In this episode of B2B Marketing Refresh, Terri welcomes Jonti Bolles, CEO of WHO Digital Strategy, to discuss the influential world of digital marketing. They talk about the robust integration of AI in marketing tasks like website design and how important it will be to maintain human oversight for quality and authenticity.
They also cover the synergy between sales and marketing teams, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and the strategic use of CRM tools to enhance efficiency. In addition, they talk about the challenges faced by B2B companies, stressing the need for a blend of skills in today’s rapidly changing marketing landscape.
Jonti also talks about her own company’s rebranding from White Hat Ops to Who Digital Strategy, highlighting sustainability and ethical practices in SEO. The conversation also explores the concept of topical authority and the shift from focusing merely on keywords to creating topic-focused content to dominate industry conversations and fulfill consumer queries efficiently.
To connect with and find out more about Jonti, visit: https://whodigitalstrategy.com/
To find out more about Marketing Refresh, visit: https://MarketingRefresh.com
Key Topics Discussed:
- The use of AI in marketing and balancing it with human expertise
- The importance of sales and marketing collaboration
- Challenges faced by companies in managing expectations with marketing agencies
- The evolution of White Hat Ops into Who Digital Strategy
- The shift towards topic-focused content in SEO
- Strategic use of CRM and AI tools to enhance marketing and sales efficiency
- Insights on maintaining quality over quantity in digital content
- Benefits of establishing topical authority for online presence
Full Episode Transcript
Terri Hoffman [00:00:00]:
This is B2B Marketing Methods. I’m your host, Terry Hoffman, and I’m the CEO of Marketing Refresh. Let’s face it. Embracing digital marketing is daunting. This podcast was created to make it more approachable. Join us as we talk to CEOs, sales leaders, and revenue growth experts who will share lessons learned and tips from their own journeys. Okay. So welcome to this latest episode of B2B marketing methods.
Terri Hoffman [00:00:29]:
Really excited today to have a guest who is a longtime friend and partner with Marketing Refresh. We worked on a lot of projects together over the years, and Jonti has been a mentor to many in our company and longtime friend to many as well. And so, again, really happy to have you here today. I wanna start by introducing Jonti Bowles. Jonti is the founder of White Hat Ops, and maybe you can take a minute to elaborate on your business a little bit, Jonti.
Jonti Bolles [00:00:58]:
Sure. Thank you. We are a digital marketing agency. I we’re actually rebranding as WHO Digital Strategy a little more inclusivity. So instead of saying White Hat ops, which has a rich history in digital marketing as the good guys that kind of practiced SEO in a sustainable ethical manner. So we’re going through that rebranding personally. I’ve been doing digital marketing for probably close to 20 years, but our company is 10 years old. And I have a rich history of how I got here, so it’s been fun.
Terri Hoffman [00:01:30]:
Oh, okay. We’re gonna dig into that. I’m I’m excited to hear more about that. I didn’t realize you were rebranding too, so that’s interesting. So for those that don’t know much about the SEO space, there’s black hat techniques that are kind of the bad ways, the not so best practice y ways to go about things. So I think that was the genesis of your original name before you decided to rebrand. Right?
Jonti Bolles [00:01:52]:
Absolutely.
Terri Hoffman [00:01:53]:
Yeah.
Jonti Bolles [00:01:54]:
And then there was gray hat. Right? But, black hat was there are certain companies or industries that didn’t matter. They just wanted to get to the top of page 1 of of Google results, and they would do whatever it takes even if it meant going against Google’s practices or even best interests of some of your clients and visitors. If their site got penalized or delisted, they didn’t care. They would spin up another site with a new name. Most businesses can’t afford that kind of luxury, so White Hat became a let’s do things the right way practices and really benefit our clients and honor our visitors. So that was coming up in an SEO industry that had a very there was a variety of people doing white, black, and gray.
Jonti Bolles [00:02:37]:
When I started my company, I really wanted to stand out and say, hey. We’re gonna take care of our clients. And that was the way to signal to them.
Terri Hoffman [00:02:45]:
Well and I think for people that don’t know a lot about the history of SEO and really all of the different practices and what is the right way and what is the wrong way, so to speak, I think it’s all about integrity. Right? And that’s an important part of the Marketing Refresh brand, and I know it’s an important part of your brand, and that’s really the name was saying, we do things with integrity, and we’re looking out for your long term best interest. So I love that.
Jonti Bolles [00:03:11]:
Thank you.
Terri Hoffman [00:03:11]:
Go ahead.
Jonti Bolles [00:03:12]:
Thank you. Yeah. And I’ve loved working with Marketing Refresh because that’s exactly where we all wanted to be.
Terri Hoffman [00:03:18]:
Yeah. So what are, you know, I guess, digging into the last 10 years and how your brand and business has evolved and grown, what are the things that you’ve gotten to be known for? Like, what are your areas of expertise and the reason that companies come to you to be to hire you?
Jonti Bolles [00:03:37]:
Thank you for asking. We enjoyed very much working with, some nonprofit brands, heavily in B2B space. We never really kind of worked with e-commerce very much, but we’ve worked with kind of and evolved into brands from the nonprofit side to the B2B side that more cause-based. And I think that goes along with that, you know, element of integrity and authenticity and doing things in the right way. And so that’s really been a great way. We I’m supposed to niche down. You know, if we talk to a lot of business leaders, there’s a lot of push right now to niche down to a very, you know, very focused industry, a very focused service. And we’ve stayed small to focus on search engine marketing, SEM as people have often called it.
And if you ask some other, I should probably do just SEO or just pay-per-click advertising. But we found those inextricably linked, and I’ve never been able to serve my clients the best without offering both. And I find that a lot of marketing teams really don’t have a full understanding to how SEO and paid advertising work together. And they’ll sometimes say, oh, we need SEO when they really are coming to us for paid advertising or vice versa. So Yeah. Providing those things has really been what we’re known for and then also for teaching and training and helping agencies with a deep dive when they need it, a little more expertise that they just don’t have the time for in their regular work schedule.
Terri Hoffman [00:05:09]:
Right. So one of my goals with this podcast is to educate the B2B market, in particular, companies that are in an industrial market segment. And I’ve noticed throughout the years that there is a lot of fear around the vocabulary we use. Right? It’s like we’re talking a foreign language. And, of course, if you don’t understand what somebody is talking about and trying to sell you and you don’t understand the value of it, it puts up a huge barrier. And I think that’s a lot of reason that, B2B brands haven’t decided to embrace digital marketing. And I think that falls on us, right, as marketers. That falls on us to take responsibility of doing a better job of explaining this vocabulary and how it connects to business value.
So let’s break down SEM and pay-per-click and SEO a little bit more. Like, what does that all actually mean? What are those practices and services driving towards? What are we doing?
Jonti Bolles [00:06:08]:
Very good. Right? I think of it as almost an org chart with SEM at the top. So SEM, search engine marketing, and it’s a and we use search with a capital s. Right? So circular capital s to me signifies we’re not just looking at Google, and people don’t look at just Google anymore for understanding how they’re going to find answers they need digitally. That can be on the Internet, that can be voice-enabled search on their device. I won’t say any one of them to to not trigger 1. It could be, right, it could be a map location. It could be looking for reviews and comparisons.
So all of those different avenues and, you know, we could go really deep into all the different places that people search for answers, which have only gotten more for another business? And then below that, we think of pay-per-click as more traditional search engine marketing is running ads and running ads in search engines, which is Google, Bing, you know, several others, YouTube even that we could mention. And then those are came from a term of pay-per-click, which meant you paid only if someone clicked on your ad. People will do that for brand. If they’re launching a new product and a new brand that, you know, we wanna make sure it’s at the very top of of some kinds of search listings, again, by desktop, by phone, however people are searching. And then there’s also not just pay-per-click, but there’s more around YouTube or impressions or display ads also fall under that. But because of bid strategies, they’re not necessarily paying by click. You might be paying by reach. And that’s kind of a traditional, but we still as an industry, like you said, we have our own terms.
Pay-per-click is getting your name or your ad out there in some way for someone to see it in a targeted audience, in a targeted location, and paying for that. Whereas search engine optimization or SEO has a funny name of organic search. And so organic is not our garden organic, but it is I do think you have to grow it and feed it and in much the same way. And so having your site or your links directions to your website organically shown without paying for it on the first page of results is what we’re used to seeing. That’s traditional SEO and making sure you’re just the you’re the right answer at the right time for the right audience.
Terri Hoffman [00:08:45]:
Right. And I mean, it’s all about visibility. Right? So
Jonti Bolles [00:08:50]:
Perfect.
Terri Hoffman [00:08:50]:
I keep having to remind myself that the average age or the age range for a Gen X or when the Internet came out ranged anywhere from 15 years old to 30 years old. And now over the years, as the Internet has evolved and grown, that 30-year-old is now a 55-year-old. Right? And so Right. If you consider everyone from age 55 and younger in the B2B world who are potential buyers, decision-makers, influencers of decisions, what are they doing? What are they doing to gather their research? I’m kinda setting you up to answer that one, Jonti. Where are they finding their information? Right? This is, like, getting to the heart of why should anyone listening to this care about what you’re trying to explain.
Jonti Bolles [00:09:36]:
So it’s changed. Right? And we know that habits are different based on age groups. And what’s interesting is we see most often and our decision makers are sometimes at the top of that age group level, But they’re the ones making final decisions. The ones doing research are at a younger level. So how often have we heard a c suite person or even a chief marketing officer say, hey. I have an assignment for you today to a junior or mid-level manager. I need you to go and research, and we’re gonna install a new CRM system. We’re gonna install a new we need a new, you know, construction, you know, firm or agency.
Go find me the 3 best in this, you know, geotargeted location and set up appointments for me to talk with them. They don’t do the initial research, but that person doing the initial research is totally online and not working desk you know, in the old way of referrals or, you know, somebody they met at a trade show, which may be a case, but, digitally, they’re searching.
Yep.
And so I think you have a broader perspective on all the different ways that might happen. But we know some of those younger ones are definitely starting digitally, and we wanna reach them. And then you have to be vetted when the, you know, decision maker comes back again to look at that same brand online or however they do their research as well. Right. How much time do you spend kind of outlining that to to your clients and teams?
Terri Hoffman [00:11:03]:
A lot. A lot. I think it’s really funny to me because we hear all the time, oh, people don’t search for what we do. Now fortunately for them, we have an ability to run reports and actually pull data that are really pretty close estimates, right, that these tools are providing just based on Google search, whether that’s global or in the United States. We can hone in and at least we it the data may not be perfect, but it’s giving us really good ballpark estimates around how often people are searching for any type of keyword that you could think of. And you can even reverse engineer how many keywords your own website ranks for and start to get an idea about how visible your brand is just on Google. Right? Plus, you have all these other search engines and ways people can find you, but I think it’s super interesting to pull that information and show it to companies in that industrial B2B space, and it opens their eyes to, wow. Okay.
People are they’re actually researching our company and our products more than I appreciated. And it may not mean that they wanna jump right to it and get going, but that create starts the beginnings of creating a business case for them. Right? Like, okay, this is something we need to strongly consider and start developing a strategy for this. Right? You must run into that as well.
Jonti Bolles [00:12:24]:
It’s true. And and I think even more so now, we’ve I think you and I both know that marketing teams, we have the luxury and the and the pain of spending way too much money on tools and software.
Terri Hoffman [00:12:53]:
Right.
Jonti Bolles [00:12:56]:
But I but I love it. It’s right. It’s what it’s what helps us be something that the client doesn’t have time to do and and discover and rely on tools when it’s appropriate. And now we have the same tools not just for SEO, but for pay-per-click as well. I can run a, and I think clients love this.
The feedback is incredible. When we can run a test to see who’s actually advertising on their name or on their service in a specific location. And we can come back and show them, here are the exact ads that are being run, and you didn’t actually know that.
And they’re just amazed to see who is running ads, what they’re saying in their ads, what is their brand promise, and it gives, you know, them a great insight of, oh, I think, marketing might be more important. And then when we can tie that to actionables, you know, that they want from a lead conversion standpoint, you know, not just that people are out there searching, but then the next step is what are they doing with those searches? Is someone calling? Are they filling out a form? Are they downloading something and setting them, walking clients through that? So that makes a huge difference for them in kind of their planning notes of how they’re going to launch a product, rebuild a brand, reinvent themselves.
Terri Hoffman [00:13:53]:
Right. Yeah. I always think, like, what if I knew I was failing to do something that was unintentionally holding back the growth of my business. And if I went back and assessed whether or not it would be valuable, could actually help us help us grow or help create more opportunities for my employees and the people who I’m really trying to help develop. And that to me, that’s the opportunity with digital marketing for industrial B2B brands. It’s like it represents another stage of growth that can help bring the success they’ve built so far into the next, you know, possibly 10 years of the company’s growth trajectory. You have to be thinking that way about your next strategy. Right?
Jonti Bolles [00:14:37]:
So there’s a – we talked earlier about a tool that I’ve used called Reinvention Academy, and they have a tool kinda the Titanic syndrome. And their Titanic syndrome is why did the Titanic fail? And most people think it was because of an iceberg. Well, by the time they got to the iceberg and hit the iceberg, there were already, like, 6 or 7 things that had actually been a avoidable step in that, you know, final critical stage. But most of it was, we’re too big to fail, or it was hubris. So all of these things that could have avoided that and made a a different outcome were because everybody thought it’s the Titanic. It was built. It will such that it will never sink.
So they didn’t do a lot of the training exercises. They didn’t have the right communication and processes. They didn’t have the right signals to for alerting. And then in one case, even when they had those signals, they chose to take care of customer service for a high valued customers and send radio, dispatches for them rather than an emergency signal. So sometimes even focusing on the wrong customer is but the management didn’t have the right, you know, information, And they ignored a lot of the information because, again, they thought they were too big to fail. You know, sometimes we see companies come in that they don’t understand. They know there’s a problem, but I bet you’ve seen some come in that they knew there was a problem, but they didn’t know what that problem was or how to solve it. And how do you fix that?
Terri Hoffman [00:16:09]:
Yeah. And that that actually, like, truly bothers me. And and not not because I think, well, wow. My business should be making more money selling to these companies. It bothers me for the company. Right? It bothers me on behalf of potential clients we could help because we get in and meet our clients and think, wow. These are great people. They wanna add more jobs to their business.
They want their products to get out and be used by more businesses because they know they’re sitting on top of something that really has value when it’s purchased from them. And when we can see something that we know is so simple to fix, right, it takes time and it takes an investment, but we have the playbook for it. We know how to help them. It makes me feel like, come on. I want you to be successful, and we can see this holding you back, and we know how to help you fix it. But I think there’s this big chasm in the middle of education and us not making the products and services as accessible to them as they need to be so that they can understand why it’s so important and what the path looks like in business terms and not in all of our marketing jargon that just sounds like gobbledygook. It does. You know, it’s it’s overwhelming, and it’s kinda it’s confusing.
Jonti Bolles [00:17:23]:
Do you think it’s because they’ve ever been burned by a marketing agency? Or or is it they just they don’t understand? Sure.
Terri Hoffman [00:17:31]:
Yeah. Yeah. I do see that. I do see a lot of companies who have unfortunately been burned, and there’s so many different ways. Right? So two common ones that we see all the time is they were working with an agency or a consultant who really didn’t know how to take them from Point A to Point B. Like, they just didn’t have the appropriate amount of experience, and they didn’t have the right skill sets on their team. And they were so they’re being sold something by a company that just didn’t have the right capabilities or competency to get it done. The other thing that we see all the time is they’re expecting really large results out of a marketing coordinator or a marketing manager that they’ve hired internally, and they’re expecting that one person or maybe even 2 people to come up with sales collateral, the trade show booth presence, responsible for proposal responses, responsible for putting flyers and T-shirts and golf shirts and hats and golf tournaments together and special events, and responsible for setting up Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads and building a website, man like, on and on and on and on and on.
Right? And that’s not that isn’t possible. Right? Like, it’s not reasonable to expect from one person because it’s really a diverse set of skills that it takes. And then it’s also just, like, literally more workload than one person can handle. And then it leaves the leadership team left with thinking marketing doesn’t work. That’s actually they’re doing themselves an injustice by reaching that conclusion because they just didn’t have the right resources in place, unfortunately. And it stinks. I hate walking into that situation because we know immediately, like, wow. We have to undo a lot of bad prior experiences, but also reeducate them about why we need to take the path that we’re guiding them down. It’s it’s really awful. I hate seeing that.
Jonti Bolles [00:19:30]:
You know, I think there’s also a syndrome of a hammer and nail. Right? I have this hammer, so I’m gonna I’m gonna look for a nail. You know, a lot of CMOs or something have an experience, in one area or or several new channels. Maybe they came from print. Maybe they came from TV and radio, or maybe they came from digital, but that digital was maybe more around e-comm and newsletters or something. But they’re always looking to solve it that way, and they may not have the full picture. Nail gun with a bunch of nails to actually reach all the marketing that you should. Then you’re right.
They just don’t have that ability within a smaller marketing team or have not had the experience in those other areas. I found that the best clients for us over the years, it’s a marketing team of, you know, somewhere around 3, 3 plus people because one person can’t do it. They’re not ready to really hit digitally the way they should or, you know, all the things that it takes to make it successful. But they realize they might they’ve got a a strong team. They see their gaps, and they, you know, like someone else, another set of eyes to come in and support and help them with their strategy. And then once they get that strategy in place, you know, as a partnership, then to execute on it. And sometimes it’s just helping them to understand which of those are priorities.
Terri Hoffman [00:20:51]:
Yeah. Exactly. I think you hit the nail on the head right there. It’s about understanding priorities based on that business and what they’re trying to accomplish, and then thinking about resourcing in an appropriate way to reach those goals and reach those priorities. And that’s really, to me, a missing piece that most B2B companies have, is they’ve got the person who can manage projects and be the doer and do a really great job at the proposal responses and organizing a trade show, which is a very challenging job with a lot of details involved and supporting a sales team. Right? But they’re missing that gap of the strategic direction and advice and budgeting and setting priorities because it takes a lot of different weapons to be in the marketing world and knowing which one to pull out at each time is critical in having a partner who can help you with that. Like, to me, the best clients that we work with are just like what you said. We’re not there to displace a marketing department.
We should be there to help them either create that marketing department or add to their marketing department so that they’re filling in the right gaps that they don’t have and that they need in a constructive way. I think that’s what it’s all about. The best marketing agencies or consultants are know where they fit in. They know what they don’t know how to do, and they know what they’re great at. And they can they can fit in where they’re supposed to.
Jonti Bolles [00:22:13]:
So I don’t think we talked about this in the past, but what are your thoughts on because there are a lot of people that are thinking about AI as a tool to is that going to replace the marketing department? Is that going to be a solution or replace a, you know, full time employee? You know, how are we how are they expecting to use AI and the pros and cons of it in a in a marketing team?
Terri Hoffman [00:22:35]:
Yeah. That’s a great question. I think it should be embraced. AI should definitely be embraced in, I mean, not just the marketing function, but several different functions within a business. I just think that it’s AI is growing, and the sophistication of each one of those tools and the skills they fill in is growing. It’s it’s a early developed market. Right? So today, could an AI tool in the marketing world replace an employee?
I don’t think so. I don’t think so. There’s a lot of heavy lifting that AI tools can do to begin processes, like beginning keyword research projects or writing outlines and maybe creating a first draft of something in writing, designing a first draft of the mock up of a home page. But they aren’t sophisticated enough to do a high quality, following all the best practices, making sure every important component of a marketing deliverable in place, they’re not there yet. They could get a lot closer, but I don’t see AI replacing, you know, specific job roles in the marketing world, not for the next 10 years or or maybe even longer than that. I think it’s gonna take a while. What about you? What do you what do you think?
Jonti Bolles [00:23:57]:
Oh, I agree. I think that it will get closer. I think it will make us more efficient at our jobs. I think the, you know, the industrial revolution, you know, didn’t it changed some jobs, but, you know, there were still if you went from a horse and buggy to a car, you were still moving goods. It just was a different way, and then the horses became a different tool. And it took a long time for cars to change, but it just pushed everybody in society forward. Right? A revolution. Is this a revolution? I think at some point, it’s going to not be a revolution, but definitely a surge in how we’re accomplishing things.
Terri Hoffman [00:24:35]:
Yeah.
Jonti Bolles [00:24:35]:
We see it cut down on the time to prep work, to do some research too, but there’s still always a person that has experience that has to corral that strategy. I don’t think it’s much different right now than a CMO looking over the work of the, you know, junior members of their team and teaching and training them. Great. This was a great report and presentation. Now here’s how we’re going to improve it and, you know, stay on brand and stay on tone for us. And, you know, this is a different part of our audience that you may have missed that we really wanna focus on. So I don’t think it’s much different than that right now. It might be a junior member that is helping those junior members even learn faster.
But and we’re using it with tools, and I think how everybody’s starting to see AI is and the the hope there is, you know, we don’t there’s not many tools that it hasn’t touched yet. You know, everything from 2 years ago when you were looking at your Waze directions that actually had AI built in, you just didn’t know it, right, to how we’re actually seeing it pop up with, you know, declare declarations in tools that, you know, would you like a help from AI inside existing tools you already use? So, you know, even in Salesforce or wherever that may be, I think that’s where we’re gonna see the real push forward.
Terri Hoffman [00:25:51]:
Yeah. I agree. I think what can be frustrating as a marketer is that there are so many messages out there to business owners right now that’s a that say things like, use AI to design your social media or use AI to design your website. And it’s like, yes, those tools are out there. But I personally know a business owner who used GoDaddy, the AI, website-building tool. I don’t know what it’s called, but they have a tool that’s available. So when you purchase a domain name, you can plug in your logo files and fill out a few forms form questions of information, and it spits out a website, and it takes 30 minutes. They’re terrible.
I mean, they’re it literally sounds like you’re reading something a robot wrote. Well, that’s because a robot wrote it. Right? Now it’s interesting because you could have a website presence in 30 minutes and then decide, okay. Now that buys me a little time and a little breathing room to go over to somebody who can do this in a much more meaningful and and professional way to make sure that I’m covering all of the website best practices that need to be in place. So to me, that adds value. Right? It bought that business owner a little bit of time to go and create a budget and a plan and find the right resources. So there’s advantages.
Jonti Bolles [00:27:12]:
There are advantages. I could see where you could, you know, MVP a minimally viable product just to even test something, but I would rather see that on kind of the the research, side of it as well. Like, you know, if I put that out as a minimally viable product and it doesn’t perform, has it given me the wrong signal because it wasn’t well thought out to start with.
Terri Hoffman [00:27:34]:
Right. Exactly.
Jonti Bolles [00:27:35]:
It kind of circles us back to that. Now our marketing teams and CMO is gonna get burnt by AI instead of burnt by an agency.
Terri Hoffman [00:27:45]:
It does. So there there’s a blend that I think needs to be achieved, and I’m in a group called AI for Agencies. And it’s such an important question for agencies, owners to be thinking about that we’re all sharing information with each other. I think if you’re not aggressively thinking about how you’re going to embrace it and the best use cases and how it impacts your whole playbook for delivering marketing solutions, you’re making a mistake. You have to you have to be looking at that. But it’s about quality. Right? It’s like, how do you do that in a way that still makes everything we’re doing profitable? It makes the best use of people’s time, but also you maintain that level of quality that will lead to the results that, that you’re after. Those things have to be in place.
They’re non-negotiable.
Jonti Bolles [00:28:32]:
We’ve been using AI for several years, like I said, in different formats, and we’re heavily invested in it as well. And I think that’s given us an advantage, you know, just as when I set up my agency, it was a remote agency before remote was cool because I needed an advantage to not have a, you know, overhead lease space. And we began in Houston, and I didn’t want my people to have to drive in traffic, so I needed a recruiting opportunity as well. So but it it gave us an advantage when everybody else went remote. And I think those agencies that are using and testing AI now and really building and leaning into it are gonna have that same early advantage of when it’s much higher adoption of already having the best practices, of already having those strategy sessions, playbooks of when and how it is to be used. We’ve talked about all the different resources inside the companies that are not shared across interdepartmental teams.
Terri Hoffman [00:32:35]:
Yeah.
Jonti Bolles [00:32:36]:
So I think there’s ways with a third-party marketing agency to help those sales and internal marketing teams kind of reach, an agreement. I mean, we spend we not only do marketing. We actually do strategic positioning within companies. Right?
Terri Hoffman [00:32:52]:
Yeah. Exactly. But that I think in my mind, it kinda comes down to leadership. Right? Leadership in that company has to be supportive and understanding of the relationship between the sales and marketing personnel and even how that’s starting to be blended. Right? Like, can you be a good salesperson if you don’t understand how to market yourself on LinkedIn? Right? Can you be a good marketer if you don’t know how the sales process works so that you can appropriately message at different stages of the sales process. Like, the way that those two functions work together is evolving, and I don’t think that excuse can be there anymore of, like, well, that’s not my job. Well, no. The the lines are getting so blurred. It all blends together now.
Jonti Bolles [00:33:41]:
I wanna see that get past just the tools as well. Right? So we’ve we see in in a B2B agent you know, company, it might have Salesforce or SharePoint or something you’re really kind of set up. And, supposedly, the person owning that or the team owning that, is it the marketing team that owns it, or is it the sales team that owns it? And somewhere along the way, the tool became the answer and the leadership, and the tool is not.
Terri Hoffman [00:34:07]:
Right. Oh my gosh. That’s gonna resonate with a lot of people because you talk to almost any anybody in either one of those job roles, and the bane of their existence is the CRM. Right?
Jonti Bolles [00:34:21]:
Yes.
Terri Hoffman [00:34:23]:
Salesforce or SharePoint or HubSpot or Monday or whatever tool they’re using. Right? It’s it can be the most, like, advantageous tool that they have, or it can become the bane of the existence and investment that the company has made if it’s if it’s not committed to and properly used. And that can be such a bummer to watch because it’s just it’s an expensive investment of time and resources.
Jonti Bolles [00:34:51]:
And I think then that becomes the 3rd scapegoat. Right? If I don’t wanna blame the other team, now we’re going to blame the tool.
Terri Hoffman [00:34:57]:
Right. Yeah.
Jonti Bolles [00:34:58]:
And so embracing that and finding the best parts of it and holding that accountable for each. And, you know, when it doesn’t work, okay, then but, you know, you have to sometimes we’ve I’ve seen teams just decide kind of unilaterally it’s not going to work and and kind of almost try and override, you know, the management’s decisions as, you know, near tantrum like. And Yeah. There’s some validity in that kind, but there’s also a way to, you know, to shift and move in into some other direction or find the best parts of this that can work. So there are some conversations there that I think some in B2B companies are having a hard time navigating. You know, and that is a leadership issue. And I think sometimes the marketing or an outside consultant can help with, okay, what is working and how can we steer that in the right direction and who should own this, and what are the best parts of that that can work?
Terri Hoffman [00:35:52]:
Oh my gosh. 100%. There are so many agencies that are great at that. And I think that’s what it comes down to. Like, if you’re a salesperson, the last thing you wanna do is have to fill out, like, form fields on a CRM all day. You wanna be out meeting with people, and you and on the phone with them and in front of them and traveling with them or, you know, spending time having drinks or playing golf. Like, you wanna be building a relationship with them. You don’t want to be filling out forms in a form field about them.
But if you’re in marketing, you wanna know every single thing that that person has told you because every little thing they tell you is insight that helps to form and drive and guide the marketing message that you’re putting out there. And so trying to focus on making every single one of those forms filled out perfectly and thoroughly and daily, I think, is the fail. That that’s the fail. Right? The win is educating the salesperson about what parts of the conversation are the most vital and what pieces of data and how that fits in and which parts of that are the most like, the biggest jewels to the marketing team. What do I really need to know, and what do I need to know about the feedback? Having that clarity is key.
Jonti Bolles [00:37:12]:
We try and schedule time with, sales teams to actually even if it’s just an hour a month to go through, here’s a series of calls or follow ups, and was that a good call? Can we listen to a recording of it? What was what was not working? And even just that minimal amount is huge in understanding, getting their feedback, you know, talking through it, finding out the right customer match. You know? Again, most of B2B sales cycles are really long, and some of it is reengaging as well. Right? It’s not just new clients, but keeping your existing clients and, you know, upselling to them. Those kinds of conversations and getting that both out of the CRM or out of their brains and even dictation recordings of the after, you know, after those calls are huge. Making it easy and accessible. And, again, coming back to our tools and automation, how can we make that whole process easier and get the right things?
Terri Hoffman [00:38:06]:
Right. Yeah. That’s what I have to say. One of the things that we have always prided ourselves on at Marketing Refresh is, what processes could we set up to gather the information we need from SMEs, subject matter experts, or salespeople that takes the least amount of their time but gives us the highest impact information that we need. Because we might need that information to write something technical, or we may need that information to improve an ad campaign and the specific wording that we’re using in a headline or the call to action, what we’re asking the person reading that marketing message, what we’re asking them to do. Right? Because in the sales process, if you sell something that has a long sales cycle and it’s complicated, you have multiple decision makers or stakeholders involved, but you also have multiple stages of building that relationship. It doesn’t just take one call from one lead form being filled out, one call with the salesperson, and boom, we have a sale. It never works that way. It doesn’t happen. So you’ve gotta break all of those different elements down.
Jonti Bolles [00:39:12]:
Now we’ve taken this back around to AI again because we’re taking those recall recordings and things, and we’re pulling the pain points out from different prompts in either, you know, generative AI of some kind. And then we’re building those messages, And then we’re also building that into the back end of this will get technical for a second. But for example, when I talked about search and SEO and capital s before, search engine optimization, we’re now also looking at AI optimization, AIO, so that we can if I know that, you know, I say grab me a Kleenex, you know, I mean, some kind of tissue, that there’s a brand promise and there’s a product there that would’ve been inextricably linked. We’re starting to see and do that same thing in AI. Can we insert your brand into generative search such as chat GPT and that your brand becomes an answer that isn’t part of that chat or generative AI conversation? Also, is your place in that sales journey that someone is researching a pain point part of that, and we’re doing that by building those same questions, answers, pain points, comparisons, and into your web presence and into your Internet presence. And we’re seeing chat GPT crawlers crawl the back end of websites at almost 10 times the amount that Google is crawling websites. So that is going to be a thing. They’re building information about companies to become answers for people that wanna have a AI conversation about products, brands, and solving problems.
Terri Hoffman [00:40:52]:
Oh my gosh. That’s that’s kind of mind boggling. That’s crazy, but so helpful. Right? That kinda I wanna take the conversation maybe, like, one last area or topic that we could cover during our discussion is really tied to what you were just talking about. Right? So because there are multiple stakeholders involved in decisions and there’s a long sales cycle and there’s multiple stages to a process, you and I have talked about something that’s called a schema map or a topic map. Okay. This is such a nerdy term that those of us in digital marketing have used for years, but I really wanna break that down and explain how that connects to a company’s content strategy. Like, how are they using explain how that fits and explain what it is and how that fits into a company’s website and all of the information that they’re publishing about themself.
Jonti Bolles [00:41:48]:
Great question. Thank you. It’s one that I’m not sure all marketers even really understand well. So topical authority is being thrown around a lot. Topical authority is really based around semantics or entities. We talk a lot of times people will search, you know, they’ll say, oh, well, we wanna show up for keywords. Keywords are are are kind of out the window. Now we wanna show up for topics because there are so many searches that are new searches that have never been searched before and this particular phrase in this way every day.
So semantically, meaning just what is the meaning of this query, this search term, And then are you a topical authority? As more and more content gets pushed out by competitors, by other people just, you know, talking about an industry? How do we make sure that you are a topical authority? It’s no longer good enough to just have a services page that lists your services. If you really wanna be get past all the noise, you and you need to become one of the leaders in the industry that you’re trying to reach or share information about. If you’re in the construction industry around schools and that’s what you do, then you need to be not just, like, say that we are, you know, a contractor or GC of of, you know, big school projects, not just your awards that you won for that. But now you have to be able to answer all the different stages of how your company and just that industry operates. So if someone goes to look at an answer, you don’t want them going to an AAC directory. You want them going to your site to learn about that. You’ve become the topical leader. Yeah.
I’ll take it back to one that probably everybody can relate to is if you’re looking for a diagnosis of, you know, I’ve got a headache and a fever, it was probably gonna come up as Healthline or WebMD. Now that’s a pretty extreme example. We don’t all have the resources to put out as much content as Healthline or WebMD. But somewhere in your business, you probably have a ton of information on the topic that you whether that’s onboarding documents, sales documents that we talked, you know, about those teams, all that information is hidden in your company. And if it can become part of your online presence, then you can be more of a topical authority. Then we take that and not only build it as front facing to public, but now we build your search presence as also consumable by search crawlers and or chat crawlers. Crawlers is just a term for how these automated scripts go and look at the back of your website and see the information is there and then index it so that it can show up in search or show up in in chat prompt. And that schema is a way to connect all of that, whether it’s Wikipedia data.
I mean, how is your brand represented on LinkedIn and Crunchbase and BBB, Better Business Bureau, and what is all that topic. So this is building those links and feeding it directly to search crawlers so that they can catalog your business and your services and your topics that you’re an authority on and that your business people are authority on in the broader Internet, and you become a greater topical authority. And that’s how you’ll win in kind of a future of search.
Terri Hoffman [00:45:04]:
Yeah. And I think there are a lot of industries where what you just described, the content is has just saturated the Internet. Right? There’s so much. If you have a SaaS offering, boy, is it hard to compete on that strategy. Right? But a lot of industries, that publishing process by brands hasn’t even really gotten underway yet. There’s still so much opportunity in the B2B industrial space for you to take that position and say, okay. In the past, I would have had my sales team go out in full force and just start calling people and telling them what experts we are. Don’t stop doing that.
Do that. Right? That is not what you and I are saying. But add it to your website. Make it easier for people to find it so that you’re not only relying on your sales team, you’re you’re now setting your sales team up so that when they call someone and that person they’re calling goes to your website, they’re like, oh, okay. Well, this matches. This matches. This checks out.
Jonti Bolles [00:46:03]:
Right.
Terri Hoffman [00:46:03]:
I see the credibility, and maybe I can even go deeper into other things that you have credibility in other topic areas that are on your website that I wouldn’t have been able to get out of a 20 minute sales meeting because I didn’t have the patience to sit there and go through a longer conversation than that. I can do it on my own time when I have the time.
Jonti Bolles [00:46:22]:
We build and I mentioned not everybody has all the resources. Right? So we’ve never I’ve never been a client yet that had, you know, an unending funds for marketing. Nope. If there’s one out there, someone you know, here’s my phone number. But for, you know, kinda going back to the topical authority, then that requires A and then touch on some of the others, and just build that content map and then touch on some of the others and just build that content mapping and content strategy. And, you know, again, a long time ago, it was about, oh, you need to publish and you need to have a blog and write articles and white papers and need to publish this this often in our regular schedule. Again, that has changed. You know, it is much more because there is so much quantity out there, that quality, but having that quality and having that linked to the areas that you your sales team is really trying to reach, that you’re covering, that your marketing tie team is really trying to reach and covering.
So, you know, working with an agency that has the tools to understand this, I think is where B2B companies can leverage, you know, outside of their own organization is building those topical authority maps and then the deep dive of, you know, doing something like building it with semantic schema and, you know, NLP processing. Those are areas that just an ongoing marketing team circling back from the beginning is not gonna have the time to do.
Terri Hoffman [00:47:48]:
Right. Yeah. And they might not have the experience. They might not they might not know how. But once somebody gives them the guidelines and creates that framework, they’re gonna have the best access to all the subject matter experts in their company to go and put those materials together. Right? But sometimes they just need the road map, and they it the instruction and the, well, what we call the schema map to to figure out how to put that together. Right?
Jonti Bolles [00:48:14]:
I love it when we can present that kind of map to a client and they just light up and then because now they have a direction, and you called it a road map, a blueprint, you know, whatever it is. You know, they know they need to do these things, but if you can break it down and give them a clear path, you can just see them light up and get excited about their jobs again. It’s beautiful.
Terri Hoffman [00:48:32]:
Yep. Yeah. It is. It’s really awesome. Well, I wanna shift gears into some fun rapid fire questions if you’re up for that.
Jonti Bolles [00:48:42]:
Mhmm. Let’s do it.
Terri Hoffman [00:48:43]:
I know. So this one will be so hard for you to answer, the one that I’m gonna start with. What is your favorite trip that you’ve ever taken? Because you’re quite the traveler.
Jonti Bolles [00:48:54]:
We did a digital nomad stand for about 4 years, but my favorite trip I ever took was in grad school. I spent a summer in Italy. Oh. And then stayed another 6 weeks just roaming around, backpacking it. And there, yes, it was beautiful and it was but most of all, it was impactful and it started my love of travel. Okay. Before that, I’d never really traveled internationally. And so I think getting that different broad scope and just be having an amazing experience started a lifetime of travel.
Terri Hoffman [00:49:24]:
Oh my gosh. How fun. I’m excited to hear that too because I’m going there in July. So
Jonti Bolles [00:49:29]:
Oh, I’ve been back several times. Let’s do this.
Terri Hoffman [00:49:32]:
Oh, okay. Cool. Next question. Is there a musical artist or a group, dead or alive, that you wish you could see in concert?
Jonti Bolles [00:49:44]:
I’m gonna go with alive, and I’m gonna say Sia because she hardly ever tours. She’s like this, you know, person that is very, you know, conservative and hidden back from, you know, from traveling or touring anymore, and her voice is magical. To see that and hear it live, I think, would be, a treat.
Terri Hoffman [00:50:03]:
Wow. I don’t you know what? I really have to say, I don’t know much of her music, so I’m gonna have to check that out now. I’m so stuck in my eighties, seventies music.
Jonti Bolles [00:50:11]:
The range is phenomenal.
Terri Hoffman [00:50:13]:
Oh, well, I’m gonna check her out. What is the number one book that you find yourself constantly recommending to people?
Jonti Bolles [00:50:21]:
I’m gonna stay with the business book, and it’s kind of old school. It’s a book called Winning by Jack Welch. Jack Welch was kind of this CEO that turned around General Motors way back in the day, and the practices out of it were might seem a little harsh even sometimes. They seem harsh at that time. But I think some of that as a differentiation or, how he celebrated employees were different than how we think about it. And I think having that perspective of what worked then for winning and what worked and he had some controversial ideas. So I think they’re worth balancing and and reading and learning about because it many people will say it doesn’t apply today, but there are things in there that still apply today.
Terri Hoffman [00:51:07]:
Okay. Interesting. Last question. What is the best job you’ve ever had?
Jonti Bolles [00:51:13]:
Probably 2.
Terri Hoffman [00:51:14]:
Okay.
Jonti Bolles [00:51:14]:
1 was just, in high school was a fun ice cream server. Just working with people and making people happy. Right? And then this, because I’ve been doing this for it’s nothing I ever studied in school. I have a degree in Architecture. I have a degree in Finance, but search engine marketing lights me up because it constantly changes. I’ve been doing this. I used to say I had a 7 year itch for careers. It’s about every 7 years I would change amazing careers from to teaching at a university to now.
But now I combine all those things, and I never get bored because it changes around me. There’s always something to learn, always something to push forward with, and I get to teach people. So it brings and I get to work directly with clients. So all of those things have come together in what I’m doing now.
Terri Hoffman [00:52:00]:
Wow. That that was a really good description of all of the reasons why you love it, and I can see that absolutely comes through in how you operate every day. So that’s that’s awesome to hear. It’s always yeah. I it’s so I feel so fortunate to love my job as much as you love your job, especially when I talk to friends who hate their jobs. And I’m like, oh, I’m sorry, but I can’t relate because I absolutely love what I do. I can’t imagine ever giving it up, you know, and stopping. It’s so much fun.
Jonti Bolles [00:52:30]:
Yeah. I spent last last Friday afternoon, a week ago today, I went down to the Apple Store, and we did the Apple Vision Pro demo. Oh. And I called it work because for research. Well, it is. Yeah. Again, it is. It’s going to change.
It’s gonna be another one of those things that pushes us into a different direction and how are our clients and our business and our messages going to show up in, you know, spatial reality. So, I can’t wait, you know, for things to keep changing. I love it.
Terri Hoffman [00:53:03]:
Yeah. Well, I’m really glad you didn’t have one of those mishaps that you see all the time on social media where people, like, run full force into a wall or into another person. So sounds like your experience was better.
Jonti Bolles [00:53:18]:
Don’t rule it out. It was pretty good. I wanted to pet the rhino baby rhino that was right up here next to me. So
Terri Hoffman [00:53:24]:
Oh my gosh. That’s hilarious. Well, this has been an awesome conversation. Really fun. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. And, again, Jonti, if there is a way that you’d want somebody to follow-up or connect with you, what’s the best way for someone to do that?
Jonti Bolles [00:53:40]:
Wonderful. Again, we’ll answer questions. I love to teach, however that works for someone that shows up. Whodigitalstrategy.com is our website, or you can find me on LinkedIn at Jonti Bowles.
Terri Hoffman [00:53:53]:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. We’ll include those links in our show notes too just in case people are looking at the episode on our website so they can easily link over to you. But, again, have a great rest of your week weekend, and thank you so much for taking the time to join us today.
Thanks for listening. Please be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast channel and leave us a review. We’d love to hear from you. You can connect with me on LinkedIn or visit our website at marketingrefresh.com.