Dave Shanley on Content Creation and SEO for Growth Marketing (Full Interview)

Summary

In this insightful discussion, Dave, the founder of Content Camel, shares his journey from developer to marketing expert and emphasizes the transformative power of sales and marketing strategies. He highlights the importance of understanding the holistic business environment and the role of content in driving organic growth. Dave discusses the challenges of starting from scratch and the potential of AI-generated content, while offering practical advice on leveraging SEO and backlinks to enhance domain authority and organic reach. His experiences underscore the value of strategic content creation and the need for businesses to focus on delivering high-value content that resonates with their target audience.

Takeaways

• 🚀 Dave's transition from developer to marketing expert was sparked by his company's acquisition and the realization of the power of sales and marketing.
• 📈 The growth of the company post-acquisition, from $2.5 million to over $60 million in revenue, highlighted the effectiveness of a strong sales and marketing engine.
• 💡 Engineers want to build products that are used and valued, which aligns with the goal of creating content and marketing strategies that resonate and drive results.
• 🌐 The importance of understanding the holistic business environment and the role of SEO and content strategy in driving organic growth was emphasized.
• 🔍 Dave's experience suggests that starting from scratch is challenging but not impossible, and leveraging content and SEO can lead to significant growth over time.
• 📊 The discussion touched on the explosion of content and the temporary grace period for AI-generated content, with an expectation that search engines will adapt to filter out low-quality content.
• 🌱 The importance of focusing on organic traffic and building up 'organic muscle' through content strategy was stressed, as it is key to long-term success.
• 🔗 Backlinks remain a crucial component of SEO, and strategies for acquiring high-value backlinks, such as guest posting and leveraging PR, were discussed.
• 🎯 Keyword research and targeting high search volume keywords were highlighted as essential for improving organic search rankings.
• 📝 The value of creating high-value content that converts, especially focusing on high intent keywords and understanding the audience, was emphasized.
• 📈 Dave's company, Content Camel, exemplifies the practical application of these strategies, starting from scratch and steadily growing its domain authority and organic reach.

Q & A

What led Dave to transition from being a developer to focusing on marketing and digital strategies?

Dave's transition began when he started a company that was successful and eventually acquired by a larger company. As the CTO of the new company, he realized the power of a sales and marketing engine, as they scaled from $2.5 million to $25 million in revenue, and continued to grow beyond $60 million after his departure.

What is Dave's perspective on the importance of building products that are used by people?

Dave believes that engineers want to build products that are utilized by people, not just sitting on the shelf. He sees a combination of ego and altruism in this desire, where creators want to make a positive impact and ensure their work is used effectively.

How does Dave approach the challenge of enabling sales and marketing teams to be successful?

Dave emphasizes the importance of understanding the holistic business environment and partnering with the sales and marketing team. He believes that anything that can be done to support and enable their success will ultimately lead to the product reaching a wider audience.

What is Dave's prediction for the future of content creation and AI-generated content?

Dave predicts a temporary grace period for AI-generated content, where people might get away with using it. However, he believes that platforms like Google are working on tools to account for this, as low-quality, fast-food content doesn't provide long-term value to users.

What are Dave's thoughts on organic traffic and its role in a company's go-to-market strategy?

Dave considers organic traffic as key to any go-to-market strategy. He believes that focusing on long-term owned media that drives leads is crucial and that neglecting to leverage search intent leads to missing out on a significant opportunity.

How does Dave recommend approaching content strategy and keyword research?

Dave suggests pausing to research the topics you're writing about, targeting high search volume keywords, and not spreading yourself too thin. He recommends focusing on less but more focused content, building out clusters of topics, and systematically improving rankings over time.

What is the significance of backlinks in SEO according to Dave's experience?

Backlinks remain important in SEO. Dave believes that high-value backlinks can boost domain authority, which speeds up the time to rank for targeted keywords. He suggests focusing on getting backlinks to the main domain and using various strategies to drive these links.

How does Dave feel about the use of gray hat or black hat tactics for link building?

Dave advises against gray hat or black hat tactics for link building, as they can be risky. Instead, he recommends focusing on high-value insights, guest posting, and leveraging PR to obtain valuable backlinks.

What strategies did Dave and his team use to build backlinks for Content Camel?

Dave's team used a variety of strategies including press releases, offering high-value content, leveraging startup directories, purchasing expired domains with pre-existing backlinks, and running a guest post hustle.

How does Dave approach keyword research and understanding the audience?

Dave emphasizes the importance of understanding the audience by putting yourself in their shoes and thinking about their needs and goals. He suggests researching competitors, identifying high-volume keywords, and thinking outside the box to find relevant topics that the audience is interested in.

What advice does Dave have for companies regarding the investment in SEO and content strategy?

Dave advises companies to view SEO and content strategy as a long-term investment. He suggests starting incrementally, focusing on understanding the audience and buyer personas, and systematically using tools to track and optimize content efforts.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 From Developer to Marketing Expert

Shaylee interviews Dave, a developer turned marketing expert, who is the founder, CEO, and CTO of Content Camel, a company focused on sales enablement and copywriting. Dave shares his journey from being a developer at the University of Michigan to realizing the power of sales and marketing after his company was acquired. He emphasizes the importance of building products that people use and the eye-opening experience of seeing his company's revenue skyrocket from $2.5 million to over $60 million. Dave discusses the need for engineers to understand the holistic business environment and the value of building things that help people.

05:02

📈 Strategies for Content Success

Dave shares his insights on content strategy, emphasizing the importance of grinding and focusing on high search volume keywords. He advises against spreading efforts too thin and recommends concentrating on specific topics to improve search rankings over time. Dave also talks about the use of tools like Ahrefs for research and the strategy of targeting organic branded keywords. He suggests that leveraging PR and guest posting can boost domain authority and speed up the time to rank for desired keywords.

10:03

🔗 The Importance of Backlinks

Dave discusses the significance of backlinks in SEO, especially for new sites without a strong domain authority. He explains that high-value backlinks can boost domain authority and speed up the ranking process. Dave shares his experience of buying a domain with existing backlinks and the various strategies he used to build backlinks, including press releases, guest posts, and leveraging PR. He warns against risky link trading practices and emphasizes the value of high-value content and collaborations.

15:04

🎯 Identifying and Understanding Your Audience

Dave talks about the importance of understanding the target audience and buyer personas. He suggests using Google Analytics and usability testing to get into the mindset of the customer. Dave emphasizes the need to research competitors and identify high-volume keywords that can be targeted. He also discusses the potential of tapping into popular topics like Discord and crypto to reach a wider audience, even if they are not directly related to the product or service being offered.

20:05

📊 Evaluating Content Strategy and SEO

Dave shares his approach to content strategy and SEO, highlighting the need for systematic research and planning. He advises starting with small, manageable chunks and having a documented understanding of the audience and buyer personas. Dave emphasizes the importance of testing hypotheses, focusing on execution, and understanding which segments of the audience are converting well. He also discusses the challenges of measuring content effectiveness and the need for a strategic approach to content creation and distribution.

25:06

💡 Investing in SEO and Content

Dave addresses the common complaint about the time it takes to see results from SEO and content efforts. He explains that while it does take time, it's a necessary investment that should not be neglected. Dave shares his experience of achieving page one rankings for branded and organic keywords within a year and emphasizes the importance of planning for a long-term content strategy. He also discusses the role of Content Camel in helping teams organize and track the effectiveness of their content, enabling both marketers and sales teams to maximize the use of content assets.

30:08

🌟 The Future of Content and SEO

In closing, Dave reiterates the importance of content in all marketing efforts and the need to be equipped to take advantage of it. He encourages the audience to deliver value through content, reuse assets effectively, and understand their audience well. Dave's final message is one of optimism for the future, emphasizing the potential of content to drive success in the market.

Keywords

💡SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the practice of improving a website's visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. In the context of the video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of SEO in driving organic traffic to a website, highlighting that it is a long-term strategy that requires patience and consistent effort, but ultimately leads to valuable, cost-effective results.

💡Content Marketing

Content Marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating, distributing, and promoting valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. In the video, the speaker discusses the power of content in driving sales and marketing efforts, emphasizing the need for a content strategy that aligns with the target audience's interests and needs.

💡Sales Enablement

Sales Enablement refers to the process of providing sales teams with the tools, techniques, and content they need to sell more effectively. In the video, the speaker shares their experience in transitioning from a technical role to a marketing focus, realizing the impact of a robust sales and marketing engine on revenue growth.

💡AI-Generated Content

AI-Generated Content involves the use of artificial intelligence to create written, visual, or audio content. The speaker mentions the rise of AI-generated content and expresses a concern that while it may offer a temporary advantage, it may not provide long-term value for customers as it lacks the depth and personal touch of human-generated content.

💡Backlinks

Backlinks are incoming links to a webpage that are used as a ranking factor by search engines. They act as 'votes' for the webpage and can significantly influence its position in search results. In the video, the speaker discusses the importance of backlinks in boosting domain authority and improving the speed at which a website ranks for targeted keywords.

💡Domain Authority

Domain Authority is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). A higher domain authority score indicates that the website is likely to rank higher in search results. The speaker in the video emphasizes the significance of building domain authority through high-value content creation and backlinks to enhance search engine visibility.

💡Organic Traffic

Organic Traffic refers to the visitors that come to a website through search engine results that are not paid for, as opposed to paid search ads. In the video, the speaker underscores the value of organic traffic as a cost-effective and sustainable source of leads and customers, and as a key performance indicator in digital marketing.

💡Marketing Engine

A Marketing Engine is a system or set of processes that drives marketing efforts and initiatives. It often includes strategies, tools, and technologies that work together to attract, engage, and convert potential customers. The speaker in the video discusses the transformative impact of a powerful marketing engine on a company's revenue growth.

💡Technical Founder

A Technical Founder is an individual who has a strong background in technology, engineering, or a related field and is involved in the founding of a startup, often focusing on the product development and technical aspects of the business. In the video, the speaker describes their journey from being a developer to becoming a technical founder with a deep understanding of the intersection between technology and marketing.

💡Content Strategy

Content Strategy is a comprehensive plan that outlines the creation, publication, and governance of content. It involves understanding the target audience, setting goals, and deciding what content will be created, how it will be delivered, and how it aligns with the business objectives. In the video, the speaker stresses the importance of having a content strategy to ensure that content efforts are focused, relevant, and effective.

Highlights

Shaylee interviews Dave, a developer turned marketing expert and founder of Content Camel, a company focusing on sales enablement and sales copy enablement.

Dave shares his journey from being a developer at the University of Michigan to realizing the power of sales and marketing after his company was acquired.

Content Camel was started from scratch and has made significant progress in a year, emphasizing the importance of focusing on high-value content and keywords.

Dave discusses the importance of understanding the holistic business environment and the need for engineers to build products that are used and not just shelved.

The interview highlights the temporary grace period for AI-generated content and the need for Google and others to develop tools to account for it.

Organic traffic is key for a go-to-market strategy, and businesses should focus on building up their organic 'muscle' for long-term success.

Dave emphasizes the importance of grinding and focusing on specific topics to improve search rankings and drive organic traffic.

Content Camel's strategy involves leveraging high-value backlinks and domain authority to increase the speed of ranking for targeted keywords.

Dave shares practical tips for backlink building, including press releases, guest posting, and purchasing expired domains with pre-existing backlinks.

Understanding the audience and buyer personas is crucial for effective content strategy and SEO.

Dave recommends starting with high-intent, down-funnel content and working backwards to cover all bases content-wise.

Content Camel helps teams get organized and understand what content is converting by generating smart short links for marketers and salespeople.

Dave advises on the importance of reusing content assets effectively and delivering value to the audience.

For businesses, especially B2B SaaS, a significant portion of the revenue should be invested in content and SEO as they are highly profitable channels.

Content Camel enables salespeople to create personalized resource pages and share them efficiently, streamlining the sales process.

Dave's final message emphasizes the dominance of content in all go-to-market efforts and the need to be equipped to take advantage of it.

Transcripts

[Music]

so with us

shaylee he's an amazing guy like seo a

contact expert he comes

on as like a founder ceo and cto of

content camel which is an amazing

company that makes like sales enablement

sales copy enablement uh which we'll

talk about this uh during this tutorial

and

what personally excites me the most

about dave is that he's like a developer

converted into marketing so i just want

to start there dave i mean university of

michigan in the development um what led

you into marketing and digital per se

yeah i mean the short version is um

i started a company and we were

successful

and then we were bought by a much bigger

company

and

i was a cto of that company and the

original founder and i realized that

like oh my gosh

what a sales and marketing engine can

accomplish right like we went from

two and a half million in revenue to

25

and after i left i mean they continued

to skyrocket to

like beyond 60.

um

and that was just my my company like my

slice of it my product line

and so

that was like that was definitely

eye-opening

and i fundamentally believe that

engineers you know they want to build

stuff that people use

they don't want to build stuff that just

sits on the shelf right and doesn't

doesn't get used right it is about i

mean i don't know if there's like an ego

aspect or just

but because i just wanted to say that

like you need to be humble and just like

understand the holistic business

environment that you're in sure i mean

but it's like i i think there's also

altruism there where people want to

build stuff that helps people or you

know it definitely like what you don't

want to build stuff that doesn't get

used the more people that use it the

more awesome

it is and so how do you how do you make

that happen

go to market right like you have to be

able to figure out how to get stuff into

market and as an engineer even inside of

a company

how can you enable the sales and

marketing team to be successful

anything that you can do to partner and

make that happen is going to

get your stuff more out into the world

and so that's i don't know that's how i

think about it as a technical founder

oh that's one hello winning attitude

love it thanks for sharing you do with

us so what do you think will happen like

in 2022

i know that you don't have the crystal

ball right there but uh based on your

experience experience

maybe experience

it's still like if you're starting from

scratch it's still really hard

um it's as hard as it ever has been just

i think to start from scratch there's

ways that you can hack it and ways that

you can insert yourself into

conversations and things like that but i

think yeah recognizing that it's hard i

think also there's

you know 21 2021 this last year

obviously moving forward we're seeing an

explosion of content

a lot of people are turning to like the

ai generated content and things like

that and i think there's going to be

this

like sort of uh

temporary grace period where that works

or people kind of get away with that but

you know i'm sure that google

and the other folks are working on

tooling to account for that because

kind of the fast food version of content

that doesn't really help people in the

long run i don't think

does much good um for your prospective

customer base

all righty what do you think will happen

with organic and just like

allegedly free traffic that we could be

attracting to our website what are your

thoughts on that

i mean i think the or organic is key i

mean content's going to drive your go to

market regardless of what what you're

doing organic i think people are missing

a huge opportunity if they're just doing

direct sales and if they're you know and

if they're just doing paid

and kind of

again sort of not investing and

long-term owned

you know media that's driving leads

right like you want to be able to own

that um

that those channels and have long-term

kind of evergreen

right performance off of those channels

and really the only way to one of the

only ways to do that is

is build up your organic kind of muscle

right like systematize that and like

really figure out how to how to make

that work for you

um

yeah so i think that's

it's a huge no matter how how you're

going to market even if it's like a

direct sales team everything like that

if you're not leveraging

people's search intent

you are missing out on a huge

opportunity

totally profitable one that is so we are

all on our tipitos here how do you make

it happen how do you leverage this

content strategy what are your best

secrets to do that yeah i mean

it's there's a lot of the grind i mean

there are some like kind of like hacks

or things that you need to pay attention

to

a lot of it is grinding it does take

time

um

where people i think where people miss

the most that i see is they just they

think it's like a lot of stuff all

spread out all over the place

right like they start generating content

they're like we're going to publish

something every day or we're going to

try or like to publish to publish two

things a week or whatever but they don't

have a like a strategy

they're not thinking about it in terms

of topics

what they really need to do is like hit

pause

are you researching

the things that you're writing about

because like from an organic

standpoint you want to hit like high

search volume

right keywords and you want to make sure

you're targeting those and it doesn't

have to be like some complicated or

exhaustive research but

look if you're writing for something

that has no search intent right like

there's no volume like nobody's going to

show up because you're only going to

capture a percentage of that so like

you know 10 of 0 is still zero

um and so

so like what are you doing to to put the

effort in a little bit and there's lots

of tools right there's ahrefs and some

russian all those

use those do the research ahead of time

and then and then focus

right like don't

spread yourself like super thin i i

would

i would recommend doing less

that's more focused than more that's not

focused

right so it means topics like build out

your clusters like basically go after

topics and keep

keep working on those topics

um

[Music]

until they until you get to the point

where you start to

you know move up in the rankings because

going after everything all at once

you're gonna you're basically achieve

very little but going after these

certain sets of topics where you can

boost that over time

um

is gonna make a big difference

gotcha hey um i just kind of remembered

that is there any opportunity any

possibility that you would just like

screen share for a little bit like

simrash or whatever tool you are using

and just like provide us with an example

of whatever you're maybe thinking next

for the

content camel or something like that is

there any opportunity that we could

screen share for a sec so that our

students would really get the best value

out of it and that's completely off

script i love it

yeah no sure sure i could do that let me

oh my gosh let me clean up my screen

because it's like

crazy yeah i'm literally embarrassed uh

to the guts

the whenever i do that so oh no that's

nice that's nice that's a drifting car

sales boat that's a decent i know

all right let's see what we got here so

we we use

um

i prefer hrefs um

and

i'm gonna go in

to content camel and we started from

scratch like just perfect to give you

perspective like we started from scratch

just under

a year ago like almost exactly a year

ago is is when we started really going

to market so we don't have a lot of

of like honestly anything like traffic

or backlinks really at this point but

starting from scratch like you can see

like did i just uh see the number 1000

backlinks and you said nothing

yeah i mean there's

there's a lot of other folks that are a

lot more successful um but we're still i

think we're doing pretty well like the

the big thing is like the main authority

or demo domain rating

um

you're gonna start literally at zero

probably right unless you buy into a

domain that already exists and so

we've spent a lot of time

uh focusing on like high value content

keywords

and and and actually building out some

backlinks and so

[Music]

that's i mean you can see the progress

has been awesome you know

looks like explanation that growth to me

yeah and we've been able to there's some

stepwise functions here but it was

grinding it out for a while um

but this you know the the the better

your domain rating

right you can think of it as

in the sense it's going to speed your

time to ranking for for the things

you're going after

so

i think it is again

maybe a lot of people don't understand

when they're coming at this fresh

that when you when you don't have any

authority

right like th you're not going to get

ranked as quickly

for the things that you're going after

which again is why it's super important

to focus

focus on certain keywords and really go

after those

um

[Music]

and

yeah and put your energy into those and

we actually we did we

we got onto page one we got onto page

one for some things like pretty quickly

um

the

and then like the strategy here we went

after we went after the

organic branded keywords because in our

space

there's

the

the easy stuff like at the surface

there's actually not a lot of volume

against

our like the pure search for the thing

that people call our thing right like so

we do sales enablement um and so it's

like sales content management and it can

mean different things to other people

and there's not a lot of people actually

like searching for that and so you have

to think a little bit more outside the

box but the slam dunk stuff is is that

we're going after some enterprise folks

that are already

in the market

and

people know them and search for them and

so we've been able to capitalize on that

fact to capture some

um

some value there

right so middle final bottom of the

funnel and as we are like checking this

out

um my main question is like you

immediately mentioned practice right are

backlinks uh still like the name of the

game when it comes to seo or not

necessarily what matters these days what

would you as uh experience and also

technical founder focus on

uh i think

yeah

one is like it is it is definitely like

we talked about

uh the

proliferation of like ai content right

and so

i still think it's really important to

write high value content that is going

to convert

i would start with content that is down

funnel first like high intent right like

people searching for our competitors

they want to solve a problem

right

and so that's that they're primed and so

we're working backwards moving up funnel

and covering our bases content-wise

there

then on top of that when you think about

like domain authority anything that you

can do to get

backlinks and especially like high value

backlinks

um is going to boost that domain

authority which is going to increase the

speed for you to rank for the things you

want to rank for

so it is important

if you if you don't come

with a bunch of backlinks already to

your site and you don't have like a very

strong domain authority you know i would

say like above 20 for example

then it's worth

putting effort into

um

driving up the domain authority so that

that starts with like backlinks to your

main domain like the root domain so in

our case it's content camel

so

you know what can you do to

to drive um

backlinks to that root domain and then

as as you boost your domain authority

then you start targeting

uh like specific those specific topics

that you're writing about

and so

we did a combination of i mean it's also

we did a bunch of different things and

it's gonna be

anything that you can do if you can

leverage like pr leverage pr like if you

can get people to talk about you if you

have an audience like say you're really

popular with a specific group right

in some in some respects like whether or

not that's like specifically in the

domain of what you're offering

leverage that and and ask people and try

to get those links back to you right

um

there are people there's sort of like

the the

gray hat or black hat version of like

you know trading links and things like

that

um

would you recommend that or not really

it's it's it's like it's potentially

risky but it's also

possible for like for like the

kind of like kg kg founder um

you know so i think there's

again if you can find a stream

of people to work with that can offer

like high value insights that will do

guest posting or anything like that

do it and try to leverage that as much

as possible there is also the outreach

strategy um

there's like the you can go

all the listicles that exist in your

space like could we maybe check out like

in f traps like the backlinks for

content camel i think that's what you're

sure really interesting at this point

sorry i'm getting it out a little bit

but yeah that would be awesome

yeah i mean there's um nice

there's a bunch so there's we've done

some backlink building um

there is

we actually did a press release people

will say that it doesn't work anymore um

people

will say maybe it does work

and so

we actually one of the first things we

did is we actually did do a press

release um just to get some

[Music]

like legit backlinks going to the site

and again like we were starting from

zero zero like zero nothing

um

we

offered some high value content and so

we have this like product messaging

template that's high value content

that's gotten picked up um

also all of like the the

basic directories like you could see

like crunchbase like crunchbase github

i'm generally impressed by this like

these are huge publications

yeah like any any place that you can go

and there's like those like startup

directories you know those are just like

obvious like

get all of those right um i actually

found this is kind of crazy this is like

not something that's necessarily

repeatable but i found a company that

was like went on a business that was in

our space and their domain was up for

sale

i noticed this because i went on i was

looking for backlinks and i noticed um

i can't remember like on our topic some

people were ranking and it went to like

medium

it was basically okay so this is what i

was doing i was going after and looking

at like the listicles right like people

like top 10 sales enablement software

and then they would list it and there

were some dead ends on

on on a medium article

and i realized like oh my gosh like

there was this company that existed in

our space

and they built up a

a you know a a chunk of backlinks

because they were going to market for

like a year or two they were funded

um

and then they went on a business and

then there nobody bought their domain or

someone bought their domain and then

they and then they dropped the domain

and so i just went and bought the domain

because we got the backlinks

that's spectacular love it

it's not necessarily repeatable but then

you know no but like having your skin in

the game right paying attention not like

to

leave this to the coincidence but having

like a firm strategy around it because

this channel like organic traffic will

be increasingly important as so more so

as the traffic is getting more expensive

yes

um and then and then we just we ran like

a guest post hustle and so you can see

you know like tech times and things like

that we basically

we ran a program to do like to

offer value in

in getting guest posts um

that covered you know the

in where there were people that

matched our audience um and that wanted

to

you know include content camel and so

that's

we put some money and resources against

that um but not the insane like 200 per

link sort of thing that you hear thrown

around

so

it all it all adds up it's not there's

no

you know buying the domain was the

buying like buying the drop domain

wasn't

it didn't like boost us from like a

domain authority of like five to fifteen

right it but it everything helped it did

move it up

running the guest post hustle did does

move it up

um

grinding away great content

and trying to get that out to our

audience does move it up so

fantastic love it sorry i interrupted

you a little bit before but could we

dive in back into like the keywords if

there is any maybe opportunity that you

would see from checking out like the

keywords that you would maybe be

inclined towards pursuing in the q4 2021

do you see anything interesting for you

here

um this is stuff that we already rank

for i think what we're doing

what we're

what you want to do is really think um

out of the box in the sense of

it starts with identifying who your

audience is like if you the better you

know your audience

i i mean i always like to think of it

like people like real people real

individual folks are showing up

right

on your blog post and on your landing

page and on your home page and i mean

that's like somebody it's a very you

know it's like a very specific person

and the more that you can put your mind

into the into that state of mind

of the person showing up and like what

they want to

accomplish how would we discover that

sorry uh how would you discover that

would you go and search for it in google

analytics would you like to usability

test how would you get

into the skin of the regular customer of

yours

you talk to them and you go you hit them

up on you hit them up on linkedin oh you

said you said the ugly answer i thought

yeah

i mean there's there's you can see what

your competitors are doing so like the

interesting thing is you know you can

the nice thing is is i would do

exhaustive research

on competitors

right

because it gives you a sense of like

what is going on so that's all branded

search that's the truth

of their

exactly yeah yeah there's lots of

misspellings which are easy to go after

things like that

you can go

um

you know sort this by volume

and look at position right and you can

do you can do do filters

right from

one to like i don't know maybe

40 for opportunities

right and so you're gonna see the stuff

that like maybe your competitors rank

for

and and it's gonna you're gonna see

things like pop up

um

like sales coach right like there's a

lot of people apparently searching for

sales coach yay yeah

you know and and they have you can see

that they have a dedicated page and

they're on and they rank uh

fifth for that that's not something that

i

that's not what's that yeah that's not

something like

i would have necessarily thought

um would be something to go after that

you know we deal with sales enablement

we honestly like sell to the marketer

um but they're able to but they're

ranking organically for sales coach

and it's got quite a bit of volume

against it so there that's more of like

a top-up funnel awareness strategy but

it's great

and so

doing the research against the

competitors i think comes first

some of your competitors may not be

doing that well

right organically so there's obviously

opportunity to undermine them

organically but it gives you ideas

and you could again like think out of

the box around like where your audience

is showing up like anything that's

relevant to them i i saw one

i was doing analysis for um

a company that i advise and

they

they were thinking kind of like a more

consumer

like b2c approach

and we were looking at some of the folks

in the space that were successful

just in the general space you know

around what we were talking about and i

noticed like by doing coming in here and

looking at the keywords and what they

rank for you could clearly see that

um

this company that was going to market in

kind of like the file sharing space

their their their highest volume

keywords and the most traction was

around talking about like discord

servers and like discord

bots and things like that that's

unbelievable what a story

in the whole discord community right and

it's like completely

you can think like i mean it's

completely off topic from like i'm

trying to sell you file sharing software

but at the same time there's

that's the audience

like they're driving a high volume b2c

game

there's a lot of people talking about

discord

right and so there's especially in the

gaming community i mean it's the name of

the game right now

yeah

and exactly crypto is very important as

well and and and businesses that are

jumping on and running their community

really i didn't know that what kind of

business

i don't know maybe tech enabled their

tech oriented business a lot of them are

running their community they've set up a

discord you know server

for their for doing their community i

mean so

you know you and i are probably members

of like slack communities and slack

channels but i think

i think that a lot of folks are turning

into discord kind of for kind of for the

actual like i'm sorry dave did you just

call us old

no no

i did not call this old i'm definitely

not old

um

but uh

but yeah i mean i think yeah i think the

kind of evolution of like where do you

where do you take where you go for

community or where you take your

community

um

i see more and more businesses kind of

leveraging it it's not necessarily like

anyway whatever so

it's again it's just an example of

topics if you can find high volume

topics that people are talking about

then

go go in on that and like i said before

how much time are you spending in this

research sorry to bother you but like it

seems a lot to process so like if you

had to

evaluate like how

much time a week or a month are you

spending doing this like investigating

these opportunities what would your take

on it

uh in the beginning i spent a lot of

time

in the beginning i spent a lot of time

trying to figure out like what the

angles were

and so it was a lot of sort of

you know

sort of at the end of the day after

hours i would like

come in and like do a lot of research

you know what i mean like brainstorm

ideas like brainstorm topics do the

keyword research

look at the competitors and try to try

to create like a map of that

um

and that was like a lot of upfront a

front work and then once

once you you start operating like once

you're kind of into more

like kind of a systemized version of

this

then you can

you can kind of do your like quarterly

planning like these are the topics we're

going after

and this is how we're going to show up

right and it's like kind of the whole

thing it's like what posts are you doing

what are the landing what landing pages

are there

what are next steps

um

as they take action and like making sure

that it resonates with like the buyer

that you've identified because you know

at first we didn't even know that

for sure

that really the marketers were our only

buyer i mean we obviously we knew that

marketers were going to be our buyer

but we didn't know that it was someone

like primarily on the marketing side i

don't i don't think people in this space

have like really cracked the code on

tapping into

sales like vp director of sales as as

buyers

and so

you know so those are things we tested

like you know

could

could we go after sales right it was

like a hypothesis

um and we ended up

mostly just really

stepping away from that and focusing

more on the marketing side

um yeah this happens a lot

um dave is there anything else that you

would like to say and wait for this um

mispronunciation of the tool ahrefs

other than that do we still need the

screen share is there anything else

that's interesting that is hiding here

or do we go and continue the interview

uh side by side i mean i would look

they've got good help content i mean i

would look i would look at

what they showcase in their help content

because it is there are there are things

like you can go

and see

what the like say top pages are

from your from your competitors right so

you can go go in and look at that you

can also sales coaching there it is

there it is number five

yeah you can go and see

you can you don't have to you you can go

and look at this by keyword right like

by parent keyword and drill down and see

what the top ranking pages are

for content

um

you can go in and look at what domains

are linking to them so you can kind of

do the analysis

from a bunch of different angles

it's all in there in like the

hrefs in the semrush

content it's worth reading through

um

i think over the long run as you build

up your organization

i this is technical enough that i like

recommend

offloading this

to a contract to someone who who is good

i was waiting for it i was waiting for

it because like these tools alone can

cost you a mini fortune when you're

starting out yeah if you add up all of

these you can get a lot

yeah i think i think you can get a lot

of traction

it's worth investing in one of these

right

and a bunch of other folks

are like kind of scraping data like this

um

and so

it almost doesn't matter what you pick

as long as it's like halfway decent and

it gives you like directional it's

directionally correct meaning you know

is is the volume 4 800 or is it 5200 or

is it 3 000 like it doesn't really

matter

right it's just directionally correct

um

and so in that sense

it's worth like using something to get

started

but

as you grow

it's definitely like it is valuable to

engage

a consultant i i've been in

organizations like i've run a team where

we have this embedded internally

um

and i think it's great to have someone

on board that that owns a relationship

you know with an outside contractor but

i would contract this out

fair and square fair and square yeah

people are making uh decent livings out

of this and of course like it's not a

full-time job as you are starting out

and of course it takes a habit right

because that's the first thing that i

would like to double down on so it

doesn't matter how many tools do you buy

what matters is how systematic using do

you use them exactly exactly so so when

we're talking about monies uh let's say

that like a lot of people are

complaining about seo and content that

it takes like half a year or god knows

what that they would see valuable

results of it uh what's your take on it

what are you telling to those people who

are complaining about

this uh i think it takes it takes time

it takes time

so it's like yes or no it takes time to

to get to probably where you really

really want to get to

um

you know we've been in market for like

about a year and so you can see we've i

think we've done pretty well

um it's definitely like you know

generating leads and things like that

for us

um

we got on to page one

with you know for for some of those like

branded or organic keywords

and

like not our brand for our competitors

brand

um nobody's searching for our brand and

uh and and that was fast like that was

you know and we did it through high

value like we have

like a high value comparison landing

page that is

pretty detailed and

you know we we made the moves to make

that highlighted on our site

and so

you know

it worked like it's it's so it's not

like it's definitely not impossible and

that's a great place to start and i you

know

that starts returning leads

you know the minute it's on page one or

two

so

yeah i think

plan for

taking time it's not instant

but look you're gonna be doing it anyway

if you're running a good process you're

going to be doing this anyway so like

why not get good at it as fast as you

can

totally totally and as we established

before like i mean paid traffic was such

a nightmare this year that like whatever

comes in organically and fire branded

search or something like that these are

like very worthy investments so we

shouldn't be the neglecting content and

seo as a channel so when we're talking

about this um

like when you are advising companies

maybe you could just like highlight um

what can possibly go wrong or what are

some of the best practices so when you

say like content strategy and seo like

for the majority of people their mind

would just blow up right and so they

don't understand they just like see a

lot of work and uh maybe a result in six

months but how to make it more

structured and i would love if you could

kind of suggest how content camel can

help us with that

yeah so

there's a couple things one

you you know it's always start

incrementally and and chip off like the

the chunks right do it in kind of small

increments to make it manageable

one do you have a kind of a documented

understanding of who the audience is

and the buyer like ideally your

prospective buyers like i would assume

you're going after an audience that are

prospective buyers um

yeah

i mean do you have that like documented

because there's a lot of stuff in

people's heads you know on the team

and some of its

knowledge and some of its

guesses right and so are you capturing

what's known and what's a guess

and then

translate that into like focus tests

right like i mentioned sorry to

interrupt for a sec but i just like saw

the greatest persona that i've ever seen

today so their persona was female from

15 to 50

interested in dogs

sure

and they were trying me to solve this

idea that like they're

is anywhere from like 15 to 50.

i mean i would focus

more

if you if because there's probably some

sub segment in there that converts right

always

and it's like it's like okay if you're

that broad to begin with

but are you running the test and really

understanding like what like

who actually signs up like maybe it's

the you know

the people that are engaging with you

are the people that are

twenty to thirty five yeah

so you should reverse engineer whatever

is converting well for your thing

yeah cause like go go to market go to

market is like

you think about it as two sides right

it's

who you want to show up and then who

actually shows up

because like your execution is gonna

dictate

who actually shows up i mean you can go

after

you know the world sort of thing some

sub-segment of that is going to show up

and be activated

right like they're gonna they're gonna

you know so so

no one can tell you this is why this

makes this stuff hard and also why i

think it's technical

and that's kind of brings up my engineer

brain

is because you know because it's like

it is the combination of like the

universe of possibilities

and then how you show up

right

um

yeah so and just focus right like have

your tests have your hypotheses

document your facts

and then focus don't try to do

everything all at once like really try

to

focus

execute on those topics interlink your

content

use it in the market what do people say

about it does it resonate

and grow from there

other interesting because i'm just like

playing with the answers on the last

questions that you provided to us and

i'm kind of comprehending in my head

whether like how much

should the company be invested in

content in seo so we all know that

especially now in q4 like people are

pouring millions into paid but when it

comes to like seo and content people are

like just neglecting these channels no

other ways to describe it but

nearly as much as money is getting spent

there so

what would be reasonable how much of

your budget slash assets should you be

investing in those highly profitable

channels

uh i mean i think i think i think a lot

i mean i think it's you know

the

if you look at the numbers

i mean it depends obviously on what kind

of business you're running like but my

my experience is like b2b sas right so

you're going to be at around

probably 100 to 125

of

revenue

in sales and marketing

right and then if you think about like

what drives

everything forward it's like some form

of content

right if you've got it like if you've

got a direct sales team

what are they fueled by like they're

triggering

prospects

to convert

there it's like hand-to-hand interfacing

like but they're using sales decks they

are

sending follow-ups white papers screen

recordings

you know tutorial videos whatever i mean

that's where content camel comes into

play because we help bundle that up and

make that more personalized

but

you know they're engaging that way

you're investing in that content and

those resources anyway

make sure that

you ca strategically you can go after

and get leverage out of all that stuff

to reuse it across

your on your organic side right

so rather than just writing up like the

technical help article

which is obviously like super helpful

for you know customers and prospects

evaluating whatever make sure that you

understand that like that technical help

article could also be a landing page for

someone that's not a customer yet that's

evaluating your solution

make sure you have a call to action

there you know make sure it like can

speak to those the two audiences the

ones that aren't activated and then the

ones that are

i love it so how exactly can content

camel help us i still don't know that

uh i mean we help teams get organized so

for like it's really interesting like

for the for the marketers

for the marketers out there i think it

you know

regardless of the sales team

it's really interesting because

understanding what content is actually

converting is really tricky

right when you're using hubspot or

marketo or

like

any of the things that like maybe you're

going to do your nurture sequences or

your email blasts or newsletter like

whatever you're doing to communicate

with your audience

um

it's really hard like all you get is

like click through and open rate kind of

stats

you don't actually know you won't get at

this with the new ios change right so

this is getting messier

right you so

what we do is i think of it as like the

last mile like as a marketer i want to

look back and see

what what was used over the last quarter

right what was used over the last six

months and also look at it by funnel so

that i understand like you know all we

did was put all we did was build you

know top of funnel assets

and we barely used any of them or or we

used you know or we said we were going

to do mid funnel assets we did mid

funnel assets and we deployed them that

was great

and so content kimmel by generating like

these sort of smart short links and

allowing you to insert that as a

marketer into your flow you're going to

actually be able to look back and see

what was used

right

and how it converted

exactly and so and so for the sales

people

now you've got the marketers enabling

sales

it's all about like sharing those assets

making it personalized bundling it up

um we allow what people really use it

for on the sales side is to like build a

resource page like the sales person can

literally like

put the resource page together and then

share that out

right so now it's taking the content

that's like all of your content and even

if you just have like 30 assets

you're not going to unload 30 assets

onto a prospect like you're going to

give them three or four

right if like these are the next steps

this is what you need to make your

evaluation

content camel really enables the sales

person to go and put that together

fantastic sounds much better than making

an individual utm link for each person

that you are sending stuff to

yeah yeah

that's amazing awesome so let's let's

wrap this out by maybe just some of your

thoughts of what is going on in 2022 or

how does the future look like any final

messages that you might have for our

students

uh i mean i think i think the content

still dominates right it's the it's the

fuel for all of your go to market

efforts i mean it really is when you

break it down

contents everywhere i mean it's not just

pdfs and presentations like the the

content is your videos it's

you know a twitter post that goes that

good does really well it's you know all

of that you want to track and organize

um so that you can get the most out of

it and deploy it and so

you know are you equipped to kind of

take advantage of that and reuse

everything that you've got

so to make assets to make assets that

you can be reusing in your process again

and again

absolutely and deliver value to your

audience like if you know your audience

you can deliver value to them like

you're smart enough and capable enough

and i'm sure you've got like

like domain expertise that you can bring

and help and help people um

and so it's like the more you get out

there and help people and have that all

documented and reusable the better

you're gonna be

in terms of content which is the queen

or the king yes so that's brilliant love

how you close this one up uh thank you

so much there for taking the time all

the links will be under these lessons um

i i love following you like you have

been such an incredible person in the

ecosystem so good luck with everything

and hope to talk to you next year

thanks

likewise

cheers