Hello, this is Alex Burkett, and you're listening to The Long Game Podcast.In this episode, I talk to Katie Kelly.After 15 years in CMO and COO roles, Katie Kelly is hell-bent on changing the face of business media.
She recently founded Antiquoted to help content creators find new and diverse voices in seconds. She also does PR and content for agencies and software brands.
And outside of work, she runs NoWankyBollocks.com, a site where people from advertising and marketing rant about the industry and share their biggest mess ups.In this episode, we went deep on expert-driven and expert-centric content.
It's value for both creators and the experts involved and the challenging nature of getting unique and diverse voices to contribute
And the value in actually doing so in digging deeper and finding people who aren't mentioned all over the place and aren't speaking at every conference.
And also we went logistic, we talked operationally about how to find, identify and select and work with the experts to create more resilient content and campaigns that stand out from the deluge of generic and AI written content.
So without further ado, here's my conversation with Katie Kelly. All right, I'm going to ask you a strange one to start.It's in your LinkedIn bio, the headline.So you've got a site called no wanky bollocks dot com.Is that how you pronounce that?
Can you translate that for an American?
I was going to say it doesn't doesn't usually translate very well.So it's basically no bullshit.
Right, right.I remember the sex pistols, you know.
Yeah.Kind of similar.But it's not about wanking bollocks, which let's just get that straight straight out because some people have asked me.
The reason why it exists is because I saw it as a domain that I was just randomly searching for random stuff and saw it was available.And I thought this is too good a domain to let go.So I had no idea what I was going to do with it.
But actually, I had quite a checkered history of working in agencies throughout my career.A lot of bad experiences, a lot of bad actors involved.And so in the end, I thought this would be a good domain to
to write and kind of share stories about bullshit in the marketing and advertising industry and kind of like almost a bit like a personal diary or like confessional in some ways.
But it turns out I wasn't brave enough to write my story for seven years.So I've owned the site for a long time.And instead what I did was I asked other people, anyone who worked in
marketing or advertising or any kind of industries around that to answer three questions.What's your biggest fuck up?What is your rant about the industry?What do you wish you could change?And a useful piece of advice.
I think there's about 200 interviews on there now and people have really very cathartically shared some deep, dark stuff.
So we have people talking about addiction, people talking about getting sacked, lots of interesting stories and lots of things that people want to change about the industry.So, yeah, it turned into being quite a positive thing, I guess, in the end.
But it was it was kind of just a joke to begin with.
And you're still running this.Are you actively conducting more interviews and building up this library?
Yeah, so I've taken a bit of a, it's taken a bit of a backseat to some of my other work.But I'm always, it's always open.And the thing about No Manchipolix is there's no deadline.
So I send out invites to people that I think might have interesting stories.And sometimes they get back to me six, six years later.And that's just the way it goes.So it's an always open invite.It'll always be there.
And yeah, if anyone's got any, anything interesting they want to share, got off their chest, let me know and get in touch and post it.
I always go back and forth on this.I think when you work in marketing, and more or less in different niches in marketing, you see a lot of sketchy stuff.
And there's always this little inkling in the back of my mind that says, you should write a tell-all book or at least keep a blog that shows like, hey, here's when you're as the average consumer, when you're looking at reviews,
here's what you should know is that a large portion of them are fake or incentivized, right?Or even like HR, like Glassdoor reviews, how can you trust them?
Once you see behind the curtain, I think you develop this little cynicism towards a lot of this stuff.And there's this part of my brain that's like, you should write about this.But then I'm like, ah, that takes so much time.
Well, if you want to write a short version, the opportunity is always there to post on NoAnkabolic.
I might have to do that.Yeah.Is it broadened out to the entire marketing space?So you could basically be at an ad agency, you could be at a CRO firm, you could be all over the place.
Yep.It's open to anyone.The only thing I don't allow is anonymous posts.So everyone puts their name to what they say.But yeah, I just let people write what they want.I try not to edit too much and just let people
speak and tell their story and show what they want to share.But yeah, there's some quite interesting stuff on there.As long as it's not libelous, we're good.You can post what you want.
On the top of your head, are there any rants that stick out to you as being particularly memorable or that you resonated with?
It's more of the fuck up stories.There's been some brilliant ones on that, like truly amazing ones.
One guy did a promotion with like a random string of letters in America and then realized that certain swear words were included in this child focused promotion that was going out to market and they'd already like produced all of these.
I think it was like you know, like a little code you'd get on a product.
So yeah, there was lots of four letter word, bad words that went out in this kind of promo and just, you know, silly stuff that's messed up all the way through to like some really serious stuff.
And like I say, I've shared my own stories on there, which are a bit darker, but there's definitely some fun ones on them.
That's cool.Yeah, I'll have to check into that.I love that because we've all had those fuck ups too.And it's like, in the success theater of LinkedIn, you rarely hear those or when you do, oftentimes, they're so polished.
And it's like strategic vulnerability to say like, Alright, I messed up, but you're doing so in the hope that you're going to get engagement.
I still learn stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It still paints you in a positive light.It's almost like a hero's journey type of fuck up.Whereas like sometimes you just mess up and that's it.Like there's no big learning, you know, there's no redemption.
Yep.And definitely some of those on there are just pure fuck ups.They're beautiful, really beautiful.
Well, I want to talk about the business that you're building now, Antiquated.But first, just background on yourself.So you and I actually have similarities in that we've worked in and around content as well as CRO.So how did you come up?
How did you get into the CRO space?And what is your current standing there?And how do you view yourself as a marketer?
So I started about 14 years ago.And while I was still at uni, I actually joined a UX agency, which I helped to rebrand, because they weren't really sure what they were doing.
And at the time, they were really frustrated that they were writing these long UX reviews, and then clients didn't do anything with it. And so we started to talk about conversion rate optimization.
You know, you make these UX suggestions or these, you know, look at heuristics and make suggestions, but then you actually do something with them and you test them.And so I helped them reposition their services and their brand into that space.
And I was still at uni at the time.And I ended up growing with that agency afterwards. which became one of the UK's biggest, or most well known at the time, CRO agencies.So I started out in CRO really quite early on in the industry.
And then I left, as you do early on in your career, and I went to a whole load of crazy places.So a mixture of agencies and brand side.I lived in Singapore for a while, worked in some places there.
And then I think after a few bad, a few bad places, I decided I wanted to work for myself. So I now freelance, but I've always been very broad.So I've done product roles, I've done ops roles, I've done marketing roles.
And when it comes to marketing, I've done everything from PR events.Even one job, I set up a customer service department because it turned out we were having an Office of Fair Trading investigation into certain practices.
Turns out they didn't have a customer service department. I was like, we should probably fix that.It's going to make my marketing life a lot easier.So I just set it up.
So while I have a marketing title, I've always been more of a just kind of generalist that will fix things.I think of myself more as a fixer, I guess.
The problem solver.Yeah.That's cool.
Yeah.Whether that's a marketing problem or an operational problem, whatever.
That's a good way to view yourself.Like that's how I try to view myself too.I had a conversation with actually a client who is in sort of a growth advisor role.And we were lamenting about like the just number of fires that you have to put out.
And he's like, I actually, I shifted the paradigm on that.I started looking at it as like, I am the problem solver, right?Like these are problems, I get to solve them.I am the person who's best suited to solve these.
So like he looked at it in more of a positive light. And I really like that kind of framing.
You're like, all right, I'm going to look for the most interesting problem, solve that, not care about domain or like lane or if it's like my specific thing that I've been doing the last five, 10 years.
But like, what's the most interesting problem I can attack?
Yeah, and what's the most high value, right?So I was in marketing, but not having a customer service department was pretty bad for marketing, because all it meant was everyone went online and said this company is shit.
So if I wanted to solve my marketing problem, which was get clients, get customers, I needed to solve that problem.
So yeah, like you say, it doesn't matter what domain it's in, the problem is, you know, if you have a goal or you know, you want to achieve something. then if it's in someone else's department, I don't care.I'm just like, let's go fix this.
Well, what drove you, what drove you to start Antiquoted and what is Antiquoted?
OK, so elevator pitch, not nailed yet, but here we go.Antiquoted, I started Antiquoted because I do a lot of content.And when I need experts to feature in that content, typically it's the same people each time that respond to my requests.
And they typically are the same people that have already featured quite heavily in a lot of content.So we tend to see the same names and the same people coming up and up again.
And I started to get really frustrated about it because it wasn't particularly diverse.And you kind of get a bit bored.
Like you hear the same things over and again from the same type of people with the same background, the same history, same education.And so I started to try and get more diverse people to feature in my content.And I realized it took me probably about
14 to 20 more outreaches to get a diverse or a new speaker or a new expert, sorry, to respond to me, which when you're freelance is a lot of extra time that you are not getting paid for.
So rather than moan about it on LinkedIn, which is what I should have probably done, I decided to fix the problem.Here we are again.
So I built AnyQuoted, which is a place for diverse or new voices who haven't already got a big media presence to create a profile.And then they can connect directly with content writers, with podcasters, with event organizers,
and they can have a direct relationship where there's no barriers to entry because traditionally If you want to get in the media, you often have a publicist or a PR person who puts you forward for stuff.Often they write your quotes for you.
So this is trying to get rid of those barriers.
And a lot of the competitors that do exist in the market, you know, the quotas of this world, often they charge the expert to be on the platform and to respond, which again is another barrier to entry if you're trying to encourage diverse voices in
Well, and doesn't that also just incentivize the people who have, I guess, like an incentive to be visible?
Like if you're an in-house expert who maybe has like this deep treasure trove of knowledge, like why would you pay to be in front of an audience?
I mean, I'm sure there's benefits, but that would incentivize somebody like me who runs an agency who like, if I get quoted, like that's going to, you know, give me a backlink to my, like, it's going to filter for a certain type of person that's already really trying to get in those opportunities.
Yeah.And what's really interesting, and it's a problem I see on other platforms that I've tried, is that it's kind of already a race to the bottom.Everyone's just on there for links.
And it's just kind of SEO spam, like no one cares about what the quote is.They're just like, just chuck any old rubbish over, get AI to write it, get your PR person to write it.We just want the backlink.
And so you're getting a certain type of expert and a certain type of quote. And it's just all a bit icky.
So because I'm targeting individual people, not people that necessarily have businesses or brands or whatever, it's about the person, it's about the expert.So it doesn't matter where you are, how long you've been in your career.
If you have something valuable to say, you have an opinion to share.
you can be on the platform and the focus is on what it is that people are talking about as opposed to getting links or, you know, I still tell people that this is to help them build their profile, but it's by showing off their expertise, not getting a backlink.
I have a million questions and there's different rabbit holes that I want to go down from, I guess, the value of expertise in content in the first place, the logistics of procuring these experts and working with them, the value of doing so on both sides of the equation.
But just real quick, it reminded me of this story.When I first started in my career, I worked at a company called Lawn Starter and we were pretty heavily SEO driven. And Haro was the big thing.That was the only real platform I knew at the time.
Ryan Holiday had written about it in his book, Trust Me, I'm Lying, about how he had essentially just lied and gotten quoted in like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times as like a vinyl collector, and he didn't collect vinyl.
And I remember one specific instance, I think it was USA Today, but I might be wrong about that.So I should probably not say that.But they asked for people who had been inspired by that book, The Five Love Languages,
And I sent in a quote from my founder.So it wasn't from me.It was like I wrote it for him, right?I was like the PR person.All about how it inspired him to like build the company culture that we had, which was like for people, right?
And he had never read the book.So it got published and he had a obviously like notification set up for any links that got placed for Lawn Starter.And he's like, hey man, was this you?I was very proud of that one.
Yeah, I mean, that totally goes to show right how it's kind of a broken system.
And I think AI is making it even worse because the amount of rubbish I'm already seeing on other platforms, like I've tried some of the others out and you know, you can tell when something is just purely written by AI and no thoughts gone into it.
I mean, One of the main reasons for using experts is to get their opinion and their real stories.And both of those things are lacking often in these kind of like really stilted AI crafted responses that people are sharing.
And it's just creates more work than it does help.So it needs fixing.
Yeah, absolutely.So let's let's back up.
You mentioned something that's very interesting around like the AI and like why you would even go get expert quotes, which I think it's interesting that you have worked so heavily in the CRO and experimentation space, because that space to me, obviously, I was at CXL.
And we, you know, I interviewed people for articles, I had quotes in them all the time, I took pride actually, in finding people who are underrated or underknown. And I think in this space, we were not unique in that aspect.
This space is always sort of exalted expertise, because the audience, I think, demands it, right?
I think it's a very discerning audience, and they'll call you out if you're wrong about some nuanced, nerdy statistics thing, which is great, but also a little bit tedious.
Anyway, for those not in a space with a bunch of pedantic audience members, what is the value of reaching out, procuring experts, working with them to get a quote?It sounds like so much extra work.What is the upside?
There's so many.Okay, where do we start?First of all, as a content person, so I've written about CRO for 10 plus years.I am not an expert still.I don't do it day to day.I write about it, but I don't do it.
And therefore I will never know what I don't know because I'm not there every day.I don't face the problems.I'm not in a team of CRO experts.
And the only way I can really understand and connect to the audience that I'm trying to speak to is by getting insights into their world. So again, a lot of the content out there is not expert driven or it's kind of quite basic.
Again, it's not going to give me the insights.I can't just read online what a day is like in the life of a CRO person unless I go to experimentation nation, which maybe I could, but it's not the same as getting that kind of direct insight.
So using experts in your content means when I write about something, sometimes they'll say something in a quote and I'm like, I didn't even know that thing existed or that problem existed.I had no idea.
And it would take my content potentially in a different route to what I was planning because I wasn't aware of something.Also, they can just help explain really complex stuff.So I wrote about, what was it?Sequential testing, pros and cons.
very fun topic.But again, I'm not a statistician, I don't have a background in data science.And really, I had to seek expert opinions to help inform what I was writing to check that what I was writing was correct. So that's one very good reason.
The other reason is that content is very boring often.Most people, especially if you have a client that wants you to write in a professional tone of voice, which I kind of call boring, it's just very dry.
And if the subject's dry as well, no human's actually going to want to read this.Like it might be good for SEO, but nothing else.If you want to create something that
genuinely engages people and people actually find useful and actually want to read in their own time when they're not being forced to read it, then pulling in those insights from people that have lived experiences and to tell stories, it just makes it so much more interesting and so much more valuable when you can illustrate it with a story.
So short of me fabricating them, I have to go out and ask people.
Do you think that there are different types of content where expertise is more warranted or less warranted?And I guess what I'm thinking is, in some cases, I know you mentioned you weren't an SEO expert, but let's say you've got
a query that is pretty much just a quick answer, right?A definitional thing where it's like, they just want to come in and see what ABM means.That to me is maybe like a different intent than like a deep dive playbook on how somebody does ABM.
And even content formats, right?Like a long form blog post has a lot of surface area with which you can weave in those quotes. I don't know, I'm thinking about a LinkedIn post that I would write.How do I pull somebody's expertise into that?
And is that increment of content worth, I guess, reaching out and spending the time?Is there a difference in the type of content you're creating and how willing you are or how valuable it is to go reach out to those experts?
I think it depends how big your little black book is or how good the tools are that you're using.
If it's easy to reach out to experts and you know that you have a good relationship with certain people that you can maybe get a quick quote from for something you need, I would say it generally adds enough value versus the time it takes to still do it.
Obviously, you don't want to just shoehorn stuff in for the sake of it. But honestly, it really does add like I'm just thinking like case studies would be good.
Like if even if you're writing a research paper, like to get opinions on research findings from experts, even if you know you're writing a white paper where you've commissioned your own research.
In that case, I would still reach out for shorter pieces of content like you're saying, like social media. I don't know that I would necessarily source an expert opinion just for that.
But what I would probably do is use something that I've written in a longer form and then feature that.Because one of the other benefits of using experts is distribution.So again, like so much content you write, no one ever reads.
And especially if the client doesn't have a big social media presence or doesn't have a massive network and is just starting out, using these experts and featuring them and then
that encourages them to share it with their networks, opens up your business and brand to a whole new audience of people that you might not have spoken to before.
How explicit are you in leveraging that as a distribution channel?Like, do you go out and... Sorry, let me just back up and say there was a tactic for a while where people were merely using experts, which sometimes weren't experts,
on Roundup posts with like, you know, 35, 70 quotes, like just, hey, what do you think?What's your number one SEO tip?Right.Which wasn't actually like filtering any signal from noise.It was just getting as many people on a list as you could.
So they go push it out of their social.So like, I don't think that's what you're going for.But how explicit are you?And, you know, when somebody gives you a quote, once they're published, do you go out and say like, hey, can you share this?
Like, here's here's a little snippet you can share.Or is it more of like an implicit like, they see their name in publication, they're more likely to say, hey, this is a cool article that I contributed to.Yeah.
Some clients do ask if they've commissioned the work and explicitly ask for experts to be featured in it.They do ask that I ask them.Personally, I never make anyone because you can't make somebody.
And I wouldn't want to say that I'm not going to feature expertise if you don't. I think as long as you write content that's good, they want to share it.
Like the response I've had every time I've shared the link, like people chase me for the link and then I send it to them and they're like, this is really good.I'm like, yeah, I would hope so.
And then obviously they want to share it because they're proud that they're in a piece of content that they approve of and think is good.And they're obviously featured in it.So it makes them look better.
So, yeah, I mean, the spammy stuff is always going to exist, but it's not what I would be going for.
And I don't really think it's a great strategy saying that I have done roundups with 91 people in them or more where we've like featured experts, for example, in like the top industry people to know.And I think there is value in that.
So it's just it just depends.I wouldn't be getting quotes for that, though.I was like featuring them as experts in their bios.So, yeah, it depends.Depends what you're going for, really.But I think as long as it's good content.
I think you're hitting on something actually really interesting and important, which it's almost like a heuristic that is intangible in a way.A lot of marketers will sort of check the box and say, alright, this is possible.
It hits our minimal QA standards.But a really interesting heuristic for a piece of content is like, would somebody sharing this be proud to share it?
And you could apply that to an audience member who's not in the piece, but also the people you're including.Because I'm thinking of so many examples where I've been waiting for that link.
Or if I've been a guest on a podcast, I'm so excited for it to come out because the person asked such great questions.It was so engaging.Whereas other times, I cynically I'm like, all right, I'm just going to get a backlink from this post.
And then they asked me to share it.And I'm like, there is no way in hell I'm sharing this blog post.
I'm not going to waste my social capital, my whatever equity I have on LinkedIn or whatever the platform is, by sharing this clearly just like bad piece of content.
Exactly.I feel exactly the same.
So there's a responsibility for the creator.Yeah.
Yeah.No, I've been in exactly the same position where I'm like, I wouldn't share this, but thanks.I'm just going to ignore your message.Yeah, I think that's actually a really great question to ask yourself if you're doing content.
Would you share this on your own social media?And if the answer is no, you probably need to go back to the drawing board.
Well, you mentioned also a sort of frustration point of yours, which is this lack of sort of diversity in expert contributors, people who give quotes, who contribute, who collaborate with you on content.
Can you speak to that frustration at a high level and potentially into how you're working on solving that?
Yeah, I think it's a really interesting one because
Traditionally, like journalists who would be the people who seek experts or people to interview, they had their methods and they had their own systems and their little black books and methods of getting people for interviews.
But as the landscapes changed, you know, random SaaS tools now are media empires as well.And they sometimes have as big an audience as
you know, some of the traditional media, there are more and more content creators, there's more and more editors and people out there who aren't from traditional journalistic backgrounds or PR backgrounds, who haven't gone through that kind of understanding of how to source quotes and how to get them.
And I think Part of what used to happen was a very closed network and you didn't get to see inside it.Either you knew a journalist and therefore you got opportunities or you didn't.And there was no easy route into that.
And because of that, it meant that only certain types of people would get seen and heard in media.
As the landscape's kind of broadening, and like I said, there's now everyone, everyone and their mother is a media producer, has a blog, etc., a newsletter, etc.There are more people out there now creating content looking for experts.
And I think when they first start out, it's easy to go for the easy people to respond, which typically tend to be
senior people in businesses, if you're working in the B2B space like me, because of the dynamics we have in the world, it traditionally is male.It's traditionally of a certain age group, a certain economic background potentially.
So already you kind of get a very homogenous group of people responding.And it genuinely takes more time and effort to get different people.And I think that's why A lot of the time, a lot of content is a race to the bottom.
So people aren't spending the right amount of time to go out and get these experts.But there's so much value in it.And there's so many good reasons why you should.
Because if you keep creating the same content with the same people, it's all going to end up in the same.I don't know how many times I've seen certain names, I'm not going to name any names, but certain people mentioned
in industries where you read a blog post, it's like, oh, another quote from so and so.I wonder what they have to say now.There's only so much content that one person can support.
I don't need to know their life story in every quote, in every content piece.So if we don't see other people as well, it gives everyone the sense that it's not for them.So I don't see many...
female founders, you know, who are severely dyslexic writing about how they got into the content world. mainly because probably a lot of them don't want to publicize that fact.Sorry to my clients who might not know that.
But there's a reason why we need to see more people like this, because it gives other people the inspiration that they too can do this.
And I think as well, it adds that level of trust and credibility for brands using these experts from more diverse backgrounds, because it shows that they understand it's not just
one type of person, you know, if you're trying to speak, again, like if you're a brand and you're trying to speak to, for example, a female audience, featuring females in your content would be a really great start.Often that doesn't happen though.
So I've gone really off topic there and I've forgotten your question and just blabbered.
No, no, this is interesting.I think I can, I probably, this isn't going to pull us back.This is probably going to bring us down a different tributary.But there's two things that came to mind there because I've seen this as well.
One possible reason is a little bit more logical and It's friction in my mind.It's that, you know, there's a high level of visibility.So do you know what the Matthew effect is?No.Tell me.
It's some biblical thing, but in the Bible, there's some quote, it's like, to whoever has a lot, more is given.It's essentially like a snowball effect, right?It's like the rich get richer type concept.
And I think that if you are, you know, an average content marketer, a marketer who's strapped for time, and you're thinking, all right, I need to support my piece with quotes from SEO experts, like I have a top of mind awareness
of people who are already industry experts, and maybe that's because they've written a book years ago, or because they speak at conferences often, or because they post on LinkedIn often, and that's where you spend your time.
So you see them, you think, okay, I'm gonna go get Kevin Indig, and I'm gonna get Lily Ray, even though they've probably been quoted many times before, and there's probably somebody I haven't heard of who may be able to answer the specific question that I have, and they're more relevant to the specific thing that I wanna know.
So I think there's something about friction and potentially we can talk about how your platform helps solve that and maybe makes more people visible.But there's another component too that came to mind, which is, do you know Finn McEntee?
No, off the top of my head.
Okay, so he's famous on YouTube.He runs this channel called The Punk Rock MBA.And we work with him.He's consulting with us on LinkedIn.And I was really inspired.We did a podcast with him, but he's written about this on his newsletter too.
One of his missions and anchors to his content that he creates is that he believes that the people who most want fame and visibility are generally the people who deserve it the least.
And then there's these people who don't think about that, who have these treasure troves of knowledge within them that And that's who he wants to help.
He wants to basically say, all right, I'm going to give you a toolkit that can make you more visible.Because if you don't speak about your work, if you don't make yourself visible, then it's going to be really difficult to find those opportunities.
So I see there's this kind of like combination between those two things that can help maybe, you know, lift some people who probably deserve more visibility into the limelight where they get picked off because they're a little bit more visible.
I totally agree with that.I actually wrote about this on LinkedIn the other day.
And I think a lot of the feedback I get from certain people that haven't done a lot of media speaking before or providing quotes, the word expert puts them off because they don't consider themselves good enough to be an expert.
And at the same time, we have a lot of people on LinkedIn who post daily and say to the world that they are experts every day.And I would argue maybe not always an expert, but yet very happy to share constantly.And I think that's a bit of a problem.
I find a lot of the people that are posting so, so, so much on LinkedIn become content creators and not experts in what it was that they originally did.And again, you kind of have that issue when you get quite senior within businesses.
You know, if we're looking for subject matter expertise, often it's the middle layer of people that are actually hands on the tools every day. coming across the problems, really expert in what they're doing.
But a lot of the times, content people or media people will be looking for like the most senior person in the organization to provide a quote.And often they're quite far removed from the actual activity.So not always the best person to quote.
So yeah, I kind of agree with what you were just saying about like the people that are the most famous aren't always the best people.And I think that's really true.And it's why, again, on Antiquoted,
Specifically, all the targeting and the brand and the partnerships I'm trying to build to get people onto the platform, these experts, is all focused at finding diverse voices who aren't necessarily at the top of the businesses, but are actually doing the doing.
every day.And even if they're quite new in the career, I think there's still a lot to add.
Like there will be cases where you're writing content where actually you want some really fresh perspective from somebody who's only, you know, two to five years into their career.
And you want to find out, you know, what is it like getting into CRO now after, you know, the industry's supposedly matured yet still hasn't.So, you know, sometimes I want that kind of input.And I think
There's no real place for them to self-serve and put themselves out there and say, I'm willing to provide a comment.
But AnyQuote is now that place, hopefully, for people to say, yeah, actually, you know what, I do have an opinion and I do have some interesting stories to share.
OK, I haven't got a PR representative and I don't have any media contacts, but AnyQuote, I don't need any of those things.I just need to set up my profile and the people will come to me if they if they want my expertise.
Amazing.I'm going to plant a flag.There's a question I want to ask on how you can make it easier or less friction for those people who maybe aren't used to providing quotes.But it's really making me think on this one.
I think there is like a quality dimension of the insights, like the closer you are to the work.
Because even if I'm reflecting on my own role, you know, I kind of oscillate between like a marketer and creator and then like an operator in the business and like actually doing the SEO work.
And I really find that there's a balancing act and I can't completely disappear from the ecosystem, or I'm going to suffer in terms of pipeline and I'm not going to be as visible.
But when I go too far to that side of the spectrum, I start to feel like much more of a creator and less of a creator, more of a commentator. I end up being very dialed in on what the industry zeitgeist is and what people are talking about.
And I end up almost riffing against those things, instead of speaking from my hands on first person experience, which I think creates a lower quality of content in a very interesting way.So there's certainly a balancing act there.
Yeah.I mean, to take the CRO industry, this is very niche for a lot of your listeners, I imagine. Everybody on LinkedIn still to this day argues whether it should be called experimentation or conversion rate optimization.
I don't know how many times I've seen this hot take.It's not hot.Nobody cares.People doing the job don't give a shit.
But yeah, on LinkedIn, if you were to look on, I'm sure in the last month, there will be someone who's posted about this big debate that's really important.
I'm just going to shout out to Justin Rondo here, if you know him.
We have a running text thread from years now, years, I think since like 2017 or something like that, where every time we see a take about the name CRO, we send it to each other and we're like, again.
It's been so many years at this point.
I too, I feel like that really needs to stop.But yeah, here we are.Never mind.
Well, before I ask the question on how you make it maybe easier for the expert, logistically, we have an editorial operation.We do a lot of subject matter expert interviews, people in-house with the client, like sales team engineers.
It depends on the business.And then sometimes we'll procure external SMEs as well.But I'm always looking to improve that process.And for people who don't do it at all, How do you recommend the process of like, how do you find an expert?
How do you select the right ones to work with?And how do you work with them for the content creation process?What does that look like in practice?
Yeah, there's a lot of different ways it can work.So usually like if I get a content brief or an idea, I kind of start with the layout and I think about the different sections or what I think is going to be covered.
And then I start to think about maybe questions that I can't answer or things I think is super relevant that maybe need illustrating with a story.
I think when I've done that, I tend to ask better questions of the experts versus going out with just a title of my content.And I'm like, give me a quote about what you think about this topic.
Because often they're very broad and people tend to say the same things, which are usually the obvious things.
So it's good to kind of, I mean, even getting to the point of a first draft and then going out and saying, you know, this section I think could really do with something, some more colour being added.
Do you actually send them the section that you had written or do you kind of abstract out and ask a question and just send them the question?
Often I don't send them the content and a lot of the times it depends what type of content I'm writing.
Recently I've been doing a lot of roundups so it's been more kind of box type questions like give me your opinion on this and then constructing a piece of content around that.
Whereas if I was writing more of a how to piece of content or kind of long form where it's just me writing as opposed to focusing so much on the experts, then I would be looking for more detail.
I still probably wouldn't share the piece, but I would give a really clear overview of what it is I'm looking for, what I want their opinion on, how I want them to present it, how many words, how I want them, like what kind of stuff, like is it first person examples of, you know, your experience of this thing happening?
And generally I would try to search for people like before anti-quoted.There are obviously services out there you can use where you can put out a pitch and have people just respond to you.
The problem I found with those are that you tend to get a lot of rubbish and a lot of people that aren't qualified to respond, responding, which then creates more work for me because then I have to respond to them all saying, thank you.
but unfortunately I can't use this because you work in sales and I was asking you about HR or something like that.So it tended to create more friction and more time for me.
with platforms like anti-quoted or kind of going old school and like finding people yourself on LinkedIn.LinkedIn route takes a lot of time, but you can be super specific on what you're looking for.
So looking at certain brands that they've worked for, looking at what they've written, what their tags are on their profile, what they post about.Obviously there's a whole treasure trove of information.
So if I'm writing about a specific topic, I might even search on LinkedIn for posts and then see who's already talking about the subject that I'm looking for insight on.
I used to love scouring forums too, for that reason, like people who maybe like were, it was clear to me that they were writing out of passion and not necessarily to like generate leads or like be famous or something.
Somebody who just like wrote 200 Quora responses and you're like, why?
Yeah and they do exist it's mad.Yeah some people are real like thought leaders on Quora is quite insane.Yeah again like it just depends on the client and the subject but Reddit is another great resource for that kind of stuff.
Just general blogs like searching who's writing on stuff already.So that's how I would have done it traditionally before I built Antiquated. Now that I've built Antiquoted, I'm starting to attract those subject matter expertise onto the platform.
So I can create a pitch and have it open as it is on other platforms, but then obviously anyone can respond.
But the way that Antiquoted is really different to a lot of the other platforms is that you can actually have it as a private pitch request project. and you can invite only the experts you want to respond.
So you're in kind of full control of how many responses you get and who you're asking.So it does really cut down on the like the admin of having to go back and forth with people that you aren't necessarily qualified.
And again, you can search through their profiles, they'll have their LinkedIn, they might have examples of other stuff they've done, and they've selected whether they're happy to like provide quotes or be on a podcast or whatever.
So you can search even down to diversity metrics, you can actually search on any queried.
So it really allows you to find the right expertise, the right type of voice, make sure that you're not just getting the same types of people as well, as well as focusing in on what it is that you're looking for.
And on the expert side, so we've spoken to the value a little bit, but to get more concrete, what is the value of them contributing? often reached out to people who I think would make an amazing podcast guest.And you spoke to this already.
You didn't use the words imposter syndrome, but that's the first thing that I get from them.They get very excited, but then I can tell there's a shyness and they're like, Oh, I don't know.I don't know if I have anything to say.
I don't know if I want to do that.And a podcast is a pretty extreme example because you're speaking off the cuff for usually an hour, hour and a half.But even if I'm a growth engineer, working on onboarding flows at a product-led growth company.
And I don't speak at conferences.What value can I hope to get from contributing to articles or ebooks, etc?
Okay.So I think articles and ebooks is like entry-level drug into the world of building your personal profile.Because like you say, a podcast is quite a big ask.The benefits for people is to build their own brand.
So I've done this for a lot of my clients in helping them build their personal profile to get speaking slots to provide quotes for articles.
The amount of inbound business that we got, most of the strategy for the clients I've worked for in the past has been purely around helping them build their personal profile and showing that expertise, the kind of
show don't tell by talking about stuff and going on podcasts and speaking at events.It was like we attracted the business because people could just see how passionate we were and that we really knew what we were talking about.
So I think if you are a business owner or freelancer, it's great from that sense that you can build up a sales, even though it's not salesy.
But even if you work in-house, like the ability to command a higher salary, the ability to cut through the noise when it comes to the job market, there's some real benefits in having a profile being known as the person who's an expert in XYZ.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of benefits.And I know a lot of people are quite shy and quite nervous.And that's why I think providing quotes is such a great way into it because you kind of get the bug and you realize actually it's not that hard.
All you have to do is just write down your thoughts.It's actually quite simple.
And I think there was, like I said, it's a bit of a black box before and a lot of people that don't work in media or PR or marketing have no idea how those people end up in those things, those words on blogs or in newspapers.
It's like, how does that happen?I have no idea.
And again, with Antiquoted, we're trying to handhold people, we're trying to educate people and say, super simple, create profile, someone reaches out to you, get a little box, you write your thoughts, you send it back, and then they'll tell you if they feature you or not.
So just trying to again, like break down that those barriers to like, how does this work?Where do we start?Because it is really simple once you once you know.
Yeah, absolutely.I do think on your point there.So to me, it's very obvious if you're sort of a freelancer running your own business, maintaining visibility and top of mind awareness.
But in-house, one thing that I thought of is people tend to trust you if they see you in external sources more than if you're just posting in the company Slack. And when I joined HubSpot, I had never worked at a large company before.
It was always startups.So I had no idea how to do large company politics.I later learned, and it's kind of fun once you learn the system.But initially, I had a lot of leverage because I was quoted in all these places.
hundred plus blog posts on CXL that I would see people share in the Slack.And I was like, oh man, that's pretty cool.
Or like if I would go speak at a conference about an idea loosely related to an idea I was trying to position as a big program at HubSpot, it really gave me leverage.
Once people saw that either naturally or somebody on my team shared it, it's a certain type of credibility that helps you sell ideas better internally.
Totally.And now we're talking about this, I'm starting to think, why did I not do this for myself earlier?I should have been doing this.I was busy building it for everybody else, all my clients.
And then I kind of think to myself, I really should have done that sooner myself, actually.But you don't think about it, especially when you're in a job and it's like you have commitments, you have work, but it is such a simple thing to do.
And it doesn't require that much effort. even if you're just posting a few times on LinkedIn a week, you know, that stuff can be set up to go out and you can have a profile on AnyQuote or wherever.
And, you know, it's not that much, but the benefit of like getting your name out there is so outweighed to the amount of effort of doing that kind of stuff.I think it's so valuable for people.
Absolutely.Well, hey, we're coming up on time.This has been amazing.
And I love the tactical nature of this because we hear a lot of people talking about AI and the future of content and how you've got to be specific and drive utility and be unique and information gain is a concept we hear in SEO often.
just kind of means adding new substance to the existing pool of content.But I'm curious, just open-ended, is there anything that we didn't discuss or any messages that you want to just drive home?
I do think just mentioning AI there, that I know so many people working in the content space are freaking out that their jobs are going to be taken by AI.And I think for some people that's true.
I think at the very lower end where the content quality is very low and it's just kind of basic stuff, I think yes, the bottom will move out of that and AI will replace some of that content writing.
But I think this is where the content marketers and writers and people need to look, which is the higher end of the scale where it's about quality. And it's about providing something that's truly unique, that's not just rehashed.
And expert opinion plays such an important role in that.It's not something that AI can mimic.I mean, it can, it can fabricate stuff and hallucinate, but genuine, real human experiences and stories and examples, that's so valuable.
And no AI can replace that.So I think there's going to be even more focus
as we move through this next period, to kind of combat the fear of AI and this kind of AI drivel that is just being pummeled out, is for content people to focus on the higher end, the quality, and getting those really insightful pieces of expert opinion into their pieces.
And it's what most of us want, right?It's the case where maybe if you have a very generic question around like how to change a light bulb, you're like, fuck it.I'll go to chat GPT.I don't really care who tells me how to change a light bulb.
But if I'm reading advice on how to build a startup, I kind of want to know from somebody who's done it before or I want to read Paul Graham's take on that because there's some sense of like, The message flows from who is saying it.
The who is the most important component of that message.
Yeah.And like I said earlier on, there's so much stuff you don't know.And the only way that you can find out the stuff you don't know is often from somebody who's experienced it in real life.
When I moved to Singapore, there were so many things I didn't know.No one's written a blog post about it.But now I have this fountain of knowledge in my head of like,
why there are barbecue tongs in the bathrooms and you know silly cultural context things that like just so random the only I like people that have had that experience know and now none of you will know that answer unless you've been to Singapore and asked so next time you're in Singapore maybe ask but again like getting finding those people with that kind of insight and expertise and experiences it's just it can be so valuable.
I do like that we're leaving it on a little bit of a non-marketing cliffhanger so we can see what percent of the audience Googles that, chat GPTs it, or asks somebody who's been there.
Well, thank you so much.This has been awesome.Where can people find you online?
I'm on LinkedIn.Of course I am.No wanky bollocks.Antiquated.com.And yeah, I think that's it.I've given up with Twitter.So yeah, less said about that.Come find me there.
Most of us have.Yeah.Awesome.Thank you so much.
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