What’s really holding your content back? In this episode of the Missing Half podcast, Joanna Track, founder of Good Eggs and Co., shares what most B2B companies get wrong when it comes to content, and how to fix it. Her mantra: serve before you sell. With a background in finance and a passion for analytics-driven storytelling, Joanna unpacks how manufacturers and B2B brands can build trust and convert audiences with authentic content.
With decades of experience building content that converts, Joanna breaks down why the “everything everywhere” approach fails, and why strategic, prioritized content wins. You’ll hear how to simplify your message, align your sales team, and get more value from less effort. From helping marketing teams of one succeed to guiding companies through strategic content pivots, this episode delivers practical insights and inspiration for any B2B brand looking to grow with content.
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Bill: Thank you for joining the Missing Half podcast where we're discovering what's missing in manufacturing and B2B marketing. I have very special guest with me today, an expert in content marketing, Joanna Track. She's the founder of Good Eggs and Co., a content marketing expert and a self-described eternal entrepreneur. And Joanna, certainly from your LinkedIn bio and seeing what you've done throughout your entire career, you are an eternal entrepreneur. So welcome.
Joanna: I am, thank you. Some call that a masochist, but I call it an entrepreneur.
Bill: Yeah. So the Missing Half podcast is not generally a therapy session for entrepreneurs because I would have a zillion episodes and we would all be in that on the couch experience. I think each of us as entrepreneurs probably need to spend more time on, but…
Joanna: Yes, that's not for today.
Bill: That's right. That's right. So maybe Joanna, give us a quick overview of your journey with Good Eggs and Co. Your current venture and kind of what you're doing there and what brought you to this moment, the problems you're trying to solve and just what you're doing for your clients.
Joanna: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. It's so great to be here, Bill. So I'm really excited to chat. So to tell you why, you know, I'm doing this today, I'll just take you on a brief tour of my past, which will explain why this is, you know, I'm so passionate about what I'm doing now. I did sort of grow up in the advertising world, working at some of the big agencies, but actually prior to that, I did my undergraduate degree in mathematics and my MBA in finance, which is a shock to a lot of people because I now run a content marketing firm and I've built a lot of digital businesses. But the thread is that even, so early on in my life, nevermind career, I have this strong aptitude towards numbers. But when I once, I had the good fortune of actually finding out very early in my career, like right out of the gate, that even though I was inclined towards that, I didn't enjoy it. So literally, my entry level job, I switched gears and moved into marketing because it was something that just really interested me. I did my MBA. I found those topics to be the most interesting. And what I discovered early on then was that there was this middle ground of being in marketing, but still being able to be analytically focused. And to age myself, this was before the internet. So at the time it was direct marketing. And so I found myself at Ogilvy and Maither working in Ogilvy One in the direct marketing group and really understanding at the time this is direct mail, radio, all those kinds of things. But where it's relevant today is it's just new channels, but same best practice principles. And what I really loved was that marriage between brand messages and building an image and then that direct interaction and a call to action and a result and more measurable aspects of it. And so even today in Good Eggs, which I'll talk about, you know, there's so much of that baked into it. And so, you know, was working in that corporate space, but then had the entrepreneurial bug. And in the early 2000s, had an idea for an email newsletter publication, which back then was such a novel concept because up until then, email marketing was actually dominated by B2B at that time because it was like, you're out of printer paper. Oh you need ink, that kind of thing. So this shift into consumer facing, editorial style email was so new and it started in the US. I don't think I mentioned yet, I am in Canada. And so I was one of the first to bring it to Canada in a consumer facing editorial format. And it was a really exciting time. It was like the wild west of that digital journey. And so not only did I grow business and have a successful exit, but I really cemented my passion and my reputation in digital content. And so it was interesting because I've gone from agency side to being a client per se and also being a media property. So learning all those things together. Then on my journey, then my second venture was in the e-commerce space, but it was really couched in a content meets commerce, sorry, content meets commerce perspective. So then I was learning all sorts of sides of the business, but again, really driving through that storytelling, using content to convert, which is really the thesis of Good Eggs today. So fast forward. I took all my learnings. I did launch a few other digital publications along the way, but then even in between and now was providing consultative services to other brands who were trying to grow using content. And so the mantra of Good Eggs today is that we develop content that converts. And by convert, that doesn't only mean like a sale. Convert might mean to build your audience. It might be, you know, to shift perception. So and I'm, I just really believe so strongly in that. And especially today where media is so proliferated, people don't know who to believe, influencers, all that, having authentic, engaging content that also works towards your business objectives is critically important in any marketing mix. And I think when you and I first met, we also agreed on the fact that today almost every piece of marketing is content marketing. I mean, there's only a few things that I think really fall outside of that. And you could probably argue everything is content at this point.
Bill: Well, Joanna, I think that's interesting, your perspective. And let's go back to what you originally said. You started out in finance or finance, depending on which school you went to, right? I also studied finance as my senior professor used to call it, corporate finance. He always used to say he was from Texas, but anyway, we won't go down that path. But one of the things I've observed as I've interviewed and had conversations with a lot of marketing experts, many of them come from outside of the traditional marketing education space. Some of the most successful marketing folks that I really look up to and really benchmark against one was a lawyer or where he's from in Australia, George Coudounaris. He's a solicitor because they call them solicitors in Australia, not lawyers. But anyway, these folks, there's some engineers who do a really good job. And I think one of the issues we're running into is we have a convergence of creative plus analytics. And you have to be able to do both because if you're talking about content that converts, we not only have to be creative, it has to be interesting, it has to be engaging, has to attract attention and really message well and present well. But it also has to do something. And we now have the ability to measure what those pieces of content do. And like you said, it's not all like getting a 12 million dollar contract. Some of it's just to grow the subscriber list or some of it's just to attract eyeballs and make people problem aware or whatever. So I think that's so telling. When you think about your journey here with Good Eggs and content marketing and content that converts, what do you like? Do you have like a fundamental framework that you focus on that really helps drive the mission of your organization with your clients?
Joanna: Yes. So we have, we have a lot of mantras here at Good Eggs and one of them is serve before you sell, which really drives everything we do. And so that is about giving something before the ask. So when you're building content, what are you going to give to the end user? And then another one of our isms is it should be one of the three E's, if not more, which is entertain, enlighten, and or educate. And so if you're building your content, you should always be mapping it back to what, is it achieving one of these three E's and are we giving something before we're asking for something? The thing with content marketing too that differs from a lot of traditional let's call it brand advertising is you're playing the long game. There's not instant gratification. It's really, it's the opposite of performance marketing. And I'm not suggesting that one is better than the other, but a lot of people, a lot of brands come in with the mindset that they want to see the immediate reaction. And it's more that you have to put it out there and continue to build. Content marketing builds a relationship and that relationship over time will bear fruit and it will generate a stronger vibe, but it's not going to be instantaneous.
Bill: I think one of the things we run into when we started this conversation, maybe talking about a little bit of like counseling and needing therapy. And I think one of the jobs we face as agency leaders is with our clients in that there comes a moment during the process, especially when you're doing long-term branding, content marketing, and really building like demand gen over time, where they have these crises of commitment. And they've been in for four months and they haven't landed that huge deal, right? Their pipeline is starting to show signs of growth, but it hasn't just blossomed. And we have to talk them through those moments. Do you see that as part of the process that you have to deal with with your clients at times?
Joanna: Every day of my life, Bill, every day. And you know, I mean, it's always, you know, we can laugh about the client this, the client that, and you know, I do empathize. They have their own pressure, their deadlines, and if you're working with them as an agency, they're justifying your existence and your budget. And so they have other, we always say, always have someone to answer to, whether it's your own business or you're an employee, everyone's answering to someone. And so the best thing I can always say to those people is, you know, just take a breath and you know, and you always want to be able to give some results. So, you know, maybe you haven't closed the deal, but you know, for example, right now we're working with a fintech client and our whole mandate is lead gen for the sales team. And it's taken months and months to seed the market with what I call the foundation and the fundamentals. Redoing the website, redoing all their trade show materials, all these things take time to build a new persona. And no, we haven't generated a lead that closed a deal yet, but we've amassed a large following on LinkedIn. We've tripled the traffic to the website, all these things. So giving people some of those nuggets, they can then go to the people they have to answer to and say, okay, we're not there yet, but we can see the seedlings are starting to, the roots are coming through from the underground.
Bill: Whenever you help your clients shift from that pure promotional, right? Like, hey, let's just run some search ads or buy now, right? And we're not talking about D2C or Amazon type of products. We're talking about B2B or like you're saying, fintech. There is no buy now button that someone just did the research today and is going to sign up for it. How do you help your clients shift from that promotional content mindset to like a content mindset that actually like you said in your three E's, entertains, educates, and enlightens?
Joanna: Yeah, I'm a big fan of analogies and examples. And one of the ones that I toss all the time, and it's just such a simple one is, you know, with educating people on LinkedIn. So, you know, big B2B brand. And a lot of this comes in generalizations, but you know, their feed is full of, we just hired Joe Smith as our latest sales executive. Cheers. You know, we just won this award, industry, you know, best in class award. congratulations to so and so for whatever. What value does that add to the end user? I'm not saying there's not a place for those, but if that is your feed and you're not giving the user or, you know, what are you using it for? What is your objective? You want to build up your thought leadership, your authority, your credibility. Most likely the people who are clicking and engaging in that post are the people who already either work for you or are your clients. And so you're just speaking into an echo chamber essentially. And so to answer your question, by giving that example to people, that's usually when they have the aha moment. I say, what do you think the end user wants to, you know, why are they logging into LinkedIn every day? They want to learn something.
Bill: Not to learn about your awards.
Joanna: No, they want to learn something. They want to be inspired. They want to find a lead for their business and their goals and their boss that they have to answer to. So how are you going to help them?
Bill: Whenever you look at this process, and I couldn't agree more because I think when you look at some of that content is important to communicate mission, vision, values, to communicate culture in retention marketing strategies, to attract and retain clients and reward, those are all good things. But when we're talking about content marketing that's gonna convert, that's gonna grow your business and activate a market, it's not those items. Can you think of some examples of how you've taken a company from that internal echo chamber to really positioning themselves like towards that target market, maybe, and not to name clients, but just some examples generally about what you've seen work really well?
Joanna: Yeah. So, you know, the same client scenario we've been on this journey with, you know, so taking the LinkedIn feed, it's like we said, and I agree with you, it's not about getting rid of that content, but it's making it a pillar and part of a bigger picture. And so it's that every piece has to have its place and it's a purpose. So, you know, that is part of, you know, employee branding and culture and all that sort of, you know, supporting that part of the company's persona. And then there's the value, the giving, the serving before you sell. But it also, I mean, we just went through an exercise with developing a lead magnet. And it was so tempting for the people on the sales team to say, oh, no, no, but we're not pitching our products in here. And I had to say, yeah, but.
Bill: Sorry, that's so good. That's so good.
Joanna: And so I love that you're laughing because this is the pain point that we as marketers see all the time. And I said, I know, because this is to educate and give value to somebody and to show that we know what we're talking about. The pitch will come when they say, wow, interesting. When we, when we start to put on this, it's like building your authority and it just doesn't happen overnight. So it's about always taking them on that journey and explaining the why and asking the question back. And so a lot of the times I will say, what is your objective? You know? And the other thing I always say, cause a lot of, again, it's a generalization, but in a lot of B2B marketing, you are focused on lead gen. And it's lead gen for the sales team. I mean, there's scenarios that are else, but like you and I think a lot, that's what we deal with. And so they're like, well, I wanna sell something. Like, okay, but you can't sell something to someone who doesn't actually believe that you know what you're talking about. And then the other thing I always say to people is, they're like, well, sales, sales, sales, we have to focus on sales, sales, sales. And I say, do you know what another word for selling is? And they'll say yes, I’ll say to market. You are marketing your product. Ergo, you need marketing to do sales.
Bill: I love it. I had a conversation a number of weeks ago with a client not to be named and we were going over the leads that we had generated and they were like, yeah, we only got 17 leads this week and only two of those turned into quotes. And I was like, average quote is a million dollars plus in pipeline. And if we maintain that pace, we would like 40x your business. Where's my green jacket?
Joanna: Yeah, are you even in a position to handle that much business?
Bill: Absolutely. And the answer is no. I personally know that. Like I know that fact about that business that if we keep on that pace, what should be able to happen is over the course of the year, they should be able to raise their prices and they should be able to be very picky and choosy about what business they take. That's very, very aligned with what they do, not take business they don't want. So, yeah, I think when we talk to sales and we're talking about, OK, content that that educates, entertains, and enlightens. When we talk about developing content that converts and serves first, I love these isms you have. It's very difficult until you show sales. Now, the beauty of it is salespeople and the sales function, as soon as they find something that works, generally they claim it is their idea, which is great. So adoption is really quick in that we generally don't see that in the finance or engineering suites in companies, but sales will like moth to a flame. But I really love that. And that's interesting. One of the things I want to ask you about as well is, this is something we've been toying with as a concept when we talk to our experts. And it's kind of going with this theme of doing more with less. Or like the biblical reference to David and Goliath, like that historical perspective. One of my theories is that there has never been a moment, or at least in the past 20 years, there is not a moment like there is today in 2025, where challenger brands and Davids can go up against the Goliaths in the industry in a very strategic way without spending $10 million and adding $5 million in payroll and, and, and, and, and, and they can compete really quickly because if they're strategic and prioritized and really invest in the right things today, could you maybe talk about that David and Goliath kind of paradigm and those two points and what you're seeing in the market?
Joanna: Yeah, well, I love what you said because I, you know, and I'll go deeper into it, but the strategic and prioritize are the key to success when you're the challenger brand. Um, but you know, I mean, the good, bad, ugly of the world we live in today is that there's been a democratization of tools, right? I mean, in 2011, when I launched my e-commerce business, it cost me almost $300,000 to build the site. And 18 months later, Shopify came on the scene and it cost nothing for people. So and the same with, you know, ESPs, email service providers, the same with, there's so many, social media. I mean, you can get your message out for pennies now, but just because you can get it out for pennies doesn't mean it's going to land. So how do you make it land? And it's strategy and prioritization. And so one of the things that I really encourage the Davids is to pick a channel and kick ass on it. Make that your channel. It's better to do one thing really, really well than try to be everywhere. And so, and that doesn't, I'm not just talking in social media, you know, maybe email, maybe it's a newsletter, maybe it's a podcast, maybe it's, you know, whatever it is, but pick that lane and own it. Like really lean in and put all your energy and just follow it like like crazy to, you know, iron out the kinks and perfect it and become famous for it.
Bill: What do you think, Joanna, about the concept of one channel, one message, one offer? I've heard this construct kicked around. What I always struggle with, and I think everyone does, is, okay, I want to make sure we offer them everything. Everything we do, if we're going to send them a postcard, there needs to be six-point font on the postcard, basically fine print, everything. What is your, so if we stay in this David and Goliath kind of mindset and we say, OK, we're going to pick one channel and stay in that lane. How critical is that offer? And when we think about it, the offer, can it be something we're selling or do we have to flip back to this content and serve first and give something away to get them to engage and start to be part of our process and get in our funnel?
Joanna: So I guess the answer would be it depends only because for some, you know, getting them right to the cell might be cheaper if it's, you know, you might be able to give someone like the offer might be a discount on something if they're in a position to buy. But to your point in a B2B space where the buy is a million dollar investment, sending a postcard with a discount is probably not gonna get them to the finish line. That said, you know, it's again, it's that longer-term thinking and getting away from instant gratification. You might only have one channel, one message, one offer in that particular moment, but you're just asking to take them on a journey. So say it's a postcard, say it's an email and the email is, you know, here's the offer. Click in to learn more about this, download this lead magnet. Then when you have the lead magnet, you know, reach out to us for a free demo. Oh have the free demo. Like you're taking them on a journey. You know, and the other thing that I often say to people too, is like when they try for the incident, you know, click now and buy, it's a lot smaller hurdle to ask someone for a smaller ask, like ratchet up the ask. You know, come to my website and subscribe to my free newsletter is a lot easier than to get someone to make a purchase or make a commitment or book a meeting. And we talk a lot of people, especially on the consumer side with e-commerce, you know, they want the conversion rate up, they want to sell, they want to sell. And I say, you know how valuable that email address is to you? Just get them, ask them for their email and nothing else. And also not a form where they have to fill out five fields. Ask them for their email address. You can ask for the rest later. Once they trust you.
Bill: Sure. No, I love that. I think the other next natural progression in a conversation about this topic is to then talk about the Department of One. So if we believe that David can slay Goliath, that we as challenger brands and the small fish can really outperform, outmaneuver, and just really thrive in the market, one of the challenges we see, and I'd like to get your perspective on it, is we see a lot of companies whenever they really want to make a move and they believe in the David and Goliath story and they want to be that hero. Their first move is to hire a person or a, maybe like, let's go crazy here, two people. That's, yeah, I know crazy talk. Let's go back. They hire one person and it's the marketing department of one. And then we're seeing the requirements and the demands on that person to execute a complex marketing function, just really stymie the entire organization because it creates paralysis because there's too many things to do. Can you maybe talk about what you've seen in that space and what recommendations you may give for the C-suite and or maybe some hope you could offer that marketing manager as they go in this journey?
Joanna: Yeah, no, and I really feel for those people and sadly I do see it all the time. And you know, it's a very unrealistic expectation that expect someone to come in and be a great copywriter and a strategist and a video editor and a social media guru and an email expert. I mean, you're looking for a unicorn and they don't exist. And so I really do think it's unfair, especially when, you know, C-suite executives come in with not out a knowledge of marketing. The other thing I think you and I have spoken about is everyone thinks they are a marketer because they know how to spell and write a sentence. So they say, oh, of course our marketing manager can write the ad. They know how to write. So it's already, they're already set up sort of in an unfair scenario, but they hired a marketing person. So they obviously at least have some faith that they need a marketing person, if not yet a team. And you know a lot of the genesis of why Good Eggs was created and our model is because of those marketing departments of one and what I say to them is fractional the resources are your friend? and that is how you know a freelance copywriter, a freelance video editor those are the people they're going to be your friend because the truth is you probably don't need that resource sitting at a desk every day of the week, five days a week. You can be very efficient with your dollars and managing those resources in that way. So I really encourage them to find that support system of, you know, whether, I mean, of course, you know, that's what we do and we love to talk to people, but even if you can't find a company that provides all those resources, you can find them in a myriad of ways. And then the other thing is, you know, I don't think there's a level of, you know, an executive team or a board, a board of directors who would say no to someone who proved that there was ROI on the efforts. So, you know, I always am again, my analytical background is test, learn, optimize. So get into market with a small test, prove that it bears fruit. You know, the ROI on this paid campaign was four to one. So you don't mean. You mean to tell me you're not willing to give me more budget so that can drive more business? I mean, you're usually gonna win that argument, but you're not gonna win it when you come out and say, I need a million dollars to do a paid ad campaign.
50 Marketing break
Bill: One of the things I think is challenging for especially younger marketing managers is they are aware of the pool of talent of freelancers, but they do not yet have the skills to manage them and or have the ability or the experience to write the briefs to extract the work that is needed from a freelance expert. Right. Because like you and I've been around a little while. If we just hire a freelance copywriter and say, I need some copy. You're going to get some copy. I mean, let's be honest, throw it into Chat or Perplexity or whatever and see what pops. Like, cause that's what you're going to get. If you have a well-written brief that might be two or three pages long, maybe more, you might have, you know, some other background information and target market, their pain point, like all of those things have to be constructed and assembled to send a proper brief even to a freelance copywriter to get a very small piece of copy that's going to resonate. And we haven't even gone into the presentation. We certainly haven't talked about video, like social posts. I mean, it goes on and on. So I think one of the challenges in this department of one is there is a myth that is perpetuated about the availability of freelancers who can execute at a high level. Because what we've seen, and I'd like to get your take on this, is if you hire a freelancer who's really good and who can just like, they're almost like a small agency because they know how to extract the information. They know how, they have frameworks and they have all those things. They're not a freelancer. They're an agency. Right. So if you hire that freelance resource, they're too expensive for the marketing manager to assemble into their team because they're very expensive for that one thing. If you have someone who's just like, Hey, I'm a set of hands, send me the stuff and I'll do it. Generally they're more cost-effective, but the marketing manager is ill-equipped to deal with them and manage them, send them a good brief and ask them the right questions to get the best work out of them. Do you see that kind of like tension or struggle whenever that department of one is trying to figure out like, okay, should I try and go with an agency? Or should I just try and assemble this and cobble it together with a bunch of freelancers? What are you seeing there? And this is something I struggle with.
Joanna: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a multi. Yeah, it's a multifaceted issue. And I have seen it. I have seen some solves. I mean, you you could get philosophical and say, then that's on the leadership team that hired that marketing manager. If you're going to only rely on a team of one, then you got to make sure that one understands strategy and writing a brief and like they know how to ask the right questions because you're already set up for failure if that's the case. So, okay. So let's assume now you have someone who can decently conduct that role. But you know, what I'm seeing is in the market, you know, there is the large tried and true agencies. There's a lot of boutique agencies, but also there is now this real trend towards fractional marketing resources at all levels. So, you you can hire a fractional CMO, you can hire, and so you could essentially, you know, I've seen scenarios where you have a mid-level marketing manager in the corporation and you hire a fractional CMO to oversee, educate, give them the guidance and direction they need because your company is not in a position to need or afford a full-time CMO. So now that, I would say that's not on the marketing manager's responsibility to figure out that is on the senior leadership team or the board, whoever decided that they were ready to hire a marketing person. Then that is on them to figure out like you need to get the most out of that person. So like I said, either that person has to come in equipped to be able to fill that function, or you have to give that people, that person, some of the resource even on a fractional basis. Because to your point, it's such a colossal waste of time and money to send someone off, produce, whether it's copy, a video, whatever. That's not strategic.
Bill: Yes. Well and one of the things I think that's going to be a challenge because, I believe in the fractional CMO role, I think that makes a ton of sense for a lot of companies because it is the highest turnover position in the C-suite historically is CMO, right? Because generally what happens is we bring in this high paid person in six months, they haven't fixed all our problems. And whether this is a fair evaluation or not, doesn't matter. It's the C-suites money or the board's money, they're going to make a decision and the lack of patience. if they can de-risk that higher by making it a smaller hire and hoping that they can kind of prove it before they increase in engagement or fund a full-time role, I think that makes a lot of sense. We work with a number of fractional CMOs to support them because once they come up with this great strategy and they deliver it to a company and then the company is like, we can't do any of this. And so then they come to us and say, could you execute this amazing strategy for us? And in some cases we can, in some cases we can't. So, no, I think that that makes a ton of sense. One of the things I want to ask you about as well is thought leadership. We are seeing, it seems to me, a significant shift in the marketplace away from the company brand toward the C-suite, the owner, the founder, the spokesperson, whatever you want to call it, the thought leader, right? What are you seeing in the market around personal branding and thought leadership and social selling and what experiences have you had?
Joanna: Well, yeah, to start, I'd have to say on the whole, I love that that's happening because it's the counter or reaction to AI and deep fakes and all that other and, you know, businesses that, you know, these in the consumer space, especially, you know, on Instagram and there's all these products and they're going to solve all your problems and then trying to find who's behind them or where they come from or, you know what their claims is virtually impossible. So you feel like you're being had or, you’re being sold a bill of goods. So I love this focus on the thought leaders themselves. And I coach companies all the time. You know, they, they want to stay, they want to be behind the curtain or the screen and let their brand do all the, the singing and the dancing. And I see this a lot too with CEOs, especially they're like, well, if I go on LinkedIn and people are gonna think I'm self-serving and I'm just trying to promote myself and not the company. And I always say to them, people fall in love with people more than brands. They are inspired by people. So it's not to say that you shouldn't be spending and investing on building your brand's image, but especially when it comes to thought leadership, like people aren't gonna, you're not, a leader is a human. There's experience and insights and a lot of thought leadership comes from mistakes made. And you know, that's the best learning you can get is to learn from other people's mistakes. So it just can't ever be as authentic as it can from a person. And in the world of AI, like that is the edge that we as humans have on AI, is to share our learnings and our mistakes and come out there and be vulnerable. And that as a result is gonna, people are gonna believe and trust you.
Bill: No, I love that. And I now know this is like a light bulb moment for me because about a year and a half ago, our team said, Bill, you need to go out and be the personal brand and do this thought leadership and launch the podcast. And I was somewhat flattered at the time, but I think you've cut to the true essence of it. I'm the one who makes the most mistakes and was willing to be vulnerable enough about it. So that that's that was the short straw that I drew in that equation. What, when you look at companies that are using social selling plus personal branding. So certainly I agree with you. I think we need the C-suite, the owner, the founder, some larger-than-life leader who can kind of be that face and really push the brand forward and get connections. Do you also see a trickle down effect whenever you can get the sales team or other thought leaders in the business to participate specifically on LinkedIn? And we're not talking, they don't have to publish like a doctoral thesis or anything like that, but just learnings and technical information, technical perspectives, industry perspectives. Do you see a compounding effect that occurs whenever you get that alignment, not only from the C-suite, but into the other departments of the company?
Joanna: Absolutely. I mean, you know, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. So, you know, the more people you have contributing to the conversation and the dialogue, then I mean, from a just an energy perspective, you know, you're raising the energy, but from an actual like algorithm and gaming the system perspective, you're also, you know, you're making more noise, you're rising to the top. So you know, just take an example. So you have a brand that's, we'll take LinkedIn, you have a brand that's posting on LinkedIn and then you have the C-levels or the CEO. And then now all of sudden you have two or three of the salespeople and they're commenting on each other and they're like, you're all of a sudden the algorithm is like, okay, like I'm going to follow these people because they're making noise, but they're making good noise and people are engaging with them and they're interesting. So it's a, you know, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. Then it begets more interaction and more dialogue and more followers. And so I absolutely believe in the value of that. However, going back to our previous points about strategy, if there's not a strategy baked into that, if everyone is just off shooting whatever they want, then you're in for a disaster. So there has to be, know, in our world, content marketing world, our lingo is our content pillars. You know, so we decide for the brand, what are our pillars, our areas that we're going to stay in our lanes. And then, so there's usually a multi-level thing. The brand has its content pillars and then each individual has their content pillars. And that's also what makes it more authentic. So for example, working with a client where we're now developing LinkedIn strategies for each salesperson, you want to show the person. So you know, in one case, it's a female head of sales and she really believes in women's empowerment and supporting women in sales. So one of her pillars is that, well, it's obviously not going to be for one of the other salespeople who's male. But that person really believes in giving back and charity. And so by incorporating that into their pillars and into their content calendar and what they talk about, it shows the person as a whole. And then it goes back to people are inspired by people. So everyone has to have that own sort of personal slant in order to make it real along with the business messaging.
Bill: So when we think about the content pillars, and I love this, when we think about the content pillars that we're trying to create for maybe it's the sales team, maybe it's the head of engineering, design, whatever, right? That mid-level management, mid-level subject matter expert at a company. And they have a cause, right? They have their cause, women empowerment, giving back, Habitat for Humanity, whatever their cause is. How do we then also give good guidance around product, service, perspective, a cause within the company to make sure that it's resonating in that market as well. Like, you have any guidance or anything you've seen work really well or fail completely in trying to build those content pillars for each of those kind of personal brands in the market?
Joanna: So just so I make sure I'm getting it straight, you saying like, so someone's personal pillars might conflict or overlap with the company’s? Is that the question?
Bill: Okay, so let's say for instance, we have someone who's a salesperson and they want to launch their personal brand or the company's encouraging them to. And certainly, if they're selling a fintech product or an industrial manufacturing product, they need to leave their personal branding, but they also need to talk about the subject. Because if not, then the CFO is going to be at the meeting. We don't care about your brand. Yeah.
Joanna: No, then yeah, that's going to be a problem. Yeah, absolutely. So I hear what you're saying there. Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, that's why there's pillars and they, they, always say the pillars are like, it's like the architecture that builds the house. So you can't have just one, you need, you know, to have multiple. And so it's the multiple that allow you to build that full picture. And then even when you have a pillar that is, let's call it more on the personal level, giving back, women's empowerment. It still has to thread back to the message. So again, back to the salesperson analogy, you know, that person might talk about giving back. They might talk about how they use their sales skills to help raise money for the cause. So there's always a thread. It can't be just random, sort of throwing stuff out there.
Bill: I love that. I think whenever we're trying to encourage people to do this, because let's be honest, if you have most of the workforce that's 35 plus, they didn't grow up with this stuff. This is all foreign to them and then it's very binary. They're either all in or they're all out. I had a conversation with the sales team the other day and not one of them was willing to post on LinkedIn. I'm never accused of being speechless. That's not something that Bill experiences in his life. There have been a couple of moments in my life and this was one of them because I didn't have an answer. The CEO is looking at me like, what should we do? I'm like, I don't know, man. I don't know. I got to go back. I got to find some research. Because the right answer in that room was not fire all the salespeople. That was not the right answer. And I'm not a change coach. Like my role there was not to motivate the team or have like this Tony Robbins moment where we now we're, you know, manifesting and doing cold plunges or whatever. So the it was it was just a wild moment. And but no, I think we're seeing this moment arrive where social selling and personal branding are going to become a line item on the budget in the marketing mix, not a nice to have, not a, well, we see some people in our market. No, everybody's got to be doing it. It is so critical. I've seen it work for our company. I've seen it work for a number of our clients and it works really well. It will get noisier. It will become more difficult as more, there are more entrants, but it seems to me to kind of be table stakes in the, you know, in 2025. So, Joanna, one of the things we ask every guest as part of the Missing Half is, know, what's missing, what's worked really, really well, and what has absolutely failed. Do you, and without naming names, do you have any like campaigns or anything that you've had that you've like, I thought this was going to be amazing. And it just absolutely cratered and nothing may come to mind. And if that's true, like bless you for that string of success. But is there anything that you can think of in the topics we've discussed where you've seen something absolutely crater that you could share or something that's gone really, really well that surprised you that was just, you know, you couldn't just look at a report. If we do put in X, we get Y. Yeah, we did that. We put in X, we got Y. Well, anybody can do that, right? Theoretically. Any thoughts on that topic?
Joanna:Yeah, mean, I have a client that I saw last year, year before. They spent a very large amount of money on a brand awareness campaign. This is actually not B2B, but I think it's completely relevant. And actually, it's for a charity. And they were really happy. So they did a brand measurement study afterwards and they were so thrilled. Their brand's affinity score went through the roof. Their conversion, and for them conversion was donations, was abysmal. Abysmal. And they were so disappointed. They spent a lot of money. And then they looked back and hindsight is 2020, is they were looking, it was the wrong goal, right? Brand awareness is brand awareness. And I would go back to my other argument was why don't you just ask for their email address and get them on the newsletter? Like you had to go all the way and ask them for a donation? Like you're trying to raise awareness of the cause and like they they skipped steps. And I think it's just such an applicable lesson is like you can't put all, Good Eggs. You can't put all your eggs in one basket. You can't ask one thing to do so many things. Like you said, the postcard thing. Like you can't ask for too many things at one shot. And so that is the fail. And I mean, I saw it big time, like the cringing of like, they didn't even come close to hitting their goal.
Bill: So I think this also ties into, I read a post that you had on LinkedIn recently. It was branding, say everything and communicate nothing. And this would also add on to that where it's like communicate nothing and ask for nothing. Right. Because if you're going to say a nonprofit spends a couple of million dollars in brand awareness and then doesn't get any value out of it other than an affinity score. Well affinity scores cannot be spent at the bank. Right. They don't, they don't pay the people who are doing the work or whatever the charity was funding and the good work they were doing. So do you see in branding initiatives where people are trying to pile too much on and say everything? OK, so maybe talk about that a little bit.
Joanna: Yeah, I mean I see that it's all the time. It's again like trying to cram all the messages into one post or one email or as opposed to like taking them on the journey. Like let's use this moment to talk about this thing and ask for this thing. Or you know, let's talk about something today and ask them for something tomorrow. Everyone's just so, they're so nervous. This is their last shot and if we don't and if we miss this then they're gonna not know we don't do this and we do that. But unfortunate result is that you gain nothing. You lose people's, you know, we live in a world right now where everyone has ADD, right? Messages are shorter and shorter, people's time spent. So you just tried jamming six messages when you had time for one. So pick your one.
Bill: No, I think that makes a ton of sense because we really recommend direct mail as a channel in 2025 because the reality is we need to present the message of the company, whether that's us or whether that's our clients, to the audience where they live, where they interact. And some audiences are not on Meta. Some audiences are not active on LinkedIn. It's just different audiences have different characteristics, different behaviors. So when we look at that direct mail piece, I feel like direct mail is really, I mean, all it is is an Instagram post printed on paper.
Joanna: I love direct mail. I just have to say for a minute, that's where I started my career and I absolutely love it because, especially now, it's a renaissance because direct mail is the only place where you can get someone away from their phone. All the other messages are going through their phone, so you're competing with all the messages.
Bill: Yeah, so this is a great topic. So let's talk about pattern interrupters. So if we want to do social media posts and we're doing videography and we're doing it, like there are lists and I've seen these guides and we have these for our videographers like, hey, we need pattern interrupters that we can layer in with these social posts so that we can get people's attention. A piece of direct mail may be in fact the greatest tangible pattern interruption or interrupter that we can as marketers use today because it's not like, you know, you're, on LinkedIn and then a notice comes up or a call, whatever, right? The phone's just, it's, it is ADHD perpetuated every day, every day. I firmly believe in direct mail have used it a ton in my career. I agree with you and maybe it is the biggest pattern interrupter. Have you seen that work in B2B?
Joanna: So to be honest, I I haven't done direct mail in a while, but as a receiver of it, I completely appreciate it because like I said, like it's the one time when you're away from your phone. So whether you're currently working in an office or working remotely, like it is the ultimate, like you're gonna sit at your desk and you're gonna say, oh what's this? You're gonna read it while you eat your lunch or, you know, sit at your kitchen counter, whatever it is. And even though your mailbox, and you might get a bunch of mail that's irrelevant, you're actually competing with a lot less messages than you are in the online world. So yeah, looking for those opportunities in whatever way I think are, you know, it's like everything old is new again, because, you know, the more things proliferate online, the more all of us are having fatigue and looking for ways to break it up. But of course, since the majority of us do spend a lot of our lives online, there are ways to have that pattern interruption in the online world. Whether it's video or something funny. Like all the things that, just back to the three E's. Like give someone a reason to stick around and continue to consume it.
Bill: One of our theories is that with RTO return to office now basically being a tremendous norm and the trends are heading that way that direct mail can have a bigger share of the marketing mix because we know that employees are back in the office. Now, certainly that we have to consider the target audience. If you're sending direct mail to huge companies with thousands of employees, it's much more difficult to make it through the mail room and get to specific people than it is per se in mid-market companies where they don't have this huge corporate mail room. But yeah, I think it's interesting to see everything new is, or everything old is new again. When you said you worked at Ogilvy, I mean, some of the principles from the ads and copy that he wrote basically is the format that Mr. Beast followed to build his YouTube Empire when you compare and contrast them, which is insane because that's like
Joanna: Right, David Ogilvy inspired Mr. Beast, yeah.
Bill: That's right. I mean when you look at when you look at the campaigns he wrote and some of the copy and then you look at what's on thumbnails, I mean, he was just before his time and would have thrived in this market. Well, Joanna, this has just been a fascinating conversation. I feel like we could dive into a ton of other topics, but I want to give you the opportunity here to tell our listeners where they can find you, how they can get in touch with you about Good Eggs. This is your shameless plug. We do this at the end of every episode. So here's your opportunity, shameless plug time.
Joanna: Thank you. Well, it has been so wonderful to talk to you. I know you and our kindred spirits, even though we've just met and I can talk for hours. So I look forward to continuing that. But yes, so obviously you can find me on LinkedIn and I have a lot to say. I post a lot of content and I give a lot because I have to practice what I preach. So yeah, I welcome everyone to follow me there. And also you can check out our website, which is goodeggsandco.com. I mentioned we are in Canada, but we work North America, Canada and the US and I guess my current pitch is that if you are in the US, then you can get us at a real discount because the Canadian dollar right now is not working in my favor, but it works in yours and would welcome the opportunity to speak to you and find out what you're working on and see if there is a way we could support you. But even just like I said, going for the easy ask, follow me on LinkedIn, comment on my posts, give me your point of view. I would love to hear from you.
Bill: I love that. Yeah. And there certainly are some things in the financial arbitrage going on in the market right now that are all kinds of things moving around for not only each of us, but all of our clients. Well, Joanna, this has just been a pleasure. I enjoy your content on LinkedIn. Have enjoyed your thought leadership there and your authority. You've caused me to think I've learned some things from this conversation, which I, one of the benefits of this podcast that I never foresaw or didn't understand, and maybe it was the lack of humility. I don't know what it was, but I learned something with every conversation, at least one something. And there's always a takeaway that I like jot down and then try to apply to the business and to our clients afterwards. So I've got like two or three from your conversation. So thank you so much.
Joanna: Amazing, thank you.
Bill: And thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. And we'll have to run this back again and see how we're doing here in a year or so.
Joanna: I would love that. Well, Bill, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
Bill: Thank you for joining the Missing Half Podcast where we're discovering what's missing in manufacturing and B2B marketing. Like, share, subscribe. Have a great day.