EP362: Write High Performing Content Using the Latest Techniques With Becky Lawlor | Redpoint

Stacy Jones:
Welcome to marketing mistakes and how to avoid them. I’m Stacey Jones, and I’m so happy to be here with you all today, and I want to give a very warm welcome to Becky Lomer.
Becky is the founder and chief research and content officer at Red Point at B B. Research agency, specializing in data-driven storytelling that boost brand authority and warness. I just murdered all of this. Find out welcome to marketing mistakes and how to avoid them. I’m Stacey Jones, and I’m so happy to be here with you all today, and I want to give a very warm welcome to Becky. Becky is the founder and chief research and content officer at Red Point, A, B Twob research agency specializing in data-driven storytelling that boosts brand authority and awareness. Having collaborated with top brands like adobe Ibm, Samsung and Zapier. Becky is delivered, impactful, expert-driven and data supported content. That leaves the lasting impression with her strategic content. Mythology she boosts her clients lead generation efforts and establishes their research as credible sources, earning recognition from respected organizations like Gartner using AI tools, Becky has learned how to deliver unique, tailored, data-driven content that truly sets for clients apart today, Beck, and you are going to be chatting about how to create high performing, research-driven, original content. We’ll learn what works from Becky’s perspective, what should be avoided, and how some businesses miss them. Are Becky welcome? So happy to have you here today. Of course my head was cut off most of that time, but lovely. Okay.
Becky is the founder and chief research and content officer at Red Point A. B B research agency specializing in data-driven storytelling that abuse, brand authority and awareness. Having collaborated with top brands like adobe Ibm, Samsung and Zapier, Becky has delivered impactful expert-driven and data-supported content that leaves a lasting impression with her strategic content. Mythology. She boosts her clients, lead generation efforts and establishes their research as credible sources, earning recognition from respected organizations like Gartner using AI tools that he delivers unique Taylor data, driving content. That sets her clients apart in a competitive marketplace today, Beck and I’m gonna be chatting about how to create high performing research. Given original content, we’ll learn what works from her perspective, what should be avoided, and how some businesses miss the mark. Becky, welcome, so happy to have you here today.Becky Lawlor:
Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Stacy Jones:
I am always delighted in all things content, because as an agency, we have really differentiated ourselves by producing massive amounts of content logs, every week podcasts videos, all things that have set us apart within our niche. And so I know how powerful it is. How did you get started to get you to here today?

Becky Lawlor:
Well, I have been producing contact. I mean way back I started. I have a M. A. And creative writing. So that’s where I started my writing journey. But I moved into freelancing, and I landed in the tech space just kind of by chance an agency that I started with. That’s the type of client they had. But I found very quickly that I really enjoyed the tech space, especially because there’s constant learning involved in it, and and that I was able to bring that piece of taking complexity and making it more understandable to executives like cmos and stuff. So that’s how I kind of entered it. And I’ve always been focused on the thought leadership type of content, like papers, ebooks, articles that had more of a thought leadership angle to them. I really have always enjoyed doing research, and interviews, and and that part of developing content.

Stacy Jones:
And when you’re going about this, and you’re first working with a client. How do you figure out what direction to go with them? A. And where there might actually be really strong compelling stories that haven’t really been covered yet within the organization.

Becky Lawlor:
Yeah. So I think, the first thing is, you know, making sure that there’s done. There’s been some some research done to understand who their customer is and what their customer really cares about, so that you’re producing content that is actually going to be relevant and useful. and and you’re not just sort of guessing at what you think that they want, or just aligning with your what your product might drive for content. So that’s the first piece, and I think the way to do that is, if if that hasn’t been done, you need to do some type of research, and that could be again starting with a survey to better understand customers. It can be interviews, either of those, but I think a lot of times you can combine that step also with the step of actually using that research to create data-driven storytelling. So it’s kind of like if you haven’t done that step, or if you have done that step, and you still want to create that driven content. Either way, there’s an opportunity there to come out with something original that aligns with, what your customers are concerned about and care about.

Stacy Jones:
Do most people here that okay, you have to right, you have to create. And they just go amount.

Becky Lawlor:
No, I I mean, I think I mean, I guess I tend to work with brands that already understand the content marketing does work, and it’s valuable. So you know. I suppose there’s some marketers that maybe still need education around that. But I think a lot of brands these days, I mean content. Marketing has been around an effective strategy for quite a while now. So I think that my experience has been most marketers understand that it’s just sort of that. How to conquer a lot of this challenges in it, of the resources to do it. And I think ideation is just coming up with topics and topics that you know don’t feel like they’ve been done times already, right like when you’re in a space with other competitors. How do you? How do you sort of take that same topic and make it your own, and make it different enough to get engagement? I think. You know, those are some of the big issues around actually producing the content.

Stacy Jones: Well, what a great set up for a question! How do you do that. How do you actually conquer that?

Becky Lawlor:
So I think again, it kind of goes back to you. Want to make sure that you’re doing something original and unique, and that ties right into doing some type of thought, leadership content. And there are a bunch of different ways to do this. And you know, require different types of budgets depending what you want to do and investment, time, investment, and resources. But the the the simplest, I think, is even just going to your internal subject matter matter experts and getting spending time interviewing them and getting their perspective on, you know. So you can take a topic that that is out there in your industry, and you know you sort of need to show up on that topic because everybody else is. But you want to make sure that the way you show up differentiate, you shows that you guys have a different expertise, different values sort of offering and different thoughts about it. Right? So the that’s where you can tap into those experts that are internal to your company and really get their perspectives and their deep knowledge and then share out that deep knowledge. don’t just go out and do some Google research, but really tap into the people. I think that people are your strongest, whether you’re using internal people or external people. Those are one of your strongest polls for creating original thought leadership content. That’s just gonna perform better because people don’t want to read the same thing. They want to read something that is unique and different.

Stacy Jones:
And so you’re going to be sitting down with the team members having a brains from session, doing an interview informally with them, potentially recording it, getting a transcription of it or just taking notes so that you can then go and create

Becky Lawlor:
correct. Yeah.

Stacy Jones: those are the the basic steps. What are some of the mistakes people make?

Becky Lawlor:
Well, I think. kind of going back to the first set of, I think the the biggest mistake that I see people make is just not taking the the time to do those steps. They’d rather just get content out. And they’d rather, or they find like, well, it’s really hard to get, you know, on people’s calendars, and you know, I I just need to create content. So they sort of skip over some of those steps. so I I think that’s really the biggest mistake is just not trying to shortcut the process a little bit. it is one of them, and then the other one that people make is again. not taking the time to understand what their customers care about, you know, even if they understand that the content shouldn’t be sort of product, focused or company focused, or Salzi? they still sort of maybe guessing that what they at their target audience and what they actually care about and what they problems are trying to solve and what would really be relevant to them. So again, that goes back to that research step of taking the time to really understand what customers need from the content that you’re gonna develop. And if you don’t do those steps, then whatever you develop is probably not going to engage and perform the way you hope.

Stacy Jones:
And so once you have started, you’ve gotten this content. You’ve sourced it. You’ve put it down on paper. What do you do with it, then? Are you just taking it and doing one thing? Are you repurposing it in many ways, and slicing and dicing and creating it. You know, cornerstone that you can use to really build off of, or what’s your approach?

Becky Lawlor:
Yeah, so definitely, you want to re-purpose it. in in a bunch of different ways. And you know, one of the types of content that I do. A lot with clients is is these types of original research cornerstone, where you, where you do do the survey of a target audience, and you come out with both internal and kind of external like, you might include some survey questions that just help you. But you also are including survey questions around the story that you’re going to tell with your data in your content, and you the first step would be creating that cornerstone report with it. But then you could do so much more with it. You can use it. in your social media. You can use it to create webinars, infographics. you know, I think getting people on video to talk about the data. Or, again. if you’re doing internal subject matter, matter, expert interviews. You can even get people on video that way. you know, these days most interviews happen over zoom. So you could re purpose those zoom calls if you want into little video snippets that you can post and share out. And obviously blog posts. so yeah, and podcast I mean, and even the the other thing is even trade shows and events. I’ve had a lot of customers that have had a lot of success with using their like research and data that they found to actually get speaking engagements. I had one client who had tried for a couple of years to get a speaking engagement at a trade show that they really wanted and had been declined. and when they came with their cornerstone report and their data, not only did they get the spot, they got a prime spot at the at the event, so it can make a big difference to really have something that is original. That leader ship oriented when you’re when you’re trying to get those types of engagements.

Stacy Jones:
and we touched upon this before we start chatting. But Chat gpt! It’s the word of the moment. All things! AI! How are you leveraging it. How are you suggesting others?

Becky Lawlor:
Well, I mean for me. Personally, I leverage it kind of like the small ways of like you know, getting headline ideas and you know, maybe other kind of like I I have. That’s really the main one that I leverage it. I’ve tried it a few other times. I’ve like tried feeding it in Transcript and how to make up the quotes, even though I gave it a transcript. So I’m still little on the fence of like. No, I think it actually cost me more time to save. But I think I you know I do know that if you’re writing really kind of basic what I would call often content meal type. Content. Then maybe chat, Gpt can can do the job or do of the job, and you have to bring in a human for the the last . But what I what I see is that as that becomes a more common use case. that companies just want to use it to quickly push out content for their blog or whatever I mean. We’re already inundated with content. There’s so much in it, and you have to try to get your content to surface and and get somebody to actually want to read it already is a challenge. So I think that that challenge is going to increase, and that is again, where having original and unique content is is going to play a big role. You know, people people want to hear from their peers. People want to hear from people in the industry and so doing. That kind of interview based content as well as kind of data collection data driven. Whether that’s using. You know, if you’re like a marketing analytics company, maybe you have internal data that could be turned around into interesting content that they can benchmark themselves against their peers. Or, again, you know, I mentioned the survey based original type of research that you could do so. All of these types of content, I think, are going to kind of rise to the surface in terms of getting engagement. Because if everybody’s pushing out AI content. And it’s not unique. To begin with, it’s it’s creating based off, you know, previous inputs. So it’s not going to be original. So it’s just not going to stand out in the same way. And it might not be time timely, as far as like what is actually happening. Now, if you’re using chat Cpt, you obviously had a threshold where it shut down, and it’s not quite yet

Stacy Jones:
Up to date. There’s other platforms like perplexity is a good one to use. That is more up to date and it sources. the reason why I like it is. It’s actually sources, stats and research. But it does so in such a way that it actually tells you where it’s getting the stats and research. So it’s not just fictional chat, Cpt land, and you can go in and then hunt down the initial point of contact that put this out there so that you can dial in a little bit more realistically, too.

Becky Lawlor:
Yeah. And you know, the other limitation with like Chat Gpt is you know it’s sourcing from several years back. So when you’re talking about doing content writing in in the business space, I mean, I don’t the resource, you know usually years old, is kind of a shelf. Life of data stats. So Chat Gpt is already out right there, even if it gave you the source which it usually doesn’t. And half the time you don’t even know if it is a real stop.

Stacy Jones:
And no, I actually have. I use Chat Gpd, a lot for our agency, and so our team uses it to clean up what they’re writing to edit down to take something that’s too long to condense it. with writing to put in a topic idea and ask it to along with some supporting questions and ask it to form an outline so that you can actually build off of it. So there’s ways that it really does help you, I think. Come up with more, more ability to write. If you’re someone who cannot just put pen to paper and let the flow go. So it gives you a structure that you can work within, which I think is really valuable for a lot of people.

Becky Lawlor:
Yeah, I mean, I I definitely, there’s value to it and it and it will get used. You know. The the question is, though, I think which I was getting to is just sort of how, when there’s more AI generated content, which means more content in general, because it’s easier to generate. How do you then continue to get your content in front of your target audience.

Stacy Jones:
And in years time. I can’t even imagine how much there’s going to be. And you know, Google, unless you are a mastermind at using these AI’s that it can recognize actually, whether it’s AI generated content because it’s so perfect. In some ways, it doesn’t actually have the human errors that you need to have, or just different ways of speaking and colloquially on some So it’s easier to identify. And that’s why

Becky Lawlor:
so and that will go into the search. And as well. Right eventually, if, unless Google changes their philosophy and decides to prioritize it, they may. You never know with Google, it’s a special beast, isn’t it? Yes.

Stacy Jones:
So when you have put all this content together, you know it’s having an interesting conversation with one of our clients this morning where we’re sourcing a thought leader for a white paper that is going to be very science driven? but for a consumer initiative. And you know the conversations. Okay, get the white paper. Then what do you do with this? Content as well? And so that’s, I think, a big challenge people have. Sometimes they come up and they put all their power and energy into writing this fantastic thing. and then they don’t actually do anything with that thing besides, publish it, and they don’t cut it down, and they don’t re purpose, and they don’t pitch it out to press, and they don’t use it, as you said, for speaking engagements. What are some of the ways that you think people could better use this once they’ve actually dialed it in.

Becky Lawlor:
Well, what I think they need to do is again. It goes back up before you even start your project. You need to know what your goals are with your project. you know, is your goal. lead generation, is it Media mentions? Is it SEO and backlinks? What you know? What are you trying to accomplish with that piece of content? You can have more than one goal. But I think you need to understand what’s your highest priority and kind of have them to your rank, because that’s the first thing that sort of level sets what happens next, and then still again, before you even get to writing and and your content. You need to have your promotion plan in place you need to think about. How am I going to distribute this? What is that going to look like? Because again, it doesn’t form what you create? And so if those steps like you said, a lot of people think well, they they may know that they’re going to do white paper. They’re going to put it in a. You know, they’re going to design and put it in a Pdf. And and maybe use it for lead. J. But they haven’t really thought through a full promotion plan. So you know they spent. I don’t know , $, by the time you had a design and everything for This white paper may be more if it’s a more extensive one. And and they haven’t thought about how they can use it. So you need. I think the poor thing is first to start the those steps need to happen before you actually even get to putting pen to paper and deciding what your project is. And then, yeah, I think there are so many ways whether you’re even if you’re doing a white paper where you are just researching what’s online or whatever, and not although I think you should still definitely at least have some. Even if you don’t quote, then you should still be doing some internal interviews for background if you’re if you’re serious about producing a quality piece of content. but you need to think about all the different ways again. Like, if you are using internal experts, they would be great for a webinar, and that webinar can take the ideas from the white paper and then push people to read the full white paper. you know, again breaking down little snippets and data research that you included and using it on Linkedin. content. Syndication may be something that you want to consider. If it’s You know something that you’ve invested a lot of time and effort, and you want to get in front of a very specific audience. sometimes that can be worth it. I think you also want to think about if you’re even if it’s just for the Jen you want to be thinking about your paid ads. you know, and how you you need to think about the whole ecosystem, everything that you could do with it. And you need to be thinking about that before you even start writing. But a lot of people don’t. They don’t. They’re just like, Yeah, I’m out done.

Stacy Jones:
And it’s true, though, like a lot of people will sit there and they’ll put together so much work and and anything I see in surveys as an example and surveys, I think, is one of the biggest areas that you don’t think of. What the actual story is that you’re trying to tell always. And you come up with all these great questions. But they’re not actually tied into the results that you’re going to be needing. That’s the power punch that media is going to pick up, or that people are going to be interested in. And it’s just facts versus meat.

Becky Lawlor:
Yes, and I’m glad you about that, because I think survey design when you’re doing like a data-driven content. So many people think that survey design is just sitting down, and you just without a survey and it’ll be good. But if you don’t have that storytelling piece in place before you ever design your survey? You don’t understand. You need to come. You need to step back and say, what is my hypothesis? What is the story? I think the data is going to reveal. And how do I want to tell that? And then you design your survey, and you still need to be thinking about in your survey. and how you are writing those questions. to turn them into headlines, and I see this so often that whether it’s clients or even agencies that offer this type of service. I mean, I just finished a report this year with the client that had been doing a state of it. Ops report for the last years. And they were kind of like, just getting like met data. We’re like, we’re spending all this money and we get. Is not that interesting? And when I worked with One of the things was, I looked at how the survey was designed, and how the questions were written. And you know, I changed a lot up there, even if we were asking the same type of questions because they weren’t leading to headlines. They weren’t thinking about that next step of where am I going to go with this data and the difference? So this year? in the first month that they published their report. This year they got times the lead. Then they got all of last year from not just one time all of last year, based and versus one month, because the survey design matters. And they said, Oh, yeah, you know what our previous vendor actually leaned into us for survey design. But we’re not survey designers. We’re just marketers, you know. So I think a lot of people overlook that survey. Design is an art and a science. and especially when you’re using it for content not just to get data. But when you want to translate that into content. And Pr, you need to think about that differently than just whipping out a bunch of questions that you’re curious to answers

Stacy Jones:
Where some other areas that you see people not necessarily dialing it in the right way.

Becky Lawlor:
I think that the other place that I see people not necessarily dialing it in is again If Pr is a goal of theirs, and meeting mentions not thinking about that at the outset. sometimes waiting until they’ve got the piece, and then being like, Oh, yeah, let’s do Pr with this. But then they haven’t thought at the beginning like, what what would the media want? And now they’re trying to have what they take what they have and try to make it media worthy. And that’s a much bigger challenge than starting at the beginning. And again, if like, if you’re doing a original research report and meeting mentions of Pr is one of your big goals, and you’re going to use a pr agency. They should be involved right at the beginning. even if they’re not running the report, they should be there right at the onset. working with your research vendor or your internal marketing team to have those discussions again. It all goes back to. What is the story we’re trying to tell? What data and questions would inform that story, and then going into the survey and moving forward from there. If you kind of don’t do it in that order, you’re going to spend a lot of money and not get the return on investment you could.

Stacy Jones:
And when you are working with people,do they get this? Do they understand it usually, or are they? Do they want to invest the time that is needed? or when you set it up for them? And better do they understand the fact that

Becky Lawlor:
I think When I’m working with people they understand it. If it’s explained to them correctly. And like I said, I’ve had a couple of clients where it’s been like they’ve done. They’ve already invested once or twice and haven’t gotten results they wanted. And then, when I walk in through it. And we bring, you know, the Pr person in at the beginning. Or we talk more about how the data and the storytelling have to line up and then move forward. Then they see better results on the end. So I mean, so I think it’s a matter of educating. I don’t think that it’s people are opposed to this, but sometimes they just don’t know, and they didn’t know when they started. And it’s somebody didn’t explain it to them. they get. They’re not writers themselves, and content creators necessarily themselves, and they’re running businesses, or they’re running departments and divisions. And this isn’t their knowledge. Well, or and again, if you’re working specifically with the research, what happens is sometimes they’re working with a research vendor who is in a content vendor, or and there they may be content creators, but they’re not researchers. So you you don’t have the kind of the combined skill set. And so then the gaps emerge because the research company knows how to do research. But they’re not really thinking about content. You know how to do the research. So you’re not really thinking about how the have to intersect. That’s the that’s usually the biggest gap that I that I see out there.

Stacy Jones:
How can our listeners learn more about you. So if they’re like, Yeah, that’s me. I totally. We have set off so many times, and the land of content, and not gotten the results that we wanted. How can they find out how you can help?

Becky Lawlor:
my website is red point content.com, so they can go there. I’m also on Linkedin and they can connect with me there

Stacy Jones:
perfect. And you said the magic were just then Linkedin.

Stacy Jones:
So how are you instructing or helping clients with their thought leadership, or in getting more awareness on Linkedin, is that one of the priorities that you’re seeing come up with people trying to publish more on that set.

Becky Lawlor:
I don’t specifically handle social media, but I certainly encourage them to use the content on Linkedin. And you know I have done some like research reports where in the design process we’re creating, you know, pieces of you know, graphics that can be used on Linkedin for the posting of of the data stat or banners, or whatever they want to use it for. But certainly, I think, any content you create, there’s always an opportunity to re-purpose it on social media and and that is actually another place that you could use chat, gpt as a starting. I don’t think it can do all the work for you as well, but I have used it for that as well. Where you can pull out. You can give it a larger piece and say, you know. create Linkedin posts for me. You’re gonna have to tweak it. It’s not going to come out perfect, but it can help you kind of pull out segments. to reuse on on social. Yeah. So it’ll even give you emojis if you would like. Yeah, they created emojis that you can fill with smiley faces, sunshine, and rainbows. It is amazing

Stacy Jones:
any other ways that people should be approaching content creation that we haven’t touched on today.

Becky Lawlor:
I think you know the other thing that I was just. This is just more of a challenge that I have actually been really surprised about. So maybe just something people should be thinking about as they work through. This is is the project, timeline. I’ve been surprised how many of my own clients have, when I do like case studies with them. that one of the biggest values is actually that the projects are on time. And so I think, especially when you’re getting into a bigger project like A, you know, a research project that is going to be multi-month But even a white paper, you know, is is making sure that you have a timeline that is realistic, that you know. If you do have an event or date, you need something from your working back. But you have to be realistic like and you should expect your vendors to be realistic, your agencies to be realistic. I mean, that’s something I’ve been told as well this, but sometimes people will just say Yes, we can do it. And then to get that when the business, instead of having an honest conversation, saying, Well, that’s just not really a feasible timeline to deliver quality. So Thinking about that, especially if you’re doing interviews just again that challenge of getting on people’s calendars. You need to be realistic about starting that process right out the gate, even if you don’t know exactly what you’re going to ask him yet. Start trying to get on our calendar and then being realistic that it’s going to be at least one to week process, probably to get your interviews in and and scheduling that in.

Stacy Jones:
Yeah, I think it’s looking at this as a project. And it’s not just. Oh, you’re going off in your writing. You actually need to project management. Need this. Use your Monday boards for project management system. Come up with all the different steps that you’re going to do, including your publicity plan, and then set in your date so that you can have a plan of action that your team can have more chance of actually hitting the message. Well, thank you, Becky, so much. Really appreciate your time today. I love again all things content. It is so powerful it can change your business. I’ve seen it with our clients. I’ve seen it with our agency. We generate millions of dollars of new business, because people find us online through what we’ve written and shared and educated. And you can do that for your business, too. Everyone can. And as long as you niche. And you’re a thought leader and you provide value and education. People really respond well to it. So thank you. Yeah, thank you. Brought me on. It’s great talking with you, of course, and to all of our listeners. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of marking mistakes and how to avoid them. I look forward to chatting with you this next week, and until then, if you are ever interested in having your brand become involved in other people’s content, like movies and TV shows or influencers and reach out. And I’m happy to hit chat with you or have our team connect until then have a great one.