B2B Brands All Look Blue

Chris Norton 0:00

Everything in business to business is blue. Go and look. Open a new tab. Look at the five competitors in your sector and tell me you could pick yours out with the logos taken off. My guest today reckons you could swap your logo for a competitor's logo, and nobody on earth would even notice. And the annoying bit is she's actually right. Talia Wolfe is the founder of GetUplift. She's worked with Bitterly, Antitude, and Mercedes, and she's even keynoted at Google. I'm Chris Norton and this is Embracing Marketing Mistakes, the show that teaches you growth from failure.

Emotional Targeting Framework Basics

Chris Norton 0:29

Let's get into emotional targeting. Enjoy Talia Wolf, welcome to the show.

Talia Wolf 0:42

Hello, thank you for having me.

Chris Norton 0:44

So, emotional targeting. You've created emotional targeting framework. Do you want to explain what that is and how you've come about that? Because you were sort of alluding to it, weren't you then?

Talia Wolf 0:56

Yeah, so the emotional targeting framework is the whole idea of understanding your the reason people buy from you. Once you understand why people buy, it's a lot easier to know why people aren't actually buying from you. Um, what I was kind of talking about before is the fact that ultimately most products are the same. They have the same features, the first and the same integrations, the same pricing. But uh, when you try to differentiate them, it's really, really hard because everyone's saying the same stuff. Everyone's got the same messaging, everyone looks the same, especially now with AI. So emotional targeting is actually a framework that helps you differentiate yourself and stand out in a crowded market. Um, the goal is using this framework, you understand the real reason people buy from you. And it's a lot easier to then audit your website and see why your conversion rates are low. When you see that your stories aren't connecting, your social proof doesn't work, that the customer journey is back to front, that you're highlighting things people don't care about or you're saying the wrong things, then you can actually optimize because most A-B testing is guesswork. People are just using either best practices or guessing what they think would actually help. But when you use emotional targeting, you actually can clearly see why people aren't converting, and then you can start running A-B tests, and that's where real meaningful optimization comes in.

Chris Norton 2:28

Emotion, yeah. It's it's fascinating. The the theory sounds amazing. I was just thinking about how how um the emotional side of why somebody hires us for a to be to work for them for a as a PR agency. Often it's not for um media clippings, it's more for it's more because they want to raise awareness, they want to get, but actually, the real reason, the actual emotion is they want to sell something. So I I I don't know what emotion that is that that we're trying to tap into there. What is the what emotion am I after? Do you think?

Talia Wolf 3:00

Well, I think it depends on who your clients are. We actually worked with a PR agency a while ago. Um and helped them and did an emotional targeting audit for them not long ago. Um, it is very interesting to see because that's like, okay, I run a conversion optimization agency. When people hire me, they will say, uh, me and my team, they will say, we want more conversion rates. But that's not actually what they want. Yes, of course they do want more conversions. But what they really want is to finally know that their marketing strategy uh is actually going somewhere, that they're not spinning their wheels. They want to know that the whole team is aligned on something and that we're finally going in one direction and not everyone's pulling in different ways. And they want to reduce the stress because constantly having to deliver and not know what the hell is going on and why conversions are down is killing you because you're constantly producing more and more. So you feel like you're doing everything that you're being told, but conversions still aren't going up, and it just either devastates your own confidence, or you're worried about losing your job, or you don't know what's gonna happen. So there's always an underlying emotion under there. And even in PR, it's the same. It's not just, oh, I want to be mentioned in the news, it's what that comes with it, right? What comes with being mentioned in the news? Yes, of course, okay, it's clicks and people are gonna come to my website, but no, it's gonna position my product or my solution in a certain way. Um, AI is gonna start recommending me because when I get noted in different places through PR, that's really good for our brand. But it also highlights and builds my persona, and maybe people are gonna start knowing who I am and it's gonna establish as an authority. So there's all different types of angles to understand why people are hiring you. On the surface, it's always gonna be a tactical thing, especially in marketing. And sometimes, oftentimes, people don't actually know what the emotions are or they're convinced it's something else. But what we found

Two Emotion Clusters That Sell

Talia Wolf 5:05

is that there's two main uh emotional clusters, I would say, uh, clusters of emotions that impact buying decisions. One is self-image, and the other one is social image. Self-image is all the emotions that are attached to our own confidence, how we want to feel about ourselves. I want to feel uh better, stronger, smarter. I want to know that I am uh a better parent. I want to know that I'm a good, good at my job. Um, social image is all about how I want other people to perceive me. I want them to see me as the go-to. I want them to see that I'm smart, I want them to give me that promotion that I've been gunning for. So those two emotional kind of clusters are what usually pull people to buy or not. Because once they've kind of said, okay, pricing's the same, features the same, integration is the same, everyone offers PR. So what's what's different with you specifically, Chris? And that's gonna be maybe how you treat your customers or you know what they're gonna get in addition to that. Sometimes it's confidence. Um, could be many, many different things.

Chris Norton 6:13

Interesting. I'm just thinking about how what why why have the why have the like big tech companies not tapped into the like this side of it though? Because obviously they build all I've literally um this week I've been working with OpenAI uh who've just launched ChatGPT ads in the UK, and I've been having a play around with that and using AI and integrating it um with some pay-per-click ads just to see just to give it a test because it's brand new. And even then they don't have it's just very like meta. It's it and even though the the way that people are searching for you, the conversation, you know, how they're treating it is slightly different, but they don't really tap into the emotional side of it. So it it's weird that big tech haven't tapped into that. And is that why you would say there's a a big gap, do you think?

Talia Wolf 7:01

Yeah, I mean, that's where the biggest opportunity is, right? Like the companies that we work with. I mean, we work with a lot of tech companies. So uh most tech companies that come to us have tried optimizing their customer journeys and increasing velocity and doing all the stuff, and it hasn't worked because they're not aligned on who their ICP is, they're not aligned on messaging, they're not aligned on what they're saying and who they're speaking to and what what their actual value prop is. Um, and so when we start A-B testing with them, it's a lot deeper on that end. So the companies that we do work, we've worked with quite very, very interesting tech companies, and the difference is huge. So it literally is just the fact of understanding that you need this and you can start leveraging it because most companies are so we've been conditioned to be data driven, which like we're so focused on behavioral elements, like

FOMO Works Only After Trust

Talia Wolf 7:55

we know the browsers, the devices, the age, the geographical location, the gender. We have like this built persona that doesn't really actually help us with anything. So when you get to know your customers better, it it's just yeah, it just starts working, which is yeah, it's a it's a big, big, big opportunity, especially right now with AI.

Chris Norton 8:16

What's the biggest mistake you think that marketers make um when they hear about emotional targeting? What's like the false assumption that they hold for emotional targeting?

Talia Wolf 8:27

Yeah, that's a great question. So I would say that the biggest kind of misunderstanding is that when you talk about emotion, they think it's like this fluffy, cool thing, like, oh, I need a beautiful headline or an image of some family happily staring into the distance. But that's not what emotional targeting is about at all. You're not supposed to trigger emotions, you're not to make supposed to make people feel anyway, and it's not about fluffy, beautiful copy that you know goes on in an ad on TV. The idea of emotional targeting is that you are trying to connect with emotions that are already there. People are already feeling things, and you have to connect to them and speak to them in a way that makes them think, oh, this company understands me, they know what I'm going through, and they can help me. And that's like the biggest misunderstanding is that you think it's like this flowery thing and it's not.

Chris Norton 9:21

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, because you would imagine you being from this side of it, I'd think, oh, I've got to tap into some sort of core emotion. I was when you when you started saying when you were explaining your model and you were saying there's two, two, there was the self-image in the I thought you were gonna say, um, I actually thought you were gonna say fear of missing out was the ri often the biggest reason that somebody, you know, wants to do some any any form of marketing, it's usually FOMO, isn't it?

Talia Wolf 9:48

Yeah, I would say that FOMO is it's a big emotional trigger, but it comes at a certain point in the customer journey when someone is already ready to commit. So they've made it, they've made a decision that they want this product, but maybe they don't want it right now. So then FOMO kind of helps you take you over the edge and get there. But if you haven't done all the lay work, like all the foundational work beforehand and convince them, hey, this is actually something that you need, this is something that can help you, this is how we can help you. You can trust us because trust is the new conversion rate right now. If you haven't done all of that, no amount of FOMO and just saying only one left, or there's only two days left, none of that's gonna help because you haven't done all the foundational work beforehand to convince them that you're worth investing in.

Chris Norton 10:36

Yeah, digital trust, God. We yeah, we've been talking about that for years.

Start With Research Not Analytics

Chris Norton 10:40

How do you get into this, Talia? What got you into it initially? How how'd you get into it? Like, because it's fascinating, it's a slightly different way of thinking about targeting and marketing. I do I'm fascinated to see A, how you got into it, and B, like if you just got a new client, what's the what's how do you get started? What's the sort of day one? What do you do?

Talia Wolf 11:03

Well, okay, how did I get started? Is honestly I tried the old school method. I I took on clients and thought I could increase their conversions, and I tried the way everyone tells you online to do it. And again, like when I got started, there weren't many CROs, there was like four companies in the world that were doing it. Um, I tried the like best practices route, it just didn't work. And I was really frustrated and it was really annoying. So I literally just said, okay, how do I convince people to buy? I was like, oh, maybe it's psychology. Let me go and read all this stuff. And I started reading all these books. I was like, Eureka, obviously, how did I not think about this? And the other thing was also when you look at traditional media, and this this is what was mind-blowing to me when I realized this. When you look at TV ads or radio ads, they're always emotional. You a bloody, you know, an ad for a credit card and you're crying over something. But back then, when I started, you couldn't measure any of this stuff. But brands were throwing millions on ads on the TV without being able to measure a single thing. Then the online world came in, and all people were doing were like, sale, sale, sale, buy now, buy now. But you've got all the measures, like you can measure all this stuff, but you're you basically neglected all the emotional part, all the psychological part. We've just skipped over to like trying to convince people to buy. So it was essentially just me saying, like, let's take traditional marketing and put it online and then measure it. And that's kind of where it started. Um, and to answer your second question, how where do we get started? So the to get started, it's research, right? Which is a dirty word, people hate it, but there you go. Gotta do some research. Um, so we do interviews, we do social listening, we do surveys, polls, we do uh review mining. I would say that the most interesting part is social listening. Um, we scour through thousands of conversations on Reddit, LinkedIn, uh, comments on YouTube, Facebook groups, anywhere where our clients, uh prospects are hanging out and having authentic conversations. And this is really important, especially right now, because your customers aren't on your website. They're not reading the polished version of your website, they're on Reddit asking if they can trust you. They're in an LLM, whether if it's ChatGPT or Claude or whatever, asking it if they could trust you. Then they're going and reading an article, then they're on LinkedIn. So they're not actually making a decision on your website. They're coming to your website with formed emotions and opinions about you. And now they're gonna see, okay, does this measure up to everything I read? So us scouring the website, the web to see what people are saying, what they're annoyed about, how they feel about your industry, how they feel about your competitors, how they feel about you, what what they want, what they don't want. We do all of that research, and then with those insights, we audit the website. So we don't audit the website first, first we get to know the customers. Then, with the customer's lens, now that we know our customers better, we audit the entire customer journey. And I'm talking about social media posts, ads, uh, the website, the landing pages, your onboarding emails, everything to see if what you're saying aligns with what your prospects are saying and what people care about, what they don't care about. And then it's a lot easier for us because then we put together a roadmap of here's all our recommendations, here's what we think needs to be optimized, and then we start A-B testing. So we just it's it's kind of different because most companies they'll look at Google Analytics. Oh, pricing page. Okay, what should I do on my pricing page? Cool, let me go to the pricing page, let me change the headline, let me remove this, and we're doing that. What we're doing is okay, wait, who's the customer? Like, what do they even want? Now let's look at the pricing page. Now let's see why it's not converting. Oh, we're using the wrong message, we're not communicating our value, we're too generic, we sound like everyone else. Most companies at this point, you could you know switch over their logo with a competitor and no one would know. So it's that, it's just that. Like we just flipped the script, but no one wants to do it because it's hard work.

Chris Norton 15:31

Yeah, it is hard work. I mean, we do we've done, yeah, we do we've done loads and loads of social listening. I actually built a social listing tool back in the early days before Twitter Analytics came out, when Twitter was big. I had a site called, I built a site called Tweezia,

Who This Process Works For

Chris Norton 15:45

which was Twitter Easier. It was analytics. It was pretty cool, tweet Tweezia.com, but um, yeah, anyway, that was a long time ago. But yeah, we do we do quite a lot in um social analytics. But this this side of it is very it's very interesting that you're you're going through the lens, you're analyzing, you're looking at the emotional, and then you're looking at the their journey. It sounds it does sound like a lot of work. So what sort of cli what sort of size clients are you working with then? And what sectors is it?

Talia Wolf 16:11

Great question. So we work a lot with tech companies uh and startups, but we've also we work with manufacturers, we work with home services, so we work with one of the biggest moving companies in the United States. Um, and we also work with huge tech and we work with e-com. So honestly, it's kind of like, hey, what do we like? What's interesting? What's a product that we feel we're connected to? Um size of the company obviously matters. So these are brands that usually have already, they're already driving traffic, they're getting results, they don't like the results, they've tried things, they're not working, and now they're coming in. If you don't have traffic yet, we're not a good fit. Um, but the way that we work is we're more about teaching people how to fish. So uh the way we go about it is we do our research, we build the roadmap, but then we train the team to do it themselves. So we'll work with their internal marketing team and coach them and consult them and help them actually uh start testing and running all these things uh through our roadmap and our insights.

Chris Norton 18:26

Okay, interesting. Now I can see your book just over your shoulder, which is um very um uh well, it's

Why Her Book Had To Change

Chris Norton 18:34

just slightly above your head. It's perfect. There we go. Look at that. Look at that for branding. Let's clip this. Uh but it didn't always this book didn't always look this way, did it, before you wrote it. So do you want to tell us a story about how what what happened to the book cover?

Talia Wolf 18:49

Yeah, um, so the book came out last year. It's the whole methodology, me just teaching. Okay, here's the three-step process of doing this. And when I started writing the book, I kind of had a bit of like imposter syndrome because I was like, I'm not an author, what am I doing? And I I wrote this, I wrote this book, and I so I'm like a comic book nerd, and I am very into comic books and superheroes and all that good stuff. But and so when in all my marketing, all my posts, I'm literally just now writing a post about Spider-Man. While like before I got on this podcast, on this recording, kids, my kids are obsessed with Spider Man.

Chris Norton 19:31

One of my my youngest 14-year-old is absolutely obsessed. In fact, both of them have been to see the new one. Of course.

Talia Wolf 19:38

I saw it three times the week it came out, so that that that's how obsessed I am. You've got an issue. But the thing is that people know this. So if you if you follow me, if you if you like follow me on LinkedIn or if you if you subscribe to our newsletter, uh I'm constantly mentioning superheroes. It's just part of my life. So when but when I started writing the book, I was like, well, the book has to be professional. So I I basically became like, I was like, okay, what do professional books look like? They don't mention comic books, they don't, you know, you just tell the thing. Um and then I also designed the cover. Um and this this was the original cover. So like here, like blue. I printed this out by the way, like it was ready. Um but before I even printed this out, we sent it out to beta beta beta readers. And we had like beta readers of a book.

Chris Norton 20:33

Yeah, beta readers of a book. You A B tested your book.

Talia Wolf 20:37

Yeah, of course.

Chris Norton 20:38

That's amazing.

Talia Wolf 20:41

Had to get feedback. So I had beta readers, right, to read the book and give me their feedback. And I also had a few really good friends uh that I trust, like amazing people like Will Reynolds and Ran Fishkin, who literally took the time to read the book before and give me feedback. And I would that 49 people out of the 50 wrote back, great book, but where's Talia? And I was like, what do you mean? Like, we're not hearing you. Where's the pop culture references? Where's the comic book? Where's the banter? Where's the little jokes? And I was like, oh, okay, so maybe this needs to be in there. Um and and that is why ultimately, even though like I ended up, I did print a few of these books, I was like, well, this looks like every other marketing book out there, they're all blue and serious. I was like, okay, if I'm if I do this, I'm going all in, complete comic book, and I and I started inserting inside all sorts of phrases from comic, like all sorts of comic book references to like people, yeah, because the funny thing is, is that this is what made the book um successful. So everyone was posting about the design because they'd never seen a business book that was designed like a comic book. Yeah, instinctive. Everyone's like, oh, this is incredible because they've got all the it's so cool, and everyone's posting pictures, and that's what made it actually work so well on Amazon. Uh, and it was, you know, whatever, number one in all sorts of categories, but it was really cool because I kept thinking, geez, like I have to be professional and I have to like, this has to be a professional book. You can't be yourself. But actually, because everything, just like on web, looks the same and sounds the same, people want authenticity, people want to connect, people want to feel like they know you, and that's what actually sold the book because it literally, you someone was saying to me, I can't remember who said this to me the other day, I was reading your book and I can hear your voice in my head, and I loved it. I was like, Oh, okay, that's weird.

Chris Norton 22:49

That's well, you've got it. Yeah, that you've absolutely hit the nail on the head. If you've yes, if as an author you your voice is coming through, then I mean, obviously the beta testing worked, then you got it right. I mean, uh you know, Rat Rand and the others uh gave you the right feedback. Amazing.

Talia Wolf 23:06

Yeah.

Chris Norton 23:07

Did it take you to write a book then?

Talia Wolf 23:09

Oh my god, a year. It was so hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done, honestly. And I've had I've had two kids writing a book.

Chris Norton 23:19

That's funny. That's really funny. Um, and so that's probably your mistake, right? That you picked the wrong cover. The the cover, how many did you print out of the blue cover before you you got your cool comic book one?

Talia Wolf 23:30

Not a lot, like a few dozen. Um, but I mean, I guess it's a good story now, right? Everything's a good story, but uh we literally printed this out maybe two weeks before launch. So it was it was big, it was a big rush. And I'm really happy that I had Jess, my COO, push me and like, no, no, let's do this right. And she had this whole idea, and I was like, yeah, okay, let's do this. Like, we can do this. Um, it was a good decision.

Chris Norton 24:00

Yeah, very much so. Um okay, so well, let's get into you. And did you am I right in saying that you keynoted at Google and the Growth

Keynote Speaking Without Panic

Chris Norton 24:09

Marketing Summit?

Talia Wolf 24:10

Yeah, I mean, I do a lot of I do a lot of keynote speaking, and when I launched the book, I did a tour. So I was all over Europe and the US. It was fun. I felt like a rock star. Um but but yeah, um, I've also spoken at conversions at Google. That was quite a while ago, but I've definitely yeah, spoken there and a few others.

Chris Norton 24:31

So, how do you go about like if if you're if it there people marketing people are listening to this, like keynote speaking is quite scary for most people. How do you how what's your sort of top tip to how you make it interesting and how you shock the room?

Talia Wolf 24:46

Hmm. Shock the room. Well, first of all, keynote speaking is scary. I still get scared. And I I recently keynoted in front of 5,000 people. So I don't I honestly the the it's the smaller rooms that scare me. When I do like smaller rooms, like 25, 30 people, those those are actually more intimidating to me than big room. Yeah, because you can see everyone's face and you're like, they're judging me. Um but I guess for me, um when I first started speaking, this was 10 years ago. Um, it was having a really good story to tell and making it super actionable so that people would really get a ton of insight from that. And then I rehearsed, I'm not, I'm not kidding, like a hundred times before I got on stage. Um and I think it just the more, the more I did it, it I got better. Sorry.

Chris Norton 25:42

How how long did you have on a keynote? How long do you get really on a big keynote?

Talia Wolf 25:46

Well, uh, sometimes it's 30 minutes and sometimes it's 40 minutes, depending on what they ask for. Uh, I've I've done 10-minute keynotes too, which are actually harder because you have to like be really uh specific. Or I've done workshops, which are a bit easier. Um, social media examiner, uh social media marketing world conference uh in Anaheim. Um, there I did a 90-minute workshop last summer, and that was really fun because you get to do a lot more work with people in the crowd. Um, but practice, practice, practice all the time. Like it really is, it's it for me, it doesn't get easier because I put a lot of pressure on myself and I want it to be worth people's time when they come and spend an hour with me in a room. Like, I think that's a lot of the time people like should get the most out of that. So I put a lot of pressure on myself um for it to be good.

Chris Norton 26:41

So did you did you pitch yourself then? Did you pitch emotional targeting or did you say I've launched this book and then that's how you got in? Or because I'm f I'm fascinated with keynote speaking because I speak at um we have we have webinars, events, I speak at quite a few things, but I spoke at a few conferences. I've never flown over to America and had to do a full-on keynote for half an hour. And it just I'm not joking, it does scare the bejesus out of me, despite the fact I've spoken in public loath. So just could just because yeah, unlike you, I want quality, I want people to walk away and think, oh, that was really, really interesting, useful, and insightful, rather than just this same old bilge that quite a lot of people do, you know.

Talia Wolf 27:19

Yeah, um, I would say the first talk I ever did, I pitched myself. So I saw there was a conversion conference in Chicago. This was 2014, I think. Um, and I I saw the conference, I saw there was there was like a call for speakers, and I basically pitched myself. Um, and it was it's a conversion conference, and again, like everyone was talking about statistical significance and talking about very specific technical stuff of A-B testing. And I said, Hey, I want to talk about the psychology of testing. Um, and they immediately said yes, but I was just at the beginning of my career and I was like, oh, damn it, now I have to buy a ticket to Chicago, and I also like I have to pay for everything because they they don't pay for anything. They're like, just say thanks for like show but you've got a stage, right? Um, so I I stayed in this dingy Airbnb and I yeah, I did that. But but the there were two things that came out that were good. One was yes, the talk was good. I mean, there was maybe a hundred people in in my room because it was it was like a multiple session thing going on. But I made some really good friends there. I met Andy Crestadina for the first time, Angie Schutmuller, like I met, I met a lot of people that became friends. Um, and the networking alone was worth it just because like meeting people and talking to them, because I knew no one in CRO. Um, I was literally a baby in it. Uh, I've been doing, I don't know, CRO for a few years, but I've never met anyone who did it, never spoke to anyone, ever been to a conference for CRO. Um, it really took me out of my comfort zone. But once I did that, I started getting invited uh to conferences. So that that's kind of it, it then grew from there. At first, I just went like if you were willing to pay my ticket and my hotel, I would go. Um, because again, like really good in authority building, great uh content for me to share afterwards, meeting great people. But then uh after a few years, I started charging for speaking if I didn't see a direct uh ROI from the conference. Because not when you go to a CRO conference, for example, there's so many other CRO speakers. So the chances of you being hired are a bit low. So for me, it started being about okay, being very deliberate about where I speak um and making sure that I can get to more audiences um and have more impact. But I mean, I'm I'm I'm so happy, like I'm so thankful because I met some

AI, CRO And Optimising Everywhere

Talia Wolf 29:59

of my best friends in the world speaking.

Chris Norton 30:03

Yeah, amazing. And we haven't even explained what CRO is. I was just realized we went straight into it. I'm like, people be like, what the what the hell are we doing? I'm having a coffee, like we're just chatting. Um, so conversion rate optimization. So um, yeah, do you want to explain? I mean, we've kind of talked a lot about it. We've talked about the emotional targeting side of it, the A-B testing. It's basically optimizing everything to the nth degree to ensure that you get the best best possible result. It's actually the maximum ROI thing, isn't it? That every every marketer chases.

Talia Wolf 30:38

Yeah. I mean, obviously the goal is hey, I want to sell more. How do I do that? So a lot of people throw a ton of money at traffic, but then the traffic doesn't convert. So my job, my company's job, is to help you turn more of those visitors into sales and actual money. Um, and that's what I've been doing for so many years now. Um, I feel like a dinosaur at this point, which is terrible. Um, I noticed because people started calling me the OG on podcasts, and I'm like, that is just so rude.

Chris Norton 31:09

That's quite good. The OG of CRO. Oh, that's a lot of that's a lot of acronyms.

Talia Wolf 31:14

Yes, exactly. Um, but I love it. And I think an optimizer is isn't just in marketing, it's in everything. I optimize everything. Like I optimize my book, I optimize my conference talks and yeah, everything that I do. But optimization is the key to everything. I think it's more important than anything right now because people are losing traffic um and it's getting harder and harder to sell. So you want to make sure that when people do land on your website or your assets, you're speaking the right language. You you are it's easy to see, I've arrived, I'm in the right place. And most companies don't focus on that. They're too on that rat race of just like producing stuff because they can, because I can build stuff with AI, which is nice, but what are you actually building? Does it have value?

Chris Norton 32:04

Yeah, and but but for a CRO, AI is just like it's just like it's it must have absolutely exponentially exploded everything that you can do. You can just plug everything in now and visually see. I was talking, I've there's got somebody coming on the podcast in about uh three weeks' time, and she's uh leading marketeer on a top top like 20 um software as a service brand, and she said she wants to come on and talk about the SaaS apocalypse, you know, the fact that she basically said uh I'm paraphrasing here, we're fucked, Chris. Uh you know, it's like okay. Um, so it's like and because of that, exactly what with me and you are talking about now, which is you can plug in all your different tools, and then you've got you know, you've got something to spit out every minute optimization that you can make, and it'll agree with everything that you say, which is the problem that I find with it. But how has it changed what you're doing then, would you say, in CRO?

Talia Wolf 33:11

I think at the beginning everyone was like, Okay, use AI for everything in CRO. This is gonna be amazing. And then I noticed in the past year, especially this year, everyone's like, when when we get leads, they're like, Do you use AI in your services? And I'm like, Well, not for everything. We use it for the way we do research, we use it internally as a company, we don't use it to produce things for clients. And they were like, Great, because AI is trash. So there's been kind of a change in narrative. I think um it's definitely helped us as a team for procedures and processes, and also like when we're doing our research in the past, when we would, for example, uh, you know, read through thousands of conversations on Reddit, we'd have to do it line by line in a in a spreadsheet. Now we use AI. Uh, but we wouldn't do that to write copy, for example, and we don't do that to really synthesize our research because that's where things get lost, and that's where things get too generic, and it agrees with everything you say, and it just removes all the pieces that actually make you different than anyone else. So uh it's definitely changed, and people want to invest a lot more in AI. But what we're seeing right now is that people brands are willing to start reinvesting in value, in what, how did they stand out? Because yeah, that everyone's losing.

Chris Norton 34:40

Yeah, human-to-human connection. You're absolutely right, Talia. I haven't listened to what you've just said. That's what it's like, isn't it? When you ask any question, you're absolutely right. I haven't followed your instructions, Chris. Um, so what's the sort of what's this what's going on in CRO now then? So it sounds like we've got we've gone from you're right, you're right, uh, AI is coming, it's gonna change. Oh, AI is generative AI is a bit shit. Um what's what's the what's the sort of short-term future of CRO right now? What what sort of stuff is is exciting you in the area at the moment?

Talia Wolf 35:16

Well, I think for the longest time, CRO was mostly about the assets you control, right? Like I need to optimize my landing page, my website, my emails. Now I believe CRO is about optimizing everything everywhere, even the things that you don't control. So, meaning if if you do the emotional targeting research and you know your customers better, and now we all know that people are making decisions off of your website, that means that your prospects are right now on Reddit or LinkedIn or Quora or Discord or YouTube trying to make a decision. You actually have to be in those spaces. So you need to know where your prospects are hanging out, and you need to be a part of that conversation. You need to be creating content there and answering people and talking to people in a way that resonates, which is why you do emotional targeting. If you know your customers, then when you go into those spaces, you can speak their language. So optimizing everywhere now means making sure that you're actually in control of the narrative everywhere in your social media, but also what people are saying about you and having conversations and responding to people. You can't lie, you can't hide behind a polished website anymore. So I think CRO has expanded its growth, but yeah, it's expanded.

Chris Norton 36:34

It sounds like it dovetails beautifully what we do, like in terms of PI, like you the one bit that you don't control is earn media. And hello, you need somebody that can manage your reputation online as well as you know in the media and stuff. It's fascinating, it's the whole thing's fascinating. Um, and so what are you speaking at any conferences this year then? What's the plan? What are you gonna be doing with the book this year?

Talia Wolf 36:57

Yeah, I've spoken in a few conferences. My next one is actually in Athens in a consumer psychology uh conference. I'm actually really excited about it because there's a speaker, which I can't remember his name right now, but he's a hostage negotiator. And he's gonna he's gonna be talking about the psychology of negotiation. I'm really excited to hear him. Um, yeah, and I've

Where To Spend 10k In 2026

Talia Wolf 37:19

I'm already starting to kind of book conferences for next year, which is cool. Um, what am I doing with the book? I'm gonna finally record the audiobook because I haven't done that yet. And I've and I, yeah, I need to do that. So that's what's next. And then I think next year, maybe I'm gonna work on the um on adding stuff to the book because there's so many things are changing all the time, and I want to talk more about the optimizing everywhere piece of like optimizing not just your uh like the owned customer journey, but what you don't own and how you can go about that.

Chris Norton 37:54

I'm gonna have to read your book now because I I've literally been doing this podcast is amazing. I meet some amazing people that are brilliant. I mean, to get to speak to people like yourself who, you know, because I'll just do public relations to a high degree. I'm now number two, which is quite annoying that we're number one, we're number two today in the US on marketing podcasts in Apple, which is amazing. Oh, cool. I'm gonna get to number one. But it's meeting the fascinating people like yourself who work in completely different sections, different sections of um of marketing. I find it truly, truly fascinating. Um, and it and learning like the new skills and techniques and things that you can do. Um, I do have a question for you though. Like, I was gonna say, like, if you are, I was trying to put myself into the shoes of the the listener because there'll be a load of people here that have probably got pretty how can I put this pretty boring brands that they don't they don't work for then they wouldn't dare say this, but they know what I'm talking about. They're brands, like you said, oh everything looks the same, like everything in B2B is blue. Your book just proves it. Everything in everything in B2B is blue, all brand. Oh, let's do a blue brand. Um, there'll be people out there thinking, what's the like if I've got let's say I've got 10k, and I work in marketing, I work in B2B marketing, what should I spend that 10k on to improve? You know, what's the one thing I can do to improve myself in 2026 in marketing?

Talia Wolf 39:21

Yeah, I first of all I would say that you there's so much opportunity right now because everyone looks the same and because everyone's blue. So I I yeah, I mean the brands that actually stop the creation of for the sake of creation, meaning yes, okay, you can launch 20 landing pages a week, good for you. But if the brands that actually stop creation for the sake of creation and actually go back to the drawing board and invest in research, invest in understanding their customers really well and doing the audit on themselves. You don't have to hire us, which would be great, but you don't have to like there's literally a book on it that I wrote, but like you literally all you have to do is do customer research. No, but what I'm saying is that you don't you could read all like I've this is this is stuff I've been talking about for a decade, okay? Like it's all online too, you can piece it together. But the idea is that the brands that actually invest in doing this kind of research and taking the time to get to know their customers and then auditing their website and making and becoming customer-led, customer first are the brands that are going to stand out and those are the ones that are going to survive. Not the ones that are shipping AI and whatever, using AI for the sake of using it. Like the ones that stand out that prioritize trust, authenticity, connection, those are the brands that are going to stand out, and those are the ones that are going to outlive all the rest.

Chris Norton 40:55

I heard a great quote the other day. They said the best, the best brands of 20, the best brands of the future are gonna reduce the distance from them to the customer. So you like you like getting as close to the customer as you possibly can. That's still true. And I think everybody, if you can do that, that that's that's the panacea we're all after, which is why I imagine the book does so well. Um and um what sort of emotional targeting do you do then? Um, well, I do work for your own company.

Talia Wolf 41:28

Yeah, obviously. I think for us, you know, when when clients hire us or when students take our courses, so we have all sorts of courses and we have people coming in that are more like entrepreneurs and like founders of very small businesses, they take my course. Um, my goal is to figure out their remote, like what are they trying to achieve so that I can make sure that they're going to get that. So whether if it's a client from for the agency work or if it's a course for a student, my role

Stop Guessing With A/B Tests

Talia Wolf 41:54

is to understand my customers better. So I'm always doing that. But I'm also doing that with my team. I want to know what they care about, what's keeping them up at night, how can I make that easier? Um, I do emotional targeting all the time. It's just part of life. I think, yeah, I've built it, I built it off the fact that, like, hey, empathy matters. And if you just care about people, you can create better stuff for them. If you can create if you care about the people around you and your customers or anyone, you just create better experience for them, whether if it's an online experience or if it's a conversation with someone.

Chris Norton 42:32

Hmm. Um, we've we've talked about the book, the book mistake. Is there any other mistakes that you want to share on the show that you've you've made in optimizations that you've you've made over the years that actually have gone wrong and you've learned something from? A B testing is one fuck up after another. That's literally what it is, isn't it? That hasn't worked, that hasn't worked, isn't it?

Talia Wolf 42:52

Yeah, loader tests don't work, but that's the whole point. I think what when you're running tests, a lot of people promise you, like, okay, A-B testing is going to increase your conversions. Bang, let's do this. Um, the most frustrating thing about that is that if you really are just changing random elements on the page, it is so frustrating because you have no idea why one test succeeds and why one doesn't. Um, and that's that's where I started with those mistakes of just like trying everything, throwing spaghetti at the wall, nothing working, and being super frustrated. That was the biggest mistake I made. Um, the emotional targeting framework is what helped me not just increase conversions. We don't always increase conversions, but when we run a test, we have a hypothesis. We know, okay, here's the problem we think we're seeing. Here's the hypothesis. If we do this, this is gonna help. We try it. Okay, it didn't work. Okay, how do we do this better? There is a foundation, there's a strategy behind the test, and it's not just blue. Let's go with blue. Blue sounds good. The banks are using blue. Um, it is based on what we're seeing. And sometimes, for example, we will have an insight from research like prospects cannot easily see the difference between us and our competitors because we sound the same. Or we believe that people are uh motivated by their social image. Great, great hypothesis. There are so many different ways that you can implement that in your social proof, in your headlines, in your bullet points, in the images that you're using. The test doesn't become about the element, it becomes about how do we help people um see that their social image is going to improve. Adding a testimonial helps, doesn't help. It's okay. It didn't increase conversions. Okay, let's try something else. But in the realm of social image, because we know that that's what people care about. So it just gives you a framework to go through and you're not just randomly guesstimating what's going to work.

Chris Norton 44:56

Yeah, excellent, excellent. Um what what if if if if you've got one big final tip to give to uh a marketing professional this year, what would it be? And why?

Talia Wolf 45:10

Focus on the customer. We're too focused on the tools right now, we're too focused on technology, focus on the customer to go back to the drawing board number one.

Chris Norton 45:21

Good advice. And you've been on the oh uh yeah, you've been on the show now. Um you know how it works. If you were me, who would you next invite on this show and why?

Talia Wolf 45:35

Amanda Natividad. Amanda Natividad um is incredible. She uh formed in basically uh in kind of this you know, she's been talking about zero-click marketing for a few years now. Uh, she coined the term zero-click marketing. She is doing incredible work, she's writing a book right now, and uh she is so smart, and she is really talking about what matters in marketing right now. And I really like listening to her, her podcast, and also just listening to the interviews that she does. She has so many cool examples. She worked for a few really cool companies too in the past. So she has really good case studies. Um, and I just think she's a brilliant person and a brilliant human being. So wow. And what what's her podcast called? Zero click marketing.

Chris Norton 46:33

Oh, right, okay. That was easy, wasn't it? Yeah, cool. Um if people want to get hold of you, Talia, how how can they get hold of you and find you?

Talia Wolf 46:41

Um, getuplift.co is my website. But you can also follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, or my podcast, Heart Before Cart.

Chris Norton 46:52

Heart Before Cart. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Talia. I really appreciate it.

Talia Wolf 46:56

Thanks for having me.