Transcript

Thom
All right. Welcome to the M Network podcast. Today we have a very special guest. We’re going to be talking about niche marketing agencies that have a very, very targeted audience that they have to get to and the strategies and tactics that work best. Joining me my guest today is Jack Mozloom That’s right. That’s no accident on that last name.

It’s my big brother. He is smarter than me and a communication expert with the NCPA, the national community pharmacist Association, where he is the senior vice president of something. Tell us

Jack
Public affairs

Thom
there, Jack, and, and tell us about NCPA.

Jack
Well, NCPA is a trade association in Washington representing, about 20,000 independent pharmacies. Before that, I worked for another big trade association in DC, called NFIB, and they represented about a quarter million small businesses. Jack
So I’ve been in the the association world for almost 20 years now. And, learned a little bit.

Thom
Yeah. You have a little bit of experience and you are a bigwig there, which is, of the two of us. It’s why I look up to you so much. Talk to me about your audiences. Who’s your target audience with NCPA?

Jack
So with NCPA, our audience is, pharmacy owners. The men and women who run their own pharmacies. We have, a disparate membership. They’re all around the country, and, they form, the entirety of our audience. And we have other, you know, audiences, too. We talk a lot to Capitol Hill. We have, industry partners, but our main, our main audience, most of my time is spent communicating in one thing or another to the folks who pay their dues to belong to this association.

Thom
And that’s a very narrow audience when you think about it. I mean, I mean, how many of these people are there in the world? It’s not like you’re going to put a TV commercial on to talk to them or have some mass media

Jack
right

Thom
tactic to market to them. You have to really have some other strategies, much like a lot of my clients,

Jack
we do we we, we do a little bit of everything to communicate with our audience.

Jack
But, I’ve found that everything starts from a relationship first. So they they become a member of the organization and we start talking to them about that right away. So we try to establish a kind of familiarity and a trust. And, and then it’s a constant stream of communication. So we we talk to them almost every day. We have a daily electronic newsletter.

And that really is the main element of our strategy for letting members know stuff that we want them to know. We do a fair amount of social media that we’re on virtually, you know, all the major platforms except TikTok. And we might do TikTok one of these days, too, but

Thom
I would pay to see you on TikTok, Jack.

Thom
Yeah, and I don’t think there’s a lot of dancing pharmacists, so we’re not not there yet. But that may involve, we have, multiple events in the course of the year. And I think that’s important, too, because there’s no real substitute for a genuine interpersonal relationship. But, face to face communication. The website is our window to the world.

Jack
Our members spend lots of time on their, and, you know, we do some advertising, but most of the advertising that we do is targeted at consumers.

Thom
Yeah, I would imagine it’s trade journal stuff or geo targeted stuff, depending on whether you have something going because, you know, like it’s we find with our with our nonprofits, our foundations, our agencies, our associations, we find that, things like display advertising, you know, it scales up really well, but it doesn’t scale down well.

Thom
It’s tough to get a niche audience if you’re just throwing stuff out there. You really need those direct channel marketing tactics like email events, things that you could talk one on one, one on some with your clients.

Jack
Yeah, emails, the emails, the basis, I mean, email probably is the foundation of the whole program, but it’s important to supplement it with other things because as you know, as your as your other clients know, you know, on any given day, half your audience is not opening your email.

So you’ve got to find other ways to attract their attention. And so we do a lot of digital display advertising targeted at the people we want to receive it. So we will do, email mapping campaigns where we, you know, load their, our members emails into the system and then serve them digital content, based on that.

And so wherever they go on the internet, they, you know, our, our messages pop up and they see it, and then they can engage with it. They click on it, they they’re brought back to a website that tells them more.

Thom
Has your email open rate, maintained, relatively steady or is it going down. Do you see that tactic keeping it’s steam or is it is it trending downward?

Jack
No, it’s been very steady. It’s actually ticked upward. But and you can screw this up real easily by telling them the same thing multiple times. They don’t want to read the same stuff all the time. And I only learned this from having done it and screwed up. So I’ll give you an example. We we have in a convention every year, and it’s our biggest, revenue generator of the year.

And so we want everybody to come, you know, and, and we, we, we were telling them a few years ago, we were, we were mostly marketing the convention to our members in the daily email, daily newsletter. And we would put a convention message in the, in, in, in two editions a week or three editions a week. And the, the open rates plunged because they got tired of us hitting them over the head with the same, come to the convention.

So and what I found from the data is the first time you tell them something, you know, you’ll get your baseline open rate the next time you tell them the same thing. That’s going to drop off significantly. And the third time you’re they’re basically tuning you out altogether and you’re in danger of them opting out of your email.

Thom
Right? They’re not they’re not even reading the ones that don’t that aren’t repetition. They’re just not opening them at all because they said, you’re just saying the same thing over and over.

Jack
Yeah. And you’re pissing them off. So they’re they’re getting to the point. You’re driving them to the point where they’re going to say, okay, I no longer want to receive this email ever again.

And then you’re dead right now, you can’t talk to them at all. So

Thom
then you’re dead.

Jack
Yeah. It’s it’s not, it’s highly inadvisable. So tell them once, maybe tell them twice. If you’re going to tell them twice, find something new about the same topic to tell them

Thom
The same holds true. We’ve found with social media, you know, you can’t really repeat your social media posts too often.
Otherwise you watch the engagement rates, just drop off the charts, and then all of your other posts lose engagement to

Jack
the most effective social media campaigns that we’ve done have involved the members themselves. So, I mean, our membership will engage with the content that we post, but they engage a lot more with content that other members post. They like the peer to peer yeah, conversation.

So a lot of times we’ll ask our members to help us get, you know, various messages out by posting things on their own accounts. And, you know, that’s that works out well. They like, you know, every, every niche, audience will be different. Video seems to work well across the board.

Thom
Absolutely.

Jack
They should really short, you know, like I found 15 seconds or less is best
Any more than that and you’re going to lose their attention.

Thom
How important is it to. So when you’re throwing this stuff out there, how important? Not just new information, but valuable information. It’s it’s almost like your organization has to be a news organization that reports on itself and its sector all of the time.

Jack
Yeah, that’s exactly what we do.
We we we try to make I mean, look, we talk a lot about ourselves because we have a lot of things to show our members. We want them to come to events. We have lots of educational programing that we think is important to them, but we also include lots of news in the newsletter that’s just, industry without involving us.

And we even have a section, which performs very well, gets lots of open rates. A high open rate is just a kind of general interest section where we can talk about anything rock and roll history, sports history.

Thom
Interesting.

Jack
Yeah. And that, even though it’s a pharmacy specific publication, our members have interests outside of pharmacy. You know, there are human beings, too.
And, we mix it up and.

Thom
Yeah, that’s jives with a lot of the new branding, research that’s been coming out over the years that people want to have, what approximates a relationship with a brand, and therefore it can’t just be two dimensional. You have to sort of vary things. They want to be able to talk about things that don’t involve you.

I mean, imagine a world where you had a friend and all they did was talk about themselves every time you were around them.

Jack
Yeah, right. And we we try to we try to talk about things that will help their businesses too, like we have we’re lucky to have lots of, you know, very strong corporate partners who offer lots of services and products that our members like to hear about.

And, and, you know, that’s a good, steady stream of information, too. And, you know, my my experience is limited to having, audiences composed of business owners, really in the last 20 years. And what are they most interested in? They are most interested in making money. So if you can find things to tell them that will help them make money, whether it’s about services, products or advice from peers, who have encountered the same challenges and overcome them.

They love that kind of stuff.

Thom
That’s super interesting, Jack. I mean, there’s certain parallels between what your association does and what you’re describing. And, some of the counsels that we deal with, that deal with massive provider networks of nonprofits and there are funding mechanism, but all those nonprofits, well, they have to make money as well. They have to have, you know, a constant stream of donations or grants or what have you.

Do you think that this philosophy crosses past the associations into other business sectors as well?

Jack
Oh, 100%. I mean, we’re talking to business owners. So I mean, they’re also reading the trade publications. So the strategies I’m certain, are not that I have experience with the with the trade associate, with the, trade press, but I’m sure they have their strategy is very similar to ours, where they want to provide some information to their members that as a value to the to the reader.

Thom
Now, how do you guys use PR? Do you guys are you guys still active with public relations and what’s your where does that fit into the overall strategy?

Jack
It’s a key. It’s a key element of it. We try to make as much news as possible. Providing that it’s positive. You know, we try to avoid scandals and stuff like that.

But, we, we’re, we communicate well, weekly with the trade, with the traders. Anything that we’re doing, we tell the trade press and the trade press, if you if you whatever your industry is as a trade press and I can promise you they are starving for content. So even if you aren’t sure they’re going to be interested, I promise you they will.

Sometimes I think if I sent them a recipe, they publish it.

Thom
They might. They might think that would actually be a pretty fun thing, right? Recipes from the pharmacists

Jack
Jack Mozloom’s into the Super Bowl chili. It would be

Thom
very good by the way

Jack
They would publish it. So and we talk a lot to the, to the, to the, health care beat writers on Capitol Hill

You know, we’re a, we’re a trade association. So we do we do our main job, you know, lobbying on behalf of our our members. We talk a lot to them and, you know, lots of them, lots of the broader mainstream press, too. I think that we’re published on average, about 6000 times a year. Something that we say, wow is published by some news outlets 6000 times a year.

We’ve grown that over the years. When I started it was maybe 3500 times a year. So we built that up. And as you know that that takes a long time. You have to build a good relationship with reporters, editors. You have to, you know, you have to the same thing that turns off your members, turns them off, too.

If you send them stuff that they don’t care about or that you’ve sent 100 times before, you’re going to lose it. So

Thom
We just did a, we just did a pretty big study. Down here in South Florida. We’re going to we’re going to duplicate it nationally. We asked people where they get their trusted news and information.

And number one was social media. But then we said, well, who on social media are you turning to for that? And do you know what they said? You know, influencers was like 2%. And, you know, my other friends was like 10%. But overwhelmingly people were turning to trusted news organizations for news on social media. They just identified it as social media.

So the press, just as important as it always has been, it’s just that people are viewing it off a different screen.

Jack
Yeah, the distribution is different. I totally have no problem believing that we talk and it’s a great a great day for me is like, hypothetically, if one of our members reads our email in the morning, then later on goes online and sees one of our ads, and then picks up or goes online to find news and reads about us in a story that interests them, like that’s, you’ve touched in three different ways.

And, you know, like advertising, marketing, you know, consistency and repetition are kind of important.

Thom
Yeah. It’s also important that, you know, our clients understand that no one tactic can stand alone. You can’t have a marketing strategy that just rely so heavily on one single tactic. It’s you have to be able to touch people with different messages in various different places along their daily journey,

Jack
and you have to do it with enough frequency that they don’t forget about you in between.

Thom
Yeah, it’s not like you could go away for a couple of months and then start back again,

Jack
or even a couple of weeks. I mean, we’re we’re communicating in one way or the other with our members every single day. It doesn’t mean it’s always direct, but but we’re putting things out there that we think they’re going to see, or we hope they see the newsletters the most, the the the the the daily email newsletter is the main way.

But there’s there’s lots of other ways too.

Thom
How important do you think your event is in rallying your base and then keeping them engaged with the newsletter? So is is the event, the halo tactic and then everything else sort of services that or works as a proof of performance around that.

Jack
I think the events have the very important purpose of letting people or, but bringing people together so that you can solidify the relationship that you began online.

It’s it’s human nature. People like to see a face shake a hand know that you’re a real person, especially now with AI. Nobody really knows who’s talking to them or what. And so if you have an event every once in a while and, you know, kind of proof of life, this is really me, I, I really exist and I care about your business.

That’s good. And the events are also kind of a reward for the members to, you know, it’s a chance for them to get together, socialize and swap stories and have a little fun. And, you know, fun, is medicine. You know, people need it. So, you know, if your organization can swing it, I would highly advise that you make having a physical location event part of your overall strategy,

Thom
and that that event is not just slammed with information, but provides enough space to build relationships and have fun,

Jack
right?

The event should be free of solicitations. It’s the time of year where you’re not asking them to do anything interesting, anything. You know, it’s just let’s get together and let’s talk about, you know, your business and and, you know, let’s have a little fun while we’re doing it.

Thom
Last question, Jack, you brought it up. How is AI reshaping what you do?

Thom
Do you find it as a tool that you’re using to help speed workflows in writing and designing, or is it taking over entire jobs in your organization?

Jack
No, it’s not taking over any jobs, that’s for sure. And I’m not I’m not so bullish on AI, as others may be. It certainly has an application. It’s it’s it’s a it’s it can help you produce content for sure.

And if you have a limited budget and a small workforce having something that can help you produce content consistently, is helpful, but you still need a human being to read the content and to edit the content, and to make sure to verify the content. You know, AI is just a great big search engine. So whatever it finds on the internet,

Thom
nonsense or not,

Jack
right?

Could be crap. And, you know, you know, you have a quality control responsibility. You can’t let that get out to your members. So you’ve got to do all that. I think that AI is, you know, it’s going to have it’s there’s there’s no question it’s going to be beneficial in a lot of ways, but it’s not going to replace the need for people to be involved at the center of the content.

Thom
Yeah. And I think I think the more AI comes to prevalence, the more important events like the ones you guys put on are right, are going to that, the more important they’re going to be to the to your membership because they want human contact.

Jack
Well, I’ll tell you what. One challenge we have with it is we publish a monthly magazine called America’s Pharmacist.

It’s very good wins awards. And, we have we have a way for pharmacists that is it’s like Playboy for you. We have, outside contributors, you know, people who submit articles that we share and then, you know, and, occasionally we’ll come across some articles that they submit that we know have been written fully by AI, and we reject them because, you know, we’re not we’re not we don’t.

We want to expose our members to people with good ideas, not bots. Yeah. And if we’re going to pay you for an article that you’re going to contribute, well, you better write.

Thom
I love Rag Rags by the way. I like that concept of having a publication that you get your membership or outsiders to contribute to because, you know, anytime someone has a byline in that a hundred other guys went to work, threw it at their secretary and said, why am I not in this finding the way for me to be in this?

And I just think it’s super powerful, marketing in a, in a brag kind of way.

Jack
Well, then you talked about the layers of communication. That’s another layer. And unlike the other versions of it, this is the one, platform that we have that’s long form and allows members to sit down in at their own and their leisure and, and, you know, really dive deep into something that they, they wouldn’t do online or in an email, you know, all the other stuff.

It’s kind of quick hitting, get their attention, let them read a few sentences and then they’re off to doing their job. But the magazine stays around for a long time. Yep. They keep it in their stores. And you know, when they have time, they’ll read it. In fact, we we did a survey of the members, a market research survey not long ago.

And we asked them, you know, which forms of communication from us do they do they like best the email, the social media, the digital stuff, the website, the magazine, the magazine ranked second to the email. So now maybe our audience is is not generalizable, but I imagine that many, professional associations, trade associations, whatever the industry probably has the same experience.

Thom
Yeah. This is another thing that you brought up that, I mean, I told you it was the last question. I’m going to make this the last question. You know, you and I are big on research because you’re dealing with a niche audience. You could reach out and get a good number of them to answer questions on a regular basis.

How important is that to have them talking back to you that informs your marketing efforts and efforts?

Jack
It’s critical. We just completed, organization wide market research project. It involved multiple, electronic surveys and then 2 or 3 focus groups where we got people together and talk to them. And the information was absolute. It’s the way that you can find out whether what you’re doing is what your members want.

And if you’re not doing what they want, it’s the way to find out what you what they do want, what you need to be doing. So if you’re not researching your market, whatever it is, then you’re really kind of flying blind.

Thom
All right. Well, thanks for coming on. A lot of good information today. I think, I think my clients are going to, feel like this, was very valuable.

This conversation between brothers, even though, we never talk about this, ever. When we’re together,

Jack
Yankees,

Thom
Yankees and, Giants, and, and politics. Right? Yeah. We can’t do any of that because we’ll lose clients.

Jack
All right, well, I appreciate it. I like having I like being on. And, you know, I’ll come back any time we want.

Thom
Yeah, we’ll bring you back on, and, I’ll see you during the holidays. All right. Bye. See you then. Say bye.