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The Marketing Millennials
How to Win with Zero Click Content with Amanda Natividad, VP Marketing at SparkToro | Ep. 336
00:48:37
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- [00:00]
Daniel Murray
Yes. We are back with another episode of Mark Millennials. And I'm excited about this episode today because it's with my good friend Amanda Natividad, one of the best at turning audience insights into repeatable content. We talked about why most marketers feel stuck, how to find content ideas that actually hit, and how shifting your mindset can unlock endless stuff to talk about. This was a great conversation and Amanda, it was full of insights and excited for you to listen. So let's jump. Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS Marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray and join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the off. We are back with another episode of the Market Millennials podcast. I am bringing a returning guest to the podcast. I think most people know her, but we'll reintroduce her again. Amanda, good friend of mine. I'll let her give her intro. But welcome back to round two of the Mark Millennials podcast.
- [01:20]
Amanda Natividad
Yeah, thanks for having me, Daniel. It's fun to be back. So I am the VP of Marketing at audience research startup SparkToro. You might know me, a marketing person on LinkedIn and Twitter slash X. But hopefully you also know me from originating the concept of zero click marketing or zero click content. So maybe I'll cut a pause there.
- [01:43]
Daniel Murray
No, I love it. I mean, I feel like so many people are using the term zero click marketing and it all came from you, which is like so funny. Like, I see talks all over that, say zero click marketing. And I always be like, yep, that's Amanda. Amanda coined in. So it's like top of mind for me. So excited to get talking. I know the one topic I want to start getting to and I think one of the most important things I think in marketing is like this concept of taste. I think, like, it's like you need to have it to create good marketing. So how do you start developing taste? Like, where does that start from?
- [02:26]
Amanda Natividad
I think it really comes from a lot of practice in both curation and creation. Like, I think it just comes from doing the reps in reading, consuming, you know, watching what you like, you know, and then trying to even just asking yourself, like, why do I like this? Why do I think this looks cool? Why do I think this is funny? You know, and then trying to create some of your own stuff. Like, I feel like one, one way to go about it is to like, maybe create a newsletter, for instance. Like maybe you curate, you know, X amount of topics or X amount of pieces of content in Y topic. You know, I mean, maybe I'll even pose the question back to you, right? Because for marketing millennials, you know, you've built up this massive brand on really tapping into how marketers are feeling and how a given time. And that takes taste, right? Because I'm. And I'm sure you've had like a couple of whiffs too, right, where you post a meme or something, but it doesn't quite hit. How do you know?
- [03:28]
Daniel Murray
I think it's. It's a mixture of experience and being in the weeds ver versus staying in tune to like, what's culturally relevant and what people like, what is happening on social. So I think like, and that goes beyond like your space. And I think that's where people get stuck too. It's like you got to be seeing what, like, brands in other industries, what influencers are doing, what other accounts are doing, and connecting. The key is like original ideas for me is like taking to things, you know, and things that are relevant and connecting two or like two separate ideas together. So I think, like, it comes from what you said in the beginning. I think consumption is like the biggest like, thing where I think people like, you have to be a good consumer to be a good producer in my book.
- [04:26]
Amanda Natividad
Yeah, you have to have good inputs, right? You have to have good inputs in order to create good output. And I think what you're saying too is I think that really hits the nail on the head, the notion of having to be in the weeds, you know, knowing what's going on, like, that comes first. And the whole tapping into pop culture or whatever, that comes second.
- [04:45]
Daniel Murray
It's hard to develop taste if you don't have expertise, especially in B2B marketing. Like, if you don't have, like, if you don't understand what it's like to be in that your audience shoes or be like, understand your audience in a deeper level and taking time to understand the conversations they're having, like where they're show showing up, how they want to show up. Like their pain points. Like, you already like lost the battle. I think you can't add sprinkle in culture because, like, what really is working is like the, the hook is what's working. It's not really like the image is just like the. Whatever you're doing, the. The other stuff that you're adding to it is secondary where you, if you're embedding culture or you're embedding what, what's actually happening in marketing. It's really like starting from the hook and then finding what works with the hook.
- [05:45]
Amanda Natividad
Yeah, yeah, I think it's. Yeah. And I think the biggest thing for that hook is like, it needs to be very simple. Like people need to see themselves in it. Can I see myself in that pain point? Can I see myself in that situation? That sort of thing. And I think also what people like. One, one way really to develop taste, I think is to just ask yourself some critical thinking questions as you consume content yourself. Like when you're consuming the content from people, brands, whatever that you like, ask yourself why you like it. Like, ask yourself, why is it relatable? Specifically why is it relatable? What do you think is smart about it? If it's that it's smart, why do you think it's funny? Like, if it's funny, why is it. Is it because it's absurdist or is it because it's revealing an emotional truth? Like, I think really asking yourself those things will help a lot because, you know, I mean I'll. I even like just in conversation when I talk to people, when I'm like, oh, why do you like that show? Or why do you like that movie? Even Sometimes they'll be like, I don't know, I just like it. Like, that's not good enough. You know, it's like, well, like what is it about it? Like, is it like what speaks to you and what speaks to a need or an un. Kind of an unnamed feeling that you might have?
- [07:06]
Daniel Murray
I think I want to go because you, like you. There's. There's this taste and then like you understanding the conversation on the field and then creating something original that like what you did with zero click, like what was on the field at the time was everybody was talking about the spooky, dark social for a long time. Like that was on the field. But like nobody. It was like very like hard to understand from like a creating point of view, like a creation point of view. So like how did you like, like think about like the zero click marketing? Like how did that like because you understood what was on the field and then you created something new. So like what is like the process of making, coining the term and then like making it a conversation in, in the marketing world?
- [07:57]
Amanda Natividad
Oh yeah, that's a good question. So I coined, I coined the phrase zero click content. First. This was, this was about three years ago now, I think. And this was at a point in time where I was most focused on growing my social accounts pretty aggressively so at this point, I think I had grown my Twitter following to a hundred thousand followers, and then at the time, my LinkedIn account was coming up on like 30 or 40,000 followers maybe. And I think it was just. I remember saying it in conversation with my colleague slash boss, Rand Fishkin. We were talking just about content or social content in general, and about, like, what makes content successful and what doesn't. And I was thinking about, when I create content online, like, how do I kind of, what's my heuristic for creating what I think is valuable? And I just sort of reflexively said, like, oh, you know, it needs to have zero click value. And he was like, what? Like, his ears perked up. And he was like, say more. And I was like, oh, you know, like, it just needs to. It just needs to be native to platform standalone value where, you know, there isn't really additional context that is needed, but it's always better if you do get that context where. Where it immediately makes sense in the medium, in the format that it's in. And he was like, oh. He's like, I think you need to blog about this. And I remember for a moment, I was like, I don't know. I think everybody knows this. And he was like, no, blog about it. So I did. And I think what was interesting was just that it really did capture this moment in time where people were like, oh, I know exactly what that is. I know exactly what she's talking about. And I feel like it's one of those things that. Because it really. It entered that marketing zeitgeist in that in such a big way, I do feel like it's crossing over to this point where kind of nobody knows people are starting to wonder where it originated. You know, where I think people are. It's. It's just kind of like, really, what's the word I'm looking for? It's really infiltrated our marketing vocabulary that it's starting to feel like one of those things that people feel like, oh, that's been around for a while, but it's still pretty new.
- [10:17]
Daniel Murray
Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, just like a. It's like a thing that was happening that didn't really have, like, a term put on it. Like, people knew that like. Like people were saying, like, you could create entertaining content, you could do this, but, like, nobody really. But it also connects back to, like, I think what we can talk about a little bit too, in this conversation. But, like, I think the struggle is, like, connecting what people say to how you can say it Back to leadership. Because marketing, let's say five years ago, the click was important. That's how you track things. That's how you did things. It's like I need to get the kick click, I need to sell the click. I need to post links on social because I want the click and I'm going to repurpose a webinar for the click. And that now like when you need to explain to executives like, like that's not how the world works anymore. Like people, this is how you consume new people, consume content. Like it's, it sparks something in for people who want to create like let's say zero click content. Like, what is the conversation of like how to make correct KPIs for something that like doesn't, like have initial click, for example.
- [11:36]
Amanda Natividad
Right? Like how do you create KPIs when there's no click to track? Yeah, I mean so it's, that's actually a very big question because this goes back to why is this happening? You know, like, why has there been this rise in zero click marketing? Why is it more effective? And it's because of, it's a lot of things at play, right? Like one is the social media networks will suppress your reach if you put in a link. Right. Twitter confirmed this when they said when Elon Musk acquired the, acquired that platform and then showed the algorithm and showed that posts with links are coded as definite spam vector. Right? It's already suppressed there. LinkedIn has said before we don't deprioritize posts with links, but we prioritize posts that don't have links. So that's like, so you penalize posts with links. And then very recently Meta has even shown in one of their transparency reports that virtually all Facebook posts that get reach don't have a link. They said it was 97.3% of posts that are, that are surfaced a lot don't have links. And they've even, and some people have even shown or you know, taken screenshots which shows in their console that like, like your post has a link. Like you might want to rethink that. I mean that's not the exact verbiage and you can look this up in a Social Media Today article, but it's now it's advising like Meta is actually advising people to not put posts in their captions, but rather to put it like in the follow up comment to their post. Right. So the social platforms are kind of starting to admit to this. And what I'll say here is this isn't Even the rest of the argument. But what I'll say already here is, well, if you know you're going to, if you know your link is going to suppress the post, then you already know that fewer people are going to see it. So what's the point? You know, like it's, it's why, why be so insistent on tracking your post, tracking those clicks when you're going to kill your reach anyway? You know, the other reason is the issue of dark social where we have found, we did this research in SparkToro like last year, which is we found that most of the social networks will hide full referral strings, which means that if you, even if you do get a click, then let's say you get a click from TikTok, then that traffic is going to be marked as direct, which means you wouldn't even see the click anyway. And that's 100% of links clicked from TikTok show as direct traffic. And that is the case with like, you know, with Slack, WhatsApp, Mastodon. 100% of that is hidden. And then some percentage of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and LinkedIn referral traffic will, some portion of that will be marked as direct traffic. So all that to say is you, if you, if you're, if you're over, if you're insistent on posting links and all your social content, right, you're going to kill your reach and even if you do get clicks, you're not going to see it. So what I'll say now is that's, that's where we're going to see this return to some of those early digital era KPIs of like impressions, right? Like I test this all the time in LinkedIn. For instance. I know that if I have a post without a link or I'm going to get at least three times, if not nine times the reach compared to when I do put a link in the post. So I say optimize for your posts to get seen. Optimize to get seen and then make sure that you're driving home value to your prospects, to your customers so that over time they'll remember you, they'll trust you and then they'll convert when they're ready to buy.
- [15:42]
Daniel Murray
I think one thing you're really big on too, like going even deeper into this conversation is like qualitative, like metrics like you can track and like, let's say like I want to launch like LinkedIn as a channel. I, I know it has value. I know that links are getting suppressed in the algorithm, but I Need a way to like show my boss that LinkedIn is working. So what are like, besides like the quantitative clicks, like, like referral traffic from LinkedIn that this happened? What are the ways qualitative, like for me to launch a new channel and start tracking some other points of reference.
- [16:29]
Amanda Natividad
So this kind of goes back to taste actually, because I think if you have good taste and you're creating good content, those will be your qualitative KPIs. So for instance, something, a couple of heuristics that might be helpful for this is think about like how much mileage can you get out of a blog post? You know, like if you have a, if you have this like thousand word blog post, can you repurpose that into like three or five pieces of LinkedIn content? If you can't, right? If you're like, I have nothing here, I only have like this one post. Maybe it's not the best post, you know, but if you're saying something that's really worth saying, then you should be able to say it again in a couple of different ways. So that's one. Thinking about like, yeah, just thinking about that repurposing of content, usually content that is easy or relatively easy to repurpose is good. Think about how you can get more from your existing marketing programs. So maybe a webinar that you host, right? Like maybe that webinar can become a blog post or that webinar can become a bunch of different pieces of social content. Maybe you can take clips from it and post that as reels on Instagram, right? I'm just kind of spitballing ideas here. But if you're able to take some standalone pieces from the broader piece of content, then already you're getting a lot of, you're getting a lot of value from what you're already creating. So I would say a big thing is really just sustainability of your operations, ability to repurpose. And then one other one which is, I don't know how helpful this is, but one thing I like to say is quality of discussions. So like, if you're posting really interesting or insightful LinkedIn content, maybe that'll give way to good discussions in the comments. You know, maybe people will be asking good questions, they'll participate in discussion. Like that's good, right? I mean if you're posting stuff and nobody ever replies to you, that's gotta mean something, right? That's gotta, that's, that's going to mean that something's not hitting, right? But if you are like regularly engaging your community and they're engaging back. That's great, right? Another example could be when you are hosting a webinar and you're seeing activity in the chat, like people asking questions, people repeating like, oh, that's a really good point that, that speaker, that presenter raised those kinds of things, right? Like, are you stimulating further, further discussion?
- [19:01]
Daniel Murray
I love those points. I mean I, when I think about like content in general, I always like try to like do two things. I like, I try to reverse engineer like, like, what would be the comment I want in the comment section? Like if I posted this. So like that's the first, first thing. And then number two, I'll reverse engineer. Like, like, is this like, like if I. Luckily I have, I'm a marketer and like, and I can do this. But like, I would say like, is this like, like, would I go text this to like some of my marketing friends and be excited about texting this to them or would it be like, like, like would I get some sort of reaction? Whether my reaction is for them to like laugh at the piece of content or reaction to be like, is that, oh, that's like a really interesting idea or like reverse engine from the DM or like the, the slack share and like what the ideal like comment is like, is it like this? So this is, this post. I really feel this, this is so me is so relatable. Or is like the comment you're trying to get is like, is this so insightful? Like I never thought of it like that. Like zero click. Content is like, I understand this is so me. But it's also so insightful because like I never like thought about it like that. So like you reverse engineer to what people want to say. I think a lot of people just think about like what they're posting and not thinking about like what they're trying to like reaction they're trying to get. Or where do you want this piece of content to be going? From the platform? Because if you're trying to get off platform, you're trying to do something like get a share, get a, get someone to do a certain action.
- [20:45]
Amanda Natividad
That's brilliant. That's exactly what it is. It's what can you post? Like, what reaction, what kind of comment do you want to elicit from your audience? That's everything right there, right? Because if you're posting questions like it's National Ice Cream Day, what's your favorite flavor? Right? Like, like I. That's something that is, that's easy to answer, right? It's someone can participate really easily. So that really lowers a barrier. But why would someone want to comment that, you know, like, are they gonna win some ice cream? Like, I don't think anyone wants to really say that unless there's a good reason to participate, you know, so then it's thinking about like, well, what are the reasons that people amplify content? And by amplify I mean like comment or reshare. Right? And I think some, like, though the reasons for amplification tend to be around some kind of version of status signaling. Some version of it. Like signaling you're in an in group, signaling that, oh, I wish I said this. Like, this really like, captures what I'm feeling or signals like, oh, this was so smart. I have to share this with my network. Because this is so insightful.
- [22:05]
Daniel Murray
I think it is. It has to do with status because you want to like, show like a group of people. Like, if I'm going to share an insightful post, like in a Slack channel, like, I want to be the one to share the idea to the marketing team to try this out. Like, that could be one thing you're trying to do or, or like, I want to share this to the marketing team too because I want to show I'm in and I'm funny. Like, I want to show like the marketing team I'm funny. Like, this is hilarious. Like whatever you're trying to do, but the people are trying to like have some status with their friends or, or colleagues or whatever they're trying to do. So like, like, even like, and it also depends on the platform you're on, right? Like even Instagram, for example, like 80 to 90% of like the activity is happening in the DMs and stories. So like creating content on Instagram is to try get someone to click share versus like or like comment. Like for me at least where, like LinkedIn, like, kind of that. But it's like you can't really track like a share to like as well as like Instagram, because Instagram you can click like reshares, but you can't click like this person sharing the. The post. So like, for me it's more like, can I elicit a comment? Can I listen? Like, could I listen a screenshot on here and how do I think about that? So like, those are the things you got to think about different in platform wise too. And when you're tackling the platform, like, what are those things you're trying to elicit qualitatively and quantitatively? Like, and like, different reactions tell you different things. Like, so, um, I totally agree upon what you said about like the status and different things. But also like, I think one thing is really hard to do, which I want to get your opinion on is like, how do you align like everybody of like what taste is? Like, you know what I mean? Like we should be doing this type of content. Like. Cause like sometimes it's really hard internally to like get people to say like, yeah, we should be creating like zero click content, like coming up with a new term, going hard that way. Or we should be doing this type of content which is like very thought leadership, very like taking a stance on something. Like how do you get people to like internally align on this?
- [24:35]
Amanda Natividad
I would say come up with an agreed upon aspirational ideal customer. So like, ideally, if you can show a real example, like maybe your aspirational ideal customer, let's say this is B2B. Maybe that person is like Sam Altman. I'm just going to say this, right? Maybe that's your aspirational ideal customer. Then maybe share. Whenever Sam Altman amplifies something and say, how do we get Sam Altman to share our stuff? Right. That's just an example. Right. And so that, that'll help you start thinking about like, well, what does that aspirational customer share? What do they tend to comment on? What do they tend to reshare? You know, and that helps you think, that helps the team align behind. Oh, that's the kind of person we're going after. Like, oh, they only share, they only share stuff like in their industry. Okay, that's fine. But now we know, I think identifying some of those people, or even just one, and then clearly stating why they amplify the things they do in a way that is easy to agree with. Oh, clearly they do this and then orienting your content creation or curation around that.
- [26:01]
Daniel Murray
Yeah, I think the ultimate goal is like, who is this content for? Because content is targeting in the sense and the way algorithms are going, it's getting even more and more content is targeting. So if you're trying to have that aspirational person, you need to create that type of content. And then that's a great way to talk internally to a boss. Hey, our goal is to reach these type of people. Like we need to create. If we want to reach these type of people, we have to create this type of content because this is what this type of people, this type of audience cares about. And then like it's an easier conversation than, than just going in straight saying, like, I think we need thought leadership and that's it like, it's a, it's better to like work backwards from like the company goal is to re. Get more into like SMB type people. Then you work back, like what is what type of SMB type people? And then go into, go deeper into what their pain points and then start writing content for that.
- [27:10]
Amanda Natividad
Yeah. And I'll give you a specific example. Like, you know, when I was earlier on in growing my Twitter account, that was something I thought of. Like I, you know, I, I posted and I still post, you know, about my, my personal expertise and experience in organic marketing. And you know, I, it was never my intention or my goal to be the best. Right. Or to be like, I post the best insights in marketing. Cause I don't and I would never. Um, and when Rand Fishkin followed me back, that sort of helped me recalibrate. Like think about, oh, wait. Because, you know when, when, when someone you really admire follows you back or pays attention to you, you're kind of like, oh, why? And so that had me thinking like, well, why would Rand Fishkin, you know, the person who invented domain authority, SEO marketing expert, why would he follow me back? And it's not because he needs marketing advice, right? Like he knows how to do it. Someone like that would follow me because they're curious about my approach or the things that I've done that work, the things that I'm currently testing. Right. The things that you can really speak to because you're the one who lived it. That's one way to look at it, right? So think about it as like, who's your aspirational customer? And then what are the things you can say? That one, align with their interests or values, but two, that only you are uniquely positioned to be able to say.
- [28:43]
Daniel Murray
I, I love that. I think like people that you want, the desirable audience are not following you. Not like a lot of people have enough knowledge. They just want to acquire something. Like they're trying to acquire something new when they're following you or get some sort of something out of you. So whether like, like I know like the, for the marketing millennials, my goal at least on social is always like, I want to be like, always has been like a break in the feed and like hyping up out other marketers. And that's like what I think about for social. So like, I want to create like funny like, like content that's relatable that it's like, feels like a break in like a LinkedIn feed that like would get shared to in a Slack feed that People are laughing at where like, some people's goals are different. And that's why I think like, every, like, that's why there's different approaches to social and different approaches work. And I like, I like the way you, the way you thought about social. I want to know, like, what is like your like, personal filter of like, when looking at like a new idea or like an a new thing to execute. Like, what is like the filter that goes through Amanda's head like, before you of a new idea?
- [30:03]
Amanda Natividad
I mean, it's sort of just a vibe check. Like, it is mostly that, like, I will. Depending on what it is, right? Like, I will look at. I'll check. I might check the keyword volume on it. You know, like, if it's a broader topic that I could be like, are people searching for this? Like, I'll probably look that up. So that informs it somewhat. But the other piece is, it's mostly just does this make my brain light up? You know, like, is this interesting to me? Is this novel to me? Can I, can I put a new spin on this in some way? You know, like, or it's even like, does this satiate a rant that I have? You know, like, it's. So it's very much vibe based, which is probably not that helpful. But.
- [30:54]
Daniel Murray
No, I do think, I think, but I think that's like, because you've developed taste over like the years. Because I think some people go down like the rant based type topic, but nobody cares about that certain topic and that's why it's not getting views or they're not formatting it in the right way. Like, that's the two. When I'm looking at a post and then like someone asked me, like, why it's not succeeding, usually it's either that like they're writing a personal journal, like they think their idea is like, novel and it's like, not that novel, or it's like you're not formulating it in a way that's simple enough to digest with your, your audience. I think those are the two things that are like, not. But I think you've developed the taste of like, you know, like, how to write a post. Like that will get attention. And then like, you also know, like, if you're thinking about this, there's probably other people thinking about it as well.
- [31:57]
Amanda Natividad
Yeah, that too. Yeah. And you know, the other thing with like keyword research is, you know, it helps you to figure out, like, are people in general searching for this pain point? But if you're trying to optimize for really high volume stuff. It's all going to be pretty vague, you know, like let's say in appealing to other marketers, those top keywords are going to be things like marketing strategy, how to content marketing. Right? Like those are extremely broad topics. So it's like, I mean not every piece of content you create is going to be like the definitive guide to content marketing or whatnot. You know, so it's sort of like, okay, so you have the general high volume keyword of email marketing, but so what? Like what is, what's your point? Like what's interesting? What's bothering you about email marketing? What do you know that you wish most people knew? What questions do you have? Like what, what do you not know that you want to find out? Can you explore that?
- [32:55]
Daniel Murray
I think that's great. I also think that like, I mean the broadest term stuff obviously is going to get the most reach in the sense, but that necessarily doesn't mean the people who are searching that term is exactly who you're trying to reach with your piece of content. If you go more niche of if it's a how to piece and it's more niche of how to use AI and this and that in the piece of content, then you broading it, niching it down, niching it down, niching it down or like adding certain words into it. So I think there's those ways of doing it. But also like I do agree, like if you're not excited and passionate about writing that piece of content, like why are you expecting someone else to be passionate enough to like read that piece of content 100%.
- [33:49]
Amanda Natividad
Like if you can't be bothered to like engage with it fully while you're writing it, why should anyone read it?
- [33:55]
Daniel Murray
I mean I always think about that. It's like if I'm bored at writing this, like I can't put this out there. Like if I'm bored writing it, like why would I, why would I like do that? Like it's not going to serve me well. Yeah, I one question too. Like how do you decide like whether something like people like, like to have like benchmark data before doing things? Like how do you decide to do things without like having like data to like back it or like having like a standard for like this is, this is what good looks like?
- [34:32]
Amanda Natividad
Well, sometimes you can Google it, right? You can kind of, you can like look up some industry standards and have like a very general baseline for things. But then from there I would say like just test it. Like just do it, you know, like, like create a lightweight version of it that you can test sooner rather than later so that you could at least get to some kind of minimum viable product or version of what you really ultimately want to be doing. So let's say you really want your company to start a weekly newsletter and you're not sure if you can get buy in. You're not sure if you'll be allowed to email your database that often. I would say, well, just do one, get buy in for one and then see how that goes and then get buy in for the second one. You know, it's like you can, I think something that people might forget or just, or just, you know, sometimes people get like nervous by right Is people forget that you can always just stop. You can stop doing the thing, you know, like I know you can't undo. So like, you know, don't be crazy. But like, if something isn't working, then just stop and do something else. You know, the point really is to like, you got to be doing something, you know, and you know, it's obviously like not everyone's going to get buy in for big budget projects or like major campaigns. That's fine. But think about like what's the, what's the one off version of what you want to do? How do you get buy in for that? And then how can you like think of some reasonable KPIs, a good KPIs that you think you can accomplish, whether that's like an open rate, whether it's amount of shares, amount of comments or you know, results in like contacts or demos booked, you know, like think about, like think about those things, right? Think about like even if there's one KPI that you think you can move the needle on.
- [36:35]
Daniel Murray
I like that. Is there an example where you like, so people can relate to like where you like had an idea you went for like didn't like pan out but like you still took like that bad and like you learned something from that that you could share.
- [36:53]
Amanda Natividad
I was trying to. This one, this one's a maybe though. I don't know. This isn't a, like I'm not doing this anymore. But this one's like yellow light, right? I was trying to get into a regular, a more regular cadence of posting more blog posts or publishing more posts. And for some of them I was just doing shorter posts, like short blog posts, like 600, 700 words of like kind of micro ideas. And they did okay. You know, like they, you know, they still got some engagement. People shared it. Some people Liked it. Right. But are they our top 10, even 15 most viewed blog posts this year? No. You know, so, so it's sort of like on one hand, should I, should I keep doing it? Well, yeah, I mean I should keep blogging, right. People are engaging with it. But on the other hand, if it's not top performing content and if there is something else that I should be doing with my time that I know will move the needle on something, then maybe I shouldn't be doing it. So I think this is one that's like in between, but I'm putting it at like a yellow light in that if I have other stuff that I should really be doing, then that small blog post is going to fall to the wayside, I think.
- [38:09]
Daniel Murray
I mean, I think it's a good way to think about it in marketing too. Is like the way like red, yellow, green of like what are some like high impact thing, low effort, high impact thing, High effort. Like, like medium impact thing, Low effort, medium, like and then like just weigh it out and then decide like, okay, like, okay, short blog post, they might have this little uplift. But if I decide to like produce LinkedIn content, this like LinkedIn content, we see X amount more like, so I'm just going to double down on like posting a LinkedIn post every week instead of like doing that. I think especially with smaller market teams, which they could relate. It's like it is trade offs. Like it's better to do the thing that's working than do the, the thing that might work half, like half effort. Like, because you can give full effort into that thing because you have so many other things. So I like, like weighing it out. Like we still could do this, but like if something else comes up, let's do something else.
- [39:22]
Amanda Natividad
Yeah.
- [39:22]
Daniel Murray
So I think that's a good way to think about it. Last thing I want to ask you is like, and I asked you this last podcast, but like, what is a marketing hill you would die on?
- [39:32]
Amanda Natividad
Oh, a marketing hill I would die on. Okay. A marketing hill I will die on is nobody cares about the frequency of your marketing campaigns as much as you do. So if you have to make a trade off of should I focus a little bit more on making this campaign better or should I just get it out the door? I think you should focus on making it a little bit better. And I'm saying this because every day there is more content on the web than there ever has been before. You know, we are saturating attention everywhere and it doesn't, I just don't Think it's worth it to just check off the box. Like we did the campaign today because it's Wednesday. Like that is just so rarely going to be worth it. Rather than if you just put an extra amount of like time or attention or some personalization, like something that makes it better and then holding off a day, even if you need to, that's always going to be better. So I'm going to say like, in essence, go the extra mile, like just push yourself a little bit harder to make something better and it's going to be more worth it.
- [40:53]
Daniel Murray
Yeah, I always had, I've always had this like, thought and I haven't like been able to put it into like, terms yet, but I always like, think about like, people always think of like customer ltv and I think about like audience ltv and the way I think about like negative signal burns audience. And like you put, you put out more and more things. You're just turning off people that could been eventual buyers or could have been people in your audience. So if you like, like every time you put a basic content doesn't mean that's a positive signal into like the world of your brand and your reputation and like your trust to that audience. So like, like, I don't think people think enough of like, am I retaining like my audience that would buy in the future as much as they think of like retaining people that is in their like, existing customer base. But I, I think about it all the time. Like, if I put out this piece of content, is am I going to lose potential? Like audience, like that LTV of my audience is going to go down like, like, or like going to lose it. That person is never going to read my stuff again because I put out something that doesn't, isn't as good or doesn't have as much depth or doesn't have as much tone or like the tone is off or because I was lazy of putting that piece of content out. So I've been thinking about that a lot and I think a lot of people don't think about negative signal when they put out content.
- [42:23]
Amanda Natividad
That's really good. Yeah, that's really well said. And I'll even add to that that, you know, if you're putting out content that's not very good, you're also going to hurt yourself algorithmically because you put out something mediocre. Not a lot of people engage with it and you kind of like keep doing this. You know, like, look, everyone whiffs sometimes and that's fine. But if you are just trying to fill a quota. And as such, you end up just posting some mediocre stuff and people don't engage with it. That's sending signals to the algorithm that your content isn't going to be worth serving up. So there's that, like, it's always going to be better to have like three great posts in a week versus five meh posts in a week.
- [43:10]
Daniel Murray
Yeah. I mean, I think I heard someone say this. Like, the hard truth is like, when sometimes your post is not getting seen is like your content probably could be bad. And I hate to say that in the most, your content probably is bad. Like if it's not getting seen by people or not being. Because at the end of the day, these platforms want. You want to serve content that keeps people on the platform and they want things that people can engage with and keep them reading on the platform, keep them on the platform. So like, they are going to show your content to other people if it's like, worth showing to other people. So I do think about that, but like, also, like, sometimes I don't post because I just think about this like, negative signal stuff, like all the time. Like there is like, like, like people always say, like, send more emails, but like sometimes, like, okay, you got three more sales, but you burned 10 sales in the future. Like, like, was that worth it? Like, because you got like one more extra sale that month as a marketing team? Like, I don't know, like, I haven't done a test of that.
- [44:21]
Amanda Natividad
But like, sure, like, I'd be really hard to test.
- [44:23]
Daniel Murray
Yeah, be hard to test. But like, you could have burned like so many people because you like, annoyed people by sending like 10, 10 extra emails in that month because you wanted to hit your quota.
- [44:36]
Amanda Natividad
Right? Like, you got, you got one new customer, you got two new customers, but you lost 600 subscribers.
- [44:42]
Daniel Murray
Exactly. It's like, and those 600 subscribers could have converted at like, let's say a 10% rate. And that's like six customers. So six, like two. Like, like, is it worth, like that? So yeah, just something to think about for people out there.
- [44:56]
Amanda Natividad
Yeah.
- [44:58]
Daniel Murray
Lastly, where can people find you and what you're doing?
- [45:01]
Amanda Natividad
Yeah, so you can find me at amandanette, on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram threads. You can also subscribe to my newsletter@amandanet.com and yeah, and also check out SparkToro. You can make a free account for our tool where you can learn some more about your audience. And we're working on some pretty cool stuff that's involving some like, LLMs and like, ways that you can take action on your marketing. Like, anyway, it's cool stuff, great.
- [45:31]
Daniel Murray
Go, go check it out. Especially like if you're like stuck of like what type of like this going back on taste we're talking about earlier, like, are you stuck on like what your audience are like consuming? Like this? What can help you, like, see, like, okay, they, they were looking at these type of podcasts or like they're looking at these articles and you kind of can reverse engineer back from that.
- [45:56]
Amanda Natividad
Yeah, exactly. Like that's what spectorial will show you. Like, these are the social accounts they follow, the media publications they read. Here are some topics they're thinking about. So you can be like, okay, great, I will try to be in line with those things.
- [46:07]
Daniel Murray
Yep, that's how you get your taste. Game up. So thank you so much for joining.
- [46:13]
Amanda Natividad
Yeah, thank you for having me.
- [46:18]
Daniel Murray
Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community.