In this ‘Greatest Hits’ episode of Getting to Aha!, host Darshan Mehta is joined by Brandon Rhoten, Chief Marketing Officer at GroundTruth. Join them as they discuss the impact of social media in humanizing brands, why digital marketing channels should be seen as tools to solve specific brand problems, and leveraging customer insights beyond surface-level metrics. Brandon also discusses specific hiring tactics and details his career journey as a digital marketer.

Best known for building Wendy’s digital/social marketing, Brandon Rhoten has a successful track record of delivering sustained growth through enterprise-wide transformation initiatives. He is currently Chief Marketing Officer at GroundTruth, a media company turning real-world behavior into marketing that delivers real results, and Growth Advisor at SOCi, Perion, liifer, and Papa Johns.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

👉 One of Darshan’s first aha! moments came with the introduction of Twitter in 2006. Seeing brands “sound like people” changed how his team worked at Wendy’s to build their digital/social presence: they wanted to sound like a personality. Suddenly, almost every brand transitioned from sterile and corporate with one-way communication with customers to having deeper personalities and customer interactions. Brandon’s mindset completely shifted. At the time, Wendy’s was working towards attracting customers under forty and Twitter provided a pathway to achieve that.

👉 Brandon often sees brands assuming that all you have to do for successful digital marketing is have a social media presence. While this will work in select instances, he clarifies that it’s all about what problem you’re trying to solve. Before diving into a social media or digital strategy, you need to establish what you’re trying to accomplish. For example, if you’re a new brand starting out, you need to figure out who you’re selling to and what message will resonate with them. THEN, you can go onto what communication channel will work best for getting that message out there.

👉 According to Brandon, customer insights are essential in digital marketing, particularly when you’re learning what works and what doesn’t for your marketing plan. While you could learn a certain amount of this from analytics, they are limited in what they can tell you. Brandon explains that you can use analytics to aid in understanding what’s working but that you need to look into the processes you’re putting in front of customers and how they are using them so you can adjust and readjust accordingly. To illustrate, Brandon shares the example of AirBnB. They were so focused on getting good click rates that they initially didn’t notice that these clicks weren’t generating sales and they were just wasting money with their efforts to improve them.

Listen Now!
bCast - https://bit.ly/3ACsRBz
Apple - https://apple.co/3gsuA31
Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3B0lVy6
Youtube - https://bit.ly/3KYAHtd
RSS -  https://bit.ly/3AFrUs6

And connect with the host and guests here:
Darshan Mehta on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/darshan--mehta
Darshan's Twitter - @ahainsights
IResearch Website - https://iresearch.com
Brandon Rhoten: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonrhoten
GroundTruth: https://www.linkedin.com/company/groundtruthco