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The 90/10 Rule The Drives Content Results

B2B Marketing Pint · 2026-04-28 · 34 min

0:00--:--

Key moments - from our scoring

Substance score

51 / 100

Five dimensions, 20 points each

Insight Density11 / 20
Originality9 / 20
Guest Caliber13 / 20
Specificity & Evidence8 / 20
Conversational Craft10 / 20

Cassie Ayit brings hard-won lessons from building Hopier's blog to 80,000 monthly visitors over eight years and navigating the shift from traffic vanity metrics to quality-focused content in 2025. He introduces the 90/10 rule that transformed his approach: 90% strategic planning (keyword research with Ahrefs or Semrush, understanding competitive landscapes, defining ICP relevance) and 10% execution (on-page SEO, H1/H2 structure, internal linking, expert writing for information gain). The conversation reveals how AI and Google's AI Overviews have fundamentally changed success metrics - Hopier now sees lower organic traffic but significantly higher-quality leads and increased direct traffic, proving that chasing broad keywords like "motivational quotes for managers" wastes resources when focused content on core expertise (like "lunch program best practices") drives actual business results. Cassie emphasizes that B2B companies must invest in owned channels (blog, LinkedIn, YouTube) or risk competitive disadvantage, and advocates for starting content with irresistible hooks and titles, testing relentlessly, and studying creators like MrBeast who obsess over audience attention capture.

Key takeaways

  • →The 90/10 rule: 90% of content success comes from upfront planning (keyword research, audience mapping, structure) and only 10% from execution, yet most teams invert this priority.
  • →Stop optimizing for vanity metrics like page views; measure content success by lead quality, revenue impact, and direct traffic instead of impressions.
  • →Write deeply about topics your ICP genuinely cares about and you have real expertise in, rather than ranking for high-volume keywords where LLMs now compete more effectively.
  • →Start every content piece with an irresistible one-liner, hook, or title that stops people from doom scrolling, then test formats relentlessly at least one piece per day.
  • →B2B companies must prioritize owned channels - blog, LinkedIn (especially after algorithm shifts toward Twitter-like relevance), and YouTube - or face long-term competitive disadvantage.

In this episode

  1. 1Introduction and Guest Welcome
  2. 2Early Mistakes in Blog Strategy and SEO Planning
  3. 3The 90/10 Rule: Planning vs. Execution
  4. 4Blog Traffic Decline and Lead Quality Improvement
  5. 5Platform Strategy: Blog, LinkedIn, and YouTube
  6. 6Content Planning with Hooks and Thumbnails
  7. 7Creating Daily Content and Testing Formats
  8. 8Identifying Audience and Long-term Content Success

Mentioned

Cassie AyitHopierPostbeam AIBrian O'GradyBrendan ZioloAhrefsSemrushLinkedInYouTubeMrBeastOpenAITopo Chico

Guests

Cassie Ayit

Topics in this episode

Demand generationLinkedIn marketingSEOSEMrushAhrefsB2B content strategyContent marketing ROISEO planningon-page seoHopierPostbeam AI90/10 rulecontent planningH1/H2 tagsinternal linking

Questions this episode answers

What is the 90/10 rule for content marketing?

90% of content work should be upfront planning - keyword research, competitive analysis, ICP definition, and content structure - while only 10% is the actual writing and execution; most teams waste resources by reversing this ratio.

Why did Hopier's blog traffic drop but lead quality improve?

Google's AI Overviews and LLMs now serve results for broad, low-intent keywords like "motivational quotes," but Hopier's remaining organic traffic comes from niche, high-intent queries where they have genuine expertise, plus they now see increased direct traffic and LLM referrals.

What tools does Cassie recommend for content planning?

Ahrefs and Semrush are essential for keyword research to identify realistic ranking opportunities, understand competitive landscapes, and validate that keywords align with your actual business expertise and ICP.

How should you structure your content creation process to get results?

Start with a compelling one-liner or hook that grabs attention, test different formats regularly (at least one piece per day), identify what works, then repeat that format consistently while continuously improving by 1%.

Why are LinkedIn and YouTube critical for B2B companies in 2025?

LinkedIn's algorithm now favors niche-relevant content over just your network, YouTube is a massive discovery channel, and both are becoming increasingly important as LLMs cite and recommend original content from these platforms.

What our scoring noted

Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.

Insight Density

11 / 20

The episode offers several practical takeaways (90/10 planning rule, focus on lead quality over traffic volume, content distribution across blog/LinkedIn/YouTube) but relies heavily on general principles and anecdotes rather than novel, actionable insights. The advice about starting with titles/hooks, testing formats, and patience is sound but largely conventional wisdom in content marketing. Much runtime is spent on soft introductions, drink banter, and narrative examples that pad rather than densify insights.

90% of the work was in creating an actual plan. And then 10% was actually executing on the plan.
Impressions was always a vanity metric

Originality

9 / 20

The core insight - that planning dominates execution in content success - is repackaged but not particularly fresh. The observation about LLM-driven traffic and lead quality replacing raw page views reflects current conditions but isn't contrarian or first-principles thinking. References to MrBeast, product-market-fit for content, and the 'thousand true fans' model are well-trodden frameworks. The guest does not present counterintuitive arguments or challenge conventional B2B content marketing wisdom substantively.

Content is finding product market fit for your content
you only need a thousand true fans, really, to make a million bucks

Guest Caliber

13 / 20

Cassie is a legitimate operator: CEO of a bootstrapped rewards platform grown to seven figures over a decade, and co-founder of a B2B LinkedIn content tool (Postbeam AI). He has direct experience building an audience (80k blog visitors/month) and scaling through content. However, he is not a top-tier practitioner (no $100M+ exit, no household brand), and his current focus appears split across multiple ventures, limiting depth of recent hands-on execution at scale.

CEO of Hop Year, which is a global rewards and incentive platform used by thousands of companies
over the past decade, he's grown this company to seven figures in revenue

Specificity & Evidence

8 / 20

The episode includes some concrete numbers (80,000 blog visitors/month, TVPN sold to OpenAI for ~$300M with only 50k YouTube subscribers, 8 years to build the blog, 10k ad read rate) but most claims lack specificity. The guest offers general frameworks (90/10 planning, one piece of content per day, 1% improvement) without detailed metrics on Hopier's current lead generation, conversion rates, or revenue impact from LinkedIn vs. blog. The Andrew Packer anecdote and MrBeast references are illustrative but not evidential for the guest's own business.

80,000 visitors a month on your blog
took eight years to build our blog to that point

Conversational Craft

10 / 20

Brian asks solid opening questions (what went wrong early?) and probes the planning insight effectively, but the hosts rarely push back or challenge claims substantively. When the guest mentions agency overcharging, Brian makes a light self-deprecating joke rather than exploring the claim. The hosts allow anecdotes (MrBeast, Andrew Packer) to unspool without requiring evidence of relevance to the guest's own outcomes. Follow-ups are polite but shallow; no one questions whether the guest's advice scales beyond his specific niche or asks for failure case studies. The conversation reads as collaborative storytelling rather than rigorous interrogation.

I feel like we got some results but we were being overcharged. And then we hired a second agency.
I don't think Brendan agencies have ever overcharged. Do you think that's ever.

Conversation analysis

Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.

Share of words spoken

  • Speaker C57%
  • Speaker B23%
  • Speaker A20%

Most-used words

content40blog17cassie15today13traffic13marketing12audience11best10planning10brian9linkedin9create9agency9creating9important9love9

Episode notes

In this episode, Brendan and Brian sit down with Cassie Aite (Hoppier, PostBeam AI) to unpack the real driver behind content success: the 90/10 rule. After years of trial, error, and wasted spend, Cassie shares why 90% of content performance comes from planning - not execution - and how most B2B teams get this completely backwards. From early SEO missteps to building a blog that peaked at roughly 80,000 monthly visitors, he breaks down what actually works today - and what doesn't anymore. The conversation goes deep on the shift from traffic to revenue-focused content, why AI and Google are changing the game, and how fewer, higher-quality pieces now outperform volume plays. You'll also hear why LinkedIn, YouTube, and owned content are non-negotiable - and how to find your "content-market fit" through disciplined testing. If you're still chasing impressions, this episode will reset your thinking. If you want content that drives pipeline, this is your playbook.

Full transcript

34 min

Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.

Speaker A: Your B2B Marketing Pint is the podcast for B2B technology marketers who want to sharpen their competitive edge. Joined by other marketing veterans, your hosts Brian o' Grady and Brendan Ziolo share expertise on what works today and why. Grab a cold pint of hot takes on branding, content marketing, demand generation and more. Served with a side of sarcasm.

Speaker B: Heads up. Great news. It's B2B marketing pint. You're here. We're back. Brendan, who are we talking to today?

Speaker A: Well, I have the great pleasure of welcoming Cassie Ayit, uh, to the podcast today. Did I get that right? Cassie got it right.

Speaker C: You got it right. Good job.

Speaker A: And now I'm going to screw up his company name. He is the CEO of Hoppier, not Hoppier for our Canadian audience. Uh, and I got that right now too, didn't I?

Speaker C: You did, yeah.

Speaker A: All right, two for two. I think I'm done today. Brian, over to you. No. Uh, so, uh, Cassie is the CEO of Hop Year, which is a global rewards and incentive platform used by thousands of companies. Now, uh, over the past decade, he's grown this company to seven figures in revenue, helping teams run marketing campaigns, events and other engagement programs more effectively and with better results. He's also the co founder of Postbeam AI, a platform that helps B2B teams turn LinkedIn content into warm leads. Kassy and I actually met, uh, in relation to postbeam a few months ago, and we've had some interesting conversations around LinkedIn content and a bunch of other B2B marketing topics. So I was super excited to invite Cassie on the podcast and even happier when he, uh, agreed to join us. Uh, Cassie, what are you drinking today?

Speaker C: Thanks for inviting me. Cheers, guys. I'm drinking a, uh, Topo Chico. So I, I live in Mexico half the year, and, uh, we have this drink. It's called Topo Chico. It is the best sparkling water you'll ever have. And they, they do Topo Chico now with, um, all kinds of other mixes. So you can actually buy that non alcoholic and the alcoholic version. But if you like a spicy it. I tell people it's so bubbly, it's spicy. And, uh, and it's, it's just the best. Like, whenever you're in Mexico, you got to have a Topo Chico. So. Cheers.

Speaker A: And, and clearly, Brian, Cassie's doing something right with the. I live in Mexico half the year.

Speaker B: Yep, that's right. I'm surprised to hear the Mexican Coke might be unseated. The people get pretty excited about their Mexican Coke. But here we go. Yeah. How do I pronounce it?

Speaker C: Topo Chico. Topo Chico. Topo Chico. There you go. Free marketing for Topo Chico.

Speaker A: There we go. And. And, and we are more than happy to accept them as a sponsor. Don't forget, there's our plug. There's our plug at the 2 minute mark or something. I'm rushing it today.

Speaker C: Ryan, what are you drinking?

Speaker A: Oh, what am I drinking? Yeah, I'll go first. So I, uh, I guess I'm joining, uh, Cassie as well with something that's of the non alcohol variety, but it's. It's a beer just alcohol free from Harman. I think I've repeated this today, but I had to grab it when it said half day because I feel like it's been a lot longer than half a day. So hopefully this helps. Um, but I'm having one of those today.

Speaker B: I don't remember seeing that one before.

Speaker A: Oh, good. Oh, good. Sorry. Yeah, I keep thinking I'm repeating a need to get out and try new ones. So. Any suggestions? I'm all ears. Brian, what are you drinking?

Speaker B: Thought you'd never ask. Uh, divergence today from my regular kind of Pilsner zone. Uh, this is a wheat beer, Weissbier. If you're fans of German by Pollena, it's my favorite. I'm not a big wheat beer guy, but if I were, this would be my favorite wheat beer. And the lemon is already in the glass because this will be ein Weissbier mitze Troen, which just makes everything sound cool when you say things in German.

Speaker A: All right. And I know Cassie beat us to the opening, so I'm going to open mine here and.

Speaker B: All right. The B2B marketing conversation flow nicely.

Speaker A: All right. Well, cheers, guys.

Speaker C: Cheers.

Speaker B: I didn't do the best job pouring.

Speaker C: Excellent.

Speaker A: All right, uh, Brian, did you want to kick us off today?

Speaker B: Yes. We're all, uh, lubricated. It's time to talk marketing. Uh, I want to ask you a question that I learned. Cassie, in our pre briefing, you talked about, uh, when you got started with hopier, you did some good old fashioned, uh, blog work. And that good old fashioned blog work resulted in you. You'll correct me where I go wrong. Getting something, uh, in the order of 80,000 visitors a month. And I'm a big fan of that kind of marketing. I also know it doesn't generally happen overnight, and you don't generally knock it out of the park on your first try. Maybe you did. We're about to find out.

Speaker C: What.

Speaker B: What did you get wrong when you were on your road to getting 80,000 visitors a month on your blog, uh, and what did that lead to you getting right? Or did you just crush it from day zero?

Speaker C: No. We made so many mistakes and wasted so much money. I would say that the good thing that we didn't mess up at the beginning was our first 20 to 30 customers were all through cold outreach or basically door to door sales, effectively just, you know, reaching out to people. We would literally go into physical offices selling to them and uh, also so, and just pitching them what we were doing. But that helped us get our messaging down and understand who our customer was. And so we didn't mess up that part. But the part that we did mess up was when we said, hey, what if we did this SEO thing? We heard about SEO, thought it was cool, and we were paying a lot of money spending on ads and we thought, what if we could just get this traffic without having to pay Google, right? And um, so we started to create content. We hired uh, two people to do the content. Both were generalist marketers that didn't have any experience doing any kind of within like understanding anything about SEO. And, and um, as writers and uh, we just said, hey, go create content. And I feel like the first 10 to 20 pieces of content were just like in the dark, whatever we thought was interesting. And, and then, yeah, random. And then we said this isn't working obviously. And uh, were kind of all over the place, random and you know, didn't make sense. And we said what if we just hired an agency? So we hired one agency. I feel like we got some results but we were being overcharged. And then we hired a second agency. And this second agency, we learned so much from them. And I think the biggest thing we learned was that 90% of the work was in creating, uh, an actual plan. And then 10% was actually executing on the plan. And that 10% is still really important. But we were, you know, we focused a lot on what keywords actually meant M made sense to rank for, but we made so many mistakes. Like I'd say that probably the biggest mistakes were not doing the planning up front. Number one, so having a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush and doing the research to make sure that you're targeting keywords that make sense, that you can realistically rank for, that are not overly competitive, that makes sense for your business. Number two, it's hiring the right people who understand on page SEO so that when they're writing the blog posts, they use the Best practices, they do internal linking. They uh, understand how to you know, set up, you know, H H1s, H2s, um how to do proper page structure, meta descriptions, things like that. And um, AI helps with a lot of that now. But I still think the human part of the writing is still really important so that you can add like the information gain. So having, you know, experts on that topic as well that are writing about it I think is, is key even still to this day, even though that maybe some of those on page SEO things aren't as important. But yeah, I would say those are the two.

Speaker B: Good old fashioned old school SEO. I love it. Yeah, that music, music to a search agency's ears from back in the day. I will, I will push back on one thing you said though. I don't think Brendan agencies have ever overcharged. Do you think that's ever.

Speaker A: I would, I was going to point out that when he said that he was not talking about zinc marketing or search warrant.

Speaker B: Clearly not nothing but value from these two right here.

Speaker C: Yeah, that was, I mean they, I don't think to be fair, like you know, I don't think this agency had much experience with, with search. Uh, and that was part of the problem. Like they were, you know, an ad agency trying to offer a new service because we said we needed it.

Speaker B: Um, fair enough. But yeah, a number of years.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And then I think the other thing is like time. Maybe that's the only other thing, like being patient. It took eight years to build our blog to that point. So yeah, just a lot of time. Consistency reps.

Speaker A: So I know, uh, again, back to when we chatted with you earlier, Cassie, you mentioned that you grew the blog. I mean the traffic was great. Uh, and then Fast forward to 2025 or 2026, uh, pick your year. And generally speaking, I mean you were honest and said your blog traffic has fallen considerably, which is, I don't think unusual to anyone out there today. But then you threw the curveball to Brian and I and said but the lead quality's gone up. Which was very intriguing. So you know, what's your take? What's your insight? Because I know you're a data guy, so I know you've drilled down into this, but you know, what's, why did that, you know, traffic down, quality up, you know, what have you learned? What have you found? And then how are you measuring success now? Because you know, the, the I'm going to get a, you know, tens of thousands of page visitors or blog visitors is not going to happen. Now, how are you measuring success? Now?

Speaker C: It's funny because I think Impressions was always a vanity metric and maybe there's too much focus on that, right? Like, we used to write, uh, blog posts on all kinds of topics. And at some point I think it, you know, we had 200 blog posts. Realistically, there's probably only 50. That makes sense that we truly have expertise on. And then we would, we ended up just adding all of these content pieces about crap that is not even relevant. And, you know, maybe our ICP would read it, but like, probably a small percent of them truly are in our icp. For example, for hoppier, writing a blog post about, you know, best lunch program. Best lunch program, best tips for launching your own company lunch program, right? Like that's a blog post that would make sense for us to write on because I think we're experts at that. But we started creating content for stuff like best motivational quotes for a manager, right? It has a ton motivational quotes for a manager, has a ton of, of searches, way more searches than that other keyword. But like, we tried to rank for it because we thought, oh, managers would buy or buyers of popier and so let's rank for this keyword. And now, you know, like, we've seen a huge decrease in traffic because I think the LLMs are just better at saying, hey, hop your is actually not. And instead we're just going to serve up a collection of, you know, content in, you know, in the LLM from Reddit and all these other sources and whatever. And instead of giving this traffic to you and then same with Google. Now Google is giving an AI overview. And so nobody's clicking on the post and then coming in. So, uh, we're getting way less traffic, but the traffic that we are getting is really high quality. And actually we're getting less traffic to the blog. But, you know, let's say that someone searches something like best lunch, you know, best, you know, tips to launch a lunch program. They may not be clicking on postbeam anymore to go to that blog post, but they see in the Google AI overview, here is some information citation to Hopier. And then people may not, you know, click on that, but they may go direct to the site. So what we look at what's most important is like leads and revenue at the end of the day. And then we've also seen an increase in direct traffic. So we've seen a decrease in organic search traffic, but we've seen a huge increase in direct traffic and also traffic from LLMs.

Speaker B: Amazing.

Speaker A: So What I'm hearing, and I couldn't agree more, is the quality over quantity, uh, is really how you're viewing things and by writing about topics that potentially are more niche but that your audience truly cares about is definitely important here. And you know, I again couldn't agree more with the, you know, impressions as a vanity metric, uh, type thing because I remember one place I worked they would present, you know, I got a million impressions from this ad campaign and I'm like, okay, you know, the only thing that tells me is you spent a million dollars of your budget. Like that's all that says to me and that. But that's all they talk about. And I'm like, that's just a budget number then. And you've spent a lot of money is what it's saying, right? Yeah, they may not have been paying a bucket impression, I get that. But it was that whole idea. So, yeah, very interesting point, uh, on that.

Speaker B: I want to drill in, Cassie. I mean, there's a number of questions I want to ask you. I'm glad we've got full glasses. I want to drill into your planning comment because that really resonates with me. A lot of people see digital success and go, I want some of that. And I feel it's one of those 10 year overnight successes. Right? They don't see the 10 years, they just see the success. And I can think of other examples in life where this is true. In our pre meeting I mentioned one. I'm a recovered technical writer. Brendan knows that. And when I started as a technical writer, I learned. And every hour you put into your table of contents, every hour you put into planning what you're going to write as a document saves you something like five to eight hours down the road. Right? So that's one example. Another one I can think of for sure is if you're building a website, everybody wants to make the homepage. Oh, good, let's go make a homepage. But it takes some time for everyone to realize, well, the homepage is actually a representation of everything else on the site. So we actually have to plan the everything else and then we can do the homepage. So in both those examples and in yours, it's all about the planning. Probably not the sexy or interesting or exciting bit. It's not the win. But you can't get to the win without it. So with those examples, give us a couple crunchy, uh, crunchy tips or tidbits when you're doing that planning. You said 90% of your time for content goes into the Planning, what are the big wins or big takeaways or big lessons there for other people in a situation like yours? If they want to try and make a content win? What's, what's the takeaway for planning that's going to help them get there?

Speaker C: So I think about like, if I was in the shoes of our ideal customer, what would, what's the type of content? What's the type of content that gets them super excited? Where do they, what can I say or do that has them sit up in their chair and want to listen to what we have to say? And that's not just for the blog, but like uh, when I say content, I think of everything. Like all of these things affect now. I think it's so exciting for people that love content. Creating content now because there's never been a greater opportunity for you now than with AI. Uh, because if you're creating really high quality content, the LLMs cannot ignore you. And if you're creating really high quality content, they are going to recommend you. So we create content on the, for us, the most important platforms which are, if you're in B2B and you're not focusing on these platforms, you're going to lose. You're going to lose. And I think you're, you're at a huge disadvantage and your competitors are going to crush you in the long term. And that's just the reality. So you have to be investing in blog number one, creating own content number two. I think LinkedIn is huge and it's only improving and people are saying, oh, I don't want to post on LinkedIn, it's cringe, blah, blah, blah. Well, guess what? The content on LinkedIn is becoming more valuable and higher quality because more people are creating content now. The algorithm has changed in the last six months to be more similar to Twitter. So you're seeing less content from people that you know and more content of people who are just interested and in your niche or your industry. And then they also updated the link structure of the URLs so that they're better, so, so that they're, they're, they're more easily identified by LLMs and associated with you and your brand. And then other than your blog and LinkedIn, I think YouTube is huge. YouTube is so, so important. So we're doing all of that now. And uh, and I think if you're not doing, if you're not investing in these, these channels and you're in B2B, you're gonna, you're gonna get crushed long term. I think that's just the reality. And so, um, so yeah, just so valuable to invest in those channels. So important.

Speaker B: Awesome. And one of my takeaways, I welcome your input on this guys, is all of these conversations eventually end up sounding like an old school newspaper or magazine with an editor planning it out, what's going to go out when what's the right topics. And that's one part of planning that I think still has great value and is people kind of resist doing. Nobody wants to do that part. That's boring. But it's a key, it's foundational to success in my opinion.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I think, um. Yeah. And sorry, to your point, I actually didn't answer your question. You asked like what do I do that people can actually do to plan for these channels? So I think when you put yourself in the, in the shoes of the customer, what is. I love Mr. Beast because he is the greatest content genius, one of the greatest business people of the last hundred years. And he is one person that I study all the time because he's, he thinks about this so much. He has, he hires the smartest people in the world when it comes to content work for him. And what they do that I think is really impactful that anyone can do that's creating content is they start with the title and the, in their case they start with the, with the uh, thumbnail of the video. But for if you're creating, you know, non video, I think you can start with just a one liner. What's the title? What's the hook? So someone is going to read and how can you make that so irresistible and interesting that someone stops what they're doing, they stop doom scrolling because that's, you're competing with all these other people that are trying to fight for their attention that they stop in their tracks and they read what you, you put out there and they laugh or they feel some emotion and so start with that. And then if you have a good concept or idea like that, and that's why I think Twitter is really good too. Like a lot of people use Twitter because it's a great place to come up with, um, you know, short concepts and then you can take that concept and make it a lot longer or a much bigger piece of content. But I think like, yeah, Twitter, LinkedIn, like that, that's what I'm, that's what we do is we just, you know, and then we're just constantly testing, um, all the time.

Speaker B: Rinse and repeat. Also not that sexy. Also very important in digital success.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. With content especially, it's like people get discouraged fast, right? You get a post. I get posts all the time. That bomb, they'll, they'll do like five

Speaker B: actually counting in the first episode of this podcast to make me famous. And here we are in season two. I'm still not famous, so I guess we'll just keep testing.

Speaker C: It takes time, right? 10 years.

Speaker A: 10 years, Brian. 10 years.

Speaker B: Okay, got it.

Speaker C: But you guys saw like, uh, do you guys see the Tech Bros. Podcast news, TVPN, the acquisition by OpenAI?

Speaker A: I read about it, yeah.

Speaker C: So these media companies now are becoming so valuable, right? And if you look at TVPN, they only had like 50,000 subscribers on YouTube. They got bought for, I think it was like $300 million or something by OpenAI. And um, they just have very niche focused attention. And I think every company should be trying to do the same thing, like create an audience, create content.

Speaker A: So we're not all Mr. Beast. Uh, that's probably a good thing. Um, but a lot of what you say is, uh, true. And yeah, I read an article recently that apparently he's also a workaholic and, and doesn't stop working, much to his family's dismay. And uh, yeah, the amounts he spends on the videos is just like, I don't know if it's hundreds of thousands or millions now to create a video. So it's just fascinating how he's built that. But you know, Mr. Beast aside, what's like, what do you see working on LinkedIn and, or YouTube? You know, Cassie, take your pick or you know, tackle one at a time, but what are the types of contents? What are the things that are working like, I love your analogy about the hook and, or not your analogy, but your point about the hook and the title and, and the thumbnail or the graphic. But you know, kind of walk our audience through some of what you see working on LinkedIn, what you see working on YouTube.

Speaker C: Okay, so if I was starting from zero today, I would. And uh, it's different for everyone, right? Everybody's going to be different. You can study your competitors and you can try to copy their formats and they may work for you, but it's likely that it won't work for you because that format of content is unique to them and it works for them because of who they are. And so everybody is unique. And that's also what allows anyone to create amazing content that is, you know, eventually works. But if I was starting from zero and what I recommend to everybody create at least one piece of Content a day on your medium, make it 1% better, test different formats. And you want to think about first, like, who's your ideal viewer? Who are they? And I think a good, you know, one, One way, um, to think about this is like, who were you, like, 10 years ago? What would me, 10 years in the past, would have wished I could? What kind of content I wish I could have consumed back then? Like, what did I not know then that I know now? Whether it's related to business, whether it's related to Spearfish.

Speaker B: Uh, do I say buy the index now or do I wait till the end to say buy the index?

Speaker C: Okay, I thought that would be always buying the index.

Speaker B: Brian wanted to buy the index 10 years ago. He just didn't know it till now.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's. I mean, look, you want to identify those things that you wish you knew. Like, it's really simple, I think. And then, uh, you know, you identify those things, you create the content and you just put out a ton of different formats, one piece a day, make it 1% better, test different formats. And then once you start to identify a format that works well, then you just do that over and over and over again. There was a guy who I went to university with. His name's Andrew Packer. Now he's a pretty famous Canadian comedian. And I remember in university he was putting out TikTok videos of himself doing comedy, talking to the camera. TikTok. Everybody said, oh, that's so fucking cringe, Andrew. You're so awkward. This is so cringe, you know, like you're, you're never going to be a comedian. He did it for seven years and then he finally figured out his format, which is him with his phone and he's watching a video of another TikTok video. And it's usually something like, he calls it man news. So he's wearing a suit and he's just commenting on like a bunch of dudes throwing boulders off of the edge of a cliff, right? And it's like, satisfying for dudes. And he calls it man news. Today he has over 2 million followers and he's selling out, uh, shows for his comedy shows all over North America. He was on Kill Tony. He got invited to do a bunch of extra bunch of shows through that. And, um. And yeah, he's, he's killing it now, but he figured out his format and I think everybody has to figure out their format. Mr. Beast did Minecraft videos and all kinds of videos until he discovered, oh, maybe giving stuff away for free and doing competitions. He's still discovering his format, his format still adjust, changing. And he's discovering new, new formats that work even better than previous formats.

Speaker B: Amazing. So, okay, that, that highlights a point I think is worth driving home. And you folks, you dive in and correct me if you think I'm wrong, but it goes like this. What people remember is dudes throwing rocks off a cliff. They don't see the seven years of discipline. And that's the word I'm going to use of try this, try that, fail here, adjust, rinse, repeat, try again. And you don't read a lot of case studies or success stories that say, beat your head against a wall every day and don't stop because you're going to learn and you're going to get better and keep going and have the discipline. Nobody wants to hear that part. They want to hear the part about guys throwing rocks off a cliff and now I'm a millionaire. So that to me is an underlying theme of this conversation here. And maybe all digital is the discipline it takes to get back to your desk every day, even when you're not winning, and keep at it and keep learning and keep trying. Is that, is that, uh, the subtext of our whole conversation here, discipline?

Speaker C: I mean, you guys are familiar with like product market fit, right? Like we should be. It's the exact same thing with, with content. You're finding product market fit for your content. Sometimes that takes six months, sometimes that takes six years. It's the exact same things. You gotta, you gotta put in the time, put in the reps. And um, I think a lot of people don't, don't think about that. But if you can do that, you own your audience. Isn't that like the ultimate thing? Like you're, no, you're no longer paying for advert ads. You can effectively launch anything. You see this in E Commerce. All the top E commerce brands are owned by celebrities. People that have attention, people that have an audience. And I think it's going to be the same thing for software, for even professional services in your neighborhood. You're starting to see local people who are becoming like local celebrities. It's the same thing. That attention is so valuable. And um, and yeah, I think everybody, everybody should be thinking about this. People aren't freaking out.

Speaker B: There's still hope, there's still hope for Brendan and Brian. Then we can become local heroes.

Speaker C: Well, I think there always will be because the fact is you will all like, there's always going to be a unique, different format. You can try. And then 99% of the people aren't going to be willing to bash their head into the wall a thousand times and then wake up and say, oh, I only got five likes. Screw, uh, this. You know, like, that's what you have to. That's what you have to do. But when you make it out to the other side, you know, you only need a thousand true fans, really, to make a million bucks. Right. Even less in a lot of cases.

Speaker B: I love it. I love it. I could go way further down that rat hole, but I will resist. Uh, because, Brendan, I think this is your big moment.

Speaker A: Oh, I get to ask the big. I get to ask the big. The big question. Excellent. So it's become tradition, Cassie. Um, we like it. I don't know if our guests like it. I guess we'll have to do a poll at some point, but we like to wrap up, uh, every episode giving you, uh, giving you a soapbox to get up on and talk about the biggest myth. I think in your case, let's. Let's. Let's generalize and call it the biggest myth in B2B content marketing right now. You get to set the record straight. You hear it every day, week, month, and it's like, all right, I've had enough. This is just not true. The floor is yours. What's that myth?

Speaker C: I think so. This is. I, uh, kind of hitting on this earlier. So TVPN, their podcast, and they just sold to OpenAI for hundreds of millions of dollars. They only had 50,000 subscribers. They were putting out a ton of short videos, and they were getting a lot of views on those. But I don't think you need a big audience to make a lot of money. That is the myth. People think, oh, I need a million subscribers. You do not need a million subscribers. You can have a hundred subscribers and make a lot of money. Like, you see it now in different forms, like M. Niche media, like TVPN. And there are others. Like, I know HubSpot acquired three companies, undisclosed amounts in the last three months. There are all media companies, and those are probably really big deals, but nobody is really talking about it because people think that you need a big audience to make a lot of money. But what if you had a thousand people who follow you, who love what you do, who are ready to buy whatever you put out there, and you tell them, hey, I recommend this product, and I think it's great. And, you know, I built it because I understand you and I understand your problems. And I'm, you know, I've been thinking about this for a long Time, they're going to buy it. Right. There's so many examples of this. So I think, uh, that is the biggest myth is that you do not, you do not need, uh, a big audience. People think you need a big audience. You do not need a big audience to actually make a dent in the world and a great business.

Speaker B: I love it. And maybe from a stats perspective, that means, you know, if a hundred people stone cold love you, that means you've crushed that particular demographic and there's more than 100 of those people out there. It's going to work out.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Put it this way, like you guys, like you guys here on this podcast, right? If you get 500, let's say you get 500 viewers on this podcast. If I owned a company that was, you know, selling to the same listeners that are listening right now, how much, yeah, how much would I pay for those 500 people to hear a, uh, one minute ad read? Like, even if, let's say I'm selling something high ticket, that's worth like 5k a month. You know, let's say I'm running my own ad agency, um, and I'm charging whatever, thousands a month, I would probably be willing to pay you guys like 10 grand just to just so that you could do a one minute ad read for one episode. Right

Speaker A: now I'm trying to figure out if Cassie is our new biz dev guy or if he's our first sponsor. So, Ryan, we'll take that offline. We'll take that offline.

Speaker C: 30% commission and I'll, I'll do it. I'll send you guys whatever, whatever you need.

Speaker B: One. I'm, uh, going to wrap this up because we're running long and I'm clearly so engaged, I don't want to stop talking again. But I will say that maybe that's one thing the ad industry has really done for us is when you can compare your results to a cost per click model and see how many clicks you need at that price. Well, holy cow, a lot of things become valuable at that price when you start to do some math and multiply things. So I, uh, hear your point on that. It's not just about the ad clicks and that's coming from an ad agency. So I'm going to stop there before I dig myself a real hole. I'm going to thank you, Cassie, for joining us. Um, I think Brendan and I might continue this discussion long afterwards. You've given us some real food for thought. Really appreciate the insights on content and in particular the approach to planning. Thank you, uh, for joining us, and, uh, cheers.

Speaker C: All right.

Speaker A: Thanks, Kassi.

Speaker C: Thanks. Cheers.

Speaker B: Hey, folks, if you liked that episode, you won't believe the next one.

Speaker A: So don't forget to subscribe on your favorite platform, and you won't miss out.

Speaker B: Or if you've got an idea we haven't thought of yet, hit us up in the comments. We'll cover that, too.

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