[Fully Managed] Garrett Carlson from The Loop Marketing Ep. 106

Introduction

Daniella (D): Hello everybody. Welcome to the Fully Managed Podcast. This is a podcast where we discuss marketing and business tips to help assist you in your business journeys. I’m your host, Daniella, and I’m Penji’s partnership coordinator. I’m joined here with a very special guest, Garrett Carlson from The Loop Marketing. Hi Garrett. How are you doing today?

Garrett Carlson (GC): I’m good. How are you?

D: I’m doing great. I’m so excited to have you on the podcast. Just to break the ice and get us started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do, everything that we need to know about you? For those watching who don’t know—your favorite color, everything.

GC: Sure. I am currently the content manager at The Loop Marketing, and I have an interesting background because I am coming from public high school. I was a public high school teacher and I transitioned to digital marketing, which is not the most common kind of transition.

D: That’s interesting.

GC: Yeah. It was super, super challenging.

D: You looked young, so you were like the hot young teacher at the high school?

GC: Yeah. I taught creative writing, which was super cool. I really loved teaching the students and working with the students, but I think I’m someone who’s really goal-oriented and I just wanted to change directions.

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Transition from Teaching to Marketing

D: Sorry, I didn’t realize I was muted. But no, it totally makes sense. Creative writing and digital marketing and content marketing, they’re not that far off, right? Creative writing is basically telling a story, and content marketing is very much storytelling. It totally makes sense that you would make that jump. You still stayed within that niche. When did you actually do that transition and how difficult was it? I feel like it would be hard to get jobs in something like this when you have a background in teaching. I imagine they would be like, shouldn’t you just be a teacher at another high school?

GC: Yeah, I got that a lot. I left teaching after six years, and that was in 2019. I applied to a couple jobs and nothing was really working for me at that point. At the same time, while I was teaching, I was also getting a nonfiction writing degree. My wife suggested, why don’t you just start writing online? She gave me a content marketing book to read. This was something she did really well. I started working on my own website, writing the things that I was interested in, and eventually figuring out what was working for my audience and what was working for Google. I was making friends and new connections, and it turned out to be pretty successful. One of the biggest struggles with just having a content marketing blog is that there isn’t a ton of money in the blog itself. That’s when I transitioned to the content manager role after about two and a half years, and that’s where I’m at now.

From Creative Writing to Digital Marketing

D: With creative writing, obviously you were able to integrate that into content marketing, but I wonder with how social media works, with how the internet has evolved, with AI being a thing nowadays, how was that specific transition? How were you able to use what you knew about being a creative writer and the basis of storytelling and translate that into digital marketing and what you do now?

GC: I’m sorry, I’m gonna go on a bit of a tangent with this one.

D: Go ahead. I go on tangents when I ask the questions. You can totally do that.

GC: Perfect. For me, the biggest thing that was really important with creative writing was building connections with the people reading the stories. Finding something universal that tied them to what I was writing, that made them feel like they understood my experience. As I was writing for my own website, I realized the pages people spent the most time on were the ones that included personal narratives—stories that were lighthearted, poking fun at myself, or just something that made them remember something in their life. I also used content marketing best practices—keywords and all that fun stuff. When it comes to creative writing and content marketing, the most important thing to me is building that connection with the audience. That’s what keeps them on the page, keeps them reading, keeps them interested in what you’re doing.

With AI, it kind of takes that away. With more AI articles coming out and Google Gemini and all that stuff happening, what ends up happening is this circle of AI-written stuff. The original AI article gets written, then AI scrolls the internet and reads that AI article and rewrites it again and again. Eventually, everything is just kind of taken from AI except for the blogs or content that’s created by people.

D: Yeah, and I think AI in general is just not at a place where it’s even able to replace human involvement. You can totally tell when something was done with AI because of how it’s phrased or the wording they use. It’s still not natural. It doesn’t make me want to connect. Sometimes it’s just too much.

GC: Yeah. If you’ve ever asked ChatGPT to write a joke, that’s one of the easiest ways to figure out that it is nowhere near ready to speak like a human. It doesn’t tell good jokes. It just can’t do it.

D: No, actually, I always say this. I was once in the texting phase with a guy I was seeing, and we were just texting each other. He sent me a message, and I didn’t know how to reply with a witty remark. So I went into ChatGPT and asked it to tell me what to answer. ChatGPT gave me whack answers because the jokes were horrible. The thing wanted me to send hashtags on a text message. I realized it was a real human interaction, and ChatGPT just could not help me because the answers were so bad. How am I supposed to send this to a person? Regardless of the relationship or context, these types of texts are weird. It’s a robot, and he would clearly know I got this from AI.

GC: Despite what a lot of people try and say about AI, it still just doesn’t have that human element to it. Humans make mistakes, we use weird turns of phrase, and that’s just something AI can’t do yet. I’m not sure if it ever will be able to actually do in a way that removes the need for the human element, whether it’s marketing content or just storytelling in general.

D: I guess it’s complicated. We’d have to see how technology evolves. As it is right now, it’s kind of hard because AI is just pulling stuff from the internet and making something out of what’s already been created. It’s not able to come up with new ideas the way a human could.

GC: Yeah, I agree.

D: That’s my opinion. It could change, but until then, I think we still need people. I hope we always do. I don’t want to live amongst robots.

GC: We don’t want to be watching AI-run movies or TV shows. We don’t want to start consuming AI-created media.

D: It’s really unhinged because AI doesn’t really have any kind of ethical restrictions. A bot will just follow the lead of whoever is making it do something. If you tell it to write a story about a sad person, it will write the most extra story ever without considering anything outside of that. Is that really the type of movie you want to be watching, made without any regard to the human element?

GC: And that ties back to AI-created content. If you don’t want to watch an AI movie, you don’t want to listen to AI music, why are we creating AI-written content?

D: Yeah. It’s no different.

Storytelling in Branding and B2B Content Marketing

D: Now I know that you have used a lot of your content marketing knowledge for businesses you helped with branding. Storytelling is important for brands to connect with audiences. In marketing, that’s probably one of the biggest things you tell people when they’re trying to rebrand or start a business—create a story for your company and make that connection so customers want to buy from you. But I have a question about how content marketing ties into B2B businesses. It’s very obvious to me for B2C because you’re talking to a consumer buying something personal. But when it comes to something more abstract like B2B or SaaS companies, especially niche ones, it gets a little blurry for me. How is content marketing useful there?

GC: This might be a little out of sync with traditional thinking, but B2C and B2B—at the end of the day, you’re still trying to speak to someone who’s human. A business isn’t just some entity that’s going to read your content. You’re still writing content for humans, solving their problems. So I think the lines between B2C and B2B content aren’t as big as we sometimes make them out to be. You’re just answering different problems. There isn’t some giant business reading your content—it’s still a human being who absorbs it. I know that’s a little different than what traditional digital marketing people say, but I think that’s my creative writing background leading me there.

D: That totally makes sense. It’s easy for us to think about a big business as just a big bad corporation, but there are people there trying to make connections. How do you actually integrate that? For example, if you were creating content for a bakery versus a SaaS company with some kind of CRM, what would be the difference in the type of content you would direct them to make to succeed through storytelling?

GC: For something local like a bakery, you pull your personal experience. You take memories of food and bakeries and try to tell that story to someone else. Everyone has been to a bakery. Everyone has had a piece of cake that reminds them of something. You’re trying to evoke nostalgia.

Whereas for SaaS, you’re really trying to solve problems. B2C—you’re creating a feeling. B2B—you’re solving problems. It’s more analytical, more straightforward. Because your audience in B2B—say, HR managers—might have several people interacting with your content, all with different roles and looking for different things. That human connection isn’t as strong; you’re trying to solve needs and present it in a way that’s engaging.

D: That totally makes sense. I’ve seen some CRM companies doing interesting things. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Zendesk. At my previous job, I used it for customer service. I saw it as this boring corporate tool. Then one day I found Zendesk’s TikTok and they were doing really young, trendy stuff with young people at the forefront. I was so surprised because in my head, Zendesk was just run by a bunch of old people. It was a reminder that even SaaS companies can market to younger businesses creatively.

GC: I think that’s the difference between blog content and social media content. Blog content is still looking for a bit of an older audience. Younger people are moving to Reddit, TikTok—there are other ways of getting answers than blogs.

D: I agree. I think Reddit is great for younger people. The problem is that it’s a bit of a cesspool. I’ve seen with younger audiences a bigger demand for ethics, transparency, and awareness. Not that older generations aren’t smart, but younger generations are much more aware and critical, partly because they grew up with the internet.

GC: Part of that is the access to information we have now. Pre-internet, a company would release a product and you’d have no idea who they were or what they did. Now you can find their name, address, who works there—all of it instantly. Younger generations are used to having that information and making purchasing decisions based on it.

Influencer Culture, Consumer Trust, and Changing Content Trends

D: You don’t even trust the information you’re getting online as much anymore. I’m obviously a woman, which means that when I was in my teens, I had a lot of beauty products in my social media feeds—Instagram, YouTube, whatever was popular at the time. There were always people recommending makeup palettes, foundations, whatever. At first, people listened to influencers and flocked to buy whatever they said. But over the last ten years, I’ve seen consumers become way more demanding. Now people ask, is this an ad? Is this influencer lying? They’re much more critical. I’ve noticed people leaning toward UGC content—user-generated content—from smaller creators instead of million-dollar influencers. It feels more genuine.

GC: I wonder how that evolution is happening for men’s skincare and men’s health products. When I was writing about men’s health, there were a lot of men’s skincare products, and honestly, it was the same as women’s products except they put it in a black package and called it a men’s product.

D: Yeah, it’s like the pink tax, but reversed. Men’s razors and women’s razors are basically the same except the woman’s is pink. It’s all rooted in misogyny because for a long time, men weren’t “allowed” to have self-care. If you think about it, a moisturizer is a moisturizer—whether for a man or a woman. There’s still a lot of taboo with men using skincare or makeup. But with Gen Z and Gen Alpha, hopefully that’s changing. Maybe we’ll get to a point where it’s just “this is a concealer” and not “this is a men’s concealer” or “women’s concealer.”

GC: I think that’s the hope. Right now, men’s products are still a little behind. A lot of them still feature super muscular guys, perfect bodies. Men haven’t really had the broader cultural conversation yet about “all bodies are bodies,” the way women have been having that conversation for decades. Dove, for example, tried to target that with their “no makeup” campaigns. I think men have some catching up to do.

D: I agree. And there’s also a homophobic angle to it. I’ve noticed that when men are involved in beauty or self-care, there’s this assumption that they must be gay or bi. Even if they are, that’s not a bad thing, but society treats it like it’s a threat to masculinity. Celebrities wear makeup for red carpets or movies and nobody says anything because “it’s part of their job,” but for normal men, there’s still a stigma. That’s probably why men don’t openly talk about self-care or body issues.

GC: That ties back into content marketing and storytelling. Every guy has probably had an experience where they saw someone like a Marvel superhero and thought, man, I wish I looked like that, but they never admitted it. If you’re telling a story in content, you can bring that into your narrative. Vulnerability is a huge key to successful content. It builds real connection with whoever is reading.

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Content Marketing’s Influence on Cultural Narratives

D: Yeah, and what you said about content marketing influencing cultural narratives is so true. A lot of where we get stereotypes and biases comes from media—commercials, movies, TV shows. You don’t even realize you’re internalizing it. For example, commercials that imply curly hair is ugly until you straighten it. That impacts girls’ self-esteem without them even knowing. It’s the same for men—watching shows that glorify muscles and strength. You internalize that attractive equals muscular. Content marketing has a huge influence, especially on kids and teens. As adults, we can be more critical, but kids are just absorbing it.

GC: Exactly. Media is always adapting, and with more content creators than ever, it’s going to be even more important to be aware of what kids are consuming. As a new dad myself, I’m very aware of internet content, whereas my parents weren’t when I was growing up. It’ll be interesting to see how children’s content evolves now that new parents understand the internet better.

D: Yeah, I think we’ve already seen some changes. I’m not a parent yet, but I’ve heard children’s shows today are more educational and focus more on emotions and life lessons. Like Bluey—it’s a kids’ show but my sister said it’s actually really good even for adults because it has emotional depth. Shows now try to teach better values. The challenge is there’s just so much content now, and not all of it is good. When I was growing up, my parents didn’t know what to do about social media. They just worried I would get kidnapped. They didn’t understand it at all.

GC: Same. Our parents’ generation didn’t have to deal with social media, but we did. Now, when our kids grow up and say they want to join TikTok or whatever platform exists by then, we won’t be clueless. We’ll actually know what they’re getting into.

The Evolution of Platforms and Audience Behavior

D: When it comes to digital marketing, that’s also the tie-in with audiences and who we are trying to appeal to on different platforms. The platform separation is really clear these days—who’s using TikTok, who’s reading email newsletters, who’s on LinkedIn.

GC: I think those user bases are becoming more and more clear every day.

D: Yeah, and there’s even jokes about it now—like Facebook moms, Twitter stans—because we’ve been able to make distinctions about who is using what platform, what generations are where.

GC: And it reflects the type of content we create. What we create for YouTube is very different from the content we might create for a Facebook ad or a LinkedIn ad. That’s something that’s really reflective of the people who have grown up with the internet. They’re able to move between those content styles a lot more effortlessly.

D: Yeah, because they understand it better. It’s hard for someone who didn’t grow up with that to understand internet culture. I’ve tried to show my parents memes, and I have to explain so much that it’s not funny anymore. Even when they understand it, they’re like, “How is that a joke?” and I’m like, “Maybe this wasn’t the best thing to show you.”

GC: If the AARP starts putting out memes, then we’ll really have to worry.

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Closing Remarks

D: Well, Garrett, I think this is a great note to end this podcast on. We’ve had a great conversation, definitely went on a couple tangents, got really philosophical, but it’s all good. I had a lot of fun. It’s been great having you. Before we finish, I want to give you the space to plug anything you want. If anyone listening resonated with what we talked about, where can they find you?

GC: Sure. Visit theloopmarketing.com, check out our website, read our blog. You can also find me on LinkedIn at Garrett Carlson. That’s my name.

D: Awesome. I will be adding those links to the description of the video so that people can find you easily. Thank you so much for being here today, Garrett. It was so fun.

GC: Thank you.

D: And guys, I will see you on the next episode. Bye-bye.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gmcarlson/