What's a Better Content Marketing Approach: Quality or Quantity Content?

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Mark Evans: My name is Mark Evans, and I'd like to welcome you to Marketing's Farm, the podcast that delivers small doses of insight, tools, and tips from marketers and entrepreneurs in the trenches. By small doses, it's conversations that are fifteen minutes or less. On today's show, I'm talking with Dan Sanchez, the director of audience growth for Sweetfish Media, a podcast agency for b two b brands. He's also the cohost of the b two b growth podcast. Welcome to marketing spark, Dan.

Dan Sanchez: Thanks for having me on, Mark.

Mark Evans: I love on your LinkedIn, profile that one of the things that you love aside from marketing is Yerbe Mate. My wife's from Argentina, and Mate is something that is in our house on a regular basis. So where did that come from? Why the passion for mate?

Dan Sanchez: I was hiking with a friend in Colorado and just whining about how I'm addicted to coffee, but I still loved it. But I still hated how it made me feel every day because I was drinking a cup, maybe two cups a day. And he's like, bro, you gotta check out this thing called yerba mate. My missionary friend from Argentina introduced it to me, and it's it's all I drink now. And I'm like, he was so excited about it and so passionate about it. I think he pumped me up. So as soon as I had it, I was like, yes. This is the future. That was ten years ago, and now I drink it every day.

Mark Evans: Do you drink coffee still?

Dan Sanchez: Oh, yeah. Okay. But I drink that's kind of on occasion. Like, if you go out for coffee to meet with somebody, then I'll I'll get a latte or something. And on occasion, I'll just drink a cup of coffee with my wife. Or if I run out of mate, then I'll definitely drink some coffee. But mate is definitely the way to go.

Mark Evans: In the tech landscape, now we can get to marketing the good stuff. Content is the bell of the ball. For many b to b companies, conferences and meetings are out of a question. So content has become the way that they're looking to connect with prospects. Personally, I think there's too much content being created, and most of it is mediocre. But you have argued vociferously on LinkedIn that brands need to create lots of content so they can get better and better. In a recent post, you said, you have to post more often, fail, learn, and improve consistency to get to where you need to go. The more swings you take, the faster you grow. I'm really interested in your take because I sit on the other side of the fence. I'm more of a quality person when it comes to content, not to say you're you're not quality as well. But why do you think that quantity and writing often is so important?

Dan Sanchez: You know, it's something that just came from personal experience. When I first started my career, I wanted to be an artist, and then I wanted to be a graphic designer. I thought it'd be a good idea to write a blog about graphic design. I posted a few times, and guess what I did? I stopped posting. And the first couple of posts, as hard as I tried, they just weren't that good. And then I spent all my time trying to tweak this the the design of the site and all optimizing it, subscribers, blah blah blah. I got really good at site optimization, and I actually ended up taking on a career in digital marketing because of that. So thanks to procrastination, I ended up into marketing. But at the end of the day, I ended up trying to just over and over again, people talk about content marketing. So I'm like, okay. I would try to do a blog post a week for a certain brand I was working for. And when I finally worked for a university, I had a student team. I was like, okay. Your your job, student working fifteen hours a week, is to write one blog post a week. So we did that. We did that for a couple years, and it got some traction. But I didn't really start getting traction on that blog until I figured out how to scale from one blog post, and then we did two blog posts a week. And then we started doing 10 to 20 blog posts a week consistently, and that's when traffic really started rolling in. And it was it was incredible. James has seen the same thing with b to b growth. He's not doing one episode a week. He's doing multiple episodes a day, at least once a day, if not two or three times a day. And that volume of content has led b to b growth to be at a place where it's at now where it's getting a 150,000 plus downloads a month. And it wouldn't have happened. We both know that volume was factor in that. We all we both made mistakes along the way, me and blogging and him and podcasting, but we both learned that the lessons we learned honestly took dozens of dozens of tries. It was a 150 episodes in when James figured out he was interviewing the wrong person.

Mark Evans: How crazy?

Dan Sanchez: And then had to figure had to pivot and then started going on a different track, and he got better and better. But he got better because he was doing 20 to 30 episodes a week just himself when he first started.

Mark Evans: Right. Well, some people would argue that that what you're what it's it's brute force as opposed to taking a strategic approach to content marketing. How do you respond to people who suggest that?

Dan Sanchez: There's there are a lot of people who try to hack the system who are like, oh, let's just flood let's just flood Google with tons of content. In fact, nowadays, you can just I'm pretty sure I could if I really wanted to, I could string together a couple WordPress plug ins and some, like, SaaS products that can automatically scrape blog feeds that I give it, rewrite it by like, robots rewriting it, and then republish it automatically on my WordPress site so that it's unique content, but it's just regurgitating everything that it reads. And you know that it that then now I can do thousands a

Mark Evans: day. Right.

Dan Sanchez: But you know it's gonna be no good. There's gonna be even if it the sentences are coherent and make sense, all the content is gonna be commodity content. There's no original thoughts to it. There's no unique thinking to it. There's no stories. There's no message. So that's not the kind of volume we advocate for. We know there has to be you, at least a person, a human, trying to make the best they can make. But you know what? We all have to start somewhere. You know, the best pitcher in the world didn't throw fastballs at first. He had to perfect his art and throw a lot of pitches in order to get to the point where they're at now pitching pro baseball.

Mark Evans: So over the last, let's say, three or four months, the the content marketing landscape has become busier and busier. I mean, there are no conferences, and a lot of brands are kinda at a loss in terms of how to connect with prospects and customers. So how do you see the content landscape right now? Is it noisy? Is there room for opportunity? As a brand, how should you approach it?

Dan Sanchez: Honestly, it is noisy, but it's noisy with really crappy content. When I look at the search engines, even for competitive key key terms, I'm like, yes. The fields are just ripe for the picking. If you know what if you can just really get in the heads of what people are looking for, you can write better content than even what HubSpot makes. And HubSpot makes some great content, but still it's a little vanilla pretty often. And it doesn't take a lot to really get good at one particular niche and produce better content. So I'm seeing that it's noisy, but it's noisy with commodity content.

Mark Evans: Right. But why

Dan Sanchez: do you

Mark Evans: why do you think that happens? Like, everyone talks about high quality content, and it's important to write the right kinds of content, but so many brands just seem to go through the motions. I don't understand that.

Dan Sanchez: Different reasons for different platforms on search. I think it's because the SEO community got a lot of facts wrong. I think facts that maybe were true in the early two thousands are no longer true. And so that's led them down a rabbit hole of of fighting for backlinks, like spending half to maybe 80% of their time looking for backlinks to boost an article instead of focusing on making the best possible answer to the question people are asking on Google. And that's led to a lot of commodity content, lots of gaming, lots of putting out posts so you can make your own linking schemes. Now that that's kinda dead now, but, you know, it's just throwing a lot out there. All those blog posts they created are still there. And then hiring like, HubSpot created a formula, hired pretty good writers, and they they've been able to scale their their solution. And even that's even that's, I'd say, somewhat commodity, though I'd say it's still I mean, it's still the best because it's ranking for a lot of different marketing keywords out there. So that's SEO. I think the SEO community has kind of gotten everyone mixed up on what's important. I think it's different for social. And every social platform's a little bit different when you're trying to game the algorithm that leads to you doing a certain kind of thing instead of zigging when everyone else is zagging.

Mark Evans: Let's wait into another controversial topic these days, the idea of of gated content. You know, for years, b to b companies have generated MQLs, and we can argue about MQLs as well by putting out content and asking people to provide an email address to get access to it. But now there's a growing school of thought that that shouldn't happen at all, is that b to b companies should make their content as accessible as possible and not require an email address. Where do you stand on on that on that issue?

Dan Sanchez: I like to do both. I like to gate content content, but I like to ungate all my content. Here's an example. I might write a killer blog post, or at least every blog post I try to publish is trying to be is aiming to be the best on the Internet so that it ranks. Over time, I will find out which one of those actually hit a hit a note because a lot of volume will go to it. It does well on social. Or for whatever reason, I know this is a killer blog post. I will then repackage that blog post. I'll let it continue going out there getting getting the rankings, getting the traffic, but I will pull the content, maybe run it through a designer, put it into a nice PDF, break it up so people can consume it quickly and easily, and then I will gate it for all the other blog posts people are hitting on that same category and then might give me their email in exchange for this more designed piece of content. Because most people, let's be honest, are not gonna go to the search engines and try to find out if that gated content is ungated somewhere. They're just gonna give the email. It would actually take less work for them to give up the email than for them to go search for it elsewhere. Unless you're smart and listen to me and now you're like, oh, that gated thing I saw on SweetFish Media, I could probably go find it in the blog post. Yes. You can. Go search for it. You will just find it ungated. So that's how I like to work. I like to do both at the same time. Ungate it and gate it. Let it continue to do the work that it's doing ungated, but I still think there's a a place and a time to gate the content to build build a list. And that's where Chris Walker and I really would probably disagree. He's into demand generation. Right? Create enough demand so that when people show up to their door, they're ready to buy, but they're gonna find their way. You don't have to lead them across the yard to get to your front door. They will find their own way. And when they show up, they're gonna run through the sales cycle because they had to take so much initiative. Where I'm kind of like, yeah, let's throw a good party out in the out past the yard. Let's draw a lot of people in, but I'm still gonna try to lead people from the gate to the door in the nicest, most helpful, value driven way possible.

Mark Evans: So Yeah. That makes that makes complete sense. In fact, a great example of the approach I think that you and your partner James Carberry are taking is a PDF that I downloaded after doing my email address on the 20 ways, the 27 ways to launch a b to b podcast. Now I know that James writes on that a lot, and he certainly talks about that a lot. But, nevertheless, I gave him my email address for that PDF, and there was value in it. I can see exactly where you're coming from. Let me shift gears a little bit. Some of the things that I've been talking a lot about recently over the last little while are the are value propositions and brand positioning, and I I got very excited when you spent it seemed to be an entire week talking about both of those topics. And I'm curious about, you know, why you decided to focus so much time and real estate on what I see as fundamental business pillars.

Dan Sanchez: Probably because it's the thing that made the biggest difference in my career. It's what made me take the jump from just being like a web designer to a marketer. I knew how to use the tools. I knew how to run the emails, but I didn't know how to write copy. And I honestly feel like the value proposition is the is the crux or the the most important part of all your copy of all your messaging. If you have a bad value proposition, it doesn't matter how good of a copywriter you are. You're not gonna get the conversions. You have to figure out what what's appealing and equally exclusive about what you're offering that's going to attract the right kind of people. I actually learned about it through a man named, Flint McLaughlin. He wrote my favorite marketing book that no one's ever heard of or at least a few people have. But not many people have. It's called marketer as philosopher. Have you ever heard of it?

Mark Evans: No. I haven't. No.

Dan Sanchez: I'm I'm what's the what's it about? It's about value propositions, but it's also about conversion optimization. Those are kinda like the hard things in it. But really, it's it's approaching marketing from a philosophical standpoint. Flint has a master's degree in philosophy, and then somehow, I don't know how he did this, but he transitioned to marketing. You know, a lot of us have interesting paths into the world of marketing. His was through philosophy. And because he came at it from a philosophical approach, just had a really unique perspective. He's trying he's like, everyone's talking about what and how, but we need to talk about why. The why is the most important question you can answer as a marketing. So let's unpack that, and that's the book. It's it's a short and concise book, though. It's a little bit of an expensive book because he, like, wrapped it in leather and made it all fancy and stuff. So does it It's kind of a commitment. I think it's, like, 50 or $80 or something like that.

Mark Evans: How does it align with with Simon Sinek's? Always ask why.

Dan Sanchez: Simon Sinek is talking about, like, a brand perspective, like, big picture, almost aspirational identity of the company. Like, does this company exist? Versus Flint McLaughlin is gonna hit more on, like, the why he's going after is answering the question of a value proposition. And that's all a value proposition is, by the way. It's just an answer to the question from your ideal prospect. Why should I buy from you versus your competitor or not buy at all? The answer to that question is your value proposition. So you could see it's a very different why question. Not why are we here, but why should I buy from you?

Mark Evans: That's probably as succinct a definition of a value proposition that I've heard in a long time, and and there are so many different flavors. But at the end of the day, you know, I totally agree with you is that people don't know what you do and why it matters to them, then you're irrelevant, and they'll move on to the next next company and the next competitor. Finally, let's talk a little bit about podcasting. Obviously, you know, it's something that you're in the midst in every single day in addition to being on LinkedIn and writing content. So you're in the eye of the hurricane with Sweet Fish. What's your take on the podcast landscape? And if you're a b two b brand, how do you get into the game at a time when everybody seems to be jumping on the bandwagon? A loaded question. Sorry about that.

Dan Sanchez: Oh, man. Honestly, people think blogging's dead and SEO's dead, and I'm looking at the I'm looking at the search engines, and I'm just seeing green fields everywhere. The podcasting, it's even less competitive. So I'm like, oh my goodness. Do you know how many topics I find with customers? And I'm like, there's hardly anyone even podcasting in this category. Yeah. There's a lot in the marketing business marketing. So, like, in our niche, in our LinkedIn feeds, we're seeing all the marketing podcasts. Yes. There's a lot of marketing podcasts. Even then, I could probably still find a lot of niches within marketing that have no one talking to it. Manufacturing marketing. There's only a few podcasts in that niche. So if you wanna find a vertical and specialize in it, there's still there's still a lot of room to grow. That if you actually go and search for the podcast, you'll find that most podcasts just aren't up to date. They haven't been updated in six months or longer. There's still a lot of room to grow there. And honestly, our approach even if there was a competitive space, our approach is such that it still works. It still works. I don't know. Are you familiar with, like, James' content based network networking model?

Mark Evans: No. How does that work?

Dan Sanchez: It's the key to podcasting. Before understanding the concept, podcasting was probably my least favorite channel. I was like, oh, it's hard to get discovered there. You don't even get to really it feels like an owned channel, but you don't really get the relationship with them. It's not like I can single out individuals. I have to jump them over to email or texting in order to, like, really own the relationship. And it's just hard to grow an audience there. But then I discovered content based networking, and it changed the game for me. It's the idea that instead of just creating content for your prospective audience, we wanna do that. But we also want to invite our ideal prospects, our ideal buyers to be guests on the show. How many emails have you gotten from people saying, hey. We have this thing. I think it'll make a world of difference for your business. Can I have just fifteen minutes of your time to tell you about it? You get a lot of those emails? Right. Right.

Mark Evans: Yeah. Yeah. All the time.

Dan Sanchez: And you say, no. Thanks.

Mark Evans: No. Yeah.

Dan Sanchez: No. Thanks. It's not relevant. You'd you you probably don't even look at the offer. You're just kinda like, nope. Another one. Goodbye. But what if someone came to you and said, hey. Saw what you're doing at your your company, and it looks fantastic. Would love to ask you questions about it on our podcast and feature you. Well, you'd be like, oh, okay. Yeah. You might go and check out their profile and see what they're doing in their podcast, see that they've had a couple episodes going, and you're at least gonna reply to that, And you're probably gonna say yes. We find that quite a few people will say yes to being invited to be a guest on a podcast in most industries. Some industries are don't just don't like to talk. But Yeah. Most industries, people are gonna say yes. And when you have them on the show, just kinda like what we're doing now, we got on. We started talking. There's a little bit of a preshow back and forth. We're doing this conversation right now. And then when this episode ends, we'll have a little bit of more conversation afterwards. And in the in the meantime, you and I, Mark, are building a relationship. Like, we will walk away from this episode and creating content together with a better sense of each other and a little bit more trust. So the next time you you messaged me even about your services and said, hey. Do you have fifteen minutes? I have this idea I wanna run by you. I'm probably gonna take that call because there's more relationship there. It's the fastest way to building relationship, especially in a b to b space where you really just need one good conversation with one specific person to make the difference. The podcasting is the gateway into that relationship with them. They don't always turn into buyers because they might not be in the market, but that relation the after you do it a long time, twenty, thirty, 50, 100 episodes in, man, that's a lot of relationships you now have in your pocket. And those people, they won't stay at that company. They might go to a different company. And when they wanna build a podcast, guess guess who who they're they're gonna gonna call?

Mark Evans: Exactly. Exactly. It's interesting because I have a I have a a b to b client that is looking or I'm encouraging to start a podcast. And one of the things I've said to them is when you invite someone to be a guest on a podcast, it's very rare that someone would say no because people just love the idea of having a conversation, of building their profile, of creating some some content in a different way. In that respect, it's so powerful from a relationship and a prospecting point of view. Well, Dan, this has been great. I really appreciate your insight. We've covered a lot of ground in about twenty minutes, which is really hard to do. But but, clearly, you're doing some great stuff on LinkedIn. If you are interested in what Dan has to say about personal branding, value proposition, podcasting, and a slew of other topics, follow him on on LinkedIn. And thanks for listening to another episode of marketing spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review and subscribe via iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you like what you heard, please rate it. For show notes of today's conversation and information about Dan, visit marketing spark dot co slash blog. If you have questions, feedback, would like to suggest a guest, or wanna learn more about how I help b to b companies as a fractional CMO, consultant, and adviser, send an email to mark@marketingspark.co. Talk to you next time.