The following text is a condensed version of the interview, capturing its key points.
AD: Thank you for the conversation, Alex. Let’s start with your presentation.
AS: Any organization that has sales development teams has to tackle relatively large ticket sizes in terms of opportunities. What is the problem with the PDF? In essence, PDF is a format that has been in existence since the beginning of the World Wide Web. So we're talking about a 30-year format designed for printing that doesn't really measure the real engagement and doesn't create an opportunity to engage your audience.
Whether it's a one-pager or even an infographic that lacks a call-to-action, that's obvious what you can do right away. But even if you end up saying, “Okay, I put my PDF on a link of some kind, you still have fundamental engagement issues because it's the same old PDF that just happens to be on a link.”
While we're sending that out as sales teams and go-to-market teams, we increasingly see that the more sophisticated marketers figure out that this is not working anymore. And in fact, the top performers understand those contact points before the meeting. A lot of the work is already in the customer's mind, a lot of the frameset has happened before. It could be through the outreach materials that you're sending or through materials that you get your supporters to send.
Fundamentally, people may have a bias before they meet with you. And it's up to us as revenue-generating teams to increase our odds that those meetings go well. We think transforming the content experience and making it feel like a persuasive conversation is the way to go. More importantly, thought leaders support it. There are some metrics that back up our claims from our customers and experience.
We're not going to go and say we're amazing. But the point is, RELAYTO is not a day-one product that just popped on the market. We've been experimenting and testing this with organizations that are very rigorous and have best-in-class marketing and sales capabilities. They're still finding us valuable.
I'll just highlight a couple of the features.
Using RELAYTO capabilities, you could navigate not just linearly but jump around to specific sections of your presentation.
You could create immersive links that drive call-to-action conversion. In the case of SDR, that's booking a meeting. That's a fundamental opportunity to engage people while they're looking at the content. They go and book a meeting right inside that experience.
You can embed videos to make the experience more emotional. You can embed case studies. A one-pager could actually be almost a Trojan horse where it looks like it's a one-pager, but there's substance behind it and it actually has around 50 pages of relevant case studies underneath it.
What's addictive to the sales team, in particular, is that you could actually start seeing what works and what doesn't at a very granular level. You could see who looks at what on a page and where they click or hover.
That's insightful information that allows you to improve the content, but ultimately, to improve the conversation that's happening immediately. That's a marketing play. It could be obviously driving immediate sales opportunities, but it could be driving upsell, cross-sell, and your referrals for folks further in the journey.
AD: I really like how you are able to create a journey. And as far as I understand right, this is a custom journey for everyone. So based on who you are selling to, if you're targeting specific personas in the industry, then you can really change what they are going to see as they get this. It's not a presentation. What's the right word? One-pager?
AS: It's a very broad set of experiences that customers can access. We call them content experiences. Some people call them sites, microsites, or interactive presentations. But for the purposes of the SDR community, I like the idea of calling it a one-pager. Because a one-pager is not intimidating. Presentation, you never know. The pitch feels “pitchy”. But a one-pager is something that feels like, “Okay, CEO has time for a one-pager, right? You want to get a proposal on one page.” So we believe that's really powerful.
RELAYTO is a no-code platform. It allows me to take my PDFs and presentations and turn them into one-pagers, and get the metrics.
AD: I think this is where you can have these interactive one-pagers really stand out based on the use case. Another thing I like about it is that you mentioned that there is a video aspect to it. Is there a way to make it more personal when it comes to that video that they open?
AS: Typically, we've seen that our most successful customers are in the digital sales rooms, and in the personalized jump starters they do use videos from their senior executives.
When you share that, you could have a photo of a video or a thumbnail of a video. That could get people to stop and say, “Wow, they created something for me. It's moving. It's not a PDF from the 1990s that they just tried to put in my LinkedIn or something like that.” It interrupts the usual expectations, and I think that's the way to get people to pay attention and act.
AD: Can it be in your domain?
AS: Absolutely. We know that marketers love things in their domain, things that drive SEO for them. We found that some very advanced customers use domains in some cases. In other cases, they're very happy with our branding because ours is about creating a premium experience for buyers that positions you well because you care. Either way, it's possible.
AD: Do the RELAYTO pages expire after a time period?
AS: You can make them expirable. You have full control of this. Unlike a PDF where once you send it, it's gone, whether it has typos, outdated branding, or proposal pricing. That's no longer relevant in this case. RELAYTO experiences are always up-to-date, you can update them anytime.
If you thought of a date, you could remove access to certain things. You could also control it by the individual. But you could request something that is no longer accessible to the broad public.
AD: As you were saying, you can customize it. How long the link is there?
That brings me more to the tracking. I know you mentioned already briefly that it's possible to track these things. But for example, in a more simple case, sending emails, getting them opened, clicking the links, we can use those as triggers for certain types of follow-ups, for certain types of things.
So as far as I understand, we are able to track the different elements and then also use them as triggers for specific follow-ups after that?
AS: Yeah, you have all the analytical superpowers you want. I think the practical matter is you don't want to create some sort of analytics monster that even marketers can't figure out how to use.
You're absolutely right. One of the things we noticed is some people prefer to have notifications via email, typically in the sales context. And then you immediately know, “Okay, this person is engaged while they're hot and paying attention. Let's follow up in a meaningful way.” Or maybe also see if you're targeting different kinds of personas. What they view more, what they click on more rather than others. That's very interesting.
You're trying to figure out if this ICP is working. And I think this is a very smart indicator of real engagement because you could certainly start seeing lagging indicators.
Some of the analytics we could dig into is if people are using navigation. If they are, it means that you've created a comprehensive experience and they're picking their own adventures which is great. It means they're getting the information that they care about. So you want to continue doing that in your documents. Or if they're not, that means that you need to probably simplify the message because they just want to get quick two or three pages of content and move on.
AD: If I'm on the receiving end, how am I going to see this? Can it drive me to actually click on it and how it can be shared as well? For example, if we're doing email and then LinkedIn as well. So can we share it via multiple channels?
AS: There is a Share button. I'm in the editor interface. I could include this in a hub that you've seen. I can even embed it on my website. Let's say I drop it in an email, this particular one-pager. So I copied it. I go into my email, create a new email here and I'm going to just paste it.
You could link specific pages inside this mini one-pager.
Another way to do this, obviously, is LinkedIn. You're probably the first person that sent somebody a LinkedIn direct message that has something moving inside it. And that's not a video. Right? It's not a video because LinkedIn doesn't allow you to play videos right now.
But you could record a video, take a small GIF of it and load that into the thumbnail. You could control what they see here. This is a controllable experience. You could get your marketing or designers to put together something awesome.
This title could be personalized, this could be prepared for John. You're combining something that looks very high-end with something that's really easy for you to execute and then you would be notified. If it's something that you're doing as a broad outreach campaign, you just go to that person's document and see their engagement.
AD: Why I was asking is because it's really a challenge now to get people to open their emails.
AS: Right. But then once they open it, to get them to actually engage with what you're sending. So if the thumbnail can be personalized, the link is personalized to their company name or first name, anything about them is going to stand out. There are real ways that we can prompt them to click on it. And that's another extra chance for you to deliver your value.
You're trying to do three things. You're trying to grab somebody's attention with this interactive content. And that's a unique opportunity because that is not a widespread tool right now in the SDR hands. Number two is once they're in it, you actually want to engage them. You want them to spend more time on it. You want them to get to the parts they care about. You create a branded perception that you're a sophisticated organization and that you care.
Then the last piece is conversion. We talked about booking a meeting right when you're in there. Because what are the odds that you're at this PDF, then you're going to go back to your email, find, and book through a link that you have in there? You guys know the odds are pretty hard on this, right? So it's a way to engage. While they're engaged, that's when you book the meeting. And that's a quality meeting, that's a meeting where somebody has already known quite a bit about you, and maybe they've gone on and pursued other content inside the experience.
You could have more or less your entire personal library that you're selling in that industry. So if you by accident hit the wrong persona, but still the right industry, they could self-select into the case studies and pain points that they care about. That's a really important way to self-correct your initial assumptions and outreach.
AD: Amazing. First of all, the thing that caught my attention from the summary that you were saying is that not many people are using it. So definitely if you would be the one leveraging this, this is something that's going to help you stand out, right? Because this kind of experience is not as common as maybe even video has gotten these days. That's at least one of the reasons to definitely get into this. Okay, what are the next steps, Alex? Are there ways to try this? Do you offer a free trial or anything like that? How can our audience get more about it?
AS: You could try the free trial and have five of your assets for free. Just put something up, give it a go, give it to the marketer designer who’s supporting you, and see what they can do with this. You could book a meeting with us, and that's the point. You can do the same thing with us that we'd recommend that you do with your clients.
Whether it's a presentation or a one-pager you're interested in, don't wait for somebody to do this. It’s easy. Drag and drop your current one-pager. It will make the links that you have in it already work. And if you want to build something more designed for RELAYTO, we're happy to guide you through that process.
AD: Thank you. I think that was really new content for me personally. And that's definitely an interesting new way to share the value to the prospect and also to be able to see how that's working, track everything that you're doing, and in the same way, stay personalized, stay relevant, and do it in the really optimal way.
I love the idea of having a CTA right here to talk, start a trial, and book a meeting. You get them where they're interested in you. So I definitely would recommend everyone to please give it a try, and see how that works. Happy selling. Thank you.
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