Q&A with Tom Logan, Co-Founder & CEO at Cohley

Don’t obsess over writing the perfect piece, the writings that go viral and take you to the next level of clout are very likely not the ones that you’d expect.

M7: What channels do you think are the most relevant for content marketing? How do you gauge which ones are the most promising, given your target customers?
TL: For Cohley, it’s all about having a presence where our target customers spend time. We work hard to produce original blog content that can be shared on LinkedIn, for example, and we’ll focus on the types of topics that are relevant to our buyer personas. What most companies do, which is the opposite of Hubspot’s blog (for example), is produce content that talks about how great they are. Okay, that’s cool, but how does this help me solve my most pressing challenges?!

M7: What are the major advertising and marketing tools you use to hike up the brand awareness of your company?
TL: We run a variety of social demand gen campaigns using a tool called Metadata.io (would highly recommend). Reachdesk is another one that we’ve leaned into more as of late. It’s essentially a gifting platform to sprinkle a bit of TLC on prospective clients, and the gifts include things like Cohley cupcakes, wine tasting kits, spa treatments, etc.
As always there’s no replacement for testing a variety of different campaigns and initiatives and using data (not gut feel!) to inform ongoing content strategy.

There’s no replacement for testing a variety of different campaigns and initiatives and using data to inform ongoing content strategy.

M7: What are your best practices for creating content that caters to the customers’ interests?
TL: Make it about them! 80% of buyers are considered “away” buyers, meaning that they’re buying to get away from a pressing pain point (or points). “Towards” buyers are your early adopters who want to be the first in line to try something new, regardless of social proof points.

M7: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your work - what day to day processes have you had to re-tool to be able to pull them off remotely?
TL: Beyond the obvious ones, more time on Zoom, etc., we realized that we needed to stop assuming our same communication channels and structures would hold up in fully remote work (they didn’t’). Our leadership team in particular has been hyper-specific and almost overcommunicated at times to avoid misalignment, particularly among team leads and their team’s initiatives.

Test, test, and test some more! Be active on Twitter, and know your target audience.

M7: Your advice to the professional writers for effective content curation?
TL: Test, test, and test some more! Don’t obsess over writing the perfect piece, the writings that go viral and take you to the next level of clout are very likely not the ones that you’d expect. Be active on Twitter, and know your target audience to a T. Jason Lemkin and the team at SaaStr come to mind as writers that truly “get it.”