On this episode of the Create Like the Greats, we discuss how Toast's $12M+ SEO Moat helped them grow during a pandemic.We explore their strategies and tactics that enabled them to capture market share in an economic downturn, plus what other companies can learn from their success story.With these insights into SEO optimization for e-commerce businesses, you'll be able to better understand how search engine rankings work and apply similar principles when developing your own online marketing strategy.Read more about Toast on our Blog >>> https://foundationinc.co/lab/toast-seo-moat/---If you are running a SaaS or B2B company and need help executing some of these strategies, head over to foundationinc.co/services to find out more about how you can establish your brand as a trusted expert in your industry.---Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletterRoss Simmonds is the CEO and founder of Foundation, a content marketing agency that partners exclusively with ambitious B2B brands looking to create and distribute content that inspires action and produces sales and leads.Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Follow Ross onYouTubeInstagramTwitterConnect on LinkedIn

In this episode of my journal entries, I share one of my most popular presentations. A presentation that I gave to many businesses around the globe and at conferences from coast to coast. In this particular episode, I’m going to be sharing the audio from a webinar I did with the team at Metadata.io about how SaaS brands can win in commoditized markets. You know. Here’s the biggest problem I see right now in our industry: Brands have forgotten that Content Marketing is a two word concept. As such… They’ve shifted their focus to creating content and that’s it. Content.Content.Content. And absolutely no marketing.It’s a shame. More organizations across SaaS need to be thinking like a media company. But I won’t stop there…because, I’m sure you’ve heard that.I go on to say that SaaS brands need to embrace the idea of marketing at its core. Which means companies in the SaaS space need to think holistically about their marketing efforts. Not just creating blog posts and hitting publish for years on end. Blog posts should be the tip of the iceberg for your content marketing engine.A great content engine recognizes opportunities for research, development, press releases, and a great content engine will ultimately lead you to the conversations that you want to have with industry and global leaders. ---Follow Ross onYouTubeInstagramTwitterConnect on LinkedIn

It was 8:20PM.I was just walking out of my kids room after reading them a story called Hair Love for the second time.I walked down stairs, made a cup of tea and opened my phone. It was an email. An email from someone who worked at LinkedIn.It turned out that someone at LinkedIn had caught some of my content online and was interested in learning more about whether or not I’d be interested in recording a course for their learning platform – LinkedIn Learning.A platform where millions of people around the world go to learn about topics like Salesforce, Public Speaking, Accounting, HR and so much more.In this episode, I share why I ultimately said yes as well as 3 principles that have fundamentally changed the way that I approach my content creation. Create content that shapes culture. Content compounds over time. Distribution rules everything around me. Take my LinkedIn Learning Course here > https://www.linkedin.com/learning/content-marketing-distribution-strategy/content-distribution-strategies-for-marketers?autoplay=true&u=76863578—Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletterRoss Simmonds is the CEO and founder of Foundation, a content marketing agency that partners exclusively with ambitious B2B brands looking to create and distribute content that inspires action and produces sales and leads.Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Follow Ross onYouTubeInstagramTwitterConnect on LinkedIn

You've heard the boast.--"I'm too busy to watch TV.""I'm too busy to stay up to date on the NFL.""I don't have time to watch Netflix."--It's really a humble brag. And it's often misguided because the energy spent not "wasting" time usually just shifts to something that is ultimately just as wasteful...like engaging in activities, debates, and relationships that are out of our control.If we want to be successful, this concept of the Circle of Control vs. the Circle of Concern is something we should focus on.There are two things that we have in life that we can spend. Money and time.And it's important that we don't waste our time.The framework of the Circle of Control vs. the Circle of concern has fundamentally changed the way that I think about life.—--Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletterRoss Simmonds is the CEO and founder of Foundation, a content marketing agency that partners exclusively with ambitious B2B brands looking to create and distribute content that inspires action and produces sales and leads.Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Follow Ross onYouTubeInstagramTwitterConnect on LinkedIn

On today's episode, I sat with self-proclaimed email marketing nerd, Chase Dimond and we discussed...first and foremost, being a #girldad and what that means as a business owner.Beyond that, we talked about some of Chase's big goals. Like getting to 1,000,000+ followers on LinkedIn. He shared his strategy which is a combination of 1. Good Content 2. High Volume (of content) and 3. Distribution and Engagement.I was also so intrigued with Chase's story and humble beginnings which tell the story of him being diagnosed with Crohn's disease and his desire to bring awareness to Crohn's was a launchpad for his personal and career growth.Chase is currently a Partner at Structured — a top ecommerce marketing agency, where he runs the email team. Since June of 2018, they've helped clients send over a billion emails resulting in over $100 million in email attributable revenue. A few of their clients include Poo~Pourri, Eight Sleep, Mixtiles, and Health-Ade.But beyond that he runs several incredible social media channels like Daily Copywriting >>> https://twitter.com/dailycopywriter?s=20Follow Chase on Twitter >>> https://twitter.com/ecomchasedimond?lang=enImportant Links:Connect with me on LinkedInFollow Me on TwitterSubscribe to My YouTube ChannelLinchpin by Seth Godin

Join me, Ross Simmonds, as I speak as a guest on the Pipeline podcast with host, Dave Gerhardt."You have to invest in what works and ask yourself 'how does this link back to our overarching goal?'...and what you'll notice is that one aspect of your niche serves your audience better than the others."On this episode, I share how to build your content distribution engine in a way that helps your content marketing strategy thrive for the long term. Avoid the tendency to underestimate the opportunities that exist after you hit publish on your content.Tweets can become blog posts. Blog posts can become podcasts. Podcasts can become videos. Videos can become webinars.Over the last few years, I've distributed blog posts, videos, podcasts, slides, infographics & more for my own brand & for clients to reach millions of people.The content I've touched has made the front page of Reddit 7x, combine for more than 1M visitors via social & referral traffic, more than 1.2M views on Slideshare, over 500,000 impressions on Twitter & 40,000 views a month on LinkedIn.> This doesn't include any of the results that came from paid> This doesn't consider the ROI from using remarketing> This didn't come from begging for shares> This didn't come from a lucky breakIt came from having a deep understanding of how to spread stories across multiple channels without coming off as a spammer or someone STARVING for more diverse traffic. This isn't some special skill or talent...It's something I've trained people how to do at my agency. And it's something that they've gone ahead and trained our clients how to do internally. We actually made a playbook on Distribution. It can be found here: https://training.foundationinc.co/dream—--Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletterRoss Simmonds is the CEO and founder of Foundation, a content marketing agency that partners exclusively with ambitious B2B brands looking to create and distribute content that inspires action and produces sales and leads.Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Follow Ross onYouTubeInstagramTwitterConnect on LinkedIn

Join me, Ross Simmonds, as I spoke as a guest on The Marketing Millennials podcast."The truth is that you can create a great piece of content but if it doesn't get in front of the right people, then it's for nothing."One piece of content can change your life and even your business. And on this episode I share my story, and how it got me into the marketing field. From the movie Boomerang, to studying Marketing at University, the Jetman game on Facebook, and even the beginning of RossSimmonds.com, I share my experience and insight into the power of creating a piece of content and using distribution to keep the momentum.Create now. Thrive later.—--Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletterRoss Simmonds is the CEO and founder of Foundation, a content marketing agency that partners exclusively with ambitious B2B brands looking to create and distribute content that inspires action and produces sales and leads.Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Follow Ross onYouTubeInstagramTwitterConnect on LinkedIn

“Work smart not hard.” This is one of those ideas that sounds great on a billboard. Sound perfect in a tweet. And might even get someone a few email subscribers for suggest that it’s the truth. But as much as this is a great catch phrase:It doesn’t speak to the reality of who gets ahead in life.People who get ahead work both smart and hard. That’s right. You can do both.And it’s a combination of both working smart and hard that differentiates the best from the rest.Take two people with the same intelligence, same circumstances, same privileges and understanding of the world and give them the same amount of hours in a day. These people are just as smart as one another on day one.These people have access to the same resources. But one person decides that they’re going to work two extra hours every single week without impacting their 8 hours of sleep each night.There are 52 weeks in a year. In year one, the person who puts in an extra two hours has 104 extra hours of training, learning, execution & perspective.In year two, that person has 208… In year three, that person has 312.. In year four, that person has more than 400 extra hours of experience under their belt in comparison to the person who they started with.Who do you think will have the bigger advantage?Let's talk about it.—--Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletterRoss Simmonds is the CEO and founder of Foundation, a content marketing agency that partners exclusively with ambitious B2B brands looking to create and distribute content that inspires action and produces sales and leads.Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Follow Ross onYouTubeInstagramTwitterConnect on LinkedIn

It’s the great resignation. It’s the great recession. It’s the great reset. It’s the great…RELAX.The world is in chaos right now.On this episode I share how to How to ride this wave as an individual or employee How to ride this wave as a company trying to grow I share how take ownership of your responsibilities, personal and professional growth, managing up the chain, personal growth, and how to cultivate a positive attitude (what we call "bringing the guac" here at Foundation.)And if you are managing a company, I share the areas where you may want to keep or shift your focus in order to survive a recession or downturn.Foundation is a team of 30 people and we are thriving. Meet the team, our Foundationites, here. Important Links:Connect with me on LinkedInFollow Me on TwitterSubscribe to My YouTube ChannelLinchpin by Seth Godin

Your content strategy has to be rooted in deep research.Specifically, research surrounding the people that you're trying to connect with, which starts with customer research.You need to think about who it is you're trying to connect with (and sell to). You have to get inside of their head. Do that by:Talking to them. Listening to old sales calls. Looking through your frequently asked questions. Diving into the customer support questionnaires and documentation.What are they talking about?What problems keep coming up? You want to dive deep into understanding your customer. You want to look at review sites and start to reverse engineer the things that your competitors are being talked about as being their biggest benefits. And what are the pain points that people are talking about? And you’re not going to stop there.Conduct social research.Comb through review sites.Leverage audience intelligence tools.Reverse engineer social conversations.Analyze the behaviors of those who follow you on social, those who follow your competitors, the types of content that they're engaging with on different channels, and the ways in which they're interacting with that content.Because all of this is going to inform how you distribute your content and the stories that you should be telling on social. ---Join hundreds of content creators, marketers and B2B SAAS brand owners and get content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week >>> https://foundationinc.co/newsletterRoss Simmonds is the CEO and founder of Foundation, a content marketing agency that partners exclusively with ambitious B2B brands looking to create and distribute content that inspires action and produces sales and leads.Ross hosts the weekly podcast "Create Like the Greats" and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Follow Ross onYouTubeInstagramTwitterConnect on LinkedIn