Speaker #1: All right, everybody.
Speaker #1: Welcome to Content and Beyond.
Speaker #1: This is Shafkat speaking.
Speaker #1: I'm the President here at Optimize.
Speaker #1: If you're wondering what a President does, that's product engineering and marketing here.
Speaker #1: I'm excited because today we have an amazing speaker who I've known for a long time and Handley joining us.
Speaker #1: Hi, Anne, I am, I'm, I'm psyched because AI think you're you're super intelligent, but you're also very unpredictable.
Speaker #1: So I think the audience is going to get some nice surprises here.
Speaker #1: I don't even know what we're going to talk about, but we'll we'll find out.
Speaker #1: But for those of you who don't know Anne, she's an incredible writer, has some best selling kind of Wall Street Journal, best selling books.
Speaker #1: Everybody writes as a classic.
Speaker #1: I think a second edition came out a couple years ago.
Speaker #1: She's a new top secret, top top secret book in the works that she's not allowed to talk about and she runs marketing profs.
Speaker #1: If you're in marketing, you probably are familiar.
Speaker #1: I think there's 600,000 subscribers.
Speaker #1: So incredible brand and she's just been an absolute rock star queen who's done it consistently for a long time.
Speaker #1: So and welcome.
Speaker #1: I was going to say welcome to the show, but this is this is like a one time show and you're on it.
Speaker #2: Welcome to the one time show.
Speaker #1: Yeah.
Speaker #1: And and so we were talking just a little while ago of, you know, there's a lot of these kind of shows that talk about the marketing life cycle and content and the content life cycle.
Speaker #1: We're going to try and avoid the topics that are kind of meh.
Speaker #1: But the, but the meh comment I make intentionally because a personal pet peeve of mine as the CMO of AB2B software company is you know what I call this the sea of sameness or the sea of meh.
Speaker #1: And I found that B to B marketing for some reason defaults to B to boring.
Speaker #1: And there has to be a better way.
Speaker #1: I, you know, I'll just tell this quick story.
Speaker #1: I was walking in Austin for South by Southwest many years ago and I saw this little sticker on one of the poles and it and it and I've remembered it forever.
Speaker #1: This is 10 years ago.
Speaker #1: And I just said I'll be interested if you'll be interesting.
Speaker #1: I don't know what the context of that sticker was or if it was like a love letter to someone, but it reminded me of B to B marketing.
Speaker #1: Like how can we be more interesting as marketers?
Speaker #1: And that's the only way that I think we'll get people to be interested in US.
Speaker #1: So with that set up, I wanted to just hand it over to you because I think you've made some some interesting slides for us to kind of tee up the problem You've taken, you've taken my story and maybe you have some data to back it up.
Speaker #1: So do you want to just ground the audience and kind of like what we're dealing with and pull up your slides?
Speaker #2: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker #2: Thank you so much and thank you for that generous introduction and hello everybody.
Speaker #2: I'm delighted to be here with with all of you.
Speaker #2: So yeah, to ground the conversation that we're going to have today about B to B marketing but also B to C marketing as well, I thought I would pull some data.
Speaker #2: Every year marketing props, my company partners with the Content Marketing Institute and we produce an annual content marketing research report this year, most recently, so actually in 2024, we spoke late 2024, we spoke to about 1500 marketers to get their thoughts and their ideas and what is going on in content marketing.
Speaker #2: What is the state of your world?
Speaker #2: We asked them both B to B&B to C as well as some nonprofit and some business to government sprinkled in there.
Speaker #2: But we asked them, you know, how how effective is your content?
Speaker #2: And so in prepping for our conversation today, chef, I thought, all right, well, let's let's look at enterprise because enterprise, they have massive budgets, don't they?
Speaker #2: They have all the money in the world and they have all the people in the world to execute on their incredible content strategy programs theoretically.
Speaker #2: So I thought this data has got to be much better than the B to B and the B to C that encompasses all sizes and all all walks of life.
Speaker #2: So I pulled the data and here's what we found.
Speaker #2: How effective is your content marketing?
Speaker #2: We asked enterprise marketers and here's what they told us.
Speaker #2: And I should just point out before we we look at the data more specifically, I don't know if you can tell, but I made this slide.
Speaker #2: I I drew it with my own hand.
Speaker #2: So yeah, I know you can't.
Speaker #1: Tell the quality.
Speaker #1: The quality of your penmanship and color pencils is actually pretty good.
Speaker #2: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker #2: You know, if marketing doesn't work out for me, I feel like I it's my career.
Speaker #2: It's.
Speaker #1: Do you remember during COVID every all adults were doing like coloring books and stuff?
Speaker #1: So yeah, I.
Speaker #2: Have never left COVID, obviously anyway, all right, let's look at this.
Speaker #2: How effective is your content marketing strategy?
Speaker #2: I didn't have time because I used, I used a large, a large font on the top there.
Speaker #2: I used like the IT was too, it was too big.
Speaker #2: So anyway, how effective is your content marketing strategy?
Speaker #2: We said, and you can see here, this 2% is extremely effective.
Speaker #2: Like we're killing it.
Speaker #2: It's going so well for us.
Speaker #2: Like think of that.
Speaker #2: If you went to somebody's house and they had a pizza and they served you a slice, that was that 2%, you would never go back.
Speaker #2: I mean, that's ridiculous, but OK, so very what about if we look at very, very and extremely?
Speaker #2: Well, that's almost what that's 30.
Speaker #1: 739 total, OK.
Speaker #2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker #2: Vary and there.
Speaker #2: So that would be.
Speaker #1: I was just trying to show off my math skills by adding those 3 slices but.
Speaker #2: Yeah, no.
Speaker #1: I think I got it wrong.
Speaker #2: Let's look at the vary and the extremely.
Speaker #2: So it's 28 percent, 28%.
Speaker #2: To your point about the sea of math, look at this enormous, enormous shape of down here that that slice of the pie is like literally 61% of the pie.
Speaker #2: That's right.
Speaker #2: There is the sea of meth.
Speaker #2: And that's where enterprise marketers said it's not.
Speaker #2: So it's fine.
Speaker #2: It's like fine.
Speaker #2: Like, you know, when you, I don't know, like whenever I write anything and then I'll ask my partner, you know, what do you think?
Speaker #2: And he goes, yeah, it's fine.
Speaker #2: That.
Speaker #2: Yeah, you.
Speaker #1: Never want to.
Speaker #2: Hear that you never want to hear fine, fine is not fine Fine is not OK.
Speaker #2: That's the sea of meth.
Speaker #2: So given that all right, so if only 61% of us are are feeling like it or if the overwhelming majority of us are like meh, let's dig into these numbers up here.
Speaker #2: So what is what is behind the very and the extremely like what is actually what are those teams doing that the people in the floating along in the sea of Matt are not doing and never I didn't even mention this, but that 11% that's what I call the I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker #2: It's just we're we're lost.
Speaker #2: We're, we don't.
Speaker #1: Know.
Speaker #2: Anyway, so we asked those marketers, the most effective marketers, the ones who are feeling it extremely or doing doing it very well, we asked them like, what are you doing?
Speaker #2: Like what are you focusing?
Speaker #2: What are you doing differently?
Speaker #2: And here's what they told us in terms of what 2 most the most successful programs do #181%.
Speaker #2: They are obsessed with their audience.
Speaker #2: They research their audience.
Speaker #2: They know who they're talking to.
Speaker #2: They know what their pain points are.
Speaker #2: Secondly, they have subject matter expertise, either in house or they know people to tap to help them out.
Speaker #2: Number three, high quality obsessed.
Speaker #2: They are obsessed with the writing and the producing and they're producing stuff that is truly high quality.
Speaker #2: And by that they mean that's actually meeting the objectives of their audience.
Speaker #2: Not of the company, but of the audience.
Speaker #2: It's actually answering questions.
Speaker #2: It's actually showing people that they know what they're talking about and that they they can solve their problems for them #4 their map content to the organizational goals.
Speaker #2: Overall super important of course.
Speaker #2: And then finally 58% down at the bottom there measuring and celebrating internally.
Speaker #2: So letting SO measuring what they're doing, but then also communicating it internally, which is also super key.
Speaker #1: Obsessed with the audience.
Speaker #1: I love this quote that I heard probably a year ago and I can't even remember who said it.
Speaker #1: They said you need to fall in love with your audience, not your content.
Speaker #1: And that really resonated So that I think it's something similar, just like obsession about the persona that we're writing for and what their pains are every single day.
Speaker #1: I love subject matter expertise is one, because I think I, I just think of credibility.
Speaker #1: Like we have to be credible when we write, especially if we assume the person on the other end, if they're already an expert, we better, we better be damn smart if we want to breakthrough.
Speaker #1: And then the high quality obsession I always talk about like sweating the small stuff, sweating the details and just being like so obsessed about those details.
Speaker #1: And so I, I love this, this is, this is amazing to see and it's back.
Speaker #1: But is that the same report that you did?
Speaker #2: Yeah, this is the same report.
Speaker #2: So this is when we, when we ask those extremely and and very successful marketers, what are you doing differently?
Speaker #2: This is what they, this is what they're obsessed with.
Speaker #2: This is what they focus on.
Speaker #1: I'm actually somewhat surprised that Measure and Celebrate is kind.
Speaker #2: Of low.
Speaker #2: I was just going to mention that.
Speaker #2: I was just going to say that what I think is really interesting about the order of things because there's this sort of mantra in marketing that, you know, like you got to measure everything you got to.
Speaker #2: That has to be #1 and what I appreciate about this is as someone who has been preaching all of the four things above measurement for a very long time, is that they all come like they, they all rank higher.
Speaker #2: We asked people to choose your top three and metrics came in at actually it's number six.
Speaker #2: It's not even #5 because the one I left out was putting together a great team and I thought, well, I'm not let's I think that's kind of a given.
Speaker #2: So I left that.
Speaker #2: Got it.
Speaker #2: Our chart here.
Speaker #2: But yeah, so like metrics down at the bottom is not to say that they're not important.
Speaker #2: Of course they are.
Speaker #2: And it's important to share your wins and and celebrate and make sure everybody knows the sort of what you're doing to drive those organizational goals to sort of, you know, to sort of get there.
Speaker #2: But at the same time, it's it's not number one.
Speaker #2: I think being obsessed with your audience, you know, to your point, you just said it beautifully a minute ago, is the most important thing.
Speaker #1: Awesome.
Speaker #1: So if we if we think about the life cycle of content, there's ideation, then we'll talk a little bit about creation and then we'll talk, we'll kind of wrap things up with distribution and and measurement.
Speaker #1: We think about ideation.
Speaker #1: You're a great writer.
Speaker #1: You're an interesting person.
Speaker #1: I'm always like captivated when you're either speaking or even here, like when you pull up these ridiculous hand drawn slides, which are like look beautiful, but it gets like people's attention.
Speaker #1: It's just different, you know, and now put yourself in the shoes of a content marketer or marketer at working at a big company, like how do they create?
Speaker #1: Like what advice do you have or tips?
Speaker #1: And you know, part of it could be, yes, obsessive of your audience.
Speaker #1: Like how do you create that kind of thumb stopping content that people are going to actually stop and take a moment and pay attention?
Speaker #1: Like how do you ideate or so I'd be curious on that.
Speaker #1: Or do you have suggestions on like, how do you get marketers at these big companies to think differently about ideation?
Speaker #2: Like, especially specifically when you're thinking through like content ideas and, you know, focus your content.
Speaker #2: Yeah.
Speaker #2: I mean, honestly, I think AI has has changed the game with that because, you know, it used to be that you could, you could spend a lot of time producing this high quality piece of content and that it would ultimately be effective in in one way or another.
Speaker #2: Like you'd be driving engagement for your audience and you'd be answering questions like it would just be it, it was enough.
Speaker #2: I think at at, but these days I think we need to differentiate what we're producing because in a world where AI is allowing us to ideate and to create at scale, you know, we can tell AI to do anything or your competitors can tell AI to do anything.
Speaker #2: So in a world like that, what is our differentiator?
Speaker #2: Like what is going to set us apart?
Speaker #2: It's not about producing more, it's not about producing faster.
Speaker #2: It's not about optimizing the heck out of something.
Speaker #2: You know, instead, I think it's about thinking more strategically, being more original with your insights.
Speaker #2: So not just something that anybody else could could, but I think it goes back to that subject matter expert point.
Speaker #2: You know, it could only come from us.
Speaker #2: I think it has to be original.
Speaker #2: I think it has to truly have depth and not just sort of surface level depth, but it needs to feel like it's.
Speaker #1: Credibility, yeah.
Speaker #2: Credibility and I think it needs to be, you know, obsessed with the audience and and have value for the audience.
Speaker #2: And the fourth point I would say is that I think it needs to be in some way enjoyable.
Speaker #2: And when I use that word enjoyable, I don't mean that it.
Speaker #1: Has to be.
Speaker #2: Hilarious.
Speaker #2: Or that it has to be funny.
Speaker #2: But I think it needs to be created in such a way that you can tell that the people on the, you know, doing the work enjoy it and are having a good time and are just connecting with the audience.
Speaker #2: I love that.
Speaker #2: The enjoyability factor.
Speaker #2: I don't know, is that a thing?
Speaker #2: It should be a thing.
Speaker #2: I just think from.
Speaker #1: I I love it.
Speaker #2: We love you know.
Speaker #1: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker #1: I I think two things you said that I really liked.
Speaker #1: The first one was kind of like, what's our right to win?
Speaker #1: Or like, why?
Speaker #1: Why can only we uniquely create this?
Speaker #1: I forget the exact words you use, but it's like, why do we think we can create something unique in this space?
Speaker #1: Like what access do we have to an insight or data?
Speaker #1: Or maybe it's actual people and subject matter experts inside of my company.
Speaker #1: Like what's our our story that only we can uniquely tell?
Speaker #1: I think if we can't figure that out, it's almost not well worth telling that story.
Speaker #1: And then I love the enjoyability thing.
Speaker #1: It reminded me.
Speaker #1: And I think this is kind of what you were saying, is if, if it's not something that also we as writers or creators enjoy putting together, I think that becomes very clear to the audience, right.
Speaker #1: Like they mailed it in.
Speaker #1: Yeah.
Speaker #1: And so I, I, I love that actually.
Speaker #2: Yeah.
Speaker #2: I mean actually in, in, in, I think it's in content rules.
Speaker #2: So my first book, pretty sure it was in that book, I talk about how like no great content was ever created at gunpoint, you know, which is, it's so true.
Speaker #2: It's like, because when it feels like like you're getting a root canal, you know, and then you're you're when you're creating something, then I think that's that's not enjoyable for the audience.
Speaker #2: And so I think you need to put a little bit of your own own joy and love for the work in there.
Speaker #2: I think it matters and I also think it delivers, it delivers more joy to us as as people and not because, you know, we're not just here to we're not just here as drones.
Speaker #2: You know, I think we want to show people who we are.
Speaker #2: And I think just adding a little bit of that joy can help your audience connect not just with your brand and your products and your services, but with with us with with you.
Speaker #1: Yeah, no, I, I love that I'm always telling my team, my content team, our social team, just, you know, be willing and be OK with taking risks, especially if it feels, and this sounds kind of cheesy, like authentic to yourself.
Speaker #1: But I hire people on this team who are they're so creative and they're usually funny.
Speaker #1: Now that's just, that's our DNA, right?
Speaker #1: You shouldn't try and do that if you're not a funny person or don't think humor is your identity.
Speaker #1: But I think humor is part of our cultural identity as a company that optimizes.
Speaker #1: So we hire a lot of people who are funny and clever and witty.
Speaker #1: And so then what I tell them is like, let that chime through in the content that you create and every time, like Chef, are you, Are you sure?
Speaker #1: Like we have like enterprise customers, like what are they going to think like?
Speaker #1: Well, they're humans too, so and they're probably funny too.
Speaker #1: And they they're going through whatever crappy commute and they're two hours in, they're in the train.
Speaker #1: Like they want to be entertained.
Speaker #1: They want to smile like this.
Speaker #1: And so I think that enjoyability thing is, is really important.
Speaker #1: You mentioned AI.
Speaker #2: Yeah.
Speaker #1: I'm surprised it came up that quickly, especially from you, when the question was about creativity and you had AI in your answer, which stopped me in my tracks.
Speaker #1: But how do you like it's here to state?
Speaker #1: There's a quote that I love that I always read out, which is from an author named Joanna Massajuska.
Speaker #1: I don't know if I pronounced her name right.
Speaker #1: She says, I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art in writing.
Speaker #1: I do not want AI to do my art and writing so that I have to do my laundry and dishes.
Speaker #1: And I always think about like that quote probably way too much.
Speaker #1: And you know, how can a like is AIA thread and people think is a threat for content folks or content marketers or is it an unlock so that they can work on more interesting and creative stuff?
Speaker #1: So just any thoughts on kind of AI as an enabler, as a thread or folks in the content profession?
Speaker #2: Yeah, I mean, first of all, I love that quote.
Speaker #2: And every year I do a a sort of in out list and some of it is, you know kind of fun.
Speaker #2: Like for example I always put the Oxford on the inlet because it just there is nothing that will in invite more fury in the comments than people debating about the Oxford.
Speaker #1: , Oxford, That's hilarious.
Speaker #1: That was.
Speaker #1: That's always in.
Speaker #2: That's just a little click bait right there.
Speaker #2: A little, a little tip if you want a lot of engagement, talk about the Oxford, But one of the things I talked about this year in my in out list again, annual list, I've been doing it for about 3 or 4 years, is that on the out list was AI slop.
Speaker #2: And AI slop is if you fire up Claude or ChatGPT or Deepseek or any of them and say, give me a blog post on digital transformation for enterprise, yeah, what's it gonna give you?
Speaker #2: It's gonna be terrible.
Speaker #2: That's gonna.
Speaker #1: Be terrible and.
Speaker #2: Paste it, put it on your blog, and then you go on vacation.
Speaker #2: You know, that's not, that's AI.
Speaker #2: That's not gonna get us anywhere.
Speaker #1: You might get fired during vacation though, so I would highly recommend not doing that.
Speaker #2: OK, right, 100% true.
Speaker #2: And so, but what's in on the list is I said AI that folds laundry.
Speaker #2: So I think your friend Joanne and I are very much on the same page with that.
Speaker #2: So in terms of like how I think about AI, like I don't it's, you know, I think that there is this sort of there's this talk track in marketing is like, is AI the Angel or is it the devil?
Speaker #2: It's like it's neither, it's both.
Speaker #2: It's, it's however you you use it, you know, it's the devil.
Speaker #2: If it's AI slop and you're using it that way because you have no marketing team, say, because maybe you are think, Oh, this isn't my solution to suddenly launching A blog because it's a small company.
Speaker #2: I mean, obviously that's not good.
Speaker #2: So I, but I think, you know, a smarter use of it is, you know, 100% on unlock for us in, in marketing, but it all depends on how we use it.
Speaker #2: And I am a huge advocate for do not see the any of your own creativity, your own heart, your own.
Speaker #2: Personality to to AI like don't don't have it, don't train it to write like you.
Speaker #2: It doesn't need to write like you really like you.
Speaker #2: I hate it when people say that.
Speaker #2: And so instead use it as a research tool, use it as a way to strengthen what you're creating.
Speaker #2: One of my favorite ways to use it and I think it's it's relevant to everybody, you know, here at this at this event is, you know, use it as as a tool to do sort of gap analysis on the entire the Internet.
Speaker #2: That's actually what it can offer you.
Speaker #2: So for example, give me the three things that people in our industry believe to be true that there is no data to support it.
Speaker #2: So that's just one example, but you to, you know, to maybe push back against some conventional wisdom.
Speaker #2: I think that's a great way to use it as a, as an ideation tool, but then don't fire up any AI tool and ask it to ask it to write a first draft for you because that is the thinking part that you need to do.
Speaker #2: And we don't want that to atrophy in us as people or as writers or as marketers, like people, number one, you know, we don't want atrophy.
Speaker #2: So I would never use it as that.
Speaker #1: I love I love all of your advice.
Speaker #1: One thing that you said that is counter to a lot of advice that you hear in this industry is like, oh, you should use it for a first draft and then you can Polish it.
Speaker #1: And and you're saying actually don't do that, which I like, but use it for the ideation and research, which is different, right?
Speaker #1: And I think the research part is so true, especially I don't know if you've even seen like the newest deep research stuff that they've clawed or actually ChatGPT release.
Speaker #1: It's only part of their highly paid plan, unfortunately, but it's pretty phenomenal.
Speaker #1: It can do like 30-40 minutes of research, go through hundreds of websites, read, link, synthesize.
Speaker #1: Like you would be crazy if you don't take advantage of that because that part of the content creation process is not always the most fun.
Speaker #1: That's like tedious.
Speaker #1: And it's research that you have to do.
Speaker #1: And like imagine having a research analyst who sits next to you who can do all of that for you.
Speaker #1: And then to your point, like move all of the creative juices to like taking the right topics after all of that research is done, even knowing the question to ask, like you asked, it's a interesting and provocative question.
Speaker #1: Like what are some things that people assume to be true but are not true or not backed up in data?
Speaker #1: I love that that's like that's a human brain that has come up with that.
Speaker #1: One other thing we've found helpful in our in our case is we create a lot of interesting content from our data.
Speaker #1: Let's say, you know, we optimize.
Speaker #1: He has so many different products.
Speaker #1: One of our products is a testing product that a lot of people know for AB testing.
Speaker #1: We have, I don't know, 130,000 experiments that we've run in the last year to crunch through a lot of that data and analyze.
Speaker #1: That's easily a thing that AI can do.
Speaker #1: More importantly, once we write a really interesting piece of research around it, if we want to tailor that for specific industries, like I don't need to go and hire lots of industry marketers, but what I can do is ask AI to figure out, hey, what are examples of customers that we have in the financial services industry?
Speaker #1: What are some case studies we've already written?
Speaker #1: What's some best, like what are some trends out there around financial services?
Speaker #1: And then help me take this and tailor it for that industry.
Speaker #1: But I think even then you need to add a level of human subject matter expertise like some credibility.
Speaker #1: But those are things that I think are like examples of where AI kind of as a research copilot is a no planner.
Speaker #2: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker #2: Yeah.
Speaker #2: I mean, yeah, 100%.
Speaker #2: One of the things that I struggle with a lot is the curse of knowledge.
Speaker #2: There's a lot of knowledge embedded in an organization or even in in each of us that it's easy to forget that your customer doesn't have or your prospect doesn't have, you know, there's some shorthand that we take or, or we don't always explain things as well as we could.
Speaker #2: And so as I mentioned, you know, I'm working on a new book right now and I'm using Claude dot AI has a, has a feature called project, which is incredibly helpful.
Speaker #2: And the way that I use it is I have, I have all of my, my book chapters in there.
Speaker #2: When I finish a chapter, when I finish writing it, I'll ask Claude, you know, what is not clear in here?
Speaker #2: You know, I give them the persona that I, I'm, that I have in my head that I'm writing to.
Speaker #2: It's a specific person that I've already told, you know, through within the project interface.
Speaker #2: I've told Claude, this is who, this is who you are.
Speaker #2: This is who we're writing for.
Speaker #2: And I'll say like, what am I, what, what, what gaps are in this piece of content?
Speaker #2: What am I missing here?
Speaker #2: And it's incredibly helpful just in terms of pushing back.
Speaker #2: It's like a first step in the editing process.
Speaker #1: Yeah, I was going to say it sounds like a tough editor.
Speaker #2: Yeah, it's a really tough editor.
Speaker #2: It's so funny though, because, you know, like a lot of writers, I'm incredibly sensitive, right?
Speaker #2: And so at first, Claude was just too aggressive, you know, he, he he was just like, well, let me tell you.
Speaker #2: And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Claude, like you are absolutely destroying me.
Speaker #2: After a while, I figured out to you know what?
Speaker #2: I need you to like tone it down a little bit and I need you to tell me one or two things.
Speaker #2: Don't tell me like how I should have been born a different person, you know, it feels like so aggressive.
Speaker #2: I'm like, dude, I'm doing my best here, OK.
Speaker #2: And honestly, this all right, One more point on AI and then hopefully we can move on.
Speaker #2: But but the other thing is it's not always right, you know?
Speaker #2: And I think like one of the things I wrote about in my newsletter a couple of weeks ago was that I mean, this process that I've been working with Claude on, sometimes Claude will make suggestions for things.
Speaker #2: And one specific example of that is that I finished this chapter and I asked Claude to, you know, to again, to push back on what is, you know, what, what am I assuming here?
Speaker #2: Are there any gaps in my explanations that maybe it's not super clear to, you know, an audience that doesn't know what I know at this point because I've been thinking about this topic for so long?
Speaker #2: And, and Claude said, you know, gave me some advice about that.
Speaker #2: But then Claude said you could also streamline this piece by removing some of the meta commentary.
Speaker #2: And I thought, first of all, I didn't ask you for your opinion about that, Claude.
Speaker #2: But secondly, what is meta commentary?
Speaker #2: Like, what are you talking about?
Speaker #2: And Claude said you should remove all of the asides and the and the parenthetical and like the little jokes.
Speaker #2: And I was like.
Speaker #1: Interesting.
Speaker #2: Voice and I said no, not doing that, you know, and I'm not even going to thank you for that advice because that's terrible and I'm only sharing that with you because I'm an experienced writer.
Speaker #2: I have been writing for a while and I feel very comfortable in my voice and I know my voice if I were a less experienced writer and I had.
Speaker #1: A.
Speaker #1: You might have.
Speaker #2: Telling me I might have been like, you're right, I can't do this.
Speaker #2: I'm going to like take it all out.
Speaker #2: I'm going to strip it all away.
Speaker #2: But you know, like you were just saying a minute ago, you're encouraging your team to add those like small bits.
Speaker #2: And I need those too.
Speaker #2: And so I, I'm only sharing that story because I think it's a really good cautionary tale for they're not always right.
Speaker #2: You think the robots know everything.
Speaker #2: They don't always know everything.
Speaker #1: Yeah, I, you know, when AI first hit the scene with generative AI and ChatGPT two years ago, I think so much of the focus was on the content creation.
Speaker #1: I'll just use it for the first draft, etcetera.
Speaker #1: I'm actually glad that it's advanced so fast that now the research capabilities, some of the agent capabilities are sophisticated enough that the conversation is moving away from just like write a crappy first draft of a blog post.
Speaker #1: So that's good.
Speaker #1: So thank you.
Speaker #1: Research guides, AI companies.
Speaker #1: One example, just like a a very clear ROI example of AI that came up recently.
Speaker #1: You know, we are, we work with some very large companies.
Speaker #1: 1 is a prospect that we're talking to their CPG brand and they said something, something astounding like their marketing team spends I think 60% of their time writing marketing briefs.
Speaker #1: And these briefs are then used for internal creative production internal assets, but also like they have hundreds of agencies.
Speaker #1: So this is AB to C example.
Speaker #1: And then they realized that like that's a crazy amount of time and the marketers didn't love putting these really in depth briefs together.
Speaker #1: And So what we did was in our, so we have REI in our product is called Opal.
Speaker #1: It's backed by Gemini as the, as the lol.
Speaker #1: But we were able to give it enough, a sufficient level of training and context by feeding it all that, you know, hundreds of previous briefs.
Speaker #1: And we started to see like the briefs that the AI were, was creating.
Speaker #1: And this is not end content, right?
Speaker #1: So I totally agree with you, like end user facing, customer facing content.
Speaker #1: That's you, your voice, your tone, your personality, everything.
Speaker #1: But this is just internal stuff that they were creating and it was as good as the human brief creation.
Speaker #1: And so we, we basically took the human effort to come up with the ideas for the brief, not actually writing this internal brief and filling out this massive form.
Speaker #1: And it saves them potentially 60% of their time.
Speaker #1: And so you can just do the math ROI is like millions of dollars.
Speaker #1: So I do think there is a place for AI as long as we embrace it, follow the instructions, push back if it gives you bad, bad advice.
Speaker #1: I think that's really important.
Speaker #1: But, but I love it.
Speaker #1: Let's, let's move on in the interest of time kind of to the next.
Speaker #1: You know, we've talked about ideation and creation.
Speaker #1: I, I want to ask about distribution.
Speaker #1: A lot of people are afraid the distribution is changing very very dramatically and very quickly.
Speaker #1: You know as as optimizing as CMS company.
Speaker #1: I hear everyday or websites dead or people even going to go to websites and you hear the same thing about e-mail like oh, do people even read e-mail?
Speaker #1: Yeah I do.
Speaker #1: I spend way too much time in e-mail.
Speaker #1: But you have you know 600,000 people who subscribe to marketing process e-mail.
Speaker #1: I think you said you have 50 ish thousand and subscribe to your personal e-mail.
Speaker #1: So tell me about distribution.
Speaker #1: Is e-mail dead?
Speaker #1: Is e-mail working and how do you like get the content out to the people where they want it, how they want it?
Speaker #1: Any thoughts on distribution?
Speaker #2: Oh my goodness, yeah, distribution is is absolutely changing.
Speaker #2: And I think that the model that we used to use for distribution so something like put on a social post or put out a an e-mail with a link back to the website or back to some like I think that's changed.
Speaker #2: I don't think I think that's dead.
Speaker #2: And if we're If it's not if.
Speaker #1: It's not.
Speaker #1: We ran that playbook.
Speaker #1: We ran that playbook for many years.
Speaker #2: Yes, many years.
Speaker #2: And if it's not completely dead, it's mostly dead, to quote The Princess Bride for a second.
Speaker #2: But yeah.
Speaker #2: So I think that's that's dead.
Speaker #2: And instead I think we need to to reassess how we're thinking about these channels.
Speaker #2: I'm not saying that social or e-mail are not important.
Speaker #2: I in fact, I think that they are.
Speaker #2: I just think that we need to rethink how we're using them.
Speaker #2: I think of distribution from a social standpoint, from using social media as more of a Discovery Channel, you know, it's where people are going to discover what I'm up to, what I'm talking about, what I'm working on.
Speaker #2: And the intent there is to get people to just enjoy interacting with me to to want to hear more from me potentially and to potentially ultimately engage with my content.
Speaker #2: Sign up for my e-mail and newsletter.
Speaker #2: Essentially is my is my biggest metric that I look at.
Speaker #2: I'm talking about my personal side of things, but I think it's true of the marketing Prof side of things.
Speaker #2: Or sign up for, you know, something that we're doing.
Speaker #2: And so, yeah, using social as a discovery and then e-mail itself.
Speaker #2: I think the key there is to use it as a nurturing tool.
Speaker #2: A lot of us are using e-mail as a direct response tool only.
Speaker #2: And yeah, I think and as direct response, it's important for transactional emails.
Speaker #2: You know, you've bought something or something you're looking at is back in stock or you a reminder for signing up for a webinar.
Speaker #2: Like all that stuff is great.
Speaker #2: Like that's all fine, but I think we over rely on the direct response model and less on the nurturing tool that that e-mail offers us.
Speaker #2: And so I very, very much think about the newsletter as so critical right now, because this is the place where, and I've been talking about this for a while, you might have even heard me talk about this on stages before, but it's the only place where people and not algorithms are in control.
Speaker #2: And what I mean by that, it's a place where, you know, you've raised your hand, your customers raised their hand and said, yes, I want to hear from you.
Speaker #2: Like tell me more because they stumbled upon you somewhere.
Speaker #2: Like maybe I saw your thing on LinkedIn and I loved your in out list and I want to hear more about you.
Speaker #2: And so use that opportunity.
Speaker #2: That is a that's a key opportunity, especially with the e-mail newsletter.
Speaker #2: We, we think about more about the news and less about the letter.
Speaker #2: We think more about what we want to say and not about the opportunity to literally write to one person at one time.
Speaker #2: And it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a shift, It's a mind shift.
Speaker #2: But I think it changes the way that that we communicate.
Speaker #2: And you know, honestly, Chef, I could talk about e-mail newsletters for the next hour.
Speaker #2: So I don't want to do that.
Speaker #2: But I think there's just so many ways that we're sort of valuing them and under.
Speaker #1: Using what I, when I hear all of that, you know, I think of morning brew or marketing brew like, you know, they're phenomenal company and I don't know, maybe they compete in some ways for attention with your, your emails.
Speaker #1: But one thing I realized recently is my, my CEO came to me and he's like chuff.
Speaker #1: You know, I read marketing brew all the time and I'm like, really like you read marketing brew all the time.
Speaker #1: And he's not a marketer, he's ACEO, but he's just curious about marketing.
Speaker #1: Obviously he runs a business in in the marketing space, but he he thinks of it as news as the news and it's a credible source of news and he wants to and his bar is high.
Speaker #1: And so when I look at your like what you're talking about or, or marketing Brewer or any of these folks, I think the bar for quality is higher than ever before.
Speaker #1: But you're right, it's precious real estate.
Speaker #1: It's one to one.
Speaker #1: Like I literally am opening it up like while I'm commuting, commuting or before I go to bed.
Speaker #1: I shouldn't do it before I get to bed and I'm reading this newsletter.
Speaker #1: And so I think if if someone has given me that privilege, then I better live up to that privilege by creating content that actually matters to them.
Speaker #1: Going back to obsessing about your audience.
Speaker #1: And so obviously I think that is it's going to get noisier and noisier.
Speaker #1: I don't think e-mail or websites are dead.
Speaker #1: I think on the websites being dead, one thing that I think about is I do prefer getting my answers directly in like the AI answer box in Google.
Speaker #1: And nowadays if I have to like click through to the website to then go find the answer myself, I'm like this is so much work and so are people going to websites less because of AI?
Speaker #1: I don't know.
Speaker #1: I think TBD we always thought search was going to die like 10 times in the last, you know, decade when Google first started having even their answer box.
Speaker #1: If you remember it be forget about the AI box, just the answer box.
Speaker #1: Everyone's like, oh, websites are dead, SE OS dead.
Speaker #1: No one's going to go to websites.
Speaker #1: It never quite died and it's pretty resilient, but it is something I have an eye on because I even I see my own behavior when I'm like, you know, using chat products or Google.
Speaker #1: Yeah, it's so true, you know.
Speaker #2: I mean I've been in marketing profs since 2002 and I remember going to an event in 2006, it was in Silicon Valley and a well known thought leader stood on stage and said don't invest in your website, websites are dead.
Speaker #2: And that was 2619 years ago which is absolutely insane.
Speaker #2: And so I thought it was insane.
Speaker #2: Then when I heard it after about a minute, I was like, I don't know.
Speaker #2: That's not gonna.
Speaker #1: Happen.
Speaker #1: No, I don't buy it.
Speaker #2: I was like, all right, that's an interesting idea.
Speaker #2: But then the more I heard him talk about it, I was like, well, no, I don't know, that's a hard pass.
Speaker #2: And so, yeah, to your point, I think people say that, but I still think websites are critical because not for top of funnel, which is how we've been using them, I think is essentially not, not for education, but for for a middle of the not for just, I don't mean education at A at a sort of surface level, but I do think it's important at middle of the funnel and, and bottom of the funnel.
Speaker #2: Because what do you do?
Speaker #2: Like after like say that you're searching for something and maybe, you know, Google or, or AI answers or perplexity or one of them, like AI tool is going to give you like a short list of vendors to consider.
Speaker #2: And you might use that, but where are you going to do your research?
Speaker #2: You're not going to, you're going to go deeper when it matters and that the website matters.
Speaker #2: And so, yeah, I don't, but I don't think this is the thing.
Speaker #2: Nothing is 0 sum, right?
Speaker #2: It's never right.
Speaker #2: It's never.
Speaker #1: Nothing's dying.
Speaker #2: SEO is dead.
Speaker #2: It's like they're they're shape shifting, they're changing, but they are.
Speaker #1: Not you.
Speaker #1: You and I are on the same page.
Speaker #1: I was literally going to say the shape is changing.
Speaker #1: So there's two shapes that are actually changing.
Speaker #1: The shape of the workforce I think will change, right?
Speaker #1: Like the types of skills you need.
Speaker #1: Maybe researchers aren't as valuable anymore, but then creative writers become more valuable, right?
Speaker #1: So there'll be a shape shape in a change in the shape of the workforce.
Speaker #1: I think in terms of the shape of the website and how people use it, you're absolutely right, because that even for AI and ChatGPT or whatever perplexity, all of those folks need the source content, the source data, right?
Speaker #1: And so who's going to create the source content and source data?
Speaker #1: We will, experts will, thought leaders will, and companies that know something will.
Speaker #1: And you're right.
Speaker #1: And so maybe it's just the type of content and the type of searches and the part of the user journey is going to change.
Speaker #1: All right?
Speaker #1: We have not a lot of time left.
Speaker #1: I'm just going to maybe the last section, we're going to skip analytics and it's kind of boring, but I want to rather focus on kind of companies you admire because there's one that you mentioned that just made me laugh that I thought was so creative.
Speaker #1: You know, I always want to leave people with some ideas and some could be more standard, some could be out-of-the-box.
Speaker #1: So like companies that you admire, that creating content, that are doing a great job with content.
Speaker #1: I think you had a couple that you want.
Speaker #1: You thought you'd maybe mentioned so.
Speaker #2: The first one, I would say I'm sort of more of a traditional company.
Speaker #2: I think doing a a traditional job with their content, but but really doing it very, very well is Autodesk.
Speaker #2: I think Autodesk does a tremendous job of telling a story in a way that I find very compelling.
Speaker #2: I said to their e-mail newsletter, I am not their target audience probably, but they are very much on my radar.
Speaker #2: I think they do a great job with brand.
Speaker #2: I think they do a great job with connecting all their products to something a little bit bigger and like, you know, everybody here, you should go to autodesk.com.
Speaker #2: Not right now, because shop and I are.
Speaker #1: Very.
Speaker #2: Speakers.
Speaker #2: So don't leave.
Speaker #2: Don't leave.
Speaker #2: But after this, after this event today, go to autodesk.com and you'll see what I mean.
Speaker #2: It's right at the very top of the homepage, above the fold, so to speak, which is such a funny term to use now, but true.
Speaker #2: They have their latest research around design innovation, which is fantastic, right?
Speaker #2: Because it's not about talking about what they do in their products, but it's, it's putting their products and services in a bigger context and a bigger story in a way that's very enjoyable that I find very original.
Speaker #2: So they're in the 1st.
Speaker #1: One, I love it.
Speaker #1: They have a great team of well known content marketers.
Speaker #1: I'm not going to shout them all out, but they're amazing and they've they've also invested heavily in design like their content always looks beautiful.
Speaker #1: Their research looks beautiful, so that I think that matters too.
Speaker #1: Your second example.
Speaker #2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker #2: So my second one is completely different and it's a little bit unhinged and I love it in every single way that I possibly could.
Speaker #2: It's the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.
Speaker #2: They are a sewer district in Northeast Ohio.
Speaker #2: It's it's in the name.
Speaker #2: I love their content marketing program.
Speaker #2: Their content strategy is killer.
Speaker #2: And I just want to shout out a few things that I think they do really well.
Speaker #2: Now, first of all, I don't live in Northeast Ohio.
Speaker #2: I live in Boston.
Speaker #2: I don't have a particular interest in sewers, sewage whatsoever.
Speaker #2: Like I never have.
Speaker #2: But here's the deal.
Speaker #2: Like all of their content maps to a couple of pillars.
Speaker #2: And one of the most important ones is that they celebrate the unseen systems that are underpinning our lives every single day, things that we don't think about, such as municipal infrastructure, sewer districts.
Speaker #2: And that is so genius to me because it's easy to laugh at a sewer district.
Speaker #2: I think why would I possibly care?
Speaker #2: But like, you know, like, no lie, it's actually really, really interesting.
Speaker #2: The content that they produce is really amazing.
Speaker #2: They, they show you what it actually takes to run the sewerage for a municipality or or to, to treat water for a municipality the size of, of, of the Northeast Ohio region.
Speaker #2: And it's fantastic.
Speaker #2: It's run by a guy.
Speaker #2: I will give him a shout out because I have a content crush on him.
Speaker #2: His name is John Gonzalez.
Speaker #2: He is the brains behind it.
Speaker #2: He is very much the face of the program as well.
Speaker #2: I think so highly of what they do because again, you know, like Autodesk, they put everything in a much bigger context.
Speaker #2: It makes you understand and appreciate their work, which has repercussions for recruitment as repercussions for customer experience, for customer service.
Speaker #2: When something break, you know, you are are more likely to understand what's actually going on.
Speaker #2: The reason I guess why I think it's so fantastic is they don't have to market.
Speaker #2: You don't have a choice of a sewer company.
Speaker #2: You know, it's not like Internet.
Speaker #2: It's not like Verizon or, or, or you know Comcast or, or FiOS, right?
Speaker #2: It's about I don't have a choice.
Speaker #2: If the pipes are the pipes, that's it.
Speaker #2: But they do an amazing job, I think, of really telling their story in a way that is incredibly compelling to people who don't even live in their area.
Speaker #1: It's a nice full circle moment.
Speaker #1: Back to the sticker in Austin now.
Speaker #1: I'll be interested if you'll be interesting.
Speaker #1: They are interesting.
Speaker #1: And you who are not interested in sewage and you don't even live there, somehow are interested in the stories that they have.
Speaker #2: To tell just you, like everybody here, just go follow them on social and you'll see what I mean.
Speaker #2: They do an amazing job.
Speaker #2: The discovery there is incredible.
Speaker #2: They'll eventually lead you back to their side and show you their people.
Speaker #2: It's you can tell how passionate I am about this.
Speaker #2: I could go on again.
Speaker #1: Yeah.
Speaker #1: And they honestly some of the stuff while on the on the surface it may seem a little silly hiring and recruiting great people in many cases retention like customer retention when times go wrong and like making sure your customers are happy and trust you as a brand.
Speaker #1: And all of this stuff is helping build brand and as a CMOI always, I know that if I have an incredible brand that people love, it's going to ultimately lower cost of customer acquisition and make my direct response activities cheaper long term, right.
Speaker #1: So all of this stuff actually matters, even though on the surface it, it, it may seem like a funny, silly thing.
Speaker #1: This is awesome.
Speaker #1: I think we're like overtime.
Speaker #1: I totally lost track of time, but I always love chatting with you because I think it's just fun, you know?
Speaker #1: My goal also with doing these things is to be interesting and make it interesting.
Speaker #1: You make my life easy.
Speaker #1: And thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker #1: Oh my.
Speaker #2: Gosh, thanks for having me.