Christian Klepp, Mariah Tang

Mariah Tang  00:00

I like to with my groups, just jump right in to the deep end. So a lot of the time, the first piece that we’ll do with a group, whether it’s a video or an article or a web page, what have you, involves one of their higher up stakeholders. So if you can immediately show the value and the benefit of the work to that higher tier, you know, on the political scheme of that organization, it generally ripples down. So you know, if the Dean trusts you, then the people that are underneath them in a reporting structure tend to get a little bit more leeway, and then they can work with you, and you can kind of expand upon what you’ve done in that initial start.

Christian Klepp  00:34

The health care and higher education industries in the US are sectors that are highly regulated and at times conservative as a B2B Marketer, it’s a delicate balance to come up with creative campaigns for clients while being compliant at the same time. So how can B2B Marketers increase B2B brand visibility and get outcomes? Welcome to this episode of B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host. Christian Klepp, today I’ll be talking to Mariah Tang, who will be answering this question. She’s the Chief Content Marketing Officer at Stamats, specializing in content writing and strategy for healthcare, higher ed and research institutions. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B Marketers Mission is. Okay, and here we go. Mariah Tang, welcome to the show.

Mariah Tang  01:22

Thanks, Christian. Happy to be here.

Christian Klepp  01:24

Glad to have you on. And shout out to Chris Raposo, thank you so much for the introduction. And I’m really looking for this conversation. I know this is going to be interesting because this is, this is up your alley, in your wheelhouse, whatever analogy you want to use, but, um, if you don’t mind, let’s just dive right in.

Mariah Tang  01:40

Sounds great.

Christian Klepp  01:41

Fantastic. All right, so Mariah, you’re, I’m gonna say you’re on a mission to deliver focused and intentional experiences for clients in healthcare and higher education. So for this conversation, I wanted to zero in on the following topic, which is um, which is a pretty meaty one, if I do say so myself, and we’re going to unpack it from there. So that topic is how to increase your B2B brand visibility and get outcomes. So I’m going to kick off the conversation with the following question. In our previous conversation, you mentioned something along the lines of health care and higher education being industry segments that are highly regulated and at times, or oftentimes, conservative and traditional. So how do you think, just from a top level perspective, how can marketing teams in these segments increase brand visibility without sacrificing the trust factor?

Mariah Tang  02:35

Yeah, I love this question Christian and it’s one that we get pretty frequently across both higher ed and healthcare. So one of the ways that we’ve seen organizations grow their trust with their audience and that that back and forth communication is by providing thought leadership. And that’s not a novel concept. People have heard about this all the time in the B2C space, but in B2B, you don’t find that as often. So when you can get your subject matter experts, your your brand champions out there in front of your audience, sharing their insights, sharing what works and what doesn’t work, it can really be impactful for endearing your brand to your audience, to your your buyers, or your your dealers, or whoever it is that you’re trying to connect with so for example, we work with several research institutions across the US. Some of them do patient care, some of them do just research, some of them do a combination of both. And one of our groups has shared with us that because of their thought leadership programs that they run with standards as their support. They have really increased their earned media, which is when organizations reach out to you and ask for your opinion, ask for your subject matters, experts, opinions, offer to give insights. So you know, Forbes morning brew, publications like that, that that deal in these different types of stories, and need those expert insights. Our client has told us that 70% of their earned media comes from the articles that we help them write. So thought leadership can be very impactful, not just in the B2C space, but also in the B2B space.

Christian Klepp  04:17

Yeah, absolutely love that with Thought Leadership. I mean, I know that term gets thrown around quite loosely. I did have a follow up question for you, because I know that this can be a challenge regardless of the vertical that we’re referring to, certainly a research institution or certainly a healthcare institution, or, in fact, higher ed. They have their subject matter experts, right? They have people on staff that are very knowledgeable. They have a they have they have so much knowledge. And I think it’s also a question of being able to package that and being able to communicate that to the to the broader market. Sometimes it’s not easy to recruit these subject matter experts, right? Sometimes it takes a little bit of prodding, right? There’s a little bit of reluctance for them to be put into the spotlight. As it were, from your experience, how do you convince these subject matter experts that it’s not just in their interest, but it’s in the interest of the organizations they represent, to put themselves out there and to, you know, to communicate that thought leadership piece like, you know, in your experience, like, how do you how do you get them over to your side?

Mariah Tang  05:31

Have you been spying on me? This is what I do. Well, you’re exactly right. So we’ll stick with the researcher, for example. So a lot of the times research individuals, I’m not trying to paint too broad of a stroke here, but a lot of the times, they have their specific niche, they have their interest, they have their little edge of science that they feel comfortable talking about, whether that’s basic science, completely behind the scenes clinical, which is more in in the space with the with the students and with the patients, or translational, you know, bench to bedside is kind of what they call it. So if you have a basic scientist who is maybe doing research with fruit flies or worms or mouse models, they’re probably not going to be super excited about talking about how that science could, in five years, 10 years, impact a human being. But what we can talk about is tell me how you conducted this this experiment. Tell me how you set up your hypothesis. What is the end goal of this research that you hope one day to see how are the data that you’re pooling together now reflective of your hypothesis, and so you can get them kind of talking, speak in their language, express interest. A lot of the times, they feel like we’re just these folks in the lab and nobody wants to hear from us, but the work that they’re doing is so impactful at a foundational level, we couldn’t have the medications or the procedures or the, you know, the different academic sub topics that we have in research and higher ed without the work of those lab experts and those researchers behind the scenes. So when you show that you genuinely appreciate what they’re doing, that you genuinely are interested in what they’re doing, a lot of the times you can see them light up, and that’s why I always say, you know, I love talking with faculty. I love talking with surgeons and doctors, but talking with researchers is one of my favorite things. They are one of the least tapped individuals and groups of individuals in an organization, and they have some of the most interesting stories to tell.

Christian Klepp  07:38

I 100% agree with that. Like it almost seems like a lifetime ago, in a previous agency, I was working with a company that dealt in with the dealt with industry adhesives, and we, we went to one of their labs, right? And they had the lab technicians there, and without giving too much away, they basically produced adhesives that go into what you see on cell phones, for example, right orange shoes, but on the face level or on the surface level, like you wouldn’t notice it by just looking at that, at that individual component. But then you know when you like to your point, when you start displaying interest and you start asking them, okay, tell me more about this. Like, you know where, where and the where in the cell phone, or the mobile phone, does this component go into, and what purpose does it serve? And it’s interesting how you know, with looking at it from a journalist’s perspective, as you well know, like, there’s, there’s eight to 10 different ways to tell the same story, right? Or eight to 10 different angles, rather, and from there you’re just unlocking, you’re unlocking all these doors, right where these people would rather, you know, instead of, like, you know, just visiting the lab and just saying, okay, so this is what you work on. This is the equipment. Well, you up to them and say, like, Hey, Jack, tell me more about what you do, and what purpose does this What purpose does this adhesive serve? And it was interesting to see how very open they were to sharing, because now suddenly somebody is like, oh, some, someone’s actually interested in this work, beyond, beyond this laboratory, right?

Mariah Tang  09:17

Yeah, absolutely

Christian Klepp  09:20

So we’re going to move on to the next question, which is about key pitfalls. So again, on the topic of building that brand visibility without sacrificing trust, what are some of the key pitfalls that you think marketers should avoid, and what should they be doing instead?

Mariah Tang  09:35

Yeah, especially in the B2B space, there are a couple of common, I wouldn’t even say, mistakes, just kind of misperceptions that marketers tend to have, and one is that frequently, teams forget that their clients and that their audience are actually human beings and not just another brand or another company. That means these are people that have challenges throughout their day. These are people that deal. Go with and work with end users, and so they’re hearing all of these different questions and concerns and complaints and situations that need to be resolved. But if we as the organization are only throwing our marketing messages and here’s this thing you can buy and here’s some details about our product or our service, it’s not really getting to the heart of what they’re looking for. So if you can, if you can work with your audiences, work with those people and not just the institutions, you can understand what challenges they are facing, how your services and product might be able to help remedy those problems and make their jobs and their lives easier. When you make somebody’s life easier, they’re more likely to come back to you and continue doing business with you. So that’s one thing, and I think the other is, is a pretty long standing marketing principle that’s just super easy to forget when we have lots of stakeholder pressure and lots of market pressure, is that we’re not trying to sell a product or a service. We’re trying to sell us a solution, an answer to a problem. When we demonstrate, you know, I think, I think it’s, I think there are a lot of good examples out there in the manufacturing space and in the retail space, but when you’re thinking maybe about higher ed, for example, you want to sell this degree. You want to sell enrollment into your school, but what you’re really selling is a better career for this individual, or a better livelihood that they can make for themselves and their family, a more dependable future with longevity to their skill set. And so you are, yes, getting them it to come in, trading money for services, but you’re really trading their time and investment in your attention and their their attention into your marketing endeavors for a better outcome, long term and not just that acute win.

Christian Klepp  11:49

Absolutely, absolutely. I love how you brought up those two points. Do you think to the first point again, to what you were saying, like, maybe it’s not a pitfall, but it’s again, something that perhaps marketing teams tend to forget when we when we drown in all the everyday work and being busy and what have you. But do you feel sometimes that the teams tend to forget or not forget, but they sometimes the mistakes that they make are a result of their lack of understanding of who the actual target audience is. And I’d like to go a step further than that. It’s not just the lack of understanding of the target audience, but it’s also like What the What that customer journey looks like.

Mariah Tang  12:32

Yeah, that’s very astute. I mean, a lot of groups just go in and say, Well, this is my experience with it, so I assume everybody else has the same experience, but you probably don’t have the same interaction with your own products or services as that end user does, and your client will will definitely have a different perspective of how useful your product is, and if they’re a good client, though they’re willing to share that with you, even if it hurts your feelings, but yes, certainly understanding the needs right now of your audience, and not just, you know, three to five years ago or historically, the challenges that are coming down the pipe that your product might be able to serve. You know, some some of that future facing work, as well as the acute needs and the acute struggles of your audience, you have to have all of those things in mind. 

Christian Klepp  13:19

Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. So, you know what? Mariah, for this next question, I thought, like, Okay, I’m gonna have a little bit of fun here. Like, I don’t want to just throw this question about, like, oh, you know, what do we do now with all this? AI right? Like, I mean, that tends to be a very common question on podcasts, so I thought I’d have a little bit of fun with it, and just ask you about, I suppose, because we’re living in this era now where everybody’s talking about AI, and I don’t know who you follow on LinkedIn, but I’m seeing so many of these, like, okay, Claude prompts, and, you know, comment prompt, and I’ll send it to You, but, um…

Mariah Tang  14:00

The bro tech

Christian Klepp  14:01

I know, right this, this hack chasing, as I like to call it, but in this era of, like, continuous content saturation and volumes of AI Generated Content appearing online, and you know, you’re, you’re, you’re a trained content strategist, you can see it right away, right So, But let’s, let’s look at this from a more constructive perspective, right? So what is an unconventional approach to content that you’ve seen, ideally, recently or in the past one to two years that you thought successfully, can successfully boost visibility, and why do you think that approach was so effective?

Mariah Tang  14:39

Yeah, I think, I think I’ll go back to my example that I was talking about before, when we’re working with researchers. Typically, in the past, you would see a prepped press release or a prepped article with a cute little spot reserved for such and such researcher to say something really smart, and then you would have. Whole like, here’s where all of our funders, you know, came from. These are the awards this specific researcher has won. And then, you know, here’s, here’s what we found in this research, or what we hope to find, you know, big kudos to everybody involved. Instead of, I’m not saying that those pieces aren’t important, because they absolutely are. How else are you going to, you know, show that your institution is worthwhile for funding and things like that, but what really matters to that end audience is the outcome that will impact them down the line. So I’ve seen more and more basic science institutions either partnering with other organizations to tell a more holistic story or encouraging their basic scientists to consider the possibilities of what their research could, in fact, one day do. So we’ll talk about the hard data. We’ll talk about what we know, and then we’ll talk about what we hope will be accomplished by this someday. We don’t have to get too far out into the wilderness. Nobody is doing this basic scientific work just for the fun of it. I mean, they’re doing it for a specific reason. And if we can talk long term about our goals and long term about our continued engagement with our audiences, that’s the kind of thing that’s going to resonate. Yes, what you’re doing right now is cool. It is fascinating. These discoveries will impact and ripple down the line. What do we maybe think that those ripples might be? What’s the next phase of our research? What are the the we don’t talk about, what outcomes we hope will happen, because we don’t want to, you know, muddy the waters with that research. But when these findings are complete, what what do you anticipate will be the next step, and just give people a reason to come back and learn more. So that kind of future facing storytelling, not just retroactive or here’s what’s happening right now. We’re seeing a lot of that happening in this space, as well as thought leadership in different types of takes. And so not just a talking head person, not just the you know, director of research coming out and saying, here are some fabulous things we did. It’s the actual people from the lab. It’s the actual people, you know, from the administration desk, who see individuals and giving that person story, telling the full picture, instead of just the outcome.

Christian Klepp  17:13

Yeah, no, no, that’s, that’s a great approach. I love that. It’s, you know, and correct me if I’m wrong. But like B2B like the B2B space is so notorious for, like, producing content or initiatives that seem very dry,

Mariah Tang  17:29

Press release…

Christian Klepp  17:30

yeah, on the server, on the surface, and, you know, I’m using, I know that’s a very polite term for it, right? Like, dry and it’s, creativity can be a little bit challenging, right? And I know that, like, you know, in contrast to B2C, like, you know, we usually can’t, especially with the industries we work with, we can’t just go nuts, right? It has to be kind of like, we have to exercise a certain level of restraint at the end of the day. Also, we’re dealing with a different group of like, target audiences who tend to be of a specific like role and a senior level within an organization and things of that nature, right? So it’s always important to like, it’s always important to keep that in mind. But at the same time, it’s like, yes, but we there has to be to your point. There has to be a more interesting way to be able to communicate this, right? So taking, taking your The Research Institute as an example, right? Like, rather than having one person come out, like, how about everybody else that was working behind the scenes, right? And I think that’s what I love about B2B, because it’s always, there’s always an opportunity to make it more interesting, right? Whereas in B2C, it’s like, I’m not saying that they’ve, they’ve done it all already, but like, yeah, it’s, it’s pretty it’s pretty much expected that it’s going to be out there. Whereas in the B2B space, again, depending on the vertical, you still have a lot of opportunities to make that story even more interesting, right?

Mariah Tang  19:01

Yeah, absolutely. And there are so many, it’s like peeling back an onion. You ask one question, they give you an answer. It leads to another question and another, and by the time you get down to it, yes, the research is, is the research happening? Is the lead in topic. But what really you can uncover is the personal reason behind that research and so many other rippling effects that might appeal to donors or peers that you want to come and work with you, or potential buyers, because people love those, those signals that that work matters to me, or that work matters to my audience. And when you can give more of that below the surface, you’re you’re creating this different level of engagement. Instead of just, hey, buy your stuff, it’s look at these wonderful people that put their heart and soul into this work.

Christian Klepp  19:46

Absolutely, absolutely, all right, for this next question, and I promise I haven’t been spying on you, all right, but this is something that I am 110% sure you’ve dealt with and are concerned. Continuing to deal with just put yourself in this scenario. Okay, you are, you’re in, you’re in a client meeting, probably meeting with a board of directors or members of senior management, and you’re doing your you’re doing your pitch, you’re doing your spiel, and to which the response basically is either confusion, requiring clarification or straight out push back. And what I mean by pushback is like, yeah, look, Mariah, you’re telling us about building B2B brand visibility, but for us, that’s nothing more than a vanity metric. So how do you deal with that? Like, if you ever, if you ever get that pushback, and I’m sure you have,

Mariah Tang  20:45

Oh yes, like every day. And you know what? I’ll start by saying, Christian, I don’t, I don’t necessarily prefer to work with groups that just do whatever Stamats says, like, we like working with institutions that say, Well, why? And you know, what’s the justification for putting our dollars here, our energy here, and it’s good because we we have been around for a long time. So we can bring a lot of data, but we can also bring a lot of flexibility, because we’re small and we’re agile, so the numbers are very important. We have lots of dashboards that we typically bring. We’ll bring data directly from the institution, if we have access to that, like Google Analytics, you know, form fills things like that. But we’ll also bring anecdotal evidence, and you know what we’re seeing as trends in the industry through other clients or through other organizations that we work with. So when a when a group says adamantly, we’re not sure this is the right approach. We can say, totally understand, why don’t we AB test or why don’t we try your your method for X number of days and see if you like that performance, if you don’t, we can adjust, and we can try this other plan that we brought forward and see what works best for your audience. We don’t ever want to assume that this, you know, chatGPT spit out this marketing plan, and we’re going to do it because that’s what everybody’s doing, right? We want to start with the baseline, and we want to customize that for what works for your region, your audience, your team. You know, a large team can do a lot more than a small team. Sometimes, sometimes there are too many people and it just, you know, too many cooks in the kitchen, or what have you. So we we generally go in with a pretty open mind. Here are the best practices. This is what we know based on the data over here is where we can start to experiment a little bit more. And if you’re comfortable with that, great we’ll take the lead. If you have your own ideas, we’ll definitely support that, and we’ll help you figure out what the best option is. But if you’re going to push back, expect us to do the same. Because, like I said, we don’t. We don’t necessarily work with, like, to work with groups as well that just were like, Okay, we also don’t do that. We say, Well, why? Why do you want to do that? What’s your outcome? Well, hey, have you thought about maybe trying it this way instead? And a lot of the times, just by opening that discourse and that flexibility, you can come to an agreement, or you can come to a path that maybe wasn’t what either party thought about in the first place anyway.

Christian Klepp  23:08

Yeah, no, no, absolutely, absolutely. And I don’t know what your experience has been, but it certainly has been mine clients that usually just say, Okay, that’s a red flag. That’s a red flag.

Mariah Tang  23:23

They don’t end up getting what they what they want, and a lot of the time they come in not knowing what they want or what to ask. And so by us asking those additional questions, we can help them get to that. And sometimes it’s opposite, like we think we understand what you’re trying to do, but let us ask a few more questions, or listen to the questions you have, so we can refine and meet, meet where it makes the most sense.

Christian Klepp  23:44

Absolutely, absolutely. And we do this with every client. This is not just like something where we get, you know, if the client gives us what I call a wishy washy brief, this is this. This applies to everyone, across the board. We always start by having, well, not just a kickoff meeting, by doing some but also doing something, what we call a diagnostic canvas, and what that really means is really digging deep into and I’m sure you do the same as like well, what are your What are your business objectives, or what are the objectives you want to achieve for this year, for your organization, for, in your case, your institute, what’s holding you back from achieving that? Who do you want to reach out to? With regards to these initiatives you want to roll out, etc, etc. Do you have any, do you have any information or data that can help, help inform us a little bit more about these? You know, this, this these target groups, right? Because sometimes it’s more than one group, right? So it’s, it’s, it’s really like, almost, it’s almost like them coming to you or to me with a request, but then we were saying we could potentially help you, but let us just do a bit more of a deep dive in terms of like asking all these questions first, and that way expectations are then aligned and managed right, versus them saying, Well, okay, well, I. We want you to build a landing page, and we want to generate traffic to it. okay, why, right, why and who and when and how, right, what’s what’s wrong with what you’re doing right now? Right? So, so things, things of that nature. Oh, you’ve come across this all the time. I’m sure we just spoke about it a couple of minutes ago, but in your line of work, there’s a fine line between doing something that’s creative but also being compliance. So how do you and your clients and their marketing team strike that fine balance between fostering creativity and working within strict legal and compliance ramifications in health care and higher ed and research, because I know that that can be a challenging one.

Mariah Tang  25:47

Oh yeah, for sure. You know, I like to with my groups. Just jump right in to the deep end. So a lot of the time, the first piece that we’ll do with a group, whether it’s a video or an article or a web page, what have you, involves one of their higher up stakeholders. So if you can immediately show the value and the benefit of the work to that higher tier of of you know, on the political scheme of that organization, it generally ripples down. So you know, if the Dean trusts you, then the people that are underneath them in a reporting structure tend to, tend to get a little bit more leeway, and then they can work with you, and you can kind of expand upon what you’ve done in that initial start. So I would say, if, if possible, involve those stakeholders as early as possible, show them what you’re doing, show them the why, explain the potential ROI of what you’re doing, and then work with that group to to gain that gain that approval right from the start. So once you’ve demonstrated that, yes, we do understand your brand, yes, we do understand your goals, and here’s how we’re going to get you there, it opens up the door to push the boundaries just a little bit again, you don’t ever want to do anything that could potentially put the brand at risk, or the end users data and all of those things, but you definitely want to establish the voice right away, make sure the stakeholders are okay with your direction, and then build out your plan from there.

Christian Klepp  27:13

Yeah, no, no, absolutely, absolutely. It has to be a well thought out plan, right? And I guess, like, again, going back to what we were talking about earlier, when we say creative in our in the B2B segment, it’s not the same creative that you would look at if you’re thinking about, like, an FMCG brand (products with relatively low cost and a high turnover rate), for example, right? Like, we know, we know we can’t really, as tempting as it is. We can’t really go down that road, right? Like,

Mariah Tang  27:37

Yeah, yeah, there’s, there’s always guidelines with every brand, but then you learn how close you can get to them and how close your audience wants you to get to them too.

Christian Klepp  27:47

And I suppose like also, and this has certainly been my experience, I think it also really depends on the client’s appetite slash ability to give you permission, to give you a bit of creative license, right? Because there are some clients, and I’m sure you have them too, that say, oh, Mariah, we want this to be really out there, you know? We want to really stand out and be creative. And then you, you come back with something, and they’re like, Oh, that’s a little too creative, right? Like…

Mariah Tang  28:20

Little too much. Yeah,

Christian Klepp  28:22

Little too much. Let’s trim the tree a little bit more, and by the time you trim everything, oh, that’s just exactly like what you’re doing right now.

Mariah Tang  28:33

There are a lot of good examples that are out in the field already. So sometimes when we come to the table, we’ll say, well, here’s this very left of center, you know, idea over here, and then here’s this very right of center idea over here. How far do you want to go, either way and help them, kind of like a thermometer, like a slider? Do we want to get warmer, colder? Are we in the middle? And that helps us gauge, you know, what’s the what’s the tolerance for risk?

Christian Klepp  28:57

Yep, Yep, absolutely, absolutely. I’ve been looking forward to asking you this question, so I’m very curious on how you’re going to answer this. But if you were given a limited marketing budget, okay, and the Board of Directors only gave you 90 days to deliver results, what would you do to increase your brand’s visibility and get outcomes? Walk us through the steps and what the key components are in that process?

Mariah Tang  29:23

Yeah, I really thought about this question a lot, and when my co workers hear this, they’re gonna they’re gonna laugh at me, but I would say, if you don’t have one already, we’re gonna launch a content marketing strategy. And so, like I said at the very top of our conversation, this isn’t a new thing, but it definitely in today’s world and the way that people search has a very different meaning. And so what, what I typically would suggest, especially if the budget was, you know, unlimited, if we, if we get a couple of brand champions, a couple of those people who really have good insights and a good way of describing the outcomes associated with our products and services. Ask for some of their time. I’m talking just a couple of hours. If you can sit and have a half an hour conversation with them, record it, just like you and I are doing right now. You have the capability to pull out, you know, two, three different long form topic ideas. So you get the get the gist, get the meat, get the story angle from that individual, and then your teams disperse, do the research that is required to pull sources, pull data, pull audience information, and so forth. Build out two to three long form pieces of content. So a couple thousand word article, you know, three to five minute video, something that’s meaty. From there, you can take those pieces and then break them down into, you know, five to 10 short videos, short burst of content, infographics, carousels across social media, the emails, text blasts, you know, whatever your preferred channels are. We call this at Stamats, the asset remix. Other groups have called it, create once, publish everywhere. You’ve heard this type of same thing over time. The reason this is so important right now, and this is where I would put my pretend budget if I had one chance, is because all of these AI search engines, Google, all of these different platforms where people are looking for answers social media, they all amalgamate into these chat bot type databases, and so Google, for example, will pull video from Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube. YouTube is the number two search platform across the world, so if you’re not using that for your products and services, you may be missing out on a good chunk of people. The second tier to that, besides the maximizing your assets from your SME interviews, the second tier to that, I would say, is, is really thinking about what your audience is asking in that research phase. So because ChatGPT and Gemini and some of these other groups really, let’s just be frank, they have tanked organic traffic on websites. That doesn’t mean people aren’t researching anymore, it just means they’re finding that information off of your website. So when they come to your site from those different chat bots, they’re probably more engaged because they’re ready to do something, they’re ready to take an action? All of those mid funnel research pieces are happening out on these different platforms. So what does that mean? Your content marketing and your website, content, social media, all of the different platforms, has to answer the questions that those individuals are asking. So these are the how do I? What’s the benefit of, why do I need? What happens if I don’t have type questions answer those with your thought leaders, answer them in text, in video, in infographics, in all kinds of different modalities, and put those answers out on the platforms that your audiences use. So when you do that, you’re giving this this total brand narrative. You’re building out your digital footprint and allowing these humans who are operating these machines to more easily find you.

Christian Klepp  33:08

Wow, there’s so much to unpack there. Let me think, no, no, it’s, it’s, it was very clear. I just okay. I mean, clearly you have to start with a strategy, and you are right to bring that up first, because, you know, one of the things that I keep seeing with clients, and I’m sure you do the same, is they immediately jump into the execution, jump into the tactical stuff. Like, okay, Mariah, we need a video, because, you know, I saw somebody else doing that, and we definitely have to, have to have a video. Oh, and we need a we need these video shorts about x, y, x, y, z, and and the content. It’s like, okay, okay, okay, hang on, but what are we going to communicate in that video? What’s the video going to be about, and what’s the story? And in this day and age, what’s the call to action? Like, okay, once they watch the video, when they’re done, what do you want them to do? Right? Where do you want them to go? Right? If they click on something, or is it going to redirect them to so there’s all these questions, right? And if you have the content strategy to begin with, and at least you have that framework right, it’s almost and you probably have your own analogies that you use, I like to always use the real estate analogy of like, building a house, right? Would you build a house if you didn’t have an architect’s blueprint,

Mariah Tang  34:28

Right.

Christian Klepp  34:29

What’s the house gonna look like? Right?

Mariah Tang  34:31

For a few minutes, so it falls down.

Christian Klepp  34:36

Absolutely, absolutely agree with, you know, doing all that research and interviewing the SMEs, and from there, you can generate these, the long form content and the video clips, etc, infographics. You did mention something about YouTube, and I wanted to go back to that right, because we’ve been, we’ve been playing around with that as well. How do you get buy in from somebody in a higher ed I could kind of see, but how do you get buy in from somebody in health care or in research to put their content on YouTube?

Mariah Tang  35:13

So one of the ways that I found to help people get comfortable with making YouTube content, or any video content, is start with a text based piece. So if you can interview a subject matter expert, kind of like you and I are doing right now, Christian and just say, Okay, we’re going to build this article. Do you mind if I record this? And usually they’ll say, is it just for notes? And you say, yes, just for notes. You build out the text piece, and then when you send that to them for review or to their, you know, whoever needs to look at that, say, hey, you know, Dr., so and so really sounded great when they described this. Could we pull an audio segment and embed it in this article? Start them there? That’s a pretty low risk. It’s just their voice and sometimes a picture for the next time that you work together, because of course, your piece is going to perform and they’ll want to do more right next time say, Okay, we’re going to do we’re going to plan to do the audio. Do you mind if we also grab a couple of little short video snippets and say, just like you told me when we started this, if you mess up, start over again, or just be very candid and say, we’ll pull some clips at the end and thanks for your time and just kind of surprise them with it, if you make them feel comfortable, comfortable about it, and kind of get their consent going into it, a lot of the times, people feel A lot less stress than if you just say, suddenly, Hey, can I do some video with you before you’ve really talked, right?

Christian Klepp  36:27

You have clearly done this before.

Mariah Tang  36:29

10 years.

Christian Klepp  36:31

Yeah? Because, no, I like the way that you packaged it, because basically the way that you’re pitching it to them, almost as you’re doing it in phases. So it doesn’t, it doesn’t intimidate them, because, you know, it can be intimidating, right? But, um, no, I think, I think that that’s really great. But, um, once again, Mariah, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. Um, please. Quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.

Mariah Tang  36:56

Yeah, great. I’m Mariah Tang. I’m the Chief Content Marketing Officer at Stamats, we’re a professional services agency that serves higher ed and healthcare, so feel free to look me up on LinkedIn or out on Facebook.

Christian Klepp  37:09

Fantastic, fantastic. And we’ll be sure to drop the links in the show notes when the episode comes out. So once again, thanks so much for coming on the show. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Mariah Tang  37:18

Thanks, Christian.

Christian Klepp  37:19

All right. Bye for now.