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Hard to Market
Trailer
Bonus
Episode 98
Season 1
Empathy in Content Creation: Building Resonance through SEO, Email Marketing, and Social Media
In this episode, Edmund Zaloga from Responsify discusses their content creation and marketing journey. Responsify helps businesses bridge the gap between customer pains and solutions through engaging and informative content. The interview explores the importance of setting expectations and maintaining relationships with clients, different types of clients, and how their agency and software provide value and gamify the marketing and sales process. Listeners also learn about empathizing with the audience, creating resonating content, and the role of AI in generating impactful titles.
Introducing Edmund Zaloga, the Founder and CEO of Responsify, a trailblazing growth content marketing strategy and production service based in Brooklyn, New York. With over a decade of expertise, Edmund specializes in crafting organic content that attracts, converts, and closes new customers. He's also contributed his creative wisdom as a Part-Time Professor at Pratt Institute and lent his strategic prowess to global brands like HubSpot and BBMG. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Hard to Market:
- Content plays a crucial role in connecting businesses with their target audience.
- Setting clear expectations and being honest with clients helps maintain healthy and productive relationships.
- Clients who see the agency as a partner are easier and more enjoyable to work with.
- The agency is exploring options to expand their services, potentially targeting startups who need assistance with content creation.
- Understand your audience's pain points and use SEO to find relevant keywords.
- Leverage social media, particularly LinkedIn, to strengthen connections and interactions.
- Seek support from a marketing partner who can help relieve the burden and provide expertise.
Resources:
Connect with Edmund Zaloga:
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Quotable:
- 02:22 - “You know, ultimately we're human beings. We like people and companies have websites. They're all, we all have something to give to the world. The websites are, you know, is meant to represent that and to ultimately, you know, help connect people. And what I found was after interviewing a lot of great CEOs that I had just hounded and, and tried to really get a hold of, they just, they sort of told me the same thing, which is like, Hey, we have a website, you know, we've got this really innovative product or service, you know, we're having a hard time getting people to even find us.”
- 18:22 - “How do we work with somebody who's going to help us make it, you know, do this better, faster, and cheaper than we could do on our own? And that's the sort of golden is they say it's a utopia. I say, you know, it's somewhere in between. It might not be, you know, it for every case, you know, people could definitely try to do things cheaper than us, but, you know, there's always that compromise the quality, and then it's going to take longer. You're going to have to deal with the headaches of managing all those freelancers. And so we were just sort of trying to find the sweet spot so that people can, clients can get an amazing value.”
- 12:01 - “And so for us, it's like, for me, I'd rather be blunt and honest and occasionally lose a client who is over demanding and unrealistic and just, I mean, we lay it all out and block it in white, here's exactly what we're going to do. Here's how much of it we're going to do, here's how much time it's going to take. And so when they're asking for things that are outside of that, I'll oftentimes say, well, let's, let's go back to totally understand and respect what you know, and then let's go back to the agreement. Let's look at what we have. And so that's, that's helpful for the people who are, you know, fair and reasonable.”
- 08:09 - Brian: “So as an outsource sort of content creation marketing function, one of the things I'm sure you experience all the time is your clients asking for content that may or may not actually move their, you know, business forward. Yeah. It doesn't move the needle. Then what's the point? How do you, how a, how often does that happen and what's the consultative process you go through? And then B, a follow-up question, how do you help them get from, get through that transition?”
Edmund: “So I think a lot of that comes down to when you don't, if it, you know, if you, if you don't have a goal, it's difficult to score, right? So the, the way we look at it, or maybe the way that I've forced everybody to, to look at it is, you know, if you don't have a plan, you plan to fail.” - 19:35 - Brian: “And as you've kind of embraced the sort of SEO nature and all of the kind of things that come out, I mean, it's quite clear that that's a data-driven sort of activity. How do you balance that creative sort of interest and background that you started with, with today's heavily data-driven approach to solving some of these problems?”
Edmund: “So I think the, I think the, the, the way to do that, and I think it's, you know, I think it's a matter of balancing art and science. I think people generally are either really good. You have, you know, they, there's another metaphor. It's like you're, you're head in the clouds or feet on the, on the ground. I think that we try to do both. Like that's the thing is like, we're trying to…”
Brian: “Sounds like a long stretch.”
Edmund: “I can kind of, you know, I've got some, some cloud cover, but it's, it's that, it's the balance.”
Connect with our host, Brian Mattocks: