"Why should I go to meetings and meet people who are not interested in my ministry? It's my responsibility to let them know in advance. That's where the blog is invaluable."
Leads, leads, leads. If you don't have leady, it's like you don't exist. That's why every other marketing agency specializes in "mining" leads from the market. The way to get them is different. A winding one. And damn hard.
Then they get to the traders. They're hungry for them. So they can call them. And learn that ...that a lead is not actually a lead. That they were just checking something out. That they don't want to buy. Or we didn't qualify them.
Leads, leads, leads. We always need new ones. We always need to add to the funnel from above.
But what about turning the entire marketing upside down? Instead of chasing and convincing new leads with a lot of waste, better to tell those who are genuinely interested to buy? What about just pouring your money into the lower tiers of the funnel? How about just start writing a good blog?
Mikuláš Capko, content strategist of the CopySelling, project, knows how to do it. And he has proven that this exact tactic can help you shorten your sales cycles. That's why he showed up at the microphone, where I asked him ...
🔸 Why is it a good idea to turn marketing inside out?
🔸 Why should I write my own content articles?
🔸 Why is it important to write articles twice a week?
🔸 By how much can we shorten the business phases?
🔸 How quickly will I start showing up in search engines?
HOW TO SHORTEN A DEAL WITH CONTENT STRATEGY (INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT)
Martin Hurych
Hello. I'm Martin Hurych and this is another Ignition. I would like to start with one request to all of you. For those of you who are currently listening or watching us, hit subscribe right now. It will benefit both of us. You'll never miss another episode, I'll be able to navigate the social media algorithms better, and I'll be able to offer you more great guests like today's. Today, we're going to talk about content marketing and specifically for B2B companies with a long sales cycle. For that, I've invited a guest from Slovakia, Mikulas Capek. Hi.
Mikulas Capko
Hi, thank you for the invitation.
Introducing
Martin Hurych
Mikuláš is a content strategist and goes by the brand CopySelling.eu. You like to walk, you say you walk up to 100 km a week.
Mikulas Capko
Yeah. I used to like to run, but I had a problem with my knee, so now I'm walking and thinking, so it's kind of double.
Martin Hurych
That's exactly what I'm interested in. How far have you come in life?
Mikulas Capko
I only walk in the city, in Bratislava I have a routine that I always go out in the evenings and walk the whole city, which is about 15, 20 km.
How did he come to CopySelling?
Martin Hurych
Come tell me how you came to CopySelling. You're not originally a marketer, you're a marketer, so how did a marketer become an expatriate marketer?
Mikulas Capko
I may be a marketeer, but I'm an advocate for traders, so I do everything for them. I do marketing that is not conventional because most people think of marketing as lead gathering. So the first phase is sales and then it goes on to education, but that doesn't lead to to that sale. I'm doing it a little bit the other way around, I'm doing marketing that's for marketers that they can use in sales.
Why is it a good idea to turn marketing inside out?
Martin Hurych
You even say you're turning marketing on its head. What does that mean? What does Mr. Marketing look like to you?
Mikulas Capko
Looks like I'm gonna turn it around. I'm going to flip it in a way that I'm starting with the lower stages of the funnel and I'm doing content that helps with sales already in that lower stage, already in those final stages. Then we move up to that awareness.
Martin Hurych
You're doing technical companies with a long sales cycle in the lower stages of the funnel. Should I imagine you do deep technical articles, or what does it actually mean to write for the lower tiers of the funnel?
Mikulas Capko
Let me explain. When the customer is already in that buying phase, when they are already practically in the comparison phase, they need comparison articles. So those are the first ones. Then he is interested in price, how he could save, or what influences that price and how it influences it. Those are the other things. These are the things that help sales. What that means is that when a salesperson is somewhere in a sales meeting talking to a customer, what happens is that he only talks to the customer for an hour. Then he walks away and waits to see what happens. But why couldn't he send him an article that discusses the very thing they were talking about? He can continue to communicate with him between phases, between those meetings, which is a big advantage because he's in that contact with that customer all the time.
Martin Hurych
What other types of articles do you have in mind here?
Mikulas Capko
There are a lot of those topics, I have about 19 generated. The most important ones are the 3 that I put in the bonus. I have recommended the 3 most important topics there, which also increase traffic, but at the same time can be used in sales.
Why should I write my own content articles?
Martin Hurych
I assume that because I'm already somewhere between the decision stage, the purchase stage, the customer already knows a lot about me. I had a shopper here in the last episode, and the shopper has already done a lot of things, has an idea of what he's buying. So these articles have to be very technical because we're talking about technical companies. I honestly can't imagine any marketing agency can write this. Does that mean I have to start writing the articles myself?
Mikulas Capko
Yes, exactly. Marketing agencies mostly do articles for clients. I do it the other way around, I force clients to do it themselves. It's a little bit harder because I also have to overcome the resistance of the marketers and the resistance of all the people that are in the company that need to be convinced. That's the problem, but of course I don't do it right away. In the first phase I do those articles, those are a bit general, but they're already sales oriented. In the next phase we start going deeper and that's already there working with the marketers and teaching those marketers how to use that content. I'm pulling some information from them that could be the next topics of those articles. In the third phase, it's about telling the client that I want them to have an in-house content strategist.
That's the coaching for the last 3 months, the whole program lasts 9 months. It's a little bit longer, medium-sized companies can afford it and it takes a long time because it's divided in three phases. First it's about content creation. Content creation has to be fast because those articles have to come out at least two a week for it to make any sense to those search engines. Then the second phase is when we're already focused on working with marketers. Marketers need to see that it makes sense. We have to convince them in that first phase, so we have to make the content so that they see that it makes sense, so that they connect and want to work together. That's such a challenge. Then that third phase is about convincing the client that it makes sense to have an in-house copywriter or content strategist because we also recommend doing videos, not just articles.
What to think about when starting from scratch with content?
Martin Hurych
Sticking with that content strategy, what should I be thinking about as the owner of a technical, technology company with a long sales cycle when I'm starting to build my content from scratch?
Mikulas Capko
It is good to start completely from the last stages. It's perfectly okay that nobody knows about me, because when I do a special article explaining or comparing, I am also doing awareness. People perceive those articles anyway when I post them on social media, of course. Search engines, that's something else. When I'm solving a specific problem, a specific question of those customers, what happens is that at the same time those articles will naturally contain keywords that are actually questions. So, in principle, it's not very complicated. The principle is just that the customer asks, we answer, that's it. In practice, it's a little bit more complicated with that, that some form of that content and some behavioural psychology has to be used to make it effective.
Why is it important to write articles twice a week?
Martin Hurych
When I talk to business owners today who don't have any content marketing, and I talk to them about LinkedIn, they say it's enough to publish something once every 14 days. If they publish once a week, they feel like they're already stars. You say they need to generate much longer content twice a week. That gives me a bit of a chill to imagine going from zero to two articles a week in the position of someone who doesn't have anything yet.
Mikulas Capko
It's intimidating, but it's important. It's such an investment that when a company buys this service, we have to deliver some kind of result. Everyone wants a quick result and with marketing it's very difficult. At the very beginning, we have to do the kind of work to convince that client that this is good, that this is the right way to go and that it's good to have an in- house content manager. He can then also calculate financially how it's working out for him and that it makes sense. When it helps marketers shorten sales phases and accelerate those sales, it's a win-win.
Practically, it has 3 advantages. One is that when a customer specifically searches for a problem and uses a particular keyword, we naturally build ourselves into the first positions in Google. Two is that it can also be used in sales. That's an advantage because what often happens when a blog article is written is that we wait to see what happens with it. But we can immediately use that blog article in sales, which of course has an immediate result. We can track if the customer is interested, if they click through further because that's the next stage in that we don't just do one article, we do a series of articles that build on each other so that we can track that customer, how strong their purchase intent is. If they click through to 4 articles, we know that's fine, if they don't even finish the article, what happens is we don't engage with them as much. We'll recommend something else, some other article that's not so focused on the bottom line, that maybe needs different information. We investigate it further and we can manage every single lead nicely like that and not deal with those leads. When I was doing sales, the worst thing for me was knowing that I was doing meetings that weren't going to end well anyway because they weren't going to end in a sale. That bothered me terribly. This was the solution that I thought could be an awfully good help for salespeople to be able to move that customer along in that sales process.
Where can these articles be used?
Martin Hurych
We've talked here about the fact that these deep articles can be used very successfully as follow-up appointments, as a reason to contact a customer, to keep in touch with them, and to collect touch points between appointments. What other benefits can this have for the salesperson, for the person who is
in the field? You're saying you can trace every single lead. Let's maybe share what technology or processes you use to do that.
Mikulas Capko
Any tracking metrics or heat maps or any tracking techniques, but that's not my specialty anymore.
Martin Hurych
So you can track this on every single leadoff? That is, a merchant sends a link and you can track what that person does on your site?
Mikulas Capko
Yes, because I will send him a specific article. That means that I can follow that particular article and at that time I send it to him because I expect him to click on that article within a day at the most.
Martin Hurych
So what are the other uses of these cells for a person who is in the field? One thing is the follow-ups, another thing is the tracking on the web, is there anything else?
Mikulas Capko
It is. It can also be a special article that can be used before the first meeting. That is, I'll send the customer an article that introduces them to the topic, that introduces them to the company, all those things that are repeated over and over again, salespeople keep repeating them in first meetings. It's boring and it's completely unnecessary because that customer could read it or they could watch it on video. I recommend that it be strictly followed that before the first meeting that introductory article or video is sent to that client or potential customer. He consumes it, reads it, and if he doesn't read it, the meeting doesn't take place. It really is admittedly cheeky on the face of it, but it's a good thing because those salespeople don't have that much time, they need to deal with completely different things. You know, those initial meetings are practically often about nothing.
Martin Hurych
I like it a lot because it at least immediately builds the trader some seniority in the relationship.
Mikulas Capko
Yes, exactly. Of course we all work with trust, we need to build trust. We build it by either convincing that client or sending them a load of content and proving to them that we have a load of those special articles that our
expertise can. It's always about trust and if a client doesn't have trust, they will never pull out their wallet and buy in their life.
By how much can we shorten the trading phases?
Martin Hurych
You said that a content strategy that is built from the bottom up shortens business cycles. We both work with companies that have long sales cycles, which in my terms is 9, 12 months, but a lot of them are easily 3 years. How much are you able to shorten those cycles with this strategy and when are you seeing the first benefits of this approach?
Mikulas Capko
It's individual depending on what those phases are. When we have a sales phase of a year, we can't expect to have a result in two months. Those articles, of course, when there are long buying phases, customers have a lot of questions as well, so there are an awful lot of ways to answer those questions. There's always that excuse to keep him in that buying process, to send him something there. We're at some stage and the next step follows, the next step follows and I can call him, I can send him that this step is related to what we talked about the other day. I can still have him in the process and still have an excuse to call him, reach out to him, send him an email. Of course each email can contain links to certain articles, individually personalized and that's important.
How quickly will I start showing up in search engines?
Martin Hurych
I understand that if my business cycle is a year, I won't see much in two months. On the other hand, if I start writing at a frequency of one or two articles a week, when in your experience will Google register me?
Mikulas Capko
Within three months. Within three months, the first results are already there, because at that frequency and when answering those really narrow questions, those very important questions for the customer, it appears immediately, of course after indexing.
What should be the structure and length of the article?
Martin Hurych
You said that the articles have certain preferred topics and at the same time there has to be some structure. So can we talk about how the article should be structured or what are the three most important things I need to have in each article to make it work the way we're saying here?
Mikulas Capko
It varies depending on what the article is, but always by default the title or headline has to be one that discusses the issue. Then there has to be an introduction, where immediately the problem is discussed, and immediately there should be a description of what lies ahead for the reader. Then there is the main problem that is being addressed. Then there is a conclusion, and the conclusion must also be a summary of the whole thing.
Martin Hurych
Come tell me the scope of the article we're talking about. What should be the reading length, the size, the range of words so that I can even understand what we're talking about? Because let's face it, people are reading less and less.
Mikulas Capko
But this is not true. If someone has a purchase plan, they want to know everything and read it. Of course, we can expect that 80% of people won't read it, they'll scan it and read a little bit of what catches their eye, but that's okay. The person who has a buying intent wants to know everything and when they get information, honest information, truthful information, where they don't lie, where they tell the whole truth and not just half the truth, they will read it. That's the difference because AI can't do that.
Martin Hurych
I understand that. I was more referring to the fact that there is a general awareness that the younger generation, when they want to understand something, go to YouTube and watch a video rather than read something.
Mikulas Capko
Yes, so that's the second phase of my recommendation. You need to make those videos from those articles as well, that breakdown of the whole article can be in a video or in a podcast because that's faster for somebody. Of course those videos are also content that is very important, content that speeds up that whole consumption. That text is important because words sell. The right spoken text also needs to be in a video that says something about an issue. So even for those videos, of course, we have guidelines to follow, but that's for the coaching of that content strategist that we're going to train.
What are the trends in writing blog articles?
Martin Hurych
For example, how are trends developing? Is it expected to be written differently than it is now or was written after Covid?
Mikulas Capko
I don't know about that, but the writing style should be interesting by now then. It should discuss the issue and be a little bit maybe even cheeky sometimes. I use a bit of cheekiness in my lyrics because it catches the eye, makes you stop and think. It should have a lot of aha moments, and I think there are a lot of aha moments when we're talking about the lower stages. For example, comparing why our product is good and why the competitor's product is different, or what the competitor's product is good at, because of course it's not good to gossip. It is good to be honest that our product cannot do that. Maybe that customer doesn't mind, maybe they don't need to have that particular feature, so I convince people to always tell the truth. Marketing agencies don't stand a chance.
Why build a blog from the bottom?
Martin Hurych
Why build a blog from the bottom? Marketing agencies focus a lot on the leeds, the top stages, but few agencies will tell you that you need to build a blog from the bottom up.
Mikulas Capko
If it works for someone, that's cool, but we know it doesn't work. We've tracked it, we know that people are unhappy and when someone tells a client they have to build a blog, they say they have a blog and it doesn't work for them. That's the difference.
What does a content strategist's blog look like?
Martin Hurych
How is content strategist Mikulas Capko doing with his own blog?
Mikulas Capko
Having your own blog is a shame big time, very badly.
Martin Hurych
What would you write about if you started your own blog? You're an expert in like a relatively narrow niche. What would you start writing about to help yourself the most?
Mikulas Capko
Exactly what we're talking about here now, that's what I would definitely write about. Then I would write about what it costs, how it is advantageous, how it is disadvantageous maybe for some segment. I would write all those articles that might attract somebody, but I would also write articles that might put them off. For example, it's not for smaller companies, so I'll explain to them why it's not for them. It works, but today I'm targeting companies that are in the mid-market, mid-sized companies, because they can afford it.
Martin Hurych
You're probably the only person who actively drives clients away. When I talk to clients and we try to specify a target group, most are defensive as hell.
Mikulas Capko
My question is, why should I go to the meeting, or why should I talk to people who aren't into it? They don't know about it, why don't they know about it, that's my responsibility, they don't know about it, that means I have to tell them.
Why does the store consider marketeers to be charlatans?
Martin Hurych
The way I see it, marketing for the marketer is actually something a bit quackish. There's a lot of spark and a lot of pressure between marketing and marketer. Why do you think that is? If I have an internal marketing department and I have a sales team, how do you think those relationships should be built to rapidly shorten the cycle and increase whatever that company wants? Somebody's after turnover, somebody's after margin.
Mikulas Capko
The fact that there is sparking is proof that it is not working and someone is making a mistake. To me, both, some care about themselves, others do too, some write what they want, what they think would be good, others just don't respect it. It's not that they need something else, they need something that is usable. That's the answer to why it sparks.
My answer is just that you have to convince those traders first, because those traders are sceptical. When I come and tell them what I want to do with them, everybody is skeptical and even that when I ask for some information from them, they are not able to give it to me in some form that is understandable. I say, if you can't give it to me, how do you tell the customer? It's a natural problem, I know it and I know that the words that are digitally processed are the exact words that can be used. It's not an experiment, it's just an exact word that can be used and that's good for the client because it's understandable and they'll pick the article that they just need. Every marketer is actually a marketer. He doesn't realize it, but practically what we're telling the client is content marketing.
Martin Hurych
It's true. I wish you, Mikuláš, to be able to find the right words when you write for clients, I wish your CopySelling.eu project to develop successfully and thank you for your participation here.
Mikulas Capko
Thank you very much also for the invitation.
Martin Hurych
You see, don't underestimate blogs and videos, especially blogs, because at least in my bubble there is a belief that blogs are long overdue. I don't think so, you can check out my blog, I'm actively developing it and I took a few notes myself during the interview. If Nicholas and I have managed to pass on some inspiration or an idea to you, we have done our job well. If that's the case, again, please subscribe or share where you watch or listen to us, doing so will help us navigate the social media algorithms much better. Don't forget the aforementioned bonus that's already hanging on my website, www.martinhurych.com/zazeh, under this episode at the moment. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed and wish you success, thanks.
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