Episode 7: An Interview with Tom Roche, Head of Brand Marketing

Speaker A: Digicom weekly growth marketing podcast.

Speaker B: Tom, thanks for jumping on with us today. Very, very excited to have you on for everybody. Tom has a ton of experience in branding and building startups. Uh, Tom, would love for you to introduce yourself.

Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for having me, Amit. Stoked, uh, to be here and dive in with you as far as my career goes. In kind of a brief overview, I'd say it's threefold, if you will, over the last decade, consisting of consulting for huge brands like Red bull, Gap and SoFi, founding and running small businesses such as a small experiential marketing agency, Pop up Beer and Spirit Garden. Also do a little Airbnb on the side and then as you said, a startup employee where most recently I was the founding marketing hire at Abodu that does backyard homes.

Speaker B: Amazing. Uh, what got you into the startup world?

Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, that's a good question. I'm going to age myself here, but I think the first startup that I consulted for was uh, about 15 years ago for Uber during their go to market strategy and activations in San Francisco. After that I worked on other brands such as Zbiotics and Eve and I think, you know, going to school at the University of San Francisco and just being in, in Silicon Valley helps, right? Just the proximity to all these amazing companies that have uh, been started out of the Bay Area.

Speaker B: You know, in terms of career highlights, like you've done so many different things, you know, across the last decade, right? And there's just, and they're all so different from one another, right? Like Uber, building your own agency, running Airbnb, being essentially head of marketing for a bodu, right? Like they're, they've all been so different. What are a couple like highlights for you?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. Well, I think, you know, we can, we can go through the three, right? From you know, consulting to founder to startup employee. On the consulting side, I think a massive highlight was running national activations for Red Bull for over four years, playing a part in a can launch that they did called Latografica. On the founder side. Yeah, had a pop up beer and Spirit garden pre Covid in San Francisco which was a lot of fun. Did that with one of my friends and then, um, yeah, as a startup employee, as you said, you know, my time at ah, Abodu and being the founding marketing hire, fifth employee, building out that team, building out that brand, what that brand really stood for and meant, showcasing that through creative storytelling and ultimately, you know, 10xing the valuation of the business during My tenure.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's, uh, you know that those are some, um, pretty incredible highlight points, right? Especially taking a brand from 0 to 1. Can you talk a little bit about maybe some of the challenges that you faced from going, you know, going 0 to 1? You know, I know in our work together, a big part was, hey, how do we generate leads and then get folks to Showroom? And then from our conversations back in the day was very much like, okay, now that we have the leads in Showroom, our sales team has to sell. And. But what are other challenges, um, you know, in terms of getting from 0 to 1, and how did you guys solve them?

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, well, I think, you know, to take a step back for listeners, uh, what Abodu does is sell $300,000 prefabricated, beautiful backyard homes. Right? And it's not only the product, but it's also the service they're providing, which is turnkey. So a big part of that was just ensuring that people understood the value of what they were buying. Right. And it wasn't just, you know, a studio shed or something that, you know, is just these walls that pop up in your backyard. It was truly an incredible product and experience. And so education was a huge component of that. And we really had to dive deep in, to the customer journey very early on to understand, hey, where are their eyes and ears? Where are they obtaining this information when they're going down the path of crap? It's, it's, it's Covid, I'm working from home, I need more space. Or more commonly, even, you know, mom is getting old, we need a place for. To stay. Uh, and then ensuring that we showed up in those moments, right. And that we were educating through, through the content. You know, you guys helped us specifically on the growth and performance side of things and also understanding and being honest with ourselves and saying, hey, it takes more than a Facebook ad to sell a $300,000 home.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of nurture, right? Because, uh, one of the things that kind of unlocked lead gen was webinars. I think that made like a monumental impact from running those campaigns. But what was like that nurture series like? Right, and the reason why I'm asking is because, like, we work with founders who sell more expensive products, and the more expensive the product chances are, the longer that attribution window needs to be. But, you know, if you're running ads on, on a matter On a Google, 30 days is essentially the max, right? So it's like, how are you thinking about that user journey, nurturing them to drive this sale. Right. And at the end of the day these prefabs were 300,000 doll. So I'm sure that nurture cycle wasn't one day, one week. It's probably a few months of speaking, talking, getting estimation. So like, how would you kind of think through, you know, different price points and what user journeys should be?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, the most fascinating component of selling those, those homes was really the fact that it felt more like a B2B play than it did B2C specifically through that customer journey and just the length of that. Obviously at top of funnel, you know, we had our ads performance, specifically Google and Meta. Uh, but yeah, mid Funnel, you know, that's the webinars, right. That's the educational content. That's them showing up to the showroom and actually kicking the tires or even taking it a step further and showing up to an install to view a house being crane lifted into a backyard. And then the bottom of the funnel stuff. Yeah, really relying on the sales team and ensuring that proper sales enablement was in place and there's alignment there. So a lot of work. But really understanding that entire cycle was extremely important and that can be tough. Especially as, you know, we all struggle with the attribution situation and really understanding, hey, how many touches did it take, where can we find improvements, what can we tweak and when do we just need to take a step back and let them decide on their own.

Speaker B: Cool. Um, switching gears a, ah, little bit. You know, you've, you've gotten to work with some seriously cool brands, right? So as you're working with some of these brands and you have like a vision, right? How are you coming up with, you know, specific. Uh, and I know this is going to be case by case depending on the specific brand you're working with or the ask whether it's like branding or you're running performance. But like, you know, how are you kind of thinking through some of the partners that you want to work with? What is exciting you to work with those types of partners?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's an awesome question. I think first and foremost it comes down to would I personally buy whatever I'm marketing? And that's like a good test right to go. Am I excited about this? Would I wear this? Would I want to drink this? Would I want this in my backyard? And I can say yes across a lot of categories, I'm sure as, as you can. And that's what excites me as well, is that I'VE never been just a guy that works in tech or just a guy that, you know, works across home goods or candles or bed or whatnot. I've had the opportunity to work in beverage, fashion, tech, construction. And so that's, at the end of the day, what keeps me really excited about these various clients that I'm working with.

Speaker B: Cool. And what's, uh, what's one of your favorite brands and why?

Speaker A: Oh, oh, man, I could go on and on here. Um, I'm going to sound like a parrot here, but I'm definitely a Big Apple guy, uh, day in and day out, love their products, love their brand. As far as who's doing a great job online, I think, you know, liquid death, duolingo. Uh, love what Patagonia is doing. I think on a smaller scale, there's a brand out of L. A called Flamingo Estate Lifestyle goods brand. They do candles and whatnot. I love what they've got going on. I could go on and on, man. Tell me, tell me when to stop here.

Speaker B: Uh, I guess in terms of, like, these brands, right? You just named a bunch, but, like, what do you love about them? Why, like, what are they doing to move the needle? Or, like, of course Apple is, you know, tech and everything, but, like, you brought up Patagonia, right? So, like, why Patagonia?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I, uh, think the fact that they're so passionate and involved in their product development and they really care. They're the type of brand that doesn't want to push just this consumerism that we're all wrapped in. Right. They want that jacket to be something that's passed down for generations. I mean, recently I had Patagonia and the zipper went out. I sent it in, uh, and got it back in a matter of weeks fixed, which was just incredible. And, you know, especially in the, in the fashion industry and the amount of waste that is. Has been accumulated, uh, it's just really cool to see a brand actually care about the environment and their customers and their product at that level.

Speaker B: So in terms of digital, right? There's, like, always these changes that are occurring. Where do you see, like, E. Comm and digital going in the next, you know, two to five years?

Speaker A: Hmm. So as far as the future, let's see here. I think I. I think. I think all brands are just really realizing how authentic they have to be. Right. Customers are smarter than ever. Brands are realizing that, keeping up on these trends. Right. I think brands are realizing that social media isn't just something that an intern handles and that, uh, at the End of the day it really comes down to product reviews and the experience. Like no, no amount of marketing is going to fix a shitty product or move the needle. So those are some things that, that I'm seeing.

Speaker B: I agree. Right. I don't think you can have an intern run your Organic Social. That's such a big channel like for some of our partners that we're working with like Organic Social drives thousands of conversions a month. Right. And it's like. Or like several hundred conversions a month. Right. So it's like it's no longer, it can no longer be a neglected channel. I definitely think it needs to be a chann that you know, there's, there's strategy behind it, there's thought, there's input and testing that occurs on, on organic just like there is any other channels. And I think you know, like, like you mentioned the end consumer is getting smarter and smarter. So it's, we need to provide better, more authentic content across all channels. Email, sms, organic. Right. Uh, video, like they're just anything that is non paid as well as the paid side.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's, we're going to cons continue to see it get more, more personalized. I think video is going to have a huge impact. I mean just seeing what's going on with Sora is fascinating. AI in general but you know, outside of, of uh, digital, I think we're going to see more and more brands really try to bridge that gap and bring people together in life like we were doing pre Covid. So I think we're going to see some awesome experiential stuff. I was just listening to what Airbnb is doing yesterday with their icon category where they're partnering with n brands such as Ferrari or Disney the Movie up to just create these wild experiences where guests can come and interact with a brand that they're a huge fan of or an entertainer such as like Kevin Hart or whatnot. So I think we're going to see more and more of that and I think people are craving that.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's cool. That's cool. I'm a big car guy so you know, going to an Airbnb experience where it's like hey cool. Like you know, I get picked up by X company, we go go karting and maybe hit track depending on what the like what city I'm in or like what's going on. Like F1's going on in Miami this weekend. Right. So there's just all like that would be a very, very cool, more interactive personalized experience. That is cool.

Speaker A: Yeah. There's a number of brands doing that like in the car space. Right. Whether that's, you know, Rivian or Range Rover. Really giving you the opportunity to, to test drive or to get even closer to the brand before and, or after your purchase.

Speaker B: Yeah. Tom, what's uh, what's one question you wish I asked you and how would you answer it?

Speaker A: Um, well, earlier you were saying, you know, the, the audience that that's listening to this is a lot of founders or, or startup folks, maybe folks looking to, to get into tech or make a career leap. And I, I would just say, you know, don't be shy, reach out to people, ask for a 30 minute chat, whether that's with someone who has been there, done that, or is currently doing it. I think, you know, taking that leap can be difficult, but reaching out to folks that have walked the path that you're looking to stroll is super important. Is something that I continue to do to this day. People are definitely more willing to help than a lot of people think.

Speaker B: Amazing. And where can our listeners find you?

Speaker A: Yeah, um, as far as, uh, my portfolio and website, it's tom roach.com so to roche. And then, um, just type that into LinkedIn. That's where I'm the most active.

Speaker B: Thanks. Thanks for being on the show today.

Speaker A: Yeah, appreciate it, man.