Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to another episode of Street Level Marketing. I'm, I'm your host, Mark Lamplugh and we have a great show for you today. I'm talking with Joanna Track. She's the founder of Good Eggs and Company.
And you know, we're going to get into what it's, what it takes to crack the code on content.
You know, we're going to explore how she built a collaborative content agency, her unique approach to strategy, and what it really takes to build content that connects. I think today in this, you know, world of online and with AI and all these new tools coming out, that kind of takes the creation of content really to any, anyone.
There's a, there's a fine line that you want to draw to make sure it's still professional, still make sure it's engaging and you know, work with the professionals that, you know, have been doing this and they're, you know, experiencing this. So, Joanna, thanks for joining the show.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: So tell the audience a little bit about yourself, how you got into this part of marketing and a little bit about your company. Good Eggs and Company.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Sure.
Yeah. It's been an interesting journey to get here. I actually, I'm not going to tell my whole life story, but I actually did started my professional life in finance. I did an MBA in finance. I worked at an investment firm on the bond trading floor. And I say I had the good fortune of pretty much six months into my adult life realizing that despite excelling in that area, I didn't love it and I knew I wanted to do something different. And so I switched gears pretty much right out of the gate, went into marketing. It was always so interested in brands and how they people fell in love with them, but because I had that math analytical side I really navigated towards at the time, it was direct marketing. I'll age myself. It was before the Internet.
And so I was, I found myself first working at a large company in the marketing analytics group, which was a great way to learn both sides of the coin. And from there I got my first agency job working at Ogilvy and Mather and I was also in the direct marketing group, so, so I really got schooled, I always say I got my PhD in branding from Ogilvy and but being on the direct side, doing direct mail radio on all those things and understanding, you know, the importance of branding and messaging, but really that analytical, conversion focused content. And so, you know, content marketing wasn't a phrase we used back then. But essentially that was what I was doing back then anyway. Then over the years I ended up taking the plunge and becoming an entrepreneur in the early 2000s. And that was at the time when email itself was pretty much a B2B tool. Like you'd get a note that you're out of printer paper or you need more ink. It wasn't sexy.
And there was a lot of up and coming editorial publications using email as a channel and I just fell in love with the whole concept. So I came up with an idea and launched something in Canada. And, and it was the first of its kind, an email daily newsletter about trends and happenings. And it grew, I exited and that really just cemented my love and passion and reputation in the email publishing space.
So from there I did actually grow and exit a number of other publishing businesses. But in between, when I was sort of between building my own brands, I was consulting with others and helping them overall with sort of all aspects of marketing, but always gravitating towards email sort of more direct contact type stuff. So over the course of the years is how Good Eggs got established. And so today I run Good Eggs and Company which is a boutique marketing firm and we specialize in strategy and execution of companies content plans. And again these days, to me, marketing mostly is content. Like we really say, the only thing we don't do is like outdoor advertising because there is so much to be done in the content space. And so we do strategy and we execute from soup to nuts and everything in between. So email marketing programs, social media, websites, SEO content, we do a ton of thought leadership, helping senior executives manage their profiles and presence online. And yeah, no, I'm really proud of the journey and where we are today.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: The name, I love the name.
How did you come up with it? Where did it come from?
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Yeah, so a lot of people ask me about the name and I'm really proud of it. I came up with it. So my first iteration of Good Eggs was between two of my publications and it was when I was consulting with other brands and I, I came up with it in that my experience in the industry. So not only feeling that I'm a good egg and a good person, but I, I built the agency on the hub and spoke model so, you know, just myself and my business partner and then we would bring in experts as needed, whether that was SEO research or website development.
And my promise to my clients was that only the best people in the business would I bring in and so those would be the Good Eggs. And also like from a client point of view them not having to deal with all these different vendors and me owning those relationships and so giving my sort of validation that these are the best people. And then on the other side of it is, and the promise I make to my team and my employees is that only good eggs that we work with so we try to stay away from toxic clients and vendors who don't treat us well. And of course it's not a perfect model, but it's a standard that we strive to in all our partnerships.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Now what gaps did you see in the content marketing industry that you wanted to fill?
[00:06:30] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the very big gaping one is that most agencies now of course there's been a proliferation of specialty agencies now social media, email marketing, but it's pretty recent in the marketing life cycle. Whereas you know, the big traditional ad agencies content was like the poor second cousin.
You know, they might have one person who knows email and most of the time and effort was spent on the big brand ads, the TV and all that. And so I really have saw and still see today this opportunity to go down this niche and focus on the stuff that is being missed by them and also requires a real specialty skill that, you know, writing a headline for an ad is important, but is a very different skill set than writing a 2500 word article for sponsored content that feels authentic and real and not just like a overextended ad.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Sure. What was some of the biggest challenges you faced in the early days of your starting up?
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Well, I mean I think like anyone in business is finding, finding clients and really demonstrating the value. I think, I think a lot of people in marketing say this same issue which is marketing. You know, people have no problem paying their lawyer or their doc or you know, their accountant to do the work. But everyone thinks, oh, I know how to write, so I'm a marketer, I understand, I'm going to do it myself. So proving the value of the expertise I find still continues to be a challenge and understanding what's involved. So, and you know, I'm not one of the huge agencies so I do believe we are priced quite fairly and we're very passionate about working with startups so we try to keep our prices really accessible. But you know, there's a lot of questioning like, well, why does it cost this? I can do it myself.
And I think the only way to overcome that is over time and showing the value, which is something that, you know, know we always say we have another principle here at Good Eggs is we never want a client to get a bill and be Upset. We want them to think that was the best money I spent. That was so worth it.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Can you share a little bit about maybe your first client and what you learned from them?
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Yeah. So one of the first clients, and this is something that I've seen happen a few times, I mean, it's gotten better over time, is, I think also this is something a lot of people who are in any consultative business can commiserate with, is you spend all this time building a strategy and telling someone, you know, what you think they should do, and then they don't do it.
Yeah, they don't execute. Or it's like, you know the game of Jenga? They're like, okay, well, we'll do this, but we're just going to pull out this and this and this.
And then they want to know why it doesn't work.
So I know I had that in the early days and it still happens, but not as much. We, we've now structured our business. I mean, people could do a strategy, not execute, but we now do our pricing in such a way where they have to pay more upfront and then if they commit to the execution, then they get a rebate back.
And that sort of pushes both of us into a long term partnership.
[00:09:45] Speaker B: That makes a lot of sense. I did consulting myself several years ago and I kind of, I did a similar thing because in the beginning, you're spending most, most of the work getting everything together and getting the campaigns built out and, and educating the client.
And then you do all that work up front and then, you know, they, some think they can take that information and run with it.
You know, I'm sure you can relate to that.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Looking back now, would you have done anything differently at your launch?
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Um, I don't think so. I've always been someone who believes, like, everything you learn helps you become better at what you do. So if you don't learn it one way, you're going to learn it another. So not really.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: Yeah, now you're fully remote. Did you decide on that on day one, or is that something you did after Covid?
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah, that was an after Covid thing. I was, I always have supported and advocated for a flexible environment. I was really ahead of the time. Like some of my employees who've now been with me for almost 20 years, they remember, they'll always say, oh, you know, you were really doing this long before it became a thing. I always said, I don't care where you are or what time you're working, as long as the work is done. And done well. So I always had a flexible model, but it was still, you know, we still had an office and we still expected people to show up sometime and tell us where they were and what they were doing.
But then when Covid came and we got rid of the office, I was one of the worst sufferers. I could not focus at home. I was like losing my mind. I didn't even have an office in my home or a desk. Like, I was working at the kitchen counter.
My wrists were killing, my back was killing. And it took me probably six months to get into the groove of working like this.
And then I really fell in love with it and the productivity, the lack of commuting, being able to get stuff done in between.
And then there's just been no looking back. And then the people I've hired since that's their expectation.
And so it would, it would be hard. I mean, if I believe strongly in it, I would try to push it. But I'm so happy with this. And we do meet up in person at least once a month and, you know, see each other more if we can. But. And we also, I don't know that I've mentioned that I am in Canada and so we span across the country, our employees. So really I want the good eggs and I don't care where they are. So I'm not going to get an office when half of them can't even be here.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Now. That makes a lot of sense while we're out of time for this segment. So when we come back, I want to talk about, you know, the strategy at the core and you know, how your approach to strategy and, and rolling out marketing.
So we'll be back at this break with from a word from our sponsors.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Welcome back to Street Level Marketing with your host Mark Lample. I'm here talking with Joanna Track, who is the founder of Good Eggs. And you know, we're talking about content marketing and her approach and you know, how our agency, you know, does it.
So in your approach, Joanna, on building a content strategy from scratch with a new client, how do you start the process?
[00:13:18] Speaker A: The process, it depends. There's a lot of different permutations, but there's usually two scenarios that happen. One is that they have a history of doing stuff.
We want to review and assess all that along with other stuff which we'll talk about. The other is when it's a startup and this is a go to market plan or it's a company that just really hasn't delved into content marketing. And we have had Quite a number of those. So there's not a lot of, or there's no historical information to look at. But in both scenarios, it's a checklist of, you know, give us what you can. And we always say more is better. We give people, you know, we want their analytics, we want any historical, we want their business plans, their strategies, we want to talk to people, their stakeholders. And then we kick off with a two hour brainstorm session. And it's so funny that so many clients have said to us at the end that it felt like therapy in a positive way because it's their opportunity to really just share everything that's on their mind and that what they've been trying to accomplish, the things that have bothered them, the things they see out there that they, they envy or admire. And so we have this moment and I always, they always say, well, what's the agenda? And we do have an agenda. We have a guideline we follow to make sure we cover the key topics like who do you feel is your target audience, you know, what do you feel your brand stands for? Who are your key competitors? All the traditional stuff you would want from a due diligence perspective. But the conversation is very, it goes in whatever way wants. And I always say to them, this is your time. You tell us whatever you think you want us to know to help us, you know, understand what's in your head in your business the most. So from there we take all that information and we do a deep dive. We scan the competitive landscape, we, you know, all the typical stuff and then we put together sort of, we always say, even our first presentation is still a draft. Of course we want their feedback and input and it's really a collaborative dialogue because, you know, as much as we know they know their business best. So we take that as a starting point. But the other thing that we really pride ourselves in, because one of the things that gives a lot of traditional agencies a bad rap is spending all this time and a client's money on a strategy and then they present it and the client's like, this is great, but now what do I do? Like, it's really too high level, you know, thought, thought, thought, but not a lot of action.
So we have really created a model where we say, of course we'd like you to work with us and continue on a long term relationship, but you could walk away with this document and, and it would be your, your manual, your guidebook on how to do this. It's very specific. So like for example, social media, how many posts A week, what, you know, when you should post them, what the topics, you know, sample calendars, like it's all there.
So, and then, you know, we give them sort of the marching orders of how we think it should roll out and the whole thing. But like I said, it's a draft and we go through some iterations, make sure everyone's on the same page.
You know, also budgets are finite, so maybe they have to choose between a few things and then we hone it down and then hopefully get to, as we say over here, in good eggs, we get cracking.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: What are some of the common strategic mistakes you see companies make in content marketing?
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Well, that's a whole other show, but high level.
I mean one of our good eggs isms, we always say is serve before you sell.
Because one of the biggest mistakes I see is that people just use content marketing, like I said before, as like a long form ad. And that's not what it is. It's about being authentic, telling a story and serving before you sell, adding value, giving people something. Another principle we go by is that every piece of content should incorporate at least one of the three E's, which is to entertain, enlighten and or educate. So you need to be giving people something, which also means you're playing a long game. And so one of the other mistakes is that people having short term thinking or looking for instant gratification with content marketing, you know, it's literally the opposite of performance marketing, performance marketing. You're looking for an immediate action to your action and this is about giving people and building the loyalty and affinity and credibility that people are going to trust you and follow you and then in the end become you're, you know, whether they're, they're your most loyal customers or advocates, whatever it is, it's, it's more fruitful in the long run.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I always say, you know, with social media, you know, it's not, companies will say, well I'm not getting any engagement on my posts and nobody's sharing anything or nothing's happening. But all they post is advertising of their products. And it's like one, have you ever went to somebody else's social media or one of your friends and saw them sharing ads? No, you know, it's not called sales media, it's called social media.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Yeah, well we have a joke up here is that we say nobody's engaging because you said, you know, you just hired Joe Smith or you did.
The only people who like that post are like the people who work at the company.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: That'S so true.
How do you balance SEO driven content with storytelling?
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Yeah, so actually that is an area that we're really, really proud of because I said I kind of grew up in my entrepreneurial journey building digital publications.
I really grew a unique expertise where I'm a marketer by my sort of early skill set. But then I went into publishing and editorial and, and the team I am asked of which they're here today with me, they also have that unique skill set. So we have this unique balance of building SEO content based on working with our SEO research team to make sure we're hitting the keywords and following the format and hitting all of Google's standards. But then we write content that is actually engaging and interesting, whereas a lot of SEO agencies, and I'm not saying all I'm generalizing, they build what we call keyword soup. You know, it's an SEO article when it's like the same word over and over and nobody's interested in it. We build content. We were like, okay, like how do we take this article and write it? Like we would write any other editorial. Like a lot of my writers come from journalist backgrounds and I taught them best practice marketing.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: How often should brands revisit and refresh their content strategy?
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Oh, well, I mean, part of me wants to be crass and say daily, but I mean there's sort of, you know, there's, you should always be testing, learning, optimizing. That to me is like a never ending process.
But I feel like, you know, you, you look macro level, like probably a few times a year and then on the monthly, weekly, bi weekly basis, you're looking at what's performing, fine tuning based on what you're seeing, especially in like social media, for example, where you can see within a matter of days what's working, where the engagement is like subjects that really hit say on LinkedIn. Well then you know, that's a topic that's going to interest your audience. So then you should then be planning out, not just blindly looking ahead, saying, okay, what are we going to talk about next? You need to assess what's happened in order to make better decisions for what you do next.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: How do you tailor the content across the platforms, like social media, you know, blogs and newsletters?
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Well, so this is going back to the question about the biggest mistake people make is thinking that they can create one thing and then just splatter it across all the channels. You can leverage it across the channels. You need to tailor it to that medium. So we always say you start with the idea and then you figure out what channel it's going to go on. You don't start with the channel first.
So, you know, you're talking about a subject and you say, you know, this topic would work well as a video on LinkedIn and it would be a great Q and A interview for an email and, you know, I don't know, whatever else. So you have to tailor what is the best message for that particular medium.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: What's your stance on repurposing content?
[00:22:00] Speaker A: Yeah, like we, we do it, I mean, we always say to clients too, you're better off only operating in one social media channel and doing it really well than trying to spread yourself across a couple and doing them just mediocre. For that reason, as you know, that, you know, certain formats and messaging works differently on the different channels.
But if you have limited budget, like, we have plenty of clients who create videos for TikTok and then they repurpose them pretty much as is on Instagram. Although we do really encourage strongly that there is some editing and some changing of formats to, to tailor it. But again, budgets are finite and you can only manage so much. But if given only the two choices, I would stay on one channel and win at it.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think going into, like, my next question is it makes it a little bit easier with a lot of the content creation tools now to resize and repurpose the content towards, you know, what channel you're putting it on. Do you have any specific tools that you use for planning and managing your content?
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Well, my team does.
They're very astute in that they have a multitude of tools. But yeah, I agree with you. Like, the amount of time, energy, money that it used to take to repurpose something can now be done in, you know, a matter of minutes. Resizing, editing, graphics, cutting, like when I see them, you know, editing videos down and all that, I mean, it's remarkable how quickly they can do it now.
But it goes back to planning and strategizing in advance. You need to know, even from when you record a video or write something like this is the ultimate outcome of it. Because trying to retrofit back into that, it doesn't usually work out very well.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Great. Well, we're out of time for this segment. When we come back, I want to talk about, you know, how you manage a collective of experts. So we'll be back after a word from these sponsors.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: Welcome back to Street Level Marketing. I'm your host, Mark, and I'm here with Joanna Track from Good Eggs and Company.
And now I want to talk about, you know, managing a team and managing a collective of experts.
How did you build your network of collaborators that you work with now?
[00:24:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so I, well, I want to. I was about to say I've been really lucky, but it's not luck. It's been about working and forging a really strong relationship with people. And most of the people that are working with me today have been working with me since my first business in 2004 or along the way. And I think it's because of the culture I've built and the relationships I've built with them.
But I've been someone who's always advocated for fit over skill set.
So most of the people who work for me today, actually my business partner today is 14 years my junior and she started as an intern at my first company.
So as an intern, she didn't have much of a skill set, but she had the right attitude and the enthusiasm and the motivation to learn. And today she is now my business partner in this business. So I think that speaks to sort of how I find the experts and the good eggs.
And you know, through the careers I've had and through the opportunities, the different companies, the clients I've had, I just, I've amassed quite an extensive network. And so I feel like, you know, good attracts good.
And for the most part I've been able to, you know, have this strong team that has been loyal for a very long time. Of course, along the way we find some bad eggs, but I've really tried very hard to clean those situations up quickly and, and move forward. And you know, and also I mentioned before, the hub and spoke model also means we do utilize a lot of freelance because there are certain skill sets that we don't need on a full time basis. So for example, SEO research, that is not something we are doing on a daily basis. So when the time comes, I want to make sure I have the best people that I can reach out to. We, we have a roster, but of course we have our people who are our top picks, who we try to work with the most.
But it's really part of my priority in the company is to be continually making sure that we have those best people on hand.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I was, you know, when I was a CEO at a former company, I, I said that hiring and finding team members and, and you know, that process is like one of the, probably the hardest parts of, you know, running a business, you know, interviewing and finding the right team and they don't work out letting people go. It's just it, it is very.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Never gets easier. Like I mean I've been running my own businesses for over, almost over 20 years and I still get sick to my stomach when I have to deliver that news to someone.
But. And to your point, I still beat myself up when I hire someone and they don't work out to be what I thought they were going to be.
But all the scrutiny in the world cannot like you're still taking a chance at the end and most of the time, hopefully as you also grow in your career and your expertise, you can weed it out pretty quickly. But you still some is still left to chance and you only find out over time.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
Are there certain qualities that you look for in, in your content creators when.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: Well, in content creators it is really about sort of that authenticity. And I know that's a word that's really overused but again with what we're doing, we're not looking to just hawk product and sell product. We're looking for people who really genuinely storytelling, being relatable, being really accessible people.
And so that's of utmost importance. But in general when I'm bringing people into the good eggs nest and the team, it's that culture fit. And one of the biggest characteristics is the entrepreneurial mindset.
You know, I say, I always say there's a place in the world for the nine to fivers and the people who need to follow like the manual.
This isn't the place for them. This is a place where we work hard. But we all are really energized and motivated by carving the path, not being given the guidebook.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: Wow. Do you use any particular thing to manage workflow and communication with your remote staff?
[00:28:50] Speaker A: So we're just in the midst of moving on to a new project management tool. So you'll have to get back to me, let you know how that's going.
But. So we are moving on to that. But we do. I mean our whole life revolves around tools, especially because we're remote. So relying on Slack, Google Drives, all those things that allow us to work pretty seamlessly remotely.
Project management.
Then at the end of the day though, all the electronics and tools in the world won't help if you don't have good communication.
We really make sure that we're constantly communicating. We're also working over different time zones. So being respectful of that, I really try to manage. I don't want to bother people when it's their off time.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Yeah, same here. Use Slack, you use Monday.
Yeah, it all really goes into the, the implementation of it and how well you use it and your staff uses it. I mean, all the best tools in a row, but if you're not using.
[00:29:49] Speaker A: It correctly, yeah, it's no good.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: There's. Does your clients interact directly with like everybody across the team or do you have like a person that's the contact for the client that, you know, rolls out all the, the stuff that they need?
[00:30:08] Speaker A: So that's another thing where I think we are unique. I mean, some people do it, but it's rare in the agency space is everybody has contact with the clients. Now there's the primary person who managed the account. And on every account we have either Sam, my business partner, or myself are that primary contact. So. So they're always dealing with one of the owners of the business at all times. But then their day to day they might be speaking to someone. Like, we have a couple directors of strategy who are kind of like account people. But I don't like to say that because to me that sounds more like a middle person.
They are really adding value and understanding the client's whole business. But what I have seen work so well that I've seen work so poorly or not when it's not implemented be really poor and at other agencies is when you have the creative team not having direct contact with the client. So here my copywriters, my designers speak directly to the client. That way they hear it straight from the client, what they're looking for. They can give their feedback, they can have a dialogue and everyone feels much more involved and engaged.
I really don't like when they are kept isolated.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it's communications and emotions get lost.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: You know, the nuance.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Especially when you're directly communicating with a client. You want to get that brand, you know, the voice of that business.
Sometimes you can't.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: The copywriters, like, when they hear it straight, they totally get it. And also the designers, because the Dianes, they're like, oh, now I get it. I know what she's saying. When you pass, you know, a brief and then another person and then like, I mean, it's lost in translation.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: What's your onboarding process when you hire a new freelancer?
[00:31:58] Speaker A: So I really believe in sort of letting people shadow. Like, I don't, I don't throw someone right in right away. It's like they mostly just listen and learn and read and they might see the materials going back and forth, but I don't ask them to do a lot, usually for at least a couple weeks.
And then sometimes like In a certain freelance roles, like say copywriting, you know, we will ask people for a sample before we engage. But the other thing that I believe in is paying people for that work.
I don't like when people take advantage of people or even. We had a scenario, we were hiring a PR person and we wanted to see how they would put together a PR plan. So we paid them to put together the PR plan.
I think it's really.
Yeah, just not good business practice when you ask people to do that work and then you don't compensate them.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I've seen horror stories on the Reddits where, you know, a company would do an interview for a particular, you know, a role, get all the interviewees to, you know, provide something to the.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: Business and then use it.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: Yeah, then use it. Never even hire a person. That's great.
Yeah. Offer compensation because. Yeah, you're right.
What, how do you keep the culture strong in a remote team?
[00:33:24] Speaker A: So I think it's about spending time on non work stuff. So even when we're remote, it's getting on the calls, talking a bit, you know, social movies, what shows we're watching, sending memes back and forth, whatever it is that it's like, it can't be all about work all the time.
And so that really helps.
And then again, being really flexible, just letting people have their time when they need it and, and communicating and you know, people will just say like, you know, I've got this going on, I, I just can't focus right now and being really understanding.
But then also it is really important to come together. And so, you know, depending on budgets and stuff, you know, sort of impacts how often we can do it. But we fly everyone in at least once a year so that we can all physically be together. And, and then when we do that, it's actually no work.
Like last summer we went on a, like a retreat of sorts. And I should say we're a team of like my full time team is all women, so makes it kind of easy to do stuff.
And that time is so critical to forging those relationships and people feeling more comfortable with each other because then when you do have to talk about hard work things, there's more of a comfort level.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense. What's one of the biggest lessons you learned about leadership since you started this company?
[00:34:51] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I don't know if it's a lesson or it's just the way that I've lived by as a leader for my career is that, you know, the best leaders serve their team So I let them tell me what they need from me and I'm there to support them. So I let them take the spotlight, I let them present in meetings, I let them share their opinions, I, I take their feedback and criticisms.
So it's a two way street. Like if I'm expecting certain things of them, then they have every right to expect certain things of me.
And I've been in so many scenarios in my own career path where I wasn't treated that way. I always say I learned to be a good leader from the worst leaders I had.
So I try to implement the good and, and remember how it made me feel when I wasn't treated that way.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: That's.
We're coming out to the time when we come back, I want to talk, you know, about some of the lessons, some of the trends and, you know, looking ahead. What, what do we have to look forward to in content marketing?
So we'll be back after a word from our sponsors.
Welcome back to Street Level Marketing with your host, Mark Lamplugh. I'm here with Joanna from Good Eggs and Company.
And now I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, what, what's coming up in the future. There's so many changes going on in, in the world of marketing, it's almost hard to keep up.
Joanna, what are some of the trends in content marketing that you're most excited about right now?
[00:36:35] Speaker A: So one of the things that we're really deep in right now, and I wouldn't say it's so new, but I guess there's a newfound appreciation for it, is thought leadership and people really bringing themselves forward. I've said for a long time, you know, people are most inspired by other people over brands. And so one of the strategic challenges I've had with a lot of clients is they're like, oh, I don't want to promote myself because it looks like I'm just self serving. And I said, no, you're not. Like, you're actually getting people to be inspired by you, which means your brand's going to have more credibility.
And of course there's a balance. There's a way to do it wrong, but when done right, it's really powerful. I think you and I can probably both talk about people we follow, whether it's on LinkedIn or other media where you really, you feel like you know them, they're relatable to you and you become inspired and it sparks ideas that you are able to take into your own practice in your own life.
And so what I'm seeing is a lot more people understanding that and appreciating that.
And it's become a really big opportunity for us to help people because again, you know, you might be the CEO of a company and you're excellent at what you do, but you don't know where to start on how to engage people, whether it's on LinkedIn or Reddit or, you know, whatever channel you want to speak to people at.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: Yeah, and that makes so much sense. And it's, you know, for myself, I grew up in like a volunteer fire department, so when I was of age, that's what I did, you know, and it was just kind of something that we was like family oriented. So I never really put any thought into doing something for nothing like that, you know. And even now, you know, I have the role of my work and then I like to share, you know, with writing and, and things like that. And they're not things that contribute any money, but it's a way to give back and teach other, especially new. There's so much stuff that I know now that I wish somebody would have told me. You know, you got to find out for yourself and, you know, just to take it, give a little bit back to the.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: I always say if one person takes from what I have to say and it inspires them to do something, then I, I feel great.
[00:38:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So are there any like, marketing channels right now that you think are like either underrated or overhyped?
[00:39:02] Speaker A: Well, AI is definitely.
It's both a challenge and an opportunity.
You know, people are asking me all the time, you know, what's my position and am I worried is gonna, you know, ruin my business. And I'm not worried at all. I think like I said earlier on, you know, I was around before the Internet became a thing and back then it was, oh, the Internet, you know, newspaper is dead, TV is dead. None of them are dead. They just changed. So I really believe the same thing is going to happen here. It is happening already is.
Some of these jobs are not. Are gonna maybe evolve or change, but for the most part it's just, it's become. If used properly, it's a great tool.
But I think, I'm sure you would agree with me, it's very obvious when something has been purely developed by AI, what AI cannot capture is human emotion and nuance and real life experience.
And so. And that's again, the stuff that other people fall in love with and are inspired by.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I share this a lot. I think a few times on some of the episodes, you know, being in this field of marketing, every day on my timeline is all AI tools and new stuff coming out and it's almost, oh, it's over complicated in a sense because you try one thing, the next day you're getting an ad for something else that does something different.
But I agree with you. I think that, I don't think marketing agencies or anything like that are going to go away. I think these are tools that can make you more efficient.
You know, just the, the instance of talking about sharing across multiple channels, you know, something like that. But you still need to have that experience on how to share that stuff. And I don't think you're going to.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Get that, you know, agree with you.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: Oh, what role does storytelling play in a, in a data driven world?
[00:41:03] Speaker A: Well, again, it's still, it's super important. That's the engagement factor, right? The data is you measure to help you make decisions, but it's the story that engages people.
And especially as there's a continued proliferation of stories and channels and you know, it's become more and more overwhelming in order to capture someone's attention and keep it. Because capturing is only probably not even half the battle, it's less than half because it's the long term relationship that matters, is the storytelling has to be authentic and engaging and just, yeah, give people a reason to stick around.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: What's a piece of advice you would give somebody that may be thinking about starting their own marketing, somebody coming out of, you know, school or somebody's been working for another agency for a while? Like which one? A piece of advice you would give somebody that may be thinking about opening up their own agency.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: Well, that would be two answers. Because if someone was just coming out of school, I would say go work for one of the big agencies or big brands first. Because I feel so strongly that's how I learned so much.
Not only about like branding and marketing, like I said, I learned at Ogilvy, but also how to engage with clients and how to deal with a team. Like, it's not to say you can't just go right out of school and go down on your own, but you're not just going to have that real life experience that's so valuable. I think if you have some of that under your belt and you're ready to go out on your own is, and I say this to all startup founders, even if it's not just an agency, is like start with one thing and become really, really good at it before you build onto that. So, you know, you want to start something, start it down one vertical. So, you know, social media or email marketing or whatever it is that you're passionate about to put out your shingle and say I'm starting an agency and we're going to offer everything.
Well, you're not going to have a lot of credibility and you're just going to be trying to be all things to all people and probably be nothing to anybody.
[00:43:08] Speaker B: What's your approach? And you know, we talk, we're talking about all this marketing stuff and you know, we're all always coming up with these good ideas but nobody really tells you what to do when it doesn't do well. What's your approach when a campaign flops?
[00:43:24] Speaker A: Well, I mean what we try to do and it's not without its moments that it doesn't work is we try to start small. So like putting tests into market so you know, before going out and spending tons and tons of money on a big campaign is like seed the market. Like the great thing about a lot of especially like paid social, all those things is you can test. It's like doing a skin test patch before you put something all over your body.
So we try to do that and build the budgets. Like social is very easy.
Email, it's also quite easy because email, when you start, you typically don't have a large audience. So you can start and you can start to see where people are clicking before you start spending tons of money on email acquisition. You want to get the product right.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: How do you see good eggs evolving over the next two to three years?
[00:44:21] Speaker A: I mean I really love our nation where we're at.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: So.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: And I would never say never because who knows what the next thing is going to be and whether we would get involved in that. But what me what's more important for me is to just take what we're doing and scale it. So be able to serve more clients and test new things. Like we get really excited when a client wants to try something even that we haven't done yet before, whether that's sort of a unique sponsored content piece or something like that. And we get to learn together, but we just want to scale the types of clients that we're working with and be able to serve them.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
Are you specific to Canada? Are you also taking clients and you know, the U.S. yeah.
[00:45:08] Speaker A: No, we have clients that are both in Canada and the US and so been quite agnostic. Excuse me, Agnostic. Also like in verticals we work with probably about 50% B2B clients, 50% consumer facing clients.
And I always like to say now that given the state of the Canadian dollar, it's a bargain to work with us if you're American.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: Any unwritten rules of content marketing that you live by?
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Well, I think I've talked a lot about them, but I'll just, they're worth reiterating which is serve before you sell. Give people something.
Don't constantly be asking. And like we were saying before about like the, you know, posting on social, like the chest thumping stuff, of course there's a place for it, but if your whole feed is filled with that, you're gonna lose in people's interests.
And yeah, keep it engaging and think about what the, the end user wants, not what you want.
Of course it has to map back to your business objectives, but if you're only serving yourself, then you're probably not going to achieve them.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Well, we're just coming up to the end of the show and I wanted to give the viewers some time to, you know, get a hold of you if they're looking to ask you some questions, if they're thinking about adding an agency, if they have a business.
So why don't you just tell the viewers, you know, your website, how they get a hold of you, anything you're working on, you know.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: So yeah, I would love to hear from you. You can find our website is a good eggsandco.com.
you can also find the company but me on LinkedIn, which is Joanna Track and yeah, I would love to hear from you and talk more about content and what you're working on these days and I really appreciate the time.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: Yes, thank you.
Thanks for coming on the show, sharing your expertise. I think the viewers will, you know, learn a lot from it. I sure did.
And you know, we'll see you next time on Street Level Marketing. Thanks for watching.
[00:47:23] Speaker A: Thanks, Mark. It's been a pleasure.
