Radical Podcast - EP 11 - Marketing at the speed of now, Dr. Rich Constantine, and growing Radical

 Hey guys, this is Ryan Offer the host of the Radical Podcast coming back to you here four months later
 It's now early November November what's today guys is it the 12th the 12th November 12th to be exact and
 You know we started Radical in May and
 You know we would started the podcast right at the beginning and luckily we've gotten busy with some client business
 But wanted to get back started on the podcast
 I am joined by my lovely co-host today
 Alex and Ashley
 We've our teams growing and I've forced Alex and Ashley into the podcast. They didn't want to
 There are four thin
 So but actually we're really excited about where business is gone
 We thought we at least opened up the podcast back just talking a little bit about
 Where Radical has gone these last few months some of the clients that we have some of the experiences that we're getting
 with new clients with
 Our capabilities and really what Radical has turned into
 You know you have a plan in mind and you know been in the business as I've talked about on previous podcasts for
 You know going on 18 years and it's amazing how the business has changed and I think that is
 Coming to life through what we're doing for clients and so we want to talk a little bit about that
 um, and
 Kind of just get into it a little bit
 Alex actually joined the team the last few months
 Both have different background
 Excuse me background
 In different things and I don't know Alex you want to tell a little bit about yourself first sure
 I started out at the fine arts and you're here in Greenville and that's where I really decided that
 Photography was interesting to me and
 More the fine arts side of things so I
 Did photography freelance all through like high school and college and found out that I really like to do styling for magazines when I worked at a
 magazine in Columbia
 South Carolina and then recently graduated and
 New I wanted to maybe go into marketing more so here I am
 We forced you in yeah Alex and I have a mutual friend and I was
 Meeting help and he goes I've got just a person and Alex has been great. So Ashley
 I
 Actually came from Georgia where I worked in plastic surgery for a couple of years doing marketing
 I recently Googled small cities the start your life over in and I stumbled upon an agency here in Greenville called the cargo agency
 And I was with them for a couple of months before landing a marketing job back in plastic surgery
 And then Ryan and I recently met through
 Mutual patient or we'll go about that long somebody that we knew along the lines and I reached out to him after a meeting that we had had
 Just saying thank you for the opportunity and meeting him and hoping that I could get you know
 Us a line with a client that I was with and lo and behold. He said I'm actually hiring
 Would you like to set up for a meeting and let's you know, let's talk some more and I'm always interested and you know where life takes you
 So went and had a meeting with Ryan and it's been a pill ever since
 Though not speaking on here, but filming some of this for our content one is in the room
 But I had to have to make will you say something but you know, it's really really interesting with radical
 You know, I think our last podcast was in June and you don't know where things are going to take you
 We you know, I knew I wanted to focus on content development and social media and
 kind of the the pillars of marketing in 2018
 But it's been interesting that
 Where the client has specifically taking taken us because not long and part of the
 Part of the reason for the delay is actually
 Just goes to show you never know what's going to happen. You know one of radicals first clients
 would just happens to be doctorate's constant team and
 You know anyone listening you know Google doctorate's constant team and you'll quickly learn who that is
 150 million views later
 Some of the content we've developed for him in the social media field
 went viral
 continues to be a viral and you know, you can't plan for that
 But it's amazing how not only as a company
 It's changed the dynamics of what we do with the opportunities. It's open with new clients, but it's also got it a
 Little bit of where we've gone with the services we provide for clients and
 You know rich and I have known each other for a few years. We've been friends. I've helped him on a number of things and you know
 Counseled him to you know use his image to get out there more
 But it's been just a complete whirlwind that thing
 I feel like it's almost like the encapsulation of radical and my my life
 Like a little bit and at least on the business side everything that's happened with him because it became
 No matter how big or small you are as an agency when you have a client
 Where that kind of thing happens?
 What's what's what's happened with rich?
 It's just it becomes all in grossing. You know, everything has been about I mean
 I think the viral video went like July 24th late July
 and
 It's been just like getting your arms around every opportunity. You never feel like
 And that's what's been so hard even now if like we're just slowly like catching our breath a little bit
 But it's like you get this moment in time in marketing and in awareness and in pop culture
 Where something like happens? What what happened? Yeah, and like you don't feel like even though you're doing everything that you can and you know
 We're bringing in resources and hiring people. We're doing things. You never thought I was taking advantage of every opportunity
 Like are we really doing it and I think you have to slow down and I've had to tell myself that we aren't missing out
 On what we could I mean we got him on good morning, America inside addition
 You know became a PR machine of all of the things in the moment when the first viral video hit and then it's like you know
 How do we double up on that? How do we do more? What's the next thing and you know, Alex? I know you kind of came in
 Right as that was all happening. I mean what's been your kind of perspective on all that it's been exciting and honestly
 Rich has been so much fun to work with and stuff too. He's a great person in general and him and Trush and
 Just to see their viral video like he couldn't have deserved it more first of all and he doesn't you wouldn't expect that it was him
 You know, so working with him ever since like doing every dance video. He's like a total goofball and like
 It's made it fun for sure, but it is it's always what's next for him, you know, you can't do dance videos forever
 But that's what we got the house doctor. See what's next
 And you know, I do think it's
 It's been fun because
 You know when I was thinking of what to call the agency and came up with radical
 Is there ever been more of an embodiment of radical than a dancing dentist that's doing viral content and breaking the internet?
 So it's been cool, but
 That it you know rich will have rich on them. We're gonna do it an episode with Dr. C
 We're pointing a lot of new content for him, but we'll pull him into the radical podcast world, but
 What's actually I know you know coming in and you know seeing you know some of our connection was through Dr. C
 But like you know now the I'm now you're needy in it with us, but what's your thoughts on everything that's happened with it?
 I mean it's
 I mean it's exciting. I mean there's nothing other that I can even think of as a word to describe it as
 You know he progresses we progress as a whole as radical as well. I mean we've gotten so many great new contacts friends
 Associates networking just through him alone
 You know in the high the clients that you've handed over to me. I mean it's it's been awesome to see the different avenues that both
 If you guys have taken and then take it on for myself and do that same thing for my clients
 You know everybody's hoping for that success
 differently because I've got the different clients I'm working with I don't necessarily know that we're gonna be a viral
 But at the same time, you know take the same avenues that you all took with
 Dr. C to get them there and get them the pure other they needed and there's no text book that shows you what to do with a viral dancing dentist
 Yeah, you really get to like exactly each other a ton of different sponsors, right?
 Possibly or different, you know people that want to interview him and why and stuff like that
 So it's cool that one day is the same. Well, it's been like a true brand. I mean exercise coming to life in the modern world
 Because you know having worked on large brands before and the planning that's involved and you know
 Rich had started the dentistry. I did a really cool video for him
 Last year of beginning of my years are running together. It's the beginning of this year
 Planned it starting last year that started to come to life beginning this year, but
 It's interesting because you've got Constantine dental and it's a practice and they're serving patients and then
 This happens and Dr. C is just
 It's an entity. It's a brand and it's you know, it took every skill set that I've learned in 18 years to know even how and I
 Mean, you know who knows if you did everything right, but it's like it became PR it became
 Designing a logo it became
 Press and media management it became like yeah social media
 Website design and like and it's and that's what's been great
 It's like it was like the embodiment of what I wanted to do, but it was kind of spark
 You know you don't plan for viral. You can't plan for viral
 You can't you know, there's not an agency. This is where the viral agency, you know, it's just like
 Making hay when it happens, but that's been fun and you know quite the
 The dynamic with guiding where we've gone. I do think it's also
 Like this per you know if you get our website you see some of the ways we talk about what we do like real-time
 content and you know marking at the speed of now it's
 Whether it's you know that that's been such a whirlwind in a vacuum
 So like even that's probably even like times a hundred, but in general
 There's just not only is our attention spans much, you know, everyone expects things now
 But I think there's just such an opportunity if you can capitalize on these social mediums to like bring to life ideas and things and not
 Get too caught up in being too fancy or too over thought
 You know a lot of the people that I follow you know talk about speed and talk about like get it out there
 And then you can kind of learn and read and react
 But I think you know the social media aspect of the marketing that we're doing you know really demands that
 You know we turn things quickly
 while also
 You know having this eye on
 Popular culture like I feel like there's this like
 Melding of culture and marketing and all of these things that relate to the things that we're doing
 Whether that's the content we're developing or memes that we're using but I don't know
 I mean what what do you got thoughts on like this melding of
 Top culture and marketing and video and I don't know just all the things that we're working on
 It's interesting to see what people are into, you know, you really don't notice
 Maybe some of the smaller things until you look at the analytics of a video you post when you're like
 Why did people go crazy over a selfie video of this person saying this you know versus the stylized one that we worked like a week
 Got you know might not have performed as well. So it's interesting that know why people are into
 Certain things. I don't know. Yeah. What do you think Ashley?
 Um, I think marketing as a whole has evolved. It's 2018 and
 What worked three years ago and what works now are two totally different things. I mean I
 Would have just seen Instagram as a platform to post photos of my dog
 Or yeah, my piece of pizza that I had a night before and share a recipe and here it is making people
 It's the famous but not even it's the famous famous everywhere. It's like a whole new way to advertise for individuals
 And it's nice because it's a free way to advertise for them and also get viewers out there as well
 You know, just looking at more of their content on a daily basis and I mean, you know, I'm buying whatever Instagram
 So and like it's it's I mean, I've probably bought other than like standard Amazon purchases
 But like one-off true not planned purchases the last three things I have personally bought have come from my
 Instagram feed and going all that pair of shoes or that hat or that t-shirt or I think I bought like some camera accessory
 If you think so, it's like
 Straight instant gratification
 So you have to have a now. Yeah, you don't want to see it. It ticked so bad. Yes, I would like this. Oh great
 Your car just happens to be here. So yes, I'll admit to my car great and our clients. I mean, you know like
 Indoor beauty the beauty brand that we're working with
 Doing a total content for her video development animations promos, you know, it's
 It's really interesting because coming from this world where you know, we used to spend six months doing a 30-second
 Television spot, you know, we planned it. We had the actors plan. We had to scout the location
 We had hair and makeup you had craft services that had to get the lunch for the clients and all these things and now
 For indoor beauty
 We'll have an idea. We'll be talking and we'll go with that be cool
 We'll go to the studio. We have in our office. We'll shoot something
 We'll give it to one of our animators in the next day. We're we have it on Instagram as a commercial and
 that next day the
 Website e-commerce site is digging on our phones telling us products of solar yeah, and
 It's just that all in like three days
 And so that
 true direct to consumers
 Slash direct to market whatever you want to call it the marketing term
 is just really fascinating and it's both
 I don't know. It's like it racks my nerves a little bit because it's all
 Because I always it's always kind of like what I was saying with Dr. Shee you feel like oh, we could do that
 You know, you feel like you're kind of always in this laboratory of things that you could do
 But just to see that come to life is it's fun
 Mm-hmm the yes thing
 No, absolutely. I mean at the editing video that you sent me this morning for one of my clients that I'm managing
 I sent the clip over to him and I said hey, this is you know, we're running hard hats only and it's a little you know
 clip of an introductory to
 To the videos that we're putting on and it's incredible
 It looks like something that would be on hgtv and it happened over you know, of course, of a few days
 We put it together and it goes live and now it's you know people are watching what we're doing around greenville
 Just in these small segments that we're doing but it just looks so now
 Doesn't look like a normal photo when it's gonna get you know more audiences involved in liking what they're seeing and wanting to see
 You know and watch the hard-hat videos so they can see the progression of the different things going on around town
 Right, and I think you get more of the brand personality too when you're not so like
 Cutting cut and dry, you know
 One shot to do a 30-second commercial and that's all we're working on like we get new content every single day that let's pop it in
 Yeah, like great brand to like all the way across like it looks just like indoor beauty looks just like doctor
 See you know and everything fits but you get a little splice every day of you know different content so
 That's refreshing. I just
 talk to me
 Is Instagram replacing Snapchat or is like yeah, I'll be the first to admit like I consider myself
 Even at my age which we all age myself here
 But like I'm on the forefront. I feel like of technologies and different things
 But I'd never have been able to not because I don't want to because I thought oh I'm just too old or not interested in this
 I've never been able to grasp like snapchat and
 But now I feel like I don't feel like I'm missing out like as before I mean what's happening with Instagram versus snapchat?
 I think it's like a different
 Apple together like some people think it's like oh you can post stories and stuff and you kind of get the same thing
 I think Instagram's more of a place for
 Curated like pretty images, you know and snapchats low-key kind of like you go there and you post like the funny behind-the-scenes videos that you don't really care about
 You know and you're kind of like
 People to see
 Dynamic behind snapchat is you're only sending this to that individual that you want to see and then it goes away
 So you know that your character's not judged by this or if you're trying to send a funny joke or a car that was going by
 Life since I'm Instagram has that feature set now, but there are people it's just
 Yeah, I think so
 I don't think as much yeah, but it is funny to see now you can watch the stories and stuff of like magazine
 You know, we'll have the story on there and there is a place where advertising there now, but I still don't think it's the place where it happens
 Yeah, because it's not really
 The feed for Instagram is like it was on Facebook. You know is what kind of drives it for me
 You know, I'm going to the feed and I know that snapchat I guess you can kind of do that
 But it's not the same kind of
 Digestion of content
 And I think they've tried to do it by opening up like celebrity accounts and stuff on snapchat more so you can follow like
 Kylie Jenner and like what is she doing with her brand and stuff and it's cool to see
 That because it's different every day and maybe you didn't think to follow Kylie Jenner on Instagram
 You know, but you did you just watched your story on snapchat, which is yeah cool
 It made it's definitely a different look. I feel like that they try to do with that
 Whole vibe of Instagram stories and snapchat and there's a different look for the celebrities and what they're putting out there
 So I think even when we go to post our stories. I'm aware of how I'm on snapchat and when I'm sending out and putting out to the world and on Instagram
 Right different mindset for each one. Mm-hmm
 It seems like you know
 changing a little bit of the angle here like
 Social media as a marketing tool
 I even remember saying this and I know it wasn't true then but
 Three four years ago
 You know, I was doing a startup then so it wasn't like me deep in the agency stuff as I was even seven or eight years ago
 Or even now, but certainly being you know in the agency, but
 I
 Used to think it because I would dabble in it and then people that I knew
 Social media marketing doesn't work and like it up, you know like people would say that like I've done some Facebook
 Add this is like three or four years ago. I've done some Facebook ads and didn't do anything and I used to think because
 At that time, I wasn't like as needy as we've been in it now with everything we're doing with radical
 But man now seeing literally like I was just saying like
 You know, we keep coming back to Dr. C
 But you know, I think for people listening. That's a good grounding point for something they've heard of but like
 We literally post a shot of him in a shirt and we're not we're not really commercials
 We're not even really we've got some stuff on YouTube. There's nowhere else on the planet that they're seeing this content
 But social media on Facebook as a post and
 And ding ding ding ding ding, you know all his stuff's on should we got it on a Shopify commerce site?
 And it's like it be the orders to start rolling in. I mean so
 I don't think most people
 Listening I think I don't know that there has to be as much convincing maybe is there used to be
 But even I was a little bit of a doubter of the power of social to truly drive
 Sales, you know, I used to think oh some branding. I know people are watching it
 But it didn't drop sales, but like it's it's it is
 It's crazy, you know the impact that it has I mean
 You know, I don't know
 I don't know if people do you think that that's a common thing like do you did you hear that before?
 Have you heard that a Facebook ads don't work, you know like or Facebook?
 But only because you know, I feel like this generation and stuff is more on Instagram
 So Facebook's kind of like this one
 Fizzling out a little bit, but I all I feel like they still perform well for a
 Select group of people too, you know, like obviously we've seen with like into a community stuff like that's her main
 You know ad is on Facebook or Pinterest even. Yeah, it's still really popular
 But I think Instagram the big thing is influencers and you know, if you like somebody on Instagram
 Like they're sharing a lot about themselves a very personable like if they're wearing a cool shirt
 I'd be like where'd you get it, you know, like look it up if I like you as a person, you know
 So I think it has everything to do with who they are and what they're selling and why and that's a story behind it
 Or if you like the person and their feed looks good
 I don't know it all comes together into like a formula and you're like I want to buy it, you know
 Yeah, you're selling you or you're selling your product just, you know
 The second that somebody gets on Instagram and they're looking at your feed as a whole
 I would say it probably takes less than 10 seconds to say hey
 This is something I'm interested in or I'm not interested in and you can grasp it before you even pick on
 You know click on one of their photos and the links to you can just go straight to the product
 You know you can shop on Instagram now, which is a game changer. Yeah
 What's the
 I'll put you on the spot again. What's been your
 You know
 Favorite part about working here at the age of zero with the clients, you know with me
 Oh
 Is this thing on
 No, but you know what what's what's been like your favorite part and then what surprised you the most if anything has
 All right, so we're verse order
 Ah
 Gosh what surprised me the most
 I'm trying to think I guess just the different clients that we have deal with and the different personalities
 You know that we I guess all
 I mean, I guess being in any agency you realize what makes a team work is everybody having different personalities
 But it's great to see all of our personalities and the way that each of us are wired come together and make this happen for all of our clients. Yeah
 I guess it's not surprising
 But it's just it's nice to come into a team every single day that we all get along so well and you know behind the scenes
 You know we're laughing and getting feedback from one another and you know helping each other out throughout the day
 And it's it's really nice to come into an office and truly enjoy and love what you do every day
 Yeah, I agree um, I think the most exciting part is just having something different to do every day
 It's not cookie-battery walk in the door and you're not gonna be like in the screen every single day
 You know just typing away, you know one day you might be out doing a photo shoot and one day might be you know
 Helping with graphics or you know sometimes you're scheduling post that day, you know
 Yeah, there is and it's it keeps it
 And trying interesting, you know, so you're not just in a rut for sure. Yeah, every day is different
 You never I mean you know what to expect, but it keeps things interesting
 I mean the weather will sway a photo shoot or you know something changes just you know on the regular. Yeah, yeah
 Yeah, I like it the
 You know it's
 You most agencies and this is the beauty of being small and one day we might not be small
 But you know we're always going to be small-ish
 But you know most agencies I've worked at like you wear one specific hat
 And so and I've purposely kind of hired a diverse team that have multiple skill sets
 We're kind of all wearing a different hat. I mean, I think it's also back to
 You know that
 Marketing is being now like you got to be able to do multiple things
 You got to be able to feel comfortable with a smartphone in your hand and shooting content
 You've got to feel comfortable getting in some of these
 programs and throwing
 Social media posts together
 You know it used to be
 You should the designers over here. Here's your copywriter and here's your account person and you know
 You know there's
 There might come a world where we do have that kind of specification or
 Our specialization I should say but I think what's making us nimble for our clients is the ability to wear multiple hats and kind of
 You know, I think we pull I think it's or we're organically pulling the best out of each other
 You know like it's happening organically and maybe
 You know it times there's like madness
 But at the same time I feel like there's a method to it in that I think
 We're empowering each other to do different things while also
 Leveraging, you know different skill sets in it. I feel like
 We're getting more and
 Our clients are getting more
 By not kind of putting ourselves in boxes
 And I think that's
 You know for anyone listening to the podcast or anyone's working agencies
 I know that that world has changed a little bit, but I still think predominantly it's very
 These are the idea people and these are the strategy people and you know there's
 I think
 You lose
 some of the opportunity to group think and
 collaborate and kind of get the best out of
 Every one. I mean, I mean we most certainly have people that do animation and do like things that are website
 You know code
 I think that sort of skill set is still very specialized, but
 I still think that
 You know good ideas come from everyone
 but
 Many thoughts on that. Yeah, I feel like since we get to be like me deep in each of the aspects of handling our clients and stuff
 It gets
 You're able to get to know them personally to like I know a lot about and do or I know a lot about doctors
 You know like it goes on and on and like we each know a lot about our own clients and stuff and that helps to
 Make sure that we really do want every opportunity for the amino to know
 Mickey personally now to like you know, it's nice to be able to say hey your in a magazine are like hey
 This is happening for you, you know stuff like that
 It's fun because you actually get to see her like genuinely happy with what we're doing
 So which I mean that's you know essentially radical when I started it's telling everybody's story
 So the closer that I know
 You Alex the more I would be able to tell your story
 So it's kind of like in the marketing of now the closer that I work with my clients the more that I can do better for them
 And being able to have the opportunity where we have the meetings like we did this past week or
 Going to meet them out for happy hour and get to know them and their personality and what they're looking for it really helps engage it
 Yeah, it's a good part about being a little smaller. Yeah, totally nice refreshing. Yeah
 Well, I think that's gonna wrap up the podcast spend a few months. We're gonna start back at least on a weekly basis
 We're gonna get some of our clients and do some interviews
 We talked about a handful of them and we will get others on the podcast
 We're gonna talk about you know some of the other things that we're working on
 Bring in maybe some local guests. We didn't even get into a lot of the other areas
 We're in with Greenville hustle and just some of the subsidiary things that radicals involved in
 But really excited about this team and really appreciative everything they do and
 We'll be
 All right guys trying all for for the radical podcast talk soon