Fara Rosenzweig - WorkRamp

Fara Rosenzweig, Head of Content Marketing at WorkRamp, shares her unconventional journey to content marketing. She highlights the need to understand business goals and audience when crafting a content strategy. For quick wins, she recommends repurposing content and focusing on one social media channel. She also discusses using gated content to build trust with the audience. To scale content production, Rosenzweig suggests creating a content backlog and building a team of trusted writers, emphasizing the importance of writing samples and engaging introductions in recruitment. Key lessons she shares include the value of saying no and building strong relationships with the finance team to secure budget for content initiatives.

Transcript

INTRO:

The Demand Generation Club Podcast is back, and we're turning up the heat with season three. Get ready for insightful conversation with experts from Splash, TrustCloud, WorkRamp, UserGems, and more as we dive deep into B2B marketing approaches that are making an impact in 2024. This podcast is brought to you by SaaSMQL, the SaaS growth agency that helps B2B software companies land seven-figure deals with highly targeted multichannel campaigns. Since 2018, SaaSMQL has helped over 100 SaaS companies generate millions of dollars in sales pipeline and recurring revenue. To learn more, go to saasmql.com.

Franco Caporale:

Welcome, everyone. I'm here with Fara Rosenzweig, who is head of content marketing at WorkRamp. Hi Fara, welcome to The Demand Generation Club Podcast.

Fara Rosenzweig:

Hi, thank you. I'm so excited to chat with you today.

Franco Caporale:

Fantastic. So, tell us right away something about your background and how did you end up becoming head of content marketing at WorkRamp?

Fara Rosenzweig:

Yeah, so I don't have a traditional career path to how I got to where I am today. I started out in traditional broadcasting. So, after I graduated from college, which I studied film and new media in college, I went to a local network, some small television network that produced international news and 30-minute television programming, and it was one of those add-on television stations. So, I went in producing 30-minute programs and then I moved over to the international news and I produced the news there twice a day. And I quickly realized I did not enjoy the news because waking up at 3:00 AM and writing about morbid content was very hard and you didn't really have a life at that point. Then was looking what did I want to do next? And actually, an editor at that station had left and started his own production company. And the focus was on short-form content, so working on long-form, which was 30-minute television programs, even 60-minute television programs.

And he was working on five minute promo videos or even 30-second commercials spots, and he specialized in athletes. He was a former athlete himself. And so, he took me under his wing to learn the whole world of athletics. And we were doing promo videos for athletes, helping them do their brand videos. And mind you, at this time, social media was really non-existent, it had just launched. So, things were still traditionally on television and slowly coming out on the internet. So, what we were is learning how to take our content that we were creating and putting it on the website and helping these athletes create their brand on MySpace and Facebook. That's where I got into digital marketing, really. I decided I see a future in this space. So, I went and got my master's in multimedia management and I ended up working for, well, it was like a tech company, an event registration tech company, but they needed a content team.

And I went on working for the content team on creating vlogs and video content about training in the wellness space, and that's where I learned a lot about SEO. And SEO was very new at that time, so I got hands really into the ground floor of what SEO was. From there, I eventually ran my own content marketing agency for several years, helping clients in the wellness space in their small to medium-sized businesses, helping them launch their content program, understanding video and the power of video, helping them with SEO. And eventually, moved into SaaS. I worked for a couple of companies building out their content program and here I am today at WorkRamp. Again, I've been almost a year and a half, almost two years at WorkRamp came in and helped build the content program up, and now we're at the phase where we're starting to expand the content program.

Franco Caporale:

Let's jump into content because obviously you know a lot about building a content strategy, and that's something that every company software or not software wants to do and not many companies can do. Well, how do you create the foundation for a content strategy when you join a new company and how do you approach that?

Fara Rosenzweig:

So, any organization I go into, I do tweak my approach slightly because every organization has a different business goal. So, the first thing is I really have to understand what is the overall business goal. Of course, it's growth and businesses need to earn revenue in order to grow, but there's different approaches, different goals for that business on how they want to get to whatever dollar amount number it is. I first look at, okay, what are the business goals? Growth. And then, what are some of their secondary goals? And then, I look at what is the audience and what does the audience want? So, those are two big things when building a foundation to your content program, looking at the business goals, and then looking at what does your audience want.

Because your audience, they might not want to digest content the same way as the audience at a different organization wants to digest content. So, you really have to understand your audience. I'm not creating content right away. I mean, you might have to do some editing and some quick things here and there to keep the lights on, but realistically, you're not creating content right away. You're really looking at goals and what does the audience want? And the last thing I look at besides what they want is what is their challenge? What is the audience problem? And my goal is to create a program that's going to help all of those problems or help guide them in the right direction to get the solution that they need.

So, that's how I build my foundation. I first look at those things, I go, "Okay." I assess the content that we can create and I start working backwards. How long is it going to take me to create some type of content that they want and work backwards and create a 30, 60, 90-day plan? I'm going to go back to audience. It's really important to look at the audience because if you have a younger generation audience versus an older audience, between 18 to 30 versus 30 and up, the way they're going to digest content and what channels they're going to digest content are very different.

if I had an audience that's younger, I might lean into more social content, versus an older audience, they might want social media content. They might actually want blog posts or video, the website channel itself. So, really understanding what do they want, and then once you figure that out, look at the platforms that you want to put your content on, what channels and understand those channels and how the algorithm works and all that fun stuff. So, that's the beginning of the foundation.

Franco Caporale:

The problem with a lot of companies with content is obviously it takes a lot of time to get results. So, how do you balance that? How can you get some quick wins with content while you work on your long-term plan?

Fara Rosenzweig:

Sure. Okay. So, content is a huge puzzle. You're balancing so many different programs in your content strategy. What I didn't mention when I was talking about foundation is there's also SEO. And depending on who is responsible for SEO, whether that's your demand gen team or your content team, you can work in SEO. As a quick one, now we all know SEO is not a sprint, it's marathon. But what you can do is look at some of those content pieces. If you have existing content, look at the content that is not ranking and go, "What can I do with this content? How can I repurpose this content? How can I just evolve it?" So, that's a quick win, take an existing content and just evolving it. Maybe you have to put new information in there, run it through an SEO tool, like Semrush or might be like Easy Market News. Run it through there, see how you can improve that. And that way, Google isn't taking so long to then rank for that.

They'll see the improvement. They're going to see that you're constantly making updates to the content, so you'll have a quicker win or a quicker possibility of moving that from let's say page five to page three, and then maybe page three to page one. That's a quick win there as far as content. Another thing is also finding one channel to really hone in on, let's say social media for example. If you know there's one channel your audience is really focused on, then lean into that and do content well on that channel, and you'll see following and engagement start to go up quickly as you focus and build a consistent distribution on that channel.

Those are two quick wins as you're starting to build up your content program to focus on how do you evolve, repurpose existing content and move the needle from, let's say, page five all the way to page one. And then, again, focus on one social channel that if social media is in your wheelhouse, focus on one channel. Really give that audience on that channel content that they want as you figure out what works and doesn't work. You can quickly figure out what doesn't work when you do that, and then you, "Okay, I'm not going to lean into that type of content or that strategy there."

Franco Caporale:

What is your feeling about gated content? Would you gate your content? Some of it, none of it?

Fara Rosenzweig:

Yeah, I think gated content's important. Of course, not everything needs to be gated, but in our world, we need to gate some content because we want to capture the attention, we want to get those warm leads. People really truly want content, they're willing to put a phone number down, they're willing to give you the email. Now, the thing is, if you're giving bad content when you're doing gated content, if you're doing bad stuff, you're going to lose the trust of people. Really important if you are going to do gated content to create really good valuable content that they're going to want to come back for and continuously give you something for that piece of content, I don't think it's a bad thing. I think we all do that because that's just one way to capture a lead.

I also think not everything needs to be gated because you want to build trust with people. So, if you're putting some very high valuable content pieces out, say on YouTube, or even on your blog, or on a partner website, they're finding value in that that's going to capture their attention, and then they'll eventually want to come and download whatever gated content you have because you are providing them already high value. So, if they're looking at this gated piece, they're like, "Well, I'm already getting great amount of content for free. I might as well download this ebook or whatever this video is," or something like that because they're going to even think even more, got to be even more of value to me.

Franco Caporale:

One of the major issue, especially for startups, is obviously bandwidth and finding someone who can write a lot of content of high quality. So, how do you scale content production? You mentioned something about creating a writing bench, so I would like to understand more what you mean by that and how do you think about scaling content production?

Fara Rosenzweig:

Yeah. Whenever I go into an organization, this is probably the hardest part, is how do you scale a content program? Like you said, I create a writing bench and I also, as mentioned before, I don't start creating content right away. You have to take a step back and create a backlog of content first. By creating a backlog of content, this is going to leverage you to scale while you start looking for subject matter expert and really strong writers that you can leverage to create content. It's a matter of, I go through my network. I have a few writers that I've worked with over many years that I have fortunately been able to work with at different organizations. I then go into different communities for that specific audience and meet people who are subject matter experts in that field who also are strong writers. And I talk with them, ask them, "Are you interested in writing for our program?"

And we discuss what is their bandwidth? What would they be able to contribute? And really, have about a team of four to five writers who I can rely on every month to turn around content for us. Now, that doesn't mean that they're writing something on Monday, turning it in on Friday. It means that they are spending a few weeks creating that content, turning it in, and we have an editing process. But then, we know in about four or five weeks that content piece is going to be ready to go out and be published in the world. So, that's why I have a staggered amount of writers so that we have a good flow of content coming in, content being editing, content being published.

But it all starts with you have to be strong enough to talk to whoever the leadership is at your organization and say, "I'm going to come in the first 30 or 60 days. No content's going to be published." If there's already content in the wheelhouse and you're coming in to an existing program, you should be good. If there's no program and you're building it again, you're good. What does 30 days of waiting have to do? You need to go in and understand stuff and build your backlog of content first. This way, you're not scrounging and playing catch up. You're allowed to take some vacation time and you know that there's going to be a few content pieces that you can schedule out while you're on vacation. And then, also this way, if again, you have to make a pivot or a couple of your writers are out, you have content in your backlog that you can constantly publish.

Franco Caporale:

So, you obviously have these trusted writers, but how do you recruit good writers? Because a lot of companies that I talk to and they try to outsource content production, they always complain about the quality of the content that they get.

Fara Rosenzweig:

Yeah, so I've learned the hard way, don't get me wrong, I've hired some writers that from an initial phone call or I got an email from a cold pitch, and they seemed great. They charged maybe $150 an article. And the examples that they showed seemed well-written. So, I've made my mistake by one trusting the content that they showed me that that was their raw article, meaning that didn't go through editing phases or anything like that. And then, two, leaning on, oh, they're cheap, they're affordable. There's something to say with the price you pay is the quality of work you're going to get. So, I look at a few things when I'm looking at writers.

Of course, budget is a huge thing, especially if you're a small company starting out and you don't have a lot of budget. You don't need to be creating 20 pieces of content a week. One or two pieces a week, or one piece a week is good to start. Just invest in a good writing team. And you can negotiate with writers too on their price. But again, look at someone who is not on the low end, not someone who is extremely high that you're going to break your bank. So, look for someone that might be expensive, but you're going to get good writing from them. I'm not afraid to look, if I had a phone call with someone, they cold called me, cold emailed me, asked for references. I go on LinkedIn, I search their network.

It's really interesting how you are somehow tied to someone. There's that sixth degree of separation. So, I go around and ask people what their experience is with this writer, and then also I do try to understand are they easy to work with? Are they difficult to work with? There's something to say if they're easy to work with, they're willing to pivot pretty quickly. So, those are a few things I look at. I do ask for writing samples that have not been edited because when content goes in editing phases, the brand has a certain style, the brand has a certain guideline that they need to follow. So, I ask for any of their raw writing, and if they don't have that, then I ask for, "Here's a topic, write an intro."

I don't care about the rest of the article. I'm a stickler for the intro of every content piece that is written. Or even if it's a video, what is the first sentence or two written? What is the first five seconds of that video? If I'm looking for a video editor. Because if they know how to hook someone and capture attention and do it well, do it in a smart way, nine out of 10 times, they will know how to keep the attention through the rest of the content piece.

If you ask any of my writers I've worked with over the past several years, I am such a stickler for the intro and I red pen the leads a lot because most people are lazy when it comes to writing, and they'll start something that you'll see that same sentence or phrase in every other content piece. Of course, there's some stuff that falls through the cracks, but that's where I lean into when I'm looking for writers. If they don't have a piece of content handy, I give them a prompt and I say, "Hey, in two days, write a paragraph about this." So, that's how IT some writers out and freelancers out.

Franco Caporale:

Since we have one minute left, but I want to ask you one last question is, what is the one thing that you wish you knew at the beginning of your career that you learned maybe the hard way?

Fara Rosenzweig:

Ooh. Well, there's two things I learned. One thing is it's okay to say no. I've said yes a lot, and that without looking into the problem or the question, I'm like, "Yeah, we can do that." And I still find myself sometimes doing that. But it's okay to say, "No," or, "That's an interesting idea. Let me look into this and get back to you," or, "How can we take this idea and evolve it?" It's okay to say no. I sometimes say, "Yeah, that's a great idea. Let me put it in my backlog because my bandwidth is pretty tapped right now, and in two weeks, let's relook at this and have another conversation." That's probably one thing.

And the other thing is to really become friends with the finance team because they will help you with budget. And one of my CMOs at a former organization told me, "Get to know your finance team because with content, you're going to need budget and with content, they're going to take away budget." So, you have to be able to understand how to make a business case for your content program, how to scale and be able to ask for certain things in the finance team language. So, really understand the ROI of stuff and understand their language. Become buddies with them, so you can have a conversation and be able to build your budget for your content program.

Franco Caporale:

Fara, it was really great speaking with you today. Thank you again for joining The Demand Generation Club.

Fara Rosenzweig:

Thank you so much. This was great.

CLOSING:

That's a wrap for today's episode of The Demand Generation Club Podcast. If you're curious about how we're landing enterprise deals and unlocking millions in recurring revenue using account-based marketing and integrated direct mail campaigns, check out our website, saasmql.com. That's S-A-A-S-M-Q-L-.com. We share tons of content every week on tried and true strategic ABM initiatives that actually generate pipeline from enterprise accounts. Thanks for tuning in.