What's up, what's up?This is David, co-founder of Omniscient Digital.
Today, we have a Kitchenside episode where me, Alex, and Ali, the co-founders of Omniscient, share our thinking into how we think about building the business, services that we provide our clients, and learnings that we're just getting by nature of working with so many different companies on building out their organic growth programs.
First, we talk about this idea of working in a business.
Now, anyone who has read any entrepreneur books is an entrepreneur or wants to be an entrepreneur has probably heard the concept of working in the business versus working on the business with the implication that it's better to work on a business or you should be thinking about how to grow your business rather than just working in the business.
we land at a conclusion that it's not binary.There's probably a good mix of doing both at any given time to avoid getting too disconnected.So we get into the nuances of what we've learned about working in a business versus on a business.
And this related to a concept that we've been hearing a lot about called founder mode, which Paul Graham wrote about on his blog and became a big point of discussion.And we gave our take on founder mode and
While it has some good intent, we had some nuances on around how that could potentially be misused as a reason for making some bad decisions.So founder mode, good or bad, up to you to decide.
And we also talk about this concept that we developed after working with many clients who come to us asking for help improving their organic growth program, mainly that they've grown a lot of traffic, perhaps in-house or working with another agency or working with some consultants.
But they're not seeing that traffic translate into leads, sales pipeline, MQLs, and they're kind of in trouble.
And so we named this concept the traffic trap, where you're trapped on this treadmill of wanting to grow traffic and feeling like you need to maintain that while also growing leads and pipeline.
And that's not a good place to be because it's often the case that the strategy that you started off with to grow traffic was not the same strategy that should have been implemented to grow leads.
And we dig into the nuance of what we've learned working with many clients in getting out of that trap.So I hope this is educational, maybe entertaining episode and hope you get a little bit of it that you can apply to your day to day.
I'm already on the hot takes today.I like the energy.What's the hot take?Well, I was saying that, like, we're in the weeds, we're in the work or whatever, and both Ali and I are kind of like... tired today.So we're just flipping through work.
We're just going through without any fucks given.
But I was like, next week, I'm going to go back to working on the business.And then as I said that, I was like, I kind of hate that saying, on the business versus in the business.It's a little pretentious.
And my logic is that they're not mutually exclusive.Did you say it's pretentious? That's the other thing.No, no, I think you're right.
I think it's like there's some glorification of working on the business and like some denigration of working in the business as if like being boots on the ground is somehow like lower value.
But a lot of what we do to work on the business is fundamentally working in the business, right?Like those are some of the highest value things you can do to grow the business, you know?
My only argument or pushback is for my own like mental modeling in figuring out what's priority.Sometimes separating the two helps me figure out what if I only have four hours what to work on.
But I agree that they're not completely separated and shouldn't be especially in our type of work.
Do you we should we do the pedantic thing where we break down what the saying actually means first?
What does business mean?Let's define business for our listeners.You know what I mean, though?
It's like when you say a saying, it's like, what do we mean when we say working on a business versus working in a business?I think.
Well, what does that mean to you?How does it make you feel?
I always think that working on the business would be figuring out ways to it's kind of growing it and scaling it versus like doing the execution and delivery of it, whether it's a software company or services business.
So like services business would be an easier example.And I think mostly it's used in the context of agencies.People don't really talk about that as much for software companies, but it would be the difference between working on
a client, like a project, research strategy, deliverables, versus like, building a system and hiring people to scale that service, you know?
Mm hmm.When I think about it, granularly, I think about like, doing a client project, which is in the business.But when we work on these projects, it's typically us like paving the path as we walk it like carving out something brand new.
So we're thinking about it at a granular level, obviously, like fulfilling a service, working on client work, but we're also zooming out in terms of like, okay, we have to write down what we're doing.
We're building like the process for this as we do it.So that is inherently to me, straddling the line of doing both of them.
And I think that's where our mindset is different, and how these aren't mutually exclusive, is even when we're doing the client work, we're also thinking big picture of how would we train a team member to do this?
What does this look like for pricing and scoping?Like, what are we learning that we might do differently next time?That's how I think we do both at the same time.
Yeah, I think I learned the phrase, I think from the book, The E-Myth.And the example they use is like, you love baking apple pies, so you want to open up a bakery.And then eventually you have to hire someone, but then you're still doing the baking.
And then you have to do like the finances and you have to clean the shop.And you're just trying to do everything versus like, quote, working on the business, which
once you start hiring people to do the baking, you should be thinking about how to get more customers and things like that.But I think I used to really like that phrase and remind myself about it a lot.And I think this applies to managers too.
But the point when I realized it was a bit pretentious is when there is sort of this implication that working on the business is like a I don't know if this is right, but it felt like holier than thou.
Like, Oh, I'm on the, I'm working on the business.I'm not in the business.Like, well, I hope you know what the fuck is going on in the business.If you're going to be talking about it like that.And I think we landed in a place where.
We like being in a business and being like in the weeds because we can identify things that we can improve and things to do differently and standards that we need to apply versus being disconnected from what's going on, which leads to disarray and people being confused.
Also, forgive me if I'm wrong, because I've never read the book, The E-Myth, which I guess I probably should at some point.
But don't they talk about building SOPs and processes and sort of documentation to sort of like establish quality standards and ways of doing things.And then that sort of allows you to distance or to force yourself from the ground layer work.
That's kind of a common theme there.So I think there's a an idealization of that too, that doesn't actually work in reality.I think you actually have to do a little bit more micromanagement than most people think.
Even if you set documentation standards and guidelines, you still, at least in the early days, I think you still have to be pretty close to the work to make sure that people adhere to those.
And don't just mindlessly say, oh, I went through the checklist.Or I don't know, maybe our checklists aren't good enough.But I've never found that there's like a single SOP hack that takes me outside of the work entirely.
Yeah, it's not, it's not like a one time thing.And I think we've all learned that it's like, okay, this is now like completed, the team will take this and do it perfectly every time.
So you've got human error, you've got overwhelm or bandwidth issues.And then especially in our line of work, things change all the time.So the the right way of doing a certain task a year ago, likely isn't applicable or perfectly aligned with how
algorithm works or how our tooling works.It really requires iteration on a regular basis, which then requires us to get back in the weeds and realign with what the team's doing.
And maybe it's different stages or different business models that those things can work on.I would say on the spectrum of production line, content mill, execution, same thing day in, day out.And then on the other side of being a
idiosyncratic solopreneur who is completely bespoke in their approach to strategy and consulting, like we're probably a little bit more on the side of the strategy and custom bespoke side.
So it's like, you don't necessarily want to SOP and standardize everything, because there's a level of critical thinking that has to occur in order to like actually back up the value proposition.
You know, maybe if we were more on the line of like, hey, we produce 100 blog posts per month using
AI plus editors, then obviously you have to have some pretty well ironed out processes that establish quality standards and everything has to look kind of the same.It's more of like a McDonald's model in that way.
And I'm not saying one is worse than the other, but maybe just for us, it's not as possible to have those.
Yeah, depends on the business model and the desired outcome.I always tell myself you can't standardize intuition.
But I do think working with really intuitive and talented people requires more regular check ins to make sure that intuition is moving in the right direction or they're pulling from the right experience or the right assets.
But it's been a balance that I think we've learned more and more how to strike as we've grown.
Did you did you guys read the founder mode essay from Paul Graham?Yeah, I think there were flaws, but I get the message. So I watched also, was it on Lenny's podcast?There was an interview with Brian Chesky.I'm not sure if it was recent.
I heard about it.Yeah.Well, I saw a clip and basically the founder mode for anybody who didn't read it.I totally agree that there's flaws, by the way.Probably the central thesis here.
It's based on a YC talk that Brian Chesky from Airbnb gave that said the theme of Brian's talk was that the conventional wisdom about how to run larger companies is mistaken.
As Airbnb grew, well-meaning people advised him that he had to run the company in a certain way for it to scale.The advice could optimistically be summarized as hire good people and give them room to do their jobs.
He followed this advice and the results were disastrous.So he had to figure out a better way on his own, which he partly did by studying how Steve Jobs ran Apple.So far, it seems to be working.Airbnb's free cash flow, blah, blah, blah, is great.
He basically delineates manager mode from founder mode.And he doesn't really I think David I'm curious to hear what flaws you saw in it.
But he doesn't really define what founder mode is, and it's just sort of a catch-all term that is like, not these bad, silly things that MBAs do, right?
It kind of gives you free reign to just justify both bad and good behavior under this broad domain of like, I'm in founder mode, right?You just do shit because you're the founder.That's my kind of argument there.
But I think the idea has obviously resonated with a lot of people, which is that conventional wisdom sounds great in a textbook, but actually doesn't work when you're running the business.
Yeah.That was the same flaw that I caught too.Like it's one of those things where you can just use that to justify irrational behavior, like potentially damaging behavior.
Like, Oh, I'm, I'm going to go all in on, like, I'm going to spend a shit ton of money on paid ads because it's founder mode.And like, I have to drive leads or whatever.Like, it's just like, Have you validated you should do that?
Are you sure you want to immediately spend a shit ton of money on that?Or like buying a billboard on that highway in San Francisco?Like, yeah, sure.Is that a good idea?And I go back to like Frank Slootman's, like, are you a driver?
question instead, where I think that's what he's really trying to get at.Founders, just by nature of being the founder and caring deeply about the success of the business, are going to go to certain extreme measures to try to guarantee success.
And I think you can find that in a manager.I think the more popular examples are Satya at Microsoft and stuff.He's done fucking amazingly.Well, Frank, Frank Slootman himself is a manager.He's not a founder of any of those companies.Yeah.
So that's like immediately the counterfactual to all of that.And Right.
Like I, I frankly don't care if someone's a founder or not, but like if they're a driver and they're like pushing things forward and making bets and calling their shots, I, that's what I would want in whoever I work with.
Yeah, this is probably a side digression, but it does feel like the word founder and the role founder causes like very inflammatory reactions on both sides of the spectrum where I've heard some people just
totally shit on founders and be like, Oh, you're irrational.You love your business too much.So you make poor decisions, get out of the way and hire people who have a colder, more objective take.
And then the other side, which is the YC model, which totally glorifies founders above any and all survivorship bias and cognitive fallacies and reasoning.
It's like, you know, David, you just found a couple examples, counter examples to the point, right? And it's like, it's just a person who started a business, right?
I think it's the attitude and the mentality that you're speaking towards, which Frank Slootman, his model to me is much more interesting, because he actually defined what it means.
But there was the I wanted to make the point on the Francesca thing just before we stop, which is this working in the business versus on the business.Everybody's got kind of their own way to describe it.
But one way that a lot of people think about it is like being too in the details. two in the weeds.And this may be a straw man, I don't know if people actually make this argument.
But if us three, if anybody who is like a business owner, is two in the weeds, it sort of trains everybody else that you're going to go solve those in the weeds problems.
And it makes essentially like you work begets work and you create more and more like detail in the detail work for yourself.And then that prevents you from actually doing things like hiring.
building systems, getting out of people's way, like it basically like causes a whole bunch of like externalities and inside detriments.But Brian Chesky on this podcast with Lenny said, it's the opposite.
So when he goes into the weeds, he like leads from the front.And it's like, through that example, he teaches everybody else that, hey, this is the way we do things at Airbnb, because the leader of the company is doing things this way.
So it kind of trains everybody else to sort of take that proactive ownership.And I found that counterexample pretty interesting.
It's tough for me because growing up and watching my mom run her business, like she's still so in the weeds, like to a detriment to her mental health.So I'm I've learned through example what not to do, I'll say.And it's no shade on her.
It's that she's very successful.But I also have no desire to be so elevated and away from the work that it does feel like a pretentious choice.It's like a balance.I think we can all strike.Hmm. But to each their own, there's not one right way.
I think that the dimension that's more important is what people call high agency.It's just like believing that you have this internal locus of control and can change things.
And you have the proactive action orientation and urgency to actually do that.I think that's more important.You can find that in employees across the spectrum from entry level to senior executives.You can find that in founders.
Founders who don't have that, I would argue, are just probably going to fail by nature, whereas you don't necessarily have to have that as maybe an entry-level employee.But I think that's the dimension that most of these essays are going after.
It's just like, you're a person who get shit done.Like you, you can go in and like figure out a problem and solve it yourself.Like you're, you're very like autonomous in that way.
Yeah.I think the litmus test is give someone something they've never done before and see how they respond.And if it's going to be like, what am I supposed to do?Or like, I don't know what to do.It's like, all right, you're out.
But if they're like, oh, okay, I'm going to go figure this out.That I think that's the only way to really test if someone's got that it factor where like, they're just, they don't need to be told what to do.You just give them something.They say yes.
And I was guilty of this.And I probably got into some challenging moments in my career because of this.And you just go figure it out.And like,
Maybe you sort of BS it along the way and then you eventually actually figure it out and you're like, ah, yeah, I'm safe now.No one's going to find out that I BSed it in the beginning.
Do you think that that characteristic is maybe like a leading indicator or predictor that you are maybe like nature versus nurture type of thing, like more of a founder persona or archetype?
Because I also have this in me where I actually prefer problems that are undefined in a way or solutions that are undefined.
And when I know exactly how to do something and I have to follow like an instruction manual, it's like my brain sort of tunes out.It's like it's functionally much easier.You know what I mean?Like it's actually like objectively easier to do that task.
But like emotionally, it's more difficult for me to be engaged in that task.
So it's so interesting, because I can, I'm usually the opposite, not in like the I prefer the mundane, I certainly don't.But my zero to one is the hardest for me.
And once I figure out kind of what, at least what direction to move in, maybe the finish line isn't clear yet, then I get the energy of like, fuck, yeah. Like we're going to do this, but it's like the what direction do I go in?
Like, how do I solve this?That's, and I think that's where my perfectionism flares up.Something I've been actively working against.I think I've talked to David a bit about it this week.But yeah, I don't know.
I, I wish I was a little bit more motivated by the unknown in that way.Definitely more fun.But yeah, the checklist to like do this, do this, do this is not exciting to me either.I fall somewhere in between.
I guess you need both, right?Like you're more maybe of the archetype of like an operator.And like, if, like, I'm probably like a mediocre operator, you know what I mean?
Like, I'm still like, actually building out these systems and like, following through on everything.But I tend to be very good at like, identifying really hairy, really interesting problems, and like architecting some sort of like,
like approach to how we would solve that.
But yeah, I think you're right.Like you need to kind of find a mix of that, because if you had a whole team of only zero to one, that's probably going to be pretty chaotic.
If you had a whole team of only like the scalers and optimizers, that's also like you're not going to be doing much very new either.And so, like, I definitely know for me during my time at Hotspot, I don't think I ever did a single project twice.
I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but when I was figuring out zero to one, Maybe coincidentally, I would end up getting moved on to another project and someone else was asked to scale the thing I did, which I was like, yeah, I love that.
I actually think you and I had very similar roles.Yeah.Because that was how I operated too.And there's almost a good downside to that in that like you kind of get like less credit for the actual thing that you started.
You know, because you hand it off and then like most of the results come like after the zero to one, it's like even just in the analogy, it's like zero to one, one to 10, 10 to 100 or whatever.
And it's like once somebody scales it to 100, that's when it's actually impressive enough to put on a resume.It's not as exciting to say, yeah, I started the thing like But I didn't really take it that far.
Yeah, I actually, coincidentally, I had a call with a client.And back when I was at HubSpot, I was trying to do a partnership with that company for like some distribution partnership.
And we got like really close, but it was taking forever because it required like product integration. And on a call, they're like, oh, yeah, it's been a couple years, but we made it.It just happened.
Like we just finished everything like the integration.I was like, what?Who's leading that now on a host boss?And he told me who it was.
I was like, wow, it took four years for this thing that I'd like I pushed for like a year or two to finally get to fruition.But like, I don't know, someone there is going to get credit, which I'm happy for them.But yeah, that's the downside.
I feel that way about the hybrid content. About the hybrid content theory that they've now become very well known for.It's like, I'm pretty sure I was the first one to explore that.And it was super cobbled together.
It wasn't even called that at the time.But I was hired for something very different.I was truly just a content creator.And so I got these very regular dopamine hits of seeing my work live.
And but I think what that what that allowed me is space to then, like, because my job was very clear cut, I had a lot of extra mental energy to start like poking holes in things and figuring out like, how can this be better.
And that was my first experience in my early 20s, kind of free bringing things from zero to maybe not one, maybe like, I was gonna say that's a pretty zero to one mindset, though, like you identified a problem.
started crafting a solution, and you got to action more than theory, I think.So you reached out to me and a bunch of people on the team were like, hey, can you... The surround sound.
The surround sound, which is another good example of... And Irina took that to the finish line and really scaled it out.Yeah.
But I came up with the idea and just found the data and the patterns and stuff, built the initial crappy tool that helped us do it.And then Irina just scaled it.
Every time... Every time somebody talks about that on LinkedIn, I go back and find that article.It was like 2019.I'm like, so glad Alex pioneered this idea.And I just like drop it in.
That's like a weird part of like the, I guess, social media ecosystem now is like there's like less of a attribution trail.
You know, with blog posts, you used to be able to pretty well see when something was published and like the link pattern, like you'd have the original source.And it wasn't perfect.
Obviously, somebody could kind of rehash an idea and not get credit for it.But on social and maybe it's also like how comedians, you know, it's like they have the same joke.
But it's just a similar thinking pattern or something that's the same in the cultural zeitgeist.So you have two similar jokes about the same idea.But you do have to fight for your ideas more now for like the citation, the attribution.
I see that with the grow and convert guys all the time.You know, they coined that pain point SEO term, which is like this really good framework or like a really good phrase for what we do, which is the jobs to be done.You think about the pain points.
It's like voice of customer and audience centric keyword research.And I don't even know if they rank for it anymore. I think everybody else started writing it, product-led content.
That's one of those similar ideas that... I don't know if other people read ours first, but... Yeah, it's hard to coin a term or an idea nowadays and actually have that equity from it, if that makes sense.I don't know.Do you even need the equity?
I guess it's like, I don't know, what's the power of an idea anyway?It's like probably most of what we talk about is not even net new anyway.We're probably all rehashing something.Everything's a remix.
I think so.I think that's most of LinkedIn is renaming things. Yeah, it's always funny, just capitalizing everyday language and calling it a new idea.
I'm seeing more people call that out, though, which I'm happy about in the marketing space, because we've talked about this before, like back in the day, when I was working in the analytics and experimentation space, everybody loved kind of intellectual discussions.
And, you know, if you published a case study, and you had flawed statistics, like somebody would just in the comments be like, Hey, is bullshit."And they weren't mean.They weren't trying to tear down you and your career.
They just saw an inaccuracy and they're like, Hey, just so you know, this is wrong.And marketers, for the most part, I think have been very... What's the... West Coast, right?Agreeable.They're very agreeable.Well, no.They're nice but not kind.
Yeah, yeah. And, uh, they'll cheer you on in the comments section, but then they'll like talk shit behind your back.
Uh, whereas now I'm seeing a little bit more like, Oh, Hey, did you know that actually this person 35 years ago wrote a book about the thing that you're talking about?Like, it's not actually new and you didn't create it.
Like there's actually a book that was written in like the sixties about this. Kind of cool.
Would it be kinder of us to start calling out big traffic wins, but no conversion wins on LinkedIn?But how many leads did this track?Would that be kind?Or would that be mean?
Well, I think in that case, we don't necessarily know the full story.And we don't actually know the conversions.Right.So in certain cases, I could see that being useful.But discerning people can can grasp that on their own, right?
It's very Midwestern of us.Nobody's fooled by like a pretty chart that goes up to the right.I hope nobody's fooled by that anymore.
I was gonna say, some companies are still around.We'll see.
We won't talk any details here specifically, but those charts that I shared with you all in the Slack channel, there's There's an agency that's got these really, really pretty, like up and to the right, like really impressive looking charts.
And I looked at the AHS for them now and literally every single one just completely crashed back down to zero.And it's like, Oh my God.I guess like case studies, like if you just like snapshot a moment in time, like you can get away with that.
Just cut off the chart after the moment that everything gets lost.
I had another thing I wanted to talk about that may be sort of related.We interviewed a candidate earlier this morning.It reminded me of the idea of just how like organic programs need to fit within a broader demand gen program.
And I'm also experiencing this with a client currently where we're building out an organic program, good traffic and all of that.
but then realized that their paid campaigns weren't working and they weren't doing any email nurturing and they didn't have that many gated assets and their site was horrible for conversions.I was like, Oh, this actually explains a lot.
And we probably should have dug into this much sooner than this, but no matter how much traffic we brought in, like they were not going to see conversions increase like very quickly, because there was just all these missed opportunities.
And so I got started thinking about how I think there's a, there's more people talking about how like multi touch attribution, I don't want to get into that whole bucket.
But I do believe that people need to view organic as not like a program in a silo.It's like, hey, we're gonna bring in traffic that's relevant.Do you have conversion points? Is your site designed to drive conversions?
Do you have places where they can give you their email if they want to learn more?
And do you have a retargeting campaign in place so that you can hit these people that have high commercial intent, like in other platforms, like Google ads or LinkedIn ads?
That, I think that needs to be something that they think about versus expecting organic in a silo to just generate all the conversions.And this is just top of mind for me.
I don't know if this is something we've run into, but I am finding that that is the implicit understanding I'm, I'm seeing people have like, oh yeah, we're, this is paid and this is organics.Like, well, they both kind of.Interplay.
And if you just have one, like you're kind of missing the opportunity with layering in additional channels and multi-touch opportunities.
I may be taking this in a different direction, but I feel like this relates to something we were talking about with Finn and the traffic trap, which is like this proceeding step.
So traffic trap is basically you get on this hamster wheel of like trying to grow top line organic traffic because that's what your KPI is.Thus, that's what you're incentivized by.
You can start to attract irrelevant users, irrelevant visitors, et cetera, even if it's sort of in opposition to your goal of revenue and customers and all of that stuff. But one idea that we talked about was this preceding step.
So content marketers, especially, but even SEOs, a lot of the times there's this gulf between what executives expect from the program.And then there's this frustration when SEOs or content marketers are reporting.
And it's like, I can't really prove that it's giving value, but I know it is.I don't have the data to prove it.And it's like, sure, the analytics and the attribution models and the technical technology is important.
But there's like a conversation that has to occur before that, which is what is the feasible expectation for how organic as a channel fits into our growth model, into our business model?
Like, what's the expectation for a visitor landing on an SEO landing page?Like, is it?I mean, back to your business model, is it like a freemium prosumer product that you can sign up for directly?
And in that vein, usually you're doing pretty product led pretty bottom of the funnel content.It's like last click oriented.Are you? upstream, up-level enterprise complex software and you're writing top of the funnel stuff.
How does that fit into your model?I think you have to have that conversation early in the process.
To me, that's reflective of a content marketer's mindset as someone who used to be pretty stuck there in terms of... I just was focused on production and building content and doing it really, really well.
But I wasn't as aligned with where the ideas were coming from, and where the behavior was expected to go after someone interacted with my content.
And as I moved into Shopify, owned more of a program, I kind of started looking at the bigger picture of Yeah, writing something really well and making sure that it's aligned with the brand and even search optimized is really important.
But it's just a piece of the larger puzzle in terms of how are these topics being decided on and prioritized before they're fed into the production cycle?And then what happens after this? You know, what calls to action are part of this?
Where do the links go?You know, is this a feasible buyer's journey to go straight to the demo?Is there a downloadable?Is there even deeper into the funnel piece that can be provided for kind of the navigation path?And I just don't...
don't think a lot of content folks are trained in that way.
They get so focused on the production, which is still I'm not deprioritizing that it's just kind of a drop in the bucket when you think about the full marketing program and the full function of what the piece of content is supposed to do.
And I think this is where we train up our content team and even the freelancers that work with us of like think bigger, you know, than the words you're using and the
the grammar, you know, even the search optimized element of the content still important for distribution, right?If it's not optimized, it can't be seen.But what happens after it's seen, you know, it's like, we got to think about it in a bigger way.
Yeah, I think, like, what, where I'm getting at, I think it's aligned to what y'all are saying is, there's more to building out an organic growth program than publishing a bunch of blog content, like you need.And I think
What I don't want people to do is go think like, Oh, I got to have all these things in place before I start doing SEO.It's like, no, like just know that sure.Blog content is going to be maybe the bread and butter and how you get going.
But then you need to ask yourself, like, is this the right traffic?Do we have assets to drive conversions?Are those assets related to those topics?Or like, I've seen websites where the only call to action is get a demo.
It's like, no one wants your fucking demo.Like they, they want to learn more about whatever it is you're selling.If they're on your website and they like. They're saying they want to get sold to just based on the type of stuff they're browsing.
Like they're looking at your product pages, but maybe they don't want to commit to a demo because they know you're going to sell the fuck out of them and follow up with 20 emails.Like they don't want that yet. Yeah.
And then like also think about like, all right, they're on our website.How do we targeting them?Like there you add layers to it rather than just continuing with like, oh, we did blog posts.Let's do more blog posts.
Like there's got to be additional layers to, to think through that, that customer journey and driving those conversions.Like what Alex said around like traffic's just one part of the journey.
Like you got to figure out what the next step is going to be.
I would maybe add, this is not really a devil's advocate, but it's going to sound like it, but you mentioned they want to learn more before they do the demo requests.And I would add, except when they don't.
And when we do strategies, we formalize this in a way, and I wrote about it in the field notes, but There's two filtering layers.
And then there's the common prioritization model where you use impact slash search volume, ease slash feasibility of ranking, and then business relevance or product relevance to stack rank the topics and opportunities.
But before that, one layer up, there's the topic surface area.So how much opportunity is there in a given topic surface area?And you could even split that among programmatic, directory, types of content, or website service area.
But the first layer is audience.That's always the first thing that I look at, which is on a very simple level, who are you targeting?
If you have multiple ICPs, buying groups and products, which one is going to be the most propitious for you at the time?But then also, how does your audience engage with content and information?
So in most spaces that we operate in, it's a high information complexity space.So there's usually multiple steps along the journey before you build enough trust to raise your hand and say, I want to talk to you.
I would say that's 100%, 1000% the case with our business, especially because we target marketers who marketers are
voracious information consumers, like they always want to know the up-to-date tactic strategies, what's going on with AI, what's going on to search.But I sat on this ClearScope webinar the other day with J.H.Ross, Benji Gitano, and J.H.
gave this example of a prospect who sold like CRM software or like it was software for porta-potties.So you could manage like, you know, your porta-potties on like construction sites.
And his point was, he's like, they're not looking to learn more about best practices on how to do this.They're really just looking for the solution.
So it's like you can just map out the bottom of the funnel and be there when they're searching for it.In fact, it would be a whole lot of wasted effort to build a bunch of ebooks and white papers.
original research around the state of the industry, right?So in certain spaces, it's just there's not as much need for that information.And I've actually heard that too, with friends who have worked at sales tech companies.
I know there's a lot more focus on LinkedIn and being LinkedIn influencers for sales now.
But he mentioned that when he worked on traditional content marketing in the blog, it's like salespeople actually didn't want to read these 10,000-word pillar page skyscraper guides.
They're just like, give me some tools that make my job faster and better.Yeah, audience.You got to care about the audience too, not just the algorithms, right?
Yeah, we have a client that we started working with and I sourced an external SME on LinkedIn just to better understand how these people think.
And some of the questions I've created to talk with them, you know, there's the basics of how do you make decisions, what challenges are you facing, etc.But really want to get into consumption habits.How do you spend time online?
You know, where do you get your information?Where do you learn more?But there are also other things I want to understand in terms of like, who do you have to involve to make a purchase decision?You know, who tends to block your purchase decisions?
Like what roles at your company are involved that I wouldn't have any idea of?
you know, is it is it finance, which I mean, from a budgeting perspective, yes, but like, I don't know how this role thinks how they operate, I could Google it and chat GPT it, but it's so important to get first party data from these roles, especially if it's something that's so far removed from the marketers mindset, I think sales somewhat, you know, we think similarly, we interact similarly.
But the more Our client list is so varied now and the audiences that our clients contact and sell to are so varied now that without this like first party audience research, it's hard to do what we do.
And hear me out because that sounds like a whole lot of work.Or you could take your preferences, behaviors, and attitudes and assume that your audience has those same things.That's easier.I'll do that.That's way easier.I don't like consuming this.
Therefore, my audience doesn't like consuming this.
It sounds like you're talking to your audience.Are you knowing your customer?
No, it is a really good point, though.And I think probably like the details that we're going into are underrated and under talked about.
And like if we can give more examples, I think that's better, too, because an example came to mind, which is technical documentation for developers.
Most people think of that not as an acquisition channel, but in fact, it's a huge point of consideration.
So if you apply some of the SEO muscle, some of the marketing muscle over there, which I did a little bit when I was at HubSpot, although it wasn't probably the biggest gate to purchasing HubSpot.
But some of the stuff was very important, including integrations or how to set up... you know, API connection with this, this and that.It's like that, that can be a pretty critical part of the customer journey too.
And it's often underlooked from, you know, quote unquote content marketers or quote unquote SEOs.But yeah, it really just depends on like who the audience is you're targeting.
Say if it's developers, data engineers, like probably more interesting surface area than top of the funnel content.
This is, I mean, revisiting what I just kind of harped on in terms of not getting too focused on the content writing.
I guess I'm arguing myself now in that there are some audiences that do require to be spoken to as one of their own in order to help convince them of the trustworthiness of a product, you know, how, how connected a solution is to really what how they think and what's going on in their head.
And I think that's, That is where the quality of content, how a piece is written, not even from an optimization perspective, but like the words all the way down to language and how these folks are spoken to and educated through content.
It is where it's important to get someone creating that content that knows who's been there, done that.We have a client who sells to restaurants and those folks speak differently than marketers, and that's fine.
And it's, it is very clear to them when something is just being written to check a box versus written to educate and help them solve a problem.
And that's where a lot of our team comes in, in terms of getting those subject matter experts, either like consulting on a piece of content, giving feedback and like, they don't say it like this, this isn't typically how we talk about this, or writing the piece themselves.
And we've seen more success when someone's kind of behind the screen writing the piece, because they've been there done that.
I think this is really rich territory, actually, the more that I'm thinking about it, because this understanding of your audience, your target audience and their consumption patterns, behavior patterns can actually lead to pretty contrary and conclusions with strategy.
So I would say that by and large, we focus on bottom of the funnel and sort of in market ready to purchase.That's going to be our priority, you know, all things considered. Not obviously every company.We have different goals.
But there's one client that I work with who target data engineers and data ops professionals.They're early stage, so they're building a new paradigm, basically a new take on data quality that is upstream.So a lot of the concepts
are new, but some of the language is familiar.The paradigm is completely new.I'm not even sure that's possible to do technically, right?But it fits within a sphere that's already decently known, which would be like data quality and governance.
And they've got founders and team leaders who are very active on LinkedIn.They're pushing a lot of those pain points and paradigms and educating people on this new solution to an existing problem.
They're doing the same thing with their email newsletter.They're speaking at conferences.So they're essentially doing what a lot of people call creating demand. And then SEO as a function is essentially set up as landing pads.
So it's when somebody reads that LinkedIn post or goes to the conference, here's some of these terms, we actually prioritize a lot of what is and what I would typically refer to as top of the funnel content.
But it gives them an extra gateway to pass through.And then they can obviously read more as we filter them onto the newsletter.And there's a couple sort of gated content upsells.But it's totally contrary to what I would normally do.
as part of a revenue-driven SEO strategy.Like, what is content?Like, that's ridiculous, right?But no, in this case, understanding the audience is perfect.
And let me guess, some of that language had really low search volume when you got started.
Yes and no.So the stuff that they're talking about in the specific terms, like they're sort of spearheading and they're creating the wave.But then the broader categories, let's just say like, for an example, like data governance has
20,000, 30,000 searches or whatever.But data governance is such a broad topic that when we write about it, this is where we have that whole, how does your brand fit in?Like what information are you adding to the piece?
That's sort of this like, you know, there's table stakes to rank for that piece of content, but then there's the additional insights that we provide.
And that's where we start to educate on this company's take on data governance and how their solution helps you do data governance better, right?
So I'm going to, I'm going to tie this back to what we talked about at the beginning of like working on the versus business versus in it.So I have not really, I got like a affiliate payout the other day for like a couple hundred dollars.
I was like, Oh, people are using affiliate links for my website.And it's forced on Sama, like. I was one of the first people who wrote a review about Sunsama like 2020, because I fucking love the product.
And I was like, oh, I wonder what else I'm ranking for.And I'm ranking on like the top five results for like Keenstow Review, WP Engine.And I'm like, wait, what?But surprisingly, the traffic hasn't changed.
But I'm like, oh, let me go look at this post that someone else I hired a contractor to write for me about Keenstow, the web hosting company and like why I like it. And I read, I was like, oh man, I don't like this.
This is clearly written by someone who has not used Keensta.And I was just like, let me just do this exercise real quick and like start writing an outline of how I would have written this from scratch.
And I was like, oh, this is just so different from like, if you were to write a content brief outline based on what you see in our top 10 search results, it would have sounded very similar.
The way I wrote my outline based on my actual experience, I was like, instead of listing out all the 50 features, I was just like, here are the key features I cared about.Here's what happened to me and why I switched over.
Here's the stuff I don't care about, but they talk about a lot that you might want to just be aware of.And like, here's my general recommendation.It was just so different from the like, what is pros and cons, features, here's the pricing.
I, as a user, just don't care to share about those things.I imagine what matters to other people looking for web hosting might be like, oh yeah, what are the key things someone using it cares about?Versus I don't care about 99% uptime.
Every website says there's 99% uptime.But that is just an example of being in the business.And then I was working on Content Breeze for a client.I was like, you know, I see what the top 10 search results are saying, it's all shit.
Let me go look up Reddit threads and use those discussions to inform the content brief and things that people actually care about and what the audience cares about versus what other SEOs are writing.
That's a cool topic.I've been thinking more about that.I put it on the notes, actually, about this idea of like, what is this page going to add to the conversation?
So sort of doing a SERP analysis, you know, you're targeting the keyword or a topic and you're like, all right, there's a bunch of pages already ranking.We've done a competitive analysis to understand that
We may be able to rank if we do X, Y, and Z. So what needs to be included to basically showcase that this serves the intent?It answers the question that people are searching for.But then the interesting part is how does this stand out?
And like, it's easy enough to say, all right, expertise, delete, and then provide value.Like what do those things mean tangibly?So David, you're,
you're coming at it from a very first principle standpoint, which I like, which is like, what do I care about?Like, what would I want to read, given that I am a user of this product, and I love this product?What information is salient to me?
So I think that's a, we'll call that filtering, right?You're really filtering for signal, as opposed to just giving an abundance of all information.And filtering for signal is very useful, it provides more value.
And then other ways I was thinking about is, you know, inclusion of first party data.So if you're a product or, you know, you do market research and you've got interesting information, that's another cool way to stand out.
Yeah, I've been thinking more about that, like what sorts of dimensions or components of the content actually truly serve that, what a lot of people call information gain.
Yeah, something else that I've done that I think we could do more of is include quotes from published case studies and client pieces.
Because that stuff is already live, it's accessible, and it's real client feedback, customer feedback that could pertain to certain features, certain pain points that the problem or the product helps solve.
And it is essentially first party data that we don't necessarily have to go and scrape.Now, if we and we have spent time with customers of our clients, those quotes, if we get the permission, are just as good.
But case studies are right there for the taking.And it helps tie back in like internal linking and really cement from like a middle or bottom of funnel perspective what it is to use the tool.
So that's something that I did at HubSpot and I've done with some of our pieces.But yeah, first party data is pretty great thinking of first principles.I was talking with the client that sells to the restaurant owners last week.
They're doing an original research report, which always makes me so excited because that's just like so much good stuff for the pieces that we write.And they were like, when should we like publish this?And I was like,
Well, you know, give me a time window.What are you all thinking?And they're like, well, we're thinking like end of the year or the beginning of the year.
And we've seen a lot of our clients and other folks like, you know, use that time people are usually it's a little bit slower, depending on the sales cycles, they're looking to make changes going into the new year.
And I was like, well, and I know this about their customer, like isn't Christmas and then Chinese New Year, a really busy time for your for your customers. And they're like, yeah, Chinese New Year's like end of January.
And I was like, I don't think they would probably be online a ton at the beginning of the year, if that's like a pretty crazy time.And they're like, Oh, yeah, we never thought about that.
And I just think even the clients that we work with, and maybe it's just a function of their job, like they're just thinking about the data, thinking about the potential of the work that they're doing.I was like,
I would maybe do a little bit more customer analysis to see when they're most likely to interact with your content online or be online in the first place.And I think
some of the work that we do is so narrowed into like numbers and data and search volume and keyword difficulty that it's easy to forget those first principles of like, is your audience going to interact with this?
Like, are they when are they even going to be on the internet?Probably not in between the two biggest holidays of the year.So that was like a good reminder, I think, for them to go back to first principles on their own side.
Wait, did you just, did you know that Chinese restaurants are very busy on Christmas night?Or is that
They reminded me of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then Chinese New Year.But I didn't, I didn't, I know that conceptually, but I wouldn't have been reminded of that.If they hadn't, we hadn't talked about it about a month ago.
It's like the only restaurants that's open on Christmas night because they don't celebrate and then yeah, random tangent.
Well, I mean, Christmas Story was my favorite movie growing up and they went to that restaurant.Remember that?
The turkey?My silly heuristic where yours is so much smarter.You're like, oh, we should map it to the time that most people are available and interested.
Mine is always just like, let's do it as fast as possible, like right now, because otherwise we're going to forget about it and it's just going to slip off.Yeah, that's what I would have said.I'm like, let's just do it right now.Come on.
We got the interest.Let's go.
They weren't they weren't prepared.They were still building the study.They haven't even run the study.But they were like, yeah, we're thinking about like, early January.
And I just gently argued I was like, even three to four weeks later would likely get better.Like it would be better received than right in the midst of all the holiday season.
But I think campaigns like that and launches that matters a lot.But it's always so funny to me when people think that way with regards to like LinkedIn posts or blog posts.Yeah, it's like just ship it. Just just push it out.
Just get it started.Yeah.
Yeah.I like that case study idea.I was thinking about that, too, with, you know, even our own website and the content that we write.You know, we've got like how to do SAS SEO type middle funnel content.
And then even if you think about top of the funnel stuff, like what is SAS SEO or examples, SAS SEO strategies and examples like you could add
like our Jasper case study, and that would be like much more original first-person expertise back than just showing, oh, here's an example from HubSpot that 25,000 other websites have written about.
You know, it gives you a little bit more first-person experiential backing.
This is actually reminding me that we probably have a lot of conversion opportunities on our own website that we should be looking at.Yeah, always the case.
That and that three year old nurturing campaign that we got on email.
Yeah, that's that's completely forgot is not waiting till the New Year's thing.Listen to what we say, not what we do.All right.
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