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#mtpcon Digital APAC: A Guide for Attendees

March 30, 2021/0 Comments/in Resources /by Epic Presence Team

Are you a product-focused entrepreneur, developer, or marketer looking globally? Then we have the SaaS conference for you. Mind the Product’s series of remote digital conferences is heading to the APAC region, with #mtpcon Digital APC on April 14 and 15, 2021.

Featuring two days of keynote speeches and breakout sessions led by some of the biggest names in product and SaaS, plentiful networking opportunities and a year’s free membership to the Mind the Product community, this is one remote conference you don’t want to miss.

Intrigued? Then read on to find out everything you need to know about #mtpcon Digital APAC.

#mtpcon Digital APAC: An Overview

Billed as “the world’s best online product conference,” #mtpcon Digital APC aims to offer incredible value to anyone involved in building and marketing digital products. It runs between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. SGT on Wednesday, April 14 and Thursday, April 15, 2021. That’s 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. Pacific Time for anyone on the West Coast who wants to join.

Two Days Of Discussion and Learning

Each day of #mtpcon Digital APAC includes a series of concurrent breakout sessions, round table discussions and sponsor spotlights in the morning and afternoon, bookended by a keynote speech and Q&A session. Social sessions at the very start and end of each day offer ample networking opportunities on top of the regular breaks throughout the day.

A Tried and Tested Approach to Remote Conference

This isn’t Mind the Product’s first remote rodeo. The community has hosted several #mtpcon digital conferences in the past, and this latest one follows a tried-and-tested formula.

Everything will be hosted on Hopin, an event platform promising a high-quality, seamless experience. The conference’s schedule is also designed to cater for the intricacies of remote working.

First, the conference is scheduled to suit as many different APAC time zones as possible. It doesn’t matter where you are in that part of the world, you’ll find it easy to log in and learn. Second, regular breaks are interspersed between speeches and breakout sessions, allowing attendees ample opportunity to speak with their team, check on kids or grab another coffee.

Learn How to Build Better Products From the Best in the Industry

#mtpcon Digital APAC is on the cutting edge of product creation. There are few better places to learn the latest tips, tricks and industry secrets to build better products. Throughout the conference, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from and network with industry thought leaders and executives from the biggest product companies in the world.

You’ll leave feeling confident to apply what you’ve learned in your own company. But don’t worry if you can’t remember something because you’ll also have access to recordings of all of the speeches and discussions.

Networking

The conference may be remote, but it doesn’t lack networking opportunities. There are plenty of occasions to connect across both days of the conference. Breakout sessions and roundtable discussions offer attendees the chance to discuss specific product-related issues. One-to-one speed networking sessions allow attendees to connect with one another in a more intimate setting.

One Year of Mind the Product Prioritized Membership Included

Buy a ticket to #mtpcon Digital APAC and you’ll automatically get a year’s free membership to the Mind the Product community worth $250.

Mind the Product is the world’s largest community of product-focused individuals with more than 150,000 members and meetups in over 200 cities. Leveraging its membership’s insight and knowledge, the community creates some of the industry’s best content and events. It boasts the largest Slack channel for product-focused people, a job board and an industry-leading newsletter.

Membership will give you access to recordings of all #mtpcon Digital speeches, breakouts and roundtables. You’ll also get access to the community’s premium content and even more chances to interact with product experts at exclusive membership events.

If you’re already a Mind the Product member, you get exclusive discounts on all #mtpcon Digital tickets. You can find your discount for #mtpcon Digital APAC in your membership dashboard.

Who is Speaking at #mtpcon Digital APAC?

Like all Mind the Product conferences, #mtpcon Digital APAC boasts some of the industry’s top thought leaders and executives.

Teresa Torres

Teresa Torres is a product discovery coach at Product Talk Academy. Torres takes a customer-focused approach to product discovery and creation, helping teams to gain insights from customer interviews, run subsequent experiments, and deliver outcomes that add value to both customers and the business. Her work has seen her partner with major brands like Spotify and Tesco.

Previously, Torres led product and design teams at a string of startup companies. She was VP of Products at student job site After College and the CEO of online community provider and recruiting service Affinity Circles.

Torres will be delivering one of the conference’s keynote speeches.

Crystal Widjaja

Crystal Widjaja is an executive-in-residence partner advisor at Reforge, a tech-based education platform, and an angel investor for the Sequoia Scout Fund. Between 2015 and 2020, Widjaja ran product and engineering for Gojek, an Indonesian multi-service platform. She was the first technical data hire and held roles as the VP of Business Intelligence, Fraud & Risk, SVP of Growth and Chief of Staff to the co-CEOs.

She has been recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 and is a HerWorld’s Woman of the Year. Widjaja is also the cofounder of Generation Girl, a non-profit that aims to introduce young girls to the STEM field.

Widjaja is one of the conference’s keynote speakers.

Rich Mironov

Few people in Silicon Valley know product management better than Rich Mironov. For over 35 years, he has run product management teams at six B2B startups, coached product teams at many more software companies and personally helped dozens of product leaders. He is a long-time blogger at Product Bytes and his book, “Art of Product Management,” was one of the first on software product management.

Anthony Murphy

Ant Murphy is a product and agility lead at UST Global, a leading provider of digital technology and transformation. His career has seen him ship products at every stage of the product life cycle for companies in a huge number of sectors.

Murphy is also an established speaker and a Medium top writer in leadership and startup with over 70,000 monthly views.

Anthony Marter

Anthony Marter is a product leadership consultant and a product and delivery coach at Australasia’s largest personal loan marketplace Harmoney. He has worked in almost every aspect of product management both online and offline. That includes designing refrigerator wiring, leading a product team for a global SaaS platform and stints in fintech and healthcare.

Marter is also the founder and Chair of Product Aotearoa, a non-profit organization that nurtures, connects and increases the impact of product professionals in New Zealand.

Anna Lee Anda

Anna Lee Anda is a user experience researcher at Zendesk in Singapore with experience working across both SaaS and fintech industries. She loves helping product designers and developers to understand the benefits of research and showing how great research can drive great results.

Upcoming Conferences from Mind the Product

Think #mtpcon Digital APAC sounds ace but can’t make the timings work? There’s no need to worry as there are plenty of other Mind the Product conferences to attend throughout the year:

Currently scheduled as an in-person event in Hamburg, Germany, #mtpengage is slated to occur on June 23-25, 2021.
#mtpcon Digital Americas, another remote conference, is planned for July 14-15, 2021.
A London in-person is planned for one week starting October 18, 2021. This may become #mtpcon Digital EMEA depending on coronavirus restrictions.

If you’re excited to commit to #mtpcon Digital APAC, tickets are on sale now.

Images by: Mimi Thian, heylagostechie, Beci Harmony

All About #BoS2021: The Business of Software Online Spring Conference

March 2, 2021/1 Comment/in Resources /by Epic Presence Team

If you’re building a software company, few conferences should be higher on your list than the upcoming Business of Software Online Spring Conference.

This remote version of Business of Software’s annual conference is happening on Monday, April 26 and Tuesday, April 27, 2021. Here’s everything you need to know about #BoS2021.

What is the Business of Software Online Spring Conference?

This online conference brings together SaaS leaders for two days of learning and discussion. You won’t just be watching a stream, however. Unlike other remote conferences, you’ll be taking part.

Interactive discussions are at the heart of the conference, offering attendees the opportunity to discuss topics like growth, product, leadership and company culture with other industry leaders. Attendance is capped at 300 people, meaning no one gets lost in the crowd.

What’s on the Agenda?

The conference features 10 interactive sessions, each of which will be led by an expert speaker and cover all of the topics a SaaS leader cares about. That includes:

Growth strategy.
Product management.
Company culture.
Leadership.

Each session will be a mix of talks, group exercises and discussions. Attendees will even have the opportunity to ask session leaders questions about their own business.

What’s not on the agenda at BoS Conf Online Spring is just as important as what is. Like all BoS events, there are no overpaid celebrity speakers or sponsored talks. It’s purely actionable advice and discussions. Nothing else.

Who is Speaking at the Business of Software Online Spring Conference?

SaaS thought leaders will be heading up each of the interactive sessions. While more speakers are to be announced, the following are confirmed to date:

Yodit Stanton

Yodit Stanton is the Founder and CEO at OpenSensors, an Internet of Things data aggregator. OpenSensors uses data to make sustainable workplaces a reality for every business.

As a software and data engineer, Stanton has built and managed data systems for a number of FTSE500 companies like Deutsche Bank and Nomura.

Stanton will lead a discussion on “The Future of Work and the Workplace” in which she’ll cover what workplaces will look like after the pandemic. It will discuss five themes:

Changing behavior.
Adaptability.
Self-direction.
Security.
Technology.

Joel Gascoigne

Joel Gascoigne is the cofounder and CEO at Buffer, a leading provider of social media tools. Since 2010, Gascoigne has grown Buffer to a remote team of nearly 100 people with an annual turnover in excess of $21 million. The company is completely distributed and practices a culture of transparency and employee happiness.

Gascoigne is also an active angel investor and currently advises nine companies in the U.S. and Europe. His investments include CloudPeeps, a freelance talent management platform, inDinero, an outsourced accounting provider, and CloudApp, a screen recording SaaS.

Sahil Lavingia

Sahil Lavingia is the founder and CEO of online sales platform Gumroad and a former employee (employee #2) at Pinterest.

Lavingia understands both sides of the venture-funded/bootstrapped coin. Gumroad initially took on angel and venture funding before moving from 25 employees to one. At that point, he decided to radically restructure the company’s purpose. Rather than trying to become a unicorn, Lavingia focused on building a lifestyle business. Since then, Gumroad has grown to $10 million MRR without any full-time employees. He documented his decision and subsequent journey on his website.

Lavingia will lead a session entitled “The Pros and Cons of Setting Your Own Goals as an Entrepreneur.” In it, he will discuss his pivot from a venture-backed startup to an independent business. He’ll also talk about what he’s learned about running a profitable business and how to grow without full-time staff.

Simon Wardley

Simon Wardley, Open Europe Fellow, startup advisor and researcher at Leading Edge Forum, is also the inventor of Wardley Mapping. A Wardley Map is a map of the structure of a business or service and shows the components it needs to serve customers. It’s the framework he created to answer the question, “Does this strategy make sense?”

Wardley will lead a session called “Mapping the Future for Your Business,” in which he’ll introduce the concept of Wardley Mapping to attendees and help them understand how these maps can be used to grow their businesses.

The Business of Software Community

Business of Software describes itself as a “welcoming community of SaaS leaders.” Community is at the heart of everything BoS does. BoS Conf Online Spring is no different. With that in mind, the conference organizers have created four ways for attendees to connect with each other.

“Coffee queue” chats that encourage chance encounters with people.
Group exercises during sessions where entrepreneurs can talk though questions together.
Breakout sessions during each interactive discussion where entrepreneurs can meet people interested in the same areas as them.
A dedicated Slack channel where attendees can organize their own meetings and breakout sessions.

BoS Conf Online Spring isn’t the only conference BoS is running this year. A fall version of their remote conference is scheduled for September 27-29 2021, giving you another opportunity to connect with SaaS professionals if you can’t make this one, or better yet, take part in two world class events.

Super early bird tickets are currently still available as are bundled tickets for both conferences.

Images by: CoWomen, david laws, Surface

SaaStr Build 2021: Everything You Need to Know

February 2, 2021/0 Comments/in Resources /by Ed Currington

SaaStr is well-known for its series of annual events and 2021 promises to be no different. The first remote conference on the list is SaaStr Build, for founders and executives who want to get their hands dirty and learn practical tips to grow their brand.

If you’re thinking of kicking off the new year on a high note by attending SaaStr Build, read on to find out everything you need to know.

What is SaaStr Build?

SaaStr Build is a two-day event that brings together the best minds and biggest players in the SaaS industry. This year it will be held virtually on March 9-10.

The conference is brought to you by SaaStr, the largest community of SaaS founders and executives in the world and promises an action-packed itinerary that will leave you smarter and more motivated to grow your SaaS brand in the new year.

What’s In Store For Those Who Attend?

Over two days, SaaStr Build will equip you with the knowledge and actionable tactics you need to scale your business, team and revenue. You’ll be joined by 25,000 leaders from the SaaS community, hearing from over 50 speakers and taking part in 75 breakout sessions

Keynote Speeches

Do you want to hear from the best in the SaaS industry? Then you’ve come to the right place. SaaStr brings a series of lecturers and keynote speeches from the CEOs, CMOs and CTOs of some of the biggest SaaS companies in the world. They’ll be tackling big picture topics and the everyday challenges of running and growing a SaaS company. Pick and choose who you listen to or tune in to them all; the choice is yours.

Tactical Sessions

SaaStr Build gets into the gritty detail of running a software business through live tactical sessions. There’s no irrelevant panelists or sponsored content — just detailed advice to help you run and grow your business.

Roundtables

Two days of keynote speeches can be overwhelming when you don’t have the chance to interact with thought leaders. That’s why SaaStr Build is running a series of roundtables and other small meetings to let attendees pick the brains of some of the brightest minds in the industry. These discussions will give attendees the opportunity to discuss the biggest challenges facing the industry and ask the experts anything they want in engaging AMAs.

Networking Events

What’s a conference without networking opportunities? Even though SaaStr Build is a remote conference, there are still plenty of opportunities to network over the course of the two days. That’s because there are going to be thousands of one-on-one breakout sessions running parallel to the main events. These sessions promise to be even better than the coffee and breakout sessions common at regular conferences. Instead, you’ll get the chance to chat personally and in detail with a fellow SaaS professional, with whom you can share insights, talk shop and pick up a lesson or two.

Who’s Speaking at SaaStr Build 2021?

SaaStr Build isn’t short of world-class speakers. Eight featured speakers have already been announced and more will come in the following weeks. Confirmed speakers include:

Jeff Lawson is the CEO of cloud communications platform Twilio, which lets web and mobile apps add messaging, voice and video chat.
Denise Persson is the CMO of Snowflake, a cloud data warehouse company.
Sid Sijbrandij is the cofounder and CEO of GitLab, an open-source Git repository.
Abadesi Osunsade is the founder and CEO of Hustle Crew, a career advancement community.
Roy Mann and Eran Zinman, cofounders of project management tool Monday.com.
Alexandr Wang is the CEO and cofounder of Scale, an AI development company.
Miguel Carranza is the CTO and cofounder of RevenueCat, an end-to-end solution for in-app purchases and subscriptions.

What is SaaStr and What Else Do They Do?

SaaStr is the world’s largest community of SaaS professionals with over 600,000 members. Founded by Jason Lemkin, the company provides a wealth of training material, courses and investment capital to the SaaS industry. They even go as far as providing an online university for SaaS executives to level up their skills.

SaaStr Build isn’t the only event SaaStr hosts, either. There are several regional conferences and plenty of events held throughout the year. These include SaaStr Enterprise on May 27, 2021, SaaStr Annual on September 28-29, 2021, and SaaStr Scale, a two-day event which will be held in December 2021.

If you love SaaStr Build, it won’t be long before you can attend another SaaStr event.

How Much Does It Cost to Attend SaaStr Build 2021?

The best thing about SaaStr build? You don’t have to blow your budget to attend the conference. SaaStr Build is free to attend if you only want to watch five hand-picked keynote speeches. You’ll have access to live broadcasts and their subsequent replays, but you won’t be able to access any of the workshops or networking events.

If you want the full SaaStr Build experience, then an all-inclusive VIP pass for SaaS founders and executives costs just $99. This ticket gives you full access to all of the events we’ve outlined in this article, as well as replays of all live broadcasts.

Images by: Teemu Paananen, Kane Reinholdtsen

The Top SaaS Conferences to Attend in 2021

January 19, 2021/0 Comments/in Resources /by Ed Currington

Even 2020 couldn’t stop the growth of SaaS. Gartner predicted the industry to grow 10.5 percent over the year, while in its 2020 State of the Cloud report, Flexera wrote that SaaS was top priority for 43 percent of companies in that year. Those stats, plus the fact that 2020 transformed the SaaS conferences scene, means it’s more important than ever to attend an in-person or remote conference in the New Year.

If you’re not sure which SaaS conferences are running, we’ve rounded up 12 of the best events taking place in 2021.

SaaStr Annual 2021

Date to be confirmed

Do you want to attend what’s billed as the largest non-vendor SaaS event on the planet? Then look no further than SaaStr Annual 2021. The seventh version of this event promises to be one of the best ever. Over 50,000 attendees will meet in person and online for two full days that includes over 100 workshops and thousands of mentoring sessions. You’ll also get to hear from over 150 speakers from leading SaaS brands and have endless opportunities to network with your peers.

Startup Grind

February 22-25, online

Startup Grind’s Global Conference will be an online-only event in 2021, and promises to be accessible to startups across the globe. This year, the conference is running a choose-what-you-pay model, meaning attendance can cost as little as $10.

Whatever you pay, you’re guaranteed to receive excellent value for money. Over four days, the conference promises to cover seven key themes through workshops, roundtables, keynote speeches and fireside chats. If you want to kickstart your SaaS business’s growth, learn more about VC funding or discover the future of work, the Startup Grind Global Conference is a must-attend.

SaaStock Remote

February 23-24 and March 3-4, online

The in-person SaaStock conference may be on pause for another year, but that hasn’t stopped event organizers from putting together an excellent opportunity to learn from the best in the field. SaaStock Remote is a four-day live remote event that promises to give SaaS leaders the tools they need to grow their businesses. Hear from over 50 speakers and watch more than 30 hours of content during the first half of the conference. In the second half, you’ll be able to network with more than 3,000 attendees and make meaningful connections that can benefit you and your business in the future.

Collision

April 20-22, online

Collision is one of North America’s fastest-growing tech and SaaS conferences. It was hosted successfully online in 2020 and it’s back online again in 2021. Join 32,000 other participants from over 140 countries to hear from some of the biggest names in the industry and, indeed, the world. For reference, 2020 speakers included Ariana Huffington, Cal Henderson and Justin Trudeau. You don’t have to be there in person to learn and network with other SaaS leaders, but you do need to attend Collision.

Content Marketing Conference

April 27-29, online

Content marketing is one of a SaaS brand’s most potent and powerful marketing weapons. If you want to learn where to sharpen your sword when it comes to content and SEO, there are few places better than the Content Marketing Conference.

This year, the conference will be a fully remote event, but it will be no less educational. Over three days, you’ll be able to take part in a series of workshops, hear multiple keynote speeches and network in several breakout sessions. By attending, you’ll also have access to the Content Marketing Conference’s member-only portal that has training, resources and certifications that can be accessed on-demand.

Adobe Summit

April 27-28, online

Adobe Summit is a free virtual event that promises to help SaaS leaders understand the future of the customer experience. As it’s an Adobe event, world-class speakers are guaranteed. Previous speakers have included Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, NVIDIA’s Alix Hart and TVSquared’s Jo Kinsella.

There’s no shortage of content, either. Attendees will be able to choose from more than 200 sessions across ten different session tracks, including the Adobe Experience Platform, digital commerce and personalization. Registration opens in late January.

B2B Marketing Exchange

June 7-9, Scottsdale, Arizona

The B2B Marketing Exchange is doing everything it can to host an in-person conference in 2021. Having postponed the initial event due to be held in February, the conference will now take place in the summer at The Phoenician in Scottsdale, Arizona. If you want to grow your brand by hearing directly from marketing experts this year, this is the place to be.

You don’t have to wait until the summer to get your fill of B2B marketing advice, however. The brand new B2B Marketing Exchange digital experience is launching on February 22 and will deliver expert-led presentations, networking opportunities and deep-dive sessions.

Dublin Tech Summit

June 17, online

Following an incredibly successful virtual summit in 2020, Dublin Tech Summit will once again be a remote-only event in 2021. Join over 5,000 attendees for one information-packed day of learning. Hear over 80 speakers discuss the latest trends and views on everything tech-related. You’ll also have the opportunity to meet investors and C-suite attendees through several networking events and share ideas with the brightest people in the industry.

MWC Barcelona

June 28 to July 1, Barcelona

If your SaaS brand sits at the intersection of mobile, connectivity and technology, then attending MWC Barcelona is a must. This is one of the only SaaS conferences that brings together the biggest names from multiple industries and, best of all, its keynote speakers include Anne Boden, CEO at Starling Bank, Arvind Krishna, CEO at IBM and Patrick Gelsinger, CEO at VMware.

Join over 100,000 attendees, 8000 CEOS and 2,400 exhibitors to discover the future of the tech industry. In addition to hearing from industry thought leaders, you’ll see demonstrations of the latest products and get to network with peers from around the world.

CXO Summit 2021

September 29-30, Austin, Texas

The CXO Summit is a two-day event and one of the largest gatherings of SaaS experts in middle America. Held in Austin, the 2021 version of CXO Summit will bring together more than 250 SaaS leaders, VCs and sponsors for a series of expert-led workshops, keynote speeches, fireside chats and 1:1 networking events. There’s even a poker tournament to top things off.

Recurring Revenue Conference

Fall 2021

The Recurring Revenue Conference presented by Sutton Capital Partners is one of the only conferences to focus on the subscription economy and has been labeled one of the top ten international SaaS conferences. In short, it’s a must-attend for most SaaS leaders.

Do so, and you’ll join 700 other business leaders hearing from industry experts and learning the latest strategies to make your subscription business as successful as possible. From reducing customer acquisition costs to increasing customer lifetime value, everything you need to know to run a successful subscription SaaS business is discussed at Recurring Revenue.

Mind the Product

TBA 2021

Mind the Product is the world’s largest product management conference, hosting annual events in London, Singapore and San Francisco. The main event in San Francisco had to be postponed in 2020, but is due to be held in-person in 2021. If you want to learn more about product design, development, marketing and growth, Mind the Product is the conference for you.

Held over one day, the conference combines keynote speeches from the world’s leading product experts with deep-dive workshops. There is also a separate leadership event for senior executives held the day before the conference.

Images by: Austin Distel, airfocus, Benjamín Gremler

Our Pick: The Top 12 SaaS YouTube Channels to Follow

December 15, 2020/0 Comments/in Resources /by Amanda Dodge

One of the best things about the internet is that you are never learning alone. You can choose how you want to learn — through podcasts, blogs or video content — and find people who have asked the same questions before and who are ready to provide answers now. If you are getting started in the SaaS field and want to offer a better product to your customers, turn to YouTube. You can find trusted industry leaders who will share their secrets and create complex tutorials to guide your efforts. Check out these 13 SaaS YouTube channels that offer expert insight.

SaaS Marketing Vlog

Join Tim Soulo, CMO at Ahrefs, on a journey related to software best practices through the SaaS Marketing Vlog. This channel reviews common questions that software entrepreneurs have (like how to grow a Facebook community past 10,000 fans) and then uses real-world examples that guide viewers to understand how to get there. You’ll see how responsive Soulo is when scrolling through the comments on each video.

SaaS Master

Jorge Aguilar at SaaS Master provides product testing, SaaS tutorials and video reviews for people within the software industry. This is an incredibly active account with videos published a few times each week and each video averaging under 10 minutes, though some exceed 20 minutes for in-depth discussions. Check out its archives if there is a particular software tool you want to try, as you can be sure Aguilar has likely heard of it and offered his top tips for using it.

The SaaS CFO

Ben Murray is the vlogger behind the brand The SaaS CFO, which has an active blog alongside its YouTube channel. Murray is known for his minute-long videos, called SaaS in 60, which review common metrics. These give new entrepreneurs a better understanding of what they should be tracking and how they should value themselves. He also publishes some longer videos (up to nine minutes long, but most are around three minutes) if you’re looking for discussions about an idea or topic.

One Hour SaaS

Meet Mubashar Iqbal, but you can call him Mubs. Two months ago, he started a channel called One Hour SaaS, where he works to build up a software platform in just one hour a day. The videos he makes average 10 minutes or less and each video has a clear task to accomplish. For example, Hour 004 discusses the importance of a solid landing page for your users, while Hour 037 discusses your soft launch. Mubs publishes his vlog a few times each week right now and you can follow him on Twitter for additional updates and commentary.

SaaS Nation

SaaS Nation is the YouTube channel for “the best SaaS conference in Ukraine.” Many of the videos are in English and highlight some of the best software minds in Ukraine and other parts of Europe. Their videos are reminiscent of the TED Talks style, where there is one speaker on a stage discussing a topic. SaaS Nation took a break from posting for the past few months (likely due to the pandemic and uncertainty of conferences during this time) but is back to posting new videos related to growth and software startup stories. It’s worth checking out.

BetterCloud

BetterCloud is a product that offers SaaSOps, or the ability for IT departments to better manage the growing SaaS stack within organizations. It has a strong YouTube presence with almost 13 thousand subscribers and the company pushes out a new video each week — and has been for several years. You can watch BetterCloud’s SaaS tutorials, like how to centralize your SaaS data management, or check out hot topics related to SaaSOps and data privacy.

SaaSOptics

SaaSOptics offers a B2B subscription management platform with a focus on helping finance companies and teams. It boasts more than 400 customers globally that manage more than $2.5B in revenue. The SaaSOptics YouTube channel has more than 55,288 views for its videos and has been part of YouTube since 2009. Several of the most recent segments are two-minute videos for “Ask Claytone,” where cofounder and CCO Clayton Whitfield answers questions related to SaaS from viewers across the country.

SaaS Mantra

SaaS Mantra is another YouTube channel that combines a Facebook community with valuable video content. The private group has almost seven thousand members and says it welcomes B2B founders and entrepreneurs who are looking to network and grow. Some of the video discussions uploaded to this channel can get up to two hours long, with meaningful discussions from people who are excited to talk about their SaaS industry experience. Follow this channel and join the Facebook group if you have questions or enjoy open SaaS conversations.

Cloud Software Association

The Cloud Software Association is a SaaS partnership network with more than 2,000 companies that work together to create a better market for SaaS development and distribution. The association has an active Twitter account and hosts several events throughout the year. It uses its YouTube channel to make announcements, but also to share insights from the annual SaaS Connect conference and to highlight members and impressive SaaS startups. This is a good organization to follow as you grow your SaaS company.

Swattage

Dale Richards is the founder and CEO of Swattage, based in Salt Lake City. He has more than 15 years of experience in the fields of project management and software development, which makes him an interesting person to listen to when discussing industry trends and the future of SaaS. Check out the Swattage YouTube channel, which has brief segments on the Internet of Things, venture capital funding and affiliate programs. Richards updates the account frequently and features other Swattage team members and people within his community.

JumpCloud

JumpCloud calls itself a Directory-as-a-Service which allows security managers to easily connect with their online applications, files and networks. The JumpCloud YouTube channel is mainly focused on tutorials for its software system; however, there are interviews with SaaS leaders peppered in that are worth watching. There is one discussion with founder-to-founder advice and a series of interviews with different executives.

SoftwareSupp

SoftwareSupp is a software support app that offers developer resources and consulting work for entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their SaaS tools. While the SoftwareSupp YouTube channel does focus on videos created for the company, it also has a variety of content that provides insight into the general SaaS ecosystem. For example, you can watch reviews of various software tools and better understand how niche startups can really help the markets they support.

Images by: Aleksandr Davydov/©123RF.com, Aleksandr Davydov/©123RF.com, claudid, Swattage

Empathy Mapping in Marketing: 4 Steps to Success

October 20, 2020/0 Comments/in Resources, Tips /by Ed Currington

Empathy maps are often underused by marketers. In a discipline where success depends on being able to appeal to your customers’ needs, wants and desires, marketing departments should be doing all they can to get inside the heads of consumers. Most create customer personas. Few go any further.

Empathy maps are what make customer profiles feel genuinely human.

Ready to begin? Start by reading our introduction to empathy mapping if you haven’t already. Then, read on to find out how your marketing team can level up its efforts with empathy mapping.

Extract As Much As You Can From Your Mapping Session

It’s best to start with a team-wide brainstorm if you want to get the most from your efforts. Sure, you can do it alone, but you’ll miss insights from other team members and the ideas that only come from a lively debate.

Lindsay Munro, a social strategist at Adobe, recommends team members write their comments individually, but discuss them out loud with the rest of the group as they had them to the map. “By asking questions, it’s possible to reach more profound insights — such as why team members really think the way they do — which can be valuable for the rest of the team,” she writes.

But why not go even further and ask the opinions of other departments? After all, you’re not the only team that thinks about or speaks to customers.

Each department sees the customer from a different angle, writes Nick Nelson, content marketing manager at TopRank Marketing. It’s only by coordinating with other departments that you can turn disparate information into a meaningful picture.

By working across the company, you’ll pull useful information out of department siloes, says Jonathon Hensley, co-founder and CEO at Emerge Interactive. Certain insights might be unique to a certain point in the customer journey, but that doesn’t mean they won’t prove valuable to marketing efforts.

Further, don’t be afraid to shape the map to your specific needs. The template empathy maps that you can find online are a great place to start, but the quadrants may not fit your needs, says the team at NX Creative. They offer one four-quadrant version of the map that contains a section for pain points, a section for goals and a section for benefits.

You needn’t worry about messing it up, either. There’s plenty of time to check and refine your map. In fact, Causevox’s Rob Wu recommends testing whether your map accurately reflects your real customers as soon as you’ve finished creating it. Interviewing a cross-section of customers is a great way to see whether you’ve hit the key points.

Remember, you can always adjust your map if needed.

Use Your Map to Add Depth to Customer Personas

There’s a problem with traditional customer personas.

They typically lack empathy, says Katie McKenna, director of content at Portent. “Companies using personas to craft marketing and sales tactics develop a clearer understanding of their buyers, but this method can backfire,” she writes. “Even small audiences contain vastly different individuals, and traditional personas don’t embrace every person in that sampling.”

The beauty of empathy mapping is that it allows you to take your customer personas even further — essentially turning them from 2D pictures to 3D sculptures.

Where customer profiles are focused on the superficial, empathy mapping goes deeper, writes Advanced Web Ranking’s Lia Boangiu. “An empathy map goes beyond the interests, skills, or lifestyle of your customers, and into what they see, feel and think – allowing you to gain a deeper understanding of what it’s like to be them,” she says.

Combine them, and you’ll have customer personas that begin to resemble genuine human customers, not faceless data points.

Apply Your Empathy Map Across All Marketing Efforts

With a better understanding of your customers and what their pain points are, you can create content that helps customers overcome those hurdles, says Serenity Gibbons, writer and former assistant editor at The Wall Street Journal.

Don’t stop there, though. Seek customer feedback to understand whether your content marketing really is striking that empathetic note. Gibbons recommends surveying your audience to see whether your content is helpful and whether they’ve bought from you as a result of that content.

The more you use your empathy map to tell a story, the more successful you’ll be, says Big Leap’s Stephen Porritt. When you understand what customers want to hear, creating engaging content gets that much easier — so long as you continue to speak to the reader’s needs.

Revisit Your Empathy Map in the Future

Your empathy map is only useful if you continue to refer to it every time you write a blog post or launch a new campaign. UX and content strategist Jennifer Leigh Brown recommends hanging your map in a public spot or designing a poster around it

Alternatively, Demian Farnworth at Copyblogger recommends turning your map into a shareable document if you work remotely (or if there’s nowhere good to hang it).

Wherever you put your empathy map, make sure to keep returning to it and updating it in the future. As products change and consumers change, your empathy map will need to change with them. That’s how you continue to add value to your marketing efforts.

Images by: You X Ventures, Headway, Green Chameleon

Empathy Mapping 101: Improve Your Content Through Understanding

October 6, 2020/0 Comments/in Resources, Tips /by Amanda Dodge

Assumptions are one of the biggest risks you can take in the marketing world. You assume you understand what your customers want. You assume you know the problems facing an industry. You assume customers are willing to pay for a service.

Often, these assumptions are based on information, but this data or personal experience is flawed. It either doesn’t paint a complete picture of the situation (like zooming in on the nose of the Mona Lisa), or it skews the correct view like a prized Picasso.

The process of empathy mapping was created to provide detailed and accurate descriptions of audiences to better help designers and developers create useful products. Over the years, its use has expanded across several industries and disciplines.

What Exactly Is Empathy Mapping?

Empathy mapping uses a set template and brainstorming sessions to answer questions about a specific audience.

In marketing, the goal of these maps is to highlight flaws in logic and missing pieces of customer information.

“By making the map visual and directing the inquiry at a specific target we are able to build a much better picture of our market,” says Charles Leon, designer and keynote speaker. “It’s often the case that these kinds of maps can reveal where we have gaps in our existing data and where we have made assumptions.”

Leon shares examples of one of his empathy maps and walks readers through his process of developing and improving them. One aspect is clear: The map is a living representation of the audience. It’s constantly edited, updated and improved upon with more detailed or more accurate information.

Dave Gray, author of books like “The Connected Company” and founder of XPLANE, was the original developer of the empathy map. Gray most recently updated the process of map creation in 2017 as a way to centralize the design of the map and ensure that the creations of others don’t degrade the original concept. This most recent version incorporates goals into the map, which helps users understand what a given audience could be working toward.

What Are the Benefits of Empathy Mapping?

There are multiple benefits of sitting down with your team, stakeholders, and vendors to map out the needs and experiences of your target audience.

The first benefit is that it forces everyone involved to focus and plan instead of diving right in. “There’s a chance that different stakeholders might jump immediately into what they want out of the product, or they might immediately start talking about constraints, or you might start talking about timelines,” says Jon Tinman, user experience designer at Fuzzy Math.

“Doing this empathy map as early as possible in the process is the best way to have everybody stop, take a moment and really think about the person you’re designing for.”

Even if you think your whole team is on the same page and understands the goals of a campaign or project, creating an empathy map can provide a written, visual guide that team members can return to during the whole process. This is why empathy maps are typically developed before any concepts are even considered.

“Empathy maps are most useful at the beginning of the design process after user research but before requirements and concepting,” writes Jennifer Leigh Brown, SVP and marketing communications director at Fulton Bank. “The mapping process can help synthesize research observations and reveal deeper insights about a user’s needs.”

Empathy mapping can be used to create audience personas or create a bridge between existing personas and product solutions.

What Does an Empathy Map Look Like?

While Gray developed a template for an empathy map, you can adjust your mapping for your business or industry.

Connie Malamed, keynote speaker and author of “Visual Design Solutions,” notes that you will find different versions of empathy maps across the web. However, there is a commonly used template that utilizes multiple rectangles (instead of the original triangles) to take notes.

There are four quadrants in the main box for what the customer says, thinks, feels and does. Then, in the lower box, there is room for insights and conclusions. This lower box might have different criteria, like “Pains and Gains,” or frustrations and aspirations to better paint a picture of their motives.

To get a better idea of what goes into each box, Sarah Gibbons, chief designer at Nielsen Norman Group, went into detail for what each of the four quadrants means:

Says: This refers to words and phrases someone says out loud, either from a media quote, a direct interview or a comment in a focus group.
Thinks: This section covers what the user experiences internally throughout the experience. This may be the same as what they say, but audiences often have thoughts they aren’t willing to vocalize, especially around more sensitive subjects.
Does: What actions does the user take? How do they take these steps?
Feels: How does the user feel about the experience? What worries them or excites them?

In Gray’s most recent empathy map design, he moved the Think and Feels sections into the head of the user — almost within the same quadrant. The goal is to differentiate what designers actually know based on actions and quotes rather than internal thoughts and feelings, which may be assumed or are less concrete.

This empathy map can be filled out individually (by one person at their desk) or as a group. However, the map needs to be completed objectively. Lindsay Munro, a social strategist at Adobe, emphasizes the importance of having a moderator at the brainstorming session. This person will help team members fill in gaps and provide an unbiased view of the target audience.

The moderator:

Doesn’t ask leading questions that will frame how people think about the subject or the problems at hand.
Doesn’t express their own opinions and controls their reactions.
Makes sure everyone participates.

This objectivity is essential because you (and other stakeholders) will be tempted to add your own beliefs or wishes to the customer experience. This is natural and will occur throughout the whole development process.

“Taking an active view from the user’s perspective takes tons of practice and consideration,” says Camren Browne, UX/UI tutor at CareerFoundry. “While empathy mapping is a cost-effective and easily transmittable way to create for and cater to the user, it cannot stand alone.”

Design teams need to use multiple user-centric tools, along with empathy maps, to make sure the target audience or customer stays at the center of the design process and that the customer view doesn’t get skewed or manipulated.

Empathy Mapping Outside of Programming and Design

Empathy mapping has long since left the worlds of design and development. While it is still used in those fields, these maps can be found across many industries and have multiple benefits.

One example is in human resources, whose teams look to improve the employee experience and streamline hiring. “Companies already develop customer personas as part of their marketing plans,” writes Sharlyn Lauby, the HR Bartender.

“And HR departments create candidate personas as part of their talent acquisition strategy. Why not create an employee persona to help with the development of the employee experience?”

In journalism, empathy maps help reporters tell better stories by giving them more information and helping them understand the full scope of a story. This prevents tunnel vision in reporting or coming to the wrong conclusions based solely on the data provided.

“It is often [smaller] stories which lead us to the bigger ones — partly because they enhance your understanding of the field, but perhaps more because they build relationships and contacts, and create a profile and reputation for covering this subject which may lead people to seek you out with more stories,” writes Paul Bradshaw, data journalist and author of the Online Journalism Blog.

Empathy mapping as a cross-disciplinary tool has become popular because it forces people to check their beliefs at the door. It creates a safe space for executives and employees to admit that they don’t know everything.

“It’s hard for internal stakeholders of a company to understand the motives of external stakeholders, such as customers,” Swetha Amaresan, social media page for NBCUniversal, writes at HubSpot. “You may be able to make some assumptions, but to get the facts, you have to ask.”

By admitting that your assumptions aren’t backed up by evidence or facts, you can then take steps to fill in those gaps.

Empathy Mapping in Content Marketing

Empathy mapping is gaining traction in the worlds of marketing and communication, especially as companies grapple with the sheer amount of data they have and wonder how to use it.

“As a content strategist, I’ve witnessed our clients become increasingly obsessed with data,” writes Joe Lazauskas, head of marketing at Contently. “… I fail to hear anyone talk about one of the most fundamental aspects of marketing: talking to your customers.”

Empathy maps help teams step back and consider customers as real people with actual worries and pain points, not just data points that need to be optimized for.

“Learning more about the emotional needs of the customer will help you deliver better content to them,” says Catherine Goulbourne, senior content manager at Oban International, says. “You’ll be producing content that addresses their fundamental concerns and needs. This helps to cement brand trust from a customer point of view and will help your brand/website gain influence and praise in the long run.”

Empathy maps have also become popular as customer journeys become more complex. Few sales funnels are linear, and many are difficult to map. That’s simply human nature.

“Human life is rife with examples of cognitive dissonance that make little sense if you think purchase decisions follow the 19th century buyer funnel of attention-interest-desire-action,” says Linda Emma, director of marketing at CloudControlMedia, LLC. “They don’t. Which is all the more reason to really understand what might motivate your users.”

This mapping also pulls marketers away from limited buyer personas, which can box in customers or limit the buyers whom companies market to.

“One of the most common mistakes when developing audience personas is only focusing on the ideal customer/user,” says Jonathon Hensley, cofounder and CEO at Emerge Interactive. “While this individual is important, they rarely capture the full depth and nuance of your target market, the different contexts and varying situations that they’re living.”

Empathy mapping doesn’t replace sales funnels or audience personas. Instead, it provides assistance to make both more valuable. Sales and marketing teams can avoid tunnel vision by approaching audiences with knowledge and empathy, not just a few data points and end goals.

Empathy mapping can be as useful as you make it. If your maps are filled with assumptions and your brainstorming meetings are done in a rush, then they will be incomplete, flawed and unusable. However, if you take the time to treat your customers like individual human beings, you will have more success with this tool.

Images by: Wavebreak Media Ltd/©123RF.com, Aleksandr Davydov/©123RF.com, sanuas

Over Reliance on Bad Analytics Sours Your Content Marketing

September 8, 2020/0 Comments/in Resources, SEO, Tips /by Ed Currington

It is notoriously difficult to measure the success of content marketing, much more so than other forms of marketing.

This is true for a number of reasons, writes Divvy’s Brody Dorland. For one, content marketing campaigns tend to last longer than other marketing campaigns. It’s also harder to attribute success to your content than it is to a paid search campaign, for instance.

Further, the customer journey is far from straightforward. Users may read several pieces of content and see several ads before they convert.

When content marketers do try to quantify their success, their data is often found wanting. Analytics platforms aren’t perfect. Sometimes, the data is flat-out wrong; other times the best metrics are hidden or not available.

Either way, bad data leads to bad decisions that can hamstring your content marketing efforts.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. In this post, we’ll highlight the common pitfalls of using analytics to inform content marketing decisions and show you a smarter way of using data to inform your strategy.

Most Analytics Platforms Are Limited — And Some Are Wrong

Google Analytics is a pretty comprehensive platform that can give you some valuable insights. But it isn’t perfect.

As Hinge’s Kevin Bloom points out, it’s easy to make mistakes using the platform. When errors do occur, they often throw your data completely out of whack. “I don’t mean a few extra sessions or a bounce rate that is off a bit,” Bloom writes. “I mean traffic numbers that are double what they should be and time on site and average pages per visit that are half of what they should be.”

Bot traffic can also be a big problem, writes the team at DataDome. Currently, bots account for around half of all web traffic. Most aren’t blocked by tools like Google Analytics, either, which means much of the data you are using could be skewed.

Even some of the metrics they provide can be misleading. Take bounce rate, for example. This is the percentage of users who leave your website having only viewed one page. Digital marketer Jeff Sauer says bounce rate doesn’t tell a complete story. It doesn’t tell you how much time a user spent on that page, for instance, or whether they got what they needed from the one page they landed on.

Bounce rate often gets framed as a negative when it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The Most Important Metrics Usually Aren’t Tracked or Aren’t Obvious

Google Analytics has a lot of inherent issues when it comes to measuring the success of your content, writes digital marketing consultant Gabrielle Sadeh. This is particularly true for B2B content marketers.

“Analytics was built to track traffic for ecommerce and content sites, with the structure of its reports built around pageviews,” Sadeh writes. “It can provide some sophisticated data around those views – what kinds of audience members are behind them, how they might have arrived, what they did next, and other such questions – but today’s content marketers need the ability to measure and understand much more than that.”

The platform is great at giving marketers a birds-eye view of content performance, writes CRO strategist Mark D. Hall. But it doesn’t help you understand why a piece of content is performing better than another or how it contributes to business revenue.

That’s because the focus is on metrics that are easy to track and understand, not the more complicated, valuable metrics that require a bit of work to calculate.

The most important metrics — e.g. conversion rates per traffic source, organic traffic to key pages, qualified leads, net promoter score — are often the hardest to track, says Orbit Media’s Andy Crestodina. “This is what most people don’t realize about content metrics: The most visible the metric, the less important it is to the bottom line. And the less visible/easy to find, the more important it is.”

Unfortunately, many content marketers get sucked into those low-hanging-fruit metrics, and those can tell a pretty optimistic story. A specific article might get thousands of shares or Likes, for example, and that will give any content creator a little rush of dopamine.

But those are vanity metrics. They look good but don’t tell you anything important.

They’re also great at placating a boss or a client, which is where a lot of the problem with bad analytics lies. Marketing Insider Group CEO Michael Brenner notes just how much sheer pressure is on some content marketers to use vanity metrics as a result. If you need to demonstrate the value of your content, it’s easy to use impressive engagement metrics rather than more insightful alternatives.

Ankit Prakash, the marketing lead at Aritic, says in his experience the vast majority of content marketers focus on engagement metrics like page views, bounce rate and view time at the expense of more important metrics relating to sales or lead generation.

Bad Data Leads to Bad Decisions

Most marketers understand the powerful role data can play in improving their efforts. When it comes to content marketing, data can be used to help content creators target a specific audience and get more engagement, marketing speaker and trainer Michael Leander writes.

But data is only beneficial if you’re using the right metrics. “The quality of your marketing efforts depends on the quality of the data being managed and studied,” writes George Deeb, a managing partner at Red Rocket Ventures.

The metrics you use must be aligned to business goals, advises Gain CEO Albizu Garcia. If you’re looking at the wrong metrics, you aren’t going to improve your content in the right way.

This is exactly what happens when you rely on vanity metrics and inaccurate data.

Relying on such metrics can cause you to waste time and effort by focusing on the wrong areas, writes Brafton’s Jeff Baker. He uses bounce rates as an example: A page with an 86 percent bounce rate but a conversion rate of 2.3 percent is performing much better than a page with a significantly lower bounce rate of 53 percent but a conversion rate of less than 1 percent.

Vanity metrics won’t help you to improve your content, either, writes SEO strategist Jessica Greene. You simply don’t get the level of detail you need to identify the type of content that works best, the optimum channels for distributing that content or how you can create more value.

A Smarter Way to Using Analytics to Improve Your Content Marketing

If you’re serious about accurately measuring the success of your content and using data to improve your strategy, then ditch the vanity metrics in favor of the strategies below:

1. Clarify Your Content Marketing Goals

Content marketing can be used to meet almost any business goal, writes Element Three’s Mollie Kuramoto. “The important thing is to set a goal for your content that makes sense to larger business objectives and then measure it.”

2. Identify Metrics That Measure Progress Toward Those Goals

Once you’ve identified that goal you can choose much more accurate metrics to measure. If you are using content marketing to drive revenue, then focus on lead quality and sales, writes OptinMonster’s Jacinda Santora. You can track a range of on-site actions like whether a user downloads your lead magnet or checks out your pricing page to determine how good a lead they are.

You don’t have to get rid of Google Analytics to do this, either. Freelance writer Elise Dopson demonstrates how you can eCommerce reporting to track the digital revenue your content generates.

3. Track Only a Handful of Metrics

Be careful not to go overboard with metrics, though, warns the team at Quicksprout. The more metrics you have, the harder it will be to demonstrate clear value. “Instead, aim to have as few metrics—that give you actionable, accurate information—as possible, and base your decisions on those.”

Vanity metrics are great to show off, but they don’t demonstrate real value. Using them to guide your content marketing efforts is as foolish as shouting about them in the first place. Instead, dig deeper into the numbers to prove whether your content marketing works. That’s how you get the actionable insights you need.

Images by: Lukas Blazek, JESHOOTS.COM, Daria Nepriakhina

AI and Content Marketing: Could a Robot Write Your Next Blog Post?

August 25, 2020/0 Comments/in Media Landscape, Resources /by Ed Currington

Do you still need us? Or could a robot create engaging, share-worthy content at a much more affordable price?

If I were a B2B marketing manager with one eye on the budget, I’d know which outcome I’d be rooting for. As easy as we are to work with, managing an AI is probably a heck of a lot easier.

So, at the risk of shredding our client contracts, here’s the lowdown on the state of AI in content marketing.

Robots Are Already Writing Some Copy

There is a significant amount of robot-created content on the internet already — some of which is disturbingly good.

There are three main ways AI is used to create content at the moment, explains Mantis Research co-founder Clare McDermott:

“Formulaic content” that is often data-focused and produced in vast quantities.
“Creative support” tools that accentuate the ability of writers.
Chatbots that have private conversations with customers on websites and social media.

Most people might not think of the second or third methods as genuine forms of content creation, even if they do play a valuable role in marketing teams. But the first use, formulaic or not, is written content by standards.

This kind of content is created by a software process called natural language generation, futurist Bernard Marr explains. It can be used to create multiple forms of content, including business reports, emails and social media messages.

Each of these forms has a distinct style and structure, he explains. In some cases, the format will need to be defined to create the right kind of content. But sometimes, the AI can do this by itself. There are already several NLG-based tools, including Quill from Narrative Science; Polly from Amazon; and Heliograf, used by The Washington Post.

The vast majority of these tools are used to create content from reams of data, writes marketer and author Wendy Marx. “For example, The Washington Post has used AI to sift examine sports scores and create articles that summarize local games, as well as post updates to Twitter about those games,” she says.

“The LA Times has been using AI to analyze earthquake data and turn around breaking news articles on earthquakes throughout the world.”

Far from facing scorn, these tools are welcomed by writers who can’t parse data as quickly as AI can.

Luckily For Us, Other Content Leaves a Lot to Be Desired

Creating highly templated articles that turn complex data into something halfway readable is one thing. But what about articles that explore a question or teach readers how to do something. Can AI write those?

Erm, not so much. People are trying to create meaningful, creative content with technology like NLG, but the result is the kind of cheap, questionable content loved by unscrupulous agencies. Created for pennies on the dime, this content isn’t meant for human eyes. In fact, you’d have a hard time making sense of this content if you tried.

Natasha Lomas at TechCrunch took one such tool, Articoolo, for a spin back in 2016: “Fans of cryptic crosswords, who relish the mental adrenaline kicks they get from being forced to slalom from cliché to climax, with precious little in the way of linkage, may also be unlikely appreciators of the robot oracle’s semantic gaps. Normal, average readers, however, will struggle to locate much in the way of sense.”

Such content is designed to game Google, which any SEO pro will tell you is doomed to fail. It’s a strategy from the early 2000s, writes SEO copywriter Heather Lloyd-Martin. Back then, when brands could rule Google by spinning content, it didn’t matter whether the copy was terrible and the grammar sloppy.

Fortunately for us all, Google’s algorithm has gotten much, much smarter since then.

AI Can’t Completely Replace High-Quality Content Marketing Written By Humans

Whether you’re running a newspaper or a B2B blog, nuanced subject matter requires a human writer. That’s because AI has some significant issues, according to John A. Tures, a professor of political science at LaGrange College. In particular, AI doesn’t understand things like satire or mistakes.

It’s a matter of original thought. AI is limited to the information we feed it, says growth marketer Sujan Patel. “To fully replace manual content creation, AI has to be able to think like a human. It has to be able to feel (to have emotions), it needs to form opinions, and it needs to think critically.”

While AI can do some of the leg work, such as suggesting optimizing titles or providing prompts, it can’t create wholly original material, writes product marketer Sophia Bernazzani. As a result, blog posts and books “will likely be written by humans for the foreseeable future.”

That’s because high-quality, original content is a fundamental part of content marketing. It’s no longer possible to cheat Google with low-quality, keyword-stuffed articles that no one will ever read. Backlinks are what matters. And you can only earn those backlinks if your content is well-written and thought-provoking enough to warrant sharing.

AI Can Be Used in Other Areas of Content Marketing

While you can’t replace writers with robots, you can augment their efforts with AI. There’s a lot more to content marketing than just the writing. Much of these tasks are ripe for automation.

When it comes to specific and repetitive tasks, AI is much more effective and efficient than humans, writes content marketer Shane Richmond. “Anything that involves crunching large amounts of data and spotting patterns is a good target,” he says. “It doesn’t forget things and it doesn’t get bored – both of which can be helpful for certain jobs in content marketing.”

Take Market Brew, for example, which uses AI to make intelligent on-page SEO suggestions. By simulating all possible optimizations and comparing their effectiveness, the software is able to make ROI-based recommendations.

Grammarly, the AI-powered spelling and grammar checker, helps writers improve their copy, as online marketer Mike Kaput describes. The software doesn’t just highlight errors; it makes intelligent suggestions on ways to improve. Grammarly isn’t perfect, though, so don’t do away with your in-house editor just yet.

AI tools also help with content promotion, writes digital strategist Shane Barker:

Kontentino automates all of the tasks involved with social media promotion.
Keywee uses consumer data to target your most relevant audience.

Brands and Agencies Should Prepare for an AI-Based Future

It seems like you can’t get rid of us just yet — and there’s a chance you never will.

AI is already used in content marketing operations, and robot writers are churning out full-length articles more quickly than I can write this sentence. But when it comes to high-quality content creation, humans are yet to be matched.

Still, AI is here to stay. As marketer Lilach Bullock observes, it’s going to play a much more significant role in the future. AI will become a core tool used by marketers at every stage of the buyer journey.

The important takeaway, then, is not whether you can replace writers with AI, but how you can get the best of both worlds. A core responsibility for marketing managers today is striking a balance between human insight and AI effectiveness in the best way possible.

Images by: Franck V, Shahadat Rahman, JESHOOTS.COM

Marketing to a Technical Audience: 7 Examples of Content Gone Viral

August 11, 2020/0 Comments/in Resources /by Ed Currington

Many brands are scared of tackling highly technical content in their marketing, even when those topics are completely relative to their audience. It’s not that they can’t write about them. In fact, they are probably the last word in their industry on some of those topics. They’re simply worried that technical content won’t get noticed or go viral.

But this just isn’t true. You absolutely can discuss complex topics in a way that makes them highly shareable. It’s just a matter of knowing how to connect meaningfully with your audience.

Unsure how to get started? Here are seven examples of viral content from brands and publishers who understand how to make complex content shareable.

The Math Behind Social Distancing [The Visual Capitalist]

Social distancing has become synonymous with the coronavirus pandemic. The theory behind it is straightforward: The fewer people we come into contact with, the less chance the virus has to spread. What’s harder to get our heads around is just how effective this strategy is.

Written by Marcus Lu at the Visual Capitalist, this article and the accompanying infographic do an exceptional job of explaining just how powerful the compounding effect of social distancing are. Lu also explains how the calculations, taken from Signer Laboratory, were used and how they were created.

It’s the use of visuals that elevates this piece of content. Before the reader even gets to the text, there’s a clear and well-designed infographic that summarizes all of the information. This makes digesting the math below a lot easier — so much so that the article has been passed round and round social media. At the time of writing, Lu’s piece had garnered more than 1,500 shares on Twitter and almost 40,000 on Facebook.

Takeaway: Use graphics to get your message across when words alone won’t cut it.

Bamboo Transcends the Tropics for Carbon-Negative Construction [Redshift]

We don’t tend to think a lot about building materials. It might be surprising to learn, then, that an article about bamboo construction techniques has been shared more than 140,000 times on Facebook.

That’s until you read architectural journalist Zach Mortice’s article on Redshift, in which he does a great job of explaining complex architectural techniques in lay terms. He turns a complex topic into a much more alluring one by connecting it with a cause that everyone can get behind: reducing our environmental impact.

That doesn’t mean Mortice skimps on the details. For those who are as interested in the engineering features as much as the cause, he clearly explains how prototype bamboo milling can help bring bamboo to Western construction practices. There are also several examples of these techniques in action and an outline of what the industry plans to do next.

In other words, Mortice positions the piece brilliantly for maximum exposure, without selling short the people who will get the most value from it.

Takeaway: Find an angle that connects with a cause to get wider attention, but don’t neglect your core audience.

The Repo Market, Explained — and Why the Fed Keeps Pumping Hundreds of Billions Into It [Bankrate]

The American repo market isn’t a popular topic of dinner table conversation, yet reporter Sarah Foster’s Bankrate explainer on it has earned 1,000-plus shares since it was published at the end of January 2020.

Foster does an excellent job of carefully explaining what the repo market is, why it is in the news lately and why it matters to the readers of Bankrate (and, crucially, to their personal finances). The latter part is the key to the article’s success.

If Foster had just explained the financial instruments behind a current affairs story, this piece wouldn’t have gotten the love it did. It’s because she took a piece of economic esoterica and made it relevant to Bankrate’s readers that it proved so popular.

Takeaway: When something relevant to your audience is making news, show them how their concerns connect to the bigger picture.

Machine Learning 101 – Whiteboard Friday [Moz]

Machine learning isn’t an easy topic to explain in conversational terms. In one video, however, Moz’s Britney Muller provides a clear and concise account of what machine learning is and how it works.

She then gives the Moz audience exactly what they want: step-by-step instructions on how to use machine learning in SEO. These are massive takeaways for viewers and one of the main reasons it has been shared so much (more than 1600 shares at the time of writing).

The delivery of the content is also fantastic. It helps that Muller is clearly passionate about the subject. But the use of the whiteboard both in the video and in the transcription makes the content especially easy to digest.

Unlike a lot of blog posts transcribed from videos, this one is just as easy to consume as the video itself. That means readers have a genuine choice. They can choose to watch the video, read the blog post or do both. Either way, they get huge amounts of useful information on a complex topic.

Takeaway: Video can make complex topics easier to understand.

The History of the URL [Cloudflare]

In March 2020, Cloudflare’s Zack Bloom published a hugely detailed history of the URL that has been shared more than 2,500 times on social media.

Crucially, Bloom devotes the words needed to do the topic justice. Coming in at more than 6,500 words, it is the longest article in this list.

If Cloudflare weren’t a specialist blog, such a word count on such a topic might not work. But it’s because the topic-audience alignment is so strong that this article works — and why it has been so widely shared.

In other words, it doesn’t matter if your topic is complex and your article is long if your audience is interested in it. If you try to condense such conversations, you could be doing yourself and your audiences a disservice. When people are interested in what you have to say, they’re happy to spend a half hour reading your article. If it is worth their time, they’ll spend time sharing it, too.

Takeaway: Go deep and go long on complex topics to give them the attention they deserve.

What is the Paycheck Protection Program? [Bench]

If you’re running a U.S. business, the Payment Protection Program is a crucial piece of legislation at the moment. But it’s also not easy to get your head around. Naturally, many business owners turn to their accountants for advice.

And online bookkeeping service Bench met this demand with one very comprehensive piece of content. The piece’s author, Owen Yin, combined succinct, informed writing with a clear and structured layout to bring clarity to this murky topic. There’s a lot to digest in this piece, so Yin made it easily scannable with a table of contents and bulleted lists to help readers find exactly what they need.

Given that the article was shared almost 4,000 times on Facebook, we think it’s fair to say it was pretty helpful, too.

Takeaway: Use menus, headings and other formatting features to make longer content as browsable as possible.

How to Make Sense of Quantum Physics [Nautilus]

We end this list by looking at the most complex topic of the lot: quantum physics.

As authors Sabine Hossenfelder and Tim Palmer note in the introduction, quantum physics is considered “infamously difficult to understand.” Two sentences later, however, the authors have turned that proposition on its head.

It’s quite easy to understand quantum physics, they argue. It’s just that physicists no longer use the only method that makes sense.

Herein lies the secret to why this 3000-word article has been shared more than 5,500 times on social media. It takes a commonly held belief and dismantles it. Add a touch of intrigue that hooks the reader in, and even the most complex topics become easily readable.

Takeaway: Hook the reader, then make good on your promise to give them the information they’re looking for.

If you are marketing in a technical industry, you don’t have to avoid complex subjects for your marketing to gain traction. Using any of the seven tactics we’ve explored above, and you’ll be able to successfully tackle your industry’s most complex issues in a way that makes them engaging and share-worthy.

Images by: Sergey Zolkin, NeONBRAND, NordWood Themes

Category: Resources