Tommy Walker, a content strategy consultant and founder of WalkerBots Content Studios, talks content automation and storytelling to maximize return traffic.
In this episode, we interview Tommy Walker, a content strategy consultant and founder of WalkerBots Content Studios, (formerly at Shopify and Intuit).
He was first propelled into marketing after getting fired from his $12 hour job over a pair of pants. (You’ve gotta hear this story.)
He went on to write articles on a freelance basis, and eventually landed a role at CXL as Editor in Chief. Alex says Tommy has mentored him over the years in everything from content operations and automation, to managing freelance writers.
Tommy says, return traffic is the most important thing. If you never get that return traffic, you are never going to get to the consideration point. Through strategic foreshadowing and backlinking in storytelling, Tommy has mastered a system that interconnects an entire narrative beyond just a single article to get readers coming back for more.
Watch this interview to learn how he marries a systematic approach with storytelling for more successful content marketing.
Alex Birkett and David Ly Khim co-founded Omniscient Digital to help companies ranging from early-state to scale-ups with growth strategy, SEO, and content marketing. Allie Decker, Head of Content, joins the conversation as well.
What are some challenges your business is facing with systemizing content operations? Tweet us @beomniscient
Connect with us on Linkedin.
You can find Tommy on Twitter @TommyIsMyName or at tommyismyname.com
Prefer to read this podcast in blog form? Head here.
Prefer to watch the video? Head here.
The Long Game Podcast - Tommy Walker
[00:00:00] Alex: Hello? Hello, this is Alex Birkett and you're listening to the long game podcast. In this episode, we're talking to Tommy Walker. Tommy Walker is a good friend of mine and somebody that I consider a mentor. He's done amazing work companies like Shopify, QuickBooks, CXL. And now at his own content marketing consultancy.
[00:00:20] In this interview, we talked to Tommy about a ton of things, including his background, his reasons for being a content marketer and his motives that allow him to continue to flourish today, but we also dive into concrete topics like content operations, and how Tommy with this crazy mad scientist engineer mindset builds massive scale systems and automations and processes that allow multi-site.
[00:00:45]multiple team, content operations, such as at QuickBooks, into it, to flourish. We also talk about storytelling and not just from a broad buzzwordy sense, but Tommy looks at storytelling, very concretely. On both a [00:01:00] microscopic level within a blog post and a macroscopic level building narrative structures over his content programs over the course of many months.
[00:01:07] So the interview itself is amazing and interesting, and I'm excited to bring it to you. But first I want to describe briefly at a high level what this podcast is and what you as a listener can expect since very likely this will be the first podcast that we publish. So the long game podcast, as the title suggests is about the long-term.
[00:01:28] We looked out at a bunch of different podcasts and, stuff that we listened to, stuff that we like, and then generally stuff in the marketing and business space. And we found a plethora of podcasts, blog posts, content, and the like all about the short term. So what works today? What actionable takeaway can give me in the shortest amount of time?
[00:01:49] And, rapid fire questions that would not get down to the deeper issues and the underlying motives. So if I could sum up this podcast and a phrase, it would be play long-term games with [00:02:00] long-term people. In that sense with the podcast format and especially with interviews, we are seeking to let the conversation flourish on its own accord.
[00:02:08] We're not going to come with a list of prepared questions. Maybe I have a couple in mind, but we're going to let the conversation go where the interviewee wants to take it essentially. And in that sense, we're also looking to find the deeper motives. The mental models, the archetypes and the underlying structures that allow people to flourish in the content marketing and business space.
[00:02:31] So we're playing infinite games essentially, and we want to play for the longterm. That's what this podcast is about. And the first episode, I think, exemplifies that very well without further ado. Here's Tommy Walker.
[00:02:43] Anyways, what was the pants thing? did you like what's I know you got fired for a pair of pants, but like why it's what I was just talking about.
[00:02:54]Tommy: [00:02:54] within the span of 24 hours, I had, gotten into a car accident and, had locked myself out of my [00:03:00] house. And, and there was also like a wicked ice storm that had blackout conditions for two weeks. So I was like, Washing my hair and bathroom, SIG Lake in the gas station, bathroom sinks. And, after the car accident, I didn't have my work uniform.
[00:03:13]and I was selling cell phones at a major retailer at the time. I didn't have my work uniform. I went into work and had told the manager on duty, Hey, these are all the different things that had happened in the last 24 hours. It was crazy. And it was 2009. So like wees were super popular. And nobody was getting them in at the time.
[00:03:34] So he just had weeds on the brain and was like, yeah. Okay, cool. We have weeds. And I was like, sweet. So I went and I borrowed an outfit off the floor, the sales floor. and re sold a whole shit load of stuff out, sold everybody in the district because, that's just what I do. and, at the end of the day I returned the pants and I bought the sweater that I, borrowed and I forgot my phone, my cell phone in the [00:04:00] pants.
[00:04:00] So I called back and I basically said, I need to get my cell phone. I came back, I got it from HR. and then two weeks later, the manager on duty, the different manager on duty, the head manager came up and he was like, give us your walkie talkie. And your keys are on you're suspended and suspended was just code for being fired.
[00:04:18]yeah, that was it. Wow. and I like protested at the time. Cause like it was a $12 an hour job and it was like the only $12 I could get. and I was living in like a boarding house in like my laptop was broken and like all of this other stuff and and yeah, I like protested. I was like, but I didn't steal anything.
[00:04:35] They're like, yeah. We know we watched the security tapes. We know you didn't steal anything. I was like, so why am I getting fired? And they're like, it just looks sketchy. So like the one time I had been working since I was 13. So like I had a job at a greenhouse when I was 13 and just worked my ass off for years.
[00:04:52] And that was the first time I'd ever gotten fired. And I was like, you know what, this is the stupidest reason I could ever possibly be fired. [00:05:00] So I'm just going to start working for myself after this. I was like, I will never get fired over a pair of pants or some stupid shit like that ever again, like never.
[00:05:11] Alex: [00:05:11] So I think we should just enter the interview like this. This is a great segue into how did you go from that to CXL? what was your path into content? Oh God, like getting fired over a pair of pants. what happened? Yeah.
[00:05:24]Tommy: [00:05:24] I got my first client within the, within two weeks. I was studying, I was in internet marketing a couple of years prior to that, I had gotten recruited from a gas station into a tech startup in the area.
[00:05:35] David: [00:05:35] And, okay, so we gotta pause there. How does the conversation start in a gas station for you to join a tech startup?
[00:05:40]Tommy: [00:05:40] great question. my attitude, like I went, we can just keep going backwards. I had graduated from a film conservatory when I was that's, where I went to college and, I moved home and I knew everything.
[00:05:51] So I got kicked out of my house and I was sleeping on my buddy's couch and the gas station was across the street. I had no car, like no prospect. I wasn't cool at all. I wasn't nearly as [00:06:00] cool as I thought I was. but I worked at the gas station, but my outlook was always like, this is the only opportunity that I will ever have to meet every single type of person.
[00:06:11] There is out there because everybody needs gas. Like not, everybody's going to show up at a target or a Walmart, not everybody's going to, this is the only opportunity I will meet everybody from every walk of life. And how hard is the job itself, Except for like sweep and mop floors, stock the cooler, make sure the coffee to talk then.
[00:06:29] No everybody's cigarette order. So like I took that sort of attitude of let's just get to know everybody and be myself, essentially show my personality. I've always been. Then this kind of guy, at least a, this level of energy and passion. and if I want something like I, I decided I wanted to do music videos because I, I had that film background and, I just started talking to people about wanting to do that.
[00:06:55] And they, somebody had a band and I followed them around for a summer and made a [00:07:00] music video. It was great. But one of the people, one of my regular customers, he came in and he was like half in the bag one night. I knew it was Bureau order, so I just made sure I knew the time he came in. So I just made sure it was there for him.
[00:07:10] And he was like, you know what? You have a really great personality. And I think you would do really well. the place and, you should come in and, try to get hired. So I went in and I talked to the sales manager. I did not get hired at that point, but I went back in when the sales manager changed.
[00:07:27]And I eventually, I got the job and I failed into marketing because they, I was sucked at asking for credit card numbers. It was a, it was a cold call center, essentially. people were buying and selling timeshare, spots to sell their timeshare. So I was selling intangible space for intangible property.
[00:07:46]it was the way I like to put it. so I filled into that. they said, you know what? We know you work hard. move over to the marketing department, see how you do there. You've got two weeks. And so you make your own money. I made my own money within the first week, based on the pay structure that they had, the company, I [00:08:00] felt like really lost its way over the course of the year that I was there.
[00:08:03] It went from a $1 million, a year company to a $5 million a year company. And I was one of five people in the marketing department, three or five people that kind of grew. And I said, you know what? I can't be a part of this. I'm going to go make music videos. Turns out like local music, local musicians, local bands don't have money.
[00:08:20] So that wasn't really a great career path. so I ended up back at the gas station to cell phones from cell phones to pants. and then I had, so hopefully that gives us enough background there. This is a long story. Like I'm getting a sense of the type of person you are. Yeah. So it's a ten-year long story, but, So after that, I was, I just kinda crunched and said, I got to catch up on what I've missed in the internet marketing space.
[00:08:45] And I was doing like 18 hour days, like falling asleep hand on the keyboard, just drooling. And, I had a friend who said, you know what you need to get out of the house. this is you smell that like it was awful. I was so focused and dedicated to trying to get this going. [00:09:00] And I didn't know anybody at the super bowl party.
[00:09:02] So the question of that, it's inevitable whenever you're in a situation where there's new people. They're going to ask, so what do you do? And I had no other choice. I could say Oh, it was working on a cell phone job and I got fired over a pair of pants, whatever it was stupid and a stupid reason to get fired.
[00:09:20] But I told that story like I'm telling it to you now because it's so ridiculous. And I said, I'm thinking about running my own thing, getting back in internet marketing, all this stuff. And, one of the guys there, his name was Hahns. he said, I have a friend who does websites and that's always a really dubious, like you guys know.
[00:09:38]that's what I was like. I have no other prospects. So I, So I met the guy. It turns out he didn't do websites. He built technology. He was one of the first people doing geo-fencing and encrypted wifi and all this other stuff. So I did some SEO link building stuff for, his Ruby on rails recruiting site.
[00:09:57] And, just built out a recruiting practice or, a [00:10:00] consulting practice from there. A few years go by and I have a client that kind of falls through some of those, I wasn't getting paid on time is essentially what that comes down to. So I fired the client. I had no reason to fire the client. My car was broken.
[00:10:16] My wife was pregnant with our second kid. there was so many other circumstances that said firing this client is a bad idea right now. and I had been working for myself for about four years at that point. Like even home Depot doing lead setting appointments. They wouldn't hire me.
[00:10:32] I couldn't get a job cold calling because they thought that I wouldn't be, listening to the man. so I said, I've got no other choice, but to blog for dollars. And, so that's how I ended up meeting pep. I was looking at the pro blogger job board. I was scouring that, that conversion XL looked like it was the first one that really made sense.
[00:10:52] This guy named peep was looking for, someone to write articles. I was, it was like $200 an article at the time. And, [00:11:00] I wrote the first one and, it got rejected. I had no other choice, but to write another one, he sent that one over to, he recommended me to folks over at smashing magazine.
[00:11:08] So like I got to do that one. and then I started writing other articles for him. And then that turned into, what else that turned into a Unbounce was one crazy egg was one. Like it started to create this flywheel. Of other sites that I was getting to write for and what would have looked like to most people like, Oh, somebody's trying to get their name out and get a buzz going and everything.
[00:11:29] I was like, okay, so two articles is the oil bill. Three articles is the rent. and I was really looking at it from that very transactional perspective and just trying to like, get as much workout as possible with as few edits as possible, because I just didn't have time. for that. And then at the end of the year had said, congratulations, you have the number one and number fifth, or number six, most trafficked articles on the site.
[00:11:54] And I said, congratulations, you have a full-time editor now. let's talk flat rate [00:12:00] salary because I just couldn't. I just couldn't do it the way that I was doing it anymore. yeah. that's how I got to conversion and sell Alex. It's a long story, but.
[00:12:11] Alex: [00:12:11] That's awesome. How did you like, so you were busting ass on like doing all these guest posts and like freelance writing and that's a hustler's mentality, but then you joined CXL on and I'm not sure like what the process was there, but when I met you had this very, I don't know, I would call it like a systems or process mindset.
[00:12:28] Like you these interesting ways to like work with freelancers, your editorial guidelines and standards. Like you had all these things process, like how did that mindset. Changed through the time at CXL from like, all right, I've got to write from like Dawn until dusk for 18 hours a day, just to pay the rent to building a bigger system than just yourself.
[00:12:45] Tommy: [00:12:45] Yeah. I was still the writing on the side there. so cause I was getting paid so much and it was good, but it wasn't enough. Like I still had to make more money. and the thing is before I came along, it was really just Pat contributing to the thing. But, I started bringing in [00:13:00] more guest bloggers and things like that.
[00:13:02] And I had discovered yeah, if I'm trying to manage all of this stuff through email, all of these submissions from the job that pays me the steady income, if I'm getting all of those. Plus the, the system, or like the other guest posts that I'm writing and this sort of back and forth.
[00:13:18] If I don't have a system to manage all this, if I'm trying to just manage all of my images, Just look at this on a micro level, any images that I'm inserting into these posts, if I don't. If I'm trying to do that out of the downloads folder, but I don't know which blog posts these are supposed to go into because I'm balancing, five at a time.
[00:13:37]I got to come up with a file system. My wife was the one who recommended that she was like, you gotta come up with a file system for yourself. I did that. And then, and then after that it was like, okay, now we've got, cause you're talking about the Trello process that I put together most I had said, okay, if we're going to be taking in like conversion XL, when I got there, I didn't realize the impact that I had being the editor and seeing [00:14:00] how much it had grown, because I didn't have access to the analytics.
[00:14:02] At first, once I did, I was like, Oh shit, this is growing excellent. Can I say bad words here? Yeah. Okay, cool. So I'm like, Oh shit. this is good. We're run a lot. And we were getting a lot more, buzz, more attention. And I said, I can't manage all of this through my email and then everything else.
[00:14:18] So let's have a process, that basically moves things from left to from, idea to, in production to review to, the process, And if I have this volume of stuff, then I can also manage my own work a lot simpler because I have this stuff all in the same place.
[00:14:36] And I have this one visual system that allows me to keep track of it all. so it's always, for me, it's always been just a matter of things being built organically out of necessity. because. as the volume increases, as the contributors start, doing their thing more regularly, we cause we started bringing on more regular authors to wait, and a few others.
[00:14:59][00:15:00] we needed to have a system to keep all of that in place. And then the other thing that I wanted to bring in, and this really evolved once I moved to Shopify, was I wanted our contributors to have visibility into each other's work too. So we could have, start to have a cohesive narrative across all of the things, because as a guest blogger, one of the things I hated the most was pitching something and having it accepted and then having somebody else pitch the same thing.
[00:15:27] And knowing that there was no duplicate of that, or I could have built off of something somebody else did because the relationship with myself and the editor was always one to one, not one to many. that was one of the things that I eventually evolved to once I moved past conversion XL, but yeah.
[00:15:45]David: [00:15:45] what did it look like? I made it. It's all good stuff. What did it look like to start implementing a process? I think sometimes when people are thinking about implementing process, they're thinking about what's the perfect thing to implement immediately. And I imagine you had to [00:16:00] iterate as you went.
[00:16:01]yeah. How did you think about that process? And some examples would be interesting.
[00:16:05] Tommy: [00:16:05] Yeah. So it's, it's the life cycle of a piece of content, right? That was the thing that I really broke down in my head, at first was what are the steps to get this piece done? I've got an idea.
[00:16:17]and if I don't track my ideas, then, Then I'm going to lose track of probably some good stuff, just because I forgot. and then, once I go from an idea, what do I do there? And that's in production. And then once I'm done with production, what am I going to do? But find images. And then once the images are ready and I'm going to send it over to an editor, so that's going to be a for review and really just breaking down the lifecycle of a piece of content.
[00:16:42]and what does that take. To get it from idea to published. as I've worked in different organizations, now, those steps are basically the same, but there might be more in there now, depending on how many stakeholders there are. So at conversion XL, it was [00:17:00] like, okay, idea in production review, upload and publish, If we were trying to get ahead of ourselves, That has evolved. Now I have idea SEO review, so I'll have an SEO go in and they'll do an outline and everything then in production. So that moves over to the author. The author does their thing, for review. And then it's not just, the editor doing the review, but it's also the images person.
[00:17:25] If there's a dedicated person doing images right in the bigger scale organizations. they can go in and see the raw draft and go Oh yeah, I can. There's enough for me to work with here then from that to upload. And that moves over to somebody who is managing specifically the publishing aspect of it.
[00:17:41] What happens once it gets into WordPress, Start looking at those basic steps and then going, okay, how many players do we have to have involved in this? and just really starting to like always breaking it down to the lifecycle of a piece of content and who wants to own what and where.
[00:17:55]That's really how that's evolved. And then from that status, that sort of [00:18:00] status thing. Okay. Now let's look at the due dates that are involved. Let's what else can we put in the upfront part of the process? So Alex, you remember, seeing, I had a whole boatload of automations in Trello that was saying, title tag and, having all of this sort of upfront stuff.
[00:18:17] That we know would make a good piece that could then if it ever got passed off to somebody else, they could take all of that information and, move it into the next stage. and yeah, that's the basics of it, right? Is how do I move the piece of content from left to, What are the different pieces of status?
[00:18:34] And then what do we add on top of that? Like due date stakeholders, things like that. what that eventually evolved into for me is going okay, now there's a bunch of manual tasks that are involved with this, even pressing a button and, or dragging a card. in Trello, I now use air table and I am bullish on air table.
[00:18:52]I will just plug them as many times as possible. but the idea is, the, even dragging a card from here [00:19:00] to here, and adding the right people, this all takes time and it's time that's taken away from, the actual focusing on the content itself and the editing and the feedback right.
[00:19:09] With the author. So from there I said, okay, how can I start to automate some of this stuff? So now all I have to do is flip a button, right? Flip the status from, in production to, for review, and then automatically. The card moves, the right people are added, like in all of this information starts to become a little bit more automated.
[00:19:31] The, the rule of thumb with automation is for every task you automate, you save on average, a minutes worth of time. At my peak automation, I had two full-time robots working for me. So 80 hours worth of automation every week. and it's incredible to think about. and I'm going to stop talking here in a second, but it's incredible to really think about, how many little tasks are involved that aren't writing, editing and making sure a [00:20:00] piece is good for publish.
[00:20:02]So wanted to streamline that part of the process as much as possible after getting that basic of. What are the different steps?
[00:20:10] Alex: [00:20:10] Yeah, I would say that's one of the biggest learnings since we started the content agents is just the minutiae that we didn't realize we'd go into each individual piece.
[00:20:17]I think we're all probably nodding in agreement there.
[00:20:19]Allie: [00:20:19] I have a question for you, Tommy. Sure. Outside of. Automating the, I guess the bridges between the tasks, how do you ensure that the tasks themselves like stay on time? Cause I can imagine, the automation is great. If the tasks are actually getting done in a timely manner, do you have an editing timeline or like a.
[00:20:42] I guess a certain number of days you assigned to each tasks to make sure that they, it does, keep moving along.
[00:20:47]Tommy: [00:20:47] yeah, so there's always the, there's always, when it comes to building any workflow, it's always the people part of the process and then the process itself. And, I've been fortunate enough, at both Shopify [00:21:00] and, most recently at Intuit, I've actually brought my authors into the process.
[00:21:04]So I'm not sure. Overseeing everything to the degree of letting me flip every single status, I've got too much stuff going on. Usually doing the editor thing, making sure the whole machine is running, making contacts with everybody. and. the automations themselves and the people themselves, I've tried to make it as simple as possible.
[00:21:23]when they're ready, all they have to do is flip a switch. I've never really had to worry. I think about the thing that you're asking. and that's because I've trusted the people to get their stuff going along in the process because they want to get paid, is essentially what it breaks down to is.
[00:21:42] They want to know that I'm going to review the content as fast as possible. And the other part about that is, some of the automations that I've had in place, it's not just, okay, flip this thing over and then it's there. It's flip this thing over and then, whatever editor is assigned to this, right?
[00:21:57] When I start working with multiple editors, whatever [00:22:00] editor is assigned to this, they're going to get a Slack notification as soon as it comes in. So I'm trying to bridge that gap, like bridge all of the gaps. because if I were to, if I were to say to you, Hey, monitor air table all day, wait for a piece to happen.
[00:22:15] It doesn't work. You're going to get to it between emails or meetings or whatever. But if you're spending a lot of your day in Slack, which most of us in this sort of world do. And Slack tells you, Hey, you got something to you, you got something ready for you to look at. Then it starts to move like clockwork.
[00:22:32] And the way that I really try to think of it is, are you familiar with near isle? Yep. Okay. I know you are Alex because, because he's a big contributor, his big thing is, he's a, software development he doesn't really develop software, but he talks about building habit, forming products.
[00:22:51] And when I think about this workflow and when I think about workflow from that perspective, I almost look at it from a software development perspective, [00:23:00] right? if, how can, as a person I've been trained by my phone too. Look at my LinkedIn notifications and email notifications and all of that.
[00:23:10] So how can I take that same software development mentality and develop those habits from the workflow perspective. So content doesn't get lost, That whole idea of okay, it's sitting there in your review queue now. What. How do you keep that process? Moving along? My review queue is coming to me and saying Hey, you haven't taken a look at this yet.
[00:23:32]something I'm working on a little bit more now is also setting automated reminders for things that haven't been touched. So once it has, if the status of that piece hasn't changed within. A reasonable amount of time, we'll say three or four days, then you'll get another notification saying ah, you're overdue, catch up.
[00:23:52] So as an editor, as the editor in chief, as the guy who was trying to oversee the whole thing and build out the publication, [00:24:00] as a whole, I want that workflow process. And I want the people involved to be in that habit without it also becoming, Something that is cumbersome, right? I don't, really trying to think about it as a habit forming thing, because everybody here is a professional.
[00:24:17]yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:19]Alex: [00:24:19] I, haven't another question on that human side. but yeah, so the system sounds like if I could sum up it's like nudges and incentives for the people within the system and then for you, it's like visibility over the whole thing. Yeah. and that, to me, I'm going to drop a little heavy handed compliment to you on this one, too.
[00:24:34]so this is this is your engineer's mindset. Like you have a very like systems engineering. like a product manager's mindset towards a lot of this stuff. But, the reason that followed you and the reason I like your work is because you've got this other side, that's very almost like artistic, like perfectionist, like you really give a damn about the work.
[00:24:51] And I actually really respect people in general, who. care about what they're doing. So there's this like qualitative, like almost perfectionist side too. And you can [00:25:00] disagree with that if you want, but that's how I see it. so you've got this engineer side for the systems. How do you maintain that?
[00:25:05]sort of perfection, not perfection. That's the wrong word for it? But like, how do you maintain like high quality that you really, you can be happy about at the end of the day, in each note of that system, with, within the program. Yeah.
[00:25:16] Tommy: [00:25:16] No, that's a great, that's a great question. so the, I never had, I didn't start with an engineer's mindset, right?
[00:25:23]that I got to make that clear. I was always very good. I grew up as an actor, I spent. 10 years as an actor, it was all creative. It was all script analysis and feedback. And having directors to tell you suck. And like that feedback level that you're talking about was born out of, different critiques of performance.
[00:25:42]one of the things that they would say in acting school is, and I hate even calling it acting school, film, conservatory. There we go. is if we catch you acting, you're suck, you suck, right? what's the sub context. the subtext between things, what are you saying without saying, all of that stuff.
[00:25:55] That was where I I, that was my base. so that's the giving a damn [00:26:00] about the content. The engineer side of things was. Frustration. It was just born out of frustration of not being able to do that other part, that I love, I really love being able to pull the best out of the people I work with, and help them flex and grow.
[00:26:16]So that level of like editorial feedback, I deeply care about that. and it sh I think it shows, I hope it shows through the work that I've, I've been responsible for it through both my personal work, but also the people I work with. but the, yeah, it was just born out of frustration and as it was happening, I could feel. I could feel the synopsis firing, like you have that exhaustion in your head. I could feel the pump if you will. and it's since gotten easier, but it was definitely not a part of my brain that I was, used to. And I'm glad at this point it actually looks like, these are two things that were, one came before the other, it was not the case.
[00:26:53]yeah, and I'm still learning. I'm always learning. Like now one of the things I'm working on with, the workflow stuff is, and I'm [00:27:00] trying to find a developer to help me do this, but I'm doing automated keyword research within air table by doing, connecting the, API APIs from H refs into there, and then having a big old keyword list.
[00:27:11]from a multi-property perspective, something like that is one of the biggest challenges within large organizations is who owns the keyword. Does the blog team owned the keyword? Does the SEO team mold the keyword and we're going to do it on a product page, having that big old keyword list. I can now assign, we can have that debate and have it upfront as to who can actually own the keyword.
[00:27:34] So like this engineer mindset. Has become a muscle. but it's always in service to getting the right work done. if, and the only reason I ever thought about that, it was because our ESCOs, at QuickBooks were like, Hey, you guys wrote a blog post on some landing page that we're trying to do.
[00:27:52] And we got to take the blog post down. I'm like, no, they win because the transactional pages, make more money, [00:28:00] but, But, it's okay, how do we solve that problem instead of just going like, all right, I guess we're just going to argue about keywords afterwards. It's no, the challenge here is visibility.
[00:28:10] How can we each have visibility into the stuff that we're working? You have a big old keyword list. I have a big old keyword list. Let's put these things together and then, have a debate and do it game of Thrones style as to who owns what.
[00:28:20]Alex: [00:28:20] first off with the keyword thing, I feel like we're probably going to steal that or like that idea I saw Ellie and David nodding, their integration thing back off.
[00:28:30] Tommy: [00:28:30] No, I'm just to find someone to help you develop that. Oh, it's a brand new idea. It's a brand new thing. So it's a patented. I submitted it for copyright already and nobody's allowed to do it. no, I can, if you guys, No people who can do the API connection. I love the hookup. Yeah. We should hash that out.
[00:28:49] I've done some API work with SEM. Rush's API so I'm not as familiar, but it is possible. And we do a lot of that stuff, internally.
[00:28:57] Alex: [00:28:57] So we can always hash that out later. But, [00:29:00] I wanted to ask you another question and this, my memory is foggy, but this, your background as an actor and, yeah. Studying that, you brought that into your work.
[00:29:08] I think at Shopify in that weren't you running like almost like seasons, like it was like you would do sequential kind of themes on different topics. Yeah. Again, it's foggy, but can you tell me about that? Like how you approach that?
[00:29:22] Tommy: [00:29:22] Yeah. so my foundation in any of the blogging work that I've ever done has been in, in acting, right?
[00:29:28]it was always like, what's a brand. but a script analysis, right? We have the opportunity now to interact. One-on-one this was the mentality originally. we have the internet, we have the ability to now be one-on-one with people who are also sharing cat photos. So like, how do we do that?
[00:29:45]when I was at Shopify really had the opportunity. To take a lot of time. I spent three months just coming up with the strategy and the plan. And the way that I looked at it is every quarter is an act, right? You have a four act [00:30:00] structure and pretty much every everything, every movie, every TV show, there's always a four act structure and it over however many episodes or seasons that you have.
[00:30:09] So my concept was twofold. One, we're going to look at the year as a four act, play. Or a foreign, structure and then taking another concept into play the Marvel cinematic universe. Which was brand new when I was starting to come up with this idea. We'll we'll have two parallel tracks, right?
[00:30:29] Where we're telling one story on Mondays and we're telling another story on Thursdays, but the inner there will be an intersection between some of these concepts that will play into each other. So now we're creating this net of content. If you will. And then from week to week, we're building out the, the sequence and then from month to month, we're building out the, I can't remember the phrasing now I should, this is basic stuff, Tommy.
[00:30:58]essentially we're building up a [00:31:00] narrative, week to week and then month to month and then quarter to quarter. So there is this ongoing sort of, it always feels like it's building towards something. and that's one of the things that I feel like, a lot of blogs in general, a lot of publications in general.
[00:31:16]Kinda miss, right? It's not, it's a repository of articles, and a lot of cases or a repository of videos, but that feeling right, whether or not you're reading from the beginning, whether or not even looks like there's a starting point. That feeling of there's something more happening here is what brings people to return, right?
[00:31:37] That's where you get more of your direct traffic from that's where you get more of your return visitors from, and to me, return traffic is actually probably the most important thing, especially in high value B2B sales, because if you're only going after those net new, in a lot of SEO search, people want to get the new traffic, But if you're not getting that return traffic, you're never getting to that consideration [00:32:00] point. And then you're always having to work harder on building up the top of your funnel. so yeah, and that at Shopify, I don't even know if I'm answering your question here, Alex, but at Shopify, we ended up having, I think at its peak, a 60% return visitor rate, which is.
[00:32:15]Oh, I've seen, 12% and 8% in other organizations. And to have that 60% as one of my like true North metrics was really good because that's a high consideration when I was at, it was Shopify plus that was a high consideration product. People were really trying to consider switching their entire platform in a lot of cases.
[00:32:36]It was really important that they could come back and trust that we knew what we were talking about, especially because at the time we were a challenger brand. and it was, I have to feel as the first marketing hire, that played a huge role. And, in that, because there always was just, there always felt like there was something more coming or something more that you missed.
[00:32:56]I could expand on that a little bit more, but I want to [00:33:00] stop there because I'll just end up rambling.
[00:33:02]Alex: [00:33:02] it's an interesting framing now with that light, because it marries the two parts that I had spoken about before, which is like the artistic side, which is like the vision perfecting the content scoping quality and then engineering the system.
[00:33:14] Yeah. And maybe this is too far on the metaphor, but it sounds like you envision yourself as a producer role. Yeah. It's that would be the person that puts the pieces together and make sure everybody's handing off and like doing their part, but also things get done on time. Like you, you ship it to market on time.
[00:33:28] All of that stuff. W would that be an accurate assumption there?
[00:33:31] Tommy: [00:33:31] Yeah. I've called myself the editor in chief for a long time, but as I'm starting to, as I'm growing my own thing and really thinking about, what do I want to be when I grow up? I actually think of myself less as an editor because that puts a lot of stigma, are there's like a association with what an editor really is and I'm a publisher.
[00:33:50]Like really what it comes down to is I'm a publisher and I build publications. and if I were, on a TV show, then it would be a show runner, I'm the one that's helping get the [00:34:00] whole thing going, and working with the, everybody from the writing staff to design and that department and graphics and all that.
[00:34:08]yeah, just to touch on what I was going to say before, I want to build the sense. And we don't have this now because everything has bingeable now. but I want to build the sense of if you pick up on a show like three or four episodes in, right? remember when you actually couldn't watch all TV at the same time.
[00:34:27]if you came into a show, four or five weeks late, I want the sense for the publication that I'm running, that you have to go back. I want. You to have 15 tabs open by the time you're done with my site and I want to hold onto you. I want you to be late for work, by getting lost in this sort of net of content that we're putting together.
[00:34:51] And that's done by design on the calendar, but it's also goes back to that other side of things where it's, we care very deeply about [00:35:00] every single thing that we publish and that there's this sort of interconnected narrative. That's beyond just this one article that we're looking at right now
[00:35:08] Alex: [00:35:08] and on a tactical level that includes internal linking and callbacks, right?
[00:35:12]that's something that would bring somebody back to that previous piece of content.
[00:35:15] Tommy: [00:35:15] Yeah, exactly. It's foreshadowing and back linking. Yeah.
[00:35:18] Allie: [00:35:18] What's what's an example of the. The topic, or I don't know, I'm trying to wrap this in terms of what I've written before and yeah, that would look like besides doing like part one of three or something.
[00:35:30] I don't know. I can't get outside of that.
[00:35:34] Tommy: [00:35:34] The example that I've used before is, and Alex, this might seem familiar to you too, because of conversion XL. It's you know how to make the perfect website. And then the subheader, the sub-headers there might be, Have a usable navigation and then you start breaking down the individual pieces, a hero image.
[00:35:50] Sub-headers. calls to action, little button texts and all of this stuff, contact customer service page, right? You have that one [00:36:00] masterpiece and then each one of those subheaders essentially becomes its own article. yeah. We have that one big piece and then we're starting to break down, what's a cool, what's a good navigation, right?
[00:36:09] What makes good navigation? Because that's a study that people go into all the time. What makes a good subheader? What makes a good hero image? Tactical feeling people develop parasocial relationships, with really good copy and mirror neurons are, if you're telling a good story, the mirror neurons fire off and.
[00:36:28]if you're looking at a picture that looks really tactical, right then, those sensory inputs in your brain can start to, you can trick the sensory inputs in the brain, right? So you can start to really go deep into each one of these subjects. And that for me is one track, right? that's the Monday track.
[00:36:46]if we're talking about that and we're talking about say feedback loops, right? Use feedback loops to, improve your copy. That just might be a little throwaway line there on Thursday. We're going to start with feedback [00:37:00] loops and we're going to go from feedback loops to customer service and, starting to take break that feedback loops basic concept and start to break that down even further.
[00:37:12] So then when we tie it all up at the end, we're talking about how do you build the perfect website? and not just, how do you build the perfect website? How do you build the perfect, publication that is informed by your readers? And that is informed by, really solid design and like all of the neuroscience and behavioral science and all of this stuff that's going on behind it.
[00:37:36]that's just an example. There's I could come up with a million others, but that's the one that's probably the most, accessible to me at the moment. Yeah.
[00:37:45] David: [00:37:45] As I'm listening to this, I'm reflecting on moments where I'm reading a blog, maybe like James clear or Shopify and Oh, this is an interesting topic.
[00:37:53] Let me click this link. Oh, this is interesting. Let me click this, yeah. And about it. And the article, I have 10 tabs and I'm like, great. Now I need to read these other articles. [00:38:00] Oh, wait. I have a meeting to get to each of those articles leads to me, clicking into more links right now. Now that you're adding some structure.
[00:38:08] I see how that all ties together.
[00:38:10] Now, if you're talking about Shopify, then. No, I'm just kidding.
[00:38:14]Tommy: [00:38:14] yeah, but no, that's the point, right? that's the point. And I think that, from a publishing strategy perspective, I'm not even going to call that a content strategy. That's from a publishing strategy perspective.
[00:38:23] Like when you go e-commerce, now you go Shopify, because you've just spent, half of your week. Yeah. Or how much of your not half of your week, that's an exaggeration, but how much of your reading time have you spent on this one site versus the millions of other sites that you could have spent your time on?
[00:38:44]so who grabs your attention? Who holds that attention and how much of the share of that limited reading time that you're going to put together on a week? How much did they have,
[00:38:54] Allie: [00:38:54] so did you typically assign the same, like series to the same writer too, to keep [00:39:00] like the voice consistent or?
[00:39:03]Tommy: [00:39:03] it depends.
[00:39:04]so from, and this goes into the people management perspective of things I might, but I also will have, and I've done this plenty of times where. I've got people to feed, right? So having one person do all of it is actually, so I'm going to start back and say no, because I've got people to feed and, and the level, the depth of the content that I want is too much for one person.
[00:39:28] To keep doing week after week. It's like Alex, where I came from. You can't have one person do all that stuff week to week without killing them by the end of the month.
[00:39:37]Alex: [00:39:37] but so the long form stuff that you were publishing too. Yeah. Incredibly intense. Yeah.
[00:39:42]Tommy: [00:39:42] But because your brain just gets your brain notes by the end of it.
[00:39:47]but I have had, group conversations, small group conversations, and have encouraged the authors to work with each other. And, because they all have visibility inside the. The pieces [00:40:00] in production, I might say, as I'm reading a piece as it's being developed, right? Like I'll tag somebody else.
[00:40:06] Who's in this, who's writing the next thing and say, Hey, there's a really good callback in here. Or here's something that you can reference that they're doing. I've worked with primarily I've in my entire career. I've had two full-time employees. But I've worked with freelance teams of six to 10.
[00:40:24]and I've always operated from a team perspective, because as a freelancer coming from that freelancing world, like I said, I hated the idea that I didn't know what anybody on the rest of the publication was doing. Oh, yeah, Yeah. There's just no context as to what's happening all around me.
[00:40:41]and therefore I only have my own little bubble and frame of reference. So by encouraging the team to work with each other, and sometimes I've doubled, authors up on a piece too. this happened a lot at QuickBooks where I had an author who was, Ken Boyd and I'm going to shout them out. Ken Boyd, who was [00:41:00] a, one of the authors of several accounting for dummies books.
[00:41:02]he would write a lot of the accounting stuff, like just makes sense. and then I'd have Eric Carter who was the in-house, legal counsel for a major multinational corporation. A lot of those things would go hand in hand accounting and lawyering w glaring attorney. Lawyering, lawyering works, lawyering.
[00:41:22] Sure. and like setting up businesses and stuff like that. So I would have them work together on pieces, and they get to develop that relationship with each other. and in some cases, I don't know if this is the case for them, but in some cases it, it helps them build out their network. And it extends beyond just the work that we're doing together.
[00:41:39] And I care really deeply about the people that I work with. And I'm fortunate that I've been able to work with companies that just bankroll. people who are incredibly talented and that I get to work with, and help them develop that work. yeah.
[00:41:53]Alex: [00:41:53] I have some non content marketing related questions, some rapid fire things and less Allie and David have more questions here, [00:42:00] but otherwise we can jump into these fun questions.
[00:42:02]actually these, so I have two sections here, if you want to, Oh yeah, for sure. yeah. W I think I have a hard stop, but, Yeah, we should be able to get through these and then we can always do a follow-up.
[00:42:14] Tommy: [00:42:14] No, I can't actually I have w this is what I'm talking about with the two calendars.
[00:42:19] Alex: [00:42:19] Yeah. Yeah. yeah. Okay. That's funny. Okay. So the first one, I have two parts. The first one is going to be overrated or underrated. I'm stealing this from Tyler Cowen's podcast. Intrinsically I, I say an item and you say whether it's overrated or underrated and you can pass too. So these are actually related to content marketing, most of them anyway.
[00:42:37] So let's do it. qualitative research,
[00:42:39]Tommy: [00:42:39] underrated.
[00:42:41] Alex: [00:42:41] Okay. Storytelling,
[00:42:43] Tommy: [00:42:43] underrated thought.
[00:42:45] Alex: [00:42:45] So content promotion,
[00:42:48]Tommy: [00:42:48] underrated.
[00:42:49] Alex: [00:42:49] Really? Okay. Link building, manual link building
[00:42:52] Tommy: [00:42:52] overrated pen,
[00:42:55]Alex: [00:42:55] editorial calendars,
[00:42:57] Tommy: [00:42:57] underrated
[00:43:00]Alex: [00:43:00] [00:43:00] keyword research driven content.
[00:43:02]Tommy: [00:43:02] I plead the fifth. I dunno. Yeah, it has its place.
[00:43:08] Alex: [00:43:08] Fair enough.
[00:43:09]Tommy: [00:43:09] shouldn't be the entire strategy though. Google's a Ficky fickle lady.
[00:43:13] Alex: [00:43:13] Yeah, I think it's, I think it gets my optic if that's your only strategy, but yeah. Yeah. All right. AB testing,
[00:43:19] Tommy: [00:43:19] underrated
[00:43:20] Alex: [00:43:20] personalization,
[00:43:23] Tommy: [00:43:23] overrated
[00:43:25] Alex: [00:43:25] content marketing in general.
[00:43:30] Tommy: [00:43:30] Pass.
[00:43:33] Alex: [00:43:33] All right. Cool. That's all I've got for the overhead and underrated. Now I've got some random kind of rapid fire questions. So these are going to be less like related to marketing. what's your like most gifted book. And if you don't gift books, just the most like recommended book.
[00:43:45] Tommy: [00:43:45] Sure. A story by Robert McKee.
[00:43:49] Alex: [00:43:49] Okay, cool. Yeah, I haven't read that off to check that one out. I'm looking to get more into like storytelling and psychology and stuff. So that'll be cool.
[00:43:56]Tommy: [00:43:56] that one in, Lou Hunter's screenwriting for 34
[00:43:59] Alex: [00:43:59] , [00:44:00] but it didn't, you didn't, you take a class by Robert or. And he did. Didn't he teach?
[00:44:04]Tommy: [00:44:04] Yeah, I did. I thought that a three-day intensive study, it was like 12 hours a day for three days.
[00:44:10] The guy was ridiculous. He's like in his eighties too. And he just non-stop, it was great. It was great. A lot of it is just what he goes through in the book, but it's a reinforcement of a lot of that material and, yeah, I've got it. Two two, notebooks full of my notes. from that I filled two, mole skins.
[00:44:31] Alex: [00:44:31] So did you find it particularly valuable in your job with content or do you, would you recommend it to other people outside of that field or, yeah, I guess who would you recommend take something like that?
[00:44:40] Tommy: [00:44:40] Anybody who is trying to tell stories? I took it from the filmmaking from the film perspective, but, he also has story Nomics, which is.
[00:44:48] The application of the same principles to business. personally, I don't like, mixing the two. I just, I think that the something overrated, underrated, overrated, the way [00:45:00] people talk about storytelling in business, awful, and it becomes a buzzword and it's completely diluted. and it, I feel like it loses a lot of its meeting.
[00:45:09]But taking it from the pure perspective of just like, how do you tell a story? without the application of and to make money? I feel like that was a lot more pure and, I would recommend it to anybody. having said that, like the story Nomics course might be, it probably is amazing, but, I just look at it from that pure perspective, of telling story and structure.
[00:45:29] Alex: [00:45:29] Who do you admire professionally?
[00:45:31] Tommy: [00:45:31] Who do I admire professionally me? No. I don't know, actually, I'm not really looking at, I try not to get caught up in the cult of personality, that is out there. having worked with pep, I have my prep having worked with Ali, of Unbounce. I admire him.
[00:45:48]I admire who else do I admire? I admire, At Meyers, I admire the work more than I admire the people, at the end of the day, like most people don't care about the by-lines, [00:46:00] which is a really like nihilistic thing to say. but yeah, I'd never, like I said, like when I was doing my guest blogging stents, it was so I could pay my oil bill.
[00:46:10] It wasn't to get my name out there. it was a nice by-product, but try not to get caught up in the people, just the work.
[00:46:15] Alex: [00:46:15] You didn't write 30,000 words for exposure?
[00:46:18]Tommy: [00:46:18] no, God, no. I wrote 30,000 words so I could get out of debt and put my car back on the road and make sure my family could eat.
[00:46:25]cause yeah, at that time, my, my engine in my car was blown, I couldn't go anywhere. It was a matter of being able to go to the grocery store autonomously. So yeah, no valid reason or great content for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:46:38]Alex: [00:46:38] what are, what's your favorite blog right now?
[00:46:41]Tommy: [00:46:41] I'm really into the hustle and I'm getting back into founder. honestly I don't read a lot of blogs, a lot of heads down time, and I'm finding that blogs in general, are giving way to newsletters. I agree. Yeah, we were talking about that on Twitter. yeah, there's [00:47:00] a lot of newsletter stuff. I'm actually, I just signed up for it, but I haven't really gotten into it yet.
[00:47:05]John Bernini's, very good content. yeah. Yeah. I haven't started reading it yet, but the stuff he's putting out on LinkedIn is pretty incredible. and then Eddie Schleicher slyer am I saying his name, right? the stuff he's doing with or no, that was some good content. And then Eddie's is very good content or something like that.
[00:47:25]I, if I want to admire, yeah. I want to be Eddie when I grow up. yeah, there we go. I think that's about it.
[00:47:31] Alex: [00:47:31] I like that answer. and in. in order for us to get to our next meetings, we can wrap up here. So thank you very much for talking to us. And, do you have any final words you want to say, or like where to find you online?
[00:47:43] Like that kind of thing?
[00:47:44] Tommy: [00:47:44] Yeah. pretty much everywhere is, Tommy is my name. So LinkedIn Twitter, everywhere telling me that's my name. I try to keep it simple. okay. Yeah. If, if, parting words would be, he, tell a story, think about this stuff from a much bigger [00:48:00] perspective than just putting out individual pieces of content.
[00:48:03] There's so much more, to it, have a vision, and really drive towards that vision. More than the tactical stuff in my mind, because it's the vision that gets people bought in. then whether or not you're writing a article about, how one star or how reviews are good for your business, it's.
[00:48:21] Yeah.
[00:48:24] Alex: [00:48:24] Hell yeah, man. Thank you very much.