Content Marketing Strategies That Lead to Instant Growth

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah. 2 00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:09.250 Welcome back to be the growth. We are live on clubhouse. If you're not 3 00:00:09.260 --> 00:00:14.940 already following Dan and myself on clubhouse, make sure to do that. It's 4 00:00:14.950 --> 00:00:19.670 at Dan says. Or at James Carberry. You can also follow the GDP Growth Club. We 5 00:00:19.670 --> 00:00:24.670 are joined today by Sujal Patel, and this guy is a master of content 6 00:00:24.670 --> 00:00:28.960 marketing. He's built multiple successful companies. He's currently 7 00:00:28.970 --> 00:00:33.040 working on Male Shake right now, which is a sales engagement platform that I 8 00:00:33.040 --> 00:00:38.700 have used an enormous value from. We're going to write inbox, zoom, shift while 9 00:00:38.700 --> 00:00:43.360 on Norbert. Just he's a He's a SAS genius. He's a content marketing genius, 10 00:00:43.370 --> 00:00:48.310 and I'm really excited to have him share with us today. So, Sudan, how you 11 00:00:48.310 --> 00:00:52.350 doing today, man? I'm excited to dive into Yeah. Hey, look, I'm probably talk 12 00:00:52.350 --> 00:00:56.660 to you and I will share everything I know there's no, like hidden things 13 00:00:56.660 --> 00:01:00.550 here. I'm going to leave out anything. Just ask, Ask the way I love it. I love 14 00:01:00.550 --> 00:01:03.850 it. So for those of you listening to the podcast, we're going to do the 15 00:01:03.850 --> 00:01:07.980 interview with Sir John for these 1st 15, 20 minutes, and then we'll shift 16 00:01:07.980 --> 00:01:11.970 over and start doing Q and A with the live audience in clubhouse right now. 17 00:01:11.970 --> 00:01:17.540 So I'm really, really curious, kind of for the origin story of how you first 18 00:01:17.540 --> 00:01:22.170 got into content marketing and what was it about it that drew you into it 19 00:01:22.170 --> 00:01:25.180 because you've really kind of built It seems like you've built your career and 20 00:01:25.180 --> 00:01:27.830 the backbone of a lot of your staff's companies on the back of content 21 00:01:27.830 --> 00:01:31.750 marketing. So can you give us a little bit of that origin story? Yeah, 22 00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:37.500 absolutely. So, my like, you know, 20 years ago I started off as a really a S 23 00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:44.460 C O digital marketer, and over time evolved into just everything marketing. 24 00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:49.840 But I've always had a strong affinity for for content and or organic traffic. 25 00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:55.140 Let's put it that way. Right? And I flocked to a content marketing as I 26 00:01:55.140 --> 00:02:01.200 realized how impactful originally it was to s e o. Right. And now I am like, 27 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:06.750 this is the S e o. Strategy content. Marketing is a part of that encompasses 28 00:02:06.750 --> 00:02:10.860 sc. Oh, so kind of almost like the small fish ate the whale and then now 29 00:02:10.870 --> 00:02:15.850 content marketing to me is the whale. So yeah, I mean, and I've in my career 30 00:02:15.850 --> 00:02:24.290 I've built up, I would say 25 to 30 client sites to from very little to 31 00:02:24.290 --> 00:02:29.790 like, let's just say, you know, less than 1000 visitors a month to each of 32 00:02:29.790 --> 00:02:34.850 them at least over 100,000 month. So I'm really good at, like the first 0 to 33 00:02:34.850 --> 00:02:39.490 5 years of concert marketing as an individual contributor. And I generally 34 00:02:39.490 --> 00:02:43.630 hire people smarter than me or more into the weeds to take it from there, 35 00:02:43.640 --> 00:02:46.520 and you make a good point there. I didn't mention that in your intro. In 36 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:49.790 addition to being the founder of several SAS companies or co founder of 37 00:02:49.790 --> 00:02:54.660 several SAAS companies, you also run an agency called Web Profits. And so I'm 38 00:02:54.660 --> 00:02:57.860 glad that you mention that because you've got the experience and several 39 00:02:57.870 --> 00:03:01.980 other businesses outside of your own. Uh, and I just think it speaks to your 40 00:03:01.980 --> 00:03:05.460 brilliance, the fact that if you can do this for other companies, why not build 41 00:03:05.460 --> 00:03:09.110 your own sex companies and start doing it for yourself as well? So thank you, 42 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:13.570 Suzanne. You you and I have gotten a chance to hang out in Austin when I was 43 00:03:13.570 --> 00:03:18.210 there a couple years ago and you were just a fountain of wisdom with this 44 00:03:18.210 --> 00:03:20.960 stuff, and I wanted to focus. Our conversation around is one of the 45 00:03:20.960 --> 00:03:24.120 things that I love is You're just spirit for experimentation and 46 00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:28.170 constantly trying new things that I would imagine entrepreneur to 47 00:03:28.170 --> 00:03:31.620 entrepreneur. It's the entrepreneur and you that that was always trying to get 48 00:03:31.620 --> 00:03:35.800 you to try new things. What is something in content? Marketing. I 49 00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:39.580 don't know. The last six months to a year that you've been experimenting 50 00:03:39.580 --> 00:03:43.760 with that either, you know, with a glorious success. Or maybe it was a 51 00:03:43.760 --> 00:03:50.780 raging failure. Yeah, So I've been testing out really boring content. So 52 00:03:50.790 --> 00:03:54.770 let me give you a little precursor. So male chic, like a little over 300,000 53 00:03:54.770 --> 00:03:59.490 visitors a month, right inbox over a little under writing box and voila, 54 00:03:59.490 --> 00:04:04.130 Norbert, these are properties I own and manage over 100,000 visitors a month. 55 00:04:04.140 --> 00:04:07.500 And so those are the three examples I'll probably share with you because I 56 00:04:07.500 --> 00:04:11.310 have the most depth in details in their current states are writing box. We've 57 00:04:11.310 --> 00:04:15.030 been testing really boring. And guess what short form concept that tackles a 58 00:04:15.030 --> 00:04:20.570 very specific keyword or even very specific question or kind of quarry and 59 00:04:20.579 --> 00:04:25.590 including YouTube videos and kind of mixed media in the mix into the whole 60 00:04:25.590 --> 00:04:30.580 strategy. And it has been working really, really well. And this is all 61 00:04:30.580 --> 00:04:35.330 the exact opposite of what you would read about in in any content marketing 62 00:04:35.330 --> 00:04:40.220 blog, any content marketing article In today's world, I'm talking 500 words or 63 00:04:40.220 --> 00:04:45.730 less, you know, a couple images and a video embedded. Dan, what's your 64 00:04:45.730 --> 00:04:49.920 initial thought on that? I know Dan dancing the weeds on. I've seen our Seo 65 00:04:49.920 --> 00:04:53.610 strategy. I've been studying a CEO for a long time. I've only recently had 66 00:04:53.610 --> 00:04:57.900 some major successes over the last year, two years or so, doing long form 67 00:04:57.900 --> 00:05:01.960 content and I go longer. The more competitive is the longer I make the 68 00:05:01.960 --> 00:05:05.950 blog post, which is pretty traditional. I stay away. I don't do any back length. 69 00:05:06.540 --> 00:05:09.680 I just let those build organically. If it's low hanging fruit, I go after them. 70 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:12.610 But for the most part, I'm just shoving lots of content into it and seeing 71 00:05:12.610 --> 00:05:17.050 pretty good success. So the short posts are interesting. Do you find that 72 00:05:17.050 --> 00:05:22.140 you're just instead of writing longer content. You're just being remarkably 73 00:05:22.150 --> 00:05:26.380 great content in 500 words so that every word counts like, Are you writing 74 00:05:26.380 --> 00:05:32.170 really concise and highly targeted post? Yeah, So, essentially, I'm writing very 75 00:05:32.170 --> 00:05:36.640 specific, like no fluff like Think about. Like if you if you go Google a 76 00:05:36.640 --> 00:05:41.050 recipe right now like how to make pepperoni pizza like you're going to 77 00:05:41.050 --> 00:05:46.310 read about the author's love dying love, their grandfather passing on the recipe. 78 00:05:46.320 --> 00:05:50.420 None of that BS right before you actually get to the recipe. So long 79 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:54.130 form content has constantly like been the way of the future. And I think it's 80 00:05:54.130 --> 00:05:58.490 the right thing to do if you're talking about a topic that's worthy. But I 81 00:05:58.490 --> 00:06:02.020 think a lot of folks have kind of gone into, like, long form content for every 82 00:06:02.020 --> 00:06:07.810 solution, like every problem. And so, like, for example, we've taken a very 83 00:06:07.810 --> 00:06:12.280 like, contrary and approach and just said Look like this is a problem like 84 00:06:12.290 --> 00:06:18.320 let's say so, right Inbox. All its Gmail Gmail extension lets you do more 85 00:06:18.320 --> 00:06:22.350 things like tracking emails, sending them later. You know, like there's like 86 00:06:22.350 --> 00:06:26.500 10 or 15 features all around improving your productivity within Gmail. So all 87 00:06:26.500 --> 00:06:30.230 we talk about is Gmail stuff right? We started getting to the basics of stuff, 88 00:06:30.230 --> 00:06:34.870 so we literally started doing very specific blog post with images, 89 00:06:34.880 --> 00:06:38.870 examples of like how to do this one thing, like some tips and tricks and 90 00:06:38.870 --> 00:06:44.870 whatnot and instead of doing very like, Hey, here's like 20 chips to be like 91 00:06:44.870 --> 00:06:49.620 the best. Like here are tips for sales people here. Is that the 20 things you 92 00:06:49.620 --> 00:06:53.380 need to know with very specific things? We said, Look, we're just gonna do the 93 00:06:53.380 --> 00:07:00.560 one tip right and it's like just the one thing and we instead of an actual 94 00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:03.530 instead of doing any promotions, we don't email our audience. We don't do 95 00:07:03.540 --> 00:07:08.640 anything. All we do is let it age, and we we crank out, like, 50 or 100 of 96 00:07:08.640 --> 00:07:12.440 these a month now. We don't do that every single month. So we have an 97 00:07:12.440 --> 00:07:15.750 ongoing content marketing strategy, which is writing, you know, thought 98 00:07:15.750 --> 00:07:20.730 leadership content and promotable stuff, and and more the long form stuff. But 99 00:07:20.740 --> 00:07:24.770 behind the scenes, you see, there's this, like, 5200 articles that are just 100 00:07:24.770 --> 00:07:28.690 like out there, and we just push them. We let them age like when I say age. I 101 00:07:28.690 --> 00:07:33.050 mean, like, seriously let them sit for 3 to 6 months and the stuff that 102 00:07:33.060 --> 00:07:37.230 bubbles up to the top AK is stuff that ranks the stuff that gets naturally 103 00:07:37.230 --> 00:07:41.540 some traffic because we use we have a YouTube channel that we embed a YouTube 104 00:07:41.540 --> 00:07:45.570 video and like how to do that exact Gmail hack like. And some of these are 105 00:07:45.570 --> 00:07:49.900 very basic stuff, like like how to set up different folder structures, right? 106 00:07:49.900 --> 00:07:55.000 And and or, you know, things that help people be more efficient and, like, 30 107 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:59.750 to 40% of it will start to naturally rank. Okay? And then I say, Okay. I 108 00:07:59.750 --> 00:08:05.410 mean, like, page two through eight, right? And then we push really hard on 109 00:08:05.410 --> 00:08:10.630 link building internal links, pushing the heck out of these things on social, 110 00:08:10.640 --> 00:08:16.440 and we get them to page one and boom, we just get organic traffic for life or 111 00:08:16.450 --> 00:08:20.330 for long periods of time. So you don't start with the link building or the 112 00:08:20.340 --> 00:08:24.980 social outreach until it's actually hit a certain point in the service. Correct? 113 00:08:24.990 --> 00:08:31.130 And we do, just to be clear, like full transparency, we do have a ongoing 114 00:08:31.130 --> 00:08:36.530 effort of pushing out like publishing thought leadership content where we are 115 00:08:36.530 --> 00:08:43.559 very active on on Social. So we're kind of deploying both strategies. But the 116 00:08:43.570 --> 00:08:47.090 what? What you would think is working, which is all the stuff we talked about 117 00:08:47.090 --> 00:08:52.020 about leadership. We email our audience and all the stuff that's like, more 118 00:08:52.020 --> 00:08:58.880 visible and sexy is actually the smoke screen for the real stuff, which is 152 119 00:08:58.880 --> 00:09:02.620 100 articles that were published in the back end that usually back data that no 120 00:09:02.620 --> 00:09:06.300 one sees. I usually see blogs taking on two different kinds of strategies. 121 00:09:06.300 --> 00:09:08.950 Usually they're building a subscriber base where they want to focus on 122 00:09:08.950 --> 00:09:12.410 quality over quantity. And then there's the other group of people that are more 123 00:09:12.420 --> 00:09:15.260 CEO driven, where you're trying to build a frickin library to hit every 124 00:09:15.260 --> 00:09:18.990 single long tail keyword. You possibly can both work out pretty well, though 125 00:09:18.990 --> 00:09:21.680 it seems like you've found a good way to tie them together and find some 126 00:09:21.680 --> 00:09:26.260 synergy between the two. Is that about right? Yeah, yeah, pretty much I mean 127 00:09:26.270 --> 00:09:30.830 so like and I would say that we do similar strategies that Norbert and 128 00:09:30.830 --> 00:09:35.190 writing box and mail shake so all three sites different, somewhat different 129 00:09:35.190 --> 00:09:39.430 industries. Milkshake is very sales focus. And yes, it's like it's actually 130 00:09:39.430 --> 00:09:42.570 a combination of multiple strategies. And I think this is kind of what you 131 00:09:42.570 --> 00:09:46.440 wouldn't read about here about. Is that like you don't actually have to pick 132 00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:50.430 one right? So, like, here's a really, really straightforward example. You 133 00:09:50.430 --> 00:09:54.130 know they'll shake. We've got a lot of organic traffic. We've got topics that 134 00:09:54.130 --> 00:09:57.770 solve our customer problems or questions and, like, you know, there's 135 00:09:57.770 --> 00:10:00.880 case studies. There's a thought leadership stuff. There's interviews 136 00:10:00.880 --> 00:10:05.000 from experts, so we're mixing and matching a bunch of things. And then 137 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:08.910 there's also we're testing out, like content. That's like contrarian views. 138 00:10:08.910 --> 00:10:12.960 Two things, right? Like the more like the stuff that, like, Will hit zero or 139 00:10:12.960 --> 00:10:17.660 go viral or, you know, some various variation of viral right? And so we're 140 00:10:17.660 --> 00:10:22.920 testing out a lot of things, and I'd say, like the perfect content marketing 141 00:10:22.920 --> 00:10:27.960 strategy is actually a mix of a couple of different things because, like if 142 00:10:27.960 --> 00:10:31.550 you go the thought leadership, you go the route of building a really big 143 00:10:31.550 --> 00:10:36.380 audience. It takes time and and so does the SDO approach, and you know, and so 144 00:10:36.380 --> 00:10:40.860 does the viral approach is like, you know, you're just taking swings and 145 00:10:41.040 --> 00:10:46.140 it's just the more swings you take, the better it does, right? So at any given 146 00:10:46.140 --> 00:10:52.580 time I usually have three or four things at play. To that combine 147 00:10:52.590 --> 00:10:57.900 actually helps me get fairly linear growth when reality, each individual 148 00:10:57.900 --> 00:11:01.350 thing would have its own. If you think about it in like a traffic and growth 149 00:11:01.350 --> 00:11:05.860 chart, you know, the viral stuff would have, like, these highs and lows, the 150 00:11:05.860 --> 00:11:09.780 SDO stuff. Well, we have, like, zero value, and then you're too would be, 151 00:11:09.790 --> 00:11:14.560 you know, incremental increases and a big pop if you get to page one or 152 00:11:14.560 --> 00:11:19.150 whatever keyword right. So if you put all those charts together, you end up 153 00:11:19.150 --> 00:11:25.250 getting pretty linear growth and, um, consistent growth starting at around 154 00:11:25.250 --> 00:11:29.620 six months. So that's kind of the playbook easily repeatable. And I 155 00:11:29.620 --> 00:11:36.520 encourage anybody who's listening. Just go on a draft, go on ECM rush and just 156 00:11:36.520 --> 00:11:39.730 Google these three companies. I mean, look up to three companies and you'll 157 00:11:39.740 --> 00:11:44.700 pretty easily see what we're doing. Yeah, but what I love about blogging 158 00:11:44.700 --> 00:11:48.520 and s c O. Is that it's actually fairly predictable. And if you kind of know 159 00:11:48.520 --> 00:11:51.470 the methodology and getting a group of it know how to write the content for it, 160 00:11:51.470 --> 00:11:55.120 it's like if you write it, they will come. And it's one of the few networks. 161 00:11:55.130 --> 00:11:57.650 It's one of the few marketing strategies, and I'm like, No, you know 162 00:11:57.650 --> 00:12:00.890 how to write this kind of content like it's just a matter of time before the 163 00:12:00.890 --> 00:12:04.790 floodgates opened up. But it does take time. It is a long term payout. Would 164 00:12:04.790 --> 00:12:08.400 be interested like, Is there anything you're working on now that you've 165 00:12:08.400 --> 00:12:11.640 started recently that you know, you're pretty confident this is going to pay 166 00:12:11.640 --> 00:12:16.040 out 3 to 5 years from now, You plant the seeds in the ground this year. Yes, 167 00:12:16.040 --> 00:12:20.780 I am so so to me. I look at concept marketing from as a founder. I'm going 168 00:12:20.780 --> 00:12:26.140 to put my founder hat on here as a boat, as a moat, to build my brand as a moat 169 00:12:26.140 --> 00:12:30.690 to build my traffic source that you can't take away from me. Right? So Mel, 170 00:12:30.690 --> 00:12:35.430 she could give you really, really, really example. 83 players in the space. 171 00:12:35.430 --> 00:12:40.330 We are one of 83 everybody's copying each other's features, right? Like our 172 00:12:40.340 --> 00:12:45.090 angle. And our unique selling proposition is our usability, right? 173 00:12:45.090 --> 00:12:48.070 Like that's what we're gonna we want to win their right, whether we were 174 00:12:48.070 --> 00:12:50.640 winning at any given point or not. Blah, blah, blah, right? Like that's the 175 00:12:50.640 --> 00:12:55.850 company kind of thing. But what you can't steal from us is our 300,000 176 00:12:55.850 --> 00:13:01.310 visitors, right? You can't steal our brand, right? Like our brand, the more 177 00:13:01.310 --> 00:13:06.260 people search for male shake than they do email outreach. Right? And we have 178 00:13:06.260 --> 00:13:11.910 more volume than people searching for this problem. Essentially, right? So my 179 00:13:11.910 --> 00:13:15.760 brand with content marketing my approach is to build a brand, build a 180 00:13:15.760 --> 00:13:20.910 mode of traffic to get to millions of visitors and that be of value to us as 181 00:13:20.910 --> 00:13:26.550 a as a as a company. So what am I? So that's the preface to this? Yes. What 182 00:13:26.550 --> 00:13:31.370 am I doing? Long term, big things are so this. I'm doing a lot. A lot of 183 00:13:31.370 --> 00:13:35.770 interviews like not necessarily doing a podcast. I don't want to start another 184 00:13:35.770 --> 00:13:39.940 channel. Although James, I really should be doing a podcast. It's just 185 00:13:39.950 --> 00:13:44.830 too lazy. Frankly, yeah, I need I need to hire you guys and just like you guys 186 00:13:44.830 --> 00:13:47.790 produce it, right, I'll just do the interviews. But anyways, I'm doing 187 00:13:47.790 --> 00:13:52.220 these, you know, expert interviews, AK, like, you know, leveraging influencers. 188 00:13:52.220 --> 00:13:56.650 And they're not paying off like in the short run. They're all long term 189 00:13:56.650 --> 00:14:00.490 dividends, right? Because once we keep doing this, we build up an audience an 190 00:14:00.490 --> 00:14:05.600 audience over time, like it's matching right? And so one of the things that 191 00:14:05.600 --> 00:14:10.770 we're doing. So what we were doing before over the last two years was 192 00:14:10.770 --> 00:14:15.330 focusing solely on sales people, And that's because we've identified that 193 00:14:15.330 --> 00:14:20.440 industry to be the largest one. But there's podcasters. If people doing PR, 194 00:14:20.440 --> 00:14:24.860 there's there's marketers doing Seo Link building content promotion would 195 00:14:24.860 --> 00:14:30.610 have you. Marketing agencies are a huge segment for us, and we've We've just 196 00:14:30.610 --> 00:14:33.490 said, like, Look, we want to go after the big big elephant in the room. We're 197 00:14:33.490 --> 00:14:37.560 going to have to sales now. We actually switched our tone to go after all those 198 00:14:37.560 --> 00:14:41.840 customers. And so if you think about our like, four different approaches the 199 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:47.630 concept marketing, we're actually doing those four times all the personas. It's 200 00:14:47.630 --> 00:14:51.690 kind of like Hubspot has done over the years where they have, like a marketing 201 00:14:51.690 --> 00:14:55.700 blog, sales blog, whatever. We're just like we're laying the foundation to do 202 00:14:55.700 --> 00:15:00.010 that, to kind of build the quote unquote moat or the traffic source for, 203 00:15:00.010 --> 00:15:04.080 like, every one of our customer segments. So you said you're working 204 00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:08.690 with influencers. We're working with authorities, not so much influencers, 205 00:15:08.690 --> 00:15:13.560 but practitioners who have influence. Right? So tell me about that. How are 206 00:15:13.560 --> 00:15:17.100 you working with them? How are you finding them? And how much authority do 207 00:15:17.100 --> 00:15:21.530 they have? Like, what's there Following like or engagement? Yeah. Yeah, so 208 00:15:21.530 --> 00:15:24.660 that's a great question. So let me, Let's just get very, very specific. 209 00:15:24.670 --> 00:15:28.870 What is an influencer or a practitioner is someone who actually So this is 210 00:15:28.870 --> 00:15:34.010 sales practitioners, someone who's done sales right, and that has influence. 211 00:15:34.020 --> 00:15:38.030 And what I mean by that is quantitatively. I look at their Twitter 212 00:15:38.030 --> 00:15:44.570 followers linked in followers and can, like LinkedIn, clout essentially how 213 00:15:44.570 --> 00:15:48.880 active their social post are on their on their Are they doing a LinkedIn 214 00:15:48.880 --> 00:15:53.400 newsletter? How big of an audience email list if they have any. And I use 215 00:15:53.400 --> 00:15:59.740 that to essentially obviously, just like the higher the number of the clout 216 00:15:59.740 --> 00:16:04.190 that the information that the followers are, the more engagement you know, the 217 00:16:04.190 --> 00:16:09.840 higher up on the list they get. And I try to marry them with their expertise. 218 00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:13.820 Essentially right. Topic. And then you're going to them to create content 219 00:16:13.820 --> 00:16:17.240 with them that you'll publish on, You know, one of your properties. Male 220 00:16:17.240 --> 00:16:22.270 shake while a number like Is that exactly exact? Going with that 221 00:16:22.280 --> 00:16:26.610 relationship? I will do one interview and it'll take me. And honestly, the 222 00:16:26.610 --> 00:16:31.370 interview is like four questions, and I'll just let them tell their story and 223 00:16:31.370 --> 00:16:37.060 I'll talk to them, right? And it's probably 45 minutes conversation that 224 00:16:37.060 --> 00:16:43.610 will turn into about 15 to 20 pieces of content. So short form content for 225 00:16:43.610 --> 00:16:48.320 social media like 15 to 30 actually more so 30 seconds to a minute. I like 226 00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:52.360 to create short form content. I just It's just hard to answer complicated 227 00:16:52.360 --> 00:16:58.090 sales topics or, you know, BTB topics in a short period of time. But yeah, 228 00:16:58.100 --> 00:17:02.830 it's that, and and so images, you know, short, punchy stuff, and so, like, my 229 00:17:02.830 --> 00:17:08.410 backlogs is like two years ahead of what we published right from from 230 00:17:08.410 --> 00:17:12.400 videos I did in 2000 and 18. I'm still publishing them because there's still 231 00:17:12.410 --> 00:17:16.970 so ever. I asked them Evergreen topic. I should clarify that. Like, I'm not 232 00:17:16.970 --> 00:17:22.540 saying, like how to use clubhouse right now. I'm talking about like, Hey, how 233 00:17:22.540 --> 00:17:26.940 do you build a sales team right in a remote environment? And, you know, I 234 00:17:26.940 --> 00:17:31.140 was I actually asked that question to somebody in 2000 and 18. I had no clue. 235 00:17:31.150 --> 00:17:34.730 This situation is going to be more permanent than than, you know. Yeah, 236 00:17:34.930 --> 00:17:40.550 Yeah, yeah. I want to open up the room. We've got eight minutes left here with 237 00:17:40.560 --> 00:17:45.720 with Sudan. So would love any questions that anybody has. Dan, Any other 238 00:17:45.720 --> 00:17:49.050 questions? You want to dive into it, Sir John? Yeah, I'd be really curious. 239 00:17:49.050 --> 00:17:53.280 I'm I think I finally had my first big success building a big site on organic 240 00:17:53.280 --> 00:17:57.890 traffic alone. And I'd be curious to hear, like, we're probably at the I 241 00:17:57.890 --> 00:18:03.720 don't know, February. I had 100 and 60 k page views. Um, and it's it's still 242 00:18:03.720 --> 00:18:07.030 got a backlog of new content. So it's going up. And what are the different, 243 00:18:07.030 --> 00:18:12.550 Like breakpoints for big seo campaigns. And how does your strategy change? What 244 00:18:12.550 --> 00:18:16.470 do you mean, breakpoints or like does the kind of the game change at certain 245 00:18:16.470 --> 00:18:21.760 levels of traffic or a certain amount of posts or certain sizes where you're 246 00:18:21.940 --> 00:18:26.230 strategy generally changes Or like the which is like you mentioned earlier, 247 00:18:26.230 --> 00:18:29.440 that you like to build it in the beginning and then handed off like Why? 248 00:18:29.440 --> 00:18:35.180 Why the handoff? Yeah, so, um, I think absolutely so I think Here, here's how 249 00:18:35.180 --> 00:18:40.120 I look at this. I kind of look at the rule of, like 100 right? So, like 100 250 00:18:40.540 --> 00:18:45.900 then every zero After that, things changed your 1st 100 posts that it's 251 00:18:45.900 --> 00:18:51.710 all about hustle finding, identifying a working strategy, figuring out right I 252 00:18:51.710 --> 00:18:56.530 mentioned before things that we do that worked to get us there. That might not 253 00:18:56.530 --> 00:19:00.660 be the same mix or the same percentage, right? You might be doing more organic, 254 00:19:00.670 --> 00:19:04.760 less influencer, more influence or less organic, you know, whatever, right. But 255 00:19:04.940 --> 00:19:09.150 1st 100 is all about figuring out what's gonna work right. That should 256 00:19:09.150 --> 00:19:17.270 get you to somewhere around 50,000 to 100,000 monthly visitors at around that 257 00:19:17.270 --> 00:19:21.750 time. You need to formalize the strategy, and at this time you should 258 00:19:21.750 --> 00:19:26.040 be considering scaling up your efforts, right? Think about all the stuff that 259 00:19:26.040 --> 00:19:30.010 you maybe it's a one person team, should be able to get you to 50,000 is 260 00:19:30.010 --> 00:19:33.910 what I'm saying. Really right. Um, and don't expect that to happen in the 1st 261 00:19:33.910 --> 00:19:38.580 100 Blog Post. I'm saying at around 100 you should figure out your strategy 262 00:19:38.580 --> 00:19:44.410 that can get you to 50 to 100 K a month and visitors, So that might take if you 263 00:19:44.410 --> 00:19:48.350 figure it out and it's one article or five. And sometimes, to be honest, it 264 00:19:48.350 --> 00:19:53.050 is five articles. I get you 100,000. So, like, don't dismiss that. It's not a 265 00:19:53.050 --> 00:19:57.220 volume game. It never really has been. Maybe your strategy is going back and 266 00:19:57.220 --> 00:20:00.210 just updating the good stuff and making it better and better and getting more 267 00:20:00.210 --> 00:20:05.600 traffic from it. Anyways, At that point at around 6200 visitors a month, you 268 00:20:05.600 --> 00:20:08.920 should be thinking about scaling up your content marketing efforts, right? 269 00:20:08.930 --> 00:20:12.590 What can you be doing? More of what? What strategy you're not doing because 270 00:20:12.590 --> 00:20:17.020 you don't have enough time or budget. And what are you doing that you're not 271 00:20:17.020 --> 00:20:21.540 the best at right or people are better at. So here's a couple examples editing, 272 00:20:21.550 --> 00:20:26.300 content, editing videos, editing audio people. There are specialists in the 273 00:20:26.300 --> 00:20:30.600 world to do this, don't do it yourself. Get people to do it. It's cheaper there, 274 00:20:30.600 --> 00:20:35.320 better and and frankly, it's the worst part of the job, in my opinion, as a 275 00:20:35.320 --> 00:20:38.850 content marketer. The other thing is, you should be thinking about this point. 276 00:20:38.850 --> 00:20:43.050 The voice. The narrative is strategic direction that helps maybe with your 277 00:20:43.050 --> 00:20:48.350 brand have elements of like branding, meaning, meaning, like you could get by 278 00:20:48.350 --> 00:20:54.490 with stock photo images and just kind of like hacking away content to 50 5200 279 00:20:54.490 --> 00:20:59.120 K visitors. But now, now you're big. You're like you're in your teens. You, 280 00:20:59.120 --> 00:21:02.930 you're like in college. You know you want to get your Resonate Prep for 281 00:21:02.930 --> 00:21:06.510 getting a job one day, right? That's kind of how I look at content marketing 282 00:21:06.520 --> 00:21:12.640 at that stage. So from 100 to maybe to where it's actually from 100,000 283 00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:16.420 visitors a month to where you can actually significantly measure, 100 284 00:21:16.420 --> 00:21:22.520 customers a month are driven from your concept marketing or 100 email options 285 00:21:22.530 --> 00:21:26.690 that again think about revenue generated like and this is a different 286 00:21:26.690 --> 00:21:31.510 operations because up until now you've been building up traffic and whatever, 287 00:21:31.520 --> 00:21:34.430 and and now you can actually tie it back to some revenue. And guess what? 288 00:21:34.430 --> 00:21:39.620 At the 1st 5200 K, you probably can't. It's okay. It's normal. It happens 289 00:21:39.620 --> 00:21:43.970 because, frankly, tracking that stuff is really, really hard. And content 290 00:21:43.970 --> 00:21:47.980 might just be one of many touch points that get people there. Long story short. 291 00:21:47.990 --> 00:21:52.730 At that point, you can scale up again. And remember, link building S C o. 292 00:21:52.730 --> 00:21:57.260 Those are all things you can be doing alongside this. Maybe you're not. 293 00:21:57.270 --> 00:22:01.210 You're not the best at outreach, right? Meaning, Um, you're using something 294 00:22:01.210 --> 00:22:04.490 like male shake or whatever and you want to do more of it. Maybe you can 295 00:22:04.490 --> 00:22:08.080 get more influencers to be just did reach out to more people. You can get 296 00:22:08.080 --> 00:22:13.040 more links If you just did more of that. Scaling up what works after revenue 297 00:22:13.040 --> 00:22:18.430 point is the next step. So typically 5200 k a month. You end up with a team 298 00:22:18.430 --> 00:22:23.450 of 123 maybe four, and some of those are contractors, like an editor at 299 00:22:23.460 --> 00:22:28.340 around 100 customers that are kind of measurable either per month or total 300 00:22:28.350 --> 00:22:32.210 depends on the volume or b two c B two b. That's when you should think about 301 00:22:32.210 --> 00:22:37.980 like scaling significantly the team in areas that have generated revenue. And 302 00:22:37.980 --> 00:22:41.260 then from there, it's, I don't know. It's kind of all over the place. 303 00:22:41.270 --> 00:22:46.460 Fantastic Going into that John Patrick man, Awesome. I was curious about any 304 00:22:46.460 --> 00:22:51.320 content marketing experience. Experiments around using content on 305 00:22:51.320 --> 00:22:56.010 paid channels as kind of conversion. Optimizers was in the funnel. Oh, 306 00:22:56.020 --> 00:22:59.370 Patrick, that's that's That's the perfect question to ask here. 307 00:22:59.380 --> 00:23:03.860 Absolutely. We'll use this. We do this all the time, Um, two ways here just to 308 00:23:03.870 --> 00:23:09.450 just to clarify so content you can drive pay traffic to content pieces or 309 00:23:09.450 --> 00:23:15.210 you can use the content may be as downloadable asset to a on a landing 310 00:23:15.210 --> 00:23:19.350 page to then provide that as an email opt in to then, you know, drive people 311 00:23:19.350 --> 00:23:24.460 down a further journey or third thing. Provide that same content like I did at 312 00:23:24.460 --> 00:23:29.360 number two, with no email, opt in and then Upsell or something greater on the 313 00:23:29.370 --> 00:23:33.820 thank you page. So all three ways absolutely can work. I don't know the 314 00:23:33.820 --> 00:23:38.680 perfect mix for your business. So your funnel may vary, right? What I can tell 315 00:23:38.680 --> 00:23:43.400 you is number number two and three work really, really well for us at mail 316 00:23:43.400 --> 00:23:49.120 Shake. And we're kind of an established, fairly established marketing department 317 00:23:49.120 --> 00:23:53.300 with, you know, multiple scalable channels. And so that works really well 318 00:23:53.300 --> 00:23:58.100 for us. Number one, where we just drive traffic to a content piece that maybe 319 00:23:58.100 --> 00:24:03.480 has an email opt in or, you know, some soft called the action on various pop 320 00:24:03.480 --> 00:24:08.070 up or various parts of the page like a demo Sign up. What have you that works 321 00:24:08.070 --> 00:24:10.630 really, really well, for when you're getting started, right when you're in 322 00:24:10.630 --> 00:24:14.300 that 52 less than 100 k visitors a month or you haven't gotten content 323 00:24:14.300 --> 00:24:19.010 marketing is a predictable channel yet. We use that approach at zoom shift dot 324 00:24:19.010 --> 00:24:23.670 com and actually at right in boxes. You come to the site, we're going to re 325 00:24:23.670 --> 00:24:28.160 market you with more content, whereas Mel shake. We're just going to use our 326 00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:34.630 best content to try to give that to you on a Facebook ad and and get them to be 327 00:24:34.640 --> 00:24:38.630 a little bit more in the sales funnel of of our company. Appreciate it. 328 00:24:38.630 --> 00:24:42.550 Thanks. Awesome. Thanks, ma'am. Benjamin, what about you? So I just 329 00:24:42.550 --> 00:24:47.300 wanted to ask. I mean, in regards to creating those first 50 to 100 pieces 330 00:24:47.300 --> 00:24:51.130 of content and really trying to kind of develop the foundation for your content 331 00:24:51.130 --> 00:24:55.610 marketing strategy in a very lean team, how would you approach kind of 332 00:24:55.610 --> 00:25:00.220 extracting subject matter expertise from the team members and from 333 00:25:00.220 --> 00:25:03.710 individuals within the company to really, I mean, provide value in the 334 00:25:03.710 --> 00:25:07.180 content that you're pushing out rather than just targeting long tail keywords 335 00:25:07.180 --> 00:25:12.290 with essentially fluff and B s that can be found by, I mean a number of 336 00:25:12.290 --> 00:25:16.060 different sources. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's a great question. I think that's 337 00:25:16.070 --> 00:25:20.540 it's usually under estimated value of the talent you have internally on 338 00:25:20.540 --> 00:25:23.810 topics that they may be experts. And so, first and foremost, make it really, 339 00:25:23.810 --> 00:25:27.910 really easy for them. Record the call. Do not have them right. Most people are 340 00:25:27.910 --> 00:25:31.310 not going to be prolific writers or they may be able to write, but they 341 00:25:31.310 --> 00:25:35.660 take forever to right, right and or you have to edit their work either way. Not 342 00:25:35.660 --> 00:25:39.930 fun to deal with or it's not as productive to deal with. So get an 343 00:25:39.930 --> 00:25:44.740 audio or video interview, ask them questions. I would go, You know, before 344 00:25:44.740 --> 00:25:48.560 you even reach out to people, go with your companies linked in profile and 345 00:25:48.560 --> 00:25:52.760 figure out who's an expert in what, right? Who wants to participate? You 346 00:25:52.760 --> 00:25:56.510 can have them participate blindly. Right? Meaning they right. You write 347 00:25:56.510 --> 00:26:00.820 the article based off what they share, or you can have them participate as a 348 00:26:00.820 --> 00:26:04.770 as a, you know, uh, contributor, and say, Hey, I interviewed You know, 349 00:26:04.770 --> 00:26:07.260 Maggie from the product team, and she's going to share with you all these 350 00:26:07.260 --> 00:26:12.250 awesome stuff, right? So it could just be attribution But, um, you want to 351 00:26:12.260 --> 00:26:16.380 find out what they are good at, and and maybe this is internally asking them. 352 00:26:16.390 --> 00:26:21.090 Hey, we're doing an interview series in our team. Like what? Are you amazing at? 353 00:26:21.100 --> 00:26:26.460 What? Can I pick your brain? I would start at finding people who are, think, 354 00:26:26.470 --> 00:26:30.300 identifying people who are really good at something first, like privately 355 00:26:30.300 --> 00:26:33.930 behind the scenes, running the process with them before you open up to the 356 00:26:33.930 --> 00:26:38.310 rest of the company. But yeah, honestly, after that started, you know, start 357 00:26:38.310 --> 00:26:44.150 getting that audio stuff to a writer and have them get the key takeaways 358 00:26:44.150 --> 00:26:48.540 from that, right? And again, like if I interview somebody for 30 40 minutes, I 359 00:26:48.540 --> 00:26:53.280 might ask them five or six questions that might be multiple blog post, right? 360 00:26:53.280 --> 00:26:58.220 So generally it's going to be, especially when you're in the and more 361 00:26:58.220 --> 00:27:03.530 of the BDB space things a little bit more complicated. Benjamin. I'll add to 362 00:27:03.530 --> 00:27:07.220 what Susan was saying. We've got some resources on the Swedish website, so if 363 00:27:07.220 --> 00:27:11.310 you just go to Swedish media dot com and search P O V like stands for point 364 00:27:11.310 --> 00:27:16.210 of view, P o B. Discovery, we've got an article on P. O. V Discovery and or 365 00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:19.490 what? Why? How? Framework. So if you want some examples on specific 366 00:27:19.490 --> 00:27:23.790 questions, you can ask those subject matter experts one of them that works 367 00:27:23.790 --> 00:27:27.200 really well for us. We use this in a lot of podcast interviews is what's a 368 00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:31.580 commonly held belief around. Insert whatever their expertise is that you 369 00:27:31.580 --> 00:27:35.800 passionately disagree with Sir John mentioned earlier, and they're taking 370 00:27:35.800 --> 00:27:40.760 contrarian approaches that oftentimes we'll get your subject matter expert 371 00:27:40.760 --> 00:27:44.940 talking about something like they're really passionate about. Um and it's 372 00:27:44.940 --> 00:27:49.240 counter to what a lot of other people are saying, so it tends to get more 373 00:27:49.240 --> 00:27:53.260 attention. And so that's one question. Another one is like, What's something 374 00:27:53.260 --> 00:27:57.460 that everyone in this space should start doing or what's something that 375 00:27:57.460 --> 00:28:01.120 everyone should stop doing? So those tend to be really good, like action 376 00:28:01.120 --> 00:28:05.520 oriented questions that could pull out really good contact from us and me, Dan 377 00:28:05.530 --> 00:28:10.590 any anything else before we wrap this thing up, I have, like, a list of 378 00:28:10.590 --> 00:28:14.510 things that I'm going to start doing that it's like, Oh, my gosh, this is 379 00:28:14.510 --> 00:28:17.460 like, next level stuff that I can't wait to go implements. I think I 380 00:28:17.460 --> 00:28:21.170 figured out the first layer of getting to like 100 K and now I'm like, Okay, 381 00:28:21.180 --> 00:28:24.410 trying to double down on now that I know how to hit that point getting to 382 00:28:24.410 --> 00:28:28.450 the next point. So I just wanted to say thank you for letting me into your your 383 00:28:28.450 --> 00:28:32.840 playbook. Benjamin was was there any follow up that you had to that I jumped 384 00:28:32.840 --> 00:28:35.780 in right after Susan answered? No, I just wanted to say thank you. I mean, 385 00:28:35.780 --> 00:28:39.410 another strategy that I'm looking out is sourcing subject matter experts 386 00:28:39.410 --> 00:28:44.230 outside of my actual company. And, um I know kind of the taking a lot of the 387 00:28:44.230 --> 00:28:48.120 same approaches to what, you just press this there with individuals that are 388 00:28:48.130 --> 00:28:52.670 internal, some external subject matter experts. Will they really beneficial as 389 00:28:52.670 --> 00:28:55.960 well? So I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Susan. Thank you so much 390 00:28:55.960 --> 00:28:58.980 for your time today, man. I know we went five minutes over, so thanks for 391 00:28:58.990 --> 00:29:02.980 thanks for hanging with us. How can folks that are here live or listening 392 00:29:02.980 --> 00:29:05.830 to the podcast? How can they stay connected with you? Uh, yeah. I go to 393 00:29:05.830 --> 00:29:10.170 my site Susan Patel dot com. I usually share all kind of my take aways and 394 00:29:10.170 --> 00:29:13.640 whatnot, joined the newsletter or subscribe. And that's kind of where I 395 00:29:13.640 --> 00:29:17.470 share my best content, but yeah, honestly, if you want to see what I'm 396 00:29:17.470 --> 00:29:21.060 doing and like, audit me, go to mail shake dot com, go to ball on Norbert 397 00:29:21.060 --> 00:29:24.740 dot com or writing box dot com, and you'll see it right there were pretty 398 00:29:24.750 --> 00:29:29.540 pretty transparent, unlike our efforts. And most people don't unfortunately, 399 00:29:29.550 --> 00:29:32.870 take action on the stuff. We're telling them too, So that's kind of a hurdle 400 00:29:32.870 --> 00:29:36.370 there. Yeah, I totally get it. Awesome. Well, Susan, thank you so much for 401 00:29:36.370 --> 00:29:40.570 joining us. Benjamin. Patrick, Thanks for jumping up on stage. Uh, and to all 402 00:29:40.570 --> 00:29:43.400 of you in the audience. Thanks for Thanks for joining us, Nic. I see you 403 00:29:43.400 --> 00:29:46.700 there. You will go live with this episode on B two b growth in the next 404 00:29:46.700 --> 00:29:49.650 few days. So, Nick, if you're subscribed to be growth or anybody else 405 00:29:49.660 --> 00:29:52.770 you want, we want to get this conversation in its entirety. Just 406 00:29:52.780 --> 00:29:55.660 tried to be to be growth. You can listen to the whole thing there, but 407 00:29:55.660 --> 00:29:59.040 thank you again, Sir John, for your time. And thanks for all of you for 408 00:29:59.040 --> 00:30:00.860 being here. A pleasure. Take care, everyone. 409 00:30:03.240 --> 00:30:06.850 One of the things we've learned about podcast audience growth is that word of 410 00:30:06.850 --> 00:30:11.290 mouth works. It works really, really well, actually. So if you love this 411 00:30:11.290 --> 00:30:15.440 show, it would be awesome if you texted a friend to tell them about it. And if 412 00:30:15.440 --> 00:30:19.870 you send me a text with a screenshot of the text you sent to your friend Meta I 413 00:30:19.870 --> 00:30:23.420 know I'll send you a copy of my book. Content based networking. How to 414 00:30:23.430 --> 00:30:26.860 instantly connect with anyone you want to know. My cell phone number is 415 00:30:26.860 --> 00:30:33.770 40749033 to 8. Happy texting.