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We share our thoughts and ideas on how to grow a business.
I want to talk about how I think or
I see many writers, whether it be on
some of the test projects and stuff
when we're working with new writers
or just people in our course or what
clients show us they've produced before.
I'm going to talk about like how
they typically do it and then how we
think about it and how that relates
to what Benji was saying, which is.
How do we interview the subject
matter expert to get the most
information possible to make our
post good and better than the rest?
I already know that's what I want.
So first thing is who
is the interview with?
I'm asking my point of contact,
whether I'm an employee, if
I'm an employee, it's easier.
Like I know who's at the house, at
the company, or if they're my client,
I'm asking the point of contact.
I want the person who you think
can speak to the details of the
The features and their benefits and
their uniqueness as much as possible.
We recently did a video on writing
and so far it's done pretty well,
but we wanted to do a video on a
different aspect of writing, which
is how do you do the interview?
We, we've talked a lot about how
interviews are one of the competitive
advantages that we have to extract
information from subject matter experts to
make the piece better, but We found from
writers on our team and just other people
that we've talked to that the interview
process isn't always straightforward.
And so we kind of wanted to talk
through the research that we do
beforehand to be able to conduct those
interviews and get the information
that we need to put into the articles.
And so Devesh has a couple examples
of, uh, different articles and
we're going to talk through.
How we would basically do research on
the website and in surf analysis to
figure out what to ask the subject matter
expert on an interview call with them.
Yeah, I think we're going to
start this on today's video.
We're going to focus on bottom
of funnel keywords, specifically
what we call category keywords.
And so I have a couple examples.
Let's see if it makes sense to do both.
We're going to start with
email provider tools.
And I just picked that because we
don't really have a client on it.
So it's not going to have
any conflict of interest.
Um, and like everyone I imagine
knows about things like, basically
it's like MailChimp and competitors.
Um, and we're going to dissect a few of
the blog posts and use that as kind of our
basis in which to have this conversation
of how do we at Google grow and convert.
Think through architecting this piece.
The previous video that Benji talked
about, we'd, I talked a little bit about
like the writing aspect and dissecting
certain sentences, but there's almost
a meta level, like planning level.
That's.
Equally or arguably more
important, actually.
Yeah, probably more important.
Even if you, even if your sentences
are kind of clunky and generic
and fluff free, like, so be it.
If you get the argumentation correct and
you're talking about the right things,
like you'll get some results, I think.
Um, so we're going to use that.
Let us know.
In comments, wherever you put them,
um, on YouTube, in the, in the podcast
comments, or, um, just emailing to us
or on social, let us know if you like
these and you want some more of these,
because we could do some more higher
funnel stuff, how to type queries, what
we call like jobs to be done and think
through how we architect those as well.
But we'll start with this, like.
Total bottom of the funnel type keyword.
So let me share my screen
and we'll talk through it.
This is an example keyword for
this best email service providers.
So just to be clear, like email
service providers, we're talking
about, um, no, no, I had a better one.
Email marketing tools.
Here we go.
So we're talking about things like, you
know, MailChimp and alternatives and
the posts that I want to start with.
And I want to talk about how I think.
Or I see many writers, whether it be
on some of the test projects and stuff,
when we're working with new writers
or just people in our course, or what
clients show us they've produced before.
I'm going to talk about like
how they typically do it.
Um, and then how we think about it
and how that relates to what Benji was
saying, which is how do we interview the
subject matter expert to get to the The
most information possible to make our
post good, um, and better than the rest.
So the first theme is for a
keyword like this, there is
repetitiveness in all of the results.
And that's the first place
where, when you're writing
this post, you can get lost.
Because the instinct is, I'm
just gonna do the same thing.
So if we look at some of these,
like I clicked into, what,
Sprout Social had the first one.
So we look at these, first of
all, they're gonna be lists.
And you should do a list on that part.
You're right.
Because like, that's, that's
just fulfilling search intent.
Like these people are literally
Googling for email marketing tools.
Like you're going to give
them a list of tools.
That's what they want.
Right.
Otherwise Google is not going to rank you.
So we look at sprout social and they'll
have, you know, some kind of intro.
And we, I already ripped on intros
with like these sort of generic stats
on the previous video, but in short,
like you don't need to do this.
And I'll talk about later what
you should do in the intro.
Like people are literally,
they're literally looking
for an email marketing tool.
You don't need.
To like tell them that email is a top
channel because such and such studies
said 87 percent of B2B marketers did it.
If you're just wasting space, um,
what we're going to eventually get
at to sort of foreshadow the ending.
Yeah, actually, this is important
for me to say at the beginning.
What I'm thinking about when I'm writing
a post like this, when I'm tasked
with writing this, what I would be
thinking about the entire time from the
first minute is what are my clients.
Or, or the tool I'm writing
and my tool, what is, what are
its strengths in this topic?
So the example tool I wanted to
talk about later was one that is
ranking number five or something.
Omni send.
Um, and I have like, it's a homepage.
Up here or like it's email,
you know, feature page up.
And so it says like, you know,
create beautiful campaigns.
My instinct there will be
like, okay, that's fine.
But like everyone does that
build shoppable emails fast.
That's kind of interesting.
So it looks like it's like an
e commerce angle or whatever.
Set up from blasts for all,
what does that even mean?
Set up from blasts for all.
Um, step up from blast for all,
Oh, it's about segmentation.
Okay.
That's kind of interesting, but probably
other people are going to talk about
segmentation to get more opens and sales.
How right.
So I'm like thinking from the
beginning, why is this unique?
How is this better?
Okay.
So the first mistake is you go through
this and you're thinking, okay, so express
social, they're going to go over HubSpot.
for this, blah, blah, blah.
And then like, that's it three
paragraphs and a screenshot.
And then sender is some other tool.
So it's one of the best
free tools in the market.
Blah, blah, blah, sending boots.
So you're just like, okay, like.
This is what Google is ranking,
but you got to be careful.
Like this domain has a lot of
authority, so they can get away with
doing this and sprout social, like
what they can do everything right.
Do they, don't they do email as well?
Um, and so they have a lot of authority,
so they can get away with this, but
like, this isn't really selling sprout
social, which is our goal, like where
they're not even talking about themselves
yet, maybe they're not even an email.
Maybe they're just like social planning.
Yeah.
I think they are just
a social planning tool.
I don't even really think they do email.
Yeah.
So, so this, this for them is
probably just a traffic play.
Yeah.
So they don't even need to do this.
But like, I think a lot of writers
would just be like, okay, like
this is what I'm going to do.
I'm going to list a bunch of
them and I'm going to put my
clients somewhere in there.
Maybe number one, maybe
number five or whatever.
And they're going to be given the
same amount of space, you know, as the
other ones and just be given like three
paragraphs or something like this.
Well, the mistake that you're saying
people make, if we go back to the SERP,
is they just look, they look at the SERP.
They kind of just look that
everyone's creating a list.
And then they just think,
I need to do a list.
But what you're saying is different
here is when we're looking at the SERP,
okay, yes, you want to follow a similar
framework as what's already ranking,
but what's different in the way that
we're approaching it is we're saying,
what unique information can we provide
to the reader that's not in these posts?
And what you're saying is most writers
would just say, No, let's copy what's
in these posts instead of thinking
about that, that unique differentiator.
Yes, and specifically for bottom of
funnel keywords that are product queries,
email marketing tools, I'm thinking one
level more specific than just what unique
information can I provide in there.
I'm thinking, That sells the client's
product because look, like the
reality is other than that, you
don't have any unique information.
It's email marketing, like other
than like some differentiator or
something about your, your features,
like whether it's your company or
your client's company or whatever.
Like, other than that, what are you
going to say it's email marketing?
Like you, this is, this is what kind of,
it's getting me worked up because we,
we've talked a lot about this, you and
I, and sometimes we talk on social and
stuff about this, but like, this is what
I think sometimes people like feel like
this content, they feel uncomfortable
about it because you're like, well, we
don't want to sell ourselves too hard
or whatever, but like, you don't need
to worry about content being all content
being thought leadership or whatever.
If you were doing some opinion or
how to piece on just like marketing
in general, or you were arguing some
point of like, people are not paying
attention to email marketing enough.
That's cool.
That's its own piece.
It's not this piece.
And so here, the only way you have
to differentiate is your features
and how you approach this or designed
your tool in a different way.
And that's what I would focus on.
So I'm setting up for the interview.
So I already know what I want to, I
want to get an interview with someone.
So again, if OmniSend is my channel and
I just picked them at random because
I saw their blog posts and I was
like, we can talk about this, right.
It has all the kind of like
characteristics I wanted to talk about.
We have no relationship to OmniSend.
I have no idea who did it.
I'm like, you know, if you're
watching this video, like I apologize.
We all, we mean this in like a good,
you know, respect to Bernard Meyer.
So like we have no relationship with
them, but if I'm using this as an example,
I already know that's what I want.
So first thing is who
is the interview with?
I'm asking my point of contact,
whether I'm an employee, if
I'm an employee, it's easier.
Like I know who's at the house.
It's at the company or if they're my
client, I'm asking the point of contact.
I want the person who you think.
Can speak to the details of the
features and their benefits and
their uniqueness as much as possible.
Good personas for that sales.
Like you asked, like, I want the
most, like, you know, like the
sales person who's good, but also
like willing to speak to marketers.
Cause when I'm sales, people are
like, I don't have time for this.
Like, what is this?
Um, or just like maybe someone on
the marketing team, honestly, could
sometimes work if they're, if they
can be a good interview or sometimes
someone from the product team can work.
Because they'll know a lot of details
of like, how did we design this?
Like every email marketing tool is
going to talk about segmentation.
Every email marketing tool is
going to talk about beautiful
templates and beautiful design.
So like, it's gonna, it's just
going to be like kind of generic.
If you don't get into like,
well, how does this work?
And then the other thing is I would
want, and we, we, I would want like a
demo to request a demo, I'd want demo
recordings so I can see how did the
salespeople walk through these and how
are the customers reacting to them?
And we do all of this in our process.
For our clients, like we do this upfront,
we're asking for demo recordings at the
start of the engagement, and we're doing
interviews with sales, with marketing or
product at the start of the engagement.
And that's usually enough to do a
piece like this, but if needed, we'll
do an additional interview for it.
So I'm going through and be like, okay,
like this is what they're talking about.
Now, the next level of the SERP
analysis in terms of how to write
the piece and what to do for the
interview is I'm looking at the
features that are being discussed.
In each of these pieces.
So if we go back to that sprout
social piece, I would want to look
in and be like, what features are
they talking about for each of them?
So I see like, you know, good looking
designs of these newsletter, emails,
templates, customization, but frankly,
this piece doesn't, Oh, analytics.
So it has robust analytics features.
So you can see what's going on and
I'm already thinking ahead here.
So like you can literally make a list.
And be like, we're going to need to
talk about designing beautiful emails.
We're going to be to talk about like
templates to save time in those designs.
We're going to need to
talk about analytics.
Right.
And I just like, keep going through.
And frankly, this, as we talked
about, like this particular.
One, it's not really heavy on features.
Then I go to the next one.
So one of the articles was like from
viz me or something at this one, Zapier.
I skipped cause it says like free, like, I
don't usually don't want to rank for like
free stuff or copy what they're saying.
So that's whatever, but like here,
so they're doing the same thing.
So the best email start with MailChimp,
a couple sentences on MailChimp.
Everybody knows who MailChimp
is key features, email builder.
So again, I'm starting
to notice the pattern.
Every single person is obviously going
to talk about an email builder because
that's literally what this thing does.
So I want to ask so and then and then
I'm probably flip this one specific
for e commerce though.
If you scroll up a little I'm
guessing that viz me is a e
commerce tool of some sort.
It says for different business.
Yeah right
there right above Don't scroll down.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, so that's another aspect as
you're thinking about these But but
what I'm doing is I would be flipping
back and forth And trying to see if
I can get some early signs of what
could be an angle on designing.
So I'm already planning in my
head, there's going to be some
kind of H2 or H3 about like how
we like build designing emails.
Like how do you design emails in OmniSend
and why is it like a great experience?
You know, and so I'd be like reading
this and be like, Oh, how does this work?
I go into here and say, email templates.
How does this work?
You know?
And by the way, so if you're already
thinking, what if we don't have a
lot of differentiators, like, yeah,
like all of them, all of these
competitors are also going to have
some kind of email builder, right?
All of them are going to have
templates that you can start
with a ready made design.
Right.
You, everyone's heard the email champ
ads when they listen to a podcast.
Um, prebuilt layout.
So like, uh, It, your differentiation
doesn't have to be great.
It doesn't have to be like a huge thing.
Yes.
Like we have clients too, that
aren't that differentiated that like
they're in a space where they, you
know, have some market share and
they have features and everyone else
kind of has the same features too.
You'd be like, okay, even if I, it
doesn't mean that you need to be
able to write in your blog post.
You know, we have this thing
with our ready made templates
and no one else has that.
Like, if that's not
true, don't, don't lie.
What it is is what you can do with the
next level is what are you proud of?
What is it?
What is the experience of
designing an email in OmniSend?
That's what I'm already thinking
of, and that's what I want
to get from my interview.
Like, I'm like, jotting that down
in my notes for the interview.
We want to do a deep dive, where I'm
literally going to be asking the person,
if Benji is my interviewer, say, Benji,
like, and I would, I would explain
all of this stuff that I already know.
Every competitor talks about beautiful
templates and designs to start from.
Every competitor says like they have
like a no code drag and drop builder.
Walk me through why we are proud of ours.
And no, you can phrase it like that.
You don't have to say, Yeah, you
don't have to say what's different.
Because sometimes like,
There isn't differentiation.
Yeah.
Like some clients have been
like, honestly, there isn't a lot of
differentiation.
They've told me this.
Yeah.
That's actually a good point in
those situations where you have
a very commoditized product.
What are those key details that you're
looking for that you can include in the
piece that do add some differentiation?
Again, it's not like from a feature
perspective, there's something
completely different, but just.
If you were thinking about writing
something different in your piece just
to make the client stand out and it
was a very undifferentiated project,
like what are some of those questions
that you might ask the interviewee
to extract just some uniqueness?
Yeah, it's a great question and
we can spend some time here.
I would ask them what in the
email building experience to make
specific to this conversation.
What do our customers love?
As one angle to get at it, you
know, this reminds me of this thing.
I heard from some old business guru
who said in the eighties or whatever,
he was consulted by a beer making
company in the Midwest and they took
him through the factory of like, you
know, we have the yeast here and the
thing and look, tasted at this step and
then that step and all of these steps.
And he was like, this is amazing.
We're going to create an
ad that basically says.
You know, our beer goes to these
like 25 steps to get this amazing,
you know, beer end product.
And the company rep said, no, no, we
can't do that because Actually, like
everyone's beer goes through these steps.
Everyone else does it.
And he said back, yes, but no
one else has talked about it.
And you think about a lot of
criticism that Android people
have about Apple, where Apple will
be like, now you can finally do
blah, blah, blah with your texts.
And you know, like the Android people,
like that are your friends or Twitter,
they'll be like, Android, you could
do that five years ago or whatever.
And you're like, Oh, Yeah, but
like Apple just doesn't care.
It's like that's kind of the
approach you're taking here.
If every, every email server provider
can be like, we have ready-made
designs, and they're beautiful
templates made by a designer like that.
That's true.
So you need to, you, you're
gonna talk about it anyways,
but look at the competition.
This is the difference.
Sprout Social, again, is not a player
in the space, but when they're talking
about like HubSpot or whatever, they're
just not talking about these details.
And then this Visme is just going through
and is like, email builder, automation.
They're not talking about like the
customer experience or what the customer
benefits from using these things.
They're, they're just saying,
here, here's a specific feature
and it's not that informative.
Right.
So like Clavio is like a big player
in e commerce or whatever powerful
automation and their description of
powerful automation is just saying this
again, in more words, powerful marketing,
automation, automate your email marketing
based on customer behavior metrics.
Of course, that's literally what it means.
Powerful.
Of course, it's going to be on customer
behavior metrics or like segment
segmentation, segment your subscribers
into specific targeted groups.
That's just what the word
segmentation means in this case.
So like this is common and I
don't mean to like rip on Visme,
but like everyone does this.
When we are looking at the SERP for
all of our client pieces, you see
this over and over and over again.
So what
would you say instead of this then?
So if you're writing this piece for.
I guess instead of doing this,
this key feature, like what
would you write there instead?
Yeah.
So for the design templates, build
beautiful emails, I would show it to them.
And I would say like, why are
email and templates are great.
So there's going to be stuff that
probably Clavio has and MailChimp has,
but I would do it like this, for example.
And again, Your example should
be better because like, I
haven't interviewed anyone.
I don't know anything about OmniSend, but
if you interview them and you're going
to try to get out these P I'll answer
your question, but let me do it with
a little bit of pre, um, conversation.
I would be asking them my product expert
in the interview so that I don't have to
come up with it on my own to try to get
what their slant is say like, what is
really nice about our email templates?
What are you proud about?
About the email type is
how did we design it?
Depending on who you're talking
about or the salesperson,
like how do you sell this?
And they're going to give you
some nugget and it may not be that
maybe Clavio has the same thing.
Maybe MailChimp has the same thing,
but like, it's going to be something.
And they're going to say something
like, you know, like our templates
are categorized by like sale
and promotion templates, luxury
versus whatever, you know, versus
like big photo and this and that.
And like, there's this little detail
about how like, We can, you can drag and
drop a photo of like an awkward size and
it auto crops it or something like that.
Right.
And then I don't care.
I don't give one F whether in this
case for like a space like this,
that's so crowded, I'm not going to be
researching and figuring out does all
the other competitors have that I'm
just going to assume probably they do.
And then I'm just going
to sell that in detail.
So I'll position, I'm going to get
ready in the blog post to position that.
So in this blog post that OmniSend has,
which is five or six on the SERP, right?
They have some intro, forget about that.
We talked about that in a previous video.
Then there'll be like how to choose.
And I'm getting ready
to sell Omni Send here.
So we do this all the time.
Like factors to consider
is what we call it.
So one of mine is going to be like a drag
and drop builder that doesn't require
you to spend hours editing your images.
Right.
And again, like you should be doing,
I just made up that example because
Benji asked me this question right
on the spot, but like, you should
be doing the leg work to make sure
that whatever you're mentioning is
something they actually care about.
And that legwork is to ask the product
or sales or marketing expert, what do
customers love or what are we really
proud about, about our email builder?
Or maybe it's, it's like, you
know, and I would set this up, like
choose one where the builder has.
Um, you know, templates for
different types of use cases or
something, like whatever it is.
And then when you're here, when you're
in the section for yourself, like
best emails, or you're like in the
OmniSend section and you're selling
yourself, I'm not just like listing five
bullets and moving on to the next one.
Yeah, this is a huge mistake that we
see people do just like they go to the
website and just pull out the features.
And then that's what they list here.
Instead of really talking about
what makes their product good.
It's not
just the features.
Intuitive or email template
library with 250 templates.
Can we go to like Clavios?
Page and see like how
many templates they have.
They probably have the same thing.
Like probably every single
one says this platform email.
Anyway, like I'm sure we could find it.
Like everyone is going to
say, but maybe that is it.
We've had a client once that had
like, it was a marketing analytics
tools with integrations and a huge.
Um, a huge differentiator for them was
most of these tools that like integrate
your marketing data from like multiple
disparate tools into one dashboard thing.
They have like a hundred or 200 like
of those integrations, those pipes
to like different tools or whatever
to get the analytics, but there's.
They had 2000 and they had an ability
to quickly build a custom integration.
If you had data, just like in a CSV
or on some hard drive somewhere,
it was actually pretty cool.
So that was our differentiation.
And in piece after piece, when we
talked about that, we would say, look,
all these other tools and marketing
integration where you're like, You know,
that, that are like grabbing data from
your email program and your website
and your whatever, and putting it in
one dashboard for the team to look at,
they have maybe a hundred or 200, but
most companies that they're going to
have some obscure data source that's
not in that list, then what do you do?
And we'd say, but for us, we have,
first of all, 2000, and we have an
ability to create a custom like pipe
to some like obscure data source,
and that was our differentiation.
So you would want to lean into it and
say, You figure out from the team, what
is different about our email templates?
Not even different.
What is good?
What do customers like about, and then
you're, you're getting ready to talk
about in that, in the blog post, then
in the actual blog post, that section
of it, I would like split this out
and like email template and drag and
drop builder, I would like blow that
up into an H three or H four header.
And then I would have like screenshots
and walk through what that person told
me, not word for word, obviously, but
like summarizing the key benefits.
Look, cropping these images, like
in most of other ones, you need
an image of the exact pixel size
that like the template requires.
Otherwise it looks all skewed again.
I'm just totally making this up, but in
ours, you can drag and drop it of image
of any size and you can crop in the tool
or something, something or whatever.
Right.
Or look, we have templates for use cases
that most other email tools didn't have.
There's going to be something like people
who built these tools, they built and made
product decisions intentionally, right?
Ideally, you're not working for a
client or for a company that whose
product just straight up sucks, right?
Like, like if you're just like,
I'm sorry, Devesh, like my client's
product is just bad on all aspects.
Like I can't really help you.
You know what I mean?
Like good, like it's hard to market bad
products, but like there's going to be
something where they're like, you know,
like there's a reason we designed it
this way because we were tired of this.
Or all the other tools didn't have this.
And I would focus on that.
And maybe if email templates
wasn't the strength, I would go
to integrations and focus on that.
Like that, that marketing analytics
client, they had like dashboard templates
too, but they weren't the prettiest.
So we focused a lot more on like handling
the data and those integrations and being
able to get it from all of those aspects.
Yeah.
So just to summarize what you're saying
so far, so you're, you're saying go to
the Look at the different posts, look
at the website of the client or your
own company, and just figure out what
are the key value props to dig into on
the call with the subject matter expert.
And then from like a feature by
feature perspective, you're asking,
why do customers love this feature?
Like, is there anything unique about
this feature different than other,
other businesses, and you're trying
to extract that information from them.
Um, And then kind of prioritize what the
company does best and use that in like
leading with the copy, instead of just
putting a list of features, you're trying
to say, no, we do something different with
templates or we have more there for this
use case or for this customer type, and
you're trying to put that information in
here as opposed to just listing things.
Yeah, you're trying to, so here's some
analogies to kind of say what, what you
said is I agree with is like, you're
trying to control the conversation, right?
You're, you're trying to, you're trying to
say, look, in an email service provider,
there's like a million features, but
you want to frame, you want to give a
sales pitch.
You want, if someone's learning about
what you're doing for the first time,
like, what do you, what do you sell first?
Like, what's most
important to the customer?
And understanding what their needs are,
I think, is important for the writer.
And then, and then talking to that
subject matter expert and getting
that information about how would
you sell this product to someone who
knows nothing about it, essentially?
Yeah, like, it's almost
like your attack plan.
Like, you're sort of, you know,
um, in like a game of chess, you're
thinking, you know, I'm strong on
this side of the board, and I'm
going to go here, here, and here.
But you're not going to
go everywhere, right?
And, and, and you're
framing it in that way.
An analogy for people listening to this
is ourselves comes to mind where, and I
wanted to transition to this eventually
of what we're talking, my example
with the email service providers was.
A certain type of space where there's
maybe the products are a little
bit commoditized and like everyone
has a ton of features and they're
all trying to compete on features.
That's one category of product.
Another category of product or service
that we have clients in are ones where
there's overarching like strategic
difference in how they Approach,
you know, a particular solution.
So, um, it's really hard for me to
say this without like naming clients,
but I have some in mind, right.
But let's just use ourselves
as an analogy as a service.
Like there are a lot of content marketing
agencies, freelancers, and people you
can hire to like make content for you
as a service, we've made a clear, like.
Positioning like line in the sand
where we're like, everything we
are built around is around content
that gets conversions and leads.
And as a result, our like feature to
do that is through our like bottom
of funnel, keyword selection and SEO.
Right.
Um, and like pain point SEO, there
are products that do that too.
Right again, I'm stumbling because I
have like particular clients in mind.
We can't just like be like naming clients
willy nilly on these videos, but like,
I'm just going to make up some example
and hopefully it starts to make sense.
Imagine there was, let's do that
marketing analytics example.
Imagine there was a marketing analytics
tool, for example, that It wasn't
like they're competing on little tiny
features, but they're saying, Hey,
you know what we have mastered multi
touch attribution and their whole
like view of the world, let's say is.
You know, all these other tools that tell
you like landing pages and, you know, it
came from Google ads or whatever are, you
know, full of shit, excuse my language.
And the reality is your customers have
5 million touch points with you and like
you really need some, and we have some
statistical model, something, something.
And like, Those are tools where it's
not like this Omni send example, where
it's like, well, MailChimp has an
email builder and we do, and Clavio
has segmentation and we do like, that's
one kind of category of like extreme,
you know, commoditization and features.
And then you're just like going into
each feature and being like, let's just
figure out how to sell our builder.
This one is the other one is like,
if they have a huge worldview
where they're flipping the way
they do things on their head.
Oh, an example.
We have a case study published is like.
Rainforest QA is, they
were a client a while ago.
Um, but when we were working with
them, their big thing was like to do
software QA, people use other software.
Like they like write scripts that go
in and click buttons on their software.
And it's like, you have to code.
This like QA button, click
routine to QA your software code.
So you're like coding on top of coding.
You have to use coders time.
And their whole thing was we built
something that's truly no code.
So like someone who's not a developer
from the product or customer support
team can build these like QA scripts
of like, click this button and this
thing better appear, otherwise the
software is broken and notify all of
us on Slack or something like that.
And like, Everything we
wrote was based on that.
Not everything, but like huge
portions of the blog posts were like
framed around that and our version
of controlling that conversation.
The chess piece thing is we
would start the conversation.
The equivalent of like the email thing
was we would say, the biggest thing
you need to worry about and think about
when you're looking at QA software
is who is designing these QA tests.
If it's developers, you're screwed
because developers are busy
actually developing the code.
And that's a terrible way to do it.
Similarly, when you read growing
convert blog, you could argue
that our blogs are repetitive.
It's it's intentional to some extent.
We're like on so many of our blog
posts, we frame the conversation
around stop wasting time,
producing top of funnel content.
That's just getting you hollow traffic.
That doesn't convert.
That's your number one mistake.
And every other mistake is
subservient to that mistake.
Your biggest thing needs
to be bottom of funnel.
Those are this other category of product.
And for those.
The way you approach that interview
is like, first of all, you need to
have done that first interview to know
that if that is your client or your
company and you're doing that feature
stuff we looked about in the email
thing, and you're not starting and
framing the blog posts in that respect,
you're not doing your job properly.
You're not writing well, like, I'm sorry.
I don't care how good your grammar is.
You need to
understand the company's
positioning before you can write.
So like when we, when we start
off engagements, we're talking
to sales and customer success
and different people inside of
the company to try to figure out.
Why people sign up for their product,
what's different about their approach
or in their product than anyone else.
And it's extracting those value props
and those just become the selling
points over and over and over again
in every blog post because that
is why people sign up for them.
And, and so you need, you need to
be able to communicate that well.
Yeah.
And in those conversations, honestly,
Benji and I start before that.
We start an hour sales call with that
prospect before they're a client is
he and I are constantly trying to
figure out when someone reaches out
to us, what makes this business tick?
Like, why are people buying?
Like, why would we buy if we were
the customer and we literally are
slacking each other on the side.
And there are many, many companies
that reach out to us where
we're like, we don't buy this.
This makes no sense.
There was one a couple of years ago.
We're both weeks ago where both of
us were like, what are they saying?
Yeah.
I mean, clarity, clarity in what
they do and why is important.
And if you don't have that, it's
going to be really difficult to market
the business.
And so the, so you can ask direct
questions like that at the beginning.
Like, and it's different from the example
I told where we're like zooming in on
the email builder for those other, you
need to have a zoomed out conversation
to be like your tool OmniSend, how do
you approach email marketing differently?
And in that initial question, you
should be able to ascertain pretty
quickly within a few minutes of that
question being asked, do they have this
big positioning differentiator or not?
In this case from poking around
their website and seeing all
the competitors, probably not.
I don't see anything in their website
that indicates they have like a
major positioning difference, right?
If we actually, that's, it would be
useful to actually like look at their
website for a second, but like here
in terms of OmniSend, if we just go
to their actual site, Like you look
here, you know, and again, I feel bad.
I hope no one from OmniCent
is like watching this.
So I don't mean to like rip on
it in a bad way, but it's all
like kind of generic, right?
So like send emails and estimates.
I mean,
to me, it seems like their
key value prop is pricing.
So they led with that in the
blog post and it's in there.
Yeah.
And like their whole, their
whole pages around this.
So like my, my guess is that
they're selling against Klaviyo or
something like that, because that
is known to be super expensive.
Yeah.
And people in the e com space
are really frustrated by that.
And so I'm guessing they're just
selling against that saying, look, if
you want an email provider that has
the same kind of feature set for e com,
where there's just the cheaper option.
Yeah.
Which if I was me, I would
lean into it even harder on the homepage,
but yeah, like, like name, like maybe
name competitors or, um, just, just
outright say that like many e commerce
owners don't want to pay thousands
of dollars for their email platform.
Here's a better solution.
But to go back to the questioning
for a specific blog post.
So then if you need to kind of figure
out where on that spectrum, um, this
product that you're, you're, you're
marketing falls spectrum, one side is
maybe like the GNC side where they're
just like, this product is upending the
previous way that everyone has done it.
And they have this very strong, like.
Meta positioning worldview.
Like we're just doing marketing
analytics in a different way.
Nobody does multi touch or
they don't do it properly.
And like, we have the first unique kind
of doing that or something like that
versus on the opposite side, something
like email providers or newsletter
providers, where it's like, everyone
says beautiful, they have like all the
same features and it's all the same.
Either one can be marketed again, like
assuming you don't suck on all the
features, but like either one can be
marketed, but you need to figure that out.
That's like goal number one.
And you can ask direct questions like.
If, if they say, Oh, you asked
Omni SEN, you know, how do
you do things differently?
And they're like, well, and they
start saying stuff and your intuition
while you're listening to this
is, that's not really different.
I saw that on Clavio site.
Don't hold back.
And this is something we've
teach our own strategists.
I've done that.
I've watched the strategist recording
of interviews of our clients.
And then the strategist in
the interview is very quiet.
And, and they're very
like, sort of like, okay.
And they're like taking everything
the client says at face value.
Then afterwards, when we're discussing
the piece, the strategist, real
opinions come out, these are usually
younger, newer strategists on our team.
And they're like, but Devesh, like, I
can't really say that because I actually
looked at their competitors sites and
they all say the same thing, but the
client's saying, no, what do I do?
I'm like, you should have
just told that to them.
Like, and that's what you should do is
just don't feel like, well, the client
said this, so I have to write it that way.
Like.
They're not always the final, they haven't
thought this through that carefully
sometimes like that's part of what your
value add can be is like, is, is you
should push back and say, well, hold on,
MailChimp says the same thing or whatever,
like how are, and then that discussion
gets you to the heart of the matter
where eventually they may break, like
Benji said, and be like, You know what?
You're right.
We're just cheaper.
And then like you can work with it.
You don't need every blog
post to have some like major
we've upended the industry.
It doesn't need to be that way.
You just need the honest truth so
you can decide where am I, how am
I going to frame that conversation?
Maybe that is the big theme of this,
of this like architecting How do
architect the arguments for a bottom
of funnel product led query article
and how to get that information from
an interview is always have in your
head, your current latest hypothesis of
what that story is likely going to be.
Then use the interview to validate
or invalidate that hypothesis.
Like I think OmniSense, Pitch is
going to be, we're cheapest and all
of our features are just as comparable
as to the expensive enterprise one
look like it's like good features.
We're not going to try to say we have
any feature that anyone else doesn't
have, cause that's not true, but we're
just going to sell the features well
and say like, look, we have, it's
really nice to build emails with us.
It's really easy to segment
with us and we can do all of
that at a fraction of the price.
And then you go into the interview and
if they, um, invalidate one of your
hypotheses, good, you learn something new.
You'd be like, Oh, interesting.
You actually do segmentation
in a way that no one else does.
Oh, you can plug right into Shopify's
data or something, something or whatever.
Right.
Like, and then you're like, okay,
now you start to like modify
your hypothesis a little bit.
It can be in your head, like while
you're talking, but like, that's how
you should be framing that story.
It's like, you're almost like a detective.
You know, like, you know, when like
two friends are fighting and they
both complain to you and you're like,
man, like who's right, you know?
And so like, and you're trying
to be like, Oh, what happened?
Benji?
Like, Oh, she said this.
And then you talk to your
friend and you're like, yeah,
Benji always does that, huh?
And then you're trying
to be like, frame it.
Like you can do that on the fly.
You should be able to do this on
the fly where you're just like,
listen, like, you know, like it
was Benji's fault or like whatever.
Like, like you should be
able to figure that out.
Be like, okay, okay.
Like this is what the differentiators are.
Yeah.
And I think that takes your post from.
I'm going to do the same thing.
I'm going to list my key features and
bullet points, and I'm going to have
two sentences each to, you can have,
and maybe we actually didn't even spend
time talking about this architecture,
but, and I can share my screen again
to show this, your end goal should be
that when there is post after post on
the SERP here that just has these like
three quick paragraphs that basically
don't say much, or in this case, like.
Two sentences and then some bullet
points of the same features.
Every email provider has
analytics to see open rates.
No, duh.
Right.
Um, is you're going to want your clients
or your products section to be really long
and everyone else is this generic thing.
So if I was Visme, Visme comes first.
I'm assuming this is also, yeah,
like, Oh, I don't know what the
heck this is, but if I'm OmniStand.
Omni send comes first, which they
didn't, but this is a long section
where I'm going into our library.
I'm going into our builder.
I'm going into our integrations and
like explaining with screenshots.
It's like you're putting like
a demo recording on the page.
Not don't take that
literally, but like almost.
And then, um, and you have a
long section and then everyone
else is this quick thing.
In this case, they're spending, basically,
they're giving the same amount of real
estate on their own blog posts to the next
tool Moosend as they are to themselves.
Um, and, and that's like, what, why?
Like, cause you're not selling
your job to market Moosend.
And I think most people think,
Oh, because Google is going to see
it's not fair, blah, blah, blah.
Who cares?
We rank client Google ranks are
placed all the time for clients.
And we spend 10 times as much.
And if it was going to be like, Oh,
the reader is going to know your bias.
They already know your bias.
They know where they are.
They know that on the omniscient
blog, give, put your best foot
forward and sell yourself.
So that's the goal is the
end goal is you're going to
want a long section on yours.
But what we were talking about on this
conversation that you need to keep in mind
is how are you going to talk about that?
How are you framing the conversation,
which features and their benefits?
Oh, that was another thing I want to
make sure I say before we close is all of
this discussion of features is not really
to talk about the technical features.
It's to ascertain what
end benefits is best.
The email template library and the
number of templates you have only
matters in so much as people care.
And that's what I was saying is like,
that's the questions you want to get at
is like, what about our builder is good
is you want the benefit from the person
you're interviewing, you know, like
people really hate cropping their photos.
It like takes a lot of time or whatever.
And then you're saying,
Oh, that's a pain point.
And here's the benefit.
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