HubSpot Landing Pages, Part II: Smart Content, Real Value, + New Best Practices
Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by siloed apartments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Are you held captive by the evil menace, lord lack, lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt? Knowledge.
Intro:Never fear hub heroes. Get ready to don your cape and mask, move into action, and become the hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the league of extraordinary inbound heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute. Hub Heroes, it's time to unite and activate your powers.
Liz Moorehead:And we're back versus another episode of Hub Heroes, guys.
George B. Thomas:We are. Hey. Hey. Doing great. Before we dive into the actual conversation, by the way, because I know we're this is, like, part two, the Electric Boogaloo, you know, landing pages.
George B. Thomas:Joke.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Well, you you could you could still use it. I'm old enough to have actually watched Break Into Electric Boogaloo anyway. But here's the thing. I wanna make sure, because I'm about to Well, I already did one. Recertified HubSpot Academy certification last week.
George B. Thomas:And I'm about to be on a kick to do a whole bunch more certifications because yes, even though your boy has been in the ecosystem for twelve years, even though I've recertified these things like four, if not six times, depending on the certification and how often you have to do it, I'm going to continue to do it. There's new videos. I was kind of going through ones to see like, should I redo this? What's new? You can see the little orange dot for what you've watched, the ones you there's a lot that I haven't watched since the last time I so I'm I'm glad it's up to all of this, all of this, Liz, Max Mhmm.
George B. Thomas:Listeners to say HubSpot's Academy World Certification Week. Hey, we need to plan for Is that already coming up? No, no, no. Giving us a good lead in time. We probably need to have an episode closer to this.
George B. Thomas:But if you're sitting here and you're like, yeah, George, I'm like you, I need to research too, or I need to get a certification that I've been wanting to get because I never got it. April twenty eighth through May 2 is when worlds or HubSpot Academy World Certification Week is scheduled. So just put that on your calendar right now, everybody.
Liz Moorehead:So it's gonna be like a month.
George B. Thomas:It's it's April 28 to May 2. No, it's in a month.
Liz Moorehead:That's what I'm saying. It's about a month.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Yeah. In about a month. So I'm trying to I'm the reason I'm bringing that up is because like, if we schedule it, it can happen. And so many times in the past couple of years, we've been doing this, we get to it.
George B. Thomas:I'm like, God, we're here already. Like, even Max, like, is that coming up already? Listen, I'm giving you thirty days to block some time off in your calendar so that you can actually do some good in the world and get your certifications as well. Okay, sorry, Liz. I had to throw that in this morning because it's important.
Liz Moorehead:No, that is really important. I mean, the reality is, is that if you're not constantly flexing and strengthening your muscles as an inbound practitioner, no matter what your role is, like, there's no such thing as reaching a point where you can stop learning.
George B. Thomas:No. I think
Liz Moorehead:what's so challenging to me about it is and and I'm equally guilty of this too. Right? I will always find ways to say, Ugh, I have so much work to do. Oh, work is so much more important. But these are certifications that actually impact your work and your ability to affect more positive change within your role.
Liz Moorehead:Like this isn't one of those things where it's like we're going into an abstract experience where we're going to learn some high level concepts that might be no, it'll actually teach you to use the tools you're using every day better, more effectively and to get greater outputs.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Like, I mean, listen, if you, if you do the content certification and you do the SEO certification and maybe if you do the digital advertising certification, I bet you have some beastie landing pages by the time you're done with all that knowledge. I'm just trying to tie it back into what we're actually talking about today, you know.
Max Cohen:Beastly landing pages.
George B. Thomas:Beastly pages. Yeah.
Max Cohen:It's wild.
George B. Thomas:You like that? I love it. I can't
Max Cohen:even remember the last time I built a landing page if I'm being completely honest.
George B. Thomas:Oh, dude.
Max Cohen:Well, it's because I'm not in a marketing role.
George B. Thomas:Right.
Max Cohen:Right. I'm sure I'm sure Nikki's built, you know, an LP or two, you know, recently. Uh-oh. Don't worry. Mean, I still I'm trying
George B. Thomas:hear Liz, and I feel like Liz can't hear us.
Max Cohen:Oh, she's
George B. Thomas:on mute. And and I'm not sure, like Hello? And gentlemen. Yeah. There we go.
George B. Thomas:Now we can It
Max Cohen:was weird. It was like the mute button was fighting you.
Liz Moorehead:No. It actually still is. I have to hold my space star bar down to keep my mic on.
Max Cohen:That's interesting. Well, hopefully, your finger
George B. Thomas:doesn't cramp up by the time this is over.
Max Cohen:Liz is on push to talk right now, dude.
Liz Moorehead:Yeah. Don't know why. Alright. Well, anyway.
George B. Thomas:Here we go.
Liz Moorehead:Here we go, guys. We're back for another round Yep. Of landing pages.
George B. Thomas:You know, this shouldn't surprise me that you have to hit the space bar because if you remember last episode, the world didn't want us to talk about landing pages like everything was happening, and now this anyway, let's talk about landing pages.
Liz Moorehead:Still gonna talk about landing pages. They're that important. And, Max, you were not here for this horrific discovery that I made, which is that we've somehow never talked about them. Like, I literally went through our entire catalog. I I went through our entire catalog.
Liz Moorehead:Couldn't find a dang thing about it.
George B. Thomas:Years, bro. Years. Years. Years of episodes.
Liz Moorehead:We've talked about the social media tool twice. Email marketing three times.
George B. Thomas:Commerce hub 52 times. No. Just kidding.
Liz Moorehead:The HGT now. Yeah. And so here we are.
Max Cohen:AI 468,000.
George B. Thomas:Right. Right. True facts right there.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:So we're back with part two of this incredible conversation because who knew that one of the most foundational building blocks of the HubSpot inbound marketing ecosystem would require so much discussion? Who knew?
Max Cohen:Who knew? Who knew? Who knew?
George B. Thomas:I mean, us now, obviously, but Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:But, Max, I wanna start with you by asking you a question that I asked George and Chad last week, particularly as someone like you worked at HubSpot, you've been in the inbound ecosystem for a really long time. Let's start our conversation back at the beginning. And I'd love to hear from you if you think there are any outdated landing page best practices that people are still clinging to. Right? Those common mistakes that people are still making.
Max Cohen:Yeah. I mean, I always kind of thought the whole remove the navigation thing was kind of cringe. Right? Because to me it didn't well, I know. I could see both sides of the argument where you want to limit distractions.
Max Cohen:Right? But I think there's a fine line between limiting distractions and doing some, like, weird, you know, unsavory things just to steal people's attention. Right? So I I I kinda think the whole remove the nav thing is like kinda played out. And honestly, like looking back on it, because again, I was, you know, I don't wanna say guilty of teaching this, but like, you know, I definitely had it very much imprinted into my brain of like, oh, you must remove the navigation on landing pages.
Max Cohen:And the reasoning made sense, right? But thinking back on it now, think about how you'd react if you were on a website and all of a sudden the nav went away. Right? You'd probably be kind of distracted in like, oh, wait, why is this website breaking? Or am I on a different website?
Max Cohen:Oh, the URL changed as well too. Because remember how everyone back then was doing like infodot, you know, whatever.com. Right? You know, a lot of that I think, like, looking back on it, while, like, functionally kind of made like, functionally made sense. There's, I think, plenty of things that I could look back on and go like, oh, no.
Max Cohen:Maybe this wasn't, like, the best thing ever. You know, like, thinking about it, like, a little bit more tactically. But I might be overthinking it too because it's been a while since I've actually popped this stuff. But, yeah, I think the the navigation thing is kind of funky. I also think just, like, the the thing that kind of always bugged me too is like how much of a emphasis was put on it for just straight up lead generation.
Max Cohen:Right? And not actually taking it as an opportunity to educate someone with that piece of content that you're getting behind that landing page. Right? Like, what I feel like people thought too much was that, oh, I'm making this landing page so I can get somebody's email so I can send them emails later. And I feel like that's the mode a lot of us were in.
Max Cohen:And maybe that's either how we directly interpret it or maybe misinterpreted the bigger picture of what inbound was. Yeah. But, you know, I I think what a lot of people forgot is, like, putting a lot of special care and attention into whatever it was that that person was giving up their information in order to get. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:It's like Well,
Max Cohen:because you forget that you have that opportunity that when someone digests that piece of content, right, and actually gets their hands on it and starts to consume it, right, Their brain is in this mode of, oh, I'm really excited to learn this thing and I just gave away something valuable to me, which was like the means to interrupt my day and get in touch with me, right? And they're immediately going, was this worth that trade off? And they're deciding like within twenty five seconds, if they're just going to go to their email and hit the unsubscribe from whatever you sent them. Right? Because if you were to supply them with that piece of content and then they start consuming it and then they go, oh wait, this was a waste of time or, oh, this isn't actually helping me.
Max Cohen:They feel duped, right? So there's like a big risk there know, that I think a lot of people didn't think about. They just kinda said, oh, we got the email. Mission accomplished. Not, alright.
Max Cohen:Great. We got the email. We can keep talking to them. But, like, let's hope this piece of content actually shifted their brain in the right direction that we wanted to or taught them something or made them look at us more favorably after they consumed it and didn't feel like they just got tricked. Right?
Max Cohen:Yeah. Don't think people thought about that far.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. No, Max, it's interesting because when I think about, you know, I'll say the good old days, even when I see when I, when I see things now, it's like the email shouldn't be the goal. That's right. Email should be an outcome of like a larger goal. And so you're right.
George B. Thomas:This whole idea of what I fell in love with inbound was about it, it, you know, being human. And I think about if you're, if you're even thinking about having landing pages, how your brain of the person who's going to have the landing pages should probably have some type of value first human centric, adding value to the world, to the reader, to the viewer, whatever is behind that gate. It should be coming from a place where you're trying to help them be better, make a situation better, fix a problem that they might. And and so many times it's like, hey, let's let's create this seven step checklist so we can get an email. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:That's not.
Max Cohen:Yeah. It's like the it's the the point isn't to get for a lot of people, the point is to get the email because that's all people think about. Right? The the email is Or the point of getting the email is like, we got the email, so we have a way to communicate with them. Should this piece of content made them actually want to continue doing that?
Max Cohen:Yeah. Right? Like that's really kind of what should be, right?
George B. Thomas:Because it's shameful if you're like creating more harm than good.
Max Cohen:Right? That's the thing. People opened up a lot of these opportunities to create a lot more harm, not in like the esoteric sense of like, oh, they duped somebody and that was like morally incorrect from a marketing standpoint for them to do it. It's no, no, no. You turn someone into a detractor because of your content and that sucks.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. That's the exact opposite. Sucks. Like you're trying to build trust.
Max Cohen:It's like, bro, someone's already a detractor of your company and they didn't even get to buying your company yet. Just marketed them into being a detractor. You didn't even get to make any money off of them. They just hate you already. What?
Max Cohen:Dude. Yeah. Like, come on.
George B. Thomas:Liz, one of the things that's fun about this being like part two is I've had time to actually think about some some of this and I wanna add in Yeah. I I wanna add in one that I didn't talk about last time because HubSpot does these really cool things for us. Right? And and and it's subtle things. And sometimes when they do them, people don't even know that they've done them.
George B. Thomas:And so, if you haven't gone into your files area of HubSpot and realize that you have a tab that says stock images, and that there's literally a shutter stock system inside of your HubSpot file manager to be able to use in your emails and your landing pages, then, well, it's there for you. But here's the thing, I hate landing pages when you get to it and it just screams fake. Like fake photos, like stock photography, like it doesn't feel like it's even connected to the thing. And so like this idea of like, can we just get some pictures of some real people? Can we just maybe get a picture of like maybe your real office?
George B. Thomas:I don't even care if you're remote. Like whatever the landing page is, can we get something that feels more like you, your brand, instead of, again, slapping in that seven step checklist and slapping on a stock photo and being like, it's a day, ladies and gentlemen. Thousands of people are gonna give us their emails so that we can spam the crap out of like, or or even like video instead of image on landing pages would be, I would love that, but we'll talk about AB testing a little bit later and things like that. But but stock photography, please, all the totally, if you're listening to this, go back through all of your landing pages and look for where you've used stock photography and come up with a strategy to figure out how to replace that stuff.
Liz Moorehead:I gotta throw in one more too, George, because I had a similar thing. You know? Even though I was the one who prepared that episode, the more I sat with these the more I sat with these questions, I I actually went about my week last week and thought, you know, I'm just gonna start paying attention to the things that make me go when I'm looking at a landing page.
George B. Thomas:And
Liz Moorehead:I remember one of the things that HubSpot rolled out a few years ago was you would end up on a landing page and then you would fill out what you thought was the form, but then you were taken to a separate second super secret form with way more information. And
Max Cohen:Cringe.
Liz Moorehead:Like, as a marketer, you're like, this is great because it reduces that first barrier of them, like, wanting to give their information. But then I just feel duped, hoodwinked, amboozled, let us dry.
George B. Thomas:That's the word the word duped is the word for for for today's episode. You know, it's funny, but it's insane.
Max Cohen:What I'm talking about because, like, instead of you being like, oh, let me try their product or their product's not that great. You just go, oh, these people are scumbags before you even get there.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. And let me be completely honest, though, because you say that. And then I remember back in the day where I had this, like, thing that I did and then I had a second form after it. And the second form was like, I wanna know you. It was positioned that by the way, this is me calling myself out on my own ish historically.
George B. Thomas:I literally had a second form that was like, I wanna get to know you better so we can be like buddies and like add additional information. And in hindsight, that was like the dumbest ish that I ever attempted to do. And that's a friend, Hal. Yeah. It didn't it didn't last long.
George B. Thomas:And it's just like it's if I take what Max was talking about and Liz, what you're talking about, it's like, well, I wanted to be your friend on the first conversion, but I sure don't want to be your friend on the second. Like, I'm out. You know what I mean?
Max Cohen:Yeah. Well, let me ask you this, George. What was the intent of you gathering that data?
George B. Thomas:I mean, I did want to know more about the humans so that I could communicate with them in a better way. A lot of it was like, how long have you been using HubSpot? What HubSpot hubs are you using? Like, so there was a positive intent on the other side, but I can understand how it might have felt like, bro, I just filled out a form. Why are you asking me to fill out another one?
Max Cohen:Well, did you gate additional stuff from that?
George B. Thomas:No. No. It was just trying to get to know them better. You know what I mean? I gave them the thing that I said I would give them.
Max Cohen:Okay. There you go. See, I think that's okay because you didn't I
George B. Thomas:don't feel bad about myself now then.
Max Cohen:Because what was the what was the obligation of them filling up? What do they have to
George B. Thomas:No obligation on the second Just Right. I wanted to know more about That's okay. Was a curious human being.
Max Cohen:That's okay. Because what you didn't do was oh, here's the little thing. Oh, got to quick here. That's different. See, that's different to me.
Max Cohen:Right? You know, it's like the the worst thing the way I see people do it like a really bad worst practice, I guess, in that scenario is, like, you get email. Like, the form looks like just email. K? And you're like, oh, easy.
Max Cohen:Just email. But they're doing it because they wanna capture the email if the rest of the forum turns you off. Right? Because then they've at least got your email. Right?
Max Cohen:And so even when you see the next part of the forum and you're like, no, I'm sorry. I'm not gonna give you my social security number and my boss's email address.
George B. Thomas:My credit card number.
Max Cohen:Yeah. I'm not gonna, like, tell you how many you know, when my company buys stuff. Like, you know what I mean? Like Yeah. And and and before I actually get the thing I wanna get, well, they go, oh, that's fine.
Max Cohen:We got your email. That's all we wanted anyway. That's the worst. I think it's a dark pattern is what people call it.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. The darks, like, it's it's like the dark side of conversion rate. It's the opposite of conversion rate optimization. Right?
Max Cohen:Well, I mean, if you think about it, from a raw like conversion optimization, it's nearly perfect. Right? Because you're getting the most valuable thing, which is to me a very subjective idea of value there. Right? You're getting what you interpret as the most valuable thing, which is the email address, which let's be honest, you didn't wanna educate somebody.
Max Cohen:You just wanted that the entire time if you're pulling a scumbag move like this. Right? But you're eliminating all the stuff that would get in the way of that conversion happening. So, like, from conversion optimization standpoint, great. From actually doing something useful for that person who's who's, you know, trying to get your content and learn something, you've done absolutely zero, buddy.
Max Cohen:You've you've duped them.
George B. Thomas:It's interesting because we're literally having a selfishness versus servanthood. A fundamental basis. Right? Conversion rate optimization in a selfish way. But what can I get out of it versus conversion rate optimization of a servanthood?
George B. Thomas:Like what can I give them? What can they get out of it?
Max Cohen:But so yes, I agree. The moral marketer says yes, right? The moral marketer says yes. I wanna serve people with content. I wanna teach them.
Max Cohen:But here here's the other thing. That's not your job. Your job is to make the business money. Right? And what I'm trying to say is like, sure, that kind of feels good and you should do that.
Max Cohen:And yeah, you should do the right thing. Absolutely. Right? But there are reasons beyond just doing the right thing that makes a lot of these tactics really dumb. You know what I mean?
Max Cohen:A lot of that
George B. Thomas:I hear you.
Max Cohen:A lot of that comes down to the little micro experiences you're creating for people when they're interacting with your comment that either makes them hate you before they even hate your product. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Right? And so it's just one of those things.
Max Cohen:So it's like, yeah, should you should you focus on educating people? Yes. Not because it feels good though, because that's good for your business. Like that like that. That's the thing.
Max Cohen:But but yeah. I mean, again, I I I am super down with doing the right thing and creating content that actually educates people. That makes me feel good and it makes me wanna do my job. Yeah. And it makes me feel like I'm doing more than just selling a product.
Max Cohen:I'm I'm educating people and getting without Here's the thing. Not a lot of people operate that way. Right? Yeah. You know what
Liz Moorehead:I mean?
George B. Thomas:What you said? What you said? Because let's be honest, like, of my emails over the weekend literally had a playlist to your quote happily playlist on YouTube. Oh. Because I was like, hey, you need to check this out because at least you can, without getting in the sales funnel, you can at least see if it's gonna be a right fit for what you're trying to do.
George B. Thomas:Oh, yeah. Same thing, by the way, same thing with oh, dang on it. My friend, my friend with wow, I'm having a senior moment. I literally am. Pixel Compressed.
George B. Thomas:Whoo. My goodness. How did I forget the name of that? So, it's like, talk about service or value. And by the way, and I'm bringing this up because landing pages, and I just brought up stock photography too.
George B. Thomas:The other thing that needs to die is your landing pages don't load quickly, especially if they don't load quickly on, like, a mobile device because I'm on my phone a lot, but I'm also on my desktop a lot. But, like, something like a quote happily or something like pixel compress where they're like adding value by interviews or by tutorial or by just making it your life better because it's like streamlining and optimizing. By the way, they are sponsoring the podcast right now for the next, I think it's like thirty or sixty days. You might hear a little ad in here if you listen, listeners to the very ending or it might even hit you in the middle. But Pixel Compressed is amazing.
George B. Thomas:It's definitely something you should be looking at in your HubSpot portal for optimized images of landing pages, website pages, even your emails. By the way, if your emails are loading slow, come on. Like, it's twenty twenty five. Anyway, let's let's keep moving We
Max Cohen:need start doing funny ad reads, I think.
George B. Thomas:Oh, that would be fun. That would be fun.
Liz Moorehead:Well, you already brought this up, George. So I want to I want to bring this right back to you. So over the years, HubSpot has rolled out so many different tools in regards to how you create more personalized experiences or deeper content experiences. So for example, AI driven tools or as you mentioned earlier, smart content features. Now as someone who has a lot of experiences with these tools, George, I would love to hear you talk to our audience for a bit about how we should be leveraging those tools today to optimize landing pages in ways that weren't possible five years ago.
Liz Moorehead:Because I know you and I still both encounter landing pages where we're like, you guys, this is this this is 2018. What are we doing here?
George B. Thomas:Well, well, in some of this, what's funny, I I'd like to go back to by the way, I can't move forward without saying if there's not a book called The Moral Marketer, somebody needs to write the dang book, The Moral Marketer. I'm just saying. Anyway, but
Max Cohen:Somebody said not be me because I can't write a book.
George B. Thomas:Well, you know, but maybe it should be you, but with a ghostwriter. Anyway Right. Like Liz, here's the thing. What's funny. I'd like to go back and see when the contextual marketing certification came out, because it might have been five years ago.
George B. Thomas:You might have been able to do some of the things that I'm about to talk about five years ago. However, like people don't watch that certification. They don't understand that the thing lives in a left hand sidebar. They don't realize exactly what they can do. Maybe they're just trying to get a landing page out and they're not focused on experience.
George B. Thomas:Right. And that's the thing like you have to have, and I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but if you're doing value first human centric user experiences, and the things are being birthed out of trying to create those experiences. Now you realize that you've got smart content that you can do some really cool things. And I'll just tell you like this, one of the clients that we get a privilege to work with, they help solopreneurs, right? That's their sole focus is to help people either go from being in a job to being a solopreneur, or having a solopreneur business that isn't the greatest, but they want to make it great.
George B. Thomas:And just being like this community for solopreneurs. They literally have used what, two pieces of HubSpot in a magical way. Number one, they use persona, the property, and they use it properly. They've got positive and negative personas. They're using the I'm A statements and they're leveraging it for better communication, segmentation, and smart content.
George B. Thomas:Instead of just having a landing page, they actually have multiple landing pages per persona. So now what they can is they can literally go and send that human to the landing page for the right conversation for who they are and what they know about them. So they're creating a one to one instead of a one to many experience at a per human level based on a conversion and an understanding of who they are. And so like, I want you to think about what you currently have as for, and this is for the listeners, the viewers, what you currently have as a landing page and ask yourself how much more effective would it be? Not only if we were going to AB test it, that can be, we'll talk about that later.
George B. Thomas:Know I keep kind of pushing it back, but how effective could it be if we actually had five, four, three different landing pages and we were using images and video and text that actually resonated with who they were. We talked to them like we know who they are. We talk about the problems that they're actually facing. Like Ricky, the researcher wants it to come to them different than the actual Charlie, the CEO. And I'm just making up persona names because it helps tell the story.
George B. Thomas:And so that's, that's the thing. If you're not looking at list segmentation for smart content, if you're not looking at life cycle stage for a smart content, it like, and there's so many other things that you could be doing with this to just create a better user experience and what might be considered your most important area conversion, because that starts the conversation to which then equals the cash flow. And so taking the extra time to understand, hey, there's a contextual marketing certification. Let's take that. Let's look at our existing landing pages.
George B. Thomas:Let's look at how we're using persona. Let's look at how we're using lifecycle stage. Let's look how we're using list segmentation and let's actually build a real conversion strategy around the tools that HubSpot has given us.
Liz Moorehead:So I wanna take it a step deeper actually, George, if you'll bear with me for a moment. So I remember when smart for content first came out, everybody was excited. Right? They were like, oh, I can change it. So it says, like, if I have two different personas.
Liz Moorehead:Right? One is an IT manager in an organization, one is a CTO at an organization and they have different thoughts and opinions about a certain topic that we want them to convert on. I can change the introductory paragraph. My understanding is that the capacity and capabilities of smart content are much deeper than like, well, you could put a different paragraph here.
George B. Thomas:Oh my god. You can have a different form. You can have a different video. You can have a different image. You can have different copy.
George B. Thomas:Like now, especially if you're using the Content Hub, like almost every module or every section can be smart. If you're like and by the way, we're talking about landing pages, but this in email is amazing as well. Because now not only have you created a dope experience where the form, the module, the copy, the video, the image is smart to them, but when you, they get communication, the communication in the email is smart as well with the right image, the right verbiage, the right subject line, because you can have smart subject lines. Again, this is one place where I don't think enough marketers, enough business owners dive in and take the time to understand the power that they have with smart content inside of their HubSpot ecosystem.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Mean, most of them still think it's it's witchcraft to even just say hi, first name on a
George B. Thomas:page. Right?
Max Cohen:I think well, I think the other thing that's interesting too is, like, you know, thinking, you know, outside the box there, it's like, what if if if if you're using, like, smart content, like, in mind, you can make, like, entire sections of the page totally different. Right? And, you know, sure, maybe you can show a different form or maybe if you have everyone's information and they're already on a list, don't even show a form at all. Just replace it with a section that lets them download the piece of content immediately without having to wait for an email or take an unnecessary step. Right?
Max Cohen:Because again, like I think we still, you know, when we don't think about how can it how can I make my content delivery even easier? Right? Like we're we're still like forgetting the fact that like someone actually consuming the content is important. Long as you're making like, so long as like whatever that thing is, so long as that ebook is actually valuable and not just some garbage, whatever. Right?
Max Cohen:Yeah. You know, like you do want people to consume the content if it's good content. If it's not good content, you probably shouldn't be putting it out there, right? Because you're just increasing the likelihood that someone's gonna have a bad experience with you, right? You know, and so like, I'd say like what the smart content piece, like think about ways where you can make it not a landing page and just like give someone what they need.
Max Cohen:Like if you already have any information you'd be collecting.
George B. Thomas:I mean, that's that's such a good value piece there because I mean, listen, you could have it be smart and it could just be a CTA because I know even the moralist of marketers out there is like, but how do I track success? Listen, if they're in X, Y, Z list, you could have a CTA. And when they click that CTA, they could be downloading it without needing to fill out a form. And by the way, then your measurement of successes, you know, every click on that CTA is a download. So you can now have the conversation of, well, this piece was downloaded by people in our database a hundred times this month.
Max Cohen:Sure.
George B. Thomas:The people who click the CTA, 27% of them also, we have deals that have been created in the pipeline. Mhmm. And and the human never had to fill out another form ever.
Max Cohen:Yes. Funny way she tried stuff without, like, forcing a conversion. Yeah. You know?
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Max Cohen:I feel like I used to have a really, really good talk track about this, and I definitely have forgotten it because I'm not repeating it every two weeks to a bunch of new hires. But I think the the big thing that I was trying to, like, get across, like, okay, if you are making a landing page or for that matter, any sort of page with a form on it, which I guess is always gonna be some kind of Well, it
George B. Thomas:could be product. It could be service.
Max Cohen:Sure.
George B. Thomas:Like So much so much in this last week and this week, we were talking about ebooks, guides, checklists, but let's be honest.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Yeah. I guess if we think about I think I guess if we think about, like, you know, a form in the marketing sense. Right? Because like, let's be honest, the only piece of information you you probably think you need is email.
Max Cohen:Right? But, you know, the the thing that I always tell people is when you're deciding what questions to put on a form on a landing page, you you have to play the risk and reward game. Right? I think I've talked about this before in the show like a long time ago. But like every single time you put another question on a form, Right?
Max Cohen:And I still think this holds true to today. Right? You are risking that someone is gonna go, that's too much information to give away, or it's gonna take me too long to fill the form out, or I'm not comfortable giving that away. Right? Like every single time you add anything else onto that form, you're increasing that chance a little bit that you're gonna turn someone away from it.
Max Cohen:Right? So what you need to do is you need to say, hey, if I'm gonna risk putting this question on this form, is there a big reward for me as a marketer? So the question is Or sales team. True. Yeah.
Max Cohen:But still it's it's, you know, if it helps your sales team, I guess it helps you. Right?
George B. Thomas:Yes. Yes.
Max Cohen:So the reward is what what would be reward is like, can I use this piece of information to market to this person more effectively and create a better experience for them? Right? Creating a better experience for them is not rewards. Ready is not. Let me get their phone number super fast so I can have a BDR go interrupt their day.
Max Cohen:No. Right. But a good example is asking that persona question, getting a general idea of who this person is. So like, yeah, getting their phone number and having someone call them way before may appear as a valuable piece of information for your sales team who, sorry guys, all they know is just how to just incessantly pester people until they say go away. Right?
Max Cohen:But again, maybe ask that persona question so I can at least get a slight understanding of what might be relevant to send to you in the future.
George B. Thomas:That's snap shot.
Max Cohen:Just because I wanna be a moral marketer. So I don't send you stuff that makes you go, wow, these people are annoying. Right. And immediately lose credibility with you. Okay.
Max Cohen:I try
George B. Thomas:to look at it as like, what information can I ask for the value I'm giving that is a snapshot of understanding?
Max Cohen:Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:You know what I mean? The rest of the journey, can get more, but I at least see that initial snapshot to to provide better pathways in the future, we'll say.
Max Cohen:Correct. Yeah. And and and, you know, just making it so that like the product because the product that you provide to them before they actually buy the thing that you sell, the product that your company provides is a marketing experience. Yep. Right?
Max Cohen:And so you gotta say, what questions can I ask to deliver that product in the meantime? Much better. Right? I think a lot of it comes down even to just like the same conversation we have around why we do these things or why we think about these things in this way is the same reason why we talk about why customer service is so important, right? It's another one of those things where it feels really good to do it and sure you have a lot of opportunities to do the morally good business thing and a lot of customer service situations, and you have a lot of opportunity to do the right thing, right?
Max Cohen:But it's not just doing the right thing because it feels good. It's doing the right thing because that's good for business, right? Yeah. You know, the same thing goes for a lot of the stuff that we're talking about.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. You you have said do the right thing so many times in this episode. It makes you want to go back and watch the movie, do the right thing. I haven't watched it in so many ways. People want to
Max Cohen:actually do the right thing.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Right. The right thing is always the right thing. Liz, what's next? We're we're we're hurt.
George B. Thomas:Heard us. We're we're having a good conversation.
Liz Moorehead:What I want to cover. No, I want you just have heard us conversation for a reason.
George B. Thomas:Now, heard, heard,
Max Cohen:Like, yes. Heard us. Heard us, please.
Liz Moorehead:What?
Max Cohen:Do you ask us a painful question?
George B. Thomas:No. No. I don't want a painful question.
Max Cohen:I
Liz Moorehead:don't like needles. Well, I'm gonna call out a painfully obvious point that we need to address. Right? So one of the things that we've been talking about over the past this episode and the last episode about landing pages is how so much of the content has become transactional, flimsy. You're not really digging into the depth of what it is that's being offered, things like that.
Liz Moorehead:But we also have to contend with the fact that people's attention spans are getting shorter. So how do we check both of those boxes? Right? Because I think we can all close our eyes and imagine a circa twenty fourteen landing page. Would you like this ebook?
Liz Moorehead:Download now. You will learn blank, blank, blank and more. Please give us your name, your phone number, your firstborn's child's name, like all of these different things, right? But still the meat of that landing page was pretty weak sauce. But today people have shorter attention spans but they want more value and they want more substance.
Liz Moorehead:So how do we, how? How? And why? Do you like that, Max?
Max Cohen:We stop using landing pages. We just start creating content where people actually wanna get it.
Liz Moorehead:Like, I George, you and I did that with content. Like, we, like, just don't here's the whole thing. If you would like it for later, you can still also download it.
Max Cohen:Yeah. See, the thing the thing is is, like, where so before people were okay, I think, getting their value by going, let me go find the thing. And let me go fill out this form so I could then get the thing. And then let me go into my email address and open up the file and read it. But now we're in the zero attention span.
Max Cohen:Swipe from a swipe. Go through No.
George B. Thomas:I agree with that.
Max Cohen:No. No. What I'm saying is lean into that stuff. Right? Like and and and and here's the question.
Max Cohen:Okay. Hold on. Ready? I think if you were to sit somebody down and say, is it more important to you? Well, actually, George, let me ask you.
George B. Thomas:Oh, God. Here we go.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Is it more important to you that somebody consumes a piece of content and then in their in their brain feels better about you and better about your brand and maybe learn something or you get an email address. What would you rather have happen?
George B. Thomas:I would rather have the human consume the content, but I'll add a caveat and they would feel better about themselves or the situation that they're in. Sure. Because of the content that we've created.
Max Cohen:Way, way more valuable than an email. Getting an email. Right. So my question would be, if you want to create more opportunities for that to happen. Right.
Max Cohen:You're probably going to go the route that puts the least, you know, in front of that as possible and gets people there quicker. Right. And I would think you do what I mean, George, you already do this. You create an insane amount of content that's ungated.
Liz Moorehead:You know
George B. Thomas:what I mean?
Max Cohen:And I think like that's in and when we talk about the age of shortened attention span, I was saying this back when I was doing marketing onboarding. So I was like, we're in the age where people wanna watch, not read. So, like, go instead of writing this freaking giant ebook, dude, go start the YouTube channel. Right? Go, like, get the content out there that's gonna change the hearts and minds and, like, put a % of your focus into that than hyper fixating on getting email address.
George B. Thomas:I mean, listen, like Landing pages have their place like they do. Without a doubt. For sure.
Max Cohen:But like when we talk about short attention stuff, short attention span stuff and how to combat that, I mean, if it's in the context of landing pages and the shirts like minimal questions on the form, right? Maybe you do limit distractions in ways that aren't super sketchy. Right? But I think also make it like abundantly clear what someone's getting if they do fill the form out. Right?
Max Cohen:So there isn't any ambiguity, right? Because the last thing you want someone doing when they're going like, oh, no, I really want to fill this form out is them going, I don't really know what I'm getting if I fill this out. Right?
George B. Thomas:I'm not filling it out if I don't know exactly.
Max Cohen:Right. So be super clear on what the offer is or whatever it is that that someone's happening or
George B. Thomas:what's happening now. Don't don't be fluffy with like, download our ebook. Just shut the no. Like, actually, like, anyway. So here's the thing, My brain is battling with this because I don't know if we have a short attention span.
George B. Thomas:And let me explain. I think we do when things might be crappy or when we're trying to escape. Right? Like we're just trying to escape. And so we'll go on Facebook or we'll go on YouTube and we'll watch the shorts and we'll, you know, get thumb cramps because we're just like, we're just, we're checking out, we're escaping.
George B. Thomas:When it comes to what's important though, I think, or what's good, I don't think that we have a short attention span. Like, listen, I've sat and watched both Avatar movies back to back. Right? I didn't have a short attention span. Shoot, this weekend, I made it a point to have some downtime.
George B. Thomas:I watched almost a season and a half of The Chosen. That was not a short attention span, a season and a half of The Chosen, right? And so, but it was something good. And here's the key that I want people to think about. It's the journey.
George B. Thomas:You're on a journey, and if your content, whether it be landing page, because now you're using it as a pillar page, but if your content can put them on a journey. And so maybe you do have a couple micro videos that are actually in some copy, and maybe you have some other media elements, like a podcast that happens to be embedded in, like, whatever it is. You're trying to create a journey, a good journey of valuable information that may eventually lead to a conversion. Listen, I wanna circle back around on something else here. Max, you said you've you've created a lot of ungated content.
George B. Thomas:Me. Right? Brother, I've been creating content since 2013 and I've given a lot of it away. And let's be honest with you, I'm still kind of giving it away and I'm realizing that it's less about any type of conversion and it's more about maximizing conversations and it's about scaling who I am. And this is literally, we're talking about one of the reasons why I've created helper.georgebthomas.com, which is the HubSpot slash human helper, the clone that has all of that free content that has trained it in to be what it needs to be or what it can be for people.
George B. Thomas:And now you can go in and you can extract whatever value you need out of all of that content at any given point in time, twenty fourseven. So scaling helpfulness, forgetting about conversion, by the way, there's only there's, you can use it for free or you can get unlimited access for $25 a month. 20 4 7 HubSpot help no matter what. I I and if you go to the landing page for it, by the way, it's george b thomas dot com forward slash helper. There's not a freaking form on it.
George B. Thomas:It's a button that takes you to the clone so that you can start a conversation with it. Because again, you got to start thinking about the experience. You got to start thinking about the journey. You've got to start thinking about the human. And if you're going to be a moral marketer, what does that mean that you might have to change over time?
George B. Thomas:By the way, in the last two episodes, we've given you an ish ton of things that you need to go back and look and see about changing your landing pages.
Liz Moorehead:You know, you said something, George, in your answer there that I wanna point out. I think sometimes we have a very reductive thought process when we hear someone say, well, our audiences have shorter attention spans. They will commit to deep, lengthy content if they see the value in it.
George B. Thomas:Yes. So is it the overall
Liz Moorehead:attention span short? Is it the overall attention span that's shortening, or is it the window you have to demonstrate the value that is short? Yes.
Max Cohen:And part
Liz Moorehead:of the reason why I think it's getting shorter is because historically marketers have not done a very good job of demonstrating value. We either believe that it what we are trying to give them is obvious or quite frankly, that you should just understand you owe us your information we show you what is actually valuable.
George B. Thomas:Listen, I was, oh God, I was on It's been a while since
Liz Moorehead:I've made George that. I'm very proud.
George B. Thomas:Oh, my god. I was on a so I love all of the humans. Alright. I love all of the humans. I was on a marketing professor's webinar.
George B. Thomas:If you happen to be the person who was on the webinar and said this, and you're listening to this podcast, I apologize. I don't know your name. I can't use your name. I won't use your name. But I literally got a question at the end of a forty, thirty five, forty minute session about all the strategy and tactics B2B marketers should be using when it comes to video nowadays in 2025.
George B. Thomas:And the question came to me of, yes, but how do I do this without giving away the secret sauce? And I about lost my dang mind because the value is in the secret sauce. The conversion is in the secret sauce. The conversation is in the secret sauce. The cash flow, the ROI, the revenue is in the secret sauce, share it.
George B. Thomas:That's what you do. I might need a minute.
Max Cohen:I mean, it's it's and there's there's a lot of truth behind that. Right? Like, I think you gotta remember when you go and share the secret sauce. Right? There's, I think it was just what?
Max Cohen:One of two or one of three things that happened, right? Actually, yeah, it's one of three things that happened, right? The majority of people are gonna just read it and go, oh, and not do anything. Then there's going to be two people left. Right?
Max Cohen:The folks that take the advice that the secret sauce offers and goes and solve their problem or hits their goal or challenger does whatever with that. And then you've created a really great promoter of your content, which is something that you want. So you want other people going, this content's good, it helped me do this thing. And they're going to share it out to other people and then other people are going to see it. It's going to have a compounding effect.
Max Cohen:Right? And then as the other people are gonna go, oh, that's an interesting way to solve my goal or challenge. Thank you for the secret sauce. They're gonna slip the secret sauce and then they're gonna go, oh, this is actually way too hard, but you guys seem to know what you're doing. Let me hire you.
Max Cohen:That's literally all that could happen. Right? What a lot of people think is they're gonna their competitor is gonna go, oh, that is their secret sauce. We are going to then steal their idea and do exactly what they do. Nope.
Max Cohen:No. They're no. That's not what's gonna happen. What's gonna happen is those two things. Right?
Max Cohen:It's again, physics of content, physics of physics of marketing. But yeah. I mean, give away your secret sauce. That's the whole point. Guess guess what?
Max Cohen:If you don't put any secret sauce in your content, your content's going to suck. Imagine
Liz Moorehead:a Big Mac without secret sauce.
Max Cohen:Exactly.
George B. Thomas:That's not a Big Mac. It's just a bun and some burger.
Liz Moorehead:Sad meat.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Butt and some burger.
George B. Thomas:That's right there.
Max Cohen:That's the Just the
George B. Thomas:bun. The bun and some burger. Wants landing pages that are sad meat. Just gonna throw that out.
Max Cohen:Yo. Sad meat is wild, dude.
Liz Moorehead:Thank you. Thank you. I try to have at least one good punchline per quarter. Yep. See you on q two.
Liz Moorehead:Alright. So, George, I want you to take us home. Yeah. We've had a really interesting, expansive discussion today about the nature of quality content in landing pages and how we actually create that. What are the between one and seventy five thousand things you would like our listeners to walk away from today's episode with?
George B. Thomas:No. One thing.
Liz Moorehead:Oh my god. Are you serious?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. No. One thing. One one thing. One thing.
George B. Thomas:Here here's the deal. This is what I want you to do. I want you to go look at your landing page or landing pages, and I want you to ask you a quest yourself a question. Is this landing page all about the humans or all about us? If it's not about the humans and the experience and the value that you can give them, fix it now today.
George B. Thomas:Okay, hub heroes. We've reached the end of another episode. Will Lord Lack continue to loom over the community or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the hub heroes podcast? Make sure you tune in and find out in the next episode. Make sure you head over to the hubheroes.com to get the latest episodes and become part of the league of heroes.
George B. Thomas:FYI, if you're part of the league of heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share this podcast with a friend. Leave a review if you like what you're listening to and use the hashtag hashtag hub heroes podcast on any of the socials and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human, and of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero.
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