The SEO Blog Era Is Over. Here's What Replaces It.

Mission: For today's buyers, that next purchase is never more than a tap away. A moment of curiosity at lunch, a nudge at midnight, an impulse on the train ride home. Attentive helps brands show up in all of those moments with the right message on the right channel at exactly the right time. And when every message feels that relevant, it doesn't just feel better, it performs better. That's what marketing made personal feels like. That's attentive. To learn more, visit attentive.com your blog

Melissa Rosenthal: will never earn an audience ever. So you're always going to be playing this slot machine game. The reality is companies still need to grow and they need to differentiate. And um, when everything can do everything now and there's no differentiation between product, it's like what are the true differentiators that allow you to stand out and allow you to make more AI backfired. For some brands, AI might be the most radical breakthrough in human history. And to figure out ways to be even more creative with these tools and, and you're gonna see a lot of that happening in the space of marketing. How is it working to the benefit of the company? We have focused more as a company on engaging.

Mission: We need to build a future where humans matter more. And today I am so excited to be bringing Melissa Rosenthal on the show. She's the co founder of Outlever. Melissa helped build media and revenue engines at Buzzfeed, Cheddar and ClickUp. And she's now helping B2B companies apply that same approach to build media brands of their own.

Melissa Rosenthal: There is a gap in the marketing and like AI and technology space in which the conversations aren't really being had. Ah, at the level that there's a lot of people talking about the thing that happened, but they're not talking about what's the discourse between that thing that happened and what people are actually talking about and what it means.

Mission: What does that look like to get distribution like that? Because I feel like some people could just put something out and it's just like there and no one finds it and they're like, oh, bummer.

Melissa Rosenthal: When we're successful. The distribution is very human and it creates discourse. You could have 150 people within a company posting blog posts and it's not going to perform. But if you have two people in a company strategically posting news in a very stylistic way to grab attention around a really good headline, you're going to have more traction there. It's people, it's people first. And uh, while everyone bets on the AI portion of it, we're going to use AI to allow us to do the things that we want to do with humans.

Mission: Melissa, welcome.

Melissa Rosenthal: Thank you so much for having me excited to be here and have the conversation.

Mission: Yeah, I am very excited to have you on. I feel like you're working in a very relevant space right now. And so I first just want to start with what is lighting you up? Like, what are you most excited about right now?

Melissa Rosenthal: Ah, yeah. Um, we as a company, and I can go more into this, we just launched our front facing publication, our first one called the State of Brand about three weeks ago and it's been kind of going like wild. We have over a million unique views. The content's getting millions of impressions on LinkedIn every week. It's, uh, being featured in LinkedIn News. It's becoming a funnel for us. It's becoming this very popular thing in marketing. So being the editor in chief of that and working on that in addition to my normal duties as like a co founder is like, it's exhausting but it's really lighting me up. Like I'm really like the conversations I'm having are so fantastic and I think it's opening up this course in like marketing and technology and AI that I haven't seen before. So yeah, I'm really excited about that. It's lighting me up every day.

Mission: Okay. So I'm sure anyone listening is like, okay, how, what, what are you doing? And so before we dive into the details of that, because I have a whole bunch of questions around that I want to quickly do some highlights of your background just so people know why you are so qualified for the conversation we're about to have today.

Melissa Rosenthal: Yeah, absolutely. So my background, it's pretty interesting. Maybe like not, not a typical like background in anything. It's very, not nonlinear. So I was one of the first 10 employees at Buzzfeed and then I built that out to become kind of like one of the, at the time global brands and media and virality. It was pretty amazing. I think like, um, a lot of my school of thought and my thinking and like how everything took off from there really comes from the way that I started to understand content and humanity and people and the way that they share things and psychology within content at buzzfeed. So very much like the core and the pillar of like everything that I went on to do. And then I went to go help start a company called Cheddar, uh, which is a live streaming media news network. I'm not sure if you've heard of it. Our tagline was I think, okay, great. Um, our tagline was, I think I've heard of it. So kind of tells you about. Everyone's kind of heard of it or has watched it, but started Cheddar, you know, based on the notion that people were not content distribution wasn't the way that it used to be. People weren't at that time watching cable anymore. Like now it seems like, who has cable? But cable was still a thing only like a few years ago. And people were starting to cut the cord and starting to sign up for streaming services. And we were like, what if we make a millennial focused news technology network for. For the age of CTV and the age of streaming versus the age of cable? So that was kind of like why we built that and then we sold that. And I was like, I need to take a break from media. And I went over to B2B SaaS and I, um, was running marketing at ClickUp and brand at ClickUp rather for four years. And then I decided to converge the things that I've learned across B2B and media. And that's how Outlover was born.

Mission: So not many people jump from the world you were in into B2B SaaS. And that's actually always something I try and connect of. Like when I talk to someone who's in B2B, I'm like, what do you learn from B2C? And there's not much, sometimes overlap of learnings. And so tell me about that jump and the transition and.

Melissa Rosenthal: Yeah, what you saw everything along the way. Like, the only thing I look at, well, the things that I've looked at a part of my career is like, can I try to build something legendary or something really differentiated and have like, that's something that has a contrarian take on like everything. And the second piece is like, can I learn a lot from. For like my next. Like, whatever comes next for me. And I think that, like, why I've been successful in B2B is because of my B2C experience. Like, I think B2B marketers. And I was like, just thinking about this the other day. Like, I, I talk to a lot of B2B marketers and a lot of them, like, don't have any, like, unique or creative ideas ever. It's just very box checking. Like, I, I don't want to say all, like, I. That's like, that's. But a lot are just kind of like doing the things I'm like, what's new? What's exciting? And like, I'm, I'm pumped right I have like this energy and they' I'm doing a webinar or like oh, have you thought about this? So I think that there's like when you've done something forever and you're just doing that thing, you're not learning from other worlds. So like the B2C world feels very foreign but the reality is like the B2C world is very human. And I think that like because it's such a. Consumers are people and you're looking at them as people versus like enterprises. But the reality is like enterprises and, and companies are still made up of people but like we, we just sort of forget. It's like we forget that there's people on the other side. So my approach has always just been to kind of look for the human humanity within whatever the marketing aspect of that, you know, function or that company is and say like okay, like how do we resonate with these people? How do we create discourse? My entirety of like buzzfeed was like can we make things go viral and can we create discourse around different topics based on frameworks and templatization of, of virality? And I've taken that like through line with me for everywhere I've gone. So I think like the B2C world, like people look at it as this far in like Mars like thing but it's really where we need to go I think as in marketing and B2B to be able to relate to people. Uh, it's touching that like that rallying cry like honestly like that's where I find the most success and a lot of what I'm um, focused on like even building out my publications is okay. There's a lot of reporting going on. There's a lot of people talking about the thing that happened, but they're not talking about what's the discourse between that thing that happened and like what people are actually talking about and what it means. And there's like an entire gap I think in media that hasn't been filled by that and our front facing publications are taking that on and having success there because it's very human, very human driven.

Mission: Okay, so I want to, now that we've talked a bit more about that, I do want to dive into the state of brand and here your thinking behind it. You know, why you all did what you did and yeah, so tell me some of the behind the scenes details, especially if anything worked better than you were expecting when you launched databrand.

Melissa Rosenthal: Yeah. So what we do at Outlover, which I haven't touched on yet, is Effectively we are building media ecosystems for our customers. So a uh, front facing publication, something that allows them to capture the attention of the, and authority of the industries that they want to have relevance in without it being tied to a blog or something that is just feels like collateral marketing collateral. So our thought was two things that's working really well for our customers. We should do it for ourselves, for our own business, for inbounds, for getting people to pay attention to us, for making noise. I've always really been excited about like making noise. So let's try to do that. The second piece was there is a gap in the marketing and like AI and technology space in which the conversations I mentioned aren't really being had the level that they should be. So one to take a bet and think that that might work. Three, the saturation of LinkedIn content I see is like not great. So I'm like, can I add some like some dynamic viewpoints into that ecosystem and create something valuable that people find value in? And then the last part is to test and learn and iterate and you know, dog food in real time so that the things that we're testing on our own publications can become a learning vessel and mechanism for our customers in real time and we can feed that data back to the them. So that's kind of the reason behind it. You know, I tempered my expectations at launch because you don't want to get too excited about something. But I was very excited about it. But it's just exceeded like every expectation. We've learned so much so fast. Like the types of interest stories that really resonate the way that people view the world, the things that they don't feel are represented in the media very fast, the types of things and just like, kind of like what they want. Like, you know, a bunch of people messaged me and the feedback in real time has been so gratifying too. Like, hey, I love this. Um, some of these articles are actually, actually too technical. Like this is what I do, I want to understand them. These are the conversations that are being like discussed. Can you explain it in like 20 seconds? And I was like, oh, okay. So we created like an audio unit where on the technical, more technical pieces we I just explain it in 20 seconds and it's kind of like a TLDR of like what this is about and how it affects you. It also kind of made the idea of like we're launching a second publication in two weeks. So it was like a lot of the site I was like, oh, I'm not covering enough of like this side of it. Like I could create a completely separate publication. So just like this real time like learning vehicle has been like enormous. Yeah. It's gotten millions of views in the past three weeks. Like you know a uh, several thousand subscriber newsletter, you know LinkedIn has been like insane been featured in the LinkedIn news like the inbounds for our own business have exploded. So everything and um, it's achieved has like really been you know, kind of amazing. It's, it's on all cylinders doing what it, it should be doing for us. So it's very exciting to see that and just excited to kind of further iterate and keep testing and learning and covering things the way that people feel like they needed to be covered.

Mission: Yeah. Okay. Amazing. So I'm guessing how many brands have you done this for so far?

Melissa Rosenthal: For our. We have uh 50 customers uh right now like all kind of focused on the Enterprise but we're 50 and now growing fast so have to figure out how to, how to scale. It's been two years so I mean making some pretty great progress. We have really successful use cases. Everyone is like working with us from now multi years. So yeah it's working. It just you know you're ambitious and you want to take it further. So it's always kind of questioning like what's next, what's around the corner.

Mission: Yeah. So with these publications like how do you think about content and making it like you said like in your mind. I feel like it's easy to go into the more contrarian poking in ways that maybe other B2B marketers aren't thinking about. So how do you craft good content if it's not just in Melissa's head but it's from another brand and like teaching the teams like how to make something that's useful and state of brand

Melissa Rosenthal: is myself and then two other full time people that are working on it, editors and journalists and they're you know I do all the interviews and they're editing my interviews or some of the pieces they're writing. Some of the pieces I'm m writing for our customers. It's definitely like what we're doing a couple of different things. 1 are non quoted news to our interviews with like their ICPs to get perspectives of other people in the industry talking. And I think there's what we're trying to now do with the success of these publications is share. Like I know everyone wants virality like you do have the opportunity to actually capture that but the conversation has to be framed and phrased in a different way. So it's really like getting on the phone with them. Um, and like, you know, we're tech enabled services, so we are. There's an element of consulting that we're doing 24 7. I think that like, makes it special and like, you know, very personalized and like we just got off a call and we're like, hey, like this is what we're noticing in market. We should start framing the pieces of content we're creating like this because this is the effect that we're gonna achieve once we do that. So let's take it here and let's achieve like do this. And like, you know, it's, it's um, it's definitely like what you said with the B2B marketing side of it. It's like there's a comfortability that we have to kind of like smooth out and talk to multiple people because not many people have done this before, not in the way that like we really want to do it. So it's getting them comfortable with it. It's really like getting them to understand like the output, what they're looking to achieve. Can we create like a catch all for like their audience at like a high level and like, can we do that through timely and relevant news? So definitely a lot of conversations. Companies like, you know, the companies that we're working with are like super willing to experiment, which I think differentiates them. It's like when they, they're freeing themselves from the box of like, these are the only things that I can do and willing to kind of experiment with a new way of thinking.

Mission: So are you using data to try and find those content angles? And yeah, tell me more of like a little more of behind the scenes of how you get to content that actually goes viral, especially in the B2B space.

Melissa Rosenthal: So it's a mix of a lot of different things. One is, you know, I'll separate this from like my own stuff is really me looking at the news and what's happening, seeing the overlap between my audience or the audience I want to go for and the area that's being covered and then what that gap is and then applying my buzzfeed brain to the, to the headline into the kind of editing of the piece for our customers. It's definitely like, hey, we're doing a ton of media listening. So we've built a meeting and listening product. It's plugging in their industry, their verticals, their ICPs, saying these are the conversations that are happening right now. These are the rallying cries around that industry. How far can we go down the path of talking about those and framing them as news? Because this is what people want to talk about. It's playing into the discourse and the psychology of what people want to hear and what they almost want validated back to them. And the funny thing is not all of it is breaking news, but it's breaking industry news if you position it the right way. So that's sort of like there's a mix of psychology, a mix of like the buzzfeed style, brain and way of thinking and then it's the media listening, saying, hey, this is what they care about anyway. How do we create like a, uh, kind of this like nice marriage of all of those things to create pieces that can go viral?

Mission: So is there a buzzfeed framework that you walk through when you're looking at these different pieces or content angles? Are there things that you're like checking off of, like this is how you get it into this style?

Melissa Rosenthal: Yes, but I don't think it's not a buck. It's not like checking a box. It's more like thing that's been imprinted in my brain for many, many years. I can't even describe to you what it is like. I mean, you know, a lot of it is ended up building like the group creative team and the brand team and I ran that and it was a very large team. But when I first started at buzzfeed, I was an intern and I was doing all of this myself, so I was writing all of these pieces, I was trying to make them go viral. I was writing, you know, hundreds of pieces of content a month to just try to achieve virality, you know, and some of those pieces were like, you know, and at the time you're like, it feels fun because you're gamifying it. But some of these things like they taught me so much. Like one is um, 25 things left handed people, all left handed people relate to. That's what I created this list. And like I'm left handed, I'm like, oh, I bet other left handed people will relate to this because it's like so funny and so nuanced. And I bet right handed people, if they know a left handed person, will share it with their left handed friend. So I'm like parallel pathing the like the chain of virality around the people that will directly relate to it and the people that will know someone that it relates to and send them that piece. And those are like the types of frameworks in my head that I use when I think about constructing content and constructing narratives, does this directly affect that person? Can they see themselves in it? Does it make them look interesting or smart to share it? Or do they know someone that has been talking about that? Or this could be interesting too because honestly they look smart as a byproduct of sharing that. So it's all these like buzzfeed frameworks that just, I think just live rent free in my head. And it's been many years now. So it's like they've just lived there for so long that it's become a memory, muscle memory at this point.

Mission: How do you think about when you're working with your clients just creating more content? Because if I think about buzzfeed, that was kind of the game with that world of just like just put a lot out there and see what happens versus good content and like earning attention that you actually care about. Like how do you balance that for these, especially these B2B companies?

Melissa Rosenthal: A, uh, hundred percent. So, so this is not, you know, AI written content. It's obviously like very like thoughtful and like there's a very strong perspective. It's written by journalists or interviewing people like, you know, at big companies. So there's a lot that kind of goes into that. And then also it has to like track back to their business goals and the things that they actually want to earn, they want to achieve in market. So yeah, the, the virality is in a sen simple as like I'm creating a post for left handed people. It's like for the HR world, what do they care about? Like what is really important at that moment? What could go viral because it is the topic of conversation and then like, does it tie back some of the pieces tie back more closely to their like objectives and the things that they care about than others? Because you have to have some pieces that are more of a catch all for the industry and some of those pieces that have the potential to achieve virality or to achieve circulation are not the same pieces that are going to really hit a very specific icp. So if, but if you're thinking about creating a media ecosystem, like all of those play really nicely together. The volume and the scale is like high. It's not BuzzFeed high, but it's high because we're creating newsrooms so they have to actually achieve a newsroom capacity. Like I don't believe that creating 10 pieces of content a month is going to get you anywhere in this day and age. Like I think it's definitely a mix of quality and Quantity, but the quantity is still, still matters. It definitely like, is a big part of it. So both of those things are kind of equally as important. And I think we just make editorial decisions a lot on, um, like what we should be posting, how much of it. You know, we operate as this like, free newsroom. It's not like we're going to create you 20 blog posts a month. Like, that's not the way that we work with our customers. We're like, we're going to tap into this. This is happening, this is happening now. We want to break this. This is who we want to speak to. This person just had a thing like, that's how I operate and that's how we operate for our customers.

Mission: Have you seen any, um, pushback from these publications being owned by the brand? Like, I can't really tell for state of brand who owns it, which is probably maybe a good thing. Uh, but I think about these companies who have tried to start, let's just say we'll just stick with a blog. And you go to that blog and you're like, well, of course Adobe's talking about that because they sell this. And it feels like there's less trust when content's coming out from a company that has incentives to, you know, to get you in and sell something to you. So how do you think about that when building these publications for companies?

Melissa Rosenthal: Yeah, so the separation of the third party domain, um, that we build. So I don't know if I said that we do build a third party domain. It's not on their blog, which allows us that psychological separation, um, from like, hey, this is just Adobe's blog. And it allows Adobe to free themselves from the box checking of like everything that they publish needs from, to be from the Adobe perspective. So it actually like creates this like, both psychological freedom for the reader and for the person we're interviewing and then for also the customer because they don't feel like they need to be as precious about every single thing from the company's perspective, because it is a news perspective. So yeah, it's powered by, in many customers cases it's powered by them. But we're so used to seeing that on, uh, media sites anyway that it kind of doesn't matter anymore. Like, we just find that that psychological separation really allows us to like, do everything that we want to achieve that companies can't achieve on their own websites.

Mission: So when we think building out podcasts and things or even bringing companies in the arm's length is actually helpful because we're like, we don't want to be caught up in your brand guidelines and your different legal teams. Like, we just want to make good content and like, yeah, arms length better.

Melissa Rosenthal: And also guests on, yeah, this would never work if it was like going through legal every day. I mean, you know, like we have public company customers and for them we have guidelines that we work into our tools and to make sure that edits and everything are going through these checks and balances so that we're not like doing anything where they're like, that's a huge competitor or that could move the stock market. Like, we definitely don't want to do that, um, in, you know, in any sort of, I don't know, maybe in a good way. But um, we don't, we don't want to really touch that. So we're very, we're cautious and we're very communicative. It's such a human thing. Like we've productized it enough that our tools allow us to do it at volume and scale because we've now done thousands of interviews, thousands of pieces. But it's human enough that a lot of these are judgment calls and a lot of them require like a, ah, hey, yeah, let's do this. Or brainstorms. Um, yeah, there's a very human aspect to this.

Mission: What about distribution? That's always top of mind when putting content out. Like you all have sounds like amazing traction of the amount of readers and then you're getting featured on LinkedIn. What does that look like to get distribution like that? Because I feel like some people could just put something out and it's just like there and no one finds it and they're like, ooh, bummer.

Melissa Rosenthal: Yeah, we are, I would say distribution is something like we are thinking about more than anything else. Like I think about distribution 24 7. We have a couple of ways that we distribute right now and we find distribution one to person, which is, um, we do interviews with ICPs, especially customers that want this to be somewhat of a demand gen channel. And we talk to them and it's distributed to them. They have an amazing response experience with it, like a podcast. And then we see it circulate around their company. So that's one to company. And then we also then create really awesome assets for them to share on LinkedIn. So one to network tagging our customers in there, you know, thanking them for the great conversation. So there's definitely a human element of distribution. Then there's obviously geo and like AI search and optimizing for that. Those are very like more Specific pieces that are like, they're not intent based because they're not bottom of the funnel. But we're thinking about like when someone is searching about a very specific news topic or X, Y and Z, how do they show up? So it's that and then we are you know, really thinking about like the future of distribution as it relates to basically building our own distribution at ah, that AX also acts as a funnel for their distribution. So you know, these publications that we're building out are now starting to get a ton of traction. We're looking at those as like, hey, can we build our own syndication network? Why not? And then the other piece of it is um, organic LinkedIn, uh, distribution. So we're trying to like now like champion people within companies to say, hey, like you have this awesome news vehicle, you should be posting this out. Because not only does it help with AI citations, but it also drives organic traffic back to um, back to your publication in a pretty meaningful and sometimes very viral way, depending upon how you're posting it. So that's how we, I mean it's very human. The whole distribution thing's very human. Like we're not really trying to gamify the way that like blogs did with like we're going to spin up 500 programmatic pages. Like that's really so far from the way that we think about distribution. And when we're successful, the distribution is very human and it creates discourse. So people are finding it from people, from conversation, from themselves, from their company slacks and from network.

Mission: For today's buyers, that next purchase is never more than a tap away. A moment of curiosity at lunch, a nudge at midnight, an impulse on the train ride home. Attentive helps brands show up in all of those moments with the right message on the right channel at exactly the right time. And when every message feels that relevant, it doesn't just feel better, it performs better. That's what marketing made personal feels like. That's attentive. To learn more, visit attentive.com Yep. So for LinkedIn, how, how many people do you need posting and linking back for it to actually become successful? Because I look at LinkedIn sometimes and I'm like, most people don't have followings. Most people aren't on there engaging enough to get traction with an audience. And so I'm even imagining uh, telling employees at a company like, hey, make sure you share this. And then they share it and it's like, how many people do you need sharing it?

Melissa Rosenthal: So a lot of companies use like employee advocacy tools and they're just posting blog posts and it's like the number doesn't matter. You could have 150 people within a company post a blog post and it's not going to perform. But if you have two people or one person at a company strategically posting news in a very stylistic way to grab attention around a really good headline, you're going to have more traction there. It's like, it's still very human because it's like people on LinkedIn want to read things that are valuable to them. I think 90% of the content on LinkedIn right now is utter garbage. So I think if you could add like thoughtful discourse to the conversation, you are going to shine. Like, we had a customer, like, we have a bunch of customers that their people are sharing out the news pieces around the topics that are really hot and they're. And their posts are being featured in LinkedIn news and it's like, it's amazing because that's the network effects of being featured in LinkedIn news. It's not even like, it's not even our customer posting on LinkedIn. It's like the network of the people that are sharing their content out are being featured on LinkedIn. I'm like, the, the viral coefficient and network efficient of that is, is much more interesting to me.

Mission: I'm gonna have to go and look through some of the content being shared and because I'm so interested in how to, you know, make LinkedIn cool again.

Melissa Rosenthal: And like, most of the state of brand pieces I have, like, they have 500 shares. Like, it's, it's like pretty, pretty robust. And it's not like, I think what I always tell them is like, this is like everything in life is consistency play. Like you only get to where you are if you are consistent and you show up every day. And I tell myself that every single day. Some days are hard and you have to show up and just do the thing. And if you're consistent over time, I really do believe that good things happen. So that's something I try to employ upon the people that we're working with. It's like, this isn't about one or two posts. This is about like showing up every day and taking the news and the vehicle that we're building and creating an effect around it. Because you show up and be consistent about it and you're going to see great rewards from that, like 100%. And if you don't do it, see consistent rewards over like three months, like, or two months after being consistent. Like, we're doing something really wrong. It's not even that long. Like the time commitment's not that long, but you have to commit at some point.

Mission: I love that anyone can do two months.

Melissa Rosenthal: I should TM that and just be like, anyone could do two months. Yeah.

Mission: Yeah. It's very motivating actually. That's awesome. Uh, okay, so you mentioned blogs a few times. I'd love to hear your perspective on the future of blogs because many companies still do them and I know when you and I spoke last time we talked about this like back in the day, the SEO blog slot machine I think was your words. And I know you played that game well at a certain point and so I just would love to hear how you're viewing the space now.

Melissa Rosenthal: I think that it's tough because like you're just playing this like a, like Russian roulette because you just don't know like anything that's happening and like how to optimize for that is a gamble. It's not human driven. Like your blog will never earn an audience ever. So you're always going to be playing this slot machine game. So I don't love that. Like that's not great. Do I think it's valuable to have content that is like extremely intent based and like hyper specific for very specific audiences that isn't generic at all on your site? Like if you're, you know, a dev shop having an insanely technical blog. Yes, I do believe that because that's a going to show up in AI search, I think forever if it's well written and well authored and really thinking about like it's a playbook to it's not news, but it's a playbook. Like it makes sense. And three, like it's going to be valuable and people landing on it as a result of it being on your company site doesn't matter. I think psychologically because it's a playbook, it's like, who cares? I think that's the future of what blog should be. They should be like technical blogs and Playbooks and like that's it. Like generic blog content is at this point. You're just doing it to do it. Like there is no value and there is no, like it's over. Like it's over. I don't, I hate the whole like it's dead. But it's, it's over in its current form and I think we have to be okay with that. And I think thinking about the bifurcation of like your blog is that place but then your other and your media ecosystem as the other. And the driver of growth is like a really interesting and probably like future forward way of thinking about it. So I won't say the blog is dead, but I'll say, like, it, it needs to change a bit.

Mission: Who was it? Wasn't it, um, maybe Marc Andreessen who said every company needs to be a media company? And I think he said that maybe a decade ago, like a long time ago. So some people spotted it a long time ago.

Melissa Rosenthal: I mean, that's like Andreessen has become like the ultimate media company. They are 100% a media company. So, yeah, he was right.

Mission: It's also interesting watching what you're doing where so much of, um, every industry is shifting into video big and then you're shifting into text.

Melissa Rosenthal: Text. Yeah.

Mission: Yeah. So I'd love to hear, you know, what had you kind of land on that.

Melissa Rosenthal: Video is hard to scale. Video takes time. Video has different distribution. That's sometimes harder. And I feel like video is always at the whim of that distribution where it almost becomes less human unless you become the person that is known for that video. Where text can be bylines, it can be other people, it can be anonymity, it can be news. There's so many more formats, I think, that work in video for something that wants to be scaled. I'm not saying that like, if you are, you know, also, if you built up an insane brand and you're able to then scale that into video, that's what I would do. Like if. If state of brand and state of AI become an insane thing and I become known for them and like, that's a great thing. And it's like, okay, now the likely, like, now you should just expand it to video and doing master classes or what, Whatever it is I decide to do, to me, that's like a good funnel. I'll say, okay, uh, 100%. But I would never start with video first. Not. Not today. And I love video. Like, I built an entire video team at ClickUp. Like, that was like, video, uh, was my baby. So, yeah, it's weird to say that I. And also, like, I don't know, everything is cyclical and everything becomes like, what was old is new again. So I don't know right now, like, that's the way that I feel about it. I feel like text is. Text is like kind of where. Where it is.

Mission: What about the conversion piece? What I'm thinking about, you've got now, you know, state of brand over here, and then you've got outlove over here. And I didn't, I didn't see much branding for Outlover on State of Brand. Like how do you think about converting people over to.

Melissa Rosenthal: Actually, I don't know when you checked. So on State of Brand, we are running like a thousand banner ads on every single article that says out lever. It's like if this caught your attention, it's because we built it out lever. Like it's so over. Um, so it's not like I looked

Mission: when we first talked. So maybe we just launched. Okay.

Melissa Rosenthal: Yeah, I guess it's happened so fast. So, um, we don't. It's not like the state of brand. It's a state of brand. And then if you go to the bottom, it's like it's powered by outlover. This is what outlover does. And then we have sponsored content, we have ad units. I can't believe I'm excited about banner ads, but I'm so excited about banner ads because they're all contextually aligned to the articles. So it makes a lot of sense. We've had, I mean it's insane, like thousands and thousands of clicks on the banner ad units and almost like a 40% conversion to demo inbounds from that. So I'm very excited about banner ads right now. It's crazy. The uh, the inbounding from our business across LinkedIn and across our demo form is like, like 10,000x. It's like crazy. So, yeah, uh, it's very, very exciting. So I'm super pumped about banner ads and yeah, I think that we're going to start to roll those out for our customers too. Kind of. We're like, all right, I'm so afraid to do it. I did, I did. I wanted to reject everything that media had taught me. I think, you know, you're like, you go into it and you're like, okay, so let's not do that, let's not do that. But I think like banner ads really work and I think um, people, especially when they're smart and they're contextual and people have become really used to them on media sites because they're all over and the experience is so bad that if we can create great looking banner ads that are just contextually aligned to the content in really smart ways where we don't have to play a DSP or a CPM game, we're going to have better success.

Mission: I love your quote that I want to have this in a clip of. Um, I'm so excited about banner ads. I'm like no one has said that in a long time and that's a good clip worthy piece of content right there.

Melissa Rosenthal: If you told me 10 years ago that I would say that. Oh my God. Also, I mean like I built a native advertising model so like for me to say that it's like a really weird thing. But yeah, I don't know, that's really funny. I should find myself 10 years ago talking about how banner ads are dead.

Mission: It is funny. I love that. I mean uh, it's also cool thinking about this because in a way it's like simplifying. We had so m. We have so many complex ad and media buying platforms and you don't really always know what you're even getting and even understanding the metrics is hard. And so when I think about having your own, own channel that you can also see how your own banner ads are doing and updating them quickly without having to go through a third party platform.

Melissa Rosenthal: And it seems nice. Yeah. And it's not, you know, there's no bot traffic because it's direct traffic. You know, it's not being run through a third party ad network. Like it's all direct to you. So yeah, you can like the performance is like oh, it wasn't like 10,000 bots that click the ads. So yeah, it's, I think that's a great point, like made everything overly complex. So going back to the simplicity of that is like kind of a maybe nice thing for people to land on. And then I think, yeah, the second part of the reporting which is just like there's been ad fraud for so, so, so long that like you don't have to worry about that. And you're also like when you think about these advertising models for our customers, like it's not cpm, it's not traffic based, it's quality of people sharing and it's relationships and it's becoming known in a very hyper specific industry. But they don't need to sell ads against that. So it all just becomes like this, you know, really cool motion.

Mission: Yeah, I wonder, I mean it feels like other parts of every industry are also simplifying. I mean I even think about, let's just say when everyone started getting into cloud code and started rebuilding software really quickly, just custom to them and then all of a sudden you have less, you know, smaller marketing tech stacks, smaller stacks everywhere that you're like, well now I just have my own and I know how it's working. Um, and maybe I only need this one tool because that's, you know, it either has the data or it has some capability that's just like, I don't even want to try and make that. But do you see that, you know, for as long as you've been in this space, like, things just actually starting to simplify more, or do you see other areas getting more complex?

Melissa Rosenthal: I mean, it seems like we. You know, I joined ClickUp when it was like, like the SaaS, like, growth at all costs, like the SaaS explosion, I guess, of like thousands of SaaS companies being built. And I was like, really excited about that when I first joined and I was like, oh, like, there's so many cool tools out there. And I use Lucid for charts and I use this for that. And at first it was very exciting for me. Like, I don't. I was like that about that. And then over time you just get like, oh my God, I have to log into 20 different things. Like, uh, this is horrible. So the consolidation of that. And then that's why I was super excited about ClickUp because it kind of does all these things that other companies are doing. And, uh, it started. We put in charts and we put in chat and we started doing this thing where it's like this one place for everything. That was a nice feeling because it was like, I don't have to use all these other tools, which just became this, like, between meetings and doing your actual work. It's too much. So, yes. But then, like, with AI, it's happening again. Like we're working towards a consolidation, I think, ultimately. But right now it feels like a sass plosion of thousands of different things that you have to use. When I think, I mean, we kind of know. I think. I won't say it, like, who will kind of win within AI? I think figma should be a little worried. That's. That's all I'll say.

Mission: Yes. There's definitely quite a few companies that, yeah, we're killing it.

Melissa Rosenthal: That I'm like, ooh, yeah, I tried cloud design last night and I was like, oh, yeah, this is insane.

Mission: I mean, it's just crazy that you can just screenshot software now and be like, make this for me. I mean, I did that with Go High Level. And I was like, go High Level. Still not working the way I want. So can you just make me a Go High Level, Tell me exactly what I have it doing in here now and then make it.

Melissa Rosenthal: Yeah, you can customize software for your exact usage of it. Like, which. Which I think is like, that's another really, you know, I Could talk for an hour about that. But I think it's. Everything else is so opinionated and like, the problem, it's like, this is how data should be structured and it's super rigid and it's X, Y and Z and this is the interface that you have to use. And like, for 99% of people, like, that's so frustrating. Like, you want it for your use case. And like, it's so interesting. Like, we had to rebuild the CRM, which now you can kind of do very fast. But, like, how many CRMs are on the market? And there was nothing that actually fit our use case. So the answer was build it ourselves. So when now you can build yourself something in a week, like, it becomes very dangerous.

Mission: Yep. Yeah. I do wonder what this is going to look like when. I mean, because in one way I see that most enterprise AI projects, uh, failed or will fail probably because of how they were built. Like building all these, like, AI projects and silos and everyone's very excited. And then there's that. But then I think there's going to be a resurgence of people like, okay, now I know the capability, I know where we're at and I know how to build in a more holistic way to make sure the whole company is supported and we stay focused on the goals of the company and build things in a cohesive manner. So it'll be really interesting watching this next period to see, you know, what do people actually choose to rebuild versus more like, integrate in a nice, you know, company, like, way.

Melissa Rosenthal: Yeah, I think it's, um, like the empowerment of people that can build their own software and have an understanding of things that they couldn't before is probably the key unlock, at least for right now, where, like, they can align on things that, like, it was so siloed before that it's not anymore. So, I mean, yeah, I think for at least the short term, like, that's definitely.

Mission: So what do other marketing leaders come to you and ask? Or like, what are you all brainstorming? Cause I'm sure you have a lot of people circling you just because of the way you think and the things you're experimenting with.

Melissa Rosenthal: Yeah, they're like, how are you doing what you're doing? Like, that's one. Two is like, nothing is working. That's too, um. Three is like, we realize that everything is becoming, like, super flat. Um, we need to, like, stand out and, like, we're not going to win the way that we thought we were going to win 10 years ago or five years ago or the GTM and like everything has shifted. So like what do we do? Like what's like some thoughts on like that those are like probably the three most common things that people say. Like, which is so interesting I think when like money was free too, you know, like raising was just we don't care what the ROI is. So like, let's just do the thing. And like now we're in the space where like it's harder to do the thing and there's less resources to do the thing and you need ROI on everything. So we're at this like interesting inflection point where we've kind of hit this like 360 where we were for like the growth at all cost, like SaaS era. But everything is still the same in terms of the ROI questions and the headcount questions, right? Which is like you got to do this with a really lean team, which was not the case, you know, five or six years ago. So really interesting time. Like so many things have just like flipped. But the reality is companies still need to grow and they need to differentiate. And when everything can do everything now and there's no light differentiation between product, it's like what are the true differentiators that allow you to stand out and allow you to make noise and like, I think we overcomplicate marketing and like if you can kind of just to think about those like two principles, you know, marketing and brand are like amazing customer service, unique point of view, virality, but like word of mouth, like referral based virality and then like consistency and product, like product is sort of there but like it can't be a shit product, but it can be just as good as something else and you can win. And I think like that's really cool. Uh, it's actually a really special thing right now. Like you can build something that someone has had a, you know, has cornered the market in for 15 years and you can build it in a couple of months and have better customer service, have better experience, rethink about brand in a way that they can't catch up to and win.

Mission: I love that that's uh, inspiring and fun to think about the space that we're now.

Melissa Rosenthal: I think it's fun. I think it's fun. I think like what I think it's fun. If I was the CMO of one of those companies and I had to like run every state of brand piece by my founder or someone or a board or explain this, like the beauty of like what I'm able to do and when I work Best is when I just do. And then people are like, ooh, how'd you do it? How'd you do it? How'd you do it? And then it's like, okay, well, I just showed you how I did it. But, like, the whole bureaucracy of, like, moving really slow is a total killer of all of this. So, yeah, I feel very grateful not to have to deal with that and be able to coach others and help others do the thing. Um, but not have to deal with it myself.

Mission: Yeah, yeah, no, that's good. I mean, you definitely see the companies who win are the ones who are shipping things in, like, a week, not going through quarterly cycles and annual planning. Like, it's the ones who are like, no, we need to ship this in a couple days. And so what are some big bets that you're making that maybe outside of things like state of brand, outside exactly what you're doing? Like, where do you see the market going? And what things are you thinking about right now that most don't even know you're considering?

Melissa Rosenthal: I feel like, in my mind, it's so funny because it's like, you know, everyone's like, oh, how did. That just came out of nowhere, you know, like, it's always the thing, but, like, I've been thinking about this for two years, like, every single day of my life for 24 7. The stuff that we're building, I think, is, like, I'll say it now on this podcast, and then if it works, you can go back to this and clip it out. And if it doesn't work, we forget this ever happened. What?

Mission: Deleted. Like, on.

Melissa Rosenthal: I, um, mean, we're thinking about everything. We're thinking about the human. Like, we are betting big on people in very human ways of, like, how the differentiation is people. And there are so many pieces of that within organizations that we are really excited about as it pertains to the extension of what we do now. The news is like a small piece of where we're headed, but it's all based on the humanity and the things that we've seen with what we've built today. And those are the ideas and the springboards that we've gotten for what we're building tomorrow. But we're building some really crazy stuff. And, uh, I think it's like, people are going to start seeing it all over and then just be like, how did this. How did this happen? Just kind of, like, the way that stayed a brand. I've been kind of quiet on LinkedIn for two years. Like, I couldn't Put my mind and my thought and my resources into doing this. Because I wanted to do it for our customers first. And then it was like, okay, now is the time to pour the gasoline on, on the fire and like really like ignite this into like a really big thing. But you know, people are like, wow, it just came out of nowhere. And I'm like, well, kind of didn't. Like we've been doing this just like not screaming from the rooftop. So people. I think uh, if I had to summarize it before, I can like share what we're actually building. It's like it's people at people first and uh, while everyone bets on the AI portion of it, we're going to use AI to allow us to do the things that we want to do with humans.

Mission: Mhm. I love that. So what do you think about, you know, in person gatherings? I feel like there is a big desire for people to get together with other people who knew. And how do you all think about that with yeah, having events and whatnot?

Melissa Rosenthal: That's a great question. I am so bullish on like events. Like I think they are so valuable. Like when I go to events now, it's like oh wow, like that was really valuable. Like that was a valuable part of my time. Like I'm glad I did that. So I'm very bullish on them in terms of like how we tie into it. Like I'm not sure yet. Like I don't know if that actually ever becomes a part of our model. There's parts of it where like we are building community and like that becomes valuable because you can feed those people into events, you can invite them to places, you can have them at dinners, you can award them and celebrate them at conferences. We can, can do all this great stuff with them. So maybe building the vehicle and the mechanism to be able to do the events. But like, you know, I don't really want to become a vet in events business. And um, I uh, yeah, I think we're going to stay away from that in terms of like what our infrastructure is, but in terms of empowering it. Like I think we have a good, good idea of how we will do that. But I'm very bullish on them. I think it's the same thing. It's like you're so saturated and as everything becomes AI written or AI talked about, like you just want to have conversations with real people because that's what's actually happening. Like when I, when people like speak all the time. And this is really interesting because I Think as a cmo, it can kind of become very lonely. So you're as. You're a CMO and you're on LinkedIn all the time, and you're not talking to other CMOs outside of groups. Maybe some are not. And you're just seeing all this stuff about how everyone is adopting AI and it's across the company and they're doing all these things and they're replacing their marketing teams. And I'm sure I've heard this so many times now, CMOs are like, oh, my God, what? Like, we're not doing that. How is that happening? But the reality is it's not really happening the way that the narrative is shaping it. So I think for those people to have real conversations about how people are actually doing things in person, like, that can't be replicated because the conversations happening behind closed doors are usually more of the reality than the thing that you're seeing, like, blasted across LinkedIn or other professional networks.

Mission: Yep, that's a good reminder. I mean, in one way it's like, oh, yeah, duh. But also it's so easy to get caught up and like, oh, yes, same, same.

Melissa Rosenthal: Like, you know, it's like, I. This sounds like, very in control, but we all do it. We're all looking at stuff every day and we're like, oh, God, like, uh, is that really happening? And then I talk to people and I'm like, I don't know if it is. I don't know. Like, you know, you start questioning it and you're like, am I gaslighting myself? But then, like, it's. The reality is like, if you have enough of those conversations, you realize that it. It isn't quite at the scale that, like, the narrative painted to be.

Mission: Yeah. And a lot of times what I see too is the narrative is coming from the solopreneurs, at least the ones that I follow, where I'm like, yes, of course. You just launched a hundred things in an hour. Because there's no other complexities of a company. It's like. And so I think that's the, uh, people who are the biggest influencers on LinkedIn that are saying all these things are, let's just say, doing with Claude and all these things. And I'm like, well, yeah, enterprise company leaders should not be looking. They can look for inspiration, maybe, but not assuming that also your other peers are doing that too. Just because this person who has, you know, one employee said that they're doing it or.

Melissa Rosenthal: Or X. Like, I. I saw someone. It was like, A month or two ago, and it was like, I replaced my marketing team with this new cloud agent. I was like, first of all, it got, like, 3 million views. And I was like, okay, what is this? So I'm. I'm looking at it, and it's like, like, automated commenting in LinkedIn from people's accounts. And I'm like, wait, this is replacing your marketing team?

Mission: Like, that was your marketing team. That's what they were doing. I'm concerned.

Melissa Rosenthal: Um, I'm like, if you're like, maybe like, a single local business. Like, maybe, like. But it's like. So that narrative is, like, it's an echo chamber. But if you go on X and all of those. Those clips have, like, millions, and those product clips have, like, millions and millions of views. Like, it's easy to get caught up in that and think that that is reality.

Mission: Yeah, I'd love to hear. Uh, I'm seeing this thread, even though it seems like what you've chosen through your careers kind of isn't connected, but if I think back to, like, your first internship, being at buzzfeed and having this, like, thread of this kind of thinking, where do you think this came from? Like, where is this, like, drive and excitement in these worlds coming from?

Melissa Rosenthal: I think it's, like, me as a person, part of it, you know? Like, um. Like, I'm a very curious, like, competitive, creative and passionate person. And, like, all of those traits, like, allow me to be this person. I, like, really care about my career, like, a lot. Like, I want to do things that are impressive and cool and, like, groundbreaking and differentiated. And I think, like, that. I mean, that feels kind of everything. Like, if I was just kind of, like, a bland, like, all right, I can get it, you know? Like, I work 24 7, so I think a part of that is just, like, in you, right? Like, it's. Even if you've worked at. I mean, I've always been at startups, so I'm an entrepreneurial person. Entrepreneurial person to start. Um, and being able to operate that way has always just been kind of my North Star guiding light. Like, I just want to, like, break things, um, and, like, make noise and, like, command, like, attention and command of that. So I don't know. I think that's probably where it comes from. I mean, like, at BuzzFeed, the reason I got the internship, I was actually, like, in college, and I was like, I need to get out of college. Like, I need to, like, leave early or graduate early. So I did all my stuff to be able to Graduate early. And I was like, I want an internship. Like, you know, junior year. And, um, I, like, was obsessed with BuzzFeed, and I was constantly trying to create content that outranked the editors that worked there, uh, just for fun. And then, you know, I wanted to go into the music industry, but I was like, that's dying. Like, how do I. Like, I can't do that. And then it was like, well, I'm, like, spending all of my time, like, uh, all hours, trying to, like, create viral content. Like, maybe I should just apply for this internship. You know, it's just like, what is driving me? It wasn't like, I need to find a job. I was like, oh, what am I really passionate about? And I was super passionate about music. But I took an internship at a music place, and I was like, oh, this is not. This is not for me in any capacity. And I don't like where this is headed. Um, so I pivoted and just found the thing that I was spending all my time on. And I think that that's always, like, a really good barometer of, like, what you're going to. What's going to be able to drive you, make you really creative and passionate about the thing. Um, and then you can weave that narrative through everything that you do. So I don't know. I think that's harder today. I don't want to discount that. Like, the world has changed, but it's also not because now, like, the playing field is leveled a little bit more. Like, if you're driven, like someone. I don't know someone, or. Throughout my career, people have asked me, like, advice on, like, how to get jobs. And, like, well, you gotta be doing the thing that the job is telling you that you're gonna be doing before you do it. Like, you have to be doing it. Like, if it's, like, being a creative person, like, what is your creative project that you're showing them when you walk in the door that differentiates you from everyone else? Like, that's what stands out. Like, I. I hired at, uh, buzzfeed, this guy, and he, um, he was working at a tobacco factory in North Carolina during the day, and he had gotten in with, like, a really interesting kind of creative like, proposal. And I was like, oh, like, what. What do you actually do? I was like. And he's like, oh, at night I create these viral stunts and viral websites and, like, all this stuff. And, like, literally, he was spending all this time outside of the tobacco factory, like, doing this. So we hired him, and, you know, he's an insanely creative person. He went on to go found this, like, really creative agency called Mischief. They do, like, Supreme Style product drops. It's like insanely viral, very big. But it was like, it was like, that is like the person that I gravitate towards because I'm like, oh, well, that person's like a passionate, driven. Like, this isn't a job for them because they found their passion. So I don't know. I always try to find that and that's like, kind of how I see myself.

Mission: That's such a good hiring tip. Especially in this market of like. Yeah. Because I even think about when I first started working at Google, they did not hire me for my, like, career history. They found these side projects, this medium publication, these iPad apps. I made. Like, they found all this random stuff on me. And when I came, I was like, let me tell you about my current role. And they're like, no, no, no, we don't really care about that. We care about these other things you've been working on. I'm like, oh, okay, sweet. Because that's actually more interesting to me than what I'm doing now. So. But even now, it's still relevant if I think about, yeah, hiring, like, such a good reminder to find.

Melissa Rosenthal: I mean, I would say now more than ever, like, because now you have the tools, right? Like, uh, then it was just not everyone would be doing that, but today it's like, you can teach yourself to vibe code pretty easily. Like, create something interesting that, uh, is applicable to where you want to be and what you want to be doing. And being like, I built this cool thing. Like, that's kind of it. Like, people want to see that because there's just so much opportunity that if you're not taking that opportunity yourself, like, are you really going to apply it? And like, I hate to say this, but, like, obviously, like, there's a lot of people being laid off and like, headcount is now, like, diminishing. So to stand out, you really need to be special.

Mission: Uh, okay. I want to. I want to know. I feel like you obviously are very innovative with your thinking and the way that you think is different than Most. Almost all B2B marketers I've talked to. Where do you get your inspiration from? Like, who are you following? Who are you talking to? What are you reading? How are you, like, getting outside your industry to, like, kind of look around? Like, what do you do get me into your. Into your brain?

Melissa Rosenthal: Um, my co founder is also my husband. He's quite inspiring. So Yeah, I feel like that's a secret weapon because like we really enjoy this and it's like a gamification for us because it's like we're building our business but we're also very passionate about work. He also um, comes from a very non conventional background to wind up where we are. He, uh, was a musician and then um, was a, like a leather jacket designer and then ventured into like a plus size women's leather jacket brand and then sold that and then decided to start to code. Um, so yeah, like very like weird kind of like not really traditional backgrounds. But I think that makes us both like very excited about like the prospect of just creating something new. Um, so that he's very inspiring to me because he just, the way that he thinks is really awesome. I think that I am inspired by the way like companies are building today because it feels so like it is the Wild west. And I'm like, those times are so exciting to me because it feels like we are on the cusp of like, I know everyone's really fearful of it, but like I think we're on the cusp of something really crazy. And like it's a, it's such a defining time in like our, in our history as like a society and our technological advances and we've never been through that, this before quite like this. So I'm like, oh. To be alive and to be able to build during this time is like incredibly inspiring. So I'm very inspired by what people are building out there because it's like these products, some of them couldn't have existed. Some of them are so thoughtful in their thinking around like the application layers of like data and how the data is being used. And it's just like, I don't know, all of that is really inspiring and it's inspiring for like product. It's inspiring for like creativity. It's weaving things together, it's making things easier. Um, so I think like a lot of that, like it's like, oh, what a time to be alive kind of a thing. Like I look at it that way, um, because I have to see the optimism and opportunity in it, especially as you're building something. Um, and I hope like the people that are building, like, I think they all feel that way and for the people that like don't feel that way, that feel stuck, I think to myself, like, get out of your stuck, like this is a great time and if you're ever going to take a bet on yourself or take a bet on something, like this is the Time, because the playing field has really been leveled in a way that it's never been leveled before. So that is incredibly inspiring. Like, I always love the times in which, like, I feel like the playing field is leveled because there are so few times in history where, like, you can catch up to, you know, $50 billion SAS company that's been around for, you know, 20 years in a few years, in 18 months. Like, companies can eclipse that today. Um, so I think it's just, like. I don't know. I'm very inspired by the time we live in and the news I consume every day. So it's not an individual person. It's really just, like, the opportunity that I see across, like, the ecosystem. That's what's happening right now, man.

Mission: I love that one. That's an epic clip right there. And I also think it's a phenomenal way to end this episode. I love ending on notes like this. So, Melissa, thank you for coming on Marketing Trends. I loved having you on. Where can our listeners, our viewers, find out more about you and what you're up to?

Melissa Rosenthal: Yeah, find me on LinkedIn. I'm very active on there. I feel like I'm. I should be less active. Like, you'll be like, when do you sleep? But, yeah, find me on LinkedIn. Um, I'm there. Check out thestateabrand.com launching a new publication in a few weeks. So we'll be excited to share more on that. But thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun. I love these conversations because they're energizing and inspiring, and hopefully they inspire other people, because I think there's a lot of the same. Even when I listen to the podcast, I'm like, God, I wish someone was saying something different or just, like, a slightly different perspective on things to get someone excited about, like, what their potential could be now, because there's a lot of doom and gloom as much as there is optimism. And there's definitely, like, it's the most polarizing time I've ever seen. So to get people excited, uh, is an exciting thing, too. So hopefully I can do that.

Mission: I love that. Thank you very much.

Melissa Rosenthal: Thank you.