Leslie Licano With Beyond Fifteen Communications, Inc.

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:15] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Leslie Licano with Beyond Fifteen Communications. Welcome.

Leslie Licano: [00:00:27] Thank you. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:29] I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about beyond 15 communications. How are you serving folks?

Leslie Licano: [00:00:35] Beyond 15 communications is a full service marketing firm based in Southern California. Uh, we do paid, earned and owned media, really full funnel omnichannel marketing services, trying to bring people from the top of the sales funnel from awareness down through consideration and ultimately conversion.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:54] Now, I heard that now you’re you’ve just achieved your 15th year anniversary. So you’re you’re really beyond 15 now.

Leslie Licano: [00:01:02] Yeah, we have some big campaigns uh, to play with that this year because it is it’s pretty great. We were our name is all about that old Andy Warhol quote where once in your life everyone will have 15 minutes of fame. So we bring our clients, you know, beyond that 15 minutes to lasting recognition. But it’s a it is a real milestone. We’re we’re excited to celebrate.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:22] Now, can you talk about what got you into this line of work? How did this all begin and evolve?

Leslie Licano: [00:01:28] Yeah, yeah. You know, I wanted to be a journalist. I was a talented writer growing up and loved that way of expressing myself through the written word. As I got through school, I kind of realized, oh, journalism may not be be for me. And so on the flip side of journalism is PR, right? And it’s the, you know, helping the businesses get their stories heard, using the journalists to kind of help be that conduit, right, and to be a partner to those journalists as well. And so that was the path that I studied. And then that really started to evolve. Right. Pr has evolved a lot over the, you know, 20 years since I’ve been, you know, doing what I’m doing or 25 year, I think at this point and it’s evolved into a whole lot of digital marketing now as well. And so those skill sets just parlayed right over into, you know, social media marketing at first and then SEO services and then pay per click. And so now we’re doing full service marketing, starting with that skill set, you know, that began at the written word and began with, how can I get a client’s message translated in a way that, you know, media and consumers will see value, and also that really, you know, helps them meet their goals?

Lee Kantor: [00:02:37] Now, you mentioned that over the course of those, you know, couple of decades in this industry, things have changed. And to me, there’s been a blurring of the lines of like, where does advertising begin and where does PR begin? Or are they kind of now two sides of the same coin? How do you see kind of the difference between PR or communications company and an ad agency or a marketing agency?

Leslie Licano: [00:03:03] Yeah, it’s really just not serving people to do just, you know, one trick anymore, right? Where, you know, in past, you could just use PR that could be sort of the only, you know, thing that you’re doing, and you’d really move the needle. Now, I think there’s just so much noise. There’s so many ways to reach people. We need lots of different touch points in order to, you know, get people through the funnel to the conversion you’re looking for via sales or something else. So yeah, it’s changed. It’s changed a whole lot. Pr you know, it used to be, you know, you’re doing door drops, right? You’re bringing press kits to journalists, newsrooms. You know, we were faxing press releases. That’s just not how it works anymore. And so that that’s changed dramatically. I mean, now sometimes we’re even using social media to pitch journalists. We’re definitely using it to help identify stories on the on the digital side. You know, we began just thinking, gosh, we could get these PR messages out. Instead of having to rely on third party media, we could get them out direct to the consumer. You know, we can skip the middleman, you know? Um, and so that’s how we first started using social media, was really to kind of broadcast our message to targeted audiences or our clients messages, um, and, and quickly sort of realized, oh, that’s a two way conversation as well.

Leslie Licano: [00:04:20] And so then it becomes a whole, you know, a whole evolution. We added, um, social media advertising, you know, to be able to, uh, get to just the right person with just the right message. Uh, we still want to use the PR for that sort of broad mass appeal. Then we’re using social media to get 1 to 1. We’re layering in SEO so that we can answer the questions that people are searching and their their Google search bar. And that client can land on our, our content. The content still feels like the PR content that we did 20 years ago, right? It’s it’s high quality blogs and articles and listicles that are going to engage people. Um, so that that feels like traditional PR, but the way that we’re getting people to that content and getting people to kind of be aware of who our clients are, what they stand for, what they do, and why they’re a leader in the space that’s changed completely.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:14] Now, you mentioned that, um, this is kind of multichannel omnichannel. Um, how do you, uh, have these conversations with your clients? Are they coming to you initially with kind of looking at you with your PR hat on, or are they looking to just solve a problem of, hey, I need more clients, or hey, we have a new product launch and we’re having a difficult time kind of articulating, um, you know, what makes it different and special?

Leslie Licano: [00:05:45] Yeah, yeah. It varies. Um, so, so certainly we’ve had very specific challenges. We had a, you know, a publicly traded company overseas that wanted to, you know, meet the US market where it’s at. And so that’s a whole kind of thing in and of itself. Uh, we have people who come and say, hey, I just want to be in the news or I just want to, you know, fill my lead funnel for my new sales team. So we absolutely have people who know exactly what they want. Sometimes that becomes a bigger conversation because, again, it’s hard to do just one piece of any of this and have success. Um, there’s a lot of people who have been burned by Google ads, for instance, because they tried to do them themselves. You know, they didn’t know how to put in, you know, cross negatives or, you know, they didn’t know how to not cannibalize their own ad spend. Right. There’s a lot of things you can you can, uh, you know, kind of muck up if you’re a novice and you can just say, all right, I’m going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and Google ads don’t work for my business. And that may be true.

Leslie Licano: [00:06:44] We have encountered times where that is the case, but more often than not, we say, let us give it a try for 90 days. You know, let us just get in there. I can see what’s going on in your account. We can see the errors that were made and how they could be, um, rectified. And we’ve had really major turnarounds that way. Um, and so, you know, a lot of times people, you know, think that they need one thing, they really need others, um, or they think, hey, it’s just an instant conversion from that Google ad. You know, people click, they’re going to come to me, they’re going to see I’m great, and they’re going to become a client. Um, and we don’t think about, okay, what about that mid-funnel content, right. The Google ads are at the top of the funnel. In the middle is all of that content marketing so that people know who you are, right? They’re not just going to, you know, shake your hand and say, okay, I’m in. Um, they need to really get a feel for who you are, what you do, why it’s important you know your stuff. You’re not just walking the walk. You’re talking the talk. Um, and that’s where that mid-funnel content comes in.

Leslie Licano: [00:07:42] And so, you know, if you’ve got someone who says, ultimately I want sales, but I just want this one top of funnel strategy, we’ve got to do some counsel in there to talk about, okay, well what’s going to pull them through. And are we going to do retargeting at the bottom of the funnel too, for the people who couldn’t make up their mind, you know, on day one, uh, which happens a lot, especially in B2B, right. If you’re doing. High ticket B2B marketing play. No one’s going to click an ad, see you and go, yep, I’m going to spend, you know, $30,000 a month on your service or, you know, whatever it is, it’s just not not how it works. They’re going to need some nurturing along the way. Um, so yeah, it’s become a more evolved conversation. We’re not, um, you know, what do they say? Like, if you sell, sell, uh, hammers, everything you see becomes a nail, right? So we can’t just say, here’s our solution, you know, um, you need it. Uh, we really have to, to do an audit and take our step back and see what’s going to make sense for each individual client.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:38] Yeah. And I think that a lot of people think that just because you’re messaging someone with the perfect message, which it might be the perfect message, they just not may not be in the mode to buy today, but they might be in the mode to buy in three months or six months. I mean, even the best product is or service isn’t going to work if the timing’s wrong.

Leslie Licano: [00:08:57] Yeah, yeah. And that’s where that retargeting really comes in. And some people, you know, experience it as creepy. And I think if you overdo it, it can be I know it was, uh, shopping for a rug recently, and I mean, the amount of rugs that are in my inbox or in my social feed right now, um, and just, you know, the fact that if I go onto any website, I see that rug, you know, it’s in the sidebar ads. Um, you know, that’s that’s sort of how the retargeting works, right? You wanted this at one point. If I expose you to it over time, you know, will you come back? Um, and there are companies that I think really overdo that to a point where it feels creepy. It feels, um, you know, just, you know, lay off already. If I want the rug, I’ll come back, you know? So we really try to time things well, too. And there’s, there’s algorithms and data in that that will help you kind of play it. Right. How many touches do I want? How often do I want them to be spaced out. And then the AI that’s integrated into some of those platforms will kind of help you like this is this is a person who has, you know, behaviorally, you know, their data shows that when they see something three times, they are more likely to swipe up to buy. And so you show it to that person three times. And this is a person who needs a week or two, you know, to mole. And if you show them something with longer stretches of time in between, um, then they’re better suited to it. And so the, you know, the advantages of AI being integrated into some of these tools, um, just can’t be understated. It’s it’s really up to the game for, for meeting people where they are, um, and, and helping to move people through.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:34] Now, um, how do you have kind of the conversation with ROI and metrics, like back in the day when they hired a PR company, they’d say, you know, I want to be on the Wall Street Journal or some big magazine, and you’d be like, well, we’ll try. And, you know, you work your relationships and contacts and hopefully that happens. What are the expectations in today’s world when it comes to, um, you know, metrics and ROI when it comes to this kind of work?

Leslie Licano: [00:11:01] Yeah, yeah. I mean, with with PR, it’s still really is about where do you want to be and can we get you there? You know, so it’s about your goals and our ability to help you meet those goals. Um, you know, we we use advanced measurement tools. We look at, you know, for, for PR, we look at a lot of the ad valuation as well. You know, if you were going to buy an ad in this publication, it would cost you, you know, X dollars, you know, but you’re getting it through earned media. And so here’s what that value is when you tally it all up at the end. So that’s that’s still pretty straightforward. Um, from a PR measurement side of things. Some of them you can tell like how much traffic, you know, came into the website from the PR. So that’s another nice metric. Um, but with the digital really the digital program is aligned to the client’s goals. So, you know, we have a big, uh, client that we basically serve as their, their full service, um, their marketing team. Right. We work almost like an in-house agency for them because we’re just we’re doing everything soup to nuts. Um, and they work through a distributor model. So their goal is to create awareness, um, and to get folks to this where to buy.

Leslie Licano: [00:12:08] And after that, you know, we can’t really track the conversion. And so they’re able though to, to use our where to buy data to see that it actually does correlate with their sales. And so now they’re really looking at our metrics of okay, you know, here’s how much traffic we drove to where to buy. And that’s going to correlate with next month’s sales figures. So that’s been a nice nice thing to look at. Um, but with folks where an immediate sale is the conversion, that’s a lot more straightforward. Um, and so really it’s about setting the CTA or the call to action to what it is that we want to measure. And then with digital, it’s it’s really straightforward. I mean, you can measure everything. You know, if I want awareness I can see how many people follow me, view my videos, engage with my content, visit my website. You know, so the measurement on the digital side is actually. Slate. A really neat thing, because then we can start making data driven decisions about what to do next, you know, based on on what worked. And we have all that data at our fingertips, which is really nice.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:14] Now, just because things are easy to measure doesn’t mean it’s the most appropriate thing to measure. How do you kind of help your client discern what is the right metric to be paying attention to, and and using that as the lever to help them get the outcome they desire?

Leslie Licano: [00:13:31] That’s a really good question. Yeah, we get a lot of folks who want followers, you know, or they want to be they just want to have more followers than their competitor. Um, and, and we definitely have to counsel away from, from those things that we kind of call vanity metrics. It’s just a number that feels really good, but it’s not going to help your business. Um, and it’s also much harder. Just on a side note tangent to get followers these days. That’s not how we consume media anymore, right? In the early days of, say, Facebook, you’d follow the brands you wanted to hear from. Now you don’t have to do that. If if I engage with that brand, if I even just linger for a moment on that Instagram video, the algorithm is going to know to serve me more of it. And so I don’t, you know, personally, I follow very, very few brands on, on Instagram. Yet I see lots of great ones and I swipe up to buy all the time, you know, um, and so I think just kind of making sure that the, the metric correlates with the business goals and that it changes as the business goals change.

Leslie Licano: [00:14:37] Right? So I think there’s a lot of firms that kind of look at this, set it and forget it program. Like we’re going to execute these five tactics on an ongoing basis. We’re going to measure these five KPIs. That’s it. You know that’s your program. Set it and forget it. Rinse, repeat. Um, and that doesn’t always work. Sometimes, you know, you find okay, I’ve got a lot of top of funnel traffic. And that’s what I was hired for. It was to generate top of funnel traffic. Great. I’m good. But if you haven’t talked to them about what’s happening next, you know, where’s it going after. Are you doing the follow through on it? You know, is it the right traffic? How can we tell? Um, then then, you know, you think you’re aligned with the business objective because you’re aligned with the initial statement that they made? Um, but really, you know, it goes deeper than that and it can shift over time. So I think staying engaged in a two way conversation about what’s happening, what it means, and what we do next, um, that should really never end. Um, in a, in a marketing engagement.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:35] Now, what’s the sweet spot in terms of an ideal client for beyond 15?

Leslie Licano: [00:15:42] Yeah. Um, you know, I think that the client that has a story to tell is pretty important. There are some, you know, heavily commoditized industries where there’s not a whole lot of innovation happening. Um, so it’s where it’s really difficult to set one brand apart from another and where there’s not a whole lot going on internally that we can kind of shout from the rooftops. Those tend to be a more difficult client. Um, for us, because there’s just, you know, there’s less to leverage. Um, the ideal client has a lot going on. You know, they’re busy. They’re they’re building relationships. They have exciting client engagements that they want to tell people about. Um, they’re innovating. They’ve got new products that have been upgraded or, you know, are exciting to the market, and they want to get those out. Um, so, so those, those clients that are, um, really feeling enthusiastic and are doing things that they’re excited about are the ones that that we get most excited about to the ones who say, yeah, there’s not really anything going on, but just, you know, I just need more business. Those are the tougher ones, you know? Um, depending on the, the industry. So we’re doing a lot in B2B right now. Um, a lot in high tech. Um, you know, that’s that’s always been a really growing market and one that we’re, um, excelling in. But we also love a great consumer brand. Um, we have a major tire brand, is one of our clients, and we started their Instagram and YouTube channel, I think, six years ago, and they’re now the number one tire brand on Instagram and YouTube with over 4 million followers, you know? So it’s really exciting, I think, to kind of span the gamut to have, you know, high tech client, to have an education, a law, a consumer product, you know, sort of really kind of mix it up, I think makes sure that, you know, no day ever gets boring and you can really apply the lessons you’ve learned across industries to helping helping other clients as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:41] Now, um, I would imagine a lot of your clients are already have some relationship with either marketing, PR or advertising firms. What’s kind of their frustration with them or where they’ve maybe plateaued in a result where they’re saying, you know what, why don’t we give at least some of the work to be on 15 and let’s see what they can do. So what’s usually that kind of point of entry for you on an initial client?

Leslie Licano: [00:18:09] Yeah, I mean it’s either not getting results. That’s a that’s a big one. Right? I’ve been doing it and paying the money month over month. Um, but I’m not getting the business result I want. That’s, that’s, you know, that’s frustrating. Frustrating. Um, the other is just a lack of new ideas. Um, and so we really drive our team, right? You can’t rest back on your laurels. There’s never a point where we can stop hustling. And our, uh, I’ll tell you a little bit about our client contracts. A lot of, uh, companies will lock you in to, like, a six month or year long contract. We’re doing 90 days, um, on a rolling out. So that means we’ve always got to earn our keep, right? We’ve always. You know, we’re really only as good as our last month’s results. Um, and if those aren’t where they need to be, then it’s really easy for our client to disengage. And we did that intentionally because we don’t ever want, um, an unhappy client. Um, but for those who are locked in and they’re sort of writing things out until they can, can switch over and work with us again, it’s often a lack of results or just a lack of fresh ideas.

Leslie Licano: [00:19:10] You know, we we do beautiful 12 month plans, omnichannel plans that, you know, big Gantt chart that shows every month the omnichannel theme, all the different buckets of earned, owned and paid media that we’re going to touch on how they’ll all work together. I mean, you spend a lot of time creating these big old 12 month plans, but they can’t be set in stone. You know, they need to be living, breathing documents that react to what’s working and what doesn’t. Um, and, you know, have that flexibility. And also, if we see something really cool bringing that to our clients, hey, here’s an opportunity you should participate in. Here’s a speaking engagement. I know speaking is not in our scope of work, but I think you should have this stage, you know, really just staying excited. Um, and, and continuing to maintain the hustle, I think is a great way to kind of keep a client longer. Terme. And what we see, uh, folks coming to us kind of coming out of, um, lacking.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:06] Now, is there a story you can share? Uh, you don’t have to name the client, but, um, maybe the most rewarding where you were able to take a client that and exceeded their expectations and maybe gave them a result they didn’t even think was possible.

Leslie Licano: [00:20:23] Yeah, yeah, I think that the tire brand is one that we’re really, really, you know, very excited about, kind of that those numbers because 4 million followers just doesn’t happen in today’s today’s market for most companies. But you know, it’s also really fulfilling to work with smaller brands too. I mean, I think about beyond 15. Is my baby right. This this business I’ve been running for 15 years is how much does it matter to me that it succeeds or fails? I mean, everything, right? And so when you’re working with a smaller company too, you know, you know, they’re looking at that as their baby too. And so, you know, especially if they’ve got kind of a shoestring budget. And, you know, I, we had a client that had six months of budget and that’s really all they could do. And they were, you know, pinching pennies in order to do it as a husband and wife duo. And we built an award winning campaign. I got the Gold Produce Award for best Media relations program and won the Bulldog PR award. Um, and it’s, you know, for a for a company that’s just two people, you know, basically being able to build a thought leadership plan program that got them in like Askmen, MSM, Men’s Health. I mean, really just got I think it was like 60 some earned media placements and a readership of over 1.8 billion. It was it was a massive, massive success, um, and an award winning program for, for these folks who have just pinched their pennies to, to only be able to do six months. Right. And so that was really exciting and rewarding too. So I think there’s just a lot that’s rewarding about the work that we do in marketing. We’re helping other people’s businesses succeed every day, big and small. Um, and so it doesn’t get much better than that.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:07] Now, if you looked in your crystal ball about trends, maybe upcoming in the next year or two, in marketing and in communications, like where does I fit in? Where where do you see the most opportunity for folks out there to leverage some of the new technologies and what’s, you know, your opinion on what’s, you know, kind of going to make it and what may be just the fad.

Leslie Licano: [00:22:32] Yeah, yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of fads that come and go. I mean, any time there’s a new social media platform we’ve got to hop to and really, you know, become experts quickly figure out who needs to be there, who doesn’t. One of the recent ones was like threads, you know, there’s a lot of hype and it’s quieted down quite a bit. Um, there’s not a whole lot of action on threads. We’re not recommending a whole lot of clients, you know, go there. So, you know, a lot of times our recommendation is to kind of be ready, you know, have your strategy built, potentially dip a toe in. But, you know, it’s better to be amazing in the 4 or 5 channels that you can really own versus to spread yourself so thin, you know, trying to be everything to everybody, um, that you barely make a dent. So, um, you know, it’s hard with so many different things coming out all the time. Um, as far as what’s impacting us most, uh, right now and expected to the the whole conversion to Ga4, the Google Analytics, um, um, shift that has been a big, uh, a big deal for kind of how we’re doing content marketing, how we’re trying to structure, um, websites and tracking. Um, also at the same time, that idea of the cookieless future, uh, you know, I don’t know how much you know about that, but the, you know, first, the GDPR came up, right? There’s all this stuff about privacy, and they’ve been saying it’s coming. It’s coming for a really long time. Um, we almost, you know, worry about being the boy who cries wolf.

Leslie Licano: [00:23:56] We’re trying to prepare for this cookieless future that we keep thinking is around the corner, and the platforms keep delaying. But that’s going to be a big one. Um, and it’s going to really mean that we’ve got to think about more privacy centric methods for data collection and analysis, which we’re already doing, so that we are ready, um, first party data collection, you know, using more contextual targeting. Um, in our advertising, thinking about consent management platforms, thinking about collecting your own data. Right. Asking people to fill out a form fill. It sounds old school, but I think, you know, getting really good at that, uh, you know, is is going to be big when this eventually does come. Um, and then, yeah, AI is a game changer for sure. I’m excited to see what the next generation brings. I think it’s really important to use it responsibly. Uh, we just did a blog on that and kind of. Uh, what works and what doesn’t. Right. And and some of the stuff that’s coming out with right now is, is not real. You know, it’ll source, um, scholarly articles that were never written. And, um, it’ll do things that could get you in some trouble. Um, from a Marcom perspective, um, so I think, you know, using it to support you, but not to do your job for you is is really important. Um, and, and just, you know, being careful there. Right? You can’t you can’t be, um, relying on it as the be all, end all holy grail of truth. You know.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:28] Now, if you were giving advice to somebody, uh, maybe an entrepreneur that isn’t ready for you today, but might be tomorrow, what are some actionable things they can do in and around communications, you know, today? What are what? Some low hanging fruit for firms out there right now?

Leslie Licano: [00:25:47] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the way that the most recent, uh, core algorithm shift on Google, uh, impacted things really has prioritized content, uh, especially content that answers the questions that people are searching. So I think writing articles, you know, figuring out what folks are searching online that has to do with your industry and that you can really speak to as an expert, um, and then developing that content and optimizing it on your site, I think, is a really, you know, that is kind of some, some low hanging fruit, because the more that your site is seen as a powerful answer to client or to the questions that people are googling, um, the better your authority is going to be and the more likelihood you show up at the top of the search, which is a huge goal for for many, many client businesses. Um, so I think focusing on quality content marketing, um, you know, writing some pieces on, on things that you are an authority in the field on is a great starting point. Um, and then, you know, down the line or even, you know, sooner if you’ve got the resources, can do a lot with that. I mean, we, we talk about how we can take a single piece of content. We can make a whole campaign out of it if it’s if it’s strong. Right. And we could slice and dice it up for social media content. Uh, we could use social ads to drive people over to it. We could pitch it to press as a byline article, you know, with your headshot and bio on it. Um, there’s just so much you can do with it. You can send it out in your newsletters or email marketing to kind of follow up with warm leads. Um, I probably a dozen other things that we would do to sort of slice and dice content to make it go further. So I don’t think that will ever be a wasted effort, especially the way that the search engines are moving, um, to have a body of work that you’re just building that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:39] So if somebody wanted to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to get Ahold of you?

Leslie Licano: [00:27:46] We would love that. Uh, it’s beyond 15.com with the 15 spelled out. Um, so beyond 15.com. Uh, we blog, by the way, so much we do our own blogging program. Uh, I think we’re doing four for a month right now, and we have been for a decade. Um, so a lot of the topics that you’re talking about right now, we actually have articles about on our website. So if anyone wants to dig into any of that, um, it’s likely there as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:28:16] Well, Leslie, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.

Leslie Licano: [00:28:22] Thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed this, uh, this call.

Lee Kantor: [00:28:25] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.