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Transcript

2/9/26 #ContentChat How Experiential Marketing Is Changing Content Strategy · #ContentChat

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to content chat.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Erica Hild, and today we're going to be talking a little bit about something that you might not associate with content strategy, but in today's environment with trust continuing to be a huge issue that we're all trying to um all trying to build upon in order to be relevant to our audiences and maintain those relationships.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I had a really great conversation.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna actually share it with you live today.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: So this is gonna be all about experiential marketing, how to have those kinds of in-person event tactics that are part of your content strategy.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I know it's a little bit different for folks today, uh, but I hope that you'll bear with me and that you will um really get a lot out of my conversation with our guest today, Jessica Head.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's right.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's one letter separating the two of us from our last name, which was something that uh gave me a little bit of a giggle.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Jessica.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, Erica.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: And truly, I mean, that today's episode brought to you by the alphabet over here.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: But uh really, really excited for the conversation today.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm I'm Jessica Head.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the CEO at Ratio.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Ratio is a go-to-market agency that uh works at the intersection of brand and demand.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um we're partnering primarily with technology companies that are transforming legacy industries and most notably uh within the healthcare industry.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh we spend a lot of time inside of uh complex buying environments where uh trust and risk and cross-functional alignment really, really matter.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and our goal is really to help organizations connect how they show up and how uh how they are perceived in the market and uh with you know buyers that are actually able to move uh through decision-making processes.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So uh very excited for this conversation and and loved our chat a few weeks ago.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: So looking forward to continuing um on this trend today.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we are both experiencing how you know we're kind of in this quandary because especially when you're talking about these highly regulated industries that deal with people's personal data and things that really impact them in their lives, so be it financial services or healthcare, you know, people are being inundated with so much content because, you know, spoiler alert, AI can create content very, very quickly.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of that content isn't very good.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're talking to people directly about these things that matter so much, you've got to be able to build that trust.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: They've got to know that they can count on you to not be generating a bunch of criti content that is misleading.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's why I feel like our conversation is so um important.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to hear from your perspective, you know, how you've seen over the past two years how AI has really changed um the speed of content production and, you know, really impacted your clients' ability to earn that trust from the people that they interact with.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, absolutely, Erica.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you hit the nail on the head there.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, AI has made content so easy to produce, um, but certainly harder to, at least for our clients, harder to rely on as a deciding signal.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I think as you mentioned, we're we're in a moment where buyers understand that much of what they're consuming could be generated instantly.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And uh as a result, content is really no longer evaluated primarily on uh quality or clarity, but really on the credibility of it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, that underlying question has shifted from is this good to is this real?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you know we're seeing that shift culturally as well.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's certainly a growing skepticism towards uh digital signals in general, um, which is why face-to-face interaction is really regaining relevance in this moment, um, not really as novelty, but really as a credibility mechanism.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so while content remains essential, it you know, it's increasingly requiring these real-world anchors, um, and and really absent that it risks being interpreted as performative rather than uh informative.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, credibility is migrating from narrative to experience, and that's why we're seeing sustained preference for in-person engagement.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I know in in our space, you know, within the within the health tech B2B buyer ecosystem, approximately 76% of B2B buyers are indicating they favor live interaction when evaluating solutions.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just reinforcing that, you know, this isn't nostalgia, it's really risk management.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And with buying cycles extending, you know, in in spaces that we serve both of us, Erica, you know, eight to 12 months and involving multiple stakeholders.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, these in-person engagements provide faster signal on fit um and execution and really, you know, increase that internal alignment significantly.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and this reminds me of a conversation I had at uh Marketing Profs this past fall.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I actually had stopped in a booth because uh they had a shiny object.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: They had an amazing embroidery machine that was um digital and making um funny, uh funny bags for people.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd stopped in because that caught my eye, but then I actually stayed and um had a shared demo with two other folks that I had hadn't known before, but they had come up to.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they were in the um insurance space, and that's some a space I had worked in briefly.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it was interesting because you know, we had a person who had their regular demo spiel that they're ready to give, but I had been talking to the folks and I had my own perspectives.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I asked him questions and I actually had him go through and click on things and show stuff that he absolutely had not been um anticipating that people would be interested in.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you, I should have gotten a commission because the other two folks standing next to me were so engaged, and they like voluntarily handed over their cards and said, I want you to follow up with us.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I guarantee you that wouldn't have happened if he had just done his spiel because you don't know until you have that one-on-one um interaction with somebody when they're actually truly interested and when they're just kind of ready to scroll and go to the next place.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it just really means that it changes the role that content is playing in the buyer's journey now, right?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have that opportunity for interaction, and and now, frankly, people want it so much more.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to be talked at.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Reinforcing those moments of validation.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's certainly, I mean, I we our team sees it every day, you know, that content is becoming more and more of that reinforcement, not the place of origin, um, because of conversations uh and experiences like what you're describing on a trade show floor.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it means, you know, to me, it really means that we have to reinvent our playbook, which is a good thing because, you know, we don't want to be static anyway.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so how do you feel like this is changing go to market and the kind of content that you're using in in that kind of um in that vein, in those kinds of campaigns and in support of that?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it changes it fundamentally, right?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, content used to be to your point, uh, you know, how buyers are first discovering a company.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And now, much more often, it's how they are confirming something that they've already encountered elsewhere or that's being validated with them at a booth.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, someone attends a conference session, they have a conversation with a peer, you know, they see a brand show up in a credible moment, and then they go look you up.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And in that sequence, right?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: So content isn't just about the introduction anymore, as it is about that validation.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I think something that I know our team has been reflecting on quite a bit is, you know, when you zoom out, that shift maps directly to how go-to-market has evolved over the last several decades.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh, I know in the early 2000s, you know, inbound marketing was the topic, right?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: It took over, you know.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you had platforms like HubSpot and frameworks like Serious Decisions, Waterfall made, you know, kind of the more content equals more leads commentary the dominant model.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, content became really that discovery at scale.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it worked, but often with, you know, especially in spaces with the buying cycles that we're talking about in our in our ecosystems, like, you know, the the conversion rates are well under 1%.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, where so the the volume did most of the heavy lifting in those scenarios.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so then, you know, you transition a few years down the line, and then came in, you know, more of the account-based strategies on like ABM, shifting the focus from more of like the volume to precision conversations.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so you had sales and marketing uh teams aligned more tightly through uh flipped funnels and bowtie models, and content kind of became more targeted, more contextual, and closer to that sales motion where it had been quite removed before.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think you know what we've seen with teams is now we're in this multi-motion era where companies aren't just inbound anymore, they're operating across inbound, outbound, uh product-led initiatives, event-led, partner-led, um, community-led motions, and those are all happening simultaneously with fairly lean teams.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: So when this demand is not happening from one place and it's happening everywhere, how do you manage that?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's why I think content can't behave like a front door anymore.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: It really has to behave like the proof.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and in that process, it it's helping to really make sense of something that they've already experienced.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: So putting language around the intuition and really raising the bar of content so that content has to sound like reality, not aspiration in so many ways.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if that sales conversation or product demo or uh you know conference interaction doesn't really match what the content promises, the trust gap is immediate with very little grace period.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I think what what you and I both know, just in building content and a variety of different channels, is that that gap has always mattered.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: But with AI, you know, now being able to generate polished, confident messaging at scale, what we can't automate is that lived experience.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it just goes back to the example you described, where you know, you could have a really polished talk track associated with how you're thinking about delivering a demo, but until it's it's meaningful and the trust is able to be, you know, connected, there's it's it's really impossible.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: So content can't live in that vacuum anymore.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh I think it's it's certainly reinforced uh credibility across every touch point to really ensure that there is coherence um and connection between what you say, uh, how you show up, and and what it actually feels like to work with with you, you know, the the company that is being represented.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it's fantastic for content marketers because I, you know, having that freedom to be able to be part of the entire um customer journey cycle, it's so important.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that I feel, to your point, a lot of teams were not fully um utilizing that the potential for content strategy.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: They were just focused on that getting in the door kind of content.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas, you know, my whole career, I've you know, been one of those people that ends up frequently being the keeping the customers engaged, you know, so working with them on sharing their stories, um, you know, being involved with them as part of the um customer advocacy groups and really making sure that we're serving them with the kinds of content that only we, with our scale, our knowledge, our insight into how people are using whatever our products or services are, can provide them.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, how we can be outrageously useful, not just how can we sell them more things, because that's you know kind of the difference.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that to me, you know, it makes perfect sense then that we do have to be thinking about our event strategy not as a sales motion, not as, you know, oh, this is a field, you know, field marketing, uh field, you know, sales kind of engagement, content, you know, what does this have to do with content?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think it has everything to do with content.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love um your thoughts because I know this is something you feel pretty passionate about.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, let's talk about it, how these events and these live moments really are a critical part of your content strategy.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know, we've already kind of touched on why these live moments matter.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I won't, you know, reiterate that uh into oblivion, which we totally could, and I would love that conversation.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it it's certainly I think what's more interesting in that question at this point is what that reality forces organizations to confront operationally.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I think once you accept that decisions are being shaped across events, conversations, um, product interactions, these peer moments that we're describing, the question stops being should we invest in experiences and becomes more of do our systems actually allow us to see and act on this engagement?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um I know, you know, at a behavioral level, we know live moments accelerate the decision making, right?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I know um our team has done some research of roughly 85% of buyers say live engagements speed decisions and experiential programs consistently outperform digital-only approaches, and in some cases, driving upwards of 50 to 70% higher conversion rates.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, humans uh still like humans, uh, very inconvenient for anyone who wanted to automate belief.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but the more important shift is that these live moments are creating that context and they surface those unscripted questions.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, to your earlier example, right?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: So they're revealing how a team responds in real time and they're showing how that brand behaves when it's not perfectly edited.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that signal is really difficult to manufacture, which is why these buyers weight it so heavily in these high-risk decisions.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think once once you accept that conviction is forming in those moments, the implication does become extremely operational because if that engagement is happening in an environment where we're trying to get visibility changes on how the team operates, how marketing is prioritizing accounts differently, um, how uh sales is entering conversations with context instead of those cold discoveries, the product teams can see where that engagement correlates with adoption or expansion.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so it really becomes, you know, how are we evaluating the platforms and Martech environment that is enabling there to be connective tissue that really turns that engagement into action?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because nobody wants to have that interaction with you at a conference and get a canned email from you know the same nurture stream that you send to every person you meet at every different industry trade show.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's horrible.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or like even just even evaluating like how the recap clips or follow-ups, those social posts, you know, how these things are generated pre and post, and even helping to accelerate future event engagement with other event strategies that you're that are coming down the pipe.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I think really where where we've seen a lot of tension is, you know, as teams are scaling and they become kind of more in that mid-market enterprise category, oftentimes they've started with potentially dis uh disjointed and siloed systems that ultimately don't really provide the consistency of the narrative of how people are actually engaging with the brand across all of those touch points.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: So just, you know, really it the important element is just to, you know, kind of experience experiences are the proof, content can become the translator, and then that Martech stack really becoming that connective tissue because otherwise you don't have a full story or even a reporting structure that really helps you to uh make long-term investment decisions and how you're thinking about allocating budget towards those various go-to-market motions.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always been hard to do, you know, when I think back about my in-house career, which, you know, I've been on my own for 10 years, but before that, you know, I spent all my time um in-house.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I can only think of one place that did a really good job of being able to connect that experience.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we did it the hard way.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: We had a Salesforce MVP who was, she was brilliant.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: She was able to really um do a good job of getting all of our systems to work well together.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: But then we on the content team, you know, we actually created those bespoke talk tracks for our SDRs and then created um really good um different um different nurture streams for each event we went to.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So tying back to either something we were talking about at the event or the biggest theme at the event, or if we had enough people on the ground giving us feedback about what people were talking about and asking, we would tweak things on the fly to make sure again that we were addressing the the big issues that we heard people um talking about.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: But we also had a big enough content team to do that.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was lucky because not everybody has that or has the willingness, you know, to actually let the team have the time to be able to do those kinds of fast turnaround actions.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it does really, you know, it has been possible before, but now I feel like it's even more expected from your audience.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: No doubt.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, when it comes to doing that, content being that connective tissue, um, I'd really like to hear how you how you feel the experiential strategies really cause the events team to then think more of themselves as part of the content team.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think again, there has always been this kind of feeling like, oh, events are over here for content, but they absolutely have to be um brought together.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: They have to be um a cohesive whole in order to really support your strategy.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's natural because oftentimes these teams are siloed in their own department.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you do have the luxury of a budget and a team structure that is segmented, then they're siloed by by nature.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, experiential strategies really expose something that I know we we've seen that has been artificially separated for quite some time, which is just this concept of brand and demand, um, where you know you have brand and demand that have been historically, you know, treated with those different responsibilities, those different teams, different metrics, different timelines associated, uh, where the the way that brand is often articulated is, you know, brand is how something is perceived, right?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Which is, and then you have demand, which is like how something has performed.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that separation made sense when buyer journeys were linear.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: But when we have all of these go-to-market touch points and these various, you know, modules happening simultaneously and needing to be embedded throughout the event engagement experiences on an annual planning strategy, experiences don't, they're not expecting that, they're they're not respecting those boundaries really.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so in a live moment, perception and action form together.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes the first is not that, you know, feel the brand and then later decide what to do.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: They're forming that judgment, confidence, and intents simultaneously.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think what's powerful about um experiential strategies is that they're not just creating the awareness, they're also creating the direction that if someone attends a round table and feels understood, aligned, or challenged in the right way, the next step feels obvious.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And content doesn't have to manufacture that momentum necessarily.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's more of them uh, you know, each of the content team members uh really kind of channeling it and identifying how to cross-pollinate content inappropriate, inappropriate ecosystems for that specific buyer.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's also why you know a lot of the partner and event influence deals tend to close faster and win at higher rates, is because those tactics ultimately are better, and um, that proxy the proximity is really reducing the friction that often people find.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: When just engaging with digital ecosystems.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: So connecting the two is very difficult.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I will say, you know, just with you know different conferences I've attended via Inbound for HubSpot or even Salesforce, some of the different plugin platforms, there are a lot of digital tech plugins or companies that are associated with a traditional CRM system that can help to accelerate that connective tissue being just more visible from a reporting perspective.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I know we do that a lot for clients and kind of building out that infrastructure.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as we're talking here, it just really reminded me about in a way I've been, I was spoiled in most of my um in-house roles because I frequently had both content and communications under my purview.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we didn't really have that kind of disconnect with brand because all that brand messaging, all those corporate, you know, messages, internal and external, were coming through my team.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had that cohesion right there.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so it made it so much easier um to have that consistency and to be able to um have that influence.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: But that said, you know, other than the the what we kind of talked about, I'd love to hear what you're feeling.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the biggest kind of like pain points are where the teams are struggling and and how how you've seen um them be able to really overcome that.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think, you know, I tend to see teams struggle in in kind of three somewhat predictable places.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the first is uh treating events like those isolated campaigns, kind of double-clicking on on what we were talking about earlier, instead of uh more of that, those events being system input.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, teams will run this great event and then afterwards they'll ask content to make something from it.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Which is so awful.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the total ick there.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so backwards.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know, the experience should be designed around the story that you want to extend before anyone steps into the room.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, uh it's not about putting content in this position of having to reinforce momentum, but really retrofitting the meaning of how you're thinking about these different um opportunities.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the second is uh an over-optimization for the volume instead of instead of confidence, really.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know, I think when teams are feeling pressured, the instinct is often to produce more.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, more content, more touch points, more activity.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um CTAs crammed into every communication.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like how many landing pages do we need for like what, you know, so I think the, you know, when buyers are at these stages, they they're not needing more material per se.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: They need that clarity and conviction.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: So rely on your human people to help to reinforce that trust.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then just have the have the clarity and conviction in the content that is, you know, uh being dispersed so that it's not just creating kind of an excess volume of and noise, really, um, which ultimately would slow down decisions.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then thirdly, I'd say, and and this probably is the hardest, and I know it goes back to some of what we were touching on when we think about uh the setting up Martech stack infrastructure to support teams, but it it really is the governance of these things, right?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like once experiences um and partners and communities are you know becoming the content sources, this means fragments fragmenting is is quickly happening potentially, you know, unless someone is actively stewarding that narrative.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so without governance, you end up with a lot of activity and very little coherence.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that's really where leadership matters.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think AI can certainly help teams produce at scale.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Systems can, you know, help capture engagement, but neither can decide what really deserves emphasis, um, what should travel or you know what story we actually want to tell in the market in these moments.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think the other thing that I would say in that is um I think a lot of teams feel threatened by the idea of having too much governance because of course we are talking about content creators, we're talking about creatives, people that you know really want to build and and and create meaningful, uh inspiring content.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um but governance also isn't about control, right?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's about really protecting the meaning as complexity increases.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: So um that doesn't mean that it has to be boring, um, because I also know that that's kind of a something that sometimes is is a scare.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think uh, you know, the teams that struggle most with that shift usually are the ones still treating the you know these different content events systems as separate problems instead of really one connected operating model.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a transition.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll say, and if you're struggling with that transition, yeah, wrote a book about it.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you, Jessica, for the ultimate segue.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: ContentFoundationsbook.com has a lot of free resources that you can use um and details on where to get the book.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I, you know, one of the things that I made sure to get put out there for free is that checklist.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that way people can even just have that starting place.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because governance is actually really freeing as a content creator because when you know what's expected of you, when you're given the examples of here's what good looks like for us, here's a template, so you don't have to scramble last minute to give us something that we needed, like meta descriptions or alt information for your images, or you know, how many times have you sat down to write an email and you forget subject line options, like all of those things?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't want to have to think about all of the nuts and bolts about what's required in any of my content templates.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to have that be provided because then I don't have to think about it.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can spend my energy on the narrative and the story.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that's you know, that's my stake in the ground for content governance.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I that's a hill I will fight anybody on because I think it is so critically important.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, before we um kind of close out with the last thing I want to talk about, I want to put you on the spot and ask you, um, like what event have you participated in?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so this could either be, you know, you participated in it as an attendee or with a client or you know, as the CEO of your own agency.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what event do you feel like has done the best job of really putting forth an amazing experience where they're connecting with attendees, you know, before, during, and after the event.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think we've also always we've seen this where sometimes the the events happen in their own ecosystem and as we're talking about, and then they aren't really there is no life after.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and similarly, maybe there wasn't anything beforehand to help make that experience on site really work.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to hear um an example of um an event that you think just really nails it.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I am gonna sound so partial because we are a HubSpot partner, and this is not this is not an ad.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just I'll just throw that out there.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think that Inbound does an incredible job of creating digital touch points infused in the experiential landscape of an expo floor.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes, depending on the the industry, and and there are others in in the healthcare industry.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: I know you know one that we like to go to and that we'll actually be at in a couple of weeks is Vive with the health community.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: They do an incredible job of connecting the connective tissue between digital community ecosystems and ensuring that there are touch points at the event and online throughout the year to create some cohesion with how individuals are networking and engaging and provide um participating in professional uh development opportunities.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I will say inbound specifically, what what I what I most enjoy about the the structure of the content and and the event engagement that they provide is how experiential each of their in-person engagements are.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: So um ensuring that like there is the the five senses are met through every opportunity to engage in a single booth is incredibly important.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the fact that they are able to kind of like digitize those experiences so that there is multifaceted touch points with how a person actually experienced a specific section of the expo floor is phenomenal because it can then further um personalize the communication that then I'm receiving after I'm I've left the event and how I was able to actually engage with those different um you know experiential touch points.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be something from like the actual trade show design itself, like the actual um, you know, installation of having kind of experiential opportunities to touch and feel and read and absorb content, um, and then how that also connects to my digital device that I'm taking home with me so that I have something to kind of like absorb additional content with uh once I've left.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think they they do an exceptional job of that.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's all about, you know, uh again, incorporating five senses to ensure that individuals feel fully immersed in the in the content that they're absorbing, but that it also um can reinforce that we are human and that is how we experience and perceive and create trust with one another.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we learn so much more when we're engaged with all of our senses.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, conferences from the exhibitor standpoint, of course, it's about getting your brand in front of the right people and influencing buying decisions.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: But when you think about, you know, why the people are at the event, they're there to learn, they're there to connect with each other.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the more you have those experiential opportunities, the more they're able to find other like-minded people that they wouldn't otherwise meet, you know, who, you know, do their same kinds of work, who have their same challenges.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that is like, if you're able to connect somebody with that person that becomes their, you know, their go-to work mentor or their like bestie or their person that's like their accountability partner, oh my gosh, the amount of credit you get and the amount of brand love that is resultant from that, that's immeasurable, right?
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's priceless.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: So so I love that.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it just really makes the case for thinking through your events from that content strategy standpoint.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're just thinking through the event as a how do we, how are we flashy?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: What's the most expensive thing we can give away to get people to come to our booth that have absolutely no interest in our product?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's that's doing it wrong.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I love I love this example.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't wait for um to hear your insights after you come back from your conference to see kind of what you've um what you uh saw that was new and interesting.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think I think things are gonna be different and not in a more AI-generated way.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'll tell you yesterday, for those of you uh watching this on an archive, um, we're recording this the day after the Super Bowl.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And almost all of the content I've seen online, like what people are talking about on LinkedIn, is how offended they were that these brands wasted a bunch of money creating AI slop.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not me calling it AI slop.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: That is literally the words that other people are using.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm I've saw that same kind of comment from more than a dozen people today, and that's terrible.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine spending millions of dollars and staking your brand budget and your reputation for this year on doing that?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, I I've been seeing the same thing in my feed.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's quite uh quite an experience to recognize that you know people are noticing and and people are still wanting that human touch point.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that is ultimately how trust is built.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, how are we reinforcing that at every at every budget layer?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, in light of everything we've talked about, um, I'd love to hear, you know, from your standpoint, what would your advice be to that head of content or CMO that's you know watching this video or listening to the podcast?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: What is the one big shift in thinking and activities, you know, that you'd recommend that they make for this year?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Even though, you know, we have our budgets in place, we have our you know, approved strategy in place.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: What is, you know, what should we be doing though to really reflect this truth of how we're getting, you know, making an impact and how we're really connecting with folks?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think if I had to reduce it to one like meaningful shift uh that would not kind of rip everything up that people are probably already have in place and are kicking off with, is to really stop and assess how you're organizing your content.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is it around channels or is it around moments of conviction?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I say moments of conviction, but really it goes back to you know go-to-market modeling when we're thinking about how things are grouped and received.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is it inbound?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is it outbound?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that is a multifaceted approach of channeling and asking where uh where confidence is actually forming for the buyers.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think you know, a lot of times I think we have these assumptions or maybe um, you know, uh predictions that it would be in a certain subset of ecosystems, but is it in events, um, conversations, is it in product interactions, is it in partner moments, um, investor moments, and then design the content to really extend to those moments, not replace them.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that also changes, you know, really how you measure success.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, instead of optimizing only for lead volume, you know, pay attention to the signals of confidence.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: It lets, you know, re-rethink how you're it how you're assessing engagement depth or stakeholder expansion or deal velocity, not that, not that these things are not typically thought of in in channel distribution, but I think, you know, event and partner influence deals move faster and and closer at higher rates for a reason, right?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that you know, content is reinforcing something that is real.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so how are you how are you assessing what that means?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think, you know, um I know for us at Ratio, it certainly changes how agencies show up for their clients.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when um when brand, demand, uh, product sales, partnerships are all kind of shaping the buyer experience, that connective tissue between those teams matters more than any single tactic you can think of.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, so agencies, you know, can't just plug into one function anymore and expect the system to work.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you really have to understand how those uh parts interact and where that friction shows up and where that momentum builds and where handoff is breaking down potentially.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why that's why we don't separate brand and demand um because we do believe in them operating in close collaboration.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, brands shape how something is experienced, and demand shapes what someone does next.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: And when those teams are aligned, that momentum is has an opportunity to compound.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're very intentional about working across those boundaries and certainly um don't want to treat brand as an upstream exercise and demand as like a downstream one, if you will, um, but really designing them cohesively together.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something that CMOs and and marketing leads can can take with them into the you uh into this year.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it also makes the the budget for your agency a lot more defensible when you're not positioning it as here's the agency where we're handing over a laundry list of do these things, create this content.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: And instead you're saying, hey, this agency is a valuable partner that helps us work across our organization and who has that institutional knowledge and is helping us really have that impact in all these areas.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then, I mean, frankly, it means that you're more likely to be able to increase that spend over time to do even more that you want to be doing with your content because you are having all of these internal partners in these other teams who are being brought into the process, who are being brought along with your content.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: So then your content's going to perform better because it's gonna be also you know cross-pollinated from all that.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, it's really um, it's really such the smart, smart move to make and what I think is gonna make the biggest impact for folks for the coming year as well.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I have to, of course, give a shout out to marketing profs because you know I mentioned them earlier.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: Their events and their whole infrastructure around their marketing profs professional um membership is amazing because it's not just that they have a once-a-year conference that's really stellar and has lots of ways of getting you involved because they do, and it's all of that.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: They have this year-round community that's built around the content and the people that attend the event, the people that speak at the event, you know, they have there's there's um a Slack group, there's events um throughout the year that are virtual, and they don't turn off the comments during those, all right?
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a speaker, you can see in real time that feedback the same way that if you were at the event, that you would see somebody in the audience maybe going, mm-hmm, or them raising their hand, like you actually get to have that kind of experience one-on-one with all those attendees.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I really wish more organizations would trust their uh audiences um to do that because that's what we want.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want a canned presentation.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: I could just video that and mail it off.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you want to have that live experience that changes depending upon what happened yesterday or something that somebody in the room, in the virtual room, is actually um experiencing.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: So this has just been such a fantastic chat, Jessica.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that uh you had a good time here too.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think I think we've made such a strong case for making people think differently about their content strategy and about their event strategy for the year.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much for joining us.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Erica.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a blast, and I feel like we could talk for another three hours if time would allow.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: But certainly so much fun catching up with you and uh and thinking through some of the ideas that teams can be considering as they're exploring experiential this year.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: And catch you guys later in the month for the next content chat because next week we're off for the President's Day holiday.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll talk to you soon.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Bye, everyone.