Episode Summary
Companies create content in various formats, including text, audio, and video. But there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all in terms of content strategy. Therefore, companies that acknowledge the importance of content marketing (more and more do, especially in the tech space) put a lot of thought into creating a high-quality content team that thinks out of the box.
However, that’s easier said than done as content evolves, and companies must stay on top of trends to stay relevant and meet customers’ needs. Fortunately, many successful content creators/team members like Bridget Poetker and Brendan Hufford are willing to share valuable tips to make the job of aspiring content creators easier.
Bridget and Brendan join host Camille Trent in this episode of Content Logistics. The three discuss different content roles, the importance of a great content leader, things to consider when creating/joining a content team, and how company culture can make or break a content team.
Guest Profile
- Name: Bridget Poetker and Brendan Hufford
- What they does: Bridget is the Director of Brand & Content at Postal, and Brendan is a Growth Content Marketer at ActiveCampaign.
- Company: Bridget: Postal
- Company: Brendan: ActiveCampaign
- Noteworthy: Brendan possesses a skill set that he describes as ''deep generalism,'' which enabled him to become a part of the content team at ActiveCampaign. On the other hand, Bridget's background in marketing is campaign-based — helping with the clients, figuring out the value props, and building digital content around the campaigns. She adds, "My background is a little bit more strategic about focusing on what's in front of you, instead of focusing on what it looks like two years from now."
Key Insights
- A Company grows when the content and brand team join forces. Open communication and the importance of collaboration have become two crucial topics in the business world. Companies that encourage their employees to work together, share information and help each other set their business up for long-term success. ''I think of the brand and content team at Postal as a creative team. Our marketers are incredibly creative, but we are the production house behind our marketing team, which can be tough, but it's about making sure that everything is in line. Everything is up to voice and tone. I think it makes the most sense for at least a growth stage company," says Bridget.
- You need a leader who understands content marketing/strategy. Bridget and Brendon agree that for the content team to deliver exceptional work, they need a good leader. In other words, you need a manager who can bring the content team's working style to other executives. "The more you can get your leader to understand the way you work — because that's the other thing: more often than not, especially for a content role, I'm not reporting to somebody who understands the content. It's usually a VP or a CMO. Their job is to report the results to the CEO, but my job is to explain how the team works, how we come up with these things — be that middleman and be that advocate. It's hard when they're not good leaders, but when they're great leaders, they trust you. They trust your team to have the right answers because they know what you're doing, and they allow you to fail as well,'' says Bridget.
- Before joining a content team, determine several crucial things. Given that the idea of an ideal content team varies between companies and managers, Brendan shares what he looks for in a company. ''I want to understand the balance of sales and marketing before I join the company. How sales-led are we, how marketing-led are we? I want to understand the sales cycle and payback period because it lets me know how much bandwidth I have. And then the other piece is the net retention rate: how much are our existing accounts in our existing business growing? Do we even need new customers? Because all of that influences the culture that exists around content and how much freedom you have and how creative you can be.''
Episode Highlights
Quality and Quantity Are Equally Important in Content but Focus on One Thing at a Time
”The more heads you can get together to work on one project, the better. You set that program up for success, and you can’t leave it for two months and go work on something else. But if you try to do both of those things at the same time, you’re setting yourself up for failure, and you’re setting yourself up for both of those programs to be mediocre at best and not have an impact.
So why do we need 50 leads from social and 50 leads from organic search? Can it just be a hundred leads from somewhere? People outside of marketing and outside of content — specifically, when they think about distribution, think it has to be everywhere.
I think about wherever those people are; it has to be good. So, I think a lot of companies do it the wrong way, and they get so lost in — we have to stand up for a social program; we have to stand up for an organic program. Doing that with two people is impossible,“ says Bridget.
Every Leader Needs a Good Leader
”If you’re in content and in a leadership role, the leader you report to has to be very good. And this is true across any organization, in any role. If you’re a director, whoever you report to, whether it’s a VP or the CMO — I don’t care who it is — if they’re trash, you’re probably going to be a trash manager.
It’s hard because you’re not getting any leadership filtered down. You’re not getting any mentorship. You’re not getting any guidance. I’ve been in three leadership roles as the assistant principal and SEO director at two different agencies.
The person right above me in the first two roles just ignored me. So I was just figuring it out on my own, which is kind of a nightmare. And then the third time was just the most toxic, awful environment I’ve ever worked in, in my whole life,“ says Brendan.
You Need to Create a Culture That Empowers Teams, Including Content, to Deliver Amazing Work
“Having a CMO or a VP or whoever who doesn’t understand the content is problematic. Because they will not create a culture for good content. I hear it all the time and everybody listening reads this on LinkedIn, ‘Make better content. B2B doesn’t have to be boring.’ All this crap.
They’re aiming at the wrong target. They’re telling people to make better content. They need to have a better culture, or else, somebody there will try to make great content, and the brand team will tell them it’s bad. The design team will claw that back. The product marketing team will say, ‘That’s not how we talk about this. The TikTok you’re putting out doesn’t represent our product the way we want to.’
All this other crap because the culture is wrong, and it ends up optimizing for optics and looking busy and assigning people a lot of Asana tasks instead of making something great,“ says Brendan.
