BSK Strategies Advertising & Marketing Principles
BSK Strategies, a marketing consultancy and advertising agency, is guided by the following principles.
Start With Your Data
There is no such thing as too much data or too many questions.
All good marketing and advertising campaigns start with data. Data helps answer questions such as: How big is the opportunity? Who are your most valuable customers? Which ad is your best performer? Without data, you can not build an effective marketing program.
All strategies recommended by BSK Strategies will be informed by data. Every engagement begins with a request to access your data platforms, followed by an analysis of as much data as possible to understand your audience, your business, and the opportunities we have to drive growth.
I believe in full transparency of data and strategy. Too often, agencies try to hide information from clients, and I have always hated it. I will show you exactly how much is being spent on advertising, how long I've been working on your business, and anything else you want to know. I will share our recommendations and then provide the details to back up the strategy. Trust has to be earned, and the best way to establish trust is through transparency.
Amateurs Borrow
Early in my career, I watched as my manager copied our competitors' ads. I was surprised at the approach, and my manager told me, “Amateurs copy ads, Pros steal them wholesale.”
If you see an ad that catches your eye, then you should test it for your business. Do not be afraid to test ideas and approaches that are different from your own. Your competitors and the wider market have insights into your audience; you should learn from them to save money and accelerate your efforts. Then, when something resonates with your audience, repeat it and scale it as much as possible.
A good agency offers suggestions and ideas for growing your business. I have taken this lesson to heart and constantly photo/bookmark/save advertising as inspiration to test for my clients. Experience has taught me what makes for a good ad and what ads work for different goals. I do this to accelerate the ad creation process and minimize wasted time and money on tests that are unlikely to yield meaningful results.
Test & Learn
You have to test new ideas to find new winners. You cannot be afraid to try new ads, new campaign strategies, and new platforms. Testing requires budget allocation, creative tailored to the audience, and campaign goal planning; learning requires a hypothesis on what the test will teach you, what data will be collected from the platform, and how you will measure success. You cannot test and learn without both parts.
I have found there are some core frameworks that consistently work for growing brand awareness, scaling a business, and ensuring profitability.
For instance, you have approximately 2.7 seconds to capture a user's attention with an advertisement. You need a message that resonates with them right away and then drives them to action. Many business owners do not realize how little time they have to capture the users' attention and make ads that do not resonate with their audience.
Another example, not all retargeting campaigns perform equally. What I have found to work the best is to have tight visitor windows and messaging tailored to site behavior. If you do not adjust messaging based on user behavior or have a too-wide visitor window, you are likely wasting money that could go toward other tactics.
By having a clear framework for what you want to learn, what you are explicitly testing, and what you want to do next, you can accelerate your advertising program to deliver exceptional results at lower costs. Knowing which ideas to test and which to skip is where experience makes all the difference.
Make Fast Calls
One of the most costly mistakes a business can make is never testing anything new; the second most costly mistake is throwing good money at a bad strategy.
Throughout my career, I have found that the biggest separator between good and bad marketing agencies is speed to change. They do not wait for a campaign flight to finish or attribution credit to roll in; they make a decision based on what is best for your business.
For instance, paid search is a pretty responsive platform, so you will see the impact of your adjustments quickly. Paid search campaigns need 5-8 days of data before optimization. Less than that, and you are not getting enough traffic for the algorithms to learn; much longer than that, and you are wasting your money. After that initial learning phase, you can make adjustments and should see improvement in 1-2 days. If you do not see a campaign respond to adjustments within 1-2 days, you can make further changes, such as pausing the keyword.
When agencies hesitate to make changes, you lose two things: audience interest and money. Audiences will tune out your business because they see it as irrelevant, costing you a lot of money. You will end up overspending twice: first on advertising the wrong message to the wrong audience, then having to spend much more in the future to resonate with them.
My advertising philosophy is to “move fast, and you can always restart”. With a limited budget and a need for performance, I believe I should spend money as if it were my own, which means making quick decisions. If something is underperforming, then turn it off and reallocate the budget. You can always restart the campaign if you need to, but you will not get money back from an advertising platform like Google or Meta. This is the central belief I hold for all effective campaigns.
Spend Money Like It’s Your Own
This principle has been central to my advertising management philosophy throughout my career: Spend your client’s money like it’s your own.
If I do not think a tactic will be successful or is unnecessary, I will let you know. I would rather you invest this money in other parts of your business than overspend on marketing. A business's success depends on a huge number of things - a great product, happy customers, a comfortable physical space, and so many more. Good marketing depends on a good business, and I would rather you invest in building one.
The philosophy of “spend money like it’s my own” influences all aspects of my media philosophy: business data informs creative strategy; the creative strategy is developed into ads and messages; ads are tested in the market; in-market media requires speed to optimize; and optimization requires an ownership mentality. This mentality of “spend money like it’s my own” ensures you get the best possible results.
Every client I work with is managed by these five principles to deliver results. Campaigns start with data, which informs the development of compelling advertising, which is then tested in the market with real consumers. Then, once you are in the market, you make judgment calls on what to invest in based on the idea that you should spend money like it’s your own. I do not believe you can be a great partner without having firsthand experience in all aspects of the process. These principles have all been developed through the lived experience of 20 years' worth of wins and losses.
When you are ready to grow your business, I would love to talk. Please email me at brian@bskstrategies.co.
