How to Leverage Your Content to Stand Out in a Sea of Competitors

WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:02.740 Yeah, 2 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:09.630 welcome back to BTB growth. I'm Leslie Cruise with Sweet fish media and today 3 00:00:09.630 --> 00:00:13.690 we are continuing our deep dive into demand generation. I'm really excited 4 00:00:13.690 --> 00:00:18.050 to be joined today by Caylee Edmondson, director of demand gen at chile piper 5 00:00:18.060 --> 00:00:21.090 kelly. Thanks so much for joining me today. Absolutely, thank you for having 6 00:00:21.090 --> 00:00:24.220 me. Of course I'm so excited to talk to you as you know, we're talking about 7 00:00:24.220 --> 00:00:28.140 all things demand gen, which is why I would love it if you could share a 8 00:00:28.140 --> 00:00:31.570 little bit about your role, a chilly piper and kind of explain to our 9 00:00:31.570 --> 00:00:36.600 listeners what a day in the life of a director of demand gen looks like. Yeah, 10 00:00:36.610 --> 00:00:39.920 absolutely, it's such a broad topic and I'm so glad that you're doing the steep 11 00:00:39.920 --> 00:00:44.200 dive into demand jin because as we know and I'm sure as all the listeners know 12 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:48.100 at this point in the podcast journey that everyone seems to define demand 13 00:00:48.100 --> 00:00:52.530 gen quite differently. So for us a chilly piper and our current stage of 14 00:00:52.540 --> 00:00:58.860 growth, we are defining demand jin as I guess like two buckets or two motions 15 00:00:58.860 --> 00:01:04.060 primarily being a brand awareness motion and um performance marketing 16 00:01:04.060 --> 00:01:07.440 motion. Right? So those are like are two primary buckets and a day in the 17 00:01:07.440 --> 00:01:13.040 life can be quite different. So it depends on the day, but primarily for 18 00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:17.620 us it's all about focusing on creating demand in the space for our product 19 00:01:17.630 --> 00:01:21.990 while also capturing the demand that already exists. And I mean based on 20 00:01:21.990 --> 00:01:25.970 just that very vague I level answer that means that a day in the life can 21 00:01:25.970 --> 00:01:31.680 range from anything from marketing automation tasks within whatever you're, 22 00:01:31.690 --> 00:01:36.600 you know in a platform is to optimizing Salesforce Reports, paid programs on 23 00:01:36.600 --> 00:01:40.360 different platforms. It's kind of all over the board, which is why I love to 24 00:01:40.360 --> 00:01:44.940 mansion. Yeah, absolutely. And stepping back a little and you know in your own 25 00:01:44.940 --> 00:01:50.310 words, can you define dimension? Yeah. So I think and I think it plays a 26 00:01:50.310 --> 00:01:53.720 little bit to what I just said and of course every I think it's very 27 00:01:53.720 --> 00:01:56.990 dependent upon where you're at with your stage of growth, right? So for us 28 00:01:56.990 --> 00:02:00.230 our marketing team is a total of nine people and that includes everything 29 00:02:00.230 --> 00:02:03.940 from like product marketing over to partnerships. We all roll up to a 30 00:02:03.940 --> 00:02:09.130 marketing function. So the way that we define demand gen right now is all 31 00:02:09.130 --> 00:02:12.560 about those two motions, right? So we're focused primarily on creating 32 00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:18.270 demand and that can fall anything from podcasts, webinars events etcetera, to 33 00:02:18.270 --> 00:02:22.280 also capturing demand. So where are people in the space that are showing 34 00:02:22.280 --> 00:02:28.060 buying intent, Adwords, G two additional review sides etcetera. And 35 00:02:28.060 --> 00:02:31.820 that's kind of how we define it today now as we continue to grow and you know 36 00:02:31.820 --> 00:02:36.080 our our company's A. R. R. Continues to shift that definition might change 37 00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:39.580 right? Like we probably will get to a point where marketing ops does not roll 38 00:02:39.580 --> 00:02:43.020 under demand jin all of the reporting and analytics might need a dedicated 39 00:02:43.030 --> 00:02:47.170 human to own and operate that. But for right now it's all kind of rolled into 40 00:02:47.170 --> 00:02:51.450 one. It makes our it makes our cycle very seamless, right? So we're putting 41 00:02:51.450 --> 00:02:54.840 out the ads, we're seeing the results on those pay channels were optimizing. 42 00:02:54.850 --> 00:02:58.960 It's all very intuitive but again might change over time. Yeah. Yeah exactly. 43 00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:02.490 And that's actually segues great into my next question because I've talked to 44 00:03:02.490 --> 00:03:06.550 several people so far about just how much marketing itself has really 45 00:03:06.550 --> 00:03:09.850 evolved in the past few years and obviously demand gen is a facet of that 46 00:03:09.940 --> 00:03:13.110 with everything going on in the world. The pandemic, but not only the pandemic 47 00:03:13.110 --> 00:03:17.710 just in general, I mean marketing is constantly evolving. So what trends in 48 00:03:17.710 --> 00:03:22.750 demand jin do you feel like may really be transforming in the next few years? 49 00:03:23.540 --> 00:03:28.010 Oh, that's such a good question. Yes, so quite honestly, I feel that we've 50 00:03:28.010 --> 00:03:31.900 moved in the last week, maybe 4 to 5 years to this huge motion around 51 00:03:31.900 --> 00:03:35.630 focusing on pay to play. But I think over the next few years we're going to 52 00:03:35.630 --> 00:03:39.740 see that trend fade slowly. Don't get me wrong, for brands that are still 53 00:03:39.740 --> 00:03:44.630 focused on growing brand awareness, paid to play will still be a facet or a 54 00:03:44.630 --> 00:03:49.830 subset of that motion. But I think that this motion around building a brand 55 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:54.330 that's authentic and genuine and true to an audience that believes in what 56 00:03:54.330 --> 00:03:58.230 you're pushing, providing value add content, those things is going to 57 00:03:58.230 --> 00:04:02.200 become way more important than primarily focusing on this pay to play 58 00:04:02.200 --> 00:04:06.110 game that I feel we've been stuck in for the last few years. Yeah. What 59 00:04:06.110 --> 00:04:10.390 exactly do you mean by pay to place? Do you mean like paid? Yeah, Yeah, yeah, 60 00:04:10.390 --> 00:04:14.550 Yeah, putting a large percentage of your marketing budget on a PPC PPC 61 00:04:14.550 --> 00:04:18.160 based strategy. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, you mentioned content a little 62 00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:21.120 bit in there, but let's talk a little bit more about content production. I 63 00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:24.620 think that this is extremely relevant to my role here as we fish. So I kind 64 00:04:24.620 --> 00:04:29.450 of wanted to know in a demand gen strategy. Why is prioritizing content 65 00:04:29.450 --> 00:04:33.460 production so important? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's been said 66 00:04:33.460 --> 00:04:38.160 forever that content is king and that's no different today. If anything, 67 00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:42.740 content is more important today than it ever has been differentiating yourself, 68 00:04:42.750 --> 00:04:45.600 especially for us. Right at chile piper were in the smart tech space where 69 00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:49.720 there are 8000 other vendors. So there are a lot of other competitors or even 70 00:04:49.720 --> 00:04:53.320 adjacent platforms that are trying to get in front of the same buyer, the 71 00:04:53.320 --> 00:04:56.760 same persona. And the way that you stand out and differentiate yourself 72 00:04:56.760 --> 00:05:01.190 amongst the crowd is through content. Right? And its content, that's actually 73 00:05:01.200 --> 00:05:05.130 a value add to that user. At the end of the day, you should be here as a brand 74 00:05:05.130 --> 00:05:09.690 providing content. That's going to help these users in their day to day sell on 75 00:05:09.690 --> 00:05:12.850 the back end, right? That way, they know who you are and they'll come, 76 00:05:12.860 --> 00:05:15.160 they'll follow your brand, they'll follow your story, they'll become 77 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:18.480 invested in your company and then whenever they are ready to buy, they 78 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:21.500 already know who you are. So it's a much easier process, right? But its 79 00:05:21.500 --> 00:05:25.230 content is king above all. And I think that that's going to continue to stand 80 00:05:25.230 --> 00:05:28.640 out over the next couple of years. Yeah, I love that. And I love the idea of 81 00:05:28.640 --> 00:05:32.520 kind of making yourself to go to in that specific area, you know, and it's 82 00:05:32.520 --> 00:05:35.500 like they're they'll come to you essentially because you are making 83 00:05:35.500 --> 00:05:39.370 yourself to go to you are building those relationships. Exactly. And it's 84 00:05:39.370 --> 00:05:44.000 even this like new trend that we see where you know, hubspot require 85 00:05:44.010 --> 00:05:49.070 acquired the hustle and outreach with sales hacker, it's happening over and 86 00:05:49.070 --> 00:05:53.870 over again where B two B sas companies are realizing that a media company is 87 00:05:53.870 --> 00:05:57.280 almost the way to go. You need to think of your marketing team of course as a 88 00:05:57.280 --> 00:06:00.310 marketing team. You need to be doing all the marketing office, the reporting, 89 00:06:00.310 --> 00:06:03.070 the analytics, all the things that come with it. But you also need to really 90 00:06:03.070 --> 00:06:07.720 prioritize thinking and acting almost as if you are an internal media company 91 00:06:07.720 --> 00:06:12.210 for your brand. That's good stuff. What do you think? Something is something 92 00:06:12.210 --> 00:06:17.910 that B two B marketers in this space tend to get wrong? Oh, that's a tough 93 00:06:17.910 --> 00:06:24.470 one. My most recent soapbox. If we want to dive in, I love it is around 94 00:06:24.470 --> 00:06:28.460 attribution, right? So I feel like I get, you know, a lot of D. M. S. I have 95 00:06:28.460 --> 00:06:31.770 a lot of friends that a network with that are also in a similar demand gen 96 00:06:31.770 --> 00:06:35.570 seat within their respective organizations. And almost always it 97 00:06:35.570 --> 00:06:38.110 comes up. It's like, what is your attribution model? How are you tracking 98 00:06:38.110 --> 00:06:42.730 success and by no means am I saying you don't need an attribution model because 99 00:06:42.730 --> 00:06:47.100 like use what you've got leverage, what you can, but it shouldn't be the end 100 00:06:47.100 --> 00:06:51.750 all be all source of truth. Especially myself. I am deep in the weeds of all 101 00:06:51.750 --> 00:06:54.930 of the programs that I'm running and executing and I get a much more 102 00:06:54.930 --> 00:07:00.030 accurate pulse and a read on if they're working or failing based on being in 103 00:07:00.030 --> 00:07:02.780 those platforms and looking through the numbers, looking through the data, 104 00:07:02.790 --> 00:07:06.580 reading comments on linkedin. Like You need to dig through the weeds a little 105 00:07:06.580 --> 00:07:11.480 bit to get some of that qualitative feedback and not rely 100 on what your 106 00:07:11.480 --> 00:07:15.190 salesforce crm is telling you. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's so accurate. I 107 00:07:15.190 --> 00:07:18.180 completely great. Do you have any examples specifically of what that 108 00:07:18.180 --> 00:07:21.530 might look like? That attribution model and you know, dive a little bit more 109 00:07:21.530 --> 00:07:26.240 into why, why specifically you wouldn't want to use that? Yeah. So like, don't 110 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:29.370 get me wrong, we have reports and sales for us. We are using a light 111 00:07:29.380 --> 00:07:33.600 attribution model. Last touch within hubspot. It is what it is. But at the 112 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:37.950 end of the day when we run a new program, let's say that we're running 113 00:07:38.040 --> 00:07:41.720 an ad campaign, a new ad campaign to a link to an audience. Um, that's 114 00:07:41.730 --> 00:07:45.360 advertising like a new video or something for part of our product. 115 00:07:45.440 --> 00:07:49.170 What's not going to show up in Salesforce is all of the comments, 116 00:07:49.180 --> 00:07:53.250 likes, feedback that's happening on that post, Right. So we just had some 117 00:07:53.260 --> 00:07:57.220 one recently that took off and had tons of success and we could tell it had 118 00:07:57.220 --> 00:08:00.570 tons of success because the people that are liking and engaging with it have 119 00:08:00.570 --> 00:08:03.770 titles at the exact companies that we want to get in front of and we want 120 00:08:03.770 --> 00:08:07.710 them to know our brand. None of that is showing up in a Salesforce report 121 00:08:07.710 --> 00:08:10.800 though. It's all in the program that you're, you know, that you're actually 122 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:14.290 executing at that point in time. I'm sure it would be different. There are 123 00:08:14.290 --> 00:08:17.620 tons of scenarios where things like that could happen. But those aren't 124 00:08:17.620 --> 00:08:20.950 things that, you know, you're bored or your c suite are actually going to be 125 00:08:20.950 --> 00:08:23.260 able to see in Salesforce. Those are things that you're going to know 126 00:08:23.260 --> 00:08:28.010 because you're on the front lines executing these programs. Yeah. So for 127 00:08:28.010 --> 00:08:31.630 those who are listening and they're thinking of starting their own demands 128 00:08:31.630 --> 00:08:35.010 and playbook in their organization, where do you suggest they start? What 129 00:08:35.010 --> 00:08:41.659 is step number one? So asking for a demand gen, playbook is hard because I 130 00:08:41.659 --> 00:08:46.760 think that every organization is so, so different. But for me, whenever I join 131 00:08:46.760 --> 00:08:49.780 a new company, of course, my very first thing is to dig through whatever 132 00:08:49.780 --> 00:08:54.250 existing data points we do have so that we can get a general direction of if a 133 00:08:54.250 --> 00:08:57.290 specific channel is working, what's that messaging look like, what our 134 00:08:57.290 --> 00:09:01.830 target personas, etcetera. Once you have that initial foundation of who you 135 00:09:01.830 --> 00:09:06.330 should be going after, roughly what you think you should be saying to them and 136 00:09:06.330 --> 00:09:10.320 on what channel you should be saying it on after that. For me, it's like 137 00:09:10.320 --> 00:09:11.050 building 138 00:09:12.140 --> 00:09:17.580 A prioritized framework, so capture the demand that's already in the space. So 139 00:09:17.590 --> 00:09:21.780 look to channels where people are showing active buying intent, um, those 140 00:09:21.780 --> 00:09:26.200 things most often end in Google, Ads G2, right, there could be a few others 141 00:09:26.200 --> 00:09:29.190 depending on what industry or what niche you're going after. But that's 142 00:09:29.190 --> 00:09:32.210 largely those things need to be in foundation and you know, like for now, 143 00:09:32.210 --> 00:09:34.720 while we have cookie tracking retargeting, right, if people are 144 00:09:34.720 --> 00:09:37.780 coming to your website and aren't converting, you know that they're not a 145 00:09:37.780 --> 00:09:41.390 customer, haven't requested a demo or sign up for free, etcetera, you should 146 00:09:41.390 --> 00:09:44.350 be getting retargeting ads out in front of them so that they continue to think 147 00:09:44.350 --> 00:09:48.620 about your brand and understand your value prop secondly then you can move 148 00:09:48.620 --> 00:09:53.410 on to more prospect testing, right? So going a little bit more broad scale for 149 00:09:53.410 --> 00:09:57.070 people who maybe don't know who you are yet, but that should come secondary. Um, 150 00:09:57.070 --> 00:10:00.900 and that should be in that motion around creating demand. Yeah, so it's, 151 00:10:00.900 --> 00:10:03.520 it's pretty important to, you know, start with that playbook and I think 152 00:10:03.520 --> 00:10:06.390 you mentioned this Arlington previously but kind of start with that playbook 153 00:10:06.390 --> 00:10:11.510 and then from there kind of innovate adapt and learn from kind of how that's 154 00:10:11.510 --> 00:10:15.610 working for you. Exactly. It's a game of innovation. It's never like there is 155 00:10:15.610 --> 00:10:18.620 not a demanding playbook out there where you like set it and forget it. 156 00:10:18.620 --> 00:10:21.850 That's just not the game we're in. And especially because like for us right 157 00:10:21.850 --> 00:10:25.710 now, our primary persona are people that look and think much like myself, 158 00:10:25.710 --> 00:10:29.460 dimension marketers and those are the people that are in their own day to day, 159 00:10:29.460 --> 00:10:32.630 always innovating and optimizing and trying new things and testing new 160 00:10:32.630 --> 00:10:36.780 things. So it's even harder to stand out. And so were, you know, in this 161 00:10:36.780 --> 00:10:43.270 game of constant innovation. Absolutely. Yeah. So talking to somebody who is, 162 00:10:43.270 --> 00:10:46.570 let's say a new market, our brand new marketer in the space, really 163 00:10:46.570 --> 00:10:50.340 interested in demand, gen what advice would you share with them to somebody 164 00:10:50.340 --> 00:10:54.800 who's kind of looking to transform into that more of a demand general from just 165 00:10:54.810 --> 00:11:00.230 basic marketing. Yeah, absolutely. So I think for me personally I can talk real 166 00:11:00.230 --> 00:11:04.290 quickly to like my own career progression. I started out in digital 167 00:11:04.290 --> 00:11:09.080 marketing, but honestly at the time had little to no idea what that actually 168 00:11:09.080 --> 00:11:12.840 meant. Um I just happened to be, you know, one of the newest marketing 169 00:11:12.840 --> 00:11:16.380 members at the time, it was for a healthcare company and they thought, 170 00:11:16.390 --> 00:11:20.500 okay here just take digital, we don't really know what that is, but we know 171 00:11:20.500 --> 00:11:24.650 we're supposed to be doing it, so dig in and learn. And quite honestly I have 172 00:11:24.650 --> 00:11:29.080 a degree in marketing and I can say very clearly that I did not learn 173 00:11:29.080 --> 00:11:33.660 anything in college that I actually do on a day to day basis from a work 174 00:11:33.660 --> 00:11:36.980 perspective. So for me it's like learning on the spot. So if you're 175 00:11:36.980 --> 00:11:40.760 trying to get your feet wet into demand jin or even into digital marketing so 176 00:11:40.760 --> 00:11:44.350 that you can kind of bridge that gap into a demand general, you know, start 177 00:11:44.350 --> 00:11:48.300 something on the side on your own, roll your sleeves up, see if you could, you 178 00:11:48.300 --> 00:11:50.840 know, or even if you have a friend that's like launched a book or 179 00:11:50.840 --> 00:11:54.870 something, see if you can dig in and help them start promoting that, get an 180 00:11:54.870 --> 00:11:58.050 understanding of who's going to read that book? Where do they hang out? What 181 00:11:58.050 --> 00:12:01.240 spaces are they living in? What words resonate with them And what words 182 00:12:01.240 --> 00:12:04.640 absolutely don't like? That's the best way. And for me, it's always been like 183 00:12:04.640 --> 00:12:09.400 trial by error and learning by actually doing mm That's good advice. Yeah. Some 184 00:12:09.400 --> 00:12:12.500 other advice I heard was to kind of start your own e commerce, which I 185 00:12:12.500 --> 00:12:15.580 found really, really interesting because it's like you're using your own 186 00:12:15.580 --> 00:12:18.990 money and you're not using company money. That's kind of like monopoly 187 00:12:18.990 --> 00:12:22.630 money. You're using your own money, your own funds to do all of these 188 00:12:22.630 --> 00:12:26.390 things yourself. You're completely doing demanded by yourself with your 189 00:12:26.390 --> 00:12:30.690 money. So I thought that was exactly do Exactly. And if you find something 190 00:12:30.690 --> 00:12:33.840 that's working really well, it's that much more exciting because it's your 191 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:37.480 own funds, but at the same time, if you find something that is an absolute 192 00:12:37.480 --> 00:12:41.850 money pit, you're gonna feel it much deeper than if you were playing with 193 00:12:41.850 --> 00:12:45.720 this corporate monopoly money from your company. Oh my gosh, Yeah, I completely 194 00:12:45.720 --> 00:12:48.930 agree. Well, that's awesome, Kayleigh, thank you so much. This has been so, so 195 00:12:48.930 --> 00:12:52.710 insightful. And where can people find you online if they're interested in 196 00:12:52.710 --> 00:12:56.730 learning or hearing more from you? Yeah, absolutely, I'm most active on linkedin, 197 00:12:56.740 --> 00:13:00.400 Caylee Edmondson. Um actually, piper, feel free to come, follow me there, 198 00:13:00.410 --> 00:13:04.120 Thank you again so much for joining me, carol beauty growth. Absolutely, thank 199 00:13:04.120 --> 00:13:04.960 you for having me 200 00:13:07.740 --> 00:13:11.480 for the longest time. I was asking people to leave a review of GDP growth 201 00:13:11.480 --> 00:13:15.930 in apple podcasts, but I realized that was kind of stupid because leaving a 202 00:13:15.930 --> 00:13:21.090 review is way harder than just leaving a simple rating. So I'm changing my 203 00:13:21.090 --> 00:13:24.790 tune a bit instead of asking you to leave a review, I'm just gonna ask you 204 00:13:24.790 --> 00:13:28.830 to go to beauty growth in apple podcasts, scroll down until you see the 205 00:13:28.830 --> 00:13:32.480 ratings and reviews section and just tap the number of stars you want to 206 00:13:32.480 --> 00:13:38.270 give us no review necessary. Super easy. And I promise it will help us out a ton. 207 00:13:38.280 --> 00:13:42.310 If you want a copy of my book, content based networking, just shoot me a text 208 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:46.700 after you leave the rating and I'll send on your way, Text me at four 074 209 00:13:46.700 --> 00:13:49.560 and I know 3, 3 - eight.