â Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson
Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson
đ HUBSPOT'S CMO Kipp Bodnarđ on AI and Showing UP! | Ep. 529
00:19:35
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode. We also keep it short, like this intro. Let's check it out. We are back for do this, not that. And we have a guest that I've been wanting to have on this show from the day that I started this show. So who is here? We have the Chief marketing officer of HubSpot, Kip Bodner. Now, you definitely know who Kip is because he is amazing and he's everywhere and the reason I wanted him on the show, yes, he has been a HubSpot for a while. He's not one of these people that just plopped in there as a CMO from somewhere else. He worked his way up the food chain doing demand gen stuff. He's been like one of us, okay? And he is in it. But not only is he in it, okay, but his podcast, which he does with Kieran Flanagan over on SVP over at HubSpot Marketing, against the grain. If you don't listen to this podcast, you're not in marketing. It is. I learned more from this thing than any other podcast on the planet. I, I, they are leading the charge with AI, with content, with all the things. He's a great dude. We're going to get. He's writing a book, we're going to talk about that, but we're going to break down really about AI. Is it killing content? What mistakes are marketers making with AI? We're going to get into it all, but it's an honor to have him here. Kip, welcome to the show.
- [01:20]
B
Jay, thank you so much for having me. I don't think I've had a better intro ever in my life. I feel honored. Thank you so much.
- [01:25]
A
Thank you. That's good to hear. I appreciate. Well, you deserve it because honestly, your podcast, I don't know how you guys put that out. It is a work of art.
- [01:31]
B
It's a grind, my friend. It's a grind.
- [01:34]
A
It is a grind. So let's get right into that because you are. Besides, for the regular job you have of running marketing at one of the world's most incredible companies, you are also trying to figure it out for yourself, right? Trying to use AI and content, all the things. So has the big loaded question, has AI kind of killed traditional content marketing? Is AI? Is, is, is content just becoming a commodity?
- [02:02]
B
It's a really good question. I think AI has broken the old marketing playbook. Is what I fundamentally believe, Jay, when I look at what's happened is that the last 15 to 20 years of marketing, it was a weird era of marketing in that you had this abundance of channels. You know, you had social media, you had digital ads, everything just explode. And what that allowed marketers to do is kind of get away from the basics and get into optimization land, find a channel, get their spreadsheets and make stuff work. And obviously inbound marketing, content marketing became a big part of that. And you could use blogs to drive a lot of search traffic. What's happening is when you say, is content marketing broken? Content is more important now than ever, but it has a way shorter shelf life. I even think, you know, in the book that we got coming out, we did, we stated a bunch of, we shared a bunch of facts. Like if you remember Jay, not that long ago you would have like hit movies that would be a movie theaters for months. Now they're in movie theaters for weeks. You know, a topic would trend on something like Twitter, Twitter or one of the social sites for days. Now it's ours. So like the half life of content has really broken and AI has allowed a flood of AI slop and non differentiated content to happen. It's also changed search, which is the primary content discovery vehicle. When most people say content marketing, what they really means. I was good at getting traffic from Google, you know, being being one of the top 10 blue links and, and getting visits back. And the 10 blue links aren't coming back. They're slowly dying, quickly dying now. And I think that has been the biggest thing that marketers have felt is that traffic from Google search really declining.
- [03:48]
A
Okay, so let me dig into that for a little bit. I'm gonna go off script here for a second. Yeah, please. So does that mean if I'm a regular marketer out there, I'm a marketing manager, whatever, that I should scrap my marketing calendar, that I made my 12 month marketing calendar that I made and say, okay, I, I need to be putting out pretty good content pieces that are not just AI slop like every other week, where I used to do it every other month. Is it more just, is it, is it a quantity game now?
- [04:17]
B
So it's great. I look at it as, you have to be T. Swift, baby. You know, I don't know if you're a Taylor Swift fan.
- [04:22]
A
Yeah.
- [04:23]
B
Or you know, you got Taylor Swift, you got Zach Brown, you got a lot, a lot of artists and they're essentially really good artists and they're also prolific. Right. It's not like it used to be if you were a music artist, you could publish an album every five years and that album have like 10 songs and you would do a couple tours and you'd be good. Now it's like, no, I'm publishing like a 20 song album and I'm doing it like every year or maybe multiple times a year, which is just insane. But it's kind of the way of the world with the half life of content across all formats declining. And so if you're, if I'm a marketing manager out there, I have to say I need a different tool set and operating model to build my content because my content needs to get at higher quantity and quality than it has been and I can't have this long slow 12 month content calendar anymore.
- [05:14]
A
So along the lines of, and by the way, Drake just released a three album at once.
- [05:18]
B
I know, right?
- [05:20]
A
She's like the ultimate content marketer.
- [05:22]
B
Totally, totally.
- [05:24]
A
My kids will be so proud. I said that they will. But so, but when you talk about showing up, let's say in the Google, you know, AI overviews, that's like the new North Star. Like, oh no, you know, search has changed and all and a lot of that is resulting in people aren't, you know, clicking. You know, it's a zero click world that we're in. They're getting their answers from the AI overviews. So as a, you know, a B2B marketer, as a marketer in general, what, what should we be thinking about how to play that game, what should our content be to make sure that we're getting the most out of showing up in those AI overviews?
- [05:56]
B
Yeah. So if you think about it, AI overviews on Google, getting mentioned and cited in ChatGPT and Claude, we all call that, at HubSpot, we call that AEO answer engine optimization. And it's really important and it's very different. The way I like to think about it, Jay, is we spent essentially the last 20 years trying to do marketing strategy for robots, not humans.
- [06:22]
A
Right.
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B
Because Google search crawlers, Google page rank algorithms, that's what they were. They were smart robots, but they needed a very specific structure. And so you wrote these long blog articles that were really dense, that were focused on a given topic and you clustered them all together and there was like a real playbook to that. Now we have a new set of robots and the new robots, AI, they function just like humans and they actually ingest, think about, solve problems, think about consensus and popularity just like you or I would. Which means as a marketer what's funny is that you actually need to evolve your content strategy to be much more human first. And as a stranger human would actually get to your site and how they would look at it. And so even for your on site content, if you look at our site now, Jay, it's like, it's very chunked up and it's very plain English. It's like, what is CRM? And here's three sentences, right? And then there's another section that talks about prospecting and here's a couple sentences about prospecting. And so the reason that is because these AI search engines are looking for easily clear and framed responses that they can put together for their own response. And they're looking at trying to find a consensus. You know, instead of PageRank, it's looking across your site, other sites, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, and it's trying to find consensus to what it should mention in the result that's really specific to that buyer. And so if you want a very tactical list, if I'm a marketer out there, want a very tactical list, like what the heck should I do on your website? You need to make your content much more human in language, much more simplistic in language. You need to break it up and chunk it up to make it very easy for the AI engines to decipher and parse. So that would be like FAQs, very fragmented pages, all of that. You can look at our site and lots of the other good AEO companies for examples, but that is something you would definitely go and do. The next part of it is you need differentiated content. You know, if AI can go and just create AI slop, you need unique data, unique point of view examples that could only come from your customers because they did something really unique and cool. Other people can't replicate that. And if I'm searching for a product recommendation and somebody else in my industry, you've talked about how cool they did it, AI is going to surface that and they're going to bring me back to you and that's going to have a lot of power. So that's the stuff you should do on your own site. And the other thing you need to know kind of off site is how you show up really matters. And one, like ratings and review sites matter a lot in AO. Like how you show up on things like G2 Crowd or Trust Radius or whatever the rating review sites of your market might be matters a lot. You need to understand that AI search, they cite more some very specific sources. And Reddit, LinkedIn and YouTube are the top top cited referred sources across AI search. So if you're not participating in those channels, you don't have a content game going in those channels. Your ability to get visibility in AI search is going to be much lower. So there's a few very tactical things you can go and do.
- [09:35]
A
First of all, that's hugely beneficial. And the irony of all, the AI is going to take over the world, the bots are taking over the world, but in order to win, you have to be more. It's more humanized.
- [09:46]
B
Exactly. I think it's actually awesome and that it's like comes down to originality, humanity, taste, all the things that I think got lost in the last generation of marketing and are really coming back right now.
- [09:59]
A
Yeah. And in a lot of ways, I think it's exposing everybody. Right. If you were just bringing it in, you know, you're screwed.
- [10:05]
B
Or if you were a playbook follower. Yeah, you're kind of done. I mean, I talk to all these companies, I talk to anthropic and OpenAI all the time. Their roadmap's like a month or two. It's not 12 months. Right. Like, the world is changing really fast. You can't just learn a playbook and follow that playbook for years.
- [10:23]
A
Yeah. I think that's so important for everyone to hear, especially coming from you. I'm curious about something. Let's say you're out there and you don't have a podcast, you don't have a newsletter, you don't have a blog, you don't have any core content thingamabob. And you were saying to me, well, if I was gonna do one right now, in this new world of, you know, AI, I would really lean into having a podcast. I'm repurposing or getting a blog or whatever. What is the content engine that you think you should have to fuel all the other content you're putting out there?
- [10:53]
B
I think it's a good question. I think it depends on if you were all in or if you're tiptoeing in. If you're all in, I think it has to be a YouTube channel, like video show, podcast, for the reason you just said it is a great canonical thing that you can remix easily into all the other formats. And one of the things that AI is really good at is taking your core ideas that are really good and helping you put them across all the different formats and using those formats to distribute back to that main idea. So if you are committed, it has to be a video show. I mean, you called out marketing. It's a gray. In our show, we do two videos a week. We are deep in it because we believe that that is fundamentally the most important use of our time to get our story and our message out. And I think that's true for most companies. If you're tiptoeing in, you're not all in. I think it is an email newsletter or a blog, something text based, much lighter weight, something that you have more control over the frequency of, is probably still the place to start.
- [11:48]
A
All right, let's go about that.
- [11:49]
B
Do you agree with that?
- [11:50]
A
Do I agree with that? Yeah, I totally agree with that. I also think everyone needs to be very real with themselves in terms of being consistent. You know what I'm impressed by you and Kieran is listen, you have big jobs, right? And you're putting out very high quality. I'm not just blowing smoke. High quality podcasts very consistently. Right. And everybody, when they're thinking about what they're doing, you know, most podcasts stop after 10 episodes or whatever. The metric is, whatever you're gonna do, don't stop doing it. Because that's where most people.
- [12:21]
B
I think that's the right advice, which is like, commit to something you could do for five years.
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A
Yeah, that's right.
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B
Right. And when Kieran and I started the podcast, we were like, we gotta do this for at least five years.
- [12:29]
A
Yeah, it's a burden. I mean, it is. It's just. It's a lot.
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B
It's a real grind.
- [12:37]
A
It's a grind. It's a hamster. It's a. It literally is a hamster wheel.
- [12:40]
B
Could not agree.
- [12:41]
A
But I want to talk about something that's a real grind that you're doing. And I want to really dig into why you're doing it and, and what you think about it all. So you have a book that's up for pre sale right now?
- [12:51]
B
Yep.
- [12:52]
A
Tell us about the book. I cannot wait to get my hands on this thing. Why a book? Why now?
- [12:58]
B
So I like to zag. You know. Our podcast is called Marketing. It's the grand. We like to be, you know, different and go against, you know, I like to think like I'm a marketer, but also don't care that much about what other people think. So I kind of want to be on the other, other side of the majority and seems like this is a great time to do a book because of that. Everybody's talking about AI and, and digital and short form video. What I have learned is that in times of immense change, and the AI era that is upon us is a time of immense change. No matter what you're doing in marketing. I make the argument that marketing has been more disrupted by AI than any profession. And the reason of that is marketing is the culmination of all different skills. You have to be a great storyteller and writer. Marketing is coding. Marketing is designed. All of these things have individually been disrupted for people, but they all come together in marketing and that disruption has been a really big deal. And so if you, in times of big disruption like that, I think people need extreme clarity and confidence and detail. And you can't do that in a 60 second video, can't really do that in a 20 minute YouTube show. You need hundreds and hundreds of pages that are really well researched, that have clear data, clear examples, remarkable stories that they can go and tell their coworker. You can't do that in any other format. There's a reason that books have stood the test of time. And I'm talking to people about the book. It's called loop out, learn out, Market, outgrow. And that's what's gravitating. It's like they want something to hand their boss and be like here, here's an answer to what we do in this crazy AI world when it comes to marketing.
- [14:41]
A
Well, I think it's incredibly valuable and for everybody out there, when I, because I had a book that came out when they were, I thought the book industry, I didn't know which direction was going. But more books have been sold this past year than ever before. And there have been. Do you know how many there have been 4 million books published in the last 12 months.
- [14:58]
B
Are you serious? That's insane.
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A
Little scary to hear that number though.
- [15:02]
B
It's like super terrifying terrifying. But there's a lot, but a lot of those are more niche books. They're books that would have never existed before that because of AI tools and publishing tools. It's getting better. I also think, Jay, there's just back to the books being sold. There's a return to long form content. If you look at, if you look at, in America at least the movie industry, we've had more hit, monster hit movies this year and more people in movie theaters than we've had in five to ten years. It's incredible. A culture is evolving and shifting back
- [15:36]
A
to the long form, which I'm all for. I mean that's why I get email newsletters on Sundays that are long form. I'll actually read them same, you know, I mean you have that you have that time. All right, one more random topic before we wrap up here because you and I have something in common in that we both in college. You went to Marshall. You're on the board there, I think.
- [15:53]
B
Yep, I am.
- [15:55]
A
And. And you were a journalism and communication major, and so was I. Oh, nice.
- [15:59]
B
I didn't do that. That's exciting.
- [16:00]
A
So there you go. And I, I loved it as a background to be in this marketing and advertising and all this stuff world is that, you know, if there's young people out there listening or whatever, are you happy that that was your path? That you didn't have like a business degree or whatever? Like you happy with the path you took?
- [16:17]
B
That's a really good question. I didn't know what path I was taking, and I think it's okay to not know what path you are taking. I think in hindsight, what I've realized is that storytelling and simplifying ideas is at the root of everything, not just marketing. It happens to be incredibly important in marketing and most of the game and marketing. But it's true in business strategy. I. When you go to business school, Jay, I feel like you talk about accounting rules and spreadsheets and those things are important, but it's not what it's like to really run a remarkable team or company. You have, what it is, is you have to have clarity of idea. You have to be able to cascade that idea. You have to be able to repeat that idea. Brad Smith, who's president Marshall University, is the best thing. He's like, he's very folksy and he'll be like, you know, repetition doesn't ruin the prayer, you know, and that's what, and that's what I think, what going to journalism school and having that background taught me is like you have this story and you need to repackage it and repeat it and get that story into people's heads because that's actually how you actually get through to this crazy world we all live in.
- [17:22]
A
I love that. And I couldn't agree more. Especially now, I think especially the age of AI, I think that type of communication is so valuable. All right, everybody, two things everyone needs to do. Of course, course, you need to go listen to marketing against the grain. Don't even listen to the show. This is an incredible, incredible podcast. But the book Loop, what does it stand for again? So that way I can make sure everyone buys.
- [17:40]
B
So yeah, so it's, it's, it's Loop out, learn out, market, outgrow. And loop is our four step framework. For how you do marketing in a post AI world.
- [17:48]
A
Yes. And if you are know anything about HubSpot, you know their, their team loop all the way and it's been incredible to watch them kind of push this, but we're going to put it all in the show notes. Okay? Kip Bodnar, B O D N A R and Kieran Flanagan. It's all their fault. Okay, but everyone go and pre order this thing because we want to spread the word. And Kip, I can't thank you enough for being so supportive. Love HubSpot and love everything you've been doing.
- [18:11]
B
You have done so much for us, Jay. We love you back and thank you for all you've done to help us. And thanks for having me on today. Great to be.
- [18:18]
A
Take care.
- [18:18]
B
Thanks.
- [18:21]
A
Wait, don't go anywhere. There's two really important things I want to tell you. First off, my book is out. Stupider People have done it. And I don't know how, but this book has made it to the USA Today bestseller list, one of the top books in the entire country. Now all net author proceeds are going to the V Foundation for Cancer Research. And between this book and things that we're doing, we've now donated $130,000 in the fight against cancer. If you buy this book, if you buy the Kindle, the audio on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble, anywhere money is going to fight cancer. We need your help. Please grab a copy of Stupider People have Done It. The second thing is I want to work with you. I want to amplify your brand. I want my agency to help you get more customers, more subscribers, more whatever. I want to partner with you in so many different ways. All you got to do is go to jschwettelson.com jschwettelson.com and then there's a button, the upper right hand corner that says Partner. Fill out that form. Let's work together. Let's do stuff. And if this wasn't the worst podcast you've ever heard, it would be amazing. If you follow the show, if you leave a comment, if you tell your friends about it, I appreciate you and go out there and crush it.