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95% Content is a show for B2B content teams who want to build trust with the 95% of buyers who are out-of-market today, but will be ready to buy in the future.
You can call it many different things: content marketing, demand creation, brand marketing, dark social, or zero-click content.
No matter what you call it, the goal is the same.
You want to reach future buyers on the social and content platforms they hang out on every single day, and in a way that compels them to want to work with you when they’re ready.
We’re going to cover how B2B companies can win with things like: organic social, short-form video, podcasting, YouTube, newsletters, webinars, and communities.
Because the best way to win today is to already be on your buyers short-list the day they decide they need a solution.
On this show hosted by Erik Jacobson, we’re going to explore how B2B content teams can do exactly that.
Pranav Piyush [0:00:00]: A work to the wise, keep your eyes on the ninety five percent.
Erik Jacobson [0:00:04]: I'm Erik Jacobson, welcome to ninety five percent content.
Erik Jacobson [0:00:08]: A show for B2B content teams who want to build trust with the ninety five percent of buyers who are out of market today, but we'll be ready to buy in the future.
Erik Jacobson [0:00:16]: Well Pranav,, thank you for joining me for an episode here.
Erik Jacobson [0:00:24]: I've been a long time fan and follower of yours.
Erik Jacobson [0:00:27]: You have a very interesting and I think perfect background and expertise for what the show is all about.
Erik Jacobson [0:00:34]: So number one, right now, you're the founder and CEO of a company called Paramark, which helps b companies and marketers, CMOs, VPvps a marketing, director of Measure the effectiveness of their marketing programs.
Erik Jacobson [0:00:49]: At, like, the highest level, I know there's a lot of nuances there, but it's a platform to help them do that, which is a really difficult problem to solve.
Erik Jacobson [0:00:57]: But also, you have a lot of experience leading marketing yourself.
Erik Jacobson [0:01:02]: And so Mh.
Erik Jacobson [0:01:04]: Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:01:05]: I think, like, there's a lot we could probably go into today with the combination of the background and experience you have, but The thing I'd love to spend a lot of time on is something that comes up a lot, honestly in in my world and what we face as marketers and, like, modern content marketers, which is essentially like, Our buyers are hanging out now on ten, twenty times more platforms than they were ten years ago, where we could capture them with the Seo optimized blog posts and events and kind of, code outbound and some of the, just, you know, few key levers there were back then.
Erik Jacobson [0:01:45]: But now there's Linkedin, Youtube, Tiktok Instagram, newsletters, webinars, short form video, like, the list goes on and on.
Erik Jacobson [0:01:53]: And they are...
Erik Jacobson [0:01:56]: We very likely could say, probably hard to argue, like, those channels all work well because that's where people are hanging out.
Erik Jacobson [0:02:05]: But then there's this mismatch with, like, well they work well but how do we know?
Erik Jacobson [0:02:11]: And sometimes the data is not a one for one there.
Erik Jacobson [0:02:14]: So, yeah, maybe if, you know, there's any other context for what you're working on right now with Paramark, and then maybe we could go into, like, some of that stuff, big picture.
Pranav Piyush [0:02:25]: No.
Pranav Piyush [0:02:25]: That's great.
Pranav Piyush [0:02:25]: And I think, you know, also, thanks for having me here.
Pranav Piyush [0:02:28]: It's been fantastic kind of listening to you and watching you and watching you support, other creators over the last several years.
Pranav Piyush [0:02:35]: I've You've always been in the back of my mind as somebody I would like to talk to at some point.
Pranav Piyush [0:02:40]: You described what we do really well.
Pranav Piyush [0:02:43]: So it's all about of the effectiveness of marketing, channels, campaigns, strategies, And then sort of the one level beyond that is how do you grow the effectiveness.
Pranav Piyush [0:02:52]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:02:53]: So how do you test the effectiveness of new things that you are launching in providing a little of a scientific measurement that will help you make better decisions and instead of the spray or pray, you know, you you start to get a little bit more targeted.
Pranav Piyush [0:03:08]: Okay.
Pranav Piyush [0:03:09]: Now, you know, to your question of these things that are harder to measure and are these channels that are working or not working for B2B.
Pranav Piyush [0:03:20]: The first thing that I have come to realize, and this is, like, just based on my own personal of execute, there is so much nuance in the channel, the format and yeah content.
Pranav Piyush [0:03:37]: And so let me explain.
Pranav Piyush [0:03:39]: I don't know if, you know, your listeners will appreciate this or not, but there was a time video was doing well for me.
Pranav Piyush [0:03:45]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:03:46]: On Linkedin.
Pranav Piyush [0:03:46]: And there's a time when video is just like, absolutely tanking for me.
Pranav Piyush [0:03:51]: And nothing about the content has changed, but I believe something else has changed, and now I have to figure out what has changed.
Pranav Piyush [0:03:58]: And so the thing and you can apply that same sort of, you know, mentality to any channel is first, you have to be on the channel long enough, and you have to be native to the channel long enough, but you to have any shot at knowing what's really gone on.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:17]: If I just dip in and dip out, you do have such a small sample of what's possible that you'll never actually going to be able to tell what's working and what's doing.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:25]: This is without any fancy measure.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:27]: This is just like me talking about it from my own personal experience.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:30]: Now, thinking My own Youtube experience.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:33]: Alright?
Pranav Piyush [0:04:34]: Short form.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:34]: Let's talk about short form.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:35]: I'm happy to admit that I do school once in a while, You know?
Pranav Piyush [0:04:40]: And so when I'm doom schooling, what am I looking for?
Pranav Piyush [0:04:43]: Comedy?
Pranav Piyush [0:04:44]: Mh.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:44]: Maybe a little bit of sport.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:46]: That's it.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:47]: Those are my two sort of voices when it comes to short form video.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:51]: Sometimes maybe some fitness influencers because I'm into lifting and trying to get fit I'm almost forty now.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:58]: I'm like, I need to get fit.
Pranav Piyush [0:04:59]: So when you think about it on your...
Pranav Piyush [0:05:01]: You know, if I see business content on my Youtube shorts, it's going slightly.
Pranav Piyush [0:05:08]: And so if I'm not a user of these platforms, I have no way of knowing as a producer, what is going to work and what is not gonna work?
Pranav Piyush [0:05:19]: Okay.
Pranav Piyush [0:05:20]: So can you do morning Bruce style, to meet a content on news items that I watch.
Erik Jacobson [0:05:28]: Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:05:29]: Right.
Pranav Piyush [0:05:29]: But I don't think of it as business content.
Pranav Piyush [0:05:32]: I think of it as comedy.
Pranav Piyush [0:05:34]: So That's an example of where I think a lot of folks, not just B2B, but even B2B are going to miss out.
Pranav Piyush [0:05:44]: It's not about pushing your thing.
Pranav Piyush [0:05:46]: It's about understanding what is the customer or the consumer, the user on that channel on that media on that format, looking for?
Pranav Piyush [0:05:56]: Mh.
Pranav Piyush [0:05:57]: And how do you insert your storytelling into that format?
Pranav Piyush [0:06:00]: Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:06:01]: That's my first thing that I would say.
Pranav Piyush [0:06:04]: Regardless of all the measurement, Yeah you gotta get dialed in on your user, their consumption habits there...
Pranav Piyush [0:06:11]: What exactly is the job that they're trying to get done On that platform.
Pranav Piyush [0:06:15]: Zen Lab, the measurement stuff and we can talk about measurement.
Pranav Piyush [0:06:18]: That's relatively easy opinion.
Erik Jacobson [0:06:21]: Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:06:21]: I completely agree.
Erik Jacobson [0:06:22]: There's a couple things here with this in my opinion, which is one, I think very often as marketers we can have a good idea.
Erik Jacobson [0:06:31]: Actually, very often, very close to what is true on what our audience prefers, like, what angles of our content would be effective.
Erik Jacobson [0:06:43]: On what platforms and in what formats.
Erik Jacobson [0:06:45]: But let's say we get that eighty percent right, the difference between eighty and ninety five or a hundred percent is very, very meaningful and where we get that information from, I find a lot of marketers skip which is asking the audience, leading up to the creation of the content.
Erik Jacobson [0:07:04]: So for example, if somebody was trying to get your attention and you were the perfect Ic for them, and then there was many other version...
Erik Jacobson [0:07:13]: You know, many other people like you, it would be a good idea for that company to, like, run a survey, get on five qualitative calls.
Erik Jacobson [0:07:22]: Even just five, like five, ten calls.
Erik Jacobson [0:07:24]: Hey, P, Like, we're just curious, like, what podcast do you listen to?
Erik Jacobson [0:07:29]: What Youtube channels do you follow?
Erik Jacobson [0:07:30]: What are you doing when you're on Youtube?
Erik Jacobson [0:07:32]: What mind state are you in?
Erik Jacobson [0:07:34]: What time of day is it?
Erik Jacobson [0:07:35]: Like, all these things I often find even as small as, like, five ten calls.
Erik Jacobson [0:07:41]: Thirty minutes.
Erik Jacobson [0:07:42]: Will provide massive unlock where you you maybe don't have to shift gears, you know, fifty percent.
Erik Jacobson [0:07:49]: You just actually get more dial...
Erik Jacobson [0:07:51]: The twenty five percent more dial makes three hundred percent better result type of thing.
Pranav Piyush [0:07:57]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:07:57]: Absolutely.
Pranav Piyush [0:07:58]: I think that audience research is...
Pranav Piyush [0:08:00]: Like, I I say this to a lot of, marketers actually is, like, when was the last time you left the office and went and talked to an actual customer?
Pranav Piyush [0:08:10]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:08:11]: You know?
Pranav Piyush [0:08:11]: Just hung up with the...
Pranav Piyush [0:08:12]: Like, got to know them, like, yeah, deeply.
Pranav Piyush [0:08:15]: And not their marketing habits.
Pranav Piyush [0:08:17]: Just like, get to know as people.
Pranav Piyush [0:08:19]: You know?
Pranav Piyush [0:08:20]: And if you're not doing that, I think it's very far to be a marketer.
Erik Jacobson [0:08:23]: Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:08:23]: And, I think people skip it sometimes this particular piece because it sounds like something that would take three months, a lot of money, you'd have to...
Erik Jacobson [0:08:32]: Like, you need a statistical significance and all these things and it, like, it feels complicated.
Erik Jacobson [0:08:38]: So I'd like to just break it down.
Erik Jacobson [0:08:40]: It's like,
Pranav Piyush [0:08:41]: that's right.
Erik Jacobson [0:08:41]: What about just five phone calls?
Erik Jacobson [0:08:42]: Like, and just, like, that's infinitely better than zero.
Pranav Piyush [0:08:47]: And I think there a, you know, if you talk to some researchers, they will tell you that seven to eight maybe ten qualitative conversations if you've done your Right.
Pranav Piyush [0:08:57]: Marketing right are truly enough to give you the requisite information that can then be turned into a more scaled Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:09:06]: Survey.
Pranav Piyush [0:09:06]: So you don't go straight to a scaled survey, You start with understanding what do you even need to ask.
Pranav Piyush [0:09:13]: And so those all come from these more, you know, subjective, qualitative long form conversations.
Pranav Piyush [0:09:19]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:09:19]: And and then you feed just more scaled approach If you need?
Pranav Piyush [0:09:23]: At our stage, we don't need it.
Pranav Piyush [0:09:25]: Can conversations is perfect.
Erik Jacobson [0:09:27]: Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:09:27]: So then let's go down the path of, I guess there's a couple ways we could take this.
Erik Jacobson [0:09:31]: Number one is, there's some cases where the marketing team fundamentally believes in this new modern version of content marketing, brand marketing, ninety five percent marketing, which is we need to be on linkedin...
Erik Jacobson [0:09:49]: Let's just say, you know, what the channels end up being, but could be Linkedin, Youtube podcast, newsletter.
Erik Jacobson [0:09:54]: We need to do webinars, whatever the case may be one or all of those.
Erik Jacobson [0:09:58]: But the leadership team hasn't necessarily bought in yet.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:02]: So that's number one.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:03]: It's like they need a framework for how to describe to the leadership team, what this type of marketing is gonna do for us and how we'll measure it.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:14]: And then afterwards, it's like, we actually need to implement the measurement tools and what the effectiveness of these programs actually looks like.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:22]: So, yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:23]: I know those are big questions and big topics, and you have...
Erik Jacobson [0:10:26]: I'll just let everybody know, Like, your your blog.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:29]: You've got great resources on your website.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:31]: For some of these topics.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:33]: Like, you had a great blog post around, measuring brand marketing, for example.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:37]: Mh.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:38]: And so, yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:39]: However, you wanna take that, you know, either from a high level or we could kinda get into some of the details.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:43]: But if you were advising, you know, some of those teams.
Pranav Piyush [0:10:47]: Mh.
Erik Jacobson [0:10:48]: On how they could champion this and the structure they can put in place so that they're not over committing to what's possible because part of what's what is here is like, Linkedin works.
Erik Jacobson [0:11:00]: How long it will...
Erik Jacobson [0:11:02]: Like, that's proven?
Erik Jacobson [0:11:03]: Like, if there's companies out there making it work for them, it is proven that the channel works.
Erik Jacobson [0:11:07]: Will it work?
Erik Jacobson [0:11:09]: Mh.
Pranav Piyush [0:11:10]: How it
Erik Jacobson [0:11:10]: will work for you?
Erik Jacobson [0:11:10]: In terms of to what degree and over what timeline.
Erik Jacobson [0:11:13]: There's a lot of variables there on how much you're putting into it, what ways you're putting into it and how you're measuring it over what timeline.
Erik Jacobson [0:11:23]: So Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:11:25]: How would you how would you approach a conversation like that if you're, you know, advising someone?
Pranav Piyush [0:11:31]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:11:31]: It's that's the toughest part of what we do is that education and alignment of the highest levels.
Pranav Piyush [0:11:38]: So I typically tell if I'm talking to a CMO or a VP of marketing at a, you know, company that's spending five million, ten million, twenty million on marketing, Sometimes even two or three million on marketing.
Pranav Piyush [0:11:50]: Step number one, is getting very crisp with your finance leader and you're CEO on what is the measure of success for marketing.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:01]: And, you know, people will create these fancy dashboards and scorecard you know, twelve different metrics over twenty four different months.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:11]: And no.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:13]: No.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:14]: There's usually only prefix?
Pranav Piyush [0:12:16]: So what are those three things?
Pranav Piyush [0:12:19]: And I'm gonna tailor this down to, like, B2B Saas because I think that's the audience with maybe a consideration cycle of, you know, ticket it.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:27]: Mh.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:28]: Ninety days, maybe sometimes six months, it can go up to, you know, hundred and twenty hundred and eighty days.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:35]: So what do you do in those environments?
Pranav Piyush [0:12:37]: It could sound glass to everybody, but my number one favorite metric is some measure of traffic.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:45]: Yeah?
Pranav Piyush [0:12:46]: Not all traffic.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:47]: Maybe it's qualified traffic.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:49]: Maybe it's traffic to your pricing page, your demo page, your key, you know, product solution pages.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:56]: Maybe it's your dev docs.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:57]: Maybe it's your help center.
Pranav Piyush [0:12:58]: But this concept of qualified traffic, which means people who are truly on their website, doing research.
Pranav Piyush [0:13:05]: Because guess what, regardless of what people are telling you on Ai and L, humans are doing their research by looking at your website, your linkedin page, your profile and making a determination of whether they want to even raise their hand in two months to want to talk to you.
Pranav Piyush [0:13:26]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:13:27]: This is especially true if you have a whole consideration product.
Pranav Piyush [0:13:30]: If it's a nine dollar a month Saas app, right, very different.
Pranav Piyush [0:13:35]: If it's a ninety thousand dollar a year, you know, B2B Saas enterprise engagement, yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:13:40]: Very different.
Pranav Piyush [0:13:41]: So qualified traffic number one, and the reason tell people like, how do you communicate this to your CEO, Here's a simple framework.
Pranav Piyush [0:13:49]: Hey, CEO, CFO, we're will launch a new marketing campaign, we know our consideration cycle is six months.
Pranav Piyush [0:13:56]: We're gonna run this as an experiment.
Pranav Piyush [0:13:58]: And we get six months to wait until I report back on the result of this experiment.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:02]: Because we know that the sales cycle is six months.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:05]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:14:05]: Mh Like, that's a very simple conversation to hack.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:09]: Right.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:10]: It's not complicated.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:10]: That you can't expect marketing to launch a campaign and give you results next week or next month if the sales cycle is Right six months.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:20]: What are those leading indicators?
Pranav Piyush [0:14:22]: Qualified traffic is a great one?
Pranav Piyush [0:14:24]: The second one that I talk about all the time is you have to have a customer led buying process.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:32]: Mh.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:32]: What is a customer led buying process?
Pranav Piyush [0:14:34]: It means that people can raise their hands and engage with you not because they are trying to get a price point, but because they truly wants to understand the product and whether it will work for us.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:47]: And so many people will hide their pricing.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:50]: We get hard to book a demo.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:52]: Will not share information, you know, publicly because they're worried about competitors.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:58]: They're worried about.
Pranav Piyush [0:14:59]: Well, we're not all buttoned up yet.
Pranav Piyush [0:15:01]: So we're nervous about, you know, showing up in a certain way.
Pranav Piyush [0:15:04]: So the more authentic you are as a brand, the harder your measure of success is going to be because what happens is you just put a email capture, and then you complain about quality.
Pranav Piyush [0:15:18]: Well, why are you complaining about quality?
Pranav Piyush [0:15:21]: Because People are like, I don't even know if this is the right thing for me.
Pranav Piyush [0:15:24]: So I just need to get some information.
Pranav Piyush [0:15:26]: So you're saying book a demo, I put in my information to book a demo within the first ten minutes, I know that this is not the right thing for me.
Pranav Piyush [0:15:34]: So I bounce.
Pranav Piyush [0:15:34]: And it looks like marketing qualified lead was bad.
Pranav Piyush [0:15:38]: Called, b.
Pranav Piyush [0:15:40]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:15:40]: Like, if you're showing up authentically, that means your pricing is transparent or at least c.
Pranav Piyush [0:15:47]: Your product is dr, you are very clear about who you are meant for, then when people raise their head and book a demo, they've done their research, they're not gonna be surprised.
Pranav Piyush [0:15:58]: So if you do marketing right, while it's my traffic, hand raise, Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:16:04]: Rate metrics.
Pranav Piyush [0:16:05]: To build off of.
Pranav Piyush [0:16:07]: And I can tell you for a fact ninety five percent of B2B companies are not going to do this.
Erik Jacobson [0:16:13]: Why do you think that is?
Pranav Piyush [0:16:14]: They're not gonna do this because they're coming from a position of defensive ness.
Pranav Piyush [0:16:20]: And they're not playing all offense.
Pranav Piyush [0:16:23]: And what that means is, you know, marketing teams have been beaten to a certain point where they are afraid of doing all the right things and marketing because You put pricing out there and now sales is, you know, kind of screaming at you, hey, I need to be able to customize the pricing.
Pranav Piyush [0:16:43]: I lost a deal because you put pricing.
Pranav Piyush [0:16:46]: I'm just making these hypothetical up.
Pranav Piyush [0:16:48]: So doing this takes alignment and courage at the top.
Pranav Piyush [0:16:53]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:16:53]: And so if the CMO is not having these conversations about qualified traffic, through marketing and true demo requests.
Pranav Piyush [0:17:00]: And then, you know, if you want to track sort a bottom.
Pranav Piyush [0:17:03]: You know, events like meetings booked with sales or sales qualified opportunities.
Pranav Piyush [0:17:08]: The delta between you doing marketing and something becoming a sales qualified opportunity is ninety days.
Pranav Piyush [0:17:14]: I can tell you that just from my own experience.
Pranav Piyush [0:17:16]: And so there's no way you're gonna wait ninety days for an experimental.
Pranav Piyush [0:17:20]: So boiling it all back up, it's about aligning on the measures of success between the CMO, the CEO and the CFO and being very clear.
Pranav Piyush [0:17:30]: This is what we're going to measure.
Pranav Piyush [0:17:31]: Yes, it's not telling you how much revenue I'm adding to the, you know, to the the the to the P and l, but I'm gonna give you very clear sense of our qualified traffic, are hand raise and how much is it going up or down by month over month.
Pranav Piyush [0:17:47]: And, hey, somebody in finance or data science should be able to work with us to translate that into how that will impact revenue two months, three months, four months down line.
Pranav Piyush [0:17:58]: And Oh, by the way, can we go hire that data scientist?
Pranav Piyush [0:18:02]: Or if you don't have budget for that data scientist, can you go higher Paramark?
Pranav Piyush [0:18:06]: Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:18:06]: With my plug to figure all this out for you.
Pranav Piyush [0:18:09]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:18:09]: There is no replacement to that?
Pranav Piyush [0:18:11]: That's the most important conversation,
Erik Jacobson [0:18:14]: totally.
Erik Jacobson [0:18:14]: And there can sometimes be this thought, which I think we, in, like, the content world should not shy away from, which is, like, Ultimately, our proposal of doing a Youtube channel or doing a podcast or doing a customer focused value add newsletter, like a weekly educational newsletter, not about like, links to our new product feature updates and things like that.
Erik Jacobson [0:18:41]: All of those things ultimately should result in increased revenue to the company over time.
Erik Jacobson [0:18:51]: And what all we're talking about here is, like, how can we make sure we're on the right track towards that.
Erik Jacobson [0:18:56]: Mh.
Erik Jacobson [0:18:57]: One of the challenges I think that can come from that is this concept of the ninety five five, which has become much more popular I think of the topic.
Erik Jacobson [0:19:07]: Which is, you know, ninety five percent of the market's not in market today, but they will be likely at some point in the future when they have a need.
Erik Jacobson [0:19:15]: The problem with or the challenge with, you know, doing a Youtube channel playbook, for example.
Erik Jacobson [0:19:22]: Is that they're not in market at the moment and we don't know when they will be in market.
Erik Jacobson [0:19:28]: So your concept of, like, having an experimentation timeline like mapped out.
Erik Jacobson [0:19:32]: I think is very smart because inherent in this strategy is, like, we're not trying to convert the five percent with this particular campaign right now.
Erik Jacobson [0:19:41]: So we can't measure this on a ninety day window because.
Erik Jacobson [0:19:45]: For example, a big part of the portion of the audience we're going after here that our competitors, most of them are not focused on.
Erik Jacobson [0:19:52]: They're in a contract with our competitor for the next eight months or the next twelve months or whatever.
Erik Jacobson [0:19:57]: So they're not...
Erik Jacobson [0:19:58]: This isn't even on their radar of, like, a switching opportunity yet.
Erik Jacobson [0:20:02]: But when they're three months out from that renewal, nine months from now.
Erik Jacobson [0:20:06]: Yep.
Erik Jacobson [0:20:06]: Maybe they will start exploring, and then they've been following our Youtube channel for the last nine months.
Erik Jacobson [0:20:11]: And so that's when the qualified their individual qualified traffic number hits our website.
Erik Jacobson [0:20:18]: You know, nine months later.
Erik Jacobson [0:20:19]: Is that how you think about that as well?
Pranav Piyush [0:20:22]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:20:22]: Absolutely.
Pranav Piyush [0:20:23]: I think the the way I think about it is precisely what you said just now is for that ninety five percent.
Pranav Piyush [0:20:30]: That are not in market, and everybody listening going like, not again, ninety five Whatever that number is?
Pranav Piyush [0:20:35]: If it's sixty, if it's fifty, if it's seventy five, whatever it is.
Pranav Piyush [0:20:38]: But people who are not actively in the buying cycle.
Pranav Piyush [0:20:41]: If you can get them, to engage with your content and with your website?
Pranav Piyush [0:20:45]: Mh.
Pranav Piyush [0:20:46]: That's the win.
Pranav Piyush [0:20:46]: Yes.
Pranav Piyush [0:20:47]: So old school reach and frequency type of mentality, which is am I reaching everybody in my Tam and how often am I reaching them?
Pranav Piyush [0:20:57]: And by the way, that's also a function of how much can I have afford?
Erik Jacobson [0:21:01]: Yes.
Pranav Piyush [0:21:01]: So, yeah, Of course, if I'm a startup up, and I have, you know, very sort of low budget, I probably can't do too much of that, you know, ninety five percent.
Pranav Piyush [0:21:11]: That's natural limitation.
Pranav Piyush [0:21:13]: Go figure out how to make more money as a business, and then you can invest that in growing your business.
Pranav Piyush [0:21:17]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:21:18]: So there are some natural loss to all of this and measure that through are you able to get people to your website?
Pranav Piyush [0:21:26]: Are you able to get people to search for your brand.
Pranav Piyush [0:21:29]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:21:29]: To search very volume is a great fantastic top of funnel network as well.
Pranav Piyush [0:21:33]: If you have unique enough name, and, you know, you're not, like, a, common sort of word in the dictionary, And so that's how I think about it.
Pranav Piyush [0:21:42]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:21:42]: When we do marketing, we actually don't do much bottom of the funnel.
Pranav Piyush [0:21:45]: We haven't done well, most of our marketing has been about ninety five percent.
Pranav Piyush [0:21:50]: And the reason it has worked for us is we did it from day one.
Pranav Piyush [0:21:57]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:21:58]: So we were never addicted to...
Pranav Piyush [0:22:01]: I'm paying for a search ad and looking for people who are looking for better attributes and measurement.
Erik Jacobson [0:22:06]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:22:07]: And Like, that's not the game that we were going to play because there's no way we can win that game.
Pranav Piyush [0:22:12]: The game that we can win is getting people to think about us way before they're even ready.
Pranav Piyush [0:22:18]: And that works out really well for us.
Pranav Piyush [0:22:21]: We get a ton of inbound from public companies.
Pranav Piyush [0:22:23]: Like, we've literally had a Fortune fifty retailer come to, you know, our website and book a demo, like, two days ago.
Pranav Piyush [0:22:31]: Like, you know, we have no business being in that, you know, category just yet, but guess what?
Pranav Piyush [0:22:39]: It's happening.
Pranav Piyush [0:22:39]: And it's happening because our foundational contact is creating that awareness with people way before they're going to be right.
Pranav Piyush [0:22:47]: And it works, you know, a living example of that.
Erik Jacobson [0:22:51]: Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:22:51]: And on the budget side of things to your point, not everybody has the luxury of having what they would consider to be The amount of budget they would love to have for the ninety five percent approach, but my take on this is set the amount of budget that you can allocate to those strategies, that you would be comfortable spending forever.
Erik Jacobson [0:23:20]: And then as time goes on, maybe you can incur.
Erik Jacobson [0:23:24]: Even if that's a low amount to start, like, whatever you would consider, you know, a low amount.
Erik Jacobson [0:23:28]: But I kind feel like the worst thing that you can do.
Erik Jacobson [0:23:32]: I maybe I curious what your take on this is is set a, like, Linkedin experimental budget like, we're gonna devote time and maybe we'll hire some people to help us with, like, Linkedin organic.
Erik Jacobson [0:23:46]: Like, I want our thought leadership on Linkedin to really be crushing it.
Erik Jacobson [0:23:52]: I want people to open up Linkedin our Ic, and they see something about Paramark somewhere somehow, from me or from other content I've done elsewhere, people posting about us what have you.
Erik Jacobson [0:24:03]: But if you when you were starting out, which you didn't do.
Erik Jacobson [0:24:07]: I mean, you've been doing this at day one, which has been a long time, But you're like, I'm gonna test it for ninety days.
Erik Jacobson [0:24:11]: And see how that goes.
Erik Jacobson [0:24:13]: That would have Likely led you to the wrong conclusions because even on my journey, Mh, you know, with content.
Erik Jacobson [0:24:19]: I hate to say it because it's a common thing.
Erik Jacobson [0:24:21]: But, like, it is going to take you time to, like, figure it out and crack it.
Pranav Piyush [0:24:26]: Mh.
Erik Jacobson [0:24:26]: I personally committed when I when I really went heavy, like, I committed to post on Linkedin one time per day for a year.
Erik Jacobson [0:24:32]: And Mh.
Erik Jacobson [0:24:34]: Then it worked.
Erik Jacobson [0:24:35]: Like, it...
Erik Jacobson [0:24:35]: It's actually...
Erik Jacobson [0:24:36]: It's hard, but it's simple.
Erik Jacobson [0:24:37]: Like, at the same time, So what what's your take on, like, budget allocation for that kind of thing.
Pranav Piyush [0:24:44]: I think the the way to think about the budget allocation pieces, it's hard when you are a small company, but I can tell you how to think about it wants to hit a certain amount of scale.
Pranav Piyush [0:24:52]: And When you're a small company, I think, you know, it's a little bit of a belief of faith, and I'll share my own experience.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:00]: When I did this, I did it myself Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:03]: For the first year.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:04]: You showed up every day and I talked about stuff.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:07]: And, you know, some of it was good.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:09]: Some of it wasn't.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:10]: I wasn't really sure what the right messaging was going to be, what our audience is going to care about, but it was just kind of testing and learning, testing and learning.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:18]: And after a year of doing it and seeing inbound mediums you know, screenshots in my email inbox where people are literally saying, hey, Love this stuff you get a demo.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:28]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:25:29]: You build enough...
Pranav Piyush [0:25:30]: And I anecdotal evidence it Like, Okay.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:32]: Now I'm ready to actually put money behind us.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:35]: Because guess what?
Pranav Piyush [0:25:36]: It's working, and I think I can delegate it.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:39]: So you either do it from your own personal experience, Or you already have lived experience.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:45]: Like if I were starting a completely new company, I would take the same playbook.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:48]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:25:49]: I just know hire somebody did one and just do this because I know it was.
Pranav Piyush [0:25:53]: So you either have lived experience or go get that experience firsthand, but those are your only two options.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:00]: And so CMOs who are struggling with this.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:05]: I mean, honestly, I would say get your hands dirty.
Erik Jacobson [0:26:09]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:10]: And do you know Tom Went forth?
Erik Jacobson [0:26:12]: Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:26:12]: I know of him.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:13]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:13]: That incident.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:14]: And I think he does a great job of showing up I think his team is like tiny.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:21]: It's like, two or three people, at least that's what I'm aware of.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:24]: And he's always there hustling, Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:27]: Incident.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:27]: So you either have to have that mentality or you have to have somebody on your team who has that mentality.
Erik Jacobson [0:26:34]: Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:34]: And I'm pretty sure he can convince his CEO to do some of it because his CEO does do some of it now.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:40]: But for many CEOs, that's not gonna work because they're just not got extroverted.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:47]: I'm gonna go out there and talk in their personal brand.
Pranav Piyush [0:26:50]: So somebody in marketing has to lead to with example and show how it's done and get enough momentum and you can't be phased by, oh, it's not working.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:01]: Like, you just have to power through it.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:04]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:04]: That is marketing.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:05]: And so, you know, that's my point about being defensive versus offense.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:09]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:27:10]: You're playing offense and you are showing everybody.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:14]: How it's done.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:15]: Then do a good job of it.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:17]: You're a marketer.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:17]: Yeah Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:27:18]: Like, don't give up after ninety days.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:20]: Like, come up with the right creative and the copy and the static and the videos.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:24]: Like...
Pranav Piyush [0:27:24]: And this is what I love Ai.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:26]: Like, you have the world's information at your fingertips.
Pranav Piyush [0:27:29]: Don't figure it out.
Erik Jacobson [0:27:30]: Don't complain.
Erik Jacobson [0:27:31]: And I'm such a believer in, like, perfection through iteration through this journey.
Erik Jacobson [0:27:36]: Like, when you start out, it's not gonna be great.
Erik Jacobson [0:27:38]: It's more about, like, the goal, honestly, like, if we take a small company perspective, like, we're gonna be scrappy.
Erik Jacobson [0:27:43]: My opinion, the goal is to get out content every single day.
Erik Jacobson [0:27:47]: If you get it out, then you've achieved success because at day one hundred, something's gonna hit, and then you're gonna realize, like, oh, I'm on to something here.
Erik Jacobson [0:27:57]: And not only, like, will that get you the reach and frequency that you describing, but also from a from a small company standpoint, especially if leadership or the CEO is, like, helping lead the charge on it or head of marketing, it actually helps inform your company direction a little bit sometimes.
Erik Jacobson [0:28:15]: Like, who are the personas that are resonating with what we're saying the most, what segments of the market?
Erik Jacobson [0:28:20]: How are we describing what we do are positioning our messaging?
Erik Jacobson [0:28:24]: All of these things.
Erik Jacobson [0:28:25]: This feedback loop, all these things are connected to each other, not just on the you know, acquisition funnel to get the demo request.
Erik Jacobson [0:28:34]: And so I'm I'm really bullish on that feedback loop as well.
Erik Jacobson [0:28:38]: So, yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:28:39]: How else are you thinking about your all's own marketing?
Erik Jacobson [0:28:41]: Like, because you all are doing this?
Erik Jacobson [0:28:43]: Too?
Erik Jacobson [0:28:43]: So, yeah, what Any interesting insights you've seen lately.
Erik Jacobson [0:28:46]: You all...
Erik Jacobson [0:28:46]: You do a lot of content, you're on Linkedin, all the time.
Erik Jacobson [0:28:50]: You're very proficient executing really well on Linkedin.
Erik Jacobson [0:28:52]: You all have got a podcast.
Erik Jacobson [0:28:54]: You've got your blog, which is really great.
Erik Jacobson [0:28:57]: Mh.
Erik Jacobson [0:28:57]: What sort of things are you seeing right now that you're, like, excited about or have been working really well interesting insight, anything like that.
Pranav Piyush [0:29:05]: You?
Pranav Piyush [0:29:05]: You know, it's interesting.
Pranav Piyush [0:29:06]: Somebody who's in our database and our pipeline and somebody I know about, they're in between jobs and they ping me the other day and said, hey, by the way, I love the podcast and like binge binging all the episodes.
Pranav Piyush [0:29:17]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:29:18]: It's like, that's all I need.
Pranav Piyush [0:29:20]: That's all you need to know that, okay, if you are able to influence people who are in pipe or, you know, they're in between, they'll become a customer in the future, and you're building that, you know, mental availability with them.
Pranav Piyush [0:29:33]: You're building that connection with them, it all works.
Pranav Piyush [0:29:36]: I get the similar type of responses on Linkedin Dms you know, where people like, hey, Love your content.
Pranav Piyush [0:29:41]: It's helped me so much with x y and z and I know that that person is never going to be a customer because they're not Ic, but our content is still helping them.
Pranav Piyush [0:29:49]: We'll get emails in our inbox with like, you know, literally, hey.
Pranav Piyush [0:29:54]: Can you send me that post that you talked about?
Pranav Piyush [0:29:56]: And I send them a custom written blog post, particularly for their use case about how to talk to your CFO about incremental mentality.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:05]: It's like, the purpose of being everywhere all at once is getting feedback from the market on what's resonating what's not resonating to your point, and then doubling down on the things that are resonating and just continuing to execute.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:19]: So Everything that you talked about, the blog, Linkedin, the newsletter.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:23]: We have we have a newsletter.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:24]: We have a podcast, we're gonna keep leveling up on all of those.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:28]: We went from zero to one on each of those content formats.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:31]: Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:32]: Now, the goal is to go from one to ten.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:34]: So I'll give you a concrete example.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:37]: Our podcast is good, but, like, isn't great.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:39]: No.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:39]: It's not.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:40]: Like, the title life, I thought was cute.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:42]: It's called the marketing scientists, you know, Like, a little bit interesting, but I'm like, do people really wanna open up in marketing science podcast.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:50]: It sounds boring as hell.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:51]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:30:52]: So like, you have to be self critical to be able to understand how you you went from zero to one.
Pranav Piyush [0:30:58]: We get, you know, hundreds of listens, but how you get to thousand?
Pranav Piyush [0:31:01]: How do you get to ten thousand?
Pranav Piyush [0:31:02]: And You don't to understand the customer psychology around that.
Erik Jacobson [0:31:06]: Yes.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:07]: So we have some big plans on, we're gonna redo the whole podcast and level up.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:11]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:31:12]: We started newsletter.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:13]: We started back in September of last year.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:15]: We did two cents, and then I'm like oh my god, this is too much work.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:18]: I can't do it.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:18]: So now we are rebooting and we have a whole process of, you know, launching a bi weekly newsletter.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:24]: It's great.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:25]: We're doing a customer center.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:27]: It's this is all based on feedback that we're getting from customers.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:30]: So content is always going to be the biggest part of our investment.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:34]: We spend a significant amount of money, frankly, on all of these different formats.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:39]: And then, you know, from a advertising perspective, by the way, we have the Youtube channel, we do all types of crazy Youtube stuff which we're still figuring out how to crack the code on it.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:49]: It's different.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:50]: It's a new channel.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:51]: I have never done Youtube before.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:52]: We have some signs of success, but not all the way there.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:56]: So it's playing on all these organic channels.
Pranav Piyush [0:31:59]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:31:59]: You will not hear me mention ads a pencil now?
Pranav Piyush [0:32:02]: Now we're gonna start ads.
Pranav Piyush [0:32:05]: So probably just one general at a time.
Pranav Piyush [0:32:08]: That's gonna be Linkedin.
Pranav Piyush [0:32:09]: And why is it gonna be Linkedin?
Pranav Piyush [0:32:11]: I know audiences there.
Pranav Piyush [0:32:13]: We've built our entire pipeline and sales off of that one channel.
Pranav Piyush [0:32:17]: So I don't wanna go to Google and Youtube and Meta, don't need to.
Pranav Piyush [0:32:21]: Let's figure out Linkedin.
Pranav Piyush [0:32:22]: Let's crush it, then we'll go to some other channels.
Pranav Piyush [0:32:25]: So that's rather, like, you know, strategy for us is, like, one thing at a time and level up level up level up.
Pranav Piyush [0:32:31]: And, you know, by the end of it all, it should all be working in unison.
Erik Jacobson [0:32:36]: Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:32:36]: I think sometimes people forget, like, some of the value of doing this content is not just about somebody who's the right persona, the right buyer, finding that content and then inbound to you.
Erik Jacobson [0:32:51]: Yes, We want that.
Erik Jacobson [0:32:52]: And, like, that will happen.
Erik Jacobson [0:32:54]: But sounds like you have and I personally have as well and a ton of our clients have seen this effect of, like, deals that are on the one yard line Like, Mh.
Erik Jacobson [0:33:06]: Your post or your content can literally trigger that to get over the hump, or it can remind them.
Pranav Piyush [0:33:13]: Agree.
Erik Jacobson [0:33:13]: It's like, hey, like, love that, and I need to get back and push this through.
Erik Jacobson [0:33:17]: We need to prioritize this.
Erik Jacobson [0:33:18]: And, like, that helps move that deal forward.
Erik Jacobson [0:33:21]: Or like, word mouth referrals or is, like such a powerful scores Yep.
Erik Jacobson [0:33:27]: Traffic and inbound.
Erik Jacobson [0:33:28]: And so this content, that person...
Erik Jacobson [0:33:30]: I think it was...
Erik Jacobson [0:33:32]: You said the person who emailed you wasn't ever gonna be a buyer because they weren't the right persona.
Erik Jacobson [0:33:38]: But that person Mh.
Erik Jacobson [0:33:40]: May have a friend who is, and then they recommend you as a result, and that happens more than we can measure for sure.
Erik Jacobson [0:33:46]: And so, yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:33:48]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:33:48]: I mean, literally, I know somebody on Linkedin.
Pranav Piyush [0:33:51]: They're an acquaintance.
Pranav Piyush [0:33:52]: I've met them at an event, and they're wonderful.
Pranav Piyush [0:33:55]: They're an independent consultant, and they somehow found out that this retailer is doing a of Rfp in our domain.
Pranav Piyush [0:34:03]: And so, yeah, they were connected them personally.
Pranav Piyush [0:34:05]: And so that massive retailer reached out to us and included us in the average fee.
Pranav Piyush [0:34:10]: We just submitted this morning we'll see if we get that.
Pranav Piyush [0:34:12]: Like, there is no logical reason why that should have happened.
Pranav Piyush [0:34:16]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:34:17]: And if I were to try and game plan that you can't.
Pranav Piyush [0:34:20]: So the butterfly effect is very real and modern marketing, and traditional, like, funnel type of thinking is pretty dead.
Pranav Piyush [0:34:28]: And you need to embrace this chaos and this...
Pranav Piyush [0:34:32]: I'll just adopt wide marketing because that shit works.
Erik Jacobson [0:34:37]: Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:34:37]: Totally.
Erik Jacobson [0:34:38]: Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:34:39]: And that's where it's like, yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:34:41]: I like your framework.
Erik Jacobson [0:34:41]: Like, I think the goal And what I'm trying...
Erik Jacobson [0:34:44]: You're doing a great job of, and what I try my best to do is, like, armed the people who believe in this with the better ability to go and execute it with the resources and company mindset that they need to be successful with it.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:00]: I also say, Erik, like, if somebody's listening into this and going like, yes.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:04]: I'm kicking notes and I'm, like, jot it all down, and I'm gonna go give this a great shot.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:09]: I don't know that this is repeatable in that way.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:13]: And so I'm gonna take the position here.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:15]: Over the course of last fifteen, twenty years, there's a lot of dots that I have connected to enable me to get to this point where my conviction is stronger than ever in this type of marketing.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:26]: Yes.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:27]: So yes, I can sit here and talk about it, you know, yes, This is what I did.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:30]: Like, it's all gonna work.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:32]: And, like, if you haven't connected the dots for yourself.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:35]: Mh.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:36]: No checklist or playbook or podcast is going to convince you to the level that you need to be convinced for this to work.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:46]: So if you're listening to this, don't make that checklist.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:50]: Think deeply about your own convictions.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:53]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:53]: About your own beliefs.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:54]: Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:35:55]: And Do you truly believe this.
Erik Jacobson [0:35:58]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:35:58]: Because if you don't not gonna happen.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:01]: It's a really good point.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:02]: It's actually one of those things on a slightly similar note.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:05]: I used to try to convince some of my friends to become entrepreneurs.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:08]: Then I realized after a couple years of that.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:11]: And if I have to convince someone to be an entrepreneur, they definitely should not be an entrepreneur, and then they'll probably get mad at me later than I convinced them and that it's much harder than I made it scene because it it is.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:22]: And so it's similar concept here.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:26]: Like yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:26]: I agree.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:27]: Are there any other, like, sort of tactical approaches.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:32]: So one thing I like to think about too is, like...
Erik Jacobson [0:36:34]: So those three things you mentioned, qualified traffic, hand raise, Sq.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:39]: The leading indicator of that on the content side is the in platform engagement and metrics.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:46]: Like, percent.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:47]: You know, people talk about impressions and stuff is, like a vanity metric, and I don't agree with that.
Erik Jacobson [0:36:52]: Like, what we need to see is We're not gonna measure the success of this, for example, podcast, like, purely based on just the downloads.
Erik Jacobson [0:37:01]: But, like, to your point, you guys are at hundreds of downloads.
Erik Jacobson [0:37:04]: You wanna be at thousands.
Erik Jacobson [0:37:05]: If we go from hundreds of thousands, it's very clear that we have been executing well, and we are resonating more.
Erik Jacobson [0:37:13]: And the let's say, the consumption rate goes from sixty percent to eighty percent.
Erik Jacobson [0:37:17]: So people are now Consuming mean, you know, eighty percent of the content versus sixty.
Erik Jacobson [0:37:20]: All of these things matter, and those to me are like, that's the leading indicator that's gonna then ultimately result in the more qualified, higher traffic, you know, qualified traffic numbers increasing all that stuff.
Pranav Piyush [0:37:33]: Hundred percent.
Pranav Piyush [0:37:34]: I think in platform metrics get a bad rap, and this is true for both, like content, you know, organic content also paid content.
Pranav Piyush [0:37:42]: I tell this the marketing teams all the time that if your impressions aren't going up, there's no way your effectiveness is going up.
Pranav Piyush [0:37:49]: Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:37:49]: So now those impressions have to be your audience, and I don't know if people have this hack, but on Linkedin, you can actually see the demographic information of the people on every post.
Pranav Piyush [0:38:03]: So I can tell that out of the ten thousand impressions that I got, what percentage were VP marketing.
Pranav Piyush [0:38:08]: And I want that number to be as high.
Pranav Piyush [0:38:10]: I don't want all my friends and random salespeople people to be liking my content.
Pranav Piyush [0:38:14]: What what's the value of that?
Pranav Piyush [0:38:15]: That's like, if my Ic impressions are good, again, qualified.
Pranav Piyush [0:38:19]: Yes.
Pranav Piyush [0:38:20]: Impressions, then that's a great thing.
Pranav Piyush [0:38:23]: Let's move that number up and to the right same thing for, you know, podcast downloads is the same sort of concept it's harder to get to into this data, Like, why would people download marketing in podcasts if they're not marketing
Erik Jacobson [0:38:34]: exact.
Pranav Piyush [0:38:35]: Interested in marketing science.
Pranav Piyush [0:38:36]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:38:36]: So some of that is, like, all full fulfilling?
Pranav Piyush [0:38:38]: And then let's again get that number to be as as possible.
Erik Jacobson [0:38:41]: Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:38:41]: Totally.
Erik Jacobson [0:38:42]: And, yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:38:44]: I guess, like, are there any other interesting observations or maybe experiments that you are looking at running.
Erik Jacobson [0:38:53]: Like, for the future, like, anything you're excited about, like, oh, I'm starting to see an opportunity with this.
Erik Jacobson [0:39:00]: But it could be on the measurement side, like, from what what you all help companies solve or it could be on, like, you're all's, like, content strategy.
Erik Jacobson [0:39:07]: But, yeah, Just curious, like, what you're kind of...
Erik Jacobson [0:39:10]: You've got a little hunch about or you're excited about.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:14]: Think the measurement stuff is easy.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:15]: So if people are interested, they can go check out our mark and the blog and we have lots of good content there.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:20]: I am personally...
Pranav Piyush [0:39:21]: And this gonna sound weird.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:24]: I'm personally interested in churning out a lot of video content through Ai.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:30]: Mh.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:30]: And I think that's a massive opportunity that people have no clue.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:34]: No clue.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:35]: What's about to hit though?
Pranav Piyush [0:39:36]: And so I'll tell you where this is coming from.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:39]: Did you see the culture?
Pranav Piyush [0:39:41]: I don't know how to pronounce that company's name Ka, Ka she ad, those was Ai generated.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:45]: I don't know if you've heard of this So
Erik Jacobson [0:39:47]: I've seen a bunch of them.
Erik Jacobson [0:39:47]: I don't know if it was that one, though.
Erik Jacobson [0:39:49]: But, yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:50]: It aired during the Nba finals.
Erik Jacobson [0:39:51]: Oh, yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:39:52]: Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:53]: It was done in two days for, I think less than a couple of thousand bucks and somebody wrote about this.
Pranav Piyush [0:39:58]: And I thought it was a genius ad.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:02]: It was funny.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:04]: It was Edgy.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:05]: It played into the brand it's a betting or, you know, some type of a poly market type of thing.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:11]: Like, it all worked.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:13]: It worked fabulous.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:14]: And so that got me thinking that, hey, there are ways to do this that I think people are not fully embracing.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:21]: So I'm telling every one of our customers go play with those new ai tools because it's not just about the production of the the new Ai.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:29]: It's somebody had to give it the prompts to come up with that narrative.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:33]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:33]: That's still a human being.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:35]: That's still you and me And so, you know, you're not completely giving up control.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:40]: You're still doing the hard work on the narrative and the strategy what the production has gotten so much better.
Erik Jacobson [0:40:48]: Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:48]: And we started playing around with Ai video two years ago.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:51]: My video editor just has been playing with it and do accomplish like, This literally look good.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:56]: We constantly put it out there.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:57]: Now I'm like, go go go.
Pranav Piyush [0:40:59]: We are...
Pranav Piyush [0:40:59]: We're we're going to put in a whole bunch of video content them.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:02]: So that I think is a thing that I'm super excited about your own.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:05]: And then I noticed something really interesting.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:06]: Two days ago, on my own personal Youtube feed, I started noticing completely Ai driven Youtube shorts.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:17]: Mh.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:18]: With tens of thousands Of likes.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:22]: And I noticed myself liking them.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:27]: She's a very matching moment, Bro like, oh, that was actually a funny comedic six second Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:36]: Skit on Youtube, and I know it's Ai, the handle even says Ai, and there is fifty thousand hits on it.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:44]: Yep.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:44]: And I was, like, okay.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:46]: The time is here.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:48]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:41:49]: So that my big, you know, video Ai is gonna be so.
Erik Jacobson [0:41:53]: Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:41:53]: That's such a good one to note and I agree.
Erik Jacobson [0:41:56]: I think it's still early to kinda, like, make this statement, but I think it to me, it already seems pretty clear that Ai video content, there's gonna be some people who don't like it, but most people, if it, like, matches what they're interested in and it's good content, but they're not gonna care.
Pranav Piyush [0:42:14]: But I'm like, you're
Erik Jacobson [0:42:15]: not gonna care.
Erik Jacobson [0:42:15]: No.
Erik Jacobson [0:42:15]: So as content marketers like, I think what we need to realize is plan for in two years or three years or whatever, maybe faster who knows.
Erik Jacobson [0:42:26]: There to be ten thousand times more video content, literally, on Youtube, and ten thousand times more content than there is today on Linkedin.
Erik Jacobson [0:42:37]: And all of these channels.
Erik Jacobson [0:42:39]: And so we need to keep that in mind with, like, this moment in time we're in right now, I think and capitalize as much as we can.
Erik Jacobson [0:42:46]: Because, like, I don't think it's a very safe bet to make of, like, well, you know, we'll still be better than Ai content because, like, we're gonna create it from the actual people.
Erik Jacobson [0:42:57]: So, like, we'll have an advantage over the ai content.
Erik Jacobson [0:43:01]: And I don't know if that's a safe bet to make.
Erik Jacobson [0:43:03]: I don't think you should only make Ai video content.
Erik Jacobson [0:43:07]: But I think that this can super charge what you're doing.
Erik Jacobson [0:43:10]: For example, we're working with the company that has inner customers all over the world.
Erik Jacobson [0:43:14]: They have a great Youtube channel.
Erik Jacobson [0:43:16]: We're helping them with their organic Youtube channel.
Erik Jacobson [0:43:19]: And it's a real domain expert in their company recording the videos.
Erik Jacobson [0:43:23]: But what we're doing, which is just a very, like, very obvious utilization of Ai video now is we're local the language
Pranav Piyush [0:43:33]: for that.
Erik Jacobson [0:43:33]: So now that that video is perfectly in German, perfectly in Italian, perfectly in Spanish.
Erik Jacobson [0:43:39]: With the captions with the effects with everything perfect.
Erik Jacobson [0:43:42]: And then the voice over, you know, and the mouth movement.
Pranav Piyush [0:43:46]: Oh, okay.
Pranav Piyush [0:43:46]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:43:47]: That's...
Pranav Piyush [0:43:47]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:43:47]: Okay.
Pranav Piyush [0:43:47]: That...
Pranav Piyush [0:43:48]: That...
Pranav Piyush [0:43:48]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:43:48]: Yeah.
Pranav Piyush [0:43:49]: I feel like Youtube or Google just announced that they're gonna offer that by default.
Pranav Piyush [0:43:53]: In Youtube that I could be wrong.
Pranav Piyush [0:43:55]: I think at least they're voice dub, but probably not the Right.
Pranav Piyush [0:43:58]: The mouth syncing, the lip syncing.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:00]: It'll be, like, you know, sixty percent solution, like, very easily.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:04]: Click click of a button.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:05]: Then Yeah.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:05]: You wanna get it, like, a hundred.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:07]: It's much easier.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:08]: I mean, this it would have been impossible before.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:10]: You would needed an army of people.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:11]: Like...
Pranav Piyush [0:44:13]: But I'm about to send a customer news that are Sun news that It's a Slack message, but it's a customer message that we send out every week two weeks.
Pranav Piyush [0:44:19]: And I noticed that Gemini launched just this morning.
Pranav Piyush [0:44:23]: You upload a photo, and then he can just prompt
Erik Jacobson [0:44:27]: him to
Pranav Piyush [0:44:27]: make it a video.
Pranav Piyush [0:44:27]: And it's like, it's on their Twitter feed.
Pranav Piyush [0:44:30]: It's like, amazing.
Pranav Piyush [0:44:31]: So I'm like, hey.
Pranav Piyush [0:44:32]: Anybody static ads.
Pranav Piyush [0:44:34]: Go try this fight now.
Pranav Piyush [0:44:36]: Right?
Pranav Piyush [0:44:37]: So there's so much good stuff happening.
Pranav Piyush [0:44:39]: It's like, a marketer dream.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:41]: Yes.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:41]: It's...
Erik Jacobson [0:44:41]: I think it's a optimistic point of view.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:44]: Like, it can be scary.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:45]: A little bit right now.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:45]: I think there's a lot of fear mon too.
Erik Jacobson [0:44:47]: But But yeah...
Pranav Piyush [0:44:48]: And then
Erik Jacobson [0:44:49]: the last thing I'll mention on this is, like, I think that there will be...
Erik Jacobson [0:44:52]: There's an opportunity for you to have an Ai influencer that represents your company.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:00]: And it's not...
Erik Jacobson [0:45:01]: It's you're not hiding.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:02]: You're not pretending that it's, like, a real person.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:04]: You're, like, this is our Ai.
Pranav Piyush [0:45:06]: I literally talk about this with our video guy.
Pranav Piyush [0:45:09]: It's like, hey.
Pranav Piyush [0:45:10]: Should we do a corporate bro, but, like, Tire origin of Corporate pro.
Pranav Piyush [0:45:15]: And they're listed as an employee.
Pranav Piyush [0:45:16]: I was like, is this a yes Linkedin policy.
Pranav Piyush [0:45:19]: And so I think you're a hundred percent right, that if you and I are talking about this, and I had the same thought last week.
Pranav Piyush [0:45:26]: This is gonna be a thing.
Pranav Piyush [0:45:27]: Absolutely going to be.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:28]: Awesome.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:28]: P nav.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:29]: This was awesome.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:29]: Love your content, love your insights.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:31]: I recommend everybody to number one, go study what you're doing.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:37]: Go check out your podcast.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:38]: Go check out your Linkedin.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:39]: Go check out your newsletter.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:41]: I find the best insights come from, like, studying what people are actually doing.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:45]: And then, obviously, if anybody's in the market for help with the the measurement side of things, go to Paramark.
Erik Jacobson [0:45:50]: But, yeah, anywhere else specific you'd recommend people to go check out
Pranav Piyush [0:45:54]: No.
Pranav Piyush [0:45:54]: That's it.
Pranav Piyush [0:45:55]: Go to Linkedin.
Pranav Piyush [0:45:55]: Connect with me on Linkedin or go check out para dot com about a bi weekly newsletter.
Pranav Piyush [0:46:01]: I think it's pretty good.
Pranav Piyush [0:46:02]: You'll learn something out of it.
Pranav Piyush [0:46:04]: And so, yeah, Those are great places to go.
Erik Jacobson [0:46:07]: Awesome, man.
Erik Jacobson [0:46:07]: Appreciate it.
Erik Jacobson [0:46:07]: This is fine
Pranav Piyush [0:46:08]: Thank you, Erik.
Pranav Piyush [0:46:09]: This was fantastic.