Trigger Points
Trigger Points is a podcast for B2B marketers ready to challenge the status quo and push beyond traditional marketing boundaries. Each episode explores the latest in B2B marketing insights, offering listeners an arsenal of strategies to grow their brand, boost revenue, and expand their audience. Produced by Hired Guns Agency, Trigger Points serves as a catalyst for marketing professionals seeking to innovate their approach and leverage cutting-edge tactics. Whether you're looking to disrupt old methods or find inspiration for your next big campaign, this podcast is your go-to resource for making a measurable impact in the B2B marketing landscape. Join us to explore actionable tips, hear from thought leaders, and ignite your marketing efforts to new heights.
Trigger Points
Building B2B Trust: The Beard and The Hair Story
Our latest episode is a true story of impactful B2B content marketing. Discover how Shaun Raines and his colleague Greg Gifford turned a simple content strategy into a game-changing success story. Through a captivating weekly video series, they built trust and loyalty by enabling B2B buyers to educate themselves at their own pace. Shaun shares invaluable insights into the importance of authenticity and education in crafting a loyal audience, eager to engage with your brand even before a sales pitch is made.
Join us as we explore the ever-evolving landscape of B2B content marketing, learning new formats like podcasts, YouTube, newsletters, and LinkedIn. Shaun reveals how targeting the 97% of the market not immediately ready to buy can be just as crucial as focusing on the active 3%. Learn how your company can establish itself as a thought leader by creating educational and entertaining content and hear how a client in the automotive industry achieved search dominance and increased brand recognition. As we conclude this enlightening episode, we encourage you to push the boundaries of your marketing journey, armed with passion and authenticity. For those ready to elevate their content strategies, explore additional resources at HiredGunsAgency.com or connect with Shaun on LinkedIn.
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Welcome to another episode of Trigger Points. I'm your host, crystal, and today we're doing things a little differently. Instead of our usual Q&A, we're diving into a story that highlights the power of content marketing from someone who's been in the trenches. Joining us is Sean Raines, founder of Hired Guns Agency and a veteran in the marketing world with a wealth of experience in creating impactful content strategies. Sean's going to share a story from his time as VP of Marketing at a digital marketing provider in the automotive industry. It's a story about how a simple idea, executed with passion and authenticity, transformed a niche brand into a dominant force. This isn't just a walk down memory lane. It's a lesson in how you can build a loyal audience that's ready to knock on your door before you even try to sell them anything. Sean's insights are not only relevant, but crucial for anyone looking to navigate today's ever-evolving B2B landscape. So get comfortable and get ready to learn from one of the best in the business. Let's dive into Sean's story.
Speaker 2:Sean, take it away from one of the best in the business. Let's dive into Sean's story. Sean, take it away. The first time I saw a content marketing strategy work was about 10 years ago, when I was the VP of marketing at DealerOn, who is a website and digital marketing provider that serves the automotive industry. I feel strange saying that that was the first time that I remember seeing a content marketing strategy work, even though it is 10 years ago. But what was interesting about this and why this is a really, I think, just timely story, is how effective it was, why it worked and how it worked. But before I get there, I want to make sure everybody knows, even as the VP of Marketing, it wasn't my idea, it was actually my friend's idea, my friend Greg Gifford.
Speaker 2:I had already joined DeLaron and I was there I'm not sure, maybe a year or two before Greg joined, and I got to help actually convince him to come on board to DeLaron. But when Greg joined our team, he was, of course, leading our SEO department. He had already been doing a weekly video series covering SEO tips every Tuesday at his previous employer. Well, as soon as he joined DeLurent, the Wednesday workshop was born and before long, the beard and the hair became a wildly popular weekly video show dominating our niche. Why did that happen? How did that happen? Most people don't really even know the story. Some people do, by the way, that the beard and the hair was really not well planned. I was just joking around one day when we were shooting one of our regular Wednesday workshops and I, just off the cuff, said welcome back to the beard and the hair, and it stuck. So we went with it.
Speaker 2:But I want to get a little bit more into the why of this story, because I think that, well, anybody interested in content, marketing and the B2B or really the B2C landscapes will find this interesting, and if you know Greg or me, or both of us, well, it is a little bit of a trip down memory lane. So why was this so effective? Well, let me tell you what I think is important for all of us to remember when we're talking about marketing and sales, especially in B2B. Most buyers, especially B2B buyers, prefer to be on the purchase journey alone. They don't want a salesperson breathing down their neck. They don't want somebody that's endlessly just yammering on about the product and wearing them down with all of the sales speak People, especially, again, in B2B. They prefer to go as far as they can on this journey without you, on the B2B journey especially, but I think in a lot of cases in B2C, people prefer to consume because they can. Now we have the internet people we can consume and research and do a whole lot without somebody having to chaperone us through that purchase experience. Okay, so that's important to remember.
Speaker 2:When Greg started his SEO tips and his Tuesday video series, he was simply sharing helpful, insightful, educational and, yes, entertaining information for free, abundantly, just putting it everywhere for people. It was really Greg, just being Greg, which, again, very important personalized him to his target audience or his ICP, which is his ideal customer profile. You've heard me talk about all these things quite a bit. He educated his audience, he built trust with his audience and guess what that audience did when Greg moved from his old employer to his new employer? They followed him. Why? Because he had done so much to educate them and to help them and they trusted him and so they moved along with him and that immediately brought in a bunch of new business for DealerOn. But it also was the foundation in which all of the other growth was built from, as your target audience wants this kind of information or this type of content. It completely allows them to learn at their own pace. They get to research newly learned concepts and tips and they journey alone the way they want to.
Speaker 2:Well, I think some people would still say but okay, why, let me give you another? Why? Because if you do this right, you'll build a loyal audience that loves you even before they become your customer. I cannot tell you how many times Greg and I got to meet with people who were seeing the content that we were pushing and they felt like they already knew us. They already felt like they were friends. In fact, we made friends by making content like that. Who became friends with us personally, that we're still friends with even to this day, and that also became a friend of DealerOn. They became very comfortable with that brand because of the personal brands of Greg and myself. So you can spend less on salespeople with strategies like this and expensive advertising and marketing initiatives.
Speaker 2:Because an educated audience when you educate your audience with this type of content, an educated audience of followers not only doesn't want to be sold. They don't need to be sold because as soon as they can, they're going to be knocking on your door and they're going to be ready to do business. Why? Because you're the one that provided them the most value. Right Emphasis on you. They feel like they know you. Why? Because you're the one that provided them the most value. Right Emphasis on you. They feel like they know you. Why? Because you did something that was helpful to them. All the content that you made that helped them get smarter, more capable. Right, all of those things weren't selling them. It was, if anything, selling them on how valuable you are as what? A thought leader, a subject matter expert and somebody who actually cares. So they not only became aware of who you are, like, your existence, but you made sure to make sure that the content you gave them made you matter to them, which is really, really important, and you hear me say a lot of these things quite often. So let me move to the how.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I think if we truly would have known what a huge impact we were making, we would have tripled down on the Wednesday workshop show, the whole strategy. We would have done a podcast back then, like that was a miss. We would have had a newsletter built around all of what was happening there. We would have done better email marketing. We would have better paid ad strategies. We would have done better micro content. We would have been experimenting with all types of different video clips, maybe short form ones. There were things that we missed, that we didn't know then and we still had a massive impact, and our content marketing success was largely due to Greg and I using what is commonly referred to today as our personal brands to educate and entertain people. From our speaking engagements to our company's webinar series to the Wednesday workshop video series. We loved sharing awesome, helpful information. We loved high-fiving friends and really even fans and socializing with them at events the Wednesday workshop series.
Speaker 2:Really, in addition to the popularity of Greg and, I guess, myself to some extent and really truth be told, there was a handful of other subject matter experts at DeLaRon at that time and they had kind of a powerhouse of thought leaders at any one given time while I was at the company, and it was amazing. When I look back on the four years I was there, I'm actually thankful for that time. I learned a lot and got to be part of what I know now was an amazingly kick-ass four-year winning streak, propped up by some amazing content. So also, how Well consider that subject matter experts, sharing killer tips, knowledge, helpful insights, abundantly and freely. Well, that's how, allowing those who were not even our customers to love us so much that they couldn't wait to leave their vendor to work with us. This is the true story. We heard it. We heard it all the time. So, as I kind of bring this to a close, I want to go through some things kind of quickly. What can you do? That might be your question. Well, what could I do? Sean? You can do the same damn thing and it's about 11 times, 10 times easier.
Speaker 2:B2b buyers they're not the same today. It is true that most B2B buyers are different today than compared to, say, 10 years ago. 10 plus years ago, for sure, the primary ways that B2B companies could get in front of their buyers were limited to mostly sales-led type of activities Gated content to get contact information. That means you made a white paper. Or today we talk about, like eBooks are everywhere and you have a form, because you want somebody's contact information or, at a minimum, an email address so that you can continue to build your email marketing database. But that gated piece of information right, they have to surrender information which becomes your lead, right? That was one of the most. That's still actually for a lot of companies, especially in automotive, one of their go-tos Cold calls B2B companies would be cold emailing B2B companies heavy on trade shows.
Speaker 2:They're still, especially in automotive, very heavy overspending, in my opinion, on trade shows and in-person events. Not that there's anything wrong with trade shows and in-person events, but strategically, most companies have really no idea. There's no strategy whatsoever to succeeding with events. They just feel like, well, we have to be there or everyone will think we'll win out of business, which is ludicrous. And then also search engines if you could play the search engine game the right way.
Speaker 2:So B2B buyers were not using the internet in that way the way they are today. For sure, they were limited in their options back then for them to discover and research companies that they wanted to work with. Well, today, the new content formats that dominate the internet really changed the game. And so B2B consumers, companies. They're consuming information through podcasts and through YouTube and newsletters, and LinkedIn heavy LinkedIn, if you know what you're doing in LinkedIn. They're consuming information through podcasts and through YouTube and newsletters, and LinkedIn heavy LinkedIn, if you know what you're doing in LinkedIn these days. And LinkedIn has been around forever, right, and there are companies in B2B that are also finding success. And, yes, instagram, facebook, yes, some are using TikTok, but the point being is all that information, right.
Speaker 2:Buyers are discovering and researching vendors primarily through these new content formats, through word of mouth. 20 groups wherever their peers, just 20 groups. There are companies now that do specialized events in their own corporate facilities to do these very things, to educate and help their consumers, and lots of conversation happens there, and they're not just talking about one particular thing, there's a lot of dialogue. So all of this stuff is where buying is happening now more than ever in history, and it's accelerating, and none of it, by the way, can be perfectly tracked with attribution software.
Speaker 2:I don't care what you say on the b2b world. There's a whole lot of stuff. Just, you've heard me talk about dark social. Just give yourselves 15 minutes of research on the internet and then you'll realize oh yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff that happens, uh, right, as the exhaust, if you will, from these content, strategies and efforts and those efforts that are happening because of the content you put out there most of them, almost all no attribution software is going to show you that stuff, right?
Speaker 2:So when you post some amazing stuff into LinkedIn on your company's channel or on your personal channel or both, and somebody decides to jump in your comments and they don't even make a comment, they just tag one of their friends so that their friend sees that post or they repost it on their page. You can capture reposting in LinkedIn analytics, but for the most part, a lot of the things that are happening there when somebody is commenting in there, that is not stuff that you're picking up, and it's really important to realize that, with all of those differences today, that a content strategy a smart content strategy, where you're giving your customers this educational, insightful and entertaining information that they really want, information that they really want it is absolutely going to be your ability to be now making content for the 97% of the market that's not buying all the time, while you're still spending money on the 3%, where all the competition is, and you are too. That's fine. There's probably some case to be made that you still have to do some of that, but if you're not doing anything to make this content for these people that are not your customer yet and may not be able to buy tomorrow or next month, but they might be able to in six months. Well, maybe you should dominate the category. Maybe you should be helping even those people who are not your customers yet Yet, because I've seen it happen and this is exactly what you could do to make that happen for yourself.
Speaker 2:Last thing I'll say is I built Hired Guns Agency, inspired by Doc Holliday Tombstone, the Wild West, to help entrepreneurs, ceos, thought leaders, subject matter experts to help all of those people build their own content engines. Every company needs one, and you need to start one and never stop it. It's a lower cost, but it takes a long-term commitment for it to pay off. I love that we support companies and people who embrace the value and the power of these new content formats. It's a great complement to a marketing strategy, and one that I believe is a necessity for almost every business not all, but most. Our first customer who trusted me with this strategy is in a deep niche within the automotive industry and within just a few months of executing the strategy, well, they went from nowhere to be found in search results to total search domination. Yeah, a massive uptick. More than doubled their website traffic, massive brand recognition, and the CEO is seen as the thought leader for this category now. Well, while it might be for some.
Speaker 2:I won't say this is easy for just anyone to pull off. Although it's not particularly difficult, most people need a little bit of help. That is why I built Hired Guns Agency. I will say that it's really important for people to know whether you work with somebody like us or anybody else, it's know that it's completely free. So when I say feel free, just also know that it is free to shoot me a DM. If you're in LinkedIn, if you've got my number to text or call me, you can also email me. You can also go to hiredgunsagencycom and you can book a call with me right from our website at a time that's convenient for you. And if this sounds like something that well, you want and if this sounds like something that well, you want to have your own story of success around a great content creation strategy. Just hear me when I say it is so much easier to write a story like this today for your company than it was 10 years ago. So if you're curious, if you're interested, well, we're ready when you are. Well, thank you, sean.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for sharing how passion for education and a commitment to authenticity can turn a simple content idea into a game changing strategy. If you are inspired by what you heard today, remember that the tools and platforms available to us now make it easier than ever to create meaningful connections with your audience. Thank you for tuning in to this special episode of Trigger Points. If you're looking to learn more about how to leverage content in your marketing strategy, be sure to check out our website Again it's HiredGunsAgencycom, or reach out to Sean directly on LinkedIn. And, as always, take care and keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible in B2B marketing. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thanks, thanks.