Can sales and marketing finally align?

Sarah Renner (00:02) prospects don't trust us anymore. They're skeptical of us. We've trained them that if they do fill out a form, they're immediately signed up for an email list, if not also going to get a phone call and maybe multiple emails from a sales to fill out the form. And I think we've also trained them to be skeptical of if they're gonna get something quality, right? Ben Ard (00:46) Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Sarah. Sarah, welcome to the show. Sarah Renner (00:52) Thanks for having me. Ben Ard (00:53) Yeah, Sarah, I'm excited. This is going to be a fun topic. Even when we got on the pre-call, you and I started kind of ranting about the subject preemptively. So we couldn't go in depth as much or else we would have wasted some of that conversation and not recorded it. So I'm excited. I can already tell it's going to be a fun opportunity for everyone to learn, hear the perspectives and inputs that you have. But before we dive into that. Sarah Renner (00:59) You Ben Ard (01:16) Let's get to know you. you don't mind sharing a little bit about yourself for the audience, it would be great to learn about your career and work history and all that good stuff. Sarah Renner (01:24) Yes, hi. So I'm Sarah Renner. I'm a VP of Marketing Strategy and Analytics at MarketBridge, which is a go-to-market growth firm. And I sit on the consulting side. So we specialize in supporting clients with go-to-market transformations, helping optimize their distribution channels or their partner programs, or truly answering the toughest measurement challenges there are. I've been in marketing for 20 plus years at this point. And my career has really spanned a bunch of different industries from niche publications to consulting and advertising agencies to FinTech and EdTech. Ben Ard (01:59) Love it. I am getting close to the 20 year mark and I am like oddly frightened to say that. So I'm still like, so yeah, 17 years and 17 months like the whole baby talk kind of a thing. But it does that 20 mark is is a big deal. love it. Sarah Renner (02:05) Sounds very authoritative. ⁓ You Ben Ard (02:18) Well, Sarah, what we're going to talk about to catch the audience up and dive into the conversation is really the decline of some traditional Legion tactics, things like form fills, email blasts, banner ads, and this cool like trust based marketing that's really taking place, especially when it comes to content and things like that. So let's start like at the beginning, like what is starting to decline form fills, all that kind of stuff. Why are you seeing these trends in your experience? Why is it going downhill? Sarah Renner (02:49) Yeah, I mean, think when we were discussing what to talk about, I said, form fills are dead. Just to be a little provocative, but no. I think it really comes down to Ben Ard (02:56) No one's ever seen that article title before. Sarah Renner (03:01) prospects don't trust us anymore. They're skeptical of us. We've trained them that if they do fill out a form, they're immediately signed up for an email list, if not also going to get a phone call and maybe multiple emails from a sales rep. They're disincentivized to fill out the form. And I think we've also trained them to be skeptical of if they're gonna get something quality, right? Everybody's using form fills to try to generate leads and the quality really varies from company to company of what they're gonna get for that form fill. And I mean, The internet is so vast, I think a lot of prospects assume that they can find whatever you were gonna give them somewhere else that's ungated. So why would they bother to give you their email or their phone number or whatever you're requiring for something that may not be exactly what they're looking for? Ben Ard (03:47) Do you feel like it's also, I mean, obviously there's some kind of manipulation. I feel like when I look at some piece of content that's hidden behind a form fill, it used to be like, okay, well it's probably good enough content that they feel like they need to gate this. Now I feel the opposite. I'm curious if you agree where if it's behind a form fill, it probably sucks. And it's because if it was good, they would just publish it and get the good value out of it. But they hide it behind an email form. And so it means it's probably not worth publishing on. Sarah Renner (04:18) think that's definitely part of it. I think we've gone too far that everything is gated because we're trying to generate leads. And we see this with a lot of clients that are in lead gen marketing that you've got to generate enough leads for sales. We've got to hit the quarterly targets. A lot of times they're then shifting dollars down funnel to demand capture channels. We're doing the same thing on the content side of Well, we're just gonna put forms in front of everything to try to generate as many leads as possible. To your point, I think that the quality content is the reason that people will reach out. And if it is truly quality, and I know we're gonna talk a little bit more about what that looks like, then it doesn't need the form fill because you're going to be showcasing your expertise and showcasing why they should engage with your brand. so then they're already, you're building that trust. don't need to. have somebody fill out a form. Ben Ard (05:11) I love that. let's I mean, that's the perfect transition segue right there. Talking about quality content and how that's making a rise right now. And that's kind of on the up and up. Before we dive into why and how I guess the real question is what what is quality content in your opinion? Sarah Renner (05:14) You Yeah. So I think about it across three attributes. I think the first is it needs to be detailed, right? Like there's so much summary content out there that you can find anywhere. Like it needs to be detailed. And I think to be really quality, it should be based in data, leveraging multiple sources or your perspective. It's got to be at least a couple of those. It can't just be, you know, a broad high level overview. The second is it needs to be authentic to your brand, to your expertise. A lot of companies are chasing trends and trying to generate content that they think will be clickable, but it's eroding that trust because the consumer or prospect clicks in and they're not actually experts in it. They don't know what they're talking about and it's not valuable. And the last is unique. What are the unique perspectives that your company can bring to this? What are the unique approaches that demonstrate that expertise? Ultimately, if your competitor can write the exact same piece of content, it's not going to be unique and so it's not going be quality. Ben Ard (06:25) Yeah, I love that. Especially because it feels like SEO was so determined by generic factual-based content, and now that people aren't as concerned with SEO, they're kind of like, cool, let's write good content now, because that's not what SEO cares about. Sarah Renner (06:41) Well, I think right now we're getting into GEO generative engine optimization and we're finding that the large language models, the LLMs that run Google search, chat, GBT web search, all of those are actually pricing things that are from authoritative sources that lots of people link to, but also that are unique perspectives because they can get all of that summary content from a bunch of different sources. So why are they going to come to your company that may not be the best known for this? ⁓ And so I think that unique content, that unique perspective that people find valuable is really what's going to differentiate when we think about GEO. Ben Ard (07:09) Yeah. I love that. So when it comes to quality content. I have to ask the question where does a I play a role in this process for you and what does that look like? I'm curious what your your take is here. Sarah Renner (07:29) I'm cringing a little bit because I think based on my answer, you're either going to folks are either going to love me or hate me. I don't think AI can generate quality content. AI is not built for that. AI can help you hone an idea, maybe regurgitate some of your things back to you and summarize it so that you can think about it differently. Maybe come up with some titles or headers, but AI cannot create net new. The whole thing about LLMs is that it's associating different pieces of words and content and summarizing that and repackaging it, it's not unique. so AI generated content is never gonna break through. The LLMs are never gonna prize that. think AI can be used as a tool, whether that's for helping to summarize the content or on the backend for data purposes and other things, but I'm... very against AI-generated content. There's just too much slop out there that I don't want to read. I'm sure you don't want to read. Consumers don't want to read that. Ben Ard (08:26) Yeah. So what's your process look like for creating quality content? mean, I'm sure there's pressures from everywhere for you to produce 10 X the amount of content because we have these tools, things like that. How do you push back on that? And what have you found to be really helpful with that? Sarah Renner (08:40) So I do think when we talk about quality, that is helpful to kind of narrow the, it's not gonna be 10x what it used to be, right? Like if it's actually going to be quality, it needs to take time. It needs to be detailed. I think, you know, one of your guests from a couple months ago mentioned like top of funnel is dead. I think it's so hard to develop quality content that is unique, that is top of funnel, unless you're... creating a new category in some way. It is next to impossible because it's already done. Somebody's already done that. I think companies should be focusing on their mid and lower funnel content. And in a lot of ways, I think we're going back to kind of what HubSpot, know, propositioned of like the pillar based content, having deep authoritative content that is unique and valuable to prospects that kind of has a bunch of different related pieces. that will help you get found by LLMs, but will demonstrate your expertise to prospects. And that really lives in the mid and lower funnel. That will never be sort of that summary content that, well, AI could potentially generate. Ben Ard (09:43) Yeah. So let's look at, know, we're going to take a quick step back. So creating quality content. So unique point of views, very authoritative yet authentic things of that nature. Probably not written by your large language model or any of kind of stuff. And it's not hidden behind this form fill or something like that. How do brands figure out how to Sarah Renner (09:57) You Ben Ard (10:07) generate more leads and things like that if the market is clamoring for higher quality, better quality content that isn't gated. What's your recommendation to all the demand gen leaders out there saying, I got a quota hit. What am I going to do? How do you approach it? What are your thoughts on that in general? Sarah Renner (10:25) So I come at this from a couple of different ways. Like when we think about measurement and we do a lot of work helping clients measure what's working, what's not working, right? The lever of dialing up your demand capture, know, captures a certain type of person. This may not be popular, but quality leads are not easy to dial up, right? That takes time and... I think really honing in on your ideal customer and making sure that you're really clear, your media team is really clear on who they're trying to target because the quality piece extends into the media that we're buying, the places where you're showing up. When you think about, let's say, display or native or even online video, like there is a quality to, are you actually getting noticed? Is your ad even showing up on the page when it loads? This extends so far beyond just what the content team or content marketers can potentially control. But I think it's a bigger conversation for the marketing team that if we're trying to compete today and shifting to quality, we need to think about that holistically. And that may mean fewer leads generated right now, but hopefully they're better quality that the sales team can act on more quickly. Ben Ard (11:35) So one of the biggest metrics for you is probably going to be the lead to close rate, looking at the quality of those leads, really focusing on that. And that makes a lot of sense. Are there other ways for you, because I would be remiss not to ask, you're in a space where you talk a lot about measurements. And I think a lot of content marketers outside of the traditional kind of here's the views on a blog post and things like that are often wondering what should I track? When it comes to content, how do I know it's sticking? How do I know it's moving the needle? How do I know it's even what my audience cares to hear? Or how should I know when to pivot, what to do? Cause I don't have all these form fills to know what happened. Any tips or recommendations when it comes to content measurement on that side of things. Sarah Renner (12:13) You So I mean, a couple, like, if we're thinking tactically, I think it's, you know, time on page, like, where you're getting, like, are you getting more referral traffic? Are people sharing it organically? Like, you're basically earned media parts of that. But I think it also gets to, what is your company trying to do with the content? Is it, you know, if you're focused and you're not trying to do too many things, which most of us fall down here, we're trying to do too many things, too many messages. too many ⁓ products that we're selling or whatever, that really dilutes this, right? Like we can't be all things to all people. We can't have products for every industry that's out there. Like we need to be focused. And I think we've fallen into the trap. I'll speak on the media side as well. Like we've fallen into this trap where it's like, well, we'll just get more impressions or we'll get more reach and that will solve the problem when really we need to get. more granular, more focused on what we're delivering, what we're putting out there so that we can attract and have those authentic, real conversations with prospects. They can feel like, this is the right company for me. And I know that's hard because it feels like nothing's working. I'm not seeing any signal. I think some of when we think about quality more broadly, it's that quality connection. And so one of the things that we're doing that we're seeing a lot of clients do with, as I talk about, like top of funnels not really working on the content side is conferences and in-person events are really coming back and making those one-to-one connections. And yes, that has scale issues, but I think that if you're able to get those people to engage with your company in that way, that has a long tail effect that can actually have a big impact on the pipeline. Ben Ard (13:59) I love that. Okay, Sarah, we're almost out of time. So I have one final question. This has been amazing. I love all of the perspectives, insights and everything that you're talking about. Cause I really do think this is where content's going, where people need to spend their time and energy and focus and what will really help them stand out compared to what we're about to and have been seeing in the last little while. It feels like authentic content comes from people and not businesses. We're seeing this really big trend. Sarah Renner (14:02) you Mmm. Ben Ard (14:26) of people inside the business, having their unique perspectives and backgrounds, telling their stories, sharing their opinions and things like that. Number one, do you feel like that is a trend that will continue and that you should focus on? And two, how do you get those people inside your business to become a part of the content creation process? Sarah Renner (14:46) I do think that that is a huge part of it. And I think it's a, again, it's that one-to-one connection piece. Like you may want to follow somebody on LinkedIn that you might not otherwise connect with their company, right? I don't, don't get me in trouble, but I don't know that I follow any companies on LinkedIn, but I follow people, right? I want to hear what they have to say. So I do think that that's a big part of it. It's a challenge to get them involved in this. And I think the bigger challenge is keeping them focused with the clear message because that's where we get into, well, this is my pocket project and I want to focus here and this is my pocket project and I want to focus here and really bringing that all together into a cohesive presentation of the brand can be tough. But I think either if you're able to and get them to in the process of by arming them with the content to help them. But I think a lot of times it can be kind of going back to the old school, like I'm gonna interview you, collect all the information and then put it back to you. Or like we're gonna work in collaboration as opposed to me saying, hey Ben, now you're in charge of content marketing, go. Like that feels overwhelming for people, but if you can start to exercise this muscle of. hey, here's an article I'd love for you to post it on LinkedIn and maybe give some thoughts on like why it's important or, you know, we just had this client case study, like let's do a quick video voiceover of why this was important and why other clients should or prospects should care. Giving them that as opposed to a blank piece of paper, which is possibly the most overwhelming thing can really help them feel empowered and start engaging to build up their. desire to help with that. Ben Ard (16:21) I love that. That's so cool. And I do agree. Like holding people's hands is a good way to get them go. And maybe even at first, you're the one who helped publishing their content and it's, you know, pure here's the interview and here's word for word what they said. But eventually we can kind of hopefully give them that bug. I love it. Sarah, thank you for the insights today. Thank you for everything. For anyone who wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you? Sarah Renner (16:32) You Mm-hmm. I'm on LinkedIn, Sarah Renner. You can find me. Ben Ard (16:50) Perfect. And we will link to Sarah's profile in the show notes. Again, Sarah, thank you so much for the time and insights today. Sarah Renner (16:55) Great, thank you so much for having me.