Content Marketing in the Age of AI

James Lawrence: Welcome back to the Smarter Marketer podcast. Today, I'm joined by Marcus Sheridan. Marcus, welcome.

Marcus Sheridan: James, happy to be here. I think we're going to have a great conversation.

James Lawrence: Excellent, my man. So, Marcus is the author of They Ask, You Answer. You've been basically featured everywhere, mate.

You've been featured in The Globe, The Mail, Content Marketing Institute, Social Media Examiner. You've been described as a web marketing guru by the New York Times. Marcus, welcome to the pub. Hey, excellent. Good times. Good times. Indeed. Yeah. You've been busy. I think, um, I think I first came across your story when I was at content marketing world, um, in Cleveland, Ohio, I think maybe 2016, 17.

I didn't know of the book at that time. I guess it was probably in the works. Um, yes. I heard your story about kind of where you went from in business through kind of into the marketing space. Um, we then Dave and I put smarter marketer together. You actually feature in a section about, um, giving prospective buyers what they want as opposed to what you want.

Um, but I think just for listeners that aren't as familiar with your story, just, yeah, summary of kind of where you came from in business and how you've kind of made through into the marketing space.

Marcus Sheridan: Here's the quick one on one, uh, right out of college. I started a company, swimming pool company called river pools, 2001, uh, with a couple of buddies and, uh, things were going okay up until 2008, 2009.

That's when the market crashed. I thought we were going to lose the business, but the beauty of pain and suffering is it forces us to do things we otherwise wouldn't have done. Right. And so I started to really research, learning different things like content marketing, inbound marketing, social media, blogging.

What I heard in my simple pool guy mind, James, was, you know, if I just obsess over my customers questions, worries, fears, issues, and I'm willing to address those on my website, I could save my business, right? So I said, that's what we're going to do. We're going to become the Wikipedia of pools. And this was, um, uh, essentially March of 2009.

And, uh, I can remember sitting down one, one night that March, and I was brainstorming every single question that I had ever been asked about a swimming pool. And then every night for the next two years, I produced an article or a video that addressed every single one of those questions. And I called this, this, uh, framework, this philosophy, they ask you answer.

And to make a long story short, we became the most trafficked swimming pool website in the world. Then we took off and then we started, uh, because we were getting so many leads, I started manufacturing pools. And then we became the fastest growing manufacturer of pools, uh, in the U. S. And then we became a franchise.

Now we have river pools all over the country. And it was during this time, too, that I started having companies say, Hey, how did you do that? Uh, could you share that from our stage at our event? I became a full time speaker. I started an agency that agency today has about 70 employees and we help companies all over the world implement this philosophy, this framework of they ask you answer.

So I still got the pool company. It's been an unbelievable ride. Uh, but what's so cool, James is watching so many companies become the most trusted voice in their space, turn their business around, achieve heights. They never dreamt possible all because. They're just listening really well and answering their customers questions online.

James Lawrence: So good. Such a good journey. It’s great. I love it every single day, my man. It's amazing. So, so cool. What, um, question I did want to ask you was what's the value of the article now, the famous article of how much does a fiberglass pool cost? What, how many sales it is now? Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan: So, you know, we wrote, I was the first person in the swimming pool industry to talk about how much a fiberglass pool costs, which is one of the principles of the book.

Marcus Sheridan: Right? If you haven't read the book, uh, there's basically five subjects that every buyer wants to know when it comes to the ask and answer and, uh, one of them is cost. And so, We wrote an article, uh, in 2009 on how much this fiberglass will cost, and I've done the recent numbers on this, and the revenue attribution to that one single post that took me 45 minutes to write on my kitchen table, for just my company in Virginia, not the national company, but just the company in Virginia, is much greater than the number I'm going to tell you is 25 million in sales.

James Lawrence: I'm going to have to update the number, I think it was 6 mil in the Smarter Marketer book. Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan: Originally when I wrote the book, it was, it was like that. It was about 6 million.

James Lawrence: Incredible.

Marcus Sheridan: So it just keeps, it just keeps going up, right? That's the glories of revenue attribution, which if you're listening to this, you're a marketer, you sure as heck better be looking for some revenue attribution.

Marcus Sheridan: Otherwise you're never going to get a raise. You're not going to get the resources you deserve within your marketing department.

James Lawrence: Yeah, that's it. Um, and I think that's the beauty of content, right? It's, it's good content in theory is evergreen or close to, and you mentioned 45 minutes to write the article and it's still generating income, you know?

James Lawrence: Yeah, that's a pretty solid ROI. It's not bad, I'll take it.

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, I'm about a half a million dollars per minute ROI right now, so. Is that your speaking, that's your speaking rate as

James Lawrence: well?

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, it's tracking. It's tracking pretty well. But, uh, yeah, it is the gift that keeps on giving, uh, and never stops working for you.

Marcus Sheridan: Content, if you use it the right way, it doesn't sleep, it doesn't leave you for another company, and it doesn't ask you for a raise. And, uh, so it just takes somebody that's willing to do that, which others in your space haven't done. What's funny, James, is a lot of companies say, yeah, we produce content, but Most companies don't produce good content when I mean good content.

Marcus Sheridan: That's the stuff that buyers really want to know that most Organizations and businesses are afraid to talk about right just like everybody that's listening to this right now If you've got a salesperson on your on your team, or if you're a sales and in sales You've been asked about the competition before well How much on your website do you talk about the competition right now?

Marcus Sheridan: And I'm not saying that you should reference anything negative there But you should absolutely be talking about the competition because the marketplace wants to know and they're asking you these questions, right? That's an example. Most most don't talk about it. Most don't talk about the negatives. What could go wrong?

Marcus Sheridan: What are the drawbacks like you're a hub spot partner? I'm a hub spot partner We openly talk about the drawbacks the negatives problems with hub spots and uh, you know, I remember the first time I wrote about the problems in the hub spot That was probably like 2011 and um That's uh, that was one of my primary lead generators for a long time, you know, as an agency and so you don't hide from the negative, but too many companies want to, right?

Marcus Sheridan: They just bury their head in the sand.

James Lawrence: That's

Marcus Sheridan: it. I

James Lawrence: think like the book references that, right? Like the reality is, is that I think the reference in the book is to buying a Ford Mustang, you know, 20 something model and it's kind of like, If you're looking at buying that car, you don't want to read the good reviews.

James Lawrence: You want to read the bad ones, right? You actually want to know what the drawbacks of the car are, what the issues are, because that's, it doesn't matter how you frame it. That's what is in the mind of the prospective client, right? Prospective customer.

Marcus Sheridan: Well, to that, what's really interesting about today's buyer is, and all of us have learned to do this.

Marcus Sheridan: The only time we research what's wrong with something. What's negative about something what could go wrong with something I'm talking about a purchase is when we're serious about buying it. That's the only time the only time somebody's going to search online. What are the problems of fiberglass pool?

Marcus Sheridan: If they want to buy a fiberglass pool, right? Somebody searching one of the problems with HubSpot. It's because they're interested in buying HubSpot. That's how it works. But you know, what's crazy is most companies won't talk about what's wrong with the thing, you know, we talked about the problems with fiberglass pools, that articles made over a couple million dollars in revenue attribution so far, right?

Marcus Sheridan: Because the greatest way in life to resolve a concern is to address it before it becomes a concern. Yeah. Best salespeople know this, the best marketers know this. And so, you know, what happens oftentimes is because we don't like to address the sticky subjects, the hard subjects, they get asked to us during the sales process, by that point, it's probably too late anyway.

Marcus Sheridan: But if you get asked, that means you're on your heels. You're being reactive. So proactivity is the key to any great content strategy and framework. And that's why they ask you answer works so very well, but it forces you to think way more like a consumer, like a buyer, less like a business, like a And that's a good thing, by the way.

Marcus Sheridan: It's a very, very good thing.

James Lawrence: Can we, um, can we jump into the crux of the book, right? I think like, obviously it's about obsessing over your customer, what's in their mind, their journey. Um, what I want to talk later on just about the buyer journey and it has changed, right? Like 30 years ago. Us as brands have the control.

James Lawrence: You walk into a car dealership to buy that Mustang. It's the car dealer. It's the sales guy on the floor that has the brochure, has the specs. Yeah,

Marcus Sheridan: 30 years ago, we had a sales process. Today, we've got a buying process. That's how it works. It's no longer a sales process. You think it is, you're wrong. Uh, you're, you're, you're sorely, sorely mistaken because the business is no longer in charge of that game.

James Lawrence: Yeah, that's it. So, premise of the book, they ask you answer, obsess over your customer, what are the things going on in their brain? You as a brand, as a business can share. Yeah, and I would say there's a quick,

Marcus Sheridan: there's a quick way you can audit yourself when they ask you answer. Yeah. Number one, gotta be willing to talk about that which nobody's willing to talk about in your space.

Marcus Sheridan: Number two, You got to be willing to show via video what nobody else is willing to show in your space. And then number three, you got to be willing to sell in a way. Nobody else is willing to sell in your space. So tell, show, sell. Those are the three fundamental actions that we've got to be willing to do.

Marcus Sheridan: And again, in a way that others are doing in our space, or at least the majority are doing in our space. Listen, if the content on your website, just pretty much like everybody else in your space. It ain't good. You might think it's good, but it's not going to resonate with the marketplace. If the videos you have on your site are just like everybody else, some glorious about us video, you ain't good.

Marcus Sheridan: You're not going to get traction. If you're selling today, like you were three years ago before COVID, I'm sure is day that you are getting left behind by the marketplace because we shouldn't be selling today like we were before COVID. Because the marketplace has changed, right? So what you just said a second ago, the studies today show that today's buyers somewhere between 70 to 80 percent through the buyer's journey.

Marcus Sheridan: Before they reach out to a company they are vetting us to death. That's what's happening and To this what does it mean? It means the sales department is handling less of that Buying process that buying decision than ever the marketing department is handling more than they ever have Which is why the two departments should be more overlapped than they've ever been Because marketing should be responsible for revenue, fluffy stuff anymore.

Marcus Sheridan: Sales should be responsible for some marketing activity, like being a subject matter expert, maybe for videos, things like that, that should be on the website because oftentimes they're the most familiar with some of those answers to buyer questions. So many companies do not understand this reality go back 25 years internet's just getting started You know by the time we reach out to a company james for 20 to 30 percent through the buyer cycle, right?

Marcus Sheridan: Through the buyer's journey. Yes today. We're at 70 to 80 Tomorrow we're going to be somewhere around 90 this number will not go back Everybody needs to swallow that pill. That's the huge massive pill Every organization has to swallow and then there's the second trend. This is one has been catapulted since covid You And it's just taken off, which is this study by Gartner.

Marcus Sheridan: 33 percent of all buyers say they would prefer to have a seller free sales experience. I'll repeat 33 percent of all buyers say they would prefer to have a seller free sales experience for millennials. The number is 44%. So what does this mean? Well, I don't think it necessarily means that we don't ever want to talk to a salesperson, but here's the reality that we got to all swallow.

Marcus Sheridan: We do not want to talk to a salesperson until we are good and ready to talk Said salesperson. That's the key And if we don't feel fed if we don't feel prepared if we don't feel ready We don't feel knowledgeable if we don't feel like we have our ducks in a row. We're not going to engage And so the companies that are willing to help them feel those things Because they're giving the information that they want when everybody else will not Because they're not hedging it saving it for that face to face interaction with the salesperson, which is ridiculous in 2022 and beyond So for the company that's that's not thinking that way is it instead thinking our buyers are not dumb?

Marcus Sheridan: They're going to get the information that they want. So we're going to make sure they get it from us. We're going to be a part of every conversation. We're not going to hide. We're not going to be the ostrich with their head buried in the sand. We're going to lean into it. Whatever it is, question, worry, fear, issue, concern.

Marcus Sheridan: We're going to go at it aggressively. And so that's the key. That's what they ask you answer is. And that's why it's fundamental because of those two numbers, that 70 to 80 percent number in the 33 percent seller free number.

James Lawrence: And do you, do you see, I feel here in Australia that so many businesses are still so overly sales orientated where you've still got this more traditional structure, which is kind of marketing brings, you know, the leads in, but then it's all sales driven.

James Lawrence: It's kind of driven by sales budgets. And if sales isn't performing. It's blame marketing. Do you still, do you see the flip is happening where revenue departments are being led by marketers, not salespeople in America, or do you think it's kind of a continuation of the same? Yeah, what we're

Marcus Sheridan: seeing more of is the, it's the really forward thinking companies.

Marcus Sheridan: A lot of them have revenue teams where there's a lot more interaction between what would be traditionally considered sales and marketing. A lot more overlap there. Um, You know, look, just look at the explosion of e commerce and B2B. Just think about that for a second. Clear explosion of e commerce in, in B2B.

Marcus Sheridan: This goes back to the seller free. This goes back to in, look, listen, if something is the e commerce sale, who gets credit for that? The sales department and marketing. I mean, it's the majority of time that ain't the sales department that made that sale the majority of the time. And so we all see the shift.

Marcus Sheridan: A lot of companies don't want to recognize it or accept it as true or whatever it is Um, you know, i've got a lot of clients in australia, new zealand a lot of companies do and they ask you answer there And to your point you're accurate james There's resistance, but you know what there was there was in 1996 97 this very interesting thing happened to salespeople Many of them were forced to do this thing called electronic mail 1996 1997 a lot of them didn't want to do it A lot of them pushed back and a lot of them got left behind.

Marcus Sheridan: And how does it go for those people? Not too well. We're in another, you know, we're in another era, just like that of continuous rapid change and growth. And there's companies that are wanting to get on board, but you know, there's companies that didn't want to get websites and how to work out for them.

Marcus Sheridan: This is like, you know, it just keeps, it just keeps going, right? There's companies that don't want to do video and ain't going to work out for them. Eventually we're going to say there's companies that don't want to have anything to do with web three, which by the way, I don't think you need anything to do with web three right now, but eventually you will, you will.

Marcus Sheridan: And so even though I'm not worried about it today so much, there will come a day when I'm going to, I'm really lean in because that's what the marketplace is asking for. You see, they ask you answer. Isn't just the questions they're asking is how do they want to buy, right? What, what are their behaviors?

Marcus Sheridan: What are their preferences? Can I meet them where they are letting go of this idea that I've got to be fully in charge of the sales process

James Lawrence: and that's classic marketing right market orientation it's about putting yourself in the in the shoes of the prospect not your own brand right

Marcus Sheridan: yeah what's interesting though is that's the great divide on the internet is companies certain https: otter.

Marcus Sheridan: ai

Marcus Sheridan: And think like a buyer I believe it could but just something they just won't allow themselves to And they'll find every reason excuse not to just like there's people listening to this podcast right now that i've already said This don't apply to me. You're saying that You are currently being left behind.

Marcus Sheridan: That's like the person that's sitting at the beach in a lounge chair. The tide is coming in and they're thinking, I still want to move my chair. Go to get wet. The tide will not stop because we don't move the chair. We eventually always move the chair, even though we're comfortable. Even though we don't want to move everything, we move the chair.

Marcus Sheridan: It's what happens. And so if you're listening to this right now, your company ain't different. It's not special. It's not unique when it comes to this fundamental emotion of trust. That's really what, what's the catalyst of they ask you answer. It's how can we become the most trusted voice in our space?

Marcus Sheridan: Well, we've got to give more guys got to say more. We're going to make it easier for them. We got to tell them, teach them. That's what we got to do.

James Lawrence: Can we talk about adoption? Like, cause I think. The audience in the pod, they're marketers, right? So I think a lot of what is in the book, a lot of what you're saying, a lot of my perspective, I think we're all in alignment, right?

James Lawrence: I think often

Marcus Sheridan: we're not in alignment, James. No, no. But in terms of how many, how many marketers talk about in the B2B service based business are talking and pushing hard to talk about costs and price on their website right now, most are, that's fair. That's just Fall in line with what is traditional in their space most.

Marcus Sheridan: And that's sad because we're creative. We're good, we're better. Now, that doesn't mean they want to, it means they do. I think as marketers we have to push harder. We can't accept less. Do you know how many emails I've gotten over the years from marketers that have said to me, Marcus, I'm so sick and tired of it because I know they ask you answer would work, but the problem is I can't get by it.

Marcus Sheridan: Now, part of that problem is because we got to stop talking like marketers. I swear they should have an entire, like in marketing school or university, they should have an entire. gear on just how to communicate with sales and leadership so that we can influence them. Because if you want to influence leadership, you got to talk like a leader to the business.

Marcus Sheridan: If you want to influence sales, you have to talk the language of sales. What we can't do is we can't sound like marketers. The reason why they ask you answer Has been outrageously successful at moving ceos to the side of we need to spend more on marketing It's because it doesn't sound Like it was written by a marketer and I know it might sound like i'm oversimplifying this This is fundamental.

Marcus Sheridan: It's critical. And this is why we're seeing so many frustrated marketers. This is why the average CMO lasts shorter today than they've ever lasted within their organization, less than 18 months on average for CMOs around the world is a lot of frustration, a lack of buy in still. But we have to look at ourselves and blame leadership.

Marcus Sheridan: We've got to get better as marketers

James Lawrence: because that's what that's what I'm coming from, right? Like how? How do we do it? Because it is like I think if you read the book, it's compelling, right? And I think we all agree.

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah,

James Lawrence: putting ourselves in the mind of the buyer answering questions. Um, often I do find down here that it's not marketers that don't want to push the envelope that don't want to open up the gates around information and trust.

James Lawrence: It's roadblocks that you get from sales departments. Right? No way are we talking pricing on the website or from C suite, which is what this should work in three months. This should work in a month. You know what I mean? I'm used to spending money on marketing and getting results when I do want to get to later on in the pod in terms of.

James Lawrence: How do we judge success? How long does it take in your experience? But I think from your experience of putting this into organizations, why

Marcus Sheridan: are we failing? Let's talk about that first.

James Lawrence: Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan: Okay. Why are we failing to get the buyer? So you've been to inbound before you're going to go to, uh, what was it called?

Marcus Sheridan: SMX in Europe this year. I think you might go to that, right? You go to inbound and you say, how many of you are marketers in this room? 95 percent raised their hand. And then you say, how many of you are owners? Couple percent raised their hand. How many of you are sales professionals? A couple percent raised their hand.

Marcus Sheridan: Okay. So here's what happens. We go to the inbounds of the world. We get fired up, we get moved, we want to take action. And so we go back to the office as marketers. We present to our team. What we heard. And because they weren't there, what do they say? Just not into it.

James Lawrence: Yeah,

Marcus Sheridan: they didn't catch the vision.

Marcus Sheridan: They were in that state of high learning So I tell marketers all the time what would happen if you went to the ceo of your company? And you said to the CEO, listen, I know I've got X, Y, Z budget to go to X, Y, Z event this year, but because it's so important to me that you catch the vision, I would like to ask for you to go in my stead.

Marcus Sheridan: So I don't want the company to spend any money on me when I asked for you to go, would you be willing to do that? Now, how many marketers have ever made that offer to somebody on their leadership team or, or the CEO of their company, whomever, whomever they really need to get that buy in from. I can tell you not, not a lot, not a lot.

Marcus Sheridan: Every sales manager should be at those conferences and leadership teams should be at those conferences, but they're usually not there, James. And that's one of our biggest problems. People ask me all the time, how can I get my team to buy into the ask answer? My first answer, and this sounds terrible, but it's like, don't try to teach the ask you answer to your team.

Marcus Sheridan: Instead, here's what you need to do. You need to go to the CEO, the leadership team, or the salesperson, whoever you say. I read a book that I think, I think could be very important for our business. If I gave it to you, would you be willing to read it and discuss it with me? Literally. That's it. Yeah. That's it.

Marcus Sheridan: Person's going to say, yes. And then you say, can we discuss it in two weeks when you're done? Yeah. And they're going to say, okay. Because he's. Yeah. You see if you go to somebody in your company you say listen We need to talk about cost and price on our website We need to talk about what could go wrong the negatives on our website We need to talk about the competition We need to talk about the good the bad and the ugly we need to talk about pros and cons of our products and services On our website.

Marcus Sheridan: They're gonna say you're nuts. You're crazy. You don't understand right? So Instead of doing that, you know, there's an old saying, James, it says you can be a profit to the world, but nobody listens to you in your hometown. Right. And so there's some amazing marketers out there, amazing, but nobody listens to them.

Marcus Sheridan: Why? Because they're a profit in their hometown. That's the problem. That's the problem. Sucks. Really sucks bad. But you know, this is why, you know, you have, I have spoken to companies, many companies, because. There has to be oftentimes an outside influence for that light bulb to finally come on. So that's just a couple, I'm just throwing out a couple of things.

Marcus Sheridan: Our vernacular has got to change the way we perceive getting by and has got to change. We've got to recognize that we can't sound like marketers. Got a lot of work to do. Uh, and I'm not trying to throw marketers on the bus. My passion is because I want so bad for all the creatives that are listening to this right now, to be able to achieve their greatness.

Marcus Sheridan: Because a lot of people listen to this are stallions. And what happens when a stallion is fenced in? One of two things. A stallion either dies, or they jump the fence. Because stallions are born to run. And so, there's people listening to this right now, that feel like a stallion, that are fenced in, that are pent up, and that just feel like, I can't keep doing this.

Marcus Sheridan: I can't, I can't keep doing my job with my, my, my hands tied behind my back. You're going to jump the fence and that's, you're going to be unhappy forever.

James Lawrence: And that's the reality. I don't know what it's like in the States. I think it's similar to here. It's a hot job market, right? And the reality is market, good marketers have choice and there's certain, I think you have, um, in any organization, you could, you know, there's, there's pros, there's cons, there's stakeholder management.

James Lawrence: You're going to run up against roadblocks, but if fundamentally it's impossible to get things moving, if done the right way, then you will jump the fence, right? Like that's just, it's, it's what we say. But yeah, I think, I think it's an, um, it's a, it's an interesting observation and, um, the stakeholder management bit is, is key.

James Lawrence: And it's, it's often it's a common theme on the pod. We, um, you know, I've already probably given, given the secret away Marcus, but the last question will be what's your one piece of advice for the in house market is trying to make their way through. And, um, I reckon half the time the answer is talk revenue.

James Lawrence: You know, don't don't marketing, um, can't be, you know, there's, there's a certain reputation or stigma in certain businesses about marketing and we have a responsibility to have a proper seat at the table and let's talk about revenue and money and numbers and then go off and do the marketing stuff to the side of that, right?

Marcus Sheridan: That's, that's exactly right. Marketers have to be also, by the way, social animals. We've got to be very good. At developing trust across departments. And we gotta, we gotta get along well with the sales. We gotta get along well with leadership. We have got to elevate every room that we go in. In the organization.

Marcus Sheridan: That's our job. That's our job and uh, it might not be fair But you know what? I don't think life's supposed to be fair, you know, I I think we Um reap what we sow, right? So let's go out there and let's let's get it and let's let's as we're one last thing I'll say just for marketers in general These are things that you should be discussing when you're in a job interview, by the way, you should be interviewing the company that is interviewing you just as hard as they're interviewing you.

Marcus Sheridan: It's not harder. You should find out what they're willing to talk about. You should vet them and you should make sure that they want to be honest, that they want to be transparent, that they want to be creative, that they want to push the envelope, that they want to do video, that they're not sitting there saying, no, but we're special.

Marcus Sheridan: We're different. We can't do those things. Right. Because. You know, even if you get, even if you get more money, you're not going to be happy because you're not using your gift. You're not using your genius, right? Cause you're born to run, got to create, that's what we do. And so keep that in mind as this market, to your point, James, is hot.

Marcus Sheridan: Many people right now are looking, but make sure that you vet them well.

James Lawrence: So it's a genuine mating of equals, right? Can we, um, can we just jump into the actual content side of things? The big five, the book talks about five types of content that, um, that you break things into. And, um, I don't, I don't want to give away too much.

James Lawrence: I think, um, marketers listening should go out and buy a copy of the book, but let's, um, just in terms of conceptually the big five, those, those buckets of content that you kind of divide things into.

Marcus Sheridan: Big five is, is really to me. Somebody said, what's the most important element of they ask you answer the book.

Marcus Sheridan: It's the big five. The big five are the five subjects that buyers and consumers. We're all obsessed with that. We all research online before we reach out to a company. We've seen the pattern of the big five and about 99 percent of all the companies that we've ever worked with before. They literally run the search economy.

Marcus Sheridan: They run it. And what's fascinating about these five things. Is even though buyers and consumers are obsessed with them businesses don't like to talk about them Here's the five number one as buyers consumers. We want to talk about or learn about cost price rates, etc That's number one. Even if we can afford it.

Marcus Sheridan: We want to understand cost and price number two We want to understand problems. In other words, how could this go wrong? How could this blow up in my face? Negatives issues concerns. Okay, so problems is number two. So we got costs and problems number three comparisons You We love to compare stuff online.

Marcus Sheridan: This versus that. How many times have you gone to Google and typed in this versus, whatever this is, versus that. X product versus Y product, right? X company versus Y company. I've done it a million times. And so the key is we got to be willing to address those. Your sales teams address those many, many times, right?

Marcus Sheridan: You should on your website. Number four, reviews. We're obsessed with reviews, but we expect reviews to be unbiased and we expect them to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly, the pros and the cons. Best reviews talk about that. And so we should be talking about that as well for our own products every single time.

Marcus Sheridan: And then finally, number five is a big five is best most top, but you know, how many times have you searched best such and such in Google before, if you're listening to this hundreds of times, so those five costs, problems, comparisons, reviews, and best, again, they run the economy, but businesses don't like to generally talk about these things.

Marcus Sheridan: I will tell you right now. That roughly 75 80 percent of the content on your website should directly or indirectly relates to these five subjects

James Lawrence: because it's the stuff that's and if they

Marcus Sheridan: don't you ain't getting traction like you want I can tell you

James Lawrence: that's the real questions in the buyers brain right those five

Marcus Sheridan: that's what they want to know.

Marcus Sheridan: Those are, that's what, so, like, let's break this down for, let's say, a fiberglass swimming pool, okay? So if it's a fiberglass pool, it's, you know, fiberglass, how much does a fiberglass pool cost? Or how much does an in ground pool cost? Or how much does a concrete pool cost? How much does a vinyl liner in ground pool cost?

Marcus Sheridan: All those are separate questions. All those important questions are questions I'd want to answer on my website. Problems. Are fiberglass pools ugly? Are fiberglass pools cheap? Do fiberglass pools pop out of the ground? Do fiberglass pools look like a bathtub in your yard? I mean, there's, There's tons, there's tons of, do fiberglass pools crack?

Marcus Sheridan: Okay. All those are negatives problems. Hey, is it true that I heard that? Okay. Those are problem statements versus statements, fiberglass versus concrete, which is best for me. Uh, fiberglass pools versus vinyl liner pools, you know, which is the best option. Right. So that's another example, but there's other versus, you know, uh, uh, stamp concrete versus brush concrete for your pool patio, which is the best option, right?

Marcus Sheridan: So that's, those are versus, right. And then you have reviews, right? This might be a review of the top five, right? You know, fiberglass pool manufacturers in Australia, right? That's an example of one. And then finally you got best, which is, you know, who are the best fiberglass pool builders in Sydney, Australia, right?

Marcus Sheridan: That's, that's a, that's an example of something that many people would search, right? Which by the way, fiberglass pools were really founded. In Australia, just if you're listening to this, you're from, from, if you're an Aussie, uh, you know, the market is just, is rich with fiberglass pools in Australia and in America, most manufacturers, they came from some type of Australian heritage.

James Lawrence: Interesting. Didn't know that. I didn't, didn't think I'd learn that on the pod today, Marcus. You learned it today, my friend. Can we talk, um, Industry, B2B, B2C, short buyer cycle, long buyer cycle, what are the, we've got a business down here, Appliances Online, probably really similar to the Yale Appliances example in the book, which is Appliances and they've done this incredible job of videos and demos and lots of content for each of their products and comparisons.

James Lawrence: Where do you find they ask you answer works absolutely at its best? Um, and other, other industries where, yeah, sure, it, it, it plays a role, but it isn't as fundamental to kind of being transformative. Yeah.

Marcus Sheridan: The ask, you answer works really well if, um, buyers have a lot of questions during the research process.

Marcus Sheridan: That could be in the B2B, that could be in the B2C, it certainly applies to services as well, right? So, so, I mean, there are certain ones where it just always cleans house. To your point, like, like, uh, like a high end retail, like furniture, like appliances, where there's just so many questions that people are researching.

Marcus Sheridan: It does incredibly well with that. You know, it's like you might say, well, what, where would they ask you answer? Not necessarily crush it. I mean, and by the way, it would work with a lot of areas, but it wouldn't like you wouldn't have as much, much direct, um, results like a restaurant. For example, you're not going to ask, answer every question in the world about, you know, your food.

Marcus Sheridan: If I'm a restaurant, I've got a full time videographer and all I do is I create videos about, you know, stories of my, my customers, my people, but it's, it's not, it's a straight, they ask you answer play if I was a restaurant, for example, right. But a B2B service based business, heck yeah. Right. So like, you know, uh, as an inbound marketing agency, right.

Marcus Sheridan: It's like, how much does it cost to hire an inbound marketing agency? It's an example. You could compare, you know, different agencies, you know, against each other. It's a, it's one example. I mean, there's a lot. You can compare different software, different tools, you know, HubSpot, you know, versus Salesforce, you know, which is the best CRM, you know, for me, right?

Marcus Sheridan: That's an example of, of, you know, type of, you know, traditional B2B service based question. There's so, so many, if you're really open to the way people search and the way that they are learning online.

James Lawrence: Is it too simple to suggest that the longer the buyer journey, the bigger the ticket price, the better it works?

Marcus Sheridan: Well, Google doesn't fully agree with that. And what we find is, um, the more someone is afraid to make a purchasing mistake. The better it works because the more we're afraid to make a mistake, the more time we'll spend. I mean, Google's done a bunch of things. Like, I mean, they did this one, they did a study on just how much content are people willing to consume.

Marcus Sheridan: And they said, you know, we found this one particular searcher was looking for a candy as a gift for a friend to send to them. But they researched like a hundred and some pages online before they chose the right candy, a hundred and some fricking pages. Right. So it's like, okay. You would say they spent 10 bucks on candy, but yet they researched a hundred some pages wide because they valued the relationship with their friend and they wanted the gift to mean a lot, right?

Marcus Sheridan: So that's an example of how valuing the decision is really the key. Some people are, you know, let's say you're super rich and you're flippant and you just make a buying decisions on a whim. Well, in those moments, That person is just they're not going through much of a buyer's journey, right? Because they're just like, Oh, that looks good, whereas somebody else might say, this is, you know, there's people that could take a week to go through the process of buying a swimming pool.

Marcus Sheridan: There's people that take five years,

James Lawrence: right? And most people with the pool example, it's an important purchase, right? Regardless of. The money involved and how wealthy you are or not that you, you want. You got a one shot deal, right? You want to scrape your

Marcus Sheridan: backyard.

James Lawrence: Yeah, that's it, right? So it's I think anything household, functional.

Marcus Sheridan: Very much so, very much so. So it works great in those areas. But again, if you're B2B service, I mean, we've got 50 percent of our clients, 50 percent probably the practitioners if they ask you answer B2B. And we've just had unbelievable success, uh, within the beast, within the B2B space.

James Lawrence: Yeah. And I think that's a big, for us B2B, it's a highly emotional purchase.

James Lawrence: Just because it's not your money doesn't mean it doesn't matter, right? You're looking at your job and job security and how you progress through. Oh yeah. You don't want

Marcus Sheridan: to screw up, right? Because there's a lot riding your jobs, riding on it. You're, you know, your, your performance is riding on it. You want to make the right decision for the company, right?

Marcus Sheridan: Sometimes. People will do way more research in a B2B, uh, purchasing cycle than they will. And then they say, well, what about multiple decision makers? That's dumb because you know, when people are buying a swine pool, there's multiple decision makers. You know, it's oftentimes there's a couple, there's kids, you know, it's like a whole family, right?

Marcus Sheridan: Those are, that's a multiple decision makers. That's the board, right? Yeah. And so it's just like, again, you know, what's interesting, James, whenever companies are really latched on to this, like, I just don't see how this applies to us. They're just not very good at marketing. You're not.

James Lawrence: And like a lot of this to me is the, um, a lot of, I do a reasonable amount of speaking.

James Lawrence: And often you, you're speaking to business owners, business leaders, not always marketers, right? And there's still this misconception around attribution. It's like, well, if we're spending X on digital marketing this much on Google or on LinkedIn or Facebook, I expect wine return. And it's like you're selling a seven figure software piece that has a panel of people through procurement.

James Lawrence: You've got hundreds, if not thousands of touch points digitally and offline. You're probably right in the wave or not of conferences and events that took place 5, 10 years ago. It's insanity to think you're going to measure this from a three month digital campaign and, and this is that right? Like Google's data around going the path to purchase of buying a car is 900, 900 touch points, right?

James Lawrence: It's the two adults in the family. It's multiple devices. So it is putting yourself properly into the shoes of the buyer journey as opposed to trying to artificially manipulate and make it work based on your business cycles and quarterly planning, right?

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, you know, sometimes people say, you know, really, how long should it take all this stuff that we're talking about to work, right?

Marcus Sheridan: And. There's a reason why if you read the book, they ask you answer, you're going to see different parts. There's a whole marketing section, then there's a whole sales section, and then there's a whole video section, and there's a whole implementation section. So when it comes to sales, we screw up a lot as marketers because isn't it a tragedy when we're out there producing all this content, and so often the sales team don't even know it exists.

Marcus Sheridan: They're not integrating it into their sales process. If you want your content to work for you tomorrow, the most important thing you can do right now is make sure That your sales team is integrating it intentionally into the sales process And we call that in the book assignment selling and if you're listening to this right now, you can google it But that's how you can ensure immediate results with your content marketing content production efforts Because just think of the value of the marketing department If you're producing content that is shortening sales cycles and increasing closing rates You So let's say you never got a visitor from Google again, you never got an additional lead from your content.

Marcus Sheridan: Could you justify its worth? Right? That's a beautiful challenge. The only way you could do it, and you can do it big time, because I've done it, is you've got to make sure the sales team knows how to integrate it into the sales process. For example, let's say you produce this amazing cost price piece of content, which really explain the industry and why some companies are expensive and why some companies are cheap and why some No, you talked about, you know, what drives cost up and what drives cost down and really explain all these things about the industry so that they said, okay, now I understand.

Marcus Sheridan: And now I understand why you're 10 percent more. And of course that I can now justify why you're 10 percent more because you explained it so well, because I read this thing that you gave, like, if, if they could integrate that into their sales process, as soon as it starts before they had the first meeting, how the conversation be different, it would be different.

Marcus Sheridan: I guarantee you, it would be different. And so that's what we're talking about here. And that's why, you know, when, when somebody says, yeah, it takes, you know, it takes about, You know, six months, 12 months, 18 months for content marketing. Ask your answer, whatever you want to call it to really take off. Well, I'd say, well, it sounds like sales ain't involved because if sales was involved in this process, you start working tomorrow.

James Lawrence: I like that. I think that's a really good takeaway, right? For marketers, if you're wanting to actually. Get some rubber on the road early. It's working with sales to arm them in it. And I think, you know, so much in the book is about how do you pull insights and how do you actually get into the mindset of customer and often sales teams are a brilliant place to start, right?

James Lawrence: Because most of the most of the questions that. Are in the minds of your prospects, they're asking to your sales team and most of the time they're pretty similar. 100%. Where do you say that they ask you answer sits with content marketing and inbound? Like they're obviously all kind of related in some ways, they're connected.

James Lawrence: How do you kind of describe that?

Marcus Sheridan: They're very related. In fact, they were born from those two things. They ask, answer is just my way of putting a framework around them because if you, if here's what's interesting to me, uh, and I'm going to give you a little trade secret here, but, um, that's not really a trade secret.

James Lawrence: We're recording here, Marcus.

Marcus Sheridan: You own an agency, right? You own an agency. And so I, you know, my agency sells against agencies. My favorite question to ask somebody in the sales process and I taught my sales team to ask this they ask the prospect so Um the agency you're working with are they going to help you or they're going to guide you?

Marcus Sheridan: Are they going to produce for you? Uh content and uh answers are always yes, uh in some way shape or form, right? They're either going to guide them or they're going to produce it for them. And then the next question is okay So what framework do they use for their content production process? And the prospect every time says, what do you mean framework?

Marcus Sheridan: It's like, you know, like framework, like what is the engineered plan that they follow in order to produce effective content every single time? And nobody ever has an answer. They ask you answer was the first true, true content framework. Written for the digital age. Yeah. That's what makes it special.

James Lawrence: Nice.

James Lawrence: And the last part of the book that I'd like to just get into his video, you write a lot in the book about why video special, why it's important and how to get it moving through an organization. If we can just touch on that.

Marcus Sheridan: Well, everybody has this gut feeling that they know videos taking over visuals, taking over, right?

Marcus Sheridan: Of course that was catapulted a hundred years for pretty much with COVID. Right. I mean, we jumped, we jumped 10 years in three is what we did. We jumped 10 years in three. We can't just tell it, got to show it because if you're selling it and everybody else is telling it, it's just noise until you show it.

Marcus Sheridan: Because seeing is believing, right? Yeah. And so, uh, our customers need to feel like they've heard our voice before we've ever met them. They've seen our face before we've ever met them. And that they know us before we've ever met them. And if we achieve those things, we'll achieve trust. And again, when we talk with somebody, they should literally say stuff like, you're just like you are in the video or whatever.

Marcus Sheridan: It's like, that's the way it is. You've heard that before, James. You meet somebody who's like, yeah, you're just like I thought you were because I listened to your podcast all the time, right? They know your voice. They know the way you think.

James Lawrence: There's an intimacy there, right?

Marcus Sheridan: Right. There's an intimacy. That's a great word for it.

And so we've got to level up in a time where we're becoming more digital and less quote, human video can humanize us and hold, hold that humanity that we're, that we're losing. And so, uh, everybody needs to be all in it, all in on it, including sales teams.

James Lawrence: Excellent, Marcus. Mate, it's been awesome having you on the pod.

Thank you for your time. I think I've just been scribbling notes here as we've been talking and just so many awesome takeaways for listeners to the pod. I think just that top line obsession over the customer and what's going on in their brain as opposed to what's going on in your brand. Um, Trust, trust, trust, trust, trust.

And the reality is, is that the buyer journey has changed. We know it, that it's the end user that has the control. If they're not finding out from your business, they're finding out from someone else's, right? Um, I love the vetting is to death analogy. I think that is real. I think it's what we do in our lives as customers and as consumers.

So let's apply it to how we market our own businesses. Um, I think just the importance of a decision being so relevant, like it doesn't matter if it's a 10 confectionary product or a 7 million piece of software, if it's an important decision, we're researching it to death, right? Um, as I said to you, I had pre warned you, what's the one piece of marketing advice that you'd give to an in house marketer listening to the pod?

Marcus Sheridan: So I said, be redundant on what we said. I'll say this. There's a lot of bad advice out there that says you need to be everywhere. That's terrible advice. You don't need to be everywhere. Find me on Instagram. You ain't. Find me on Facebook. You ain't. Where are you going to find me? LinkedIn. And I crush it on LinkedIn.

Put my eggs in the LinkedIn basket for social media, because I learned early on that if you tried to be a Jack of all social media trades, you'll be a master. None. So focus on being a master of one with your strategy. You know with River Pools, we became the most trafficked swimming pool website in the world, didn't do any social media for like the first six years and everybody's like Cuz I'm gonna be the Wikipedia pools.

You see Wikipedia on Facebook? No, so sure I got Facebook today, but that was after I became a master.

James Lawrence: Yeah

Marcus Sheridan: So become a master and then move on.

James Lawrence: Music, music to my ears and to the customers of rocket, the clients of rocket, it's definitely what we preach, right? Which is go deep at something. Don't go broad at lots of things and do it superficially.

Marcus, thanks so much for coming onto the smarter marketer podcast. Hopefully we catch up sooner rather than later at a conference or something like that.

Marcus Sheridan: Yeah, I'd like that. And let me just say too. Thank you, James. And your, your clients at Rocket are lucky to have you. You all are doing good things. And so I'm, I'm glad that I was here with you.

James Lawrence: Legend. Thanks Marcus.