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Dave Gerhardt (Founder of Exit Five, former CMO) and guests help you grow your career in B2B marketing. Episodes include conversations with CMOs, marketing leaders, and subject matter experts across all aspects of modern B2B marketing: planning, strategy, operations, ABM, demand gen., product marketing, brand, content, social media, and more. Join 3,500+ members in our private community at exitfive.com.
Eliana Atia [00:00:00]:
1234.
Dave Gerhardt [00:00:01]:
Exit, exit.
Arielle Gordis [00:00:12]:
Exit.
Dave Gerhardt [00:00:15]:
All right, I'm super excited to do this episode because we're gonna do a deep dive, a little bit of a deep dive, as much as we can go deep in the next 40 or so minutes into the content strategy@Monday.com. a brand that I know a lot of people listening follow, pay attention to, and use. But I got two great guests today, and I want first, want you to hear their voices and introduce themselves. So, Eliana, why don't you take the lead and say hi, and then we'll pass it over to Arielle.
Eliana Atia [00:00:37]:
Awesome. So first of all, thanks so much for having us. I'm also excited to jump in and tell you guys a little bit about Monday and a little bit about what we've got going on in the content side. So I'm Eliana. I've been in kind of the content SaaS world for just about seven years. I got started in a classic jill of all trades role in a startup company where in the morning you're writing the web copy and in the afternoon you're writing emails and somewhere in between you're helping out HR. So I got kind of introduced to the world of SaaS and content marketing that way, and I was able to really get a taste of everything. And then I was lucky enough to join the team at Monday.
Eliana Atia [00:01:18]:
About four and a half years ago. I was, I think, the second hire for the content guild. And since then we've just been building out the team. Today we're around 18 people and I threw out the word guild, but I can get into a bit of the structure and I think we'll go into that in a bit. But the content team really stretches basically the entire company of Monday. And we're sort of built into each team, helping to support and sort of enrich every team with content. So.
Dave Gerhardt [00:01:45]:
All right, yeah, let's do that. I want to talk about the structure people will be interested in. Like what does the content team look like? How many people? What does everybody do? But first, let's get Arielle to say hi.
Arielle Gordis [00:01:54]:
Hi. Thanks for having us. I'm Arielle. I have been at Monday for around two and a half years now. Eliana was actually my manager when I started, and I joined on both the brand team and the lifecycle marketing team is how we now call it, and then went all in on lifecycle marketing. But in addition, I have been managing the thought leadership side of our content. So we'll get into it later. But I've created this thought leadership newsletter that we send that's turned into a lot of other awesome initiatives and, yeah, I guess that's kind of the gist of it.
Dave Gerhardt [00:02:27]:
So Eliana's not your manager anymore because the team has grown.
Arielle Gordis [00:02:31]:
The team has grown, and she's taken on lots more.
Dave Gerhardt [00:02:34]:
Cool. All right, let's make sure we talk about thought leadership. So I want to talk about your newsletter. I want to talk about thought leadership, but I want to start by. Let's. Let's maybe, Eliana, if you can, take us into the structure of the content team and maybe give us context as to, like, what the overall marketing looks like@Monday.com. and, like, where content sits first. Let's talk about that.
Eliana Atia [00:02:56]:
Yeah, definitely. So the marketing department basically sits under the CRO organization. We've got, I mean, gosh, I'll try to list somewhat briefly the different focus areas. Obviously, we've got acquisition marketing, we've got sales led growth, aka enterprise, aka B two B, however you want to call it. Of course, we've got comms, we've got design, we've got the sales enablement department. There's. It won't kind of go into all of the different departments, but I think it is an interesting setup how we've built out the content team. And I think in order to explain where we are today, it's good to sort of go a couple steps back into sort of our origin story.
Eliana Atia [00:03:37]:
When the team first came to be, we were obviously first one and then two and three and four, and we really serviced the entire company, actually, from a Monday request board. I mean, whether you were on HR or sales or someone from the builders department, a developer, and you needed some sort of content support, you would submit a request to this board. Myself, Yael, whoever it was, Yale, is my manager, we would look through the content request board and see who had some free time, and we would tackle it. And it worked. It worked for a while. But I think one of the great moments for a content team is when you bring so much value that everyone then says, wait, I need someone like this sitting next to us all the time. And gratefully, for us, that's kind of what happened. So eventually, this kind of ad hoc, almost like internal agency system just wasn't scalable.
Eliana Atia [00:04:32]:
And then that's when we took on what we call the guild structure, which is basically to say that there's a professional manager within the content guild, but each person on the team, while being managed by a content manager, they sit within the team that they're working for. So Arielle mentioned that she sits within the lifecycle marketing team, which is email marketing plus, let's call it. So she sits with the lifecycle marketing team. She joins their morning iterations. That's where her, you know, KPI's come from. That's where her sort of daily tasks come from. And she works very closely with that team lead and that's the team that she sits and she sort of lives and breathes their goals, their KPI's, their work. But her weekly check ins and development come from the content side.
Eliana Atia [00:05:19]:
And that way we're able to really sort of trickle down updated messaging, making sure that the content quality and goal setting is where we want it to be. And that structure honestly has supported us through this kind of insane growth that we've experienced over the past four years.
Dave Gerhardt [00:05:36]:
That's interesting because it's almost like content started as it seems to be very reactive. Like, hey, we need requests, requests, almost like a creative services agency, which is great, but that's also, it can be stressful. The team can get burnt out doing that. You just feel like you're taking orders from everybody else. But then also as the company grows, you have kind of shifted and you need content to play more offense now and to be more proactive. And so I'd love to hear what is the content strategy@Monday.com? dot because you have all these, you know, you have the enterprise side, you have the self service side. And so you got to do all the things, you got to do enterprise content, you got to do self serve content, you got to do thought leadership. And one thing that I struggle with is like, look, I'm the biggest advocate of content.
Dave Gerhardt [00:06:27]:
I think this is the thing that I'm good at and this is how I've been able to grow my career and grow businesses and marketing is through content. But the kind of gift and the curse of that is like content can be everything. And so that also makes it hard to figure out what to do and what to work on. Even now, like with a small business with exit five, it's like we're playing a little bit whack a mole where our content strategy is heavily with the podcast and our newsletter. But the last couple weeks I've been like, man, we have no organic website traffic outside of like branded search and we really need to be doing something from SEO. But how am I going to get the resources to do that? You're doing this at a big scale now. Like what are the high level goals for content@Monday.com? and how do you do all those things?
Eliana Atia [00:07:04]:
It's such a good question. And I think how you positioned it in the beginning is so accurate in terms of kind of being offense as opposed to sort of defense. And one of the things that from the beginning of building the team, something that we've always said and believed in is content as a strategic partner, we're not kind of being looped in in the last iteration, and someone says, can you look this over and make sure it looks good? We are in the kickoff. And so at first, when you said, what's the content strategy? I was like, how do I answer that question? And then I kind of actually started to think about it, and I said, the content strategy is one to one with the business strategy. And I think it actually reflects how the team is structured as well. We don't really. Let's say we're starting to prep, you know, 2025 planning. We don't really go and say, oh.
Dave Gerhardt [00:07:56]:
My goodness, it's June.
Eliana Atia [00:07:59]:
When I say starting to prep, I mean, we're, like, halfway through, so wish us luck. We don't really go through and say, okay, acquisition, what's your strategy? B two. B. Enterprise. What's your strategy? It's. We are all really sitting at the table as a department, as a marketing department, very, very closely linked to, you know, senior leadership. And we're saying, as a company, we know that, you know, we're going more in this direction. This is more of the audience that we want to speak to.
Dave Gerhardt [00:08:27]:
All right, this is great. Listen, people that are listening, listen. Listen to what she said. She said, content. I do think sometimes in companies, the marketers, especially on the content side, we're the creatives, right? We're the writers. We're the designers. We create stuff. We don't like the business.
Dave Gerhardt [00:08:42]:
We don't want to be the business side. But what you said, hearing it from you, is like, no, there is no, you're not going to have a job that way, and you're not going to be successful that way. You have to marry those two things together. Arielle, I want to bring you in just because I see you nodding along, but maybe you can add some color to this conversation about the business strategy, and then I'm going to come back to this in a second.
Arielle Gordis [00:08:59]:
Well, yeah, I actually. I mean, 100% Eliana's nail in the description, but I think one of the things that's so meaningful and exciting about being a content person at Monday is you really are part of the conversation. You're not someone who, like, gets assigned a task, like, okay, even for lifecycle marketing, when we're working on an email. It's not that my team comes to me like, hey, here's what you need to do. Can you just write, like, can you look it over or can you write it? It's like, okay, here's the goal that we're trying to achieve. Sit with us. Let's brainstorm. How do we message this? How are we going to build this narrative and this story in a way that's going to resonate with this audience at this stage of their journey based on this pain point that they're experiencing? And I'm sitting at the table giving feedback and talking about, well, that message is not really, you know, it's a total conversation.
Arielle Gordis [00:09:44]:
It's a total partnership, as Eliana said. And I think that that's exactly the way you need to be. Looking at content when it comes to building any business strategy is like looping us in right from the beginning because at the end of the day, your message is everything. That's what's going to determine the impact.
Dave Gerhardt [00:10:01]:
So, so, all right, so let's, let's talk about goals then. So you made it clear that content is part of the business strategy, but every company has goals for each team function, right? I don't know. Let's talk about what is the process for goal setting at Monday? And then do you have like, these are the three main okrs for contentay.com. like, I want to get into some of that stuff as much as you can. Share that. It's like, as an example, might be like, number one, grow website traffic to blah. Number two, start doing x, y and z thing. Do you have that kind of like three to five, like key objectives? I think people would.
Dave Gerhardt [00:10:34]:
That would give us light into like, yep, I get it. Content is part of the business strategy. But like, what are the two to five things that the content efforts@Monday.com are trying to drive as it relates to those business goals?
Eliana Atia [00:10:46]:
Yeah. So first, I think the honest answer is still kind of, we have, let's say our six company okrs and each of which is drilled down into per team. So if we take the SEO team, they have kind of the, their team okrs that build into the company okrs and then content is part of that. So that's still definitely part of it. But I can say kind of looking in the year to come, let's say the company has made a big transition into becoming a multi product company. A couple of years ago, Monday.com, the product and the company and the brand were all the same thing. So it was very easy to kind of market it and the company has made a transition to where now Monday.com is the brand and we are a company that has multiple products and that as it relates to messaging, kind of building out our Personas, speaking for each product and really building out that message is something that is still a work in progress. So I can say that is a huge goal that we have this year and the year to come and probably the year to come after that.
Eliana Atia [00:11:50]:
And we have a lot of kind of ongoing processes for that. We've worked with external agencies and we're working really closely with the PMM team internally at Monday. It's a huge, huge process and content is really built into that. But the honest answer truly is the success of the team. Of the content team is judged based on the success of the teams that they're in because so much of the function of the content team is asking the questions that represent the company goals. So I think Arielle's example is a great example of that. We're working on an email and someone, let's say, on the team, suggests a copy or a direction. It's the content manager's responsibility to say, okay, but right, that we're, we're trying to go more upmarket and we're trying to speak to a more top down Persona.
Eliana Atia [00:12:42]:
Do you feel like this is, is targeting that? So maybe we should actually take this different approach and for that reason, apart from kind of messaging, basically, company and content goals go hand in hand.
Arielle Gordis [00:12:55]:
Yeah, I was just going to add on to that. I think it's such an interesting question, but as a team, we don't separate it. So, like, when I'm sitting with the lifecycle marketing team, all of my goals are ensuring the success of our KPI's as a team. So it's just we don't have our own individual team as like, here is what content needs to achieve by the end of the year. All of us on the content team work in impact oriented roles in order for our support to actually do that showcase, like, you know, relate to the KPI's and.
Dave Gerhardt [00:13:29]:
Yeah, so it's much closer to, like, how, how creative and design would, like, partner up with everybody on inside of the company. Okay, got it. So, like, is there somebody, is there a team that owns, like, website traffic or like, organic traffic through SEO? And is that like a growth team and then you're partnering with the growth team on, like, how to achieve that goal?
Eliana Atia [00:13:49]:
Yeah, exactly. So we have an SEO team that has an SEO team lead that's coming at it more from kind of the technical perspective. And then we have a content manager who is sort of built into that team and same kind of structure she is all day, every day, kind of looking at the blog, thinking SEO, thinking how to build traffic, thinking if our blog posts need to take a shift to support multi product, need to take a shift to speak to a more senior Persona, but she is being managed within the guild. So from our perspective, we're always saying, you know, is the blog reflective of our most recent messaging? Is it supporting the company okrs? So it's kind of coming from all directions.
Arielle Gordis [00:14:28]:
And then there's also the web presence team, which is the, you know, the actual website. And again, like on that team that's really managing Monday's website, the strategy, there are two actual, like, content people that are playing a role in all those pages and making sure exactly as Eliana said, like, the messaging is aligned. But yeah, each person has their, as part of the own team.
Dave Gerhardt [00:14:47]:
Got it. Okay. So that, that answers, we don't have to go into all the details of that, but that answers a bunch of the questions, so. And this is actually where I think a lot of content teams struggle is like the content team on its own will just make goals for the sake of setting goals. It's like you want to have some direction, right? And so it's like, yeah, we want to grow blog traffic. We want to triple blog traffic this year, but then that doesn't actually match up. Like, the business doesn't have a funnel like a need for that. And so we grow the blog traffic.
Dave Gerhardt [00:15:15]:
And then this has always becomes a challenge. And then everybody inside the company is grumbling about how the content team isn't driving results. The content team is like, what are you talking about? We've grown the blog traffic. We've done all this, but it's missing, right? You're both kind of like, nodding. It seems like this is something that you've either experienced in the early days, and this is a unique structure that I think is very interesting to a lot of people.
Eliana Atia [00:15:34]:
I completely agree. And I think what I really appreciate about how Monday approaches content is early on, we really gained the trust, the trust that's needed to be able to say, like, we know that the content team is providing value because every team that has someone from content is like, we need two more. And every team that doesn't have content is dying to have someone built into their team. And I think you do need for any kind of creative focus within, at the end of the day, a business oriented, an AR focused kind of company, you need a level of trust because you can never tie content design creative one to one with ARR as hard as you try and as much as you try to create kind of like pseudo KPI's and data points. But I think that trust is a big part of making it successful and creating realistic sort of expectations that are at the end of the day business oriented.
Arielle Gordis [00:16:33]:
And just to add to that 1 second, but when it comes to like specifically, let's say, email marketing, there are ways where we are able to actually prove the impact of content or design something that where we'll do an A B test and we'll look at two different designs or two different headlines, and obviously that's in all the different areas. So we are able to say, okay, when we've optimized this content or when we tested these, like, this messaging objectively works better. And so obviously those are tied to this measuring impact. But again, it's like, it's not, it's not separate. The content is about how are we showing the impact. Let's say for me on, for email marketing, it's not like, you know, so.
Dave Gerhardt [00:17:09]:
You'Re never just like standing alone on an island expected to talk about the value of this because it's like someone on another part of the team, like, or there was some business need to create this email strategy and therefore you're the partner to do that. Or the SEO team has a goal of driving traffic, which is important to the business, and so you're working with someone on the other part of the team. Am I understanding that right?
Eliana Atia [00:17:30]:
Exactly. And I think maybe one of the only realms that is more content focused and originating from the content team is the thought leadership arena. And even that is, it's a need that's coming from so many different corners of the business, but it is more under the ownership and being driven by content, which is really fun for us because as you can see, that's not usually kind of our position to really own something independently that is just for content, which is why it's something that we're so passionate about and we talk about at any given opportunity.
Dave Gerhardt [00:18:06]:
So, like internally in the marketing team and across the business, are you kind of always like, if you're giving an update on someone or on something, are you always kind of presenting with like a partner that's on a different team or like the kind of team that owns the business?
Eliana Atia [00:18:19]:
Strategy piece of that, I would say it depends. I think it would be hard to present something from content and basically only say, I like anything that you are able to execute came from. As you mentioned earlier, it originated from a business need. It was supported by, again, let's take Arielle's lifecycle marketing. It was supported by the lifecycle marketing manager. From the technical side, someone had to define the Persona. Arielle worked with that person. After defining the Persona to understand how to target that Persona, then we probably did a b testing.
Eliana Atia [00:18:53]:
So everything goes through a long process. Nothing kind of exists in a silo. But on the other hand, let's say if it was a success and we did kind of a messaging test, like, we had an existing email flow and we did a messaging test, that's something Arielle would definitely present. And Arielle, I'll even let you talk.
Arielle Gordis [00:19:11]:
About it because, yeah, I mean, I think that, as we said, because there is much more of this partnership. It obviously always is at Monday, I think more of a collaboration, no matter what initiative you've done. But I think that it's really unique, the amount of value and emphasis that the whole company puts on content. Like, we are seen as really, really strategic players. And so there is total receptiveness to us being like, yeah, this is what we did, you know, and we were able, through the messaging, through the strategic content, to bring these results.
Dave Gerhardt [00:19:41]:
All right, let's change gears. I think that that makes sense. That's very interesting. I think there's going to be a lot of content people that will listen to this and question how content is structured inside of their organization. And I think that's great because I think one of the reasons, like, the reason for listening to something like this, I think it's doesn't. If you just listen to a podcast or read a book or watch YouTube video and you don't do anything with it, then doesn't matter. But I think for me, like, in my career, and I can feel this and the energy that you two have, like, you gotta be curious and you gotta observe how other people do it. And if you listen to something like this and you realize that the way you have content set up at your company is wrong, don't just go back to your company and keep doing things.
Dave Gerhardt [00:20:18]:
Be like, hey, I listen to this. Like, listen to how Monday.com does. This is really interesting. I think there's something we could do, and maybe it doesn't have to be exactly how you all do it, but maybe there's like a piece of it you can take and then, like, go bring that to your company. I think that's what makes this stuff really valuable. And I love the exercise of just always be questioning everything that you're doing in marketing. What should we stop doing? Start doing, continue doing this person in.
Arielle Gordis [00:20:42]:
Right.
Dave Gerhardt [00:20:43]:
Yeah.
Arielle Gordis [00:20:44]:
Content. Be part of the conversation.
Dave Gerhardt [00:20:45]:
Exactly. And there can be a lot of times that you can. I think we just smash our heads against the wall sometimes looking for, like, the latest tactic and channel, like, oh, we should be doing TikTok or whatever when it's like, actually the way we're going to do better is by, like, reorganizing the team and, like, setting better goals and just like, realigning the resources that we, we already have.
Eliana Atia [00:21:03]:
Maybe if I can add one final kind of thought.
Dave Gerhardt [00:21:05]:
You sure can. You're a guest on this damn show. Yes, you can.
Eliana Atia [00:21:08]:
So much. Just for listeners, like, if there is kind of a way that you collaborate with the rest of the company or department or teams, whatever, the kind of size of the organization that you're working within, if there's a way that, like, leaves everybody feeling energized and feeling good and feeling like they love to kind of work together, and if there's another way that feels like you're constantly meeting friction. Listen to that. That's like, that is a reality. It's showing you something. It's mirroring something about the organization. And it should feel natural and good to work with the people around you. It shouldn't feel like.
Eliana Atia [00:21:45]:
Exactly. Dave, like you said, you're kind of making up KPI's for the sake of KPI's. It should really reflect the natural way that the company works for its benefit.
Dave Gerhardt [00:21:54]:
All right, let's talk about one of the things that I think about a lot in content today. We got a visitor. Now. This is so one of the things I think about a lot in content today is the tools. The game has changed a little bit. Content used to be like the content team at a company maybe ten or 15 years ago would be like, write website content, write the blog content. Today that has shifted. Right? And we're going to talk about your newsletter strategy in a little bit.
Dave Gerhardt [00:22:19]:
But content, like, today, I talk to startups, I talk to companies. It's like, content means social media, content means newsletter, content means TikTok, content means YouTube. Right? Can you just give us an overview of like, what channels are important and what channels you're investing in@Monday.com?
Eliana Atia [00:22:36]:
Yeah, definitely. So I can walk you through like a couple of the teams. And then I think with that, come know the different channels. So obviously we've gone through it a couple of times. So we have lifecycle marketing. We have SLG sales led growth enterprise, however, most people call it. And that's mostly looking at both kind of partnerships. So we support, whether it's events or partnership materials for our partnerships team.
Eliana Atia [00:22:59]:
And also under SLG is any kind of sales enablement materials. So obviously that's going to be Dex one pagers. As we target more and more enterprise customers, it's a lot of customized materials to basically ABM. We of course, have our acquisition team and that's going to be Facebook, YouTube. We have CTV, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google Ads, et cetera. And we also work really closely with the creative team. So a lot of, let's say, like our YouTube ads, which we are very known for, or our CTV ads, we did a Super bowl ad a couple years back. So we work really, really closely with the creative team to kind of tailor and harness both the messaging, but also it's, it's fun.
Eliana Atia [00:23:44]:
It's fun to collaborate and get to, to work on things that are either a different medium or a bit more kind of wacky and creative. Sometimes we have content managers who work per product. So I mentioned that Monday transition to be kind of a multi product company. And as that transition took more and more form, we realized we really need one content manager kind of that Jill of all trades, jack of all trades position where it's like you're in a tiny startup so that one person would collaborate for all of the, let's say, Monday CRM Google Ads, Monday CRM YouTube ads, Monday CRM mini landing page, Monday CRM thought leadership. All of that is being owned by one person. So they kind of stretch all of those different channels. We also have an annual event elevate by Monday and we have a content manager who's owning that event, plus kind of peripheral events as well. But that is a full time job.
Eliana Atia [00:24:43]:
Plus we also have Arielle mentioned our web presence team, which sits kind of under the growth function, and they are constantly optimizing and updating basically our website. So whether that's homepage tests that are going on all the time, it's an amazing way to kind of get a finger on the pulse of updated messaging. We can run a test on the h, one of the homepage and get a real sense for our audience and our customer base in a few days or if it's launching a new mini site for a product or just kind of updating the enterprise mini site. So there is constantly, constantly work going on under the web presence function and the list goes on but basically we stretch kind of all mediums, all focus areas, and collaborate really across the company.
Dave Gerhardt [00:25:31]:
Want to talk about thought leadership?
Arielle Gordis [00:25:32]:
We're ready.
Dave Gerhardt [00:25:34]:
Let's talk. What is thought leadership at the company? What role does it play in marketing? And then where did this start as a strategy for the business?
Eliana Atia [00:25:41]:
I think thought leadership is something that Monday has always really, really believed in. If we rename thought leadership as kind of like value based content, no matter what the medium is or whether it's long form, short form, one of the guiding principles, I think at Monday is to be value based, to be honest, to be clear and concise, not to be kind of full of jargon, but to really, really ask yourself with every piece of content, is this bringing value? And in that way, I think Monday's always cared about thought leadership and always thought about it. And I think only recently are we really more so looking at it as kind of an overarching initiative and focus. I think we've been doing thought leadership in different ways for, for a long time. And I think Monday insights, which Arielle will get into, was really our first experience successfully having one initiative that we were able to really, really focus on and build out and prove, like, real value and real success from something that is pure information, pure value. So, yeah, I'll let Arielle kind of dive into it.
Arielle Gordis [00:26:52]:
So basically, as Eliana mentioned, thought leadership is the one area where content is actually the driver. So it's not just that we're strategic partners, we are leading the conversation here. So when I joined the end of 2021, I was looped into a meeting with the CEO where he basically talked about this vision that we should create a newsletter that solely is about giving value. Now, we didn't really talk about what exactly is Monday as a product for those people that are not as familiar, but, like, big picture goal of Monday as a product is to help people navigate the world of work through technology. And there was this kind of opportunity that we can go beyond just the technology as a company. We can help people navigate the world of work as people as well. And how do you do that? You keep them informed, you give them advice, you acknowledge the pain points, you provide guidance. And so the vision that he had was to create this newsletter that is solely meant to deliver value to our readers.
Arielle Gordis [00:27:55]:
We're not going to market our products and company and focus it on why Monday. It's going to just be about like, you read this newsletter and you leave with feeling more informed and more prepared than you were before you read it. So, you know, big ask but he wanted it to be long. He wanted it to be just super engaging. And his vision was like, people are not going to unsubscribe because they'll feel like they're going to miss out on valuable information if they do. So that was really the goal. And so I started writing and working with amazing people to kind of build out this newsletter. And it is one of the longest emails you'll see, definitely the longest email that comes from Monday.
Arielle Gordis [00:28:34]:
Every week we talk about workplace trends, like what's going on in the world of work in general. We talk about, aih, what's going on in the future of work. And then there's always a thought leadership topic that's specifically dedicated to managers and navigating the challenges that you face as a leader. Anything from like conflicts on your team to leading with transparency, to how do you give feedback and how do you get your employees to give feedback to you that's going to help your team improve. And a whole range of topics. There's always water cooler chatter, which is like the kind of thing you'll be drinking coffee with your coworkers and asking, you know, did you hear that? You know, one of those kinds, some of those kinds of updates. There's like a fun fact that kind of keeps you excited to go back to the newsletter from before. And there's always amazing cartoon.
Arielle Gordis [00:29:21]:
We work with this really, really talented New Yorker cartoonist who helps us create these cartoons that only relate to the world of work. And the idea of all these topics at the end of the day is that as a leader, you're going to know what's going on in the business world. You're going to know what's going on in AI. You're going to read a section that's really focused on the challenges about being a leader and getting advice on how to actually navigate it. And then there's always just fun things to talk about at work, facts to know about work, and something to make you laugh at the end. And really what has been obviously was a really wild experience growing this. But now, two and a half years later, as someone from the lifecycle, marketing, which means email marketing in a lot of ways, team, I can say that it's actually, it's the most open email out of any email that we send from Monday, which is pretty wild. You know, a benchmark rate, open rate for us is around 30%.
Arielle Gordis [00:30:12]:
And this newsletter, week after week we send it to around 3.7 million people. And the unique open rate is around 55%, which is pretty crazy.
Dave Gerhardt [00:30:22]:
That's amazing. That's very impressive to have done that, at that. At that scale. So I love the approach. I think what you mentioned is great. I'm curious as to hear. I think the key for me with thought leadership, from what I've seen, is that the missing ingredient is often the thoughts. And so, like, you, you need to.
Dave Gerhardt [00:30:42]:
Great thought leadership comes from having strong opinions and strong points of view. And so you mentioned all those things, but, like, you know, you're just one lady. Where do you, where do you come up with the content for that? Is it research? Are you interviewing people inside of the company? Where are you curating them? And. Or maybe it is all coming from your brain, and that would be an amazing. And, like, a. That would be your superpower. But let's rewind. And where does that come from? And then we can talk about the delivery a little bit.
Arielle Gordis [00:31:08]:
Yeah, I mean, I think, honestly, it's a combination of everything that you said. Definitely, like, one of the goals is really to make it timely. So when I'm working on the workplace trends and the AI conversations, I'm actually really doing research on what's going on in the world of work. And from there, I often am getting insight. Like, you know, sometimes it'll be a finding. A new study came out that says people are really lonely at work. So then that triggers the topic. Okay, so how do you create a sense of belonging and connectedness for your employees? Or how do you, you know, if we talk about, sometimes there'll be research about how employee well being has dropped.
Arielle Gordis [00:31:43]:
You know, employees are not doing as well. And so then the conversation is like, how do you support employee well being? Those are kind of like, some of the things that guided it also could be that mother's day is around the corner. And so I'm like, we should write about how to support the parents on your team. And then it's often combination of conversations with people that can relate to the challenges. You know, I'll speak with parents at Monday and ask them, what are things your managers do that's really helpful? What are things that you wish your manager did? What are, you know, and things in the past and kind of combining it. So it's a combination of research. It is a lot of my own kind of thoughts and ideas, and also conversations with people that are going through it and living through it. I mean, definitely some of the topics are even triggered from conversations with friends outside of the company that are telling me, venting about a certain experience.
Arielle Gordis [00:32:27]:
The manager, I'm like, I'm gonna write that one down, you know, I mean, it's often really triggered by real life experience. And I think that's why it feels so relevant to so many people is that it comes from kind of real pain points. You know? It's not just like a throwing out an idea. I wonder if people care about this. It's like, no, I know people do. People are talking about it.
Dave Gerhardt [00:32:45]:
It's like, I just, I just shared this Airbnb ad recently that I like because I have kids, as one of them just came in here, and the Airbnb ad is, like, basically positioning against hotels. And they're saying, like, if you get a hotel room, you got to go to bed at the same time as your kids. And it made me think of, like, oh, that was relatable to me. But it's like a great comedian, right? Or whether it's a song that you like or comedian that you like so often, you really relate to that. You feel that in your soul, like, personally. Right. And I think that's the marketing opportunity, too. It's like, it doesn't have to be, like, groundbreaking scientific research.
Dave Gerhardt [00:33:19]:
It's like, if we understand you, the audience, really well, we can really relate to the things you're going through and want to know, and we can serve up that content to you. It comes from being very relatable and having a deep understanding of who that person is, right?
Arielle Gordis [00:33:32]:
100%. I think sometimes it's like, there I have people that will read this and be like, isn't this obvious? And then other, we'll get feedback when people are like this.
Dave Gerhardt [00:33:41]:
Oh, my God, you just perfectly articulated, like, the life of a content creator, right? It's like, I'll get, we'll send out an email and I will get, like 100 responses of people are like, oh, thank you for this. Like, you get it, right? Do you see all the responses? Well, 3.7 million subscribers. I don't know if you can see all those, but you just must get some nasty messages. Or that one. It's always a guy who's never a woman. It's always a man who's like, how did I get on this list? Take me off this list. This is the 50th time I've emailed you to take me off this list. I just had somebody that, like, has been trying to cancel exit five membership.
Dave Gerhardt [00:34:15]:
And he says that we keep billing him, but we don't. And we go into stripe and his, next to his name in stripe, it says, like, high risk, like high refund alert. So that means this guy has been on multiple platforms. Anyway, the point. The point that I was trying to make is you get 100 messages from people are like, this is so relatable. Oh, my gosh, I relate this so much. Then there's like three people that are like, this is junior level content. This is things.
Dave Gerhardt [00:34:40]:
And it's like, you got to know who to listen to, and you got to be able to like that. That's part of the game. And if everyone, like, not everyone is going to like it, it's like music. Not everybody is going to like, every single song someone puts out. It's knowing for those pockets. But don't you also find that, isn't that the amazing part about being, like, creating content and having something like an email list? It's the feedback loop, right? Like, you'll send out an email and you will know right away, like, oh, man, that topic crushed it. And then you're, like, thinking about your event and who's going to speak at the event and what content you want to program for the event and whatever, you know, your Monday event. Oh, you know what? Like, you must.
Dave Gerhardt [00:35:15]:
You have your finger on the pulse of what your audience wants because you're getting this feedback all the time. Like, you could probably write down if you had to single handedly program the Monday.com event, rel, you probably could. You're like, what are the top ten things people are most interested in? Right. Do you feel that?
Arielle Gordis [00:35:30]:
Yeah, I mean, I think 100% is, like, we're getting insight into things that actually matter to people, and even we actually sometimes, like, will take the content. I mean, one of the things that actually, I want to note is that the newsletter, there's nothing really that you can click on. Like, there's not really any marketing material in there. So actually, the only way we've been measuring success from the newsletter has been the open rate and how many people are going back and reopening old newsletters that we've sent to kind of, like, you know, because actually, unique open rate is obviously, like, the unique open rate is the percentage of people that are opening it. If you send it to 100 people, how many of them open the newsletter? But the total open rate is actually the percentage that factors in people that went back and reopened it. And the total open rate of these newsletters sometimes is as high as 95%. Like, it's people that are actually going back. A lot of the readers are, like, rereading it, which makes us think, okay, like, this is content that doesn't just, like a one time, quickly open the email and never see it again.
Arielle Gordis [00:36:28]:
It's content that people want to, want to look back on. And I think that even when it comes to some of the strongest open rate emails will turn into video content. And that's really exciting. Also, when we see, we'll post it on LinkedIn and we'll see, like, really incredible engagement and people resharing it, reposting people from all different workplace experiences, industries, languages, locations around the world, and talking about what about it really resonates. You know, there was one video talking about how to navigate employee resignations. Like, what do you do when an employee quits? And one of the pieces of advice was really for managers to know, like, this is not them being disloyal to you, it's them being loyal to themselves and their career growth. And there were so many people that commented like, wow. Like, first of all, from the manager perspective, that was helpful.
Arielle Gordis [00:37:14]:
And from an employee perspective, like, I, even someone who's, like, had years of work experience who was high up at her company messaged me that she was planning on leaving her job. And she's been feeling such guilt for her manager that she's going to be leaving because she loves her manager. And it was just such a helpful thing to think about that reality. Like, I'm not being disloyal, I'm just prioritizing me. And I think that those kinds of responses are so amazing to see and so telling of what matters to people right now.
Eliana Atia [00:37:41]:
I also think it kind of dawned on me a bit, like, as we were talking, that one of the most challenging things I think about thought leadership is Dave, as you mentioned, like, finding those nuggets of, like, real thought, real insight is hard. And so it's hard to create a cadence. It's hard to create, like, a beat that you can keep up with. And I think something so unique about Monday insights is, you know, Arielle kind of walked us through, like, the structure, and the structure itself is very stable. You know, it stays the same week after week. And that is such a mental load that's sort of taken off, you know, the structure that's expected, and then you can focus on the actual content. And once you have that beat and it kind of stays consistent, then you're able to look at the numbers and the engagement and get a sense for what people are interested in and continue to improve and focus more here and, and maybe ease off in other areas that are resonating less. And I think, you know, Monday is such a, like, data oriented business that I think having such a clear cut sort of structure for thought leadership really opened something that I think we were struggling with before.
Dave Gerhardt [00:38:51]:
Yeah, well, there's some element to like what, you know, I think people want really quick success with something like a newsletter, and that is kind of like, it's like hosting a podcast, right? There's just a certain amount of time that it takes, and it's now, like, you know, we're getting close to 200 episodes. There's a large group of people who now listen to this podcast, no matter who I have on, because I'm the host. I've been showing up here in your ears for however many long, forever long. People know me. They know my voice. They get to know you, trust you. Right? Like, Arielle's been writing this newsletter now, and it's like, there's some level of, like, expectation, you know, when it comes out every week, you know what it's going to look like. You know what the topic's going to be.
Dave Gerhardt [00:39:30]:
Like. I've often talked about, you know, like, open rate. There's all these gimmicks you can try to do with, like, a subject line, right? But it's like, the real way to boost your open rate is to send an email that people want and to be. To know that, like, if Arielle, if, I don't know if the sender name comes from you or whatever, but, like, let's say that the sender is Monday.com or it's Arielle or Dave from exit five, right? It doesn't matter if the subject line is poop or six ways to grow your career. Like, someone's going to open that email because they're like, oh, I know when Dave sends an email, like, it's quality and I'm going to open it. And so there's some level that builds up. That's. That's why you drive open rates now.
Dave Gerhardt [00:40:06]:
Like, it's not. It's not necessarily the subject line, is it? Like, do you even have a. Are you changing the subject line each week, or are you just like, here's the insights.
Eliana Atia [00:40:15]:
Yeah.
Arielle Gordis [00:40:15]:
So the sender is Monday insights, and every week we change the subject line based on what the thought leadership is. And then the preview text, which is kind of like that light gray text that shows up below before you open it, is going to be like the workplace trends and the AI. Like, it gives you a little headline. So basically, before you even open the email, you can kind of see the general topics of the week. But the sender is always Monday insights. And the thought leadership title is always, like, addressing one of those managerial pain points, you know, or benefits. And I think it's so true that at this point, I really do believe that we have, like, so many people just like, a sense of trust. They want to see this content week after week.
Arielle Gordis [00:40:53]:
Some of the things that we get in our feedback is people like, it's actually the only email I look forward to reading each week. But it's even that consistency being part of the message is really telling people want, like they, as Eliana said, it's like it's something familiar. And that feels settling in a time where I think we're constantly, you know, bombarded with so much content, so much marketing, so much this, just that, like, every week I can count on it being in my inbox and I'll have this, this content that I want to know.
Dave Gerhardt [00:41:19]:
Do you take all the newsletters and publish them on the blog also?
Arielle Gordis [00:41:22]:
Yes. I mean, we're not really, it's not part of the blog that we're really promoting, but it's more so because we got a lot of requests for people that wanted to be able to easily share the newsletters they read.
Dave Gerhardt [00:41:33]:
So we added, I'm just reading some of them now. They're so well written in like, long form. It's like a shame to only have that, be in that, like, display disposable moment of an email. You could repurpose all of that and then. Are you the human writing each one of these, these emails?
Arielle Gordis [00:41:49]:
Yes. We actually just in the last, like, couple months, brought in a freelancer who's starting to help with the, like, some of the other sections. Aside from the thought leadership, she's amazing.
Dave Gerhardt [00:42:01]:
I'm more curious as to, like, your process for, like, researching them. Right. Because you can't just show up that week and be like, shoot, I gotta get the newsletter out. It's like, I'm looking at a newsletter from last year, and it's like a workplace trend about the japanese workforce getting older, menopause and corporate benefits, AI and fraud, all these different stories. You have to spend time researching these things. And so I'm just curious to, like, what does the creation process, just from a timeline standpoint, look like?
Arielle Gordis [00:42:29]:
Yeah, so as you said, it's like, because it's every single week, it really is only within the week that I'm able to find all the information. So it really is spending a lot of time researching what's going on. I have all my tabs of where, you know, what are the best outlets to get the kinds of workplace trends that you need to know. And with AI, morning brew actually is an amazing resource as well for useful news. But basically we. Yeah, it's kind of doing all the research in the first few days of the week, writing the draft. I am a perfectionist. I will not lie.
Arielle Gordis [00:43:06]:
So I think I read over the newsletter probably seven times before I'm ready to go with it. But basically, yeah, it'll be the week starts with the research, writing the draft, and by the end of the week, I probably have most of the draft done, reviewing it at the beginning of the next week, and then we send it out every Tuesday or what else?
Dave Gerhardt [00:43:23]:
Is there anything else that either of you two are passionate about and want to say on this hugely popular b two B marketing podcast before we hang up? It's almost 06:00. Where y'all at? I want to, want to let you off. Go, go. I don't know what you do after work. Go for a run, have a glass of wine, have dinner, go home, do nothing. So anything you want to get off your chest before we go?
Eliana Atia [00:43:43]:
I think maybe just one thing that I would say again, kind of to listeners, I think the experience of actually moving forward, and I'm sure Arielle knows what I'm going to say, actually, like, starting this initiative of Monday insights was such a learning experience for myself. I think for Arielle, I think for a lot of people involved, just because I think to say, build a content strategy, build a thought leadership strategy, do this. I want you to create a newsletter that is wildly successful. It's big. It's a big thing to try to bite off all at once. And I think what I would say to content managers, to content people in an organization is like, just start, like, just take the first step, write the first newsletter, launch the first podcast. And the best possible thing that you can get is any sort of contact with the outside world because yourself will never be happy. It will never be good enough.
Eliana Atia [00:44:44]:
By the time you like it, the weekly trends are three weeks old. Just roll with it and you will improve along the way. You will learn. And after a month, you've been doing it for a month, and then you've been doing it for two months. And that's the best feeling. And that's how you make progress and that's how you learn and that's how you get good. And you just have to, you have to be in a context that trusts. I think it goes back to the building the trust of a content team and the value that you bring.
Eliana Atia [00:45:10]:
So you have to be in a place that you feel like trusts you to kind of take that initiative and you have to trust yourself and I, and learn on the way and just kind of roll with it.
Arielle Gordis [00:45:20]:
Yeah. And just to add on to that, and Eliana's right. It was, that was something where, I mean, when I started and I got this project, I am not going to lie, I was so overwhelmed and I was so afraid of, like, messing up and it was not good enough to me. And how was I? You know, and I was really just like, I don't even know where to begin. And Eliana was like, just start and just try. And it's, we're not expecting perfection. We're going to, you're going to learn from it and it's going to get better. And one day you're going love it.
Arielle Gordis [00:45:49]:
And I think that for me, like, the beginning, it really was the most stressful part of my job. And I can say with full confidence now that it's my favorite part of my job. I feel like it is so meaningful. It's something I'm so proud of that I was able to, like, really, you know, as she said, leader. Like, the leaders at my company trusted me enough to really build this. And it's my voice that I feel so connected to. And I think that, like, that as Eliana gave this leadership perspective of just make your employees feel like you trust them and don't make them feel like the standard is perfection from the get go. And I think for employees, the perspective is really like, don't be afraid to just start and trust yourself, honestly, that even those projects that feel the most overwhelming and the most terrifying to really get started will probably, if you really invest, become your favorite part of your job.
Arielle Gordis [00:46:43]:
I really do believe that.
Dave Gerhardt [00:46:44]:
I love that you just even gave me some personal advice. I want to start making YouTube videos about marketing to help us grow exit five kind of as like a side project to, while the team is doing other stuff, I want to start to play in that area. And it is a little bit daunting. I'm worried about how we're going to get 100,000 subscribers. When Eliana just said, the best thing, which I reminded myself of yesterday, is like, you just got to go. Just start. You got to make the first video. The first 50 were probably going to suck.
Dave Gerhardt [00:47:14]:
The first 100 are going to suck. But there might be one in there that jumps off and I actually shrunk the scope down. And what I did is I took the idea that I had to make this first video, which is going to be talking about this ad that Airbnb did and talk about why it's good, what marketing lessons you can learn from it. And I actually just made it into a tweet and a LinkedIn post and the response was like, it hit right. And so that's my signal that now I'm like, okay, I am going to go make a video about this because I, I've already hit on that topic and I know that it's, it's going to work and it's just like exactly what you said. The quicker you can get feedback on the, on the idea and get going, it's the, the best way to do it. So you two are awesome. I'm sorry that I had to move this out because my kids and managing life in the way, but I wish we could hang out more.
Dave Gerhardt [00:47:57]:
I'm going to let you all go now. Elian and Arielle, Monday.com dot we'll link to your linkedins. We'll link to all your stuff. This will be a great, super popular episode about behind the scenes of some of the content strategy@Monday.com. thanks for giving me some of your evening. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks for hanging out and with us on the exit five podcast.
Eliana Atia [00:48:14]:
Thanks so much, Dave, for having us.
Arielle Gordis [00:48:16]:
Exit five.