Ben Ard00:01 — Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Erin. Erin, welcome to the show.
Erin McReynolds00:06 — Thank you so much. I'm super excited to be here.
Ben Ard00:08 — Yeah, Erin, I'm excited. This is going to be a ton of fun. This is a subject for everyone who deals with marketing content that is front of mind that people care about, they're focused on. They're looking at this saying, well, how do we justify? How do we really explain this to other people? But before we dive into that, Erin, let's get to know you a little bit. If you don't mind sharing a little bit about your background, work history, and all that fun stuff. Be great for the audience to get to know who you are.
Erin McReynolds00:36 — Sure. Well, hello to everyone who's listening. I'm Erin McReynolds. I am a career marketer of more than 15 years. Yikes. And my experience is in building brands and content systems that move business outcomes and contribute to growth. Currently I am the vice president of marketing at Fremont Bank, which is one of the largest privately owned banks in California. And here I built and launched content marketing and social media marketing. They didn't have either of those when I joined. I leveled up the whole brand and created a content engine that is scalable and replicable and has delivered some really cool wins.
Ben Ard01:23 — I love that. That's so cool. That's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to dive into this content engine just a little bit, really focusing on growth content. And Erin, when we were going back and forth on the subject a little bit, you really had these four pillars of how content can really make an impact on the business. Number one being contributing to pipeline. Two is its revenue impact. Three is how the content can shorten a sales cycle. And then, and I love this last one, how it can address objections. So we'll dive into all four of those pillars in just a second. But when we talk about growth content, let's level set, make sure everyone's on the same page. What do we mean by growth content? Let's talk about that. What does it look like? What does it feel like, just so everyone's on the same page?
Erin McReynolds02:09 — Sure. Growth content is content that influences behavior. It will help someone discover a problem that they may not know they had, or learn about a solution, or overcome fear or hesitation. That's a big one. So, you know, there are all of these behaviors that we know and love and associate with marketing. However, I also include the mental behaviors of remembering the business, associating the business with its category, which are essential steps at the top of the funnel and at the brand level. So that growth content is designed to influence behavior at every stage, from never heard of you before all the way to loyal client evangelist.
Ben Ard03:02 — I love the focus on growth content isn't necessarily just at the beginning of that journey, that customer journey. I love that you're focused on the fact that growth content flows through the entire journey of the customer. So I love that, that's a really good call out there.
Erin McReynolds03:15 — Yes, a lot of times content gets associated with brand, and as it should, but there's a lot that has to happen once they're bought into the brand. And content can support the entire process if it's done well. I would say the difference between regular content, or what I would call volume content, and growth content is that with volume content, what we're really asking is, did it get consumed? Like, did they put in the email address and download the PDF? With growth content, we want to know what happened after the consumption. They put in the email address, they download the PDF, and then what? Because if there's nothing that's happening, then you're not contributing to the pipeline and you're not moving towards a sale. So you can think about that, you know, in that sense, it's pretty clear. Like you download the PDF and then you want them to explore the website or make a phone call. It's all kind of tangible. Backing up to the brand level, you want them to remember you. So maybe it's like a punchy ad. When you design the content, it's always from the perspective of how are we gonna move people on to the next decision and the next step of the process.
Ben Ard04:34 — I love that. Okay. That makes perfect sense. And I like how you delineate. And I've never actually heard those two buckets before, but I love the idea of growth content versus volume content. There is a role for each one of them. They have a purpose, but understanding the purpose and where they fit into everything is vital for your success.
Erin McReynolds04:53 — I agree. Hundred percent.
Ben Ard04:54 — I love it. So focused on growth content, those four pillars. So the first pillar here, contribute to pipeline. I think this is probably one of the biggest things where marketers feel the burden. They're justifying content's existence. Maybe they're even trying to get expanding budgets because they want to take up their production to a whole new level. How does it contribute to the pipeline? How do you think about it? How do you increase that? What does that look like? How do we really use growth content for this pillar?
Erin McReynolds05:27 — Content connects to the pipeline when it's effective in enabling decisions and moving people forward. There are three things that growth content does. It creates demand in that people can discover you. It captures demand in the sense that people make conversions. And that's pretty ubiquitous. You know, we're all pretty good at that. There's a third one though, which is to accelerate demand. And that's to move people faster towards a decision, and to be intentional about moving them towards a decision. So how content can contribute to the pipeline, for example, somebody reads a case study and then schedules a demo, or an executive sees a customer story and then signs off on the budget. The link between content and pipeline can be real and can be measured and can absolutely be used to transform marketing from a cost center into a revenue contributor.
Ben Ard06:32 — 100%. I love that. And it's interesting, you know, you look at pipeline and revenue, and sometimes we use those synonymously. And sometimes it really does make sense because pipeline hopefully turns into revenue. But really, they are different pillars. So when we talk about, hey, this is the content that helps drive a lead, gets people aware of the business, gets them interested. How does content then move on to the next stage to impact the ability to actually turn the interest into actual dollar signs for the business? Where does it fit into that pillar?
Erin McReynolds07:07 — What you want to do is make good friends with the sales team and talk to the sales team. Learn as much as you can about the buyer's journey and all the different touch points as best you can. Some smaller businesses have more trouble with that than larger businesses with more resources. But as much as possible, pinpoint all of the interactions between a prospect and your business and look at what's happening at each of those. Maybe nobody's clicking and looking at the website, and you gotta look at how you're articulating the brand. Maybe they're clicking, but they're not scheduling the demo or downloading the PDF, in which case you might need to look at, you know, how you're explaining your value. Something like that. The sales cycle gets longer in my experience when buyers have unanswered questions and unresolved concerns or hesitations, fears. So if you can figure out what those questions are and where they happen in the journey, or what the concerns are, then you can start to design the content to respond to those moments and preempt those moments, thereby smoothing the whole process and getting people down the funnel and towards the purchase, which is ultimately the goal for all of us.
Ben Ard08:26 — I love that. Well, and I love the preemptive nature of it, to understand the customer journey so well that you already know some of the objections, some of the issues, some of the roadblocks that you've had in the past, and you're using content as a way to kind of give them those road signs to say, hey, you're on the right path. This is making sense. If you're asking these questions, that's okay. We have answers. Other people ask those same questions enough that we have content about it. And I think that makes perfect sense to say, hey, we really understand you. It helps assist and shorten the cycle. What about addressing objections? So this is one where, like, obviously, it ties into this side of shortening sales cycle and understanding the journey. But one piece I want to also like double-click into because I'm really fascinated here. How are you discovering the objections and how are you prioritizing? And then also how are you systemizing that into content so that those can become repeatable solutions as objections naturally show up in the sales cycle?
Erin McReynolds09:29 — That's a great question. There are some things that usually appear, and there are some things that will be more unique to a particular business. Some things that often appear would be a long evaluation period. So, you know, you have the call, maybe you do the demo, and six months go by, and it's hard to get them to move on to whatever comes next. Content that provides good comparison information, make it easy for them to do the comparing. Confusion, if they're not clear about what's happening, or what the product is, how it adds value, that's another one that can come up. Product education would be a solve for that. Internal friction. And do we really need this? And it's so expensive, and you know, that happens all the time. ROI content, business case content. So there are some things that are just kind of everywhere, and you can preempt those. The other way to find things that are more unique to you, and also the prevalent ones, is to do the analysis of the buyer's journey. And to talk to the sales team, and what questions are they getting? When are they getting them? If you have the tools to run analysis on the transcripts of the sales calls, that's a win. That helps considerably. What terms are coming up? Maybe you need to do a blog on some terminology or that download PDF on certain aspects of your offering.
Ben Ard11:07 — I love it. That's so cool. I love the different discovery methods. I love how you're focused on objections. We're already getting close to the end of the episode. So I have a couple quick questions. It goes by so fast. AI. It's hard not to have a conversation about AI right now. How does the impact of growth content, how is it being affected by AI? Are you finding your effectiveness to create it going up or down? Do you feel like quality is going up or down? What is your take on the concept of growth content and AI's impact on that space?
Erin McReynolds11:45 — AI is certainly making content production less expensive and faster. I know that there are also tools that help with data analysis. So that's awesome. What I don't see AI doing, and I don't think AI can do, is talk to the sales team and look at the buyer's journey, look at the transcript data. You can load all of that into an AI tool and it will tell you here are the topics that come up the most. But then what do you do with that information? You need a person to solve those problems. The advantage for the company isn't about who can create the content, but rather who can create systems that move the buyers along. So I don't see AI, for myself, you know, we certainly use it to help with ideation and writing and all the same things that everybody's using it for, but I don't see a role yet that's too much beyond that with regard to growth content and understanding how content can influence behavior and how it can contribute to sales.
Ben Ard12:58 — Awesome. Very, very cool. One final question, Erin. I like to end these episodes with tactical advice. For anyone listening and thinking, okay, we can take our growth content up to the next level to impact one of these four pillars. Maybe someone listening along is thinking, wow, we really need to focus on the shortening of the sales cycles or things like that. What can they do this month to start to improve their growth content, whether that's alignment, whether that's creation, whether that's discovery, whatever it may be? What would you recommend individuals do to improve starting this month?
Erin McReynolds13:37 — I think that content usually is optimized for attention. And what you could do right away is to think about it more in terms of progress. Is it contributing? How can we take the thing we already have and use it? Maybe add a little or refresh it in some way so that it makes sense for the buyer who's at that stage of the funnel and will help them. Even just take your best guess if you don't have all the data about the buyer's journey. You can just do the best you can. And I think even just applying that mindset makes a difference, because I don't see that all the time. I don't see the sales mindset come into content creation all the time. So that is definitely something that I would recommend looking at. Thinking about content not so much as a campaign, but as an infrastructure that supports the buying process. It should always influence behavior. And if it's not, what tweaks could we make that would make it more likely to influence the behavior?
Ben Ard14:43 — Love it. Very cool. Erin, this has been awesome. Thank you for your insights and sharing everything today. For anyone who wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Erin McReynolds14:53 — I'm on LinkedIn, Erin McReynolds, C R. There's no A in there. I have a website, ErinMcReynolds.com. You could email me, ErinMCR at gmail.com. And I would love to hear from people. I love talking about this stuff. And I would be delighted to help anyone brainstorm solutions and think about how they could improve or what's next for their content team.
Ben Ard15:18 — I love it. Anyone listening, scroll down to the show notes. We will have all the links in the description below. Again, Erin, thank you so much for the time and insights today. This has been wonderful.
Erin McReynolds15:27 — Thank you, Ben. Love it.
