Promo Pulse Interview with Jason Nokes

Promo Pulse website

Transcript

Marty Hartman: Every distributor wants more business, and one of the best ways to get it is through smart marketing. media and email are powerful tools, but let’s be honest, who has the time? That’s why I’m so excited to have Jason Nokes with, Promo Pulse with us today, and he’s going to educate us on why social media matters for distributors and how to do it effectively. even how to simplify the process, through automation. So Jason, thank you for being with us today and taking some time to inform our members.

Jason Nokes: no, thank you Marty.

Marty Hartman: So tell us a little bit about, uh, your background and, and promo Pulse.

Jason Nokes: Yeah, so I, I have been in the industry my entire career and I started on the supplier side. I dabbled on the distributor side, but I wasn’t very good at it. Uh, but the primary, um, I. Primarily I’ve been a service provider, and so I was the original developer of Distributor Central, and I was its president for a long, long time.

And in 29, 20 19, I left Distributor Central to start promo poles. And, and I, I just recognized that distributors were struggling with marketing and it was, um, it was very difficult for them. And so I had some ideas on how to, um, to help them out.

Marty Hartman: I think that’s fantastic that you, you have the background, you know what the struggle is and, and it is real. Um, you, we were talking earlier that it seems like most distributors are really relying on the word of mouth and the networking. Um, is that what you’ve, uh, have found to be true?

Jason Nokes: Oh yeah, marketing is difficult for any business. I think it’s even more difficult for distributors, uh, mainly because a distributor has to be. First they have to be an expert on their suppliers. Like they have to cultivate the relationship with the supplier.

Uh, second, they have to be an expert on all the products the supplier sells, so they can recommend and if they get questions. And then to, on top of that, to also go out and find high quality digital content from those suppliers of those products and design campaigns. And for email and social, it’s just, uh, it’s overwhelming.

And so, um, yeah, so it’s, it’s a, it’s a very tough job. I. Really empathize. And so that’s why, again, that’s why I started promo pulses.

Marty Hartman: think that’s great, that you’re empathizing with them. so if uh, distributor was tuning in and they, they want to know, what, what should I be doing? And 2025, what should I be focusing on, as far as my marketing efforts?

Jason Nokes: Well, I think I still believe email, uh, you know, email’s kind of got a bad rap over the years because everybody gets a lot of email, but I’ve still found that email is the most effective thing that, uh, a uh, small business can do or any business to be. To be, uh, Frank, but, um, only because this, this is the one time that you can, you can be proactive and you get in their inbox and, and you can kind of dictate and keep them, keep your company top of mind to your clients.

Um, I will add too, uh, social’s important. Um, the, the, the key thing about email is you own your list. So, uh, if with social media, uh, you may have a lot of followers, but if. Facebook goes away or Twitter goes away, or whatever goes away, then you’re, that list is gone. And so I think it’s very important. I think it’s important to do both, but I, it’s important that you have your own list and you, you cultivate that and you, and you keep in touch with that list.

And then social media’s great just to kind of, um. And obviously get the word out and give ideas. I think it’s important because a lot of people now, people younger than us, Marni, that they will research on social. That’s how they, their whole life is on social media. And so if, if a. Potential customer comes to your, to your web page or your social pages, and it’s kind of sporadic posting and it’s hit or miss type of things.

It, it just doesn’t reflect very well on your company. And so, so our service is designed to give you consistent marketing, uh, both an email and social. And then we also have video so you can get to, um, TikTok and reels and things like that.

Marty Hartman: Well, that’s good that you mentioned, um, reels and the video that a lot of, uh. Distributors that I’ve met, they, they’ve, okay with doing, uh, an occasional post and sometimes putting up a picture, maybe going into Canva and putting, making it look nice. but video, uh, they get a little bit nervous about that. Uh, why is video so important in social media?

Jason Nokes: Well, it’s, uh, if it, if, if you’re posting yourself, obviously you post, um, you know, it’s a human that you’re interacting with. And, but that’s difficult, especially if you’re a small company to do, to do that consistently. So the, the interesting about video, uh, at least the video platforms, is they surface content differently than, uh, regular social media.

So, uh, the, the platforms that we kind of all. Got started with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, uh, are often built on your followers and your friends and your connections. Whereas the new platforms like TikTok, uh, it just surfaces content. It has its own algorithm. So it’s, so, it, it’s interesting because you’re able to reach a whole different audience sometimes, and so.

To post both, both image based and video based kind of, um, gets you better coverage and it just keeps you in front of more people all the time.

Marty Hartman: Right. We’ve definitely seen a shift from the content being served. not necessarily, uh, somebody that’s in your. Uh, group or your network that you’re seeing their content on your feed, it’s gonna be what you have watched in the past, and all the social media platforms want to keep you on the platform.

Jason Nokes: Sure. Well, if your, if your clients are interested, if they’ve been looking at, you know, they, they, they feel they have a need for branded merch and they start looking at video related branded merch, they’re gonna get served up more videos of branded merch. And so you want to be in there too.

Marty Hartman: it’s, it’s almost like, uh, in the old days with the, and people still do pay per click. Uh, you’re getting people who are interested. That particular topic because that’s what they’ve been looking at and the algorithm picks that up and those are

Jason Nokes: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Marty Hartman: that you want to get in front of if you’re a distributor.

Jason Nokes: Yes, exactly.

Marty Hartman: Alright, so what’s, uh, probably, uh, one of the best tips as far as to be successful with social media.

Jason Nokes: Well, I mean, social media is a, um, its own beast. I think overall my biggest. Thing for marketing. I think you need to be consistent. So I, it it is both, uh, I think important and it’s also almost a pet peeve of mine, to be honest, of just inconsistent marketing. I just think that, uh, people to, to be, to stay top of mind and to be the first person or first company that a, a person thinks of, you know, you, you just have to be there out in, you know, somewhere in the ether all the time.

And so, um. Being consistent and thoughtful and strategic with your marketing is, is very important. Uh, for social, uh, we often encourage, so we have a solution that will automate and, and post branded product content, uh, to your social feeds. Uh, the distributors that really shine are the ones that also post their own content on top of that.

And so they use us for consistency and the. I call it the heavy lifting and branded product content. But then they’ll post, uh, other things on top of that about their company, about special projects. We even had, uh, two of our customers be mentioned, uh, top, uh, the P-P-A-I-P-P-A-I online 18. And so two of our customers were, uh, recognized as that because they were using us for the branded product content and then doing their own things on top of that.

So, uh, for social, it’s just, um, you can’t. Sign up for my platform or any platform and let us post and just think orders will just roll in the door. So there social, just like that. You’ve had to collect your email list and work those contacts. You still have to do some effort if you really wanna be s successful in social.

So it’s just, and it’s not a lot of work, it’s just, um, you know, following your clients and then asking them to follow you and commenting on their post and, and commenting on your own post. Or having your employees share the post to their own. Feeds, you know, it’s, it’s just small little things like that, but that really helps with engagement and to, to get, keep your word out in front of people.

Marty Hartman: engagement’s a huge part of being successful. So what, what is your secret to engagement with social media?

Jason Nokes: Uh, I think it’s just kind of what I mentioned. It’s just, um, uh, paying attention. I, you know, I also, I say secret. I’m, I’m not the. Personally the best person either. So I, you know, I, we post and do things too, and I have to go outta my way to share and remember to like, and things like that. But it’s just, uh, being somewhat involved, also encouraging if you have employees to also have them post, especially like on LinkedIn where there are more businesses out there, just to have them reshare content and comment every once in a while and just kind of be present.

You don’t have to spend your whole. Day on social media. Um, some people do and sometimes actually into that. But, um, but just, you know, dropping by making sure if somebody comments to say something or like it, or just, um, you know, just be somewhat present. Uh, if you’re, if you’re posting frequently.

Marty Hartman: Well, I think this is a good segue because we talked about doing a lot of things, but to help streamline that process and, and even to automate it. Um, you’ve got some solutions I think that you could share with our members.

Jason Nokes: Yeah, yeah. First I’ll, I’ll talk a little bit about it. Um, our platform’s called AMP and so it stands for Automated Marketing Platform. Uh, and it’s super easy and super simple. Um, for members, uh, there’s we only three steps to get started. Uh, one step’s already taken care of ’cause we will give you your, uh, preferred.

Supplier list already. So you get to choose your suppliers and then, uh, you just upload your customer list and we send a link to connect your social accounts. And after that we schedule your campaigns and everything is taken care of. So it’s literally, you don’t have to do anything ever again. We can take care of it for you.

And so it’s, um, if I’ll share and show you some examples here, Marty.

Marty Hartman: I think it’d be great to see some of what this looks like.

Jason Nokes: yeah. And so, uh, can you see my screen? Okay. Yeah. And so these are just a, a few of our customers. I put myself on their list just so I have some examples. But, um, so we, what we do is we focus only on lifestyle imagery. And so, um, no logos from suppliers, no pricing, no heavy copy. Uh, and when we bring this together, the, the, the email that goes out to your clients, it looks like almost like a retail looking email.

So it’s beautiful shots. It shows products in action, uh, that’s important for your customers to get an idea like, like this magnet Cooley. So you may see that in a, in a, uh, product website catalog, and it’ll be just the product on a white background. But now you can see, oh, this thing sticks to the side of, you know, whatever that is, a car or whatever.

It’s like, oh, I understand how this works now. So. Yeah, so it’s, it’s, it’s very important. Um, distributors have to keep in mind that, uh, you, you guys are experts at branded merch, but your, your clients have really no idea what is possible. And so, so these emails, uh, we pull content from suppliers a lot of times from their social feeds.

And so the content that we send out is. Sometimes not even available in, in ESP or Sage, it’s because it’s brand new. The the suppliers posted brand new products to their social feeds. We pull that out and it goes out, um, uh, to your client. So it’s, it’s trendy. Um, we work really hard. If you, if I just click through some of these, these distributors emails, you’ll notice that the content, they’re all different.

So every campaign that we send out is different for every distributor. And so, uh, there may be some overlapping imagery, but we. Randomize and rotate. Uh, we changed the copy and the subject. So even if the same person happened to get, uh, you know, same end user got had, you know, two distributors or their vendors, they would get different emails and, and we personalize the email too.

So if, if you send us your fir, um, client’s first name, we, uh, personalize email, which hope, uh, helps with open rates and things like that.

Marty Hartman: if a distributor a spreadsheet with their client list, they just, uh, send you.

Jason Nokes: Yeah, you just send a spreadsheet. Uh, we also integrate with several different software packages like HubSpot, and so if you’re using a CRM that we’re already integrated with, then it’s as simple as sending, usually it’s a API key and we just drop it in, and then your client list is automatically in sync all the time, which is really cool.

Marty Hartman: so if, if,

Jason Nokes: Yeah.

Marty Hartman: a member wants to do this, how many platforms can you be publishing content to?

Jason Nokes: Yeah, so we do, uh, email and then we also post to, uh, to social media. So for image-based posts, we can do Facebook, Instagram, x and LinkedIn. And so, uh, and then if you, uh, do video, we can post all those plus, uh, we also post a TikTok and YouTube. And so, um, this is an example of one, actually one of my very first customers car, uh, uh, the video is, uh, using that same curated content from your suppliers, but it’s, but it’s presented in a different way.

So it looks real nice. And again, it gets into reels instead of just like regular Instagram and Facebook. And then we will even rotate. Uh, I mentioned how every, every social campaign and every video camp video campaign is unique for every distributor, but then even inside your own social feed, we will, uh, mix up how we post.

So like this, here’s an image that we post at collage, but then on this image we posted, um, a slideshow. And then on video, we’ll, sometimes we’ll post the ones that look like this with the text first. Or sometimes we’ll post video that has, uh, the, um. The, uh, product first, and so we try to make it even different on your own feed so it doesn’t get boring.

So,

Marty Hartman: Shaking things

Jason Nokes: yeah.

Marty Hartman: doing things the

Jason Nokes: Yeah. And one other thing too I wanna mention that’s kind of unique to ours, we create a custom landing page, um, which isn’t unique for, you know, everybody probably does this too, but we call this your idea generator because every campaign links back to this idea Generat generator. But you can also link to this from your website or your email signature.

And what’s super cool about this is it has an infinite scroll of ideas for your customer. So, so if they come. To your idea generator from an email blast or a social post. Come here because they’re interested in something, they can, um, click on this. They can ask a question, uh, that goes back to you. Uh, have it come

Marty Hartman: that’s a great

Jason Nokes: so you can ask, ask questions here, but then they can keep going and they can keep looking around and see more products and ask more questions.

So, so, uh, we even have distributors that will, I frame this in their website and just, they call it like, you know, fresh ideas or brand new ideas or whatever. So.

Marty Hartman: So,

Jason Nokes: Yeah.

Marty Hartman: uh,

Jason Nokes: Yeah. So.

Marty Hartman: somebody clicks on one of your. One of the posts that’s in their feed, then they’re gonna come here. They’re going to get even more ideas, and all of that is going to be personalized to the distributor.

Jason Nokes: Yep. Exactly. It’s only, it’s only content from your preferred supplier, so, so you can, as a member, we get, we’ll go ahead and give you your. Preferred supplier list. Um, you can actually pick and choose and add if you have another favorite or whatever that’s possible too. So distributors are in complete control of their supplier list.

And then we are, we curate all the content and we’re super picky about what we allow. And so as you can see, there’s the, the common theme is it’s all lifestyle imagery with no text on top and no, uh, flyers and, and some of the things that maybe we’re used to in the industry, we.

Marty Hartman: Uh, this is the kind of imagery that people are used to when they’re scrolling through their feed.

Jason Nokes: Yeah, that’s this. This is the, yeah, outside our industry in retail, this is what you would expect. Right? So that’s what we’re trying to give. I’ll stop here so I can see you again. There we go.

Marty Hartman: So that sounds, uh, like a great opportunity if, uh, are, are watching this and they’re thinking. I really need to up my marketing game they think, uh, maybe promo polls is the way to do it. Um, encourage them to go to the private member site and to the promo polls page.

We’ll include a link with this information when it goes out. Um, but uh, what would you say the next steps are, Jason?

Jason Nokes: Uh, yeah, definitely go to, um, like I said, we’re gonna create a special page for members. Uh, you do get extra perks, uh, through this new partnership relaunch. And so, uh, instead of, um, a 30 day trial, now you get a 60 day free trial. So you get an extra month. At no charge. So you have plenty of time to try it out.

And, uh, we have increased the email limits so you can send more emails per month. Uh, we have a, a special support address. Uh, we already have your preferred suppliers ready to go, so we’ve, we’ve tried to make it, uh, even more appealing. And, um, and it’s just, again, super easy. It takes, it will take you no time to get set up and you’ll have instant marketing.

That’s the best part about it. So, so, but like you said, we’ll, we’ll have, um. Uh, on the private pages inside, uh, the website, there’s a link that goes to a private page on our website that gives all the perks and then you can just sign up and, uh, it literally, it’s an instant that you get started. You can click a couple buttons and have everything ready to go, and then we’re obviously here to help if you need help.

But otherwise, it’s, it’s really designed just so you can get started instantly with in minutes. That’s, that’s the best part about it.

Marty Hartman: a great idea for, especially for distributors who are short on time and I can’t think of many of us who more

Jason Nokes: Yeah.

Marty Hartman: we need. but, uh, fantastic way to get yourself in front of, members or customers, prospects. And, and before we go, you, I just happen to think, uh, do you have any case studies where you’ve worked with distributors and just using

Jason Nokes: Oh yeah, definitely.

Marty Hartman: their business?

I.

Jason Nokes: Yeah, we have a full page, uh, promo pulse.io/testimonials that you can see all sorts of stories. And so, um, you know, the overall theme is everybody’s thrilled. They don’t have to do marketing, you know, so that’s one thing that they’ve checked out their to-do list. It’s not, they don’t have to think about it ever again.

But then we’ve had stories, uh, you know, this is not. The same for everybody, so just keep that in mind. But I mean, big orders and one guy signed up and had six orders. The very first email I sent out, uh, just stories about, um, one, one lady had, uh, lost her main contact at a company and, and, uh. But they, she had other people on her list and they picked it up and she got the, you know, started getting orders again from this company.

So just all sorts of good stories from, and it, it is all just around keeping your name in front of customers and, and even with email, one one point that sometimes lost with email is even if they don’t open the email, they still see your email. Uh, maybe they’re too busy to. To, they gotta have too much going on and the client doesn’t need anything right now, but they still see your email even when they delete the email.

And so. The, the whole trick, um, for our industry, the suppliers face the same thing too. They have to be in front of distributors whenever distributors need something, but the distributors also have to be there and ready when a end user thinks, oh, I need the, you know, we have an event coming up, or I would like to reward, you know, we have these top clients, and so just being consistent.

Sending out emails consistently posting consistently so that you’re there when they’re ready. So that’s, I think that’s the whole trick to marketing, really.

Marty Hartman: that, wrapping up our, our time together with that idea, you need to be there when your customers are ready to buy, and this is a great way to do it. Jason, thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Jason Nokes: Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks, Marty.

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