In this compelling episode, Wendy Lieber, CEO & Co-Founder of ContentBacon, shares how she helps businesses grow and scale through effective content strategies.
You will discover:
– What is the role of inbound marketing in building a scalable company?
– How COVID dramatically changed the marketing world
– How to use and how not to use AI for your content marketing
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And we are here with yet another high demand coach, consultant and advisor, the one and only Wendy Lieber. And she is a powerhouse with a ton of marketing knowledge and experience in the agency and entrepreneur space. She also serves on the board of the Entrepreneurs Organization, or E O, and was recently awarded the fifth at the 15th annual IW EC Foundation award ceremony. Now, Wendy is one of the best in the realm of content marketing. She is the CEO and co founder of content begun a custom content provider that helps companies across many industries to increase their traffic and brand awareness to generate leads and to convert those leads into customers through amazing custom content that informs, educates and inspires. Well, Wendy, I’m so excited to have you here on the show ready to go? Before we get into some of this really cool work you’re doing in the marketing and content creation space, I’d love to just take a step back and hear what’s your story? How did you what led up to getting into content marketing? And how did you ultimately decide to make the leap?
Wendy Lieber
Yeah, absolutely. Well, first, thank you for having me on your podcast and that amazing introduction. So the for content, bacon, well, I’ve always been in marketing, I’m one of those rare people who studied marketing, and undergrad went on to get my MBA and have always worked in some realm of marketing and really love the world of marketing. And I started my first company on my own. It was called Athena marketing. And I did work with a lot of private equity groups, and a lot of the companies that they owned and operated and, and really around helping them increase their brand value, and use marketing as a way to increase value increase EBIT off for these private equity groups. And that evolved, where I started working with a lot of companies and basically had, you know, custom consultancy, and so did, I guess, you know, mid to high level consultancy for mid market type companies all around helping them with a marketing strategy. And it was great, great and gave me a lot of experience. But it became really clear to me that there was only so far I could grow that particular company, it was kind of a, you know, you eat what you kill kind of company. And unless I wanted to create more of an agency, I could either work harder or charge more. And I just really found myself like not wanting to stay in that kind of business. And I didn’t want to build an agency. And right around that time, I had joined an organization called entrepreneur organization accelerator with that company and started thinking through like, How can I scale? How can I create a company that could exist without me. And content subscriptions, creating content was something that no matter what type of company I was talking to, they were all struggling with it. So fast forward, I met my business partner in the accelerator program, he had more of a branding type companies that we joined forces to create content as a service and content subscriptions, which at that time, which was right around 2014 2015 was was brand new, no one was doing it. And so we were able to launch content bacon at a time and create these subscriptions so that any company could essentially tell their story through custom content in a way that was effective. I mean, there’s a lot more to it than that. But you know, your reader, your listeners only have so much time. But that’s that’s the short, the short story.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic fantastic. So if we were then to kind of fast forward to today, are you doing content? What would you say is some of the most important work you’re doing with your clients right now?
Wendy Lieber
You know, some of some of the work we do today is very similar to how we started. So, you know, every company needs to look alive online, right? Like we’ve had companies call us that are like, people think we’re out of business because, you know, our blog hasn’t been updated. Like we haven’t done anything with our social media. And people think we’re out of business. So one of our foundational subscriptions, which is really what we started with is monthly blog articles. I kind of hate using the word blog anymore. It feels so like, dated, but it’s still a blog. It’s articles. It’s a way to keep your your presence up to date with interesting, relevant information and then repurposing that on your social media in some type of monthly newsletter. It’s really basic, but really effective. And so many companies I find, are looking for that shiny new object like let me do this, let me do that. But if they’re not doing The basics and building that strong foundation, it’s really hard to do some of the other stuff effectively. So, to me, it’s kind of always going back to the basics and having monthly content that’s helping your audience. You know, educate, entertain, inform or inspire is where it starts, and, and then from that you can really build on but I think that’s the most important work we do. Because in doing that, you have to understand what is important to you as a company, what kind of information is important to your audience. And that’s no easy feat, it sounds easy. And people think, oh, I can just plug it into AI and AI can do it. But it’s not that easy to come up with that, and then do it effectively in a way that connects with your audience. And so I feel like our ability to draw out the story from our customers that’s very compelling is so important. It’s so fun, and so effective.
Scott Ritzheimer
And so what is the role of that story in this kind of space of inbound marketing? So I guess, for just to make sure we’re all on the same page, give us a quick working definition for inbound marketing, and why folks should pay attention to it.
Wendy Lieber
Yeah, so in today’s day and age, everyone can find what they want when they want it. So inbound marketing is your audience’s ability to find you and reach out to you on their terms. So rather than you having to perhaps interrupt them with a commercial or an ad, or something that they didn’t ask for, and again, nothing wrong with that those all play an important role. Inbound is more, they’re searching for something, they’re looking for an answer, they’re looking for a solution, they’re looking for inspiration. And because you’ve got content out there, that supports that they’re able to find you, and then interact with you on their own terms. So inbound is all of the ways a company can tell their story. Educate, provide valuable information in a way that if it’s three o’clock in the morning, and you want to research, maybe download something, you can do it, you don’t have to wait to talk to a customer service rep, you don’t have to wait to get something, you know, in the mail, you can do it all on demand. And as a result of that, you build trust and likeability, which then has, you know, those potential prospects, some of them willing to go to the next step and say, hey, you know, this company has really been great. They’re providing me really valuable information. I want to now take the next step, and perhaps, you know, be a customer be a client.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. One of the things that you’ve mentioned a couple times here, and I think I even saw it on your site was this idea of scalability, right? Yeah, you talked about this, and some of that your PE work early on, and even in your own work. So what’s the role of inbound marketing in building a scalable company?
Wendy Lieber
It’s huge, because you are building an asset with all of this content, right? So content you create today is, you know, potentially still working for you, one year from now, two years from now, you know, maybe indefinitely, and all that content is building a platform for you, so that you continue to have this strong presence so that it, you know, it’s, it’s building that audience without you always having to do something. So it’s kind of an always on, on type approach. And when you’re scaling a company, you want to create that platform where if someone’s looking for you, they’re going to find you. And so, you know, again, like, we sometimes refer to content, like, you know, when’s the best time to plant a tree, while it was probably 20 years ago, it’s the same thing with content, if you’re not out there, creating distributing content on a consistent basis, then your audience is, you know, potentially never going to find you. And having this as an asset, adds more value to your company. And it gives you the ability to, you know, have this kind of 24/7 Always on type approach to that you don’t necessarily need to find a prospect during business hours, they can find you whenever they want. So it’s really important and just one more, there’s probably a lot more on that. But one more thing in particular is the use of automation is also really helpful. And not to be confused with or replaced with, like the human touch. But again, if if you’ve got someone on your state, and you see that there may be doing something different that looks like oh, they’re farther down the customer journey, than maybe someone just poking around. You can set up automations to really help engage with them. so that you’re not always relying on a human being, who will often forget or make mistakes, but you can use automation to nurture and build that relationship, which, again, really creates a lot of options for scalability, if you just don’t have the resources, you know, to expand your team automation, and can often do some of that for you.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So we’ve had a couple of major major shifts recently, you know, COVID, being one of them, and is a little bit of, you know, how’s the world really taking shape. But the another one that you’ve already mentioned is, is AI. And so how have you been, you’ve been doing this for a while now, how has content marketing, inbound marketing in general, how has that changed over the last four or five years.
Wendy Lieber
So COVID was interesting, covered, woke a lot of companies up who were doing really well, in spite of a very poor digital presence. So COVID for companies like ours, was a, you know, I hate to say a good thing, but it was a good thing, because a lot of companies started paying attention to their digital presence, because that was the only way they could interact. And so, you know, companies that used to go to trade shows, or networking events, or, you know, do things that maybe might be pacified as more traditional advertising were like, wow, if someone came to my website, today, they would actually think I was out of business. So that really helped a lot of companies wake up and invest in their digital presence. And, you know, learn to do things like this, you know, get on a zoom call, you know, I remember one of our, our clients was an attorney. And I remember him saying, pre COVID, like, you know, we’ll never have a business where we can do a meeting on Zoom, like, it’s just all face to face. And now when I talked to him, he’s like, in his home in North Carolina, and he’s, you know, like, he doesn’t go to networking events anymore, because now he can do everything this way. So that also taught a lot of companies that there are other ways to do things. I mean, AI is a completely different animal, I don’t think any of us know exactly how far that’s going to, to go or change things. I will say, for us, our number one goal is to create really compelling, high quality content that resonates with our customers, target audience. And so AI certainly helped us juice some of the things. But we haven’t necessarily found that, you know, it’s taken the human element out of it, nor do we think it’s going to or we want it to, so AI for us has been more how can we be more effective? Are there things that we can use AI for that actually is better than using human for, and there’s a lot of different things that we know we’re experimenting with, that has, you know, helped that I think there are companies out there that, you know, now think, Oh, I could just use AI for all my content. And, you know, there certainly, that’s, that’s an option. But I think if you really want your content to connect, it has to have heart. And in order to have heart, at least at this stage, there needs to be a human involved. And so, you know, again, it’s it’s been a fast and furious year with AI, we were certainly using some tools, while before chat GPT may made its big spot. And we’ve continued to, you know, to experiment and use tools and develop our own things. But it’s definitely changing. I think the bad news is it’s a lot of companies are creating more content, but excuse my French more shitty content. And so there’s like a lot of, you know, a lot more content out there that just you people are writing books, just using AI. And it’s like, Does the world really need that. So I think the good news is, if you’re a company that does create high quality content, you have the ability to stand out. And that’s always been my love of the content game, because companies that really take on publishing their own content, doing it on a consistent basis, being authentic, they can win against the bigger companies that have bigger budgets. And now to me, they can win against the companies that might be producing a lot more using AI. Because at the end of the day, does anyone really want to read artificial contact?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, big time. So we’ve covered a lot of ground here. I’m wondering if we can put like a bow on things a little bit. So there’s a question I like to ask everybody and it’s this. What’s the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Wendy Lieber
That’s a really great question. I think, um, I think the the one thing and maybe this is, you know, I’m answering it bigger than you may be looking for in terms of the content game, but, you know, I don’t think that business or life has to be hard. You know, I work with my team a lot on connecting with themselves listening to themselves trusting themselves. I think the more present we are, you know, with ourselves with people that life flows and can be really easy. I think that there’s this frenzy of so much information out there. And it can feel quite overwhelming. Like what you don’t know, oh, my gosh, I need to keep up with this, I need to watch this. I need to read this. And I think that’s all like, head stuff that can get in the way of how do you feel about things? If you trust your intuition? What’s that saying to you? So, to me, I think that, you know, when when life feels crazy, when life feels hard, take a breath, tap into your, your inner voice and trust yourself, because all the answers lie within. And don’t get caught up in thinking that knowing more is going to do anything, like feeling more is to me where it’s at. And life flows. And is a lot more simple when you do that.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Oh, that’s so good. And I think it’s a really interesting challenge, because you bump into in a lot of ways, like the almost the very thing we’re talking about the proliferation of content, almost comes with a burden to kind of consume and use all of it. And you’re right, we can get stuck here with all of that. And, and I would say of any group out there entrepreneurs are the ones who have the best instincts when it comes to you growing your business with their business and their team needs. And I love for folks listening, just trust that a little bit more, you know, just trust that a little bit more. And I think you’re onto something really powerful and special there.
Wendy Lieber
Yeah, take a walk without your device. Yes. You know, like, all the answers will come flowing to you. I mean, it’s not a joke, it really happens, like taking a walk doing the opposite of what you think will often reveal the biggest opportunities, the magic.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah, so true. So I’m going to shift gears only for a second, I got one more question, then want to make sure folks know how they can get in touch with you and find out more about Content Bacon. So for we get there, I’m going to have you take off your coat your marketing media consultant had put on your CEO hat and talk to you what’s the next stage of growth look like for you as a leader and what challenge we have to overcome to get there?
Wendy Lieber
Yeah, you know, we’re at like, you know, content. Bacon’s gone through several, you know, growth spurts. And we’re kind of out at the next one. And for me, it’s I think it’s, you know, what every kind of co founder at some point experiences is, you’re needing to step away more and more from the operations of the business and make sure that I’ve got the right team in place. So I can work on, you know, new product development, bigger relationships, we’ve got a lot of really cool stuff that we have been working on and developing. So I think, you know, I heard a saying once by a coach that I worked with that, you know, an organization can only grow to the degree that its leader grows. And so I’m always interested and you know, where, where am I holding things back, and I think it’s, you know, again, like, be the CEO, be the visionary stay in that lane. Trust my operations team, trust my team, continue to develop them, but not, you know, get in the in the thick of it. So I’ve gone through that a few times, I think I’m at you know, another spurt, were really investing my time, my attention in some bigger picture things so we can grow to that next next level is what I’m really looking forward to. And I’m very lucky, I have an amazing team, we have an amazing culture. And I’m, you know, I’m just really looking forward to you have that next step for me and launching some of these new products, new initiatives that have kind of been germinating for the last year, but I haven’t given myself the time or the space to, to take them to the next level.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. I love that. I love that. And it’s exciting, right? It’s challenging, it’s different. It’s this whole new world, but it’s exciting as well and as entrepreneurs, it’s what we’ve signed up for, you know, it’s always a new challenge waiting to be had. So there’s some folks listening and they’ve had in the back of their mind, we’ve got to do some stuff around marketing and they realize 2024 is the year we’re gonna make this happen how do we do it? Well, how can they find more out about you and the work that you guys do ContentBacon?
Wendy Lieber
Yeah, definitely get our site contentbacon.com you reach out to me Wendy with a Y at Content Bacon. I’d love to chat with anyone that is wondering where to start you know, we’re, we’re a big part of our culture is you know, we love to give before we get we have tons of resources on our site. If you’re looking to, you know, figure this out on your own, you know, we have roadmaps and you know how to launch launch a content creation plan and how to come up with the right content idea. So, if you’re, if you’re someone who wants to learn wants to do it yourself, we have all the resources. If you’re someone who’s like, Hey, do it for me. You know, we’re also you know, here here to support and help.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s fantastic. Wendy, thank you so much for your time today. It was just an absolute honor having you on the show. And yeah, I did. And for those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention in the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Wendy Lieber
Wendy Lieber is a powerhouse with a ton of marketing knowledge and experience in the agency and entrepreneur space. She also serves on the board of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and recently was awarded at the 15th Annual IWEC Foundation awards ceremony. Wendy is one of the bests in the realm of content marketing. She is the CEO and Cofounder of ContentBacon: a custom content provider that helps companies across many industries increase traffic and brand awareness, generate leads, and convert leads into customers through amazing custom content that informs, educates, and inspires.
Want to learn more about Wendy Lieber’s work at ContentBacon? Check out her website at https://www.contentbacon.com/
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