Content Marketing Commute · 2024-08-24 · 20 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
20 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Rather than treating 'create quality content' as a self-evident mantra, this episode digs into how B2B content marketers can actually measure and improve what they're making. The host - working at Upflow targeting CFOs - argues that relying solely on quantitative data (page dwell time, bounce rates, analytics dashboards) misses half the story. He introduces Rocky.io, a tool designed to capture qualitative feedback directly from content consumers through post-article surveys and similar mechanisms. The core insight: you're rarely your own buyer persona, so your judgment of content quality is 'reasonably irrelevant' - what matters is what your actual audience thinks. Beyond measurement, the episode emphasizes systematic collaboration with subject matter experts (SMEs) inside your company. Rather than trying to become an expert yourself or extracting expertise through painful approval cycles, structure regular episodic conversations (podcasts, video interviews, recorded sessions) where SMEs lead and you capture and package their voice. This flips the dynamic: their expertise becomes the primary content, your role becomes facilitating and distributing it. The host references his own upcoming Upflow podcast as a practical example. For B2B operators juggling multiple content creators, subject matter experts with day jobs, and vague success metrics, this reframes quality content as a system: gather qualitative input, feed it back to SMEs, refine iteratively.
Go beyond quantitative metrics like page views or dwell time by gathering qualitative feedback directly from your audience through surveys, interviews, or tools like Rocky.io that ask readers what they genuinely thought of the content.
Quantitative data only tells half the story; it doesn't reveal whether content actually moved readers, answered their questions, or built trust. Qualitative feedback from real users shows whether content is valuable to them, which is what drives conversions and revenue.
Rather than asking them to review or approve written drafts, create regular episodic sessions (podcasts, video interviews, recorded calls) where SMEs speak first as the primary source, then you package and distribute their insights - this removes friction and keeps expert voice authentic.
Make it as easy as possible by structuring their input around recurring formats they can do naturally (like a weekly podcast appearance or monthly video interview) rather than asking them to validate your drafts, which adds extra work to their day.
No; your strength is in packaging, strategy, and audience understanding, not domain expertise. Use that energy to build systematic processes with genuine SMEs instead, and let their voice lead the content.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode surfaces two loosely useful ideas (qualitative feedback is undervalued; lean on SMEs via a recurring format) but states them at such a shallow level that they add almost no actionable depth. A large portion of the runtime is location colour, the Napoleon detour, an ad read, and sign-off chatter.
qualitative data is so under appreciated and so important in creating quality content
why don't you just go to them and ask is this content actually useful to you
Every idea here - ask customers for feedback, quantitative data only tells half the story, work with internal SMEs - is well-worn content-marketing orthodoxy. There is no contrarian angle, no first-principles reasoning, and no novel framing that a working B2B content marketer wouldn't already know.
qualitative feedback is so undervalued so underappreciated
the role of subject matter experts in your company and once again it comes back to the role of a content marketer
This is a solo walking monologue with no guest present. The only practitioner referenced is 'Matt' from Rocky.io, who is mentioned as a third-party anecdote rather than interviewed, and Tom Winters from the prior episode is not present here.
I want to tell you a little bit about a friend of mine called matt I hope I can call you a friend Matt we've never actually properly met in person
this is a sort of market area if you are just listening on the podcast apps hey why not come on over to the youtube link
The only concrete specifics are the host's own employer (Upflow, targeting CFOs) and a passing mention of Rocky.io as a tool being built. There are no metrics, no case studies, no conversion rates, no timelines, and no named outcomes - just abstract recommendations.
right now i'm working at a company called upflow we're targeting cfos we're a fintech cfos financial controllers in b2b companies
Matt is building this company called Rocky.io and I find it really inspiring and awesome because his vision behind that is literally this that Google Analytics and other tools like that that are showing quantitative data on content marketing only give you half the story
There is no interview to assess - the episode is an unstructured solo walk. The host frequently self-interrupts, abandons threads (Napoleon analogy), and repeats the same vague assertion ('qualitative data is undervalued') without building on it or challenging himself.
but anyway that was getting cringe towards the end wasn't it that was getting pretty cringe so let's not do any more of that
I'm gonna hold it off for a second but come follow me on LinkedIn you'll see you'll see my big announcement in the next few weeks
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Ad: No more not knowing who’s coming to your website, convert more leads and get your free Leadfeeder extended premium trial here . In this episode of the Content Marketing Commute, recorded in beautiful Ajaccio, Corsica, I share some thoughts on creating quality content. Reflecting on discussions from the previous episode with SEO expert Tom Winters, my focus is on defining and measuring quality content. Fo me, so much of figuring out what 'quality' means for your audience is in really embracing qualitative feedback. The quantitative stuff will only tell you so much. Additionally, I provide tips on leveraging internal expertise to produce engaging and authoritative content for target audiences. Want to see the sights as well as hear the sounds of this episode?
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Hello and welcome to this episode of Content Marketing Commute here in beautiful Ajaxio. Ajaxio on the island of Corsica where I am with my family on holiday but I run a podcast so better never stops and I never really get a holiday. You should all start a podcast, it's fantastic. No, I genuinely do it because I enjoy it.
So welcome to Ajaxio everyone. Beautiful place, we're here for a couple of weeks. with my wife and my two children and I thought I'd get out here and record an episode for the content marketing commute podcast I'm not commuting anywhere specifically I'm just going on a walk along the sort of port area and maybe even down to the beach and I'm going to be doing an about last week episode and if you haven't been listening to the to the podcast for too long essentially about last week episodes are ones where i uh i focus in on something that we spoke about with an expert guest last week last week we're in avignon to speak with tom winters of seo wind he is an seo expert he knows so much about seo leading authority in Europe on SEO and we talked about so many interesting points I'm just gonna cross the road oh my gosh we talked about so many interesting points around SEO from zero click search to the big leak that Rand Fishkin published what it means so I do encourage you to go back and listen to last week's episode if you haven't already but I want to focus in on one particular part of last week's episode and I'll tell you what that is in just a moment.
Just for the record I did have a thought since I am in Ajaxo and in Corsica to record a sort of special episode on say 14 things we can learn from Napoleon Bonaparte about content marketing but then I thought one that's a bit cringe and two I can't think of 14 things. I did think of one thing though do you want to hear it i'll take that as a yes um the one thing that i did here is um no that i did think is as a content marketer use your background use your varied background to your advantage that lady was having a good look just like napoleon bonaparte did he came from Corsica, which basically wasn't part of France until just before he was born.
Two years before he was born, did you know that? And he didn't even speak good French, but he somehow became the emperor of France. Wow. So as a content marketer, it's one of those roles.
You could be a journalist, you could be a marketer, you could be a writer. you could i've met content marketers who've been engineers like you can come it's one of those roles you come from so many different backgrounds and um literally use it to your advantage to create great content and to do your job in an awesome way but anyway that was getting cringe towards the end wasn't it that was getting pretty cringe so let's not do any more of that i think what we should focus on today in this episode is the whole sense around creating quality content and I've talked about this before and when it comes to content marketing you can't really get away from it people throwing out that line hey when it comes down to it all we're trying to do is create quality content I agree but what does that even mean and what does it look like so let's get into that a little bit today because um let's replay you a little bit of that portion of the interview with tom winters last week listen into this uh but from my perspective to simplify it a little bit we should look at uh the valuability like how valuable is our content yeah the authority that we have like so these are the two biggest factors of course so that's one quick snippet but broadly the whole conversation boiled down to that right there's been this google leak let's talk about backlinks actually being important when they were saying they weren't important seo often is kind of like this this hacky type topic where you're like is the way to make a difference through seo and to drive more traffic and to get more conversions to focus on all these kind of hacks behind the scenes and all these like little optimizations we can do and half the answer is probably yes but the other half of the answer is hey just focus on creating quality content that your audience loves that potential customers love and you're gonna be well on your way to performing really well in search and getting great results but that leaves the question what is quality content because it's become such a sort of like catchphrase just create quality content okay that's that makes a lot of sense i agree with you but what does it even mean anymore it's one of those things you say and you've said it so many times that it loses all meaning right so let's get into that today and i have just a couple of thoughts on this quick about last week episode as i walk along the port area here in ajaxio it's beautiful it's very warm and I'm not complaining about it.
My two quick thoughts on quality content is first of all, how do you measure whether content is quality? Because we're in the midst of our jobs. We can't just push pause and sort of start from zero again. Like if you're listening to this and you have been working as a content marketer for some time, obviously you've been creating content, you're creating more and more content all the time.
So we're not just going to stop and start from zero. If you've got to first understand what content that you've created in the past is quality. And then secondly, how do you do more of that? And how do you double down on that?
And how do you create more quality content? So first of all, how do you measure whether a certain piece of content is quality or not? and what i want to posit what i want to put out there is it's a whole lot more about qualitative data and qualitative feedback than you might think and then it has been trendy to believe i think so much of the last few years around marketing probably since you know the early 2000s the internet really taking off has been about quantitative data like literally show me the numbers and i will tell you whether you're successful right i think to a certain extent when we talk about content that will only ever get you so far and qualitative feedback is ultra important and i think more and more marketers are realizing that that quantitative numbers don't tell you the whole story and i want to tell you a little bit about a friend of mine called matt I hope I can call you a friend Matt we've never actually properly met in person but I think what you're doing is awesome so I've just gone ahead and said you're my friend but Matt is building this company called Rocky.
io and I find it really inspiring and awesome because his vision behind that is literally this that Google Analytics and other tools like that that are showing quantitative data on content marketing only give you half the story and so he's building this tool which essentially is going to help content marketers sure leverage quantitative data but also qualitative data through a whole bunch of different things that they can integrate with their blogs and with their websites so think little surveys post articles and you see this you see this in a b2c environment quite a bit what did you think of that article what did you think of this literally it's simple but asking people what they thought of your content is a way to actually unveil whether that content is quality for them because the challenge is as a content marketer you're so often not the persona that you're addressing right right now i'm working at a company called upflow we're targeting cfos we're a fintech cfos financial controllers in b2b companies and let me tell you those are some of the most polar opposite type people to me that I can think of in this world.
I'm still discovering them, let's be honest. But I'm different to them and I know how different I am to them. And so the fact that I think something's quality content is reasonably irrelevant because it doesn't matter as a content marketer what I think it is. And if I think it's great, obviously I do think it's great because I've put a lot of hard work into it.
But at the end of the day, it really matters what they think. And that's what's going to move the needle. That's what's going to build trust. that's what's going to drive all the results you want, more conversions, more pipeline, ultimately more revenue for your company.
So I just think this approach that Matt's taking to building Rocky.io is really cool because it's bringing together quantitative and qualitative data and using that qualitative stuff to actually get a sense from the real people who are consuming the content what do you think about it maybe you don have a tool like rocky to do that but you can actually ask people it sounds so straightforward sometimes we want to get so hacky on it and we want to try to sort of like figure out behind the scenes using all these different tools like what's the dwell time on the page and all this sort of stuff and sure that might be a leading indicator but why don't you just go to them and ask is this content actually useful to you is it interesting is it valuable like did you get the answers you need off it or like how could it be better like maybe you have great relationships with some of your customers go to them and ask them those questions so that's kind of my first thought is that qualitative data is so under appreciated and so important in creating quality content qualitative quality see hey and there's an enormous cruise ship in the port here at ajaccio amazing this is a sort of market area if you are just listening on the podcast apps hey why not come on over to the youtube link and you can see the full video of today's episode me waltzing through ajaccio downtown talking quality content.
Alright everyone, time for a quick breather here. You know, in my time as a marketer and a freelancer, I've come to know one thing. Certain tools can be a game changer. That's why I'm excited to talk to you today about Leadfeeder, a tool that helps you cut through the data and turn your website visitors into solid leads.
Leadfeeder shows you which companies are checking out your site, tracking their behavior and integrates all this with your CRM. Your secret weapon for targeted lead engagement and making it easier for your team to convert website traffic into sales. Head to leadfeeder.com for a free demo and get a free extended premium trial when you let the rep know that you found out about Leadfeeder through the content marketing commute podcast.
All right, let's get back to the show. So that's my first thought is like, qualitative feedback is so undervalued so underappreciated and i think can help you unlock more and more a sense of is what i'm creating quality or am i missing the mark and it's such a such a crucial first step because as i said we're not starting from zero we're not starting from the start line we're in the midst of it we can't stop and go back and just like have a fresh start So why don't you measure first up what you've already been doing?
Secondly, a second point around this is how do you create more of the expert quality content that your audience is loving? So once you've measured it, I think it's all about working with the people within your company that are the experts. And throughout this podcast, I think we're up to episode 34 now. this has come up so many times is the role of subject matter experts in your company and once again it comes back to the role of a content marketer you listening in you're a content marketer you're in that type of role maybe do social media as well i am a really strong believer in this your job is not to be the expert in whatever your company provides or the space that your company is in i don't need to be a finance to bring a lot of value to upflow and the role i'm doing in trying to build what we're doing at upflow i have skills in packaging the message and strategizing on how to reach people all these kinds of things and if and to get the very best results what i'm going to do is rely on people within my company who are lack my personas and who have deep expertise in the kinds of topics that my personas want to know about.
I don't need to get to a PhD level in freaking balance sheets and all sorts of stuff like that. Like, sure, I'm going to know a decent amount about that stuff, but I'm not even going to try to become an ultra expert. I'm going to focus on what I do best and let them focus on what they do best and use their expertise in my content more and more. and if I know if I can figure out a process and a system and a way of getting their expertise into my content more and more we're going to be able to do fantastic things so I'd say once you've got more and more of that qualitative feedback from people to understand okay these kinds of things are what makes the content interesting this type of format or this these insights that when you feed it back to an SME a subject matter expert And you have this cycle with that qualitative feedback of working to be like how do we pull more of that out of you?
How can I as a content marketer pull more of that out of you and package it in a way that once again delivers quality to the audience? So I hope that makes sense.
Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.
Governance is everything: Simo Ahava on making GTM a bridge, not a back doorCouch Confidentials by Martech Therapy · on Google Analytics86 / 100
How a Solopreneur Automated Client Reports with One Google SheetSolopreneur Sessions with Fexingo · on Google Analytics85 / 100
Paul Jarvis: gaining freedom by building an indie businessBuild Your SaaS · on Google Analytics80 / 100
Ketan Pandit - ZuddlDemand Generation Club Podcast · on Google Analytics79 / 100
The Analytics Gap Most eCom Teams Don’t Know They Have | Raul Parquet, Dir. eCom (Princess Cruises)LaunchPod · on Google Analytics78 / 100
Bad Data, Dark Data, & Why Your North Star Keeps MovingMaking Sense of Martech · on Google Analytics77 / 100
#33: SEO Trends, AI and the ‘cyborg method’
#32: "No one is waking up thinking about your brand". Here's what to do about it
#31: Content Marketing vs. Product Marketing: How are they different? And how should they work together?
#30: What is content operations? And why does it matter?
#29: What makes a great brand? Taking a stand!