Uncovering the Secret to B2B Growth: Is Social Media the Answer? with Andy Lambert

Ever wished you could tap into the brilliant mind of an author, successful company founder, and  and senior manager at a cool company like Adobe? Meet today's guest Andy Lambert,  author of Social 3.0.

I was lucky to have Andy share his experiences and insights on B2B growth with me.

Andy schooled us on how to shift our mindset to use social media for growth and the importance of consistent, positive actions in the B2B industry. He gave us an intimate look into launching a social media scheduling platform and how educational content was crucial in generating interest.

Andy didn't hold back on the secrets of his trade. He elaborated on how understanding your customer base's needs can power your business objectives and fuel your content marketing strategy. He emphasized the importance of aligning sales and marketing, and how this harmony could be the key to success for any B2B organization. We also touched on 'dark social' and its role in driving content marketing success, a concept that will have you rethinking your strategy.

In the final part of our discussion, Andy really drove home the value of educational content and how it should be prioritized in budgets. He made a compelling argument about creating demand for the majority of the market, not just the 5% actively looking to buy, and why trust is more important than awareness for conversions. Lastly, we explored the power of word-of-mouth marketing and the importance of building relationships with influencers.

Hearing about Andy's approach to B2B growth was enlightening, and I hope it will be for you too. Tune in to hear all about it.

Guest Links

• Connect with Andy on LinkedIn
• Buy Social 3.0 on Amazon (affiliate)
• Sign Up for a Free Adobe Express Account (affiliate)

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• All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Social media is undergoing one of the biggest
macro shifts in its history.
The dawn of social commerce ispowering the growth of the
creator economy, which in turn,is creating an explosion of
niche communities.
This represents anunprecedented growth opportunity
for businesses.
But tapping into this newparadigm won't be easy,
especially so for B2B businesses.

(00:22):
B2bs have been historicallyguilty of seeing social media as
just another channel todistribute their content.
But if B2Bs want to powergrowth in this new era, this
mindset needs to change.
Social media B2B.
How forward-thinking B2Bs canunleash the power of social

(00:43):
media that's what we're going totalk about next with my very
special guest on this nextepisode of the your Digital
Marketing Coach podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Social media content, influencer marketing, blogging,
podcasting, vlogging,tick-tocking, LinkedIn, Twitter,
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube,SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing
there's a lot to cover.
Whether you're a marketingprofessional, entrepreneur or
business owner, you need someoneyou can rely on for expert

(01:15):
advice.
Good thing, you've got Neil onyour side.
This, Neil Schaefer, is yourdigital marketing coach, helping
you grow your business withdigital first marketing, one
episode at a time.
This is your digital marketingcoach and this is Neil Schaefer.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer.
I am your digital marketingcoach, and welcome to my podcast
.
I will be well in fulldisclosure of what I read to you
in that teaser actually comesfrom today's guest.
His name is Andy Lambert and heis the author of a book called
Social 3.0, how Forward ThinkingB2Bs Can Unleash the Power of

(02:04):
Social Media.
Andy is a B2B SaaS startupfounder.
He's also one of the keyexecutives and driver of product
over at Adobe for their AdobeExpress product, which I am
honored to be brand ambassadorfor.
I knew Andy before he went toAdobe and then after he went to

(02:25):
Adobe, and I just think it isamazing the product that he's
making, which, as you canimagine, is primarily being used
by B2Cs, but also by B2Bs.
I say that because I think thetopic today is a general one,
about resetting how you thinkabout social media.
It's something you know thatI've talked a lot about, that
I'm writing about in my new book.
And Andy, just one of thesmartest guys you'll meet and

(02:47):
one of the most genuine andreally nice person as well Great
speaker on stage, if you everget a chance to see him.
I'm looking forward to seeinghim again at Adobe Max in Los
Angeles in October.
If you're going to be out here,please let me know.
But without further ado, Ireally want to jump straight in
to this interview with AndyLambert.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
B2B growth.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
If your company is in the B2B space will.
The times are changing and ifyou want to continue to grow in
your market, what are youroptions?
Specifically, when we talkabout marketing, and even more
so when we talk about socialmedia marketing Today, to reset
the conversation and to get usthinking about B2B digital

(03:39):
social media marketing in abrand new way, I'm really
excited to have my friend andtrue thought leader of the space
, andy Lambert, who is theauthor of Social 3.0.
He is currently at a executiveposition at Adobe that we're
going to talk about as well, andhe also, in the past, is one of
the founders of ContentCal, aleading media scheduling tool

(04:03):
used by leading enterprisesaround the world.
So B2B growth might seem like aweird combination of terms,
because normally, when we thinkof B2B, we think of this slow
burn, we develop relationships,long sales cycles.
Is there a way we should belooking at this differently?
And maybe because he wrote thebook Social 3.0, I cannot think

(04:24):
of anyone more appropriate tohave on about this topic than
Andy.
So, andy, without further ado,let me just bring you on stage.
Welcome to the live streamedition of the original
marketing coach podcast.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Hi, neil, good to see you, man, how are you doing?

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Awesome to see you, andy.
So you know, I have known Andy,as I was saying, for several
years, from his ContentCal daysand then more recently at Adobe
Express.
Disclaimer, I am an AdobeExpress ambassador.
That's the product that Andyworks on.
But this live stream interviewis by no means being sponsored
in any means by Adobe, so justwanted to get that out there.
But I did have a chance to seeAndy speak for the first time.

(05:01):
Actually, I saw you speak twiceat Adobe Max and Los Angeles
past fall and just really,really great educational content
.
I know that you had so manypeople asking questions
afterwards and just what atreasure it is to have you on
the podcast or on the livestream.
So, andy, you know AdobeContentCal, social 3.0, bw

(05:23):
Social, sort of.
Where did this all start?

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, great question.
So probably back in 2016, whenwe initially launched ContentCal
, which was a social mediascheduling and planning platform
.
You know we took a little whileto get that thing going and we
initially tried to scale it withlike direct sales, as most
businesses do, right, and I hada sales background.

(05:49):
So naturally you know hit thephones, trying to get as many
people to try out the product aspossible, sending out as many
cold emails as I could.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
You've already missed .

Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yeah, exactly, you know, just trying to get this
concept off the ground.
You've got an MVP and you wantto get it launched.
So that was, yeah, that was2016.
And you know, after probablyabout 18 months, we started to
hit some traction and then westarted to really double down on
our content marketing strategy,of which I'll explain more.
You know what that entailed atsome points throughout this chat

(06:20):
, I expect.
So we started to really getsome momentum.
The flywheel was spinning.
We started to generate a lot ofinterest and a lot of positive
sentiment.
Built community, that kind ofthing leaned in heavily to
educational content, which is anarea of my own personal passion
, right, you know, a rising tidelifts all boats, right.
So, you know, levellingeveryone up around you that

(06:43):
interacts with your business inany way and was absolutely at
the kind of core of ourgo-to-market strategy.
Anyway, the business grew to astate that we raised about 10
million in funding.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Can we take a step back, andy?
I know like this is what everyI mean not just B2B, but every
business wants to be able to saywe finally got traction right.
It's this like crossing thechasm, riding their tornado,
these classic Silicon Valley.
You know books about growth, sowhat do you think attributed to
I know you're going to talkmore about that content, mark
what you did?
What do you think attributed tothat traction that you've got?

(07:20):
Was it just a matter of time?
It took time for these effortsto show value, or are there
specific things you did thatothers can learn from that got
you that traction?

Speaker 3 (07:30):
So there are some very pointed things that I'll go
into and typically, you know,we often look for these things
that will unlock growth, andthen a particular initiative or
action or strategy that suddenly, like propels us into
hypergrowth.
It very rarely happens.
It is absolutely a case ofconsistency.
Is the thing that drivesgreatness.
Being consistently good over along period of time typically

(07:55):
beats like the big swings.
That's what I've alwaysbelieved in and it's showing up
consistently.
But anyway, well, everyone getsthat.
But let's kind of make it a bitmore practical.
So, as I said, early days, coldemails, that kind of stuff you
know, hit with a lot of like whoneeds another social media
scheduling tool?
We've got Hoots, we've gotBuffer, we've got a million

(08:15):
tools right, you know this spaceincredibly well.
It's cool, yeah, we met right.
So, like, why on earth do youneed another one?
So we kind of flipped down hishead a little bit.
So, rather than just havingkind of you know the occasional
sales that we're trickling in inthe first six months or so, how
do we scale it?
The first book I read thatabsolutely unlocked it for me

(08:36):
was a book called the startupowners manual.
It's a massive book.
I've read it all the time, butI would recommend only reading
the first two chapters, becauseI didn't make it much further
than that because I was likethis was gold.
It's called the customerdiscovery process.
You're basically flipping saleson its head and essentially I

(08:57):
spent the next kind of three tosix months forget how long it
was going through this customerdiscovery process, which really
was a case of I would reach outto them, the people that we were
targeting for sales but insteadof like saying we've got this
great new product that I'd loveto see how you could make use of
it, or whatever, my sales pitchwas hopefully something better

(09:17):
than that.
And I'm assuming- this is thebook.
Right, that's the one.
You got, exactly that one, soyou did that very quickly.
Yes, Okay, I do have this oneon my blog the role reversal
here through the startup ownersmanual is saying, like you know,
outreaching folk you're stilldoing a cold outreach at this
point saying we've come up withthis new concept, a new idea,

(09:37):
and, given your expertise inthis space, we'd love to get
your take and get your opinionon what we're building.
And, yeah, if you're open tosharing your feedback, we would
absolutely adore it, Happy tocome by your coffee or wherever
you are.
And then that naturally gets alot more uptake because people
feel seen and heard.
People like to feel likethey're part of something.
It's not for everyone,admittedly, but what happened

(09:59):
was it's like you get two thingsout of that One.
You get meaningful time inunderstanding truly what drives
that audience and, and outsideof the sales context, people are
much more open because you know, tell me about how you come up
with ideas for content, what doyou plan, how do you run your
paid campaigns, how do you runorganic who's in your team?

(10:20):
All of that stuff you can ask,because people don't have the
defensive to go.
Oh, someone's trying to ask mequestions so they can sell to my
pain points.
It's more like I'm just here tolearn.
And then what happened was it'slike you start to understand
those things that become moreimportant because quite often
what you deemed as your biggestvalue proposition isn't the same

(10:43):
one as your customers deem it.
So then you embark on thisresearch journey looking at your
different segments, becauseobviously you go through
different segments and a bigspreadsheet of like his, you
know social media managers atenterprise or B2Bs, or you know
freelancers, agencies, yada,yada, all of that.
What are the pain points?
What are the kind of thingsthat they were struggling with?
And we just heard again andagain that the same thing coming

(11:06):
up.
It's like it's a nightmare toplan content.
It's a nightmare to get otherpeople to review and approve it,
it's hard to come up with ideas, and it was kind of in that
space.
So, rather than the whole likesave time, scheduling your
content thing, which was ourkind of initial value
proposition, completely flippedon its head where we made it on.
Like planning, organization,strategy, team collab, like the

(11:29):
best ideas are often createdtogether.
How do you roll your team inthe whole content creation
process.
Quite often social media whichabsolutely shouldn't be is often
just the preserve of someone inthe marketing function which is
based on oh, you do the socialmedia stuff.
Like social media, like, ifyou're going to do it properly,
it needs buying, it needs otherpeople to contribute, and that's
the thing that makes it strong,Anyway.

(11:49):
So we learned all of that andthat just allowed us to pivot
our messaging and sometimesthat's all it takes right, it
sounds super simple because it,you know, this stuff isn't
rocket science, it just takes adiligent approach to it.
Where you go, right now Iunderstand these true pain
points of my customer and nowunderstand how to write that
email to get the interestedpeople so we can start having

(12:12):
those you know, more productivesales meetings and get a few
more yeses.
But it also means I can nowstart fueling what will become
our content marketing strategy,because now I know the true
pains, I now know what peoplereally struggle with, I know
what they need help with.
That is gold dust.
That's all you need for yourcontent marketing strategy.
Like I said, this is, you know,say often and this is a problem

(12:34):
in B2B like marketing is whereyou got sales over there and
they very rarely talk, often atloggerheads, right, yeah, and I
had the fortunate position whereI ran growth, so it's kind of
like it's both sales andmarketing in one function.
So it becomes a very unifiedaffair because essentially all
marketing is this sales at scale, right?

(12:55):
So you still want, you're stillusing the same messaging,
you're still using the samevalue proposition.
You're just scaling it ratherthan having on a one to one
basis.
Am I making any sense?
You follow in the track.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, I am.
So you know it sounds like yougot traction because you were in
often with startup, you know,b2b, saas companies, sort of a
technology looking for a marketin a crowded market where you
already had a lot of competitors.
And when you started to talk toactual users, when you had the
opportunity, when you shiftedthings to say, hey, we want to

(13:27):
get greater feedback, we want tobuild this together with this
huge community and understandtheir pain points, because even
if someone is using a buffer ora hootsuite, they always have
pain points, right, yeah, so howcan we further improve upon
that?
So it's really this combinationof sales marketing, you know, a
product marketing and we couldsay influencer marketing,
because you're also reaching outto.

(13:47):
I mean, you reached out to meand you reached out to others,
yep, and so you know you're abig influencer in the market.
I think that's a great way oflooking at it is, you know, with
B2B, especially at the start ofphase, you know of including
others and really buildingsomething special that people
feel it's almost I mean, this isbefore Web 3.0.
We're still not at Web 3.0, butwe talk about this
participatory economy andproduct and it sounds like you

(14:09):
were an early iteration of thatwith ContentCal.
So that's a great way ofputting it yeah, fast forward.
So you got the 10 millionpounds in the bank, mm-hmm, and
I think that's a great way to dothat.
I think that's a great way todo that?

Speaker 3 (14:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
So.
Yeah, got our traction, got thecontent, got the flywheel
spinning off of the back of likenow we've got you know.
We know our value proposition.
We started to build our contentmarketing strategy off that and
all of it was based around.
You know, a weekly webinar islike the main center point of
all of our content marketingstrategy.
That became the core thing ofwhich all of our content fell
off that.
So that was like thecornerstone of our content

(14:42):
strategy, if you will.
That gave us attraction.
That gave us a constantthroughput of leads, conversion
rates in.
It just becomes a case ofoptimizing the machine and then
scaling that machine, of whichpaid media was also a way that
we were scaling that machine.
So got to a point where it wasa case of we had an approach of
which made a great deal of sense, because, you know, when a

(15:06):
company like Adobe approachesyou one, firstly you think, like
, is this a joke?
Can this actually be happening?
And then you know, when youstart to realize the vision that
they have for Adobe Express,which is where content Cal
basically morphed into a featurecalled content scheduler that
sits within Adobe Express.

(15:27):
It was what we always wanted tocreate, like you know how I
started this conversation withthis whole customer discovery
stuff and then we learned thatpeople struggle around ideation
and planning.
You know, and it was.
It solves all of that, right,because you've got like, the
biggest stock library, photolibrary on the planet, as well
as stock video, stock audio, aswell as all of these templates

(15:48):
and all of these assets, all theways to ignite your creativity
in all manner of different ways.
You've got all of that and thenyou plug that into one of the
market leading, like contentplanning organization, team
collaboration tools, like that's.
That is a proposition that youabsolutely want to sign up for,
because selling a company isoften like oh, glamorize,

(16:09):
because, oh, yeah, that's it.
You've x did, and aren't you,aren't you wonderful, but where
did you think?
Of course, yeah, exactly, butit's actually like no, this is
just the next stage of like that.
The vision that we have remainsintact.
We absolutely want to be themost widely used content
planning organization andpublishing tool on the planet.
I don't mind saying that, andthat is absolutely our ambition.

(16:31):
But now we've got the firepowerof Adobe right, that vision a
reality much sooner.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, no, amazing story and amazing validation
that you built the right thing.
And whether that technology isbuilt out through a separate
entity called content cow or aspart of the Adobe entity, it's
the same mission.
So I think that that's reallyawesome and and a great way, and
I know that not every companywho buys every other company is
this amazing brand and companylike Adobe and their culture and

(17:01):
their focus on people and bothemployees and customers.
So, yeah, cannot say enoughgood things and I'm sure you'd
agree, but I just want to sortof I just sort of want to, you
know, summarize what we weretalking about before we go on to
the next topic, which you know.
Now you're at Adobe andobviously you have your book and
we'll put the ticker down there.
But is that you started with byaligning your messaging with

(17:22):
the needs of the general?
You know users, you know peoplethat would be using the product
.
That allowed you to fine tunethe messaging, the product, and
then, really worth starting whatyou started doing weekly
webinars, obviously, the contentyou get from the webinars feeds
in the social.
You got your emails going withthe opt-ins from that and then a

(17:43):
little bit of paid media toaccelerate, and you were doing
that on a weekly basis.
So I am a big fan, especiallyfor B2B.
I am still a huge fan ofwebinars.
I still think that they do work.
I know people think since COVIDthey don't work anymore, but I
would disagree and I've seen thedata.
So I think that is a really,really good framework that any
company listening and you know,can V2C companies do something

(18:04):
similar?
I think they can.
But a weekly webinar, that is alot of work.
I mean, I do monthly webinarsand that's a lot of work.
So I'm curious as to anyonelistening if they were like okay
, I'm going to do like what Andy?
What content Cal did?
My company is going to bebought out by an Adobe or Google
or Facebook.
Yeah, I'm going to start to doweekly webinars.
What is sort of the effort thatwent into doing that?
Just if you could share someanecdotes from that.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yeah, it is a sizeable effort.
Anyone that's run a webinar,like you have before, or a
podcast, it is sizeable effort.
You know, the promo piece, theactual content production I
don't think is is actually thatheavy lift, but the promotion
and organization and like makingsure you've got a good follow
up cadence off the back of that.
Too many people do a webinarand go it's done, but like

(18:48):
that's when your work actuallystarts right.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
It's just the start.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
What's the cadence after that?
How do you follow up withpeople?
And it's not just oh, youjoined our webinar, would you
like a demo?
No one cares about that.
Like, how do we continuallynurture people through that flow
and you never know when it'sgonna be the right time for
someone to buy.
And obviously, what I've had toand I talk about this a lot
Like not everything is a funneljust because someone joined a

(19:11):
webinar doesn't mean they'regonna convert at the end of it,
who knows.
The point is it's like we'retrying to build trust, right,
we're trying to build trust inour brand and in our brand in
the industry.
We want to be the first to mindwhenever someone thinks of hey,
I need something better to planmy content.
I'm seriously inconsistent withhow I publish social content.

(19:33):
Like, I have not struggled tocome up with ideas.
I need a tool to help me and Iwant people to then buy.
Wanted people because fromcontent calories.
Wanted people to be like whatis that product?
I want that product to comefirst to mind as soon as people
think about it.
So that's the overall ambition.
But really, like when I say thecompetent production side is

(19:54):
not actually that difficultbecause it was always done with
someone else.
And the same way that youinvited me on, today we're
giving other people the platformwe were giving people the
platform.
That was even like the nextstage above of who are our
customers right now.
So we'd have Monzo, we wouldhave innocent drinks, right.
Everyone knows those two.

(20:14):
From social media perspective,we also have Ryanair.
Everyone loves Ryanair's TikTokcontent.
So having people like that onand knowing those social media
folk means you're kind ofstitched into the fabric of the
industry.
These people aren't customers.
We didn't even try and makethem customers or like oh,
should try out.
Like just, we're part of theindustry, we're social media

(20:36):
people.
We were an agency before we getsocial right.
We don't need to sell at everypoint, but we want everyone else
to know or think and theyshould understand like they're
working with a company orwatching a webinar or, you know,
signing up to a company thatreally cares about what they do
and that runs as a threadthroughout the whole culture of
content, cal and continues intoAdobe.

(20:56):
Like we really care.
We're all social media folk.
We think about it all the damntime.
We're stitched into theindustry.
We speak to the heads of socialmedia everyone because they're
our friends, right?
You know we want to be part ofit.
We didn't create this productjust to make some money.
We created this product to makea difference.
And you know, when you haveco-hosted webinars with people

(21:17):
like you know, innocent orRyanair, you know you send a
signal to the rest of theindustry.
People are like wow, likethat's really high quality
content.
And you know brands like thaton their webinar yeah, I'm
definitely joining that and theyend up.
Of course, you know you makereference to the product.
It's not never a sales demo,but you make reference to it.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
And, indirectly, people just assume that Ryanair
is a client of Content CalExactly, Even though they
weren't.
But yeah, I think that's wherethe B2B and the B2C approach
that is, the single biggestdifference is the focus on the
person and the relationship,because that person is part of a
larger organization and theyneed to convince other people if
they want to do business withyou.

(21:58):
Right, and that's where whetherit's a webinar, I'm obviously a
big fan of podcast livestreaming, what we're doing here
because it gives you the excuse.
If you strategize that webinarto say, you know leaders in
social media and then you invitethem and you have other, you
know similar corporate rockstars, they're going to be more
inclined to join.
Right, Definitely, and it justfeeds everything else that

(22:19):
you're doing in a very positiveway.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Exactly, and it's like we sometimes obsess over
the format.
A webinar is good or a podcastgood, right now, like it doesn't
matter.
It really doesn't matter.
As long as you're turning overthe platform to someone else,
that's all that matters, right?
So you're sending a signal tothe industry that you get it and
you're producing something ofreal high quality that has
genuine insights.

(22:41):
And like we would curate what,even like Stephen Bartlett, who
joined our webinars.
So you know Dragon's Den, darioVesillo, stephen Bartlett I'm
sure everyone knows, but, likeyou know, even when he joined
our webinar, we'd curate thecontent to make sure he's going
to be talking about things.
It's not just best practices,it needs to be actionable.
People need to come out of thiswith something and that is a

(23:05):
real differentiating factor Notcoming out of this.
Our focus wasn't people to comeout with this with, you know,
buying content.
Of course we hope that's goingto happen, you know, just
indirectly.
You say indirectly, but we wantpeople to come out and go.
I have a new insight that'sgoing to unlock something for me
today, and when you focus thatmuch like and that consistently
on what people need which startsback to the right of the first

(23:27):
of me sat in my garage trying tofigure out who is our customer
starts right back from thereunderstand what they care about,
understand their pains andclear everything out of your way
just to serve that pain.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Focus on that consistently, and that's the
only growth hack I have, because, well, it's an amazing growth
hack because you're doing,you're basically learning while
marketing right, exactly While,you know, boosting that email
database would have you, soEveryone wins.
I mean, we could just, like youknow, finish the recording
right now and we're done, butwe're not done.
But I think that's a great wayof looking at B2B growth right

(24:02):
there, through, you know,content marketing, but also
through the mindset that says weare part of a larger ecosystem
and we want to learn what arethe pain points and we want to
get to know other you know otherpeople, what they're going
through, so that we can better,you know, adjust our product and
our marketing.
So, you know, really well done,a really great case study.
I want to move forward to someof the other topics, some of the

(24:24):
things we talked about, inaddition to what you've talked
about, that we wanted to talkabout today.
When we talk about B2B growth,when it comes to, you know,
marketing, sales, what have youis this impact to dark social?
So when I saw you speak atAdobe Max, this is something
that you didn't talk about.
So I'm really excited to findout your views on this.
For those that don't know darksocial, and I mean and you can
give the definition as well.

(24:44):
But I'm assuming when peopleshare, you know people are not
coming directly from a websiteor from email.
They're basically, you know,copying your link, putting it
somewhere you're finding it in,you know, a Facebook Messenger
conversation.
It's this large amount oftraffic that you just can't
attribute anywhere is definitelypart of it.
But can you talk a little bitmore?
And, you know, redefine ifnecessary?

(25:06):
But what is this impact?
Because this is literally lurksin the shadows.
Right, it's like a pod.
I did a podcast last week whereI talked about the ROI
podcasting.
You don't see like link clicks,even from a LinkedIn live or a
YouTube live or Facebook live.
You don't see link clickssomewhere.
But if people were, you know Ishow your book right here and if

(25:27):
people were to go to Amazonright now and buy it, we would
not know what came from thislive stream.
No, so it's a similar sort ofconcept, just to give everyone a
real life example.
But I wanted you to sort of youknow, talk about this for a bit
as we proceed forward.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Yeah, well, you framed it perfectly and it's the
biggest cultural shift thatB2Bs need to go through.
And I think, yeah, the premiseof the book I wrote was just
being, like, you know, logically, b2bs get it but they struggle
to make it happen becausethey're typically, as you
started with Neil, they're saleslead, right, they're short-term
focus and sales lead and, likeChris Walker on LinkedIn talks

(26:03):
about this all the time.
And, to be honest, I never eventhought about this term of dark
social because I'm a yeah, I'ma big fan of Chris's work.
So it was only when hementioned dark social I was like
, ha, that is literallyeverything that happened over
the course of ContentCal.
So now I've absolutely, youknow, I endorse the term fully
because that was everything thatdrove ContentCal.

(26:27):
We couldn't attribute it and, tobe honest, we made some.
We made those mistakes that areoften cited, right, because,
you know, like any smallbusiness, we're, you know,
venture backed, raised a lot ofmoney, so naturally you want to
drive sales hard, so thattypically, even for us that are,
like you know, his me sitting,isn't this great, wonderful,
like content, marketing, growth,et cetera.

(26:48):
Like we still absolutely hadstruggles.
We still took a whole load ofmissteps.
And the major one of the majorkind of learnings we had was we
over-indexed on Google paidsearch.
Right, because what we werelearning through HubSpot, which
was our CRM, loads of trafficwas coming through Google.

(27:09):
So logically you go all right,well, if it's all coming through
Google, let's fire up theGoogle canons, throw a load of
cash into it and let's see whatwe can do.
Surely we'll scale leads, andwe did.
You know we lit up KPIs.
Yeah, so our weekly KPIdashboard, which I'm gonna come
to like, looked wonderful, itwas glowing.

(27:30):
But you know, when you look atwhether those leads actually
convert and then you start tolook at the cost associated to
those leads, it starts to maybelook a little questionable, you
know.
So don't get me wrong.
I'm not saying here advocatingwhy organic is better than paid.
You need, like in everything,it's always a balance.
But we over-indexed and I see alot of B2Bs doing this.
And I understand why.

(27:50):
Because you know you've gotinvestor pressure, you've got
management pressure or whatever.
You need to hit some numbers.
So you need to get.
You know, we were a bit of a mixof freemium and sales-led
motion, so naturally, pushingpeople to demos was our highest
converting tactic.
So we kind of over-indexed in,like throwing loads of money at
Google, trying to push peopleinto sales demos and you know

(28:12):
some of them were effective forsure, but we ended up having a
lot of noise and that's quite alot of wasted time of like
salespeople following up withleads with lower intent and that
kind of stuff.
It didn't necessarily.
What we found was like therewas a ceiling for our Google
media spend, that it just wasn'teffective above that.
And the reason is becauseattribution software which we

(28:34):
were using HubSpot at that point, and HubSpot's a great product,
but no attribution software canget that.
It's just to your earlier point.
It's like it can never tellwhether someone came through a
webinar.
They might have watched the onewe did with Ryanair three
months ago and then suddenly nowthey've got the need because
their contract wasn't expiringthen but now it is, so they're
ready for us now.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
So, andy, did you get to a point where it's like, in
order to do business in a moderndigital society, we just need
to, every month, have a spend ofX dollars?
Try to hit these KPIs, whetherthey attribute to the conversion
or not.
It's just part of a moderndigital infrastructure.
Did you come to that conclusionat some point?

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah, yeah, we did.
There's absolutely.
We realized there's a ceiling.
We continued to like, well, wedoubled down on like the
educational content because weyou know, I just had to go deep
into the data, which wasannoying, like had to go deep
into the data to prove a case toyou know, even though I'm on
the founding team, there's stilllots of other people who still

(29:31):
had grown quite big business atthis point, so still had to
validate, like this is why it'sso good.
Right, because now we've gotthe flywheel spinning.
The costs of leads just comedown and down, and this was a
compounding factor of like thekind of collaborative webinars
that we were doing.
Is that naturally, you know, aspeople are about to be hosted
like the same thing, like youhosted kindly hosting me today.

(29:54):
I promoted this on my ownchannel, so that's.
You know, I have 16,000followers on LinkedIn, so that's
16,000, well, not 16,000 peopleare going to see it, obviously,
but you know however manyLinkedIn algorithms are going to
choose, but this is brand new,so that is brand new exposure
for Neil Schaefer, influencer,market 101, right there, exactly
, but you're not going to beable to track it.
So who knows?

(30:15):
And we saw that all the timeand it's just well.
I came to the conclusion thattrying to do the weekly KPI you
know the treadmill about tryingto attribute everything and
trying to track everything it'sjust like you cannot do it.
It's not possible, it's notpractical.
You can't measure the ROI ofone single piece of content.

(30:35):
You've got to trust that itworks.
Now, in the early days, it'shard to prove.
You typically have to prove itout through qualitative measures
.
So, like, are we getting likegood feedback on it?
Like, is it something people'spaying?
Are we having moreconversations as a result of
this, like DMs with our targetcustomers?
More kind of?
Because it's going to besmaller.
In the early days of proving outour content strategy, it

(30:57):
becomes much more quant or qualrather than quantitative stuff.
But as we start to scale, thenit's more, like you know, we're
evaluating shares of it.
For example, like, is thatallowing us to go further?
And, to be honest, I talk aboutthis quite a lot, especially
when we talk about Dark Social.
I'm going to mention this againas we come up.
Like the thing that reallymatters is because we're

(31:18):
focusing on educational content,championing the industry, you
know, giving a platform to otherprofessionals in this space.
The thing that I really caredabout was share of voice.
That is like the number onemetric for me.
You can forget everything else.
The reason it's the number oneis because, like, if you think
about it, when you're looking ata weekly KPI or trying to

(31:39):
evaluate the ROI of a singlepiece of content, you're looking
like that.
You know you are absolutelyblindsided.
It's only when you can take astep back and go right.
Over the last quarter, what wasour share of voice?
You know, and share of voice issimply how many times that
we're mentioned, and there'sloads of good tools that do that
.
Mentionlytics is usually myfavorite to do that.
Basically the impact that we'rehaving, because you know by the

(32:03):
end, by the point that we'rerequired, all of our kind of own
social channels.
We only had about 20,000followers, but we typically were
hitting between 750K to amillion impressions Every single
month, and the reason for thatis because all of our content
that was mentioned by otherpeople, right.
So, whether it's influencers orpeople that we've championed or

(32:25):
people just saying, oh, that wasan awesome webinar, I'm wanting
to share it, because when youproduce good quality insights
and educational content, peoplewant to share it because it
represents them really well.
People feel smarter if theyshare good quality content, so
no one should do it right.
So, and all of that has acompounding effect of getting
lots of word of mouth.
People talk about it inFacebook groups, people talk

(32:48):
about it in their own privatecommunities.
None of that stuff will ever betracked.
All you'll see is just a loadof new people appearing in your
CRM saying that they came fromGoogle, because they kind of
just searched you and they camethere.
But it all has happened throughthe beautiful thing of having a
strong share of voice and astrong word of mouth.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, I want to throw out just a few things here.
Appreciate the comment fromPeter.
You know B2B it has to berelationship-centric.
It's relationship-centric insales.
It has to be equallyrelationship-centric in
marketing, even though marketingis one to many, but in B2B,
yeah.
So I appreciate you, peter.
Getting back to your point, youmentioned Mention Lettix.
I'm a big fan of Social Insider.

(33:30):
So if you're looking at ways ofdeveloping share of voice, yeah
, those are two great productsto check out.
But the other point is, I dothink you get to a point where I
tell my clients well, if you'renot sure about the ROI, let's
pull the plug, let's just.
I have one client they'recompletely stopping social media
ads for three months to reallyunderstand the impact of social
media ads on everything else,and the first month guess what?

(33:52):
There's really not that much ofa difference in terms of their
sales.
So I mean that's the ultimateway to do it.
But at the end of the day,there's this infrastructure.
And what's funny, andy, is thatI am always recommending
educational content as early on.
Even before you do paid media,start with educational content.
And in fact I will tell evenB2C clients do paid media

(34:13):
towards the educational content,not to your shopping cart page,
which sounds a lotcounterintuitive.
But you're warming up anaudience and now approving the
ROI of doing that.
We're doing some A-B testing,but that educational content and
then, if you don't have theeducational content, what do you
talk about in social media?
So it fits so many differentpurposes and I'm really glad
that you have shown a case studyof how that works.

(34:34):
But I'm really curious whenyou're talking to executives who
are used to spending money withGoogle Ads and they think
they're getting the attribution,and you're saying, hey, we got
to switch gears here.
We need to invest this money inmore educational content, and
what sort of pushback do you get?
Because I've seen just intensepushback at that idea.
How did you convince them toapprove of that shifted budget
as you last?

Speaker 3 (34:55):
did.
Yeah, yeah, it's a challengingone.
There's some brilliant studiesthat I point to in the book, but
you can also find this onlinetoo, which I think is Les
Burnett and Peter Field, whichis like their marketing OGs go
right into brand marketing, buttheir research says that only 5%

(35:16):
of a given market are activelylooking to buy at any one time.
The other 95% are not.
So we saw this absolutely inour content.
Gal data, as I've referencedbefore.
You agree?
Yeah, so you'd look throughHubSpot, which will track
people's cycles, and we'dtypically see 58 website visits
over four months and then theyconvert.
I just don't think the funnelis.

(35:39):
We like to think in marketingthat it is a thing.
I still talk about funnelbecause it helps create a mental
model, but it doesn't reallyexist in many cases.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
Well, I think that it's also that it takes 5, 7, 10
, 12, 15, 20 touches to convert.
So at the very top they'rebouncing around like a pinball
or a pachinko machine beforethey actually drop.
It is my impression of it,that's a good way to think about
it.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
I mean, it's all mental models anyway.
So, whether it's a flywheel, aflywheel or a funnel it gets you
a metric.
Yeah, exactly.
And plus it's blog post content.
If you want to say flywheel'sdead or funnel's dead, it
doesn't matter.
Either way, all we're doing,whatever mental model we apply,
we are, to your point, producingas much educational and

(36:23):
awareness-orientated content toget our brand out there to
appeal or create demand.
Because if you just break itinto two areas, 95% of the
market not ready to buy rightnow.
For that audience we need tocreate demand.
Then for the 5% that are in themarket, we need to capture
demand.
So for the 5%, that's prettyeasy Because we already know

(36:45):
there's kind of intent-basedtools that we can use.
And this is where we spokeabout earlier about where Google
Spend was good.
So bidding when people arelooking for best social media
tool, then absolutely we'regoing to bid on that, naturally
Because people are in the marketand that's where you have a
nice consistent Google Ad spendbecause you're capturing the

(37:06):
demand.
So you're on that 5% side ofthe line, capturing the demand
with a 5% of the market.
Then you've got the 95% thatyou're trying to focus on.
So using well-proven industrydata is a great way to argue
your point for this withexecutives, because it's kind of
hard to argue against reallywell-rounded, well-grounded

(37:26):
research that exists out there.
You don't need to make your owncase.
But it also helped that HubSpotwas great at helping us at
least track customer journeys etcetera, so I could kind of show
what that 95% looked like inreality for a content cal
customer.
So it became a lot easier toget.
And then you can also point tothe fact of money talks.

(37:46):
You can go well, look at these20 customers, including some of
the top 10 largest that we'vewon.
They all came through thesewebinars Because you can track
it back.
It just takes a long timeBecause you then have to sift
through your attendee list andgo did that person join?
So you can always look it, youcan always track it.

(38:06):
It's just attribution.
Software is not going to do it.
You just got to trust in theprocess.
It will work.
Because it's simple marketing,because our number one job as
marketers, as business owners orwhatever, is to capture or have
or maximize mental availabilityis the marketing term, which

(38:30):
basically means being first tomind whenever a customer has a
problem.
So that's all we're out to do,number one job.
So in order to do that, thesingle emotion we need to
generate in our audience,because the most strong emotion
when it comes to buyingsomething is trust.
That's it.
Because you buy from people youtrust.

(38:51):
It's never changed.
It doesn't matter whether we'renow we're doing everything
digitally or we're doing thingsin person or kind of that
relationship driven Comment thatwe mentioned earlier.
It doesn't really matter hasn'tchanged.
We do not do things or dobusiness with people you don't
trust.
So the best.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
You know, I like to say like no, and trust and and
the know is from the educationalcon, the like.
I mean, this is where maybe thesales team comes into play.
But you want to become alikable product, a likable
company that people get thatemotional attachment, really
want to do business with you.
Right, so that's the salespeople that are building the
relationships.
But, but there's stuff you cando in the marketing end as well.
Right, it definitely yourexperience and you know all the

(39:29):
other things, events and whathave you.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
But yeah, from like that liking thing.
I'm glad you brought it upbecause you know you're a great
example of this, right, becauseyou're out there, you're doing
this podcast, doing these lives,etc.
People know you, people feelconnected to you because you
have your face to camera righteyes and trust right, and it's
much easier for someone like,yeah, exactly so.

(39:51):
So it's much easier for thepeople to connect and like a
business if it feels human right, because it's simple psychology
, we're gonna connect more witha fellow human than we will a
brand right, a single logo.
So that's where, you know, Imean being being front and
center to this, like whetherit's kind of having your CEO in

(40:12):
front.
I don't believe any of this islimited to just CEOs, right,
because I wasn't the CEO, I was,you know, director of growth,
so I was absolutely public, aswas our CEO and as we encourage
all of our sales team to be,because you know we, we stand.
You then start to get into theemployee advocacy, internal
influencer type of stuff, rightthat you, you know the age of

(40:34):
influence, which I read, so youknow all of this stuff right.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
I want to talk more about that because before we
started, you know planning forthis interview, one of the
things you wanted to bring upbut I think we're already sort
of hinting at this yeah, thatbuyer behaviors are changing and
we're talking about B2B buyersright and leaning more towards
social.
So I see this these, you know,executives Maybe older
executives not so active onsocial that just get further and

(40:59):
further removed from thereality of where the buyers are
today.
So I'd really like you to gointo more detail on on how you
see this unfolding.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
Yeah, exactly, and this is yeah.
I'm glad you brought this upbecause this links perfectly
into this thread of conversationthat we're talking about, which
is typically we're seeing ashift in how decisions are made,
and it's been well reportedanyway.
So I'm not this is no massivelike new insight from me,

(41:26):
because we know people don'twant to speak to sales team.
You know, we know that I thinkstatus on somewhere like 70 to
80% of buyers have decidedbefore they speak to a business,
right?
And how have they decided?
They've decided through allthat dark social stuff that we
were talking about.
They've decided because Someonetold them about it.
Right, because there's what'sthe best way to shortcut trust,

(41:49):
because we're all looking atshortcuts, right, we've got
complex lives, so we're lookingat shortcuts.
So if you tell me to use theearly example, example, neil
that social insider is a goodproduct, I'll believe you
because you know this space, soI'm gonna trust you.
So now we shortcut, shortcut,shortcut trust, and now I think
that social insider is a goodproduct.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Well, andy, it sounds like word of mouth marketing is
alive and well, and B2B as well.
Huh, hell yeah, it is likeimagine that it's never gone
away.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
It is never.
There's a reason.
It's the most powerful form ofmarketing.
Always hasn't always will be.
Social media just lights a fireunder it.
But the problem is we'vemisunderstood how we should be
doing social.
Is that we think, oh right, youknow, we've got a thousand
followers.
We should tweet about ourbusiness or whatever platform we
want to do it on?

(42:38):
We should a message about ourbusiness and treat our followers
like they're our emailsubscribers.
That's how I see B2B isapproaching.
No one cares Literally no onecares.
We over focus on what's on ourown channels.
We do not focus anywhere nearenough about what other people
are saying about us, becausethat's where decisions are being
made.

(42:58):
Decisions are being made in indiscord communities, in Reddit
threads, in WhatsApp groups, inFacebook groups those places
where whatever buy you have withits IT professionals, marketers
or whatever it is they'rehanging out in their own tribes,
in their own private spaces.
They have people they will goto when they're like I need new
HR software, I need whatever itmight be.

(43:20):
They will speak to other peoplefirst.
They'll speak to their friends.
I'll speak to their colleaguesin HR first.
I'm going to just do a Googlesearch and go that first one.
I'll take that one, thanks.
You know it's more complex thanthat.
There's a reputation on theline and of course there's
multiple stakeholders that areinvolved in it and of course
this is where sales comes intoit and more kind of complex B2B
stuff.
But typically that initialtouch point is going to happen

(43:44):
through that element of trustthat's been generated through
word of mouth.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
So, if you're not, I guess the net, net of that and I
want to, you know, sort of getto the closing of the interview
with, well, really, the grandfinality, and before we get to
these six golden rules to unlocksocial media growth for B2B is,
which I assume, will summarizea lot of what we've been talking
about Pretty much yeah, yeah.
But you know, that point of ifyou're not in social, if you're
not part of the conversation andif you're not listening to the

(44:10):
conversation, that is just awhole world of opportunity
that's growing that yourorganization is just completely
missing out on is really the netnet of what you've been saying
there, right that?

Speaker 3 (44:19):
is exactly it like outside of that educational
stuff that we're doing and youknow, the webinar stuff that we
were talking about.
The other major tactic was tobe in every single group that we
could ever find related tosocial media marketers and not
spend time link dropping andsaying we've got a webinar, come
join us.
It's like activelyparticipating, saying, oh, these

(44:41):
are the things that work for us, like engagements, being up
because of these things, beingpart of the community and
building relationships with thecommunity owners, that kind of
stuff.
But it takes time, it doesn't.
You don't just turn this on soit's again.
Go back to the relationshippoint.
Deal, work with all of thosekind of people that influence in
your sphere and your business.

(45:02):
You know it's not just aboutpaying people money.
In fact, whenever we've paidpeople money to talk about us
that don't have genuine advocacyand won't name names here, it
has to work.
Never, never works.
Because you can chat, you cantell, because what you want is
you know if you work withsomeone, we're always happy to
pay, but like you need to workwith someone that when the money

(45:22):
stops coming in, they'll stillgo.
You know what you should usecontent Cal, because that was
the best product I've used andthat's what you want.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
All right.
So they've already said a lotof nugget takeaways, but we've
saved the best for the last.
Let's do it the six goldenrules to unlock social media
growth for B2Bs, andy.
So let's do it and, like I said, might be a summary, might have
some new stuff, but let's gofor it.
What is the number one goldenrule?

Speaker 3 (45:45):
Cool.
Number one scaling word ofmouth is our ultimate ambition.
That's it.
Scaling word of mouth is ourultimate ambition.
That is all we need to do withsocial.
So that means point two, andthey all link together.
Point two is share of voice isthe most important metric to
track.
So those two things areinherently interlinked.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
And for those that don't understand, the share of
voice is basically using a toolto understand mentions of your
company name compared tomentions of your competitors
company name in social media.
I actually do this with SEO aswell, with rank tracking
software to see where I rankcompared to the hub spots and
the buffers and the hood suitesfor these keywords that are

(46:27):
really strategic to me, and Irecommend you do that as well.
For email, we can't do that.
If you have a podcast, youcould use listen notescom, but
definitely social media is thebest place to grab this.
And, andy, this is a tacticthat's been used by Fortune 50
consumer brands for more than adecade, so it definitely is
important.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Kpi for most companies, like, if we're
talking to B2Cs right now,they'll be like, yeah, you're on
.
Like we get that, they spend,they know this right, b2bs don't
, anyway.
So point three collaboration isessential to success.
We said this through thewebinars.
We said this throughcollaborating with those
community and group owners thatwe were just talking about.

(47:02):
The more people you work withand spend your time and invest
that time wisely, treat thatlike a real go to market
strategy.
In the same way that you haveyour sales team approaching your
sales targets, you need to havesomeone dedicated at
outreaching those influentialpeople in the space, and it's
not about just getting them totalk about you.
It's about building genuine,meaningful relationships with

(47:25):
those individuals.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
Thank you, andy.
I will not tell you how manytimes over the last 12 months I
get people pitching me.
They want to come on a podcast,they want to be in a blog post,
whatever.
They want to get something outof me, and it's always let's
collaborate, would you like tocollaborate with us?
And it's always this one-sidedmessage, right, and it's like
well, what's so?
I love that.
A collaboration is not justsome tactic.

(47:48):
I think a lot of marketersmisunderstand this, like the
link.
Spamming in groups is that acollaboration is oh, I'm going
to reach out to someone andthey're going to do this for me
and they're going to become thisindirect Facebook ad or
LinkedIn ad talking about me,where it is a truly mutually
beneficial relationship.
And that is the core tenant ofa collaboration.
Right, exactly that.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
It's relationships ongoing, like if anyone that
you're working with needs to beongoing because you don't can't
build a business, whether, likea business, comes to you and say
, oh can you tweet about usplease, neil, and that's it.
What you need is somethingthat's consistent and what you
want to do as a business isbuild genuine partners, because
you'll always find other ways towork together.

(48:30):
So, yeah, collaborationessential to success.
Then participation drivesengagement.
Number four so the more youencourage people to participate
through whether that's justsimply asking for comments on
your content, making it aboutyour making all of your content
that you're bridging yourself,about your audience.
You know what's your favoritetakeaway?
What did you learn?

(48:51):
What would you like to see next?
Who would you like to see onthe webinar next?
All of that kind of stuff.
Because the single.
That goes into point.
Number five because the moreyou get people to participate,
the more your content drivesengagement.
There you go, Thanks in point.
There you go, so there you go.
Perfect.
So the more engagement youdrive, the further your content
will go.

(49:11):
I mean, we could spend forevertalking about social media
algorithms, but the singletruism across them all is that
if more people interact withyour content.
It's going to go further.
So make sure it's about youraudience and get those questions
in.
And that then leads us tonumber six, which that was yeah,
the I think we just did.
Number five Participationdrives engagement and engagement

(49:34):
drives reach was number five.
Got it Okay.
Then number six is, at the endof it all, the best product.
The best product is the onethat people know.
So think about this, because weoften think, oh, we've, we've
got the best product because youknow, we've got the best
features.
People don't think like that.
People think the best productis the one that they hear most

(49:57):
frequently.
So if people are talking aboutit lots within a Facebook group,
it suddenly amplifies in thatperson's sphere of influence.
So they suddenly go, actually,well, like, content call is the
best tool to you.
I keep on hearing it and weheard this again and again.
Like, people will always say tous like you know, I thought
you're much bigger than you are.
That's just because we're beingamplified in those people's

(50:19):
sphere of influence.
And it's all about going backto seven years ago of sitting
down with people for coffee andgoing what matters the most to
you, and that's where it allstarted.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Amazing.
This has been an amazingconversation and, yeah, many
friends, we've covered so muchterritory.
There have been so many goldennuggets here, just really
starting with this whole journeyof seven years of you know,
building content.
Call to Adobe, to Adobe Express, starting with what's important
to you.
Whether they're a customer ornot, as long as they are in your

(50:50):
market, they have a voice, theyhave experience.
Why aren't you tapping intothat?
And then, when you bring 10 ofthese people together over the
course of a few weeks, that isjust a goldmine of data.
But also getting back to therelationship, right, you now
build those relationships andyou never know where those go,
especially if they are in yourtarget market.
Who are they talking to?

(51:10):
So just some really, reallygreat reminders.
And I do believe, because B2Bis a little bit more smaller of
an ecosystem, it's actuallyeasier to get that.
I would call it surround soundeffect when multiple people are
talking about the variouschannels.
It does, but it requires you todevelop relationships with
those people in order to getthere.
So today I think it's been partproduct marketing, part growth

(51:34):
marketing, part contentmarketing, social media
marketing, influence marketing.
It's this unique combination ofthings I think the savvy people
and organizations get, but youcan't put a KPI on every single
little activity you do for that.
It's a mindset and you got toput a few different balls in
motion and time.
But you will see that right andI think that's probably the

(51:56):
biggest message that hopefullypeople take away from this.
And if you need help convincingyour boss on what we talked
about, obviously Andy is theauthor of Social 3.0.
Andy is basically UnitedKingdom.
I know he does a lot therespeaking, what have you?
So I'm in the United States.
We hear other people, see otherpeople at conferences, but this
is absolute brilliant book thatif you're interested in

(52:18):
learning more about Andy'sthoughts and experiences, you
should definitely buy into.
But Andy, where else?
As we come to the end here, Iguess, first of all, is there
anything else that you wanted toimpart?
Closing words of wisdom that wemight not have talked about?
I have a feeling we coveredeverything, but I want to give
you that opportunity.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
The final thought I would just say is like marketing
is not a function, it's abusiness strategy and it's
sometimes for other businessesit's a bit of a culture change.
But in my experience inbuilding content, gal, marketing
was front and center of how wegrew the business from
everything that we've just beenspeaking about, not a function.
It's not like build a productand then get it to market.

(52:55):
Marketing needs to be stitchedthrough the entire business
process.
That's the only way you canmake marketing work.
Otherwise, marketing just getspushed out to be a promotion
function, which we know does notwork.
So that's my kind of main take.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Yeah, you're bringing me back to my days in Japan,
where marketing as a functiondoesn't exist in a lot of
companies because it's just seenas advertising and promotion,
and product marketing as aconcept does not exist in most
Japanese B2B companies.
So what you talked about thereis something I talk a lot about
in Japan Fascinating, or evenfurther behind, yeah, especially
with B2B.
But that is a topic of anotherpodcast interview that we shall

(53:32):
do at some point.
So, andy, obviously we talkedabout your book.
Just curious, what other placesshould we send people to if
they want to find out more aboutyou?
Obviously, I am an Adobe Expressambassador, so I will have an
affiliate link for all of you tosign up for to get a free trial
.
It is an amazing tool.
There are more famous toolswhen it comes to creating

(53:55):
creative designs and content forsocial digital media, but I
think what Adobe the advantagethat Adobe has is that they are
a latecomer, relatively speaking, but they can see things in a
different way, provide a new,fresh approach and tap into that
amazing history andinfrastructure and experience
that Adobe as a creative brandhas.
So I think you shoulddefinitely give it a try.

(54:17):
Like I said, we'll have a linkin the show notes and in the
descriptions, wherever you'rewatching this on live stream.
But, andy, where else canpeople go to learn more from you
and connect with you?

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Yeah, well, you'll find me across every social.
Andy R Lambert, so same handleon every channel.
But yeah, linkedin is where Ispend most of the time, and feel
free to DM me.
I'm always happy to offer anyadvice or support, so yeah,
that's it.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Awesome, there's the spell once again.
You could find the bookwherever fine books are sold.
Andy R Lambert on social andAndy, thank you so much for
joining me today this has been awealth of knowledge and, like
everything else, I do believethat these critical marketing
concepts, even though we, youknow, we talk about B2B, they're
applicable to, you know, b2cnonprofit government really

(55:05):
they're the best practices.
So thank you for sharing yourwealth of experience and wisdom
with all of us today.

Speaker 3 (55:10):
It's a pleasure.
Thanks for inviting me andthanks for being part of the
journey for the last seven or soyears, because you are on the
receiving end of my earlyoutreach.
So there you go, and therelationship still lasts seven
years later.
So there you go?

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Yes, and thank you for the opportunity to
collaborate, my friend.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
Anytime, so good speech, anil.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Isn't, andy, just awesome.
I want to let you know.
You should know this by now,but these interviews that I am
doing on my podcast, as you know, 50% of my shows are solo, 50%
or interview these interviews.
You can also see them all onYouTube Unedited and maybe get
to hear a few things and maybe afew comments by the audience

(55:50):
that didn't make it to thepodcast recording.
So go to YouTube comm slash,neil Schaefer and the AL SCH AFF
ER I hope you know how to spellmy name by now and you will see
.
In the live tab you will beable to see not only all the
past recordings of all theamazing guests.
You're gonna see somerecordings that haven't yet made

(56:11):
it to the podcast, right, andyou're gonna see some videos of
some of my older podcastepisodes that were never
livestream as well, because I'mgoing through and Livestreaming
them live streaming, basicallypre-recorded zoom interviews
that I think well, I want togive you all a chance to see.
So if you check recently, youYou're gonna see some new videos

(56:31):
, some new upcoming videos thatyou can get notified for for
future podcasts, as well as somefrom the historical Archives,
all for your viewing pleasureand convenience right there on
YouTube.
All right, hey, I want to sendout a little reminder that well,
this podcast has been aroundfor a while and when I go to my

(56:53):
podcast play or lick of mypodcast on on Apple, I noticed
that this podcast, this episode,is actually number 335 and this
podcast has 58 ratings.
So I heard this done on anotherpodcast.
I thought it was an amazingTactic that I just want to keep
reminding you that I really wantto get to 100 reviews.

(57:16):
I know that this podcasttouches way more than a hundred
people, especially when youthink about it historically, but
I really want to get to 100reviews, especially well,
hopefully by the end of the year, but at least before I publish
my next book, which I'm hopingis in early 2024.
If you'd be so kind to go overto Apple, drop a review, that

(57:37):
would really make the world andI, hopefully, going forward,
will sort of read some of theseInteresting reviews of the views
that I find interesting.
So, hey, make sure you use yourreal name, so I know it's you
and I can thank you, and I'dlike to share what you learn
from this podcast with all ofour other listeners to benefit
them.
Needless to say, if you havenot yet subscribed to this

(57:58):
Podcast.
I really hope you will.
As I said, 50% of these showsare interviews, and I try to
find guests that are trueexperts, authors, speakers, who
provide advice that you may notfind anywhere else, and then
half of it is going to come frommyself and my experience
working with clients, teaching,etc.
Etc.
All right, well, that's it foranother episode of the digital

(58:20):
marketing coach podcast.
This is your digital marketingcoach, neil Schaefer, signing
off.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
You've been listening to your digital marketing coach
.
Questions, comments, requests,links.
Go to podcast Dot.
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(58:47):
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