We’re wrapping up season two of the Animalz Podcast with insights from enterprise content leaders at companies like Zapier, Dropbox, Autodesk, and Microsoft. After more than a dozen interviews, clear patterns emerged about how the best teams operate at scale. From defining content's strategic role to securing distribution before production, these leaders shared the systems and approaches that actually work in complex organizations.
The season focused on pulling back the corporate curtain to show how enterprise B2B SaaS teams actually get content out the door. As Ty puts it, "We heard from content leaders at some of the biggest names in SaaS who shared the systems they've built, the battles they've fought, and the lessons they've learned."
Tim's key takeaway: "As an enterprise content marketing leader, you're thinking about so much more than just producing content. It's about team management, stakeholders, strategy, and systems."
Decide early if content is a growth driver or a support function. Some teams, like Zapier and Dropbox, treat content as a growth engine. They can point to real results from focused blog programs. Other teams, especially those with longer sales cycles, use content to support sales and product marketing. Both approaches work when they fit the business. Make your choice, share it with stakeholders, and plan your team and goals around it.
Consistency takes teamwork. Build routines and a shared library to avoid duplicate work and keep a single voice. Change intake from simple order-taking to real consultations. This keeps your team seen as a strategic partner instead of a service desk. Bring in reviewers early, since big brands have more checks and approvals. Involve demand gen and product teams early to plan together and choose the right formats. Leave room for brand-building projects that unite many teams.
Own your numbers or risk losing your story. Attribution is messy, but content teams need to understand it and prove their value. Some leaders would hire an analytics expert before another writer, because insights matter more than volume. Expect your measurement model to change each year. Share clear wins, like a 454% blog ROI, to secure resources and support.
Before you start any new project, ask: Who will share this, and how? Many leaders use this as a filter and won’t approve projects without a clear distribution plan. Without it, teams can create lots of content that never gets seen. One standout story came from Matt Hummel, who hand-delivered a flagship asset to hundreds of buyers. This shows that strong distribution matters more than just creating more content.
Big companies take their time with AI for good reasons. They face more risk, more reviewers, and can’t cut corners on quality or citations. Use AI for brainstorming, research, and editing, but keep people involved through drafting and final checks. This balance helps you move faster without risking trust.
May 22, 2025
Ty and Tim kick off the season by sharing why enterprise content marketing is the focus. Ty reflects on leading content at UiPath and building systems to manage scale, while Tim brings a startup lens to the challenges big teams face. Together, they preview what’s ahead and why these stories matter.
May 27, 2025
Kay-Kay shares how she’s reshaping content at Typeform by focusing on fuel over form, developing audience-first ideas, empowering teams with modular systems, and reducing content debt.
June 03, 2025
Heike shares how she leads content and social at Microsoft. She breaks down her “four wheels of the car” model, highlights key roles content teams often miss, and explains how personal branding and employee influencers outperform traditional brand channels.
June 10, 2025
Rhonda shares lessons from leading content at Zoom, Mural, and Spiceworks. She explains how to shift content teams from service roles to strategic partners, make the case for headcount, and build systems that support real audience needs.
June 17, 2025
Matt reveals how Pipeline360 turned whitepaper delivery into a one-to-one ABM engine. By flying around the world to hand-deliver research, he sparks real conversations, builds stronger relationships, and drives growth.
June 24, 2025
Aditya shares how MoEngage puts customer insight at the heart of content. He explains how his team scales with smart systems, borrows authority for distribution, and uses AI to move faster without losing taste.
July 01, 2025
Tracey explains how Klaviyo’s “distribution-first” rule turns content into a growth engine. She lays out the 90-day roadmap, shows why every request needs a channel plan, and reveals the simple cadence that keeps eight regions aligned and duplication at zero.
July 08, 2025
Lane shows how she turned Zapier’s small content team into a 30-person growth engine by proving a 454 % Return on Content Spend, then weaving AI into research, outlines, and ops to raise output by 30%.
July 15, 2025
Stephanie Losee shows how a two-person Autodesk team pooled cross-department budgets to launch State of Design & Make, turning 11 media hits into 97 and proving small crews can outpace a 15-person agency when trust, shared goals, and strict quality standards guide the work.
July 22, 2025
Mallory Russell grew Square’s content from a single blog to a 40-person, channel-agnostic engine covering editorial, web, social, and “organic discovery.” She champions smarter attribution, AI for efficiency, and high-quality, vertical content that drives demand and sales.
July 29, 2025
Jennifer Clark turns Zoom’s content team into a growth engine by uniting product, demand gen, and content in agile pods. Leveraging Zoom Docs, AI, and transparent dashboards, her small team shipped 300 assets last year, proving that content generates real pipeline and revenue.
August 05, 2025
Kirti shares how she fuses product marketing and content at Adobe, rooting every decision in positioning and first-party research. When it comes to measuring content impact, she highlights a shift from keyword focus to brand presence in LLMs, events, and influencer buzz.
August 12, 2025
Lauren Everitt leads Okta’s in‑house newsroom within the comms org. The team prioritizes “second‑day coverage” (analysis over ambulance‑chasing), short‑form executive video, and a pragmatic AI assist for research and derivatives. With clear governance, the company keeps thousands of contributors on‑brand while moving faster.
August 19, 2025
Kate Pluth shares how Dropbox’s lean team tripled output without extra budget by pairing agile content pods with tiered resourcing and a database‑driven calendar. Her system of structure, data, and editorial taste helps Dropbox speak with one voice across every channel.
AlexanderJarvis.com – Collection of Memos (00:52): Tim’s in-flight reading, an extensive archive of famous business and political memos, referenced as a source of inspiration for strategic thinking.
Zoom, Klaviyo, Dropbox, Square, Microsoft, Okta, Zapier, Autodesk (04:37): Leading enterprises whose content leaders were interviewed throughout season 2, cited as examples of effective enterprise content engines.
The Way Up with Guy Raz (Square) (09:05): Mallory Russell’s ‘big bet’ brand campaign for Square, featuring NPR’s Guy Raz, highlighted as an example of high-impact, narrative-driven content.
Enjoyed this conversation? Subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, or head over to Animalz Podcast.
Ty Magnin [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Animals podcast. I'm Ty Magnin.
Tim Metz [00:00:03]:
And I'm Tim Metz.
Ty Magnin [00:00:04]:
Today we're wrapping up season two on the Animals podcast. Season two has been focused on pulling back the corporate curtain to show you how the largest, most complex B2B SaaS teams actually get content out the door. So we heard from content leaders at some of the biggest names in SaaS who shared some of the systems they've built, the battles they've fought, and the lessons they've learned along the way. Today we are wrapping the season with a conversation just Tim and I, to break down a lot of the learnings from what more than a dozen interviews with some remarkable enterprise leaders.
Tim Metz [00:00:41]:
Are we going to ask each other the question we always ask our guests before we get started?
Ty Magnin [00:00:45]:
I love that.
Ty Magnin [00:00:46]:
Sure.
Tim Metz [00:00:47]:
Yeah, we should.
Ty Magnin [00:00:48]:
Well then, hit it. What content are you consuming lately, Tim?
Tim Metz [00:00:52]:
Well, I was on an airplane because I'm not in my usual spot. You can see if you watch our videos. I'm in the Netherlands now, so I had an airplane, I was an airplane at some time and I had queued up. There's this website from Alexander Jarvis.com and he has. Collects a lot of stuff about, I think marketing, writing, all kind of stuff. And one of the things he had is like this collection of memos. Like he has all these collections, collection of memos and few other really. And speeches and stuff like that.
Tim Metz [00:01:15]:
So I started going through the memos and it's everything from like business memos and like political memos and all this, all this kind of stuff, really famous ones about strategy from like, I don't know, Bill Gates at Microsoft and at Yahoo when like somebody internally wrote a memo about how they're going down and he's collected all these ones about. He should read this, these because they're, they're really cool, they're really interesting and there's a lot of them there. So I started reading them and it's, it's, it's really nice. I would recommend it. It's just interesting both from a writing perspective as well as from a business strategy perspective. Like startup.
Ty Magnin [00:01:46]:
Yeah, yeah, drop me a link in Slack. I'll check it out. Lately I've been devouring anything that's answer engine optimization related or anything from content marketers about like effective AI usage too. Like how are they doing it for X, Y or Z use cases. So kind of like the same as before but just paying a little closer attention to it now as I think we are at the better part of the hype cycle. You know, we're actually realizing value now and figuring out where it does and doesn't fit.
Tim Metz [00:02:17]:
What's the most important thing that you learned?
Ty Magnin [00:02:19]:
Yeah, it's kind of like the thing I wouldn't have guessed if I looked back on how I was thinking about AI two years ago is that drafting content might be the last place to use it. You know, it's like really good at ideation, it's really good at research, it's really good at editing, it's like really good at all the things. And then when it comes to drafting, like if you've done a great job already with all the prior steps, maybe just write the thing. I don't know. I mean, I think that'll change too, but it's kind of the most sensitive area and you can get so much efficiency still and make content that much better if you just focus on, you know, all the priors and then also maybe distribution and also like editing and things like this. So that's my latest nugget.
Tim Metz [00:03:03]:
Nice. I also think it's probably a good segue into everything we want to reflect on from this season because that's what we're going to do. And I started writing down some things and the first one of the first ones I wrote down is like, we managed to not talk too much about AI, so let's not talk more about AI this for the rest of this wrap up.
Ty Magnin [00:03:21]:
It's kind of interesting, right, to think that like in the startup world, content marketers are. That's like all we're talking about more or less with enterprise content leads. It's kind of like, yeah, it's one thing that they're chipping away at amongst many others. Why do you think that is?
Tim Metz [00:03:41]:
Well, I don't know if how much they are thinking about it. Like maybe it is, maybe they're thinking more about it than we talked about it on the season. I'm not sure. But either way, I think as an enterprise content marketing leader, you're just so much more thinking about other things than just producing content. Right? Like, like it's so much more about like team management, how you handle all the stakeholders, like, what is the strategy, what systems do you have in place? So like there's so much else going on that I think the average person who's an individual content marketer or somebody who's working on a startup just doesn't have to think about because it's not, it's not, it's not relevant. And then like, I think the closer you are to production in A way the more impactful AI maybe is, maybe that's part of it. But there's just so much more to talk about when you're talking about enterprise because there's so many more things going on.
Ty Magnin [00:04:29]:
Yeah, I'd say generally enterprises tend to be a little slower to adapt. They're a little more risk averse. They have more to lose.
Ty Magnin [00:04:36]:
Right. Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:04:37]:
They also have these big brands. I mean we're talking about Zoom and Klaviyo. Dropbox. Right, Like Square.
Ty Magnin [00:04:44]:
Yeah.
Tim Metz [00:04:45]:
Microsoft.
Ty Magnin [00:04:45]:
Yeah, yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:04:46]:
Like they can't just wing it. Like they have a brand to uphold. They have a relationship and a contract with many, many, many people in their audience. And so they can't risk the quality piece. They can't risk, you know, having poor citations in an article or something. And there's also a lot of checks along the way. There are a lot of stakeholders in the mix. So it doesn't surprise me in that regard that they're going to be slower to adopt.
Ty Magnin [00:05:14]:
I think that yeah, they're just, they're not going to take on that risk that probably comes with AI. And you know, some are meaning like doing meaningful things that I don't want to discount what some of the leaders are actually have been able to achieve so far and what their vision is for the future. But yeah, on a whole it was less of a the thing that's on everyone's minds at the forefront.
Ty Magnin [00:05:33]:
Right.
Tim Metz [00:05:33]:
What else?
Ty Magnin [00:05:34]:
Well, I started or sorry, we started a lot of our conversations asking about the role of content in the organization.
Ty Magnin [00:05:43]:
Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:05:43]:
So we'd ask them like what's, you know, hey, Tracy Wallace at Klaviyo. What's the role of content at Klaviyo? Got a lot of really interesting answers. Some were all about content being a strategic growth driver.
Ty Magnin [00:05:57]:
Right.
Ty Magnin [00:05:58]:
I think about Dropbox as an important, I think zapier too with Lane Scott Jones.
Ty Magnin [00:06:03]:
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:06:04]:
And what I walked away with there was that one, it's critical that you've defined this for yourself, for your team and for your stakeholders as an enterprise lead. And two, it's okay if it's like content's not a hundred percent strategic all the time. My hypothesis is and we should review every transcript in detail to see if this holds. But what I think I gathered was if you're a little more B2C facing, I'll zapier.
Ty Magnin [00:06:33]:
Okay.
Ty Magnin [00:06:35]:
Content's gonna be more of a strategic growth leverage you can measure. Remember she talked about the return on content spend. She had like 450% return on content spend like crazy.
Lane Scott Jones [00:06:46]:
So we really just focused on the blog so that we could have a really concrete idea of what business impact the blog itself was running. And we ended up doing this calculation and finding that the blog generated 454% ROI.
Ty Magnin [00:07:01]:
I feel like that should get you all the headcounts and resources you could ever ask for.
Ty Magnin [00:07:06]:
Right.
Lane Scott Jones [00:07:07]:
I completely agree. When we calculated that number, we had to run it so many times. And this is like, this can't be right. This can't be right. It's too good to be true.
Ty Magnin [00:07:15]:
I don't think if you are working at Okta or you know, a deeper tech, like with a longer sales cycle that's more B2B and more enterprise focused in who they sell to, you're going to have as strategic of an like, you're not going to be like a strategic growth lever. You're going to be more in service of a longer sales cycle, more in service of sales and service of product marketing. And that's okay too. It's just about matching the role of content to the business model.
Tim Metz [00:07:47]:
Yeah, and I think actually, if I'm not mistaken, I think Stephanie at Autodesk and maybe Heike a little bit also at Microsoft were more examples of what you. The second thing you're just talking about, like they have a much longer sales cycle. They work together much more closely with those other departments. And I think also the other examples like Zapier and Dropbox also felt like the content is closer to the founder maybe also I think at Dropbox, definitely at Zapier and I think also Dropbox. You also mentioned that the founder is a bit more involved, I think, or used to be more involved in the beginning. So there's really this idea of I think a content culture that's maybe set by the founders by now it should be out posed by Sarah from our team and she interviewed some of the guests also on the podcast and talking about like what, what builds the content culture. Yeah, I think we really hit on that with Zapier and also a bit with Dropbox. Yeah, those are great examples of that.
Ty Magnin [00:08:36]:
Another thing we heard from a lot of our enterprise leaders was they had these really juicy and interesting opportunities to do like the big bet, like the big contenty initiative that's in support of the brand that's pretty far removed from directly creating Pipeline. That wasn't like all that they did on a daily basis, but it was an important piece of like their portfolio of content. And it was fun to hear about some of those projects.
Tim Metz [00:09:05]:
Yeah, I'M thinking about Mallory with Guy Raz, Right.
Mallory Russell [00:09:09]:
In the case of, like, a Guy Raz, I pitched for that budget something that had been, like, on my team's bucket list for years, like, years and years. So we pitched it. Then, you know, my team, a couple of people from my team and myself, and a person, a creative director, got into a room and kind of thought about what the shape of the show would look like once we kind of, like, got the okay, then we brought in. It still wasn't a very large team. We had people from my team who were working on kind of overall story structure, some editors who were actually building out related content, because that is really important to anything like this. Right. And in our case, we built intentional customer journeys that needed other types of content to support them. So we had people on my team working on all of that.
Mallory Russell [00:09:53]:
And then our creative team was working with a production house to do a lot of them, kind of more visual, multimedia elements. And then we were, you know, kind of sitting in a room and talking through what worked, what didn't.
Tim Metz [00:10:04]:
But now that I'm thinking about it, I was. I was going to say. I was like. Like, I was going to say, like, these kind of projects that are every content marketer's dream. But at the same time, I said also thinking, like, wow, if I was responsible for that project, I would also be kind of shitting my pants. You know, it's like, that is a no. I mean, it's like, it sounds super cool, but if you would actually be in charge of executing that, like, that's a bold move, you know, and, like, there's a lot of money involved and a lot of people, and, like, if it doesn't work, then. But then at the same time, if I think back about the conversation, what I also liked about talking to Mallory about it was how she explained it.
Tim Metz [00:10:37]:
Like, that wasn't just, like, one day they said, like, oh, let's get Guy Raz involved.
Ty Magnin [00:10:41]:
Right.
Tim Metz [00:10:41]:
Like, they had them for some presentation. And then, so it's like, you know, you can look at it and say, wow, how. How you come up with an idea like that and actually execute it. But it's not like that just happens from one day to the next. And she mentioned also not a big report that eventually grew into an event. But, like, all those things is, like, they just slowly were built up year over year from one ID to a bit bigger. A bit bigger, A bit bigger. And I thought that was a great insight as well.
Tim Metz [00:11:02]:
Like, that doesn't happen overnight.
Ty Magnin [00:11:04]:
Yep.
Ty Magnin [00:11:05]:
I think Stephanie Losey too, at Autodesk mentioned kind of a similar, like, snowballing pattern of these unique content assets.
Ty Magnin [00:11:13]:
Yeah.
Lane Scott Jones [00:11:13]:
So year one, I think we got like 11 hits in the first six weeks. Year three, we got 97, which is like 897% growth or something like that. And I'm really proud of that. And that is because we did it, right? We did it the way a research firm would have done it if we had outsourced it to them.
Ty Magnin [00:11:32]:
Aditya too, from moengage and formerly Amplitude, he talked about. Well, we produced a book with Moengage.
Ty Magnin [00:11:40]:
Right.
Ty Magnin [00:11:40]:
Like a coffee table book, which is one of those big bet content assets.
Tim Metz [00:11:44]:
But we did it with him already before at unit 21. So he knew, even though maybe it was the first book at moengage. Again, it's like this pattern of like, he knew it could work because he had seen it work in a previous role. So. And then he did it again. Right. So, yeah, I think that's really cool to, to.
Ty Magnin [00:11:58]:
Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:11:59]:
And I would argue that even in those content teams that are in the supporting role and doing less of the strategic, they get to do those bigger bets once in a while. That do feel pretty strategic.
Ty Magnin [00:12:12]:
Yeah.
Tim Metz [00:12:14]:
Yeah, definitely.
Ty Magnin [00:12:15]:
Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:12:16]:
I was going to tie that, Tim, to distribution.
Ty Magnin [00:12:19]:
Yeah. Right.
Ty Magnin [00:12:19]:
One thing we talked about a lot with our content leads was distribution. Because in an enterprise, unlike a startup, they don't own all the distribution channels.
Ty Magnin [00:12:30]:
Right.
Ty Magnin [00:12:31]:
They are partnered with the SEO team, with social, with campaigns or integrated marketing to help them push the stuff out there and also to figure out what to produce. What did you take away around distribution?
Tim Metz [00:12:44]:
Well, first of all, I was surprised in a way that it came up so much that topic. I mean, maybe it's logical, but I hadn't really thought about it. So I was surprised that it kept coming up. And then I also think, like, one of the. Well, the few things that one is. Yeah, I had no idea because as I said, I was going to ask the stupid question to Susan because I never was in the enterprise environment, but like that. Yes. Actually distribution lives in other teams.
Tim Metz [00:13:05]:
I had never even considered that. So that's one thing. But the other thing, I think that also kind of, at least between the lines, at an enterprise level, most of the teams have so much resources that if they wanted to, they could crank out like insane amounts of content. But so they also realized that that doesn't work because you need. So you also logically get to the point where you could, you know, you could put out so much content that you see that it doesn't work anymore if you haven't. If you don't have the distribution figured out in advance. And then I like the different takes on it from, like a dj, that's.
Aditya Vempaty [00:13:35]:
Basically saying, like, this is something I don't see content people doing enough. And on my teams, I like, have said, I don't care what you do. If you can't tell me how you're going to distribute it, you're not doing it.
Tim Metz [00:13:45]:
Don't care.
Ty Magnin [00:13:45]:
Nice.
Aditya Vempaty [00:13:46]:
And it's like, wait, what do you mean? I'm like, well, channels are oversaturated. It cost me a crap ton to get leads. Everyone says the same damn thing, and everyone's putting ebooks out there. We need to change the game. Changing the game comes from thinking about content as a distribution engine.
Tim Metz [00:13:59]:
Tracy kind of used it as a prioritization mechanism of, like. She was like, I don't need an intake form. It's like, if I just ask people, have they secured distribution? And that's enough usually to get most people out of my inbox or whatever. But it was coolest. I thought that was cool.
Ty Magnin [00:14:14]:
Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:14:15]:
I think the one exception.
Ty Magnin [00:14:16]:
Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:14:17]:
Was Matt Hummel at Pipeline360's flying distribution engine.
Ty Magnin [00:14:22]:
Right.
Ty Magnin [00:14:22]:
So if you haven't checked out this podcast episode we did earlier on in the season.
Ty Magnin [00:14:27]:
Yeah.
Matt Hummel [00:14:27]:
For Pipeline360 in particular, you know, our business is really won and lost through relationships. And so getting to take this content out and deliver it in person is really what, you know, what you're referring to as. What did you call it? The. The flying content.
Ty Magnin [00:14:42]:
Flying distribution.
Tim Metz [00:14:44]:
Flying distribution engine.
Ty Magnin [00:14:45]:
Yeah.
Matt Hummel [00:14:45]:
So that's. That's, you know, in essence, what I've done. It's. It's, you know, the short. The short version is over the last 18 months or so, I've probably met with six or seven hundred different marketers throughout, really, the world delivering this research. And it's not just me presenting. It's really become more of a. An interactive and engaging way to connect with our customers and prospects.
Ty Magnin [00:15:06]:
The premise is like Matt hops on an airplane to go meet with prospects and customers and talk them through this white paper that they've produced.
Ty Magnin [00:15:15]:
Right.
Ty Magnin [00:15:16]:
So it's like in, like, state of xyz, state of brand and demand report, and then he secures meetings and goes spend and spends time with him. It's definitely a very different type of distribution play that I just thought was, like, juicy and delicious.
Tim Metz [00:15:30]:
I mean, anyway, I think it's a great play. Like, not everybody can do that, but I do Think more people could do it. It's like go meet if you have a really premium asset like one of those printed books also that Aditya had like you could go hand deliver. That makes sense, right? In a way. I mean it doesn't make sense and it makes sense but I also think the underlying idea is powerful. Like you don't have to necessarily distribute, you know, go hand deliver your, your data report but like with so much noise on digital channels that just doing something in the physical world is a great play. Even though it sounds expensive and sounds like it doesn't scale but like, and in some ways it doesn't. But like you do get like people will notice you, right.
Tim Metz [00:16:09]:
And people will, will remember that and you do get an opportunity to really talk to them. So whether it's like a one on one meeting or some kind of little event you give around like a, you know, for your best customers around a certain research you did or certain content asset, I think it's a great idea and it's just a. Yeah. Inspirational episode.
Ty Magnin [00:16:26]:
Hey, one other thing that we heard that's related to distribution, kind of the answer of the question where do content ideas come from?
Ty Magnin [00:16:36]:
Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:16:37]:
And I think what we heard often was it comes from partnership with the teams that own the distribution channels and we creatively problem solve our way into the content asset or idea. Yes, maybe that, maybe I, that's only one piece of it. But it did seem like a lot of it was like well we get in the room with demand gen and product marketing once a quarter and we lay down the broad strokes and then ideate together around what to produce. What do you remember from different ways in which content ideas can be created?
Tim Metz [00:17:15]:
Well it sparks two things. One is, I'm pretty sure it was Rhonda who said that she actually also mentioned relates to this like that you should go into a conversation with people because they'll come to you and they say I need a case study. And I think she said like everybody wants, always wants case studies. Right?
Rhonda Hughes [00:17:29]:
Everybody wants a case study for everything all the time.
Ty Magnin [00:17:32]:
Yeah.
Rhonda Hughes [00:17:33]:
And what I find when I talk to sales teams, I mean yes, you need case studies and there's a lot of different kinds of ways that you can tell stories. Case study is like this kind over here and it has its place. But when you actually talk to the audience, the internal audience asking for those case studies, sales typically what they really want may be a good quote and a logo or like a small video or those sorts of things. And so I do try to do a little Bit of discovery around like what are you actually trying trying to software? What's your goal?
Tim Metz [00:18:03]:
A case study is not always. Sometimes it's the right answer but often it's not. And so you kind of take people on a. Not a journey but like kind of explain them what's possible. I think one tip she had that I thought was cool is like asking them which, which brands they admire about which content they're doing and then help people think through just like a good designer would do when, when people come and say I want this design but then say like okay, what is actually the problem you're trying to solve? And so do the same kind of with content and that way come to like the best possible content format or ID or whatever. So that was run related thing and the other was Aditya who basically said most marketers are lazy. I think that's how he summed it up like you need to just go talk to your customers. Right.
Tim Metz [00:18:41]:
In the ways he had all kinds of great suggestions about like how you get your team to be always focused on the customer and talk to the customer because that's where you get the best ideas.
Ty Magnin [00:18:50]:
I really agree with that. I think it's important especially the enterprise because it's easy to get removed from your customer, you know because you're like you're not going to the events, you're not hosting the webinar yourself. Maybe you didn't do the case study interviews and so it's kind of easy to get some of the folks on the team removed from a customer and always thought it's really important to make sure everybody has a way to like have those one on one touch points or even a little bit one to many so they can have a pulse and keep a pulse on that audience and it makes it a lot easier than produce a piece back to where ideas come from. What I heard there is kind of like two different models depending on if you're using that content intake form or not.
Ty Magnin [00:19:35]:
Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:19:35]:
And so that was another thing that was interesting right. Was this question to probably all of the leaders we chatted with around like hey do you have this content request form? Were you a non form conformist?
Ty Magnin [00:19:50]:
Yeah, yeah.
Tim Metz [00:19:50]:
It's like two intake form or not to intake form. That's kind of the question. Yeah, yeah. Just the varied responses like a few people did and then but many people didn't and then like yeah also the rationale behind that and then like once you put up the form then it quickly kind of becomes like you're just kind of A service like an order taker and less of a strategic partner.
Ty Magnin [00:20:11]:
And I think, yeah, the form at best, that like someone fills it out, they think they need a thing. You go there, talk to them, what's the problem you're trying to solve with this content asset? And you can even have the form ask those better questions, but they're still gonna just be like, just need a case study Ty, you know, and it's like you still can like go play a little bit of judo and go help them create something more impactful. That's the goal. Even if there's a form. Yeah, I think the combination play could work, but yeah, different flavors for different teams. I want to ask also, you know, another thing we hit on was analytics attribution.
Tim Metz [00:20:47]:
I thought it was interesting to hear that several people mentioned that. Like they just. That at least I said across different roles and they've been at several big companies. Like, it was never perfect and it still led a lot to be desired. Content marketers often don't see it as their responsibility. And it's actually a mistake because if you can't, like, if you don't understand how it works and if you can't kind of prove your value, then you're just at the mercy of somebody else making the decision at some point, like whether content is valuable or not. And I think Heike made a good point where she even said that she would rather hire an analytics person or data science analytics, data analyst, whatever, instead of another writer or editor because she just thought that's much, much more critical and harder to get than, for example, just adding another freelance editor writer outside, but have an analytics person in house on her team. So I think that spoke to the importance.
Tim Metz [00:21:38]:
But some people had it figured out. Like, some people gave good answers and like how they measured things and feels like there's work to do there for a lot of. A lot of teams.
Ty Magnin [00:21:46]:
Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:21:46]:
And one key takeaway, I think it might've come from Kate Pluth at Dropbox was measurement will change over the course of your tenure. Like the way you attribute. So be open to reconfiguring that every year, two years, that kind of thing.
Ty Magnin [00:22:02]:
Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:22:03]:
One more theme that I heard that was unexpected. Well, maybe a little expected to me, but like, kind of interesting was the idea of content governance broadly across the organization and how content leaders play a leading role to get your learning center team or your support docs team and any other kind of like content creating part of the organization to all be together, have one voice.
Ty Magnin [00:22:34]:
Right.
Ty Magnin [00:22:34]:
Meet regularly and drive Some of that governance, it's outside of like, you know, the animals. Thinking of content creation. Right. Of like, for marketing purposes. But just an interesting thing to consider as maybe you're entering a role in content at an enterprise or, you know, trying to figure out how you can level up and contribute at a. At a higher plane.
Tim Metz [00:22:58]:
I mean, that, that came up and it kind of falls a little bit under governments, I think. I think Tracy said that whereas, like, you know, you need meetings at the enterprise. You need meetings just to make sure you're not duplicating work and like, just keeping track of. And Rhonda talked about that like, like, you need some kind of library system because you can't. Like, there's just so much content that you just can't even know what you've already done in the past. So you need to. Need to also make sure.
Ty Magnin [00:23:21]:
Yeah.
Tim Metz [00:23:21]:
You know, recreating stuff where you're both working on the same things. And yeah, I think the whole topic of governance could be maybe not its own season, but at least the blog post. Mini season.
Ty Magnin [00:23:32]:
Yes.
Ty Magnin [00:23:33]:
Yeah, there's a lot there. Well, y'all, I've got to run.
Ty Magnin [00:23:36]:
Yeah.
Ty Magnin [00:23:37]:
Appreciate you sticking with us through this season. I learned a lot. Hope you did too. Excited about some of the assets that we're going to produce coming out of that to support everything to support you and your learning journey around enterprise content.
Tim Metz [00:23:47]:
And with that, thanks for listening and we'll be back with a season three.
Ty Magnin [00:23:52]:
And stay tuned. We will reveal what the next season on the Animals podcast will be about via your newsletter via LinkedIn. However, you stay in touch with us. So thanks for listening. See you soon.
Tim Metz [00:24:04]:
Thanks for listening. Bye-bye.
