Episode 18: The Trojan Horse Strategy: Earning Attention Through Content
In a world flooded with noise, how do you capture and keep your audience's attention? Learn how to use content as a Trojan Horse to earn your audience's atttention, ultimately leading to conversions. From crafting irresistible content to building loyal communities, we'll equip you with the strategies and tactics to succeed in today's competitive marketplace.
“Attention is hard to earn and even harder to maintain.”
Objectives
In this episode, you will be able to:
Discover how to convert content consumers into paying customers.
Learn how to use content as a vehicle to deliver promotional messages effectively.
Discover how to produce content that resonates with your audience and drives engagement.
Learn how to foster a loyal community around your brand.
Understand how to leverage content to improve search engine rankings.
Transcript
Robbie (00:25)
We’re going.
Robbie (00:26)
Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Content Community Commerce podcast. My name is Robbie Fitzwater. I’m joined by the fabulous Tim Lowry. We like to talk about topics at the connection of content, community, and commerce. And we’re talking about a topic kind of near and dear to my heart, and your heart today, where this kind of like peanut butter and chocolate of content meets email meets SEO kind of connects to create something that really works well. And we’ve both seen some success and coming out the holidays have seen a good amount of success.
Tim (01:01)
Yeah. You’ve to see it firsthand, like over the last couple of weeks and the chaos of things. Like you’re looking on the far side of that now. Like, oh, dang, this actually works. This is a legit strategy that can be used any time of year.
Robbie (01:13)
Yeah. So this is, again, like something that I feel passionately about. And we recently had a new team member join our team and was like, what is this? I see all over all of our like, email planning documents and email documents. It’s like I keep seeing Trojan Horse and for anybody who’s worked with us or like have heard me talk in some capacity, you’ve probably heard the word Trojan horse use at some point, it’s very beaten into the ground Robbie-ism, that you’ve heard at least once.
Tim (01:41)
You’re the unofficial Trojan Man.
Robbie (01:46)
This is the coolest, the most street credit I’m ever gonna have Tim.
Tim (01:51)
My mode of glory.
Robbie (01:53)
And fragile ego is shining right now. Okay. But yes, it’s a time that, again, the Trojan Horse is a strategy we like to use and it kind of fits really well for both of us too, because it’s essentially sharing content via email, but also having a great again, cross-sell in that email.
Robbie (02:14)
And what it allows us to get on somebody’s radar through content and then slip in through the back door through a promotion or sale or even like a cross-sell of a product.
Tim (02:27)
And picturing like the little like wooden horse going into somebody’s inbox. They’re like, oh, what is this? And they open it and they’re reading the content. They’re like, oh, and I’m gonna buy this too. Like, that’s basically what you’re talking about.
Robbie (02:36)
It creeps up to their inbox, then they pull, they open it and they bring it inside. And a bunch of Trojan men just pop out and store, store on their wallets, there’s so many bad analogies can be made here today. I know. But yeah, it’s, it’s basically like, again, getting on their attention, getting on their radar through content and what makes it so important is like, this gives us a chance to use our content to the fullest extent, but also really like give us a different angle to take during, especially Black Friday, Cyber Monday, there’s so many promotions going on all the time that this is a way for us to kind of cut through the noise and zig while everyone else is zagging.
Robbie (03:19)
Yeah. There’s so many promotional emails that go out in a short window of time for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and we saw these performing better than most of our other traditional promotional sends this year.
Tim (03:30)
I love it personally on the selfish side from, from SEO cause like we’re creating this content and during this time of year, like content is still gonna get traffic, but everybody’s intent is starting to shift. So it’s really cool to see people still coming into articles that you’ve created or those, you know, we’d talked about, gift guides for the sake of it. So like knowing where their intent is, like helping them in that research piece, but getting it right into the inbox and getting some of those early click engagement signals going in which, like Google will use that data. It may not be coming directly from the search engine, but they are seeing those engagement signals coming from other ways into the content, which is ultimately gonna help accelerate some of that ranking if it’s a newer piece. So, like, again, selfishly, I love whenever you sneak one of these little things into their inbox, it’s like, let’s get it out there.
Robbie (04:22)
We’re using the whole Trojan Buffalo here.
Tim (04:23)
the Trojan Buffalo.
Robbie (04:25)
But yeah, it’s, it’s a great, again, way to again, maximize the value of the content we have. Because like being, you work with so many clients and like we have so many collaborative clients , like, we use those gift guides in so many different ways. Like you introduce those and a lot of times in like August or September.
Tim (04:42)
Yeah.
Robbie (04:42)
And we’re just getting to them during the holiday window. But it works so well because again, we know the context of, that person’s life. We know what they’re looking for. We want to be able to kind of match that content with the context of their life. And that way we can really do the most, make the biggest impact with what we have.
Tim (05:03)
So like on a tactical level, like what would this look like or how do you, how do you fit this in? Especially like you’re talking about Black Friday, Cyber Monday, I just made like a new, new sales holiday. It’s black cyber, it’s just everything meshed together. But like, how do you, how do you fit that in? ’cause obviously there is a ton of emails going out. Like I overheard you with like, some clients like, you know, it’s insane the amount of emails that are just flying around, like where does this fit into that and how do you do it without just being like another email that stacks on the top of what’s going on.
Robbie (05:37)
One of the ways we like to do this is, we get all of our planning done for Black Friday, Cyber Monday. We kind of like look at Black Friday. Cyber Monday is like a U shape where we want to again, open really strong in the Black Friday and then finish really strong in Cyber Monday. So both bookends are really, really built out. And those are generally gonna have to be promotional sends because we have to assume people’s intent on those days is so high and they’re likely gonna have an inbox that’s completely saturated. So we’re likely sending at least two or three emails on that day, sending SMS messages on the bookends to let them know that it’s opening and closing. And ideally we’ve done something beforehand for VIPs to make sure that we can kind of capture that revenue early and kind of separate that a little bit over that window of time. But where this really fits into a nice place is right in the middle.
Robbie (06:31)
So if this was Black Friday, Cyber Monday on that Saturday and Sunday, a Black Friday, Cyber Monday, everyone is again, continuing their sale promotions. But if we can again, sneak in with something completely different and zig while they’re zagging, like again, those holiday gift guides they just lend themselves so perfectly at this time because it’s what they’re already looking for. They want content along those lines. And then it fits what we’re looking for perfectly. Because again, wanting to earn their attention, and this is where we get to maintain it and again, consistently get on their radar because when they have sale sale sale sale, and then they see something valuable, it makes it a lot more exciting for them to open that email.
Tim (07:15)
Yeah. You’re also providing like, not just, like the gift guides, but other content that you send out, it’s kind of given the user a little bit of an escape from the chaos. It’s like if their inbox is just getting absolutely just obliterated by like sale email, and then all of a sudden it’s something that they’re genuinely interested in reading. It’s kinda like a like five minutes of like, take a breath. I’m gonna just, you know, be selfish. I’m gonna look at this for right now, I’m gonna enjoy it. And then oh, while I’m here. Yeah, they’ve got a sale on too.
Robbie (07:42)
Yeah, it’s like a used car lot, used car lot used car commercial, used car commercial, catnip, used car commercial.
Robbie (07:49)
Yeah.
Robbie (07:49)
They’re gonna jump on the catnip. And that’s, that’s a really nice way that we can, again, get them into our funnel early and then again, keep them coming back while everyone else is again sharing a lot of like really heavy promotional emails.
Tim (08:02)
Yeah.
Robbie (08:02)
And again, this is something we do year-round, but this is a really easy way for us to use that. Again, the sale is a secondary call to action because we want to get them to that content as a goal. But even once they’re on our site, our automations and the rest of our marketing strategy really kicks in. Like they should be getting a popover mentioning the sale. They’re gonna see the banner on the top of the websites mentioning the sale. And so for those people who are excited and ready to jump on that sale as a piece, they may be excited about the content and kind of like stumble across that sale too.
Robbie (08:36)
Yeah. And then you were saying there like, this isn’t just like a Black Friday, Cyber Monday thing, like this is, this is something that’s going out like throughout the year at other times. And we talked in like one of the early episodes about like the hygiene, hub, and hero strategy. So this fits in, I think you said like the hub component or this should be almost like a hubs send that somebody has frequently baked in.
Robbie (08:59)
Yeah, so this is where like, again, it fitting into a larger strategy is really important because if you’re sending promotion, promotion, promotion, like I said, like you turn into that used car a lot really easily. Like that’s really easy to get burnout on those promotion, promotion, promotion emails. But if you show somebody how to use the product differently, how to use a complimentary or parallel product, it really works well in kind of making sure that they’re gonna be engaged when you are ready to sell something. So again, we use these typically during the year like a Trojan horse of like, Hey, here’s X, Y, Z, like how to pull a shot of espresso and like, as a secondary call to action, we may feature like some item for some espresso items in there.
Tim (09:42)
Yeah.
Robbie (09:42)
Or like if it’s how to, like, again, we’re using coffee examples like how to make an aero press coffee. Like we may be feature like an aero press, like actual coffee maker in the email because we carry them, they’re available. And that’s just like an easy natural segue to that conversation. So we’re, we’re teeing ourselves up for that conversation ideally, but then we’re having a nice natural in line like cross promotion that that fits well, but we’re giving value so it doesn’t seem so ham-handed or, heavy handed in the way that it’s presented because we’re offering something of value on the front end. We can ask for something on your backend too.
Tim (10:22)
Yeah. And you can also use it to build anticipation. Like if you like those examples, you’ve obviously got something that you can sell, but if you’ve got a sale on the horizon, I’m guessing this is like a great way to like get people seeing the sale just a little bit before, you know, you’re sending out like those main like, hey, sale coming is like just early teasing it.
Robbie (10:42)
Yeah. So we will use that time ’cause like as an easy teaser of like, hey, like be on your radar, like, mark your calendar, this is the time this may be coming up. And it’s a great way for us to keep that, like, that consistency going because again, we have our good drumbeat of, of consistent value added content we’re sharing all the time. And again, keeping this your email mix is really important because again, it gives you a, consistent pipeline of good ways to use the content you already have. And then also ways to add value to your audience. And like, I say this all the time, like, attention’s hard to earn and even harder to maintain, especially in today’s world. And this is a way for us to, I always say you saying there, it’s like somewhere in the middle of just.
Robbie (11:29)
What are you talking about?
Tim (11:31)
We’re on a podcast, right?
Robbie (11:33)
I’m obviously, obviously you’re not wrapped. I’m not, I’m not doing a good enough job wrapping you in attention.
Tim (11:40)
Totally broke your flow. Sorry. Couldn’t resist all. Okay.
Robbie (11:42)
I love that. Uh, but yeah, it’s like, again, it’s hard to do. So this is a way that we can like, do that in a different way and hopefully like drive some action we wanna see on in the long run. And again, even if somebody doesn’t take an action on that specific email, if they open it, find that article helpful and valuable, like it’s maintaining that attention over a long time. They may not be able to purchase, they may not be in the intent to purchase at that window, but a month later, a week later, we’re top of mind. We have top of mind preference when they are making a decision. And that’s what gives us the opportunity to convert at a later stage.
Tim (12:19)
Do you like for people that open these emails, is it good to segment them out into like another category? I’m sorry, I’m getting like really in the weeds. ’cause this, it just fascinates me, like how this works sometimes. Like do they go into like their own separate flow? Like, oh, we know these people, like they’re I guess, more preferable to opening this style email? Or is it something where like, it goes to maybe not the entire list, but it goes to like large buckets that are already like, set up?
Robbie (12:45)
So on a general basis, we’ll, segment content engagers, like people that really enjoy content versus people who don’t like. It just don’t activate or engage on that content. We will separate those two generally over time. Like, because we want to train our audience, we do kind of like keep that pretty similar though. Yeah. So especially during the holidays when we are like being a little bit more loosey goosey. Again, talking about being loosey goosey and talking about Trojan horse like they’re best buddies.
Robbie (13:16)
We’re not, advocating being too loosey goosey about Trojans anything.
Robbie (13:20)
But yes, if we can be a little bit more loosey goosey, we do wanna open up our lists a little bit more because again, this is the time of year where we do wanna maximize that revenue and we can exclude people later on. But we can open up our list, especially on the front and the backend. But generally we wanna be train our audience early on to expect content along those lines consistently. Because if we can get them educated, informed, and empowered around the content we’re sharing, ideally we’re kind of like creating the customers we want see on other side like that.
Tim (13:53)
And then from a content standpoint, what do I need to be creating to like help fill that? So like if the marketing team’s looking at this and like, okay, we’d love this idea. Like should they be using stuff that they already have existing on the blog? Do they need to be creating separate content for, to be able to do this or kind of be a hybrid or what works well for you?
Robbie (14:10)
So the hybrid works, the hybrid’s gonna be the best way to really start this. Because again, this is, we always kind of talk about this is like, hey, a lot of stuff we share on email is super warm and fuzzy. Like it’s gonna have like, the rainy snow cones and puppies, but not necessarily have that same like organic traffic driving quality that a lot of articles will. So if we can do, if we can take what we already have and kind of maximize the value of that, that’s some low hanging fruit we can take advantage of. But once we really kind of like get this into a rhythm and get confident in it, we can start to build content that we ideally want to supplement what we’re doing. So like one of the articles we’ve used recently, it was like how to serve coffee for large events. Like how to coffee for gatherings. Like, Hey, how do you make enough coffee that people can enjoy at a large event? Or like for one of our clients it’s like, how to use like a puzzle by, it’s called like puzzle by numbers. How do you use that during the holidays to keep people entertained and engaged? Like this is kind of why this is a good fit for holiday occasions and events, but we’re kind of teeing up content that’s ideally gonna kind of like lead to a behavior we want to see. And we don’t want to make it like super, like, this is why you need to have , X Y Z numbers available. Like, it doesn’t need to be like super, like salesy, but you want to be able to tee up that content to be engaging or drive the behavior you wanna see. Or sometimes you just wanna be like super trashy and warm and fuzzy and like, we would never take trashy just get their attention. Like what, like best, best TikTok accounts for equestrians or like be like funniest.
Tim (15:48)
I bet that gets open.
Robbie (15:50)
It gets opens and clicks and heroic content. And then also after that sale, the all those sales, that’s when we also bring a lot more warm and fuzzy content too because we’ve just done a lot of promotion, a lot of selling. We’ve gotta earn back that trust really fast and that warm fuzzy content does perform well to get that trust built back up because suddenly like everybody else is like kind of burnt out from sales. Like when you can give warm and fuzzy,
Tim (16:17)
like you’re giving value back to them. Like you’re giving them something that they enjoy coming in for versus just continuing to beat them over the head with a sale. Or the one that I always like, don’t take this wrong, I deleted so many emails this holiday season where it’s like the people you never see and then they like just blow into your inbox and you get them for like a one week period and then they’re gone and then they’re gonna come back again and like two weeks from now, like right before Christmas to tell me like, hey, final shipping deadline, final sale or New Year. Yeah, it’s like this crazy sale. So like the fact that like you’ve had the chaos and you drop some warm and fuzzy in the middle of the chaos and then afterwards like you have that plan to just like, hey, here’s some fun stuff to like read. We know your brains are melted and your wallets are like drained. It’s like here’s something good.
Robbie (17:03)
So like we did this a lot. Like again early on working social, like this was just like part of what you did. Like you have to share engaging content on either side of like something more salesy or like, again, you’re gonna get like just completely like on by the Instagram, by the Facebook gods. But when you do have that good content in the middle, when you drive a lot of engagement, you tee yourself up for a good amount of exposure when you do have that sale or that promotion. And then on the other side, you want to be able to like rewarm that algorithm to make sure that they know that you’re not just selling, selling, selling, selling, selling. And it helps really well because again, it kind of like cushions the blow that you would naturally have for like unsubscribes or people to disengage. But it also keeps people who may not necessarily want that sale or promotion like engage and evolve and again, bringing them back, if they do have to make a purchase, like they might as well be with you.
Tim (17:59)
Yeah, You’re top of mind. It’s like, yeah, you’re just always there. You’re not always pushing the sale but you’re there. Yeah.
Robbie (18:06)
And like, I think like top of mind awareness versus top of mind preference too. Like you’re aware they’re aware of you and possibly many others, but like if you’re their preference, like if you’re the one that’s adding value and giving them some something valuable that they can look forward to and engage with, like that’s gonna be a brand they’re gonna prefer later on.
Tim (18:23)
Yeah. I love it, man. So what would you like, what have we missed in this? I’m just thinking like, can you get away with sending an email with just like the little like wooden horse and like the subject line here with put little wooden horse and then like just for kicks to see, bring me inside here. Just see what happens. Try that on your next one. Lem’me know who it goes, but yeah, but though, like honestly.
Robbie (18:48)
You need to make sure they wake up to that one in their inbox. So like you have to wake up to the wooden horse outside their door. Yeah. Outside the gate to their, of their kingdom. Um, and then when they wake up to it, if they bring it inside, like that’s when you have it Trojan men. Yeah.
Tim (19:01)
It’s Christmas morning. Is there anything though like that we haven’t hit on or that you feel, like any listeners were like, okay, I’m really digging this strategy. Like where do I go?
Robbie (19:16)
Early on play the hits get into a rhythm. Like this is more about like consistency than intensity. So like they have to expect content from you. So like as soon as you do have people on your list, you should be warming them up through content and even making it part of your welcome sequence for on boarding, making it part of your post purchase sequence for your recent purchasers or your purchasers. They should be used to this by the time you get to the holidays. And that’s where, again, it plays a large role helping you in the holidays because you have a good foundation built. You can use that early on, it’ll just kind of train them to expect it. Then again, open with a content and like if it’s a larger promotion, we may use that preview text. So we have the subject line and the preview text. We may use the preview text to call out that promotion. Like, hey, plus like five ways to do this, five ways to do XYZ plus save XYZ before like two days left to save XYZ. Those are a really easy way to do that. But if you’re doing this on a regular basis, you don’t necessarily need to use the preview text that same way. You may have those complimentary products in line. You don’t necessarily need to call those out, but you wanna be building anticipation for what they’re gonna see in that email when they open it.
Tim (20:31)
Nice. I love it.
Robbie (20:33)
And if you can pour some salt in the wound, like, give them some, give them some magic that they’re gonna see on the other side, like show them the promised land. It’s generally like an easy way to get them to open it and engage with it.
Tim (20:43)
Yeah, and I’m just thinking also the design, like having a thoughtful design is gonna help get people to like engage and move down on this and see, see what’s below there as well.
Robbie (20:53)
Yeah. And we’ve done some, like we’ve done some fun things with design. Like if it’s a list of things, like we may show a few things on the list and then not show everything. Or even if we have the whole list, like we’ll kind of show it and then maybe have some redacted content. That like, we like playing with that, it’s kind of fun lately. But having things that they can’t quite see unless they open it. And so we want to get them back to our site. And that’s part of that like again, basically, oh my gosh, the hub and spoke model of like getting them back onto your site because they can’t take an action in your email necessarily. So getting them back to the site really helps us and allows us to kind of track that behavior better. So it’s a great way of like building anticipation in the actual email and then pulling them through and then using that secondary call to action later on down the email after that content so they can again make sure they know what’s what’s happening.
Tim (21:40)
Awesome. All right. Key takeaways.
Robbie (21:44)
So the three things we wanna take away, and we kept this one short and sweet. I somehow jump on a soapbox every time I talk more of these. So yeah, thank you for, for helping to keep me off my soapbox.
Tim (21:53)
No, this is again, I like, there’s good tactical ness of with what you shared today. So I’ll hopefully, like you guys can take this and, and run with it and then that way I get to enjoy warm fuzzy emails coming in from more places.
Robbie (22:07)
Yeah. There should be more, more snow cones and puppies, guys, like that’s your new like 2024 snow cones and puppies and sales. But yeah, three takeaways. Connect the content with the context of somebody’s life. If you can do that really well, like that’s how this is gonna work year round when you can connect like what they need with what they’re looking for, that’s gonna help. Like in the summer we talk thinking about like how to make cold brew coffee. Like that’s a really easy win. Or in the winter, like how to again, enjoy black coffee if they’re drinking more coffee that time of year or how to coffee for gatherings. That’s just easy ways that you can use that to connect the context of someone’s life with content that’s gonna be valuable for them.
Tim (22:52)
I like it.
Tim (22:52)
Second one, you say this, this is when everybody else is zagging. It’s in general good strategy for life. It’s like, don’t always just follow the crowd. It’s like, take that different route and the different approach. It truly does break the noise. Like I saw the emails that you send during the break on some of the lane that we share and then I did thankfully from some other people not just get absolutely like blist with sales where they put some other things in where I’m like, oh, I’m gonna actually look at this. It’s interesting. Um, so I think the strategy just lends so well for that opportunity. Just like when everybody else is just going pure sales, don’t care who the customer is, it’s just like buy stuff, buy stuff, buy stuff. This is your chance just to go that opposite direction and be like, Hey, we get it. Here’s, here’s something that you can escape into and enjoy for whatever it is, five minutes, and then sure, go back to the sales. But you might buy something while you’re here.
Robbie (23:45)
Yeah. It’s, it’s, again, I think that’s just being different, different, better than best and like this, especially during a time where everybody’s saturated.
Robbie (23:52)
Like it’s a really great way to great approach. Yeah. And then last one, consistency over intensity. Like don’t just let this be like a thing you do once a year. Like make this something that you do on a consistent basis. Like make this a piece of hub content that you go to on a regular basis because this is something that you can lean on very consistently and it’s gonna produce results for your business because again, that content, you’re already producing it for some other channels, you might as well get the value out of it and maximize the value of it. And here and then as you’re doing that over time, you’re really training an audience to expect more and find more different ways to use the product or find more value outta the product. And it’s just kind of a, kind of a good strategy for this and for just marketing in genral.
Tim (24:35)
Awesome. Well I enjoyed this. This was good. Like there’s, there’s some useful takeaways, but my voice is waiting outside and I need to climb back inside it, into the next inbox.
Robbie (24:50)
Okay everybody, this is Tim and Robbie, signing off. Excited to if you guys have any questions or comments, let us know. Thank you for Jim Mann for producing this episode and Carese for doing the blood, sweat, and tears work on the backend to make this come to life. So thank you all Tim. It’s been a treat.
Robbie (25:08)
Always. Okay, we’ll see you all later. Bye-Bye.
[Outro]
