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Every day marketers sift through dozens of headlines, posts, and slacks telling us about the latest and greatest trend we should be following.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and like you have to figure it out by yourself. But you don’t have to do it alone. Content Matters with Nicole MacLean (Compose.ly’s CRO) is your digital partner for filtering the trends and focusing on the content that matters most — creating connection that drive results.
For more, head to our site: https://compose.ly/content-matters
Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius: https://shareyourgenius.com/
[00:00:00] Alexandra Gillespie: I would say if you haven't embraced AI yet, definitely do that, especially with the speed at which everything is moving, especially when like writing is near and dear to your heart. It can be really sad and scary, but to me this is kind of like the arrival of the internet. The world is still built on the internet, so you're gonna need to know how to use.
[00:00:20] Alexandra Gillespie: Tools to embrace it, but stay in the driver's seat.
[00:00:27] Nicole MacLean: I'm Nicole MacLean and this is Content Matters, created in partnership with Share Your Genius. This show is your digital partner for filtering the trends and focusing on the content that matters most, creating connection that drives results. Let's cut through the marketing chaos together.
[00:00:45] Alexandra Gillespie: I'm Alexandra Gillespie.
[00:00:47] Alexandra Gillespie: I am the Editorial Writing Manager on the Content Marketing and Integrated Campaigns team at Wellhub, which is an international corporate wellness platform. So in this role I oversee B2B content targeting HR leaders, and that includes overseeing the, uh, US portion of our blog as well as writing global thought leadership reports.
[00:01:08] Alexandra Gillespie: That is quite a title. I think if anyone. It's a lot going on.
[00:01:11] Nicole MacLean: Yeah. If anyone need to warm up, it's a, it's a good, uh. Say it five times fast and, and get your confidence in, but very exciting. So I always like to start and especially because I know you have such a fun backstory, but can you give us a little insight into kinda how you got started and just your journey that's led you to, to here?
[00:01:31] Alexandra Gillespie: Absolutely. So my journey to marketing ran through journalism. I started broadcast journalism in high school. Actually I was very lucky to go to a school that had a broadcast journalism program, which led to continuing that in college. And I had an internship at HBO's last week tonight with John Oliver.
[00:01:49] Alexandra Gillespie: While I was there, uh, I went into nonprofit journalism after I graduated, which led to a role as digital editor, uh, in Scuba Diving magazine, which was a really, really. Fun chapter and since then I've gotten more into freelance journalism and on this marketing role at Wellhub, which was a great fit. When I was looking for my next step, I wanted to find a place where I felt I could have a positive impact producing long form content.
[00:02:17] Alexandra Gillespie: And so the, the blogs and reports that Wellhub was looking for someone to produce was a great, uh, great alignment.
[00:02:24] Nicole MacLean: We'd had a lot of folks on the show. I think a lot of people in marketing start in journalism and then find their way to the business side of that. Mm-hmm. But what do you think are the pieces of journalism that make you more unique or like find those kind of unique takes in a, a more content marketing role?
[00:02:42] Alexandra Gillespie: Yeah, so I think it's really helpful to come into marketing with a journalism background because you are so focused on how does this information like. Actually apply to someone's life. How is it, how can I make it interesting? How can I make it useful to them? Rather than saying like, how can I like show how great our product is?
[00:03:02] Alexandra Gillespie: You're really able to take it to that next level of like, how can I show how great our product can help make some, make their life or make it easier? So I think that storytelling lens is really, um, really helpful. And as you know, as a journalist, you're always saying like, how does this help the reader?
[00:03:18] Alexandra Gillespie: And that translates really, really well to how does this help the prospect?
[00:03:22] Nicole MacLean: Yeah, and especially with a lot of discussions around the role of content today in AI search, it's not just writing. You know, a lot of people say Don't write for the algorithm, write for the person. And I think that, like you said, it's that storytelling, the narrative and, and how is it really going to help.
[00:03:40] Alexandra Gillespie: Yeah, for sure. 'cause if you, the person on the other side screen, yeah, if you write for the algorithm, maybe you'll win and you'll get on top. But then when someone clicks on your page, if it's not actually written for for them, then they're gonna bounce pretty quickly. So it doesn't really deliver those long term results, even if you get a quick hit.
[00:03:59] Alexandra Gillespie: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:04:01] Nicole MacLean: So I feel like I have to ask the super stretching question, but as a scuba diving editorial lead, what lessons can, can a marketer learn from scuba diving?
[00:04:11] Alexandra Gillespie: Yeah. So, um, I think a great lesson from diving is that you plan the dive and then dive the plan. Similar with marketing, so before you go underwater, you're going into.
[00:04:24] Alexandra Gillespie: I, an environment I love, but it's a hostile environment. Like it is not designed for you to necessarily be there. You need your equipment in order to, um, to survive in that space. And you can't talk with the people that you're diving with, um, during the, during the experience. So before you dive in, you have to come up with a plan as a team and say, here's what we're going to like the.
[00:04:47] Alexandra Gillespie: Uh, path we're gonna go, here's where the current might pick up, here's where the wreck is. These are the interesting sites in the wreck that we're gonna see. So you plan the dive and then you dive the plan. Um, and I think that really applies to marketing 'cause it can get so easy with everything going on and it feeling like everything changes all of the time to come up with a plan and then two weeks later be really tempted to get rid of that plan and come up with something new and look at whatever is shiniest or say.
[00:05:14] Alexandra Gillespie: Uh, we're not getting, we're not showing up in ChatGPT, and it's been two weeks. We've gotta come up with a new plan, but you've really gotta give things the, the time that they need in order to see the results. So definitely. Plan the marketing and market, market the plan, at least for a little bit. Give it, give it the chance.
[00:05:30] Nicole MacLean: Yes. I will try to keep the metaphor from going to that marketers live in a hostile environment,
[00:05:36] Alexandra Gillespie: although sometimes it can feel that way. It feel like that with, uh, with all, sorry, uh, with all of the changes, um, that are going on. Exactly. But that's where the plan, uh, sticking to the plan is actually, you know, helpful and comforting and gives you something to hold onto.
[00:05:49] Alexandra Gillespie: Well, and I
[00:05:49] Nicole MacLean: really love that, especially today like marketing. And again, I mean obviously I'm biased, this is a marketing podcast, but it's just marketing has grown to mean so many things now and we touch so many aspects of the business. And it can be so easy to get distracted or to feel like there's so much going on that you're either like become paralyzed by that or you're constantly being distracted to the latest and greatest thing.
[00:06:14] Nicole MacLean: And so I think that's a great reminder to just. Take the time necessary to actually put a plan in place and before you pivot from it, maybe pause to say, do I just need to give it a little bit more time or do I need to, to rethink the plan?
[00:06:29] Alexandra Gillespie: Mm-hmm. Um, and I think that that is also especially helpful to have when you get external requests from other teams or leadership for.
[00:06:38] Alexandra Gillespie: Like assets that maybe aren't actually marketing, they might, or there might be a different kind of marketing than your team specializes in. Like what's something we always hold fast to, and my team is that we are content marketing, not just content, but that of course means something to us but isn't necessarily intuitive.
[00:06:55] Alexandra Gillespie: So. You know, in previous roles I was doing long form journalism, but I was also running the social media channels at Scuba Diving magazine. Those are very different kinds of content, especially once you get into marketing and with very different goals. So I think when people come in and externally say, oh, could you, you know, just whip together an Instagram post or like an Instagram campaign when your job is.
[00:07:16] Alexandra Gillespie: Blogs, it's really helpful to be able to pull out that plan and say, Hey, these are our goals and this is why we've picked the, you know, the strategy and the platforms. Um, so it can, I think, also help you rebuff some of those well-intentioned, but maybe not so useful suggestions that can often come from the outside.
[00:07:33] Alexandra Gillespie: The other thing you said
[00:07:34] Nicole MacLean: that, I'm diving into it, but the communication piece that when you're diving you can't speak to other folks, and I'm sure you have your own. Set of communication, hand signals or, or things that you can, you've got shark, you've got Turtle. Yeah. I love that. I'm now going to steal Shark on our team and use it as a guys, the Shark's coming, what are we gonna do?
[00:08:00] Nicole MacLean: Um, but I think that's an also important piece of any team, not just marketing, but having that trust and that planning process to helps keep folks aligned. And I feel like that's where you have that shared vernacular and you have that shared vision. So that you can move quickly or you can kind of throw out a, a, a short signal.
[00:08:20] Nicole MacLean: But like everyone knows what that means and you can still kind of all move together versus if you never talked about it and all of a sudden someone's just out here and you're like, wait, what does that mean? I don't know. And you know, it can be really distracting. So I think that can communication piece, even within a team, like we talk a lot about how to position marketing and externally and like you were just talking about, content marketing is different than content.
[00:08:42] Nicole MacLean: But even internally within a team, I think it's so important to have that alignment.
[00:08:47] Alexandra Gillespie: Yeah. And then also, like I can think about, um, to continue with the diving metaphor, um, sometimes you have different signals depending on what part of the world that you're from. Um, so like I would. Signal my errors slightly differently than someone who's been, um, diving in Europe.
[00:09:04] Alexandra Gillespie: And so when you get together, you need to clarify like, okay, which system are we using for signaling errors? So you have that clear communication. And I think that's a great metaphor for like when you sit down with the sales team in order trying to show them all of the content you have and the best ways to use it.
[00:09:19] Alexandra Gillespie: It's really important to align 'cause you've sort of in your own little own little worlds and when you bring 'em together, you gotta make sure you're using a shared vernacular.
[00:09:27] Nicole MacLean: And I think about that a lot when you switch companies and you're figuring out goal planning, like some people call it aren't EOS, so it's rocks or OKRs or KPIs or whatever.
[00:09:38] Nicole MacLean: And so there is that moment of saying like, okay, well we all know it's a goal. We all know we're trying to get to and we're star, but like, what does that mean for you? How do you set, you know, is a is a goal set to be 80% success is the goal set to be a hundred percent means success. So I like that. Just kinda thinking about it from that perspective of you do need to have a shared vernacular.
[00:09:58] Nicole MacLean: You need to be on the same page. It's good to just kinda have those check-ins.
[00:10:02] Alexandra Gillespie: Yeah. Shared definitions are, are critical, above and below the water. So one of the things my editor always said, like our editor in chief at Scuba Diving Magazine was like, where are the people? And um, those always remind us to write about the divers 'cause it's so easy to write about the, the mantas or the the shipwreck.
[00:10:21] Alexandra Gillespie: And even though it is a dive magazine. People always want to hear about people. So my editor was always pushing us like, where are the divers? What are the stories about the divers, not just the dive sites. And I think that is also a really great reminder when you're writing marketing material, where are the people?
[00:10:37] Alexandra Gillespie: Where are the customers? Not just the product information, which is just like the site information. Yeah, you wanna get that in there, but people want to hear about people pretty much all of the time. So when you're writing that material, it's, I think that. We're coming from Scuba Diving Magazine where I was from in a place where we're always saying where are the people?
[00:10:57] Alexandra Gillespie: Was really helpful in making that transition as well. So switching gears a
[00:11:00] Nicole MacLean: little bit, and maybe stepping out of a diving metaphor, but we talked about that need for alignment, and I know right now, especially with. What do you call it? GEO, AEO, AI search, kinda whatever the, the term that suits you. It's just becoming a more and more hol a good holistic marketing strategy is, is kind of what wins.
[00:11:20] Nicole MacLean: How are you thinking about that in aligning content to be more holistic? Since AI is pulling in, you know, so many other signals in order to determine like what gets shown in a, in a prompt response.
[00:11:35] Alexandra Gillespie: For sure. We've got a few things that we're doing. One is definitely leaning into that cross-functional approach.
[00:11:43] Alexandra Gillespie: We've got a tool that we're using that is helping us analyze how often Wellhub in showing up in these AI responses. And what we've seen from that is that, yes, a lot of what we're doing is deeply influential when it comes to our thought leadership reports from original surveys and our regional blogs.
[00:12:02] Alexandra Gillespie: But, you know, PR and comms and social media are all really important aspects of that GEO experience because they're looking for all around it's look or they, it, it is looking for all around expertise. And so we are definitely working internally to like get that communication faster and more consistent and more streamlined.
[00:12:25] Alexandra Gillespie: So we are all on the same page across those different marketing. Uh, marketing channels 'cause we're all in the marketing department, but we've all got our own teams. So getting that cross team communication and getting some more shared calendars that we are all consistently updating and looking at is definitely a like functional thing that we are doing in order to like better operate in the world of GEO.
[00:12:49] Alexandra Gillespie: And then as a team, we're also really making sure. I guess a bit of a pivot in our blog strategy. We've always tried to be comprehensive on topics, but really diving even deeper. Um, we're working on a like workplace wellness series right now that's gonna be like 15 or 20 blogs on different aspects of wellness in the workplace, so that we have that sort of surround sound, SEO on what is a really critical topic as a workplace wellness platform.
[00:13:17] Alexandra Gillespie: And we're pushing those out over the next couple months. And then instead of just hoping that like, oh, this is gonna rank and this is gonna rank, which we do want, SEO is not dead good. SEO leads to good GEO. So all of these are really helpful for SEO, but also putting them out all at once, making sure that they're interlinked together is something that we're doing to really.
[00:13:38] Alexandra Gillespie: Show that Wellhub is an expert in workplace wellness, so that we can get selected as the top, uh, top credit, top billing. Um, when, uh, they're looking HR leaders are looking for workplace wellness information in these AI platforms.
[00:13:54] Nicole MacLean: What was that process internally like? You said you're all on the same marketing team, so I would hope it was a fairly easy conversation, but was there any sort of discussion.
[00:14:05] Nicole MacLean: To help inform like the PR team or the comms team or some of these other department functions of marketing on the importance of their role in ai. And did that spearhead from you, did that have to spearhead from your leader? Just kinda curious, curious like people are understanding the importance of that more holistic strategy.
[00:14:25] Alexandra Gillespie: Yeah, I think there's definitely understanding in the comms, or sorry, in the marketing department of. The importance of this. I think the sort of education, um, has been more in, on that front has been more important with other departments and externally especially, you know, we're having to figure out what do success metrics look like?
[00:14:46] Alexandra Gillespie: Talking about shared definitions, success metrics look like in the new world of, of GEO, because when it's only SEO, you know, traffic, traffic, traffic and traffic, we're still watching it. It still really matters. But the GEO brings in the question like, well, maybe the traffic we're getting is more valuable, so if the traffic does decrease.
[00:15:06] Alexandra Gillespie: Maybe that isn't as much of a, you know, blinking red light as it would've been in the past. And that then needs to be communicated to leaders as they're thinking about what are our OKRs for 2026 and how do we judge, um. Judge, judge success in, in marketing. So I think in turn, like in within marketing, people are really on board.
[00:15:27] Alexandra Gillespie: We've more needed to be like, okay, this team is really heavily using Asana and this team is still using Google Sheets. So like, how do we get one, you know, get that Google Sheets team onto Asana. So it's been those little more, um, just show them the celebration creatures. Oh yes. Right. Those are the little unicorn I get so happy every time.
[00:15:46] Alexandra Gillespie: Yes, same. It's the thing I miss about us the most. And so I think within marketing it's more been those really tactical conversations that we've need to, uh, we've needed to, to iron out, but everyone really is coming into those conversations with an understanding that this is, uh, this is important.
[00:16:03] Nicole MacLean: Yeah.
[00:16:03] Nicole MacLean: We, we talk about this a lot in our leadership team, and it's always a balance of we have to make sure we're aligned. Like the North Star is aligned, but it always comes down to like, okay, but how logistically do we do this? And so it sounds like there's that vision alignment on the marketing team and now it's just kinda that devil's in the details of mm-hmm.
[00:16:20] Nicole MacLean: Logistically, how do we make this work? But I agree. I think it's more of the education for other people of, like, especially for pr, I feel like a lot of people don't. Have either a really old school opinion of what PR is. Mm-hmm. And maybe don't understand where that fits today. So it's like, well why is marketing spending time on pr?
[00:16:37] Nicole MacLean: How is that getting me more leads? How is that serving the customer? So even I think some of that external, like what is PR nowadays type thing, and then what is our strategy to get you more leads to help delight the customer.
[00:16:51] Alexandra Gillespie: Right. And you know, doing that. Education of marketing contribute. Like, you know, with GEO we contribute in different ways.
[00:17:00] Alexandra Gillespie: Now we're still, it's not that we're contributing less, like just 'cause traffic is dropping doesn't mean that we're not contributing as a team. It's just a new world that we're operating in. And so the education of here's how we're contributing now. Absolutely.
[00:17:14] Nicole MacLean: You may not know this because you, you sit in this industry and it's, it's still kind of early, but I, I say this a lot because we talk, there are a lot of people in different industries who tune into the podcasts and, and to our marketing.
[00:17:27] Nicole MacLean: But I also think that the speed in which you need to be doing stuff like you're doing is very dependent on the industry you're in. And going back to where's the diver? Who are you talking to? Not every industry is embracing ai. Maybe as much as as others are.
[00:17:44] Alexandra Gillespie: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:45] Nicole MacLean: My assumption has actually always used like the fitness wellness industry as an example of where I think more people are going to AI faster than some other industries just because of the nature.
[00:17:59] Nicole MacLean: And I think some early examples where people were like, oh, let's go use AI and like tell them what's in your fridge and give me like macro, um mm-hmm. Appropriate recipes with that are like, Hey, can you build a workout plan for me? Or like, it was such a great applicable use of it that I feel like the wellness industry is maybe seeing a higher adoption rate.
[00:18:21] Nicole MacLean: Do you feel like that's true? Like are, are, you're on the B2B side more with hr, but are you seeing maybe a higher adoption from your buyers than maybe like some friends you have that are in other
[00:18:34] Alexandra Gillespie: industries? Yeah, so I can't speak to the buyer side. I can say, um, my team was really fortunate in being able to adopt these AI tools and play with them a little bit faster than some other departments in our company, uh, because we didn't have as many, I would say, like tech.
[00:18:57] Alexandra Gillespie: And privacy concerns because as the content marketing team, all of the content that we're creating, we want to be out there, right? We want everyone to be reading it. And so those really early concerns of like, oh, well if we put this information in, will it be wrapped into the LLM? And will other people start to see it?
[00:19:14] Alexandra Gillespie: We were like. Actually, that would be great for our team. We would love if these, you know, these original stats that we've gotten from our global survey start showing up in people's responses. So we had a much lower risk profile than someone who's working with customer data or, you know, HR leaders, our, um, our client who might be working with health, um, claims data.
[00:19:35] Alexandra Gillespie: Um, we were able to start. Experimenting faster and experimenting a little more broadly than other teams. So that's been really fun, um, because that's now put our team in the position of really helping lead adoption and use cases and providing some internal education on how to use these tools effectively.
[00:19:54] Alexandra Gillespie: Um, now that we've. You know, figured out the, the company's figured out our AI policies and tool approvals and, um, all of that, all that jazz.
[00:20:05] Nicole MacLean: As a sales and marketing leader, I'm always interested to hear about a team's tech stack at Compose.ly. We use Apollo with HubSpot to fuel our outbound outreach.
[00:20:14] Nicole MacLean: My team loves it. It consistently provides. Accurate contact information and is incredibly user-friendly. If you're thinking about changing your data provider or just wanna hear more about our experience, connect with me on LinkedIn or check out the link in the show notes of this episode. Improve your inbound, increase conversion and keep your marketing database squeaky clean with Apollo.
[00:20:36] Nicole MacLean: Yeah, I love that. And as someone who markets to marketers, yeah, marketers are definitely an really adopter of the AI tools, but that, that makes sense. And. And I think it's a really cool opportunity for marketing to be at the forefront and then to position themselves as the thought leaders on AI use cases throughout the company.
[00:20:55] Nicole MacLean: So just a kind of another opportunity in how you position market marketing internally.
[00:21:00] Alexandra Gillespie: For sure. And I've really found someone, um, with a strong writing background that being a good writer actually really positions you well to be an AI leader within the organization because using these tools. Means writing prompts and the better, more specific, more accurate you can be with your prompting, the better response you're gonna get.
[00:21:18] Alexandra Gillespie: So if you are a strong writer. That these tools can be scary. 'cause they're like, oh no, they, they can write. That take is taking away, you know, the value I provide, but you can use your writing skills in a different way. Um, especially within marketing to say, I know how to describe our brand voice in a way that the tool will actually be consistently speaking in our brand voice.
[00:21:40] Alexandra Gillespie: Or I know to think that I want this to read like a listicle, or I want this to read like a news article. Whatever it is that. That sort of specificity that you get from good writing, that is missing in a lot of prompts sometimes. And I think that leads a lot of people to dismiss the tools and say, oh, they're not very good when actually, if you are a good prompter, they're extremely helpful.
[00:22:02] Alexandra Gillespie: So that is, you know, definitely an advantage if you're a good writer that you can use these tools better than maybe some of your, your teammates. Yes.
[00:22:10] Nicole MacLean: I feel like that's something I hear a lot because a lot of marketers are not good writers all the time, and even just not just marketers, but. And I think writing is an undervalued skillset.
[00:22:21] Nicole MacLean: Mm-hmm. Um, and a lot of times people are like, okay, well the amount of time it's gonna take me to write this prompt, I probably could have just done it myself. Which then to your point, they just get tired of it and they don't wanna kind of commit to that training or commit to really like learning the prompt skill.
[00:22:39] Nicole MacLean: 'cause you just kind of throw it in and, and hope for the best. And you're like, well this output kinda stinks and mm-hmm. Now I just have to go do it anyways, but I spent 30 minutes rusting with the robot.
[00:22:49] Alexandra Gillespie: Exactly. And that doesn't, that doesn't save you any time. So another like very tactical, uh, thing that we've done is when I'm finding those prompts that really work or a structure of a prompt, I've created a prompt library for our team.
[00:23:02] Alexandra Gillespie: And so then you aren't typing it out every single time. 'cause there's so many things that are repetitive, like how I want our, the metadata for the blogs to be formatted. So I've got a template prompt that I can put in the blog that's done and put in the metadata and say. You know, just go. And then I get a title, I get an SEO title, I get a meta description that is the right length.
[00:23:22] Alexandra Gillespie: And so I don't need to spend my time like thinking of the, the three different titles, um, for, for the blog. And then similarly, um, I made a custom GPT that is built to create, um. Alt text for our infographics. And so I don't even need to prompt it at that point. I just upload, you know, whatever infographics I've made and it, uh, spits out ADA compliant, uh, alt text.
[00:23:44] Alexandra Gillespie: So that's another thing that saved me a ton of time. 'cause we might have six infographics in one blog and obviously I read them, I make sure that it makes sense that none of the uh, good or the none of the information that you need Yeah. To verify it missing. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but like that's sort of almost a reorganization of information.
[00:24:00] Alexandra Gillespie: You're not looking like. AI is not great for just spitting out thought leadership because by definition, LLM is like a statistical modeling of language. It's a pattern recognition tool, right? What's most likely to be said next? You're not gonna get like great thought leadership out of what's most likely to be said next, but if you have infographics and you just are saying, okay, now I want a text form of this, it's really, really great for that.
[00:24:24] Alexandra Gillespie: And so you can move through those. Um, more repetitive tasks, a lot faster.
[00:24:29] Nicole MacLean: Yeah, I think that's a great tactical tip is the, the prompt library and, and sharing. Internally, um, I saw someone on LinkedIn talk about creating like a branded assistant so that it does create that consistency. So if sales is trying to write an email or sales is trying to do something, it's like, okay, if marketing was over their shoulder, how would they suggest it to change it?
[00:24:51] Nicole MacLean: And so I think that is a, again, like a great use case of just marketing, maybe leading the charge. But then, I mean, like you said, meta descriptions. I doubt sales is writing meta descriptions, but you can still think about how to create that consistency or just support. And other departments as well. So prompt library.
[00:25:07] Nicole MacLean: I, I just wrote that down. Even for me, I think it's a, a good call out.
[00:25:11] Alexandra Gillespie: Yeah. That, that one's been a huge, huge time saver. Um, as well as creating GPTs for even maybe the less repetitive tasks, but ones that still take a fair amount of time. Like for example, we have custom conclusions that are CTAs for every blog.
[00:25:27] Alexandra Gillespie: And I have a really specific formula that I'm looking for with those where we identify. The main pain point that would've brought a reader to the page. And it's like, acknowledge that in the first sentence. Next sentence is identify how that early next paragraph, identify how a wellbeing program would address that pain point.
[00:25:45] Alexandra Gillespie: So that lets us pivot to our product and our offering and our value proposition and then end on a call to reach out to our sales team and that's hyperlinked to a page. Um, and I've built a GPT that. That's all that it does. So I drop in a finished blog and it gives me a conclusion. And it used to take me forever to be like, okay, like read the whole blog again and be like, what's the pain point?
[00:26:06] Alexandra Gillespie: How do I connect to that to a wellbeing program? How can I make that like a really smooth transition so it doesn't feel too forced? Um, and so I used to spend a lot of time writing these really tailored branded conclusions. And now that's a really, really fast part of producing blogs in-house.
[00:26:22] Nicole MacLean: That's another great.
[00:26:23] Nicole MacLean: Idea because as a content writing company, I would say the thing that is the hardest for us, well, I'm not our head of editorial, so they might disagree, but I feel like my conversations with clients, and even just from my experience, I think the hardest thing to nail for another company is a good intro and a good outro because everyone does kind of have their own.
[00:26:45] Nicole MacLean: Opinion. Like I feel like that is almost the most subjective part of the article. Yeah, those are the hardest parts is like, what is something that you as the marketing leader, think your buyer, your, the narrative is gonna hook them in in the first, you know, two sentences, which is really hard to do well.
[00:27:00] Nicole MacLean: Mm-hmm. And then the outro, that doesn't sound like call down, get an extra, you know, the sham. Wow. Um,
[00:27:06] Alexandra Gillespie: I believe, but
[00:27:06] Nicole MacLean: you know, also, but also isn't like. Okay. That's the end of the article. Like it's, those are to me some of the hardest things to, to really do well. But again, you had to articulate, like you had to know what, right.
[00:27:17] Nicole MacLean: So that's the first thing is that as a marketer or anyone leading content, you have to understand your vision and then be able to articulate that, whether it's to a person, a robot, whoever is supporting that. But I think that's such a great use case. Mm-hmm. Because I do think outros are just really challenging.
[00:27:35] Alexandra Gillespie: Yeah, I was really, really happy when AI tools got to the point that I could use them for that. 'cause I used to spend, I guess we had at one point when we were trying to get Google to realize that we were no longer a, I guess, context for Wellhub. Wellhub is a startup that began in Brazil and is now an international company that's headquartered in New York.
[00:27:55] Alexandra Gillespie: And so initially, um. Google thought that our URL was a Brazilian fitness company and we needed to train it, that we were now, uh, an international, like B2B HR E expert. And so we were going through a really high volume of blogs in order, like we were aiming for 60 a month. We didn't quite get there. Um, but so that's a big goal.
[00:28:17] Alexandra Gillespie: It was a big goal. I think we got there globally. Um, we also have teens in MEC in LATAM and Brazil. Um, so I think we got there globally, but did not get there just for the us. But when we were having that high volume, I had so many custom conclusions to write and it would take up a really large chunk of the day.
[00:28:33] Alexandra Gillespie: So that was. Really, for me, one of the big pivot points in using AI at scale was being okay, it's good enough now to follow this formula and automatically hyperlink. 'cause that's like, oh gosh, hyperlinking every single one to the same page. Like, that's, that's not what you, that's not what you love about your job.
[00:28:50] Alexandra Gillespie: So, uh, getting it to do that was really nice as well.
[00:28:53] Nicole MacLean: Absolutely. You've mentioned research, you mentioned it when we were talking about that internal alignment and that PR and the comms and how that has also helped kind of how you get picked up and, and cited and sourced in things. Where did that strategy come from?
[00:29:08] Nicole MacLean: Was it something you were already leaning into as having proprietary research even before kind of the PR and like AI search things like where. Has that fit for you?
[00:29:21] Alexandra Gillespie: Yeah, so the research reports were actually one of the reasons I was brought onto the team. I had a background when I worked at a nonprofit news organization in doing community engagement campaigns all across the state to identify resident priorities for state legislature and then writing, um, and delivering those.
[00:29:37] Alexandra Gillespie: Reports to Michigan State leaders. And so, uh, I had a background in making engaging reports out of just a large pile, a large pile of data. And so that is one of the reasons I was brought on the team three years ago was to really help flesh out that thought leadership. And I mean, these, these are. Huge reports.
[00:29:56] Alexandra Gillespie: So typically about a hundred pages. Um, at the end of the day, 'cause we've got our global findings, then we break them down regionally. We always have action plans for how HR leaders can actually enact the insights in the report. And so that is a very like, cross-functional project because these are deployed in multiple markets, multiple languages.
[00:30:16] Alexandra Gillespie: So we're working with PR and localization and social. Like all, all sorts of teams. So we have definitely been leading into that original data, um, for, and that felt leadership for a few years now, and. I have been working with all of the teams in order to make these reports, like have the best splash and, you know, create the most leads, um, right off the bat.
[00:30:37] Alexandra Gillespie: But we've found like revenue marketing and sales and PR are able to use these throughout the year. Um, and they're also really great for, for blogs to say like, yeah, we, we do know this works not just value proposition statements. And so, um, that was great as all of this GEO. Came about 'cause we already had those relationships with departments and ways of working together and Ro Ro Eses and all of those, all of those great tools and we were really used to working together.
[00:31:06] Alexandra Gillespie: It's just re recently sort of not quite rebranded internally as GEO, but made more intentional, um, as GEO. So I would say we've, one of the fortunate things is as we've tried to wrap our heads around. This, I'm not gonna call it shift from SEO, but expansion to also include GEO is that a lot of, fortunately a lot of it is business as usual for us.
[00:31:28] Alexandra Gillespie: Like our PR team is already out there pitching our reports and working to get executive bylines in in publications. So I think. Uh, the sort of reporting and the cohesion and that real intentionality is upped. Um, but we already had a lot of those systems in place to really activate, um, as this shift came around.
[00:31:49] Nicole MacLean: Yeah.
[00:31:49] Alexandra Gillespie: To bring us full circle
[00:31:50] Nicole MacLean: to the diving metaphor, you know, you already had the plan. You, you kind of knew what you had that muscle built. You knew what that was gonna look like, and now you can just kind of. Dig in even further and leverage that well
[00:32:04] Alexandra Gillespie: enhancement than a full, a full of the strategy rather than a fully new strategy.
[00:32:08] Alexandra Gillespie: Um, but,
[00:32:09] Nicole MacLean: but I imagine has to be a huge competitive differentiator in not just having it, but the fact that you have the structures in place already while other folks maybe are trying to build it and catch up to that.
[00:32:20] Alexandra Gillespie: Yeah, for sure. If you don't have those internal relationships where, you know, content marketing is making all of this content and PR isn't necessarily used to putting it out there and pitching that, that takes time to build those new workflows and those new relationships.
[00:32:33] Alexandra Gillespie: And I will say, to call back to a question earlier, working in journalism is actually been incredibly helpful. Collaborating with pr 'cause I also work as a freelance journalist outside of Wellhub. So I am pitching editors to, to try and land stories. So when I am in these planning meetings for the reports, I'm able to say as we're trying to figure out, 'cause we, so we, our two reports are that we've done every year for three years now, our worklife wellness, um, which is all about employee wellbeing, um, what they're looking for and the return on wellbeing.
[00:33:04] Alexandra Gillespie: Is about the financial impacts of wellbeing programs. So we have to differentiate them every year. We can't just ask the exact same questions. We need a fresh story and fresh angle. And so as we're planning those, I'm able to sit there and put on my journalist hat and say, you know, I think that's really good for the company, but.
[00:33:21] Alexandra Gillespie: Like a good message, but PR is not gonna be able to land that, that's too close to home. Um, and so that makes their job much easier down the line because they have been thought of as a stakeholder in this report from the beginning. Obviously sales and our, and our customers are number one, but like we do consider, um, news coverage as like one of our core.
[00:33:44] Alexandra Gillespie: Core goals with these reports and so it's really helpful having that background and still living that, that pitching life, that when PR isn't in the meetings, I can still represent their, their perspective and then makes it way easier for them to actually reach those coverage goals. Yeah, which just goes back
[00:33:59] Nicole MacLean: to that alignment.
[00:34:00] Nicole MacLean: Of, you know, going together, which is great. This has been amazing. I love so many tactical tips this episode, which is so helpful. Just any kind of final advice that you would leave for folks right now as we're heading into, you know, the back half of 2025 and trying to stay nimble into the ever evolving AI world.
[00:34:21] Alexandra Gillespie: Yes. I would say if you haven't embraced AI yet, definitely do that, especially with the speed at which everything is moving, especially when like writing is near and dear to your heart. It can be really sad and scary, but to me this is kind of like the arrival of the internet. Like even if you refuse to get on the internet, uh, back in the day the internet still arrived, the world is still built on the internet, so you're gonna need to know how to use these.
[00:34:47] Alexandra Gillespie: Tools, um, going forward. So embrace it, but stay in the driver's seat. I'd say you can have it execute your strategy, but don't have it. Create your strategy. As we said earlier, like these are predictive algorithms. What they're looking at is what are people most likely to say? So you're not gonna end up with something novel or nimble or like really attuned to the moment if you're using an LLM that was trained on the world two years ago.
[00:35:12] Alexandra Gillespie: So. You really need to tell it what strategy you want it to help you execute. And the nice thing is now that execution is faster with these tools, you can spend more time on strategy than really refining it to align with that strategy. But I definitely see out in the world, um, you can see when someone on their LinkedIn posts or their blogs or whatever has let AI take the driver's seat rather than just having.
[00:35:39] Alexandra Gillespie: Having a strategy and using it as an execution tool. So embrace it, but don't let it lead you.
[00:35:45] Nicole MacLean: Thanks for listening to this episode of Content Matters, created in partnership with Share Your Genius. If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a review, and share with a friend. Otherwise, you can find all the resources you need to stay connected with us in the show notes. Till next time.