Latest / The ROI Online Podcast / Entrepreneur Sid Bharath on the Importance of Copywriting in Your Business’s Success: The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 75

Transcript

Entrepreneur Sid Bharath on the Importance of Copywriting in Your Business’s Success: The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 75 · The ROI Online Podcast

• 0:03
  Sid Bharath: As a business owner, you're, you've probably started that business in that certain industry, because you know a lot about that industry and you have insights into it already. And if you don't, you should probably just try to learn a lot more about it, talk to the people in the industry, talk to your customers, right.
• 0:17
  Sid Bharath: And so you want to combine your intuition and your learning your qualitative understanding of that industry, with the quantitative data that you're getting from your tools. So even if the data is sparse, you can still kinda like make some sort of distinctions and decisions based on that data based on what you already know about the industry and the people in that industry.
• 0:41
  Steve Brown: Hi, everybody.
• 0:41
  Steve Brown: Welcome to the ROI Online Podcast where we believe you, the courageous entrepreneurs of our day, are the invisible heroes of our economy. You not only improve our world with your ideas, your grip and your passion, but you make our world better. I'm Steve Brown. And this is a place where we have great conversations with winners just like you while we laugh and learn together.
• 1:13
  Steve Brown: Sid Bharath, welcome to the ROI online podcast.
• 1:18
  Sid Bharath: Hey, Steve, thanks for having me. I'm excited.
• 1:20
  Steve Brown: Yeah, so this is really interesting. You, come from the world of copywriting, marketing. You had a stint recently at Thinkific. That's where thought leaders and business owners go and set up these marketing courses for online which are growing more and more popular. And then now you have, you have a startup called Broca. It's an AI tool to help you do better with your copywriting. And so the folks that are listening, they want to know, Okay, why should I listen to this episode? So first of all, give us a little backstory on why you stumbled into copywriting and marketing, like, can you pick something a little bit easier?
• 2:08
  Sid Bharath: You know, I'm, I was actually trained as an engineer. And I was doing the whole, I did like business consulting at a big consulting firm. I didn't really enjoy that life. And I wanted to start my own thing. So a friend of mine, I co founded a startup, which is like a travel startup travel app. And we moved out to Chile, where the government of Chile was funding entrepreneurs to come there and start businesses.
• 2:32
  Sid Bharath: And through that experience, I started to try to promote this app that we were creating. And I got into copywriting content creation to like, produce marketing materials to promote it. And writing is always something I'd loved as a kid, even I used to write these like short stories and stuff. And so that's kind of how I just like fell into it. And this startup didn't really work out. But I I sort of, I realized I could make money as a marketer, as a copywriter, content creator online. And so I started doing a lot of freelance work around that. And that kicked off my journey in marketing.
• 3:06
  Steve Brown: Isn't it amazing that businesses struggle really hard with marketing and copywriting and yet it's so integral into running a successful business, but I think there's a point in a entrepreneurs life or small businesses life where they go, Oh, we have to get our act together in this area. And then here, you are able to step in, talk to us about why it's so important and why it's so valuable to have the skills?
• 3:37
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, I mean, it's like it's kind of like, everything you do in marketing stems from creating the right copy or the right content, right? And like, it's, it's all about being able to, and you talk about this on your site as well like the story brand, right? So how do you tell your story in a compelling manner, and you could have a great story, but if you say it the wrong way, it's not gonna resonate with people. So having that skill of copywriting to really understand what word what phrases resonate with your audience is is just key to be able to tell that story and to spread that message around, across the world so that people will learn about you and buy into that story, and buy into your products as well.
• 4:19
  Steve Brown: So we have a lot of marketing directors that listen to this podcast, story brand guys, business owners, kind of help us understand how to better connect with business owners and take advantage of copywriting to support our marketing thing. Its marketing is this one piece that finally we have to get over we have to get really good at it.
• 4:41
  Steve Brown: It's a, it's a big competitive advantage now, especially when most people are considering your product from a distance online.
• 4:52
  Sid Bharath: Mm hmm.
• 4:53
  Steve Brown: So give us a little, where did you kind of the light bulb go on and how you were able to connect with the folks that you worked with, and get them to, to feel confident about the talents you had to offer?
• 5:08
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, I think it was, for me, it was the companies that I worked with, and the people I work with, I was able to really understand their audiences as well. And I was a, I started niche down with the types of companies that I work with, I work primarily with like SAS technologies and marketing, SAS, right marketing tools for other marketers. So I started, I really started to understand that audience, I was that audience. And I think it's really key to good copywriting is to understand an audience, because then, you know what they're thinking about what sort of problems that they that they face that they would like solutions to, and the way that they describe those problems and solutions so that you know, what, you know, what words to use with them, when attracting them.
• 5:54
  Steve Brown: So what's the secret to really understanding your audience?
• 5:58
  Sid Bharath: You got to talk to them, you got to get on the call, get on multiple calls with those customers or potential customers. And and talk to them awesome questions, record it and synthesize all that information and do 10 20 50 calls even if you have to.
• 6:13
  Steve Brown: So as an engineer, did you use certain technologies to help you kind of get better?
• 6:16
  Steve Brown: Because it seems like you need a pretty big sampling of an audience to start to really, really feel confident about your connection with the audience?
• 6:28
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, I think it took, it took time for me to start getting better. You know, like, in my early days, I really wasn't that great. And it just, it was a process of two, three years, maybe as I as I got better at it. And it was just like, with this audience all the time, understanding their needs, and pains, and, writing copy for them, right? So I mean, there was no specific tool or technology. But he was just like, a, it's a constant, you do it every day, and you get better every day.
• 6:59
  Steve Brown: So when I when I decided to write my book, it's because I recognized certain themes, you know? Coming from the entrepreneurs that I worked with, they would say it a little bit different. But if you took those, those, please, if you will, that they had, when they asked for help, or when they're trying to present what they need, I started to recognize a common theme, even though they would say a different, it would come through as themes. And that was started to help me dial in on what message I could really create to connect with most of them across the board. Is, is that an experience that you have?
• 7:38
  Sid Bharath: Absolutely, yeah.
• 7:38
  Sid Bharath: And I think like, you know, once you have you talk to so many people, you'll find that, you'll find these teams across the board, right? So whatever, you know, if you're running a business, listening to the show, whatever, you know, you may have different segments of customers.
• 7:51
  Sid Bharath: And each segment will have a very specific team that stands out after a while. And that team captures about 80% of sort of like, you know, it's like the 80-20 rule, right? So that captures 80% of what that audience really cares about. And that's good enough for you.
• 8:06
  Steve Brown: Mm hmm. I think it's kind of like watching a foreign language film, you know, where their lips are moving a particular way but the text below is not following that.
• 8:16
  Steve Brown: That's why I started to go, Oh, if I back out and don't get so pulled into the conversation, but if I back out a little bit, and watch the themes develop, it was really enlightening for me.
• 8:28
  Steve Brown: And I started to connect with my audience way better.
• 8:33
  Sid Bharath: Absolutely, yeah.
• 8:34
  Steve Brown: So how did you how did you stumble into the opportunity at Thinkific? First, tell us what Thinkific is in case some of the audience doesn't know. And then how did you stumble into that?
• 8:46
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, so I was off to the Chile experience. I was doing consulting, freelance work copywriting for various companies and creating content, blog post that kind of stuff.
• 8:58
  Sid Bharath: And I was just traveling off a bit and I came back to Canada, where I am right now. And I got hired by a company called Lemon Stand. That company was, is kind of like a Shopify, is an online e-commerce platform. And I did their, they have seen some of my content online. And so they wanted to hire me to create content for them. And I started to create online courses to teach people how to become a content writer, copywriter.
• 9:23
  Sid Bharath: Because I'd done I had done that transition as well. And through that, creating an online course, I stumbled into Thinkific, which is a platform that allows you to build those online courses and sell them online. That's how I got connected with them. They were still very small back when I started working with them. I think it was like five or six people. So I joined on as the VP of growth to lead the marketing strategy. And we grew that company over, I was there for about two years or one and a half years between those two. We went from 20,000 in monthly revenue to 400,000 in monthly revenue, I think over that period. So it was good rapid growth. Definitely learnt a lot there.
• 10:01
  Steve Brown: So in that rapid growth, how much do you think it was that the, was due to the industry changing and starting to really perceive or conceive that they should start delivering teaching courses? And how much do you kind of put on you as far as your talents and skills that you brought to the table?
• 10:22
  Sid Bharath: Well, I, I think it was entirely the industry. I think we got there's definitely a huge element of luck, right?
• 10:31
  Sid Bharath: And I believe it like most things that I've done is just like mostly luck, that the industry was growing, you know?
• 10:39
  Sid Bharath: You had a lot of other similar software's propping up and then you had all these, all these folks creating online courses, you know, like big podcasters, and authors and so on. And so started getting more and more popular, and we kind of rode that wave, we rode the wave of the the influencers who were teaching people how to create online courses, how to make money online, that kind of thing. And so it was, it was good timing, for sure. But you know, we also did take the opportunity, we grabbed the opportunity when it showed up, and I think that was important as well.
• 11:09
  Steve Brown: So what it did, you know, when I look at Thinkific platform, it's very well thought through. And so they're building on, on the skills that you brought in the processes. And what specifically did you implement that you didn't expect? And that you're proud of? Because that's going to pivot into Broca when we start to talk about that, but what happened there with you that you really, really grew? You really learned something?
• 11:42
  Sid Bharath: Yeah. For me, it was kind of like more of a the way you structure marketing, right? So with marketing, there's so many different things you can do, like the social media there's ads, there's affiliate, partnerships, content, like you name it, there's 101 things you can do.
• 12:00
  Sid Bharath: And especially as a small business owner or a small startup, you cannot, you do not have the resources to do all of that. So it changed the way I thought about marketing in that it's not about trying to do everything, but it's trying to figure out what's the one or two things that you should be doing absolutely. And so I developed a process through my experience there, which was a very scientific method of identifying those growth channels. It's basically you know, the short of it is, you test you first like, it starts with understanding the audience, which goes back to what I was saying earlier about talking to customers. So I did a lot of that, and then trying to identify, like, what are some of the channels that they're very active on. And if you know, if they're not active on Snapchat, you just won't do any Snapchat marketing, if they're very active on LinkedIn, that's where you kind of focus. And so you get a few different ideas, maybe some of these teams come across of these different channels. But of course, even those are too many for you to focus on. So what you then do is you test out each channel on a small scale, right? Do do a small budget ad test, or a small set of content pieces, and a bit of promotions here and there, test how that's working and how the audience's on those channels are receptive to it. And if something is really working, well, that's when that's the one you need to focus on double down on it.
• 13:18
  Sid Bharath: Right? And so that also, you know, taught me how to hire people and how to build a marketing team, when we found something that was working, we would hire someone specifically to take on that role, so that I could then go on to test other channels and do the same thing again over there. And so it was just this whole meta learning of like, how do you strategize, and think about marketing and growth from a from a high level strategic standpoint and scale that up.
• 13:46
  Steve Brown: So when you say, when you test a platform, are you measuring engagement? Are you measuring follows or likes or what do you measure here?
• 13:56
  Sid Bharath: So it's, it kind of differs on unlike what the aim of the test is. So you know, before you even test out, you have to, you have to be clear about what it is you want to test. And it could just be it could be follows. It could be traffic, it could be sales from that channel, right? And you say, Okay, this is our goal, our goal is to, you know, have 1000 new website visitors from from this channel, right? In the next two weeks, right? And then you and your hypothesis is that if you post a few pieces of content every day, and you make some connections on LinkedIn, you'll get that traffic, and X percent of the traffic will probably convert to customers, right? So that's your hypothesis, and then you actually go do it and then you at the end of it, you test out and see whether that works.
• 14:43
  Sid Bharath: And if it didn't, then maybe you pause that and you go on to the next test. But if it did, then maybe you could say all right, this it was totally worth the effort. We spent two weeks doing creating content, and in return we got so many sales, so much traffic, so if we just doubled our efforts, we would likely double up outputs as well. So yeah.
• 15:02
  Steve Brown: So the folks that you worked with they had the temperament to be patient with your testing and iterations?
• 15:10
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, it was very fortunate that the the leadership team at that company, as well is very like minded and into the scientific process as well.
• 15:19
  Steve Brown: Yeah, so as a business owner, that's something you have to be mindful when you're working with your marketing directors is that you need a little wiggle room to do some testing. And that if it's a failure, that's actually you're getting data about something that didn't work.
• 15:38
  Sid Bharath: Exactly, yeah.
• 15:38
  Sid Bharath: Like, I think a lot of people who aren't very familiar with marketing and how it works, thinks that, you know, there's like one golden ticket, and then the best marketer will know exactly what that is, and go straight for it. Whereas like, none of us know what we're doing. We like the goal here, or what we're trying to do is just test out as much as possible as rapidly as possible so that we can figure out, collect data about what doesn't work, and what does work. And eventually, we'll get it right.
• 16:03
  Steve Brown: So Sid, If I was asked you like, Why don't, if you would please represent all the marketing directors for us for a little bit, and give, give like the business owners that are listening to this, hat would you say to them? Like, what are the top three things that you need to have proper expectations of your marketing director that works for your organization, or the agency that you're working with?
• 16:31
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, I think the first one is, whenever you hire a new marketer or agency, don't expect them to instantly double your revenues overnight. Or, you know, they're not a golden ticket, it doesn't work like that. And you need to give them time to really settle them, understand the audience, the product, the solution, the messaging and run a few tests, so that they can figure out what's working and collect data.
• 16:57
  Sid Bharath: The second thing is that there will be failures, and it's okay, the failures are like, if your marketing team is not failing enough, then they playing it too safe. You know? So you should be You should be proud that if they are trying something, and it didn't work, that they actually had the guts to try it out.
• 17:16
  Sid Bharath: Right? And, and then the third thing I would say, is, I think just, you know, be very clear and come to an understanding of what numbers to and goals to set for the marketing person or the agency and, and set it together with them, you know, don't impose on them metrics that are, you know, probably in your head, they will they seem achievable, but they may not be at all work together with a marketing team.
• 17:42
  Sid Bharath: And if a marketing team or marketing agency says that they can hit certain numbers, then yeah, hold them to that number.
• 17:47
  Sid Bharath: Right? That's fair, because they decided that number. So yeah.
• 17:53
  Steve Brown: Yeah, excellent. So talk to us a little bit about when whenever we're talking about content marketing, or copywriting, often, our default thinking is on social media, or the website. But talk to us a little bit about the email side of things. Where did you invest in that? How much? How much is that overlooked? What are some really good tips in that area?
• 18:21
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, the email stuff is I, I think a lot of people kind of like, think of it as a secondary thing. But it's, because everyone is trying to like, get sales as soon as possible, right? So you're trying to say, let's get our website visitors into sales directly. But oftentimes, when people are seeing your marketing online, they may like your story, they may resonate with it, they may care about your business, a product, but they're just not ready in their lives, to use it at that point, or to buy it at that point. So I think email is a great way to sort of keep in touch with those people get, get the people who are sort of interested but not ready to be on your list so that you can keep, you know in touch with them. And eventually, when they are ready, they'll come back and purchase. Because now you're on top of their mind, now they're seeing your content, right? So capturing those emails in the first place is a big deal, right? Because then you can nurture those leads, there's there are secondary effects as well of building an email list.
• 19:17
  Sid Bharath: What I found, for example, was when we were doing partnerships at the various companies that I worked work with, we would partner up with other companies and we would say hey, let's promote as our product your audience and you can promote your product to our audience.
• 19:31
  Sid Bharath: Now, that would only work if we had a decent enough audience, because then they would benefit from it too. So the secondary effect there is if you are building an email list you can you open up larger or partnership opportunities for yourself. And then when you when you create that list, don't just promote your product all the time, don't create boring content. You really just want to create very interesting content and yeah, it can be very related to your product, obviously in your industry, but the idea is to keep yourself on top of your leads minds. So by creating interesting content, they're more likely to read it or to open it on to not junk it or unsubscribe. And as long as that's there at the top of their inbox at the top of their mind, then you mentioned they'll come back and purchase your, your product.
• 20:21
  Steve Brown: Alright, so copywriting is your area of expertise. And so give us the folks that are listening some, some are really good at writing copy some maybe be might be a little insecure. You know, when you write copy, you have a lot of people looking over your shoulder being critical or or suggesting changes, right? So let's talk to the copywriters a little bit. What are some of your like? What? First where did you learn it? And when did you start to feel that you were really good at this? And what was it that that you saw was working that encouraged you?
• 21:04
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, you know, like, to your point about, everyone's everyone has an opinion. And it's true, like people people think like, especially people who are not marketers, and you know, you'll find in your company, the other folks will always have an pinion on the copy and the ontent that you produce. And hey think it's easy, they think t's easy to write words, ecause everyone speaks English.
• 21:24
  Sid Bharath: nd so if you can speak, you can rite and if you can write then ou should be a copywriter. But hat's not true, right? And the nly way, the only way to really ell if copy is working is to ac ually test it out, just test te t as and collect data on it, ri ht? And that's like the best th ng you can do. Because the da a is just hard proof that th s piece of copy is better than that piece of copy, right?
• 21:41
  Sid Bharath: So you don't just want to like c me up with like a piece of ad, ad copy or a website page, and t en just let it run, you have o keep testing out varia ions, different variation, diffe ent angles. And that's kind f like the number one thing I learned is, you may, you may p oduce a really good piece of co y up front. But you can alway better it, you can always impr ve the conversion rate of that piece of copy. And so you alwa s have to keep testing. That is obviously time cons ming. But you know, there are olutions. For example, what I've been doing recently. The way got into it, or when I real zed I was good is just I mean it's something that I enjo doing in general, right, I just really like it, I like the proc ss of it. And that's why I got nto it and decided to dedi ate my time to this stuff.
• 22:34
  Sid Bharath: think I just only got good at it just because I kept doing i over and over and over again.
• 22:40
  Sid Bharath: t's like going to the gym, yo know, you keep lifting weights you'll you'll get bigger uscles and you keep writing copy, you will get better t writing copy, right?
• 22:49
  Steve Brown: I want to pause here just for a moment and talk to you about a program that we have just released called ROI quickstart Academy for authors.
• 22:58
  Steve Brown: Every day, I talk to business owners just like you who struggle with quickly getting their fundamentals in place. We want to create a great foundation and we want to grow our business. But the things that are in our way, our lack of knowledge about the specifics we should put in place, what kind of technology what kind of messaging and what kind of campaigns and that problem exists for authors as well. And we just chill so good with authors because, well, I'm an author, and I understand everything that you struggle with, you have a great idea you have a great book, but what do you want to do, you want to get your book in front of more people, you want to make it easy for them to find you learn how they can schedule a time to talk with you hire you for a conference, or maybe sign up for the services that your book promotes. So what is the Quickstart Academy for authors?
• 23:51
  Steve Brown: Imagine working with a small group of like minded authors, and the experts from the ROI quickstart team, it's a great way to get your messaging clear to be confident with the technology in your marketing automation, and how to run a strategic campaign to get you more of what you want from the investment of your book. To learn more about the Quickstart Academy for authors, you can visit roionline.com or click in he link in the show notes elow. And now back to this pisode.
• 24:31
  Steve Brown: Yeah, so here's the thing with data or if you're a good copywriter, usually you're not an engineer. You're not a coder and you're not comfortable necessarily. And I'm so I'm being you know being in general, you're not a technologist, you know? You don't come from that world necessarily. So, data is exciting, but oftentimes data is like, It can be tricky and not, if you're not reading it right, you can make some bad decisions.
• 25:07
  Steve Brown: Now, you know, a lot of software they offer offer you this AB testing opportunity and we're segwaying into Broca just now.
• 25:16
  Steve Brown: But what is it that we can start to do with a little bit of data that start to reveal these insights that are important that some maybe we overlook? Or maybe we're blind to?
• 25:30
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, that's a good point, I think and you're writing a lot of copywriters and marketers don't have that data background, I was fortunate because I am an engineer by training. And I think that's another reason why I was good at it is because I was able to understand that, uh, I think, like, you know, the first first thing is people are just uncomfortable looking at it, because they, you know, they see these numbers, and they're like, Oh, I'm just not good at math or whatever, right? So the first step is just to like, just get a little more comfortable with it.
• 26:00
  Sid Bharath: Make sure that you're tracking everything and and just start looking into your analytics tools, whatever you're using, just to look at numbers, just to see what it says. I think, you know, the industry is maturing to a point where we are building more and more tools that will help marketers make these decisions better. So you don't have to understand what statistical significance is, and how to calculate probabilities and all that kind of stuff. But you should just get into the practice of the habit of looking at data and just try to, you know, make decisions with the help of that, you know? Yeah.
• 26:42
  Steve Brown: Yeah. So, you know, most of the folks that are listening, well, here's, here's the dilemma. In the United States, 98% of the businesses that exist, have 20 or less employees. So that means that whoever's running that company is also kind of in charge of marketing. And even though they have websites, they don't have 1000s, and 1000s of visits every day, to really get a good statistical sampling, to reveal great data insights, assuming they love to look at data, and they're confident they don't feel insecure. So that's a big dilemma. What can we do with just a little bit of visits without making poor decisions?
• 27:32
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, that's, that is the dilemma. And I think one way to offset that is to use kind of your intuition as an expert in that industry. So as a business owner, you're, you've probably started that business in that certain industry, because you know a lot about that industry, and you have insights into it already. And if you don't, you should probably just try to learn a lot more about it, talk to the people in the industry, talk to your customers, right? And so you want to combine your intuition and your learning your qualitative understanding of that industry, with the quantity of data that you're getting from your tools. So even if the data is sparse, you can still kinda like make some sort of distinctions and decisions based on that data based on what you already know about the industry and the people in that industry.
• 28:20
  Sid Bharath: I'll give you an example. I was working with another company that they're aligners. They they sell aligners, right? And they work with the dentists. And so they you know, they were starting out is fairly small, and not getting too many dentists coming in visiting the site. So there's not a lot of data. But we we had this page where we would pitch to the dentist what this product was, and why they should become a certified dentist and provide the product to their patients.
• 28:52
  Sid Bharath: And so we, what we did instead, like we were getting visits on the page, and we've seen how long they were spending on the page and how far down they were scrolling and whether they were they were converting, right? And so they would fill out a form.
• 29:05
  Sid Bharath: And then, you know, they would get into a funnel, but they would sort of drop off the funnel at some point. And we thought, Oh, we need to make the funnel a lot shorter. Because just looking at that data, it said that maybe the funnel was too long, we should make it shorter, so that they get through the whole thing. We made it shorter, and then the conversions dropped even further. And so we where like what's going on? So we did a whole bunch of compensations.
• 29:26
  Sid Bharath: And it turns out that the doctors were just unsure of what the business model is very different than his company was offering the doctors. And they were just so unsure that when we made it faster, it was even more daunting to them. And so they dropped out faster. Whereas earlier, when they were going through, they were filling out the form It was kind of like a soft step for them to take. And then through the middle of the funnel, they would get lost in all of the content that we were giving them they would they would drop out. So we realized we didn't need to make it shorter we just actually needed to make it maybe like longer, and then, you know, educate them a lot more and provide them a lot better content through their journey. So it was kind of like a, you know, looking combining the quantitative data with qualitative data.
• 30:12
  Steve Brown: So what they needed was a little more consideration time?
• 30:17
  Sid Bharath: Yes.
• 30:17
  Steve Brown: To evaluate? So there's a little bit longer?
• 30:20
  Steve Brown: That makes sense. But it's counterintuitive to what your first initial glance was over the data. Right?
• 30:28
  Sid Bharath: Exactly. And the data would tell us, you know, it told us one thing, but if you if you combine that with other types of data, like the qualitative research, then you can get a more holistic view of what's happening.
• 30:39
  Steve Brown: So what I see is like, an opportunity with some companies is that we need a crowd sourced base of statistical data that we can refer to when we have a website, maybe that's not that busy. But it'd be cool if we could figure out a way to garner insights off of, you know, in the crowdsource interaction data. Iis that what Broca is about?
• 31:08
  Sid Bharath: So that's one thing that we do want to build in the future. So right now we're starting off with the concept of what I mentioned earlier was testing, right? You got to continuously test new piece of copy, iterate, iterate, iterate, and then you'll find another piece that does better than what's working right now. And then you use that and you continue to iterate. And so what Broca does is, say, for example, your ads, right at Google ads, you don't just want to write one Google ad and just let it run.
• 31:33
  Sid Bharath: Because, you know, it could not be the best performing ad, you can always improve on that. So Broca, then takes the ad and then starts generating variations using AI. And these variations are very good. Like the, the content produced by the AI, it's, it feels and sounds like a human wrote it. And then your job as a writer or an advertiser is, instead of spending hours writing new variations, you simply look at all the variations that are being produced by the AI, and then you select which ones you want to use, right. And so once you select that, it goes back into your sort of testing pool and runs this ads, and then the software will again, it will help you with the data analysis, right? So it tells you which ads are performing best. And then it tells you which ones to pause, and it starts generating new variations on top of the best performing ones. So that way, you're always pausing the underperforming ones, keeping the best performing ones, and then testing new variations on top of the best performing ones.
• 32:28
  Sid Bharath: So you're always increasing your performance over time. And in the future, yes, we do want to build out that data, the database of all the performance of various content for various industries, so that when you if you are a small business using the tool, and you don't have enough data on it, we can draw from the data from we've collected from various other similar businesses, and help you actually make better decisions and testimo.
• 32:53
  Steve Brown: So here's the dilemma, is bad, we have all this technology and our world has become industrialized. And a lot of the content that's produced is written to please algorithms written to please Google, totally disregarding that there's a human on the other side, a human with a name, with a family, you know with a future. And so I think the trap has been less, industrialized this so that the search engines will approve it. And we don't care about the consumer that faceless, they just have it. It has a credit card. What is it about Broca that can help us to be more human? Because it let's say we're really good at writing copy, which is rare. And we write a good piece of copy and we put it out there and it's effective. Now we're expecting this robot to come along and polish it and make it better?
• 33:59
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, that's a that's a great point. And and I despite running an AI company, I don't think AI is gonna replace the expert copywriters or good marketers anytime soon. I think it's a good tool to augment and for you to produce maybe 10 times more than what you're producing right now. So as a good copywriter, it may take you a long time to produce a dozen variations. But if the AI can then present you with hundreds of different variations, and you, say, select the dozen that you think is best, then I think that it speeds up the process but it also does take into account your expertise as a copywriter because you're the one making the final decision on which piece of copy to choose, right? So I think the idea here is A) you're using AI as a way to just like create so many different permutations and combinations. And then using your expertise as a marketer or a copywriter to select the ones that you think will be the best performing ones of them to test those out eventually the the the copy like, you know? When you use AI to generate copy, it does, we are at a time when the AI is so good that it can, it can mimic what you've already written. So if you are, if you've already written good ads, then the AI will be able to mimic that style of writing. And so, you know, it's not, like industrialized, just like pushing out random content, but it is, it's similar to what you've written. And it allows you to pick and be the ultimate decider of what goes out there.
• 35:25
  Sid Bharath: So you can still keep the consumer in mind when you're choosing which ads to run.
• 35:30
  Steve Brown: So where did this idea come from? What incident convinced you that you needed to follow this path?
• 35:40
  Sid Bharath: It was all of it.
• 35:40
  Sid Bharath: Right? It was that is the whole story of like, my journey as a copywriter and realizing that, you know, testing was really important to getting better and just doing more and more and more. And, the only way you can tell which copy works is to test out multiple variations. And so I realized that this is a very time consuming piece. And even though I'm good at it, and I'm, you know, I probably maybe not the best in the world, but I'm fairly good at it, I can do it myself, it still takes time for me to do it. And if I'm working for a company that says that has a large budget or just wants to spend or, you know, market themselves a lot more, then I can't keep up with that. And I need the help of AI to help me keep up with that. And so that's how I came upon the idea, and started building it this year.
• 36:33
  Steve Brown: Yeah, so that's a that's a dilemma because a company goes, All right this copy writing is working, the ads are working, we need to do more, so we need to hire another copywriter. But they, that's a hit and miss whether you get a good one or you don't? Right?
• 36:48
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it works the same way for big bands and for agencies, right?
• 36:51
  Sid Bharath: How does an agency scale up? If they get a new client, they may have to hire a new copywriter to service that client, right? And so their costs are always increasing, the more clients they get, or for a big brand big business, as you as you increase your ad spend or your marketing spend, you'll have to hire more people to produce content for that marketing. So I think the way we see our tool is instead of having to hire, you know, 100, you know, a bunch more copywriters, you you can just use the copywriters you already have, but they use this software to be 10 times more productive, right? And so like it saves on your costs, but it also helps you increase your output at the same t ime.
• 37:35
  Steve Brown: So is this Broca spelled b r o c a. It's the website https://www.usebroca.com/ But is it primarily for ads, or is this for writing blogs or website content?
• 37:52
  Sid Bharath: We eventually want to be the software for all of that. So like the one central software where any marketing team business owner can plan, create, produce and share all the content for the marketing.
• 38:02
  Sid Bharath: Right now we've started off with ads, because that's usually the biggest piece of companies marketing spend is the ads. And that's kind of like the most important piece of it. Because if you're spending a lot of money on ads, and just one person in increments in your ad performance can lead to 1000s of dollars in new revenue or savings. So we've started with ads just now that's what we do.
• 38:26
  Sid Bharath: But eventually we will reach blog content website, copy all of that.
• 38:30
  Steve Brown: So where's this artificial intelligence coming from? It's who's, somebody is behind it. It's being used already. It's being perfected.
• 38:40
  Steve Brown: It's, so we're getting to a point where we're getting ready to roll this out?
• 38:46
  Sid Bharath: Yeah
• 38:47
  Steve Brown: Yeah. Give us some behind the scenes.
• 38:49
  Sid Bharath: For sure. Yeah, so so this is a model. And there's a lot of like, a lot of big companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, they're all investing in creating AI models. And they're eventually like licensing or opening, ope sourcing some of these models right. And these models ar getting bigger and bigger because they have the th capital and servers to trai massive models. And the model are trained on a lot of th content that's already on th internet. So it's just gon through like millions an billions of website pages, tha content, and now just reall understands how to structure good sentence, right? You giv it a piece of information, an it can continue that for you. I could generate more for you right? You give it an ad it ca generate a new variation of it You give it a topic and it ca generate a blog post. So I can' I can't really explain how th AI actually works, because it' still a bit nebulous to me. Bu the point is, it's been it' kind of like the the human brai, right, the AI is built, the w y a human brain is built is ju t neurons connected to each othe. And so when we as humans abso b a ton of information, we sta t to make connections. And then e start to see patterns And th n we can recreate that, right?
• 40:02
  Steve Brown: So what is, what would you like to share with So if I read a book, I can t en write another similar bo k, because I'm able to f rm patterns. And that's just tha's exactly how the AI is worki g. It's sort of like it's read ll this content on the intern t. And it's able to now se patterns, detect patterns, nd then recreate content. Simi ar thing. Y content creators or copywriters, or marketers about what you're doing with this software? What would be? How should I kind of start to split my toe in it in?
• 40:34
  Steve Brown: Walk into it? Yeah, give us some little, draw us a picture there?
• 40:43
  Sid Bharath: Yeah. I mean, like I said, the the eventual idea is, we want to be the one place where you can, the one software you can use to generate all of that content, right? And so what we're trying to do is build it in a way that makes it very, that fits into your existing workflow as a marketer or advertiser, and makes it easy for you to use. So, for example, with our current product with the Google ads, all you do is once you sign up, you connect your Google Ads account. And that's it, your work is done, right, because then we start to analyze your Google ads, we see what's working. And then we create those ad variations that I mentioned earlier. And we just display to you in a feed of multiple ad variations. And then your job is just to quickly select which ones you want to run, when you select that it goes back into Google Ads account automatically. So basically, the work that would take maybe a week or so is done in a few minutes, because you just had to go in there, click click, click, and you're done.
• 41:33
  Sid Bharath: And so if you kind of want to dip your toes into that and get started, you can always just try it out for free on the on the site. And even in the future, as we build out the new products, or social media or web copy or emails or blogs. We're going to use similar design philosophies to integrate it into your existing workflow. To use AI and technology to give you suggestions, and then you as the marketer, just make decisions.
• 42:03
  Sid Bharath: So you don't have to do the groundwork, you let the AI do the groundwork, and you choose which ones you want. Right? So for example, we will just give you a bunch of blog topic ideas based on existing topics that have worked well on your blog, looking at the data, then you select which ones you want to create blog posts of, when you select that we will generate various outlines. And he's like which outline you like? And then when you do that, we will generate the full blog posts.
• 42:26
  Sid Bharath: And then you select which blog post you write, and you click publish, and it goes. And so we're just trying to make work a lot easier for marketers and a lot faster so that you can be way more productive. And, and and be more strategic about, you know, spend more time thinking strategically versus it in the weeds doing the groundwork.
• 42:43
  Steve Brown: Exactly. So how, how far away is this utopia that you described?
• 42:51
  Sid Bharath: The Google, the the ad space is already ready. You can try it today. The blog content and stuff I think it's still a few months away. But hopefully by this time next year, we will we will be close enough to this utopia. Yeah.
• 43:06
  Steve Brown: So Sid, what's a question that people never ask you that you wish they would?
• 43:11
  Steve Brown: That you want to share with, our audience?
• 43:18
  Sid Bharath: Ah, that's a good, that's a really good question.
• 43:23
  Sid Bharath: Um, yeah, I think maybe it's, well, I don't know how to go into question. But one thing I do want to share with the audience is you can like it, this is what Steve Jobs says, it's a quote that I am always thinking about is you can you can only connect the dots looking backwards, right? And so, you know, people always ask, like, you know, what is what is your purpose? What is, you know, what do you want to do? What do you want to be? And all that, and I think you have to get clear on what matters to you in life. And just try for that, and that that could change over years, over time. But as long as you're just doing things that matter to your life, when you look back on it, it does sort of add up and make sense, right?
• 44:15
  Sid Bharath: Whatever it is, you do dedicate yourself to actually doing it really well, and to be very good at it, right? I see a lot of younger people make the same mistakes that I made when I was young, is just trying to going after money or trying to go where the latest hot trend is, right? And that may make you money in the short term, but in the long term, it's not going to make you money or make you happy even, right? And so kind of just like focus or optimize when you're younger, optimize, not on the money but optimize on learning and improving at a certain skill, finding the things that you like doing and becoming really good at it.
• 44:53
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, that's that's my, that's what I'd like to say.
• 44:58
  Steve Brown: Awesome. I love It.
• 44:58
  Steve Brown: Well Sid you've been an excellent guest on the ROI Online Podcast, how can folks, who should reach out to you? And how should they reach out to you?
• 45:11
  Unknown: Yeah. Thanks for interviewing me, Steve. And if anyone listening to this wants to reach out, you can email me sid@usebroca.com that's s i d @ u s e b r o c a . com, happy to answer any questions, talk to you and get on a call with you, whatever it is. So if you're a marketer, if you're a business owner, if you are experienced and want to use a product, if you're new and want to get into marketing, you know, always happy to talk, share my insights, my advice and, hel you with your marketing, wi h the product.
• 45:45
  Steve Brown: All right, excellent. Any, last words tha you want to share?
• 45:55
  Sid Bharath: Yeah, you know, like marketing is just all about trying out new things. You know, don't be afraid to test and try and learn the you know? It's okay to fail. And the failures are where you actually learn the most. So keep trying, keep failing.
• 46:11
  Steve Brown: All right, that's a nice bow on it. So thanks, again for being on the ROI Online Podcast Sid.
• 46:18
  Sid Bharath: Thank you, Steve.
• 46:19
  Steve Brown: And that's a wrap.
• 46:21
  Steve Brown: Thanks for listening to another fun episode of the ROI online podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat, and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for. To learn more about how you can grow your business better. Be sure to pick up your copy of my book, The Golden toilet at surprise, theg ldentoilet.com I'm Steve Br wn, and we'll see you next we k on another fun episode of th ROI Online Podcast.