(Transcribed by A.I.)

AL: Hey, hey, everybody, welcome to SaaS Breakthrough. I'm here with Camille Trent, head of content at Dooly, and we're going to learn all about this awesome social campaign that she did. So welcome, Camille. How are you?

00:01:51:12 00:01:53:22
CT: Yeah, it's great to be here. Thank you, Ashley doing well.

00:01:54:12 00:02:08:06
AL: Thanks for coming. OK, let's begin. So you ran a G2 social campaign and I really want to break it down step by step. So start with the goal. Why this initiative? Why this channel? What were you trying to do?

00:02:08:17 00:03:08:15
CT: I should start off by saying definitely a team effort, definitely like the whole company involved, like not not even my campaign, but just like the whole marketing campaign. And then as far as goals we had gone to the effort of and CS was like a big champion in this of driving driving reviews and creating just a good enough product. So shout out to our team to warrant those reviews. Right. So we've done all this to try and win badges and earn status in G2 to be on the grid as far as a product was concerned. And so for us, it was like now that we've done all this work and like earned the spot, like how do we let people know about that? That was probably the number one thing. But then also how how do we kind of like leverage this opportunity to drive deals, like drive sign ups, and in addition to the awareness part of it? Right. And really just taking advantage of this award that we'd won, like letting people know about it. So so that was kind of the premise of the campaign.

00:03:09:09 00:03:15:23
AL: OK, so walk me through what happens next, how you get these cool words. You're like, so excited you did all this work and how do you let the world know about it?

00:03:16:13 00:05:15:21
CT: Like everything starts with a good old old fashioned brainstorm of, OK, like let's let's get together. And Mark and the the marketing team in general is very much like, how can we go big on everything. Like we don't we let's not even do it if we can't, if we can't do that again. Was like another kind of north star for us. Looking back at what we did for for the series a, which is before my time, I can't take credit but series b as well. Like, how are we able to kind of like own LinkedIn and kind of own the Internet during that time? So it was looking back on that and then talking about those like North stars for us of how do we take advantage of this opportunity so we can start more conversations like with sales and drive more sign ups, what people know about our leader status and just how good our product is. And that initial brainstorm I think I had accidentally said GQ like I was like, OK, so what are like what are we going to do for this GQ ideas? And and Mark was leading leading the meeting, I remember. And then we all just kind of like laughed about it, like just the idea of that, but also kind of paused and we're like, wait. Like is that the thing? That does that that is like this is this is like the first, like, kind of pre brainstorm of like let's start talking about what we need to do it for this. So that happened. We all kind of like laughed about it, but we're like, maybe there's something else to the list. Added some other things to the list before the next meeting. But then I had just started this is like a week or two in and Mark was going to be out the next week. So he's our VP of Marketing. And just like a brilliant person, he was going to be out. And so I was just in charge, just like a project manager, moving moving this forward and making sure that we that we did something for this, took advantage of the opportunity. And so for the next meeting, it was like, OK, we have this idea. Other people had had added other ideas to it to kind of just literally a Google doc touch through all of them, like made sure that we heard all the ideas now and then we talked about what those could look like in execution.

00:05:16:04 00:08:48:09
CT: So my background is advertising and working for like a creative agency. And this is kind of how it goes, is if you had if if an idea had enough legs, if you can think of enough like execution's around it, if you can visualize what it looks like, if you can imagine what the press release would be, then like, you know, you can't you're kind of onto something. And then the other part of it is like, if it's simple, like honestly, it's simple and you can explain it in one sentence, that's probably a pretty good indicator. So so again, like we just kept gravitating back to to this GQ idea. But I remember in the meeting itself, like the second meeting that I set up, the description of the meeting was G2 question mark like GQ, question mark G six, question mark. And so basically all of those became the idea somehow because Ding, whose background is in sales but is also just like a premium creator, he does like a lot of our sales raps and like is involved in a lot of like the videos we've done in the past. And so he like within within hours of us kind of like deciding on this idea and having brought up, like, the whole logistics thing, too. He did like the parody rap, like from like G six, like like redid it for like a G2 song like wrote all the lyrics, and so he just like just went to town on that and then then Zoe had actually written like by the time like the second meeting came around and she was like, hey, back to that GQ thing. I have like a script like for a commercial that we can do. And so essentially, she wrote the little script that we did for the for the Zoom video, and then we had a Ding. And then also Ryan, who you might have seen like just the other parody videos that we've done, like we're like you guys both just need to be in this video somehow. And so we had, like, the original idea was like them dressing up, like preparing for their GQ spot and then like going into the zoom call. And then when Mark came in, we ended up cutting back. So he's like, we can just jump, like, right into the Zoom call part, make sure we get like, right right to the point. And that ends up being like the right move. And then we were still able to like use that other footage as kind of like the extra footage afterwards to kind of extend the campaign. And so that's what I mean, where it really was like a team effort. And then, Sam, I didn't even mention but Sam did all of the video like she like put together the whole video, did all of the editing. From my standpoint, too, it was like we have all of these creative elements. How do we still get still get like the reviews in there and get the product in there a little bit more so so we don't get too wrapped up in just the creative element. We still remember, like what this was originally about, because it's easy for that for that happen to go off the rails. And so I guess I did like in the scripting of all of this, like make sure that we that I picked out some of the better reviews from G2, included those in the video and had had a call to action of of which we're running this contest in tandem with this. Like if you sign up this week and you're eligible for these prizes and things and linked back to also like are our press release that we did, sent that to the PR team, too, so that they could run with it. So we had a couple of things running in tandem with this, and I can get into the specifics a little later, but that's like how the idea came to be and kind of literally everyone from the the marketing team and also even like the sales team with with Ryan had a pretty big part to play in it.

00:08:48:18 00:09:27:15
AL: All right. So we got from this top, we got we got all these awesome reviews. We've been working really hard to try to gain this leverage, get these badges, whatever. Now we have to, like, tell the world about what we did. So I'm just thinking about this like a funnel and I'm realizing we're on video and people might not be able to see me, but like, my hands are big and now they're going to get smaller at the bottom of the funnel. So then in the middle, you have all these awesome ways that you're doing that, right? You've got like these cool videos, you've got the press release, you've got all the stuff and our all of them tying to this contest. Is that kind of the bottom of the funnel? Is that the the call to action? Can you talk about that? What's the contest?

00:09:27:20 00:12:21:17
CT: Yeah. So what are we asking someone to do at the end of this? Or if they want to take the next step, what would that next step be? And so it's always trying the product. Like if you if you look at some of our social posts and our partner social posts, like there's always like a call to action to to try us out. And so we knew that we wanted to do that. And so it's kind of working backwards from there of like, OK, how can we make this a little bit more like spicy or interesting and also tie it back to the campaign? So so one thing was like a GQ subscription, like you can win like GQ or subscription. Not that anyone necessarily wants that, but it's just like a fun way to tie it back. So there there's that. And then there's also, OK, we're making a custom music video. That's what people know us for. We'll do that as part of the giveaway, too. Like we'll say, we're going to we're going to make you like a video just like this if you went so now. So that's like a fun play. And then the last thing I think, too, is like I we're we're also kind of testing out like Dooly subscription boxes to that right now are just prizes that we're that we're trying out. And so, like it was just one way to to try that out of where a Canadian based company, which is kind of unique. And so, like, can we add some Canadian treats to that? Can we also add kind of like our swag to that so so kind of trying out that that's swag box. So someone has something tangible as well. So those are kind of the three things like in the contest. But yeah, it's kind of two things of like I always think about content as again, Mark was good about this too, but like bringing some sort of value, like at the very tippy top surface, like even if you do nothing else but you see this in your feed, like making sure that that sticks with you. And so so that suggestion from Mark of like, let's get right to the point and just start with that video and like within like five seconds like mentioned too. And so that was a good call. And then also having that in the body copy, because I ended up writing like seven or eight different sample posts that we were able to kind of like pull from at the company level so people could write their own. But at least like you knew what needed to be included in it. But making sure that, like, within the first like one or two lines, like the preview on LinkedIn, that those showed up. So that you knew right away like GQ G2 I get it right and all those things play into it, but that's like the like you said, the top of the funnel. And then, like, if you expand that post, like making sure that you understand, like, what badges that we won, like the significance of those things, like maybe even some sample reviews, like I think we're in the actual post. And so that's kind of the next level of like if you wanted to dig into exactly like what we want, how many things that we won, that there was like a full, full press release on our blog and that we were distributing through our channels. So we had that. And then. Yeah, and then the final thing is just always if we can, like, drive some actual sign ups from this, then that's like the icing on top.

00:12:22:13 00:12:26:07
AL: Do you have any results related to that? Did that work for you driving sales?

00:12:27:11 00:14:48:19
CT: Yeah. So it was it was a little bit different than I thought. So. So it's it's harder right now because we're still building attribution a little bit for us to directly track those things. But but we definitely had some of that, like just awareness and had sign ups. So it's just a matter of like how many. But what was like the big thing that we noticed was, one, just engagement on all those post like views on engagement on all of those posts. Like from that standpoint, it was a definite win and even shares. So, for instance, from G2 themselves, they ended up either sharing our posts or creating a new post on there or are doing us directly, like a lot of a lot of people from from G2. And so that was cool and strengthening that relationship because, for instance, they're not a customer right now. So like wink wink hint hint G2 it would be great to partner up with you. But so that was kind of cool to see, to see them kind of validate the idea because they've seen all of everyone else's campaign like everyone else's promotion. And it seems like and I'm a little biased, obviously, but it seems like we blew it out of the water in for for this one, at least like I saw other people do, kind of like more of the generic, like here's our badge and do those kind of posts. But to actually turn it into a campaign, I didn't see that a lot. That was pretty cool. And then the. Yeah, and then the other thing was just the more just one on one DMS and like relationships created that way. So from like the the AE level or like the the sales team leaders, like all of these people were, or reaching out to, to mark directly or they're reaching out to our founders or they're reaching out to me. And then the thing that was most surprising to me is we're also scaling up. We're hiring a lot. And so that was kind of like sort of an unintended but but still like great benefit of now we get a lot more interest. Like, how do I work for for a company like this? Like this seems like a really fun company. That's what we've done, we done in the past. And so I think this kind of like pushed some potential candidates over the edge. And so I started getting a lot of DM's about that. I'm sure the rest of the team did, too. And so so that was kind of another cool thing is you could tell that it was a good culture builder and a good kind of like a recruiting tool.

00:14:49:07 00:15:23:16
AL: Yeah, absolutely. It's a it's an insight into your culture. Right. This is what I always say about Brand, is that brand and culture are really two sides of the same coin. So being able to put together a campaign that really showcases who you are and where your team's strength lies, like the fact that your team members were kind of popping up being like, I've got a great idea, I'm really invested in this. Let's try this. Like it's that's part of culture, too. It's part of like this is how we do things here. This is this is the excitement that we get. One question I have for you is, are is your whole team kind of displaced remotely?

00:15:24:08 00:15:36:24
CT: Yes. Yeah. So we're we're based in Vancouver, but our team is like completely remote to the extent where I mean, we have people in Ireland, right. Yeah. And not even necessarily just in this country.

00:15:37:08 00:15:48:21
AL: How do you organize specifically a creative campaign like that with like people on camera and people editing and scripts? How do you manage a campaign like that when people are kind of all over the map?

00:15:49:14 00:17:37:19
CT: Yeah, so so it can be tricky and kind of like some of these videos that we've created and things. But so one like. Yeah, just shout out to to Sam for just like the editing side of things because you do have to get creative with it. So for instance, when we decided that we liked the idea of doing and and Ryan getting together or just getting ready, they had to dig, had to go first and record his bit. And then Ryan had to look at that, see how much time elapsed time it was. And then like the different beats of like, OK, this is what I need to move to the next scene, next thing, next scene. So so kind of like storyboarding that ahead of time of like here's here's the script. But also here is like what's happening. Like here's the different things that you need to do kind of in this order that helps a little bit, but also. If you're needing to to coordinate something like that or it needs to be like beat for beat, then having one person go first and then the other person can kind of mirror that. So we did that. And then and then it's funny that you ask because for the zoom video, that's obviously like a remote thing. And but it's even that like we had five squares on because we had tried to close one of them or like mute one of them, but they still showed up in the recording and then we had to redo it. So that was one that we got to that we had to do a second take on to get it to be easier to edit for the full rest of the four screens and then also just relying on animation for part of it to like being like we don't have to do everything live action. Like we can cut to animation, like if you have that talent on board. So it's mostly just creativity and you can be together in person like that's usually stronger. But if you don't have that, like, I think tic tok is a great place to get some inspiration. Right. Like, totally. The way that they do duets and stuff like that can give you some some fun ideas. So, yeah, just getting creative.

00:17:38:07 00:17:51:15
AL: I love it. That's awesome. That sounds like a great campaign. If you were to if someone were to say to you, like, OK, great, I'm going to go replicate that, what's the one piece of advice, if you could only give one that you would say to that person before they went did it?

00:17:53:07 00:18:29:10
CT: This might be a cop out, but it's it's really hiring the right people, right? Like if you if you have like if your goal is to be kind of like brand focused or social focused and you're bringing on like creator type type people and all levels of the org. So we have like creators in the US. We have them in sales, we have them in marketing. And it makes it really easy to create content because we have people that are already doing it or already were kind of wired that way. And so you don't have to, like, teach brainstorming, if that makes sense. So really, I think, like, starts with hiring.

00:18:30:20 00:18:45:10
AL: So that that's a great answer. And I want to pivot to a question about people so moving away from marketing skills a little bit. What is one of the struggles that you're having right now from a leadership perspective or from a people perspective?

00:18:45:24 00:21:06:00
CT: Yeah, so, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is, is because of because it's a remote environment which which I like and I'm like a huge advocate of. But like, it can be challenging, like from from the leadership perspective, it can be hard to, like, read someone's body language or just read the room in general. If you're not in the room, it doesn't count, I think like opening up communication, like just being really responsive, but really supportive of the communication that you do get. Like whether that's in slack or whether it's some email or on video is is helpful. And so. So, yeah. So, yeah, the biggest challenges is, again, just like understanding the needs and where people are running into problems. And I think like the way that I am trying to do it, I guess in a remote environment is like one like set up one on one calls like set up like weekly or monthly or whatever, makes sense for your team, like a social schedule for like when they when people know that they can talk to you and also let them know that they can talk to you and Slack at any time and that it just doesn't have to be like a big deal like that, that you are open to those things and asking them, like what? What's working well for you? What's not working well for you? Like, what barriers can I help take away? And asking those follow up questions to because people are eager to be like, yeah, like everything's fine, like like I don't need any help and stuff as an individual contributor. Like I, I know that I do that I would have done that all the time. And so asking the follow up questions of like but you seem like a little bit stressed like is there is there anything I mean and asking, learning to ask that I guess the right way and really like the servant leadership kind of idea of of leading by example, like actually when you say like, like I can help but but actually just jumping in and helping, like if you can tell that they have like more than one thing on their plate, like don't worry about the other thing, it's not a big deal. Like I'm going to jump in and do it that I've noticed, like from my managers and my mentors, like in the past, like we're the people that had either done the work before or I knew that they would be willing to do the work before, even if it wasn't like up their alley in terms of, like, skill sets. Like, I always really appreciated that in from leadership.

00:21:07:14 00:22:51:24
AL: I think about this kind of goes back to our conversation. On congruence between brand and culture. I think about like how I'm modeling behavior a lot and how I'm modeling leadership. And I think about it sometimes when it relates to like work life balance, which isn't actually a term that I really like that much. But, you know, we have an unlimited PTO policy, for example. And I'm always saying, like, please take PTO, please take PTO, please schedule it. Just go into your calendar now, find a random day and just take it off and go to the beach. And then I'm really mindful of wanting to know when my team is off. I want it on my calendar so that I'm also not just like in their inbox that day. I don't want to be on there that day. I don't want them replying because I forgot that they were out and now they're in this weird, like, you know, world of she knows I'm out, doesn't she? And am I supposed to reply? And it just creates this this unnecessary confusion that that starts to break down some of the trust, like in a real fast way, starts to break down this idea of like, what's the point of unlimited PTO if I'm going to be working anyway and what's the point of like? So I try to be really good about that same thing with like after hours, I try to be really mindful of like I'm not going to send a thing at seven PM because I know as an individual contributor, when my boss would send something at 7:00 p.m., the first question that I always had before I even read the thing was, is there an expectation at 7:00 PM for me to address this or is this for 9:00 a.m.? And that kind of stress is just like we don't need it. So I think about that a lot. And that is really hard, especially when everyone is your and you are dependent upon these channels to communicate.

00:22:52:13 00:24:16:01
CT: Yeah, yeah, and I'm still working on some of that, to be honest, because the time like time zones in general and just different people's work schedules too so. So not not everyone starts early, too. And so but that's something that that it is kind of like a custom, like a one on one thing of like, you know, like when when are your work hours or when do you like to work and stuff. And then also, just like you said, making it very clear this I have tried to do a lot of I'm saying like I'm saying this now or this is toward the end of the day, but I do not expect you to do it right now. Like, please get off the computer. And so, yeah, just like saying that a lot, too, especially because this campaign is a good example of of something that that was like. I do not expect like weekend hours on this, like we do like have to get it done by this day. But I'm going to build in like an extra day to make sure that we can get that done on time. So sometimes I would get not push back, but I would get like, OK, but I do want to work on this this weekend. And if that's the case, like, great like that, that's totally fine. But I just want to make sure that, you know, that you do not have to do that. And so so that's something, too, is just learning how people like to work, because some people do like to work at night or like to to work at later hours and things too. And so but just making making sure that like one, you are just letting people work the way that they want to work and that you're not setting unrealistic expectations.

00:24:16:16 00:24:20:17
AL: Totally couldn't agree more. All right. Are you ready for lightning questions? We have three.

00:24:21:00 00:24:21:23
CT: Yeah, let's do it.

00:24:21:24 00:24:26:01
AL: So you are supposed to answer these as fast as you can. First answer that comes to mind.

00:24:26:10 00:24:27:01
CT: OK.

00:24:27:02 00:24:31:23
AL: All right. Number one, what is one thing you did this week to support your team?

00:24:33:03 00:25:00:11
CT: So PTO in general came up like this week and last and last week, I think. And so, again, like letting people know as long as the work gets done, I really don't care, like when it gets done. And so if you have, like, odd things that come up like for this week, which is what happened this week of, you know, one thing at the beginning of the week, one thing at the end of the week, and like, is it OK if I take this? I was like, sure, like do it. Like take take your personal time.

00:25:01:03 00:25:07:14
AL: Yeah. All right. Number two, what is your most embarrassing webinar or event moment?

00:25:08:16 00:25:44:15
CT: For me personally, I just started a podcast and the second episode that I recorded did not get recorded, had to do it again. And I still like I still don't even totally understand why, but but yeah, that probably gives some insight into my my tech skills. But but yeah, that was like the most embarrassing for me personally. But a webinar one time there was like a no show at a webinar that we did. And I think it was because those different time zones and they just didn't realize it was at that time. And so it was a live webinar, but it was it was a no show. So those were two two fun ones.

00:25:44:24 00:25:49:14
AL: What did you do? Did you just have to say, like, I'm so sorry, goodbye? Or did you just make up content?

00:25:50:14 00:26:19:09
CT: That wasn't wasn't wasn't me like on the call. I was just like part of the webinar program, I guess kind of in the background. But so for that one, I know she like announced it like on the call, like, hey, we're going to be rescheduling this. But I just was on for a few minutes. And then also we have we captured all those emails and so we're able to just send them email out to everyone and say, hey, this is being rescheduled and got rescheduled actually to the next week and everything was fine. So maybe, maybe built up, like more anticipation for it.

00:26:20:06 00:26:21:03
AL: We planned this

00:26:21:04 00:26:23:25
AL: the whole time. We're just really trying to keep you on your magic.

00:26:24:01 00:26:41:17
CT: See it? Yeah, we just want more attendees for this event. So, yeah. So those two things were fun. Luckily, the second episode that I recorded that I didn't actually record was like a good friend of mine. And so he was cool about it and we ended up re-recording it probably a lot better than I thought it was originally. So good practice,.

00:26:42:02 00:26:42:23
AL: Good practice.

00:26:42:24 00:26:46:21
AL: OK, number three, what's the favorite tool that you can't live without?

00:26:48:02 00:27:02:10
CT: I'm thinking last pass for this actually. Yeah, last pass. And then at Dooly we use 1 password too. So same concept. But either one of those like saves me a ton of time. It's like maybe a weird answer, but that one for sure.

00:27:02:22 00:27:03:10
AL: It's not.

00:27:03:11 00:27:41:14
AL: It's a perfect answer. My husband yells at me all the time because we have like a family, one apparently between him and I, but I never use. But but when I'm at work, I'm like, I'm crazy serious about it. When I'm like especially I'm like passing passwords and log to team members and we're trying to like share accounts. And and then my husband, I'll be like, do you have the, you know, eversource information? And I'm like, I don't know what you are talking about like I looked at that one pass and in like five years. It's a great answer. Laughs OK, great. Any final nuggets of wisdom before we wrap up?

00:27:42:21 00:28:07:02
CT: Yeah, I guess I should just take this time to to plug Dooly. So if you if you are in if you're in sales and especially if you are the person responsible for updating sales force after often like the AE level, but also CFS and marketing use us as well. So check out Dooly. If you use sales force at all, you're going to be happy that you did

00:28:07:20 00:28:16:02
AL: Camille send me the G2 campaign like video stuff and put that in the show notes to so that everybody that's listening and reading to the transcripts can go watch it.

00:28:16:18 00:28:18:01
CT: Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to.

00:28:18:17 00:28:26:04
AL: Thank you so much for coming. OK, so episode 152 is in the books. Camille, thanks so much for joining us. It was so great to talk to you.

00:28:26:17 00:28:28:02
CT: Super great to talk to you too. Thanks.