Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Every day marketers sift through dozens of headlines, posts, and slacks telling us about the latest and greatest trend we should be following.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and like you have to figure it out by yourself. But you don’t have to do it alone. Content Matters with Nicole MacLean (Compose.ly’s CRO) is your digital partner for filtering the trends and focusing on the content that matters most — creating connection that drive results.
For more, head to our site: https://compose.ly/content-matters
Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius: https://shareyourgenius.com/
Jillian Hoefer [00:00:00]:
Original research is essentially just like anytime that we are putting out a large like we know, like hey, we want to put out a report or we want to do a state of or whatever, you go out and you partner with a third party agency to do the research that's third party verified through the survey and then you put the report together based on the data.
Nicole MacLean [00:00:20]:
I'm Nicole MacLean and this is Content Matters, created in partnership with Share Your Genius. Our show consists of three parts. One where we pull in other Compose.ly team members to talk about content that matters to you, like a viral LinkedIn post or the latest trend. The second always includes an in depth interview with a leading marketer sharing actionable insights and a little inspiration. And finally, you won't want to miss the last segment, aptly called Friends Matter, where we're shouting out some of your friends and mine for their content wins in B2B marketing. Let's cut through the marketing chaos together. All right, Mr. Leonhard, welcome back to the show. We're very excited to have you.
Mike Leonhard [00:01:01]:
Very excited to be back. Looking forward to chatting with you, Nicole.
Nicole MacLean [00:01:05]:
Yes, for those of you who haven't heard Mike on a previous episode, he is our fearless leader here at Compose.ly, our founder and CEO. So for this episode, there is a lot of talk. Well, one Gilly and I spend a lot of time talking about data, but there is a big trend I feel like in marketing about the importance of having data in your marketing messages. And so as a C suite buyer, I'd love just to hear your own experience in how data throughout the sales cycle impacts you on your journey of deciding if you want to move forward with a software or service and specifically thinking data as in like metrics or trends or something that actually puts quantitative proof behind a claim that a company is making during the sales process.
Mike Leonhard [00:01:52]:
I am probably a little bit maniacal in wanting some sort of proof in the pudding, right? Like if you don't have the ability to try before you buy or you don't have some way of trialing a service, obviously you want to have comfort that your investment is well spent. And I think the second best thing to some kind of trial or way to test the theory is to speak with references and get data. Right. I think those are kind of the two things. Seeing data, seeing metrics that show impact, I think give me a level of comfort in a lot of cases where I'm evaluating potential vendors or services, software whatever it may be. But I do think that that also comes with context, right? It's kind of like reading Google reviews or Yelp reviews for a restaurant. And not everybody is reviewing for the same criteria that you might care about. Right. And so you have to read what they're actually saying to understand whether or not they're giving a negative review. Is it something that is a concern for you or not? And I think it's the same thing. Reading in context the data that's given to you for a particular service that you're evaluating. Are they in a similar industry? Are they in a similar stage of their company as you? And is that impact that they're seeing and the data that they're presenting to you, if they're saying, hey, we can increase your close rate by 50%, okay, great, how are they doing that? And then the data that they're providing, what companies fed into that data and what is the context around that? So for me, it's a, yes, it's good to have that data, but I think it's also really important to understand the context in which that data is being pulled so that you have the comfort that the impact that those companies may be seeing is what you can expect for your own company.
Nicole MacLean [00:03:47]:
They say context is king, but I think it's that data and storytelling which we, spoiler alert, probably talk a little bit about in the rest of the episode. Cool. You can have the data, but as marketers, we have to be able to put that into a story, and we have to enable sales with that and your CSMs or account managers in kind of continuing to add value and win over your clients with the data you're finding. I remember in stats class in college, we had to read a book and it was like, all stats are a lie. Or like everybody lies with stats, because you can really manipulate to tell a story. And so to point, we want to do it in a. In an ethical. In a good way of showing the data. But, yeah, you're right. There is so much access to data now that people are almost a little more skeptical. If you see something too small, it's not impressive enough. If you see something wild and outlandish like, we can improve Your close rate 500% immediately, I feel like we go into skepticism. He'll tell me more about that data. Then you go into, Yeah, I want 500% increase. Like, if they can do it, of course I'm going to go buy them. So you have to really find that story that includes the context. I think that's a great point.
Mike Leonhard [00:04:54]:
Yeah, I totally agree. I look at it from both sides of the coin. Right. Because obviously, if it's something that heavily influences or impacts my decision making. For us and being more focused on driving content marketing and SEO strategies, how can we gather sort of macro level data around the impact that we're having across all of our customers? But again, part of that is if you want to be ethical, ensuring that when you're using that as a tool to potentially sell customers, that you're using it judiciously. And you know that like, hey, it's maybe the number, like you said, 500% increase in close rate, you could wield that as a tool, but at the same time, would you expect that that lead is going to be able to achieve the same results that have been driven for other clients? And I think that's where there's gotta be some guardrails around how the data is used. And yeah, to your point, the bad apples out there that use data as a weapon out of context, it creates that skepticism that, you know, oftentimes I think for us and within marketing, we need to be prepared to answer those questions and be able to provide the context and even preemptively maybe tell if someone looks at a case study or you know, we're talking to a lead that reads one of our case studies or sees these metrics on our website or in some marketing material and says, that's what I want, I want to see those same results, then I think it's up to us to also be able to go back and say, well, they saw those results because they had this in place or they had this type of strategy support and they were.
Nicole MacLean [00:06:31]:
Putting this effort into it. You know, it's a two way street. So to close us out on this, obviously data has a huge piece especially I feel like in a modern marketing strategy and a modern content strategy. If I was not coming to you saying, mike, let's use data, how would you coach a marketer to have the conversation with leadership that they should be investing in data and figuring out how to make that part of their story?
Mike Leonhard [00:06:55]:
I don't want to oversimplify the answer to that question. If you were coming to pitch me on the value of using data, I think it would be, hey, we need data.
Nicole MacLean [00:07:04]:
It's very meta. We need data to get the data.
Mike Leonhard [00:07:07]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, if you came to me and said, I'd like to include some numbers in our marketing materials, and so we need to put a project in place or put some effort into analyzing the impact that we've driven and coming up with these numbers, I mean, I think I would start with what the impact or the expected outcome would be like. If you were coming to me, I imagine you would say, mike, I think I can increase lead gen, or I think I would be able to close that better and increase our win rate if I had this information, this data at my disposal. Do you think we can work internally to gather that information so that I have it on my fingertips? It would be very useful. So working your way backwards from what is the impact that having that data would drive, and basically being able to paint a picture for your leadership that this is going to help you to move the needle for the specific outcomes that they're looking for. Right. And working your way backwards from there is probably the best way to do it.
Jillian Hoefer [00:08:13]:
I'm Jillian Hoefer. I'm senior Content Marketing Manager at UserEvidence, and we are a customer evidence platform that helps B2B companies surface and share more customer evidence so that they can build more trust and close more deals.
Nicole MacLean [00:08:29]:
So if Anyone was on LinkedIn in, like, 2020, following marketing, marketing companies, then you know that I am so chuffed and just awestruck to have a famous LinkedIn content creator. It is literally the Dumpster Fire Girl from Terminus. And I'm sure everyone is now clicking in their head like, oh, my gosh, the Dumpster Fire Girl. She's literally in studio today, guys.
Jillian Hoefer [00:08:59]:
I am. That is so funny. I'm now remembering, Nicole, the first time that I met you. I remember, like, we were hanging out at that, like, kind of sugar genius little house party thing that we had. And I remember you kind of, like, eyeing me across the room, and I was like, have we met before? I'm trying to remember. Whatever. And then I come over and introduce myself, and you said, I know who you are. You're Dumpster Girl. And I was like, I have messed up severely. I've messed up because I so early in my career pinpointed myself as Dumpster girl.
Nicole MacLean [00:09:27]:
Okay. I feel like I have to take a step back in case you don't know what I'm talking about. In 2020, it was a rough year, as we all know, and Terminus was just crushing it with content creation. I'm sure we'll hear all the great things from you, but they did this genius video of a dumpster fire. And just how, like, everything in the world was a dumpster fire. And out of this dumpster sprang this energetic, bubbly, charismatic redhead that I now get to call a friend and is Jillian. But it was just so iconic and that it's just one of those moments as a marketer that you see a piece like that and you're just like, dang, I wish I had thought of that. Like, it was just so brilliant and fun and engaging and like approachable and if you know the Terminus brand. Yeah, it was. I mean, obviously I loved it, but.
Jillian Hoefer [00:10:17]:
You are, you're the best. It's so funny, actually. So Justin Keller, who was my boss at the time, who was the genius behind it, he and I had this. I'll say it was a blessing to us, but maybe a curse to the rest of the company where it's like we just couldn't stop one upping each other. So it was like he would be like, what if we do like an ad about a dumpster fire? And then I'd be like, well, what if I get in a dumpster and we make the ad? And he's like, well, then what if we set it on fire and invite the fire department to come? And I'm like, and what if we. So we just like couldn't help doing that. And we did it for so many other campaigns at the company. And I mean, like, we did so many of them. And that's why Terminus is like, I credit so much of cutting my teeth in my career at Terminus. I stumbled into this. I didn't mean to be here. I didn't grow up being like, I Hope I'm a B2B content marketer and I am on LinkedIn someday. Like, that was not my dream. My dream has always been to be a storyteller. And I'm like, as much as we can do to tell stories in a market and in an industry that at the time was pretty lacking in like stories and fun, attention grabbing campaigns. I am like, all for it. To the point that, yes, I will get in an actual dumpster. We didn't pre clean that, by the way. There was like a toilet behind it. Like literally I just jumped in it. So far I haven't gotten any diseases or anything. So I think we're fine if I'm five years removed.
Nicole MacLean [00:11:35]:
Okay. But it is an interesting point, especially at smaller companies when you think about content creation and how you can have this idea, but you don't have the million dollar budgets at the super bowl and the ads that will come out of that for months to come. And so if you want to make it happen, it's kind of like you're almost restricted by just your willingness or your coworker's willingness to do it. And I don't think they tell you that when you get into these roles that in you have to do it. You have to become the Persona 100%.
Jillian Hoefer [00:12:07]:
And also, Nicole, like sometimes you just gotta prove it before you get the budget. Like I would say most marketing things, you are rarely, really rarely ever gonna get budget for something upfront. If you're like, I Want to Shoot $150,000 ad campaign that we're gonna do, blah, blah, and it's gonna be hair, makeup, the whole thing. Like you really gotta do it down and dirty first to prove the value of it and prove the impact of it. And then you kind of earn it from there. Pretty much every marketing project I've done, you've had to do it that way. But also like, dude, the down and dirty stuff works better. It just works better because it's different. It's attention grabbing. Typically if you're doing something down and dirty, like there's kind of this element of groundedness to it almost that just like magnets people in. Which is fun.
Nicole MacLean [00:12:52]:
It is. And then to point, you get to learn in the moment and be like, oh, I could do this. Or how many times do we want to put our CEOs or our leaders on camera? And sometimes it's just not their skill set. And then because they have the title or you think it should be all stuffy and professional, like that's what you need to do. When in reality it's like, go get your sdr, who probably is so charismatic and loves talking to people, cuz that's why they're in sales and go put them on camera and see what they do. And that might actually resonate more than the stuffy, overly produced X, Y, Z thing.
Jillian Hoefer [00:13:25]:
Totally. And I think also, like, there's a certain element of when an idea and content is good, it's not going to feel forced because you have the right people and the right message at the right time. Like for the dumpster fire, I've been on camera like I cut my teeth in broadcast journalism. So I was like a news reporter and anchor in my college career for the local news station and then have been acting my whole life. Like we kind of just leaned into the strength of like, hey, we have a Jillian. So let's, let's do it because she can pull it off. Whereas if we would have hired someone, it would have felt weird to do, you know what I mean? Super similar. There's a company called Clue that just put out a mini movie that it was a fully produced office spoof. One of their team members, he does standup comedy and comedy writing on the side. So he wrote and starred in the whole thing and it was hilarious. Not only was it so well done, but also it just was so grounded because you could tell that the person who wrote it and acted in it, like, knew the product and the problem and the value and all the things. So it just like had this element of, like, truth and groundedness to it. So I think that is kind of like a little magic thing that marketers, if it feels forced, like you're pro, you probably just don't have the right mix at the moment.
Nicole MacLean [00:14:38]:
On our side, if you've been listening to the show, then hopefully you know Frannie, who's our content creator, who is an improv comedian and that was her background in theater and is just one of the most skilled, like voice writers and brand writers. And so part of that going into our 2025 strategy was our best performing emails, hands down, is when we go and have fun. So we did. It was not even close to the theme of a webinar series we did, but it was right when Bridgerton was coming out and everyone was obsessed with it.
Jillian Hoefer [00:15:08]:
Yes.
Nicole MacLean [00:15:08]:
So we did a Bridgerton style recap. Email. It was just so clear. If this is cutting through the noise of email, everyone says email. Everyone thinks marketing's dead. Email's dead. SEO is dead. We love to say tried and true marketing things are dead, but it just means it. It levels up. You have to keep getting better and so going in. We're about to launch our prospect newsletter at the end of February, but we're leaning into creating a character and designing that character and giving her a voice and letting Franny really have fun in that, which you couldn't do if you had someone that. That just wasn't their skill set.
Jillian Hoefer [00:15:42]:
If you didn't have a Franny, you couldn't be doing that right at UserEvidence right now. A huge part of my job and my priority is helping produce and strategize thought leadership content for our internal thought leaders. So Mark huber, who's our VP of marketing, is stellar on LinkedIn and in his newsletter, evidently. So it's like I came in and it's like every single company has been like, yeah, we want to make our leaders thought leaders. You can't just magically do that.
Nicole MacLean [00:16:12]:
Like, if they don't have Preach, if.
Jillian Hoefer [00:16:14]:
They don't have the voice, if they don't have the message clear, if they don't have a clear pov, if they don't have enough charisma to be on camera, like you said, you can't force Any of that coming in and having a mark is a dream because he already had the pov. He had the voice, he had the muscle, he had the content. I just get to come in and kind of help refine and tie back to the rest of our content strategy a little bit and then amplify what he's doing. So it's way more about distribution than creation, because he's covering a lot of the creation well.
Nicole MacLean [00:16:47]:
Because what typically ends up happening is you have someone that says, we want to make our leaders or co founders thought leaders on LinkedIn. What they really mean is, can you go come up with the thought leadership and then I'll do it. Because sometimes you could have a really charismatic leader, but they're not close enough to the clients or to the market and so they don't know what to say and they have to at least commit to go halfway. Like, it has to be 50, 50. You can't be like, let me puppet master the words coming out of your mouth, the voice, like something you need to have at least like two of the four things you mentioned. And then I think that's where you can come in as a marketer and help in the other areas. Or say like, okay, maybe you don't understand LinkedIn, but when you talk, it's great. So let me grab that and I'll figure out how to make it resonate on a LinkedIn audience or in a YouTube video or whatever. And like, that's a fine partnership. That's what marketing and thought leadership partnership should look like. But a lot of times there is no 50, 50. It's a 9010. And that's where we get cringe screenshots in group texts of like, who thought this was a good idea to post this?
Jillian Hoefer [00:17:50]:
Well, and that's why I'm a little, I'm a little icky on like founder led content right now and how much of a trend it is. Because like you were saying, you can't just like inject personality and a POV into any warm body. It doesn't happen. And the content marketers that are being forced into that, I don't think it's fair and I don't think it's a good use of their time and talent by any means. I think a lot about like making sure that you are leaning into the strengths of the founder or the thought leader that you're trying to support in the content in the way that like, for example, Mark, amazing writer, great podcast host. I literally have said this to his face. So he Will like hear this clip and he'll laugh and he'll know it. One time he tried to copy my style on LinkedIn, which is the like walk and talk, like just film yourself. Cause that's just like off the cuff, like that's what I like to do unscripted. He tried to do that one time and I literally was like, mark, you can't post this. I'm so sorry. You can't post this. This is not, it's not you. It feels forced, it feels, the angle's weird. Like it just didn't work and he.
Nicole MacLean [00:18:59]:
It didn't fit his personality. You can't exactly. I mean, not everyone can get in a dumpster.
Jillian Hoefer [00:19:05]:
Not clear. Well, maybe not everyone should. Everyone probably can, but they probably shouldn't. I wouldn't recommend it. But, but that's the thing too is that I think like as content marketers who are being tasked with so much more of this founder led content stuff, which like, there are benefits to for sure, at least for me. The formula I found is like, number one, you have to make sure that the thought leader, like has the strength of either some form of communication, like is it video, is it writing, is it something that like comes naturally to them? Like what is the best way their personality and their message comes across? But then number two, you also have to make sure that they have the time and the bandwidth to work with you on it. Because if you create, send, create, send, create, send for them, it's not going to work at all. The best way that I've seen a lot of like consultants do it and the way that I've done it with our thought leaders internally is that I get on a video interview with them for 90 minutes at the beginning of the quarter and we film content together. So like our founder, Evan Huck, I did this with him last quarter and we got on Riverside together. We filmed for 90 minutes. I just asked him a bunch of questions that were gonna tie into the content themes that we had for the quarter, ask him some thought leadership things, let him rant about whatever was on his mind. And I used that to craft all his content. But also the video we captured ended up being like, it was kind of a funny story that he was on vacation with his family, he was at his parents house, he, you know, he's got two toddlers, they're all running around screaming in the house. His wifi is bad. So he's like, hey, I, I gotta just hop on my phone, we're just gonna have to do this selfie mode. From my phone. So he hops on like facetime camera on Riverside and is just like wandering around his parents beautiful San Diego backyard with his phone. And I literally, at the end of it I was like, Evan, this felt like a FaceTime. And he was like, oh yeah. And I'm like, FaceTime's with the founders. So we put together half of his thought leadership for last quarter was edited. We worked with our great video agency, Event Shark to kind of overlay a little like FaceTime interface over it to look like it was FaceTiming. And it's like that was a really good performing way to do genuine thought leadership from him because it, it worked. He's not great scripted on video, so I'm not going to sit down and try to do a scripted interview with him. Even though a lot of crowning content is like that. But I was like, that was natural to him and it kind of happened accidentally. And I'm like, okay, that'll be a formula for us from now on.
Nicole MacLean [00:21:20]:
I love the three steps, but I do think there's a fourth, which is a psychological safety between a content creator and the founder. And if the founder doesn't one give time, if there's not the trust and respect and a point, if you didn't feel psychologically safe to go to mark and be like that was not your best. You have other strengths. Like you've other great things, but this one, not so much. And you were afraid to push back and then you let that go live. That actually does more deterioration to getting there. And it sounds like you build that. And so again, it has to be 50, 50. You have to build that relationship as the marketer. But as a founder or someone who says, let's do founder led content or I want to be a thought leader, you have to create space and vulnerability to pull out the best stuff.
Jillian Hoefer [00:22:07]:
That is such a good point. It's such a good point. And I think that's why I've struggled too with like we've dabbled with and we may end up bringing someone in who's external to come help us do just the velocity of some founder like content. And I'm like, we got to find a right fit here. We got to make sure that like that person gels. They've got to gel with who we're going to be creating content for. Because that psychological safety point is a brilliant one that I've never like fully put together. I'm like, yes, absolutely. You're never going to create good content if that trust and that safety is not there. And also the understanding of the POV and the message we're trying to get across. And the voice, because the voice is hard. The voice is really hard.
Nicole MacLean [00:22:48]:
I think good content marketers actually are at the center of the business. I mean, I think marketing lives at the center of the business, regardless of what people want to say. We've talked about it on other episodes, but to your point, to do it well, you need to know the pitch like a salesperson. You need to know the client impact, like an account manager or a csm. You need to understand your product just as well as a product marketer or the actual product team. And you have to, of course, as marketing, think about the brand and think about that larger message. And you are sitting at the epicenter of all of that, which of course there are challenges, but it's also so special. And I think it is this secret weapon that content marketers are way more business minded than I think people give credit to. Because in order to do it well, you really do need to have that viewpoint of everything frickin preach.
Jillian Hoefer [00:23:38]:
Nicole And I also think frankly, that's why content marketers, we don't have a seat at the table a lot of the time. Like that's why it's considered a junior role and that's why there is.
Nicole MacLean [00:23:46]:
Why would you ever put content marketing on your elt? Like you're not, you know, but in reality you need to hear that stuff.
Jillian Hoefer [00:23:53]:
I think one of the biggest reminders I've had coming back into this content role, because I was out of content for a while, I was in a lot of generalist roles and then I came back full force into content for this role. I think the reminder I had coming in here is how easy it is to get into the silo of just like hamster wheel of content, because you have a certain amount of output, especially as a small team of one for content, you have a lot of output that you need to need to hit. You're kind of like made to feel that you need to hit. But the weeks that I am not meeting with other people around the company, the weeks that I'm not sharing audience insights and feedback with other areas of the company, those are the weeks that I'm like, oh, I'm not earning my seat at the table here.
Nicole MacLean [00:24:33]:
Oh, that's interesting.
Jillian Hoefer [00:24:35]:
Yeah. And it's like, for example, I would say like the two big pillars for us at UserEvidence as far as content goes is that top level, top of funnel thought leadership content, which is a muscle that basically we're building up our internal thought leaders to then the second arm is original research. So this is something that I found as a content marketer to be the reason that I'm able to make impact and have a seat at the table. So original research is essentially just like anytime that we are putting out a large, like we know, like hey, we want to put out a report or we want to do a state of or whatever, you go out and you partner with a third party agency to do the research that third party verified through the survey and then you put the report together based on the data. Obviously the thing that's been so interesting to me in running, we're building currently a new original research report. Now the thing that's been so interesting to me is that I am the keeper of the findings from that report. So I have all of the data from the third party agency that we partnered with to do this. I have all the survey data, I have all the key interviews and all the transcripts that lives with me. If I keep that to myself and just use it to create this content, it actually doesn't matter nearly as much if I take the findings and I go. Actually let me think, like you said, let me think wider in the business. Let me think about the insights that we gain from this outside of just the content that can come from it. For example, the thing we're working on right now is a customer marketing tech landscape report. So it's a huge holistic, almost like state of buying within the industry. But also we surveyed like 200 plus users of customer marketing tech and we have analysis of each of the vendors in the space as well as just insights about like how to build a tech stack, what the best companies are doing, examples, the state of the industry, state of buying, what should you care about? Are we going to have budget increase or decrease? So it's a monster of a report which is going to be like so much content which I'm already like salivating over. But I was digging through the results of the survey which we had one write in question on the survey which was essentially like if you wanted these vendors to know one thing, what would you want them to know? Imagine if I didn't dig into that. I took that Stuff and ChatGPT helped me out and I aggregated some insights about like where the industry is going, what customers want to see more of from vendors within the industry. And I compiled that and I sent it to our product lead, I sent it to our co founders, I sent it to our sales leader and I Said, these are insights that you guys need to act on immediately. Like, this is stuff that we just can't ignore. Like, this isn't just fodder for content. This is like genuine, impactful industry insights that we never would have gotten if we hadn't started creating this content. And you also never would have had if I didn't dig into it and then become cross functional in that way.
Nicole MacLean [00:27:24]:
Well, and your best distributors are your employees. I mean, that's not new. We've said it. But it's also in helping them understand how to distribute it, showing value to your client, success managers, your account managers, and saying here's a stat or here's something we heard or here's a great blog post or here's a great podcast clip that's just going to make them feel heard and seen. You should go share that with your client. Or when you hear this on a call, that should be a trigger for you to dig in. On xyz think same thing on sales. And it sounds so easy. But we just wrapped up our KO like revenue kickoff and it's so clear saying something one time is not going to create action. So I was like, cool. We spent this whole time and like it was great and the team did awesome. It was a fantastic time. But the thing I took away from it was like, okay, now I have to go reinforce this at least six more times because that's just how humans are. You can't hear something once to point. You can't just have a big launch of this report and suddenly expect that all of these other teams are going to latch onto that and actually make it part of their DNA. The way you have spent months, probably in this data, weeks in this data, so you can just throw it off the cuff. So then you have to enable the team to go do that as well.
Jillian Hoefer [00:28:38]:
100%. So internal enablement is a huge piece of what I do. And like when we were planning, you know, okrs and projects for the quarter and everything, like Mark, my boss, encouraged me to really say, like, hey, make sure that you're taking into account what are the things that you do every day that are not accounted for, like on these list of bubble, boom, boom, boom projects. And I was like, internal enablement, like I genuinely, that takes up a decent chunk of my time and rightfully so, as it should, because the thing that I did not do when I first joined here and I'm rectifying it now because I realize that I'm like, I'm missing a lot of this is that Fair.
Nicole MacLean [00:29:14]:
I mean, you've had 90 days. I don't know that you would say it's a mistake that you're going years back to rectify. You're just like, you know, maybe been a little busy. I'm just doing it now.
Jillian Hoefer [00:29:23]:
One thing about me is if it was not done yesterday, then, then what am I doing?
Nicole MacLean [00:29:27]:
Right?
Jillian Hoefer [00:29:28]:
But the thing that I do like, you know, when we have a new blog or gated piece of content or a podcast episode or video, whatever, thought leadership post, anything that goes out that I want to enable the team with. We have a Slack channel for just internal enablement. I share it with them. I give them the why of why it's important. Basically from a like sales and customer success perspective. I give them prompts for how they can share something around it on social media, not say read this latest thing. It's just prompts that they can use for their own thought leadership. And then I also tell them just to read it themselves. Because everything that we create should also be like educating our own team as well. But then I would do that and just kind of be like, okay, done. But now I'm remembering and realizing that I'm like that rule of like, you need to tell people things. I think the actual statistic is 12 times. Like people need to hear something 12 times in order to remember it. So now I send it to the LinkedIn channel, the LinkedIn Crew channel that we call it, which is like our internal enablement. I reshare it to the sales channel after I put the link to the thing in the right place in our sales Resource center notion page where I say, hey, remember reminder, this thing is live. It's linked in the src. Here's how you can use it in deals. I'll reshare then to customer success and tell them how they can. You've got to make sure you personalize like the why, because otherwise no one cares. No one cares about it if you're not giving them the why it matters to them. Precisely. So I'm trying to do a better job of making sure that story is told in the right channels over and over again. Obviously without being a spam bot.
Nicole MacLean [00:30:56]:
As a sales and marketing leader, I'm always interested to hear about a team's tech stack. At Compose.ly, we use Apollo with HubSpot to fuel our outbound outreach. My team loves it. It consistently provides accurate contact information and is incredibly user friendly. If you're thinking about changing your data provider or just want to hear more about our experience, connect with me. On LinkedIn or check out the link in the show notes of this episode. Improve your inbound, increase conversion and keep your marketing database squeaky clean. With Apollo, you mentioned something that I think is such a great tactic and I feel like if you aren't doing it as a content marketer, you really should, which is giving prompts so that they can do their own thought leadership instead of the Here are three options, pick one. Everyone picks the first. And then if you happen to follow multiple people at a company magically, something goes live and you see the same copy and paste enablement from every employee and it's just not unique or authentic.
Jillian Hoefer [00:31:54]:
At that point, I'm going to share with you something that recently happened that like made my entire life. So last quarter I hosted a, what we called a social sparking session with our sales team, which is essentially kind of the antithesis to social selling is. We were like, hey, social selling is the worst in the way that people have like morphed it to be. So Jen Allen Knuth, who is a baddie and one of our advisors, helped us put together this social sparking concept deck that's basically like, hey, instead of just like connecting, pitch slapping in dms, interacting with everything and following up every two minutes, it's way more about just enabling our team to become their own thought leaders and to become the expert on the problem that UserEvidence is solving. So we spent an hour long session talking about like, hey, let's brainstorm together, everyone. Like, let's make sure we can recite it. What's the problem we're solving together? What are stories we can share around the problem? You guys don't have to present a solution. The moral to every story is not UserEvidence is the way the moral to the story is that if you start to post more content around the fact that like you understand the problem that we are solving and then you start connecting with people who you would like to get in front of and they organically start to see some of that before you reach out to them, that trust is going to be there because they're going to go, oh, I've seen you on the feed. You know, like, you get it, you understand the problem. And so we did that last quarter. It was probably about like, you know, halfway through the quarter. And I just got a message the other day from one of our sales leaders who said, my friend texted me and asked what our company training was for LinkedIn, because she said, it seems like we are literally everywhere.
Nicole MacLean [00:33:34]:
That's amazing. And I was like, that's amazing.
Jillian Hoefer [00:33:37]:
And that, that's the thing is that it's not like we're not feeding a certain narrative or a certain type of post. Like we kept it really broad of just saying, like, guys, just understand the problem and then tell stories any way that you want to. We have one rock star SDR who just is super creative and funny and she started posting like these kind of like little quippy stories about like what's the ROI of buying my new Garmin watch? Like blah, blah. Which kind of plays into our. Like, we help gather ROI data and stuff. I forget the punchline. That was a horrible example. Cause I forget the punchline. But like, but everyone started injecting this creativity. People were making memes, people were drawing their own comics to share. Like it just all of a sudden became. I was like, oh, our marketing team just quadrupled overnight. Because all of a sudden with 60 minutes of focused time to just like build that muscle together of becoming an expert on the problem, not on the solution. All of a sudden the, the team just like really, really engaged and understood. Like, oh, wow. And I've seen their confidence just like go through the roof even on sales calls now because I feel like they're just talking about it more. So the reps are getting in and they're now more confident in sharing the story because they're doing it in a public forum.
Nicole MacLean [00:34:53]:
That is my big takeaway of this episode is to focus on, on the problem because that's probably like the worst thing. If you ever have watched a sales call or you go into sales coaching and you just hear them asking questions, leading them about a, like, it's a self centered question versus a genuine question. So I just did a discovery session with our team and had them be like, okay, here's the profile. Like what are questions you would ask? And some of them it's like, okay, you're asking that question because we need to know that based on our workflow that ultimately is going to set them up for success. So you're thinking about it the right way, but you're asking things about our solutions versus really understanding what their problem is so that you can then tell them what the solution is the later. And I think that is a mindset shift 100.
Jillian Hoefer [00:35:39]:
And the best sales people and sales leaders that I've worked with are ones who are like just the most curious people in the world. And they go in like, I actually have no agenda here. And they're also willing to go if it doesn't work out, that's fine. Like we're not a fit for everyone. So it's like they've almost let go that, like, grip of, like, we, I have to close this deal. I have to get this number, which I've never been a salesperson, and God forbid I ever am, because I'd be the worst at it. But, like, that's the way that I've seen it done the most genuinely and most successfully. And I love to see that mentality come through.
Nicole MacLean [00:36:14]:
I think you'd be a great salesperson because I think the best sales people are like, wait, I don't think we can help you. Like, I just don't know. And then they're like, well, but I forgot to tell you about this whole other thing. Then you're like, oh, okay. Well, that's good to know. Or sometimes they're just like, thank you. Yeah, you know what? It's good to know what you're good at or not good at. And if you're not a fit, like, let's not waste our time. And that's still good brand awareness for you.
Jillian Hoefer [00:36:37]:
Oh, yeah. And I think that. Well, thank you for saying that. But really genuinely, like, I would hate. I have so much respect. I have so much.
Nicole MacLean [00:36:43]:
We also talked about this earlier, that just because you can do something doesn't. Does not mean you should. Just because you can get in the dumpster, sometimes you still should think about it.
Jillian Hoefer [00:36:53]:
If you are. If you are scared of dirt or grime or immunocompromised, you shouldn't get in the dumpster. You should be in the dumpster.
Nicole MacLean [00:37:01]:
Nicole is not.
Jillian Hoefer [00:37:02]:
Nicole's not allowed.
Nicole MacLean [00:37:04]:
No, Nicole is the germ freak. This is a deep Disney cut, but if you know Tarzan and Tantor, when he goes to get. Are you a Tantor 100 sanity on your sanitary. It looks questionable to me.
Jillian Hoefer [00:37:20]:
Yeah, don't leave the dumpster diving to me. I'm good.
Nicole MacLean [00:37:23]:
Right? This is why we're a great pair. Okay, going back, because I have to add the tactical thing to it too. And we've started doing it, which I'm really excited about. To your point of quadrupling, a small content team is using ChatGPT and helping your sales team create their own GPT command of what their voice is. So we can create the branded content, the branded marketing email, the branded blog, the, you know, whatever, the branded social post. But then say, using this information, make it sound like Ana, make it sound like Jillian, make it sound like Nicole. And because you spent some time saying, what is your Persona on LinkedIn now, you can still Use that one central theme message, but it isn't so corporate, isn't so cookie cutter and it feels authentic 100%.
Jillian Hoefer [00:38:12]:
Yeah. And the thing too is like, when you are trying to get more people in your company active on LinkedIn, not everyone's a strong writer. And that's okay. So part of the presentation, the social, social sparking presentation that we gave was actually like, here's how you can use Chat GPT to help you not to write your entire post from start to finish. In my opinion, Chat GPT is not for you to prompt. It prompts you for LinkedIn post.
Nicole MacLean [00:38:40]:
Yes, like a little Yoda action.
Jillian Hoefer [00:38:42]:
It's a little, it's a little bit of Yoda, but like, also there's just other functionality that is, I think so helpful when it comes to content, especially thought leadership content. On ChatGPT, for example, the app, I know Mark and I both use this a lot just because it's a helpful starting place. And he and I tend to both be people that are way more external processors than like sit down in a document. On the Chat GPT mobile app, there's the voice feature that you can basically.
Nicole MacLean [00:39:06]:
Like, that's what I was talk to it.
Jillian Hoefer [00:39:08]:
So basically I'll sit there and I'll ramble for five minutes and I'll say, hey, help me put format this into a written post that's going to be compelling. Like, you already know my voice. You know, like, don't stray from what I just said to you. Like, use my words, but just format it in a way that's going to make a little bit more sense. And then of course, it's that sandwich that everyone talks about. It's like you start with a human AI helps fill in the middle and then human touches at the end because you can't. Like, I would never ever just copy, paste, send, especially when I'm doing thought leadership for other people as well. So that I found that works really well. And it really helps you get out of your head too, because a lot of people have that blank page syndrome, like the blinking cursor syndrome of it's so scary to stare at a blank page and feel like I should be writing something, I should be posting something.
Nicole MacLean [00:39:52]:
Well, and how often is it that you're like, okay, I have 10 minutes. Like, I'm setting an hour aside to be creative and do LinkedIn. And that's when nothing comes 100%, like, it's not going to happen. And then of course, it's when you're, you know, with your 18 month old daughter in a walking and you have a Stanley and a bottle and whatever, and you're like, oh my gosh, I just had the best moment of brilliance. What do I do? It's giving yourself those structures and the system to be able to capture that in the moment and then go execute it later. But it never works that you're like.
Jillian Hoefer [00:40:24]:
No, I, I've solved it.
Nicole MacLean [00:40:26]:
I know exactly what I wanna put on.
Jillian Hoefer [00:40:27]:
Like, no. And that's why I'm crazy enough that I just do the vlog style videos because I'm just like, I'm crazy enough that I'll let the unedited first version go out well.
Nicole MacLean [00:40:36]:
And this is great for anyone. Like I really should do a podcast episode about podcasts because it is such just a great medium for so many things. But when people want to do a bunch of prep calls and they want all these questions, you know, listed point by point, I kind of actually hate that because you miss. I don't know exactly what you're going to say to this or if you say it differently in the moment. Like I just want to capture like the genuine curiosity of what comes out and saying, okay, let's go really explore that. And you can't always do that if you over prep it well.
Jillian Hoefer [00:41:05]:
And frankly, that's I think why my videos are my best performing content on my LinkedIn by far. And I think that's the reason is that like we're, I've always been the marketer. It's probably like the little bit of the rebel in me, but I'm, I've always in my marketing just like tried to steer away from what everyone else is doing. Cause I feel cringey about it. And I'm like, well, if no one's doing this, then I'm going to do it because why wouldn't I try it? So like I was the kid that grew up watching vlogs on YouTube and I just loved watching vlogs and I've always loved that style of video. And then when it became more of like the quick cut kind of TikTok vlog style, I love that. And so I didn't see that on LinkedIn. So I'm like, I'm going to start doing that because no one's doing it. And off the cuff, like everything's becoming a lot more polished. Especially with the founder led content. You can tell when it's being written with help from other people. Like that's all becoming so, so polished that I was like, okay, if everyone's becoming more polished over here. What if I become less polished over here in a different format because it's a dead giveaway when a founder led content is all text? Because then, you know, you're definitely getting help from other people, in my opinion.
Nicole MacLean [00:42:12]:
Right.
Jillian Hoefer [00:42:12]:
But like, to me, that was just kind of like, it came naturally to me. I had kind of the inherent skill set for it and no one else was doing it. So I'm like, let's, let's try it. And it's been my best performing stuff.
Nicole MacLean [00:42:23]:
Something I've said for leaders too is you are taking that risk because you feel safe to do so. You feel safe in job security. This is going to probably get us on too much of a tangent, but we were also talking about just a level of comfortability and contentness that comes in yourself when you reach a certain point in your career or, I don't know, would, would Jillian eight years ago be comfortable taking that risk?
Jillian Hoefer [00:42:45]:
Zero percent.
Nicole MacLean [00:42:46]:
But it's because you have the support of your leadership team and the support of yourself to be like, if I get in this dumpster and everyone hates it, I'm still okay with it and I know I'm not gonna get fired on the other side of it. So let's try it. And those are, I think, just two pieces that leaders want that risk, they want their marketers to find that viral thing, but you have to create the space for the risk as well.
Jillian Hoefer [00:43:09]:
Oh, I love that point. And you're 100% right, Nicole. Cause you know what? This was not me on LinkedIn. Even a year ago, this was not me on LinkedIn. But when I got hired on, one of the things that Mark said to me as part of the final interview is he said, are you going to be willing to put yourself out there as a face for our brand? And I said, I've gotten in a dumpster for a brand before. So yeah, I guess, I guess, I guess that's the next step so that you're 100% right. I actually never connected those dots. I was given not only permission, but I also was given kind of like, hey, this is part of the job. Which all of a sudden made it a lot less cringy and a lot less of like, am I so cringey? Like, no, I literally consider it a KPI of my job. Like, when was the last time I posted something that was good POV for, you know, the content marketing audience that is going to be following UserEvidence? When was last time I posted something that is going to help me grow to the next step? In my career and help me become a better marketer. When was the last time I posted and helped me understand the algorithm better so I can understand it for the people internally that I'm helping create content for for LinkedIn. So all those things could not happen unless it was like, you're right, I was given the trust and I was given kind of the, like, directive from leadership push.
Nicole MacLean [00:44:23]:
Yeah. I want to caution because I do think there's so much about video and people are trying to find this thought leadership of people and brand. If that is not your thing, if you are not a fellow theater child, children like Jillian and I, and this literally makes you like sweat and go hide under a table, that is okay. You can be an incredible marketer and an incredible content marketer and never be a face or put yourself out there in that way. But if that is something you're interested in or if you've ever watched a podcast and be like, I mean, I guess, I mean, I would maybe try it. Like, I think maybe that's the encouragement is do it. And if you are a leader and you see someone who has that skill set or and you want to take the risk, like, you have to create the space for it, don't walk away from this episode being like, great, I have to go get a camera and a mic and I have to go figure out how to do this. No, you don't. But it is an option and it is becoming something you can take advantage of if you want to.
Jillian Hoefer [00:45:16]:
I love that point, Nicole. And you know what? For me, at least, like baby Jillian, beginning of her career, having no idea what she wanted to do and where she wanted to end up. One of the sparks of something that she thought she might want to do someday was be a spokesperson. Like what 18 year old is like, maybe he'll be a spokesperson for a brand. I.
Nicole MacLean [00:45:36]:
But Jillian was.
Jillian Hoefer [00:45:38]:
Jillian was. And look what happened. I've become a spokesperson for most brands that I worked for. And so that's like, you're so right. It's because that's what I wanted and it's my skill set came to it. There are so many incredible content marketers who I know who have zero presence themselves on LinkedIn and they're crushing it for their brands. There are so many marketers I know that have zero presence on any sort of like thought leadership circuit or podcast circuit or whatever. And they're literally doing the best work out there quietly.
Nicole MacLean [00:46:08]:
Absolutely.
Jillian Hoefer [00:46:08]:
And probably even better because, you know, sometimes we're pretty insufferable because we put Ourselves on cameras and mics, and that's what we like to do.
Nicole MacLean [00:46:16]:
I know there is a moment where you're just like, you go to a YouTube. I go to our YouTube page and I was like, oh, it's just my face.
Jillian Hoefer [00:46:22]:
Just a lot of.
Nicole MacLean [00:46:23]:
I was like, I'm not even. I'm like, I want you to hear Jillian. I just am the person that got Jillian to talk about these cool things, you know? So, like, there is this moment we joke. Our SEO director, there was like, something happened in Google and I was like, I'm really sorry, it's Friday, but can we go get cute and do like a three minute video explaining what just happened? She's like, yeah, let me go get some dry shampoo. Give me like, five minutes. Is like, no one talks about the burden of putting yourself on camera and just. You can't just show up.
Jillian Hoefer [00:46:53]:
Do you know how many times I've had a really good idea? Because I'm the kind of. When I'm Again, when I'm doing content for myself, like on LinkedIn or for my page, I have no cadence, I have no calendar, I have no whatever. I am a. Like, if I feel it in the moment, gotta go do it. Same thing with, like, this haircut. Literally, I'm like, feel it, go do it. And that's when my best content comes. If I try to force it, it does not happen. That's the worst is when I'm like, I have the idea, but I haven't showered in four days and I'm in the same sweatshirt I wore in my last video. So I gotta. I gotta go do this stuff. Okay.
Nicole MacLean [00:47:25]:
Right. I do feel like there should be a, like, content creator stipend of, like.
Jillian Hoefer [00:47:31]:
Give me the ring light, baby. I need. I don't have it and I need it. I need the. I need to make sure I have that clipped on my phone. You gotta give me my background. Yeah, you should be paying for all my books back here.
Nicole MacLean [00:47:42]:
I was using a beautiful background. I honestly was getting inspo as we were talking.
Jillian Hoefer [00:47:46]:
Thank you so much. But I will say, anyone who's on a zoom with me, immediately, like, they are always like, oh, what's your favorite book? And I'm like, 90% of those are my husband's. I need you to know the Harry Potter shelf is mine. But, like, 90% of those are my husband's, so don't ask.
Nicole MacLean [00:48:00]:
It's a good partnership.
Jillian Hoefer [00:48:02]:
He gave me a background and I'm happy with it.
Nicole MacLean [00:48:04]:
And you see, There you go. Welcome back to Friends Matter where we're shouting out and celebrating marketers and companies doing cool things. This week is a little different as I just wanted to shout out a company that I think I might have a bit of a professional crush on. It's not sponsored in any way, but I came across Capitalize through one of our BDR prospecting lists and have been obsessed with them ever since. So Capitalize is a Series B fintech company that helps consumers find and then roll over their 401ks from other companies. This is such a pain point, I know. It's actually one of my New Year's resolutions to complete and love that they've tapped in to offer a solution that's completely free, by the way, to consumers to find and roll over their 401ks. Not only do I love their solution, but I think their content's great. The website's easy to use and a prime example of a company that has a clearly defined ICP and then built service and resource pages to make it really easy to digest and consume the content. Talked about them so much that it's actually our producer at Share Your Genius who recommended that this be a great Friends Matter episode. So here we are. Highly recommend you check them out. It's hicapitalize.com and I'm excited to follow their journey. If you know of a great, cool company doing awesome things with content or a marketer that deserves some celebration, we want to know about it. Head on over to Compose.ly Friends Matter to nominate them. That's compose.ly/friends-matter. Thanks for listening to this episode of Content Matters, created in partnership with Share Your Genius. If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a review and share with a friend. Otherwise you can find all the resources you need to stay connected with us in the show. Notes Till next time.