Ep. 30- Digital Marketing Strategies with Robbie Fitzwater

Announcer: 

Welcome to Digital-First Leadership, the podcast that focuses on helping leaders and teams understand how to master the language of social media in today's digital-first world. 

Richard Bliss: 

Hi, I'm Richard Bliss, host of Digital-First Leadership podcast. Thanks for listening and thanks for joining us again. My guest today is somebody that I've known for a very long time, but it's one of those interesting relationships where you have to define how you know each other. I'm joined by Robbie  Fitzwater, who's a marketing professor over at Clemson of the MBA program, and also the founder of  MKTG RHYTHM. And he joins me on the show today. Robbie, thanks for joining me. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

Richard, looking forward to this. It's always a pleasure, always a treat. And yes, I always smile when I  think about again, kind of the way we've been connected over the years, and just those small world scenarios that we've crossed paths because it's been kind of fascinating. 

Richard Bliss: 

It is. And what's interesting is that we're not in a small world. You and I, it's a small world and we've crossed paths, but these worlds that we're in are not small, right? So for the listening audience, Robbie and I met in Arkansas, I don't know what, 10 years ago, eight years ago, something like that. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

Yeah. I think 2012 is when 

Richard Bliss: 

Right, 10 years ago. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

...I think we connected. And... Sorry, go for it. 

Richard Bliss: 

No, go for it. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

And yeah, meeting you there. You were speaking about, again, the crowdfunding. And so much of what you said really resonated and struck a chord. And I was excited to connect with you. And through the years we've been in touch in a few different capacities, from talking shop on social media. You used to live in Greenville. I live in Greenville, South Carolina right now. These weird connections that I was like,  oh wait, I'm seeing on LinkedIn. You were in Greenville. And you're connected with two other people that I kind of know. You've been kind of like Kevin Bacon in different areas. And then this last year, our  mutual friend Mark Schaffer was like, "Hey, I have an extra pass to a conference." And, "Oh yeah. This  other guy named Richard Bliss is going to be joining us." And I was like, "Richard, what?" This is just like,  you can't fight serendipity when it happens.

Richard Bliss: 

Right? They were completely random. Worlds outside of each other, small worlds, but they're completely unrelated. My Kickstarter crowdfund that you met me in Arkansas 10 years ago. Then you living in Greenville. I lived in Greenville over 20 years ago, so we didn't meet there. But the fact that we lived, virtually speaking, in different times epochs very near to each other. And then that Mark Schaffer connection. That one was surprising because when Mark came back to me and said, "Hey, you know  Robbie Fitzwater?" And I'm like, "Yeah, why do you know him?" It was one of those fun things. 

Richard Bliss: 

And then we got to spend some time together because we've only seen each other twice in person over those 10 years span. And that's really what the world is today, right? It's this digital world where you know people. We don't have the language to capture this concept of how you know somebody. Because  in the past, knowing somebody implied physical proximity, right? Geographical bias. I spent some time  physically with this person, and you and did, but it was a very short amount of time. 

Richard Bliss: 

And so tell us a little bit about what you teach at Clemson, because it's an MBA program. It's about  marketing, digital marketing strategies. So tell us a little bit about that. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

So I teach digital marketing strategy, in addition to social media strategy, marketing foundations and  advanced marketing in the Clemson MBA program. I've taught one class in the undergraduate side too.  But have worked in the digital space since the beginning of my career, since about 2008. So spent about  as much time in the digital spaces as most marketers. And over that time, I've gotten to do a lot of really  neat things. Was the director of social for Clemson University. Was the director of marketing for a 50  million dollar e-commerce business. And over the years I've done a lot of cool things, and had a lot of  fun learning and growing in the marketing space. But recognize, hey, there's a big gap in the skills and  insights marketers need in the real world, and the skills that students that are coming out of school have  that are getting marketing degrees. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

So my wife actually teaches undergraduate marketing at Clemson University too. And it's a challenge  because marketing moves so fast. It's the challenge for marketers to keep up, let alone people in the  academic space. So I was like, I need to put up or shut up, and decided to start teaching a few years ago.  And I really loved it, but get to bring kind of a practitioner mindset to understanding marketing. And  basically my goal for the classes are trying to help students understand what they see around them.  Because they see some of the best digital marketing in the world every day because they're citizens of  the world. And trying to understand, hey, this is what's going on there. This is why when I'm searching  on Google, this is what I see. This is why when I'm looking on social, this is the content that's coming  through, basically so they can unpack it from a business standpoint, and they can view it through the  lens of making a business impact. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

And it's really fun because in so many ways. I have a lot of younger students. I have a lot of older  students. And so much of those digital technologies are kind of their superpower. They get them, they use them as people. And it's just trying to help them frame it from a business context and understand  the value proposition behind the what's going on on the back end. 

Richard Bliss: 

So as you were at the beginning, as of the recording here, we're about to enter the new school year for  students coming into your classes. And as they approach this subject, and as you approach this subject,  I've got to believe that some of the key elements that you're teaching are applicable to our audience, my  audience, and people who are learning and wanting to know what are some of the key elements that go  into a digital marketing strategy. And so what would be two or three things that you're going to teach  these students and hope that they walk away with, that would also be applicable to a marketing leader  who's out there trying to make this make sense of the world as well? 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

So thinking about it, and because again, I always joke that I've been working in marketing for about the  last 14 years, and I've probably had about eight different career changes because it changes so fast and  it evolves so quickly, that nuts and bolts wise, I'm not going to be able to gain a lot of ground in terms of  

that category. But there are a lot of durable concepts that you can take away from things that really help  you understand, how does my strategy align in different areas. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

So the first thing I always really try and hammer home is, we need to connect this with the business  objective all the time. Again, because digital can be measured and understood so consistently, we need  to be able to connect this to a business objective. And I like to make that simple by, hey, thinking  there's... I was bringing this back to the concept of there's three ways to geometrically grow a business.  You can increase the number of customers. You can increase the average order value for transactions.  And you can increase the number and frequency of purchases. So if you double any one of those three,  you double the revenue of your business. And number two and three generally come without an  acquisition cost. And from the marketing perspective, they're not always the best understood, because  they're not always the sexiest. Because again, new customers is attractive and that's exciting, but we  want to understand how to, again, pull those levers to drive business outcomes. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

And that's one of the concepts that I really try and hammer home. And we, through the course of the  semester and through our projects, are definitely something that we need to be aware of consistently.  And being able to tie the impact, the investment we're making in marketing back to a business impact.  Because so much of what you're doing is so abstract to so many different areas of the business too, that  even maintaining the level of investment in marketing, it's hard. But if you can connect, hey, this is why  X, Y, Z person is posting onto social because it's going to do this, this and this. You make that argument  so much stronger because you can back that up with data, and back that up with an impact at the end of  the day, that shows, hey, we're moving the business forward, as opposed to this warm fuzzy thing that  people think makes an impact but they can't really prove it 

Richard Bliss: 

Right. There's that famous saying, half of my advertising dollars are wasted, I just don't know which half.  And with digital, sometimes you can get much more granular. And I'm going to go back to what you said,  those three things. And to use just a simple example so that people are listening know what you talked about, because you covered a lot of things there. If you're McDonald's, the way you grow your business  is, you get more people to come to McDonald's, to a franchise. Or you raise your prices on the products  you have, so that those who are coming are spending more money. Or you get the people who are  coming to add nuggets to their Big Mac rather than simply buying the Big Mac. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

Or you get them to come more frequently. So you get them come for breakfast and lunch, as opposed to  just breakfast. 

Richard Bliss: 

Yep. Okay. So you buy them more frequently, increase the rev... Pricing is one, buying more frequently,  or buying more products, and different things. Now I'm seeing out there, it's interesting because I read  an article just recently about the Netflix, what's going on with Netflix. So they're losing subscribers, but  one of the things that they're doing is saying, look, we're not going to let you have free loaders  

anymore. We're going to add a two-tier pricing. And so in some ways... And the article touched on that  point where you just said, the sexiness of, oh, we want more subscribers, more subscribers. But at some  point churn is a natural aspect. And you want to focus on keeping the customers who really like your  service rather than trying to find marginal ones that are going to just churn through. 

Richard Bliss: 

And I got to say one thing, the latest Predator movie came out, the prequel to Predator called Prey. It's  on Hulu. I am not a Hulu subscriber, but I was for a day. I signed up for Hulu, watched the movie. It's  within my seven day or 30 day free window. After I watched the movie, I went and canceled. So I would  count as a new subscriber, but obviously Hulu's not going to really get any value out of me. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

And in that way, I again, for MKTG RHYTHM, we've worked with mainly e-commerce businesses. And we  see this really, really clearly because so many e-commerce businesses are really great at building  glorified vending machines, where they focus all on the acquisition side, none, zero on the retention  side. But we're focusing all of our attention on the bright audience and not necessarily the right  audience. And if we really focus on the best customers, those are the ones that are driving the most  revenue, the biggest impact. And that's like the 80/20 principle really applies there. Because if we get a  focus on the best customers that are driving the most business impact, that's going to again, result in  more revenue for the business. And a lot of that is coming without the acquisition cost of bringing on  that new person. So focusing attention in a strategic way, as opposed to just on just bringing more and  more volume in. 

Richard Bliss: 

And I understand this principle, which is why when it comes to travel, I just got back from a Triple 8 last  night, when it comes to where I stay at a hotel, what airline I fly, because I know instinctively that  because I fly Delta and I'm a Diamond Member on Delta, that if things go wrong, they're going to take  care of me. I know that they're going to take care of me. And why? Because they're looking down that  balance sheet going, this guy, let's keep him. 

Richard Bliss:

Now unfortunately, the poor family that just bought the ticket to go to Disneyland and had their flight  canceled, and they fly Delta once every two years, unfortunately we feel that they should be taken care  of, but if it comes to me or them, it's they're getting kicked off the island and I'm not. And that makes it  sound bad for Delta, but every airline or hotel... And I've relied on it so many times, that when things go  wrong, if I give my loyalty to a company, oftentimes if they're paying attention, they'll give that loyalty  back. And sometimes it's well worth it. And so that's what you're talking about, is taking care of those  customers that you know are the most valuable, bringing you that business. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

Yeah. And so from that perspective, we have a semester long project that they focus on understanding a  specific business in a specific category, their competitors, what the landscape of that category looks like,  where those opportunities are. And then basically they're giving recommendations on where that  business should be placing their bets. And they really need to tie those recommendations back to solid  business principles of, hey, how's this going to connect to a bottom line impact. Because warm fuzzy  metrics and vanity metrics are not going to feed your family. You need to be again, making an impact  with the marketing you're doing. Or again, you're not going to have the latitude to experiment and grow  that marketing. 

Richard Bliss: 

As you see these students come in, are you seeing a change in perception when it comes to digital  marketing strategy? Do you get people who are coming who have some experience, and they're like, oh,  well I know how to do this? And then they have to unlearn some of the elements that they've learned?  Or is there some challenges that you're seeing with the shifting nature of digital marketing? 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

So again, I think it's really unique because every different... I always feel so spoiled because I have MBA  students. They're coming in with real world experience that they can bring to the classroom. So it's  really fun because I just basically ideally try and tee them up for great conversations or great discussions  around, hey Sally, you work in sales, how would you view this from that perspective? Would this more  qualified lead be easier for you as a salesperson? What's the pluses and minuses to that? Those are  great conversations that we can have and bring different business insights from different areas of the  business into the fold. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

But the insights on digital just seem really fuzzy, especially when it comes to again, some of the more  nuts and bolts, operational marketing, the parts that aren't necessarily sexy. Those are the parts that are  where the gap is with a lot of students on insights and understanding of a lot of the areas of marketing. I  always joke, I have a lot of students come in thinking marketing's going to be the show Emily in Paris.  And it is not the case. Yeah, I shamelessly have watched Emily in Paris too. Everybody needs their  checkout shows. But have had so many students come and think that's what marketing is. It's not what  marketing is. A lot of the real world, real work is done behind the scenes planning, executing, and really  being strategic about where you place your bets. 

Richard Bliss: 

My wife is a marketing campaign manager for a large organization called Box, a big technology SAS  company. And sometimes I'll listen in on her calls or look at the work that she's doing, and the amount of data, the amount of record, the amount of tracking... And I look at her and say, "There's no way I  could do that." I have no ability to do that. Because when I came up through the ranks of marketing, it  was razzle dazzle, the showman, the marketing, the buzz, the charisma. It was the fun stuff. Now it's  data scientists who are saying, look, do this, you get this result. Do this, you get this result. Okay. Yeah,  we appreciate, as you said, the warm fuzzy metrics, but this is the things that drive the business. And so  I think for some people of a certain demographic, I'm pointing at myself on that one, they probably have  to struggle with that a little bit. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

It's a balance of the art and science. And that's where for so many marketers, we leverage data. The  data's only going to take us to a certain point. We've got to bring that creative aspect, to push farther  beyond that, just what that data's going to say. But the really good marketers of tomorrow and of today  are the ones that are using both. And you can find those balance of art and science where you can make  strategic decisions, and then push those decisions farther and really kind of optimize what you're doing,  because you can take it one step beyond what we know works and evolve it over time, because it's the  moving target. 

Richard Bliss: 

Is that what you're doing? So MKTG RHYTHM, which you have founded, that helps these e-commerce  sites. That's kind of what you're doing there, helping those organizations figure out that balance. Is that  right? 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

Yeah. So we focus mainly on retention marketing. So we're focusing on again, like we talked about,  those growth multipliers number two and number three. Because they're just not focused on for those  businesses. But if we can build basically really great retention systems, we can increase their revenue a  really substantial amount. Because we're getting people to purchase the second time, the third time,  the fourth time. And sometimes we can get them to purchase as many times we want, or a subscription  program. We can gain subscribers to again, be consistent, reoccurring monthly revenue for them, which  is really attractive. Because suddenly they have consistent high levels of predictive monthly revenue that  they didn't have in the past. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

And we also can, again, build systems that generate revenue month after month, where they're not just  focused on continuing to acquire more and more new customers. We can really continue that  relationship on. And we see their best customers really bringing in so much more value than they would  otherwise. And we can basically understand how to train them to be better and better customers over  time through content marketing, and through just building relationships and understanding them. 

Richard Bliss: 

And that's really important, is we continue to see customers are more comfortable using that  subscription model now. From hardware to software, which I'm in the tech industry, the market has  shifted to understanding the subscription model as a way of consuming a wide variety of goods and  services. And so it's becoming easier and easier for a company to not have to educate their audience  that, hey, the subscription model, let me explain what that means, renting software in the early days. But almost every business now can think of some aspect of that e-commerce, of that subscription model  of something that they're providing. Is that fairly accurate? 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

Yeah. And where it's really fascinating is just going through the thought experiment of, hey, what if we  were a SAS based company? How would we look at our business? If I sell children's clothing, what is the  repurchase rate that somebody's going to have to buy children's clothing? Again, kids are growing every  three months, from three month onesies to six month onesies, to nine month onesies. You know there's  going to be some natural repurchase rate in there. So planning for that and really diving into that  thought process of thinking, hey, how do I minimize the churn in my audience so I can retain them over  time. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

And basically once we've gotten them to purchase, we just need to maintain that relationship and  maintain their attention, because they're going to need to purchase this eventually. And if we're adding  value beyond the transaction, we're going to be the first people they're purchasing from, and it's going  to make it a lot easier. So we don't commoditize our business. We separate ourselves and differentiate  ourselves. And I'm always joking, we're never going to out scale the giants in our space, but we can out  human them. And that's where we can really make an impact. And that's what can make a difference for  us. 

Richard Bliss: 

And what's nice about that example is that there's no shortage of new humans being made. So that's a  built in. Onesies is a built in business. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

Yeah. And they destroy them so fast. 

Richard Bliss: 

They do. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

And it's kind of hilarious because it's 

Richard Bliss: 

It's awesome. Which is why I think Disney Plus is doing so well on the streaming wars because they have  a built in audience that never ages out, new kids, new people. And they've just done such a great job of  taking on Netflix with that. So I'm just fascinated by what I'm seeing on the streaming news. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

Disney Plus is not a necessary purchase. It's basically just a tax on anybody with children. 

Richard Bliss: 

Absolutely. Disney Plus is a must have. It just goes right in there with diapers.

Robbie Fitzwater: 

You've just got to pay for it. You've got to just do it. 

Richard Bliss: 

Hey, for people to be able to find MKTG RHYTHM, I'm going to just give you the website is M-K-T-G,  short for marketing. And then rhythm, R-H-Y-T-H-M.com. One of the most commonly misspelled words  in the English language Robbie. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

So going back, I wanted to call out. Yeah, we want to teach our clients. So making it feel like a course,  like MKTG, again is putting my professorial hat on. I wanted to do that. And then rhythm, we always  focus on building a rhythm. It's a consistency as opposed to intensity that really drives growth for so  many of our clients. And so much of what we really preach. And connecting those two. And if in  hindsight, I almost wish I could go back and like, hey, this could be easier to spell and to make it easier  for people to find, but it is what it is [inaudible 00:21:10]. 

Richard Bliss: 

Yeah. It is what it is. We'll send it out and make sure that our audience can listen to it. Robbie, it is  always a pleasure to have you on the show to chat and talk with you. And hopefully I'm going to be able  to see you later on this year if I stop into Greenville. So that's the plan. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

Yeah. Or yeah. And I'm sure if nothing else we will be seeing each other in the next little bit. I have no  doubt. It won't be too long. 

Richard Bliss: 

I'm thinking if I go in for a root canal, you're going to be in the chair next to me for some random reason.  I think it's just going to be dis 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

"Who is that?" 

Richard Bliss: 

"Hey Robbie." 

Richard Bliss: 

Hey, it's been great Robbie. Thanks for joining me. 

Robbie Fitzwater: 

Richard, you have a good one. It's been a treat. Thank you. 

Richard Bliss: 

You've been listening to Digital-First Leadership. My guest has been Robbie Fitzwater, who is a professor  of marketing MBA program at Clemson University and founder of MKTG RHYTHM. And we've been talking about marketing strategies and what's going on out there, and particularly SAS and the  subscription model, and a whole variety of other things. Hopefully you found it helpful and interesting, I  always do. Thanks for listening. Take care. 

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