Camille Ricketts, expert on building communities and creating top notch content strategy, discusses leveraging existing strengths of the Notion community, developing a content strategy based on deep customer understanding and personas, and amplifying word of mouth through community efforts. She also talks about the importance of building a teaching culture, hiring the right marketing and growth leaders, and discusses collaboration apps, social media apps, and tech trends.
Leveraging existing strengths of a community can help find early advocates for a product.
Deep customer understanding and strategy around use cases and personas drive an effective content strategy.
Deep dives
Building a Strong Marketing Team at Notion
Camille Ricketts shares her journey to becoming the head of marketing at Notion and emphasizes the importance of storytelling in marketing. She highlights the significance of hiring individuals familiar with the product and passionate about building relationships within the community. Camille describes the non-traditional approach of early investments in community and the recruitment of a designer who can code. She also discusses the development of a content team focused on both B2B and B2C storytelling. Notion's major initial emphasis on community and content is mentioned, along with their current focus on analytical growth and performance. Camille concludes by sharing advice for building a teaching culture and the importance of understanding the unique story of a product.
Growing and Leveraging Communities for Product Use
Camille Ricketts emphasizes the importance of listening on different channels, such as Twitter, Reddit, and niche forums, to identify target audience interests. She encourages founders to reach out to people in these communities, make them feel special, and value their feedback. Camille highlights the power of assembling a small group of people who are invested in the development of a product and turning them into advocates. She also discusses the use of sponsored YouTube videos and viral assets shared by the community to drive user acquisition. Camille advises founders to start with positioning and understanding what makes their product unique, using this as a foundation for messaging and decision-making.
Crafting an Effective Content Strategy
Camille Ricketts shares insights on building a successful content strategy, starting with a deep understanding of the target audience and their pain points. She recommends creating messages that resonate with the audience and selecting channels that will be most productive. Camille highlights two main channels used by Notion: written editorial content and video on YouTube. She explains how the use of a matrix, aligning use cases with key personas, has made a significant impact on the quality and effectiveness of the content. Camille also addresses the challenge of measuring the success of a content strategy, emphasizing the importance of experimentation and being comfortable with uncertainty.
Balancing Marketing Team Skills and Cultivating a Teaching Culture
Camille Ricketts discusses the importance of balancing the diverse skill set within a marketing team, focusing on both analytical and creative abilities. She emphasizes the need for team members to have cross-functional comfort, and the willingness to ask questions and teach others. Camille suggests incorporating questions about positioning into the interview process to identify candidates who can contribute to this aspect of marketing. She shares advice on cultivating a teaching culture, such as asking candidates to teach something during the interview and fostering a learning environment. Camille concludes by encouraging founders to start with hires who have an innate interest in their product's story.
Camille Ricketts is a true expert on building communities and creating a top notch content strategy. From her early days as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal and Venture Beat to her stint managing the content strategy at First Round Capital, she’s seen the best and the brightest people and companies, and been at the forefront of content and editorial strategy. These days she leads the marketing team at Notion, helping them reach, nurture, and grow their customer and continue on the path of Hypergrowth.
In this episode, you’ll hear how Camille: 1) leveraged existing strengths of the Notion community to help find early advocates for the product; 2) developed a content strategy that leveraged a deep customer understanding and strategy around use cases and personas; 3) amplified word of mouth through community efforts, driving new user growth, and 4) built a teaching culture on her team to ensure that people could learn from each other.
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