In marketing, nothing is guaranteed. Sometimes, it’s about taking risks and leaps of faith.
In a data-driven world, data doesn’t deliver all the answers. Marketing is an unpredictable and often surprising creature.
Last year, a lot of B2B wanted to de-risk marketing. They pulled back on spending, chopped staff, and counted every dollar.
But that approach only works for so long. At some point, you need to get back in the game and take risks to succeed.
On the Marketing Spark podcast, Mano Guiragossian talks about how he has navigated the risk journey with clients.
Auto-generated transcript. Speaker names, spelling, and punctuation may be slightly off.
Mark Evans: You're listening to Marketing Spark, the podcast that delivers insight, tools, and tips for marketers and entrepreneurs in the trenches in twenty minutes or less. For marketing agencies and marketing consultants, 2020 has been, well, interesting. I suspect that many of us started the year well, then saw business disappear, and then saw clients start to return. To get insight into how our agency has been doing business this year, I reached out to Mano Gyragosian, who heads up Gyragosian Media. Mano offers some great insight on LinkedIn about a variety of topics, so definitely follow him. Welcome to Marketing Spark.
Mano Guiragossian: Thank you, Mark. It's my pleasure to be with you today.
Mark Evans: Among the many things marketing related that you talk about on LinkedIn, video seems to be a very common theme, and I've I've really learned a lot from you in terms of how to approach video and how specifically to take advantage of YouTube. So maybe you can talk a little bit about how you envision video in 2021. Everyone says that video is king and that we should all be embracing video, but the ball seems to be moving all the time. What's your take on how to take advantage of video next year?
Mano Guiragossian: Yeah. So, you know, when it comes to marketing, for me, like, everything works. And when people say, like, video is king, okay, I agree with them that it's one of the most important formats to do content in, but it's not for everyone. For example, I do videos, but I don't do it too much because it's not the best format for me. I do, for example, more written texts than videos. But, yeah, I mean, when it comes to video, it's really important, and it's more efficient to do videos because, you know, when you do, like when you shoot a video, for example, you can, like, transform it into a written text, into graphics, and, like, repurpose it into different pieces of content. And, whether if you are doing like organic marketing or paid marketing, for example, for paid advertising on Facebook, you can even create more custom audiences from videos, from people who watch the videos and those stuff. So, yeah, I I really think that video is, like, one of it's it's really big because also, like, people feel you more than when they read your post. Like, when you are talking with them directly to the camera, they feel your passion. They interact with you. So I think it's going to stay in 2021. It's going to be big again as platforms are pushing it as well. And a few things that I'm also focusing on is more like doing live videos. I think live videos is going to be, like, huge in the next year because, like, people are staying at home. So they would like, for example, to open your live video and engage with you. And especially if you are a big influencer, I think people love interacting with people who who they like for especially if it's live. So, yeah, I think live videos would be huge next year. So that's my my opinion about videos.
Mark Evans: What's your opinion about YouTube and the ways that people can take advantage of that platform? You've talked a little bit about YouTube Shorts. Can you talk about what you expect from that format and how and maybe perhaps best practices in terms of driving your audience, getting engagement, that kind of thing?
Mano Guiragossian: YouTube is one of my favorite platforms because, you know, they, like, they reward the they reward the good content in a way like no platform does it. What I mean by that is when you publish a content, if it's if it's really a good content and people are enjoying it, they will keep pushing it for years and years. Like, you will keep getting traffic on it organically without spending anything on it, and, that's really huge. Because on social media, for example, on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, when you publish a piece of content, it might, like, keep getting engagement for day, two, or maybe for one, two weeks, and maximum for one month. But after that, it will die. But when it comes to YouTube, it's a it's not a social media. It's a search engine. It's the second largest search engine in the world after Google, and it belongs to Google as well. So, like, when people are searching for content, that's the first way that they might come across your videos, and you will keep getting traffic on it. And the other way is that there's suggested videos on YouTube, which means, like, if your content is really good, YouTube will keep suggesting it to people. So for example, for my clients that I do YouTube managing to them, like, have videos before, like, it's published before a year or two, and it still gets traffic. When it comes to YouTube Shorts, you know, they launched it recently. It's not available for everyone now. I think it's just available in The US or maybe some other, countries as well, but they just launched it for a small audience to test it. I don't know. Maybe it works. Maybe it's, it will find some success. But in my personal opinion, I think people are not on YouTube for those type of videos. People are on YouTube to for now, I mean, they are used to watch longer videos, and it's not it's not a social media platform. That's why I think, like, it won't be convenient for people to watch such videos on YouTube. And especially, like, now, like, many platforms are doing that, including TikTok was the first one, and then Instagram launched its reels, now YouTube, and maybe we can see in the future more companies doing it. I think so. It's not something different. In my personal opinion, it it might work, but I think it won't find a huge success. But again, no one knows like.
Mark Evans: One of the things I wanted to talk to you about when it comes to video is video on LinkedIn. You and I are people who like publishing text. I do I do some videos. I just don't find that they get the same engagement when I when I do them on LinkedIn. What's your take about videos on LinkedIn? A lot of people do do them really well, like some a marketer like Chris Walker. Are they effective? And if so, what kind of videos should people be doing on LinkedIn?
Mano Guiragossian: Yeah. It's definitely effective. And, you know, like, the engagement you are getting on video, for me, it's more quality engagement than text. And let me tell you why. Because when you are seeing, like, in your dashboard that, let's say, 500 people are watching your videos, they actually watched it. They spent time on it. But when you take for example, a written text might get 2,000 reach on it, but it doesn't mean that those 2,000 people spend the same time, like, they spent to watch your videos. I mean, like, reading your text might take from them maybe one or not even one minute, but your videos might be three minutes, four minutes. And if they are actually con continuing watching it and if they are completing it, it means, like, you are filtering your audience. You are getting more quality traffic from videos. So if you have a call to action at the end of your video and call to action at at the end of your written text and you get traffic from both those pieces of content, the traffic you will get from videos, I think it's more of a quality traffic than the one you will get from written text because actually those people spend more time within you. And the same way, like, example, everyone tells the audience you get from podcasting are more high quality audience for you because those people are loyal to you and they are spending more time listening to you. So the video works for sure, definitely, but, again, it doesn't work for everyone. So if you are good at it, of course, do it. If you are not so good at it, you might find, like, your best format. For example, you might do photos. You might do, I don't know, audio, written text, or something else.
Mark Evans: So while we're going down the LinkedIn rabbit hole, the other thing that I wanna talk to you about is LinkedIn Stories. So I haven't used them very much. Although last week, I did a little bit of experimentation to see what kind of engagement I could get. And to be honest with you, it was at best minimal. I you know, maybe I got on one post, I may have got, you know, 25 views, but I I didn't see the ROI, and and I still don't understand why people would use LinkedIn stories. It definitely would work on an Instagram or Snapchat, but LinkedIn strikes me as a different beast. Do have any thoughts about LinkedIn stories?
Mano Guiragossian: Yeah. I didn't spend too much time on it, but I think it works. You know? It doesn't work to attract new audience to you, like new followers. Maybe for some people, it works for that specific objective as well. But for me, I did it for a for a, like, short time, the same way you mentioned, like, I didn't get too many views on it. But, you know, one thing that I would use stories for is not to attract new follower, but to engage my existing followers and audience and to warm them up if I'm going to sell them something. For example, as I provide marketing services, for example, I share in my stories some of my stats from my clients. Like, if I work for some clients, I shared some pics from the dashboard to show them the stats that I got for my clients. It's something that I don't like to post about because it's not a piece of content. I mean, I just like to do it, in a quick way in stories. So it's a way to engage your followers with you and at the same time warm them up to prepare them, like, to buy from you later in the future. So, actually, you can use it. I think I I there's no single feature that I hate on on, any platform. I like all the features. And if I don't like it, I just don't use it. So there's no reason, like, to hate it. I think I think you can find some interesting ways to use it. And if not, you are not losing anything. It's there, and it's for free.
Mark Evans: Well, the other thing that a lot of marketers have embraced this year is content. We've all become publishers, and brands that were publishing before are publishing even more content, and brands that weren't really into content marketing have jumped on the bandwagon. What have you seen from your clients? And and maybe you can talk about best practices as far as making your content stand out because there's so much content these days that it's hard for any of it to capture the attention. Any thoughts about that?
Mano Guiragossian: Yeah. Sure. So, the best way to stand out is to actually, like, like, be, like, be attentive to the audience's behavior. For example, now during the COVID, the pandemic, you know, many companies, as you saw, that started posting content about what to do during the lockdown and this stuff. So, actually, that's smart because, you know, you don't have always to talk about your product. Even no matter what you sell, always talk about the customer's problems, and then engage with them and build that relationship, and then start talking about your product. So one of the things I'm doing currently for my client is no matter what product they sell, I always, for the first, like, for the first phase of my content, I always talk about, some different stuff, which might not be related to their products, but it would, it would, like, attract the the right type of audience to their page or brand, which might buy from them in the future. And, for example, for some of the brands, we do some funny memes, for example, which attracts the right type of audience for them. So, for example, if we are selling a fashion product, let's sell, let's say we do funny memes about fashion, so only people who are interested in fashion products would understand those memes and engage with it. And in this way, like, we attracted more people to the page and brand, but we didn't sell them anything yet. And in the second stage, we'll start, like, introducing them our brand or talking about our features and products. So, yeah, I think everyone is talking about their products, but no one is, like, producing engaging content. I'm talking about brands specifically. So no one is, like, producing content, which is, like, talking to the audience's problems and what they face in their daily lives. Everyone is busy talking about their own products.
Mark Evans: Yeah. It's easy to be product focused because we're all desperate to attract the attention of potential prospects and really start to deliver value in terms of how they may be able to help them. So that's really great insight. I do wanna ask you about I do wanna ask you what it's been like to run an agency this year and and how you're how it's been different to work with clients and vice versa. But maybe we could start by giving me an explanation of what your agency does.
Mano Guiragossian: Yeah. So currently, we work with, ecommerce businesses, and we have some, personal brands that we work with. We mainly provide Facebook advertising services to help those brands generate more leads and sales through Facebook advertising. And on the other side, we do content marketing, like content strategies, distribution systems, or social media managing. So, basically, those are the two main services we provide. And if our relationship with the client is successful, we offer them more services like email marketing and YouTube management as well. So but mainly, start working with, those two services, Facebook advertising and content. On the other side, I do some consulting as well. I help, people who are willing to start a new YouTube channel to, like, give them, insights about YouTube, how to leverage the algorithm, how to start their channel the right way so to get, their videos suggested, by YouTube more and those stuff. I also provide, like, consulting services for, personal branding through content, how to leverage social media to produce content, and etcetera. Yeah. So, basically, this year was a little bit hard to work as an agency because, you know, clients are looking for more safety. I mean, before before the pandemic, like, before this economic situation, people like, we had many we had an amazing growth in the economic for the last maybe ten years. So people were, like, trying to test different stuff. If you if you would, like, tell them that you have paid this much, they would pay it. For example, if you ask them for a, let's say, for a payment, they would, like, do it just to test it and test your services. But now they are more, like, not willing to take risks because of the economic situation. They are, like, trying to go for something which is, like, where they have guaranteed results. And that's really hard in marketing because you can't guarantee anything in marketing. Like, you have to always test something. You have to lose money. You have to do different stuff until you find what's working. So that's been one of the hardest thing, to convince, like, business owners or brands to do it because of the risks they will face. But, I mean, when you educate your clients about it, when you tell them that mark that's how marketing works and you explain them everything, and you have to build this trust with them. For example, we started, like, providing processes through PDF files. We started doing more demo calls with them to show them what we have done for different brands or what we can do for them. We started offering some free tests to them so they will be, like, more, they will feel that safety in them to work with us.
Mark Evans: So it sounds like you've got a lot of people who previously would have jumped into marketing, would have been happy to launch campaigns and become a a long term client, but now there's maybe some skepticism. Perhaps they wanna see examples of ROI. They're looking for results. They're looking for fast results because every marketing dollar counts these days. So how has it been to actually turn prospects into customers? Like, how long does it take, and what are the things that you've had to do to ensure people that they're gonna get good service, that their marketing is gonna work, and if they make the investment, they're going to get ROI?
Mano Guiragossian: Yeah. You know, it depends on the client. For example, I have clients that I close them within two or three days, and I also have some clients that I have been, like, disnegotiating with them for months. And after that, they, like, start working with us. So it depends on the client. But the average is if if it's a new client, it's from one to two weeks for us. And at the same time, it depends on what the services they will take from us. For example, when it comes to something which is simple and they don't have, like, big payments to do for us, it doesn't require a lot of thinking from them, so it would be faster. But if it's something for long term, for example, we provide Facebook advertising for ecommerce businesses, and there are companies that we have been working with for over, like, a year now, and, they invest, like, monthly 10 to $20,000 in ad spends. For those type of clients, it would take a little bit longer because they are they are, like, going to a little bit of risks. They are investing more money, and our fees are higher for those clients. So it requires a lot of thinking for them, lot of negotiations. So for those clients, it would take longer. But if it's something, for example, I get too many, consulting clients, so I can consult them in terms of content and personal branding, those clients won't take too long. Like, they like, they ask few questions and how the program will go and what about the sessions and those stuff, and it would take few days to them to consider that.
Mark Evans: Now I know you get asked this question a lot, but you've got a very interesting background. Your personal is really fascinating. A lot of challenges and ups and downs. Maybe you can give me a snapshot of where you've come from and and where you're at now because it's I I find the personal stories to be the most interesting because entrepreneurs come from, these days, come from anywhere and everywhere. And even the fact that we're talking and we're doing this podcast demonstrates that we live in a global economy where connecting with people has been easier than ever. So I'd be interested in a little bit about you and and where you're at now.
Mano Guiragossian: Yeah. So I was born in Syria. I'm Armenian, but I was born in Syria. And in 2014, I had to immigrate from Syria to Armenia because of the war, and I came here to Armenia. Now I'm living in Armenia as well. And when I came here in Armenia, it was too hard for me. I didn't know English. English is is not my native language. I used to speak Armenian and Arabic in Syria. So I came here. I had to learn a new language. I didn't know anything about marketing. I had to go work for free for six months just to learn marketing. And then when I got into the, marketing world, I started working for one of the agencies here in Armenia, and there I learned everything. And after I had, like, great results there, they promoted me to lead the marketing team in that company, and I worked there for three years. I led over a 10 per people team there. And after that, I decided to launch my own agency after, like, I had more than three years of experience in the area, and I had amazing results. And past year, like, we did over $1,000,000 in sales for different companies. And we know what's interesting, like, in 2000 from 2014 to 2017, I didn't know English. I didn't know anything about marketing. And after that to now, all my clients, like, 90% of my clients are from The US, Canada, and those countries. And it's really interesting. Like, I live in Armenia, I don't have clients from from Armenia. I work, with people, like, from The US and Canada. As you mentioned, like, thanks to the Internet, there are there are no limits now. You can work with everyone and wherever they are. So, yeah, basically, that's briefly about me. I had, like, a lot of challenges. It's it's hard. Like, I had some financial issues because of immigrating. I immigrated for three times before of because of the war and those stuff. But, you know, now we are living in the Internet world, and there's nothing impossible. Like, you have the chances to learn everything for free. You can do a lot of tests for free. You can communicate with with lot of people, like, the same way we communicated through comments on LinkedIn. Like, you can just go on LinkedIn or Facebook, Instagram on any social platform, and you can just, communicate with different people and have some insights from their, like, from their experience, build relationship with them, or even, like, partnership with them, and then you start your business. So, basically, the Internet was the game changer for me because I didn't have too much money before. So it was the reason, like, I could start my business at no at low cost or no cost at all.
Mark Evans: That's a really interesting and inspiring story. I'm really happy that you've you've found personal and professional success. One of the one of the last questions I wanted to ask you is just maybe talk about your approach to LinkedIn because you've got a very solid presence. Your content is great. You've got lots of connections, and, obviously, it's working for you. So what is your approach to LinkedIn? How do you leverage content, comments? How do you make connections with people? I'd be really interested to know your your personal approach.
Mano Guiragossian: Yeah. So, I will tell you my personal approach, but, you know, it, again, it it depends on on your goals and your business. So you might have to change it a little bit when you if someone is listening and wants to apply it for themselves, they might they might have to change it a bit, but the concept is the same. Like, the only thing I do on LinkedIn is communicating with people. Like, social media is a platform where you have to communicate with people. If you are there just to sell your product, it won't work. So what you have to do is, like, to continuously produce content and provide value to the audience, through it and not just sell your product. For example, you know my content, there's nothing, that I write which sells something from my product. I just talk about marketing. I just provide value to people, and then once I start communicating with them or like knowing them better, know their business and this stuff, I maybe start, like, offering them my services. So the first thing you have to do is to provide value through your content without selling anything, and you can just, for example, do some sales in the comment section. For example, you add some call to actions. Those are okay because it's not like hardcore sales. You can do that. And the other thing is that I communicate with people through comments. I engage with their content because people are always willing to give back. If you engage with their content, they would come back and engage with yours as well, which will increase your reach. And the more people you reach, like, the more potential clients you might have in the future. So that's the second thing I do is that I engage with, different people, and you can divide them, like, into three types of people you engage with. One of them are people with a big presence on LinkedIn. So if you comment on their posts, they might not reply you, but they have too many people in their comment section, And, like, big percentage of those people might see your comment and come visit your profile and engage with you as well. And the other, type of accounts are the average accounts. Like, they might not have too much engagement on their posts, but, again, they have some sort of traffic there. So you can engage with them, and those people might again come back to your profile and engage with you. And there's a lot of potential to partner with those people because they are in the same level as you. So they might be interested to work with you, for example. And the other type of accounts are the accounts with low influence, for example. Not low influence, but they don't have too much engagement on their posts. So those are, again, people that you have to support. Again, they might come back to engage with your content, and actually, they might reach out to you to help them, in in something. So those are the three types of accounts I engage with. And the third thing to do, which I don't do it too much, but I'm, like, planning to spend more time on it, is to communicate with people through DMs. So you you don't have just to comment on their posts or like it, and that's it. But you have to also DM them and message them, ask what they do, and communicate with with them and build that relationship. That's something I don't do too much now because I'm not finding the time for it, but I'm definitely willing to spend more time in it.
Mark Evans: That's great advice because I think everybody should be looking to leverage LinkedIn, and there are a lot of things around best practices and how you write content and comment and engage with people and accept connection invitations. So I really appreciate that insight. Menu, where can people find you on the web?
Mano Guiragossian: Yeah. So actually, best place is LinkedIn. It's where mostly active. I'm I'm on every social platform. I have Facebook. You can connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. I also have a podcast where you can listen to my interviews with different people from different industries. It's called the perspective podcast. So, yeah, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me, and let's, talk about that.
Mark Evans: Thanks for listening to another episode of marketing spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review and subscribe via iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you like what you heard, please rate it. For show notes of today's conversation and information about Mano, visit marketingspark.co/blog. If you have questions, feedback, would like to suggest a guest or want to learn more about how I help b to b companies as a fractional CMO, consultant, and adviser, send an email to mark@marketingspark.co. I'll talk to you next time.