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Interviews with top marketers sharing tactical tips, strategies, and lessons learned to help you grow your business. Hosted by Dave Gerhardt, founder of Exit Five, former CMO, and author of Founder Brand. Learn more at exitfive.com
Dave [0:00:01]: You're listening to The Dave Gerhardt Show.
Dave [0:00:02]: Ladies and general we're back, another episode of the Exit Five podcast, my guest on this episode is Melissa Rosenthal.
Dave [0:00:23]: She is the cofounder of Out lever, where she's building the world's largest enterprise media company And that's what we talked about on this episode for you, lessons in how to build a immediate company for B2B
Dave [0:00:34]: We talked about how look the fact Ai right now is comm content.
Dave [0:00:40]: Right?
Dave [0:00:40]: All this Ai stuff has made it nearly impossible to stand out on product alone.
Dave [0:00:44]: And so what do you do?
Dave [0:00:45]: Well, one idea one path is to go and build a media company.
Dave [0:00:48]: She has done this.
Dave [0:00:49]: She worked at Buzzfeed.
Dave [0:00:50]: She helped launch Cheddar.
Dave [0:00:52]: She ran a bunch of the brand and marketing initiatives at click up and her whole thing is all about being a media company, but not in the way that I say it, not in the way of just write a blog post a week.
Dave [0:01:03]: I'm talking about.
Dave [0:01:04]: She told me she's sleeping four hours a night because she's just news jacking and figuring out what's relevant and happening right now in all of these different industries And if you need a little boost in your content strategy, your marketing strategy because you're tired of all the Ai swap in your feed.
Dave [0:01:20]: I want you to listen this conversation with Melissa and think about how you can apply some of these lessons to Rethink content for twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven, You can't just be pumping out list anymore.
Dave [0:01:30]: So enjoy this conversation with Melissa, go find her on Linkedin follower.
Dave [0:01:34]: You can see her whole content playbook play out in real time.
Dave [0:01:38]: This was a really good one.
Dave [0:01:39]: Get the notebook ready.
Dave [0:01:40]: You were telling me before that you moved to San Diego to work at click up.
Dave [0:01:47]: And I have known you in my head as Buzzfeed, gal and now you're doing your own thing.
Dave [0:01:53]: I didn't realize you were
Dave [0:01:54]: at a click.
Dave [0:01:54]: Can you give me like, the two minute career story, who are you?
Dave [0:01:58]: How'd you get here?
Dave [0:01:58]: What do you do now?
Melissa [0:02:00]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:02:00]: It's a little weird.
Melissa [0:02:01]: So early days, Buzzfeed.
Melissa [0:02:02]: I started buzzfeed when there were ten people.
Melissa [0:02:05]: So very early, the company kinda blew up, became a household name and media, and And my team there was olive of brand all of creative.
Melissa [0:02:13]: I grew it to...
Melissa [0:02:14]: I think we were, like, a hundred and fifty people globally.
Melissa [0:02:16]: My team and the company was over a thousand by the time I left.
Melissa [0:02:20]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:02:21]: I mean, that was, like, my education and into kinda everything that has gone into my career sense.
Melissa [0:02:25]: It's the frameworks of, like, why people share content.
Melissa [0:02:27]: What resonates, how do you think about things and bucket ties them into why people would share them and why people would, like, engage with them to begin with.
Melissa [0:02:35]: So feel like that was my education in, like, just psychological frameworks of, like, things that work and why they work.
Melissa [0:02:41]: So that just is, like, kind of the narrative that will guide this conversation because everything comes back to that.
Melissa [0:02:47]: So after Buzzfeed, I went to go start a media company called Cheddar with my partner and former boss at Buzzfeed and John Stein.
Melissa [0:02:54]: When we started Cheddar because we saw what was happening with distribution across live media.
Melissa [0:03:00]: So people were cutting the cord with cable.
Melissa [0:03:03]: That was a crazy thing everyone at a cable bundle, and you had Youtube Tv.
Melissa [0:03:06]: And you had Fu and you had Pluto and all these new streaming Ot on demand.
Melissa [0:03:11]: Services start popping up, and we were like, oh, well, that's this huge shift that we need to capitalize on.
Melissa [0:03:16]: So we started Cheddar, which was a...
Melissa [0:03:18]: Which guess it is.
Melissa [0:03:19]: But it was a live media news network for millennials about finance and tech and Ai, well, not in the way that we know it.
Melissa [0:03:26]: But very early.
Melissa [0:03:27]: Just like everything that we felt, like, wasn't being delivered on with the traditional cable, and it was pretty successful.
Melissa [0:03:33]: We were in every streaming service across the country.
Melissa [0:03:36]: We had millions of viewers.
Melissa [0:03:38]: We sold it to a cable company called Alt ortiz back in.
Melissa [0:03:42]: I was just twenty nineteen.
Melissa [0:03:43]: Yeah right before Covid.
Melissa [0:03:45]: I was like, well, I can't work at a cable company.
Melissa [0:03:47]: That's just not who I am, and it didn't really, like, jive.
Melissa [0:03:51]: So I decided to just kind of think about like what I wanted to do next.
Melissa [0:03:55]: And it's funny because at that time, media from Buzzfeed to Cheddar.
Melissa [0:03:59]: Cheddar worked because we were focusing on different types of distribution.
Melissa [0:04:02]: But at that time, Buzzfeed was was already starting to struggle because distribution had changed quite drastically with, like, Facebook, taking more control over ad dollars and kinda killing the feed.
Melissa [0:04:12]: So Yeah.
Melissa [0:04:13]: I was just, like, wow, media is not on this, like, upward trajectory.
Melissa [0:04:16]: I should kinda look elsewhere.
Melissa [0:04:17]: And I was always...
Melissa [0:04:18]: It really interested in tech and, like, where that was headed.
Melissa [0:04:20]: And, yeah.
Melissa [0:04:21]: I was ser.
Melissa [0:04:22]: I was a click up user and click up reached out and said, hey.
Melissa [0:04:25]: We're looking for a CMO.
Melissa [0:04:26]: And I said I'm probably not your CMO, but I can probably do some really great work for you.
Melissa [0:04:32]: And we met and it worked like, it was a great kind of partnership, and I worked there for four years under Z, leading brand and creative, and all the things that kinda go into marketing outside of performance.
Melissa [0:04:43]: And, yeah.
Melissa [0:04:44]: It was awesome.
Melissa [0:04:45]: And then I left click up, and I was a CMO of this health and wellness app that I will not name for six months, and I was like, this is not for me.
Melissa [0:04:52]: And then I launched my own company that sort of ties in, I think the convergence of where I think things are headed and my experience to click up and and go to market and forward looking into what media should become.
Melissa [0:05:03]: So that's the...
Melissa [0:05:04]: I think, like, three minute Tl of of at all.
Dave [0:05:07]: It's not only will you not name.
Dave [0:05:08]: It's been scrubbed from
Dave [0:05:10]: your link...
Dave [0:05:10]: To your Linkedin, So it doesn't never happen.
Melissa [0:05:12]: It doesn't exist exactly.
Dave [0:05:13]: If you haven't had one of those then you're not trying hard enough.
Dave [0:05:16]: It's my opinion.
Dave [0:05:16]: Fair.
Dave [0:05:18]: I've had that.
Dave [0:05:19]: It's okay.
Dave [0:05:19]: So I think the reason that I wanted to have you on our podcast is, obviously, you have incredible background, and I've seen a bunch of content.
Dave [0:05:28]: I think you're super well spoken.
Dave [0:05:30]: And quite frankly, you just get it.
Dave [0:05:32]: I think from a content standpoint.
Dave [0:05:34]: And so The people that listen to this podcast are mostly B2B marketing, professionals, execs, VP, CMOs, individual contributors, and the thing I wanna talk about with you is content.
Dave [0:05:45]: Right?
Dave [0:05:46]: And so there's so many things here, and I wrote down this word from the beginning, which I love.
Dave [0:05:50]: You said bucket ties, which is great.
Dave [0:05:52]: We're gonna get back to bucket digitizing content.
Dave [0:05:53]: But I wanna hear so much of what your background is in at an actual media company.
Dave [0:05:58]: People like me for years have been parody this thing that some people agree with or not, which is, like, every B2B company should be a media company, really kinda what that means.
Dave [0:06:08]: It's just like you have to be good at producing content.
Dave [0:06:11]: You had a stint at click.
Dave [0:06:13]: So many people are doing content, but they're not actually getting business results from it.
Dave [0:06:17]: And then if you try to get business results from content, you, like, squeeze too tight and you try to, like, measure every article and video I think you have an interesting point of view here.
Dave [0:06:26]: How...
Dave [0:06:27]: Can we try to unpack that.
Dave [0:06:28]: It's not even a question, but can can we, that's the thing I wanna rip on with you Have you here.
Melissa [0:06:33]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:06:33]: We can do that.
Melissa [0:06:34]: I come at things from, like, very logical person?
Melissa [0:06:36]: And maybe it's, like, because I've been in media, and I've been on, like, a B2c side, and I like, understand how people think.
Melissa [0:06:42]: And then you go to B2B and it's, like, let's con everything.
Melissa [0:06:45]: And then measure things that shouldn't be measured I'm measure them in silos and not measure the holistic thing of, like, what we're putting in.
Melissa [0:06:52]: And it's, like, put in five percent of the effort that it actually takes.
Melissa [0:06:55]: And then we want a hundred and fifty x the outcome.
Melissa [0:06:58]: That's what I see with B2B.
Dave [0:07:00]: Well, would an example of that be?
Dave [0:07:01]: Like, what's an example of something that we, like, measure spend ten minutes on, but then expect it to drive ten million in pipeline.
Melissa [0:07:08]: I think it's just the the breaking down of what a strategy is into one asset.
Melissa [0:07:12]: That's what it is.
Melissa [0:07:13]: The companies that are doing Linkedin.
Melissa [0:07:15]: If they don't see results in, like...
Melissa [0:07:17]: Two posts.
Melissa [0:07:18]: Well, this isn't working.
Melissa [0:07:20]: That's the attitude of B2b.
Melissa [0:07:21]: Like I'll summarize it in like that.
Melissa [0:07:23]: And not everyone.
Melissa [0:07:24]: There's definitely in companies.
Melissa [0:07:25]: I think that are forward looking and like, understand what it takes and our staffed with the people that have that perspective on things.
Melissa [0:07:31]: But I think B2B boils it down to, like, looking at two things under a microscope and say, well, these didn't work, so a strategy doesn't work.
Melissa [0:07:38]: Rather than, like, we're really gonna invest in doing this for, like, three to six months.
Melissa [0:07:42]: Let's measure and along the way, like, iterate, but We're gonna look at it as a holistic program and not, like, break it down and, like, post.
Melissa [0:07:51]: I just think that is crazy.
Dave [0:07:53]: It's mostly a strategy.
Dave [0:07:53]: It's a strategy thing.
Dave [0:07:55]: It's like, not having a strong point of view about what we're gonna go do and why we're gonna do it and we're not just gonna do it for two months.
Melissa [0:08:03]: I haven't been in B2B for more than click up.
Melissa [0:08:05]: Right?
Melissa [0:08:06]: So it could be just the sign of the times of, like, marketers are really afraid.
Melissa [0:08:09]: I don't know.
Dave [0:08:11]: The company that I run right now Exit Five is a media company in b2b b, and I wanna shout about this more because it's actually in consumer, like, you have to have so much volume and so much reach and you have to reach hundreds of thousands of people to make the funnel math work on what the conversions are gonna be on that.
Dave [0:08:30]: In B2b, it's like, if you're selling, oftentimes these companies are selling six or seven figure products.
Dave [0:08:36]: And so it's like, I don't actually need a million people to download my podcast, I need, like, a hundred of the right people and you can actually live by that if you're willing to, like, lean into that as this strategy.
Dave [0:08:47]: It doesn't have to be this huge viral sensation.
Melissa [0:08:50]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:08:50]: A hundred percent.
Melissa [0:08:51]: I just think that marketers don't think like that period.
Melissa [0:08:55]: They're not, like, media.
Melissa [0:08:56]: You can folks.
Melissa [0:08:57]: So, like, when you're thinking about a strategy, they're thinking about it in terms of, like, I don't know, white paper assets or, like, Linkedin post and it's not this holistic thing.
Melissa [0:09:06]: This is what we're building.
Melissa [0:09:07]: This is our north star what we're building.
Melissa [0:09:09]: I think if more people thought that way, And then, okay.
Melissa [0:09:11]: This is the North star and then store if they I start to say, alright.
Melissa [0:09:15]: This these are the pieces of it.
Melissa [0:09:16]: This is how we're gonna execute there.
Melissa [0:09:17]: It might just be easier to swallow.
Dave [0:09:20]: So we have a bunch
Dave [0:09:21]: of examples from you of people who have...
Dave [0:09:23]: Who do a good job of this.
Dave [0:09:24]: I just wanna list them out and maybe you can kinda na them.
Dave [0:09:27]: But I think these are perfect examples of like, what it takes to stand out today and to to build something meaningful and content versus just B2B list.
Dave [0:09:35]: Right?
Dave [0:09:35]: But You have Poly market built its own media entity on Linkedin is now heavily investing in becoming a media company ramp.
Dave [0:09:43]: I love this example when companies invest in, like, the subject matter expert to do the content stuff.
Dave [0:09:47]: But Mh.
Dave [0:09:48]: Ramp keeps an economist on staff.
Dave [0:09:50]: That makes data driven content to stand on its own as journalism, Peter Walker formerly of Carta.
Dave [0:09:55]: He's been creating database marketing insights for years.
Dave [0:10:00]: Another one, a guy that I follows Kyle Po.
Dave [0:10:02]: These people aren't even trying to be content people Like, look at Lenny what Lenny done with Lenny pockets?
Dave [0:10:06]: It's like, can you go super deep.
Dave [0:10:08]: Or I look at you.
Dave [0:10:09]: Your content crush on Linkedin, and I honestly, I don't know how.
Dave [0:10:13]: Not because it's not, but it's like, everyone tells you don't post images.
Dave [0:10:17]: Don't post links and, like, your funnel is, like, you post a screenshot of an article, a headline and a long thing and you're just crushing it.
Dave [0:10:23]: So is that the things is, like, we gotta rethink...
Dave [0:10:25]: It's not this world of, like, hire a bunch of junior bloggers to, like, make content for you.
Dave [0:10:30]: There's something different happening here.
Melissa [0:10:32]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:10:32]: Well, let me...
Melissa [0:10:33]: I guess, maybe I can explain what I'm actually doing and that might help.
Melissa [0:10:36]: So you think, okay.
Melissa [0:10:38]: You're like, alright.
Melissa [0:10:38]: Melissa is just, like, writing these posts.
Melissa [0:10:40]: They've got articles.
Melissa [0:10:40]: There's this format.
Melissa [0:10:41]: But the reality is we're also becoming a immediate company.
Melissa [0:10:44]: So we have state of Ai, state of brand, and we're launching ten other state ups in the next three weeks.
Melissa [0:10:49]: So these are run by myself, and right now, two other full time people.
Melissa [0:10:53]: We're becoming, like, an actual enterprise media organization.
Melissa [0:10:56]: So the strategy there, like, ladders is up to something.
Melissa [0:10:59]: Right?
Melissa [0:10:59]: It's every day I'm going to do this.
Melissa [0:11:01]: We know exactly who reads what article.
Melissa [0:11:03]: We iterate on the types of content that those folks look at.
Melissa [0:11:07]: There's a funnel that drives them to us as out lever, which is my company.
Melissa [0:11:10]: So there's a deeper strategy there.
Melissa [0:11:12]: It's not like, let me just do this for fun.
Melissa [0:11:14]: And I think a lot of people see it and they're like, well, moses is Linkedin strategy is great.
Melissa [0:11:18]: And it's like, yeah, but there's a lot kinda going on behind the scenes there, which I think is, like, what most people assume is a strategy.
Melissa [0:11:25]: Right?
Melissa [0:11:26]: They're looking at the tip of the iceberg on something and they're like, well, this is what this person is doing.
Melissa [0:11:30]: But they're not like, going the layer deeper to be like, what is this person actually doing, which is great for us because the people that actually find us to wanna work with us already know what we're doing because they get it.
Melissa [0:11:38]: They're landing on the articles and they're like, well, this is fucking smart.
Melissa [0:11:41]: So they click on this and then they inbound us.
Melissa [0:11:43]: So we already have this, like, very kind of qualified lead.
Melissa [0:11:46]: But...
Melissa [0:11:46]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:11:47]: I think it's just like it's...
Melissa [0:11:48]: People look at this one thing, and they they think it's, like, the content performance is so much usually deeper than just, like, writing a post.
Melissa [0:11:54]: The companies that I really admire even Air does a fantastic job, I would say for B2B because they understand their audience so deeply.
Melissa [0:12:01]: They're like, oh, we need to reach creative people.
Melissa [0:12:04]: And what do creative people like, they like good content, so we're gonna come up with some good stuff and act like, a media organization that has something to say.
Melissa [0:12:12]: And I think that's not the other thing.
Melissa [0:12:13]: I think companies have just, like, lost the, like, what do we say?
Melissa [0:12:16]: So they just say the same thing, and everyone is kind of the same company today.
Melissa [0:12:20]: So that like makes it tough.
Dave [0:12:22]: I'm interested in the content thing that you mentioned before.
Dave [0:12:25]: So you have two publications that you have today and you're gonna launch a bunch more over the next couple of weeks.
Dave [0:12:30]: How do you be good at that at scale?
Dave [0:12:32]: I think with Ai, you could use Claude and do a bunch of stuff and create a bunch of content.
Dave [0:12:36]: The volume is there.
Dave [0:12:37]: I've always struggled with hiring writers training them.
Dave [0:12:42]: I'm like,
Dave [0:12:43]: it's never
Dave [0:12:43]: good enough.
Dave [0:12:43]: It's never good enough.
Dave [0:12:44]: You gotta find these unique people like a Peter Walker, but they're never gonna come work for you.
Dave [0:12:47]: How do you do it?
Dave [0:12:48]: Melissa.
Melissa [0:12:49]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:12:49]: I mean, we're not publishing original insights right now.
Melissa [0:12:51]: The insights are basically I'm buzz fee of defining enterprise where I think about the frameworks?
Dave [0:12:57]: You're still turning something around.
Dave [0:12:58]: Like, you're still saying something?
Dave [0:12:59]: Or you don't have to produce additional.
Dave [0:13:00]: But if I read your stuff I'm like, this is good.
Melissa [0:13:03]: But perspective in the angle or the things that you have to train people on, which is the toughest thing to even be good at start.
Melissa [0:13:09]: Because if you don't have that perspective or that angle or understand, like, what the rallying cry is of that audience.
Melissa [0:13:13]: Then, like, you're kind of coming at from, like, an empty perspective, which is not gonna go anywhere.
Melissa [0:13:19]: I now understand every piece of content and who it will resonate with and why and how the framing affects that.
Melissa [0:13:25]: And that's what I try to train the people that work with me on these publications around.
Melissa [0:13:29]: Is it hard?
Melissa [0:13:29]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:13:30]: It's not like easy, but that's the beauty of it Nothing good is easy, which is why the ones that do it really well will stand out, and it's not for everyone.
Melissa [0:13:37]: It's for companies that, like, can have a perspective and can understand where they fit into that perspective.
Melissa [0:13:43]: It is challenging to scale the ten publications, which is our goal in the next three months.
Melissa [0:13:47]: We're hiring a bunch of people, but they're going through, like, a boot camp.
Melissa [0:13:50]: Which is, like my own boot camp of buzzfeed vacation of enterprise, which I don't even know.
Melissa [0:13:55]: I just made that up.
Dave [0:13:56]: Tell me what's in that?
Dave [0:13:57]: That's interesting.
Dave [0:13:57]: What's in the boot camp?
Melissa [0:13:59]: Well, first of all, we've built, like, a bunch of tools internally to make things easier.
Melissa [0:14:02]: So we we'll have people basically, like, a lot of our product that we do for customers is interviewing executive.
Melissa [0:14:08]: So, like, a Gl kind of type of a model is in a way.
Melissa [0:14:11]: And we have them go through this interview process where they'll use our tool to interview.
Melissa [0:14:15]: And the tool helps guide them based on my brain.
Melissa [0:14:18]: Basically of what the questions are, where the interview will be stronger But then they come out of it, and then it basically, there's, like, a Melissa on the side of their screen and it's, like, hey.
Melissa [0:14:27]: Here are the frameworks and the angles of what where this could head.
Melissa [0:14:30]: What do you think?
Melissa [0:14:31]: And they have to pick kind of...
Melissa [0:14:32]: It's like, pick your own adventure of where this piece ends up.
Melissa [0:14:35]: And then we just get over and over and over and into repetition.
Melissa [0:14:38]: Eventually, they get it.
Melissa [0:14:39]: They start to get it because these people are, like, coming from traditional journalism and backgrounds, but then you can have, like, B2B expertise and that's, I think what we found has a really good meet in the middle kind of, okay.
Melissa [0:14:49]: We get...
Melissa [0:14:49]: I get where you're headed.
Melissa [0:14:50]: But, yeah, Takes it's a lot of repetition.
Melissa [0:14:52]: Obviously, On doing these articles and over time understanding the angles and who will this reach and why will it reach them?
Melissa [0:14:58]: And why would they care?
Melissa [0:14:59]: And why would they comment on it, and why would they share it?
Melissa [0:15:01]: These are the questions that they have to answer for every article before.
Melissa [0:15:04]: They're set off and set free kind of on their own to do it?
Dave [0:15:07]: Is this something that you all built internally this tool?
Melissa [0:15:12]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:15:12]: It's called all.
Melissa [0:15:12]: But, yeah, It's oliver...
Melissa [0:15:14]: It's everything.
Melissa [0:15:15]: It's a Crm.
Melissa [0:15:15]: It's an inbox.
Melissa [0:15:16]: It's a brain.
Melissa [0:15:17]: It's a an interviewing tool.
Melissa [0:15:19]: It's a sales intelligence tool.
Melissa [0:15:21]: It's like a lot of things that, like B2B companies do But we we use that to enable us.
Melissa [0:15:25]: We don't sell that.
Melissa [0:15:26]: So we sell that.
Melissa [0:15:27]: The end of what that result is, but that's for us, physically that to allow us to do this, which I don't think anyone else will ever be builds because it's just, like my brain.
Dave [0:15:38]: Well, it's a good example of what it takes to be good.
Dave [0:15:40]: It's, like, a lot of proprietary knowledge.
Melissa [0:15:45]: Yet.
Melissa [0:15:45]: All the stories we're covering are public stories.
Melissa [0:15:48]: Were not just covering news though, were then in inflict in a perspective in an angle in that of, like, this is why this audience should care about this thing.
Melissa [0:15:58]: And the beauty of that, though is that Noah, like, media company is really...
Melissa [0:16:02]: I would say, niche creators kind of arc for sure.
Melissa [0:16:04]: And then Peter Walker and like, the...
Melissa [0:16:06]: The got the ram folks, like, people that are coming up with original data and forming prospect perspectives on that are.
Melissa [0:16:11]: But traditional media can't do that today because they're just focused on breaking news to get clicks.
Melissa [0:16:17]: So then you have...
Melissa [0:16:18]: That's why obviously, the media creator economy has flourished because traditional immediate companies can't afford to exist anymore.
Melissa [0:16:24]: Buzzfeed just went bankrupt and, sold for twenty million Oh my God, it doesn't work.
Melissa [0:16:28]: So this alt model of where the actual perspective comes from when you're not chasing eyeballs and you're trying to really build an audience, comes from, like, these unique perspectives.
Melissa [0:16:37]: But I don't think everyone has that.
Melissa [0:16:39]: So I think it's kind of, like a finite resource.
Melissa [0:16:41]: But you can train.
Melissa [0:16:41]: And with technology, you can sort of start to build around it.
Melissa [0:16:44]: I mean it's definitely not perfect, but it at least has, like, there's a starting point.
Dave [0:16:48]: Give opinion on where that content should be today?
Dave [0:16:51]: Should it be?
Dave [0:16:52]: On your website, should it be a podcast.
Dave [0:16:55]: Should it be linkedin, You know, we've always been taught about owned media and you wanna...
Dave [0:16:59]: Yeah.
Dave [0:16:59]: Remember the days like, medium and be like, well, medium cool because it helps with distribution, but that's actually not gonna rank and it's just so much is changing right now.
Dave [0:17:06]: How'd would you guide the VP marketing and and B2b thinking about their content strategy with this answer?
Melissa [0:17:12]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:17:12]: I mean, great question.
Melissa [0:17:13]: My like if you can do it all, My answers is like, kinda do it all.
Melissa [0:17:17]: Owned media is, like, doing all of these things well and creating kind of, like, this little empire of successful franchises within your company.
Melissa [0:17:24]: Under the same, I think mass actually.
Melissa [0:17:26]: But successful franchises.
Melissa [0:17:28]: For a lot of our customers, we built third party trade sites.
Melissa [0:17:30]: So, like, we run...
Melissa [0:17:31]: Try to think on, like, cx x current dot com for a customer.
Melissa [0:17:34]: We run the data wire dot com for a customer.
Melissa [0:17:37]: So we're building out trade publications, and then there's a lot of other properties that are happening?
Dave [0:17:41]: Yeah.
Dave [0:17:41]: Okay.
Dave [0:17:42]: So for my company, as an example, we sell to B2B marketers.
Dave [0:17:46]: Some guys trying to ex me via email and wants me to buy B2B marketing.com.
Dave [0:17:52]: We could own that have a publication there be the number one source on B2b marketing and it happens to be brought to you by Exit Five.
Melissa [0:17:59]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:17:59]: I mean, that's what we sell.
Melissa [0:18:00]: And then we sell other companies wanna do it and build to hub on their own site, which we have a a different strategy for.
Melissa [0:18:05]: But that...
Melissa [0:18:06]: Going back to your larger question, That is a part of it for sure, having, like, an adjacent arm allows you to do really really cool things.
Melissa [0:18:13]: Like, a lot of our customers are, like, doing dinners with Open Ai and doing awards and conferences, but through there through their media outlet now.
Melissa [0:18:19]: And the ones that like, get it, really get it.
Melissa [0:18:22]: They're super leaned on it.
Melissa [0:18:23]: This is lightning in a bottle because we can capture an audience and actually earn an audience that is coming to us for information and not for prada.
Melissa [0:18:30]: But then there's having that newsletter attached to that, building a podcast off of it doing conferences an award The ones that see it working then extrapolate that out and build it into their own media hotter, I would say.
Dave [0:18:41]: Okay.
Dave [0:18:41]: God, this is sick.
Dave [0:18:42]: This is so sick.
Dave [0:18:43]: This is so sick.
Melissa [0:18:44]: Thank you.
Melissa [0:18:44]: Thanks Thanks.
Dave [0:18:45]: Well, because you're not just making a blog for someone.
Dave [0:18:47]: And you're saying, like, no.
Dave [0:18:48]: We only wanna...
Dave [0:18:49]: I only wanna work with people who, like, believe this and the...
Dave [0:18:51]: Because I was gonna...
Dave [0:18:52]: I'm writing on a bunch of nonsense.
Dave [0:18:53]: But, I'm thinking of all the objections people have, well, know, We wanna own that on our website.
Dave [0:18:58]: And it's like, well, it's the same reason why, like, the community gets ruined or, this thing happens.
Dave [0:19:02]: It's, like, there's a gangster move from the beginning, by the way you said, like, nope.
Dave [0:19:06]: It's a company that's building their media outlet, and it has a different name in a different place, and that's kinda like the eighty percent of why it's gonna work.
Dave [0:19:13]: Right?
Melissa [0:19:14]: Yes.
Melissa [0:19:14]: Yes.
Melissa [0:19:14]: But there is So we do also build from many of them now, like a complimentary hub on their own site too, where they can comment from the company perspective on their own news so that there's an inter linking.
Melissa [0:19:26]: It gets a little complex because our media companies also play our role in which we're kinda building out this immense network of backlink and tab style B2B content where some of that stuff is featured.
Melissa [0:19:37]: So it's become, like, a very complex web.
Melissa [0:19:40]: But, yes.
Melissa [0:19:40]: It starts with having this third party adjacent perspective on things.
Melissa [0:19:44]: We built one the other day for a company that we're working with called talent signal news.com, and I'm super excited about that one because it's everything that has to do with the culture of hiring and what's happening within talent when resumes become comm by Ai tools.
Melissa [0:19:57]: So, like, there's two things that make me really excited about that one.
Melissa [0:20:00]: It's one, like, it's such a hot topic.
Melissa [0:20:02]: Everyone's talking about it, be the rallying and cry for people that are really great to try to get attention.
Melissa [0:20:07]: And then for companies to try to figure out how to hire.
Melissa [0:20:09]: It's kind of the convergence of, like, three things that I think make a media property really valuable.
Melissa [0:20:13]: So when there's that, and there's a clear perspective and a clear path.
Melissa [0:20:17]: That's when I think it does the best.
Melissa [0:20:18]: So, yeah.
Melissa [0:20:19]: I'm excited about that one we actually launched it last week.
Dave [0:20:21]: Alright.
Dave [0:20:21]: This is awesome.
Dave [0:20:22]: This is what people are gonna want.
Dave [0:20:23]: So let's talk about the mechanics of building your own media, media outlet.
Dave [0:20:29]: Who should do it?
Dave [0:20:30]: Maybe we could talk why too?
Dave [0:20:32]: Because how do I measure this?
Dave [0:20:33]: How do I turn the results into pipeline?
Dave [0:20:34]: Who should do it?
Dave [0:20:36]: This is refund some of that?
Dave [0:20:37]: I'm I'm into this topic?
Dave [0:20:38]: This?
Melissa [0:20:39]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:20:39]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:20:39]: I mean, there's the logical question of why would you do this?
Melissa [0:20:43]: And then there's, hey, how do we evaluate this and measure it short term versus long term.
Melissa [0:20:47]: First of, when you're you're building a media company.
Melissa [0:20:49]: It's not just your own perspective.
Melissa [0:20:50]: It's the perspective of others.
Melissa [0:20:51]: So you're interviewing people within your Ic set, so you become, like, a Gl, and what happens with that when you're edit interviewing people editorial, like they're saying all kinds of really amazing things about what's happening in their companies, which effectively is sales intelligence which allows you to kind of understand where they are in...
Melissa [0:21:07]: You know, market, what a good Bd should actually be doing, which is intelligence on people and, like, understanding where company sit.
Melissa [0:21:13]: So we just do that through an editorial lens, which was sort of, like, part of the sell into companies.
Melissa [0:21:18]: It's, like, there's a short tail, hey.
Melissa [0:21:20]: We're actually talking Ic.
Melissa [0:21:21]: And then there's the long tail, which is showing up an L, actually drinking in search, getting shared on Linkedin because the content you're speaking on behalf of that company.
Melissa [0:21:30]: Getting syndicated on, like, hacker news.
Melissa [0:21:33]: We've had a couple of our our customers gets syndicated there for some of the hot topics they've published.
Melissa [0:21:37]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:21:38]: I mean, there's a lot of benefits.
Melissa [0:21:39]: Right?
Melissa [0:21:39]: So, like, they start seeing...
Melissa [0:21:40]: Alright.
Melissa [0:21:40]: There's leading and lagging indicators.
Melissa [0:21:42]: You start to see some of the leading indicators and you're, like, oh, I see where this is all of a sudden they've built a community of people too that they can just get to a conference.
Melissa [0:21:49]: They can do an award.
Melissa [0:21:50]: You have power that you don't have when you're a company publishing a blog.
Melissa [0:21:55]: No one cares about your blog.
Melissa [0:21:57]: I
Dave [0:21:57]: have a question on this.
Dave [0:21:58]: Would you consider this a similar vein to, like, I have a friend who's a CMO.
Dave [0:22:03]: He was a CMO a cyber cybersecurity company.
Dave [0:22:06]: It was called recorded future.
Dave [0:22:08]: Oh, yeah.
Dave [0:22:08]: Do you know them?
Melissa [0:22:10]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:22:10]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:22:10]: Yeah it.
Dave [0:22:11]: Tom went was a CMO, and he was, like, you won't believe this.
Dave [0:22:13]: This is working, and I'm like, well, why is it working?
Dave [0:22:15]: He's like, well, they they went hired.
Dave [0:22:17]: Spend a bunch of money and hired like a former Npr level journalist, and they started a podcast, and it was completely agnostic from the marketing team and it was like, well, that's why it worked.
Dave [0:22:27]: Really, you didn't hire some no disrespect not being aegis, but you didn't hire some twenty two year old to write content that's gonna appeal to Cis, Fortune five hundred Cis.
Dave [0:22:37]: And I, back in the day dinner an interview with this guy, Gon.
Dave [0:22:41]: He would ran marketing at off zero.
Dave [0:22:43]: And he was a engineer and our content needs appeal to engineers.
Dave [0:22:47]: So you know what I did in marketing.
Dave [0:22:48]: I just hired for former engineer to, like, read our blogs.
Melissa [0:22:52]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:22:52]: I mean, it makes sense.
Melissa [0:22:53]: All of those are parts of it.
Melissa [0:22:54]: Recorded features is a good example because they they did it really well.
Melissa [0:22:57]: Can you have a CMO or a leader that has a perspective on having, like, hey.
Melissa [0:23:01]: Ad adjacency makes sense.
Melissa [0:23:02]: You can also do this well like, on your own site if you create a hub that actually, like, feels like it.
Melissa [0:23:07]: It doesn't need to be off sight?
Melissa [0:23:09]: It's just off sight usually isn't an easier There's an easier understanding and deli mediation between church and state for people where they they are okay with the off site content in certain instances.
Melissa [0:23:20]: So just kinda depends.
Melissa [0:23:21]: I think it can be done really well across the board.
Melissa [0:23:23]: The thing that, like, need...
Melissa [0:23:25]: It needs is, like, perspective and buy in and a little bit of patience.
Melissa [0:23:28]: I think people are just they're frantic these days for wins immediately.
Melissa [0:23:32]: So we try to do that, But it's tough.
Melissa [0:23:34]: I think patients is still underrated in what you're doing and I ever I tried to, like tell people about this listen.
Melissa [0:23:39]: In five months, we've built two media publications that have multi organic monthly unique that drive all of our business, and it all just comes from that.
Melissa [0:23:50]: And if we build on that, we are going to be incredibly successful, and the longer we build and the longer we do this, the better it's gonna be.
Melissa [0:23:57]: If you can take even a fraction of that approach and think about it.
Melissa [0:24:00]: I don't know.
Melissa [0:24:00]: Shit do ten percent of what we're doing, it'll work.
Melissa [0:24:03]: It'll really work.
Melissa [0:24:04]: So I...
Melissa [0:24:05]: We try to be the best in class example of what this looks like at at scale and what this looks like to actually do it well.
Dave [0:24:10]: Two things on that.
Dave [0:24:10]: Number one is, I think a big part of the...
Dave [0:24:13]: Whenever I talk to someone about, like, the value of your writing on Linkedin or social.
Dave [0:24:17]: It is one of those things where we just have to start doing it because you don't know what's gonna come in and everyone has an example of you post something and the post gets really low engagement, but some founder Dm you, and I was like, I saw your post.
Dave [0:24:29]: That was awesome.
Dave [0:24:30]: Where does that show up in the analytics.
Dave [0:24:31]: It doesn't.
Dave [0:24:32]: And so you have to just start doing that.
Dave [0:24:35]: That's number one.
Dave [0:24:36]: Number two, you slid in this casual.
Dave [0:24:38]: Oh, we're doing multi organic views a month on your content.
Dave [0:24:43]: How I understand you're creating good kinda of...
Dave [0:24:47]: Is there a distribution piece here?
Dave [0:24:49]: Or is you just you're just hitting on these trends.
Dave [0:24:51]: You're, like, news jacking?
Dave [0:24:53]: What the heck is going on?
Melissa [0:24:55]: It's that.
Melissa [0:24:55]: I'm news jacking, and I didn't know what was gonna happen when we started this When five months ago, we...
Melissa [0:25:00]: I was just Alright.
Melissa [0:25:00]: I'm gonna create this new format.
Melissa [0:25:02]: I haven't seen it on Linkedin before.
Melissa [0:25:03]: It's gonna be our own content.
Melissa [0:25:04]: So people are gonna think, oh, what is she doing?
Melissa [0:25:07]: She's pasting like Wall Street Journal articles or, like, copying whatever.
Melissa [0:25:10]: And then it's gonna become really annoying, and then they're gonna realize oh, wait.
Melissa [0:25:13]: They're actually building, like, all of these publications or things, They actually own.
Melissa [0:25:17]: So that's, like, where we started.
Melissa [0:25:18]: And, yeah, It was like, alright.
Melissa [0:25:20]: Me just start posting three to four or five times a day.
Melissa [0:25:22]: I'm gonna ignore all these people that think they know the rules of Linkedin and see what happens.
Melissa [0:25:26]: And it really works.
Melissa [0:25:27]: When we have something go viral, I'll get twenty five thousand direct referrals directly from Linkedin from the link that I'm putting under the post.
Dave [0:25:36]: That's crazy.
Dave [0:25:36]: People say don't put
Dave [0:25:38]: the links in, here's Melissa saying I drove twenty five.
Melissa [0:25:40]: There's thousands of views coming from that.
Melissa [0:25:42]: And then what happens is one of those people has a great newsletter or is on hacker news, and we'll post it on hacker news, and then all of a sudden, oh, my god, this thing is going viral.
Melissa [0:25:51]: So Linkedin is, like, has become the hook to the viral vitality.
Melissa [0:25:54]: But now, honestly, like, sometimes all like, I'll post something on linkedin and it won't get traction and then I'll see it go viral in Japan And I'm like, this is really interesting.
Melissa [0:26:02]: So, like, have to trace it down and, figure out what's happening here.
Melissa [0:26:05]: But, I mean, now we have so much traffic.
Melissa [0:26:07]: I won't even promote stuff, and, like, people are picking it up.
Melissa [0:26:10]: So maybe they're coming to us to just see what's happening, which is awesome.
Melissa [0:26:13]: That's the goal.
Melissa [0:26:14]: I think we're just constantly iterating the figuring out what what works.
Melissa [0:26:17]: I think there's also just such a lack of good media across different verticals.
Melissa [0:26:20]: We're gonna take over all of those.
Dave [0:26:23]: I think that you're a perfect example of, like, you have to just do it all the time.
Dave [0:26:27]: If I I'm just was trying...
Dave [0:26:29]: While you're were talking, I'm trying to scroll to your post and figure out where the hits were.
Dave [0:26:32]: And it's like, okay, forty one likes five comments, thirty four.
Melissa [0:26:36]: Okay.
Melissa [0:26:36]: Forty one likes, sometimes, is ten thousand views and fifty thousand impressions.
Dave [0:26:43]: Oh, so that metrics here can be met...
Dave [0:26:45]: I noticed if if I promote a webinar.
Dave [0:26:46]: Right?
Dave [0:26:47]: It gets no clicks, but two hundred people will sign up or something like that.
Melissa [0:26:50]: And the people that are hitting on it are the people that I want for that post and that article.
Melissa [0:26:54]: So I've, like, started to just, like, I'm like, well, I don't care.
Melissa [0:26:57]: I'm just gonna post five times a day, and I'm gonna...
Melissa [0:27:00]: I know exactly which ones are gonna target which people, and then I get the data back, and I learn, and I I move on.
Melissa [0:27:05]: Like, I had one...
Melissa [0:27:05]: If you go a few days back.
Melissa [0:27:07]: Go to Friday.
Melissa [0:27:07]: Go down down post so much.
Melissa [0:27:09]: That one.
Melissa [0:27:10]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:27:10]: So that one took off.
Melissa [0:27:11]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:27:11]: That one generated about two hundred thousand page visits across the web.
Melissa [0:27:17]: So it got picked up across all this other stuff.
Dave [0:27:19]: This is why you don't listen to anybody.
Dave [0:27:21]: People that are listening to this podcast.
Dave [0:27:22]: People in Exit Five told me don't tag people.
Dave [0:27:25]: Don't use images.
Dave [0:27:26]: Don't use the links.
Dave [0:27:27]: Don't tag more than one here a one, two, three, four, five six seven.
Dave [0:27:31]: She tags seven companies include anne anna a link and an image and this thing went went nuts.
Dave [0:27:37]: I love it.
Dave [0:27:37]: I love you shut me up to you're, like, thirty one.
Dave [0:27:40]: At my point was, I was gonna try to scroll to get to the big one.
Melissa [0:27:43]: But the hits are the hits.
Melissa [0:27:44]: That's the big.
Dave [0:27:45]: Well, this is why all of the judging someone's marketing by what you see them do you ex actually shift have no idea.
Dave [0:27:50]: You no idea what's happening until you see their performance.
Dave [0:27:53]: But my point was gonna be though.
Dave [0:27:55]: Okay.
Dave [0:27:55]: So, yes, that's awesome.
Dave [0:27:56]: Even this is like, show this to the CEO.
Dave [0:27:58]: Even this post that has only forty one likes and five comments drove tens of thousands of views.
Dave [0:28:04]: But my point was gonna be like, if you kinda look, it's like, basically, one out of every five, you kinda get, like, a mega, you get a super bonus or something.
Dave [0:28:11]: And that's...
Dave [0:28:11]: That just shows you that you have to just be in the game every day, Doing dude, and then you're gonna this one popped off or there was another one after this this was a longer time ago, but I think you wrote about, like, the click up hiring a CMO for a million dollars.
Melissa [0:28:23]: We're, like, fifty back at that.
Dave [0:28:25]: Okay.
Dave [0:28:25]: The rest every day And I was like, ten days ago.
Dave [0:28:27]: This is the other one on the reddit.
Dave [0:28:28]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:28:29]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:28:29]: The red one.
Melissa [0:28:29]: Yeah.
Dave [0:28:30]: Oh, interesting.
Dave [0:28:30]: Why should I not go hire a person to just write about marketing trends every single day and hope we hit on one in that drive traffic back to my company?
Dave [0:28:39]: Like, why would I not do that?
Melissa [0:28:41]: Is that our rhetoric question?
Melissa [0:28:42]: I...
Melissa [0:28:43]: Like, there's not really an answer?
Dave [0:28:44]: No.
Dave [0:28:44]: Like this So obvious, like, seeing this.
Dave [0:28:46]: It's like, I'm my, god, It's so obvious.
Dave [0:28:48]: But this is not what we do.
Dave [0:28:49]: We hire we hire a blogger, especially inside of a B2B company you hire a blogger and you're, like, right an article a week and they can't keep up and you burn them out, and you stress them out because How do you get the mentality?
Melissa [0:29:01]: I guess I've I built media companies.
Melissa [0:29:02]: Right?
Melissa [0:29:02]: It's so funny though, when we start...
Melissa [0:29:04]: I started this company, it's me and my husband actually we're c founders?
Melissa [0:29:06]: And when I started this company, I was like, okay.
Melissa [0:29:09]: I don't wanna be a media company, and I don't wanna be a services company.
Melissa [0:29:12]: And we're just a media company services company, but it's the best thing because I'm really getting at both of those things and
Dave [0:29:18]: it works.
Dave [0:29:18]: Oh my gosh.
Dave [0:29:19]: That's the takeaway.
Dave [0:29:20]: I don't care.
Dave [0:29:21]: I don't care what else happens in this podcast.
Dave [0:29:23]: Whatever your industry is, and I know so many the people that listen to this.
Dave [0:29:27]: It's cyber cybersecurity.
Dave [0:29:28]: It's Fintech.
Dave [0:29:29]: It's professional services, it's marketing, its sales.
Dave [0:29:31]: It's whatever.
Dave [0:29:33]: Is there something about just sitting there and be like, what are we gonna write about today?
Dave [0:29:36]: That's the true media company mindset that.
Dave [0:29:38]: That's not, like, b2b company should be a media company.
Dave [0:29:41]: Right?
Melissa [0:29:42]: For sure.
Melissa [0:29:42]: I think there is, like, an element of rigor here that, like, may not be across other companies.
Melissa [0:29:47]: So right now I'm getting, like four hours of sleep.
Melissa [0:29:49]: I realized this is a sprint in my life, and they're, like, I will scale this, and we we're gonna figure this out.
Melissa [0:29:54]: But right now, I'm not sleeping because I have to half run a company and a lot of customers and then half run media company, so with my mind.
Dave [0:30:01]: You're doing the writing.
Dave [0:30:02]: Are you not sleeping because your news jack...
Dave [0:30:04]: You're doing the news jacking?
Melissa [0:30:05]: I'm doing a lot of the writing.
Melissa [0:30:06]: And when I'm not doing the writing, I'm coming up with the angles and I'm feeding those to my team, and it's just like, I'm an editor in chief now of two publications that soon need to be ten.
Melissa [0:30:14]: And so, yeah, it's a lot.
Melissa [0:30:15]: Right?
Melissa [0:30:15]: So I think the one thing preventing, like, other people from doing this is you're not gonna see my results if you do this once a week.
Melissa [0:30:20]: That's why I'm posting five times a day, five articles a day, it's gonna soon to be twenty five articles a, which I don't know how we're gonna do it.
Melissa [0:30:27]: But immediate companies act like media companies.
Melissa [0:30:29]: Right?
Melissa [0:30:29]: That's the thing.
Melissa [0:30:30]: That is what they do.
Melissa [0:30:31]: They're not a B2B company that decides to write one piece of content.
Melissa [0:30:35]: So I think the mentality would need to change for this the frameworks to work.
Melissa [0:30:39]: But if they do work.
Melissa [0:30:39]: They do work.
Melissa [0:30:40]: They just need...
Melissa [0:30:41]: When I went to work with quick click up ed with that.
Melissa [0:30:43]: I was like, okay.
Melissa [0:30:44]: So I'm gonna build brand I built brand at B2B companies, and I'm gonna approach it like that.
Melissa [0:30:48]: We're gonna hire my Buzzfeed feed video team, and we're gonna create a media agency within the company, and that's how we're gonna create all of our performance creative, and we're gonna do version of it, and we're gonna build branded stuff, and eventually, we'll do a super bowl commercial and he was like.
Melissa [0:31:01]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:31:02]: For sure.
Melissa [0:31:02]: Luckily, he was actually...
Melissa [0:31:04]: He meant that because that could've have backfired, like, really poorly.
Melissa [0:31:07]: But, yeah.
Melissa [0:31:07]: He he allowed me effectively to build, like, a media agency within the company and act more, like a B2c company just because, like, our Tam was effectively more b2c because it was teams of two to Teams thousands across every vertical.
Melissa [0:31:19]: So it made sense.
Melissa [0:31:20]: But it took, like, if he wasn't on board with that, Like, it wouldn't have worked.
Melissa [0:31:25]: It's the same thing here.
Melissa [0:31:26]: The way that I operate this company.
Melissa [0:31:28]: I don't know.
Melissa [0:31:29]: We do this for other customers and it works because we're at the helm of it.
Melissa [0:31:32]: I don't know if I joined a company as a CMO that I would be allowed to do this.
Melissa [0:31:37]: I don't know.
Melissa [0:31:38]: And maybe it's the right...
Melissa [0:31:39]: Like, I wouldn't be as successful as I am doing this outside of myself because I have this rigor in this angle of this misunderstanding of things.
Melissa [0:31:45]: So I think it just depends.
Melissa [0:31:47]: I do think considering companies can get there.
Melissa [0:31:49]: I mean, ramps the perfect example, like, they're really smart.
Melissa [0:31:51]: That they're gonna do this.
Melissa [0:31:52]: I mean, they're already doing this.
Melissa [0:31:53]: They also have money to play around with.
Melissa [0:31:55]: They are taking huge bets.
Melissa [0:31:57]: They're worth forty billion dollars.
Melissa [0:31:58]: There's Gamble that they can take that others are, like, we're Pe backed in, like, our investors don't understand thought leadership and we're gonna go hire, like, a Bd.
Melissa [0:32:07]: I don't know.
Melissa [0:32:08]: Obviously, that's not really what we wanna play in.
Melissa [0:32:10]: But I think it's mentality too of how you think about things.
Melissa [0:32:13]: But this will outlast.
Melissa [0:32:14]: Like, every other company if you do it well.
Melissa [0:32:16]: Like, you'll win for sure.
Dave [0:32:18]: With all of the advancements in Ai.
Dave [0:32:20]: Could I build an agent that meet...
Dave [0:32:22]: Is doing media monitoring is listening, how much of the secret sauce is you.
Dave [0:32:26]: I think you kinda answer this before because you have this system someone's gonna listen to Like, cool.
Dave [0:32:31]: We're just gonna automate this.
Dave [0:32:32]: We'll write these daily recap about what's going on in the news.
Melissa [0:32:35]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:32:35]: It's...
Melissa [0:32:36]: You can.
Melissa [0:32:36]: You can get it to a pretty good place.
Melissa [0:32:39]: It's so hard though.
Melissa [0:32:41]: The media listening portion is also the hardest thing because I have to understand what talk about across, like, a thousand different verticals.
Melissa [0:32:46]: So we've been building media listening sitting now for two and a half years and, like, we're getting there.
Melissa [0:32:50]: It's, like, really getting there.
Melissa [0:32:51]: It's, like, so close to being, like, all almost perfect.
Dave [0:32:54]: Sorry.
Dave [0:32:54]: What does that mean?
Dave [0:32:54]: Media listening, understanding what trending topic are interesting?
Melissa [0:32:58]: It's like what every single company is doing across at any given time slot into different what's happening in Ai orchestration, how companies are building their own companies, What's going viral on Linkedin, what changes are being made on websites, it's literally, like, how do we mask, like, any sort of a signal that can become a news story because it's not just news.
Melissa [0:33:18]: Because if you start only looking at trending topics, then you're not able to, like, we're kind able to almost, like break news because you're just listening so widely.
Melissa [0:33:25]: Which other companies and other media companies aren't really doing because they're don't not focused on that.
Melissa [0:33:29]: They're just focused on scoops.
Melissa [0:33:30]: Because everything's a signal for us.
Melissa [0:33:32]: When I write about how Uber is changing their company structure to align around Ai goes viral.
Melissa [0:33:37]: Alright.
Melissa [0:33:38]: Well, I need more of that because everyone cares about that.
Melissa [0:33:41]: And here's an example, like, the CFO of click up, Dan.
Melissa [0:33:44]: So so smart and really now Ai builds just insane.
Melissa [0:33:49]: And she writes about how they're changing the company and all this stuff, and I'll pick it up.
Melissa [0:33:53]: Because I'm like, this is really interesting and everyone else will wanna read this, but no publication is really picking it up, but I pick it up.
Melissa [0:33:59]: So...
Melissa [0:33:59]: And then other people pick it up, and then I gets shared.
Melissa [0:34:01]: So it's just kinda like, there is a sense of what can we find that others aren't finding that allows do this.
Melissa [0:34:06]: And then we pass that down to our customers too.
Melissa [0:34:08]: Like, that's the media listening supports us and it supports everyone else that we we service.
Melissa [0:34:13]: But, yes, you could do it.
Melissa [0:34:14]: You could it.
Melissa [0:34:15]: You can totally do it.
Melissa [0:34:15]: I'm not saying this is prohibited prohibit thing, You can definitely set it up.
Melissa [0:34:18]: It takes a little mass massage and thought
Dave [0:34:21]: I totally get it now.
Dave [0:34:22]: It's picking it go deep on an industry the companies in the industry, you're understanding what they're all saying and gosh, especially with you and the Ai.
Dave [0:34:31]: What's your Ai publication call.
Dave [0:34:33]: It's called the state of Ai.
Dave [0:34:34]: The state of Ai.
Melissa [0:34:35]: Which is really crazy because for some reason, well, first of all, I'm buying domains.
Melissa [0:34:40]: Like, I'm not buying a house and buying, like, fucking domains every day.
Melissa [0:34:42]: It's spent so much of my domains.
Melissa [0:34:44]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:34:44]: The really cool thing about it is we found a mask head that actually is also, everyone else's is state of report.
Melissa [0:34:50]: Every company calls their thing the state of acts.
Dave [0:34:54]: State of, yeah, We have a sponsor in our newsletter this week, the state of B2B marketing.
Dave [0:34:57]: Right?
Melissa [0:34:58]: But we're now the state of because we own every single state of domain.
Melissa [0:35:01]: So it's just kinda funny.
Melissa [0:35:02]: All of a sudden...
Dave [0:35:03]: I'm the gap that no.
Melissa [0:35:05]: Yeah.
Melissa [0:35:05]: Kind of that.
Melissa [0:35:05]: But, yeah.
Melissa [0:35:06]: It's a state of Ai the state of brand.
Melissa [0:35:07]: Those are the two and then we're launching seven in the next couple weeks.
Dave [0:35:11]: Okay.
Dave [0:35:11]: This is a sort psycho does during these interviews, but this is great.
Dave [0:35:15]: I look.
Dave [0:35:15]: I wanted to have him Because I think this perspective...
Dave [0:35:18]: I think we have this in our little intro in in our prep, and I'll just, like, kinda close with this, but I do think that this...
Dave [0:35:27]: I don't know if you said this or Marissa wrote it or Ai wrote it.
Dave [0:35:30]: So I'm just gonna say it.
Dave [0:35:31]: But Ai and content comm monetization have made it nearly possible to stand out on product alone.
Dave [0:35:36]: Companies are realized they need to control their own narrative rather than rented from algorithms or ad channels.
Dave [0:35:41]: And, like, this is stuff I love about marketing.
Dave [0:35:43]: And I I love that.
Dave [0:35:45]: Yep, All the Ai is comm demand gen and SEO and this...
Dave [0:35:48]: How can we...
Dave [0:35:49]: This concept of...
Dave [0:35:50]: Even if you don't go all the way in, like Melissa, and you're doing all this writing four hours night.
Dave [0:35:55]: Even if you just take a little step in that direction in start writing about industry news and becoming an authority on the topic your customers care about.
Dave [0:36:03]: I think this is the most impactful marketing strategy that you could be investing in right now.
Dave [0:36:07]: I hope this was helpful.
Dave [0:36:08]: That's why I wanted to have Melissa on.
Dave [0:36:09]: Go follow her, you can see this approach firsthand will link to all of her stuff, and it's fun to watch.
Dave [0:36:15]: It's like a little game now.
Dave [0:36:16]: I follow you and I see which one have to follow you and see which one is super viral, but as you corrected me properly, you never actually know what's happening behind the scenes.
Melissa [0:36:24]: Thanks steve.
Dave [0:36:29]: Hey.
Dave [0:36:29]: Thanks for listening to this podcast.
Dave [0:36:30]: If you like this episode.
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