1303: 3 Ways to Scale Your Content (Without Sacrificing Quality) w/ Steve Pockross

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.080 --> 00:00:08.750 Welcome back to BB growth. I'm Dan Sanchez with sweetfish media, and today 2 00:00:08.869 --> 00:00:13.470 I'm joined with Steve Pocross, who is the CEO of Verbalo. Man, 3 00:00:13.669 --> 00:00:16.469 I love the ring to that every time I read it. So how are 4 00:00:16.469 --> 00:00:19.070 you doing today, Steve? I'm doing great. Damn thanks for having me. 5 00:00:19.429 --> 00:00:22.820 That's great. Today we're going to be talking about the three emerging trends 6 00:00:23.300 --> 00:00:28.460 to scale your content without sacrificing quality. But before we do, Steve, 7 00:00:28.539 --> 00:00:31.699 can you tell us a little bit about what you and the team Everballyo been 8 00:00:31.699 --> 00:00:36.490 up to? Sure, we are a content creation marketplace platform based in Denver, 9 00:00:36.609 --> 00:00:41.210 Colorado. So we have a distributed team, about twenty five employees throughout 10 00:00:41.289 --> 00:00:44.850 Colorado and the world, and we have three thousand writers who read on our 11 00:00:44.850 --> 00:00:50.079 platform. And so we have been very active figuring out how to adjust to 12 00:00:50.159 --> 00:00:53.240 the new world order, just like many of you have been as well, 13 00:00:53.880 --> 00:00:57.840 both on the the downside of the the hard things that come out of this, 14 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:02.719 and also on the opportunities that have been immerging. So all lots happensteve, 15 00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:06.109 with the crisis taking place, a lot is changed. But what were 16 00:01:06.109 --> 00:01:10.030 the some of the trends you were seeing beforehand? With content. It's interesting. 17 00:01:10.150 --> 00:01:12.950 We a lot of trends we were seeing before. We're gradual trends that 18 00:01:14.109 --> 00:01:18.349 were that only got many of them just got accelerated with the crisis. So 19 00:01:18.469 --> 00:01:23.099 one of the big trends was the the move towards long form content from short 20 00:01:23.140 --> 00:01:26.579 form. I think so many companies short form just feels easier. You can 21 00:01:26.620 --> 00:01:30.620 really knock out a five hundred, six hundred word blog a lot quicker than 22 00:01:30.620 --> 00:01:33.329 the amount of work it takes to create a giant outline. For those of 23 00:01:33.370 --> 00:01:37.450 you who don't speak word count, that is about five paragraphs. And so 24 00:01:37.650 --> 00:01:40.290 what we saw on our business over the last three years, as we used 25 00:01:40.329 --> 00:01:44.769 to write less than seven percent of our content was a thousand words and more 26 00:01:45.409 --> 00:01:48.879 three years ago and now it's over sixty five percent and just three years. 27 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:55.120 So I think it's been acknowledged that long form is is important and what's works. 28 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:57.040 And it makes sense because people are writing more for people. They want 29 00:01:57.120 --> 00:02:01.310 higher level content and that's what they're craving. So it's moved away from kind 30 00:02:01.310 --> 00:02:05.629 of trying to beat the SEO machine to actually writing for people, which I 31 00:02:05.670 --> 00:02:07.150 think is a great trend. No, I think it's a great trend. 32 00:02:07.150 --> 00:02:10.909 I mean it's always obviously what Google's looking for and that's what they say they're 33 00:02:10.949 --> 00:02:14.949 looking for. So as a content creator myself, it's like you're trying to 34 00:02:14.949 --> 00:02:20.139 move more and more in that direction. Right exactly. So the other parts 35 00:02:20.139 --> 00:02:22.500 of the four trends are. So that was the first one. The second 36 00:02:22.699 --> 00:02:25.819 was a market trends towards moving working with experts. We also saw a big 37 00:02:25.900 --> 00:02:30.050 inversion of our our market places now made of two thirds of our clients are 38 00:02:30.169 --> 00:02:36.210 digital marketing agencies. So a lot of the marketers out there are looking towards 39 00:02:36.370 --> 00:02:38.969 Steo and content to be taken over by agencies, experts who do this day 40 00:02:39.009 --> 00:02:43.090 and day out, to guide them. And that really flip from one third 41 00:02:43.169 --> 00:02:45.719 to two thirds in a very short amount of time, over two years as 42 00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:49.960 well. The third big trend was in enhancing content. So how do you 43 00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:53.639 make content more digestible, much as higher quality, thought leadership, but also 44 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:58.750 how is it more digestible consumable by your audience? So we acquired a video 45 00:02:58.830 --> 00:03:00.870 company a couple of years ago. Many of our clients are asking us to 46 00:03:00.909 --> 00:03:05.909 add videos to their to all of their content, or to design it so 47 00:03:05.990 --> 00:03:08.349 it's broken up into pieces, which is the way that most humans like to 48 00:03:08.389 --> 00:03:13.819 read. And then there was a an emerging trend towards content. Is a 49 00:03:13.860 --> 00:03:16.020 competitive advantage. How do you use a service like us that brings together a 50 00:03:16.379 --> 00:03:21.340 market place of three thousand writers with technology to do new things that people haven't 51 00:03:21.340 --> 00:03:24.500 been able to do before? And so marketers were getting really creative with programs 52 00:03:24.539 --> 00:03:29.370 like one, one hundred unique articles every single month and things of that nature, 53 00:03:29.370 --> 00:03:31.569 which I'll talk about a little more. So the next section is like 54 00:03:31.689 --> 00:03:36.210 everything after the crisis, because the crisis, the pandemic, everything that's going 55 00:03:36.330 --> 00:03:40.210 on around the world has changed the game. So what does that mean for 56 00:03:40.409 --> 00:03:46.120 marketers moving forward? I think it means we've seen four trends that have really 57 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:47.840 emerged coming out of the crisis. First of all, the first month and 58 00:03:47.879 --> 00:03:51.400 a half was just really different. It was a month and a half of 59 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:54.199 everybody pausing and shifting. We saw just about twenty percent of our clients just 60 00:03:54.280 --> 00:03:58.550 hit the pause button, and then the ones who came back with a larger 61 00:03:58.590 --> 00:04:01.229 clients, and so there's a big move up market. Most of the clients 62 00:04:01.270 --> 00:04:05.069 that disappeared, unfortunately, were the small business is and then the larger clients 63 00:04:05.110 --> 00:04:09.710 are looking for how to go bigger. So the first big trend is an 64 00:04:09.750 --> 00:04:13.419 x and escalation of content. So I just wrote a blog post last week 65 00:04:13.460 --> 00:04:17.500 that was entitled content was always king, but then it got promoted, and 66 00:04:17.579 --> 00:04:20.899 I think that's really true. I think there are very few other sources out 67 00:04:20.939 --> 00:04:25.490 there for marketers to work we all know that we have to market through the 68 00:04:25.610 --> 00:04:29.769 recession, through through the crisis. So there's a few options and it's only 69 00:04:29.769 --> 00:04:34.129 becoming more powerful as there's more people consuming your content and looking for reasons to 70 00:04:34.170 --> 00:04:38.759 stop reading the news at the same time. So I think that's number one 71 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:42.279 are the first one was shifting up market, the second was escalation of content. 72 00:04:42.759 --> 00:04:46.079 The third is really a change in tone. First it started just with 73 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:49.399 a general sense of empathy, of writer of content having to be really thoughtful 74 00:04:49.439 --> 00:04:55.430 about what you're trying to convey, being even more kind of entering on the 75 00:04:55.509 --> 00:04:59.629 concept of inbound that you're trying to deliver something of value to your clients and 76 00:04:59.790 --> 00:05:03.110 to your audience, and just being even more thoughtful that the sales tone is 77 00:05:03.230 --> 00:05:08.180 even less valuable at this moment. And then over the last several weeks, 78 00:05:08.180 --> 00:05:15.660 as the racial kind of escalations have and injustice has have been escalated. There's 79 00:05:15.699 --> 00:05:17.980 been a lot more focus on inclusiveness and tone as well and how to change 80 00:05:17.980 --> 00:05:21.850 your your content to be inclusive. I think that's another one of those advantages 81 00:05:21.889 --> 00:05:25.569 to have if you have a pool of large pool of writers, as we 82 00:05:25.689 --> 00:05:29.569 have a really large minority group of writers as well, who can really nailed 83 00:05:29.610 --> 00:05:32.209 that in addition to other thought for writers, and the last is really a 84 00:05:32.290 --> 00:05:36.360 move towards thought leadership. It's amazing how many companies have come to us and 85 00:05:36.439 --> 00:05:40.279 say, okay, we've been talking about thought leadership content for a long time, 86 00:05:40.759 --> 00:05:45.480 but right now is is we're ready to do it. Just as an 87 00:05:45.480 --> 00:05:48.000 example, verbalio has basically I've tripled the amount of content that I've done. 88 00:05:48.439 --> 00:05:51.069 I probably did more content in the last three months than I have in the 89 00:05:51.110 --> 00:05:55.949 last four years of this job. So a big debate we've had. I 90 00:05:56.029 --> 00:05:58.670 can't say this is an internal debate. This is a big debate we've had 91 00:05:58.709 --> 00:06:01.790 with our, I don't know, agency and content marketing peers, especially out 92 00:06:01.790 --> 00:06:06.579 on linkedin. Is this thing about quality versus quantity. Where do you guys 93 00:06:06.579 --> 00:06:11.860 stand on that debate? Are you a this or that both, or how 94 00:06:11.899 --> 00:06:15.180 do you think about that. Oh, I think I have a feeling I'm 95 00:06:15.180 --> 00:06:16.980 going to repeat the exact comments that you guys have had in your debate. 96 00:06:17.139 --> 00:06:21.089 So to me there's a baseline for both. You have to have a baseline 97 00:06:21.089 --> 00:06:25.129 of quality or it's not worth writing, and you have to have a baseline 98 00:06:25.209 --> 00:06:28.850 of quantity or it's not worth producing much either because you won't get noticed. 99 00:06:29.449 --> 00:06:30.810 So on the concept of quality, I think you have to have the right 100 00:06:30.930 --> 00:06:34.199 side, the right type of quality for the right type of audience. So 101 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:39.160 not every piece needs to be written by a New York Times author and you 102 00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:42.519 should save that type of work for your thought leadership. But you should always 103 00:06:42.519 --> 00:06:46.600 have good writers and always good subject matter experts to at least understand what you're 104 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:48.870 about. So I think it's the it's the right size is, you know, 105 00:06:48.910 --> 00:06:54.350 the quality. And then on the quantity side, this is this is 106 00:06:54.430 --> 00:06:59.189 a definitely a debate that has gone on this industry. But the hub spot 107 00:06:59.230 --> 00:07:00.579 says that basically, in order to hit a crew, you need to hit 108 00:07:00.579 --> 00:07:03.819 a critical mass in order to start scoring your seo points. So you're writing 109 00:07:03.899 --> 00:07:05.860 for a couple reasons. You're writing for U Seo. You want to get 110 00:07:05.899 --> 00:07:09.819 noticed by your audience, but we're also writing for brand. You want to 111 00:07:09.899 --> 00:07:13.500 bring people through your funnel. They're going to read at least fourteen pieces of 112 00:07:13.620 --> 00:07:16.449 your content before they actually make a buying decision for you. So you want 113 00:07:16.449 --> 00:07:19.649 to have good quality so that once you actually bring them to your site and 114 00:07:19.689 --> 00:07:24.009 you score point with Google, that you actually score point with closing them as 115 00:07:24.050 --> 00:07:28.449 well. And so hub spot says that's like twenty blogs a month. I 116 00:07:28.529 --> 00:07:30.600 don't really know what that is. That's interesting. I didn't know that they 117 00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:32.519 said that. What do what do you kind of put that? Because I 118 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:35.120 get asked that all the time. How many blogs do I need to write 119 00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:38.519 a month? And I'm like kind of the round question, but if you 120 00:07:38.600 --> 00:07:41.639 could give an answer to that question, since you guys published so much, 121 00:07:41.720 --> 00:07:44.670 what have you seen we do? So the thing that I can answer is 122 00:07:44.790 --> 00:07:48.470 what agencies do with as experts in content marketing. And so the average agency 123 00:07:48.589 --> 00:07:54.269 is as having their clients. The smaller clients are posting less less than ten 124 00:07:54.389 --> 00:07:59.019 and the larger clients are posting between twenty and upwards, and so basically, 125 00:07:59.420 --> 00:08:01.779 those who can afford it, they're giving more seo power to buy adding more 126 00:08:01.819 --> 00:08:05.379 content. My other thought on this is there's kind of two concepts. There's 127 00:08:05.379 --> 00:08:09.060 how much you should publish per month and how much you should just have in 128 00:08:09.100 --> 00:08:11.889 your arsenal of content for people to find you. And so I've also read 129 00:08:13.089 --> 00:08:15.569 pieces along the way which, of course, all of these are controversial, 130 00:08:16.009 --> 00:08:20.410 but that you need to have a critical, massive content in order to as 131 00:08:20.449 --> 00:08:24.129 a starting point and which is, you know, two hundred plus pieces in 132 00:08:24.250 --> 00:08:28.199 order for you to really be seen as a thought leader and to start having 133 00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:31.799 those monthly blog post actually add value to you. So did you say hub 134 00:08:31.840 --> 00:08:35.159 spot needed? Want was asking for twenty pieces a week or a month? 135 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:39.960 A month is with a month? Okay, I think that's actually doable for 136 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:43.269 most people. That comes down to, you know, just over two pieces 137 00:08:43.350 --> 00:08:46.110 a week. Now it's three, about three to four pieces a week. 138 00:08:46.590 --> 00:08:52.990 So that's pretty doable. And my experience we were publishing two blogs a week 139 00:08:54.029 --> 00:08:56.379 and just saw slow and steady growth. You know, you're picking up a 140 00:08:56.419 --> 00:09:01.139 few thousand more visits to your blog every year by publishing that. Right when 141 00:09:01.139 --> 00:09:05.100 I was able to figure out how to shift to ten to twenty a week, 142 00:09:05.139 --> 00:09:09.889 well that's that's game changing growth and traffic we started seeing and I just 143 00:09:11.409 --> 00:09:15.169 I'm like I'll never go back. Once I started seeing the games from posting 144 00:09:15.210 --> 00:09:18.889 that much more content, I was like this is it. But I think 145 00:09:18.009 --> 00:09:22.330 twenty twenties a month is a good baby like not a baby step, it's 146 00:09:22.330 --> 00:09:26.639 a huge milestone. It's a good step towards publishing. That and two hundred 147 00:09:26.679 --> 00:09:31.159 pieces for not leadership really does ring true in my mind. It takes quite 148 00:09:31.159 --> 00:09:33.720 a bit to be seen that way. You have to publish a lot. 149 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:37.000 There's got to be all out out there. I think so, and hence 150 00:09:37.039 --> 00:09:41.149 we get so I think so tubs about called twenty kind of the inflection point 151 00:09:41.230 --> 00:09:43.470 in the article that I just read, which I think is really interesting, 152 00:09:43.509 --> 00:09:48.230 and I think it's a way to think about your content strategy, which is 153 00:09:48.350 --> 00:09:50.190 if you want to produce four blogs a month, to blogs a month, 154 00:09:50.309 --> 00:09:52.740 just something that's kind of keep the lights on. And if you think of 155 00:09:54.379 --> 00:09:58.379 like the Classic Tea Marketing Diagram of all the things that every marketer has to 156 00:09:58.419 --> 00:10:01.980 do, well, there's so many of them, and so where do you 157 00:10:01.019 --> 00:10:03.379 want to go deep? So do you want to just make a scratch and 158 00:10:03.460 --> 00:10:05.460 just keep the lights on, or do you want to make this part of 159 00:10:05.539 --> 00:10:09.450 your competitive strategy? And I think twenty is the point where you're basically investing 160 00:10:09.490 --> 00:10:13.929 and saying this is where my growth is coming from. Another thing you said 161 00:10:13.970 --> 00:10:18.529 that really stood out to me that I wrote down immediately and I hope everybody 162 00:10:18.529 --> 00:10:22.720 else really picks up on it, is that you're essentially putting a quality scale 163 00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:26.360 to your your content pieces. You're saying, okay, these types of pieces 164 00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:28.600 only need to be the list level of quality, but these pieces need to 165 00:10:28.639 --> 00:10:33.919 be the highest quality we can possibly make, and I think actually giving a 166 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:39.429 grade or a level two different types of pieces that you're producing really helps you 167 00:10:39.470 --> 00:10:41.750 produce the quantity, because then you're not wasting effort on the wrong pieces. 168 00:10:43.509 --> 00:10:48.309 If you're doing a library style, which generally if you're posting twenty plus blog 169 00:10:48.429 --> 00:10:50.700 post a month, you're creating a library of content, because no one can 170 00:10:50.740 --> 00:10:54.299 really keep up with that. By a newsletter, then there's going to be 171 00:10:54.379 --> 00:10:58.539 different kinds of content. Not all of it needs to be your top quality, 172 00:10:58.580 --> 00:11:01.100 your best writers, your most funny or the longest post that you write. 173 00:11:01.940 --> 00:11:05.129 So that to take away that, I'm taking for sure to even start 174 00:11:05.169 --> 00:11:09.169 applying a sweet fish right away. I'm glad to hear that. I think 175 00:11:09.169 --> 00:11:11.450 it's a it's a big one for us to and so one of the the 176 00:11:11.570 --> 00:11:16.649 examples of that is how is companies coming to us with ebooks in pillar pieces, 177 00:11:16.929 --> 00:11:20.600 kind of the and then turning those into like a hubband spoke model, 178 00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:24.440 which is something that up about is also been advocating for many years, which 179 00:11:24.440 --> 00:11:26.200 is like you get your best writer or you get your thought leader in the 180 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:30.720 company to write that Ebook, but you can turn that into you fifty, 181 00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:33.710 a hundred pieces of supporting blogs, one for each segment of it, by 182 00:11:33.789 --> 00:11:37.389 using a great group of writers who are just great writers and understand you, 183 00:11:37.750 --> 00:11:41.429 but don't have to have anyone near the level of subject matter expertise or depth 184 00:11:41.549 --> 00:11:45.629 that you have to do it. That's right. We use pillar pieces all 185 00:11:45.629 --> 00:11:48.259 the time and in fact this podcast is what we consider a pillar piece that 186 00:11:48.299 --> 00:11:52.379 we break up into smaller pieces. So I've always been interested in figuring out 187 00:11:52.419 --> 00:11:56.539 now, how do you scale the content, because when you're first starting out, 188 00:11:56.580 --> 00:12:00.779 even writing one blog post a week is so intimidating. Now we can 189 00:12:01.019 --> 00:12:03.730 take a pillar piece and break it up into smaller pieces, but how have 190 00:12:03.850 --> 00:12:09.649 you figured out how to leverage freelancers and kind of the new I don't want 191 00:12:09.649 --> 00:12:13.889 to kind of the GIG economy, but the new way like work is unfolding 192 00:12:13.330 --> 00:12:18.559 here in the world, especially after the pandemic hit. How are you guys 193 00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:22.960 leveraging that to accelerate your content creation? So I think this is one of 194 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:26.360 the most interesting opportunities out there and I think that this concept of how do 195 00:12:26.440 --> 00:12:30.830 you bring so we think of it is how do you bring together a marketplace 196 00:12:31.070 --> 00:12:35.509 of great talent with the all of the positives that have come out of the 197 00:12:35.590 --> 00:12:39.190 SASS technology revolution, which was how do you specialize in one work form, 198 00:12:39.350 --> 00:12:43.509 work one work type, put on a platform and make it scalable and optimize 199 00:12:43.590 --> 00:12:46.700 that one work type? So the way I think of it is how you 200 00:12:46.860 --> 00:12:50.539 do this with, for with skilled labor? So the the trends bit of 201 00:12:50.620 --> 00:12:52.580 come out that. The I think, the GIG economy trends that most people 202 00:12:52.580 --> 00:12:56.059 are most familiar with. Our Uber, of course, which is all about 203 00:12:56.139 --> 00:13:01.809 how do you create a technology that delivers a solution optimally, in a really 204 00:13:01.889 --> 00:13:05.970 efficient way, but using people more as low end kind of commodity labor in 205 00:13:07.009 --> 00:13:09.289 order to get there? And then you have your craigslist in your upworks, 206 00:13:09.289 --> 00:13:13.080 which are all about how do you find the most skilled person, somebody who 207 00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:18.480 could have your exact same you know your exact niche. You're looking for Swedish 208 00:13:18.519 --> 00:13:22.759 people who specialize and diesel mechanics, like in the Arctic Ocean or something that 209 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:26.320 you can find that person, but then you just replicate all of the challenges 210 00:13:26.399 --> 00:13:28.750 of a one to one freelance relationship, of not being able to scale that 211 00:13:28.909 --> 00:13:33.750 talent. So where I think this is we're moving above micro tasks. We're 212 00:13:33.789 --> 00:13:37.870 moving into skilled labor tasks on the continuingum and I think this is going to 213 00:13:37.950 --> 00:13:41.899 be a trend bringing together that skilled labor and different work types. That's going 214 00:13:41.940 --> 00:13:45.580 to parallel SASS and the way that sales forth started all off. We started 215 00:13:45.659 --> 00:13:50.820 with marketing automation and then slowly we've worked into HR and every other kind of 216 00:13:50.580 --> 00:13:54.620 vertical that was out there. So that's kind of like the high level trends 217 00:13:54.659 --> 00:13:58.210 and then I'll tell you what we actually do. So I basically think about 218 00:13:58.210 --> 00:14:00.730 our business as having three legs of the stool. So we have this market 219 00:14:00.769 --> 00:14:03.850 place where we have three thousand writers and I think having the right size market 220 00:14:03.889 --> 00:14:07.289 place is really critical. You want to have a large enough to get a 221 00:14:07.370 --> 00:14:11.080 breath of voice, a breath of availability so that you can scale and be 222 00:14:11.200 --> 00:14:15.799 flexible but also maintain the level of quality where if your market place gets too 223 00:14:15.879 --> 00:14:18.120 big, you can't actually control it. So to me, the ideas how 224 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:22.240 do you build a right size team for your company as opposed to having an 225 00:14:22.279 --> 00:14:28.029 individual relationship? And then the SASS platform is to make the experience is content 226 00:14:28.110 --> 00:14:31.789 creation is a very friction filled process involves lots of back and forth. If 227 00:14:31.830 --> 00:14:33.909 you're creating twenty pieces of month. We have clients that are creating twelve hundred 228 00:14:33.950 --> 00:14:39.220 pieces of a month of content, giving feedback to every single writer and delivering 229 00:14:39.259 --> 00:14:41.899 it to post it on their cms. It has to be repe bust and 230 00:14:41.980 --> 00:14:46.820 has to be easy to use, but it also has to basically get smarter 231 00:14:46.899 --> 00:14:48.860 as it goes, like any good platform, and so what we're trying to 232 00:14:48.899 --> 00:14:54.090 do is get all of the feedback that any client would give to any individual 233 00:14:54.210 --> 00:14:56.610 writer and give it to any writer that would ever work for them. And 234 00:14:56.690 --> 00:15:00.889 so basically that means that the onboarding process is like with any writer. You 235 00:15:00.970 --> 00:15:03.610 take a while to get your preferences, but once you get there you don't 236 00:15:03.610 --> 00:15:05.330 have to train our system again. We have a pool of writers for you 237 00:15:07.159 --> 00:15:09.159 and the third leg of the stool is professional services, which is that we 238 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:13.440 started out as a selfserve market place. Come get your content, tell us 239 00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:16.519 what you want, or tell the writer what you want and they'll get it 240 00:15:16.639 --> 00:15:18.399 to you. But the idea of the the platform, takes a lot of 241 00:15:18.440 --> 00:15:22.950 the friction out of the transfer of knowledge to the writer and we found that 242 00:15:24.950 --> 00:15:28.070 every company has different needs, like, in addition to needing flexible writing capacity, 243 00:15:28.190 --> 00:15:33.509 they need flexible content management capacity. From the basics, like you know, 244 00:15:33.710 --> 00:15:37.220 can you SEO optimize this post? Can you prove for you to? 245 00:15:37.259 --> 00:15:39.340 Can you post it on my cmsk? Can you add video to an all 246 00:15:39.419 --> 00:15:43.259 in? I don't even want to look at your content or at your platform. 247 00:15:43.620 --> 00:15:46.500 I just need you to take over. Either I don't have those skills 248 00:15:46.539 --> 00:15:50.250 on my team or I need to add this as an additional capacity. And 249 00:15:50.370 --> 00:15:52.970 so I think you put those three things together, I'll go. That's the 250 00:15:52.049 --> 00:15:56.210 market place, this as platform and professional services and you can do really compelling, 251 00:15:56.330 --> 00:16:02.090 interesting things, which will hit on in a few so are you taking 252 00:16:02.210 --> 00:16:04.639 writers and then given them the content they need, the right or you finding 253 00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:10.679 experts and then training them how to write? So we are definitely taking writers 254 00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:14.000 in training them. Well, we're not a training them point. We're taking 255 00:16:14.080 --> 00:16:17.919 experts you have already proven themselves in verticals and we write for this one of 256 00:16:17.960 --> 00:16:19.950 my favorite stats. We write for forty different verticals. Thirty nine of them 257 00:16:19.990 --> 00:16:25.509 are thirty nine of them are the standard verticals and then the forty is other. 258 00:16:25.669 --> 00:16:27.789 And fifty two percent of our clients say that they write for their and 259 00:16:27.909 --> 00:16:30.950 other. So what that means is that we have to be able to write 260 00:16:30.990 --> 00:16:36.179 strong and most of the larger verticals, but also it's a key to that 261 00:16:36.340 --> 00:16:41.539 we can write from niche for niche businesses as well, and so I think 262 00:16:41.580 --> 00:16:45.419 it's a lot easier to to give subject matter to a great writer and teach 263 00:16:45.419 --> 00:16:48.850 them how to use their skills like a good journalist. Our companies founded by 264 00:16:48.850 --> 00:16:52.009 a journalist, so this kind of mentality has flown through. Then taking a 265 00:16:52.570 --> 00:16:56.690 mechanic or an engineer and teaching them to to write a lifetime skill. So 266 00:16:56.809 --> 00:17:02.120 essentially, if you need a an article about scuba diving, you go and 267 00:17:02.200 --> 00:17:04.839 find a dive master that actually knows how to write exactly. So it's a 268 00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:07.240 lot easier. So if you're going to do that your first we're going to 269 00:17:07.319 --> 00:17:11.839 find you a writer the most knows kind of that's most aligned to their subjects. 270 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:15.910 The way, we have a lot of we've we thought a lot of 271 00:17:15.990 --> 00:17:21.269 the model about how to incent and make a make make quality scale, which 272 00:17:21.349 --> 00:17:23.509 is one of the hardest challenges in content. I think it's really easy to 273 00:17:23.549 --> 00:17:27.190 write quality content, but to right it at scale is really challenging. The 274 00:17:27.349 --> 00:17:32.819 biggest concept that we have is that we download your expertise into our platform for 275 00:17:32.859 --> 00:17:34.940 the writer to see. You're going to always know your business more and training 276 00:17:34.980 --> 00:17:37.380 them in your business is going to be a lot harder. But if they 277 00:17:37.420 --> 00:17:41.500 have familiar ready, like if they're a legal writer or a medical writer and 278 00:17:41.700 --> 00:17:44.690 already written in that field, it's a lot easier for them to figure out 279 00:17:44.730 --> 00:17:48.650 your medical device business. So it's interesting. You're you have a market place, 280 00:17:48.650 --> 00:17:52.769 yet you're finding such niche writers that I imagine it's pretty tough to go 281 00:17:52.849 --> 00:17:56.450 and find them all the time right. I mean it's hard enough to go 282 00:17:56.650 --> 00:17:59.519 find the expert you can go find those guys on linked in, but finding 283 00:17:59.599 --> 00:18:03.039 ones that I can can actually write well, I mean that's that's got to 284 00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:06.039 be a challenge. Is your market place that big that it makes a little 285 00:18:06.039 --> 00:18:07.559 bit easier to find or you find your having to hunt for these people all 286 00:18:07.599 --> 00:18:11.440 the time. So that's such an interesting question. I hadn't really thought about 287 00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:15.750 it that way. So the way. So, first of all, very 288 00:18:15.390 --> 00:18:18.829 good quality GIG economy jobs. We don't like to think of ourselves as the 289 00:18:18.910 --> 00:18:22.670 good gig economy as much, but until there's a better term, will stick 290 00:18:22.710 --> 00:18:27.140 with that quality freelance jobs where you have the ability to choose what you want 291 00:18:27.180 --> 00:18:30.779 to work on for a reasonable level of pay, where for people who respect 292 00:18:30.859 --> 00:18:34.259 you are very hard to find. And so I put this out there for 293 00:18:34.299 --> 00:18:37.819 anyone trying to go into a new business. There's a great opportunity. We 294 00:18:37.980 --> 00:18:42.130 accept four point three percent of the writers who take our application. So our 295 00:18:42.170 --> 00:18:47.410 challenge is really curating the writers that are coming to US versus seeking them. 296 00:18:47.450 --> 00:18:51.210 We put almost no effort into into seeking them, because the word of mouth 297 00:18:51.289 --> 00:18:53.849 gets around. And then the part where we bring in the subject matter of 298 00:18:53.930 --> 00:18:59.039 expertise is it's all up to us to segment those writers and to who has 299 00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:02.559 can already write about those things, because all of these writers have expertise in 300 00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:06.119 something. It's a matter of our technology and our system to make sure that 301 00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:10.109 we can segment them a boardingly so that they're available for our clients. Well, 302 00:19:10.190 --> 00:19:14.589 it's certainly a competitive advantage. I've I've hired out my my fair share 303 00:19:14.630 --> 00:19:17.029 of writers who don't know what that are talking about. It, man, 304 00:19:17.150 --> 00:19:19.670 it can just be. It just be brutally painful because they're using words that 305 00:19:19.789 --> 00:19:25.579 no industry inside or whatever whatever use. So I tend to take people who 306 00:19:25.619 --> 00:19:27.700 can write and then I just train them in the industry. But your whole 307 00:19:29.019 --> 00:19:32.660 whole league ahead if you can find someone who does both. One thing that 308 00:19:32.819 --> 00:19:36.539 people often struggle with when it comes to hiring freelances it's integrating them with the 309 00:19:36.700 --> 00:19:40.769 team. How have you guys overcome that challenge? One of my favorite examples 310 00:19:40.809 --> 00:19:44.890 of how to use the power of the market place with skilled talent is we 311 00:19:45.410 --> 00:19:48.529 as one of our legal examples. We have one of our larger clients called 312 00:19:48.529 --> 00:19:53.599 rankings DOTO. They specialize in legal and legal left Seo only for personal injury 313 00:19:53.640 --> 00:19:57.799 attorneys. They work with the top three firms and every metro area and they're 314 00:19:57.839 --> 00:20:00.839 trying to use seo as a competitive advantage. But the only way they want 315 00:20:00.880 --> 00:20:03.759 to do that is to scale the quality. They wanted to have legal oriented 316 00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:07.269 writers who are familiar with how to write in in that style, but they 317 00:20:07.269 --> 00:20:11.509 also wanted to have every single piece of content reviewed by a lawyer and do 318 00:20:11.630 --> 00:20:17.230 it at scale and affordably, and so we were able to dig with into 319 00:20:17.269 --> 00:20:21.460 our group. We have eighty kind of legal focused writers, but within there 320 00:20:21.460 --> 00:20:25.019 we also found that we had five Gd's that were just like to write more 321 00:20:25.059 --> 00:20:27.339 on our platform, and so we built a program for them a couple of 322 00:20:27.380 --> 00:20:32.420 years ago, with the JD's reviewing every single piece of content. So you 323 00:20:32.500 --> 00:20:37.130 got the best of the the JD oversight and quality, but also the scale 324 00:20:37.210 --> 00:20:42.130 of legal oriented writers who could basically enable them to create a level of content 325 00:20:42.329 --> 00:20:45.730 that no other SEO agencies could do. So then they could go to their 326 00:20:45.769 --> 00:20:48.170 clients and basically say, look, I'm going to give you an infusion of 327 00:20:48.329 --> 00:20:52.200 Seo juice into your business immediately. I'm going to give you hundreds of pieces 328 00:20:52.279 --> 00:20:56.359 of SEO or of Legal Seo content that you're all going to be proud of, 329 00:20:56.119 --> 00:21:00.319 and that's something that nobody else can bring. And so over the last 330 00:21:00.319 --> 00:21:04.470 two years we've written forty four hundred pieces of legal content reviewed by JD's for 331 00:21:04.589 --> 00:21:08.309 them, all in thirty days or less. So, Steve, one of 332 00:21:08.349 --> 00:21:12.309 the things I know marketers worry about when it comes to working with freelancers is 333 00:21:12.349 --> 00:21:17.670 learning how to take that outsider and really integrate them into the team. How 334 00:21:17.750 --> 00:21:22.099 do you see marketing teams overcoming that challenge with freelancers? So I see it 335 00:21:22.180 --> 00:21:26.420 as really similar to the bringing on a new employee situation, which is and 336 00:21:26.500 --> 00:21:27.539 I think all of us are going to have to get better this is we 337 00:21:27.619 --> 00:21:33.730 bring on more contract workers and more platforms and freelancers into our ecosystem. It's 338 00:21:33.769 --> 00:21:40.490 not going to be just buinary freelancer versus employee anymore. So one of them 339 00:21:40.609 --> 00:21:44.170 is treat them with empathy, treat them well. So our clients that give 340 00:21:44.289 --> 00:21:48.880 fair feedback to our writers and respond to them quickly. The writers just respond 341 00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:51.640 to that and it motivates them. It gets them excited they want to work 342 00:21:51.759 --> 00:21:53.839 for you. That's the same thing you would do with employee. The second 343 00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:57.720 is a period of time. There's just a reasonable amount of time for a 344 00:21:57.960 --> 00:22:03.109 new freelancer or a new employee to get your business. So usually the talk 345 00:22:03.150 --> 00:22:06.190 about the nine the day review. Where you think about it when you come 346 00:22:06.269 --> 00:22:08.269 into Tivertleo, we're going to test out a bunch of writers are going to 347 00:22:08.349 --> 00:22:11.390 try and you're going to tell us which ones you like and you're going to 348 00:22:11.390 --> 00:22:14.829 share more preferences and you think you're going to tell everyone what you wanted up 349 00:22:14.829 --> 00:22:18.099 front, but you're only going to realize after you've done ten or fifteen rounds 350 00:22:18.099 --> 00:22:21.859 of feedback that there's just more and more to share, and so it's to 351 00:22:21.940 --> 00:22:26.380 be honest with your feedback and then have some patience of like, we're investing 352 00:22:26.380 --> 00:22:29.859 in you, so you should invest in us. It's kind of an interesting, 353 00:22:29.900 --> 00:22:33.930 interesting thing to think about. As more and more teams are I mean 354 00:22:33.930 --> 00:22:37.130 a good percentage of teams, even without trying to grow like like a market 355 00:22:37.170 --> 00:22:42.690 place of freelancers to really scale up tasks like like blogging, a lot of 356 00:22:42.769 --> 00:22:48.039 teams are like half or a quarter or even maybe even a ten, but 357 00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:52.920 a good size of them are now freelancers, contract workers. Almost makes me 358 00:22:52.480 --> 00:22:55.960 we have another podcast on crafting culture. I'm like, man, that'd be 359 00:22:55.960 --> 00:22:57.630 a good topic for that to talk about. How do you craft culture when 360 00:22:57.670 --> 00:23:02.670 half your team's freelance? Right whole, another whole another conversation about how to 361 00:23:03.230 --> 00:23:07.390 hold your culture and how do you build processes and systems for how to manage, 362 00:23:07.750 --> 00:23:10.630 manage that team yet still include them. But are they half included? 363 00:23:10.670 --> 00:23:12.220 Are they like half citizens? How do you deal with it? It's like 364 00:23:12.299 --> 00:23:15.980 a whole another route we could go go down, though I'd still love to 365 00:23:17.019 --> 00:23:19.619 hear any thoughts you have on it. I just I just have one, 366 00:23:19.660 --> 00:23:22.299 which is to create a human so our company was founded by a journalist and 367 00:23:22.380 --> 00:23:25.819 so it's really important to us that we do right by the writers and we 368 00:23:25.940 --> 00:23:29.609 become the preferred place that writers want to be, and so I think one 369 00:23:29.609 --> 00:23:30.930 of there's a lot of examples of how we go about that. One is 370 00:23:32.130 --> 00:23:34.089 that we think about them in the product cycle. We're building things for the 371 00:23:34.490 --> 00:23:40.009 usually the freelance workers get the shortest shrift of of the product cycles of how 372 00:23:40.049 --> 00:23:42.920 their lives improve. The second is that we communicate very actively with them. 373 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:47.119 We share as much as we can frequently, and the third is that we 374 00:23:47.160 --> 00:23:49.799 have a forum which is kind of like our water cooler for freelance workers who, 375 00:23:49.839 --> 00:23:52.920 if you think about it, this is really hard place to have a 376 00:23:52.079 --> 00:23:56.269 community. You're kind of scrapping it all together and now we're all just based 377 00:23:56.309 --> 00:24:00.670 at home trying to create our own community, and so some of that is 378 00:24:00.750 --> 00:24:03.230 work based and a lot of it is just threads about, you know, 379 00:24:03.430 --> 00:24:07.710 whatever a hobby they might be into at the time, and so it's interesting. 380 00:24:07.750 --> 00:24:10.380 It's kind of like a it's like a social media play, which is 381 00:24:10.539 --> 00:24:12.140 just like, if we make our our platform in the place they want to 382 00:24:12.140 --> 00:24:15.500 be, then they'll want to work with us even more. Make so much 383 00:24:15.500 --> 00:24:19.140 sense. What are some tips you would give for those who aren't trying to 384 00:24:19.180 --> 00:24:23.450 build a market place like Verbalo, who want to hire maybe, maybe, 385 00:24:23.529 --> 00:24:27.329 just a small handful of freelancers to help them with our content efforts? What 386 00:24:27.450 --> 00:24:30.609 are some tips you would give to businesses that are just trying to figure this 387 00:24:30.730 --> 00:24:33.410 out for the first time? I think the most important thing is to have 388 00:24:33.450 --> 00:24:37.170 a point person who's in charge of it. So if there's nobody leading the 389 00:24:37.210 --> 00:24:41.240 effort, who is Your Voice of what is content sound like and what are 390 00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:45.559 your quality standards and what is your strategy in your company, then your writers 391 00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:48.599 are going to be all over the place. If if you're the CEO and 392 00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:52.240 you're listening to this conversation, my number one recommendation is don't make that be 393 00:24:52.440 --> 00:24:56.509 you. The companies that are least successful with us are where the senior person 394 00:24:56.630 --> 00:24:59.950 is the person reviewing the content. They will always get too busy and it 395 00:24:59.990 --> 00:25:03.190 will be really hard for them to convey what they're really looking for. So 396 00:25:03.269 --> 00:25:06.950 I think one that is the absolute most important. And then you have to 397 00:25:06.990 --> 00:25:11.140 find the right balance of if you want freelancers to stick with you aren't on 398 00:25:11.220 --> 00:25:15.299 a platform like ours, you need to give them enough consistent work so that 399 00:25:15.420 --> 00:25:18.220 you're a big enough part of their business and you're in they're big enough part 400 00:25:18.259 --> 00:25:22.369 of your business so that that they want to stick with you. If you're 401 00:25:22.369 --> 00:25:26.890 not that significant to each other, it's going to be hard to stay together. 402 00:25:26.890 --> 00:25:30.609 Yeah, that make so much sense. That's we're actually working on that 403 00:25:30.650 --> 00:25:32.890 and even trying to figure out how to scale that. Here at sweet fish 404 00:25:33.289 --> 00:25:36.319 we have one guy who's in charge of an intern program. We're trying to 405 00:25:36.359 --> 00:25:41.480 get student interns. Of course we're recording all these podcasts. We're trying to 406 00:25:41.519 --> 00:25:45.200 train them how to take podcast episodes and not just transcribe them but turn it 407 00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:48.640 into a blog post. That is good for the user, but also is 408 00:25:48.759 --> 00:25:52.710 something Google's worth is looking at, so we can try to scale content that 409 00:25:52.869 --> 00:25:56.150 way. Of course, it's tricky because the podcast has to be done and 410 00:25:56.430 --> 00:26:00.509 planned accordingly in order to match what you need on the blog post. So 411 00:26:00.950 --> 00:26:04.019 that's a whole process and itself that were internally trying to crack the code on, 412 00:26:04.099 --> 00:26:07.420 but we're getting pretty close. Okay, Steve. So now we've talked 413 00:26:07.460 --> 00:26:14.579 about some of the trends that were happening post pandemic and how you guys are 414 00:26:14.619 --> 00:26:18.650 utilizing freelancers to push content for it at verbalio. But what are some emerging 415 00:26:18.730 --> 00:26:22.690 trends you see that marketers are taking advantage of in this landscape that we see 416 00:26:22.730 --> 00:26:27.849 ourselves in now? So three exciting trends that I'm seeing are all kind of 417 00:26:27.970 --> 00:26:32.960 fall under the under the bucket of content. Of content is a competitive advantage. 418 00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:37.279 How do you make content make help your company stand apart? And so 419 00:26:37.400 --> 00:26:40.839 we three see kind of a three different trends, and one of them is 420 00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:45.160 I call them amplify, customize and capture and release. We've been trying to 421 00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:48.390 find a way to put these all together. So one of the big trans 422 00:26:48.509 --> 00:26:52.750 is come is that SEO now needs to be more short term. So Seo 423 00:26:52.829 --> 00:26:55.750 is known as a longer term play. It's an investment that pays off in 424 00:26:55.789 --> 00:27:00.470 the end, but marketers need more immediates immediate impact for there Roy this year, 425 00:27:00.509 --> 00:27:03.859 especially as so many budgets are down. And so how do you amplify 426 00:27:03.019 --> 00:27:07.779 the existing assets that you have in your company? And so projects like this 427 00:27:07.940 --> 00:27:11.140 include the pillar content we were talking about before. If you have those, 428 00:27:11.180 --> 00:27:15.369 how do you turn those into and just amplify the voice of the thought leadership 429 00:27:15.369 --> 00:27:19.329 you've already done? And others are are kind of like more of your your 430 00:27:19.329 --> 00:27:22.809 day to day, your twenty blogs a week. How do you take the 431 00:27:22.890 --> 00:27:26.529 top ten percent of blogs you've been writing for the last ten years, refresh 432 00:27:26.650 --> 00:27:30.440 them with Seo, with new keywords, with new language so google recognizes them 433 00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:34.240 as new, enhance them with video and put them all out? So one 434 00:27:34.279 --> 00:27:38.880 of the big trends is doing these larger refresh projects so they're more project based 435 00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:45.670 work versus the ongoing subscription work we generally do. The second is customized, 436 00:27:45.710 --> 00:27:48.230 and this falls in line with the example I gave of the Legal Seo Agency 437 00:27:48.309 --> 00:27:52.509 rankings ioh, which is how can you think of creating a content program that 438 00:27:52.589 --> 00:27:56.750 nobody else has by using a platform like ours? So I think, like 439 00:27:56.910 --> 00:28:00.380 many business owners, there's nothing more exciting than when somebody else finds a way 440 00:28:00.420 --> 00:28:04.579 to use your platform better than you had thought of, and so think bigger. 441 00:28:06.059 --> 00:28:08.460 Most marketers think of content is I have two writers. What could I 442 00:28:08.539 --> 00:28:12.930 do with these two writers? So it's all limited by capacity and have both 443 00:28:14.049 --> 00:28:18.529 quantity and quality as posed by what is your potential? What if we could 444 00:28:18.569 --> 00:28:22.890 find five experts in your industry and put a pool of fifty writers behind them 445 00:28:22.930 --> 00:28:26.849 that are all knowledgeable? What could you do? And the third is capturing 446 00:28:26.009 --> 00:28:30.160 release, which is back to your podcast question, which is one of the 447 00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:34.119 biggest struggles that CEO's that I talk to have is where do I find time 448 00:28:34.359 --> 00:28:38.119 to write my thought leadership blog? Marketing comes to me, tells me is 449 00:28:38.160 --> 00:28:42.470 my turn and I just panic again, which is very similar to amplify, 450 00:28:42.670 --> 00:28:47.549 but about thought leadership. How do you take the thought leadership you've already done 451 00:28:47.789 --> 00:28:52.789 and turn that into written content and Seo and brand power versus having to recreate 452 00:28:52.869 --> 00:28:56.380 them? And I know I so the way that I do my system is 453 00:28:56.380 --> 00:29:00.299 basically I record podcasts and I have my chosen writers that I work with and 454 00:29:00.380 --> 00:29:04.380 they help me break that into content and then I can edit really quickly. 455 00:29:04.460 --> 00:29:07.460 I just just can't start with a blank cursor, which makes me panic, 456 00:29:08.579 --> 00:29:11.369 and so we're work with a lot of companies both how to take your existing 457 00:29:11.450 --> 00:29:15.410 podcast assets, but also you can take a series of podcasts like you were 458 00:29:15.450 --> 00:29:19.690 talking about, turn that into an Ebook, and then also just the content 459 00:29:19.809 --> 00:29:23.759 asn't have to go one way, which is repurposing. Start with written content 460 00:29:23.960 --> 00:29:27.839 in and turn into other channels. It can also go reverse. I think 461 00:29:27.880 --> 00:29:33.440 my favorite example on there is doing that content refresh. It's just the most 462 00:29:33.559 --> 00:29:37.079 lowest hanging fruit that a company can do in order to actually get the most 463 00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:40.990 out of their content get the most out of their writers. Going back, 464 00:29:41.069 --> 00:29:44.549 I know we like to go back and systematically look like what's almost ranking, 465 00:29:45.509 --> 00:29:48.950 like what's on the bottom of page one or on page two that we're like, 466 00:29:48.109 --> 00:29:52.150 hmmm, if we could just go back and rethink about what people are 467 00:29:52.269 --> 00:29:56.380 looking for and just fill it with more content to make it more in depth. 468 00:29:56.500 --> 00:29:59.660 Not that word count. I don't know. Some types Google says word 469 00:29:59.700 --> 00:30:03.940 count doesn't count and I generally say it's true, but it correlates so much 470 00:30:03.019 --> 00:30:06.700 with indepthness. It's like, how can we get some more content in there 471 00:30:06.740 --> 00:30:10.289 in order to make it rank? That's probably my favorite way to go back 472 00:30:10.329 --> 00:30:15.289 and utilize a writing team or or getting the most out of what you've already 473 00:30:15.289 --> 00:30:18.089 done. One of the other things that I thought was interesting is kind of 474 00:30:18.130 --> 00:30:22.759 following the pattern of product descriptions, which this has been done in product descriptions 475 00:30:22.839 --> 00:30:26.119 for many years in order to help you rank and ECOMMERCE and really is kind 476 00:30:26.160 --> 00:30:29.799 of catching fuel. Now. As far as how does it help your Seo 477 00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:33.400 by using your blog content to do the same thing? Absolutely so, Steve. 478 00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:38.710 What are some final thoughts you have as we look at changes impacting marketing 479 00:30:38.750 --> 00:30:42.190 teams for the future? So let me see two things, I think. 480 00:30:42.309 --> 00:30:48.509 One just want to reiterate what I said about about marketing teams moving towards ecosystems. 481 00:30:48.710 --> 00:30:52.059 Our worlds are only going to get more complicated as the number of the 482 00:30:52.220 --> 00:30:55.819 different types of of expertise a marketing team needs to have. You need to 483 00:30:55.900 --> 00:30:59.259 figure out where you want to specialize and where you want to find a strategic 484 00:30:59.339 --> 00:31:04.210 partner for. So finding those strategic partners and seeing what new developments are happening 485 00:31:04.250 --> 00:31:08.289 in the market place for who can provide you strategic advantages is almost as important 486 00:31:08.289 --> 00:31:12.210 to you as a marketer as your own marketing skill. The second is thinking 487 00:31:12.250 --> 00:31:18.250 about how do you work with with outside teams and bring them in, making 488 00:31:18.289 --> 00:31:21.119 them part of your teams. You can do you want to have an all 489 00:31:21.160 --> 00:31:23.200 hands. This is back to your culture discussion. When you have an all 490 00:31:23.240 --> 00:31:26.160 hands, how many of them are going to be there? Do you want 491 00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:29.599 to think of them as an extension of your team? Do you want to 492 00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:32.519 think them as as your team, or do you want to think them as 493 00:31:32.599 --> 00:31:36.349 outsiders who support you and how to do your work? And the third is 494 00:31:36.430 --> 00:31:41.549 just to be extremely conscious of and changing tone and and changing needs at any 495 00:31:41.589 --> 00:31:45.710 given time. I think we've all learned this in the last few months. 496 00:31:45.789 --> 00:31:48.259 But like it went from a crisis where we all had to be incredibly empathetic 497 00:31:48.339 --> 00:31:52.819 within a day come up with a message. We're here with you. Started 498 00:31:52.940 --> 00:31:56.980 out is like that sounded interesting for a day and then became not. It 499 00:31:56.059 --> 00:32:00.890 became very cliche and not compelling in two days and then we had all the 500 00:32:01.369 --> 00:32:07.089 kind of the Anti Racist Movement and all the thoughts about now you have to 501 00:32:07.170 --> 00:32:09.690 be really even more thoughtful about inclusiveness. So used to be a nice to 502 00:32:09.769 --> 00:32:13.569 have and now it's a Muss to have. And so having your finger on 503 00:32:13.609 --> 00:32:17.119 the pulse of changing themes of content and how that moves into your marketing at 504 00:32:17.160 --> 00:32:22.400 all times. I think it is just an extra layer of it's just a 505 00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:25.920 it's an exciting and intense time to be a marketer, Gosh, because it's 506 00:32:25.960 --> 00:32:29.880 so hard. You want to be able to create a whole system in process 507 00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:34.269 in order to scale and do things well, scale the quantity and the quality, 508 00:32:34.829 --> 00:32:37.150 but at the same time you still have to be flexible to be able 509 00:32:37.190 --> 00:32:40.549 to not sound like you're not listening to anything that's going on in the world, 510 00:32:40.549 --> 00:32:44.779 because things change and some big things have happened, so big and so 511 00:32:44.980 --> 00:32:50.740 fast that a lot of companies seemed deaf, like they couldn't understand what the 512 00:32:50.779 --> 00:32:52.420 heck was going on, so kept publishing the same things over and over again 513 00:32:52.460 --> 00:32:55.779 without talking about what was happening. I give an example of how we had 514 00:32:55.819 --> 00:33:00.130 to pivot really quickly. So we are our biggest campaign. We are finally 515 00:33:00.170 --> 00:33:04.210 going to do social marketing, which we've been working on for a long time, 516 00:33:04.329 --> 00:33:07.450 and we had worked on a campaign where I was in a pharmacy coat 517 00:33:07.609 --> 00:33:12.650 as a fake doctor, doing like a you know, like a health drug 518 00:33:12.769 --> 00:33:15.599 that you would see on TV, about how do you have problems with your 519 00:33:15.680 --> 00:33:20.000 content, which we thought was really funny and then within a day it became 520 00:33:20.160 --> 00:33:23.240 not funny at all. We had to scratch the entire time here. Oh 521 00:33:23.319 --> 00:33:27.869 Man, did you get it all down in a day? We were actually 522 00:33:27.910 --> 00:33:30.029 really fortunate because it was going to launch like in three days. Okay, 523 00:33:30.150 --> 00:33:35.750 our biggest investments for marketing where that campaign and three huge conferences that we invested 524 00:33:35.789 --> 00:33:37.269 bigger in an all time. That all got canceled. But, oh my 525 00:33:37.390 --> 00:33:42.779 goodness, you all know the thing. I'm not alone here and that's painful. 526 00:33:43.220 --> 00:33:45.819 Well, Steve, it's been great to learn about what you guys are 527 00:33:45.859 --> 00:33:50.660 doing, how you're scaling contents and some of the the trends you guys have 528 00:33:50.779 --> 00:33:54.099 been spotting as you've been working in content marketing. What are some ways that 529 00:33:54.220 --> 00:33:59.650 people can follow you and learn more about you and what verbalio are up to 530 00:34:00.529 --> 00:34:04.369 come? So, a couple ways. So our website is verbaliocom, the 531 00:34:04.769 --> 00:34:08.170 verb Varbll iocom. You can find out a lot about us there. You 532 00:34:08.250 --> 00:34:12.880 can subscribe to my blog or to our blog and any time. We launched 533 00:34:12.920 --> 00:34:19.159 our podcast officially after twenty two episodes as a video interview podcast that we launched 534 00:34:19.239 --> 00:34:22.559 right after the the crisis began, and so you can find us on the 535 00:34:22.599 --> 00:34:27.389 verblio show on itunes or any of your favorite podcast platforms. Well. Thank 536 00:34:27.389 --> 00:34:29.909 you so much for joining me on the show today. Steve Dan things so 537 00:34:29.949 --> 00:34:31.829 much. It's great to talk to somebody who's an expert and content. It 538 00:34:31.989 --> 00:34:38.739 really changes the discussion. Thank you. Gary v says that all the time 539 00:34:39.219 --> 00:34:45.219 and we agree. Every company should think of themselves as a media company first, 540 00:34:45.219 --> 00:34:49.860 then whatever it is they actually do. If you know this is true, 541 00:34:49.940 --> 00:34:52.610 but your team is already maxed out and you can't produce any more content 542 00:34:52.610 --> 00:34:57.210 in house, we can help. We produced podcast for some of the most 543 00:34:57.289 --> 00:35:00.409 innovative bb brands in the world and we also help them turn the content from 544 00:35:00.409 --> 00:35:06.289 the podcast into blog posts, microvideos and slide decks that work really well on 545 00:35:06.449 --> 00:35:08.559 linked in. If you want to learn more, go to sweet fish Mediacom 546 00:35:09.119 --> 00:35:13.559 launch or email logan at sweet fish mediacom.