Stop Doing Marketing Featuring Devin Bramhall

Garrett: Okay, welcome back to The Next Chapter of Search produced by SEO Week and iPullRank. My name is Garrett Sussman and I am joined by none other than Devin Bramhall. She is the Growth Advisor and podcast host of Don’t Say Content. She’s writing a frickin book and she’s joined us with 35+ other amazing presenters for SEO Week, which is April 28 to May 2 in New York City. If you haven’t got your tickets yet, go get them right now. Devin, thank you for joining me. What is going on?

Devin: Hi, everything is going on and I think I’m not the only one that feels that way. Just you know, it’s that typical start of the year when things are really slow and it first kicks off and everyone’s like, wow, I think this is the year that I’m going to be organized. I’m going to start my routines and like halfway through January, all of that goes to shit because everybody’s brain comes back online and they’re like, oh, I’ve got to get and then you’re like, oh, and so the trickle-down effect right to everyone. Like, and I remember this from Animals too. It was just like first few weeks out of the year, you’re like, “hello??” And then all of a sudden you’re like…

Garrett: And to that point, it’s like also in this context, there’s so much noise. There feels like there’s so much happening in our world of marketing right now just to kind of dive right in. What is your perspective on everything that’s going on in the world of search and SEO, especially like from, from a content marketing perspective, what’s it look like?

Devin: I, my, I feel like nothing’s happening. Okay. I feel like there’s a lot of people talking and nothing is actually happening! And I’ve felt that way for a while where there’s this like constant feed of SEO news, let’s say an algorithm update, a like thing that somebody figured out that may have been like all that stuff. It’s just constant. And then there are people doing the work. Like there are people who are actually like, there’s the content marketers doing search content and all of that. Um, same goes with AI, right? There’s like, “Oh my God, AI is going to ruin everybody’s job. And it’s going to take all your content! And look, there’s a tool that says you can track how much is a…” right? And then you’ve got the people using AI to do content marketing, right? And I feel like when you get onto the, when you get to like the work, it’s all the same. Like people are still writing for search there, uh, or content marketers rather. They’re still looking at, you know, the sort of long tail keyword opportunity as an entrée into a more saturated, um, space. There’s still like, I don’t even think the structure of posts have changed all that much either. And they’re still using AI and nothing’s exploding or imploding. It’s just…right? They’re just learning how to incorporate it into their workflow and use it better.

And so, when I take a step back and I look at the past year, okay, 2024, let’s say I’m like, so we’re still doing content marketing exactly the way we were before with a slight tweak, uh, using live with generative AI, um, that will probably increase in its like positive supporting impact over time. Once we like learn how to use it better. Um, there’s the early adopters. There’s the, we’re kind of in that mid-phase, right? There’s the laggards. We’re all like, “I’m a content marketer and technology is bad for creativity” and like whatever, everything is the fucking same! Nothing has changed at all. I go to companies, I’m working with a company right now. I am doing marketing strategy, like using the same components, a bit more media, right? So to me, nothing has changed with regards to content marketing and search, the thing that has changed is that the way we’re executing is, is, has flipped. So now instead of starting with the blog posts or starting with the keyword strategy, you’re starting with a video and then atomizing it outwards, right. So we’re more efficient.

Um, there is like, I think the media piece is going to only continue to be a more part of a B2B content marketing strategy, but search on those specific platforms is really helpful for making those new tactics work. And so that to me is like, if you go platform to platform and how they’re behaving like TikTok, YouTube, um, wherever else it’s like, they’re actually becoming more sophisticated in how they can help businesses show up to specific audiences. And so it’s like, there’s a benefit over here, but all the things that people are screaming about, I’m like, if you took a step back, can you point to any money, like a change in how much money is being made or how much people are being paid? No.

Garrett: No. That is so on point. I mean, to your point, it’s like videos more accessible, but there are different channels, but everything, the fundamentals are still the same. People are still people, and they use what they want to use, which kind of leads into…can you give a preview? So why, why the heck are people going to come in and see you speak at SEO week? What are you going to educate us on?

Devin: Oh man, my talk. So first of all, Jay Acunzo is a good friend of mine and I hired him to help me with the keynote because I’m doing, it’s going to be the keynote, the basis for all my talks through this year when I’m selling the book, right. And to no surprise, anyone who knows me, the theme that like this, all this sort of premise all boiled up to one thing. And I think this thing will really resonate with the folks at SEO Week, which is, “stop doing marketing.” And the reason –  I know! I’m a marketer telling marketers, I’m like, “you need to stop doing marketing. You need to start achieving business outcomes.”

And when you flip your focus like that, right? Like marketers were used to production equaling impact, equaling revenue, right? If you were to take all of that out and say, okay, my company wants to get from point A revenue to point B revenue by the end of the year. And here are the milestones by quarter. Okay. It’s Q1. I’m responsible for impacting this much revenue or this many like MQLs as like whatever your fricking metric is, right? Like for your company. Okay. The question should be, how are we going to get those? But the question has been for years is what marketing do we need to do to get those and beat people’s consumption behavior? Their buying behavior not only has changed slightly, but it’s also going to continue to change when you think about we’ve got a new buyer coming to the market, just Gen Z. Well, they’re operating on a completely different paradigm. And so, for me, if you were like take removing marketing from the scenario and saying, how are you going to help a company grow opens your mind up to new possibilities that maybe you didn’t consider if you’re only thinking within the paradigm of marketing.

So that’s the gist of it. It’s look, I can tell you, I can, I can tell you this. It’s based on multimedia, obviously AI for efficiency. This is like the thing everybody already knows, right? And community building. Like that’s been a cornerstone of my career everywhere I’ve went and it works every single time. It’s how I took Animalz from 1.8 to 12 million in three years, right. It’s like every HelpScout, same thing. It is the solution. It’s actually, it’s a strategy that I think doesn’t always get recognized for how genius it can be. Like with HelpScout, it was like we made one, we made this thing called HelpYou, which was basically like bringing in community, content, product, the customer service team, like, and there was all like a PR strategy, a demand gen strategy, gating things, not like…the whole thing, right. It was like, that was going to be the next generation of their business model. You know, had I had time to see it through. But yeah, so I think that’s where I’m going with this. I’m like, let’s stop doing marketing and let’s start coming up with like clever, clever plans to grow that aren’t about doing more. It’s about achieving more, hopefully by doing less and only doing the smart things.

Garrett: I love it. It’s so relevant because there’s such a fight, especially like on LinkedIn or SaaS marketers about attribution and performance marketing, and then bringing it back to everything so much more holistic. And we hear more talking about brand and you get so up in the clouds about everything, but it’s like what you’re talking about is like actually focused on strategy that ties to the business value. So, what’s one like, what is one practical thing that people can do today, right now, based on the direction that you think everything’s going?

Devin: Yeah. I mean, the first thing I would do is clear, like to even start doing this, you have to clear the decks. You have to say, like, take all of this, like brand, customer journey, like throw it all in the trash can. Start with who are you trying to sell to? Where are they? Where are they? Were they showing up for fun? Where are they showing up to create community? Where are they showing up? And don’t worry about…like, just anywhere they’re showing up. It doesn’t have to be like, oh, this is where everyone is. Like really try to do that audit of like where there might be like subreddits over here with like a portion of them, right? And look at what they’re talking about.

Like this is the fundamentals of content marketing. So like, I can’t say the other stuff yet because my publishers will kill me, but like, this is very much like, I’m like, let’s go back to the basics of content marketing and help people. And so what you need to do to help them is go figure out exactly where they are, figure out exactly what they need and see where the holes are. Where are the holes? Where are they not getting something? And it doesn’t…and again, because we’re not thinking in terms of marketing anymore, it doesn’t have to be where are they not getting education? Where are they not getting a product? Where are they not getting? Just what is missing? Where are they like, oh yeah, I really wish we had a blah, blah, blah, blah, or you know, or stuff that they’re not even asking for. Where you’re like, “oh wait, like looking at what they’re talking about, like this thing over here would solve all of their problems or they would love to join it,” right? So, you have to like play for them and really start with this blank slate mindset because I think that you have to start there to start coming up with good ideas, right.

And what’s happens for me is like that I come up with a lot of ideas, right. But given the constraints of the business goals, right. They want to get rev, like they want to get revenue from here to here. Okay. Short term, I have to at least make sure that this hits my quarterly target, right. That also helps like narrow down the options of what you can do. So does your budget. So does your team. So team size, et cetera, like all your resources and what you find at the end of that, and I kid you not, is an answer just sitting there. It’s like once you add the…like, once you put everything out there and then you use your constraints, like all of a sudden the constraints of where your people are, who they are, what they want, what’s missing, what your budget also, all of a sudden you’re like, oh, so if I just do like a paid LinkedIn campaign and like, you know, you’re like, you know, start this newsletter over here talking about this nerdy stuff, like you could probably do three things, and one of them, I guarantee, involves you making money off the content thing itself. And that is like, that would be my like second, second thing is like everyone, every company should be making money off their content program in some way right now. And if they’re not, they’re doing it wrong. Like there’s so many ways to monetize content now. Like, why can’t brands do it too? Right. So that’s the, that’s the amount that I can share today and more to come.

Garrett: It’s so good. And it’s basically, you broke down, it’s like really nice framework of like these three cons it’s like context, constraints and content. And really that is the direction. No, it’s really clear the way you laid out. Finally, I know we’re almost at time, but I want to know, you know, you, you mentioned like the fractured nature of community, the upcoming Gen Z. What’s next? What do you think is next when it comes to the search ecosystem? Where are going to people going to find their education, their entertainment, all of these things and how will that change?

Devin: I…look, I’m not like a tech, you know, forecaster, but I think that this, um, we’ll continue to see the kind of breakup into niche communities, right. And even communities within platforms, it’s like that just looking at the culture right now and how people are acting, um, and the choices they’re making, I just don’t see logically how all of a sudden that’s, it’s going to change such that like we all join the same platform and can coexist again, right. So, I think that’s just like, everyone should assume that for logical reasons.

And I think that like, as it relates to search, I don’t know. I’ve been pretty excited about both what AI and search are doing or are the, the, um, like the big changes that are happening, you know, that everyone’s freaking out about like the, the, the SERPs page, like, “Oh, you’re getting all the answers right there, it’s a mix of like AI and links and videos and community…” I’m like, that sounds cool. It just feels like we’re in the middle of the transition. Like we’re in that figuring it out phase. And so I’m actually really excited and I actually have no idea what it ends up looking at, like, but I like what, where it’s going. And I think that Google isn’t dumb. So, they’re not going to experiment with stuff that’s going to tank their search business, right. And so, they’re going to find a way for companies to still find it useful for them to still be able to, you know, do paid search and all that stuff. So like, I’m not really worried about that. I’m more curious to see what they come up with. Because that’s a place where I can’t imagine, right. I can’t imagine that’s there. Like that’s their area of expertise. I can only say that like, it’s, it has, it inevitably has to continue changing based on the fact that like, uh, the buyers are changing and behaviors are changing around content consumption and media is only going to be more and more of a piece of that pie. And so like, they’re going to do something about it. And I can’t wait to see what that is.

Garrett: I love it. And I love, you know, you, you tied it back to revenue. It’s like with Google. And I say this all the time too. It’s like, follow the money, you know, see where the revenue is coming from, how it will be impacted in terms of their innovation. This is going to be an awesome conference. I can’t wait to hear your presentation. I can’t wait to read your book, when it’s out and you’re doing your, your global world intergalactic tour, who knows where you’ll end up.

Devin: Oh my God. Literally produced and PR’d by myself. I’m like, that is, yeah!

Garrett: You got to, you got to get out there and do the thing. Well, thank you so much for joining me, Devin, for those of you who haven’t gotten tickets yet for SEO Week, catch us seriously tickets, April 28th, New York. Come chill with us. We’re going to have a good time. We’re going have lots of ridiculous, weird conversations with all these cool people. So we will see you then.

Devin: I can’t wait!

Garrett: I can’t wait too! OK, thank you. Catch y’all later. Bye.