[This transcript has been automatically generated by a digital software and will therefore  contain errors and typos. Please kindly take note of this and only rely on the digital transcript for reference.]

00:02

Hello boys and girls and welcome to the tattoo business show the best place for expert advice for entrepreneurs. This is Ted, your friend who’s speaking. Today we are exploring the power of written content with Raj Berman on the CEO and founder of Goodman lantern. Goodman.

 

Landon is a one stop shop for your written needs, and a staff of a team of talented writers who have expertise in various different niches. No matter what type of content you need, Goodman, Landon delivers engaging writing this engineer to help boost conversion rates for his customers with the power of written content. So join us is Raj shares about the difference between good content and advertisements, the different segments of the sales funnel and how you should approach it, and how you can ensure that your content is resistant against

 

Google’s algorithm changes. All these in more on today’s show of the disc quick commercial break. Hey, guys, is Ted, thank you so much for joining me on my show. And for all the support. If you ever found any value from the show, I would love if you could subscribe to the show, leave a review on Apple podcasts and share the show with somebody who find it useful as well.

 

All episodes, tools and resources are available on tattooer.com. So make sure you log on to tattoo.com. That’s tdto.com. And make sure you sign up for the newsletter if you want to hear updates from me directly. And now let’s dive right in. Hey, Roger, thanks for joining us today. It’s so nice to have you here.

 

01:21

At his absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me looking forward to having to chat with you.

 

01:25

Yes, me too. No rush. Let’s go for icebreaker Could you share with us who is Ruch? Goodman Honen when he isn’t working,

 

01:32

when Roger is not working, he is a father, a husband. He loves traveling Seraj does a lot of traveling. In the last sort of few months. I’ve been across the eastern Europe, Nepal, Thailand. Now to go to Malaysia, Philippines, back to Europe. So a lot of traveling. I mean, you know this what I love doing and I just somebody who loves food. I mean, he’s traveling, it’s

 

02:04

alright. No rush. Tell us your story. I understand that you were previously in it with an engineer by training. But how did you actually end up developing an expertise in content marketing?

 

02:15

Yeah, it’s an interesting story, actually. So it begins it begins a bit at university and I was doing I was on a PhD to study AI. Fun fact. My mum thought AI was the study of UFOs. So I mean, that’s why you know what AI was back then.

 

20 years back, no one knew what ai ai was today. Obviously, we all hear quite a bit about it. So studying, setting aside a PhD, in the first year itself, I met somebody who mentioned about MySpace, which was the Facebook

 

02:50

of the past. Yeah, remember those pre Facebook days?

 

02:53

Yeah, be Facebook day. So MySpace had launched the US. And they were making waves in the US market hadn’t entered the UK market yet. And it was basically an opportunity to kind of look at what Michael was doing. And I built a clone of MySpace within a month. And I thought hang on this is this is just too easy. Let’s go out and sell this thing.

 

But I didn’t know how to sell it. I didn’t know how to market it. As an did a sort of crash course with a mini MBA on the UK Government. I learned about marketing, loved it.

 

And ever since I’ve been you know, talking about marketing, looking to marketing, first company was social media marketing platform development, were a book on marketing for business, education and Financial Times, worked for a Spanish company, as in the marketing and product development side, then helped him grow to 7 million to 45 million in revenue.

 

Using content actually content is a very powerful beast, both from storytelling as well as SEO thought, hang on, this is super powerful. People need to know about it, you need to scale up the content.

 

How can you do that? That’s where Goodman lantern was born seven years back, the entire team is remote. We are big, big, big on women empowerment. 80% of our team currently is women centric, and we love what we do at Khan, good content writing and help people grow.

 

04:27

Know, Raj, please share with us what is the value proposition of Goodman Letson? In your own words, you just mentioned that you provide a content marketing services. But could you elaborate a bit more?

 

04:36

Absolutely. So Goodman lanten. Effectively what we do is to write content to help companies sell better and grow faster. And we do this by into two ways for clients will often talk about one is by telling genuine stories of our clients, their vision, their values, their mission as a company and why they’re different. And the other part is, for companies who are selling online, which probably all of us are today, we want to do, especially with the pandemic.

 

So, yes, when that comes to it, it’s all about, you know, what you discover is search engine optimization, or SEO, because you know, we all search on google the search on Yahoo, we all use use Bing. And so how do you get top of the rank for the keywords you require? It’s to writing engaging content, it’s about getting people hooked onto what you write, and come back to you for more.

 

So we got content, not only for blogs, and website content, but also do social media, we do white papers, ebooks, research papers, and really help our clients to position them as thought leaders in the space. They belong to no rush, I

 

05:59

understand that Goodman Lenten really focuses mainly on written word as a platform for content marketing. Could you share with us why you have chosen to focus on this area specifically, you mentioned that helps to search engine optimization. But what else?

 

06:11

Yeah, absolutely. So the written word is very powerful. You know, I mean, talking this quite a bit, whereby it’s not a new concept that people have in writing stuff.

 

You know, if you look at Napoleon, when a pass like his memoirs and stuff, you know, he should write best fuses for cassettes and newspapers to get people to join his campaign, and to get more funding for to like him to go and conquer new lands for his country.

 

What’s interesting is that PR, or content is a great way to get people to get started with the content journey, or you end up in, you know, maybe end up in newspaper, maybe, as I listen to the radio, or maybe it’s YouTube as Tik Tok, the written the writing is very powerful. It’s a quick way to get people hooked on to start to understand where you’re coming from.

 

And it’s interesting that you can then deep dive deeper and understand a little bit more about what you’re offering. So it’s the beginning. And in most cases, if you’re looking for a detail oriented content, it’s the you know, this D funnel way of actually helping to get content in front of customers, or audiences,

 

07:31

Raj, I love the fact that you raised the story of Napoleon because Winston Churchill himself was also in a similar position, he wrote a lot of articles and letters about the potential Nazi threat in Germany before World War Two. And all these led to his appointment as Prime Minister when World War Two exploded in Europe. So he’s obviously very true. The written word has a lot of power in persuasion, and conveying messages. But of course, like anything else, there is a skill behind the whole process. There’s a whole form of writing called copywriting is all about converting the reader into a potential lead, and customer now

 

Russia skill technician, like us been many years on this process. And that’s when you can really help a person convey that story, correct?

 

08:11

Absolutely. Ted, I think what’s interesting is that it’s not a one person. Job, it’s not like, it’s not like a one person task. It’s actually a very in depth process. So for any client we work with, we spend the first few weeks to understand their, you know, their story, their mission, their vision, but, but also it comes down to having a team of people.

 

So for any client we work with, we have in there writers, experts in shoe marketing, we have somebody who’s a project manager, we have an editor looks at everything, by from communication to client right through to the writer. So it’s a very in depth job.

 

When people just go hire one vitae, it missing a trick, it is about forming a team and having a degree or runner approach to content.

 

09:00

I guess one of the challenges that you face as a person leading an agency, helping us clients with their written content is to make sure that the voice of each specific customer can actually be understood by your team to make sure that their content has been produced is consistently able to engage with that customer specific audience as well. Right?

 

09:17

Absolutely, it takes it takes a lot of effort to understand what they’re after. And often times, you also see a client’s kind of go, you know, down it journey for about two months or so they want to change the direction as well because they have found a new opportunity or the growing very, very quickly and they want to capitalize that opportunity.

 

And so we have to adapt to the requirements of the client. And while it is challenging, it was also fun because we don’t want to be doing the same thing every day. We want to be making sure it’d be actually adding value to our clients and helping them in the journey and building content.

 

So happily, you know, we have a very happy to kind of change and and make sure that we are live With the clients all the time, I

 

10:01

imagined is never really a dowdy because with so many clients with so many industries, you must be able to write content that resonates with guest specific clients.

 

10:09

Yes. So we also have experts within the company who specialized for example, in certain certain industries, or have extensive work, for example, in journalism in a particular niche. So it’s all about matching the skill sets with the request of the client.

 

So somebody needs somebody who’s very focused on on research, or focus on on it or SaaS companies, for example, we get somebody in was understands that those concepts and can actually help create value for our clients.

 

10:43

I see. Now, Raj, let’s take a step back, could you help us understand what is the difference between good content and advertising? Well,

 

10:51

content is a it’s an all encompassing opportunity. And, you know, you need content for advertising as well. But when you talk about good content, writing versus sort of advertising, now, because it interesting, so let me kind of explain this in this way.

 

So yesterday, I was watching David Ogilvy videos on YouTube, you know, he is a pioneer of advertising, you know, still, you know, is going to start using the industry. And today, when we talk about advertising, we talking primarily about advertising online, some talking about things like on Google, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter.

 

And ads are great if you want to get eyeballs. But it works as long as you paying the data provider of the ads. So Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, the platform is stopped being paid money for the ads, you know, placed anymore, and effectively, the traffic falls off as well. Now, let’s compare that with content writing, especially for SEO, the right content for SEO for your website, or writing content for a strategy, which is which is beyond SEO,

 

for example, LinkedIn or Twitter or social media. What’s interesting is that it’s a gift that keeps giving because even for many weeks, months, years to come, you will still rank and you will still be shown that that content is it’s a gift that keeps giving you keep growing your your leads your audiences, the conversions, even if we don’t pay for content, we start putting content.

 

So it’s a long term strategy. Now, of course, it takes longer to get ranked for this content. But the the impact, the effects stay for much longer.

 

12:51

Guys, this a key takeaway from right, right there? Well, advertisements are great for immediate attention. The problem is that you constantly have to pay for them, the moment you stop to lose the attention.

 

Contrast is to good content, where it’s a gift that keeps on giving. The moment you’ve invested in good content, it can always provide you with new leads down the years, as long as it’s still ranking. So have a balanced approach.

 

Use your advertisements to capture an immediate audience to push your sales, but also invest in good content so that your company has a long term brand strategy in place.

 

Now, Raj, what advice would you give to an agile entrepreneur who’s completely new to the world of content marketing? How should they go about thinking about the content that they create? Is there a framework they can share with us?

 

13:31

Yes, so content writing, like, all the strategies in marketing is a very step by step process. And being an engineer. I love procedures, I love the idea of a structure. And oh, yes, it’s true. So absolutely, there is a structure which you can follow.

 

And typically, when we advise our customers, we think we ask them to think about the content in three parts, which people call today, the funnel or the flywheel and likely in a second as well. But the funnel basically is where you have the top, middle and the bottom of the funnel, top of the funnel is basically think of it as a content, which you can create to attract people to your, to your engine or to your to your system, or to your product, or service.

 

This is all about sort of very high level about your industry, that the industry’s value creation, for example, is very high level even talk about your your business or your service or your product at this stage. Now, you want to get as many people as possible in this top segment because you want to make sure that then they filter down to the ones we’re talking.

 

14:50

So that’s top of the funnel, and he’s all about creating awareness, correct? That’s correct. Yes.

 

14:53

It’s all about awareness. It’s about others. It’s about awareness of the industry and the value of the industry. Free, as opposed to a virus about yourself. That next thing comes which is called the Mofu, middle of the funnel.

 

That’s all about educating people about your service, your products, why you different? Why is your company fun to work with are awesome to work with that middle funnel. Now, the next step after that is conversion, or not people know about your industry, they know about your product or service.

 

The third part bottom funnel of Bofu is all about converting them into a paying customer or lead, or, you know, maybe, maybe it’s a click whatever that you’re offering. That’s what that part is. And at that point, you give some offers, you build something, you know, very precise, very concise, to kind of get people to actually follow a step by step procedure to kind of get the the end call to action, or CTA. That’s how we advise it.

 

Now, you know, often people talk about funnels and talk about flywheel and the flywheel concept, basically, is that, you know, if bottom funnel, you have a fantastic education process is people will come into your funnel, they convert into paying customers, and they’ll talk to other people about about you. And that will help you increase your input from the top of the funnel as well, the people in the bottom funnel will tell their friends and family or their colleagues, and then they will come back and they will become, you know, new prospects for you.

 

16:32

I think the mistake that a lot of new entrepreneurs make is that they jump to the bottom of the funnel immediately, and they try to convert people, right? The problem is when you skip the top and the middle of the funnel, when you’re trying to convert the people they are reaching out to you, it may be as successful as you want it to be.

 

16:45

I agree with you. I think I think, you know, you content has been used to make relationships for long term. I think it’s like going to somebody in a bus stop and saying, Hey, would you would you want to give me $1,000?

 

And they’d be like, No, I don’t know who you are. But if you educate them, tell them train them. In fact, if you look at a lot of these techniques, which people use, or, you know, since we kind of do using content, it’s all about education, because people trust educators, they trust teachers,

 

if you can teach somebody a fantastic way to run their business or solve the problems, they trust you more, and they happy to talk money, or give you their business. And I think that’s all about it’s about adding value, it’s about that sort of good karma, the more you’ve got to put in value, the more you will get value out of people, and it happen for a long, long term.

 

17:44

So guys is rachet make sure that you actually have a top, middle and bottom of the funnel, when you’re creating your content, don’t just skip to the end, because there’ll be a lot harder for you to convert a person into a paying customer.

 

So think about it this way, the customer is a person that you need to nurture a relationship with. And the top and middle funnel is where you can nurture that relationship. And the bottom funnel is where you actually make a sale to them.

 

So don’t skip the top and middle. Otherwise, you’ll be a lot harder to convert a customer at the bottom funnel. Now, Raj, we were talking a little bit about SEO. So how do you actually ensure that the content produced doesn’t get too affected by changes in Google’s algorithm? Do you have any tips on this that you can share?

 

18:21

What I’d say is that, you know, because SEO is a thing, and people know that this is a very lucrative opportunity. There is a trend to write for search engines. So you know people stuffing keywords, or they in a right they have this ratios they kind of follow and, and the fundamental advice which we give to anybody has stopped writing for Google.

 

But writing for bots, not writing for spiders. Start writing for people. Because if people come to your to your to your website, or to your content, they like it, they will spend more more time on it. And that is one of the fundamental written requirements by Google, for example, they like to see people stay on your site. Besides sticky, your content is engaging.

 

And that’s how you will get people to recommend you. And again, that funnel thing we just talking about the flywheel, people will recommend you share your site, your web page, your white paper, your ebook, and they will get more people to come to your site or to your content. And that will help you then filter out the right people want to buy from you, though,

 

stop building content for SEO, Stop stuffing keywords into it, stop writing content, which will actually just bring in spiders and actually think of your spammers start writing for real people in real customers.

 

19:48

I see. So we should definitely make content that resonates with the end user which is the customer and to make sure that that’s something that they want to read. So on the point of keyword stuffing not only does it not work anymore. It should be noted that Google penalizes search websites.

 

20:04

Yeah. So I mean, that’s been happening for multiple years, people, you know, we’re doing keyword stuffing, they will actually write text and light and have a white background. So you can see the, so people can’t see the actual text.

 

But Google can, can can read that text. And it appears that this page is full of like particular keywords. And the past was basically porn oriented keywords, obviously, today, there are all kinds of ads, but that’s all, you know, Blackhat techniques that that’s going to definitely lead you to be marked as spammers.

 

And we’ll help you do nothing rarely does SEO, you really want to focus on, you know, good techniques, where you are really adding value to your end users, giving them educating them on different areas to solve their problems.

 

And I think that’s important as well to configure it, it’s not about you, it’s about your your customers, so add value to their life. So if they are, for example, in in b2b marketing or b2b selling, it’s not only about telling them about what you do, but maybe helping them with their b2b, marketing or selling problems, you write about that?

 

Chances are that you’ll get ranked very well, because you’ll spend time reading recommending

 

21:22

nice, no rush, this is one of my favorite questions, could you share with us some stories of the clients that you’ve worked with and how you’ve helped them?

 

21:29

Absolutely. So I’ll give you two examples. Obviously, I won’t name them, these are very large companies, you know, publicly trading and stuff, so be careful of naming them, but I will, I will, I will drop some insight as to who they are. So one of our clients is a very large group of companies based in Europe, and they start to work with us a few months back, to help them rank their content on the top for their industry.

 

And the industry basically is in the space of, of storage. Just leave it there. That’s right, and somebody who can give you a moment, but so, you know, their competition was ranking really high for for city names and storage.

 

And this was storing your luggage or storing furniture or office furniture, or, you know, if you’re moving into the UK, or European toilet luggage somewhere, that’s where they come in. Now, they were ranking, alright, but they needed some more help to really rank on number one.

 

And within this, you know, we gave ourselves about six months to kind of start ranking, you know, appearing on, on, on, on, on actually on these different websites on, especially on Google, for example. But within the space of one month, we start to see pages pages that rank on the first page of Google. I think the in the span of just two months or so we were we were doing with him 50 keywords ranked based on the content we wrote for them.

 

And most of them were thank going towards the first page. So people often say that takes about six months to kind of achieve content. You know, SEO victories. But the reality is, if your content is skewed and you haven’t enough volume of content, that’s super important, because has to be high volume, and very focused, very focused on writing with a very clear intention is Google can stand intentions of the webpage,

 

you understand that content is about selling mobile phones, or if it’s for selling of storage spaces, or if it’s for you know, selling air conditioners, they understand that. So to have a clear content with great care content, strategy, guidelines. tonality, all that super important. But also important is to have a structure of interlinking to different pages. What are you gonna write about?

 

What’s the value add? What’s it What a unique proposition for them, for example, it is to talk about knowing the city and storage, but also talk about the city’s location, business opportunities, and so you really rank really well for for city rated keywords and storage.

 

And so within a couple of months or so, during plus words have been ranking and it’s actually just growing and growing all the time. So yeah, just do your homework. Well is one thing I learned from from the experience. Number two is a large company just recently gone, gone public with investments from a very large Japanese VC, pe firm, probably guess who the firm is, and that company We’ve helped them really quick storytelling.

 

So we have written white papers for them, to help them tell their story and how they are. Number one safety, especially against fire, earthquakes, they are in the space of automation or industrial automation. So have been tell the story, the unique perspective and also have them write case studies. We’ve written for them, maybe just shy of 100 case studies for them, which really helps people understand what is the value equation that company provides, then you work for them.

 

25:34

Raj, thank you for sharing those stories. Now, here’s my next question. What are some of the challenges that you faced earlier on when you first started? Mentor? Do you have since overcome?

 

25:42

Yeah, so So I think I think the biggest challenge in content writing, and this is something which is a bit harder to sell, but it’s the reality of content is that it takes a longer time with content to see results. That’s the nature of content, right? It’s, it’s not a quick win, or a magic wand, where you just say, You know what I’m gonna do some spells,

 

I’m gonna get this happening. The reality is it takes a longer time. And with that, what happens is, is that we, you know, some clients are don’t want to invest in the long term, they were thinking about short term strategies, they want results in a month, in a day in a week.

 

And it’s our job to educate them that this is a long term strategy, that if you invest in content, you will get benefits of it for a very long time, but you need to invest in it and expect results, sometimes within a couple of weeks. But usually, it’s more like a three to six months time. This is a real results and tangible results in terms of sales, leads, and conversions.

 

26:48

I guess the tricky part is where you have to convince them to stay with you for the long run, and not get fed up maybe within two to four weeks and say, Hey, this is not working and move on to another firm or maybe give up on content writing altogether.

 

27:01

Yeah, true. And I think I think we are very clear about who we work with, you know, we select our customers select us. And if they don’t understand what this status is all about, we clear that this is not gonna work for them.

 

So it’s a two way process. When we talk to a customer, and we select them, or they select us. It’s a two way street. And we make sure that we bring in customers who understand the real opportunity with content, but equally, also understand that it takes a bit longer

 

27:32

now. Right, my next question is something that I’m particularly excited about, you mentioned that you predominately hire females in your company, and you actually champion a gender equal society. Can you share with us more about this initiative? And why are you so passionate about it?

 

27:46

Yeah, it’s really interesting, actually. A bit of backstory. So I grew up in in Kuwait, in the Middle East, and in India. And I moved to UK when I was 19. And in high school, cool. And I noticed that they were, they were, in my class of sciences, they were maybe 10 women, and they were about 30 men, or 30 Boys, and

 

28:13

the school is a disproportionate number. That’s true. That’s that

 

28:17

was one thing that annoys but also, I noticed that the ladies who were he was 10, they tend to be you know, more of them, more of them, the top 10 of the in order of their scores, for example. And actually women, you know, super motivated.

 

But when it comes to workforce and technology, especially, there isn’t representation, but it’s women, like, you know, the ones who I stayed with didn’t end up in technology, the way was the boys that I feel like there’s a total imbalance that also there’s a total imbalance when it comes to the the idea creation.

 

So I think today we have a more male dominated tech industry where there’s, you know, we don’t want to bring in as women as we’d like to in the space, that’s really unfair I would do to is now putting months old, and I don’t want her to come into a workforce, which is totally imbalanced. I wanted to be more neutral, more more fair for them and hoping that with our effort, and today, we have 80% plus women in the company, we will actually make a dent and actually allow more women to get opportunities in tech.

 

We teach them to educate them, we bring them into into different opportunities with customers. And normally we’re doing that we also are aligned women to have more flexibility. There’s one thing I noticed from interviews with candidates that they want flexibility, and that’s a big part of the requirements. So we offer remote working opportunities.

 

We allow our team members to work at Intel, they want to work for example, and we try to build a healthy work life balance for them. That’s what we try to do with that Anthony, when we champion that, we spent a lot of time in mind to it to actually educate and help. And we want our clients to actually also get the benefit of this.

 

So our clients work with us, they also become part of our mission. And they also are basically from sponsors of opportunity. So the more they work with us, the more they actually help society, there are more equal opportunity with, with overall tech industry, having the same number of women and men.

 

30:27

Interesting that you raised this point as well, because due to the under representation of females in the tech industry, this is so consequent, underfunding in FEM tech as well. So that is a problem. So I believe, you know, championing agendas, equal society, like you have, providing more opportunities for them to excel, to learn the skills to take part in leadership roles,

 

and be visible to, you know, the younger generation to come in to learn from them as well, it’s a very important point to really kickstart to make sure that this is actually something that will improve in the long run, right?

 

30:59

I completely agree with you. I think it’s, it’s been way too long that we have, we haven’t done anything about it rarely. And as men, I think we should get behind this campaign to support our colleagues and help them get more representation.

 

So it’s applicants on to me and my company to actually support this cause. And we spend a lot energy on this. And I think this is my, this is my contribution. It’s my contribution to the society, which I live in. And hopefully, this overall, is something that people catch up on and actually help as well.

 

31:37

Right. Entrepreneurship is never an easy journey. Who would you say, provided a very strong pillar of support for you in your journey? And you’d like to take this chance to say thank you to right now?

 

31:47

Yeah. So it’s good thing you’re actually asked this question, because a few years back, I was thinking about, you know, people who have made a massive, massive impact on me and one person springs to mind is His name is Marcus.

 

And he was my mentor. And he, you know, helped me learn about sales and marketing and, you know, blend marketeer just naturally talented. He helped me quite a bit in, in, in sales, and when I was working, working in Spain, and you know, as a mentor, I think without him his concept,

 

I don’t think I’ll ever be anywhere near around today. So, Marcus, thank you very much, my friend, you’ve been an absolute great mentor. And, you know, I’m here because if

 

32:29

you know, Raj, if the listeners only one vote one thing from today’s conversation, will you like it to be?

 

32:34

Well, I think a couple of things. That Okay, I think one thing I would only say is that, you know, start to write content, which really helps your your customers, copywriting for robots, or bots, or spiders. That’s one and number two is make sure that as a person is entrepreneur, you have a mission.

 

Because when you have a strong mission, and you have something you want to implement in with your company, or with your with your, with your social enterprise, that will help you go through the debate, difficult and lonely journey of entrepreneurship. As I said, my mission is to support women and gender equality.

 

And that’s what keeps me up at night also motivates me to be who I am today. So I invite everybody else to think about this as well. A very important concept to drive you to this this cookie, but exciting journey.

 

33:31

So Raj, how can listeners get in contact with you if they need your help? Well, absolutely. Well,

 

33:35

if you if you Google me, Raj Goodman and or if you find your LinkedIn, just add me on LinkedIn, or drop me a line. I’d love to hear from people. So please, please get in touch. And yeah, we’ll be happy to have a chat. Raj,

 

33:50

thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your expertise and stories. I’m very glad to have made this connection.

 

33:56

Thank you. Opportunity and in great job with the podcast. I actually love it.

 

34:00

Thank you, guys. Thank you for joining Raj and I in today’s episode, I hope you learned about the power of written content. And of course, if you need help, reach out to Raj and Goodman leaden and you’ll be in good hands.

 

Now as before, if you’ve received any value from the show, I would love for you to subscribe to the show, leave a review on Apple podcasts and to share the show with somebody who find it useful as well, or updates to some resources and my email list available on patreon.com.

 

That’s tedteo.com that’s all for me today. I’ll see you guys next time.

[This transcript has been automatically generated by a digital software and will therefore  contain errors and typos. Please kindly take note of this and only rely on the digital transcript for reference.]

00:02

Hello boys and girls and welcome to the tattoo business show the best place for expert advice for entrepreneurs. This is Ted, your friend who’s speaking. Today we are exploring the power of written content with Raj Berman on the CEO and founder of Goodman lantern. Goodman.

 

Landon is a one stop shop for your written needs, and a staff of a team of talented writers who have expertise in various different niches. No matter what type of content you need, Goodman, Landon delivers engaging writing this engineer to help boost conversion rates for his customers with the power of written content. So join us is Raj shares about the difference between good content and advertisements, the different segments of the sales funnel and how you should approach it, and how you can ensure that your content is resistant against

 

Google’s algorithm changes. All these in more on today’s show of the disc quick commercial break. Hey, guys, is Ted, thank you so much for joining me on my show. And for all the support. If you ever found any value from the show, I would love if you could subscribe to the show, leave a review on Apple podcasts and share the show with somebody who find it useful as well.

 

All episodes, tools and resources are available on tattooer.com. So make sure you log on to tattoo.com. That’s tdto.com. And make sure you sign up for the newsletter if you want to hear updates from me directly. And now let’s dive right in. Hey, Roger, thanks for joining us today. It’s so nice to have you here.

 

01:21

At his absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me looking forward to having to chat with you.

 

01:25

Yes, me too. No rush. Let’s go for icebreaker Could you share with us who is Ruch? Goodman Honen when he isn’t working,

 

01:32

when Roger is not working, he is a father, a husband. He loves traveling Seraj does a lot of traveling. In the last sort of few months. I’ve been across the eastern Europe, Nepal, Thailand. Now to go to Malaysia, Philippines, back to Europe. So a lot of traveling. I mean, you know this what I love doing and I just somebody who loves food. I mean, he’s traveling, it’s

 

02:04

alright. No rush. Tell us your story. I understand that you were previously in it with an engineer by training. But how did you actually end up developing an expertise in content marketing?

 

02:15

Yeah, it’s an interesting story, actually. So it begins it begins a bit at university and I was doing I was on a PhD to study AI. Fun fact. My mum thought AI was the study of UFOs. So I mean, that’s why you know what AI was back then.

 

20 years back, no one knew what ai ai was today. Obviously, we all hear quite a bit about it. So studying, setting aside a PhD, in the first year itself, I met somebody who mentioned about MySpace, which was the Facebook

 

02:50

of the past. Yeah, remember those pre Facebook days?

 

02:53

Yeah, be Facebook day. So MySpace had launched the US. And they were making waves in the US market hadn’t entered the UK market yet. And it was basically an opportunity to kind of look at what Michael was doing. And I built a clone of MySpace within a month. And I thought hang on this is this is just too easy. Let’s go out and sell this thing.

 

But I didn’t know how to sell it. I didn’t know how to market it. As an did a sort of crash course with a mini MBA on the UK Government. I learned about marketing, loved it.

 

And ever since I’ve been you know, talking about marketing, looking to marketing, first company was social media marketing platform development, were a book on marketing for business, education and Financial Times, worked for a Spanish company, as in the marketing and product development side, then helped him grow to 7 million to 45 million in revenue.

 

Using content actually content is a very powerful beast, both from storytelling as well as SEO thought, hang on, this is super powerful. People need to know about it, you need to scale up the content.

 

How can you do that? That’s where Goodman lantern was born seven years back, the entire team is remote. We are big, big, big on women empowerment. 80% of our team currently is women centric, and we love what we do at Khan, good content writing and help people grow.

 

04:27

Know, Raj, please share with us what is the value proposition of Goodman Letson? In your own words, you just mentioned that you provide a content marketing services. But could you elaborate a bit more?

 

04:36

Absolutely. So Goodman lanten. Effectively what we do is to write content to help companies sell better and grow faster. And we do this by into two ways for clients will often talk about one is by telling genuine stories of our clients, their vision, their values, their mission as a company and why they’re different. And the other part is, for companies who are selling online, which probably all of us are today, we want to do, especially with the pandemic.

 

So, yes, when that comes to it, it’s all about, you know, what you discover is search engine optimization, or SEO, because you know, we all search on google the search on Yahoo, we all use use Bing. And so how do you get top of the rank for the keywords you require? It’s to writing engaging content, it’s about getting people hooked onto what you write, and come back to you for more.

 

So we got content, not only for blogs, and website content, but also do social media, we do white papers, ebooks, research papers, and really help our clients to position them as thought leaders in the space. They belong to no rush, I

 

05:59

understand that Goodman Lenten really focuses mainly on written word as a platform for content marketing. Could you share with us why you have chosen to focus on this area specifically, you mentioned that helps to search engine optimization. But what else?

 

06:11

Yeah, absolutely. So the written word is very powerful. You know, I mean, talking this quite a bit, whereby it’s not a new concept that people have in writing stuff.

 

You know, if you look at Napoleon, when a pass like his memoirs and stuff, you know, he should write best fuses for cassettes and newspapers to get people to join his campaign, and to get more funding for to like him to go and conquer new lands for his country.

 

What’s interesting is that PR, or content is a great way to get people to get started with the content journey, or you end up in, you know, maybe end up in newspaper, maybe, as I listen to the radio, or maybe it’s YouTube as Tik Tok, the written the writing is very powerful. It’s a quick way to get people hooked on to start to understand where you’re coming from.

 

And it’s interesting that you can then deep dive deeper and understand a little bit more about what you’re offering. So it’s the beginning. And in most cases, if you’re looking for a detail oriented content, it’s the you know, this D funnel way of actually helping to get content in front of customers, or audiences,

 

07:31

Raj, I love the fact that you raised the story of Napoleon because Winston Churchill himself was also in a similar position, he wrote a lot of articles and letters about the potential Nazi threat in Germany before World War Two. And all these led to his appointment as Prime Minister when World War Two exploded in Europe. So he’s obviously very true. The written word has a lot of power in persuasion, and conveying messages. But of course, like anything else, there is a skill behind the whole process. There’s a whole form of writing called copywriting is all about converting the reader into a potential lead, and customer now

 

Russia skill technician, like us been many years on this process. And that’s when you can really help a person convey that story, correct?

 

08:11

Absolutely. Ted, I think what’s interesting is that it’s not a one person. Job, it’s not like, it’s not like a one person task. It’s actually a very in depth process. So for any client we work with, we spend the first few weeks to understand their, you know, their story, their mission, their vision, but, but also it comes down to having a team of people.

 

So for any client we work with, we have in there writers, experts in shoe marketing, we have somebody who’s a project manager, we have an editor looks at everything, by from communication to client right through to the writer. So it’s a very in depth job.

 

When people just go hire one vitae, it missing a trick, it is about forming a team and having a degree or runner approach to content.

 

09:00

I guess one of the challenges that you face as a person leading an agency, helping us clients with their written content is to make sure that the voice of each specific customer can actually be understood by your team to make sure that their content has been produced is consistently able to engage with that customer specific audience as well. Right?

 

09:17

Absolutely, it takes it takes a lot of effort to understand what they’re after. And often times, you also see a client’s kind of go, you know, down it journey for about two months or so they want to change the direction as well because they have found a new opportunity or the growing very, very quickly and they want to capitalize that opportunity.

 

And so we have to adapt to the requirements of the client. And while it is challenging, it was also fun because we don’t want to be doing the same thing every day. We want to be making sure it’d be actually adding value to our clients and helping them in the journey and building content.

 

So happily, you know, we have a very happy to kind of change and and make sure that we are live With the clients all the time, I

 

10:01

imagined is never really a dowdy because with so many clients with so many industries, you must be able to write content that resonates with guest specific clients.

 

10:09

Yes. So we also have experts within the company who specialized for example, in certain certain industries, or have extensive work, for example, in journalism in a particular niche. So it’s all about matching the skill sets with the request of the client.

 

So somebody needs somebody who’s very focused on on research, or focus on on it or SaaS companies, for example, we get somebody in was understands that those concepts and can actually help create value for our clients.

 

10:43

I see. Now, Raj, let’s take a step back, could you help us understand what is the difference between good content and advertising? Well,

 

10:51

content is a it’s an all encompassing opportunity. And, you know, you need content for advertising as well. But when you talk about good content, writing versus sort of advertising, now, because it interesting, so let me kind of explain this in this way.

 

So yesterday, I was watching David Ogilvy videos on YouTube, you know, he is a pioneer of advertising, you know, still, you know, is going to start using the industry. And today, when we talk about advertising, we talking primarily about advertising online, some talking about things like on Google, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter.

 

And ads are great if you want to get eyeballs. But it works as long as you paying the data provider of the ads. So Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, the platform is stopped being paid money for the ads, you know, placed anymore, and effectively, the traffic falls off as well. Now, let’s compare that with content writing, especially for SEO, the right content for SEO for your website, or writing content for a strategy, which is which is beyond SEO,

 

for example, LinkedIn or Twitter or social media. What’s interesting is that it’s a gift that keeps giving because even for many weeks, months, years to come, you will still rank and you will still be shown that that content is it’s a gift that keeps giving you keep growing your your leads your audiences, the conversions, even if we don’t pay for content, we start putting content.

 

So it’s a long term strategy. Now, of course, it takes longer to get ranked for this content. But the the impact, the effects stay for much longer.

 

12:51

Guys, this a key takeaway from right, right there? Well, advertisements are great for immediate attention. The problem is that you constantly have to pay for them, the moment you stop to lose the attention.

 

Contrast is to good content, where it’s a gift that keeps on giving. The moment you’ve invested in good content, it can always provide you with new leads down the years, as long as it’s still ranking. So have a balanced approach.

 

Use your advertisements to capture an immediate audience to push your sales, but also invest in good content so that your company has a long term brand strategy in place.

 

Now, Raj, what advice would you give to an agile entrepreneur who’s completely new to the world of content marketing? How should they go about thinking about the content that they create? Is there a framework they can share with us?

 

13:31

Yes, so content writing, like, all the strategies in marketing is a very step by step process. And being an engineer. I love procedures, I love the idea of a structure. And oh, yes, it’s true. So absolutely, there is a structure which you can follow.

 

And typically, when we advise our customers, we think we ask them to think about the content in three parts, which people call today, the funnel or the flywheel and likely in a second as well. But the funnel basically is where you have the top, middle and the bottom of the funnel, top of the funnel is basically think of it as a content, which you can create to attract people to your, to your engine or to your to your system, or to your product, or service.

 

This is all about sort of very high level about your industry, that the industry’s value creation, for example, is very high level even talk about your your business or your service or your product at this stage. Now, you want to get as many people as possible in this top segment because you want to make sure that then they filter down to the ones we’re talking.

 

14:50

So that’s top of the funnel, and he’s all about creating awareness, correct? That’s correct. Yes.

 

14:53

It’s all about awareness. It’s about others. It’s about awareness of the industry and the value of the industry. Free, as opposed to a virus about yourself. That next thing comes which is called the Mofu, middle of the funnel.

 

That’s all about educating people about your service, your products, why you different? Why is your company fun to work with are awesome to work with that middle funnel. Now, the next step after that is conversion, or not people know about your industry, they know about your product or service.

 

The third part bottom funnel of Bofu is all about converting them into a paying customer or lead, or, you know, maybe, maybe it’s a click whatever that you’re offering. That’s what that part is. And at that point, you give some offers, you build something, you know, very precise, very concise, to kind of get people to actually follow a step by step procedure to kind of get the the end call to action, or CTA. That’s how we advise it.

 

Now, you know, often people talk about funnels and talk about flywheel and the flywheel concept, basically, is that, you know, if bottom funnel, you have a fantastic education process is people will come into your funnel, they convert into paying customers, and they’ll talk to other people about about you. And that will help you increase your input from the top of the funnel as well, the people in the bottom funnel will tell their friends and family or their colleagues, and then they will come back and they will become, you know, new prospects for you.

 

16:32

I think the mistake that a lot of new entrepreneurs make is that they jump to the bottom of the funnel immediately, and they try to convert people, right? The problem is when you skip the top and the middle of the funnel, when you’re trying to convert the people they are reaching out to you, it may be as successful as you want it to be.

 

16:45

I agree with you. I think I think, you know, you content has been used to make relationships for long term. I think it’s like going to somebody in a bus stop and saying, Hey, would you would you want to give me $1,000?

 

And they’d be like, No, I don’t know who you are. But if you educate them, tell them train them. In fact, if you look at a lot of these techniques, which people use, or, you know, since we kind of do using content, it’s all about education, because people trust educators, they trust teachers,

 

if you can teach somebody a fantastic way to run their business or solve the problems, they trust you more, and they happy to talk money, or give you their business. And I think that’s all about it’s about adding value, it’s about that sort of good karma, the more you’ve got to put in value, the more you will get value out of people, and it happen for a long, long term.

 

17:44

So guys is rachet make sure that you actually have a top, middle and bottom of the funnel, when you’re creating your content, don’t just skip to the end, because there’ll be a lot harder for you to convert a person into a paying customer.

 

So think about it this way, the customer is a person that you need to nurture a relationship with. And the top and middle funnel is where you can nurture that relationship. And the bottom funnel is where you actually make a sale to them.

 

So don’t skip the top and middle. Otherwise, you’ll be a lot harder to convert a customer at the bottom funnel. Now, Raj, we were talking a little bit about SEO. So how do you actually ensure that the content produced doesn’t get too affected by changes in Google’s algorithm? Do you have any tips on this that you can share?

 

18:21

What I’d say is that, you know, because SEO is a thing, and people know that this is a very lucrative opportunity. There is a trend to write for search engines. So you know people stuffing keywords, or they in a right they have this ratios they kind of follow and, and the fundamental advice which we give to anybody has stopped writing for Google.

 

But writing for bots, not writing for spiders. Start writing for people. Because if people come to your to your to your website, or to your content, they like it, they will spend more more time on it. And that is one of the fundamental written requirements by Google, for example, they like to see people stay on your site. Besides sticky, your content is engaging.

 

And that’s how you will get people to recommend you. And again, that funnel thing we just talking about the flywheel, people will recommend you share your site, your web page, your white paper, your ebook, and they will get more people to come to your site or to your content. And that will help you then filter out the right people want to buy from you, though,

 

stop building content for SEO, Stop stuffing keywords into it, stop writing content, which will actually just bring in spiders and actually think of your spammers start writing for real people in real customers.

 

19:48

I see. So we should definitely make content that resonates with the end user which is the customer and to make sure that that’s something that they want to read. So on the point of keyword stuffing not only does it not work anymore. It should be noted that Google penalizes search websites.

 

20:04

Yeah. So I mean, that’s been happening for multiple years, people, you know, we’re doing keyword stuffing, they will actually write text and light and have a white background. So you can see the, so people can’t see the actual text.

 

But Google can, can can read that text. And it appears that this page is full of like particular keywords. And the past was basically porn oriented keywords, obviously, today, there are all kinds of ads, but that’s all, you know, Blackhat techniques that that’s going to definitely lead you to be marked as spammers.

 

And we’ll help you do nothing rarely does SEO, you really want to focus on, you know, good techniques, where you are really adding value to your end users, giving them educating them on different areas to solve their problems.

 

And I think that’s important as well to configure it, it’s not about you, it’s about your your customers, so add value to their life. So if they are, for example, in in b2b marketing or b2b selling, it’s not only about telling them about what you do, but maybe helping them with their b2b, marketing or selling problems, you write about that?

 

Chances are that you’ll get ranked very well, because you’ll spend time reading recommending

 

21:22

nice, no rush, this is one of my favorite questions, could you share with us some stories of the clients that you’ve worked with and how you’ve helped them?

 

21:29

Absolutely. So I’ll give you two examples. Obviously, I won’t name them, these are very large companies, you know, publicly trading and stuff, so be careful of naming them, but I will, I will, I will drop some insight as to who they are. So one of our clients is a very large group of companies based in Europe, and they start to work with us a few months back, to help them rank their content on the top for their industry.

 

And the industry basically is in the space of, of storage. Just leave it there. That’s right, and somebody who can give you a moment, but so, you know, their competition was ranking really high for for city names and storage.

 

And this was storing your luggage or storing furniture or office furniture, or, you know, if you’re moving into the UK, or European toilet luggage somewhere, that’s where they come in. Now, they were ranking, alright, but they needed some more help to really rank on number one.

 

And within this, you know, we gave ourselves about six months to kind of start ranking, you know, appearing on, on, on, on, on actually on these different websites on, especially on Google, for example. But within the space of one month, we start to see pages pages that rank on the first page of Google. I think the in the span of just two months or so we were we were doing with him 50 keywords ranked based on the content we wrote for them.

 

And most of them were thank going towards the first page. So people often say that takes about six months to kind of achieve content. You know, SEO victories. But the reality is, if your content is skewed and you haven’t enough volume of content, that’s super important, because has to be high volume, and very focused, very focused on writing with a very clear intention is Google can stand intentions of the webpage,

 

you understand that content is about selling mobile phones, or if it’s for selling of storage spaces, or if it’s for you know, selling air conditioners, they understand that. So to have a clear content with great care content, strategy, guidelines. tonality, all that super important. But also important is to have a structure of interlinking to different pages. What are you gonna write about?

 

What’s the value add? What’s it What a unique proposition for them, for example, it is to talk about knowing the city and storage, but also talk about the city’s location, business opportunities, and so you really rank really well for for city rated keywords and storage.

 

And so within a couple of months or so, during plus words have been ranking and it’s actually just growing and growing all the time. So yeah, just do your homework. Well is one thing I learned from from the experience. Number two is a large company just recently gone, gone public with investments from a very large Japanese VC, pe firm, probably guess who the firm is, and that company We’ve helped them really quick storytelling.

 

So we have written white papers for them, to help them tell their story and how they are. Number one safety, especially against fire, earthquakes, they are in the space of automation or industrial automation. So have been tell the story, the unique perspective and also have them write case studies. We’ve written for them, maybe just shy of 100 case studies for them, which really helps people understand what is the value equation that company provides, then you work for them.

 

25:34

Raj, thank you for sharing those stories. Now, here’s my next question. What are some of the challenges that you faced earlier on when you first started? Mentor? Do you have since overcome?

 

25:42

Yeah, so So I think I think the biggest challenge in content writing, and this is something which is a bit harder to sell, but it’s the reality of content is that it takes a longer time with content to see results. That’s the nature of content, right? It’s, it’s not a quick win, or a magic wand, where you just say, You know what I’m gonna do some spells,

 

I’m gonna get this happening. The reality is it takes a longer time. And with that, what happens is, is that we, you know, some clients are don’t want to invest in the long term, they were thinking about short term strategies, they want results in a month, in a day in a week.

 

And it’s our job to educate them that this is a long term strategy, that if you invest in content, you will get benefits of it for a very long time, but you need to invest in it and expect results, sometimes within a couple of weeks. But usually, it’s more like a three to six months time. This is a real results and tangible results in terms of sales, leads, and conversions.

 

26:48

I guess the tricky part is where you have to convince them to stay with you for the long run, and not get fed up maybe within two to four weeks and say, Hey, this is not working and move on to another firm or maybe give up on content writing altogether.

 

27:01

Yeah, true. And I think I think we are very clear about who we work with, you know, we select our customers select us. And if they don’t understand what this status is all about, we clear that this is not gonna work for them.

 

So it’s a two way process. When we talk to a customer, and we select them, or they select us. It’s a two way street. And we make sure that we bring in customers who understand the real opportunity with content, but equally, also understand that it takes a bit longer

 

27:32

now. Right, my next question is something that I’m particularly excited about, you mentioned that you predominately hire females in your company, and you actually champion a gender equal society. Can you share with us more about this initiative? And why are you so passionate about it?

 

27:46

Yeah, it’s really interesting, actually. A bit of backstory. So I grew up in in Kuwait, in the Middle East, and in India. And I moved to UK when I was 19. And in high school, cool. And I noticed that they were, they were, in my class of sciences, they were maybe 10 women, and they were about 30 men, or 30 Boys, and

 

28:13

the school is a disproportionate number. That’s true. That’s that

 

28:17

was one thing that annoys but also, I noticed that the ladies who were he was 10, they tend to be you know, more of them, more of them, the top 10 of the in order of their scores, for example. And actually women, you know, super motivated.

 

But when it comes to workforce and technology, especially, there isn’t representation, but it’s women, like, you know, the ones who I stayed with didn’t end up in technology, the way was the boys that I feel like there’s a total imbalance that also there’s a total imbalance when it comes to the the idea creation.

 

So I think today we have a more male dominated tech industry where there’s, you know, we don’t want to bring in as women as we’d like to in the space, that’s really unfair I would do to is now putting months old, and I don’t want her to come into a workforce, which is totally imbalanced. I wanted to be more neutral, more more fair for them and hoping that with our effort, and today, we have 80% plus women in the company, we will actually make a dent and actually allow more women to get opportunities in tech.

 

We teach them to educate them, we bring them into into different opportunities with customers. And normally we’re doing that we also are aligned women to have more flexibility. There’s one thing I noticed from interviews with candidates that they want flexibility, and that’s a big part of the requirements. So we offer remote working opportunities.

 

We allow our team members to work at Intel, they want to work for example, and we try to build a healthy work life balance for them. That’s what we try to do with that Anthony, when we champion that, we spent a lot of time in mind to it to actually educate and help. And we want our clients to actually also get the benefit of this.

 

So our clients work with us, they also become part of our mission. And they also are basically from sponsors of opportunity. So the more they work with us, the more they actually help society, there are more equal opportunity with, with overall tech industry, having the same number of women and men.

 

30:27

Interesting that you raised this point as well, because due to the under representation of females in the tech industry, this is so consequent, underfunding in FEM tech as well. So that is a problem. So I believe, you know, championing agendas, equal society, like you have, providing more opportunities for them to excel, to learn the skills to take part in leadership roles,

 

and be visible to, you know, the younger generation to come in to learn from them as well, it’s a very important point to really kickstart to make sure that this is actually something that will improve in the long run, right?

 

30:59

I completely agree with you. I think it’s, it’s been way too long that we have, we haven’t done anything about it rarely. And as men, I think we should get behind this campaign to support our colleagues and help them get more representation.

 

So it’s applicants on to me and my company to actually support this cause. And we spend a lot energy on this. And I think this is my, this is my contribution. It’s my contribution to the society, which I live in. And hopefully, this overall, is something that people catch up on and actually help as well.

 

31:37

Right. Entrepreneurship is never an easy journey. Who would you say, provided a very strong pillar of support for you in your journey? And you’d like to take this chance to say thank you to right now?

 

31:47

Yeah. So it’s good thing you’re actually asked this question, because a few years back, I was thinking about, you know, people who have made a massive, massive impact on me and one person springs to mind is His name is Marcus.

 

And he was my mentor. And he, you know, helped me learn about sales and marketing and, you know, blend marketeer just naturally talented. He helped me quite a bit in, in, in sales, and when I was working, working in Spain, and you know, as a mentor, I think without him his concept,

 

I don’t think I’ll ever be anywhere near around today. So, Marcus, thank you very much, my friend, you’ve been an absolute great mentor. And, you know, I’m here because if

 

32:29

you know, Raj, if the listeners only one vote one thing from today’s conversation, will you like it to be?

 

32:34

Well, I think a couple of things. That Okay, I think one thing I would only say is that, you know, start to write content, which really helps your your customers, copywriting for robots, or bots, or spiders. That’s one and number two is make sure that as a person is entrepreneur, you have a mission.

 

Because when you have a strong mission, and you have something you want to implement in with your company, or with your with your, with your social enterprise, that will help you go through the debate, difficult and lonely journey of entrepreneurship. As I said, my mission is to support women and gender equality.

 

And that’s what keeps me up at night also motivates me to be who I am today. So I invite everybody else to think about this as well. A very important concept to drive you to this this cookie, but exciting journey.

 

33:31

So Raj, how can listeners get in contact with you if they need your help? Well, absolutely. Well,

 

33:35

if you if you Google me, Raj Goodman and or if you find your LinkedIn, just add me on LinkedIn, or drop me a line. I’d love to hear from people. So please, please get in touch. And yeah, we’ll be happy to have a chat. Raj,

 

33:50

thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your expertise and stories. I’m very glad to have made this connection.

 

33:56

Thank you. Opportunity and in great job with the podcast. I actually love it.

 

34:00

Thank you, guys. Thank you for joining Raj and I in today’s episode, I hope you learned about the power of written content. And of course, if you need help, reach out to Raj and Goodman leaden and you’ll be in good hands.

 

Now as before, if you’ve received any value from the show, I would love for you to subscribe to the show, leave a review on Apple podcasts and to share the show with somebody who find it useful as well, or updates to some resources and my email list available on patreon.com.

 

That’s tedteo.com that’s all for me today. I’ll see you guys next time.