Welcome to Stacking Growth, Call to Action, a show for the Trailblazers, change makers, and paradigm shifters. Each week, a different marketing hero who is called to make a change in their field will join us to walk through each step of their journey. Look over the highs, the lows, and what's coming next. Together we'll help you find the changes needed for your own business to win.
I'm Steph Kranola, I'm here with Evan Hughes, and today we're so excited to welcome Eric Jacobson, CEO at Hatch, who is dedicated to supporting the modern shift in buying behavior by focusing on video-first content creation for B2B companies. Eric, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. It's exciting to record some content together.
We've obviously been working together for quite some time, so yeah, this will be fun. Yeah, I'm really excited. For those of you who don't know, Eric has his own show, 95% content, and it's a really great deep dive with a lot of different expert guests into the whole content field. So we're going to get kind of a snapshot of your expertise and kind of what you've learned on that show along the way.
So I'm really excited to get into that, but I want to scale back to the beginning a little bit. What got you into marketing? What got you into content? What was the point where maybe you were working outside of content and realizing that this was something big coming?
I did something that I don't necessarily recommend, which is I followed to create a career out of, which is like I followed my passion. And sometimes when you're early, it's hard to know what you're passionate about. And then secondly, those passions turn into something that can actually sustain a living in the way that you want. So 10 years ago, I became obsessed with podcasts.
I learned a lot through them. I learned more about business, entrepreneurship, health, life than anything else I had prior to that point through college, through high school, mental, you know, just people I knew. And so I knew I wanted to be involved in the medium of podcasts. And this was 2011, 2012, 2013.
And so yeah, that's what I've done over the last 10 years. A lot of evolutions in what podcasts mean and what content means and what content works and how people are consuming content. So we've had to evolve with it and also be part of a broader ecosystem championing this as a methodology that is effective. And so the market has started to catch up to that now, which is cool.
Yeah. And that really 2011, 2012 was like when podcasts were first starting to be a thing. So you were very early. Yeah.
Listen to one. Yeah. I've downloaded one in a lot of these podcasts. Yeah.
Yeah. I was working a job. I didn't like, I traveled a lot for work. And so I just went into iTunes and I just typed in startups because a college professor had recorded a podcast of her lectures and then put it on Blackboard.
And I remember the term podcasts and then iTunes and I just searched and I found a couple shows. And the first episode I ever listened to was Travis Kalanik or however you say his last name, the founder of Uber on this week in startups with Jason Calicanas. And this was back when Uber was a couple years old and they're like, oh, maybe this can be a billion dollar company one day. And they just told the story of it and all that.
I was immediately hooked. And so ever since then, yeah, I was obsessed with it. I took a different route. Admittedly, I think it was just about three years ago.
I really like immersed myself into the podcast world, probably less than that. I don't think I appreciated the ability to learn so quickly and so rapidly. And I was always fearful of hitting like pause, you know, like I, and now that I recognize it, I can just jump in and out. So could us do for kind of finding that learning strategy and building something on that.
So I think Eric is super interesting, right? I think about the journey of podcast and the evolution of content to right and what podcasts have really done. And then this idea that you can add video form to this as well to make it just more immersive and natural for people to come into the story. And I think that to be interesting just for listeners to understand that moment you knew that this change was taking place.
When did you see an occasion that video was really becoming the strong motion for a lot of individuals? And when did you see that shift in that buying behavior? Yeah. Overall, what I think has been cool through this evolution and I'll describe kind of those moments, but I believe it's now one of the best times ever in history to be a content marketer.
It can be overwhelming because now there's all these different platforms, all these different channels, everything you can repurpose everything each direction. But it gives you a lot of levers and a lot of tools. And so that's what I saw. I saw audio only being the predominant podcast format for the first decade.
And then what happened, I believe, is that video became just an absolute undeniable force in terms of it being a mega trend on the social platforms first. And then the evolution of this long form content that was locked up in audio, usually what happened is the influencers or the authors or the top podcasters, they started saying, well, I can get 10x the reach, 10x the engagement on the exact platform. For the most part, if I get short form video clips for Instagram, for TikTok, all the different platforms that are rewarding video first content. And then YouTube's all that.
And then they started building their capabilities on YouTube to cater to podcasts and podcasters. And so now YouTube is the number one platform in the world for people to consume podcasts on. And they're consuming them not just what used to be, just throwing up your, throwing up a second-rate video episode of your show or even just the audio only with a cover on it or something like that. But they're consuming it on TVs in their living rooms, like a TV show.
And so it's replacing new shows or traditional TV shows that used to be your favorite ones that you would watch in your living room. These are being replaced now with podcasts. And I'm seeing this a lot in just the general purpose podcast space. But I think this is a really big opportunity for me to be, to create what they can think of as like a TV show for their market.
And then obviously you can get, like that's a pillar piece that can be turned into other things, but just thinking of it that way and not like a Spotify first podcast or an Apple first podcast, which is what the previous execution used to be. Because we need to follow, I believe as content markers, we need to follow the behaviors of the consumers. And this is just old school podcasters are not happy about this, to be honest with you. And so like, there's a bit of like, you know, there's a bit of hesitancy to lean into this.
But I just believe we need to go where consumer behavior goes. And this is just where it's, this is just the trend line that it's taken. And so we just need to be aware of that when we're creating our strategies. It's true.
It's like from radio to TV, right? It's just a technology evolves as well, like the way you tell the story and how you craft your narrative as to evolve. And I think we have such a immersive culture in terms of like the dopamine hits and how video satisfies that instant gratification and that need and that urge. Right.
Sometimes I think it's just a new form of content consumption that across any sort of social medium that we're absorbing and we don't even realize it. Right. Like there's just when it feels natural and it is a story that's articulated well to your point. Like it does communicate the brand effectively.
And I think it'd be does struggle at times with that. Because how do you take a generally speaking, like boring idea and tell a story that's interesting enough that somebody visually wants to like invest time and energy in. And I guess I have a question for you. Like, is there a scenario where like some of the biggest most common mistakes you see be to be kind of forcing this motion in the video world?
Like, is there anything there? Just listeners kind of walk away with or just almost like a quick checklist of like, I don't need to do this or I shouldn't be thinking this way. The number one thing I would say is that nothing is too saturated for you to be able to enter and have a content pillar or show or it could be a short form show. It could be a long form show.
There's many different formats and ways you could execute this. But I see a lot of hesitancy sometimes from people thinking that, oh, there's already like 20 shows in our category or what have you. And so when we just look at like saturation, we can look at other forms of content, books, blogs, newsletters, all of these things and like the difference between how much of those things there are and still and still effective compared to how many B2B shows there are on YouTube or Spotify or Apple. It's a massive difference.
There's almost no comparison. There's way more blogs, way more newsletters, things like that, then there are these shows. And then also when I look at like competition, I just look at do we need to differentiate? Like really it's a matter of how much do we need to differentiate in order to win?
So if somebody's executing a show and publishing it once a month and you do the exact same thing, let's just say Apple's to Apple's everything is the exact same thing, but you publish once per week, you're going to win. So that's just we just need to do more than them and we'll win. And there's a whole bunch of flavors of questioning you can go through to essentially determine how much or how little do we need to differentiate in order to win. So just because somebody's doing something in that category does not mean it's working for them or that you can't win.
And so I just like to set that as like the highest level more star sometimes because I believe every company could and should do this. I'm not saying that should be the number one thing they do if they're like getting a marketing engine going. I think it's probably be pretty high up in the prioritization, but there are some factors you want to look at of like when should we do this? But I don't think it's a question of like, should we do this?
It's more of when should we do this and when can we do this? I love that you called out that saturation because it's so the difference between books or blogs is so vast when you look at podcasts. They're still like the market is still so new relatively that there is space for you and you should take it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And one of the biggest factors of success with with like podcasts or shows is who has been doing it the longest consistently. If we look at the top shows right now just across pretty much every category and we just put a date. What was the first episode published on that? Most of them were published years and years and years and years ago.
And so now we can look at like this new form of almost like YouTube podcasts. If we just take that, for example, there's not many people in me to be executing that. So simply just doing YouTube first podcast and putting attention behind it and having a strategy that is YouTube first and then just committing to the channel. It's very likely you will create the number one number two, number three show in your category.
Simply, I mean, it's kind of nice. Like, here's the strategy. Just like, just start and don't stop. Like, and you probably will end up being, you know, a top three, top five show in your category.
It's actually not complicated. It's hard, but it's not, it's not complicated to understand. So I just think we, it can sound scary. Let's create a show on YouTube.
It's like, that just sounds scary. I don't think we have to think of it as this like, everything has to be perfect right. This is a process of iteration and feedback. 95% content.
My show has gotten better simply by listening to feedback after I've been publishing episodes for me to dial in. Where should this show ultimately go? And so, yeah, I just think it's, it doesn't have to be as scary as it sounds and literally just being as early as you possibly can is a way to win in this. Hard, not complicated is such a good distinction.
That's brilliant. It's a brilliant little, little clip right there. I, looking at the, the length that, you know, the time, length of time you've been in podcasting and the changes that you've seen happen. When it started, you know, there were very few tools and very few places that you could publish.
It was kind of like a pretty straightforward process if you wanted to start a show. Now, it feels like we're so inundated with AI tools or flashy graphics and things that it feels like you have to have, putting that in air quotes. In order to have a successful show, how do you kind of streamline that process in a way that makes it easier for you to just make it happen to uncomplicate all of that? What are some maybe tools that you use or things that you keep in mind to break down the process in a little bit of an easier way?
Yeah, great question. Because I do see a major factor of success here is the process itself is sustainable and efficient. Because if it's something that's like each week bi-weekly or monthly, it's like we're barely getting by getting this content out. It's going to break down at some point.
So how I like to think about this is, and I'll just put it in the context of like most B2B teams. And in a lot of cases, like the situation that they're in. I think the ideal way to execute this is three distinct rules. And so the first being the thought leader, which usually can be the CEO or another subject matter expert.
That's one of the on the leadership team or another executive at the company. This is the person who's the face of the content brand. This is the person who's sharing expertise. And ideally they come from a background that is almost exactly the same as the people that you sell to.
In an ideal world, it doesn't have to be the same, but they are of that culture. So if you sell to finance professionals, they have experience being a finance professional or helping finance professionals for a long time and knowing that world really well. You can't, there are ways to execute it when you just simply don't have that makeup on your team. So that does not preclude success, but it does help a lot.
The second would be the content architect. And this is the person I always usually recommend being internal on the company's team. And this is the person who is essentially taking the raw material from the thought leader and then ensuring what topics they talk about, how they talk about them. The promise that the content is making to the audience is stuff that's going to resonate with the audience.
Essentially, they're the ones who know the audience the best, know the product the best, and know how to bridge creating intent from the content to the product without being salesy. And it's hard for an external, I found it's hard for an external team to execute that because no matter how good they are, they're not going to know the audience or the product as good as somebody internal, like a really good content leader internal. And that person can also bridge the gap between the third role, which is the production team or producer or editor, depending on how you want to execute it. This person can be internal, but often I recommend it to be external.
And this is where like a company like Hatch fits essentially. And so the raw material is created by the thought leader. It is massaged and perfected in terms of the tone, what we want to do for that, directions, all of that kind of stuff, and then pass off to the production team to execute. With those three distinct roles, and there's many ways you can kind of execute it, you've got a sustainable process, honestly, in my opinion.
And there's many tools we could talk about tools for each of those, but the main thing I kind of like to think about, I was like, what does the org chart look like for this to make it something that we can can power our content engine like forever. So when you talk about the different roles, and I know we talked about tools being a bit of a case by case for, you know, the company that is there anything though that somebody could do if they don't have the resources for those individuals or they purely are just the thought leader in their organization and they don't have the budget to hire an external agency or they don't have the resources for conic creation. Do you have any recommendations or have you seen any areas that those individuals can succeed still while they're being scrappy? So here's what I would recommend on this is doing an internal, I would almost recommend in this case if you don't have the ability to put that that content team structure together.
I would recommend creating a short form show. So it's not a podcast. It's not something that comes with the execution required for a podcast. It's a lighter lift to get started on it, which is like once a week, two times a week, we're going to drop a two minute short form video clip on the thought leaders LinkedIn or other social platforms that the ICP hangout.
And it's going to be branded as a show. So it'll have a show tag on that it's a recurring series, but it's two minutes at a time. And that person can just find somebody else internal. It can be anybody to basically get on a riverside recording with, which is a platform you can use to record your content with, you know, high quality video, high quality audio.
And they ask them the thought leader, like they find a partner, kind of like a sparring partner to prompt them with questions. And then they, the thought leader can respond to them in a way that's natural and not just them staring at a camera by themselves, which is not natural for a lot of people. And it's very difficult. And so now they can have a back and forth conversation and then even use riverside's post production tools to actually clip out the moments where you just have the thought leader responding with the answers.
You remove the person asking the questions. And now you've essentially got your short form series. And so you could do one session like that per month for 90 minutes. And you've got literally your entire month's worth of short form show content right there.
Awesome. We're looking at creating kind of a short sort of educational channel tool there now. So this is exactly what we tried to like sell internally to the team is, you know, how can we get you on and create these like short to three minutes. Yes.
Videos, but maybe we just need to have them listen to this episode stuff. Honestly, yeah, we're just we're gonna send this out. Hey, everyone, just listen for no reason. Sorry.
In a minute, 38. No, but it is so it's so true. And I think that the the lift of just like having someone else be there to take the pressure off just ask the question because I think. So many experts are used to answering questions, but they're not used to presenting information in a like cohesive way for a clip or a podcast or a show or anything like that.
So taking that pressure off and making it more conversational will ultimately make the listeners feel or your audience feel more included and more comfortable because if you're being talked at. Yes. No one wants that. Everyone wants to be like part of this conversation, which is I'm interested to hear your going off script a little bit here, but interested to hear your perspective on the relationship with audiences for podcasts and shows if that's something that with the shift in video is not a little bit more comfortable.
With the shift in video is changing a little bit because I know with podcasts, you know, you have those memes of people sitting in their car like laughing along with their friends who they're in a conversation with. But with video, do you find that that relationship building with your audience is just as important? Yeah, the way I look at this is it's not a this is not a perfect split, but in general, how I think about this is the audio format is incredible for deepening deepening a relationship with an audience that you already have. It's not great for the medium with which to build a new audience because it does not have any discoverability in the platforms like any of the video first platforms do.
And so when we can when we think about it, we can think about discovery and relationship. And so the video first component allows you to be found by new people who you are looking to get in front of on YouTube on LinkedIn for me to be primarily YouTube and LinkedIn. Some people do experiment with TikTok and Instagram and stuff like that, but really just those two platforms alone. Your very first piece of content you post on them, depending on how good it is and just how you know how you've created it with zero subscribers and zero followers can get shown to tens of thousands of people in that market in that space.
When you do that, when you publish an episode on Spotify or an Apple, that simply does not happen. You have to drive the people there. And so I like the ability to build the relationship through the video first platform because I think that still checks that box because they're actually seeing your face, which is like another level of connection that does not exist with audio. But you also get the algorithmic behavior and push and there's pros and cons to that because it means like you might have some variability from episode episode because the algorithm doesn't pick it up and stuff like that.
But this is just the nature of the game that we're in with marketing and I think we should lean into it. So I think they're both fantastic. I think you should still publish the audio episodes and you should modify how you're publishing those by about 20% to lean into what works on Spotify and Apple. Still same piece of content, but you modify the title, you modify the description.
Maybe you create a separate intro like the platforms have different formats that perform best and best practices, but I think it should be video first, audio second, but still use them both. So taking notes over here. Transitioning a little bit. You know, you, like you mentioned, podcast listener one for probably several shows or at least one of the longest-standing podcast listeners, you know, here that I've ever met or talked with.
But I also know there's been a lot of just milestones within this world of content creation, podcast creation, video creation and just your journey and building hatch and how you get to the position of where you're at now. But were there any low points along this journey if you were to keep you kind of fighting, pushing forward some points of frustration, anything that you're willing to share with the audience. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
I've been low points. I would say the first one was when I was getting started with all this, I was able to get work freelance work with some of the biggest podcasters in the world. So I was able to get, I was able to work with like Tim Ferriss and Jason Calcanis and basically work, help them work on their podcast content. And that showed me I was on the right track with this when I was able to get that.
But when I tried to, my goal was to get a full-time job with Tim Ferriss and I did a bunch of stuff to try to do that. My flew to the event, he was at, tried to meet up, all these different things and that didn't work. And so basically it was like 18 months of my goal was to like get on Tim's team. This was my very first thing into creating, you know, my career in podcasting and that didn't work.
But, and so I was like literally like 18 months of work to like try to get this to happen and it didn't. And so that sucked and that was hard. But that led me to then, all right, I'm just going to create a company myself. I'll create an agency myself in the podcast space.
And then that led me to ultimately where I am, you know, now with Hatch, obviously, evolutions of, you know, the agency over the years. But without that, I might have had been on a totally different journey with this. And so like at the time, I thought I failed, but honestly, like, I think it worked out perfectly. I'm very happy with how it turned out.
Appreciate you, Sharon. Yeah, and I think that I'll just do it myself is such a huge move for building an agency, but it's something so tangible for people who are looking to start a content stream and don't see what they're looking to consume out there. Just do it yourself. You know, if you've spent so much time searching for the perfect show to listen to and it doesn't exist, maybe that's a sign to move forward with, you know, what you want to publish.
Eric, you've touched on it a little bit just with your growth and with the ability to be in this space for such a long time. But what has content taught you about yourself as an entrepreneur, as someone who is a consumer and also a creator? What have you learned about yourself and what do you appreciate about yourself and your skills because of it? I would say content has allowed me to realize that I'm not alone.
Like, just in the sense that there's other people out there thinking about the same things that I am interested in the same things that I am, no matter how nerdy or technical or boring, be to be as boring, that's a very common thing. And what I've realized is like, the things that you're interested in are not boring, no matter how technical they are or how old school they are or whatever. There are other people out there who are interested in the same things and you can either create the content. I mean, this is like the opportunity side of it is like you can create the content that provides the hub for all of those people to feel like the friendship, because we always talk about education and entertainment for content.
But there's a third one, which is friendship. And like half the reason people will listen to content is because they just want to hear from you. They just like you. So you get, you can be yourself, don't pretend to be Gary Vee or don't pretend to be, you know, somebody else, be yourself.
And then talk about the topics that are relevant to your buyers, but also are the things that I'm assuming you are interested in as well. It's the reason you're in that category in that market in that role. And you can provide this like community of like-minded people, which never has existed in human history up until the last like 10, 15, 20 years for us to be able to have these things across the country. Across the world.
Before I was like, who's in my neighborhood? Nobody's interested in like YouTube strategy or whatever. And like I'm just by myself. And so, but that's not the case anymore.
So I think that's a really important thing to remember is like this friendship component that we often forget about when we get really, you know, we just think, I think we think just a little too, a little too narrow minded on like what formats of content we should create. It's a little too formulaic sometimes. And it's like, how about just get on a mic. Here's the topic you know a lot about and be yourself.
Like that literally can be a strategy. The real content is the friends we made along the way. So good. So perfect.
No, I yell about that all the time that like so many people listen for that feeling of connection to hear someone else excited about the things that they are excited about or want to learn about. And I think that's really, really beautifully stated. Yeah, there's authenticity in it, right? You show up yourself and that resonates so much more than somebody just forcing a message down your throat.
And I feel like we've all engaged in some sort of podcast or been in some sort of interview or discussion where it just didn't feel natural. Right. I just kind of felt like the rolling questions or conversations and you just didn't feel like there's a human aspect to it and to the narrative. So I think that's so important.
And I think the biggest point I'm going to have there is like you can niche down into whatever the hell you want. Yep. As long as you have some passion around it, you will find somebody that's interested. You just have to kind of dig and find that community and where those individuals are at, but it's okay to niche down to sometimes you think too big.
So it's overwhelming of what do I need to talk about or how to consistency matters showing up matters your narrative matters all of that. And you can see the same thing over and over again, just finding different angles to explain it. And I think that that is equally as powerful, if not more powerful than trying to drum up a new story or show every time spot on. Yes, spot on.
And it's information is a commodity now for the most part. Like that's not 100% true, but it's probably like 93% true. And so what is the difference makers then? If it's not the actual material that Chatshipi and everything else on the internet can provide some sort of quick answer to, then it's in large part, who is it being presented by and who is it being championed by.
I can learn about this topic from 100 different places, but how do you put yourself in the position to be the person they want to hear what that person, what you think about that topic. And that I think is key now in the environment we're in now with content. And the cool thing is the answer is being yourself. Like it's literally not like be something different or like try to do this or like be an all strategic.
It's having a format and an opinion about the positioning of your content and stuff like that, but literally being yourself. Showing up. It's true. There's so much about you learn anything you want.
Really like you can type it in 30 seconds. You could have a research paper on a topic, but can you communicate that to a point that's easily understood or a point that makes sense. Right. I think we can all read and absorb, but the really the connection really builds when you're able to tell that story or ask the informed questions to an individual that gets them curious or like, oh, that's an unlock I hadn't thought about.
And I think that's such a powerful statement and also just a reminder for even outside the podcasting world to just like how you're connecting with your audience is like to pop into city. Kind of taking a little shift here. Question I love to close out and ask everybody, especially with just the evolution and speed marketing is evolving. What shifts in marketing do you expect is coming next or what shift you expect coming next and how do you think people should prepare for it.
I think we've gone through an era in content where the overwhelming majority of content created in B2B has been for searchers like people searching for information and then your content appearing there based on keyword driven articles and stuff like that. And we're now and it's very clear, but this is only going to go faster and get larger. We're in an era of scrollers or people on these different content platforms. They're not typing in a search keyword, but they're there to connect with other people to learn to share their points of view and all those things.
And so the question now is how do we create content that fits for that new behavior and in a way that allows those people when they're scrolling to stumble on our content or look forward to it. So that they can build trust with us and like us and see us as an expert in our space. Knowing that they may not be looking for a tool or a product or service in our category at this very moment, but when they are out of the contract with their current provider six months from now. And you've been powering all that content and thoughts and ideas for them.
You're now they're not going to go to a keyword based search to look for a provider. They're going to come to you because they already know you and they already see you in that position as an expert in that space. And so I think that's now the goal in large part. There's still our people searching and we should show up there for sure.
Like we got to check that that's a no brainer, but we shouldn't be overly weighted to that. I think to the degree that we have been, you know, in the 2010 through 2020, you know, roughly range. And so now it's about how do we be the number one option for the future buyer creating content on the platforms that they're hanging out on. And so I do think that that is a trend that's happening right now.
I think it's a trend that's going to happen much more. And I think it's very, very powerful for the companies who can do it. Video first, you know, that's really what's going to take place is having yourself in a position where people can share and communicate and learn rapidly, but also the discoverability piece is always interesting to me right because I think a chat to be tea is like kind of the new intake and index of your website and your information. So how do you like make it to a point that's articulatable can easily translate that, but then when are you discoverable in a different content medium?
And I think that's just such a good reminder is we think about five years from now, like what the space of site it's hard to even intro. Appreciate that feedback. Totally. Eric, this has been incredible.
Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your journey and your insights with us. We hope everyone listening will just just do it. Just get started. Pull up your phone camera and start talking to it.
Make some video first content and be ahead of the game. If you like hearing these journeys, make sure to subscribe and share this episode out to your network. And if you want to nominate a marketing hero to come on and chat with us, feel free to get in touch. Thank you so much for listening.
We'll see you all next time.