Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
This show is made for B2B marketers who are tired of the same old advice. Ugi Djuric, CEO of ContentMonk and B2B Vault, sits down with some of the best minds in B2B to talk about what’s really working, what’s broken, and what nobody tells you about growing a company. This is the show where people share their deepest insights and secret knowledge they wouldn't otherwise share on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: 00:00
The number one most timeless marketing principle is probably that understanding that people don't give a shit about your product. No one is walking around thinking, like, I'd love to see a good ad right now. Do we have to go and create an entirely new category to compete there? You don't want to sell more of your product, then like, let's, let's not do marketing. Then, like, no one in our industry, like, has done anything with a sense of humor and it's funny. Picture of a guy with, like a rope around his neck and it was like the rope was being cut and it said, like, time to break up with your cpa. Someone messages me after, hey, that example that you used about X was awesome. I'm like, perfect. What you just said is like, that is marketing. You kidding me? If 50 years ago you could reach your ideal customers just through content and creative online without having to do anything, that's an incredible opportunity. They're not talking about products. They're not sharing, you know, demo videos. They're just making fun, relatable content. Alison on our team was like writing an email. She was like, sitting at her desk with her dog and a cup of coffee. Just take on, like a candid photo of you and be like, P.S. here I am on a cool Tuesday morning. I work out every day, but I have ice cream every night.
Speaker 2: 01:06
Hey, guys, it's Yugi here from Content Monk. And today's episode of the B2B show with Yugi is probably one of the most important highlights of the first season. Today, as a guest, we have one and Only Dave Gerhard, CEO of Exit 5. Probably one of the biggest B2B marketing experts out there. Dave is one of the first ambassadors of the founder brand. And we talk about many different things from what makes a perfect storytelling in B2B, how to make it, what are the frameworks, how to write winning copy, why your product is not for everyone, how to create a narrative and message of the playbook. And what are the growth and marketing strategies for the future of B2B marketing in the AI era? How to stand out, and a much, much more interesting topics that we covered. So sit tight and enjoy because for me personally, I love all episodes, but this one was one of the best and also the first time that I had a chance to meet one of the. One of the greatest people in the B2B world.
Speaker 3: 02:18
So enjoy. Marketing has gone through a lot of shifts in the last, I would say 15 years. And a lot of trends, you know, keep coming and, and going, right? And the playbooks that we are doing today. The playbooks that we used to do like 10 years ago didn't work five years ago. The playbooks that used to work like a two or three years ago do not work today. So tell me, like, what are some of the timeless marketing principles that used to work like hundreds years ago and that will work for hundred more years?
Speaker 1: 02:53
I think the number one most timeless marketing principle is probably that understanding that people don't give a shit about your product. They care about themselves. Right? No one is walking around thinking, like, I'd love to see a good ad right now, or, you know, I'd love to be interrupted by, by something. And I think getting attention is, is one part of marketing. And there are right and wrong ways, in my opinion, to get that attention. But I think really, really having a deep understanding of who are you trying to sell to? What makes them tick? What are the things they care about? How can you talk to them in their language? How can you get them to care? How can you get them to think about improving themselves? Most of us, even if we don't admit it, we are selfish. We're. We're humans. We're. We're selfishly wired. We're. We're wired to be around each other, to seek shelter, to have egos, to feel fragile, to want to impress people. There's all these kind of core emotional benefits. And I think that's where, that's where I would probably start if I wasn't able to like, pick a, pick a tactic or a tool or a channel. It's like, okay, how can I get this person to feel something so I can then tell them about the product and how we solve their problem and make their life better in some way.
Speaker 3: 04:08
Which probably brings us, I would say, to narrative positioning and messaging, right? Which can be the root cause of all problems in any B2B organization. Or if, like, you know, done correctly, it can be probably one of the main reasons why something works or while they are growing so big. So how do you approach these three things?
Speaker 1: 04:37
I think it's helpful to not even try to be a B2B marketer in this sense and just think about what makes a great story, what makes a compelling story, right? What? Watching I've been reading Harry Potter with my kids, and just the story arc is amazing. And so understanding the principles of storytelling, I think a lot of times we get caught up in. And I love all these, I love all these resources, and I rely on them. I'm not saying it's a negative way. What Comes up in the age of five, community is, hey, I need to get better at positioning. It's like, read this book from April, April Dunford, or read story brand, or read my thing or use this framework or here's this template. And it's so often when in my life, in my businesses, or what I'm working on, when we've gotten to a good story, it's very rarely from, like, we had this, like, Google Doc template and we walked through the whole exercise. It's very much like, no, we deeply understand the customer. We deeply understand the problem. You become obsessed with solving that problem. You become obsessed with the customer and that pain. And then you're out on a walk one day. You, you just have this creative idea about how you're gonna, how you're gonna share that story, and it becomes two or three lines of copy. And like, for Exit 5, it's been this concept of, like, you know, no one goes to school for B2B marketing. At Drift, when I worked, there was this site. It was like the, we made lead forms into this villain. You know, you can argue about whether that's right or wrong today. It's been a long time, right? But, but that was creative storytelling to make lead forms this villain. And no Forms kind of became the movement that the company rallied around. And so all of the positioning docs and decks and strategy templates and briefs in the world are not as concise as, like, no forms, as a slogan and as a movement to, like, rally the messaging round. And so I think that the more simple you can distill that message down, the better. The best resource I've ever seen on this is a book called the Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs by this guy, Carmine Gella. And if you've never taken notes and watched, like, the Steve Jobs, like 2007 Apple, you know, when he first did the iPhone keynote, it's amazing just how intentional every word was. But how simple it was is a, is an excellent lesson in, in storytelling. So I, I, I would start there.
Speaker 3: 06:55
How would you define a good story?
Speaker 1: 06:57
Probably lots of ways. I'm just trying to think about, for me, like, which books do I finish? A good story is one that keeps me interested. A good story is one that keeps you, it keeps you interested, keeps you engaged. Right? Okay, so what makes you, what makes it interesting? What makes you, what, what keeps you engaged? Probably some type of. There's some type of pain, some type of friction. There's kind of some before and after, maybe some transformation, there's some type of tension there's some type of conflict. Maybe there's, there's a hero, maybe there's a good guy and a bad guy. Maybe there's some type of mystery or intrigue. I think those are all ingredients that, that could be pulled on to craft your story. I don't think there's one way.
Speaker 3: 07:42
Let's go one step, one step, one step back. Right? If the company is in a very crowded category, right, the crowded market where we have a lot of me to popping every single week, what would be your approach? Is it more to focus on the existing category or try to narrow down and be X for Y and try to kind of define the little subcategory in, in a bigger space, how would you approach that? Or to try and catch as much demand as possible from the existing one?
Speaker 1: 08:20
I think, I don't, I don't have a strong opinion on, on this. I think it's funny because there's, there's been a lot of people over the years who get really hot and bothered and, and get in arguments online about creating a category or not. I think that a lot of companies tried to do it in tech and didn't do it successfully. And there kind of became this line of thinking that like that was the only way to do it. Right. And I think this is where context matters a lot. If I'm, if you and me want to start a Riverside, if we want to start a podcast recording service and it's competitive to Riverside, right, Do we have to go and create an entirely new category to, to, to compete there or could we be happy? This is the part I've never understood about it. Could, could, if, if Dave and Oogie were happy building a nice, small, profitable 2 to 3 million dollar a year SaaS business and we were like, yeah, we're like Riverside, but like a little bit cheaper and I don't know, our color is green. Wouldn't that, wouldn't that work? Wouldn't that, wouldn't that be successful for us, for you and me, like, if we're happy with that. Right. And so I think on the other side of things, I think that we have a lot of founders. You know, if you, if you raise VC dollars, you have to chase this big outcome and so you have to sell this really big vision and you have to try to come up with a category that can be as big as, you know, CRM or something like that. And I, I think that's really hard, right, because there are so many copycat products. There are so many similar things today. And even if you look at the chatter online, even if something is new, especially I see this in, in like martech or Sales tech, right? Everyone just starts rolling their eyes because they're like, oh, great, another vendor has another. Another name of something, another new acronym, right? And so those are all, to me, like, objections in the market that you'd have to address head on. And I think that probably the real. To truly create a new category, you have to be that, like, 1% founder with, where you're not, like, starting a company and then trying to create a category. You're starting the company because you fundamentally have that vision. And the company is being built because it is completely different from the beginning. And so you can't, like, be building your podcasting app and then being like, hey, marketing guy, like, come up with our categories. It's like, no, because the design for that category has to be fundamentally architected around the product. What is the product? What is our way of doing things? What is. What is complete? You know, ChatGPT is giving us a completely new way to search for things online. They, they weren't trying to, you know, there wasn't like, marketing spin that was rethought from, from the ground up. So I think that's where a lot of that stuff gets messed up. I also think we, We. We try to just stick too much to, like, something that. Something that seems good. Like, it seems good to be the only. We want to be the first or the only. I think there's a huge value in, in being different, you know, and putting your perspective on the. Putting your perspective on the market. And. But that has to start with the, the product vision. That's not a marketing spin thing, right? Marketing can help you get in there and deeply understand customers. And we're going to build this together. We're going to have. We're going to have beta customers. And, you know, this doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's like, we got. All right, we have this idea for Summit. We got five customers. Wow. They're using it and they're telling us that this is a whole new way. They've never done it this way before.
Speaker 3: 11:46
Like, so tell me, we have our narrative, we have our positioning, our story. Now it's time to choose the goals and to choose the strategy to, you know, reach those. Reach those milestones, quarterly milestones, yearly or whatever. So how do you approach that phase?
Speaker 1: 12:07
I think it starts and ends with. It should start to end with sales. Like, the goal should be like, we want to sell more stuff, right? And I think in our world, a lot of this gets tricky and muddy because a lot of times it's like, well, I'm working on a software company. I'm working with a software company. At least that's my experience. And the product is not ready yet, so we kind of want to start talking about it, but we're not ready to sell yet. And so therefore you can't measure marketing on direct, you know, just direct sales. And there's a lot of nonsense there. And I think this is where we can, we can learn from, like, I think the best. I love talking about marketing with, with a, a friend of mine who's like a small business owner, like my accountant, because it's like they don't think about attribution and MQLs and lead scoring. It's like, I want to get more clients, and that's important. I think you need to understand B2B. And it is complex and it's different. But I think like, the smartest people you talk to, they, they make things seem simple. Like, let's root everything in being simple. And so, sure, if you don't want to do, you don't want to sell. Sell more of your product, then like, let's, let's not do marketing then. You don't have to do that. Just, you don't have to do it. It's fine. It's not for everybody, right? But if you're like, okay, we got this product, we want to sell it, then we're going to, then we're going to use marketing. Okay? It's first principles. All right, so, so then how are we going to do marketing? Well, this is the fun part is let's evaluate the market. Let's look around and let's see. Okay, we're building a, you know, AI native CRM, a new way of doing a CRM. Okay, great. Let's look at all the who.
Speaker 3: 13:31
Who had.
Speaker 1: 13:32
Who is our. Who is the person we're trying to sell that to. Right? So like clearly defining that person. Not. And, and to start, not, not 10 different Personas, not 10 different ICVs. Like, let, let's focus in on one. Let's find one use case, one pocket of customers that we can really nail this for, because it's always going to be easier to add on multiple Personas as you go. And so I think, like, let's find that one specific avatar that's one specific person. And then I'm gonna do. Then I want to like, look at the market and see what other products. Who has their Attention. Who are they selling stuff to? Right? What, what com of those competitors? Like, how are they doing marketing? Oh, they're all doing events, they're all doing SEO, they're all doing ads. You know, they all go to these podcasts, they all go to these events, they are all, they're all sponsoring these podcasts. Okay, well, are we going to spend all of our money and try to like outspend them on all those channels? Probably not. We probably need like a wedge. Like we need some way to start. And so if I'm starting a new company and I'm like, yeah, you're my, my biggest competitor is Salesforce and they're advertising on all the top podcasts, then like, let's not go play on that channel. But where I think ultimately like this is about finding the gaps and understanding that marketing is a game of attention. And so where are the channels? And so actually, you know what? No one in our industry like has done anything with a sense of humor and it's funny and is making short form video. And so like, okay, we sell to hr. We're going to start trying to make hr. We're going to start trying to make like entertaining educational content for hr for HR people. That's just, that's just one, that's one angle. Right? Or let's say that like, okay, we do want to go to the event. Good to see you. We do want to go to the event that all of our competitors are at. We do want to go to Saster. Right. But we're not going to get a booth like everybody else. We want to try to get it. We're going to do something completely different. Right. Actually we, we found out that like Tuesday morning no one's doing a breakfast or our booth is going to be different. Like it's literally just trying to, trying to find the gaps. I want to try to find the opportunities as opposed to trying to, to compete in, in all the same channels. And then lastly, I think really having a bunch of ideas and hypothesis, but like committing to one or two channels. I think if you look back at any company that gains initial traction, it's almost always like one or two things. It's not a little bit of tick tock, a little bit of YouTube, a little bit of email, a little bit of ads. It's. Those things happen over time, but it's like one clear channel that you found and you have kind of, you know, topic, market, audience fit. And that's where you're, that's where you're going to start Start.
Speaker 3: 16:02
Yeah, but like, in, in most cases, I would say companies would be in a position where they have a lot of competitors who are present on many different channels at once. Right. And getting that attention on just like a one channel, such as, for example, I don't know, LinkedIn might not be, you know, sufficient for getting into the, you know, consideration set of, of their buyers. So, like, what's, what's that fix over there? Like, how do you either, like, there's.
Speaker 1: 16:34
There'S no fake that, that, that's the game you have to play.
Speaker 2: 16:36
Hey guys, just a real quick. Sorry for interrupting the episode. Did you ever feel overwhelmed with the amount of low quality and crappy content that you find on Google and LinkedIn? Well, B2B Vault, the producers of this episode, solve that problem. B2B Vault is a database of hundreds and hundreds of expert level insights and articles written by 300/B2B marketing experts. And B2B Vault monitors hundreds of websites every single week to uncover new trends and new articles. So you are the first to learn the new trends, insights and playbooks from the best B2B marketing minds. And every Monday morning, we send out a newsletter with a few most important reads every B2B marketeer should read at the start of their week to make sure that you hit your quota and get more deals in the pipeline. So just very quickly, if you're interested in this, go to the B2B Vault.com newsletter and join thousands of other B2B marketeers in our Monday newsletter. See you there.
Speaker 1: 17:45
If I'm saying like, okay, all my customers, all my customers are on LinkedIn, all my competitors are on LinkedIn. We're all saying the same thing. Then that's the problem to go solve then. Like, that is why creative matters. That is why the brand stuff matters. That is why having a different story and a hook and an offer matters. It could come in any form. It could come in like, we have an idea for a creative ad concept and we're selling. I saw one for like accounting software once and it was like a picture of a guy with like a rope around his neck. And it was like the rope was being cut and it said, like, time to break up with your cpa. It's like, that is, that's a me. That was a memorable ad. I don't know, I don't know if it worked right, but it's like, how do we, how do we get in, how do we get in that conversation? That, that's, that's where the art of like, coming up With a, a story, finding that, finding that pain point, finding that value prop, finding a way to, to like pitch your story in a way that's going to interrupt the feed.
Speaker 3: 18:45
Which brings us now to something I also wanted to ask you. Feedback loops. How do you know that the story or the content that you create or anything else, any tactic that you do, it's is working. Considering that the buying, you know, journey might be very, very long.
Speaker 1: 19:04
Well, I think the ultimate measure is sales, right. And that's not going to be direct, but that might take time. And so that would be like how I'd want, I'd want to measure this at the end of the day, right? But in the short term, if we start, if we, if we work on our story and the story doesn't come in the form of like, here's our story and then you hit publish and people are like, yay. It's like here is the story and we're going to, you know, we believe that our customers are on LinkedIn or they're on TikTok or whatever. We're going to start creating, we're going to start creating content. We're going to start, we're going to start distributing this story into the world via like social media. Short form content of some sort, right? Or it could be your CEO is your CEO gets invited to speak at a startup demo day and we're going to, you know, her presentation is going to be all it's going to be. We're going to weave messages from this story into her presentation. And after the event, three people come up to her and they tell her like that story. Like I totally feel that pain that resonated with me and I am this ideal, I am the customer, right? That's, that's not like a number in a spreadsheet, but that's kind of a feeling. It's like going, being a comedian and you're testing out new content. You go to a bunch of different clubs, you test out what stories you know, you tell jokes or you're around your friends and I'm sure we all have stories and anecdotes and examples. Like I do it all the time. If I'm, if I'm hosting a webinar and I use an example to highlight something and I see the chat like react or someone messages me after, hey, that example that you used about X was awesome. I'm like perfect. That is, that's the feedback that, that's, that's what I need. That's what I'm looking for. It's that. Okay, it's valid a little bit. It's not, it's not perfect, but it's a signal that. That's one exam. The signal could also come in other forms. It could be. I know when I write about this topic on LinkedIn or social media, the response is different than it is from when I, when I write about something else. And so therefore, this topic is. Is something I should go deeper on. This topic is landing. And in the early days, that could be like, no one's ever confident, commented on your post and today you got three comments, right? Or like, I'm, I'm sure you, I'm sure, I'm sure you feel this. Like you have a podcast. You put, you're putting out content. You did a webinar with us a couple weeks ago. It's like, I'm sure you got a couple DMS from people after that, and they're like, okay, cool. Like that thing that I talked about, like, I showed that N8N workflow thing, like that resonated with people. That's a seed for then you to be like, I should go create more, more content around this, because I think it would be valuable. It's that same thing. But just, you know, extrapolate it out for a company.
Speaker 3: 21:45
After this session that we had in Exit 5 on, like, AI workflows, like, literally that day and like a few days after, my inbox on LinkedIn was, like, flooded with, you know, messages like, hey, Ugi, like, what a great workflow. Like your session. Hey, I voted for you. You know, I think I had like 150 plus messages. And I, I know in those, like, two or three days, I got like 200 or so connection requests on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: 22:16
So.
Speaker 3: 22:16
So yeah, I guess definitely when you're doing something that people, people love you, definitely you, you can't. You. You cannot unnotice that. If you get what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1: 22:28
Sure, sure. And, and that. Wait, I just want to go, I want to keep going on that because I think what you just said is like, that is the, that is marketing, right? But it's like there's no framework there. There's nothing complicated there. It's like you prepared something. Now, granted, like, let's reverse engineer that. Like, you got asked to speak on this webinar. So that's just like back to your question about where would you start? Like, that would assume that, like, you're the founder of this company and you could get on a webinar. Okay, well, maybe that's a Good way to reach, it turns out for you, good way to reach your people is to work with people like NT5. It's like you have, you had an idea that was relevant to our audience. We had the audience, you got to speak and present. Now you could go and create. You're like, oh wow, I have a million ideas of what I could do for my business around AI and workflow of automation. Because I learned that on this thing. Right? The same would be true if you, if you sold, you know, if you sold the type of a snack, it didn't have to be enterprise software. It's the same thing. It's like I gave out samples of this thing to people and they liked it and they told me they want more of it and now I'm going to go figure out how to make more of it.
Speaker 3: 23:30
Exactly. Tell me, I would say like that most of companies and marketeers out there are under constant pressure of delivering results quickly. So how do you balance long term plays and short term, short term games?
Speaker 1: 23:49
Yeah, it's a, it's a hard, it's a hard question and I think a lot of times there's, there's no perfect answer. I don't have a pithy answer. It's a, one of those human nature things that's hard. It's like how do you like I, I work out every day but I have ice cream every night. You know those are, those, those, those are conflicting things. But humans, humans are capable of doing both. And so I think you have to be able to understand what, what are the, what are, first of all, what are the short short term and long term goals? Right. And so short term usually means like we need, we need to sell some stuff today because we gotta keep the lights on a little bit. And I think this is where even though we're talking about B2B it's, it's helpful to just think, think more like a brick and mortar business or a small business. It's like they might not have 24 months to like prove this concept out. It's like we gotta, we gotta sell some burritos like now.
Speaker 3: 24:43
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: 24:44
And I think a lot of the, a lot, a lot of the, a lot of the short term and long term things come from like okay, well I'm working at a venture backed startup and we got $10 million in the bank and so it's not super important for me to like sell 10 customers today. And that's like, that's why that stuff is hard to think about and hard to measure. But like, if you and me started, you know, our burrito stand and it's like, yeah, dude, we need to make money. We need to sell some of these things so we can like buy more ingredients so we can buy more, you know, buy another food truck so we can service more people. Like, you have to do the short term stuff. Short term is sales. And so I think a lot of times when we conflate short term and long term, we, we think that there's a disconnect between long term means brand and short term means sales. And it's like, no, because long term means hopefully you have a brand and then if more people, if more people know about our food truck over time, then they're gonna just gonna show up to it without us having to like spend money to advertise and get them to go there. So I think you gotta be able to do both. I think roughly, probably thinking in the terms of like 75% of your efforts are focused on today and 25% are focused on, you know, future or 70, 30. But I also think this, this question comes up a lot, also assumes that short term equals bad and short term is going to hurt you in the long run. And I think that's also false. It's like all the things we're doing today should help us build our brand so that after six months, 12 months, two years, three years, people know we are, they know our reputation, they're going to come to us. It's doesn't have to be this negative thing that short term equals bad. And those are going to hurt you from, for, in a long, in the long run.
Speaker 3: 26:20
If you're about, like to join some software company right now as a cmo, VP of marketing, like, whatever, like where would you start? Like what are the tactics or the playbooks that you would try to implement right away?
Speaker 1: 26:34
Content and social and social media content. I think that it's the most unbelievable marketing channel. It's like you can literally reach your direct, you can reach your customers directly online and you can do it nothing but your brain and your creativity and it actually doesn't cost a dollar. You could, you could start a TikTok account or an Instagram account or a podcast or YouTube shorts and you could make interesting content about your topic. And I, it's so funny that people in our industry, they love to like, for some reason they hate on like Gary Vee's lessons and playbook, maybe because of his delivery, but it's like if you just take that out, it's like, are you kidding me. If 50 years ago you could reach your ideal customers just through content and creative online without having to do any, that's. That's an incredible opportunity. And so that's what I, that's where I would start. And then in B2B, this, the content specifically that I think that that can work is education. I think people want to know how to be better and do better at their job. And so whether you're in HR or accounting or sales or finance or marketing, how can we help those people do better at work? And then there's lots of ways within there. It can be entertaining, it can be educational, it can be useful, it can be funny. You know, if you look at somebody like, like corporate bro or corporate Natalie, those, those two are hilarious. They, they make amazing videos and content about like, work, work life, you know, work culture and that. They're the perfect people to now like, launch a product or have something to sell to or, you know, they should be paid, however, a million dollars a year by Salesforce to like, promote their product. Because they, they have the audience. They have. They have the audience of salespeople, of knowledge workers, of sales and marketing people, of in office people, and they have their attention and they have their interest, and they've done it because they're not, they're not talking about products, they're not sharing, you know, demo videos. They're just making fun, relatable content. Now that's really hard. Not everybody is funny like that. And so then I. If we can't be funny like that in house, that's cringy. Then let's take a different approach and let's. But I think leading with, leading with the facts and being useful and specific, like for you, right, for you to grow your business, like, I don't think you have to make Q20 videos. You could, you could win by being like, I just share, like really practical stuff. Useful stuff for marketers. It's very specific. It's very tactical. You know, look at that guy. There's a guy on YouTube, Greg Eisenberg, he has this like startup ideas podcast and he literally just has people on and they just like, they just do what you did. They just like, he hosts it and then they demo their like N8N workflow. And it's like every video goes nuts because people want that type of content right now. There's not, it's not crazy. It's not crazy editing. It's not very funny. He's actually pretty dry. But it's perfectly useful for that audience that, that's where I would start.
Speaker 3: 29:28
It's funny you're saying all of this. I think recently, a few weeks back, I read somewhere from someone, I don't remember who exactly, but basically I'm paraphrasing and I guess this can also be included in that timeless marketing principles list. Basically our job as marketeers is to make our ICP succeed at their work, you know, or get whatever they want to get, you know, even before buying from us. So that's definitely on point. Tell me for all these years that I'm following you. You're talking a lot about copywriting and we both agree that copywriting is probably one of the most important skills any marketeer can, can learn. So then like, what are some, besides the, I would say first sentence, second sentence, we all know about, what are some like, copywriting principles we all know about and we learn from you, but what are some other like copywriting principles you consciously or subconsciously use in your daily, daily work?
Speaker 1: 30:45
Whenever you're writing something, I think one of them is always like, and this is like if I'm writing, whether I'm writing an email to my kids school or I'm sending an email for work, like I think always trying to convey the big idea in like the first one or two sentences of whatever you're writing. Because I think we're just wired to like, you know, if it's like, hey Dave, as you know, da da da da, our brain's just like, what is this about? I think we want the, we want the frame, we want the context. I think that make also it's, it's a good exercise because it's like the headline. We want to know what's in it. And I think you can do that with interest and intrigue and curiosity or you can just use fact based. But even today we were, we were looking at our newsletter that we send out with our team and I, I kind of went through it and just shared some feedback on like the, the reader experience. And I suggested like, we've been writing the newsletter and basically like each week in the newsletter we share a workflow or something that a marketer did. And my feedback was like, it's good. But it was too like storytelling. When I, when I wanted to have like, I think we should have like two or three lines up front that's like, hey, in the, in this edition of the newsletter we're going to tell you about Jillian. Jillian is the content marketing manager at User Evidence and she, she had this interesting play where she ran a survey and got 600 responses. And here's how she did it, right? I like that, like, pre, like that frame up front. Like, I'm going to tell you what this is about. And so I think really honing in on like, it's not just about being direct and getting to the point, but having that hook and being able to read something in the first one or two lines and get a sense for what this is about. I think that formatting is really underrated as a copywriting tool. And you know, people like to like shit on like the LinkedIn bros for like the bro tree, you know, like, line, line, line, line, line. But there is something to that in that it's very easy to read. It is very easy to follow. And ultimately, like, I, I don't care if everybody does that. I care if, like, could you read my message? I get you to read it. And so maybe you don't have to do that. Maybe you don't have to do that. But I just think it's about taking an eye and like you're going to write an email to a client or someone you work with. I think taking time to really think about the formatting matters. I also really, like, I think it's, I think one CTA is really important. I think a lot of times when we write something, we want to be like, okay, check out this thing. And then also next week we're doing this thing. And then also next week we're doing this is like that you'll, you'll be way more effective if we're going to send like one email. Like, the most effective email we send is like a webinar invite email. And we, we have our team. It's like, don't put any other links in that email. The only, there's one link in that email and that is to register for the webinar. If that's the goal. Right? Have one specific purpose. And I also still really love, like the ps. I've always loved using the ps and it's like, Dave, ps and I use the PS to either, like, reiterate something. So let's just say I told you about like, I'm sending you an email because I want to pitch you on joining our community. And then I might use the PS to be like, by the way, this week alone, 23 new members from six different countries joined. It's just a way of like, it kind of breaks the pattern and it's like a way to get another message in. Or well, this is another copywriting tip, but it could be. Or I Love using, like, personal anecdotes and stories in the copy to make it more readable, more believable, more authentic. So as an example, Allison on our team was, like, writing an email to send to people to our event to like, let them know that we're getting excited and she's excited and we'll see you soon. And we had a bunch of important updates. And I was like, just put, like, take a candid photo of, like, you. You know, she was, like, sitting at her desk with her dog and a cup of coffee. Just take on, like, a candid photo of you and be like, p. S. Here I am on a cool Tuesday morning in, you know, North Carolina. I did yoga this morning, and now I'm. I'm working on this email that I had to get out, and then I'm going to go for a run with my dog later. Right. That has nothing to do with selling anything, but it's more about being like, oh, this came from a person. This is a real. Like, there's something about making it authentic.
Speaker 3: 34:52
Tell me. I have two of your, I would say principles or sentences over here, very short, that I would like you to elaborate on on them a little bit. A little bit more. I wanted to prepare, like, these kind of, you know, bags, photos, whatever it is, but kind of thought of that at the very last moment. Okay, so here goes the first. Marketing is creativity in storytelling.
Speaker 1: 35:20
Did I say that?
Speaker 3: 35:22
Yep, you did. On one podcast, I think.
Speaker 1: 35:25
You sure about that? Who did that? Who found that? Your researchers? No, there's no way I said that.
Speaker 3: 35:29
My researchers? Yeah, you. You. You said that. I actually wanted to. You know, I listened to the audio myself.
Speaker 1: 35:36
Yeah, okay. Okay.
Speaker 3: 35:39
I think it was on some.
Speaker 1: 35:41
Marketing is creative in storytelling.
Speaker 3: 35:43
Something like that.
Speaker 1: 35:44
Marketing is creative in storytelling. I would say it goes back to what we said earlier, that I think storytelling is one of the key ingredients of successful marketing. But everyone was telling stories, right? Everyone's pumping out content. Everyone's trying to say something. And so the. The wedge is to, like, what is our. What is our angle? Like, the variable for success, there is going to be the creativity. Can we say it in a more creative way? You ever see somebody write something and it's a thought you've had for years, but damn it, they said it. They said it in a better way. They said it more concisely. They said it in a pithier way. It's like that. That's. I think that's what that means.
Speaker 3: 36:20
The second one. Branding is the last mode.
Speaker 1: 36:24
Yeah, branding. I would Say that probably brand. I think when I talk about brand, sometimes it. What it means in my head is not like the brand colors and the font and that stuff. It's like the reputation of that person or of that business. Oh, like, that's his brand. That's her brand. That's on brand. And I think the last moat is, like, because I say it's the last mode. It's because there are so many cop. You know, there's so many copycat products today. There's so much competition. And so if there are five accounting softwares that I could use for my business, I'm either going to buy, like, the legacy one that's always been around, because if I buy that, like, I'm probably not going to get fired for buying that one. Right? Or I can buy. If I want to take a chance, I could be like, you know what, though? Like, I've been. There's kind of this new accounting software that I've seen. And like, this is really weird, but the CEO has like a. Is really kind of quirky and like, she writes really interesting stuff on LinkedIn that I kind of like her. And then the. The website is different and the brand is different and their tone is different. They don't feel like QuickBooks. And you're like, I'm gonna use that. And I think that it's. It's the last. You know, it's. It's one of the last available differentiators. Right. Why did. Not to cite this example on a marketing podcast? Because everyone already has. But it's the. That's. That's why, like that liquid death as an example works really well because you're literally just selling water, but in a more creative and funny and interesting way. Yeah.
Speaker 3: 37:54
Okay, so tell me one of the last questions that I have for you before we wrap up. From one father to another father. What is the best advice you can give me to become a better father?
Speaker 1: 38:09
I'd say take your. Take your fitness and health really seriously. Because I think the ability to. I think the ability to be active and to be on the go and to say yes to everything and, okay, they want to go do this now. Go, go, go, go, go. Like, okay, they want to play catch, they want to go for a run, they want to go outside, they want to go to the park. Like, I. I think there's a. You know, I think it's very easy to kind of be lethargic and not be able to do it. And so I think out of all the things that you could possibly Control. And there's a lot of. I could have g. There's a lot of probably philosophical advice, but I'm trying to pick one that's very actionable. I think that that's one that continues to pay off for me. It's just like I'm 30 years older than him, and now I feel like I have more energy and, and I can keep up. And I think that's an important thing.
Speaker 3: 38:56
How do you, how do you win at the game called life? What is that winning for you?
Speaker 1: 39:04
I don't know. I'll tell you, I'll tell you when I, when I, when I get there. I think I've spent a lot of time contemplating this. I think as you get to a certain point in your life. You do. My perspective on it is, I think that, I think the purpose is to, I see my purpose as building a family, like, replicating your, your people, your unit. I think we're like, we're animals. We, we want to be around our, our unit, our pack. We want to hang out with each other. And so I've kind of just simplified it down to, like, I think the purpose is for us to live life and enjoy life together. And it's a gift and we're, we're happy to be here and lucky to be here and however long that time is, like, the ability to hang out, just, just live life together is, I think for me, it's family has given me the purpose and made the, like, man search for meaning super, super clear. And it's, it's also really helped me. I, I, I think for a while I was like, is this it? Is this it? Am I going to talk about B2B marketing until I die? This is it.
Speaker 3: 40:15
I love that.
Speaker 1: 40:15
And now, like, I'm so comfortable with that because I'm like, I, I love, I love doing it. I love, I do love marketing, but it's, it's a business to me. It's a, it's a means to an end, to allow, you know, it's a, it's an outlet to like, yeah, that's, I'm not, I'm not a plumber. I'm not an accountant. Turns out I'm, I'm good at marketing and helping businesses with marketing. And so, like, that's kind of where I spend my time with work so I can make money to buy food for my family. It's like the same, it's like the very basic, like the, I just try to simplify it down to that, and that's been really helpful.
Speaker 3: 40:46
I love that. I love that. Okay, Dave, before we go very quickly, where do you see marketing in the next two, three or five years? What are your insights from your own experience and all the data that you have as a founder of probably like the biggest marketing community, what do you predict?
Speaker 1: 41:05
Yeah, I mean the obvious answer is AI. Like I think that that's super real to me. I think there's a lot of hype about it, but I do think there's a lot of hype about the Internet. I think we're at the, it's, it's cool because this is the first, this is the first real one that I, I have enough, I'm old enough to have a little bit of history on it. Like a lot of the other trends before, like we were too young and stuff. But now it's like, oh yeah, like I have memory. I know what 1999 to. I wasn't working. You know, there's other people working in like.com startups and stuff then. But I think the, I think the AI stuff is really, I, I do believe it. It is going to change business, it is going to change sales and marketing and all those things. I think a lot is going to change there. I don't think those things are going to go away though in two to three to five years. I think just we humans are what, what we hear in this world, in the tech podcast marketing world is like this tiny sliver of like the 1% of like what's, what's reality. And I think most people are still slow to adopt it. Like I actually saw in somebody's email today, I saw that in September, AOL is like, they're ripping out of, they're ripping out of dial up Internet from the last remaining people. And there's like, there's still 175,000 people that are, have dial up Internet somewhere.
Speaker 3: 42:19
Why?
Speaker 1: 42:21
Yeah, it's crazy. So anyway, and who knows if that's true or not. I'm just riffing on this, right? But I think so I think overall things are going to be slower to like change. But I do think that the future of marketing is, I think it's the take I'm riffing on and kind of taking is that I think it's, I think what we're getting access to is like if we were marketers in 1999, 2000 and we're about to get access to like the Internet and you know how digital marketing kind of like brought a new wave of stuff. I kind of think that's, that's where things are at and, but what's also interesting to pair with that though is I think that, and this is not an original thought of mine, but something I totally agree with and we've felt it in our business. I think that on the same side of that, I think that real people things are also going to really matter a lot. And so I think you're going to like use AI to automate and run your business and ask ChatGPT questions. But I think like I talked about being a pack and being our family. I think we're all humans and we're wired to like, want to be around each other and connect with each other. And so I think I heard Casey Neistat talking about how like analog is going to be huge and still be huge. And it's like buying old video games. And the trend among like Gen Z is buying like, is like taking photos with like disposable cameras and using filters that look like old video cameras. I think. And we've seen events become such a huge thing in our business. People want to hang out. And so I think I would be betting on both of those things if I could hedge it in some way. It's like real people, real connection in person stuff that's going to be more, that's going to be more important than ever. Also, AI is coming and it's happening and it's real. And if I was in marketing right now, I would just, I would be leaning into AI as much as I can. I know there's a lot of people who, who want to go against it. I think you can come up with your creative take to do it, but there's, there's just so many, there's so many practical use cases that are really tough to argue with. I know that a lot of people are concerned about, you know, you're going to lose your, you're going to rot your brain out and you're not going to think for yourself anymore. But it's like, okay, but like I just did an hour call with a customer and like instantly after that call in Slack or like these, this perfect list of notes and action items and follow ups that like nobody had to do. And so there's just little examples like that that I think have me bullish about what it means. And if I was a marketer, I would be leaning into the stuff that you're leaning into and talking about and you know, finding new ways to use these tools. Because I still think that even though we're all going to have access to these Tools. Like, here's a good example. Everybody's making videos with like V3, right? It turns out it's not that easy. And you still have to be funny and you still have to have a funny concept and you still have to be creative. Like, you can't just write a prompt and magically, like, now you're funny. You. You have to have, you have to have a gut instinct for like, okay, what would be, what would be a funny little ad to make for our business? And, but, but I, I think there's value in leaning, in trying to figure out these, these tools right now and how AI could, could help in your work for sure.
Speaker 3: 45:16
I think the biggest problem we all have with tactics and people out there is that whenever they see a new tactic, they think the results are going to come immediately tomorrow. That's their new shiny thing that's going to silver bullet or whatever. But in reality, everything is the same. Everything works as long as you go back to the basics. And that's why I started with these timeless principles, like, if you have a good story, if you have a good offer, if people trust you, like, every. Everything that you do basically, like, work in this case or another.
Speaker 1: 45:54
What you just said, though, is I think people need to remember that that's not just. That's not just like a marketing thing, right? That's just human. That is how people, Humans are. It is, there's. It's a reason why every, every month, every year, there's a new diet out, there's a new workout system out, there's a new whatever, there's a new way to cook your food, there's new, faster way to do your laundry. There's new fa. It's just, it's human nature. So I think that a lot of people argue online about like, marketing is just a new thing or this, that it's like, this is just people, man. This is how it's always been. We're always going to do that. We're always going to want the short, we're always going to want the shortest answer. And I think it's. It's important to have discussions like this, where it's like, oh, that's actually a lot of nuance, but here's how we'd solve this with first principles, right?
Speaker 3: 46:41
Yep. That's great. That's great. Dave, thank you very much once again for being on the pod.
Speaker 1: 46:47
Thank you for having me. Good luck with all of your fame and success that you have from LinkedIn.
Speaker 3: 46:54
Thanks.