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Stop Creating Noise: How to Make Content That Resonates
55 Plays2 months ago
In this episode, our host, Ashley Segura, sits down with Mordy Oberstein to discuss what it really means to create engaging content. Mordy shares his journey from SEO to brand-building, highlighting how brands can stand out in a crowded digital space.
Learn how to define your brand identity, craft messaging that connects on a deeper level, and avoid the common pitfalls of generic content. Mordy breaks down why so many brands struggle to connect with their audience and offers practical strategies to ensure your content feels authentic, relevant, and impactful.
If you’re looking to move beyond surface-level engagement and build a brand that truly resonates, this episode is a must-listen.
Subscribe now for insightful discussions and actionable tips on refining your content strategy and staying ahead in digital marketing!
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Transcript
Building Brand Identity Beyond Emotions
00:00:00
Speaker
before you get into your USPs, there's a your, right? There's a you. So if you don't, you're not tapped into that you, it's impossible to do anything else. So if you can sort of like create that like identity that has like a layer of depth, we talked before about before, like where it's like, it goes beyond like a surface level emotion. If you can position that like a little bit deeper, like we're a place where you can escape from reality for a day. Like that's a little bit deeper, but it's saying the same kind of thing. If you can find that like locus of self, then you can experiment all the hell you want.
Insights from Morty Overstein on Resonant Content
00:00:37
Speaker
Back to content in the kitchen. Today we're tackling one of the biggest challenges in content marketing, and that's trying to figure out how to create content that cuts through the noise. So how do you create content that actually connects with your audience and instead of just adding to the chaos? Well, I've got the perfect guess to help us answer that. Morty Overstein, he's the founder of Unify, the head of SEO branding at Wix, and comms advisor for SEMrush. So if anyone knows how to make content that resonates, it's Morty.
00:01:04
Speaker
So grab your favorite cup and let's dive into the conversation with Morgan.
00:01:12
Speaker
Okay, so my favorite first question to ask everybody, a little bit of an icebreaker, is when you're not at your desk and you find yourself in the kitchen, what is your go-to dish to cook? I go eggs. Hands down. Eggs. Eggs, yeah.
00:01:29
Speaker
Okay, so are we adding cheese, cream? What's the secret? No, no, it just, it just eggs because I suck at cooking everything else.
00:01:39
Speaker
Okay, but eggs can also be really difficult to cook. Are we doing scrambled over easy? No, not like an omelet. Like, and I'm good, I can do the whole flip thing. Like I said, one thing I can do. Yeah, my kids are going to go like, his are super, one of my kids is really good to cook, actually. Basically, oh, how do you do the flip thing? I'm like, oh, yeah, like, I'm an awesome cook. Check me out. I can flip an egg.
00:02:00
Speaker
I mean, it Without having it go all over the oven or the stove, that is pretty impressive. Yeah, it's one of my list of like many positive attributes. I can flip an egg. Adding to LinkedIn immediately. Yes, services, egg flipping. Egg flipping. Remotely, too.
Morty's Journey into Branding and Marketing
00:02:22
Speaker
well you've ah Aside from egg flipping, you've worn like a ton of different hats in SEO and branding. What first got you really hooked to help brands stand out and resonate with our audiences? like What made you want to go down this path?
00:02:37
Speaker
It's really that's a I don't know where to start with that question because there's so many things like my personal like background or a personal affinities that I wasn't really aware of. Like if you would have asked me, I don't know, 11 years ago, because I've been doing like 10 years, where'd you ever think you'd be in a market? I'm like, I would never be able to market anything. I don't even know what you're talking about. Yeah.
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah. And it kind of came back by accident. I got in on the content side of things that you are obviously super familiar with. And I started working with brands and I found I had this knack.
00:03:12
Speaker
of just being able to tap into what brands were looking for, what brands were trying to do, how brands were trying to get themselves out there, but in a more genuine way than just like, let's throw like a bunch of like ad money at it. And it kind of just evolved into that. I was at Rank Ranger a long time ago. It feels like a long time ago already. I was building up their brand, then I started working with WIC and like that whole like, it just kind of like fell into it, but it very much suited what I was like naturally good at at the same time. Yeah, which is like weird. Usually, I'm good at this, I will do this. I had no idea I would be good at this kind of thing. and it just It just kind of happened and now you're pursuing it and now you have a consultancy called
Pivoting to Brand Building and Consultation Services
00:03:56
Speaker
Unify. So what inspired you to launch that consultancy? you know I have like an SEO sort of reputation.
00:04:03
Speaker
But I've been doing a lot of brand building at this like for years already. And like that hasn't like been like like a thing like people like recognize before, which is fine. like I kind of always like wanted it to be like like the magician kind of like holding his like cards. like You can't see the sleight of hand. like I'm doing brand building, but you don't realize it. Perfect. But I like kind of just wanted to pivot. like I really enjoyed the brand building part of it.
00:04:27
Speaker
And I just wanted to get it out. Like I actually do this. I know you all know that I do this, yeah but let me actually like do the brand connections that you actually can make the connection between. Oh, right. He does that.
00:04:40
Speaker
So I can, so guess i've I've always been consulting for a long time, I consult for SEMrush, I do comms communication, comms consulting for them. And I've always done consulting on the side, but like I always get like, hey, can you do a keyword research project for me? I'm like, nope, don't want to do keyword research anymore. So I just like felt like I needed a pivot. I really don't like keyword research. And that makes me sound horrible.
00:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's a lot. And it's its own specialty on its own. So we can leave it at that. So I don't bash it too much. But yeah, it's it's a lot of work. And it's so d long like, I already know what keywords you need. And that you all we all know what keywords you need. Like, come on.
00:05:15
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's part of general strategy dev. Yeah. yeah So let's dive into content
Creating Resonant Content through Existential Connections
00:05:22
Speaker
resonance then. And when we're talking about creating content that really resonates with your audience, I feel like that is kind of buzzwordy. But there's really a lot to it. And and there is a connection here. So can you kind of break down what it means to create content that resonates, especially with your branding experience? and what resonating even means when we're talking about content.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, so like the way I kind of like break it down, there's like core or there's like surface like emotions that we deal with every day. And like the one I like to like use is like having fun. Like I don't need to have fun today. I probably won't have fun today. I didn't have any fun today. I might not have fun tomorrow. Maybe I'll have fun on the weekend. But i like, it's not a like life necessity. Like the quote, it's it's the F word once.
00:06:15
Speaker
But there are deeper things that like everyone actually needs on a ah consistent basis, like connection. Like we need to connect with ourselves, with other people. Connection is a big deal that no matter how much you're gonna say, like, I don't care other people, you do need connection. It without you cannot possibly live. So resonance has to deal with with those deeper sort of emotion. and I've almost called like existential concepts. surface like fleeting sort of emotional experiences. Not to say that there isn't resonance in those and there isn't value in those, but real connection, which is what I think resonance really is, comes from those deeper, more core human experiences. Mm-hmm. And if if we're trying to create content that addresses that deeper human experience, I immediately think this is going to be a lot of work.
00:07:08
Speaker
so like how do you How do you find that that balance then? Because if you're going to try and continually resonate with your audience, there's this strategy aspect of of knowing what's fun for your audience if they even want to have fun today and like going down that path. And then there's the path of then the execution and the creation. So when you're creating this kind of content, not sales enablement, but content that resonates with your audience,
00:07:38
Speaker
what kind of workload are you
Balancing Brand Identity with Trends
00:07:40
Speaker
looking at? And is this as big of a workload as it feels like and sounds like? Yeah, it sounds like almost like a therapy session, right? No, it's yes. And and and and in it and in a way in a way it is. But no, like not every piece needs to do this. Not every time you're on social media, do you need to have like, yeah, that's a powerful connection. What you do need to do is like, I guess it ties into that brand work. It's like really understand like, what's your identity? What's your,
00:08:07
Speaker
Who are you? How are you sliding in to the context of your user's life context? is Recall positioning. But you really need need to know how you slide in there. And and sometimes you're going to hit that that that point. And you could do it in very subtle, and very slight ways, like the topics that you write about. That's a very strong positioning element, right? if i'm yeah if i Just go to get it a horrible example. So I'm a big like sports nut. Yeah.
00:08:36
Speaker
Sorry, like I like sports ball. but So let's say you go to one of these like big sports, I don't know, YouTube channels, like Rich Eisen. It's all football all the time. And when you when you look at the recent videos and all you see is NFL football, it tells me it's a sports nut. You're not like an actual person I really want to dive into because you don't talk about baseball or you don't talk about basketball. you That position, that kind that topical creation, that topical focus is positioning, right? Without you even realize what you're doing, because maybe he does want me to come for the baseball content, but if there's nothing there immediately that I see, and I've all of you right away on the YouTube videos, like the recent videos, I'm not gonna walk away with that perception. So it doesn't have to be all the time, but there does have to be a perception that that you do hit on that, like whatever that thing is that you wanna hit on.
00:09:26
Speaker
How much or or how far should you go out on a limb then to create this kind of content because I could already see. brand people being like, you know you have to be really careful with this messaging. Your football example is a perfect example of if there are other sports they're talking about, but this week it's a football game, then that's their primary messaging. So let's say a content creator who just has one specific niche, but every once in a while wants to get creative it and talk about baseball too, along with their football reference.
00:10:03
Speaker
Is there a proper balance in how do you handle promoting a little bit of diverse content?
Niche Content and Creativity Balance
00:10:12
Speaker
Yeah, there is ah there is a balance. And like, for example, let's say I just won football, I don't want to see baseball, right? So like, that was a perfect, so you're never gonna hit everybody all the time. I feel like that's just like, this like unreasonable digital expectation that we have. that That dude might talk about baseball all the time, but I happened to come like into his YouTube channel at a moment in time where, oh my gosh, the biggest NFL like football story in the world happened, everything is football.
00:10:39
Speaker
and And there's nothing to like maybe do about that. I mean, obviously, like you need to think about that. The biggest thing is to be conscious. Like if that if that's like that actually was the case, then maybe pin a baseball video up there if you can. Or if it's if it's on your blog, like pin something up there, even though it might not be the newest thing, but pin something up there if that's something you want to signal. And it's not like a a perfect approach, it's not like,
00:11:03
Speaker
I'm gonna sound like so non like SEO for a second or so non performance based. There's no like checklist of like, Oh, every fourth post should be like, like, that's just not real. That's not how it works. Yeah, but it's if you have it in the back of the mind, and you're worried about it, it's almost like,
00:11:22
Speaker
with my kids. I'm always going to spend the right amount of time with them. Because I just have like other stuff going on. I'll feel bad about it. I feel guilty but about it. Like I won't do that baseball video, right? Same like same kind of analogy. yeahp But if I'm conscious and aware of all like I need to spend time with this kid, even though I might not be like the amount that I want or the way that I want, I probably will focus on it in some way, shape or form that will come across it will resonate with that kid is your content or kids.
00:11:52
Speaker
Got it. Okay. So I see what' what you're saying. It's this balance of touching on perhaps trends and positioning your brand within that trends, but then also staying true to who your brand is. So if yeah if you mainly just talk about football, but baseball is trending right now, then to acknowledge it, if you have a good position to say on it, and that's where you can create content that's resonating with your audience because Okay, they're sports fans regardless, ah and there's some big news in baseball this week, so we're going to talk about it, but then all of the other supporting articles are about football, which is what we normally deliver to you, and that's going to help resonate with you.
Content Saturation and Brand Identity Issues
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah, basically, and you have to think first you think about your current audience and like what you're gonna do for them because like if ah all of a sudden you're like, Oh, we're gonna target someone so we're gonna target the baseball fans be a current audience or NFL football fans. You have a huge lesson you have a huge job like, that's not good either. So it does be right. It does become sort of this funny kind of balance. But yeah, it's it's the the guiding like the Jiminy cricket of all this is who you are, right?
00:12:57
Speaker
because you you can't put lipstick on a pig. Although that would be really interesting to try. I would actually like to try to put lipstick on a pig and see what happened. I think that'd be like a fun exercise. Like why don't they do that at rodeos? I'm just thinking out loud now. Like they have like bull riding, like why not like pig lip sticking?
00:13:16
Speaker
I mean, it it would it would touch on the phrase quite nicely. My dog's name is actually Pig, and I think it'd be pretty easy to put lipstick on him. So I will try that, and I'll definitely put a photo up. but Lipstick on a pig.
00:13:30
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like it would be a little bit easier. But okay, so so we've talked a little bit about identifying the personas that you're writing for. And and that's like the first step in creating content that really resonates and connects. But there are so many brands and you know, like, okay, we're this New Year vibe that's coming. mean I feel like everyone's always like, let's re-strategize. Let's create a ton of new content. Let's just change the AI. Yeah. Yeah. And AI is just like blasting everything out. And there is this huge gap of brands that are just kind of like shouting into the void with content that isn't connecting. And it's not being seen by people.
00:14:16
Speaker
Why do you think that this happens and is happening, I feel like now more than ever, like what's missing with this new content? It's all it's it's horrible, right? It's like a call like a digital winter is coming. like There's so much noise that I just don't give a shit like shut up. Yep.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. I'm like things that are offline resonate like much more like a TV commercial resonates like way more with me because I'm sitting there. I'm watching football can't stop and like I'm just like doing one thing. I'm doing an activity. It's a real life thing like okay fine. It's not like a million things in a million. I'm on social media at this point. I feel it's Groundhog's Day. Go on Twitter. Yeah, someone replies. I write the same thing on blue sky. They reply the same thing. I'm like and then I reply the same thing that I already posted on Twitter. What the actual hell are we doing?
00:15:05
Speaker
Yeah, it it's just this rinse and repeat of content and not a lot of new things are being said. Brands are afraid to speak up unless you're Burger King and take sides and really get it quote unquote interesting interesting with things. So it's kind of almost why even create new content of if no one's going to see it like where is this middle ground of no, no, no, we should still be creating content. But how do we create content that that is like that commercial that's actually going to connect in some way? Can we use Jaguar as a perfect example of this? Because I feel like everybody's crapping on them. So let's do that. Yep.
00:15:47
Speaker
Okay, perfect. um I watched a great video. I forgot maybe it was like CNBC. I don't know where the hell it was. But they were it was like some big dude at Jaguar, like, you know, the CMO or whatever. And he was like explaining what the hell they actually did. I'm like, Oh, that actually makes sense. Oh, my God, you didn't make sense. But you're such an idiot.
00:16:07
Speaker
um there Yeah, because they had a whole thing of their whole history was they were they were creating innovative car designs that no one else was doing. Like when that first Jaguar came out in like the 1960s, it was like, Oh my gosh, I think Ferrari they said like Ferrari even said like, that is the coolest car we've ever seen. That is so different. We've never seen anything like that.
00:16:30
Speaker
Which is where they got like copy nothing. And they came up with this whole new like weird thing and like we're totally innovative. And the copy nothing tagline now makes sense. It actually ties into their brand identity of who they are. Except who knew that history? Absolutely freaking nobody. Yep.
00:16:52
Speaker
Nobody knew that. Unless you're heart fanatic. Yeah, it's like, what are you doing? So brands are constantly either pivoting or chasing AI or doing whatever, and they're not actually tapped into and or communicating who the hell they are. It's like people. Most people, probably myself, everybody to a certain extent, they're unaware of themselves. Dents.
00:17:21
Speaker
Brands are that on steroids. They're so disconnected from who they actually are and what they actually represent and what they actually mean and what they're actually supposed to be doing. Like who are we trying to help? How are we trying to help them? What are we trying to achieve?
00:17:36
Speaker
who that when they put things out there, it's kind of all over the place. So Jaguar is a good example of that. and ah The whole AI chasing is a good example of that. I feel like that that's brands who felt like, oh, we have brand identity. We know what we're trying to do. We have a mission, blah, blah, blah.
00:17:53
Speaker
who are now chasing their tails, chasing whatever AI thing comes out next, yeah that just shows you they didn't have that like that core identity, that like that that guiding light of here's what we're going to do and here's how we're going to do it and nothing's going to take us off of that.
Defining Brand Identity and USPs
00:18:09
Speaker
That's where I feel brands go, right? And it comes out in the content. The content ends up all over the place. The content is disconnected, just like Jaguar. The content was completely disconnected because they weren't actually tapped in. In this case, they were kind of tapped into who they were. They just had no ability to tap into communicating that.
00:18:27
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. So how do we reverse engineer this instead of just, I mean, there is a standpoint to where yes, creating a ton of content can be ah a good thing and a variety of content can be a great thing because you're going to fail faster and you're going to get a lot of data of like what is resonating and what definitely didn't. But we're talking limited resources, limited budget constraints, like in the real world for marketers and for brand owners, that's what it actually looks like. So creating every new piece of content, so there's a lot behind that and it it needs to work or or give you some kind of really great data. So if we're going to backwards on all of this, where do you start off on the right foot?
00:19:13
Speaker
So, I mean, it this is just where I start. I feel like everyone's going to have like their own point of view on this, but like I start with that identity thing. I know like everyone's going to start off like, what are you your USPs? What are your USPs? But before you get into your USPs, there's a
Experimentation in Content Creation
00:19:27
Speaker
your, right? There's a you.
00:19:29
Speaker
huh So if you don't, you're not tapped into that EU, it's impossible to do anything else. So if you can sort of like create that like identity that has like a layer of depth, we talked about before, like where it's like, it goes beyond like a surface level of motion and it taps into something, I'll give you like another example that I use, like I'm an amusement park. So again, like the fun thing, like we're exciting where, but if you can position that like a little bit deeper, like we're a place where you can escape from reality for a day. Like that's a little bit deeper, but it's saying the same kind of thing.
00:19:58
Speaker
If you can find that, like, locus of self, then you can experiment all the hell you want, right? Like, let's try this. Let's try. But it's in a certain, like, context because you are going to try different things. You are going to fail. You are going to try. This is going to resonate. That's going to resonate. That's not going to resonate. But it's all within, like, a certain ballpark of each other. But that though I feel like what brands miss is that ballpark. Again, back to sports. like I can stop. Yeah. Clearly.
00:20:25
Speaker
Yeah, clearly. That's what resonates with me. I love it. I love it. Okay, so so a brand, doing an analysis of of who they are, even if they've been around for 10, 15, 20 years, doesn't matter, like recap, who are you right now as a brand? And then identify what do you want to say? What do you have to say and create content around that and see what resonates?
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, like we create content on like what you have to say that's like unique to you.
Differentiating Content and Enriching Brand Narrative
00:20:57
Speaker
You've found something unique about yourself, like clearly, because it's not just like, OK, I've tapped into myself. If that tapping into yourself it happens to be the same thing as everybody else, then tap deeper yeah or tap different.
00:21:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I work with a lot of food bloggers and it's this constant debate of, okay, well there's a thousand cheesecake recipes out there. Why would I create a cheesecake recipe just because I want to generate traffic or, you know, I'm a dessert blogger and I don't have cheesecake yet. So yes, it should be in my portfolio of content. It makes sense for the brand.
00:21:30
Speaker
and I want to get traffic for it. Well, okay, how can you make cheesecake different or unique or even secondary topics? I feel like that's where a lot of this branded content is going is like, okay, well, what are the best pans to bake a cheesecake in or toppings? Yes, exactly. The secondary content to really help resonate and connect with your audience and take them from that initial piece of content, bring them through. And now they have this like personal connection with this brand, they've, they fully read, or most likely fully skimmed to have your articles and like have a little bit of the whole history of cheesecake and toppings and then you heard yeah,
00:22:11
Speaker
yeah Yeah, we can avoid the history aspect. Which but the the answer to is cherry, obviously. Yeah. yeah and like that is like okay like So let's say that's your thing. like You're going to do things like we're going to talk about toppings and pans. like that's like that's what Forget like my audience for a second. That's what I'm interested in.
00:22:31
Speaker
Yeah, like my whole thing is like, everyone has the same damn cheesecake recipe, but like you can like next level it like if you like have like the right like pan or the right like the right accessory ancillary thing, right? yeah yeah Like But but like okay, does that if that resonates with you, does that also resonate with your audience? like Try to think like, okay, like that's who I am. Great. How does that slide into the context of like what my audience might be looking for, which in this case could be the very same thing, right? Yes, you've tried every cheesecake recipe on the planet, but like how do you like take that like up a level? like How do you take it beyond
00:23:07
Speaker
what you're already doing, what you're already seeing, what you're already tried. It's the same damn thing. Try something different. Here's small little, like, I will help you find small little things that won't take you a ton of time to do, but that will take the same damn thing you've tried a thousand times, have done a thousand times over that your family's already eaten at that, but make it a little bit spicier.
00:23:27
Speaker
Yes.
Connecting Brand Identity with Content Strategy
00:23:28
Speaker
So that's positioning, that's a USP, and now you're messaging and the content, that's like that's the easy part now. You've already like set yourself up. I can think of 30 different topics, like on the top of my head, like the pans, the spices, the toppings, I don't know, like the cutlery that you're going to use to eat. that I have no idea. i'm ah Again, like I flip eggs. I don't know.
00:23:49
Speaker
I mean, to your point, yes, like that this is the road that we go down. But how do you figure out that my audience doesn't just want a cheesecake recipe. They also want to know what pan is the best to bake them in. Like, other than thinking of yourself as a user, OK, I'm going to make cheesecake through the steps. Like, are you using any tools for this? Or is this good old traditional marketing research you're diving into Reddit? Or where are you here?
00:24:18
Speaker
Both, like, yeah, one is like seeing like, like, what are other like, on on the other recipe blogs? Like, what are people commenting? What are people saying? Like, what's the sentiment? Like, I always say that about like, even your own social media, like, don't look like how many comments did I get? But look at the level of engagement, or what people are saying? Like, did they just say, Yeah, great job? Or do they actually leave like a meaningful comment? And what was the theme that you can find in that in that and that and those comments and that content. If you do wanna go the more quantitative way, then keyword research is a good thing to do. Like search volume trends, like what are like when people go to all recipes, one of these like if you really they go to SEMrush and like look up like all recipes, like what are they looking for in there? like Are they looking for like best pans for cheesecake? like Then you know, like um it's oversimplifying it, but then you know, like okay, there's something there. But also another really good tool that you can use is also Ask.
00:25:10
Speaker
and also ask dot.com, which is pulling in Google's people also asked questions. So if you typed in like cheesecake, you might see like, one of the questions people are asking there are like, what pan is the best pan to cook cheesecake in? I wouldn't look at so SEOs will look at that kind of thing is like, Oh, let me answer literally each one of these stupid questions. Yeah.
00:25:34
Speaker
which is like, oh my God, seriously? That's how you're using this data? What the hell is wrong with you? yeah um What you should do, because what the tool does, it wait if you if you're familiar with the SERP feature from Google, if you open up one question, it opens up new questions. And if you open up another question, open it opens up another question, almost like a tree.
00:25:53
Speaker
yeah And you can see the tree and the tool and then you can look at themes. Like what themes do I see in these questions? Oh, people are not just asking about the actual cheesecake recipe. They're asking all these like secondary kind of questions. So that also tells me like there's an interest there. So all of those things together.
00:26:12
Speaker
Yeah, and sometimes not everything needs its own article, it its own blog posts. I mean, sometimes these are just like supporting headings within a larger guide or instruction or whatever have you be in order to actually connect and keep them on that page. It's not always about we have to send them to five other pieces of content that are only 200 words each because we're just simply answering a question. Wait, you're not supposed to do that.
00:26:41
Speaker
I mean, depends who you are. I mean, that's why SEO has been forever. Even no matter how many times users will say, we hate that and Google says, don't do that. That's what you should know. I've been doing this wrong for so long. No. And that whole internal linking thing, there's something there.
00:27:00
Speaker
I just buy all my internal links. It has high DA, no? Oh, yeah, from your own website. Super happy. I write for myself, yes. I just take money from one pocket and I put it in the other pocket. And they say, like, look at my high DA links. I feel like there's a tax break somewhere in here, too. That's a good point. It's also a great way to LinkedIn message yourself. Exactly. Exactly. Because we're not getting enough of those. Just private ones. Okay, sorry. I digress. No, it's good. It's good. Okay, so we've gone through
00:27:34
Speaker
Identifying personas, identifying your own brand, what it is that you have to talk about, what you want to talk about, doing like kind of a brand analysis, then creating content in that direction, also going through the secondary topics to continue the conversation, all to create content that really resonates with the user. Are we missing anything? I feel like a ton of things, yeah.
00:27:59
Speaker
like No, that's the, andve we've we've we've nailed the entire marketing like process and world in, I don't know, like 20 minutes. We did it. Check. Done. There we are. If you're not earning, I don't know, like $5 million dollars sitting on a beach in like, I don't know, Bermuda, you've done it wrong. It's Bali. That's the, yeah. By the way, one more person shares like one of those like posts. I'm going to throw my laptop out of the window. I live on the first floor, so it's fine.
00:28:29
Speaker
Now that doesn't connect. That does not resonate. No. Okay, let's talk about mistakes then. What are some of the things? You know what it resonates with? Douchebags. That's what it did. Yes. Yes. And it does not. Okay, sorry. We've got to cut that out.
00:28:44
Speaker
Asad, you may want to cut that out. Up to you. I am fine with it. You can you can leave that in. No, there's like a lot. of like all of that like that's like To me, like that's just like the foundation. like you've You've just hit like the foundation. Now you need to build momentum and engagement, your overall marketing strategy. and like That's a whole separate ballgame, but people tend to silo all of these things, which I think is like yeah silly. like Plug for myself is why I call it unified because they're not different things.
00:29:12
Speaker
That's all like, it's all like quote Neil Young. It's all one song. The story behind that is someone yelled out at him at a concert. All your songs sound the same. And he said it's all one song. Wow. What a poet. right Brilliant. Brilliant answer. Just dropping magic. I love it. So good. It is all everyone's favorite Canadian Neil Young. It is all it is all one song.
00:29:35
Speaker
the but the brand marketing, the performance marketing, the engagement the moment. It's all one thing. It's all like leveraged itself. like now like in In the SEO world now, it's like a huge conversation. Oh, like the brand impact. yeah people like oh It turns out like people do branded searches around your product or your service. like That's an influential like figure for for Google's quality score. It just came out from Mark Williams Cook.
00:29:55
Speaker
Kudos to Mark Williams, cook for that. And Mark even said earlier in his presentation, like, we all kind of like knew these things from our SEO sort of intuition. Like, you know this. Yeah, we all know this. But for some reason, when we start to actually implement, we just like SEO is SEO brand is that is brand socialist. so But they all work together to create like a digital light. There should be creating momentum. But I think momentum is the most important thing you want momentum. Yeah. And your content should support that process and it's going to look different at
00:30:29
Speaker
different angles and different strategies. But as long as you have momentum going, you're producing new content, you're updating your older content to really continuously figure out what connects and resonates, that's
AI's Impact on Content and Brand Consistency
00:30:41
Speaker
that golden ticket. And yes, of course, there's like tremendous work behind the single sentence. But really, like that's that's where the needle moves and will continue to move, especially as bulk content is not going to change with AI. It's just going to get way worse. like it We're in for a very wild ride with that. i i Can I like say I don't get it? like AI is good a lot of cool things. I think AI images are awesome. like It does a great job at creating great images, like super cool stuff. it's It's not always great at writing content.
00:31:19
Speaker
Like it's good maybe like for like writing like here, like write it on write a product description or like I use it for like rewrite this to like sound better. That sucked. Yes. Yes. Like here's my word vomit of ideas. Put it into something. Do something with it. Yeah. i i I don't, I don't get it. But, but to your point to go back to what you're saying, content is your brand. That's how you're communicating every, everything you say is who you are. It says something about you. Yep.
00:31:49
Speaker
And all that all of that engagement momentum is all starting from your content. like Unless it's in content, it's just in your brain and no one knows about it. Like that Jaguar guy, it was only in his brain. Yeah. Yeah. And it if we don't have these like outside sources to bounce ideas off of or being OK with testing pieces of content or social media posts and getting feedback from your audience, you're not going to have that pulse check. And it's going to be like, oh, well, why don't people understand my brand? I had this issue at Content Yum when we first launched. It was supposed to be this like super simplistic new agency model.
00:32:25
Speaker
Just pay as you go. No contracts, no calls. and People didn't get it because they're so used to contracts and calls and proposals. so Especially if you're introducing something new or you haven't done like it an internal brand audit in a while, put some content out there and see what people say about it. Do they get it? Do they understand it? Are they missing the mark entirely?
00:32:47
Speaker
Can I say the most non performance marketing thing in the planet? It's it's all a kind of a feel but you can't feel like where it is unless you're doing something like what are you feeling out? Yeah, you can't be afraid to test it and and put something out there and see if it's six or not. You can always delete. Yeah, what's the worst that happens people hate your guts? Like and they forget about i guess jaguar is the worst that can happen.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah, but in a year, maybe they'll rebrand entirely. and release rebrand everyone is rebrand now Yeah, yeah know its rebranding is the latest thing. like just You can rebrand so many times. No one knows who the hell you are. You don't even know who the hell you are anymore.
Trial and Error in Branding and Overcoming Marketing Anxiety
00:33:29
Speaker
It's perfect. No, that's where the logos are changing.
00:33:32
Speaker
ah my As we wrap up, I want to know what is your current secret sauce? What's the thing, the tool, the strategy? What's something that you're doing right now that's really helping you stand out and succeed? What's the secret sauce? I don't have a secret sauce. It's all a lot of trial and error. Oh, ok okay. Okay. It's a lot of error. um' I'm like the Yankees in the fifth inning of the World Series of games. I make a lot of errors.
00:34:01
Speaker
And are we cleaning up after those errors and not letting anyone see, or is it part of the story? No, I'm totally transparent. If there is an error, that was terrible.
00:34:14
Speaker
That was really just like bad. I will say that that was just bad. And I think by the way, that looks like that's kind of OK. You want to like my secret sauce, like my personal secret sauce, like now that you're making me think about it, cause I never thought about it before. um It's kind of just like doing my thing when I feel like i what I'm doing, my thing. So I'll tell you, OK, shout out to Greg Finn.
00:34:34
Speaker
who we all know from like the PPC world, who's a a great guy. And I really crap on him sometimes like on and like our video thing we do with Barry, yeah but he's a good sport about it. Anyway, I was doing the copy for my website. And I was like super nervous about it. Because I was launching my own thing. And I'm like, I'm targeting like, you know, mid market companies, not startups, I need to sound professional. He's like, this does not sound like you. It wasn't the brand.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm like, ah okay, you know what, you're totally right. Like I got so like caught up in like my own fear and anxiety, which are brands by the way, like, all the time, brands are anxious, brands are super anxious. And that's normal. It's part of the whole process. but Like just like know that. And it's not like on a personal level, you know, like you're you're crossing the street as a car coming that you're anxious, you know, it but it's so subtle and so under the surface, that you don't like brains aren't aware of that anxiety. But it's there. So deal with that. So like, I got caught up in that anxiety of like, Oh, I bet got to make sure like I sound a certain way. And like,
00:35:35
Speaker
because I'm goofy and like I'm fun, but I don't want like, all right, companies, yeah and and I lost. And there was a balance there. Like there's a balance of like coming off like, hey, I'm, and and and still being true to who I am. And Greg called me out on it. I'm like, and I went back and I wrote, we wrote freaking everything was super annoying. And I drove my, the guy who did the shout out to the Samuel Skinner designed the website. I drove him nuts. Cause I read it everything like 4,000 times to get to that point where I finally felt like it's a good combo of me.
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah. And a good combo of coming off like, okay, like I know what the hell I'm talking about at the same time. Yeah. that That makes sense. Yeah, no, i I love that and I love that you mentioned the anxiety behind brands because like as marketers were anxious as could be as a brand owner You're so anxious We're all just hoping something's gonna work and that we're gonna hit the right KPI or goal that we've set for ourself Whereas you you're trying to speak to a certain kind of demographic And so there needs to be a balance of yeah, you know Maybe I can still hit my KPIs while being true to my brand or my voice or my tone or my style
00:36:42
Speaker
And so often, that does work. And those are the brands that were like, we remember those ads, we remember those commercials or their fails, and they still got great publicity from it. Yeah, if if I was coke, like I got if you're like, I don't remember we're like this getting released, but like they just recently released an AI Christmas ad that got trounced on.
00:37:07
Speaker
Yeah, like I would own it. Yeah, it was terrible. I don't know that like, Hey, all we like we like AI was super cool. We got all cut up and it just like you like we're back to ourselves like I would just own that. That's what Twitter is for. That's that's why we still go to Twitter just to see brands be like, Oh, oops. Wasn't that funny? like Yeah, like some brands are so good. Like McDonald's like the like the fans like Wendy's are so good. And and that's why they resonate.
00:37:34
Speaker
That's why they resonate with us because they're human. They made mistakes. Making a mistake is human. I wasn't supposed to nail my website copy the first time around. No, no. I'd be a freak if that's what happened. And you're still probably going to change it in three to four months. You'll learn some things. So I'm happy with every last line. You have no idea.
00:37:58
Speaker
Oh, you'll get there. You'll get there. Well, thanks so much for for everything that you shared on the show today. This has been really inspiring and definitely makes me want to do some some inner work on tone, style, and brand and figuring out how do we keep creating content that finally connects.
00:38:17
Speaker
Finally, one day, we'll get there. Thanks for having me. This was such a good conversation with Morty today. If you want to hear more of his insights, check out the Serp's Up podcast or find him sharing wisdom over at Unify, Wix, and Sumrush. I'll link everything in the show notes. And hey, if this episode hit home at all, go ahead and share it with someone who could use a content resonance reboot. Take care.