Because the digital economy continues to rapidly evolve, businesses are not only struggling to attract customers but also to effectively communicate their products and services to the market. As such, we recently met with Saleh Mitchell, a long-time growth strategist with a diverse background in the areas of SEO, SaaS Demand Generation, and a thorough Market Opportunity Assessment. As the head of a team that assists businesses in optimising their go-to-market strategies, Saleh and his team leverage data, technologies, systems, and workflows that are integrated in order to unlock growth for their customers.
Q: Thank you for joining us. Let’s start the interview. Firstly, how did you get started?
Saleh: You’re welcome! It’s nice to be here! . I studied mechanical engineering. While I was studying, I started content writing for overseas clients. As I started getting more and more work, I needed more manpower, so I grew a team. Then I shifted to the capital city of the country. The team also evolved and grew. However, eventually, the content writing scenario changed as AI came into the picture. I realized I needed to change my strategy too. So I shifted my focus into SEO marketing with my team. This is how I reached this point.
Q: Analytical data Is the centerpiece of an effective business development strategy. How can I effectively use analytical data to develop creative strategies?
Saleh: Data and creativity are inextricably linked. For instance, when evaluating a new SaaS solution, we begin by conducting a Market Opportunity Analysis to understand user cohorts, competitive products, price trends, and actual market demand for the solution. From there, we find actionable opportunities, such as Lead Generation, Email Marketing, PPC, and Link Building. While analytics provides critical information about a potential purchase opportunity or competitive landscape, the true value of analytics comes when we leverage analytics to develop the messaging, product, and content that resonates with our target audience. In this way, we view this relationship between analytics and creativity as a fusion of Art and Science. Data is the canvas, creativity brings the picture to life.
Q: SEO consulting has changed significantly over the last few years. How has SEO consulting changed?
Saleh: Today, SEO is about more than keyword rankings or generating a large volume of blogs. We view SEO through the lens of Business Growth. In an effective SEO Consultation, we are focused on:
- Understanding the intent of the search being conducted and mapping it to our Content Strategy;
- Integrating LLM Citation Strategy to ensure that the AI-driven discovery of content will not leave you behind;
- Aligning SEO goals to Drive Lead Generation and Revenue KPIs.
Q: Developers of LLMs are building their tools as a direct result of this change. If you’re developing an LLM, you must focus on how to create a referenceable resource about your work.
Saleh: An LLM’s citation strategy, through good search engine performance, will improve how effective your LLM is at generating answers for users. A well-optimized LLM uses multiple forms of structured data to ensure its search engine users can trust and depend on the information provided. By defining structured data within the context of LLMs, we can create a number of ways to identify and reference brands in their AI-generated answers for the user.
Q: How can companies determine their demand when they launch their newest marketing campaigns (in this case) in a niche like SaaS?
Saleh: Demand validation is essential for all businesses, but particularly SaaS. There are a number of qualitative and quantitative approaches to determine if a company’s products or services are currently in demand. Through a combination of interviews with existing or potential customers, search demand data, social media trends, competitor analysis, and initial engagement metrics, we determine not just whether or not there is demand, but also, the quality of that demand. By measuring the level and degree of quality in a company’s product from product-led signals, and from all data obtained from PPC (pay-per-click) and SEO (search engine optimization) Consultations, we can build a holistic view of the demand generation process. Once we understand where automated demand is heading, we can determine how to optimize our Content Strategy, Nurture Funnels, and Marketing Budget.
Q: Due to the wide variety of channels available, such as SEO, PPC, and Email Marketing, how does someone figure out which channel(s) should be prioritized for an individual business?
Saleh: It ultimately comes down to the individual business’s overall goals and their customer’s journey.
SEO & Content Strategy: allow businesses to build a foundation of long-term organic visibility and establish themselves as a thought leader within their industry.
PPC: provides businesses with the ability to gain immediate customer demand insights and identify gaps in their customer conversion funnel.
Email Marketing: allows businesses to nurture their current customers and retain them as loyal customers.
Link Building: establishes credibility and authority with search engines based on the quality of the content being created.
When working with SaaS businesses, we do a market opportunity analysis to see where the customers are located and then map the various channels available by determining which channels will deliver the highest multiple of reach and frequency to those customers.
There’s no single solution or answer for prioritizing channels, but the first step is always aligning these channels with the overall business objectives.
Q: When integrating these tactics, what are some of the most common mistakes companies make when it comes to execution?
Saleh: One of the most common mistakes is executing within your own silo. Examples include:
Executing PPC, but not using PPC insights to inform your SEO strategy. Executing Lead Gen As A Separate Initiative from Your Content Strategies. Diving in and producing content without first conducting a Market Opportunity Analysis. If you execute tactics without strategic alignment, you diminish their potential impact. Therefore, I stress the importance of having a strategy before executing your tactics.
Q: As you know from experience with many different consultancies, including analytics based teams, what is your best performing or most effective tool or method for strategic execution?
Saleh: One approach that consistently outperforms others is to have a consolidated dashboard that connects your revenue metrics to your marketing touchpoints. This can come from something like the Power BI Consultancy for large enterprise-based reporting or the creation of a specialized combined dashboard displaying integrated metrics from SEO, PPC and CRM data. The benefit of these types of dashboards is being able to see your entire strategy in a single view, allowing you to adapt that strategy based on real time data. When your product team can see that a specific blog post drove a sign-up for your product then they’re able to optimize the content not just for traffic but for actual conversion.
Q: Many businesses struggle with their content creation process. How do you incorporate the Content Strategy with tangible results such as revenue or lead quality?
Saleh: Content is an integral part of the entire buyer journey, and far too often brands are focused on publishing content for rankings and vanity metrics. Our Content Strategy differs in that we focus on identifying user intent, or what users are trying to accomplish, and mapping the content to various stages in the buyer decision-making process, from awareness to purchase. In addition, we use KPI metrics from revenue signals, qualified leads, demos, and trials as KPIs to evaluate content performance, and leverage both Search Engine Optimization and Large Language Model-based Citation Strategy to ensure that content is easily discoverable, trusted and continues to be referenced by contemporary search.
Q: How do you envision the development of integrated marketing in the future, specifically in the case of SaaS and tech companies?
Saleh: The lines that contained different functional areas are beginning to merge and ultimately the future will be less siloed. A decade ago, SEO consultation would have been one department, PPC another and email would have been separate, now all these divisions will meld together.
In order for us to be able to differentiate between companies in their marketing integration strategies we will see:
– Unified method for measuring engagement and revenue
– AI-enhanced, widespread personalization
– Leads generated smartly and with the ability to predict intent, not simply capturing emails.
– Seamless coordination of acquisition, conversion, and retention
It will be the companies that recognise marketing as an integrated system of growth, rather than a task list, who will come out on top.
Q: To conclude, what do you recommend? If I were to give you just one piece of advice to the business people who are just getting started on their journey of growth?
Saleh: You need to start with understanding where your opportunity lies. This means conducting extensive market opportunity analysis prior to launching any marketing campaign. To do this, you must first understand the behaviours of your target audience, your competitors’ positionings, as well as any gaps or needs that have not yet been fulfilled. You will then create a content strategy and map across those insights.
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