[Fully Managed] Dylan Badura Ep. 90 – Podcast Highlights and Transcript

Daniela: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Fully Managed Podcast. This is the podcast where we discuss business and marketing tips to help assist you in your business journeys. I’m your host, Daniela, and I’m Penji’s partnership coordinator. I’m joined here today with a very special guest, Dylan Badura from Straight North.

Hi Dylan. How are you doing today?

Dylan: Doing good, Daniela. Ready to get started?

Daniela: That’s good. That’s good. I like the energy. I’m very happy to have you today on the Fully Managed Podcast, but just to kind of break the ice a little bit and get us a little, get started, get warmed up. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do? Background on who you are?

About Dylan Badura

Dylan: Yeah, yeah. I’m an account executive at Straight North. We handle digital marketing from website development, SEO to paid. Previously I’ve ran full fledged advertising campaigns on digital, from paid itself all the way to streaming TV, programmatic, you name it. If it was online, we could pretty much get you there.

So it’s a little bit about me. My background before that, I played some baseball till I was about 26 or so, went overseas, lived life to the fullest while I could, and then decided it was probably time to pick a career I could grow with.

Daniela: Wait, where did you go overseas to play baseball? I’m so curious.

Dylan: Yeah, I was in Australia for about eight months or so. Actually, what’s really funny is I got married last September and had my host family, the twins I was living with at the time came out to visit me. So it was really fun to see them again after a good amount of years.

Daniela: That’s so cute. That’s so nice. Well, you know, I think digital marketing is just as exciting as baseball, so you’re not missing out on that much.

Dylan: There’s a lot of parallels, that’s for sure.

Daniela: Well, yeah, I mean, I guess marketing goes into everything. You could apply marketing to almost everything if you wanted to get the voice out there.

From Baseball to Marketing

Daniela: Now, I wanted to, obviously you are a person who has a lot of experience on digital marketing. When you were doing that career shift from baseball to marketing, what inspired you to actually get into digital advertising or this sort of field, and how has that journey sort of have been evolving throughout the years as you have been growing in it?

Dylan: Oh, that’s a good question. I’d say it kind of stemmed, it started in college. I was trying to figure out what I wanted my major to be. You know, when I first went to college, it was all about going for baseball, so I didn’t put too much thought into it. Over time we started working on like communications.

I got more into that and figured, you know, after doing radio, I did a little bit of TV work over there. The advertising really stuck out to me because you can be creative. It’s all about kind of framing and how you can make things look, appear to your audience and just make it fun. I always thought, you know, the whole strategy behind that and being able to even just needle down to the color of things is what appealed to me.

So as I kind of grew in my profession and where I’m at now, the stuff that still really sticks out, the strategy is really fun. Because you can take a million different strategies for a million different companies in a million different industries and be able to apply different aspects of it and just kind of keep working and find something new that’s gonna work every day.

Daniela: Yeah, that’s true. It is very, I think I always say like, if marketing is kind of the creative corporate job, right? I feel like that’s, it’s one of the fields where you can be a little bit more creative than others. Like for the people who are in finance or sales or maybe product development is actually kind of creative depending on the product that you’re developing. But yeah, marketing, like you said, is definitely a place where you can really just go and be creative.

Dylan: You gotta come at it from a different angle. I mean, what I’m gonna come up with is probably something different that you’ll come up with. So at the end of the day, there’s like I said, a bunch of ways to do things, but you just gotta be able to put yourself in the shoes of the customer and say, what would I like to see?

Changes in Digital Marketing

Daniela: Yeah, no, totally. But I wanted to also, you know, I think some that I also wanted to ask you about this digital marketing specifically. I mean, marketing in general has been changing a lot over the years, but digital marketing has sort of risen above, I guess, or become a lot more popular in mainstream with marketing campaigns. It’s also an aspect that is constantly changing with all of the stuff that changes with the world. When you started doing this, what are the biggest shifts that you think you’ve seen happen in the past few years? Because I can think of some, but I really wanna hear what your point is.

Dylan: That’s a good question. I think the first thing that probably sticks out to me is just the lean into new social media with the rise of TikTok and obviously that being a hot topic as of late. A lot of eyeballs and attention’s gone over there. I think its search engine alone has become, I think, number two or number three behind YouTube and Google.

Being able to find pretty much whatever you want on there has become a norm for me. I love to use it to find cooking recipes, cocktail recipes. I mean, you name it, you can look on there. Right now we’re currently in the midst of kind of remodeling our bathrooms at our house, and so I’ve found tons of designers on there, different ideas that they like to put out there, and I think a big shift into that area of things, especially with attention and how the algorithm works has been kind of the forefront in digital marketing. I’m sure something else will come along and take its place as digital marketing continues to develop.

Daniela: Yeah, no, TikTok is really a thing that’s just, do you remember? I mean, I know that before it was musically, and I, they probably had like a different name before that, but I remember like when it was musically and people were doing it, but it wasn’t still as big. And then when it shifted over to TikTok, I remember it got really big, but a lot of people were still not like, very into it. They were like, “Ew. Like, no, I don’t like it.” And then, but still had that stigma of dancing.

Dylan: Yeah. It was a dancing app.

Daniela: It was like, yeah. It was a dancing app. Like I don’t wanna go in there and do dances. Like, that’s so cringe. And like, obviously like elderly people and I guess like people who are outside of like the young sphere were also just very skeptic of it. And then sort of, I guess like for me, my experience was kind of like, I just kinda like heard it and I was like, oh, like okay, it’s a bad app. And then one day I was curious. I downloaded it, I tried it and then I just like was immediately addicted. It’s just such an addictive platform.

Dylan: It’s hard to get off of there. Because you’ll sit there and scroll and then all of a sudden two hours have gone by like, “Oh my God, what am I doing with my life right now?”

Daniela: Very much so. Yeah, scrolling exactly.

Dylan: And I’m old enough to remember the Vine days. It’s fairly similar in a lot of regards, but like you said, you know, anything that’s kinda new, it’s gonna have certain stigmas around it until you kind of dip your feet in the water and check it out and then all of a sudden, you know, that’s your new favorite app.

Daniela: Big one. Yeah, no, I think once like people started making money off of it and like celebrities and stuff of that, like that got into onto the app, it’s sort of started to become a little more popular. But I think what, like you said, it’s been a huge topic of discussion as of late because of everything that’s going on with like, whether it was gonna get banned or not.

But I also think it’s very interesting how all of these social media platforms have become a source of marketing for a lot of businesses. I think, I mean, I don’t think every business has to be on TikTok specifically, but I definitely think that most businesses should be on social media in some shape or form, whether it’s like an Instagram page or Facebook, or tick, whatever it is that you think is better for your business. I don’t know if you agree.

Dylan: No, I totally agree. I think, you know, social media as a whole, you gotta have that top of funnel marketing. You gotta get your name out there, connect with people with your brand, and be able to get them before they start making a decision on whatever either your product or service is. That’s very important because that’s gonna help you win when they come to the searching. Doing, whether you’re doing SEO or paid on Google, if they see your name, if they have some sort of relevance that’s gonna help out that click rate of time.

Misconceptions About Digital Marketing

Daniela: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And now that we’re speaking on social media, I think that there’s a lot of misconceptions when it comes to digital advertising or marketing where people think that digital marketing, and they, a lot of people immediately associate digital marketing with social media, right? They think social media marketing, posting on social media, social content, et cetera. I think digital marketing is a lot more than just social media marketing, but I think that that’s a misconception. What other misconceptions do you think people have about what digital marketing is and what it sort of does as a whole for a business?

Dylan: Yeah. Honestly, I deal with this question probably every day when I talk to new prospects and people we want to bring on board as a client. It’s the whole, “I’ve gotten burned so many times, does this even work? I’m just throwing money to the wind” type of deal. It’s very hard to turn around that misconception of digital marketing actually works.

A lot of times, you know, other companies, I always equate it to when you’re trying to find a company to work with, it’s a lot like dating. There’s gonna be a lot of bad dates out there. You’re gonna have to go on a lot of ’em and suffer through. But eventually, you know you’re gonna find a good one. Find someone to partner with. And that’s kind of what you wanna do with the company as well, is make sure that not only is, you know, are they a good company, but are they willing to work with you because everything may not work right out the gate, but as long as that company’s willing to move and shake and optimize as you go and make those adjustments, then you know you’re with a good partner.

Because a lot of times people come to us say, “You know, I’ve spent X amount on Facebook, I’ve spent X amount on Google, I never get anything. It’s all spam. I don’t believe it at all.” Especially, you know, the older generations just don’t buy into it because they’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve just been burned by them in the past, and that’s something that you gotta be able to build that trust with them. And especially show them how we may differ or you may differ as a company and show them really what they should be looking for when it comes to data coming in and kind of making those adjustments. Because at the end of the day, data’s gonna give you the roadmap. You just gotta learn how to read it and what to do with it.

What’s Working in Digital Marketing Now

Daniela: Right, exactly. So what is working right now in digital marketing that you know, a marketer or a business should double down on when it comes to digital marketing?

Dylan: Content. Content is king. Make sure you have good content. That’s what reason, you know, you guys do podcasts and shows over there is the reason why we try to put out a lot of different blogs and articles and help out our clients do a little bit of the same. More content you have out there on the web and quality at at the most. What’s gonna be important? That’s something that, you know, Google’s been rewarding every time they come out with an algorithm change, it seems like that’s what they’re talking about.

Daniela: Yeah. It’s true. Content is doing really well and I think like there’s a lot of content that can be sort of repurposed for a lot of different things.

Dylan: Which can be really useful for marketing, I think, especially for like smaller business owners who probably don’t have budgets for like big campaigns.

Dylan: That’s a great point. Especially when you can’t have, you know, 20,000 to spend on whatever platform. You gotta make sure you’re doing that posting consistently, making quality stuff and not just, “Hey, we completed this job,” or, “Check out this cool quote that we found.” It’s gotta make sure you resonate with your audience on what you guys do.

Overcoming Content Creation Barriers

Daniela: Yeah. And what would you say to people? I think a lot, a question that I get a lot from up and coming business owners is that they, a lot of them are aware that content is important to a marketing strategy. Right? The problem is not that they don’t know that. A lot of people tell me, “I know I have to make content. I just, I don’t know how.” I don’t know what to make. I don’t have the resources bandwidth. I’m not a camera person or like, I don’t like to write blogs. Whatever it is that they have to say. There’s like a block there. What is your advice to people for them to sort of get that ball rolling and get started?

Dylan: Put what’s interesting to you, do your day-to-day stuff. I’ve seen, you know, “how it works behind” videos and I think it was a couple weeks or months ago, there was a post that went viral on social media of a guy hanging from a TV wall mount showing how strong his wall mounts are and like, it’s just fun stuff like that. It doesn’t have to be all this professional stuff. People enjoy a video shot on an iPhone or droid, just showcasing fun stuff and what they do.

Daniela: Yeah. Social media has also become more like craving for authenticity, right? I think I remember when I was a teenager back in like 2015, 2017, that around that time, sort of very highly produced content was very popular. And then I feel like it’s sort of changed at some point. And now I feel like it’s completely different. Like, you know, there’s an appreciation for a little bit more raw stuff, even when it comes from like big brands.

Dylan: For sure. I think that’s something that all of us can relate to. You know, we get fed with so many polished up commercial type things that we’re looking for something else, something new, something be like, “Oh, I could do that, or I could see myself doing that” type of deal. And that’s especially, you know, when you’re a teenager, that’s what you’re kind of looking for and grasping for.

Ad Saturation

Daniela: Yeah, I know, I agree. No, and I think like we also have just been overly, overtly saturated with ads. I feel like I’ve never had so many ads shoved in my face than I do now. And you know, I still had cable TV when I was a child and I would watch all of the commercials between TV shows and I feel like, I don’t know if maybe it was because I was a kid, but it definitely feels like nowadays there’s a lot more ads everywhere with everything we do.

Dylan: Oh yeah. Especially scrolling around the internet. Even when you’re watching TV. Like I was watching basketball last night. Every 30 seconds it’s an ad break. It’s like, I just wanna watch the game at the end of the day.

Daniela: Yeah. I don’t want an ad. Yeah. No, no. And I didn’t. I was, I think when I discovered that companies do product placement on movies and shows, I was so dumbfounded because I didn’t even realize that I was getting advertised to while watching a movie or while watching a show, and then all of a sudden there’s a can of Coke there and I’m like, “Hmm, maybe I could drink a Coke today.” And I had like, no. I mean, I think before I didn’t really have that sort of consciousness that that was a thing of like, even when I’m watching the show and I think I’m not getting any ads, I’m still getting advertised to.

Dylan: Oh, that’s the best thing. Especially when you realize it too. Because you can start watching shows like, especially like reality TV. You’ll notice some brands are perfectly placed with the logo out in front of you, and then other times it’s the back of the bottle of wine or something like that. Like, okay, I see who’s paying for what now.

Daniela: Yeah, that’s, that always makes me think of like Wayne’s World. I don’t know if you’ve seen that, but they do that.

Dylan: Yeah. Wayne’s World, that segment. But I love that segment.

Daniela: Yeah. No, it’s true. And I think like, it does make you sort of change, you kinda shift your focus, right? You’re like, you’re a lot more, your eyes are open to seeing different things.

Dylan: Look behind the curtain.

Daniela: Yeah, look behind the curtain. Exactly.

Creating Compelling Ads

Daniela: But you know, I wanted to ask you, because I think we were talking about this right now, right? Like we’re, it’s such a crowded digital landscape basically. And I think also just consumers in general are becoming a lot more educated. I wouldn’t say a lot more educated, but maybe like they’re just a lot more aware of what’s going on and that they’re being advertised to. And I think the standard of advertisements of what they’re demanding is kind of getting higher, in my opinion. What do you think can make ads compelling to a viewer or a user in such a competitive landscape nowadays?

Dylan: Honestly, that can be all over the board. Kind of going back to your one point on authenticity, that’s gonna be a big point of it, but also what kind of voice do you want your brand to have? If you’re gonna be, you know, a nonprofit, maybe that’s more a little, you know, pulling up heartstrings type of deal. But on the flip side, you could also go with a kind of a comedy touch and call things out from the get-go. I’ve seen a lot of ads start, “This is a commercial” or “This is an ad.” So there’s a lot of ways you can kind of go about it. It just depends on how you want your voice and your brand to seem. At the end of the day, you know, that’s gonna resonate with what type of target audience you want to get into.

Daniela: Yeah, that’s true. And I think like if you’re going with younger audiences, you can be a little bit more playful, be quirky. I’ve noticed like brands that do younger audiences are very playful because I think the young, like Gen Z nowadays love that. As whereas with you working with more adult audiences, I think I think like they’re looking for something a little bit less, a more serious tone.

Dylan: Yeah, yeah, for sure. That’s definitely true. But at the same time, you can still reach that audience with some comedy. It’s just a little bit of different style or tongue in cheek, maybe sarcastic, depending on what you want to go for. But definitely with Gen Z, you know, you wanna be different. That’s what that generation’s all about. How can I stick out? I don’t want to be like, you know, Gen X or the boomers per se. I wanna make sure, you know, I’m different. That’s something that you can even see in their style. They all kind of start to dress like Adam Sandler.

Generational Differences

Daniela: Yeah, it’s true. It’s like, it’s true. And I mean, I think also like with, with Gen Z nowadays, it’s also about being authentic, but being special. It’s like a weird mix of it. And I think I’ve noticed the, I think with millennials there was, I noticed at least, I think that the difference was that millennials were a little bit, they were kind of tapping into that idea of like being special and all of that. But I feel like they never really sort of embraced it the same way that this generation, that Gen Z has. Because I feel like with Gen Z, it’s like, “Oh yeah, I’m so hot. I’m like the king or the queen of the world” or whatever. Right.

Dylan: No, for sure. And that’s, I’m a millennial myself, and it’s definitely on point. You want to be different but not too much. You still feel like you’re kind of in constraints. You’ve still got those reserves at the end of the day and stuff that’s been put on you by maybe older generations and just haven’t been able to break free. Kinda like Gen Z’s been so freeing and what they want to do and being that different person.

Daniela: Yeah, no, I totally agree. I feel like I’m in the cusp kind of, so I’m not, I feel like I’m not a millennial Millennial, but I don’t feel super Gen Z because I don’t feel like I’m young enough to be Gen Z, but I don’t feel old enough to be millennial. So I feel like I’m always like in between those two generations, like sandwiched. And I’m always sort of relating a little bit to half of what’s going on, on both sides. Because I definitely, like, I was, I was old enough when Vine was around, but I was still super young. I was not like prime age for Vine, if that makes sense. But I do remember it existing and I remember Vines.

Dylan: Oh, for sure. On flip side, I’m a millennial through and through. I remember, you know, the flip phone days, the chocolates, all that. I still know my Hogwarts house. We talked about it at our big company meeting a couple weeks ago. All our Hogwarts houses. So I lean into it. That’s me at the end of the day. I’m not afraid of it.

Daniela: What is your Hogwarts house?

Dylan: I’m a Ravenclaw.

Daniela: You’re a Ravenclaw, so you’re very smart.

Dylan: I’d like to think so.

Daniela: I’m a Gryffindor. I mean, I know my Hogwarts house, but I feel like everybody does, even if it’s, I mean, I know that this Harry Potter’s kinda associate with millennials, but I feel like that’s still, you still wanna know your house.

Dylan: Oh, for sure. You want to be part of your team. You know what I mean?

Daniela: Yeah, of course.

Balancing Data with Creativity

Daniela: Well, I mean, I also was, I mean we’ve been talking about all of this sort of like content driven, and connection driven and being funny, all these things. But I wanted to ask you about now a little bit more on the technical side data. How do you actually balance, I think we’ve never existed in a world that provides us with so much data so easily, right? Like you can get so many analytics through social media, through Google Ads, through all of these different sort of mediums to sort of see what, how your users are interacting with your ads and your content. And how do you actually balance all of that data that you’re getting with being authentic, being creative, being yourself and all of the things that people a brand would have to do in order to stand out.

Dylan: No, that’s a good question. I think it comes down to continually testing, test everything from your snippets and your thumbnails down to the content that you’re producing. See what’s resonating with people. What are they lingering on your ads for? How long? Why did they do it? You know, if they clicked in a certain part of it, what part did they click in? How long of the ad did they click into? If it’s a still frame, you know, what type of colors are we using? Test everything.

And I think the best person that you can really draw from that is Mr. Beast. He does a great job testing everything down to even the thumbnail. He’s talked about it. That’s the way he’s become so successful. And I don’t know if you’ve taken a look at the Mr. Beast games, but I believe that was the most streamed show as of 2024.

Daniela: Yeah, I know. I saw, I mean, I also saw that he got into a lot of controversies and I kind of started to look into it because of the games, and then I sort of stopped, but yeah, I mean it was definitely very, very, very successful for him.

Dylan: He did a great job. I mean, that’s what he does. He comes out with something new. I’m sure he’s got a brand new plan for this year and come out with a new, either TV show or some type of content where he’s building houses for people that don’t have much.

Daniela: Yeah, I definitely, I mean, he’s still the, there is a reason he’s on top, I think. Because from when he started making content that was a little bit lower budget, he was still doing something so different than what other, every other YouTuber influencer was doing at the time that, you know, people started paying attention and now he has the budget to do all of these really big things that he’s does.

Dylan: Oh yeah. No, it’s nice to, nice to have a big budget. That’s gonna help you out a lot more. But that’s, you know, like kind of touching back on an earlier point. If you don’t, you gotta be authentic.

Can Companies Survive on Organic Marketing?

Daniela: Yeah. Well, and speaking of budget, I mean, I think budget is a very big concern, right? Like money, financial stuff. Especially for smaller business owners who probably don’t have that. I talked to someone the other day that was kind of like telling me that their strategy was organic marketing, right? Like they were just like doing organic content and trying to get everything through organic and they were not gonna do any kind of paid ads or advertising. And they were just focusing all of their efforts on organic marketing. Do you think that this is sort of something that is doable nowadays? Can a company actually survive without paid ads?

Dylan: I definitely think so. A lot of it’s gonna come down to branding. And I think a great example of that is Liquid Death. I mean, they started as just like a general Facebook page, kind of a joke, and then all of a sudden they had 50,000 plus followers and they’re like, maybe we should actually do something with this. So if you can come out with a strong branding campaign, you can pretty much do anything as long as you’re connecting with people.

Daniela: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. And I think like with all these platforms, it kind of gives people sort of an equal footing to grow followings and get a community behind them.

Dylan: There’s gotta be a path for the little guy, and that’s something you gotta be able to work on. And, you know, I do think some brands have built massive audiences organically.

Daniela: For advertisers who are sort of seeing all of that. What do you think is the learning lesson that people can take from it?

Timeless Marketing Strategies

Dylan: Honestly, you know what resonates with people and that’s, trends are always gonna come and go and change. You gotta create something. You can’t touch on trends, but you gotta be timeless. Find stuff that talks to the human emotion. You know, as I was saying earlier, you know, picking in marketing companies like dating. Everybody dates, that’s not something that’s gonna go outta trend. That’s not something that’s going outta style. That’s something you can touch in there.

Other stuff like being able to sit around a table with your family, different things like that that are always gonna be there, but trends such as dressing like Adam Sandler is probably gonna be gone here in a couple years and it’ll be a new trend. Maybe we’ll go back to how people dressed in the eighties. I have no idea.

Daniela: Yeah. The skinny jean hate is very rampant right now. And then in a couple years we’ll see people wearing them all over again.

Dylan: We’ll be right back to it.

Daniela: We’ll be right back to it. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I think like focusing on stuff that transcends trends is always important. Because it’s gonna speak to people like you said, like dating is always gonna be in, people are always gonna wanna partner, right?

Dylan: Yeah. And dating is a pain in the ass. So it’s the same, like you said, it’s the same thing.

Daniela: No, for sure. I mean, at the end of the day, people are just looking for love and it doesn’t matter who you pick, as long as that, like I said, a person’s there for you. And that’s something that’s never gonna go outta style.

Conclusion

Daniela: Yeah. And I think that’s a great note to end on. Very poetic. It’s been so great to have you today, Dylan, on the show, but I do want to give you the space to plug anything that you wanna plug. If we spoke about anything that resonated with anybody of audience, I wanna give you the space to tell them where they can find you, if they would like to work with you. Space is yours for anything?

Dylan: Yeah. You find me on LinkedIn, Dylan Badura, anything you guys want to talk about as far as marketing. Go to straightnorth.com. Our big thing here, especially we talked about kinda getting burned so much by companies, our big slogan lately is “Hire your Last agency” because we’re willing to be that person to work with you guys. And I think that’s something that’s, I’m very proud of here at Straight North. So that’s all I got for you guys. Thanks for having me, Daniela.

Daniela: Thank you so much for being here. It was so great to have you on the podcast, and I will be adding the links to all of these things on the description of the video so that everybody watching can go and click them easily and find you.

Dylan: Awesome. Thank you.

Daniela: Thank you so much for being here, Dylan. And guys, I will see you on the next episode. Bye bye.

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