Dave Gerhardt | Becoming a B2B Marketing Leader | Youtalk Episode 30

Dave, what's going on, man? How are you?

I'm good, I'm good. How are you?

I'm doing well. Thank you for coming on the show here. For those who don't know Dave, he's pretty well respected B2B marketer. He's, I think, I mean, you've been named to like numerous lists and things like that. So you've got some sway. And he used to be VP of Marketing at Drift. He's currently CMO at Privy. He also runs the dgmg Dave Gerhardt Marketing Group, which I'm a part of, which is great and excellent and yeah, really happy to have you on today.

Yeah, appreciate it. Happy to be here.

Cool. So one of the things that I know, you know, you preach quite a bit, Dave, is the value of putting your founder, CEO, someone like that as basically positioning them as the forefront of the content that you're putting out and that, that has a ton of value for your brand. I'm wondering if you could kick us off a little bit with an introduction to that concept and you know how you usually think about that.

Yeah. So the, if you are, if you, if you run any type of business today, I think the best way to get people to. Let me, let me start at the beginning. If you run a business and you want to get customers. Right. To grow a successful E commerce business and he happens to be the CEO of a company that makes a product that you could use, like, I think that's, that's the best formula. That's how you pair up the expertise with the founder with the founder story and telling it in a way that, look, I think there's a really, there's a really powerful thing. Russell Brunson has a great book, Expert Secrets. In Expert Secrets, he talks about how every, every brand has this like attractive character and we all look for that attractive character to kind of take, you know, know, take the lead from. And I think that should be the goal of the CEO or founder of any company is to be the. Like, I'll give another. Another great one is Donald Miller's book Story Brand. And Story Brand is all about. Right. Okay. So, so you know the book. So I can kind of like flip through it. But like, that's another great going through. That book also was an epiphany for me with this because it's like, wait a second. That book is about this person. You want to be the guide as the brand. Right. So I, I meet, I have this problem. I meet you. You. You're my guide. You give Me the plan. Well, people don't want a plan from a, from a logo. They want to plan from a person. Right. And so like, oh no, this is Ben. He's the founder of this company. He's going to guide you on this journey. He is your Yoda. I think that that works really well.

Yeah, I like that too. And I think it was, I'm trying to remember who it was. It was maybe the CEO of Ahrefs. His name slipped my mind right now, but he, I know he published an experiment at one point where he, for like a month or something like that.

He published over the last year or so. Now, having kind of done a similar thing at Privy where we've made the founder the kind of the center of the story and the marketer on social media, having done this a couple times in a row now, I'm starting to see like, oh, there's really something to this. And so it's cool that you brought that up to start.

Yeah, well, I love it too. And our CEO Wilbur, he's our clients know him pretty well and he's a, you know, he's just Forbes 30 under 30 and everything. So that works out really well for a company like us.

And it also, like, it also just, just to follow on that, like the, the other reason it works well is because there's often an interesting story. There's a reason why, like, like what, what, why did, why did your founder, like, why did he start the company?

Oh man, his, his back was against the wall. He was like 21 and he had started two previous businesses that failed and he, he owed some money, so he just bootstrapped it, called a bunch of companies, conduct companies.

It's a. So it's either, it's either it's either that story or it's like, oh, this person had this problem in their life. Like Dave was a big podcaster. Podcaster, but they didn't have this thing. And so he built it. And so you either you're always going to get one of those two scenarios. You're really going to get like, ah, he just wanted to get rich quick and he started this business, you know, and so that on its own is just such a money ingredient from, I can't pick a better word for it. Like from a marketing perspective, it's gold for marketing content. People want to hear those stories. And so even without talking about your company, without selling your product, you can tell this kind of founder story along with the brand. And that works really well to build an audience and attract like minded People to follow you.

Absolutely. Yeah. What's interesting to me because I totally agree with you by the way. I think this is an excellent strategy. But I also know that people are pretty much fueled by, I think what you call the selfish benefit where with copywriting and things of that nature, when you're putting things out there, you want to focus on that, the customer, the audience and how you can benefit them, improve their lives. But then on the flip side, you've got, you're trying to position yourself, tell your own story too. How do you usually blend those kind of things together?

Well, I think they actually work perfectly together. So you're right in that most people are motivated by the selfish benefit. But the way that you use the founder brand is you position the best marketing is expertise. I think especially in the B2B space, right where you're selling to companies, it's a more complicated sale. There's a bunch of different things involved. People want expertise. And so what you're doing when you're using the founders brand is like you're building up a level of authority and credibility. And so it's not just, hey, here's my story of how I hustled to build this business and bootstrapped it. It's okay, I am, I'll use Ben as an example. He's a founder in the, in an in, in E commerce, right. And so all the stuff he's sharing is about helping you grow your business because by the way, we want you to use privy to do it. And so he's publishing all these tips that are exactly drive towards a self estimate which is like, it's like, hey, don't follow Ben on Twitter because he has interesting, interesting stories to say about his, you know, childhood. It's like, no, follow him because he's going to make you better, he's going to make you smarter, he's going to make you money, he's going to help your company sell more, he's going to do all the things you need to grow a successful e commerce business. And he happens to be the CEO of a company that makes a product that you could use. Like I think that's, that's the best formula. That's how you pair up the expertise. In expert secrets. He talks about how every, every brand has this like attractive character and we all look for that attractive character to kind of take, you know, take the lead from. And I think that should be the goal of the CEO or founder of, of any company is to be the, like, I'll get another, another great One is Donald Miller's book Story Brand. And Story Brand is all about. Right, okay.

So.

So you know the book. So I can kind of like flip through it, but like, that's another great going through that book also was an epiphany for me with this because it's like, wait a second. That book is about this person. You want to be the guide as the brand, right? So I meet. I have this problem. I meet you, you're my guide. You give me the plan. Well, people don't want a plan from a. From a logo. They want a plan from a person, right? And so like, oh, no, this is Ben. He's the founder of this company. He's going to guide you on this journey. He is your Yoda. I think that that works really well.

Yeah, I like that too. And I think it was. I'm trying to remember who it was. It was maybe the CEO of AA Trust. His name slipped my mind right now, but he. I know he published an experiment at one point where he. For like a month or something like that, he published the exact same things from his personal account and from the company account. And then he compared to the results. And that's exactly what you're seeing, what you're saying. I mean, his, his personal. Posted way better. He had way more engagement, got way more eyes on it. And it was just overall, I mean, just so much.

I just tell people now, don't even use, don't try to use the brand pages for, for that type of content. Treat the brand pages like, like the news ticker for your brand, which is like, on our company pages, it might be. It might be boring. Like, not. Doesn't have to be boring. Content boring is, you know, subjective, obviously. But like, the company page is where we're going to share open roles, company news, you know, product launch announcements, but through the people at the company, that's where we're going to share our story, our narrative. I think that simplifies it because I think where a lot of people struggle is like, they listen to this advice and they get it, but they don't know how to, like, do that because they have this like, burden of like. Yeah, but Dave, my job, my. I have to manage the company page, right? And it's like, well, you just have to change the strategy for what the company page should be. And I think of it as. You have multiple social media properties in your portfolio. As a marketer, you have the, the founder, the exacts, even just people within the company. Like, when I was at Drift, we had People from the product managers to designers to salespeople that were like super active on Twitter and that was really powerful for us.

That's awesome. How do you, how do you encourage people internally to, you know, share your stuff and get involved with it?

Well, so like, you have to encourage them to do it. I could tell you about how we, how to do that, but the first part is like, people, people have to care. People have to be passionate about where they work, right? If you, if everybody hates their job and you have a miserable culture and nobody wants to be there and they don't think what you're doing is any good, or they don't believe in the product, then no matter what you ask them, they're not gonna be raving about it on social media. But if you're proud of the company you work at, you know, you're kind of already like, people are already doing this in their personal lives, right on, on your own Instagram. Like everybody has, at least I have back when we had offices taken a picture of like, you know, the off, like, oh, here's a nice fancy office that we're in. If you're in a fancy office or like, here's the fridge with all the cool beer in it or here's the ping pong table. Like, everybody's done that. And so it's really similar to like, people want to talk about work because it's such a part of your life and if you can give them actually something interesting like a product launch, and then you all of a sudden, if you have a amazing business and a product and a culture that people are passionate about and then you ask them to do it, then it's not such a, like, oh my gosh, how am I ever going to ask people to do it? If it's like you're asking the employees of a bank who've been working there for 20 years and nobody's happy doing it to share on social media, then of course they're not gonna do it. But so many of these startup type companies have this like infectious cult like culture that can, that you can, that you can use to, to, to, to share stuff online. And so honestly the way that I've done it is usually it's around a big product launch because it works really well on a product launch because that's typically something that everybody in the company has been working on. It's not just like, look, if I'm a, if I work in, in sales and the marketing team is launching something, I'm not just gonna like tweet because they asked me about it. But all of a sudden if like, yeah, this is what the product managers have been working on for the last six months. This is what the designers have been working on, this is what the engineers have been working on. Now you have this feel like whole company effort. And so that's when you can get somebody to tweet, like, hey, today we're unveiling privy 2.0, the next generation of Privy. Right. And so in that world, I've made a list of people in the company and, and gone desk by desk and said, hey, on Tuesday, we're doing this product launch. It'd mean a lot to me if you were able to share something. Social media, you can write whatever you want, but if you don't know what to say, here's some things. Like we literally had somebody on the team go desk by desk, print out a little script, go check everybody's name. And I did this one time for real, for real at Drift, I think we had. The company had like 200 employees at the time, and I think we had maybe 180 out of 200 people actually make a video and post it on LinkedIn on the day of a launch. And then. And that's all because of all the stuff that we just talked about.

That's awesome, man. Yeah. And so there's an aspect of internal marketing that goes into this a little bit too, that where you want to get people hyped about it, you want to get people on board. And I think this is something you said in the past too. If you present something internally and you don't really get buy in on it, that's probably going to reflect when you go external with it as well.

Yeah, I think one thing that I care a lot about is internal presentations inside of the company because I think that a lot of most people are not good at public speaking. And that's not a knock. It's just not something that, like, you have a lot of reps at. And so I think you. Most people have a lot of opportunities to present information and stuff inside of the company and they just don't realize it. But when you treat, when you take it seriously as like a rep on public speaking, then I think you can get better at it. And so I've just cared a lot about, hey, if we have the mic as a marketing team in front of the company, like, we're actually going to talk about what we're going to say, and I have a certain story structure that I would like people to go through, Because I've seen the impact of internal marketing, where marketing has the ability to get everybody inside of the company fired up. And if you can get everybody inside of the company fired up, then they're going to spread the message. But it also is usually a good indicator that, like, okay, maybe there is something here that people outside are going to be interested in. And so I think you have to treat the people inside of your company as one of your audiences. Just like for a launch, you're like, okay, so this launch, we're going to target, you know, new process, new prospects in this channel, existing customers in this channel. And here's what we're doing for internal. Like, I've even done levels of like, pancake breakfast on big launch day, you know, back when we were in the office. And that was amazing. That was a huge catalyst when. When. I think when we. When we launched our book at Drift, we did a whole, like, I think we did a whole breakfast thing. I don't even know we did something like that, but it was amazing because we had this big event for the company. We gave it, you know, everybody got a copy of the book. We had a big event about it. And that. That's kind of like a product launch. That's tier one. It doesn't have to always be that level. It can be, hey, we're announcing something next week. Can you, you know, go share this on your social media channels? You gotta be able to get the people inside of the company. Marketing is just about getting, in a crude way. Marketing is just about getting people to do the thing you want them to do, which is share this message. And so, like, you have to figure out, how can I motivate and persuade and whatever the people inside of the company to do this? And if you have a great company, great product, great culture, a lot of that stuff just is much easier.

There's something you mentioned about the book that I'd love to dive into a little bit. Creating a book for your business, it seems like such a daunting task, I think to many people, and in many ways it probably is, because it's a lot more involved than you and I doing this right now. A blog post, whatever. If I was a business, I was considering something like this. Is this for everyone? Is this something that you think is beneficial? Does it need to be done the right way? You know, how do you approach that?

I think everybody should write a book, but I don't think writing a book is for everyone, if that makes sense. Right. And what I mean by that Is it is a lot of work. And, like, we can just let people think about that for a second. Because I think the problem with marketing is, like, people want these unbelievable results, but then when it actually comes to work, like writing a book, they're like, who's gonna do that? Who's gonna do that? We don't have the budget. And so it's like, what are you gonna. What are you gonna pick then? Like, do you know, don't. Don't write. Don't be pumping out shitty blog posts and then be upset that the result is not. Is not working. And so on the other end of the spectrum, hey, we should write a book. Ah, but we can't put in that effort, right? And look, there are reasons to not do a book that are real, that are related to budget. Heck of a. It's a heck of a lift. And it just on its own is expensive. It can be expensive even if you kind of do a print on demand version of it. But I think it's such a powerful thing because there's just something about a physical book that, look, I have a bookshelf. You have books, right? Like, there's just a book is. A book is like, since the beginning of time, a book is like this, the stamp of knowledge, right? Like, oh, you wrote a book. And so from a marketing perspective, if you're out there teaching a new concept to the world, if you're a golf instructor and you want to get more business as a golf instructor, well, and you have a methodology of how you do it, it'd be a great marketing strategy to write the book on your philosophy, because you want people to read that and learn that and then interact with you. And I think it's a great layer from a marketing perspective, and it works really well. And I also really like it because if you put the effort into to write a book, it just forces you to do so many other things. It forces you to, like, clarify this story, this message. You're going to create 200 to 300 pages of content, which is then like, wait, wait a second. I'm sitting on almost a year's worth of content that I could chop up and repurpose for my blog. And we can, you know, talk about on our podcast and we can do many like. It gives you a lot of leverage also from. From a marketing standpoint. But, like, if I. If I ran a. If I ran a marketing agency, for example, I think it'd be a fantastic strategy to have a book, and the book should be written about your philosophy. The way that you. Here's our, here's the way that we do things, and here's why you should work with us, you know, and it's not a sales pitch, but that's the angle. And I think it can be applied to just about any business. And you could even make the case that you should shut. You could shut. If you had a limited budget, you could make the case that you shut down all the other channels that you have and go write your book. I think it can be that powerful of a strategy for you.

I love that. But I think there's an, there's an additional challenge to you with getting the word out there to make it worth it. Sure. You know, one of the things that I'm just thinking about now is if I'm a founder and I've got a small team and I, you know, I want to start positioning myself as, you know, the guy and I want to. Or the other girls, excuse me. And, you know, I want to, I want to get out there and then I want to do this book idea. You know, maybe I've got limited resources. Maybe I don't have people internally who can help me amplify this message. What do you feel like is a good, is a good jump off point for getting started?

Social media? Twitter. Twitter. Yeah, Twitter and LinkedIn specifically. And I also think if you do that first, I think it's also easier to write a book when you have something to say. If you're just like, trying to write the book for the sake of writing a book, it's gonna be hard. But I think, like, that's what's so powerful about social media. And I think a lot of people still look, look past it for some reason. But, like, you can literally build a following in a niche that you're trying to sell to. You can also observe all of the conversations that are hap. Not all of them, but they're happening online. You can observe a lot of the conversations that are happening within your niche online. You can. You don't even have to post anything. And so, like, I would start with. Look, if I was starting a business in the fitness space, I would go first for there. It's probably Instagram. So that's maybe a bad example. Like, let's say I was starting a marketing agency. I would go and I would go on Twitter and I would go and find who are the most influential people in this. Oh, it's a B2B marketing agency. Okay. So I'm gonna go follow the most influential people in B2B marketing. Now you're starting to see every day in your feed what, what they're talking about, what's interesting, what content they're sharing, what content they're resharing, what articles they're reading, what podcasts they're reading, what books they're reading. You can get that all just from following them on Twitter. But then like layer two of that is also then you're observing which content is working for them. Okay, when they post certain things, which ones actually blow up and get people all types of pissed off or, you know, you can actually see what content gets, it gets a reaction. Now the third step is, okay, now you're gonna start contributing like your own thoughts into that conversation. Because especially if you're a founder and you're living in this world all day, you just met with partners, you just met with the product team, you just did a video, you're doing all these interesting things. Just be sharing your story online on social media. As that's happening now what happens is you start to attract like minded people around that thing. And so now you're kind of in the mix a little bit and you can build. Maybe you don't need a book, but like a couple thousand followers on Twitter for a founder in a niche or a couple hundred even, can be really meaningful. Now maybe next year you do want to write a book. You actually have something to say, you've seen people's reactions, you can use Twitter's like marketing is just a game of feedback. The quicker you can get feedback on what's working or not, then you can know what's the right message, what's the right product, what's the right offer to make. And if you're active on social media like that, you can, you can have that as an advantage. I think I used to think people would, like, people would be like, oh man, you spend so much time on Twitter. But it's such an advantage. This was, this was years ago. Now today it's like people are like, damn, I wish I spent more time on Twitter because it's such an advantage. I feel like that I can in, in a small example, I don't even have that large of an audience. Like I can test ideas so, so quickly because I can say something like, should I build this? And 40 people respond. And I'm like, okay, cool, I should go do that now. I've just kind of foolproofed that idea. And it doesn't have to be hundreds. You could have 200 followers and get three replies from somebody and have that Be meaningful.

I love that. I love that very much. And something, something that I've noticed as you're talking is you haven't really talked at all about paid advertising or any of that kind of instant gratification type stuff, which I think is very appealing to people, especially as they're getting started. They're like, ah, I need business now. I need to throw some money at it. Do this. But we're talking long term with these strategies here, right?

Yeah, I mean, look, I think I have nothing wrong with, I had nothing wrong with paid advertising. It's a great, it's a great channel. It's just not. Over time, it's not as good as building a brand. And so I think the number one thing you can do is build a brand. But yes, you should also be advertising. And I think the advantage though is like, look more. And there was just news this week as we're recording this about like Facebook and Google and there's been, you know, talk for years about privacy and advertising and all that stuff. And even separate from that, the best marketing channels are always the inbound ones because those are people that came to you. Those people are going to spend more, they're going to, they're going to, they're going to buy quicker, they're going to spend more, they're going to be easier to work with, they're going to stick around longer. And so like the advantage is building an audience, which is followers, people on your email list, listeners of your podcast, you know, blog subscribers. Building up an audience so you can actually have a group of people to market to versus every time you want to reach somebody, you got to go. Have to spend money on Facebook is not always the greatest strategy.

Sure. Speaking of, what do you think about some of the changes coming to Twitter? I saw you tweet about it the other day. I'd love to discuss it a little bit.

Yeah, I don't know, I just like talking, whatever. Talking about social media on social media sometimes. But I think the Twitter stuff is cool. So I think they. A couple things are happening with Twitter. I'm not an expert on this, I just read somebody else's article, obviously. But a couple interesting things on Twitter is number one, this idea of Spaces. It's not an idea, it's a feature. But Spaces is basically like Clubhouse for Twitter. I think Clubhouse is an awesome format. I love podcasting and I've had a podcast for, since like 2014 at this point. And I love audio. I think it just gives you so much leverage as a marketer. So I love the idea of Clubhouse. The challenge with Clubhouse, though, is you don't have any followers there. You don't have any audience there. And what's cool about spaces, or at least the idea of it, I don't have access to it. I've been in some of them is I already have followers on Twitter. And so I could create a space and actually have people in it who follow me already. That's cool. And then they have some other thing, like a subscription feature where you could be. You could have people you have to pay to get access to some of their content. And I think it's a great model. I have a group of my own, dgmg, which is a subscription model. I think it's a really interesting business model. If you have somebody that has something interesting to say that people think is worth following. I think people are much more likely than you think to pay for content a couple bucks a month because I think everybody just burnt out on the signal to noise ratio. There's just like so much crap content out there. And, like, I see people. Some of the reason people subscribe to DGMG is just like, I just want to come in the Facebook group, and that's where I'm going to learn about marketing. I don't want to subscribe to a hundred blogs that are just going to spam me all the time.

Well, I can speak from my personal experience too. Being a part of your group. I love that. It's. I mean, at first I was like, I don't know. I don't know that I want to pay for, you know, marketing tips and stuff. But like you said, you know, now that I'm in it, I find that the group is very invested and. And they're. They're very passionate about it. Like, they, you know, someone will post something and if it even alludes to DGMG and like, any kind of like, medium to negative light, everyone just. Just rushes to your, like, the defense of the group, and they're like, no way. Like, I find that the group is very invested and they're very passionate about it. Like, they, you know, someone will post something and if it even alludes to DGMG and like, any kind of, like, medium to negative light, everyone just rushes to the defense of the group and they're like, no way. Like, oh, they got their pitchforks. You know, they're all ready.

Yeah, those are all my bots.

Well, you do a great job, but I love it. I love how passionate they are, man. It's great.

Yeah. And I think that's. I think that's because they're paying for it. Honestly, I think it's a. And I don't think. I think that's just a subconscious thing. I think for most of the people in that group, $10 a month is nothing.

Yeah.

Because it's either they're not paying it for themselves or they're making, you know, very good money in sass and tech, because everybody is. Is, you know, definitely privileged to be. To be in. Working in those jobs, as we all are.

They got their pitchforks, you know, they're all.

Those are all. Yeah, those are all my bots.

Well, you do a great job, but I love it. I love how passionate they are, man. It's great.

Yeah. And I. And I think that's. I think that's because they're paying for it. Honestly, I think it's a. And I don't think. I think that's just a subconscious thing, I think. And so I think it's just. It's just a low. It's a low dollar amount. But something is like. Something is like, I know I pay for this, so I'm gonna use it, you know, and, you know, and there's also probably people who. It's a gym membership, and they don't ever use it and they don't cancel, and that is what it is.

I have one of those going on right now, putting out all kinds of way, man.

Of course, for most of the people in that group, $10 a month is nothing because it's either they're not paying it for themselves or they're making, you know, very good money in SaaS and tech, because everybody is definitely privileged to be working in those jobs, as we all are.

I don't want to go down that road, though. So one thing I want to talk to you about is owned channels versus unowned channels, meaning like social media versus email or website versus, I don't know, anything else. I see clear value in an email list. Right. And I'm sure you do as well, because there's no algorithm change that's going to, like, mess up my SEO. Let me clarify that. There could be an algorithm change that messes up my SEO. There could be an algorithm change that messes up my Instagram. Or, for example, you know, we have a.

And so I think it's just. It's just a low. It's a low dollar amount. But something is like. Something is like, I know I pay for this, so I'm going to use it, you know, and you know, and there's also probably people who. It's a gym membership and they don't ever use it and they don't cancel, and that is what it is.

I have one of those going on right now, putting out all kinds of way, man. Of course, I don't want to go down that route, though. So one, one thing I want to talk to you about is owned channels versus unowned channels. Meaning like, you know, social media versus email or website versus. I don't know, anything else. I see clear value in an email list. Right, And I'm sure you do as well, because there's no algorithm change that's gonna, like, mess up my SEO dav. Let me clarify that. There could be an algorithm change that messes up my SEO. There could be an algorithm change that messes up my Instagram. Or for example, you know, we have a client account that has about 55,000 Facebook followers. And you know, that was great in like 2015. Now in 2020, you post some things. Those people don't even see it. So the email list has just become, to me, and it's funny because email is such a. I think people think of it as archaic. You know, it's just been around forever, but it's still so, so, so valuable. I'm curious what your thoughts are on that and if you think that's a primary focus for building that up.

Yeah, email is the number one marketing channel for sure. It has been and will continue to be. It's because it's. It's the direct relationship. When you send out an email's like the only channel that you have. When you send something out, something happens instantly. Whether that's, you know, it depends on the offer. But like, if you're an E commerce brand, the way you make money is you send email. Hey, we're running a, we're running an offer tomorrow, 25% off buy our thing. You sent an email and just created $64,000 in sales. It's not the same when you just put an ad up. And to your point, like, it's great to build followings and audiences on these channels, but your, your reaches, you know, your reach is limited. Like, I have 20 something thousand followers on Twitter and I feel like the same 6 people reply to my tweets all the time. And, and what you mentioned about that client Facebook page is true. There's no value in posting to that Facebook page for them. The Facebook group is. Would probably even be better. But you, you gotta, you gotta own. You gotta own your audience. Webinar. 500 people signed up. Right. It's the direct relationship with your customer. And so even if you, like, have an idea for a business, you should be building your email list. Right. Right now, I think it's the number one strategy and I think it's a. It's the one thing that you go and ask anybody what they wish they did earlier was like, build up my. Build up my email list. Because everybody that I know that has a huge email list, it has, they have a huge advantage because they're getting, you know, 10 times the amount of signups to all the things that they're doing. And the sole reason was they just started along a long time ago. Build your email list. It's. That's not gonna change.

Yeah. And I totally agree with you. I think outside of, you know, actual sales or goals tied to revenue, building up your email list is pretty much the next best thing in my mind. Outside of that, though, I wanted to ask you about attribution and things of that nature. I know you might start giggling and stuff when we talk about this portion, but a lot of people are like, if I can't measure it, I'm not going to do it because I don't know if it's working. What is your response to that and how do you typically approach those kind of things?

I mean, look, I don't have anything against measurement, but you don't have to measure everything that you're doing. You have to measure the things that you're doing where you're clearly spending money. Right. If you are spent, hey, we're gonna go spend. Nobody's saying, hey, you know what? Go spend ten grand on Facebook and don't measure it. Don't worry about it. No.

You think that's a primary focus for building that up?

Yeah. Email's the number one marketing channel for sure. It has been and will continue to be. It's because it's, it's the direct relationship. When you send out an email's like the only channel that you have. When you send something out, something happens instantly. Whether that's, you know, it depends on the offer. But like, that's not what we're talking about. I think marketing is a mix. Marketing, you have to have a mix of both short term and long term things. It's like saving for retirement, which is like, you know, everybody's favorite topic and I'm no expert on it, but what do they tell you when you're saving? What do they look at when you're saving for when you're an e commerce brand. The way you make money is you send email. Hey, we're running a, we're running an offer tomorrow. 25% off buy our thing. You sent an email and just created $64,000 in sales. It's not the same when you just put an ad up and to your point, like, it's great to build followings and audiences you're saving for retirement. They look at your age, they look at your future earnings potential and so, and then, and then from there they assess the tolerance of risk. Okay, so you're seven out of 10. You can afford a little bit more risk. Oh, my parents about to retire next year, so they don't want volatility. Right. The same is true in your marketing, with your marketing mix. So before we talk about like how to measure on these channels. But your, your reach is, you know, your reach is limited. Like I have 20 something thousand followers on Twitter and I feel like the same 6 people reply to my tweets all the time. And, and what you mentioned about that client Facebook page is true. There's no value in posting to that Facebook page for them. The Facebook group is, would probably, I think you have to back all the way out and say like, okay, well what are you like, everything needs a goal. Not everything needs a like very clear dollar measurement. That's what we're talking about here. So I would ask you, like, look, what, why are you doing those first? Why are you doing like, you need, you need reasons for doing things. So we're not just going to do it probably even be better, but you got to own your audience. Not just because, well, of course because somebody can take it away from you. But also the inbox is just like, that's the, the, the closest thing to, that's the direct response channel. Right. Hey, we sent out an email. Go to our podcast for the sake of doing a podcast, right? Tell me your goal. Okay, well, webinar, 500 people signed up, right? It's the direct relationship with your customer. And so even if you like have an idea for a business, you should be building your email list. Right? Right now I think it's the number one strategy and I think it's, it's the one thing that you go and ask anybody what they wish they did. We want to do a podcast because we want to build credibility and trust and generate a bunch of content in this niche. Okay, well, in that world, the best way to do to build an audience via content is to not make it salesy and don't try to Sell anything. And so of course there's not gonna be a revenue goal because if you tie is this like when people, I see this in dgmg, they'll post like, you know, how do I measure leads from the podcast? And it's like A, you can't and B, that would be like the wrong reason to do a podcast. It wouldn't work very well. And so earlier was like, build up my, build up my email list. Because everybody that I know that has a huge email list, it has, they have a huge advantage because they're getting, you know, 10 times the amount of signups to all the things that they're doing. And this, the sole reason was they just started a long, a long time ago. Build your email list. That's not going to change.

Yeah, and I totally agree with you. I think outside of, you know, actual sales or goals tied to revenue, building up your email list is pretty much the next best thing. In my mind.

It's this balance between short term and long term things. And so long term things you have to build trust and credibility. So those are brands. So that's things like video content, podcasts, building an email list. Right. Whereas there's more short term things like we.

Outside of that though, I wanted to ask you about attribution and things of that nature. I know, I know you might, you might start giggling.

Need to generate 10k in pipeline by the end of this week. Okay. So I'm going to think about like, what are the channels that I could use to do that and how will we measure that on a, on a dollar perspective? And all the things that you do to build brand now are going to compound and make life easier later and.

Stuff when we talk about this portion. But a lot of people are like, if I can't measure it, I'm not.

When all of a sudden next year you go from having 10% of your website traffic be.

I'm gonna do it because I don't know if it's working. What, what is your response to that?

And how do you typically through organic and direct to 50% of your website traffic being organic and direct, you're gonna.

Be, you know, approach those kind of things.

I mean, look it, it's not, I don't, I don't have anything against you, like, whoa, I just walked in the next year with, with a 40%, you know, measurement. But you don't have to measure everything that you're doing. Chunk of like house money that I'm now playing with that I can build on from a traffic perspective. And so you have to measure the things that you're doing where you're clearly, it's not that there's something wrong with measurement, it's spending money. Right. If you are spend, hey, we're gonna go spend. Nobody's saying, do you need to be measuring your tweets to lead generation? No. Do you need to be measuring your direct response ads to lead generation? Hey, you know what, go spend ten grand on Facebook and don't measure it. Don't worry about it. No, that's not what we're talking about. I think marketing is a mix marketing. You have to ask. And so like you just, you got to know why you're doing something and if it's, especially if it's a channel where you're, you know, you're spending to acquire something. There's, there's got to be a clear, have a mix of both short term and long term things. It's like Terry measurement there.

So what do you think then about gated content?

About gated content. I don't know. My opinion on it has changed. Saving for retirement, which is like, you know, everybody's favorite topic and I'm no expert on it, but what do they tell you when you're saving? What do they look at when you're saving for. When you're saving for retirement? They look at your age, they look at your future earnings potential change, I think over the years. I think to me, Netflix is gated content, right?

Yeah.

You can't watch any of their movies, but it's 9.99 or whatever the price is. And then you get to watch a movie and nobody's complaining. Nobody's like, ah, I hate gated content. You're like, no, because you, you know, there's, and so, and then, and then from there they assess the tolerance of risk. Okay, so you're a 7 out of 10. You can afford a little bit more risk. Oh, my parents about to retire next year, so they want much volatility. Right. The same is true in your marketing, with your marketing mix. So before we talk about like how to measure value on the other end. And so I think the problem with gated content is I think you have to back all the way out and say, like, okay, well what are you, like every. If it's shitty content, then it's not going to work. The other problem is one of the, one of the other challenges is assuming the intent of that gated content. And so if it's like, hey, down thing needs a goal. Not everything needs a like very Clear dollar measurement. That's what we're talking about here. So I would ask you like, look, what, why load this? I wrote a, I wrote a guide to, I wrote a guide to like how I produce a. Here you doing those first. Why are you doing like, you need, you need reasons for doing things. So we're not just going to do a podcast for the sake of doing a podcast, right? Tell me your goal. Okay, well, podcast. Put your email in and you'll get it. And then you get a call from a sales rep that's like, hey Dave, saw you download our report on podcasting, by the way, did you know that, you know, do you want to buy our CRM product? Like, you know, it's, it's not a, it's not a warrant. It's not a warrant for a sales call. We want to do a podcast because we want to build credibility and trust and generate a bunch of content in this niche. Okay, well, in that world. But I think it's a, I think it's a great way to build an audience. Let, let, let's say that I think the best way to do to build an audience via content is to not make it salesy and don't try to sell anything. And so of course there's not going to be a revenue goal because if you tie, it's just like when people isolated content can be a great way to build an audience in that. I think Gong, Gong does see this in dgmg other posts like, you know, how do I measure leads from the podcast? And it's like A, you can't and B, that would be like the wrong reason to do a podcast. It wouldn't work very well. And so it's this balance between short term and long term things. And so long term things you have to build trust and credibility. So those are brands. So that's things like video content. This really well, where they might write a report, like a salary report for SaaS sales reps. And that's something of real value. And they're gonna get email, they're gonna get email information in exchange for that. And the goal is not to trick somebody into downloading an ebook or something to then get them to buy. It's like, no, if they, if Gong knows that if they get a sales rep of this type and Persona to download this guide, podcast, building an email list. Right. Whereas there's more short term things like we need to generate 10k in pipeline by the end of this week. Okay. So I'm gonna think about like what are the Channels that I could use to do that and how will we measure that on a, on a dollar perspective? And they're more likely to then be engaged with them and be like, huh, these people put out some pretty good content. Sure, I will subscribe to their blog now. They've been reading the blog for three months and they're like, you know what? Oh, they're having an event next week. You know what? I'm gonna go to the event. Then they go to the event and they're like, huh, maybe I should finally check out this product. And eight months later they sign up for a demo from Gong and they buy this. That's how marketing actually happens, right? And that's how these brand channels actually, actually work. And so I think it's just understanding like the. What, what's the goal? I think if I was trying to build an audience really quickly, that would be, that would be the way that I would do it, is to create some, some valuable asset and, and, you know, have some exchange of value for it.

As long as it's valuable, then, yeah.

And if it's not valuable, then people aren't going to get it. So you're like, you're not going to have success with it or they're going to get it and complain to you that it's, that it's, that it's not very good. I mean, even what I'm doing with DGMG is gated content. I'm taking everything that I would have said publicly and it's behind a paywall and, you know, 90% of the people stick around and that's the sign that it's valuable. Right. Masterclass. All the things that you do to build brand now are going to compound and make life easier later when all of a sudden next year you go from having 10% of your website traffic be through organic and direct to 50% of your website traffic being organic and direct. You're going to be like, whoa, I just walked in the next year with, with a 40%, you know, chunk of like, house money that I'm now playing with that I can build on from a traffic perspective. And so it's not that there's something wrong with measurement, it's do you need to be measuring your tweets to lead generation? No. Do you need to be measuring your direct response ads to lead generation? Yes. And so like, you just, you got to know why you're doing something and if it's, especially if it's a channel where you're, you know, you're spending to Acquire something. There's got to be a clear monetary measurement there.

So what do you think then? About gated content?

About gated content? I don't know. My opinion on it has changed, I think, over the years. I think to me, Netflix is gated content, right?

Yeah.

You can't watch any of their movies, but it's 9.99 or whatever the price is. And then you get to watch a movie and nobody's complaining. Nobody's like, ah, I hate gated content. You're like, no, because you, you know, there's value on the other end. And so I think the problem with gated content is if it's shitty content, then it's not going to work. The other problem is one of the, one of the other challenges is assuming the intent of that gated content. And so if it's like, hey, download this. I wrote a guide to. I wrote a guide to, like, how I produce a podcast. Put your email in and you'll get it. And then you get a call from a sales rep that's like, hey, Dave, saw you download our report on podcasting, by the way. Did you know that, you know, do you want to buy our CRM product? Like, you know, it's. It's not a, it's not a warrant. It's not a warrant for a sales call, but I think it's a. I think it's a great way to build an audience. Let. Let's say that I think gated content can be a great way to build an audience in that. I think Gong. Gong does this really well, where they might write a report, like a salary report for, for SaaS, sales reps, and that's something of real value. And they're going to get email. They're going to get email information in exchange for that. And the, the. The goal is not to trick somebody into downloading an ebook or something to then get them to buy. It's like, no, if they, if Gong knows that if they get a sales rep of this type and Persona to download this guide, they're more likely to then be engaged with them and be like, huh, these people put out some pretty good content. Sure, I will subscribe to their blog now. They've been reading the blog for three months, and they're like, you know what? Oh, they're having an event next week. You know what? I'm gonna go to the event. Then they go to the event and they're like, huh, maybe I should finally check out this product. And eight months later, they sign up for a demo from Gong and they buy. That's how marketing actually happens, right? And that's how these brand channels actually, actually work. And so I think it's just understanding like the. What, what's the goal? I think if I was trying to build an audience really quickly, that would be, that would be the way that I would do it, is to create some, some valuable asset and, and, you know, have some exchange of value for it.

As long as it's valuable, then yeah.

And if it's not valuable, then people aren't going to get it. So you're like, you're not going to have success with it or they're going to get it and complain to you that it's, that it's, that it's not very good. I mean, even what I'm, what I'm doing with DGMG is gated content. I'm taking everything that I would have said publicly and it's behind a paywall and, you know, 90% of the people stick around and that's, that's the sign that it's valuable, right? Masterclass. All these things, that's all gated content. It's all about, it's all about the value of it. But like you taking a blog post and making the PDF version of it and then saying like, hey, give me your email and I'll get you this thing that it's behind a paywall and you know, 90% of the people stick around and that's, that's the sign that it's valuable, right? Masterclass. All these things, that's all gated content. It's all about, it's all about the value of it. But like you taking a blog post and making the PDF version of it and then saying like, hey, give me your email and I'll get you this thing that's not going to be the thing that's going to build your audience.

Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree. What do you think then? Do you have any tips for creating content that is valuable or that stands out?

It's not going to be the thing that's going to build your audience.

Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree. What do you think then? Do you have any tips for creating content that is valuable or that stands out from your competitors? If you're in a pretty crowded niche and you go on from your competitors, if you're in a pretty crowded niche and you go on Google and pretty much everything that's been asked, you know, there's all kinds of answers for and everything like that. Google and pretty much everything that's Been asked, you know, there's all kinds of answers for and everything like that. How do you stand out from the crowd?

I think. I think number one is you have to be. Just to be any good at creating content. You have to be a content consumer and you have to be curious. And so you have to. The mistake that I see all the time is like, people, they're like, I want to, you know, we need to make better content. And I'm like, okay, well, how do.

You stand out from the crowd?

I think. I think number one is you have to be. Just to be any good at creating content, you have to be a content. What's good content? Show me an example. And they like, they can't articulate it or they just aren't good at coming up with creative topics. I think we tend consumer and you have to be curious. And so you have to. The mistake that I see, we oftentimes just become, you know, it's like our keyword research dictates then the content that we can create and that you can innovate. Those are sig. All the time is like, people, they're like, I want to. You know, we need to make better content. And I'm like, okay, well, suggestions for topics, right? And that's the topic you should write about. But that doesn't dictate what has to be in the piece of content and how you go about creating that. And so I think you have to observe, like, what gets reactions out of people, what people in that industry. Industry are interested in. Right? It's like, you know, companies, what's good content? Show me an example. And they like, they can't articulate it or they just aren't good at coming up with creative topics. I think we networks and TV and media companies, they do this all the time. Something that's work. A type of show that's working on one station or channel other people are watching. We oftentimes just become, you know, it's like our keyword research will make their version of it. So you have to be able to do that for your industry. And so if I'm selling to salespeople, I gotta be really plugged in on what salespeople are interested in, what content are they reading, what newsletters they subscribe to, what things do they care about? Then you marry that with the keyword research. Okay. Then you have some basis to work off. And then it comes to like, how can I create something that somebody's actually gonna want to read? Not, not, not. Let me create some marketing collateral for My company. But, okay, if I'm trying to reverse engineer, what's gonna get this person to stop what they're doing and pay attention to my content? What has to be in there? Okay, well, what's really interesting. Salary reports. Really interesting. To salespeople, this in depth guide, like, data is really important to salespeople, this in depth. What if we did an in depth guide about a hundred different ways to handle objections? Okay, that seems really actionable. It's not overly promotional. It's like, there's not a formula for it. But it's like being able to take those ingredients together and have a sense for what's going to work and be like, okay, I got a little bit of data, I got a little bit of creativity, I got a little bit of like, finger on the pulse of what's happening in this industry, And I'm going to put those all together and that's how I'm going to create a content strategy.

Awesome. Yeah. And one thing, one last question and I'll let you out of here. I know I've taken up a lot of your time as I was growing up and everything. I've always been a proponent of writing. Like, I talk. I've always, I've just always done it. Then I heard you preaching it and I was like, man, you know, I've never put a label on it. That's always how I've written and I think that's the way to write. But I've run into a lot of people along the way who, you know, they don't want their business to be represented that way or they, they don't think that that fits their brand. What, what do you, what do you say to that Objection? Do you think that's valid?

I can't convince, No, I can't convince them. That's totally fine. You can continue to do it that way. I'm not going to make anybody do it this way. I've changed my advice on that from trying to. You can't convince people to write. Like, if you can't understand the value of writing like you talk, there's nothing that I can say because, look, the reason I believe in this, that first of all, it starts with a philosophy in that the best businesses are real and human and authentic. That's my opinion. You don't have to believe in that. Those are the businesses that I like. And so because of that, there's not a fictional character that I'm creating with a brand. And so there's not a Persona. The brand is the Brand is the brand. It's not a made up thing. It's way harder to do market. Imagine having to do marketing with. It's hard enough on its own. But imagine if every email you wrote had to be in this made up tone of your brand. That would be insane. And I think most people are not good at writing on their own. And then to add that layer and I think communication, look, people have people. We're all people. We all communicate with our friends, with our families, with the people that we work with. I think it's way easier if you just have one style of communication, which is writing like you talk. Now, I might use words to that audience that I don't use to my wife and my family because they're not marketers. And so I'm using language that marketers know so I can make it clear. So maybe this is an actual piece of advice for these people which is like, look, if you don't, you can write like you talk, but the way you will speak to your audience is by using words that let them know that you're credible. And so that doesn't mean that if you sell to cybersecurity, it doesn't mean that you can't write in an informal tone. But what you have to do is you have to prove that you know what you're talking about and prove that you are trustworthy. And so I think people's objection is like, if I write in this really informal tone, I won't be trustworthy. Well, the real way that you gain trust is by using those kind of like insider words, not jargon, but like, I know if I talk to somebody who plays golf, if we have the same level of understanding, like within two seconds, right? You know, it's like, hey, did you have a good swing today? And it's like, what? And, and so, so, so like where. If you say like, oh, how did you hit it? Did you have a good round today? Okay, that sounds like he knows what he's talking about. So you have to be able to use like the insider language. Pair that with being able to write like you talk. That's how, how I would coach somebody who doesn't believe in that. You're not. It doesn't mean go right like a, you know, it doesn't mean go right like an immature seventh grader. That's not what I'm saying. Right? That's not, that's not what we're saying. We're saying don't overthink. It's better. It's way more important to be understood than it is to be, like, perfectly correct in how you display your information and write all that stuff out. And I think that what happens is most people are more obsessed with that than they are. Like, look, ultimately, if I can just get people to understand what I'm trying to say, we will be successful. And that's kind of just been my philosophy ever since I learned that trick.

I love that, too. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Dave. I really appreciate it, man. If people want to get on you or Privy or anything like that, how should they best do? So?

Yeah, I mean, the website is privy.com and then I'm on TwitteraveGearhart, and I'll make sure you find everything that way. So cool. Appreciate it. See you later so much, man.