Katie Flamman 00:00:00:

Hello and welcome to Storytelling for Business, the podcast that helps you build better customer relationships by telling stories your clients want to hear. I'm Katie Flamman. I'm a voiceover artist specialising in business storytelling. I work from my own recording studio and I do a bit of everything, corporate videos, ad campaigns, training modules and answer phone messages. My clients include Pearson, Pfizer and Volkswagen, helping them all to share brand stories and business developments. But why all the buzz about storytelling? Can it really make a difference to your marketing? In this series, we're finding out. I'm talking to storytelling experts and regular business owners too. And today's guest is a bit of both.

I met Michael Humphrey at a training day for small business owners on using digital tools and getting more tech savvy. And I thought you'd enjoy meeting him too. So let's go.

You might think digital is something new, but today's guest has been immersed in the world of ones and zeros for 25 years. Michael Humphrey is the cofounder of Digibubble, a digital marketing agency which helps businesses with websites, online advertising, ecommerce platforms, digital marketing, and they'll basically hold your hand as you navigate the ever evolving digital landscape. Tech developments move, as we all know, at lightning speed, and there's a lot to keep up with. For some, digital advertising is a no brainer. For others, it can be a daunting prospect. Michael is committed to helping his clients to achieve a positive return on their investments in the digital world. Digibubble believes in nurturing relationships, building trust and supporting clients for long term digital success. And I'm so happy Michael's here.

Katie Flamman 00:01:49:

Welcome to the podcast.

Michael Humphrey 00:01:50:

Thanks, Katie. Thanks for having me.

Katie Flamman 00:01:52:

So Digibubble does quite a lot of things. How did it all come about?

Michael Humphrey 00:01:58:

Well, I suppose right at the early stages, I was GCSEs at school. So what's that, 95, 96? I was doing my GCSEs. I went to college with not too many GCSEs, but enough to get there. And I really had just a bit of lack of direction at that point. And I sat with a career advisor. It stays with me. She said to me, you've thought about this Internet, this coming up, the www dot, might stick. It's quite good.

And I was always one foot in coding, one foot in out and about, so I thought it could work out quite well. Yeah, I just went at it. I decided to study it for college. So I got A Levels and GNVQs, that sort of stuff. And then I went on to university and studied advertising and digital communication. And then from there, I got my first job in about 2003, working in digital. And this was just when the newspapers were coming away from print or not coming away from print, waking up to the Internet and everybody thought it was a bit of a fad. So I was out there with my little three piece suit, hitting the streets as a 21 year old lad.

And that's where it all started, really. A good bit of sound career advice. And, yeah, I've just been at it ever since, really.

Katie Flamman 00:03:13:

So when you were coding, like, when you were at school, what sort of stuff were you doing?

Michael Humphrey 00:03:19:

Games, mainly. So you used to get a couple of computers. The ZX Spectrum was a game, the Amiga, Commodore 64. And you used to get a magazine delivered to your house once a month. And on the back they give you the code for a new game. So me and my brother used to sit there for maybe a week before we could start playing the game, coding it and writing it and playing around. And after a while you sort of learned that you could change the shirt colour of your little character in the game or you could change the sunset timing or you started being able to break the code down. It really got quite enjoyable.

And I've never been into it enough that I could make a career out of it. I still don't code now. I've got a business partner, Keith. He does all the real heavy lifting and the real brains now. But, yeah, a little bit of hobby coding here and there. I don't mind.

Katie Flamman 00:04:05:

Yeah, it's very interesting, isn't it? And how the careers advisor and back then, people were like, oh, this Internet now. I mean, is it possible to have a business without a website, for example, do you think?

Michael Humphrey 00:04:19:

Yes, I do. And we do talk to a lot of companies where you think it's just not appropriate, it's just not right. And sometimes, if you have a look at. We've just had our bathroom done. The plumber hasn't got a website and he's stacked up with work until the mid part of next year. The reason is because quality talks. So it doesn't matter what you do or how you broadcast or the message that you put online. If fundamentally the workings of your business are honest and your integrity is there and you work well and you produce a good end product, the website is sort of a means to an end.

It's a way of getting additional customers if you need it. But if you've got a good word of mouth or a good referral stream, then, yeah, it doesn't need to take priority. I mean, have one. If people are doing their research and they're looking up, I want to get the number of this van that just drove past me that looks like it could be good, then be available, be there, but how far down the rabbit hole, I think is a better way of looking at it. You can just have a presence that gets you found and people know where you are and then make sure you've got a digital platform that allows you to evolve. So if your aspirations decide to pick it up a little bit in the future, then, yeah, be ready for it. We do a bit of Google Ads and we're a digital business, but how we gain our business is through offline means. I do a lot of business networking.

I do thought leadership talks. I'm part of BNI across the region. So these are referrals, these are relationships that I've built with people that they know. Actually, Mike's the go to guy. He's going to give me some good advice and I'll always put a number against the project. I'll always quote if people are asking for quotes, but they'll always find that the advice they get is honest and decent. And I think we get most of our business from those referrals, from those relationships. And we spend a lot of time and money on our website and it generates maybe 20%. 10 - 20% of our actual new business inquiries come from it.

Katie Flamman 00:06:16:

Really interesting. I think relationships is what it's all about. This podcast as we bang on about it being authentic, being honest, being real, and building relationships with people. And it's all about trust, isn't it, really?

Michael Humphrey 00:06:31:

That's always a hard one to convey, because especially online, anybody can write a website of varying degrees. You can get the content and say, we're the most forward thinking company, Blue sky, flagpole waving company you've ever found. Get all of the marketing blurb, get AI and robots to write you the most appealing content you've ever done. But if actually the fundamental root of your business is that you're not very good, that will soon work its way to the surface.

Katie Flamman 00:06:59:

Yeah. Or you're either not very good, or you're pretending to be something that you're not. But yeah, I agree. And you said about AI, I mean, how much people who are chatting with you now, they're like, oh, Michael's into digital, he must know or care about AI. What's your take on it?

Michael Humphrey 00:07:16:

This is quite funny, I think, having a longer career through digital, I've seen this cycle happen quite a lot so very early in my career, I was sitting with press buyers, big power suits, three piece power suits, cigars in the office. All this, they're telling, no, the Internet is a fad. It won't stick around. No one's going to ever buy anything online, it's going to kill all our jobs. What's happening to the journalist, what's happening about authentic journalism? And it's evolved, that is policed itself. It's been regulated, it's evolved with the market, it's found its niche, and it serves a really valid purpose. Five years into the Internet, affiliate marketing comes along and everyone's on Rev share, everyone's on there. No, traditional ad buying online is the best way.

That's a fad. It won't stick, there's no authenticity. Okay, cool. And it just sort of then programmatic came along. So we're doing retargeting, we're doing data profiling. Oh, that won't happen. That's not regulated. It's a fad.

And now we've just got the same with AI. Everyone's saying it's a fad, it won't last. Our jobs are at risk. It doesn't offer value, it doesn't offer integrity. And it's a really powerful tool. And I think, like with everything, we just like to embrace it. We're a tech led marketing company, so it's in our best interest to make sure that we're at the forefront of these conversations and being able to use the tool appropriately. And I think you can't replace the value of genuine thought of somebody actually putting down an opinion.

An AI hasn't got an opinion. You have to tell it what your opinion is. So it can really support content, it can really support companies that are looking for a cheaper way of building out content. It can really help content writers sort of get over the initial steps of staring at a blank piece of paper. It's got lots and lots of applications. My personal favourite application for it is asking it to do an excel formula. So the months of my life, I must have been staring at an excel sheet, trying to work out why I keep getting errors. And now you just put it into AI and just say, give me a formula to sort column a from column b and make it blue, and it gives you the string back.

And that can be accelerated as well. And the same can happen with how we've got coders in the office. If we're coming across a string that's creating an issue, plug it into AI and tell me, where is my issue? What am I doing wrong? So it's got a really good application.

Katie Flamman 00:09:43:

Like a spotlight, a problem solving spotlight tool kind of thing. I think for me, I've got Google Analytics 4 on my website and I know it's important to have Google analysing my website and how many people are visiting and how long they stay and what pages they like and all that kind of thing, but opening up Google Analytics four just makes my knees go weak. And actually maybe I could ask AI to open it up for me and tell me what lessons I could learn. Is that something it can do?

Michael Humphrey 00:10:17:

Yeah, you can take a full excel sheet. So export all of your data from GA4 as much as you can onto a CSV. There's a little plus icon in chat GBT or most of your systems that are using that will allow you to upload a document. So you put all of that in and say, okay, give me a demographic breakdown based on season and it will give you. Okay. Women interact with your website more through the summer months. Men do quarter four and you'll really get a good breakdown of how it's working. But again, like with everything, it's about what you put in.

So if the data you're pulling out is weak, the information you're going to get from the back of it is weak. But if you're with GA4 and you've got a good analytics platform on your website, there's no reason you can't export that, plug it into an AI and ask that to break down what's going on and that will really start painting the story.

Katie Flamman 00:11:08:

And that's it, isn't it? There's a story there behind the numbers and the data. And I guess you have to figure out what that story is and then you have to package it up in a way that isn't like death by PowerPoint. To actually then connect with that audience in an emotional way, that's going to hook them back in. That's a tricky little manoeuvre, isn't it?

Michael Humphrey 00:11:33:

Yeah, I think it's finding the story, but I think once you start. I've always been quite good at looking at the data and building out a pattern of what's going on and sort of putting myself, sort of separating yourself away from your business, because we're very good at sort of laying in jargon, laying in our own opinion, we've been sitting in the market for 20 odd years. So how we conduct ourselves and how we interact with the industry is very different to how our customers are going to do it. So it allows you to sort of build out that picture. Actually, we had a really good one when I was doing these grow digital talks that we met at. We had a guy come along and he said with his data, he's like, I can't work out why my Mobile. I get loads of traffic on mobile, but not a lot on desktop. But then everybody buys on desktop.

So we're like, okay. So we started to look at his data and this was just sitting in the room with his laptop. And we could see that the new visitor count on mobile was really, really high. It's about 80% new visitors coming from mobile. Everyone on desktop is a returning visitor. So what that tells us is that people are prospecting, they're doing their research on the train. They're doing something where they're thinking about you on the go. You are a point of contact at that point, but they're not going to interact with you.

They're not going to put their card details, and they're not going to purchase from your business until they're at home in front of their computer.

Katie Flamman 00:12:55:

Or sat in the office.

Michael Humphrey 00:12:56:

Sat in the office, something like that. So then you start thinking, okay, now we've got a different level of marketing to go at it. So actually the message that we put out for mobile is more brand. It's more focused on the story, around authenticity, around the quality, around congratulating them for finding the right place. Everything that we can look at, we can also look at the keywords they search to look at you. If they're looking for a high quality carpenter near me, then the message you put out to these new guys are around quality is around the sort of trigger points that get them in. And we saw that there was a huge increase in the amount of the conversions against desktop. And we saw that in the last couple of weeks that it's been going just for running a little ad campaign on the side.

So it makes a lot of difference being able to break that down and paint a picture and actually write it down a lot. I don't know if you ever did it during my A levels and all of this sort of stuff, you had to write down who's your customer? You had to really describe who they are. This is Tony. You build that out.

Katie Flamman 00:14:00:

Tell me about Tony.

Michael Humphrey 00:14:01:

Similar kind. Yeah, I was really interesting guy. It doesn't exist, but I've got his life story. But even that now data allows you to paint a picture. So what's the percentage chance that this person is going to be female? 60% if you're looking at your audience. Okay, you can start breaking that down into, well, how many of those are transacting or going through abandoned? So you could start bringing up a list of saying, right, the highest potential to transact with my business is men over 45. The people that are going to abandon the cart are women under 25. So you can have a look at the cart process and if it feels a bit formal, if it feels a bit

Michael Humphrey 00:14:40:

there's too many steps, you sort of lost the beautiful design flow that you had through your website stops at checkout because you haven't given that the design time. Then the more emotive creatures in the world, which, forgive the broad brush stroking territory, are typically women, they'll sort of switch. Oh, this has got a bit formal now. Terms and conditions. Big, heavy, right. Oh, I've got to agree to this and that. And then there's a pop up that comes, no, you've lost me here. I was part of an emotional journey with you, and now you've just slammed me over loads of terms and conditions.

Michael Humphrey 00:15:13:

So actually soften it out. Okay, before you proceed, we have to go through some legalities. Is this okay, is this.

Katie Flamman 00:15:19:

That's just the language, isn't it?

Michael Humphrey 00:15:12:

Steps. Just the language, yeah. But knowing what language to use is going to be key to the audience that you're in front of.

Katie Flamman 00:15:30:

Knowing exactly who that person is, imagining them sat on their sofa or wherever, and knowing what they might be thinking. And you're right. I mean, I didn't study marketing, but I've learned about it in the last ten years from running my business. I kind of just used to post about some things on the Internet. Yes and no, but I've studied marketing, and then I've also, from the scripts I get from my clients, who are a lot of them businesses doing marketing. So I've had a lot of free insights into their processes and what they're thinking about. But one of those things was create your dream client avatar. I was like, well, I don't know.

I can look back at who's contacted me for work and figure out, are they men or women? But beyond that, it's really hard without that data to actually kind of populate that image and colour it in.

Michael Humphrey 00:16:15:

And now you could do it with your GA4. You'll be able to sit and say, okay, my ideal customer lives in this town. They will have a lifetime value of x amount. They're male or female. They're in this age. They've got active interests in apparel, hobbies and games. Family days out. They've got an Apple iPhone version five.

They like to spend about four to five minutes browsing between now and then. So your analytics builds out that dream customer profile. So it's fair enough that you sit there in your mind, because probably when you go through that exercise, anytime I've gone through that exercise, first place I look is the corner of the room. Start thinking, oh, let me have a think. And it shouldn't be you thinking. You should be looking at your data and saying, right, well, I've got my business. And yeah, I had ambitions for who I'm going to reach when I first started it, but now I'm ten years in the lifetime value of our customers. For us, it worked out that we ended up finding a niche in engineering and manufacturing companies and we never set out to hit engineering and manufacturing.

We started out with loads of personal trainers and all sorts of stuff. So where we found it is that engineering and manufacturing companies had the passion, had the expertise, have evolved something themselves, usually really risk, like high risk level to what engineering. They've had to put a lot of money to get to where they are so they're not afraid of spending money correctly. If you can give them the confidence that they're investing, well, then you're more likely into the door. And for us, from sort of outsourced digital marketing, when you go and sit with them and you say, okay, who's looking after your website? It's probably some poor guy sitting on reception being like, it's me. I do the Instagram and the tweets and the emails and GA4 is not quite working, but it does a bit. And we've got a mailchimp account, but I don't know where the URL is or these sort of things happen. So actually coming in and say, we're going to come and support you because you've got expertise, you've got passion and a huge range of content and insights to share.

So, yeah, we really sort of crafted out that niche and it was our stats that told us. And then now I say, if I'm actively pursuing a customer, if I'm going to pay to acquire a lead, it's going to be within engineering and manufacturing and they're going to match a very specific profile and we know the lifetime value of that. So if we are employing a third party company, lead generation, anything like that, we can go to them and say, no, you need to generate this lead for £6, £7, and we know that we're going to close three to five of them, so fill your boots.

Katie Flamman 00:19:09:

So just to kind of clarify what you mean by that. It's going to cost you six or seven pounds in digital advertising. So like Google Ads, or presumably Google Ads. And that's going to turn around a lead worth? Do you have to figure out what the end amount is going to be worth?

Michael Humphrey 00:19:29:

Yeah, so I always call it, you reverse engineer it. Let's say if we build a website for a customer worth £1000, and we know that we're closing one in ten leads that come through, we're closing into £1000 of business average, then we know that we've got £1000 of profit to spend to acquire ten leads. That'd be £100 per lead, but our margins are only going to be 20% of that, maybe. So that £100 per lead goes to £20 per lead. Now we only want to spend 15 - 25% of our budget on marketing. So now we're looking at something closer to a £5, £2.50 between £2.50 - £5 per lead because we're going to spend, let's say 50 quid to get ten leads in the door. Knowing that we're going to close one of them worth £1000 pounds.

So, yeah, getting that, we've got like that tool that we did during the workshop, which more than happy to circulate tool if you need to, but we're big on ROI and actually the first thing we like to do is sit down with a customer and work that out because that is eye opening when they see it. All right, okay, so what if I actually need to spend £2.50 a lead? Because a lot of people have the misconception, okay, I'm happy to spend £1000 on an inquiry. If that gets me £1000 worth of business, you say, well, you're paying for a flatline, you're playing, effectively, failure. That's not scale, that's not growth. That's you wasting time, really, because you could have done nothing and you'll be in exactly the same place. And it's quite strange. Sometimes I sit in front of people and they're like, this is eye opening. Why haven't we ever done this? I think, how have you not done this? And I don't know whether it's just a common sense vein or just people not being aware or anything.

I think a lot of it is awareness that you think, right, you've got Google Analytics, you know that it's telling you what your ecommerce basket values are like. But what do I do with it? Once I've got it all? What happens? What now? So actually sitting with someone and just sort of levelling that out and having that conversation ends up being really key. So yeah, we quite enjoy sitting with customers, having that initial conversation. It gives them a lot of confidence that we're heading in the right direction and we've got a goal. There's too much a market that's a bit ethereal just so it might work. And good luck. Let's do it.

Katie Flamman 00:21:52:

Make it happen. Make it return on your investment. Well, I think I've only got one question really left, which is where's your story going to go in the next kind of five years? You talked about maybe still being around for some of those businesses that you've helped or spoken to, but what about you personally or in your business? Got any ridiculous goals?

Michael Humphrey 00:22:15:

There is one ridiculous goal, I'll save it for the end. But I think business wise we've just tipped over the edge of having something that's scalable now for the next five years at least, what we want to do is there's six of us as far as Digibubble is concerned. Four of us are in the office full time and that as a foundation crew is outstanding. We've gone through a fair few hires, we've had our ups and our downs but right now we're sitting on a really solid foundation of people that have got the right integrity, are willing to learn, really positive. It's a great environment to be in and it's where I'd like the company to be just ethos and I enjoy walking in in the morning. So the next five years for Digibubble is that we want to expand that but not lose the values, not lose that enjoyment, make sure that we keep that. It's been really hard, especially as me and my business partner Keith, friends that go way back. So it's been really hard to make sure that we still enjoy ourselves and still create a professional environment that's not just two mates messing about and now it feels like we've done that and we've got the right crew.

So while that's happening I'm just putting together a proposal. I've been working at a proposal for the last couple of years with Hawley town where we're trying to build a community work hub. So it's in the High Street. So they've got loads of money flying around for reimagining the high street and level upping and all of this sort of stuff. So yeah, we're building Works Perfect. It's called we're just going through an application for some grants now, but it's a walk in work centre. It's got 32 desks in it, but it's also got two pop up retail units in the front window. So if you're a small local jewellery maker and you just want to see if there's capacity on the high street for you to get some foot, test it out, come into Works Perfect, take the window. We've lined that up. I've been talking to the Department of Work and Pensions because it always frustrates me how the benefit system kills entrepreneurial spirit. Because if I sit there and say all my, you can't call it the dole anymore, but job allowance, or that's what they call it. So I want my money, but they say, okay, well, have you applied for five jobs this week? So I haven't, no. I've been working on the next best idea. It's brilliant. You need to go, here's one Tesco driver, Check out at Lidl, street sweeper bin man. They're all there. You can go get a job now. And you think, oh, and if you don't put these CVs in and try hard, you won't get your money. So we're talking with them to run a mentoring program through Works Perfect that allows you to beep in. And as long as you're assigning your hours to Works Perfect on evolving your own business and you've got a mentor, then it can work towards your job allowance, counts towards your credits. So just little bit sideways thinking on that and that was coming out of COVID that started. So, yeah, we think we're just now starting to look at some money and get the plan together.

So, yeah, I think next five years, that might be something.

Katie Flamman 00:25:27:

That's brilliant. Thank you so, so much. Well, it's been a real eye opener talking to you, Michael, about websites and beyond. So thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Michael Humphrey 00:25:40:

Thank you very much for having me Katie.

Katie Flamman 00:25:42:

Did you find that useful? I hope there was something in that chat for everyone, whatever your level of digital knowledge. So what did I learn? Well, here are my key takeaways. One, don't panic if your company isn't crushing the Internet. Not every business even needs a website. But having some kind of online presence will make you discoverable when potential clients are doing their research. And if your website or Facebook page includes reviews from happy customers, even better. Two, there are stories hidden in your business data and you can use AI tools to find them if you want. If your website has analytics, an AI tool like chatGPT can look at that data and give you useful insights on the nitty gritty of what's happening at the point of sale or when and how people interact with your site. Three, digital advertising isn't for everyone, but it can be very successful if you know exactly who your ideal client is, how many leads it takes to generate a sale, and how much your average sale is worth. Then you can work out how much to spend on a pay per click campaign. Check the show notes for Michael's handy calculator tool to help you figure this all out. Four, don't forget what Mike said about relationships. At the end of the day, if you're good at what you do, friendly and helpful person, your business will grow, whether you're a digital whiz or not. And if you'd like Michael Humphrey's help with your digital marketing, do give Digibubble a shout. The contact details are in the show notes.

And tell Michael I sent you.

Next time from digital to physical, using your body to get your story straight.

Stacia Keogh 00:27:34:

So what is a story? First of all, a story has to have some very basic ingredients. Number one, it needs to have a character and it needs to have an event. And then it needs to have real emotion and transformation. Things can't go back to being the same, otherwise why would you bother telling it?

Katie Flamman 00:27:55:

That's somatic Story coach Stacia Keogh with a formula for story success and tips for getting out of your head and into your body. And you don't even have to wait. Episode 19 physical body and soul is sitting in your phone waiting for you. Well done to previous me for making that happen. But actually, right now, me needs a cup of tea. So it's time for this me to go. I'm Katie Flamman and that's quite enough of that.

And this is storytelling for business. Till next time. Goodbye.