Modern Marketing Mastery: Insights on Content Strategy with Robert Rose

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Speaker 1: Are you ready to transform your content strategy

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and truly engage your audience?

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Join me as I delve into the art of modern marketing with the

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legendary content marketing expert or I should say content

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marketing guru Robert Rose.

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Discover how to personify your brand, the practical integration

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of AI into content and the essential steps to create a

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content marketing strategy that both captivates and converts.

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Plus, learn why focusing on rarely given answers can set you

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apart in a truly noisy world.

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We've got all this, and more so .

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Stay tuned to this next episode of the your Digital Marketing

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Coach podcast.

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Speaker 2: Digital social media content, influencer, marketing,

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marketing, blogging, podcasting, vlogging, tick-tocking,

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linkedin, twitter, facebook, instagram, youtube, seo, sem,

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ppc, email marketing.

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There's a lot to cover.

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Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or

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business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert

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advice.

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Good thing you've got Neil on your side, Because Neil Schaefer

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is your digital marketing coach .

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Helping you grow your business with digital-first marketing.

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One episode at a time.

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Speaker 1: This is your digital marketing coach, and this is

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Neil Schafer.

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Hey everybody, neil Schafer here.

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Welcome to episode number 365 of the your Digital Marketing

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Coach podcast.

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How the heck have you been?

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It has been a little while.

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I was in Mexico City speaking, had a fantastic experience

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speaking there and introducing a lot of content from my upcoming

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book, which I am going to talk about in a bit.

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But it has been a great start to the summer so far and looking

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forward to serving you a little bit more frequently, as I have

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a lot of amazing interviews lined up over the next two to

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three months.

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So, before we get to today's interview with Robert, I just

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want to go over some of the news that I am following, or news

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that I have been experiencing, I should say, in my own business

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and that of my clients.

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So I think, if we look at the landscape of digital marketing,

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clearly AI is still this theme, and we see that ChatGPT has come

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out with 4.0 alpha or 4.00.

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I forget the official way that they term it.

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So obviously we continue to see advances in AI.

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I have actually, for the first time, became a customer of

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ChatGPT.

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Up until now, I mentioned all these different AI tools that I

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use, that I still use, but for a general AI tool.

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Once I did a $20 a month trial, I realized that I was able to

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have a little bit more control into both the input and the

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output, versus using an app that had preset recipes or already

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had their defined way of doing things.

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So if you're happy with your AI tool, there's no need to change

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, but I felt the need just in terms of flexibility, and I'm

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really happy with ChatGPT 4.

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And I am on the 4.0 or whatever it is called library.

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I will say, though, that most recently, I've become very

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interested in cloudai, and I am looking to experiment with

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cloudai, potentially use both of them, or even move over to

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cloudai, as I've heard that the responses it gives is more

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conversational.

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Plus for my reading of the terms and conditions, I can

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actually upload my upcoming book there, and it will give me lots

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of different advice based on my own content of my book, and it

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will never use that as part of their large learning model,

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where, according to my understanding of OpenAI's terms

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and conditions, they might use any content that I upload in

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their large learning model.

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So these are things that as businesses and as users, as

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professionals, we all need to worry about and I urge you, if

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you want to take that next step of not just asking questions but

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actually uploading content, that you make sure that you have

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all the terms and conditions read and you understand the

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potential risks as well as benefits, advantages,

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disadvantages.

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That's what this all comes down to right.

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When we talk about AI, so obviously AI is still center.

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You know, google obviously recently announced Google Gemini

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and all the different ways it's going to integrate with all the

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different Google products.

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That's pretty exciting.

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But when we talk about Google, I think we need to talk about,

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obviously, the recent changes in search and I've yet to get a

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response from one of my SEO guru friends, but I basically said

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hey, are the recent changes from October of last year to March

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of this year, the introduction of generative AI search, but

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there were a lot of other anti-spam and just a lot of

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different changes.

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I just asked him point blank is this the most disruptive change

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to SEO ever?

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And while I've yet to get a response, I think I already know

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the answer.

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Ran Fishkin from SparkToro, formerly of Moz, also reported

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of this leak of Google documents , but it's pretty clear that,

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similar to how social media algorithms have become

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pay-to-play for business.

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It almost seems that SEO has become either you're a big brand

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and big brands or Reddit Quora seem to get preference, or it's

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going to be a really, really hard battle.

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So I am still very fond of SEO.

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I still evangelize it.

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It's still one of the major sections of my upcoming book,

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and getting visibility in search engines is obviously one major

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strategy.

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But there's other value above and beyond that.

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At the end of the day, if you want to be creating email

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newsletters, if you want to be creating lead magnets, if you

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want to be creating social media content, you need a library of

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content, and that is really the purpose of what I feel is the

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purpose of blogging, and getting search engine visibility is one

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benefit of that, but there are other benefits, especially when

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you look at repurposing content, and in fact, with AI, we have

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new ways of repurposing that textual content in other textual

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content and other ideas.

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So the need for long form content is still there.

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Seo is still important, but in terms of how we get discovered,

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well, we need to look at our data and start being even more

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data-driven.

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There are still opportunities in SEO.

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It's not like my traffic has gotten to zero, but I definitely

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see bigger brands that seem to be getting higher search engine

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rankings, pumping out two, three , four blog posts a day, and I

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would as well search engine rankings pumping out two, three,

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four blog posts a day, and I would as well because it seems

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they're naturally ranking higher than people with less brand

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recognition.

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So obviously part of SEO is and I have a dedicated chapter on

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my upcoming book on this is back links, is getting known,

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getting people to talk about you , link to you.

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So brand recognition is still important, it's important

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everywhere and it seems like that is going forward with SEO.

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It seems to be one conclusion that some SEO experts have been

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talking about that it does become a critical thing.

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So if you want to improve your SEO, improve your brand

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recognition and where can you do that?

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I mean social media obviously is one great place to do that.

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Other than that, in social media specifically, we have the

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TikTok ban.

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Don't know what's going to happen.

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I continue to go full speed ahead on TikTok, starting to

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develop more short form videos which you'll see me start

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releasing, not just on TikTok but everywhere on social media.

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I have also, because I've seen a decline in traffic from X.

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I've been playing a little bit around with threads and I also

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realized that using I don't know if you remember this, but a lot

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of these social media scheduling tools used to have,

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before Instagram, had a direct API.

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You would enter the content and photo in Instagram and then it

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would send you a notification.

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Then you open the notification, copy and paste and you post to

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the social network.

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So Social B, my preferred social media scheduling tool,

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has just started to offer what they call universal posting.

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So, whether it's threads or whether it's any other social

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network, the concept is the same you create the content in

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SocialBee and then it sends you a notification.

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So because of this, I've been able to publish daily on threads

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, and right now I'm recycling my most popular content from

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Twitter, which I think is the closest network, and just seeing

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how things go, and I look forward to reporting back to you

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on that.

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But if you haven't been on threads, I urge you to take

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another look, re-look at who you're following, and I've

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already had some pretty amazing conversations in terms of volume

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that I haven't had on Twitter, or, as we say, x, for some time.

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So those have been my things I've been looking at with social

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media recently.

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Obviously, instagram is playing around with unskippable ads.

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We'll see how that goes, but the world of social media

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continues and it's really about leaning more into video and

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having more and more of a data-driven strategy.

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So those are sort of the news, the updates that I am looking at

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, and, just from a personal update, I know that every week

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I'm talking about the upcoming launch of my book, so I have

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decided that I am going to do a Kickstarter.

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I have sent out the advanced reading copy to a number of

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influential authors that I am honored to be friends with, so

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I've already gotten a number of quotes back from them.

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I can't wait to share those with you or I should say

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endorsements, quotes, blurbs, whatever you want to call them

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and once I finalize those over the next week or two, I will be

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able to finalize the back and front cover, as I do want to

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feature some of those quotes on that as well, as I want to

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feature those quotes at the beginning of the book, sort of

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this advanced praise for name of the book and at that point I

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will be launching the Kickstarter campaign where you

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can sign up to get notified.

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I will have a lot of early bird specials, so you're going to

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want to make sure that when I announce that it's available for

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a pre-launch or you know, enter your email address to know when

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it first launches.

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You'll want to make sure you sign up for that.

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I also have other plans, like launching a Facebook community

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where I share more information about digital threads, more

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videos, and I just gave you the name of the book there.

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But I've been talking a lot about it recently.

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So I hope to really offer you a lot of value, a lot of

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education and empower you in many different ways that this

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podcast alone cannot.

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So be on the lookout for that.

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Make sure you're signed up to my newsletter, neilschafercom

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slash newsletter.

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But either way, I will be announcing it on my podcast and

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I hope it is really really soon.

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I am already working with my graphic designer on the

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Kickstarter page, working with a copywriter on the copy and then

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, obviously, the quotes and blurbs still waiting for a

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number of people to hear back from them.

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But it is all coming together and obviously the content itself

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is all done.

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It's just a matter of the packaging and the launch and the

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strategy around that.

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All right, that's it for me.

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I want to move on to the interview today.

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So today I interview Robert Rose and hopefully you know him,

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you've heard of him.

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He, along with Joe Polizzi, created Content Marketing

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Institute and we talk a lot about that history in this

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interview as well but also that content marketing has evolved so

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much that it's not content marketing anymore, it's modern

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marketing.

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And it's funny, over the years I've never met Robert in person,

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never had a chance to talk to him in person, so this was the

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first time, so that was very, very special to me, but it was a

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really, really great conversation about all things

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content marketing.

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You're in for a special treat.

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So, without further ado, here's my interview with Robert Rose.

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Speaker 2: You're listening to your digital marketing coach.

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This is Neil Schaefer.

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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, neil Schaefer here.

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Welcome to another edition of the your Digital Marketing Coach

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podcast.

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Today we are going to go deep into content marketing.

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If there was a content marketing hall of fame, this guy

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would be right up there at the top of the list.

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Amazing that we both live in Southern California.

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We were just chatting before we started the recording and yet

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we've never had a chance to meet in person, although we know

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each other very well.

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But I'm really excited.

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I'm going to be learning together with you and really

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tapping into the brain of one of the foremost experts in content

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marketing.

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Everybody, welcome Robert Rose to the stage and to the podcast.

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Robert, thanks so much for joining.

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Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.

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As I told you before, I've been a huge fan for a long time, so

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this is quite the treat for me.

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Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, my friend.

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The treat is all mine, so I guess I always like to start

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with historical perspective, and I think we're going to get into

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that today, because content marketing is all you know.

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We can say it's evolved over time.

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I'm sure you'd agree.

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So let's begin with sort of the backstory, because when you

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started in content marketing, I'm assuming that the term just

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didn't exist, right?

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So I'd like to understand how you began this journey in

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content marketing.

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Speaker 3: Sure, it's a.

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It's a very simple story actually, because and it and

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Southern California plays a big role in it because I was, uh,

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you know, I found myself, after thecom boom and bust, joined up

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with a few friends as the CMO of a startup company, and so we

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did the classic two rounds of Silicon Valley funding and the

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whole thing.

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And we were a startup and we were an enterprise software

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startup.

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So we were competing with the likes in those days Many of

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these don't have products in this industry anymore but Oracle

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and Microsoft and Hewlett Packard before it became HP and

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all of the giants.

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And I knew that we were never going to win on brand.

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We were never going to win on we were 12 people in picnic

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tables, right?

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So how do we?

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How do we win?

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And so I started leveraging my background as a media person, as

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a content person because I came from the entertainment business

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and basically said, look, I'm just going to go all in on this,

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you know, trying to be a mile deeper.

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So if we were ever invited to the RFP table or to the client's

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table, we would be a mile deeper in subject matter

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expertise than any of them would .

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So that's, that was the strategy right.

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And so I hired journalists, I hired writers, I hired designers

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as my marketing team, and my theory was I could teach them

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the marketing stuff, like I could teach them search engine

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marketing, I could teach them SEO, I could teach him direct

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marketing, but I couldn't teach him to be great communicators.

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And so we built a little media company and that was my bet, and

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it worked and it paid off.

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And then ultimately, as I was sort of out there on the

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speaking circuit, sort of talking about, you know, hyping

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up my company and all that stuff , I heard about this guy, joe

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Pulizzi, who was basically giving the same talk as me and

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got his book which was at that point, was called Get Content,

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get Customers and read his book and he sort of had been talking

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about this thing called content marketing.

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I promptly went out and registered the domain.

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Much to my dismay, I registered under my company's name instead

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of me Bad move.

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And then basically met him, stalked him at a conference and

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basically said hey, listen, I'm doing the same thing you're

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doing.

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And he said, hey, well, I'm starting this thing.

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I'm gonna call it the Content Marketing Institute if you wanna

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join up.

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And it was perfect timing for me because I was kind of tired

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of pushing the startup rock up the hill and it was time for me

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to move on anyway, and so I ended up hanging up my own

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shingle and sort of going out and consulting companies on

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doing this content marketing thing, wrote a couple of books,

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with Joe as the chief strategy officer of Content Marketing

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Institute, and over the course of six years, really, from 2010

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to about 2016, we just, you know , we grew that thing and started

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evangelizing.

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Speaker 1: Amazing, amazing that you find kindred spirits.

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I always wonder how, when I see companies with like two

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co-founders, how did they go to high school together, go to

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college together?

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In your case, it sounds really serendipitous and really based

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on, as I would expect, no less based on the content itself of

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what you two were talking about.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we were using the same examples In those days.

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It like you know, southwest airlines and Red Bull and you

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know all these sort of classic companies that were using

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content to drive their, their brand value and and uh, you know

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this was.

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I remember this is 2010, 2009,.

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When everybody's putting money under the mattress cause we all

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thought the world was going to come to an end and it was.

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It was just a crazy, crazy time and yeah no-transcript.

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Yeah, it's crazy.

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It's crazy at that point.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I still remember Blog World and yeah, I

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mean we could go back.

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Yeah, of course, yeah, those are classic, so I'm curious

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around.

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The same time, I'm just putting my history cap back on.

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I remember a book called was it called?

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Inbound Marketing?

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I'm trying to remember the official name of the book.

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Yeah, it was Inbound.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm always curious about because some

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people are still confused, or is it the same?

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Or where did you see the growth of HubSpot and the term inbound

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marketing in parallel with what you and Joe were doing with?

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Speaker 3: content marketing.

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Yeah, it was a little.

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So there was two primary differences, right, where and

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look hats off to HubSpot they were.

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I mean, in the most meta way, inbound marketing is one of the

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best examples of content marketing that has ever existed.

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But the processes themselves are different.

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You know, inbound marketing and again, this is huge kudos to

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HubSpot and the and and Dharmesh and Halligan and and and all

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the guys that that sort of originated, that which were the

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idea there is is really marketing automation.

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Right, it was.

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It was all about search and it was all about being found, and

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once you were found, then it was basically moving people into a

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funnel to market to them in a way that would make them feel

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good about what they were doing and and basically talking about,

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you know, evangelizing a particular process or you know,

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in this case, you know really marketing automation more than

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anything else.

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And then it ultimately became about CRM and as they sort of

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grew their product.

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So inbound was always about be found, right, so it was very

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search focused.

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It was always about be found and then do something once you

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were found, creating content as the mechanism of being found.

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And so there's an overlap there in the Venn diagram for sure.

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But content marketing was always about something separate.

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It was about creating content that was valuable, full stop,

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like independent of whether it was good for SEO or whether it

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was good because it could really approach the entirety of the

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customer journey right.

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It was a great loyalty program, for example, and in fact most of

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the early examples were loyalty programs, not top of the funnel

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, sort of you know lead generation programs, and that

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was the difference.

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And then the second sort of fundamental difference was and

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this was sort of the you know we as Content Marketing Institute

00:18:16
started looking at content marketing more as operating like

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a media company, operating, you know, like you know, and sort

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of looking at your marketing like an owned, a real focus on

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owned media, like building that blog, building that resource

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center, building that webinar program, building that email

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newsletter and Inbound became much more around the idea of

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building a really sort of wonderful lead generation funnel

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that would be optimized just at that sort of lead gen, demand

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gen part of the organization.

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And you know we were frenemies for a little while.

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You know where we were like yeah, you're talking about it in

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the wrong way, and they would be like no, you're talking about

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it in the wrong way, and so it was fun, for you know that 2012,

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2013 timeframe, but there is a bit of a difference.

00:19:04
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense.

00:19:04
I mean, there's so many different directions we can go

00:19:06
through the conversation and one is you know, with HubSpot going

00:19:10
their way, it's almost like inbound marketing becomes this

00:19:13
more B2B, lead gen focus, whereas content marketing

00:19:17
equally applies to B2B and B2C, based on that evergreen concept.

00:19:21
And I'm wondering you know you can go that direction or another

00:19:24
direction, but just since then, obviously we've had more than a

00:19:27
decade.

00:19:28
How has you seen content marketing evolve?

00:19:31
For those that read your early books and they haven't seen any

00:19:35
blog posts or anything about content marketing in the last

00:19:37
decade, what would you say are sort of like the hallmark

00:19:40
differences or ways it has evolved into what we see today?

00:19:41
Differences or ways it has evolved into what we see today.

00:19:44
Speaker 3: You know, I think the biggest one is and this is

00:19:48
something that I talk about now and this is, you know, because

00:19:56
it has become more let's call it pointed or more focused, after

00:19:58
you know, in post-pandemic world , which is in the noise that

00:20:00
you're trying to pierce right.

00:20:03
So there's it's no shock to anyone small businesses,

00:20:06
solopreneurs, content creators, you know, we're all creating

00:20:09
content in some manner, and so it's a noisy, noisy, noisy world

00:20:14
and in a world where social media and the algorithms are all

00:20:18
focused in on not getting great organic reach with your, you

00:20:23
know, with your particular audiences, and that evolution

00:20:25
and what's going on broadly with social media and what's going

00:20:28
on with paid media and how ineffective in many ways it is

00:20:33
inefficient, probably a better word.

00:20:34
So it comes down to how do you start to create differentiation

00:20:39
and competitive advantage.

00:20:40
And it was Don Schultz actually we had the fantastic honor of

00:20:47
getting to know Don a little bit before he passed away and he's

00:20:50
considered the father of integrated marketing.

00:20:52
And one of the things that he said is that in today's world,

00:20:56
with technology, with the internet, with the web,

00:20:58
everybody can copy what you do and everybody does copy what you

00:21:01
do.

00:21:02
So it you know, when you come out with some great ad campaign

00:21:05
or you come out with some cool, creative you know on, you know

00:21:08
that's going to work.

00:21:09
On social media, it is 10 minutes before somebody is

00:21:11
copying you and copying the way that you do things, and the same

00:21:15
with your product, the same with all.

00:21:17
The one thing that they can't do is if you find a unique story,

00:21:20
a unique value that you can tell , and the focus and goal of that

00:21:25
is to establish a better relationship, a better

00:21:29
relationship with prospective customers, existing customers,

00:21:32
et cetera.

00:21:32
It's like, as I always say, it's teaching customers how to

00:21:36
be better customers, right?

00:21:37
So, whether that's thought leadership, whether that's

00:21:39
inspiration, whether that's education, it's that fantastic

00:21:43
idea of how do I develop a more meaningful relationship with my

00:21:47
audiences so that I'm differentiated and basically can

00:21:51
pierce the noise and not just grab attention but actually hold

00:21:56
attention over time.

00:21:57
And that's the real difference from the early days, which was

00:22:03
really wrapped up in the idea of being found on search, engaging

00:22:06
on social and being focused in, on just joining in on the noise

00:22:10
, to today, where it's being very focused and very pointed

00:22:14
about the value that you're creating, so that once you get

00:22:17
that attention to that customer, you're holding it so that

00:22:19
you're always top of mind with a relationship with them,

00:22:22
independent of where they are in their journey.

00:22:24
Speaker 1: Always top of mind with a relationship with them,

00:22:25
independent of where they are in their journey.

00:22:27
So, based on that description and what is left when everybody

00:22:29
is pumping out content, it's the differentiation right, and I

00:22:33
know you've written about customer experience as well.

00:22:35
I'm assuming that's another sort of differentiator, together

00:22:38
with the content.

00:22:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the same right, Because that's

00:22:44
marketing's job now, right, and when customer experience, you

00:22:45
know, which has become sort of the du jour way of saying you

00:22:47
know marketing in in in so many ways.

00:22:49
You know it's.

00:22:50
It's this idea that marketing's job got bigger right as digital

00:22:53
became more democratized and content became more democratized

00:22:57
and basically everybody from our competitor to the you know,

00:23:00
I mean, in so many ways even big companies are competing with

00:23:03
solopreneurs these days, right.

00:23:04
So you've got, you know this is the Uber, right, competing with

00:23:08
, you know that, all of these new disruptive sort of startups

00:23:11
that can compete because they can create content or

00:23:15
experiences that are differentiated from you know

00:23:18
larger, you know more established competitors.

00:23:21
And so marketing's job got bigger, right.

00:23:24
Marketing used to be back in the days, right, marketing was

00:23:28
brand, put leads in the funnel and kind of go away right, and

00:23:33
basically it was up to every other department after that

00:23:36
sales, customer service and so on and so forth.

00:23:38
But now marketing in so many ways is, you know, we're not

00:23:41
only required to have an opinion and value at the demand

00:23:46
generation and the brand level, but also sales enablement, also

00:23:49
customer onboarding, customer loyalty, customer evangelism and

00:23:52
all the way back around to, you know, selling again, and so our

00:23:56
job got bigger.

00:23:57
The entirety of the customer experience is now marketing's

00:23:59
job, and so, you know, the demands on the team become more

00:24:04
and more and more.

00:24:05
Thus the demands of more content become more and more,

00:24:08
and it's trying to figure out how to be judicious and really

00:24:11
deliberative about that.

00:24:13
Speaker 1: So, based on all of that, the listener, or the

00:24:16
viewer in some cases, is probably thinking well, you know

00:24:20
, how do I, how do I make sense of this?

00:24:22
You know most companies if not 99, if not 100% of companies are

00:24:25
creating content in some way.

00:24:26
Whether they're doing content marketing or not is another

00:24:29
story.

00:24:29
But for those that are listening, how would you go

00:24:32
about if you had a magic wand and say we are going to reset

00:24:36
your content marketing and you need to begin with this type of

00:24:39
a strategy and this type of a framework?

00:24:42
Where would you begin to teach everybody what that content

00:24:47
marketing strategy framework would look like?

00:24:50
Speaker 3: I'll tell you one of the first things that I'll do

00:24:53
with a company that wants to do this.

00:24:55
I mean, first of all, that's really the first step is you

00:24:57
kind of have to want to do it, right?

00:24:58
I mean, it's not something that is, you know, it just magically

00:25:02
happens.

00:25:03
So once you commit to actually doing something, one of the

00:25:06
first things I'll do is I'll draw basically the entirety of

00:25:10
the customer's journey on a whiteboard and say where does it

00:25:14
hurt the most?

00:25:15
Like, what are you really struggling to do?

00:25:16
And with many small businesses it's awareness, it's, you know,

00:25:21
putting new business into the pipeline, you know.

00:25:23
And it's but many, and I will tell you after working with so

00:25:26
many small businesses, it's not about growth, it's more about

00:25:30
loyalty, right, like how do I keep my customers coming back?

00:25:32
And those kinds of things.

00:25:34
So I usually say where does it hurt the most?

00:25:36
Because that's the place where we can afford to really take a

00:25:40
risk, to really focus on a disruption, because we've been

00:25:43
focused there and it hasn't worked.

00:25:45
So let's try something to establish a relationship with an

00:25:48
audience, with our customers, and try and differentiate there

00:25:52
so that we can improve that part of the experience.

00:25:56
And so I'll give you a perfect example of this.

00:25:58
I work with a small consulting firm, and this small consulting

00:26:02
firm they're 12 people.

00:26:03
Their customers, their clients are all big hedge fund managers,

00:26:07
big investment managers, chief investment officers.

00:26:11
They buy low, sell high, crowd, and so you go, okay, and their

00:26:19
problem was there.

00:26:20
It's a what have you done for me lately?

00:26:20
Business, right, so it's all about okay.

00:26:21
Well, what research have you given me lately?

00:26:22
What advice have you given me lately?

00:26:23
You know, and and so loyalty was a big deal for them, right

00:26:26
Cause it was like, yeah, I've subscribed for a year to your

00:26:29
consulting service and it's not that much anymore, and you know

00:26:33
I need to go on, right, so for them, getting that renewal was

00:26:41
incredibly important.

00:26:42
So what do they do?

00:26:42
Well, your first idea might like well, they'll do a

00:26:44
newsletter to their customers on how to buy low and sell high,

00:26:45
or they'll do a you know a magazine on how to do economics

00:26:49
better, or what's going on with the world and Brexit and all

00:26:52
that kind of stuff.

00:26:52
And it's like well, no, they can get that from Schwab, they

00:26:56
can get that from BlackRock, they can get that from any of

00:26:58
their other bigger competitors.

00:26:59
What can they do that nobody else can do to establish a

00:27:02
special kind of relationship with their customer and for them

00:27:05
.

00:27:06
Honestly and it sounds weird but it totally worked was they

00:27:09
launched a book club and a book club where their customers they

00:27:15
would recommend and send their customers very cheap, right,

00:27:16
send them a book, a monthly book .

00:27:18
Everybody reads it.

00:27:19
They set up a little LinkedIn group to have everybody go

00:27:21
discuss the book.

00:27:22
They set up a little video thing where they would review

00:27:25
the book and it was a wonderful thing.

00:27:27
And not books on investing, books on fiction and history and

00:27:31
science fiction and all the kinds of things, because what

00:27:33
they knew is their audience didn't have time to learn or

00:27:37
know what to read.

00:27:38
So getting this guidance from them was a wonderful value.

00:27:42
And, by the way, 18 months later, it's the number two

00:27:45
reason that their clients renew year after year is this silly

00:27:48
little book club.

00:27:48
That's a great idea of content marketing, working at the

00:27:52
loyalty level in a small business and differentiating

00:27:55
yourself, because BlackRock or Schwab none of them are doing

00:27:58
that right.

00:27:59
That's the differentiation.

00:28:01
Speaker 1: That's amazing, and I guess I mean especially in

00:28:03
post-pandemic times.

00:28:04
But if content is and I'm sure you've said it, I've said it a

00:28:08
lot of times is this currency of digital media, of digital

00:28:11
marketing, it's something you must have and it is this

00:28:13
commodity.

00:28:13
It can be used in a lot of different ways.

00:28:19
So it almost sounds like we need to evolve our thinking as

00:28:21
marketers that it's not just about content for SEO, for lead

00:28:22
gen, that inbound marketing, but it's content that can serve a

00:28:25
lot of different purposes.

00:28:26
And really, starting with that customer journey mapping and

00:28:29
where are the pains right?

00:28:30
It's almost like where do you want this to fit in your whole

00:28:33
corporate strategy?

00:28:34
Where can it help the most?

00:28:35
And then find creative solutions to make impact there.

00:28:39
And I guess, based on that analogy and that's a really

00:28:41
fresh analogy I've never or fresh way of thinking about,

00:28:44
I've never thought about before or even heard before I suppose

00:28:47
the way that you measure your success with content marketing,

00:28:50
then is not about vanity likes or even leads generated.

00:28:54
I'm assuming we need a new way of measuring now that really

00:28:58
looks at that customer journey map again and what we're trying

00:29:01
to achieve and, I guess, from a holistic perspective did we

00:29:04
achieve it or not?

00:29:04
I mean.

00:29:04
Correct me if I'm wrong, but how do you go ahead?

00:29:06
and measure this program now.

00:29:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've just hit on the two most important

00:29:11
things, which is number one, what you talked about with

00:29:14
regard to being a business strategy, right.

00:29:17
So if you start to think about it and you start drilling into

00:29:20
the real content marketing and owned media idea and building an

00:29:24
audience and all those kinds of things, it starts to look very

00:29:27
similar to a product marketing, right, and in many cases, one of

00:29:32
the things that I'll tell a CEO or a business owner or

00:29:34
something I'm saying listen, if your blog, if your website, if

00:29:38
your email newsletter isn't as important as one of your

00:29:41
products and services, then you're doing it wrong.

00:29:43
Right?

00:29:43
You need to put that level of care and feeding into these

00:29:46
programs to get what you're going to get out of it.

00:29:49
So it absolutely looks like a business strategy at the end of

00:29:53
the day that feeds into and creates a fly wheel effect on

00:29:57
your marketing.

00:29:57
And the second, what you really spoke to, which is absolutely

00:30:01
the case, is okay.

00:30:02
Now, once you have that content product, once you have that

00:30:05
effort as a business strategy, it needs clear goals and

00:30:09
objectives.

00:30:09
One of the biggest traps we see companies fall into is they'll

00:30:13
launch a blog and you go, okay, great, what's the goal of the

00:30:16
journey is it actually solving for is the number one thing, and

00:30:38
having that objective be truly understood by everybody in the

00:30:42
business.

00:30:43
Speaker 1: So if the book club is an example of content

00:30:46
marketing in its own way, it's funny.

00:30:48
One of things that podcasters talk about is well, let's ask AI

00:30:51
what we should ask our guests' questions right?

00:30:54
So here's a fun one, because when people think of content

00:30:57
marketing and you know the AI says, for businesses with

00:31:00
limited resources, what are your top tips for creating high

00:31:03
quality, engaging content that resonates with the target

00:31:06
audience?

00:31:06
And what you're saying is that's part of content marketing

00:31:09
, but that's not necessarily the most important part, based on

00:31:13
where your company is, with your relationship with your

00:31:16
customers, with differentiation in your industry and with your

00:31:19
pain points that your company is currently facing.

00:31:23
So when you're asked that question, how do you respond?

00:31:27
Speaker 3: You know this is where I go off on a little bit

00:31:29
of a rant about the whole.

00:31:30
And look, marcus Sheridan and I are great friends.

00:31:34
I love Marcus to death.

00:31:36
But the whole answer your customer's questions and every

00:31:40
question that your customer has on your blog and your FAQ and

00:31:43
making sure that you're keyword rich and that those days are

00:31:46
gone.

00:31:47
You just know I mean that's just.

00:31:50
You might as well unless you're in such a niche area where those

00:31:53
questions haven't been answered before, it's pretty much a

00:31:56
foregone conclusion that you're just adding more to the noise.

00:31:59
And so the question you have to start to ask yourself is not

00:32:02
what's the frequently asked question, but what's the rarely

00:32:05
given answer?

00:32:06
Right, what are your customers?

00:32:08
What do they need?

00:32:09
What do they want?

00:32:10
What do they value that they're not getting and that they're

00:32:13
not getting from our competitors ?

00:32:15
And that's the key.

00:32:17
So it's like, yes, I want things to be popular, yes, I want

00:32:21
things to resonate, yes, I want them to align with what it is we

00:32:24
do as a business, but at the same time, it's not just more

00:32:29
information about what it is we do for a living, unless you have

00:32:34
such a niche area that people really don't understand it.

00:32:38
Now, and I totally will cop to that.

00:32:41
There are some greenfield opportunities out there in some

00:32:44
businesses and maybe AI is one of them, right when there just

00:32:47
isn't enough information out there yet to really understand

00:32:50
at the most basic levels.

00:32:51
But for most businesses you're doing stuff that has been done

00:32:55
for years and years and years and years and you're if you just

00:32:58
go in and sort of say, oh, it's just going to be another

00:33:01
listicle article about you know, marketing is a great example of

00:33:03
this.

00:33:03
Like, how many articles do we need to see about the top 10

00:33:07
ways to do social media Right?

00:33:08
I mean, it's like that's just not going to differentiate you

00:33:11
in today's world.

00:33:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, amen.

00:33:15
And I work with a lot of small businesses that are in

00:33:17
industries where there aren't a lot of businesses.

00:33:19
I think as marketers we just assume everyone is doing this

00:33:22
but there's still industries, right, there's still products or

00:33:26
niches where some have less content than others.

00:33:29
So I wouldn't say that there is zero opportunity, and that's

00:33:32
especially true in B2B.

00:33:33
Yeah, yeah, but generally speaking, absolutely so, you

00:33:36
know.

00:33:36
Based on all that, I'm curious whenever you speak, I'm sure

00:33:40
that you share certain success stories.

00:33:42
The one you know, the book club , is one example.

00:33:45
Can you give us another example you know of a smaller business

00:33:50
that you think has done really well, whether you've worked with

00:33:52
them or not, that you think has really mastered these concepts,

00:33:56
put them to good use and found their own unique solution to

00:33:58
differentiate and become a great company through this?

00:34:03
Speaker 3: I've got one top of mind right now.

00:34:05
I've never met this person.

00:34:06
I don't know this person.

00:34:07
I happen to be a fan of his content Awesome, and you'll

00:34:11
appreciate this.

00:34:12
Being in Southern California, it's a Southern California

00:34:14
example.

00:34:15
So we have a little place that we go to up at the beach in

00:34:18
Montecito, santa Barbara for, for those of you who aren't

00:34:21
local, so it's the Santa Barbara area, which is, you know, I

00:34:24
mean, let's just face it Santa Barbara one of the most

00:34:26
beautiful places in the planet, indeed, and we we go up there

00:34:29
and we we visit, and there is a roofing company up there and the

00:34:33
roofing company is called A Plus Roofing, I think it's

00:34:37
called.

00:34:37
It's one of those like it's going to fall first in the phone

00:34:41
book kind of thing.

00:34:43
It's like A underscore 100, aaa roofing or something.

00:34:47
And so there's a guy there.

00:34:50
He's a legend.

00:34:51
He's become now a legend.

00:34:52
The business has been around for 35 years.

00:34:54
It's a family business, less than 100 people, and what do

00:34:57
they do?

00:34:57
They fix roofs, right, they fix and put in roofs on your house.

00:35:01
But the guy is a legend Jack, the owner there, because he

00:35:06
started a weather report.

00:35:07
He started a weather and it's an email newsletter that you

00:35:10
subscribe to and it's Jack's weather report, and then they

00:35:18
have a whole section on their website.

00:35:19
That's basically, you know, the the weather.

00:35:20
The key is is that that content is is not just the weather, he

00:35:22
adds his personality to it and the legend is and I've actually

00:35:25
seen this, I've witnessed it, I've seen it with my own eyes he

00:35:28
will predict to the minute when it's going to start raining

00:35:31
somewhere.

00:35:32
Like he'll say hey, by the way, you can hang out at the beach

00:35:34
on Butterfly Beach till noon, but at 1.15, it's going to start

00:35:39
raining, so you need to be done on the beach by then.

00:35:42
He has his whole weather report.

00:35:43
He's been interviewed many times.

00:35:45
He's got thousands of subscribers in the Santa Barbara

00:35:48
area to his email newsletter.

00:35:50
It's a whole section on their website now as, as he said, it's

00:35:54
the best advertising they've ever done.

00:35:56
He said because he's top of mind.

00:35:58
When somebody's roof leaks, he's the one that's top of mind

00:36:02
because and you can see immediately how the content

00:36:05
aligns with what they're doing.

00:36:06
And he just happens to be super passionate about weather and so

00:36:10
he's a super fan when it comes to weather and he just shares

00:36:13
that information with his audience.

00:36:15
And I watched an interview with him where he said yeah, that's

00:36:18
the best, it's the best advertising we've ever done.

00:36:20
Speaker 1: That's fantastic and it goes back to a point you were

00:36:22
making earlier that I wanted to throw out, because we have had

00:36:24
Eli Schwartz on this podcast literally wrote the book called

00:36:27
Product Led SEO of treating the content as its own product.

00:36:32
Right, yeah, and I know we're not talking about SEO per se,

00:36:34
but I think that that's a really fascinating way of looking at

00:36:37
it and also the differentiation.

00:36:39
But I think another thing that makes it really powerful,

00:36:42
something that I am working in a discovery mode for a future

00:36:46
book, is the role of personal branding with content,

00:36:51
especially when we talk about that smaller business where the

00:36:54
founder, the CEO, is front and center.

00:36:56
Would you say that a lot of the successes you see?

00:36:59
Obviously that the consulting company, investment consulting

00:37:02
Book of the Month Club that might not have had that aspect

00:37:06
to it, but would you see that personal branding of the founder

00:37:09
or the face of the company?

00:37:10
Do you see a lot of success with companies doing that?

00:37:12
Or is that something you would normally recommend?

00:37:14
Or it really depends on the pain points, the industry or

00:37:17
what have you?

00:37:19
Speaker 3: I've seen both work, but what I would say is that I

00:37:22
think you've really hit it well, because it's not necessarily

00:37:26
the founder or the, because I find many founders and many

00:37:30
company owners quite honestly aren't interested in it right,

00:37:33
they're not interested in developing it.

00:37:37
Yeah, but it's someone, right.

00:37:39
It's finding someone in the business, whether it's you, or

00:37:44
whether you create a content brand that is made up of

00:37:46
multiple people.

00:37:47
It is personifying it to a point where, yes, you are

00:37:52
looking at it like a product and at some level, there is a

00:37:55
human-oriented component, right.

00:37:57
So, at the most tactical level, right, if you're blogging and

00:38:02
all your blogs are written by admin, you know, or the company

00:38:05
name, it's probably worth revisiting, right, and so

00:38:09
putting a human face and a human personified brand to it is

00:38:13
really helpful, because it helps stand out, it helps put a human

00:38:16
face to it.

00:38:17
And boy is that especially important today in a world of AI

00:38:20
is putting that human, wonderful human face to it and

00:38:24
name to it, so that you feel like you're getting a connection

00:38:27
and a relationship with someone , not something.

00:38:30
But it doesn't have to be the owner or the business owner.

00:38:34
In many cases, it is just because they're the ones that

00:38:37
are most passionate, they're the ones that are most

00:38:39
knowledgeable, they're the subject matter experts.

00:38:41
The business is about them, really.

00:38:43
But that's the business choice to make.

00:38:45
If you don't want to do that, like my old startup company, you

00:38:49
know, my CEO didn't want to blog, like didn't have time for

00:38:52
it.

00:38:52
He was like I don't want to do it, I'm not a writer, I don't

00:38:56
feel like it.

00:38:57
And basically what I would do as the head of marketing was I

00:39:01
would basically give his name out there.

00:39:03
But the way I would get his content out there is I would go

00:39:06
to him and say leave me a voice.

00:39:08
You have a 25 minute or a 30 minute commute home every single

00:39:11
day.

00:39:11
Leave me a voicemail of what you're thinking Like.

00:39:13
Just give me what's on top of your mind, just leave me a long

00:39:16
ass voicemail.

00:39:16
And he would do that.

00:39:18
And I would give that to a writer who would then shape it

00:39:20
into one or multiple pieces, give it to him and say is this

00:39:24
what you meant?

00:39:24
And he'd say, yes, we put it into his voice and away we go.

00:39:27
Right, so it can be done without your participation or

00:39:31
without your necessarily having to get into all the stuff that

00:39:35
you don't want to get into, because, look, entrepreneurs

00:39:38
want to market, sort of like we want to pay taxes, right, it's

00:39:40
the thing that we do with a glass of wine at the end of the

00:39:42
evening.

00:39:43
It's like cobbler's kids all the metaphors.

00:39:45
But if you do it well and it can be the most fun thing that

00:39:49
you do.

00:39:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, amen, and I mean, obviously with the

00:39:56
Adventist short form video.

00:39:57
It depends on your industry, but it becomes even more

00:39:58
challenging.

00:39:58
I have a brother in the wine industry, actually in Santa

00:40:00
Barbara County.

00:40:01
He has a wine tasting room in Las Olivas and he struggles with

00:40:04
this because he is the face of his winery, has a wine tasting

00:40:07
room, very passionate about talking about wine, but yet

00:40:11
there's a hurdle for him to show up with short form video where

00:40:14
he knows what he has to do.

00:40:15
But I want to switch from the human to what you hinted at,

00:40:19
which was the AI and I'm a big fan of your rose colored glasses

00:40:22
and I know you've been talking about AI for a lot, as all of us

00:40:25
have, over the last several months, and I think with, once

00:40:28
again, with historical perspective, we now begin to

00:40:31
settle down.

00:40:35
We now begin to settle down and when every tool on earth already

00:40:38
has AI functionality, including Google, we begin to sort of

00:40:40
okay, how do we begin to practically work this into what

00:40:42
we're doing?

00:40:43
And one of the things that you had mentioned, you wanted to

00:40:45
talk about was how to practically integrate AI into

00:40:48
your content and marketing operations.

00:40:50
So I want to sort of switch gears there into what your

00:40:53
thoughts are and I know you probably have a lot of thoughts

00:40:56
about AI and it's really interesting because Neil Patel

00:40:59
is someone I don't know if you noticed recently really going on

00:41:01
this sort of anti-AI I won't say anti-AI rage, but hey, human

00:41:07
content is always going to rank better than AI content and let

00:41:11
your stupid competitors, let AI run their content, be smart and

00:41:15
be human.

00:41:16
So I'll be curious to say and I also would agree with Neil and

00:41:19
I'm assuming you would as well but how can marketers and small

00:41:23
businesses and entrepreneurs listening have some practicality

00:41:27
beyond sort of the buzz?

00:41:29
How do they begin to really make sense into working this

00:41:32
into all their operations on a daily basis?

00:41:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, big question, and I think the I mean, look, we

00:41:44
have to preface everything that we're saying here with we don't

00:41:46
know, we really don't know.

00:41:47
Anybody who says they've got it all figured out is just lying.

00:41:50
They just don't.

00:41:50
They just things are changing way, way, way, way too fast for

00:41:54
us to actually really have any firm grasp on how this is going

00:41:58
to change.

00:41:58
This new innovation is going to change us.

00:42:00
What I do know is that AI isn't a strategy.

00:42:03
Ai is an innovation that looks for a strategy, and what I mean

00:42:07
by that is that thinking about AI as a strategy is a little bit

00:42:11
like saying, well, what's your telephone strategy?

00:42:14
Like, what's your computing strategy?

00:42:16
Right, and so the key is is that your content strategy,

00:42:21
whatever it is you want to do in content and marketing, you have

00:42:24
to have a strategy on which you will apply the AI technology.

00:42:27
You have to have a strategy on which you will apply the AI

00:42:29
technology, and incumbent in that is understanding what your

00:42:32
content is like, what your content process is.

00:42:34
That's the human.

00:42:35
That's really what Neil is, you know, sort of raging against is

00:42:40
that if you don't know the story that you want to tell, or

00:42:42
you don't know how to tell it, or you don't know what the

00:42:45
process is for how you get content out to the public.

00:42:48
You don't have a clear, documented, understood process

00:42:52
for what you're doing with content.

00:42:54
Applying AI doesn't matter, right, it won't help, it won't

00:42:57
hurt.

00:42:57
It'll just be another element of thrash that you add to your

00:43:01
already burgeoning plate of thrashy things.

00:43:04
And so you have to first.

00:43:06
We call it getting ready to get ready, right?

00:43:09
So getting ready to get ready for AI is understanding your

00:43:13
human-driven content strategy first.

00:43:16
What do you want to do?

00:43:17
What is your idea?

00:43:18
What is your unique take on the world?

00:43:20
What is your belief about the world that you want to share?

00:43:23
What is that content product you want to launch?

00:43:27
What is the direction?

00:43:28
Basically, what is the strategy ?

00:43:30
Now we can go okay.

00:43:32
How does AI play into that?

00:43:34
Does it help me create derivative content a little

00:43:36
faster?

00:43:37
Does it help me rewrite some of the content that I have in a

00:43:40
quicker way?

00:43:41
Does it help me create a chatbot that creates an

00:43:45
interface to my help documentation?

00:43:47
There are all kinds of things that AI can be applied to to

00:43:52
integrate into our processes, but the key is that we have the

00:43:56
processes for them to integrate into, and so that's the first

00:44:01
step and then we can start to look at okay, now how does the

00:44:05
innovation of AI actually apply across there?

00:44:08
And it becomes a lot easier question to answer other than

00:44:11
just like well, I know I can use ChatGPT to create stuff and

00:44:15
maybe it'll work.

00:44:16
Like, maybe, maybe it will, maybe it will create a great SEO

00:44:20
article for you, maybe it will create social posts

00:44:22
automatically, but long-term is not going to provide any

00:44:25
differentiation to you unless you have a content strategy that

00:44:29
is differentiated.

00:44:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, excellent advice.

00:44:31
And it almost reminds me, and I talk about this it's you know,

00:44:35
when social media just started.

00:44:36
It's not a strategy, right, totally.

00:44:38
How do you work it into everything else you're doing?

00:44:40
And I think you know, similar to do you have a customer

00:44:44
journey map?

00:44:44
Do you understand the pain points in that map and where

00:44:47
content fits in?

00:44:47
It's the same thing.

00:44:48
Well, yeah, ai can create content, but do you have you

00:44:51
mentioned the strategy?

00:44:52
I talk a lot about workflows.

00:44:53
Do you have a workflow?

00:44:55
Can?

00:44:55
Speaker 3: you map that out before AI.

00:44:57
Speaker 1: And then, what are the pieces that AI is going to

00:44:59
help you with?

00:45:00
Like ideation, I'm sure there's certain areas where AI would

00:45:03
help more or less, but is this a conversation you're having like

00:45:06
on a daily basis, still with clients?

00:45:07
Or what is sort of the state of the market that you see with

00:45:10
how businesses are leveraging AI today?

00:45:12
Speaker 3: It's messy and chaotic and, if I'm completely

00:45:16
honest, it's a little frustrating, because what I'm

00:45:19
finding is that there is sort of pressure from the top, whether

00:45:22
you're a startup company and you're getting pressure from

00:45:26
your board or your management team to sort of like figure out

00:45:29
what your AI strategy is going to be, and so you know, I worked

00:45:32
with one company that threw a chat bot on their site just so

00:45:35
that they could say that they have AI going while they try and

00:45:38
figure out what it's going to be.

00:45:39
On the other side, you've got the agency world, you know,

00:45:43
where the agencies are getting pressured by clients to use AI,

00:45:46
but, of course, only if it provides me a huge discount on

00:45:48
services.

00:45:49
It's like that weird tension is there, and so what we've mostly

00:45:54
been talking with clients about and this again, the words like

00:45:58
workflow, words like governance, words like process smaller

00:46:02
companies tend to go.

00:46:03
That doesn't apply to me.

00:46:04
I'm not big, but it does.

00:46:05
It absolutely does.

00:46:07
You have to understand what it is you're doing.

00:46:10
Even if you're a team of one or two or three that sort of manage

00:46:14
the entirety of marketing, you've got to have a process, a

00:46:17
well understood set of processes , objectives, governance and

00:46:20
workflow in order to make things work at scale.

00:46:23
I mean, it's the kind of the it's kind of the heart of being

00:46:27
a small business is you have to understand process better than

00:46:30
almost the big companies, because you just don't have that

00:46:32
many resources to throw at it.

00:46:33
So that's what we've been talking a lot with small

00:46:36
businesses about is like let's look at what you're doing, let's

00:46:40
look at what you're actually doing and what you want to do

00:46:42
and what's in your way.

00:46:43
Let's build a process for that.

00:46:45
And now you're ready to say, okay, is it going to be co-pilot

00:46:49
in Microsoft?

00:46:50
Is it going to be Gemini in workflow, you know, in Google

00:46:53
workspaces?

00:46:53
Is it going to be some application of ChatGPT?

00:46:55
Is it going to be a custom tool that you build that will start

00:46:59
to really make itself known as we understand where we want to

00:47:02
apply it into the workflow, into the process.

00:47:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, awesome advice, you know fast.

00:47:10
Yeah, awesome advice.

00:47:10
We're nearing the end here and very similar.

00:47:11
I'll be reaching out to you shortly because I'm working on

00:47:12
my next book and I have a title and I don't actually define the

00:47:14
title until the conclusion.

00:47:16
Nice, I like that Because I want people to understand.

00:47:18
It's not as simple as what you think, and I'm looking at the

00:47:21
title that was proposed for this episode, which is content

00:47:24
marketing is just modern marketing and we haven't touched

00:47:26
on it, but I have a feeling that, as a way to wrap up

00:47:28
everything we're talking about, this is just a great way to tee

00:47:31
it up for you and to have you explain what you mean by that.

00:47:34
Speaker 3: So what I mean by that is that you know so when.

00:47:37
So it goes all the way back it's a great call back to the

00:47:39
beginning of the show, where you know, when Joe and I were first

00:47:43
starting this whole thing in 2010, 2011, 2012,.

00:47:48
And we were fighting with Inbound and we're doing all the

00:47:51
things and social media, and it was all sort of the early days,

00:47:55
and one of the things that we said is, look, at some point

00:47:57
content marketing is just going to fade back into the fabric of

00:48:01
what we're doing with marketing, right, it just makes sense,

00:48:04
right.

00:48:04
It just makes sense that it becomes sort of a core practice.

00:48:07
What I didn't expect and maybe, look, maybe I'm biased, right,

00:48:11
and not maybe I'm biased, I'm biased, right.

00:48:13
So there's definitely a bias I have here.

00:48:16
But what I've observed is that modern marketing is really

00:48:21
becoming what we thought of as content marketing, right.

00:48:24
In other words, it's kind of the reverse.

00:48:26
It's basically modern marketing is becoming what we created

00:48:30
with content marketing.

00:48:31
You look at any marketing team these days what's their primary

00:48:36
operation?

00:48:36
What's their primary task?

00:48:38
Almost inevitably, every marketing organization I don't

00:48:42
care if you're a team of four or a team of a thousand almost

00:48:46
exclusively it's a content production machine.

00:48:49
It's ads, it's brochures, it's PowerPoints, it's content, it's

00:48:53
digital pages, it's website pages, it's blog posts, it's

00:48:56
thought leadership and basically it's how do we get our arms

00:49:00
wrapped around?

00:49:01
What modern marketing operations is these days, which

00:49:05
is really just modern content operations?

00:49:08
And so it's marketing department as media company,

00:49:12
really more you know, and that includes everything from digital

00:49:14
asset management to the way we manage our properties, to the

00:49:17
way we manage our story, the way we scale the job skills we're

00:49:21
looking for.

00:49:22
It's really centered on content , and so, in so many ways, we

00:49:27
see modern marketing becoming what we originally architected

00:49:32
as sort of this weird little thing that people did off in the

00:49:34
corner called content marketing , and now it's kind of what the

00:49:37
entire business does.

00:49:38
Speaker 1: So it's almost we could reframe it as think

00:49:41
marketing, think content type of .

00:49:43
Speaker 3: Yes, there you go, I like it.

00:49:45
Is that the title?

00:49:46
Speaker 1: No, no, it's not.

00:49:47
It's not a content marketing book.

00:49:48
I mean, obviously it's more of like a digital marketing

00:49:51
playbook type of approach.

00:49:53
But obviously you know AI content.

00:49:54
That's all part of it.

00:49:55
Just on a final note, I'm really curious because you and Joe

00:49:57
started out together and I was at Joe's first Creator Economy

00:50:02
Expo.

00:50:02
I'm not sure if you were there.

00:50:03
Are you going to be at the Content Entrepreneur Expo in May

00:50:05
?

00:50:05
I will, yes, indeed, I'll be there as well, Looking forward

00:50:09
to chatting them.

00:50:09
But I'm just curious because obviously over time we tend to

00:50:13
take different directions, different interpretations.

00:50:15
Is Joe's, you know, and he talked about content

00:50:18
entrepreneur on this podcast when he was creating the Creator

00:50:21
Economy Expo.

00:50:22
He really wanted to own that term.

00:50:24
So I wasn't surprised, and I'm sure you know as well.

00:50:26
He's been talking about that term for a while.

00:50:27
Of course, how does content entrepreneur sort of fit into

00:50:31
everything that we've been talking about?

00:50:33
What is your take on it?

00:50:34
And I know this is like Joe's thing, You're probably not part

00:50:38
of it or I don't even know if you agree or not with that

00:50:40
approach, but just curious as to what your take, how that fits

00:50:43
into everything we've been talking about.

00:50:44
Speaker 3: I think?

00:50:45
Well, no, I do.

00:50:46
I definitely do agree with it.

00:50:47
You know, I think you know it's the one step more right.

00:50:50
So so in 20 and what I mean by that is so 2017, he and I wrote

00:50:56
a book together called killing marketing, and you know.

00:50:59
So, in my teaching, I have four sort of models more force for

00:51:04
operational models for content.

00:51:06
One of them is this profit.

00:51:09
We call it content for profit, and this was a operating model

00:51:14
that very few businesses by the way, big businesses are working

00:51:18
from.

00:51:18
Maybe the classic example of this is Red Bull.

00:51:21
So Red Bull, red Bull Media House.

00:51:23
They make money.

00:51:25
They sell advertising.

00:51:26
It's a revenue generate.

00:51:27
Now, they'll be the first to tell you that it doesn't profit,

00:51:29
it's not a profitable business.

00:51:29
It's a revenue generate.

00:51:30
Now, they'll tell you that they'll be the first to tell you

00:51:31
that it doesn't profit.

00:51:31
It does not a profitable business, but that's a revenue

00:51:32
generator.

00:51:33
It's a marketing program that pays for itself, right?

00:51:35
Cleveland Clinic is the same way .

00:51:36
With their blog and their content programs, they're all

00:51:39
generating advertising revenue, sponsorship revenue.

00:51:42
For Cleveland Clinic, it is profitable.

00:51:44
They're, they're actually making a tidy big profit.

00:51:47
They have 90 people now working in that division, wow and they

00:51:50
also do website updates and marketing and stuff like that.

00:51:54
So when you start looking at it as a business, that's when you

00:51:58
get into the content entrepreneur world, and what Joe

00:52:01
is doing so successfully is really highlighting the fact

00:52:04
that today's influencer, today's content maker wannabe, you know

00:52:09
, sort of started off with the maker economy and then got into

00:52:12
the creator economy, and so there is a segment of the

00:52:16
creator economy that is devoted to those that want to become

00:52:20
little media companies, a content entrepreneur, and so the

00:52:23
concepts, the basic learning concepts, are roughly the same.

00:52:28
They're the same as content marketing.

00:52:30
It's just taking it one step further that you're actually

00:52:32
going to make money doing this and so that, and that's what

00:52:35
he's teaching these days.

00:52:37
And that's kind of where we diverge, I guess.

00:52:40
I'm focused on content as a marketing practice and the

00:52:45
operations of modern marketing, and he's focused on it as

00:52:48
becoming a little media company.

00:52:49
Speaker 1: Got it and therefore that whole content entrepreneur.

00:52:52
It's almost like content marketing for business growth,

00:52:55
for content creators and entrepreneurs.

00:52:57
Maybe a better way of framing the thing that's right.

00:52:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean and and basically it ends up being, you

00:53:02
know, I mean it ends up being sort of this, this idea of you

00:53:06
know they're very, they're very big overlapping Venn diagrams,

00:53:09
right, of the kinds of activities that you'll do in

00:53:11
each bucket.

00:53:12
But at some point, you know so, if you're a content

00:53:15
entrepreneur, you start off by launching content products and

00:53:17
trying to get an audience and building, then monetizing that

00:53:20
audience and like any media company would.

00:53:22
But at some point you have to sort of pull over and get into

00:53:25
the marketing stuff.

00:53:26
Right, how do you?

00:53:27
You know, how are you thinking about?

00:53:33
You know, marketing yourself and selling yourself and calls

00:53:34
to action and all those kinds of things.

00:53:35
And the same thing is marketing .

00:53:36
You've got the calls to action, you've got the paid media

00:53:37
strategy down, you know what you're doing.

00:53:39
But now you need to jump over into the building an audience

00:53:42
category.

00:53:42
So there's sort of a cross pollination, if you will,

00:53:45
between businesses and what they're doing from a marketing

00:53:48
perspective versus what they're doing from a product development

00:53:50
perspective.

00:53:50
And that's, you know.

00:53:52
That's why I feel comfortable speaking there, because I'm

00:53:54
going to be talking about marketing stuff.

00:53:56
Right, I'm not going to be talking about building a content

00:53:57
business.

00:53:58
Plenty of people talking about that.

00:53:59
I'll be talking about like hey, once you're ready to start

00:54:02
marketing, can you creating a marketing plan for yourself?

00:54:04
Here's what that looks like.

00:54:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that that that was my thought as well,

00:54:13
that it's almost like you know content marketing with diapers

00:54:15
on.

00:54:15
You know not to, but it's.

00:54:15
You know what happens when everybody in your niche has a

00:54:17
community, what happens to everybody in your niche has a

00:54:19
book?

00:54:19
It's going to come down to differentiation.

00:54:21
It's going to come down to the marketing that we get, aren't we

00:54:25
pretty much there?

00:54:26
Speaker 3: Doesn't everybody have a podcast these days, neil,

00:54:28
yeah, yeah, indeed indeed.

00:54:29
Speaker 1: So, yeah, this has been.

00:54:31
I'm really glad we've covered sort of both ends of the

00:54:33
spectrum on many different topics.

00:54:35
I think this has been absolutely fantastic.

00:54:36
You have written so many books, so at the end it's like, well,

00:54:41
where can we send people listening?

00:54:43
What's the latest book that you would recommend of all your

00:54:46
books, based on what we talked about, that they go out and buy?

00:54:48
I want to hand the microphone over to you to lead our listener

00:54:52
to consume more of your content .

00:54:54
Speaker 3: Well, you're very kind to offer that.

00:54:57
Yes, I do have a new book out that came out in September of

00:55:00
last year.

00:55:00
It's called shocking Content Marketing Strategy how to

00:55:04
Harness the Value of your Brand's Voice, and it's built

00:55:09
for small companies as well as big companies.

00:55:10
I tried to address both and that was sort of.

00:55:12
The purpose of the book was to sort of really build a textbook,

00:55:15
a sort of a how-to, a sort of much more of a.

00:55:18
You know it's very geeky right.

00:55:20
So if you're into a geeky read about you know processes and

00:55:23
workflows and all those kinds of things, it's a good book for

00:55:25
you.

00:55:26
If you're into like you know big , you know, get you all wound up

00:55:29
and excited about case studies and stuff, it's probably I mean,

00:55:31
there's a lot of case studies in there, but there's.

00:55:33
It's not a get excited book, it's a like roll up your sleeves

00:55:36
and get to work book and so that you can look at.

00:55:39
I mean, if you want the website for that, it's

00:55:50
contentmarketingstrategycom.

00:55:51
So that was smart.

00:55:51
And then, of course, I'm doing my fractional services these

00:55:52
days as a fractional marketing guy, fractional marketing leader

00:55:54
, and so if you're interested in any of that, you can also check

00:55:56
that out at contentmarketingstrategycom or

00:55:59
my sort of more fractional services sort of idea which is

00:56:02
robertrosenet.

00:56:04
Speaker 1: Awesome.

00:56:04
And then, obviously, we'll see you at the Content Entrepreneur

00:56:07
Expo.

00:56:07
Well, I'm assuming you'll be at Content Marketing World.

00:56:10
I see it's coming to San Diego, which is awesome, so make sure

00:56:14
you check out those events.

00:56:15
Come hear Robert speak.

00:56:16
And Rob, this has been so awesome.

00:56:17
Thank you so much for your time .

00:56:19
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you for having me, Niel.

00:56:20
It's always, like I said, super fan and I'm so honored to be on

00:56:24
the show so honored to be on the show.

00:56:29
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, so I hope you enjoyed the

00:56:30
interview as much as I did.

00:56:30
Robert is really a great guy.

00:56:31
After that, I actually did have a chance to meet him in person

00:56:32
at the Content Entrepreneur Expo .

00:56:34
Really, briefly, I'm hoping, if I'm able to speak at Content

00:56:37
Marketing World in San Diego in September, that I will have a

00:56:39
chance to meet him again and hopefully I'll see you there as

00:56:42
well.

00:56:43
But I also want to remind you that this is a podcast, but

00:56:46
whenever you hear an interview, there is a YouTube video of that

00:56:50
interview and, in fact, if you were to subscribe my YouTube

00:56:53
channel and watch the live streams or even the recorded

00:56:57
video, that is how I am first releasing these interview

00:57:01
episodes.

00:57:02
So make sure you go to youtubecom slash neilschafer if

00:57:05
you want to consume in a video format or if you want to listen

00:57:08
to this in audio while you're in YouTube.

00:57:09
Because I know YouTube is a popular place for listening to

00:57:12
podcasts, I am adding more and more episodes there.

00:57:15
You will find a lot of old and new interviews there, some that

00:57:18
you might have missed if you're a recent listener.

00:57:20
So I hope you go over to youtubecom slash neilschafer,

00:57:23
sign up and, yeah, feel free to join the live stream.

00:57:26
Ask questions, try to make them as interactive as possible, and

00:57:30
sometimes you'll hear podcast interviews where we do have a

00:57:32
chance to answer questions when they are relevant and on topic.

00:57:35
So I invite you to join us for any live stream and that is it

00:57:39
for this episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast,

00:57:41
until next week.

00:57:43
This is your Digital Marketing Coach, neil Schafer, signing off

00:57:45
.

00:57:47
Speaker 2: You've been listening to your digital marketing coach

00:57:50
.

00:57:50
Questions, comments, requests, links.

00:57:53
Go to podcastnealschaefercom.

00:57:56
Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at

00:58:01
nealschaefercom to tap into the 400 plus blog posts that Neal

00:58:06
has published to support your business.

00:58:08
While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group

00:58:12
coaching membership community If you or your business needs a

00:58:15
little helping hand.

00:58:16
See you next time on your digital marketing coach.