How to build a marketing flywheel PT. 1

Welcome to a new edition of PROse, where B2B marketers get better at creating resonating content.

Editor’s note: I was so excited about getting this letter out to you - but while babysitting a newborn and 1 year old, I accidentally scheduled this to publish on the wrong date instead of yesterday 😅

In honor of my exhaustion, I dedicate this letter to all the parents out there. Y’all are the real superheroes.

I originally intended to get through this topic in one letter, but it was waaay too long haha.

So instead, I’m going to break it down into two parts: the what/why & the how.

Now, before you skip this email thinking you’ll just wait until next week - the what & why are the most important parts.

If you just jump straight to the mechanics, you won’t exactly understand what you’re building (the big picture) or what parts should be tweaked (and why).

I talked with a founder last week who bootstrapped his SaaS company to more than $10M in revenue without any real marketing efforts. It’s pretty insane when you consider how many companies raise 8 or 9 figures and barely get to $5M in revenue.

We talked about building a marketing flywheel and fandom. So I figured I’d share with you all what I told him.

When I say “fandom”, I mean a group of supporters that:

• evangelize your product for you

• get you noticed by peers and competitors (because if your competitors aren’t looking, you’re probably not doing a great job ;))

• and, ultimately, rake in revenue.

Nowadays, everyone’s talking about building/being a media company. But so many people really just mean copy and pasting the same content on every platform.

I guess it’s better than nothing, but it’s not great.

If you’re going to build a fandom, you need a strategy for getting people’s attention and building affinity so they trust you.

The attention program drives people to the program(s) that build affinity and allow your audience to dive deeper into your brand ethos.

You’re building a flywheel. One piece of the flywheel feeds the other, which in turn feeds the next piece, and that piece fields the original, and so on.

Here’s what a modern B2B content flywheel looks like:

• Organic social (attention)

• Newsletter (affinity)

• Video podcast (affinity)

Your brand social account is the online version of you standing in the high school cafeteria.

People are already there hanging out with their friends. Its job is to get their attention without being awkward or disrupting their normal flow too much.

The newsletter and podcasts are like the friend group chat and the party, respectively.

The people who subscribe to your newsletter and podcast care more about what you’re up to. Their job is to build a community amongst them and eventually convert their trust into revenue (either directly or indirectly).

Let’s take a look at a few examples:

Buzzfeed has a channel called Cocoa Butter, which itself has multiple short-series shows.

(There’s a revelation in that - your company is the network; your podcast/newsletter/social are the channels; your channels should have multiple shows)

Buzzfeed gets word out about Cocoa Butter’s shows through their Instagram & Twitter accounts, with Instagram being their biggest draw.

Here’s the explain-it-to-me-like-I’m-five version of their strategy:

• Develop a show concept (either original or based on audience feedback)

• Produce the show primarily for YouTube (better-than-Zoom quality, but not quite feature-film quality)

• Take the best clips from the show and post to IG reels

• Allow IG reels to find the eyeballs and funnel them back to the profile with the YT link in bio

Of course, this is all easier said than done; but the point is to show this is not a complicated strategy. And, I know firsthand it works - it’s how I found out about them!

One more thing: when you actually click the link in their bio, it takes you to a landing page that they’re monetizing with ads. So even if they never get the YouTube adsense dollars - they’ve already made revenue!

The B2B poster child of this sort of media strategy is ProfitWell.

ProfitWell built a diversified media company all the way to a $200M+ acquisition.

And when I say “media company”, I truly mean it—video shows, articles, books, and even a documentary.

A lot of their media is published to their founder’s Twitter account, which draws people back to their media site.

While you don’t have to go that deep, they’re definitely a model of what’s possible, even in B2B.

In the end, my advice to the founder, and my advice to all of you, is simple:

If you’re trying to build an audience that practically delivers revenue to your door, you have two tasks: 1) get their attention where they already are & 2) build trust with them so they feel comfortable parting with their money or recommending someone else to do so.

That’s all for this letter. Next week I’ll dive into exactly how to build out each of those channels so be on the lookout for that.

Before you head out:

I’m opening up 1-2 slots for clients. If you’re looking for a done-for-you service to build and manage this sort of strategy, feel free to reach out.