In this interview, Michael Greenberg explains his AAA1 framework for audience acquisition and content strategy. He first divides the total audience into three distinct pools: the Global audience (people reached via algorithmic feeds on platforms like YouTube, Spotify, and social media), the Core audience (subscribers to owned channels such as newsletters, podcasts, or text messages), and the Community (the most dedicated users or volunteers who have moved beyond monetization). Each pool is served by a dedicated lead role: a Daily Growth Lead who drives daily, algorithm‑focused content for the Global pool; A1 Channel Leads who produce high‑quality, weekly (1‑2 pieces) content for the Core pool based on pain‑point research; and a Community Lead who curates, moderates, and amplifies community‑generated content. Greenberg contrasts two content rhythms: high‑volume, daily output to win algorithmic visibility versus lower‑frequency, high‑quality pieces to deepen engagement with core subscribers. He argues that early‑stage, pre‑revenue businesses should prioritize quantity and consistency to build traction, while revenue‑focused, later‑stage businesses should invest in narrow, high‑quality content that addresses bottom‑of‑funnel buying questions. He also outlines three authority archetypes that influence prospects differently: Best‑in‑Class (deep experts whose content speaks to an already‑knowledgeable audience), the Simplifier (e.g., Neil Patel, who distills complex ideas for a broad audience), and the Innovator (a yet‑to‑be‑described type that creates new frameworks). Greenberg cautions against long‑term (5‑year) content plans because platform shifts can render strategies obsolete, emphasizing instead a set of core principles that can be applied across channels and timeframes.
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So can you talk a little bit more? What are those 6 kind of core lead roles and, you know, why, why do we need them? And then dissect how that interacts with the overall group, the growth loop.
Yeah. So before we get to the core leads, I want to dig in on the different pools of audiences available to us because the core leads, each lead sort of matches up to a different aspect of this audience flow. And when I look at audience and audience acquisition, there are only 3 pools of audience members for me. The first is what I call the global audience, and that's anyone on your social feeds. That's your followers. Those are the people who see your YouTube videos or browsing through new podcasts on Spotify, see yours and hit it. Those are the people who you probably don't know yet, who probably don't know you, and who are being fed content and finding their content exclusively through algorithmic feeds. And that last is really the key differentiator for me in defining them, because if they find their content from the algorithm, then the game you are playing is to the algorithm to gain those people and to gain their attention. And so the lead that's assigned to handle bringing in new subscribers from these global algorithmic channels Is what I call a daily growth lead, because global with that sort of content volume has daily changes. They need to stay on top in a different way, and their content output should be at a daily frequency, if not multiple times per day.
Right.
The next step down is the group I call the core audience. And those are really your standard subscribers. Email newsletter is gonna be your most common. Podcast is probably number 2. And then I'd put text as the same category, but still not as popular. And I'd put joining like a Facebook group or another social community, like a Slack or a Discord channel, uh, in a similar level there. And the content that's created for this core audience, I call these leads A1 channel leads. And the difference is that the content that these leads are making is specifically for that core audience. It's based off of the pain point research. It's no longer SEO focused. It's no longer trying to game the algorithm. The goal is top quality content for that audience. and engagement and shares. That's what you're really looking for from their reactions. So at that level, to make that quality of content, daily is often not the best rhythm. And I generally think of A1 channels as once or twice a week.
Okay.
Normally, when I look at sort of the long-term growth of an operation, in this sort of media, you're going to end up with 2 A1 channels. And that could be a newsletter and a podcast, a YouTube channel and a podcast, some other video series and a podcast, um, a newsletter and a video series if you want to go really crazy and ditch the podcast entirely. Uh, I don't know why you'd ever do that, but it's an option. Um, and so the A1 channels, those are longer form, those are deeper, those are engagement focused.
Got it.
Below the A1 channel is a point of dedication. And I use the word dedication instead of monetization, because I think you can get to this final level of audience without charging them, but it's much more difficult. And so the final layer of audience, the deepest, most engaged I called the community in the AAA1 model. And so these are people who have passed the point of monetization or dedication. If you're running a SaaS product, these are actual users. If you're running, say, a local Senior Olympics event, this is probably your volunteers.
Hmm.
The great thing about the community is that if you set it up right, you can largely have something like this self-manage internally, and they should have a place where they can identify each other.
Mm-hmm.
The person who leads the community is, go figure, named the community lead in this model, uh, the AAA1 model. And so their goal is more moderation and management and curation of content from the community back up into the other channels instead of the pure creation that we've seen with the other 2 leads so far.
Got it. So speaking on the creation side, you know, we're talking about content. You talked about that quality. You're creating 1 to 2 pieces a week for that high quality to engage with your audience. Um, when you, when you're talking about that position of quality over quantity, Some of the biggest problems for content efforts are, you know, building that audience first of all, and then, you know, building that loyalty among them. What's your kind of take on, you know, building that loyal audience, generate conversions, and then hoping to resonate with the people you're targeting? And let's break that into 2 parts. One is for like a 6-month period, maybe short-term, and then looking at a long-term period of say like a 5-year investment.
Yeah. So I think 5 years is too long a time horizon for content investment planning. Simply because content format changes too quickly for you to make an accurate 5-year plan. A platform shift could occur in that 5-year period that requires a total revision of strategy. That being said, the same core principles will apply everywhere, and that's what I've been trying to get to with this AAA1, is the same playbook everywhere. In terms of the sort of quality versus quantity question and how you go about balancing that, I think it is a very different answer for somebody who is focused on growing their core audience, to use the language of the AAAA1 model, versus somebody who is trying to grow their community.
Hmm.
And to put this in SaaS terms, since this is a SaaS show at the end of the day, if you're trying to gain paid users, the content strategy is extraordinarily different from gaining brand awareness and audience. And it is my experience that the content strategies best used for, say, lead generation and revenue growth are primarily focused on highly targeted, high-quality content with a very niche audience, and then having the distribution to that audience through a combination of really long-tail SEO. And niche community interaction alongside direct outreach and sales. So it's the content at the very bottom of the funnel, those comparison pieces, the case studies, those lead to money. Now on the—
continue.
Sorry.
No, go continue.
On the flip side, if you wanna gain audience, if you wanna build a following and get subscriber base up, total opposite play. If the goal is core audience and not community, then you need quantity. And quantity is significantly more important than quality. I've actually got up on my board, on my whiteboard that's just off screen here, a little formula that I'm working on for an article. And it says, When digital media Equals in parentheses category times volume times consistency times quality, close parentheses, and then an exponent like a power function of visibility. Because if you have zero visibility, none of this matters if nobody finds it. But if you have horrible content, that's just the absolute worst. You're also going to get no one. If you have mediocre content quality, but you're putting out just boatloads of it, then I think you're Inc.com.
Hmm.
They do pretty well. And when we look at consistency, that becomes the key factor, that becomes the differentiator. So I guess to answer the question, if you're pre-revenue and you're not trying to make revenue and you're like a B2C play or you're a low-cost B2B play and you're building that initial traction and excitement, then you just want to publish as much as possible.
Mm-hmm.
But once you're actually trying to make money, you're going to make a lot more money off of a few pieces of A very narrow, very, very narrow content that handles the specific buying issues at the end of the customer's evaluation process in B2B, at least.
Got it. Got it. So if you're kind of high target, bigger market, you probably create a lot more content, at least at the beginning. If you're trying to be more of an authority or authority more for like, you know, higher end customers, then you Probably want to, you know, a high-end, high-end quality piece of content.
Yeah. And I'd say becoming an authority, that's a whole thing in itself. That's a whole different bag of worms.
Let's talk about that. So, you know, in the Authority Marketing Playbook, you mentioned there's 3 types of authorities. Um, what are those 3 and what's the difference between how they influence prospects and customers?
Yeah. So the 3 types of authorities are pretty simple. You've met all of them. I have no doubt. We've got the best in class, and that's somebody who's just the best at what they do and everybody knows it. That's why they're an authority. Their content is normally for people who are already experts to some extent in it. And so if you look at like the Grow and Convert guys, they write amazing content. And if you're not already in content, you're not going to know what they're talking about. Like they're, they're deep into the subject already and they're referencing things. Then you've got the simplifier. And I think of Neil Patel as like the perfect example of a simplifier. He's at best mediocre advice. Normally it's a few years out of date by the time it gets published. I don't think he's a great marketer, but I know that he explains complex concepts really simply and it works for some people. And that's more than enough, because if people understand what you're saying, then they will listen. And if other people are saying it and your audience doesn't understand them, then they're just shouting into a void.
And so there's nothing wrong with that, right? I mean, you're, you're simplifying to reach a bigger audience, right? So I think, you know, people who, who need that kind of distilled content, probably, you know, it helps him build that base. And that's why he's the size he is, right?
Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm a big simplifier. Like, if you look at most of my podcast stuff, I'm not doing anything new. I don't do anything fancy with anything I do. I just sort of put it in order. And I think that's, that's a big part. Simplifiers probably go farther than the other 2, because the simplifier has a much more readily available audience. The third group are the innovators, and an innovator is somebody who is actually doing new things. They're the rarest of the 3. My guess is there may be only 10 or 20% of all authorities. Most people who decide to call themselves an authority or an expert or anything like that, they make that choice and they're a best-in-class or a simplifier. And if you can't peg somebody into one of these holes, they're probably not qualified.
