Viaduct Generation (00:00) Hello and welcome to the Wise Build Bridges. The Wise Build Bridges is a podcast by Viaduct Generation. We are a mission led SEO agency and we are here to amplify and to spotlight marketeers who are building amazing businesses. Today I am joined by Jack. Jack, please firstly tell us who you are and tell us more about Signature. Jack (00:23) Yes, sure. So hi, I'm Jack. I am the marketing manager at Signature. So we are the biggest accreditation board and provider of sign language qualifications in the UK. And our main aim is just to raise awareness and provide education around British Sign Language. Viaduct Generation (00:40) Amazing. This is one that's quite close to my heart. My sister has a year in impairment and has had one for for a number of years. So hearing about this and hearing about signature is certainly an interesting story for me and one that I can resonate with. So Jack, us you've You're in a position now as marketing manager of Signature, which is an organisation that is truly trying to make the world a better place, trying to make the world a more inclusive space. I think a lot of marketing people would bite their hand off at an opportunity like that, but I know that it didn't come easy. Tell us about how you got to where you are today. Jack (01:16) Yeah, sure. So I kind of fell into marketing completely by accident, to be honest. I'd finished a job for a bank, which was obviously very different, not to do with marketing at all. So my contract ended there and I ended up working for a small tech startup that was just doing their first run of hires. So they didn't know what they wanted people for just yet. It was just about getting talented people in. And so from there, they identified I'd be good. for the marketing team and it just kind of went from there really, I fell into it really. Viaduct Generation (01:47) How common is that? Everyone that I speak to, like so many people are like, I've fallen into marketing and I don't know, maybe it's because I am in marketing, but I don't hear that from other careers. No one's like, oh yeah, I fell into video production or oh yes, I fell into being an athlete. know, like marketing is one of those ones where a lot of people kind of essentially fall into. But we have a number of, a range of different people that listen to The Wise. bridges, some high-level CMOs that have been doing this for 25 years, some people who are starting out, some students who want to learn about what it takes to be a great marketing manager. If you were to rewind to maybe five, ten, maybe even longer years ago and you could give yourself some advice in this marketing career with all of your wisdom and your knowledge now, what advice would you give younger Jack? Jack (02:43) I it would just be, sorry, I think the advice I'd give myself if I went back in time would be to just be open-minded and try anything. I think when I first started it was, this is what marketing is. This is how you have to do it. And I did it a little bit more by the book. And then as I started to experiment with things and you get unexpected results, I just started to realize that there isn't a kind of playbook on how to do this really. You can read all the advice that's out there. But really you never know what's quite going to work and it's just about if you have an idea, just go for it and then start to test that, A, B test it, start to narrow in. You can't stick to your guns religiously, but you do have to be open-minded and willing to try anything. Viaduct Generation (03:23) Yeah, I completely agree. I'll tell you a funny story. I went to go see chess boxing recently, which was six minutes of chess followed by four minutes of boxing where they take the chessboard out the ring and they go and then these two people that were playing chess against one another have now got... Gum guards and gloves on and they're full on trying to knock each other out and you can only win by two methods checkmate or by knockout and This there was these two women that were fighting and one was so much better at chess, but she got absolutely Nailed when it came to the boxing and in the second round of chess She got punched so hard in the face so many times that she actually made a massive blunder and I just came to her like I've used this example once or twice now and speaking to clients prospects and say and even just like the students that I kind of mentor and stuff Everyone's game plan is brilliant until they get punched in the face, you know execution is the game and I think it's so important as marketeers to as you say you got it you might you might have a hypothesis or you might be able to like say I feel this and therefore I'm gonna run this but you can only know once the data is there and once you're able to actually execute so with that in mind Are the best marketeers those that are able to test quickly and efficiently or is there some some other element to it as well? Jack (04:38) And. I think yeah, the best marketeers can kind of test and execute quickly, but I do think there's a lot more that kind of goes into it as well. Like obviously from the start of that, you need your finger on the pulse. You need to have a good idea if it's going to work or not, because not everything is a good idea at the end of the day. I think you need to be, you can't be too stuck to your ideas. If it isn't working and you need to pivot, that's what you have to do. You can't kind of get stuck in a rut where, well, I've had this idea and I need to make it work. If it's not working, it's time to kind of switch direction with it. And I think, yeah, so the ability to listen to other people as well, because you can have the start of an idea, but then it's that wider team that then somebody else brings a little bit, somebody else brings a little bit. And suddenly you've gone from having a slightly off the wall or strange idea and it's become a fully fleshed out campaign. And you need to be able to consider other people's viewpoints as well. It's not just about, well, I've had this idea. I'm testing it and executing it and sticking to your guns. Viaduct Generation (05:34) So get your great ideas from maybe what's working already, what you see in the market that other people are doing well. Try and see how that is impacting like the market and what people are kind of gravitating to. From there, hypothesize on an idea and execute it with the kind of other stakeholders in the business. Have I got that about right? Jack (05:55) Think so, yeah, yeah. Viaduct Generation (05:56) Amazing. Okay, so stakeholder management, you mentioned that you kind of touched on it in terms of bringing people in with maybe before you solidified your idea or your hypothesis, you said bring them in and make sure that they kind of on that journey with you. It's such an important aspect, right? Whether you we've all seen the memes of sales versus marketing and how often that divide can be quite harsh. What do marketing managers need to do to improve their ability to improve their stakeholder management? What tips would you give other marketing managers to improve their stakeholder management? Jack (06:31) think the main tip I'd give other market managers around stakeholder management is to remember you're all working towards the same goal at the end of the day. So you've got different ideas or there's clashes, you are still all moving in the same direction or, and if you're not, it's not going to be successful. And it's just bearing that in mind. You do have to compromise. You're working as part of a team and be willing to compromise. I think that'd be the main advice I would give. Viaduct Generation (06:56) us. be willing to compromise. think that's it gets more and more challenging as you grow into your confidence. But I think I think that's a that's really good. Making sure that you're aligned by being willing to put your ego aside and really listening to others. I think it's really good advice. Now, obviously, we as an agency are really focused on customer acquisition. A lot of the things that we do at Viaduct Generation is built around customer acquisition on behalf of our clients, whether that's our or our B2B clients. I know that marketeers have been for a long time incredibly focused on creative manners in which we can improve customer acquisition. So in your experience, what's one lesson about customer acquisition that's become more important to you over time? Jack (07:39) I think for me, the main lesson about customer acquisition is not forgetting that human touch. Especially today, where we're in such a crowded marketplace, people have so many options, they can find those options easier than ever. It is really about that kind of human touch and how you can get them to buy in to the journey you're in. It's not about shouting the loudest or anything like that. It is about getting them to buy in, engaging them in a kind of community manner and getting them to come on the journey with you rather than just buying a product. Viaduct Generation (08:10) No one wants to be sold to, right? Jack (08:12) I think people are very aware, aren't they, these days? They know when they're being sold to, and it doesn't sit with people quite right. People want to be brought into something. It's almost like that cult-like following that people sometimes talk about. It's that, that you need to try and foster and try and encourage, really. Viaduct Generation (08:28) Okay, so what do marketeers have to do then? Because now buyers are no longer calling up... calling up salespeople and asking for why they should go for that product or not, or they're no longer calling up salespeople and going, why is this the issue or how can you help me? They've got information at their fingertips through the mobile phone, but even furthermore, now with zero click searches with AI overviews, answering people's questions right in Google, publishers and other kind of content the value of content from, I know from an SEO perspective is shifting dramatically. We're seeing more people get their answers in Google then and not even coming onto a website like for example, Signature or Viaduct Generation. But with that in mind, how do marketeers need to adapt in this environment? Jack (09:20) think to adapt to this new environment, you need to maybe forget the old way of kind of funnels and trying to get everyone to that end goal as quickly as you can. Certainly with us at Signature, we have like a really long buying journey. Like from people kind of considering taking a sign language course to actually taking that course, it's not uncommon for that to take 18 to 24 months. And that could be due to... course availability, the cost of it, a few things that go into that. So it's about keeping them on that journey with you. So when they decide to make that leap, they know exactly where to go. It's not about trying to push them to that as quickly as you can anymore, because all you're going to come up against is a lot of resistance. And ultimately they're then never going to buy from you. Viaduct Generation (10:05) Okay, so signature, long buying journey, lots of points where people might fall off. What do you do then, practically, for people like yourself, or marketers like yourself, that have a longer buying journey, how do we stay in touch with our ICP on a more regular basis that doesn't make them feel like they've been sold to? What advice would you give to people that have that longer buying journey? Jack (10:28) Yeah, I think if you have got a longer buying journey, you have to really think about the content that you're putting out. It's that content which is going to draw them in and kind of keep them coming back. So what we do at Signature, have things we post regularly on our socials that encourage people to interact and talk to us. And we know that people look forward to them coming out on a Monday and a Friday. It's also about being for us like on the forefront of deaf culture and seeing what's going on and making sure that people know about that, whether that's... new kind of technological advancements BSL being highlighted on like TV. That's happened quite a lot recently. It's just making sure the content you put out is going to be interesting and relevant to those people. So they keep coming back. They keep that brand awareness up. And eventually when they make that leap, you're front of their mind and that's where they go. Viaduct Generation (11:15) So ensuring that the content we put out, people can connect to it, people can resonate with it, and it's actually like valuable where people want to contribute to it and giving them the opportunity to engage, not just. Nice like, see you later. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Tell me a little bit about some of the key principles that you are kind of implementing. British Sign Language is such an interesting thing to market and it actually kind of... me back in a few many moons ago I was marketing first aid training and it was one of those ones where it's so interesting that the people that really want to do it and there's people that have to do it and it's such a varied I imagine ICP what are some of the things that you've implemented that you thought though maybe let me say this differently what are some of the marketing tactics that you've implemented for signature that it made a much bigger impact than you maybe expected it to. Jack (12:09) So I think the biggest thing that I've, I the biggest, sorry again, sorry. I think the biggest small change that's had like a much bigger impact that we expected was starting to narrow in our adverts and really focusing where we can. So as you kind of mentioned there, we don't have an ICP. We're encouraging like primary school children to learn BSL. We're trying to bring in the BSL GCSE. You have older people who's hearing a failing. It's just. Viaduct Generation (12:14) You alright? Jack (12:35) there isn't kind of that target audience there, it is everybody really. Sorry, I forgot where I was going with that. Sorry, can we start that question again? Yeah, yeah. Viaduct Generation (12:41) No, I like it. Yeah, yeah, let me ask you again. Let me ask you again. So, Jack, you've been in marketing for some time now and I'm always interested to find those practical things that marketeers might have done or implemented that they were even a bit surprised about. Is there something that you've implemented or executed on that had a surprisingly big impact? Jack (13:03) I think the biggest kind of impact, think, start again, sorry. Viaduct Generation (13:07) You're good, man. No worries, no pressure. We go to editors for this, right? Jack (13:10) Yeah. So I the biggest small, I think the small change that's had the biggest impact for us was starting to really focus in on our adverts and kind of narrow down where we can. So at Signature, we don't have a kind of typical target audience. We are trying to encourage school, like primary school children to learn BSL. We're trying to get a BSL GCSE over the line. You've got older people who have hearing problems that start needing sign language. It really is a wide range. So if you're putting adverts out there, it's very difficult to create an advert that kind of ticks all those boxes. So what I've found is we've had to narrow in where we can. Like an example I can give is in our last digital ad campaign, which have typically just gone out to the whole country, just as a kind of brand awareness tool, more than anything. So last time we did a digital ad campaign, I decided to focus in where we can. And the way that we could do that is by location. And that was as simple as changing each advert to say there is X amount of centers near you to learn sign language. For example, in London, there was 35 and we put a picture of the city where it was in the digital advert. And immediately the day that we launched that campaign, I think it was the busiest day we've ever had on the website. You could see it straight away. Previous ad campaigns that we'd ran haven't had that impact. And it purely was because we narrowed down as much as we can. Viaduct Generation (14:23) awesome man, that's awesome. I think that location and being a bit more targeted in your approach and supplementing it with creative by getting some pictures of the city in there as well I think that's a great mix. Is that still the campaign that you have running? Is that still running successfully for you? Jack (14:39) So that was the campaign we ran in conjunction with Sign Language Week. So it was just running for that one week. We do have plans to run digital ads again, usually in conjunction with some kind of Awareness Week or something like that. Viaduct Generation (14:52) Tell me when is sign language week? Jack (14:54) Sign Language Week is in March and then we've just had Deaf Awareness Week in May. Viaduct Generation (14:59) Okay, cool. Okay. That's interesting to note. Jack, there's a lot of people that are listening to this podcast that are maybe a bit jealous of you because they're thinking, God, Jack, not only is he handsome, not only is he charming, but he's also... something that's really interesting and doing something good in the world. Some of us aren't that lucky. Some of us have to market something as saturated as SEO or maybe fascia roofs or tables. What advice would you give to someone who's trying to build visibility and trying to really do a good job in a crowded niche? Jack (15:30) Yeah. So my advice, I think if you're working in a crowded niche would be to don't try and reinvent the wheel. I think there's always that temptation, but especially when you have a lot of competitors that we really need to stand out here and we really need to make ourselves look different. Whereas the reality is they are your competitor because they're probably doing something right. So you need to look at, look at what they're doing right. And take all the best bits from that. and then also look at what they're not doing, what or what you could do better and really try and make sure. that's what you're pushing. The saying I got told many years ago was don't reinvent the wheel, you outperform it. You look at what they're doing and you make sure you do it better. But don't do that by doing a complete 180 and abandoning everything that they're doing well. As I say, just make sure that you look at what they're doing well, you look at what they're not doing, you put it all together and you do it better. Viaduct Generation (16:20) It's interesting, heard Rory Sutherland, he's on obviously a massive content train at the moment, I can't open YouTube without him talking about something interesting, but he always gets my ear. And he says, one of the things he says in one of his podcasts is not only trying to improve on what your competitors are doing well, but really doubling down on where your competitors may be missing the mark and really highlighting that key difference. I think that's really interesting way of looking at it. And it's the right way, right? a lot of the times the marketing practices that your competitors are doing is because it's been working for them and you can find ways to do it better. And I think particularly what you mentioned regarding that human level and connecting with humans on a more direct level is a great opportunity to capture that audience. A little touching on that with the introduction or the not really the introduction of AI anymore, right? But the roller. Jack (16:53) you Viaduct Generation (17:16) out of AI, shall we say, the popularity of AI. I think we are maybe losing some human connection in our marketing, where everyone, instead of bringing in five people who have suffered with yearning issues or yearning challenges to create a blog article that leans on the experience and expertise and authority, now people are just like, can we get Chuck GPT to make that? Jack (17:42) Yeah. Viaduct Generation (17:42) What advice would you give to those people to try and make sure that they connect with humans? Jack (17:51) Yeah, I think my main advice for how to, how you connect with humans is to really think about what it is they're looking for. Ultimately, at of the day, AI will only know what you tell it, but it doesn't know how people are really kind of thinking or feeling. And that's where we can really get an advantage over it is what's going to, what's going to really pull people in, you know, what's going to kind of play to their emotions really. As I say, AI, I don't believe can do that. at least not yet anyway, doesn't know what we're thinking. So it's really just kind of, think that's where that human connection can really come in. And as you mentioned, you think that's kind of diminishing with the kind of takeover of AI. But the reality of that is that that human connection will only then become more valuable. If you can really figure out how to do it and to do it right, that's going to become increasingly valuable in a world where people are going to more more skeptical. they're not gonna believe anything they're seeing is human led. And if you can really get that across, it's gonna give you a massive advantage in the next five to 10 years. Viaduct Generation (18:47) Okay, here's a bit of a random throw out of random hypothesis with that in mind with us not knowing how we can trust the internet anymore trust the news because deep fakes and these AI images and videos that are coming across my Instagram of yeah, it's like it's so hard to know what you can trust. Do you think the age of like door knocking like person to person marketing in-person meetings is going to get back on the rise. Jack (19:14) That's an interesting thought. So in one of my previous jobs, I was working for a tech startup. So that was an app that encouraged techies to apply for jobs. It was essentially a recruitment app. And so that's where we had a lot of challenges there with it, with the human side of things, because you're asking people to take quite a big step and you're asking them to put quite a lot of trust in you in what is essentially a big life decision. And you're asking them to do it on a faceless app that they've just downloaded from the app store. And I kind of figured this out very early on where I'm like, we need to put the human touch behind this or else it's just not going to work. And so what we started doing was actually putting in-person events on and the results that we saw from the back of that was, was unbelievable. And that gave people the opportunity to not only talk to each other, but talk to people behind the scenes at the app and kind of start to see that it is, there is real people there. And that wouldn't have happened without those, those in-person events, I don't think. So yeah, I think there's. definitely always going to be a place for that. And as you say, I can see the value of it increasing as AI continues to take over. Viaduct Generation (20:13) Let's just keep COVID away so those events can take place and people can connect with humans, Jack, it's been really interesting speaking to you. I've loved having you on the Wise Bull Bridges. Thank you ever so much for joining us. I appreciate it. Is there one message that you would like to leave to fellow marketeers who are listening to this podcast? Jack (20:32) think the one message I would leave to my fellow marketeers is just to keep going. Everything's very uncertain at the minute. It feels like everything's sifting very quickly. Things like SEO that have kind of been the same for the last 15 years or so and suddenly we're seeing a lot of changes very quickly. So my main advice would just be try and keep up with those changes and keep going with it really. Viaduct Generation (20:51) Well, Jack, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It's been brilliantly brilliant having you on the Wise Bull Bridges. Thank you ever so much. For anyone listening that would like to connect with Jack, he's Jack Charlesworth on LinkedIn, where you can find him there. Thanks ever so much for listening to another episode of the Wise Bull Bridges. We'll see you on the next one. Jack (20:59) Thanks very much.