In the early 2000s, showrunners Carter Bays and Craig Thomas were pitching ideas for sitcoms to CBS. And on only their second pitch, they struck gold. Why?

Bays said, “It’s like the whole idea of ‘Write what you know.’ If you’re going to pitch someone and say, ‘Give me millions of dollars to write 100 or 200 episodes, you better have material. … Mine your life.”

In this episode, we’re taking a look at the result: their Emmy nominated show, How I Met Your Mother. And with the help of our guest, Director of Content Marketing at AssemblyAI, Kelly Moon, we’re talking about marketing lessons from the show, including standing out, knowing your end goal, showing social proof that others trust you, and being the thing people want to come back to.

About our guest, Kelly Moon

Kelly Moon is Director of Content Marketing at AssemblyAI. There, she builds and leads a team of content marketers who are focused primarily on increasing web traffic, and boosting signups and talk-to-sales hand-raisers. She serves as a key member of AssemblyAI's senior leadership team, driving the organization's content marketing strategy, and rolling up her sleeves to write copy and direct content across AssemblyAI’s website, social, email, customer stories/videos, and more. She also analyzes and monitors content effectiveness and holds each piece to the highest standard, and builds an internal and external content production team and develops a comprehensive content calendar designed to boost awareness, traffic, engagement, and conversions. Prior to joining Assembly AI in August 2023, Kelly served as Head of Content at in-app communications API platform, SendBird. She has also worked at Twilio as Director of Content Marketing & Organic Growth.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From How I Met Your Mother:

• Stand out. Be refreshingly unique for your audience. Kelly says, “So many B2B companies struggle with standing out. In order to be memorable, we have to be different. Be different in our voice, tone and in our philosophy. Don't regurgitate what similar businesses are doing. But I think a lot of businesses struggle with actually executing on this. And they can do that by taking a stance on an issue, voicing their perspective on a hot topic, highlighting their in-house experts, and doing it with a sense of humor and lightness. And I think that's where How I Met Your Mother really nailed it. Because they would cover complex or emotional topics, but then there was always some levity toward the end to really balance things out.”
• Know your end goal. And work tirelessly to make that vision come to life. Kelly says, “When I think about content, I think about not creating siloed content and knocking one tactic out at a time, which is a problem I've seen in a lot of organizations. Instead, look at the entire journey and the story end to end in the same way that How I Met Your Mother producers knew what the end was going to be and all the episodes led up to that. So when it comes to content and just marketing in general, look at the entire journey end to end from a user's perspective and then figure out how each touchpoint connects to deliver an amazing experience.”
• Show social proof that others trust you. It helps build people’s confidence in your brand. Kelly says, “Show the world that others have decided that you're worth their time. And then after they've converted and decided to invest in you, how are you supporting them? And how are you giving them opportunities to provide feedback and respond to how things can be better?”‍
• Be the thing people always want to come back to. Prove your value beyond your product. Kelly says, “In the world of content marketing, it's not enough to just be about one topic. Go deeper and look at the related topics that people are interested in learning more about. As an example, say somebody wants to become a baker. They have ingredients at home to bake cupcakes, so they do some research on how to bake a cupcake, right? But it's not enough to just produce content or assets that just talk about how to bake a cupcake. You have to also talk about what types of cupcakes you can bake, what tools you should consider investing in versus not investing in, tips on keeping the cupcakes fresh… There are multiple pieces of content you can create to offer this complete package and resource of information for somebody.”

*”I always challenge writers to think about what their angle is. I'll use an Assembly AI example. It's not enough to just be like, ‘What is a good speech to text model?’ You have to make sure that the piece of content is really layered and it's comprehensive. How can we make a piece of content really comprehensive? Because somebody that's thinking about a speech-to-text model is likely thinking about a bunch of other questions after that. And you have to make sure that you're not only considering all of those things, but that you then cover it in a way that's unique and there's some kind of a hook. And it has to have takeaways. What can they learn from it? What can they take with them?” - Kelly Moon

*”My content strategy is showing up where people are and having a vested interest in what matters to them. And then delivering really useful information that people are actively looking for from the start of their journey until the end. We're building a foundation of trust with people. They’re going to remember us as a no-nonsense helper and hopefully leader. And then when they are ready to build with us, they're going to remember us because we were the ones who were there for them while other people were giving them a sales pitch.” - Kelly Moon

Links

Watch How I Met Your Mother

Connect with Kelly on LinkedIn

Learn more about AssemblyAI

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com.

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK.

Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.