Digital Marketing Victories

Anthropological Insights into SEO

Helene Jelenc - SEO Specialist at Flow SEO Season 1 Episode 21

About This Episode

We talk to Helene Jelenc, an SEO specialist at Flow SEO with a strong background in anthropology and research. She is an expert in active listening and note-taking, and has an anthropological approach to her work which she applies to her content creation, outreach, and persona creation.

This episode is for you if you’re curious about how an anthropological approach to outreach, content, and persona creation could enhance your SEO work. 

"Put yourself in someone else's shoes. It may seem really bizarre at first when you hear something that is completely different from what you do, but if you just take a moment and realize that maybe that culture or that person just came from a completely different set of circumstances, have a different set of values and that you should be understanding that culture or those behaviors on the basis of that historical, political, cultural aspects." - Helene Jelenc


You Will Learn

  1. How anthropology can contribute to a holistic perspective.
  2. The benefits of practicing active listening and note taking during interviews.
  3. The impact of different platforms and audiences on content creation.


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[00:00:00] Katherine Ong: Welcome to the Digital Marketing Victories Podcast, a monthly show where we celebrate and learn from the changemakers in digital marketing. I'm personally obsessed with how digital marketers sell through and get their ideas executed. I'm your host, Katherine Watier Ong. I'm the owner of WO Strategies LLC. We focus on organic discovery for our enterprise clients with a training-centered approach. 

Hi there! Before we get into the episode, I'd love to remind you to subscribe to our podcast email list so that you don't miss any upcoming episodes. And once you're on our list, that would be the perfect way to give us feedback about the show or learn more about how you can support our efforts to educate digital marketers about the soft skills that they need to be successful.

So you can join that list at t.ly/dmvpodcast. Okay. Now onto the show. 

Today we're joined by Helene Jelenc. 

Helene is an SEO specialist at Flow SEO with a strong background in anthropology and research. She got her start in content creation after leaving the US, kickstarting a career as a content strategist.

And when she's not writing about the interplay of search and culture, you can find her wandering old European cities, vineyards, and food markets. **I'm stuck here in the US. These sound delightful. ** 

This episode is going to be perfect for you if you're curious about how an anthropological approach to outreach content and persona creation could enhance your SEO work.

So without further ado, here's our interview with Helene. 

Helene - Thanks for agreeing to be on the podcast. 

[00:01:33] Helenc Jelenc: Thank you for inviting me. It's great. 

[00:01:36] Katherine Ong: So, can you just give the listeners a little bit of background about you and how you became involved in digital marketing and the anthropology piece? 

[00:01:45] Helenc Jelenc: Sure. So I actually started studying anthropology in my undergrad at university.

I started in music education, decided I could not teach children for the rest of my life. I didn't have that patience, and switched to anthropology. I fell in love. Went to grad school. Got my master's in anthropology. And then I began traveling and creating content around travel. Started loving it, and started learning SEO.

Started working for a few small brands until last year I joined a remote agency called Flow SEO, where I work as a SEO specialist and manage a handful of clients. 

[00:02:27] Katherine Ong: Awesome. So I'm kind of curious whether or not you can tell our listeners a little bit more about this anthropological perspective.

Cause based on my Googling it seems like, (cause I did not study anthropology in school), it seems like there's some key elements: 

  • Holism
  • Relativism
  • comparison and 
  • field work. 

So you can kind of like explain all of those to our listeners and how that might impact your approach to seo. 

[00:02:52] Helenc Jelenc: Sure, so anthropology is actually a bit different in the US versus outside of the US It's... 

[00:03:01] Katherine Ong: Oh, interesting. 

[00:03:01] Helenc Jelenc: Studied a bit differently, so,

If you find someone who studied anthropology, say, in Europe, oftentimes they will either be archeology or like cultural anthropology and that's all they will study. Whereas in the US there's a more holistic approach. So we study linguistic anthropology, biological, cultural archeology, and applied. So we have all of these fields that we use.

And this contributes to the holism of, you know, my anthropological perspective is that I'm always thinking about those different aspects, you know, the biological aspect of being a human, how we speak the words that we use and the cultural meanings behind them. You know, there are a lot of different things going on.

So that very diverse approach to anthropology can add a layer of depth to your perspective, your research, and relativism. Cultural relativism is a really, really important concept for anthropology. And the best way for me to describe this to non-anthropologists is not to be comparative in a way, you know, put yourself in someone else's shoes.

It may seem really bizarre at first when you hear something that is completely different from what you do. But if you just take a moment and realize that maybe that culture or that person just came from a completely different set of circumstances have a different set of values and that you should understand that culture or those behaviors on the basis of that, you know, historical, political, cultural aspects.

And I think that that's really, really helpful and combining that with, you know, the fieldwork, doing really deep, long studies, integrating yourself into new communities, really getting to know people, your target audience, whoever they may be. 

I really enjoy doing sets of interviews that are not just one-offs because I think it's really hard to get deep, meaningful information from people by just meeting them once and just speaking to them once they're, they're not gonna share all the good stuff with you the first time.

[00:05:14] Katherine Ong: Interesting. 

So the US approach is, is all of those. Pieces of anthropology. Mm-hmm. So a whole sort of background. But I think you mentioned that. 

So, applied anthropology mostly is taking all of those, the research from the different approaches, and just applies it to your work, is that really what the definition is, or is there more there?

[00:05:37] Helenc Jelenc: Nope. That's, that's it. 

[00:05:38] Katherine Ong: That's basically it. Okay. 

[00:05:39] Helenc Jelenc: Yes, old-school anthropology. I mean, maybe you're familiar, you know, with the classics, Margaret Mead, going to Samoa and interviewing young women about, you know, their sexuality and, and coming of age and these processes, these were very old ethnographies.

They didn't really have an application to them. They were more of just gathering information, so there was a shift in the field where people started doing more international development, community development policy, and nonprofit work. And then that is where that applied aspect came into it. 

[00:06:18] Katherine Ong: That makes sense to me.

So how does this impact how you, in particular, create surveys or questions to get to know that target audience? Do you do something different than the rest of us do? 

[00:06:29] Helenc Jelenc: Probably. 

[00:06:31] Katherine Ong: Are you gonna tell us any of your secrets? 

[00:06:33] Helenc Jelenc: Yes. I've studied interviewing in so much depth, and I've had a lot of experience.

I've had a lot of incredible mentors, and I'm very, very thoughtful about the kind of questions that I'm asking. I wouldn't, you know, leading questions is one of my biggest pet peeves in the entire world. As soon as I read a study, I go immediately to the methodology. I check what questions they're asking, and then make my own assessments about how that research went.

But I really think about that, like preparing what you're going to do with those answers and how you're going to process that data before you even ask it. I think this is the main aspect for people, they wanna ask questions. You get in an interview, of course, and you wanna ask lots of things. You're interested, you're like, I just wanna know.

But should you really be asking them that? Like, is that valuable data? Yeah, you're interested, but what are you going to do with that afterward? Like, were you just taking something from them, you know, that was not valuable to your research? So, I think considering these exactly the questions that you're gonna ask, thinking about how someone would feel if they were asked those questions.

Think about the order of them, think about how you think about, you know, the topic that you're asking about, and really try to understand that there's a human on the other side of that. And they have, you know, a bad day, a good day. They have things that happen and some topics may. A bit more sensitivity to them and that like is definitely something that has to be prepped ahead of time.

So I think a lot of people think, okay, interviewing is easy. I can just ask these questions. That'll be interesting information. That's great if you're just getting a quote. But if you actually want to do something with that data, then you do need to plan it out strategically. Like what are you gonna do with that information once you get it.

[00:08:29] Katherine Ong: So do you have a little cheat sheet for figuring out whether or not it's a leading question? 

I sort of, I was in my head, I was connecting it to, you know, I studied analytics with Avinash Kasik and so he has this but why, but why, you know, you ask that three times in a row to really figure out if it's an insight or not, or whether you're just stating data for the state of the sense of stating data.

So do you have something like that so people can sort of check themselves about whether or not a question is a leading question or not. 

[00:08:59] Helenc Jelenc: I never thought about creating a resource like this or I don't know if I've ever seen one. So maybe this is something I need to... 

[00:09:06] Katherine Ong: I was about send anything else here, , we'll have to follow back up with you.

I think it's a valuable thing to have. There's gotta be some way for you to just, yeah, check yourself on each question, but it's beyond what I could come up with. So anyway, if you come up with something, let me know. I'll add to show notes. . . So can you give us an example of a successful marketing campaign that you were involved in that was impacted by your anthropological approach?

[00:09:32] Helenc Jelenc: Sure. 

[00:09:33] Katherine Ong: Can you think of this? 

[00:09:37] Helenc Jelenc: Yeah. I mean, everything I do has my anthropological approach connected to it. There's no way to separate it from myself. It's just who I am at this point. Hmm. But yeah. Sorry, I just spaced out for a second.. 

[00:09:57] Katherine Ong: Do you have a campaign in particular that you thought was pretty successful where you, you know, either dug around on social or did some interviews?

We can come back to it too. 

[00:10:08] Helenc Jelenc: And sharing those things with me. Sharing what it was like working before that software and then after that software and hearing them speak and using their own words that they use. Daily. That was really helpful. Those pages are still doing incredible, really like over a 3% click-through rate.

 Yeah, they're still the top pages on that site to this day. 

[00:10:33] Katherine Ong: Yeah. That sort of reminds me of when I was working on health it.gov, we had something similar cuz one of our target audiences was physicians, of which I am not one. And I just felt like I really pushed the team. Cause I was like, I think we need to do focus groups with 'em because I don't know what, how long it should be, what language we should use.

Like all, I, I don't know what goes on in their head, you know, like, do they research answers on a tablet or their phone or the desktop? I have no idea. Anyway, it was super insightful. The summary was they were very busy, and they really needed bullet points. really. So, I mean, I guess maybe you could have guessed some of that.

But, oh, and the other, actually, the other insightful part was that they might not even read what we were putting out. It was like their assistant, which is good information to note too. Anyway, so I kind of wonder, does your educational background give you some really strong listening skills that maybe the rest of us could learn a bit from?

Cause I, for instance if listeners of the show are curious about listening skills. You should listen to Dana Theus's episode 19 cause she talks about this. And I'm always looking to increase my own listening skills. But, so far, how, how about for you? Do you think you got some more skills related to that because of your educational background?

Any tips? 

[00:11:46] Helenc Jelenc: Yeah, yeah, definitely. It really is about practicing active listening and note-taking. These are two. Of my biggest suggestions For anyone who wants to get interviewed and to improve besides practice, because really it's just practice. It's getting comfortable with having an intimate moment with someone that you may not know and really having a deep conversation, and that could be really difficult.

So it's just about leaving yourself at the door and being open-minded. Leaving judgment away. You are just there to collect information, maybe reflect, and clarify. It's all about active listening and having those notes. Even I tell people to take notes before, just to set sort of an intention, mindfulness, how do you feel?

Are you nervous about going in writing about it? Then when you're done, take about 20 minutes or so, 15 minutes, and write notes on how you felt afterward. Anything you might have observed as well. 

  • Did they look nervous? 
  • Were they excited? 
  • Did they smile when they talked about certain things?

So these notes can be really, really helpful for just remembering those small moments that can make your content more human. 

[00:13:11] Katherine Ong: Do you think there's a correct way of taking notes, like should it be pen and paper, voice notes, typing? Does it matter? 

[00:13:20] Helenc Jelenc: If you're doing an interview? I say always audio recorded because you will not remember everything, and if you're writing the whole time, you're not actively listening, you just aren't.

So I would use my notes like a pen and paper if I'm doing a person in, in person. And maybe just a few words, but I wouldn't try to write out sentences and stuff. That's the point of my recording. Of course, you have to get their permission, but having that is. So you can go back, you will forget things like you will lose something, and then there's so much information in an interview.

So I highly recommend recording if you're doing it, you know, over Zoom or something, you can quickly type up some notes while you're there and not be distracted. But that's the main thing, just not distracting the person while they're speaking and just giving them that space to share their stories.

[00:14:11] Katherine Ong: Great. That's, that's a super helpful tip. 

So I'm kind of curious, I know in our previous conversation we talked a bit about how you're using social media particularly I was curious about how you're using that to come up with some, some content ideas or personas. And then I'm also curious whether or not you take into account the culture of each platform as a piece of the environment when you're taking notes.

And I bring this up because if you've been a listener of the show, Hopefully you've listened to episode two with Joe Federer where he talks about the different psychology of the different social networks. Like for instance, I'll give you an easy one. So Reddit is anonymous, so the vibe there is different cuz everybody's anonymous.

And Facebook is mostly your friends and family. So that might impact how you interact on that platform. So anyway, I was just kind of wondering if you can, what was your thought on how you abor observe in social? How do you use it and do you think your insights are impacted by the culture of the platform?

Yeah, 

[00:15:16] Helenc Jelenc: There's definitely a completely different culture on every platform.  I mean, even if you're comparing, you know, Facebook to your website, and or how someone uses search or social, the kinds of topics that you're probably going to talk about, maybe even the comments. They can definitely vary.

Yeah. As you're saying, is your real name attached to it? Does your mom see it or does nobody see it? So one thing I actually like is my favorite which probably goes against every single bit of advice you get on the internet. I read comments all the time. I just read them. I take it with a grain of salt. I know that anyone could be writing anything.

I know that there's bots, but after a while you're able to figure out, you know, what is going on here? What is the general attitude? And you can kind of pick it out, you know, like it's, it's easy once you've done it for so long. I started this strategy years ago, I think when I was in grad school, we used to, there used to be comments, I think it was on the New York Times article.

They have since removed comments from all news articles, but they used to be quite fascinating. And there was this article about the use of welfare in the US and that was a really big topic of research for me about how people are using resources. And the comments were devastating, absolutely devastating.

And I did an entire research paper on this and was sharing this lecture around at university, and it made me realize that people really feel anonymous. Like sometimes people are really sharing what they feel and definitely like locating those spaces and understanding, you know, the kind of tone that they're using.

So maybe if someone was writing on Facebook, yeah, they're gonna be a little bit safer work, whereas, on Reddit, you can have a lot of not safer work content there, but it might be really valuable. It doesn't mean you have to replicate it, but you learn a lot about the language that's being used and the values of the culture.

It can be quite fascinating. So I always go to the comments. 

[00:17:24] Katherine Ong: So it sounds like you're hearing, so I heard culture and values and maybe emotion. So it sounds like you use some of that for your persona work, maybe? 

[00:17:37] Helenc Jelenc: Yeah. 

[00:17:37] Katherine Ong: To apply it to SEO. That was the second part of the question. 

[00:17:41] Helenc Jelenc: Sure, for example, a client that I am working with was using a very specific set of keywords for their product. But then I realized because they had switched to a different industry from tech to like creators, the creators were using a much different language than enterprise tech companies. So that changes the keywords, that changes the content, that changes the language. 

One of my favorite examples that I talk about a lot is if you compare Mail Chimp with ConvertKit’s blog. They have the same offering product-wise, but they have completely different audiences. So they have completely different topics there. So yeah, just getting in there, understanding the language that they're using and how they would use that on search. 

You know, if they're gonna write it on TikTok or they're gonna write it on Twitter in that way, they're probably searching it that way.

[00:18:42] Katherine Ong: Yeah. Yeah. So this reminds me, I have one, I guess I stumbled into anthropology once on one campaign, we had one campaign for this pharma company, and the drug was for people that have a condition called, oh, now I'm gonna forget the name of course, but the layman's term was claw hand because your hand gets crumpled like a claw. But you're not allowed to use that term. It turns out that they're FDA regulated. But we were trying to just get to the audience and figure out like:

  • What are their challenges?
  • What are their struggles? 

So we could write content that would resonate with them. I mean for, you know, partially for linked building, but then also just to understand who we're talking about.

And once we use the non-FDA term, of course, and started getting onto social forums, it was kind of amazing because we discovered that a lot of them. I mean, this is not all of them, but a lot of them were very upset about figuring out how to play guitar and banjo because of their hands getting crumpled, and a number of them were Harley Davidson riders and needed unique gloves for it.

And anyway, it was just really insightful. You're like, wow. Of course, the client had no idea about any of this. We're like, and we were planning a live event, so we're like, okay, maybe we'll do some stuff with the motorcycle. And you know, it just gives you all these ideas around how to interact with the target audience that you wouldn't have gotten from the client.

All because of social. 

[00:20:01] Helenc Jelenc: Yeah. And it's a very human and fun, you know, it's, it puts a fun twist to a very, like, sad topic. 

[00:20:08] Katherine Ong: Yes, definitely. Cause we were stuck mentally. We're like, what are we doing with this? All we're getting is, I'm so sorry, your hand is becoming dysfunctional. Right.

So how do you spin on that and connect with them?

 Anyway - so social was interesting in that one instance. So how, so here you are on learning about your target audience, potentially using social for it.

How do you identify and address any biases that might come up that might impact your marketing campaign?

So your bias applied to a target audience. Do you, again, I'm kind of wondering if you have a way to check yourself before marketing campaigns become approved? 

[00:20:52] Helenc Jelenc: Yeah. I don't know if I exactly have, so, To offer others. I guess this is something I really have to think about con creating content from.

It's one of those things that you do so much that it's second nature. 

[00:21:06] Katherine Ong: Yeah, but I don't think it's second nature for everyone. That's why I asked a question. 

[00:21:10] Helenc Jelenc: No, it's not, and I don't realize this, so I never thought about even writing about these topics. So it's, it's, these are great questions.

I really believe in leaving yourself at the door, sort of like, try not to bring your personal feelings into it. Of course, sometimes I'll get excited, I think about things that people would want to read or engage with, but I'm mainly. thinking about that client, I kind of humanize them . If this was someone I cared about, you know, how would I help them at work?

Especially working in a B2B space. You know, I tried to imagine my family members at work, how, how would I help them? Like how would I approach this? And sometimes I probably missed the mark. I started working with a client in Australia. I've never been to Australia, there's a slightly different, , there's different language that we have to use and, but I use my experiences with, because their industry is working with the trades.

A lot of my family members in the US worked in the trades. They had their own businesses. So a lot of those very human day-to-day experiences I sort of had. And then I take the opportunity to ask my clients questions. We meet, you know, twice a month and sometimes I'll throw in a few questions. I'll ask them about what they've been up to lately about their clients.

Just ask them, you know, day to day, understanding the local holidays or culture, these things. That human touch to everything that really makes a difference. 

[00:22:37] Katherine Ong: Yeah. Because I think if folks haven't, my undergrad had a third-world development requirement, so you had to do something related to that before you could finish graduating.

So even though you're not traveling, you're deep diving into some third-world culture. So I think that, plus some travel helped me realize that it's not the same everywhere, right? Yeah, but if you don't have that experience or you don't get a chance to travel, I think it would be really hard, like I think I shared with you talking about Australia, like when we went on my honeymoon to Australia, I was, they're English speaking.

I mean, I knew they had a different culture, but I was pretty floored by the radically different terms that are being used for stuff. Like, I forget what it was, but I think it was like renting. Renting an apartment had a completely, yes different term… What was the term? 

[00:23:25] Helenc Jelenc: Letting. 

[00:23:25] Katherine Ong: Letting. Right. There's no way I would've guessed.

Letting, there's just no way. Yeah, there were a couple where you're like, wow, that's radically different, even though we all speak the same language in theory, right? But it's just radically different anyway, so if you have a resource about how to check your assumptions or biases for our campaign, I think it'd be helpful for the industry.

So have you ever launched any, like formal user testing or used user testing tools, or are you all doing, or are you normally doing face-to-face or one-on-one interviews? 

[00:24:00] Helenc Jelenc: Usually face-to-face, one-on-one interviews. I haven't done anything much larger. It's, it's quite hard to get a budget for research in SEO In marketing.

[00:24:12] Katherine Ong: Yeah. 

[00:24:12] Helenc Jelenc: I've had a handful of agencies reach out that they wanted, you know, will you sign on? So we can do someone, like, have someone to do research, but then the clients never want to pay for the part of the research. So then I'm the first part that gets cut, which is unfortunate. I think there's a lot of value in creating your research and having your original data to work from.

But yeah, I haven't had the opportunity to work with like some of the larger tools out there. Yeah, or larger case studies. 

[00:24:41] Katherine Ong: You certainly need to have a budget for some of them, that's for sure. 

So have, I am also sort of curious, so I'm familiar with the Jobs to Be Done framework. I know the industry talked about it a little bit about how you walk through a persona and their pain point and challenge and what they actually need to get done on your website, along with whatever emotions might be involved in that.

Have you ever applied that framework to what you're doing? 

[00:25:09] Helenc Jelenc: So, to be honest, I had never heard of this. 

[00:25:11] Katherine Ong: Oh, well, there you go. 

[00:25:12] Helenc Jelenc: I looked it out, and I was. Huh. Well, this is already what I'm doing. I just didn't know there was a name for it. 

[00:25:19] Katherine Ong: Now, now you know the name. 

[00:25:22] Helenc Jelenc: Oh yeah. I mean, this is part of the reason I think I love b2b.

I think it's much easier to really understand what. people need and what people want, how it's gonna help them, and understanding, you know, how can your tool solve a problem or how can it make their work experience better, or whatever it may be. I think it's very straightforward, and I really appreciate that.

And I'm always like breaking down things to the very core of, you know, what exactly are they struggling with or what exactly do they love about your product. Like, let's, let's boost that. 

[00:25:57] Katherine Ong: Yeah. And do you say that because you work more in B2B than b2c? 

[00:26:01] Helenc Jelenc: Do I say what? 

[00:26:02] Katherine Ong: Oh, that. That it's easy to do in B2B.

That's mostly because your experience is B2B, not because it's impossible to apply the framework to B2C, right? 

[00:26:12] Helenc Jelenc: No, I think it's possible. It is just that B2C, I think, can be very difficult. There's a lot of emotional components. Not saying it's not in b2b certainly is, but I think there's a lot more.

Culture and emotion that goes into consumer behavior. You know, in a B2C environment, sometimes I buy things and I cannot tell you why I bought them. That's normal right now. You know? 

[00:26:39] Katherine Ong: Yeah. 

[00:26:40] Helenc Jelenc: That's not gonna make a marketer happy, but it's the truth. 

[00:26:43] Katherine Ong: I'm really surprised, and again, maybe this is just cuz I was, you know, curious and I have a little bit of a UX background, but, I was really surprised how many people didn't know that strong emotions.

Literally impact how you interact with search and webpages. You know, like if you're angry, you actually see less, you're able to absorb less. Like, it's just fascinating to me how different strong emotions can impact how you're reading online and what you see and what you select and if you're in an industry where that's part of your challenge cuz I do a lot of stuff in health. Right? So if that's your challenge that people who come to you are in an emotional moment with a strong emotion, you should take that into account when you're creating the content. If it's overly complex, they might not literally be able to read it because they have so much emotion, sort of cl clouding their judgment, right?

They talk about that, but literally, we'll kind of cloud their vision, not be able to see all of it. Mm-hmm. . So, let's see. Do you have a primer book or resources on anthropology that you'd recommend to somebody if they wanna learn more? 

[00:27:49] Helenc Jelenc: Hmm, sure. So I would, it's a very dense topic, so I would suggest.

Going straight into ethnography. They're usually relatively short books. That deep dive into a specific topic. So why I say ethnography is because of the research. The research skills required to do field work are very intense. That's usually spending a long time with a group, learning the language, learning the culture, and doing something very specific.

So they know exactly what they're doing. It's, it's very parallel to, you know, a marketing strategy. You know exactly who you're going for, you know exactly what you want, and that will be, you know, very helpful to see how to do a very big, deep dive in all the different aspects of a human, you know, of the human experience that can influence our decision making.

So there is; it's an old classic called a Dancing Skeletons Life and Death in West Africa by Catherine Detweiler. And I remember reading this book and just breaking down at one point and crying because it was so heavy to realize how different the world can be and my position in that and my privilege in that as well.

And I just, it was one of those things to really like, give you a stark contrast. There are a lot of really great ethnographies that have come out in the last few years. If you just go to anthropology news, there's like the American Anthropological Association; they have a lot of great things that they share essays on different topics.

 Or another one, which I'm going to throw in because I love it, for people who want a heavier read. Is the book  Debt: The First Five Thousand Years, the first 500 years by David Graber. Rest in peace. He is an idol of mine in an academic sense. Great, really great insights and criticisms of systems.

And he was, yeah. So I think if you want something a bit more modern, On a modern take, go that way. If you want a classic, go with the dancing skeletons. 

[00:30:16] Katherine Ong: As you were speaking, I was thinking about how we've had folks on the show talking about empathy. As you know, the more empathetic you can be towards your client or target audience, the more successful you can be.

But I've always been digging into how, okay, but how do you get the empathy? How do people build empathy? And, and just could have been struck by how your approach. probably helps you get there because you understand the tone and the emotion. Mm-hmm. and the environment somebody's in, and their background might impact what they're doing, that kind of stuff.

[00:30:50] Helenc Jelenc: Yeah. 

[00:30:50] Katherine Ong: I mean, do you, do you agree? 

[00:30:52] Helenc Jelenc: Yes. 

[00:30:53] Katherine Ong: Yeah. Okay. 

[00:30:54] Helenc Jelenc: Yeah, I'm very rare to put myself first. I think it's like a curse and a blessing, but it helps me in my work by realizing you. There's, there's a lot of other experiences out there, and if you're not excited about learning about your target audience, if you don't care about them, you're probably in the wrong niche or industry.

So, I mean, you, you should be excited for them. I mean, I've never worked with somebody I didn't like, you know. I've been fortunate in that sense. But yeah, if you are not interested in your target audience, you're in the wrong spot. 

[00:31:33] Katherine Ong: I totally agree. This is why I say no to projects sometimes.

Cause I'm like, oh dear God, I don't care. Yep. If I don't care, then I'm probably not gonna be very good at creating a marketing plan for you. 

[00:31:44] Helenc Jelenc: Exactly. 

[00:31:45] Katherine Ong: Yeah. Because yeah, there's a couple; I sit here in DC, there's a lot of politics and lobbyists and stuff, so there are a few things that I just don't care about.

So, So anyway, talking about this empathy, cause I know -- I think it was in our  previous episode actually -- talked about empathy being this essential tool to building relationships, more thinking about like interacting with your coworkers and your clients and folks you work with. But how do you feel that your approach to the anthropology approach could help build empathy, both for like target audience stuff like a marketing campaign, my target audience, but then also your team?

Like, can you apply it to your coworkers and your clients? 

[00:32:26] Helenc Jelenc: Yep. I think it's really, really important. I don't know, if you had this feeling when you were in, you know, school, especially university, it felt like every teacher or professor forgot that you were enrolled full-time and that you had other classes, they would assign work. You're like, you do know I have five other finals like next week on top of yours.

What are you doing? I think they've lost sight of how hard it can be, and I try to remember this at work. You know, I work with a lot of large enterprise companies now. They're busy. My husband works in a massive corporation. He's in meetings eight hours a day . So I totally get that. And I understand that they don't always have the mental capacity to care about what I'm doing or to engage in what I'm doing.

So I always try to consider that I'm there as the consultant to take things off their plate. I'm there to help them not add to their load and just be mindful that like, yeah, sometimes people have a bad day. Like don't, don't get obsessed over, you know, someone might have made a weird call, man one day or something.

It's, it's all human, like really is just that. It's very simple. 

[00:33:51] Katherine Ong: Yeah. I find it very fascinating in my own experience. You know, I was like the go-getter in my twenties, single and had a particular perspective and it shifted a lot once I got a dog. Weirdly shifted a lot once I got married. Shifted a lot once I had kids.

And then you understand how it's like trying to function, being sleep deprived. 

[00:34:10] Helenc Jelenc: Yes. 

[00:34:11] Katherine Ong: And the level of empathy for other people making mistakes. You're like, well, maybe their baby didn't sleep last night, you know, but I didn't have that perspective when I was in my twenties cuz people don't tell you what kids are really like.

It's like, it's not until you have them that you realize what they're really like. But anyway, it's just very fascinating how…Yeah. That would be your own life experience and us not digging enough into what it's really like for other people. So do you have a format that you possibly use? I mean, I know you instinctively do this, but if other people wanted to create a formula for this and apply this approach to their coworkers and clients oth, other than I'm sure they had a rough day, cuz again, like.

My brain wasn't there until I had the kids. And I think that's common only cuz I interact with people without kids and they don't seem to see where I'm coming from. So do you have an approach that you can apply so how can I be in their shoes a bit more? 

[00:35:07] Helenc Jelenc: Yeah, I, I think it's mindfulness and, and having, you know, intention being intentional.

Thinking before you speak. You know, we're, we're very quick just to react. I used to be very quick to react to lots of things, and I realized that sometimes I didn't come out across the way that I wanted to. Maybe you misread an email, and you just blow up because you're having, you know, whatever day you could really damage a relationship that way and,

If I know I'm not in a good head space, I won't respond unless, you know, it's a hundred percent necessary. But if I have to take, you know, a couple of hours or wait 12 hours, 24 hours, then I will respond to something. But I also, you know, try to have patience. It's not easy. It isn't, but as I said, I know that.

My colleagues are great. They'll support me whenever they can. But yeah, I also know some of them have children. I don't, and I know that that is a massive challenge for them. They have a completely different schedule, and they're getting sick constantly. 

So I know then that I don't have children. I have a little more freedom in my schedule, so sometimes I try to help them out more.

You know, I understand that it's, it's hard, and they're not my children, but it's okay because, like, we're all human in the world. And I know that's anthropology, but it is, it's, it's about the human experience. It's about taking that moment and seeing that we're all here trying to do our best.

[00:36:39] Katherine Ong: Yeah, I always kind of wondered whether or not you could, like, I don't know, shadow one of your clients or something. I, I was very shocked by that when I was at Ketchum because the younger PR people went from school to PR, and they had never been in-house. And so, as you were talking about, hey, my client might be busy, and I'm not the only thing that's involved in their world; that was the part that always drove me crazy because they would just bug their clients all the time. And I'm like; I used to be in-house. I'd have the multiple consultants, and I'm like, they're probably in meetings. They're probably busy. But me telling them that is not as impactful. I was, anyway, just was always curious -  is there a better way for them to learn this?

[00:37:15] Helenc Jelenc: Take a nice screenshot of their calendar.

[00:37:18] Katherine Ong: Right? 

[00:37:18] Helenc Jelenc: Or make them go through it for one week, just like all-day meetings, and then say, how do you. 

[00:37:23] Katherine Ong: Yeah, maybe that's it. I think that's actually something I ask my clients now, actually, now that you talk about it, is kind of asking a little bit about what their calendar's like, what their day is like, as like a get-to-know-you icebreaker moment.

Mm-hmm. , just get a feel. Yeah. Anyway, so this has been great. Is there anything else you want to share? Otherwise, I've got some standard questions I usually ask everybody. 

[00:37:45] Helenc Jelenc: No, I don't think so. I dunno. That was just great to talk about all that stuff. 

[00:37:50] Katherine Ong: I think I gave you a couple of content ideas.

I've got, I've got all sorts of questions for your approach. So have you had an aha moment recently with your client's target audience or your target audience for your business, for where you work now? 

[00:38:06] Helenc Jelenc: Hmm. And how about the target audience?

I think it's kind of similar to what I mentioned before about also dealing with clients is that mental availability. The B2B, I mean, they're probably not thinking about buying your software while home-feeding their children. And that's what they're thinking about at work, right? They're told, " Come on, let's, let's get this going.

We need to get the contract. Yeah, it understands the mental availability because I think years ago I would be like, you know, just bash out that work, bash out that marketing, put up all those posts. But especially in that B2B space, I'm mindful about not oversaturating. That and that they don't have time to read all this stuff.

They're at work. You're just trying to help them along with their work. You're not trying to give them more work. So, That's definitely something that's love... 

[00:39:08] Katherine Ong: You're not trying to give them more work. 

[00:39:10] Helenc Jelenc: Yeah. 

[00:39:11] Katherine Ong: Well, that should be like a checklist item when you finish a piece of content. Did I just give somebody more work?

[00:39:16] Helenc Jelenc: Yep. 

[00:39:17] Katherine Ong: Do you have any recent wins or resources that you wanna share with our audience today? 

[00:39:24] Helenc Jelenc: Yeah, I actually have an article I wrote on B2B writing Pitfalls and some real world examples, for Flow seo, which I, I shared the link with you and, this has been really great. Article slash turned into an educational session that we give clients now to teach them about, you know, B2B SEO writing.

And I also did a piece for Search Engine Journal around interviewing for niche b2b industries. So I think if anyone is interested in learning about interviewing and some tips on how to prepare for that, that article is a great place to start. 

[00:40:01] Katherine Ong: Great. Those are awesome. I'll put them in the show notes.

And so how can people learn more about you?

[00:40:07] Helenc Jelenc: You can find me pretty much everywhere but LinkedIn, he lands wanderinghelene.com is a travel blog if you wanna see a little bit of what I was up to pre pandemic. Definitely need to revitalize it a bit , so yeah. 

[00:40:23] Katherine Ong: Awesome. This has been great. Thanks for sharing all of your tips.

And do let me know if you create additional resources. I'll add 'em to the show notes. 

[00:40:30] Helenc Jelenc: Thank you. That's great. Thank you so much for having me. 

[00:40:34] Katherine Ong: Thanks so much for listening. To find out more about the podcast and what we're up to, go to digitalmarketingvictories.com. And if you like what you heard, subscribe to us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast.

Rate us, comment and share the podcast please. I'm always looking for new ideas, topics, and guests. Email us at digitalmarketingvictories@gmail.com or dms on Twitter at DMVictories. Thanks for listening.

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