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EP 140 | Everything you need to know about marketing your brand going into 2025 [a marketing conference recap] with Aurrie Hicks

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Special episode drop (breaking the hitatus). We went to IBOUND 2024 so you didn't have to :P In this episode, hosts Lauren and Aurrie recap their experiences at the INBOUND marketing conference. Lauren, founder of Brand Good Time, and Aurrie, founder of Hopson Ray, share key insights from sessions on B2B LinkedIn ads, AI in content creation, and email marketing strategies. The episode offers actionable strategies for marketers to enhance their efforts going into 2025 and beyond.

Timestamps:

  • Best Practices for B2B LinkedIn Ads (00:04:03)
  • Insights from a LinkedIn Paid Ads Agency (00:05:08)
  • Creative Content for B2B (00:07:26)
  • Using AI in Content Creation (00:09:34)
  • Effective Call-to-Action Buttons (00:11:15)
  • AI Trigger Words in Emails (00:12:48)
  • Preparing for 2025 Trends (00:14:34)
  • Apple Email Update (00:17:05)
  • Neil Patel on Content Marketing (00:18:13)
  • The Shift from SEO to Search Everywhere Optimization (00:20:08)
  • Maximizing Content Strategy (00:22:57)
  • Marketing Funnel Insights (00:26:33)
  • Brand Competition and Customer Sharing (00:29:10)
  • Creative Content and B2B Engagement (00:30:08)
  • Humor in B2B Marketing (00:32:52)
  • Color Psychology in Branding (00:34:07)
  • Thought Leadership on LinkedIn (00:36:27)
  • Effective Storytelling in Ads (00:38:20)
  • CMO Insights on Organizational Goals (00:41:28)
  • Repurposing Webinars with AI (00:44:32)
  • Launching Products on Social Media (00:46:24)
  • Hacking the Instagram Algorithm (00:47:08)

Find Lauren Loreto online:


Find Aurrie Hicks online:

Speaker 1:

Okay, Welcome back to another episode of she's Fizzy AF. It feels really weird to say that, because I haven't recorded an episode since before I was pregnant. And here I am. We are doing this one-off episode because I just went to a marketing conference called Inbound. It's put on by HubSpot. They have it every year. For some reason, when I talk about it with people no one knows what it is, but it is like the biggest, one of the biggest like B2B marketing conferences out there. So I went with my bestie, Ari she's been on a couple episodes here at she's Busy AF and I was just like what if we nine o'clock at night guys, it's literally like nine o'clock Eastern right now we got our kids down and we're sitting here and we're recording this because it's all fresh in our mind. We wanted to have like an audio version of the recap of the conference because there's a lot of great information that we wanted to share from all the sessions we went to. So, without further ado, here's Ari. Thank you so much, Ari, for joining me today.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for having me. I'm super excited and thanks for like coming with me. I know I was like you have to come. I pretty much like forced you to come.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was like thank you for the push because you mentioned it, and then you were like, hey, what are you thinking? And I'm like, okay, okay, early bird pricing.

Speaker 1:

I know, Didn't we book it? Like I don't. I think I was still pregnant and I was like, listen, if I, if we don't book this now, like I'm going to go on maternity leave and I'm not going to book it. So I'm really glad we did.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I feel like it was the perfect time, you know, post baby to be able to get out. Still, you know, have a weekend or a couple of days, but during the week, so I feel like it was good timing all around.

Speaker 1:

It was super good timing and I like I was telling everyone too I'm like this, I'm treating as like the kickoff to my return to work if you will, because it's so inspiring this con, so this I went to inbound in 2019.

Speaker 1:

I had tickets to go in 2020, but we all know what happened that year. So I went to like the virtual conference, which just just isn't the same experience I'm not good with like virtual anything. So I was really excited to get back in person this year and we did, and so today we're going to just talk through, like, I guess, everything that was top of mind main takeaways from sessions that, like you went to, that I went to and that we went to together. And just to preface everything here, I'm Lauren. I'm the founder and owner of Brand Good Time. We're a content marketing and web development agency and, ari, if you kind of want to just explain a little bit about what you do too, so people can understand the lens of like how we digested this information, For sure.

Speaker 2:

I'm Ari Hicks, founder of Hops and Ray, and we are a visual brand identity and content marketing, mostly social, organic, social media agency. So coming at it from a lens of not only this information and how we can apply it to our individual businesses, but also our clients' our individual businesses, but also our clients' businesses as well, who are both in the B2C and B2B, so I think it just overlaps in so many ways and I think both of our takeaways kind of lend to both of those different things. So it's pretty cool to see how that overlaps.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely, and I think I've talked about this before, but I believe that, whether you're product-based or service-based, you're selling a product. At the end of the day, you're selling a good for someone to purchase, whether it's tangible or not, and so I think that a lot of B2C strategies are relevant to B2B. I think the industries need to know what's going on in each other's sectors. So, anyways, no matter who you identify, as we hope that this episode's really powerful for you, especially ending 2024, going into 2025. So, all right, do you want to?

Speaker 2:

start by talking about the best practices for B2B LinkedIn ads. Yes, so kick us off with the B2B ads for LinkedIn, and this is more coming from a paid ad perspective. So not an organic perspective, but paid ad, but something that we can all learn from in the sense of if you don't have somebody running paid ads for you on LinkedIn and you want to try to bootstrap or want to test things, here are a couple of takeaways, really high level from a B2B standpoint, that you could try. So this is basically what he was sharing in the session was max delivery is the most expensive way to do it. So if you're in the backend and you're trying to put together an ad campaign, the most expensive way is max delivery and the least expensive way is to do manual CPC, which is interesting, he said. Once you get in there and click around, that option is actually hidden. So no shade to LinkedIn, but they're putting that option as a hidden option. So if you're not as well versed, you're not clicking through all the different advanced options. So click through until you find that manual CPC and then a couple of other things.

Speaker 2:

So excluding certain job titles such as sales, business development and marketing job functions could be something that can help your budget and reduce your costs there. And then also, don't exclude for age or years of experience. Instead, use seniority. So one thing that he did mention was seniority is going to be based off of the current job title, not necessarily all of their past job titles, so that's based off their current position.

Speaker 2:

A couple of other things would be avoid audience expansion. He said that is an option on there that a lot of people like to click because they want to cast the net really wide, but that's actually going to hurt your budget. And he did mention if you have a LinkedIn sales rep. They might often recommend that you do audience expansion, but he was kind of going against that and saying don't do that. And then, of course, use engagement retargeting as an option.

Speaker 2:

And then one more metric, as kind of like a KPI North Star, would be if you have a 1% or over landing page click-through rate. He said that is amazing. Click-through rate he said that is amazing. So really the goal is use the manual CPC to reduce the cost. Once you get to over 1% of a landing page click-through rate, then you can shift your strategy to the max delivery and then, until then, like I said, use max delivery at that point. But then from a creative standpoint, we all know creative is a part of this strategy and one of those variables and we'll talk about this a lot in a little bit but how there is so much potential for creative content on LinkedIn, especially for B2B.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Was this person? Was he from LinkedIn?

Speaker 2:

He was not. He was not a LinkedIn rep. He runs a LinkedIn paid ad agency.

Speaker 1:

Okay, got it yeah. A lot of the sessions we ended up going to together just for like light and color here, um, were from like linkedin themselves, like reps from the b2b institute and stuff like that. So I just wanted to caveat this with that, because the stuff we're going to talk about later about creative, is from like the linkedin reps themselves, so lots of data backed there. I mean, I'm sure this guy obviously has a lot of data backing as well some statements of linkedin as agency sharing like hey, behind the scenes.

Speaker 2:

Here's what I do for my clients as an agency representative. I'm gonna share these little nuggets with you guys, in case it's something that you could implement too. Um so and that was the cool part about it too to be able to hear from agency owners, business owners, but then also people who represent the platforms that we all use yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, super cool. I'm bummed I missed that one, but that said Divide and conquer, exactly. We had to do that, especially because I was pumping like every three hours. I had to Cool. Well, this next session was probably one of my more favorite ones. How about you?

Speaker 2:

Yes, Very dynamic yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So if y'all don't know who Jay Schwendelson is, you should definitely go follow him. He's super chaotic. He walked out I'm actually wearing a sweatshirt. He walked out on stage and he goes. I've had three Celsius. That is not normal. He's like facing the stage, this guy's sweating, I'm like is he going to have a heart attack, like right in front of us, Maybe.

Speaker 1:

But this guy, he runs a couple of businesses but he's really big on email marketing, and so he had some really interesting insights. So I really like this was probably one of the more engaging ones. Like the slides were not super well designed but very punchy in your face giving you the information, and so I'm just going to kind of go through the rundown of everything he said and we can kind of talk around that. But one big thing he said is that consumers recognize AI. Now that was like the first thing he really came out the gate with and he said you need to un-AI your content, and using slang is one way to do it, because chat GPT and other GPTs cannot. They don't pull slang Like they are not with the times, they're not like crawling TikTok, at least not yet and so he shared some really good examples and now, like every time I get an email from a brand, I'm looking at these things, Like I literally got one from Etsy and it was like spooky seasons here.

Speaker 1:

And then the preview text was ah, like I'm like, okay, chat GPT would have never written that and obviously these brands have, you know, copywriters on their staff doing these things. So you know, if you're listening to this, you probably don't right? So you can leverage chat GPT for, like, I think the takeaway from this one is like, still use it, but you have to un-AI your content. So go back in and think about what's trending and make sure that you're using slang. And there were stats to back that. He was saying that, based on certain words you're using, they have stats that back the fact that they're seeing 30% plus increase in open rates when using slang.

Speaker 2:

So I thought that was super interesting using slang, so I thought that was super interesting. Yeah, I agree, and I loved his just un-AI your content, your email, your marketing, because everyone knows now if you're using GPT like we don't go in and say like transform your journey. I mean, it's just so obvious now. So, like you said, use it. We're all using it to assist us in a certain way, but don't let it lead every single thing that we do without it having that human touch to make it stand out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 100%. Another thing he was talking about was short buttons, so like learn more, get started, buy now. And yes, this was an email session, but we've been practicing this with the websites we build like crazy, so we don't really. I hate those like learn more or whatever, and like people have so many conflicting opinions about that, because psychology speak like people will people know what to do when they see those buttons, but in my opinion, they're just not interesting. People recognize buttons as buttons, so they're going to click a button, a button, a button. But if it says something interesting, I think they're more likely to stay engaged or wonder what's behind that button. And so I think obviously it applies to emails, I think it obviously applies to websites, anything that you would put a button on. And so instead of saying learn more, get started, buy now, he was saying say things like yes, I want 15% off, please take me there, put my name on the list. Things like that that are longer, so not these. Like short little buttons. I love that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I love the part of it that's putting the perspective of the person reading the email or the website. I am clicking the button. So, yes, I want 15% off. So it's encouraging that action upon myself versus, like you said, learn more. And I think it's a really cool way to add personality to your brand using that brand messaging, and you guys do it all the time on your website and on your clients' websites, so I think that's a really cool way to stand out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we didn't write it down here. But backing up real quick again back to like the AI thing, he was saying that you know, with email there's spam trigger words, right? So there's words that you can put in your email and also your subject line that spam filters are automatically going to say like oh, that's probably spam and put it in people's spam folders. Now there's AI trigger words that I couldn't quite catch if he was relating that to spam filters. But I do think that you know, as a general population, we have all woken up to when things are written by chat, gpt, there's very common words and phrases that that are repeated by those platforms, um, and so as humans, we are becoming like numb and desensitized to it, and so that was just another like caveat to making sure that you on ai, your content yeah okay, cool, um.

Speaker 1:

Next thing it's when we're recording this september, 2024, um, and so I guess you know if you're listening to this, in 2025, the same thing would apply, but get this year out of everything. We're heading into q4, so anything that says 2024 and, to be honest, like I wrote 2025 on an email today and had to like back myself up, like I'm already thinking about it, so are most consumers. Yeah, so they want to know about what's going on in 2025. Now's the time to put out those types 2025 benchmark reports.

Speaker 2:

2025 trends like that is shifting now, so stop talking about 2024 yeah, like the people want what is happening, forward, thinking what, what should they be preparing for in the new year? What are the trends in 2025? Like you said, um, what are the best practices here's? You know all the things to be on the lookout for. So I thought that was helpful in a sense of we, we all plan for q4 and we're all like in that mindset, but people who are also in that mindset are past that as well and planning for the next year. So, to be mindful of that.

Speaker 2:

But then also, rolling into political and holiday season, from an email and marketing standpoint, there is so much noise generally in Q4. And then, as we're talking right now, there's going to be a lot more noise from a political standpoint. So he was just sharing a lot of data and feedback on, you know, the next 60 days, 100 days or whatever that is. It's just going to be so much noise. So how are you going to put your content out? Essentially, you have three options. You have. What did he say? Like, make your stance and make it known. Like, if you want to go all in, okay, make it known. Number two stay focused, deliver the content, deliver the info. And three, like, lead with humor and just stand out and bust through the clutter. So I loved his just simple breakdown of that. No, we're not going to stop our content. We're not going to stop sending emails. We're going to stay consistent. But there's going to be a lot of crap out there.

Speaker 1:

I audibly cackled when he's like all right, if you're going to go all in and say this is who we support. He's like that is fucking crazy. But send it to me, I want to see it.

Speaker 2:

It's like don't do that, but if you do, forward it to me. No-transcript open rates or click through rates and all that stuff are dropping, because that's just normal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it'll. It'll normalize after the election, for sure. Um, I think I had left at the end of the session, but I think you have a note here about the Apple update that's coming.

Speaker 2:

Yes, okay, so not that I'm an expert on this, this is just a note from what he was sharing from an email standpoint. So apparently Apple has an update coming in the next month or two and they're doing a lot of updates to the actual email, um the Apple iPhone email on your phone. So I don't know if I'm old school, but I just use my Gmail app to run my email through it. I don't connect it to my iPhone email, but he's saying that Apple is doing updates. They are one of the things. They're removing pre-header text. They're removing pre-header text. So if you have, if you plan pre-header text in your email content, if the user is using Apple email, they're not going to see that pre-header text. So just be mindful of your subject lines. And then they're also going to be lumping emails into buckets, which, from what I gathered, is going to be similar to what Gmail already does. So that promotion, social and important, yeah, so just a couple of things there.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, I love that talk, and so now we'll move into Neil Patel. So if anyone doesn't know who Neil Patel is, the guy is like the king of content marketing and SEO. He has Ubersuggest, np Digital. I think they also just purchased Answer the Public, which is a really great free research website when you're building content, and so I was very excited for this session, because who better to hear these things from?

Speaker 1:

And he's like very real, open and honest. So he kind of led with like it is impossible to be me now, like it's just, and he's like I don't mean that in like an egotistical way and I love you guys and thanks for following, but like his engagement suffering and at the same time, like no one can ever be that popular or that like strong with seo, like he and hubspot have had years and years and years of buying into this game and so he's constantly going to be ahead of like competitors. So so his whole thing was talking about initially, ai and how the invention of the computer was revolutionary but it created so many more jobs and so net-net there will be positive 2024 is not peak human creativity. And so then from there he kind of went into talking about SEO and what that stands for. So search engine optimization is no longer SEO, it's now search everywhere optimization and some really interesting stats with this. So I've always been curious about this and I actually remember my friend owns an SEO agency and I reached out to her probably like a year ago and I was like hey, have you guys seen any impact in the SEO space on Google with social? Because I think people are using social and like why aren't there any social tools that are gathering data on this? And so now I'm glad to have stats to back this, but essentially, 17% of daily searches are happening on social, 17. And 30% are happening through AI platforms, which is absolutely wild, and so that doesn't leave much for like traditional Google anymore. And so therefore, you need to be search everywhere optimized, not just search engine optimized. He didn't elaborate too much on that, but you know I am down to do the research and figure out. Like what does that mean? I know on social platforms that's like hashtags. It's just optimizing your content.

Speaker 1:

In terms of optimizing your content for search engines, I think for AI search engines, I think that's kind of like gray area right now, but with that he was saying human content holds attention for way longer. So they ran a lot of tests and it's two minutes and 36 seconds versus AI one minute and 21. So pretty much 50% or 100% longer. So the takeaway for that is, like, do not rely on AI tools to completely write a blog post. Like, maybe have it ideate for you, but you fill it in Like the human touch is going to be so much more important. You want people to be engaged in what they're reading because they're more likely to convert. So if you're just sitting out there like, okay, we're going to pump out a ton of content just using AI, you're wasting a lot of time and precious resources and likely your community who's going to fall off because it's just not going to be interesting to them.

Speaker 1:

Another thing he mentioned is that there's one podcast for every 5 000 humans and that stat is just to say like there is a ton of potential. If he's saying, if you like, he's not saying he's saying that you shouldn't, not saying you shouldn't have a blog, but you should definitely have a podcast, was his takeaway. So like, yes, have the blog, keep up the blog if you have it, but a podcast will get you a lot further, because there's just not a lot of stake in the game there, so I thought that was cool. And then, lastly, this was the thing that I was like scribbling, scribbling. I was like, oh my God, this is crazy. This is flipping everything I know on its head and I, yes, take this with a grain of salt, but at the same time, this is coming from an expert in the space who wants success for everyone. So I really loved this.

Speaker 1:

But essentially, summing up content for 2024, going to 2025. I've talked a lot on this podcast and in general about repurposing content. I know you and I do it together. So we take long form content like a blog post or a podcast like this. Then you spit it through channels to parse out social, to parse out like an email, a newsletter, whatever. But what he's saying essentially is that is inefficient.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going to go through the process that he suggests doing in order to maximize engagement and success of your social posts. So this is strictly from a place of like. You want to throw less darts. You want to throw like really effective darts. So number one is test your content ideas with your community. So his recommendation is to use X, the social platform, to post multiple variations of your content, and this is something you can definitely leverage AI for in terms of ideation and just to get mass content out. So the reason why is the algorithm doesn't penalize you for posting similar and frequent content, so you use this as an opportunity to gauge what resonates. Follower count no longer matters, it's all about engagement is another caveat there.

Speaker 1:

So the next would be identify your winners. So the content that performs best on X should become the cornerstone of your strategy and then use those high-performing pieces to repurpose across different social channels. And this is where you start to repurpose. So instead of like it's essentially flipping the repurpose strategy on its head and like going up, he was saying that lo-fi content performs best, so not highly produced.

Speaker 1:

Keep it really simple. Focus on authentic, bite-sized, relatable content that sparks engagement. It should be interesting. Sit back, look at the content. Is it interesting? Would you sit and engage with it or watch it or whatever? And then turn those social wins. So you're going to take the stuff that performs well on social and turn that into long form content, because you're going to have a little snippet of what did well so you can expand on that and once so, once you've identified the content that works, transform that into blogs, articles or even further in-depth video content that you can SEO optimize, because if it's interesting to people, they're probably searching for it, the algorithm serving it to them, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then from there you could take the blog and then from there, develop a lead magnet, because you now know what's interesting, you now know what's driving traffic. So you would take your best blog and convert it into high value pieces like lead magnets, downloadable resources or even webinars. Yeah, so like 30 minutes.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, this is your content plan, like take it, take it. We will be testing it starting in October, so I'm excited to like report back on that one.

Speaker 2:

Okay, let's talk really quickly, though on yes, he is. This expert is saying use X. What if you don't use X or aren't active on X? Do you just become active on there to test out certain things, or is there a way to use, like, let's say, instagram polls, stories, like? Is there another alternative or is it go to X first?

Speaker 1:

He was saying no, because X is the only platform that doesn't penalize you for repeated content and also like rapid fire content. All the other platforms do.

Speaker 2:

Love that, love that.

Speaker 1:

I know, me too. I'm like excited to try it. Threads, like you know that could be an option.

Speaker 2:

But I mean, I guess it penalizes you. So X it is.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if it's a lot of research on threads and like I would be more willing to try threads because I feel like that has random and rapid success sometimes too. So, yeah, I'll report back. I'll try both, okay, all right. Cool, all right. So let's take some of the oh good, okay, this is like the one we sat through together, both of these linkedin chats. Okay, so these were super interesting to me and probably some of the more polarizing points came out of this one, so I'll start with the first one.

Speaker 1:

But, um, one of the sessions I went to had some really incredible visuals and statistics that that top turning the marketing funnel on its side, and so essentially what she was saying is that not only do you compete with the biggest brand, you share your customers with the biggest brand. In today's day and age and I have a really great example because she did some audience engagement I was like whoa, mind blown. But essentially, most people focus on the 5% of people who are ready to buy in the in-market. So, in-market versus out-market 95% of your potential buyers are out-market, meaning they're not looking to buy right now. So why is content, why is creative, so focused on this 5%, when you really should be nurturing the 95 who are going to eventually buy. That was the point.

Speaker 1:

But that went into the fact that you share your customers with these bigger brands. So an example she gave of this was Okay, actually, I'll just do this with you, ari, because I don't know if we talked about it. We may have, so we'll role play here. But when you think of going to grab coffee, what is the number one brand that comes to your mind? Starbucks, okay, starbucks Dunkin', like people would say, probably a variation of those. Right Now, when you are curled up on the couch on a rainy day, what's the coffee that's going to be like in your fridge or on your counter?

Speaker 2:

In my fridge it's going to be a cold brew like a stoke.

Speaker 1:

There you go Like a stoke.

Speaker 2:

For me it would be an espresso or like a Stumptown, Something a little bit more boutique or, like you know, not my convenient on the go grabbing while I'm out.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, exactly. So the point she was trying to make here is that you have to find, like you have to poke holes in the market. So where, like where, in what situation? Might the answer change, and that is is your, that is brand opportunity for like market penetration.

Speaker 1:

So Nespresso, stumptown, stoke, like those are smaller names, and they found a perfect fit opportunity, which is to be on shelves at grocery stores and be in the homes, be in people's homes. But you wouldn't necessarily go to a Starbucks and get that, or you wouldn't go to a coffee shop or a cafe. That's not what you would be served there. So it was just really interesting because, if you think about that, stoke and Stumptown share customers with Starbucks and Dunkin' because those people probably also drink that coffee and it's the same in B2B, it's the same for any brand. You are sharing your customers and so the biggest way to stand out is to, as she said, win the mind, to win the market. Strong branding is how you overcome those advantages and the natural bias and affinity that brands and consumers have, and there was a stat with that that 80% of consumers value consistent branding.

Speaker 2:

So branding as a small business, therefore, is super important. I love the win the mind. To win the market, like all the things that we talk about, is so, you know, from a marketing perspective, psychology driven and there's just little details that add up that people remember. Yeah, so in order to win the mind of your customer, there's all these little things that we're going to talk about that add up to get the memory, increase sales all the things get the memory, increase sales.

Speaker 1:

All the things. Yeah, it's messaging, it's visuals, it's a lot of things. So some stats to back all of this. Creative is the single biggest driver in B2B. Effective creator drives 10 to 20 times more sales. So another reason to invest in branding Content is your launchpad to engagement. Engagement is your journey to purchase B2B buyers. Engage with 13 pieces of content before making a decision, which, honestly, is less than I thought I thought it was like 21 plus so 13 is great, but that's probably 13 pieces of highly creative content and engaging content.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because what is the stat now? Last time I checked, like you said, it was around, from a consumer standpoint, about 21 times for a consumer to see a message, see a brand engage before they consider the purchase. So this being B2B content, b2b content, engaging content, 13 pieces before they could even consider buying. It's a heavy lift, especially from a B2B standpoint, when what we learned here is that there is a ton of opportunity for better B2B content and how to create better B2B content.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so one thing she talked a lot about was how betting big doesn't require a big budget. It requires extreme focus on fewer assets, and the examples they gave were jingles, so like you know, audio visual, so like branding assets, so if you think of like Liberty, mutual and their mascots, like a brand mascot, brand elements, I think have a great play here. Do you think that there's anything like small scale that brands could focus on?

Speaker 2:

I think the sounds are obviously bigger scale and the mascots are bigger scale, but I also think there's opportunity, smaller scale, for businesses to create like we've talked about before for some of our clients even a persona of the brand or a character of the brand. It doesn't have to be a full on emu, lemu or whatever it was it was.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it doesn't have to be a full on character, but it can be something that's representative, that is sprinkled throughout the content, that kind of connects the storyline together. Yeah, and I think that can be done on a small scale, if thought through strategically, without having to use a huge budget and talent and celebrities and all the things that some of the bigger brands use.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I thought that was so cool. Another thing they talked about was how humor is slaying the messaging game, especially in B2B, and I would be interested to see, with the shared client we have, how the engagement rate has changed since Infusing Humor. It's something we pushed with this client for so long, but the stats are that there's a 65% higher engagement rate and a 42% higher form fill rate when using humor in marketing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and going back to that, it's tying in that relatable, but what can also be fundamentally different? And then how to tie in those nostalgia different. And then how to tie in those like nostalgia, cultural norms, memes, what is going on right now in time, or what is what's happening on the platform that's being talked about that a brand could tap into in order to tie in that humor. You know, maybe your brand isn't humorous, but I think there's ways to still connect with people and make them think, laugh and just connect in general. So it doesn't have to be, you know, super humorous, but it has to be relatable for it to be engaging otherwise people are just going to keep scrolling.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, they are cool. Well, I loved this stat, and it is that color is the new black. Consumers are scrolling right past bland branding, um, and so the suggestion just suggestion is to break free from the sea of sameness and prioritize brand assets and continuity. So this doesn't mean like, well, I have a question for you. But the visual was sprinkling color into creative, and so, with that, my question for you is oops, what if you're a brand listening to this and you're like, oh my gosh, my colors are all neutral. I am a sad beige mom. What do I do?

Speaker 2:

So obviously there's a lot of color psychology that goes into things from a marketing psychology standpoint.

Speaker 2:

But I always recommend, even if you do have a neutral palette, to have a couple of secondary brand colors that could be considered pops of color.

Speaker 2:

And you can really do a lot with a neutral palette by adding a couple of thoughtful secondary colors. They don't have to be splashed everywhere, but they can be used to stand out in certain areas where you really need to grab attention. So it doesn't have to. It doesn't mean that all of your graphics, if you add a purple or a light lavender, that means everything's going to turn that color, but it can be placed in thoughtful areas and places in order to grab that attention and stand out. So, yeah, there is a lot that you see now, especially with what we love is Canva, but there is a lot of templates out there now that people are using. And if you're not, if you don't have like a unified brand for yourself and an ownable brand look and feel and color palette and you don't consistently try to stick to that, it's just so easy now to get lost in the sea of sameness and in all the noise. So I would say, consider adding, you know, two to three secondary colors to give it a little pop.

Speaker 1:

I love that and, yeah, I think it's. It can be done, yeah, easily totally yeah, cool, uh, okay, if you're not start now, what is this? Oh, this must have been an Ari note. I didn't write this.

Speaker 2:

This is my note. So we have a shared client, which we've mentioned several times already on here. But from a thought leader ad standpoint on LinkedIn. If you're not doing it, start now. There is so much potential to amplify company voices, whether that's your voice as a thought leader, someone on your team's voice. Use them in content, use them in videos, amplify their voice, have them be a part of the conversation that's going on in the industry and position your brand to piggyback off of those conversations. And one of the big takeaways that I loved was don't be afraid to share a strong point of view. So obviously with whatever you're comfortable with, but you know, try to stand out a little bit. If you do have a thought leadership perspective, don't just be like in the middle, kind of stand out and share, share what you're really thinking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I like that. I kind of want to piggyback on that and say you are going to have people who have opposing opinions. What I posted last week while we were at the conference about how your pricing should be on your website, and a lot of people weighed in. You also have to remember and, like a lot of people weighed in and you also have to remember you may not be giving light to all of the context within what you might be saying. That's polarizing, if that makes sense and so that you know, obviously I had to come out in the comments and kind of share where I was going with the post itself and that's kind of the point too. That also creates engagement and brings more eyeballs and that was like one of my more engaging posts. So it's like LinkedIn, for example. So if you're at all scared to share polarizing views, don't be. Test it. You're not going to get canceled. Yeah, you know what I mean. You're going to have people who don't agree with you blatantly, but you're going to have people who see what you are saying as valuable and it resonates and it goes in that one of 13 bucket, if you will. Yeah, absolutely yeah, I liked this too, keeping it short and focused.

Speaker 1:

Be ruthless with your storytelling within a limited time frame. So like, if you are going to do a video 10 seconds or less, have your logo be visible within the first two seconds and don't be afraid to mention your brand three times in an ad. This results in that 50% higher brand recall. I think something else they touched on in this presentation I might be confusing it with another, but I think it's so related is look at video length in terms of the funnel. So top of funnel if someone is just seeing you or finding out about you, or in general like top of funnel videos should be 10 seconds or less and they can increase in length the further you move down the funnel. So 30 seconds from middle of funnel content where it's like you know the person watching this knows about your brand, they're a little bit more engaged. And then, like two minutes would be, you know, either really highly produced, creative in my opinion or like the person watching it is really invested, ready to buy and they just need something that's going to push them over.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like they're about. They're on the landing page, about to pull the trigger and they're watching the final two minute video, but they've already seen the 10 second that's got them there and, like you said, going through the funnel, because I feel like a lot of times, brands are afraid to mention or I wouldn't say afraid, but I feel like the feedback is often mentioning too many times. You feel like you're mentioning your brand too many times, you feel like you're talking about your brand too much but in reality, no one is listening. They hear it once. So just being mindful of that and repeating yourself, because it's getting lost more than likely, if not. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean I think in general, like any consumer knows if they have TikTok, like this is done too, where they like say something really polarizing and then immediately go to like hi, I'm Lauren from Bring a Time. I own a content marketing and web development agency. You know what I mean. So like that's not obnoxious, it's like when the right person's hooked, they're going to be interested in that, and then you have to like repeat yourself. So, lastly, you left this note. I love this.

Speaker 2:

Remember value doesn't require volume over quantity, creative messaging, all of the value that all of those things do together is much more important than the volume and the frequency at which it's happening, and I feel like, with all the platforms that we have to be on and we have to put information out on, it gets overwhelming at times, and so you're thinking more, more, more. But I think that's just set it as simple as it could be. Value doesn't require volume. Love it, love love, love.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I will wrap up with just a couple of day three stats. I was so overstimulated at this point and ready to get home, I was actually kind of like why didn't I just go to the airport with Ari and catch an earlier flight? I should have. No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2:

I learned some good stuff, so let me- you did have a really insightful afternoon there, I feel like I was missing out.

Speaker 1:

I know I missed you, so, okay, just some interesting things. This is more interesting. I don't really have anything to dive too deep in on, but one thing I thought was super interesting was that 55% of CMOs, so chief marketing officers feel that their organizations aren't structured to deliver on the goals that are set for them. So that, basically, is saying it's coming from ops or above, or CEO or C-suite the other part of the C-suite hey, this is what we need to accomplish. Obviously, marketing goals are tied into that, and so these CMOs are saying they don't feel like their organizations or structure should deliver, whether that's sales ops, like it's just not like whether they bring in the leads, or maybe they don't have the tools or the resources to like bring the volume that's required of them, which is crazy. So it's reaffirming that there really isn't enough support for marketing and that AI has a really strong place in that, whether you have a C-suite or whether you have a CMO and a marketing team or you're a one-man band.

Speaker 1:

I loved this stat because I know I'm not speaking to CMOs on this podcast. I'm speaking to people who are business owners or have small teams, and so you're going to have the same problem you are going to have goals set in your business and you have very little bandwidth to meet those goals nine times out of 10. And so it's about being effective and using your resources. And we're at a point right now, in 2024, going into 2025, where if you are not leveraging AI in some way, you will get left behind because your competitors are using AI to get ahead in some way, shape or form for content ideation. Some might be I mean, the good ones aren't using it to execute on content, but they are using it to repurpose and find ways to maximize content. So thought that that was really valuable. But yeah, 55% is a high number, so I can only imagine business owners like 100%, 13 pieces of content before making a buying decision. My takeaway from this is just keep going. Honor the funnel. The funnel will serve you if you're doing it right.

Speaker 2:

Play the long game, another one.

Speaker 1:

Exactly Play the long game. Another one was really interesting. If you are someone who runs webinars or wants to run them in the future, I always think about repurposing long-form content and leveraging AI to do that. After this episode's over, I'm going to upload it to our AI tool for podcasts to help give me timestamps, because I'm not going to sit there and go back and see each time we transitioned. It's going to save me so much time.

Speaker 1:

So it's the same thing for webinars, and webinars are typically used in marketing. When you have a call to action, you're trying to provide more education around your product, but you want people to convert, whether that's download something or get on an email list or inquire with services. Um, so I the session I went to talked about like using ai to recap the webinar and right after the webinar is done, anyone who registered, whether they showed up or not, they get kind of like a written recap and it has a call to action there and if you have that written recap recap with the call to action, you will see a much higher conversion rate on your call to action I love that as opposed to just sending an email that's like hey, if you like, thanks for coming to the webinar as a reminder.

Speaker 1:

Like here, buy this from me.

Speaker 2:

Like you still, it's the full replay of like an hour and a half or whatever, though that no one's gonna watch yeah yes exactly. It's like we know that I think there's a stat somewhere in one of the sessions that basically says it is taking that person twice as long to actually watch that content on a replay, um, than it is just by feeding it to them directly.

Speaker 1:

Yep, yeah, I think the pandemic ruined a lot of us and like we all multitask, like I can't I can't wash dishes without listening to music or a podcast or a book. Like I feel like I've got to be doing something at all times. So, like, getting me to watch a webinar is so hard. Like even in person at Inbound, like I kept wanting, wanting to check my phone in a session unless I was super engaged. And do you know how hard it is to super engage someone in a webinar? It's impossible. So, anyways, cool, all right.

Speaker 1:

The next thing was I went to a session on how to launch a product on social in 2025. And while we don't have a lot of product-based clients, again, this is a prime moment where I think it's transferable to business, to B2B or service-based businesses. So they were talking about how founder-led content will strengthen the launch of any new product or service that you bring to the market, and so it's just a really important note that found and we love that's kind of our thing too here at Break of Time like our mission is to work with founder-led brands who want to play an active role in visibility because and the reason is because it strengthens the impact of a launch right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's like that own ability factor and, like you said, thought expert piece that's coming from them and promoting that service, that product, that offering that's hard to do with someone else. That might not be the face of it.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, yeah, okay, the last one, a fun one to end on, and this is, I think, could be used twofold. So, if you're someone who, like, may want to work with influencers or creators in your business, or if you're, like, stumped for content in general and sick of using chat GPT because it can be quite unoriginal, this was an idea to create a new Instagram account, so one that, like, you've not used it at all for anything whatsoever, so completely new account and follow 10 creators or accounts that. So, if it's on the creator side, like 10 creators who you would work with, or 10 accounts that you really love their content, and then go to your explore page and your explore page, that's the whole point. It's like looking at who you're following and content you're engaging with, and it's going to serve you more of that. So, like, if I only like Taylor Swift content for like 30 days in a row, my entire For you page, I know, will be Taylor Swift.

Speaker 1:

It's the same kind of thing. Or Bravo let's just put Bravo in there as an example. So it's the same concept here. It's just a way to kind of hack the algorithm to find things, and I thought it was like a really bootstrappy, creative way to do that. Yeah, that's like a free, 100% free idea. Yeah, exactly. So I know that this doesn't cover like everything in every session we get to gatekeep some of that for ourselves but I think that this really covered the really important takeaways from other brands and I thought it was so fun to like be in the same room as all these businesses and learn also from various people. So did you have anything you wanted to add to our day one, day two, day three?

Speaker 2:

I think you covered it all well. It was just an awesome opportunity to like step away from the day to day of what we're currently in and, like you said, be in the room with certain brands or people who are in the same space that we're in or different space that we're in, and just get our brain like inspired and thinking a little bit differently. Because I feel like from a business standpoint working remotely or working how we are these days we don't get a ton of that interaction and networking which, like I think we were texting on Sunday, we were like, whew, we're both. We're like socially drained just from all of the information and the social interaction. But at the end of the day, it's like I'm so glad that we went and did that and hopefully we'll go back next year at least to do either inbound or something else, because I definitely think it's worth it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I do too, and I think we should end on, you know, as much as I want to talk about, like our favorite Boston restaurants, I think we should end on talking about content. And when you go to conferences like this and events like this, whether you're a marketer or not, like it's a great opportunity to like be a thought leader if you will, um and leverage social media to you know, share your expertise or, like you know all of those things. So, yeah us. You know, in the hallways at inbound recording ridiculous reels, um, while people walked by and laughed, but I think, completely understood, you know, like I brought my tripods and people were probably like that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they like do a double take. And then they're like oh, they're just making content.

Speaker 1:

Why don't we see more people doing that?

Speaker 2:

We're marketing influencers in the wild.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm shocked we didn't see more people doing that. Truthfully, I am too.

Speaker 2:

But there were so many people there, so people could have been in their little corners creating all sorts of content we wouldn't have known.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, People were probably successfully doing day in the lives and not going shit. I forgot to record my latte or my bathroom break or my dinner, but I don't drink coffee, oh man. Yeah Well, absolute blast. Thank you so much for coming on and talking about Inbound with me. It's in San Francisco next year, so maybe we can swing it. Who knows? Maybe?

Speaker 2:

We'll see. If not, we'll definitely see each other at some point soon.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely Well. Thank you everyone for tuning in Before we go. Ari, where can everyone find you online?

Speaker 2:

Hopsinraycom and on LinkedIn and Instagram at Hopsinray.

Speaker 1:

Perfect, I'll make sure that's. And, ari Higgs, yes, I will make sure all that's linked and if anyone's typing that into the Google, it's H-O-P, the Google, h-o-p-s-o-n-r-a-e, not Y, r-a-e, not Y com Opsonraycom.

Speaker 1:

Opsonraycom, and then you guys know where to find me if you're an avid listener. If not brandgoodtimecom or LinkedIn, I'm just Lauren Loretto on there. L-o-r-e-t-o, not Loretto. I get that one a lot now. That's great, lauren Loretto. Thank you so much for tuning in everyone. I don't know when I will be consistently posting podcasts again, but like maybe in the new year. So I hope you enjoyed this one-off. I will be back. See you in 2025. See you in 2025. Bye. Okay, that was fun, that was good. Well, if I can have that much,

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Aurrie Hicks

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Lauren Loreto

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