How & Why to Take an Audience-First Approach

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah. 2 00:00:05.140 --> 00:00:10.270 Welcome back to be to be growth. I'm Dan Sanchez with sweet Fish Media. And 3 00:00:10.270 --> 00:00:15.860 I am excited today to talk about why B to B companies should focus on audience 4 00:00:15.870 --> 00:00:21.830 before product with Kathleen Booth. Kathleen, how are you doing today? I'm 5 00:00:21.830 --> 00:00:26.400 great. Thanks, Dan. Thanks for having me. So this is an exciting topic 6 00:00:26.410 --> 00:00:32.310 because I always find that I love having options. Um, as a marketer, you 7 00:00:32.310 --> 00:00:36.120 know, to be able to do things one way or the other, so I'd love to just kick 8 00:00:36.120 --> 00:00:40.370 it off with the general conversation we're talking about, like, having one 9 00:00:40.370 --> 00:00:44.560 versus the other. Where do you sit? And how do you see the pros and cons of 10 00:00:44.940 --> 00:00:48.390 either building an audience or building a product first when it comes to 11 00:00:48.390 --> 00:00:52.590 setting up your marketing? Yeah, So I can sort of talk about the two 12 00:00:52.590 --> 00:00:55.440 approaches, and I'll tell a little story that might be helpful in terms of 13 00:00:55.440 --> 00:00:59.630 understanding why this is a topic I'm passionate about. You know, as 14 00:00:59.630 --> 00:01:06.050 marketers were traditionally taught that you have a product, you know, you 15 00:01:06.050 --> 00:01:09.110 you work for a company that has a product and you build a marketing 16 00:01:09.110 --> 00:01:12.690 strategy around that product. You look at who the audience is that you want to 17 00:01:12.690 --> 00:01:17.700 bring in as customers and you develop value propositions, et cetera. And so 18 00:01:17.700 --> 00:01:22.100 you're generally starting with a small audience, you know, because you're 19 00:01:22.100 --> 00:01:25.250 you're starting with nothing or very little friends and family, and you're 20 00:01:25.250 --> 00:01:29.560 building it up from there. Um, and that can take a little while to to result in 21 00:01:29.560 --> 00:01:34.900 sales and and traction in terms of revenue. But when you think about media 22 00:01:34.900 --> 00:01:40.040 companies, media companies build audiences first. In fact, media 23 00:01:40.040 --> 00:01:43.620 companies, their audience is their product, Really. I mean, the content is 24 00:01:43.620 --> 00:01:46.520 also the product, but what they're really selling as access to the 25 00:01:46.530 --> 00:01:51.280 audience because most of their revenue tends to come from advertising, not 26 00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:56.300 necessarily from users. And so the story that I wanted to share about why 27 00:01:56.300 --> 00:02:02.520 this is such a powerful approach for marketers to consider is is about my 28 00:02:02.520 --> 00:02:07.650 husband and I. And so, um, I love watching this show, or I used to love 29 00:02:07.650 --> 00:02:11.470 watching the show Fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna Gaines, and I know there's a 30 00:02:11.470 --> 00:02:14.380 lot of people that watch it. If you haven't seen it, it's basically this 31 00:02:14.380 --> 00:02:19.570 couple that like goes in and finds these houses that are dumps and you 32 00:02:19.570 --> 00:02:23.030 know, seemingly in a matter of weeks, has redone them and they're beautiful, 33 00:02:23.030 --> 00:02:26.860 and then they present them to the new owners. So I would sit around and watch 34 00:02:26.860 --> 00:02:31.470 the show and and eventually got my husband hooked on it. But the problem 35 00:02:31.470 --> 00:02:34.280 with it is that like every time I would watch it, I would think of a new 36 00:02:34.280 --> 00:02:38.510 project I wanted to do around the house. And so my poor husband got roped into 37 00:02:38.510 --> 00:02:42.330 all these different projects. But it wasn't just those projects Chip and 38 00:02:42.330 --> 00:02:46.840 Joanna Gaines have. I don't even know how many businesses now they have 39 00:02:46.850 --> 00:02:52.210 stores. They have a line of rugs, they sell a line of paint. Their Discovery 40 00:02:52.210 --> 00:02:57.400 Channel has literally is building a media brand around them, and they have, 41 00:02:57.410 --> 00:03:01.530 you know, a whole e commerce presence. And there are legions of people out 42 00:03:01.530 --> 00:03:06.880 there like me who will just sort of buy whatever they're selling. Because we 43 00:03:06.880 --> 00:03:12.230 bought in right. We became fans of their show. We love what they're doing, 44 00:03:12.230 --> 00:03:16.290 were part of the audience, and every time they introduced a new product, I 45 00:03:16.290 --> 00:03:19.670 mean initially, the only thing they had was the TV show. But every time they 46 00:03:19.670 --> 00:03:25.030 introduced a new product, whether it was rugs or paint or publishing a book 47 00:03:25.040 --> 00:03:29.960 or putting out a magazine or now having a new media brand, they literally had a 48 00:03:29.960 --> 00:03:35.470 built in customer base to sell those products to who were ready to buy from 49 00:03:35.470 --> 00:03:40.080 Day one. And so it's like flipping the traditional model of marketing on its 50 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:44.890 head, where as a market given a product and told to find an audience with the 51 00:03:44.890 --> 00:03:49.540 media brand, you're building an audience, and then you just introduce 52 00:03:49.540 --> 00:03:53.250 the products to the audience you already have, and sometimes you use 53 00:03:53.250 --> 00:03:56.790 what you learned from that audience to decide what products to create. But if 54 00:03:56.790 --> 00:04:02.120 you do it right as a media brand, you instantly have a huge pool of customers 55 00:04:02.120 --> 00:04:06.850 from day one. And so you eliminate that uphill battle of trying to build your 56 00:04:06.850 --> 00:04:09.730 initial customer base and generate revenue. So that was a little bit of a 57 00:04:09.730 --> 00:04:13.680 long story, but I thought it was a good way to kick it off. It's a wonderful 58 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:17.560 story, and I mean we've seen it all over the place where, especially 59 00:04:17.560 --> 00:04:21.350 personal brands like the one you mentioned are just so strong and so 60 00:04:21.350 --> 00:04:24.780 powerful when you could wrap it around one or a few personalities, right? I 61 00:04:24.780 --> 00:04:29.210 think it's the reason why, like vloggers and YouTubers are so big is 62 00:04:29.210 --> 00:04:32.850 because they build these huge audiences around what they're doing or whatever 63 00:04:32.850 --> 00:04:37.460 it is they're into. And it just works so well, Um, a few thoughts I had what 64 00:04:37.460 --> 00:04:41.760 you are talking about it is that I think, in my opinion, I feel like the 65 00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:46.950 audience first mentality actually works remarkably well. Um, when you're kind 66 00:04:46.950 --> 00:04:51.930 of a solo procure or your founder built in wanting to start a company, it just 67 00:04:51.930 --> 00:04:54.750 makes sense. Essentially your front loading the work in building the 68 00:04:54.750 --> 00:04:59.450 audience and which is honestly, kind of like the harder part. It takes a lot of 69 00:04:59.450 --> 00:05:04.260 the risk out of the venture right and makes you much more attractive to VCs. 70 00:05:04.260 --> 00:05:08.040 If you wanted to go that route or banks, if you want to, like, get money that 71 00:05:08.040 --> 00:05:11.040 way, like it just makes you much more attractive in a lot of different ways, 72 00:05:11.040 --> 00:05:13.770 it makes it way easier to actually launch any product and get it off the 73 00:05:13.770 --> 00:05:18.450 ground. The one difficulty I think companies run into when they're already 74 00:05:18.450 --> 00:05:21.730 large, they already have a number of products is that building an audience 75 00:05:21.730 --> 00:05:26.460 can be hard. It could take a long time and therefore can be quite expensive. 76 00:05:26.540 --> 00:05:29.450 So what would you say to companies that are looking at this and being like Okay, 77 00:05:29.450 --> 00:05:33.010 well, I mean, it's hard. It's one thing if somebody like front loads it with a 78 00:05:33.010 --> 00:05:37.090 bunch of sweat equity, Um, getting paid nothing for a couple of years and 79 00:05:37.090 --> 00:05:40.630 putting a ton of time into it in order to build the audience like YouTubers or 80 00:05:40.640 --> 00:05:48.080 solo guys do. But what do you say to companies who have to make do now? They 81 00:05:48.080 --> 00:05:51.440 have to get revenue going now, while also kind of wanting to build an 82 00:05:51.440 --> 00:05:56.070 audience for the future. So a couple of different things there with what you 83 00:05:56.070 --> 00:06:01.470 just said, I'm gonna unpack it a little bit. One is I will contradict one thing, 84 00:06:01.470 --> 00:06:05.230 which is? It doesn't have to be expensive to build an audience, Um, and 85 00:06:05.230 --> 00:06:08.350 I'll get to that in a minute. But you raise something important, which is 86 00:06:08.840 --> 00:06:13.110 often times when you're, you know, down the road with your business. It's not 87 00:06:13.110 --> 00:06:17.570 like you can stop selling and focus on audience building. You know, you you 88 00:06:17.570 --> 00:06:21.800 always have this necessity of bringing revenue in the door and maintaining a 89 00:06:21.800 --> 00:06:26.010 funnel and a pipeline, and so you certainly can't build an audience to 90 00:06:26.010 --> 00:06:31.070 the detriment of that. But what I would say is you're right in terms of early 91 00:06:31.070 --> 00:06:35.320 days, like if you're if you haven't started your company yet, Absolutely, 92 00:06:35.320 --> 00:06:38.380 you should be doing this and a great example of somebody who's just done 93 00:06:38.380 --> 00:06:41.810 this recently who's in the B two B space. So I mentioned Chip and Joanna 94 00:06:41.810 --> 00:06:45.980 games, which is a really kind of easy example, right? And there are plenty of 95 00:06:45.980 --> 00:06:49.780 YouTubers. But when we think more traditional B two b Tech or SAS, 96 00:06:49.930 --> 00:06:54.970 somebody who's done this really well is Rand Fishkin. So he left Mas and went 97 00:06:54.970 --> 00:06:59.040 to start spark Toro, and he didn't actually tell the world what he was 98 00:06:59.040 --> 00:07:05.080 building at Spark Toro or began marketing his product until he was well 99 00:07:05.080 --> 00:07:09.370 into building out his audience. So he really started as he was forming the 100 00:07:09.370 --> 00:07:12.920 company. He started blogging and creating awesome content, and people 101 00:07:12.920 --> 00:07:16.590 loved it and started following him. I was one of those people. So by the time 102 00:07:16.590 --> 00:07:20.340 he launched sparked a row, it was really easy to on board his first 103 00:07:20.350 --> 00:07:24.280 traunch of customers. But your point is more about when you're further down the 104 00:07:24.280 --> 00:07:28.930 road. And, you know, I've been a part of one company that has done this, um, 105 00:07:28.940 --> 00:07:35.600 impact, where I worked from 2017 to 2019, and I'll give the CEO by Buffalo 106 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:39.610 a lot of credit. When I first came on, he had this vision to build a media 107 00:07:39.610 --> 00:07:42.990 company around the company he had, which was an agency. And it was 108 00:07:42.990 --> 00:07:48.180 inspired, really by the writings of Joe Policy, who, for those that don't know, 109 00:07:48.190 --> 00:07:51.640 was the founder of the Content Marketing Institute. And he has to 110 00:07:51.640 --> 00:07:56.600 really great books called Content Inc and killing Marketing that talk about 111 00:07:56.600 --> 00:08:02.080 this exact concept. And so I worked with Bob, and this was not a huge 112 00:08:02.080 --> 00:08:05.990 company. When I joined, I think we had around there was around 30 people, but 113 00:08:05.990 --> 00:08:10.430 at the time I left two years later, I think we had around 70 and my job was 114 00:08:10.430 --> 00:08:14.560 to build this media company, and we didn't have a huge budget We weren't a 115 00:08:14.560 --> 00:08:18.680 giant software company, but it was about really putting thought into what 116 00:08:18.680 --> 00:08:24.660 does it take? Two. Both get found online in other words, how to create 117 00:08:24.660 --> 00:08:28.740 great content that's going to naturally drive an audience. But also, if you 118 00:08:28.740 --> 00:08:32.850 think about what media brands do, they don't just create a lot of content to 119 00:08:32.850 --> 00:08:37.210 drive organic traffic. They are all about building a habit with their 120 00:08:37.220 --> 00:08:42.860 audience. So they're trying to get you to come back again and again and again, 121 00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:47.570 whether that's subscribing to your daily news update like you look at a 122 00:08:47.570 --> 00:08:51.670 CNN and they have their five things update every morning where they say, 123 00:08:51.670 --> 00:08:54.510 Here's the five things you should know today and that's all about getting you 124 00:08:54.510 --> 00:08:59.070 to come back every single day to the website. Um so different media brands 125 00:08:59.070 --> 00:09:03.810 do it in different ways, but for us at impact, it was about how do we really 126 00:09:03.810 --> 00:09:08.010 level up our content game and make sure we're creating content that's better 127 00:09:08.070 --> 00:09:11.170 than anything else out there on the topics for writing about which is what 128 00:09:11.180 --> 00:09:14.180 all content marketers should really be thinking about if we're being honest 129 00:09:14.180 --> 00:09:19.090 with ourselves. But then it was about How do we build a habit? And for us, 130 00:09:19.100 --> 00:09:23.170 you know, that was about creating a newsletter that went out three times a 131 00:09:23.170 --> 00:09:27.780 week, which was really aggressive for for a marketing company. But it forced 132 00:09:27.780 --> 00:09:31.220 us to figure out how to drive value and something that we were delivering that 133 00:09:31.220 --> 00:09:35.570 frequently. So those weren't really expensive tactics. I mean, they we 134 00:09:35.570 --> 00:09:40.530 definitely had to put some money into increasing our content production and 135 00:09:40.530 --> 00:09:43.620 dedicating somebody to write in the newsletter. But both both of those 136 00:09:43.620 --> 00:09:47.690 things are fairly accessible to most companies. I think it's more about, you 137 00:09:47.690 --> 00:09:51.560 know, the mentality that you go into it with and and really having this mission 138 00:09:51.570 --> 00:09:55.980 of creating amazing high quality content and building a habit amongst 139 00:09:55.980 --> 00:10:00.120 your audience and always want to clarify. I'm I'm drinking the Kool and 140 00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:04.140 I'm all into building audience. Even if you're a big company. I've done it a 141 00:10:04.140 --> 00:10:07.920 few times, and it is it is the way to go. I mean, I feel like it's been like 142 00:10:07.930 --> 00:10:11.960 over a decade people have been saying like, Hey, baby marketing needs to 143 00:10:11.960 --> 00:10:15.900 become media like we need to build media companies, but still slow people 144 00:10:15.900 --> 00:10:21.940 have been slow to get on that train there. Yeah, so I know part of the 145 00:10:21.940 --> 00:10:25.140 resistance is just the cost in it, but I think you're right. Like you can kind 146 00:10:25.140 --> 00:10:28.880 of build your way over there. You don't want to shut down everything all at 147 00:10:28.880 --> 00:10:33.860 once. You don't want to just go off the paid media if that's where most of your 148 00:10:33.870 --> 00:10:37.650 lead and inbound is coming from currently. But I think it's smart to 149 00:10:37.650 --> 00:10:42.930 set aside maybe, like, 5% of the budget. Put it into content, then 10% slowly 150 00:10:42.940 --> 00:10:47.950 offset Paid media with owned media slash earned media over time. Is that 151 00:10:47.950 --> 00:10:51.740 how you see it? Well, you know, what you just said is really important. And 152 00:10:51.740 --> 00:10:56.890 I want to put a pin in it because we're coming up in the next year on Google 153 00:10:56.890 --> 00:11:01.550 shutting down third party cookies, which is incredibly relevant to this 154 00:11:01.550 --> 00:11:05.520 conversation. When that happens, marketers are going to lose the ability 155 00:11:05.520 --> 00:11:10.600 to do retargeting. They're gonna lose a lot of the granularity that has come 156 00:11:10.600 --> 00:11:14.820 with the way we as marketers have approached paid media in the past, and 157 00:11:14.820 --> 00:11:18.750 it's funny. I just posted something about this on LinkedIn This morning. Um, 158 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:23.420 what that means is that we all, as marketers need to start focusing right 159 00:11:23.420 --> 00:11:30.110 now on upping our content game, because when those tools go away, what we will 160 00:11:30.110 --> 00:11:34.940 be left with is we'll still be able to do paid media with with less precision, 161 00:11:34.940 --> 00:11:39.090 quite frankly. So, we'll have to focus on creative and and things like that. 162 00:11:39.100 --> 00:11:44.720 But But what we still do have in our arsenal is the ability to attract the 163 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:48.930 right audience through content. And so it even makes content that much more 164 00:11:48.930 --> 00:11:52.330 important. And that change is going to happen within the next year. And so the 165 00:11:52.330 --> 00:11:57.510 time to start on that is now. So you know, the imperative of really focusing 166 00:11:57.510 --> 00:12:01.930 on content is not just about thinking like a media brand. It's about 167 00:12:01.930 --> 00:12:05.860 preparing for some of the the privacy related regulations and changes that 168 00:12:05.860 --> 00:12:10.480 are coming in the future and future proofing your business through your own 169 00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:13.850 content. You know, it's funny. James and I talk a lot about media companies 170 00:12:13.850 --> 00:12:17.900 and how, like, for the size of the audiences they usually have, they're 171 00:12:17.900 --> 00:12:21.770 not. They don't monetize it very well. I've always wondered, like if you look 172 00:12:21.770 --> 00:12:25.180 at like just the revenue of the New York Times, or even like even smaller, 173 00:12:25.180 --> 00:12:28.960 like YouTubers, who have millions of followers and yet only generate 174 00:12:29.340 --> 00:12:32.940 hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for themselves. I'm always 175 00:12:32.940 --> 00:12:38.500 amazed at like how I wish I would see, like more businesses build media brands 176 00:12:38.500 --> 00:12:41.850 and then learn how to monetize them better only because I think businesses 177 00:12:41.850 --> 00:12:45.880 are remarkably good at it. And media companies, if they're only monetizing 178 00:12:45.880 --> 00:12:49.540 through ads, are only seeing a small fraction of what they could if they 179 00:12:49.540 --> 00:12:54.980 were only figuring out a good funnel of their own products and services and mix 180 00:12:54.980 --> 00:12:58.920 and match it to their audiences. Needs you can. I think when you do take that 181 00:12:58.920 --> 00:13:02.630 media approach, you're right, like traditional media is very much kind of 182 00:13:02.640 --> 00:13:06.970 in this, this certain mode of we sell, you know, subscriptions and we sell 183 00:13:06.970 --> 00:13:10.300 advertising. But but even media brands are beginning to branch out, and 184 00:13:10.300 --> 00:13:14.100 there's this big movement of media companies into e commerce and and other 185 00:13:14.100 --> 00:13:18.720 areas. What I've seen, you know, where B two B and other brands have done a 186 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:25.220 really nice job of expanding upon that model is by creating community also 187 00:13:25.230 --> 00:13:29.150 within their media properties with events. You know, that was one of the 188 00:13:29.150 --> 00:13:32.930 things we did an impact before covid hit. But I think I've since left, and 189 00:13:32.930 --> 00:13:36.650 they've done a beautiful job of transitioning to a more virtual model 190 00:13:36.840 --> 00:13:40.020 where you have your community. And maybe there's even a paid version of 191 00:13:40.020 --> 00:13:43.500 your community with with premium kind of products in it, whether that's 192 00:13:43.500 --> 00:13:48.460 training or access to different subscriptions. And then you have live 193 00:13:48.460 --> 00:13:51.510 or virtual events where you're able to bring the community together and people 194 00:13:51.510 --> 00:13:54.490 are paying to come to those and you're also monetizing those through 195 00:13:54.490 --> 00:13:58.750 sponsorship events can be big business. And so there's a lot of different 196 00:13:58.750 --> 00:14:03.020 directions that you can go with this. But it all starts with having that 197 00:14:03.030 --> 00:14:07.570 audience and building that loyalty within them. And just to that 0.1 thing 198 00:14:07.570 --> 00:14:11.960 I want to add is there's an important distinction here that I think marketers 199 00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:15.000 in particular need to be aware of, and that distinction is between the 200 00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:21.290 concepts of subscription and membership. Both subscribers and members are buying 201 00:14:21.290 --> 00:14:27.180 in and paying on a regular basis for access to something with subscribers. 202 00:14:27.180 --> 00:14:30.950 That's the traditional media model, right like I subscribe to the newspaper. 203 00:14:30.960 --> 00:14:34.960 When you subscribe your it's very transactional. You're looking to get 204 00:14:34.960 --> 00:14:38.720 regular value out of the thing you're subscribing to, and as soon as you stop 205 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:43.500 getting that value U turn. So the example. I was used as years ago. I 206 00:14:43.500 --> 00:14:47.680 subscribe to The Washington Post, and after a while I stopped reading it. And 207 00:14:47.680 --> 00:14:53.130 so I ended my subscription, whereas membership is about an emotional 208 00:14:53.130 --> 00:14:58.030 connection to something larger, and there are lots of things that people 209 00:14:58.030 --> 00:15:01.990 join. But funny enough, The Washington Post is the example, if you're too, 210 00:15:01.990 --> 00:15:05.810 because a few years ago they introduced their slogan, Democracy dies in 211 00:15:05.810 --> 00:15:10.070 darkness and they kind of created this emotional tug with their audience. And 212 00:15:10.070 --> 00:15:13.890 I actually re subscribed when they did that. And I don't read the paper that 213 00:15:13.890 --> 00:15:18.980 often. So whereas several years ago I I ended my subscription because I wasn't 214 00:15:18.980 --> 00:15:22.870 reading it. Now I refuse to end my subscription because I feel this 215 00:15:22.870 --> 00:15:28.380 emotional pull towards this kind of higher purpose of protecting democracy 216 00:15:28.380 --> 00:15:32.750 through journalism. So as a as a marketer, when you're thinking about 217 00:15:32.940 --> 00:15:36.010 building a media property and you're thinking about building an audience, 218 00:15:36.020 --> 00:15:40.530 what I would suggest is you consider? Are you really building subscribers, or 219 00:15:40.530 --> 00:15:44.390 are you building a kind of a member base? What is that? What is that higher 220 00:15:44.390 --> 00:15:48.010 purpose? That why that you're communicating to your audience that's 221 00:15:48.010 --> 00:15:54.000 going to drive them to join what you're doing as a member because they believe 222 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:58.200 in it? Because when you have numbers and they stopped driving daily or 223 00:15:58.200 --> 00:16:03.190 weekly value, they don't turn like subscribers do because they're there 224 00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:09.660 for the cause. As a marketer, you're probably brainstorming outside the box 225 00:16:09.660 --> 00:16:13.650 ideas to engage your prospects and customers working remotely. And you've 226 00:16:13.650 --> 00:16:16.700 probably thought about sending them direct mail to break through the zoom 227 00:16:16.700 --> 00:16:20.660 fatigue. But how do you ship personalized gifts to remote decision 228 00:16:20.660 --> 00:16:24.860 makers when you have no idea where they're sitting At B B growth, we use 229 00:16:24.860 --> 00:16:28.770 the craft and platform to send hyper personalized gifts to anyone working 230 00:16:28.770 --> 00:16:32.460 from anywhere. Crafting makes it easy for your prospects and customers to 231 00:16:32.460 --> 00:16:36.840 pick and personalize their own gift in real time and offers highly secured 232 00:16:36.840 --> 00:16:40.340 data capture. So decision makers feel comfortable submitting their home 233 00:16:40.340 --> 00:16:44.920 addresses for shipping purposes. To get your own personalized craft and gift go 234 00:16:44.920 --> 00:16:49.210 to craft. Um dot io slash growth to schedule a demo and receive a 235 00:16:49.210 --> 00:16:52.980 complimentary personalized gift from craft. Um, to claim your personalized 236 00:16:52.980 --> 00:16:58.410 gift, go to craft, um dot io slash growth. That's a really interesting 237 00:16:58.410 --> 00:17:02.800 distinction, Kathleen. I've heard I forget who it was that put out an 238 00:17:02.800 --> 00:17:08.900 article about the five things that you need to do to build a community which I 239 00:17:08.900 --> 00:17:12.240 think is, you know, going back to what you said earlier about communities 240 00:17:12.240 --> 00:17:16.869 being a big part of, uh, you know, folks building audience. They're trying 241 00:17:16.869 --> 00:17:20.430 to build communities as they're building audience. And one of the first 242 00:17:20.440 --> 00:17:24.819 thing that they mentioned in that article was the importance of of really 243 00:17:24.819 --> 00:17:29.650 crystallizing, the mission of the community. And if you can crystallize 244 00:17:29.650 --> 00:17:33.430 the mission in such a way that gets people excited about it, they want to 245 00:17:33.430 --> 00:17:38.950 be a part of the community because they're in love with mission. And so I 246 00:17:38.950 --> 00:17:43.320 think that translates. That makes a lot of sense to me that members are going 247 00:17:43.320 --> 00:17:48.150 to be wasted here. Then subscribers are because members are there for the why 248 00:17:48.150 --> 00:17:52.450 behind what you're doing. If you were to argue, Kathleen, the other side of 249 00:17:52.450 --> 00:17:55.990 the table if you were to sit in somebody's shoes. Who says no? Focusing 250 00:17:55.990 --> 00:18:00.420 on product is more important. What do you think that argument would be to say 251 00:18:00.420 --> 00:18:05.970 no, We should focus on product first than audience. That's a That's a great 252 00:18:05.970 --> 00:18:10.680 question, and I'm pretty passionate. If you can't tell about this audience 253 00:18:10.680 --> 00:18:15.700 first approach, you know, I think the argument would probably be. Certainly, 254 00:18:15.700 --> 00:18:18.920 if you're talking about the early days of a company somebody, somebody might 255 00:18:18.920 --> 00:18:23.350 argue that it would be a distraction. You know, you have to stay laser 256 00:18:23.350 --> 00:18:27.710 focused on the product and delivering value to your existing customers, and 257 00:18:27.710 --> 00:18:30.910 anything that distracts you from that takes you away from your core purpose. 258 00:18:30.920 --> 00:18:34.680 I don't frankly believe that. I think that building an audience is part of 259 00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:38.930 audience research, and the Nuggets you get out of that are so valuable. But I 260 00:18:38.930 --> 00:18:41.740 can see somebody saying that and I could see somebody also saying, You 261 00:18:41.740 --> 00:18:45.970 know, this kind of an approach is a luxury for companies that can afford it, 262 00:18:45.980 --> 00:18:50.010 which I also don't believe. But, you know, it's like anything. I think 263 00:18:50.010 --> 00:18:52.700 people say the same thing about content marketing like I don't have the time 264 00:18:52.700 --> 00:18:56.120 for that. I don't have the time to be doing all that writing. To me. It's 265 00:18:56.120 --> 00:18:59.020 just an excuse. You know, you have to make the time. You have to make the 266 00:18:59.020 --> 00:19:03.960 focus and you have to choose to make it a priority. But I'm sure there are lots 267 00:19:03.960 --> 00:19:09.420 of arguments people could make against it to totally. I want to open it up for 268 00:19:09.420 --> 00:19:13.660 questions. So, Dan, do you have any other questions? Yes, a big topic 269 00:19:13.660 --> 00:19:18.050 that's come up around this particular topic is why are there to build the 270 00:19:18.050 --> 00:19:22.730 audience or by the audience? And I assume that companies are approaching 271 00:19:22.730 --> 00:19:25.820 this with, like, kind of like a make or buy analysis, right? Like how much 272 00:19:25.820 --> 00:19:29.280 would it cost to build the audience by it like and try to figure it out that 273 00:19:29.280 --> 00:19:32.970 way? But I imagine this is a conversation. I even, uh because I know, 274 00:19:32.970 --> 00:19:36.730 like, what is it? Hubspot just acquired the hustle for, like who knows how much 275 00:19:36.730 --> 00:19:40.520 money, but it was a big, big acquisition, but I think even smaller 276 00:19:40.520 --> 00:19:44.640 companies could probably consider doing make or buy analysis with smaller 277 00:19:44.640 --> 00:19:51.210 communities, smaller blog channels of all kinds, even hiring people that have 278 00:19:51.220 --> 00:19:55.310 a personal audience. Have you explored that topic at all? Or I thought, like 279 00:19:55.320 --> 00:19:59.070 how to give a proper analysis to that. Yeah. I mean, I'm watching it really 280 00:19:59.070 --> 00:20:02.480 closely, and I'm glad you brought it up because you're right. It has been all 281 00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:06.660 over the news lately that hubspot, which which is a fantastic example 282 00:20:06.660 --> 00:20:11.480 because all the early case studies of hotspots, very early growth talked 283 00:20:11.480 --> 00:20:15.550 about how hot spot itself built an audience before it released its product. 284 00:20:15.560 --> 00:20:20.140 Um, in fact, that was That was a huge part of their story, and they were very 285 00:20:20.140 --> 00:20:23.450 successful in doing it. They, you know, obviously they've scaled massively. 286 00:20:23.450 --> 00:20:28.570 They went public. It's been a big success story, but even hubspot with 287 00:20:28.570 --> 00:20:33.820 it's incredibly sophisticated content machine recognized that to take their 288 00:20:33.820 --> 00:20:39.950 business to the next level. They were better off in this case, acquiring a 289 00:20:39.950 --> 00:20:42.710 media brand than trying to build it. And I'm not saying that's the right 290 00:20:42.710 --> 00:20:45.540 solution for everyone, but they got to the point where they just realized it 291 00:20:45.540 --> 00:20:48.910 would be it would take longer and be more expensive for them to try to do it 292 00:20:48.910 --> 00:20:54.180 themselves. And I think I listened to a podcast where, UM Sam from the hustle 293 00:20:54.190 --> 00:20:57.810 interviewed Keuren Flanagan, who was the person at Hubspot that was like the 294 00:20:57.810 --> 00:21:01.510 champion for the acquisition, and he talked about how they just didn't. They 295 00:21:01.510 --> 00:21:07.180 didn't know how to hire the types of writers and content creators that the 296 00:21:07.180 --> 00:21:11.430 hustle had they had. They knew how to hire, like, marketing content creators, 297 00:21:11.430 --> 00:21:14.150 but they were looking to branch out and doing something different. And that's 298 00:21:14.150 --> 00:21:17.270 why they part a big part of why they did the acquisition. But they're not 299 00:21:17.270 --> 00:21:23.450 the only ones you know. Stripe. The payments company acquired indie hackers, 300 00:21:23.460 --> 00:21:28.650 the media brand and the V C company, and recent Horowitz has just announced 301 00:21:28.650 --> 00:21:31.450 that they're starting a media brand. They've been they're going to build 302 00:21:31.450 --> 00:21:34.550 their own in that case because they've been sort of aggressive and creating 303 00:21:34.550 --> 00:21:38.170 content, and they're now taking it to the next level, you know. But there are 304 00:21:38.170 --> 00:21:41.740 there. Are there smaller examples, too? And it's certainly something to think 305 00:21:41.740 --> 00:21:45.830 about. It's a non traditional type of an acquisition for most businesses, but 306 00:21:45.830 --> 00:21:49.300 it can really pay off in terms of expanded audience, which could then be 307 00:21:49.300 --> 00:21:54.010 funneled into, you know, potential future revenue streams. Yeah, we saw it 308 00:21:54.010 --> 00:21:58.040 with with outreach, acquiring sales hacker a couple years ago even. And I 309 00:21:58.040 --> 00:22:02.620 thought back then, man, that that is a really, really, really smart move. And 310 00:22:02.620 --> 00:22:07.020 so to build or to buy is certainly a question that I think we're going to 311 00:22:07.020 --> 00:22:11.050 see a lot of people asking. And it's something I get really excited about 312 00:22:11.060 --> 00:22:15.480 because, as as content creators, I don't think there was a lot of people 313 00:22:15.480 --> 00:22:19.330 talking about and of building, building media properties for the purpose of 314 00:22:19.330 --> 00:22:24.270 getting acquired, at least in the PDB space until very recently. And I think 315 00:22:24.280 --> 00:22:27.830 that's going to allow a lot more people jumping into the game and trying to 316 00:22:27.830 --> 00:22:32.600 really build helpful, really helpful niche content, knowing that, hey, 317 00:22:32.600 --> 00:22:36.110 there's a potential that you know Terminus might acquire this or you know 318 00:22:36.120 --> 00:22:41.290 what, you know, insert large tech company whose, uh, traditionally just 319 00:22:41.290 --> 00:22:47.020 acquired other products now looking at acquiring media companies as well. 320 00:22:47.030 --> 00:22:51.020 Kathleen, I'm curious. You've built a really nice audience for your for your 321 00:22:51.020 --> 00:22:54.560 personal brand. I know for sure on LinkedIn, and you might even be doing 322 00:22:54.560 --> 00:22:58.130 the same on Twitter. I'm just not as active on Twitter. What's your advice 323 00:22:58.130 --> 00:23:02.950 to companies In terms of focusing on platforms? Do you recommend that they 324 00:23:02.950 --> 00:23:07.760 focus on one until they get some traction? Or should they be focused on 325 00:23:07.770 --> 00:23:11.720 more than one social channel as they're trying to build out their audience on 326 00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:16.410 social? So I think it's definitely different for personal brands than it 327 00:23:16.410 --> 00:23:19.970 is for businesses. To me, as a business, you do need to think about where your 328 00:23:19.970 --> 00:23:25.010 audience is and and consider that. But the ones as a personal brand, I think 329 00:23:25.010 --> 00:23:28.770 you can. You can be narrower in many cases, like for me, it really is linked 330 00:23:28.770 --> 00:23:32.500 in. That's my my only focus Right now. I do post on Twitter, and I'm there 331 00:23:32.500 --> 00:23:36.270 occasionally, but I have no strategy. There's no intentionality behind it. 332 00:23:36.280 --> 00:23:41.650 Lincoln is where I'm entirely focused for myself. But I would say regardless 333 00:23:41.650 --> 00:23:44.630 of whether you're talking about a personal brand or business brand, you 334 00:23:44.630 --> 00:23:47.570 don't bite off more than you can chew, you know, and in fact, this came up 335 00:23:47.570 --> 00:23:50.890 when clubhouse came out because everybody was talking about it and and 336 00:23:50.890 --> 00:23:55.520 we're here or now on clubhouse and I am on clubhouse. But I made a conscious 337 00:23:55.520 --> 00:24:00.510 decision not to not to try to take on clubhouse, not to try to make it my 338 00:24:00.510 --> 00:24:04.240 platform because I just knew I didn't have the bandwidth to do that and 339 00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:09.020 LinkedIn at the level. And I wanted to, um, and I would say that for businesses 340 00:24:09.020 --> 00:24:13.880 to, like, pick a couple of channels, you know, maybe it's one at first. 341 00:24:13.880 --> 00:24:17.570 Maybe it's too like for the business I'm at now. We're really we're on 342 00:24:17.570 --> 00:24:21.990 Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. But our focus is really linked in and Twitter 343 00:24:21.990 --> 00:24:26.740 and those are the two that I know I need to nail and before, certainly 344 00:24:26.740 --> 00:24:30.550 before I expand to more platforms or before I put more effort into Facebook, 345 00:24:31.240 --> 00:24:36.190 that makes a lot of sense. Awesome. We just brought Shawn specie up. Sean is 346 00:24:36.190 --> 00:24:41.480 an event. EMC and Planner. He's been doing that for 10 plus years, and he's 347 00:24:41.480 --> 00:24:45.730 done 400 plus events for brands like Chick fil A and Citizens Bank and the 348 00:24:45.730 --> 00:24:49.020 Atlanta Falcons. Sean, welcome to the stage. Do we have your permission to 349 00:24:49.020 --> 00:24:54.340 record your voice for the podcast? You do have my permission. Yeah. So fire 350 00:24:54.340 --> 00:24:58.830 away with your question or comment for Kathleen. Yeah, Thanks. for having me 351 00:24:58.830 --> 00:25:02.730 and James. We were deeming on length in a while ago about getting together on 352 00:25:02.730 --> 00:25:05.650 clubhouse. So glad it finally happened. I'm sorry, Miss Mr Conversation. 353 00:25:05.660 --> 00:25:10.250 Awesome. My question for you guys because they only have a couple minutes. 354 00:25:10.260 --> 00:25:13.710 I don't know if you've talked about this already, but so I know that 355 00:25:13.720 --> 00:25:19.070 business strategy in general is to try to push social media to a website. 356 00:25:19.070 --> 00:25:25.030 Right? So I'm curious as to how you would I mean, our audience is primarily 357 00:25:25.030 --> 00:25:28.660 on two platforms. We've got YouTube, and then we're capturing email 358 00:25:28.660 --> 00:25:33.740 addresses, and then we're pushing them primarily just to website. So I'm 359 00:25:33.740 --> 00:25:37.870 curious as to how you would even push them. Why would you cross promote and 360 00:25:37.870 --> 00:25:40.680 push from one platform? The other? Wouldn't you want to just strategize 361 00:25:40.680 --> 00:25:45.090 and go from one platform to website? So I'm just curious as to your thoughts, I 362 00:25:45.090 --> 00:25:49.420 would say I'm I agree with you, Sean. Like I'm all about trying to push 363 00:25:49.420 --> 00:25:54.180 people to the website. You know, in general, my philosophy is build where 364 00:25:54.180 --> 00:26:00.180 you own build on the land you own, if you will, and your website is is the 365 00:26:00.190 --> 00:26:04.050 marketing asset that you have the greatest ownership and control over. 366 00:26:04.240 --> 00:26:08.690 And so I'm a big fan of driving people. They're now having said that there are 367 00:26:08.690 --> 00:26:13.350 other places to build where you own. Um, slack is a great example. I see a lot 368 00:26:13.350 --> 00:26:17.930 of communities cropping up on slack, and this is definitely focused more on 369 00:26:17.930 --> 00:26:21.590 the community side of things. And it may be less on the media side, but you 370 00:26:21.590 --> 00:26:25.100 can certainly own a slack community. You have a lot of control. And there's 371 00:26:25.100 --> 00:26:30.390 some really interesting interactions happening there. So overall I think to 372 00:26:30.390 --> 00:26:34.250 me it comes down less to. Should we drive everybody to the website and more 373 00:26:34.250 --> 00:26:38.710 to yes. Should we drive people to a place where we where we have ownership 374 00:26:38.710 --> 00:26:42.700 and control? Hope that makes sense? Totally. Yeah. Thank you for that. I 375 00:26:42.700 --> 00:26:46.270 appreciate that. Thanks for your questions, John. Kathleen, we're coming 376 00:26:46.270 --> 00:26:50.300 right up on our time here. What is the best way for folks in the audience 377 00:26:50.310 --> 00:26:53.660 either On listening to the podcast. We're here live. What's the best way 378 00:26:53.660 --> 00:26:57.570 for folks to stay connected with you? Is it just Lincoln? Well, I accept any 379 00:26:57.570 --> 00:27:00.880 connection requests on LinkedIn. I I'd love it if you'd reach out to me. There 380 00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:05.170 you can learn more about me on my website. Kathleen Dash proof dot com. 381 00:27:05.170 --> 00:27:09.200 And if you just Google the inbound success podcast, it will come up and 382 00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:14.060 you can listen to lots of episodes of me talking with some amazing marketers. 383 00:27:14.240 --> 00:27:18.980 I have listened to your podcast, Kathleen, and I can I can say that it 384 00:27:18.990 --> 00:27:24.280 is fantastic. So if you're not already subscribed two inbound success make 385 00:27:24.280 --> 00:27:27.900 sure to do that. Kathleen, thank you so much for your time today. This has been 386 00:27:27.900 --> 00:27:31.810 incredible. Thank you, Dan, for leading the way and getting us kick off today. 387 00:27:31.810 --> 00:27:35.910 And thanks to you, Sean, for jumping up on stage and for everyone else to join 388 00:27:35.910 --> 00:27:39.400 us live on clubhouse. If you're not already following Dan and myself on 389 00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:42.960 clubhouse and you're listening on the podcast, go ahead and do that. There's 390 00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:45.840 a GDP growth of love that you can follow, and then you can just follow 391 00:27:45.840 --> 00:27:51.480 Dan and myself at Branches and James Carberry. Make sure to also follow at 392 00:27:51.490 --> 00:27:55.780 cast boot that is Kathleen's handle Gearing clubhouse as well. So thank you 393 00:27:55.780 --> 00:27:58.160 all so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me 394 00:27:59.240 --> 00:28:03.320 That's sweet fish. We're on a mission to create the most helpful content on 395 00:28:03.320 --> 00:28:07.830 the Internet for every job, function and industry on the planet. For the B 396 00:28:07.830 --> 00:28:11.870 two B marketing industry, this show is how we're executing on that mission. If 397 00:28:11.870 --> 00:28:15.530 you know a marketing leader, that would be an awesome guest for this podcast. 398 00:28:15.540 --> 00:28:19.090 Shoot me a text message. Don't call me because I don't answer unknown numbers, 399 00:28:19.100 --> 00:28:25.580 but text me at 4074 and I know 33 to 8. Just shoot me. Their name may be a link 400 00:28:25.580 --> 00:28:29.530 to their LinkedIn profile, and I'd love to check them out to see if we can get 401 00:28:29.540 --> 00:28:32.640 them on the show. Thanks a lot. Damn.