How To Master Your Evangelism Strategy

Randy Frisch, Chief Evangelist at Uberflip, discusses his role in pulling together a community and ways to foster it. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the community and bringing them together around a common belief or interest while adapting and being flexible in approach. Frisch also talks about his experience of writing his book, "Fuck Content Marketing", Frisch emphasizes that a book allows for a well-thought-out view of the market, and is a way of handing over the formula for success to customers. Finally, he discusses the challenges of delivering personalized content and how relevance is subjective and context-specific.

The Role of a Chief Evangelist and Defining Community

According to Frisch, the role of a Chief Evangelist is to pull together a community.

He explains that a community can be made up of various groups, including customers, non-customers, or people who are interested in your vision and mission.

For Frisch, the key to community-building is understanding what your community is and how you can bring them together around a common belief or interest.

Fostering a Community and Adapting to Change

Frisch highlights that there are various ways to foster a community, and it is important to adapt to changing situations.

He suggests that companies should focus on building relationships with their customers and engaging them through various channels, including social media and podcasts.

Frisch believes that podcasts are a great way to connect with people and create engaging content.

"Pillar Pieces" of Content Creation

Frisch also discusses the importance of having "pillar pieces" of content or activities that he tries to do on a regular basis.

These "pillar pieces" can include podcasts, blogs, webinars, and events.

For Frisch, the key is to create content that is valuable and engaging for the community.

The Journey of Writing a Book

During the interview, Frisch shares his experience of writing a book.

He explains that it was a more challenging experience that he never thought he would do.

He wrote a blog post titled "Fuck Content Marketing," and the success of the post led to a demand for a deeper exploration of the topic, which eventually became the book.

Frisch emphasizes that a book allows for a well-thought-out view of the market, and is a way of handing over the formula for success to customers.

The Challenge of Personalized Content Creation

Frisch believes that people want what is relevant to them in every stage of their journey.

However, he acknowledges that delivering personalized content can be challenging.

He cites some statistics that scare marketers, such as the fact that only 5% of marketers are confident in their ability to deliver personalized content.

For Frisch, the key to personalized content creation is to keep in mind that relevance is subjective and context-specific.

Final Thoughts

Randy Frisch's insights provide valuable lessons for businesses seeking to build a community and create personalized content.

It is crucial to understand what your community is and how you can bring them together around a common interest.

Companies should also be flexible and adapt to changing situations while creating "pillar pieces" of content that are valuable and engaging.

Additionally, while writing a book may not be for everyone, it can be a valuable piece that allows one to put a well-thought view of the market.

Finally, delivering personalized content can be challenging, but it is crucial to keep in mind that relevance is subjective and context-specific.

By following these principles, businesses can build a loyal community and create personalized content that resonates with their audience.

Full Transcript

All right. We are live in the Demostack Studios.

I got my guest here Randy Frisch, chief evangelist at Uberflip, we've been talking about evangelism content the different types of content evangelists do, but, uh, Randy, w- how are you doing today?

I'm excited to be here Yeah. I mean, go figure, we have to

come to Phoenix to film, something.

...to record together, even though we're both Torontonians, but

Exactly. Yeah,

Exactly.

I mean, [inaudible 00:01:29]. good to be.

together.

Yeah. This is awesome.

So

why

don't we

start off,

um, and I know I hold this title too at Chili Piper, but it seems to mean a bunch of different things.

So what,

[laughs] how would you explain your role

as Chief Evangelist at, uh,

at

Uberflip? Yeah,

it's, It's a word that has so

many meanings and even when I decided to transition from being a cmo, I had to go

to Wikipedia just to say like, what does this thing mean?

Yeah.

Uh,

partly because I had to explain it

to my father.

[laughs]

Uh, but you know,

this, eventually you get to the point of trying to explain it to your team and explain it to your community. And ultimately, when I landed on that word

community, I,

I think that's what this role's all about. Mm. It's, it's about pulling

together a community Mm.

...

okay. Now when we're

talking about community, I

know what pops in mind, uh,

slack communities. Um,

some people would say LinkedIn is a community.

Do How would you define community outside of like, is it just a bunch of individuals that you're trying to bring around this belief, or

is there a form for them to connect?

How do you. How do you

look at community? That's a great question.

and I think the important

thing,

to understand is it's not

one definition of what your

community is. Yeah. Your company is

made up of various

communities. Mm.

Now, I

remember this is going back, I mean, Uberflip is over

10 years old.

and I remember the first

time

we went and we did a roadshow,

we brought together a room of marketers. that was maybe 40 people in the room.

And this Marketer came up to me and they're like, it's so nice to get together with our community. Thanks for doing this. Mm. And that's honestly what she said

to me.

Mm-hmm. .And I was like, that's

kind

of an interesting way to look at it, is we're bringing together

these people who

normally wouldn't get together in their own

Backyard. Yeah. And all of a

sudden I realized we had created a community

That year I

think we ended up going to like 12 cities. So I guess we created 12 different

communities. But sometimes it's hard to start there. And, and

that I think, is

a way for

people to look

at this role. It's not, how do I go and run a 1000 person

plus event tomorrow? Yeah. You know, that takes huge budget. Yeah.

Huge

resources, It's a huge strain on your team, I've done it.

But how do you start to

bring together these different

groups with a common understanding so that by the time they do come

together, yeah,

now they have something in common they can

talk about.

Uh, the other thing when you think about community is, you know, uh, as a brand, is your community,

your customers, or is it people who are not a customer? Mm-hmm. or your

churned customers?

I mean, these are all

different groups

so we've

done some aggressive things in the, in the past. We even had our competitor speak at our conference one

year. Yeah. Um, [laughs] yeah, I don't know

if I'd do that again, [laughs] but

the, the

idea there is, is the more

people you can bring

together with different perspectives, you become, uh, you know, again, that chief evangelist, you become

the one who's

leading.

Yeah. This united

community

of people who believe

in your vision and mission and everything your company is out to achieve.

So this is making a ton of sense in terms of how you're,

you're looking at the role, how you want to bring people in, unite them under maybe a, a common set of beliefs or interests or anything like

that

when we're looking at maybe the, the day to day, and I know you

do a lot of work in

content. What are some of the things you're, you're

doing as a chief evangelist to, to

foster this

community? Sure.

before I

give you some examples, I

think the role I'm in is no different than the role

any marketer is in any CMO is in,

which is you're going to try and do

certain things on a

regular basis. Yeah. But you have to know and be ready to realize that you've got to adapt

in the moment. Okay.

So you can't completely

schedule out your day.

you know?

No marketer can do that. Yeah. Even if we. Had the best intention, you know,

shit's going to hit the fan at some point. Right. And you've got to be

ready

to move and respond.

So that's the same in

this role. Okay. I

have nonetheless a number of, I mean, I kind of call

them pillar pieces of content or activities that I try

and do on a

regular basis. And that's

cadences

that. um, relate to what I

post when I post down to the time of

the day that I do it.

Mm-hmm.

... Speaking to some of the specific

that

have worked really well,

uh, one without a doubt is a podcast. I Sitting one-on-one and

talking with someone is such a natural way to get

them to open

up mm-hmm. and talk

about where

their passions

lie. So I've been doing my Own podcast.

Yeah. Called The Marketer's Journey.

Um, and I just released this morning,

the 137th episode, so we're, we're going strong

there. And in that sense, what that is an opportunity.

for Is, you know, coming back to

this idea of community

as an ability

to connect

with CMOs and

understand and

share their beliefs

around, you know,

what's important to Uberflip, which

is

the importance of content Yeah.

...and a content

experience.

I do that once

a week. I release that out. It, it has.

a number of benefits for the purpose of evangelism. Number one.

some of the brands that I've spoken

to of CMOs, companies like Box, you know, as an example,

You've got this

CMO now out

there beating your drumbeat

in terms of what your vision and

mission is. Even if Box isn't a

customer.

today. Mm-hmm. .Right. And I think that has a

lot of of

value. The other opportunity you have is you get to sit down with the

CMO and you get to kind

of.

in the

background, pitch your

solution. Now I'm not having to pitch, you know where

I'm talking about Uberflip does this and

Uberflip does that. But you start to build rapport and they start to understand

the importance of what you're doing because They're naturally starting to

talk about it and they're starting to believe in

it.

Mm.

...and telling their team

this is

important, and their team sees them out talking on a podcast about the importance of your category, whatever that might

be.

Yeah. So there's a lot of benefits I think

that come from the podcast

itself, not to

mention now you've got

thousands of listeners

per week. Yeah. Tuning.

in With an affiliation to

your brand that's done in the

background. Most of us tend to agree

that the evangelist role focuses on almost evangelizing the problem that you're solving.

You're not getting as deep into maybe the solution. The product

podcast sounds like a great example of that.

but talk to me about, um, Yeah. I guess the, the different types of content you

think an evangelist

should do. I've, I've heard you talk about some of them now and again, maybe it depends, but

I heard you talk about posting on LinkedIn.

I've heard you talk about doing a podcast. Um, all of that is part of maybe the, the journey and the message that you're trying to send out to them, but

is, there Pieces of content or, or formats of

content that you truly believe

in that you think maybe every evangelist should do? Or in terms of evangelizing the message to the market that companies

should

focus on?

Yeah, so, so we hit on the importance of podcasts. Yeah. And I think we've hit on the

importance of customer

stories. Yeah. I think finding the right format for that customer

to tell the story, it's essentially a webinar always. But

you know, it doesn't mean you have to

have a signup for a webinar. I mean, sometimes I'll produce these as

videos

and I'll just throw them up on social

and do them in a way th- where they're really digestible.

Two minute little segments. Someone saying, this is my framework, this is

how I use it.

just kind of recapping

some

of the formats

we talked about already. And the last one that I'll hit on that's way

chunkier and one that I never thought I would do

was

writing a book,

Um, Oh. so I, I

wrote a

book, uh, this was about four years ago.

Uh, and honestly

it was never on

my to-do list as a personal goal. I don't think I ever thought as a company we.

would Want, or need or value a

book?

The funny thing is the book originated as a piece

of content in blog form, and it was a, uh,

I guess you could call it a questionable blog

topic. Uh, the headline was Fuck

Content Marketing. [laughs] Uh, and I wrote it on a

plane ride to

an event

like this. Um,

and

I remember I sent it to our head of content at the time, and

you know, in response to the headline

they were

fuck,

no way

[laughs] uh, you're not posting this. We are going to offend

everyone.

And they hadn't even read the post. They were just like, the headline is, yeah.

I wasn't allowed to post that for about

three months. Okay.

...Uh,

that post, it was just, didn't sit well with too many

people, but I found the right time to eventually push and and we put it out there and it was received so well.

Um, and it, it led to a lot

of other collateral as time went

on, people were like, you know, this would be a really

interesting topic to go

deeper on.

And that ultimately,

became the book that I wrote. Now the funny thing

is, When I went out and we had to come up with the title of

the book, I was very against

fuck Content Marketing being the title.

Mm-hmm. . And my team at that point was like, no,

no, no, You've got to do it. [laughs] Like,

and I was like, you,

wouldn't let me publish this.

And But, you know, back to the, the format, I'm, I'm not suggesting

everyone's got to go be as profane as I am sometimes, but,

um, you know, I, I think a book

allows you to put a well,

thought.

uh, view [inaudible 00:24:17] market. Mm-hmm. .And, you know, the idea of that

is that you can hand over

the formula

for success

to your customers. We did so in a way where we didn't talk

about the technology at all. So our book,

um, Other than talking about

some of the campaigns that some of our

customers run, you know, and not really mentioning Uberflip in that

case, but mentioning the idea of content experience being

something important. It was a way of us saying, from a

strategy perspective, we're hitting on something that you

really

need to prioritize. You know, writing a book's not for everyone,

but

I do.

think it's a really

valuable piece. And, you know, maybe the best way to summarize that story

is you get to that

book by the most provocative, compelling pieces that you've put out

that lead up.

to that.

That's a fantastic story. I think something that a lot of, a lot of companies should think about, maybe going down the path of what you all do at, at Uberflip, Um,

I feel like in ways

we've, I don't know if you have a framework to share

with the audience. of almost the, the content journey

you ideally would want your, your buyer to take. Right? So we've talked

about maybe more top of

funnel, getting

them to buy into the belief systems, but is there a framework for an ideal

journey that you want to take 'em down in terms of Uberflip? Or is it '

more of

a choose

your own adventure? .

Well, I, I,

I think let's just distill down to what people actually want. Mm-hmm. , uh,

and. You know,

I, I'm,

as much as I'm trying to sell my solution, I, I'm a

marketer and I'm being marketed to by great marketers

because But We're

we're signing up to all these things ultimately because we just want relevant

content.

That's my belief, Mm-hmm. right? Like we accept the email

because we

hope

it's going to suggest something

that's really relevant for us. We click on that ad

because we believe now that they've personalized the

ad and that we're going to get

something relevant in, on the other side. So I believe that we put up with a

lot of stuff in our lives

because we want

relevant

content.

Mm. Right. And if

you look at that in

the. consumer world, it's the same as just our willingness

to give

data over to Google or Netflix or

Amazon. It's, it's a barter, right? I will give you all this data about me, but in exchange, I expect something truly personalized and truly

relevant that's delivered to me. Yeah. Right. So the, question leading back,

back to

how you framed it is, well, what is, what is it that people wanted every

stage of the journey, and to me they just want what's relevant to them in that moment. Now that's really hard to do.

Yeah. Right. Um, You know, there's a whole bunch of stats

that are out there that just scare the shit out of marketers.

Right.

There's like, I think it's like 11 pieces of content before they're ready to buy. And

then there's, yeah. You know,

you look at, you know, the Gartner

CEB data that's just like 11 buyers in the

journey

who are weighing in that challenge your model. Yeah. Our friend Jen Allen. Yes. Yes. Uh, y- you know, shares that data.

Um, And then in your organization you

probably have like five different verticals that you're, you know, going after.

and

then you've got, you know, four different products.

So

you start to.

Like mathematically, if you take all those numbers and you multiply

them by each other, 11 times 11,

I think I said times like four times four. I did this math recently that

like it's like 2500%

permutations of personalized content

at different stages that you would need.

Yeah. Which is just like impossible.

Right? Yeah. Sure. So to me it's how do we distill down to the

moments that matter, right. in that journey and make

sure that we're there

to greet someone. when it matters and move them along

as seamlessly as

possible. And I, I truly

believe, I mean, I think

that's what

com- great companies are

doing. In MarTech.

I think that's what Chili Piper's doing. In terms of like kind of the pipes of communication, if you will. How do I get from this point to this point? Yeah. and Really

seamlessly.

Yeah. do a handoff. It's no different than how do I make sure the right content Is there to move

them from this

point to that point.

Mm. Right. And that was the same as back in the day when Marketo was really cool

and sexy, No offense to Marketo today. [laughs] But like it was about that email, it was

about that drip cadence that got us

From one stage to the next. Yeah, the buyer's just gotten a lot

more sophisticated. They're

doing a lot more of this on their own.

They're raising their hand to say, I'm ready to speak to sales.

Chili Piper can help them. They're raising their hand to say, I need

content here to get me

through.

That's where Uberflip's going to help. Right. So I think the role of a

marketer Is to find the best technology to help

progress that journey as quickly as.

possible. Randy, this has been amazing. Um, I'm learning so much you've got my head spinning with, with different

ideas of what we can do. Um, before we sign off, is there anything that, I maybe haven't asked you or

something

that you want to impart with the audience before we, uh, hop

off here?

I think I'll leave with this. Like you've got to have a bold. idea. Right. Yeah. And we're, we're here together at an

event and, and I woke

up this morning and I went to the exhibition

room for the first time, and my

head was spinning Right. Like you said, but in a bad way. Right.

Like there was

what, like at least 70 vendors in

there. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

And they all thought they had the sexiest

booth [laughs]

...And the coolest swag and all these

things. And

honestly, like, Yeah, those pieces are important, but like, what do you, what are you actually trying to do? Mm. and What is this

belief that you have, You know, distill it down to a few

words. you know, the, the few words I told you just before is

people just

want relevant content.

Yeah. Like, .That is a really strong belief that we have, that

we

want to help achieve and we want to help

people realize

that that's their

responsibility to deliver. So I

think people listening to this it's like,

look at your company.

Like distill it down to like what

is it

that your buyer is trying to do that

you can help with?

And if, if you can do that, build a community

around that, Find people that are passionate about that, who believe that it's silly to do it

any other way.

Yeah.

Perfect ending. Amazing. Thank you so much for your time,

Randy. This was great. Awesome man. This was fun.

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