In this episode of Markigy Podcast, your host Leanne Dow-Weimer welcomes Casey Hill, Head of Growth at Bonjoro and Professor of Content Marketing, to break down some high-impact, low-cost strategies for capturing user-generated content. In this episode, we discuss: Why specificity is key in creating compelling, high-converting social proof How to use video to create personalized touch points throughout the customer journey What types of companies benefit the most from video testimonials? How to measure the strength of your customer relationships Low-cost ways to conduct research and gather customer feedback
User-generated content (UGC) has been trending for a while and for good reason! There’s so much value in UGC, especially video testimonials, but it’s been hard for organizations to make it actionable and part of an ongoing strategy.
When done right, creating social proof for your company will increase conversion at a low cost. Plus, when you create social proof through video testimonials, you’re taking that conversion to the next level. With video content, there’s more room for potential customers to build trust and confidence in your brand.
Today’s special guest is here to teach you how to turn customer testimonials into high-quality content for your marketing strategy.
In this episode of Markigy Podcast, your host Leanne Dow-Weimer welcomes Casey Hill, Head of Growth at Bonjoro and Professor of Content Marketing, to break down some high-impact, low-cost strategies for capturing user-generated content.
In this episode, we discuss:
You don’t have to be a large company with a big budget to get high-quality social proof that converts. You just have to know how to make it effective and impactful.
Meet the Host:
Leanne Dow-Weimer, Founder & Host of Markigy Podcast https://www.linkedin.com/in/leannedow
Meet the Guest:
Casey Hill, Head of Growth at Bonjoro
https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseyhill
Links to content here:
Visit Bonjoro’s website: https://www.bonjoro.com
Email him: casey@bonjoro.com
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Markigy: The Science of Marketing Strategy in your favorite podcast player.
This episode was produced and brought to you by Reignite Media.
Casey Hill Edited
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Hello. Hello. I am joined today by Casey Hill, the head of growth at Bonjoro. He is an institutional consultant. He is the founder. He does so many amazing things and wears so many hats, and I'm so happy to have you here today. Casey, tell us just a quick little bit about what's going on in your life right now.
Casey Hill: Uh, thanks Lynn for having me. Uh, yeah, so you touched on some of them. The most important thing that's happening in my life is I just had a newborn, uh, four months old currently. So that's, uh, definitely a, a big shift. Um, yeah, and on the work end, I work, uh, for technology company called Bonura, and I run the growth department doing a lot of, uh, organic marketing and a little bit of kind of sales style.
I work with, uh, McKinsey and BlackRock and Goldman's and a lot of different institutional firms that are basically preparing to look at whether they should make investments in companies that are going to their Series A through series D. Um, and then I also teach, so I teach at U C S D, I teach content marketing.
Um, and so hopefully helping give some direct kind of industry experience into the educational system. Um, so hopefully helping people out in that capacity. So those are, those are some of the. .
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Awesome. I love it. And I mean, I'm so grateful that people are stepping up and understanding the, the kids in college need to be taught more than they were getting 10 years ago.
Um, but I kind of wanna circle back to something that you mentioned earlier, Bonura. So tell me about your growth direction there and what it offers and, and how that's relevant as a marketing strategy.
Casey Hill: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So Bonura does a couple different things. So one of the things Bonura does is personal video.
So we kind of saw that the, we saw this trend that was happening in market where a lot of like companies just have very kind of like stale, automated. Either lead comes in or a customer comes in, they get a series of emails, and we wanted to help companies kind of have more of that human touch of interaction.
So we created this one-to-one video platform that allowed you to quickly record a one-to-one video and say, you know, Hey, insert person's. And kind of create that connection point. And once we did that, we started getting a lot of traction there. But we also started to realize we were creating a lot of advocacy, but we wanted to showcase that advocacy in some way.
So then the second thing that we delivered at Bon Giro was the ability to gather video testimonials, to take that same kind of personalization and make that customer into a marketer, make that customer into an advocate, and take that positive experience and kind of help that brand capitalize on that more in a way that's obviously really low.
You know, in the world today where we see customer acquisition costs like rising and rising and all these teams are going through really heavy burn rates in kind of the PPC market and pay per click advertising, we're always looking for ways to help people be able to kind of organically have more of that growth.
And I think using your customers is an awesome way to do that. So those are the two kind of pillars of what, uh, Bonura is and what we're trying to do. .
Leanne Dow-Weimer: That's so cool. And I mean, I think that there's so much value in that user generate content that U G C that's been trending for a long time, but it's been hard for organizations to make it actionable and part of an ongoing strategy.
Um, so not to feel like I'm sales pitching, but you know, at the same time there's so much value in being able to capture that. Now, how, how does this differentiate between just like, you know, reposting something that someone did, you know, like let's say there was an influencer or you're doing influencer marketing.
Where, where do you see the, the value being more driven in this method and have it be repeatable, I guess, in this sense?
Casey Hill: Yeah, so, so a couple thoughts on that. So the first, I think, major challenge is that a lot of like customer. That comes into you tends to be like very generic. Like the way that most people do this is they have a little button that says like, leave us a review, right?
And an email goes out after X amount of time and leave us a review. So the first thing that we did, if we basically made it, so the survey that captures these videos asks very specific questions. So if you understand your business and you know what the pain points are, maybe that's around trust, maybe it's around the price point, maybe it's around competition.
Instead of generically asking for questions, you can ask very specific. That correspond to the specific pain points that people have. So that's what's gonna actually help drive the conversions. So that I think is an important piece of the puzzle, is like having very specific answers to very specific questions.
And, and then I think another part of this is figuring out ways to systematize it or work it into a system in a way that's a little more strategic. So you can ask specific questions of every. But you might find that there's a couple ways you can go a layer deeper. So one example of this is if someone is, if you don't have a lot of contact with them, you might wanna keep it very simple.
Ask like one specific question. , but if you use something like lead scoring in your system and you see the person super engaged and they're like a super fan, capitalize on that. Ask 'em five, six questions. They'll give you that information and you're not treating everyone the same, right? The person you have minimal contact with, the person you have a lot of contact with, so you can get kind of smart, you can use lead scoring.
Some people use things like an NPS survey. Anyone who says like nine or 10 on my NPS survey basically will get populated to leave us feedback. You can start looking at those specific spots as well as I'm a big fan and I think it's really underutilized to do social monitoring. And what I mean by that is if someone you, you have your little survey, you can drop that to someone at any time.
When people call you out, when people say positive things about you, be right there to capture them in that moment of positive attention around your. Drop in that survey right there, and often you can grab a handful of people every month just by being attentive to those social channels and capitalizing it.
Right? Then, not two months later when that moment is kind of faded, but when they've had that positive experience, right. In that exact instance.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, I, I agree. Strongly, it's a hill I will die on, is that you need to ask for feedback when the emotion is the strongest, because it'll be the most robust if you, it's just like anything else, um, psychology wise with people or, or anywhere that we see this.
Like you wouldn't, um, let's say you were dog training and you're teaching your dog to sit, you wouldn't wait a week to give it a treat. You would do it right when it's sad, like, and, and I, you know, obviously human beings are a little bit more nuanced, but you still understand. , there is a separation between the feeling in the moment and then having it fade and capturing it immediately.
Casey Hill: Yeah. Um, and it, and that just is one other quick comment on that, that also feeds into a lot of people when they're gathering testimonials, they kind of struggle. Like the biggest piece of feedback I come back with is, well, people just aren't willing to give us testimonials. People just aren't raising their hand to do it.
So one of the things I think that's really important and that kind of can be connected to that last point, is make sh make it about. Make it about their journey, their transformation. So if for instance, when someone posts, that's a really easy opportunity. You know, for instance, they just got a great result and you reach out and say, you have such an amazing journey.
Like, thank you so much for being with us over this last year. Like, would you be able to tell people about how it was going from zero to one of where you're at? And now you're making it all about them versus the opposite, which always feels like an ask from customers, can you give us a review? Can you like it?
It's a different dynamic when you're like, I wanna highlight this incredible journey, this incredible result, this incredible insert their benefit point. So I think if you do that and you high and then, but connected to that too, another thing is you can highlight the benefit to them. So the other thing is, when I have it as part of a system, when it's going out automatically, you might say something like, Hey, we're running a, a series on customer stories that we're gonna be sharing out at 20,000 of our people on our email list, and we'd love to have your logo on our homepage.
That sounds so much more enticing and interesting person's like, this is going out to a lot of people. My logo's gonna be on their homepage. That feels so much different, right? Dynamic wise than like, can you give us a review? So that's just another really important part of this conversation. Like for anyone listening, if you're struggling to get people to give you testimonials, switch that verbiage, make it more about them and their benefit and you'll get better uptake.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I think that kind of. To echo this is that when brands struggle the most, they're focusing on themselves. And when they have the smoothest, less friction, best results is when they're really actually focusing on the customer. and making it a win-win. It doesn't have to be. And, and I think this is where, you know, sales and marketing used to be very like, give me, gimme, gimme.
I'm gonna manipulate, I'm gonna pressure. It doesn't have to be like that.
Casey Hill: Yeah, yeah. No, I, I totally agree. And I think especially, I mean, in certain markets like tech, um, that I come from, it's like that's shown so prominently, like the best sales people. Are really just good consultants. They're good people that know their industry, they're experts, and it's like, it's not about that at all.
Like HubSpot published a study, which I thought was really interesting, where they showed, they had like a list of all these attributes they evaluated new hires on, and one of them was objection handling. And objection handling was like way down at the bottom, like at the top. It was like preparedness domain.
And the reason was the people who knew the industry really, really well, they were actually able to just like provide the value at the top where they weren't stuck in the defensive mode of just dealing with objections all the time. So it was actually like they didn't even have to worry about getting into that spot.
And I thought that was a really interesting takeaway from obviously one of the big tech giants out there in HubSpot to see that, you know, good sales can really just be like someone who steps in there and is honest and authentic and explains the industry in a robust. . Yeah. The
Leanne Dow-Weimer: preparedness is huge because in order to be accurately prepared, you have to go after your customer and know how it's relevant, why it matters, and, and speak to, to their actual reasons why they're talking to you, um, instead of trying to fit, you know, a square in a circle.
Yeah. And so one of the things I like the most, kind of going off on, you know, back to. The video aspect of this is that, that feeling of connectedness when we see people's faces, mm-hmm. , how do you think that impacts what you're doing? .
Casey Hill: Yeah. I think video is, is huge for a lot of reasons. Like number one is I think if we just think psychologically the, the go to a website and you see a review and your first thought, I, I'm sure that there's many people that are like me.
One of the first thoughts is like, is this even just real? Right? ? Like, did they just write this themselves and like slap on some random person's name? Right. There's not that visibility for you to understand, and so I think all of us like to feel like we can, uh, assess trustworthiness when we see a.
there's tone, there's body language, there's facial expressions, there's all these things. And in our head we're making those little cues like, okay, this is a trustworthy person or this is not a trustworthy person. So when you put video and you have someone who can build that affinity and has that tone and, and feels like, yes, this is a real person.
Um, I think that just carries a lot of impact. And I think back to a TED talk that I watched, which I've always thought was super interesting, it was a memory. He takes two rooms. He divides them in one room. He tells 'em at the very beginning. I want you to remember the word baker, right? I want you to remember the word baker.
It's a name. The other one he says, I want you to remember someone whose profession is a baker and the one that chose the profession did substantially better. And the reason for it was context. So when you think of the profession of a baker, you're thinking of maybe like the white hats and the smells.
And most people have probably been to a bakery at some point in their. Whereas with just the word, it was just a word in isolation. There's no context around it. So when you think about why video matters in terms of people being able to remember it and retention and it kind of standing out, a lot of this comes down to the context.
And that's, you know, I, I don't want to go into deep into the bio side of this, but I think that's a really interesting takeaway. Yeah,
Leanne Dow-Weimer: absolutely. And I mean, we're we. we're people that exist in multiple contexts, right? And so we already know that having just the social proof on your landing page matters.
We already know. Like it's just facts that having that social proof done correctly helps to. impact the way that you're gonna get your conversion rate on that landing page because people care what other people they want. That that sense of, okay, like this is credible, this is real, this isn't just spam, I'm not gonna get scammed on this.
But then when they can feel that connection with video is that it just takes it to the next level, in my opinion. Um,
Casey Hill: and I think too, yeah, I totally agree. And I think too, there's something to like the specificity that's also really important. So if you think about like someone saying like, oh, I've just had such an amazing experience with my brand.
I'm getting so many more demos. Like it feels very general versus someone who comes in and says, uh, before we started using insert company, we were getting 44 demos booked per week, um, across three of our reps. And over the first three months since we've implemented insert solution, we've actually increased that to 110.
We actually had to hire another sales rep just to deal with that volume. To me, at least when I hear the two, the second one is way more compelling. I'm thinking about the numbers contextualized and they're explaining all the periphery, right? Like even having to bring in a new sales rep that makes me really like, understand and relate to that person's situation.
And if I'm a smaller sales team and I hear that, I'm like, they're exactly where I wanna be in this next step. And that builds so much trust. So I think that also goes into the not only video, but asking specific questions and getting specific. insights To help that really have the persuasive power that you want it to have.
And every brand is a little bit different. And so when it comes to this, some people, it resonates with a little bit more of an emotional voice. Some people are very like quantifiable hard data to show me exactly what the impact is. So you have to know your brand a little bit, but I think either way, getting into the specifics before and after and having questions that kind of lead the person through that is how you'll have the highest converting pieces of video content that you can put onto your site.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Absolutely. I think that, you know, the questions that you're asking is one of the biggest differentiators in marketing. Um, whether like just across the board, whether it's what you're asking, you know yourself, what you're asking your data, what you're asking your customers. And um, you know, I've seen it firsthand where a series of questions, and I don't wanna call it leading the witness because that sounds manipulative, but it helps them internalize and come up.
For themselves an answer that you're hoping they would come up with, which is that your brand did what it promised it did what it said it could. It provided value and their lives are better off for it. Or if they come to the opposite conclusion, hopefully I know that I have it set up in, you know, my personal feedback loops to say, if I didn't meet that, let's have a conversation.
How can I. And, you know, that's, that's, that's an important question to ask as well is, is if this didn't meet your expectations, why didn't it? And then you start to get into that win loss interview area.
Casey Hill: A hundred percent. Yeah. And I know that's a tricky one for people, like people who are leaving or who don't convert on your trial who aren't interested.
It can be really challenging sometimes to get those pieces of feedback. But I think again, you try to be as just as human as possible with it. You know, you don't put any pressure on them around it, but really just like, Hey, we'd love to like learn from this experience and you're always gonna get a smaller percent.
of those people than obviously the active people, but even a few of those people that are willing to kind of sit down and give you some context can really help you quite a bit in optimizing your journey. So yeah, I agree a hundred percent.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think there's also that, that idea that if you're really, really truly, uh, making someone very, very angry, you'd rather hear about it sooner than, um, you know, through your own channels than find out through a post on a third party review platform when you couldn't fix it with them or you didn't have that still conversation to make things.
Casey Hill: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think those people often will, even if they were unhappy, they'll be less likely to leave that like scorching review if they feel like you came to them in earnest and were like, Hey, I'm really sorry this didn't work out. Like, I hope you find a good, you know, thing. I've even had times where I recommend specific competitors, which people think is crazy, but I'm like, I understand the importance of like the overall brand represe, like overall brand reputation.
And if they're not happy, I want them to find a spot where they're gonna have that net positive experience. And then maybe when they have the specific need that aligns with our company, they'll come back down the line or they'll refer a friend like, oh, these people are actually really like straightforward, you know?
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, absolutely. Sorry to take us down the, you know, wrong fit category, but when, whenever we're dealing with, you know, human interaction and recorded video decimals and things like that, we need to think of both sides of it. So in that sense, you know, who do you think benefits the most from this type of strategy, this type of play?
Casey Hill: I. Yeah. So are you, when you're asking that, are you asking what types of companies do you think are like kind of the best and not the best fit for, for like gathering testimonials?
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Um, a little bit of, yeah, yeah. Let's go that way.
Casey Hill: Yeah. So I, I think that a, the, to me, the majority of co company types can benefit from customer proof, but obviously we can, I think we can all think of examples like if you are a toilet paper company might be a little bit weird, right?
For you to, to go out and have testimonials. So I think there are certain industries. By their nature that are a little bit less open to that. But I find that whether you're in tech or you're in e-commerce or you're a creator, um, or you're a brick and mortar, there's a pretty wide span of company types that I do think can still benefit quite a bit from having that kind of forward human touch.
And the nature of those conversations might be really, , depending on the type of business. One is like a B2 P enterprise tech company and another one is Life Coach , right? The type of narratives that you'll see between those and one might be very much focused on emotion and and your overall personal transformation, your personal progress.
Another one might be very hard data focused, but I think both can still benefit from having. Video. So I would say that it, it's a fairly wide net when it comes to ideal industries of using video. The biggest differentiation is probably like the type of video and the presentation of that. Um, but definitely there are certain companies, if I was a toilet paper company, I probably would not be putting video testimonials, uh, out there.
So I'm sure that there is a handful where, where that would be.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Definitely. Um, you know, and, and what comes to mind too was companies that might have like HIPAA or financial privacy ones or you have to be very careful what you ask and how you ask it. Uh, definitely aside from that, um, you know, there's always a consideration for, for companies when they're looking at reputation management of who they highlight.
And doing a thorough background research of the people whose testimonials they, they feature. I am, you know, we've seen time and again in the news where a certain person may make remarks that are not aligned with brand, uh, strategies. So, you know, there's, there's that consideration. But beyond that, you know, for the most part, I would say the majority of testimonials you get seem to be pretty.
Relevant and useful is that.
Casey Hill: Yeah, and I, and I think you bring up a couple good points. Like I, I definitely think, I mean, the way that I think about it is when you're gathering testimonials, I think most companies are not gonna feature every single testimonial they gather. Maybe some will, but there's always, I think typically there's kind of a screening side of the process where you're gonna bring these in and you're gonna kind of take the ones that are the best highlights of this specific thing.
And maybe you use the other ones in some alternative capacity, but in terms of like on your. website You're gonna want those to have good lighting, you're gonna want those to have these other pieces that are going to best kind of showcase the product. And one thing that we do like in Bonjoro testimonials product is there's a little instructions panel when you start out.
And I always encourage people like, Let them know those basics about like how their lighting should be. Let them know those basics of like what kind of frame they should be using, just so that they're prepared to give you content that you can actually use. Because definitely have experienced this, like being in, been in the space for a long time.
People come to like, yeah, we got reviews, but the person's doing it from their iPhone, and it's like all janky and like, I can't put that on my website. So they end up like taking a video and like transcribing the text and then using a text anyways because they can't. use it So the way to get around that is just to try to give as clear of instructions as you can to people upfront.
Don't expect them to be the video expert. You should be the one saying like, have the light in front of you instead of behind you and or do it in front of a window or whatever type of of deal to kind of make it as easy as possible
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Definitely. And then, you know, thinking back to video testimonials that I've gathered, you know, just manually is like, there's still a way to export a frame from it and use the person.
you know, in a good pose, in, you know, the best shot from the video and you can do the moving text. Like there's different ways to make it interesting and still use that content and make it useful without it being just the clip.
Casey Hill: Yeah, totally. Yeah, absolutely. I, I a hundred percent agree with that. And I mean, that's true of so many different forums of video, right?
Like, I run a podcast called CLT v University, and one of the major things I do inside of Riverside is pull like short, concise clips from those conversations that are helpful. So if I'm doing a post about a certain concept and I just have a one minute video, um, that works great. And so I think that, that, that totally makes a ton of sense.
Yeah.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: I'm a big fan of, um, of doing exactly that with, you know, whether it's a recorded interview. Whether it's a podcast, whatever the medium is, um, you know, just taking the nuggets from it and then sharing that across multiple formats because not everybody is that visual digester, especially from longer form content.
Um, absolutely. And then, . One thing that we, we focus more on the testimonials aspect of this idea, but what about when you started off, you were talking about the individualized video to directly to people. Could you expand on
Casey Hill: that? Yeah, yeah, for sure. So when people sign up, so we're a software product.
When someone signs up for a trial, We basically have, uh, bonura connected to our system, Intercom on the backend, and it automatically pops up a task on my phone and it says, Sarah just signed up for a demo and it has all the information from the system. So I can see like their industry. Anything that I have in my CRM shows up right in that panel, so then I can quickly click record a video.
and say, Hey, it's awesome that you just signed up. I see that you're in the e-commerce space. That's phenomenal. We deal with a ton of online sellers. Some of the best things we're seeing right now are blank, blank, blank, and. . If you want a call with our team, I'm gonna attach a calendar. Feel free to book in or if you have any questions, respond directly back.
So it's just this way to have a much more immersive experience. And so many people write back and are like, number one, super surprised that the head of a growth team reached out to them. They're like, whoa, okay. Like didn't expect that. And also super surprised that like, I actually saw their website, or I saw some pieces of.
They were personalized to them. So I think when people see that little like waving gif in their inbox, almost everyone still assumes it's automated. They assume it's like they're gonna click on it and it's gonna be like, Hey, person, like welcome to the journey. They don't expect to hear their name and to hear someone who's done a little bit of due diligence.
And so I think that's a really cool experience where it just kind of sticks out. It sticks out from all the noise. So much of us, I think everyone listening to this can relate to the noise in the inbox, , we get so much stuff. And so it's just, if you have something that's so differentiated, that becomes more memorable, and then I think that builds a little bit more connection with that brand and kind of motivation.
So I think it's great to use as part of that initial, uh, touchpoint, whether that's like interacting with a new lead or whether that's interacting with a new customer. . That's the other thing too. You know, like we have so many service-based businesses where say someone's going out and getting a quote for a job from four companies.
You are the only one who reaches back out with an actual video of you who says like, Hey, thank you so much for reaching out. Just like wanted to let you know a little bit more, Hey, actually check out our team, and you're like panning the phone and showing some people behind. It's like, That feels like, whoa, no one else that they reached out to who's a for a quote is going to be doing that.
And so it kind of elevates you in terms of like your ability to really like, understand marketing or understanding that domain, like if it was an agency, for example. So I think that's a, a little bit about, um, how I think about personal video is setting the tone and then people obviously can use it throughout the customer journey to celebrate milestones with people.
Uh, we had one guy who I, I just love this use case, so I wanna share it. He, he uses it actually for support. And so he is a person who teaches people how to craft guitars, and he has this whole tool wall set up on the back. And when someone writes in a question, he has it hooked up. He uses, uh, keep, and I believe it's called like fuse desk or something.
Hopefully I didn't butcher that. . So basically all he has to do is when the support request comes in, he just clicks a little button. It tags it and keep, it, creates the Bonura video on his phone. And then he can like show the actual tool and he is like, you want to be using a something, something bevel.
And he is like showing it behind him and he is like, that's gonna help you do blah, blah, blah. And then he clicks send and he's got like a 98% open rate, 98% watch rate. Like, I've never heard of this. I, I come from 10 years of email world. Like his engagement is insane and I think it's because. It's high quality, it's video, and he's also doing it to like people with high intent people that are seeking an answer.
So there's a lot of kind of cool and creative ways to infuse it, um, throughout your customer journey, I think.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Absolutely. And then one thing that I've, I've heard of people trying to use AI for this, and this is where. I personally don't think you should use ai. Uh, I think it defeats the purpose and it ends up looking really creepy,
Uh, and that's, that's my 2 cents. You know, if, if I'm wrong, like, you know, there's plenty of great cases and AI has come so far, so fast. You know, places where AI belongs, the, the pictures on your website pulling, you know, pulling together the information that you share on your website. Absolutely. There's some really cool companies that do.
But when you're making that, that reach, that outreach to an individual on that one-on-one basis, the last thing you wanna do is make them feel marketed too. Make them feel like you couldn't be bothered. Right. Yeah. And sometimes, despite our best intentions as marketers, that's what AI does, is it makes people feel like they're.
anybody and no one wants to feel like that.
Casey Hill: Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think, I think AI is definitely big and is here to stay and like synthesizing a big data, as you said, is gonna be used in many different ways. But yeah, AI video, uh, seems tricky. for many reasons to deliver the same human experience and. I mean, there's so much like conversation, obviously we know, like I think it's like Jasper and there's so many different, like AI writing tools that have emerged.
Um, I think there's a lot of utility across some of these different tools, but. I, I think there's still a bigger gap than some people think between where that's at and like top level content that performs. I think about a lot of the stuff that I post on channels like LinkedIn are things that come directly from my own experience.
Last week I launched this campaign, and this is what it's like. And I think it's gonna take a long time for AI to be able to like emulate that type of thing. Um, it's different than going like, here's three tips to optimize your website. Like yeah, we can do that fairly quickly by just taking in a thousand blog articles and spitting out insights.
But if you have stuff that's actually human and personalized and from experience, I think that's still gonna be the type of content that stands out and drives the most impact. So, um, I think I align with, with kind of how you're thinking about that, that. Yeah, I
Leanne Dow-Weimer: see it as a major differentiator, right?
Because. At some point, anyone with a budget can just spit out AI content, right? And so how do you then differentiate your brand and your offerings to somebody when you're all using the same tools? Right? And, and the way to do that is to be aggressively. You and to accept them aggressively who? For who they are.
And I love the word aggressively and it super turns people off. Um, what I mean by this, I don't mean like violently is, I mean like earnestly, like for real, for not holding back is what I mean in this sense. Um, yeah. because that word is, you know, kind of a tricky one. But when you, when you wholesomely and earnestly take your, your ideal customer profile and you know them as a human being, as a person, and you really get deep with what that looks like, that differentiates you so dramatically, especially in this day of age where there's so many large corporations and there's so many things that can happen where you, you feel like a number and.
You know, it's the difference between going to the same restaurant every day and saying hi and having a relationship with someone. Cause you, you, you have all those touchpoints and, um, going to like a vending machine, right?
Casey Hill: Y yes, I mean a hundred percent. And I think also one of the things that I always try to be really clear with people.
I think setting, like setting a personal video is a great way to set the stage, but I also don't want to like mislead people to say like, setting a personal video and suddenly you have a relationship. No, a relationship is a two-way back and forth. Right. And so one of the things I think is really interesting is I did a, a study, I combed through all of our data and I looked at.
What was the difference in conversion? Cuz remember one of our first touchpoints is trials for people that didn't receive a video. People that received one video and either didn't respond or they responded once, and people that responded three or more times, which means that there was an actual back and forth threat.
And what we found is there was an elevation when they received one video, but it wasn't crazy. It wasn't like some like complete game changer, but the people that responded at least three times, it was a 70%. I mean massive percent lift, and that was because that was the start of an actual relationship where they were sharing things.
They were telling you about where they're at. You're sharing where you're at. Relating in some sort of actual human way. You know, just a couple days ago I was doing welcome Bongers with my four month old, and I would start the video with like the, the stroller and so many conversations kicked off and they're like, oh, I'm a new parent.
Or, oh, I remember those days, and it like had this back and forth and, you know, oh, what kind of stroller are you, U like, just things that were, you know, silly. But it was the start of an actual back and forth conversation. And so I always tell people whatever channel you use, , remember that when it comes to relationship, the measure of that is reciprocity.
And reciprocity means it's this two-way back and forth. You'll never, you can have amazing marketing in terms of conversions that doesn't build relationships. But if you see this word kind of bantered around a lot of like relationships, in my eyes, it's all around a two-way street of what, of what that means.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think that that's, The ticket to any strategy, right? Is, is how do you make it into a personal relationship between the brand, between the staff, the internal and the external? Because we've all seen marketing that just shouts into the void, and that doesn't, it doesn't hit the same, it doesn't create that stickiness, it doesn't create that loyalty on both sides, and it's, it's easier to be dismissive of it later on down the.
Casey Hill: Yeah, for sure. And it's crowded, right? Like it's a very crowded ecosystem. Like one of the things that I think is so important is that the things that were working five years ago, right, in terms of s e o in terms of, you know, a lot of these strategies they've adapted, like we're going in a new direction when it comes to content and companies today, Have to be looking at those trends, looking at what's going forward, what's happening with search result zero, what's happening with voice, what's happening with original research.
I'm a huge advocate of original research cause I think it's one of the great ways to differentiate yourself. Go out there and actually try to conduct. Real research, gather firsthand information, talk to companies, look at your own data and produce firsthand research. Uh, we have a lot of integration partners, and I've talked with Shopify and a handful of these other companies that do like state of e-commerce 2023.
You know, classy is a, uh, philanthropy type of company that gathers funding. They do like state of philanthropy 2023 Wistia does state of Video 2022, right. Or whatever the year is. Those pieces of original research are really powerful. They drive a ton of back. And there's something that I think is differential in a sea of like a million, kind of like jobs to be done articles.
Not that there still isn't utility around certain jobs to be done content, but just know that the ecosystem today is not the same as it was in the past. And because of that saturation, there's more of an onus on you to differentiate in a deeper way. Yeah, and
Leanne Dow-Weimer: and I think that that brings up the point that research isn't.
Impossible. It's not that hard. It doesn't have to be overly complicated. You just have to go talk to people and accurately reflect what you found out. And you've done it right? Like let's say, let's say you don't have a customer base that's very large. Let's say that you're starting from scratch, like you're just blank piece of paper.
What you need to do is tippity tap over to LinkedIn. LinkedIn and you know, have a message of what you're trying, you know, know what you're defining as your question. Find 20 people. Ask them your question. Record a. Or use gong where you can also get, you know, how much they talked about and, and the words out of it.
Uh, or just use the transcript and run it through something. And, and there's your, there's your research. You've, you, it's a very small sample size. When you share your findings, state that your sample size is 20 people. Yeah. But that counts still. It's starting somewhere.
Casey Hill: A hundred percent. And there, and not only that, like I think there's so many different forums today that you can lean into.
So if I'm trying to grab research, like in the SaaS, I might go to like Facebook groups like SAS founder, I might go to certain, uh, Reddit subreddits that might have some insight. I might go to places like Demand Curve on Slack, which has, you know, a lot of people that are in my space. And those people are often really open at giving you feedback.
Um, so if you have specific questions, you know, I remember like one of the first times I started this way back in the day, I was trying to understand onboarding. And I just wanted to understand what the tempo was. I was like, I don't have a sense of like how often should I contact people? And it was awesome.
How many people, I think we got 140 people that responded back letting us know their tempo. Like I messaged people four times in the first month. I messaged people three times and it was super interesting to go through that data and be like, okay, now at least I have this ballpark of what everyone out there was doing.
And it. A paid thing. It was, it was just going into these communities and, and kind of asking those questions. And I think if you do that, which helps give you a little bit of scale combined with the personal asks, where you can get a little bit more nuance, you get the scale, you get the nuance. That's a good pairing, um, where you can get some really valuable stuff that you can turn into an original content piece.
Yeah,
Leanne Dow-Weimer: absolutely. And if nothing else, then it informs what you're trying to.
Casey Hill: Yeah, exactly.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: If nothing else, you have a, a picture in front of you, a map, you know, of something to try, because what I see a lot of people do is they get so stuck on the perfect this, the perfect that, that they don't just go out and do.
And Casey, you're probably my favorite doer. Like I, I don't think of a better description of you than someone who just decides that he's gonna do something and doesn't, and that follow through. Is the differentiator. Right?
Casey Hill: Yeah. I appreciate that a lot. And I mean, definitely that's what I try, right? I, I, I attempt and I test a lot of things and, and like most people, I think a lot of these things won't work right?
But that's part of the iterative process of just putting yourself out there and experimenting. And I'll tell people that oftentimes, way more doors than you think will open. Like so many opportunities I've had were cold pitched. I teach at university now. I cold pitched uc, San Diego, and I said, Hey, I think there's a gap right now.
We don't have a lot of people from industry. We have a lot of people that have PhDs and they're great on theory, but we don't have a lot of people that are active practitioners in academia. I think I can give some real insight from the traits I look at when I hire people from my. And they said, yeah, that sounds awesome.
Like let's do this. And so, and that just came from a cold email. The first course that I did, I reached out to the company and I said, here's my idea. And they said, let's fly you out to Texas and let's record this thing. And it just came together again from a cold email pitch. Where I reached out. And for every one of those that comes together, there's many that don't.
But I think if you keep a good tempo of experimentation and reaching out, you'll be amazed at the type of doors that open. And when I launched a podcast myself earlier this year, I had Nick Meta who sold this company for over a billion dollars. And he was like, yeah, let's sit down and let's chat. And to me that was like amazing.
I couldn't believe that I was talking to someone of the caliber, uh, of Nick Meta, and that came together just from asking, right? Just from reaching out on LinkedIn and saying, Hey, you're an expert on customer lifetime value. I run a show on customer lifetime value. Let's sync up.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, absolutely. And, and I've had a similar experience.
I haven't talked to Nick Meta yet. Open Door here, Nick . Um, but you know, I think they, they, the. Rejection sensitivity that people have is somewhat in their head and that you have to just kind of get over it a little bit. And then I also wanna provide context to people who have never looked at what it takes to have a course at, uh, higher education place.
If I was gonna go today and I was gonna look for a job posting to be a professor or you know, just have my own course, at most colleges, they would have some. Overly formalized list of like wishlist of what they're looking for, because that's what they. they need, they don't know that these people are going into the workplace and it's diluting their brand as a higher education because they're just kind of bumbling around with no idea what to do.
and, but, but if, if I was gonna go today, I have a master's degree, but I wouldn't be quote unquote qualified because I don't have a PhD. That's baloney. Like I have, you know, plenty of, I, I could do it, but I've never cold pitched, I've never asked to do it. And that's where, that's, that's the difference between you and I, is that you, you saw the need, you went after it, you had a plan, you cold pitched them and, and you provided value.
And that's why you're a teacher. And, and I'm sitting here looking at job descriptions and be like, oh, but I don't have a PhD. Oh, poor me. Like, I'm not gonna, you know, I, I probably am now more inspired to go try
Casey Hill: it. Yeah, I mean, first off, a couple things on that I'll note for anyone looking to get into the education world.
Uh, first thing is I will say it was the craziest and longest. Like I'm teaching one course, right? So I'm teaching one specific course. I'm teaching it online, right? And. With all that said, I think I filled out maybe like 40 different forms. I mean, it was just insane the amount of like legwork for this like very part-time thing for a couple hours, uh, per week that you can set up.
So I'll, I'll start with that. I'll also say that I do think that the specific, the specifics for teaching, like as an online professor versus like a in class like standard curriculum may be different. I don't know. Um, that would be an interesting thing that for me to test next would be to go from teaching online classes.
Getting into the actual rooms and teaching. Um, but all that said, yeah, definitely experiment. Get your foot in the door. It can't hurt. The only caveat I will let you guys know is that education does not, uh, have a high payroll. So if your goal is to maximize dollars, probably not the best path for you. Um, but if you're looking to have an impact, I think it's, I think it.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, I, I agree wholeheartedly, , and, you know, I was just calling to it an example of a situation that seems somewhat like hostile and somewhat elitist or somewhat, um, hard to get into, hard of crack. But the thing is, is that sometimes if you're only looking at the traditional ways, of breaking into something and you're not putting your own flare on it or your own value, or thinking through it yourself in a different format that you're really selling yourself short.
Casey Hill: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. And there's often just so little downside. You know, I, I think back to the very first product that I ever created. I was in college and I was buying and selling trading cards, like, uh, magic, the Gathering, collectible, trading cards. And one night I decided I'm gonna write, uh, e.
About how to do that and I'm gonna list it on eBay. And that e guide went on to sell over $10,000 of, of guides on eBay. Right. And it was one night. And the thing is like there's so many times where it's like, okay, if that didn't work, like I write an e guide and it doesn't work, then like, what's there to lose?
Right. And after I did that, that one specifically in that niche, I tried to write like four other ones that all flop and didn't get like any sales. , but, but what was really interesting about that is that was one of my first major lessons about this kind of concept. I called Traffic and Trust. I realized like, what do I need with any product that I create?
I need traffic. And I hijacked eBays traffic cuz they had a bunch of people that were searching and I was now able to capture those keywords and grab their traffic. And then they had the built-in star system. So because I had a 99%, 99.7% positive feedback on eBay, that was the. Built in. And so that was like this eye-opening moment where I was like, wow, if I can find more ways to get traffic and to get trust, that can completely change the business.
And I think that the trust aspect is definitely like a big cornerstone of what we were chatting about today, which is just like, how do you actually build that in a real way? Um, and, and I think being relatable and being human and having all those kind of different pieces can go a long way to facilit.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, definitely. Um, and, and I think that one of the hardest things for, for companies is like, oh, well what does it even mean to be human? How do we be human? And they overthinking it and video allows that, that exchange, that dialogue without it being too edan. Um, um, . And so coming from, you know, how do you capture the traffic and the trust, where do you think marketing is going and where do you think it should go as far as, you know, ways that people can, like, narrow it down or, or strategies that might work or just things that you see on the horizon?
Casey Hill: Yeah, for sure. So I, I talked about one of them, which is original research and people kind of diving in and changing that standard like seo. . I think that's going to continue to happen over time. I think that you're going to see. There's a lot of change, like the way that a lot of these big tech companies have risen and like created these massive pockets of competition, like the CRM slash E S P game.
There's just like a million different players. I think you're gonna continue to see these, these tools like select down and become like, like Clavio as an example. Like Clavio is a tool that really was like, we're gonna stay in e-commerce. This is our lane, this is where we're gonna live. And I think you're gonna see more and more.
On that because we kind of had a, a weird world. We kinda had a situation where everyone started as point solutions. Then everyone went into the second phase that says, we all wanna be all in one. The future is all in one. You're gonna do your landing page and your text and your payment processing and everything is gonna be under one roof.
But I think that over time there's, there's never going to be able to be a perfect all in one. There's just too many pieces, right? It's like you do your membership, you do your, your landing pages, you do your payment processing. It's like this huge. So I think you're gonna see differentiation down there. I think that you're going to see more of big data impacting things like I, I had mentioned this one earlier too, but things like result zero, right?
Those things are important, right? Like nowadays, a lot of people, if they search for something and the result pops up, that's it. They don't need to click on anything. It just popped up. And they wanted to know how much does a blue whale weigh? And now it says it and they don't need to click into any article because they trust that that result is, is out there.
And. We won't have this be a whole discussion of like how you rank for result zero, but it just means that these are all considerations when you're talking in your, with your content team A, around where to go. The other thing I think is super important that I think more and more teams are embracing, and I'm happy to see this narrative is getting out.
There is more of a focus on distribution. Not just on creation of content. And so like, I think so for so long it's been like, let's create a content calendar. On my content calendar. I'm gonna post on what days I'm gonna post different pieces of content and that's it. But I think the world today is not only about how do you create content, but how do you get it in front of as many eyes as possible?
right? And so you start thinking about who are the partners? Who are the specific different mediums that are gonna help amplify this? Where are the different places I can get on and talk about this? Right? So things like webinars, things like collaborative blog articles, things like podcasts, where you're gonna get on and you're gonna have meaningful conversations.
Um, and I think that one of the things I would say for people that are thinking about their marketing plan, one of the best places to start is what I call Keystone. . So the place I would start is I would say, what do you understand about the market that other people miss? Don't talk to me about your product.
Talk to me about what you see in the market that is different, right? And have that then feedback at the very end. It can have that connection back to the product, but that, that vision of like what you understand, that becomes what you get PR around. That becomes what makes the best content. That becomes your springboard to all those different marketing opportunities that you.
lined up ahead of you. So I, I think those, I mean, we could spend a long time, I think talking about the trajectories, there's a lot of really interesting stuff that's gonna happen across the marketing realm and a lot of big changes. And I would not be surprised by any means that if 20 years from now email wasn't the major way people communicated anymore.
Oh yeah. That changed. And there's some other way now that everyone just like emails, like this old antiquated thing like, so it's gonna keep shifting gears for sure.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, absolutely. And I think. part of what you just said, the last part, like, it made me think about, you know, coming back to why, you know, like when you understand a certain part of the market and you can springboard off that, it's because you understand the, the aspirational, the inspirational, the why of it, you know, and, and that's reflected, you know, in the jobs to be done.
That's reflected in all these other different frameworks, but really it's all the same thing. If you don't understand why people care or should. Or why they should talk to you, you don't have very much to go off of. And yeah, it's, it's, it's really comes back to like that, that first point. You know, and, and if you go back even further to translate that to why someone's searching for something, it's what's their intent?
Why do they care? And, and that's, that's what makes the quality search results. And even if they aren't clicking to your. , they'll probably see your domain. They'll see your, your brand a little. and you don't necessarily have to get the traffic all the way to your page to be valuable to somebody. A
Casey Hill: and the other thing I'll say, I'll I'll say connected to the, upon a part of this too is like I'm a big fan of, of direct attribution.
And what I mean by direct attribution is asking people specifically like, how did you hear about us? And, and Chris Walker, who runs Refined Labs and has talked a lot about this in the public eye because their company does a lot around dark social and he kind of talks about how if you don't ask people direct.
Often you get very bad attribution, right? And so that's something we've leaned into heavily as an organization, has really helped us make data informed decisions. It's also super straightforward and easy. So when you look like there's so many different models, right? There's time decay and linear attribution and first and last and like, you know, there's a whole list of different ways you can look at it and, and I think.
For me, there is value in a lot of those models, but one of the most basic things that anyone can do, any startup is just ask your customers, how did you hear about us? And they're gonna tell you what they feel like they valued most. Yeah. Which in many ways is one of the most salient, important insights.
So, I think as you're going in marketing, don't get stuck in the world of just so much analytics, cuz you'll have endless access to analytics. And as someone who works with a lot of of new teams, I have absolutely spent a lot of time sitting in rooms with people that spend months and months pouring over every nuance of the analytic panels they've gotten and not executing and not taking action.
And in my eyes I'm like, Use direct attribution, get the top level stuff, and then get started. And I, I, and I, I don't wanna give the impression that I'm a person who, who disregards data. Cause I use data to inform decisions all the time, but I don't think you wanna be paralyzed by it. And that's where things like direct attribution can be really, can really, really valuable for you.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, I. The, the number one thing that people like the bone to pick that people have with, uh, self attribution is just like, well, you know, what if they're misremembering? Well, it doesn't matter. Like I don't think it does sometimes. I mean it does. It does, does, but like it also doesn't because that's where they cared the most about your interaction.
Casey Hill: Exactly. That's what I would say. It's like, how did you hear about us? It's like, well, if they put the third touchpoint, that's the one they remembered. , that's your insight, right? Like that that tells you that's a thing that lasted in their memory and probably had the most persuasive power for them taking whatever decision they made.
And it also, it's, it's directional insight. So part of that not getting paralyzed by data is, look, some people might skip it, right? If it's optional, obviously some people might tell you the wrong thing, they might mis click. That's true of any intake form you're gonna possibly have with inform. But if you have even like, you know, a hundred people that fill it out in a given, in a given month, you're gonna be able to see directional insight that are gonna tell you what, what the answer is.
And so I, you know, we look at, you know, podcasting as an example, as one of the things that people can select. And we know that isn't exactly accurate because there's so many ways that's hard to measure from outside. But it gives us good directional insight and we can say, Hey, this is 20% higher than our baseline, this.
and every other month if, if we say like, oh, it might be misreporting by say 25%, well every other month it might be misreporting by 25%. So you look at the change velocity and that's gonna be able to tell you what you want to know. So as long as you can build a baseline, that variance actually doesn't really change the core decision, cuz the core decision is like based on attribution data, what do you do?
That's what matters, right? How do you change your content? How do you change your messaging? What do you, how do you modify that page? That's why you do attribution. . Yeah,
Leanne Dow-Weimer: yeah, absolutely. And you know, I'm just having stat stats flashbacks, like, oh, the standard deviation, like, you know, and all that. Um, but because I, I do spend a lot of time looking at analytics , but you know, at the same time, there's a lot of truth in it, is that you just have to pick a lane.
You have to pick what your variance is gonna be, you. . Hopefully you do it in a mathematical way instead of a, you know, I feel like way, but at the same time, there, there is that creativity and that that insight into it. As long as you're consistent, month to month, just pick lane. Um, yeah. So this has been so.
So much to digest. Right. There's, this has been such a great conversation. If someone wanted to follow up with you and have a conversation with you one-on-one or just hear more of what you had to say, what is the best way for them to get ahold of
Casey Hill: you? Yeah. Two ways. You can go to LinkedIn. I'm at very active on LinkedIn.
I post pretty much daily, and you can just find me at Casey Hill, so LinkedIn slash Casey Hill, c a s e y h i l l. Definitely feel free to follow me and connect with me there, um, or you can message with me directly. My email is Casey, c a s e y, Bonura, b o n j o r o.com. You're welcome to shoot me a message and drop me a line if you have questions there as well.
Awesome.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: Yeah, and I, I'm thankful that you spelled it out cuz sometimes Casey has a K you never know.
Casey Hill: Um, yes. And, and almost everyone also says Bonura as Bonjourno. So ,
Leanne Dow-Weimer: or Bonjour, you
Casey Hill: know, can
Leanne Dow-Weimer: be anyway, or bon. Um, so I, I probably at least once, um, put a U in it. There is no u there's only oaths, um, . Thank you again for being my guest and you know, I, I look forward to sharing this and if anyone ever has any questions for me, it's just info.
Another thing that's hard to spell, m a r k i g y and that's dot com And you know, thanks again for listening and for being here.
Casey Hill: Awesome. Finally.
Leanne Dow-Weimer: You've been listening
to Markigy,
The Science of Marketing Strategy. If any of the strategies we talked about today inspired you to learn more,
try them! Remember, the perfect strategy doesn't exist, only the one that gets done. Subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast player to make sure that you never miss an episode.
Thanks for listening. Until next time.