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Jess Cook talks LinkedIn, personal branding and finding the side door
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Transcript
Introduction to Meredith and Medbury
00:00:04
Speaker
Hi and welcome to content people. I'm your host Meredith Farley. I'm a former chief product officer turned chief operating officer turned CEO and founder.
00:00:14
Speaker
My agency is called Medbury. At Medbury, we work with founders, execs, and companies who want to tell their stories and grow. But Content People is not about me or Medbury. It's about the creative leaders and professionals that we interview every week. We'll delve into their journeys, unpack their insights, and ask them for practical advice. If you like it, please rate and subscribe. I really hope that you enjoy. Let's get started. Hi,
Jess Cook's Role and Career Journey
00:00:39
Speaker
Jess. Welcome to Content People, and thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview.
00:00:44
Speaker
Hey, absolutely. Thanks so much for having Meredith. There's so much that I want to pick your brain about. My plan is that we're going to talk a little bit about your podcast. That's Marketing Baby, which I absolutely love. I've listened every episode. I want to dig into your personal branding on LinkedIn because folks love you on LinkedIn. I think you do such an amazing, beautiful job, and I really want to understand the behind the scenes of it a little bit.
00:01:09
Speaker
and then get into marketing. Maybe if we have time, we talk about AI because everyone's talking about AI. I'm curious for your take on it. But for folks who don't know you, can you introduce yourself and talk a little bit about what you do? Sure. I'm Jess Cook. I'm head of content at a company called Lasso. We are a platform for event companies to do everything they need to do to produce events like
00:01:35
Speaker
the Super Bowl, Coachella, the Oscars, so some pretty big events. Down to jazz festivals and local things or corporate conferences. Definitely in the vertical SaaS space built specifically for one industry, which is really cool. I just started there in December. Before that, I was head of content at a company called Marpipe for just over a year, which was ad tech platform for creative testing.
00:02:02
Speaker
Before that, I was at a company called Fastly, which is a very complex content delivery network web security platform. And before that, I spent 15 years in agencies as a copywriter and a creative director. So I have a very wiggly squiggly path to SaaS and content marketing. But I think that creative brand side helps give me a different perspective that maybe a lot of content marketers just don't have.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yes, totally. I don't think I'd drawn that connection, but like I'd seen your LinkedIn, I knew you worked at agencies, but when listening to that marketing baby, I feel like you can totally tell that you understand the in-house and the agency side. Yeah. So I really want to dig into the podcast, but just curious, if you were not in marketing, what do you think you might do?
Alternative Career as a Running Coach
00:02:52
Speaker
So I love to run. I'm not fast, but I like to go decent distance, slowly. So I feel like it would be something around there. I'm actually a certified running coach through the Roadrunners of America, which is cool. And so I would do something with that, probably still in content, like maybe train people, but also create content around it on the side to bring in more business. That's probably what I would do.
00:03:14
Speaker
Whoa, that's a cool answer. My brother is a really big runner as well. He ran the Boston Marathon. I'm like, does he know that's a thing that you can be a certified running coach? Because I feel like he'd love to do that. I didn't know that was. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's fun. Runners gut it out and have a lot of grit. Do you feel like you brought some of that to the agency world when you were working there?
00:03:38
Speaker
Yeah, so I think something about runners is clearly we have a lot of endurance. We can endure a lot of like pain and discomfort. And I think the mental kind of endurance that is involved in running goes a very long way.
00:03:54
Speaker
in any role if you can endure a difficult project or a difficult team or working with not very many resources, right? I think just having that mindset of I've endured things before and I understand how to endure them like in many settings is a very valuable characteristic.
00:04:12
Speaker
So that's Marketing Baby. It's your new podcast with your co-host,
The Birth of 'That's Marketing Baby' Podcast
00:04:18
Speaker
Susan. Were you guys former co-workers? Is that how you know each other? We were, yeah. So Susan and I met at Marpipe. She was VP of performance marketing. I was head of content. And she and I just hit it off really well, but we also worked together very well. And we hosted the Marpipe branded podcast together.
00:04:37
Speaker
When we left there, we were like, we have to do something like that. We've got to bring something back for ourselves because it was just so fun. We just enjoyed the process and talking to each other and going on and on about the things we love in marketing and the things we hate.
00:04:52
Speaker
We were looking around at other podcasts and we were like, there's nothing out there where it's two women. First of all, there are very few podcasts with two female hosts, one a female host, let alone two. And so we were like, that's a plus. And two, there weren't any podcasts out there where it just felt like friends talking.
00:05:10
Speaker
A lot of marketing podcasts feel like a little stuffy or scripted or they're trying to cram so much value in that they don't leave room for any entertainment. We both really wanted that feeling of I'm sitting down with a friend and just talking about what I do for a living and it's fun. So we love when people come to us or send us something on LinkedIn and they're like, your podcast is just fun. That is the thing we love to hear the most.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, she and I thought we would start that up. We started in January and we're going strong. I think we're 11. We've recorded 11 episodes so far. It's really exciting and fun. I don't think I really thought about it. The fact that you're two women talking about marketing, talking about data and tactics in a really actionable way that I don't think I'd really clap. Like, yeah, it's unusual. But you guys do bring so much fun to it. I love that you're doing it. Thanks for being two cool women who are putting that out there.
00:06:05
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Thank you for saying that. I'm curious, how did you guys come up with the name? When we were planning this out and we were like, we're going to do this podcast, these are the guardrails, this is how we want it to be. We do want it to be very actionable and we want people to listen to it and then turn around the next day, be able to use what they heard. Not all theory, a lot of practical guidance with tons of examples.
00:06:29
Speaker
And we were like, all right, so that's the guardrails. But we wanted to be very clear that it's conversational and fun and hosted by two women. And so we decided that in one weekend we were going to come up with a name. We were just going to text each other. She lives in Virginia. I'm in Michigan. We've only actually met each other in person one time.
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah, I know. So, you know, we're like, we're just going to text each other names all weekend long. At the end of this weekend, we're going to like find the one. And I remembered that she had actually said on an episode of the Mark Pipe podcast, you know what? That's marketing, baby.
00:07:04
Speaker
And it like stuck with me. I was like, man, that's just like cute and fun. And I don't know, it just has a lot of like female energy to it. And so I shot that to her in a text. I was like, hey, what about this? And she was like, oh yeah, that's a good one. And we held on to that. And at the end of the weekend, it was still just the front runner. And I think our plan is someday to have
00:07:23
Speaker
an entire business built around it and make it more than just a podcast. So hopefully a newsletter, hopefully courses, right? Like that's media, baby. That's content, baby. So that's the idea. That's the dream for us is to really build this into something that we can make our own and teach people the things that we've learned the hard way or the long way and make it easier for people and fun.
00:07:45
Speaker
Yes. Okay. I was going to ask, what are your plans for the future? It sounds like you guys have really big plans. I'm here for it. I think that's so exciting. I really love that the episodes, as you said, are so actionable and they're so focused and also they're pretty short. They're usually like 20 something minutes.
00:08:03
Speaker
Which, one, I've loved so much. I've actually been thinking, I'm like, should I make content people a lot shorter? Because I just love it. Like, in, out, you laugh, you learn something. Was that intentional? Were you like, we're going to make these really bite-sized? How did you arrive at the format? Yes.
00:08:18
Speaker
Absolutely intentional. So, Susan and I are both moms. She runs multiple businesses, so she has a consulting business. She also hand pours these really awesome candles. She has a company called Cantles, like C-A-N-T-D-L-E-S, and they're candles for when you just can't. And all these really clever names, right? She has a husband and a daughter and dogs and businesses, and she's busy.
00:08:43
Speaker
I have two girls. We travel a lot. My girls and my husband, they're in sports and things. I'm working full-time. Like, we're busy. And so it was like, we have an hour a week together, she and I, and we're gonna make 20 to 30-minute episodes for people who are just as busy as us.
00:09:02
Speaker
And then it just so happens that's the time we have together. It really fits into that lifestyle. And we wanted to be able to use our time wisely because we are so busy, but also just be respectful of the people listening to us that they want to learn something. And they're also very busy. They're also trying to further their careers and have a family and do all the things. And that's really the genesis of that.
00:09:24
Speaker
That makes a lot of sense and I feel like the format is in service of the listeners. Absolutely love it. I've only done like 19 episodes of content people and I imagine this is probably true for you too, but people start to ask questions about like, how do you do this or why did questions about how to run a podcast? I think you're outlining some best practices, which is when people are like, I've been tinkering with this idea or this name for two years, I'm like, just pick a name and do it.
00:09:51
Speaker
So I love that you guys were like, we're going to brainstorm for the weekend and we're going to go with the best one and we're going to make a decision and move on. Also that they're so effective and efficient, but also that you're not laboring eight hours to edit an episode. You're like, this is the time, this is what we're going to talk about. We do it, you get it out into the world. I also feel like it's creative and productive best practice and I really like that a lot. So thanks for sharing that behind the scenes with it. Absolutely.
Building a Personal Brand on LinkedIn
00:10:19
Speaker
So I want to really pick your brain about personal branding and LinkedIn because you're LinkedIn famous. I know a lot of folks really admire the brand you've built for yourself professionally, especially on LinkedIn where you have a really devoted following. You post very valuable content on a regular basis, and I'm curious about how it works behind the scenes. So maybe just to start off this line of questioning for you,
00:10:48
Speaker
How is managing or building a professional brand different from marketing a product or an organization? I don't think it's all that different. I just think it's easier because you know yourself.
00:11:02
Speaker
so well. And I think your perspective is your own. I think I follow the same principles, which are I know my audience very well. I know the things that they struggle with. I understand their jobs to be done. And I do my very best to create content for them that meets them where they're at. And it's very relevant and entertains and teaches them something.
00:11:25
Speaker
I think the principles are the same. I just think it comes a little easier. You don't have to have a subject matter expert or an approval committee or anything like that because it's you, it's your own personal brand. And so you can get it out faster and a little easier. So the velocity is probably higher, but the principles I think are the exact same.
00:11:46
Speaker
That is such an interesting answer because for me, I feel like it is the opposite. I totally understand what you're saying and so far as process SMEs, you don't need that stuff. But when it comes to writing a blog or a product description or brainstorming things with a friend, for some reason, if it's not me, I'm like 10,000 ideas, but here we go.
00:12:11
Speaker
But when it's myself, I find it really difficult. And I think in talking with other people, I'm not alone in that. So that is an interesting answer I didn't expect. Do you think you have a special superstore there or why do you think that is?
00:12:28
Speaker
I don't know about that. I think I know what I know, and I know where my swim lanes are, and where I'm an expert, and where I'm not. And so I really just try to stick to that. And I am very good at repurposing, I will say that. So I have no fear of, oh, I just said this in a different way last week. But I'm going to say it again, because I thought of a different way to say it. Because sometimes just the way you say something is when it really clicks for someone.
00:12:57
Speaker
and saying the same message over and over in many different ways is really good best practice, I think, in personal branding and in just in marketing in general. I don't know that I have a superpower. I just think I try to apply the same principles and just try to build on stories. I think it's actually very easy with personal branding to build on stories, probably a little easier than it is marketing a product because
00:13:21
Speaker
They're all yours, right? They're all your memories, your understandings of the lessons you've learned. And this time that I really, you know, writing a good headline clicked for me or this time I made this huge mistake and I was super embarrassed and here's what I took away from that, right? I think storytelling is one key with personal branding because I think it brings people in and helps them know who you are, but it's actually a little easier. So I try to stick to that.
00:13:46
Speaker
That's interesting. You're giving me a different perspective on it. It also seems, and tell me if this is right or wrong, something that is not easy. I'm not going to say easy for you, but it comes naturally to you. You're fairly efficient at it and you've got some creative energy around it. Do you find it to be a creative outlet in any way or is it more just, no, this is like info I want to share, be useful to the industry, help my brand. Is it more functional for you?
00:14:12
Speaker
It's definitely a creative outlet. It's funny because even just five years ago, I would talk to other content marketers or copywriters or creative directors and they would be like, what do you write outside of work? I was like, nothing. When I go home at the end of the day, I don't want to write anything. I'm so tired and I never found anything that I was very excited to write about outside of what I was writing at work. This was the first time I think where it was like,
00:14:38
Speaker
This is fun and I can share what I've learned and I can write and I can become a better writer through doing this. So this was really the first time where I found a really great writing creative outlet outside of what I was doing in my role wherever where I was working.
00:14:56
Speaker
the content that you are creating around your skill set and your craft and your job was also like your independent writing project where it was all your voice, all you, even though it was about work.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. 100%. It's more about my perspective and the things I've learned. And I made a career pivot really late. I was, gosh, I was 35 years old when I became a content marketer and I didn't go to school for it. I had a similar skill set from being a copywriter, but content marketing is vastly different.
00:15:30
Speaker
And I had to learn a lot of things the hard way. It took me a long time to connect a lot of dots. And when I started doing this, I thought, think of myself when I started content marketing, I was really nervous. I was really scared. I felt like I was doing everything wrong. And maybe there are some people out there who are at the beginning of the careers or making a pivot or just moved to a new company where they have a lot more responsibility and they're not really sure what to do.
00:15:52
Speaker
If I can help some version of myself when I was really scared and nervous, that to me is really exciting. Just to put something out there and have someone be like, oh man, that connected a lot of dots for me and thank you and now I can go and I will be better at my job.
00:16:08
Speaker
I love that in talking with other folks, I've noticed a pattern where I think that the audience that is most intuitive, organic, and natural for us to write for is that version of ourselves that needed the advice we can give now and that totally tracks and is interesting.
00:16:26
Speaker
I know that some people will listen to this and they'll just be like, just tell me how to get as LinkedIn famous as you are. So one thing I'm taking from it is, and I think this seems to be true of any content person who is very successful content person. I don't know what I mean by that, but people in the content space is like, there's a kernel of true earnest creative energy and a desire to help and do good. On the more strategic side,
00:16:53
Speaker
How did you approach building your brand on LinkedIn? Did you put together a strategy for yourself or a cadence or a post or like, I'm going to write on these categories this month, or was it just much more organic for you?
00:17:08
Speaker
I started on April 18th, 2022. The day before that, I made a commitment that I was going to write a post on LinkedIn every day, every weekday, that I was not on vacation or off on a holiday. I did that because I had dabbled in it a little bit here and there very inconsistently for the month leading up to that.
00:17:33
Speaker
And it had done all right. I had gotten a little bit of traction. And I just thought if I really want this to be a thing, it's fun. But I think I'm going to have to be a lot more consistent in it. And I know that because not every post is going to be a winner. And you're going to have to post a lot to get a few winners, right? Marketing principles or marketing 101, right? You are going to have to try a lot of different things and experiments and tests to find something that your audience loves.
00:18:01
Speaker
And so I started posting every day and anytime someone would comment, I would comment back on every person's comments because I wanted it to feel very personal. I wanted interacting with the things that I had posted to feel like you were actually talking to me. I think that's what LinkedIn is meant to feel like.
00:18:21
Speaker
And so I continued to do that every weekday that I was available posting something. And eventually a few more people showed up, a few more people liked it. I had a couple posts that did really well. And so more people came into the fold. It wasn't super strategic. It was more of at the time I was a one person content team.
00:18:42
Speaker
And I thought that would be a really nice thing to write about because I know there are so many people out there that are one person content teams. And how do you make the right decisions and how do you work smarter? What's my advice there to survive as a one person content team? And so that's what it was for.
00:19:00
Speaker
a very long time. For a little while, I was doing something I was calling a headline template Tuesdays where I would put a headline template out and explain how it worked and why it worked and how you could use it and those were really successful. I really was very good about content analytics too, so I would look back at the things that were working for me, like the things that people were really engaging with or the things that got a lot of shares and try to capitalize on that a little bit.
00:19:26
Speaker
is the nugget that's in there that people were excited to learn or what was it about this post that made it so engaging. I'm going to maybe take that same topic and in a couple weeks I'll write something else about it and see how that works. So it was a lot of just throwing lots of things out there at first and then seeing what worked and then trying to do some more of that. But I think the consistency was what really paid off. I think if you do something every day, you can't help but get better at it.
00:19:54
Speaker
And two, I think that I was very good about engaging with anyone who engaged with me. So much so that I've gotten to the point now where I can't possibly keep up with the comments anymore, sadly. I try to answer as many as I can, but I can't answer them all anymore, which has pros and cons to it. So I'm coming up on my one year and I would just encourage anyone that even if you have a little calling on your heart to try it, my life today, my career today is drastically different than it was a year ago.
00:20:22
Speaker
I got this job at Lasso because of what I was posting on LinkedIn. Every podcast I've been on is because of what I posted on LinkedIn. I did a webinar today with Instapage and that was because of what I post on LinkedIn. So I think even if you have a slight inkling that you might want to try it, I would absolutely say try it because you just can't believe the things that can happen if you're consistent with it.
00:20:45
Speaker
you for sharing that. It takes a lot of time, or maybe not, maybe you're very fast, but how did you approach the time management side? Would you create batches ahead of time or was it something you did early in the morning? How did you tackle that? I do it first thing in the morning. I tried for a while batching content and I found that it didn't feel as sincere or that I wasn't as passionate about it if it wasn't
00:21:08
Speaker
written in the moment or at least in the last day or two. So what I have really found works the best for me after almost a year of doing this is I have Google Doc of ideas. I have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday written in that doc. When something in that ideas bucket strikes me, I pull it up into one of the days of this coming week and I'll write about it. But I never more than
00:21:33
Speaker
two days ahead on a post because my brain, I don't know, my brain just doesn't, I can't get that far ahead and still feel like, yeah, that's how I feel right now about this. And so I'm relatively real time in my content creation and posting. I've never used a scheduling tool. I usually just keep it in that document and post it that morning right after the kids get on the bus and go to school.
00:21:56
Speaker
Do you ever have moments where you're like in the middle of doing something else and you're like, Oh my God, I need to get this idea down like in a notes app or in the Google Doc. Yes. And I have docs everywhere. I have things on my phone. I slack myself stuff. Even today I mentioned I was part of a panel in a webinar about how marketing should be using AI. And I was answering some of the questions in the Q and A after my term to speak had
00:22:20
Speaker
And some of the responses that I had written, I was like, that's a good post. And so I went in the Q&A and I copied and pasted it into my ideas doc because I didn't want to forget it. I have that happen all the time. I'm sure you do too as a marketer, like you just have like screenshots of stuff on your phone. I have screenshots all over my desktop. Ideas just hit you sometimes and you don't want to lose them because
00:22:41
Speaker
In that moment where it's like that spark that gets you excited, once that path is there, you can never form them quite the same. I feel like you have to capture it right then and there. Yes. I feel like when I'm really on a creative role of writing a lot, it's almost annoying because I'll be in yoga or doing something else. I feel like the full post comes to you in a way and you're like,
00:23:04
Speaker
Uh, if I don't write this down right now, it is gone forever. So it sounds like you also probably are just walking around writing LinkedIn posts in your head a lot of the time. Is that probably true? Yeah. Drew Brucker, who's my manager at Lasso, teases me because I will wake up in the middle of the night with a full post in my mind and I slack it to myself for the morning. It will be 2 a.m. and he's
00:23:26
Speaker
super gracious and always like comments and likes all my stuff. And he'll select me, hey, today is a good one. I'll be like, thanks, I slacked it to myself at two. So I absolutely do have those moments. It's funny. It can come at any time. In fact, I actually find they come more often when you are trying to force them, when you are stepped away from the computer on a walk, brushing your teeth, like sleeping where
00:23:49
Speaker
Your brain is not being forced to come up with something and it's just free, fluid thinking.
Authenticity and Handling Low-Performing Posts
00:23:55
Speaker
And that is a lot of times where I will have those aha moments and I have to get them down. I'm reading this book right now, Rick Rubin, The Creative Act. Have you heard of it? I have not. It's so good. It's a lot about his ethos about being creative and a lot of things you're saying. He also references this idea of if you've got a creative problem, like a work creative problem,
00:24:16
Speaker
art creative problem, whatever, hold it lightly, but go for a walk, go do a chore, allow things to germinate without super consciously focusing on them. It's funny, I don't know what your take on this will be, but as you're talking, in the past few months, there have been a few folks I've done some consulting for. At first, it started off more management coaching, but then what they really wanted was actually someone to help them with their personal brand and content strategy.
00:24:44
Speaker
And as I said earlier, I find that a little hard for myself, but for other people, I find it, I'm like, let me write your about page. It's really fun and creative. But some of them get like a little hang up on a commercial intent behind it. Maybe she feels funny about it. It doesn't feel authentic.
00:25:02
Speaker
But as you're talking, I feel like it is such a creative, authentic source of energy for you. And I think people can feel that when they read your stuff. And maybe that's why it resonates so much. And one of the reasons why your work really stands out, perhaps. Thank you.
00:25:17
Speaker
for saying that. I was very nervous at first to start posting because it does feel like very self-serving, right? Who am I to say any of this, right? Who wants to hear from me? Like, it feels odd. But I think if you start and then you start to see, oh, that did help someone or someone really resonated with that, or one of the things I always love to hear people comment is, I really needed to see this today.
00:25:43
Speaker
There's somebody out there struggling with a problem that you've solved once before. And sometimes just by posting, you're going to help them with that. That's huge. Imagine that. Imagine the reach that we have and the power we have to help people solve their problems just by telling them how we solved it once. And so I think if you can think of it that way, it starts to feel a lot less selfish and silly and so much more
00:26:11
Speaker
just altruistic and genuine. Yes, I love that. And I feel like that is such a helpful perspective that can help people get over the hurdle. And I'm curious for what you'll think about this, but for me, I've had stop starts where I've done it for a while and then maybe had some posts that did really well. And it feels like it feels great to get a lot of likes. And then when the next few posts don't do so well, as silly as it sounds, I felt rejected and I was embarrassed and
00:26:40
Speaker
I think maybe when you're marketing, everything is data. Even the stuff that doesn't do well is helpful info. But when it's yourself, it feels less like helpful info and more like cringy, painful rejection. I think I'm probably among the folks that maybe get caught up in that moment where you're like, this is bad for me, I'm going to stop for a couple of weeks. Then it's a bit of a cycle as opposed, did you have a moment where you felt like you had to just push through it?
00:27:08
Speaker
Yeah, there are weeks where I'm like, man, I'm just not feeling it. And I'll go back into the archives. I'll find something. And there are days where I'm like, oh, this posted well three months ago. I'm going to copy and paste it because I just don't have any today. I do that.
00:27:23
Speaker
you know, every once in a while. And I've had posts that didn't do nearly as well as others, right? And that happens. It's the same thing with marketing. You're going to put out pieces of content or podcast episodes or blog posts and some are going to do awesome and some that you felt like were really powerful are going to tank. And it hurts. It doesn't feel good, but I think...
00:27:42
Speaker
The more at bats you have, the less you care about that because you see each one as just that and at bat. And I'm just going to keep working this muscle and working this muscle. And even if this post resonates with seven people and this one resonated with 7,000, I helped seven people. I think you didn't help zero. Someone saw it and someone felt something about it. And so I think if you just keep going, that feeling lessens and lessens and lessens.
00:28:10
Speaker
of rejection if you have a post that just doesn't perform as well. I like the idea of at bats and that makes it easier to just accept the info of the day that didn't go as well as opposed to feeling bad about it. What do you think people get wrong about personal brand building, maybe both on LinkedIn or off? Oh man, that's a really good question.
00:28:31
Speaker
I think what people get wrong about personal branding is I think two things. One, you have to be an expert. I am most certainly not an expert. I just know I have a couple of years under my belt, almost five to be exact. And I'm just telling you the things that I have learned in these five years. So definitely by no means an expert, you do not have to be. You just have to know a little bit more than someone else who's coming up behind you. So that I think is the first one.
00:29:00
Speaker
I think the second one is that you have to have it all figured out before you get going. Meaning like every post has to be perfect. You have to have some sort of like strategy like I'm only going to post about these three things. And I think if you just start, you become more comfortable. You're going to start learning about what works and what doesn't. You can then start to narrow down. I think something that does definitely help is like narrowing what you talk about. You can't obviously talk about everything. So find the things that you have a really unique
00:29:28
Speaker
on and narrow down the topics. But you'll find that naturally through getting started. A month in, you're going to know so much more than you did the month before about, who am I and what can I write about and what do people want to hear from me? And you can't figure that out if you try to get it all right without getting some sort of feedback from your audience first.
00:29:52
Speaker
I love that. Thank you. Today, I'm writing something for a newsletter article about how to start a podcast. And I feel like some of the advice I'm giving is relevant to what you said at the top, which is you don't have to have the perfect idea of what it is before you jump in. And I think around so many creative projects, people get stuck where they feel as if they don't have the super hooky elevator pitch of what it is, then they're not ready yet. I don't think so.
00:30:18
Speaker
You don't get that till way in and so far as personal branding. That's really wise. Your advice is to go for it. You'll learn. You don't have to have the plan right away. I think Kaylee Edmondson actually posted something about that this week where it was like, your first post is going to be your worst post. Your first podcast episode is going to be your worst podcast episode, right? You can only go up, so you just have to start, so you can start going up. All right, so I'm going to move on to marketing.
Creative Content Strategies and Campaigns
00:30:41
Speaker
What's some of the best marketing or career advice that you've ever gotten?
00:30:46
Speaker
Marketing advice. This was something that I heard from a creative director who I was trying to get to look at my portfolio. Let me back up a little bit. As an up-and-coming copywriter, you have to have a portfolio of spec work in order to get a job.
00:31:04
Speaker
I was an intern at a really big ad agency and working on my portfolio so that eventually I could actually have a full-time position as a junior copywriter. And I was like, at this internship, I would sneak up to the top floor and go talk to the creative directors, try and show them my book and see if they would give me any feedback.
00:31:20
Speaker
And I eventually made my way into this one career director's office and I was like, would you look at this like even five minutes? Like, doesn't have to be there right now. I'll come back when he's able to see it. So he flipped through it for me. And I think the best piece of advice, it still sticks with me. And this was a very long time ago. I'm not going to say how long. Really long. He said was, when you think about an idea, come at it through a side door. So don't say the thing that's obvious to people.
00:31:47
Speaker
Say the thing that only someone who is really in the target, who, let's go back to running for example, distance runners, they have this language they speak to each other. They understand all of these terms that maybe someone outside wouldn't understand, right? You have to come in to an idea from the side door.
00:32:06
Speaker
that only your audience really knows about. And that way it feels like you are talking directly to them. And that's how you hook people, right? And so that has always stuck with me when I'm coming up with an idea for a video or landing page H1, like what is the side door idea that going to get someone to go, oh, these people know what they're talking about, right? Like that has stuck with me for, we'll just say decades.
00:32:35
Speaker
So I don't want to put you on the spot, but are there any examples that come to mind for you of this side door approach?
00:32:42
Speaker
An example of this was during my time at Marpipe, so this was the role I had before Lasso. We were targeting performance marketers, creatives, people who were creating ads, who wanted to test their ads and see if they were working or not, and figure out what the best combination of creative was within their digital ads and social ads.
00:33:06
Speaker
And something I know from having been a creative before was that we really think we know what good creative looks like without testing, right? We just think we inherently know through our experiences and because we're a creative, we think we know.
00:33:23
Speaker
I wanted to test that theory a little bit and at the same time maybe get some really great quantitative data from Mark Pipe and create some original research. What we did was we had permission from five customers to show each of them had given us a set of ads that we could show that basically showed essentially the same ad creative, but one of them had a very small difference that made a huge difference in performance.
00:33:51
Speaker
And so what we did with those five ads was we turned it into a survey that was actually disguised as a quiz. It ended up being 2,000 people that took the survey in 48 hours. And we pose it as, can you guess the winning creative?
00:34:09
Speaker
And we wanted to see how often can you guess winning creative if you don't know which one is the winner. And what we found was really astonishing. Marketers can only guess winning creative 52% of the time. You might as well flip a coin. And so we really think our intuition is this great kind of power that we have when in reality, we're no better than someone who has no experience in advertising or marketing.
00:34:37
Speaker
And so to go back to this side door idea, what I wasn't saying to them was, you need to test your ad creative. What I was saying to them was,
00:34:46
Speaker
Are you really sure you think what winning ad creative looks like? Are you sure? Let's test it and find out. Oh, maybe you're not as good as you thought you were. And now they're seeing the importance of testing. And so whenever I try to think of some sort of creative centerpiece for a campaign or interesting way to like pose information in a piece of content, I come back to that idea of going through the side door because it just hits that much harder when you're not trying to be so direct.
00:35:15
Speaker
and usually you can bring more people in because they don't feel like they're being sold to. Thank you. It's so interesting and relevant and I feel like it's going to stick with me and it's going to be something that I think about when stuck in the future. In the last couple of minutes, I do want to bring up AI. So I feel like the content marketing industry has just been obsessed with it for obvious reasons. What do you think about it? How do you think it's going to impact the industry in the next 18 months
The Role of AI in Marketing
00:35:43
Speaker
or so?
00:35:43
Speaker
Okay, here's what I feel about AI. I think marketers have an enormous opportunity in front of them, maybe more so than most professions right now because I think it's a make or break for us, right? I think if you don't figure out some way to bring it into your workflow, to understand how to
00:36:04
Speaker
Use it to create more content. If you don't use it to your advantage to try and figure out how to create more content or repurpose content more efficiently, you're going to fall behind. And if you are willing to try different things with it, try to work it into your workflow.
00:36:23
Speaker
figure out how to practice writing prompts and then refine them and keep track of the ones that really worked well and figure out how to work it into what you do well. You're going to, I think, really slingshot yourself in front of.
00:36:41
Speaker
many other people that do the same thing you do because you're just going to be able to work a lot smarter. I think something that feels really important is just keeping strategy in-house, keeping strategy with a human. I don't think that
00:36:56
Speaker
at least right now, is not something that AI is going to be able to handle because AI doesn't understand the business problems that Lasso has. AI doesn't understand nor can it create the marketing strategy that we're using to solve those problems.
00:37:12
Speaker
What it can do is execution. And so similarly to how I'm building a content strategy at Lasso and then maybe I'm handing off some execution to freelancers or a vendor, I can now do that same thing and I can pair my relationships with freelancers or a vendor with some AI as well. I'm not having to have
00:37:34
Speaker
my valuable freelancers can create really high value thought leadership content for me or research reports for me. Things that are very original and require a human touch, right? And I can use AI to do things that are maybe a little bit more of the grunt work, the minutia, the take this podcast episode and summarize it for a blog post, right?
00:38:02
Speaker
Those kinds of things are like that's the real power of AI is take those really like time consuming, but less strategic pieces of work off of your plate so you can continue to do more strategy. Thank you. I think that's all.
00:38:18
Speaker
really great advice and in some ways feel like it almost ties back to the conversation around personal branding because you're talking about how one can make and even market oneself as a better, stronger, faster manager because of the way that they've harnessed AI as opposed to fighting it too much. So I think that's a slightly more positive way to look at it and I really like that. Thank you.
00:38:44
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Jess, thank you so much. I know we're at time. This has been such a wonderful conversation. I'm so glad I got to have it with you. I'm grateful that you took the time. Is there anything I didn't ask that you would have wanted to say about any of these subjects? I just want to encourage people who are at all interested in using their voice to enter this conversation about marketing, even if you don't think
00:39:09
Speaker
you are so unique, like you are. No one else has the perspective you have, the experience you have through your career. Like, your voice is needed. Get into this conversation, whether it's Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, pick your channel of choice and just get in the conversation and you might be really surprised and amazed at what can happen if you do that consistently. All right. Thank you for that advice and I'll hit stop recording. Thank you so much, Steph. Thank you, Meredith.
00:39:41
Speaker
All right, folks, I hope that you enjoyed that episode. Thank you so much for listening. If you liked it, please subscribe or review us. And if you want to check out our newsletter, Content People, it is in the show notes. See you next time. Bye.