Building a Holistic Local Marketing Strategy
Building a Holistic Local Marketing Strategy
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This week, Emily chats with Sarah Cucchiara, VP of Sales and Marketing at Tiger Pistol. Sarah has experience with both B2B and B2C businesses, working both client and agency-side for brands like Hallmark Cards, Helzberg Diamonds, Purina, GE, Diageo, Chase, and Nationwide Insurance and now Tiger Pistol, developing cross-channel marketing and advertising programs that drive results. In this episode, Sarah discusses how to put the pieces together and create a marketing strategy for your brand that responds to current innovation while maximizing the impact you’re already seeing.
Tune in for topics like:
00:55 Sarah’s career journey
2:46 Social advertising trends then and now
6:14 The definition of a local partner
8:10 How to take a holistic approach to your marketing strategy
10:20 Factors to determine where your brand should have a presence online
12:30 Using TikTok as a search engine
14:48 How to stay up-to-date with a marketing world that’s always changing
18:42 Ideas from big brands you can apply to your small business
22:02 What your data is trying to tell you
24:04 Local marketing shifts Sarah is excited about
Listen to this week’s Local Marketing School conversation!
Other episodes you'll enjoy if you enjoyed Emily’s episode:
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Emily Steele (00:11)
All right, all right, we are live with another episode of Local Marketing School. My name is Emily Steele and my goal is to bring people onto this show who have a breadth of knowledge around the local marketing space, whether they own a business and are doing local marketing themselves or an expert in working with different brands like Sarah, who's on today. So without further ado, our guest today is Sarah Cucchiara from Tiger Pistol. Welcome to the show, Sarah.
Sarah Cucchiara (00:38)
Thank you, and I may have a new job now, I guess. Maybe if this works out well, right? Thanks.
Emily Steele (00:43)
I mean, yes.
Sarah Cucchiara (00:47)
Well, thank you so much for having me. I absolutely love marketing, so I'm excited for our conversation today. And local marketing is near and dear to my heart because my parents were both small business owners. So it's something that I'm really excited about. But just real quickly, to give you some background on myself, I actually started my career right when Google was launching. So I'm dating myself a little bit.
But I was really lucky to start out in a role where I could try a lot of different things and learn all kinds of new, just learn how to code. I learned about marketing. I learned about databases and how to analyze data. So I actually got, I think, really lucky in my first role. And then my career has taken a lot of different turns. So if you check out my LinkedIn, you can see I have a very short attention span, I really like to try new things and try it with lots of different companies. I've worked for large companies like Hallmark and Helzberg Diamonds. I worked for Title Boxing which you can see is very different from selling greeting cards when you're selling boxing equipment and working with MMA fighter. I've worked with very small entrepreneurs and worked on the B2B side and the last few years I've worked on the agency side, specifically in my last two roles and now with, you know, with Tiger Pistol working with companies who help enable those small business partners. So whether they're agents or franchisees or you know, dealers, just helping them build programs to support those local partners in ways that helps them drive their business. And so that's something I'm really passionate about. It's something that I love to help problem-solve with our brands and their partners. And so that's that's really what we're doing right now with Tiger Pistol, specifically in the social advertising space.
Emily Steele (02:41)
Super cool. Yeah, social advertising is still relatively new and it's changing so often. How are you seeing brands really tap into it today? Maybe that's changed over the past few years.
Sarah Cucchiara (02:47)
Yeah.
Yeah, so I think there's a couple of things that we see or we've seen trends. So one is that brands that work with these local partners have, I think, been really tentative to let them kind of go after it, right? They want a lot of brand control and social is a place where you can see them go rogue pretty quickly. And it can go a little bit sideways. You say rogue to a brand manager at a franchise and they're like, oh yeah, I got that guy. I know who you're talking about, right? So I think part of it is helping both sides to understand the benefits of what we bring to the table, which is those brand assets and then enabling those local partners to leverage those assets that have their own voice. And it's their community, it's they're invested in their community and have those relationships. And so it's really about in my mind enabling that. Social still works. I mean, you think about how much time we spend on our devices. And I mean, I even try to not like, I try to be present and, you know, I'm focused on that with my three teenagers, but we spend a lot of time on those devices and we're using it, you know, I think from when I started, when we were just starting an organic search and paid search to see how our, even our search habits have changed pretty drastically and using those social channels or those social platforms from a search perspective, shopping, a lot of that is happening on those publishers and just being there, you know, building that audience, having that awareness, you know, driving that reach is just really important. And we're seeing that shift that it's becoming more and more important when you look at the stats for SMBs, when we look at our brands and how they're supporting it. They see the performance, they see the relevancy, and so we're seeing a lot more budgets going into that space. Yeah.
Emily Steele (04:46)
Mm hmm. I was just reading a report and this was we were both at a conference localogy a few weeks ago in Texas, maybe a couple of weeks, something like that. And I think one of the stats now is that millennials and Gen Z consumers, like 60 percent of them or more go to TikTok and Instagram to search. And that has like major implications because I think the conversations are still really strong around Google being this like, you know, behemoth where you search. But I'm like, oh, it really feels like this is swinging more to social and just to search capabilities at people's fingertips. So I think this is like more how more important than ever before. I was like you know at one point people are like well you need a Facebook page to be relevant. I was like well you need a heck of a lot more than that at this point sorry you know.
Sarah Cucchiara (05:34)
Yeah, yeah. It's just one, it's one of those additional touch points when you get to think about that customer journey and how do I build those relationships? How do I drive awareness? I think there's some foundational items that every business needs. And yes, I think one of those is a social presence. I think Facebook has got the most, they've been around the longest, they have the best audience. Obviously they have the best ad platform, but depending on your target, it could be one of those other platforms that are also really meaningful for your business.
Emily Steele (06:05)
Yeah. Okay. Can you break down like Tiger Pistol having when you talk about local partners, are you really talking about maybe a franchise business that has a lot of different locations and you refer to them as local partners? Okay.
Sarah Cucchiara (06:21)
Yeah, so it can mean a lot of things. So for like a franchisee or for a franchise company, so you think about like a Wendy's or a McDonald's or Chili's, they have franchisees. And those franchisees can own anything from like one to two locations to hundreds of locations, depending on how big they are. And so it's really about how do we help that individual location or that owner promote their business within that bigger brand. So You know, again, you have a lot of quick service, you've got a lot of fitness, you know, health and fitness franchises out there that do this, right? But it even works for, like you think about your insurance agents, you know, they all work for a large insurance company, but they're really small business owners. So, you know, how do we enable them with the right assets to be successful?
Sarah Cucchiara (07:12)
And then on the flip side, we also work with what we call agencies or resellers that are working with small businesses who are providing, you know, a package of marketing or digital services that help them be successful. So they're setting up their websites, you can buy a search package or a social package or, you know, SEO. So we kind of work with both. So directly with those maybe individual plumbers or roofers or landscapers through a partner or, you know, through those larger organizations that have that local presence, you know, within each of our neighborhoods. Yeah.
Emily Steele (07:41)
Yeah, yeah, cool. That's super helpful to break down like who are those ideal types of customers? Okay, one of the questions I think will be most applicable to listeners who are really diving into local marketing strategies for whether it's like their boutique like one person run shop or like a bigger brand that's like, how do I drive local awareness in a city I've never been in? I would be curious your take on like the holistic approach to local marketing? What are you seeing brands doing today? You know, small budgets, big budgets? Any thoughts around that?
Sarah Cucchiara (07:55)
Yeah, the one thing that I think is really important to remember as a small business, and this is one of the things that we talked about at the conference we were at, is a lot of times these small businesses are really focused on that physical location. And they want that physical location to really emanate the brand, they'll highlight their products, they invest so much in that physical space to create a wonderful experience.
Sarah Cucchiara (08:49)
And I think we have to help them understand that is just as important as to create that experience online. So I really encourage people to build that online presence and really your website is the hub of that. So, you know, you think about, you know, if you go, like I use the example, I needed my driveway fixed. You go to some of these sites that they're fixing driveways and you're like, oh, no, I don't.
Sarah Cucchiara (09:17)
Based on this, I don't know that I want them to come work on my driveway. And that's not really fair because they're probably great. But, you know, you got to think that's my first impression is, is that website where I'm going to pull your phone number or, you know, look at pictures or get, you know, look at your rating. So I really think investing in that website is important and really helping use that to help create again, that essence of who you are as a business. And then it's really focusing on, you know, where are those touch points that are important for you as a business and the type of business. So again, if I'm a roofer, maybe it's search and making sure my Google My Business is up to date. If I'm in more of an inspirational space, maybe it really is focused on social and building that awareness around how do I inspire in that kind of inspiration discovery phase as people are thinking about gifts or whatever. So just thinking about where your product fits into my needs as a consumer can then help guide where and how much you invest in each of those channels to drive that engagement. Did I answer your question? I feel like I went maybe sideways, but did I answer?
Emily Steele (10:14)
Mm hmm. I love it. No, I think like I just have an additional question around it. It's like how do you how can brands really figure out where they should be playing? Like is it just a bunch of experimentation in the beginning to be like, okay, we haven't done anything on TikTok. Like, let's try this out. Like what have you seen brands do as they try to nail their channels?
Sarah Cucchiara (10:34)
Yeah, I think especially emerging channels, and I would count TikTok as an emerging channel when you start to think about advertising. It is a lot of testing. I think there's a couple of challenges that come up, and one is getting those assets. So vertical video is not easy, and it's really not easy for brands that are trying to create versions that are relevant at the local level. So you think about social ads, we have a way to localize that in the copy, pulling in visuals that may be relevant to where you live, either in the city or what part of the country. But video is a whole different beast when you think about asset creation. So I think there's the hurdle of that. Can I get the right asset? Are they going to be reflective of my brand and the quality that I need? And then it really is around testing. Will this platform work for me? How does my messaging change on this platform, which is another thing that's hard. When you think about a brand and like, this is how I execute in social, Facebook and Instagram and TikTok are all really different. And then if you start looking at Pinterest and Snap, then all of those need to shift a little bit. So I'd say it's a lot of testing. It's a lot of testing per channel or per platform that we're seeing brands right now, especially in TikTok, just kind of testing the waters. Like, is this gonna work? Can I execute this? Can I support this long-term? Those are all the questions that our clients are asking right now. Yeah.
Emily Steele (12:21)
Yeah, and I just have general curiosity too on, like are people looking at TikTok as a way to discover locally? And I think the answer is trending towards yes. But then how do brands then meet those consumers searching for restaurants in Arlington, Texas, where we both were, you know, restaurants in Kansas City, which is where you are, like I think it's so fascinating to then be like, what is my strategy to then pop up first and showcase my business to a Gen Z person who might be looking, not just at reviews, if you're using TikTok that way, but almost like, what's the brand experience like when I walk in your doors? Is it is it aesthetically pleasing? Right? Like, because that is a very different strategy than showing like 100 200 or 300 Google reviews. So so fascinating to me.
Sarah Cucchiara (13:12)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, I think TikTok's going to get more and more sophisticated in the local space. We see that as we work with them in our, you know, from a technology standpoint, you know, just the way that they're trying to look at gathering signals that are local and serving local content. They're just not quite there yet, where we see Facebook has, you know, got years and years of data behind them. We're starting to see TikTok focus there, and I think it's coming. I think to your point, the trend is, I want what's relevant for me where I am right now, and that inspiration is around me, what's going on in my community. And I think they see that, and they're starting to build, I would say, within their algorithm, and definitely within their ad platforms, how do we start to focus on that, and enable that targeting in a much better way than what it is right now?
Emily Steele (13:51)
Yeah, I feel like if we have this conversation again in a couple years with you as my co-host, we'll be having a totally different conversation about TikTok and the ability. So it's interesting that we're really just on the cusp of what's to come there. I love it.
Sarah Cucchiara (14:16)
Yeah, I don't even know that it's going to be, I don't know that it'll even be a couple years. I think it could be by the end of the year or, you know, 12 months from now. I think it's moving so, so fast. It's really, that's the other thing is just keeping up. Right? How do you keep up and keep ahead of all the things that are happening right now? Yeah.
Emily Steele (14:34)
Yeah, okay, so what would you recommend, right? Like that's a question, like how do you keep up? As like you think about small business owners and brands trying to like understand where to navigate, do you have like go-to resources and like how, are you just kind of like a mishmash of things you see online and you're like, well, okay, that's interesting. A lot of brands are trying this, maybe we could.
Sarah Cucchiara (15:02)
Yeah, a lot of industry pubs. I subscribe to too many newsletters, to be completely honest, everywhere from the ads space to the QSR space to some reseller agency, lots of agency stuff. That's how I stay ahead of things but definitely tap into your industry pubs, there's a lot of industry groups out there that really are trying those businesses that are in their space and they recognize that advertising and marketing are really important. So I'd say tap into those resources for sure, as a place to start. And then again, I think it's testing, understanding, and talking to your customers. I mean, it's the best place to start. How did you find me, right? How did you come across my business? All of those questions, you're on that small businesses on the front line. getting that feedback from your customers. And again, I think there's some basics that you just are almost table stakes. You've got to have, I feel like a website is still important. But even your Google Business page is critically important to be found in so many different ways, whether it's, I use my Maps app all the time for everything. So that's my version of discovery. But I think that's a really core, core piece of your planning. And then again, just testing out those different channels to see which ones resonate.
Emily Steele (16:40)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's so funny. Just like when you get to the basics, it's like how did someone find you and what are the words they used, right? Like, okay, interesting. You did a Google search and so did the five last customers. Maybe if I put more energy into my Google My Business. And you know, it's sometimes very, very simple and we get so into like, well, what's the algorithm like this week? It's like, okay. Is that really the most important question to ask yourself today? You know, maybe it is.
Sarah Cucchiara (17:11)
I think, and I think we want it to be the cool thing. Like we want, okay, I kind of want to be, you know, I want to be cutting edge, I want to be doing what other people are doing. And you know, when you look at the data, sometimes you're like, oh, it's really just what I was doing, like last year, so working pretty well on that channel, you know, so again, I think it warrants consistently testing, but you know, don't forget about the things that have worked in the past. And I think you called out a great thing. How do our customers describe or what did my customers, the words that they use? Because I think the other thing is we kind of get caught up in our own lingo sometimes. And so that's always refreshing. And that's one of the things we hear and we talk to our brands a lot about is, what are your franchisees saying? What are those local managers saying? What's the feedback that they're getting from what you're doing? and tapping into those insights which are invaluable are really important. Yeah, yeah.
Emily Steele (18:08)
I know. Mm-hmm, yeah, super interesting. Okay, a couple more questions. I'd be curious around, like, as you had such a cool journey with working with big brands and, you know, entrepreneurs and, you know, kind of an, have you been in the startup or space or just SMB agency, big brand?
Sarah Cucchiara (18:14)
I would say I'm on the tail end of startups being startups. I'm kind of usually a little past the maybe startup phase.
Emily Steele (18:32)
Okay, yep, got it. I guess as you think about some of those brands that maybe have been more established on your career path, what are those things that they were doing that worked really well that could maybe translate to today or to even smaller businesses that are trying to take a crack at adding a little bit more sophistication to their marketing journey?
Sarah Cucchiara (18:56)
Yeah, so I was thinking about this last night as I was, you know, I knew that this was coming up and I was thinking about some of these things. And I would say there's a couple, not necessarily on the advertising side, but from a brand standpoint, one of the things that I learned from Hallmark, which was a painful, very, very painful lesson for me to learn, but something that has proved invaluable in my career is just the importance of your brand and really being incredibly protective of that brand. So as a direct marketer, I was early in my career and I was like, well, it doesn't work if it looks this way. We get better conversion rates on maybe this type of messaging, but it didn't align with their brand. It didn't align with the brand messaging and what they stood for. And I would say that was an invaluable lesson for me and something that I have.
Sarah Cucchiara (19:49)
I have taken with me everywhere I go, and I am actually the first person will say, that is not the right logo in your presentation. That is not the right color for those fonts, because that is who you are in all of these channels. And so really investing in that, whether that's your logo or the aesthetics of what your physical presence looks like, I would say that should carry over into everything and just maintaining that consistency, because that is what gets carried over, whether I'm in social or on my website or in my Google business page or wherever. That's the consistent thread through it all. And so really paying attention to that, I think, especially the small business that's trying to establish themselves, really investing in that and maintaining that and protecting that, I think is really critically important. So that's one thing that I really value from early in my career. Yeah, and then I would say the other thing is data is so important. Really understanding, getting a hold of data is probably one of the hardest challenges. Getting the data that's meaningful, there's a lot of noise out there, lots of noise, right? But getting a hold of that data that helps you make decisions has also been one of the things that I always, when I start a new role, I'm always like, give me all the data. I want as much data as I can to evaluate where we're at, what we're doing, what we've seen work. And so I think that's the other thing is just being diligent and looking at the data, which is not something everyone likes to do. I'm an Excel geek, so I really love Excel, but not a lot of people love Excel. So either finding a data tool or a partner hat can help you look at the KPIs or the data points that are really important and diligently monitoring those for trends will just help you get ahead if something is going sideways Or you see something doing really well jumping on that as fast as possible otherwise, you're kind of flying blind and You know, I think enabling those small businesses, especially if you don't have a lot of money getting ahead of some of those things that are working is really important for success.
Emily Steele (22:16)
Yeah, I think that you're totally spot on. Google Analytics alone can just provide us such a great snapshot of like, oh, this is how many people come to my book and appointment page and this is how many conversions we get, get curious about it. Okay, if you can get a thousand visitors and 10% convert, that's very simple math. What do you got there? You got a hundred people, right? Okay, well, do you want 200 customers? How do you increase the conversion or the overall volume of visitors? And I think going into data, because I don't necessarily, I consider myself very much in the brand marketing, the brand essence and how you make people feel, et cetera. So I've never been a strong, my strength has not always been in data and digging in. However, I would say the last year or two, I have been really curious about the story of data. So I can twist it in my brain to be like, this data tells a story. And what does that story? mean, what do we get to create with that? And so I would say if someone's like, just data is intimidating, it's overwhelming, like how do you just get curious about what it can tell you? And like ask people who know, right? Don't feel too shy to be like, I don't get it, you know? I think that's big.
Sarah Cucchiara (23:25)
Right, right. And there's lots of resources. I mean YouTube's a great resource to go like How do I look at Google Analytics? How do I you know, what's important for you know me as a location that sells X? There's resources out there, but I think you nailed it just being curious Curious of what's happening and picking a couple of data points to track over time and seeing is there movement when I do certain things? and then you then you want then I want to dig in. Then I'm going down the rabbit holes of, okay, what happened here? What happened here? What drove this? So I think that curiosity is important. Yeah.
Emily Steele (24:00)
Yes. I love it. Anything else on your journey that you would love listeners to know about you or your experience with local marketing and anything in between?
Sarah Cucchiara (24:18)
Yeah, no, I think local marketing is so exciting and there's so many different things to try. So you've got all the digital things, which is where we focus, where we're focused at Tiger Pistol where a lot of my career has been focused. But I think getting creative is really the fun part. And again, a great place to test. So whether that's events, I've worked for a couple of companies that are really focused on events and sponsorships and you know, experiences are something that we crave. I think coming out of the pandemic, we really want experiences. We're all trying to find a cool place to go. Even our kids are like, I mean, they still want all the electronics, don't get me wrong. But, you know, vacations now are something that they want to actively help us plan. And so I think, you know, there's a lot of opportunities in participating in those community activities and finding creative ways to do that are really important and they really, again, they help you build on those bonds, help get your name out in a different way. That's very positive. So I would say there's some exploration there that I see some trends happening that I would capitalize on. And then again, just focusing on those areas that, those basics and tackling what you can tackle and try not to get overwhelmed because there's so many places that you can spend your money right now to try to advertise. And I think just focusing on those things that are kind of the basics and what you see is moving the needle and asking your clients how they found you is a great place to start. And don't go too far from that foundation, you know, and test a little bit. Don't necessarily go all in, just test a little bit and see how it goes. We're all the advice that I would give for sure.
Emily Steele (25:45)
I love it. So helpful. I learned so much. Thank you so much for taking time to be on the podcast. I would love to tell where can people find you, how can they connect with Tiger Pistol, and all the things you're doing.
Sarah Cucchiara (26:14)
Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn. It's not hard. There's not a lot of Sarah Cucchiara is out there. So just look for the CU CCH and you'll probably find me. So you can connect with me on LinkedIn. Tiger Pistol is also on LinkedIn at tigerpistol.com is our website. If you're wondering, Tiger Pistol is a shrimp, not anything else, not a tiger, which is we sometimes get, but it's actually a small shrimp in Australia with an outsized claw, a really big claw, one of them. And when it's hunting, when it snaps that claw, it puts out a sonic boom and a bubble. And when it hits its prey, it shocks its prey and that's how they hunt. So we're Tiger Pistol making a big bang in the local space is what we do. So now you'll never forget about Tiger Pistol.
Emily Steele (26:51)
That is so cool. I am jealousy. I'm like, why didn't I choose that for our name? That is amazing.
Sarah Cucchiara (27:26)
Yeah, so that's how you can find us. We're online. You can also hook up us on LinkedIn, too. So yeah.
Emily Steele (27:31)
Cool. Well, thanks for being on the show today, Sarah.
Sarah Cucchiara (27:34)
So good to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's been great.
