Spotlight on Marketing: The Creator-led Growth Blueprint

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Okay, welcome everyone.

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Thank you so much for joining this session.

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The creator led growth blueprint here at Pipeline Summit.

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My name is Sarah McConnell.

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I'm the VP of demand generation here at Qualified.

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And I'm so excited to be joined today by Karina Karina.

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Can you go ahead and introduce yourself?

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I'm so excited that you're here.

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- I'm so thrilled to be speaking with you again Sarah.

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It's always such a pleasure.

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My name is Karina Owens.

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I am the chief evangelist officer at Purple Cork.

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We are a virtual and in-persons events solution

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that make brand memories come to life.

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So, throws me here with you and talk about

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this amazing new movement or experiencing

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the creator led growth economy.

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- I know and that is why we wanted to do this session

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for all of you that are joining us is

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creator led growth feels very new.

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It feels very different.

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Both Karina I think have been on our own journeys

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of building our audiences and doing creator led growth.

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So, we wanted to bring this session together

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to sort of give everyone here an actual blueprint of

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if you want to build this at your own organization

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or you've started to build it,

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but you want to optimize it.

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There's an actual blueprint that goes along with this session

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that you can download here in Goldcast.

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So, feel free to download that.

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We're also going to share that link as well.

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So, today we're going to run through it at a high level,

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but please download that blueprint.

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It's going to give you all the nitty, gritty details.

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So Karina, first up, what's Krita Lynn growth?

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It is new.

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I feel like anytime something is new,

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there's so many different ways that people define it.

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But how do you think about this?

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- Yes, it's another acronym for me to chat about.

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Love it.

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(laughs)

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- But I think of it really as it's the voice of the customer,

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and the voice of the customer can be, of course,

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the voice of your actual customer that's signing your contracts,

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your personas, et cetera.

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But it can also be the people that are at your company.

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So, utilizing me and another company to try and obtain

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interest and attract similar audiences.

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So, I think it's all about how do you enable

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the voice of the customer of your best fit customers?

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And now you look at that as kind of like the 80/20 rule, right?

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So, like 20% of your audience knows you incredibly well.

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And can speak to everything you do,

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exactly the way you need them to,

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that will reach them the rest of the 80%.

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It may not know who you are,

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it may not know what your product is

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or what your solution's all for.

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But yeah, it definitely all can all start internally first,

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so taking a good look at your employees

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as internal advocates to help you.

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So, that's how I kind of be there.

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I really love that definition because I do think,

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in my mind at least when I started this journey,

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is I thought of Krita Lid Growth as that second part

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of like only your employees,

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like who are you to throw more acronyms in,

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like who are your SMEs internally?

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How can you start to evangelize them?

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But it goes beyond that I love the idea of bringing

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like the customer voice into it.

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And it is about content first,

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doesn't have to be your employee content,

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it's just any really,

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the content that is sharing the voice of your company

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and it's reaching your audience where they are at.

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So, Krita, when you think about Krita Lid Growth

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and you think about doing an organization,

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you've obviously done this for some time now.

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What are some of the benefits of it?

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Like we know it's gonna help drive brand awareness,

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we know it gives sort of an authenticity to your company,

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we know it helps activate your employees,

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but when you think about that,

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like why are these drivers important?

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Like why does this matter to you in your organization?

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- Yeah, it's definitely a kind of do,

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I didn't coin this phrase,

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but a great colleague of mine coined it while he said,

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"It's not just doing more with less,

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"it's doing less better."

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Right?

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So it's definitely about utilizing to your point,

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your subject matter experts that already exist internally,

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that know your product and company's solution inside out.

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And you don't need to have this huge overarching

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like content campaign, if you will, like to start and begin.

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I think starting off small and testing

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and doing a lot of research about,

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hey, where are those virtual watering holes

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that my audience is living in?

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And starting to engage with the content

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that they're participating in,

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or even the threats and channels

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that they may have questions on.

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So like take Reddit, for example,

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there may be, and there has been,

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I've seen many in my company,

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there's a lot of questions about my product.

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And I'm a marketer, of course,

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you know how to answer them.

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So you can start small with little things like that

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before you actually start to do your own content,

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where you're posting on all these different channels

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and platforms.

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So I think that I would look internally,

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again, to find like,

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who's currently speaking about this subject

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or this product line well?

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And then start to make sure that they're aware

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of where the clients that you're trying to reach,

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where are they actually getting their content from?

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And then making sure that you have somewhat of a presence

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with your subject matter and to express internally there.

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Totally.

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And I think for me too, as far as like,

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creatorland gross and what it's up and driving

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beyond these things that are on this slide here

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is all this matters because of pipeline.

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To your point, Karina, like all of these efforts,

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all this stuff that you're going through,

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obviously this entire event today

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is about driving pipeline for your organization.

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It's getting harder.

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It's definitely harder to drive pipeline.

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And this is something that's gonna help you drive pipeline

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in a really authentic way

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by telling your company story through the voice of your customer,

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through the voice of your subject matter expert.

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Okay, so let's get into the good stuff here,

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which is the actual blueprint.

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So first step is your strategizing, your creatorland growth.

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And I think you just touched on some of this Karina,

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which I appreciate,

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but when you're thinking about setting up the strategy,

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the first steps,

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what are some of the things that you think about

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when you're setting up your creatorland growth strategy?

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So I definitely think, you know,

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having that buy-in first is incredibly important, right?

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So if your executive team top down

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is not bought into the team doing this,

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it's probably gonna get really hard to get a lot of tough

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ground, but you don't need to have a ton of people

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to do this with.

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I would select me, be a handful of people

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that you feel confident in and make sure

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that they are aware of what they're talking about

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and that they also, again, have that research

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and that could be through by listening to customer calls

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or doing their pretty research, you know,

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validating what you're saying.

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I mean, even using your own first party

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intent data research, first party intent data, sorry,

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I think that gets so overlooked

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and that can be both with like your website

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that is facing LinkedIn, your social channels

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that could even be, you know, a product.

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So there's so much you can learn about your own audience

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when you're then having your SMEs

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or your creators inside your company

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go out and push out the message.

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So I would say before you even think about engaging,

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just make sure that you feel very confident

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with who's speaking and that they have all the tools

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and resources they need to speak to those different

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problem areas and topics and personas.

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- I totally agree on one of the things I think

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you're on this slide that I really like

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when I think about strategizing,

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'cause I think I sort of stumbled into creative-led growth

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without even realizing I was doing it,

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I was just posting on LinkedIn, things that came to my mind

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and then realized like this is actually something

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that's really important, but I think that third bucket

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of engaging, I think I spent so much of my initial time

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when I started stepping into creator-led growth

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and thinking about how myself as a subject matter expert

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can add some value to my organization and to my peers

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was the engagement part, like I was just posting out there

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but I didn't spend the time researching other people's posts

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engaging with them, asking questions.

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And when I did that, I started to see that improve

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so much more.

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So I think from a strategic perspective,

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it's not as about creation, it's about going out

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and interacting and engaging with people

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that are also in your circle.

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So I think if you're new to this,

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you're thinking about your strategy,

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don't forget that part, I think it's so, so vital.

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- I think that's a perfect one to highlight pinpoint

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and put it on a post-in-home on your laptop

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because that is just so crucial,

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'cause that's truly showing that give versus get mentality.

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So I would highlight that and have that on post-in-law

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on your laptop, but I think that's perfect Sarah.

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- Totally.

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Okay, so we're talking about our strategy

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next on operationalizing.

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You've got your strategy all set up,

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now it's time to start thinking about

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how do you operationalize this?

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I love this here, it's said have been like do's and don'ts

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and I think the thing that stands out the most on the slide

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as it's to everyone is AI because that's such

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an important topic right now.

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It's said so frequently, so obviously you can use AI

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with creator-led growth, but I think one of the things

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we're calling out here is you can integrate it

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into your strategy, that's a total deal.

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It's just gonna become so commonplace,

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but what you don't wanna do is hinge your entire strategy

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on this and don't not verify what's coming out of it

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and you still need that human component.

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So I'm curious, Karina, how do you think about the do's

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and don'ts when you think about creator-led growth in AI?

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- Yeah, I think that I'm not afraid of AI

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and I don't think that an AI yet has replaced me

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and it can't, right?

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Like there's so much that's to a person still that's

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all about being original and being intentional

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in what you're saying.

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Your own voice is really going to come through,

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between Sarah and I, right?

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Like we sound differently in person in real life

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and we sound that same way online.

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So it's really important to make sure that you're

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being original and thoughtful and using your voice

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and just try and remove that fear factor

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from the equation about that.

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Also, I remember that you're again, you're here to help.

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So like we said earlier, it's definitely

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like a versus get mentality.

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And again, just try not to be too salesy.

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We understand that pipeline is the end goal here,

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but you're not gonna get there just out front,

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right out of the gate.

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So I think that blends really well

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to what you're going to speak to next.

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If you pin the other thing I wanna pin that is like,

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just don't be get so, I think that's so important

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that's not even on the slide is I think

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we're all trying to direct pipeline,

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but if you approach your creator led growth from a,

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selling your product first, it doesn't, it falls flat.

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Like I've done it, I've seen it,

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let me be your guinea pig, don't do it

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'cause it does not resonate.

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The other thing you're, I wanna touch on really quickly

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is the internal messaging first.

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One of the things we did at qualifying

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that I thought was so important is our team set up a,

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we call it our qualified influencers channel,

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which is a very like broad term,

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but it was a place that people who wanted to help

9:48

with creator led growth or wanted to be involved in this,

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we could run our messaging past each other and say like,

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hey, what do you think about this, does this work?

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And use that internal, I guess, sounding board

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before I just let it loose in the wild.

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And that was incredibly helpful for me to like hone in

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my messaging and was I saying it right?

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And like how was this, how were people perceiving

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that messaging?

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- Yes, no, I totally agree, Sarah.

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And I think it's so important to realize that

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you can not only run this past, you know,

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your internal team, this black channel is such a brilliant

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idea, but you can also run a past, your peers, right?

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So Sarah, you could run that past your, you know,

10:23

different communities, you know, of heads of marketing

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and you know, she's a marketing officer group,

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so make sure that that message sounds authentically you,

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people that know you and then it is authentic to you again,

10:35

the message that you're trying to deliver.

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So I think that's a great point.

10:39

- Awesome.

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And I think to the point, it'd be so authentic there

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from an execution standpoint.

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How are you, we've got to hear it around the wild,

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like you're actually doing it.

10:48

Karina, you've been a voice that I've respected

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for so, so long, just in the marketing community,

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the LinkedIn community.

10:53

So I'd love to hear from you, like, what have you learned

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when you've gone through execution here,

10:58

about being authentic to yourself and using your voice

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in a creator-led growth perspective?

11:02

- Thanks, Sarah.

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I feel the same way about you.

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I mean, you're somebody that actually always brings like,

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if I see that you're posting, I'm excited to see it

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because I know it's gonna be positive

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or it's gonna be funny or it's gonna be informative.

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And I think that that's kind of the key here,

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is we as humans are so complex.

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So there should never just be this like copy paste,

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like feeling type or formula to your post,

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like it should be varied.

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It should be differentiated.

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So I think that what I've found is

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that posting about different problem areas,

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but also incorporating different aspects

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of my personality and my life and things

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that I know people will get a relief from,

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a reprieve from their day, are gonna be really helpful.

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So make sure to not always be posting,

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like, consistency is key,

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but don't always post exactly the same thing

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because that's gonna start to come through

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is very like, okay, just like we can sniff out a cool email.

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We can now sniff out that this content is being like,

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pushed to us for a very specific reason.

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So varying your content, but making sure that it's like,

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just very real to you and who you are.

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So if you look at you and you know,

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you as a person and trust and believe it in the content

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that you're creating and putting out.

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- Absolutely.

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And to wrap things up here, everyone,

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I will remind there is the blueprints.

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So if you wanna dig into any of these points,

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there is so much more goodness in that blueprint reporting.

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The one thing that I really wanna emphasize here

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is once you're reporting on creator-led growth,

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there's nothing new here.

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Like you don't need to go out and buy some fancy new tool,

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you don't need to add this whole new dashboard,

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whatever you're currently measuring

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from a brand awareness standpoint,

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a pipeline generation standpoint,

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how are your deals progressing?

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Set those baselines when you start a creator-led growth program

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and just see how it impacts it.

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You don't need to overhaul your entire reporting structure.

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You wanna just use the same benchmarks and the same data

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that you were measuring before

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and just see how it's lifting those.

12:45

Krena, do you measure anything different

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or how do you think about this?

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- No, that's exactly right.

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And I think you just make sure that you set your audience up

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for success.

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So if you're measuring content through UTMs,

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make sure that you have specific UTMs for the creators,

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right, and again, if you're having an impact

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and part of a deal, maybe your name gets mentioned on a call

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or a free text form, it's the same thing.

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You're not reinventing the wheel here.

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Just keep doing what has been working for your business

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as far as an ROI perspective

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and just think about how you can

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push this into the creator-led growth perspective.

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- Absolutely.

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So that's it folks.

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That is creator-led growth blueprint.

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Krena, thank you so, so much for joining us

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and sharing everyone that's here again.

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If you wanna dig into each one of those points,

13:26

please go download our blueprint.

13:28

Thank you so much.

13:29

- Thank you.

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