Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
95% Content is a show for B2B content teams who want to build trust with the 95% of buyers who are out-of-market today, but will be ready to buy in the future.
You can call it many different things: content marketing, demand creation, brand marketing, dark social, or zero-click content.
No matter what you call it, the goal is the same.
You want to reach future buyers on the social and content platforms they hang out on every single day, and in a way that compels them to want to work with you when they’re ready.
We’re going to cover how B2B companies can win with things like: organic social, short-form video, podcasting, YouTube, newsletters, webinars, and communities.
Because the best way to win today is to already be on your buyers short-list the day they decide they need a solution.
On this show hosted by Erik Jacobson, we’re going to explore how B2B content teams can do exactly that.
Erik [0:00:03]: I'm Erik Jacobson, welcome to 95% Percent Content, A show for B2B content teams who want to build trust with the ninety five
Erik [0:00:12]: Percent of buyers who are out of market today, but we'll be ready to buy in the future.
Erik [0:00:16]: Well, Regina, thank you for joining me today.
Erik [0:00:23]: This is gonna be a really fun episode.
Erik [0:00:25]: So you are the head of content at Rippling.
Erik [0:00:27]: I'm pretty sure it's safe to assume that almost a hundred percent of our audience is aware of what rip is.
Erik [0:00:34]: But, yeah, you all are what...
Erik [0:00:37]: I think maybe even has been coined in some ways or champion in some ways by you all as a compound startup.
Erik [0:00:44]: So effectively, you all are workforce management.
Erik [0:00:46]: I think you started more so in, like, Hr, but you've since expanded to multi product, multi persona.
Erik [0:00:53]: And sort of, like, integrated management across HR, It, finance, and even targeting, like, startups and founders with a collection of spend management, payroll, and one centralized platform for all of that.
Erik [0:01:07]: So From a content perspective, which is what we'll focus on today.
Erik [0:01:11]: It makes for an interesting challenge.
Erik [0:01:13]: A lot of opportunity, but a very interesting challenge in that you have to appeal to multiple personas.
Erik [0:01:20]: And sometimes it can be hard enough to get attention and awareness and trust with one persona, let alone, the four or five that you all have.
Erik [0:01:30]: So I know that's one area we'll focus on today, But maybe to start, just for the highest level perspective for everybody listening, what I would be curious about before we get into tactics and things like that, it's more of a philosophy.
Erik [0:01:44]: How do you all think about the different categories or buckets of your content if we just apply these two terms to it.
Erik [0:01:53]: So, like, the focus of our show, ninety five percent content, which is not meant to drive a conversion or a click or an inbound demo request off of that singular piece of content, it's more so the long term brand building and trust such that when somebody is in market six months from now, they come directly to Rippling because they've been following you all on Rippling plus.
Erik [0:02:17]: They've been subscribed to your newsletter, they're in your community and they just have an affinity towards you all as a result versus this five percent content, which is more so high intent keywords or things that people are in market today right now.
Erik [0:02:31]: Searching for a solution like Rippling.
Erik [0:02:34]: How do you all think about those two different categories of content when it just come just from a philosophy standpoint, whether it's like your prioritization of them or just what level of importance you place on each
Regina [0:02:46]: a great question to start the conversation with, and I love that term, ninety five percent content because a lot of folks and prospects are out of market and Of course, we wanna make sure that for the five percent that are in market that we optimize that, and we make it really easy to get in touch with people.
Regina [0:03:03]: But for us, that ninety five percent is that hundred percent.
Regina [0:03:07]: And when I thought about how do I paint an inspiring vision for the team, to get them excited and see the bigger picture.
Regina [0:03:18]: I actually started off with this meeting where I, like, tried to do that.
Regina [0:03:23]: So I kinda came in and I was like, okay.
Regina [0:03:25]: Here's our initiatives.
Regina [0:03:26]: We're gonna grow our Youtube channel.
Regina [0:03:29]: We're gonna, like, update our website.
Regina [0:03:31]: We're gonna, like, talk about the news more and how it relates to Rippling.
Regina [0:03:36]: And I went, like, deep on the initiatives and it totally flopped.
Regina [0:03:40]: People were turning their camera off.
Regina [0:03:43]: Eyes were gl over, and I was like, oh, no.
Regina [0:03:46]: I, like, did not inspire the team whatsoever in our content agreement remit.
Regina [0:03:51]: And then I had to go on vacation, so then I got to, like, rum on how that meeting went for a while, and I went on vacation to Europe.
Regina [0:03:59]: And one thing that we did a lot of was go to museums, and I had this, like, Aha moment where great content is like a great museum experience.
Regina [0:04:08]: And I actually curated that vision with a museum analogy.
Regina [0:04:14]: And so the way I think about those buckets is in a couple of ways, and I'll use the met in New York as an example.
Regina [0:04:21]: Because it's like, in my opinion the bus museum in the world.
Regina [0:04:23]: Your visit to the museum doesn't start when you walk in through the door.
Regina [0:04:27]: It starts when you walk out of the subway and you see a street art or a banner about the newest exhibit.
Regina [0:04:34]: It starts when you get an email about something new and fresh that's coming up at the museum or when there's a new exhibit town.
Regina [0:04:42]: And that's how we started to think about our social media presence is our social media manager is almost a street artist, the banner artist to get people to stop the scroll.
Regina [0:04:54]: And want to visit the museum.
Regina [0:04:57]: And because we're aiming for that ninety five percent of content people if we come out with, like, a Youtube series or if we have something funny that we try on Linkedin as, you know, corporate humor, Our Cta isn't like book a demo.
Regina [0:05:12]: It's go to Rippling plus where we can give you additional relevant content.
Regina [0:05:16]: Now we've entertained you up next.
Regina [0:05:19]: We're gonna educate you.
Regina [0:05:20]: So that's like the street art in the banner.
Regina [0:05:22]: That's bucket number one.
Regina [0:05:23]: Bucket number two is when you walk into the museum, you tend to see exhibits.
Regina [0:05:28]: And because Rippling cells to so many personas, we can't just have one exhibit.
Regina [0:05:34]: We have multiple exhibits.
Regina [0:05:37]: And it's not just any museum.
Regina [0:05:40]: Right?
Regina [0:05:40]: It's not your grandma's museum.
Regina [0:05:42]: This is an interesting multi dimensional collection of series that helps people really think about their roles and to give them the tools and the templates to accelerate it.
Regina [0:05:53]: So switching back to the museum analogy, you go and you see paintings and you see a collection of art, and it's not just like, random shit thrown at the wall, it all makes sense.
Regina [0:06:04]: It follows a theme, and, you know, the It team might have a science exhibit.
Regina [0:06:10]: The start team might have, like, contemporary pieces I could not figure out the finance example.
Regina [0:06:17]: So I was like, know wayne like, you guys are showing off coins.
Regina [0:06:21]: But with all of these paintings, you then have artifacts that you can take home with you through the gift shop, and that's how we think about our downloadable templates.
Regina [0:06:30]: And then as you're walking out of the museum, you might see sign to apply for membership.
Regina [0:06:35]: And the equivalent for that to us is joining our community where you get even more benefits from being member of the museum.
Regina [0:06:43]: And the way that we activated this flywheel is from the sparks that we got at the exhibits from the sparks that we're getting from community insights that then feeds into our street arts and into our banners.
Regina [0:06:57]: When I laid out the content vision in that way, people were locked in.
Regina [0:07:02]: Like, they like, completely changed the conversation.
Regina [0:07:05]: And at one point, we were debating this type of content that we wanted to do for HR and the HR manager was, like, Okay.
Regina [0:07:12]: But that's not our mona, Lisa, and I was like, perfect.
Regina [0:07:14]: That's exactly how we should be thinking about our content less is more here, and how do we really think about a curated museum experience whether you're inside of the museum or not?
Erik [0:07:25]: It's such a unique and helpful analogy, and I think it checks the boxes on painting that vision that everybody then can align on, especially with such a diverse set of audiences that you you need to appeal to.
Erik [0:07:38]: So there's a lot that we can go into there.
Erik [0:07:40]: Maybe to start is how does that process work?
Erik [0:07:45]: Is there a starting point for that between the street art or what's the exhibit gonna be?
Erik [0:07:52]: Or what's the flow look like to the membership community aspect?
Erik [0:07:56]: Do you start with from a content strategy perspective.
Erik [0:08:00]: Here's what this exhibit is gonna be for this persona essentially and then work outwards from there or and then have a cadence for that, You know, some are maybe recurring.
Erik [0:08:11]: They're always on.
Erik [0:08:12]: Maybe others are more like campaigns.
Regina [0:08:15]: Mh.
Erik [0:08:15]: And then that trickle out to, okay.
Erik [0:08:17]: Here's what our external platform, quote unquote the street are is going to be driving to that exhibit in this way?
Erik [0:08:26]: Or, yeah, how does that flow work essentially from a strategy perspective?
Regina [0:08:31]: Yeah.
Regina [0:08:31]: We're actually deep in annual planning right now.
Regina [0:08:34]: For those listening, I salute you, and I wish you good luck.
Regina [0:08:37]: The way that we approach planning out Rippling is the equivalent to the museum analogy is like, the word on the street.
Regina [0:08:46]: So we listen to Gong sentiment.
Regina [0:08:48]: Closed one analysis, We look at all the deals that we had won in the quarter, and we try to extrapolate the common pattern.
Regina [0:08:56]: Of how we differentiated it at.
Regina [0:08:59]: And that's led by our Pm team, to establish what are the strategic themes that we wanna focus on and what are our product launches for the quarter and what's the narrative that we wanna tell behind it.
Regina [0:09:13]: So they kick off the process?
Regina [0:09:15]: K.
Regina [0:09:16]: And the hand over the themes to the content team and the content team then has a brainstorm and a working session on how do we bring those themes to life?
Regina [0:09:26]: And we actually approach it in parallel.
Regina [0:09:28]: So we say, okay, what are the exhibits gonna be?
Regina [0:09:31]: And I think what's really a a mistake of what teams content teams are tempted to do is have, like, one off webinars or, like, random webinars that don't have a theme.
Regina [0:09:41]: And so we really like to think about, like, what's the series.
Regina [0:09:44]: What do we wanna call it?
Regina [0:09:45]: So for example, a theme that we had was automation, like, that's a big differentiator for us is when customers can automate the boring busy work it frees them up to do strategic work.
Regina [0:09:57]: And that's true for all of the personas that we sell to.
Erik [0:10:00]: Yeah.
Regina [0:10:00]: So for Hr, we created a series called the automation advantage.
Regina [0:10:03]: And we love an as marketers, and it showcased customers and the great automation workflows that they set out to and what it enabled them to do.
Regina [0:10:12]: We also think about the social aspect of it?
Regina [0:10:16]: Do we create customer focused videos?
Regina [0:10:18]: Can we come up with a Youtube series that is purely for entertainment around the min of corporate light?
Regina [0:10:26]: A way that feels relatable and, like, we're speaking insider baseball to them.
Regina [0:10:29]: And then we think about what are the unique community programs that we can then glean from that theme to pool people to wanna join that community and engage with members further the then we all come back together as a team, and we make sure that our project launches are cohesive with our webinars and the gated content that we wanna create and all of those other elements, and then we set up weekly rhythms to make sure that we're on track.
Regina [0:10:55]: That strategy.
Erik [0:10:58]: Super smart because I could see how it could be easy for it to feel potentially overwhelming when you arrive to the museum?
Erik [0:11:08]: Yep.
Erik [0:11:08]: And there's a lot of, like, dis one off pieces of content.
Erik [0:11:13]: Yeah.
Erik [0:11:14]: Versus, like, these pillars or these, like, series that there's the connective tissue between maybe what they saw on social.
Erik [0:11:21]: And what's being talked about on social.
Regina [0:11:24]: Yep.
Erik [0:11:24]: To then now what's inside of Rippling plus to then now what's get carried forward even further and deeper in the community.
Regina [0:11:31]: Mh.
Erik [0:11:32]: And one thing that's especially fantastic about, like, the series approach especially with a platform like Rippling Plus is that it is a strong incentive to follow or want to subscribe.
Erik [0:11:43]: The concept of not wanting to miss the next installment is the foundation of series based content and it's a really strong pull for people who are watching it now and liked it.
Erik [0:11:57]: And it's, like, what's that natural next step for them.
Erik [0:12:00]: You don't even necessarily have to ask them to subscribe when it's a series because they will just feel that naturally if the content is something that they enjoyed.
Erik [0:12:09]: So...
Erik [0:12:10]: Yeah.
Erik [0:12:10]: I love that approach.
Erik [0:12:12]: If you could describe for those who don't know more about what are the types of content inside of Rippling plus.
Erik [0:12:19]: How does that strategy work?
Erik [0:12:22]: Because that's...
Regina [0:12:22]: Mh.
Erik [0:12:23]: That's an owned platform, quote unquote?
Erik [0:12:25]: And so I'm curious what was the strategy around that just in general?
Erik [0:12:29]: And, like, is it mostly video series inside of there?
Erik [0:12:32]: Or do you also have written based reports and research and things like that?
Erik [0:12:37]: Or, yeah, What does that all just look like?
Regina [0:12:39]: Yeah.
Regina [0:12:39]: One thing about the content element.
Regina [0:12:41]: I I forgot to mention it the strategy.
Regina [0:12:43]: What we also have the team focus on every quarter and this is related to the content flywheel that we've started is to take a look back at the quarter and say, like, what did you accomplish?
Regina [0:12:54]: Like, what were your wins?
Regina [0:12:55]: What was your highest performing content?
Regina [0:12:57]: What do you think that was?
Regina [0:12:58]: And then also what content blocked.
Regina [0:13:00]: And what do you think that was?
Regina [0:13:02]: Like, what was the learning?
Regina [0:13:03]: And then we also think about each of our personas, where they are today and where we want them to be.
Regina [0:13:09]: Ninety days later.
Regina [0:13:11]: So, you know, it could be that they are feeling hesitant about the changes in Ai or everyone's talking about Ai.
Regina [0:13:18]: I no one knows what to do with it, and here's how we want them to feel, which is typically, like, we want them to fill empowered.
Regina [0:13:24]: We want them to have a positive affinity for Rippling.
Regina [0:13:28]: And then taking that from too as the basis for their plan.
Regina [0:13:32]: Mh.
Regina [0:13:32]: They then flush out a content plan for how they think that they can help that persona I get there.
Regina [0:13:37]: And when we think about activating a content flywheel, I'm a big fan of, like, recycle like, can we squeeze as much juice out of this content as we can?
Regina [0:13:47]: And Yes.
Regina [0:13:48]: Because we're also busy.
Regina [0:13:50]: There's a temptation to wanna just spit out a webinar, and then move on to the next one, but you're sending a gold mine of, like, amazing insights.
Regina [0:13:58]: And so I always encourage the team to look at the webinar transcript and think, like, how can we squeeze the most juice out of it?
Regina [0:14:05]: Yes.
Regina [0:14:05]: Hate it or not.
Regina [0:14:06]: Like, how do we give our audience that value that they're looking for?
Regina [0:14:09]: In a way that needs them where they are and how they like to receive information.
Regina [0:14:14]: So for us, the way that we're activating the flywheel is primarily accelerated by a video first approach that's assisted with Ai.
Regina [0:14:24]: And what I mean by that is we come up with a content series of the episodes that we wanna cover the overall theme, and then we find folks that are the best to speak to those topics.
Regina [0:14:35]: And when we have the webinar conversation.
Regina [0:14:39]: Well, when me I actually take a step back.
Regina [0:14:41]: We then create a brief and we temp it.
Regina [0:14:45]: So in this brief, we have, like, okay.
Regina [0:14:47]: Here's the overview.
Regina [0:14:48]: Here's the goals that we have And then we've pre populated, like, here's the landing page copy.
Regina [0:14:54]: Here's what the paid assets are gonna look like.
Regina [0:14:56]: Here's the project plan.
Regina [0:14:57]: So we're both thinking about the narrative as well as the distribution right from the get go.
Regina [0:15:02]: Yes.
Regina [0:15:03]: Think that's another element is, like, distribution as a total afterthought.
Regina [0:15:05]: Sometimes, like, we Yeah.
Regina [0:15:07]: Throw our hard soul into these webinars, and there's back and forth and it's hard blah blah blah.
Regina [0:15:12]: But if we don't, like, think about the distribution, it's that classic, like, forest falling it a tree analogy.
Erik [0:15:18]: Yes.
Regina [0:15:19]: So, yeah.
Regina [0:15:19]: So from there, we have our overview, our distribution plan, and then we pull the transcript from the conversation, and we upload it into Ai and we say, hey.
Regina [0:15:30]: Give us five angles for what gated content that you think would be great or what type of content would be great.
Regina [0:15:36]: And Ai job is to recommend things to us, but, ultimately, it's our final decision of what will resonate with our audience or not, and we're big fans of experimentation here.
Regina [0:15:46]: So we try, like, gated reports, Linkedin carousel sells, shorter series where we do, like, a quick recap, and we upload it to Youtube when we see if that works, And in our weekly meetings, we review, are those methods working or not and what can we learn from each other.
Regina [0:16:05]: And so the touch points of where Ai is really accelerating this for us so that we can increase the velocity is in helping shape the overview, helping shape the distribution plan, actually using that to propose landing page copy, paid ad copy, and then in recommending and sometimes shaping the gated asset element.
Erik [0:16:27]: Yes.
Erik [0:16:27]: I think that's the perfect approach because it helps with the execution, but the decisions still rests with the team.
Erik [0:16:35]: You all will have that context for the Ic for what your key themes are that the product marketing team has, like, bubble up and, like, connecting those strategies together.
Erik [0:16:47]: So it it really just...
Erik [0:16:48]: It really helps...
Erik [0:16:49]: And this is one thing that we can get into is, like, what does the team structure look like?
Erik [0:16:52]: Like, how have you sort of designed the team but just really helping everybody be able to execute in the same amount of hours, more work than they were before at the same level of quality.
Erik [0:17:04]: Yeah.
Erik [0:17:05]: So what does the team look like then?
Erik [0:17:08]: How you...
Erik [0:17:09]: Because I know what you've shared is you are a very operations and process minded content leader?
Erik [0:17:16]: And then you've got, obviously, folks who are helping on the execution side.
Erik [0:17:21]: So then, yeah, what does that look like just from you know, whether it's like the org chart perspective or just...
Erik [0:17:26]: How does the day to day team structure engine work?
Regina [0:17:29]: Yeah.
Regina [0:17:29]: Not only are they the executor they're, like, the creative brain power of this team?
Regina [0:17:35]: And I think it's, like, pretty interesting that I got hired into this role because I'm not a great content writer.
Regina [0:17:44]: It's not where I spike, but what I am really good at is operations and data and analysis and, like, giving the team structure sure so that balance of operational rigor and creativity just helps us gel well and meet our targets.
Regina [0:17:59]: So we have a pretty interesting structure here at Rippling, given the complex city of the personas that we sell into.
Regina [0:18:07]: So we sell into HR finance, It startups.
Regina [0:18:11]: We have a global presence, and the way that this works is that every content manager sits in a pod.
Regina [0:18:20]: And they report into a business unit leader.
Regina [0:18:23]: And within that pod structure, let me take HR as an example, we have marketers who specialize in events, content, demand gen, and they have really closed contacts and work cross functionally with each other to solve that fuel in that engine of bringing our content to market.
Regina [0:18:44]: They also dotted line into me into the content org so that we increase cross poll pollution across Yeah.
Regina [0:18:52]: Different content areas.
Regina [0:18:54]: And I think that model works for two reasons.
Regina [0:18:57]: The first is you're really closely tied to your persona because you're work you a pod and you have a close connection to Pm and sales leaders, and you have the added benefit that there is now a pure community of these content managers who have similar roles and can inspire one another.
Regina [0:19:16]: To ensure that we have content consistency, but enough layered nuance to resonate with the different kinds of personas that we sell into.
Regina [0:19:24]: One thing that works for us is on Mondays, we meet as a team and the structure helps to unlock and identify areas of cross poll nation.
Regina [0:19:36]: And it's also just like a fun way to start the week.
Regina [0:19:38]: So we do a couple of things.
Regina [0:19:40]: The first is we share are Rose but thorn So Rose was the highlight from last week.
Regina [0:19:46]: The thorn was the annoying thing about last week And then the bud is what you're looking forward to this week?
Regina [0:19:53]: Aka.
Regina [0:19:54]: What are you working on?
Regina [0:19:55]: Then we look into our metrics and we're looking at the growth in our subscriber base, open rates, click through rates, a lot of the leading indicators Yeah.
Regina [0:20:06]: To help direct us if something needs our attention or something is going really well and we wanna share that win.
Regina [0:20:12]: And then we do a show and tell.
Regina [0:20:15]: And the show and towel is such an unlock because it's one thing to say, hey, I'm working on this operations report and it's another to show it and to show the, like, cool data that we're getting or the cool way that we're distributing the report, and it starts to inspire a lot of teams of, like, oh, wait.
Regina [0:20:31]: I could do that for something I'm working on.
Regina [0:20:33]: And an example of that is our start content manager was working on an Ai fluency, content piece, which is basically a way for hiring managers to test core Ai fluency, and our HR manager saw that.
Regina [0:20:49]: She's like, perfect.
Regina [0:20:50]: I need that too.
Regina [0:20:51]: And so then we, like, cross poll across our shared audiences, and it ended up resulting in thousands of leads and downloads.
Regina [0:20:59]: So that's just an example of how that, like, cross poll nation.
Erik [0:21:03]: Yeah.
Regina [0:21:04]: Can really work.
Regina [0:21:04]: And how balancing a pod structure where you have the context of the persona with a cross functional content team to inspire one another is helping us meet our pipeline goals and is helping us, like, go to market really quickly with our content.
Erik [0:21:23]: Yeah.
Erik [0:21:23]: Because there's something that's really great now, which is in content, we have a lot of tools in the tool belt and a lot of platforms.
Erik [0:21:31]: That we can attract audiences on and build trust with, but at the same time, it is extremely hard for one person to be tactically in the weeds executing on that, while also staying on top of updates to what's working well on certain platforms or certain content approaches.
Regina [0:21:53]: Mh.
Erik [0:21:53]: And so getting that group feel where you can, like, all share things.
Erik [0:21:58]: Then these can be very small things, for example, Youtube rolling out a new feature where you can not only AB test thumbnails, which they've had for a bit.
Erik [0:22:08]: Yeah.
Erik [0:22:08]: But you can Abc test the titles of the video.
Erik [0:22:11]: So when you publish, you can now have three titles in there, and then after a couple days, it will tell you through click through automatically, this one's getting the highest click there.
Erik [0:22:21]: So now we'll make this appear to everybody.
Erik [0:22:24]: That's a thing that's really hard for one person to, like, be up on across all platforms at all times while, like, creating the reports and, like, getting the content and all of that.
Erik [0:22:34]: It's almost like that peer group, I think is really, really valuable.
Erik [0:22:37]: Yeah.
Erik [0:22:38]: So when it comes to the measurement of this stuff.
Erik [0:22:44]: How do you look at what is cons success?
Erik [0:22:50]: You've obviously got the leading indicators and then the lagging indicator which the whole point of all of this is for pipeline and revenue.
Erik [0:22:59]: But on the way to that or even in the ability to connect these things to that, how do you all look at that in general?
Erik [0:23:07]: Do you look at just like, hey, we want the highest engagement in platform.
Erik [0:23:12]: We want our subscribers.
Erik [0:23:14]: We want our open rates.
Erik [0:23:16]: We want our average view duration, all the sort of in platform metrics to be going up and we can see that increase over time and we know the result of that means that this content is working, and we are going to eventually see the ultimate result from that or there other ways you look at just the measurement side of all this as well.
Regina [0:23:38]: This is the thing I did week one.
Regina [0:23:40]: When I joined the job was figure out and create a very simple to follow dashboard because a lot of our roles as content leaders is internal marketing and sometimes the internal marketing is just as and even more important than the marketing that we do to our audience.
Regina [0:23:58]: So I wanted to get a lay of the land, and it helps for me to work backwards in figuring out the lagging indicators and the leading indicators.
Regina [0:24:08]: So the way that you mentioned it right now is spot on.
Regina [0:24:10]: For the lagging indicators, a couple of things I was curious about is how much of our pipeline was last touch attribution for content versus content influence, same thing with revenue and I wanted to just kind of understand where those pieces are.
Regina [0:24:25]: And then I report on that monthly, and every week, what we look at are the leading indicators.
Regina [0:24:32]: And a couple of things that we look at is the increase in subscriber base.
Regina [0:24:36]: And if we start to see a decrease.
Regina [0:24:39]: It's time for us to turn our attention there and figure out why that's happening.
Regina [0:24:42]: We look at our open rates and our click through rates, We look at how many followers we have on social, And we look at how many leads that we're generating and how many downloads we're generating from our gated content.
Erik [0:24:56]: Mh.
Regina [0:24:57]: And the unlock for me of helping my team really build that distribution muscle is not just like checking the box when we release gated content, but setting themselves a goal for how many downloads they wanna have.
Regina [0:25:10]: An example of that is we created, like a diagnostic tool to help you assess the state of your software sp, and the data content looks really good, and we also make sure that we're tracking how many leads we have every week.
Regina [0:25:25]: So we report on it usually several months at a time.
Regina [0:25:29]: To see how much we're getting from it?
Regina [0:25:31]: And if that content manager isn't hitting her goal yet?
Regina [0:25:34]: It's time for her to look at, like, okay.
Erik [0:25:37]: Well
Regina [0:25:37]: what are we doing?
Regina [0:25:37]: Can I talk to the pay team?
Regina [0:25:39]: Are there other influencers that we can tap to share this tool sets.
Regina [0:25:43]: So.
Regina [0:25:43]: The act of releasing the content is not enough.
Regina [0:25:46]: We really wanna see how many leads we're generating and the impact that it's making.
Regina [0:25:50]: So those are, like, great for easy reporting.
Regina [0:25:54]: I think that power of content really lies in the anecdotal elements of what we're seeing in the content.
Regina [0:26:01]: Mh.
Regina [0:26:02]: For our HR community members that are joining us.
Regina [0:26:04]: Right now, we're, like, interviewing every single person that comes in through the door to really understand Are they looking for in the community?
Regina [0:26:11]: What's hard about their jobs right now.
Regina [0:26:12]: What other communities are they a member of?
Regina [0:26:14]: What do they like or dislike about it?
Regina [0:26:16]: And we ask them about our content as well, and that's where it gets, like, really helpful?
Regina [0:26:21]: Like, they'll say, hey, I loved this piece of content, But this one, I just, like, didn't really land on me.
Regina [0:26:27]: This one, I printed, and I gave to my team, whereas this one, it just was a little bit hard for me to get value from it.
Regina [0:26:34]: So I think for those who are trying to, like, improve their content or get sentiment from it.
Regina [0:26:41]: A great way to do that is to, like, set up keywords words and gong.
Regina [0:26:44]: And for me, it's, like, newsletter.
Regina [0:26:46]: When I ran events that I last job, it was, like, events or specific and you get emails where you can see what people are organically saying about the content that you're sending out.
Regina [0:26:57]: The other thing that I'm pulling together is as I assemble my content vision for twenty twenty six is I'm going to sample like, a couple of deals that we got that was, like, content last touch attributed.
Regina [0:27:09]: And then I wanna follow the journey of those, like, the twelve deals.
Erik [0:27:13]: Yeah.
Regina [0:27:14]: To really paint that picture.
Regina [0:27:15]: For example, you might find that, like, a bunch of individual contributors or attending your webinar, but then you end up booking a call with the managers, so that could be an indication that, like, Right.
Regina [0:27:25]: They're telling their boss about this great webinar or that they saw.
Regina [0:27:29]: So I would encourage people to balance Not only that data and getting that set up from the get go, but also going deep on a couple of deals where content really heavily influence their decision making and figure out why.
Erik [0:27:42]: Hundred percent.
Erik [0:27:43]: It's such a good reminder because the progression of how people are being influenced by content now is really difficult to track digitally.
Erik [0:27:53]: Like, to your point, maybe somebody, that would actually be amazing if somebody printed something out and, like, gave it to their team, but But a lot of times it's like, they're screenshot it and sending it in Slack or their text messaging, one of their peers or friends or coworkers, and it's impossible to track that.
Erik [0:28:12]: And so really the best way to get that is just asking qualitatively.
Erik [0:28:17]: Yeah.
Erik [0:28:18]: In feedback in surveys or on calls.
Erik [0:28:20]: And to your point, it doesn't have to be a huge number.
Erik [0:28:23]: We don't need to be, like, officially statistically significant like us scientific level.
Erik [0:28:30]: It's just like, even five ten, fifteen, twenty pieces of, like, anecdotal, qualitative feedback.
Erik [0:28:37]: Yeah.
Erik [0:28:37]: On calls or, like, some form of email back and forth whatever the case may be.
Erik [0:28:41]: Mh.
Erik [0:28:42]: Can truly make a massive difference in the decisions you make that then get even better results for your next pieces of content or the next approaches you take to double down on what work there.
Erik [0:28:55]: And also just give you that peace of mind of, like, This is working.
Erik [0:28:58]: If somebody is sharing this with a friend or with a peer, you couldn't ask for a stronger signal that the content is working.
Erik [0:29:06]: Oh.
Erik [0:29:07]: It's hard enough to get somebody to watch something and just themselves like it.
Erik [0:29:11]: But if they share it with a peer.
Erik [0:29:13]: Mh.
Erik [0:29:13]: That's them essentially, like, putting their reputation with that person on the line.
Erik [0:29:19]: Yeah.
Erik [0:29:20]: Because they're saying, watch this, and I think it's amazing and you should check it out.
Erik [0:29:24]: And so there's no stronger signal, but it's super hard to find that data.
Erik [0:29:28]: So to your point.
Erik [0:29:29]: I think it's and we...
Erik [0:29:30]: It's so easy to skip that step because it can feel like a waste of time or, like, Yeah.
Erik [0:29:34]: You know, we kind of we kind of already have a good sense, but I do think it's a good reminder.
Erik [0:29:38]: For everybody.
Regina [0:29:40]: And, like, what a great morale boost for the team.
Regina [0:29:42]: Yes.
Regina [0:29:42]: Right.
Regina [0:29:43]: Like, we wish as marketer or the buying journey was linear, like, first I go to a conference?
Regina [0:29:48]: Then you can I back Then I go to your website?
Regina [0:29:50]: Then I go take a product tour, and now look at me.
Regina [0:29:53]: I'm a customer.
Regina [0:29:53]: Like, that's is not how we make decisions.
Regina [0:29:56]: And when you find that anecdotal evidence, and you share with your leadership team with the team that you're a part of, it really helps validate that the work that we're doing is important, and it's critical to building trust even if it's not showing up in a dashboard in the immediate term.
Erik [0:30:14]: Hundred percent.
Erik [0:30:14]: When it comes to any sort of interesting tactical thing that you have seen work recently, on maybe any of these series that you have or any platform, you know, any of the external platforms.
Erik [0:30:30]: Is there anything interesting you or the team has found recently that could be a small, interesting observation or just a bigger Hey.
Erik [0:30:38]: This is pretty monumental, whether it comes for the video side of things, a social platform, Youtube, newsletter, webinar, Any interesting thing that you're excited about that you all have kinda unlocked recently?
Regina [0:30:50]: I have two things.
Regina [0:30:51]: The first is we wanted to launch this webinar, and we had, like, a week or two to ago and our registration numbers just weren't where we wanted them to be.
Regina [0:31:02]: So we've brainstorm as a team we're, like, okay.
Regina [0:31:04]: How do we get these registration numbers We don't wanna spend too much on budget, probably too late to send direct mail things like, what can we do.
Regina [0:31:11]: And one of the content managers had this great idea where we shoot, like, a fun trailer to promote the webinar.
Regina [0:31:19]: Almost like we're promoting a movie.
Erik [0:31:22]: Yes.
Regina [0:31:23]: It was this webinar about how this director of HR implemented a global rollout in, like, eight weeks and switched to to, replaying and how easy it was.
Regina [0:31:34]: And the team recorded this like, secrets, spy trailer where, like, they needed to, like, figure out how to, like, roll out the system in eight weeks and, like, the hosts, like, cuts out.
Regina [0:31:49]: Like, it's like a bond movie and Only way you figure it out is if you attend this webinar.
Regina [0:31:54]: And we're, like, hit our registration goal for that trailer.
Regina [0:31:57]: Like, I think people were just like, at what kind of viral and people like interested in what it was, it was, like, cutting the Min inertia Linkedin.
Erik [0:32:07]: Yes.
Regina [0:32:08]: And now we do that all the time, where, like, if we start to feel the registration numbers are slipping, we think of, like, okay.
Regina [0:32:14]: How can we do?
Regina [0:32:15]: Like, a really funny trailer.
Regina [0:32:16]: That's, like, quick and easy to produce.
Regina [0:32:19]: That tends to do well on organic social and get people interested in attending a conversation.
Regina [0:32:24]: So that was just like something we did.
Regina [0:32:27]: Like, I didn't know if who was gonna work or not, and now looks like the foundational element.
Regina [0:32:30]: Of our distribution.
Regina [0:32:32]: So...
Erik [0:32:33]: Perfect people.
Regina [0:32:34]: Taking the risk is is a great one.
Regina [0:32:35]: I have one more.
Regina [0:32:36]: If that's okay.
Regina [0:32:37]: Yeah.
Erik [0:32:38]: Absolutely.
Erik [0:32:38]: I love that.
Regina [0:32:39]: So I'm a big fan of Emily Kramer.
Regina [0:32:41]: I'm sure we all are.
Regina [0:32:42]: Yes.
Regina [0:32:42]: And hit her fuel versus engine analogy.
Regina [0:32:45]: Mh.
Regina [0:32:46]: Is deeply embedded in my brain as a content leads.
Regina [0:32:50]: So she thinks of content as the fuel and at the engine.
Regina [0:32:55]: And if both worked really well then you produce this beautiful car that will get you to Yeah.
Regina [0:33:01]: Gtn, Nirvana.
Regina [0:33:02]: And I am very close with my demand gen c lead, and we have this like, a really good fuel and engine model, and we meet frequently.
Regina [0:33:13]: So she knows what content is coming down the line and she'll report on, like, what's working well?
Regina [0:33:19]: What's not working well.
Regina [0:33:20]: She's, like, really optimizing the bottom of the funnel, and the way that we work well together is, like, my team is on point to drive registrations and content leads, and she's on point to then, like, turn all of that at activity into pipeline and to really optimize it and make it easy for Sdr str to book a call with our prospects.
Regina [0:33:43]: And so we're super close.
Regina [0:33:45]: And this actually happened last night, she came up with this or maybe someone on her team came up with a Gp where you can upload the gated content, and it will give you a description of the asset and then a call script that a Bd can use.
Erik [0:34:04]: Mh.
Regina [0:34:05]: Once they get the notification that this hot lead downloaded the gated content.
Regina [0:34:09]: And it's like, good.
Regina [0:34:10]: Like, it's not genErik, it's like deepened specific to the gated content.
Regina [0:34:14]: Yeah.
Regina [0:34:15]: And it see you on, like, here's your opener.
Regina [0:34:18]: Here's the questions you need to ask.
Regina [0:34:20]: Here's the Cta you need to give.
Regina [0:34:22]: Wow.
Regina [0:34:22]: And we put that down as a field in Salesforce.
Regina [0:34:24]: So now as, like, Bd are in their action station figuring out once to prioritize.
Regina [0:34:30]: We just have, like, super easy call scripts to go off of to increase the likelihood of conversion.
Regina [0:34:35]: And it was, like, so easy for me to do it.
Regina [0:34:38]: All I do is upload the gated content, and then it copies over into the Salesforce field.
Regina [0:34:43]: It's about was like, a great hack.
Erik [0:34:45]: That's super good.
Erik [0:34:46]: Yeah.
Erik [0:34:46]: Because, like, it's a really good experience as much as possible, connecting the thing that the person showed interest in with what the Bd r Sdr.
Erik [0:34:56]: Is reaching out to them about and how they're talking about it.
Erik [0:35:00]: It's not such, like, a super hard rate look that's, like, Yep.
Erik [0:35:05]: Disregard the thing that they expressed interest in.
Erik [0:35:07]: And it's, like, just reaching out to, like, book a call pretty much.
Erik [0:35:10]: I love that.
Erik [0:35:11]: Is there anything else that you think we haven't covered yet that you would...
Erik [0:35:17]: If, like, another content lead you were sort of giving advice to in general, and they were they were looking to...
Erik [0:35:24]: Be able to execute some of the things that you all are doing.
Erik [0:35:27]: Is there anything you think important that you would recommend to them to consider or do?
Erik [0:35:33]: Mh.
Erik [0:35:33]: That we haven't quite covered yet.
Regina [0:35:36]: One of our r values?
Regina [0:35:37]: Is to get to the ground level if something isn't working.
Regina [0:35:41]: And even, like, our CEO will get involved if there's, like, a customer support issue, and he processes our payroll.
Regina [0:35:50]: He approves every spends.
Regina [0:35:52]: And the reason why he does that is to, like, deeply feel the product and to make sure that we never lose that connection to our customers.
Regina [0:36:00]: And so for content, the recommendation that I would make is get yourself a really good dashboard that helps you see as best as you can, the end to end picture of your content both in terms of the velocity, the leading indicators and the lagging indicators, and where you see red, get really deep.
Erik [0:36:19]: Yes.
Regina [0:36:19]: And solving that specific problem.
Regina [0:36:21]: And the more data that you have to operate trump, the more you can pinpoint that problem.
Erik [0:36:28]: Yes.
Regina [0:36:28]: And, like, go in, like, for example, what I noticed recently is our assets, could use a little bit of, like, sp up in terms of the follow sequences.
Regina [0:36:38]: Yeah.
Regina [0:36:38]: So I pulled every single gated asset that we had this year.
Regina [0:36:42]: I checked to see what sequences is being followed and outreach, and then I looked at every single email and the open Mh.
Regina [0:36:49]: Rate and click through rate, I got really specific about...
Regina [0:36:52]: Okay.
Regina [0:36:52]: This is resonating well, this isn't a resonating well.
Regina [0:36:54]: And from there, you come up with, like, a plan on how you're going to improve it.
Regina [0:36:59]: And as a leader, if you just delegate that to your team, you might not get the deep insights that you're looking for is a leader that helps you turn to leadership and ask for resources and to think strategically about the business.
Regina [0:37:12]: So my advice would be to, like, get on the ground level with your team if you're noticing a part of your content process that's broken so that you can deeply understand the problem and advise your team best on how to fix it.
Erik [0:37:24]: Another great, great.
Erik [0:37:24]: Great note there because again, like, it can feel pretty overwhelming.
Erik [0:37:29]: I think for a content manager now.
Erik [0:37:31]: Just between everything they could do.
Erik [0:37:34]: I mean, there's people who dedicate forty plus hours a week, just to one specific platform like Youtube or just to linkedin in or, you know, you could spend all of your time on, like, one thing and still maybe not even be able to do everything you want with that one thing.
Erik [0:37:50]: Let alone multiple things.
Erik [0:37:52]: So the key here is this allows you to prioritize.
Regina [0:37:56]: Mh.
Erik [0:37:56]: Which I think is probably the most important thing because, like, if you're productive, but on the wrong thing, then you actually are not being productive.
Erik [0:38:04]: So it's like, this dashboard you're describing allows you to key in on, like, if I were to do one thing right now that makes everything else better, What would that one thing be?
Erik [0:38:13]: Like, that decision is the most important decision.
Erik [0:38:15]: But it can feel overwhelming in the day day without something like that to help you, like, make the decision on what is that thing.
Erik [0:38:22]: So Yeah.
Erik [0:38:23]: I think it's such a good reminder for everybody.
Regina [0:38:26]: Yeah.
Regina [0:38:26]: And, like, bring your team along.
Regina [0:38:28]: Right?
Regina [0:38:29]: Don't just, like, silently fix the problem on Sunday because it's to up again, teach them the dashboard, teach them the metrics.
Erik [0:38:38]: Yeah.
Regina [0:38:38]: Lay out the framework for how to solve the problem and make sure that they understand it and how you diagnose it and what you think should be done to fix the problem and then get out of their way and help them fix it and learn and then turn into the dashboard to make sure that that area starts to into the greeting.
Erik [0:38:56]: Yes.
Erik [0:38:56]: So good.
Erik [0:38:57]: Alright.
Erik [0:38:58]: Last question here.
Erik [0:38:59]: If anything comes to mind.
Erik [0:39:00]: So are there any people or companies that you are studying right now, just their content.
Erik [0:39:08]: Right?
Erik [0:39:08]: Like, you think they're doing a great job and you're impressed by what they're doing and taking some inspiration from it?
Regina [0:39:15]: I think there's two.
Regina [0:39:16]: The first is gong.
Regina [0:39:17]: I love how data driven their content is, but how silly and fun and self their social is.
Regina [0:39:25]: It's such for powerful.
Regina [0:39:27]: One two punch.
Regina [0:39:28]: And, like, there's host for genuinely funny.
Erik [0:39:31]: My it's
Regina [0:39:32]: there is someone who was, like, on the pulse of Tiktok and meme culture that is like, Yeah.
Regina [0:39:38]: Blending that in with corporate life, And so I think they do a really good job of entertaining their audience and then educating them with the power of their platform.
Regina [0:39:47]: And if you go into their content page, the way that they've categorized their content is around the jobs to be done for a seller.
Regina [0:39:55]: Yes.
Regina [0:39:56]: It's, like, in extremely simple terms.
Regina [0:39:58]: It's like, I wanna make more money.
Regina [0:40:00]: I wanna manage a team.
Regina [0:40:02]: I wanna like the insights from customers.
Regina [0:40:04]: Like, it's so easy to understand.
Erik [0:40:06]: Yeah.
Regina [0:40:06]: And it makes it really easy to navigate and get information from them.
Regina [0:40:09]: And I have my eye on notion and the way that they describe their product and the...
Regina [0:40:16]: Like, their videos are, like Oscar worthy.
Regina [0:40:19]: Like, it is beautiful.
Regina [0:40:20]: The way that they aren't, like, creating, like, a fifteen minute product Explain, it's, like, a daily hit of, like.
Regina [0:40:27]: Yes.
Regina [0:40:27]: One let me show you the power, and it's genuinely, like, super powerful.
Regina [0:40:32]: Like I've been really impressed with their Ai investments.
Regina [0:40:34]: And how they're using that to make the day to day for their customer was really easy.
Regina [0:40:39]: So I think they're just telling really powerful storytelling.
Erik [0:40:42]: Those are great.
Erik [0:40:43]: I would recommend everybody go check those out and also, not just take the lessons here, which Regina, this was amazing.
Erik [0:40:52]: But also go study them yourself.
Erik [0:40:54]: So I recommend everybody go check out Rippling plus.
Erik [0:40:57]: Go subscribe, go join the community.
Erik [0:41:00]: It's one thing I think to listen to these approaches, but actually going and put in your eyes in ears zone and everything, and we'll help connect all the dots.
Erik [0:41:08]: So recommend everybody to do that, Regina anywhere else.
Erik [0:41:11]: And you wanna point people too to either connect with you or anything else?
Regina [0:41:15]: Yeah.
Regina [0:41:15]: LinkedIn would be great.
Erik [0:41:16]: Awesome.
Erik [0:41:16]: Well, thank you so much.
Erik [0:41:17]: This was amazing.