EP. 37- INTENT is Not Intent! w/ Ashley Faus from Atlassian l Expert Quick Tips

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I'm Jay Schwedelson.

Let's do this, not that. All right, thanks for being here.

Today we're going to be talking with Ashley Foss. She is the head of life cycle marketing for Atlassian.

They're one of the biggest players on the planet for task management solutions and software and applications. They have over 10,000 people and she really is exceptional. Breaking down what is and what is not intent data.

And I think this is such an important topic because I think marketers get this confused a lot. Super excited for you to hear from Ashley. So here we go. We are back for do this, not that. And this is gonna be fun.

I know it's gonna be fun because we have a special guest.

We have Ashley Foss here, who is the head of life cycle marketing at Atlassian, which I always have a hard time saying, which is an amazing company that works with the overwhelming majority of the fortune, like 100 companies on the planet. And Ashley could tell us more about that. But how did Ashley wind up staring at me? And I feel bad for her that she is on this thing.

And I'll tell you what, Ashley is. Is literally one of the best B2B marketers on the planet. I followed her content forever.

I've seen her speak at all these different events, and I'm like, I need to talk to her one on one about some very specific stuff in the world of business to business marketing, because she's always thinking differently, doing things differently, and that's what I'm excited about. So, Ashley, welcome to do this, not that.

Thank you, Jay. I've also followed your content for a long time. We finally have gotten to actually meet in person a few times.

But I feel like this is our time to actually talk to each other. I'm very excited about this.

Amazing. So what I wanted to talk to you about today was intent.

You hear a lot about this in business to business marketing, about trying to capture intent and then leverage that so your sales people can follow up and you can qualify leads. But I think that people misunderstand intent. And what does. Can you help the audience understand what do I mean? What does anybody mean?

We talk about intent when it comes to our marketing.

Sure. So I think the big thing that folks misunderstand is they think intent is something that you can just infer.

And in fact, intent should be something that someone states that they want to do or they take a specific action indicating that they want to take that action. So particularly from a marketing standpoint, we think we're going to trick people into buying.

Like, I'm just going to come in and be like, learn more. And you're suddenly going to be like, yeah, I'm going to buy. Now that is not intent. Or somebody walks by your booth.

This is my favorite, where it's like somebody walks by your booth at a trade show and they're just trying to see what your logo is or see if somebody who's at the booth is somebody they worked with previously. But then you speak to them and so now they're like, okay, I guess I should. Hi, yes, let me tell you who I am and what I do.

And then you scan their badge and you're like, haha, intent. Because they stopped at the booth and you're just like, okay, no, they were just being polite.

So I think the big distinction that I want to draw with intent is that it should actually be stated. It should be an actual desire and it should result in the correct action.

Do we all want to find the person that's intending to buy or they're showing intent, that they have interest in the product or service? Does that mean in the content that you're promoting? Like, let's say you're going to do a webinar. Okay.

That the webinar should be titled in a certain way, or the content should speak about something specific. So that way you know that the registrants then are showing intent. Is it, Is that how you land on the right kind of intent?

Yes, and I'll actually take a step back beyond that as you think about mapping out your content. So in general, most assets and most channels do not have an inherent intent. Like a webinar does not automatically mean it's by intent.

Or a blog post does not automatically mean it's learn intent or trust intent or help intent.

So yes, having explicit CTAs, having explicit titles, having a description that tells you exactly what you're going to get, all of that helps you ensure that you are getting people who have the intent to do whatever the thing is. So some people think they're going to title a webinar generically about a problem, but then they come in and they just want to demo the product.

And that's how you get people responding and saying, this was Too much of a pitch. It was a sales pitch. It was too salesy. It felt like they were just trying to sell me something.

Those types of comments versus if you say demo colon, here's the exact product. Learn to do action, action, action with product. You're not going to get those same kinds of comments that it was too pitchy or too salesy.

And you're likely going to get more targeted questions about, hey, I'm super excited to try this product. Is there a free trial or this is exactly what we need. I have a very specific question about how to set this up at my company.

That's how you ensure that you're actually getting that high intent to use the product or explore the product or buy the product. Again, depending on where they are in their buying journey, if they're already a user or if they're a prospect.

Having that explicit title and or an explicit CTA ensures that you're actually matching the intent from what you want it to be and what the audience needs.

So do you think that KPIs that people have like these performance indicators and metrics they have to meet every quarter I need to get a certain number of, you know, quote unquote leads or really good leads for my SDRs and my salespeople and all this stuff?

Do you think that that is total garbage as opposed to managing expectations being like, listen, we're going to get really good leads, but there's not going to be that many of them? Do you think that that's just based on what you're saying? Is that just garbage doing it that way?

It's spicy. But yeah, I think that's, that's straight garbage.

Like, if I tell you that I'm only going to give you people who have literally hit the contact sales button, that is going to result in much higher quality and much more show rate for your meetings. Most SDRs are comped or whatever their KPIs are around meetings booked.

So if I just send you thousands of people who have no desire to book a meeting, you're going to get a very low conversion rate on those meetings. If I only send you the people who have literally said book a meeting that's going to BE in theory, 100% sales focused.

Like, those people are willing and able to show up for a meeting because they literally said, I want to have a meeting. So yes, I actually think that trying to sit there and assess like, is Jay this many touch points away from booking a meeting?

Okay, why do I need to measure all of that? Like, yes, we should measure how many touch points it takes for Jay to finally hit the book sales.

That way I know, okay, I actually need to have eight pieces of content or eight touch points or nine channels or however many it is. But the assumption that just because you've hit that ninth channel that all of a sudden you're ready to book and so the SDR should cold call you.

No, wait until you literally hit the book a demo or contact sales button instead of trying to trick you into doing that or starting to call you too early. Now the flip side of that, because we've gotten into this mindset of trying to create MQLs and SQLs. So many websites don't have explicit CTAs.

There's so many learn more CTAs. You, when you actually are finally ready to book a demo or contact sales, you don't know where to go.

You're scrolling through the website trying to find the contact. And I as a marketer am like, don't scare them off. Don't scare them off with too many sales things.

So we're just going to populate a bunch of like, learn more CTA so we don't scare him. But now you actually are ready to buy and I've made it so hard for you to figure out how to buy because I'm trying to trick you into buying.

It's like a double edged sword where I'm trying to fake intent so that by the time you actually are intending to buy, you can't figure out how to do it. So it hurts both parties.

So I think that that's really, really important that you're not going to trick somebody into ultimately converting. Right? You're not gonna be able to like, oh, they click these seven things. Now they're, now they're gonna buy because they did that.

And you're almost like you're hoping that you trick them into that conversion, which is totally ridiculous. And I think it's a super valuable takeaway.

I need to do it on my website, for that matter, where you're more upfront about how to show that you're interested in the product. Contact us. We want to talk. I want to talk now.

I'm in market, whatever it is, front and center on the website, everywhere on the website, everywhere, all over the place. Because that's what we're trying to do, right? Is that the message, like stop being so shy about trying to get the deal done?

I think so. And I think have a place where you do the education and the trust building, but don't pretend like those are the same thing.

I remember I was staffing a booth one year, and we had this cool swag. And. And so as people walked up, I would say, hey, why are you here? Are you interested in. And I would give the value prop.

Do you want a demo, or are you literally just here for swag? And several people were like, oh, I'm just here for swag. I'm like, great, here you go.

And I gave them the swag, and they went on their way, and they're like, don't you need to scan my badge? And I was like, I mean, no, you're literally just here for the swag.

I'm happy to sell you something, but if you're not gonna buy, I don't actually need to sell you. And they were so caught off guard that they were like, well, now I feel bad, actually. Go ahead and give me a demo. Right.

They asked me for the pitch because they felt so bad that I was up front and.

Reverse psychology.

Yeah, it was like reverse psychology. And for some people, that didn't change the fact, like, they heard the pitch and they were like, oh, this sounds great.

You're right that I can't buy that, and I'm not in the market to buy it, but thanks for sharing.

So that explicit intent saved me a bunch of junk leads from the booth, and it also saved me time, especially for the folks who just took the swag and walked away. I didn't waste time trying to sell them when the next person behind them was like, no, no, no, I don't need the swag. I'm here for a demo. Great.

I want to talk to you. I don't want to waste time trying to. Trying to convert this person who just wanted the swag. I'd rather talk to the demo person.

And so again, it saves me time as well and gets me closer to my actual objective of finding the right person who has money and desire and is a good fit for the product. Let me just talk to you instead of wasting my time with all these other randos.

Explicit intent. I love it. Let me ask you one thing before we get to some other chaos you mentioned. Learn more. I don't like, learn.

I mean, I don't want to learn anything, but I don't, like, learn more. What's your vibe on, like, CTAs and what they should say, and are we doing it right or wrong or what?

I think my one takeaway from this is if you do anything, leave this podcast and do not use Learn more. As a CTA anywhere, I hate that cta.

Like, as I go through, even in my own work, sometimes the website, you know, I get asked, okay, go through this website and. And I'll put in a comment. I'm like, learn more. I don't know what this does. And somebody will say, oh, well, it takes you to this page.

And it does this and that. And I'm like, okay, the words learn more do not tell me that's what's about to happen. So use explicit language. Is it to read the blog posts?

Is it to watch on demand? Is it to book a demo? Is it to watch a demo? And if it's to watch a demo, do not make me fill out a form to watch a demo.

Just pop out the video so that I can actually watch the demo. So we have precise language. Use verbs. Say what it is. It's watch, it's read, it's book, it's request. We have excellent short words for these things.

And then we also have short words for the asset, the blog, the paper, the video, a sales rep, right?

You can still keep succinct CTAs, but you're going to have much better conversion on those CTAs into the thing that you want and the thing that the audience wants to do if you use explicit CTA. So if nothing else, no more learn more CTAs.

You heard it here first. Ashley says, be explicit in all forms of life.

100% just explicit.

Now this gets to the portion of this podcast where we have something called, since you didn't ask, this is where you get into something that has nothing to do with work or life or whatever. And so some of the listeners probably don't know this, but Ashley is an incredible singer. She has, like, done real singing all over the place.

She has real credentials, and I've heard her sing. And she has a magical voice. Now, here's the thing. I have a horrible voice.

When my bar mitzvah happened when I was 13, the cantor said, just mouth the words because you have a horrible voice. It really hurt me, but that's okay. So here's what I want to know and I want to do right now with somebody that can't sing like me.

What can I sing with you right now that will come out sounding okay? Is there something for bad singers that a particular song or something I can do right now? So I put you on the spot.

Two things, actually. This is my spicy opinion on this. I actually don't think that anyone has a bad voice. I think they Have a bad ear or they have bad training.

So most, most of the reasons why people say they can't sing is actually because they are out of tune, Right? Like if you sing, if you hear people and you're like, ugh, it's usually because they're out of tune.

So that's the first thing in terms of things that you could sing that would tune well, yeah, I'm ready.

I'll tune up right now.

So drafting off of your inbound talk.

Okay.

I actually think Living on a Prayer.

Okay.

He's a great song for that. You can just like nerd out and you don't have to be super on pitch. Right? So, like, if you just like we're going to do a little exercise here.

I'm spot right.

I'm right.

If I asked you to just go, woo, do that. All right. See, you don't have a bad voice, right? Like, you did that just fine. So if we, if we do that woo. Mindset, right?

Take that mindset and deliver on a prayer. And if you go, wow.

Wow.

All right, See, you see what I'm saying? So you can do that on Living on a prayer. So we can together go, whoa, Living on a prayer.

Whoa, Living on a prayer.

See, you're just having fun. See, the problem is people think sounds bad.

I know it.

When people think they're singing, they get into this, like, opera mindset. But if you just think about, like, just saying, like, whoa, you actually, you can do that, right? And so then, same thing for Living on a Prayer.

It's basically the difference between whoa and whoa. You know, pretty similar.

How come when you do it, it sounds great? It sounds like something really cool is about to happen. I can't even sing in my shower. I feel like the water will turn off.

Jay, we're going to do some voice lessons. Next time I see you, I'm going to turn. We're going to do a live stream. Yeah, we can do some hardcore voice lessons. Not hardco, not hardcore.

That sounds too intimidating. Voice lessons.

Ah, perfect. Perfect. Okay, so, Ashley, where should everybody find you? I follow you on LinkedIn. You have put out the absolute best content.

Ashley Foss on LinkedIn. Where else should we follow you? How do we consume more? Ashley? What do we do?

Primarily, LinkedIn is a good place. I am on the platform formerly known as Twitter. I'm not very good at it or very active, but I'm there as well. But mostly LinkedIn.

All right, everybody, I'm not kidding. Follow Ashley. She puts out all the best content. If you want to know what's going on with B2B? With all this stuff, you want to know how to sing?

Follow Ashley this has been amazing. You're terrific. And you know, thank you for being on do this. Not that.

You did it, you made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over.

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