From sales rep to welding floors to a YouTube empire, Todd Clouser shares how he turned niche content into 9M monthly views and $500K ARR. We dive deep into his origin story, the gear that made his content explode, how he landed massive sponsors, and what he’s doing now at AudiencePlus.
Now, he’s taken his audience-building superpowers to Clay — one of the fastest-growing platforms in sales and marketing tech — where he’s helping redefine how businesses connect with their best prospects. If you’re a content creator, founder, or marketer trying to build an audience from scratch — this one’s for you.
Topics Covered:
• Building a YouTube channel in an “unsexy” industry
• Sponsorships vs. AdSense: What actually pays
• The importance of storytelling in educational content
• Moving from creator to B2B SaaS
Transcript
John Smallmtn
Welcome to the show, everybody. Today we have Todd Clauser on the show, who I am a big fan of. I’ve been following his content for a long time. He is the self-proclaimed worst marketer in the world and is currently the Head of Audience Marketing at Audience Plus. He’s just coming off of a really cool event that I’ve got all the FOMO about because I wasn’t able to attend. Welcome to the show, man. I’m so glad you’re here.
Todd Clauser
Thanks for having me.
John Smallmtn
I’m just going to jump right in because I have one very specific question. I was doing some research on you this morning in preparation for the show, and you started out—at least from what I was able to see—in a very non-tech, non-sexy realm of marketing, doing lots of welding and manufacturing stuff. I’m curious how much of that plays into the stuff that you do now.
Todd Clauser
Yeah, so I was in the welding and manufacturing industry. It’s interesting because what you said is the impression that everybody has when I say I came from that industry. We kind of think of that industry as old school, doing all the old stuff that we were doing 15 years ago. But I was lucky enough to be at a company that allowed me in 2011—originally I was an SDR, I did that for six months and was like, “Hey, I suck at this, it’s not working, let me make a YouTube channel.”
This was in 2011; nobody was doing YouTube. The only thing on YouTube from a company standpoint was product demo videos that they would embed on their website. Luckily, I had a CEO who was like, “That sounds interesting. Yeah, do that.” Long story short, that ended up building out this full YouTube program. I did that for 10 years and built a $500K ARR content engine just from sponsorship dollars on that, with nine million views a month across tons of different channels.
So it definitely was in an unsexy industry, but I was able to learn a ton because we were so far ahead of anything anyone was doing. Because we started this in 2011, we were able to be on the front lines of every social media platform in its heyday, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for a short while before I left.
Then the goal was—I got sick of the long hours and editing video until two in the morning—so I essentially pitched, “Hey, I want to bring what I’ve learned from the audience-building side into B2B,” and that’s what we did.
John Smallmtn
You talk a lot about making your content fun—not just doing the legal, professional version of marketing, and not just talking about how great you are. Were you exploring that stuff back then, or was it just kind of a glory day where any kind of consistent content on a semi-regular basis was going to get really good growth and reach? How’d you make it fun?
Todd Clauser
A couple of things. One, I say we were in the heyday of all these platforms, but I don’t think long-form YouTube ever really had a heyday where long-form organic YouTube reach was just easy to get. It took us five years to get to 50,000 subscribers, and then we basically started doubling every year after that.
To answer your question about making content fun: it’s not so much about making it fun, though that’s one way to do it. What we’re trying to accomplish with any content is to make it interesting for the person to continue watching, and make it memorable so they remember you after they finish watching. If the best way to do that is just sharing a new idea in a talking-head manner, but it’s so mind-blowing that nobody’s ever heard it before and that’s what makes it memorable, that’s one thing.
When you’re talking about things in my old YouTube days, it was welding education. These things have been around forever, so how do you make that interesting? With our content, it wasn’t always fun; a lot of it was straight-up how-to content. The thing that differentiated us in that space was that we were very unique. A lot of people in that industry had a very difficult time filming what was happening underneath that weld arc. It’s super bright, you have to wear a welding hood to see it, and it’s very difficult to film what the welder sees through a camera. We figured it out, and that helped us blow up because now we could teach to exactly what you’re seeing, rather than explaining something after it had happened.
That’s one way we made it super interesting, because not only could we show it, but we could blow it up to where it filled the entire screen.
Later on, we also started playing around because by the time I left, we had filmed over a thousand long-form videos. Usually, they were anywhere from 8 to 20 minutes, so it wasn’t just one-minute videos. We started testing out different ways of delivering the same message. At one point, we did a ’90s “As Seen on TV” infomercial style with bloopers—like when everything falls out of the cabinet. We tested out more storytelling. Instead of just—and I’m speaking in a welding context here—having a good, better, best weld scenario, we told the audience a story that went along with it: “All right, if you want to get paid $15 an hour, here’s how you do it. But you don’t want to get paid $15 an hour, so if you want to get paid $50 an hour, here’s how you do it.” We told this whole long story that went from good, better, to best.
Just that storytelling act—we had created that content dozens of times in different ways over the past several years, but when we released that piece of content, it was one of our best-performing pieces because of the storytelling element. When we released it, it got like two million views in the first two weeks. We were able to test all different formats, concepts, and delivery of the message to see what worked for our audience.
John Smallmtn
That is very, very interesting. I love the formatting of making it unique and trying to find a way to tell it in a different way. When it gets ramped up to that level, did it go from an experiment to there being pressure on the results, specifically in that welding channel? Did it stop being fun and easy to do because there were now stakes?
Todd Clauser
Yeah. In the very beginning, growing up, I made skateboard and snowboard videos. Video was always a hobby, which is why I was probably 19 years old when I pitched, “Hey, let me do YouTube instead.” It was kind of this fun thing.
At a certain point, we got sponsors and we had to put out a certain amount of videos per month. We based our price increases on the amount of videos, views, engagement, the people that saw the entire video, retention, and all that kind of stuff. In order to justify those pay increases, we had to showcase that viewership.
The way we monetized those videos—obviously, we had YouTube AdSense, but that was a very small portion of the income. Most of what we were doing was old-school product placement. In a lot of YouTube content, you’ll see a built-in ad at the beginning for Raid Shadow Legends or whatever. We did very little of that. Every now and then, some big company would reach out to us because we were their perfect target demographic. Dollar Shave Club or Manscaped would hit us up—anyone who had a predominantly male 20 to 40 age demographic.
The main revenue stream that we had was these ongoing partnerships with welding manufacturers of power sources, PPE, filler, whatever. It wouldn’t be those typical YouTube sponsorships that we think of, but more like, “Hey, we’re going to pay you $100,000 a year. You’re going to use our product in X amount of videos. If we’re teaching people how to weld aluminum, you’re going to use a green machine while you teach people.” Those were the type of sponsorships that we did.
We would have typical monthly QBRs and quarterly reviews, and the things that we always reported on were: “All right, for every piece of content that your brand showed up in, here’s how many views it got, here’s how many people saw where your actual content or piece of equipment was being promoted, and here’s how many comments where people asked about the equipment in the video.” So yeah, there was a lot of pressure to continuously create content that met a certain threshold of viewership.
John Smallmtn
Interesting. Okay, so that brings all kinds of questions. Were you seeking out these sponsorships, or had you gotten to the place where people were seeking you out via inbound, saying, “Hey, we would love to sponsor the show”? Was it proactive, or did you hit a critical mass where people started reaching out to you?
Todd Clauser
It was both. Typically, we would reach out to companies where we either just wanted their equipment to use long-term in every video—good equipment we wanted to use—and say, “Hey, by the way, we can show 9 million people a month your equipment. Pay us to put it in here.” That was one route.
What’s super interesting—because I also did the sales outreach for partnerships for the channel—the most effective way for me to get in front of the right people (and I’m going to say 90% of our sponsorships were closed this way) was through Instagram DMs.
Typically, the person that runs the Instagram account isn’t the one that holds the budget for influencer marketing, but they reported up to that person. We were arguably the biggest influencer in that space, so when we would reach out to them, they would shoot it right up the chain. Instagram DMs was the channel for us.
That being said, that was outreach, but there were other ways that we got sponsorships, too. We did very little one-off sponsorship deals. If someone said, “Hey, I’ll give you $5,000, send an influencer package, and you shoot a 90-second commercial at the front where you say these specific things,” we did very little of those.
When we did do those, a lot of times it was because—while we were an educational channel—we also did projects. When we needed certain equipment for projects, we typically had very aspirational goals, and the equipment was very large from a footprint standpoint and very expensive. We had a CNC plasma table that took up probably 20 by 20 feet, so it was a massive thing. In those cases, it’s a $40,000 piece of equipment. In that scenario, it would be, “Hey, send us the equipment for free. We’ll use the equipment, showcase it, and call you out anytime we use it.” It wouldn’t be a monetary thing, but more like, “You’ve got capital equipment that we need to do this thing that we want to do, so send it to us and keep it here.”
In some cases, like even with that one, we would allow their local salespeople to come into our office and do demos for them. There were different things like that, but anything that we did, ideally, was for the long term.
John Smallmtn
Did you ever have any of these brands or sponsors want to have a say in the creative process?
Todd Clauser
All the time. This is why 99% of the time we pushed long-term partnerships versus a one-time “Hey, we’re coming out with a new product, you can show it to your audience.” We tried to do long-term partnerships.
Todd Clauser
But this is also the beauty of having a very large following. If a sponsor comes on—and there was one, I’m not going to name names—they literally gave us a spreadsheet of probably a thousand SKUs. “Here are all of the products that we have.” It was a filler wire company, so basically the metal you use to weld two pieces of metal together. There are all these different types of filler for different applications. They had a thousand SKUs on this spreadsheet, and it was like: “This one’s for this application, this one’s for this application. Here are our scheduled campaigns over the next two quarters. We want you to create a video with this one for this application this week.”
We were like, “That’s not how we work.” The reason that we were so successful—and this is how I actually approached that conversation—was, “Okay, listen. We’ve already created some videos on these applications, so we’re not going to do that again right away.”
We always had a 30-day content calendar of what we planned on filming week to week. I would say, “All right, here’s what we’ll do. We’re going to put this on the content calendar and spread it out so it’s not all about you guys, but we’ll do these applications.”
The reason we were so successful is because the content calendar that we created on the first of the month was very different every single month from the content that was actually distributed in that given month. The content calendar was essentially our Plan B. Anytime somebody in the audience asked for something specific that we had the materials and the timeline for, and everything we needed in-house to create for that person, it automatically went to the top of the content calendar.
About 90% to 95% of the content that we created was a direct response to someone who asked something. Again, as you build your audience, that percentage goes up because you get more people asking questions. I would say about 5% of it was just projects that the host of the show or I thought were cool and wanted to do. Then the other 5% would be what was originally left on that content calendar that we could slot in.
John Smallmtn
Man. First of all, I love the forward-facing plan that you can share with potential sponsors so that way they can see it. Did you ever have anyone pissed off that the content actually being released was not the content on the calendar? Did you ever get that kind of pushback?
Todd Clauser
The only time that ever happened was if—and we tried our very best to slot it in at the appropriate time if this was the case… When doing long-term partnerships, specifically with manufacturers coming out with a net-new product—not the third iteration of something they’ve already had, but something net-new like a machine—they typically do a very big marketing push across all channels with everyone they work with.
With us as a long-form YouTube channel, they typically wanted us to do an unboxing, go through the machine, and show all of its features and functionality. In those cases, if someone came out with a new product and we were slow to get that video out, some people would be like, “Guys, come on.” But we did our best to get those out on time. It didn’t happen often—maybe once or twice.
John Smallmtn
Interesting. Leaving that, is that when you made the jump over to B2B SaaS?
Todd Clauser
Yeah, I made the jump in January 2021, I think.
John Smallmtn
Okay. What are the biggest differences with trying to do content in B2B SaaS versus trying to do content in a quote-unquote “unsexy” old-school business lane?
Todd Clauser
I don’t think it’s necessarily the industry difference. The main difference for me was when I was working as an influencer and people were paying us for eyeballs on content, a lot of times we would produce content and they’d come to me and say, “Hey, how do we know what we’re getting from this?”
Not to be rude, but typically my response would be some variation of, “My job as the influencer is to get eyeballs on your machine. Your job is to figure out how to measure that and do what you want with it.” To put it bluntly, that was the message.
When I came over to B2B SaaS, now I was the one asking, “Okay, how do I attribute and figure out what we’re actually getting from these things, distribute dollars, and that sort of thing?” To me, that was the biggest change: I shifted to the customer side, in a sense.
John Smallmtn
Interesting. Okay, so I’m going to mix it up a little bit because I’ve been thinking of the questions that I have for you specifically. What do you do now when you get writer’s block or when you’re struggling to come up with something to make? How do you handle that? It’s totally valid to say that you don’t really run into it anymore, if you don’t.
Todd Clauser
No, I do all the time. I think everyone runs into that; I don’t think that’s something you ever really get over. Obed and I go through this a little bit in the “Easy Mode” framework and the ideation stage of that. I’ll just say you can go check that out if you want an actual list of the best things to try to do.
As far as writer’s block goes and how to be creative on demand, first off, there’s never going to be a silver bullet where you can just do these three things and come up with an idea. What I typically find helpful if I’m having writer’s block or can’t come up with the concept of a show is that I’ve got a small network of people whose ideas I trust. I know that if I go to them, we can collaborate.
It’s kind of like doing what we’re doing right now, but not recording it as a podcast: “Hey, I’ve got some ideas. I know what I need to accomplish, but I can’t really think of a format for how to do it. Here’s the loose stuff floating around in my head, but it doesn’t really connect. I need to figure out how it works.”
Collaborating with other people—and I really like doing this with external people because their minds aren’t embedded in the goals of the company and what you need to get done—usually makes the ideas a little more creative and outside the box. So that’s one thing.
I’m going to pause for a second so you can cut that out.
John Smallmtn
No worries. We can’t afford editors here, so the whole thing is just going to go up. It’s fine! The singles upon singles of people who are going to watch this thing are going to love that cough.
Todd Clauser
All right, cool. The second thing—this may work for some people and not for others, but it works for me—if I just can’t think of something, going for a run helps. I’ll be a mile or two into a run and random thoughts just pop into my head.
I listen to music, but not music I would listen to in the car or sing along to. I’ll listen to music that’s just vibey running beats, so I’m not thinking about lyrics. A lot of times, thoughts will pop into my head, I’ll stop for two minutes, throw them in my notes app, and then keep going.
Those two things typically work for me.
John Smallmtn
How long have you been a runner?
Todd Clauser
I started during the pandemic.
John Smallmtn
Really? That’s fascinating, because I don’t meet a whole lot of people who come to running as an adult.
Todd Clauser
Yeah. I played lacrosse as a kid, so there was a lot of running in that, but never cross country or anything like that. Then I stopped. I don’t think I ran from probably 2004 to 2020, so I was out of it for a long time.
When the pandemic hit, I was just at home. At the time, I lived in Florida and it was beautiful outside, so I was like, “You know what? Let’s go.”
John Smallmtn
Interesting. This is a wild tangent, but I love hobbies where you can find recharge, meditation, and self-improvement. Do you have any tips for people who want to try to get into running as an adult?
Todd Clauser
I’ve got one tip. This helped me a lot, and this is going to be a product pitch, but I have no association with it: I found myself getting super bored while running. I would stop not because I was dead tired or out of breath, but because I was just like, “Ugh, I’m bored. I’m going home.” I would run a mile and be like, “I’m done, I don’t want to do any more.”
I downloaded an app called the Nike Run Club app. I know there are other running apps out there, and I don’t know if they all do this, but when I first started, I was doing half-marathon training and they had a coach who literally coached you as you went. I would have my music in the background and this app running. You’re running, and he would pop in every two minutes: “Focus on this, focus on that, do this, do that.” There would be speed runs where it’s like, “All right, you’re going to run at an eight out of ten effort for the next 30 seconds, and then you’re going to go back.” It kept you engaged, which for me was the biggest difficulty because I would just get bored.
John Smallmtn
Fascinating. I loathe running. I was in the military and it just ruined it for me; I hate the whole thing. Part of it comes from just counting steps, getting tired of counting, and then not knowing what else to do. That’s very, very interesting.
Okay, so going back to the SaaS stuff. When you’re dealing with all these smart people who have big goals, can you talk about the pressure that comes with that from a content creation standpoint?
I love what you said a second ago about getting output from people outside of the organization because they’re more creative and less focused on business goals. But what happens when you’re surrounded by people who are only focused on business goals because there’s VC money and investors, and everyone wants to get paid back? Did you have to fight to be heard, or fight to test certain ideas and try to be unique or different? Where do those arguments come up when it’s funded and everyone has big goals?
Todd Clauser
Yeah, a couple of things on this. Everyone asks me this—what I get a lot is, “How do you pitch what you do at a company?” Because what I do is typically hard to pitch, right? “Hey, how do I pitch that I want to create an episodic series?” That’s a hard pitch at most companies, so people ask me this a lot. And—
Todd Clauser
I’ve been lucky enough in my career that I’ve built a personal brand that basically does the pitching for me. Typically, when I go into a company, that’s why they’re bringing me in, versus coming in as a traditional content marketer like I was back in the day, trying to pitch myself to build a YouTube channel.
When I come into a company, they usually bring me in for a specific reason, and it’s because of the content that I’m known for. Whatever your skillset is, if you build a personal brand around that skillset so that people know you for that thing, when you go into any company, you’re not going to have to sell that thing because that’s most likely why they brought you in. That’s one bonus of building a personal brand.
For people who haven’t done that, who are already in a company and want to go this route, you can try to see if you can carve out a small budget to run a show or a podcast. In my experience, when you try to do that, you have to be really good at internal marketing. If you’re not good at internal marketing and showing everybody the leading indicators that success is on its way—that people are engaging, people are telling you how much they love the show, stuff that does not equal dollars and cents, but is a leading indicator that you’re going in the right direction—you have to be super good at that.
If you can’t get that budget carved out to create something, or the time or approval… let’s face it, you can do a podcast on a very low budget, so a large budget is unnecessary.
The other thing I would say, and this is what I did when I came into B2B SaaS: when I worked at Refine Labs, my job was basically to expand the channels. They were doing very well at podcasting and on LinkedIn. My goal was to come in and expand those channels. I didn’t get approval to make skits or do entertaining content; I just did it on my personal brand.
We were very into self-reported attribution there. When people started seeing my TikToks or a funny video that I posted on LinkedIn, that’s when I proved it through my own brand. My own brand is mine—I can do whatever I want with it, and it was working for me. That was the proof point to say, “We should probably start to invest in this from a company standpoint.” That’s how I would recommend most people do it. If you have the confidence to try it yourself and you think you can be successful, prove the concept personally first.
John Smallmtn
That’s really, really interesting. When we’re thinking about marketing in the B2B space, there are people who talk about building a personal brand, telling a story, creating a media company, documenting—all these other things. For someone who’s starting today—maybe they’re a seller, a marketer, or launching their own thing—what do you think the best way is to start to flesh that out so that they’re starting from a clearly defined starting point? Where would you point someone if they were brand new to start figuring stuff out?
Todd Clauser
I heard Colin Fleming last week at Golden Hour. He’s the Executive VP of Global Marketing at Salesforce and the mind behind Salesforce+, which was the first B2B streaming platform. I heard him say something last Wednesday that never really hit me until he said it, but I think it’s a brilliant way to start.
The way I’ve always started is kind of difficult: we have to think of shows, execute on those shows, and distribute those shows. But he outlined a much easier path to success and getting started, which was basically taking something that your company is already executing really well, and then using an owned media strategy to make it go further.
As an example, Salesforce is an events-first company. Everyone knows Dreamforce, and they have a bunch of different ancillary events. The starting point for them to create Salesforce+ was wanting that event content to go further, versus forcing people to be there in person to see it or just dumping it all on a resources page. That’s how they started getting people there. Once the site had all of that traffic, that’s when they started doing episodic series and more highly produced stuff.
If you have something—it doesn’t have to be events, but events are a perfect example—where you can increase the value of it by creating a channel like this, that’s a perfect way to start, and it’s a very easy pitch.
For example, let’s say we created Golden Hour, but we didn’t have this owned media strategy. Even if we didn’t do all the content activations that we did, I would still have something like 20 sessions that were just sitting there. Every event usually sells a virtual ticket for $800 and an in-person ticket for $1,500, but we basically gave the virtual content away for free because we’re building our owned media strategy around it over the course of the next year. Taking something that you’re already doing really well and using it as a way to gain subscribers and build an audience is a perfect way in.
John Smallmtn
I love that idea because it’s simple: do the things you’re already doing and put a camera in front of them. You don’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel.
Changing gears wildly: you’re just coming out of this event. What did you learn about executing this event specifically that you’ll take into next year and the next time you do it? What improvements can you already see for the next repetition of the in-person event itself?
Todd Clauser
First of all, all the feedback has been amazing. This almost sounds nitpicky because most of the feedback was good, but there were a couple of issues with the venue. We had 300 people going up and down between four elevators for meals, which caused some time delays.
We packed so much content into a single day. As someone who threw the event and was part of the team hosting it, I basically missed it all because I was running around doing stuff. I wish there was a way to be more active with the people there. This is the first event that I’ve been an actual part of planning and running. I’ve always just been the marketer who shows up, learns, has a good time, and meets people, so I wish I could do that more.
Regarding the amount of content, we’re probably going to write something or create a video. We have a documentary coming out, but we’ll also do something quicker that takes people through how we thought about content. I put this out today: we created 120 pieces of content in a single day.
I know when people hear that, it sounds very GaryVee. But these were individual episodes of a series, plus the sessions, which made up about 30 or 40 of those. Even when you take out the sessions completely, we probably still created 90 pieces of episodic content at the show through content activations, where people could include themselves in the series that we were creating on the spot.
Every time someone came off the stage, we had short-form podcasts set up: “Before you un-mic and walk away, sit right here. We’ve got five questions for you; knock these out.” We have episodes of a show called Clipped that features an absolute dream list of the best B2B marketers in the industry. It’s insane, so I’m pretty excited about that one.
John Smallmtn
Talking about this massive amount of content, was it like speed dating in terms of coming up with ideas, or was everything already formatted and formulated in advance? How much was off the cuff?
Todd Clauser
Everything was done in advance. When it came to questions and topics, everything was thought out beforehand.
In the show I just mentioned, when speakers came off the stage, everybody had five questions. Fun fact: we had one camera operator at the show for every 20 people there. When speakers came off the stage, there was a camera operator and someone on our team standing behind them with the five questions for that individual person. They asked the questions, and we’ll edit out the interviewer so it’s just the guest’s answers. That was all formulated.
We had two content booths set up. One was for Tim Davidson, where we made a fruit stand for him. He recorded six topics in between sessions—just him and the camera—that were five to eight minutes long. Anytime the sessions let out, he was there bringing people in and cutting fruit with them.
We had the same thing with Obed on the other side: he was playing PlayStation with people and talking about content. We had another booth where you could go in with prompts and create content right on the spot. Vimeo sponsored that particular content activation, and they had a text-based editor tool where they were editing the content in real time as you recorded it. You stood there for five minutes, they sent you the video, and you could post it in real time.
There was a ton of content that we were creating, and that doesn’t even include the main sessions.
John Smallmtn
You’ve used this label a couple of times: what exactly is a content activation?
Todd Clauser
We pitched this event as the anti-B2B conference. We didn’t want it to be like every other marketing conference; I don’t think marketing really needs that. We still had sponsors because we had to pay for the event, but there were no badge scans and no traditional sponsor booths.
For instance, Vimeo sponsored what we called the Golden Hour Studio, which was the live-editing booth. Where a typical sponsored booth would say, “Hey, come look at our product, let us scan your badge, and we’ll talk to you later,” what sponsors got with us was a content activation.
There was a giant TV in the room, an editor, and a camera setup. Anyone could come in and record these prompts. What attendees saw from a branded, sponsored standpoint was the product in action—the editor was using Vimeo’s product while the attendee walked away with content from it. It wasn’t, “Hey, come in and demo the thing.” Any sponsored content activation was basically our answer for the future of event booths, where you want to be involved with that sponsor’s booth because you get something out of it that isn’t just swag.
John Smallmtn
So were you guys pretty specific in inviting people who could aid in the content creation process in some way, shape, or form so that they get to have an experience, as opposed to just a really bad event conversation?
Todd Clauser
Yeah, there was a lot. There was one that I really wanted to do, but we ended up not being able to do it. It was actually going to be the day before the event. I’m not going to give the full context of the show because I still want to do it at another spot, so I don’t want to give too much away.
At the core of the idea, I was going to pick people up at the airport. We were going to rent an Escalade or some nice black car and pick up speakers and attendees at the airport the day before the event. We were in talks with Uber and Lyft to sponsor the show. The idea was, “Hey, hit me up. Depending on when you land, I’m going to pick up eight people on the Tuesday before the show, and we’re going to record this piece of content as I bring you back to the hotel.” I was basically going to be their host slash Uber driver. It’s still going to happen, so I don’t want to give away what actually happens in the car.
Rather than saying, “Hey Uber, sponsor our B2B marketing event, have a booth, and talk about Uber for Business,” we’re creating content around what the company actually does. We showcase the product—the same thing with Vimeo. You showcase the product in a way that doesn’t feel like you’re being pitched, but you still understand what it does, and you get content at the end of the day.
John Smallmtn
I love that. What a unique way of making the event different and trying to bring in a new kind of sponsorship. Once you’ve been in the space for a while, you know who typically funds this stuff. I just came from an event where they were trying to do it differently as well: they weren’t allowing any of the vendors to get up and talk. Some people opted out of that because they felt, “Well, if I can’t talk, I’m not going to do it.” Doing things differently brings potentially new people to the crowd, which I find interesting.
Okay, so I have some more rapid-fire questions for you, if that’s okay. When you get hired for a marketing role in B2B SaaS, what do you think that first 30 days should look like? What makes a great first 30 days for a brand-new marketer in a brand-new role?
Todd Clauser
Typically, from a content marketer’s standpoint—and I’ve made this mistake in the past—if you’re going into a company that’s later stage and you have more time, my 30 days would be getting very in tune with the product, talking to customers, and understanding their pain points, what they want, and what the product does.
The reality of working for an early-stage startup is you might have maybe a week to do that. You need to start shipping things quickly, so you do that in the background. You can’t spend all day doing it, but you start doing that type of research in the background.
I always start with a content audit. The way I audit things is a little different than the way most companies audit things. I go in and look at anyone who’s posting on LinkedIn or social media—typically executive leadership, the CEO, the CMO. I go see what they’re actually talking about and start bucketizing that. I do the same thing for blogs, newsletters, or any recurring content.
From all of that, I start creating what we call the “realm of relevancy” in the Easy Mode framework. Early-stage startups often don’t have a true strategic narrative, so that’s kind of what I build that into. If the company already has a strategic narrative built out, then it’s just a matter of aligning the things everyone is talking about. Does that actually align with the mission of the company, or is it completely different?
Peep Laja over at Wynter is a really good example of this with his LinkedIn content. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a piece of content from him that isn’t a deep dive into messaging; he is dialed in. A lot of people aren’t that regimented in the topics they talk about at all levels. It’s like, “Okay, what do I talk about today?” Sometimes it has no relevance to what the company actually needs them to talk about. I like to try to build that out so everyone can speak from the same voice.
John Smallmtn
What are you seeing in B2B marketing and content creation that you’re excited about? Are you seeing any trends, tech, or ideas that are really getting you excited?
Todd Clauser
Something that’s really getting me excited is that a lot of people are starting to accept the fact that we can push the boundaries a little bit with content. A year and a half or two years ago, when I first started doing entertaining content, everybody would push back: “Yeah, this is funny or cool, and you got a lot of views and vanity metrics, but that didn’t actually do anything other than get a thousand likes.”
I’m excited to see that mindset shift happening. Now, that being said, I think the way a lot of people are creating entertaining content is true to what people were pushing back on me for. While we’re testing the boundaries, we need to be very cognizant that we’re aligning that content to actual business goals—whether that’s spreading our narrative or talking about a product or feature in an entertaining way. We’re not going for likes for the sake of likes.
John Smallmtn
What’s your pet peeve when you’re scrolling on LinkedIn or social media? What do you see from a content marketing perspective that just makes you roll your eyes—like outdated mantras or ideas that aren’t helpful anymore?
Todd Clauser
Honestly, two years ago I probably could have given you a list, like rolling my eyes every time someone screenshots a tweet. At this point, nothing really bothers me; I don’t really care. I recognize that not everyone’s goals with their content are the same as mine. Maybe something works for them that would absolutely not work if I tried to do it. Because not everyone’s goals are the same, as I scroll through these channels, I can’t even think of an example where I do that.
John Smallmtn
You posted something about how you shouldn’t always give value in the feed, which is interesting because a lot of people talk about not making users click or leave because of algorithm suppression and because people want to be helped right there. What do you think the ratio should be on that now from a business standpoint? How do you balance helping people right in the feed versus trying to get them to take an action or move closer in your direction?
Todd Clauser
I can share what’s worked for me, with the caveat that it really depends on the goals of your content.
The whole thing that prompted this was thinking back to my YouTube days. For probably two years, if you had asked me six or seven months ago what makes me roll my eyes, it would be when people say, “Here are 10 things to help you do X,” give you eight, and then say, “Look at my newsletter for the last two.” That used to drive me insane.
Then I realized that’s the exact same thing I used to do on YouTube, and it worked phenomenally. Had I done in the past what everyone in B2B pitches now—providing all the value in the feed and not making them go anywhere else—I never would have been able to create a sustainable YouTube channel from a revenue standpoint.
If I did that, all the content created on YouTube would have been on Instagram. I could have grown my Instagram following 10 times faster than my long-form YouTube channel had I done that strategy. If I just clipped up a long-form YouTube video into 10 different clips on Instagram, I probably could have had 500,000 followers instead of 120,000.
My main objective for my Instagram following was to help me monetize YouTube. All my sponsors cared about were those long-form eyeballs on the YouTube content. I tried so many times to increase the price of sponsorship packages based on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram viewership, and nobody cared—it was all about long-form YouTube.
If I had put all that YouTube content on Instagram, there would be no reason for people to go to YouTube. If there’s no reason for them to go to YouTube, I can’t increase my prices, bring on new sponsors, or continue to grow my channel at a fast clip. When I put out “Here are five things, look at the other four on YouTube” type of content, I could see the analytics spike every single time.
We didn’t do it all the time; we still posted zero-click content, bloopers, and behind-the-scenes content every week. We had different reasons for doing that. We wanted to provide value in the feed so people wouldn’t stop following us on Instagram, but we also put behind-the-scenes and bloopers on there to humanize the content and build closer relationships.
If you think about your favorite creator, you have a connection to them, even if they have no idea who you are. That’s built by doing relationship-building pieces of content: bloopers, behind-the-scenes, talking to the audience. There was a purpose behind everything we did, but if we had dumped all our stuff on Instagram, we wouldn’t have been able to monetize YouTube. You have to be thoughtful of your home base.
The objective of every piece of content is different. The problem people run into is that the GaryVees of the world have conditioned us to think it’s all about consistency and the number of posts we put out. There is merit in consistency, but people have over-indexed on needing to be in front of people all the time without understanding the purpose behind the actual piece of content or what they’re trying to achieve beyond just being in your face.
John Smallmtn
Man, that’s a nugget for me. Sometimes I get into the mode of “I better get something out there,” and then I realize I don’t have anything to say, so I close the app and go work on actual work stuff instead of getting bogged down playing that role.
As someone who has run a massive channel, is it hard not to compare current videos to that high watermark? Is it harder for you not to focus on vanity metrics or feel disappointed?
Todd Clauser
No, because that came in the learning moment of going from the influencer to the customer of the influencer.
I can see where we need a lot of viewership on certain brand content, and the number of views matters. On the other hand, I’ve seen firsthand that I can create something that gets 100 views, and 10 people reach out to me about it. In B2B SaaS, unless you’re a true media company, we’re not selling sponsorships to content. It’s not all about the reach; it’s about how effective it is to the people who actually see it.
If we can plan out the goals of what we’re trying to achieve with the content and measure how effective we are in achieving those goals through that specific series or campaign, it’s easier not to compare vanity metrics. Views, likes, and engagement aren’t inherently vanity metrics either—if your goal is to increase brand awareness and that engagement is coming from the right group of people, then those aren’t vanity metrics.
The disconnect is when there’s nothing to follow that up with. Audience Plus is a super early-stage company, so we’re trying to combat this as we do these massive brand initiatives like Golden Hour, where people know the brand but they don’t know the product. Eyeballs are great as long as you can connect that back to your business objectives.
John Smallmtn
Being someone who has been in the space for a while and done big things, are you ever brought in on the basis of your past success where you have to slow things down and qualify expectations? Do people ever look at you as a silver bullet when hiring you?
Todd Clauser
Not recently. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of setting expectations before coming into places.
When I first came into B2B SaaS, a lot of people wanted YouTube consulting. Everyone has heard the phrase “creating content is a long-term play,” but in the B2B world, “long-term” on social media usually means three to six months. If I start going hard on LinkedIn today and do it really well, I can start to see early signs of results within three to six months.
On YouTube, you can throw that timeline out the window. If you really want to be successful on YouTube, you have to be willing to do it for two years without seeing results. When I tell people that, they say, “What?” And I tell them that’s why very few B2B companies are successful on YouTube.
It took us five years to get to 50,000 subscribers. Even at five years, we were not breaking even on the content we were creating. People ask how I got buy-in to keep going, and it’s because when I started, I was getting paid $25,000 a year, and when we hit that point, I was making $45,000. I was dirt cheap, and that’s how we were able to keep going.
When I tell people that, they decide they don’t want to do YouTube. That’s why there are very few good B2B YouTube channels. The only two I know off the top of my head that are successful from a third-party perspective are HubSpot and Ahrefs.
John Smallmtn
Who do you follow? Who are you excited to see in your feed where you’re willing to put everything down to check out their content?
Todd Clauser
There are a lot of people whose content I like in B2B and whose posts I stop to read, but there is nobody in B2B that I would say is my inspiration.
I take all my inspiration from YouTube creators—not the MrBeasts of the world, but channels that are doing things differently that a lot of people may not even know, completely outside of business. There’s a channel called Sam the Cooking Guy. It’s a cooking show, and he does an incredible job of not just creating recipes and filming them well, but injecting his own personality. They’re not overproduced, and they aren’t shot in crazy kitchens with hidden doors in the refrigerator. He just injects his personality so that nobody else can touch him on that front. I take a lot of inspiration from him.
Peter McKinnon is probably an old reference at this point, but when I was starting out on YouTube, he was my go-to. I also watch Dude Perfect with my son. When you watch these things with intention, you start to see what holds your attention. Sam the Cooking Guy is a perfect example of using personality to keep an audience engaged.
John Smallmtn
Everyone talks about how stale B2B marketing is and how it’s way too professional. How do you get people past that professional cliff so their actual personality comes through, instead of them acting stiff and corporate?
Todd Clauser
It’s very difficult. I could give you the standard answer of “build a culture where people can be themselves,” but that’s not really the operational answer.
The best thing that has worked for me is pairing two people together who work very well together. They could be friends on the team, or they could pull in an external friend. That pulls the personality out of people. If I’m creating content with someone I send memes to in Slack or Instagram Reels to at night, putting those two people together brings it out.
If you as the content producer can become that person, you can inject yourself into the process and pull personality out of the subject matter expert. Staring at a camera makes it very hard to be personable, but two people talking back and forth who have been on the same team for three years makes it way easier to just be personable.
This goes all the way back to my Weld.com YouTube days. The industry knew me, but they didn’t know my face because I would always troll my host from behind the camera. For a 10-year period, to an audience of nine million viewers a month, I was just known as “Camera Guy.” We even had Camera Guy stickers where you couldn’t see my face, just the back of my head. We would go to trade shows, and while people were taking pictures with the subject matter expert, I’d stand in the back of the picture looking the other way. Because I was friends with the host on a personal level, I would inject myself from behind the camera to get him to loosen up and joke around.
John Smallmtn
That is hilarious. Todd, thank you so much for coming on and hanging out for this interview; I really appreciate it. Where should people go if they want to learn more about what you’re doing?
Todd Clauser
Go to audienceplus.com/discover. You can see all the content we’re creating. We just released a really good-looking version of Easy Mode that we shot in an arcade, and it’s edited really cool.
John Smallmtn
Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on, man. I really appreciate it.
Todd Clauser
Yeah, absolutely.
