EP348: Gain An Edge On The Competition Through Content Marketing With Deanna Shimota | GrowthMode Marketing

Stacy Jones: Welcome to marking mistakes and how to avoid them! I’m Stacey Jones, and I’m so happy to be here with you all today, and we give a very warm welcome to Deanna Shimota.

Deanna is the CE f growth mode marketing a B to B marketing specialist agency that focuses on demand generation and content marketing with years of marketing expertise Deanna now helps businesses understand how to turn on inbound marketing where your sales prospects are already familiar with you and know where to find you today. Diana are going to be chatting about how B Twob. Companies can focus on, demand generation and drive sales through content marketing. We’ll learn what works from Deanna’s experience, what should be avoided, and how some businesses just miss the mark. Diana, Welcome so happy to have you here today.

Deanna Shimota: Thanks, Stacy. It’s great to be here. I always like starting

Stacy Jones: about how you got to here today. What got you into demand? Generation?

Deanna Shimota: Yeah. So you know, I grew up on the corporate side for the majority of my career working in marketing, and, you know, eventually was running marketing departments, and I always found myself at organizations where high growth was a priority. And so, from a marketing standpoint. They were turning to us, and they were saying, we need leads. We need them now. Help us and I a lot of times worked at organizations that didn’t have huge budgets, so I had to get creative, and how we were going to do that. And so I feel like long before you know.

content marketing was called content marketing. That was really a focus for me, and my career in the organizations I was working at was developing great content.
fast forward to where I am now at growth mode marketing. We started our agency years ago, and I was coming off of a Vp. Of the marketing role at a software company where, you know you guessed it. High growth was the mission. We were private equity backed, and they really wanted to accelerate growth over a year period, and when I walked in the door they’re like great. You’re here. We can finally grow. Let’s figure this out together. And so.

Deanna Shimota: as I was going through that journey, I ended up talking to a lot of agencies and having conversations with them, and they would come in, you know, and I would say, we need leads. We need them yesterday, and their response would be like, we’re gonna help you create this amazing brand experience as a marketer. I know full well the value of a brand experience, and you know I actually think it’s a very critical component of demand generation today, but it wasn’t the conversation wasn’t positioned in a way where I felt like they understood what I was trying to get at.

S ut of that frustration my agency growth mode marketing was born. I started it with a business partner about years ago, and we have evolved, and we have learned, and we did a lot of demand generation, slash, lead, generation for clients. And and we’ve learned over time as the market is shifting, and how people buy that lead generation just doesn’t work the way that it used to, you know, and and the difference between lead generation and demand generation ultimately is lead. Generation is about

going after prospects and asking them for a meeting. demand generation on the flip side, and we can get into you know what it entails. But it is essentially building trust with prospects, so that they’re asking you for the meeting instead. So it kind of flips the tables.

Stacy Jones: and I think you know there’s a lot of thought that.

you know, when you’re going out and you have leads, and you’re pitching, and you’re pitching a new pitching, you get a salesforce that gets very frustrated because reality on the studies they’ve done is there’s only t % of people who are actually in the market to purchase at any one time. So when you think that all these people are true leads, and they’re just blind, and you’re just like that’s a cm ver here.you’re getting a lot of people who are like

Wtf. Why am I getting this? I have no interest in this, and it’s not the warm and fuzzing reaction that your sales team is really hoping for sometimes in those conversations

Deanna Shimota: right, you hit the mail on the head, I mean, you know, statistics do show that in a normal year. Only % of your total addressable market is actually interested in buying, which means % of those companies are not buying, and I think the reality is, if you’re selling something that’s pretty expensive.

you’re not going to convince them to buy, and that’s where lead generation falls short because you’re chasing after, you know, companies trying to turn them into leads, and most of them Aren’t ever going to turn into real business for you, which is very expensive and time consuming for sales teams to chase after. and they recently read an article that said in

economic hardship, so like with a recession that number of companies actually drops down t %.
So now, % of those companies that you want to go after aren’t in the market to buy. And so that’s where demand generation comes into play. Because with lead generation you’re really only focused on that %, or or perhaps this year, % who are in market and trying to find them and pull them in demand generation, takes a step back and says, okay, what are we doing to foster that other t % of companies in our market that aren’t ready to buy today to make sure that they know who we are, and they trust us

when they are ready to buy. So they raise their hand.

Stacy Jones: and then I bet your solution involves content marketing.

Deanna Shimota: It. Sure does. Yeah. I think you know, a foundation of demand. Generation really is content marketing. It’s about building really good content that you’re putting out there for people to find. There’s some statistics that have come out of Gartner in the last. Probably I would say months. That really tell you how the way B B buyers purchase is changing, and why you really need to make your digital footprint become your best salesperson.

First, they’re saying that we are moving towards % of the B to be decision process for making a purchase being complete before a person is willing to talk to a sales rep, which means you can only influence that last I mean, I think if you don’t even make the consideration set you’re not going to have an opportunity to sell to that individual also they’re saying, % of B Twob buyers have indicated they would prefer to have a rep free purchase experience, meaning they don’t even want to talk to the sales rep when they’re going through that process at all. and it’s taking an average of touches for marketing to get a buyer to engage with a sales rep. So remember that whole. You gotta touch someone times in order to turn it into a sale you are screwed here .

Yeah, Absolutely. Because if your digital footprint is not your best sales rep you’re gonna miss out on a lot of opportunities, because what’s happening is in the last couple of years people have realized, hey, I can g nline and I can find a lot of the information, and they want to self-research. They want to find out as much as they can, so that they can minimize that contact with a sales rep.

And that means I want to see video demos. I don’t want to see a live demo until I get you know deep enough in. If I really have questions about it. they don’t want to talk about pricing with you. They want to be able to see the pricing before they ever pick up the phone and talk to you. But even before that if you think about that t f companies that are not in market, they’re not looking for a solution. Today, so if all you’re doing is throwing content in front of them. That’s very product specific.

You’re missing the mark. That content is meant for the people that are in market. If i’m a buyer, and i’m not in market. You’ve got to look for other ways to engage them and really drive the brand awareness, and ultimately trust with them, so that when they become in market, they say you know what I’ve been following along with your company for a while. I really like your unique point of view in the marketplace. It speaks to me. Let’s have a conversation.

Stacy Jones: and for all of you out there, saying, oh, you know my people. Still, you know they they want to talk to us. Do you want to talk to someone? Because I don’t like?

I don’t necessarily want to talk to someone I want to know how much it is. I want to know that they’re good at what they’re doing. I want to know that they have a solution for me, and I want to know kind of what the competitor set looks like, and what I want is the same thing you want, and it’s the same thing that everyone who’s purchasing from you is also wanting

Deanna Shimota: right, absolutely. And I think you know the the B to B sales process is broken. If you look at software companies, you know

they put a form out there. You want a demo. You have to provide their your information to them great. Now I have a demo call. But what it turns out to be is a discovery. Call. No value to me, is the prospect. It’s. The vendor. Collecting all this information from me.

The next call they show me a presentation with like screenshots. The third call I finally get to see the demo. When When I ask about pricing. I have to schedule a fourth call with them. That is not the buyer experience that people want, and I think, as you as you get content as you put forms up there as you try to force people into your selling process.

You’re really turning them off, and they’re realizing I can go somewhere else where i’m having a different experience. And so that’s where that content marketing is really important. And why I reiterate, like your digital footprint, needs to be your best salesperson. because if you’re going to support the way that people want to buy. you don’t have a choice. Really.

Stacy Jones: Now, are there things that you know that people typically do wrong with this approach? Where do they make their mistakes?

Deanna Shimota: Oh, i’m so glad you asked. So I I think one of the big mistakes that organizations make is trying to be everything to everyone. So let’s say they g ut, and they look at their total addressable market, and you know, i’ll use the example. They’re trying to sell Hr: technology. They look at it. They’re like, Well, anyone who has employees could could benefit from our Hr technology. So we’re going to sell to everybody. And you know, at our agency we’ll talk t ur clients and say, okay.

I get you can sell to everybody. But Hr. Technology, for example, is a very, very crowded market. There are a lot of solutions and options out there. and everybody kind of sounds the same, even though they’re trying not to sound the same. And as the buyer, it’s really overwhelming. And so they start to price shop. Whoever’s the cheapest. That’s what they’re going to go with, unless you’re the cheapest one. You don’t want that to be the case because you want them to buy you for the value. And so I think you know

that trying to be everything to everyone is a mistake, and the way to solve it is to really build a strong ideal customer profile and narrowing down that audience, and then building out a unique point of view that gets people thinking specifically for that ideal customer profile.

So you kind of stop chasing after everybody. It doesn’t mean you have to say no to someone that doesn’t fit your ideal customer profile, but all of your marketing. All of your content should be hyper-focused on attracting that ideal customer profile because you want more of those best fit clients to raise their hand and come to you.

Stacy Jones: And so you know our agency, for back in , I I got the content marketing bug. I had gone to a class where Guy named Rob High had been in the sales world forever. and his whole thing was, You have to write emails, email marketing. I can do the email marketing, and I was trying to figure out what I could do for email marketing, and

after having a conversation it was happening over and over again a talk to someone. And we do product placement and movies and TV shows and celebrity endorsements. And it’s a very sexy and very cool world that n ne knows anything about. They don’t get it, and it does not mean that it’s like the highest priority and the marketing, you know to do, because it’s a fun to have versus the must have, and although I think it’s a must have quite frankly. they did not know just tons.

and At first I was sending them an email back and saying, oh, in this and this. And then I started actually writing a blog an article for them, and then I would backdate it like a month or so, because you know who wants to crazy person at in the morning sending you a

reach out to them with the link and say: and, by the way, happen to have written an article on this, I think it will really prove valuable to you and I did those once a week. Then it became twice a week.
and we have over , blogs now, out from that it has made our agency. And I just sharing this, be as a testimonial, You know we’re a small mid-size agency. We have under people who work with us, and

we are able to compete with the largest firms who are out there, including one known by Bill Gates, because we have the reputation, and we have the appearance of being so much bigger than we are.

Deanna Shimota: but more so. We are established as the experts in the industry. There is nothing.

you know, , blogs literally press, and every major media outlet around the world. And it’s not that I was getting the press because people were just randomly calling. They would find an article I’d written, and then they would call.

Stacy Jones: And now what’s happening is, I have a newsletter that goes out on Monday that later on gets turned into a blog. But I just had a major media outlet with the Wall Street Journal. Read my blog article that I wrote Reach out today to ask me, because it was something that was timely. If I could chime in for an article they’re doing so. You can revolutionize your company, especially in a, B B world by these tactics that we’re speaking about here today.

Deanna Shimota: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that is a perfect example. Stacy, about how building out your digital footprint can benefit you it because you’re putting it out there, and you’re so much easier to find, and you’re in the places where the people you need to target are looking and searching for things. I think you know as you think about content.

So what you’re describing, I I would say there’s like different rings of where your content should be one, your own website, like, Make sure people can go deep and find really good information on your website to build out, You know. Kind of your initial storefront to it’s about building out content in channels that you can manage. So we’re talking social media things like podcasts, Webinars, just where you have the choice of how much you publish. And when you publish. And then the third is looking at, how do I tap int ther relevant audiences.

But where you’re getting content out there where they’re referencing you. Maybe you’re sponsoring something. So you start to show up in the eyes of your ideal customer profile. If you’re getting your content in the right places everywhere that they are.

so they know who you are, and they’re consuming the content.

and that sounds like a ton of work. And you know, I think, the example you use Stacy clearly. It was a ton of work that has been built up over years, and that scares people. But I think there’s a way to kind of do what I would call the multiplier effect with content

where you create some really good pieces. So, for example, let’s say you create a podcast series out of that podcast, instead of trying to recreate the wheel again and again and again. You use that podcast as what we’d call your cornerstone content so suddenly out of this podcast series you’ve got but in one year hundreds of pieces of content that you’re putting out there. And what I mean by that is like, let’s say you have a podcast you recorded as a video. So now you’ve got the audio and the video.

Let’s say you create social clips from every podcast you do, using the video. you can create an article out of it. You can create tons of social posts out of it. You can create the transcripts like the list goes on and on. And so you’re not necessarily like writing a new article every time.

But you’re taking. You know the one thing that you’re saying. This is the one thing we’re going to do. and then you’re slicing and dicing it and creating more bite size content pieces for people to go and consume because they might not listen to your half an hour, podcast. But if you’re feeding them, those bite-size pieces on linkedin, for example, over a couple of weeks or a couple of months. They’re gonna get the whole story over time, anyway, from you.

Stacy Jones: And there’s so much software that’s tools. Now, you know, we were all hearing about Chat Gpt right now, right and like I love using a full on Chat Gpt Blog going. That is being edited by me and curated. I’m gonna call it a curated blog, and I’m doing it on purpose against the blogs that the rest of us are writing and and using still Chat Gbt for research, or for help with editing or for help, with creating a Meta description, or writing your intro, writing your conclusion, or running your summary. All these things fascinating things Set

Gpt or Jasper can do for you. But i’m doing it to see how Google actually measures on a SEO basis. One blog versus that’s an AI versus humans.

Deanna Shimota: And then it’ll be really interesting. I know, you know, if you g n linkedin there, there’s a ton of buzz about Chat Gpt in general, but even like within marketers, how to use it, how to apply it, you know, I think it’s a great tool to leverage for like thinking and ideas, and seeing what’s already out there. It’ll be really interesting to see how it plays into Google, you know, if if suddenly everything that gets written is by marketers is from Chat Gpt. There will not be an original idea left, because it’s a database. It’s not coming up with new ideas. It’s pulling information, but I think people are finding different ways to use it and slice and dice. You know the content that they do have. I mean, you can take a transcript from your podcast and put it in there and say, Give me social posts. Yeah.

right it are they? Good, You know. That’s for each person to decide like whether what they’re getting back is good enough to use or not, but it opens up a whole nother kinda avenue, and how marketing is done, and I think it would be foolish not to at least understand how it can be used for organizations.

What i’m finding is, it actually quotes from me, and I can even just put in a write a blog on. Write a blog on blah

Stacy Jones: in the voice of Stacy Jones, Hollywood branded.

Deanna Shimota: and that it can do that. Now, if you take another company and they’re like we’re gonna do the same thing If you don’t have the same volume of content that is really good. That is already out there. You’re not gonna get the same results for sure.

Stacy Jones: but where it is good. Now you just be repurposing everyone else’s thoughts and ideas that they put out there versus putting your own. And they wanted to know what were the properties and the contact information so that they could work on the locations, and they wanted to know all of these different things, and I was able to put in chat, Gpt and work this all out where it gave me the most iconic based on different parts of La based on Dallas. It was done inside of  h.

Deanna Shimota: Oh, wow! And it’s insane. What you can actually do with it. Yeah, that’s that’s pretty awesome. So back, then, to demand generation. Besides, my whole love of Chat Gpt. Right now.

Someone’s listening to that going. I have to go and take a podcast and turn it int social posts. There is actually technology that will feed that in, and it will make it for you and generate for you. Even Chat Gpt can help you with it. But on the video editing side of it. There’s slice and dice.

Stacy Jones: you know, software that will serve up lots of options for your team to use. So you can start doing this really cost affordably versus being

Deanna Shimota: right. It, you know. I think, like I can tell you from experience, because my my own team just recently started a podcast. It’s a lot more work than you think. You know with that. How hard is it we’re good at talking about this stuff. We’re just now recording our conversations and putting it up there, and

I can tell you, you know, when you go from helping clients do it to doing it yourself. You get a whole new perspective on it.

your video and it will come up with like an AI generated transcript. And then you can review the transcript highlight key phrases, and it’ll turn it into video clips for you. So you don’t have to be. You know someone who knows how to edit videos in order to create the social clips. For example, you can have your

Stacy Jones: marketing coordinator, who maybe isn’t as experienced. But it’s pretty tech savvy. Go in and figure out how to do that and start to to create a ton of extra content for you.

Deanna Shimota: Yeah.

Stacy Jones: there you go, listen to that. But even on this, you know, Podcast, that we’re doing right now, you know I have

a platform called otter that’s clicked into that linkedin to it, and so it’s providing a transcript that’s written down as well. It also does show notes basically for me. So it can tell. You know it decides where it thinks that you know some good

Deanna Shimota: good, meaty topics might be. I don’t know how it decides. It’s smart smarter than I am, and it’ll tell you the time stamps. But there’s so many different things out there that will help you with this stuff right? Absolutely, and, you know, take advantage of them, because most of them aren’t terribly expensive. I mean, you’re talking about otters. What? $ a month.

Granted all these different things end up.

Stacy Jones: Yeah, especially as you know, your entry level employees cost is getting ever so higher.

Deanna Shimota: Yeah, for sure.

Stacy Jones: Are there any other tricks that you use in order to accomplish awesome content marketing?

Deanna Shimota: Yeah, one of the things I’ve kind of mentioned it, but we haven’t really gotten into is creating a unique point of view.

And you know I I growth mode marketing will help clients do this, but people can certainly try to do this on their own as well. What you’re doing is first. You’re building out that ideal customer profile. So you know who you’re targeting, and that next step before you start to create all the content is to develop out a unique point of view.

and the way that I describe a unique point of view. It’s not your message like your product. Differentiators, lot of companies kind of struggle with that, because they might be in a market where what they’re doing is identical or very similar to what someone else is doing. And you’re trying to break through that clutter

It’s about defining the story you’re going to tell, and kind of the pillars that you’re going to weave into every piece of content that you have, or that you create. And you’re gonna tell that story over and over and over, so that your market and your ideal customer profile, and how your organization thinks about a challenge or a problem in the industry and kind of challenges that status quo. But more than anything, you’re putting statements out there that make people stop and think.

You want some people to disagree with you. That helps spark the debate around what you’re trying to push. but it also, you know you’ll have people who will buy into what you’re saying, and you know they’ll stop in the thing, and they’ll be like that makes sense. I’m going to follow their content because they’re saying things that really resonate with me. And they’re talking about problems that I see, too.

And so that unique point of view, you know. Again, you can’t be everything to everyone if you really want to, you know, achieve high growth. You’ve got to stand out in the market. So it’s got to be specifically to your ideal customer profile that you’re creating that story for. And then you g n to the content. And because you’ve done this unique point of view Framework basically the topics that you talk about are already mapped out for you. It’s now figuring out, how do we spend this topic to tell this story consistently and repeatedly.

But if someone’s reading it, they’re not like they just publish the same article over and over and over, because you know that that’s a real struggle, too. That’s painful, even if it’s the same article, and examples over and over and over again.

Stacy Jones: And so how can people find you, Deanna, like if someone’s like, I need some help.

Deanna Shimota: Yeah, you know, if you’re interested in learning more about how to create a catalyst for growth through demand. Generation, I would say, check out growth, mode, marketing’s, Podcast. It’s called the demand. Gen. Fix. You can find it on apple podcast spotify Youtube, or wherever you get your podcast.

you can also follow me, Deanna shimod on Linkedin. I post a lot of content with insights and and thoughts and tips around demand generation. And then, of course, you can [email protected] as well where we post a lot of information and insights as well about demand generation. and so leading int ur last couple of minutes that we have right.

Stacy Jones: What are the most most important takeaways. I’m not a summary. We talked about this before, but what are things that you think it doesn’t have to be anything you’ve touched on that people need to keep in mind in general when they’re approaching. Demand generation.

Deanna Shimota: Yeah, I I think, keep in mind. That lead generation is really only focused on the short game, and you can’t overlook the long game, and that’s where demand generation comes into play, and it’s important, because, as we said, t % of companies are not currently in market to buy.

But remember that those future prospects are really important to your future growth. So you’ve got to build that brand awareness and trust long before they come into the market. Lead generation and demand generation, because when they’re inbound, leads versus leads you’re chasing. They’re gonna have a higher, close rate. They’re gonna have shorter sales, cycles, and they’re gonna have lower overall customer acquisition costs. So there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t want demand generation, because it’s just going to be a more profitable proposition for you in the long term, and it it can truly be a catalyst for growth.

Stacy Jones: Well, Diana, thank you so much for joining us today. Really.

Deanna Shimota: yeah, that’s a great problem to have. It, is it? Is. But thank you again, and to all of our listeners. Thank you for tuning into another episode of marking mistakes, and how to avoid them. I look forward to chatting with you this next week, and until then you have any questions on how you can get involved in other people’s content. We’re talking product placement and movies and TV shows music videos getting your brand in the hand of celebrities which, by the way, all of this makes really cool, content to repurpose

Stacy Jones: purpose. Give my team a call. We look forward to chatting with you. Have a great one.