Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.040 --> 00:00:09.269 Welcome back to be tob growth. I'm Logan lyles with sweet fish media. 2 00:00:09.509 --> 00:00:14.230 Today I'm joined by Randy Wooden. He's the chief strategy officer over at seismic. 3 00:00:14.390 --> 00:00:18.230 We're going to be talking about why marketers really need to take a publisher's 4 00:00:18.309 --> 00:00:21.460 mindset. Randy, welcome to the show. How's it going today? Great. 5 00:00:21.500 --> 00:00:24.059 Thank you very much for having me, logans. A lot of fun 6 00:00:24.100 --> 00:00:27.579 to be here, absolutely so. We're going to be talking about this topic 7 00:00:27.780 --> 00:00:32.619 of marketers taking on a publisher's mindset. Why is this something that you're so 8 00:00:32.740 --> 00:00:36.729 passionate about, randy, before we get into more of the why and the 9 00:00:36.810 --> 00:00:39.369 and how of this? Yeah, well, Logan, I've been on this 10 00:00:39.409 --> 00:00:43.689 dry almost twenty years. I've been an attack MARQUEC guy focused on the media 11 00:00:43.770 --> 00:00:47.969 space, the companies like Microsoft and obviously you over company called rockefuel. I 12 00:00:48.049 --> 00:00:51.920 was at sales for us for a while and really, if I think back, 13 00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:56.439 like the thing that got me excited about the Internet initially was a book 14 00:00:56.479 --> 00:00:59.200 by peppers and Rodgers called the one to one future. It was published in 15 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:02.039 like one thousand nine hundred and ninety five, and I read in ninety seven 16 00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:03.989 or ninety eight and I was like that's the future, and the future they 17 00:01:04.030 --> 00:01:07.790 described was getting the right message to the right person at the right time. 18 00:01:08.510 --> 00:01:14.069 And and we have continued to wrestle with that problem from all lots of different 19 00:01:14.069 --> 00:01:15.950 angles. I mean, if you look at some of the reports, there's 20 00:01:15.989 --> 00:01:19.099 like tenzero vendors that are trying to solve that problem. And what I would 21 00:01:19.099 --> 00:01:25.420 say is it two legs of that stool have been addressed. One is identity 22 00:01:25.420 --> 00:01:27.340 res Solution. So there's a lot of technology and a lot of money, 23 00:01:27.379 --> 00:01:30.659 a lot of VC money, that has gone after solving the problem of identity 24 00:01:30.700 --> 00:01:37.209 resolution with systems like DMPS and CDPs, and a lot of your marketing audience 25 00:01:37.290 --> 00:01:41.370 members will probably have one of those or considered that. The second dimension, 26 00:01:41.890 --> 00:01:46.810 or leg of the stool is around understanding the moment to market to and that's 27 00:01:46.890 --> 00:01:52.439 really processing all the data that's availables but put on line, figuring out who 28 00:01:52.519 --> 00:01:56.319 it is that you're talking to, where they are in the context of their 29 00:01:56.359 --> 00:01:59.879 journey, their buy or journey or their engagement with your brand, and really 30 00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:02.670 understanding what you should be saying to them. The third leg of the of 31 00:02:02.829 --> 00:02:07.949 the stool is around content, and that's where things gets broken it's because it's 32 00:02:08.110 --> 00:02:14.669 hard and expensive to create personalized content for every individual at every moment on their 33 00:02:14.710 --> 00:02:19.139 journey. It's impossible almost to do that. And what you find then is 34 00:02:19.180 --> 00:02:23.460 all that data and insights you have about the individual and the moment they are 35 00:02:23.580 --> 00:02:27.659 in their in their journey, you're just hitting up with the same content. 36 00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:30.729 You're wants up the people. So now you're back to the challenge of segments. 37 00:02:30.009 --> 00:02:34.129 And so I think the thing for me then, especially in this new 38 00:02:34.169 --> 00:02:37.569 world that we're living in, where you don't have conferences, you don't have 39 00:02:38.090 --> 00:02:44.169 events, you don't have your VIP dinners that you're doing, everyone's dialing up 40 00:02:44.169 --> 00:02:47.199 their digital marketing efforts, that the thing that I'm struck by is how do 41 00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:51.680 you break through the noise? How do you break through the noise in terms 42 00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:55.159 of telling a compelling story that people are going to read and want to take 43 00:02:55.199 --> 00:02:59.590 time with? And that is what it means about a publisher mindset. It's 44 00:03:00.189 --> 00:03:04.750 you think about your brand as a publisher, your point of view and building 45 00:03:04.909 --> 00:03:08.310 content in a compelling way that breaks through the noise. Yeah, so for 46 00:03:08.550 --> 00:03:14.259 marketers listening to this, Randy, that's say I'm very content. I'm very 47 00:03:14.379 --> 00:03:16.500 content first. Maybe there are VP of marketing, they've got a content team 48 00:03:16.500 --> 00:03:23.580 and mansion team, but they think in a very content first sort of mindset. 49 00:03:23.900 --> 00:03:28.169 What would you say to them that maybe you're not quite there in what 50 00:03:28.449 --> 00:03:30.930 what you would describe as a publisher's mindset? What is maybe the difference there 51 00:03:30.969 --> 00:03:37.449 between a content first thinking marketer and one that really has this publisher's mindset? 52 00:03:37.530 --> 00:03:40.169 How do you kind of differentiate the two and think about maybe you have some 53 00:03:40.759 --> 00:03:46.000 room to grow here in the mindset that you approach and then the impacts down 54 00:03:46.039 --> 00:03:49.479 the line to your content strategy? Yeah, well, you know, the 55 00:03:49.560 --> 00:03:53.960 thing I would suggest looking to the starting point is is ask marketers do they 56 00:03:53.039 --> 00:03:57.590 know what's working? And you look at all the data and what you end 57 00:03:57.590 --> 00:04:00.110 up with is a bunch of people who are producing content and it's like they 58 00:04:00.150 --> 00:04:03.750 launch it into the abyss and they're getting no feedback. Like who's using it? 59 00:04:03.870 --> 00:04:08.669 How are they using it? Is it influencing the buyers journey? And 60 00:04:09.310 --> 00:04:12.780 we're not, never really have been, in a linear buyers journey, but 61 00:04:12.819 --> 00:04:14.819 I think a lot of the way we think about marketing, in the way 62 00:04:14.900 --> 00:04:18.180 that we produce contented so you're talking of these people at this stage and US 63 00:04:18.220 --> 00:04:24.529 or work it down from initial lead down to closed opportunity. And I think 64 00:04:25.009 --> 00:04:30.250 if you if marketers are honest with themselves, they don't know what content is 65 00:04:30.370 --> 00:04:31.970 working in which is not. In fact, I think there's a couple of 66 00:04:32.089 --> 00:04:35.850 reports out there. The Content Marketing Institute, which is a great institute. 67 00:04:35.850 --> 00:04:40.279 We've been to those conferences, is published something that says the laughs. Then 68 00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:46.160 half of the BB organizations today craft their content based on where a customer is 69 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:49.920 in their journey, so the content isn't tied to the personalized experience, to 70 00:04:49.920 --> 00:04:54.189 where that person in the context. And then only about a third of the 71 00:04:54.230 --> 00:04:57.790 marketers believe their content marketing efforts are effective. So let me give you a 72 00:04:57.829 --> 00:05:00.470 couple data points, and I can't give you the names of the company, 73 00:05:00.550 --> 00:05:04.029 but as this is especially true at large enterprise companies where you have these immense 74 00:05:04.829 --> 00:05:09.579 content production teams, I was talking to one and said, yeah, we 75 00:05:09.620 --> 00:05:14.180 spend about forty million dollars and producing content a year and I said okay it. 76 00:05:14.660 --> 00:05:15.980 You know how much of that is working? And the guy was talking 77 00:05:16.019 --> 00:05:18.579 to you said, well, not sure, but I bet you know maybe 78 00:05:18.660 --> 00:05:23.089 fifty percent and said okay, so you're spending twenty million dollars on something and 79 00:05:23.170 --> 00:05:25.889 you have no idea whether it's working. And so I do think you know 80 00:05:25.970 --> 00:05:31.410 Logan. The first step is really for content first companies to do a real 81 00:05:31.449 --> 00:05:38.720 assessment of do they understand what contents working and why, and then that informs 82 00:05:39.319 --> 00:05:43.160 what they would be doing going forward. I describe a lot of cont ten 83 00:05:43.240 --> 00:05:46.879 first companies is being almost like content farms and their their mantra is more is 84 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:50.990 better, and I think that's just contributing to and exacerbating the problem we all 85 00:05:51.149 --> 00:05:56.829 have in terms of the noise that has been dialed up in this new context. 86 00:05:56.870 --> 00:06:00.189 Right of staying at home, but you don't is not good stuff. 87 00:06:00.389 --> 00:06:03.379 And so you know, high quality content and that's why I talked about being 88 00:06:03.379 --> 00:06:08.540 a publisher is I think it's a different type of skills. It's not the 89 00:06:08.660 --> 00:06:12.019 classic product like I talked about a publisher. I'm talking about like when you 90 00:06:12.100 --> 00:06:15.660 think of who are the people writing articles at the New York Times, who 91 00:06:15.660 --> 00:06:18.089 are the people writing articles with the New Yorker? Who are people writing articles 92 00:06:18.129 --> 00:06:23.129 at wired? Their editors, their authors, their writers, they're writing with 93 00:06:23.209 --> 00:06:30.009 a very specific view of a compelling story for an audience and I think you 94 00:06:30.050 --> 00:06:33.720 know anothering you could ask marketers are what were the skills that we hired for 95 00:06:34.040 --> 00:06:38.160 in the people that were building our content? Where they product marketing people? 96 00:06:38.199 --> 00:06:42.120 Do they come out of technology or were they? Were they editors? Were 97 00:06:42.160 --> 00:06:45.639 they authors? And this is where I think the companies I like the most, 98 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:47.389 the ones that I follow, they have a strong point of view and 99 00:06:47.509 --> 00:06:51.990 a real editorial sense, all right, they've got a really clear way of 100 00:06:53.149 --> 00:06:58.069 telling the story and it's like the brand has a personality. The brand's personality 101 00:06:58.230 --> 00:07:01.019 is that of a publisher, and I love that so much, Randy, 102 00:07:01.019 --> 00:07:03.540 I kid you not, two or three days ago, here on our team 103 00:07:03.579 --> 00:07:10.180 and sweet fish, we are building out an engine to create more content. 104 00:07:10.300 --> 00:07:14.819 We do tend to lean on more is typically better, but you need both 105 00:07:14.860 --> 00:07:19.170 quality and quantity, not just not just quantity. But one of our stances 106 00:07:19.410 --> 00:07:23.930 on the quality of your content is exactly what you just said there. What 107 00:07:24.209 --> 00:07:27.649 is your point of view? And so the way that we're going to market 108 00:07:27.730 --> 00:07:31.199 doubling down on our own content, outside of having one of the only seven 109 00:07:31.199 --> 00:07:34.279 day a week be to be marketing podcast that I know of. On top 110 00:07:34.319 --> 00:07:41.639 of that is building out the personal brands of five evangelists internally and one of 111 00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:46.269 the things we did in that meeting was, okay, Bill, our COOO, 112 00:07:46.709 --> 00:07:48.509 what are five to seven things that you take a hard stance on? 113 00:07:48.629 --> 00:07:54.069 You find yourself repeating right? I've heard people kind of roll Gary V and 114 00:07:54.110 --> 00:07:57.750 say hey, you're repeating the same five to seven things and he's like well, 115 00:07:57.790 --> 00:08:01.259 yes, right. It takes it takes a lot of time for people 116 00:08:01.540 --> 00:08:07.540 to for content to sink in right and it's not. I was telling this 117 00:08:07.660 --> 00:08:09.860 to our CEO. He came up with five or seven kind of stances he 118 00:08:09.980 --> 00:08:13.410 takes and he's not one who's used to putting out a lot of content. 119 00:08:13.610 --> 00:08:18.850 And we had this conversation of that's not five to seven pieces of content. 120 00:08:18.250 --> 00:08:22.209 Each one of those is fifty over the next six months. And that's where 121 00:08:22.209 --> 00:08:26.649 a lot of content lacks. It either lacks the point of view or it 122 00:08:26.850 --> 00:08:30.040 lacks bringing it down to where the rubber meets the road. You know, 123 00:08:30.120 --> 00:08:35.360 we talked about him from an operational perspective, talking about when you when you 124 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:39.840 help your team make decisions at the at the lowest level, that empowers them. 125 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:43.029 Well, I can think of are he can think of because this is 126 00:08:43.269 --> 00:08:48.750 his area of expertise. Forty or fifty different specific scenarios. unpacking each one 127 00:08:48.830 --> 00:08:52.110 of those is really where the value of the the content comes from. So 128 00:08:52.470 --> 00:08:56.700 what you're saying, they're definitely rings true. Is there anything there you want 129 00:08:56.700 --> 00:08:58.620 to you want to touch on, randy, before we kind of go further 130 00:08:58.700 --> 00:09:01.740 here? Sure, where I just say, you guys are doing the best 131 00:09:01.779 --> 00:09:05.139 practice. What I would describe that as have a thought leadership agenda and you 132 00:09:05.179 --> 00:09:09.820 can't have ten. It's like three or four pillars and there the pillars around 133 00:09:09.860 --> 00:09:13.169 which you have a you know, the distinctive point of view means you need 134 00:09:13.169 --> 00:09:16.490 to operate from a place of expertise. And so when we were at percolate, 135 00:09:16.049 --> 00:09:20.409 which has been bought by seize Macassales enablement company, we were really focused 136 00:09:20.490 --> 00:09:24.840 on the ecosystem and we were really focused on the marketing operations function, which 137 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:28.480 was ten years ago there wasn't a marketing ops function, and so we were 138 00:09:28.559 --> 00:09:31.240 really interested and curious about, well, what's led to the growth of this 139 00:09:31.399 --> 00:09:35.759 function and how do we help those people become heroes in their organizations? Much 140 00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:41.470 like what sales force did with sales force admins or new relict did with DEV 141 00:09:41.509 --> 00:09:46.429 OPS. It turned you know, it just radically changed how an entire group 142 00:09:46.470 --> 00:09:48.870 of people thought about their job and function. And so what we thought it 143 00:09:50.029 --> 00:09:52.139 percolate was if we could own the marketing ops function to have a point of 144 00:09:52.179 --> 00:09:56.500 view about how to make their life easier. That was one of the pillars 145 00:09:56.580 --> 00:09:58.620 of thought, leadership agenda. And to your point, I think what we 146 00:09:58.740 --> 00:10:03.899 find and is you want to have a an agenda for each of the executives 147 00:10:03.899 --> 00:10:07.610 or people who are going to be out talking in your PR team can usually 148 00:10:07.649 --> 00:10:09.490 help you with that. But I think the other key part is get a 149 00:10:09.529 --> 00:10:15.610 ghostwriter, get someone that is hip to hip with you, who can take 150 00:10:15.690 --> 00:10:18.330 someone like your CEO, who may not be necessarily one, not have the 151 00:10:18.450 --> 00:10:22.480 time to write and number two may not be an experienced writer but has a 152 00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:26.039 lot of great thoughts on their head, and you go through a process with 153 00:10:26.080 --> 00:10:30.000 a ghostwriter. All right, all right, let's articulate the thesis, let's 154 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:33.399 articulate the supporting point. So what's the research that we would need? Because 155 00:10:33.399 --> 00:10:37.070 a lot of the content you find that people are reading the processing. I 156 00:10:37.149 --> 00:10:41.830 was just talking to a serious decisions analysts which now has been bought by forest 157 00:10:41.830 --> 00:10:45.710 or. It's all about research based content, but you don't have a staff 158 00:10:45.750 --> 00:10:48.870 researchers. So again, if you have a ghostwriter, and I've got a 159 00:10:48.909 --> 00:10:50.779 couple I can recommend, if people want to know, they can really help 160 00:10:50.820 --> 00:10:54.820 you flesh out these articles in a template that then you start to get into 161 00:10:54.860 --> 00:11:00.460 the motion of you produce one of these things once a week or once every 162 00:11:00.500 --> 00:11:03.659 other week and you have a platform and as a publisher you got to hit 163 00:11:03.740 --> 00:11:07.129 deadlines. And I think that's the other thing people don't yeah yet is if 164 00:11:07.169 --> 00:11:11.090 you want to build a community, people need to they want to know that 165 00:11:11.210 --> 00:11:15.570 there's going to be new and interesting information on a regular basis for them as 166 00:11:15.730 --> 00:11:18.840 pull it versus you pushing it to them. Yes, thank you so much 167 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:20.519 for saying that, Randy. We talked to so many BB brands that say, 168 00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:24.360 Hey, we want to do a podcast. Okay, maybe we could 169 00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:28.919 do an episode a month, and my my feedback is why that's not enough. 170 00:11:28.240 --> 00:11:33.509 You need to be delivering on a consistent basis, whether that's a podcast, 171 00:11:33.710 --> 00:11:37.429 which is definitely very serial in nature, so it's probably even more important 172 00:11:37.429 --> 00:11:41.830 in that channel, and it your different frequencies will depend on the channel, 173 00:11:41.190 --> 00:11:46.379 but what you just said, they're publishers newspapers broadcast journalists. They are used 174 00:11:46.379 --> 00:11:50.779 to. You know, the news comes on it at seven in the evening. 175 00:11:50.019 --> 00:11:52.740 It's being disrupted a little bit with on demand, but still, you 176 00:11:52.860 --> 00:11:58.179 know the the in the twenty four hour news cycle. But from the publisher's 177 00:11:58.259 --> 00:12:01.210 mindset at least, for you know, decades prior to now, there is 178 00:12:01.250 --> 00:12:05.090 a set deadline, there is a set rhythm to that news cycle and to 179 00:12:05.210 --> 00:12:09.889 get into that rhythm you need to have a system. You need to not 180 00:12:09.009 --> 00:12:13.490 only have the experts, but how do you turn them into thought leaders? 181 00:12:13.529 --> 00:12:18.360 They have to be known and consistency is how you get known. And so 182 00:12:18.519 --> 00:12:24.240 what we've been doing is taking our five evangelists internally and creating a system so 183 00:12:24.360 --> 00:12:28.360 that we can get thoughts out of our head, like literally at times when 184 00:12:28.360 --> 00:12:31.629 I'm answering questions on sales calls, because I'm not only the host of this 185 00:12:31.710 --> 00:12:35.990 show, I'm taking that snippet that's been recorded by my call recorder, kicking 186 00:12:37.110 --> 00:12:41.389 that to our team, to a to a writer, to our social media 187 00:12:41.509 --> 00:12:43.419 team and it can feed into the the system. Now to your point, 188 00:12:43.460 --> 00:12:48.100 just like working with a ghostwriter, right, there's there's a feedback loop. 189 00:12:48.100 --> 00:12:50.460 Right. You can't assume that anyone's just going to write in your tone of 190 00:12:50.659 --> 00:12:56.860 ways overnight. But the more consistently you work with like I work with our 191 00:12:56.980 --> 00:13:00.809 writing team and our social team or ghostwriter that you're working with, that that 192 00:13:00.970 --> 00:13:05.090 should get better and better over time and you're having to review less and that 193 00:13:05.250 --> 00:13:07.169 consistency gets easier and easier. Exactly. And I think what if you start 194 00:13:07.210 --> 00:13:09.850 have an editorial calendar? I think is where you were going with as a 195 00:13:11.009 --> 00:13:13.320 publisher, you have an editorial calendar. What are the set of topics you're 196 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:16.720 going to be driving on? And I think to your point Logan, the 197 00:13:16.799 --> 00:13:22.039 other thing you find as you explore this with a really good ghostwriter, you 198 00:13:22.200 --> 00:13:28.309 are understanding the topic deepens and so then it starts to become even more relevant 199 00:13:28.429 --> 00:13:31.389 and distinctive because you're spending time with it. And so if you're trying to 200 00:13:31.429 --> 00:13:33.950 cover thirty different topics, you're never going to be deep enough. And so 201 00:13:35.309 --> 00:13:39.590 I would say that you know their couple models out there. One is their 202 00:13:39.629 --> 00:13:45.500 companies out there that offer outsource GIG economy type writers and you post something, 203 00:13:45.620 --> 00:13:46.860 they write an article, they get it back to you and you put it 204 00:13:46.940 --> 00:13:50.700 out in your blog and you know there may be value there. I don't 205 00:13:50.740 --> 00:13:56.929 I think everyone can see through that, because to have a point of view 206 00:13:56.330 --> 00:14:03.169 requires, I think, expertise functional and Industry and and company specific right and 207 00:14:03.289 --> 00:14:07.529 so that that's hard work. To understand what your differentiated value prop is, 208 00:14:07.690 --> 00:14:11.440 right, who your ICP? Who you targeting? What's the story that you 209 00:14:11.480 --> 00:14:16.480 want to tell? Then disaggregating that down into the essential themes. They that 210 00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:20.960 you want to build on. If you're a tech company, you hope that 211 00:14:20.279 --> 00:14:26.110 the go to market, thought leadership themes also drive your product cycle. So 212 00:14:26.309 --> 00:14:31.470 your release has become less about features and functions. They become more around solutions 213 00:14:31.509 --> 00:14:35.350 and broader capabilities that you are building. So, for example, it percolate. 214 00:14:35.429 --> 00:14:37.700 One of the big bets we made was to invest in the ecosystem. 215 00:14:37.779 --> 00:14:39.899 This is one of the themes. And you see this, I mean sales 216 00:14:39.940 --> 00:14:45.500 force did this with Forcecom Marquetto did it with their market players. I mean 217 00:14:45.500 --> 00:14:48.419 this wasn't new, but this is the classic that enterprises do. And so 218 00:14:50.100 --> 00:14:54.289 what we needed in the marketing space. There was not a platform for content 219 00:14:54.330 --> 00:15:00.169 operations. Yet developer platform for content operations. So we were first to market 220 00:15:00.210 --> 00:15:01.370 with that. But we had to really think about what what does it mean 221 00:15:01.409 --> 00:15:03.850 to be part of an ecosystem? Who's part of that ecosystem? is going 222 00:15:03.850 --> 00:15:07.080 to be a different type of ecosystem than what Marquetto did or sales force? 223 00:15:07.159 --> 00:15:11.159 How do you fit into the metat ecosystem? And so then started writing about 224 00:15:11.320 --> 00:15:16.039 that and and through that coming out with new capabilities and exploring this as a 225 00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:20.200 topic. I think we started to build some some interesting thoughts there and I 226 00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:24.669 think that that's you know, each company can look at where what are the 227 00:15:24.710 --> 00:15:28.509 bets they're making strategically as a company in the category that they're in? How 228 00:15:28.909 --> 00:15:33.629 are they showing up against the competitors and how can they differentiate? Because, 229 00:15:33.629 --> 00:15:35.940 honestly, Logan, I mean a lot of bb tech in particular, you 230 00:15:37.019 --> 00:15:39.820 could take the logo of one company on a website and move it directly over 231 00:15:39.940 --> 00:15:46.259 the to the other website and it's all and that's that's that's product marketing trying 232 00:15:46.299 --> 00:15:50.330 to get, you know, benefits and values and features, but it's this 233 00:15:50.409 --> 00:15:54.169 is why I go. It's the next level of depth is around this publisher's 234 00:15:54.210 --> 00:15:56.929 insight and point of view. It's when I come to your brand, what 235 00:15:56.009 --> 00:16:00.529 am I learning? Like, Oh Gosh, there's several that have really done 236 00:16:00.570 --> 00:16:03.809 this very, very well and I'm totally flaking on it right now, but 237 00:16:03.250 --> 00:16:06.559 don't come to me as we continue to talk. Yeah, I mean I'm 238 00:16:06.639 --> 00:16:12.120 thinking of one, Randy in very classic example in bb Martec hub spot had 239 00:16:12.200 --> 00:16:17.480 a very strong standpoint. You know, ten years ago or whatever it was, 240 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:22.110 cold calling sucks. Inbound is the promised land over here. Now there 241 00:16:22.149 --> 00:16:26.710 are some people who still push back on you know, cold calling sucks, 242 00:16:26.750 --> 00:16:29.870 and I'd be one to tell you we have an outbound strategy as well as 243 00:16:29.909 --> 00:16:34.500 our thought leadership initiative. But that stands made it very, very clear that 244 00:16:34.820 --> 00:16:37.980 when when I think of hub spot, that's what comes to mind. That's 245 00:16:38.019 --> 00:16:42.940 not necessarily what comes to mind with other marketing automation platforms that by and large 246 00:16:42.980 --> 00:16:47.889 do a lot of the same things that that hub spot does. Think about 247 00:16:47.889 --> 00:16:51.090 what help spot also did. They wrote a concerted set of blogs, they 248 00:16:51.129 --> 00:16:53.250 had a book that came out, they had they shared all their best practices, 249 00:16:53.289 --> 00:16:56.570 similar to love. Like what Mark Bennyoff did its size me behind the 250 00:16:56.649 --> 00:17:00.169 cloud with that book and talk about how he came up with that. And 251 00:17:00.210 --> 00:17:03.480 so I think then everyone started writing books. But I you know, I 252 00:17:03.679 --> 00:17:07.200 do think that you may not get a book published, but like having an 253 00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:11.000 Ebook is another idea. How do you aggregate a bunch of this thought leadership 254 00:17:11.039 --> 00:17:14.319 into a point of view around, for example, of Percola? We were 255 00:17:14.359 --> 00:17:17.349 talking a lot about the content bottleneck and we picked up on that from an 256 00:17:17.390 --> 00:17:22.190 analyst, Gartner, who talked about the content bottleneck being the thing that most 257 00:17:22.230 --> 00:17:25.789 marketers are going to face. They have this incredible demand for content, but 258 00:17:25.910 --> 00:17:32.339 the supply in terms of resources and people to provide valuable content is not being 259 00:17:32.380 --> 00:17:37.019 invested in at the same rate that the exponential demand is, and that content 260 00:17:37.180 --> 00:17:40.900 bottleneck is what Gardner identified as one of the key trends. We took that. 261 00:17:41.099 --> 00:17:42.299 We owned it, we came out with an ebook around it, we 262 00:17:42.380 --> 00:17:45.769 started going on the conference circuit with it, we just started hammering, hammering, 263 00:17:45.809 --> 00:17:48.769 hammering, and as part of that we started getting really deep into supply 264 00:17:48.849 --> 00:17:52.130 chain theory and how would you think about bottlenecks and what does that mean, 265 00:17:52.170 --> 00:17:57.130 and so it just led to this really interesting set of insights and conversations. 266 00:17:57.210 --> 00:18:00.599 But it in that case. But we did is we hooked into some other 267 00:18:00.680 --> 00:18:04.799 guys really smart idea content bottleneck, which other people are going to see in 268 00:18:04.839 --> 00:18:07.599 the space and we, you know, use that to amplify. But I 269 00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:11.680 think hub spot has done that incredibly well and there are other folks that have 270 00:18:11.839 --> 00:18:15.190 done that too, but I think it's they really they own this idea. 271 00:18:15.230 --> 00:18:18.789 We're going to have a point of view and we're going to publish behind that 272 00:18:19.910 --> 00:18:26.380 vanguard. Yeah, and going very deep, continuing to hammer that point of 273 00:18:26.420 --> 00:18:29.940 view. I think a lot of folks think, well, we've said this 274 00:18:30.059 --> 00:18:32.740 before. We you know we've said this before. And going back to the 275 00:18:32.819 --> 00:18:37.500 Garry v Analogy, you will definitely iterate. You'll find branches off of that 276 00:18:37.740 --> 00:18:42.650 core theme, you will find new avenues, but it takes time for that 277 00:18:42.849 --> 00:18:48.650 to sink in with your audience, to grow that audience to where you it 278 00:18:48.809 --> 00:18:52.930 can't just be well, we publish the definitive ebook on it and well, 279 00:18:52.049 --> 00:18:56.559 that that's it. Let's go demandin crazy with that one asset for now until 280 00:18:56.599 --> 00:19:00.440 eternity. That's kind of the opposite of what you're talking about. Is there 281 00:19:00.519 --> 00:19:07.079 should always be a fresh take on what's happening. Right The New York Times 282 00:19:07.160 --> 00:19:11.069 doesn't say, well, we've written enough about covid it's what is, what's 283 00:19:11.109 --> 00:19:14.670 happening this week. What's happening this hour, what's happening this day, and 284 00:19:15.069 --> 00:19:17.670 your news cycle, if you will, is not going to be the same 285 00:19:17.710 --> 00:19:22.029 as a in BB marketing as it is in broad based news. But, 286 00:19:22.589 --> 00:19:26.299 having that that mindset, what did we encounter this week? That is a 287 00:19:26.420 --> 00:19:30.299 new wrinkle. We've answered a new question about this, and do you have 288 00:19:30.420 --> 00:19:36.900 a system to turn that and adomatize that content into multiple different channels so that 289 00:19:37.019 --> 00:19:40.329 you can you can push that out? I think we could kind of go 290 00:19:40.809 --> 00:19:42.730 two ways with the rest of this conversation, Randy, because I think you 291 00:19:42.809 --> 00:19:45.369 and I could jam all day on this. But for the sake of time, 292 00:19:47.049 --> 00:19:48.690 we could either kind of go back to what you were talking about before, 293 00:19:48.890 --> 00:19:52.440 in well, we're doing this, but we're not sure what's working and 294 00:19:52.559 --> 00:19:57.240 what's the follow up to that conversation and your recommendations to that that individual you're 295 00:19:57.319 --> 00:20:00.599 talking to, or we could go a little bit deep here into building out 296 00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:04.319 process to achieve what we're talking about here. I'll I'll let you kind of 297 00:20:04.359 --> 00:20:08.150 go either direction based on where you're where you're feeling right now. Well, 298 00:20:08.190 --> 00:20:11.349 I would say that first thing is to do the audit. So maybe just 299 00:20:11.349 --> 00:20:15.069 spend a little time there and I think if you're a large enterprise brand of 300 00:20:15.109 --> 00:20:18.589 brand marketer, their business, business marketer, there are companies out there that 301 00:20:18.670 --> 00:20:22.900 can help you, because it's super hard to do it with an internal team 302 00:20:22.900 --> 00:20:27.420 because everyone's protecting their their job. So we've worked with serious decisions. I'm 303 00:20:27.420 --> 00:20:30.619 a huge fan of them. They're focused on, you know, be tob 304 00:20:30.700 --> 00:20:34.259 marketing. They have three thousand people that show up their conferences and they do 305 00:20:34.339 --> 00:20:38.650 a content audit and so they'll come in and help diagnose where all the contents 306 00:20:38.730 --> 00:20:42.410 being produced, who's producing it. They'll codify and create a point of view 307 00:20:42.410 --> 00:20:45.970 and say you're spending x millions of dollars on it. They'll also do a 308 00:20:47.089 --> 00:20:52.359 systemic check in terms of your your strategy, your resources, your technologies and 309 00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:55.759 your processes. So, going back to your point, and those are things 310 00:20:55.759 --> 00:20:56.880 that need to happen, but I think you want to get a baseline. 311 00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:02.519 You just want to get an understanding and dimensionalized what is being produced, where, 312 00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:04.710 by whom and what. I think you'll find it many larger companies is 313 00:21:04.869 --> 00:21:08.710 you got all these people are who producing contests. Think about it, like 314 00:21:08.750 --> 00:21:14.990 the cost to deliver content on email is zero. The cost to deliver blog 315 00:21:15.269 --> 00:21:18.660 is zero. A tweet, a facebook, poses we know from our current 316 00:21:18.700 --> 00:21:23.180 political context, is zero the cost, and so the default is people just 317 00:21:23.619 --> 00:21:27.059 generate because they're operating from this point of view that more is better. And 318 00:21:27.220 --> 00:21:33.890 so I think the how do you then set up a content council that aligns 319 00:21:33.930 --> 00:21:37.690 on a thought leadership agenda and then aligns on the type of channels and how 320 00:21:37.730 --> 00:21:40.569 they're going to be used and then, to your point, aligns on the 321 00:21:40.609 --> 00:21:44.529 editorial Colendar. What's going to be published, when by whom? Part of 322 00:21:44.609 --> 00:21:48.160 the tension at product companies in particular, as you got, every single product 323 00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:49.839 manager wants to get their product in the sales hands and want there's to be 324 00:21:49.920 --> 00:21:52.920 coverage in the press. And you know my products is a greasing out there. 325 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:59.680 But if it's not part of a broader initiative, this behind solutions versus 326 00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:03.910 features like that's a dramatic shift in how a lot of tech companies go to 327 00:22:03.990 --> 00:22:07.990 market in reframing. So I think start with the content audit yourself or out 328 00:22:08.069 --> 00:22:11.349 person the serious decision for the other folks who can do it, and then 329 00:22:11.349 --> 00:22:17.579 the second thing is the content council. A LOT NY thought leadership agenda literally 330 00:22:17.819 --> 00:22:21.420 habit named. What are the pillars? Translate that into a messaging framework. 331 00:22:21.460 --> 00:22:23.740 Who are we talking to about what at what part of the cycle, and 332 00:22:23.900 --> 00:22:29.420 then figure out how you're going to staff that on those specific thought leadership pillars. 333 00:22:29.420 --> 00:22:32.890 Who's being held accountable for what content being produced what frequency? So in 334 00:22:32.970 --> 00:22:37.210 percolate, for example, we had one executive every month had a spotlight and 335 00:22:37.250 --> 00:22:40.369 they had to get that done and we would feature that on our on our 336 00:22:40.410 --> 00:22:42.730 website, and its Seis MC rich large. We're starting to shift to that 337 00:22:44.009 --> 00:22:48.440 modality as well. But then you have the ghostwriter, because you or you 338 00:22:48.519 --> 00:22:51.720 hire someone, you hire an editor, you go coach someone out of one 339 00:22:51.759 --> 00:22:57.160 of these great magazines who's just oriented towards editing, being a great editor, 340 00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:03.910 a writer and an editor and making concise, telling pros. And it can 341 00:23:03.950 --> 00:23:07.109 be long form short form. If you get that ebook done, you have 342 00:23:07.230 --> 00:23:10.549 all those little chapters you can sort of break off and then you can translate 343 00:23:10.670 --> 00:23:14.380 those into stippets and you just activate it. You just launch it through your 344 00:23:15.299 --> 00:23:18.460 your sales enabling platform, size make would be an example, and and then 345 00:23:18.539 --> 00:23:22.140 through the other channels. Yeah, absolutely, I would say kind of the 346 00:23:22.220 --> 00:23:26.299 way that we've been approaching in a sweet fish, you know, good batter 347 00:23:26.420 --> 00:23:29.049 in different and we're learning along the way and I think we're going to be 348 00:23:29.089 --> 00:23:32.849 putting on a lot of content about this as as we go through it. 349 00:23:33.210 --> 00:23:37.650 But we started with finding those individuals, identifying the points of view and how 350 00:23:37.769 --> 00:23:41.160 those roll up to the overall message that we want to get out and who 351 00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:48.000 we're who we're reaching. We've been wrestling with a mix of how much should 352 00:23:48.039 --> 00:23:51.880 be on the nose in BB podcasting and be to be marketing, which is 353 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:56.509 the the realm that we play in, and how much should be maybe you 354 00:23:56.589 --> 00:24:00.750 know, outside of that. That comes from our personal experience and so far 355 00:24:00.829 --> 00:24:03.950 it's been a smaller portion of that for thinking about that balance of how far 356 00:24:03.990 --> 00:24:08.670 away do we go from our stance and our product and the problem that we're 357 00:24:08.710 --> 00:24:15.700 solving? I actually just interview Joe Turnoff CMO at Pendo now on this podcast. 358 00:24:15.740 --> 00:24:18.099 Will Link to that episode in the show notes if you happened not to 359 00:24:18.180 --> 00:24:22.859 catch that. He had some really good thoughts on not straying too far away 360 00:24:22.579 --> 00:24:26.930 from your product and the problem that you solved, but not I think it's 361 00:24:26.930 --> 00:24:30.970 still in line. I think some people might listen to this episode. Randy 362 00:24:30.970 --> 00:24:33.369 and listen to Joe and say meant they're talking about different things, talking about 363 00:24:33.369 --> 00:24:37.410 going in the direction of thought leadership and going in the direction of product led 364 00:24:37.529 --> 00:24:41.079 growth. But I don't think product led growth is about product marketing in the 365 00:24:41.200 --> 00:24:45.640 way that that you're explaining. I think you guys are are covering the same 366 00:24:45.759 --> 00:24:49.359 thing from a little bit different angle. So interesting that we just had these 367 00:24:49.400 --> 00:24:55.109 conversations back to back. Randy, if anybody listening to this, your new 368 00:24:55.269 --> 00:24:57.269 on their radar. They want to find out more about what you and the 369 00:24:57.309 --> 00:25:00.190 team at seismecker doing. They want to follow on with your content or ask 370 00:25:00.230 --> 00:25:03.349 some follow up questions of you with the best next steps that they could take 371 00:25:03.390 --> 00:25:07.259 their sure. Well, they can find me on Linkedin and I've got some 372 00:25:07.339 --> 00:25:10.180 articles published for loved. You read them and tell me what you think, 373 00:25:10.220 --> 00:25:11.819 because I did use a ghostwriter for some of them, and that would be 374 00:25:11.900 --> 00:25:18.140 the example. And as Randy, last name what Wo Otto, and otherwise 375 00:25:18.180 --> 00:25:22.210 you don't reach out to me on email, randy dot wouldn't at Seis mccom 376 00:25:22.410 --> 00:25:26.130 my ask is if it's really someone reaching out from your show that they put 377 00:25:26.170 --> 00:25:32.049 in the subject line connected via Logan. Otherwise I'll just delete it. So 378 00:25:32.970 --> 00:25:36.759 it would be great to meet some of your audience. I love it. 379 00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:38.680 Randy, thank you so much for being a guest on the show today. 380 00:25:38.680 --> 00:25:41.640 I really appreciate it. Have a great day and take care of cheers. 381 00:25:47.160 --> 00:25:51.029 Hey, everybody, slogan with sweetfish here. If you're a regular listener of 382 00:25:51.150 --> 00:25:53.109 BB growth, you know that I'm one of the cohosts of this show, 383 00:25:53.430 --> 00:25:56.549 but you may not know that I also head up the sales team here at 384 00:25:56.589 --> 00:26:00.509 sweetfish. So for those of you in sales or sales offs, I wanted 385 00:26:00.549 --> 00:26:04.420 to take a second to share something that's made us insanely more efficient lately. 386 00:26:04.859 --> 00:26:08.779 Our team has been using lead Iq for the past few months and what used 387 00:26:08.779 --> 00:26:14.420 to take us four hours gathering contact data now takes us only one, or 388 00:26:14.539 --> 00:26:18.329 seventy five percent more efficient. We're able to move faster without bound prospecting and 389 00:26:18.569 --> 00:26:23.569 organizing our campaigns is so much easier than before. I'd highly suggest you guys 390 00:26:23.650 --> 00:26:29.009 check out lead Iq as well. You can check them out at lead iqcom. 391 00:26:29.410 --> 00:26:37.279 That's Elle a d iqcom. One of the things we've learned about podcast 392 00:26:37.319 --> 00:26:41.839 audience growth is that word of mouth works. It works really, really well 393 00:26:41.880 --> 00:26:45.359 actually. So if you love this show. Would be awesome if you texted 394 00:26:45.480 --> 00:26:48.670 a friend to tell them about it, and if you send me a text 395 00:26:48.789 --> 00:26:52.230 with a screenshot of the text you sent to your friend Metta, I know 396 00:26:52.670 --> 00:26:56.109 I'll send you a copy of my book content based networking, how to instantly 397 00:26:56.190 --> 00:27:00.630 connect with anyone. You want to know my cell phone numbers. Four hundred 398 00:27:00.630 --> 00:27:03.859 and seven, four nine hundred, three and three, two eight. Happy 399 00:27:03.980 --> texting.
