Blake Calderon – Keeping Businesses Afloat Through COVID-19 With Zayd Marketing

The world has experienced a plethora of changes this year. For many businesses, surviving through COVID-19 seemed almost impossible. I recently sat down with Blake Calderon, founder of Zayd Marketing, to learn more about how her digital agency helped businesses stay afloat through the pandemic. 

Hey, Blake. Thanks for taking the time to chat today. Can you share a bit about how Zayd Marketing helped businesses survive COVID? 

Thanks for having me! I’d love to share how Zayd has been helping businesses. When the pandemic first hit, it seemed as though everyone’s attention shifted online almost overnight. People were on Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram way more often than usual. We helped businesses maximize this new attention by creating content that engaged their audiences and also ran ads to convert those engaged audiences into paying customers. Not only were we able to build brands with social proof online but we were also able to turn that social proof into revenue. A few of our clients mentioned that they probably would no longer be in business had we not come in and taken action. 

That’s awesome! It sounds like your agency creates content and runs ads on social media?

Exactly! Zayd Marketing is a digital agency specializing in social media. We offer social media growth services but our bread and butter are paid social ads. 

Nice! How did Zayd Marketing start? 

Zayd Marketing actually started out as Ho’omana Media. I was born and raised in Hawai’i and that’s where I started digital marketing. I started Ho’omana Media in 2016 helping local businesses in Hawai’i. When I realized the strategies I used could help businesses far beyond the islands, I changed the name to Zayd Marketing and started accepting clients throughout the country. 

It’s great to see how far you’ve come since then. How did you personally get started in marketing? 

I fell into marketing almost by accident. I always loved reading and one of my favorite subjects was always psychology. I was in college and I still hadn’t quite figured out my major when I was reading a book by Jonah Berger called Contagious. I always loved psychology but thought the only career path in that major was a therapist or counselor. That book helped me realize that marketing is basically applied psychology. I was hooked! I changed my major to marketing and before even graduating took on a few smaller clients that ultimately led to more experience and larger clients. 

That’s so cool! With so many marketing agencies in the world today, how do you stand out from your competition? 

That’s a great question. Our competitive edge is definitely our Facebook ad strategy. It’s been proven successful in virtually every industry and it brings in higher conversions at much lower costs. 

Would you care to explain or is it top secret? 

I’d love to. Businesses launch ads asking their audience to buy their product when the audience knows nothing about them or what they’re selling. It’s like walking down the street and someone running up to you asking you to buy a phone from them. Who are you, how can I trust that your phones are safe, how do I know you make a phone that actually works well, why would I want your phone? A buyer should have the right beliefs, biases, and objections handled before even getting an offer to buy. You can walk your buyer through this process or they can figure it out on their own. The mistake most businesses make is letting their audience go through that sales process on their own. Our ad strategy fixes this mistake. Instead of running sales ads to your cold audience asking them to purchase your product, put valuable video content with no pitches in front of them. Create a sequence of strategic videos for your ideal customer to go through. In these videos, you’ll establish authority, provide value, show some social proof, introduce your product, and handle popular buying objections. This puts your audience in the right frame of mind so they’ll be ready to purchase when they’re shown a sales ad. Video views come at less

then a cent whereas conversion campaigns are usually about $0.50 to $2. By framing your audience with the right beliefs then selling to them when they’re ready, you have a higher probability of making a sale plus that sale will come at a much lower cost. 

Wow! Do you have any advice for businesses who are currently running ads? 

Stop asking people to buy things from you when they don’t know anything about you. Take the time to frame your audience by putting strategic video content in front of them. You’ll notice higher conversions and lower costs. 

Thanks for sharing. I know that’ll help a lot of businesses out there. I want to thank you for taking the time to chat today. Before we go, I have one last question. What do you think the future holds for you? 

In the future, I’d love to help more business owners increase revenue. While Zayd Marketing doesn’t have the capacity to help every business out there, I look forward to creating a course teaching others how to do it for themselves. We have a systemized process to increase revenue and we’re excited to continue helping business owners do so.