Marketing and business strategy podcast for executives and marketing leaders who want to improve outcomes from marketing.
Marketing veterans Devin Bramhall (Animalz, Help Scout) & Margaret Kelsey (InVision, OpenView) use their combined 20+ years of experience to increase the business impact of marketing by creating shared understanding of its purpose and outcomes among marketing leaders, founders/CEOs & others in the C-suite.
Created in partnership with Share Your Genius
An award-winning B2B podcast production company: https://www.shareyourgenius.com/
Margaret Kelsey [00:00:01]:
With like newsletters and stuff. With content, you don't have to be the best because it's not like somebody's going to only purchase one software product for it. So you can be like living in an ecosystem and still win.
Devin Bramhall [00:00:11]:
My challenge to AI is if you're a company and every single person around you is currently which they are leaning into AI, Imagine like humans become the differentiator.
Margaret Kelsey [00:00:25]:
Yeah. I had my friends that are like super cool and Internet entrepreneurs and they were like traveling and they stayed with me and I introduced them to Spindrift, like the seltzer water and they were obsessed with it. So then they had the bot one. They had done like a live stream and we're talking about it. And then Spindrift sent them like a palette of Spindrifts. And I'm like, it was me, Shadow Influencer. I'm Margaret Kelsey.
Devin Bramhall [00:00:52]:
And I'm Devin Brampol.
Margaret Kelsey [00:00:53]:
And this is don't say Content, a.
Devin Bramhall [00:00:56]:
Show created in partnership with Share youe Genius. Today we're talking about websites and I don't remember how this question came up.
Margaret Kelsey [00:01:07]:
It was in, I think what will be the last episode. We had the little side tangent for a second. Do these things even matter?
Devin Bramhall [00:01:17]:
Yeah.
Margaret Kelsey [00:01:18]:
Everything is changing. What does that mean for our focus on websites, particularly in B2B?
Devin Bramhall [00:01:26]:
Yes. So the question is, do websites matter anymore?
Margaret Kelsey [00:01:32]:
You got some responses.
Devin Bramhall [00:01:33]:
Yeah. So you and I had the conversation about it and then I was like, I wonder what other people will say. And the reason why I wondered is I remember websites being a very divisive topic among startups throughout my early marketing career.
Margaret Kelsey [00:01:55]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:01:55]:
It turned into a battle between founders, CMOs, engineers, the mid funnel teams. It always ended up being an actual fight.
Margaret Kelsey [00:02:09]:
I'm like, who owns it? Who gets to touch it?
Devin Bramhall [00:02:13]:
What goes on it?
Margaret Kelsey [00:02:14]:
Yep. How do you update it? Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:02:18]:
And like what philosophy should prevail? And I was always very happy to not be a part of that. Like I was not in those conversations. And I was like, this is fine.
Margaret Kelsey [00:02:33]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:02:34]:
Frequently what I saw was it became a philosophical battle between principles of design, principles of growth marketing, and whatever the founder wanted. It usually involved them being precious in some way. Like we can't a B test this one phrase because it seems too markety. I don't want it to come across too markety. And we can't use this one word. This word is banned. And we can't use it for some random reason. That made no, like actual business sense.
Margaret Kelsey [00:03:11]:
Yeah. And I think the funny thing too, especially in B2B and when you are like a smaller startup or odds are that a B2B website has enough volume to actually. A B test was always my biggest concern. Everyone wanted to run experiments and tests and I'm like, it's not anywhere close to statistically significant based on the volume of page views that we get in any given week or month to be able to accurately do that. I do think the switch to a kind of PLG version of B2B helped that.
Devin Bramhall [00:03:49]:
Right.
Margaret Kelsey [00:03:49]:
Because if you do have a free option, you probably can drive more visits to your website and you're probably having a higher volume than like a traditional sales led B2B function. It's also like folks are reading stuff and trying to do things that just actually won't work or you're not going to get clear direction or data from it. How many times were there a B test and it was like 49% versus 51%.
Devin Bramhall [00:04:16]:
And you're like, does it matter like.
Margaret Kelsey [00:04:20]:
A couple thousand page views? And you're like, I guess we'll go with the 51%. That's so silly.
Devin Bramhall [00:04:26]:
It also is like a bit time based too. If you don't test that long enough.
Margaret Kelsey [00:04:30]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:04:31]:
You could be dealing with a sort of recency trend or whatever. Yeah. I always feel I don't have words today, apparently to what you're saying about lack of volume is indicative of the incongruency or the disconnect. Thank you.
Margaret Kelsey [00:04:51]:
Okay.
Devin Bramhall [00:04:53]:
What you're talking around, volume of activity speaks to the meta disconnect between the startup funding model and how a startup should logically grow that we always talk about. Which is to me, a startup should be experimenting a lot for a while and gathering tons of information because you're starting off with very little. Right. And especially where you're starting off with low volume. You need a way like you need to bring more into the equation somehow to consider so you can figure out where the nuances where that unique opportunity is. But because they don't have the time to do that and the reporting at these like really the types of growth metrics they're reporting on on a quarterly basis, some of them don't make sense. Like they can show traction, but when it comes to marketing, it's like signals aren't valued. And so yeah, you're forced into this framework of test result decision on a very short timeline.
Margaret Kelsey [00:05:59]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:05:59]:
Which I think a scientist would be like, that's not, that's not how science works.
Margaret Kelsey [00:06:06]:
It's not valid. Yeah. Well, and I think that too, if we're Talking about like messaging experiments, there's so much lost where if you put an overemphasis on doing that on the website, you're actually not getting as clear of a signal as you could on sales calls or demos or a booth at a conference or talking to people. Right. Like the light bulb that you can see go off in people's brains when you hit a good messaging sound bite or you have a clear this is who we are, this is what we do thing. And you can test that so much quicker when you're doing it in front of a human being because you can see they light up or they lean in or whatnot. And on the website, all you're looking at is did they click or did they go further or did they. And it could be that your messaging on the website is actually really confusing, so they had to click to learn more.
Devin Bramhall [00:07:02]:
That's a good point.
Margaret Kelsey [00:07:04]:
And not that it actually resonated really well and they understood what you did. That could actually be a bounce of somebody getting to your website and being like, great messaging, I get it now. I'm not the right time. Yeah, bounce off. And the other one could be really confusing and that's why they need to get more in depth. But that also could be a strategy.
Devin Bramhall [00:07:22]:
Right?
Margaret Kelsey [00:07:23]:
Is to get somebody to click a little bit deeper because they don't quite understand or they haven't figured out where to put you yet. So I'm not even saying that's bad, but I'm just saying so many times we have these logical fallacies of I am going to use this metric to indicate this thing when that's not actually the right measurement of it. Right?
Devin Bramhall [00:07:42]:
Yeah. And over measuring human behavior, like treating humans like data points, too much like aggregate data, is very helpful in the strategic process and in decision making. But the over reliance on it that you're talking about, the like leaning so far that you're treating humans like numbers or like, you know, if this. Then that's. Yeah, but humans aren't always the same. And I think this is where the community aspect is so much more strategic. And why always helped me with my marketing strategy so much because I got that nuance of encountering people both one on one and in an aggregate in multiple different formats. Right.
Devin Bramhall [00:08:35]:
It was like there's a Slack channel that we didn't own that all the customer support people were in at Help Scout. That was how things became sticky. That's how I launched things. That worked. Right. It's because, you know, you do something online, then you bring it to the event you record it there, these people are more brought in, they're sharing the message. Like yeah. And that to me it's less reportable, like it's less quantifiable.
Devin Bramhall [00:08:59]:
But to your point exactly.
Margaret Kelsey [00:09:01]:
I'm like that's, that's where it becomes the art and not the science. Right. And if we over rely on the science of marketing, we're missing a big chunk of it. And I think that the other thing when I think that prompted this discussion of do websites even matter anymore? Is back in your help scout days, my envision days, it used to be that page views would then naturally fall into conversions in terms of clicks, in terms of signups, in terms of whatever. And you could predictably say if we're going to drive more traffic to this website, we will increase all of those down funnel metrics. Right. And now with the proliferation of social channels and micro groups and online community forums and things like that, a lot of that education that used to be we'll get people to the website, we'll get them signed up for our newsletter or whatever it is, we'll write a bunch of content, we'll continue feeding it to them. And we know that the more we attract up funnel that all of these other things are going to happen.
Margaret Kelsey [00:10:07]:
What now we're seeing in the data analytics are people are hitting the website as a first time user and going to sign up. Now that just totally puts it on its head in terms of if we just drive more users to the website. That's not necessarily going to happen. The people are hitting there because they've self educated off of our website. Like not off of our. You know what I mean?
Devin Bramhall [00:10:30]:
Like yeah, off site in a place.
Margaret Kelsey [00:10:32]:
Other than our website. And now they're coming and we're seeing them as a brand new hit that immediately goes to down funnel. And so it's. What does that do?
Devin Bramhall [00:10:40]:
Yep, it's like the customer journey. And I'm writing about this in my book. I'm like, it is not linear.
Margaret Kelsey [00:10:47]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:10:48]:
It never has been. Like just because somebody made a picture that it's linear and then they have that squiggly line over it that makes no sense. Like that's not how it goes. It's not in that order. It's like a zigzag between those things. And to your point on the buying behavior changing, I think a lot of that is also due to there being more options. Right. So there's just more different types of the same software available.
Margaret Kelsey [00:11:20]:
Oh hell yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:11:22]:
And given the budget squeeze of the last two years, 22 and 23 on SaaS companies specifically, they're having to consider more. Right. Like, I think they're doing more. I do not have a data point to back this up. But like, I'm pretty sure buying cycles have extended based on the experiences of the agencies and people that I talk to is like they're just taking a lot longer to buy, including software. And so you need more than education now. You need that trust and that validation going in because you're like, I only have so much. Like, I can't really afford to make a mistake with this.
Devin Bramhall [00:12:02]:
Yeah, I kind of need to go know going in that I trust it. I was reading something recently about these review sites and how they're not doing as well. And I don't remember enough of it to say what was going on. But it had to do with this challenge of trust. Right. And how there's so much more available because people are leaning into these niche communities and finding their tribes.
Margaret Kelsey [00:12:28]:
I saw the writing on the wall with those review sites as soon as they started to monetize and. And it was pay to play. I'm like, it's only a matter of time where consumers of those websites that actually go to get that information catch on to the fact that this is all pay to play. Right. And that you can pay money to have them build a new category for you that then you get to be the superstar of. That just to me felt like, you.
Devin Bramhall [00:12:54]:
Know, I got a spam text message the other day from some company that said, hey, do you want to be featured as one of the like top something type of marketer on MSNBC or some. Whatever. Some site? It's like, this placement costs $400. I'm like, oh, so I can just pay for it. And they'll be like, devin's great. You know.
Margaret Kelsey [00:13:20]:
Yeah, exactly.
Devin Bramhall [00:13:21]:
Like that's the. That model just. I mean, I guess it worked for a while, but now it's. It's like everyone knows everyone caught on. And also a lot of companies now make their own. This isn't even just like a now thing, but like they've been doing this for all. But it still works where it's like a company will just write, oh, the 10 best, like biotech marketing agencies. And they put themselves on the list.
Devin Bramhall [00:13:43]:
I know a couple people who have done that. And like that brings in a ton of qualified inbound traffic because people aren't even paying attention to who the author is.
Margaret Kelsey [00:13:54]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:13:55]:
And just clicking on like they're including themselves in it. And I'm like, that's. Yeah. I'm like, if you could just do that or ask someone. I mean, it's crazy. I would love to be able to make a business just out of referring people to hire and any type of service resource. Because I'm like, that's all I do now.
Margaret Kelsey [00:14:16]:
You need the personal vetting. Right. And I think that's a huge thing of this movement towards. Yeah. If we have all of these software startups. And to your point, it's just like software startups are a commodity now. Point solutions, particularly like a tool that does one thing. There's anything that you can think of right now there is a company that will do that individual point solution thing for you.
Margaret Kelsey [00:14:42]:
And not just one company. There's probably a hundred and then fifty more in beta. Right. And so it is like, how do you find the. The one to use? I need an AI assistant to join my calls. There's millions of those. Right. So you're going to use something that your friend uses or whatnot.
Margaret Kelsey [00:14:57]:
And it's so much noisier now that people are naturally pulling back towards personal recommendations or people that have individual experience that you trust that is going to recommend that. And I think that's the piece that we have not as marketers really fully embraced yet of if we have a million competitors, the way to win is to get your champions to actually be talking about you and recommending you and advocating for you in those spaces where they're naturally going to be around other people like them. Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:15:32]:
Because that turns into your reputation.
Margaret Kelsey [00:15:34]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:15:34]:
You know, that was. What happened with animals is eventually it's not about referrals. Word of mouth becomes the prevailing impression of the company where they're like, oh, animals is the best.
Margaret Kelsey [00:15:50]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:15:50]:
And that's the stuff that sticks. You can't manufacture that.
Margaret Kelsey [00:15:56]:
That's not an a B test on the website. Right. That's not driving more traffic to the website. That's doing like the actual deep work of marketing.
Devin Bramhall [00:16:04]:
Yeah. And also there's so many different types of. Of. There's two variances that I feel like do not get piled into this generic B2B marketing discussion that we as marketers kind of always have, which is different industries have different buyer behaviors and journeys. And so which you and I have talked about with your new job too. But the. The biotech industry. Digital elevator.
Devin Bramhall [00:16:35]:
I know the guy who runs that and he does growth marketing for biotech companies. What a biotech company needs on their website in terms of pages and what goes on those pages is different from a traditional software marketing journey that you might see and what their customers want to hear on the calls is different. Same with enterprise. The thing about enterprise is that it's more playbooky then the playbooks were applying to the other types. Especially when you get into these like giant corporations there's like whole companies whose job like procurement agencies that like help the company choose and the networking structure is so like who you network with when how like situation is completely different from a word of mouth type of that I would try to build for another like a marketing or a customer support software.
Margaret Kelsey [00:17:32]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:17:33]:
And so it's like again websites aren't even conversion mechanisms for let's say the biotech industry where it's like actually it matters these certain product pages you have and that's it. And I think like again especially on the enterprise side I'm like that's just a totally different paradigm where a lot of times they're not googling what's the best stuff, what you know.
Margaret Kelsey [00:17:56]:
Yeah, no, they're going to their selection partner. Right. They like. Yeah, they consult or they partner with a company who it's their job to do the RFPs and pull together the solutions and recommend a solution. But I would say if you pull out of marketing playbooks it is the same thing. We need to identify our stakeholders. Right. We need to understand how people make decisions.
Margaret Kelsey [00:18:19]:
We need to map where those audiences are, we need to build relationships with them so were known and liked. Right. And then we need to facilitate any information to them that they can use in, in that circumstance. And so I would say it's ultimately fundamentally the same activities. It's just we miss it when we're too tactical in the. Okay, marketing is social media and websites and blah blah blah, you know, but it's fundamentally the same thing. We just need to map how people are making decisions and market to those people. And that could be your website and it could not be.
Devin Bramhall [00:18:56]:
Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. Should we like, should we talk about some of the. Yeah, I was really excited. So I, I said I'm curious what other people think. I'm going to post this on LinkedIn and see and I was really excited about this because I am generally not usually like click baity. Like you know, I'm not usually asking the binary question. Yeah, I can be very forward and direct but I'm not usually like I think this and not that. And so I was a little nervous and excited and I said do websites matter anymore in B2B specifically.
Devin Bramhall [00:19:37]:
And I Said the social proof from logos and case studies seem outdated, practically invisible in their ubiquity, buyer behavior influenced more behind the scenes from peer recommendations, etc.
Margaret Kelsey [00:19:48]:
Oh, wait, let me share a little brief story about this too. Yeah, so the other day I had one of the companies that I used to advise reach out and they were like, I'm between these two, I believe they're agencies. And I looked on one of the agencies website and I saw a company that I know, like, I had marketing there. So I was like, oh, like I can do a backchannel reference for you. And it was so funny because it was like the. I reached out to the person and it was like, oh, we actually haven't used them in a while and blah, blah, blah, but they were still using the logo. So this is also the thing about like logos on websites and like case studies and testimonials is how often have you turned off of a service or an agency and you haven't gone back and said, hey, and I want you to take my customer testimonial down or, hey, you can't use my logo anymore. And how often as you as a marketer, do you understand that maybe a company has turned? But you're like, but that's a good logo.
Margaret Kelsey [00:20:50]:
We're going to keep it up for a little while.
Devin Bramhall [00:20:52]:
Oh, yeah. Oh my God. I've been one of those too. Yeah. I actually had a similar experience very recently too, where someone that came to me and was considering three different options for a company to bring on, and they asked me just for my hot take, like, which one, you know, and I looked at them and I said, look, all of these would work. Here's my rank order and why. I said, if you want just an answer, if you're just like Devin, I just pick a name. I said, this is the one I would go with and why.
Devin Bramhall [00:21:35]:
And it actually ended up being the one that I knew. The, like, I didn't have personal experience with, but I thought was a better fit in terms of their model and relating to the person who was bringing them on. I'm like, oh, they're better. I think they're a better match for you. And I think that that's more important than me knowing, you know, they have a good reputation generally.
Margaret Kelsey [00:21:57]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:21:57]:
I said, but if you're really asking, I think you should go with this one over here who you haven't even talked to. And that's what they ended up going with. Actually, I think we're gonna talk about this in our next episode. But influence Versus fame at the amount of times that I am that person in terms of, you know, people deciding between people to hire or whatever. It's like you that that is happening.
Margaret Kelsey [00:22:29]:
And again, that doesn't show up in a sales cycle. Like, how would you ever do a win loss analysis of that? Of, hey, they reached out to their friend and their friend actually recommended an agency or a solution that wasn't even in our short list. And that's how we lost. You protect against that.
Devin Bramhall [00:22:48]:
Yeah. And that, I think, you know, that's where the community piece comes in, is if you are building a strong community around your brand and you're also doing a good job. Right. Like your service or product also.
Margaret Kelsey [00:23:04]:
Yeah. Your product tested.
Devin Bramhall [00:23:06]:
Yeah. Because like, I have, for example, there are some agencies that only a couple that I really believe in and like, recommended already. And they're like, do you want a referral? Yes. They are a great agency, objectively. But based on how much money you have or the specific type of marketing you're really leaning into here. Like, I may not recommend them, not because they're not good, but because they're just not the exact right fit.
Margaret Kelsey [00:23:30]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:23:31]:
But I only have a handful total that I recommend because I'm doing this mostly out of the goodness of my heart. Like, I don't make a lot of money from, like, most of the time it's, you know, whatever. It's not the handful that I have relationships with. And so it's like, I'm not gonna research every agency out there.
Margaret Kelsey [00:23:50]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:23:51]:
I'm gonna pick from the ones I know.
Margaret Kelsey [00:23:53]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:23:54]:
And always go back to those agencies, people, companies, over and over. And so I think from a brand standpoint, being able to identify who those influencers are and realizing that they're not always influencers in the traditional sense, they.
Margaret Kelsey [00:24:15]:
Might not even be on the org chart of that organization. And it could be that there's a completely different person influencing that decision.
Devin Bramhall [00:24:22]:
Yeah. And it's like, that's the same thing around, like, the, like, B2B finally caught on, like five, 10 years later that are on, like, influencer marketing. But again, they're starting off with people who have huge followings.
Margaret Kelsey [00:24:41]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:24:42]:
I'm like, yeah, but like, you and I have seen this too. Like, the bigger the audience, the harder it is to keep your audience engaged. Like, if you look at the posts that I publish on LinkedIn, it's a lot of the same people over and over again. You know, the people I'm like, oh, that person follows the podcast because they were on this Other thing like, or this person. This is part of my, like, slap group that I'm a part of. And I know these, like, whatever. And so it's harder to do it this way. But being able to find the actual influencers and then think outside the box in terms of what that relationship looks like.
Margaret Kelsey [00:25:20]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:25:20]:
Like I did. So my friend Christine at ark.dev. they were mostly focused on getting. Helping you hire talent, dev talent. But now they've branched out. They're talking shipping and marketing, and her and I did like a webinar and an asset together. And I was like, look, I really need help because people ask me for hiring recommendations all the time. It takes, like, it is a lot of work for me to do that no matter what.
Devin Bramhall [00:25:44]:
And it's important to me to get it right because if I, you know.
Margaret Kelsey [00:25:47]:
For every Rob your reputation on the line too.
Devin Bramhall [00:25:49]:
Yeah. And I was like, it actually be great. But I was like, I could use a supporting tool like you to be able to make this easier for me. But I also don't want it to seem like my recommendations are insincere if I'm always using you. And so how can we. Like, I'm even more careful about it. I was like, if we were to do some sort of, like, paid whatever thing, I need to set it up so that people still trust me because I am a actual influencer, not a, like. Yeah, like volume, whatever.
Devin Bramhall [00:26:27]:
A media influencer.
Margaret Kelsey [00:26:28]:
I. I almost want to call it like a shadow influencer or something. I think back to a time that I had my friends that are like, super cool Internet entrepreneurs, and they were like, traveling and they stayed with me and I introduced them to Spindrift like the seltzer water, and they were obsessed with it. So then they had the bot one and we're talking about it like they had done like a live stream and we're talking about it. And then Spindrift sent them, like a palette of spindrifts. And I'm like, it was me. Shadow influencer.
Devin Bramhall [00:26:59]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Margaret Kelsey [00:27:01]:
They're getting all the credit. Like, I was the one. But how much in the B2B process are there those shadow influencers who are probably never hitting your website and might not ever know about your offer or whatever if you don't get in front of them in a way that feels natural and then set up an incentive structure where both the company and the influencer. Shadow influencer. Can retain a sense of that, like, trust.
Devin Bramhall [00:27:27]:
Yeah.
Margaret Kelsey [00:27:27]:
So let's read some of the answers on your LinkedIn post I'll read Kate's. Kate said I think websites are important for sheer brand ownership. So we're not 100% reliant on social sites we don't own and control. I have this stupid idea where our website is simply a logo, a tagline and an AI agent, nothing else. So we can serve you the proof or information you need and not throw up everything all over potential buyers. There's lots of flaws to this plan, which is why we haven't done it yet. I think that is really interesting, right? If you think about websites and things becoming hyper personalized and the rise of AI agents, it could be that eventually that's what it is where somebody jumps in and they ask a question of okay, I see what your tagline is, but can you do XYZ thing or even for like B2B or enterprise software? Hey, I have this RFP. I'm going to upload it to you right now.
Margaret Kelsey [00:28:16]:
Can you give me all the answers and we could remove all, all of that work. Just using answers from an AI agent based on like the RFP process is the stupidest, most archaic thing that has ever existed. That still happens, you know what I mean?
Devin Bramhall [00:28:33]:
Well also like I think it also depends on the buyer being the type of person that would value an interaction like that. And also that interaction isn't really net new because chatbots have been on websites forever and they already have the ability to answer. Even when I was at Help Scout we had a thing that would like you could, it can answer with blog posts or support document or whatever that already exists and has existed for a while. I think there's a large cohort of people that value an AI interaction to just like get the answer that the website isn't providing. But my pushback on that is like if it's that transactional, right? If they have these like transactional questions, why wouldn't you just put that on your website somewhere?
Margaret Kelsey [00:29:20]:
Yeah, could be.
Devin Bramhall [00:29:20]:
You know what I mean?
Margaret Kelsey [00:29:21]:
But either way I do think I agree with you that I think that the user and customer behavior would have to mature enough to then be at a point where that is the preferred solution rather than let me poke around on the website. Actually there was a company that I took a demo from to give them feedback. One of these hyper personalization that they can pull from information about you as a viewer of the website, scrape a bunch of information and then personalize a website to an umpteenth degree using AI and blah blah blah blah. And my pushback, it was like, like why wouldn't you use this as like ahead of your company? And I'm like, honestly, my buyer would probably be freaked out about that. You know what I mean? Who I know my buyer is not going to be like, cool new technology. They're going to be like, how the heck do you know this? And then they're going to spiral into I need to lock down my security and I need to like, remove my personal information from the Internet. And it's not going to be helpful in a way for a different buyer. They might be like, oh, this must be a super innovative company because they know this about me.
Margaret Kelsey [00:30:29]:
It would actually like strike fear and anxiety in their hearts. And so I'm like, that's why I wouldn't use it is because it's not right for my buyer experience. They don't expect that and they're not going to like it.
Devin Bramhall [00:30:40]:
Also remember that Semaphore article that we talked about in one of our previous episodes where the journalist was basically saying, this is a good time for CEOs to zig while others are zagging. And so my challenge to AI is if you're a company and every single person around you is currently which they are leaning into AI, Imagine like humans become the differentiator.
Margaret Kelsey [00:31:12]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:31:13]:
And if you're in an industry where that is valued, where people prefer interact, you know, human interactions are delighted by it, then that's more of an opportunity for you than AI.
Margaret Kelsey [00:31:26]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:31:26]:
Okay. I got one from my former boss, CMO Sunit Bhatt, who I love. Sunit may be like the most strategic as a marketer. Like, he taught me a lot because he was nice and smart. Okay. He said slightly different positioning. From my point of view, websites matter. They just aren't differentiators.
Devin Bramhall [00:31:47]:
It's the difference between table stakes and innovation. A bad website can disqualify. A good website only serves as a lily pad in the customer journey, Ideally one where one doesn't fall through the surface being lost forever. And I was like, yeah, that's so poetic. I know. I'm like, yeah. I. My response, I was like, Yellow Pages.
Devin Bramhall [00:32:11]:
You named it.
Margaret Kelsey [00:32:13]:
Speaking of another really good metaphor, Christina Carson said.
Devin Bramhall [00:32:19]:
Also a friend of the pod.
Margaret Kelsey [00:32:20]:
Yeah. Websites. The turkey at Thanksgiving dinner. No one actually likes turkey or has the perfect way to cook it, but without it, the meal would feel incomplete. Your sides, social podcast, whatever other channel or what your guests are really there for. But you still have to eat the turkey because those are the rules.
Devin Bramhall [00:32:38]:
I did not see that. Oh, my God.
Margaret Kelsey [00:32:43]:
I just like that at the end, it's like she almost runs out of she's. Because those are the rules. You have to.
Devin Bramhall [00:32:50]:
Oh my gosh. This is. Yes.
Margaret Kelsey [00:32:54]:
Oh, I like Dan Sanchez said, I certainly still devour the website before I spend my money or my employers. I also go watch YouTube videos of customers using the thing too. We've seen that be really beneficial. The company I'm at now is that about a year ago we created really like a content facilitation process throughout the entire organization. So engineers and QA engineers build short videos based on the features that they're working on or what's getting launched. And then that goes up on our YouTube and we've had a lot of anecdotal feedback of customers and prospects saying, saying it's so refreshing because a lot of the competitors are point solution competitors of ours don't let you see the product until you're a qualified sales lead. And then maybe you get a demo or maybe you get a, an instance that you can log into. But the idea that we have all this public facing content showing exactly how our product works and how to configure it has been a game changer.
Devin Bramhall [00:33:49]:
So actually that lends to a comment that Christopher Penn posted that I thought was really interesting. He said if for no other reason, B2B websites matter for AI companies to crawl, ingest and add to their training data sets about who you are and what you do. No website, no content, no AI model knows who you are. Yeah, that on a very practical level.
Margaret Kelsey [00:34:14]:
Yeah, you're not doing it for SEO anymore. You're doing it for AI search results.
Devin Bramhall [00:34:19]:
Well, you're doing it for both still.
Margaret Kelsey [00:34:22]:
I know, I know.
Devin Bramhall [00:34:23]:
SEO is not dead. I was reading an article the other day, I don't remember where, about how, like if you just stop, if you're getting organic, organic traffic from search and you're purposeful about it and you're maintaining that like if you stop, you'll lose like 10 to 20% of your traffic. Like it doesn't maintain on its own. Right. Like it won't just if you just like stop tending to that garden. But it is for both and increasingly obviously long term. But the cycle for AI's development is 5, 10 years to make these big replacement style changes. But yeah, he's right.
Devin Bramhall [00:35:02]:
Like in the meantime, you want to be part of that the very least. Right. Like you want to be showing up in AI results because of how many people are using that for search. Now I feel like every time you and I go to record an episode, these days it ends up being mostly about something that seems completely different but is actually very related. And I think that is a good thing in that I think we're finally getting to the kernel of like what these issues are. And the kernel always comes back to the same few things, which is a janky funding model for SaaS companies that thwarts growth of actual companies. The ongoing and never ending need for a community first growth strategy that doesn't involve, that doesn't rely solely or majority on this one to one mechanical measurement and probably something else.
Margaret Kelsey [00:36:01]:
And the fact that we talk past each other by saying words that we have different meanings about that, then we never have a productive conversation because we all think that we know what we're talking about, but the other person doesn't receive the information in the same way.
Devin Bramhall [00:36:16]:
Isn't it crazy too, the simp, the. The solution is so simple, but it's never going to happen because structurally right now it is actually going to get worse this year because even VC funds are consolidating among these few kind of like major players that fund the same people and types of companies. So it's like it's actually gonna get worse before it gets better. But like the solution is right here. I'm like just be, think for yourself. Take risks.
Margaret Kelsey [00:36:48]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:36:49]:
And experiment.
Margaret Kelsey [00:36:51]:
I would say go always go one step higher. Anytime that it's, oh, we have to do this because this is the way it's always done. Think about why it used to be done that way, what purpose it actually served and then what other things you could also do to serve that purpose. And you're gonna have a much smarter marketing strategy than just we have to do this to the website or we have to focus on this with the website or whatever other marketing thing it is. Think about why that used to work, what human need, what human behavior did that actually identify or solve for. And then think about the world you actually live in today and what people are doing. And then go build a marketing plan on that.
Devin Bramhall [00:37:37]:
I have no notes. That is perfect. If you see a should or a have to anywhere, that is time to ask a why question and make sure that the why includes if you're taking it externally, make sure that company is at all related to your business. Because if it's not, then.
Margaret Kelsey [00:37:58]:
That too. Yeah. I feel like as an individual advisor and like a solopreneur, there was the circumstance where I realized my website doesn't matter. It's all relationship driven. Like I can, I should have it for. I think somebody wrote like a digital Business card. It's important to have one. But that's not where my conversion happened.
Devin Bramhall [00:38:17]:
No, my whole. My website was. The whole first year, it was just like, whatever. I did a redesign on it for other reasons because I wanted those. Yeah. But I'm like, I don't do make any effort to send people there besides, like, making it available in profiles.
Margaret Kelsey [00:38:33]:
Yeah. All right. It's been fun, as always.
Devin Bramhall [00:38:36]:
This is great. Okay, y'all, that's a wrap. Thank you, as always, for listening.
Margaret Kelsey [00:38:42]:
We'll be back next week. And just remember, you're doing great. You're doing great.
Devin Bramhall [00:38:48]:
30 of you are doing great. The rest, you gotta get your together.
Margaret Kelsey [00:38:52]:
Come on, you know, you know which side you're on this week.
Devin Bramhall [00:38:56]:
You know, you know.
Margaret Kelsey [00:38:58]:
See you next week.
Devin Bramhall [00:38:59]:
Bye.
Margaret Kelsey [00:39:00]:
Bye. I was so congested. Like, as soon as I put my face on the massage table, I, like, got recongested because, you know, it's, like, pressing against you or whatever. And then it was like I had, like, a single drip of booger, like, fall to the floor. Like, this room is dark. Hopefully the massage therapist doesn't see that. I'm, like, like, dripping on my nose.
Devin Bramhall [00:39:22]:
You know what's funny? I feel like when I get massages, I, like, kind of feel like the next day.
Margaret Kelsey [00:39:29]:
Yeah.
Devin Bramhall [00:39:29]:
Because it, like, brings so much stuff up, and then it, like.
Margaret Kelsey [00:39:33]:
Yeah, you gotta drink a lot of water because it's like all of the stuff that's trapped in your muscles gets released again.
Devin Bramhall [00:39:38]:
Yeah.