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Building Bridges in the Org Without Drowning in the Process · Content, Briefly

• 0:00
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• 1:03
  So it's just me and Eric today. We feel a little bit like the kids that just were left to their own devices, and we'll try not to throw a complete rager while Jimmy is away.
• 1:14
  We, like, immediately burnt down the kitchen trying to make, like, mac and cheese on the second the parents left. Call the fire department. Set the alarm off. The neighbors are already knocking at the door.
• 1:27
  No, this will be great. All right.
• 1:29
  So there have been so many things circulating on the Superpath community that honestly, I think choosing a topic for the podcast has been challenging because I think our minds are just firing in all different directions, which is great.
• 1:43
  But today we're gonna chat about cross-functional alignment and adoption, which is something that I know I feel super passionately about, and I know Eric does as well.
• 1:52
  So thinking about the fact that content adoption is less from, you know, the tactics that you have, more about how you can get buy-in and alignment.
• 2:03
  I like to think of this as, like, the holy grail of your job as a content marketer. How can you get awareness, adoption, alignment, and then eventually advocacy?
• 2:12
  And that comes with a lot of different things, starting with leadership alignment, creating that sort of culture of content that we all want, thinking of yourself as a, you know, a thought leader versus an order taker, and then also thinking about how your content fits into your overall business strategy.
• 2:28
  So there's a lot to dive into, but each of these pieces are really important to get people understanding, like, what you're publishing, why you're publishing it, and to go share your stuff 'cause it's great.
• 2:39
  So let's dive in. It's a really grown-up topic for us. First time left alone. Like cross-functional alignment, those are big words. I'm not sure I'm ready. Let's [laughs] yeah.
• 2:50
  So I mean, I think the first piece of that is, you know, speaking of big people, like, talking about your leadership team, I think that, you know, your content's not really gonna get anywhere unless you have alignment from the top down.
• 3:03
  So what are some ways that you've tried to get your leadership bought in, Eric? Yeah.
• 3:08
  So I think-- I mean, part of this depends on the size of your organization, and this is something when Chloe and I were planning this episode, we were say, like, this conversation is so different.
• 3:16
  If you're a small team, like right now I'm working at Dock, I'm the only marketer. We have, like, one sales leader and a small sales team, like, one customer success leader.
• 3:25
  But then I've been at organizations where, you know, there's two tiers of leadership above me before you even get to, like, the person talking to sales.
• 3:33
  So I think obviously this conversation is gonna depend a lot on size. But I think in general, these are, like, big organization questions, so I'll try to, like, keep that big organization hat on.
• 3:45
  But I think when I was thinking about this topic in terms of leadership alignment, I think it's very important that the leaders of the respective sort of go-to-market teams are equally bought into the importance of content as your marketing leader.
• 4:00
  Like, it starts with your marketing team. Like, you need a, a CMO or, like, a VP of marketing or whatever, whoever your senior marketer is, like, needs to believe in content first.
• 4:08
  But, like, they probably do if you have a job in the company and you're a content marketer. Great starting point. Yeah, great start.
• 4:15
  But then also, like, sales needs to believe in content as a function and not just, like, marketing as asset builder for sales kind of thing.
• 4:26
  And so, like, for me, a lot of that starts with having shared goals, and so because you can't just say, like, "Oh, we're all pulling in the same direction," I think it's helpful when content is tied to something like pipeline generated or,
• 4:40
  like, whatever, SQLs or MQLs, like, whichever your, like, metric of choice is related to revenue.
• 4:47
  I think that really helps when it feels like your team and the sales team or whichever other team, like, are sharing a number, that's helpful.
• 4:55
  But, like, what do you think of in terms of leadership alignment when you're thinking of a content buy-in?
• 5:00
  So I think that it has to come, like, your content strategy should never feel like a surprise to your leadership, because I feel like if it feels like a surprise, then that means that you, as a content leader, don't understand the fundamentals of your business.
• 5:16
  Like, and I know we're audio only, but the way that I always think of it is, you know, you have, like, your business strategy, then you have your product goals, your sales goals, your marketing goals, and then your content goals.
• 5:27
  And then somewhere along that you've got, like, marketing, sales, and CX, I would argue, are actually, like, on one piece of piece now, because I do think, you know, we're trying to incorporate more of CX into content across different companies, which I think is great.
• 5:41
  But you should never be creating content unless it actually ladders up into each of those particular goals.
• 5:47
  So I think the way that you can get that leadership buy-in and alignment is by making that connection just really, really clear.
• 5:56
  So instead of, like, as a content creator leader in your organization, you're like, "I'm super excited. This blog's traffic grew two hundred percent."
• 6:05
  Like-Talking about that in isolation means absolutely nothing, except to maybe like your freelancer that wrote it. They'll be excited about that 'cause that's something they can add to their portfolio.
• 6:15
  But if you talk about, like, you know, this blog traffic grew by two hundred percent, that's because it was leading to a call to action on this new product that we have been promoting, or we're trying to break into this new persona, and I saw that we had X percent increase, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, then you're kind of laddering it up to what the executives actually really care about, which is how are we getting our product into the hands of more people that will make this business more money.
• 6:43
  Like, and that sounds crude, but, like, it has to ladder up to that piece. Totally.
• 6:48
  And I think that's kind of the trap of most junior marketers is when they first move into leadership roles or, like, manager roles, and I'm saying that because I did it for sure, which is you start presenting, like, boxes you've checked on your calendar.
• 7:03
  Like, "This month we made four blog posts, and we did these social posts, and we launched this product."
• 7:09
  And yeah, if you're not following up with the why, like something I do now at every town hall when I talk about-- I'll do like a little blurb about-- or like a company town hall where everyone in the company's there.
• 7:19
  We have our big Zoom meeting.
• 7:21
  Anytime I talk about something like SEO, I repeat for the millionth time, like, why we care about SEO or, like, why, like you said, why we care about traffic because, you know, this certain amount of people will convert into leads in our sales team, et cetera.
• 7:35
  And so, but I think when I first started, when I was given the opportunity to, like, present what marketing is worketing on, I would-- is working on, worketing on. That's a good, like, marketing term.
• 7:45
  That's-- love that, marketing worketing. Yeah. When I'm worketing in my job... What was I saying? [laughs] Totally, totally derailed. Where's Jimmy?
• 7:54
  No, I-- when I first started presenting internally, I would, yeah, really focus on tactics, and now I focus way more on outcomes or helping people understand, like, what the outcomes of my work are.
• 8:04
  Yeah, and I think that's something I've definitely learned along the way is that there are different levels of detail that people care about.
• 8:11
  Your sales leader, if you're speaking to, you know, your director of sales, your VP of sales, they don't care if you're like, "Oh, we create-- we did fourteen blog posts this month." They're like, "I don't care."
• 8:22
  Like, "How is this gonna help me drive more sales? Is this getting in front of the right people?" And I think that that's where, and this is kind of the next topic, is like creating that, like, culture of content.
• 8:33
  So I think the other thing too is you have your leadership alignment, but then if you're speaking to other people in your organization, like on your product team or your sales team, creating that culture of excitement for your content is, like I said before, like the holy grail.
• 8:47
  And when I get to a point where people in the business outside of marketing are talking about, like, what we're publishing, how they can contribute, how they're sharing, I think that shows that content is, you know, quote unquote, "working."
• 9:01
  So I think it's as much the internal advocacy as it is the external factors as well. Yeah, and I think, like, the gold standard is when people start coming to you with content ideas.
• 9:11
  Of course, a portion of them will not be amazing ideas, but it's-- eventually you'll start seeing-- Like, for example, if, if our customer success team comes to me and says, like, "I have this really amazing idea for, like, a bottom funnel sort of piece of content," then that's, like, the golden sign that, A, they understand what kind of content we make, and B, they understand, like, what content would be valuable for the customer and, like, our business model.
• 9:35
  So I think that's, yeah, it, it's a really good sign that, like, there's buy-in to your content strategy if other people can sort of, like, echo it back to you in a way. I think that's a really good point.
• 9:45
  I think that as content leaders, it's our opportunity to connect the dots in terms of helping other people in the business understand how what we're creating is hopefully helping them.
• 9:59
  I always say, like, content should support your business goals.
• 10:01
  It should help people do their jobs better in some way, whether that's like a sales, you know, a frontline SDR having the right piece of content to get in front of a prospect, or it's helping a product leader build their profile and their authority on LinkedIn because we're talking about something more in like the innovation thought leadership space.
• 10:20
  Or it's, you know, our CX customer or our CX team talking about how amazing they are at their jobs and how amazing they are with the clients, right?
• 10:30
  Like, those are the different pieces that content can really help elevate. And so I feel like that is the constant work of a content marketer is, like, trying to help people connect those dots.
• 10:43
  And so that way when, you know, you've had those conversations, they feel more comfortable understanding, like, "Oh, okay. This is how I can help you, and this is how you help me."
• 10:52
  And they might even come to you more so with just, "Let me tell you about, like, my day-to-day.
• 10:57
  Let me tell you about some of the issues that I'm having," and then they leave it to you to be like, "What can we do about that?"
• 11:03
  You know, and to me, that's a sign of relationship building and of trust that you really wanna try to get to. Yeah, for sure.
• 11:10
  Okay, you mentioned product, and so what does-- can you give me an example of, like, a good collaboration with product or, like, buy-in or, like, a content evangelist on the product team? Yeah.
• 11:21
  So I mean, I think that depending on, again, your business goals, your product goals, sales goals, I think that when we're talking about content marketing, I feel like there's this taboo, like, "Oh, we can't sell.
• 11:34
  We don't wanna mention our product," right? And I think that- Yeah... sometimes that's true, but sometimes you do have to lean in, in terms of trying to educate, trying to change behaviors.
• 11:44
  Like, you have to do that with showing them, like, how your product is differentiated. So I think a couple different things.
• 11:50
  I think, first of all, that takes a deep understanding of product, and who better to speak to than, you know, your product marketing team or your product team itself.
• 11:59
  But then I think it's also kind of peeling back those layers and understanding, again, like, the why. Like, why did we make these certain product decisions?
• 12:08
  A lot of times what I have found is that product decisions are driven by customers-Need and also, but also like company values. And I think that that's a really interesting piece that I haven't seen talked about as much.
• 12:23
  Like what are the principles that your product team are using to bring something to market? How does that make us stand out in the market as like leaders, as, you know, innovators, et cetera?
• 12:35
  Like, those-- I feel like product is actually like an untapped piece of the puzzle that content needs to get really, really close to. Yeah, that makes sense.
• 12:44
  And also like shareholder val-- or like investor value and story, like there's a thing there too.
• 12:51
  Like this-- I'm a little privileged at Dock because like I work directly with the CEO, and he's also our product team, so it's kinda hard for me to tie apart like product and marketing, and like, and I'm also product marketing and content.
• 13:03
  So again, like it's easy to collaborate 'cause we're small. But sometimes too, like content decisions at Dock get driven by, "Okay, here's the product vision for like a year from now."
• 13:14
  And that I think really gets lost the bigger an organization gets, where you're kinda going downstream of-- and we're getting a little off-topic 'cause we're getting into like how does product fall into content, but I think it's related.
• 13:26
  So like where like product ships something and then says, "Okay, here you go, content marketing.
• 13:32
  Like now we do whatever, learning management, and now you can go off and make a bunch of content about learning management."
• 13:39
  But if that like product vision isn't like in the hands of content earlier on, like there can be this kind of like waterfall effect that then you get into the situation where content is just like servicing the organization, right?
• 13:54
  Yeah, and I think that is a really, really good segue into why these conversations and breaking down these silos is so important from the ideation stage.
• 14:04
  Because if content is in the room, and maybe it's a massive organization and you can't necessarily have someone from content there, if that's the case, like, you know, how can you ladder up to like your manager or a VP and be like, "These are the things that I would love to get represented.
• 14:17
  You know, what are your thoughts on this?" And try to figure out how to get your voice in the room even if you can't physically be in the room.
• 14:24
  That's where the magic really happens because if all you're given is a brief and you're saying, "Okay, go do this," then you don't understand why that brief was created.
• 14:34
  You don't understand the business value of that brief.
• 14:36
  You're just told, "Go create content about X topic," which is why like I fundamentally don't believe on a content calendar that is only ruled by like keywords and topics and volume.
• 14:48
  I think it has to be based off of prospect challenges, off of like business needs, off of what the business is actually doing, and observations. Like I think that's how your content is going to stand out.
• 14:59
  Yeah, absolutely. And as you were talking about that, I was thinking about like closeness to the customer and closeness to the team and closeness to the problem.
• 15:08
  So one thing my boss always says to me is like, "Marketers are really good at a one-to-many approach." Mm. But like salespeople, for example, think very one-to-one.
• 15:19
  And so like they're thinking like, "How do I work with this prospect? Like how do I move this one deal one step further?"
• 15:25
  And content is a very like one-to-many abstract like, "Okay, we'll, we'll make this thing, and it will like impact people to believe a little something in our company," and like it, it's very abstract and very like broadcast-y in a way.
• 15:40
  Yeah. And a lot of other people in the org don't think that way about their jobs because they're very focused on something granular. And I think
• 15:47
  where I'm going with this is when you're in the room with like, say like on a sales call or in a sales meeting, and someone's talking about a particular challenge they're having with a prospect or something.
• 15:58
  Like, "I'm in this deal, and it's stuck because of this." That's where I go, "Oh, would it be useful if you had this kind of content?" And they go, "Oh yeah, that would be useful."
• 16:06
  And then you make that thing, and then you give the, that to them, and then they're really excited about using it and because they can connect it.
• 16:12
  They can connect the dots to, "This helps me do my job because I remember that instance where it would've helped," right? Versus a scenario where you're like, "I built you this content.
• 16:24
  Here, go use it," and they just-- it's not the way that, that they work in their day-to-day.
• 16:30
  So I think like understanding there's kinda two points I'm making here of like the closer you can get to the situations where the content would actually be useful, like seeing salespeople work on their calls or like sitting in on a product meeting or watching how a customer success onboards a customer, there's a benefit, like when you are in the room, of then also being able to like make those teams feel like they're co-creating content or like co-ideating content and then like connecting it to their day-to-day, if that makes sense.
• 16:59
  Yeah, I completely agree with you.
• 17:01
  I think that the one example that jumps to mind for me are case studies because I think from a marketing perspective, you know, we're all about trying to tell the story and trying to bring people on on this like beautiful story.
• 17:16
  And I've seen case studies done really poorly, and I've seen case studies done really well. And I do like, you know, the background. I like having it come from a first-person kinda perspective.
• 17:27
  But the sales team, when, you know, we tried to be like, "Okay, we've created all these wonderful case studies. We'd love for them to use them," they're like, "My prospect has five minutes.
• 17:36
  I just need like the stats from it." So we're like, "All right. Well, we're gonna take what we already have, and we're gonna repurpose it into something that you're actually gonna use."
• 17:44
  And that's where sort of that crossover between content marketing versus sales enablement.
• 17:49
  Eventually, I had to be like, "Is this my team's job, or is this on our product marketing team to really distill it into more, not like battle cards, but more into like a slide format?"
• 18:01
  But that did help my team figure out like when we're actually creating the case studies from the get-go, what are the pieces that like the freelancer needed to take out where we could then just quickly repurpose it into what sales was actually using like on the front lines.
• 18:17
  And then we had it for our marketing purposes on our website and our campaigns, but then what sales was actually using. Absolutely. I think case studies are the perfect example in so many ways on this.
• 18:27
  It's actually what I've had in my head a lot as we were talking. But like here's an example of how it typically happens.Sales goes, "I'm working with a customer in finance, enterprise finance company.
• 18:39
  Do we have an enterprise case study on finance?" They ask marketing. Marketing goes, "No. Let me go ask customer success, do we have any-- like, who do we have? Like, could we just- Yep... s-name drop?"
• 18:50
  Customer success goes, "Hmm, I don't know. Let me get back to you, I'm busy." And then, like, th-there's some gross communication chain of, like, broken telephone.
• 18:59
  That's, like, a situation where there wasn't enough content buy-in, and so you're not, like, close enough to the problem.
• 19:06
  The beautiful way that it happens is customer success goes, "I know we need case studies, they're really valuable for us. I just worked with this customer, amazing, like, evangelist for our company.
• 19:17
  They would-- I bet you they would do a case study. I know that we don't have one on this."
• 19:21
  Like, and that's where customer success, like, knows our content inventory because they're so close to it and they're so bought in, right? Like, they have to be bought in in that sense.
• 19:31
  And then customer success comes to you, and then you bring it to sales and say, "Hey, I got, like, this is a really good segment for us. Also, we have this case study.
• 19:40
  Why don't you go try to sell this segment because we have an amazing study." And they go, "Wow, like, great insight." And so, like, you're actually helping them do their job.
• 19:49
  Well, and then from a demand gen perspective too, "Hey, we have these three amazing case studies that are tied to this industry. Why don't we create a whole campaign around this?" Right? Exactly.
• 19:59
  Have more of a vertical push. Yeah, I love that. I think that getting close to client success is something that not enough content marketers do.
• 20:08
  I think that there is a really big push for content to work with the rest of the marketing team and with sales, and I agree with that. Like, you absolutely should.
• 20:15
  But client success is a really big missed opportunity to tap into some of, like, the expertise in your business in terms of, like, just best practice.
• 20:25
  Like, what are they doing with our most successful clients, the ones that have been with your company for, like, five-plus years? What are their secrets?
• 20:33
  And that's where you can kind of get that content that, like, no one else is writing about, 'cause you can sit there and you can Google, like, you know, for example, at my old company, like, five ways to engage employees.
• 20:43
  Great, that's a super generic post.
• 20:45
  But then if you take that and you couple in actual stories, and then you have sort of these tricks of the trade from a client success manager who's been in the trenches for 15 years, all of a sudden, like, that's super interesting.
• 20:59
  So I think, I don't know, I always used to call myself, probably still do, the professional lurker.
• 21:05
  And it's just like your job is to try and find out, like, what are people not talking about that's not as obvious, and that's where you actually get the unique and interesting stories from your organization.
• 21:17
  Absolutely, and I think, like, sales is really good at communicating, like, here's competitors that they're considering, you know, here are the typical objections we get during the sales process.
• 21:31
  But customer success is really good at, like, here's the change management stuff we have to do.
• 21:37
  Like, here are the minds we have to change within an organization to, like, get our product adopted, and, like, that adoption is just as hard as-- Like, we're talking about getting content adoption, it's the same as, like, product adoption.
• 21:49
  It's just as hard, like someone buys 100 licenses to your software, it's, like, another huge sales job that customer success has to do to get everyone in the organization to start using your thing.
• 22:00
  They know so much about, like, the internal politics of those companies, which stakeholders get involved that might not have actually been in the sales process, but are, like, major decision makers.
• 22:11
  They're, like, a super untapped wealth of knowledge and, yeah, super valuable.
• 22:16
  I did wanna, like, close the loop on the case studies thing though, because you mentioned something really interesting, and I think a lot of people who listen to the show who maybe might not be leaders, but might be creators of content.
• 22:28
  Like, you talked about knowing how sales is actually gonna use a case study as an example, and, like, that's where the content tied to, like, business strategy and, like, actual tactics is, like, is so important.
• 22:42
  So, like, when I'm creating a case study, that's exactly what I'm thinking about.
• 22:45
  I'm like, "Okay, yes, I wanna have this, like, beautiful story, and, like, I want it to be this, like, narrative arc," and, like, that's what I care about as a marketer. Like, I wanna change minds.
• 22:53
  But, like, yeah, on the front line, sales would-- needs to, like, get attention with just, like, a flashy number.
• 23:00
  They need, like, a one-minute video clip that they could, like, send someone in a LinkedIn DM or something. Like, they have all these, like, little touch points that they need content for.
• 23:10
  But if I'm not aware of that when I'm creating the case study at first, it's much harder to, like, get that. It's kinda like the distribution.
• 23:20
  Like, you have to be aware of what your distribution tactics are gonna be before you make content, and I think that's just as true as the teams that you're collaborating with. How do you want them to actually use it?
• 23:31
  So you're not just gonna say, like, "Here's a 3,000-word blog post. I expect you to use this in your- Yep... outbound," right? I think, God, case, case studies could be a whole nother topic.
• 23:40
  But on that, like, one thing that I learned, for example, was, you know, the longer case studies that were on our site, they did great for traffic engagement.
• 23:51
  You know, we used-- we turned those into, like, downloadable assets that we used for cam- for more demand gen. But in terms of sales, yes, they love, love, love short video clips.
• 24:03
  So what we did was we actually looked at our webinars, and a lot of times our webinars would feature clients, they would feature customers. It would actually be the customers speaking about how they're using the product.
• 24:15
  There would almost always be this clip that was totally unprompted that was like, "We love working with your team, and we're so happy we chose you, and we've done this, this, this since we launched."
• 24:26
  And that was, like, the money-Quote. And so I had someone from my team basically slice and dice the webinars.
• 24:34
  So we had the client quote, and then we wrapped it around visuals of their specific product, how they were using their engagement hubs, for example.
• 24:43
  And so then it was a bit of a product visual with a client quote overlaid that was tied to like specific verticals with like just really, really simple graphics. And it was probably like, what?
• 24:54
  Like a minute-- under a minute, like forty-five-second clips, and sales ate that up. So yeah, like the-- [chuckles] that, that was a huge learning for me.
• 25:04
  I didn't realize like how well those would go, but they-- we were like, "This is exactly what we need jam-packed in like a thirty-second, forty-five-second clip," and it was from things that we already have. Yeah.
• 25:14
  'Cause they were like, "We're never gonna send this webinar." Totally.
• 25:17
  Yeah, we're getting deep into like sales here, but yeah, it's like what are the touch points that your team has with customers, or like what are the sort of daily touch points in their job where content can help them?
• 25:28
  And understanding that and where your content strategy and like actual creative can fit into those moments is incredibly important for getting buy-in to then for them actually use it.
• 25:41
  Yeah, and I think that in terms of thinking about how your content fits into your overall business strategy as well, it's making sure that you are just aware and you're asking questions.
• 25:53
  Like you don't-- If you take yourself out of that order taker seat and you start asking the why, you're not being annoying, you're just trying to make things better.
• 26:04
  So okay, you got a content brief that feels like out of left field for you.
• 26:10
  There's probably a reason why you feel that way, and is it because you haven't been involved in some decision on changing a persona or a new product feature that's launching that you had no idea about?
• 26:21
  Or a market shift that only has been talked about in this like tiger team of four salespeople that are freaking out 'cause they haven't hit their numbers? What is the impetus behind this content?
• 26:33
  And I'm a really big believer in understanding why everything is getting created. Absolutely.
• 26:39
  And I think like a big lesson for me, too, i-is like as marketers we, who are creative types, like we have this sort of perfectionist tinkerer hat on at all times, or like this polish that we expect, and sometimes it's very easy to get distracted away from business impact in the day-to-day of like, "This is off-brand," or- Mm-hmm...
• 27:04
  this is whatever. And I think like that's when marketing becomes like off-putting to other teams when they're like, "Here's this new deck we made," and we go, "Ah, this is all wrong. How could you do this?"
• 27:16
  Like, "The fonts are all whatever." And they're like, "Oh, I've closed one hundred percent of my sales using this." And they-- and we're like, "No, you're doing it wrong."
• 27:24
  And like we tend to sometimes get lost in the creative weeds, and I think like, yeah, taking a step back and going like, "Okay, is the change I'm trying to like impose on these other teams actually gonna drive business impact, or is it just like self-serving because
• 27:41
  I don't like the way the deck looks or whatever?" Right, like, and so this- Yeah... this like shows up in different moments, I think, for marketers collaborating with other teams.
• 27:49
  But I think, yeah, like am I moving the business needle in this thing?
• 27:53
  I mean, we're getting, getting into a conversation about like productivity and where to spend your time, but I think also just in terms of like messaging internally, like getting buy-in.
• 28:03
  Like can you ignore the small stuff and like don't sweat the small stuff and just help teams? Like what matters to that team? What is the needle they wanna move, and like are you actually helping them do that?
• 28:13
  If you are, then they will buy into your and adopt your content. Yeah, and I think in terms of like, I always say creating content evangelist is something that I'm really, really passionate about.
• 28:26
  And I mean like I had several different ways that I did this at one of my old companies. We had an internal newsletter, and at first it was called The Content Chronicle. Someone on my team came up with that name.
• 28:37
  At first, it only went out to marketing and sales, so it was a smaller portion of the company.
• 28:43
  And then I had client success, and I had like product, kind of a couple other people asking me about it, our HR team, 'cause we sold to HR, and they're like, "Oh, I kinda wanna know what's going on," and, "Hey, I was featured in that."
• 28:54
  So then I was like, you know what? Screw it. I'm just gonna open it up to the entire company.
• 28:57
  So I set the visibility setting, and we had like, at that time it was probably around a four hundred, five hundred person company, and we had a solid, you know, thirty to thirty-five percent of people like reading it and commenting and reacting to it.
• 29:14
  And people actually cared about what we were putting out, and to me that was again, like the pinnacle. I was like, "This is amazing. People actually understand what we're doing. They wanna be involved."
• 29:23
  But I think that small ways you can do that as well is just by recognizing people that are the content evangelists.
• 29:30
  Like a lot of times these are your overeager like SDRs that are either new to the business or they're veterans, I've seen both ways, where they really understand how to connect with a prospect and they want to figure out like how to use-- They wanna figure out how to get ahead.
• 29:46
  They're naturally competitive. So like give them that recognition and shout out a little bit. I think that that can be massively helpful.
• 29:54
  And then also just having kind of like dedicated either a newsletter or dedicated times and consistency where you're updating things in Slack.
• 30:03
  And also I found all this out by talking to the sales and the client success on the other teams and being like, "How do you want to be notified?" Like, it's just noise.
• 30:13
  We have this PR alerts channel, we've got this, we've got this. Like where do you wanna find out about things?
• 30:18
  So I think a lot of it is about trying to figure out where you can be integrated into their workflow as much as possible, rather than being another thing that they have to pay attention to. Yeah.
• 30:29
  And in some ways it's just the marketing skill we already have just applied-Internally instead of it being post every day on LinkedIn, it's like, yeah, share regular Slack updates, and then, yeah, when you get the mic at the company town hall, share an update there too.
• 30:44
  Send an email like multi-channel marketing works internally too, for sure. I feel like there's no... I-if you have one channel where you're marketing internally, then it's gonna get ignored by a third of people.
• 30:56
  But some people like email, some people like Slack, some people like- Yeah... Zoom calls. And so as long as you're like...
• 31:01
  And I think also not just like multi-channel, but sort of over time, like say, for example, I say, "We're going to be starting this initiative soon." And then when I start that initiative, I say, "I'm now working..."
• 31:14
  Like, whatever. "We're gonna be updating the website next quarter." And then I say, "This quarter, we're updating the website." And then I say, "We've updated the website."
• 31:21
  So like, like you said before, like, our content strategy and tactics are not a surprise to anyone, but like the more you seed ideas and seed things in advance, the more buy...
• 31:31
  Like, it's sort of like an internal funnel of like you build awareness, you build... Like y- at, right at the top of the show, you said awareness, adoption, alignment, and advocacy.
• 31:40
  It's nice those are all A words- Right... by the way. Great marketing. But like the goal is to create all those things. So yeah, it's, it's like just like applying marketing tactics, but internally. Yeah.
• 31:50
  I was thinking of a way to wrap this up, and I don't know how. [laughs] There's no way. We're just gonna talk forever. Yeah. Feels like a great time to wrap up the conversation, Chloe. Okay. Let's see. All right.
• 32:01
  Well, my dog just jumped on my lap, so I think that means that we need to wrap this up, and I need to go give him dinner soon.
• 32:07
  But I think that, you know, the things that I've picked up from here is content creators, leaders everywhere, like speak up, get really visible within your organization, but also understand the why, understand what people's jobs are, understand why they're there at work, and then how your content can help them.
• 32:25
  And yeah, there's obviously a lot more that we can say on this topic, so I'm just gonna plug once again the podcast email, which Eric and I just found out existed. There's a podcast email? I just found out now.
• 32:39
  The, it, it... Think it's podcast@superpath.co, and you can share all your thoughts, your ideas. Tell us you want us off the podcast. That'd be awkward, but you know, if that's- Questions... really how you feel.
• 32:52
  Such as where's Jimmy? [laughs] Just, just #wheresjimmy. Jimmy is trick or treating all week with his kiddos. So [laughs]
• 33:01
  Yeah, I don't know when this is dropping, but yeah, he told us he had like seven Christmas parties in a row, which I do not envy. Not Christmas parties, Halloween parties. I have no idea what time of year it is.
• 33:12
  Maybe it's dropping Christmas, and he has Christmas parties, but the specific reference is Halloween parties.
• 33:18
  And I will plug the Superpath community as we like to do because this came up from questions in the community about like how do I get more buy-in alignment for content? How do you get other teams to adopt your content?
• 33:32
  And these are the kind of hard questions that it's hard to Google the answer and find. So Superpath- Yep... community, superpath.co is a great place to ask these questions. Look at me. I'm in my podcaster ad era.
• 33:44
  I love this. Who needs Jimmy? I'm just kidding. Jimmy, come back. [laughs] Perfect. All right. Perfect way to wrap this up. Chloe, great talking to you. Audience- Thanks so much, Eric... thanks for listening. Bye-bye.
• 33:55
  [outro music]