I just want to make sure that everybody's aware of is, what if I'm planning traditional media for my destination, what do I need to watch out for? What do I need to be careful of? What gotchas are out there? Sasha Jackson: A few come to mind initially. If you're looking into radio specifically, there are so many different ways that radio stations can pull their rankings. If you are asking for a ranking report, which just lists, you know QM, like number of listeners per day, in a certain demographic. There's a lot of different demographics out there and a lot of different day parts. So, depending on what they pull, they're going to tell you they are their top station. Adam Stoker: Right. Sasha Jackson: Every single radio is going to tell you they're the top station. You really have to know, say, “I want to see 25 to 54-year-olds, Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. I want to see that ranking.” If you just ask for a ranking, they're going to send you something that shows them at the top. Adam Stoker: We buy a lot of radio. Sasha Jackson: We do. Adam Stoker: We're not criticizing radio as an industry or anything like that. Sasha Jackson: No, I love radio. Adam Stoker: But there are so many different ways to show the data. If you don't really prepare yourself and say, “I need this age group during this time of day,” you're going to get data that doesn't give you what you need to make a decision. Right? Sasha Jackson: 31:46 Yeah. Understand when your ideal customer is listening and then ask for the data in that day part. If it's drive time, ask for drive time, ask for the demo breakdown. Anyway, this is funny, and I mean of course they have to showcase what they're great at and I don't blame them for that at all. But it is something that you'll come across a lot in radio. Adam Stoker: Great point. What else? Sasha Jackson: Oh, let me think. I would say one thing we come across a lot, especially in tourism, I know a lot of you DMOs out there are attending a lot of trade shows. Adam Stoker: Yes. Sasha Jackson: You're coming face to face with a lot of the same vendors and relationships build. I would just caution, ideally, they have a great product that fits your target audience and then you have a relationship on top of that. That's perfect. And then it serves you well. There are some cases where you build that personal relationship, but maybe their publication doesn't fit your target audience exactly. People feel a little bit pressured to buy with them or to spend money with them. I know there's a lot of politics. Adam Stoker: Yeah. Sasha Jackson: Some tourism areas, I would say that money is precious. Use it the best you can. Target your target audience and if a certain publication you're not sure if it does or you know, maybe the prices are a little bit high. Just because it's a personal relationship doesn't mean that you can't ask for them to lower it or maybe looking at other options at least. Adam Stoker: Yeah, the general rule of business is people do business with people they know, like and trust, right? That's age-old situation. However, when we're talking media, the relationship is not the most important thing because it's not apples to apples. You need to get the very best media outlet to reach your target personas and hopefully once you've made that decision, you build a great relationship with that media vendor. But when you reverse that and you buy the relationship and not the actual medium, in a lot of cases you end up wasting your money but building a great relationship. The question I ask in a lot of cases is how close would you be if you didn't spend that money? Would you still be as close of friends and are you really friends or are they just really glad you spend that money with them? Sasha Jackson: 33:58 Right. I mean, not to knock vendors. We love our vendors that do well for us, but it's true in some scenarios. One other thing I was thinking about while we were talking too, to watch out for. A lot of print you'll buy a combo. You'll buy part print and part digital, which is smart. I love that option. But for the print digital aspect, they'll sell social media posts and they'll just tell you how many likes they have, how many likes on Facebook, how many likes on Instagram, which does tell us some things, right? But if you're looking at it seriously, I would look at engagement. I would look at our people like, okay, they have a good following. Does that following interact with them? Are they interested in what they post? Do they have good content? So that's something to kind of watch out for too. You'll get sometimes it's added value like, oh, we're going to throw in two Facebook posts and Instagram posts, which I love, and we do a lot of, but I would just say make sure it's a quality that you're raising. Adam Stoker: And we talked about that a lot with a couple of the episodes earlier where we talked about influencer marketing. Sasha Jackson: Yeah. Adam Stoker: It's the same thing, right? Choosing the right influencer has a lot more to do with engagement than actual number of followers. I think the same thing goes for what you're saying here. The other thing I would say to watch out for is a lot of traditional media have massive email lists. My first question, when somebody says, you know what, we're going to throw in an email blast with this. It's like, cool, what's your open rate? Sasha Jackson: Yep. Open rate and click through rates on a comparable client. How many clicks are you actually seeing with other tourism accounts? Adam Stoker: I don't care how many subscribers you have to your email list if you have a zero percent click through rate. Things like that to watch out for. I think that's a great point. Sasha Jackson: Yeah, no, that's good. Adam Stoker: Awesome. Sasha Jackson: I agree on that. Adam Stoker: Okay, Sasha, obviously we've talked, we've covered a lot of ground. Sasha Jackson: Yes. Adam Stoker: On traditional media today. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you feel like would really benefit our listeners to know as they're trying to figure out and approach buying traditional media? Sasha Jackson: 35:59 Yeah. One thing that sticks out to me would be frequency. I see it a lot where you know you only want to spend a little bit or the vendors trying to get you the absolute best deal, but weeds down your frequency. I would be careful with anything below a three or four in general. Now some markets that you're already established in, maybe you can get away with a little bit less, there are times that we do buy less in that, but, it's very important that you're reaching your audience enough times. With traditional media, you just have to reach them more than once or twice. You're already investing in traditional media, do it right and invest enough so that it is profitable. Even if you are investing but it's a smaller amount and your frequency is low, I don't think it's going to benefit you like you would want it to. So, choose one if you have to, but do it right. Adam Stoker: Such a great point because if you think about traditional media, the real difference between traditional and digital media is, in digital media they are so close to the ability to make a purchase. I'm on my computer, I'm seeing a banner ad, guess what? I can click through and buy, right? If I'm hearing it on the radio or I'm seeing it on TV or I've seen it in a publication, right. I'm not in the decision-making phase. I might not be at a computer. Frequency is so much more critical for traditional media and is still critical in digital media, but so much more critical because people are not in the position to make a decision immediately when they see, hear or view the ad. Sasha Jackson: Yes. Especially if you're getting into a channel that you haven't been on before. Like if you're starting to advertise in a magazine you've never advertised in, you have to build your following a little bit. You have to build that audience. So yeah, I feel strongly about frequency. Adam Stoker: Great point. Sasha, it's been good to have you today. Sasha Jackson: Hey. Thanks so much. Adam Stoker: Yeah. Thanks for taking the time to come on. Sasha Jackson: No problem. Adam Stoker: Well everybody, this has been another episode of the Destination Marketing Podcast. We appreciate you listening. Reminder to join the Destination Marketers LinkedIn group. We'll have Sasha maybe put together a couple of the tips that she went over today, and she'll post those in the Destination Marketers LinkedIn group, and you can grab them there. Thanks again everybody, and we'll see you next week.
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