Unpacking Evolving Marketing Channels Landscape with Nico Dato, EVP Marketing, Podium
You may not need to invest any marketing dollars in a new Tiktok channel. If you’re like Nico Dato, the Executive Vice President of Marketing at Podium, you’re thinking about the best ways to not only get the attention that those new well-known channels bring, but also gain the trust of SMBs in order to win them over as clients. But the reality is, there is no right or wrong answer to where you spend your ad budget. The truth is, the only thing that actually matters is what’s performing.
The channel mix is evolving every day and it’s important to think about where your clients are and develop a relationship with them, and second, stay abreast of third-party apps that are emerging as new marketing platforms in the U.S.
“We do a ton of trade shows, which is something that not a lot of people do. We do a lot of direct mail,” Dato said. “We do radio; we do everything you can imagine. For us, it takes three or four touches on average to get someone’s attention in the way that we want. A lot of times that comes from a combination of digital, traditional, radio, print… We’re marketing and selling to plumbers, insurance agents, car dealers, and, and people who are out there physically working in the real world all day long. Like what a lot of people don’t realize about Podium is, if I’m selling to an HVAC contractor, like most times they’re like checking out Podium at like nine 30 at night, because they were fixing air conditioners all day, or unclogging toilets, Making sure we get that right channel mix is critical. [Conversions are] They’re not always going to come via Google search.”
Because of his years of experience at Podium and watching the company grow from seven to over 1,000, Dato has developed a sense of keeping the right priorities when hiring and scaling teams.
“My hiring mantra has always been to hire people, not for the role, but you need to find the right person. I would rather take a longer amount of time finding the right person than having to restart in three months or six months or, or whatever it is. My intent is to find the right person for the role and, and know that the longer-term impact of finding the right person is going to be much greater than filling the short-term need. That may just be a two or three-week difference.”
Dato peels back the curtain into how Dato has transformed himself from a marketer to a marketing leader. Staying on top of all marketing channels, new and old, is how he stays on the cutting edge. To hear more from Nico and Podium, make sure you check out the full episode of Marketing Trends!
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