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The Quiet Shift: How B2B Teams are Winning Post-SEO
Manage episode 480030303 series 3290771
#242: Content Strategy | In this episode, Danielle sits down with Brendan Hufford, founder of Growth Sprints, to talk about what actually works in content and SEO today and why most B2B strategies are broken. Brendan went from high school teacher to leading content at top SaaS companies, and now helps brands move faster and build content strategies that drive real impact.
They cover:
- Why most SEO strategies are broken - and why retainers make it worse
- The content checklist that took ActiveCampaign from 200K to 240K visitors in 30 days
- Why the most lucrative SEO opportunities are hiding in plain sight
- Brendan’s "immortal newsletter" framework that cuts production time in half while doubling engagement
Plus, check out the checklist Brendan mentioned in this episode here!
Timestamps
- (00:00) - – Intro to Brendan
- (04:53) - – Lessons from teaching that apply directly to marketing
- (07:53) - – Why Brendan left education and entered the B2B world
- (09:23) - – Early agency and in-house marketing experience
- (11:08) - – Building a defensible career: audience, trust, and network
- (13:28) - – The Growth Sprints model: why retainers don’t make sense
- (14:38) - – Content strategy in bets, not buckets
- (15:53) - – Why SEO still works and where it actually drives results
- (17:23) - – Getting deep on audience, product, and internal dynamics
- (19:38) - – What marketers get wrong about internal buy-in
- (21:38) - – Real example: what a content sprint looks like in practice
- (23:08) - – The power of internal linking and content refreshes
- (26:19) - – How Google views internal linking and user signals
- (29:19) - – Why technical SEO is often overrated
- (32:19) - – Brendan’s hot take: most SEOs aren’t marketers
- (33:49) - – Why the “SEO takes 6 months” narrative is flawed
- (35:49) - – The problem with traditional retainers and content brief models
- (37:19) - – The immortal newsletter: how to mix evergreen + ephemeral content
- (40:19) - – Naming the problem, not just the category
- (41:49) - – Content should do 3–5 jobs at once: how to prioritize impact
- (44:19) - – The real value of competitor and alternatives pages
- (46:49) - – How to make content more useful for sales and buyer enablement
- (48:19) - – Brendan’s final mindset shift: create content that earns its keep
Send guest pitches and ideas to [email protected]
Join the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Check out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/
Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership
***
Today's episode is brought to you by Knak.
Email (in my humble opinion) is the still the greatest marketing channel of all-time.
It’s the only way you can truly “own” your audience.
But when it comes to building the emails - if you’ve ever tried building an email in an enterprise marketing automation platform, you know how painful it can be. Templates are too rigid, editing code can break things and the whole process just takes forever.
That’s why we love Knak here at Exit Five. Knak a no-code email platform that makes it easy to create on-brand, high-performing emails - without the bottlenecks.
- Frustrated by clunky email builders? You need Knak.
- Tired of ‘hoping’ the email you sent looks good across all devices? Just test in Knak first.
- Big team making it hard to collaborate and get approvals? Definitely Knak.
And the best part? Everything takes a fraction of the time.
See Knak in action at knak.com/exit-five. Or just let them know you heard about Knak on Exit Five.
***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
- They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
- Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
- Visit hatch.fm to learn more
263 episodes
Manage episode 480030303 series 3290771
#242: Content Strategy | In this episode, Danielle sits down with Brendan Hufford, founder of Growth Sprints, to talk about what actually works in content and SEO today and why most B2B strategies are broken. Brendan went from high school teacher to leading content at top SaaS companies, and now helps brands move faster and build content strategies that drive real impact.
They cover:
- Why most SEO strategies are broken - and why retainers make it worse
- The content checklist that took ActiveCampaign from 200K to 240K visitors in 30 days
- Why the most lucrative SEO opportunities are hiding in plain sight
- Brendan’s "immortal newsletter" framework that cuts production time in half while doubling engagement
Plus, check out the checklist Brendan mentioned in this episode here!
Timestamps
- (00:00) - – Intro to Brendan
- (04:53) - – Lessons from teaching that apply directly to marketing
- (07:53) - – Why Brendan left education and entered the B2B world
- (09:23) - – Early agency and in-house marketing experience
- (11:08) - – Building a defensible career: audience, trust, and network
- (13:28) - – The Growth Sprints model: why retainers don’t make sense
- (14:38) - – Content strategy in bets, not buckets
- (15:53) - – Why SEO still works and where it actually drives results
- (17:23) - – Getting deep on audience, product, and internal dynamics
- (19:38) - – What marketers get wrong about internal buy-in
- (21:38) - – Real example: what a content sprint looks like in practice
- (23:08) - – The power of internal linking and content refreshes
- (26:19) - – How Google views internal linking and user signals
- (29:19) - – Why technical SEO is often overrated
- (32:19) - – Brendan’s hot take: most SEOs aren’t marketers
- (33:49) - – Why the “SEO takes 6 months” narrative is flawed
- (35:49) - – The problem with traditional retainers and content brief models
- (37:19) - – The immortal newsletter: how to mix evergreen + ephemeral content
- (40:19) - – Naming the problem, not just the category
- (41:49) - – Content should do 3–5 jobs at once: how to prioritize impact
- (44:19) - – The real value of competitor and alternatives pages
- (46:49) - – How to make content more useful for sales and buyer enablement
- (48:19) - – Brendan’s final mindset shift: create content that earns its keep
Send guest pitches and ideas to [email protected]
Join the Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Check out the Exit Five job board: https://jobs.exitfive.com/
Become an Exit Five member: https://community.exitfive.com/checkout/exit-five-membership
***
Today's episode is brought to you by Knak.
Email (in my humble opinion) is the still the greatest marketing channel of all-time.
It’s the only way you can truly “own” your audience.
But when it comes to building the emails - if you’ve ever tried building an email in an enterprise marketing automation platform, you know how painful it can be. Templates are too rigid, editing code can break things and the whole process just takes forever.
That’s why we love Knak here at Exit Five. Knak a no-code email platform that makes it easy to create on-brand, high-performing emails - without the bottlenecks.
- Frustrated by clunky email builders? You need Knak.
- Tired of ‘hoping’ the email you sent looks good across all devices? Just test in Knak first.
- Big team making it hard to collaborate and get approvals? Definitely Knak.
And the best part? Everything takes a fraction of the time.
See Knak in action at knak.com/exit-five. Or just let them know you heard about Knak on Exit Five.
***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
- They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
- Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
- Visit hatch.fm to learn more
263 episodes
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