Funnel Strategy, SEO, & Acquisition News with Nikki Engel
Exploring PathFactory's UberFlip buyout, people-first marketing funnels, and SEO's future on GTM News Desk with Gainsight's Nikki Engel.
It's driving me nuts that people think they can get away with using AI to
actually write
content.
It's nuts.
Putting the ecosystem, putting the partnerships at the center of everything
along with the
people, I think it's very people first.
It's hard for executives to spend their money on tactics that are meant for
brand building
and driving awareness when they just want to see the ROI.
Real talk backed up with real action.
This is GTM News Desk.
I'm Nick Bennett and I'm Mark Hillens.
Let's see what's trending.
Welcome to GTM News Desk.
I'm Nick Bennett and today we have a very interesting story as kind of our lead
story
of the day.
And for anyone that out there that isn't following the news, Path Factory has
acquired Uber Flip.
We're going to get into what does that mean.
But as someone that knows both of these companies, I think I've been following
both Path Factory
and Uber Flip for a while.
I feel like Randy from Uber Flip, when he went down the evangelist path, I was
like,
"Oh, that was always so interesting to me."
And did a fantastic job.
And Path Factory, I feel like I've known them for a while.
Both fantastic products interested on them coming together.
And it's going to, we're going to kind of go into a little bit of a buyer-first
marketing
funnel, which is going to go into our third segment of today's episode.
But let's dive into it.
So let's do it.
I think reading through the blog, and we're going to link that, but the Path
Factory blog
about the acquisition, when it comes to buyer-first marketing funnels, and if
you don't know
Path Factory or Uber Flip, they're more of the content, AI agents, more on the
Path Factory
side.
But they're delivering personalized content experiences.
And I think that's everything that Path Factory cared about.
Now Uber Flip's platform really focused on creating engaging content hubs that
really
guides buyers through their journey seamlessly.
And again, seamlessly, think about that.
Like, everything is delivering personalized content and doing things, guiding
people seamlessly.
That is so people-first.
You're not pushing.
You're not trying to mandate that something happens.
And now I think that the combined platform, and I'm interested to see how much
of Uber
Flip that they actually take in or implement into their own product, but I
think the combined
platforms going to enhance personalization, and it's going to make the funnel
even more
buyer-centric using content, kind of like personalized content or content like
growth
to a certain degree within the entire funnel.
Hold on.
Hold on.
Why do you think they acquired Uber Flip?
Path Factory.
Honestly, because the economy is terrible and so many-the M&A has to happen.
There has to be mergers and acquisitions because there's too much like Martech
and sales tech
out there.
Yeah, I mean, there's that.
I mean, I think it's basically the same tool.
The same tool.
They're the same tool.
So to me, it was more like both companies are probably looking at this and
saying, "We
need to rebuild our tech."
Because that tech is antiquated.
A lot of tech that we're talking about on this show today in the past episodes
and the
future is antiquated, given what people now want and expect thanks to all of
the advancements
in artificial intelligence.
So both companies were going to have to rebuild and that's a lot of money.
I just don't think their investors were interested in that.
So they said, "All right, well, these are extremely complimentary.
They're basically the same product.
Let's bring them together."
So I'm actually-I don't think they're going to integrate the products together.
Do you think they're going to integrate the products together?
I think they'll take some of it.
And again, I've never used Uber Flip personally.
I've used Path Factory before.
So I mean, yeah, I could see.
But you could say that about a lot of technology.
There's tons of products that could be similar to a Path Factory.
I mean, should they go out and acquire all of those?
No, probably not.
I, you know, so maybe it was, again, there's reasons why you acquire.
You acquire for tech.
You acquire for revenue.
You acquire for people.
It's really those three things.
I mean, that's why you acquire a company.
So is it the tech?
I doubt it.
Is it the people?
Maybe.
Is it the money?
Probably more than money, quite frankly.
Right?
Like, I don't know.
I mean, that's my gut.
I was going to say, what about the customer list?
Do you think the customer list like has its own value from like an audience
perspective?
Well, I think it's, I think it's the money side, right?
Yeah.
I mean, you have some attention, but like honestly, I haven't heard about Uber
Flip in forever.
I don't even think they do do marketing anymore.
So, I mean, what are you buying, right?
What are you really buying?
Right.
So, I think it's a good message.
I like what Path Factory is doing.
Path Factory, just recently another breaking kind of news story.
They announced Chat Factory, which is to what you were saying, this AI agent
that helps,
helps combat website bloat.
Websites are super bloated messes, and this is going to get into the second
segment in
just a second, which is about Google.
But websites are bloated messes.
Path Factory is like, wait a minute, we can use AI to understand your whole
website to
then better serve up the website experience to buyers in the context of what
they actually
care about, which is going to be a lot of what we talk about with Nikki Engel
from Gaincite
in segment number three.
But the point remains, why did the acquisition happen?
No one's going to fully know unless you're on the inside.
I think it's more just, look, it's money.
The companies were very complimentary.
The ICP was the same match.
You have to find a way to kind of get yourself out of the mess you've been in
to Uber Flip
to some degree.
This is an easy way, maybe not easy way, but a way to do that.
Yeah.
I want to say, something in their blog post that they put out about the
acquisition, I
feel like it's very similar to what you and I talk about.
It says, if you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.
It talks about how they have had similar missions, aligned values for years,
but where
Path Factory Excel was in content analytics and personalization, in Uber Flip
carved out
a strong niche in building and managing centralized resource hubs.
I know you have lots of thoughts on resource hubs as well, but going back to
that first
part, if you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.
I feel like we talk a lot about that.
That's people first, like putting the ecosystem, putting the partnerships at
the center of everything
along with the people.
I think it's very people first.
It's always better to grow together, always better, always better learn
together, grow
together, absolutely.
Three number two, second story of today, Google as always has been doing a lot,
Nick, with
their algorithms, always screwing around with their algorithms.
So much fun, so much fun, but I do like the recent changes Google's made
because one of
the things that we're trying to combat to ultimately kill is generic go to
market.
Generic go to market is terrible.
Like a resource center, they suck resource centers.
We should do a whole episode and we will do a whole episode about resource
centers.
Hey, maybe with Pete from Path Factory, they suck.
They are one of the many, many issues when it comes to generic go to market.
Google's like, I want to help you as a marketer get rid of generic go to market
and help
really the buyers get rid of generic go to market.
So in the last few months, they've done many updates.
So in March, they rolled out this helpful content algorithm update.
If you haven't seen that, you might want to go check it out.
Secondly, then in April, they are saying, wait a minute, we're going to show
you less
low quality content and we're going to create more original content and bring
that up or
at least find more original content and bring that up in the search results.
Great.
Goodbye, listicles.
I would Nick, I would love to never see a listicle again in a Google search.
I'm guilty.
I just did one on LinkedIn today.
So I guess, you know, you can shoot the messenger, but a listicle suck
typically, typically,
unless you weave a good story into it.
And then in May, they announced SGE, search, generative experiences.
I'm sure a lot of you folks have seen that.
What do you think about those, by the way, Nick, SGE?
Do you like those or not like those?
Yeah, I mean, I definitely like them.
I think, like, I agree.
And I don't, you know, reading this article and kind of going through it was
very interesting,
but I feel like there are new, like, abuse policy around site reputation.
Like you mentioned, like the low quality third party content, people that are
manipulating
search rankings, like, I'm glad that those go away because I feel like there's
always
someone gaming the system to do something.
Oh, the adult was bad actors.
Always bad actors.
Yeah, and it's hard.
It's hard for the people that are trying to do it the right way, like us.
Like, how do you actually like leverage this?
So I'm excited, you know, going through some of these other changes that they
made.
I think something that they talked about that I thought was interesting was
like the adapting
strategies piece, like emphasizing content quality, updating existing content
and focusing
ultimately on like the user experience to align with the new algorithm
requirements.
Like, I thought that was really interesting.
Because again, it's just like, I feel like it's hard to game.
It's hard to manipulate.
And I feel like if they can actually, I feel like it's any platform out there,
but, you
know, hopefully Google leads and all these other ones follow, but it's like if
they can
emphasize actual content quality and like, let the content do the work versus
people trying
to like hack it, I'm all for it.
But yeah, but you folks listening need to now realize that you have to create
original
content.
And that's the only content you should create.
I mean, if you're having AI, write your content, like just, it's so dumb.
In my opinion, that's such a bad idea.
Don't do that.
Interview people and then edit it and help AI add stats, context, other things
to it.
But you need to create original content these days.
And that is one of the best medicines for generic order markets.
Original thought, original content, original stories, original experiences,
original original
originality.
I can't say that more.
And it's just like, it's driving me nuts that people think they can get away
with using
AI to actually write content.
It's nuts.
The last thing they added was this idea, another E to their eat acronym that's
been out for
a long time.
The expert, the authority, the trustworthiness of the site of the content.
Now it's like, well, what's the experience of that?
So how will you present your content?
I think it's another thing they're looking at, which is more again about the
quality versus
the quantity of the content.
So create less, but more original content.
Like don't create stuff that is just recycled garbage that someone else has
already said,
infuse people into your content.
That's what makes it original.
Every person is unique.
So get those unique perspectives and voices into your content.
I cannot stress this enough.
So important.
I agree with you.
Yeah.
I mean, it'll be interesting to see their spam update as well.
Like, again, going back to like not being original, I feel like anyone that's
using like
AI to just like copy and paste throw it in, like spammy content, spammy
practices, like,
but they haven't really been penalized up until these kind of new like 2024
like updates.
So I don't know.
I'm excited for it.
And as someone, you know, I feel like between us, like, I mean, you know way
more about SEO
and just kind of like how this all plays in together.
But I think this will help a lot of companies who put out quality content, you
know, again,
as long term like SEO play throughout a lot of these algorithm updates.
SEO is not dead.
Don't even think about that.
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard SEO is going away.
It's not going away.
It's, you know, search is not going to go away.
You know, he's like, you know, think about 40 years ago, even even before, you
know,
or even more recent 20 years ago, 25 years ago, I would go to the library to
search for
information.
You as a human are always going to search for information.
How we get that information will change SGE with the Google AI answer at the
top is one
example of that.
But people are always going to be looking for good quality information.
Search is never going away.
Don't make that mistake.
Lean into Google, lean into YouTube as two channels that are going to help you
build
your content, your community, etc.
All right.
So those are the two news worthy segments for today.
We have a very special guest coming up.
Segment number three is on tap next.
All right.
We are into the last segment of the episode and we have someone that is
absolutely fantastic.
If you haven't met Nikki Engel before, I want to introduce you to her.
She is the director of go to market strategy for the customer education product
at Gainsite.
But she spent about four years at North Pass.
She was the VP of marketing there.
She's done a lot of other marketing roles.
And when Mark and I were trying to think who could actually talk about the
marketing
funnel and not only just talk about it, but educate and get people excited
about a marketing
funnel because let's be honest, it's not the most exciting thing in the world.
Nikki came to mind.
Mark was able to get Nikki on the show and Nikki, we are so excited that you
are here.
So thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
I'm excited to bring the excitement to marketing funnels.
Well, let's dive into it.
So in for those listening, we're going to have two parts of this.
We're going to go into the regular podcast conversation with Nikki and then we
're going
to go into some exclusive content.
So to kick things off, let's talk about how to make marketing funnels today by
your first
and not suck because let's be honest, a lot of times they do suck.
So Nikki, I, you know, love to hear your thoughts on that.
Yeah.
So I don't think the steps of the marketing funnel really need to change
necessarily.
I mean, this funnel has been around for many years.
You create demand and the awareness phase, you capture demand in the
consideration phase,
you convert leads in the conversion phase.
I think to make our funnels more buyer or human first, we just need to change
the messaging
strategy that we then apply to each of the stages of the funnel so that it
actually resonates
with the buyer.
And we genuinely create a path for buyers to engage in instead of it just being
this one
way street.
So I'll give you an example at one of my companies.
I won't say who.
We did not use a buyer first framework.
The tactics were not coordinated.
Our messaging was, I would say, aggressive, always pushing for the demo or the
meeting,
regardless if the prospect was aware of who we were or if they recognize the
problem that
we were solving or better yet if they even acknowledge that they have that
problem.
So our call to action to book a meeting was essentially layered into each stage
of the
funnel.
So it's safe to say that it did not work so well.
Well, we had the right tactics at each stage of the funnel.
We weren't courting the prospect.
We weren't listening to cues of the prospect.
And instead we were rushing to the finish line in the excitement to lamb that
meeting.
And because that's what the executive team was really pressuring us for.
So that's not thinking about the buyer first.
That's thinking about the product and the company first.
So when we say making the funnel not suck, we're really talking about making
the message
within each stage more relatable, more personable, more responsive to really
what the targets
needs are and especially delivering it in that right order and having
everything really
orchestrated together.
So I guess what I'm saying is we need to put our company agenda aside a little
bit and
think about the perspective of our buyers as humans and we need to really just
respect
the process because it might take time, but you'll get more qualified leads out
of it
and more leads will come.
Yeah, I love that.
I've worked for in Mark, I'm curious on your thoughts on this too, but I've
worked for
companies where it's been very much spray and pray and like, I won't name the
companies
as well, but like it's been more than one unfortunately.
And you know, it's just so interesting when you change that mindset, it's like
a mindset
shift, ultimately.
And when you shift that mindset into actually putting your customers and your
prospects
first and realizing that these are actual people that we need to build
relationships with,
I feel like everything else follows to a certain degree, but it's like, you can
't lead the
charge.
Like, if you're going to say, you know, Nikki, I want you to change the
marketing funnel
today and like, you're the only person that cares about this.
It's just not going to be effective.
It has to be a company wide efforts.
I love a lot what you said there.
Mark, don't know if you'd add anything to it as well.
A men, Nikki, like what you just said needs to be sent to every CEO and most
board members
immediately, like we're going to take this and just we're going to spray and
pray all
of those people with that message because they don't get it.
They don't get it.
And even sometimes marketing leaders don't get that.
So number one, amen, you know, number two, you're talking about this idea of
pushing versus
pulling.
A lot of people have this belief that you just push people.
You can push people through the funnel, right?
Like, I'm going to push a demo on you.
I'm going to push this thing on you.
I'm going to do these things.
No one likes to get pushed.
Like, think about your, you know, your, your in a room and someone pushes you.
That sucks.
That doesn't like, that's not nice.
That's what we're doing to buyers these days in many regards.
Like you do not push people.
If anything, you help pull them up, right?
Instead of push them down.
So anyway, amen, building off of this a bit, building off of this a bit.
What are some or maybe your number one most egregious mistake when it comes to
creating
these types of marketing funnels that are very company first, not people first?
I want to say not thinking about the buyers, the human, but since we already
talked about
that, I'll say really not outlining or setting up your goals and your KPIs at
every stage
of the funnel.
And this is important for a few reasons.
One, it really gives you good guidance for your messaging and your calls to
action, right?
Like, it kind of forces you to not push for meetings, as you say.
So not push for meetings at every stage, no matter how much that is the end
goal.
And really think about what metrics you are aiming for at each stage.
So for instance, during the awareness stage, the focus should be on driving
curiosity and
engagement and not pushing for sales meetings.
You want them to click.
You want them to respond to a question.
You want them to simply acknowledge your presence, acknowledge they saw your
message.
So you wouldn't use a call to action that says book a demo.
More likely you're going to use a call to action that says learn more and drive
people
to a landing page.
Then later on, you'll retarget them, you'll follow up in other ways with other
information.
You really want to make sure that you have the right KPIs to match the message
you're
trying to convert and talk about.
I think for a second reason, it also helps you to identify the flaws in your
funnel so
that you can actually pinpoint where there's any drop off.
So if the goal of every single phase was the same KPI, you wouldn't even know
where you
need to optimize like good performance at the top of the funnel.
But then maybe you're going to see low performance at the bottom and now you
know where to tweet,
right?
You know, what part of the stage, what channels, what content you need to
really look at instead
of having to redo the entire funnel.
Just to go with that, obviously, KPI's are important.
I think sometimes they get overlooked, but also making sure that if you have
these functional
leaders, you know, for certain channels and whatnot, making sure that during
the planning
phase that they're also aligned on these KPIs.
And now only that because they're the ones that actually have to like report on
it, but
making sure that they have proper reporting tools based on the metrics you want
them to
actually track and measure.
So those are going to be like your indicators of success.
And so you want to make sure that you are set up and that everyone on your team
is aligned
on them.
You need to focus on the quality and quantity of those metrics, meaning like
how many of
those metrics are about the right fit.
See you're shaking your head, right?
Like, you know, just look at the metrics without putting like a layer of
quality over all of
them throughout the entire funnel.
Nope.
That's one kind of point and comment.
But then you come from an education type background product.
North Pass, congratulations was acquired by gain site recently.
Love that.
You know, you and I spoke at North Pass or when you were in North Pass a few
times in
the city of education, super important customer education, educating buyers,
educating customers.
I want to just have you quickly react to what I'm going to say now around one
of the issues
with marketing funnels is twofold.
The marketing team doesn't educate the rest of the company enough on how we're
trying
to design the right experience to pull buyers through to customers.
And then secondly, they're probably not doing enough education to buyers, right
Like to your point around the right messaging and content and whatnot during
the marketing
funnel or in the marketing funnel.
So it's a two prong approach and problem when it comes to educating your
internal teams
and educating the buyers.
How would you respond to that?
I think it was you that we were talking about this.
Like you have to treat your education like a product.
And so you have to have a marketing strategy for it.
And so you take that same idea of do my internal teams understand it and know
about it.
Are they comfortable promoting it?
Do they know the value of it?
Do they, you know, like just like you value props for your product, you have
value props
for some of your internal programs as well or external programs.
It doesn't have to just be the thing you are selling.
It could be the services that you also provide.
So I think that a good marketer needs to, you know, take this framework and I'm
in the
framework but like everything you know about marketing and apply it almost like
everything
in your life to be honest.
It was really good to have a marketing education.
You could really apply that everywhere.
Agreed.
I mean, we joke, Nick and I joke, you know, everyone is basically a salesperson
They are.
Everyone is selling something to someone.
Everyone's a marketer or wants to be a marketer.
It's spot on, spot on.
Well, let's go ahead and kind of bring this to the next question because I've
worked for
some executives in the past that don't always understand marketing and I think
that's a
big red flag as is CEOs that think they're marketers but they're not or they
just don't
believe in marketing that you should run as far as you can if that comes.
But Nicky, I'm curious, like what is the most common misconception from
executives about
a marketing funnel specifically?
The first thing I'll say is get yourself a CEO who comes from a marketing
background.
It really doesn't help.
I've seen it all so it's definitely an easier sell but I think the most common
misconception
from executive teams or executives is that you can skip to the good part, right
Like, what usually means jumping straight to generating pipeline.
We had an event.
Great.
How much pipelines did we get from it?
We spent money on LinkedIn.
Great.
How much pipeline did it generate?
We're doing a partnership program.
Great.
How much money is it making us?
Those are important but I think it's hard for executives to spend their money
on tactics
that are meant for brand building and driving awareness when they just want to
see the
ROI, when they just want to see that people want to buy their product and it
will come
but it just takes longer to get the ROI because you need to complete the full
funnel process.
So, I think that's also why it's important to really outline your KPIs when you
are building
your marketing funnel so that you build in those leading indicators of success
and those
small wins that are going to get you to the pipeline and can probably get your
executives
a little bit off your back while you are progressing the buyer down that funnel
I agree with that 100%.
I mean, it's so interesting because I think it's, I came up as a field marketer
for many
years and one of the things that I had to do was paint a picture of everything
that we
did in field marketing and field marketing touched a lot of different things
but to the
executive team, how can you paint a picture and using a funnel because there's
really,
you know, you have the marketing funnel as is but like field marketing and
event marketers,
they have their own kind of funnel that funnels up into everything else.
It's like, how can you tell that picture and use those insights and the data
that actually
tells you there and like celebrate those small wins to be able to get, like you
said, to
the actual pipeline creation or the influencing of the pipeline through the
activities and
the tactics that you do.
So yeah, I'm 100% on board.
Telling a picture is hard, Nick.
Telling a picture is hard.
Painting a picture might be a little bit easier.
That's my marker.
So you got to promote, you got to sell, you got to find the value in everything
, right?
You got to be hype people.
We're very big.
I used to, there's not tangent now but I used to advertise for or be part of
the, I used
to be part of the advertising team for a makeup company, big makeup company.
And then their number one thing was like, how do you get someone to understand
the smell
of that perfume when it's a digital ad?
It's like you got to like find other ways to evoke that emotion and like sell a
picture.
So yeah, you got to, you got to use some vivid language.
That's another thing, right?
Like I think, well get into your exclusive framework for everyone who's
attacked network
subscriber after this next question, but to your point, you really got to use
vivid
specific language and you'll unpack this as you think about this framework you
have,
which is wonderful.
Before we do that though, what does a people first funnel for marketing look
like in your
mind?
What are some examples that will lead us into this detailed framework?
Yes.
So I think that a people first marketing funnel focuses on the journey of the
funnel in a
sequential order and in a very orchestrated way and layering on a human
mentality to get
them to actually engage and convert.
So you want to progress them naturally rather than push a sales meeting on them
I like to compare it to the dating world.
It would be pretty weird to get a marriage proposal right after you go on a
first date,
right?
You need to court them.
You need to go through the stages.
You need to determine if they are the one.
So I'll give you an example using one tactic LinkedIn ads, which I'm sure many
B2B marketers
on here are using.
So I come from the advertising agency world.
So I'm a big proponent of sequential messaging, sequential advertising and like
why waste
ad dollars on people who don't even know you and not saying don't advertise to
new people
because you need to, but be thoughtful about who is getting which message and
line it up
with your funnel.
So using this example of LinkedIn at North Pass, what we did was we delivered
brand ads
that talked about the problems in the industry.
Things like customers are churning not because they don't like your product,
but because
they don't even know how to use your product.
And that opens their minds into, well, how do I get them to know how to use my
product?
And keep in mind, North Pass was a learning management system for customer
education.
So once we saw people engage with those ads or read our blogs about it or visit
our website
or join our database, we used the same message throughout all those tactics.
We knew there was interest on the subject.
So when we hit them with ads, I talked about digital customer education and how
that is
a solution to helping customers know how to use your product, which in turn
would help
their customers not churn or cut their churn problems.
So we use industry stats or content that we would develop as resources for them
to better
understand the solution to the problem.
Notice I haven't yet talked about why we're better or why you should be taking
a meeting
with us or anything else, but we've built that trust and credibility and we're
now
engaging curiosity and engagement by opening their eyes to a problem that they
might be
having and a solution that they might actually need.
So now that they recognize our logo, we've opened their eyes to the reasons why
they're
having this problem and how to potentially fix it.
From there, we'll target them with how North Pass can actually fix it and how
we've done
the same for others with proof points and case studies.
And at this point, the quality of leads really started coming in and this type
of funnel
can be replicated across all of your channels, all of your follow programs.
And like you mentioned, I have a great framework for people to follow to help
them really set
themselves up for this natural progression instead of just speeding to the
finish line.
Let's get into that now.
And this, what you just said is very relevant to our second segment that we did
today around
Google's algorithmic updates over the last, say, six or so months.
They had this thing that was called eat.
It was like expertise, thoroughativeness and trustworthiness.
And they added an experience to it now.
Now it's two E's experience expertise, the thoroughativeness and trust
worthiness.
But like, that's what you just said, right?
So like Google's saying what you're saying.
Now we'll do that in your own channels and your own funnel, basically be
someone that's
credible that can really add a lot of value to each stage of that customer
journey.
And your reputation as a brand and your reputation from a product standpoint,
we'll only get
better.
I like that.
Build your own algorithm.
Build your own algorithm.
We'll leave it at that, folks.
Build your own Elgo.
Very simple.
Don't worry about it.
You fit.
You got it.
Nikki, thank you so much.
We'll see you in the exclusive content right now.
Sounds good.