Executive Conversations

“If you're ever contemplating gating content, you need to make sure it's something that you would personally be comfortable giving your own information for, or maybe even paying for.”

Hello Hello and welcome to another episode of the Flying Cat Marketing Podcast. On episode 64 of the Flying Cat Marketing podcast, we’re with Erin Balsa, Founder and Chief Picky Editor at Erin Balsa Content Marketing, where she works with B2B companies whose content needs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Before founding her own company, Erin Balsa Content Marketing, Erin led content teams for 7 years—first as a managing editor at a content marketing agency, and then as head of content and marketing director at a high-growth B2B SaaS company called the Predictive Index.

If you’re looking to learn more about how Erin has been balancing high and low-intent leads and how you can do that in your own marketing strategy, then this is the episode for you.

During our conversation, we talk about content marketing metrics and how content marketers need to follow their users on their journeys, serve them the right content, and make sure they’re being nurtured throughout. 

Should you only focus on high-intent leads? Why is pursuing low-intent leads seen as the easiest way to reach your marketing metrics? How sustainable would that be? We answer these questions and more on our episode with Erin.

Tune in and be ready to change up your approach to content marketing!

In this episode:

• Why businesses should move away from the MQL model
• The dos and don'ts of content gating
• How to balance high-intent and low-intent leads
• Successful content plays
• The positive effects of Splash pages 

Timestamps 

02:08-06:14 Why are businesses moving away from the marketing-qualified lead (MQL) model?

06:15-08:15 Content gating mistakes you should avoid

08:16-11:00 Should you just focus on high-intent leads and hand-raisers?

11:01-12:26  Shifting to the AIDA model and doubling high-intent leads 

12:27-17:16 What’s the purpose of strategic gating?

17:17-19:55 More of Erin’s content play recommendations

19:56-21:22 How can Splash Pages affect your customer retention and expansion?

21:23-22:58 The next steps for Erin

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“Relying on your product marketer to be the only person that understands and talks to customers is a mistake.”

Hello Hello! On episode 63 of the Flying Cat Marketing podcast, we sat down with Camille Trent, the head of content marketing at Dooly, to discuss product marketing, its importance, and how content and product marketers can work together closely to bring value to the whole team. We start by asking the question: Are all content marketers product marketers?

Dooly is a sales enablement platform for revenue teams. The platform helps sales leaders, frontline managers, and account executives to close more deals and be more productive by making it easy for them to collect the right information and ask the right questions. 

In this episode, we do a deep dive into product marketing and answer questions like: What is product marketing? What exactly do product marketers do? What makes them an essential part of any company? And what can content marketers learn from them that would enable the content team to have a better understanding of the company and their clients?

According to Camille, “both product marketers and content marketers are storytellers and they should be working together to figure out what story they want to tell.” It’s important for content marketers to deeply understand their audience and product just as much as product marketers do. Content marketers need to ask themselves questions like: “what problem are we trying to solve and who are we trying to solve it for?” Tune in to understand the why behind this piece of advice and learn how these two teams of marketers can work together better.

Camille also tells us about how she provides the writers on her team with subject matter expertise. Making sure to point the writers in the right direction, building a content matrix, and making sure the writers understand the essence of the company are just some of the ways you can help writers out.

If you’re interested in learning more about how marketers can be more product-driven and what content marketers need to learn from product marketers, then this is definitely the episode for you.

In this episode: 

• Are all content marketers product marketers? 
• What is product marketing and why is it crucial?
• How to help writers with gathering subject matter expertise
• Can product marketing be outsourced?
• How can copywriters work more closely with the product marketing team
• Ways for marketers to be more product-driven

Connect with Camille Trent on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/camillehansentrent/


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“Another growth play that I think is very underrated and not many companies utilize, is having a really good understanding of your pricing strategy.”

Hello Hello! Welcome to episode 62 of the Flying Cat Marketing podcast. Today, we’re here with Jay Desai, the Head of Marketing at Captivate Talent, a company that connects SaaS companies with sales, marketing, and customer success talent.

Before Captivate Talent, Jay founded products like Swpely, a modern content tool, and GrowthKit, a site that shares top tools and resources for startups. Before this, Jay helped grow Talent, an influencer marketing platform, from 6 paying customers to 400 in one year.

If you’re interested in learning more about how exactly Jay grew and drove not one, but three, companies to success, then this is the episode for you.

The growth strategies we talk about range from deeply understanding your pricing strategy to implementing waitlist and referral systems. Jay uses companies like PostScript, Stacker, and MarketerHire as examples to discuss growth plays and what you can learn from them in order to grow your own company.

We also answer questions like: How can I best automate my workflow? What technologies can help me scale my team? How can I produce high-quality content without a large team of writers? How can I use Webflow to rotate content and drive growth?

Lastly, we talk about how you can up your internal linking game and how that can prove to be an extremely useful method to optimize growth.



In this episode we talk about:
- Airtable
- Task automation
- Growth strategies


Timestamps:

01:07-03:22 How Jay went from Trend to founding a couple of startups, and now being Head of Marketing at Captivate Talent
03:23-04:14 How big is the marketing team at Captivate Talent?
04:15-06:26 What's going to be Jay’s first big play at Captivate Talent?
06:27-08:47 How Airtable can automate tasks
08:48-09:37 How to learn how to work with Airtable: is it all about experimenting?
09:39-15:05 Jay’s top three most successful growth plays
15:06-17:24 How does the content rotation with Webflow work?
17:25-20:26 Jay’s strategy about creating lots of unique content without many writers
20:27-24:53 Examples of cool growth hacks that big companies currently implement


Connect with Jay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayanishdesai/

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“If you’re in it for the long run, start with SEO, and do it strategically. SEO is the gift that keeps on giving ”

Hello hello! During this episode of the Flying Cat Marketing podcast, we sat down with Foti Panagiotakopoulos, the founder of GrowthMentor, to discuss the ins and outs of bootstrapping a start-up and managing the workload with a small team.

GrowthMentor is a platform that lets solo marketers and solo founders receive one-on-one mentoring from vetted growth-marketing, start-up, and marketing mentors. The platform allows you to “get on-demand mentorship from people who have more experience in the fields that you’re struggling with,” says Foti.

In this interview, we talk about why diving straight into raising funds isn’t the best way to make your start-up successful. We also discuss the importance of knowing your strengths and those of your team, upskilling yourself, and how SEO can be your strongest tool if you use it right. 

Foti has boot-strapped GrowthMentor and, although he was aware of the risk he was taking, he and his team were able to make the platform a success. During our conversation today, Foti shares his experience with growing his platform and how he was able to make it happen. 

As a solo founder, it’s incredibly easy to get overwhelmed by fear and doubt. Should you hire more talent or should you do the task yourself? How can you upskill yourself if you’re focused on managing a team of freelancers? How can you keep yourself and your team from burning out? Is it possible to focus too much on raising funds? What happens if you do? 

If you’ve ever asked yourself any of these questions, you’re not alone. Tune in to this episode and give yourself the chance to walk away less overwhelmed and with some actionable tips on how to grow your SEO.

In this episode we talk about:
- Upskilling
- Raising Funds
- Growing SEO

Timestamps:

00:00-02:00  What is GrowthMentor
02:02-03:30 Don’t obsess about raising funds prematurely
03:30 -05:15 How difficult is it to raise funds?
05:16 - 07:58 How to not burn out your team in a start-up
07:59-08:59  Upskilling yourself vs delegating or hiring somebody
09:00-11:31 Does the desire to hire ever end?
11:31- 12:52 How did SEO become your biggest channel?
12:53- 17:25 Talk to people before you go to Ahrefs (JTBD)
17:25-18:48 Other ways to grow SEO as a one-man SEO team
18:49-23:30  Backlinking Strategy
23:31-25:50 Takeaways on bootstrapping and SEO strategies when you're a very small team?


Connect with Fotios Panagiotakopoulos on LinkedIn: Foti Panagiotakopoulos


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Want to know how to build a product so good it sells itself? Listen to this week’s episode of the Flying Cat Marketing podcast!  

This week, we bring you insights from Richie Khandelwal, founder of Pricelabs, a SaaS pricing solution for the SMB and mid-market Airbnb and vacation rental space. 

We caught up with Richie to learn how Pricelabs got started when he was looking for a way to ease his own rental pricing pain back in 2014. From there, it’s gone from strength to strength, scaling all the way to reach customers in over 95 countries and pricing over 100,000 listings! 

All without raising single funding round! 

Richie reveals how Pricelabs’ unique approach to understanding their customer, hiring, and finding product-market fit has been key to their success. It even helped them survive and thrive during Covid. He also outlines how their seemingly unscalable processes paid off in the long run and give his take on why SaaS companies should never be led by sales. 

We round it all off by hearing about upcoming plans to take Pricelabs to the next level in the near future, and Richie's advice for other SaaS founders. 

We hope you find it as enjoyable and instructive as we did!   

In this episode: (write out the main sections in bullet points)

• How a personal need led to the growth of a SaaS solution with international reach. 
• Pricelabs’ unique approach to understanding the customer.  
• Finding product-market fit. 
• Scaling unscalable processes. 
• Eliminating information silos. 
• Why SaaS companies shouldn’t be led by sales.  
• What the future has in store for Pricelabs. 

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Richie Khandelwal has been working in SaaS GTM roles for the last 5 years.

He is the co-founder of Pricelabs, a SaaS revenue management platform for Airbnb and vacation rental owners and property managers. At PriceLabs, Richie looks after GTM and Operations. PriceLabs targets the SMB and mid-market segment in the hospitality space, has customers in over 95 countries and has priced over 100K listings.

Prior to PriceLabs, Richie was VP of Business Operations and Finance at MindTickle (now a Unicorn as of 2021) - raised >$80 Million in funding, led employee growth from 40 to 400, worked closely with CEO and investors to chart growth plans into enterprise space.

Richie has also worked as Management consultant with Bain & Company and Engineer with Shell.

Richie has an engineering degree from IIT Madras and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management.

Find him on LinkedIn.

Hi there and welcome back to the Flying Cat interview series! In this episode, we get the lowdown on the differences between B2B and B2C SEO from Marcos Sabino who heads up the SEO team at TravelPerk, a B2B business travel software. 

Originally from Portugal, Marcos recently transitioned from B2C e-commerce at Myprotein, a sports nutrition brand based in the UK, to B2B SaaS at TravelPerk in Barcelona. He explains how, while the basic principles of B2C and B2B SEO are similar, he’s encountered big differences in terms of stakeholder involvement, keyword search volumes, and the number of websites he has to manage at a B2B SaaS company vs B2C e-commerce. He also outlines the practical implications of those differences when it comes to creating an SEO culture, managing stakeholders and expectations, doing keyword research, optimizing content, and getting results. 

And as if that wasn’t enough, Marcos also gives us his take on keyword mining and why Google Search Console wins over third-party SEO tools any day when it comes to evaluating demand for “zero volume” keywords. He signs off with some insights into how TravelPerk ranks for localized searches and deals with the challenges of researching keywords and creating content in languages other than English. 

Don’t miss it! 

In this episode:

• The differences between SEO for B2C e-commerce and B2B SaaS. 
• Zero volume keywords and why Google Search Console is an SEO’s best friend. 
• How to optimize your existing B2B pages for low-volume keywords. 
• How to rank for localized queries even if you don’t have a physical presence on the ground.
• SEO and content creation in languages other than English. 

Timestamps 

• 03:00 How Marcos scaled e-commerce through SEO at Myprotein
• 03:20 How B2C SEO differs from B2B
• 03:37 Stakeholder management and training in B2C
• 05:40 The challenges of B2C vs B2B and how to overcome them 
• 07:45 Search volumes in B2C e-commerce vs B2B SaaS 
• 09:07 Real demand vs estimated demand in SEO tools 
• 09:23 Keyword research in languages other than English 
• 10:31 Differences in organic traffic in B2C vs B2B 
• 11:27 The SEO culture at TravelPerk 
• 13:07 Zero search volume keywords 
• 14:27 Traditional keyword research and Google Search Console keyword mining
• 16:50 How to optimize existing B2B pages for low volume keywords, and spot up and coming keywords
• 20:07 The impact of Google updates on B2C rankings vs B2B
• 22:00 Tracking keywords and optimizing content driving MQL and SQL leads 
• 23:10 How TravelPerk successfully used Google Search Console for keyword mining
• 25:18 How to rank for localized queries even if you don’t have a physical presence in a country
• 27:30 TravelPerk’s approach to ranking content in languages other than English

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In today’s episode, we’re peeling back the curtain and talking with Flying Cat Marketing’s very own Head Content Editor Robert Beames. 

Rob has hired over a dozen freelance writers in the last year but had to test triple the amount to find his team of writers. With that sometimes quite painful experience in mind, he shares how he now casts his net so he gets to the creme de la creme of freelance writers without having to waste time on disappointing test pieces. 

Aside from figuring out a way to filter through writer applications faster, he also shares how he chooses between decent writers with industry-specific expertise vs. amazing writers who might come from a different background. 

Don’t skip this episode if you’re looking for actionable, tried and tested strategies to get your freelance or in-house writing team up to speed to deliver high-quality thought leadership content that stands out.

In this episode we talk about:

• The challenges of finding good SEO content writers
• How to find writers that reach high-quality standards
• How to choose between a writer with heavy subject matter expertise vs really great writing abilities
• Why your writers need a living TOV document
• How to best manage a team of 10-15 freelance or in-house writers

Timestamps 

00:70-3:26 Introduction

03:36-07:56 The challenges of finding good SEO content writers

07:56-11:13  How to find better writers

11:13-12:32 Subject matter expertise vs a really good writer

12:31-15:47 How to get your writers to produce thought leadership content 

15:47-19:07 Why you need a living TOV document

19:07-22:58 How to manage a team of freelance content writers

22:58-27:33 Why your SEO content needs an editor

27:33-28:44 Major Takeaways

28:44-30:00 Outro

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The content marketing industry is fast-paced: you need to be up-to-date on tools that can help you outperform competitors. We’re joined with Pankil Shah, who tells us everything you’ll need to know about using AI to help write content.

Hello hello and welcome back to the Flying Cat Marketing interview series! 
This time we caught up with Pankil Shah, co-founder of Outranking.ai, an AI writing assistant for content marketers.

Pankil gave great insights about how to use AI for writing marketing content, from assisting you with research to helping you nail your client’s tone of voice. 

AI can be such a powerful, time-saving tool that can still help you publish quality content—so long as you’re using it correctly. Pankil explains the limitations of AI and how to train it to become a valuable asset, as well as everything else you’d need to know in order to successfully start using this writing tool!

In this episode we talk about:

• How to get AI to do research and train it to apply your clients’ tone of voice
• The right way to use AI while writing marketing content
• What is active guidance and why does your AI need it?
• Why being lazy with AI gets you bad content

Timestamps

01:31: The right way to use AI while writing marketing content

03:27: The time it takes to write good content

06:04: Giving active guidance to an AI

10:16: How to use an AI for research 

11:30: Going from research to writing with the AI

13:55: Getting the AI to apply tone of voice

18:24: The time saved using an AI as a writing assistant 

20:30: Does AI take away from the ability to be creative?

24:14: Advice and key takeaways on using AI for content writing

25:10: Free trials for Outranking.ai

You can connect with Pankil Shah on Linkedin. 

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Hello hello! Welcome back to another enthralling episode of the Flying Cat Marketing interview series. This week, we get to learn all about sales—and how CEOs can hire great salespeople to get out of it! For that, we’re joined by Ryann Dowdy, co-founder and CEO of Social Sellers Academy. 

Along with her co-founder Kelly Roach, Ryann helps businesses scale by giving them the systems in place to recruit the best sales reps and the training to turn them into successful teams. They’ve helped hundreds of business owners escape being the sole revenue generators in their businesses and we were lucky enough to get great insights into how they do it.

Ryann sharpened her own sales skills in the corporate world for many years until 2018, when she started Uncensored Consulting, as a sales coach helping women to start their own businesses.

She later joined Kelly after being called upon to train a rapidly growing sales team. It was then the two realized the extent of the need that existed within sales recruitment and training and they could see they were well-placed to provide those services to other businesses. So they founded Social Sellers Academy and have gone from strength to strength on a mission to liberate CEOs from sales. 

In this episode, Ryann shares her expertise on hiring the right salespeople, the importance of creating a proper system, and building the ideal sales team. 

She also highlights common mistakes made by CEOs when it comes to hiring salespeople. She also shares a formula of success for getting sales hiring right.

If you’re looking to hire your own sales team, or just learn more about a brilliant female entrepreneur, this episode is for you. Check it out! 

In this episode we talk about:

• Ryann’s move from the corporate world to running a business
• The beginning of Social Sellers Academy
• Mistakes made by CEOs when hiring salespeople
• Building the right sales team 
• Defining the level of activity to be assigned to a salesperson

Timestamps 

00:12 - Introduction to Ryann Dowdy

01:48 - How Social Sellers Academy came to be 

04:06 - Must-haves for CEO’s in building a sales team

10:18 - Mistakes that companies often make 

16:22 - A lightbulb moment for Maeva
21:52 - Understanding the desired activity level for a full-time salesperson  

You can connect with Ryann Dowdy through her LinkedIn. You can also check out their website here. 

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“My start in the vacation rental industry was six years ago. In my initial days, I wasn’t really introduced to reporting and other things. Soon enough, I started wondering where the system was and that’s when I realized that there wasn’t one...and it wasn’t my company’s fault, it’s just where the industry was at the time. Aside from knowing the term ‘revenue management’ there wasn’t a lot of knowledge behind it. So I got the freedom to figure out what that was.”

Hello hello! Welcome back to another insight-filled episode of the Flying Cat Marketing interview series. This week, we’re joined by Sarah Franzen, director of revenue management at Natural Retreats.  

Natural Retreats is a luxury vacation rental management company operating in some of America’s most iconic destinations, from Palm Springs, California to Sea Islands, South Carolina.

Sarah started her career in the hospitality industry in the sales department of a hotel, and through that journey, she discovered a passion for revenue management. 

She moved from sales to revenue management and also jumped ship from the traditional hotel industry to the growing and innovative world of vacation rentals. 

In this episode, Sarah shares her thoughts on the evolution of revenue management tools in the vacation rental space over the years, the advancements of technology in the short-term industry, and more. 

She also touches upon the importance of tech stacks to property owners and the differing levels of buy-in across the industry. Some owners take an active interest in the tech being used to get their properties featured whereas others aren’t as curious and focus only on revenue generation. Sarah talks about catering both these types of audiences.

This episode is an eye-opener for those interested in learning more about revenue management in the vacation rental industry. 

We got a lot of takeaways from it and are excited to share the full episode right here!

In this episode we talk about:

• Sarah’s journey in the hospitality sector
• Deep understanding of revenue management in the vacation rental industry
• Developing a RMS from scratch
• Advancements in tech for revenue & data management 
• How tech impacts property owners
• Key people reshaping the industry 

Timestamps 

00:18 - Introduction to Sarah Franzen

00:38 - Sarah’s journey in the hospitality industry 

03:00 - Expectations vs reality 

05:43 - Understanding revenue management in vacation rental industry

08:00 - Building a revenue management system from scratch  
14:05 - Sarah’s view on upcoming tech in revenue & data management 

20:13 - Challenges along the way in the tech space 

22:58 - The impact of tech stacks on property owners    

25:30 - How she leverages tech at Natural Retreats 

26:55 - If Sarah would ever switch her RMS

30:20 - Biggest thought leaders in the vacation rental industry 

You can connect with Sarah Franzen through her LinkedIn. You can also connect with her on [email protected] 

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