Welcome back to the podcast everyone. So this week we have a real treat for those who love creative strategy. I have my friend Matt Johnson today with us on the podcast. So Matt is a fellow agency owner who previously worked for 15 years as a viral video pioneer building programs New York Magazine, Business Insider.

Now this and men's. Matt then left New York City , he's the founder and creative director of Guide Social, a video ad creative agency that serves hundreds of clients across the world, including 17 businesses that were on Shark Tank for those British

that's dragon Stand for us. Matt recently spoke at Social Media Marketing World on the main stage. he has some incredible background and expertise in video and creative marketing. So really excited to get into this chat now. Matt and I have run in the same circles for a number of years, and so this was a really relaxed chat about what Matt's seeing in the performance creative space, as well as some really interesting musings from him about a completely different way potentially to approach eCommerce market.

Stay tuned as we cover why Matt is excited about TikTok ads as a platform and the specific format that is working in the accounts he manages right now.

Exactly how Matt uses storytelling and performance creative to get better results. , he talks about the power of scripting your ads so they hit the right emotional triggers in your target audience.

We find out why Matt thinks video as a medium will be the driving force behind most marketing in the near future, and how brands can get behind this trend to win during these potentially challenging times ahead of us. Matt also talks about how brands can tap into the trend for TikTok becoming a search engine and potentially do so without too much time investment.

We also talk about what the eCommerce industry can learn from high ticket info, product marketing, Kickstarters even, and infomercials. Now, before we dig in a little side note during our chat, Matt and I discuss info product marketing quite a bit and how the ideas from the discipline can be used for eCommerce, as well.

Now for the hardcore eCommerce. This might be an area of marketing that you're not so familiar with, so I thought I'd just give an overview before we dive in. Info products are a catch phrase for businesses that sell information, so whether it's online courses, memberships, or coaching and consulting.

Typically these types of businesses sell higher ticket products, which range from a hundred dollars at the very low end, but much more towards probably a thousand dollars and even 10,000 up to a hundred thousand. Per member. Because of the cost of these products that they're getting people to sign up for, and because of the investment of a person's time and, not just time, but their strategy, it's very rare that a business like this would send people straight to a product page from an.

because they're not gonna buy it from just an ad to a product page. So typically they would offer value in the form of free or low. Low cost webinars, online challenges, Facebook groups or training, email marketing. They typically try to get you to take some kind of interest to take a bite, and then they give you lots of value, warm you up.

And then only then do they sell you the big thing that they have on. . So you would've, all of you probably been part of the marketing of, of some of these info product type businesses. We talk a lot in this episode about how these kind of marketing strategies could actually apply to eCommerce.

Let's dig into the episode.

📍 📍 Hey Matt, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you here so I would love to hear from you, what are you excited about in the world of paid social creative, and what are you working on at the moment? I'm, I'm putting most of my energy on TikTok ads these days. Seeing the best results there.

So I'm spending pretty much all the money that I spend on ads on, on TikTok ads. It's the focus of what I do now. Yeah.

And so you've had some good success with Tick TikTok ads you are experimenting with different creative formats do you wanna talk us through what you are seeing working in creative Ont TikTok? Yeah. A lot, a lot of what I'm seeing work is sort of the opposite of what you'd normally see on TikTok, so, It because it pattern interrupts.

Mm-hmm. . So that means shooting videos with high quality cameras and giving them depth of field so it gets a high, slightly higher production value look and. It looks like an ad, you know, rather than an attempt at like fake UGC or something like that. I'm, I'm seeing that work quite well really for me, The cinematic piece is a big piece of it.

Being able to keep people's attention with a lot of fast cuts is another big part of it. And yeah I have tried to test long versus short ads a lot, and the one minute, the longer ads I've always won in, in, in the testing that I've done, the one minute ads have always done better. TikTok doesn't tell you to do that, but that, that's what I've seen, seen do better, at least for me.

It's like Facebook always tries to tell us to do short copy. And people think, Oh, you know, short copy and marketing is good. But actually in the testing we've done, I'd say six outta 10 times, the long copy wins even in eCommerce. So it's interesting, like, yeah.

The longer you spend telling a story, the more likely people are to connect with it. Right? So fast caps and Cinematic. That's really, that's so fascinating to me because yeah, I don't know if I'd call it cinematic, but definitely like, it's clearly shot with a nice camera and you've, you've, you've got depth of field and there's blur, there's background blur.

I mean, you can certainly shoot it on your phone, but not like, You shouldn't shoot it in the TikTok app. I mean, you should test everything because obviously there's people out there making u GC type content work, but it's all fake U gc, which I'm not really aligned with. I mean, I would rather have an actor do like a cinematic ad cause I'm seeing it work better anyway.

Yeah, well shot fast cuts, telling a story longer, you know, one minute videos. That's what's working. That's so interesting. Yeah, cuz we've spent like the last year telling clients and telling people to do TikTok style creative for, you know, paid social for Facebook and Instagram ads specifically.

So to hear that on to it's the opposite or at least it's worth testing. The opposite is really interesting. And I think some brands will really like that because they. I actually hate doing the kind of raw TikTok style stuff because they're an elevated premium brand and they want to appear so. Mm. Yeah. And you, you don't need to, you really don't need to.

Like if I had a high end skincare brand, and that's the persona that I wanted, I don't necessarily think I need some like 25 year old in a tank top who just got out of the shower like telling me what's going on. You know what I mean? I, I think that it's very easy for everybody to move to the middle.

I think if you tell a good story and you hold people's attention I think in general that's gonna work no matter what you do.

You've had some pretty big hits in terms of eCommerce successful ads, so, and they're not u gc. So do you wanna tell us how you've approached Video content, video ads for eCommerce and, and some of the things that you've seen work in the past?

I mean, I think the stuff that I've done that's been the most successful has been really just storytelling. Like even the format that I'm now talking about with TikTok ads, it's storytelling.

I think the best way to describe what I've had the most success with is creating commercials that tell customer stories. But it's clearly not a customer. It's an, it's clearly an actor and it's clearly a commercial. Mm-hmm. , like, it's not pretending to be a, you know, but it's telling a story.

It's tracing the buyer's journey, what the buyer's journey would be like, you know? Mm-hmm. clearly a commercial and but. Being able to script it to such a degree means that we're able to be able to pull all the strings that we wanna pull. Right.

It starts with a hook, you know, that's empathy driven so that the ideal target customer immediately says, That's me. Yeah. And it moves very quickly into story like I used to feel this way, then I discovered x. And then now I feel this way.

Here's how it works. It works like this. Et cetera. Like that's basically the format that I've had the most success with. Yeah. And you know, I think like when I was doing more like agency work on like Facebook and Instagram ads, I was, there was always a lot of humor and comedy and all of. , but that's not necessary.

I think like human beings are hard wired for stories. I was reading I just recently read the Tipping Point have you read that? I don't know. Love that book. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. They recorded their two or three year old daughter like talking to herself before she went to bed

But what she was doing was like telling a story about how her day went and what her expectation is for the day tomorrow, and it was always very sequential. Like we did this and then we did this, and we usually do this, and then grandma came by and grandma said this and we thought that we would go here. And so she was telling it like a story. And the the big takeaway in this part of the book was just how human beings are just so hardwired for story because it helps us make sense of the world at a very early age to have this like plot that we can like organize in our mind.

To help us under, like, make sense of, of our experience. This is good, like scientific proof and you know, just to know that like ever since we were little kids, we were telling stories to ourselves.

To help make sense of the world. And we bring that all the way up to when we're adults. And this is why movies are, are, are, this is why Hollywood is such a big, like we just all always want to not even necessarily escape into a story, but we find order and meaning and entertainment. In it. And so it's, it's a, it's a powerful tool we can use as marketers because it can help just as it helped her make sense of her world.

It can help customers make sense of how what we do will fit into their lives. Because that's what they're doing. Like when, when we're running an ad and then we're going through the whole marketing experience, that's really what they're doing is they're going through and essentially going, doing this subconscious intellectual exercise of trying to figure out essentially what it means to them and if they should care.

But what, what it really means is they're trying to. Sort of subconsciously picture that as a piece of their life. Like does your curling iron fit into their life and. They'll very quickly go through the like little story of waking up in the morning, going to the bathroom, plugging in the curling iron, doing the thing.

Maybe there's a couple other like extra fun features with your curling iron, and then picturing that as part of their morning routine. Then, What that would be like after. And that's the story they're piecing together to make sense of it. And then based on that story, the outcome of that, they'll feel like it's an aligned story or not, and that's why they'll buy something.

So being able to tell an empathetic story that makes them the narrator or makes them feel like the narrator of the story and picturing themselves with this product that's like changing their lives. It can be really powerful if you do it right. Does that make sense? It totally makes sense. It's actually really profound.

I was just imagining then as you were speaking, like me thinking about buying a curling iron you paint this picture in your mind of like finally having nice hair turning out to the restaurant with your friends, and like everyone saying, your hair looks nice.

you, you're constantly like playing out scenarios and imagining things and I imagine something with a curling iron might be that it takes too long. That that might be an objection that a woman might have.

Right. So, But if, if there was a curling iron that had a promise and they demonstrated to you how this curling iron takes half the time of other curling irons. Yeah. So it would be much easier for you to have these experiences of looking beautiful in front of your friends. like twice as much as you do now.

Like, I could roll out of bed and be beautiful in 30 minutes instead of roll out of bed and be beautiful in two hours. That could change my life. Yeah. Like I see how that could fit into my story. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Yeah. So your, your ability to match their story and meet them.

I think as the whole marketing exercise. So you're really running quite a risk if you're just running an image ad to a stock landing page and, and hoping that people buy, Obviously people are gonna do that, but is there a whole segment of the market you're missing by, not helping them with their internal monologue a little bit more. I think that's a good question to ask. Yeah. So if you were working with a client that was selling a product, how would you what process would you go through to try and figure out what that story might be or what that empathy point or pain point is?

I always would like ask what the like typical buyer's journey is. And also like read reviews and stuff, so, I used to work with so many e eCom companies. One I still work with is Hy dvi. They were on Shark Tank and we've been the most successful with them, which is why we're still working with them two years later, just making creative for them.

They make custom water filters built for your house. You install them under your sink, right? And it takes 15 minutes to install. So I asked them, you know, like in one of our first meetings I was like, , like how do people, like, how do most people like buy your product? Essentially? Like how do they come across it?

You know, because everybody kind of thinks they've got the water filter thing figured out with their Brita and their fridge, right. . So so how, how do people come across that? And they were like, Well, most people, the way they find us is they see a news report that says that some that, that they found like trace levels of lead in their tap water in their local area, and they got scared about it and they started googling around and looking for answers.

And usually that would lead them into a rabbit hole where they'd discover, That, you know, we make filters that are custom built for their, the water and their zip code so they know they can be safe. And that's the buyer's journey. And so I developed like a series of ads where that was the catalyst, you know, where it's like, you know, listen,

I thought my tap water was fine and everybody says scary stuff. I mean, literally cuz anything really going to hurt me. But then I saw this news story, you know, and then that kicks off this story of why someone would buy it. So that's usually how I, how I would go about it. Basically, try to find out what the normal customer journey.

and then tell like a fictional story around it, You know, like make it a little movie. Yeah. So we can link in the show notes so people can have a look at how you've done it. But you specifically use actors, actors, don't you? Yeah, I do. I do use actors, they're better on camera.

Yeah, it just allows me to script it. I mean, I'm very big on scripting this content. You know?

Yeah. So, yeah, so scripting I think is important. So actors allow us to write a script and that script allows us to tell the story that we wanna tell with the words that we want to tell it in.

That's why yeah. That's awesome. So we had a bit of a chat about like where you think the innovative brands might go with, you know, using different kind of on page experiences and webinars and things like that.

What else do you see like changing in the creative space? Either with ads or generally with marketing over the next few years, Like do you see this u GC trend just dying of death or evolving? What do you think's gonna happen? Yeah, I mean, I mean everything on the, in the history of. The of of humanity is cyclical, right?

So like, we'll end up coming back to commercials. We're already starting to a little bit, but you know, we'll start coming back to commercials and then we'll go back to , you know, whatever. But I think the biggest thing to notice is just like the whole internet is this. Essentially video now, or it's becoming video.

So nobody really wants to read. Like we're getting to a point, especially with as Gen Z, and you can roll your eyes at Gen Z all you want, but Gen Zers are like 25 years old now. And if you want your brand to last, like they're gonna be 30 year old with kids in five years. So, you know, this is how Gen Z consumes stuff.

They just watch videos. So I think that in general, I think one of the trends is. One, just like creating, like, making video the main way that you deliver information in general, like your landing pages should just be like video driven, you know? I think that every brand needs a YouTube channel. To be a place to like nurture people like, so you're not so reliant on ads and so that people can check you out because consumer confidence is lower.

So we need to like, give them things that will build trust. But yeah, people just don't really wanna read anymore instead of lamenting that fact can sort of lean into it and find ways to do video beyond the a. You know, and build it more into the entire experience. I mean, how many of you out there listening put videos anywhere in your email sequences in Clavio?

I know none of you do. Why not? I don't know. That's just not what Yeah. The, Whereas I do, because I'm selling, I'm selling a, like a high ticket service, so my, my email sequences are full of videos of me talking to the camera. Yeah. For you giving value and stuff like that. But why don't we do it in E-com? I mean, why not?

I mean, I don't see any reason. I mean, don't we wanna see a video? I mean, when you're thinking about buying a product isn't the first thing you do to like, go to YouTube and see somebody using it so that you can feel like, Hey, what is this actually like? That's what I do. And I guarantee that's what younger people than me do.

Yeah, there's a lot of chat at the moment about TikTok becoming a search engine and especially for Gen Z, like when they're looking for It is information. It totally is. I feel like even if you don't want to do TikTok Organic

But. What if you just made like 10 videos, you know, that are just like, like a little bit of customer story stuff and testimonials, a little bit of product demo stuff, just like, and, and, and like with like SEO optimized sort of tos so that people, if people search for you, you come up and then if they see your TikTok, a.

They show up. You know, I think that would be really useful so that you have a presence there. I don't think you need to post like once or twice a day, like all the TikTok gurus are saying and everything, but it might be good to have some seo equity there. I think that's a really important thing. But, you know, we've been saying that about YouTube forever and like, you know, 10% of econ businesses have like legit YouTube channels that they run So they're probably the successful ones. I mean, if you look at brands that aren't allowed to advertise on Facebook, like cannabis related brands or cbd that yeah, they have to lead on content. Yeah, they're amazing at YouTube. They're amazing at TikTok, and guess what? They're scaling with our ads, so you know, we can all learn from them for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. And you in your career have very much focused on that kind of storytelling and

you've got a, like a framework you use I have the hero system, which I teach often, which is yeah, hook, empathy, response over deliver.

But I mean, empathy is really just like a fancy word for emotional identification. Mm-hmm. . And it just gets just sort of orients helps you orient your storytelling around empathizing with the viewers. Emotional state. Yeah, I, I think, I actually think that eCommerce is the worst culprit at this.

I, I think that a lot of info products get it a little bit better because they understand that people are following it to live a, to like live out a dream or a passion. Mm-hmm. , but in eCommerce because a lot of folks in eCommerce invented their products or like they didn't start with the marketing, they started with the product.

Yeah. The sort of obsession over the product leads their marketing to be like very, Features space and you know, it's just kind of like, it's tough because you end up competing, you know, like there's really no reason to compete. I mean, like, there's no such thing as competition if you're really distinguishing yourself in the marketplace.

Mm-hmm. . But if you wanna play the features game, then you're sort. Just holding out a measuring stick with you against other brands. Yeah. But if you play the emotion game and you speak to people's thoughts and fears and pain and desires that's how you can really. Distinguish yourself. So, yeah, e-commerce is the worst at that because they get really like, Oh, it does this and it does that.

But it's never really about what it does. It's about the impact of it. Like nobody wants a hair curler. They want, they want, they want the compliments from their friends when they go out to lunch that day. You know what I mean? Like Yeah. Or they wanna fit in. Or they wanna be loved. Yeah. Yeah. All that's ultimately, So that, So those are the stories that we need to tell.

Yeah, it's interesting cuz so often, you know, I audit ad accounts all the time for people, for potential clients or friends or whatever, and I think so often they're expecting me to say, Oh, you've, you know, you need to like do bid caps or reorganize your audience testing or your structure or whatever.

And it's never that it's, it's what's happening outside of the ad account. Ad account. So you know, the offer, the websites how convincing the brand is. But it's al, It's almost always the ads that the ads aren't, They aren't. Emotionally connecting. They aren't agitating a pain point.

They aren't presenting a solution or a transformation. They're just saying, Here's my product and here's why it's good and it's not enough. Well, I think what else is important is that it's about the offer too and the journey. Cause the ad is just the first touch point. You know, I mean I think that I actually think.

And, you know, I used to run a full stack e-commerce marketing company, which is not something I do anymore. But I think that consumer confidence is at quite a low right now. And so in order to battle that, I think that. E-commerce companies need to be, get more comfortable thinking outside the box, more in their sales mechanisms.

And nobody wants to do that. And in my experience, every time I've brought up something like this to e-commerce companies, they never wanna do it. But essentially, I, I mean, I really think that you should start looking at webinars, and I think you should start looking at lead magnets and demos and.

Live events and direct mail and stuff like that

So everything has to be great after the click too. And in fact, that's honestly more important. I mean, because no ad can fix A bad, it's not even a bad product page. I mean, you need a sales mechanism, you know?

Mm-hmm. It can't just be, you go and buy it like an online store is not, is not like walking into like a rain more Flanigan and buying a piece of furniture or something. Like, it's not transactional like that. It's much more of like an emotional, impulsive. Type experience where you're catching people off guard and then you're bringing them into this and you have to like get every piece telling the right story at the right time.

And so if you're going into a Shopify template and you're just like, Oh, I wanna sell my stuff, let me put the carousel here, and the product description, and it says to, Okay, so there's the buy now button template. Looks great. This looks nice. and then you start wondering why things aren't working. I think it's time to think outside the box with that kind of stuff.

I think the folks that are gonna really start killing it in e-commerce over the next five years are gonna be the folks that start building in different sales mechanisms into their, That's interesting. Into their business. I mean, why are you not doing webinars? Especially if your Prag net product is like a hundred or $200 plus?

Yeah, I mean, I'm talking about like recorded webinars, like why are you not sending people to them? I mean, it just warms people up. It sells, it can sell on autopilot. Yeah. I don't know. There's a lot we can learn. I think you're right from high ticket info product marketing, which for those who are e eCom people and don't know what that is, it's the way that coaches or consultants would sell their There are online programs is by nurturing people for a long time, but then inviting them to like have a taste of their content for free via an online webinar or seminar.

But yeah, why couldn't you have? So if it was a supplement brand, webinars would be amazing. You do. Health related webinars you then build trust around the brand, around the people behind the brand, and then the sale becomes automatic send people to a video experience that that is like a mini infomercial instead of sending people to.

Like a stock Shopify product page and just see how that impacts your conversion rates. You know, especially if you're capturing their email and then you're, you're, you've got your email going and you've got your SMS going, then you're starting to get in much better. Shape. I mean, it, it's not like the things that they sold in infomercials were super expensive.

Right? But they spent 30 minutes selling them. Selling them on them. , why are we so lazy that we think that we can just. Send traffic to a product page all the time, you know? Yeah. If it's working fine, but if it's not working, it might be time to think outside the box, you know?

Mm-hmm. , there's a reason the infomercials work. I mean, if you look and break down an actual infomercial from the nineties or something, and they still run today, but you know, they are like 90%. Personal pain benefit storytelling. Yeah. And they're like 10 plus social proof, right?

Yeah. It's like telling customers stories and like by way of like warming it up yeah. The customers, the hero. . Yeah. Yeah. So why don't we do that? Gotta bring it through the whole experience. I think it depends on the niche. But yes, I, I can think of like a bunch of our clients at that webinar style of nurture, and then Sal could work really, really well.

If you just think outside the box, there's all sorts of different ways that you can sell something to someone after they click. Yeah. So I think it's just about being innovative, really.

If every business could kind of run on that lean startup model, I think everybody would be better off, which is sort of like a sell it before you build it model. You know what I mean?

I mean, it's sort of like what the Kickstarter model is, right? Mm-hmm. . So maybe there are ways that that Kickstarter model can adapt, you know, to more like, you know, d to c own your own store type marketing. I just think there's a lot of different ways to innovate that we should explore, you know?

I think the point is like people always look for like what's wrong with the ad account or even what's wrong with the creative, but actually.

what's this whole marketing journey we're taking people on? I mean, I know there's people innovating a lot in the landing page space for E-com, so building kind of really immersive interactive landing pages instead of product pages.

But going that other step of bringing in video. Or just getting, That's the things leads instead of going for sales. Why not? Yeah. Yeah. Why not build a sales operation inside so you're not reliant on your ads to get the sale? I mean, there's so many different ways.

Yeah. To do this, if you, just to extend the funnel to extend. Yeah, if you're willing to extend your sales cycle out by like seven to 10 days instead of like the, like two, like the one to two day sales cycle that all ads have been running on for the past, you know, 10 years.

Yeah. I mean, like Molly Pitman's been saying for years, like, I think she says 10% or 15% of your budget should be towards other objectives like lead generation so that you're filling the funnel.

Kind of in different parts. And we've been saying that to our, working with our clients a lot on like lead generation as part of their overall process, rather than just straight up optimize for purchase, you know, go towards that fast sale. Cuz there's people in your, in your potential audience pool who will buy straight away.

And then there's people who won't. I mean, I, I sometimes I'll either impulse by by or I'll think for ages about something. So I mean like, yeah, I'm just gonna get that. And then other things I. ponder over for months sometimes. So yeah, nurture me. And I think you have to get in line with the true value of a customer.

Like part of the reason why you see a lot of like info products, use webinars and sales letters to sell their stuff is because the ticket price is, you know, a thousand dollars plus or you know, $5,000 plus whatever. I mean, any. Super legit E eCom store out there has like a lifetime value over a hundred bucks, you know?

Oh yeah. So like how much is this customer actually worth to you? I mean, if you're aiming to have a customer worth at least a thousand dollars, which you probably should be, Yeah. Then. Aren't you willing to like, innovate on the front end to acquire that customer pay a little bit more to acquire that customer?

You know, like does the webinar have to be, you know, cinematically shot? No, a good quality camera and good lighting and you know, a little bit of editing can go a long way and potentially, you know, people kind of love that more raw approach, that feeling that like they're talking to the founder and that they know them now.

So if it feels kind of raw and ready. That could also work. It's more about the value that you're providing the customer before they buy. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. I'm betting if you ask any successful Kickstarter people what. They think like about the experience of their product on Kickstarter was the most successful in selling it.

They probably say the video, like you have to have a video on the top of your Kickstarter. Yeah. And everybody knows that that's like that. And building an email list, are like the most important thing. So, but nobody does that when they own their own. You know? Yeah, that's such a good point. Yeah. If you are doing a Kickstarter campaign, you hire an agency to create the Kickstarter video for you.

And we've actually used for clients their Kickstarter video as an ad. Yeah, of course. Like plenty of times cuz it's such good high quality content and it's like, oh, why doesn't, Yeah, you're right. Why doesn't every econ brand invest in mm-hmm. that level of content. All the time, send people to a landing page with that video instead of a Shopify product page where the video's like a link in a footnote somewhere, Or not just at all.

But yeah, it's not easy, but it was not supposed to. Yeah.

So where can our audience find you? Follow you? I'll put in the show notes some of the examples of the content and you are like You're real that you've got on your site, but if you could, Yeah, let us know where you want us to follow you.

Sure. I mostly send people to mattjohnstononline.com. You can check me out there. All right, Matt, well, I'll let you go and pick up your son yeah, I do need to do that, I guess then, yeah, it's Friday night for me, so yeah.