Content Experimentation and Its Impact with Alanah Joseph, HubSpot

Episode Transcription

Alanah Joseph:

We're using content to be in our experts, our podcast hosts to be able to ensure that people are understanding the importance of having a product like Operations Hub one, and what strategies you can use in order to get the most out of the product.

Christian Beck:

This is a Better Product original series sharing stories of big bets made in products. Do they pay off? Let's find out. At Innovatemap, we clearly see and appreciate the value of running a podcast, you could say it's a bet we took back in 2018 when we started the development of our show. And it's a bet that other brands are embracing, some in small ways, and some in big ways. For Alanah Joseph of HubSpot, the opportunity to invest in content has been foundational to its success. And in this conversation, Alanah is joining the show to announce their newest bet with podcasting, while sharing the driving factor behind their recent acquisition of The Hustle.

Alanah Joseph:

I actually started my career as a journalist, found my way into content marketing, because I truly love telling the stories of businesses, and connecting businesses to consumers in a way that feels really guide. I love storytelling in general, it's my favorite art form. And so I was working as a content marketer when I joined HubSpot. And when I joined, I came in to the Fold as part of the podcast team. So I joined as the marketing arm of the podcast team, and from there my role has evolved as we increased our audio offerings, and so now we have a podcast network in which I am in charge of the marketing and operations for that network.

Alanah Joseph:

So that's very exciting, it's been such a thrill working for HubSpot, and my day-to-day just is... well, it's a hot thing, but I would say I work with all of our podcast hosts and help them grow their shows and reach new audiences. And then I'm just in charge for making sure that the network works and it operates and functions in the way that it's supposed to. So overall, my goal is always to grow our audiences and increase our reach.

Christian Beck:

That's really interesting. HubSpot is a tool for people to use to do their marketing, what does it mean for HubSpot to do anything with podcasting and what does that look like?

Alanah Joseph:

We really have a mission, or belief that you earn attention by being valuable, truly valuable to your customers and to your audiences. And so just as our products are there to support businesses, and we've learned that we create new products to solve their problems, their content needs have also evolved, and so we're thinking about ways in which we can continue educating and inspiring our customer base, our audiences through podcasting. So there's a strong connection there because the podcast industry is rapidly growing and of course we want to be ahead of the curve and be able to create a platform where people can go to actually find valuable content that will help them be successful within their business. And so I think that it was a great decision on HubSpot's part, and I think it will be very valuable to all business professionals, no matter what their role may be.

Christian Beck:

When I talk to people and when I talk to clients, we talk a lot about really the value in content marketing and I sometimes stumble to explain it myself. It's like, well, we need to do content marketing. If anybody asks me too many questions like, "Well, why?" I'm like, "Well, I don't really know why, I just know that you need to do content marketing." So now that we have a genuine bonafide marketer in the house, I would love if you could just give us just even a foundation, what's the rationale? Why does it matter to have content tied to a product, a tool that you're selling? How do those two things connect?

Alanah Joseph:

Content marketing is an extraordinary way to be able to tell the story of why you have a product, how people can use it, and why it is valuable. At HubSpot we use a technique called inbound, not instead of going out to find people, creating valuable content that will actually help them be successful, and so that they can use that content and therefore also find your product. So it's really a way to be helpful to your customer base, it's a way to tell your story, a way to share the story behind your brand, your mission statement, the things that you stand for as a company, and why you even created this product. So we all create products to solve problems, but if you're not explaining what the problem is, the challenge, and how you are solving that, and helping your customer base really follow that story, and believe in that story, and also want to use your product. I think that that is the goal of content marketing is to be just as valuable as the product is itself.

Christian Beck:

And you mentioned inbound which, I don't know fully if this is true or not, but I feel like I've read that HubSpot invented the term inbound marketing. Can you confirm that? Is that... I mean, it's not trademark maybe, but that's at least been a big push for HubSpot really for years, right?

Alanah Joseph:

Absolutely. I learned about inbound marketing when I came to HubSpot, I think it's a genius way to think about content marketing or marketing general, and then of course we have our annual inbound conference that happens every year in which people can come and learn from amazing experts within the product and marketing industries. So yes, inbound and HubSpot are definitely tied and inbound did start at HubSpot.

Christian Beck:

I always think inbound is contrasting against traditional, maybe outbound sales. And so to break down this further, I'll give this a pass, you can tell me if this seems about right. And we'll get to The Podcast Network but first before getting there, I want to hit on a trend I've been looking at a little bit in the product space, which is this idea of really more premium content, really the resurgence of newsletters, I think a couple of years ago of which The Hustle was one of the prime examples of it, and HubSpot acquired The Hustle a couple of months ago. Help us understand what was that about? How does that sort of connect with what HubSpot is trying to do?

Alanah Joseph:

Historically HubSpot has been very, very good at creating content. And so we're looking to scale those efforts and really be able to reach a larger number of people and provide that value. And so with that, having more media offerings and newsletters, and more content, and more distribution channels will allow us to achieve our mission of helping business owners, providing that education, inspiration that they may need. So I think it totally fits and I can see why our leadership team has decided to develop and scale our media offerings, and The Hustle is incredible newsletter, and we're very happy to welcome them into the Fold. And with The Hustle comes My First Million, which is their podcast show and so that show is a part of our network, and so I'm very happy to have both Sam Parr and Sean Perry as part of our podcast network.

Christian Beck:

So let's dive into The Podcast Network. Let's talk about sort of where it started, and what you actually mean when you say podcast network.

Alanah Joseph:

So The Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who are looking for inspiration and education on how to scale their business. And so what we did is we reached out to the top world-class business content creators within the podcasting industry and invited them into our fold so that we could create a platform for business professionals, no matter if they're an entrepreneur and they have a startup, no matter if they're a marketer, a salesperson, if they work in operations, or if they have a scale up, we wanted to have content for everyone. So no matter what your role or your goal was that you could come to the HubSpot Podcast Network and find content that would help you be successful. And so that is why we created the HubSpot Podcasts Network, and that's what it is.

Alanah Joseph:

Right now it's comprised of six shows, and those shows range from, we have a marketing show, MarTech podcast, we have a sales show, the Salesman Podcast, we have operations show called Business Infrastructure, and you have a leadership podcast such as Being Boss and My First Million, where Entrepreneurs on Fire, where if you are looking to start a business or you own a business, or you even have a side hustle, that those are podcasts that will really give you some strategies and stories that you can apply to your own career journey.

Alanah Joseph:

And so it's very exciting to not only have this network, but to have such diversity in content in the network so that everyone feels like there's something for them, and something that will help them along the way. I think of our podcast hosts as like business mentors, right? People that you can access 24/7 and get the mentorship that you need no matter where you are in your career, or what your role is at a company. And so having these on demand mentors is incredibly valuable, and I love podcasts as well so I feel like having long form content in which you can take a deep dive into something that's relevant to your role is incredibly beneficial.

Christian Beck:

It sounds like you're branching out, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're driving the content of the podcast from other people, not necessarily HubSpot's writing. Is that true or do you have sort of editorial, oversight on the way the podcasts, the material that they cover?

Alanah Joseph:

All of our podcasts are top-notch world-class podcasts. So we don't have too much oversight, and that we brought them in because we love their content. There's a combination between HubSpot original shows and shows that are now a part of our network. And so it's a little bit of both that's why we use the term podcast network, because this is an audio destination and platform where you can go to discover shows that will be relevant to you and that will help you be successful.

Christian Beck:

So you mentioned earlier that you're trying to tell a story through content, and ultimately this seems like an extension of the same strategy that you put out content to tell HubSpot's story. How do you maintain that connection when you get to something like The Hustle or starting up a new podcast on leadership and connect it back to a CRM product?

Alanah Joseph:

As a CRM platform, our goal is to provide value to business owners and help them run their businesses more effectively and efficiently. As people are talking about ways in stories that they've found success within their business, it only fits to have a tool that will allow you to implement some of the strategies that are being discussed on the podcast. So when you listened to our podcast shows, of course you will hear a HubSpot ad for our CRM platform, because we want people to know that there is a tool and a resource that you can use to actually execute some of the strategies that our hosts are suggesting and recommending. And you can see just how well the CRM platform fits within the content of the show.

Christian Beck:

That makes a lot of sense. I think that's conceptually what I'm still trying to learn myself, and try to help break down on this show is, how this sort of media network that you're building ties to a product. Because to me it's like, when you say network, I think like network television, or even just think about now we have Netflix shows, they write their own shows but that is the product, where we're so accustomed to content being the thing that you're paying for, for example but, your building as vast sort of almost multimedia podcasts and blogs and white papers, eBooks and all of that, that's ultimately built around a product. I just think it's really interesting to see how those two worlds are converging.

Alanah Joseph:

Absolutely. And I think I have a media background and so to say six years ago, to say that I'd be working at HubSpot, I may not have made the connection. Now it feels very clear to me, and it makes complete sense that you're providing content that is helpful and you're providing a tool that is helpful. And so now you have a CRM platform, say you're on HubSpot, you're a HubSpot customer, well you can listen to maybe the MarTech podcast to learn how to actually create marketing strategies that will help you really use that tool and get the most out of the tool.

Alanah Joseph:

So I think that's where the connection is, is how we have these incredibly talented hosts that are well-informed and great mentors, like I said, and so to have them make solid recommendations for strategies, or even invite people that have incredible inspirational stories that will inspire you to find success within your whole career journey or within your business. It makes sense to have a tool and a product there that you can use to actually be able to be effective. So it actually goes hand in hand, it's like peanut butter and jelly, content and product. I'm going to, I might point that-

Christian Beck:

I would think peanut butter and chocolate but that works, so it's, peanut butter and jelly is also very good. So inside of HubSpot, you're in the marketing group and there's a product group. How did those teams stay in sync? Does the marketing team stay connected, internally inside of HubSpot with product to make sure that there's sort of the strategies are aligned?

Alanah Joseph:

Absolutely. I think HubSpot is a big company, but we all work in sync with each other. So there is a product marketing team that specifically works on marketing the products themselves. So of course those two are definitely connected, but just in terms, if I kind of zoom out a little bit and think about, we launched our Operations Hub last week. And so when we launched our Operations Hub within The Podcast Network, we have a podcast called Business Infrastructure, which is led by an operations expert, right? So Alicia Butler Pierre, who is the host of Business Infrastructure, of course we're going to invite her into certain opportunities so she can share her expertise and connect that to the product.

Alanah Joseph:

So once again, we're using content to be in our experts, our podcast hosts to be able to ensure that people are understanding the importance of having a product like Operations Hub one, and what strategies you can use in order to get the most out of the product. So you need people in content in order to tell that story. So that's just an example of how a recent product launch is connected to our podcast network.

Christian Beck:

I'm curious, how do you set the boundaries for what you do on the content marketing side? There's this sort of alternate reality I can see where HubSpot could grow to do everything. It's like when you look at Microsoft today versus the eighties, it seems to have its hand in everything. And then the joke with Amazon, it's like, if you're selling anything, Amazon's is going to come do it, right? So I can see the same thing happening with HubSpot. How do you keep the boundaries around what you're doing on the content marketing side that keeps you knowing, this is the type of content, or this is how we stretch a little bit, because operations seems like a good example to me, just what I know about HubSpot, where maybe five years ago, that doesn't feel quite part of what HubSpot's doing, but maybe it does today. So I'm trying to understand how you sort of even put the guard rails around where you even look for content, or producing content, or finding partners?

Alanah Joseph:

I would say that's where I'm leaning on our very talented leadership team to be able to create those very large strategies. So for example, when we started The Podcast Network, it came from a larger strategy of scaling HubSpot's media offerings. From there, by the time we got to me, I really took on, what does that brand look like? How does that operate? How can we figure out the best way to leverage this opportunity and truly be able to provide value to podcast listeners specifically? So in my role, I'm specifically looking at how to execute these much larger strategies into what fits for my target audience.

Alanah Joseph:

So I think that when we're looking at these larger plays, we're really leaning on our C-suite and DPs to think about how we're going to scale? What partnerships make sense for us? And from there, I enjoy doing the smaller strategy and thinking, "Okay, here's a really big strategy, how can I create a brand that is able to achieve the mission that's laid out for me and really be able to create something amazing from that?" And I really enjoyed doing that, so watching The Podcast Network come to life over the last six months has been just such a joy for me in my role.

Christian Beck:

To recap that I would say that, you have a large strategy driven by a leadership team in HubSpot. It kind of gives the guard rails and then you know how to sort of operate within that, to go do your specific work. Getting to your role, I want to ask the, I don't know, existential scary question. A lot of people love metrics, this is not about metrics, but it's more about the faith and trust you have in content marketing, because I feel like a lot of inbound strategies is based on trusting that you're doing good work. Even right now with this podcast that I host, I don't really have great insight. I mean, I can tell people are listening to some degree, but I don't really know if it's working because I don't sell it, I can't tell. If anybody's coming to my restaurant, it's easy to measure success because you would know immediately visually seeing them walk in. How do you figure out? Do you ever wake up when it's like, "I don't know if this is the right thing to do." And if so, how do you figure that out in your work?

Alanah Joseph:

I've been trying to figure that out for years. And I think that it does depend when you talk about data and metrics, it does depend on the type of content that you are looking at. So for podcasting, where as you said, a bit more limited in the data that we receive about our audiences. And so with that, you're looking at downloads. If you have access to subscribed numbers, which you may or may not, depending on the platform, there are 20 different platforms that host your content, which is different than if you run a YouTube channel. And so when looking at all of those things, you are trying to figure out, "Is what we're doing working?" And I would say maybe way to figure that out is, how many people download your episode and then if you're looking at new listeners, that's always a great metric because that will identify your reach. Are you expanding your reach? Are you finding new audiences?

Alanah Joseph:

And then doing the best that you can to really market your podcasts within the limitations that the industry currently holds. I feel very optimistic because the industry is rapidly growing, that within that growth there's going to be some innovation to be able to solve some of the issues that we're all feeling right now, which is just basically what you said, "How am I measuring success?" For us we're just looking at downloads. We are both a publisher and an advertiser, so we're using certain software to be able to better understand how our ads within shows are actually performing. So I guess what I'm saying is, right now it's not ideal, we don't have all the access to all of the data, but I wish that we did. I love storytelling, absolutely, but storytelling is really great when you know that you're doing really good work and you know that your content is resonating with people and hopefully touching them and inspiring them in a positive way.

Alanah Joseph:

So how can you make sure that your content is doing that. Well, I'd say that a lot of podcasts have really active Twitter accounts or social accounts where they can engage with their community, answer questions, and offer some valuable content there, I think that that's great. Also you can see kind of, if you're able to be a guest or do guest swaps with another podcast and reach their audience and see how their audience is responding, that could be great as well.

Alanah Joseph:

I have more than a few tricks up my sleeve at this point, the last show before I was leading the network, the last show that I worked on, Scale Up, which is a short form podcast that HubSpot produces, we were able to increase the audience size by 270% in about two months, just based off of pure experimentation. We tried everything under the sun and some things stuck and some things didn't. And I feel like that's where we are as an industry, is trying to figure things out but the only way that we can do that is by being innovative and by trying and experimenting with a bunch of things and hoping that the data we received is able to tell us whether we were effective or not. Then I would say, just driving downloads is the biggest thing.

Christian Beck:

I loved that you mentioned experimentation and innovation as it pertains to content. Because again, a lot of people listening to the show are building product and that comes naturally there. I think a lot of times, at least from my experience of talking to startups and founders about content marketing, it's almost like it can get lost, that we can just create good content that tells stories and experiment with it just like you would experiment with product features or something like that, where you don't always know what is, there's almost like this, I get a sense that people feel there's this hidden secret to doing marketing well, and you just need to figure out how to hit on that, but it doesn't seem like that.

Christian Beck:

Even what you're describing with HubSpot, you have a network you're still experimenting and sort of figuring things out. So I think it's good advice for people to almost think of it that way because you're never fully sure whether you're going to hit on it and it doesn't seem like there's just one thing. If there were you'd probably could have stopped at one podcast and you wouldn't need a whole network for it.

Alanah Joseph:

Absolutely. I think that we have the network because of the diversity of types of content, but I will say that, I will never stop innovating within this space. I'm always thinking critically and analytically about how we can improve the way that we create content, market our content, and report on success. Those are the three things that I think of throughout my day, every day at work. And so even when we find success, that means, "Okay, great, this works. What if we did that?" "Oh, that sounds kind of crazy." "I don't know, well let's try it and maybe it will work." And I think that it's honestly one of my favorite things about working at HubSpot because there's truly an environment where I can experiment where I can say like, "Hey, we've never tried advertising like this before, but I think it's really cool and I think it will provide us with some unique opportunities or it will help us find a new audience."

Alanah Joseph:

And so having leadership that's like, "Okay Alanah, yeah sure. Go for it, try it." That makes it a lot easier, it makes it a lot easier to experiment and I think that that's what's led to our success this far. And even with The Podcast Network, we're trying to be ahead of the curve. We're trying to do something that no one has really done before, especially as a CRM platform. And so having the brand and the company invest and back this idea, I think just is a Testament to how HubSpotters work and think about innovation and creation and constantly moving forward and trying to be a leader within the way that we create and market content.

Christian Beck:

Yeah, it sounds like it. Well, that's a good segue into my final question which is, what are you excited about next for HubSpot?

Alanah Joseph:

Now the HubSpot Podcast Network is created. So if you are listening to this podcast, you can find it at hubspot.com/podcastnetwork, shameless plug. But what's exciting is now that it's created, now it's time to create operational models that make it super efficient, super effective, and make it a platform that both creators, where creators can be successful and listeners can find content that will help them be successful. So now that we've created it, now we have to improve it. And then from there we're going to scale it.

Alanah Joseph:

So I'm very excited to see this effort grow and truly become what we all think it's going to be, which is the audio destination for business professionals, the place that you go when you want to find and discover podcasts that will help you be successful within your career, or push your business to be successful. That is the goal, and I think it comes from a really good place and really good intent. And so, like you said, content marketing is very much about trust and fee because we have this great mission to provide value and help people. I think that people will find it to be valuable and it will be successful, and I'm excited to see that. And then I can report back on how I measured that success.

Christian Beck:

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