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We share our thoughts and ideas on how to grow a business.
For us, Grow and Convert
just has this engine going.
We started that engine with no SEO.
There is something to
just growing your brand.
If you wanted to buy an exercise bike,
what's the first brand you think of?
Peloton.
Right.
To take it a step further.
I mean, if we just think about now going
into the future, I think it's all those
queries, all the top of funnel queries
that everyone has gone after moving to AI.
Yeah.
Like look at what's happened.
The SERP is now all AI overviews.
So obviously Grow and Convert
is known for our obsession with
bottom of funnel content marketing.
And today I wanted to introduce a topic
and have a discussion with Benji, kind
of playing devil's advocate and talking
about some thoughts I've had recently
about actually the importance of what
I'm going to call brand marketing.
Which I know like different
people call it different things.
Some people mean that tactically,
tactically, like brand marketing
is like this type of paid
advertising or media buying.
I don't mean it in that way.
I mean it in the sense of the power
and importance of having created a
brand for yourself and thereby getting
customers, leads, visits, whatever
your first customer point is for us.
It's just like a lead getting it.
From sources that are unattributable.
Or are very kind of opposite of
what we normally do for clients
and proselytize, which is like
very traceable bottom of funnel.
We ranked for this keyword and
that brought in one lead brand.
I'm considering brand marketing being.
Someone reaching out to us and saying,
and we ask, how did you hear about us?
And them saying, gosh,
you know, I don't know.
I've been reading you guys for a long time
or like a friend mentioned or whatever.
Right.
We're just like, when they need a
content agency, somehow we were top
of mind, that kind of marketing.
The story that I told Benji that got
us to want to like record this as an
episode because we thought it'd be
really interesting is I was contrasting
this with, um, the CRO agency that
I had when we met Ben, when I met
Benji and we started discussing and
that I have kept running in a small
capacity and it has one or two running
clients or two to three running
clients for the past couple of years.
My focus is on grow and convert.
And as a result, the marketing engine
is at a standstill on that CRO agency.
It's called growth rock.
We do AB tests for e commerce company.
And we recently, one of our like kind of
legacy clients that we had had from just
relationships before, um, just churned
and some discussions were had about do
we replace it and how do we replace it?
And I thought, man, there's like.
What do I even do if I want to get leads
again there in the sense that like I
have some SEO rankings from doing that
Like we ranked number one for e commerce
CRO agency and like some leads come in
but unlike grow and convert It's just
like I would just what would I do if I
wanted just a couple of clients there?
We can't really we don't
have a capacity for more.
I don't have capacity for more It's just
a couple clients and I thought Well, this
is the difference is that with grow and
convert, even if your concrete tactical
marketing channels aren't working, even
if you stop all paid stuff, even if you
sort of magically just removed all of
our organic rankings, like there's just
this, I don't know what to call it.
Like this, this running inertia,
the flywheel is running where you're
going to get leads from people who
just knew of you from years ago,
because you were doing things.
A good, a good example of that is I
was actually looking at Ahrefs, uh,
right before I went to grab lunch
and I was looking at our own rankings
and I was really surprised to see
that we get 500, or no, sorry, not
500, 200 monthly visitors just from
people typing in Grow and Convert.
I mean, I know you remember when we
first started and we were like looking at
that and obviously when we were looking
at Ahrefs, it showed no search volume.
So.
I don't know.
Over the, over the course of seven, eight
years, I feel pretty good about seeing
200 monthly searches coming from that.
And then I was looking also at pain
point SEO now gets 50 monthly searches.
And so you're right.
Like even if we stopped actively
publishing new articles.
We, we have been able to build a brand
over the last seven, eight years,
um, where we could continue to get
leads without actively doing stuff.
Yeah.
The other example that
came to mind is ClearScope.
So like we've done some of these
kind of webinars with Bernard,
the founder of ClearScope.
Um, how did we even hear of ClearScope?
Did you know him or something?
I got introduced to him when we
were making the transition from
doing more, uh, promoted content.
To SEO.
Someone said, yeah, someone
said to talk to him.
And then I remember I scheduled a
demo with him just to see the tool.
And I was just really impressed
by his thought process.
And so I think I went to grab lunch with
him when I was still up in San Francisco.
And that's kind of how we first met.
Yeah.
And I was thinking like we had them, they
were a client of ours for a little bit.
Um, and, uh, I was thinking about
how in their little niche of SEO.
Tool space of like on page optimization.
They just have built like a little
bit of a brand for themselves.
Like people, people know it.
And that, I don't think he like did
like, he didn't like do marketing,
like activities to do that.
He just kind of had a good product.
A good product.
And, and no, he did webinars.
That was the key way that he grew.
So by bringing in other
SEO people in the space.
Um, over webinars.
I mean, we've done a couple of those
and then, and then promoted it that way.
And that's definitely helped them, but
he definitely didn't do bottom of funnel.
He didn't like rank for
like on page SEO tools.
I mean, we tried to do some of that for
them, um, when we engaged for a while.
So he hadn't done that.
And then for us, what you're saying
and what I was saying, like, like Grow
and Convert just has this engine going.
We started that engine with no SEO.
I don't know if people know this,
but like, we, at the beginning,
we shied away, not shied.
We like actively tried not to do SEO.
We had this bias that we thought
like good content marketing was
this like storytelling or whatever.
But as a result, even before there was an
agency, when it was just us and a website,
it was like, we were just like writing
this kind of like interesting topics.
And so I thought to myself, like, I've
just been having these, these thoughts
of, you know, like, We, we, we kind of
poo poo this top of funnel stuff a lot.
And, and, and we've done bottom of
funnel and like, don't get me wrong.
I can defend it to my dying day.
Like we have the data to defend it.
Like our whole business is built on it.
It works.
You find keywords where people are looking
for what you're doing and you rank for it.
Even I started this, this conversation
talking about my CRO agency, GrowthRock.
We get leads from ranking
for e commerce CRO agencies.
And if I had 10 of those
rankings for other terms, we'd
probably get more leads, right?
So like, I'm not saying
that this doesn't work.
But it made me think, you know, there
is something to just growing your brand.
Like I always thought whenever I watched
like the world cup and I see those ads
on the like side of the soccer field,
it'll be like PepsiCo or whatever.
I'm always like.
Man, like, how much does it cost
to buy that ad on like that side
where like the ball goes out of
bounds and it hits that thing?
And how could you possibly
justify that spend?
Like, it probably costs a
bajillion dollars to buy
that little, like, billboard.
I'm like, who cares?
But I think the point is,
like, that's brand marketing.
It's like, when, when it comes
time, if you have that brand
recognition, you're there.
If people just know, ClearScope
is one of the key tools.
If I need to do, like, on page
optimization, you're there.
I mean, I have so many things to say.
Where do you want me to start?
I think the first thing that I would
say is just making the distinction
between not being against top of funnel.
First of all, I think the idea
is to focus on the bottom of the
funnel first and then go broader.
The re the reason behind that thinking is.
It's mainly from my past
experience in startups.
So if you, if you think about
joining a company as like the head
of marketing or just starting out
as the head of marketing, you're
tasked with driving ROI quickly.
Like you need to prove your value quickly.
And so there's two ways
that you can approach it.
And there's kind of two schools of
thought there's let me grow top of funnel,
which is let me get our name out there
and then slowly move people down the
funnel to where they're ready to buy.
And then the opposite thinking was, I
was just thinking that takes too long.
Okay.
So yes, I could create billboards.
I could do podcast advertising.
I could do all that kind of stuff,
but there's already people that are
searching for exactly what you do.
So if you can show up when they're
looking for a solution and just educate
them that you're the best solution,
that's going to be a faster path to ROI.
Now, where I think top
of funnel comes in is.
Yes, bottom of the funnel keywords and,
and maybe even just certain marketing
channels are only going to get you so far.
So take content marketing.
One, there's going to be some sort of
limited set of bottom of the funnel
keywords that you're going to go after.
And naturally over time, as
you exhaust those, you're going
to have to move up the funnel.
To keep expanding the addressable
market that you can go after.
Well, I wanted to object
to something you said.
Like I think you said,
top of funnel is slower.
Maybe it, let me ask you a few questions.
If you, um, if you wanted to
buy an exercise bike, what's
the first brand you think of?
Peloton.
Right.
If you wanted to, if you wanted to
rent a house in, uh, in LA, what's
the first brand you think of?
What site you go to?
Yeah.
Airbnb.
Yeah.
I mean, so.
But, but, okay.
This is a good point because
there, there's a difference.
The counter is maybe it's just expensive.
Yeah, it is expensive.
These are good points because I
think this is decisions that people
have to make inside their business.
One, those arguments are
only for the consumer side.
And I, and I do think if you're, if
you're focusing on doing marketing for
consumer businesses, yes, the strategy is
different because brand will make a huge
difference because your tools, no, your
addressable market would be way bigger.
And, and again, I'm just saying.
When you're starting out, this approach
makes a lot more sense to me because my
argument back would be, if you're going
to start just with top of the funnel,
you're going to spend a lot of money
quickly and potentially not get an ROI
for it, especially the companies that
haven't found product market fit yet.
So imagine.
You didn't have product market fit.
You're spending all this
money on billboard ads.
You're, you're doing podcasts.
You're doing TV ads and you're
just spending money yet.
You don't necessarily know how to.
Sell your product yet
or sell your service.
Like you're wasting a ton of
money doing that and not getting
a ton of feedback quickly.
That, and that doesn't
make intuitive sense to me.
And so that, that doesn't make sense.
Whereas if you're focusing on a
smaller group of people and you're
getting feedback much faster.
And then, and then you're starting, okay.
And then once you figure out that
product market fit, and then you
start either growing from the
bottom up, or you expand to new
channels, that makes a lot of sense.
And so I think it's just a function of
what the business is, where the business
is at, do they have product market fit?
And all those things tie into
what strategy you take to grow.
And I, and, and I'm not arguing that
top of funnel first even has no place.
I just think for most businesses starting,
especially bootstrap businesses where
they don't have a ton of cash, they're,
they're not like some VC company.
They're not some like Peloton
that has millions or billions of
dollars to spend, like you, you
have to take a different approach.
And I think the approach that
most people think, which is to
start on the top of the funnel.
And do all these different
marketing activities.
It, a lot of it stemmed from like
the 2010 to 2014 era of marketing,
where everyone looked to those
VC backed companies, everyone was
looking to Airbnb and Uber's and, and
what was their marketing playbook?
Oh, like Dropbox had this hack.
It's like, you can't copy the same
marketing strategy that those companies
had because they had an unfair advantage
with the amount of cash that they had.
But the, the way that they got
to market was by spending money.
But for your small SAS business or your
bootstrapped agency or any of those
type of businesses, you, you don't
have that type of cash to spend on
just marketing without seeing a return.
And so the strategy is just being
more strategic early on in terms
of how you acquire those customers
and then expanding from there.
And so.
When we were early on, we
didn't need a ton of customers.
We didn't need a huge pipeline.
We just needed a couple here and there.
And so the approach that we took
worked for that stage of our business.
Now we're at a different point.
We have some capacity, like we've gone
after a bunch of keywords and we're
starting to think of other ways that we
can grow to keep growing our pipeline
because we have more employees to.
Give work to and we're trying
to grow the business at this
point and maybe one channel.
I mean, we could keep doing one channel
forever, but maybe now it starts to make
sense to expand beyond just one channel
and test other things and keep growing.
Okay.
A couple of things.
First of all, before I we move on from
this point, I do think my analogy of.
Brands that just have instant recognition
applies equally to, to, to B2B for sure.
I said, you're the head of sales for
some company and you need to see RM.
Who do you think of?
Everyone's going to mention
Salesforce first, right?
If you say like you're hosting a website,
like, where are you going to think?
But the pushback is how did they start
and how much money did they have when they
started, because, because I would say a
lot of those brands that you think of,
they did, they didn't start by doing all
the things that you're thinking of now.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
I agree.
So then that leads to my second
point, which I think this so far,
our conversation has moved into.
And a lot of what you're saying is
about marketing channel selection.
And I want to make a distinction here.
I started off saying, man, it sucks
that my A B testing agency has no
brand recognition And I'm contrasting
that with grow and convert that does
have some brand recognition at least.
And I'm realizing that when you
have this kind of brand recognition,
you almost just get free leaps.
Like it's not really free because like
obviously they heard you at some point,
but like when you just get some person
that's like, I'm not sure I've just
been following you guys for a long time.
I consider that a free lead.
Right.
And so let's distinguish between the goal.
Like there's this idea of like.
Maybe, maybe, maybe I'm mistaken in
calling it brand marketing and let's call
it having a brand presence is mature.
And you're talking about which marketing
channels, which is like what you do.
It's like the activity.
To, to achieve it.
And I think you, you got to think
of these as two separate things.
Like what I'm talking
about is like the end goal.
You can achieve it in different routes.
Yes.
And you're talking about
channels and investments and yes.
Like I, I totally know.
Well, I think there's a
sequence to all this stuff.
Like even on the brand side, I think
as a company, you need to know what
you stand for in your space and
what's different, like, like brand
really comes back to your position.
Like for us, even in the early days,
like put, put what type of content we
did aside versus SEO versus more just
thought leadership, like stories aside.
Yeah, we, we knew what we wanted
to do in the space differently from
anyone else from the very beginning.
And that hasn't changed, which is if you
go back and read the first blog post that
we ever did on our site, it, it, it's
about this narrative that most people
are investing in content marketing,
but not seeing any results from it.
And, and it took us years to figure
out all those reasons and to come up
with a process to actually solve this.
But that idea has stuck with the
business ever since we first started.
It was putting our foot down and
saying, look, all these people are
just kind of doing content haphazardly.
There's no strategy.
There's no way to measure things.
There's no way to promote it.
And we're going to figure
out a better way to do it.
That was the first piece
that we ever wrote.
And, and so I think.
Step one is to have like, what is that
problem that you're solving or something
that you're doing differently in the space
for a consumer product, it might just be.
That like for coke versus pepsi the
taste is different the the ingredients
are different something like that Like
you you have to be known for something
first So you have to put your foot down
to say this is why we're better and
that's step one But like if you don't
have that it's going to be really hard
to grow a brand Yeah, what you said
last, I think is what I most agree with.
Like you started off saying the
fundamentals or something, the
foundation, the foundation of the
brand is your differentiation.
I would asterisk this because I would
argue that there are consumer brands
that are basically non differentiated.
And like you said earlier, They pay their
way into brand recognition or there's
different levels of differentiation.
It doesn't need to be my
product is completely different.
Like Coke and Pepsi.
Like a lot of people can, they're not
that there's even like third party stuff.
There's like, like Fanta, especially
in, I'm about to go to, to South Asia.
Like Fanta is like huge.
Right.
But like, it's like, like, are
those things really different?
There's like a bunch of orange soda.
Like I would argue, for example,
speaking of growth rock, we had
this like memory foam mattress
company back in the day before like.
Nowadays, you can buy any memory foam
mattress online, and we saw this explosion
of VC money to like the Casper's Tuft
Needle, then Purple, then Lisa, and now
it's like, you can go on Amazon and get
a legit high quality memory foam like
mattress for like 250 bucks, right?
And so, I would argue, they're
not really that differentiated.
Purple's like, we have this like mesh
thing, and like, what does Casper say?
Like, does anyone, if anyone,
you think of Casper mattresses,
does anyone, can anyone cite?
A reason why they're differentiated?
No.
Are are they still even around?
I don't even know that,
but No, you have around.
No, but, but, but for a
lot of those companies, the
brand is the differentiator.
Yeah.
That like the marketing
is the differentiator.
Yeah.
And, and so when you're in a, a
highly commoditized space, your
marketing will be the differentiator.
Like e even now, if we bring it back
to our space and talk about like tools,
there's a lot of different SEO tools
that like all have the same features.
Yet, yet their marketing
can be a differentiator in
terms of why you use them.
Or even marketing agencies is the
same thing like but to go on to not
forget what you're saying I what the
way I wanted to rephrase what you said
instead of foundation is I think you're
positioning It can be an accelerant.
That's the phrase that came into my mind.
If you, if you don't have some
differentiation, like, like you're
saying, you can just kind of spend
your way and like create, like
hire some agency or whatever.
Like I, I know that Casper from being
in the industry, Casper, I think,
I believe I've been told that they
worked with like a brand name branding
agency, like a big time branding agency.
That's done that for a bunch of brands.
So you can just kind of like do that.
But if you have a differentiator.
And Benji's right.
It doesn't have to be product, especially
like a lot of people that listen to us
and stuff are in the SAS tech world.
They think like, okay, what's what
feature when they think differentiator,
they're like product, it could be like.
Can we say this like back in
the day where Drift and Intercom
really that different feature wise.
That was the first thing that came
to our mind that, and that's a
perfect example, example of one.
Why don't you, why don't we say the
example before you go into those, those
details, like just so people, basically
Intercom took more of the product
approach in the very beginning, just
creating a good product and they were
first to market and then Drift came.
And they created a category called
conversational marketing, and then
basically changed the way people
thought about doing it, even though
the tools were very similar in
terms of what they actually did.
Both tools were like back in the day,
there were some of the first, I don't
know if they're really first, but like
first well known of those little like
kind of chat bot is that they probably,
if someone from there are listening,
they're probably going to like object to
how I'm positioning this, but it's like
basically a little like widget chat bot.
And now it's like a ubiquitous.
But they were two big ones and
intercom was one of the earliest
ones where like you could do
it and it would send to email.
Like now it all seems like obvious,
but back then they were one of the
first ones and then drift got market
share and feature wise, it felt to
me as an outsider, like identical
or very, very close, but go ahead.
So then they, they, they dubbed
this term conversational market.
And I think Dave played to his strengths
of focusing on building a brand.
And, and doing, doing
marketing in that way.
And again, that's where,
that's where I make the case.
Like, I don't think there's a
right or wrong way to do it.
I think it depends on the strengths of
your company and who's in that marketing
role, and that's probably going to
determine what approach you take to
grow your business in the very beginning
or the strengths of the founders.
Like, like, have you had
a different background?
Like, let's say you
came from an ad agency.
Like, we probably would have grown
the business completely differently,
or in the beginning you would
have played to your strengths and,
and done ads in a different way.
Like, there, there's so many
businesses that were, like,
launched with a Super Bowl ad.
Like, they put all their budget into
doing one thing and, and making,
like, a really creative commercial.
Where, where your marketing again is your
differentiator and you get known in the
space for having really good marketing.
Like, you could just think of like
the beer companies back 20 years ago,
like Budweiser and all those during
the Super Bowl commercials used to
look forward to those because they
had such creative ads and, and that
was the way that you knew the brand.
Yeah.
So then, so then, so let's anchor back.
So if we're saying, okay, we
revise what I started off saying
by saying, okay, Davis, like.
Yes, you, everyone would
agree in marketing.
The ultimate goal is to have a
recognized brand because it becomes
this like hack, this like superpower,
you're not as reliant on each channel.
Then I think what we're gravitating
towards is this idea of, okay,
of course, that's the end goal.
How do you do that?
And it sounds like what we're
gravitating to is there's actually
a lot of different ways to do that.
So if we go back, like what it's making
me think of is if we go back to Bernard
and ClearScope for a second and us,
Bernard and ClearScope, yes, he used
webinars, but his differentiator was one,
the product at the time was pretty cool.
Now, I think there's a lot of those, like
we analyze the SERP and then there's like,
we find what the entities or keywords
are that the top 10 results are doing and
we'll make a list and you can use them.
But I think at that time it was novel.
It was clean.
Like it was like a good product.
So it actually worked.
And then his superpower, he laid on top
of that, or his differentiator was his
own deep knowledge of SEO and his kind
of like skill ability and interest.
He had like a passion for it and
his passion sounds different than
the way I deliver it or whatever.
And, and he, so he did
these webinars that do it.
And that's an exactly analogous.
And so, so hold on for a second.
So then.
What, what I think it would be nice for
the audience to, to realize is that's not
like a, to me, to me, my interpretation
is that's not a standard channel.
It's not the way a lot of like kind
of big company marketers are just kind
of like the textbook marketing way,
what you would think, which is like.
So you're using a pay channel, Google,
Facebook, SEO, you know, like Tik TOK.
It's like, it's, it's
none of those things.
Yeah.
Right.
And so it's a little bit.
Bernard is the perfect example of that.
Because again, I think it
goes back to what I said.
It's the skillset of the founders.
So he, his positioning or his, his
uniqueness is his deep knowledge of
SEO and his own expertise, having done
consulting and SEO for larger companies.
And so.
Doing webinars was his way of,
uh, conveying that expertise
and doing his own demos.
I remember how impressed I was
when I got on the demo call.
I was like, I've never heard the
founder of a software product, have
this much deep knowledge about a
space beyond even their own software.
And so I think the way that he
marketed and sold his product played
into his strength as a founder and.
You know, it makes me think you need to
think about what could be our wow moment.
So that was his, I don't know
if he thought of it consciously.
He listens to these.
So he might tell us, but like, at
least I think he listens to these.
Uh, but, uh, but it happened
to be, so the analogy to it
happened to be like his strength.
And the wow is like, you get on a demo
with him and you have that reaction.
You have, I think you told
me to get on that demo.
I was like, what the hell is this?
What is this tool?
And the moment you're talking
to him in a demo, you.
Even if you're not thinking out loud
consciously, wow, you're paying attention
because like he has this right user,
it's like really interesting and
it has this kind of differentiator.
You're right that no other
product demo is like that.
It's usually by some salesperson
and they're just trying to like
pitch you stuff or whatever.
And I think our analogy
of that is that it.
What we knew our strength was,
was like writing this stuff and
having like these strong opinions
and lines in the sand on this.
And so that's what we did.
And then you hit on a good
like subtlety, which is it's
advice for smaller companies.
It doesn't really necessarily
apply for bigger ones, but like.
You got to align your natural preference
and strength to this so you don't,
so if we had tried to build a Casper
style brand where our website was like
the prettiest website and like the
logo was amazing, like we're like.
Approaching 10 years in and we built a
decent business and people still complain
that our logo is like bad and like,
whatever, like, that's our logo, like
that, that wasn't our natural thing.
And so our natural thing was writing,
like, and so we did that and we took
these strong stances and we had beliefs
in my, one of my natural things was data.
And so the convert part of grow
and convert, we were talking about
conversion rates from like a million
times from the very beginning.
I remember one of the first posts was
your, your post on different conversion.
What is it like conversion rates from
blog posts to like, yeah, that, yeah.
And people, but like even
different, different ways that you
could convert people from blogs.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
But I do want to touch on content
for a second, because I do think.
We need to explain even just the, the
thought process on why not really focus
on top of funnel SEO conference from
the beginning, because you're right
from the very beginning, we did more, I
would say like thought leadership, like
opinion pieces, where we would just talk
through our opinions on a specific talk
topic in the content marketing space,
and then back up the opinion with data.
Or, uh, stories or some sort
of argument in the piece.
And, and that is what grew our brand.
And most people would consider that
as top of funnel and, and I would too.
And that was a way that we grew
our brand and we had a great way to
promote it in the very beginning.
When we switch to SEO,
the strategy changes.
Not to say that those types of
pieces that we did in the very
beginning are not valuable anymore.
I like, we still do them.
We still write opinion pieces
and promote them in various ways.
But when it comes to SEO content,
the strategy is different
because you, you don't have as
much uniqueness in that piece.
It's really hard to tell your story.
Like imagine.
We did an SEO piece on like,
what is content marketing?
Like, what do you, what are you
going to write on that topic?
That's super differentiated.
And like this, this, this
in the SEO space, this is
what most people were doing.
They were going after like these,
what is keywords or they were
going after, I don't know, like.
Just, just really broad keywords
and it doesn't really give you a
space to tie whatever that concept
is back to what you're selling or
describe in any way what's unique
about the way that you approach it.
And so in general, to, to, to a slightly
different point is it's just not
impressive what we're saying before
we're, I think we're getting somewhere.
We're saying, look.
You need some nugget of wow ness.
The wow that we said Bernard
had at ClearScope, right?
Like, you need something.
And we concluded it doesn't
need to be your product feature.
It can be!
Dropbox is an example of that, right?
It can be, and we can talk
about that in a second.
You need some kind of wow to
tie into what you're saying.
At least I'm going to put
words into your mouth.
But what you reminded me of is like
top of funnel content, traditional
top of funnel SEO now is not wow
stuff because it's so lame and boring.
Like, it's just like, what, what is this?
What is, what is content
marketing or something?
It's just like, you look at
just Google one of those phrases
in your space in our space.
And then just read the posts,
just Google what is content
marketing and read the posts.
They're all the same.
They're all basic.
They're just beginner level.
And so that's not, that's not going to
be where you find your wow moment where
customers are going to be like, Oh my God.
To take it a step further.
I mean, if we just think about now
going into the future, I think it's all
those queries, all the top of funnel
queries that everyone has gone after.
Moving to AI.
The hub spot.
Yeah.
Look at what's happened.
All the SERP is now all AI overviews.
Because again, all that content,
there's really not that much different.
If you, if you go look at the top, and
then there's a bunch of people using
chat, UBT and all for that instead.
Yeah, exactly.
But like def definitional content.
It is not going to be that different.
Like, okay, you can change a few
words here and there, but it's
not going to be that different.
You don't, you don't bring your
own expertise and point of view
into those type of pieces, which
is why I just have never thought
that that made sense as a strategy.
If you can focus on the things that people
are buying first, and you can bring in
your own expertise and differentiation
into the arguments of that piece.
That is content that will stand out.
And again, it's not to say that you
shouldn't do opinion pieces and, and
things where you bring a controversial
opinion and, and you promote it
and you have like those more viral
pieces, that's a great strategy.
I just think as an agency, it's really
hard to extract those opinions from the
company because often they just don't
have, they haven't like when you, when
you get really large as a, as a business.
The VP of marketing or the VP of sales,
maybe they have strong opinions, but
it's really hard to get consensus
in the organization on an opinion
that you want to share publicly.
And so it either needs
to come from the founder.
It's got to be a founder.
And it's, and you're right.
It's mostly like either small companies
or if it's a big company, it's a
founder or CEO that happens to have.
Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
It's, it's their skillset.
Like they, they enjoy doing this
and so they're always thinking and
pontificating on new guys, exactly.
Perfect example of like founders who
have that kind of persona where they're
always sharing these new ideas and
things, but like not everyone is like
that and they're not always thinking
about their industry and ways to innovate.
Like they're just focused on growing
their business or they're focused on the
operational components of their business.
They're not natural, uh, you Marketers
where they have all these new ideas
and it's really hard to extract
those from those types of people.
So in terms of.
Our approach and our strategy that we
can do repeatedly across companies,
the bottom up approach makes more
sense from an SEO perspective.
And again, it's not to say bottom of
the funnel content is the way that you
should do all types of content marketing.
Like our podcasts are not about like,
what is the best content marketing
agency and us talking about it?
Because again, it's a different
channel and you need to approach
it a completely different way.
No, hold on.
The podcast is a good thing.
What?
Why are we doing this?
Because we wanted to challenge
ourselves to test out a new channel.
I think for us, or at least for
me, I kept seeing how a lot of
the learning that I was doing was
moving to video and to podcasts.
Like, I noticed a lot of my own time
learning about trading and finance was
moving more towards podcasts because it
was easy for me to pop in headphones.
And listen to a podcast in the morning
while I was making breakfast or going
on a walk or something like that
and learning about something new.
Noticing that if I'm changing my
habits in that way, from reading to
listening, that we should probably
test out a channel like that as well.
You answer that question of kind of
like How literally, like, how did we,
what, how did we think of doing this?
What I meant is, and I'll answer it myself
of like, how does this tie into this
today's conversation is like, I think
what we think our differentiator or like.
Wow.
Moment that can, um, grow a brand
is, is our ideas and our strong
opinions about marketing, specifically
content marketing and SEO.
And we historically grew the business,
writing those down in written articles.
And I think the story of how this.
Podcast video could continue to be
a marketing asset for us that builds
our brand, even though, as you said,
it's not bottom of funnel in that
we're not recording these to rank for
some term where people are literally
searching for videos on how to do X.
It's just general purpose, although
we have thought of doing that.
Yeah, we have thought of that.
Um, and we were advised
by multiple YouTube people
that that's not a good idea.
But anyway, that's a separate conversation
that what we're saying is our ideas,
our opinions are Grow and Converts.
Wow.
Um, and we're just shifting the medium.
And then we tie to what you just said,
which is you, you were sort of saying,
Hey, video and podcasts are becoming
like this important thing from written.
And so we're just shifting the medium,
but we're still conveying the thing
that we think when people read it.
And, and by the way, wow, doesn't mean
like, you've like fallen off your chair.
It's just like something that
makes you be like, Ooh, like, just
like, Hey, like this Bernard demo
is like a little bit different.
Right.
Or like just having these interesting
conversations and marketing and,
and even challenging ourselves.
On various topics.
Like not you and I don't agree on
everything and we can have different
differences of opinions, but like, where
else are these conversations being had?
Like, I hope, I hope
they're being out here.
So yeah, that's the story of how
we think like this would grow it.
So I think what's interesting.
Yeah.
I didn't even go into this conversation
thinking about it this clearly, but it's
elucidated this, like for you to reach
the end goal of having a brand that.
People remember you need to have something
memorable, like in hindsight, when you
think of it, like it's pretty obvious.
Right.
And so, but what we're learning is
that can be a wide variety of things.
So we've talked about like our
thought processes or whatever.
Now let's do a couple other
examples of big brands.
I would say for Dropbox,
they're like, wow, or whatever
was literally the product.
And that's why I think it's silly
when people, when I've seen those
things of like breaking down Dropbox
is like referral thing or whatever.
And people say like the hack to
like do is like at the end, remember
Dropbox back was like share it with
a friend and you share this link.
And if they sign up, you get
200 extra megabytes or some tiny
amount in hindsight, but like,
but that's all fine and good.
But the reason this thing
exploded is because back then
we were all using USB drives.
And when you, whenever you had
your first Dropbox experience,
you were like, Oh my God, like.
It just showed up on your computer.
This is amazing.
Uber, same.
When you first saw that Uber app and
you saw the taxis running around,
you're like, that thing is coming
to me and I can see where it is.
That was like, Oh my God.
It's different for those, like
people used to try to copy those
businesses thinking that the hack was
the reason it worked and it's not.
There's some underlying.
Wow.
No, it's because people, it
was truly a novel product.
And, and as a user, you wanted
to share it with your friends.
To be ahead of the curve.
So like an Uber, if you were one of the
first users, you're like, wow, I have
this car service that no one's heard of
and they're incentivizing me to share it.
I'm going to share it because not only do
I get a benefit from it, but I actually
look cool in front of my friends.
If you had a shitty product and you
have the same incentive structure,
you're, you're not going to share it.
So those types of referral
programs don't work.
And so again, I think the
marketing that you choose.
Has to play into the competitive
advantages of either your
product or your team.
So like if you have a certain skill
set as the head of marketing or the
founder, that's the approach that you're
going to lead with to grow your company
because You know how to do this better
than anyone else or same thing if you
have a product That there's a certain
feature that's really unique And you
can get people to share that feature
saying, this is way better than how
any other company approaches it in,
in the space, that's probably going
to work from a marketing perspective
and, and like our referral program.
But I think the mistake that a lot of
people make is just looking at another
company and looking at that tactic and
saying, Oh, I should do the same thing
because it worked for this company.
It's like, no, it doesn't work like that.
The reason you, you have to understand the
reason behind why it worked for, for you
to be able to approach it the same way.
Yeah.
So if we list all the different ways
people have built brands and kind of
the wows, there are, you know, the more
I think about it, the more there are
so many different ways to get to that.
So we have genuine product
differentiation, Dropbox, Uber.
When they came out, there was a wow.
Airbnb kind of had that, like there
were other like couch surfing ones,
but there was something about it.
That like when it came out,
it was just like, it also hit
like right time and place.
So we'll leave those kinds of
consumer brands aside for a second.
Right.
And then we're talking about like,
you know, Bernard us, it was,
there's something about like.
The ideas expressed by the
founders can also be your thing.
So if you, if you are kind of SAS ish,
I think a trap, something you have
to be really honest about is almost
every SAS company we talk to will say
that their product is the best and
that they have these differentiators.
And we know from our seat, having talked
to so many brands, it's not always true.
Sometimes you look at it and
you're like, dude, like literally
everyone does the exact same thing.
We've had some honest clients that say,
look, we're not really differentiated.
Like this is kind of a commoditized space.
I actually appreciate that honesty,
but you don't have to give up.
That's not the only way is to be
Dropbox and genuinely be innovative
and like disrupt USB sticks or be
Uber and literally disrupt like taxis
that have been all around forever.
You can differentiate in other ways.
Like the drift example was a good one.
They use the personalities and the skill
sets of their CEO and CMO to come up with
these concepts of conversational marketing
and the kind of tactical channels of like
the podcast and stuff to spread that word.
And even that doesn't
work for every business.
Like I had, I had someone comment on
LinkedIn the other week about they were
angry that we created pain point SEO.
They're like, Oh, it's just the
same thing that everyone else does.
Okay, great.
But like, can you do it?
Yeah.
But if you, if you can create
a concept that becomes known,
that is way more powerful again,
playing into the brand part.
If you can create pain point SEO and
people actually start calling it that
like, like Brian Dean was skyscraper
technique, that whole thing, put
him on the map just from creating a
concept and a way of doing something.
So there's a lot of power to that.
But, but again, not everyone can do that.
A lot of people coin their own term
and it completely falls flat because
you need to be able to execute on
all the other things around it.
Like for us, pain point SEO.
Okay.
We wrote the article in 2018, I believe.
And it probably took us three years to
start getting that term become known
and starting to generate search volume.
How do we do it?
It's, you created the concept
and all the other pieces that we
did refer back to that concept.
And it became the core concept that
the agency used to grow businesses.
And then you see multiple
case studies of it working.
And then you see people that follow us
starting to use this process in a work.
And then they tell their
friends and it grows that way.
But It, like, if you created, if we had
just created that post and then done
nothing else afterwards, like if we hadn't
referred to it in case studies, if we
hadn't had our, our, like people that had
taken the course using it, it wouldn't
have worked and it would have fallen flat.
All this to say, I'm not against
top of funnel marketing at all.
I'm not even saying bottom of the
funnel content or bottom of the funnel
marketing will work in every instance.
And I think.
People often get that mixed up when they
see some of our messaging is they're
like, Oh, you guys only do bottom of the
funnel marketing and that doesn't work.
No, it's like bottom of the
funnel in a certain context,
like bottom of the funnel, when
you're starting out doing SEO.
Like if you're starting from scratch,
this is going to get you way faster
results going from the bottom up.
And like, there's been tons of businesses
that have examples of them doing
content and starting completely at the
opposite end of the spectrum, like a
HubSpot where they started at the top
of the funnel and they grew that way
and they just built a massive brand.
Yeah.
Let me say what you're saying maybe
in a, in a slightly different way.
We're not saying we're against top
of funnel marketing, but we are
against top of funnel SEO content
because we think it sucks like, and
here's my defense of it is like.
We're fine with top of funnel marketing
these videos you could consider top of
funnel marketing the original pieces
We wrote that we're not targeting
any SEO keyword for years pain point
SEO Now ranks for pain point SEO,
but we created that search demand.
And so it was not an SEO piece It was just
an idea even when the post was published.
We didn't even name it pain point SEO.
Yeah No, you try to like put a URL To
have it rank for some random thing.
It was like S it was the URL
was SEO content conversions.
And I, it was like a completely
different title of the piece.
And then I think you might've come
up with, I don't even remember
how we came up with the name, but
then, then we came up with the name
and then we rebranded everything.
And then, and then later, I think one
of us was like, Oh my God, there's
search volume around this term.
Um, anyway, to complete my thought.
So we're saying top of funnel.
We're against Top of Funnel SEO content,
not Top of Funnel marketing, because
Top of Funnel marketing can be done well
that builds a brand because it gives
you a wow moment, but Top of Funnel
SEO content likely no, because it's
by definition going after these like
mundane keywords that you're going to
write the same definitional nonsense.
There's nothing wow about it.
So like this takeaway is be
brutally honest with yourself and
think about your own strengths
and your product or whatever.
Where can I get, if you want to build a
brand, where can I get this wow moment?
It may be your product and
features, but be careful.
Like, is it really, you might be like,
but our thing is a little bit faster and
be like, is this really a wow moment?
It's like kind of commoditized.
And if it's not.
Like first you have to stomach
the pain of accepting that.
And then when you like get over
your grief, you can think, okay,
like what, what else am I good at?
What else is my strength?
And there's people that have
created brands from other things.
I don't know if I have the time to
do this, but now I have questions
where I'm almost curious about the
backstory of creating other brands.
Like, like what did
Peloton become so famous?
I know it's a consumer thing and we're
not, we don't normally like do that much.
But like, it's just.
It's a fricking bike.
Yeah, but they were the first to do
the, they, they, they brought like
the community, they had the TV screen.
You could like, yeah, but they
were like the first to do that.
I think that was the novelty of it
is you could go on the internet and
get trainers front on your bike.
And so you could subscribe
to specific trainers.
Then there was like a community
aspect of it, but, and it was
just, it was a COVID thing.
Like the company blew up because
of COVID and then like, no
one bought a bike ever again.
It did, but it was also kind
of famous before that, right?
Like Zoom blew up.
It was, it was growing, but then
like, like look at their business.
It like blew up and then it
just completely died because
everyone had already, everyone had
already bought a bike for COVID.
Yeah, that that's, it would be interesting
to do some of those dissections as well.
Like.
Like zoom, like in COVID, why did
zoom take off and not on Google meets?
I mean, that's just
literally quality, right?
I think it was a better product.
Like, uh, we, we had switched
from Google meets to zoom like
2018 or something like that.
Like really early on, just because we
just always had issues with Google meet.
It was, it was annoying to screen share.
It was, it is lagging all the time.
And then this was really clear.
Yeah.
Like other questions like web
flow, what is their differentiator?
I think that would be interesting to
do some kind of dissection like this.
But yeah, let, let me just kind
of close with these takeaways.
Of course, having a
recognizable brand is good.
That's the end goal of all marketing,
even actually, even bottom of funnel.
If you do enough of what we're doing,
where you show up for every single
query, where people are looking
for a product like yours, you're,
you're going to get market share.
And, and, and then I think, as you
said, I also saw this from Dave
Gerhardt the other day, and I thought
it was really well said about brand.
He's like, at the end of the
day, brand is your reputation.
That's how people know you.
And I agree with that.
And I think, yeah, you're any, any
sort of marketing at the end of the
day is meant to build your brand.
It's to get people to know you.
It's not only to get people to know
you, but it's also to get people
to know you and what you stand for.
I think that that is important, especially
when it comes to like more B2B stuff.
Consumer is a little
bit different because.
You can see the name and then you
walk into a store and you're just
like, Oh, I've seen that before, but
when, when it's in the B2B space,
knowing how that the product or the
company is differentiated in the
space is a particular problem to you.
Yeah, there's more like utility.
Okay.
So of course, everyone wants a brand.
And then we're saying that's
different from the channel.
There's a bunch of different channels
that you can use to grow your brand,
but it seems like we're saying
you need some kind of wow moment.
We've also concluded that.
If you have a genuine
differentiator in your product
or service, that's an accelerant.
If you're kind of commoditized,
you can still grow a brand.
Yeah.
And, and the differentiator every,
like all of your marketing should be
built around that differentiator if you
truly have a differentiator and Yeah.
Built around or at least
references for sure.
And this is the difference between
brands that are commoditized and not.
If you have a commoditized
product, like it's very similar
to everyone else, your marketing
needs to be your differentiation.
You, you have to be in front
of people's faces more.
You just have to be like the one that
shows up everywhere because that's the
way you're going to attract customers
or your pricing has to be cheaper.
There, there has to be something
different about what you're
doing to gain market share.
Whereas if you truly have a competitive
advantage on the product side, or you,
you do something as a service, lean in on
that, and that's what you need to promote
in everything, regardless of the channel.
And then the other final conclusion
that I think is really interesting is.
We're concluding from all these stories.
There are a ton of different
ways to get that wow moment.
Some are wowed, you know,
while their customers from the
product are actual features.
Some from what we can
call like us and Bernard.
I can call it like idea or opinion.
Wow.
Like expertise.
Wow.
Right.
You like, Oh, this is
like really interesting.
It's like really differentiated.
It can be straight up
just like pretty brand.
Wow.
The Casper's of the world.
Like, is it like, is the
mattress really that different?
But they just like straight up had the
money to invest in that kind of thing.
Um, it could be like first to market
wow, like the Pelotons of the world.
It could be priced.
We didn't talk about that.
Walmart, like it's just like straight up
cheaper for some of those consumer stuff.
And then the last theme that I think
people should remember is, is something
you said that I think is poignant,
especially if you're an early stage
company, make sure that whatever you're
trying to lean into on the wow, you're
expressing it in marketing activities,
like the tactics, the channels that
align with your natural interest.
Because then you're likely to succeed
if you try to shove whatever you're
doing into like a marketing activity
that you don't like to do or you're
not good at or is annoying for
you, you're not likely to succeed.
You're just not going to have that kind
of passion to be able to pull that off.
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