I went through a transformational shift in the way I thought about connecting with our next customer in the beginning of October 2017. It was a pivotal moment in my development as a marketer and a participant in 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 because it signaled something to me that seemed so obvious at the time, but was something that I been neglecting. The moment happened after a presentation I heard from David Cancel, former CEO of Drift during their first ever user conference Hypergrowth in Boston. The topic was about conversations. 

I’ll set the stage for you. Drift was building a cool product, their brand was thriving, and they were just getting started at creating a category they coined “conversational marketing”. It might have been cool outside in Boston that day, but it was hotter than Hades in that conference room. There was hardly any AC pumping through the room and we were all stuffed seat to seat like a pack of sardines. The conditions weren’t ideal, but that didn’t matter because it created a moment for me that would change the way that I would think about marketing forever.

Cancel talked about how the mindset around conversational marketing would allow consumers to communicate with a brand in real-time through different channels. He shared that this dialogue-driven approach would help build and create authentic experiences that helps build relationships between customers and buyers. I was hanging on to every word because I had felt for so long that I was doing marketing the wrong way. I felt like the old school tactics and campaigns that I was running were intended to push people through the process that I wanted and not what our next customer desired. The messaging, positioning, and stories around conversational marketing hit me so hard that I walked out of the conference room with a towel wiping my brow and called my CEO letting him know that we needed to purchase Drift right now…how’s that for brand marketing? 

I haven’t stopped thinking about the power of conversations since that day.

Conversations are happening online about our brands or topics we can address right now as you’re reading this. I can’t express enough how important it is to make sure that you’re listening to those conversations that are taking place. Listening to online conversations is your fast pass to customer research in real-time. It can provide you product direction, sentiment, and opportunities for advocacy. In 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 listening it critical, but there remains uncertainty with what should we do next. 

I see 2 separate paths. They don’t need to be exclusively run and I do believe they can coexist.

𝐖𝐞 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐓𝐑𝐘 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬.

𝐖𝐞 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐄𝐎 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠. 

It’s easy to jump towards social media before SEO. Social media is accessible, relatively straight forward, and we all have existing audiences on our favorite platforms of choice. We’ve grown up with social media and it becomes more clear to us on how we can start conversations with our next customers with it. 

SEO can be intimidating. SEO is likely a discipline that you’re not a subject matter expert in either. We form so many roadblocks in our head about SEO that we just avoid it….BUT,

SEO is all about capturing the demand in the market, being in the conversations that are already happening.

I had no idea that sitting in a hot hotel conference room in October of 2017 would be such an important moment in my development as a marketer. Also, I had no idea that 7 years later that day would be a catalyst to remind me of not only how important conversations were to marketing, but also our opportunity to use strategies to enter those chats. 

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 isn’t about using a new set of technology or tools to grow your business. 

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 is about getting over the hurdle to use proven channels to enter conversations and answer questions when your next customer needs your help.  

The Content We Dropped This Week

In the fifth episode of 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 podcast we discuss the roles of both SEO and Social Media in getting your customer’s attention. 

We discuss the intent of each discipline and why it’s important to understand how each discipline can impact the types of conversations that are happening about your brand in 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲. 

Please follow and subscribe to 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 wherever you consume fine audio and video content.

• Apple Podcasts

• Spotify

• YouTube

Quick Tip for The Search Economy

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 is about making sure that you have the right story in place. When your next customer searches for a word, topic, or phrase that is associated with your brand you want to make sure that not only do you show up, but also have a story to share. 

People don’t remember features or functionality. People remember stories though. Great stories are how we can resonate with our next customer. I start off most of my content with stories because it provides the best chance for me to build engagement up front with the member of the audience who is reading.

If you're not telling your story, somebody else is.

Great stories can be the catalyst for the conversations you’re looking for. 

What They’re Saying About Search

Content is the fuel for every great SEO strategy that we build in order for our next customer to find us in 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲. I met Maeva a couple years back and was struck by her passion around preparing her customers for 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲. It’s really easy to throw a couple SEO strategies at the wall and hope for the best. It’s a lot harder to consider how we should strategically be thinking about our content and its impact on the entire process. 

I love her post on SEO content because it signals a change required to be found by your next customer. 

Are you operating the old way or the new way? 

If you’re looking for a team that will help give you a jump start into 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 give Pneuma a shout for a free traffic audit!

Content That Supports The Search Economy

I’m a big fan of frameworks. I’ve never met a framework that didn’t at least make it easier for me to understand a topic more effectively. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 is about earning trust and building authority. Gael and Mark offer a great framework and provide examples on how we should be thinking about building site authority in 2024 and beyond. 

You can listen to the conversation here. 

I appreciate you being here for 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 newsletter. If you’re looking to learn more about how your company can get found by your next customer then give the Pneuma team a shout.