Transcript:
And I’ve spoke with a handful of friends in the past that were either artists and studio owners and kind of identified that there was this giant hole in the industry where marketing just isn’t a thing. Um, and I got to the point with the agency that I had before this or still currently have, where we work with window replacement and it’s the most boring thing I’ve ever done.
I mean, you know, marketing windows, they’re, they’re literally, you’re marketing something that’s see through. Um, and that’s what I loved about. Tattoos, um, is not only is it such a creative thing, uh, the people that do it have such a passion for art. It’s so fun to market for them. Cuz again, it’s just such a, is the exact opposite of window replacement.
Hi, and welcome to the 91 Day Success podcast. I have got an incredible guest here today who’s gonna share an incredible story with us. So we’ve got Jesse Drake from Washington, and Jesse runs Inc. Link, a marketing agency for tattoo studios. And not only did this blow my mind, but as Jesse shares some things about the industry, you’re gonna learn why this may be the best decision that any of us could have ever made.
Uh, Jesse, welcome to the podcast. Really thrilled to have you, and really excited to, to have you share more of your story with our, our audience as we get started. Can you kind of start with the elevator pitch and give us the 32nd overview, who’s Jesse? Um, you know, how’d you get in the business? And then we’ll, we’ll dive into some details.
Yeah, it sounds great. Well, first, Jonathan, thank you so much for having me. Uh, happy to be here. And so I got started in marketing about seven years ago. Uh, prior to that I had worked in construction for 14 years and it was kind of by chance I had, uh, been laid off for my job. Seasonal, um, when the snow hits is not a lot of construction where I live.
Uh, kinda needed something to. Due, uh, to make money since I was not getting enough unemployment to provide for my family, kind of fell into actually like the ClickFunnels and Russell Brunson and all those guys, and the, the rest is history. The last seven years, that’s, that’s been what I’ve done for not only my own business, but businesses that we have worked.
Well, awesome. Well, I know you’ve been in the digital marketing field for a long time, but I also know that you’ve just recently moved your, your niche into tattoo studios and stuff. Can you tell us a little bit behind that? What we talk a lot on here, I guess, about nicheing down and finding your niche and really becoming an expert.
Can you tell us a little bit, why did you choose tattoo parlors and, and the artists and the creatives there to go work with? What, what drew you to. Well, obviously I enjoy tattoos. Most of my body is covered in it. Um, and I’ve spoke with a handful of friends in the past that were either artists and studio owners and kind of identified that there was this giant hole in the industry where marketing just isn’t a thing.
Um, and I got to the point with the agency that I had before this or still currently have, where we work with window replacement. , it is the most boring thing I’ve ever done. , I mean, you know, marketing windows, they’re, they’re literally, you’re marketing something that’s see through. Um, and that’s what I loved about tattoos, um, is not only is it such a creative thing, uh, the people that do it have such a passion for art.
It’s so fun to market for them. Cuz again, it’s just such a, is the exact opposite of window replace. . Well, I, I want to commend you because what better than find an industry that needs your help and that you enjoy working with? Because if it’s not fun to get up in the morning, I don’t wanna do it. I know that, and I doubt you do either.
So kudos on recognizing that, Hey, we went one direction, we were successful, but I’m not loving life as much as I want to, and it’s time to make some changes. I think, you know, that’s something so many of us as entrepreneurs don’t do a good job. We get stuck in a rut and, and it’s. . I don’t remember who wrote that, but a ruts, just a grave with the end kicked out of it, you know?
And it’s, I think we get stuck there and we don’t then make moves. So, huge kudos for, for making that. Talk to me a little bit about what are some of the biggest challenges that tattoo studios face when it comes to marketing their business? I would say one of the big, well, the biggest thing is they just don’t do it.
It’s. Tattoo studios for the most part are still stuck in, I mean, I would say the eighties. You talk to these guys and they still put flyers out on cars. Uh, but you can look up tattoo shops, Seattle, and you’ll see zero Google ads. It’s, it’s primarily a word of mouth thing and it has been slowly changing over the last I six, seven years.
but these, these studio owners that I talked to, they, they don’t know what a GMV is. They don’t know what a landing page is. So it is trying to educate and sell at the same time. And I mean, to be honest, they’ve, these guys know they need it. They just don’t know where to get started. Um, so it’s been, it’s been a really fun process, um, and we’ve been able to at least help start, get, getting people to understand.
this is where the industry is going. The, the industry’s gonna double in the next six years. You’re gonna have these kids, kids, uh, early to mid twenties that grew up on social media, that grew up knowing Google ads and Facebook ads starting to open their own studios. Uh, so, you know, I’d say by 2030 it’s gonna be adapt or dying.
If you adapt. Now it’s the, you know, you’re getting in on the early wave, which is obviously where you want to. Oh no, absolutely. And, and it’s actually one of the questions I had for you. I’m, I’m wondering, uh, my son and daughter-in-law have more tattoos than I do, so they, they’re more familiar with it, but they.
you know, they’re both late twenties. Uh, and you know, they understand that that world, and like you said, they grew up on social media. They’ve never known anything different. Where, what’s the average age for a, for an artist nowadays? Or is there no such thing? Is it really span, you know, everything from the, the young creative getting involved to the old master who’s been, you know, doing ink for decades.
Any, is there an average or is there a, a norm or is it really all over the board? So it’s all over the board, but it’s definitely starting to be a younger person’s, I guess, game under 40 years old. And, but that’s just because there’s so many more people becoming tattoo artists. You have kids that, you know, went to art school, that it’s an entirely different generation of artists coming up.
and with how much the industry is growing. You do see a lot, the majority under 40, but there are still a a ton of amazing artists out there that are what you would consider old school. Well, it makes a lot of sense, but I’m assuming a lot of their clients probably are, again, we’ll call ’em younger, but certainly compared to me in my fifties.
Uh, I imagine a lot of the clients are younger and therefore appealing to them where they’re at online, making sure that they’ve got a web presence and they’re findable when somebody’s searching for ’em is gotta be just absolutely critical for them growing their business and being able to expand their practice and grow.
I would. From your perspective, how do you help them overcome that challenge? I assume a lot of people you start with probably don’t really have any online presence. How do you help them overcome that? What are kind of the steps you walk through with them? Jesse? Well, I, I would say about 50 to 60% have a website and probably 30 to 40% have a gmb, but outside of that, it’s, it’s nothing.
Um, but just being able to show them. , these, these shops that have, you know, been early adopters. I mean, we’ve talked to studios that have been doing Google ads for six, seven years now, and they have exploded. You know, it’s, it’s a game changer for these companies that are taking online marketing seriously.
So just being able to show them examples of what these other studios have done in the last six, seven years. And it’s because, at least in a good part, Speak to their online presence and them taking it seriously. One, it sounds like from what you shared with me in the, in the pre-call when we were chatting, that compared to most industries, or I would say every industry I’ve ever heard of, the cost on the advertising is really a, a 10 to 15 year old.
Uh, I should say it’s reflecting where most of the, in other industries were 10 to 15 years ago. I mean, I think you were talking, you know, the ability to, to get a click for under a dollar. Um, I mean, that’s unheard of in today’s world. Um, you mentioned Google ads and stuff like that. Have you found other ads like, you know, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, are those effective in, in that market as well?
Or is that something that’s still really being kind of fleshed out? No, no pun intended. Uh, they, it is definitely effective. Um, Facebook ads, Instagram ads. So for artist, Instagram is, is their thing, uh, cuz they can show their work, uh, and they can build these massive followings. Blake. I would say any industry though, when you start getting consultation requests off of Facebook, off of Instagram, it’s always gonna be more tire kickers.
Um, and with the cost per click and the cost per acquisition so low on Google, we don’t really see a reason to spend the money on Facebook when we can get the exact same price on Google for the higher quality. Makes perfect sense. Yeah. Because the last thing you want to do is like, in any business, get caught in that price game.
And, uh, I’m assuming like any quality work that’s done, if you’ve got a quality artist, it’s gonna cost a few more bucks. And you don’t want to be, you know, racing to the bottom of that, that pricing ladder in that, in that process. What, talk to me a little bit about branding with tattoo parlors in addition to the marketing.
Do you help them all with at all with branding or other things like that to figure out how to. Best grow their business? Or do you kind of stick just to the marketing side on the promotions, we do branding for them as well. A lot of these shops and these artists that are taking it seriously have grown these massive followings of 15 to hundreds of thousands of followers.
The problem is they are doing it. , you know, globally. So it’s, it’s, it doesn’t matter if you’re an amazing artist that has 40,000 followers, if your closest potential client is 500 miles away. Mm-hmm. . So what we do with them as far as a branding aspect is, which is, you know, again, extremely easy. Cause everything with them is so visual, you know, it’s not this huge, crazy process.
It’s literally running some advertising, but making sure it’s within. 30 to 40 miles of their studio. So those people that are starting to follow them, that are starting to connect with them are actually able to come take uh, or come get a tattoo. . I, I’m glad you brought that up. That’s one of the questions I had about Instagram in particular.
I know you can just amass huge followings there, but obviously geography is irrelevant at that point. If I see an artist that I like, it doesn’t really matter where they are. Um, but unless I’m really wealthy, I’m probably not likely to go, you know, uh, charter, a jet somewhere just for a particular, That I like.
I mean, I’m sure there are. I’m sure it happens, but it’s not the everyday occurrence that’s gonna build that, that creatives business for. is, are you targeting, you’ve done mainly just on location, age, what type of of targeting do, and I’m not asking you to give away any industry secrets here, but just from a, from a overall perspective, how do you do the best targeting?
And if somebody’s thinking, you know, watching this going, okay, I need to do Google ads regardless, industry, what do you recommend they be looking at for targeting as far as getting the right people when they’re looking at that, that Google ad. . Yeah. So targeting, we usually do a 20 to 30 mile radius, and then the age is usually anywhere from 30 to about 55.
Uh, the reason we exclude people under that is usually, I mean, these, nobody wants a one hour session or somebody to come in and do the shop minimums. We want these people that can actually afford to come in and get a sleeve, or at least, you know, a four or five hour session. outside of that, um, at least on Google, the biggest mistake we’ve seen people make is using these broad keywords where they’re coming up.
Just when somebody googles, uh, good tattoos or tattoo artist and they’re spending all these money, all this money on keywords that isn’t somebody actually searching for a tattoo studio or a tattoo artist that they want to get tattooed by. Oh, that’s really good advice. It, it reminds me, uh, I’ve probably told the story on this podcast before, but years ago, uh, I wanna say it’s close to 15 years ago.
I remember walking in to talk to a company that did maps and, uh, they wanted to talk about Google AdWords and. They didn’t do your normal maps. They put, they did like wall maps that were six feet by six feet laminated, and they only did them for 12 cities in the United States. And when I walked in, I remember the owner came out and he’d never worked with us before.
It was a sales call. And he goes, I want you to know I hate Google Ads. And I go, well, good. We’re pretty much in agreement here. What? Tell me why. And he goes, I wasted $5,000 in 60 minutes and I got nothing out of it. And I’m like you, and mind you, this is 15 years ago. And he’s like, I’m like $5,000 in 60 minutes.
What happened? And you just reminded me of it because he says, well, we do maps, so we bid on the keyword maps. And I said, But hang on a minute, you, you do six foot by six foot laminated wall maps. How many cities? He goes, 12 cities in the us and I said, so you didn’t do like wall map, you just did maps? Yep, we just did maps.
And I said, well, did you limit it geographically to the cities you’re in? He goes, oh no, we did the whole United States. and he goes, almost every call came from California. And I said, do you have any maps in California? No, we don’t do anything east of the MI or west of the Mississippi. And I said, I don’t think your problems with Google ads.
I think your problem is you didn’t know what, how to target well, because I said, you can limit not only by, you know, word, it could have been wall maps or laminated wall maps, or whatever they wanted. I said, but you could have also limited it just literally to the zip codes and the surrounding zip codes that you.
And I remember he looks at me, total dumb silence. He goes, I think I just burned $5,000. And I said, I think you did . Um, so yeah, it’s, it, to me that’s always a story. I remember telling people it’s, it’s why it’s worth working with an expert like yourself when you’re doing ads. Is because they’re, if you, Google’s not gonna care how fast you spend the money.
In fact, they want you to spend more. That’s why they’ve got billions in the bank. Not that they’re not helpful, but they’re not gonna stop you from doing something stupid with your ads. And if you want to target the wrong way, like you mentioned, if you’re a, a tattoo artist and you want to target everybody in the, you know, the entire state or maybe everybody along the west coast with you being in, in Seattle, they’re not gonna stop you from doing that.
They’re gonna happily take your money. So, uh oh. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very interest. Go ahead. We ahead. We’ve started working with a, a client, um, in Las Vegas about two months ago, month and a half ago. Um, and they. have been showing ads to Texas, Idaho, Oregon, and they’re like kind of the same thing. Ob not that much money, but you know, we’re, it doesn’t work.
It’s not, uh, getting results. And you know, in the last six weeks we’ve been working with them, we’ve got them down to under $14 per consultation request. Wow. Just by making some small changes. , I don’t think anybody’s gonna fly from Texas. Um, I. , some people will, I, I will fly across the country to get a good tattoo, but 98% of people aren’t gonna do that well, and that’s it.
It’s not that nobody’s gonna do that, but you know, if, if we’re helping these businesses grow, we need to help them get with their, majority of those people are willing to come into their shop and help them do that. What do you find is a, is a typical. , you know, I’m assuming, you know, an hour, hour and a half drive is probably what most people wanna stay within if they found a great artist or a, maybe a good artist that they’re interested in.
Um, and then the second follow up to that is how do you leverage, if the industry’s been so good on word of mouth, how do you leverage that and combine that word of mouth, reputation with digital to help the studios out? Uh, so for the first part, we usually try to stick within 20 miles around the studio.
And it’s not that we couldn’t go further, it’s just, I mean, these are tattoo studios. It’s, it’s very different than, like, when we did window replacement, we had one company that spent $150,000 a month just in ad spend with us. Holy, holy cow. Yeah, it was, it was a lot, it was a lot of work and a great learning experience and a lot of fun.
Um, but with that, you need the maximum amount of people that are gonna see that, you know, these tattoo studios are spending 500 to a thousand dollars a month on. Uh, Google Ads and like one of our clients in New York, one’s in Las Vegas, uh, you know, so these are very densely populated areas, but what we’ve seen is even with a $500 budget, if you at least have a $50,000, 50, 50,000 person city, I, losing my mind, um, that that will more than suffice.
You don’t need to go that out that much. Oh, it makes sense. Sounds like you’ve done some really good work with the studios and figuring out who their audience is and, and really targeting that audience. Uh, again, as we kind of talked earlier, I’ve always found that to be one of the things that so many customers struggle with is, Accepting that not everybody on the planet Earth is really a good potential customer of theirs.
And if we can target the people that are, we can be a lot more effective in driving revenue to their door than if we try to appeal to everybody across the board. So, uh, very, very interesting. W. , where do you see things going? You mentioned in the pre-call a little bit, Jesse, that you think that, you know, this is a growing industry and it certainly makes sense that it is.
Where do you see digital marketing in the future of that with tattoo studios going? What do you see happening in the future? I think it’s gonna be a necessity by 2027 to 2030, uh, with the industry projected to double, uh, in the next six years, which, Just alone, mind boggling. You’re gonna see a ton more studios, you’re gonna see a ton more artists.
You’re gonna have this younger generation coming up to and opening these studios that know about all this stuff. Um, and like I said, the people that have already been on it, that have been doing this for the last 5, 6, 7 years, um, have made an absolute killing, uh, with growing their studios. They’re, they’re some of the most successful that I’ve talked to.
So it’s, it’s gonna be an adapt or die situation. Um, not only are you gonna have these younger, this younger generation opening studios, you’re gonna also have the clients that are gonna become this younger generation. And where they go for everything is online, is on their phone, is, you know, searching in Google or looking through.
I mean, I’m sure by then Facebook won’t be the thing, but whatever the next big thing is. So Exactly. It’s, yeah, it’s gonna be huge. And um, really where the industry is definitely gonna be in, in the next five, 10 years. Um, I know you’ve mentioned you’ve been in the industry for a number of years. How do you stay on top of the, the changing trends and, and what trends are relevant for your clients and which ones are what?
Any tips for business owners that are out there, regardless of industry, the things that they can even do to kind of stay on top of what matters and, and maybe avoid those things that look interesting, but are really just, um, I would say eye candy and not necessarily things that are gonna help ’em grow their.
A lot of, you know, industries have magazines, have associations. So being parts of those, uh, Facebook groups and you, you can always just kind of see the trends starting to shift, like in tattoos. six years ago, like anime tattoos were not a big thing. Over the last six years, they have become like the most popular kind of tattoo.
So as long as you have a pulse on what’s happening and you’re talking to these shop owners or business owners, um, and going to these events and reading the publications like you’re, you’re gonna know what’s happening. I think one of the worst things you can do is not know what’s happening in your industry.
You know, not only. look very stupid when you’re talking to somebody. Um, but knowing what’s going on is something that you can use in your own marketing when you are trying to prospect for new clients. Makes it look like you’re on top of the ball. . Yeah. No, really good advice. Really good advice. And I know there’s, there’s industry associations and periodicals for virtually every industry you can imagine.
So I think that’s, that’s stellar, stellar advice. Well, Jesse, one of the things we love to talk about here on the 91 Day Success podcast is something that, I guess in a way, you’ve, you’ve just done and. If you said, Hey, I want to use my skills and everything else, but I wanna start over and I want to, you know, uh, we always talk about if you had the limit of a thousand bucks because, uh, you know, with the economy the way it is, if somebody ends up losing their job, decides to start a new gig, or maybe wants to start a side gig going on, or a business owner’s looking to expand, they may not have a huge budget.
So as somebody who’s been successful over the years, you’ve proven you’re a great business leader there. If, if I said, Hey, Jesse, it’s time to start over. Here’s a, here’s a thousand bucks and a laptop and a cell phone. What would you do in the first 91 days, the first three months to build that business up?
can you share that with the team and feel free to think about it for a little bit. I know it’s not just a, a simple one sentence answer. Yeah. So considering the fact that’s literally what I’m doing. I, I, I, I think I have a good idea. Cause we’ve, we’ve been far more successful than I thought we were going to be.
Very fast. Um, as far as the, the thousand dollars I’ve run social media ads for ourself, which is exactly what we’ve done, um, outside of. We started YouTube channel, Instagram, uh, Facebook group. Just starting getting our, starting to get our name out there, starting to, you know, Have that omni omnipresence within the industry and it’s, it’s been extremely successful.
You know, I have kind of have my own method for days I post and days I record. And in the first, in the last month, we’ve had almost 10,000 views on our YouTube channel. Um, we’ve had a ton of interaction on our Facebook group, so the money would definitely go to. paid advertising. Cuz as soon as you sign those first two, three clients, like it’s just scaling from there.
You know how much it’s gonna cost for the most part. Um, you know, the numbers, but having that omnipresence in your niche is something you can do that just takes time. It’s not, it’s free, you know, you just got to have a system, make sure you stick to it. Um, and then when people get to actually know who you are, know, like, and trust you, um, you know, two, three months from now, that’s, that’s gonna be a, a game changer for us.
That is what I would do. That is what I am doing. , great advice. And one, I think it’s really cool that you’re in the middle of that right now and that you’re doing that and it’s proven to be successful. Kudu is on your YouTube channel views. That’s amazing to have that type of views in such a short period of time.
Obviously, you’ve got your finger on the industry and you know what’s going on there, Jesse. If people want to find out more and they wanna learn more about you and. Uh, we’ll put some links in and stuff like that, but just to share verbally, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you and get in touch with?
um, either going to inc link.com, it’s inc-link.com or shooting us a message on Instagram. Again, since it’s such a big thing in the industry, we’re always on it, and that’s Inc. Link underscore marketing. So, . Excellent, excellent. And you work, if I’m not mistaken, you work with tattoo studios, literally across the United States, so it doesn’t matter where they’re located, you can replicate your expertise in your proven systems no matter where they are.
Correct? Correct. We have studios literally from Los, uh, Los Angeles to New York City, so, and everywhere in. . Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, Jesse, I, I really appreciate you coming on board. Uh, I know we’ve had the opportunity to meet over the last year and a half and just love your story and what you’re doing and, uh, just huge.
Again, kudos to you for recognizing that, Hey, you know, what I’m doing is working, but it’s not working the way I want it to. And looking to say, Hey, I really want to wake up in the morning and be jazzed about what I’m doing. To take that risk and, and go out and say, look, I, I know how to do this. And, and you’ve shown again in, in less than 30 days again, how you can just start setting the world on fire when you put your mind to it.
So huge kudos to that and, and best of luck in the future. I really appreciate it. Um, this was a ton of fun and. Uh, I mean, I’m sure we’ll talk soon. I’m sure we will. All right, well, if you guys have watched this, if you have any interest at all in what Jesse’s doing and inkling reach out to him. He’s, he’s an expert at what he does and he’s very passionate about the field.
Uh, we really appreciate you guys joining us today, and we’ll see you on the next episode. Make it a great day, everybody.
