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Demand-Geniuses is the podcast for revenue-focused B2B Marketers. We bring you the latest insights and expert tips, interviewing geniuses of the B2B Marketing world to bring you actionable advice that you can implement to accelerate growth and progress you career. The role of Marketing in B2B go-to-market strategy has changed drastically. It's more important to revenue generation than ever as buyer engagement becomes more digital. We equip you with the information you need to thrive in this new, revenue-critical role.
Tom Rudnai (00:00)
Hello everyone, welcome to what I think is now episode nine, potentially episode 10 of Demand Geniuses. Great episode today with Livia Hirsch. One thing I've been wanting to do is get a few more kind of fractionals and agency people to come on the podcast.
I think they just put a great perspective across a broad range of clients that is really useful whether you're in-house or external. Livia, she's had to go on that journey over the last five years or so from a freelance writer to a strategist and fractional CMO.
I think hearing from Livia how she went about taking that step really useful whether you're in-house or freelance
Beyond that, get into a load of other things, ramping content strategies from kind of day one within a series A stage company, The kind of challenges to avoid, the impact that bad content can actually have on your brand and your ability to create trust with customers.
And then also looking at the changes that you're seeing in the SEO world. And one thing that I think was really interesting was the kind of the need to develop a brand voice and how that's more pressing than it's ever been. But also how linked that needs to be to your internal culture, right? If you have this gap between your content brand voice and then the experience people then get with you as a company, that's gonna erode trust ultimately. So it's really important not just to come in as a content marketer.
and think How can I create this wonderful, engaging brand voice for us, but actually understand the roots that you operate in and the culture that you operate in ⁓ in order to create one that obviously is engaging and lovely, but also matches.
the internal voice that you have as a company. So really interesting. I've already babbed on too long for my intro, so I'm just gonna say enjoy the episode and hopefully the next voice that you hear will be Livia's.
Tom Rudnai (01:57)
Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Demand Geniuses. First of all, Livia, good morning. Thank you for joining the podcast.
Livia Hirsch (02:03)
Thank you for having me. really appreciate it. Good morning to you.
Tom Rudnai (02:06)
No, it's great to have you. Loads of things I wanna dive into with you. I've been wanting to get a few more kind of freelancers and agency type folks onto the podcast recently, I think you see a lot of things that in-house people But I guess before we get into it, do wanna just give us all a little bit of an introduction into you, your background?
And I guess always particularly interested in anything that you feel has kind of the kind of marketer or the perspectives that you have today as well.
Livia Hirsch (02:30)
Sure, absolutely.
At its core, I'm a freelance content writer and strategist and I aim to help B2B software scale-ups grow from local to global brands. And I do that through a four-step process called voice to visibility. So I help scale-ups define their brand voice because the friendly neighbor ain't cutting it anymore. And then we create a content strategy. I help execute through blogs, distribution, social media, and also do keeping in mind SEO best practices to make sure that my clients are visible when they're entering new markets.
And however, my background is very random. So I actually came, I'm based in the Netherlands and I came to the Netherlands to study fashion. So I did yeah, fashion and the business of fashion and commerce. But I couldn't find an internship in the industry. It was highly, highly competitive and I was just not able to get a foot in. So I brought in my horizons to just business and I got an internship at Dept. It's a full-fledged agency and it was in content marketing.
and at time I remember just telling my parents, it's something in writing, I've always liked writing. You know what, if I don't like it, then like, less thing in the world that I wanna do. And yeah, six plus years later now, here I am, gone from intern with a fantastic mentor to part-time worker full-time upon graduation to then starting my own business.
Tom Rudnai (03:34)
you
Yeah, it's funny, I feel like everyone, I was talking about this on the podcast last week actually with Martin Wallace. Everyone looks for in the early careers, you look for people to know exactly what they wanna do and you forget that when you were that age, you did not have a clue. I stumbled around, I think I jump hopped every four months for about two years.
Livia Hirsch (04:13)
Yeah,
I mean, before I studied fashion, I also did political science, so like all over the board.
Tom Rudnai (04:18)
what are the skills that transferred from that?
Livia Hirsch (04:21)
I think because it was very focused on also the business side. we would do a lot of, we did the business model canvases. We had to come up with viable and profitable business ideas and really calculate, not just come up with an idea and pitch it, but calculate, cool, where are you going to produce those garments? What are manufacturing costs? What are your carbon footprints? So really the nitty gritty. OK, you want to start this. When would you be profitable? What that looks like? And so I do think it gave me bit of a business.
because I can like I do really understand kind of the business side of things and I did also learn the basic marketing theories which are universal and I may not refer back to on a daily basis per se but are kind of classics to know about as well.
Tom Rudnai (05:01)
think there's always a little bit if you need to know the basics and the rules so that you can kind of break them and ignore them. But if you have to kind of internalize them first so that you can, you know when to.
Livia Hirsch (05:10)
Yeah, when it's like, no, no, that's not relevant. But thank you, though.
Tom Rudnai (05:12)
Yeah, exactly. Cool.
mean, that was one of the topics I wanted to dig into, actually. So maybe we'll go straight there. Like, I think there's going to be a lot of people listening to this who want to make that transition from a content writer to a content strategist. And that's obviously a journey that you've been on. I guess, like, how do you start going about that transition? And it sounds like obviously your background is something you felt gave you a bit of a head start in that.
Livia Hirsch (05:34)
I
I think actually what helped was the fact that I personally love to also focus on big picture. I'm very driven as to like, are we doing this? like, you know, when my first, some of my first clients was lead info and they've needed, so I redid their website after their rebrand and then I stayed on, yeah, part time as a, well part time freelancing as a content writer. And yeah, at first it was like, cool, why are you publishing? Like one of my first questions, why are you publishing blogs? What is the point? Where do you, what are your business goals this year? Okay, let's make sure. And so I kind of just asked the right question.
And even though at the time they're like, we're looking for somebody to write blogs. I think within two to three months was like, OK, like there was a backlog of things that needed to be done, like also emails for customer success, landing pages, whatever. But once that backlog was kind of cleared, it was like, OK, let's take a moment and have a think. Why are you doing this? What do you want to achieve? Which markets are you trying to grow into? What's important to them? Who's your target audience? And also, as I was kind of the sole content department, also when I started writing, then I also implemented
brand tone of voice because I was like like I'm writing this I asked about kind of how they write but then I was the one mainly doing the writing so then I would relay that to customer success. It was kind of drive and asking the right questions because to me it's really important to know the why I'm yeah why are you publishing blogs what's the point behind it?
Tom Rudnai (06:50)
it sounds like you just had to quite proactively go and do the job you wanted before you had it almost.
Livia Hirsch (06:55)
Yeah, and it really depends on the client. mean, in this sense of lead info, I'm very lucky because there are still some clients now that give me a brief and that's it. You know, like I can ask more questions and they're like, it's the brief you've gotten, you you've been onboarded, you know the thing, right? Like, you know our product. So like just do the work. And that's totally fair. So it does really depend on the client as well. It's not to like dismiss that everyone's like that. But finding those clients where there is a bit more room and trying to position yourself a bit more as like a sparring partner rather than a good typewriter.
writer.
Tom Rudnai (07:25)
Yeah, no, absolutely. And so then as you make that transition, like in your own head and your own mindset, are the challenges that came up around that? Because it is probably quite a different way of working and mindset that you need to be in as you go into a kind client engagement,
Livia Hirsch (07:41)
Do you mean Beyond Impostor Syndrome? ⁓
Tom Rudnai (07:44)
Well, I
think that's probably a part of it though.
Livia Hirsch (07:46)
Absolutely. mean, you you kind of, it's intimidating to be like, you know, coming out being like, I have three years of experience. I'm asking the CEO. So like, why are you publishing blogs? No, doing it because your competitors are doing it is not the right reason. Why are you publishing blog? Like it's scary. It's, it's, you know, but if you got to do the scary things to progress and you also know that those bigger questions are going to help the client. And so of course, you know, you have to gauge the temperature of the room, right? If the person is clearly pushing back is clearly not interested in answering.
or whatnot, then that's that client. Leave it at that. Do what you need to do. But with them, they really enjoyed the fact that I was challenging, that I was willing to take on more, that I was willing to step into something that they hadn't even thought of, and I had that room. And so there, was also quite fun to grow from, well, they hired a content writer. And when I left, I'd help build their marketing department. I had published 60-plus blogs. I had managed translation agencies and two other freelancers. And I was doing the strategy.
So yeah, but it's, you just have to take that leap. And it's not easy, it also benefits, like it's not just on you, it also benefits the client. View it as that.
Tom Rudnai (08:53)
Yeah, and I think you'll always get some people who want that and some people that don't and that's fine, right? What you probably build over time is your own kind of authority and your own comfort in those conversations and it goes from 20 % on it to 50 and then eventually it's something people come to you for when you build a reputation for it. This is definitely something I resonate with. Like you're talking to a former sales rep who started a martech business and a content marketing
Livia Hirsch (08:56)
Yeah.
No, absolutely.
Tom Rudnai (09:19)
But it's also working out where you can advise and where you can't, right? So where I have an interesting perspective to share is actually not producing content. Don't ever listen to me on that. And if you hear me kind of giving people advice on how to write compelling content, tell me to shut up. Where I am quite good is like how we take that content and monetize it and kind of situate content to have the maximum impact within go-to-market, because that is my background. I worked in publishing for five years helping to monetize digital content and I've been
Livia Hirsch (09:22)
Yeah.
You
Tom Rudnai (09:47)
the person who's trying to leverage it to close deals. So it's kind of finding your lane where you can talk with authority, but also I think getting over the need actually to be an imposter and kind of pretend that you know it all.
Livia Hirsch (10:00)
Yeah, I mean some of it I was like, you when they, was like, you know, I could do a strategy. They're like, sure, go ahead. And I was like, okay. Hmm, what does that? So there was a lot of research. There was a lot of Googling. And my first strategy that I ever created is nothing of what I deliver or not nothing, but it's only a kind of a slice of what I deliver now to clients. But it was, they were happy with it. It was a foot in the door and I pitched it. They believed it. They liked it. There you go.
Tom Rudnai (10:07)
shit.
Okay.
And so has all of that transition, and I you've also been doing some kind of fractional CMO work and things like that, so transitioning towards a more kind of strategic view beyond just the content writing, has that changed the way that you approach the writing process and the way that you think about content?
Livia Hirsch (10:42)
Yeah, in some ways, for sure. mean, in some ways, the writing in and of itself, like the steps I follow, like the reading the brief, the research, all of those things are still the exact same, but it's more just like, what is that? Like where, how is the, okay, how is the user find reader finding it? What is the point of it? What do we want to take action after? So is this a bit more of a top of the funnel? They're kind of questioning, they don't know something, they're quickly Googling and okay, then there's no point in getting them to try out a demo. They're just trying to search, you know, what is N?
Okay, then you you tell them and then you're like, we have a more in-depth blog about this angle about it cool Then maybe that's interesting. So also tailoring because then it tailors the the CTAs in in the blog that you write it tailors also the tone like are they problem aware and are they actively looking for a solution then you can be subtly more Salesy or you know product led versus top of the funnel type of content of what is X I really wouldn't advise that you at all mention your product because there's
just wondering what is X, they don't care that you offer a solution. They don't even know that's an option. They just want to know what is X. So it's made it more strategic in terms of CTAs, in terms of how to write, and in terms of what to include versus not.
Tom Rudnai (11:57)
Yeah, okay, sounds like bit more focus on the before and after, right? The why and then on the distribution strategy because that's actually where you go from a good piece of content to an impactful piece of
Livia Hirsch (12:00)
No. No.
Exactly.
Tom Rudnai (12:08)
What's your attitude to perfectionism? Is perfectionism a good thing if you're writing a piece of content?
Livia Hirsch (12:14)
I might be biased because I'm a huge perfectionist. but you know, you have to know when is good enough and when there is room to improve in that.
You know, for example, with new clients, I always take extra time for the first few pieces to really get their tone of voice, to really analyze other blogs that they've written to kind of get that right and to really kind of match, okay, they've asked for this and to make even strategic suggestions if I can. like, well, actually, I don't know if I would encourage to do this. Maybe we can suggest this other thing that I saw on your website. But with some, you know, once you're more established and I do know a bit more, it goes a bit quicker and it's also a bit easier to kind of fight off that profession.
and be like, no, this is a good enough piece and yes, maybe I could come back and if I were to look at it in a year from now, I would make edits. That's true of everything. Here's to hoping that a year from now I'm a better writer and strategist than I am currently. And so knowing that like you're tired, you've done it, it's good, you have your sources, you've checked all the boxes. You know, what else is there to add? You know that because I'm in depth enough or in the brand enough that I know at that point what to deliver.
Tom Rudnai (13:20)
Yeah, is it something that you still have? I mean, I'm a kind of founder, I'm a go to market team of one. So I write the blogs, I write my own kind of content for LinkedIn, all of that stuff. And basically, I would say in my own head, something I write gets out of date within about a week, because I look back at it and think, God, that sucked. Dude, like, is that something that you still
Livia Hirsch (13:40)
absolutely. think I'm typically, especially like LinkedIn posts. my gosh. If I look at the LinkedIn posts I wrote last three months ago, because I also hired a coach recently. So we've gone through past things to work on for LinkedIn. So if I look at three months ago, I'm like, my gosh. If I look at when I first started on LinkedIn.
Tom Rudnai (13:44)
Next.
Hehehehehe
Livia Hirsch (13:59)
Oh, the cringe, the cringe. So I think with blogs a bit less because I really aim of my clients to, unless we're doing, you know, top X tools of 2025 or whatnot, I really try and make it a bit more timeless. And so of course, for example, for Lead Info, we talked a lot about at the time, so it's a sales enablement tool in a way. And so it talked a lot about cold calling, cold emailing, and I was a lot more in it. So I don't know if now those are as relevant anymore because I don't cold call. I don't cold email.
But I'm like if somebody if those tactics are still relevant, which I believe they are they might need those blogs would probably need an update in terms I assume personalization and stuff like that, but they're probably still pretty relevant in that I'm you know, I kind of preach the same things don't be a jerk, you know, like warm bleeds up Here's how to do it. Here's how to politely get pat like so I do think there's a small timelessness and that if that needed to be changed it probably just like reflect the current trends type of thing
Tom Rudnai (14:50)
Hmm.
Yeah, okay. No, that makes sense. I feel like this is where if this was a game show, I would right now say, and we've actually got five of your first LinkedIn posts here to show you.
Livia Hirsch (15:06)
⁓ god, I have
them because I have a full record because you never know. So I have them. I don't look at them all the time, but I do still have them.
Tom Rudnai (15:13)
⁓ That scrapbook
is buried deep in the cupboard. Cool, so one of the other things that I want to talk about a little bit is like your client work and kind of, I suppose what, I'm particularly interested in the process that you go through when you first get a client and you're kind of building out that strategy. So I guess maybe a good place to start is like, for you, what does your typical client look like? Like who do you typically work with?
And what do they come to you with?
Livia Hirsch (15:42)
So my typical clients are so definitely B2B. I've only ever worked in the B2B sector. And then scale up. So what that means is typically anywhere between 11 and 50 kind of employees recently got their series A. So they have money and they've invested and they have a long term plan and they're ready to kind of go and grow. And I typically work directly with the founder. There's typically no marketing department. Sometimes there's a CMO, but there's no marketing.
department below that person. have sales, have customer success, so they have the basics down to be able to sell and also help the clients. But then they're like, okay, we now need to branch, reach out, increase our visibility. And that's typically the biggest thing is because I work typically with Dutch scale-ups or I've also worked with German scale-ups who are looking to expand beyond their borders. I have the advantage of being a native English speaker and typically if your brand wants to go global, you need English content. And then I specifically
leverage the fact that I'm American to also help certain clients crack the US market and expand their brand awareness there. And so my clients will come to me looking for like, need to expand our brand awareness, we need to expand into new markets this year. And we know that content is important, but we just don't have the in-house resources to do it. Can you help us?
Tom Rudnai (16:57)
What are the most difficult parts of ramping that up and what are the big mistakes that if you're maybe an in-house person trying to do that on your own that you're often gonna make or that you often see?
Livia Hirsch (17:09)
If you're an in-house because I think I typically work where there's absolutely no in-house person I mean this DMO is doing like high level and also, you know strategy but even higher type of things so they're not doing the day-to-day Blog writing social media and whatnot So I don't know if this is fully applicable to cuz like the in-house person I at least how I found it is that typically they're junior and they're just overloaded with too many things is the experience I've heard from a lot of people but so
Tom Rudnai (17:13)
Yeah.
Livia Hirsch (17:37)
Typically this common challenge is that they want to start pushing out blogs ASAP. You know, like we want to start pumping out blogs tomorrow and it's like, okay, yes, but let's take a moment. Do you know what you want to be known for? And so like I'm kind of having to in a way reel them back and
and introduce the strategy. And even though they know it's important, they don't understand the breadth of it. They're no, we want to, like, we know the importance of blogging. We know that it's good for us. We know it'll boost our visibility. But typically founders will be like, well, our competitors are talking about X. So we want to be known for that as well. We want a lot more likes on LinkedIn. And I'm like, of course, vanity, because vanity metrics do have their place. I mean, of course, they boost your exposure. But like, let's talk about, you know, sorry.
Tom Rudnai (18:21)
And your dopamine, they feel great.
Livia Hirsch (18:23)
They do,
but like, because I think there's a lot of bad rep around, you know, vanity metrics. Yes, likes don't pay the bills, but they do boost your brand awareness, which that's also, you know, useful, which helps pay the bills down the line. Yeah.
Tom Rudnai (18:34)
leading indicator right
that does eventually filter through it's not the north star but
Livia Hirsch (18:38)
So,
you know, I mean if my post gets zero likes on LinkedIn, then very few people have seen it. If it gets 100, then probably a lot more people have seen it. That also is just good for me. But so, you know, it's typically kind of the rush of pushing out content ASAP. And so I'm having to slow it down and be like, I understand you have a calendar. You kind of, you know, know what you want to be known for. Let's get that set in stone and then go out and kind of expand. And also there's a bit of a disconnect typically between blogging and social media. And in terms of when I do strategy,
they should be one. Distribution is part of a strategy. You don't publish a blog, even if it's targeting a keyword. Thousands of people don't come to your website. It just doesn't work that way. So how are you gonna leverage it? Are you, yeah, gonna push it on social media? Can customer success use it in their training? Is it sales that's also said, we keep hearing that question, so maybe we can also use it? Also kind of not working in silo, which I think can be something that in-house marketeers, if they're alone, can be easily to fall into.
Tom Rudnai (19:09)
Mm.
Livia Hirsch (19:35)
Because there's so much work to do, there so many things, you kind of just do your own little bubble. But in fact, that collaboration with the founder, with customer success and sales is really important because marketing is supposed to kind of help all of them.
Tom Rudnai (19:49)
Yeah, okay, there's a few really interesting things in what you said, actually. One of the things is, I think there's particularly when you're more junior, but also just anyone, when you're kind of immersed in the chaos of a series A startup, just after raising a big round of funding, there's so much to do, the founder is super excited, and they're gonna be pushing anyone, either themselves or kind of more junior employees, to do stuff, to be busy. How do you balance the urgency there with the need to...
Structure to build a strategy does it have to be one and then the other or can you kind of ramp things up and incorporate? More strategy and iterate as you go
Livia Hirsch (20:23)
bit of both, I would say. mean, for starters, I'm excited with them. I love their energy. I love their enthusiasm. It's contagious. So there's at least that of like, I'm not just like a Zen Buddhist monk where you're telling me about all these amazing things. And I'm like, that sounds fantastic. No, I'm excited with them. I kind of show them that
Tom Rudnai (20:36)
you
Livia Hirsch (20:39)
I can just kind go off and do my work and come back in a week. Like it doesn't have to be a drawn out six weeks time and this and that because I also expect my clients to already know their target audience. If you've gotten your series A, you should have a very clear target audience. So I'm not having to go out and do research and chat with customers. Like, no, you know who your ideal clients are. You have a list of your most loyal even. And so like I can use all of that information. So it's also about showing if you get me that information, I will
will
also help you kind of go quicker and we can do this with the turnaround of like a month ultimately. It doesn't have to be okay well now it's May so we can only start publishing content in July or August no no like and if there is really a big urgency we can keep posting on LinkedIn that's fine like it is just LinkedIn.
Tom Rudnai (21:23)
Is there a negative impact to posting bad content? Does busyness set you back or does it just not move you forward?
Livia Hirsch (21:32)
I mean both. think it depends how bad your content is and I think it depends also what platform. mean on social media you have, there's gonna be some social media experts that will probably disagree, but I do think that company pages have less reach. So I think you can do a bit less damage than a personal brand. So there's that kind of caveat. And so unless you're actively posting,
Yeah, political content, trashy content, calling people out, insulting people, which then will hurt you. If all you're doing is posting company updates, you're just not moving the needle forward and people might find you boring, but you're not hurting anyone. I do think though that blogs, however, you know, I mean, if I'm searching what is X and the first blog that comes up is yours, but you tell me about your products or this contacted demo, that's going to irk me a lot more. And it's really going to leave an impression of like, gosh, that content's bad. And then, you know, if I click on.
another round of your content and I see the same thing, you too salesy, too many pop-ups, this, that, I'm just like, okay, I'm done with your blogs, like this is crappy content. And there I think that can very quickly hurt your brand because it's like, yeah, you're clearly not delivering quality when I'm searching for a specific thing. Either give me my specific thing or shoot.
Tom Rudnai (22:46)
Yeah, it's content done well is a fantastic way to build trust with potential customers, right? But content done badly can be the complete opposite. If what you're doing is pushing out clickbait where you've hooked someone in and then it's really just you've given them a couple of lines and then it's into some kind of sales pitch, it's you've kind of broken a contract with them. And I think that perception, even if subconsciously, they might go away and forget about you, but that perception does remain. ⁓
Livia Hirsch (22:50)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah,
and then you've, you know, like you said, you've lost their trust. You've also created negative impression and then people talk, right? Or at least, you know, like I'm working with a friend and I see them researching something. don't look at their blog. They keep being so clickbaity and whatnot. Don't bother. So I've then transferred over that feeling to somebody else and I'm now spreading a not so nice review about you. So I'm on top of that negative publicity for you, which definitely hurts your brand awareness. So yeah, trust, loyalty. They all take a hit, I think, especially in the blogging sector.
Tom Rudnai (23:40)
are there instances where the founder isn't brought into that, right? Maybe they don't realise that they're doing the wrong thing and you have to kind of convince them a few months down the road that no, you need to take a step back, which I think is something in-house, you can probably resonate a lot with, which is this isn't working. How do I, like almost politically, how do I manage the conversation
Livia Hirsch (24:03)
Yeah, no, mean, absolutely. There are founders where I've tried, know, companies where I've tried to be like, okay, it sounds like you need content strategy and, you know, then the execution, like, no, we want blogs. But the advantage is like when I've, so I always work typically minimum three months with my clients just to really get things up and running. And so when you've been there three months, you then also have a bit more of, you have a foot in the door. And same thing if you're working in-house, you know, like you might try and come in guns blazing the first month, you have all these great ideas and your ideas are probably valid.
But you you're new. Just like I'm new when I start with a client. And so realizing, okay, this person's not as open to it. Let's start with delivering what they asked and I'll do my best to my ability. And then we have like three months in when we have a check-in, we start talking about, well, I've noticed X. Like, let's look at the analytics while I've noticed Y and kind of bringing it up that way because also that trust has already built up.
They know what I can deliver. They've seen how I work with them. And so then it's also a bit easier to start suggesting, okay, well, you know, it looks like, I know that you've said, because with one client, for example, they work in a very niche industry and they were like, no, like, you know, our target audience doesn't search for things. And I'm like, well then why are you posting blogs if they're not, somebody must be on Google somewhere because otherwise you wouldn't be online at all. Which is, you know, and so they were like, hmm.
Tom Rudnai (25:13)
You
Livia Hirsch (25:22)
And so, know within three months, but like it took a while at first like we don't want that and we're just gonna see and I was like, okay That's fine. All right, you know the the content and then after three months we did have a chat about it We looked at analytics and I started baby steps introducing kind of SEO and then we did eventually do keyword research and go back and optimize but At first that wasn't you know, they were just like no we want blogs and it's like, okay Well, I can start with that and we'll go from there
Tom Rudnai (25:48)
Yeah, okay.
Livia Hirsch (25:48)
But it's
easier when you have that trust then, because then they know how I work, they know my capabilities, what I bring to the table, so it's also a bit easier.
Tom Rudnai (25:57)
and being willing to try it their way a little bit, but just keep bringing it back to regular reviews and kind of course correcting from that point, accepting that sometimes it's a slower change.
One of the things that you mentioned was I think part of the fact that you're coming in at a very similar point and taking people through a similar stage of their growth is there must to an extent be a playbook, right? I guess what's really interesting for me is
understanding from your perspective how that playbook has changed and evolved over the last few years or has it?
Livia Hirsch (26:27)
I mean, so obviously I have my playbook. Every content strategist writer is gonna have their own. But you know, yeah, because like I said, I follow a four part framework where finding, helping my clients find their brand voice and then strategy and then execution and SEO within that. But for sure, for starters, distribution has gotten so much more important in the last years. Like, you know, like I said, you can't post and hope. So there's some of that of like, yeah, how are you gonna leverage that with LinkedIn,
Instagram with your latest webinar with sales with any of all the platforms you're on. So distribution I think in the last couple years has taken a lot bigger of a stage and obviously SEO is changing hugely. AI is really impacting SEO, how people are searching for things and there's still some confusion because it feels like every week there's a new Google update, new chat GPT version or another version of it that's popped up somewhere else that can do XYZ.
So there is also kind of that landscape that's changing hugely, although SEO is not dead, it's just evolving. And then I would actually say another part that I think has gained importance in my opinion is getting a brand voice. And that I think very often, maybe 10 years ago, know, B2B was quite boring, right? You sold photocopiers and you, that's what you did. And you had your one pager and your sales team and whatnot, maybe more than 10 years ago. you know, nowadays it's like, no, like there's
There's a lot of companies, there's a lot more noise online, you want to stand out, you need a personality, and B2B in general I think is still catching up with B2C. But yeah, you can sell photocopiers and be hilarious like Brand. You can sell paper clips and make it very fun. And so also catching up on the whole, you don't just have to be professional, and kind of professional is starting to lean towards boring at this point.
Tom Rudnai (28:14)
I agree, yeah. I think there's nothing worse than that kind of bland corporate, I think normally you go onto a company page and it is boring as hell. But it's funny because you could go onto the social media of the person who's writing it and it's great fun, it's interesting. But somehow there's still this trend that when people are being the mouthpiece of a company, just all personality evaporates.
Livia Hirsch (28:26)
No. No.
Well, and there's, know, it's kind of a bit of an issue in that the whole point of a tonal voice as well as that it builds consistency and trust because if I show up differently on a podcast and on my LinkedIn than in a phone call of a client, you are going to be like, so who's Livia?
Tom Rudnai (28:49)
Hmm.
Livia Hirsch (28:50)
you know, like what part of her, like which personality am I gonna get today? And that's one example, but people feel the same about companies. So if the guy writing, you know, on guy or girl writing on LinkedIn is hilarious, loses lots of emojis, talks about the brand, is the founder, loves it, and then like their website is like boring and sounds like a dictionary, you are like.
Did you, like what happened and that disconnect, especially if you grow and that disconnect keeps happening amongst customer success and sales and personal branding and your website, it hurts your trust. Like people don't like if you can't show up consistently and so then you can't build trust with people.
Tom Rudnai (29:26)
Well, it's interesting though, because then tone of voice has to kind of connect to culture a little bit, right? Because you can go into a company, create this wonderful, engaging tone of voice, and then a sales rep turns up and a G-lay in chinos, and kind of it's a completely different experience, and that's going to create a disconnect, and that's going to erode trust in the business. Like, how do you go about not just defining a good tone of voice, but that company's tone of voice?
Livia Hirsch (29:52)
I mean your tone of voice at its core should be, yeah, based on your brand mission, vision, values, USPs. Like it shouldn't just be like, well I want to sound fun.
Tom Rudnai (30:01)
Yeah.
Livia Hirsch (30:01)
Okay, yeah, don't we all, guess, you know, but like, does that reflect, yeah, everything else in your company? So I know that some people take it even deeper than I do and can really, you know, yes, do immersions in company culture. But for me, when I do my brand voice workshops, yeah, it's about really understanding who are you as a company? Okay, and how can we show that to the outside world? So, you know, it's not everybody has to be fun. But what I see is a lot of scale up saying we want to be the friendly neighbor. Okay, well, you're a friendly neighbor and my friendly
neighbor
might be two very different things. Also, my neighbor is very friendly, I don't trust her. Like, friendly neighbor is the new professional in the B2B, or at least scale-up scene. But yeah, it needs to reflect who you are, 100%. It can't just be random.
So you have to blend that cohesively.
Tom Rudnai (30:46)
Yeah, and it must be a difficult thing if you're a kind of a freelancer or an agency going into places and understanding the kind of fabric of the place and particularly if you're doing it remotely so that you don't create a disconnect. It's probably a bit easier if you're internal because you've been hired to be a part of the culture that's going to rub off on you and that's going to kind of naturally feed into what you do, but probably still very worth it.
Livia Hirsch (31:08)
Yeah, I if you're enthusiastic and you
know that it's fast-paced and whatnot then like you're also kind of in that mood a bit more than me working from home, for sure.
Tom Rudnai (31:16)
Yeah, it's also something interesting for me, for me, the founder, when we get to the point where we're kind of hiring marketers, I think it's probably more, every, every hire needs to be the right fit culturally, but probably a marketer more than anything, because they're going to be the mouthpiece of your culture externally as well. So they need to be the kind of, I can't think of the word, but the definition of what you want to be.
Livia Hirsch (31:30)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I mean culture fit is hugely important in hiring. think that's sometimes quite an underrated part still. And so absolutely, you want to be sure that it's a good match.
Tom Rudnai (31:45)
Yeah, before we get on to, the way, I want to clarify one thing. My neighbor is not creepy, just in case she ever ends up listening to this and then that's going to be horribly embarrassing for me. She's a lovely lady.
Livia Hirsch (31:56)
My neighbor is lovely. just, I don't think she'll ever listen to this, but I wouldn't trust her.
Tom Rudnai (32:00)
The other thing I wanted to, and before we get into some quick fire questions and I let you go, there's one thing that you said that I have to come back to, which is SEO isn't dead, it's evolving. I mean, that's the sound bite of the episode. So come on back, talk to me a bit, but how do you approach SEO at the moment? What is the evolution that you're seeing?
Livia Hirsch (32:16)
I see how the,
Tom Rudnai (32:17)
In two
minutes, go.
Livia Hirsch (32:18)
It's a hot topic.
Yeah, it's a hot topic. How do I approach SEO? To be honest, I feel like I'm still sometimes playing catch-up as well in terms of all the developments with SEO and language learning models and AI and whatnot. it's still, you know, like at the end of the day, chat and GPT or deep sake or, know, whoever, whatever, they're still pulling their results either from confidence, which you should fact check, or from the internet. Like they're still taking, you know, if I Google what is GDPR, you know,
and then chat GPT is analyzing the first couple results and then spitting out an answer. content is still relevant, it's just kind of changing how people are gonna find it. So there is some of that of they're still pulling from the internet. It's still just as relevant to have an online presence, it's still just as relevant to post factual content. And the thing about AI though is that yeah, fact check it. Sometimes it can say things very confidently and you're like,
So, know, there's kind of, to me, I'm old fashioned and I do a lot more of my searching on Google still because, yeah, I don't fully trust AI. It has definitely sometimes been like, 72 % of people say this. And I'm like, can you find me a source for that? It's like, no. And you're like, OK,
I would definitely not rely on AI solely for any form of answer, especially for research, you know, for blogging and whatnot. Yeah, I still use Google because then I can fact check if people click on links or have links cited, I can go and check those reports. Yeah, AI, you have to fact check yourself and it's been wrong with me more than once. So fact checking is also going to be way more important, but you still need an online presence. AI is pulling.
search results.
Tom Rudnai (33:51)
I think that the role of has changed and you have to look at it as one piece within a broader kind of distribution puzzle. But it's also, search is declining. It depends a bit on your audience, right? I think one thing you just said, which I think is probably interesting for a B2B marketer is what you've just described is a very discerning form of research, which I'd imagine is not.
Livia Hirsch (33:58)
Yeah.
Tom Rudnai (34:11)
necessarily what a lot of buyers are doing. They're doing quick answer to quick question and that's where it is gonna go more to AI, right? If you're researching for a piece of content, then yes, probably you're not gonna rely exclusively on it because you need to fact check. I would imagine, I mean typically they're not the people that you're trying to reach though, which I guess is one thing that you always have to bear in mind is like it comes back to who are we trying to reach and what are the behaviors that we're gonna see for them. I'm sure for some people that results in a very similar SEO type strategy.
Livia Hirsch (34:15)
Yeah. Yeah.
No.
Tom Rudnai (34:39)
working. What I think generally we see just in talking to people is it's changed from this kind of top of funnel, you capture broad brush informational terms and then kind of find a way on your own site to filter that through to something a bit more specific and useful to you and what you want them to look go and get interested in to now it's about capturing a broader range of super high intent kind of more specific keywords. To me is a fantastic thing.
Livia Hirsch (35:03)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah,
absolutely. mean, you people are just using chat GPT for what is a content strategy. What is, you know, what does the word freelancing mean? You know, like the basic things, you're no longer going to like Google that. And even then with Google, right, they have that search AI search result at the top that'll kind of take over all the searches. So it's no longer the top of the funnel content is changing. Bottom of the funnel, middle of the funnel product led is all still really relevant. And then within that still kind of building that topical authority. if
Tom Rudnai (35:14)
Yeah.
Livia Hirsch (35:33)
If
I want to be known for content strategy, yeah, probably writing a blog, what is content strategy? A waste of time. But I could write about the different deliverables and my process because my unique point of view is also kind of a way of standing out. And that's also where it's like your tone of voice and your unique point of view is what's also going to differentiate you from somebody else selling content strategy, photocopiers, whatever. Because how you sell and your photocopier is going to be different than mine. And so that's where the
can also find that edge.
Tom Rudnai (36:04)
Well, it allows you to get the nuance across. think what all of this adds up to for content marketers is people, much more educated, high intent buyers arriving on your website later in their journey, like great, that can't be a bad thing. And it also not kind of cramming keywords into articles. It's not keyword optimising. We are optimising for answering questions and we can be quite specific to the question that we're trying to answer. That leads to much, much more engaging content. It's kind of a resurfacing of the art of kind of...
journalistic content writing rather than almost something almost algorithmic about SEO, right? Where it's probably gonna insult a lot of people here, but it's a little bit more paint by numbers. So that's how I've always looked at it.
Livia Hirsch (36:44)
No.
One, your opinion matters more. So like me writing a content strategy blog rather than the what is content strategy, the deliverables that I bring, how I do it, now that's going to be a lot more valuable and that's also going to attract my target audience. Me sharing how I do content strategy, it's going to be different than you, it's going to be different than somebody else. And so there's also that of like your unique perspective and you know, opinion and it doesn't have to be a polarizing, it doesn't have to be politics, like, but your unique perspective and opinion value a lot more.
Tom Rudnai (36:57)
Hmm.
Yeah, no, absolutely. I'm conscious of time. Have you got time to do a couple of quick fire questions before we let you go? Yeah? Okay, cool. what skill or trait would you say for you has been the biggest needle mover in your career in terms of your own personal development?
Livia Hirsch (37:18)
That works? No, yeah, that's fine.
This feels like, it feels a bit like boasting. But, ⁓ okay.
Tom Rudnai (37:30)
That's the point. You get to post, but you're allowed to.
Livia Hirsch (37:33)
Okay, I would say one of the biggest things is the fact that I'm ambitious and hungry I am and I'm curious and so pair all of that together and I I do want to know like, you know, one of the first questions you asked right? Like I just say why are we writing this? What's the point? I'm curious like I want to know because it makes my job better but so like that curiosity and that hunger to deliver more and ambition to deliver more is also kind of what's pushed me to the levels that I'm now
Tom Rudnai (37:58)
What was the biggest fuck up that you've made in your career? Like the heart stopping moment.
Livia Hirsch (38:04)
Trying to think here, like, what's the right thing to share in terms of professionalism as well.
I think is not having systems in place to protect my own self and what I mean by that is that it's completely okay to have for it to like...
Demand certain things like with retainers I now ask for a minimum of three months because just the time that we get started and whatnot It's kind of a waste of everyone's time to do one month I also sent all of my clients a contract which we can you know co-edit in terms of like sometimes they have terms they want to add and that's fine, but it also protects me and So kind of having those systems in place. It took me probably first two years But to realize like yeah, my time my expertise and what I bring is valuable And so I'm gonna protect that even from a legal perspective
and sometimes because then otherwise you avoid sticky situations. But it can be kind of, at least for me it felt scary, you know, like I'm gonna send them a contract but I'm just a freelancer and I'm like my time and money and expertise are all worth protecting and if they can't deliver or won't cooperate then that's not it for me.
Tom Rudnai (39:05)
Yeah, well, think what you're describing is like setting boundaries, right? And I think that's something particularly early in career, it takes a while to, I think I was about 25 before I realized that I could say no to my boss.
Livia Hirsch (39:12)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. It's a magical skill. What? You can say anything. Yeah.
Tom Rudnai (39:20)
Yeah, I know.
And then I guess before we let you go, so quick recommendation for anyone. I always like to get out of people. So any books, podcasts, thought leaders that you really, really rate and would recommend listeners go and check out.
Livia Hirsch (39:36)
yes, but they probably have very little to do with marketing. I'll be honest, I, yeah, a lot of the, listen to a podcast kind of religiously every morning, but has nothing to do with work. Well, very little to do with work. So like, do really like Diary of a CEO. I really enjoyed that one. I also sometimes enjoy Mel Robbins. Yeah. I mean the classics. But then I also do listen to a couple of freelance related podcasts, but that still have a bit of the lifestyle kind of mindset work. So it's not as much, know.
Tom Rudnai (39:39)
Better.
Livia Hirsch (40:04)
how to write a good blog or how SEO is changing. So like there's Freedom Found Podcast, which is for female copywriters that I really enjoy. And there's another one whose name I forget, but I know the icon, so I'm gonna have to get back to you because me just writing the image is not gonna be very helpful. good.
Tom Rudnai (40:17)
Yeah
Okay, send that over afterwards. Awesome.
And then finally, anything you'd like to plug in terms of things you're doing with clients on your own that you want to just give a quick shout out to.
Livia Hirsch (40:31)
I'm on LinkedIn, my name is Livia Hirsch. also have a website. So feel free to check out what I do there. LinkedIn is the best way to get in touch with me as well. I'm very, very active, very active on LinkedIn and I'm soon going to be launching. So beyond having a brand voice workshop, I'm soon going to be launching a content strategy workshop to help clients audit their strategy live because I've noticed that sometimes clients will have different moving pieces. And so rather than starting
from scratch, we'll just take what they have and work on it together live. And so that they leave with, you know, armed with a lot more clarity. So that's going to be launching by the end of summer. So latest and so so that's something also where stay tuned, but I'll be also announcing it on my LinkedIn.
Tom Rudnai (41:09)
Awesome.
Awesome, well that sounds great, I will definitely check that out. Okay, well look, thank you, thank you Livia for joining us, thank you everyone for listening, and we will see you next time. Cheers, bye bye.
Livia Hirsch (41:25)
Thank you so much for your time. Bye.