Hot Ones: B2B Marketing Lessons from the Show with Hot Questions and Even Hotter Wings with Head of Content at Skilljar, Caroline Van Dyke

It’s tempting to add some sauce to your content to give it flavor. But if the meat isn’t there, what’s the point? 

You have to make sure there’s substance to your work before adding style. That’s one of the things we talk about with Caroline Van Dyke.

In this episode, we’re taking marketing lessons from Hot Ones with Caroline’s help. She’s the Head of Content at Skilljar. 

And together, we talk about making customers the star, focusing on the meat of the content, and much more.

About our guest, Caroline Van Dyke

Caroline Van Dyke is Head of Content at customer education software company Skilljar. She is a content and creative strategist with more than 10 years experience leading B2B start-up content strategies. Her panache? Puns & a little personality can take brands up a notch. She joined Skilljar in October 2023, and previously worked in various leadership roles at RollWorks and Zugata (acquired by Culture Amp).

What B2B Companies Can Learn From Hot Ones:

• Make customers the star. Highlight how your product is helping them. Use their voice in your content. Caroline says, “As a content creator in B2B spaces, when's the right time to make it like, ‘Hey, look at us and some personality on our team or thought leader.’ Is it actually helpful to other people in the audience? Or do you help them make their customers the stars and help give them that material?” It’s like how Sean Evans rarely talks about himself, because his focus is on elevating the guest and highlighting their work. 
• Focus on the actual meat of the content. Educate, entertain, and drive value through the content first. Then you can think about making things visually appealing. But when you put style over substance, your content suffers. Caroline says, “Put that effort into what the actual meat of the content is. That's research, getting to know people, and then we're a little bit more forgiving of how things look. Yes, we want them to still be visually appealing and do your best, but gone are the days of pretending that spending all that money or time just on a facade of something is going to also equal great outcomes.” In Hot Ones, this means that the value is on the quality of the questions and research behind them, versus focusing on having a shiny, sparkly set. 

Quotes

*”We're all just kind of raising this bar together of sameness. And so where can you go to get something a little bit different? And that's not to say that you don't also need that sea of sameness and stability and  important stuff. But what on top of it can you add?”

*”You can't rip and replace a lot of this conversation around taking B2C and making it B2B. It's not one for one. And you'll see people do it poorly, unfortunately, of thinking, ‘Hey, a consumer likes this. So I'm just going to copy it exactly and somehow make the pun relate to my industry.’ If it doesn't land for your audience, respect that other program and don't duplicate it.”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Caroline Van Dyke, Head of Content at Skilljar

[2:44] Caroline Van Dyke's Role at SkillJar

[3:41] The Origin Story of Hot Ones

[5:41] The Unique Format and Success of Hot Ones

[14:16] Analyzing the Interview Style of Hot Ones

[23:38] The Trust Factor in Interviews

[24:35] The Simplicity and Success of Hot Ones

[26:17] Marketing Insights and Trends

[27:11] Imitation and Innovation in Content

[28:04] The Importance of Authenticity

[32:03] Balancing Creativity and Strategy

[35:18] Content Strategy at SkillJar

[41:18] The Future of B2B Content

Links

Watch Hot Ones

Connect with Caroline on LinkedIn

Learn more about Skilljar

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.