How Can Content Drive Segmentation?

Ben (00:01.888)

Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Gal. Gal, welcome to the show.

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Gal Fontyn (00:07.374)

Thanks, Ben. Great to be here.

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Ben (00:09.28)

Love it. Well, I'm really excited to dive into the subject for today. Before we do it though, Gal, quickly introduce yourself. Let us get to know you. What do you love about content and marketing? And let us know a little bit about your background.

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Gal Fontyn (00:21.198)

Yeah, thanks. So I'm Gal. I'm currently based in Jersey, been in tech marketing for the 13, 14 years now. I love about marketing and this is kind of like how I got to it as well is that it's a really cool cross between data and people. And I kind of came to it from the angle of...

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starting to study and be fascinated by how people make decisions, how people think, what moves them. And then at the time, my wife was actually creating a brand new, like a brand for swimwear for women. And she needed a way to promote that. So I took on the role of building the website and started to experiment a bit with Google ads. I was kind of leaning on.

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a few courses that I had at the time like in uni. So that was good. And then I kind of gotten deeper and deeper into that and the rest is history. I've kind of went deeper and deeper into marketing.

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Ben (01:24.192)

I love it. I love it. Everyone has a different pathway to marketing. I find that so interesting. I think it's so cool. And that's one of the things I love about marketing. Another big passion is content. And so today we're going to dive into the idea of segmentation with your content and how that can really drive a better experience for the end user, how it can segment your audience, really the role that content plays in segmentation. So, Gal, when you're looking at it and you're planning your content,

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Gal Fontyn (01:35.021)

Yep.

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Ben (01:53.376)

And you're figuring out how can we really deliver the right content to the right people? How do you start to think about that? How do we start to make sure that the content aligns with where they're at?

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Gal Fontyn (02:04.846)

Yeah, that's a great topic. I think that, for me, I always try to think about it as a triangle of what we're trying to establish with someone who would be ready to buy. So I'm looking to create brand awareness. I'm looking to create pain awareness to know that they are basically bought into the pain in the way that we're describing it and in the context that we're trying to set.

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And then the last piece is solution awareness. They know our solution, they know how that can fit their stack, they understand how we can solve their challenges. So when I look into content, I'm trying to see how I can build content that touches on those three things. And then when you kind of flip it, it kind of turns into a targeting solution or a targeting tool where...

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to me, the top level would be top of funnel content. So this would be the way that I'm trying to think about it is educational content for anyone in our ICP, not necessarily someone who's a buyer or a user. So if I'm in retail, I can build a state of the industry report, stuff to get prepared for.

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you know, Black Friday, stuff like that. You can create like a really great tool that I like to use is industry benchmarks and benchmark reports, listicles for events, podcasts, of course. And, you know, expert predictions and analysis is always great for that as well. The good thing about that type of content is that it's relatively...

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Ben (03:37.408)

Mm -hmm.

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Gal Fontyn (03:51.086)

wide targeting. And so I like to use it in channels that are cheaper to distribute. So I would go and go for wider targeting tools like Instagram, Facebook, et cetera, et cetera. Then once you have people who are...

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Ben (03:58.656)

Hmm.

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Gal Fontyn (04:10.51)

reading those content pieces, clicking through downloading, whatever. We're not getting into the gating versus non -gating conversation now, but like whenever you have people who are engaging with that content, then you know, all right, everyone here is relevant for me. Now I got to find people who could be potential champions for us, right? Who can I really, like who do I really need to establish like strong relationships and trust with? And they could be the ones that would be our door in to that account.

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Right? So in the middle of funnel, I would try and target specific roles that fit within our ICP and specifically those people can be champions. Right? So what I'm always trying to kind of build for them is,

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tools that they can implement immediately in their day -to -day stuff like templates, like different spreadsheets, like different calculators, not about how my solution can save them money, but like calculators about how they can do this or that, stuff they can present to their own leadership team, guides and how -to's about their specific roles and their specific challenges, right? And...

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Ben (05:04.576)

Mm -hmm.

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Gal Fontyn (05:24.238)

One more thing that is also useful is stuff that are helpful for them in their career development. So you know, all right, everyone who engaged with this is within our ICP, they are a potential champion. Those are people that I'm really trying to build intent with. And so the way that I like to work with that audience is kind of use it like an ABM -like type of targeting. It's a bit more...

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Ben (05:32.576)

Hmm.

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Ben (05:51.552)

Mm -hmm.

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Gal Fontyn (05:53.038)

expensive, but I try to basically lean into that pain awareness to see that they're bought into our storyline, our narrative of what is the pain, what are the challenges that we solve. And then I try to kind of move them, nudge them towards different offers that would show me that they are in market or that they are close to that. So for that layer.

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we'll be creating content that is like bottom of funnel content. Bottom of funnel content is vertical specific use cases, like as specific as you can get, it's better that you can show them, we can solve this exact pain you're having. We've done that with a company just like yours in a market, just like yours. We understand exactly what you need and here are the results so we can deliver.

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Ben (06:41.44)

Mm -hmm.

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Gal Fontyn (06:42.19)

Product tours are great, recorded testimonials are great, and product -oriented webinars, roundtables, these types of stuff. So this is how I would think about these three pillars of content. And then we can talk about what you can do as a next step. But I think this is the basic.

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Ben (07:02.944)

Yeah, I love that. So when you're looking at it, it's so cool how you're talking about mapping the journey, building content, and then kind of flipping that upside down and using the content to kind of dictate the journey and stuff like that. So does everyone follow the same pathway for you in this system? Like, are you creating content for people that kind of come in at the middle of the funnel? Or how do the pathways and things like that, the handoffs between the tiers,

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typically work and how do you manage that?

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Gal Fontyn (07:35.182)

Yeah, I mean, in the past, I think that we used to have a lot of kind of more reliable tools for targeting in terms of, you know, like the old school cookies and stuff that we can't really do a lot from today, which is a good thing. But at the same time, you also have tools that allow you to target specific people and to also kind of get good analytics on how those people engage with your content. So I think...

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Ben (07:47.944)

Yeah. Yeah.

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Gal Fontyn (08:06.03)

I don't.

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try any more to kind of move people in a specific direction, right? Like, so I don't necessarily try to move them like from this to that. I'm kind of thinking about this as like a checklist, right? I want to know that they've touched this type of content, that type of content, this type of content. Cause like, if someone is on our, you know, if someone is reading a vertical specific, you know, like use case or something like that, or they're in our product tour, I'm not, I don't know if they're already bought into the pain in the way that we're kind of.

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Ben (08:29.44)

Mm -hmm.

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Gal Fontyn (08:37.04)

describing it. So I want to make sure that they have that, otherwise we can give them a demo or whatever. But if they don't see this as like a big problem, then our solution is just like a nice to have type of solution. So I try to kind of have layers that do at least the first two layers of like the top of funnel, middle funnel, like all the time for everyone basically.

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Ben (08:37.952)

Yeah.

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Ben (08:54.016)

That is cool.

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Ben (09:04.16)

Yeah, I love that. Like so many marketers, I think myself in the past, I'll admit this, you know, as soon as they're on that product tour or the demo page, great. That checks the box. They're that kind of lead. We're going to move on and good luck sales kind of an idea. And I love that you've identified, hey, the checkboxes, right? Like it's not necessarily they have to go from A to B to C.

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Gal Fontyn (09:31.918)

Yeah.

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Ben (09:32.256)

But it is important that at some point in time, they've gone to A and they've been at B and they may start at C and go to A and then go to B. But it's so powerful because like your mantra of they've got to feel the pain. They've kind of got to buy into our narrative, right? Our company has a point of view. And if you agree with that, then you're going to be much more likely to purchase from us. So is it kind of a self -selection journey? Like you put this content out there, make sure.

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and then you're tracking the different touches or how does that kind of like tracking process kind of happen and occur?

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Gal Fontyn (10:10.19)

So what's been working for me, and just maybe it's dictated by the types of companies that I was working with, or the types of buyers that I was selling to. But I like to look at it from an account scoring point of view. So I am looking for those people who are potential champions, and maybe now they're in market. But the way that I would track it and score it is actually through the account lens. Right? So.

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Going back to our example from earlier, if I have a buyer who is, you know, they feel the pain, they're in market, but I don't have senior leadership in the brand awareness stage. If they don't know who we are, that also falls between the cracks most of the time. Right. So I'm also using like the, the tofu layer to make sure that each account was like touched with the right decision makers.

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Ben (10:54.048)

Yeah.

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Ben (10:57.44)

Yeah.

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Gal Fontyn (11:07.182)

So usually we like to build, like, I like to take a pretty simplistic approach here. And also I like to rely 95 % of my decisions on like our own data, you know, like, you know, additional kind of tools, additional, like we are leveraging third party data from different places, but I find that our own data is usually way more accurate and actionable.

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Ben (11:31.008)

Yeah.

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Gal Fontyn (11:32.59)

So we try and use that to kind of create an accumulated score of account intent. And then beyond a certain threshold, then we know when to reach out, et cetera, et cetera. And then when you start giving points to different interactions, that's also when you can start understanding how well your content is performing. Because you know which, wow, the thingy. So yeah, like you can get a really good idea of like which.

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Ben (11:55.648)

Yeah, the Apple stuff.

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Gal Fontyn (12:01.23)

content pieces are right at which stages. And you can also start seeing overlaps, like which content pieces are great for people who've been in like one, two, three type of stages. So that's a long answer for a short question, but yeah.

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Ben (12:15.712)

No, I love that. So that was the next question is as you're building out all these different stages, you're using content to segment. How are you improving? How are you determining like what you're going to create? How do you know what is working, what's not and how it influences the journey? How do you actually just get a hold on like what content should I create at all? And how do I improve it over time?

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Gal Fontyn (12:38.382)

Yeah, there are a few different things that I'm doing to kind of make sure that our content sticks and that it's effective. I would say one part of it is actually more just doing the regular.

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listening to gone calls, I'd like to listen to the actual jargon that people use in earlier conversations to kind of describe the pain and we're trying to bake that in like those keywords into our actual content of like how to overcome this and that. So I'm trying to actually nail down the actual expression that the person used for that. And one second.

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Ben (12:59.264)

Hmm.

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Ben (13:07.296)

Mm -hmm.

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Ben (13:12.672)

Yeah.

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Gal Fontyn (13:23.598)

So yeah, in a second we'll eat that.

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Ben (13:25.088)

You're fine and we have an editor who's great, so don't worry about it.

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Gal Fontyn (13:28.366)

Thank you, editor, for letting me stay hydrated. So the second thing is to kind of make sure that you're connecting lead data with opportunity data in your CRM. What I'm trying to say is that I like to look at pipeline influence. So like rather than pipeline that was generated from like a gated content piece, right? So I want to see...

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Ben (13:55.36)

Mm -hmm.

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Gal Fontyn (13:57.774)

like a report that can show me all of the opportunities that like all of the leads that became associated with an opportunities. I want to see which content pieces did they touch somewhere in their journey. And then when you start building the scores through that, you can also better understand what content is working. You can try and analyze trends, cross that with audiences and optimize.

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Ben (14:24.832)

I love it. I love it. That's super powerful. So when you're looking at this whole system, what are some opportunities that you feel like most businesses have for improvement? You know, we sometimes create content. We just kind of throw it out there and all that kind of stuff. What are some common pitfalls and maybe some pieces of advice for anyone listening?

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Gal Fontyn (14:48.334)

Yeah, I would say don't be too generic. Like don't try to write to everyone. cause that won't give you anything. and, and for the people who you're really trying to build kind of good trust with, you're not standing out as an expert. So it's a go specific.

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The second thing is I would say like, don't try to be too scientific with, you know, like the journeys, like we discussed earlier, like understand the big picture, understand what this account needs to know rather than I want this person to do exactly like one, two, three, they got to go like through this and that, like try to be a bit more, holistic and create more opportunities, I guess, for people to engage with different types of content. It would just help you, get a better understanding of what works and what.

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resonates with people.

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Ben (15:39.136)

I love it. I love it. That's great. Well, Gal, thank you so much for the information. It has been so helpful. It's made me think about the funnel differently. It's cool because, you know, we use the terms top of funnel, bottom of funnel, middle of funnel. And it sounds like maybe sometimes, you know, it helps to push people back up the funnel and back down and things like that. So I think there's a lot of really good lessons here, but for the sake of keeping this short and sweet. So.

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Gal Fontyn (16:00.814)

Yep.

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Ben (16:07.232)

People can listen to this on their commute or when they're out doing whatever it is you're doing. We love to make these short and simple to consume. But if anyone wants to continue the conversation and connect with you online, how can they find you and connect with you?

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Gal Fontyn (16:21.518)

Yeah, sure. People can find me on LinkedIn. I'm at Galfontaine. And just reach out to me, drop me a line and we'll connect.

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Ben (16:31.68)

Love it, love it. Gal, again, thank you so much for the information today. Really appreciate it.

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Gal Fontyn (16:36.206)

And it was great. I really enjoyed it. And thank you for having me on.

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Ben (16:40.416)

You bet.

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