Leslie Bartley (00:02)
I'll start with a quote that I've sort of hung onto and who knows where it originally came from. But the quote is, content is king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants.
Benjamin Ard (00:37)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Leslie. Leslie, welcome to the show.
Leslie Bartley (00:43)
Thank you, I'm so happy to be here.
Benjamin Ard (00:45)
Yeah, Leslie, I'm excited. This is going to be a fun subject for anyone listening. But like every other episode, before we get into the material, let's get to know you. Let's get to know your background, work history, all of that fun stuff.
Leslie Bartley (01:06)
Yeah, happy to. I have a pretty mixed background, both in industry and roles, as well as the size of the companies. I've been in marketing more or less about 15 years, have been in e-commerce, advertising, luxury hospitality, healthcare, SaaS products, really all over the board. Been at big companies like Amazon and GoodRx, and then also been the first two full-time hires at a startup. I've been in demand generation roles, marketing automation and product marketing roles, and also a product manager at one point in time — did not love it, but it was a great experience. The through line of my career has definitely been the life cycle also known as customer marketing. So the focus on owned and operated channels as well as what are we saying and when. I'm now at Squire, which has brought a lot of my previous experiences all together wrapped up in a bow in a very unique industry for barbers.
Benjamin Ard (02:09)
I love it. And it's a cool company with an amazing vertical. All right, Leslie, the subject for the day: content acting as guidance instead of just marketing — moving from blast to behavior based context. What does that philosophy actually mean in layman terms?
Leslie Bartley (02:46)
I'll start with that quote: content is king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants. So how are you thinking about the content, not just as a blast to put out in the world, but where should it show up and when? You run into the issue of failure when you just blast and hope for the best. The content could be the greatest content in the world, but if not delivered on the right channel or at the right time or with very confusing action, it's still going to fall short.
Benjamin Ard (03:23)
I love that. The quote is amazing. When it comes to distribution, how do you know what content should go when and where? How are you helping people understand that?
Leslie Bartley (04:23)
It will obviously vary by company and what channels you have available. But if you think about the urgency, the value, and the trust of the messaging channel that you're using, you can sort of work backwards from there. If it's a transactional message, something that you have to get out in a timely manner, I like to default to more channels than less — email, SMS, push notification. Something like someone's trying to access your account, we have to let you know right then and there. On the other end of the spectrum, surprise and delight — it's been one year at whatever company, or it's your birthday, we'd love to celebrate. That still is a moment in time for the customer and shows you're paying attention. And then you take it a step further — giving them a gift card, that's customer loyalty and advocacy. The middle of the road is more of discovery or education. An onboarding campaign — I like to think of those within email and a notification center, something you can go back to and re-reference. But I don't need to blast you with a push notification and an SMS and an email to say figure out how to set up your bank account details — that's not helpful if we haven't taken into account your existing activity.
Benjamin Ard (06:15)
Okay, I love that. So you're looking at signals, channels, urgency, importance, preferred method of delivery. When you're looking at documenting your content and what you have or haven't sent — with so many channels, is this like a mess of spreadsheets or what kind of system do you use to corral this?
Leslie Bartley (06:55)
I have done a ton of things. There's obviously internal wikis. I am a big fan of documentation and being able to point folks to places if they have questions. I currently use Google Docs to outline what that content looks like. I am also a massive fan of a tool called customer.io and that is where we're doing a lot of our messaging. They have great foundational tools, but also some nifty tools where you can actually screenshot your entire workflow. If it's labeled correctly and you put in little sticky notes, it's very easy to link people to the right location. You can say here's the content that's in here, here are the paths that people are taking, the trigger points, the if-thens being checked before the next send. That's the easiest and most streamlined way I've done it in the last three or four years.
Benjamin Ard (07:56)
Love that. One-to-one communication that is authentic and human — people crave that, they want it. But that doesn't really scale very well. How do you keep the human element but scale up to make sure you're hitting your whole audience?
Leslie Bartley (08:35)
This is really important, especially as we are in this space of AI and how do we get rid of some things and keep others. I am of the mindset that there is space for a complementary or symbiotic relationship between scalable, automatable tools and the human touch. I don't foresee the human touch ever going away. But you have to consider the amount of time and the value that the human can add. If there are things that can be done through automation — remind you to set up this email address, add your tax details, authorize this — let's get all of that done in an automated way so that when you have the next meeting with your customer success manager, they can focus on what you really need on a personal level versus spending time on passwords. How do we take away the 90% of things that can be scalable so that 10% of time with an actual human can be really, really valuable?
Benjamin Ard (10:01)
I love that. AI and automation — I'm not trying to replace human interaction, I'm just trying to optimize the time that we do have. And I love how you're using automation so that those 10% moments can really take place and they're meaningful. When it comes to measuring all of this — how do you measure content success to know that the automations, the tools, the messages are actually hitting the mark?
Leslie Bartley (12:07)
I like to stick to what I call the core four metrics. The first one is reach. This does not equal volume. Reach is who is eligible — who are you trying to send this message to taking into account eligibility, product and feature adoption, whatever that segmentation looks like. The second is either conversion or engagement — an open rate or click through rate, or increased product adoption, or they filled out a form to register for an event. The third metric is revenue or money. I've never been at a business that is not tracking the dollars — how does this message actually tie back to a dollar? The message sent and they started using a feature more, which results in a dollar amount that can be attributed. The final and fourth metric is really important — what is the disinterest? This could be an email opt out, a submitted case. Did you send the email or SMS and it drove a super high opt-out rate? That needs to be a consideration. Whether it's deriving new patterns or cohorting, or did you really miss the mark and this content did not land and you've got to go back to the drawing board? So stick to those core four as your foundational pieces of was this successful or not.
Benjamin Ard (14:00)
Love that. And oddly enough I do think there are times when you want a high opt-out rate because you are cleaning and segmenting — really focused on the fact that you've got people in here that aren't who need to be here. You want them to self-select out.
Leslie Bartley (14:34)
Yeah, and it all ties together with your ideal customer profile. If you're shifting and you learn this was not the right segment for us as we move to bigger and better growth, you're right. There is the value in the opt outs, but just making sure you are still considering that as part of your success metrics.
Benjamin Ard (15:22)
If you had a crystal ball and you were looking five years into the future, what does marketing look like then?
Leslie Bartley (16:02)
I think AI will be there. How we use it is going to be up in the air. I will speak to where I can see things going — a consolidation of what are the things that you care about, followed by how does that now align to this new product and feature we're putting in front of you? How are we celebrating you based on hitting a milestone of your own revenue or a birthday or an anniversary, and then pulling in various content all within one place? This looks like either a dashboard or a digest that is a centralized point that any B2B customer could go to and see here's how I'm doing, here's where I can improve. As we get into all of the different channels available to us, I think AI might make it a little more overwhelming. So almost pulling back to a single source of here's all the content that is relevant for you in one place — you can rely on it, and we will surely show up for you.
Benjamin Ard (17:26)
I love that. That's amazing. Well, Leslie, this has been incredible. For anyone listening who wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Leslie Bartley (17:35)
LinkedIn, I'm very active. Leslie Bartley — I think I'm the only one with that URL versus all the alphanumerics. Hopefully easy to find, and as soon as you find me, I'm happy to connect.
Benjamin Ard (17:48)
Love it. Anyone listening, scroll down to the show notes, we will link to Leslie's LinkedIn profile directly. Leslie, thank you so much for the time and insights today.
Leslie Bartley (18:05)
Awesome, I really appreciated it. I had a lot of fun.
