Hey, everybody. Before we get started, I want to thank my friends at Hatch for
Speaker:producing this episode. You can get unlimited podcast editing and
Speaker:strategy for one flat rate by visiting Hatch
Speaker:FM. All right, let's get into the show.
Speaker:Welcome to distribution first, the show where we flip content marketing on its head
Speaker:and focus on what happens after you hit publish. Each week I
Speaker:share playbooks, motivations, stories, and strategies to help you repurpose and
Speaker:distribute your content because you deserve to get the most out of everything you
Speaker:create.
Speaker:Hey, everybody. Welcome to this week's episode of distribution. First,
Speaker:I'm so happy to have my friend Lashay Lewis on the show. I can't
Speaker:believe it took me, I don't even know, 60, 70 episodes
Speaker:to get Lashay on. I feel too long. Too long.
Speaker:Really feel awful about it. I should have had
Speaker:Lashay on a long time ago. We've been hanging out together
Speaker:on LinkedIn across the Internet for a good long while. And so
Speaker:I'm so happy to have you on Lashay. I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker:Thank you so much for inviting me on. I'm really excited about this one.
Speaker:Yeah, this is going to be fun. So we talk a lot about,
Speaker:obviously this is distribution first. So we talked about distribution,
Speaker:repurposing the back end of content
Speaker:marketing. Uh, what happens after we hit publish? A lot of times.
Speaker:And so for me, what I think is interesting is a lot of
Speaker:times when I talk to people about
Speaker:distribution, SEO is not typically
Speaker:what they think of when they think of distribution.
Speaker:What they think of is email or
Speaker:they think of social media and LinkedIn.
Speaker:And for me, SEO, Google,
Speaker:YouTube, those are one of the core distribution channels. I have three bucket
Speaker:strategy that I talk about with distribution. SEO being one of those buckets.
Speaker:And Lashay is an expert on BOFU content,
Speaker:bottom of funnel, driving people in, trying to get people to conversion
Speaker:and using that content and using things that people are
Speaker:already searching for and are already interested in to then convert
Speaker:them and get them to do stuff. So I think when we think about distribution,
Speaker:it's easy to go top of funnel. It's easy to go opinions and it's
Speaker:easy to try and create interesting content like this
Speaker:podcast and other things like that's what people think about when they think about
Speaker:content marketing. But I think a lot of times it's easy to skip out on
Speaker:the good stuff at the bottom. So I'm curious, why start at the
Speaker:bottom? I guess let's go there. Why start bottom of funnel to
Speaker:begin with versus? Hey, I'm just
Speaker:trying to get my name out there. I'm trying to build this company and trying
Speaker:to do this stuff. What's your reasoning behind that? The biggest reason
Speaker:is going to be the goals of the company, right.
Speaker:So depending on the goals of the company is going to
Speaker:determine where you start. So if a company is more interested in
Speaker:brand awareness or thought leadership or things like that,
Speaker:typically that's when you start more at the top of the funnel. And then
Speaker:if they're interested in, okay, I need conversions, I need demos, I need
Speaker:signups. That's when you start at the bottom of the funnel. So it really
Speaker:depends on the company's goals. But specifically for me, why I like to
Speaker:start bottom of funnel, because it's very easy for me to show my value
Speaker:because bottom of funnel is usually that last touch
Speaker:point before conversion. So it's not difficult. Well, I
Speaker:say that lightly. It's not too difficult for me to track,
Speaker:but you have to, as opposed to somebody starting at the top of the
Speaker:funnel. And we talked about enterprise software
Speaker:sales cycles, could be anywhere from three to six months. Plus, if you think you're
Speaker:going to follow that person for three to six months and figure out
Speaker:every little touch point they did, sad to tell you,
Speaker:that's probably not going to happen. Versus BOFU, they come into an
Speaker:article, they read it, they like it, and they
Speaker:get a demo button, they hit free trial button, they hit whatever that
Speaker:conversion point is. That's what's being pushed in
Speaker:the bottom of funnel piece versus, again, top. And sometimes middle of
Speaker:funnel are more pushed toward maybe the email list or getting
Speaker:a free this or template playbook, something like that. But I
Speaker:like to start bottom of the funnel because it's easier for me to show my
Speaker:value as a marketer that way. And do you
Speaker:think about it? I know the Chris Walker really made the whole demand
Speaker:capture versus demand creation like two buckets. Really?
Speaker:Really. Do you think of it in that way of like we're capturing demand
Speaker:with top and middle versus really, or creating demand at the
Speaker:top versus capturing demand that's existing at the bottom? I
Speaker:do kind of look at it like that, right? Because all keywords are
Speaker:not built the same. And there's a big
Speaker:misconception usually with in house marketers specifically, and I'm calling
Speaker:you guys out, vp of marketing and demand gen
Speaker:leads, usually. I'm
Speaker:not gonna say they don't know a lot about SEO, because some do are pretty
Speaker:well versed in it. But the ones that aren't, they're like, okay, you know, I
Speaker:found this keyword. It has 20,000 searches a month. Let's
Speaker:go after this one because, oh, look at all the search volume. And our competitors
Speaker:are ranking forward and every reason in the world to go after this term. But
Speaker:what they're missing is search volume does not equal search intent.
Speaker:Those are two different things. And again, depending on your goal,
Speaker:is going to determine which one you go after. So you can go after
Speaker:what is sales enablement. And that probably gets maybe like
Speaker:10, 15, 20,000 searches a month, right. Versus
Speaker:best sales enablement software for small teams, maybe
Speaker:50 searches a month, 150. Not a lot. But the
Speaker:traffic that comes in from a term like that is going to be very, very
Speaker:high intent and a lot of the time, Justin, what I find is
Speaker:that four to five, or
Speaker:rather, let's say this, usually six to
Speaker:nine Bofu articles will produce more
Speaker:conversions than 30, 40, 50
Speaker:top of funnel articles. And I'm talking about with search volumes of
Speaker:20,000, 50,000. And again, it's just that
Speaker:misconception of, oh, because it has more search
Speaker:volume. I'm going to get leads from this. I'm going to get sales from this.
Speaker:It's like, no, the smart thing to do
Speaker:if your goal is conversions, I don't want to just make it seem like everybody's
Speaker:dumb. The smart thing to do if your goal is conversions is to start bottom
Speaker:of funnel and bottom of funnel. It's less people in that buying
Speaker:pool. There's some sort of, like, statistic or something where it's like three
Speaker:to 5% of your market is buying. Like the three to 5%
Speaker:is in this bottom of funnel pool floating around. So it's
Speaker:not going to be as much search volume as something top or middle
Speaker:of funnel, but that intent is going to be there, and it's probably going to
Speaker:convert more than anything else on the blog,
Speaker:at least from what I found. Yeah, yeah. There's
Speaker:definitely, it's an odd mix in content
Speaker:marketing. I feel like there's a, there's a, a strong desire
Speaker:to just create a lot of things
Speaker:and hope those things work out
Speaker:rather than actually have a strategy. The more
Speaker:companies I talk with, the more marketers,
Speaker:unfortunately, that I talk with, the more I'm
Speaker:realizing that there's a real lack of
Speaker:strategy involves within a lot of
Speaker:marketing programs. And to me, it's like
Speaker:what you provide for the BOFU side is very similar to,
Speaker:like, how I think about providing a strategy around repurposing
Speaker:and distributing content. It's a recipe, so
Speaker:we can have this. You don't have to just go in blind
Speaker:hoping you make a good cake. Like, there's an actual
Speaker:recipe that you can use to make a really good
Speaker:cake, and if you follow it, you'll be
Speaker:successful. It's not guaranteed that it's going to be as
Speaker:pretty or as nice or as good as somebody
Speaker:who's done it. You know, been a baker for 25 years, but you have the
Speaker:strategy to make a good cake. And I think
Speaker:there's just a huge, there's a huge lack of thought.
Speaker:Maybe, maybe it's just like you said from a in house, like a vp,
Speaker:like, I think there is just maybe a, I don't want to say
Speaker:ignorance, but there is maybe some level of ignorance in terms of, like, what
Speaker:actually moves the needle versus saying, like, we're going to
Speaker:do content marketing. That means a lot of different things to a lot
Speaker:of different people. And I think
Speaker:actually doing content marketing and actually having a strategy,
Speaker:like you said, it can be totally different for
Speaker:totally different teams. Are you trying to capture demand at the bottom
Speaker:of the funnel to drive demos now? Are you trying to
Speaker:build awareness and a brand and try to do that for the long
Speaker:term? You're probably trying to do both
Speaker:in reality. And that's where a lot of teams get screwed up,
Speaker:is they're trying to do all of it with one piece
Speaker:of content. And that's the thing, right? Like
Speaker:one piece of content can serve multiple purposes. But again, it's
Speaker:like if the intent is off, it's not going
Speaker:to serve the purpose you wanted to. Again, if you want inbound
Speaker:leads and you're writing top of funnel, it's not going to serve the
Speaker:purpose. If you want brand awareness, thought leadership,
Speaker:more people in the email, more people to download this white paper. I hate white
Speaker:papers, y'all. And I'm talking as a millennial,
Speaker:as a buying millennial, that's buying software. So a lot of other millennials that
Speaker:probably hate white papers, I don't read them, but if you have like a playbook,
Speaker:if you have templates or things like that, to me that's
Speaker:more top of funnel. It's like getting
Speaker:people into your ecosystem versus bottom of funnel.
Speaker:They've already been pre educated, probably by your competitors,
Speaker:too. So. Right. It's like if we think about football, it's like the other
Speaker:team running all the way to the goal
Speaker:line and then you come in for the interception and run it all the way
Speaker:back for the touchdown, right? Like kind of like that's how
Speaker:bottom of funnel is. And I tell people all the time, it's like people look
Speaker:at content marketing as this black box where it's just like, oh, we're just going
Speaker:to throw things in it and see what sticks. It's like there's an actual
Speaker:strategy behind content marketing. And it's like once
Speaker:in house, leaders come to this realization. They're like, oh, shoot. Like,
Speaker:ooh. And they usually come to this realization six to
Speaker:twelve months after publishing a bunch of top of funnel stuff.
Speaker:They come to me and they say, well, Lashay, we've been
Speaker:publishing a lot of pieces and they have a lot of search
Speaker:volume, but we're not seeing any uptick in leads, any uptick
Speaker:in sales. It's like, what's the gap here? And the gap is
Speaker:that you're not focusing on high intent
Speaker:terms, you're focusing on high search terms.
Speaker:So again, once leaders start to understand that
Speaker:differentiation between the two and the value that one adds
Speaker:against the other, that's when they get the clarity and say, okay, we need
Speaker:a bottom of funnel strategy. And again, I'm not saying top of funnel is bad
Speaker:or anything, it just all depends on your goals. And again, if your
Speaker:goal is to get attributable inbound
Speaker:pipeline from your blog, bottom of funnel is going to be the
Speaker:way to go. Specifically comparison pages. And the thing with
Speaker:that too is you can build a strategy that isn't
Speaker:insane, that manages both of those things and do
Speaker:it really, really consistently and really, really well.
Speaker:Here's a high level example of how I would think about that. There's
Speaker:probably five to ten bottom of funnel pieces of content
Speaker:that are missing from 80% to 90% of
Speaker:people's company websites right now. Yeah, yeah. So if
Speaker:you created those five to ten, we know just by
Speaker:Pareto principle that 80% is going to drive or
Speaker:20% is going to drive 80% of the results. So let's just say those ten
Speaker:are in that 20% of the overall. You know, you could
Speaker:write 100 blogs, but we're going to just choose these ten. Cause we know they
Speaker:really work. Yep. And at the same time, we can do a monthly
Speaker:event, top of funnel, that drives and talks
Speaker:about all the problems that people are having, and then we can
Speaker:repurpose and distribute that on things like social and email. And now
Speaker:with literally a few blog posts at the bottom of funnel, a
Speaker:monthly event at the top of the funnel that you've repurposed properly, you
Speaker:have an engine that's running all across the funnel that drives
Speaker:people toward the same things that you want. Yep. And I think
Speaker:that's where a lot of leaders miss it. They're like,
Speaker:it's usually one or the other. They're like, okay, we're going to go extreme bottom
Speaker:of funnel. And again, if that's your goal, that's totally okay. Or
Speaker:they're like, we're going to go extreme top of funnel. But they try to go,
Speaker:it's like a scale. They like try to lean one way or the other and
Speaker:try to get that middle balance. It's like, no, in order to get
Speaker:the balance, you have to have balance, right? So it's like, if you do
Speaker:want to put together a content marketing program that kind of targets every bit of
Speaker:the funnel, lay it out, right? So maybe you do two bottom of
Speaker:funnel posts per month. One middle of funnel and one top of funnel. Like you
Speaker:said, it doesn't have to be a blog. It could be a webinar. And again,
Speaker:that webinar leads them into your ecosystem, and then maybe you send them an
Speaker:email about a bottom of funnel post that you did that drives traffic
Speaker:back to the bottom of funnel posts. And I found,
Speaker:anecdotally, at least when you're able to drive traffic
Speaker:to a bottom of funnel article outside, well, not even really
Speaker:outside of Google, because even when you run paid
Speaker:ads to bottom of funnel articles, anecdotally, I found
Speaker:that they rank better. So if you can take an
Speaker:asset you already own, like an email list and say, hey, we wrote this on
Speaker:the best whatever for whatever, and then you send that traffic
Speaker:to that blog, it's possible that you can get conversions from there too, right? It's
Speaker:not just all Google, Google, Google, right? It's your own assets
Speaker:as well. So I think that's where repurposing
Speaker:is really important. It's like, and I'm guilty of this, too,
Speaker:it's like when we create bottom of funnel pieces, we're solely relying on,
Speaker:like Google to bring in the traffic and things like that.
Speaker:But good bottom of funnel content should actually double as sales
Speaker:enablement. So it shouldn't just be sitting on the blog and collecting
Speaker:leads. Your SDR should have them. You know what I mean? Like they should
Speaker:be able to accurately convey your value
Speaker:propositions to a prospect on a call by looking
Speaker:at a bottom of funnel piece. That's how you know you have a good one,
Speaker:right? So it's like, again, it's not just about
Speaker:creating a bottom of funnel piece and putting it out there and hoping for the
Speaker:best. It's actually creating a strategy around it to make sure
Speaker:the odds play in your favor as it you know, results into
Speaker:driving inbound leads from that piece. Yeah. You can sway the odds in your favor
Speaker:more than not. Yeah. The more companies that I work with and the more
Speaker:content strategies that I dig into, I think there needs to be more
Speaker:clarity for teams around intent for that content
Speaker:and honestly, more conversations
Speaker:internally. It's easier for me now as an external resource to come into a
Speaker:company and see the things that I used to have to deal
Speaker:with internally, which is like the product team
Speaker:says, we need to do X, Y and Z pieces of content. And
Speaker:it's like, okay, you're creating that list is six,
Speaker:like six things that are very similar. And
Speaker:are we going like, there's those type of things. So it's having a
Speaker:strong view of the intent and seeing the intent across.
Speaker:One of the things I've been looking more into with folks as well is
Speaker:around the type of content based around the
Speaker:distribution channel. So for instance, really,
Speaker:really bottom of funnel content, depending
Speaker:on what it is, doesn't make a ton. So like a comparison, right. It might
Speaker:make sense to put that out on LinkedIn, but it probably makes more sense to
Speaker:rely on Google and your email list of people who are already actively
Speaker:signaled in some way, shape or form that they're interested in you or they're
Speaker:interested in your tool
Speaker:versus a channel like LinkedIn, where
Speaker:they're probably less interested in hoppy on LinkedIn to like see a
Speaker:tool comparison and more interested in getting help,
Speaker:getting information, getting a template, those more middle
Speaker:of funnel, top of funnel type of things. And so you have a really
Speaker:good point with that, but let me put a bug in your ear.
Speaker:So for one of my clients, we've actually been publishing the bottom
Speaker:of funnel articles on LinkedIn, and they do really
Speaker:good. You're publishing the article itself, not the article
Speaker:itself. My bad. So we take the link and you know how
Speaker:it kind of like generates a preview and things like that. Like, we'll so
Speaker:not totally like repurposing in the form of like breaking down the piece
Speaker:and turning it into a LinkedIn post, but we'll take the article
Speaker:itself, paste it into LinkedIn. A little preview comes up, give it
Speaker:like a, you know, description, you know, and then what
Speaker:I find is that they, if your LinkedIn audience is dialed
Speaker:in, those tend to do well on LinkedIn, too.
Speaker:Another thing I found is if you have a bottom
Speaker:of funnel piece and you're running paid ads, another good thing to do. If you
Speaker:have somebody that comes in middle of funnel, maybe top, middle of
Speaker:funnel, you can retarget
Speaker:that person with a bottom of funnel post. Again, this works
Speaker:better if they've been in your ecosystem for a little while and things like
Speaker:that. But I find that works really well. Doesn't
Speaker:just work well on LinkedIn, it works well with Facebook ads, too, especially if
Speaker:you have more of a story based bottom of funnel article.
Speaker:And I put this out on LinkedIn maybe like a week or two ago, how
Speaker:to combine SEO and case studies. When it comes
Speaker:to content like that, running ads to that type of story
Speaker:based content does extremely well. So
Speaker:I would preface that. I would say it's something worth testing,
Speaker:but at least from what I found from working with my clients, it does do
Speaker:well if the audience you have on that platform
Speaker:is the right segment that you're trying to target. You know what I mean? So
Speaker:it's like, if you're trying to target, you know what I mean,
Speaker:plumbers. And it's like you're on there
Speaker:looking for, you have people, electricians and things like that. It's like two
Speaker:different things, probably, horrible example, but y'all know what I'm trying to say. It's like
Speaker:you have to have that alignment with the followers and the
Speaker:audience and things like that. And it's like, this is probably getting to a whole
Speaker:nother topic. But that's why it's so important to focus on
Speaker:quality and not quantity. When it comes to everything, when it
Speaker:comes to blog posts, when it comes to LinkedIn followers, whatever it
Speaker:is, the quality is always going to outweigh the
Speaker:quantity. Hence why I get people that come to me and they're like, oh, my
Speaker:gosh, you know, you're doing so well. You have under 10,000 followers.
Speaker:Because I focus on the quality of the followers and not
Speaker:how many. And then from there, we kind of get into what people call
Speaker:vanity metrics. And I used to call them that, right? But I had to
Speaker:think a little bit. I said, you know what? It's not all vanity. Because
Speaker:sometimes, well, every time you have to start
Speaker:at the top to work your way to the bottom, right? So even
Speaker:with bottom of funnel articles, it works the same way. Every single
Speaker:time you publish the piece, it starts to
Speaker:rank, it starts to get traffic, then it starts to get
Speaker:conversions. And it's like, it's only vanity
Speaker:if you stay focused on that particular metric for too
Speaker:long. And again, it's like when people think, oh, search volume,
Speaker:it's only vanity if you're stuck there and you're like, I'm expecting for
Speaker:this piece to bring me inbound leads, and it's like when you see that it
Speaker:doesn't, that's when it starts to hit. But hopefully doing
Speaker:pods like this one will get it on people's radar. That don't wait six
Speaker:to twelve months to know that top of funnel doesn't work for driving
Speaker:leads. I'm telling you right now, I can save you six to twelve
Speaker:months right now. Absolutely, absolutely. I think
Speaker:knowing, I think really knowing the distribution
Speaker:channels, SEO, the intent behind
Speaker:why that. So like what you brought up with LinkedIn there and using the
Speaker:ads to retarget makes a ton of sense because you can narrow down and
Speaker:target exactly who's going to see that ad. You know what I mean? You can
Speaker:be more prescriptive versus in an organic
Speaker:feed, there's no telling who or how or somebody's
Speaker:going to see this particular thing. And I think that's the thing where people
Speaker:struggle, especially with organic,
Speaker:LinkedIn, even their emails, top of funnel, trying to get awareness,
Speaker:is they talk too much about themselves, it's too much about the
Speaker:company, it's too much about what we do, it's too much about
Speaker:our products. And I think that's a little bit of the intent.
Speaker:Confusion is those people, when you go to
Speaker:a social channel or sign up for an email list,
Speaker:you probably signed up for the email list because they gave you something of value,
Speaker:a template, a checklist, those type of things. A white paper, if that's what
Speaker:somebody wants. Not what I want, but maybe somebody out there wants a white paper
Speaker:right now. You've heard it from two millennials companies. We don't want white
Speaker:papers. Switch that up. No, I don't want a white
Speaker:paper. I want a template, a checklist, a buyer's guide.
Speaker:I want something simple and helpful. Yes, yes, yes. And again,
Speaker:I think that's the point. If people are creating content
Speaker:nowadays, you're not competing to create. There is so
Speaker:much content out there, it's unbelievable. And
Speaker:so the barrier of just creating something, even
Speaker:if you ranked number one. Hey, we ranked number one, Vanny match.
Speaker:Well, if that piece of content is kind of junky and doesn't actually like drive
Speaker:conversion and do much good, it's not like that ranking isn't
Speaker:actually valuable. And I have to tell this to
Speaker:people all the time. And here's something really cool
Speaker:that people probably don't know. I've mentioned it a couple times, but I don't use
Speaker:any SEO tools. So when I say any tools, I use
Speaker:ahrefs. But that's like for keyword research and just to kind of get
Speaker:a lay of the land of how things are in their specific industry.
Speaker:But when it comes to, like, on page SEO tools and things, like, I
Speaker:use zero tools. And again, it's because
Speaker:we all have access to the same tools. At the end of the day, that's
Speaker:not what differentiates you. It's like how you
Speaker:solve the problem, how you connect those problems to your
Speaker:prospects pain points. That's what's gonna differentiate you, not the
Speaker:tool. So I don't use any tools. And I still tell people, I tell
Speaker:my clients, I'm like, ranking means nothing
Speaker:if you can't get it to convert. And that's like, such
Speaker:people just don't take heed to that like they should.
Speaker:Again, it's the whole vanity metric thing where it's just like,
Speaker:remember, it's only vanity if you stay there. Because at
Speaker:some point, yes, you have to rank in order to get conversions. People have to
Speaker:see it. So it's a good leading indicator
Speaker:is what it is, right? So, and again, it's like,
Speaker:that's why I tell companies, like, we focus on the customer first
Speaker:and SEO second. So, and
Speaker:again, this comes from working across dozens of content marketing
Speaker:agencies, seeing them do it the wrong way. They're like, oh, rankings this and rankings
Speaker:that. We got to get this reporting, the traffic numbers. And I'm like,
Speaker:y'all are paying attention to everything except what the companies care
Speaker:about, which is inbound leads. You know what I mean? But it's
Speaker:like it takes a certain level of education.
Speaker:Again, because bottom of funnel is so nuanced and it's
Speaker:so different, then not saying top of funnel isn't nuanced to a degree,
Speaker:but it's like the nuancedness comes
Speaker:from where the information is sourced from, right?
Speaker:So if you have a top of funnel piece, it's not difficult to
Speaker:type in what is sales enablement and find a ton of other
Speaker:definition definitions around sales enablement and things like that. And this is
Speaker:another thing I touched on, where top of funnel content
Speaker:is more objective and bottom of funnel content is more subjective.
Speaker:Subjectivity creates nuance. Because instead of
Speaker:going to Google and searching for the thing that you're trying to look for and
Speaker:compile it and call that an article, you actually have to go to internal
Speaker:teams and get that alignment right. You got to talk to the product team. You
Speaker:got to talk to customer success, and sales and marketing brings that all
Speaker:together. And then that's when you have the alignment. Once you have that
Speaker:alignment, you can create collateral for anything. That's when
Speaker:distribution really revs up that engine, really turns
Speaker:on once that alignment is hitting. The problem is companies are trying to do
Speaker:strategy. They're trying to do all this stuff with no alignment. And again, it's
Speaker:because they're hiring freelancers to come in and say, okay, write this article
Speaker:on cybersecurity. And the person might not
Speaker:even be a cybersecurity expert or anything like that. So they're just trying to,
Speaker:like, pull things, and maybe they'll do a search for best
Speaker:cybersecurity software for enterprise teams.
Speaker:And they're looking at all the other results on Google, and they're like, okay, so
Speaker:I'm just gonna take what they say and compile it all together with our
Speaker:solution as the number one solution. But that's not the way to do
Speaker:it. In order to create a great bottom of funnel piece, you need
Speaker:input from every team. You need input, again,
Speaker:from cs, from product, from sales, and
Speaker:again, sales lets you know the pain points.
Speaker:CS is gonna let you know the benefits. The product team is
Speaker:gonna let you know how the product works contextually in their
Speaker:workflow. It's like all of these things are needed in order to create
Speaker:a good bottom of funnel piece. And it's like, you're not going to find that
Speaker:information on Google. Just not going to. Well, here's the kicker to that, Lashay. I
Speaker:think more and more the entire for content
Speaker:marketers, like, buckle up because that's the job.
Speaker:Now, top of funnel is the same way. Like, and the
Speaker:reason I say that is because you have to have at the
Speaker:top of funnel where teams go wrong, is no shared alignment
Speaker:on the pov, no shared alignment on the
Speaker:story, no shared alignment on the pitfalls,
Speaker:no shared alignment on the success, no shared alignment on the
Speaker:plan. All the things that would hook somebody in
Speaker:as to, like, why are, what all the pains,
Speaker:all those things. All those things you tease out at the beginning of the stage
Speaker:of a relationship to get somebody curious enough to even want to engage with you
Speaker:and your company, you have to have those in alignment
Speaker:so that you can repeat them all the stinking
Speaker:time at the top of the funnel. So then people are
Speaker:like, oh, you guys solve that problem.
Speaker:You know what I mean? How often do you have to talk about Bofu content
Speaker:before Bofu content equals Lashay? How
Speaker:much do I have to talk about repurposing distribution before
Speaker:it's, oh, repurposing distribution? I'm just going, I'm not even going to
Speaker:search anything. I'm just going to shoot Justin a DM and say, all right? I
Speaker:need help. We got a bottleneck with repurposing. Like, can you come in and help
Speaker:our company do? And that's so important.
Speaker:And it's like, I know my message was starting to resonate because I got tired
Speaker:of talking about it. I'm like, if y'all think y'all tired of me talking about
Speaker:Bofu, I'm tired of talking. But you know what it's like, that's when
Speaker:the message really starts to stick, and that's when you need to continue
Speaker:to push on that message. And again, it's like when I think of content repurposing,
Speaker:you are the first person that pops in my mind. It's like when people
Speaker:think about Bofu, I want myself to be the first
Speaker:person that pops into mine. Maybe I'm not the right solution for them, and that's
Speaker:okay, but I at least want them to come to me and say, okay, you
Speaker:need to do x, y, and z. I'm not the best fit for you, but
Speaker:this person might be a good, maybe they do BOFU
Speaker:on a freelance perspective, you know what I mean? So it's space for everybody,
Speaker:right? So I think, yeah, I think that's really important. And again, it's
Speaker:like when these companies are trying to hire freelancers and things like that to come
Speaker:in, it's just like they don't, the companies don't give the
Speaker:freelancers the tools they need to succeed, which
Speaker:was why my content marketing dashboard was
Speaker:born, because it really was derived out of pain,
Speaker:because I really wanted to work for this content marketing agency and I didn't get
Speaker:the chance to work with them. I didn't make the cut because I
Speaker:couldn't write good bottom of funnel content because my brain couldn't
Speaker:conceptualize, how do you write an article but
Speaker:not have to do a Google search? Again? Because me as a freelance
Speaker:writer, I was taught to find the target
Speaker:keyword, do a Google search, see what everybody else is talking
Speaker:about, and try to make it a little bit better than
Speaker:their stuff. And there's some truth to that. But what most
Speaker:freelancers do is they just compile the top ten results and put it together and
Speaker:say, okay, here goes your article. And the marketing leaders don't know any
Speaker:better. They're like, okay, we have an article. Let's throw it in this book black
Speaker:content marketing box, and let's just see what happened with sticks. But it's
Speaker:like if you give them the necessary tools that they need, because I'm not a
Speaker:subject matter expert in cybersecurity, but I've worked with a cybersecurity company.
Speaker:I'm not a subject matter expert in career development, but I've
Speaker:worked with a career development company. And it's because to me, in my
Speaker:opinion, like, strategists don't have to be subject matter experts
Speaker:in the thing. I'm a subject matter expert in
Speaker:Bofu. So if you give me the information that you need, and, like, we get
Speaker:the team on that, because we do, like, we do a workshop where it's like,
Speaker:I have a canvas laid out and we go through the product and the
Speaker:prospects and having that alignment between customer
Speaker:and product. So it's like, once we get through that, and you would be so
Speaker:surprised how many teams are like, okay, so do you have, like, a feature
Speaker:benefit list? Or they're like, oh, well, this person on that team, I think they
Speaker:have it, so let me go. No, I would not be surprised at all. Ashe,
Speaker:man, like, it gets crazy. It's like, I'm
Speaker:on calls with whole teams and they're just like, okay, so who
Speaker:has this thing? Okay, y'all got this thing over there, and it's like, it's
Speaker:almost like an awakening. They're like, ooh, our information is
Speaker:scattered. And it's like, if the people in house are
Speaker:having trouble getting this information, what makes you think that a freelance
Speaker:writer is going to be able to grab all this information? They've got other
Speaker:clients to deal with. They got. You know what I mean? So it's just like,
Speaker:I wasn't given the proper resources when I was trying to be a freelance writer
Speaker:to create good bottom of funnel content. So the point of the dashboard was to
Speaker:be able to consolidate all of that information. So if you do want to bring
Speaker:in a freelance writer, they don't have to be a subject. Well, they should be.
Speaker:That would help. But they don't necessarily have to be a subject matter expert
Speaker:on the thing because you have everything consolidated for them.
Speaker:They can learn the product at a deep level within two weeks,
Speaker:and then from there, that's when you get them to start
Speaker:publishing. Even then, there's still a little bit of bottom of funnel
Speaker:nuance and stuff like that. But the point is, right, it's better than just getting
Speaker:a random freelancer and saying, okay, write this piece and just look around our
Speaker:website for the stuff you need. Look on YouTube. Like, no. Have the collateral
Speaker:together for them. Yeah. Those alignment pieces are
Speaker:really so key, literally across
Speaker:every piece of content that you create. I can't think of
Speaker:a scenario where you shouldn't be doing this. But
Speaker:it is eye opening the amount of companies
Speaker:that completely skip over the
Speaker:pre, the research phase, if you
Speaker:will, to content marketing and go straight into creating
Speaker:and then wonder why it doesn't work. And it's like, of course this doesn't
Speaker:work. Of course it wouldn't work. You're literally just
Speaker:speaking to people you don't know
Speaker:and you don't care about, even though they're your customers.
Speaker:It's a kind of a wild reality. And the thing is, Justin, like, you don't
Speaker:know what you don't know. So there are one or two things. Either they
Speaker:genuinely don't know or they're trying to rush the process.
Speaker:I think both. It might be both. Yeah, for sure. And it's
Speaker:like everybody knows when you rush the process, that actually slows you
Speaker:down. If you were to just take a step back and be like, okay, let's
Speaker:get this out the way. It's a pain, but let's get it out the way.
Speaker:It's absolutely necessary for what we need to do. And again, like, when I work
Speaker:with companies, I tell them, like, this is the hardest part. Like the customer
Speaker:research, getting the different teams together. And that's the hardest part. Once
Speaker:we've got that together, oh, the bottom of funnel articles start flowing. Why?
Speaker:Because we have alignment. Then once you have that alignment, you can take that
Speaker:bottom of funnel article and repurpose it into something else with the
Speaker:data backed evidence that it converts. How do you know? Well, because you have
Speaker:tracking set up and, and that's probably like a whole nother tracking is a whole
Speaker:nother topic because I know people struggle with that, too. But if you have good
Speaker:tracking setup, you can see which articles are driving you the inbound
Speaker:leads. So if you know this does good as an article, why don't you repurpose
Speaker:it into an email? Right. Or why don't you repurpose it into a webinar?
Speaker:It just gives you that data backed information that
Speaker:you need to take the step forward. And again, even with me and teams, it's
Speaker:like they have to trust me to a certain extent because it's a lot of
Speaker:work upfront. But again, once they get through that, and here's
Speaker:another thing, usually smaller teams are,
Speaker:have the information together much better than larger
Speaker:teams, specifically like see through
Speaker:Series A, b
Speaker:maybe, but usually see stage companies very
Speaker:lean. They're just getting started. They have their information together. Teams are
Speaker:communicating with each other. They have cross functional communication. It's not siloed
Speaker:like a. I've worked with some bigger company. Yeah, it's like. Right.
Speaker:And it's like the bigger the company gets, the more
Speaker:communication becomes siloed. It's like, oh, the sales team only
Speaker:talks to the sales team and the product team only. But why?
Speaker:It's like we're all trying to hit the same KPI's. We're trying to
Speaker:get to a specific number. Why are we not trying to help each other do
Speaker:that? Yeah, it's, it goes back again. It's internal teams in
Speaker:alignment. It's one of those things where as somebody who led teams
Speaker:and did that in larger orgs and now working across a
Speaker:myriad of like, the more companies you work with and work for, just
Speaker:the reality of like, man, people are the issue. They're the solution
Speaker:and they're the issue. Yes, I was talking with
Speaker:Ross Simmons about this. Like, those soft skills are going to really
Speaker:come back into like, necessity
Speaker:for teams to succeed. Like, if you don't have the soft skills to communicate
Speaker:internally, to be able to pitch those ideas, to be able to share why,
Speaker:to be able to help teach people internally why
Speaker:and show them, like, all of those things are really going to, going to come
Speaker:back into vogue for, for marketers especially because I think.
Speaker:So this is the thing, right? Like talking through this, this got me
Speaker:thinking. Content and marketing is basically
Speaker:one thing now. Marketing is
Speaker:fueled by content in 2024. Yes,
Speaker:yes, yes. You can supplement it with ads, you can supplement it with other
Speaker:things, but you have to have
Speaker:content to do marketing. And in order to do the content
Speaker:well, you have to have all of the
Speaker:standard marketing, operating procedure stuff, positioning, messaging,
Speaker:benefits, features, understanding of all those things.
Speaker:And you have to know your customers and you have to know what problems they
Speaker:have and you have to know what pains they have. And you can't just rely
Speaker:on the sales team or the CS team to, oh, that
Speaker:they handle the problems. They handle those things. And
Speaker:then we're just ambiguously creating keyword content
Speaker:while they're down in the trenches dealing with the real stuff. Exactly.
Speaker:And I think that's the big misconception with why
Speaker:teams beef with each other because it's, I feel like, and I'm not in
Speaker:sales, I don't, I don't know, somebody tell me. But I, sometimes I feel like
Speaker:the sales team feels like, oh, we're held to these certain numbers and we got
Speaker:to hit x quota and we got to close x amount of
Speaker:people when it's like, oh, the marketing team, they just have to get, they aren't
Speaker:really tied as close to a number. And then the
Speaker:marketing team, and I could speak for myself, the marketing team was like, well, hold
Speaker:up. We're busting our ass on this side, too. Like, it ain't just, it's not
Speaker:all you guys, like, we have to. And I think the sooner
Speaker:we start to realize that the job of marketing is
Speaker:to drive qualified leads to the sales team.
Speaker:Our job is to make the sales team jobs easier. Right.
Speaker:The only way we can do that is if we know from sales what the
Speaker:prospects are telling them. So if they're like, okay, this feature slaps,
Speaker:and we love this, we probably know this needs to go into a
Speaker:bottom of funnel post somewhere. You know what I mean? But it's like,
Speaker:if you don't talk to the sales team, you don't know what they're dealing with.
Speaker:You don't know what they're struggling with. And usually when I talk to the product
Speaker:team, I just get, like, mixed reactions, like, oh, whoa, you need my
Speaker:help? Oh, I didn't, I didn't know that. I'm like, yeah, because you got to
Speaker:tell me how the product works, how it fits contextually in the
Speaker:workflow. It's like, give me an example. How would they use this in the day
Speaker:to day? It's like, all of this stuff has to go into the
Speaker:piece. The sales team doesn't always know what the
Speaker:product team like, these are different functions. They take different
Speaker:skills, and you know what I mean? So it's like, we all need each
Speaker:other for the broader vision, but it's like,
Speaker:companies and communication is so siloed, and again, it's
Speaker:like, oh, you know, well, I'm only talking to sales when there really should be,
Speaker:like, a slack channel. When you come out with a bottom of funnel piece, share
Speaker:that piece to the other teams. Be like, you know what, sales.
Speaker:Let me know if this helps you with closing a deal. Right? Cause maybe
Speaker:if that helps you close a deal, maybe we can repurpose that and put it
Speaker:on LinkedIn, or maybe we can do this, or do you know what I mean?
Speaker:It's just like data gathering and information gathering. And it's like, if you
Speaker:don't talk to the teams, you don't know what they're struggling with. What's
Speaker:the best way to drive that? You've got
Speaker:the marketing dashboard. Anybody can go grab it. Like, yes, I've got the
Speaker:dashboard crap. Now I got to try to get somebody on these
Speaker:calls. How do you facilitate? Because I think even with companies
Speaker:where there's good communication, where like, hey, I can go reach out to John over
Speaker:here, but John's busy and now my piece is stalled
Speaker:out. Yeah, that was another
Speaker:reason for the dashboard, because there used to be a thing where I
Speaker:would have to hold an interview per piece.
Speaker:So another thing I love about bottom of funnel is that you only
Speaker:need a specific amount or a certain amount of information.
Speaker:And it's interesting because now we're getting a little bit deep into it, but
Speaker:it's like bottom of funnel articles are almost
Speaker:repurposed within themselves. So we're talking about the same
Speaker:features, the same benefits, the same paint, but we're talking
Speaker:about it in a different context depending on the use case that we're talking
Speaker:about. But a lot of it is the same thing. It's just different positioning.
Speaker:So it's like once I get that core information down that I need from these
Speaker:teams, I take that information and repurpose it. So maybe it's
Speaker:like, again, going back to the sales enablement, best sales enablement
Speaker:software for enterprise teams, then it's like best
Speaker:sales enablement software for small teams.
Speaker:Those might have different features in them, but again, if I talk to the product
Speaker:team and they list all the features down, all the use
Speaker:cases, so on and so forth, I don't have to mess with them too, too
Speaker:much unless the product roadmap is growing and things like that, and they want to
Speaker:add things to this, maybe they add a new feature that
Speaker:opens up a new segment, maybe it opens up a new
Speaker:list of competitors. That's like the information I really need
Speaker:from them. But that's not, it's not like the company is updating the
Speaker:product roadmap every day or we come out with a new feature every day. Oh,
Speaker:yeah. You know what I mean? So it's like once I get that core information
Speaker:down from them, I really, you really don't need them too much from
Speaker:there. But, yeah, I think it's
Speaker:funny, again, because it's like repurposing within
Speaker:bottom of funnel. I use the same elements over and over and over.
Speaker:It's just about repositioning the
Speaker:elements based on who you're talking to. And when I, again, when I say elements,
Speaker:I mean like, oh, the benefits, the features, pain points, stuff like that. But
Speaker:it's really all about repositioning. Yeah. You don't have to get too, too much from
Speaker:them. Just get it down that one time. And then once you have
Speaker:it, you have it. Yeah, it's much more the,
Speaker:I break repurposing into two different areas, like macro and micro, macro
Speaker:being like typically the larger, like thematic, the type.
Speaker:So in this case, features and benefits. Yep. Pain points. Yep.
Speaker:These things you can repurpose over and over and over again throughout your content, especially
Speaker:bottom funnel, because they're not going to change. Somebody searching one
Speaker:thing and the next thing, like you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You actually
Speaker:shouldn't reinvent the wheel because the feature is the feature.
Speaker:What are you going to do? It's funny, one client that I started working with
Speaker:a couple months ago, we focused on solely bottom of
Speaker:funnel before. Like we're still working through all that. They
Speaker:have hundreds and hundreds of blogs that they already had. So literally we're
Speaker:going through and updating bottom of funnel content right now
Speaker:with the sole purpose of driving conversion. So
Speaker:they're getting traffic, they're getting good impressions, all those type of things. And
Speaker:now we need to make sure the information is accurate. Correct, has the right
Speaker:CTA's, all that type of stuff to drive conversion. That's another thing.
Speaker:See, you just see, now you got my brain running another
Speaker:thing when it comes to bottom of funnel because I know we talked about
Speaker:intent. There are two main things I see. It's like with top of
Speaker:funnel, I see people pushing their product too much. And then with
Speaker:bottom of funnel, I don't see people pushing the product enough.
Speaker:Interesting. Yes. So with bottom of funnel, and
Speaker:I'm not throwing shade to anybody, but if your bottom of funnel piece
Speaker:starts with oh, in today's marketing, dust yourself off and try
Speaker:again, like immediately. Right. Because when it comes
Speaker:to bottom of funnel again, the prospect is already
Speaker:solution aware. So you don't need to say, oh, what
Speaker:is sales enablement and how can sales enablement help your team? Like
Speaker:they learn that already. Now they're here to see you
Speaker:versus competitor. They're here to see best sales enablement for use
Speaker:case they're here to competitor alternative. Like that's what they're
Speaker:here for. And I tell people all the time, like when you do bottom of
Speaker:funny, you either need to lead with pain points or you need to lead with
Speaker:benefits and then those pain points and those benefits should tie back
Speaker:into the capabilities of the product. So it's like, again, because
Speaker:you triggered me a little bit when you said that.
Speaker:So I was just like, let me just get that off my mind before I
Speaker:forget. But yes, I don't see people pushing the product enough
Speaker:in bottom of funnel and they don't get deep with their product. If they do
Speaker:have their product and other products listed, it's like a little blurb
Speaker:about you know, oh, you know, we do this and we do that. It's like
Speaker:a little paragraph, but it's like you can get way deeper than that. Like, get
Speaker:more granular. Talk about, okay, this feature solves this
Speaker:pain point. It has this capability. Boom, move to the next. This feature solves this.
Speaker:And if you have a ton of features, one thing you can do, one strategy
Speaker:I like to do is group your features. So if you have high level,
Speaker:I call them, like, high level benefits. So to
Speaker:me, saving time and saving money is a high
Speaker:level benefit. It's not a differentiator, right? It's just like a high level
Speaker:benefit. But maybe you have features that fall within
Speaker:these pools, right? So maybe it's just like a feature that helps
Speaker:you save more time and help you save more money. Or maybe there's just.
Speaker:And again, this usually goes for if you have a ton of features
Speaker:that solve multiple pain points and you don't want to
Speaker:feature dump in the article, because that never works. Y'all don't feature
Speaker:dump. If you do want to include a lot of features, you need to group
Speaker:them properly by a high level benefit. So again, you
Speaker:find the high level benefit, and then you group the features under the benefit that
Speaker:it matches with. Because how many. I mean, how many sections
Speaker:are you trying? I mean, it's gotta be around five, right?
Speaker:Like, nobody wants to scroll, right? A bazillion
Speaker:feature sets in there. And again, I think that one of the.
Speaker:I use an example with my client. I gave them. It was funny
Speaker:enough, it was a pellet grill, like a smoker, to,
Speaker:like, cook smoked meats. And I was like, what you have to do
Speaker:is put your. It all comes back to the intent, right? You said, dive deeper
Speaker:into the feature. Dive deeper into the. Why? If you wanted to
Speaker:buy a pellet grill, you really want to
Speaker:know what is good about this one, what isn't
Speaker:in the reality? It's like, how much food can you put on there? How hot
Speaker:does it get? Does it burn, like, pros and cons, all of those things
Speaker:across different models or across different machines? That's what I
Speaker:actually need to know. What I don't need to know is the
Speaker:specific. This one has a dial feature. This one has a this
Speaker:and that feature. This one has that. It's like, no. As a buyer,
Speaker:what is all the information I need to be able to make a good decision
Speaker:to say yes or no. Yes. And I think that's where a lot of people
Speaker:miss the mark. And it's a whole nother thing. Some people don't even want to
Speaker:talk about their competitors. They're just like, oh, we don't want to bring attention to
Speaker:them. And I get it. Right. But here's the thing.
Speaker:If you talk, and again, this is about talking, the cross functional
Speaker:communication. If you talk to the sales team and they tell you, oh,
Speaker:we're losing deals to this person and that person, and that person, you probably
Speaker:need to talk about it again, because people are searching for
Speaker:the bottom of funnel terms anyway. Just because you don't wanna think about
Speaker:it doesn't mean they're not searching for it. And the only thing you're
Speaker:doing by not writing bottom of funnel content is you're letting these other
Speaker:companies control your narrative. Cause you better believe if you're not
Speaker:talking about yourself, they're definitely talking about you. And something I
Speaker:caught the other day that was really, really cool on
Speaker:capsule's website. So, capsule video, they do something really cool
Speaker:on the homepage. So they have like competitors
Speaker:listed out across the homepage. But it's like
Speaker:they list the thing that they do better than the competitor.
Speaker:So they say, twelve times faster than descript,
Speaker:eleven times faster than v, nine times faster than
Speaker:Adobe. Like, they're not even hiding the fact that we have
Speaker:competitors. And these could be competitors that they're probably
Speaker:fighting for deals on, or losing deals too, but they're very
Speaker:upfront about it. They're like, boom, okay, we're faster than this person, this person
Speaker:and that person. So it's like, I would encourage people to not
Speaker:be afraid about talking about your
Speaker:competitors, because it's not like you're talking about them and you're saying, oh, you know,
Speaker:this company. I mean, let me preface that too. You
Speaker:should not, should talk your competitors. I just
Speaker:wanna, I just wanna put that out there. Like, don't do
Speaker:that. The best thing to do is to explain what
Speaker:your competitors do well versus what you do well. Because what's gonna
Speaker:happen is the prospect, or the potential prospect is gonna come to the
Speaker:article they're gonna read. And what happens is if they are
Speaker:a better fit for, for the competitor, they're going to self select
Speaker:and honestly self deselect from
Speaker:wasting time from the. Sales team, which people do not
Speaker:understand the reality
Speaker:of helping the buyer make a better
Speaker:decision and helping sales have more qualified
Speaker:sales conversations. Yes. And that people,
Speaker:buyers today, like you said, with the competition, it made me real. Like, do you
Speaker:think they're not googling the
Speaker:competition or like reading or reading a review
Speaker:on YouTube or like, like watching a third
Speaker:party give a x, Y and Z thing about the three.
Speaker:Of course they are. Of course they are. They're making a decision, asking their
Speaker:friends. It's honestly a little bit dense of us as
Speaker:marketers to think that people aren't
Speaker:going to our competitors and reading about them and
Speaker:seeing, okay, who's the best fit? Even, let's take it for consulting to a
Speaker:minute. When people look for bottom of funnel, maybe they
Speaker:come to me first if I'm the first person that comes to mind. But they
Speaker:probably hit two or three other people up and they're like, oh,
Speaker:they're, you know what I mean? They're surveying the field. They're trying to figure out,
Speaker:okay, is this the best solution for us? Why are you different than the
Speaker:other person? And it's like, here's the thing. If you're differentiated
Speaker:enough in your features, you don't have to compete on price. I think
Speaker:that's another important thing too, because again, I work with some companies
Speaker:where their benefits are a little bit high level. They're like, oh, save money and
Speaker:save time. I'm like, no, no, no. What's the benefit
Speaker:of the feature? What's the benefit of them
Speaker:achieving the job to be done? Not just, oh, we're going to save
Speaker:time. And everybody says that. What data, what proof do you have to
Speaker:back up what you're telling them? And again, and I know you mentioned
Speaker:people coming to the article and like scrolling and things like that. And again,
Speaker:that's why I think when people list their features out in
Speaker:the article, I believe the features should lead with the capability
Speaker:or the benefit. Because again, if they're skimming and they
Speaker:probably have your page up and they probably have a competitor page up and they're
Speaker:skimming through and just leading with
Speaker:capabilities and benefits is just really, really good for skimmers.
Speaker:Cause it gives them a quick way to digest what you're able to
Speaker:do without having to read a 13 or 14 minutes piece. You know what I
Speaker:mean? Yep. So I want to, nobody wants to read the 13
Speaker:minutes piece. Nobody wants to read it. Right? It's boring,
Speaker:you know what I mean? And it's like they are trying to make a decision,
Speaker:but still it's like they might not want to read every
Speaker:tiny specific, you know what I mean? So it's good to make
Speaker:those headers really stand out and get the point across
Speaker:in as few characters as possible. That headline
Speaker:needs to make them want to read the rest of the piece. And when I
Speaker:say headline, I mean like the headers, h two, s, h three, the way you
Speaker:position those needs to make them want to say, oh, okay, yeah, that's my
Speaker:problem. Okay, let me read about this a little bit. This feature does this, for
Speaker:example. And that's another thing. I think people should
Speaker:always include contextual examples in their
Speaker:articles. Again. So this confused me for a long
Speaker:time. But the easiest way to understand, like, contextual examples is just to
Speaker:think, like, once you explain the feature, say,
Speaker:for example, let's say, imagine
Speaker:if taking, and again, this is where the product
Speaker:team comes in because they help us understand how the feature is used
Speaker:contextually. That's why I said every team has to
Speaker:be involved in this, because every, yeah, it's like every team
Speaker:has different information that has to go into this piece, but it all works together
Speaker:cohesively to get a conversion at the end of them reading that piece.
Speaker:And they may not even read that. They might just skim it. Because I've, you
Speaker:know, seen people on hot jar and we've, like, they'll
Speaker:skim it, read through it a little bit. Two minutes or so, boom, sign up
Speaker:for a demo, right? Because when it hits that hard, they're like,
Speaker:oh, okay, this is my company. Let me just reach out and see what they're,
Speaker:what they're talking about. And if you have alignment with the sales team, when they
Speaker:talk to sales, everything they read in that blog post is going to align from
Speaker:what they hear from sales. Yep, yep, exactly,
Speaker:exactly. All right, we're cruising here. I want to give some folks some
Speaker:tactical advice, right? Like, hey, we're,
Speaker:we're struggling with BOFU, or like, we've got a lot of what
Speaker:I would maybe think are BOFU articles, but what are my steps
Speaker:to step in here and actually start taking, like, in the next
Speaker:two weeks, I can do these things. The first thing I would
Speaker:say is to,
Speaker:hmm, attempt to get your team together
Speaker:and lay out who you're talking to so
Speaker:your Personas, lay out your ideal customer profile, your
Speaker:pain points, benefits, features, capabilities, and
Speaker:you can get one person from each team. Usually that's how I do it. Try
Speaker:to get one person from each team together and come together and lay out these
Speaker:things, like, make it like a feature benefit list and put that together.
Speaker:From there, I would start searching for bottom of funnel terms, and I tell people
Speaker:the way I like to find. Well, again, we talked about this a
Speaker:little bit before the episode, but my brain is just like a continuous stream of
Speaker:consciousness. I'm going to try to condense this down to tell you all how to
Speaker:do this, but the way I like to find bottom
Speaker:of funnel keywords. Is a bottom of funnel keyword
Speaker:usually describes what the product is or what it does,
Speaker:right? So start there.
Speaker:Another thing I like to do is something called the homepage test. If I
Speaker:scroll down your homepage and I can find two bottom of funnel keywords,
Speaker:usually I don't want to say they're on the right track. Like they know all
Speaker:about bottom of funnel and things like that. Usually it's an indicator, like they have
Speaker:a good sense on like who they're talking to and their product market fit.
Speaker:And that's another thing, side rant. If you do not have your product market
Speaker:fit, don't start bottom a funnel. It's not time yet. You got to know
Speaker:your value props, you have to know your competitors, you have to know where you
Speaker:fit contextually all this stuff. But I would say
Speaker:get alignment again, one person from each team
Speaker:or get as close to that as you can and start doing some bottom
Speaker:of funnel keyword research again, what the product is or what it
Speaker:does. Understand the different use cases. So you know, again, when you look
Speaker:type best sales enablement software for use
Speaker:case, right? So start to understand your use cases. Start to
Speaker:implement that into your keyword research. And then from there
Speaker:grab my dashboard and grab like, but seriously,
Speaker:like there are like two or three frameworks in there that
Speaker:can kind of guide you and help you along with knowing where
Speaker:each team inputs goes in the piece. So like,
Speaker:okay, pain points go into a specific section that comes from sales
Speaker:benefits go into a specific. So that's what
Speaker:I would say. And again, if a team is like really, really pressed, I want
Speaker:to say look for a bottom of funnel specialists. I'm not the only one, right?
Speaker:Like, you know, there are other people that are bottom of funnel spot. Maybe
Speaker:they do it from a freelance basis or, and different people have
Speaker:different opinions on what bottom of funnel is. I did a LinkedIn
Speaker:poll and I said, when you think about them, a funnel, do you think of
Speaker:comparison pages? And they're like, it was almost 50 and 50
Speaker:50 yes and 50 no. And people were like, oh, well, I look
Speaker:at knowledge based stuff as bottom of funnel. I
Speaker:look at just white papers as
Speaker:bottom of funnel. I'm like, I was getting all types of stuff and I was
Speaker:like, oh, okay, okay. So I think having
Speaker:somebody with a BOFU focus come in and help the team kind of
Speaker:drive that. Again, I use templates and frameworks because that's how my brain works
Speaker:and it helps people easily conceptualize what I'm trying to do because it is
Speaker:nuanced. There's a huge learning curve. It's complicated, but I find that
Speaker:templates and frameworks kind of help people conceptualize it a little better. So,
Speaker:yeah, that's my parting advice for people that want to start
Speaker:bottom of funnel, again, it is nuanced, but if you take the steps that I
Speaker:mentioned in this episode, you're going to be
Speaker:miles ahead of your competitors. Because again, one of the
Speaker:reasons that it's kind of easy to rank for bottom of funnel content, I'm not
Speaker:trying to make it seem my job is easy, but one of the reasons that
Speaker:it's kind of easy to rank for bottom of funnel content is because a lot
Speaker:of people don't do it right. So when you do do it right, it doesn't
Speaker:take that much to rank. So as people start to catch on and start to
Speaker:do it right, might get a little bit more competitive. But as of right
Speaker:now, it's not too, too difficult to rank for. If
Speaker:you do what I talked about previously in this episode, yeah, you're going to be
Speaker:on the right track. Are there specific? So you mentioned, like
Speaker:grabbing bottom of funnel keywords. What did you
Speaker:mean by, like, scrolling the homepage and seeing two keywords? Like, what's an example of
Speaker:that? You're putting me on the spot. I
Speaker:gotta see, like, what would you be looking for? I guess
Speaker:I'm looking for. So when I scroll the homepage,
Speaker:I'm looking for a bottom of funnel
Speaker:keywords specifically. So, like, again, what the product
Speaker:is or what it does. So let me, let me pull up and
Speaker:see if I can pull up an example. I think drift does this really
Speaker:good. So if you look in Drift's
Speaker:header, it says, one conversation at a time. Meet drift,
Speaker:an AI powered buyer engagement platform. That's a bottom of
Speaker:funnel keyword, buyer engagement platform. Right? So that's
Speaker:one. If I scroll down some more, I'm seeing like a
Speaker:bunch of, no, they've only got one. But I know they
Speaker:obviously, like, they have. Sure. I know what you're talking about them. You know what
Speaker:I mean? So it's like usually when I can come in and find that
Speaker:right away, I'm like, okay, they have a good grasp on
Speaker:what they're doing and who they are. Even if you go to gong, right? If
Speaker:you go to gong and you scroll all the way down into their footer, they
Speaker:have a ton of bottom of funnel keywords in their footer because they get it
Speaker:right. So it's like, I got you, you. Know, gong versus this and best this
Speaker:for that. And so, and again, that's how I usually
Speaker:decipher quickly if a company gets it or they
Speaker:don't. And if they don't, it's okay. We just got to, like, go through the
Speaker:alignment steps and things like that. But yes, that's the homepage
Speaker:test. My own made up homepage test. So if I, if I feel like we've
Speaker:got pretty good alignment, I've gone through and done the checklist with
Speaker:my team. What are the first few, like, pieces of
Speaker:content that we should be thinking about making? X verse
Speaker:y verse z? Should I be
Speaker:focused on? You mentioned, like, product for
Speaker:x use case? Like, are there particular pieces of content that I should
Speaker:be thinking about driving faster than others?
Speaker:Yes. Well, again, people have
Speaker:different meanings of what they think bottom up funnel is or what it means to,
Speaker:to them. That's what I mean. Because if you say, oh, go create bottom of
Speaker:funnel, they might be like, oh, all right, our knowledge base, we've got
Speaker:100 bottom of funnel pieces of content. So
Speaker:to me, in my opinion, I think it's gonna be the
Speaker:blog that you should focus on. Specifically, when I
Speaker:say bottom of funnel, I mean comparison pages. So best
Speaker:versus an alternative, and then even within
Speaker:that. So I heard you say versus, versus.
Speaker:So you could do competitor versus competitor versus
Speaker:competitor. And that's a strategy I like to do as well, because
Speaker:what you can do is take the search volume from two other competitors
Speaker:and inject yourself into the conversation. So if it's like
Speaker:gong versus clary and outreach is like, well, hello, what about us?
Speaker:You can do gong versus Clary versus outreach. And what's going
Speaker:to happen is outreach is going to collect the search volume that gong versus
Speaker:clarity was getting. But now they've inserted their self into the conversation, you
Speaker:know what I mean? So it's like little strategies and tactics like that that come
Speaker:from blogging. And again, once you
Speaker:kind of get a flow of the blog and things like that, and again, you
Speaker:don't have to publish a whole lot of bottom of funnel in order to make
Speaker:moves. So typically it takes nine
Speaker:bottom of funnel posts. And I'm not. Y'all. Just don't take it with a grain
Speaker:of salt. Typically it takes, this is a scientific. She's done the study.
Speaker:I've done this so many times, guys, like, based on my. Because I
Speaker:like to always preface based on my data, it takes around nine
Speaker:bottom up funnel articles to start driving pipeline.
Speaker:For a company I'm working with, they had a lead that had a
Speaker:chain of hospitals, like 70 hospitals, you know what
Speaker:I mean? So it's like. And then the cool thing about that is that it's
Speaker:enterprise software. Bottom of funnel
Speaker:works across product, led sales, led
Speaker:all types of things. You know what I mean? So it is versatile in that
Speaker:sense. But to me, if you want to start driving, inbound
Speaker:leads you 100%. First of all, need to focus
Speaker:on bottom of funnel. What I like to focus on is the
Speaker:blog, again, because people don't do bottom of funnel correctly, so it's
Speaker:not difficult to come in and get some quick wins. I love quick wins, right?
Speaker:I love to come in and redo a piece and it ranks in two or
Speaker:three days. And they're like, oh, my gosh, is this magic? Or like, no,
Speaker:people just don't do it right. So it's like when they come in and we
Speaker:do it right, they're like, whoa. Like, this is awesome. And it blows
Speaker:their mind that a keyword that gets 150 searches a
Speaker:month converts twice or three times as much as a keyword that
Speaker:gets triple the amount of traffic. It just blows their mind every single
Speaker:time. And I love it. I live for it. So that's my final
Speaker:question, tactically, because you mentioned SEO software for the
Speaker:teams that go in and they're looking in search console or
Speaker:they are looking in Semrush or an ahrefs or something like that,
Speaker:and the volume is ten or non
Speaker:existent, what's the advice to say?
Speaker:Because I'm sure you see, I'm sure. You'Ve seen a whole nother episode on
Speaker:search volume because some people might want to kill me for this,
Speaker:but I'm being totally honest. I've gone after
Speaker:keywords that have zero search volume and it
Speaker:converts like crazy. And again, these tools are
Speaker:just an estimate of what the search volume really is. Another
Speaker:thing, I just keep dropping gems on y'all. Another thing, the
Speaker:most overlooked keyword tool is Google itself.
Speaker:So if you go into Google and you start typing in best, and again, I
Speaker:keep going back to sales enablement. Example, if you type in best sales
Speaker:enablement software for, you're going to see the
Speaker:different use cases come up that people are searching for just because
Speaker:you put it into ahrefs or you put it into Semrush, or you put it
Speaker:into enter tool here and it says, oh, it only gets ten
Speaker:searches a month or it gets zero. You always have to take that with a
Speaker:grain of salt because I've written around keywords that get ten searches a month
Speaker:and we were getting 20 visitors a day. Right? And again, also
Speaker:with keywords, you don't just rank for the thing that you're trying to rank for.
Speaker:You also rank for permutations and things like that. So
Speaker:I think that plays a really big role into it, too. But yes,
Speaker:tactically, that's what I would do step by step. Like if you're like, okay, we
Speaker:got to get leads in the door. We got to just, I would do that
Speaker:step by step. Find the alignment, find the keywords. Either
Speaker:get a specialist to come in and help you put this together, do some more
Speaker:research, compile your own research and put that bottom of funnel
Speaker:piece together. You usually need about nine good pieces before you
Speaker:start to drive pipeline. And again, yeah, that's literally what I
Speaker:would do if I was coming in. That's how I do it when I come
Speaker:into companies, right? We just go and it's the same process every single time.
Speaker:Step one, alignment. Step two, keyword research. Step three, we
Speaker:write. Step four, we track like it's the same thing every single time. And I'm
Speaker:gonna, I'm gonna throw more at you because you're here and I'm curious what your
Speaker:take is on it. So you type in that thing,
Speaker:enterprise, you know, or sales enablement, four, and it comes up with
Speaker:seven different things. Is your plan. Then again,
Speaker:are we writing seven posts all for
Speaker:this and for that and for this and for that?
Speaker:So that's tough because
Speaker:different clients experience different things. With one of
Speaker:my clients, the thing that started converting for them,
Speaker:the ooh, ooh, hold up.
Speaker:Okay, so for two of my clients, their first
Speaker:converting piece was alternative. So if I had to
Speaker:rank within bottom of funnel, it's probably going to be
Speaker:competitor alternative and then it's going to be best
Speaker:software for use case. And then it could be like you
Speaker:versus this person. And another thing about the
Speaker:versus is this episode is going to go on forever. Another thing
Speaker:about the verses is if you type in google,
Speaker:your company versus another company, and you see g
Speaker:two and Capterra and all these
Speaker:other review sites and you're not up there, you
Speaker:immediately need to write around that, like immediately
Speaker:again, because that's other people controlling your narrative. Like
Speaker:g two is awesome, but I'm sure you don't want them controlling your narrative, right?
Speaker:You want to control your narrative. So if you see search volume
Speaker:that has your brand name in it versus somebody else, and you do not have
Speaker:a piece around that, that's probably the most
Speaker:important. After that, then I would go after competitor
Speaker:alternatives. But if you're good with like your name
Speaker:and versus competitor not having any search volume, nothing is there. At that
Speaker:point. I would start with competitor alternative again, then
Speaker:go down to best software for use case and then go competitor versus competitor.
Speaker:Got you. Okay. Yeah. So there's a little bit of a method to the madness
Speaker:of a little bit. It's some structure in his
Speaker:brain. Well, Lashay, it's been
Speaker:awesome dropping massive knowledge bombs all throughout this
Speaker:on bottom of funnel and how it ties in. I think the biggest thing for
Speaker:me, honestly, and I know we've got some cool stuff that we were chatting
Speaker:about before this, but I think for marketers to really
Speaker:understand that it truly does all tie together.
Speaker:It's not a segmented siloed strategy where we're going to
Speaker:focus only on bottom of funnel and has no impact at the top or I'm
Speaker:going to only do top of funnel as no impact at the bottom. Yup.
Speaker:All of these things tie together and I think building out
Speaker:a strategy that's manageable,
Speaker:reasonable, sustainable, where you can tie all those things together
Speaker:makes a ton of sense and I think teams can do it. I just don't
Speaker:think they know how. Yeah, well, that's what we're here for, right? That's what we're
Speaker:here for. Absolutely. So we're here to save the day.
Speaker:Awesome. Awesome. Well, Lashay, it's been a blast having you on and we'll
Speaker:definitely have to have you back because an hour went by like 15 minutes. So
Speaker:thanks for coming on. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate you so
Speaker:much. Awesome chess soon.
Speaker:All right, I hope you enjoyed this episode of distribution first
Speaker:and thank you for listening all the way through. I appreciate you so,
Speaker:so much and I hope you're able to apply what you learned in this
Speaker:episode one way or another into your content strategy as
Speaker:well. Speaking of strategy, we have a lot of things going on this year that
Speaker:are going to help you build your brand ten x your content and
Speaker:transform the way you do content marketing. Make sure to subscribe
Speaker:to the show and sign up for my newsletter at Justinsimon Co.
Speaker:So you don't miss a thing. I look forward to serving you in the next
Speaker:episode as well. And until then, take care and I'll see you next time.